Текст книги "Losing Her "
Автор книги: Mariah Dietz
сообщить о нарушении
Текущая страница: 2 (всего у книги 19 страниц)
“Max, you need to figure things out. I refuse to have you continue down this path of self-destruction. A pretty face will only get you so far. You’re not going to be able to charm or fight yourself out of every situation. You’re eighteen. People can press charges now. I can’t continue to promise the Mr. Mitchells of the world that this is going to stop. Talk to me. Talk to Hank. Hell, talk to anyone.”
“There’s nothing to talk about, Mom. The guy had a big mouth and pissed me off.”
“I don’t care if he pissed you off! I don’t care if he called you every bad name in the book. You don’t hit people! I feel like I’m talking to a three-year-old.” Her lips pursed in frustration, a sure sign that I’d successfully pissed her off, something I knew would bother me later when I wasn’t so fueled by my own anger. “You need to learn to settle your problems by walking away, not spouting off with your sarcastic crap or using your fists!”
My muscles tensed, the small pool of guilt she had created had begun to get deeper with seeing and hearing her disapproval.
I’d punched a guy that morning for writing “fag,” “cock sucker,” and “ass driller” all over Ben’s car with lip stick and shaving cream last week. The shaving cream was easy to get off, the lipstick on the other hand, was nearly impossible.
The kid was in our class. He’d even spoken to me a few different times, trying to get on my good side, but I still couldn’t recall his name and didn’t want to after he pulled that crap. I would never have guessed his Dockers’ ass was the one that humiliated Ben. We probably never would have known. We still weren’t sure who outed Ben. There weren’t many that knew he was gay, not even his parents.
But the kid couldn’t keep his damn mouth shut, heckling Ben as we pulled into the parking lot. Ben had already had a rough year. His parents were splitting up and his little sister had been diagnosed with cancer last year. Although she was in remission, that shit was more than any one person should have to deal with, especially at seventeen. Then he had his trust betrayed by one of his closest friends? I wasn’t about to let the fucker careen around spouting off a bunch of ignorant shit that he knew nothing about.
As the word faggot poured from his shithole of a mouth, I punched him. The kid fell like a brick, but it wasn’t nearly satisfying enough for all of the crap he had caused, and worse, what he was still trying to inflict. Before I could continue my lesson, Mr. Mitchell arrived and hauled me off, threatening expulsion and having baseball disappear from my future.
What he didn’t know was I had no desire to pursue baseball. I had loved everything about the game at one time—from the sound of the bat as it kissed the ball to the smell of leather from my glove to that feeling of watching the look of defeat on my opponents’ faces. However, once I got to high school, baseball lost a lot of its luster when I met coach Ballin. I thought making varsity as a freshman was the highlight of my life at fourteen. He quickly proved to me that it was one of the worst things that could have happened.
Coach Ballin liked to remind me what a fuck up I was, telling me that he’d have left me behind too if he were my dad at every chance he got. His favorite practices consisted of setting out garbage cans and making us all run until everyone puked.
He was a fucking dick.
He’d thrown balls, bats, and a few chairs at me over the years, leading to me walking off of the damn field probably twenty times, only to have one of my teammates haul me back and tell me not to give him the satisfaction. I didn’t give a shit about his satisfaction, but I had a thing about quitting; I couldn’t do it. I never could accept defeat.
Mr. Mitchell, one of our three principles, sat me down in his office, berating me for fighting … again. We’d had this song and dance enough over the last four years. We both knew how it would end. There was no way in hell I was going to tell him what the fight was about. I never did.
He leaned against his large, industrial-sized desk, and then righted, folding his thick arms over his growing stomach, and stared at me. He used to think I was a hoodlum. It shocked the hell out of him when he learned my mom was a surgeon. I don’t know why he tagged me as a hoodlum. I didn’t dress like a hoodlum, I didn’t talk like a hoodlum, hell, I didn’t even hang out with hoodlums, but after I was hauled into his office my second day of high school, I heard him mutter to the hall monitor that insisted on escorting me down that I was the hoodlum he’d heard about. It was one of the few fights I’d ever initiated, and my first fight with someone besides my brothers.
We’d been living in California for nearly three years, and I had established a group of friends that I made playing baseball at the park near my house and on the little league team my mom had eagerly signed me up for. My buddy Ian and I were in the cafeteria, waiting to get food, when Lee Carroll, a kid that had gone to middle school with us, started telling his friend he was going to get Kendall Bosse to blow him. I didn’t have any feelings for Kendall other than a strange sense of responsibility stemming from the fact that she was my neighbor and David still made every effort to talk to me. I warned him to shut up. His response was to tell me that if I wanted a turn, I’d have to wait in line. Then he turned to ignore me and said maybe the youngest would join in too. It wasn’t jealousy I’d felt; it was disgust. Ace had been twelve and in seventh grade.
I hit him.
He came at me, muttering a slew of promises to beat my ass. He didn’t stand a chance.
After that, there were several occasions where Lee or one of his friends would seek retribution. It wasn’t that I was a prodigy fighter, or even the strongest kid in my class, I just had a lot more practice in knowing how to deliver punches and more importantly, how to avoid receiving them. My brothers were to thank for those important lessons since we pretty much fought anytime there was a disagreement. The intensity of the fight told you if something was a big deal or not. If they took an easy shot, it meant they were just being a pain in the ass. If they scrapped and hit to break the skin, it usually meant it was important for one reason or another. Though sometimes with Billy it just meant he was tired of losing.
He got his height from Mom’s family, so by fourteen I was already taller than him, and a whole hell of a lot faster. Hank had six years on me, and like me, was built like our dad—tall with a broad chest. We worked out a decent amount, but building muscle was easy for us. My friend Justin that started varsity as a freshman with me could throw a baseball like a slingshot—I’d never seen anyone with his kind of talent—but he was a bean pole, with muscles barely visible under his skin. He’d scarf donuts, pizza, and everything else he could get his hands on, trying to bulk up.
After winning numerous fights with Lee and his friends, word had traveled through parties and baseball about me being a fighter, and soon people wanted to fight me for nothing more than the desire to see if they could beat me. It earned me some heckles from the guys and a few phone numbers from the girls.
Later in my junior year, I got jumped by four guys from another school. We were at an away game and I had run inside to take a piss, completely oblivious of the group of assclowns that were following me until they were on top of me. One was on my back, another locked around my elbow like a dog in heat, and another had punched me in the stomach, successfully knocking the air out of me. I hadn’t realized that there’d been a fourth because a guy from the opposing team, who was actually classmates with the dicks, had punched him in the face and impressively broke his nose.
He helped me get free from the others and then turned to me, his top lip busted open and his brow glistening with sweat, and said, “I thought you’d be tougher.” Then laughed.
“Sorry to disappoint you,” I replied, smiling because I knew he was being a pain in the ass and he’d just put his neck on the line helping me when he could’ve just as easily walked the other way.
“Try not to make a habit out of it,” he said, offering me his hand. “I take it you’re Miller.”
“Max,” I said, gripping his hand.
He nodded and his smile grew like I’d just passed some invisible test. “Wes, Wes McCleary. I hope you know I won’t be helping you out on the field. I intend to whip your ass today.”
“That’ll make the victory taste sweeter.”
He laughed again, this time louder. A couple of girls walking by called out to him and pulled his attention away long enough I could get my hand back. Coach was going to be pissed and wondering where in the hell I’d gone, so I quickly dismissed myself.
That was one of the more bitter victories I’d experienced.
The following weekend I was filling a red Solo cup when a hand clasped around my shoulder. I had turned with a raised eyebrow and found Wes, wearing a giant grin. Even though I hardly knew the guy, I could tell he was about to say something sarcastic.
“Haven’t you learned not to turn your back on people?”
I snickered and offered him the cup, which he accepted. That beer solidified our friendship. He was my best friend within weeks. Wes didn’t care about the girls I had dated, the fights that I’d been in, or what my batting average was; he was one of the first people, apart from David, that seemed to just want to know who I was.
Wes always knew where the parties were, and I never had a problem going, even when I only knew him. Everyone knew Wes, and whether people just accepted me because I was with him, or actually knew who I was, made no difference to me. We hit up a party in the spring of our junior year, Wes had already gone upstairs with a redhead he’d been eyeing all night. I was sidled up to the keg, feeling a little bored. The party was pretty dull.
“Hey, you’re in my English class, right?”
I turned around to see a tall girl with hair that had been so brightly bleached it was nearly white. I took a swig of my beer, buying myself a moment to seek her motivation for lying, and watched as her eyes danced over my body with an excited gleam. She wanted me.
“No, I’m pretty sure I’m not.”
“I know, I just didn’t know what else to say to you!” She bounced on the balls of her feet like an anxious puppy as she talked.
I had to give it to her. I liked the fact she was being honest, even if it made her look kind of stupid.
“I’m Lacey.” I nodded and took another long drink, not sure why I was acting like a dick. Something just made me want her to work for it.
“Do you go to Reynolds?”
I shook my head.
“Are you in college?”
“You’d be jail bait if I was.”
“Ah ha! So you do like me!” Her eyes lit up as she pointed an index finger to my chest. “Save the details. I don’t really care right now.” She grabbed my empty cup and set in on top of the keg, and then took my hand, pulling me toward the stairs. Maybe it was the beer, maybe it was because she was the first girl to be this bold with me in a while, or maybe it was because I’d been thinking a lot about my dad that day and wanted something to distract me, but I followed her.
“Dude, everyone’s talking about you,” Wes yelled as I answered my phone on my way to class the following Monday.
“What in the hell are you talking about? And who’s everyone?” I hadn’t been in a fight with anyone in weeks.
“Everyone,” he emphasized again. “Lacey Caldwell, that girl you did at the party, she’s telling everyone you two are dating, and there are all kinds of crazy rumors spreading about the two of you and that fight that happened here. What in the hell did you two do?”
I rubbed a hand over my head and down my face, pausing outside of class. “Is she psycho?”
Wes laughed, obviously amused by my duress. “Describe psycho.”
“Fuck! Why didn’t you warn me?”
“I was a little busy. Redhead, remember? I have a weakness!”
“Miller! Class. Now!” Mr. Forson, one of our hall monitors, barked.
“I have to go. Do me a favor and play some offense for me. I don’t need this shit circulating to my mom.”
“Dude, you’re a sex god. Enjoy it and stop complaining.” He hung up and I shoved my phone in my pocket as Mr. Forson glared at me with another one of his idle threats.
An idle threat similar to the one Mr. Mitchell gave me as I sat in his office, waiting to hear my punishment for punching the kid that vandalized Ben’s car. His brows rose with his failing attempt to appear like a disappointed parent, causing his hair piece to inch back and become more prominent. I watched him, amused by his shirt stretching over his rounded stomach. The buttons looked about ready to take flight with the tension between each gap. They were probably exhausted from all of his bullshit too.
I caught sight of a letterman’s jacket moving by the wall of windows that were nearly obscured by posters filled with motivational quotes and pictures of people climbing stairs and standing on the peaks of mountaintops. My eyes followed the person to see if it was Ben. I had hoped he’d just gone to class. I didn’t want him to get involved in this shit, but knowing him he’d make an attempt to save my ass. He, like Wes, was constantly going on about my level of potential.
The letterman moved forward a few more steps, and I saw that it was Jewels. He had been gifted that nickname after he took a ground ball to the nuts during tryouts our freshman year.
I heard his baritone voice call out through the hall but couldn’t make out his words. While Mr. Mitchell went on about my failures, even though I’d managed to get decent grades and even excelled in several of my classes. I watched as a blond head that I’d recognize in a room filled with a hundred other blondes approached him. Mitchell’s voice drowned out as I watched through the tiny cracks between the posters as Jewels lifted Ace up and spun with her.
Their voices were muffled, and I strained to make out the words over Mr. Mitchell’s obnoxious tone that was filled with a false sense of authority. Then they disappeared.
I’d lived beside Ace Bosse and the four other legendary sisters for six years at that point, and over that past two, I had been working a little harder each day to ignore her.
Mr. Mitchell’s short fingers stabbed the buttons on the phone with a level of vehemence that I could nearly taste. I knew what he was doing, he was calling my mom.
Shit.
I looked back at my mom and the anger ebbed when I saw the defeat on her face. I hadn’t applied for college. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t know what I was going to do. Out of the corner of my eye I saw a stack of mail with a magazine sitting on top, advertising cruises to Alaska. It triggered my memory to a conversation that I had a couple of years ago when I broached the topic of my dad with Grandma Miller and asked if she ever wondered where he was. Her eyes had gotten misty as she told me that his older half-brother contacted her a few years prior and told her that they’d gone up to Alaska and joined a fishing crew. She retrieved a small postcard and allowed me to read it and then agreed when I asked if I could keep it. I never told my mom about the conversation, or the postcard that I kept tucked away in a binder of baseball cards in my closet. I never wanted her to feel inadequate, like she wasn’t enough for me. My mom was one of the only adults that didn’t look at me with disdain, and the greatest person on the planet, but at that moment I could see she was precariously close to that edge.
I lay in bed that night, picturing her face as she told me I needed to figure things out, and somehow my mind traveled to that Alaskan cruise ship, and a new resolve that I’d been fighting with became clearer. I needed to prove to myself that I wasn’t him. I wanted to find him and see why he left, because as many times as my Grandma and my mom assured me that my dad didn’t leave because of anything to do with my brothers or me, that thought had always haunted me.
My mom was reluctant about me going. I never had explained to her why I felt the need to find him, but I’m sure she knew. She had been telling me for years that I was nothing like him and that I didn’t need to fear getting close to people. Eventually, she seemed to understand and accept that I was going and slowly became more supportive of my decision.
Alaska was beautiful. It looked like another world. Filled with pine trees, mountains, and endless amounts of green. In fact, there were a ton of colors in all hues, and it was natural rather than coming from buildings, advertisements, and eight-lane freeways. It was also wet. Really, really wet, even though it was June when I arrived.
My mom had convinced me to apply for late admission to the University of Alaska, telling me another option wouldn’t be a bad thing. I’d been accepted but didn’t really entertain the idea. I was on a mission and didn’t intend for school to distract me.
I spent my first month as a nomad, wandering through towns with an old picture of my dad and another of my uncle, asking people if they’d heard of them or recognized their pictures. Apparently, Tim and Chris Miller are really common names. I even met a handful of people that shared it or similar ones that people thought were the same.
At the beginning of August, I thought my luck was changing when I was directed to a wharf to meet a man named Tiny. He of course was not tiny, towering over my six-four frame like I was a child. He smelled terrible, like he hadn’t showered in weeks. His jeans were filthy and torn in the knees, and I was pretty certain by the condition of his shirt, it was far from its first day of being worn. He had a ratty blue baseball hat covering a mess of hair that was as dark as mine but went halfway down his back and was smeared with gray and a beard that had chunks of nasty-ass food stuck in it from God knows when.
As soon as I had stepped on the dock, he met me, looking like a caged bear with his boots stomping as he blocked my path. “You got business being here, boy?” he barked, standing at his full length.
I knew he was trying to intimidate me, and truth be told, he was, but I knew this lesson well. I swallowed the nerves that tempted me to cower and stood a little taller. “I’m looking for my father, Tim Miller. Sandy Rhoades pointed me in your direction. Thought you might know him.”
“Hell, boy, you got shit for brains or you really that tough?”
My face was void of emotion as I tried to assess his intentions.
“Come on, I’ve got a job that’ll make you strong.”
“I’m not looking for employment, I’m looking for my dad.” I pulled the photo out and stuck it in front of him.
Overgrown eyebrows that Mr. Mitchell could easily use for a new wig framed eyes that were an eerily light shade of blue, almost cryptic. Tiny watched me before swinging his eyes to the picture for a split second, and then he started to laugh. It was surprisingly high-pitched, and it made his mouth open wide, showcasing more of his bad hygiene. “That figures!”
Tiny proceeded to tell me that he had in fact known my dad and uncle when they worked aboard his fishing boat a number of years ago. He couldn’t recall how many it had been and admitted that his bookkeeping skills severely lacked until recently when he was audited. He offered me a job again, explaining that August was a booming time of year in Alaska for salmon and that in September, we’d move to other regions where I could continue to look for my dad and uncle.
I accepted, figuring it would give me the chance to encounter others that knew them, or at least of them.
Sarge was the first guy Tiny introduced me to. No one went by their first name; it was like an unwritten law. Sarge took me aboard and introduced me to the Arctic Bull, the one hundred and twenty-foot schooner that would be my new home. He went over every facet of each safety procedure in great detail a dozen times and then made me repeat them all back to him. I later learned that Sarge showed me rather than Tiny because that man seemed less concerned with safety than he did his personal hygiene.
Fishing sucked. The tides dictated our hours, so we woke and slept at odd times. It took a while to get used to it, and even longer to try and ignore the fact that the sun shone too late and far too early. Tiny was a strange breed, constantly muttering to himself, often laughing at things no one ever heard, but according to the rest of the crew, he was a hell of a captain and had an uncanny way of knowing where to be to haul in the best catches.
I’d been on the boat for a week and had talked to everyone on board only to realize it had been a waste of time and effort since no one knew anything about my dad or uncle. I was getting ready to go to bed one night when a tall blond guy that I never saw without his slickers on, came in, reeking of whiskey and offering to play cards. As we made our way to the galley, I heard Smithy yell out a greeting to him, calling him Whiskey.
Several hours and countless drinks later, I could hardly see straight, let alone walk.
I woke up still sitting at the small table in the galley with my head on the shoulder of the yellow rain coat still being worn by the guy that had invited me to play—Whiskey.
“Got lonely and found yourself a girlfriend, eh, Beaches?” Tiny yelled and then barked his loud laugh, making my eyes close in protest. “Whiskey’s not a bad lookin’ choice I suppose. You might have to teach him not to be so afraid of gettin’ wet though. The kid said he was from Washington. What in the hell’s he doing afraid of a little water? Doesn’t it rain there all the time?”
“Other side of the state.” I straightened as Whiskey grunted a response to Tiny. “There’s a mountain range that separates the state. I’m on the dry side. I keep telling you this. And stop calling me Whiskey, I’m never touching that shit again.”
Tiny’s mustache twitched, indicating he was either smiling or frowning. Based on his eyes, I was pretty sure he was smiling.
“You boys should be enjoying this. Salmon fishing is fun. Wait till the crabbing starts. That’ll have you both so tired you won’t have time to drink.” Tiny vanished from sight, and I moved a little further down the bench seat from Whiskey.
“Shit, I think I’m going to be sick,” he groaned, dropping his forehead to the table.
I didn’t feel much better. The smell of the ship alone was enough to make anyone queasy without a hangover. It hadn’t taken me long to learn why Tiny smelled so bad that first day I’d met him; showering was a luxury out at sea, and although salmon fishing wasn’t real strenuous, it was enough that it got you sweating. And it was hot as hell in all of the gear. The waterproof plastic worked to keep the water out as well as it did holding the sweat in, so we all were ripe and looked a bit primitive with our facial hair.
“Jameson?” his voice wavered, sounding like a question.
“No,” I replied. “Max.”
“No, I’m Jameson,” he mumbled, placing the side of his face against the table. The nickname clicked. It wasn’t from what he preferred to drink, it was a play on his name.
“Whiskey, you’ve got a lot to learn boy. A lot to learn.” One of the guys chuckled as he made his way past us to retrieve some coffee.
I started calling him Jameson thereafter, partly just to have a little piece of normalcy, partly because it felt like a small bout of rebellion to call him something besides what the others did.
When we docked at Bristol Bay at the end of August, I scoured the town and docks, asking everyone I saw if they knew my dad or uncle. It was evident fishing season was beginning. There were hordes of people around, none that seemed overly interested in bothering to listen to me.
We still had another three days until we were leaving port so I sat at a bar one night, beyond when I should have. Even though I felt too tired to stand, sea life had given me insomnia.
The stool beside me was seized, and I looked up to find a middle-aged man that I’d seen on the docks earlier that morning.
“Miller, right?”
I nodded and took another sip of the beer I’d been given without being asked for my ID or questioned about my age. “I think I remember a guy looking like you.” He gave me the name of a town and pointed me north.
The next day, I rented a car and took off without saying anything. I didn’t have anyone to tell where I was going. I drove for two days, there and back, returning with nothing but a few laughs from the locals. I should have known as soon as the guy told me he knew a guy that looked like me that he was lying. I don’t look like my dad. Hank and I both are built like him, but we look more like our mom. It’s Billy who looks like our dad.
Jameson and I continued to exchange stories and partake in drinking games. Something about him reminded me of Wes, leading me to question if chasing a shadow was worth missing my family and friends, but that nagging desire to find my father kept me from skipping out the next time we docked.
We spent the month of September fishing for mackerel and learned that Tiny was right, catching salmon had been fun. Fishing for mackerel had us out in deeper waters that were a lot rougher with the weather changing, making the days shorter.
Jameson learned the hard way that he had no idea what it was like to be wet because even with all of our gear and layers, dampness still seemed to find its way in to the bottom layers.
In November we docked again, this time in Ketchikan, and I found a few more people that sent me down roads that didn’t pan out.
I was pissed off, wondering if the natives had some perverse sense of humor. I’d returned from heading out into the boonies again with a promising recollection of my dad that had once again led to nothing, when I heard glass shattering and some scuffling. I stopped, my muscles becoming alert as my eyes snapped to see three guys from my crew come around the corner, tangled with three men I didn’t know.
Dropping my bag, I rushed over and dealt out a round of punches that freed Smithy before feeling a hot sear on my right bicep. I turned, and shoved a heavy set man to the ground and then peeled another guy off Jameson. The four of us had to really work at getting the three of them to back off. They weren’t professional fighters, but they too had plenty of experience and were scrappy and relentless as all hell.
When it was over, Smithy and Herron left, heading back to the motel that we were staying at. It was dingy and moth eaten, but anything beat sleeping on the boat. Jameson and I leaned against the building, still trying to catch our breath and cursing about what we’d just endured.
“What in the hell happened?” My voice sounded winded and my throat, still dry from the fight, burned when the cold air leaked in.
Jameson’s hands clutched the top of his head as he shook it. “I don’t know. I just saw Smithy getting killed and tried to help.”
His reaction to the situation reminded me so much of Wes, I knew he was going to become one of my closest friends.
“Shit, dude,” Jameson said, his eyes wide. “We’ve got to get you to the hospital.”
I was about to object, I could feel my eye swelling and was sure it didn’t look too good, but I had been in enough fights to know I was fine. There was no way I was going to be a pussy and go to the ER to get an ice pack slapped on my face and a few Tylenol handed to me with a look of disinterest. Then I realized it was my arm he was gawking at and looked down to see the shoulder of my sweatshirt stained a deep crimson.
We spent most of the night in the ER where they gave me seventeen stitches and a series of shots. Jameson also earned a turn with the needles. They gave him twelve of his own stitches along his bottom lip and chin, which were busted open during the fight.
I don’t know which of us looked worse. It was tough to see very well with one eye swollen shut. But I’m pretty sure Jameson took that award with his mouth so misshapen, he looked like a different person.
The next morning when we ambled back to the ship, Tiny took one look at us and folded in half as he barked his loud laugh and slapped his knee.
Things improved after that. Jameson and I started to fall into an easy routine as we helped one another during the day and played cards at night, making sure to avoid going where either Smithy or Herron did after learning both of them had a reputation for causing fights.
Each time we stopped in a new town, we were never there for more than a couple of days in between long weeks, and I always worked to talk to as many people as I could, asking the same repetitive questions about my dad and uncle. Jameson started tagging along, and later started going along on the trips that required me to rent a car and drive to small, questionable towns that sometimes didn’t exist, and receiving clueless expressions from the locals when they did. I also started getting tattooed at each stop, working it around the scar to make it nearly invisible against the ink. Each was a tribute to a memory, person, or experience throughout my life, beginning with a gust of wind– commemorating my mom, the lung specialist. It seemed appropriate to display what she gifted to so many, including myself: life.
