Read an Excerpt
Half-Pipe
Friday night, Chevron station bathroom. Boots flat against the poured concrete wall, ass in the sink. I rub a thumb up and down the sweating neck of a bottle of fifty. Asher hid two in the ice freezer out back for us. He let us feel around in the candy bins first, eating until our lips stung in sour pouts.
Hair up or down? I ask. A first-drink question.
Sandy says up. She’s still peeing. Strong stream, no hesitation. Twist it. No, not like that. She pulls her miniskirt down, kicks the flusher. Sandy knows how to be a girl.
Sandy grabs my hair, turning it around in her fingers, elastic in her front teeth as she tames it into a top bun. It pinches. I wince, take another long sip.
There, she says. That’s perfect.
She pulls a half-empty Diet Coke bottle from her bag, nudges my knees apart. I squeeze it between my thighs. She tips a mickey of Stoli against the open spout. Lip to lip, a smooth pour, not one drop wasted. The sound of the vodka trickle makes me have to pee.
I can’t piss in front of you, I say. Go outside.
You’re too shy. You’re going to get eaten alive if you don’t cut that shy shit out. She lights a smoke, leans against the door with her arms crossed.
Just pee.
I’m not going to win this standoff. I pull down my jeans. One hand on the wall to steady a low crouch. It won’t come.
Stop looking.
I’m not looking. God, you’re conceited.
Okay, then sing a f***ing song to distract me.
She sings the national anthem. By true north strong and free a trickle comes, but it runs down my leg. Soaking my sock. I sit down, trying to stop the flow. Sandy laughs.
You’re a mess, girl.
I prop an elbow on my right knee and stare at her as I finish peeing. My legs in an open V. Two can play this game. I can feel a soft rush of warm air from the heating vent against my exposed skin. I pretend I don’t care. She blows a smoke ring up and ignores me, like she didn’t look away first.
I can’t believe you sat on that filthy toilet seat.
What, it’s just other people’s pee on my butt.
We hitchhike to the skate park. I want to walk. It’s not that far, but Sandy is impatient, thumbs-out.
A forest-green pickup truck with Hartley’s Sparkling Clean-Up Service on the side pulls up. I give the driver a once-over, but Sandy just hops in. She tells him we are runaways.
Don’t tell me that, he says. I’ll have to tell the cops.
No, don’t. We’re escaping a cult. Morgan here is a child bride. Imagine the bad karma.
He pops the glove compartment, offers us Nutri-Grain cereal bars. I don’t like the red ones, my wife keeps buying ’em. Who wants jam with their cereal?
Sandy takes two. I say nothing. While Sandy is distracted, I drink most of the pop bottle. I hold eye contact with the collie sitting behind us, whisper, You’re a good dog, yeah, you’re a good dog.
She can’t hear you, the driver says. It’s the first time he’s spoken to me. She’s deaf, but she sure is loyal.
•
In the morning, my father pulls the covers off me. Get up. It’s twelve-thirty. You’re late for work and it’s tart bake day. Pearl needs you.
I can’t.
Why did you sleep in your clothes? What happened to your jeans?
Both knees are ripped. I cover them as though legs are meant to be private. He gives me a look like he caught me sleeping in a pile of rotting bones. When I open my mouth to respond, my teeth are tiny moths. I’m all mouth.
Sorry, I whisper.
He bought me the jeans last weekend. In secret, because Mom said no jeans should cost more than a week’s groceries. He paid on two different credit cards.
After he leaves, I look in the mirror. I’m wearing a shirt I’ve never seen before. Vans skateboards. The cotton is soft. I look around for the shirt I left the house in. It’s nowhere.
I keep getting text messages from tyler with the cool hair. I don’t know who he is, but his texts progress from Hi, you must be hungover! to Your pussy was so tight. I can’t stop thinking about you. I type: I think you have the wrong number but don’t send it.
When I go to the bathroom to pee, I put my head to my lap, pucker my mouth around my right knee, scream-cry into the impressive scab.
I put my hands down my pants and feel around for evidence. I know as soon as my finger meets the shoreline. A deep ache. A disconcerting heat.
I scan my brain for a final memory. I see myself trying to ollie on someone’s skateboard. Falling. Then my dad waking me up.
By two, I am behind the cash register at my aunt Pearl’s pie shop. It’s a slow day. I suck on a ginger hard candy, drink cups of cold mint tea. I’ve showered but I still smell the alcohol on my skin. Thank god Pearl is baking in the back. I crack my knuckles, check myself for bruises. I turn the music up so I don’t notice the ringing in my ears.
Later, Pearl finds me kneeling in front of the bulk coffee, pretending to refill the canisters, but really, I’m half sleeping, forehead to a cold bag of medium Ethiopian fair-trade.
She asks: Are you heartsick? Is it a boy?
I guess.
I don’t tell Pearl about my life. She says there’s something about my face that tells her I’m always in love. She frowns when Sandy appears, because Sandy eats all the free samples.
They’re broken cookies, Pearl. Why does it matter if I eat them all? She eats the head of the one shaped like a bunny.
When Pearl tells Sandy that it looks like I’m always in love, Sandy spit-laughs the last cookie.
I don’t think Morgan’s ever texted a boy back. There’s something wrong with her. Speaking of, Tyler says you’re ghosting him, but we’ll all hang later, right? At the park?
I don’t know.
I don’t want to admit I don’t know who Tyler is in front of Pearl. Plus, it’s rare that Sandy wants to hang out two nights in a row. Maybe she’ll call really late and we’ll go smoke a joint in the park if she hasn’t found anything better to do. I’m a second-tier friend, a backup.
Come on, Tyler’s friend Sketch is going to come. It was YOUR idea last night!
It makes more sense then. Sketch is in college. He’s the guy all the girls stare at from the top of the half-pipe ramp. Sandy talks about how he once grabbed her ass in a mosh pit then smiled at her. I felt like prey, she said, it paralyzed me.
I’ve never heard Sketch say a word that has more than one syllable.
•
When I get home, my uncle is sitting on the back porch. Sometimes he sleeps on our couch when Pearl has long hours on the weekend. He has special needs from the Gulf War, which is how my mother puts it. They tried to send him to Afghanistan, but he had a breakdown before he left. He tries not to drink anymore, but he’s off the wagon. When I was little, they told me that and I pictured him literally falling off a wagon.
I join him. He’s in sock feet, leaning heavy to the left in a plastic rainbow lawn chair. I thought he might be asleep, but he’s got an open beer hiding in a cowboy boot, so he’s in fake repose, often leaning toward it. He reaches behind the cedar bush, twists a can loose from a six-pack, and gives it to me. I empty out my water bottle and fill it with beer. We cheers to our little secret party.
I know you’re fifteen, so you feel old, but believe me, girl, don’t be in any hurry.
It’s the first coherent sentence I’ve heard him say in a while.
Thanks, Uncle Marty.
Because all men are awful.
You’re not.
I take a long swig of beer.
Be careful, drinking runs in our family. Up and down both sides.
There’s barely a pause before he starts in on 9/11 and why it was perpetuated by the Americans. I tune out. He talks himself into a soft, slow sleep on the lawn chair. I finish all his beer.
