SMOKE
They nicknamed it La Bamba, and it burned oil with a vehemence. The 1968 Buick Special had ripped back seats that oozed yellow foam, rust highlights around the wheel wells, and a slipping transmission.
After basketball practice at the Salvation Army the boys clambered in, tired and laughing.
La Bamba, clearly on her last legs, blew a smoke screen befitting a spy movie all the way down Sante Fe. They dropped off Freddie and doubled back to their duplex.
The father cracked jokes about Up in Smoke, and the sons, George and Travis, laughed to cover their sheer embarrassment.
When they returned to the duplex, the boys headed to their shared room to change. They heard a definitive bass scream of “No. No. No. No. Fuck no,” that preceded the sound of the parents’ bedroom door flinging open. The father was carrying their non-responsive mother. He yelled at the boys to open the fucking front door. They watched as the father folded her in the backseat and slammed the car door.
“Get your asses back in the house and wait.”
An hour later the doorbell rang. Mr. Witten, the dad of Travis’s best friend, told the boys that everything would be okay. He asked them to pack an bag with enough clothes for two days.
At the Witten’s everyone acted normally. At dinner they sat around a formally-set table complete with cloth napkins. They ate an iceberg lettuce salad, chicken and rice casserole, and green beans. George sat next to Kathy, who two years ago had been his sixth grade girlfriend. She had given him a 45 of the Jackson Five’s “Heartbreak Hotel” for Valentine’s Day. Once, Kathy concocted a break-up with George via a fake public screaming match to get the class rumor-monger Jay out of their hair. Whipsmart and funny, Kathy possessed angelic-pale skin, a small mouth with full lips, and knowing, deep-brown eyes. Now she sat next to George with perfect manners and a pixie cut that gave her an edge he couldn’t place.
That evening he sat in the living room and talked with Kathy. He told her that his story of a bank mistake that led to his folks’ foreclosure notice in the newspaper was just that. George told her of drug use and knockdown brawls. He told her things he was not supposed to ever utter outside of his house. He told her to please not tell anyone. She nodded and tapped his hand. He cried a little though he tried not to. George had hoped for a kiss, maybe, or even to have her as a girlfriend again. He had to settle for a long goodnight hug. He slept on a hide-a-bed in the t.v. room.
Four days later at a family meeting, the father talked about responsibility and confusion. Things would change he said. He said things would change.
The father made a production of putting all of the drugs and attendant paraphernalia into a trash bag. We are done with this he said. He said, “I am done with this. That’s it.” He left the house and went down to the river. He tossed the bag into the brackish February water.
It didn’t help.