Page 186 of The Legend
“Casten,please tell me you didn’t let her get a tattoo.”
“No, therewas no tattoo last night...”his eyes dropped to the floor. “But...shedid have too much to drink and puked in your truck.”
“My truck?”I ranto the window to look at my truck that was now parked sideways in a stall. “Whydid you guys take my truck? Tommy has a truck, why didn’t he take his?”
“I don’tknow.” Casten shrugged lying next to my mom. “Something about his truck beingconnected to the hauler and he couldn’t find the key to the lock.”
My truck lookedlike it was the stunt car in some War of the Worlds movie. “Where’s Tommy? He’spaying for that shit.”
“Uh, don’tknow where Tommy is and that wasn’t his doing.” He rolled over and buried hishead in the pillow he’d ripped from the other queen sized bed. His hand rosebehind his head to point down at my mom who was now snoring. “That happenedfrom this little shit show here.”
“I foundTommy.” Axel, my normal child, announced coming into our room with coffee anddonuts and Lily following him. “He’s in the pool floating on a pink dolphinsipping whiskey from one of Jack’ssippycups. Dude’sgot issues.”
“Pleasetell me he has pants on this time.” Lily asked setting Jack down to change hisdiaper on the bed.
“Nope,”Axel confirmed peeking out the window. “Man dad, your truck is fucked up.”
I couldn’tbelieve that my own mother did that. “How did that happen?”
Castenrolled over, his hands resting on his stomach as he exhaled slowly. “I have noclue. All I remember was her telling me that she smelled smoke and sure enough,something in the bed of the truck had caught on fire. Willie got it put out butwe were asleep until then so who knows.”
I neverdid figure out how my truck was missing the tailgate, the bed was toasted blackand puke ran down the side of it. My mom had no memory of the night and was sohorrified that she had done that, she bought me a new truck the following week.
Thefollowing weekend, Tommy had a similar incident as that weekend and had meconcerned for the direction his life was heading. The boys with JAR Racing wereall very hardworking guys but they all had borderline alcoholism forming andTommy wasn’t an exception. He was the setting the bar high for the rest of themto keep up come July.
Oneafternoon we sat around the house making bets on when he’d show up thatafternoon when Axel asked if we should call the police. We hadn’t seen him intwo days.
“Maybe hewas arrested again?” Sway pointed out placing a plate of nacho’s in front ofus. No one hesitated to dig in.
“What canI say?” Casten mumbled around a mouth full of nacho’s. “He specializes in lowstandards and bad decisions.”
Rosasmacked Casten’s arm. “I’m not a bad decision.”
“I neversaid you were.” He defended looking at her with remorse. Casten loved Rosa andnever wanted to hurt her feelings. “I said he specializes in it. That doesn’tmean that he always swings that way. Just most of the time,”
Rosashoved a heaping pile of chips and salsa in her mouth. Pieces fell out as shespoke on to the plate until she got some lodged in her throat and then spit itout on the plate. “Oh, okay.”
Everyonekind of stepped back from the plate after that.
I was justabout to say some smart ass comment to Rosa when a clearly disoriented Tommyshowed up looking like he could barely tell up from down.
“Whathappened to you?” Casten asked, laughing hysterically. He looked like he spenta night in a crack house and then woke up in a sewer drain. I knew Tommy didn’tdo drugs so the crack house was out of the question but the sewer drain was adefinite possibility.
Tommyshook his head and tried to brush dirt from his pants. “Shut the fuck up.”
Sittingbeside Rosa he smiled at her, his orange curls matted it what looked to bedreads or something. “Hey,”
Rosaleaned forward to smell his clothes and then backed away. “Yep, it smells likelow standards.”
“I’m notsure what went wrong or what happened last night but someone has been textingme all day and I put them in my phone as diesel burner.” Reaching for the plateof nachos, he started to eat them. Axel gagged thinking about Tommy eatingchips Rosa just regurgitated. He had a weak stomach.
It wasn’tbut ten minutes later and this chick walked into the kitchen and opened the fridgelike she owned the place. Sway and I exchanged a look as did everyone else.
Axellooked at Tommy with an amused expression fighting back laughter. “I’m guessingthat’s diesel burner?”
Tommy’smouth hung open mid bite looking at the door and Axel lost it.
And that’swhen Arie came through the door wearing a rock on her hand trying to act likeit was no big deal.
