Pain & Wastings Read online

  Poor Marshall. I’m not being sarcastic either. I do feel sorry for him. He was up all night with Kelly, who came home tweaked right out. Harbor House policy says he’s supposed to take her to the hospital when she’s all methed up, but she’d been missing all day and half the night, and he was just glad she came home. He’s cool like that. Keeping us out of trouble when he can. As for Kelly, she’s asleep upstairs. Finally.

  School—if you can call a portable full of losers school—is the last place I want to be. It’s been a week since the roller-coaster climb. Harvir is already in juvie for who knows how long. School was bearable with Harvir there, but now it’s so boring it makes me want to poke Captain’s eyes out just to generate some excitement. And I like Captain. As far as teachers go, he’s the best one we’ve had this year. It’s April, and he’s our third. Last year we went through six. We usually place bets on how long they’ll last, but no one’s brought up the wager since Captain came at the end of November. No one will say it out loud, but we like him.

  Just before English, he comes to the back of the portable, where I’m putting in shelving by the door. He says it’s for our shoes, for when it gets really mucky out, but I know it’s his way of having me use my math and organizational skills without being obvious. Even though it is kind of obvious. He had Harvir and me plan it all, including a budget for the supplies and everything. Whatever. It’s better than working on some stupid workbook.

  “Something on your mind?”

  “Isn’t that your job?” I make a mark on the wall with my pencil. “To put something in there for me?”

  He leans against the door. He’s huge, probably six and a half feet tall. He makes the portable feel like a dollhouse. He was captain of a minor-league hockey team until he blew his knee. That’s why we call him Captain. “Talk to me,” he says.

  I tell him about the pig (cop) and sow (social worker) coming after school. He takes it in stride. He’s never fazed by the crap we get up to.

  “You can’t be surprised,” he says when I pause. “You knew something was going to come of it.”

  “Silly me. I thought my leg being shredded by a vicious dog was enough.”

  Captain shrugs. “I guess not.”

  “Can you write me a letter?” I play with the tape measure, not sure if this’ll go over well. “Tell them how good I’m doing and everything? Tell them it would be disruptive to my education if I have to go to juvie?”

  “I could just photocopy the other three I’ve written you...” Captain squints at the big calendar on the far wall, “...in the last six weeks. How about that?”

  I let the measuring tape snap back into the casing. “It’d have to be a new one.”

  “No can do this time.” Captain shakes his head. “Got to draw the line somewhere, buddy.”

  “How about you draw the line the next time I ask?”

  He levels me with That Look. We’ve all got it from him enough to know it. That look that says, I know you’re smarter than what you’ve a) just done or b) just said.

  “How about you finish up here and join us for English?”

  “Fine.” I chuck the hammer and level into the toolbox. “Thanks for nothing.”

  “Take it easy, Ethan.” Captain claps a hand on my shoulder as he heads for his desk.

  I bristle. “Don’t touch me.” It comes out a low growl, but he hears every word. I’m holding the toolbox in one hand, the handle hard in my clenched fist. I let it drop. It bangs to the floor and spills open, sending tools clanking onto the tiles. The paper bag of nails rips open, an army of them skittering across the floor.

  “Pick them up. Every single one of them, Ethan. Now.”

  I glance at the nails and then at the door. Get on my hands and knees in front of everybody while they take turns reading out loud from The Lord of the Flies, or take off and have the afternoon to myself?

  “You pick them up!” I shout. Thankfully, Captain is far enough away from the door that I can get out before he can stop me. I hobble down the stairs and run-limp as fast as I can with my one bad leg slowing me down.

  I turn back at the parking lot to see if Captain’s following. He’s not. He’s standing on the top stair, arms folded, just watching me.

  Chapter Four

  It’s dark when I finally head back to Harbor House. Marshall is still there. He was off at five, but his relief hasn’t shown up yet. He points a painted fingernail at me. Still with the yawns, still with the mug of coffee.

  “You blew it.” He’s slouched in an easy chair in the living room, watching some stupid reality TV show about fat celebrities. “Chandra wants you to call her.”

  “Nice manicure.”

  “Kelly,” he flutters his fingers. “It’s called Pink Pom-Poms. She does a good job. Where were you?”

  “I got hung up.”

  Marshall twists his head over one shoulder to look at me. “Oh yeah?”

  “I had to stay late at school.”

  “That reminds me.” He turns back to his show. “Captain called too. He says if you have perfect attendance for the next two weeks, he’ll pretend today never happened.”

  Moving right along to safer topics...I ask, “Where is everybody?”

  “Pizza night,” he says with a dismissive flap of his hand. “With that churchy group who thinks all it takes to make you ruffians a bunch of shining lights of God is a couple of large pies with extra cheese and a G-rated comedy.”

  “Yeah.” I force a laugh. “Suckers.” I back out of the front hall, hoping to make it to the stairs without him remembering all my trespasses, so to speak.

  “Hey,” Marshall calls from the living room. “Some paramedic showed up with the cop and Chandra. She the one from that night?”

  This stops me in my tracks. Ethan Mingus Kirby. I knew your mother.

  My mouth goes dry. The room spins into darkness.

  I am six. I’ve been crying for so long I’m hoarse. I peed my pajamas because I don’t want to go into the bathroom. They’re my favorite pajamas, with red fire engines and Dalmatian dogs.

  I grip the banister and pull myself back into the moment. I breathe in through my mouth and exhale slowly through my mouth, like Chandra tells me to do when this happens.

  I clear my throat. “Is her name Holly?”

  “Yeah.” From the hallway I can hear Marshall flipping the channels.

  “Then yeah, she was the one that night.”

  “She wanted me to give you a message...” The news, a game show, country music. He parks it on a tattoo of gunfire. Tires screech. A woman screams. “She says you owe her. Something about a bet?”

  Chapter Five

  I called Chandra. She’s coming today. With the cop. And Holly. They show up all at once and give the neighbors a reason to gawk. Cop car, ambulance and Chandra’s 1968 Ford Mustang with the flames airbrushed above the wheel wells. She really is the best sow to have, if you have to have one. She’s been mine since I was eight.

  “How’s the leg?” Holly says as she climbs down from the ambulance. Her partner waves from the driver’s seat but doesn’t get out.

  “Fine.” I turn to Chandra. “What’s she doing here?”

  “Be glad she’s here.” Chandra grabs my file from the mess of paperwork on her front seat. “She might just be your best friend.”

  “What do you mean?” I scowl at the cop as he gets out of his car. He’s not one of the two from the other night. This one is younger, with spiky black hair and a tattoo peeking out from his shirtsleeve. He drove up in one of those souped-up cop cars they take to the schools when they give lectures about the dangers of street racing and drug addiction. Youth Liaison Officer. The laziest kind of cop.

  “Put on the kettle, Ethan.” Chandra pushes past me and heads for the kitchen table, where she spreads my file out in front of her. “Let’s get started.”

  Chandra and Holly drink tea. The cop doesn’t drink anything. Marshall nurses his constant cup of coffee. I have a glass of water in front of m
e, but I haven’t taken a sip. I want to, but I feel like if I make even the slightest motion, things will shift badly. So I sit very, very still while Holly presents me with her proposal. It sounds too good to be true.

  “Instead of criminal charges, you come with me, as a ride-along, for a block of shifts.”

  “He’s got school,” Marshall says.

  “We’ll take care of that.” Chandra glances around the kitchen, clearly approving of its cleanliness. She loves clean. So does Marshall, which is one of the reasons they like each other so much. “The shifts can count toward his Career Prep hours. I already checked with his teacher.”

  I’ll get out of school, with permission, because I broke the law? I shift my eyes to the cop. There has to be a catch, and he’s likely to deliver it. But he’s not even listening. He’s looking at his cell phone. He smiles at it and starts a text message, using his thumbs. He never even looks up.

  “That’s two nights, two days,” Holly’s saying. “Twelve hours each. Six to six.”

  I have a million questions, like, will the charges totally disappear? Do I get to sleep on the nightshifts? Do I have to wear one of their stupid polyester uniforms? Will I have to actually touch puke or blood? And is she going to mention my mom? Because if I’m trapped with Holly in the back of an ambulance for forty-eight hours, she better not. I’ll pound her face in and then she’ll be needing her own ambulance.

  That makes me smile. A paramedic needing an ambulance.

  “What is it?” Chandra’s mouth is set in a frown. “This amuses you, Ethan?”

  I shake my head.

  “Then you’ll agree to it?”

  “Come on, Chandra.” I look at the ceiling. “You got candid cameras somewhere? This is some kind of a joke? You honestly expect me to believe that you will let me out of school to go hang out on an ambulance for four days instead of being charged and going to juvie?”

  “You don’t agree then.” Chandra tidies her papers, chopping them on the table to square the edges. “Fine. Officer Omar will process you downtown. You can go with him.”

  Officer Omar looks up now, surprised. “What?”

  “Wait!” I put my hands up in protest. “No, I’ll do it.”

  Chandra stands. “I don’t have time for your sarcasm, Ethan.”

  “I’m sorry. Of course I’ll do it. It just seems too easy, you know? Like I’m being set up.”

  “Perhaps it is difficult to believe that someone wants to offer you a helping hand.” Chandra purses her lips in that way that makes her look matronly, despite her fashionable clothes and smart haircut. “But Holly is doing just that. I suggest you take her up on the offer. Concessions are being made for you, Ethan. Holly has even managed to get approval for you to do this despite your criminal record. She had to go to her superintendent for special permission. This is a rare opportunity for someone like you. Don’t be flippant about it. Unless you really want to go hang out with Harvir for a while.”

  “No.” I look at Holly. She doesn’t smile at me. She’s got wrinkles around her mouth. Probably a smoker. Her expression is even. She’s not giving anything away. I have all kinds of ideas about how she might’ve known my mother, but I can’t settle on the one I want to believe. And I don’t want to ask her. And she better not bring it up.

  Chapter Six

  The first shift is a dayshift. Chandra comes and picks me up. When I get in the car she gives me a disapproving shake of her head.

  “I told you to dress nicely. That means no sneakers.” She hands me a bag from the thrift store. “No jeans. Change into this.”

  I look in the bag. Navy blue slacks. And a white button-up shirt.

  “And wear the boots we got you for those community service hours you did at the recycling depot.”

  I stare at her.

  “You still have them?” she asks.

  “Yeah. You want me to wear this crap?”

  “You will wear it, and you will not be argumentative for me or Holly. Not at all. Or the deal is off and you go to juvie. And I’ll make sure you’re going in just as Harvir is coming out, so don’t think for one minute that you two would get a chance to even say hello. I told you to go get changed, so go. And put on a white undershirt.”

  I go back inside and get into the clothes. It’s all a little big and smells of the thrift store, stale and slightly sweet. Chandra’s gotten me a belt too, a thin one with a dainty gold buckle that might suit an airline steward or a pedophile who likes to watch children play in the park.

  Chandra honks her horn. I yank out the belt, dig around in the mess on the floor at the foot of my bed, find my studded belt and jab it through the loops as I run down the stairs.

  “That’s a big improvement.” Chandra grins as I get in. “You look sharp. That’s a much better belt.”

  “I look like a waiter in a really cheap restaurant.” I pluck at the collar of the shirt. It’s been washed so many times you can practically see right through. “Good call on the undershirt.”

  I don’t know where I thought the ambulance station would be, but I did not imagine it would be right downtown. Smack dab in the heart of the notorious Downtown Eastside. Ten square blocks of drugs and prostitutes and poverty and violence. When Chandra turns onto Hastings, I speak up.

  “Where exactly is it?”

  “Cordova and Heatley.”

  That’s only a couple of blocks from Main and Hastings, which is called Pain and Wastings for a reason. Hell, a million good reasons.

  “Were you going to tell me that? Ever?”

  Chandra takes a hand off the wheel to find some music on the radio. “Was I supposed to?”

  “You’ve read my file.”

  “Uh-huh.” She cranks up the radio. Jazz. It would be. “So?”

  There are three bay doors, and one of them is opening as we pull up. An ambulance rolls out, with Holly and John in front. John turns on all the emergency lights as Holly rolls down the window.

  “You’re late! Get in!”

  I glance at my watch. It is one minute past six. Chandra thrusts a paper bag at me.

  “Your lunch. Go!”

  I fumble my way out of Chandra’s car and into the side door of the ambulance, not even getting into the jump seat before John peels onto the street and starts the sirens up. There is a small square cutout in the wall that separates the front from the back. The only place for a third person is back here, so I can’t see where we’re headed. All I can see is out the back window, as the traffic merges into the lanes behind us after we pass.

  “Where are we going?”

  As an answer, Holly hands me a laminated tag with the ambulance service logo on it and Observer in big letters.

  “Clip that to your shirt pocket. Don’t touch anything, don’t talk to anyone, don’t puke and don’t faint.”

  “Where are we going?” I can hear the panic in my voice. It’s the sirens, and the speed. I twist sideways in the seat and crane my neck so I can peek out the front. It’s a weekday and busy already. We’re cutting right down the middle of the street, spreading the traffic to two sides as we go. John lays on the horn whenever someone doesn’t get out of his way fast enough. The radio is on, AC/DC competing with the siren and John’s steady commentary about stupid drivers.

  Holly is writing something on a form on a clipboard in her lap. She’s got the map book open and checks it now.

  “Left at the next street,” she says, hardly looking up.

  “Where the hell are we going?” I practically scream.

  John tosses Holly a dirty look. I bet he does not want me here at all. Holly finishes writing on her form. She checks the map again as we veer to the left, onto a side street. “Right at Maple,” she says to John, and then she finally turns to me, just as John cuts the siren and throws the ambulance into park. “Sudden death.”

  We’re led into a housing project, where an obese woman in a stained nightie is pacing in front of the door, a cigarette in each hand, one lit, one waiting to be lit. />
  “It’s my mom!” She points with the lit cigarette. “Up there!”

  “Put these on.” Holly hands me a pair of latex gloves. “Follow me.”

  “No way!” I back against the railing.

  “For Christ’s sake,” John says as he shoves me ahead of him into the stinking apartment. “Don’t be such a pussy!”

  “My mom!” the woman yells behind us. “Go help her!”

  I’m sandwiched between John and Holly, with nowhere to go but up the stairs. We congregate in the tiny hallway at the top.

  “Stick with me,” Holly says. “Carry the jump kit.” She points to their bag of first-aid gear, which weighs at least seventy pounds. John opens the first door and sees nothing. Same with the second. Holly turns in to the bathroom.

  “In here.”

  An elderly woman is sitting on the toilet, her slacks bunched around her ankles. An overwhelming stench hits us as we get closer. The old lady is leaning forward, sort of hugging her knees.

  “Ma’am?” Holly moves the woman’s lank gray hair out of the way and puts a finger to her neck. “No pulse, John.”

  “Do something!” I yell. The old lady doesn’t look dead. She looks like she was taking a dump and decided to have a snooze. Holly lifts up the old lady’s blouse and puts her stethoscope to her back. “No heart sounds.”

  “Can’t you guys give her cpr or something?”

  “Sure, Ethan. Great idea.” John leans in the doorway. “Why don’t you help her onto the floor?”

  Without another thought, I grab the old lady’s bony shoulders and pull. She comes forward fixed in her sitting position. Rigor mortis. I let go with a horrified shove. The old woman teeters back onto the toilet and then tips to the left, the bathroom counter sparing her an ugly tumble to the floor.

  John laughs. “See the blood pooled in the skin where she’s been sitting?”

  The wrinkly flesh of her butt is purple and blotchy.

  “She’s been dead a while. There’s no cpr in the world would bring her back.”