anymore,” he says, leaning across the table. “I got plans. Made some good contacts inside. A few people owe me favours. I want you with me on this, little bro. I need someone I can trust.”
The two guys who picked us up, Wheels and Jonny, come back to the table with trays of food. Henry opens the paper wrapper and stuffs half a burger into his mouth. His eyes roll to the back of his head like it’s the best thing he’s ever eaten. “God, I missed this shit!” We all laugh. He wasn’t like this before. Jokey. I remember his heavy footsteps and silent looks. Like everything in the world pissed him off.
“How old are you?” Wheels asks. Again.
I look at Henry. He rips off another bite of burger and nods for me to tell them. “Fifteen.” Henry and Wheels share a smile over a secret joke. But not Jonny. As scrawny as me, he’s got a face like a skeleton with jutting cheekbones. He screws up his mouth and glares.
Henry tosses a burger my way. “Eat,” he says. A bit of half-chewed bun lands on the table.
Another guy, they call him Rat, joins us. I get squished in the middle. He has a red bandana tied under his hat. I’ve seen him before. He works at the garage on Mountain Avenue as a mechanic. His hands are stained with oil, dark lines rim his fingernails, and he stinks like grease and gasoline.
“You made it,” he says, raising an eyebrow at my brother. He has a scruffy goatee, buckteeth, and those kind of lips that always look red and shiny. “Who’s the kid?’
Henry takes a long sip of his drink. I snicker at the long, low burp he lets out. “Lincoln. My brother.”
“What happened to your face?” Rat asks me. It isn’t like no one has ever asked before, but most of the time, I forget about the scar. Running from my temple to my chin, it covers a whole cheek. Mom always says I was lucky the water didn’t hit my eye, or I’d be blind. I think I’d be lucky if the pot of water never hit me at all.
Now that Rat’s noticed, I feel self-conscious and wish I could duck further under my hat.
“What does it matter?” Henry interrupts. He waits a beat for Rat to say something. The other two guys stiffen in the booth.
Rat just sniffs and clears his throat. “We gonna go outside and talk business?”
“Can I finish my fuckin’ burger?” Henry asks. It’s not a real question because his eyes have gone hard again. Rat shuts up.
I tap my foot, my leg bouncing under the table.
“You gotta take a piss, or what?” Jonny asks. He makes a face at the other guys when Henry’s not looking. He doesn’t want me here. I can feel it.
My cheeks burn and I hold my leg still. “You sure he’s cool?” Wheels asks. His voice is sandpaper on my ears.
Henry presses his lips tight. “Ask him yourself.”
Wheels looks at me like I’m a joke. “Are you?”
I nod. “Your mama thinks so.” It’s a lame joke, but their shoulders shake with laughter anyway.
Henry swallows his bite and takes a loud sip of his drink. He looks at each guy at the table and their faces get serious, ready to hear what he has to say. “You guys are my brothers. You’re loyal. You could have ditched out, found another crew to run with when I went inside, but you didn’t. You stuck it out, waiting for me. I’m back now. It’s time for the Red Bloodz to make our mark. I got plans.” My brother pauses.
We all lean toward him, listening hard. “We gotta get the chop shop running again.” All three of them nod, so I do, too.
“And for that, we need cars.”
Rat gives me an oily grin.
“And new recruits.” Henry looks at me, his eyes steely. I start blinking and can’t stop.
“Who are you hanging with?” he asks. “Besides the Polish kid?”
No one, I think. It’s always been just us since the first day of kindergarten. He’s not the friend people expect me to have, but that’s their problem, not mine. “What’s wrong with Jakub?”
“He’s Polish,” Henry says and wipes the inside of the ketchup container with his french fry. “You know, I never met a single Polish guy in jail. Not one. You know why?”
I shrug.
“Too busy working.”
I keep quiet. I’ll tell him another time about Koob’s dad. How he looks out for me. How he let me stay with them when the pipes froze last winter. No water and four of us in the house. It stunk so bad my eyes still water when I think about it.
“We need guys like us. Wagon burners!” He says it loud to piss off the people around us. They look, like he wants them too. Henry raises his eyebrows at me and grins.
“I’ll put the word out,” I say, but it’s a lie. I don’t have other friends.
“Told you,” he says to the other guys. “He’s gonna work out.”
My stomach is heavy with fast food. I’m squished in the middle again, now in the back seat of Wheels’s car, breathing in Jonny’s and Rat’s fat, salty burps. Wheels drives down a street that looks like any other in the West End. Houses all built close together, their stucco cracking and roofs sagging. Lots of “Beware of Dog” signs and a few boarded-up windows. There’s lawn chairs on front porches, maybe a case of empties. Barefoot kids with sticky faces run up and down the sidewalk.
The house we go to has people hanging out on the front porch. When the car stops and we get out, a whoop goes up. Henry gets hugs and back slaps from the guys. A few girls are hanging out in skimpy tank tops. One girl comes up and gives Henry a kiss. “Missed you, baby,” she says.
“Welcome home,” a guy says to Henry.
“Butch!” Henry yells. He’s almost as big as my brother, with a long ponytail and the same Red Bloodz dagger tattoo on his neck. He holds his arms out. Everyone goes quiet when the two of them hug.
The guy gives me a chin nod. “Who’s that?” Most of his teeth are missing. He runs his tongue over the ones he has, like he’s counting what’s left.
“Lincoln. My brother,” Henry tells him. The way he says it stops any more questions.
“Come on. We can talk inside.” Rat, Wheels, and Jonny go with them, on some silent signal.
I’m left on the porch. I don’t even have pockets to stash my hands, so I stand there, cracking my knuckles because I don’t know what else to do.
“It’ll give you arthritis,” some girl says. I didn’t notice her before. She’s rocking in a chair with ripped-up red material. The arms are shredded and the foam inside is popping out.
I know it’s not true, but I stop anyway. No one else is paying me any attention.
She slouches in the chair. Her shirt’s
