it’s like watching a third-grader in a teenager’s body. I half expect him to call me from the back seat of his GTI after he’s just finished with a girl and ask me if I want to go put quarters on the railroad tracks like when we were eight.
For as long I’ve hung around the cheeky fuck, it’s been easy for me to love him. Except that day on the bridge when he said, “Listen, Danielle, I don’t want to be a rock in your shoe, but I must say you’re looking very cute these days.” If he had stopped there, with the lame fuckin line, I might have been cool with it. But the goddamn hand on the shoulder bit. Maybe that’s the curse of knowing what someone’s capable of. Knowing how skillfully they can disguise their agenda in charm.
Danielle didn’t look as bent as I was. She deadpanned him right in his face and said, “I’m not wearing shoes.”
Now, from where I was standing, Noke should have backed up—made light out of the rejection. But the fucking guy kept coming.
“Yeah, I can see you’re barefoot. Rock in the shoe is just an expression. It means a pain in the ass. Like I don’t want to be bothering you. Be annoying like, you know, like how having a rock in your shoe would be annoying.”
Dani stayed quiet and let his joke sprawl flat on its back. This was flag number two signifying a dead end. But that didn’t matter to Nokey Cervella.
He said, “I don’t mean a real shoe. I mean a make-believe shoe. A hypothetical shoe.”
“I don’t have any hypothetical shoes.”
That may have given me the first laugh of the whole thing if I wasn’t feeling so ready to pounce.
He said, “You’re not gettin me,” and his smart-ass hand ran down her arm and landed on her wrist that was covered with a dozen silver bangles. Dani flinched, and pulled her wrist away. “No, Nokey, you’re not getting me.”
Finally he was ready to lay off. He held his hand out in front of him like a stop sign and said, “I’m getting another beer now.” He turned around and walked to where I was standing, grabbed the rope and lifted the six-pack from the water. “What the fuck?” he said. “Was I not being nice? I thought I was being nice. JT, what was I being?”
And Dani, who had been standing still watching him the whole time, finally climbed down beneath the bridge, hopped to her favorite rock and sat down.
Noke goes, “That’s a weird chick, man. I mean I know she’s your sister and all, but don’t you think she’s gettin a little weird?”
“Now she’s weird cause she’s not into you?”
“What’s wrong with me?”
“You want the short list?”
“Fuck off.”
“Hey, take a walk with me.”
“I’m good here. You go for a walk.”
I had to get serious and loud: “Fuck knuckle. Take a walk with me.”
We walked on the path next to the river, moving away from everyone.
“I hardly even touched her. And I’m a good guy. Like you don’t know I’m a good guy? Aren’t I a good guy?”
“Listen, maybe it’s better you don’t hang out here for a while. Let’s say we split the river for a while? I mean we work together, we gotta spend every day?”
“We were getting laid at her age and now you don’t want her to because why? She’s a girl? Does the term ‘psycho brother’ mean anything to you?”
“It ain’t that.”
“Oh, come off it. You haven’t been able to bullshit me since kindergarten, so stop it. Your stubborn wop’s starting to show.”
“It ain’t that.”
“Then it’s your stubborn mick.”
I looked back to see if we were out of shouting distance from the rest of them yet. Not quite, so I lowered my voice and picked up the pace. “She’s thirteen.”
“Thirteen’s not a disease.”
“You’re seventeen, that doesn’t bother you?”
“Should it?”
It’s hard to reason with ignorance. “I don’t like guys messing with her,” I said.
“Look, she gave me the brush off. So I consider myself brushed. I’m off the case. But here’s some news tough guy, I’m not the only one who’s gonna try to wet my luck with her so get used to it.”
“I don’t want guys messing with her.”
“Yeah, I heard you.”
“I don’t want it,” I repeated. Every smart piece of me said to keep it all to myself, because this guy could bad judge a situation to death and the last person I was gonna let him do that with was my sister. But another part of me wanted to tell him everything, and that’s why I kept repeating myself, hoping he would read my whole mind, and finally everything would be out without me actually having to say it. If we didn’t know each other so well, he probably would have thought I was autistic, but he caught on that there was something else I was getting at. His voice got real deep, like it does when he’s getting serious with you.
“JT, what the fuck?”
“I don’t like it.” I picked up my pace even more and looked over my shoulder.
“You’re freakin me out, man.”
“I just don’t like it.”
He stepped in front of me, put one of his heavy hands right under my throat and stopped me from walking. I could have cut off his hand and ate it. “Quit saying that. Stand the fuck still and tell me what you’re talking about?” I was trying to speak but I couldn’t. “Come on, it’s me for Christ’s sake. Tell me.”
“NO.” I slapped his hand away.
He slapped mine back.
I grabbed him in a headlock.
We both fell to the ground.
I wanted him to fight back so the talking would be over, but he wasn’t throwing any punches cause he knew I wasn’t really fighting him. And we both knew if it was a real fight his punches would have been the first and hardest to land. He let me roll him onto his stomach and hold him down. “Just get the fuck out,” I yelled.
“It’s not your fuckin river. Get off me.”
“No.”
“Let me up.”
“Will you leave if I let you up?”
“No.”
“Then forget it.”
“You gonna keep
