I opened my eyes, which I’d forgot were closed, and remembered I’d told Gino I’d pay him back for all the grilled cheese. Thirteen-fifty. And plus the two cookies. Fifteen dollars. But how would I get it? I didn’t know how I’d get it. My summertime allowance was ten bucks a week, and I’d given five to Franco for Dirt Gun XL, which is what we were huffing, there on the garage couch in front of the TV. It’s the same thing as Dirt Gun, but the trigger you pull to make the nozzle blast the drugs out is black instead of purple, and the can’s twice as big — that’s why it’s so expensive. Franco said “Wah” and rolled it slow across the couch to me. His TV’s antenna was missing an ear and the only channel he was able to raise that morning was playing Three Stooges, but he hated Moe’s voice — he said it made him feel accused — so he’d turned off the volume, and that was fine with me cause the noises the Stooges make give me a headache, but sitting there looking at them tweak each other’s noses and make pained faces while I came down from Dirt Gun wasn’t any good, so I took a giant huff, not big enough to cause another ESP freakout, but big enough to make me forget about the first one.
Right in that gap between huffing and feeling it, this knocking started up on the door of the garage — not the one made for cars that faces the alley but the one that you enter from Franco’s backyard — and Franco III started barking her face off. Once the Dirt Gun came on, though, the wahs were so loud that everything else sounded far away and swirly.
An unhappy-looking fat guy in a suit came in, and the sleaze from the alley from the day before followed him. They stood behind the TV, facing the couch, and the fat guy’s mouth was this straight black line, and the sleaze shook his head and said things to Franco. It might as well have been static, though, whatever he was saying. I could tell it wasn’t good just by looking at his face, but didn’t know what it was cause the wahs drowned the words out. Plus the sleaze’s hair, I’d noticed, was the shiniest thing. It was so clean and shiny that the lamplight behind him made his head look on fire. I wanted Franco to see, so I lifted my arm to point the head out, but my arm was dense and heavy, which slowed me down, and before I could even get my index finger straightened, Franco’d jumped to his feet.
The whole couch jerked.
The fat guy’s mouth showed small wet teeth and the sleaze pushed at air like “Hold up, take it easy, just please quiet down.”
Franco told him, “What!” It was louder than the wahs — the wahs were wearing off fast — and it sounded like his voice cracked when he said it again. “What!” he said. “What!” Then he flicked his lit cigarette, which grazed the sleaze’s face. Orange ashes blew around and the sleaze cupped his ear. “Franco!” the sleaze said. “Come on now! Come on!”
Now the fat guy pushed air. “Calm down,” he told Franco. “Just sit back down now.”
“What!” Franco said.
I’d missed something important. Something big was happening and I didn’t know what. I thought I should have known what.
I felt a little sick, then remembered to breathe.
Franco III kept barking her face off.
Then Franco stepped forward and kicked the TV off the crate that it sat on, right at the sleaze, who it caught on the waist. The sleaze shouted “Fuck!” or made the noise fuh! and bent forward hard and the TV screen shattered all over the floor.
Franco jumped the crate, tackling the sleaze. The fat guy grabbed Franco’s shoulders and pulled. Franco bucked, sent him back into the wall, smacked the sleaze, and kept saying “What!” I was on my feet. I didn’t know what I should do. The fat guy caught his balance and dove at Franco. I saw a holstered gun when his jacket flapped up, and I was running out the door, into the yard, like a gifted-track fatso pussy, but I wasn’t. I wasn’t a pussy. I was doing what I had to.
When she saw me, Franco III went crazy, but I stood just outside the range of her chain and I stared into her eyes — they were all pink with blood and dripping with water — and I pointed my finger and yelled at her, “Easy!” and yelled it again, and guess what happened. The chain sloped behind her and she looked at the ground. She sat on the grass.
I freed her from the fence as fast as I could, and we entered the garage. Cords were straining under Franco’s neck skin. His face was this greasy tomato of pain. He knelt one knee on the chest of the sleaze and his other leg was straightened at a nasty-looking angle while the fat guy, behind him, was twisting the chickenwing he had Franco’s arm in and saying stuff to him too soft to make out.
I didn’t register the fat guy’s voice’s softness until I’d already said “Nasal spray,” though.
Franco III had some distance to cover — most of a garage — and she barked the whole way. The fat guy heard her coming and released the chickenwing. He pivoted quick and, right as the dog hurtled over the crate, he raised both his fists and shouted, “Down!” She hit the ground squealing, already bent to turn, and she re-jumped the crate and pushed her head between my shins with so much force I nearly lost my footing. “Scout,” I said, and she laid down flat.
Franco was sitting on top of the sleaze. His face was in his hands. His shoulders were jumping.
The fat guy said to me, “Jesus H. Christ, kid.” The walkie-talkie-thing on his belt made that crackle like they do in the movies, and a voice said some numbers.
Then I did run away like a gifted-track pussy. Tried to, at least.
Another cop grabbed me just outside the door. He got me by the elbows and I twisted and pulled, but it wasn’t even close. In a million years, with a billion chances, I couldn’t have gotten away from this guy. He was bigger than my dad. I just wasn’t strong enough. And something about that… something really got into me. It was partly the Dirt Gun — that stuff can spin you out — but only partly, I think. I didn’t think it was right that this guy, cause he was bigger, was able to hold on to me. I don’t mean it was wrong or that it didn’t make sense, but… I don’t know what I mean. I just hated how it was, and something got into me. I spit on the guy. I tried for his face and what I got was his tie-knot. That was enough, though. He gave me this shake. He couldn’t believe it. I couldn’t really either. Spitting on a cop.
And then I heard a woman’s voice, Franco’s ma’s voice, a kind of pretty voice that didn’t sound like she looked. It sounded much younger, almost like a girl’s. She was standing right there, right behind the cop shaking me, and she said to him, “Please, Detective Rizzo, be gentle. This is Clifford Martinucci, Franco’s best friend. I’m sure that he’s just upset on our behalf.”
The cop stopped shaking me. He even let go of one of my arms. I was surprised to hear Franco’s ma say my name — I’d never really met her and didn’t think she knew me — and more surprised to hear her call me Franco’s best friend, which, now that I thought about it, seemed to make sense since we’d hung out for fifty-four days in a row. What surprised me the most, though, was what the cop said back to her.
“Martinucci like the pilot, you’re saying?” he said.