I go into the living room and see my father already half wasted on the couch, Fox News on the TV and Bill O'Reilly ranting about something with the sound off. Dad loves his Fox News. "Don't get smart with me, boy, or else I'm going to come off this couch and teach you some fucking manners."
Dad belches, and I wave my hand in front of my face as the grain alcohol smell fills the room like a toxic cloud. "Jesus Christ, it's only six in the evening and you're already drinking hard. What is it this time, the Seagram's or the Popov?"
"You little bastard, it's my house and I can do whatever the fuck I want!" Dad yells at me. "I pay the bills. I take care of you! You're nothing, Mr. Big Shot High School boy! Your mother left because of you!"
It's a longstanding line he uses, and even though it's about as correct as wearing your underpants on your head, it still stings. I hit back with what I know hurts most, the truth. "Mom left because you were a raggedy piece of shit that wouldn't stop drinking and beating her, you alcoholic asshole! You don't even have a job, just your welfare and unemployment in between those jobs you keep getting fired from! By the way, Dad, you’d better clean up enough to go down to Day Labor, because we're coming up on the end of your unemployment again, and my pay won't cover the rent this month."
He surges from the seat but drops back before he can get all the way up. He waves at me, disgusted. "You know what, you ungrateful shit? Get the fuck out of my house. Go, get out!"
I turn to leave the living room and toss words back over my shoulder. "I'll be glad to. After I take a shower."
There’s no way I’m going to show up smelling like I do. Even after a light practice, I still smell like ten pounds of wet leather, foam padding, and plastic football armor . . . and that does not work for dates. I strip down and grab the bar of Irish Spring off the soap dish, glad that it’s both cheap and works super-quick at covering up football smells. I can shower in three minutes if I want, and I do, walking naked down the hallway to my room, where I pull on a fresh set of khakis and a button down shirt. Yeah, I can get dressed up, too. I make sure my pits are sublime and grab twenty dollars out of the little cigar box that I use. I should keep all my cash on me. I know Dad steals from me, but if I do that, he’ll just shake me down. If I keep some of it in the box, he filches from me, but I actually end up keeping more of it.
I'm distracted as I tuck the twenty bucks into my front pocket, surprised I still have that much. Dad must have gotten a sale on his cheap booze this week. I'm so distracted that I don't notice that Dad has gotten himself to his feet, only to catch me with a sucker punch to my left eye as I come back past the living room. "That's what you get, you little bastard."
I grab at my eye, not so much hurt as surprised. Dad's half drunk, and I've got fifteen pounds on him, and a lot of my body is muscle while his is . . . sloppy shit. Still, it hurts, and I'm shocked, an involuntary tear coming to my eye because his alcohol-covered knuckle nailed me literally directly in my eye, and that shit burns! I push him back into the living room, where by some miracle of luck, he falls back onto the couch instead of onto his ass in the middle of the room. "You . . .”
Fuck it. I don't need a fight with the old man tonight. I walk out, ignoring his half-understood screams, and go out to my car, rubbing at my eye the entire way as I drive. I stop a little bit up the block from Whitney's house, knowing I'm way early but not knowing what else to do. Getting out of my car, I wonder how to break the ice, and what I know about her. Not a damn thing, really, except that she's hot as hell, and there is something about her . . .
"Flowers, maybe?" I say to myself, then look around. I see one of those planters that people use by a mailbox a few houses away, and inside are some flowers that remind me of the way her hair gleamed in the sun when she was trying out yesterday. They're almost the same dark, nearly blackish brown red. I run over and grab them. What the hell.
Holding my fistful of flowers and still rubbing at my eye, I walk the short distance to Whitney's house and ring the doorbell. There’s some rustling inside, and Whitney opens the door, surprised that I'm here. "Troy!"
I nod, trying my best smile. "Hi, Whitney. I know I'm mad early, but Coach cut practice short, and I was thinking . . . well, tonight's a school night, and I figured your parents would want you home early. You know, class tomorrow and all."
Whitney looks uncertain, but still nods. "Okay, one minute. Let me tell my mom that I'm leaving early."
Chapter 5
Whitney