"'Course I'm not scared," I said.
The funny thing Billy wanted to show me was in his house, which was dark inside and smelled like pee, and was even messier than our house, although in a different way. Our house was filled with stuff: papers, books, tools, lumber, paintings, art supplies, and statues of Venus de Milo painted all different colors. There was hardly anything in Billy's house. No furniture. Not even wooden spool tables. It had only one room with two mattresses on the floor next to a TV. There was nothing on the walls, not a single painting or drawing. A naked lightbulb hung from the ceiling, right next to three or four dangling spiral strips of flypaper so thick with flies that you couldn't see the sticky yellow surface underneath. Empty beer cans and whiskey bottles and a few half-eaten tins of Vienna sausages littered the floor. On one of the mattresses, Billy's father was snoring unevenly. His mouth hung open, and flies were gathered in the stubble of his beard. A wet stain had darkened his pants nearly to his knees. His zipper was undone, and his gross penis dangled to one side. I stared quietly, then asked. "What's the funny thing?"
"Don't you see?" said Billy, pointing at his dad. "He pissed himself!" Billy started laughing.
I felt my face turning hot. "You're not supposed to laugh at your own father," I said to him. "Ever."
"Aw, now, don't go get all high-and-mighty on me," Billy said. "Don't go and try and pretend you're better than me. 'Cause I know your daddy ain't nothing but a drunk like mine."
I hated Billy at that moment, I really did. I thought of telling him about binary numbers and the Glass Castle and Venus and all the things that made my dad special and completely different from his dad, but I knew Billy wouldn't understand. I started to run out of the house, but then I stopped and turned around.
"My daddy is nothing like your daddy!" I shouted. "When my daddy passes out, he never pisses himself!"
*
At dinner that night, I started telling everyone about Billy Deel's disgusting dad and the ugly dump they lived in.
Mom put down her fork. "Jeannette, I'm disappointed in you," she said. "You should show more compassion."
"Why?" I said. "He's bad. He's a JD."
"No child is born a delinquent," Mom said. They only became that way, she went on, if nobody loved them when they were kids. Unloved children grow up to become serial murderers or alcoholics. Mom looked pointedly at Dad and then back at me. She told me I should try to be nicer to Billy. "He doesn't have all the advantages you kids do," she said.
*
The next time I saw Billy, I told him I'd be his friendbut not his girlfriendif he promised not to make fun of anyone's dad. Billy promised. But he kept trying to be my boyfriend. He told me that if I'd be his girlfriend, he would always protect me and make sure nothing bad ever happened to me and buy me expensive presents. If I wouldn't be his girlfriend, he said, I'd be sorry. I told him if he didn't want to be just friends, fine with me, I wasn't scared of him.
After about a week, I was hanging out with some other kids from the Tracks, watching garbage burn in a big rusty trash can. They were all throwing in pieces of brush to keep the fire going, plus chunks of tire treads, and we cheered at the thick black rubber smoke that made our noses sting as it rolled past us into the air.
Billy came up to me and pulled my arm, motioning me away from the other kids. He dug into his pocket and pulled out a turquoise and silver ring. "It's for you," he said.
I took it and turned it over in my hand. Mom had a collection of turquoise and silver Indian jewelry that she kept at Grandma's house so Dad wouldn't pawn it. Most of it was antique and very valuablesome man from a museum in Phoenix kept trying to buy pieces from herand when we visited Grandma, Mom would let me and Lori put on the heavy necklaces and bracelets and concha belts. Billy's ring looked like one of Mom's. I ran it across my teeth and tongue like Mom had taught me to. I could tell by the slightly bitter taste that it was real silver.
"Where'd you get this?" I asked.
"It used to be my mom's," Billy said.
It sure was a pretty ring. It had a simple thin band and an oval-shaped piece of dark turquoise held in place by snaking silver strands. I didn't have any jewelry and it had been a long time since anyone had given me a present, except for the planet Venus.
I tried on the ring. It was way too big for my finger, but I could wrap yarn around the band the way high school girls did when they wore their boyfriend's rings. I was afraid, however, that if I took the ring, Billy might start thinking that I had agreed to be his girlfriend. He'd tell all the other kids, and if I said it wasn't true, he'd point to the ring. On the other hand, I figured Mom would approve, since accepting it would make Billy feel good about himself. I decided to compromise.
"I'll keep it," I said. "But I'm not going to wear it."
Billy's smile spread all across his face.
"But don't think this means we're boyfriend and girlfriend," I said. "And don't think this means you can kiss me."
*
I didn't tell anyone about the ring, not even Brian. I kept it in my pants pocket during the day, and at night I hid it in the bottom of the cardboard box where I kept my clothes.
But Billy Deel had to go and shoot his mouth off about giving me the ring. He started telling the other kids things like how, as soon as I was old enough, me and him were going to get married. When I found out what he was saying, I knew accepting the ring had been a big mistake. I also knew I should return it. But I didn't. I meant to, and every morning I'd put it in my pocket with the intention of giving it back, but I couldn't bring myself to do it. That ring was too darn pretty.
A few weeks later, I was playing hide-and-seek along the tracks with some of the neighborhood kids. I found the perfect hiding place, a small tool shed behind a clump of sagebrush that no one had hid in before. But just as the kid who was It was finishing counting, the door opened and someone else tried to get in. It was Billy Deel. He hadn't even been playing with us.
"You can't hide with me," I hissed at him. "You're supposed to find your own place."
"It's too late," he said. "He's almost done counting."
Billy crawled inside. The shed was tiny, with barely enough room for one person to fit in crouched over. I wasn't about to say so, but being that close to Billy scared me. "It's too crowded!" I whispered. "You gotta leave."
"No," Billy said. "We can fit." He rearranged his legs so they were pressed up against mine. We were so close I could feel his breath on my face.
"It's too crowded," I said again. "And you're breathing on me."
He pretended not to hear me. "You know what they do in the Green Lantern, don't you?" he asked.
I could hear the muffled shouts of the other kids being chased by the boy who was It. I wished I hadn't chosen such a good hiding place. "Sure," I said.
"What?"