Jonathan Kellerman: Billy Straight

He knew he had the power.

I was wrong. I’m not close yet. My feet weigh a ton, and I start to feel stupid for living in the park, tell myself I’m not it’s a smart decision.

What’s the choice, something like the Melodie Anne? That’s a building on Selma, just off the Boulevard, burnt-out from a fire, with the windows boarded up. Lots of kids crash there, and late at night you can see them bringing older guys in there. Sometimes you actually see them giving the old guys blow jobs right outside in the alley, boys and girls.

I would rather kill myself than do that. Suicide is a sin, but so is living the wrong life.

I check the Casio: 4:04. I must be close. No matter how many lists I try, my head is filled with terrible pictures. Men hurting women, dogs killing dogs, planes blowing up, kids snatched from their bedrooms, drive-by shootings, blood everywhere.

I think about Mom but see Moron instead and now I’m thinking about the way he called Mom a whore all the time and she took it, just sat there.

On bad days he hit her. I used to close my eyes, grind my teeth, try to beam myself somewhere else. For a long time, I couldn’t understand why she took him in. Then I figured out she thinks she’s not worth much ’cause she’s got no education and he’s what she deserves.

She met him at the Sunnyside, which is where she finds all the losers she brings home. She wasn’t working there anymore, but she was still going there to drink and watch TV and joke with the guys shooting pool.

The other losers never stayed long and they ignored me. The first night she brought Moron home he stank up the trailer with body odor and motorcycle grease. The two of them got stoned. I was out on the sleeper couch, could smell the joints they lit up, hear them laughing, then the bed squeaking. I put my fingers in my ears and got totally under the blankets.

The next morning he came out into the front room naked, holding his shorts in one hand, flaps and folds of tattooed fat all over his body. I pretended to still be sleeping. He opened the door, grunted, put his shorts on, and went outside to pee. When he finished he said, “ Yeah, ” and cleared his throat and spit.

On the way back to Mom’s bed, he tripped and his knee came down on my back. It felt like an elephant crushing me; I couldn’t breathe. He came back, went into the kitchen, got a box of Cap’n Crunch, and scooped cereal into his mouth, spilling it all over.

I pretended to wake up. He said, “Oh man, a rug rat. Hell, Sharla, you didn’t say you had onea them. ”

Mom laughed from the bedroom. “We wasn’t talking much, was we, cowboy?”

Moron laughed too, then he held out a hand for a high five. His nails were black around the edges and his fingers were the size and color of hot dogs.

“Motor Moran, bro. Who’re you?” For such a big guy he had a high voice.

“Billy.”

“Billy what?”

“Billy Straight.”

“Ha, same as her-so you got no daddy. Little fuckin’ accident, huh?” I lowered my hand, but he grabbed it, shook it hard, hurting me, looking to see if I’d show it. I ignored him.

“This your cereal, bro?”

“Kind of.”

“Well, too fuckin’ bad.” That made him really laugh.

Mom came in and she giggled along with him. But her eyes had that sad look I’ve seen so many times before.

Sorry, honey, what can I do?

I don’t protect her, either, so I guess we’re even.

He punched my arm hard. “Motor Moran, little bro. Don’t fuckin’ use it up.” Tossing me the cereal box, he went to the fridge and got beer and salsa.

“Got any chips, woman?”

“Sure, cowboy.”

“Then move your ass and fix me some dip.”

“You got it, cowboy.”

She calls all the losers she brings home “cowboy.”

Moran thought it was all for him. “Back in the saddle, baby, we goin’ gallop!”

Motor Moron. His real name is Buell Erville Moran, so you can see why he’d want a nickname, even a stupid one. I saw it on his driver’s license, which was expired and full of lies. Like his height being six-four when it’s maybe six-one. And his weight being two hundred when it’s at least two-eighty. In the picture he was wearing a huge red beard. By the time Mom brought him home, he’d shaved off the chin hairs and the mustache and left humongous sideburns that stick out, really stupid.

He wears the same thing every day: greasy jeans, smelly black Harley T-shirts, and boots. Trying to make like he’s a Hell’s Angel or some big outlaw biker, but he has no gang and his chopper is a rusty hunk of junk, usually broken. All he does is fool with it alongside the trailer, get blasted, watch talk shows, and eat, eat, eat.

And spend the AFDC and the disability checks. The AFDC’s are basically mine. Aid to families with dependent children. My money.

At least I’m not dependent anymore.

Mom changed when I turned around five. She was never educated, but she used to be happier. More interested in how she looked, using a hot comb and makeup and wearing different outfits. Now it’s all T-shirts and shorts, and even though she’s not really fat, she kind of droops and her skin’s pale and rough.

She used to work the Sunnyside weeks and only drink and toke on weekends. I don’t want to blame her-she’s had a hard life. Started picking in the fields when she was fourteen; had me when she was sixteen. Now she’s twenty-eight and some of her teeth are gone, because she has no money to take care of them.

She never had much schooling, because her parents picked fruit, too, traveling up and down with the crops, and they were alcoholic and didn’t believe in education. She can barely read and write and she doesn’t use good grammar, but I never said anything to her about that; it really didn’t bother me.

She had me nine months after her parents died in a car crash. Her dad was drunk, coming back to Watson from seeing a movie in Bolsa Chica, and he drove off Route 5 straight into a power pole.

Mom and I passed by the exact spot lots of times on the bus. Every time we did, she’d say, “There it is, that damn pole,” and start rubbing her eyes.

She didn’t die, because she was out partying with some grove workers instead of being with her parents at the movies.

She used to tell me the whole story, over and over, especially when she was drunk or stoned. Then she started adding stuff to it: The party was at some fancy restaurant, with big shots from the farm workers’ union. Then it turned from a party into a date, her and some rich union guy, and she was all dressed up, “looking hot.” Then she really got going, saying the rich guy was handsome and smart, a lawyer who was a genius.

One night she got totally blasted and made this big confession: The rich guy was supposed to be my father.

Her version of Cinderella, only she never got to live in the palace.

Having a rich, smart, handsome father would be a cool thing, but I know it’s bull. If he had money, why wouldn’t she go after it?

When she got that way, she sometimes pulled out old pictures of herself, showing me when she was slender and pretty and had thick, dark hair that hung down past her waist.

She has no pictures of the amazing rich guy. Big surprise.

When she told Moron the story, he said, “Cut that bullshit, Sharla. You fucked a million assholes, can’t remember nonea them.”

Mom didn’t answer and Moron’s face got dark and he looked over at me and for a minute I thought he was going to come after me, too. Instead, he just laughed and said, “How you ever gonna know which gleam in the eye produced this little piecea shit?”

Mom smiled and twisted her hair. “I just know, Buell. A woman knows. ”

That’s when he backhanded her. She fell back against the fridge, and her head snapped back like it was going to come off.