Ryan Thomas: The Summer I Died

“Hand me that license in the glove compartment,” he told me.

I pulled it out and read it over. “David McNulty, nineteen-seventy-one. What’s that make you, thirty-two? Yeah, right. Where’d you get this? You make it?

“Boston,” he said, whipping it from my hand and stuffing it in his pocket.

We were both only twenty, but Tooth looked about thirty with his two-day-old stubble and weathered face. I guess that came from working at the Dataview warehouse where he spent his days loading electrical circuit boards onto trucks. Winter lasts thirteen months in New England; I guess you couldn’t blame him for liking the booze.

As we detoured to the packy store-as was customary to call it around here-the setting summer sun felt just the opposite, like a hot pair of jeans fresh from the drier. And with the humidity tapering off-which is usually so damn high you feel like you’re being boiled alive all day long-I felt comfortable enough to take a nap. The smell of pine trees baking in the residual heat and dried-up grass swirled into the car as we sped by. It was a good smell, reminding me of the times Tooth and I played war in my backyard as kids. Our little G.I. Joe figures storming over a sand hill to battle the forces of Cobra. The two of us lying in the dry grass, making machine gun sounds with our mouths.

It smelled like childhood.

We were carded at the entrance to the store by some kid with blue hair who certainly wasn’t old enough to buy anything inside, probably the owner’s son. That was a blessing, because the dumb shit fell for the fake ID. But the clerk behind the counter was eyeballing us from the minute we walked in, put down the magazine he was reading and leaned over the counter to watch us. Ah shit, I thought, and I knew we were toast; the bastard was just waiting to catch us.

I made like I was looking for a bag of chips and drifted down an aisle. Tooth grabbed a twelve pack of Bud and dropped it on the counter with an air of authority, playing grownup as best he could.

“Lemme see that ID,” the clerk said right away.

I knew we were busted at this point.

Tooth handed it over, not saying anything. I spotted a comic book rack and started spinning it around but all it had was kiddie shit, X-men crap that wasn’t written by anyone who actually knew anything about the X-men.

“Son, you better get your money back,” the clerk said, tossing it back to Tooth. “I seen better fake ID’s cut out the back of cereal boxes. Tell you this, too. Some kid came in the other day with the same kind. I know where you get ’em, down in Boston, buy ’em on the corner from the crackheads. Shit, you must think I’m dense.”

“Actually, I think you’re a retard, but that’s besides the point. This ain’t no fake ID, and if you don’t believe me, call the police and they can verify my information.”

The clerk picked up the license a second time and held it up to the fluorescent lights overhead, laughing. Tooth gave me a quick glance and pointed at me. Oh shit, I knew what that meant: he wanted me to pinch the beer. Son of a bitch, how did he expect me to get a twelve pack under my shirt? Just walk out and say I was pregnant or something? On top of which, that night in jail had been a wake-up call for me, and I hadn’t done anything illegal to put me back there since. Well, aside from smoking some pot and drinking some beer. But shoplifting was another story. I could lose my student loans if I went to jail.

“Ok, I’m calling the cops because I’ve had enough of this fake ID bullshit. It’s a waste of my time.”

“Why, what else you got to do?” Tooth said smartly. “Hang out in the back and beat your meat to porno mags? I noticed some are missing from the stand. You’re all outta the faggot ones. They in the back room where you eat your lunch? Little bit of PB and J and a side of man meat?”

That poor clerk, old as he was, didn’t really know how to answer that. He just started shaking a little, really pissed, like he was going to pull out that gun you know he had under the counter and blow Tooth’s head off.

“Get out now or I will call the cops!”

“Go ahead, but I ain’t leaving till I get my beer. You stupid fuck!”

Taking the bait, the clerk mumbled something and picked up the phone behind the counter. I knew there was no way I was gonna get all the beer out the door without being seen, so I moused over to a bin full of $3.99 nips. I took six and stuffed them in my socks and pulled my pant legs over them, the whole time thinking how this would look to my college advisors should I get caught.

The boy at the door was preoccupied with the scene Tooth was making, probably wondering if this was a holdup or something, so I figured I hadn’t been seen.

I went back to the comic books and selected a cheesy looking Batman comic with Killer Croc on the cover. It looked like it had been written for six year olds. I went and put it on the counter.

You know you’ve got a remarkable relationship with someone when you can read each other’s minds. We did that a lot, Tooth and I. Like, I would ask, “Hey, you remember that movie with the guy?” and he would answer, “Yeah, Bloodfist 4 .” And he was right. We just always knew what each other was thinking. And even if we didn’t know right away, it didn’t take more than one clue for either of us to catch on.

So when I put the comic on the counter, Tooth knew I had the goods and swiped his ID out of the clerk’s hand and said, “You know what, fuck this. We’re going to the packy on Deerfield. No sale for you, buddy.”

The clerk was as red as a horny monkey’s ass. “Can I buy this?” I asked him, pointing to the comic.

He leaned over and yelled, “No! Now get out!”

“C’mon,” Tooth said, giving the man his customary one-fingered salute.

The poor clerk was so upset he mangled his threat as we left. “If you ever come back I’ll fuck you good.”

“See, you are a fag,” Tooth yelled back.

On the way out I picked up a bag of chips and tossed it to the door boy. It confused the hell out of him, but it also kept his eyes off my socks, which were bulging like I had elephantiasis of the ankles.

In the car Tooth slammed his head back against the headrest a few times before turning the ignition on.

“What dumbass prick went to Boston and got an ID from the same place as me. If I find him I’ll kick his father’s ass. What did you get anyway?”

I pulled the nips out from my socks as we drove out of the parking lot. “Just these. Two cherry-flavored vodkas, two orange liqueurs, and two mint schnapps.”

“Perfect, and what did you get for yourself?”

I suppose since you’ve followed my story this far, I should tell you why Tooth is called Tooth. It also figures into why we were headed to my house instead of his.

When Tooth was ten, his father ran him over with his car. He didn’t do it on purpose, but it wasn’t exactly an accident either. See, Tooth’s dad has a drinking problem. I guess that’s no biggie these days; who doesn’t know somebody who drinks a lot? And I guess you can make a comparison between my friend and his father, but where Tooth is what I prefer to call a functioning alcoholic-or at least he’s on his way to being-his father is a straight up drunk.

He’s not a bad man, not in any way. In fact he was once a minister, back when Tooth was a toddler; probably where he first took to drinking if you ask me. He’s quite the caring man when he’s sober, but the last time he was sober, well, let’s just say that was back when you had to get your ass up out of the recliner and turn the knob on the TV to change channels.

Tooth was in the driveway playing with some action figures, Star Wars or He-Man and whatnot, and his father got the idea he had to go to see his father-which would be Tooth’s grandfather-who’d been dead over a decade. Well, you know where this is going. Drunk to the point of seeing ghosts, his father got in the car and backed down the driveway, taking Tooth under the car with him. Tooth rolled all the way underneath, missing the wheels by some divine intervention, and popped out the front where he went rolling into the bushes. When he sat up screaming bloody murder, he was missing six of his front teeth.