Hellbent

“She always smoked them,” Joey said after a pause. “The ‘foster mom.’” The words came with teeth in them. “We all called her Nemma. I don’t know if that was her real name, but that’s what everyone called her.”

Evan cast his mind back to Papa Z sunk in his armchair, as snug as a hermit crab in a shell, one fist clamped around a Coors, the other commanding a remote with lightsaber efficiency as the boys swirled around him, fighting and shoving and laughing. Van Sciver always reigned supreme, the king of the jungle, while Evan slunk mouselike around the periphery, trying to get by unseen. It was a lifetime ago, and yet he felt as if he were standing in that living room now.

Joey kept her gaze on her laptop screen. “She was a beast of a woman. Housedresses. Caked-on blush. And her favorite phrase.”

Evan said, “Which was?”

“This is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me.” She laughed, but there was no music in it. “God, was she awful. Breath like an ashtray. Big floppy breasts. She had a lot of girls under her roof. She always had boyfriends rotating through. That’s how she kept them.”

She paused, wet her lips, worked the lower one between her teeth.

Evan remained very still.

“I don’t remember much about them,” she said. “Just the faces.” The glow of the screen turned her eyes flat, reflective. “There were a lot of faces.”

For a moment she looked lost in it, her shoulders raised in an instinctive hunch against the memories. Then she came out of it, snapped the laptop shut. “I don’t want to talk about it.”

Evan said, “Okay.”

She wouldn’t look over at him.

He got up with his glass and the bottle with its elegant clear stopper. He dumped his drink in the bathroom sink and poured out the rest, the vodka glug-glugging down the drain. He dropped the empty bottle in the trash can, came back to his bed, and returned to leafing through the red notebook.

He sensed her stare on the side of his face.

“That’s why I’m all fucked up,” she said.

“You’re not any more fucked up than everyone else.”

“I’m angry,” she whispered. “All the time.”

He risked a glance over at her, and she didn’t look away.

“Those are the skills you learned to survive,” he said. “They’re what got you through.”

She didn’t reply. The thin sheets were bunched up beneath her knees, the folds like spread butter.

He said, “But you also have a choice.”

She swallowed. “Which is?”

“To ask yourself, do they still serve you? You can keep them and be angry. Or let them go and have a real life.”

“You can’t,” she said. “Let go and have a real life.”

“Not so far,” he agreed.

“I feel like I’m stuck,” she said. “I hate the Program, and I hate that I wasn’t good enough for it. And then I wonder — is that the only reason I hate it? Because I wasn’t good enough?”

“You were good enough to get out,” he said. “You know how many people have done that and are alive?”

She shook her head.

“For all we know, we’re the only two.”

She blinked a few times.

“You did that,” he said. “On your own.”

“Yeah, well, you never know what kind of strength you have until you have to have it.” She reached over, clicked off her light, and slid down onto her pillow.

“Good night,” Evan said.

He turned his light off as well. The blackout curtains left the room as dark as a crypt. He heard her shifting, burrowing into the sheets. And then a silence so pure that it hummed.

“Good night,” she said.

* * *

Evan’s RoamZone vibrated in his pocket. He drew it out and stared at caller ID, which sourced to a mobile with an area code in downtown L.A. He stood and took a few steps away from the final passengers waiting to get on the connecting flight in Phoenix. The flight attendant had just announced the last boarding group, so Evan waved for Joey to go ahead. He’d catch up in a second.

He clicked to answer. “Do you need my help?”

Breath fuzzed the connection.

“Yes,” Xavier Orellana said. “I want out. I want out of the gang.”

Evan said, “I’m coming.”

He hung up and got on the plane.

60 Not Good

“Know any good your-mama jokes?” Peter peered up at Evan and Joey as the elevator doors clanked shut.

His charcoal eyes were dead earnest, as if he were asking for a physician referral.

Evan and Joey had pulled in to Castle Heights right behind Mia in her Acura, returning from picking up Peter at school. Peter had practically run circles around the two of them across the lobby and onto the elevator.

Standing beside his mom, Peter yanked the straps of his oversize backpack. It looked like it was loaded with bricks. How many textbooks could a nine-year-old possibly require?

Joey said, “What are you talking about?”

“Like: Your mama’s so fat she jumped in the Red Sea and said, ‘Take that, Moses.’”

Mia said, “Your public-education tax dollars at work.”

Peter kept on, undeterred. “Your mama’s so ugly she made a blind kid cry.”

Mia said, “I like that one because it’s offensive in two distinct ways.”

“Your mama’s so fat she can’t even fit in the chat room.”

Joey looked away to hide her grin.