Page 5 of Turn

CHAPTER THREE

“How much more homework do you have?” I asked.

My kid brother frowned and considered the question. A wrinkle of worry deepened between his brows and he looked older for a moment. Less like a carefree thirteen-year-old boy and more like a world-weary adult with a hundred troubling things on his mind.

“Just a few more questions,” Brecken answered and bent down once more to examine the paper in front of him. His pencil made a hesitant mark, which he promptly erased with a sigh.

I watched him. “Is summer school going okay?”

“Don’t know. It just started.” He sounded annoyed. Brecken hated the fact that he was spending his summer mornings in a classroom but he’d fallen way behind this year and when the school recommended summer classes it seemed like a good idea. Plus there was a community center right next door that hosted a free teen day camp so when he was finished with his class he could hang out there all afternoon and that was a load off my mind. I sure as hell didn’t want him brooding in this crappy room alone all summer.

“Have you made any cool new friends?” I asked, aware that I sounded like a jackass. Brecken must have been aware of it too because he shot me a brief look of disgust before turning his attention back to his work.

I gave up the interrogation and gathered the rest of the trash leftover from dinner. We’d had tacos again because they were only two for a dollar at the place up the street. Fast food wasn’t an ideal daily diet for a growing boy, but it was the best I could do at the moment. That would change though. That would change real soon.

“Finish your milk,” I said and Brecken grudgingly took a sip of the tiny carton of milk I’d picked up at the corner gas station on the way home because Taco Dreams only offered soda and brightly colored sugary crap.

Brecken suddenly made a face and pushed the carton away. A few drops sloshed out onto the tiny, deeply scarred table. “I don’t like milk,” he grumbled. “Never have.”

I wiped up the spill with a crumpled napkin. “You should have at least one healthy thing a day,” I said. “So please drink a little more.”

My little brother was unmoved by the plea. He gave me a stubborn look.

“For me,” I added and he relented, nodding and gulping back a few mouthfuls before setting the carton back down and wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. It was a tiny victory but I’d take it. Brecken was already small for his age and the events of the past six months had taken a toll. He peered out from beneath a mop of sandy hair with bewildered young eyes and his shoulders always seemed to droop. My heart hurt when I looked at him. Almost as much as it hurt when I looked at my other brother. Tristan. He should have been home hours ago but there was no sign of him.

I carefully wrapped the leftover tacos in some brown napkins. There was no fridge in here and they wouldn’t keep for long. It probably didn’t matter anyway. Tristan always claimed to have eaten already, although I didn’t know how a jobless teenager managed to pull that off. I wasn’t sure I wanted to know. He’d found a rough crowd to run around with in the short time we’d been here but they couldn’t be as bad as the boys he was hanging around with down in Emblem. That was one of the reasons why we left. There were other reasons too; the little family money we had was gone overnight and I had no way to make an honest living down there. Jobs weren’t plentiful and people knew who I was. Every day Tristan grumbled that he planned to catch a ride back home but he hadn’t skipped out yet. He’d even managed to stay inside the high school building every day when I dropped him off with two dollars for lunch and a few corny words of encouragement. He should have graduated this year but his dyslexia had been caught late and back in Emblem he’d once repeated a grade so he still had one more year to go. However, now that school was out for the summer I wasn’t too sure how Tristan was spending his days. He insisted he was job hunting but I had my doubts.

Sometimes I suspected Tristan was sticking around more for Brecken’s sake than anything else and that scared me because sooner or later the feeling of obligation wouldn’t be enough. Eventually the restless look in his eyes would anchor him to something bad, something that would take him away from us. I would know. I’d been just like him once. Sometimes I felt like taking the kid by the shoulders and shaking him until he understood the things I’d only learned after wasting years dicking around. But for now I was reduced to keeping an uneasy eye on Tristan and hoping a few of the things I told him sunk in before he turned eighteen in a few months and realized there were no legal obstacles standing in his way.

“Um, Curtis?” Brecken said my name in a strange voice and I saw he was staring at my hand. There was grease running down my arm because I’d managed to crush the leftover tacos in my fist while tormented with ugly thoughts of Tristan’s future.

“One of these days I’ll understand my own strength,” I joked and Brecken broke into a smile before bending his head back to his homework.

I cleaned myself up and took a seat at the rickety dining table. Besides the two beds and a raggedy armchair it was the only furniture in the room. No one staying at Empire Motel expected luxury accommodations though. It was just a way station with cheap rates, populated by an uneasy mix of both petty criminals and good people who were down on their luck.

“I got a job today,” I said.

Brecken raised his eyebrows and tapped his pencil against the paper. “But you already had a job.”

Shoveling piles of landscaping rocks was only a temporary position. It paid shit, offered no breaks and at the end of every shift I had to massage the feeling back into my arms.

“I got a better one,” I told my brother.

“Doing what?”

“I’ll be working at a famous tattoo parlor.”

His expression was doubtful. “You know how to draw tattoos?”

“No. They’re training me on piercings. Plus I’ll be in charge of merchandising and other odd jobs as needed.”

Brecken nodded. “You really should be doing tattoos.” He pointed to my heavily inked arms. “You sure have enough of them.”

“I’m not that artistic. But the pay will be good and tomorrow I’ll start looking for a better place to live.”

Brecken gazed around our threadbare setting. “Good.”

Somewhere nearby a woman screamed ‘Cocksucker!’ The sound of breaking glass followed.

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