Chapter Thirty-Seven

“You gonna stick by me?”

“Maybe…”

**

Vince got out of juvie on a Tuesday towards the end of August. I don’t remember the exact date, but I know it was a Tuesday ‘cause Leon had gone to the monthly government auction to see if they had any cars worth restoring there, and those are always on Tuesdays, even now.

Letty, Mia and me went over to Vince’s house that night. His mom had invited us…I’m not sure exactly why. Maybe she was trying to keep Vince and Joe from fighting.

I wanted to talk to Vince, wanted to tell him about everything that’d happened while he was gone. But we’d barely walked in the door when Linda announced it was time to eat, started pushing us all towards the table.

No one said anything for prolly ten minutes after we started eating. Just sat there, in awkward silence, shoveling in the food.

“So, Dominic,” Joe finally said, sneering at me a little. “What have you been up to since this wonderful state of ours decided that you’ve been successfully rehabilitated?”

I knew Joe didn’t like me, knew he thought I should’ve been locked up longer. Knew he knew I was racing, too… I think he was just waiting for me to get busted again, even wanted to be the one to do it.

“Well,” I said, keeping calm, “I’ve been spending most of my time at the garage…”

“Garage?” Joe asked, interrupting me.

“Yeah,” I replied, “You know, working on cars and all…”

“Ah,” he said. “So just dicking around at home, then, huh?”

“No,” I explained, still calm even though I could tell Joe was trying to get me going. “My friend Leon manages a small place. Tommy’s Auto Repair. I help him out there…we’re partners, kind of.”

“Tommy’s…” Joe said, wiping his hand across his forehead. “Oh yeah…isn’t that the place where the owner was sent up for possession of stolen property a few years back?”

“I wouldn’t know anything about that,” I replied, looking straight at Joe.

“Of course not,” he said, and I could tell he didn’t believe me.

“Leon,” Linda said, and I could tell she was trying to distract Joe, trying to get rid of the tension by changing the subject. “That name sounds really familiar…is he from the neighborhood?”

“Or did you meet him in Lompoc?” Joe added, sneering again.

I could feel all my muscles tightening as I started getting angrier and angrier. For almost as long as I’ve known him, Joe has always criticized me, always been on my case, saying I’ll never amount to anything. I think he actually celebrated when I got arrested. When he first met Linda, he was really jealous of all the time she spent with my family, with my dad. I guess he thought they had a little something going on… He didn’t realize that we’d become a little family, that Linda and my dad were like surrogate parents to each other’s children. There was never anything romantic between them…just friendship. The closer Linda got to Joe, the less time she spent with Mia and me, until it was like we barely knew her at all. But Joe still never missed a chance to criticize us, like he was trying to pull her even further away.

I guess Letty and Mia could tell I was about to go off on Joe. Letty reached under the table, started rubbing my leg, trying to work some of the tension out of my body. And Mia jumped into the conversation.

“Leon is Letty’s cousin,” she explained, looking at Linda. “You probably remember him…he hung around with us sometimes, when him and his mom were over visiting…”

“Oh, yes,” Linda answered, looking from Mia over to Letty. “I remember now, of course. Now, Letty, how is school going for you, dear? What year are you in now?”

“Junior,” Letty answered.

“My, how grown up you’re all getting,” Linda said, shaking her head. “Now, are you still at Jefferson? Or did they make you switch schools when you went to live with your aunt?”

“I’m still at Jefferson,” Letty said, looking like she was wondering how the hell Linda knew that she didn’t live with her mom anymore. I wondered too…wondered if Linda knew that, how long would it be before she found out Letty wasn’t really staying with her aunt but had been living with Leon for over a year. And how long after that it would be before a social worker started coming around to check up on her…

“Oh, that’s nice,” Linda replied, looking distracted.

“So,” Joe started up again, like Linda’d never even said anything, “Tell me, how is it that two young guys run a garage all by themselves?”

“C’mon, Joe,” Vince said, “back off. You know Dom’s always been good with cars.”

It was practically the first thing Vince had said since we’d gotten there. We were at his house, at a dinner to celebrate him getting home, and I’d nearly forgotten he was there.

“Was I talking to you?” Joe sneered, pushing his chair back from the table. “And besides, being ‘good’ with cars has nothing to do with it,” he continued after a few seconds, looking over at me. “Any idiot can figure out how to change oil, rotate tires, even put in a new battery… What I want to know is how two young guys, who barely managed to graduate from high school, are running a garage without the place going bankrupt.”

“We do okay,” I answered, not really wanting to get into it. Joe just wouldn’t let it go, though.

“Mind telling me the specifics?” he asked. “Have to say, it seems shady… And I have a responsibility to check things out, you know? Who’s your parole officer, by the way?”