Now that Rat’s noticed, I feel self-conscious and wish I could duck further under my hat.
“What does it matter?” Henry interrupts. He waits a beat for Rat to say something. The other two guys stiffen in the booth.
Rat just sniffs and clears his throat. “We gonna go outside and talk business?”
“Can I finish my fuckin’ burger?” Henry asks. It’s not a real question because his eyes have gone hard again. Rat shuts up.
I tap my foot, my leg bouncing under the table.
“You gotta take a piss, or what?” Jonny asks. He makes a face at the other guys when Henry’s not looking. He doesn’t want me here. I can feel it.
My cheeks burn and I hold my leg still. “You sure he’s cool?” Wheels asks. His voice is sandpaper on my ears.
Henry presses his lips tight. “Ask him yourself.”
Wheels looks at me like I’m a joke. “Are you?”
I nod. “Your mama thinks so.” It’s a lame joke, but their shoulders shake with laughter anyway.
Henry swallows his bite and takes a loud sip of his drink. He looks at each guy at the table and their faces get serious, ready to hear what he has to say. “You guys are my brothers. You’re loyal. You could have ditched out, found another crew to run with when I went inside, but you didn’t. You stuck it out, waiting for me. I’m back now. It’s time for the Red Bloodz to make our mark. I got plans.” My brother pauses.
We all lean toward him, listening hard. “We gotta get the chop shop running again.” All three of them nod, so I do, too.
“And for that, we need cars.”
Rat gives me an oily grin.
“And new recruits.” Henry looks at me, his eyes steely. I start blinking and can’t stop.
“Who are you hanging with?” he asks. “Besides the Polish kid?”
No one, I think. It’s always been just us since the first day of kindergarten. He’s not the friend people expect me to have, but that’s their problem, not mine. “What’s wrong with Jakub?”
“He’s Polish,” Henry says and wipes the inside of the ketchup container with his french fry. “You know, I never met a single Polish guy in jail. Not one. You know why?”
I shrug.
“Too busy working.”
I keep quiet. I’ll tell him another time about Koob’s dad. How he looks out for me. How he let me stay with them when the pipes froze last winter. No water and four of us in the house. It stunk so bad my eyes still water when I think about it.
“We need guys like us. Wagon burners!” He says it loud to piss off the people around us. They look, like he wants them too. Henry raises his eyebrows at me and grins.
“I’ll put the word out,” I say, but it’s a lie. I don’t have other friends.
“Told you,” he says to the other guys. “He’s gonna work out.”
My stomach is heavy with fast food. I’m squished in the middle again, now in the back seat of Wheels’s car, breathing in Jonny’s and Rat’s fat, salty burps. Wheels drives down a street that looks like any other in the West End. Houses all built close together, their stucco cracking and roofs sagging. Lots of “Beware of Dog” signs and a few boarded-up windows. There’s lawn chairs on front porches, maybe a case of empties. Barefoot kids with sticky faces run up and down the sidewalk.
The house we go to has people hanging out on the front porch. When the car stops and we get out, a whoop goes up. Henry gets hugs and back slaps from the guys. A few girls are hanging out in skimpy tank tops. One girl comes up and gives Henry a kiss. “Missed you, baby,” she says.
“Welcome home,” a guy says to Henry.
“Butch!” Henry yells. He’s almost as big as my brother, with a long ponytail and the same Red Bloodz dagger tattoo on his neck. He holds his arms out. Everyone goes quiet when the two of them hug.
The guy gives me a chin nod. “Who’s that?” Most of his teeth are missing. He runs his tongue over the ones he has, like he’s counting what’s left.
“Lincoln. My brother,” Henry tells him. The way he says it stops any more questions.
“Come on. We can talk inside.” Rat, Wheels, and Jonny go with them, on some silent signal.
I’m left on the porch. I don’t even have pockets to stash my hands, so I stand there, cracking my knuckles because I don’t know what else to do.
“It’ll give you arthritis,” some girl says. I didn’t notice her before. She’s rocking in a chair with ripped-up red material. The arms are shredded and the foam inside is popping out.
I know it’s not true, but I stop anyway. No one else is paying me any attention.
She slouches in the chair. Her shirt’s rolled up, or maybe it’s just short. Her middle shows, a diamond piercing twinkling in her belly button. Her skin is the colour of coffee with lots of cream in it, but still darker than mine.
“I’m Roxy,” she says. One side of her hair is cut real short, and the other side is long and dyed purple. When she rocks, it falls over her face, hiding her eye.
“Link,” I say.
“What happened to your face?”
I lean against a post holding up the porch roof. “Got burned when I was a kid,” I tell her, my voice low and quiet.
She shows me her arm. A long stretch of twisting, raised skin stretches from her wrist to her elbow. “Tripped into a firepit when I was eight.”
“Shit,” I whisper. She holds up her arm like it’s something to be proud of. At least you can cover it up, I think. But I also think maybe she’s the kind of person who doesn’t want to cover it up.
Henry pokes his head outside. A cigarette is dangling from his mouth. “You good?” he asks. His eyes move between me and Roxy. One corner of his mouth lifts in a smirk.
I nod.
“You want a beer?”
Beer sounds good. Everyone else has one in their hands. “You want one?” I ask Roxy. She doesn’t say anything, but gets up and follows me inside.
The screen door slams behind us. Henry and the guy with the ponytail sit at the kitchen table. Wheels, Rat, and Jonny stand around them. They all look at me when we walk in.
I slouch against the counter, trying to disappear. Roxy pulls two beers out of a cooler and passes one to me. The can is cold. My fingers leave prints on the frosty metal.
She nods with her head for me to follow her. Henry grabs my arm and pulls me down so my ear is next to his lips. “You gonna tap that?” he asks. The other guys hear and laugh, and I know Roxy heard, too. My cheeks burn, even the already burnt one, and I shake my arm out of his grip.
“Screw off, ” I grunt, but that makes them laugh louder.
I have to follow Roxy, even with all of them watching us. We go down a hallway and into the living room. Red Bloodz tags cover the walls.
It hits me that I’m at the Red Bloodz clubhouse. I get jittery thinking about how I’m drinking their beer, how I’m kind of one of them right