Axle snorts. “Do you need them?”
Probably, but I only lift my fingers as a response.
“How about you don’t screw up again.”
“Got it.” At least I hope I do.
“What’s up, Axle. Drix.” A friend of mine from when I used to play gigs at local clubs offers Axle his hand and me a nod. The two of them exchange how are you’s and fine’s. I alternate between watching the flames of the fire licking up and glancing at them as they talk.
My older brother is now my court-appointed guardian. I did too many stupid things while living with Mom, and Dad’s not reliable. Axle is nine years older than me, has a decent job and inherited all the recessive responsible genes neither Mom nor Dad possessed.
Axle and I favor Dad. Dirty blond hair, dark eyes and we both used to be hard-core metal boys. I guess we still are when it comes to music, but not so much with style anymore. He has the tats up and down his arms, and earrings in his ears. Earrings and tats were never my thing, and I used to wear my hair to my shoulders where Axle has always kept his shaved close to the scalp.
First thing that happened when I entered juvenile detention was a shaved head. While mine’s not shaved anymore, it is cut close on the sides, has some length on top and naturally sticks up like I styled it on purpose. As Holiday told me when I walked in, I got the good boy cut with the bad boy stride.
Our friend leaves with a fist bump to Axle and a pat on the back to me. Way to go, bro. You survived time on the inside and then time on the outside in a forest.
“It’s weird not hearing you jump into a conversation,” Axle says.
It’s weird not being in the thick of things. Not being the one telling the story, sharing the joke, or the one in the crowd laughing the loudest. I used to be the guy who drank to get drunk, threw a punch, then threw too many punches, and then dealt with the guilt in the morning.
Thanks to one year of group therapy, I’m different now. Seven months of that therapy was while I was living behind bars, then the other three months of therapy was in the wilderness. Three months of hiking, three months of paddling along forgotten rivers, three months of climbing up and down mountains, three months of being too damned exhausted to remember who I had been before they handed me a backpack that weighed fifty pounds and too damned exhausted to even contemplate if that was a bad or good thing.
As much as I hated parts of who I had become after I went to live with Mom at fifteen, there were parts of me I liked. Don’t mind so much losing the bad, but there’s an uncomfortable shifting inside me at the thought that I also lost the good.
“How does this play out?” Axle asks. “How do I make this better for you? Easier?”
Axle isn’t talking about the party; he’s talking about living here with him and Holiday. He’s talking about how I readjust to parts of my old life and adjust into the new life the plea bargain has created. He’s talking about the thing we never mention aloud after the night I was arrested.
That we both think someone we know and love is the one who really committed the crime.
We both think it was Holiday working with Dominic or Dominic on his own, but neither of them could have survived being behind bars. I’m tough. I could handle the fallout, and all that mattered to me was that my family believed I was innocent. They did, but the police didn’t, and they had a crap load of evidence that pointed in my direction. This is where Axle would say he’s thankful for plea bargains.
“It’ll be good to have you playing again,” Axle continues, desperate to find the easier. “No one can play the drums like you.”
The drums. For months, I’ve dreamed about playing the drums. Being away from my family and the drums was the equivalent of someone chopping off my arms. Part of the reason I didn’t want this party was because I wanted to come home, go straight to the garage, sit in silence on my stool behind my set, then play. Feel the beat in my blood, the rhythm in my heart, the music filling an empty soul. Just me, my drums and the comfort in knowing that at least one good thing about me didn’t change.
But the thought of playing the drums also causes my stomach to dip. If I play again, do I become the same asshole that I was before?
“When is the press conference?” I ask.
Part of my penance, part of the deal, is that the state needed ten troubled teens, and out of those ten, they needed a poster child to prove to the public their hard-earned tax dollars were going to stop the school-to-prison pipeline. In other words, the voters need proof that this program could prevent teens, who don’t do well in school and get expelled, from wandering in and out of juvenile detention, and after eighteen, beelining it straight to prison.
Last year, Axle had lost his mind when the DA had mentioned if I didn’t accept the deal and plead guilty they would charge me as an adult. My brother then begged me to agree to anything they were offering, including them owning me for my senior year of high school. Appearing whenever they want, saying whatever they want, all while I keep my nose clean. Can’t say terror didn’t seize me at the thought of being charged as an adult. I might be strong, but real prison has never been on my bucket list.
Axle pops his knuckles, and my stomach sinks. I’m not going to like his answer.
“The press conference is tomorrow.”
Bullet to the head. “Where?”
“May Fest in Louisville. I guess they already had a general press conference planned, and when they found out you’d be out in time...” He trails off.
Makes sense to go from one prison sentence to another.
“It won’t be bad. They said they’ll have what you need to say written out. Ten minutes. Twenty, tops. I thought we’d all go together. Spend some time on the midway, bring a change of clothes for you, get it done and then we’ll head home.”
All in a neat package, to be done and repeated until I graduate from high school. That’s the deal, and it’s the deal I’ll see through. The only reason Axle agreed to take on custody of Holiday, getting her out of her crap situation, was because I agreed to come home and help him take on the burden. Financially, emotionally and whatever the hell else it requires to be a parent, since our biological parents can’t find their way out of a wet paper bag.
“Guess I should get a good night’s sleep, then,” I say.
“You probably should.”
But neither of us move. Instead we keep staring at my fire. Both amazed I created this. Both scared of what the future is going to bring.
Fair midways are my happy place. Rides with merry, shrieking people are to my right, and to my left are the bells and lights of games.
Dad and Mom brought me to May Fest so I could be present for Dad’s press conference, and they allowed me a few hours this afternoon to explore. I should be in my zone, filled with so much joy I could combust, but I’m not. There are two guys who have been stalking me for the past five minutes, and they’re ruining my mood.
My cell buzzes in my hand, and I step away from the crowd and between two game booths to read the text. I’m hoping if I appear interested in my phone, the two boys will keep walking—away from me. I’m also expecting a text from my cousin Henry. He’s twenty-four to my seventeen, in the army and should be home any day now. It’s been too long since he’s been in Kentucky, and I miss my best friend and older “brother.”
To my complete happiness, it is Henry: I’ll be in state tonight. Can you drive down to Grandma’s tomorrow?
I sigh because I’d rather he put aside his differences with Dad and come home to stay