Lukey Kid

The next day was a Saturday. A day off. While the others were sitting at the hotel, however, I decided to pay them back and go grocery shopping. And after combing the local supermarket, I went back to our hotel to find that nobody was there.

As I was putting groceries away I caught sight of a few notes on the refrigerator:

Dear Luke
Went out for a walk; probably be back late
Ren&Soria

And one below that said:

YO LUKE
WE WENT…UM…OUT
HEHEHEHEHE
WE’LL BE BACK
JOEY AND BRENDAN

I read over them each a few times, then shrugged, went “What the heck” and ended up enjoying those hours to myself. From five to really late in the night I just sat on the bed watching TV and crappy free movies from the hotel cable service – they were mostly animated movies, for some strange reason – and munching on a frozen pizza I’d bought all for myself. Man, it tasted like cardboard, but it was some darn good cardboard.

Well anyways, I was chillin’ on the bed, getting tired, when I happened to catch a glance of the time from the alarm clock sitting on the bedstand next to me. 10:43. Gosh. Nobody was lying when they said they’d be back late.

More time seemed to fly by. I got a little worried – and lonely – and picked up my cell phone, dialing Brendan’s number. After a few rings he picked up and told me, “Whattaya want man?”
“Dude, where are you?”

He burped. “Uh…out,” he slurred.

“Out where? Dude, it’s like eleven at night.”

Out of nowhere I heard a distant Joey yell, “THE NIGHT IS STILL YOUNG!”

I rolled my eyes. “Seriously. Where are you?”

“Chill out,” he said, “we’re…we’re…”

I waited for a second, but he didn’t say anything. I think I heard him ask Joey where they were.

He laughed. “We’re in Crazyland, dude.”

I sighed, almost calling him an idiot. “When d’you think you guys’ll be back?”

“Fuck, I dunno. Don’t ask me, man.”

“It’s getting really late,” I warned him.

Brendan snorted. “Why do you care? It’s just us, brah.”

“Did…did you just call me ‘brah?’”

“Yeah, brah. Now…now listen: I gotta…go,” he burped. “There’s a…there’s a cat in a tree nearby, and, uh…I gotta go…save it.”

Then he hung up on me.

“Hello? Hello? Dude, Brendan, don’t hang up…” I said hopelessly, not believing that he just actually cut me off. Really. Who does that? What did I do to him besides care about where he was?

I breathed out a sigh of exhaustion before dialing Ren’s number, hoping he’d be a little more coherent and a little less rude about things. “Hello?” he spoke.

“Yeah, Ren, hey,” I said.

“What’s up?”

“Just, you know, checking where you guys’re at.”

He laughed a little. “Are you lonely?”

“What? No. No,” I coughed. “Nah.”

“We’re at the ice cream shop down from the hotel. We’ll be heading back after we’re done here, so don’t freak out,” he added. I could tell he was smiling.

“Alright,” I said.

“Bye,” he bid farewell.

So I put my phone back on the stand next to me and stared at the TV some more, numbing my mind while at the same time getting really nervous about where the others were. Eventually my sleepiness overpowered my senses as my eyelids dragged down over my eyes, the sounds of the TV blurring together. I couldn’t keep myself from slipping under into slumber.

All of a sudden the door pounded open and in stumbled the Veins brothers, Joey and Brendan tripping over their own feet through the entrance. I jumped awake and squinted at them, trying to wake up but failing. Yawning, I sat up at the edge of the bed and watched as they completely ignored my existence, going into the kitchen, laughing, snorting, stumbling.

Finally Brendan flopped onto the bed I sat on in one valiant leap, landing flat on his face, evidently not caring about his position; his pants were so low I saw his boxers.

Joey was in a class all his own. He was slurring and tripping and burping and doing all kinds of inebriated crap. These dudes could not be sober.

“Where were you guys?” I asked.

Neither of them answered for a minute. Then, Brendan growled and yawned at the same time, making a drunk attempt to grab my thigh. I held his hand away, asking them again.

“Oh, hey Luke,” Joey coughed. “How ya doin’.”

I glared at him.

“Dude, he asked where we…um…were,” Brendan reiterated.

“Oh! That. Uh…uh…we were…um…places,” Joey snickered.

His little brother buried his face in the pillow next to me, burping one long burp that I sure as heck wouldn’t want absorbed in something I was supposed to rest my head on all night long.

“Dude, seriously.”

“Ah, chill! We weren’t nowhere bad,” Joey assured, tripping his way back to the back room of the hotel to do something I wasn’t really interested in knowing. I heard the door close behind him and anxiously awaited something else to happen, but the only sound in the hotel was the TV that was still on, showing “A Bug’s Life.”

Brendan wasn’t moving. I tried shaking him but he wouldn’t budge. All he did was lie face-down on the bed, but he was still breathing, thank God. After a while he finally moaned and shuffled, lying on his side. “Wha,” he mumbled, his eyes closed.

“You okay? You look kinda…sick,” I told him.

He sighed, closing his eyes again. “I’m…I’m not. Okay? I’m not.”

His face was crimson. “You sure?” I added.

“Yeah. I’m fine, man,” he reassured.

I stared at him for a second, then sat back on the bed and continued watching the movie. I could have sworn Brendan fell asleep, but after a few minutes I felt my hand get taken up by two warmer hands and a rush of hot air over my index finger.

I looked over and Brendan had my finger up to his face, playing with it like it was some kind of new toy to a little kid. I had laughed a little, watching him get so fascinated over it, but the second he started kissing the bottom of it, that’s when I got a little agitated.

I froze completely. “Dude.”

He stared up at me, his lips planted on the side of my finger. “Hm.” A thin lining of red was in his eyes.

“…What’re you doing?”

He smiled a little bit, his cheeks flushed. As soon as his lips touched the tip of my finger, I flinched and went totally speechless. Okay. This kid was drunk. “Nothin’,” he assured.

And the second my finger went into his mouth, I yanked it away and leapt off the bed, staring at him like he’d just murdered someone. I thought he was insane. God, I thought I was going insane for a minute and hallucinated about the whole thing. But when I saw my index finger actually gleaming with Brendan spit, oh man. Was nothing sacred?

“Aw man, you’re such a buzzkill,” he slurred, propping his head up on his hand. “You never have any fun.”

“Dude…you just…you just stuck your finger in my mouth! What is wrong with you?!” I yelled, feeling my own face heat up.

Brendan was smirking that evil little smirk he always had whenever something was up. “Dude…dude…you’re such a buzzkill,” he repeated like a broken record.

I raced into the kitchen and submerged my hands in hot water, caking them both in soap, scrubbing furiously to get every single speck of Brendan germs off of me. Who knows what was in his mouth that night? God, not me. And I did not want to know.

Brendan was in stitches on the bed, laughing so hard he turned even redder than me. I dried my hands and glared at him, still freaked out about what he just tried to do to me.

“Oh my God. You actually thought I was gonna suck you off,” Brendan snorted, rubbing his face. “Dude…no. I wouldn’t do that no matter how fucked up I was.”

I still shot him a crappy look.

“You’re such a fucking prude. God,” he continued.

I folded my arms across my chest, unable to think of a comeback.

“I mean, really. All I did was, ya know, ya know…try and push your buttons,” he giggled. “You’re so easy to piss off ‘bout that kinda shit.”

“Yeah, well, don’t ever do it again,” I growled.

He waved his hand. “Nah, I won’t,” Brendan said, then added in a lower voice, “unless you want me to, baby. I could pleasure you in ways you’d never imagine.”

On the way to Joey’s room, I poked him in the kidneys. Hard. He recoiled and called me a jack-butt.

Now it was time to talk to Joey. Man, I…if I find out that he did what I think he did to Brendan, man…I’d turn into…a very angry person.

I knocked on his door. No answer. I did it again.

“What?”

“It’s Luke. Open the door.”

I heard him groan, probably getting up off the bed. The door unlocked and he opened up, still wearing tight jeans, a button-up shirt that had mysteriously become unbuttoned, and aviator shades somewhere within the mop of wiry black hair on his head. He looked like a flippin’ mess.

“What do you want?” he said. The one eye that wasn’t covered by his hair was bloodshot – even worse than Brendan’s. He itched his nose.

“I wanna know what you two were doing tonight,” I told him.

He made no effort in trying to hide his eye-roll at me. “Why do you wanna know.”

“Because.”

“Because why?”

I shook my head and glanced at the ground. “I don’t know, okay? Brendan just tried to eat my finger. What’d you give to him?”

Joey laughed airily and leaned on his hip. “Crazy bastard.”

“What?”

“I just called Brendan a crazy bastard. You wanna yell at me for that one too?” he sneered, itching his nose again.

“No,” I said, calmly as I could, “I just wanna know what you did tonight that made him so loopy.”

He shrugged, turning around and venturing back farther into the room. I came in too, since he didn’t close the door on me. “I’m not gonna say what we did.”

“Why not?”

He stared at me blankly, putting his hands on his hips. What the poop – was that a tattoo on his hip? Never mind. “’Cause you’ll freak out and yell at me and I really do not need that right now.”

“What makes you think I’ll do that?” I asked him, puzzled.

He held his palms out as if to say that I was being oblivious. “Look at you! You’re perfect!”

I folded my arms, almost breaking out in laughter ‘cause it was so ridiculous. “And what does that mean?”

He muttered some word fragments and shook his head, unable to make a complete thought. Then, he rubbed his eyes, his back turned on me, then faced me, saying, “I dunno why but you seem like you got this ‘Holier than thou’ shit goin’ on. I feel like if I say what we did you’ll put me down ‘cause of it.”

I couldn’t think of anything else to say. Who did this kid think he was? Why did he think I stood up for him when he got us almost arrested last March and made an effort to be his friend? I stayed up at night texting him when he needed somebody to talk to. I spent more time in his room than my own room last year, helping him out. Whenever I heard Brendan talking down about Joey, I would stick up for him. I couldn’t tell if he was making dumb excuses on purpose or if he genuinely forgot, but either way, it kinda hurt a tender spot.

“You sound like an idiot,” I finally said, honestly not really believing that he meant what he said.

“See? There you go.”

“I didn’t say anything!”

“You just called me an idiot, fucktard!”

I pinched the bridge of my nose. “And you calling me a…that word is any better.”

Joey was silent. He almost looked guilty.

“I guess not,” he mumbled. Then he looked me square in the eye and told me, “But I never said I was innocent.”

I shrugged. “I never said I was, either.”

He snickered. “Sh’yeah.”

“Sh’yeah? Care to clarify?”

He cocked his brow. “Dude, you were a football star in junior high, you’re on the fucking honor roll. Can’t tell me you don’t think high of yourself.”

“I don’t,” I choked out, getting a little bit mad. “I’m not perfect.”

“Really.”

I nodded.

He cocked his head. “Lift up your shirt.”

“What?”

“You heard me.”

“I’m not lifting my shirt up,” I muttered.

“I just gotta see something!” he urged.

“Okay, seriously, do you like boys?!”

He sighed. “Fine. Don’t do it.”

I smirked, because he didn’t answer my question.

You know, since he said he liked boys at church last year, he hadn’t really elaborated on that either…and that’s not really a question that you directly ask, unless you want to make that person uncomfortable, which I certainly didn’t…

Joey sat down on his bed and sighed heavily like he knew he was about to die in five minutes. “Look, if I tell you what we did, you gotta swear to not freak out.”

“Depends on what you guys did,” I said.

He gulped. “Well…we, uh…well, I took him out to Dapplebee’s, and…okay, look, I got a fake ID. And…I got a little drunk when we were there, and…we left, and uh…”

He stopped.

“Then what?” I urged.

Joey buried his head in his hands. “Look. I didn’t…I have a little stash of…you know, weed. Still.”

A rock dropped into my stomach. “You gave him pot?”

“Nah! Nah! I din’ do that.”

“Then what -”

“I started smoking. And…then…we went to a bar…”

“Oh my God, Joey.”

He glared up at me, clenching his teeth. “Shut up. You said you wouldn’t freak out.”

“I said it depended on what you guys did.”

He paused, then went on. “I got ‘im drunk, man. That’s all I did. Fuck, I was fucked up, I’m still high and a little drunk. All I did was get him drunk, Luke, man,” he continued, shaking his head.

I looked him in his bloodshot eyes. Now they were watering.

“You’re barely seventeen. He’s not even fifteen.”

He rubbed his face, sniffling.

“How could you do that to your little brother? God. Dude, I thought you were over that stuff,” I spat, getting angrier at him. “You’re supposed to be the respon -”

“Shut up!”

Joey stood up, tears streaming down his face, fists clenched at his sides. He looked like he could kill me with the strike of a hand. With flushed cheeks he pushed me backward and I stumbled some, but then caught my balance.

“I’m only human!” he yelled again, a line of drool running down his chin.

I didn’t say a word; I was too scared. I was taller than him, yeah, and I was more built than he was, but he had more of a drive to fight than I did. And I didn’t wanna add to that.

“Joey…chill,” I said instead, motioning for him to calm down.

He sobbed, sitting back down on the bed in defeat, muttering curse words and other obscenities I don’t have the guts to write. I swallowed a lump of fear and sat down next to him, but kept my distance.

“Get the fuck away from me,” he growled, shoving my shoulder. “I knew you’d freak out. Get out.”

“No!” I said, shooting him a dirty look. I don’t know why I wanted to stay with such a time bomb, but I did. Why did I do these things?

Joey cried into his hands and I was unsure of what to do. What I wanted to do was comfort him, yet at the same time I didn’t want a fist up my nose. I scooted closer, gauging his reaction to our arms touching. He didn’t look up. Honestly, I didn’t feel completely comfortable hugging him, but I got over my dumb awkwardness to try to make him feel better.

He sobbed. “Get out.”

“No.”

I put an arm around his shoulder, careful not to touch any exposed skin. It was weird, to say the least.

He leaned his head on my shoulder, burying it in my neck. I almost felt bad for getting mad at him. Almost. Almost.

“Sorry, man,” he whimpered. “I’m not perfect.”

“Hey man, neither am I,” I sighed.

“I told you I’m bipolar, right?” he slurred.

I nodded.