Page 5 of Stone’s Cage

I have to join the Hooks, but there's no way I'm going to follow him back to his ratty apartment. Too dangerous and my father is not some Liam Neeson wannabe. He and my mom are professors at Tufts University in Boston. I do think it's interesting this guy said I could follow him from behind, as far back as I wanted to.

But I'm not biting.

There's a scream from the street, cars honk and at least four people start a shouting match punctuated by shattered bottles splintering everywhere.

What am I doing in an alley with his guy and a tiny kitten? What am I hoping to accomplish? Why did I drop out of college?

I've got to get a grip. For sanity's sake. I've got to put one foot in front of the other and figure this thing out. My breath comes shaky and I can feel a tear starting in my left eye, but I wipe it quickly. Sniffling and crying is not going to bring Sammy back. I have to do this on my own.

I have to make my own way. I need to be initiated into the very thing my parents can't bear to think about.

I look Stone over again as he's explaining how I'm going to do this thing I'm not going to do. His eyes are drilling into mine and there's so much concern in his face I have to turn away. His face is gorgeous. Even a small half-moon scar under his eye is sexy. As he pets Tig I watch the muscles of his forearms move and then his bicep and then a ripple in his pec. I hold my breath and try to ground myself in a little reality: this guy's the enemy. The blue hook is the evidence. So, when he turns left, I wait five minutes and then go right. But I'll be back tomorrow night.

I need a plan. Plus, I can’t abandon Tig.

Chapter Four

Stone

Working at a fucking carwash is like something out of an old Jim Croce song. And the fact I know this is because Coach plays Croce, Holly Near, Bob Dillon, Eric Clapton, Coltrane and B.B. King. He gets tired of rap and at night, when its just the two of us, he puts on his old stuff.

At least Moby's Car Detailing is not a junk yard and I'm not a LeRoy Brown. I am well aware my life would be a hell of a lot harder if it was. None of the shitty kids who work here know who Jim Croce was, and I don't care. There are rap geniuses out there though, and I keep trying to get Coach to pay attention to Quavo, Kendrik Lamar, and Lauryn Hill to show him there's other rhymes than bitch and rich.

But I kinda love my shitty kids, Donal, Dafoe, and Dunnie, and so we blast rap while we wipe down cars or go in for detailing, and the faster the rap, the faster we work. We get paid under the table, per car. Croce's "Car Wash Blues," is really Car Wash Bliss. This job pays my electric bill and half my rent. And these kids think I'm the old man. "Old Rocky," they call me and laugh their heads off. They are so young and so lanky I'm sure I weigh more than the three of them combined.

The good news is I'm off at three. I slip on my running shoes, and sprint home, dodging cars, trucks, people with shopping cart filled with their belongings, and only slow down a mile from the apartment.

Tig greets me, crying and rubbing his tiny face against my sweatpants the moment I step inside. I wolf the leftover chicken, sweet potato, and rice. Then I read. I don’t broadcast this, but it's the way out of my shit hole, and I read anything that's not self-help. I can’t stand that shit. I read about Lawrence of Arabia, Nelson Mandela, how there's fossil clues of fish in all of us, about each part of E=mc2, and I just finished The Handmaid's Tale which weirdly details a shit storm in action right now if you ask me.

And then I go hit the gym around six. All I ever do is eat carbs and protein. I make oatmeal and freeze it in ice cube trays and the rest of the day is veggies and chicken, with some fruit thrown in. It's not a particularly perfect diet but it's cheap. It's a better way to spend my dollar than on chips and coke.

Today, I have to stop off to send that bank check. I take that roll of money out of my pocket and keep five hundred for myself. I stop at the bank where the cute little girl with the overbite and thin hands prints out a check for fifteen hundred dollars. My next stop is two blocks over. The near-mute post office guy, who never makes eye contact and always acts like a robot, is used to my routine. He never looks at me. I think some men are intimidated by me, just because of how I'm built.

As usual, he snatches up the envelope, raises it to the light, turns it over, hold it up to the light a second time, and then tosses it in the bin after I've paid for my stamp.

Like I'm sending a line of coke.

If only he could have seen me in third grade: a little white boy in a school uniform with a backpack full of heroin and crack, tripping up the stairs to a dealer's house twice a week and coming out five minutes later with eighty bucks in my hand.

That's how I got started. That's how I joined the Hooks at thirteen. I'd been working for them for four years before I was officially indoctrinated

I don't remember picking up that die, looking at Shreves, and rolling a five. But I did because that's how long I had to last. That was my penance for anyone who OD'd because of me—the gore of those five minutes. Believe me, you have no idea how long five minutes is when a sweaty bunch of gang members get to beat the shit out of you. Five minutes of hell coughed up by any and all gang members who wanted a piece of me.

It nearly killed me. I was pissing blood for two weeks and Coach had to take me to the hospital twice.

I started sneaking into his gym when I was ten. After a while, he just let me come and Hobie's Gym became my only real home. Foster homes changed, parents changed, but the gym and Coach became an anchor. Coach has always believed in me and I am clueless as to why.

He's the reason I was able to leave the Hooks two years ago.

But it's always there. The threat of getting pulled back in.

People say you can't leave a gang, but you can. You just have to have the right collateral.

Watching Mr. Post Ass walk off with my prepaid envelope, I turn and leave, making a quick duck down the alley, heading toward the only place that has ever offered me peace: Hobie's.

Chapter Five

Lily