All characters depicted in this story are over the age of 18.
Monday
The walk back home from my high school is 6.36 miles.
That's 10.24 kilometers.
Also known as 11,193 yards.
Sometimes, 33,580 feet.
Or, for those who keep up with their sailing, 5.53 nautical miles.
I know this, because I walk it almost every day, rain, sun, wind, snow. It doesn't matter much to me, because I rarely have another choice, so I walk. I trudge. I meander. I rue the day I was born into too 'good' a school district for the bus service to even be adequate, what with my peers rolling up in their Lexuses (Lexii?), Tahoes, and G-Wagons, but being personally too destitute to afford any sort of personal transportation.
For a hot minute there I had a bike, which was deeply convenient, but my druggy older brother stole it. More fuel for his addiction- not that he would ever admit it to me.
More than simply being a memory of displeasure, I've always considered his theft to be a microcosm for our family, stealing from Peter to pay Paul, a legacy of waste and disappointment which has seemingly followed us for generations.
Genealogically (according to my 8th grade family history project years back), we've always been total wasters. My mom always said we came over on the Mayflower and were immediately relegated to field plowing and latrine digging duty, shit jobs for a shit family. Having such a long and storied (possibly apocryphal) history clearly did us no favors when it came to our familial destiny, or we wouldn't have ended up in a trailer park in suburban Kansas City.
They call me Lucky, but that's more of a cruel joke than anything else. I think it's probably just because I have a knack for being in the wrong place at the wrong time. Just an eighteen year old girl with a nice body, a sharp mind, and the occasional happy accident landing me in all manner of unpleasant places.
Such as the side of the road once again, a sullenly hot April day leaving me dripping with sweat, finding no relief from the occasional puff of a breeze in the humidity of the great plains. I sighed, pausing to drag a hand across my forehead, long brown locks sticking to my sweat. I silently bemoaned my once-pristine makeup, trudging along as the street before me sloped gently downwards.
Lucky, what a joke.
It had been three years and change of taking this route home, and although it had given me calves and thighs of steel, hitting my step goal basically every day, I couldn't pretend I'd miss it when I went to college.
Sometimes, I wished for the kind of popularity I had missed by spending my time studying, grinding, focusing with a level of intensity unheard of in my family lineage.
Even thinking about leaving it all behind though, I felt a twinge of excitement in my stomach. All those efforts, sleepless nights, skipped proms and homecoming dances had allowed my standardized testing scores to secure me the financial aid I needed to be the first of my family to attend college.
I just needed to not fuck it up until graduation (and not mention the stipend hitting my bank account), and I was free.
Of course, I would have to survive the late spring heatwave first.
The road wound its way from the school, under a highway, through a subdivision of real houses (like, not on cinder blocks), then down a dusty, dry hill to the park where I lived, in a double-wide with my Mom, Step-Dad, my three half-siblings, and occasionally my fuck-up older brother, Hunter.
I tried unsuccessfully to shift my backpack to be more comfortable, feeling the dampness of sweat causing my blouse to cling to my figure. Luckily-
HONK!
Like a malicious and silent goose, a car had rolled up a few yards behind me. The driver cackled as I jumped a full foot in the air, startled by the abrupt sounding of the horn.
I glared at him as he rolled closer to me, window open, heedless of the temperature. "¿Qué pasa?" He asked casually, still grinning like an idiot.
He was heavily tattooed, shitty stick-n'-pokes standing out despite his olive skin, prison muscles rippling beneath them, making them seem alive. His chestnut brown hair was short and cropped.
A far-cry from the unkempt, hollow-eyed brother I remembered.
I smacked Hunter's arm as he came within arm's reach, pummeling him mercilessly. "You think that's funny, pendejo!?" He giggled like a loon as he struggled to grab my flailing fists. "You think you can just show up here after nine months? No call? No text?!"
He'd done this before. Eight years my senior, he'd been in and out of school suspension, then juvie, then rehab, then jail, then rehab again, then vanished into the night without so much as a note. He always appeared with the same goofy energy, and disappeared with whatever precious little cash we had laying around.
He finally succeeded in grabbing my wrists. "Peace, peace, vato, you can't choke me out while I'm behind the wheel!"
I finally stopped to look at the car he was driving, an older model Chevy, with all its original hubcaps (that I could see) and a full complement of window glass.
It was sensible, a perfectly ordinary car. But as it was, a broken-down Pontiac up on blocks was much too nice for the likes of Hunter. "Go on then, where did you steal this one from? We're not hiding you from the cops when they come looking!"
My brother rolled his eyes at my suspicion, still holding onto my hands, lest I resume my attack. "No, no, I'm clean-"
I scoffed aloud. He'd said the same things too many times to count. He narrowed his eyes at me, but continued.
"-
Luck
, I'm
clean
. Look!" He widened his eyes at me, allowing me to watch his pupils dilate. "And, I've got a whole-ass job, hence the pussy wagon." He nodded his head around the interior of his car.
I leaned in close, staring intently into his eyes. They were a muddy brown, but lacked any of the sluggishness, or hallmark bloodshot-ness to which I was generally treated.
I shook his hands off and took a step back, a little annoyed. "So what, you take a few months off, and turn back up like you got your shit together? Give me a break, Hunt."
He shrugged. "You don't gotta believe it, Luck, but I can explain better if you want a lift..." He toggled the door locks, and waggled his eyebrows at me.
I bit my lip. I knew he was no good, knew this was some kind of scam. But looking down the dirt road, I also knew I couldn't face two more miles.
"Tik tok chamaca, I've got places to be." He needled me, and I relented, continuing to eye him warily as I circled around to the passenger's seat.
He grinned, and adjusted the seat forward for me as I dropped my bag on the floor mat. "Hey, there ya go Lucky girl, you've got your own private chauffeur!"
I felt the barest smile creeping across my face as I settled back into the seat. I tried to suppress it, but Hunter's jovial attitude was seeping out of him, practically vibrating the driver's seat.
He pointed up at my seatbelt. "Safety first, kid, this ain't no short bus." I clicked it into place as he revved the piddly four-cylinder engine for emphasis, and I made a face of long-suffering annoyance at him to cover my mirth.
He looked a lot better than the last time I'd seen him, certainly less emaciated, with none of the addict pallor his skin normally exhibited. "Where to, Luck? I think I owe you a Dairy Queen and-"
"And a new bike?" I interrupted him again.
He pursed his lips, and I saw annoyance flit across his face. "-And a new bike, when I have a few bucks to spare for a good one." He acquiesced, then looked at me expectantly.
I paused, then nodded my assent to both offers.
He grinned over at me as he spun a u-turn on the back country road. "Hell yeah Sis, let's get our soft-serve on."
Much to my surprise, we made it to the aforementioned ice cream chain a dozen miles away without getting pulled over or crashing into a light pole in an inebriated stupor. Surprise is the wrong word, I was shocked.
Hunter was animated, filling me in on the last nine months of his life. His lows were predictably low, and ironically enough included the highest of highs he'd ever felt.
As many addicts do, he wasn't able to make it last, and ended up broke, suffering withdrawals, and utterly at the end of his rope.
I snorted with disbelief when he told me he'd joined a twelve-step program (I doubted Hunter had attended church in the last decade). But regardless of how he did it, he nevertheless managed to go the whole ice cream social without asking me for money or nodding off into a narcotic stupor. I was proud of him despite my continued hesitancy.
"So what's your post-grad plan?" He asked between bites.
I hesitated, uncertain despite his apparent newfound wellbeing. I considered a lie, considered saying something about a job, or community college, but instead decided on the truth.
He's been honest with me so far...
I thought.
I explained my plan to get out of the double wide: my test scores, financial aid, and the acceptance letter from Mizzou burning a figurative hole in my backpack.
To my surprise, he was enthusiastic and excited for me. A far-cry from the Hunter I was expecting.
We spent almost two hours catching up, joking and laughing together. I didn't mind my half-siblings, but they were too young to really
get it.
Hunter knew how it was to live with our mom, and remembered our shared absentee father a lot better than I did.
It was nice to have him back.
We'd had our ups and downs, but as I sat in the grimy ice cream establishment devouring my cone, I felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
Hunter gave me a lift back towards home, covering in minutes a distance that would've taken me over an hour at my fastest walking speed. Despite myself, I was jealous.
We came to a rolling stop at the stop sign directly outside of the trailer park, the setting sun catching cottonwood fuzz drifting down as my fellow double-wide denizens went about their evening chores between the rows and rows of poverty housing. "So Luck..." Hunter started, then paused, as if uncertain.
I waited expectantly, but he seemed stuck. "So, Hunter?" I prodded, raising an eyebrow and gesturing towards our ancestral mansion. "You gonna come in and see Mom at least?" I asked expectantly, my expectations falling every second we idled without turning in.
Hunter held up a hand in mollification. "I'm on sort of a 'make amends' kick right now, but I don't really have the-" He swallowed. "-The cash to make amends to Mom and Greg right now."
I rolled my eyes, of course he'd stolen from them, typical fuck-up behavior. "Yeah? Take them out to DQ, I'm sure it'll be water under the bridge." I grinned over at him, gallows humor and all that.
He did not smile in response.
