Blood Relations

Blood Relations by Chris Lynch Page A

Book: Blood Relations by Chris Lynch Read Free Book Online
Authors: Chris Lynch
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again.
    “You look good,” he said, pointing at the hat, or maybe at my face. I reached up to rub my hot-then-cold temple, and the skin felt like the skin on old pudding left in the back of the refrigerator.
    “I do?” I asked.
    “You do. Cambio está bueno ,” he said as he went in. “I’ll catch you later.”
    Ruben was still next to me. “What did he say?” I asked him.
    “He said you was a asshole.”
    “Thanks,” I said.
    “Hey, you know, you done all right,” Ruben said. “Smokin’ on that big ol’ Cubano. You didn’t fall down or nothin’, so that was pretty good.”
    “Thanks again,” I said. “Listening to you is gonna give me a big head, the way you throw around compliments.”
    “Serious, Mark—”
    “Mick.”
    “Serious, that was a little kindova test, and you passed it all right. You might not turn out ta be such a stupid shit as you seem.”
    I didn’t suppose it was going to get any better than this, so I made my little pitch.
    “Listen, Ruben, man, I know we didn’t always get along too good, but I think we should put all that stuff in the past. All right with you?”
    “All right with me. Long’s you don’t turn out ta be no fool. You got a rep, man. As a big-time fool.”
    “Ya, well, that rep’s wrong.”
    “No it ain’t. I seen you be a fool. I seen you on TV. And if there’s anybody stupider than a ordinary fool, it’s somebody who be’s a fool on the TV.”
    The goddamn sonofabitch TV thing. Did I think that it went away? Did I think people forgot? Did I think that somehow, the day Baba cleaned my clock that he somehow cleaned everybody’s, wiping out all the time that came before then? Yes. I did think that. But every time I heard it mentioned again, I wished Baba or somebody could please come and hit me in the head again, and again, and again, so I wouldn’t have to hear it even once more.
    “Okay, man, the rep wasn’t wrong, exactly, but it’s out of date. I’m not that. Not now.”
    The bell screeched, calling us inside.
    “Okay,” Ruben said, shrugging, walking in.
    That was easy, I thought. So I swung for the fences. “You know, I’m kind of seeing your sister, so we might be seeing—”
    “ My sister?” he asked, appearing shocked.
    “Ya, Evelyn. So—”
    “I ain’t got no sister Evelyn. I got a sister Juana.”
    “Juana?”
    “And listen, if you gonna wear the hat, you gotta button your shirt.” He stepped up and buttoned my shirt tight at the neck. Then he yanked the shirttail out of my pants. I looked like I was in the band Los Lobos. “Gotta let it hang , baby,” he said, stepping back to admire me. “Pants are too tight, and the shoes are all wrong, but you’s movin’ the right way.”
    “Okay, but about me and your sister—”
    “Forget it. My sista’s too ol’ for you. She don’t live around here anyway. Find somebody your own... style.”
    “I don’t want...” I said, but he ducked into a classroom as the bell rang. He had me confused, thinking more about Evelyn, wanting to talk to her. But I started toward class, and as I felt myself move, felt the collar grabbing at my neck, the hat sitting up there, the shirt hangin’ , I lightened up. I swung when I walked. I felt a little different. Which is to say I felt good.
    Sully stared me naked as I walked down to the seat right in front of him. “What the hell happened to you?”
    “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said, turning my back to him.
    “Yes you do,” he said. “You’re all greased up. Like the spaniels. You a spaniel now, Mick?”
    I turned around in my seat. “Y’know, Sul, you’re a real ignoramus when you want to be.”
    “Hey, I may be an ignoramus, but at least I ain’t no pretend spaniel just to get a little face off some chick.”
    Even as he said it he looked like he was afraid, and he should have been. But he looked more angry, at me, for whatever.
    “Hey, Sul, remember when we were ten and you whipped that kid with the car

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