Saturday, July 7, 2012: Tilles Court, Denton, New Jersey
The door slammed, and a second later a man's voice echoed through the building, loud, harsh, simple: "Fuck."Carlos Venegas never took his eyes from the screen. The television was old and obsolete, a thick CRT TV perched on his dresser. It was big enough that it was easy to make out what was going on, but small enough that Halo, played on the Xbox his grandmother had scored at Goodwill for thirty bucks (the price sticker was still on the side) still looked alright. Grunts screamed and were thrown around by fire from a plasma rifle, disgorging puffs of teal blood. Meanwhile, the bottom half of the screen was occupied by somebody scrambling for cover and then sitting still.
"I've gotta pee," Alton said, setting down his controller and pulling himself up from his cross-legged perch on Carlos' bed. "Be right back."
"Okay." Carlos' eyes stayed fixed. The lower Master Chief stayed stationary behind a large rock, while the upper charged heedlessly forward, scattering the Covenant forces. The screaming from the television stole coherence from the tense, now-muted voices down the hall, but it could not mask their presence.
Alton's socked feet hit the floor between the piles of dirty laundry and the scattered school papers. The room was dim, stuffy. Carlos preferred to keep the blinds closed. The boy's fingernails were long, and sometimes they'd click against the hard plastic of the controller as he pushed a button with particular vigor. Carlos had his Xbox, and he had quite a few games for it, so he was Alton's friend. There were other points of compatibility too; Carlos was really good at math, never got less than an A on an exam, but also hated school and wouldn't do his homework if he didn't feel like it. Still, the main thing was the Xbox. Alton had been over a lot already during summer vacation, and Carlos seemed to appreciate having an audience and a partner. Alton was okay at Halo, and he held his own while always making sure to ultimately lose when they battled in multiplayer, but Carlos lived and breathed the game. Sometimes, though, every so often, something would come up that was more interesting than video games.
Step by quiet step, Alton made his way down the hall. The carpet was ratty and stained, but it masked his footfalls, and Alton didn't make very much noise anyways. When his Mom came home from work, she was almost always tired, and if he was roaming about after she fell asleep it was best for both of them that he not wake her. The bathrooms were at the far end of the hall, close to Carlos' room, but that wasn't where Alton was going. He headed, instead, towards the front of the apartment, the combination living-and-dining-room where the family ate and sat together.
Carlos' parents were there. His mother sat at the table with a newspaper and a glass of water in front of her, and his father paced back and forth in front of the front door, body language tense.Something was wrong, really wrong. Alton knew how to read people. He'd learned that early on, and had honed it in his passage through sixth grade. There'd been a couple eighth graders who loved giving the smaller kids grief, and Alton had become a master of walking a fine line, avoiding them when they looking for trouble but hanging around when things were good.
Dan and Tyler were their names. Dan was almost six feet tall, somewhere between fat and obese but with a powerful build underlying it. He had a round face and tight orange curls of hair, and he loved football; he hated that he wasn't allowed to hit people half as hard as he could and he was always talking about how he was getting scouted by high schools. He said that Franklyn Senior School wanted him, that P.J. Gilroy had offered him a scholarship to save their squishy, math-doing asses. Alton thought he was lying but didn't vocalize it; he did, however, sometimes give Dan cookies from his lunch unprompted.
Tyler was old enough to have been in high school, but he wasn't because he sucked at cheating. He was squirrelly, wore do-rags all the time, and smoked scrounged and stolen cigarette butts. A few weeks before the end of the term, he'd invited Carlos to smoke one in the same way he might've suggested Carlos take a nice refreshing drink from the urinal, but Carlos had puffed it like a champ and Tyler had been impressed. Carlos had later admitted to Alton that he'd sort of liked the burning in his lungs, had said maybe he'd try it again. Alton hadn't said much about that.
The thing was, Alton had conditioned Dan and Tyler to think of him positively. He'd been a part of the backdrop to their good times without becoming complicit in their misdeeds, and he'd been clever and memorable without being threatening. They'd even liked him enough to actually call off one of their goons, a real dick of a guy, when he tried to shove Alton around. They were volatile, dangerous, but not so bright, and thus with careful handling they had been turned into assets, an extra layer of contingency and protection. He'd almost miss them come autumn, assuming they'd managed to graduate.
Seeing an adult, especially one Alton knew loosely, pacing the room like Tyler when he hadn't been able to snatch anything from his father's ashtray, that was disturbing. It was also kind of exciting. Alton's mother was, for all her inattentiveness and moodiness, generally stable. Alton knew what he'd get from her. Carlos' parents weren't like that. Sometimes they were kind, warm, welcoming Alton with a hug and pouring him a glass of flat Sprite. Other times Carlos' mother wouldn't even look up as Alton entered their home, just stare at the wall. Once Carlos' father had slammed the door to his son's room open so hard there was still a hole in the wall from the knob's impact, then blinked with confusion as the fury contorting his face drained away, and quietly told Alton that he hadn't known that he was over, and also that it was time to go home. They'd been willing to pick Carlos and Alton up for most of the school year, but Alton hadn't seen their car in a couple months now. Carlos didn't acknowledge any of this much. He told Alton that his father said the car was still in the shop.
"How much?" Carlos' mother's voice was at about the level it might be in a normal conversation, but it sounded like at any moment she might scream or laugh or cry.
"You don't understand." Carlos' father reached the end of his circuit and spun, and Alton backed up a step, fully into the hall so the wall hid him from view. "It was sure. Sure. That bastard was a monster."
"How much?"
"The odds were, they were good. Great. It's, you know, when there's so many, there's a hundred and fifty. The odds are good even on the ones who aren't long-shots. I wasn't the only one to pick him."
"How much?"
"Enough, okay?" Carlos' father's voice justified its threat, exploding into a roar. "Enough that we're fucked." His tone immediately dropped again, drained of its anger and its life. Alton leaned forward, straining to hear the near-whisper. "Does it matter if it's five hundred bucks? Three thousand? We can't spare it."
Silence reigned. Alton took deep breaths, listened for footsteps. The floor where Carlos' parents were was wood. If they started coming this way, Alton would have to make his way down the hall, say he was coming from the bathroom. Would they realize they hadn't heard the toilet flush? He doubted it, but maybe he should say he was going to the bathroom instead.
Finally, Carlos' mother spoke again.
"Why?"
A sigh.
"It's..." There was a creak of wood, as Carlos' father sat at one of the chairs by the table. Alton's posture relaxed a little, his shoulders loosening. "We had a chance. If we'd won, things could've been different."
"How can you say that?" The anger in the woman's voice sounded affected and forced to Alton. "Those are, were, they were people. Kids. Would you, would you ruin our lives over a dog fight?"
"It's different."
"It's not different at all."
"It is different." Carlos' father spoke with enough finality that it seemed no further debate could exist. Alton leaned out slightly, and saw the man sitting opposite his wife, head in his hands, staring at the table.
"You know," he said, speaking slowly, "my brother, that's how he made it."
"What?"
The man chuckled.
"Tommy, six years ago he was a sub. Went to all the schools, saw all the kids. When it, when it happened, he made a bet. He said, 'That bald motherfucker, you seen him in the halls at Bathurst, you just know he's a tough customer.' He said it just like that. I told him he was crazy. But he... he put his money on it, and that's why he could move. He knew. It was like insider trading or some shit."
Carlos' father breathed out long and slow. Then, so quickly even Alton didn't see it coming, he sprang to his feat, snatched the glass of water from in front of his wife, and hurled it against the wall behind her.
"Fuck," he screamed. "Fuck that Sawyer kid."
Carlos' mother didn't react except to blanche, but Alton did, immediately ducking back out of sight.
"He just had to," Carlos' father continued, "just had to keep going. He could've done that. He could, I was... I thought he was like me. If that was me, I'd just kill all those—"
"Shh." Now, Carlos' mother sounded tense, scared, but motherly. The change in her tone hit Alton hard. She sounded like his own mother sometimes did.
"It happened," she said. "You made a... mistake. You made a mistake and now... now we have to deal with it. So tell me. How much?"
Carlos' father devolved into sobs, and after a little while Alton realized nothing much was going to change.
"I beat the level," Carlos said.
"Sorry," Alton replied, hopping back onto the bed. The mattress was old and too soft, but Alton was prepared for this and kept his balance. He arranged his limbs into a position much like what he'd occupied before his departure.
"We're gonna fight the Flood now."
"I had a stomachache," Alton said.
"They come in big waves. We've done this one before, but we're on Legendary now, so most of them will have guns."
"Right," Alton said, picking his controller back up. Carlos had made it a good way into the next level without him, he could see. "Sweet."
Carlos nodded.
"Just try not to die."