Upstander by James Preller (free ereaders .TXT) 📕

“The one I bought for you, yes, that guitar.”

Jonny gestured with his hands. “So that’s how it is now? You go into my room, search through my things? Do I have to buy a lock?”

“I wasn’t searching,” Mrs. O’Malley clarified. “And it may be your guitar, but it’s my house. My rules.”

Mary shrank into her chair. She watched Ernesto take an unhappy swig from his beer. She wondered if it helped. If maybe beer had a magical quality that pushed everything off into the distance. Ernesto’s gaze went to the ceiling. There was a frown on his lips. No wonder he didn’t come around as much lately.

“This is bull,” Jonny protested. “You gave the guitar to me. After that, it becomes mine. Why is that so hard to understand? And guess what? I lent it to a friend, okay? I wasn’t playing it anyway. I’m kind of sick of it. The best musicians make music on laptops anyway.”

“You lent it,” Mrs. O’Malley said, obviously not believing him.

“Yeah, yeah, I did.”

“To whom?”

“Oh, whom?” Jonny smirked. “Whom? Since when do you talk so fancy, Mom?”

“Jonny,” Mary said, hoping to alter the path of their argument.

“Don’t, just don’t,” he advised Mary, raising a hand like a school crossing guard. “I’m not in the mood for a gang-up. And especially not from my little sister. Stay out of it. I’ve got stomach cramps, my head hurts, the house is freezing, and now I have to listen to this.” He looked to the front door like it was an escape hatch, ran both hands through his hair and snapped, “Can I have the car or what?”

“Honey,” Ernesto murmured. “I don’t think—”

“Oh, you’re going to talk now?” Jonny said, turning to Ernesto. “I mean, wow, you’re wearing a clean shirt today. You got your free meal. You can go now,” Jonny mocked. “Besides, since when did anyone ever care what you thought?”

Jonny moved toward Ernesto, glaring.

Ernesto stared up at Jonny for a long, tense moment, his thick fingers lightly tapping the table. Otherwise the man sat perfectly still, like a Buddha or a coiled cobra. The threat of violence filled the room. Jonny was asking for it, almost begging for it, as if he desperately wanted to get the crap beaten out of him. The whisper of a smile appeared on Ernesto’s face.

“That’s enough!” Mrs. O’Malley demanded. She stepped between them and turned to stand toe-to-toe with her son. “You will not speak like that in his house. You will not treat Ernesto with disrespect. Do you hear me? This can’t continue.” She pointed to the front door. “We can’t do this, Jonny. You’ve got to get help.”

Mary sat quietly, her stomach churning. She felt lightheaded. It was hard to focus on anything. The room was spinning, swirling. She found it hard to swallow. How does that even happen? People swallow all the time without thinking about it. The body just does it. And now, suddenly, trying to swallow with total zen concentration was more than Mary could manage.

Jonny backed down, seemed to sag, looked at his feet. “Mom,” he said in a whisper. “Don’t.”

“I think you sold it,” she said. “That beautiful guitar. You loved it so much. This isn’t like you. I’m worried, Jonny, and scared.”

“Sold it?” Jonny replied. “Are you nuts? That’s crazy. Why would I do that, Mom?”

“Money,” Mrs. O’Malley said. She stared into the eyes of her troubled son. And then, in the softest voice she could muster: “For drugs. I believe you sold your guitar so you’d have money for drugs.”

Jonny laughed, shaking his head derisively. He began to speak in a jittery, rapid-fire pattern of half sentences, forming a nearly incoherent symphony of anger and delusion. It struck Mary that he had snapped in some fundamental way. Broken was the word that popped into her head. His brain was broken. “Drugs, seriously? Okay, yeah, sure, I do need money—you don’t help me at all!—I went through a rough patch with college, you know that, it was hard on me—I was depressed—and yeah, I didn’t tell you, but I got fired from my job last week—it was soul-sucking, mind-numbing, and spirit-killing anyway—so don’t even start with that—I don’t have a father, by the way—that might have been nice—but even if I did sell the guitar, Mom, it’s not a big deal. It’s just a thing. An object. It doesn’t matter. Why is everything about money with you? None of this matters,” he swept an arm, taking in everything and everyone with one grand gesture. “Believe me, Mom. Where’s your faith? It’s not the end of the world. It was just a freaking guitar.”

Mary poured water down her throat and it felt like drowning. She was all stopped up. It was hard to breathe. “I’m going out,” she announced, rising. No one tried to stop her from fleeing. No one even asked where she was going. She wasn’t even a blip on the radar.

10[walking]

He wasn’t always this way.

Step by step, block by block, Mary repeated those words to herself: He wasn’t always this way. Forcing herself to remember. She didn’t think about ghosts or anything silly like that. This time it cut to the bone. Her big brother, who she adored since she was a baby, was turning into something horrible and ugly before her eyes.

Why couldn’t he stop? It was drugs and prescription pills and alcohol. Mary didn’t know what else he was doing, but she suspected it was bad. And getting worse. He didn’t make sense anymore. His guitar! He talked gibberish, the story kept changing: He didn’t sell it, he lent it to a friend, he might have sold it, nothing mattered anymore, and on and on. Jonny couldn’t keep up with his own lies.

And since when did he become so mean?

How did Ernesto not crush him right then?

Mary walked without purpose or direction. Motored, really. Head down, tears in her eyes, fuming, muttering. She tried to remember the good times. Her real