The Cake is a Lie Page 13

  “You got a pipe, Mike?”

  “Choppy does, look at fucking Choppy, straight curbed.” He took out his lighter and threw it into Kace’s lap.

  Kace popped up alertly, “You mo’fucka.”

  “No, you mo’fucka, we need your pipe’ola.”

  Kace picked up the lighter and lit his cigarette, he took a moment and then scanned around until he saw Brandon and me.

  “Is that Ledoux?” Kace got out of the car and grabbing his belt to keep his pants up he hopped over to greet Brandon warmly.

  While they talked Mike started throwing shadow punches at me, stopping just barely before making contact.

  “Damn I’m quick. You can’t stop that.” I stood very still and tried not to encourage him, hoping he’d go away, like how you’re supposed to react to a bear.

  “Fight me,” Mike said.

  I looked Mike right in the eye, “No, I’m not fighting you,” I said irritably like “duh,” hoping a frank response with a hint of sassiness would surprise and fluster him.

  “Fight Kace.” He responded instantly. There was no flustering Mike.

  At the mention of his name Kace looked over like “just give me the chance and I will fucking kill you.”

  “No.”

  “Man you pussy. Fight your homie then.”

  “Brando would woop that ass.” Kace remarked. Brandon didn’t say anything, in front of alphas he was a different person.

  “I’m not fighting anyone.” My cheeks were turning red in the night.

  “Aight, how bout you fight each other or your shit’s my shit homie. That’s wass’up.”

  I felt as helpless as a convict. It wasn’t the threat that upset me the most, it was how cool he was able to say it. I flashed back to the night Mike and Seth made me beer bong a pop and I threw up the rest of the night. And my 16th birthday when Mike and 15 of his homies gave me my birthday “bumps.” My arm was black and blue for a month.

  I thought through a few counter arguments in my head, “I thought we were tight Mike? You’re gonna do me like this?” None of them would work on him, it wasn’t even worth trying.

  I protested by not responding while I slowly turned my back and began walking towards the light of one of the street lamps hanging over the bus turn around. My parents messed up, I thought, I can barely hurt someone’s feelings without getting upset.

  I stoically unzipped my jacket and let it fall to the pavement. Brandon came to meet me. His notorious hyper-competitive switch was fully engaged.

  I can be hard, I don’t give a f. Brandon thinks he’s so tough. I’m going to wail on him, no mercy. It doesn’t matter if he’s bigger than me, I’m going to win through sheer will, fueled by an endless supply of pent up anger.

  I lifted my hands. He came in and we clash in a violent fury. I ducked my head down and threw my hands blindly over my head as fast I could.

  “Look at this foo with his head down, keep yo head up.” I heard Mike shout. “Oh shit he’s wailing on em.”

  The sides of my head went numb. “THWAP THAMP” I lost my breathe so fast, I got so tired. Eventually I’d rather get hit than keep having to hold my hands up. I plopped down onto my rear and covered my head.

  24. The Trip (Summer, 2005)

  The Church’s sanctuary was packed. Sitting behind the alter, I was preparing my psyche for the inevitability that I was about to embarrass myself in front of all these people. Take your time, I reminded myself. Worst case scenario just look down and read the speech word by word. Nervously, I rolled and unrolled the copy of my speech.

  The summer before junior year I’d gone on a humanitarian trip to Mexico. It had been passed time I’d got some real revolutionary street cred to back up all my in-your-face wisecracks about billionaires and sweatshops.

  So it came to be that I’d climbed in a truck bed and bumpily rode twelve hours into the Mexican rainforest to visit a town built out of tied together pieces of wood and straw. I’d seen the small, Indian looking wrinkly people with awful teeth that lived in the dirt. I’d played with their children dressed in torn, dirty Mickey Mouse shirts. I’d slurped up the lumpish acrid soup made from the local river water, and the girl’s sitting next to me, in order to not offend our hosts. It had supposed to be this life altering, consciousness expanding experience, but it wasn’t. I’d spent the majority of my time thinking about how I was going to sneak off to smoke a cigarette and conceal the smell afterwards. Constantly stressed about my acne breaking out. I’d spent the rest of the time fantasizing about the one cute girl in our group.

  I couldn’t speak Spanish, let alone the indigenous language. I’d kept snootily illustrating how clean and amazing Seattle was to the community translators that were our age, not super intentionally, I mean, they’d kept asking. The richest man in the town had owned something that resembled an itty bitty convenience store he ran out of his house. He’d also owned the only T.V. Disillusioned, I’d watched a hundred people pack outside his hut every night to watch Mexican soap operas. The kids had lied flat on the floor, crammed in rows of ten, to watch a light-skinned woman with fake breasts run around holding TWO glistening desert eagles.

  After we’d got home my last obligation to the group was to give a speech to the church’s congregation about my experience. The perfect Lakeside twins had even took the initiative and wrote a huge speech that they divided up for everyone. “The Lakeside twins” were tall, white fro’d twins from our group that went to Lakeside, the country’s best high school. They lived in “The Highlands,” Shoreline’s ultra-wealthy gated community–we’re talking pastoral woods spruced with modern castles.

  I couldn’t talk shit about the twins, they were great guys. Maybe a little snooty to a public school kid, but they couldn’t help it. And I couldn’t help that I wanted to nail the speech and blow them out of the water after all the snobbish condescending looks they’d given me. Them and the rest of the super-wealthy, private school kids that made up our group. I’d even had my mom help me practice for a whole two days. Memorizing the lines, looking smoothly side from to side, pausing in the right places, pacing myself.

  I squeezed the copy of my speech tighter and tighter. A girl, Angela, was up at the podium speaking. She was a teenager affiliated with another project loosely organized through the church. She was reporting back to the parish on their group’s effort to remodel a local homeless shelter, and she was killing it.

  “By expanding the women’s wing we’re going to double the cot capacity by December.” She was fluid, and clear, a great speaker. Her dirty blond hair was tightly pulled back into a cascading ponytail.

  “And we couldn’t have done it without your support,” She finished to a standing ovation. Feet rumbled thunderously in the balcony above me.

  Angela went to an all-girls Catholic school. Her rich parents had managed to preserve her purity. Every time I looked at her it irked me. She thought she was so smart and perfect. What did she know about blowing blunts? I’d aced finals straight toasted black before.

  Angela stepped down from the pew and I reached out to give her a high five as she sat down.

  “You killed it.”

  I could corrupt her, I reassured myself.

  The first Lakeside twin stepped up to the alter to lead our group off. It was show time. His face was colorless. Uh oh, I thought, Mr. Lakeside looks shaky.

  He didn’t make it a sentence before his first slip up, “Each speaker will tell you about a different aspect of our…um, um, uh…journey together.” I cringed and looked away. I felt his embarrassment. It was a train wreck but he bumbled his way to the end. It wasn’t just the pauses and the “ums,” he just sounded terrified. A rush of relief ran over me. I couldn’t look worse than that. He’d done much better at the morning service. I’d been the one to pause and bumble in front of the ten elderly–probably partially deaf–early risers scattered amongst the empty pews.

  The Lakeside twin stepped off the alter with a bummed out look on his face, he smiled di
sappointedly to us and lowered his head in shame.

  His brother stepped up to bat. And he blew it too. At this point my smugness was starting to kick in, I’d been to the twins mansion, I’d seen their castle, literally it looked like a castle. The twins were supposed to be better, they’d been raised to be better. I gave the second twin a mean smirk as he finished.

  It was my turn, I stood up, in my head I was still rehearsing some of my lines. “After all the community’s selfless hospitality, it was a special moment watching Friar Pepe fight back his tears when we gave him the congregation’s donation for their new parish.” Time sped up as I climbed up to the podium, I looked out onto the sea of flowery dresses and sweaters. These people don’t care, I remind myself, they’re just here to support us. I took a deep breath and began.

  “Unfortunately, we couldn’t stay long with Friar Pepe, eating up all of his Tamales,” I paused for the laughter, “But we had one more gift for him before we left...”

  I nailed the start and the momentum carried me into a zone. I scanned the crowd, smoothly speaking from memory. I even got a little cocky with it. I let words linger, drew out pauses more, added extra kindheartedness in my voice. I finished to a standing ovation. Still shaking a little bit I stepped down from the podium with my head held high. The next girl from our group stood up.

  “Great job,” Angela said as I walked past her, the twins sulkily congratulated me too. I felt like I’d just kissed ten girls.

  Afterward my dad kept looking at me speechless, like I had some special secret gift he’d just discovered. It was priceless. I was quickly moving on though. It was already three and I had to get home to get ready before heading to Ian’s. We were rolling that night.

  Through the glass I watched the city pass by in the night. I had the window cracked so I could whif the street vendors, dumpsters and restaurants. “This is it, this is it.” Ian alerted Katie and she swerved her Corolla to the side of the road.

  They both opened their doors in a rush, “You guys coming?”

  “I’m straight.” I didn’t want to leave the safety of the car.

  “I’m good.” Jon was busily texting in the other passenger’s seat.

  A group of rowdy rockers stampeded by my window. Their big JNCO jeans jangled long wallet chains loudly. Down the block, under a doorway arch, there were three teens huddled together that looked like they hadn’t showered in months.

  “Do you know where we are?” I asked John.

  “I can’t believe you don’t know the city man, we’re by Pioneer Square.”

  “The f, how do you know the city so well, Mr. Smarty Pants?”

  He laughed. “Man we used to skate all over Seattle, I’ve been everywhere.” It was believable, I was impressed.

  Katie and Ian jumped back in the car excitedly, “We got one of the last ones.”

  Ian unfolded the orange piece of paper. Printed on it was a rough black and white map with a route highlighted by a blue marker. The “mystery” rave was in a secret location in the woods, and instead of paying entry you bought a map. The unique concept had soared my expectations sky high, but now they were crashing. The “map” looked like it’d been drawn by 7th graders. Ian was a directions know-it-all so he busily went to work.

  “These directions are retarded, no way that’s the fastest way to Issaquah. We should take 405.”

  John was perched over his shoulder. “I don’t know maybe we should take 520.”

  I went back to looking out the window. I didn’t have a clue where we were or where we were going.

  As Katie drove, Ian massaged her thigh with his hand. He was always doing that when she drove, they’d been dating for almost a year now. They were a very PDA couple.

  “I met the perfect girl today,” I announced to everyone.

  “Who?” They all asked.

  “She goes to an all-girls school, she’s the best speaker I’ve ever seen.”

  “I almost went to an all-girls school,” Katie chimed in reflectively. “Be careful, those girls have serious issues.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Because they’re stereotypically treated like girls should be treated and it just makes them even more girly.”

  “It doesn’t matter anyways, I’m never going to see her again.”

  I tried to tell them about my speech, how well I did. They didn’t seem that interested. “And while I’m up at the alter looking at all the people, I’m thinking, I’m gonna be rolling e bombs so hard tonight.” Jon and Ian laughed, they got that. I was just happy to make them laugh.

  “Brinng. Bleep.” Katie’s phone went off.

  “Crap, that’s my mom. I don’t know what to tell her, I can’t say I’m spending the night at Carol’s or Kristine’s because they told their parents they’re spending the night at my house.”

  “Make someone up,” Ian suggested.

  Katie laughed, “Ya but my mom’s going to ask for a house number.” I felt a wave of relief that I didn’t have to stress about my parents tonight. I had a pretty solid alibi, my mom thought I was at Duncan’s.

  Then I got an idea and started pre-laughing, “Give your mom my number, Katie. I’ll change my voicemail.”

  “Name her Jeanie. Little Jeanie James,” Ian added.

  “You guys are crazy. I’m just not gonna answer.”

  Katie’s phone went off again, “Brinng.”

  “No way this is going to work,” Katie predicted before answering. “Hey mom.. Ya, the dance was good.. I’m staying at one of my new girlfriends houses tonight.. Her name’s Jeanie, Jeanie James.”

  Before Katie finished talking I had my voicemail set-up ready to record, along with my deepest possible voice.

  “Hello, you’ve reached the James residence, home to Jerry, Marcia, Jerry Jr. and Jeanie James, leave us a message and we’ll get back to you as soon as we can.” I laughed so hard afterward that I got really pumped up and started hopping up and down ecstatically in the back seat.

  After getting lost in the woods we finally stumbled upon a long train of cars parked to the side of a dirt road. I could hear the looming music in the distance. It was a steep climb for heavy smokers carrying a tent, by the time we got to the clearing at the top of the hill I was coughing and sweating. On one end of the field was a stage and two big projection screens and on the other was a camping area.

  While Ian took charge of setting up the tent I stood around and stared at the bizarre people all around. Carrol, Kristine, and Kim finally arrived as faceless figures in the dusk.

  Everyone gave their money to Ian and Jon for e-bombs, buying drugs from the rave kids was Ian and Jon’s thing. In fact, the only reason any of us had been messing around with ecstasy was because of Ian and John.

  They’d just been sitting together at a park when one of them randomly said to the other, “I want to do ecstasy.” Whoever said it first had balls–ecstasy was taboo at Shorewood. Jonsen, Tim, and Kace; Loren and the juniors; no one was doing e. Well, Janae and the musketeers were, but they spent half their time hanging out with guys who’d already graduated.

  By the time I’d found about Ian and Jon’s secret plan everything was already in the works. They’d already found an e dealer, tried it once, and were doing research to go to their first rave. I’d only had a two day window to get in. Trying new drugs together were important opportunities, next level friends-for-life shit. I’d needed that with Ian and Jon.

  And as for the fact that everyone said ecstasy put permanent holes in your brain? Well, they’d said mushrooms made your brain bleed and I’d done mushies a few times and was fine. Plus, I’d heard that scientifically ecstasy wasn’t actually that bad for you. I’d played it safe anyways, and only did a half a pill my first time.

  “What kind of e-bombs do you want, Marco?” Ian asked me.

  “Blue Dolphin.” It was the only one I could ever remember, there were so many.

  “Just one?”

  “Yessir. Wait, how many are you doing?”

/>   “We’re all doing triple stacks tonight.” Triple stacks were supposed to be as powerful as three pills. Whoa, e-tard alert, I thought.

  “Yaa, I just want one.”

  Ian collected the money and headed off with Jon towards the stage. I couldn’t think of anything good to say to the girls so I decided to follow them after a minute.

  We sifted through the crowd until Ian saw someone he knew.

  “Hey Sky.” Two kids that looked like they were twelve turned and looked at Ian with blank faces. “It’s Ian. We met at Hard Candy last month.”

  “Oh ya, Ian, what’s good?” They clearly didn’t remember who he was.

  “You remember Jon, right? Marco, this is Sky and Seven.”

  The boy, Sky, had blue layered hair with long bangs covering up his left eye. The girl, Seven, had white hair tied in a ponytail to the side and was wearing a big plastic heart necklace.

  “How old are you?” I interjected bluntly.

  “I’m 14, Seven is 13.” Both of their arms were stacked up to their elbows with colorful beads and block letters.

  “We’re looking for some pills,” Ian continued.

  “Rafiki has some triple stacked green apples, we did some earlier, they’re bomb. Rafiki’s hella tall and wearing a big spiked dog collar, you can’t miss him.”

  Some? The word jerked me. “How many pills are you on?” I interjected again.

  “I’m rolling 9, Seven’s on 7.”

  “Holy shit, aren’t you worried about your brain?”

  “Uhh, I dunno.” He was only half paying attention to us, they both seemed to be scanning the crowd, concerned with something more important over our shoulder. Ian and Jon began the search for Rafiki while I headed back to the tent.

  “Oh my god, I just met a 14 year old on 9 e-pills.” I announced running up to our group. “His name was Sky.” The rave names were hilarious. “Straight e-tarded,” I exclaimed.

  The group didn’t acknowledge my joke, everyone was really quite.

  “Marco, look at that guy over there,” Katie whispered in my ear. Behind Carol and Kristine was a man lying on the ground with one hand in the air like he was reaching for the moon. His head was halfway up too and his whole body was locked in a strange, strenuous rigamortis position. Huddled around him was a group of concerned friends and event staff. He didn’t see them though, his eyes were fixed on something off in the sky. Something too close to our direction.