American Outlaw Read online

  “That your pops, James?”

  I frowned. “Yeah, that’s him.”

  “I thought you and him didn’t talk anymore.”

  “We don’t.”

  “So why’s he here?”

  “Beats me,” I muttered. “Maybe the man just loves a good game of football.”

  I didn’t know what my dad wanted me to think. Was it a white flag, his fucked-up way of saying sorry, since he sure wouldn’t say it out loud to me? It wasn’t really his style to be remorseful, though, not even in silence. After a while, I kind of figured he was sending a different kind of message: by sitting there, he was telling my coaches and my community that he had some part in my success. That I never could have gotten this way all by myself.

  “What’s wrong, Jesse?” Linda asked me one night, when we were eating dinner together.

  “Nothing,” I said. I never wanted to unload myself onto Linda. I felt guilty enough just sleeping under her roof and eating her food.

  “Uh-huh,” she said slowly, looking at me unbelievingly. She was a smart lady, way too smart to fall for my act.

  “It’s nothing,” I said. I nodded at her and Rhonda. “Promise.”

  “You know,” said Linda, in the tone of someone who knows she’s got your number, but is too kind to put it in a mean way, “I happened to see your dad up in the stands the other night.”

  “Well, yeah,” I said, after a while. “He comes to the games nowadays.”

  “Does he ever try to talk to you? Talk about what happened?”

  I shook my head. “No. We haven’t discussed it.”

  Linda was silent. She looked across the table at her own daughter.

  “Did your folks move to another house?” Linda asked.

  “They didn’t have to,” I said. “The insurance paid for them to fix it up. There’s a new roof on the house. They still live there.”

  Linda looked at me real straight for a second. “Jesse, I want you to listen to me.”

  I looked at her.

  “Your dad doesn’t know what he’s missing.”

  I just looked at my plate and shrugged.

  “You hear me, son?” Linda snapped. “Do you even get what I’m trying to say?”

  I looked at her. I had never seen her worked up like that.

  She shook her head, then closed her eyes, massaging her forehead. “You are always welcome in this house, Jesse. Please, please know that.”

  Gradually my dad started driving by Rhonda’s house after work. It would always be in the early evenings—he’d cruise by real slow in his work truck loaded high with tons of junk. I figured he was showing me how much work he had to do without me.

  When both of us had watched him come by for the third time in as many days, Rhonda asked me, “What are you going to do, Jesse?”

  I shrugged. “Nothing, I guess.”

  Seeing him ate me up inside. Was he really in trouble? If I turned my back on my own dad, then I wasn’t much better than he was. But I just couldn’t tell him I was sorry. I needed to hear it from him first. He had started it. He chose to believe that I could have burned down his home on purpose.

  So I didn’t contact him, and I didn’t show my face at the swap meets. My weekends were free to work a real job, the one that Linda had gotten me, delivering furniture from a store in town. I became a dedicated worker ant for them, happily getting lost in the physical labor of it—the driving, the lifting, the sweating. The money wasn’t too hot, but secretly it felt kind of gratifying to be earning some legit cash for once.

  I was at the store one Saturday afternoon when my boss told me that Linda herself had bought something.

  “It’s that big armoire in the back, kid. Can you get this one yourself, or you need some help on it?”

  I eyed the armoire she had purchased. It didn’t appear to be too unmanageable. “No problem. I can take this one myself. Be back in an hour.”

  “Don’t get lost over there, kid!” my boss called after me. “I know your girlfriend lives there!”

  Happily, I drove the big furniture truck to Linda and Rhonda’s house. It was my house, too, now. It felt good to realize that.

  I parked the truck in their driveway and unloaded the armoire from the back of the truck. Though it was big, it was a light piece, and I carried it easily to their front door, where I set it down. I had my own key, so I unlocked the front door and stepped inside.

  “Jesse!” Rhonda yelped.

  She was tangled up on the couch, her shirt halfway off, and there was another guy there with her.

  “What . . . what are you doing here?” she asked.

  My mouth hung open and I pointed dumbly to the armoire that was still in her driveway. I was too stunned to even comment on the scene I saw before me. “Your mom . . . bought something.”

  As I stood there, staring soundlessly, I recognized the kid on the couch with her. He was a quarterback on an opposing high school’s team. John something-or-other, from Ramona High. I guess I’m supposed to kill this kid, I thought.

  But there was no power in my arms or legs. John gave me a so what? look, a tough guy thing, I guess. But I didn’t move an inch toward him. I wasn’t feeling rage or vengeance. I just stared sadly at my girlfriend for a second, who was tucking her shirt back into her pants. Smoothing her hair.

  “Jesse . . .” she started, with a pained look, but I cut her off and walked out of her house. I left the armoire standing there in the driveway.

  I got back in the truck and started up the engine. For a second, I just sat there, letting the truck idle. Then, slowly, I reversed out of their driveway, and made my way back to the office. There was hardly any traffic on the street; I made every single light.

  “That was quick,” my boss remarked. “No lunchtime nookie, huh?”

  “No,” I shook my head dully, “not for me.”

  ——

  That evening, I walked over to my dad’s house. I hadn’t been back in almost a year. I stood outside in the street for a while, scrutinizing it carefully.

  The house looked surprisingly good. It had a new paint job and a new garage had been tacked on to it. The roof was brand new, covered in red asphalt shingles. From the outside, it almost looked as if nothing was wrong at all.

  I stood there in the dark for a long time, shifting from foot to foot. Once in a while, a car would drive by and its headlights would illuminate me. Then they’d be gone.

  I screwed up all the courage I had and walked up to the door and rang the bell.

  Footsteps came. Nina opened up the door. She surveyed me warily. “What do you want?”

  I cleared my throat. “I want to talk to my dad.”

  She shrugged at me. “What if he don’t want to talk to you?”

  “Just get him,” I told her.

  She scowled, then disappeared. After a while, I heard the heavy footsteps that I knew to be my father’s. He appeared in the doorway and loomed down at me. He wasn’t smiling. But then, he didn’t look mad, either. He just kind of stared at me in the face, as if curious to see me standing there, this person who happened to be his son.

  “Yeah?”

  “I . . .” I felt at a loss for words. “I don’t have anywhere to sleep tonight.”

  He nodded, considering. “You want to come on in?”

  “You got room for me?” I mumbled.

  My dad remained silent for a second, then he spoke. “Why not?”

  I stood there on the front mat, my arms folded in front of me. Neither of us looked at each other.

  “Well, come on in, already,” he said.

  Essentially, I struck a deal with my dad. He and I rarely talked to each other, and we never discussed our fight. But I started getting up early and helping him out. As long as I pulled my weight, helping him load up that truck, he was okay with me staying there.

  School was uncomfortable. I’d see Rhonda in the hallways, and now we’d just look through each other. She’d been my roommate, my love. Now we were just str
angers again. She never really tried to explain herself to me, and I was grateful for that. I missed her in a huge way, and I missed her mom, too. But it felt like a chapter had ended, so I let it close.

  I had to quit over at the furniture store. The place held bad associations for me, but I would have had to quit regardless. My dad needed me all day on weekends. Hello, swap meet city. Felt like I’d never left.

  “What’s up, Jess, how you been?” Joey called to me. “Christ, you’re a monster!”

  “Heard you been killin’ ’em, Jess!” Ricky yelled. “Hey, big favor, you big fucker, move this crate of Slim Jims for me, would you? I got an interested buyer!”

  Soon after I started living with my dad again, football season tapered off. I got several awards, and we made it to the third round of the playoffs before being eliminated. I was all-conference in defense, and the coaches gave me this little plaque at our banquet. We were just a great team.

  But my punk sensibilities dictated that when I was off the field, I was really off the field. Within a week of our season’s end, I was just a shithead again. It was like I’d executed this really abrupt about-face: I had been disciplined for such a long period, kind of like a teenaged warrior. Now it was time for me to let off some steam.

  The first thing I needed to do, I decided, was get back at the kid from Ramona High School who Rhonda had cheated on me with: John.

  “Whatcha gonna do, James?” asked Bobby. He rubbed his hands together evilly. I knew he was itching to spill some blood.

  “None of that, man,” I said, smiling. “I’m going to try a more peaceful route.”

  That Friday evening, Bobby and I boosted a car, and we drove around until we found the Ramona party we were looking for. There were all kinds of Beemers and Jags and XKEs outside; Ramona was a much nicer high school than ours. It was where the rich kids went. As I slipped into the living room and made anonymous, Bobby went on a reconnaissance mission to find John. He located him in the kitchen, and immediately latched on.

  “Lord almighty, did we fucking spank you guys this year!” Bobby sighed, snagging a Coors Light breezily from the twelve-pack that John was carrying. He cracked it open and began pouring it down his fat face.

  “Hey, what’s the idea, pal?”

  “Suck it, chump,” Bobby said, staring him down. “Ain’t that right, John? Didn’t we crush you? Didn’t you guys bow down to the sanctity of our scrotal sacks?”

  “Shit,” John growled. “The game was close. Next year, we’ll be right up there with you. Our offensive line has some incoming beasts.”

  They talked pigskin, but meanwhile, in the living room, I was inching up closer to John’s girlfriend, Patty, a super-hot chick who was so cute that kids from other high schools all around Riverside knew who she was. She was a stunner, all right: a dark-haired girl with eyes that said she was smarter than your average cheerleader and an ass that told you she was going to be one, anyway.

  “Hi,” I said to her. I nodded. “Nice party.”

  She grinned at me. “Who are you?”

  “Oh, I’m Jesse James,” I said. “I’m a good friend of your boyfriend’s.”

  “A good friend, huh?” She smiled at me mischievously. She was sipping some light-colored booze from a plastic wineglass. “How come I never heard of you before, then?”

  “Well, listen, I’ll tell you a secret,” I said, putting my head down close to hers. “We aren’t really friends,” I whispered. “It’s more like, we share similar interests.”

  “Interests?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “Of course, it’s highly confidential stuff.”

  “I want to know,” she begged, laughing. “Please?”

  “Well, okay, since you asked so nicely,” I said, shifting my body even closer to hers. “Me and John, we’re both very interested in beautiful girls. That’s our thing.”

  “Beautiful girls, huh?” said Patty, laughing. “I guess that’s a good enough way to spend your time.”

  “The best,” I said, bullshitting freely. I guess I had a little swap meet in me after all. Gently, I put my hand on the small of her back and tried to guide her over to a more private spot.

  “What’s going on here?” she asked, still in her bemused tone.

  “I’d like to speak with you about something in private,” I said. I guided her to the small bedroom where everybody had been tossing their coats.

  Patty looked at me with a spark in her deep brown eyes. “I’ll give you sixty seconds, Mr. James.” She handed me her drink as we stepped into the room. “Hold this for me?”

  “My pleasure,” I said, closing the door behind us.

  We necked passionately, laughing, rolling around on the bed of coats beneath us.

  “Hey,” said Patty, after a couple of minutes. “I better get back out there before my boyfriend misses me.”

  “Wait,” I said. “Give me your phone number.”

  “Who do you think you are?” Patty asked, smiling.

  I shrugged, and after a moment, Patty found a pen. Shaking her head, she proceeded to scribble out her digits on a ripped piece of paper, then handed it to me.

  ——

  Gradually, I started stealing again. I shifted over to the Bobby school of theft, which is to say, based less on deception and more around the fact that I figured no one would fuck with a beast like me. The way I saw it, I was huge and mean-looking, so why not capitalize? Food was by far my favorite thing to pilfer. I was always hungry. I would go into supermarkets and just pick up an apple, a banana, and a cake and walk out, eating them. No one ever said boo.

  One day, during lunch period, I found myself in the Circle K. It was only a couple of blocks away from school. Often I’d go there during a free period to leaf through the bike magazines or the new Penthouse. On this particular afternoon, I felt hungry, so without even thinking about it, I reached out and jammed a Butterfinger in my pants. I didn’t even consider what I was doing. I just kept reading the magazine casually.

  “Hold it right there,” came a voice from behind me. “You’re stealing!”

  A big, bald guy grabbed my shoulder. He was wearing the orange uniform of the K, and he was glowering at me.

  “What are you talking about?”

  “This,” he roared, and triumphantly he seized the Butterfinger out of my right front pocket. “I’m calling the cops, fucko.”

  “Hell you are,” I said. “I was going to pay for that. You just didn’t give me enough time.”

  “Come on, you’re coming with me.” He took my collar roughly and tugged at me.

  “Dude,” I said. “It’s a fucking candy bar, man.”

  He only yanked harder. He tugged at my collar with as much power as he had in his big arms. “Let’s go, now.”

  Without even thinking about it, I decked him in the face. He dropped like a load of scrap, directly to the floor, screaming in agony. “Here’s your Butterfinger,” I said casually, as I threw the candy bar and it bounced off his head. “See ya later.”

  Moronically, I thought that was it: I figured, hey, situation taken care of. Apparently, I was very wrong. Half an hour later, in my algebra class, cops came and knocked on the door. They held a quick conference with my teacher, pointed at me, and hitched up their police belts.

  “Mr. James? We’d like you to come with us.”

  I was hauled into juvenile custody. The Circle K guy had easily figured out who I was—that was the downside of being one of the biggest kids at the school, I guess. He wanted me charged with assault, which is what happened. I got the kids’ version of aggravated assault, and they threatened to send me to the California Youth Authority for a thirty-day period.

  “So why don’t you?” I asked, pissed.

  “We know you’ve done well for yourself in football. We think you can help this community. So we’re going to give you probation instead.”

  I was introduced to my probation officer then, a fairly attractive older woman who wore a gold crucifix around her neck.<
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  “I’m Ms. Torres, Jesse,” she said sternly. “I’d like you to explain to me what happened.”

  “Sure,” I said. “A guy grabbed me. So I hit the fucker in his face.”

  “He grabbed you without provocation?” Torres said dubiously, glancing down at her paperwork.

  “Yes,” I insisted. “In fact, I’d like to request that he be charged for assault. Can we do that here?”

  “The gentleman in question says that you were shoplifting from him, Jesse,” she remarked.

  “Sure,” I said. “Stands to reason he’d say that. It shifts the blame from the real guilty party: him.”

  Ms. Torres folded her arms and stared at me. “Why don’t I believe you, Jesse?”

  “I can’t control what you believe, Ms. Torres. I can only speak the truth.” I nodded toward her crucifix. “We’ll have to leave it to the big guy upstairs to decide, right?”

  Torres frowned. “Jesus has more pressing matters to attend to, Mr. James, than your tall tales. For now,” she said, “you are under my supervision. Is that understood? Keep out of trouble. No more altercations.”

  Whatever. I figured it was all bullshit. It was more fun being a knucklehead. Bobby and I roamed around, sizing up burger stands and electronics stores, fantasizing that we were going to knock off another one when the mood seized us.

  “Wouldn’t you love to get a taste of that, James?” Bobby said, leering at a Burger King shutting down for the night.

  “You bet,” I agreed. “A nice big score, set us straight for the rest of the year.”

  We had plenty of company in asshole-dom. Teenaged Riverside thieves gathered around Bobby like he was king shitpile. There was one kid who fairly idolized him. He was an auto thief who collected Clubs—as in “The Club”—just to be a massive dick about it. The crowning achievement of his life was the double closet in his bedroom that, no bullshit, contained a six-foot-high mountain of Clubs.

  He was so proud of that mountain. He’d slim jim his way into a car, take a pair of bolt cutters, and snip through the steering wheel, which is just wire underneath the padding, and slide the Club off. Sure, the steering would go all wobbly after he did that, but hey, that wasn’t his problem, right? He wasn’t going to be driving that car for very long, anyway.