Leverage by Joshua C. Cohen

“Coach Brigs tells me they replay the Knights’ games on the community access channel every Saturday afternoon.” Patti takes a deep drag on her cigarette, squinting one eye as the ember glows hot red. “That coach of yours is a good man,” Patti says, smoke leaking out her nostrils and mouth as she talks. “And so nice, wanting to know how we’re making out.”
    I nod back to her. I like Patti mostly because she’s harmless, far as I can tell. More important, she’s got no angry husband, ex-husband, or boyfriend in the picture. Thin as a soda straw, she’s the first foster guardian who doesn’t make me flinch, even by accident. Lots of times I’ll come home and find her asleep on the couch or smoking in front of the TV with all the lights out and a tumbler of whiskey on her coffee table, only the ice melt left in it. The smell of cigarettes and liquor can remind me of him, though, and make me shiver. At those times I’ll kneel down beside her, take a good look at her face in the glow of the TV, and make sure she hasn’t turned into him.
    Sometimes I might catch Patti sobbing about her ex-husband, Earl, and what a dog he was, how he left her no choice but to foster kids for extra cash and how the kids kept complaining about how they were always hungry and so the state kept taking them away and how I was her last chance. I keep quiet when she’s like that, not minding the sound of her whimpers so long as she doesn’t turn into him, so long as I’m bigger than her. When she gets like that, I stop listening, start thinking about Lamar, about the time he told Crud Bucket to go to hell after the man came into our room drunk for the thousandth night. While Patti cries about Earl, I’ll remember the way Lamar shouted it, like someone punched him in the stomach and he couldn’t hold back the words any longer. Go to hell! Crud Bucket reached for him, then, reached both his neck and his arm in one stumbling motion. There’s sounds that stick with you no matter what: Lamar screaming into his pillow. The soft pop of his collarbone while I scrunched under my blanket across the room. Dark silence broken by whimpers. It comes back real sharp whenever I listen to Patti cry over Earl.
    â€œI’m guh-going to a party tuh-tuh-tonight,” I tell Patti while the movers wrestle the big TV into her living room. “Wuh-wuh-one of the guys is picking me up.”
    â€œThat’s nice, hon. A grown boy like you needs to get out of the house.” She busies herself with the movers, pointing to where they should set down the TV and asking them if they can hook it up to her cable box. I go into the kitchen and open the fridge. Thing’s empty as usual. I grab a jelly container off the top shelf, then pull down some bread and peanut butter from the cupboard and make six PB and Js. I try washing them down with milk, but I make the mistake of drinking directly from the carton. The first curdled chunk hits the back of my throat like cottage cheese and I swallow before I have a choice.
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    Scott Miller rolls up in a muscle-heavy Camaro SS with a bulging engine hood and black racing stripes over golden body paneling. I don’t really want him coming inside and meeting Patti, so I push through the screen door soon as I hear a honking horn followed by the deep rumble of a V-8 with four hundred horses pulling into the driveway.
    â€œYou ain’t going to introduce me?” Scott asks with a smile that hints he might know something about me I don’t really want known.
    â€œNah.”
    â€œSuit yourself, big man.” He backs us out of the driveway, turns the car around, and at the end of the street, at the stop sign, asks, “See any cops?” Without waiting for an answer, he punches the gas. The big V-8 roars and Scott pops the clutch. Tires screeching, back end shuddering sideways, a cloud of oily blue smoke pours up from the pavement