See You Tomorrow by Tore Renberg Page B

and running, but we don’t degenerate into a gang of junkies. But what do you go and do, Tong? You hit a party in Orre after the job, you stuff your nut full of speed, and God knows what else, and you know how horny that coke makes you, and then you’re pulled in for intercourse with a minor.A month later you’re in the dock, faced with two fuming parents and a sobbing girl, all pointing the finger at you, and you claim you had no idea that she was only fourteen.
    Jan Inge has said it a million times: listen to me, you horny Korean, the coke has gobbled at your brain, and I know what I’m talking about – my mum drank five bottles of spirits a week and she went as mad as a March hare and as empty as a drum upstairs, and she was a terror and nobody, neither man nor beast, misses that old bitch. Well, all right, Chessi … poor bag of bones … maybe she … no, Chessi remembers shag all. She was only little when Mum died. She can’t go around missing someone she practically never set eyes on.
    But me, I remember that sicko, and I’ve nothing good to say about her, no wonder Dad took off when he got that job in Houston.
    Jan Inge has spent a good deal of time thinking about it. Thinking about what exactly was wrong with her.
    And he has arrived at the conclusion that she lacked something.
    That she quite simply didn’t have it in her to love people.
    And that’s why Jan Inge has drawn his own conclusions about what is important. To find your own people. To find your own family. To hang on to them. To love them long and love them right. No matter if they make a major blunder that lands them back inside Åna, and no matter if they take 120 kilos on board.
    Dad heading to Houston was of little consequence. At least he always sent money, give him his due. Sent money right up until Chessi turned eighteen. And Christmas cards. Or that time in 1985, Jan Inge thought his heart was going to burst out of his chest: a package arrived from Dad in the USA, a package in the post. A SodaStream!
    And a huge box with a BETAMAX VCR and a pile of videos.
    Love from Dad.
    He still has the SodaStream. It’s down in the basement somewhere.
    Doesn’t work any more. But it worked back then. Every kid in Hillevåg was at the front door slavering after home-made fizzy drinks. They could pick and choose who to let in. Those were the days. Won’t ever throw it out, that SodaStream is a trophy.They were over in Houston a few times, him and Chessi, travelled halfway round the globe on their own; she was so small the first time he had to hold her by the hand for hours. Jan Inge can still remember how clammy their hands got, but forget about trying to let go, then she just wailed as though the plane was going to crash.
No, Janinge.
Those were some trips. Just him and Chessi. Just him and her up in the clouds.
Are we flying now, Janinge?
Yeah.
Are we flying into the sun, Janinge?
It’s a great country, the US, free and easy; Dad took them to burger joints, let them do their own thing, watch films and that, while he was at work. As for going back to Norway; that was never going to happen. He was clear about that, they could come and live in the USA, but he was never going back home to Norway.
    And he never did come home.
    Jan Inge puts the inhaler back into his pocket. He nods to himself. Looks at the wheelchair. It’s been sitting there for years. It was Rudi who got hold of it when Chessi broke her foot. Typical Rudi. He’d bend over backwards for her.
    People like that, thinks Jan Inge, you hold on to people like that.
    Bit foggy, the job they were on at the minute. As long as Chessi manages to keep calm. She has to stay in the car. He can’t have her getting under Rudi’s feet while he’s working. She’s too volatile. It’s from Mum, thinks Jan Inge, bad genes. She’s ill-tempered and difficult, you’d be hard pressed to say otherwise. But she is his sister. And she is Rudi’s girlfriend. And that’s how it should be.
    Jan Inge lowers