Toll Booth. Michael Aronovitz

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      “Where did you get—”

      “I clipped them from my Pop’s tool box,” he said. “Look.” He flipped open the top, dug up a nail, and held it outward. It was bent and a bit jagged.

      “Why’s it all screwy?” I said.

      “When my Pop’s done framing a house, he walks the job and yanks out all the bent nails.”

      “Why?”

      “He brings them all back to the tool-house and pulls a major bitch and moan. Gets paid back for each and every one of them.”

      “Then he’ll miss that box!” I said. I had jumped to my feet, and I chucked away the smoke. “Geez, Kyle, why did you go and do that? He’s probably going to kill you and then come for me!”

      His eyes narrowed.

      “I ain’t that stupid, James. I found the empty box in the garage two months ago and stashed it in the closet behind my old board games and Lego garbage. I’ve been filling it up one nail at a time. Cripes, don’t be such a fucking dipshit!”

      I forced a wounded grin.

      “You’re the one with a dipshit pal and that makes you a total bonehead.”

      “Yeah,” he said. “I must be freakin’ bonkers.” He was smiling but I found it hard to mirror. Just because Kyle knew how to handle his old man didn’t mean I’d figured it out.

      Mr. Skinner was Westville’s definition of a good ole boy. He drove a mud-splattered, light brown Chevy pickup and always had the back bed filled with ladders, lumber, upside-down wheelbarrows, and power tools. He had an American flag on the hood-side opposite the antenna and a bumper sticker that talked about ripping his pistol from his cold, dead fingers. On the driver’s door was his company logo, “One-Truck-Johnny.”

      I sat back against the tread and kicked a bit at the dirt.

      “So, what are the bent nails for?”

      Golden question. Jackpot. Kyle was glowing.

      He brought the box to head level and gave it a shake. The nails clacked inside and he moved to the sound in a sarcastic rendition of the “Do-Si-Do” we learned in gym class two winters ago. His head was sort of sideways, one eye regarding me in a sly sort of observation. He was doing a circular motion with the box now like the Good & Plenty choo-choo boy on TV. He shuffled past me. He stopped. He pulled up the box top, drew out a nail, and tossed it into the middle of the dirt road that cut through the job site.

      He turned back with raised eyebrows. I was sorry to disappoint.

      “What are you doing?” I said.

      He shook his head, took out a second nail, and flipped it to the road from behind his back. He grabbed another, lifted his leg, and chucked it up from beneath. That particular one landed with its sharp point angled straight to the sky.

      I shot off the tread.

      “You can’t do that!” I looked back to the Route 79 overpass that spanned the horizon to my right. “If someone takes a wrong turn off the highway you know they’ll be trucking, shit, they’re gonna run over those nails and pop a tire!”

      Kyle looked up at the sky with his arms spread out.

      “By George, I think he’s got it!”

      The taste in my mouth was electric. Three months ago the construction men had blocked off exit 7 up on the overpass while completing the off ramp, but the job got delayed before the new extension could be finished down here. Dirt road city. The plans for pouring and paving had come to a dead halt and long since, all the road barriers up on the turnpike had been stolen or moved. It was an old joke by now, that bum steer on the overpass and everyone knew not to take the deep, unmarked turn. Everyone.

      Unless they weren’t from Westville.

      Every now and again some goober took the exit by mistake and barreled down the ramp to the dirt road. It was a major pain too, as the rough detour stretched for five miles through the woods before hitting the outskirts of Westville Central. Bumpy ride. Slow as all hell.

      Soon to be stalled out and stranded.

      I looked up at the overpass and, from behind its triple guard rail, heard the cars shooting past. They couldn’t see us and we couldn’t see them. A double blindfold.

      “Pick ’em up, Kyle,” I said. It sounded like a command backed at least by a shred of confidence, and of that I was glad. Kyle replied by flipping another nail into the road.

      “You sound like your mother.” His voice rose to falsetto. “Let’s talk about you and how you feel about yourself, James. Let’s have a big pow-wow.”

      His tone went back to normal.

      “Damn, Jimmy. Your ma just won’t leave you be, will she? The lady has you turned pussy is all, hell, why does she have to know everything anyway? She don’t even give you an allowance.”

      “What does that have to do with—”

      “Well she don’t, does she? Does she?”

      My eyes felt hot and bloodshot.

      “She gives me money.”

      He snorted.

      “Exactly! But ya got to ask for it every time. That’s how she keeps tabs on what you’re going to do with it. Don’t you see? Anytime you want to buy something fun she gets to shoot it down. She wants to keep her little baby-boy, don’t she? She won’t let you have secrets. That should be a crime or something.”

      He nodded at me meaningfully.

      “I know you’re a charity case, Jimmy. That’s why I want to help ya. That’s why I like ya.” He held up a crooked nail. “This ain’t gonna cost nothing. This here secret is gonna be a freebie.”

      My mouth opened and I shut it. Like always, Kyle had twisted my mother right into the crux, and though the correlation was clumsy, the effect was damned potent. Most of my friends were starting to get out more, like after dusk and all, but I still wasn’t allowed. I had to stay home with mother so we could talk. Talk-talk, some nights she had me at the kitchen table until eight o’clock, asking about the details of my day and hanging on the words. She was lord, judge, and jury, always cramming my head full of her interpretations. Oh, she was a regular code-cracker all right.

      So yeah, since Dad left it had become a big responsibility being the man of my family. A responsibility I was starting to resent with or without Kyle Skinner.

      He pushed the box out toward me and gave it a shake.

      “Go on, Jimmy. Do a nail, man.”

      I scooped my thumb and index finger into the box, drew out a nail, and underhanded it out to the road. My nail looked like a crooked finger, pointing.

      This was not the way I imagined I would turn out.

      I took a step forward and bent to one knee so СКАЧАТЬ