CHAPTER ONE

What I do?
“OWWWW.”

“You know what you did.”

“OWWWW.”

“Now clean it up. I want it all cleaned before I get home. Understand? And if there is one spot left, there’s going to be hell to pay.”

I flinch; expecting another. Recoiling from the attack. Like a shotgun that’s just been fired. Except I’m not the gun. Mom is.

Mom. “Lizzie” to her drinking buddies.

All she knows is hittin’. My face gets red-hot. More embarrassed than pain. Makes me feel like a kid again.

Damn, I’m sixteen years old.

Mom keeps going. “Get rid of that smell, too. Put some of that Rug Fresh on it. I want it to smell as fresh as a baby’s bottom. Do I make myself clear, Jayson? Do I?”

“Yes, ma’am,” is all I can say. It’s what I should say. It’ll keep her calm knowin’ that I’ll mind her. Keep her calm; keep me safe.

“I’ll be back late”
“Me and Layla are goin’ to breakfast, then we’re gonna run some errands and end up with a well-deserved girls’ night out, so don’t wait up.”

I turn away from Mom’s mouth. I try to be slick, but she catches me.

“Don’t look at me like that. I know it’s only eight thirty, but that’s the difference between me and you—I’m an adult and you’re a kid, so I can do what the hell I want. Now as for you, I don’t want you up half the night. You don’t sleep, you look terrible. I don’t want my son looking like a zombie all the time. You’re scaring off all my friends. People are startin’ to talk. You know what Layla said the other day? She said the reason that Noreen don’t come by anymore is because of you. You, Jayson. She called you weird. I won’t have my friends calling my only son weird. Now go take a shower and get yourself together. You look like death warmed over. Lay’ll be here any minute, and I don’t want her seein’ you lookin’ like somethin’ that just crawled out of a hole.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

Sunny Gardens
Layla—“Easy Lay” is what they call her. Sells herself on the weekends for extra cash. How else does Mom think she buys all those nice things? How does a cashier at SaveMart afford designer clothes and a Fiata XFX? She’s got “sponsors.”

That’s what Trax says. Trax, my best friend. Both of us trapped in this hellhole. Twenty floors of delusions and despair.

Sunny Gardens. The last stop for single moms and their messed-up kids. The last stop before the streets. Sunny Gardens, where the elevators are always broke—but not as broke as the people livin’ here. Where crack is bought and sold like they trade stocks on Wall Street. Shootin’ with needles and guns while I’m tryin’ to do my
homework. Babies cryin’ ’cause they hungry.

This is the real Third World.

Sunny Gardens, where there’s always room for one more.

Come On Baby, Light My Fire
Speak of the devil.

“Hey, cutie, where you been hidin’ yourself?” Layla comes flyin’ into the apartment like someone was chasin’ her. Almost trippin’ over the stack of phone books by the front door. I can smell the alcohol on her breath as soon as she opens her mouth. She’s wearin’ a skimpy tank top and too-short shorts, lookin’ like an old-ass cheerleader that lost her pom-poms.

“Hey, Lay, will you tell that boy to go clean himself up? Maybe he’ll listen to you, ’cause he sure as hell don’t
listen to me.” Mom is yelling from her bedroom, soundin’ like a scratchy old record, her voice skippin’ on her words.

Like I can’t tell she’s drinkin’ back there. Mom and Layla always like to get “tuned up” before they go out.

“You know it’s only a matter of time before I get my payday, just a matter of time.” Layla starts talkin’ to me, completely ignoring what Mom said.

Layla Fay Morrison. One of Mom’s favorite drinkin’ buddies. Always talkin’ so much trash. Thinkin’ she’s gonna get paid because, according to Layla, her mom was Jim Morrison’s wife. Jim Morrison, from that psychedelic 1960s band The Doors.

Yeah, right. Everybody knows Layla changed her name to Morrison to try to get his money. Layla is sooo full of it. But Mom believes every word that crazy woman says.

Mom.

Her and Layla sure are a match.
For real.

I am lookin’ hard
underneath the kitchen sink for stain remover. Can’t ever find anything under this sink. Stuff is always all over the place in this apartment. Last night, Mom and that black dude were kickin’ it. Dude spilled a whole plate of spaghetti on the carpet. Now Mom says I did it.

She was so wasted last night. So was that dude. Can’t remember his name, bet Mom can’t, either. Just some big brutha, with a shaved head. Mom loves the bruthas. And the bruthas love Mom. Who could resist a pretty blonde?

Dad couldn’t. But all that’s gone. . . .
Now it’s just me and Mom. I know she doesn’t want to be so mean to me, she just can’t help it. Like she says, “Sometimes I just have bad days.”

Bad days, gettin’ more and more, but I know things will get better. I know Mom will get better. I know she loves me.

No matter what she says
or
how she hits
I know
she loves me.

Dad
Gerald David Porter.

I’m glad I look like him. I am smooth, honey-glazed face. Five foot ten, and I never have to shave. My hair is straighter than his, but I keep it cut short—close to my head. Both of us with chocolate freckle chips. Dad used to be a handsome dude. Kinda looked like a cross between that rapper MC Pretty and the boxer Darnell Fury.

Back in the day, Dad could fight. Said he was undefeated in the amateur ranks. Now he just hits the pipe. Hits it hard.

Problem is, that pipe hits back. Harder.
 
A-Bandoned, Florida
Nine a.m. Mom and Lay are tuned up and out the
door . . . Just another day in the hot hell of Bandon, Florida. Me and Trax call it A-Bandoned. Wish a hurricane would just wipe us off the map. No such luck. We’re too inland. Not close enough to the ocean.

My knees are getting rug burns from all this scrubbin’, and they’re sweatin’ too. How do your knees sweat?

I get up and go into the kitchen. Dumb water always comes out hot. I grab some ice cubes out of the freezer and walk over to the couch. This place is a pigsty. Mom’s got crap all over the place. It’s not like this apartment’s that big to begin with. They call it a two-bedroom, but it’s really like a one-and-a-half. And my room is the half.

You practically trip over the couch to get to the kitchen. And two people can’t even fit in the hallway going to the bathroom. Always got leaks, and they never fix anything around here. This place sucks—but it still ain’t the worst place in Bandon to live. They got some buildings in the Heights that make the Gardens look like Trump Towers. Now that is sad, for real.

I have to go in today
I jiggle the handle on the toilet to get it to flush and practically get myself caught in my zipper. Shit. Forgot I have to go in today. Jigglin’ the handle on the toilet reminds me of how I always have to jiggle the toilet
handle at work. Nothin’ gets fixed at work, either.

I race to the bedroom to throw on some clothes. I hate workin’ Saturdays, especially in this heat. It’s gonna be hot as hell in those RVs today.

Hot  as  hell.

Supposed to be there right now. I know Trax is already there, he’s never late for work. I throw on some shorts and a semi-clean T-shirt, take an extra one for later.
Run into the kitchen,
grab
candy bar
fruit punch
backpack.

I’m gone.

Excerpted from THE DEATH OF JAYSON PORTER © Copyright 2011 by Jaimie Adoff. Reprinted with permission by Disney-Hyperion. All rights reserved.