Hardway

  HARDWAY

  Hector Acosta

  Copyright © 2017 Hector Acosta

  All rights reserved. This book or any portion thereof may not be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever without the express written permission of the publisher except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Published by Shotgun Honey, an imprint of Down & Out Books

  Shotgun Honey

  215 Loma Road

  Charleston, WV 25314

  ShotgunHoney.com

  Down & Out Books

  3959 Van Dyke Rd, Ste. 265

  Lutz, FL 33558

  DownAndOutBooks.com

  Cover design by BAD FIDO

  TABLE OF CONTENTS

  Hardway

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  Other Titles from Down & Out Books

  Preview from No Happy Endings by Angel Luis Colón

  Preview from Envy the Dead by Robert J. Randisi

  Preview from Bad Boy Boogie by Thomas Pluck

  To Nicci, the Mrs. Elizabeth to my Macho Man.

  CHAPTER 1

  SPENCER WATCHES JAMES grab a fluorescent bulb and bring it down on Carlos’ shaved head. He opens the small, black notebook lying on his lap and in neat letters writes light bulbs. Looking up, he’s just in time to see Carlos take a second shot to the head. The long glass tube explodes in the same manner Spencer imagines stars do, in a singular, stunning moment of transformation leaving only streaming, white powder behind.

  The kids and unemployed adults making up most of the day’s crowd ooh at the sight of Carlos staggering around with glass sticking out of his head. Spencer smiles. Everyone loves a good light bulb shot. Probably the only thing they like more is the sight of a table on fire.

  He adds lighter fluid to the list of items to buy.

  The match takes place in a small, grassy area between two apartment buildings. A chain link fence separates the buildings and an empty lot. Along the walls rest an armory of dollar store weapons, including a couple of cheap pots and pans, an aluminum tray, and a scratched up stop sign. Lightbulbs like the one James used on Carlos litter the ground.

  Picking the glass from his head, Carlos rolls his neck and rushes James. Everyone can see it’s a stupid thing to do, because while James might be a skinny, fifteen-year-old with a mullet and pimples all over his face, he’s also holding a large aluminum tray in his hands. Even Carlos thought it was a stupid move when Spencer first told him the finish to the match.

  “That’s the point,” Spencer said back when was laying out the match on his kitchen table. “You’re Carlos the Bull and you don’t think anything can hurt you.”

  “Fuck yeah nothing can hurt me.”

  “No, see, you think nothing can hurt you. That’s why even though you just took a shot to the head, you’re still rushing James. Cause of hubris.”

  “Hu-whatt?”

  “Hubris,” Spencer repeated, spending the next five minutes explaining to the three-hundred pound eighteen-year-old what hubris meant. At the end, Carlos shrugged and asked only one question;

  “Can it be two shots to the head? You know, make me look really badass.”

  Two shots to the head it is. Spencer winces in sympathy at the loud crack the tray makes when it connects with Carlos’ skull. The big Mexican sways left and right, a glazed look on his face. He oversells a bit too much for Spencer’s liking, and finally crashes face first to the blue mat. James wastes no time throwing himself on top.

  One.

  Two.

  Three.

  Spencer is so busy writing down the results he almost forgets the next part. Getting up from the grass, he steps over a bent whiffle bat and raises James’s hand.

  “The winner, and number one contender for the Royal Brooks Apartments Wrestling League is James ‘The Innovator’ Henricks!”

  The crowd pays no attention. Most are already walking away, and the few who remain are scrolling down on their phones and talking among each other.

  “Don’t forget to come back in a month for our big show! All the titles will be on the line!” Spencer shouts.

  “Is it just me, or are the crowds getting smaller?” Carlos asks, picking glass from his head.

  “It’s those Woodland Terrace assholes. I heard they were putting on a show today as well,” James says.

  Carlos makes a face. “Douchebags. First, they steal our wrestlers, and now they steal RBWL’s crowd.”

  “Wait,” Spencer interrupts, “What are you talking about?”

  “Haven’t you heard?” Carlos asks, “Mikey’s family got evicted last week. They’re moving over to Woodland Terrace.”

  “So? That doesn’t mean he’s going to start wrestling for them.”

  “He ain’t walking a mile back and forth for every show. Not when there’s a wrestling promotion already set up in his new backyard. I hear they even got a ring over there. Apartment manager doesn’t say shit about it,” he tells James.

  “Yeah?”

  “Yeah. Plus, they’re paying their guys.”

  “Bullshit.”

  Carlos plucks a large piece of glass from his arm. “That’s what I heard.” Holding the glass between his fingers, he shows it to James and Spencer, “ECdub or what?” he says, referring to the nickname given to the televised wrestling promotion notorious for their liberal use of weapons and blood.

  “Nice,” James says.

  Spencer barely notices. He’s too busy trying to figure out how losing Mikey will affect their upcoming show.

  “Hey Spencer, I told you I want to change my name, right?” James asks. “Thinking of going by Dementor now.”

  “Uh,” Spencer mutters, flipping through the pages on his notebook. “You’re going on vacation next month, right? Let’s wait until after you come back from that. Build it up.”

  Jaimie nods. “That’ll work. Gives me time to bulk up and look all ripped,” he says, rolling up the sleeves of his tattered Iron Maiden shirt and flexing.

  “So gay,” Carlos says.

  “Your face is gay,” James replies.

  Carlos hits James on the shoulder and says, “Come on, I’m hungry. Let’s go get some Taco Cabana.”

  “Man, you just ate there yesterday.”

  “That was Taco Bell. Big difference.”

  Already they’re walking away. Neither bothers to say goodbye to Spencer.

  Putting his notebook in his back pocket, Spencer begins to clean up. He drags the wrestling mats and blankets to the old shed on the other side of the Dallas apartment complex and afterwards sweeps the area for stray glass. Spencer has done this after every show, just like he promised the apartment manager he would. This and twenty dollars a month lets the manager turn a blind eye on their shows.

  By the time Spencer’s done climbing the steps to his family’s third story apartment, he’s sweaty, tired, and hungry. He finds the door to their apartment unlocked. Either his older brother is home, or their dad forgot to lock it on his way out to his job at the call center.

  Billy doesn’t acknowledge Spencer when he steps inside their small, two-bedroom apartment. Spencer’s older brother is sitting on their beat-up sofa next to a pretty, dark skin girl. When Spencer walks in, Billy’s working to unhook the girl’s bra.

  It’s the girl who notices Spencer standing by the doorway. Pushing Billy away, she covers her chest and smiles.

  “Hey, Spence.”

  Spencer waves an awkward hello. “Hey, Tori.” The snapshot of Tori in her black bra presses on his mind, and he
can feel other things below his waist pressing against the fabric of his jeans. “How are you?”

  “She’d be better if you hadn’t interrupted,” Billy mutters.

  “Don’t listen to Billy,” Tori says, punching Spencer’s seventeen-year-old brother on the shoulder. To the disappointment of Spencer, she slips back into her shirt and asks, “How today go?”

  The image of Tori leaves Spencer’s mind, replaced by the events of just a couple of hours ago. He tells her about the show and she listens to it all, nodding and laughing at just the right moments. She even claps when he tells her how James won against Carlos.

  This makes Spencer love her even more.

  “Couldn’t have gone that well. The champ wasn’t there,” Billy says. He jumps up from the couch and walks over to their kitchen, opening up cabinets and looking through the pile of dishes on the sink before settling on a cup which he runs through the faucet.

  Familiar pangs of jealousy and betrayal creep up Spencer’s spine like tiny spiders as he watches his brother open the refrigerator door and pour himself some juice. Last year, right around the time their mother left them, his brother discovered their father’s old weight set. It didn’t take long before Billy was skipping out on their usual Friday nights of eating burgers and playing videogames, preferring instead to spend his time with newfound friends and chasing after girls.

  At least they still had wrestling. Spencer can still remember sitting cross-legged next to Billy on the carpet of their parent’s old bedroom, staring in awe at the television and watching giants trek across a blood-stained ring, punching each other for the approval of the crowd. His father would occasionally chime in and name whatever move the wrestlers did, while their mother rolled her eyes and reminded him for the hundredth time how Billy and Spencer were too young to watch so much violence. This was before she became sullen and closed off to the world, long before she packed up and left.

  It was also before their father’s company got outsourced to India and he had to start working at the new call center. Before Billy shed sixty pounds, joined the football team, and started to ignore Spencer any time they crossed each other in the school’s hallways. Before they moved from their old house and into the Royal Brooks Apartment complex.

  “Where were you? Spencer asks Billy.

  Tossing a can of soda to Tori, Billy says, “Out. I had something to do.”

  “You were supposed to be there.” Spencer immediately wishes he could swallow the words back. He sounds so childish.

  “Hey, even the wrestling champ needs a day off every now and then. Ain’t that right, Tori?”

  Tori leans over the couch. “I knew you could run things, Spencer.” Her accompanying wink dries Spencer’s mouth and whisks away all thoughts from his head. She turns to Billy, “You think we should tell him?”

  “No,” Billy says with a crushing simplicity.

  “Tell me what?” Spencer asks.

  “Don’t worry about it. Trust me, it’s better that I didn’t show up today. I can’t be giving this,” Billy sets his glass down and fondles his chest, “away at every show, man.

  Ain’t that right, Tori?”

  “We really had something important to do,” Tori says.

  “And we still do,” Billy pushes Spencer aside and walks back to the couch. “So why don’t you go to our room and not come back for an hour?”

  “Make it two, yeah, Spence?” Tori asks, already leaning back on the couch and taking off her shirt.

  Spencer stiffly walks into his room and shuts the door behind him. He grabs the fantasy book he checked out of the library and lies on his bed. The story of the witty and scarred mercenary hired to kill a king’s daughter doesn’t hold his attention for long. After spending ten minutes on the same page, Spencer throws the book on the floor and stares up at the ceiling. He thinks about the upcoming Royal Brooks Wrestling show, the first scheduled to be recorded using a video camera he found at a garage sale last month. It needs to be good. Maybe after he films it he can go over to the school’s computer lab and see if they can help him edit it. Put it up on web like all the other videos he’s seen.

  It isn’t long before the sounds of the living room push through and fill the small bedroom. Spencer considers reaching for his headphones, but Tori’s muffled laugh, dripping with an excitement he desperately wishes was directed at him stops him. Closing his eyes, he brings back the image of her in her bra. He waits until her moans become louder and faster before wiggling out of his pants and touching himself. He tries to match their rhythm.

  He fails, lasting only a few minutes before all the tension he’s been holding onto releases into his sheets. Drenched in sweat and shame, he kicks the sheets off his bed, takes off his shirt, and tries to go to sleep.

  CHAPTER 2

  SOCIAL DISTORTION EXPLODES into the room, Mike Ness’ guitar gnawing on Spencer’s sleep while the singer implores him to reach for the sky. Instead, Spencer puts a pillow over his head. It does very little to drown out the music or his older brother singing along with it.

  “Can’t you take a day off?” Spencer shouts after a few minutes.

  “What?”

  Spencer throws the pillow against the wall and turns to look at his brother.

  Wearing only a pair of boxer shorts, Billy sits on the edge of his bed, a set of weights in his hands. The beat-up stereo on the dresser next to him blares out a new song Spencer doesn’t recognize. Again, Spencer is reminded how much his brother has changed. Growing up, everyone used to comment how much the two of them looked alike despite their two year difference in age. Same greasy, unkempt brown hair, same pale, blotchy skin, and same sharp brown eyes. For good or bad, Spencer still retains most of those qualities, but Billy dropped them like he dropped Advanced Calculus in school. Now his hair is nicely kept, and his skin has taken a healthy tan thanks to daily football practice during the school year.

  “It’s Sunday. Can’t you lay off the exercise for one day?”

  Setting the weights down on the floor, Billy reaches for the towel on the dresser and wipes the sweat off his face.

  “I said…”

  Billy raises a hand and uses his other one to beat on an invisible drum kit. When the song finishes, he reaches over to the stereo and clicks it off. “What were you saying?” Billy asks.

  “Nothing,” Spencer says and closes his eyes.

  “Hey Spencer.”

  “I’m sleeping.”

  “No, you’re not.”

  “I’m trying to.”

  “Yeah, well, not hard enough. Anyways, this is important.”

  “What?” Spencer opens his eyes and finds the bed sheets from last night hovering above him like a ghost who doesn’t know how cliché he’s being.

  “If you’re going to splooge all over your bed sheets, can you at least keep them on your side of the room?” Billy asks, dropping the sheet on Spencer’s face. “Seriously, dude, we share a room. Do it in the shower like normal people.”

  Spencer recoils when the sheet touches his face, clawing at it until he gets it off and kicks it to the edge of his bed, where it lays like a rumpled one night stand. He checks his clock. It’s not even eight in the morning yet. “Can I go back to sleep now?”

  “No. Come on, it’s time for you to get up.” Billy shakes the bed. “Come on, get up.”

  Groaning, Spencer folds his arms across his chest and refuses to move until Billy leans close and whispers, “Tori is making us breakfast. Eggs, bacon, pancakes, the whole shebang. I’m surprised your snout hasn’t smelled it yet.” He pinches Spencer’s nose and jumps back before Spencer can swat him away.

  Pushing himself up from the bed, Spencer asks, “Tori’s here?”

  “Yep,” Billy answers, already moving towards the door. “Hurry up and come out when you’re decent.” He leaves, only to pop his head back into the room and give Spencer a serious look. “You know, if you got up with me and did some exercise in the morning, you could lose some weight. Then you would jus
t need to stop reading so much and not be such a pussy about talking to girls to put an end to,” he makes a general motion in Spencer’s direction, “all this.”

  Yawning, Spencer spends a few more minutes in bed. As usual, his brain is filled with retorts to Billy’s words, all of them coming too late to actually be said aloud. He stores them in the back of his head, in a file drawer overstuffed with words he’s never uttered and actions he’s never taken. Finding the jeans he wore yesterday and a shirt which only smells two days old, he looks around. Sharing a room is still new to both brothers. Back in better days—Spencer’s definition of ‘better days’ is in constant flux, but today it means when they lived in their old house—each brother had a room of their own.

  In the beginning it hadn’t been too bad, but as Billy changed, so did his side of the room. The wrestling posters went down, replaced with a corkboard full of pictures of all his new friends and Tori. Their dad’s weight set now stood by the corner of his room, having replaced the television set which had been moved to the living room, despite Spencer’s protests.

  At least Spencer has his bookshelf. It’s one of the few things they brought with them from the old house, with the rest of their stuff either sold off or in a storage unit neither brother is sure their father still pays for. Spencer occasionally finds himself staring at the books lining the shelves and wondering what the point of holding on to them is.

  When he walks out of the room, Spencer finds Tori in the kitchen.

  “You want some eggs?” she asks.

  “Yeah, thanks.”

  Billy’s already sitting at their kitchen table, a glass full of the thick green liquid he drinks every morning in front of him. Spencer tried it once and thought it tasted like a combination of mildew and sweat.

  Tori sings as she cooks. It’s a loud, out of tune version of a song that’s been playing in all the radio stations, and somehow she still manages to get most of the words wrong. But the way she moves her body as she sings, swaying left and right and throwing her head back to belt out the really loud parts makes up for the bad singing. She’s wearing the same shirt she had on yesterday, meaning she probably slept over. When she brings out the plate piled high with scrambled eggs and thick slices of bacon, Spencer realizes she’s wearing little else. Color rises up to his cheeks as he stares at her long, muscular legs and black panties matching the bra from yesterday.