The Legend (17 page)

“Why?”

“They just
are.” I fumbled through my words trying to get back on track. I wasn’t good at
these conversations but my spawn needed to know my ground rules at some point.
I didn’t do drugs and I didn’t want them to either.

“Fine,”
Casten agreed. “No drugs.”

He left to
clean the bathroom off the foyer. Sway looked at me and smiled pulling her hair
into a bun. “Good job. I take back my previous statement. You’re not a horrible
parent.”

“Thank you.”
I kissed her nose. “Do we have any pain pills? My leg is killing me.”

“About
that
...
” her nose scrunched, her eyes dropped from
mine. “You need to get that looked at. I think it’s infected.”

“I think
you’re right, fucking no good turtle.”

“I need to
go to the store so I will pick up something for you.”

Limping
into the family room, I added, “Don’t forget more beer.”

I sat down
on the couch with a 6-pack intending to finish it off myself when Tommy, with
no shirt, emerged from the guest bedroom zipping his pants.

“Can I go
outside now?” Casten asked when he finished with the backyard. The house was
still a mess but it was considerably less of a mess. Instead of a tornado, it
just resembled a small riot.

“Your
mom’s not here do what you want.” I thought for a moment and then added, “Don’t
steal any cars and don’t set anything on fire.”

“Word,”
Tommy said sitting beside me. “You’re not good at parenting, are you?”

“No shit.
Don’t tell Sway.”

“I thought
he was grounded?” Tommy looked at me with confusion. Looking at him now, I
could tell that he was still drunk.

“You
should be grounded too. I can’t believe you let all this happen.” I reached for
my beer. “Are you questioning my parenting skills?”

“No,”
Tommy said, “not at all.”

Casten
picked up his iPad on the ottoman by my foot and laughed. “What’s that from?”
he pointed to my turtle bite. “It looks like a hickey.”

“I thought
you were going outside?”

He laughed
the entire way out the door. Little jerk.

“Jesus,”
Willie groaned as he made his way inside. “
...
this
place is trashed!” Flopping down next to Tommy, we sat there drinking the rest
of the beer.

Rosa
emerged from the same guest room Tommy had come from, smiling. Glaring at me,
she gave Tommy a wink and shuffled into the kitchen where I heard the espresso
machine going and her god-awful singing. Tommy laughed. Tommy’s laugh was more
of a giggle too. It definitely wasn’t a laugh you expected from a guy but it
always made you smile.

“Did you
...
no
...
” I
looked back at Rosa in the kitchen. She was stretching out her calves. “Did you
sleep with my maid?”

Willie
broke out into laughter and curled into himself on the couch. Apparently
laughter wasn’t helping his hangover.

Tommy
grinned mischievously. “All girls need love maids too.”

“You’re something
else man.” I laughed slapping his shoulder. Reaching for the remote, I turned
on the television and avoided all the news channels. I didn’t want to see my
yard on the news anymore. Physically, it was bad enough to look at it.

Arie
finally came home around six. The boy and I were still on the couch. Spencer
had joined us now.

It was the
first time we had seen her since we got home. “Where the hell have you been?” I
asked looking at her appearance. She looked horrible. Her usually wavy rusty
curls were matted and pulled under a gray beanie. Ripped jeans, a torn t-shirt
and flip-flops completed her style for today.

“Nice to
see you too, dad,” She looked around ripping the beanie from her head and
slamming it into Clint’s chest who walked in behind her. “Where the fuck is
Casten at?”

“Oh
Casten,” I called out amused, “You’re sister is home!”

Arie
glared and then shot up the stairs. The scream Casten let out was, well,
similar to the sound a cat would make if it was being gang banged.

Lexie
walked in behind Clint, looking just as bad as Arie, talking on her phone. “She
had big boobs, smelled good, talked like a trucker and told my brother to fuck
off, of course we felt connected to her—” her sentence halted when she saw her
dad. “I’m going to go now.”

“Probably
a good idea,” I advised her and then looked at Spencer who was scowling at his
daughter.

“Where
were you last night?” Spencer asked her harshly. I had a feeling I didn’t know
half the shit that went down last night but it was comforting to know that my
kids weren’t the only out of control hooligans.

Cole
bounced in behind Lexi and stopped when he saw Spencer too.

“I was
with Harper,” Lexi told Spencer hiding behind Cole. They both looked like they
were ready to run at any moment.

“You mean
that little shit that you’ve been seeing that was in prison?” Spencer asked
standing up to tower over his kids.

“It’s not
like he just got out of prison, dad.” Lexi rolled her eyes. “It was like a
month ago.”

“Well,”
Spencer gave me a look and then focused on his kids, “that makes me feel so
much better.”

“It
should.” Lexi seemed completely satisfied with her response and smiled. She
looked exactly like Alley when she smiled. Aside from the black hair, she was a
spitting image of her mother.

Spencer
walked to the door with his kids when Cole took off running from him. “Get back
here Cole! You’re not off the hook either!”

Clint held
up his hands coming to sit next to me on the couch, a contemplative warning
held his features. “I left them with Spencer in charge. When I heard Arie was
missing, I found her walking to Brian’s house. I might add that Spencer’s kids
are little jerks.”

“I know
that. It makes me feel a lot better about my own.”

“Why is
Arie so mad at Casten?”

“Uh, maybe
because he left her at the gas station,”

“So she
wasn’t here for this?” I motioned around to the madness.

“Nope,
this was all Casten and the hood of hoodlums.”

“Hood of
hoodlums,” I laughed and Clint cracked a smile.

“That’s
Aries’ nickname for the boys.”

Rosa walked
in, smiling again, and mouthed something to Tommy who giggled again. Tommy
disappeared after that to find food. Apparently, his hangover was making him
sick and he thought he needed food.

“How was
your vacation?” Clint tried to make conversation.

“Horrible.
I got bit by a fucking turtle and I think my leg is infected.”

“
Ewww
Jay!” Rosa looked down at my swollen ankle. “That’s
disgusting.”

“Rosa,
shouldn’t you be cleaning? And do not call me Jay. I don’t like being called
that.”

“Yeah, probably,”
She grabbed the remote from Willie making
herself
comfortable beside me.

“Well
then, do it. This place looks like shit and I don’t pay you to sit around.”

“I know.”
She reached for the chips Willie had. “If you did, Willie would get a raise.”

“Hey, what
did I do to you?” Willie stood and then fell back against the couch, “I stood
up too soon.”

Rosa had
an excuse for why she couldn’t clean every day. Some days she would say that
her back hurt. Other days she would say that she just wasn’t feeling it and my
personal favorite, she couldn’t clean because it was her country’s national “no
clean” day. Rosa said she was Mexican but she was Caucasian. She had pale skin
and brown hair with blue eyes. She was not Mexican.

“Hey dad,”
Casten stuck his head inside the door, his voice carrying throughout the foyer
and into the family room. Apparently, he’d gotten away from Arie. “Can I go to
Shane’s party tonight?”

“Get your
ass in here!” I hollered back. I hated having a conversation when he was half
hanging out the door. Mostly because he always said things that I couldn’t hear
very well and before we knew it, streets were set on fire and my wife was
convinced our son was a pothead.

“So about
Shane’s
...
can I go?” He asked standing at the edge of
the couch, his phone in hand.

“What? No.
Jesus. Look around this place. Do you honestly think I should let you go to a
party?”

He looked
around and smiled. “I’m legendary. That was pretty much the best night of my
life.” Casten chuckled as he stared out the window reminiscing.

“Do you
pay attention to anything I tell you?”

He
shrugged, “Mostly.”

“Mostly?”

“Well,
there were times this morning, and in the past, that I’ve lost interest when
you’re talking. It’s only natural.”

“You need
to act more responsible if you ever want to be left alone again. This will
never happen again.”

“I know
what I’m doing, dad. Last night was just a little out of control. I’m certain,
at future parties, I can do better crowd control.”

“I’m
certain you don’t have the faintest goddamn clue what you’re doing,” I said to
him. I stood now towering over his five foot two frame, “now go clean the pool,
make sense?”

“No.”

“Too
fucking bad, do it.”

Tommy
returned, when he finished cooking dinner for me and the boys, about the time
Casten had the rubber gloves on again and I was half way through my second
six-pack of beer.

“Be ready
at four if you’re coming with me tomorrow,” he said to Casten.

“Four am?”
Casten asked in horror dropping the mop. Tommy nodded. “I don’t think so. This
isn’t a dairy farm. I never get up that early, ever.”

I laughed.
My family made me crazy. Arie and I ended up talking later that night.
Apparently, she had been left at the gas station before the fire had been set.
Either way, they were both grounded. Naturally, she blew up at me for grounding
her. What teenage daughter wouldn’t?

I wasn’t
pleased about all the damage to the house and our property. I made sure all the
kids, including the cousins, worked around the property to repair everything
that was broken including the gate. They weren’t getting away that easy. They
all tried to act like it was no big deal and they didn’t trash it that bad but
if you saw it, our house look like a bunch of crazy monkeys got loose.

A few
things we couldn’t figure out how they had been destroyed so we went back to
look over our surveillance cameras in the house and property. We watched that
shit for hours and on reply sometimes. I’d never seen a party like that before
and honestly, I was proud of my kids in some strange sense. If I was there age,
that would have been one kick ass party. I was not impressed with them
destroying my GTO or my trophy truck and they would be repaying me for that. I
already had Noah and Charlie working at the shop after school and you get bet
their asses would be there for years to come now. Those fucking trophy trucks a
hundred grand a piece and my GTO. That was a collector’s car! I was beyond
pissed and they knew it.

Sway
didn’t feel the need to talk to Casten about the girl in his room and neither did
I. He was fourteen and I had a feeling he was already sexually active but I
didn’t know for sure. He seemed much too young to be having sex in my opinion
so we talked to him about being responsible, locking doors and what not, the
house rules so to speak and taking precautions to prevent pregnancy and
diseases. It’s not as though we condoned our kids having sex in our house but
we weren’t stupid either. I understood my feelings at that age and if my
parents had told me not to sex, I would have done it anyway regardless.

My theory
on Casten being sexually active, and I never told Sway about this, was
confirmed when he came with me to Fontana a few weeks after the street fire
shenanigan.

That
Saturday morning, we were sitting outside my hauler waiting for qualifying to
begin when a girl walked up. She looked young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, with
bleach blonde hair and very tan. She was your typical California girl you saw
at these races. Nevertheless, she wasn’t very bright, her first mistake.

Keep in
mind, Casten hadn’t improved on his humor. He still took advantage of the weak
and made it his own game. Now was no different.

She asked
for my autograph, which I gave her and then moved on to the next fan waiting in
a line of about twenty people. As always in the paddock, they seemed to
accumulate out of nowhere.

Out walked
Casten with just a pair of khaki shorts and flip-flops on. This was usually
what he preferred to wear so we never commented. I don’t know why he felt the
need to half dress himself but he did. At least he had pants on. It was an
improvement from when he was two.