Scum by James Dekker

Author:James Dekker
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: JUV000000
ISBN: 9781554697083
Publisher: Orca Book Publishers
Published: 2008-09-30T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter Eight

Three nights later, the phone rings and I answer it.

“Is this Megan Carter?” a voice says.

“Yes.”

“This is Titch. You know, from the bar?”

I am so surprised that I almost drop the phone. “How did you get my phone number?” I say.

“I saw the notice in the newspaper after it happened.” He sounds as surprised by my question as I am by his voice. “It had your name and your parents’ names. I looked you up.”

Oh.

For a moment there is silence between us. He is the first to speak again.

“I just wanted to see how you were,” he says. “You know, because you were so upset the last time I saw you.”

I’ve been thinking about what I said to him. I’ve been thinking that maybe it’s dishonest of me to act like Danny was some kind of angel when I know he wasn’t. My father and I both know. But when Titch hinted at the same thing, I got mad at him and told him he didn’t know what he was talking about.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I shouldn’t have yelled at you like that.”

“Yeah, well, I’m sorry too,” he says. “He was your brother. And you’re not supposed to say bad things about people who have just...” His voice trails off, and I wonder if he’s afraid to use certain words, like died or dead. I wonder if he thinks those words will make me cry.

“It’s okay,” I say. “It was nice of you to come over and talk to me.”

“You seem like a nice person,” he says. He has a soft voice and a quiet way of speaking, and suddenly I don’t want him to hang up. So I say, “Have you been working at that bar for a long time?”

“About a year,” he says. “Dave, the guy who owns the place, he kind of looks out for me.”

“Looks out for you?” I wonder what he means.

“He used to go with my mom. When she died, he let me crash at his place. He’s always after me all the time to get my homework done. He gave me a job too. He’s a good guy.”

“So you’re around that bar a lot,” I say.

“Yeah.”

“And you know a lot of the regulars,” I say.

“Yeah,” he says again, only now I hear caution in his voice, like he’s afraid of what I might say next.

So I don’t ask him any more about the bar. Instead I tell him how weird it is around the house. I tell him how my mother used to bustle around here, talking about work, trying to get a meal on the table, how she used to boast all the time that she was the queen of multitasking, but now she’s quiet all the time, and when she’s at home, she’s up in her room alone. I tell him about how sad my father is, maybe even sadder than my mother because, after all, Danny was his son, and aren’t men supposed to have a special bond with

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