Six #2
to talk to me, but if he’d taken a runner, I didn’t see him.
Before I could get back to the front door, it opened.
“Hey, little brother,” Holden said dreamily. Dressed as always in faded jeans and a T-shirt, this one bearing a map of Canada
with the words “Not For Sale.” He was just under six feet, and thin enough that even small sizes seemed to hang off him. His
arms were ropy and his hair brush cut short.
I knew instantly he was high. The euphoric tone, the dilated pupils. I felt a wave of disappointment wash over me. Here we
were again. When things went south, I usually heard from one of my parents, asking if I’d seen him lately, had I noticed any
changes in his behavior. The fact that they’d not been in touch suggested Holden’s slide was recent.
“Hey,” I said. “How’s it going?”
He smiled broadly. “Top of the world. What’s up?”
“Was by this way. Thought I’d pop in.” I climbed the two steps to the door. “Don’t suppose Mom’s here, is she?”
He blinked a couple of times. “Why would she be here?”
“I was supposed to meet her at something, but she kind of stood me up. Was wondering if she came by here.”
“When were you talking to her?”
“Like, fifteen minutes ago.”
He started to shake his head but stopped abruptly, as though the motion hurt. “Can I come in?” I asked.
“Uh, yeah, sure. Why not? Enter!”
Holden held the door open and followed me inside.
The first thing I noticed was a dusty trace of white powder on the coffee table and an uncoiled twenty-dollar bill that looked as though it had been used like a nasal straw earlier.
Holden scooted past me, swept the table clean with the edge of his hand and tucked the bill into his pocket.
He laughed nervously. “I know that might look bad, but it’s not what you think.”
“Whatever,” I said. “I’m not here checking up on you.”
“You sure?” he said, eyeing me suspiciously. “They didn’t send you to spy on me? Because I’ve been doing real good lately,
and this was just a little pick-me-up to celebrate. It’s not like it’s going to turn into a regular thing.”
Like we’d never heard that before.
I looked around the room. Holden, even straight, was not someone you’d ever accuse of being under the spell of Martha Stewart.
The place was its usual mess. An open pizza box on the couch with one cold slice left, CD cases scattered across the floor.
Like me, he’d grown up with CDs and had never cottoned on to streaming his music. There was a beer bottle on an otherwise
empty bookshelf, empty Coke cans here and there, a jacket hanging off a chair. A video game console and two controllers on
the coffee table across from a wall-mounted screen.
“Whatcha celebrating?” I asked.
He adopted an exaggerated expression of puzzlement, like he couldn’t exactly recall. But after a moment, he said, “You ever
think you’ve fucked up big-time, then realize, okay, maybe you still did, but not as bad as you first thought?”
“Maybe.”
“Like, you think you left your wallet someplace and you’re kicking yourself over it and thinking about the credit cards you
gotta cancel and then you get home and find it on the kitchen table?”
“Did you think you’d lost your wallet?”
“That was just as an example, a for instance, if you will,” Holden said. He waved his hand in the air. “Doesn’t matter what it was. But I’m in a better place now than
I was earlier.”
“Good to know. Was someone here? Thought I heard the back door slam.”
“Putting out the garbage,” he said. He glanced at the pizza box. “Missed some. You’re welcome to that last slice if you want it. It’s from last night but I could nuke it for a few seconds.”
It was a genuine, if unappealing, offer. Holden was always one to share. I shook my head.
He studied me for a moment, like he was trying to get me in focus. “Would you like to take a seat?”
“That’s okay. But why don’t you sit down.”
“Well, okay,” he said agreeably, moved the pizza box to the floor and plopped down on the couch. Removing the box revealed
a pair of panties on the coffee table.
“Well, how did those get there?” Holden said with mock shock, scooping them up and stuffing them between the sofa cushions. He grinned at me sheepishly.
“The toppings they put on pizza these days. Better than pineapple though.”
“That who I heard leaving when I got here?” I asked.
He shrugged.
I went back to what I’d been talking about a moment earlier. “The thing is, in your . . . current state . . . can you get
help right away if you need it? Like, those places Mom and Dad sent you, can you turn up at the door and they have to let
you in?”
“Like home?” he asked, smiling. He closed his eyes for a moment, concentrating, then said, “Home is the place where, when
you have to go there, they have to take you in.”
“Robert Frost,” I said.
Holden pointed, made the sound of game show buzzer, and said, “We have a Final Jeopardy winner, ladies and gentlemen. You
always were a literate fucker.”
“I was asking seriously, about you getting help. If you have to go back, will they take you? Is there a referral process or
anything? Or could you go in there today?”
“It was just one line,” he said, looking down at the coffee table where the powder had been. “Just some shit I had left over from a long time ago. Saving it for a rainy day. You don’t have to make a federal case out of it.”
“I thought you were celebrating. But now today’s a rainy day?”
“Figure of speech,” he said, waving his hand again.
“Thing is, I’ve got some bad news that might set you back.”
Holden suddenly looked very serious. “And what might that be?”
We both heard a car pull up out front and come to a stop. Holden rose from the couch and peered over my shoulder through the
grime-covered living room window.
“Oh shit,” he said.
He embarked on a more thorough brushing off of the coffee table, grabbed something in a small plastic bag, and ran for the
bathroom, presumably to flush it away.
I went to the window and saw what had him concerned. A Yorkton Hill Police cruiser had turned in toward the curb, blocking
my car. An officer I recognized was checking it out, standing out back of it and reading the license plate.
“I’ve got a feeling he’s not here for you,” I said.