Thomas and Niko in the City of Trees

Chapter 1 - Part 2

Anyway, Thomas and I leave the school around four to smoke. When I say "leave" I mean that we stand just inside that knee-high chain marking the edge of the parking lot. Not a lot of students smoke these days, so it makes for a significant episode, and this time more people are around to see. Lexie is going home to be with her grandma who is in town visiting from Salt Lake. She's not ready for me to meet her grandma, and I'm relieved about that.

She's driving down the row of cars toward us now. Her windows are down. When she sees Thomas and me smoking she hits the brakes and her dumb old car sort of lurches forward.

"Jesus, Niko, what the hell do you think you're doing?"

The car behind her honks.

I pretend I don't know her and she gives me her we'll-talk-later eyes. She speeds out of the parking lot.

"Niko, my boy, today you're a man," Thomas says, giving me a big slap on the back. He's about two inches taller than me, at an even six feet. Lately he's been showing me the particulars of his workout routine in his dad's garage. His arms are quite a bit larger than mine, but I'm working on it.

"I don't feel any different," I say.

There are no clouds in the sky. It's getting hot. Welcome to your typical late-spring day around here. I'd say more, but there's nothing remarkable about this place. The school looks like a cluster of gray and tan boxes.

We each have two. Another senior called Garrett Landon comes over with his typical swagger and smokes one. Then we close the carton and put it back into Thomas's glove box, and put the matter to rest for a while. We ditch Garrett, and Thomas drives me to his dad's place. It's a three bedroom duplex off of Cole Road with a shared backyard. We walk in and find Thomas's little brother Alfred on the couch playing Switch. Thomas tells him to leave.

"Why do I have to leave?"

"Fuck you, that's why. We want to play."

"You're such a little bitch," says Alfred as he walks out of the room. I like Alfred. He's in the ninth grade and doesn't take shit from anyone, not even his older brother. His voice recently got low and he's already almost as tall as Thomas. But he's way skinnier, and his face is more angular. They barely even look related. They have this kind of back and forth where they say all kinds of mean, filthy things to each other but there's no malice behind the words. It's kind of a beautiful thing to watch. I hardly ever see them fight for real.

Their mom died of stomach cancer almost four years ago. She was kind of a second parent to me in a way, since my mom can't seem to get her shit together most of the time, and my dad is not in the picture, so goes the phrase. I cried about it a lot when she first died. Thomas hardly showed any emotion at first. I tried to hug him and get close to him for comfort but he would just push me away. Then, about three months down the road, he started crying all the time out of nowhere, and got super honest about everything he was feeling. I think that was an important time for him in his life. He kind of grew up out of it and became something more than he was before. I don't really know how to describe it. Every year we light candles for her.

We play Mario Kart for a while and I beat him handily. When we're done, Thomas yells to his brother that the TV's free again. Thomas says we should go to his room because he has something he wants to talk to me about. I can feel my heart beating.

He shoves some neon green running shorts and other dirty clothes off the side of his bed and we lie down on it like we always do. Thomas's room has the kind of feeling about it that all of our rooms do now. Lexie and Madison's are the same. I don't know how else to put it other than to say they're expiring. They're still children's bedrooms, and they're at the end of the line. For example, Thomas has a Pokemon poster on his wall right next to one of an Anime girl with absurd, barely-covered tits just dangling out in front of her. He has ribbons above his dresser from third and fourth grade track meets. His shoulder pads sit jumbled in the corner beneath a grass-stained jersey. There's a small safe on the floor of his closet that I know has a flask of whisky inside it. I'm telling you, it's the most ridiculous place in the world.