Bad Pennies: Chapter 1
Hello I’m Jack Cameron. Welcome to the first chapter of Bad Pennies.
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Bad Pennies follows three characters as they deal with the ramifications of what they’ve done and are going to do. In this first installment, we meet two of them a few years before the bulk of the story takes place.
This story has profanity, violence, and other topics that may be triggering to sensitive readers.
Thanks for joining me on this journey.
And now, Bad Pennies.
- Jack
October 2007
Bad Pennies Chapter One
Josh Carter couldn’t see out of his right eye. His eye remained, but the skin around it was too puffy. Too swollen. Something in his face was bleeding. It felt hot against the cool rain. He stumbled down the street he’d grown up on. Past the third lamp post. At ten years old that was the boundary. Go no further than that or face the wrath of the parents. It was what now? Seven years later? It felt like a lifetime. He kept walking. Away from home.
No. Not that. Not anymore. He hadn’t planned it. It might not even be true. How could he know for sure?
“Stop fucking around, Josh,” his father had given him that one last opening. Josh could have laughed and apologized to his father for making him angry enough to swear at the dinner table, but he didn’t.
And now, what, not five minutes later he walked the rain soaked Tacoma streets of his block. Not his block? What did home mean now? Would it have been different if Mom had been there? Probably.
“I’m not fucking around, Dad. It’s true.”
Even right now replaying the conversation in his head, he wouldn’t take it back. Josh could have left the table or at least noticed how little space existed between himself and his father at the dinner table. Or maybe he simply didn’t believe his father would throw a punch at him. What there was of that belief shattered in the next moment.
Josh was knocked off his chair and onto the floor before he had realized what had happened. His father’s steel-toed boot hit him in the stomach followed by another kick to the face. He tried to get to his feet.
“No son of mine is gonna be a cocksucker,” his father all but whispered.
Josh got up. His head throbbed. His father waited, his face reddening. What did he want? An apology? A thank you?
A few blocks from his parents’ place, Josh realized he needed a destination. He knew there were teen shelters out there, but had no idea where. He hadn’t even grabbed his phone. But he couldn’t go back.
This had been another moment where he could have made a different choice. The thing of it was, he’d caught his mother’s wit. She used to call it ‘worst first’. And so he said the worst thing he could think to say.
“What’s this ‘gonna be’ shit, Dad? Who says I’m not sucking cock already?”
He’d said that knowing his father’s response would be more violence, knowing even if it weren’t true that it would be the thing that would hurt his father. His father hit him again knocking him down and this time when Josh got to his feet he ran for the door.
Josh thought about going back. He knew that with a few notable exceptions his father was a good man. If asked his dad would say his bigotry against homosexuals was biblical in origin, but it didn’t take a therapist to see what Josh could see even two years ago at fifteen.
To his father, the sin of homosexuality destroyed his marriage. Mom left him for a girlfriend. These days he saw her every other weekend, but she lived in Portland. It’d take her hours to get here if he called. And that assumed she’d drop everything immediately and race up here. Not bloody likely.
Mr. Kim’s convenience store appeared like a nice, dry oasis to Josh. He walked in not having a dime in his wallet and not prone to stealing. Mrs. Kim waved from behind the counter, but her hand dropped along with her face when she recognized Josh and saw his injuries.
“Josh, what happened? Do you need an ambulance? I’ll call 9-1-1.”
“No. I’m okay. Just a little beat up. I got jumped.”
Mrs. Kim had the phone in her hand but had not yet dialed. She didn’t seem convinced Josh wasn’t in need of medical attention.
“I’ll get help, Mrs. Kim. I just need to use your phone.”
Paul Martin sat in his piece of shit Mazda smoking the last of a joint. It was a ritual at this point. Clock in, deliver pizzas, light up a joint, take a couple puffs, put it out, and deliver the next pizza. The guy he just delivered a pizza to was looking out the window at him. The guy was cute. But married and old. Like thirty at least. Best to get out of here. He rolled down the window, tossed the roach out the window into the rain, and drove off.
The windshield wipers sucked, but Paul had been driving the Mazda since he got his driver’s license at sixteen three years ago. He pulled onto Pacific Avenue heading towards downtown. Just before the overpass over Interstate 5 he turned right onto South 35th Street. He went across the first bridge and stopped halfway across the second bridge to look at downtown Tacoma glimmering in the rain. He grabbed his phone to take a photo, but just as he did, it buzzed.
Paul didn’t recognize the number, but answered it anyway.
“Paul? Can you hear me?”
The voice wasn’t clear, but sounded very familiar.
“It’s Josh. Josh Carter. I need your help.”
If that was Josh, he did not sound like himself. Paul drove over the bridge and parked in the parking lot of Stanley and Seaforts, the fine dining restaurant situated above Interstate 5 and overlooking all of downtown. From time to time Paul would go to the bar, order one Manhattan, sip it, enjoy the view, and wish he had enough money to order the food on the menu.
“Where are you? I’ll come get you.”
Paul picked up Josh from a corner convenience store in the North End of Tacoma fifteen minutes later. Josh was injured.
“Let’s get you to a hospital.”
“No,” Josh said.
“Why the hell not?”
“Because they’ll call my Dad.”
“Why is that a bad thing?”
“He’s the one who did this to me.”
“Okay. So I take it you don’t want to go to the cops either?”
“No.”
“Where do you want to go?”
They drove silently for a while. It seemed to Paul that Josh either knew exactly where he wanted to go and didn’t want to say or had no idea where to go. Paul grabbed his phone and called his boss at the pizza place telling him he had a family emergency to deal with. After ending the call, he glanced at Paul.
The lanky guy with his mop of blonde hair tended to have this adorable mopey thing going for him. His typically long, angular face was swollen below his right eye.
“Unless I can convince you to seek medical attention, I’m taking you to my place.”
Josh nodded.
Located between Tacoma’s Stadium District and Downtown, Paul’s apartment was an overpriced studio that consisted of one living room and a kitchen and dining area roughly half the size of the living room. He had managed to acquire a futon, a coffee table, and a television.
When they got inside, Paul said, “It’s not much, but it’s mine. No one’s going to hurt you here.”
Between his height and his limp wet hair, Josh reminded Paul of a large, wet dog. A large, wet dog who had been abused. Why do people have to destroy beautiful things and why do they so rarely pay for it?
“Take off your shirt,” Paul said.
Josh pealed it off with significant effort. Paul took out his phone.
“Okay,” Paul said. “Now look at me.”
“What?” Josh said as Paul took the first photograph with his phone. “What are you doing?”
“Don’t worry. These aren’t for my wank bank. You might not want to go to the hospital or call the cops now, but you might change your mind. Let’s document what was done to you.”
Paul took a couple more photos of his poor, puffy face. What a mess. That bigoted bastard father of his. Josh sat on the futon. Paul put his phone down and sat next to him.
“I don’t know what to do,” Josh said.
“Nothing.”
“What?”
“Right now you don’t need to do anything.”
“Paul, I’ve gotta tell my mom. I’ve gotta get my stuff from my dad’s. I’ve gotta see my dad again and try to make it right.”
“No. No. No,” Paul said, grabbing Josh’s hand. “What you gotta do isn’t what you’re doing right now. What’s happening right now?”
“My face is throbbing my heartbeat.”
“Okay. Fair. I bet, if you concentrate, you can tell me every part of your body that’s hurting. That’s real and it matters. But also right now in this moment, you are safe in a home with someone who cares about you and is going to give you pain pills he has left over from getting his wisdom teeth removed. How does that sound?”
Josh managed a smile. Paul got up and went into the tiny bathroom where he found his pain medication. He poured Josh a glass of water from a purified water pitcher and grabbed an icepack from the freezer. He then sat on the coffee table directly in front of Josh, handing him both the pills and the water.
“Take two. In six hours I’ll give you more.”
Josh did as was asked. Paul looked at Josh’s face and carefully placed the icepack over Josh’s right eye. With that part of Josh’s face covered, he almost looked like his old awkward self. Paul held the icepack with one hand then used the other hand to stroke his face.
“How can that bastard not see how beautiful you are?”
Paul leaned forward and kissed Josh softly, though Josh still winced at the touch.
“He thinks gays killed his marriage because my mom left him for a woman.”
“Yeah, I remember when we all put that on the agenda at the big meeting that year.”
Josh managed a smile and took over holding the icepack on his face while Paul got up and retrieved a joint from a container in a kitchen drawer.
“Hey, you wanna smoke?”
“So like I was saying earlier,” Paul said, letting the vibe take him “Right now we’re just two people in a room. All that other stuff isn’t here. No angry parents. No school. Nothing but you and me. In this moment that’s all there is, don’t you see?”
“This is some good stuff, but I think you’re higher than I am.”
“Seriously. The rest of the entire universe could disappear and it’d just be you and me and this shitty apartment.”
“Then I hope you stocked the fridge.”
Paul laughed and thought about continuing the thread of conversation, but some piece of reality intruded. In all his talk about the present moment he couldn’t help but project things forward.
“So what are you going to do, Josh?”
“I’d love to stay here, Paul,” Josh said. “But you know my parents wouldn’t allow it.”
“You’re not going back to your Dad’s.”
“I want to make things right between us.”
“There’s no making things right with a parent who kicks the shit out of you.”
“If I don’t fix things with him, I’ll have to move in with my mom.”
“In Portland?”
Josh nodded.
“Portland’s not that far,” Paul said.
“It’s far enough to matter.”
“So like I said, what do you want to do?”
“This.”
With that, Josh embraced Paul. Paul put his arms around Josh carefully, doing his best to not cause him pain. He resisted to urge to squeeze tightly and never let go.
NEXT WEEK: The introduction of Dano
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