Streets on Fire Read Free Page A

the angry buzz in the air that the chainsaw was actually operating. Worth two points: He and Maeve had a running contest of pointing out LA oddities to each other.
    A car honked behind and he drove on. When life became too strange, it made you uneasy; he yearned for a world that he could ignore more often. So much raggedness made him feel old and tired.
    *
    “ Young lady. ”
    Maeve Liffey didn’t like the sound of that as she turned back in the living room, carrying the old manual camera that she and Dru had been using to learn about f-stops and shutter speeds. The tone surprised her. Brad wasn’t a complete jerk-off, and he didn’t usually try to discipline her. He had only been married to her mother for nine months, and he was still a bit uneasy in his stepdad role.
    “Yes, Brad.” He didn’t really like being called Brad, but he could hardly insist on Dad.
    “The back gate was open and the twins could have got out.” The twins were his three-year old boys, Bert and Bart; she sometimes figured he remarried only to get free babysitting.
    “I’m sorry. It must have been my friend Dru, when she left. I asked her to shut it.”
    “That’s as it may be, but I made a special point of asking you .”
    “I’m sorry . Really. I’ll double-check from now on.”
    “They might have wandered away and been hurt. I’m afraid I’m going to have to ground you for the rest of the week.”
    Blood rushed to her face. She could feel it, but she tried to establish control, the way her dad had shown her. Three… two… one… reconsider . “Could we wait and talk about it when Mom comes back? I think this is threatening to get out of proportion.”
    “Young lady, are you questioning me?”
    “Am I a serf in this house now?” It just burst out of her unbidden. “Have I no right to speak up for myself?”
    He was stewing. She could see emotions seething right behind his face, and his hands were trembly. It could probably have gone either way. She felt a terrible fear rise in her, as if she had torn something that could not be undone, but she didn’t see where there had been any choice.
    “I’m sorry,” she said quickly. “I know you worry about your boys.”
    But it was too late. His arm came out of left field, an astonishing act, like an object suddenly levitating in front of her. Her cheek stung and her head snapped back. Already tears were prickling behind her eyes.
    “Go to your room!” He looked frightened, too, but he did not know how to step back across the brink.
    Eat shit and die , she thought. You’ll never ever be my dad. She had never been hit before, not once. And she had a dire premonition that her mother would take his side in this, even though she wouldn’t really be comfortable with it.
    When the king is unjust , she remembered reading somewhere, it affects the whole kingdom.
    *
    A box fan was roaring away, exhausting the hot air out his front door and his girlfriend’s nephew Rogelio was dangled over the fender of a 1972 Chevelle SS in the drive, muttering at his friend Solomon and at the big carburetor.
    “Trouble?”
    “Man, don’t never use a four-barrel. You know? Hey, Jack.”
    Rogelio had a dependent hangdog manner that made it hard not to tease him, but Jack Liffey liked him a lot. The young man was kind to a fault; Jack knew he’d had the decency to turn down the mild sexual experimentation Maeve had offered him a year ago. Maeve was a precocious almost fifteen , in her words.
    “I always prefer a supercharger for an AMC car,” Jack Liffey said.
    Solomon cackled a little and held out a palm for a greeting slap. Jack Liffey obliged.
    “Where do you get high octane for that thing?” Jack Liffey asked.
    “Every time you get gas, you got to buy these cans of booster to high it up. That’s not the problem here, though.”
    “Mar in?”
    “Yeah.” As if just remembering something, Rogelio tried to straighten up and banged his head on the raised hood. “Ooh, hurt . When you see