Tap Out Read Free

shoulder.
    â€œYou change your mind, I’ll be rolling past round six.” I shake my head, just because I don’t feel like speaking, and am glad that he just lets it go. “All right, catch you tomorrow.” He takes off, and I turn toward my house. I heard someone once say that all of us in the park live in sardine cans, and I guess that’s true. My house is small, metal, and looks like it should be thrown away. The smell is pretty rancid as well. But I don’t have anything else, so I head in.
    Mom’s not home and the place is a fucking mess. Cameron’s cans are spilling out of the garbage, or lying next to the chair. Dishes and food containers from my mom’s work spill across the counter. It looks like spaghetti, but I turn away from it. I’m not that hungry, and I’m not cleaning up their shit, even though I’ll get bitched at later. Whenever she fucking gets home from the diner. Fuck her. She had time to clean.
    I go to my room and close the accordion door. Unlike the rest of this heap, my room’s clean. Everything has a place and is put there. I take off my shoes and line them alongside my other pair, beneath my bed. It squeaks when I hop on it, but is damn comfortable. I lie back and stare at the ceiling. Brown water stains dot the corner. The last time it rained heavy I woke up wet. Cameron said he’ll fix it, but I think he’s just grunt labor, doesn’t know how to do a damn thing for himself.
    My stomach growls so I roll to my side and pull my knees up to my chest. Hope my mom brings home leftovers or I may have to eat that spaghetti. I grab the blanket from the foot of my bed and pull it over me. Cover everything. The only thing to do is sleep and wait for whatever’s next.

    â€œWhad’ya mean I can’t come in?”
    I sit up. It’s dark and Cam’s voice is worming in from outside. She must be blocking the door. I get into position to roll.
    â€œNot tonight. I’m not in the mood.”
    â€œYou’re always in the mood, baby. Can’t resist this.” Cameron laughs. It’s throaty, sounding like he’s working up a hawker, and I’d like to strangle that noise inside him, not out of him. I want him to hear the way he sounds to me.
    â€œCam, fuck off! I ain’t having this shit tonight. It’s been a long fucking . . .” The slap sounds as if he’s hit her flush in the cheek, wet and fleshy. She doesn’t finish.
    â€œI don’t give a fuck! Boo fucking hoo. You had to work. I did, too. Now let me in.”
    I roll my legs over the side of the bed and slide my feet into my sneakers. I don’t know why. I’m not going anywhere, especially not outside. I’d only like to strangle him, not actually do it.
    â€œGo away.”
    â€œWhat, you got someone else in there?”
    I stand and push back my door. It’s like I’m in someone else’s body, because this is not me. Ever since the first time I can remember my dad going after her, pulling her hair down to the floor, where she became eye-level with me, I’ve frozen. Then, I just couldn’t understand why he’d want her in
that position. Now, after seven years with him and a dozen or so of her boyfriends, I understand all too well.
    â€œNo, no one else is in here. Just Tony, and he’s sleeping.”
    â€œSleepin’? That little bitch is taking a nap. Let me wake his ass up.”
    My insides tighten, and I grab the doorframe. What the fuck am I doing? I look into the hall. My mom’s standing in the doorway, and her face is drawn, eyes puffy. She’s spent. This fucker needs to leave because she doesn’t have anything left to fight with. But between her and my pussy ass, what can we do? She holds up her hands. “Cameron, go home. Enough.”
    â€œYeah, yeah. Same ol’ shit, ‘Yer nuthin’ but a drunk.’ Save it. Cuz you’ll be callin’, crying to me