Read Online Bottled Up by Jaye Murray - Free Book Online

face.
    â€œChimney Boy,” Tony said, slamming his way out the back door of the deli. “I could use a toke. Pass it here.” I didn’t have much weed left and I wasn’t looking to share it with the meat cutter.
    â€œI don’t charge you for grubbing my pot,” I said. “Don’t charge me for my next sandwich.”
    â€œThis is your rent for planting your delinquent ass back here behind my job.” He put his hand out and grabbed my blunt.
    I let him get one hit, then took it out of his fingers. I sucked in as deep as I could.
    â€œYou sure are uptight, Chimney Boy,” Tony said. He sat down on a milk crate and wiped his hands on his apron.
    â€œI’m in a hurry.”
    â€œWhere you headed?”
    â€œNowhere.” I took another hit, and Tony reached his hand out again.
    â€œI could have told you that. You’re going nowhere faster than any kid I ever seen,” he said, inhaling on the roach, then passing it back. “Your only hope is if a job opens up here at the deli and I’m stand-up enough to put in a good word for you.”
    I laughed. “Like I’m going to cut meat for a living.”
    â€œWhat do you think you’re going to do? Trade stocks on Wall Street?”
    I sucked in the last I could from the roach without burning my lip again.
    â€œGo to hell,” I told him, then dropped the roach on the ground and stepped on it.
    â€œAlready been, my friend. And you’re on your way.”
    Maybe he was right. I was on my way to counseling—maybe I was on my way to hell.
    I remember when I was a little kid and I wanted to grow up to be a car mechanic.
    I liked the idea of lying under cars and getting dirty. I could roll out from under the car on that board with wheels, and roll back under again whenever I didn’t want anybody to find me.
    The waiting room was the size of my parents’ walk-in closet. There were plenty of pamphlets for me to read if I wanted to know more about sexually transmitted diseases. But who wants to know about the hundred different rashes they could get on their privates? There was another pamphlet on the dangers of steroid use. Only dumb jocks need to read that one, but they can’t read anyway. My favorite pamphlet was Talking With Your Kids About Drugs and Alcohol. It was way too late for that one. Besides, there should be one for talking to your parents about drugs and alcohol.
    There were a few stupid signs hanging on the wall. No Smoking (no smoking what?); In Case of Fire Follow These Instructions (yeah, get the hell out as fast as you can); and We Appreciate the Referrals of Your Family and Friends (thanks for letting us make even more money off your problems).
    There was a kid about Mikey’s age sitting next to his mother. She was flipping through People magazine and he was making shooting sounds with his action figure.
    Another boy who looked about six walked in with two smaller kids crying and fighting behind him. A woman came in with them, carrying a bag that took up half the room. It was too crowded in there. I was getting ready to walk out when the counselor came from down the hall.
    â€œPip?” she asked, smiling at me.
    What a genius. I was the only sixteen-year-old guy standing there.
    She was wearing this long skirt down to her ankles, a big blouse with flowers all sewn into it, and about eight million beads around her neck. She had four earrings in each ear. Her hair was all short and spiked and looked as if she never combed the gel out of it.
    I’d guessed that Claire Butler was going to be like any other school counselor or teacher I’d ever met. Older than my mother, ugly, and with a voice that could cut glass with some you’d better straighten up speech. But she was kind of young and didn’t look like anybody I’d ever seen in an office anywhere.
    But she was still a counselor. She was still on Giraldi’s side. She was one of them and she