Read Online Sleeping Tigers by Holly Robinson - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Holly Robinson
Tags: Fiction, Contemporary Women
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time you came to live with me in college?”
“Sure.” Cam rearranged his long legs and whacked his knee against the dashboard. He rubbed it. “Ow! Fucking piece of shit Japanese cars! Made for midgets. Yeah, you were living with that weird girl with the Cleopatra hair. She was a wildcat in bed, man.”
“What?” I was so shocked that my voice came out as a squeak. “You went to bed with Debra Shriner?”
“Hey, watch the road! Yeah, sure I did. Well, to be exact, she went to bed with me.”
I tried to think back. How could it have happened? The year Cam visited, I was a junior in college and he was threatening to drop out of high school. My parents were, as my father so diplomatically put it, “at the end of our tether with this damn kid.”
During Cam’s spring vacation, my parents sent him to me. He had been skipping classes and my mother had caught him smoking dope in the garage. She had searched the house and found baggies of grass everywhere, she told me, weeping into the phone.
“He must think we’re too stupid to notice our son’s an addict,” my mother said. “Talk to him, Jordy. You’re the only one he’s ever listened to.”
So they put Cam on a bus to Amherst and I collected him at the station. My brother looked like every other stoned kid wandering around the University in a hoodie and sagging jeans. I didn’t want to set him loose on campus, not knowing what he might get himself into, so I drove Cam straight to my apartment and parked him there under the eagle eye of my roommate, Debra, while I went to classes.
The apartment was cheaper than living in a dorm, but there was a reason for that: the only source of warmth was a cranky space heater in the living room. Karin was doing a semester in Ireland and my other roommate, Debra, was someone neither of us knew very well; she had answered an ad. Her biggest vice was singing, which Debra did every afternoon with her headphones on, weaving her head like a cobra’s as she sat cross-legged in front of the gas stove.
“Well, was Debra nice to you, at least?” I asked Cam now, keeping an eye on Shepherd Jon’s van as we wound our way up through the Berkeley hills.
“Sure. For a horny sixteen-year-old boy, it was a heavenly fate.”
I shuddered and tried to put the image of Debra devouring my skinny, stoned brother out of my head. “Is this your street? I lost Shepherd Jon.”
“Yeah. Keep going straight to the top of the hill. On the left, that blue turd with the dog shit brown trim. Can you believe that color combo? Jon’s parents were definitely color challenged.”
“So that was it with Debra? That once?”
“Hell no! I must have screwed Debra Shriney Hiney a million times that one week. Sure got me off drugs in a hurry. Now I had a new addiction, and it was way more fun.”
True enough. Cam did ease up on the dope after that. He aced his SAT’s and was accepted into one of the small independent colleges in Maine.
“And all this time I thought I was the one who turned you around, when it was really Debra the Predator,” I teased. “But that still doesn’t explain why you crashed and burned your senior year of college.” I glanced at him. “I never really understood what happened, you know. One minute, you were Dean’s List. And then Dad was tearing up your tuition check and burning it with the trash. What happened?”
Cam drummed his long fingers on the dash. “I figured out that college is a fine fucking fantasy life, but has no bearing on reality.”
“That’s absolute crap,” I snapped. “You wouldn’t be frying falafel if you’d only put in three more measly months. You had a 3.8 grade point average! You could have coasted right on up to the podium to get your degree.”
“Maybe it was more important for me to piss Dad off than graduate,” Cam said mildly.
“But why, when it cost you everything?”
Cam picked at something on his flip flop. “Jesus, take a chill pill, Jordy. What did it cost you,
“Sure.” Cam rearranged his long legs and whacked his knee against the dashboard. He rubbed it. “Ow! Fucking piece of shit Japanese cars! Made for midgets. Yeah, you were living with that weird girl with the Cleopatra hair. She was a wildcat in bed, man.”
“What?” I was so shocked that my voice came out as a squeak. “You went to bed with Debra Shriner?”
“Hey, watch the road! Yeah, sure I did. Well, to be exact, she went to bed with me.”
I tried to think back. How could it have happened? The year Cam visited, I was a junior in college and he was threatening to drop out of high school. My parents were, as my father so diplomatically put it, “at the end of our tether with this damn kid.”
During Cam’s spring vacation, my parents sent him to me. He had been skipping classes and my mother had caught him smoking dope in the garage. She had searched the house and found baggies of grass everywhere, she told me, weeping into the phone.
“He must think we’re too stupid to notice our son’s an addict,” my mother said. “Talk to him, Jordy. You’re the only one he’s ever listened to.”
So they put Cam on a bus to Amherst and I collected him at the station. My brother looked like every other stoned kid wandering around the University in a hoodie and sagging jeans. I didn’t want to set him loose on campus, not knowing what he might get himself into, so I drove Cam straight to my apartment and parked him there under the eagle eye of my roommate, Debra, while I went to classes.
The apartment was cheaper than living in a dorm, but there was a reason for that: the only source of warmth was a cranky space heater in the living room. Karin was doing a semester in Ireland and my other roommate, Debra, was someone neither of us knew very well; she had answered an ad. Her biggest vice was singing, which Debra did every afternoon with her headphones on, weaving her head like a cobra’s as she sat cross-legged in front of the gas stove.
“Well, was Debra nice to you, at least?” I asked Cam now, keeping an eye on Shepherd Jon’s van as we wound our way up through the Berkeley hills.
“Sure. For a horny sixteen-year-old boy, it was a heavenly fate.”
I shuddered and tried to put the image of Debra devouring my skinny, stoned brother out of my head. “Is this your street? I lost Shepherd Jon.”
“Yeah. Keep going straight to the top of the hill. On the left, that blue turd with the dog shit brown trim. Can you believe that color combo? Jon’s parents were definitely color challenged.”
“So that was it with Debra? That once?”
“Hell no! I must have screwed Debra Shriney Hiney a million times that one week. Sure got me off drugs in a hurry. Now I had a new addiction, and it was way more fun.”
True enough. Cam did ease up on the dope after that. He aced his SAT’s and was accepted into one of the small independent colleges in Maine.
“And all this time I thought I was the one who turned you around, when it was really Debra the Predator,” I teased. “But that still doesn’t explain why you crashed and burned your senior year of college.” I glanced at him. “I never really understood what happened, you know. One minute, you were Dean’s List. And then Dad was tearing up your tuition check and burning it with the trash. What happened?”
Cam drummed his long fingers on the dash. “I figured out that college is a fine fucking fantasy life, but has no bearing on reality.”
“That’s absolute crap,” I snapped. “You wouldn’t be frying falafel if you’d only put in three more measly months. You had a 3.8 grade point average! You could have coasted right on up to the podium to get your degree.”
“Maybe it was more important for me to piss Dad off than graduate,” Cam said mildly.
“But why, when it cost you everything?”
Cam picked at something on his flip flop. “Jesus, take a chill pill, Jordy. What did it cost you,
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