tough with them. He also tells them that I was asleep in bed when he left for work at, like, two in the morning. Which would have made it impossible for me to vandalize the bridge. Which isn't a bridge anyway—it's just a bridge
support.
For a nonexistent bridge. And is putting
magnets
on something really vandalizing it? I mean, they come off.
The cops probably wouldn't be inclined to believe Dad, but when I mention that Reporter Guy was skulking around (probably hoping to get a picture of me peeing on something red, white, and blue, or molesting a bald eagle), they sort of give up.
Score one for the good guys and Flip's "cloak of plausible deniability."
For now, at least.
"So. How was school?" Dad asks once we're alone.
"You know." Don't really want to tell him about all that nonsense. Especially since he got me into it. And if I tell him about the speech I have to give, he might—ugh!—want to help me write it, which will make everything worse. I trip enough over my own words; I can't imagine what sort of verbal land mines there would be in Dad's.
He fiddles with the VCR, trying to get it to cough up the game he taped yesterday. It just makes that scary thunking sound that always convinces me it's eaten the tape.
"Might have to replace this one," Dad mumbles, glancing around at the stacks of broken VCRs in our own little consumer electronics graveyard.
"Dad, look, I was thinking ... I was thinking that I could use the money and maybe buy us—"
He punches the wall.
No, really. He
punches the wall.
My whole body tenses up in shock, so sudden and so massive that I think a zit just popped all on its own.
"No!" He's cradling his hand a little bit and his face has gone all red and sweaty. "No, no, no!"
"Dad, let me finish. I just want to use a little bit of the reward money to buy a couple of—"
He kicks the door frame. No lie. He's really beating the hell out of the apartment.
"Stop it, Kevin! Just stop it, OK? I don't want you spending that money on things for me or the apartment. I feel very strongly about that."
Yeah, no kidding. Tell that to Mr. Wallboard, who's smarting something fierce.
"Dad, it's like thirty thousand dollars. That's a lot of money, even after I take out the price of my car."
"Look," Dad says, "I want you to enjoy that money. I want you to use it to make your life better. Go to college, maybe. I know I've messed up my own life, and I'm really trying my best not to mess up yours, too. I want that money to buy you some happiness or some peace of mind or something."
It comes out in a rush and the look on his face the whole time he's saying it isn't really what you'd expect. He looks pained, uncomfortable.
"So. Don't," he says, then retreats to his bedroom and shuts the door.
What the hell was
that
all about?
I almost go to knock on the door, just to make sure he's OK, when I spot today's
Loco
sitting on the rocking chair. I pick it up. Dad's already read it, and he's got it folded to a story on page 3.
L OCAL "H ERO'S " T RAITOR D AD ! screams the headline.
Ah, crap.
Sure enough, there's Reporter Guy's byline. And there's that same picture of me throwing away the ribbons, but this time there's an old picture of Dad right next to it. He's wearing his army uniform and he's holding up one hand, trying to shield himself from flashbulbs. He looks bewildered. He also looks
young.
He looks like I imagine I'll look in three or four years.
"Sergeant Jonathan Jackson Ross tries to avoid reporters in Qasr, Kuwait," reads the photo caption.
I scan the article. It doesn't have a lot of facts. It recaps my rise and then fall from grace, then adds on, "That young Ross would espouse unpatriotic sentiments may come as a surprise, but surely fits once one factors in his home environment. Ross's father, who served as an army sergeant, was dishonorably discharged from the military almost twenty years ago for revealing classified military secrets."
The rest of it is just more badmouthing of
Lena Diaz
Suzanne Steele
John Buchan
Selina Rosen
Maureen Smith
Denise Hunter
Denise Chong
Lois Browne
Ian Barclay
Tara Pammi