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: : : REPORT CARDS COME HOME AND he's failed English and Physics. If he fails Physics one more time he'll fail it for the year and he won't graduate unless he takes summer school. He has the requisite argument with his dad:
—I'm not going to go to no summer school.
—What are you going to do, then? says his dad. —You just planning to not finish? He shrugs, cartoonishly exaggerating nonchalance. —You just planning to drop out?
—Yeah, shouts Tim, trying to be louder than whatever his dad is shouting at the same time. —Yeah. I'm just gonna drop out.
—in this house then you're damn well going to finish, I don't care if you have to—
—I don't have to live here, Tim shouts.
—and all next year and all the fucking year after that.
—I don't have to live here, Tim says, quieter, into the gap.
—Where you going to go? says his dad. —Huh? Where the fuck are you gonna go?
—I'll go live with Matt and Nick, in the city.
His dad gives a sharp derisive laugh. —Those guys are bums, he says. —And if you go live with them you're gonna end up a bum too.
He gets grounded: he's supposed to be at home by seven now, so he can spend his evenings working on remedial Physics assignments. Fuck that. Instead he stays out until nine or ten, every night, deliberately, just to show them that there's nothing they can fucking do. It kind of sucks because there's nowhere to go: in the summer there's like a million parking lots you can use for skating but now it's winter and it's fucking freezing, plus nobody's around. Nobody he wants to see, anyway. Fuck Matt and Nick, some fucking friends, leave him here to rot. He ends up spending a lot of evenings wandering around in Target, playing X-Box. He ends up spending a lot of evenings at IHOP, blowing the cash from his porn disc sales on coffee and fries.
Sometimes Megan comes out and joins him.
—Fuck it, he says. He turns the cap from the ketchup bottle around in his fingers. —I'll just drop out. I could do it.
—You should just pass the class and graduate, Megan says. —The physics class isn't that hard. It's all just math.
—Eh, Tim says. —Butler just hates me.
—Yeah, Megan says. —He's a dick, but—
—Dick-butt, says Tim.
—He's a dick, but you can pass the class. It's just knowing the formulas. It's just—if you know the formulas—
Tim looks into her eyes, waits a beat, and then flicks the bottlecap over her shoulder and grins.
—Don't look so serious, he says, after a second.
—I just don't want to see you tank, she says.
—I'm not going to tank, he says. —It's, you know, whatever, it's fine. I'll learn the formulas, I'll pass, whatever, no problem. Easy.
She inspects his face for a second, then looks down at the remnant of pie crust on her plate. She steers it with her fork into a drying glob of apple filling. —Big test Tuesday, she says.
—I'm on it, Tim says.
—Don't bullshit me, Megan says.
—I'm not bullshitting you, Tim says.
—You are, says Megan. —I can fucking tell bullshit when I hear it, and you, Pollard, are a fucking bullshit fountain.
He purses his lips at her skeptically.
—Look, she says. She abandons the bit of crust and rakes her cigarettes and lighter into her purse. —I gotta get out of here. But Monday night, I'm gonna be studying—you want to come over? Study with me?
—Hot date, says Tim.
—It beats wandering around in the Target like a fucking dickweed.
She flips him the bird, leans over so she can get right up in his face with it. He runs his tongue across his teeth.
She throws a five onto the table. —See you Monday, she says.
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