What We Do for Each Other

Abstract

What We Do for Each Other Ramón Escamilla (bio) Timothy Perez had just returned home, with a sizable loan from the Retention Center. In a tan cloth bag he also carried an organic apple pie, some energy drinks, maple bars, marijuana, and assorted other things his son Brad had demanded. Timothy Perez climbed the fourteen stairs and knocked gingerly on his son's door, which flung open. Brad grabbed the bag out of Timothy Perez's hands. In what seemed like one continuous motion, he dumped out the bag, opened a drink with his teeth, and started scooping into the pie with his whole left hand. "Careful! You'll chip your teeth!" Timothy Perez cried out. Brad started fumbling with the packet of drugs, covering it with pie ooze. "You're a little bitch, you know that?" Brad laughed, spitting apple detritus at Timothy Perez. Since his most recent growth spurt, Brad towered several inches over his father—a short, unassuming, aging man. Brad was wearing a brown, crushed velvet Dolce & Gabbana sweatsuit and red Prada sneakers from the previous season. A bespoke leather gaming chair sat next to a large glass table, a table that appeared to be barely supporting the weight of several new computers and some state-of-the-art gaming equipment. Timothy Perez didn't understand most of it, but he did remember exactly what each item had cost. Pizza boxes were strewn around the floor. "Get out of my face. Go wash something." Timothy Perez backed out of the room and shut the door quickly behind him, just in time to protect himself from whatever object or implement Brad threw at him. There was a dull thud on the door. Probably the pizza, Timothy thought. He sighed. More work for tomorrow. Back in the small, cramped side room they had repurposed as a kitchen—Brad having long since taken over the actual kitchen—Leticia Perez was nervously smoking her third cigarette and pretending to read a novel. When Timothy appeared in the doorway, she recoiled out of habit, raising the book to shield her face. "It's me." She sighed and took another long drag, jittering her legs and tapping her foot noiselessly on the stained gray carpet. "Is he out yet? What happened?" [End Page 128] "The usual, I guess. I can't say I'm not nervous about the pot and the crappy food." "He'll be sixteen in two more months," she whispered. "Two more months. I can do anything for sixty days. It's all I can do not to scratch tally marks in the freaking wall. Sixteen and mature and—" "wecannottalkaboutthishere," he hissed. "And you cannot let on that you're counting. I don't know if he even knows when his birthday is. We just need to keep it together, put our heads down, and hope the money holds on this one." Timothy took two steps to the minifridge they kept on the counter. They had flour tortillas, five eggs, and a small jar of pickles. In their only real cupboard, behind a false back, they had some jars of preserves, and cans of beans and tuna. Brad could no longer be trusted not to tamper with their food and water. There were several hidden nooks around their house with water, food staples, and clothing. They had had to wait, in each case, until Brad passed out, and then work stealthily during the bright midmornings. In retrospect, they might have learned from their earlier children, but the process of raising children had never been this fraught. And never cost this much, thought Timothy. Timothy took out a leftover tortilla and sniffed it, then threw it away. "I already ate," mouthed Leticia. "It wasn't for you," Timothy whispered loudly. There was really nothing to do but sit together at the table, and wait. ________ By the very early morning, the noises coming from Brad's room had died down. Timothy and Leticia Perez had slinked out the front door, and powerwalked silently away for the first quarter mile. They lived in a desirable area, where the suburban faded into the rural, and where houses were spaced apart rather...