Tin

In '99, we were just kids, fourteen and thereabouts. Like most teenagers where we come from, we was always raising hell, getting into all kinds of shit. Most afternoons we'd spend taking baby sips of whiskey and spinning on the swings until we almost puked. Liquor was never hard to come by. Once the jobs peter out, folks start to drink. Not a dime for rent, but they could scrounge enough for a bottle, and they would get so damn blitzed, it was easy enough to fill a couple coke cans with booze. At least enough to get our scrawny butts toasted. We were stupid little dick-wipes and like stupid little dick-wipes, we didn't know where the train was headed. It had just turned summer, school was done, and we didn't know how we were going to spend all that free time. We certainly didn't expect the summer would end the way it did, with that girl dying.

If you had to call someone leader of our little dick-wipe gang, it would have been Big Dave Greenwood. Big wasn’t one of those ironic adjectives, neither. He was a massive guy, even at fourteen. But he sure wasn't that big after the IED took his legs. They buried him in a full casket, but I looked under the lid and saw the stumps. Well, not so much the stumps, but the rolled-up pant legs. I had seen him once or twice when he got back, but he was never the same. Was about six months after he came home that he blew his brains out in a movie theater. Disney, movie, too, so the kids behind him ended up spattered in brains. That ain’t something they’ll ever forget. Some things you just can’t forget. I remember every day the way that girl smelled, the way she smelled when she was still alive, I mean.

Town had a memorial service for Big Dave, but I suspect it was only because they felt guilty. Nobody much missed him, especially not me. He was a bully and a half-wit, but I felt bad for his wife. Least that was until I found out why he’d killed himself in the first place. She’d told him she was leaving him. Guy with no legs has gotta wonder who the hell is gonna take care of him when even the people he loves don’t give a shit. Couple of the guys from my unit, what was left of it, they got their million-dollar wounds, but life back in the world had changed, and most of them came home to empty beds. I understand that a woman gets lonely, but you don’t leave your man when he’s fighting a war. Waiting wouldn’t be so hard if they knew what we went through over there. They sent us to kill, not to liberate, and we killed a lot of people. I don’t want to say killing Hajis is easy, but it was a little easier to bear than that girl. She was young, not bothering anybody, certainly not trying to kill us.

When Big Dave wasn’t around, Durango always acted the part of leader, telling us what to do. None of us much listened to him. Durango wasn't even a nickname if you can believe that. He got himself arrested for exposing himself to a little girl. Real little one, too. Durango, he was pure white trash. Hell, we all were white trash to some degree. That probably doesn’t come as a surprise. There were five of us in all, and there was but one of the five I actually liked. It wasn’t Freddie Hemmings, neither. He was quiet enough, but it wasn’t a cool quiet; it was creepy quiet. His old man was a meth addict. We all knew about meth. When the coal companies left, the meth business went Fortune 500.

The last dick-wipe was Tito, and he was honest to God my friend. Tito wasn’t his real name; we only called him that because he was part Mexican. Tito Burrito. His mom and dad were teachers, good ones, so he was a smart kid. Never got why he hung with us; couldn’t find no other friends, I guess. When he got older, he decided he was gay, which I kind of knew. I had read Kerouac and knew all about how some guys were queers some of the time, like Neal Cassidy. I think Tito was like that. I was a smart kid, but it wasn’t like anyone noticed. Mom lived in Reno with her second family, which just left me and Dad in Carson City. Dad was okay; worked all the time. He had a legitimate job fixing cars, but he made most of his money at night. He ran some girls. Marla, she was older, she said that my Dad was all right for a pimp; he was nice to the girls. He didn’t hit them or anything. Most of the time growing up, there were two girls, Marla and Sadie, but Sadie got busted, sent back to Mexico. Sadie wasn't her real name. It was Esperanza, which is Spanish for hope. I asked her once what was Spanish for hopeless; she laughed and said, 'Esperanza.' I didn't get it then, but I understand now. After Sadie there was Svetlana. She came the summer that girl got murdered.

I was never sure Big Dave or Durango wanted to hurt her, but Freddie seemed to have fun with it, the beating. Beat her with his bare hands. I remember the sound of fist hitting flesh and the whimpering noise she made. I tried to stop it, but Big Dave had said it was all done, they couldn't turn back. He only went down for a year and a half, but he could have stopped it at any time, so I mostly blame him. She was a normal girl mostly, but she seemed to live in this dream world. Never noticed much outside of her own head, never saw us watching her. She was pretty, but not inaccessible; just plain pretty. I remember saying I liked the way her collar bones was real well defined, and Big Dave told me I was looking in the wrong place.

The day Big Dave called her over, we wasn't drunk or anything. We were just bored. Freddie talked her up for a while, but then got bored and started saying mean shit. He’d say mean shit and Durango would say something nice. Tito said the vibe was weird, so he went home after a few minutes. He asked if I wanted to go, but I said no because she was pretty.

Round near the playground was this old shack, just a tin shed back in the woods, and we would hang out there sometimes. We brought her there because she said she would show us her tits, but she never did. Durango tried to kiss up on her and she slapped him. He got real pissed and pushed her into the wall. Pushed her hard enough her head was bleeding, ran down her face and everything. I said we ought to get her home, but Freddie hit her with a piece of rebar, and she went down. He tried to beat on her some more, but I tossed myself in front of him. Swung so hard he broke my arm. I think it was my broken arm kept me from jail, because it made it credible when I told everyone how I tried to stop it. And I did, even after my arm was broken.

Freddie just kept hitting her, and I just kept begging him to stop. I was crying even, but I think she was dead by then. Big and Durango didn't beat on her like Freddie did, but they didn't defend her neither. Her laying there dead and bloody, he started to masturbate, but Big slugged him one good. I was glad he did at least that much. He wasn't even charged with murder or nothing. Said he was an unwilling participant, but everyone did what Big told 'em to do and Freddie would have stopped if Big had said something. Judge said he was just negligent or something. What he said to me though was kind of better than I deserved, said I ought to be commended for protecting her and then going to the police right after. But it wasn't right after.

I went back that night and even with my arm all broke, I moved her to the other side of the shack where there wasn't any blood, and then I kind of held her like you might a baby. It’s stupid, but I thought maybe she might come back if I was gentle with her. Cops wouldn't even hear me at first when I went and told them what happened. They thought my Daddy had beat me. They was always looking for a reason to arrest him because they knew about the girls. Problem wasn't that they were hookers, problem was that they were underage. And there were more than I knew about, lots more. Youngest one was thirteen and her mom drank when she was pregnant with her, so she came out funny. Weird. Spacey. Her name was Nellie and my friends had killed her. Freddie made up some lie that my Daddy put us up to it and the others backed up the lie, though they said I didn't know nothin' about the deal.

I don't think it was true because it seemed like it all happened by accident. I didn't stick up for him, not at all, ‘cause I didn't know about the young girls and it made me flat out sick. Freddie got five years for manslaughter and another five years for sexual assault, then a year of counseling. Durango was in for three because he had been the one to push her into the wall. Daddy got thirty-five years, but he only made it eight months before some Nazi beat his head in with a radio. I remember Sadie telling me once that child killers didn't last too long in jail. I had thought she only meant Mexican jail. I went to live with my Mom after that, but she never made me feel like she wanted me there. I left when I was seventeen, joined the Army. I did my tours in Iraq, one in Afghanistan.

When Big's convoy got hit, I heard it on the radio but didn't find out until later that it had been someone from back home. I would say small world, but it isn't true. Big world; it's just poor folks like me and Big are usually the ones that go to war and die for whatever. I made it home, though. I even went back to those swings, spun myself until my head almost popped off. The rest of the dick whips were still alive, but Eddie elected to have part of his brain removed to curb his violent tendencies and Durango was still in prison for flashing his wanger at little kids. Hope he stays there. Tito was gone long before the murder went to trial. His mom married some rich dick from Monterey, and so they moved there. Tito, whose real name was David, became a dentist or something. After I made myself sick on the swings, I went to the shack, or actually where the shack used to be. Someone had burnt it to the ground, probably somebody who cared about Nellie. Nah, but no one did. No one cared about people like us, not Freddie, not Durango, not Big, not me, and certainly not Nellie.

Did anyone even remember her name or why her name was worth remembering? Nah. We were just white trash. It was nature took care of the shack, cleaned the blood and memories away, cauterized the evil wound struck by some dumb kid with a mean streak. Maybe if I had known Daddy was running young girls, I could have told someone, I might have saved Nellie. But then it would have been someone else, some other time, and no one to defend her. My arm never did heal proper. It still gives me pain. Whenever it hurts, I think of her and I wonder if she knows that I tried to help her. Goddammit, I tried.