Maverick Jetpants in the City of Quality by Bill Peters Read Free Book Online Page A

in my Bills Zubaz pants, moving my forehead muscles around in a caring way and caring about all this. Because, maybe Toby has a point: What about that night me and Necro paintballed Luckytown’s truck, and then only a week afterward Luckytown just happened to pull Necro over for expired license plates. What about how after Necro spraypainted the phrase HULKAMANIA RIDES ALONE onto Luckytown’s truck, Luckytown chased us down the street, wearing these cow-patterned slippers, and caught Lip Cheese, and pinched Lip Cheese on the tricep so hard that he had this yellow and purple sore on his arm and, from there, the flu for two weeks. And, then, as the rest of us ran away, Luckytown literally yelled into the street as we ass-bolted into the woods: “I will eat you alive!”
    Because, when I wake up the next morning, after Mom has gone to work, the news shows that, while I was asleep, three fires occurred downtown—total Roasted Face of Satan as your downtown map. Authorities find a charred-up mattressin a boarded-up apartment building, burn patterns cursived all over the bedroom. Near the Liberty Pole, the second floor of an apartment collapses after another fire, and an old man on the second floor breaks his leg. I think at first: Maybe those two fires are simply regular fires that sort of happen and I’m just paying more attention now. But then, an explosion blows out the mirrors in the Y’s weight room—and investigators find shrivelings of what might have been a soda bottle that maybe contained explosive liquid. Police detain or arrest or apprehend Rambocream, whose real name is apparently Brandon Ross, but they let him go without charges. Some radio host calls the whole thing a “race-war amalgamation.”
    And, while there are no suspects for the Race-War Amalgamation, people at an all-black church on Joseph Ave. hold an antiviolence vigil a few days later just in case.
    Then, the next night, nothing. The phrase “race-war amalgamation” is never mentioned again, and I find my mouth hanging open in disgust when sports goes back to taking up half the news’s half-hour.
    Because, my mom grew up blocks away from the Liberty Pole. When I was way younger, during what I’d maybe call my Snowpants Indoors Phase if I’d known Necro then, she took me to the Pole’s Christmas lightings, where they bring out the mayor and for an hour the city seems safe. Up close, the Pole looks like a junkyard harp; the tall buildings around it are quiet and the square around it empty except for maybe a lone wheelchaired person moving slowly through. Blocks away though, from East Ave? Those lights, strung along the metal wires that extend downward diagonally from the pole,look like a lit-up extension of the street, like a ramp of light, lifting suddenly into the sky.
    So maybe I think the lights are nice, the way much of downtown is perfectly nice, or the way how even though I never go to House of Guitars, I still hope it stays there forever. So maybe my point here is that it sucks, is all, that nobody cares when a building in Rochester burns down.
    Except, when I wake up—the next afternoon now—to get my Thurman Thomas jersey, right when I’ve finally worked up the most focused Pope-like Boner of Hate for Luckytown Hastings that I can, here’s Mom. She appears over my shoulder with a colon full of Level 10 Bitchentery:
    â€œGoddammit Nate! You were here this entire time? I told them you were out!”
    â€œTold who?”
    â€œAn investigator—for an insurance adjuster!—came by this morning and wanted to ask you about that explosion! I told him you were out, because I just assumed, for whatever reason, that there’d be no possible way you could have been sleeping this entire time and only be getting up at 4:45 p.m.”
    She passes me briskly in the kitchen and heads toward her bedroom.
    â€œDon’t say it like I blew up the building!” I