Page 6 of Finding Noah

“Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll get you your money. As soon as you tell me who that, uh … who that kid is.”

“The kid is nobody.”

The man's eyes got squinty, like the way Grandma's had when I fibbed and told her I hadn't touched the icing container on the counter. She had known I lied to her then, and this mean-looking man—Tommy—knew Daddy was lying to him now.

My belly felt heavy and yucky again as I looked at Daddy.

“Nobody, huh?”

He took a step toward me, tipping his head to one side. He smiled big and wide, revealing a mouth full of dirty, yucky teeth. A few of them were missing. I was missing a couple of teeth, too, but they didn’t look like that. Rotten.

“What's your name, little boy?”

I swallowed, took a step back into the room, and began to say, “N-no—”

Daddy grabbed the mean man and yanked him away from me, spinning him around to look at Daddy's face. “Eyes on me, Tommy. My money. I want it—now.”

Frozen on the spot, I watched Daddy's face, my hands shaking and my lungs struggling to take a single breath. His eyes darted toward mine for a split second, and his head nudged a teeny-tiny bit to the left.

The bag, I remembered, and quickly, I nodded, proud of myself for understanding his meaning.

Daddy held the mean man named Tommy while I turned and looked around the gross-looking room. I scrunched my nose at the garbage littering the floor. Empty chip bags, beer cans, soda bottles, bags from fast-food places—there was so much of it. I didn't know how I could walk through without tripping over something. A light-gray couch with stuffing sticking out of its cushions was pushed against the wall. There were brown stains all over it, and I didn't want to think about where those might’ve come from.

Across from it was a little TV and the rickety table it sat on.

The room was small, so there weren't many places to look, and I couldn't see a bag anywhere.

“I d-don't have your money, Seth,” Tommy said from behind me.

“You don't have my money?”

“No, man. I-I'm sorry, okay?”

Daddy laughed a little, but he didn't sound happy. “You're sorry?”

“Yeah, man. I'm really sorry. I-I-I have to feed my kid, you know? You know how it is, right? M-my family a-a-and—”

“You know what I think?”

I took a few steps farther into the room, careful to not walk over any of the garbage. My eyes stared ahead at the doorway toward the back of the room. It led to a kitchen even dirtier than the living room.

“W-what?”

“I think you're bullshitting me, Tommy.”

“Why … why would I do that?”

“You tell me.”

There was noise from behind me. A scuffle, and then Tommy shouted, “Whoa! Seth, dude, holy shit! Okay, okay, okay! I’ll talk!”

My legs felt like jelly, and my hands shook. What was Daddy doing? I remembered the gun he had, the one he'd tucked into his waistband. He’d said it was fake, but Tommy sounded scared. Really, really scared. Like the way I’d sounded when a whole bunch of yellow jackets came into the backyard and buzzed, buzzed, buzzed all around me.

I didn't turn around though. I didn't dare look over my shoulder to find out if it was the fake gun that had Tommy so scared or if it was something else.

I kept walking into the kitchen.

Little flying bugs swarmed around the sink full of filthy dishes. The stovetop was cluttered with dirty pots and pans, and the tiled wall behind it was splattered with something crusty and black. Grandma made yucky faces when her countertops were even a tiny bit dirty. I couldn't imagine how she would feel here, surrounded by the stench of rotten food and a mustiness so thick and heavy that I could barely breathe.