Free Recovery Road by Blake Nelson Page A

Martin’s car. We pull out of the Lloyd Center parking lot.
    “I guess we should head home,” says Martin.
    “We don’t have to,” I say. “It’s only nine thirty.”
    “Yeah, but what are we going to do?”
    “Let’s go downtown,” I say.
    “What’s downtown?”
    “Life, Martin. The world.”
    We drive over the bridge into the city. Martin doesn’t know anything about downtown. I have to tell him how to get there, what streets to take, where the cool places are.
    We drive by Pioneer Courthouse Square, which is where the street kids hang out. I used to hang out there myself on occasion. I see some people I know standing around the MAX station. I see Jeff Weed, one of the local pot dealers, in a trench coat that has the word subhuman spray-painted on the back of it.
    “See that guy?” I tell Martin. “That’s Jeff Weed.”
    “Is that his real name?” Martin says, gawking out his window.
    “And there’s Bad Samantha.”
    Martin can’t believe I know these people. He stares at them like they are aliens from outer space. “Are these the people who gave you drugs?”
    “They don’t give you drugs,” I say. “You have to buy them.”
    I direct Martin to a different block and we park. As amusing as it is to watch Martin geek out, I feel a little unsettled myself. What if Jeff Weed tries to talk to me? What if Bad Samantha recognizes me? We almost got in a fight two summers ago.
    I keep my head down as we slip inside the Metro Café.
    Martin is not prepared for this scene either. He didn’t know that young people actually go places other than Math Club or their next-door neighbors’ basement to play video games. He doesn’t know what to make of the stylish downtown girls. Or the cool skater dudes.
    He orders a decaf latte. I get a triple espresso. I make him pay, and we find a table in the back and sit there, not talking. Martin mostly stares at people: two sexy girls in miniskirts, a boy wearing makeup. At one point, a loud, drunk girl wandersin and starts kicking someone. Her friends try to restrain her and she kicks them too. A manager appears and tries to wrestle her out the door.
    “See that girl?” I say to Martin, sipping my espresso.
    “Yeah?”
    “That was me.”
    When he drops me off at home, Martin thanks me for taking him downtown.
    “You can go there yourself, you know,” I tell him.
    “I don’t think I’d go there myself. But I’m glad I went.”
    I get out. I look back at Martin as I close the car door. He’s staring out the windshield thinking about everything he just saw. He’s probably realizing for the first time how utterly clueless and sheltered he is.
    “Night, Martin,” I say.
    “Yeah,” he says. “Okay. Night.”
    I wave and walk up my driveway. By the time I’m inside I’ve forgotten the entire evening.
    Stewart will be home in four days.

11
    T he night Stewart is released from Spring Meadow, I go for a long walk around my neighborhood. I picture Stewart waiting at the Carlton Greyhound station. I imagine him getting on the bus, settling into a seat, watching out the window, the long ride to his mom’s house in Centralia.
    I walk down our street, past the little playground by the park. I think about other boys I’ve liked over the years. Craig Lessing, from fourth grade. Ryan Jones, in junior high, who used to sell pot behind the bowling alley. Rex Hemple, the guy I lost my virginity to in a nearby field after we drank a fifth of his father’s best whiskey.
    I remember that night especially, stumbling up the street, still drunk, my clothes askew, my body not quite my own. And other nights from the Mad Dog era: getting dropped off by older boys in cars full of throbbing beats and dope smoke. Or being dumped at the bottom of the hill by pissed-off girlfriends. Or being released into my parents’ custody by the always helpful officers of the West Linn Police Department.
    Tonight, though, the neighborhood is perfectly calm, perfectly quiet. I can clear my