Irresistible Refrain

Prologue 6 and a half years ago

l“Your old man’s an asshole.”

“Tell me something I don’t already know,” I mumbled. Chin on the arms I had crossed on top of my upturned knees, I turned my head to look at War as he lowered himself to the curb beside me. He mirrored my frown, his expression sympathetic. I reached back and pulled the hood of my jacket onto my head while he zipped up his. Southside Seattle in the summertime was still chilly, especially late at night.

“He shouldn’t put down your mom like that.” War stretched out his long legs. He and I had both grown several inches just in time to start high school.

I nodded. My hands clenched into fists. I hated the bastard.

“Better to have one that’s not even around, huh?”

My eyes held his for a long moment, the bravado he usually wore momentarily slipping aside. Though I’d known him since the beginning of middle school, War was one of those guys who kept his emotions light and near the surface. Until three months ago when he told me the truth about his father, or more accurately when he confided that his mom refused to tell him who his old man was. The identity of his father was a secret that I now knew gnawed at him constantly. His outward in your face attitude was more of a defense mechanism, a shield he put up to keep most everyone else at arm’s length.

“Yeah, fuck ‘em.” I bumped my shoulder to his. “I don’t know why my mom lets that asshole inside the door. It’s the same damn thing every time he shows up.” I dug my hands into the front pockets of my jeans. War was better off with just him and his mom. No fake father pretending he cared. “He comes back all nice and shit for a couple of weeks. Then he disappears again.” I glanced away. I hated how he made me feel as if I didn’t measure up somehow. The first couple of times he’d come back around, I’d worked my ass off trying to be the perfect son, so desperate for his approval, so desperately wanting him to stay.

Not anymore.

When I glanced back at War, his chin was down and his heavy brow was furrowed in concentration as he peeled off the label on a discarded soda bottle. This summer our friendship had moved up to another level. Sure we’d hung out a lot before. We both loved rock music: fast, heavy and loud. We both dreamed of forming our own band one day, but there was more that kept us together now. I knew about his old man and he knew about mine. That knowledge cemented our bond. And since neither of us had a brother, that’s what we became to each other. If we weren’t at each other’s houses, we were prowling the streets looking for trouble. We did all kinds of crazy shit. I covered for him with his mom and he covered for me with mine. Neither of us really wanted to be at home.

In the rare times that we weren’t together, War scoured his house looking for clues to his dad’s identity while I did my best to pretend to get along with my dad, for my mom’s sake. Inside, I fucking hated him. He lay around on the couch drinking beer and doing nothing all day while my mom slaved away. She worked, cooked, cleaned, and went to school at night. Like doing all that would somehow change him. I promised myself I was never going to be that hung up over anyone.

Irritation spiked just thinking about it. I couldn’t stand to sit around and stew out here anymore. I needed an outlet. Our friend Kyle had a dirt bike he’d been letting me ride. I turned to War. “Kyle still having that party tonight?”

“Yeah, you know Kyle. He’s always having a party.”

“I changed my mind. I wanna go.” Kyle’s unofficial hobby was dealing dope. Mainly he pedaled soft stuff like weed and pills. His way of bringing in new customers was to hand out free samples at his parties. I didn’t really care about that. I just wanted a turn on the bike. I needed to feel the wind on my face. Put a little physical distance between me and my old man. Pretend that he didn’t exist for a while.

“Fair enough.” War held out his hand as I stood. I clasped it and pulled him up. He didn’t question me about why I’d changed my mind, but I didn’t miss his knowing glance. “Cut through to fifty-second?”

“I guess.” It’d be faster, but would take us through La Raca Prima territory. That didn’t really bother War since the leader of the gang’s sister had a thing for him, like a lot of the older chicks did.

We cut quickly across the adjacent vacant lot and slipped through a break in the chain link fence on the other side. A couple of gang bangers turned to watch us dart across the busy street, but they left us alone. Thank God. A confrontation with guys like that never ended well.

We kept our heads down and passed by several closed businesses that had their windows boarded up and spray painted with graffiti before we finally arrived at Kyle’s apartment complex. Broken glass crunched beneath my shoes as War and I walked up the front sidewalk to his unit. Loud bass boomed from the music being played inside.

Kyle slurred out a greeting to War when he answered the door, glassy eyed and swaying, he led us inside the apartment. I scrapped the hood off my head, raked my hair out of my eyes, and waved off an offer of a drag from his lit joint. “Wasn’t expecting you to bring your wing man.” His red rimmed eyes squinted in War’s direction.

“Bryan’s cool.” War threw an arm around my shoulder. Warmth spread through my chilled limbs. We had an unwritten understanding since our first meeting in middle school. War took care of me and I had his back. No one was ever going to come between us. It was as simple as that.

We stood in the living room for a while, War and Kyle smoking pot and me goofing around until War wandered off upstairs with a woman who looked to be in her twenties. It wasn’t the first time I’d watched him hook up with someone that much older either, but so far there hadn’t been any fallout. There didn’t seem to be any consequences for War no matter what or who he did.

From day one I’d decided that Warren Jinkins was the absolute shit. Worrying about the way I looked up to him was the reason my mom had enrolled me in a teen leadership class. When I told War the teacher’s slogan was to do what’s right and your peers will follow, he’d laughed. “More like do what’s wrong,” he’d joked. “And you’ll always have enough people for a party.”

I’d already taken a spin on the bike and was just starting to get bored when War came back downstairs, finger combing his brown hair with one hand and tucking in a navy t-shirt with the other. He steered me toward the door. “Let’s get out of here.”

We ended up hitting our favorite convenience store on the Avenue for snacks and then went to his place, a small foursquare two streets over from my apartment. I pulled out the second hand Epiphone I kept stored in his closet, and we worked on a couple of songs, me on guitar, War on vocals. They weren’t original tunes, just covers. When we were done practicing we crashed hard.

I blinked slowly when War shook me awake around dawn. “What?” I muttered, wiping the drool off my cheek.

“Get up,” he bit out.

I pushed up from the worn couch I usually slept on in his room. My eyes narrowed as I studied his face. He looked really upset about something. “What’s going on?”

He waved a piece of paper in front of my face. I pushed his hand back so I could actually read what it said. It appeared to be a brush off letter addressed to his mom. Before I could finish it, he yanked it away.

“She had it hidden in her jewelry box, folded up under a false bottom. It’s from my dad, Peter Fucking Frangella.” His earnest eyes met mine. “I looked him up. He’s some kind of big shot with his own law firm.”

He was so worked up I noticed his hands shaking as he bent over to pull his shoes out from under his bed.

“And he’s married,” War mumbled. “With two kids.”

Shit.

With War determined to confront him immediately, we rode the train to Bellvue. It took forty-five minutes and two transfers. The squalor of Southside gave way to tree lined streets, landscaped yards, and thriving businesses. Once we got inside his dad’s building, War bullshitted his way past the security guard while I waited in the lobby, stomach clenched with anxiety for him.

It didn’t take long.

A flurry of f-bombs echoed off the white washed walls as soon as War exited the elevator. His expression was darker than I’d ever seen it. He slapped a hand to throw open the glass door and I followed him out of the building. I glanced back behind us half afraid by the way he was acting that someone would come chasing after us. War pulled me into the parking garage. “What happened?” I asked a little out of breath.

“First, he tried to pretend the letter wasn’t his.” War raked a hand through his hair. “When he realized I wasn’t buying that shit, he flat out told me to get out. He even threatened to call security if I didn’t go.”

Seeing War so upset, I got mad right along with him, furious that we both had such fucked up fathers. That’s when I happened to notice the name on the assigned parking spot to our left. Frangella. I pointed it out. “That must be your dad’s car, right?”

Scowling, War glanced at it and nodded.

“Fucking asshole has a brand new BMW. It still has the dealer tags on it.” I slanted a brow. “Doesn’t seem right.” I rubbed my chin. That shiny paint job seemed to be taunting me, as fake and false as both our old men were. “Kyle showed me how to hotwire and cut the alarm on one of these,” I admitted, a question in my tone.

“Fuck yeah,” he returned without hesitation, his lips curving into a wicked grin.

Within minutes, I had the alarm disabled and the car started. War took shotgun, crazy ass grins on both our faces now. I steered the BMW out of eastside and took the entrance ramp onto the 405. We rolled down the windows. It was fucking awesome.

I didn’t have much of a plan. I just remembered a field trip we’d taken several years ago so I exited on SE 8^th Street with a vague idea of heading to Kelsey Creek Park and hanging out. We never made it there. We had the music up loud. I wasn’t paying near enough attention to the road. I was fifteen and I found out real quick that a car was a lot more difficult to negotiate than a dirt bike. Long story short, our fucking good time came to an abrupt end when we rammed into the train trestle at a good thirty-five mile an hour clip.

Face stinging, my nose wrinkled from the unpleasant chemical odor that came from the deployed airbag I was buried in. I disentangled myself from the sticky material that didn’t seem to want to let me go and glanced to the side. War’s face was bright red like someone had bitch slapped him. I’m sure I looked exactly the same.

“I’m ok,” War assured me, his wide rounded brown eyes meeting mine. “Just kinda woozy and sore.”

That’s exactly how I felt. Without saying anymore, we released our seatbelts and unlatched our doors. As I got out, I noticed there weren’t even any skid marks on the road because I hadn’t reacted in time to apply the brakes. I looked at War over the roof of the car. “We’d better get out of here, dude.”

“And fast,” he added unnecessarily, looking more than a little freaked. We hit the ground running flat out, adrenaline high and breathing hard. But we weren’t fast enough. A couple of cops in a squad car passed by us, did a double take, and u-turned.

Shit.

“Let me take care of this Bry,” War hissed under his breath.

“What are you going to do?” I questioned low, my eyes having gone wide and my heart pounding hard as the cops pulled up beside us.

War gave me a serious as shit look. “I think it’s been established that I take care of my friends, right?”

My chin dipped in acknowledgment. It certainly had. He’d pulled my ass out of the fire plenty of times. Most recently taking the blame when I’d spray painted some choice obscenities on the bathroom wall at school.

I had a lot of anger issues since my old man had come back.

“You know that’s just me, but further and more important is that my mom won’t give a shit if I get in trouble, hell she probably won’t even notice, but yours will. You’ve got a good thing going with your mom.”

I nodded.

“We both know that if she found out you did something like this, it would wreck all that. So I’ll repeat. Let me handle this.”

As we stood there together side by side out on the rain slickened pavement and watched the cops approach, my fritzed out thoughts were all over the place. But above the static, what hit me big was what War hadn’t said, yet I understood, especially after the deal with his father today…

I was the only real family Warren Jinkins had.