LITMIR.BIZ

      “I heard from St. Bart’s,” I say. Lincoln and I are sitting on the front steps of the rooming house. They were painted green once, but footsteps wore the colour off, so now a strip down the middle is bare concrete. Laureen planted some flowers in pots, but after the dry heat of the summer, they’ve turned spindly and brown. Matching the rest of the place. Paint peels off in splinters from the window frames, and all five of the mismatched mailboxes hang at different angles, like cartoon road signs.

      He turns to me, frowning.

      “I got in.”

      “Shit,” he groans. “You’re going?”

      I sigh. I don’t have a choice.

      Lincoln makes a face. “You’ll look like a faggot, wearing the jacket and tie and shit.”

      I give him a punch to the arm, hard enough that he has to rub the spot I hit.

      Our neighbour from the third floor, Lester, opens the screen door, lights the cigarette already in his mouth, waves the match to kill the flame and flicks it into the flowerpot. He nods to us. “You boys behavin’?” he asks in his lazy drawl. Spindly like the flowers, he’s been living here longer than me and Dad. The day we moved in, he came down to help. There wasn’t much to carry; a couple of boxes of clothes and some kitchen stuff, but Dad was useless with his leg. Lester and I hauled everything up the stairs. That night, Dad invited him for dinner as a thank you. He told Dad later he’d never been asked to anyone’s for dinner before.

      “Heard your news,” he says to me, blowing a stream of smoke out the side of his mouth. “It’s good, making your dad proud like that.”

      I roll my eyes. “He probably took an ad out in the paper telling the world. It’s like no one ever got into that school before.”

      Lester gives me a long look, one side of his mouth tilted up. “No one who lives in a rooming house, that’s for damn sure.”

      Lincoln stays quiet beside me, hiding under his hat.

      “Any of those rich pricks give you trouble, you let me and Lincoln know. We’ll straighten ’em out, eh?” He taps Link’s shoe with his workboot.

      “You?” Link glances up at him. “You couldn’t take my ninety-year-old grandma,” Link says, dodging a swipe from Lester.

      “Later, boys,” Lester calls and saunters down the sidewalk, the frayed cuff of his jeans dragging behind.

      “Think he’s screwing Laureen?” Lincoln whispers when he’s out of earshot. “Saw ’em talking one night,” he says, leering. “You know, like maybe there was more going on. She’s not so bad looking.”

      I throw him a disgusted look.

      “For an old lady,” he adds. “Just wondered,” he laughs as I pretend to barf.

      A group of little girls walk past with Slurpees. Their mom trails behind with a kid in a stroller, screaming and arching his back to be let out.

      “You think about what we talked about last night?” I ask. “About Henry?”

      Lincoln pulls his legs toward him. “Yeah, kind of.”

      “You don’t have to do what he wants just cuz he’s your brother.”

      He shakes his head at me. “You don’t get it, Koob.” He sighs.

      “Get what?”

      “Me and you are different. I’m never gonna have a shot at things you will.”

      “That’s bullshit,” I fire back. “Did Henry tell you that?”

      “He didn’t have to. Now that you’re in that school, you think you’re coming back here? Working at the 7-Eleven? Or a factory?”

      A girl we go to school with waddles past. Pregnant, her belly sticks out from under her T-shirt. A plastic grocery bag swings at her side.

      I look at Lincoln, at how the taut, shiny skin of his scar is lighter than the rest of his face. “It’s just a school. It doesn’t change who I am. We’ll still paint together.”

      Lincoln nods, but the corners of his mouth turn into a frown.