Anarchy of the Mice

Chapter Fifty-Two

Nobody wanted to get groceries with me, so I went myself. I couldn't blame them. The aisles of the market were narrow, unkempt, and flat mean. I clutched bare cash in my pocket, picking out milk and sauce-helper packets one handed. Though I kept my gun in my purse with safety on, others carried theirs in hand.

A man who could've been eighty pushed a cart with the barrel of his in its cup-holder cutout, where I used to stow Karen's sippy cups. They always fell through and clanked, embarrassing us.

It was enough to make you wish for a Shop-All.

Returning to the neighborhood, I swerved around cratered asphalt and passed lawns resembling freshly tilled farmland—sprinkler pipe theft had skyrocketed—to my house.

I had one foot out of the Prius, girded to face my own personal anarchy, when a figure appeared on the porch.

Jacket hanging slack to the thighs. Hoodie underneath. Strides barely leaving the walk, dragging behind undone laces like pond scum.

Zach.

"Later," he said on his way by.

"How about, 'Nice to see you, Mother?'" I said. "Or 'Thank you for getting those wasabi almonds I asked for'?"

Zach glanced at the Prius's blocky trunk.

"Don't worry, I'll get them out in a sec," I said. "Where were you going?"

"A meeting."

"A meeting of what?"

He scratched behind his ear, up inside the hoodie. "It's like, I guess, my gang."

The word hit me like a truck.

"Don't overreact," he said. "I have to be in a gang. My friends all joined this one, Spider?" He raised his jacket cuff on a tattoo(!) of a stylized black-and-red web. "It's one of the good ones."

"One of the good ones?"

"If you're not in Spider, people assume you're in Reich or Spree or Deathfinger. You have to declare your alliance. It's like prison."

Zach said this without a hint of foreboding. I mastered an urge to wrap him in a bear hug, knowing if I didn't match my son's matter-of-fact tone he would dismiss me as hysterical and shut down.

I asked, "How long have you been in Spider?"

He shrugged. "I dunno."

I had been back from France a full week, and he was only telling me of a gang affiliation now? It did fit the general trend. Zach was quieter lately, keeping greater parts of the day to himself. Instead of arguing with me, he was more likely to roll his eyes and go straight up to his room—followed in short order by spikes of angry music thumping through the ceiling.

Does he think I won't care that he's in a gang? Or that I'm powerless to stop him?

Maybe it was indifference. He didn't say anything because he simply didn't give a rip if I knew—and was only explaining now because it'd slipped out.

I repeated, "How long?"

"Couple months. You were were in Switzerland when I joined."

I tried closing my heart to the accusation.

"Thank you for telling me the truth," I said—assuming that was the truth. "But you're not going to this meeting. You're done with Spider."

"What? But I told you, I was completely honest about—"

"I don't care if the world is different. I don't care about your friends. Under my roof, gang membership is not an option."

Zach scoffed. "Could you be any more of a walking public service announcement, Mom?"