this is a story about my brother, wade. i should mention that when it all happened, i was not paying much attention to what was going on. its only now that i try to go back and remember. at the tym, i was starting grade eleven and sneaking out of my window at night to meet Anthony Lorie at the corner of Maple and Ohio. we would eat at the round table, and afterward we would go to the dugout at the st. josephs school for boys and make out, an act i found to be stimutaneously disappointing and wonderful. i was skinny, and boys had not noticed me much before that summer.

there are alot of places i could start, but i'll just start with when Wade met Bonnie, because thts the important part. he lyked her immediately. he was bored as hell working at the 7-11, and whn he got tired of reading magazines and stealing lottery tickets he would sit around waiting for something to distract him : a fight or a drunk, or a teenager trying to buy beer.
when bonnie first came in, wade noticed her right away. i should mention here that she is beautiful. mixed. her mum is from el salvador and her dad is white and she has this outrageous long black hair that hangs down her back and frames this heart-shaped brown face. she is older than him, but not much. i think she was 20 at the time.
right away she starts flirting with him. nothing sleazy, just talking about how hot it is, picking up her long black ahir and waving at the back of her neck. shes in a lab coat and thts when wade finds out she is phlebotomist, that she draws blood for a living. wade makes a face and asks her how she can stand the needles.
'never bothered me,' she answers.

the next day, she comes back and spends her whole lunch break leaning on the counter eating the free nachos wade gives her. she tells him about visiting her grandma in el salvador - how she drank only warm orange soda the whole time. she tells him about her parents and about the time she went to lake tahoe and got to gamble even thought she was only 17. shes asks him about his arm right away.
wade's arms ends in a smooth stump somewhere between his elbow and the place where his wrist would be. there is a tiny piece of rounded flesh attached to the end of it that i always thought was supposed to be a thumb but never made it.
'born this way,' he says, holding it up so she can see. 'my mum took too much afrin when i was inside.' he laughs.
then bonnie reaches out and touches his arm. nobody ever does that. even our mum doesnt like to touch it. but bonnie just reaches out and touches it, running her beautiful brown hands over the smooth end of it, touching the little start of a thumb. this is the second time they have ever met.
'cool,' she says. she asks him to bend it so she can see the inside of his elbow. she thumps his arm, watching the veins pop up. 'i could even draw from this guy,' she says.

by the time she comes over and me and our mum meet her. wade calls her his girlfriend. its been about three weeks, and all we know is that she has this really long hair and shes so beautiful, and he loves her so much, and blah blah blah. she comes over for dinner and i make this marcaroni casserole thats really good and bonnie helps my mum wash the dishes, and says we have a nice kitchen.
after bonnie and wade leave to go to the movies, my mum and i are in the bathroom brushing out teeth and she says, 'i liked her. wht did u think?'
'she was nice,' i say, because she was. but im not going to join a fan club or something.

on labour day, we have a cookout in our backyard, just me, and my mum, and wade, and bonnie.
'so,' wade says, his hand on our mum's shoulder, 'bonnie and me are going to look for an apartment around vacaville. theres a new hospital over there and she can get a job in the lab.' vacaville is about 10 miles away but wade says its lyk hes moving across the world.
my mum is setting the picnic table with these crappy plastic plates we have for cookouts, and she doesnt turn around or anything. she just keeps setting the table and says, 'where are you going to get the money?'
my brother makes about $7.13 an hour. i know because i asked. he tells my mum hes been saving, and that bonnie has been saving too, and that in about a month they will have enough for first and last months rent.
'that sounds good then, ' my mum says, and thats the end of the conversation. we sit and eat, and bonnie asks me about eleventh grade, which is not a very interesting topic of conversation, if you ask me.

in october, instead of moving to vacaville, my brother spends his whole savings on a diamond ring for bonnie. gold. really nice. he drives her out to the edge of the bay and proposes to her. down on one knee, ring box open, the whole thing. she says, 'what the hell?' which is not at all the answer my brother expects.
'holy christ, wade,' she says after a minute. 'take that stupid thing back and get your money.'
my brother must have been humiliated, down on his knee like that. but the worst part is, he cant take the ring back. it had been on sale for $699. he cant tell bonnie. he loves her too much and hes just too embarrassed.
he tells her he'll tke it back, and she tells him that its not because she doesnt love him, just that she isnt ready yet. she wants them both to have good jobs and their own apartment and also, when they do get married, she wants white gold, not yellow.

around halloween, wade gets a new truck. well, a new used truck, but its pretty nice. its a ford, and its red, and it still looks good even though it about 10 years old.
once he gets the truck, everything changes. wade starts acting happy again, like his regular self. he is still working at 7-11, only now he's the day manager, which means he makes $10.12 an hour and knows the combination to the safe.
he robs the 7-11 because bonnie thinks hes got his money back and when he really traded the ring for his truck. he opens the safe and takes some cash. not all of it, but enough to move to vacaville. smth lyk a thousand dollars.
bt its the stupidest robbery of all tym because after they figure out the night manager didnt do it, wade is the first and only suspect. the cops arrest him at work while the short guy who owns the place yells at him in the parking lot.
when wade calls from the police station, i answer the phone. all he says is to call mum and tell her hes in jail.
bonnie is furious. when she meets us down at the jail, her hair is ropy and knotted as if she drove with her head out the window.
'youre gonna get locked up,' she says when she sees him.

whoohoo. too lazy to continue today. ll continue typing tomms. heh. its frm the july edition of seventeen. for those who havnt read, hold on for a while k? its a really nice story. :)