The Fall Read Online Free PDF Page B

of his homies in a bar fight; he had been found mentally incompetent to stand trial. Since then he’d been institutionalized in the state’s care at the Napa medical facility, where he would remain until he was found competent to face a trial, which Max thought unlikely because Leon was a complete whack job. Max believed that Leon being in custody made the world a better place. Leon had screwed up not only his and Anlya’s life but his mother’s as well, with drink and drugs. Sharla might never recover. At least Max had given up on believing she would.
    But now he was building a good life with Auntie Juney, and in spite of all the awful stuff he’d endured, he considered himself one of the truly blessed. The only thing he sometimes still felt bad about, even a little guilty, was Juney taking him in and not Anlya. He knew that at first, when CPS had come to Juney as next of kin and asked if she wouldplease consider taking the children for a day or two until they could find a permanent placement, Juney hadn’t wanted to take either of them. He couldn’t really blame her. After all, a single childless high school dropout working the perfume counter at Sears didn’t exactly bring home huge money. Neither did taking on a foster child—$761 a month wasn’t close to what it cost to raise a teenager in San Francisco. Without some serious budgeting, lots of bulk foods, corner-cutting, and plain old doing without, it couldn’t be done.
    But Juney had taken them both in that first night. Anlya had been far more traumatized than Max. She’d curled in a blanket and cried quietly, silent and withdrawn. Max, wanting nothing more than to protect the twin sister he so loved—the closest person to him in the world—helped Juney prepare the mac and cheese and Oscar Mayer dogs for dinner, brewed tea for Anlya to sip, got her settled on the couch, and took the floor for himself. Before going to sleep, he had sat up talking to Juney for hours, adult to adult—though he’d been only sixteen and she thirty-seven or so—about what they were all going to do, how they would survive.
    He hadn’t been kissing up to her, trying to get the one possible spot at Juney’s one-bedroom apartment—if there was one—for himself. It had never entered his mind that the system would separate twins.
    And then on day three, the social workers had located an open room at the McAllister Street home, an all-girls’ place not a half mile away. Anlya could move in there and be safe, surrounded by other girls and young women. Though it broke his heart while they were moving her, Max had been able to put a brave face on it, ignore his emotions, pretend that what was best for Anlya would be best for everyone, even if it meant the two of them splitting up.
    They’d find a place nearby for him soon. Anlya should go to the new home while it had a room for her.
    Back at Juney’s apartment, after Anlya was gone, his auntie had come up behind him as he, tough and silent, had stared out the window, arms crossed, at the street down below. She’d put her arms around him and rocked him and told him it was okay, and he’d stood there leaning back against her, already about her size, and let the tears silently roll down his cheeks.
    The next day, she called CPS and told them she’d keep him.
    Now, a year and a half later, Thursday afternoon, he sat on their front stoop, waiting for his ride downtown.
    He had beaten the odds already by getting this far. Who was to say his run of good luck might not continue? Especially now that he had a plan and a smart, dedicated friend to help him execute it. A bit of unbelievable, extraordinary luck.
    It was weird, he thought as he waited for Greg Treadway—counting on him, believing in him, considering him a friend. It made no logical sense. Greg was ten years older and as white as Walt Disney. He had degrees from Berkeley and Stanford and now a job with Teach for America at Everett Middle School in the Mission