But it was the opposite of that, and Joey’s dad was going to be spending the next thirty-five years there in a cage. He’d left all his shit behind, and Joey spent his free time in the garage, sorting it out. Free time—what a laugh. Most of his time was free. That was part of the problem, though Joey knew his real job was keeping Moms afloat. When his dad went down, Moms got a tattoo right on her collarbone: WYATT. She cried alone when she thought Joey wasn’t listening. Crying and the clinking of ice in her highball glass—Joey’s lullaby. Wyatt’s stuff, the detritus of a lifetime, musty cardboard and paper feeding silverfish in the garage. Records and a turntable. Who had record players anymore? But the old man had loved his Technics turntable and his Infinity speakers that were almost as tall as Joey. And his cassette deck with wack faders so you could make suave mixtapes where the tunes seemed to swell out of each other. Joey had the stereo stacked at the foot of his bed, and he dragged in records from the garage, where the old man kept them with his 1936 Indian Chief motorcycle.
