Scrap Metal
by Emily Van Kley
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"TTell me about yourself,” Dr. Ranta says at the beginning of my first court-required counseling appointment. He leans his shiny head back and purses his fingers together, waiting. There are easy answers to that question: I’m Justin Paquette, aged twenty-five, third-generation owner of Paquette Machining, former wingman for the Gogebic Range Red Devils high school hockey team. But instead, when I open my mouth, out tumbles some crack-ass philosophy about innocence. I tell Dr. Ranta I think I lost mine. “Why else would I be here?” I say. Ranta wants me to elaborate. Luckily I’m only a little high—just pot—so I recover quickly. I tell him it’s just an excuse for being an irresponsible fuck in a small town. Which is by no means untruthful. Dr. Ranta has the police report. He probably keeps it clipped to the tablet balanced on his knee throughout our session. Collision on the evening of November 25th, it says, Two subjects under the influence of a controlled substance. There’s a section about methcathinone, Upper Michigan’s signature drug, which the police found dusted liberally around the inside of my ruined truck cab and mixed with snow on the clothes they confiscated from me and my best friend, Satchel.

What Ranta doesn’t realize, though, what I don’t tell him, is that no matter how many times I show up at his office, no matter how hard he tries to help me ‘think inwardly,’ ‘build a new framework,’ there isn’t much point getting off coke or cat or any of the rest of it. I have plenty of money. I set my own hours and work, and I live in Wakefield, Michigan, population 2,000 and dropping, a dead mining town on the west edge of the Upper Peninsula. Growing up, my classmates, many of whom were forced to move again and again as old mining quarters were condemned, called our town shithole, bum-fuck Egypt and, when pot finally started showing up during our junior year, Bakefield. Since my parents are rich—at least by local standards—I never had to move. But I used the names anyway.

“Justin.” Dr. Ranta says. I’ve been spacing out. “Maybe that’s enough for today?”

I nod. “It’s your call,” I say, meaning I’m here because the judge said I had to be, meaning I didn’t choose this. We rise and shake hands.

“It’s your dollar,” he says. There’s a challenge in his eyes. But he’s wrong, of course. For stuff like this—medical expenses—it’s my parents’ dollar.

Dr. Ranta keeps hold of my hand. “I’d like you to think some more about our earlier conversation, about innocence,” he says. “We’ll start there next time. And, Justin?”

I’m halfway to the door, stepping into my snow suit. “Yeah?”

“Next time come sober.”

This is an excerpt. To read the rest, please continue your travels in the Republic by purchasing No. 17, Spring 2007.

Emily Van Kley grew up in rural Upper Michigan, where she learned to ski, waitress, and write about snow.