edits in progress

I'm editing BENEATH THE NEON MOON in preparation for publication. There's a couple of flashbacks at the beginning, and I'm embarrassed to say that the damn tenses get me in a lather! Who wants to read, "He had gotten" and had this, had that, had had had blah blech. So I try to find a way that works without bogging the action down.

First line: He was sixteen and on his own, his dad laid up drunk somewhere, anywhere, if he wasn’t dead.