Stealing Sturgis

by Matthew Iden

  “I know, honey,” he said. “I just miss you.”

  “I miss you, too, Dad,” she said. She could feel her throat tightening. “Tell you what, let me talk to Jason. If we can drive from Los Angeles to South Dakota, there’s no reason we can’t drive from here to New Jersey, right?”

  “Right,” he said, his voice husky. He cleared his throat. “I won’t hold my breath, but it would be great to see you.”

  She paused, wanting to say more, but didn’t. “Okay, I have to go now.”

  “All right, sweetheart,” he said. “I love you.”

  “I love you, too, Daddy,” she said. “Bye.”

  “Bye, honey.”

  She hung up and pressed her fingers to her eyes. Why was it that they drove you crazy when you were near them and made you so sad when you were apart?

  After the call, she felt worse, not better. She jumped back into Main Street, trying to clear her head and enjoy herself. She steered clear of the whipped-cream wrestling and stage strip shows, the outdoor bars and the piercing booths, but stopped to listen to the barker’s pitch at the Wheel of Death. She took her time by the custom bike makers, the styles and craftsmanship amazing even to her, who would normally care less. Overwhelmed an hour earlier by the barrage of things being sold from booths and storefronts, she now sauntered, chatting with the artists and customers and eventually began to enjoy herself. She peeked into one of the tattoo parlors, thought about getting one for about five seconds, then hurried away before she gave in.

  Around seven she headed over to the Pasture Patty to see if Jason and the Hawgs were still standing. The Patty was already full and probably had been most of the day. The layout was half indoors, half out. Every nook and cranny was stuffed with bikers. A four piece rock ’n’ roll band was doing Steppenwolf covers on a stage in the outdoor part, but it was still loud enough to deafen everyone inside.

  Becky stopped inside the door and looked around. Even with this many people, it shouldn’t be hard to find Jason. He had a knack for attracting and holding a crowd. Sure enough, she found him propped against the bar, his arms draped around the shoulders of two biker chicks. The girls had on short shorts and fishnet tops with nothing underneath except stickers covering their nipples. It looked like he had signed his autograph on their chests with a marker. Jason was trying to act casual and cool but it was obvious the girls were the only thing holding him upright. Gathered around him were about eight of his Hawgs, laughing at jokes they probably couldn’t hear and shouting back their own wisecracks, just as lost in the crush of noise.

  Jason spotted Becky as she came in, hesitating. “Hey, Beck! There you are! Where you been?” He turned halfway around and shouted, “A beer for my Beck!”

  The other Hawgs grinned, as wasted as Jason. The two girls looked at her cattily. Jason turned back. “You don’t have a drink, honey!”

  “You just ordered me one,” Becky said.

  “Oh, right. Hey, this is Bridgette and this Lila.” He jogged first one elbow, then the other, causing the girls’ breasts to bounce. Bridgette play-slapped him on the chest.

  “Great,” Becky said, grimacing.

  “So how did the charity thing go?” Jason asked. He leaned forward too far and almost tipped himself and the two girls over.

  “It’s not until tomorrow,” Becky said, wondering why she was even bothering. Jason was cross-eyed, he was so drunk.

  “Really? What took you so long to find us, then?”

  “I had things to do…” she said, her words trailing off as she watched him turn his head and watch another girl walking through the bar, paying no attention to her. “Okay, look, I’m going to go—”

  “Y’know, Beck,” he interrupted, swinging his head to look back at her. “You should take a lesson from the girls around here. You look like my grandmother in all those clothes.” Jason lifted his arm over Bridgette and Lila and lurched forward. Before she knew what he was doing, he’d put both hands on the neck of her blouse and ripped down, popping buttons and tearing open her shirt.

  “Jason, you asshole,” she screamed as the Hawgs all whooped and leaned on each other to get a better look. She had a sheer bra on underneath and he pawed at that until she slapped his hands away and covered herself. Other people at the bar had turned around and, thinking it was her idea, began shouting for more.

  A few of the Hawgs, drunk and bolder than normal, started tugging at her blouse or slapping her ass. She turned around on one of them—Henry, she remembered in the middle of the chaos, a freaking broker from Laguna—and kicked him right in the crotch. The pointed toe of her cowboy boot seemed to lift him off the ground, then he crumpled to his knees as he came back down. A combined “Whoa!” came from the crowd as she fled from the bar. People turned, swearing, as she bumped past them to get outside.

  She slowed to a fast walk outside, holding her blouse together with one hand, wiping away angry tears with the other, running into people indiscriminately as she tried to put distance between her and the bar. She didn’t know where she was going; she just needed to keep walking away from Jason and his asshole friends. She had gone about a block when a voice called her name.

  She almost ignored it, taking two more steps before turning around. Standing there, looking concerned, was Lee, the biker she’d met that morning. She’d totally forgotten she’d told him to meet her at the Patty.

  “I was just…hey, are you okay?” he asked, taking a step towards her. He’d started to walk right past her, heading for the Patty, but like most of the people on the street had turned to look at the girl knocking everyone out of her way.

  “No, I’m not okay,” she said through gritted teeth. “My boyfriend just tried to strip me down for the viewing pleasure of five hundred onlookers.”

  “He what?”

  Becky waved her hand. “It’s just Jason. He can be a complete gentleman sometimes and a total asshole at others. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out which one would make an appearance for a motorcycle rally.”

  “Huh,” Lee said. He took off his denim jacket and draped it around her shoulders. “Here, you can’t go around like that. I mean you could—you’d still be wearing more than most of the girls around here—but I don’t think that’s your style.”

  Becky tried to push the jacket back at him. “Don’t do that, Lee. I’ll be fine.”

  He shook his head. “That’s all right,” he said. “It’s filthy anyway.”

  He smiled as she laughed despite herself and slipped the jacket on. He covered his eyes with mock gallantry as she buttoned up, peeking through spread fingers when she said, “All clear.”

  The jacket was too big on her, but covered the damage Jason had done. She took a rubber band from a pocket and tied her hair back.

  “If you want to head home,” he said, “I’ll walk you to your bike or car or whatever. You’ve had a heck of a night already.”

  “And wait for Jason to stagger in, hammered?” she asked. “No thanks. I’d rather walk around more first.”

  “Well,” Lee said, uncertain. “Mind if I join you?”

  She hesitated, obviously tired and still angry, but something overcame her irritation and she smiled wanly. “Sure. Why not?”

  They walked down the street as the sun began to set, its rays lighting the storefronts and buildings in blinding swaths of yellow and orange. They set off with no particular goal, just strolling at a slow pace. Their shoulders brushed against each other occasionally as the crowd pressed them together. He laughed when she pointed out that one tattoo parlor was surely a dentist’s office the rest of the year, and she raised her eyebrows when he showed her the Bikers for God office. They stopped for a couple of hot dogs at a stand and moved on, walking, eating, and talking.

  “So, how did you get started?” Lee asked at one point, looking over at her. “Are you from Hollywood?”

  “God, no,” Becky said. She nibbled at the back end of the hot dog to keep the relish from dripping off. “I’m from New Jers
ey. My dad was a CPA and we lived in a little house on Stribling Street.”

  “And your mama?”

  “She died when I was pretty young, four or five. My dad handled my brother, Noah, and me almost from the start.”

  “I’m sorry,” Lee said. “My dad died when I was kid.”

  “How did he die?”

  “Logging accident.”

  “And your mom?” Becky asked, glancing over. “Is she back in Virginia?”

  “She’s gone, too. Lung cancer, when I was eighteen.”

  Her face was stricken. “I’m so sorry, Lee.”

  Lee shrugged, uncomfortable. “Somebody’s got it worse. Anyway, how’d you get your start?”

  “It was more of an accident than anything. My dad enrolled us for all kinds of stuff. Music, dance, soccer, Spanish class. Noah and I barely had time to do our homework, we were so busy. I thought this was normal until I started asking my friends, who mostly watched TV all afternoon. That made me mad.”

  She was quiet for a minute. “Looking back, though, I think Dad was just trying to keep us occupied. You know, a single parent, working full time, got two young kids. And, I don’t know, being a guy in that situation is tough. I think a single mom would take time to talk to her kids or read to them or whatever. My dad was at a loss with what to do with us. But I can see what he was thinking. It kept us out of trouble, and who knows? Maybe one of his kids would turn out to be a genius or something.”

  “Was he right?”

  She made a face. “Um, no. I hated dance. All the girls had been learning since they were three. I was six years old when I started, didn’t know the first thing about ballet. So, dance was a wash, but Dad kept me at it for another year or two just to make sure. Then, when I was around seven or eight, he got me my first flute. God, I hated that thing, hated the lessons.”

  “What’d you do?” Lee asked.

  Becky blushed. “I, uh, took the flute and wedged it between a door frame and the door, then pushed. I kept pushing and shoving it until it was bent into kind of an S shape.”

  Lee laughed. “Bet your dad was happy with you.”

  “I was terrified. I waited until he went to change his clothes or something, ran outside, and put it under his tire, trying to make it look like he’d run over it.”

  “Smart,” Lee said.

  “Yeah. Eight-year-old logic, right? Like, why is my flute on the driveway in the first place? So I ran back inside, just in time to see him walk out to the garage for something.”

  “So he found it.”

  “I was sitting at the kitchen table, hardly breathing. Noah was watching from around the corner, waiting to see which way Dad was going to kill me.”

  “And?”

  “He just walks in, turns the thing over in his hands, and nods to himself, these little bobs of his head. He never looked at me, just opened the cupboard under the sink and threw it in the trash can.”

  “You’re kidding.”

  “Nope. I heard him on the phone later, canceling all my lessons. I couldn’t believe it. Not only was I still alive, I was getting off the hook of these lessons forever.”

  “But?” Lee said.

  “A week later, after I’d watched TV every afternoon, he told me I was going to be taking acting lessons at the Orange City Theater Company. I pitched a huge fit. Turned purple, broke blood vessels in my face. I could hardly talk the next day I was so hoarse. The acting coach, Mr. Franz, would give us a line to say and we’d have to repeat it back to him and I sounded like a bullfrog.”

  “You hated it?”

  “Well, that first day. The second week was okay, and by the third I actually started to enjoy myself. Inside of a month I was hooked, even when they made me take singing lessons. I begged my dad to take me early, to let me skip school to go to the theater. I appeared in every play they put on and even got a couple small spots in the adult productions.

  “Anyway,” she continued, “after a couple years, Mr. Franz told my dad that I’d better start thinking about going to New York if I was serious about acting. It took some doing, but we finally convinced my dad to take me. Every weekend, I would be in audition lines, talking to agents, going to workshops. The payoff was getting to go to the Broadway plays; that was the best part.”

  “The auditions were tough?” Lee asked.

  “Some. Mostly it was the fact that it felt like dance class all over again. Those kids had been acting since they were two or three or even babies. Most had TV experience. Their parents acted like agents, prepping them, going over their résumés, yelling at them when they forgot a line. The agency waiting rooms felt like day care sometimes—kids screaming, crying, puking. Luckily, I caught someone’s eye. Next thing I knew, I was in a commercial for carpeting.”

  “Sexy,” Lee murmured.

  “Yeah, well, it was a start. I had a very small foot in a very large door. By the time I was sixteen I was modeling, too, and had been in about twenty locals. I still hadn’t broken in to Broadway, of course, but there are actors that’ve been working thirty years and haven’t cracked that nut. So I started doing street theater and little off-Broadway gigs.”

  “Still living in New Jersey?”

  Becky shook her head. “No. I had an aunt in Brooklyn. She was a trip. Still living in the Sixties, with a capital S. We had a good time together, but she wasn’t always all there, if you know what I mean. That was good for me, since I could skip school and go to the theater or do my street thing. She’d be on the phone with my dad—‘Isaac, she’s fine. I saw her go off to school this morning. No, I didn’t drive her there myself, but I’m sure she went.’ Meanwhile, I was doing numbers from Hairspray on some Manhattan sidewalk and waiting tables on the side.”

  “And then?”

  Becky took a deep breath. “And then, Mr. Jason Ford found me. He’d flown to New York to scout for investors for one of his movies, ducked in to watch a play, and saw me doing a number on the street outside the theater.”

  “And the rest is history,” Lee said.

  She looked down. “I wish it was.”

  Becky let that hang in the air as they walked on. She was conscious of Lee looking at her, a moonstruck look on his face, which was charming on him even though it was a tiresome and typical reaction in so many other men she met. And she liked how intently he listened to her, his eyes watching her as she spoke, taking in every word—so different from Jason, who she wasn’t even sure heard her half the time.

  “What about you, Lee?” she asked, interrupting his thoughts. “My God, I’ve talked about myself this whole time.”

  He dipped his head in his best aww shucks. “I’m not that interesting, not next to a movie star.”

  “Shut up,” she said, poking him in the chest.

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “That’s better,” she said. “Now, I know a couple things. You’re from Virginia, your parents are gone, you like your Harley. Not much else.”

  He shrugged. “I own a garage in a little town called Brumley. It’s a little whistle stop of a town down near the real Appalachia, the scary part with all the inbreeding.”

  She laughed, but stopped when he didn’t join in. “You’re not serious.”

  He crossed his eyes and looked at her. “I got gills.”

  She slapped his arm. “Get out of here. How small a town could it be?”

  “Well, my granddad said that right up until I was born the town didn’t have a Welcome to Brumley sign because people weren’t in town long enough to read it.”

  He grinned as she snorted. “You are so corny. I can’t believe I’m laughing at this.”

  They strolled along. Becky continued to talk, pointing at shops and the outrageous outfits some of the people on the street wore. She grabbed his arm at one point to show him one woman completely outfitted in black latex. “Lee, are you listening to me?” Becky said.

  “Yes, ma’am, I was.”

  She shot him a look. “No, you weren’t. You look like you’ve been
kicked in the teeth.”

  “Ah, sorry. That’s my normal expression.”

  She laughed. “Well, Lee, I appreciate you walking with me. I had a great time, but I’ve probably got to go fish Jason out of that place.”

  Lee looked startled. “Really?”

  She sighed and closed her eyes. “Yeah. I don’t know why. I feel partly responsible. What he really needs is a mother, keep him out of trouble. He’s probably passed out at one of the tables now anyway. I’ll just get a couple of the Hawgs to drive us home.”

  He groped for words. “Well, okay. I had a great time talking to you.”

  She looked at him. “Me, too, Lee. Do you mind if I keep your jacket until tomorrow night? I promise I’ll give it back at the auction.”

  He smiled weakly. “Keep it as long as you want.”

  She moved in a little closer and stretched on her tiptoes, meaning to kiss him on the cheek, a chaste thank-you for his gallantry and company. Instead, to his surprise and hers—with no thought or second-guessing to it, just an instant’s change of course—she planted a soft kiss full on his mouth. Too surprised to break away, perhaps, they held the kiss. Then held it longer, too long to be considered an accident, enjoying it too much to be embarrassed, conscious only of each other. Of her hand, pressing lightly on his chest. Of his arm, wrapped partway around her waist, steadying her and pulling her inward. Of their mouths, opened slightly.

  They ended it slowly, each relaxing a half step backward, parting reluctantly. She opened her eyes slowly, deep green and wondering as she gazed up at him. They stood that way, looking at each other, unwilling to say anything. Then the swirl of people and the carnival noises brought them around, the lights of the businesses and the smells of the Rally intruding on the moment. Lee raised his hand to brush her cheek but dropped it. He swallowed and glanced at his feet.