Fender Lizards

by Joe R. Lansdale

  Herb helped me to my feet.

  “No broken bones,” he said. “You still look great.”

  “It’s the sweat that makes me shiny,” I said.

  High Top smiled at me, said, “Maybe you’re just not playing aggressively enough.”

  I laughed. That made my stomach hurt where I had hit the railing. The little girl with the pig tails said, “That was funny.”

  “Thanks, honey,” I said. “Appreciate that.”

  “Are you all right?” Dad said again.

  I looked at him. His eyes were wide and his face was wadded up with fear.

  “I’m all right,” I said, reached out and touched his arm.

  “You got to quit this,” he said.

  “Nope,” I said, and turned to the crowd and raised my hands to show I was all right. The crowd cheered.

  I climbed down to the wooden floor next to the contact bar, skated to the gate, and went back out on the track, hands held high, the crowd still cheering.

  It was a great moment, and everyone of our team got to play. Gay even got brought back in for a while, but from the moment I went into those bleachers, it was down hill.

  The Carny Killers beat us like a rented mule after that. The score was forty to twenty. The only good thing I can say about the rest of the night was that nobody died, and we left the track with all our fingers, eyes, and knee caps in the right place.

  (48)

  In the locker room we sat on benches, taking off our skates. Elbert was there too, standing in the middle. Elbert said, “Well, we lost, and really bad, a little embarrassing at times, but you gave it all you had. And, you got your own locker room.”

  “I hit someone,” Gay said.

  “Yes,” Elbert said. “You did.”

  Gay still seemed a little goofy to me. I didn’t like the way she smiled.

  “We didn’t win any money,” Elbert continued, “but you can go home tonight and know you played proud.”

  Raylynn stood up and moved to the center of the room. She held her hand out in front of her. “Broke, but proud,” she said. “Fender Lizards, assemble.”

  We all got up and went to the middle of the room, laid our hand on hers. Elbert came forward and put his on top. He said, “One for one, and one for all.”

  We yelled it out and let out a roar.

  As we finished, the other team came into the locker room. Betty Dies had a knot above her nose about the size of an apple. She walked over to Gay.

  Gay glared at her, said, “You come for a fresh one?”

  Betty laughed. “No. We came to say you girls are the worse team we ever played. You don’t know crap from wild honey, and you skate like a twelve year old birthday party, but you got more heart and soul than a church choir, the lot of you.”

  “Is that good?” Gay asked, looking back at me.

  “It is,” I said.

  “We’d love another shot to trounce you anytime,” said Rocket Shot Sam. She had a face like a wanted poster and she wore a black and gold grill over her teeth. The tattoo of a snake on her bicep seemed to be looking at me.

  Betty Dies stuck out her hand to shake.

  Raylynn, who was standing close, stuck out hers.

  Betty Dies moved her hand, said looking at Gay, “Her first.”

  Gay slowly lifted her hand and they shook.

  The Carny Killers all shook hands then, gave us a nod and grunt and left us alone.

  (49)

  Elbert left and we all got dressed. I walked out with Raylynn and stood under the starry night. Mama and Frank and Grandma had congratulated us and gone on home.

  For the team, there was a party at the Dairy Bob. Herb was going to meet me there. Raylynn was going home now. She had left her kids with a baby sitter and had to leave right away. She had somehow managed to buy a different old car. It looked pretty good, though the front bumper was fastened on with duct tape. She said, “I wouldn’t have missed this for the world. Thanks, Dot.”

  “Thanks? We lost.”

  “One for one, and one for all,” she said. “It was pretty nifty. Tomorrow we go back to work and things are like they were, but tonight, they weren’t like that. They were different. We got that much going for us. We had a moment we’ll never forget.”

  “We did,” I said, and hugged her. “Kiss the kids.”

  “I will,” she said.

  I watched her drive away. When the car was gone Dad came out of the shadows of the carnival tent, walking toward me, his hands tucked down in his pants pockets, his head dipped.

  “You just missed Raylynn,” I said.

  “Yeah,” he said. “I know. I owe her an apology too, but I thought I’d tell you I was sorry again. I don’t have any good answers for you, other than to say I was a coward. I was a coward in that I didn’t stick it out. I was a coward in that I didn’t tell your mother I couldn’t do it anymore.”

  “I’m going to agree with all that,” I said.

  He nodded. “Watching you tonight, I know one thing, at least you’re not a coward. Gladly, you didn’t get that from me.”

  “If it makes you feel any better,” I said, “skating in a roller derby and taking care of a family are pretty different. I know that.”

  “Still,” he said. “I’m proud of you. But I can’t come back.”

  “Mama wouldn’t have you back,” I said. “Not now.”

  “Fair enough, but even if she would, I can’t come back. I’ve started over. I’ve moved on down the road. I shouldn’t have, at least not the way I did it, but I have. Things have changed, and there’s no going back. It’s like getting older. You do it if you mean to or not, and you don’t get young again. I’m sorry I haven’t been there for you, for all of you.”

  “All right,” I said. I actually wanted to say something else snappy, but to be honest, I’d lost all my steam by then. It was all I could do not to cry.

  “I was thinking,” he said, “I can’t make up for the time I lost, way I handled things, but maybe we could, how do they say it…Have a relationship.”

  “I don’t know,” I said.

  “I hear you,” he said, “and I don’t blame you. Not even a little. All I ask is you give me a chance. We can go to lunch or dinner some time. Talk a little. I might find someway to explain things better.”

  “You can explain things forever,” I said, “and they won’t be better. I know that now.”

  “But, we could talk. It could mean something for us to talk.”

  I nodded. “It might be something we could try.”

  “A hug?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said. I stuck out my hand.

  Dad looked at it hanging out there in the air. He pulled his out of his pants pocket and took mine.

  “Okay,” he said.

  (50)

  At the party we ate hamburgers and bragged on the good stuff we had done. Gay thought maybe she didn’t want to be a model anymore, that maybe she wanted to be a derby queen.

  We told her to sleep on it.

  There was an old time juke box in the Dairy Bob, and Bob turned some records on, that old fifties and sixties stuff he loved, and to be truthful, me too. There was something special about it, like it came from straight from the heart. We danced. Me and Herb together, and sometimes all of us girls dancing at once, including Thunder Bomb and Lightning Strike, who after that night I never saw again.

  I had invited High Top, and she showed up, and we talked about studying for the GED, and doing it right away. She danced with Bob, and later that night I saw them sitting on the counter, their feet hanging over the side, their heads close, smiling. I wasn’t sure if I was happy or yucked by that turn of events.

  By the end of the night, my ankle where I had twisted it was swollen a little.

  Herb followed me home. I half-expected to see Elbert’s van there, but it wasn’t. When I parked, Herb parked beside me. We got out and stood between the two cars.

  Herb said, “You are a wonderfully different kind of girl, Dot.
”

  “I know,” I said.

  He grinned. “I bet you do.”

  “You know what?” I said.

  “What?”

  “How about a kiss?” I said.

  “No argument here.”

  And we did kiss.

  To be truthful, we kissed several times.

  As Herb climbed back in his car, he said, “See you tomorrow.”

  “I’m sleeping in,” I said, “and then I think I’m just going to hang with the family. But I got your number and no phone, so when I can borrow the one at the Dairy Bob, I’ll call.”

  “I’d like that,” he said.

  He drove away. I stood there leaning against my car. I looked up at those stars and the moon. It took me a moment to adjust my eyes from the lights in the trailer park, but pretty soon I could see them. They looked clean and white and beautiful. The moon was a sweet, white eye.

  I got my skates out of the back of the car and went quietly inside the trailer.

  In the dark, I took off my derby clothes and put on my pajamas. As I was climbing into my bed, Grandma rolled over on hers, said, “That’s a dumb sport. You know it.”

  “Yep,” I said.

  “But,” she said, “for a dumb sport, you’re pretty good at it.”

  “Thanks, Grandma.”

  (51)

  When I woke up it was still dark, but there were pieces of light mixed with the dark, like someone pouring sunshine into chocolate.

  I got up and got on my derby outfit, even though it smelled of sweat. I carried my socks and skates with me. I was quiet so as not to wake anyone. I went outside and sat on the steps and put on my socks and laced on my skates and looked at Elbert’s van, which had ended up parked there during the night. I was glad to see it.

  Light was easing through more solidly now, becoming more vanilla than bloody. I could hear birds singing, and out on the highway just beyond the trailer park, I could hear cars and trucks motoring along.

  I climbed off the steps and trudged out past my car on the states, picking my feet up high so I could walk in them. When I got to the concrete drive, I glanced down the length of it. It looked so much shorter than it usually looked.

  I started skating. I felt a little stiff, and there was a mild jolt in my ankle, but within seconds it all went away and I felt fine.

  I skated down the drive. I thought about how my life had changed. I thought about Dad, and though things weren’t perfect with him, I felt a little different about him; at least I was connected, if only by a thread.

  I thought about the GED which I planned to ace with High Top’s help. I thought about Bob and the Dairy Bob, which I planned to leave for work at High Top’s dog charity. But I still liked Bob and I thought he made good hamburgers and not so good fries; that part hadn’t changed.

  I thought about Elbert, and how he was like a real uncle. A father for that matter. I thought about him and Mama and hoped for the best. I thought about Herb. Thinking about him made me think about a lot of things.

  I picked up the pace. The dawn was golden. I ducked my head and skated hard.

  I felt swift and powerful.