As the sound of the police car faded, Kevin slowly sat up and looked around. I wanted to do it all over again, but I didn’t want to get caught. Kevin let out the emergency brake, and the car rolled silently back to the street before he fired up the Firebird’s engine.
“I should go, Kevin.” Kevin smirked at me and punched my shoulder as we crept back to the theater at twenty miles per hour. The parking lot seemed desolate as we approached, then a set of headlights careened into the parking lot. “There’s my mom,” I said, as the car lights swerved down the alley on the far side of the theater.
“Since when’d you get a station wagon?”
“Yeah, it’s her.” I knew it was not my mother.
“Hey, if you don’t tell anyone I kidnapped you, I won’t tell anyone that you rode with a pot smoker.”
“I won’t. Hey, you hit that mailbox with the bent leg, din’t you?”
“Either that, or it hit me. How’d you know we’d met?” Kevin smirked quizzically.
“Just guessed, that’s all.”
I got out into the brisk night air and closed the Firebird door with reverence, waving to Kevin until he drove off. Then I sat down on the steps of the empty theater, watching as the station wagon drove by slowly. I looked the other way, pretending to be expecting someone to get me. My stomach tightened as I waited for Lilyth. Finally, another car, an El Camino, approached from the other side of the theater and stopped in the alley. I was scared, but I hoped it was Lilyth. With my back to the car, I heard a door slam.
“Hey, ya little brat! Sorry I’m late. Been sittin’ here long?” Lilyth walked up from the alley chewing a big wad of gum, taking it out of her mouth to talk, then sticking it back in.
“Just a couple minutes.”
“Bullshit, it ended thirty minutes ago! So what’d ya think of the movie, ya retard?”
“Well, it wuddn’t a cartoon like on the poster.”
“No, but I figured your brain needs a little poisoning. How’d ya like the part where that guy with the eyelash crushes that lady to death using that big white stone dick!?” I must’ve made a face that she didn’t understand. “God! You’re such a baby.”
“The bad guys had a cool race car, and the music was good.”
“Yeah, my friend Max has the soundtrack, it’s great. Ludwig van Beethoven on fucking acid! Come on.” We walked across the dimly lit parking lot. I glanced back at the two-sided theater marquee. Peter Pan on one side, but the farther we walked, the more the second side of the marquee came into view, and I found out the title of the movie I had seen was A Clockwork Orange. “And remember, we saw Peter Pan together.”
“All right. Where’re we goin’?”
“To the new Baskin-Robbins. I told Mom to pick us up there at eight, in case I was late.”
“Where’d you go?”
“None o’ your beeswax, ya little shit! But I had to go over to Magda’s ’cause her boyfriend just dumped her.”
“Why?”
“’Cause she’s gonna have a baby, she’s keeping it this time, and if you tell Mom and Dad, I’ll kill you. Anyway her boyfriend duddn’t love her. It don’t matter, he was an asshole anyway.” I glanced back at the El Camino as it was pulling away. “He ain’t father material, is all.”
“Was that him?”
“No, that was Felix, he just gave me a ride. He’s a friend of Kevin’s. His real name is Oscar, but he loves The Odd Couple and he’s more Lemmon than Matthau, so I renamed him.”
I pondered this. “He let you?”
“I just did it, dumbass, I didn’t ask. Like when I started calling you Mickey when you was a baby ’cause you reminded me of that stupid fuckin’ mouse Mom’d make me watch when she was dotin’ on you.”
“Then how does he know you’re not just dumb?”
“Why would he think I’m dumb?”
“Maybe he thinks you forgot his name.” I kept my hands shoved in my pockets and Lilyth stared down at me, shaking her head.
“You’re stupid. You’re smart enough to know that, right?”
Lilyth cupped the back of my head just as a shiny new custom Chevy van idled up alongside us. A long-haired guy with a goatee that looked like pipe cleaners stuck his head out of the passenger window.
“Hey sugar-pop, I recognize that perfume from Halloween. I float ’em, Utotem, baby. Want a ride?”
“No, we’re fine.” We kept walking and Lilyth didn’t even look at the car.
“C’mere, baby, lemme show you somethin’.”
“I said we’re fine.” Lilyth stopped in her tracks and pulled me behind her to face the man directly. I tried to peek around, but she kept her arms behind her like a corral around me, and I gagged on the smell of her perfume steaming off her jeans, even in the autumn chill. “Drive away, fuckhead! Drive away right now, or I swear to God I will pick up a rock and smash it through your fucking car window!” Lilyth reached down to grab a piece of rubble. She wound up her arm like a viper ready to strike.
“Bitch!” the hippie yelled as they shoved off. “Why y’ain’t nice no more?”
Lilyth gently drew my hand out of my pocket and held it, and we crossed the boulevard just like that, hand in hand. I was powerless to refuse her. And I wondered how long this was going to last before she cuffed me or pinched me or came up with a new hateful remark. Once we got to the other side, Lilyth kneeled down and hugged me tight. I stiffened, holding my breath against her caustic perfume.
“Come here, Mickey.” She leaned back to give me space but stayed kneeling right in front of me, looking at me compassionately. “And hey, don’t tell Mom and Dad about that hippie van, either, or we won’t get to come here anymore.”
For the first time, I felt oddly safe with my sister. Hostage and jailer: I guess I was hers to abuse. I let Lilyth continue to hold my hand until we reached the ice cream place, where we stood in silence under the fluorescent lights waiting for Mom. I had been to this spot a million times with my Grandaddy for a delicious breakfast when it was still The Piccadilly Cafeteria. My stomach grumbled loud enough for Lilyth to hear it, but she gave no reaction. I didn’t dare break the peace asking if there was any money left for food at the fancy-looking Baskin-Robbins that had replaced The Piccadilly.
“Anyway, you wanna know why Mom and Dad wanted me to take you to the movies?”
“Why?”
“’Cause they’re at home in the garage fixin’ a surprise for you, not that you deserve it, ya little shit bag.” I stared at my sister.
“They can’t be. Dad’s using poisonous chemicals in the garage. Mom said.”
“GOD! You kill me. Those chemicals are the paint for your surprise, dumbass.”
To my astonishment, Lilyth was pushing me inside the Baskin-Robbins, cutting in line past kids younger than her but older than me, and pointing at a million flavors as she pulled out a wad of cash. I could not understand why she had so much money or why there were so many choices in ice cream flavors.
“Chocolate, please,” I said. Andy and his nerd friends were already at the register paying, and Andy was licking a pink ice cream cone. I raised my hand by my chest, and he raised his palm back at me in mutual, respectful, indifferent recognition. Since Andy bailed after the first day of football season way back, I only ever saw him in passing. “They’ve got chocolate, Andy, they ain’t out of it,” I said earnestly. I meant it.
“I like strawberry,” Andy said softly between licks, like I would have said I like football, or race cars, or most especially Jane, had I ever told anyone about her. Andy’s strawberry ice cream made no sense to me at the time. Why strawberry, when chocolate was what mattered?
I nodded politely to the alien savoring strawberry ice cream and turned away to watch the lady scoop my chocolate chilled heaven into a waffle cone.
“Don’t you wanna know what it is?” asked Lilyth.
“What?”
“Your surprise, dipshit.”
Andy’s friends eyeballed Lilyth as they crowded toward
the door.
“It’s a surprise. I’ll see it when we get home.” I remained cool, but inside, of course, I was getting flutters of curiosity. Anytime something amazing was about to come into my life, I wouldn’t discuss with anyone the possibility of it arriving, not even with my Grandaddy. I’ve always felt in the back of my mind that acknowledging something good’s close proximity to me would somehow slow its approach or make it turn around and go away altogether. Conversely, if I was afraid of something, I had to look it in the eye, address it out loud. Acknowledging something bad seemed to always make it just a bit smaller, a bit more tolerable. I could quantify its danger and develop a game plan or escape. But now, Lilyth was popping her seams wanting to be the one to tell me what I was getting and spoil my surprise.
“Bullshit, it’s a bike. Dad got one of the stolen ones from the police station, and he’s rebuildin’ it and paintin’ it in the garage, so people won’t know that we’re poor and have to have used stuff. But I’m not supposed to tell you. So don’t tell them you know, or I’ll tell ’em you bit me.” Lilyth opened her mouth and started biting her own hand. A horn honked. Lilyth stopped and turned her back on me. I watched as she walked off toward the door and out to Mom’s Dodge Dart, leaving me standing there to nurse my cone. “Well, hurry up, shit head!”
Inside, I smiled.
Mom was so happy when Lilyth and I got in her car, saying how nice to see you two smilin’ like the best friends that you are.
* * *
“Ready?” asked Dad, standing next to the garage door like he was about to show me the wizard behind the curtain.
“Yeah.”
My dad slowly opened the garage door, and right next to his British racing green ’58 MGA sat a completely redone and gleaming British racing green Schwinn Sting-Ray with all new components. Brand-new green handle grips with black streamers, a brand-new black banana seat with a silver stripe, a new chrome sissy bar, polished chrome handlebars, and two new tires, the rear being a slick. I just stood there silent and frozen, with my hands over my mouth trying not to cry.
“I couldn’t wait for Christmas,” admitted Dad. “But don’t touch it yet.”
A newspaper beneath the bike with green spray paint splotches slowed my advance. Mom held Steve McQueen so his thumping Weimaraner tail could wag and not get stuck in the paint. I didn’t dare even sniff the bike up close.
My throat closed on a lump and I could hardly breathe. The Grunt came, and I buried my face in Mom and Dad, hugging them to hide my emotions. I could hear my sister screaming from inside the house, “Oh my God, I love it!” before joining us back in the driveway.
“Well, what do you think? I put a lower gear on it so it’ll accelerate out of the corners like a bat outta hell.”
Crying over a bike was only something that pussies do, and I was calling upon all of my resources to not be a pussy. But the Schwinn Sting-Ray that my dad built and painted for me in that garage was the best gift I have ever received in my life…and my sister got a new shag carpet.
“I love it.” I hid my eyes. My dad gingerly tapped the crossbar, testing the paint.
“Hmmm, feels like it might be dry enough.” Dad looked at me expectantly. “Wanna take it for a spin?”
“Yeah!” I exclaimed, my grumbling tummy long forgotten.
“It’s dark out, y’all,” my mom called.
“Let’s live dangerously.” Dad jerked his head toward the street mischievously.
I handed over the leather thong from around my neck dangling his silver stopwatch. Dad followed me in his car with the stopwatch around his neck as I rode furiously around the block. That first night, the Bentliff block lap record fell by almost four full seconds. As I sped past Jane’s on Sandpiper Drive, I prayed she saw me from her window. The lights were on there, so I guessed they were still in the process of moving, even though I had not seen her. The temperature had dropped and the air was fresh and crisp, but I was sweating so much I did not mind it.
“Okay one more lap, Sug. Time for bed,” hollered Mom, shivering under the big bean tree at the foot of the driveway as I sped by again.
I parked the Schwinn right in my bedroom that night, and I don’t remember sleeping at all, even with Steve McQueen curled up as a foot warmer. Steve’s slobber and Mom’s perfume woke me early when she kissed my brow. I had gone to bed in my clothes so I would not have to take time to dress. My prize gleamed in the morning light, and I sprang out of bed to ride it. I angled the Schwinn past the projector on the floor where I had left Jane pointing at the wall. I took the film from the projector and stowed the reel back in my Charles Chips can, and stuck the can in my closet. As I wheeled my new bike out to the kitchen for a spin around the block, a pop and whoosh followed by a waft of Folger’s coffee grounds overtook the smell of peanut butter on burnt pancakes.
Lilyth had left early, so I felt safe and happy and very, very hungry.
“Zat you, Sug? Eat! Breakfast’s on the table.” In the kitchen, Mom handed me a stack of more returned letters and my lunch bag. “You got ready quick, Sug. Oh, take your milk money, and here are some more postal experiments. In lieu of that broken box on the corner, we’re gonna have to mail them from another part of town. Seems the mailman thinks we’re wastin’ tax dollars.”
“Are we?”
“Are we what?”
“Wastin’ tax dollars?”
“Absolutely not! You can mail as many as you want, from any postbox you want. Now, git!” Mom hugged me hard and shoved me off gently toward my plate of food.
* * *
On the way to school I timed myself around Bentliff Street, past Jane’s on Sandpiper Drive, then flew across the baseball diamonds straight for the other side of the park followed by Steve McQueen at full gallop.
“Go on home, boy!”
As I approached the stand of trees where The Hole hid, I saw The Plank with its red Firebird parked alongside the gash in the world. I coasted over to the car, but no one was in it. I looked around and still saw no one. As I was getting back on my bike, I heard the groan of someone in pain, so I stopped. The moaning continued and I followed it into the stand of trees and then right up to the mouth of The Hole. Blackness disappeared into eternal blackness, and the moaning persisted.
Lilyth had been the first one who had ever told me about The Hole in the world right on the edge of the diamonds, and that you could go there and hide if you wanted to and no one would ever find you. But the groans worried me because if someone had gone to hide, they must have accidentally gotten hurt and needed help. The opening into The Hole was hardly big enough to squeeze into if you were an adult. I kneeled down and peered in. I dropped my feet down into the narrow chasm and I tried to wedge myself into it. I got about four feet down before the gap got a bit tighter and the floor seemed to disappear, and my head was stuck at a bad angle between two slabs of compressed earth. Unable to feel a path for my feet, with four feet of stone and dirt above me, I started to panic. Clearly there was a path that zigzagged downward, and someone down there was hurting. The moaning below me echoed up at me, wedged in there between the rock surfaces, my breathing quickened, and I had to climb back out or hyperventilate myself into a coma. I could not imagine how anyone bigger than me could even fit through the tiny slivers of twisted space to get in there. Steve McQueen whined, staring down at me. But I was relieved he had disobeyed me and waited. As I pulled myself up out of the rock crevice, Steve licked my face and bounded around, and then I noticed a bra lying in the dirt next to Kevin’s car.
“Go on home, Mr. McQueen. I’m fine.” I patted Steve to send him off, then I walked over and picked up the bra and backtracked to look down The Hole again, reaching it just as words arose from below.
“Oh my God, Kevin! You’re SO deep!”
I ran for my bike and pedaled as fast as I could straight for school. I had never thought for a second that Kevin was a guy who would go hiding himself in The Hole, but if he was, at least someone had found him. At school, Steve
McQueen lumbered around after squirrels as I parked my Schwinn at the rack under Mrs. Bradford’s classroom so I could keep a close eye on it. They were already somewhere between attendance and the Pledge of Allegiance.
“Go home, Steve!” I shooed off my dog.
Before I could lock my bike, Mr. Totter’s shadow arose behind me and he slammed his wooden paddle on my banana seat. Steve McQueen barked.
“Mickey!”
I turned around to face Mr. Totter just as he reached for my sissy bar and removed the bra that had somehow got caught as I was fleeing The Hole. He held up the bra accusingly, sniffing it as if he could identify the owner solely with his nose. Like he was a sommelier of lingerie. Totter’s shadow of suspicion solidified to a lump of char.
“March! To the principal’s office!” He stared at me like a field commander willing a soldier to go AWOL so he could unleash even more of his misappropriated authority. But I knew that he had probably ridden at the front of the bus his entire life and dodged spitballs shot at the back of his head. And I bet he deserved each and every one of them.
“Yes, sir, I’ll just lock my bike up first.”
With bra and paddle Mr. Totter threw me toward the school door two-handed, and I stumbled, but caught my balance before smashing my face into the door handle. There was no way in hell I would let someone like Totter upset my balance enough to put me on all fours.
“Is this your idea of a joke, boy? I think you’ll leave your bike right where it is, and come with me for a little chat.” I turned around away from the school steps and walked right back past Mr. Totter to the rack by Mrs. Bradford’s window. “Where are you going?” But I just kept walking. I had to. “Damn it boy, you’ll listen to me when I talk to you!” Steve McQueen barked again. “Lest you forget, I am an adult!”
“Don’t holler at him, Steve, go home.” I patted my dog, who stood on point to protect me. “I’m fine, Steve. Go on.” But I was not about to tell Steve this was a nice man. Mr. Totter’s shouting had drawn Mrs. Bradford and a crowd of students to the window. Firefly was tapping on the glass, but I did not dare make eye contact. I just locked up my bike.
Jane Two Page 10
