Monster Behind the Wheel

by Michael McCarty

  I remembered something from one of my classes. I had this English comp teacher named Julie Spaugh. Besides teaching the classics, she told me about tarot cards and a lot of New Age stuff. She also used to encourage me to write poetry. I told her about my brother dying a couple weeks after he was born. Julie said I was a ghost child. I asked her what a ghost child was, and she said, “A ghost child is born into a family after a miscarriage, stillborn, or child who died as an infant.”

  Ghost child. That seemed to describe me somehow.

  Later that week, I woke up to one of the hottest, most humid days imaginable. Sometime in the night, the air conditioner had broken down. We tried jiggling the thermostat, hoping the outage wasn’t serious, but it was no use.

  Cait had left a message on the landlord’s answering machine. The apartment complex had its own maintenance man, but he didn’t know squat about anything past installing dead bolts and fixing toilets. The office always called stuff like this out to independent companies. Maybe with any luck they would be able to get somebody out the next day. But it was summer, the busiest time of year for AC techs. They made appointments; they had waiting lists. Who knew how many countless sweating hours, how many organ-stewing days it might be before it got fixed?

  In Texas, an air conditioner wasn’t a luxury. It was a necessity, ranking right up there with Prometheus’s fire as a basic needed for survival. It was why they called it air—because without it, you couldn’t breathe once it got hot. You had to have it to combat living inside our molten volcanic summers.

  I was as sticky as a rat dead for three days in a glue trap. As a possum squashed by a jackknifed syrup truck. As a fly that had flown up somebody’s nose only to get plastered in the mucus. I floundered whenever I tried to turn over in the bedsheets, slathered in sour buckets of my own filth from sweaty, greasy pores. And that was when I could actually move. Most of the time I couldn’t nor could I breathe. No air, conditioned or unconditional. I imagined I could hear my brain cells popping as they died of heatstroke within my skull. Each one would scream before it met its fate, and that tiny howl would reverberate between my ears.

  The apartment stank no matter how many times we showered or took turns just lying in a bathtub full of cool water. There’s an old saying that horses sweat, men perspire, and women glow. But Caitlin wasn’t glowing; she was a drippy mess. And I wasn’t merely perspiring; I was a pig basting in its own juices.

  Did you know that once you get hot enough, you can lose feeling in your arms and legs? Did you know that your eyes will invent a mirage out there, with or without a desert?

  Did you know you can sweat out of your ass?

  Caitlin put Christmas songs on the stereo, trying to fool herself into thinking cold thoughts.

  I shuddered through about a hundred playings of “Let It Snow.” It made my head hurt until all I could see was white. And it wasn’t whiteout from a blizzard. It was top-of-the-world white heat.

  Of late, I’d been having hell-bending migraines, almost as bad as right after the accident, when I had been battered about the skull. All the meds I was taking had little effect anymore on the agonizing ache inside my head. It felt like my brain was being crushed by a vise grip, getting tighter and tighter, squeezing the gray matter into thought jelly. I would stagger to the mirror and peer at it, trying to see through the quicksilver haze of pain, trying to see if cerebral ichor was drooling out of my ears yet.

  This is your brain. This is your brain after implosion.

  And worst of all, another tooth came out. I found it on my pillow. Just lying there in front of my face, like it had gotten tired of the oven my mouth had become and had crawled out for some oxygen. It felt like the tooth fairy in reverse: steal a dollar and leave a tooth to find when I wake up.

  I didn’t even believe it was really mine at first. Teeth didn’t just fall out while you were in bed. I didn’t even think it was a tooth. I thought maybe it was a stray piece of popcorn. It could have been a freshwater pearl that the Penthouse Pet who had been wearing nothing but strategically looped strings of them in my dream had left. Maybe it was a bleached turd from a wandering Easter Bunny.

  I stuck a finger in my mouth, nearly gagging, and found the space the tooth had previously occupied.

  I was scared. This was the second tooth I’d lost in two weeks. They showed no signs of decay, and both looked like perfectly healthy teeth with no fucking reason whatsoever to fall out of my mouth. What? Were they unhappy with the conditions they were forced to work under? Did they have to go out on strike? Couldn’t we talk about this?

  I wondered if I ought to tell Cait about it. Hey, she worked for a dentist. Maybe her boss would give me an exam, possibly take a couple of X-rays gratis. Maybe I had receding gums or some other kind of gum disease. It could have been periodontitis, pyorrhea, or even good old-fashioned scurvy. In case it was just the latter, I promised myself to drink a lot of orange juice. I breathed into my hand and checked. No horrendous breath. It wasn’t trench mouth.

  I gingerly tried to wiggle the other teeth. Nothing was loose.

  But when would I ask Caitlin? She was usually too tired for conversation. Besides working her full-time job at the dental office, she had a part-time position at Walmart as a night clerk. It wasn’t lost on me that she had to do this, because I was still behind paying rent. And just living here, I was causing other expenses, too: eating her food, drinking and bathing in her water, using her electricity.

  I felt rotten that she had to work a second job because of me. I didn’t have any extra money. All my income was tied up in the car and college and the debts that had come crashing down on me from the accident. Nobody wanted to wait until the insurance settled to get their bucks. Like Olive Oyl, I was flat busted.

  But at least I was family.

  The same couldn’t be said for her current lover boy, Mad Dog. If he ever got off his lazy ass, Cait wouldn’t need to work two jobs. He called himself a musician. He was really just a small-time dealer who could play a few heavy-metal oldies on his guitar.

  The long-haired moocher’s repertoire consisted of lame songs by Bon Jovi, Ratt, Poison, Cinderella, Skid Row, and Warrant, and it all sounded like shit. He kept talking about joining this or that local band, but none of them would have him. Maybe if he doused himself with gasoline and danced around on fire, he could have been a performance artist. Wishful thinking, that.

  The speed bumps in the Land of the Dead had more career opportunities.

  Mostly he just sponged off my stepsister. But not me. No. I was family.

  When Cait wasn’t working, she’d be doing the double-backed nasty with Mad Dog. Or they’d be going off to a motorcycle bar. Or falling asleep in front of the TV. And lately he’d been picking out and rearranging “White Christmas” into something utterly heinous along the steel-string road into hell.

  The notes ricocheted around my sore brain, pinging off arcs of skull bone. They zinged off my teeth, and the sparks left burns on my lips. I held my head and moaned, knowing that release was as easy as shooting Old Yeller in the living room and then doing a grinch kill on Father Christmas.

  Both the teeth I’d lost had been in the back of my mouth, upper right and lower right corners. Maybe they were only wisdom teeth. I ought to be glad I didn’t need to have them yanked, right?

  I mean, I knew a guy in college who had to go into the hospital for his. The wisdom roots had wrapped around his jaws, and the doctor was forced to go in and surgically break the jaws to get the teeth out. They didn’t heal quite right, and an infection set in. More back teeth had to be pulled. He always had this sloppy, wet lisp afterward. But he did have fashion model cheekbones after that, too.

  I assured myself that this was nothing like that. It would turn out to be something simple, probably laughably so.

  But still, I had a sinking feeling that something was wrong. As wrong as stepping on a newborn kitten or having sex with a grandparent.

  Just wrong.

  “Shit. D
on’t you have a window unit or something you can loan us? We’re dying up here,” I complained to the office. “Isn’t there a law that landlords have to have the air-conditioning fixed in a certain amount of time or supply a window unit?”

  I thought I remembered Darrin once telling me something about not putting the tenant at grave risk of life and limb or spontaneous combustion.

  “Give me a break,” the landlord replied. “All our window units are tied up. We’ve been calling every repair place in town. They’re busy. This is summer, okay? If you can do any better at getting a company to come out, then fine. You pay for it and submit the bill for the owner’s consideration.”

  I thought about calling an apartment association but decided it wouldn’t be worth the effort. I was having shit luck trying to get justice for my accident. Would a minor air-conditioning snafu be any better?

  “Well, what are we supposed to do?” I said.

  “I would suggest trying some of the charitable organizations that help out this time of year with donated window units. But I think they give top priority to families with elderly folks or really young kids. You wouldn’t happen to have one of those, would you?” The voice over the phone was turning sarcastic. “You know, those who are at greatest risk?”

  I glanced at Mad Dog, using his guitar pick to dig green jam out of his toenails. A child? Yeah, sort of.

  Hell, the landlord knew what our lease said. Probably had it right in front of him. Was well aware that we didn’t have any old folks or kids in danger of dying here.

  He hung up.

  I turned to Mad Dog. “Would you mind if I cut off your legs at the knees and claimed you were only eight years old? Just so they’ll fix the air-conditioning before I start to murder the neighbors?”

  He grinned and waved. “Sure. Whatever.” He now used his guitar pick to pry a piece of cheeseburger out from between his front teeth.

  Teeth. Why couldn’t his fall out instead of mine?

  Hell, the landlord knew how many people were supposed to be in this apartment. Just my stepsister and me. He could evict us if he found out Cait’s insignificant other lived here, too.

  I decided the best way to combat the heat was to spend the early morning being a lump on the sofa, with the box fan wedged in an open window and grinding away at full blast. My crotch was jungle soggy, but that old stereo burbled mindlessly, “It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas.”

  I tried stuffing cotton in my ears, but they floated away on tides of sweat. So I attempted to ignore my misery, trying to catch up reading a crappy Goth vampire novel while drinking ice-cold Pepsi. In the late afternoon I would cool off by going to Garland’s municipal wave-action pool. I would beat this thing.

  Or beat the landlord with a baseball bat heated on our balcony.

  The phone rang.

  I knew who it was before the caller ID registered the name. It was work. I almost didn’t answer it, but I needed all the money I could get.

  I wiped my dripping palms on my jeans and picked up. “Hello,” I said, realizing my voice sounded hollow, sepulchral. Zombies originated in hot climes, didn’t they? Like Haiti?

  “Jeremy. Good, you’re home,” said my boss, Mr. Getz. “I know it’s your day off, but we’re short on help. Do you think you could come in and work?”

  I sighed, relieved to have the breeze of my gusting breath across my lips. It formed a little O of steam. How could I tell him no? I’d been begging for more hours, and I was finally getting them. “Yeah,” I said without much enthusiasm.

  “Good,” he said. “Can you get here in the next hour?”

  For the first couple of hours I worked in the kitchen. The hellhole-hot, pizza-oven-on-the-sun, God-get-me-outta-here kitchen. Hey, out of the frying pan and into the fire. The place had air-conditioning, but I couldn’t even feel it coming out of the vents, so much heat was pulsing out of the ovens.

  I helped put the toppings on the pizzas and make the dough in the mixers, prep the cheese and tomato sauce, dripping sweat into all of it. I’d heard a rumor we were going to go the way of many of the other franchises and start using premade crusts, thin and tasteless as old crackers, if you asked me. And the cheese would come in bags, grated and premeasured. They’d be able to cut back on the staff. Broken-down, financially busted, downsized.

  The dishwasher tapped me on the shoulder. “Hey, man. Mr. Getz wants to see you in his office.”

  I climbed the stairs, dragging my feet, feeling like a death row prisoner walking down the corridors to the gas chamber.

  “Have a seat,” Mr. Getz said. He was sitting in his overstuffed chair, ample stomach sticking out, filling all the space between his spine and the desk.

  I sat, blinking at him through the salt water running through my eyebrows and lashes.

  He cleared his throat and said, “I want you to deliver pizzas tonight.”

  “What?” I tried to sound irritated, but I was so tired it came out with no inflection.

  Mr. Getz waved a hand. “I know. I know. The insurance company will probably shit a brick, but I’m down three drivers.”

  I pulled up my shirt and wiped my face with it. I protested limply, “But the insurance company won’t even cover deliveries made by me anymore.”

  “I know, kid. That’s why I want you to drive my car,” he said, handing me the keys. “It’s the red Celica parked out front.”

  I didn’t know what to say. Part of me wanted to get back to deliveries again; part of me felt like a cowboy who had taken a hard fall and vowed to stay off those broncos. But most of me was just scared shitless. If I had an accident in his car, my insurance wouldn’t understand, his insurance wouldn’t understand, and the company’s commercial insurance wouldn’t understand. I wouldn’t have workers’ comp on it. I would probably lose my license.

  “I’ll pay you cash under the table,” he said, “so corporate headquarters don’t find out. And, hey. No taxes. Here’s your money bag. Thirty bucks. Cash out with me at the end of the night.”

  No “What d’ya say? You gonna do this for me?” He simply took it for granted that I would, as if I had no say whatsoever.

  Maybe I didn’t.

  I shrugged, a wordless prayer to the God of Fools behind the Wheel. But I managed not to wreck the boss’s car, get a ticket, or run anyone over. Still, I felt claustrophobic the whole evening. One got accustomed to that classic car feel. The glorious gas-guzzlin’ size of it. The confining space inside the Toyota—not to mention the digital instrument panel—made me feel as comfortable as an armadillo crammed inside a can of pork and beans.

  But it was a profitable night. With the delivery fees Mr. Getz paid on the sly and the tips, I had over forty bucks. Not stupendous wages. I couldn’t retire. But I planned on using it to ante up my share of the rent.

  I was hot, sweaty, and smelled like pizza. I wanted to take a cold shower. And if I was really lucky, the air-conditioning would be fixed by the time I got home. I could lie down in front of a vent with my hair and body soaked and catch a really delicious chill.

  Before I drove home, I went over to Connie’s. I’m not sure why I decided to do that. I was tired and wasn’t feeling particularly social. And after the way things had turned out in the hot tub, I understood she might not even want to see me.

  That had been only a few days before. Just prior to our AC going out. The whole idea of being in a hot tub now conjured up images of my flesh being scalded off me in cooked pink reams and rippled skeins of hairy skin gauze.

  I didn’t go up to the house at first. I sat in my car in the dark, parked at the curb like a spy or a stalker. Fifteen minutes passed and I debated leaving.

  It was late. She had to be asleep. This was a wasted exercise.

  I noticed a flickering light through a window at the side of the house. Bright TV ghosts, swirling forth from a late-night talk show or the tastefully nude antics of soft-core cable porn.

  Ghosts. In her bedroom.

  She was awake then.r />
  Good, I thought. As if this meant, Oh, gee golly, I won’t disturb her then if I knock on the door since I must’ve come over here to disturb her, because only some creepy degenerate freak would just sit outside in his car in front of her house for nothing.

  I wasn’t sure why it was good or what was even good about it.

  Well, it was good because I really wanted to see her. Otherwise I might be psychotic.

  I got out of the car and walked to the back of the house. There was an upside-down canoe tilted against the side of it.

  I didn’t go to the front door. So was this still good?

  I took off my shoes and stood on the canoe, peeking into Connie’s bedroom.

  I had no idea why I was doing this. I wasn’t a Peeping Tom. I’d never spied on anyone before.

  I could see easily through the light, lacy curtains woven in bluebonnets. Connie was lying naked on the bed, spread-eagled, touching herself as she watched TV. Through the lace, little flaws like cellulite and wrinkles didn’t show. It was like the hazy filters some photographers used in lieu of airbrushing for touch-up. It was downright romantic, the way it made her appear younger, desirable. She’d recently redone her hair, and the roots weren’t showing black. She’d even bleached her pubic hair. From where I stood, she looked as natural as could be from head to crotch.

  I started getting aroused. Unable to help myself, I quickly unzipped my jeans and began to touch myself, too. Outside—even if it was dark—where some outraged neighbor might catch me. As if I were the filthy block pervert with snot in my hair and worms down my pants. The sort who eventually ended up in prison, then got paroled, starting a campaign of people tacking flyers onto doors. Did you know this Monster has moved near you? Get your shotguns and ten feet of rope.

  I whimpered a little in ecstasy and shame. Yes, this was good all right.

  But she was done too quickly, arching her back, white breasts surmounted by nipples straining hard to explode, head shaking with beige-blonde hair rising and falling in a tawny mane.