Back Roads

by Tawni O'Dell

  I jumped up from my seat, grabbed her roughly by the arm, and pushed her back into her chair.

  “You said take it off,” she yelled at me.

  “Where were you?” Misty asked.

  We both turned at the sound of her voice. She was chewing her egg roll with mechanical disinterest, holding it slightly away from her face with her elbow resting on the table. I noticed how the kitten collar didn’t slide down her forearm anymore. It stayed tight on her wrist.

  “You’re an hour late,” she said to me.

  I looked at the clock on the microwave and forgot about Amber. Misty was right.

  “I don’t get it,” I said. “How can I be an hour late?”

  “Maybe you were abducted by aliens,” Amber suggested snottily, “and they gave you some kind of drug to make you forget what happened. Too bad. Your first sexual experience and you won’t be able to remember it.”

  She laughed hysterically at herself. I didn’t blame her for once. It was a smart insult for Amber.

  “Maybe you got lost,” Jody said, opening her umbrella and twirling it between her fingers. “I needed another purple one,” she said, smiling. She had about six hundred purple ones.

  “I was hoping you’d finally decided to split permanently,” Amber told me when she got done laughing. “Then I could get my license.”

  I paused in the middle of fixing my hot dogs. It was my turn to laugh.

  “It’s not funny, Harley,” she fumed. “You can’t stop me forever. I should just go ahead and borrow one of my friend’s cars and get it. The only reason I haven’t done it yet is ’cause I know you won’t let me get anywhere near the truck so what’s the point?”

  “I thought the only reason you hadn’t done it was because you know I’d kill you.”

  “You don’t have the guts to do anything to me.”

  “You just don’t get it, do you?”

  “What don’t I get?”

  I looked around the table. Mom and Dad’s chairs were still here. One at each end. We hadn’t bothered moving them somewhere else just like we hadn’t bothered cleaning out their room. That would have been too much ACCEPTANCE.

  Misty sat directly across from me, still chewing. She watched me and Amber, back and forth, superior and patient, like she had already reached the end of our argument and was waiting for us to catch up.

  Jody was working on her list of things to do. Most of the instructions were short except for a big one at the bottom I couldn’t make out.

  “I can’t afford it,” I said slowly to Amber. “Which word don’t you understand?”

  “I understood all of them,” Jody said.

  “Even if I was the greatest guy on the face of the earth who only cared about making you happy,” I went on, “I don’t make enough money to give the Good Hands People a thousand fucking bucks. Do you understand me?”

  Amber puckered her lips and blew air out her nose in frustration. “I don’t get it,” she said. “How did Daddy do it?”

  “Dad made good money.”

  “Driving a cement mixer?”

  “Yes,” I cried.

  “Why can’t you drive a cement mixer?”

  “I can drive a cement mixer. I can’t get a job driving a cement mixer. There’s a big difference.”

  I finally made out the last thing on Jody’s list. PUT TUTH UNDR MY PILLO.

  “Did you lose another tooth?” I asked, not very enthusiastically.

  “Yeah,” she said, and pointed out the hole in her smile.

  “I suppose you can’t afford a quarter,” Amber sneered.

  “Harley doesn’t pay for my teeth,” Jody assured us all. “The tooth fairy does. Except I don’t understand why the tooth fairy only gives me one quarter and gives Esme two quarters. Esme says it’s because I use Aquafresh instead of Crest.”

  “Speaking of Esme,” Misty said to me. “Her mom brought you a present.”

  Amber glared at her. “I wouldn’t call it a present,” she snorted at me.

  “What are you talking about?” I asked.

  “She stopped by this afternoon and left you some recipes and a book,” Amber explained, practically spitting the words “recipe” and “book” at me. “Are you turning into a fag or something?”

  “Something,” I said.

  “What’s a fag?” Jody asked.

  “I guess you might as well be a fag since you can’t get a girl to make it with you.”

  “What book?” I asked.

  “A gigantic book,” Jody gushed before Amber could open her mouth again. “As big as a phone book.”

  “About what?”

  “The Art Institute of Chicago,” Amber said in amazed disgust.

  “There’s a Post-It note on top with the page numbers of some pictures Mrs. Mercer thought you’d like,” Misty offered indifferently.

  Amber shot her another outraged look.

  “Since when do you know anything about art?” she asked me suspiciously.

  “I know a lot of shit you don’t know I know.”

  “Well, I’m sorry,” she huffed. “That’s just too weird and gross, Mrs. Mercer bringing you recipes and an art book. It’s like she thinks you’re a woman or something.”

  “Or something,” I said again, and Jody laughed. I smiled at her.

  “Go ahead and laugh,” Amber said, tossing her hair around. “But that woman needs to get a life. I thought she was done coming around here. I can’t believe the way she dresses.”

  I wasn’t sure which comment to address first. I picked the one I was most interested in. “What’s wrong with the way she dresses? I’ve never seen her wear anything but jeans.”

  “Yeah, but they’re always way too tight for someone her age.”

  “Her age?”

  “You should have seen what she was wearing this time.”

  “What was she wearing?” I asked.

  She screwed up her face in disgust. “These low-rise pink denim shorts and a tie-dyed crop top. It was embarrassing.”

  “You’re just jealous because those are the shorts you wanted at Fashion Bug,” Misty said.

  “Why was it embarrassing?” I asked, slowly chewing a mouthful of mac and cheese, and picturing Callie Mercer in low-rise pink denim shorts and a tie-dyed crop top.

  “Because she’s old. Women like that are so pathetic. Do they really think guys want to look at them after they hit thirty?”

  “Yeah, that poor Kim Basinger,” I said. “She’s a real eyesore.”

  “Who’s Kim Basinger?” Jody asked.

  “You know what I mean,” Amber said.

  I finished eating. It took me about ten seconds. I went and got a Coke out of the fridge and walked back to the table but didn’t sit down again. I was running late now. I took a couple long gulps from the can and belched.

  “I can’t wait to see you in your thirties, Amber,” I said.

  “You won’t know me in my thirties. I’ll be so out of here.”

  “You’ll be living down the road in a trailer with five kids and no husband.”

  She fixed me with an acid stare. “You know what, Harley? I was going to do you a big favor and now you can go fuck yourself.”

  “A favor?” I laughed. “The only favor you can do for me is get a job.”

  “What if I knew someone who wanted to go out with you?”

  My mind jerked back to the book and the recipes and the pink shorts. I turned away from the table. I was sure my face was red. “I’m not interested,” I said.

  “You don’t even know who it is.”

  “If it’s someone you know, I’m not interested.”

  I started to walk away. I needed to change my clothes. I was going to be late for work. Amber jumped up from the table and ran around in front of me.

  “What if I knew someone who wanted to—” she paused and touched her upper lip with the tip of her tongue, “fuck you,” she whispered.

  “Get away from me.”

  “I’m serious.”


  “Get away.”

  “Ashlee Brockway. Her brother Dusty was in your class. She has a thing for you. I don’t know why.”

  “How old is she?”

  “My age.”

  “Sixteen? Forget it.”

  “What’s the big deal? You’re only nineteen.”

  “I’m almost twenty.”

  “So? She’ll be seventeen someday.”

  “Forget it.”

  “Where do you get off being so high and mighty? It’s not like she’s a kid.”

  “She is a kid.”

  “And what are you?”

  The phone rang. I asked Misty to get it.

  “Do you want to hear my fortune?” Jody asked.

  “Fine, Harley,” Amber said, moving so close to me, her nipples beneath my T-shirt were almost brushing against my chest. She wasn’t wearing a bra. If I hadn’t stopped her at the table when I did, she probably would have flashed me. That was a sight I desperately wanted to see and I desperately wanted to avoid seeing; like Dad inside his closed casket.

  “Be that way,” she said, narrowing her eyes into bright blue creases in her face. “Just remember, beggars can’t be choosers.”

  “That’s what my fortune says,” Jody squealed.

  Amber turned and walked off to the shower with her butt twitching under my shirt.

  “That was Mrs. Shank,” Misty said, coming back from the phone.

  “Who?”

  “The Shanks. They live out past the Malones. Before you get to the bridge. The people with the birdbath and the blue ball. Doug and Cruz ride our bus.”

  “Who?”

  “She said she saw you pull your truck off the road and just sit there for about an hour. She said she didn’t want to bother you because you looked like you didn’t want to be bothered, but she wanted to be sure you got home okay.”

  “What?”

  “You didn’t have to lie about something like that,” Misty said, sounding disappointed in me. “She would’ve understood.”

  “What?” I said again. “Who?”

  She walked out of the kitchen too. I looked over at Jody, who was writing again. Suddenly, I couldn’t figure out what I was supposed to do next.

  Sounds bombarded me. My sense of hearing became painfully keen. I heard the scratch of Jody’s pencil on her list of things to do, and I knew she was writing PRAY FOR DADDY’S SOWL. I heard Misty punch a pillow as she settled down to watch TV, and I knew it was the flattened, musty, denim blue one that Dad used to take on overnight hunting trips. I heard Elvis outside nudging his nose around his food bowl, and I knew he was still hungry. I heard the driving water splash against Amber’s naked soapy skin, and I knew where she was touching herself.

  I wished Betty could have had the same experience. Maybe then she would have understood why some questions should be left unanswered.

  I went to Amber’s room and got out her yearbook. I looked up Ashlee Brockway. She was not repulsive.

  chapter ( 7 )

  I couldn’t remember the first time my dad hit me, but I remembered the first time he hit Amber. She was three years old and a major cramp in my lifestyle. I couldn’t watch myHe-Man cartoons around her because Mom said Skeletor was too scary. I got yelled at for leaving my Legos out because they were a choking hazard. I had to let her play with my Hot Wheels but if I went anywhere near her kitchen set, I got my head smacked. There were plenty of times when I wanted to hit her myself, but I didn’t because I didn’t want to get hit and the punishment for hitting was hitting.

  Dad hit her for knocking over his beer. One minute he was calmly watching TV on the couch; the next minute his big hand shot out and clamped around her little arm, easy and familiar, like he was reaching for the can. He yanked her toward him, making her head snap back, and he hauled off and slapped her.

  The crack of his hard grown-up hand meeting her soft baby cheek was the loudest sound I had ever heard. Even louder than her screams.

  I watched the bewildered terror cloud her eyes, and I saw myself in them. Not my reflection but proof of my existence, just the same. I knew Dad had destroyed her courage.

  Mom came rushing from the other room and stopped in the doorway to take in the scene. Then she stared at me, begging me for an answer I was too little to give her. I wanted her to leave him because he hurt us, but I needed for us to stay because we belonged to him. I was a kid and nothing seemed more unjust to me than somebody taking your stuff.

  Finally she grabbed up Amber and left, murmuring things in her hair.

  That night Amber had a bad dream. She came and crawled into bed with me instead of Mom and Dad. I couldn’t get back to sleep with her snuggled up next to me. I lay there until dawn, thinking about Dad, and feeling the same useless frustration I had felt the first time I had seen him piss on a sparkling white drift of pure new snow.

  Amber set up the date for me. I never talked to Ashlee, and I never wanted to. I did want to put a part of my body inside her body and I was willing to go hungry for a week so I could scrape together enough money to take her out and try and convince her to let me, but I didn’t want to know anything about her. I didn’t care what kind of music she liked or if she loved her parents or what she wanted to be when she grew up. Common sense should have told me that was a bad sign.

  I stayed awake the night before staring at my lightbulb in the dark wondering if it was the last night I would lie there as a virgin. I tried not to think about it too much because it was the exact same thing I had thought about the night before I screwed up with Brandy Crowe, but I couldn’t stop myself.

  Excitement. Dread. Desire. Disgust. I made myself sick with confusion. How could I feel opposite emotions for the same act? How could I feel so strongly about a girl I had never met? How could I want to love someone without getting personally involved? There was something evil about feeling that way. Something too arrogant. Even for humans.

  Eventually, I cleared my mind enough to sleep. My main concern was my sanity. I had begun to secretly cherish it lately the way most guys did their hard-ons. I sorted out my feelings for Ashlee a final time and strung them out in a nice, neat mental line.

  I didn’t want her to talk. I didn’t want her to judge or feel. But I did want her alive. I wanted her warm.

  Rick wouldn’t give me Friday night off, but he said I could leave early. He asked me if I had a date. I said no, but that didn’t stop him from telling the cashiers and Bud and Church that I did.

  On his way out the door at the beginning of our shift, he announced very loudly that I could help myself to a box of rubbers in the pharmacy section, free of charge, because that was the kind of guy he was. And he was right. That was exactly the kind of guy he was.

  “Ignore him,” Bud said to me. “He’s just jealous ’cause even his own wife won’t go near that fat ass.”

  The cashiers laughed. One of them said it was true. What else could explain their lack of children? Everyone knew his wife didn’t have fertility problems ever since she had that abdominal pain checked out last year.

  “Didn’t she have one of those laparoscope operations?” another one asked.

  The other one nodded. “They make a cut in your belly button and snake this tube down inside you with a laser and a little telescope on the end of it so they can see your ovaries.”

  “That’s what my sister-in-law had done when she had her miscarriage.”

  “They wouldn’t do that for a miscarriage,” the third one broke in. “She would have had a D and C to clean out her uterus.”

  “Is that the one where they suck out the stuff with the little vacuum or the one where they scrape it out with a knife?”

  A woman wheeled her cart up to one of the registers and the conversation ended, but the damage had already been done. Ashlee’s female parts had temporarily lost their mystical appeal. This wasn’t the first time the cashiers had ruined women for me. They were like English teachers taking all the pleasure out of a perfectly good book by breaking it down
into themes and sentence structure.

  Church got up from the bench to go bag but paused, looking puzzled, and said, “If it was going to rain my mom would’ve told me. She always makes me wear my slicker.”

  I glanced up at him but only for a second. Eye contact with Church was like seeing his soul through the wrong end of a telescope.

  “She doesn’t want me getting wet,” he said.

  “Right,” I said.

  “One time I got sick from getting wet. I’m not kidding you.”

  “I believe you.”

  “It’s a red slicker. You’ve seen it.”

  “Right.”

  “Yellow’s for girls.” He suddenly barked a laugh and turned in Bud’s direction. “I don’t care what you say, Bud,” he cried, pointing at him. “Yellow’s for girls. I don’t care what you say.”

  Bud winked at me. “But I always thought yellow was for girls, Church.”

  That sent Church into lurching hysterics. “Shoot, you’re funny, Bud,” he said once he calmed down. He took off his glasses and pulled out a handkerchief from his baggy black pants to wipe at the tears in his eyes. “You and Harley,” he said, shaking his head. “You’re funny.”

  He finished, carefully positioned his glasses back on his nose, and folded his handkerchief into a perfect square before cramming it back in his pocket.

  “I better call my mom and tell her to bring my slicker. And my rubbers too. I got sick once from getting wet. I’m not kidding.”

  He walked off to the pay phone by the ATM machine. Bud held his breath until he got out of earshot, then busted a gut laughing.

  My shift went smoothly, and my thoughts gradually improved from the night before. Stocking shelves and fluorescent lighting usually had that effect on me. I tried looking on the bright side. I might actually like Ashlee Brockway. Maybe she was mature for her age. And I had to keep reminding myself: she liked me—or thought she did—and for girls, thinking they liked a guy was just as important as actually liking him.