Random Acts

by Franklin Horton

  "If you had five hundred dollars to spend in here, which bike would you choose?"

  Ben looked around at the inventory and considered. She found herself watching him more than the bikes. He pointed to the back of the store.

  "Some of the best deals we have are on used bikes. A lot of guys are bike snobs. They buy a bike and ride it for a while then decide they want to trade it for something else, or they want to trade up to a newer model. Some of those bikes are well taken care of and they haven’t been ridden a lot. You can get more features for your money than on a new bike."

  "Show me which one you'd pick."

  Ben went to the back of the store and pointed to a clean blue Santa Cruz. “This one’s $529," he said. “It was originally over a thousand. The guy who traded it in is a friend of mine. He’s an excellent mechanic and takes good care of his bikes. It’s even got a few upgrades.”

  While she studied the bike he bent over and read a label on the frame. "The frame size should be about right for you."

  Ben gave the bike a strong yank to pull it from the display. "Let’s take it out back. You shouldn’t buy a bike without taking it for a spin."

  "I haven't ridden a bike in a while. I may be a little rusty."

  Ben grinned. "It's okay, you don't have to be embarrassed."

  At his comment she became even more embarrassed and a little defensive. “I'm not embarrassed. I can ride. I just haven’t in a while."

  Ben rolled the bike out the side door and into the parking lot. Once they were in the parking lot, he handed the bike over to her and she suddenly felt very self-conscious. He handed her a helmet. If she was going to look like an idiot, she’d have preferred to do it without an audience. She buckled the helmet on and seated herself on the bike. Ben went over the controls with her. She studied the brake levers, the shifters, and the gear pattern, getting a feel for how everything operated.

  Ben gestured at the parking lot. "Knock yourself out. Just not literally." He backed away from her and crossed his arms.

  She pushed off, praying she didn’t wipe out and embarrass herself like a big idiot. She got off to a rough start since the bike was in the wrong gear and it took her a moment to correct it. Her old Disney Princess bike didn’t have gears. She finally found the sweet spot where she could pick up speed in the loose gravel of the parking lot. She left it in the same gear and rode around until she was comfortable with the bike.

  When she was done, she returned to where Ben was standing. She couldn't hide her exhilaration. She’d enjoyed riding the bike around and wanted to keep doing so. It reignited something inside her, a childish joy from a time when life was simpler. “I like it.”

  "So you want to take it?" Ben asked.

  She made a face. "If I give you a deposit will you hold it for me? I didn’t leave the house with the intention of spending this much money so I didn’t bring enough with me."

  "Of course. We can do it as a layaway if you want. You pay me at least ten percent down and then as long as you pay it off in the next six weeks we’re good."

  "I can do that," Amanda said eagerly.

  “I’ll need the bike back,” he said, smiling at her.

  “Oh yeah,” she said, climbing off and handing the bike over to him. She removed the helmet while he rolled it inside.

  Ben fit it back into the rack, then grabbed a sharpie from the counter. He wrote SOLD on the tag, then asked, "What your last name?"

  “Castle.”

  "Are you from around here? You seem around my age but I swear I haven’t seen you in school."

  She didn't want to get into too much detail. Part of the point of this trip was to escape the things that had been weighing on her mind, not rehash them. “I used to live here long time ago," she said. "I’ll be starting school here in the fall. I'll be a senior."

  Ben sensed there was more to the story and respected that. "I’ll be a senior too.”

  “Then at least I’ll know somebody.”

  He could sense an undertone in her comment. Not loneliness exactly, but perhaps isolation or sadness. “I could introduce you to some people. I have a group of friends I ride bikes with. If you went with us some time, you could meet some cool people and learn the trails at the same time.”

  “That would be fantastic,” Amanda said excitedly. “I’d love to.”

  “Cool,” Ben said. “I’d like that too.”

  10

  Around one P.M. Victor awoke to his mother, Clara, shaking him, and glared at the clock. He was not happy. He was not ready to get up. It seemed like it had only been a few minutes since he logged off his computer and dropped into the bed.

  “Mom, what the hell, dude?”

  “I was gonna ride down to the Bob Evans for lunch," she said. "I’m meeting Stanley. Do you want to go?"

  Stanley Price was Clara’s new boyfriend and he was a thorn in Victor’s side. The two clashed on nearly everything.

  "Mom, I just want to sleep,” he groaned. “I'm tired."

  "I'm sure you are," Clara said tersely. “You must have woken me up a half-dozen times last night banging on the keyboard and cursing."

  "I'm sorry." It wasn’t an apology as much as an exasperated groan.

  "Damn right you’re sorry, in more ways than one. Now get your ass out of bed. After keeping your mother up all night the least you can do is go out to lunch with her. I'll be waiting upstairs. And you can damn well make it snappy."

  Victor groaned and pulled the covers over his head. He didn’t want to go but he needed to keep his mother happy. Every little transgression with her added up. If he said no, if he displeased her, he would inevitably pay the price. He never pleased her and he was always paying the price. Besides, the small amount of rent she charged was cheaper than he could get anywhere else. He knew because he looked every time he got fed up with her.

  He rolled out of bed and stood unsteadily. He was wearing a rumpled flannel shirt and stained sweatpants he’d slept in. He slipped his feet into some sandals that looked goofy with his mismatched socks but he didn’t care. He went into the bathroom and ran his fingers through his hair but it continued pointing in all directions. He tried to comb it but it didn’t help. He looked like a Goth version of one of those little troll dolls.

  He looked at his toothbrush, considered brushing his teeth, and then passed on the idea. It was a lot of effort when he didn’t want to go in the first place. He went to his dresser and grabbed his billfold, slipping it into his shirt pocket since his sweatpants didn't have any. The wallet was empty, so there was little point in taking it but it seemed like the thing to do. He picked up a pair of cheap aviator sunglasses and slipped them on. If he was going to go out in the daylight he wanted to lessen the trauma.

  He scuffed his way up the steps using the handrail to drag his sluggish body along. He found his mother standing by the door in the kitchen with a general air of displeasure. He knew he was the cause of it. He was always the cause of it. She was dressed neatly in an older church dress with a big-buttoned old-lady coat on over it even though it was summer and probably eighty degrees outside. She had her arms crossed in front of her and a white handbag dangled from her forearm. Her lips pursed even further when she got the full effect of his appearance.

  "I didn't expect a lot but you could have at least made an effort. You look like a homeless hippie."

  He didn’t have the energy to fight with her. "Can you drive?" he mumbled. “I’m not coherent. We’ll end up in the ditch somewhere.”

  “You’ll wake up if I slap the shit out of you.” Clara shook her head in disgust, as if there was no shortage of ways he could disappoint her.

  Victor sighed heavily. "I suppose I would."

  She spun in her little white shoes and pushed bitterly through the door. “Damn right.”

  Victor followed her, unhappy he was going to have to act as chauffeur. If he drove, she bitched about his driving. If he was the passenger, she bitched about everything else in his life he did wrong. He couldn�
�t win. He slipped into the driver’s seat of her charcoal gray Buick and adjusted the seat to accommodate his size. It took his mother a little longer to get in the car. She opened her door and sank in beside him.

  She regarded him with disapproval. “Really? Do you have to be screwing up where I had the seat adjusted? You know it took forever to get it just where I wanted it. Next time I go somewhere my back will hurt because the seat is wrong.”

  “I’ll put it back.”

  "Damn right you will. A decent son would have at least held the door open for his mother and helped her safely into the car. Hell, a decent son would drive his mother to church every once in a while too. He would probably go inside with her and stay for the sermon. Then he would use what he learned in the sermon to try to be a better person and not be some sorry roustabout."

  Victor started the car and backed out of the driveway. "Roustabout? What the hell is a roustabout?" he mumbled.

  "Trust me, mister, it’s something you don’t want to be,” Clara replied.

  "I don't know for certain unless you tell me what a roustabout is. Maybe it is something I want to be. Being a roustabout will be my new goal in life since you think I don’t have one."

  “Too bad your goal isn’t to be a lazy-ass basement-dwelling peckerwood because you’ve pretty much nailed that one.”

  “I’m wounded,” Victor said.

  “You’re gonna be wounded,” Clara warned. “You are not too big for your mother to go upside your head. You remember that, Victor.”

  Victor did remember and felt a chilling pang of fear. She occasionally crossed the line from verbal to physical and hit him out of anger. Most of the time it didn’t hurt. She was frail as a bird. It pissed him off. It pissed him off that he could do nothing but cower and bow down beneath her will because he didn’t know if he could live on his own. Other times it did hurt because she would use a walking cane or a piece of garden hose.

  One day she would pass away. He would be devastated…for, like, ten seconds. Then he’d jump up and down on her bed, unable to contain his glee. It would be the start of a new life.

  Victor found Stanley to be a relic of the 1950s, much like his own mother was. He was retired and wore the same “uniform” every day, consisting of a zipper-fronted jumpsuit in tan or navy worn over a white t-shirt. This was paired with black penny-loafers worn with glaring white socks. For a short, pot-bellied man, a jumpsuit was not the best choice for a figure-flattering fit but Stanley didn’t give a damn what anybody thought. If he wanted someone’s opinion, he gave it to them, and usually with a good dose of profanity.

  Stanley had been a lot of things in his life, including a veteran of the U.S. Navy and later, a plumber. Aside from those two particular fields of interest, he prided himself on knowing pretty much everything about everything. He was full of suggestions about ways in which Victor could better himself. Like Victor’s mother, he was also an astute observer of all the things Victor was doing wrong in his life. He continually offered career advice, investment advice, and business ideas that could make Victor millions if only Victor would listen. Apparently, Victor never did and that was frequently the subject of conversation between Stanley and Clara.

  Victor slid into the booth across from Stanley while his mother daintily alit beside the fireplug of a man. Stanley gestured at Victor with the back of his hand, his face twisted in disgust.

  “Just look at you, boy. Have some respect for yourself. Some pride. You come in here, into a restaurant out in the public and all, and you look like something the cat puked up on the porch. Jesus Christ!”

  Clara was nodding the entire time, looking from Victor to Stanley. She might as well have been saying, “I told him, Stanley. I told him he looked like shit.”

  “You need to go into the service,” Stanley said. “They’ll straighten you out. They’ll jerk a knot in your ass. They know just what to do with a pus-licking hole-plugger like you.”

  “I was sleeping,” Victor said dryly. “She pulled me out of bed to come here. I’m not responsible for what I look like first thing in the morning.”

  “Then who the hell is? The only people who should be sleeping at this time of day anyway are people that work the nightshift,” Stanley said. “You don’t work the nightshift. I’m pretty sure toy stores don’t even have nightshifts.”

  “I don’t sell toys,” Victor said. “How many times do I have to tell you? I sell games. Games!”

  Stanley shook his head, his mouth tight, and looked at Clara as if he just didn’t know how to get through to the boy. He returned his eyes to Victor. “Games? Toys? Fucking doll babies? What difference does it make? A pansy job is still a pansy job. When are you going to grow up and get a man’s job?”

  “A man’s job?” Victor asked, raising an eyebrow at Stanley, though you couldn’t see it through the mop of multi-colored hair.

  “Yeah, something that raises sweat and blisters. Something you can talk about without having to be embarrassed, like a plumber, or a carpenter, or a truck driver.”

  “I’m not embarrassed by selling video games,” Victor replied.

  “Well you damn well should be,” Clara said, looking off in the distance. “I know it’s my fault.”

  “Oh, here we go again,” Victor sighed.

  Stanley reached over and patted Clara on the arm. “There, there,” he said. “You did the best with what you had to work with. Not your fault he turned out to be a crap-candle.”

  The waiter arrived with their food, mercifully sparing Victor from Clara’s impending martyrdom speech. He placed a plate in front of each of them, then refilled their drinks. Coffee for Stanley and Clara, a soft drink for Victor.

  Clara got the meatloaf and Stanley had chicken-fried steak. He hadn’t started eating it yet, because he was too busy staring at Victor’s plate. Victor noticed this and looked down at his own plate.

  “What?” he asked.

  “What the hell is that?” Stanley asked.

  “Chicken tenders,” Victor replied, gesturing with his hands to indicate that, surely to God there couldn’t be something wrong with that too.

  Stanley laid his head in his hands and shook it slowly.

  “What?” Victor repeated.

  Stanley raised his face from his hands, rubbing it as he went, stretching and distorting his features. “What is that, Victor? The damn child’s platter?”

  Victor frowned. “No. It’s an adult meal straight off the Bob Evan’s menu.”

  “It’s like chicken nuggets or some shit,” Stanley said. “What’s the matter? You can’t eat a damn chicken breast or leg like a normal fucking person? You can’t eat something with a bone in it? You got to eat the same thing you were eating at three years old?”

  “I like chicken tenders,” Victor said.

  Stanley looked at Clara. “He likes chicken tenders,” he mocked.

  Victor stared down at his plate. Though he had always cowed under the cruelty of his mother, a rage was kindling deep inside him. He wished he had one of his knives with him. He could imagine drawing it from beneath the table and slashing out at Stanley. He could see the gushing blood pouring onto the plate of chicken-fried steak like a crimson gravy. He could see Stanley’s stunned expression as his head dropped into his plate.

  “What, you going to cry?” Stanley asked. “Are you a fucking diaper dragger?”

  Victor’s face flushed and tears welled in his eyes. The restraints of civilized behavior were loosening. He was reaching that place where absolutely nothing in the entire world mattered anymore. Victor felt like jumping over the table and pounding Stanley. He felt like doing something. He was tired of being talked to this way. He was tired of feeling like this.

  Victor raised his eyes to Stanley’s and found the man burning holes in him with his hate-filled glare.

  “Don’t eye-fuck me, kid,” Stanley hissed. “I’ll mop this floor with you.”

  “I’m going to smoke a cigarette,” Clara said, getting up from the table witho
ut so much as a glance at either of them. It was classic avoidance, her primary coping tactic for any situation.

  “This is your last warning,” Stanley whispered. “Eyes down or we’ll be having a talk in your room later.”

  Other diners were starting to watch. Victor dropped his eyes to his plate, all appetite gone.

  Stanley grinned. “One day I’ll move into that house with your mother and your ass is going to be out on the street. You can count on it.”

  11

  Amanda began to enjoy her work at the construction site despite the early mornings and the physical demands. Homebuilding was new to her and it was interesting to see what was beneath the skin of a house. Everyone else on the job had been doing it so long the novelty was lost on them, but Amanda found it engaging. At the same time, she hoped there would be a point where she graduated from being just Manuel Labor, as Lupe called her, to being involved in more interesting aspects of the job. Being the gopher of the crew got old.

  The exterior walls had been framed and sheathed. They were working on the interior walls now, and the rooms began to take shape. Seeing the variety of skills required to build a house reminded Amanda of the many times Fox and her mother had driven by construction sites in Virginia. Fox would point at the shirtless men building houses in the hot sun and say to her, “If you don’t stay on top of your grades that’s where you’ll end up.”

  Amanda understood now it was both a comment on what Fox thought of men who had to do physical work for a living as well as a jab at her father. Amanda never considered those men on those jobsites. She never thought about what their days were like out there in the sun. What teenager did think about those kind of things?

  Now that she was experiencing such work firsthand, she discovered she enjoyed the tangible nature of it. Most days there was measurable progress toward a goal. Each day she contributed to a structure that looked more and more like an actual house. By the end of the job, there would be a completed house and it would stand as a monument to their labor for many years. Hopefully.