Four of us in the cab were a crowd. Dragging Main for entertainment purposes, fine, but this was the entire state of Virginia we had to get across with legs going to sleep, breathing the stale beer breath of others. Emmy complained the most, even though cozied up by choice. It was decided that after our next gas-up, one of us would ride in the truck bed.
I was dead set on no more stops till we passed Christiansburg. I explained how my previous shot at seeing the ocean went down there in flames of
Jesus songs and puke. They all said I was superstitious, and empty is empty. We took an exit with signs for the usual things, gas, food. And colleges.
Two. You’d not think they would put two of them so close together. I thought of Angus. She was dead set on moving out after her two years at Mountain Empire, to go to so-called real college. Maybe she’d end up
someplace this close, not the far side of the moon. Still though, who would her people be? College would change her. In due time she wouldn’t come back.
Fast Forward told me to fill it up while he went inside to pay. Maggot and I rearranged the mess in the truck bed to make room for a passenger. We’d just thrown all our shit back there, since none of us had any suitcase. Well, probably Emmy did, but it would have looked suspicious. The Marathon station was bustling. At the pump behind us a guy in a suit and tie, blue hanky sticking out of his pocket like he’s the president of something, tanked up his BMW. On the other side of the pumps, a
Mercedes SUV pulled up with a bright green plastic boat of some small kind strapped on top. A tall, skinny kid with a man-bun sprang out of it like gassing vehicles is a sport event, bouncing on his toes as he fed in his credit
card. He had on athletic shorts over black long johns, and these rubber
shoes with individual toes. Seriously. He looked like he’d been genetically born with black rubber feet.
I helped Maggot make a nest in our blankets and grocery bags of clothes and cases of beer. He was riding in back. I’d have flipped a coin, but he volunteered. Trying to impress Fast Forward was bringing out a previously unseen side to Maggot: unselfish and agreeable. Also, he must have given himself a little bump of something to get through the day, because he was raring to get on with it. While I filled the tank, Maggot bounced on his pile of crap like he was bronco busting up there, pounding the back of the cab, yelling “Giddyup, let’s get these dogies on the road! Yeehaw children,” etc.
Emmy told him repeatedly to shut up, and after that failed, went inside to use the ladies. I ignored him. President Hanky behind us snapped his gas cap shut and rolled his eyes as he got in his car. Man Bun stuck his head between the pumps and peered at us.
“What’s this, guys, some deeply committed episode of Jackass?”
The kid is standing there in rubber feet, gassing up his eighty-thousand- dollar SUV for the purpose of hauling around his fucking kiddie boat, and we are the freaks.
Fast Forward and Emmy got back and we continued east. Atlantic Ocean, dead ahead.
But first, Richmond. Fast Forward had some written directions that led to confusion. We passed through the skyscraper and doom castle portion of the city, across a big river, through areas of houses, then back over the bridge.
Fast Forward was pissed. Another slow start, then five hours of driving,
now it was getting dark. He pulled over and made a call on his cell phone. Fast Forward was first of us to have one of those, him and Emmy. It was Mouse we were trying to locate. After the call we circled around through a whole other type of doom castle, rows of exactly-alike brick apartment
buildings and more Black people than I’d ever known to see. Street lights were popping on. Fast Forward pulled over again, this time next to a paved
square with benches and kid equipment and a tall chain-link fence around it. No guess as to what the fence was meant to keep in or out. There were kids inside, the older ones playing basketball, Black each and all, as entirely as we up home were white, and from the looks of that street, just about as
broke. All of us living where we got born. Maybe you have to pay extra to mingle.
Fast Forward must have thought we couldn’t hear him outside the truck cursing Mouse. A little girl let her yellow hula hoop drop to the ground, and stared at him through the chain link. Braids stuck out all over her head like a cartoon surprised kid. We watched the basketball boys in the fading light, admiring their interesting hair and superior tennis shoes.
The upshot of all this was arriving not in the best of moods at the Mouse abode. If it was even her house. Two other guys were there, one being some form of giant, as tall as she was small. The other one, who knows, he never got off the couch. The house had a front porch, driveway, regular type place if you overlooked the fact of other houses standing just inches on either side of it. These people could lean out their bedroom windows and shake hands. The Bible says love your neighbor and you have to think city people have their ways of it, but in the two days we were there I saw no evidence.
Closed blinds, the sound of dogs barking.
Mouse was unthrilled that Fast Forward had turned up with his underage fan club in tow, quote-unquote. She stood in the middle of her living room squinting up at us through her cigarette smoke, waiting for further explanation. Nobody on the planet talked down to Fast Forward, except for this four-foot-tall woman in her long pink claws and rhinestoned jeans. She was barefoot whenever we got there but hustled into her tall shoes, so. Four foot four.
“How do I know they’re not going to narc me out to their mommies?” she asked.
Fast Forward suggested he would put a bullet in our heads if that happened. Emmy blew out a sharp laugh like she’d been socked in the gut.
“Our mothers are dead,” I clarified. Maggot bugged his eyes at me.
“Oh wait. One of them is in Goochland Women’s. Sorry, man. No offense.”
“None taken.”
Fast Forward located his manhood and told Mouse he had lucrative
connections in an untapped part of the state, and could certainly take them elsewhere. Mouse said if he was thinking we could all crash here, good luck finding a place to do it in this turdbone house. Which it was. The couch was broken in the middle and there were white kitchen trash bags, filled and
lumpy, piled against one wall. A floor lamp stood bald and forlorn with no lampshade.
The giant guy was named Leon and not completely right in his head. He came out of the kitchen carrying a yellow cat and put it down on the glass
table in front of the couch. “Here you go,” he said, and smiled at us. He was in a hoodie and boxers and had the physique you come to recognize: bad teeth, caved-in chest, skinniest legs imaginable. After Leon broke the ice, Mouse rolled her eyes and said “Whatever.” She threw the cat off the table and spread some powder for us all to get down there to snort lines. All except Couch Guy that was leaning over at an angle with his eyes closed and one hand over his face. I’d not seen Fast Forward do drugs before, only beer and weed. Emmy was hesitant, but Maggot got on it like a pro. Then I felt the peer pressure of Fast Forward glaring at me, and understood it was a politeness issue. Like Mrs. Peggot cooking you one of her hams: you better stay and eat or you’re not one of her people. So I went ahead and got coked out of my brain box. I was already kind of awake-dreaming due to no sleep since we left home, and now it took on a nightmare aspect, with prospects of future sleep slim to none. For the record, I do not and never will relish
the feeling of the engine outrunning the chassis.
I don’t think much sleeping was done by anybody that night. Maggot and I were assigned to a room with no furniture in it other than a bicycle. We fetched our blankets and plastic bags of clothes to use as pillows, but the room smelled like gasoline and I kept seeing explosions in my mind’s eye.
Explosion, explosion. Maggot told me to chill out, it was just the smell of ass combined with bike tire. He could fall asleep on any amount of uppers, one of his superpowers. That and snoring. I had no idea what Fast might be up to. Part of me thought I should go rescue Emmy, and the rest of me felt like, Who did I think I was? Emmy had the world by the balls.
There were comings and goings all hours, car lights in the driveway.
Music pounding through the wall. Somebody had a Ja Rule fixation, to the extent of “Always on Time” becoming the permanent brain soundtrack of my bad nights, probably until I’m dead. Voices were raised. Maggot roused after a while and went out to investigate. Came back and said it was nothing, just some guys in a fight over somebody shorting somebody, and Couch Guy screaming. I asked why was he screaming, and Maggot said they were moving a lot of furniture out in the yard and his couch was in the running. I understood this to be the type of place you hear about, where
people get knifed and so forth as a routine. The longer I went without sleeping, the more visions I had of gasoline explosions and people getting knifed. Minutes were like hours, and hours were like large bags of shit delivered to my skull box. I got kind of beside myself and ended up taking all the rest of what I’d brought with me to calm down, plus a 1-milligram Xanax that Dori slipped in as a treat. Getting ahead of schedule. I’d be fresh out by the time we got to the beach, so. Puking and cold sweats down the road, waiting to crap on my golden moment.
The worst part, I saw coming. Fast Forward was losing interest in the beach. If he ever had any. Most of the next morning he spent making his negotiations with Mouse, and the afternoon lying under his truck with a
metal box and a screwdriver and two rolls of duct tape. Maggot and I sat on the front porch smoking weed and watching the man at his labors. Person after person walked by on the sidewalk, paying no mind to the Tony Lama boots sticking out from under the F-100, like that was regular everyday scenery. If this was back home, trust me, you’d have a crowd inside of ten minutes, interested kids plus the old guys with their free advice and power tools. But these city folk just turned a blind eye.
Later on we went out driving around to see the various things they had in Richmond, statues, state capitol building, etc. We ate at Popeyes. That’s
where Fast Forward informed us we’d screwed around too much on the way up here, and now he had to get back. We were heading home in the morning. With the damn ocean no more than an hour away, two at the most, my dreams once again went down in flames. Son of a bitch. I was bitter and had nothing more to say to anybody, plus sick of smelling gasoline, so after we got back to the house I said I was sleeping in the cab of the truck.
Mouse said I was crazy, she didn’t feel safe sleeping inside this dump, let alone on the street. Giving the impression of this being not her house, and her being some incredibly bossy visitor, which stood to reason. Her
fingernails alone had seen more maintenance than any part of that property. But I did it, went out on the street. And slept.
The drive home was hideous. Fast Forward was all cocky over his score, the rest of us crashing from our various highs and expectations. The happy couple must have had a tiff, because Emmy wanted to sit by the window with me in the middle. Thankfully they made up at the first gas stop. But
she was wrecked some way, I could tell. We all were. Maggot was
borderline lunatic, either singing, unconscious, or blowing kisses at truck
drivers from his throne back there. I was as mad as I’d been in my life. Mainly at myself, for believing in stupid dreams. And into withdrawals so bad, I had to embarrass myself by demanding unscheduled bathroom stops. If not for Dori waiting to rescue me, I was fit to drown myself in a truck- stop toilet.
Poor Dori, I’d left her for no good reason. We took forever getting back, with Fast Forward going the speed limit, thinking of his cargo I’m sure,
plus you do not want to get pulled over with a boy-lunatic on open carry in the bed of your truck. There are laws. So I got dropped off late, in the dark. And there she stood under the porch light with her ice cream face and shiny hair, a big sweater buttoned up over her perfect body. We got inside and I was kissing her and then Jip got his teeth tangled up in the leg of my jeans to the extent of me punting him across the room, rolling and twisting.
“Sorry baby,” I said, and she said Jip meant well, and I let her think that.
Clearly the little rat’s ass thought he’d gotten rid of me for good. Right away Dori asked to see pictures, shit. I’d never thought to take any, and was hard pressed to say where Angus’s camera ended up. Probably already pawned by one of Mouse’s dirtball boyfriends.
Dori gave me what I needed and let me cuddle on her till I quit being sick and fell asleep in her bed and nothing was ever better. I woke up finally with no idea how many hours I slept. She’d shut Jip outside, possibly a first. Seriously, words cannot describe her and that dog. But I’d moved into first place. Various parts of me returned to the living. Vester asleep downstairs, no Jip, we were home free and starting to mess around, and, hell. The phone rang.
It was Angus. I stood in the freezing hallway in my underwear and partial erection trying to understand what was so important about me getting over to Coach’s house. Today. Nobody was dead, yet she said, but Coach had gotten the robo-calls about me being a no-show at school all week. On further investigation, some or all of my teachers were unaware I was still enrolled. I asked what possessed Coach to start giving a shit about my off- season performance, and Angus said I was being a purposeful idiot. He cared, all right. He was making noises about putting me back on season rules. Curfew and lockdown. Angus said she’d run out of excuses for me, so I was advised to show up for dinner with my ass-kissing lips all shined up. I hung up thinking: I’m circling the bowl, and Angus for some reason is pleased of it. Damn her.
I promised Dori I would make it up to her, but I might need to spend the night over there. I took a pile of our dirty clothes because the washer at Dori’s had died. Not all that recently. We needed to take some action on this, but Dori said that old Maytag had been her mom’s and she was attached. Dori was a big one for letting things pile up. Too sweet for this world.
I didn’t even make it to dinnertime before the shit hit the pan at Coach’s house. I was back in the laundry room sorting out the whites and darks, trying not to mess up Mattie Kate’s piles because she had her whole system, and suddenly, U-Haul. The old sock-feet sneak attack, and he’s got me up against the Clorox.
“U-Haul,” I said. “Can I offer you a shot of bleach?”
“Ha ha!” His laugh was like a fox barking. He craned his neck, leaning in too close. “The thing is, I got to put myself on the line here. For Coach. He has give me an obligation.”
“Okay, nice. That and two bucks might get you a cup of coffee.” I must have been past tired into some form of dead. Opened my mouth, out came Mr. Peg.
“A job,” he hissed. “I’ll keep this to easy-reader words for you.”
“A job. This is on top of your higher calling of hauling around people’s shit?”
The red eyes shot fire. “Your druggie ass. That’s the shit I’m in charge of, and I don’t like the view. Coach wants me keeping a close eye. To see if I can get you back up to speed, or if you’re turning out to be a piece of trash
like he thought.”
U-Haul’s eyes were closer to mine than anybody in their right mind would want. Freckles all over the face like spattered blood, even on the eyelids. I turned my back on him and shoved a wad of darks in the machine. Slammed the lid, and then faced him off again. “Okay. Remind me again why I’m scared of a fucking errand boy?”
He drew back like I’d kneed him in the balls. “Assistant. Coach.” “Yeah, we’ve all been wondering whose cock you sucked for the
promotion. Not Coach’s, I know that much. The man has got standards.” “You don’t know jack shit about the man.”
“I’d say I do.”
U-Haul rolled his head and shoulders around, then twined his arms together, holding hands with himself. “I’m saying you don’t. If you can’t
work out how I got kicked up. He might be your legal fucking daddy but I’m the one keeping his books and counting his Beam bottles. I know him. And you hear me, boy. There’s things he does not want known.”
“The man gets shitfaced and passes out from time to time. No law against.”
“Misappropriating of funds, let’s try that one for size. Embezzling.”
“You are so full of it.” I tried to get past him, but he kept stepping into my way, blocking the door with his beanpole frame. I was contemplating a takedown, but finally he stepped aside.
“The hell do you know,” he said. “Coach is just lucky there’s a grown man awake at the wheel in this house, to look out for the merchandise.”
“So I’m merchandise.”
“You’re dogshit. I’m discussing something a who-ole lot tastier.” He pressed out his tongue over his top lip, grabbed the air in front of him with both hands, and pumped his hips. If there’s a picture no human wants in their head, it’s U-Haul performing the sex act. I was grossed out beyond all measure. And then got it, about the merchandise. He meant Angus. My sister. I was going to have to break his filthy face.
