by John Hart
XRQ-741.
That was the plate.
6
The next day passed in a blur. I cut grass, spread mulch, joked with the old man. He didn’t ask about my day with Jason, but at times I caught him staring at me as if some vision might appear in the air between us. Monday was a school day like any other, but people wanted to talk about Jason, the dive, the darker stories. I ignored it all as best I could. That worked for everyone but Chance.
“Do you think he wants to die?”
We were in the courtyard at school. Bagged lunches. A group of girls close by. “The hell are you talking about, Chance?”
“The way he dove, man. Like he didn’t think about it, like he didn’t even care. They say war can mess a man up. Dark places, you know.”
I bit into a sandwich, chewing slowly. “I don’t think that’s it.”
“But four seconds, man. Christ. It’s like it took forever, like he was hanging there and then, bam! I thought that was it. I really did.”
I didn’t want to talk about Jason, not even with Chance. “Let’s drop it, okay? He made the dive. I didn’t. So what?”
“Hey, man. Chill.”
“I’m chill.”
“You know my cousin saw him last night at the Carriage Room. He was mixing it up with some scary dudes.”
“What do you mean?”
“Bikers, I heard.”
“Get out.”
Chance tipped back a Coke. “Hells Angels, maybe. There was a fight or something. People got hurt.”
“My dad didn’t say anything.”
“Bikers, dude. It’s not like they’d run to the cops.”
I didn’t buy it. Chance’s stories were usually bullshit. Charlotte Booker got naked at a party. Mike Aslow slept with Buddy’s mom. That’s how his mind ran.
“Whoa, hey. Red alert.” He nudged my ribs, whispering. “Becky Collins. Three o’clock.”
Becky emerged from the covered walkway that led past the cafeteria and to the gym. She wore a denim skirt and white vinyl boots that rose to her knees. Crossing the courtyard, she headed straight for us; and when she stopped, my eyes were down. I saw the way she bent a single knee, the safety pin holding up the zipper of her left boot.
“Gibby,” she said. “Chance.”
She held books cross-armed against her chest. Calculus. European history. It was easy to forget how smart she was. People focused on the hair, the legs, the cornflower eyes.
“Hi, Becky.”
She frowned as I looked up. “I waited for you at the quarry,” she said. “After your brother dove. Why didn’t you talk to me?”
Because I chickened out on the dive …
Because you were with other guys …
I mumbled some kind of answer, but it didn’t satisfy her. Beside me, Chance was grinning into the back of his hand.
“You’ve been ignoring me here, too.”
“Um…”
“Are you ever going to ask me out?”
“Um. What?”
It seemed mumble was my new language. She tapped a foot, and made things very direct. “We’ve been dancing around this for a while now, but the year’s almost over. Are you going to ask me out or not?”
I glanced at Chance, but he was no help. Becky was a cheerleader, the homecoming queen. People said she was going to Princeton, though she denied it. “Are you serious?” I asked. “You want to go out with me?”
“I’m here, aren’t I? We’re talking.”
I looked to Chance for help. Nothing. “Will you go out with me?”
“Was that so hard?” She offered a satisfied smile, and held out a slip of paper for me to take. “I’ll be getting ready at Dana White’s house. That’s the address. Saturday at seven o’clock.”
“Um…”
“I’ll see you then.”
She turned in a swirl of motion and color. I stared at the paper in my hand. “What just happened?”
Chance laughed out loud. “Dude, you got told what to do.”
“I think you’re right.”
“Wuss.”
“Yeah, but it’s a date with Becky Collins.”
Suddenly, I was grinning, too.
“You know what that’s all about, don’t you?” Chance pointed at the slip of paper. “The pickup at Dana White’s house? Becky doesn’t want you to see where she lives.”
“Come on.”
“Have you ever seen her parents? Her parents’ car?”
“She rides the bus.”
“There’s a reason for that.”
“You’re off your gourd.”
“Truth, man. I’ll show you.”
We did it after school. I wasn’t eager, but Chance was like a bulldog when he got a notion in his teeth. He guided me so far out in the county it felt like a different school district. When I balked a second time, he told me to shut up and drive the damn car. He said his insistence was due to my lack of faith, but Chance had his own jealousies and insecurities.
“This is the street. Turn here.”
He meant a narrow street between a muffler shop and a weed-choked lot. I made the turn and stopped the car. The street ran off between small houses and trailers and dirt yards. A few houses missed bits of siding, and I saw a tuft of insulation that hung from one and spilled, like a tongue, into the yard. I thought of Becky’s confidence, her satisfied smile when I’d asked her out.
“Why are you stopping?” Chance asked.
“This is far enough.”
“Three more blocks. You can almost see it.” Three blocks in, it was worse: a burned-out house, another with boarded windows. “Dude, come on. This is why we’re here.”
“No. I’m sorry.” I shook my head, then turned across the narrow street and drove us out. Chance craned to look behind us, then sat low in the seat, arms crossed. On the four-lane, I finally spoke. “You made your point, okay? It’s a shitty street. She’s poor.”
“Hey, man, drive away. Ignore the deeper truths.”
“You’re mad at me?”
“I want you to know what you’re getting into.”
“I don’t care if she’s poor.”
“You should.”
“Why?”
“Stop the car.”
“What? Why?”
“Just stop the car. Look at me.”
I pulled off the road and stopped on a wide spot that was half-gravel and half–red dirt. A rickety table stood in the shade of a locust tree beside a hand-painted sign that advertised produce for sale on weekends. I imagined corn and peaches and carrots, an old couple in an old truck. “Why should it matter to me if Becky Collins is poor?”
“Because she’s already being dishonest with you. If she does it again, you should understand the reasons.”
“You’re being ridiculous.”
“Say it goes five dates, or even ten? She won’t introduce you to her parents. Trust me on that. She won’t let you pick her up or take her home, either. And she’ll have some big old buttons, too, and you’d better know ’em so you don’t push ’em by accident. Clothes and shoes, for instance. If they’re nice, they’re borrowed, so be careful with compliments. Think twice about expensive restaurants, too. Same thing with birthday gifts, Christmas presents. Not too expensive. She won’t be able to do the same…”
“Wait a minute. Wait.” I held up a hand. “You’re trying to help her?”
“Of course I am, you dumb shit. She’s a good girl. You’re my best friend.”
I sat for a moment in stunned silence, thinking at last of the poverty in which Chance had been mired for his entire life. Father long gone, his mother worked three jobs, the best of which was running a cash register at the local drugstore. Chance’s house was as bad as any on the street we’d just left, and I knew for a fact I was the only friend who’d been there.
Ever.
“Hey, man. I’m sorry. I should have trusted you.”
“Just don’t screw it up, okay?”
Back on the road, I t
hought about Chance’s worn clothing, his single pair of blown-out sneakers. He acted as if dressing that way was a choice. He’d been doing it so well and for so long that I’d forgotten it was an act. Chance brought his lunch in a brown bag. At school, he didn’t even buy milk. “You want to come over?” I asked.
“With your mom around? No thanks.”
The comment could be taken two ways. My father earned a cop’s salary, but my mother came from money, and it showed. The nice house. The fine clothes. We decorated for Christmas, and did it in style. Chance combed the local woods for a tree that was green and the right shape. I usually helped him drag it home and set it up. “You want to do something else? Pinball, maybe? They have a new machine at the Gulf station on Innes.”
“Nah. Take me home.”
It was one of those days now. Talk of poverty had invited in everything else that was real, and that included graduation, the future, Vietnam. Twelve days from graduation, and the draft was out there, and waiting. As if to reinforce the thought, we passed a billboard five miles down:
HAVE YOU REGISTERED FOR THE SELECTIVE SERVICE?
IT’S THE LAW!
They wanted our names, addresses, the best way to fill the ranks. And it wasn’t my brothers alone who’d made it real. We both had friends who’d gone and died. “How did it feel to sign those papers?”
I asked it to make conversation, but Chance averted his eyes. “I haven’t done it yet.”
I opened my mouth and closed it. Once a man turned eighteen, the law allowed thirty days to sign up. I still had time, but Chance’s birthday was three months before mine. “Are you serious?” I asked.
“It’s a bullshit law.”
“But still a law.”
“It’s a bullshit war.”
It occurred to me then that we’d not spoken of Vietnam in months, and I realized now that the reticence had come from Chance. If I raised the subject, he laughed it off. If I pushed, he deflected in some other way. I’d been so caught up in my own frustrations, I’d not thought twice about it. But my best friend had just revealed more in two short sentences than he had in three long months.
A bullshit law …
A bullshit war …
I wanted to push, but knew at a look he wouldn’t have it. The silence continued until I stopped at his house: a dingy cube with a blue tarp on the roof, where it leaked around the chimney. “You want me to come in?” I asked.
“I told Mom I’d clean the kitchen.”
“I can help if you want.”
“Nah, I’m good.” Chance climbed out and closed the door. “Don’t forget what I said about Becky Collins. You might not see the chip on her shoulder, but it’s there and it’s big.”
“I’ll remember.”
“Tomorrow, then.”
“See you at school.”
I watched him into the house, but stayed on the street for another moment. Was it possible my best friend was afraid to register for the draft? I couldn’t see it. Some kind of conscientious objector? Protests against the war were on the streets and in the news, but those were hippies and cowards and people in big cities.
What happened when someone like Chance broke the law?
Would they come looking for my friend?
Like Chance, I had little desire to go home. Instead, I pointed the car at the city line. I couldn’t remember the exact house where I’d collected Jason the other day, but I remembered the intersection: Water Street and Tenth. When I got there, a couple guys were in the front yard throwing a football back and forth. They were older with long hair, lit cigarettes, and T-shirts with the sleeves cut away. I parked the car, followed a cracked sidewalk, and waited until one looked at me. “Hey. I’m looking for my brother.”
“Who’s that?”
“Jason.”
“In the back.”
I said thanks, and ducked my head so the football wouldn’t take it off. Inside, I followed the sound of clanking metal to another open door and a small porch on the back of the house. Jason was there, shirtless in faded jeans. He was doing curls with a heavy bar and thick plates. When he saw me, he lifted his chin.
“What’s up, little brother? You need something?”
“Hey, it’s cool. Finish your set.”
He worked through the rest of his set, and veins popped in his arms, no fat anywhere. What I saw most clearly was the bruising. It ran on the left side of his face, and on his ribs, too, seven or eight places, each the size of a fist. He lowered the bar, then whipped a shirt off the rail and shrugged it on, speaking as he did. “What are you doing here?”
I pointed at his ribs. “I heard about the fight.”
“What, this?”
“Bikers, I heard.”
“A few, maybe. Who told you?” Jason flipped the lid on a Styrofoam cooler and dug around for a Budweiser. “Chance, right? I saw his cousin there. Weasel-looking little sucker.”
“He said it was pretty hard-core.”
“Is that right?”
He handed me a beer. I opened it. “What was it about?”
“The fight?” He shrugged. “Tyra, I guess.”
“How so?”
“She’s a shameless flirt. And she gets ideas.” There was a lie in there somewhere, or at least some evasion. “It doesn’t matter,” he said. “I’m done with her, anyway. You seen Sara?”
A sudden flush embarrassed me. Sara was a fantasy, a schoolboy’s dream. “Not since the day.”
“You should follow up on that. She’s a good girl, and not like Tyra.”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“So, why are you here?”
He leaned on the rail, and it was strange to see cop eyes in a convict’s face. I tried to find the best answer: that I didn’t want to go home, that maybe it was about Sara. Deep down, though, it was about being brothers. “Bored, I guess.”
“You should try prison sometime.”
He drained the can and crumpled it; and I tried to understand why things felt so different from the last time. He was aloof, impatient. He scratched at an arm, and I thought, Shit, is he using?
“So, uh. You want me to … you know?” I hooked a thumb at the hall leading through the house.
“Yeah, man. It’s not really the best day. Maybe this weekend.”
“We could catch a movie. Maybe shoot some hoop.”
“Let’s talk about it later, yeah?”
He came off the railing, and I looked again at the bruises, the torn skin. There was more to say, but I never found the time to say it. We heard a racing engine, then the squeal of rubber as something fast and loose took the corner five houses down. The engine screamed louder, and metal scraped metal. Voices from the front yard: The fuck, man? Watch it! Watch it! The crash that followed was louder and close, and extreme for the silence that followed. Seconds later, a voice carried the length of the hall.
“Jason, yo! You better get out here!” I followed my brother through the house. A man with the same voice said, “Yo, it’s your girl.”
Jason stepped onto bare dirt, but stopped before reaching the wrecked car. It was a Mercedes two-seater, sideways in the yard, with paint stripped from the fenders and the front end pinned against a tree. Tyra was half out of the front door, both hands in the dirt as the engine ticked, and a shattered turn signal flashed orange.
“Tyra, Jesus. You okay?”
Jason moved to the car, and helped her up. She wore a white skirt and a teal tank top. Her knees were skinned, a trickle of blood at the hairline. She stumbled, and Jason caught her, the top of her head tucked beneath his chin. She could barely stand. She leaned into him, kissed his neck long and slow, then said, “Get your convict hands off me.” Pushing him away, she pulled an arm free, and stumbled again. Mascara smeared the skin beneath her eyes. Her words slurred. “You don’t get to touch me. Not ’til I get what I came for.”
“Tyra. Come on. Take it easy.”
“You don’t get to break up with me. Not you…”
�
��Tyra…”
“Not some two-bit, pasty-white, deadbeat, convict-looking son of a bitch.”
“Come on. Sit down.”
“I said don’t touch me!”
She swung at him, and he danced back, light as any boxer on Wide World of Sports. Around us, people stood in the street and in other yards. A sign was down at the corner; cars along the curb were damaged. I sidled up behind my brother. “Can I do anything?”
“She’s just high.”
I didn’t know if that meant weed or something harder. She was glassy and loose, her skin splotched, her skirt hiked up on the left side. Noticing the bystanders, she said, “The hell are you looking at?”
Jason tried again. “Tyra?”
“Do you know what this man is? What he does?” She stumbled closer, waving a finger. “He kills dreams! He fucks women and he kills dreams!”
“All right, Tyra. That’s enough.”
“What do you think about that?”
She waved the same finger, and someone behind me said, “This is messed up, man.”
Tyra half-turned but, in the end, cared only for Jason. “Why did you do it? I mean…” She cupped his shoulder, all the animosity gone. “I mean you and me. Come on.” She trailed her fingers down his chest. Jason backed away, but she followed, staring at his mouth, his chin. “You didn’t mean it, did you? Not really. Just tell me that. Just say you’ll screw me like you used to.” She kissed him, but he didn’t kiss her back. She pressed her hips on his, and her hands danced. “What’s the matter, baby? Nobody works like we do.” Her fingers twined in his hair, but he caught her wrists, looking away from the confusion and hurt in her eyes. “Don’t say it again, baby. Please don’t…”
“We’re finished. I told you.”
“We can’t be.”
“I’ll say it for the last time.” He released her wrists, and kept his hands up. “It’s over. We’re done.”