The Last Chance Texaco

by Brent Hartinger

  "Lucy'11 pick it up," said Joy, standing nearby. "She's getting really good at picking up garbage."

  "Get conked," I said.

  "Hey, I was just complimenting you on your work. But you know, if you need more practice, I saw some dog shit out in the front yard."

  I ignored her. I turned to Yolanda. "I ate so much, I may never eat again," I said, and she nodded once.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I saw Joy looking at me. But after a few seconds, she turned and stared at Yolanda, thinking. Then she sniffed the air. "What's that I smell?" Joy said. "It ain't cigarette smoke. I think it's propane."

  "Huh?" Yolanda said suddenly.

  Joy exaggerated a nod. "Oh, yeah. Funny time of year for someone to be out having a barbecue, don'tcha think?"

  Yolanda's eyes got wide.

  I turned to Joy. "Shut up!" What sort of person made fun of someone because their parents were killed in a propane explosion?

  She sniffed the air again. "You don't smell it?"

  I turned to Yolanda. "Just ignore her." I tried to think of something to say. "Maybe we can go to the park tomorrow."

  "There's something cooking," Joy said. "But I can't figure out the meat. Is it chicken? 'Cause I smell burning skin."

  Yolanda whimpered. I glanced into the kitchen at Gina and Mrs. Morgan, the two counselors handing out the meds. But they were too involved in counting out the pills.

  "Maybe it's ribs," Joy said. "Nothin like a pair of bloody ribs."

  I whirled on her. "I'm warning you!"

  "Or pork," Joy said nonchalantly. "But pork is the other white meat, ain't it? It don't smell like no white meat to me."

  That was it! The pot inside my head suddenly boiled over, and I knew I was taking her down. I jerked back a fist to slug her. Joy must have seen me, but she didn't even flinch.

  "Lucy! Stop!" It was Yolanda. She had grabbed my arm, keeping me from hitting Joy.

  "You can almost hear it sizzling!" Joy said.

  I tried to shake Yolanda off me.

  "Lucy!" Yolanda said. "She wants you to hit her! So you'll get kicked out of Kindle Home!"

  Yolanda's words changed everything. It was like someone had snapped a lens over my eyes and now I saw everything in a different light. Yolanda was right, of course. Joy was purposely goading me into hitting her--and in a group home, it did matter who started a fight. And if I had hit her, I suddenly knew she wouldn't have fought back, making herself look completely blameless. She was trying to get me back for the thing with the cigarettes. The oldest trick in the book, and I'd almost fallen for it.

  "What's going on!" said a voice. It was Gina, drawn from the kitchen by the raised voices. It was obvious Joy and I were facing off like a couple of feuding cats.

  My fist dissolved into a handful of fingers, which I ran though my hair. "Nothing," I said, with a practiced innocence. "Why?"

  "Joy?" Gina said.

  Joy looked absolutely baffled by the question. "Me? No. Nothing's wrong."

  Gina stared at us for a second, not fooled at all by our acting jobs. But she finally turned away. The instant she did, Joy's placid expression dissolved into a frustrated sneer. This time, I turned my back on her for good.

  • • •

  That night, I woke up to the sound of screaming.

  For a second, I didn't know where I was, that I was in my and Yolanda's bedroom in Kindle Home. For a second, I thought I was in some other place entirely. But then I realized it was Yolanda screaming and thrashing in her bed, and the feeling quickly faded.

  I reached over and turned on the light.

  "Yolanda!" I said, and she jerked awake in mid-scream.

  I watched her for a second, her eyes confused by the walls of the bedroom. She'd been somewhere else too.

  "Are you okay?" I asked.

  "What? Oh. Yeah."

  The door to our room burst open, and Ben skidded inside. "What is it?" he said. He was wearing just a pair of boxer shorts, and I could see his hairy chest and how fast he was breathing.

  "It's nothing," I said. "Yolanda just had a nightmare."

  Ben looked at her. "Is that right?"

  Yolanda nodded. "Yeah. I'm okay."

  With another look at both of us, Ben withdrew to his room, closing our door behind him.

  "What was it?" I asked Yolanda.

  She shook her head like she was shooing away a fly. "Nothing. I don't remember."

  But I knew. She'd been dreaming about her parents, about the day they were killed. The after-effect of Joy's little prank down in the foyer.

  "I'm okay," Yolanda said, hunching down in bed again and rolling away from me.

  I stared at her back for a second, and suddenly I remembered what I'd been thinking when I first woke up, where I thought I'd been. It was just after my parents died, and I'd been sharing a bedroom in a foster home with my little sister. She'd just woken up from a nightmare too.

  Not too long after that, my little sister had been adopted, and I used to imagine that her new parents were really demons in disguise holding her hostage. In my fantasies, I'd rescue her, and we'd run off to live together in that perfect mountain cabin from Heidi.

  Now I felt that way about Yolanda--that I wanted to rescue her, to take her away from what was making her so miserable. But there was no way to protect her from the demons in her mind, and nowhere to take her even if there was. My perfect mountain cabin existed only in my imagination.

  I reached over and turned out the light. But this time, I found I couldn't sleep.

  • • •

  After school the following Monday, I was picking up garbage in this narrow plaza between the tennis courts and the student center, and I turned and found myself facing Nate. He was standing, garbage sack in hand, at the top of a short set of concrete steps maybe fifteen feet away.

  "Hey," he said.

  "Hey," I said.

  For a second, we both looked everywhere except at each other. I glanced up at this big window in the side of the student center. I guess it was there so kids inside the lunchroom could look down on the action on the tennis courts below.

  Finally, I sort of turned toward Nate and said, "Guess what? I just found a dollar." He'd said "hey" to me first, and it seemed kind of bitchy not to say anything back.

  "Yeah?" he said.

  "Yeah." I had found a dollar, but suddenly I felt like an idiot mentioning it to Nate. As if someone rich like him would care about a stupid dollar.

  He shuffled down the steps and walked over to me. As he did, he stuck his hand into his trash bag, rummaged around, and pulled out a little white plastic canister. "I found an asthma inhaler," he said. "Still works, too." He pressed it a couple of times, and it misted.

  I nodded at my own bag. "I found a floppy disk." I wasn't about to dig it out, though.

  "I found a can of racquetball balls," Nate said.

  "I found a tin of chewing tobacco."

  Nate smiled. "It sounds like we're kids comparing candy on Halloween."

  "Yeah," I said, even though I hadn't been out trick-or-treating ever since I'd entered The System. Something had always come up.

  "You find anything else?" he said.

  I thought for a second. Then I smiled. "Just the Holy Grail."

  "The what?"

  "You know--Jesus' cup from the Last Supper? That the Knights of the Round Table were looking for? It was in the parking lot next to the pool." I don't know what had gotten into me. Suddenly, I just felt like joking around.

  Nate laughed. "The Holy Grail, huh? Well, big deal. I found the Fountain of Youth. It was in the grass behind the football field."

  "Yeah? Well, I found the Golden City of El Dorado on the other side of the faculty parking lot."

  "I found the Lost City of Atlantis."

  "I found the Northwest Passage."

  Nate had to think for a second. "I found the Elephants' Burial Ground!"

  "I found the Loch Ness Monster!"

  "I found Bigfoot!"

>   "I found the Missing Link!"

  Nate had to think again.

  "Well?" I said.

  He grimaced. "I guess you win, because I can't think of anything else!"

  We both started snickering. Nate was laughing louder than me, but even so, I couldn't remember smiling so much in a long time. It felt good, but a little weird, and not just because Nate Brandon was the one I was laughing with.

  Suddenly, something thumped loudly against the big window just over our heads. We both started in surprise. For an instant, I thought someone in the student center must've slapped the inside of the glass in order to scare us. But then something black dropped from the window to the ground near our feet.

  "What the--?" Nate said.

  I stared down at it. "It's a crow. It tried to fly through the window." I glanced up at the sky and saw a mockingbird flapping away. I'd heard that mockingbirds chased crows. The other bird must've forced the crow right into the glass.

  "Good thing it didn't break," Nate said.

  "The bird?" I said.

  "The window." He was staring up at it.

  I crouched down to get a closer look at the bird.

  "What are you doing?" Nate said.

  "Seeing if it's okay." It wasn't. The black feathers on its head were already matted with blood, and its neck looked twisted. But at least it was still alive. It was lying on the ground, twitching.

  "It's just a crow," Nate said.

  "So?" I said.

  "Well, you know. A crow."

  As I watched, the crow tried to stand. But its legs and wings weren't working right. It fluttered, but didn't go anywhere. It made a noise, but not like the "caw-caw" a crow usually makes. It was more of a squeak.

  "You're wrong," I said to Nate, my eyes still on the wounded bird. "Crows are really smart. They're the smartest birds by far. They hide food but always remember where. And they're social too. They watch out for each other, even share food and stuff. They also have this kind of language where they can talk to each other."

  "But they're mean," Nate said. "And they pick up garbage! And don't they, like, steal food from other birds?"

  "Well, they have to eat. What are they supposed to do?"

  Nate kind of snorted. "Never heard anyone stick up for crows before."

  I let my garbage sack slip to the ground. Then I took off my jacket and handed it to Nate. "Hold this," I said. I started taking off my sweatshirt.

  "What are you doing?"

  "I'm going to pick it up and put it somewhere safe. That way, at least it won't be eaten by a cat during the night. Maybe it'll live long enough to be able to fly again."

  "You're not going to touch it, are you? Couldn't it have a disease?"

  "I won't touch it. That's what my sweatshirt is for."

  I bent down again. Nate moved closer too, but not as close as me.

  The crow wasn't even trying to flutter now. It just twitched. Not like it was scared or nervous. Like it was dying.

  It twitched one more time, but then it stopped.

  I knew it wasn't going to move again, no matter how long we stared at it. I'd just watched something die, and it was the saddest thing I'd seen in a really long time. Even so, I couldn't look away.

  "Well, that completely sucks," Nate said softly.

  I didn't say anything, just kept staring at the dead crow. A second later, I realized that Nate was still staring, but not at the bird anymore. At me.

  "What?" I said.

  "That really makes you sad, doesn't it?"

  Suddenly, I felt cold and exposed. I stood up again and started slipping back into my sweatshirt. "So?" I said.

  "So I just wouldn't have expected you to care so much about a bird."

  Why? I thought to myself. Because I was a groupie, and therefore an inhuman monster? Suddenly, I wondered what the hell I was doing talking with Nate Brandon anyway.

  I was just about to tell him to go get choked when he said, "Wait. That didn't come out right."

  I still wanted him to get lost, but I couldn't very well say something snotty right after he'd basically apologized to me. So I was just about to make some stupid excuse about having to get back to work. But before I could say anything, something starting shining on his face, casting a metallic glint in his eyes. He looked for the source of that glint--something directly behind me--and his face got tight.

  I turned to see what he'd seen.

  For a second, the glint blinded me too. Then the light moved off my face, and I saw that it was coming from gold jewelry blazing in the afternoon sun. Of course, that jewelry was being worn by Alicia, who stared down at us from the top of the nearby steps. From her point of view, Nate was holding my jacket, and we'd been having a happy little conversation. Alicia didn't look pleased about it.

  On the contrary, she looked downright pissed

  • • •

  That night, I woke up again to the sound of screaming. At first, I thought it was Yolanda. But then I heard it again, and it was coming from out in the hall. Next I heard muffled shouting, the pounding of footsteps, the slamming of a door, and more screaming. I couldn't hear anything clearly, but I knew they were male voices.

  Ben and Roberto.

  There was an eerie silence. I turned on the light and looked over at Yolanda. She was sitting up in bed too. I stepped across the room and opened the door. Other doors were opening, everyone except for the room shared by Juan and Roberto. We were all staring out into the hallway, peering at each other, but nobody said a word.

  Suddenly, there was more screaming, and scuffling, from inside Juan and Roberto's bedroom. Then the door burst open and Gina flew out into the hall.

  "Go to bed!" she shouted at us as she ran toward the phone. "Everyone get back in your rooms and close your doors!"

  No one moved. As fast as things were happening, it seemed like we kids were moving in slow motion, like it was an episode of Star Trek and we were somehow outside the flow of time.

  "Do it!" Gina screamed.

  I knew what was going on. Roberto was having another meltdown. Ben had gone in to do a random spot check, and Roberto had snapped. Or maybe he and Juan had gotten into a fight and woken up Ben and Gina. I'd seen stuff like this before, way too many times. I didn't need to see it again. I figured Yolanda didn't need to see it either. So I closed the door on it all.

  I went back to bed and turned out the light. For the next hour or so, there was more shouting, and more pounding footsteps, and lots of murmuring. Eventually, things quieted down again, but once again I wasn't able to fall back asleep.

  At breakfast the next morning, Roberto was gone. This time, we didn't need Damon to tell us what had happened. Everybody knew. Roberto had screwed up one too many times. He'd been sent to You-Know-Where Island.

  Chapter Eight

  The following Monday, Nate passed me in the hallway on the way to fourth period. He was with a couple of his friends, but he must have already told them about me, because he came right up to me and said, "Hey! I just remembered something else I found picking up garbage. Noah's Ark! It was at the bottom of the pool!"

  I stared at him, his face as unguarded as an open garage door. But I didn't say anything, and I didn't smile at all. I'm not sure what came over me. I knew he wanted me to laugh with him, but I just couldn't.

  Nate glanced over at his friends. Behind their dimples, they looked plenty confused.

  Nate looked back at me and waved a hand in front of my face. "Hello?" he said. "Noah's Ark? Something I found picking up garbage? What we do every day after school?"

  But I still didn't react. "I got class," I said. Then I stepped around him and headed down the hall.

  • • •

  For the rest of the day, I felt like crap. I knew I'd been a bitch to Nate in that hallway. I tried to tell myself that it was only Nate Brandon--the same guy who'd threatened me and made fun of my being from a group home. And that being friends with him wasn't worth having Alicia even madder at me than she already was. Bu
t some part of me knew that Nate had been pretty decent to me lately, and it had been lousy of me to dog him like that.

  Even so, I wasn't ready to face him again. So I made a point of avoiding him when I was picking up garbage that afternoon--and I think he made a point of avoiding me too.