But you don’t know, I say. You’ve never been to Oz.
Don’t give me that bullshit.
And suddenly my heart is fluttering like a moth at the bonfire. My whole body is fluttering, and I have to stand up, walk around, get my bearings. I turn on lights, shut them off. I open the empty fridge, close it. I start to boil, take off my T-shirt, put it back on. There is something I need to do. I need to go get Bev. I need to save her from that prick, because that’s what a man does. He gets off the goddamn futon and saves his woman.
I rip the place apart looking for a pick-me-up, and the horseshoe must be rammed firmly in place, because I find a little orange bottle behind the toilet. It’s covered in dust bunnies and holds three of Warren’s little friends.
For the first time in my fricking life, I know exactly what I must do. Girls like Bev need excitement, they need luxury, even if they screw the staff in their daddy’s dipshit franchise restaurant with free peanuts in the lounge. I knew that from the beginning; she was the whole reason I got back in the game. Girls like Bev accept nothing less than buttery leather dashboards and plenty of room to screw.
When it came to sports, I had the skills but never the stuff. Nathan was the one with the fire in his belly. “Get in there,” Betty would say to me. “What are you waiting for?” But it’s like I never cared enough—until I met Bev, and then I knew girls like Bev didn’t just have to be saved. They had to be won.
I walk out the door, down a few blocks to the takeout Lebanese place and then it’s like destiny is suddenly on my side. There’s a Lexus GX, illegally parked, ripe for the picking. I can see the owner through the window, still in his business suit at 10:45 PM, chatting up the doeeyed, head-scarved cashier who’s young enough to be his daughter. It’s high-risk, but I am higher, and I’m on my way before she’s handed him his change.
I text Bev as I head down McPhillips, past the casino, past the Asian megamarket, heading north, north, north until I swear I’m going to run out of city. She’d said this was the perfect neighborhood for Ray, a fancy-schmancy new condo development trying to pretend it wasn’t on the wrong side of the tracks.
Where R U? I’ve got a Lex, fully-loaded. Your fav color seats.
Ten minutes and I get nothing, but I don’t worry, because luck is on my side. I’ve got two little friends left, dancing around in the glove compartment, and I feel ready for anything. It starts to drizzle, and the wipers come on fricking automatically. Headlights are diamonds, brakes are rubies. There’s no tunes, but I drum the steering wheel like I’m at one of Betty’s fricking powwows. I’m not even at the corner of Leila when she gives in.
Why would I go anywhere with u?
I don’t wonder if Ray is there. Screw Ray.
Cuz u want to
I drift lanes a little and some asshole blares his horn, so I cut in front and give ’er. It’s been ages since I felt so awake. The whole night is a shiny jewel. Screw Ray.
She can’t resist.
I’m at the condo
Asshole pulls up beside me in his minivan and flips me the bird. I give him a friendly salute, let him know I’m on a mission.
B there in 5
At the intersection, the turning light blinks green, ushering me through like a fricking beacon on the high seas. This way, man, no stopping—tonight’s your night. The parking lot at Ray’s latest shitty restaurant is none too full. The letter B in the sign is burnt out, so it reads “Joe lack’s.” The rain comes harder, and everything shines except the B, and then the maze of street signs begins, streetlights shining like tiny suns. I try to let my instincts guide me—I’m traveling through the stars, guided by the force. I’ve got to let myself go, let myself feel it, and I’ll find my way.
I was there only once before, on a bright, chilly afternoon when Ray threatened to set the dogs on me before I could even talk to her, and even then the houses all looked the same, double garages with a house attached, treeless stretches of lawn, picture windows stretching two stories, blinds drawn.
I turn around, try again and again. The rain comes; the wipers have a mind of their own. This is no time to pussy out. I’m back at the main road, following it deep into the maze of streets again, no going back…when I see the condo building. Maybe five stories, set far back from the street, a U-shaped drive lined with new old-fashioned lamps. The lights are round as moons, and this is my night.
She’s waiting outside, under an awning trimmed with tiny twinkling lights. The minute I see her, I know I don’t feel like driving anymore. I want her to take me by the hand and invite me up. I want to give it to her in that bastard’s king-size bed. I want to show her I’ve fricking grown up, show her what it’s like to be loved by a real man.
She pulls her hood up and runs to her chariot.
“What took you so long?”
Her face looks a little puffy, like maybe she just woke up. She’s wearing braids, just the way I like, but it looks like she hasn’t showered in a while. I finger the messy strands of hair around her ear, need to feel that she’s real.
“I missed you, babe.”
She bats my hand away, playful-like. “Yeah?”
“Yeah.”
She rubs the leather seat. “Nice. But this is latte, not espresso.”
She’s wearing a yellow tank top with spaghetti straps and jean cut-offs. She still looks a little pregnant and round. Her thigh is wet, and her nipples bask under the light of the moons.
“How you been?” I say. “You okay?”
She shrugs. “I told Ray I had cramps so I didn’t have to hostess tonight.”
I squeeze her thigh, have to stop myself from cutting off her circulation. There are fireworks in my fingertips, and I feel strong enough to juggle lampposts.
“Nice place,” I say.
She shrugs again and her nipples dance a little jig. “He can’t really afford it.”
I squeeze my sympathy and she turns to face me, leans in close enough that I can see a tiny zit on her chin. Its head is white and pointy, and I imagine popping it just like that, a little spray of her pus on my ready fingers. She pokes me in the chest. “So tell me. Was it Faye?”
On a joyride, Bev always edged closer the faster we went. After a good run, hitting over a hundred and fifty maybe, she used to climb right into my lap and lick me like a cat: earlobes, chest, eyebrows. “What?”
“Did Faye tell you where they lived?”
I can’t take my eyes off the zit. I want to save all of her, even the disgusting parts. I want to fly her up to his bed and let the fireworks explode in her. But she keeps talking. She keeps poking. “Hello, Mannie. Are you on something? Look me in the eye.”
I look at her, hard, trying to tell her what I want without words.
She squeezes my cheeks in her hands and talks to me like I’m a retard. “Faye. Faye told you where Will and Helen lived.”
Faye, I think. Why is she talking about skinny, Chinese Faye?
“Yeah,” I say. “She showed me.”
She releases my face and settles back into the buttery leather seat. “Of course she did.”
I grip the steering wheel, hold the fireworks in a little longer. The force is with me.
“Bev. Come on, babe. Who cares? I love you.”
She crosses her arms over her chest. The rain stops, and leftover drops sneak down the windshield like snakes.
“She was adopted, you know,” she says.
I got nothing. I just know I need to move soon or something very bad will happen. Then she jumps up in her seat like a little girl who just got a pony. The nipples are back, waving at me, and she’s patting my thigh hard to enough to sting. “You know what we should do? We should take her for a ride. You thought she was uptight, didn’t you? So totally not your type. But I’ve seen her—she can be wild. She just needs a little encouragement.”
I got nothing. Nothing but a need for release. “Bev,” I say. “Please.”
She moves her hand up my leg, tilts her head and begs. “Com
e on. We owe it to her. She took pity on your sorry ass.”
Her hand moves up and the snakes slither down. I know her mind is made up, and I have to keep her in this fifty-grand hunk of metal or all is lost. Her breath is steamy against my neck. “What are you on, Mannie? That’s no weed in your eyes.”
I reach across her lap and she moves with me, the two of us finally in sync. The glove compartment slides open, slow and easy, at my command. We’re skin to skin as she too opens wide, sticks out her tongue like my madre taking communion at mass. Her tongue is so soft and pink and wet and it’s like I’m that powerful little pill sliding down, down, down. I feel strong enough to chew screwdrivers. It’s not like my Bev to need any help from little yellow friends. Thank God I’m here.
“Forget Faye,” I say. “She’s not interested.”
But she’s already moving away, already texting. “Just drive, Mannie.”
She tells me to stop in front of a very big, very old, very dark house.
“Is she home?” I ask.
Bev leans back, puts her feet up on the dashboard. Her sandals look dusty, even after the rain, and I almost feel bad for the Lex. Those feet should be in my lap—I should be sucking those toes clean, and instead they’re messing with perfection.
“Jesus,” she says. “Patience, Mannie. You’ll have plenty of time to speed things up.”
She bounces her knees up and down, hugs her legs like she has to pee. Before, she never seemed interested in getting hopped up, called me Mr. Self-Medicated, called her brother Mr. Waste of Space, called Ray Mr. Functional Junkie.
She bounces. She licks her lips. She glares at me. “What are you looking at?”
“Nothing,” I say, grabbing a braid and giving it a little tug. Sometimes, when I sucked her neck, she actually liked it when I yanked her hair. Hard. “Let’s go, Bev. Just you and me. Like old times.”
She laughs, but it’s not real. “Old times? What are you, fifty?”
This is not the way I imagined it. One time in school we made volcanoes, and I still remember how it works. First the explosion, the awesome spewing of flying rocks, then the slow goo-like lava. “You know what I mean,” I say.
She turns away, stares out the window. “We lived there. The one with the floodlights.”
It’s not quite as big as the boxy ones, but more interesting. Over the door, the roof comes to a giant point, and there’s a little iron balcony on the second floor. On the front step are two black pots with little trees in them, trimmed to look like twin penises.
The lava, I think. That’s the stuff that buries you alive. “Nice,” I say.
The bouncing has turned to a kind of rocking. “Ray hated it. He said old houses gave him the creeps.”
“So why’d he buy it?” I ask.
She clicks her tongue, turns to study the deserted house where Faye is supposed to be. “Lara, of course. She wanted to decorate a period place. She thought stuffing a place full of other people’s old family pictures would give Ray the idea.”
“Idea for what?” I ask.
She gives me the ol’ do-I-have-to-spell-everythingout-for-you face. “Of how to be a family.”
I tell myself that we can’t wait forever, that there’s still one more in the glove compartment, waiting to join the party. It’s not too late. “My madre kept out a wedding picture of her parents even though she hated them. She said it was because her father was always a dashing bastard, but her mother never looked that beautiful again.”
Bev smiles, and I bury my face in her neck, ready for that familiar smell of fruity shampoo and secondhand smoke. But then she waves and jumps out of the car.
Faye is there. Bev is steering her by the shoulders, stuffing her into the front seat. “Guest of honor,” Bev says.
Faye stares at me like she’s just walked into a surprise party. She’s wearing the same grape-colored hoodie she had on last time, and I realize her hair is the exact opposite of Bev’s: neat, straight, blue-black. Bev is already in the back, poking her head between the front seats. “Climb aboard. I warmed up the leather for you.”
In the bucket seat, Faye seems to shrink even smaller. She’s nothing but hoodie and knees, the total, exact opposite of Bev. “Is this Ray’s car?”
Bev laughs, for real this time. “Ray wouldn’t let Mannie near his toaster, never mind his Lex.”
All this time, we’d managed not to mention him, which was probably some kind of fricking record. Faye stares at me, waiting, taking up maybe two-thirds of the space that Bev did.
“The jerk-off didn’t even have a club on it,” I say.
“It’s stolen?”
Bev sticks her head right between us and dangles a braid in Faye’s face. “Yes, sweetie. It’s stolen. Isn’t it exciting?”
This is not what I’d imagined, not where I want to be, with Bev’s skinny Chinese sort-of friend in the front seat of the glorious Lex. Her parents have not sent her off to play with Bev tonight—she obviously snuck out while Mommy and Daddy were snoring. So why is she looking at me like she can’t decide whether to bolt or not? Why is Bev breathing quick and hard in my ear, bringing up Ray just to piss me off, wanting something I couldn’t figure out if you paid me?
All I want to do is win back my woman. All I want is for her to tell me what it takes. Why is that so hard for everyone to understand?
Bev shoves her tits into my shoulder. “Let’s take her for a test drive.”
She gets us in gear, and the Lex has a mind of its own. All I have to do is steer with Bev’s nipples hard and happy against my shoulder. Maybe it’s that simple. Who cares if skinny Faye is here? We can drive. Take her to the floor. Go just to go.
Faye does up her seat belt. “Where are we going?”
I slide through a stop sign, taste the deliciously smooth ride. Bev claps her hands, throws herself into the backseat. “The open road!”
Faye ignores her and stares at me with those narrow black eyes. “So what happened? Did you see him?”
Bev is back between us again. “Nothing happened. He took one look and chickenshitted out.”
A cat darts out from behind a parked half-ton and I slam on the brakes. Bev flops forward, then back, then forward, springy as a diving board. “Jesus, Mannie!”
I watch the stupid tabby disappear behind a hedge and want to grab those little-girl braids, drag Bev from the car, kick her to the curb, keep kicking until she can’t breathe and has to shut up. But she’s only telling it like it is.
“They’re gonna send me pictures,” I say.
“Well, there you go,” Bev says. “The annual picture. Now that makes it worth it, doesn’t it, Faye?”
“Makes what worth it?” Faye asks.
Bev laughs again, the short, hiccup-like one she saves for telling stories about Ray and Warren. “Ratting me out. Betraying a friend. Whatever you want to call it.”
The streets are glistening wet. I drive. Just drive. Go to go.
“I didn’t ask to be part of any of this,” Faye says. “You contacted me.”
“So why are you here?”
“You said you needed to talk.”
Another Ray-laugh. “So? You could’ve said no.”
The wet streets are streaked with shiny bolts of red and white, a special effect. Faye keeps her eyes on me and I keep mine straight ahead, on my way to light speed. “You can’t just cut people off like that,” Faye says. “I was wondering how you’re doing.”
Another Ray-laugh. “No? Can’t keep your eyes off the train wreck, huh?”
Faye shuts up. I fly through another stop sign and a hybrid cab wails its sickly horn. I slice by parked cars, close enough to graze side mirrors.
“You’re going to hit something,” Faye says into her knees, as if the crash position will do squat.
Bev powers open the sunroof and stretches out into the wet night. The air smells dank and sweet as old garbage. “You can’t control everything, Faye,” she shouts. “You win some, you lose some.”
T
hen she is back dangling between us, reaching to push Faye’s bony knees aside, her round hips almost nudging my ear. She opens the slick-as-shit glove compartment, empties the bottle, shoves her palm under Faye’s chin. “Here. We just thought you deserved some fun. Okay?”
Puddles spray like it’s the seashore. Boulevard trees fly by like we’re in a Kansas tornado. Brakes squeal across four lanes, and Bev tries to choke her sort-of friend. No—she’s trying to jam the pill into Faye’s mouth.
At the Catholic boys’ school, we charge through the red like a Spanish bull.
“Cut it out,” I shout.
Faye is moaning or groaning or crying. I ease up on the gas, and Bev is tossed backward. She Ray-laughs and rebounds, horror-movie-screams in my ear so loud that it stings, so loud that I miss the sirens. But not the lights.
“Mannie,” Bev says, suddenly stone-cold sober, all business. “Don’t chickenshit out on me now.”
Faye is crying without any noise. Her hoodie-covered fingers are gripping the door handle like she’s thinking of SWAT-rolling onto the sidewalk.
Bev, all screamed out, speaks quietly into my ear. “You can do this. Come on. Let’s do this. Let’s have some fun.”
Faye’s eyes tell me nothing, shiny black marbles in the shiny black night.
Bev is hot and tickly against my neck. “You know what this means, don’t you, Mannie? You’re doing real time. And I told you, I’m not cut out for the role of prison groupie.”
The flashing lights are kissing my tail now, ready to make their move up alongside. New-money mansions on tiny lots rise up on either side of us, like a tunnel. Bev licks my neck.
I take her to hyperspeed, where time doesn’t matter and awful daddies are left in the dust. Faye huddles in her crash ball. Bev rollercoaster-screams. We sail over curbs, peel through fresh lawns, take down trees. Bev hugs my neck from behind, holding on for dear life. We are on a fricking wild, untamed horse riding off into the night.
It’s hard to breathe. It doesn’t matter. It’s raining diamonds.
Your Constant Star Page 14