Dairy Queen Days

by Robert Inman

  “Your mother and I got real worried a couple of years ago,” Joe Pike said. “We thought maybe you were on drugs.”

  “Drugs?”

  “Did you ever mess around with drugs?”

  “Well…” He shrugged, feeling both uncomfortable and irritated. This wasn’t what he wanted -- a psychoanalysis or a counseling session. He simply wanted to know what was going on. “I’m a preacher’s kid,” he said.

  “Not easy, I know,” Joe Pike said. “Not easy being a preacher either, but at least I’ve got a pulpit to stand behind.”

  “Yeah. I guess.”

  “Well anyway, we decided you weren’t on drugs. You’d just gotten easy to deal with. We decided not to worry about it. Don’t look a gift horse in the mouth, you know. But now…” he waved his hands, his voice rose dramatically. “Here we have rank disobedience. Open defiance. Rebellion! Anarchy! Domestic chaos!”

  Trout considered it for a moment. He gave Joe Pike a careful look. “Why don’t you punish me,” he said.

  “How?”

  “Make me learn to ride the motorcycle.”

  * * * * *

  They headed out U.S. 278 toward Atlanta about five miles, Joe Pike wearing his cowboy boots and a battered white helmet that made him look something like the Texas A&M football picture in his church study. Trout rode behind, bareheaded because there was only the one helmet, several sizes too big for him, holding on and craning his neck to see around Joe Pike’s bulk. They turned on a paved rural road, went another mile or so and pulled off beneath a big oak tree in the bare yard of an abandoned farmhouse. It was a weathered, windowless ghost of a place with a high, sagging porch, vines creeping up the rock chimney, a riot of weeds around the sides and back of the house.

  Joe Pike killed the engine. Trout slid off the back of the motorcycle, then Joe Pike let down the kickstand and got off and took off the helmet and tucked it under his arm. Trout climbed onto the seat, put his hands on the handlebars, gripped them, wiggled his fanny. It leaned to the left on the kickstand, so he put his feet on the ground and eased it upright. The cycle felt massive between his legs, warm leather and chrome, heat baking off the engine. He felt a vague stirring in his groin. Gee. It’s like…

  “A woman,” Joe Pike said. Trout’s ears reddened. He looked up at Joe Pike, who wiggled his eyebrows. Then he looked away, across the road where rows of new corn were pushing up through the brown loam of a plowed field. It struck Trout. It’s been four months. No sounds behind the closed door late at night. What does he… Trout’s ears felt as if they might burst into flame.

  “Start ’er up,” Joe Pike said. He pointed. “Turn the key. Now, that pedal there is the starter. Stomp down on it.” Trout stomped. The pedal barely moved. The engine coughed. “You’re kinda light. Sort of jump on it.” Trout stomped again, using the weight of his body, and the engine fired. “Now a little gas. That’s the throttle over there.” He goosed the throttle, the way he had seen Joe Pike do. The cycle vibrated under him, through him.

  Joe Pike showed him the clutch and brake levers, the gearshift. Neutral and three forward gears. “Ready?”

  Trout took a deep breath. It was a little scary. “I guess.”

  “Kickstand up.” Joe Pike used the toe of his cowboy boot to raise the kickstand. “Okay. It’s in neutral. Clutch lever in, drop it down into first gear.” Trout heard a click as the gear engaged. “Now, it’s just like driving a straight-stick car, except you got two wheels instead of four. Give it some throttle as you let the clutch out.” Clutch and throttle. He raced the engine a bit, released the clutch. Too quick. The bike jumped a couple of feet, died, started falling to the left. Whoa! Trout struggled, toppling, losing it, panic racing through him. But then Joe Pike dropped the helmet and grabbed the cycle, wrestled it with his powerful arms like a cowboy bulldogging a steer and steadied it. “Okay?”

  Trout’s heart was pounding in his ears. “Yeah.”

  He tried again. Same result. “Dammit!”

  Joe Pike gave him a careful look. “Want to call it a day? Try it another time? It’s okay if you do.”

  “No.” It was important to do this. It was the first thing they had done together for a long time. If he could pull this off, there might be something in it for both of them. And they both, he thought, needed a little something.

  Joe Pike patted the handlebars as he would a horse he was trying to gentle. “This isn’t a big bike as motorcycles go. Two-hundred-fifty cubic inch engine. But still, you got a lot of weight underneath you, son, and it can get away from you in a hurry, like just now. But you can control it as long as you keep moving forward. Momentum helps you keep your balance, just like on a bicycle, except there’s a bit more to think about. A motorcycle’s kinda like a person. Gotta keep moving. Stand in one place long enough, and sooner or later you’ll topple over.”

  “Yes sir.”

  “All right. Try it again.”

  Trout went through the routine again. Gearshift in neutral. Stomp. RUMMM-UM-UM-UM… Clutch in, drop it into low. Throttle. …RUMMMMMMMM-UM-UM… Joe Pike stepped back, gave him room. Clutch out slowly. He was moving! Wobbling a bit, but moving!

  “Little more gas! Not too much!”

  Joe Pike ambled along beside him, keeping a hand on the rear of the cycle as Trout made a wide turn around the oak tree, wobbling a bit as the bike bumped across the uneven bare dirt. They made several slow, cautious circles of the yard, Trout’s heart racing far faster than the engine, but after awhile beginning to feel the bike steady underneath him.

  “Little more gas,” Joe Pike said. “Momentum.”

  Trout gave it a bit more throttle, and then suddenly Joe Pike wasn’t there with him any more. He was standing next to the steps of the old house, arms folded across his chest, watching. Trout circled several more times and finally eased up toward where Joe Pike stood. He called out. “Clutch in. Brake on. Ease to a stop. Get your feet down. Control it.”

  Trout stopped the bike and balanced it between his legs, both feet on the ground. He felt giddy. “Okay?”

  “You look like you’re about to go into labor. Relax.”

  “Okay.”

  “Now try the road.”

  “The road?”

  “You wanta ride the thing, don’t you?”

  “Yes sir.”

  “Well, you’re gonna get pretty bored making ruts in the yard here. Ain’t but one way to learn how to ride a motorcycle, son. That’s ride it.”

  “You think I’ll be okay? I don’t have a helmet.”

  Joe Pike looked out at the paved road and stared at it for a long moment. Then he looked back at Trout, put a big hand on his shoulder, squeezed ever so slightly. “Just take it easy. Respect the machine, keep your mind on your business, give everybody else lots of room. Lots of room. The minute you get cocky, that’s when you get in trouble.” He smiled. “Take your time. Have fun.”

  “What are you gonna do?”

  Joe Pike picked up the helmet and turned away, walked over and sat down on the sagging bottom step of the old farmhouse, set the helmet down beside him and hunched forward with his elbows on his knees. He clasped his hands. “I’ll be deep in prayer and supplication. Yea, verily.” He gave a tiny wave. “Go.”

  Trout went. Slowly, gingerly at first, keeping it in first gear several hundred yards up the road, getting the feel of the blacktop underneath the bike. Then he held his breath and dropped it down into second gear, gave it some gas, felt a shock of power as the bike leaped ahead. He looked down at the speedometer. Thirty. Then he topped a small rise and a bad thing happened. A small squat house on the left, a pickup truck in the yard. And a dog. Streaking for the road, yapping madly as he approached. “Shit!” he yelled in terror. The dog had an angle on him, a blur of black out of the corner of his eye, almost on him now, going for his leg! HEADLINE: BOY, CYCLE EATEN BY MONGREL. Then -- it was a reflex motion, an instinct for survival -- he gunned the throttle with a vicious snap of his wrist and the motorycle almost jumped ou
t from under him, engine screaming. Aiyyyyhhhh! And suddenly he was past the farmhouse and the dog. A quick glance in the rearview mirror. The dog brought up short at the edge of the pavement, staring at his disappearing back, tongue lolling.

  Trout flew! There was nothing now but the whine of the cycle, pavement flashing underneath, a rush of brown and green on either side. His heart was in his throat, eyes bugging. Third gear! He dropped it down, felt another jolt of power and then the bike settling beneath him, a marvelous streaking, growling cat gobbling up great lengths of asphalt. Another quick glance at the speedometer. Fifty. It felt like five hundred. The wind roared in his ears, whipped at his hair and teared his eyes. He was scared out of his wits and at the same time thrilled beyond anything he had ever experienced. Godawmighty! He leaned into the wind and rode in a state of grace for what seemed a hundred miles before he saw a stop sign ahead and the road dead-ended into another at the top of a hill. He realized it was the road that ran between town and the Interstate. He could see I-20 off to his right, cars and semi’s barreling along on the concrete. And off to the left, the Dairy Queen.

  He rode down that way and turned around at the edge of the parking lot. It was mid-morning, slack time. Only a Sheriff’s Department car parked in front, a deputy lounging at the window, sipping coffee, talking to somebody inside, paying no attention to the fact that Trout was violating the Georgia Motorcycle Helmet Law. Next to the deputy, a “Help Wanted” sign was taped to the plate glass.

  He thought about Keats and the rest of them over at Moseley High School. Maybe wondering where the invisible kid was, maybe thinking they had scared him off. Well, to hell with them. He wasn’t going back, not this school year. Three months until September. He would think of something. By September, a giant meteor might have hit the earth. WHAM! Clouds of dust. A run on gas masks. Anything could happen. In the meantime, he could ride the motorcycle. On a motorcycle, you could outrun a lot.

  He turned around and headed back. It wasn’t a hundred miles after all. Maybe five. But he rode like a bat out of hell, and when he passed the house with the dog, the cur didn’t make it halfway to the road before Trout had roared past.

  Joe Pike was sprawled across the steps of the farmhouse, eyes closed. Prayer and supplication. Trout turned in, gunned the cycle, made another quick circle of the yard, stopped in front of Joe Pike and killed the engine. Joe Pike finally opened his eyes. “Was it okay?”

  “Yes sir. It sure was okay.” And Trout saw then in Joe Pike’s eyes a little of what it must mean to let go of something or someone.

  But there was something else, a thing shared, a message passed and silently acknowledged. Trout understood a little bit about the motorcycle. About Texas. It wasn’t so much the getting there as it was the going. That was the thing.

  * * * * *

  Joe Pike was gone all afternoon. Trout hung around the house, listened to some James Taylor…in my mind I’m going to Carolina…read a couple of articles in a tennis magazine, took a nap. Woke up in a state of excitement, thinking of Cynthia Stuckey. Gave in quite willingly to temptation. He was doing that a lot, he thought. But it was one of the few things he had much control over these days.

  He wandered out to the storage shed in back of the parsonage and wiped down the motorcycle with the chamois cloth Joe Pike kept hanging on a nail. Then he threw a tennis ball against the side of the storage shed…thwock…thwock…thwock.

  He tired of that after awhile, sat down in the backyard swing and stayed there for a long time thinking about the morning, the motorcycle. He could still feel the tingle through his body -- vibration of the engine, rush of the wind -- the precarious strangeness of it.

  Then he thought about Joe Pike on the motorcycle, going all the way from Georgia to Texas with the Holy Ghost riding behind, whispering in his ear. Mile after mile disappearing under the wheels of the Triumph. One hill, one curve after another. The sun tracking his movement -- rising at his back, setting in his face, disappearing over a horizon he could never quite reach.

  It was a very unpreacherish thing, riding a motorcycle. Trout knew of a Methodist minister over in Tennessee who was much sought after as a standup comic, renowned for his religious humor. An oddity, but not beyond the pale. Several in Joe Pike’s own conference were pretty fair golfers, a good number were prodigious fishermen. Perhaps the most unusual was the one with the glass eye. He had been a counselor one summer at Methodist Camp, in charge of a cabin full of fourth-grade boys including Trout. Bedtime the first night had been a rowdy affair until the preacher took out his glass eye, placed it on the window sill next to his bunk and said, “Boys, I’m gonna be watching you all night,” then turned over and went to sleep, surrounded by profound silence.

  But not a single preacher Trout could think of had a motorcycle.

  Joe Pike had always been a little unconventional -- awesome in height and girth, a bit boisterous, given to occasionally nudging the limits of preacherly decorum. Nonetheless, a preacher who knew where the boundaries were, the way his son knew what a preacher’s kid could and couldn’t get away with. But now, Joe Pike had a motorcycle, gave no evidence of being the slightest bit uneasy about it, even after his escapade, and now had taken his hooky-playing son and taught him how to ride the darned thing. In doing so, he had cracked the door -- intentionally or not -- on an entire beyond-the-limits world. What was Joe Pike trying to tell him?

  And how much of all that had to do with this place -- this Moseley, Georgia with its own set of strange and unsettling vibrations, undercurrents, mysteries? Its history, as Great Uncle Phinizy had recounted it, much of it bound up in who Joe Pike Moseley was, what he had been and become?

  All of this caromed around inside Trout’s head as he sat there in the swing, making him a little dizzy with the possibilities. He was thinking too much again, an old sin. He could hear the voice of his tennis coach back in Ohatchee: “Stop thinking, Trout! Just play!”

  It was getting late, the shank of the afternoon falling on the backyard. He got up and went in the house, turned on the TV set in time for the six o’clock news from Atlanta. President Carter, just back from a weekend with his top advisors at Camp David, says the nation is gripped by a great malaise…

  Then he heard Joe Pike pulling in the driveway in the Dodge. He turned off the TV and met Joe Pike at the door. He was carrying two boxes. One was white cardboard, rectangular. Trout could tell what was in that. A cake. The other box was square, gift-wrapped.

  When they had finished dinner, Joe Pike lit the sixteen candles on the cake with a flourish and pranced around the table and sang “Happy Birthday” with great off-key vigor. He was almost like the old Joe Pike Moseley, never happier than at a celebration of some sort, and Trout began to believe that things might turn out all right after all. He laughed until his sides hurt.

  Then he opened the other box.

  It was a motorcycle helmet. Red with a streak of gold lightning down each side.

  SIX

  The rest of the week passed uneventfully. Trout Moseley didn’t go back to Moseley High, which ended the school year without ceremony at mid-morning on Friday and graduated a class of thirty-five on Friday night in the football stadium. A lieutenant colonel from the Army post in Augusta gave the commencement speech, in which he espoused thrift, hard work, loyalty and unyielding opposition to Communism in all its forms. None of the Moseley family were in attendance. But when Trout and Joe Pike dined with Aunt Alma and Uncle Cicero on Thursday evening, Alma let it be known that Orzell Blaylock had called some time ago to solicit her opinion of the lieutenant colonel as a commencement speaker. She had approved, and after the event, he called back to report at some length on the speech. Aunt Alma, on behalf of the family, had awarded a five-hundred-dollar scholarship to the top graduate, a girl who would be attending the Massey-Draughon Business College in Atlanta.

  Aunt Alma did one other singular thing. Joe Pike happened to mention Trout’s unhappiness over the lack of a tennis court in Moseley, and sh
e arranged with friends in Augusta for Trout to play at the Augusta Racquet and Swim Club. “I want Trout to have every opportunity to fulfill himself,” she said. “Papa didn’t hold with tennis, and neither do I. But who says we all have to be the same?”

  Joe Pike drove him to Augusta on Friday afternoon and he spent an hour with the club pro, who worked with him on his backhand. Then Trout played a rousing match against the club’s top sixteen-year-old, summoned especially for the occasion. He was a gangly young man with a wicked serve but little else, and once Trout got over his nervousness and figured out the boy’s game, he won fairly easily. It felt good, having a racquet in his hands again, losing himself in the rhythm of competition.

  After the match, they retired to the veranda of the clubhouse overlooking the swimming pool -- Joe Pike, Trout, his vanquished opponent and the club pro -- and talked about the State Juniors coming up. Both boys would be playing for the first time in the 16-18 division; neither would be seeded. But they all agreed that Trout might have a chance to pull off a surprise or two in the opening rounds. He had a decent serve-and-volley game and he played the net as if he owned it. The backhand, that was the thing. Sometimes it was passable. Often, it was as limp as a wet noodle. Only Trout knew how truly miserable it could be. He knew that if a savvy opponent caught him on a day when the backhand deserted him, he was a dead duck. But the club pro invited him back the next week for another session. They would work on it.