by Bethny Ebert
Parker sighed, but he wasn’t going to argue. He grabbed another Trojan from the box, but he didn’t unwrap it. Instead he crouched over Nick’s body, bringing his mouth to his hipbones. He kissed Nick’s stomach, lightly, then his knees, his feet, his balls, his thighs, teasing him.
Nick groaned. “God, please.”
“What?”
“Just fuck me already.”
“Are you sure you want to do this?” Parker asked, leaning over him. “I don’t want to pressure you or anything.” His damp hair swung into his eyes, and his body felt heavy with want.
“Yeah,” Nick said. He paused. “I figure we’ll probably get married someday, you know? Like… it wouldn’t hurt to do it, just once, to make sure we’re compatible.”
Parker gawked at him.
Married?
Well, that was where this was going, he kind of figured. Eight years was a long time to date and not at least consider the possibility of marriage. But to hear the words from Nick’s mouth, so bold, not caring of the consequence, it freaked him out a bit.
Flat on his back, naked on the floor, Nick squinted at him, concern in his eyes. “Should I not have said that?”
“No, it’s fine,” Parker said, although he was beginning to feel like he needed a good hard pinch. Only in his dreams did anything ever play out like this. He knew it wouldn’t last forever. Nothing did. But now seemed like a bad time to ask Lady Luck for a reality check. “You really want to marry me?”
“Yeah,” Nick said. “Just promise you’ll do the dishes once in a while.”
“Every other day,” Parker whispered, bringing his lips close to Nick’s ear.
Nick swatted a hand at him. “Liar.”
Parker sighed and kissed his cheek, laying down beside him. “Once a week, maybe twice.”
“Good enough.” Nick cuddled up next to him. “Should we put some music on or something? I don’t think I want Austin and Alex listening in on us.”
“I doubt they’ll hear anything.”
Nick grinned. “But wouldn’t it be cool if we did it listening to the Queers?”
“Oh fuck, seriously? That’s way too easy. What about the Buzzcocks? Bratmobile? Maybe some classic music?”
“Avril Lavigne,” Nick said.
“My boner died. Thanks.”
“Sorry.” Nick brushed his fingertips against Parker’s leg. “You want me to hold a funeral service?”
“No. I want your dick. Stop talking.”
Nick grabbed Parker’s face, jammed his tongue down his throat. And that was the start of their engagement.
Chapter eleven
May 2009
Austin looked over the newspaper, chewing on a pen. He kept ruining pens that way. The empty basement aggravated him. Too damned quiet. There weren’t enough cigarettes for this.
Menopause.
His mother was going insane.
“Honestly, I don’t see what the problem is with you,” she complained, throwing the basement curtains open. A blast of sunlight assaulted Austin’s tired eyes, and he closed his eyes to block the glare. “All these beer bottles. It looks like a brewery in here. We have a recycling bin, you know. And why don’t you go outside once in a while? Get a job. You look like a dead person.”
“I have a job,” he said.
“Well, get another one.” She stomped upstairs and he winced, leaning into his newspaper. The classifieds were sparse and hopeless.
Nothing good.
He called his coworker, Heather. It was a Sunday morning, but she woke up early every day so she could get in extra hours. Heather lived for telemarketing. It was her life’s ambition. She was constantly upbeat. Her work voice reminded him of sweet tea and honey.
“Hello!” he said, louder than he meant.
“Hi,” she grunted into the phone. She sounded like gravel, like cigarettes.
“It’s Austin.”
“Yeah.”
Evidently she wasn’t quite awake.
“You know anyone looking for a roommate?” he asked.
“Maybe,” she said. She hacked and coughed, then cleared her throat. “I’ll get back to you.”
Chapter twelve
May 2002
I was seventeen when I met everybody. My dad finally relinquished control of the old Buick Riviera, just for the night, figuring if I crashed it he could just murder me. It would solve two problems – he wouldn’t have to listen to my mother complain about the way the Buick smelled like wet dog all the time, and he could save money on food with one less person in the house.
My first night with my own set of wheels (sort of), and a Rob Zombie tribute band was playing a few towns over. Possibly the coolest thing ever. I was stoked.
It was spring, almost summer. I saved everything from my paycheck at Meat Hut for this concert. Gas prices had gone up, and the cover charge was ten bucks because the band drove all the way from Madison. Plus I needed to hit up the drive-thru at Burger Bin. I intended to take this car out and make a night of it. I was sick of waiting around for my life to start.
It wasn’t that I loved Rob Zombie, not really. But his music was almost satanic. It would make my father mad. A kid my age should be out there playing football or baseball, something American, not listening to faggy tribute bands or writing poems that weren’t for an English class. I had to be a man, man.
Dressed in my finest punk attire – trench coat, acid-washed jeans, System of a Down t-shirt – I applied eyeliner in the bathroom mirror. It seemed like eyeliner was appropriate for the occasion. Davey Havok did it. Pete Wentz. Bowie. I grabbed the pair of sewing scissors I usually used for homework assignments and hacked at my hair. Before long I had a genuine punk rock mullet.
I looked at my reflection. Acceptable. Not real good-looking, but less sloppy than before. I brushed at my shoulders and neck, trying to get the chunks of my hair off. Nothing worse than haircut remainders.
I descended the staircase quietly, hoping to avoid detection.
Of course, my father was waiting by the door. He held the car keys in his thick hand, glaring at me, eyes judgmental behind his bifocals.
“Hey,” I said weakly.
He looked at me. “Are you wearing your mother’s eyeshadow?”
“No,” I said.
“Then what the hell is that on your face?” he asked.
I thought about it. “Got in a fistfight.”
He didn’t say anything. I could tell he didn’t believe me, but he was too tired from work to argue the point. He sighed. “Well, just… be home by eleven,” he said. “And don’t do drugs.”
“Okay, Dad,” I said.
“I’m serious,” he said. “Especially acid. That shit’ll kill you.”
“I won’t do acid, Dad.”
“Good.” He handed me the keys, and I left. Thank God.
The spring air was hot and sweet with the smell of lilacs. It was still sunny outside; the sun set so late these days. The garage was being remodeled, as my father needed (“needed”) more toolshed space to accommodate his new leaf blower. Only my father would purchase a leaf blower five months before the leaves fell. He said power tools were cheapest out-of-season. The man pinched pennies so hard it surprised me he could still work the remote control.
I punched the button on the garage door opener and waited. The door scraped and groaned, echoing my impatient thoughts. I jammed the key in the ignition, backed the old goat out successfully, and exited the driveway. So far, so good.
I turned the radio on. Classic rock, “Freebird”. I know it’s not cool now and it wasn’t cool then, but I sang every word. The highway recognized my voice, and it loved me regardless.
The Riviera stopped and stalled, then started. It chugged along, slowly, for a few heart-stopping seconds, then returned to normal briefly before a low dull sound emitted from someplace deep within. It was off-putting. Reminded me of The Exorcist. I hated that movie.
Something metallic made a twanging noise.
Oh god
.
I had no idea how to fix cars. And now the old ‘78 Buick Riviera, my father’s only car, the one he drove for years despite the wet dog smell and my mother’s constant nagging, was dying.
The car hissed at me like an angry mechanical cat. My father was going to kill me. I tried to think which of my D&D buddies were strong enough to double as pallbearers. I heard a strange ka-thunk noise.
Motherfucker, I said to myself.
This was it. I was a dead man.
I pulled the car into a nearby gas station parking lot and popped open the hood, trying to locate the malfunctioning part inside the thick grey cloud of billowing smoke. Nothing made sense. It was hopeless.
I blinked through the smoke. It felt surreal, like a painting, like I was a detective in a doomed movie at the point when things get confusing and unsolvable, shortly before the exciting climax wherein everybody dies and the main character is killed by his father.
A red Corvette pulled up next to me, big football guy in the driver’s seat. I think his name was Hector. The girl in the passenger’s seat looked at me and popped her gum. She had a laughing sort of look in her eyes.
I remembered that girl. Daniela. She started a rumor about me freshman year, saying I was retarded. Everyone believed her. The only girls that spoke to me were the church-going volunteer types, which would have been fine except they treated me as some sort of project, like if they invited the retarded guy to prom somebody would put in a good word to Saint Peter. To most girls, I was invisible at best, pond scum at worst.
I didn’t know it then, but everything was about to change.
I strode into the gas station, trying to appear confident, even though my trench coat didn’t fit and one of my shoes was untied. Life was filled with hardships. You had to step up to the challenge and prove yourself worthy in order to be counted. No doubt about it, this was one of those times. I needed to fix this car like a man.
There was no one behind the counter. It seemed eerie, an abandoned gas station so late at night. Ominous.
I walked around the empty gas station, past shelves of bubble gum and cattle feed and trail mix and Tic-Tacs. After some time, I found the travel guides over by the coffee dispenser and paged through the pamphlets, looking for an auto-repair number. The paper smelled like coffee, and I breathed it in.
“Ahem,” somebody said.
I turned around. It was Daniela, now wearing a cheap polo shirt and a name tag. She must work here, I thought. Maybe she didn’t remember me from school. Maybe she could help me figure out the car thing.
“Hey,” I said, walking up to the counter. My shoelace slapped against the ground, and I stumbled. How uncool. Keeping my focus, I smiled boldly. Attitude is everything.
Daniela glared at me. She popped her gum.
I leaned toward her, hushing my voice to a whisper. “You know anyone that does car repairs?”
“Uh, yeah, about that,” she said. “We saw your car out there. You’re fucked.”
Great. “Seriously?”
“I can give you a phone number,” she said, “but I can’t do anything else. It’s kind of trashed. I don’t know what you did, but you’d be better off scrapping it for parts. Use the cash to buy a new one or something.” She popped her gum again and scribbled a number on a Post-it note. “This is the number for the scrapyard. They open every morning at ten.”
I sighed, taking the Post-it. “Thank you.”
She rolled her eyes.
I looked out at the parking lot, where the dead Buick slept. Well, damn. The Rob Zombie tribute band concert was two hours from here. No way I’d make it now. I’d have to call the insurance guys and the scrap guys in the morning and skip the concert and work extra hours at Meat Hut to cover what my father wouldn’t help with. And I’d even cut my hair. What crap.
Might as well grab some grub for the walk back to my house.
I scanned the aisles for something besides granola bars. Granola bars sucked. All that extra sugar. They were always adding honey and cinnamon and chocolate, like everyone was too much of a pussy for just raisins and granola. Fuck that. Granola bars and I were through. Instead I found trail mix, carrots, and onion-flavored potato chips, but nothing I wanted.
Part of me felt like I was being followed, but I couldn’t name why, nor could I see anyone following me. Did I really want onion-flavored potato chips? Maybe I wanted the barbeque ones. And what of popcorn?
I stared at the chip rack, thinking about the Buick.
By some divine mistake, I spotted someone through the bars of the chip rack. Skinny and pasty, Irish-looking, about sixteen, with black-framed emo glasses and way too many freckles. He appeared to be considering the pretzels.
Our eyes locked.
He shouted out, stumbling backward. Flailing his arms, he knocked several bags of pretzels off the chip rack before falling on his ass. His glasses tumbled off his face, and he knelt on the gas station floor, trying to find them with little success. I grabbed his glasses fast so he wouldn’t crush them with his knobby knee.
“Sorry,” I said, handing him his glasses.
He nodded, putting them back on. His face was bright pink. Obviously he had a panic disorder, or some kind of heart condition. Suicide Commandos, it said on his striped t-shirt. He wore lots of bracelets – a spiky leather cuff, and beaded bracelets, some rubber bracelets that said LIVESTRONG and STRAIGHTEDGE XX, a woven red cord on his right wrist. His baggy pants were covered in zippers and pockets.
“Thanks,” he said. “Sorry about that.”
“It’s cool,” I said, trying to seem non-threatening. “Pretzels freak me out too.”
He laughed. “Oh, it’s not that. Just… your hair.” He leaned in close. “You look like you have a beaver on your head.”
“It’s a mullet,” I said tersely. “Mullets are punk rock.”
“Oh, bullshit,” the kid said. “Punk’s not about hair.”
“Well, no, of course not,” I snapped.
The truth? I had no idea how to debate this with a total stranger. Punk theory was complicated, and I’d skipped the majority of my homework. “You like music?”
He laughed, wheezing a bit. “Like it? I breathe it. My band’s outside.”
“What?” I said.
He grinned, grabbing a bag of pretzels off the floor. He put it back on the rack, and then bent to pick up the other ones. “Okay, not my band,” he said. “But I’m, like… an honorary member.” He flipped his hair back in that way shaggy-haired guys do.
I felt a pang of annoyance at him for showing off like that.
“They’re having a concert tonight. You can come with, if you’re bored.”
“My car broke down,” I said lamely. “I have to walk home.”
“Okay,” Nick said.
He headed to the cash register with his pretzels, leaving me alone.
I followed him. “Wait, can you give me a ride?” I paused. “To the concert?” I wished I could stop ending my sentences with question marks. In conversation, women usually asked the questions. Men gave answers, to display dominance and intelligence. I read that once in a college textbook that my friend had.
“Probably. You’ll have to run it by…” and then he winced, as if uttering the word pained him, “Bjorn… first. He’s the driver.”
I pictured a beefy Norwegian metal-head with biker tattoos and a mean face. “Okay,” I said. I could look at it like a video game. Bjorn was the Big Boss of the evening. He had to be defeated, coerced into driving me. For truth. For justice. For rock and roll.
“What’s your name?” I asked.
“Nick,” he said. “Yours?”
“Austin.”
He nodded. “Well, let’s go.”
Daniela, who’d been silently watching us, snapped her gum. “You’re gonna have to move your car,” she told me.
“Ay-ay, captain,” I said, trying to be funny.
She frowned at me. “Whatever.” She looked at Nick. “Two fifty-nine,” she said
.
“Highway robbery!” Nick shouted. “This pretzel bag is way too small to be worth that much.”
Daniela sighed heavily, exasperated. “I’m the cashier girl. I don’t set prices. Got a problem, call my manager.”
Nick dug in his pants pockets. He had a lot of pockets, so it took a while to find a pocket that actually had money in it. He produced two crumpled bills and some change, counting each coin out one-by-one before putting it back in his hand and handing it over. He left the paper money on the counter.
I had a feeling he was very exact about things, which made me forgive him a bit for making fun of my hair.
I thought my mullet looked quite nice, actually.
She picked up the bills by the corner, like they were smelly socks, wrinkling her nose. “Thanks.”
We abandoned Daniela and the gas station in favor of the open breeze. I wasn’t sure where to move the Buick, so I parked it underneath a tree near some decorative shrubbery. Daniela probably worked past dark. Maybe she wouldn’t notice the car when she left.
One could only hope.
Chapter thirteen
May 2002
Bjorn, as it turned out, was not a beefy Norwegian. His real name was Trevor Ericksen. He was a tall guy, broad shoulders, college-aged with a serious face and a five o’clock shadow. He didn’t move from the driver’s seat when Nick pulled me into the Toyota Camry, just sat there, checking us out through the driver mirror.
“I brought food,” Nick announced, holding up a pretzel bag.
Bjorn made a thin line with his lips. “Hm.” He looked at me, then turned his gaze out the window. “Looks kind of gamey.”
An empty beer can rolled under my feet, and I resisted the urge to kick at it.
The girl in the front seat swatted at him. “Oh, shut up.” She smiled at me, one of those electric sorts of future-waitress smiles. One of her front teeth was chipped. “Don’t mind my brother here, he’s just fussy. You need a ride?” She tucked a strand of honey-blonde hair behind her ear. Her earrings were silver and shaped like zippers.