“Leave it running and pop the hood, please,” Lucas told him.
The old man silently did as he was told, then limped over to the workstation and leaned on the table to watch Lucas work.
Lucas stuck his fingers beneath the hood, found the latch, and pushed it up, peering down into the engine. He immediately went to work checking off mental boxes as each item on the list met with his satisfaction.
“Live around here?” the man asked from behind him.
“Yeah,” Lucas responded as he checked the various hoses.
“Lived here your whole life?” the older man continued.
“My whole life,” Lucas repeated. He listened to the engine. It sounded fine to him.
“Still in school?” the man asked.
Lucas answered before he could really think about the question. “Should be, but I dropped out to work full-time.”
“Hmmm, not too smart, was it?”
Lucas pulled himself from beneath the hood. “I think it was,” he answered with annoyance. Who the hell does this guy think he is? “Wasn’t learning anything that would help me in the future, so I decided to start my career early and make some money.”
The man looked around at the old garage. “Such a career,” he said with a chuckle.
Lucas felt his annoyance turn to anger. “Sorry,” he said, leaning through the driver’s-side door to turn off the engine. The new-car smell hit him immediately. “Can’t find anything wrong with your car. Maybe you should take it to a more educated mechanic.”
“Didn’t think you would find anything,” the older gentleman said, pushing off from the worktable and limping closer to Lucas. “I just bought it yesterday.”
“So what the hell did you have me looking under the hood for?” Lucas asked, temper flaring.
“I wanted to see you,” the man said, limping closer still. “I’ve traveled pretty far just to talk to you.”
“What did you want to talk to me for?” Lucas snarled.
The man just stared.
“I’m your father,” he said finally. The words seemed to suck all the sound from the garage.
Lucas stumbled back, feeling as if he had been slapped across the face. “Wha—what did you just say?”
“You heard me,” the man said. “I’m your father, and I’ve come to speak with you about—”
Lucas was suddenly moving. First he slammed the driver’s-side door, and then he walked to the front of the car.
“You’d better go,” he said. He couldn’t think. He pictured his brain exploding into sparks like those computers did in the old movies.
And then he pictured his mother, drinking herself into oblivion as she thought about the bad old days. Days that this guy probably had something to do with, if he was indeed who he said he was.
“We have to talk,” the older man urged, his limp more severe as he tried to step closer.
“Get out,” Lucas yelled, slamming the hood of the Mustang.
“Everything all right in here, Lucas?” Big Lou’s massive bulk suddenly filled the doorway between the main office and the garage.
The old man glanced quickly at Big Lou, then turned his eyes back to Lucas.
“Yeah, everything’s fine,” Lucas said, his gaze not leaving the old man. “I was just giving this guy directions to the highway. You got those all right, old fella?” he asked, venom dripping from every word.
The old man nodded slightly and walked to the driver’s side of the car. “I’ve got it,” he said, opening the door and carefully lowering himself behind the wheel. “Nice talking with you.”
Lucas suddenly wanted to say so much more to the man… wanted to slice him apart with the savagery of the words that now filled his head. Instead, his eyes followed the Ford Mustang as it backed from the garage, into the lot, and onto the road out front.
I’m your father. The words reverberated inside his skull, pounding like the worst migraine he’d ever had.
I’m your father.
And suddenly Lucas was sick, leaning over while what little there was in his stomach spewed from his gaping mouth into the garbage barrel.
Lucas didn’t know how long he’d been standing in front of the Good Eats Diner.
The morning was a complete blur. As soon as the old man … his father … had left the garage, Big Lou had been on him to straighten up the shop and work the pumps.
It had been pretty insane the last few days—first the business with Richie Dennison and now this. If things kept going the way they were, he was pretty much certain he wouldn’t be able to keep a straight thought in his head.
Things are just getting too freakin’ weird.
And now, standing out in front of his mother’s place of employment, he had the chance to make them even weirder.
Lucas had no idea what to do. Should he tell his mother what had happened across the street—who had paid him a visit?
His thoughts flashed back to the night before. She had drunk herself into a stupor over something that had happened years past. He’d never really asked for specifics, because he’d never really cared. Something had made her leave Seraph City, and he guessed it had something to do with her being pregnant, and with the guy who had just introduced himself.
But doesn’t she have the right to know that this guy was around? What if he’s dangerous or something?
He paced back and forth, disgusted with himself for wanting to know more about the guy. He’d never really cared before, or at least, that was what he’d convinced himself of. But now, there had been a chance to get answers and …
“You comin’ in or are you just gonna walk back and forth in front of the window until your lunch hour’s done?” his mother suddenly asked.
Startled, Lucas looked up to see her holding the door open.
“Get in here,” she said, waving him inside. “Before I let all the air-conditioning out.”
He did as he was told.
“What’s your problem?” she asked as he passed her.
“Got a headache,” he said, still not sure how to approach this.
“You and me both,” Cordelia responded. “Why’d you let me drink so much last night?”
She led him to a booth and sat him down.
“Like I can stop you,” he said, grabbing a menu and pretending to read it. He wasn’t seeing anything at the moment.
She left and returned with a large glass of water. “Here, drink this,” she said. “It should help.”
He took a sip as she stood there watching him.
“I should probably say I’m sorry about last night,” his mother said.
Lucas shook his head. “Don’t worry about it.”
“It’s just that I get thinking about you, and how we’re kind of at a dead end here, and how we’d probably be doin’ so much better if I’d stayed in Seraph and—”
He raised his hand and stopped her.
The words were almost there, trickling down from his fevered brain to the back of his throat. They were coming now, flowing over his tongue and about to escape …
“You never have to apologize for what you did,” he found himself saying. “You did what you did because you thought it was best for you and for me. That’s it. End of story.”
He could see she was about to argue with him, so he looked back at the menu.
“Think I’ll have the double bacon burger today,” he said, closing the menu. “Medium well, with extra onions.”
He looked at her again and smiled, bringing their conversation to a close.
She returned the smile and nodded.
“All right then,” she said. “A double bacon burger, medium well, with extra onions.”
She hustled off to the kitchen to place the order, and he took a large, numbing gulp of his ice water.
At the last moment he’d decided not to tell her. Why put the poor woman through the trauma?
Nope, he would keep this his little secret.
No matter how hard he tried, Lucas couldn’t fo
rget even for a minute what had happened at the garage that morning. It kept replaying in his mind, like a flashback in a movie.
He was grateful that Big Lou hadn’t given him anything complicated to work on. Pumping gas and washing windshields was about his speed today, and there hadn’t even been a lot of that to do, which gave him plenty of time to think.
By quitting time he thought his skull would explode, and he figured the only way to save himself would be to kill the pain with beer.
At the Hog Trough, four beers and ten games of darts later, Lucas was feeling no pain.
It was a good idea to come here tonight, he thought as he finished a beer and gestured at Trixie for another.
The drinking age in the state of Arizona was twenty-one, but Trixie was a saint, letting him drink there even though he wasn’t of age.
He loved her like a fat kid loves cake.
His troubling thoughts were numbed by the alcohol and the company of his bar mates, but they were still there, making his brain itch whenever he had a down moment.
Trixie brought him his new beer, and he thanked her, yelling over the country music playing on the jukebox.
He took it carefully, sipping from the edge of the tall, frosted glass so that he wouldn’t spill a drop. He looked around the Trough. Most of his friends had already called it a night. But Lucas didn’t care. He needed this.
Richie Dennison and his girlfriend, Brenda, had been in earlier, but after seeing him sitting at the bar, they didn’t stay too long.
Imagine that.
He held his beer in one hand, scratching his stomach through his T-shirt with the other. He’d pretty much convinced himself that he’d just been grazed by Richie’s blade, that the edge of the knife had given him a kind of paper cut on his stomach that had bled like crazy—as some paper cuts do—before healing up.
He could buy something like that. It was the only thing that made sense.
But he still could remember the feeling of the blade piercing his skin.
Shaking away the disturbing recollection, he saw that his glass was almost empty. He downed what remained and returned to the bar.
“Trixie!” he called out, his voice louder than he had intended in the sudden silence between jukebox tunes.
The barmaid turned and ambled toward him with a smile on her face. “Don’t you think you’ve had just about enough?” she asked, taking the empty glass and wiping down the counter with a damp rag. “Remember, you’ve got work tomorrow.”
“I know I’ve got work tomorrow,” he answered, feeling perturbed. “But I would like another.”
Trixie made a face, and he could tell she was deciding whether or not she should serve him one more.
“I don’t know,” she said with a drawl.
“One more, Trix,” Lucas begged, trying not to slur. There was a little voice inside his head trying to tell him he’d had enough, but he’d never really cared for that voice. He gave Trixie his cutest smile, the one that seemed to work on all the ladies … well, it worked on his mother, anyway.
She caved and gave him another.
He found an empty stool at the bar and sat. This beer tasted good, the best one that night, and that was probably because he had to really work for it.
The final sips seemed to hit him hard. A kind of fog settled over his brain, and there was nothing he wanted more at the moment than to lay his spinning head down on a pillow and go to sleep.
“That’s it for me,” he announced, sliding from the stool. He reached into his pocket, searching for his keys.
“You all right to drive?” Trixie asked warily as she dried a beer mug with a dish towel.
“Don’t worry about me,” he said, heading for the door. “Only heading down the road a bit. … I’ll be fine.”
The old man was standing in the doorway watching him. For a moment Lucas thought it had to be some sort of hallucination, but soon he realized the man was most definitely standing there.
“I thought we might be able to talk,” the man said. “But I guess this isn’t a good time.”
And then he was gone, the door slowly closing behind him with a hiss.
Swearing under his breath, Lucas quickened his pace to the door and pushed it open, searching the steamy Arizona night for the man.
He found him crossing the parking lot to that damned Mustang.
“You!” Lucas bellowed, stumbling a bit as he lunged across the lot.
The man stopped and slowly turned to face him.
“You hold it right there,” Lucas called out. “Who the hell do you think you are, following me?”
“We need to talk … Lucas. It is Lucas, isn’t it?”
“I didn’t tell you my name,” Lucas bellowed.
“No, but I heard your boss say it this morning before I left the garage.”
“Whatever,” Lucas said, one of his arms flailing. “I want to know why you’re following me.”
“Like I said, we need to talk.”
“I don’t want to talk to you,” Lucas said. He could feel himself getting angry, his need for answers clouded by the alcohol. Just looking at the white-haired man standing there in his fancy, dark clothes, leaning on his fancy cane, made him furious.
“Now isn’t a good time anyway,” the older man said. “Maybe when you’re not drunk.”
He turned to his car.
“Drunk?” Lucas said. “Who the hell is drunk?”
The man turned briefly. “You are,” he said with a condescending laugh. “And I hope you’re not planning to drive in that condition.”
It was like somebody had flipped a switch inside his head and all Lucas could see was red. How dare this man … this old man … tell him he was too drunk to drive?
Before he knew what he was doing, Lucas charged at him. “I’ll show you my condition,” he slurred drunkenly, raising his fist.
Lucas knew he was going to regret what he was about to do, but he couldn’t stop. He was going to hit this guy … probably more than once.
And after the day he’d had—after the few days he’d had, really—he was going to enjoy it.
Lucas let his fist fly toward the man’s face, but his face suddenly wasn’t there anymore. Lucas stumbled forward with the ferocity of the punch and spun around, searching for the object of his rage.
But as he turned, there was a blur of movement in front of him, something so fast that his drunken eyes couldn’t follow it.
Before he could even react, Lucas was punched, one blow knocking his face violently to the left and another doing the same to the right. Then a kick to the stomach propelled him backward through the air. He landed hard on his butt, dazed and confused and trying desperately to remain conscious.
“You’re not even close to being ready for that,” the old man said as he limped toward Lucas and squatted down with the help of his cane to fish the truck keys from Lucas’s pocket. Finding the keys, he tossed them across the Trough parking lot. “Hopefully you’ll find them when you’re sober,” the old man said as he climbed into his car and backed out of the lot in a cloud of dust and gravel.
“You better run,” Lucas slurred, slowly slumping over, unconscious before his head even touched the ground.
4
NASCAR was racing inside his head.
Not just the cars from a particular race, mind you; nope, all the cars that ever participated in a NASCAR race—past, present, and future—were driving through the furrows of his swollen and pulsing brain, causing one of the most excruciating headaches he’d ever had the misfortune to experience.
Lucas came awake with a dry snort, lifting his head to figure out where he was and why he felt like he was going to die.
He hit his head on the steering wheel of his truck. It wasn’t a bad bump, but his brain was throbbing so badly that he was sure it was about to detonate, taking off the top of his skull.
At least then the pain would stop.
Lucas awkwardly pushed himself into a sitting position. His tongue felt as
though it had been wrapped in trash bags, and his breath smelled like something that belonged inside one.
He looked out the window. He was still in the parking lot of the Trough. The memory of the confrontation with the old man—his father—suddenly rushed to fill his thoughts. He touched his jaw where he’d been struck multiple times the night before and moved it from side to side; it didn’t feel as bad as he remembered it should. The old man had certainly packed a decent punch.
Sitting up, he gazed through the rearview mirror at the Hog Trough behind him and could just about make out the old, dusty Budweiser clock in the window, and the time.
He was going to be late for work again.
“Crap. Crap. Crap,” Lucas said in a panic. He fumbled through his pockets but didn’t find his keys. He then recalled that the old man had tossed them somewhere in the lot so that he wouldn’t drive drunk.
On the verge of believing the situation was hopeless, Lucas suddenly remembered. His mother had given him something pretty goofy last year for his birthday, something she’d picked up from one of those television shopping networks. It was a plastic case for an emergency car key that you could stick underneath your car with a powerful magnet. He’d thought it was a pretty crummy present, but he’d humored her. She’d even gone out and had another key for his truck made.
He climbed from the truck and bent down, reaching beneath the frame and fishing around for the case, hoping it hadn’t fallen off over the course of the year.
“Bingo!” he said aloud, finding his present, sliding open the mud-caked case, and removing the key. Maybe it wasn’t such a stupid present after all, he thought as he climbed back inside his ride. Racing the clock, Lucas turned the truck’s engine over and pulled out of the parking lot, tires spinning and gravel tossing.
He would have loved to go home to shower and decontaminate his mouth, but he didn’t have the time. This was getting to be a habit, and he hoped he didn’t stink too badly.
He swung into the garage lot and his heart sank. He wasn’t going to be so lucky today—Big Lou’s SUV was parked alongside the main building.
“Crap,” he barked again, slamming the palm of his hand down on the steering wheel. He was going to get the “a person’s got to learn responsibility” speech for sure.
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