Anyway, I’m following the two guys with their ass sticking out and the Clampet kid is hanging on staring like a zombie on the back of the convertible.
“You aren’t going fast enough,” he says.
I turn around.
“I can’t go any faster without hitting the Queens.”
“My dad went a lot faster than this when we were practicing driving in the Homecoming parade.”
I turn around again and stare at this vampire-looking guy with the black eyes and circles that make him look like he hasn’t slept for about a hundred days. I don’t sleep that much with the old man gone and the old lady drunk all the time. People think because I look like Mr. All American I am, but that ain’t the case. I wouldn’t mind going to college, but there ain’t no way because there’s no money. So I guess that’s why I asked him what I did.
“Hey, what are you doing after you graduate high school?’
He’s staring straight ahead and not waving to anybody. People are staring at us like what the fuck. This Toby has this black curly hair that hits his shoulders and looks like a corpse sitting straight up with his pasty white face.
“I will go to college like everybody else,” he says.
I look in the rearview window.
“College is expensive. Your dad paying?”
“Of course.”
I tap the steering wheel and stare down at Sycamore with the empty storefronts that have been that way ever since they built the Target outside of town and the hammer factory closed. We have a gas station and a bar and a restaurant, but everything else is these crappy little stores that come and go. Nothing stays because there’s no money anymore. I don’t know, hearing this kid say his dad can pay for his college and acting like it was no big deal really pissed me off. I can drive to the crappy community college and keep working at McDonald’s, but what’s that going to do for me?
“You’re lucky. Most people around here won’t go to college,” I say.
He just stares straight ahead.
“Maybe they’re too stupid to go to college.” $
“Too stupid huh,” I say. “They ain’t too stupid, they just don’t have the money.”
Maybe I just snapped then. The whole thing of life just sort of slapped me in the face where I am driving this asshole in the Homecoming parade behind a big dick with two guys in leather chaps banging on a couple of balls with a guy who will go to college even though he is probably nuts while I give people their burgers in a drive-through window with a headset on and a beret that makes me look like one of the gayest guys around.
So I peeled off and hung a right and headed straight out of town.
“Where are you going? This is not the prescribed route,” Mr. College says.
“Yeah … well we are going on our own route,” I shout, flooring it.
Sycamore is one small-ass town and we cleared the last block in nothing flat and then it was just wide-open cornfields. Mr. Zombie is staring straight ahead now with his mouth open.
“You are breaking the rules, and my dad is going to be very mad at you,” he shouts.
“Tough shit,” I say, giving that big V8 the gas.
The sun is setting and I take it up to sixty then seventy then eighty. I mean we are fucking flying and this guy is still staring straight ahead with his hair flying back like some dog with his head out of a car window. I turn around and shout:
“HOW DO YOU LIKE THIS HOMECOMING PARADE MR. COLLEGE!”
And all of a sudden he raises up both his hands. He has these two fists straight up and he yells, I mean not like a normal yell, like some kind of a primal shout that goes all the way back to the stone age. “THIS IS FUCKING GREAT!”
And I mean he has this big shit-eating grin. I swear I have never seen this guy smile ever before. It’s like his face wasn’t used to it and it kind of breaks apart and rearranges itself right then and the guy with dark circles is gone and I see this kid flying through the cornfields at ninety miles an hour with his hair straight back and his mouth open.
“YEAH BABY!”
I was kind of worried he might just fly out, but Clampet had him tied in with some kind of harness that went through his belt, which is good because now he has his chin up to the sky and the sun is coming across those long rows of corn, and I take that bitch up to one hundred miles an hour and she is smooth and we are flying through intersections like we are not part of this earth and it don’t matter that my life sucks or his life sucks, and I scream too.
“YEAH BABY!”
And we keep at it like that with this nut ball with his arms straight up screaming like a madman and it is a fucking blast. When I finally bring us back to earth and wheel the car around to head back to town he brings down his arms and looks at me with his eyes red and teary and says, “Can we do that again please?”
“Yeah. But first I got something that’s going to make it even more fun,” I say pulling out a blunt.
The kid’s eyes narrow.
“That is marijuana.”
“No shit.”
“That’s illegal.”
“Yeah,” I say lighting up and taking a hit.
“You shouldn’t do that. It can lead to other more serious drugs like heroin.”
I hold in the hit and then blow out and turn around. I can tell he is curious even with that robot voice going.
“Yeah. Well you think you just had fun? Wait until you go a hundred miles an hour on top of a car—stoned.”
The kid stares at the joint I am holding out to him.
“Marijuana does increase the sensation of image and sound. Music especially.”
“That’s right. Go ahead and take a toke.”
He pauses then reaches for the joint.
“Take a big hit and then hold it in.”
“I understand. I’ve seen movies before.”
He takes the joint and lights it up big time. I mean that cherry went bright red and then his cheeks blow up like a balloon.
“Now take it in and hold it.”
So he takes this big breath and then his eyes get big and red and his face turns into a fucking turnip. I shit you not like some pressure cooker about to explode. And then he explodes and the joint flies out of the car and he hacks so hard I think he is going to throw up a lung. Then he pukes over the side. I get out of the car and get the joint.
“Good hit huh?” I say getting back in.
He just keeps hacking away and then he lays back on the trunk.
“This is very interesting,” he says to the sky.
“You fucking bet it is,” I say, finishing the joint.
Then he sits up his eyes blood red.
“Let’s go. Accelerate please.”
“Sure.”
So we ball it back to town like that. He puts his fists up to the sky and starts screaming again and I take that big ass V8 up to a hundred.
“YEAH BABY ”
I mean I don’t know what’s wrong with him, but he sure seemed normal to me.
After a while I figured I better get retard college boy home to mommy and daddy. He was starting to laugh a lot and acting weird, almost drooling. Mr. Clampet had been texting, emailing, and even called my cell a few times. But I ignored him. His last text was threatening.
Get my son home, NOW!
I didn’t want to blow my payday.
On our way, sir.
When we pulled up to the Clampet house and I see Mr. and Mrs. Clampet standing outside looking pissed. Toby’s hair is blown straight back like one of those hair bands from the eighties and his eyes are blood red. Mine, too. I looked in the rearview mirror and tried to slick back my hair.
“Toby,” Mrs. Clampet shouts. “Get out of that car!”
Toby began to giggle, and then he giggled more.
“I think he had a really good time Mr. Clampet,” I say, straightening my varsity letter jacket. Toby then fell back onto the trunk and started laughing.
“Paul … he’s stoned,” Mrs. Clampet cries out.
“No shit,” he says, looking at me. “You gave him the pot?”
I shrug.
“Figured he might enjoy it.”
Toby then sat up and held his arms straight up like Jesus.
“I LOVE POT!”
Then he falls back and starts laughing like a fucking mad man. That was the Homecoming parade.
GOING FOR BROKE
JULIE
THE AMOUNT OF MONEY we had spent so far took my breath away. We have put up the entire Queen football team for three weeks in the Sycamore hotel. Paul and I had a meeting and we had blown through forty-five thousand already. And we weren’t even to the Homecoming game. We have had lots of unexpected expenses. Apparently, nobody came to the football games, so we had to ensure we had a crowd and I went to Extras.com and hired up fifty people who would sit in the stands and cheer. Union wage. Then we had to pay for transportation since they were all coming from Chicago.
“I know there have been unexpected expenses,” Paul said, staring gloomily at his computer in our empty home. We had put a lot of furniture in storage and hadn’t even unpacked half of our belongings. We both knew our time in Sycamore would be limited and so like any movie company we were setting up a base camp that could be broken down on a moment’s notice. We both agreed moving next summer would probably be our goal.
“Paul … it’s not too late.”
He stared at me. Neither of us had been sleeping for the last few months. High School Central took all of our time and then we still had to have some semblance of family life. And of course Toby was still having trouble in his classes so I was fighting it out with the very teachers Paul was paying off to play ball with us.
“Paul. Toby still has to graduate.”
“Yeah. I know. How’s he doing?”
“He’s barely hanging on.”
“Well this will give him a big shot of confidence Julie. I remember when I won that football game at my Homecoming. It was a life changer. This could allow Toby a total do over. He could really come out of this as a different man.”
“What about this Macy?”
Paul looked at me.
“I have her on my cheerleading squad. She seems duplicitous. I don’t trust her.”
Paul tilted his head and kept punching away at his computer.
“She is with the program and asked Toby to the dance.”
“How much did you pay her?”’
Paul got a funny look on his face and shrugged.
“I don’t know—five hundred.”
I knew he was lying. I knew he was shelling out big time to students and faculty alike. Everyone saw us as a mark. But once you start down the road it is hard to turn back. This Macy had that streaked blond hair and fuck-me eyes that so many girls seem to want now. I honestly think she would do anything for money, and I just hoped Toby could handle her. She was energetic though. She had really helped get the gym ready for the dance and she could do back flips and stunts. She would have her best year by birthright and so would this Randy who I knew was her boyfriend. I wondered how he felt about his girlfriend going to Homecoming with somebody else.
“I think I am going to have Amber come,” Paul said suddenly.
Amber is twenty-something, gorgeous, and my husband’s assistant.
“I don’t think we need her.”
Paul turned.
“We need her. You know we do.”
“We should just concentrate on getting Toby through school.”
“No,” Paul said, squinting at his computer. “This is going to be his best year.”
FLINGS
PAUL
MY ASSISTANT HAS COME to help us. Already logistics were bogging us down. Amber has been with our company since we started. If I think about it she reminds me of this girl Georgia I dated in high school. She met me after my football games when my hair was still wet from the shower and the stars were all in place. We would drive out to cornfields in my white Mustang convertible. The cornfields were just outside of town and I would park in the middle and bring out some beers. The car stereo light glowed like a safe lantern.
We did it the first time before the Homecoming dance. I remember she had on those bib farmer jeans, and when the straps were unbuttoned the jeans fell right down. It is one of those memories that sticks with you your whole life. I guess that is what I am after for Toby. I could never tell his mother, but I want him to get laid. That would be the ultimate trophy—the most lasting of all memories, his proudest moment.
When you are married a long time you remember your first dates like another world. Whenever Amber and I work together I feel like those first dates, but of course nothing has ever happened between us. When she took a room at the Motel 6 outside of town, I picked her up in the parking lot and she got in and looked me right in the eye.
“We have to stop meeting like this.”
This is how I figured we would have met a thousand times already, and I looked for anything beyond a wink and a smile. I was going to just take a drive but then I found myself driving out of town. It was so nice out and I was thinking about those cornfields and how thirty years before I had found so much happiness out there.
I noticed then that her hair was still wet from the shower.
“Where we going,” she asked me.
“To look at cornfields,” I said.
“Your goatee looks good,” she said. She had encouraged me to grow one a while back. It’s the same brown color as my hair, but with more grey.
“You look like that detective on Stalker or some of the guys on CSI. I love those shows where they figure out everything from a dead body.”
I had leased a really cool white Mustang Cobra Jet Convertible. We drove outside of town and I saw Amber looking over with her hair flying back in the wind. I felt like we were in a movie or something.
“I think this one looks good,” I murmured, turning into this narrow road going into the middle of the field.
I hit the gas and we were flying between these stalks with that smell that is like Halloween. Amber held onto the windshield.
“This is so cool,” she shouted.
I grinned and we went even faster and then the road opened up into a big circle and I wheeled around and we were facing down the road we had come in on. I turned off the car and could hear the corn swishing in the late September wind. Amber reached over and grabbed my hand.
“So now what do we do, make out?”
I turned and stared at her.
STAIRWAY TO HEAVEN
TOBY
MARIJUANA IS ILLEGAL IN Indiana—except for medicinal purposes. Randy gave me some illegal marijuana and told me not to tell anyone. I waited for everyone to leave the home and opened the windows and positioned a fan near the basement window creating a low pressure center that would exhaust any lingering marijuana smoke out of the basement and into the prevailing wind. I then procured Dad’s iPod because Randy said music sounds very different when under the influence of marijuana. I dialed through Dad’s thousand songs and came to one he has spoken of many times and called a classic rock song.
A classic, I believe, is something that can stand the test of time and remain popular. So I lit the joint cigarette and inhaled deeply the way Randy showed me. I coughed several times, but not as bad and blew the smoke into the fan in the basement. After three drags, I put on the iPod earbuds and laid down. I then pressed my Dad’s selection, which is called Stairway to Heaven.
I shut my eyes and waited. The music did sound amazing. It is a tragic story of a woman looking for a stairway to heaven. I was laying on the basement floor that Dad said used to be a fruit cellar. I forgot about the story line as the music took on another dimension. I felt my body was vibrating and that I too was climbing a stairway to heaven. The guitar work was quite sensational. Unfortunately, the song ended. I then pressed replay and closed my eyes again. The song was even better and I spread out my arms and felt I was on a flying carpet.
Mom found me this way and said she heard
my voice singing.
“And as I wind on down the road. There is a lady you all know. My shadow taller than my soul. And if you listen very hard, it will come to you at last. To be a rock and not to roll.”
Mom said she thought there was an animal in pain in the basement.
ALL IN
JULIE
“THIS WHOLE THING IS nuts.”
That’s what I told Paul after I found my son stoned on the dirty basement floor listening to Stairway to Heaven over and over and over. Paul and I are in the office of High School Central and I see Amber on the phone working out the logistics for the football game. “I know. I know,” Paul muttered, looking more sleep-deprived than normal. We both now walked around with black circles under our eyes. Stress was getting both of us.
“And we are going to run out of money and then we will be broke. And we are not twenty anymore Paul,” I said staring at Amber who certainly was twenty and who had been spending a lot of time with my husband.
I paused and breathed heavy trying to think of a meadow or the ocean or any of those places they tell you to think about when you are losing your mind.
“I have been waking up at night having panic attacks,” I told him.
Paul turned from his computer and pushed up his glasses. His hair was frizzed and streaked with gray. The hard well water was doing neither of us any favors.
“What is causing them?”
“Oh I don’t know. Maybe being broke and staring at fifty in a dying town while our core business goes down the shitter while we spend all our money on some crazy scheme so you don’t feel guilty about the way your son has ended up.”
My Best Year Page 5