“Where are we going?” she said.
“Wherever we want . . . After we see the boys.” He had to almost shout to be heard. He seemed excited.
“Who are the boys?”
“Just some guys I know from way back. You’ll get along with them. They’re a lot like us. Besides, we won’t be there long.”
“Do you need something from them?” Erica didn’t know why the thought of him taking her to see ‘the boys’ irritated her. If he needed something from them like money or, hell, even drugs or anything, she didn’t think it would be as frustrating. But if he was just going there to hang out almost immediately after meeting her, then she found it worthy of her anger.
“I’m going to see them because I want to see them.”
“How long’s it been since you’ve seen them?”
“Too long.”
“Are you bored with me already?”
He tossed his cigarette out the window, rolled it up and stared at her. Without the sound of the rushing wind, the car might as well have been completely stopped. “Stupid fucking question. Like I said, I’m going to see them because I want to go see them. And I think you can benefit from meeting them, too. It’s time. There is a rationale behind most things we want. Some desire. An evening with the boys will help satiate that desire so, in a sense, yes, I am getting something from them. I met them by chance about ten years ago. I believe there are certain people and certain places that contain an almost indescribable amount of magic and meaning to certain other people. Periodically I go to see them and spend an evening with them. I leave feeling focused. Feeling changed. Maybe even evolved. I can almost chart my philosophical growth based on my meetings with the boys. As you get older, the ability to change becomes a very rare thing. You’ll see.
“In short, no, I’m not bored with you.”
“Feels nice to hear you say that.” Already she felt herself sweating, felt it squeezing out of all the pores in her scalp, dampening her hair. “So how many of them are there?”
“Not many. Usually three or four. Sometimes they have some other folks with them. I don’t want to go into too much detail because I want you to meet them for the first time. Not seen through my filter. No pre-judgments.”
“How far away is it?”
“Just a couple of hours.”
“Are we ever going back to Granny’s?”
“No. Never.”
“What if I want to? Someday. What if I figure out it’s one of those magical places like where we’re going?”
“It’s not and you’ll never want to go back there. And if you do, you might find that it’s not there anymore.”
She wondered if he was talking about having someone burn it down. “What do you mean by that?”
“The earth just has a way of swallowing some things up.”
She thought about the cave again. Imagined the house sitting on a shell, the shell breaking, the house crumbling and turning to dust before ever reaching the bottom.
She rolled down her window and neither one of them said hardly a word until they reached the outskirts of St. Louis.
Men Are Pigs
Walt took an exit off the highway and asked if she was hungry. “A little,” she said.
He pulled into the parking lot of a place called Mama Gravy and said, “This all right?”
“Fine.”
Once they sat down in the greasy spoon she realized how hungry she actually was. Her cheeks colored with embarrassment. She put a hand to her forehead. “I don’t have any money . . . unless you remembered to throw my wallet in back of the car.”
“Didn’t see it. No need to worry.”
“Thanks.”
“Don’t thank me. I’m not paying for it either.”
“Well thank whoever then.”
“We’re both hungry. We both want to eat. More than that, we both need to eat. So I guess thank the restaurant if you really need to thank someone.”
The waitress, a girl who was probably younger than Erica, came by and they both ordered Cokes. She watched Walt watch the waitress’ ass as she moved away.
“Like that?” Erica said when his view of the waitress was gone.
“Yeah,” he said. “She’s cute. Her ass is nice. Round but not fat. By the way, the possessive jealousy thing isn’t going to work. Fuck me because you want to fuck me, not because you think we’re owned by one another.”
She stripped the adhesive band surrounding the napkin and silverware. “I don’t know if that’s what it is,” she said. “Jealousy, I mean. I think maybe I just think it’s rude to stare. You’re objectifying her.”
“I’m appreciating the female form. She can’t help how she looks. She’s not overly made-up or dressed in a flamboyant, slutty kind of way. She’s wearing a work uniform that happens to be flattering and I think she’s an attractive young woman. Looking at people who I find attractive pleases me. And it’s not hurting anyone. I can’t help what I find attractive and what I don’t.”
“So it just makes you happy to look at her? If she were to tell you she wants to fuck you, you wouldn’t do it?”
He paused. The waitress came back with their drinks and set them on the table. She glanced at Erica and Erica remembered the red stripes she’d put on her face. Maybe that was what she was looking at. The waitress straightened up and asked if they were ready to order yet.
“A few more minutes,” Walt said.
The waitress headed back to the kitchen and Walt again stared at her ass.
“If I wanted to fuck her,” he said. “I would.”
It was like Erica had already forgotten what happened at the house earlier. “Like you did me?”
He smiled. “Exactly.”
“How did that happen?”
“What do you mean?”
“Did you just come into any old house and hope there was someone fuckable in it?”
He took a drink of his Coke. “The truth is you didn’t exist until I dreamed you up. You were just in the right place at the right time.”
She swallowed hard and almost believed him. If someone had the ability to dream a person up, it only stood to reason he would have the ability to give that person memories, too. Everything a life was supposed to contain.
“I was just kidding,” he said. “I’d seen you around. I knew where you lived.” Erica found that equal parts creepy and flattering.
The waitress came back. Neither one of them had looked at a menu but they ordered anyway. Walt ordered steak, eggs, and hashbrowns. Erica ordered a burger and fries.
“And you were just hoping I didn’t say no?”
“I knew you wouldn’t say no.”
She found herself blushing again. “I’m not really that much of a whore.”
“I didn’t say you were. I just . . . I wanted you and I took you. That’s how my life works. I already told you that. I’m not sure what I’ll have to end up doing to prove it to you, but you’ll see, eventually. That . . . power I have, you’re just unable to see it right now because you’re probably convinced we were drawn together by chemistry or fate or something romantic or, most importantly, something that your decision-making played a part in.”
“But you said I’m like you. You said I wanted you. I wanted to come with you and that’s why I’m here.”
“True. It must be fate.” He smiled. “I’m not joking about this power. Do I have to fuck the waitress to prove it to you?”
“I’m not sure what I would do.”
“I guess I won’t but, just so you know, if the situation were reversed, I wouldn’t be possessive or jealous. I want you to explore every possibility. Every opportunity.”
Erica didn’t know why the thought of Walt and that waitress, maybe Walt and anybody, made her insides sting with jealousy. She didn’t think of herself as a jealous person and knew she wasn’t naive enough to think she was falling in love with him. Of course, she’d never been in love before, not really. But she’d watched people fall in love before, well, see
n it in movies anyway, and knew they spent a considerable amount of time telling themselves they weren’t falling in love. She knew Glamor Face had several lists, seemingly one an issue but, maybe because it didn’t really apply to her, maybe because she could never envision a time when she wasn’t waiting on her sick grandmother, she just didn’t pay much attention because she couldn’t think what a single one of those lists had said.
Fuck it. She was probably in love with the guy.
“I like the lines on your face,” he said. “You should keep doing that.”
“Maybe I will.”
The waitress came back with their food. Walt’s eyes were glued to the hypnotic sway of her ass as she waited on another table. Erica had to force herself not to devour her meal as quickly as possible.
“I don’t want to fuck her anyway.” Walt grabbed one of his fried eggs and held it up. “This is probably what her pussy looks like.” He tossed the egg back onto the plate with a sour face and stabbed it with his fork.
Finished, both of them leaning back in their respective sides of the booth, Walt said, “Okay, so you want me to prove to you that I can do whatever the hell I want?”
“I would have to say that I can see how our current situation could be seen as something peculiar by someone who is not a part of it, but so far I’m not completely buying your theory.”
“So . . . yes?”
“I guess that’s a yes.”
He set the box of cigarettes on the table and pulled one out. “When was the last time you saw someone smoke in a restaurant?”
“Never?”
Walt made a face. “Wow, you are young.”
“Twenty-three. Not that young.”
“Only someone who’s twenty-three would say that.”
“You’re not that old.”
He didn’t respond. He didn’t immediately do anything.
Erica realized she was waiting for him to perform some type of magician’s setup or fanfare or something and said, “What? Are you making yourself invisible now?”
“Not invisible. Unnoticeable. Big difference. And I don’t have to do anything. If it suits me not to be noticed, I won’t be.”
He put the cigarette in his mouth and lit it. He exhaled a plume of smoke. Erica immediately expected the other people in the restaurant to start making those theatrical fake coughs, management to rush over, anything. The waitress was on her way and Erica thought, “Here it comes. She’ll ask him to put it out.”
The waitress pulled up at the edge of the table and reached for the plates. “Can I get these out of the way for you?”
“Please. Thanks,” Walt said.
The waitress took the plates and headed away.
Erica reached for the smokes and said, “Well, shit . . .”
It felt weird smoking in the restaurant. Like she’d entered some other dimension. She had felt that way when Walt had the gun trained on Granny. It had seemed like Granny was dead and alive at the same time. Erica thought there was a theory for that but she couldn’t remember what it was. The theory.
By the time they left it felt like the darkness had gained solidity. They hadn’t paid the check. Sitting next to Walt in the car, feeling a near giddy sense of revelation, Erica couldn’t remember if the waitress had even left a check on the table.
A thought occurred to her. She almost mentioned it to him. That he’d somehow arranged everything and the waitress was just playing a role. Like he knew her. Like maybe he went to Mama Gravy’s all the time. Kept a tab and always tipped well or something. But that wouldn’t explain the smoking. The restaurant was far from full but it wasn’t that large and there was a good handful of people in there. She normally got coughed at and scornful looks if she smoked too close to a door. No way they could have both gotten away with that unless what he said was at least partially true. That is, she thought there had to be something there.
“It’s a good feeling, isn’t it?” Walt took the car up the exit ramp and back onto the mostly empty highway.
She let herself smile. “It is.” And she again thought of some kind of spell. Something that might wear off. Tried not to think about it. For some reason, thinking about that made her think about that other thing. That love thing. The possibilities swam through her head. Mainly this: She had no idea what she wanted to do. For the last couple of years, she’d been so resigned she had stopped wanting anything. Until earlier today, she guessed, if asked what she wanted most in this world, it would have been for her Granny to get better.
Or die.
That was a terrible thought.
But true.
It was behind her now. It didn’t really matter. Granny was dead. And she was free.
She lit a cigarette, full of nervous excitement. “So, if I can do whatever the hell I want and you can do whatever the hell you want, why didn’t you just heal Granny? You know, like make it so she could talk and get up and take care of herself while we were gone?”
He lit a cigarette of his own. “It doesn’t work that way. You can really only do what you want to do. Sometimes, that’s contingent upon another person’s reaction. More often, it’s contingent upon their lack of reaction. You can’t heal people. You can make people do things with you but you can’t really make them do things for you. Although that would be something really special if we could have our own private armies. In your Granny’s case, it doesn’t really matter. I wasn’t lying when I said she’d been dead a long time. I think you were just in denial.”
Erica didn’t want to think about Granny anymore. The night smells flooded the car. She thought about these boys they were going to go see. Walt had said they shared this quality of doing what they wanted. She looked out the open window and didn’t see a single light anywhere. She wasn’t sure exactly why, but her elation was replaced by fear or something very close to it.
Meeting Friends
The boys were only about a half hour away. A few minutes after leaving the restaurant, it started misting. Walt turned the windshield wipers on and made a comment about how shitty they were. Erica apologized but didn’t really feel that bad about it.
“Hope this shit stops soon,” Walt said.
“I like it.”
“Don’t like driving in it.”
“Want me to drive?”
“Nah. We’re almost there.”
“These people . . . are they good friends?”
Walt rubbed his stubbly chin with the back of his hand and cocked his head, thinking about it. “I don’t know if I’d really call them friends. People like us . . . well, it’s tough to really get close to people, you know?”
“Business partners?” Erica didn’t even know what she meant by this. ‘Business partners’ seemed like a very adult term. Like something a dad would say supposing said father was responsible and actually available to talk to his child about his work affairs. Supposing said father actually had work affairs or even a job. Supposing said father was, you know, there.
“More like business partners but . . . well, we don’t really do any business. More like colleagues. You know how you hear about salesmen going to conventions and trade shows? How it’s just, like, a bunch of people with the same profession sitting around and telling stories? It’s kind of like that. Shared interests. One night and then we’ll be gone.”
“I was just curious. No rush. I’m sure if you like them, I will too.”
Walt took a right turn onto a road Erica hadn’t seen and slowly crept the car along. She wasn’t sure if the road was even paved. Maybe it wasn’t a road. Maybe it was a driveway. That theory was disproved when she saw a rusty mailbox on the right and Walt turned toward it. She almost thought it was a joke or a trick of the eyes. The mailbox said simply, in runny black letters: THE BOYS. Erica thought this made them seem somehow sinister.
The driveway was gravel. It had stopped misting and the windshield wipers screeched as they raked across raw glass. Walt flipped them off and patted her on the thigh. Why couldn’t he keep doing that?
Why couldn’t they just pull over to the side of the driveway and spend all night exploring each other? Something she didn’t feel like they’d really had the chance to do. While the previous encounters had been passionate, she had ended up feeling slightly rushed. She supposed she shouldn’t have expected anything more from someone she had known less than twenty-four hours. Or, she thought, they could just turn around and go back to the highway. She really couldn’t explain her hesitation at continuing up the drive. Maybe she didn’t like meeting new people. Maybe she didn’t want to share him this early into things. Or maybe the thought of these people who were referred to and referred to themselves as the Boys terrified her. She had told Walt she would like them if he did, but that was a lie. She didn’t really like anyone. When she had first met Walt it seemed okay because she had convinced herself that maybe she had just stored up all of her love for him. And she felt like, if he didn’t yet love her then at least he paid attention to her, did things for her. He had set her free and she saw that as worthy of a certain amount of devotion.
They drove around a gentle bend in the driveway and up ahead lay a slouching two-story farmhouse with a single light on. In front of them, a yellow security light threw a fuzzy glow over a rusted white van with no back windows. Rape van, Erica couldn’t help thinking. Walt pulled up beside the van, put the car in park, and hopped out. Erica stepped out into the damp night, now turned sweet and fragrant, and stood beside Walt, listening to the quiet dripping of water droplets seeking the center of the earth and the steady chirping purr of a million insects. Walt cupped his hands over his mouth and shouted something that sounded like, “Ah-heee!”
The sound cut through Erica.
The next sound was that of screeching metal. It came from across the back yard that was really more just an expanse of uncut grass and a rectangle of piercing blue white light shone from a low barn and expanded until the door was all the way open. Erica squinted as four figures came from the barn toward them. She imagined the wet grass squishing under their feet, what mist remained in the air clinging to their skin and hair.
Sociopaths In Love Page 3