Rufus + Syd

by Julia Watts

  Probably one of the main reasons why I love Bonnie and Clyde so much is because of this scene that happens right at the beginning. It’s first thing in the morning, you can hear a few birds singing, and Bonnie is in her bedroom getting ready to go to her job as a waitress. She’s clearly bored out of her mind and tired of her small-town life. She sighs and throws herself on the bed. And then she starts hitting at the bedpost with her fist, out of frustration. She obviously feels like she can’t go on like this, day in and day out. And then, right after this, she meets Clyde—and he’s her way out.

  I’m still looking for my way out; I’ve been looking for years. But there is not a single guy at Vermillion High that interests me—not one! I keep hoping that somebody new is going to come along, transfer in from another school, from someplace else. What’s more likely to happen is that I’m going to have to wait until I’m at least eighteen and go away to college to get out of here, if I even get to go away to college. I’m worried that Mama and Daddy spent everything on Dwight’s education, first undergrad and then business school, and that they’ll make me go to Georgia Southwestern and live at home. I think I’d go out of my mind! Even Atlanta wouldn’t be far enough away from Vermillion for me. I want to go to one of the big cities.

  I couldn’t say who I think I’m talking to when I hear myself whisper, “Somebody please help me!”

  Syd

  FRIDAY’S MY night off from cooking, so instead of standing at the stove, I’m sprawled on the couch, checking the TV to see if anything worth watching is coming on tonight. Usually Mom comes home on Friday a little later than usual, carrying either a box from Pizza Hut or a bag of burgers from the G and B Drive-In.

  Tonight she’s on time and empty-handed.

  “Hey, Buttercup,” she says. She calls me that because when I was little I liked to pretend to be Buttercup from The Powerpuff Girls. She sits on the couch so my feet are on her lap. “What are you up to tonight?”

  “Oh, you know, my usual Friday-night scene: sex, drugs, and rock ’n’ roll.” I shrug. “Actually, I was hoping there might be something decent on TV. And I was kind of craving a pizza.”

  “Supper was one of the things I wanted to talk to you about,” Mom says. Her eyes are shining, so I can tell she has a plan. “Cheryl was in the shop today, and we got to talking about going out. I was wondering if you felt like being Didi tonight.”

  Didi is our nickname for “DD,” or “designated driver.” I got my license on my sixteenth birthday, but there’s no way Mom and I can afford for me to have a car of my own, and most days she needs her car for work. The only times I get to drive are on Sundays when she never has to work and on nights when I play Didi. Of the two, the Sunday drives are my favorite because I get to take the car out by myself. I usually get a milkshake at the G and B and then find a country road and roll down the windows and let the wind blow through my hair. It feels like freedom even though I’m going nowhere.

  Nights when I play Didi are less fun, but they’re still better than not driving at all. Even if it means me sitting in the car in the parking lot of a beer joint, listening to the radio for two hours while Mom’s inside “blowing off steam,” as she calls it.

  “I guess I can be Didi,” I say.

  Mom grins. “You’re the best daughter in the world! And the good thing about it for you is we’re going to Buckner’s, so you can come in with us. And I’ll buy you supper.”

  Any trace of reluctance I had disappears. “Sold,” I say. Buckner’s is a ways out from town. It’s a restaurant that serves beer instead of just being a beer joint, and they have the best cheeseburgers I’ve ever tasted. Thick and juicy, they make the little burgers out at the G and B look like hockey pucks made of shoe leather.

  “Okay, then,” she says. “Well, if you’re gonna be Didi, you’d better put on something cute.”

  I look down at my jeans and black T-shirt. “It’s just Buckner’s.”

  “Yeah, but you never know who might see you there. I know I’m not going there wearing this mess.” She pushes my feet off her lap. “Shake a leg. I told Cheryl we’d pick her up at six.”

  I keep on the black T-shirt and change into a black and purple paisley-print miniskirt I found at the Goodwill back in Sterchi. I’m pretty sure it dates from the eighties. The Chucks don’t quite work with it, so I put on my chunky black Mary Janes instead. I like to pretend they’re Doc Martens, but they’re cheap knockoffs. I’m putting on big purple chandelier earrings when Mom hollers, “Hey, Sydney Jane, can you come in here and help me a minute?”

  “I can if you won’t call me that!” I yell back. When I go into Mom’s bedroom, she’s wearing a black lace push-up bra and a pair of jeans so tight I wonder how she got into them. But then I see she hasn’t gotten into them all the way. They’re still unzipped and unbuttoned.

  “Hey, look at you,” Mom says. “Way to show some leg! I wish they wasn’t so white, though.”

  “Are you planning to wear more clothes than that?” I ask.

  “Yeah.” She gives me a wicked grin. “For the time being, anyway. You think you could help me get these jeans fastened?”

  “I guess I could try.”

  “Here, you get down on your knees, and I’ll suck in my gut.”

  Mom doesn’t have that much of a gut—just the roundness from having had a baby one time and a few beers on a regular basis. If she’d buy jeans in her real size instead of two sizes too small, she’d have no problem. I kneel, she takes a deep breath, and with a fair amount of tugging and grunting on her part and mine, I’m finally able to button her waistband. The trouble is, with her waist constricted, the extra padding on her lower belly is edging its way out of her fly like a pillow slipping out of a pillowcase. The zipper won’t budge.

  “Wait,” she says. “I’ve got an idea.” She lies flat on her back on the bed. “Now let me suck in my gut this way, and see if you can do it.” I straddle her, she inhales, and I yank up the zipper.

  “But the question is, can you move?” I say, climbing off her.

  “Of course I can move,” she says. But she gets up with the stiffness of Frankenstein’s monster rising from his table for the first time.

  Mom’s friend Cheryl is a part-time cashier at the Piggly Wiggly who lives in a garage apartment next to an old lady’s house. She lives there for free in exchange for doing the old lady’s shopping, laundry, and housekeeping. Cheryl says that the old lady, since she’s deaf as a post, thinks that Cheryl lives a nice, quiet life.

  Cheryl’s waiting in the driveway when we pull up. While Mom’s hair is bottle blonde, Cheryl’s is bottle red. Her figure is curvier and rounder than Mom’s, and the aqua-colored sundress she has on shows cleavage so deep you could lose a wallet in it.

  She lets herself in the back. “Hey, Sandee. Hey, Didi.” She’s in on the joke.

  “Hey,” Mom says. “If Sydney gets a nickname, we should both get nicknames too.”

  “Like what?” Cheryl is checking her makeup in the rearview mirror.

  “Well, judging from that neckline,” Mom says, “maybe we ought to call you Tata.”

  Cheryl and I both laugh.

  “And by the end of the night,” Mom says, lighting a cigarette, “y’all can call me Dibi.”

  “Dibi?” I say, pulling the car out of the driveway. “What does that stand for?”

  Mom cackles. “Drunk bitch!”

  We all laugh some more, and driving and laughing, I feel good. Like I’m out with two girlfriends, instead of just my mom and her friend. Like I’ve been invited along as an equal, not just as a daughter and a Didi.

  BUCKNER’S IS always bustling on Friday nights. We have to wait for a table. It always takes a few minutes for my ears to adjust to the racket here—the shouted conversations and whoops of laughter competing with the blasting country music on the speakers and the Braves game on the big-screen TV in the bar. Decorated with nothing but Braves pennants and beer signs, Buckner’s isn’t much to look at, but it makes up fo
r this lack with sheer loudness.

  Once we get a booth, Mom and Cheryl scoot in next to each other and across from me. The waitress, who has blue eyeshadow caked in her crow’s feet, says, “What can I get you ladies tonight?”

  I immediately stake my claim: cheeseburger cooked medium, fries, and a Coke with lots of ice. Buckner’s is the only place in easy driving distance where you can get a burger cooked to order. They have steaks too. Not that we could afford one.

  “We want a basket of jalapeno poppers,” Mom says. “And two frozen strawberry margaritas.”

  The waitress gives a look that says she’s been through this before. “We can’t sell mixed drinks or wine. We just got beer.”

  “I know,” Mom says. “It was just wishful thinking. Give us two Bud Lights.” Mom blames the Baptists for the fact that you can’t buy liquor by the drink. “This county ain’t really wet,” she says. “It’s barely damp.”

  Once the waitress brings our drinks, Mom and Cheryl clink their bottles together. Then they clink their bottles against my red plastic Coke cup, but plastic doesn’t really clink.

  “I’d give my eyeteeth to have cheekbones like you, Sydney,” Cheryl says.

  “I remember reading that actresses used to get their teeth pulled to make their cheekbones stick out more,” I say. “Maybe you should try it.”

  Cheryl looks like she doesn’t get that I was trying to make a joke. “I wasn’t talking about my teeth. It’s just an expression.”

  “I know,” I say.

  We’re rescued from our stalled conversation by the arrival of our food.

  “We’d better get another round of beers if we’re gonna eat these jalapeno things,” Mom says. Like they weren’t going to get another round anyway.

  Cheryl takes a bite of jalapeno, and her face turns bright pink. “Ooh, that’s hot!” she says, fanning her mouth. She swigs some more beer. “But I tell you what.” She looks at a guy in a cowboy hat who saunters past our table. “I love me some hot things!”

  Mom high-fives her before grabbing a popper from the basket. “Me too. I love hot things that make me sweat!”

  I decide that my cheeseburger deserves my full attention.

  When the third round of beers arrives, Mom says, “I think we might head over to the bar just for a few minutes. Will you be all right at the table by yourself?”

  “Sure,” I say. This is the price to pay for my excellent burger: sitting in the booth by myself, waiting while Mom and Cheryl look for “hot things” in the bar. And it won’t just be for a few minutes either.

  After I’ve been sitting for half an hour or so, the waitress asks, “Is there anything else I can get you, hon?” Her question seems to be part kindness and part irritation. She knows I’m sitting here because I’ve been ditched by the adults who came with me, but she’s also annoyed that one person is taking up space at a table for four and not buying anything else.

  “Do you have dessert?” I ask.

  “We got ice cream. I could make you a hot fudge sundae.”

  “Okay. I’ll have that and a cup of coffee, please.”

  One hot fudge sundae and two cups of coffee later, Mom comes back to the table, giggling and with a guy. He’s mustached and burly with a little mound of a beer belly.

  “This is my daughter,” Mom says to the man. “Larry, this is Sydney.” When she says the “s” sound in my name, it comes out more like “sh”—a sure sign she’s well on her way to being wasted.

  “Well, I can see good looks run in the family,” Larry says, grinning behind his mustache. “If I didn’t know better I’d think you two was sisters.”

  Mom giggles and play slaps him on the arm. Is she really so starved for affection that she believes the crap that comes out of guys’ mouths? Or does she just act her way through the script in hopes that it will lead somewhere she wants to go?

  “Hey, Buttercup,” Mom says, playing with my hair, “Larry knows this guy who’s gonna play some music in a few minutes. Is it okay with you if we stick around for the first set?”

  “Sure,” I say, because really, what choice do I have?

  The music sucks. It’s one guy singing Top 40 country to canned backing music. Karaoke for one, basically. I probably find it extra irritating because I’ve drunk so much coffee I feel like my eyes are quivering in their sockets. That, plus I have to pee.

  In the restroom I’m washing my hands with just water because there’s no soap when Mom comes in. “Hey!” she says, encircling me in a sloppy half hug.

  “Hey.”

  “Since I couldn’t find you, I figured you must be here.” Her mascara is smeared, but she doesn’t seem to notice, even though she’s looking in the mirror. She takes her pink lip gloss out of her purse and paints over the general vicinity of her mouth. “Listen, Didi, if you want to go on home, I’ll be fine here.”

  “Who’s going to give you a ride home?” I ask.

  “Larry will.”

  “What about Cheryl? Does she need a ride?”

  “No.” Mom grins. “She’s got a friend here too.”

  “Can I talk to Larry before I go?”

  Mom drapes her arm around my shoulders. “You’re such a worrywart. Just like my mama. It must skip a generation.”

  Larry is standing at the bar, drinking a Bud and smoking a cigarette.

  “I just wanted to make sure you were going to drive my mom home,” I say.

  He grins. “You’re a sweet little thing, ain’t you? I’ll take care of your mama. You ain’t got nothing to worry about.”

  What could my mother—or any woman—see in this sloppy-drunk slob? “Are you all right to drive?” I ask.

  He laughs like this is the funniest thing he’s ever heard. “Am I all right to drive? You bet I am. I’m the best drunk driver in the state of Georgia!”

  I give Mom a look. If she was the daughter and I was the mom, I’d say “Get in the car now.” But it’s not like that, so all I can say is “Be careful.”

  “I always am,” Mom says. “Don’t wait up, Buttercup.”

  Once I’m in the car alone, I tune in the rock station from Atlanta to wash the Top 40 country out of my ears. Once I start the car and pull out of the parking lot, I think there’s nothing to stop me. I could just keep on driving.

  But then I remember the gas tank is almost empty, and I’ve only got five dollars in my pocket.

  I pull over at the Gas ’n’ Go figuring I’ll buy enough gas to drive around for a few minutes and then go home. When I come back from paying, I hear a voice say, “Hey!”

  I ignore it, but then it says, “Hey, Syd!”

  I look in the direction of the voice and see an old beater of a car with some kids standing around it—two boys and one girl. I’ve seen the girl around. She’s got dyed blond hair and tattoos and looks like she’s way too old for high school. But the “hey” didn’t come from her. It came from one of the boys.

  Since I’m unaccustomed to friendliness, I decide to walk over to them. It’s not like I have anywhere I’m supposed to be. “Hey,” I say.

  The shorter of the boys says, “I’m in your bio class. I saw you drawing fries around that fish picture. It was pretty funny.”

  I smile. “Yeah, well, Mr. Combover didn’t think so.”

  “I’m Danny,” the boy says. His grin looks like a little kid’s, but he has the complexion of a teenager. His hair’s nice, though… long and dark like in old pictures of the Ramones. “And this here is Travis.” The taller guy, who has the dark eyes of a shark, barely gives me a nod. “And this is Jimmie-Sue.”

  “Hey,” Jimmie-Sue says. And I thought my name was bad.

  “We’re going down to the lake,” Danny says. “You wanna come? Sometimes we take some beers out there, but not tonight.”

  Jimmie-Sue puffs her cigarette and nods in the direction of the Gas ’n’ Go. “When Dave’s working he’ll sell it to me, but not that bitch that’s working in there tonight.”

  “Yeah, well, that’s ’c
ause you let Dave take you out back and—” Jimmie-Sue slaps him. Hard. But then they both laugh.

  “You coming with us or not?” Danny asks.

  “I’ll meet you out there,” I say, since I don’t want to leave Mom’s car stranded at the Gas ’n’ Go.

  I find them sitting on an old blanket on the riverbank. Well, Danny is sitting. Jimmie-Sue and Travis are lying down and kissing.

  “Hey, Syd,” Danny says. “Pull up some blanket.”

  I sit next to him. “So this is what people do for fun around here?”

  He shrugs. “I guess. There ain’t much to choose from. You’re new here, right?”

  “Kind of. We moved from Kentucky.”

  “You had better stuff to do back there?”

  “Not really.”

  Jimmie-Sue and Travis seem to be getting the maximum amount of entertainment value from being on a blanket. He’s on top of her, and they’re kissing but doing other stuff too. Grunting is involved. I try to look away, but it’s like a wreck on the highway.

  Danny must feel the same way because he says, “You wanna take a walk? Maybe give them some space?”

  “Sure,” I say, grateful that he apparently feels as awkward as I do.

  We walk along the edge of the lake. The only light is from the moon. “So are you from here?” I ask, just to have something to say.

  “Yeah, and so’s my mom and dad. I’ve got an aunt and uncle down in Dothan, though.”

  “You like it here?” I ask.

  “It’s okay, I guess. Kinda boring, though.”

  “Yeah.”

  He stops walking and turns to face me. “I like the way you look. I mean, the way you dress and everything. A lot of people say you look weird, but I think you look cool.”

  I look down at my chunky black shoes. “Uh… thanks.”

  And then Danny’s leaning toward me, and his hands are on my shoulders, and his lips are parted, and his breath smells like onion rings from the G and B, and I jump to the side so fast I splash up to my ankles in mud and lake water.