My mom announced we were staying in a hotel that night. She snatched a few pieces of clothing, a pillow, a jar of pickles, and her hair dryer. I stuffed a neurology text book and some underwear in my backpack. When I asked her if the hotel had a pool, she screamed, "Shut up! Just get in the car!" Back in the sedan the Talking Heads tape we'd been listening to fired up again as she turned the ignition. David Byrne's uncertain voice seemed the most inappropriate narrator one could ask for at a time like this, singing of architecture and memories that can't wait. My mom ejected the tape so hard it flew out of the deck and landed on the floor. I told her I had promised to meet Kat at Burger King. She didn't argue, being momentarily incapable of speech.
Finding myself alone at Burger King, I did what any sensible person in my situation would have done. I ordered a Whopper. Except I had forgotten that I had no money left and so performed an embarrassing double take into my empty wallet at the counter, then shuffled off to loiter in the farthest corner of the restaurant. In this moldedplastic public zone I waited for Kat and read an abandoned sports page to pass the time. A couple kids without shoes screamed inside the playground equipment on the other side of the glass. I wondered how I'd ever considered such an environment fun. Kat finally showed up and set down her backpack.
"What happened?" I said.
"Why are you asking me?" Kat said, "You're the one who ran away from home. What was that about?"
"Paul told you?"
"No, Margot told me. Everyone knows about it. What did you think you were doing?"
"I went to see your dad."
Kat's face remained steady but the rest of her body gave her away. Her fingers made the strangest, crablike skitter across the table, a series of involuntary spasms possessing her hands. I grabbed hold of them and they were cold. She pulled them back, dragging her fingernails across the soft parts of my wrists.
"Oh my God you did not."
"I didn't see him for too long. I ran back to the bus station as quick as I could."
"But why did you go? What did you tell him?"
"I told him never to see you again."
"You what?" Kat yelled. A woman at the next table who looked like she'd stepped out of a Far Side cartoon tossed us a dirty look, her tongue still catching a drip from her vanilla cone. I suggested we go outside. In the playground I sat on a gigantic mushroom thing as Kat paced, arms crossed over her chest.
"You think you know everything about me. You think you can see inside my head. But you have no clue what I'm about. You barged into my life and started thinking you had authority over it. That thing that happened to me, I wish I'd never told you about it. I wish I'd just taken care of it by myself."
"I can't take this right now," I said. "Not after someone broke into my house."
"After someone broke into your stupid house? Cedar, my dad broke my fucking arm! He smashed it in a car door. He made me say it was an accident."
"K-at," I said, starting to cry, leaping to hold her but meeting her flailing arms.
"I never want to see you again," she muttered and hurried out through the gate, across the parking lot, onto her bike, and down the street.
This part is narrated
by Kat.
I. Hate. Boys. Their laughing big-toothed fucktard selves flicking orange pop from straws at pizza restaurants. Their grunts. The way they expect their moms to always wash their clothes. Their inability to make anything more complicated than a cheese sandwich. The cock rock they blast into their heads through scuzzy earphones; the ugly, guitarplaying thirty-year-old men in spandex pants with long hair that they worship. Their pathetically obsessive creation of fantasy worlds using dice that have more than six sides. Their phony professional wrestling, staged by other idols in spandex pants. Their drawings of skulls, over and over and over, with a ballpoint pen, on sheets of college-ruled paper. That they call these drawings art. Their skateboards (no, actually, I kind of like those). Wedgies and swirlies. The way they blow their noses by pushing one nostril closed then exhaling sharply through the other nostril, spraying a projectile they call a "snot rocket." The way they pretend to be sensitive by writing hideous poetry. The unused condoms petrified in their wallets. Monty Python skit recitations. Belching contests. Memorized sports statistics; the hypothetical matchups between players and teams. Auto shop. Their pip-squeak mustaches. The ease with which they deliver a crippling insult. Their stinking feet. The way they try to show off on the high dive. The slow creep of a clammy hand across your leg in a movie theater. The religious fervor of blow job procurement.
Boxing. The sanctimonious way they say "you should read this" while standing next to you in a bookstore. Their lecturing manner when talking about music. How they assume you don't know anything about Stanley Kubrick. Beer and beer and beer. How they trash their own dorm then hang out at yours all the time because you actually take the time to clean it and avoid such phenomena as rotting turkey carcasses, taking up sink space. The unwarranted aggressiveness with which they play Frisbee. The way, exuding a stench of martyrdom, they confide it just doesn't feel the same with a condom. The loudness with which they eat. Their laissez-faire hygiene, particularly dental. Cigars! Expensive stereo equipment in an un-feng-shui'ed living room. The assumption that you don't know how to manage your money. Lectures about Miles Davis and Bob Dylan. Military history. The disproportionate pride they exhibit after having changed a tire.
Their other girlfriend. The bounced checks they try to cover up. The subscription to the idiotic magazine with the enhanced women on the cover that-pathetically, reallydoesn't even have the balls to really qualify as pornography. The sight of them reading advice columns from this magazine while eating Grape-Nuts. Motorcycles. The big deal they make about actually running the vacuum cleaner. Their rudeness with sales people. Their inability to buy a decent present for their parents without your input.
Their wars, their sexual assaults, their invented chemicals in rivers and bloodstreams. Male gynecologists. Their odious opinions broadcast on talk radio. Their seemingly unimpeachable authority on how professional athletes and their managers should have conducted themselves in any number of situations. Their angry voices, ending arguments with the sheer advantage of volume. Their inability to admit a mistake. Their ear hair. Their guns. The righteousness of yard maintenance. The time they lied about paying for the car registration. That they assume you don't know anything about computers. Their opinions on how entire countries and civilizations should conduct themselves, and their perplexity that these opinions are not publicly praised and immediately codified into law. Their sagging bellies. When they say precisely the wrong thing at the wrong time to their children. Shaving cuts. Auto parts. The volume of their disappointments and regrets.
How I love them!
George knocks softly, comes into my room, and smooths a corner of my bed to sit on. "You wanna talk?" he says. The only possible answer is no. I choose not to say anything and stare at the binder my mother bought me for school, the powder blue one with the word Malibu on the front. I'm not sure if Malibu is in California or Florida, and whether the airbrushed image is of the Pacific or Atlantic. Either way it looks preferable to the barnacle-encrusted bouldeiy beaches of Puget Sound.
At the mall I have taken note of all the surf-themed T-shirts worn by kids who have just come in out of the rain-the pictures of lazily leaning surfers or the words "Official Bikini Inspector" sticking to the boys' skinny chests. I wonder if kids in Hawaii wear shirts with decals of logging trucks and spawning salmon on them. The brands I have allegiance to declare themeselves in 250point type across the front of my expanding breasts. I'm wearing one now. Esprit.
"I had to move around a lot as a kid, too," George says. "I know how it can be. Omaha, Lincoln, then over to Reno, Boise. A new school every year for a while. But you'll get to go to the same school, so that's good."
"What do you even want?" I say.
George smirks and says, "To tell you the truth, what I really want is ice cream. Yo
u up for a treat?"
George drives a powder blue Monte Carlo with an 8-track player and a scented tree. Between the two front seats is a padded console he bought at an auto-supply store, in which he stashes Kleenex, a pad and pen, a mug with a brown crescent of dried Sanka in the bottom, and 8-track cassettes of Tony Orlando and Dawn, the Carpenters, Kenny Rogers, Neil Diamond, and Captain and Tennille, the greatest hits of whom is currently inserted in the deck. Who were they trying to fool? Captain and Tennille only ever really had one hit: "Love Will Keep Us Together." They could have released it on a 45 and called the record "Greatest Hits." I secretly love that song, though, and don't object when it comes on. George taps his thick and ugly class ring against the steering wheel and sings along to the "I Will! I Will! I will!" chorus. I avert my eyes out the rainy window and unfocus them until all I see is blur.
At Big Scoop George says I can order anything I want, within reason. I scan the menu looking for the most unreasonable item. The triple-dip cone? Pretty reasonable. Banana split? Borderline reasonable. I suppose he means those big party parfaits that serve ten five-year-olds ("or five hungry grown-ups!"). These and other mystical confections glow weakly from the washed-out, translucent plastic sheets taped to the lighted menu board. No one who orders them expects the teens who work here to create exact replicas. I select a sundae with two scoops and caramel sauce, and George nods as if to approve of my restraint. He orders the most asinine treat here: a frozen banana on a stick, dipped in chocolate and rolled in smashed peanut bits. I have never seen this item consumed at this place and always thought it was the confectionery world's equivalent to parsley-something to observe but not actually eat.
We sit near a window that looks out on the pit of a lube, oil, and filter place. George cracks his knuckles in the most grotesque manner possible, with a couple knuckles squealing as they pop.
George says, "I know I'm going to get arthritis from doing this but what the heck, you only live once."
"Thanks for the ice cream," I say, and his face brightens like it's the kindest thing anyone has said to him all week.
"Well it's my pleasure," George says. "I hope we can have more of these kinds of outings."
I shrug, swirling molten caramel around a long-necked spoon.
"You don't go for the nuts on your sundae, is that your story?" George asks.
"I hate peanuts," I say.
"Well, then, I won't offer you a bite of this here banana."
"I don't know why you ordered that. We're in an icecream parlor. Don't you think you should at least order ice cream at an ice-cream parlor?"
George shrugs. "Gives me gas, usually," he says, "and I forgot to bring my Beano."
"This conversation is fantastic," I say.
"What do girls like to talk about?" George asks, apparently nonrhetorically. "Boys, right? What about this boyfriend of yours, Tree?"
"His name is Cedar."
"Is he an Indian?"
"You mean Native American?"
"I guess he doesn't look like an Indian. Where'd he get the funny tree name?"
"I don't know? His parents maybe?"
"Must have been high on dope when they named him. Hey, did you mention he mows lawns? I'm thinking that with my back acting up like it has been I should hand over the reins to someone new. Does he know how to use a weed whacker?"
"He's really good at whacking," I say.
"You can ask him for me, the next time you see him."
"We broke up. I'm not seeing him anymore."
"Broke up! No wonder you've been in such a crumbbum mood. I tell you, getting dumped is the pits. I remember that sensation all too well."
"It was me who dumped him."
"Oh, you were the dumper. Can't say I've ever been on that end of the equation." George looks to his banana for some sort of wisdom that isn't forthcoming. "But I wanted to ask you, do you think-does your mom ever talk about me?"
"About you? Only when she's insulting your driving."
"I'm serious," George says. There's a nugget of peanut on his chin. I let it stay there. He continues, "Because I want to make sure she doesn't feel like she's just settling."
"Why would she think that?" I ask.
George looks down the front of his body, half laughs at his own expense, then squints out the window. "Look at me, Kat. Do I look like the kind of man who gets a lot of attention from women? I couldn't believe it when your mom agreed to go on a date with me. I thought the whole time we were out to dinner that the hidden cameras were going to come out and I'd be exposed for the chump I am. I want her to know that I'm up for the task, that I intend to be a really good man for her."
"Okay," I say.
"And part of it, well, part of me doing right by her means doing right by you. It's got to be strange for you to have this bald, weird guy show up one day and start hanging around with your mom all the time. You and her are so close; it's a special thing, sure. Now she's paying less attention to you, that's got to be hard. But I hope that if you see I can make your mom happy, you'll be happy for her, and maybe let me be a little part of your life, too."
I'm like a little squirrel, sniffing at a piece of food from the hand of someone who wants my trust. I don't know what I'm supposed to do. My sundae is melting and my hand has somehow fallen asleep. The words My dad leave my mouth and fall into the conversation and don't move. George just listens.
"My dad used to hurt me," I say.
"I know, Katie."
"I don't need anything from you about this. That's not why I'm telling you. You just need to know something for your own good. My mom and I made a pact to kill anyone who hurts me like that again. I'm serious."
We watch the men changing the oil on a Dodge pickup truck. George squints, thinking, then says, "I'm sure my daughter wants to kill me."
"Where does she live?"
"I have no idea. She was in Louisiana last I knew. That was five years ago. No, six."
"What's she do?"
"She's a full-time drug addict."
"What about her mom?"
"Her mom has her own problems. I haven't talked to her in eight years, since she kicked me out."
"She dumped you?"
"This wasn't what you'd call getting dumped. This was my family dismantling itself before my eyes. In movies people throw dishes at the walls, and we actually did. So I moved out here to get a fresh start."
From outside came the sound of a pneumatic wrench freeing a tire of lug nuts.
"You ever hear the story about Johnny Cash and the cave?" George asked. "You know who Johnny Cash is, right?"
"The country guy?"
"Yeah. Well, he was messed up on dope pretty bad at one point, hated his life, didn't get along with his wife June, just wanted to die."
"What's Johnny Cash have to do with you moving out here?"
"Everything. So Cash goes out in the woods in Tennessee where there was a big cave. Kind of like the one in Torn Sawyer where Tom and Becky get lost. Deep and long and vast. A place where Indians used to live. He gets down on his belly and crawls into that cave and decides he isn't going to crawl out. He keeps going and going, for miles it seems, and his flashlight eventually goes out and he's down there ready to die. He gives up. Throws in the towel. Then he feels the presence of the Lord. And the Lord tells Johnny that He wants him to live. So Johnny starts crawling back, even though he has no idea where he's supposed to be going. He just crawls and crawls and he knows he isn't meant to die just yet, he knows he has more to give to the world. So when he finally comes back out, who does he see standing there?"
"Jesus?" I say.
"No, smart aleck, he sees the woman he loves. June. Waiting for him with a big basket of food."
"What happened then?"
"That's the end of the story. Well, I guess he got his TV show after that, but my point is that these past couple months maybe I've felt a little like Johnny Cash when he crawled out of that cave. Coming out of a dark place with a family waiting for me on the oth
er side."
I don't want George's kindness to leave me, as much as I pretend to despise him. We finish our treats and I follow him back to his car, where he cranks the heat on this unseasonably cold night and shoves another 8-track into the deck.
My mother is freaking out. She's trying on her dress, pivoting in front of her new bedroom mirror in her new walkin closet that's still somewhat of a novelty. The wedding dress has the power to make my mother regress in age some thirty years. She's asking if it looks like her arm fat is hanging down. She talks about the need to get a loofah for her back so it won't be zitty on wedding day, because she never has her back exposed like this, and does the color make her look ridiculous? She thinks the seashell pink is kind of classy, not disingenuous like white would have been. Gloves? On or off? Veil, what do you think about the veil? She's pivoting left, surveying her ass, trying to do the impossible by imagining her ass as seen from behind while only able to see it in profile. "Get another mirror," she says, so I obediently fetch a hand mirror and hold it up while she assumes a sort of squat position, like she's auditioning for the role of the Hunchback of Notre Dame, asking if her ass looks wide.
"Are you planning to walk down the aisle that way?" I ask.
"I'm serious! What if I have to bend down and pick up something that I dropped?"
I sit on the corner of the bed and retie my shoe. "When did you get like this? Who cares? You look fine. God!"
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