Train Wreck Girl

by Sean Carswell

  See, maybe I was broken up with Sophie and dating Helen. Still, there was a lot of history between Sophie and me. A lot. Years of a relationship, different towns, breakups and reconciliations, brutal fights, bruised hearts, everything. And the way I see it, Bart shouldn’t have jumped on that shit the minute we broke up. He should’ve given it more time. Or, in fact, he shouldn’t have done it at all. Friends don’t date their friend’s ex-girlfriends. Not if they want to stay friends. So there was that, too.

  Anyway, it was all years ago and probably a moot point. I figured it was best to just bring it up and clear the air. I said, “So what’s up with Sophie? Is she the chick who just moved out on you?”

  “God, no,” Bart said. “Sophie and I broke up right after she stabbed you. When Joe told me what she’d done to you, I made a rule for myself: don’t date any chicks who stab their ex-boyfriends.”

  “Good rule,” I said.

  “Fucking-A.”

  “So where is she now?”

  “She moved to Atlanta. She lives with her mom up there. I heard she cleaned up her act. She’s sober, working a nine-to-five, the works. At least that’s what I hear.”

  Bart sounded like he didn’t believe what he was saying, so I asked, “Do you believe it?”

  “Hell, no. That bipolar girl? It doesn’t matter what way she swings. It’s just a matter of time before she swings back.”

  “Fair enough,” I said. “What about Helen? What’s up with her?”

  “She got married,” Bart said. Just matter of fact like that. She got married. I winced. That phrase made me feel like someone was making a lasso out of my small intestine. I don’t know why. I don’t know what my intentions with Helen were. But, married? That’s so fucking permanent. Or long-term, anyway.

  “Shit,” I said. “That sucks.”

  “She’s divorced now,” he added. He kinda smiled. I knew the score, here. He wanted to make me wince. He paused on purpose.

  Still, I didn’t feel relieved to hear that she was divorced, because the next thought crept into my head. “She didn’t marry you, did she? She’s not the girl who just moved out on you?”

  “Nah,” Bart said. “She married some fag.”

  This meant nothing to me, because of course Bart wouldn’t like anyone who married Helen. And it’s his own damn fault. You can’t go around getting mad at other people just because they have the balls to ask out girls you wish you had the balls to ask out.

  Anyway, it didn’t matter. The air was clear, now. Clear enough.

  We pulled up to the care center where Bart’s clients spent their days. Bart stopped the bus, opened the door, and said to me, “Come on out. You gotta meet this crew.”

  I climbed down from the bus.

  About a dozen mentally challenged adults were standing around in the front yard of the care center. Bart called out, “Huddle up, team.” His clients gathered around him. Bart put his hands on the shoulders of the two who were closest to him. “I’m gonna introduce you to someone. His name is Danny. He’s my oldest and closest friend. He’s riding with us today. I want you to welcome him onto the short bus and show him love. Okay?”

  The clients answered with smiles and head nods and descended on me. They circled around and patted me on the back and stroked my face and two or three of them hugged me at once. They looked up at me with big, mad grins and hi, Dannys and one poor woman was even drooling a little. I suddenly felt like I’d been picked for the Special Olympics. It was a great feeling. Better than you’d imagine.

  Bart said, “All right. That’s enough. Line up.”

  The short bus riders formed a single file line outside the door. An older white guy took the front of the line. Bart said to him, “I need a hoot, Little Johnny. No one rides until Little Johnny gives me a hoot.”

  I guess Little Johnny knew what Bart was talking about, because he waved his hands over his head and yelled, “Woo-hoo!”

  It was pretty loud and sounded good to me, but it wasn’t enough for Bart. He said, “C’mon, Little Johnny. That’s bullshit. I want a hoot.”

  Little Johnny took a huge breath and arched his back and stuck his chest out and bellowed, “Wooooooo-hooooooo!” And, just in case that wasn’t enough, the rest of the short bus riders bellowed with him.

  I started laughing. Bart said, “That’s what I’m fucking talking about. Now get on the bus, you crazy sons of bitches. Load up.”

  The short bus riders filed in, and we drove off.

  About five minutes into the ride, just as I’d predicted, “Takin’ the Retards to the Zoo” came on. Just as Bart predicted, the clients sang along to all the “woooo-ooooohs.” You have to give the guy credit. He had fun with this crew. They loved him.

  When the song was over, Little Johnny said, “Mr. Bart, isn’t that a bad word that they use in the song?”

  “What the fuck are you talking about, Little Johnny?” Bart asked.

  “That word in the song. Ain’t it a bad word?”

  “Which one?”

  “I can’t say. It’s a bad word.”

  “Don’t be a pussy,” Bart said. “Just fucking say it. We’re all adults here.”

  “Retard,” Little Johnny said. “Mrs. Munroe told us that was a bad thing to call a person a retard.”

  “Now, that depends, Little Johnny,” Bart said. “Retard has two meanings. On the one hand, you can make fun of people and call them a retard and that’s a bad word. On the other hand, retard can just mean a person you take to the zoo. So in this song, it’s not a bad word because it’s just talking about people you take to the zoo. Understand?”

  Little Johnny nodded.

  “Now give me a hoot,” Bart said.

  Little Johnny cocked his head back and hooted. Bart smiled. I remembered this about my old, close friend Bart Ceravolo: don’t ever trust the guy.

  After we dropped off the short bus riders and Bart smoked another joint and I put in an old Clash CD, Give ‘em Enough Rope, Bart said to me, “So what are you running from, Danny?”

  “Weed making you paranoid?” I asked.

  “Just a little inductive reasoning, my friend. Everything you own fits in a seat on a bus—and the surfboard you got from your sister’s house this morning. You took a Greyhound from Flagstaff. A fucking Greyhound. No one rides a Greyhound if they don’t have to. You’re still the same guy I always knew. So add it up. You got into some shit in Flagstaff and you’re running away.”

  Of course, Bart was right, but I wasn’t surprised enough to not be suspicious. I said, “How’d you know I was in Flagstaff? I didn’t tell you that.”

  “I saw Janie this morning,” Bart said.

  “Where?”

  “It’s Tuesday. Janie and I fuck on Tuesday mornings.”

  Bart paused. I knew he was full of shit. I hadn’t been away so long that I forgot about his sense of humor. I said, “Where’d you really see her?”

  “At the Circle K, but that’s not the point. What happened in Flagstaff? What are you running from?”

  What I was running from had obviously been on my mind nonstop for days now. Not a minute passed when I didn’t think about Libra or see that fucked up leg and that bad tattoo in my mind. Not one minute. I had to tell someone sooner or later, so I just came clean. I said, “I found my ex-girlfriend’s dead body a couple of days ago. I freaked out and came here.”

  Bart jammed on the brakes and swerved into the nearest parking lot. He turned off the engine, took the keys out of the ignition, and spun in his seat to face me. “Wow,” he said. “I was expecting something fucked up, but, wow.”

  “It’s not as bad as it sounds,” I said.

  “Well, it can’t be good.”

  “No, it’s not good,” I said, “but it’s not as bad as it seems.” I laid out the story for Bart, from my New Year’s Eve fight to my decision to breakup with Libra to the final fight and the tattoo and the leg on the railroad tracks. Bart just stared at me with big, bloodshot eyes. Occasionally, he’d nod or s
ay, “yeah, yeah.” But mostly he just stared.

  When I got done, Bart said, “How rich was this girl?”

  “Well, she wasn’t rich. Her parents were.”

  “Obviously, but how rich were her parents?”

  “Rich.”

  “How rich?”

  “Her dad owned banks.”

  “What do you mean, he owned banks?”

  “I mean he owned a bunch of banks in Phoenix. I don’t remember how many. Ten. Maybe a dozen. A bunch.”

  Bart rubbed his short, curly hair. “I don’t get it. How do you own a fucking bank?”

  “You just own it,” I said. “Someone has to own it.”

  “I thought corporations owned banks.”

  “I think they do, now. They own Libra’s dad’s banks, anyway. He sold the whole lot of them to Bank of America a few years back.”

  “Goddamn,” Bart said. “How much do you get for a fucking bank? Wow. You’re fucked, Danny.”

  “How do you figure?”

  “This guy’s got ten or twelve banks’ worth of money and his daughter’s dead and you’re the last one who saw her? You’re going to jail.”

  Of course, this exact thought had occurred to me. I didn’t want to spend too much time thinking about it. I used my typical excuse. “She got hit by a train. I wasn’t driving the train. How are you gonna blame me?”

  Bart counted the reasons off on his fingers. “You’re poor. You’re the ex-boyfriend. You skipped town. It doesn’t matter what the police find. You’re going to jail.”

  I shook my head. “Nah,” I said. Because I’d thought about it. They’d have to do forensic tests. They’d have to realize that she was already lying down when she got hit. You can figure that out from the angles of the wounds and all. Plus, they’d have no real evidence. Not enough to build a case on. There’d be no way they could prove I did it. So I made my case to Bart.

  Bart kept staring at me with those bloodshot eyes. “They won’t get you for murder. That’s true. They don’t have much of a case. And, anyway, you did the right thing running away. They won’t be able to drag your ass all the way back to Arizona for questioning. But someone will come after you. A bounty hunter. A P.I. Someone. And if they do get you to Arizona, they’ll bust you for something.”

  I tried to argue this point, but what was the use. Besides, before I could say much, Bart had cranked up the bus and was driving again. He mumbled to the windshield, “I wonder if there’s a reward.”

  And I knew I shouldn’t have said anything.

  12

  The Whitest Girl in Florida

  You’re back in the Vehicle Assembly Building, indoors but three hundred feet off the ground. The air up here is dead and thick. You can’t stop sweating. You’re laying down the final weld on the handrail that surrounds this platform. Even though you’re kneeling on a platform rather than standing on the typical narrow I-beam, even though this handrail is all around and you know it will stay in place because you built it, the height scares the hell out of you. You try to ignore the fear. You push everything out of your mind except the flame at the end of your torch and you finish the weld.

  While the metal is still glowing hot, you turn down your flame, stand, and lift your mask. The sight beside you on this platform startles you. It’s Libra. She’s wearing a shear little sundress. She’s dry but everything else about her looks fresh out of the shower: no make-up, her auburn hair tucked behind her ears, her freckles sparkling under the fluorescent work lights. This is the Libra you know best. No airs. Nothing done to prepare her for public. Just Libra. You’re not sure why she’s on this platform with you, three hundred feet off the ground, but you figure it’s just as likely as any other scenario in your life right now. You say to her, “Hey, kid. What brings you here?”

  “I wanted to show you my new shoes,” she says. She lifts her leg so you can see her sandals. The straps are leather and every part of the shoe that touches Libra’s skin is made out of a fluffy wool. They actually look pretty comfortable.

  “Very nice,” you say.

  “I got them for Florida. To celebrate us coming here. Aren’t they fun?”

  You’ve never understood how a shoe can be fun. You’ve never understood why Libra would get so happy just from purchasing an item at a store. It’s never had an appeal to you. Still, you recognize the joy in her eyes and you nod. “Fun.”

  “Do you like the colors on my dress?”

  “I do,” you say. And you’re not just humoring her. Her dress is yellow with little pink and orange flowers on it. Very girly, but the colors are somehow comforting. The dress drapes her torso, soft and free, barely hiding everything that you’ve come to memorize underneath.

  “I’m thinking of painting our house these colors. The insides. Add a little life to those white walls. What do you think?”

  “I could do without the pink.”

  Libra gives you a coy smile. “No pink? I love pink! Maybe we could just do the bathroom in pink. Or, you know what? I’ll paint my closet pink.” She raises her eyebrows and gives you a look like she’s just discovered radium.

  You find it charming. You don’t know if you’ve ever had this optimism, if you’ve ever fallen into a smile this easily. It’s fun to live vicariously through Libra’s joy.

  Libra looks down at her leg. A little cartoon birthmark seems to be growing on her ankle. She says, “I think I’m the whitest girl in Florida, but I don’t want to get a tan. Tans give you wrinkles.”

  “You’re a beautiful girl,” you tell her. You reach out for her hand but forget you’re still holding the torch. The flame slices through her wrist. Her hand drops on the sheet metal platform. A hollow echo rings through the VAB. You know welding torches don’t cut through skin like this, but you’ve seen what you’ve seen. How else can you make sense of it? You reach out to tell her you’re sorry, but the torch is still in your hand. It slices through her leg, just below the hip. Her leg starts to fall. You move to wrap her in your arms. The torch won’t stop cutting. It strips her skin from her chest. Libra’s coming to pieces in front of your eyes. The platform below you starts to give and fall. Libra quick reaches for her head and pulls it off her shoulders. You and all the pieces of Libra tumble into the hole. You fly around, chasing the leg and the hand, trying to weld the skin back together, stretching it over the moist and sticky muscle beneath. The ground races up toward you. Libra’s head remains in its place three hundred feet in the air. You try to swim up there, but gravity works the same for everyone. It drags you down. You start to fall for real and do everything you can to save yourself.

  Just when vertigo is about to take over, you land in your bed on Woodland Avenue. Your sheets are covered in sweat. The green light of the smoke alarm stares down at you. All the pieces of Libra have been replaced by empty air.

  13

  The Face that Launched a Dozen Greyhounds

  Bart took me to Duke’s. That was the last big thing that happened on my first week back.

  He had insisted on taking me on a bar tour of Cocoa Beach. Hitting all the old joints. Re-acclimating me with my hometown. Mostly, I think he wanted to go out drinking and was happy to have a partner in crime. We ran through a series of sports bars and dive bars and crusty beach joints full of local barnacles stuck to the barstools and we ended up at a Duke’s down around 22nd Street. The joint was actually called Duke Kahanamoku’s—after the surfing legend—but the locals couldn’t be bothered trying to learn all the syllables in Kahanamoku’s. So Duke’s.

  We walked into the tiki and bamboo and straw, and I caught a glimpse of the bartender. She was a short, tough, half-Japanese chick in baggy jeans and a tight, white tank top. She had a tattoo of a big-headed, big-eyed doll on her shoulder. The tattoo matched her just right. Who else could it be but Helen: with the face that launched a dozen Greyhounds?

  I had no idea how this scene was going to play out. I hadn’t seen Helen since a few hours before Sophie stabbed me. Last she heard from me, I’d
left her house, told her I’d call her the next day, and disappeared for four years. Now, I didn’t know whether to expect a smile or a slap in the face.

  Bart pulled up a barstool. Helen saw him and smiled. She took a mug from behind the bar and started pouring him a draft. Once the tap was flowing, she looked up and saw who Bart’s friend was. She stopped the tap. “Holy fucking shit!” she said.

  I was up to the bar at this point. Helen climbed onto the beer cooler, kneeled on the bar, and leaned in toward me. I braced myself. Helen gave me a big hug. This surprised me. I squeezed right back. Took a deep breath to smell her hair. Oh yeah, I thought, I remember that Helen smell.

  She whispered in my ear, “I’m never gonna sleep with you again.” She let go of me and climbed off the bar.

  I thought, hey, I’m just saying hello, here. Let’s not get ahead of ourselves. But I was too stunned by the comment. And besides, don’t you know I was thinking about it?

  A group of tourists walked in right about then, all flowered shirts and sunburns and socks and sandals. Helen said, “We’ll talk soon.” And she was back to tending the bar.

  She finished pouring Bart’s draft and gave me the same without asking, then took the tourists’ orders. The bar was fairly crowded. Helen floated around behind it, mixing drinks, pulling drafts, telling jokes, listening to stories, popping a drunk guy in the head when he tried to get a free refill off the taps, making sure everyone at the bar knew everyone else. She was a natural. I couldn’t keep my eyes off her. I started thinking way too much about the past, about the year we’d spent together and all those old feelings and those daydreams I had about her and me. It was kinda overwhelming. I watched Helen and thought, I can’t believe I left this woman just because I got stabbed a few times. I’m such a pussy.

  I did not drink the beer she poured for me.