by Mercy Brown
“Holy shit,” I say. “He . . . he is?”
“Yeah,” she says, her face determined and serious. “And he’ll be pissed about this, believe me. If calls have to be made to get us out of this, he can make them.”
Well Jesus Christ, I knew her dad was a law professor, but I didn’t know he was that powerful of a guy. Sonia goes back inside the Waffle House to make the call to her father when Justice League Jerry walks back from the cop car looking determined to ruin our day. Or lives, maybe. But just then, we hear the cranking of a large engine and turn to see a big, black bus parking right next to us, taking up what’s left of the parking lot.
“Oh shit,” Joey says. “No way.”
“Oh God, it’s the fucking Pumps,” Emmylou mutters, and then sure enough, the doors swing open and the parade of hipster assholes climbs down the bus steps.
“Hey, ho! It’s Stars on the Road! Or, on the lam, maybe?” Jason Foley, my least favorite singer from my least favorite band, croons as he hops off the last step, followed by three other shaggy dudes with cautiously, meticulously planned bedhead.
“You can’t park that thing here,” the cop says.
Jason looks over his shoulder at the bus and shrugs. “Maury,” he says to the bass player. “Tell Fred he’s got to move the bus.”
Maury gets back on the bus, and Jason turns back to us, amused as he takes in our situation. “Whoa, what happened? You guys got busted?”
“No, of course not!” Emmy says, scowling, her face still tinged green. “There’s nothing to bust us for.”
“Well don’t ask us for bail money,” Jason says, laughing. “Our royalty checks have been slow as shit coming from Geffen this quarter. I almost miss being an indie—no, wait, no I don’t.”
“We’re not going to need any damned bail money,” I say, gritting my teeth, praying it’s true. “Now, do you mind? We’re a little busy.”
“Hey, Sunny!” Jason calls to Sonia as she walks back towards us from the Waffle House. What the hell? Jason and Sonia know each other? “Long time, no see, girl!” Jason says. “What are you doing out here with Soft? Have you been kidnapped or something?”
Oh, nice. My stomach drops to my feet as the cop’s ears perk up, but my blood really boils when Jason plants a kiss right on Sonia’s cheek. I feel my eyes go wide, the vein bulging on the side of my neck.
“You look hot in that dress,” he says.
“Thanks,” she says, sounding slightly annoyed, but not annoyed enough, if you ask me. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We’re headed to Nashville,” he says. “Stopping for some waffles, you know, at the Waffle House! What the hell else do you get here, anyway? Besides cramps?”
“Wait a minute,” Justice League Jerry says. “You’re Jason Foley of the Pumps! I love that song you guys do—‘Two by Eight’? Catchy tune.”
Jesus Christ. I think Emmy is about to retch again.
“Thanks,” Jason says with a smile so smug I’d like to wipe it off his face with my fist. Then he puts his arm around Sonia and says, “Where are you guys playing tonight? I mean, assuming you’re not all in jail?”
“Murfreesboro,” Sonia says. “And we won’t be in jail, smart-ass.”
“Oh cool, not far from us,” he says. “We’ve booked a couple of rooms at the Sheraton downtown if you guys want to swing by. I think our set’s done by eleven.”
“What?” I say, in total shock. “You’re actually inviting us to hang out?”
“These riffraff are friends of yours?” the cop says, gesturing at all of us with a nod.
Jason pauses before answering, but Sonia gives him an elbow in the side and a pleading sort of look that I hate with all my heart.
“Yeah, Sunny and I are old friends,” he finally says. “Though she’s not technically in the band.”
“I’m managing the tour,” Sonia says.
“Tour?” Jason says, looking skeptically in our direction, and laughs. “You guys are on tour in that piece of junk?”
Travis makes two fists at his sides as his face actually gets a little life in it. I give him a warning look, because as much as Jason is a prick, what we don’t need is to start shit in front of a cop.
“I’ll call you at the hotel later, all right?” Sonia says. “We’ll come hang out after the show.”
“We will?” I say, stunned.
“Excellent,” Jason says, giving Sonia the once-over from head to toe. “You better, Sunny. We’ve got a lot to catch up on.”
“Yeah,” she says. “Sure.”
“Hey, think I could get an autograph?” the cop asks. “I’ve had that song stuck in my head for days.”
“Sure,” Jason says. “Anything for a fan.”
Now I think I’m going to be sick myself.
Jason follows the cop back to the cop car and the fucking Pumps saunter off, into the Waffle House. I exhale and run my hands through my hair. I feel like I want to puke I’m so stressed out. But Sonia looks calm and cool as anything.
“You fucking know Jason Foley?” I ask her. Right now this is the least of my problems, but still. What the fuck? “How the hell do you know him? And why were you so nice to him? And why didn’t you ever tell me you’re friends with him?”
“Calm down,” she says. “We just went to PDS together. He’s from Princeton.”
“He’s an asshole,” I say.
“I know he’s an asshole,” she says. “I just told you, I’ve known him for fifteen years.”
“Why didn’t you ever tell me about him?”
“Tell you what?” she asks, looking completely confused.
“Guys,” Joey says, nodding in the direction of the cop, who’s now making his way back towards us. “Can you have your lovers’ quarrel after we figure out how to not go to jail? Please?”
Justice League Jerry stands in front of us, a lot more relaxed now, smiling as he holds on to the Waffle House napkin with Jason Foley’s autograph like it’s some sort of holy item. I grit my teeth in renewed disgust.
“Seeing as you’re all friends with the Pumps and Jason was a decent enough guy to vouch for you, I’m going to let you go,” he says.
Okay, now I really am going to be sick. All we need is to owe that asshole any favors.
“You just saved yourself a headache,” Sonia snaps, her temper getting the better of her, and I’d clamp my hand right over her mouth if I could reach it in time. “You had no business searching us. There is no probable cause here.”
“Is that what you think, little girl?” Officer Jerk-Off says, and oh fuck, my blood starts to slowly boil. “We’ve got a war on drugs here in this country. And we’re going to win.”
“Yeah?” Sonia says. “Let me tell you something. My father has put away more drug dealers in his career than you will ever find in all the Waffle Houses in Kentucky ever, okay? Now who’s the winner?”
“Oh, I’m sure your father is real proud his daughter is running around the country with dirtbags like this,” he says, getting right, and I mean right, in my face. “Like some whore.”
Now I’m seeing red, and I can tell you, whatever comes next is not going to be good. This I know from experience.
“What the fuck did you just call her?” I say, feeling like I just grew three sizes as I step in closer to him. I can see the coffee stains on his teeth as he grins, his hand moving to his baton. Here we fucking go.
“Are your ears damaged?” Justice League Jerry says. “Or just your brain?”
“Cole . . . don’t,” Sonia says, her voice shaky, her hand on my arm. “Please, I’m sorry—he’s just looking for an excuse . . .”
“Back up, Sonia,” I say, because I’m about to call this guy a lobotomized, sodomized pig and I know when I do, he’ll take a swing at me. But before I can say anything, Sonia has stepped right between me and the cop, t
rying to make me look at her, but I can’t take my eyes off the pig’s shit-eating grin. Joey clears his throat and taps my shoulder.
“Let’s take a walk, Cole,” Joey says.
“Please, Cole,” Sonia pleads with me. “It’s not worth it.”
The look on her face is what stops me. Reels me back down to the ground. I give the cop one last sneer before turning away and walking around to the other side of the van, Joey right on my heels. The cop starts slinging insults behind me, calling me a godless, neutered faggot, and Joey says, very, very quietly, and very seriously behind me, “If you so much as turn around to look at him, I swear I will kick your ass myself the minute he leaves.” I’m so amped up right now, I don’t even think he can take me. But I don’t want Sonia to see me lose my shit. Over the pounding in my ears, I hear Emmy telling Sonia to stay right where she is, to give me some space so I can cool off.
Joey practically boxes me in against the side of the van. “Back the fuck up,” I say, and when he won’t, I mutter a stream of some of the most vile, foul curses I can muster at him. But he won’t get out of my fucking way until we hear the police car drive off. Then he finally lets me go and lets out a long exhale of relief.
“We good?” he asks.
“Yep,” I say, straightening out my shirt. I feel like a complete asshole, though.
Joey and I walk back around to help Travis load the cabinets back into Steady Beth. When Sonia comes and taps me on the shoulder I nearly jump out of my skin, I’m still so keyed up.
“I’m so sorry,” she says. “That was totally my fault.”
“No, it wasn’t,” I say, running my hand through my hair, looking off to the street, back to the restaurant, anywhere but at her.
“Yes, it was,” she insists. “If I hadn’t insulted him in the first place . . .”
“Sunny, please,” I say, now finally looking her in the eye. “Don’t.”
“Don’t what?”
“Don’t try to fix it, all right?” I say. “Just see a thing for what it is and let it be.”
***
We drive the speed limit, mostly in silence for the next hour as we make our way south to Tennessee. Emmy takes the front seat so she doesn’t get carsick, her head practically hanging out the window like a golden retriever’s. We don’t play any music in the van because she and Joey still have splitting headaches. I ride in the back with Sonia and Joey, Sonia curled up next to me like a cat, her feet tucked up under her as she pores over the latest issue of CMJ, the only one who seems at all upbeat after our run-in with Justice League Jerry. I’d be proud of her for not backing down to that cop if I wasn’t feeling so humiliated.
“I’ve never seen you like that before,” she says. “It was . . . kind of badass, actually.”
“It was stupid,” I say. “I hate that he got to me like that. I should know better.”
“Yeah you fucking should,” Joey grumbles, glaring at me from the other side of the bench.
“I know, I know,” I say, gritting my teeth. “I’m sorry, okay?”
“What’s he talking about?” Sonia asks.
Emmy turns her head and gives me a look, and I know what she thinks—I should just tell Sonia the truth about my past. Travis glances up in the mirror while Joey looks my way. And fuck, now that I’ve just learned that Sonia’s father was once the highest-ranking attorney in the state, a guy who made his career putting drug dealers away, how much do I want to tell her the truth? Not much.
I exhale a long sigh.
“This wasn’t my first run-in with cops,” I say, reluctant as all hell.
“Oh, you really are a badass, then?” she teases.
“A jackass is more like it. I was a lot younger, though.”
“What, were you a delinquent or something?”
Even though we’re cruising at fifty-five miles per hour the entire van somehow goes still, like everyone is holding their breath.
“Is it that obvious?” I try to make a joke out of it.
“Seriously?” she asks. “Like, in trouble with the law?”
“Yeah, like that,” I say. “I got locked up when I was sixteen. I was in the youth detention center up in Bergen for a while.”
“No way,” she says, her mouth hanging open. “For real?”
Did it just get much hotter in here? Maybe I’m the one who’s going to be carsick now.
“Wait, do you guys all know this already?” Sonia asks, turning to Joey.
“Sunny, I’ve known Cole since he was nine,” Joey says. “I know when he got his first boner. That’s a much funnier story.”
“Come on, man,” I say. “Really?”
“So what did you do?” she asks, her voice sort of tentative. “Like, graffiti or something?”
“No, not graffiti,” I say.
“Breaking and entering? It wasn’t embezzlement, I assume.”
“No, no, of course nothing like that,” I say. “I used to deal a little weed in high school, that’s all. No big deal. I got set up by a couple of jocks my junior year and got busted and had to spend some time cooling it in the youth house, and then I never did it again. That’s the whole story, honest.”
“Oh,” she says, and then settles back into me. “Man, you’ve been keeping that under your hat, and you were mad at me for not telling you I know Jason Foley? Seriously?”
“I know,” I say. “I’m sorry.” I turn and look out the window. My face feels heavy with shame and my chest feels like it’s made of sand that’s just blowing away in the wind.
“I can’t believe you guys don’t play that story up in your interviews,” she says. “Do you have any idea how sexy that reformed bad-boy angle is? Talk about a missed opportunity. If you’d let me handle your publicity . . .”
“Sunny!” I say, busting out with an unexpected laugh. “Wait, are you serious?”
“You know, I never thought about it that way,” Emmy says. “She does have a point.”
“Right, like Cole needs more girls flocking to him after shows,” Joey says. “Wait, can we say it was me?”
“Sure, be my guest,” I say.
When Sunny puts her hand in mine and squeezes it, and I see that look of understanding on her face, I feel myself breathe normal again for the first time in an hour. But if I really think about it, of course she would understand. This is Sunny, here. She might be a rich girl with a high-powered lawyer for a dad, but she’s also got ink and she walked away from a spot at Juilliard because she knows what’s really important to her, and I know it’s not appearances or what other people think. She’s not going to think I’m a total loser just because I’ve made some mistakes in my past, because she’s Sunny.
And Sunny is awesome.
Chapter Ten
Cole
By midafternoon it’s hot as hell and Steady Beth’s air-conditioning is barely keeping up. I’m trying hard not to sweat on Sonia, who’s napping in my arms in the backseat, but I can feel my forehead is damp, my T-shirt starts to stick to my back. Joey and Emmy have both fallen asleep, too. We’re cruising the speed limit on a quiet stretch of interstate somewhere between Bowling Green and Nashville when Travis slows down to pull off the road.
“What’s up?” I ask. “Everything okay?”
“Look who we have here,” he says. I look up, out through the windshield, and see Crown’s green Ram van pulled off on the shoulder with the hood open, and Elliot and Vincent bent over the engine. Miles and Anton are standing on the grassy bank. They grin and give us the finger as we pass them.
“Aren’t you stopping?” I say.
“Yeah, but look up ahead,” Travis says. “They picked a great spot to break down.”
Just past the van, I see an enormous warehouse with a red roof and what looks like a blue inflatable dildo on the roof, but that’s no dildo—it’s a rocket.
GOLD
CITY FIREWORKS EMPORIUM the sign screams in red, white, and blue block letters as tall as I am.
“Now that was swell of them,” I say with a grin and nudge Joey awake. “Wake up, Marmaduke. We’ve got some shopping to do.”
Joey’s eyes flutter open, and when he sees where we are, he grins from ear to ear.
“Mecca,” Joey says, in awe.
Now, for two Jersey boys like me and Joey, the sight of such a place makes us a little giddy. You can’t buy fireworks in Jersey. You have to go to Pennsylvania or, better yet, to the South for Black Cats and Roman candles or basically anything that’s actually fun. So “kid in a candy store” doesn’t even begin to describe what we’re about here.
But first, after we wake the girls, we walk down to the highway to see if we can help Crown out. Travis, Mr. Jiffy Lube (he really does work at Jiffy Lube, at least for now), carries his toolbox with him. We can hear Elliot cursing while Vincent wipes grease off his face with a rag. Miles waves when he sees us approach, but Anton greets us with an empty Snapple bottle with a bottle rocket pointed right at us and a lighter at the ready. Sonia ducks behind me while Emmylou stands there, hands on her hips.
“Come on, Anton,” she says. “Cut the shit.”
“You sabotaged us!” Anton says. “We know it was you!”
“What was us?” Travis asks.
“Looks like somebody fucked with our van,” Miles says. “She hasn’t been running right ever since we left Lexington this morning.”
“Come on, you know it wasn’t us,” Travis says. “Want me to take a look at it? I can probably get you guys up and running.”
“Want me to take a look at it?” Anton says in a mocking tone of voice. “You think we’re letting you anywhere near our chariot, grease jock?” He lights the rocket, and we all turn our backs to him and hunch over as it goes whizzing over our heads.
“Sunny, I forfeit my dining budget for the week,” Joey says, rolling up his sleeves, a dangerous look in his eye. “Because this is war.”
***
Tuesday, August 15, 1995
Red Rose Coffee House, Murfreesboro, TN
With Crown the Robin and Tindermelt