Downers Grove

by Michael Hornburg

  My heart was racing with love and worry. I imagined visiting Bobby in the hospital, visiting him in jail, but never in the winner’s circle. I looked over at my mechanic and watched him breathe in the milky morning light. Outside I could hear cars on the highway hurling into the distance. Inside everything was perfectly still, only a patchwork of stale smells competed for my attention. The fold-out couch was so small there was nowhere to move. I closed my eyes and let my thoughts parade around in circles. The Godzilla movie ended, and the television became a snow pattern of fuzzy blue light warming the room like an electric fireplace.

  “Bobby?” I whispered. “I have to go home.”

  He rolled over and kissed me, then slid his hand up my shirt.

  “Now?” he asked.

  “Well, not this second.”

  FIRECRACKER

  THE sun came up and started to bake the trailer. I woke up sweating. I sat at the edge of the couch and found myself trying to snap together a few buttons between when I left home and where I was now. Bobby was anxious and flopped around the trailer like a fish out of water. When he finally burst outside all the warmth of the couch was replaced with the creeping chill of dawn, all the romance of the night before was exchanged for the complications of sunlight.

  I walked out to the car and Bobby whisked me home. The sky was lit by an overlapping pattern of mushy gray clouds. The car felt cold and had a hollowness to it that I had never noticed before. All I wanted to do was brush my teeth and curl up in my bed, but then I realized I might have to deal with Mom. Hopefully she spent the night with the astronaut. Bobby looked tired and worried and anxious to get me out of the car.

  When we pulled up in front of my house I planted a major kiss on his face.

  “I have to try and get a hold of Danny,” he said, checking his rearview mirror, as if we might have been followed. “He might be able to help me out.”

  “I wish there was something I could do,” I said.

  “I’ll be all right.” He tried to be reassuring.

  “I can probably scrape together another hundred dollars,” I said.

  “I feel so lame taking your money, especially after what happened.” He seemed embarrassed.

  “You’re not taking it. You’re borrowing it. I know you need it and I know you’re the type to return a favor. Maybe I’m a fool, but I like the idea of you owing me something.”

  “I gotta leave tonight,” he said. “Should we meet somewhere?”

  “I’ll have to go downtown to get the money. How about Starbuck’s or the Tivoli Lanes? I don’t think anything else is open.”

  “Let’s do the bowling alley.” He checked his mirror again. “What time?”

  “Sometime after eight,” I said.

  He leaned over and kissed me, then shifted the car into gear. I knew it was time for me to disappear. I didn’t know what to say. And even though he asked me to come with him, there was an overwhelming feeling in my heart that I might never see him again. He had a look on his face that was anything but reassuring.

  “Be careful, Bobby.” I got out of the car and closed the door, then watched him bank around the cul-de-sac corner and accelerate up the hill. My heart sank into my stomach. There’s nothing worse than falling in love with impossibility. I picked up the newspaper and headed up the driveway.

  There was a strange beeping sound coming from the side of the house. I walked around to check it out, and there was Grandma scanning the yard for treasure or something. She was wearing headphones and waving a broom-size electric wand over the grass. When she saw me she waved me over.

  “What are you doing, Grandma?” I asked.

  “Oh, just snooping.” She pulled her headphones off. “The microphones on this baby are so powerful I can hear the earthworms eating breakfast.”

  “That’s lovely,” I said.

  “You’re up awfully early,” Grandma said. “I usually never see anything stirring around here until way past nine.”

  “I was just getting the paper.”

  “Was that the paperboy?” she asked.

  “Who? That?” I scrambled to reshuffle my story. “That was Bobby. The guy I was telling you about.”

  “You look a little shook up. What’s the matter?”

  I didn’t answer her and she knew I was hiding something.

  “If you can’t trust me you can’t trust anybody,” she said. “And that’s a terrible place to be.” She shook her head and looked down at the grass.

  “I trust you, Grandma, it’s just hard for me to talk about.”

  Grandma turned off her gadget. “Some men are like holding a firecracker in your hand,” she said. “They’re exciting when the fuse is lit, but if you hold on too long the results can be real painful.”

  “You can say that again.”

  “Sometimes you gotta throw it and get out of the way.” She jumped a step to animate her idea. “It’s gonna hurt, but not as much as if you try to hold on.”

  Grandma slipped on her headphones and went back to her lost treasure. I wasn’t sure I agreed or even wanted to agree with all of Grandma’s prophecies, but I walked up behind her and gave her a huge hug anyway.

  “I love you, Grandma,” I said.

  “I love you too, Chrissie.” Grandma disappeared behind an evergreen.

  I gave a short prayer to the God of missing moms and slid my key into the slot, pushed the door open, and quickly unlaced my shoes. The house was dead silent. I crept into the kitchen, found the note from Mom, and felt a major sense of relief. There was a reference to money, but I’m sure that was long gone into the bloodstream of my brother. I took a banana out of the fruit bowl, then climbed the stairs and fell onto my bed. I tried to focus on some schoolwork because I’ve got so many reports due now it’s not funny. For English, I’m finishing an essay on slacker god Winnie-the-Pooh; for science, I’m taking on space junk, which basically has no real function other than to make the weather more exciting on the six o’clock news; and for history, I’m photographing the hundred and fifty Sears-Roebuck homes built in Downers Grove. I’ve only done one roll of film, so it’s gonna be hell around here for a while. Are you there, God? It’s me, Chrissie.

  The trouble with love is that it’s never perfect. When it comes to mating the fit has to be tight as two puzzle pieces, any space between personalities only gets bigger. The space in between Mom and Dad was like a truck stop, a place to say hello and order pancakes. Bobby is supercharged trouble. I can deal with his messy trailer, but I wasn’t sure I wanted to be the Bonnie for his Clyde. Our relationship felt similar to riding an escalator that keeps returning to the same floor, I knew I was never going any higher on the priority list.

  I closed my eyes and raced toward a whiteness so pure it was colorless, but all my thoughts circled back to the mechanic, his car, his trailer, his garage, his incredibly romantic and disasterous life. The vagabond car thief probably has a carbon copy past of his more than reckless present. He drifted here without directions and would probably disappear with the same abandon. One of these days he’s going to make the wrong turn and end up trapped by his own ambition. I just hope he survives the transition.

  TIVOLI LANES

  TRACY was stressing over finals, the curse, and her lack of a serious relationship this close to summer and the last thing she wanted to do was go knock down some pins at Tivoli Lanes. I called her anyway.

  “Hello?” Tracy said.

  “Remember all the favors I’ve done for you lately?” I asked.

  “No.”

  “Like introducing you to that guy at the garage?”

  “I introduced myself and he never called me. Get to the point.”

  “I need a humongous favor. Please, please, please come to the bowling alley with me for an hour.”

  “Tracy lets go here. Tracy lets go there. I am not your chauffeur. Besides, my mom is using the car.”

  “Then we’ll have to walk.”

  “Oh yeah, right. Walk. I’m sure.”

&
nbsp; “It’s the last chance I’ll ever get to see him! Tracy—I’ll owe you forever.”

  “You already owe me forever.”

  “Listen, I’ll talk to my brother.”

  “I’ve heard that promise before.”

  “Please! I’m begging!”

  “Are you on your knees?”

  “Tracy, please!”

  There was a long silence, but finally Tracy gave in. “All right. I’ll be over in a little while.”

  Tracy was late as usual. “I can’t believe we’re walking,” she said. It was only about a fifteen-minute walk downtown, but Tracy made sure it seemed like days. We stopped at the bank and I withdrew another hundred dollars.

  “You shouldn’t give him any more money,” Tracy said. I knew it was wrong, but I also knew that Tracy would have done the exact same thing if she were in my shoes.

  The bowling alley was tucked underground opposite the Main Street train station. It still smelled like the fifties, a sweet mix of Brylcreem, soda pop, and cigarettes. The air-conditioning was on year-round so you always had to bring a sweater. The old-timer behind the bar looked like he’d been there since the day they opened. He was watching the Sox game, blasting from the color TV perched over the bar like an electronic gargoyle. We ordered root beers and spiked them with miniatures. Vodka and root beer was my favorite. The old man handed us our shoes—a pair of fives and a pair of sixes—then I went and found my favorite purple sparkle ball. Tracy always goes first.

  Tracy got up and cooled her hand over the air vent, then retrieved her ball and let it rip. She had a very quick release, as if her ball was just one more burden she couldn’t wait to get rid of. I sat at the scorer’s table and filled in all the preliminary information.

  Needless to say I bowled like shit. Tracy on the other hand was on a roll. The gutterball queen even had a strike. Bobby didn’t show up until the sixth frame. He slipped in unnoticed and dropped into an orange Formica chair.

  “You got a cigarette?” he asked. I handed him one of Tracy’s. He looked paranoid and untrustworthy, but still had an air of innocence clinging to him that made him completely adorable, like a dog who ate all the cake and was left outside the screen door.

  “You mad at me or something?” he asked.

  “Why should I be mad? You disappear, you reappear. You’re like a superhero to me.”

  “I don’t make the rules.”

  “You don’t follow them either.”

  Tracy beat me for the very first time. I couldn’t concentrate. I was trying to figure out a way to keep Bobby from running away. I could get in the car and go for a ride, but in the back of my mind I knew that if he got caught there would be something in it for me too, and who knows how much farther he would be willing to go when things got truly desperate. Bobby reeked of hard time, and I knew in my heart that he wasn’t the type to surrender. When the police came to his window it would not be pretty.

  I unlaced my shoes and slipped into my romper stompers.

  “Imagine if AIDS was a foot disease,” Tracy said.

  “The entire Midwest would have been devestated,” I said.

  “What are you two talking about?” Bobby asked.

  “Girl talk,” I said.

  I set my bowling shoes on the counter and led Bobby up the steep stairs. A train was rolling through town and it had the sound of destiny wrapped all around it. Bobby looked anxious and I knew he wanted to go. I knew there was nothing I could do to stop him. I kissed him in front of the Tivoli Hotel like I never wanted him to forget me. He rubbed his hand in my hair, then down my back. I laid my head on his chest and listened to the train wheels clack and squeal. Bobby smelled like smoke and nervous sweat. I started leaning away from him, but he just clung tighter.

  “You’re not going, are you?” He sounded remorseful. I looked into Bobby’s eyes and suddenly realized how lonely he truly was, that he really had no one to turn to, that he more than likely had nowhere to go, that everything he told me about his past was probably lies or pleasant landscapes he’d created for himself. Why else would he be so aloof and yet so needy?

  He waited for an answer.

  “I can’t,” I said.

  Bobby looked both ways, as if the cops were ready to ambush us any second. I reached in my pocket and handed him another portion of my life savings. He took it and stuffed it in his pocket.

  “It’s not much,” I said.

  “It’s more than I deserve.” He leaned over and kissed me. “I really appreciate it.” He looked up as the last cars of the train whizzed by, smiling nervously, trying to be reassuring, but Bobby was obviously completely unsure himself. He shook his car keys, as if he got what he came for and was now anxious to get the show on the road. “I wish there was some way I could return the favor,” he said.

  “How about a ride home,” Tracy said before I could say anything.

  Bobby led us around the back of the Tivoli Theater to an alley garage. Tracy took the backseat and I sat up front with my mechanic. Bobby cranked the stereo. It was too loud to talk, so I just leaned against the car door and watched Bobby drive. Tracy and I occasionally glanced at each other, but that was the extent of our communication. Bobby was wired, smoking like a fiend. His lips moved slowly, as if he were having some kind of private confession with the voices in his head. Oncoming headlights flushed the car with pockets of light, black shadows slid through the car.

  When we pulled up to the intersection at Fifty-fifth and Main I glanced out the window and watched my worst nightmare roll up beside us. I saw them and they saw me. Neckbrace and his friends jumped out of the car and started barking like dogs.

  “What’s this all about?” my mechanic asked.

  “Go!” I said.

  My mechanic looked at me like I was crazy. “It’s a red light.” He pointed.

  “Go!”

  “I see they got a new windshield.” Tracy laughed.

  “It’s a different car,” I said.

  The monsters circled Bobby’s car. Neckbrace took a swing with a baseball bat and knocked out a front headlight.

  “Who the fuck are these assholes?” Bobby threw his car in reverse and nearly backed over the onion-headed one.

  “Jealous boyfriends,” Tracy said.

  Bobby made a U-turn in reverse and took off down Main Street. Chuckie and his collection of future ex-convicts piled back into their car and gave chase. My mechanic turned left onto Maple, but the deathcar was right behind us. He turned right into Denburn Woods, but they stuck with us like paint.

  I was waiting for some smart-aleck comment from the backseat, but Tracy was busy trying to figure out how the seat belt worked.

  “Why are these guys so angry with you?” my mechanic asked.

  “Wormface tried to rape the dish of Downers Grove,” Tracy shouted while looking out the back window. “We gave them a little medicine, but I guess they need another dose.”

  “What did she say?”

  “The last time they fucked with us one of them ended up in the hospital.” I turned and saw the deathcar racing up behind us.

  “Chrissie threw a car battery through their windshield,” Tracy yelled.

  He looked over at me and smiled. “That wasn’t very nice,” he said.

  “Hey, wait five minutes, you’ll want to throw a battery through their windshield too,” I protested.

  Bobby swerved through one cul-de-sac after another, winding back toward the tracks. This was the first time I ever prayed for cops. There are eight zillion cops in Downers Grove and not one anywhere in sight. They were probably all busy busting a kegger in Woodridge or something.

  The deathcar stayed on our case, skipping stop signs. When we got trapped at a traffic light the white plague pulled up beside us and began hooting and hollering like a bunch of dogs again. My valentine waved a gun at us while his buddy in the backseat made obscene gestures with a baseball bat.

  “Oh my God, he’s got a gun.” I shook Bobby’s arm.

  “What
an asshole,” Tracy said. “Thinks he’s a fucking Quentin Tarantino or something.”

  “I don’t need this right now,” Bobby chipped in.

  When the light turned green Bobby accelerated and the deathcar followed beside us. Neckbrace reached out of the window and fired his gun at Bobby’s front tire.

  “Oh my God, he shot at us.” I grabbed Bobby’s arm.

  “Let go!” He shook away my hand. Bobby swerved onto the shoulder and almost took out a mailbox. He looked worried and that made me even more scared.

  “We need to find some cops,” Tracy shouted. “That guy is fucking crazy. He’ll kill us.” Bobby pulled ahead and cut them off. Neckbrace and his friends swerved into the right lane and rolled up beside us.

  “No cops,” Bobby said. “Ask him if he wants to race.”

  “What?”

  “Go ahead, ask him.”

  “Are you crazy?” I asked.

  “My car against his, winner takes all.”

  Tracy rolled down her window and tilted her head toward them.

  “You’re dead, bitch!” my sweetheart said, pointing his gun at her. “You and the other one. We don’t care about the faggot.” He laughed, as if what he said was funny.

  “My friend wants to race his car against yours, what do you say?” Tracy asked.

  “You want to race?” He seemed surprised, then turned to his friends. They discussed it for about half a second, then my valentine pointed his gun right at me. I about shit in my pants.

  “We’re just gonna wait until you run out of gas.” He laughed hysterically like some psycho wanna-be, then turned and took another shot at Bobby’s front tire. Missed again. Bobby accelerated and pulled ahead of them.

  “Fasten your seat belts,” he said.