by J. C. Geiger
Lance wanted to be clean like enamel after a mirror-and-scalpel scraping. He rubbed the stubble on his cheeks and chin and smelled the horror of his armpits, then picked through the pile of clothes for something to salvage. The shirt from the accident, splattered with blood. Last night’s jeans stank like beef jerky. He shook out a blue-and-white-striped shirt and a pair of khakis.
He brushed his teeth twice and did the best he could with no razor and no iron. When the steam cleared from the bathroom, he looked like a fair approximation of Lance from Bend. He struck his best pose of respectability in the mirror, but something was missing. He replayed his mantras:
You are valedictorian.
You are the first-chair trumpet player.
You have a full-ride scholarship.
Miriam Seavers—
Miriam. Had he really forgotten to call Miriam? And his trumpet!
A low throb in his skull, carrying a single thought:
GO HOME.
Things were slipping away. Hours, days, mantras. He’d pile everything in this room onto a tarp, drop it over his shoulder and run. He was valedictorian. He could figure this out. But Mason had his trumpet. The cold sweat of panic and Lance was pulling on shoes, out the door. Walking across the parking lot, there was only The Float and his horn. And a voice that said:
“Hey you.”
Dakota, on her front patio. Kicking back in a green chair.
He mumbled something back. Too early for Dakota. Too early to be a person. He hadn’t digested all their memories from last night, and here she was again, piling them on.
“You’re in a hurry,” she said.
“I need to get my horn.”
“Mason won’t be up,” Dakota said, glancing at The Float. “I wouldn’t go over there. He’s not good in the morning.”
How did she know Mason wasn’t good in the morning? Lance kept looking from Dakota to The Float, trying to make his brain do something. According to his phone, it was 10:26 a.m. The backs of his eyes ached. Hollow stomach. An incoming hangover, getting worse by the minute.
“Wow,” Dakota said, looking him up and down.
“What?”
“Are those clothes serious?”
“What do you mean?”
“Are you seriously wearing them?”
Lance looked down.
“Yeah,” he said.
“Those are pleated khakis.”
“They’re wrinkled.”
“Wrinkled and pleated.”
“What the hell is a pleat?” he said.
Dakota pinched a fold just above his knee. His skin tingled. A lightning bolt, skittering up his thigh. He stepped back and looked down at the crease.
“What’s wrong with pleats?”
“Nothing. If you weigh four hundred pounds or have grandbabies.”
Lance sighed. He did not understand pants. He didn’t understand what made them cool and what made them uncool. He was unclear how a bootcut differed from a straight fit and how a guy’s ass was supposed to look in jeans. He’d look over his shoulder in the mirror, but his ass remained cryptic. Beyond comprehension.
“My mom buys my pants,” he said.
“Yes. That is obvious. You need a new wardrobe consultant,” she said. “You have a reputation to uphold, Wildman. C’mon.”
Dakota’s car relaxed him. Her scent dropped his shoulders below his ears, and he sank into the car. The hug of a seatbelt and he was breathing, wind whipping through the windows, making his head less sticky.
“I could just do laundry,” Lance said.
“There’s no Laundromat for twenty-five miles.”
“How do people get clean clothes?”
“That’s what thrift shops are for.”
“Oh, man. I need my car.” Lance pressed his palms to his eyes. “I need my horn.”
“There will be time.” Fifteen miles away, Last Chance Thrift was the only operational business in a withering strip mall. Hollowed-out storefronts: A Stitch in Time, Buzzers, Pridays—windows dark and plastered with advertisements, posters, lost-pet flyers. But plenty of cars in the parking lot.
Apparently Last Chance Thrift was a happening spot.
Dakota led Lance through a crowd of elderly clothes-pickers to a back corner of the store labeled vintage threadz. The place smelled somewhere between an antique bookstore and a day-old bakery outlet.
“Vintage Threadz. With a Z?” Lance asked.
“Oh yeah.”
Dakota rifled through the racks, plucking shirts and jeans from their hangers, each with a single, clean jerk, like a seasoned fruit-picker. In under a minute, her right arm was a bolt of denim and fitted T-shirts.
“Those look nothing like me,” Lance said, pointing at her arm.
“No,” Dakota said, pointing to his pleats. “That looks nothing like you.”
Lance could not come out of the fitting room. The jeans rode low on his hips. Torn at the knees, ostensibly on purpose. The gray-and-black T-shirt flared at the shoulders and narrowed at his waist, like a V. Or maybe his body did that. The material hugged his chest so he could see the outlines of his pecs. Man boobs. But they didn’t look bad. Or maybe they did.
“Weird,” he said.
He took a breath and stepped out of the dressing room.
Dakota spun. Her eyes widened.
“Holy shit,” she said.
Lance leapt back and slammed the door.
“Hey, hey,” she said, tapping at the door. “Open up.”
“What,” he said, cracking the door. She wedged her hand inside, pulled it open.
“You look great,” she said. Her eyes were sparkling. A new kind of smile. “Damn, boy.”
“I’m changing back.”
“Don’t you dare put those pants back on,” she said. “I’ll make you walk home.”
“You won’t.”
“Don’t test me.”
His rumpled khakis and stripes lay in the corner of the dressing room, like he was a snake who had just molted. He gathered everything up and stepped out into the shopping area. People were staring. One graying woman with a plume of purple hair looked him up and down like a piece of furniture she wanted to take home and sit on.
“What do you think?” Dakota asked her.
“Mmm-hmm, girl,” she said, and winked. “You’d better get him home.”
“Oh my god,” Lance said. He stalked straight out through the front door and stood waiting beside Dakota’s car. No sign of her. Two minutes. Three minutes. She finally came outside, grinning.
“What took you so long?” he asked.
“You forgot to pay for your clothes, Wildman. You a shoplifter now, too?”
“Oh man,” he said. He searched his jeans for a wallet, then burrowed into his khakis.
“Don’t worry,” she said. “The pleasure’s all mine.”
In Dakota’s car, Lance didn’t know what to say. His new clothes were tight and squeezing him in strange places. Thankfully, she had stopped looking him up and down. He didn’t know how he’d react, and these jeans couldn’t keep a secret. He could plainly see the rectangular outline of his phone bulging up from his thigh.
When the phone started buzzing, he couldn’t get it out of his pants.
“Ah, jeans!”
He twisted and arched his back, writhing against the seat. He had to turn himself sideways to get the right angle. Dakota was still laughing, crying apparently, by the time he finally answered.
“Hi, William,” Lance said, out of breath. “How do things look?”
“Hey, Lance. Why don’t you just come on by.”
“What? Come on by where?”
“The shop.”
“Can’t you just tell me what’s happening?”
“I’d rather show you, if it’s all the same.”
William gave directions, Lance repeated them back, then hung up. Dakota pulled onto the shoulder.
“So?” she asked.
“He wants me to come to the shop. He won’t explain why.”
“He killed my car,” Lance said. “I’m next.”
Dakota pulled a U-turn and hit the gas.
“You’re taking me?”
“Oh yeah. Horror movie rule number one. Never split up.”
“Right,” Lance said. “What are the other rules?”
“No smoking. No going in basements. Virgins tend to live until the end.”
She looked at him. Lance kept his legs still, and his mouth shut.
On Lance’s phone, the destination dot for Goodview Towing sat on a nameless gray line that intersected with a state highway Dakota had only been on once before. They left the highway and climbed into forest. A steep one-lane road bent around hairpin turns, the shoulder narrowing until pavement met cliffside at a ninety-degree angle.
Without a word, Dakota twisted the car into a gap in the greenery. They rattled down a long gravel drive to an open gate laced with barbed wire. A wooden sign, painted with elegant black letters:
the boneyard.
“Not a great name,” Dakota said.
“No. Not great.”
They got out of the car.
Walking into the Boneyard was like entering the climactic discovery scene of a true-crime movie. The killer’s corpses were on display, as if there was some pride involved: A Ford truck with eviscerated hoses splayed across its hood. An ’80s-era Celebrity, compacted and blackened like an overcooked potato. An accordioned convertible. Others, jacked up, stripped of their tires, and left in the sun to rot.
But no Buick. Maybe it wasn’t too late.
“Where’s his shop?” she asked.
“No clue,” Lance said.
Dakota whistled something scary, probably from a horror movie.
“Can you please stop?”
Lance led the way, feeling slightly more rugged in denim. Cars, everywhere. A hedge maze of metal and broken glass. Vehicles without doors, spray-painted silver. A radiator. Pile of tires. Dakota was close behind him. Maybe he should hold her hand.
A sudden motion to Lance’s right and he leapt back, fists flying up to defend himself. A beast! A creature! A very small dog, leaping onto the hood of a Crown Victoria. The cocker spaniel growled, baring its teeth.
“Daisy! Goddamn it!” Lance said.
“Hey there!” William said, jack-in-the-boxing into view. “Glad you found us.” He came around a pile of crushed bumpers and introduced himself to Dakota, then led them through the Boneyard.
“That guy’s your mechanic?” Dakota said.
“I don’t know if he’s my mechanic. He’s a mechanic.”
“Let’s hope so.”
William was waiting for them outside a squat, gray building. He smiled.
“Where’s the shop?” Dakota said.
“You’re looking at it,” William said. “Just me and the missus.”
William’s shop was apparently a single-stall residential garage illuminated by one halogen lamp clamped to a steel shelf. Rusted blue toolbox on the ground, scattered parts.
And what was left of the Buick.
The doors were wide open. Hood up, insides gutted. Hoses, wires, and cables draped over its sides. Someone hunched in the driver’s seat. A flash of orange hair and weathered cheeks briefly conjured William’s evil twin—but no—this was a woman. Small flashlight in her mouth. Face slick with sweat.
The Missus.
“Hey there,” she mumbled around the light.
“What’s going on?” Lance asked.
“That’s what we’d like to know!” She cackled at her own joke. William, too, roared with laughter, and the sounds ricocheted off the tight concrete walls, making the garage sound like an asylum.
“Mary, tell him what you found,” William said.
“I had to go into the dashboard,” Mary said, shaking her head. “Whole thing is dead. Speedometer. Gas gauge. Nothin’ works!” Wires spilled out beneath the dash.
“Lance, c’mere.” William stepped to the side and aimed a flashlight into the guts of the engine. “See that little wiggly wire? That little one. You see that?”
“Yeah.”
“Looks wiggly, don’t it?”
“It does.”
“See, I don’t remember them wires being that wiggly. Could be somethin’ there. See, babe? That wiggly wire?”
“Lance, get in,” Mary said. “William will show you how she starts up.” Lance switched places with her. The interior reeked of Old Spice and motor oil. This car had spent the night with someone else. He tried to ignore the conduit spilling around his ankles. Fragments of plastic and clipped wires that did not look like they could be put back together. William stood beside the engine with an aerosol can.
“Now grab that key and get ready,” he said, eyes dancing with glee. “Crank it!”
Lance turned the key.
“Keep going! Keep cranking!”
Lance twisted until the Buick was grinding. Squealing. Begging him to stop. William sprayed a stream of oil from his can. The engine popped like a firecracker, then died.
“See how it starts?” William said.
“Yeah,” Lance said. The word tasted like lead.
“That’s encouraging, ain’t it? Go on and crank it again. Hard.”
“I don’t think that’s good for the car,” Lance said.
“Probably not,” Mary said.
“True. Probably not,” William said, nodding. “So how about that wiggly wire, Lance? What do you think?”
Lance did not attempt to see the wiggly wire. Instead, he looked back at the dash and remembered preparing the Buick for a trip with his grandmother a few years ago. His father had removed a fuse to make the check engine light go off.
That’ll kill the dummy light. Let’s not give Grandma anything to worry about.
“Have you checked the fuses?” Lance asked.
Mary and William stared back at him. Then William dug in his toolbox and came out with a handful of green and yellow fuses. Lance thumbed them in while Mary turned the key, feeding whatever juice the battery had left into the dash. After the third or fourth fuse, she cried out.
“Hallelujah!” Mary said. “Let there be light.”
“Nice!” Dakota said.
Lance sat back and smiled. The check engine light was on.
“Seatbelt light’s on too,” Mary said. “Battery light. Lookee.”
“Still empty on the gas gauge,” William grumbled. “Speedometer shows zero.”
“Well the car ain’t movin’, William.”
“Have him crank it again.”
Lance tried. The engine grunted, choked.
“Go on. Fire her up!” William lifted his can with a wild-eyed grin.
“I think,” Lance said, forming his words carefully, “we should bring the Buick to a specialist.” Dakota nodded.
“Specialist?” William said. “So, wait. You want to go somewhere else?”
Lance pulled out the key and stared at the dashboard.
“I told you not to bring him here,” Mary whispered.
She led Lance and Dakota into their office, more art gallery than repair shop. The walls were crammed with half-finished oil paintings. A crusty loaf of bread, perfectly textured and lying on a pencil sketch of a table. A crow leaving its invisible perch. The largest piece was a wall-size rendering of the seashore at night: craggy cliffs and sparkling seafoam under a white canvas sky.
Mary rifled through a drawer, then pushed a form across the counter.
Lance paused and read the numbers twice. “One hundred eighty-seven dollars?”
“Yup,” Mary said.
“But you didn’t fix anything!”
“Diagnostics,” Mary said, tapping the invoice. There it was. Circled. Underlined. DIAGNOSTICS. Lance felt the loss of the $187 like the removal of a kidney. He shook his head, denying it.
“Just a minute,” Mary said. “I’ll bring you the keys.”
Lance stepped outside with Dakota. Opposite the Boneyard, a line of hedgerow evergreens caught his eye. Flashes of silver-blue flickered between their branches and without a word, they were walking in that direction. Grass rose from ankle to knee until they reached the living wall and saw, beyond it, the lip of a water-worn ravine. A slope of ferns dipped, then rose and broke off into a wide and wild ocean view.
“Whoa,” Dakota said. “Good eye!”
“I thought there might be something here,” he said.
On the horizon, a small blue suspension bridge.
“Hey,” Lance said. He grabbed his wallet.
“What?” Dakota asked.
He held up the Goodview Towing business card.
“Whoa. Who made this?” Dakota asked.
“Had to be William,” Lance said.
A sound like broken wind chimes. Car keys. It was Mary, walking a deliberate, crooked path in their direction.
“Well there you go,” Mary said, slapping the keys in his palm.
“Thank you,” Lance said.
“Nice view,” Mary said. Her eyes, so blue. Lance hadn’t noticed them before. She glanced back toward the office. “Told him not to let you in the garage. People don’t want to see garages. Kitchens neither. They want it all to be magic.”
Past her, beyond the Boneyard, stood a bigleaf maple. Leaves flapped like green flags and William stood in the shade, smoking a cigarette. His posture was fixed straight up and down. “So why did he want me to come?” Lance asked.
“He said you had the charm.” Mary looked him up and down. He followed her eyes, freshly startled by his clothing. He smoothed out his T-shirt.
“Yep. Will’s old man just charmed them. Had that magic up his sleeves. Couldn’t always tell you what was wrong, but could always make her run. Every time.”
“And William thinks Lance has the charm?” Dakota asked.
“That’s crazy,” Lance said.
“What’s crazy about that?” Mary said. “You got your dash working in five minutes flat.”
“That’s just a trick my dad showed me.” She fixed him with those eyes, like she was reaching under his dashboard and grabbing out his wires. Then she turned toward her husband.
“William don’t have it,” she said plainly.
William had refreshed his cigarette. So still, as if sunk in the earth up to his ankles.