“What should I do?” I ask.
My father lets out a long sigh.
“Stay out of trouble,” he says.
“So I shouldn’t do anything?” I ask.
“They could use your help in the detailing area,” he says.
That means more cleaning. I’m sick of cleaning. I’m a teenager. We’re used to a certain level of filth in our daily lives. In fact, we prefer it.
“I’ll need to be home by four to feed John Glenn,” I say.
“We’ll be leaving at three.”
Great. I’m going to spend the next three hours polishing cars. I hate wax. It’s always been a substance that’s difficult for me to appreciate.
“Your Godzilla is crooked,” I say.
“No, it’s not. You’re just looking at it from an angle.”
I shake my head. And walk off to the detail shop tucked at the back of the car lot.
“Lenny,” I hear my father yell. “Is the lizard leaning?”
I don’t turn back around. I hope Godzilla falls on its fire-breathing face. Big-time.
***
“Q-tips work well for cleaning crevice dirt,” Johanna says.
Johanna Izzo is a plain-looking brunette. She’s always been kind to me. I think she had a crush on Liam. But I don’t think Liam crushed back. She’s worked at my father’s car lot since she graduated from high school three years ago. Just like those woolly mammoths that wandered into the tar pits during prehistoric times, I think she’s stuck. Why else would she be here? This place reeks of glass cleaner.
“You’re great at polishing tires,” Johanna says.
She knows I’m miserable. She’s trying her best to cheer me. Really, all I’m doing is spraying a thick foam coat onto the tire’s surface and watching the white fluff melt away.
“Are you excited for your senior year?” she asks.
“I guess,” I say.
“I know what you mean. It’s not the big deal that everybody makes it out to be. It’s just another year.”
I nod, but really, I think she’s wrong. It’s a HUGE deal. After senior year, you aren’t in high school anymore. Unless you fail, you’re booted out into the real world. Or if you’re lucky, you land in college for a few years until you get booted out into the real world for real.
“So you like it here?” I ask.
I think it’s a dumb question. But I don’t realize this until after I ask it.
“It’s okay. I’m saving up to move to Florida.”
“Do you have family there?” I ask.
“My grandma lives there. I want to work at a resort.”
“Doing what?”
“Anything. I want to live in a warm climate.”
“You and alligators,” I say.
She looks up and laughs. When she does this, she comes across as less average, almost cute.
“How much money does it take to move there?” I ask.
It seems like in three years that she should have been able to save up enough funds for the journey. How much is bus fare?
She shrugs and blushes.
“Well, I’m saving for me and my boyfriend.”
“I didn’t know you had a boyfriend.”
Something about cleaning cars makes people confess everything. It’s a little weird. I even feel on the verge of telling her a bit about my criminal past. But I know I won’t.
“So how’s Liam?” she asks. “Is he still in California?”
“Yeah, he’s a sophomore now. At Stanford.”
I always feel a little pretentious when I mention that he’s at Stanford. But he is.
“He was a lot of fun to work with,” she says.
Immediately, I feel tense and on guard. I sense in her comment an implicit comparison, like she’s saying detailing cars with Liam was more fun than detailing cars with me. It always comes down to this.
“He was so smart,” she says.
“He’s not dead,” I say.
“What?” she asks.
“You referred to him in the past tense. He’s not dead.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean to,” she says. “It’s just my experience with him was in the past.”
“Yeah.”
“He’s so smart,” she says.
“Stanford thinks so too,” I say.
“No, I’m being serious. I feel like I learned a lot working with him. He was always talking about interesting stuff.”
I so wish Johanna would shut up immediately. I could be talking about interesting stuff too. If I wanted.
“Did he talk about books?” I ask. Because, really, that’s not a true demonstration of intelligence. That’s just a demonstration of his ability to read and regurgitate facts that he gleaned from reading. It merely proves that he’s literate and has a memory.
“I learned a lot about the Potawatomi.”
I feel my stomach tighten. I don’t like to think of Johanna knowing more about my own heritage than I do.
“Before Liam I had no idea that the word Potawatomi meant keeper of the fire,” she says.
“Yeah,” I say. I guess I learned that too, at some point. But foreign words and phrases are pretty easy for me to forget. I struggle to retain vocabulary in Spanish class too.
“And he talked about the different bands. You’re part of the Pokagon Band of Potawatomi, right?” she asks. “Or was it the Prairie Band Potawatomi? I mix those two up.”
“Pokagon,” I say. But I don’t even know if that’s right.
“We need more Q-tips.”
I point to a large pile that I’ve accumulated while swiping dust from the corners of the dashboard and vent slats.
“You can use them more than once,” she says.
“Oh.”
I start reswiping them.
“Are you going to come in every day until school starts?” she asks.
She’s rubbing the windshield with newspapers until the glass squeaks.
“I don’t think so,” I say. “I think it’s just today.”
I swipe too hard. A Q-tip breaks off and falls inside a heating vent. I can see the torn end of the white stick, but I can’t reach it. I don’t mention this to Johanna.
“So, are you like Liam? Do you take culture trips? Do you go look at historic markers?”
Nobody has ever asked me questions like these before. Culture trips? They sound like field trips, only nerdier. And I’d never really thought of visiting historic markers as a legitimate activity. It’s something you do while scouting for rest areas when driving cross-country with your family.
“I live in a historic house,” I say.
I flip the vent closed to further conceal the broken Q-tip.
“You don’t drive out and look at Indian stuff?” she asks.
Besides Liam, I have never met anybody so hung up on American Indians. I almost don’t know what to say to her. It seems culturally insensitive to harp on somebody else’s culture like this. When I hung out with the Sarahs this never happened. We were too busy planning our crimes to consider any of our heritages.
“No, I don’t drive around looking at historical markers for Indian stuff,” I say.
“Liam took me to the monument of Chief White Pigeon at the 12 and 131 junction. It was neat,” she says.
I have heard of Chief White Pigeon, but I have no idea what he did. I wonder if this outing with Liam was an official date. How cheap of him if it was.
“I’m not like Liam,” I say. “I’m not hyper-curious about any of that. I’m busy with school. And I’m in the choir. And I have a dog now.”
I feel Johanna’s hand on my shoulder. It startles me. I hadn’t realized she was standing right there.
“I think Native Americans are cool,” she says. “I’ve read Ceremony by Leslie Marmon Silko. And I’m a huge fan of Sitting Bull and Geronimo and Sacagawea. It’s terrible what our country did to you guys.”
She’s frowning down on me, her face filled with sympathy. This is so weird. I wish she’d stop talking. Sh
e’s behaving like a public service announcement and it’s creeping me out.
“I’m only one-quarter Potawatomi. None of my family grew up on reservations. We’ve been completely suburban for generations,” I say. “I consider myself white.”
Johanna’s eyes widen. “Oh,” she says.
She walks away and resumes cleaning the windows. Things feel so weird. I wonder what she’s thinking? I’m not ashamed of being part Indian. It’s just not that important to me. I feel like I should explain this to her. But she’s practically a stranger. Why do I have to justify anything to her? I keep my hands moving. Sometimes a rote task can be a pleasant distraction.
“It’s time for my lunch break,” she says. “If you want, you can get started on the Subaru while I’m gone.”
She points to a green car parked outside the detail shop.
“Okay,” I say.
Johanna smiles at me before she goes. I almost smile back. She didn’t mean to be a weirdo. She was just trying to connect. She is such a nice, stuck person. Actually, probably most stuck people are nice. Most likely, that’s part of why they’re stuck. I wave good-bye to her.
“Oh, shit,” she says.
“What?” I ask.
“Godzilla,” she says. “It’s fallen on top of the Miata.”
“It has?” I ask. I find this fantastic. Finally, something has happened to cheer me up.
“That thing had been a catastrophe since day one,” she says.
I walk outside and watch Lenny and my father furiously pulling on the ropes, trying to lift his balloon body off of the shiny red car.
“A duck wouldn’t have tipped like that,” I say. “Ducks are sturdy.”
“What?” Johanna asks.
A guy pulls up in a turd-brown Buick and honks.
“See you in an hour,” she says. She climbs into the car and pecks the driver on the cheek. It seems automatic and unaffectionate.
I watch them drive off. The car looks old and heavy. Johanna’s hair flies out of the window in long wisps. I wonder if she’ll make it to Florida. Change is harder than it looks. “This is your fault!” I hear my father yell. “You slashed my line! You’re a cutthroat maniac!”
I walk toward the shouting. My stomach flutters with excitement. This is the most interesting thing that’s happened in a long, long time.
Chapter 20
My father is holding a thick yellow rope. He’s wagging it at a fat man in a gray suit.
“Sabotage!” my father yells. “Pure and simple.”
“You’re out of your mind, Trestle,” the fat man responds.
I look back and forth between the two. Lenny has taken hold of my father by the arm. Is my dad really going to fight the man in the suit?
“Your lizard’s too big and there’s a breeze. That’s your problem,” the fat man says.
“Big Don’s right,” Lenny says. “I think it’s the breeze.”
My father stares into the end of the rope like it contains some sort of answer. His face wrinkles in a pained disappointment.
“My ape may be shorter, but it holds its balance better,” Big Don says. “Lower center of gravity. It’s why squirrels don’t fall off roofs.”
“It’s the truth,” Lenny says.
Lenny lets go of my father’s arm and pats his shoulder.
Big Don twists his mouth into a smirk and turns on his heel to leave. “Only a dip would think a lizard would move cars,” he says.
My father springs forward. Lenny tries to grab his arm but it’s too late. This isn’t as amusing as it was five seconds ago. I don’t want to see my father assault the fat man. Big Don must be able to hear my father’s approach, because he tries to run. His belly wobbles over his pants.
“Dad! Stop!” I yell. “It’s not worth it.”
Amazingly, my father pauses. He ends his pursuit of Big Don and turns to face me. Big Don slows his pace and flips around.
“Your lizard isn’t the only unstable thing on your lot,” he says.
My father looks at him and looks to me. I think he might lunge toward Big Don again. That guy is a totally bloated jerk. But my father doesn’t. He shrugs his shoulders and shakes his head.
“Godzilla might be unstable, but he’s a helluva lot more attractive than your big, ugly ape,” he says.
Big Don takes a step back toward my father.
“All apes are ugly. They’re supposed to be, chief,” Big Don says.
My father looks away, like he didn’t hear the word “chief.” Normally, I might not have noticed it. But because of Johanna, because of my mother’s recent breakdown over my grandmother and great-grandmother, my mind is tuned to a frequency where I hear the word “chief.” And it stings. I turn back to look at my father. His chin is lifted. It sort of doesn’t make sense that Big Don would call my dad “chief.” He’s not Indian. It’s my mother who is half Potawatomi. I guess bigots shoot at the most available target. Even if it strains accuracy.
“My ape is a fine-looking specimen,” Big Don says.
I can’t take it. There’s something about his smug face that makes me want to erupt. Suddenly, I hate this guy. I totally and completely hate him. And I want to show him that he’s wrong. That he doesn’t know anything.
“Well, when standing, my dad’s lizard dwarfs your squatty ape,” I say.
I take my hand and karate chop the air at my waist. Then I karate chop the air a foot over my head.
“Dwarfs that horizontally challenged monkey,” I say.
I can feel everybody looking at me. Not glancing, but focusing all their attention on me. Big Don, Lenny, my father. It’s almost as if their eyeballs, their stares, give off some sort of heat, because I feel very, very warm. I realize that my hand is still extended in the air. It’s no longer making a chopping motion, but it’s still up there. I lower it.
Big Don inhales so deeply that his nostrils cave in. I’m not quite sure what’s going to happen next. Several cars whiz by us. Some of them brake so they can get a better look at the toppled Godzilla. From the right angle, it probably looks like it’s attacking the Miata.
“Godzilla rules,” a slow-going motorist yells. “Buy American cars!”
In Michigan, some people still believe that you should buy American-made and not foreign-made autos. This sentiment is dying out along with a ton of factory jobs. Every time I drive down West Main I get tailgated by either a Honda or Toyota.
Surprisingly, my father doesn’t jump in. He stands back and lets me have my first official argument with a total idiot. Big Don’s face continues to redden. It’s sort of scary. I’m not used to looking at such a ketchup-hued face. It’s unnatural.
“Everyone knows Kong is mightier than Godzilla,” Big Don says. “Besides, Kong has the better movie.”
“You’re joking,” I say. My mind replays the two versions of Kong that I watched along with Godzilla 2000, the worst movie that I’ve ever seen.
“I’m not joking. Kong does big box office. Godzilla is an import. Nobody loves that thing. It doesn’t have a heart.”
I walk toward Big Don and close the distance between us. The toe of my shoe nearly touches the toe of his.
“That movie requires a stupid boat to even be interesting,” I say. “No boat, no Skull Island. No Skull Island, no movie. Your ape should be on a boat lot.”
“That’s not true,” he says.
“Yes it is. Plus, Kong hits a woman. What kind of message does that send to future car buyers? Kong is a dangerous, tantrumming ape. He has to be tranquilized to even ride in a motor vehicle.”
“Now you’re taking him out of context. Kong isn’t all bad.”
“You’ve got to be kidding,” I say.
I’ve never felt this way before. I’ve never wanted to stand up for anything until now. But this guy has attacked my mother, my mother.
Big Don takes a few breaths and lets his nostrils flare some more. I keep going.
“Godzilla can breathe fire,” I say.
“K
ong can climb buildings,” Big Don says.
“But he also falls off of them,” I say.
“Only when shot at by planes,” Big Don says.
“They weren’t very high-tech planes,” I say.
“Guns are guns. Shoot anything in the chest and it’ll bleed. Anything.”
When Big Don shouts the word “anything,” he sort of spits on me. Also, I don’t really have a good comeback for his last observation. He has a good point. Anything mortal will bleed out from a chest wound. I wipe his spit from my cheek.
“Godzilla can stop a meteorite that’s capable of destroying the earth,” I say.
Big Don has had it. He takes his hand and points his finger at me like he’s taking aim with a gun.
“Yeah, but he falls down on top of sports cars and scratches the paint,” he says. “Enjoy your lizard.”
He turns to leave. As he’s doing this, I can suddenly think of a string of new Kong-related insults. But the opportunity to unleash them has passed. The argument is over. I’m not sure who officially won, but I feel good about my cinematic observations. Big Don wastes little time in bouncing away.
“We will absolutely enjoy our lizard. And any paint scratches were superficial and can easily be buffed out, chicken chest,” my father says.
“Chicken chest?” I ask, turning to look at Lenny and my father.
“It was a comment on his man boobs,” my father says.
“Dad!”
I don’t want to hear my father say the word boobs, even in reference to a pompous, chesty ignoramus.
“You know a lot about monster movies,” Lenny says.
“Movies aside, I like the cut of your jib,” my father says.
He walks to me and pulls me to his side, kissing the top of my head.
“Can you really buff the scratches out?” I ask.
The Miata is barely visible beneath Godzilla’s gargantuan, plated tail.
“Sure,” he says.
My father puts his arm around me and walks me to his car. It’s a new feeling for me. I feel almost electric and incredibly strong. I wonder how long it will last.
Crimes of the Sarahs Page 18