“What about our food? We didn’t even get our burgers. And we’re not done with our beer. Besides, that little bitch almost hit me with a fuckin’ pool ball.”
“You weren’t listening, were you?” I’d never heard Scout sound so patient. Or so deadly. Like a rattlesnake ready to strike. “I said you’d be dead meat, and I meant dead. If I called the cops right now, they’d slap a $200 fine on you for littering. Just for starters. But cops don’t like coming to LeHillier, so I’d rather just kill you. Understand? So get out.”
He flipped his head in Allie’s direction. “She’ll eat your burger for you. I don’t want your stinkin’ money for the beer. Now get out. And if you try anything, you hurt my niece, your ass will be dead. Did I say dead again? I meant dead. And I have just the fillet knife to do it.”
They didn’t budge, but they were frowning, and now they looked scared.
“Come on,” the hatless, watery-blue-eyed driver said, getting up. “I think he means it.”
“You’re a tiny bit smarter than I thought,” Scout said. He finally let go of Allie, grabbed the reptile ponytail guy by the front of his shirt and lifted him out of the booth. The guy’s Vikings hat slid sideways. “Don’t come back,” Scout said.
The hatless driver lunged at Scout, ready to punch. Still holding the reptilian guy, Scout moved one foot so quickly, I only saw a blur. He tripped the hatless guy, who was so drunk he landed on the floor next to Thomas’s feet. “You forgot your hat,” Scout said. “Get it while you’re down there. Don’t leave it on my floor. I run a clean establishment.”
The guy looked up at both huge men. His eyes narrowed, like he’d spit at them if he had the nerve.
“Get under there, you wimp,” Thomas said, taking a step toward him. “Get your hat.”
The hatless driver reached around the bench seat for his Schlitz cap, smashed it onto his head, and stood up.
“Now, get out. Don’t ever, don’t ever come back.” Scout pointed to the door.
And they went.
Peapod, sprawled at his post outside the door, rose to his feet and growled so loudly the sound rumbled around the bar. The rest of the customers around the bar clapped.
We stood there, limp. Thomas wiped his face with his hanky. We could hear gravel spraying the side of the building as the truck took off.
Scout shook his head and pulled out a cigar.
Only then did I notice the kid sitting at the bar with a black shock of hair hanging over one eye. Now his mouth was hanging open. The kid from the gas pumps at the Blue Ox this morning.
“Oh, I almost forgot,” Uncle Scout said. “Meet Joe.”
“Joe?” I swallowed hard.
In my filthy, grassy spandex, with my stinky, mucky, sweat-covered body, my bike helmet and filthy face, I stuck out my hand. “Hi. I’m Sadie.”
Twelve
Joe
June 14, continued
“Hi,” Joe said back to me, shaking my hand. My hand was covered in a thin film of dirt. He looked me up and down and grinned. “Sadie. Aunt Susan told me about you. But nothing this interesting.”
“Oh, great.” I said, feeling bright red under all the dirt. “This is Allie.”
“I figured,” he said, and shook her hand, too.
“Come over and look at this.” Thomas interrupted us from the rednecks’ vacated booth. “Holy smoke, girl, you have some arm.”
We all moved across the room to examine the ball lodged in the paneling. I was all too aware of Joe moving across the room right beside me.
“Holy crap,” Joe said.
Thomas reached out to touch Allie’s biceps in admiration.
She jerked her arm away, a reflex at his touch.
He dropped his hand. “Sorry.”
She shrugged. “Sorry about the wall, Scout. Want me to pay for it?”
Scout shook his head. “Are you kidding? I’m gonna leave it there. Forever. Now wash up and we’ll feed you.”
In the restroom, Allie and I scrubbed our faces, hands, and arms. She wiped down her skinned leg, then examined her cheek in the mirror. “Not too bad.”
“Want me to go find you a band-aid?”
“Naw.” She shook her head. “Battle scars are cool.” She grinned at me.
We slid onto bar stools, and my heart skittered when Joe moved his root beer over so he could take the bar stool next to mine.
Scout brought us the burgers, and a mountain of fries. I hadn’t enjoyed red meat much since I’d started working at the Blue Ox, but I was starving and this tasted like heaven. Allie chowed through hers, too.
Scout kept all of our mugs full of root beer. I was so hungry, I wasn’t even self-conscious eating in front of Joe.
Finally Joe broke the silence. “Sadie, I’d swear I’ve seen you before.”
I swallowed so much burger and bun, I coughed. Finally I choked out, “Yeah. At the Blue Ox.”
“Huh?”
“The truck stop. Where you got gas this morning.”
“Oh … ” He nodded, remembering. “That’s it. You were at the cash register.”
I nodded, still coughing and trying to swallow properly.
“You okay?” He grinned and patted me on the back. His touch was like electricity, and I felt my face go beet red.
“You brought a mountain bike.” I said. “You ride a lot?”
“Yeah,” he said. “And I hate redneck drivers, too. I’d rather be on trails where there aren’t cars. I couldn’t handle being a roadie. If somebody did that to me”—he nodded at us—“I’d want to kill ’em.”
“I do want to,” Allie said. “Didn’t you notice?” She popped three ketchup-soaked French fries into her mouth.
“I thought it looked like you wanted to miss, with that dead-eye aim,” Joe said.
“I wanted to kill ’em. I tried to knock his hat off,” she said with her mouth full of fries. “You race?”
“Yeah, a little,” Joe said. “Sport class.”
“There’re races here,” Allie said. “Great big local race on the Fourth of July. And there’s a NORBA race later in July. And a bunch in the Twin Cities.”
“NORBA? What’s that?” I asked.
“The National Off-Road Biking Association,” Joe answered.
“Fourth of July race is at Mount Kato—outside of Mankato, not too far from here,” Allie said. She looked at me. “Sadie’s doin’ it. Her first race ever.”
“That’s what you say,” I said. “I haven’t paid my entry fee or anything yet.”
“You’re doin’ it. You’ll be fine.” Allie leaned toward me and whispered, “Ridin’ through the chicken. Remember?”
I wondered how well Joe could ride, since he smoked and all. Instead of arguing more with Allie, I asked him, “What’s the ladder for? In your trunk.”
“I paint … houses, porches, rooms … anything. It’s been my summer job since last year, so I brought my stuff. Thought I’d get some work that way. Gotta make some money this summer.”
“Where are you from?” Allie asked.
“Phoenix.”
“Great mountain biking in Phoenix,” Allie said. “So why are you here?”
The fries sort of stuck in my throat.
Joe traced the sweat outline of his root-beer mug on the counter, slowly, around and around with an index finger. Any trace of what I thought was a swagger at the Blue Ox had wilted.
When the quiet got uncomfortable, Scout cleared his throat and said, “He just—”
Joe interrupted. “It’s okay, Scout. My parents wanted me to get away. In February my twin brother died. I don’t know if my parents wanted to get rid of me for the summer so I wouldn’t keep reminding them of him, or if they wanted me to go away and stop thinking about it. But—whate
ver—they sent me here. I agreed only if they’d let me drive up alone and bring my bike and my painting stuff.”
“Sorry,” Allie said. “What happened … I mean, to your brother?”
Now I wished I’d pumped Mom for more information. Aunt Susan had said it was a “horrible accident.” I imagined a flaming car and a kid trapped inside, a car smashed by a semi-truck. A kid on a bike smashed by a swerving pickup. Horrible accidents. A stray cannonball that blew up a parked motorcycle didn’t seem so bad.
“Hiking accident,” Joe said.
That didn’t explain much, but his answer closed the subject. I couldn’t quite imagine a horrible accident hiking. A bad fall? Cougar attack?
We chewed, swallowed. The place stayed quiet. I tried to study Joe’s face without looking directly at him. He’d seemed so cool and mature or something at the Blue Ox. Now I wondered if some of what I saw was just sadness.
“So,” Thomas said, forcing brightness into his voice. “On the Fourth of July, Scout and I will be doing a Civil War re-enactment in the parade, and we’ll shoot a Civil War Cannon during Rockin’ in the Quarry.” Effective diversion, I thought, and it was working. “You kids will have to come watch after your race.”
“They’re gonna let you shoot your cannon again?” I asked.
“The cannon, my dear,” Thomas said with a grand sweep of his hand, “has been relegated to ornamental uses, like parades and reenactments. I swore to Janie on the Bible. And to my lawyer, too. Only official capacities.”
Scout winked at me. “We might think of all sorts of official capacities.”
I couldn’t keep from laughing, then. “What’s Rockin’ in the Quarry?”
“The Mankato Symphony puts on a concert in a huge limestone quarry. They play the 1812 Overture and we fire the cannon at the appropriate time in the music.”
“Oh, great,” I said. “What can you blow up in there?”
Both big boys chuckled, shook their heads. Scout said, “That’s the point of having it in the quarry. Nothing. Besides, we shoot oatmeal cannonballs.”
“By the way,” I said, “speaking of that, why did Janie let you out of the house? I figured she hadn’t let you out of her sight since you got out of jail.”
Thomas grinned out of one side of his mouth and wiped his face with his hanky. “She’s gone. At her mom’s, overnight with the kids. Plus”—here he held up his mug—“only root beer to drink.” I knew Scout hadn’t touched a drop of alcohol all summer, either.
“What’s this about?” Joe asked. He winked at me. I could barely tear my eyes away from his face.
We told Joe the story of Memorial Day.
He laughed. “Holy crap. That’s not quite the way my mom heard it from Aunt Susan.”
“Be careful bringing it up around Aunt Susan,” I said. “It’s a very sore subject.”
Joe gave me a lopsided grin. “I s’pose. I think I won’t even mention it.”
“Good man.” Scout stood up. “Well, you kids should probably skedaddle. I have to coddle my other customers. This is a bar, after all. Miss Strong-Arm Allie, if you ever need refuge from another redneck storm, consider yourself welcome here. I’d be honored if you’d count me as your friend.”
Allie shook Uncle Scout’s and Uncle Thomas’s hands.
Thirteen
Joe and Allie
June 15
Joe got a job painting with a group of teachers who always paint in the summer. Uncle Scout hooked him up, his first morning in LeHillier. So Joe worked from seven a.m. until four every day. He was sleeping in Scout’s study, near the gun cabinet and in the midst of heavy cigar scent. The study was less private, but had more atmosphere than my sewing closet. The only time I saw him much was at dinner.
When I told Barb at the Blue Ox about Joe, she said, “You be careful with him, Sadie Lester. I still say there’s something dark inside that boy.”
I smiled. “Guess I’ll find out.”
I grabbed six coffee cups, a pot of coffee, my pad and pen, and put on a smile and went to work.
June 18
At dinner a few nights later, Joe asked me, “Ride today? How long? Where’d you go?” After I answered, he was quiet except when somebody asked him a question. I wanted to just hang out with him, but I didn’t know how to ask. He disappeared after the meal to go have a smoke, and I don’t know where he went after that.
The next night, I asked him, “You want Allie and me to ride at four thirty so you can go with us?”
“Would you?”
“Can’t get ahold of Allie now, but tomorrow, I’ll ask her about the next day.”
So Allie and I waited to ride until four thirty in the afternoon so Joe could go with us. Allie still wouldn’t tell me where she lived or give me a phone number. I stopped asking.
Joe wasn’t a bad rider. He got winded quickly, which wasn’t surprising, I guess, considering how much he smoked. The weirdest thing about him was that he froze at the top of tricky descents before he could force himself to let go of the brakes and go. It was almost a freaky fear. Otherwise, he was a decent bike handler.
June 23
The third time Joe rode with us, his cell phone rang. He slowed down, fished it out of his jersey pocket, and answered it.
Allie charged ahead, not waiting for him. I followed her. When he finally hung up and caught back up almost a mile later, she said, “You don’t bring a goddam cell phone when you ride mountain bike. If you can’t go without civilization, stay home.”
“Sorry,” Joe said. “Holy crap, I didn’t think it would be such a big deal. It’s for emergencies.”
“Bullshit,” she said. “Why’d you answer it then?”
After a three-and-a-half hour ride, including Embolism Hill where Joe fell way behind Allie and me, we pulled into SuperAmerica in Mankato and bought giant cherry slushies. We leaned our bikes against the building and sat on the curb, dusty, grimy, sweaty, and thirsty, sucking down the sweet ice.
“Cell phone’s bad enough,” Allie said, digging for cherry syrup at the bottom of her tall paper cup, “but how come you smoke?”
“It relaxes me. And pretty much everybody in my school smokes.” Joe took a big gulp of icy juice. “And I like it. How come you don’t?”
“So I can ride fast, you moron. And so I don’t screw up the air for everybody else. And it costs a fortune, too.”
“At my school, the only guys who don’t smoke are endurance athletes, like distance runners or swimmers.”
“You’re a mountain biker. Doesn’t that mean anything to you?”
Joe shrugged. “All the artsy kids, musicians, theater geeks, everybody smokes.”
“So are you artsy? What else do you do?”
“Oh, I play bari-sax. I like Jazz band best. I like jazz. I’m not too bad at it, but I’d like to be really good. And I jump in track—long jump, high jump. I’m not any good, but I like going out for it. Smoking doesn’t matter if you jump.”
“It matters on your bike,” Allie said.
“I haven’t heard you play your sax,” I said, hoping to change the subject and save Joe.
“It’s in Scout’s study.” He looked at me, and my heart sort of twitched. “There’s not exactly air space in that house to make music. You like jazz?”
“Yeah, I do, actually. I love blues. If you played, I’d listen. You could probably play in my sewing closet. There’s so much fabric in there, it’d muffle the sound.”
I could practically feel Allie rolling her eyes.
“Hmm,” said Joe. “Maybe.”
We were quiet.
“We don’t smoke,” Allie said. I looked at her, wondered why she brought it up again, and for a second I almost hated her for badgering Joe so much.
“I noticed,” Joe said, staring at the
pavement.
“It affects your riding. Have you noticed that?”
“As a matter of fact, yeah. I notice when I ride with you two. Never noticed before. Not with anybody I ride with.”
“You’ll notice when you race. Around here, you won’t have a chance with shitty lungs.”
“I was afraid of that.”
“So quit.”
“Riding?”
“Smoking, idiot.”
“Can’t stop just like that. And … I like it. It tastes good. And it relaxes me, like I said.”
Allie jumped to her feet. “That’s such bullshit. Bullshit. You know how many times I hear that excuse? ‘Oh, sorry, can’t stop. Just can’t help myself. You don’t know what it’s like to be addicted … ’ To cigarettes, to pot, to sex, to booze, to soap operas, to the frickin’ Internet, to gambling. To crack, to meth … It’s all the same excuse. It’s bullshit. You decide how you want to live and you do it. You wanna smoke, be a smoker. But frickin’ stop if you want to keep riding with us. I won’t wait for you on the hills anymore if you’re still smoking.” She jumped up, threw the rest of her slushie in the trash, and grabbed her bike. “If you quit, I’ll wait for you any day, anywhere, and I’ll bust my ass to help you get faster, but I’m not sitting waiting for somebody to catch up who can’t keep up ’cause he’s ruining his own lungs!” She threw her leg over her bike. “Or ’cause he’s on the goddam cell phone!”
“Allie!” I said. “Chill out. What’s with you? Let him be!”
“It’s okay,” Joe said. “I just think she doesn’t want me riding with you.”
“No, you moron. You smoke-sucking idiot,” Allie said. “I like you, don’t you get it? If I didn’t like you, I wouldn’t give a rat’s ass. But I do, so I don’t want to see you die of lung cancer or blow your chances at being really good on the bike. You are—you could be. But that extra lung power for the big climbs? You’ll never have it. You won’t have anything. Except maybe an early coffin or a hind-end view of the guys ahead of you, who dropped you ’cause they don’t smoke. So decide.”
Chasing AllieCat Page 6