Bad Boy Boogie

by Thomas Pluck

  “I told you these old cabs don’t burn rubber unless they’re on fire,” Herschel said. “First damn thing I said when we met.”

  Out the rear glass, the Denali’s angry grille homed in like a missile on afterburners. Leo’s piercing eyes and devil goatee loomed in the windshield. The truck nudged hard at the rear bumper. The cab spun sideways. Herschel palmed the wheel, punched the gas pedal to get them straight again.

  “He’s trying to spin us out,” Jay said.

  “No shit!”

  Jay clambered into the front seat. Leo rode the shoulder for the next pass. Herschel squeezed between a slow minivan and a sedan, the drivers honking bloody murder.

  “Slam the brakes when he gets close,” Jay said. The truck filled the passenger’s side mirror. It lurched toward their rear bumper. “Now!”

  Herschel stood on the brakes.

  Body panels thunked and squealed like nails on chalkboard. The truck shot forward and took their passenger’s side mirror with it.

  Herschel gunned the gas again. “Damn, he’s crazy.”

  The truck’s brake lights seared red, the rear bumper rocketing toward their windshield. Herschel yanked the wheel and passed. Jay bounced off the dash.

  “Hersch, cut on through the divider,” Jay said. He pointed at a tiny opening ahead. Approaching fast.

  “We’re doing eighty!”

  Jay took the revolver from his pocket. “Then I gotta shoot him.”

  “What the hell? You said—”

  “Yeah, and that girl in the lake? She crashed ’cause of me,” Jay said. “That’s why I saved her. But I ain’t saving this sumbitch.”

  Herschel shook his head, pressed his lips tight.

  “Do it!”

  The Denali roared ahead, one lane over. Leo gripped the wheel, raptor eyes glaring.

  Herschel swerved hard right. The Jersey barrier loomed like an approaching iceberg, and flew past. The driver’s side mirror exploded. Cars leaned on their horns and swerved as the cab kicked dust and trash in the cars-only lane’s shoulder.

  “Try that!” Herschel said with a hoot.

  Tires squealed and the Denali torqued with the turn. Leo’s eyes bulged as the truck plowed into the concrete with a chest-thumping crash. The black behemoth crumpled in on itself. Air bags filled the interior like swollen marshmallows.

  Herschel stared at the wreck in the rearview mirror. Jay gripped the wheel and eased them into the left lane as tires shrieked and traffic clotted in the truck lanes.

  “You said no trouble,” Herschel said. “I’m gonna lose my job over this.” He surveyed the damage with worried eyes while Jay popped the dents out of the Crown Vic.

  “I’ll order mirrors from the junkyard,” Jay said. “Put them on tomorrow. It’ll look fine.” He tucked another of the old hundreds into Herschel’s palm.

  Herschel pulled away in the battered cab, shaking his head.

  Jay released the hideaway compartment in the Challenger and buried the baggied revolver underneath his duffel. He opened his phone and stared at the photo he’d taken.

  The town hero liked to cruise the pickle parks. Bello Senior had likely met him there, and hated that part of himself. Saw it in his son, tried to burn it out of him with the embers of cigarettes held to his warty fingers. The son learned from the father. Took out his rage on Brendan, and any other boys who stirred his loins.

  Jay texted Tony the photo.

  So that was what Joey Bello had been grinning about.

  Chapter 31

  Jay and the boys marked time in school while dodging their tormentors, and escaped any way they could, via the Punisher’s twin .45s or umber hulks slain by the roll of twenty-sided dice with Iron Maiden wailing heavy metal myth from a boombox. Invisible forces began to draw them apart. Brendan and Billy hung out with the hockey team, Matt and Tony with the brains in the computer club.

  Ramona held Jay’s hand held loosely in the halls, and frowned when he talked to kids in denim and leather jackets whose fathers worked with Andre. The summer seemed to swell with importance as their fifteenth year loomed.

  Saturday, Tony suggested they snag bags of broken cookies from the ladies of the Famous Amos factory like in the old days and race the wide runway of Washington Avenue on their ten-speeds. The cookies were crisp and buttery, their first taste of nostalgia made their friendship feel like one infinite summer day where they had only met in the pool that morning.

  “Atari sucks,” Matt said. “This Christmas, I’m getting an IBM XT.” He rode a new Schwinn, a girl’s model so his legs could reach.

  “How can you think of Christmas already,” Tony said. “I can’t wait for the pool to open. Then it’s prime titty time.”

  “Standard mountain time,” Matt said.

  “I hope Ramona comes back this year,” Billy said. “Can’t wait to see those.”

  Jay veered his bike over and smacked Billy in the head.

  “Watch it, asshole.”

  “Then watch your mouth.”

  “Billy’s jealous,” Brendan said. “If he were a gentleman like you, he’d have a girlfriend too.”

  Jay had never thought on it much, but he guessed she was his girlfriend.

  They cruised through the park and cut into the grass to dodge the joggers. Kingsland Park was split up the middle by the Third River. Ducks went bottoms-up to nibble weeds, and fat carp drifted below. Upstream it widened enough to fit a small island, connected on both sides by picket fence bridges. The isle hosted a gazebo shaded by decorated trees, and the path was usually empty enough that they could put on some speed.

  The twins shot ahead, long limbed and swift. Matt and Tony lazed behind, talking computer games. Jay pumped the pedals to catch them. The twins stopped after the bridge, squinting into a copse of dogwood trees.

  Billy waved for them to hurry, eyebrows high with drama.

  Jay coasted to a stop beside them. Brendan stared into the trees. Billy put a finger to his lips and pointed.

  Boys kneeled in the bushes.

  “Don’t reckon I want to see this,” Jay whispered. He turned away, and Brendan tugged his handlebars.

  “Listen.”

  “Say it!”

  Joey Bello.

  A young boy kicked at the grass with his sneakers. A larger boy on his chest.

  “Say it, you little faggot,” Joey said. “Say it and we’ll let you go.”

  A slap, then Nicky’s trademark giggle.

  “Say you want to suck it,” Joey said. “You fuckin’ little queer.”

  Jay ditched his bike and hit the bushes running.

  Bello kneeled atop a young Vietnamese boy who lived on Jay’s street, who everyone called Jon. Nicky Paladino stood grinning, hand kneading the crotch of his sweatpants. Bello had his fly undone, a wad of white briefs jutting out.

  Jay’s eyes misted over red. He hit Nicky with a tackle. He tasted salt and iron and his fists bounced off Nicky’s ribs. He heard yelps, felt sneaker points bounce off his back.

  Jay reached behind and him grabbed his assailant’s nuts. A loud groan and the kicks went away. One of the twins hit Bello hard. A rope of snot boloed into the grass as a fist hit Joey’s round face. The enraged attacker fell on him. Joey panted and squealed, covering his face.

  “Just leave me alone!” Brendan said, throwing his fists. “Leave me alone!”

  Nicky clawed at Jay’s eyes. Jay chomped his chin and slammed a knee into his crotch until Nicky crawled away dragging his face in the dirt.

  Tony and Matt watched, hands frozen to their handlebars.

  Joey Bello curled in a ball, crying through his bloodied nose. Brendan stood over him, staring at his torn knuckles. Little Jon swore, punctuating each word with a kick to Joey’s back.

  Jay gripped Joey by the shirt and shook him. “The hell’s wrong with y’all? Tell me!”

  “Fuck you,” Bello cried.

  Billy led his brother to their bikes. “We better go.”

  Jon made fists and roared at
the sky, and gave his rescuers a nod in thanks before he ran home.

  They rode home through the parks, quiet for a time. Billy hooted and slapped Brendan’s shoulders.

  “We showed them,” Billy said. “We finally fucking showed them.”

  Brendan stared ahead a long time, and curled his lips into a tight smile.

  Jay worked the morning at Tony’s. He let two of Ramona’s calls go to voicemail, before he turned off his phone. The thought of her and Matt laughing at him twisted his gut.

  Jay lost himself in working on a late model GTO, a honey of a sleeper. He drove to the diner and bought a grilled chicken salad for Tony and a cheesesteak with fries for himself. On the way back, Billy’s green Cherokee was parked in front of the shop.

  Jay kept on driving. He ate his cheesesteak in the park by the river, flipping through a Parker novel at a picnic table. Okie idolized the thief, even though every single one of his heists went wrong. Something made him ignore his instincts and the job went sour, but Parker always made it out alive, usually with a cut of the take.

  There endeth the lesson, as Okie would say.

  Jay powered on his phone and deleted Ramona’s voicemails. Tossed one of the French fries to a fat squirrel. The phone vibrated in his pocket. Incoming call. Unknown number, like all of Ramona’s calls.

  He held the phone to his ear. Dirty silence. Air rushing by.

  “Well, say what you have to say,” he said.

  “Is this Jay?”

  “Yeah, who the hell is this?”

  “Someone who taught you better manners.” Her smoker’s husk had dropped an octave, but Angeline’s tongue was still sharp as a new Case knife.

  “Mama?”

  “Well, it ain’t the Queen of France,” she said. “It’s good to hear you, son.”

  “Miss Cindy found you,” Jay laughed.

  “That nosy old thing could find Lafitte’s treasure if she put her mind to it,” she said. “How you doing?”

  “I’m real good,” Jay said, and laughed to free the birds fluttering in his chest. “Got a job, and a car. How about you?”

  “Ain’t you a regular citizen? Never thought you’d walk free, son. But I’m real happy for it. Changes everything.” She paused for a puff of her cigarette. “This a safe line?”

  “Yeah, Mama. It’s one of those pay-as-you-go phones.”

  “Okie taught you right. How is the old horndog?”

  “Gone,” Jay said, and picked at the flaking paint of the picnic table. How’d Mama know Okie? He’d never written about him.

  “Yeah, he wouldn’t have liked getting old.”

  Jay stared at the trees as if she were a ghost hiding in the woods, a wisp at the edge of his vision. “You knew him?”

  “He didn’t take you under his wing out of the goodness of his heart,” she said, and broke into a coughing fit. “I was a dumb little thing in Shreveport, and he taught me the long con. He never told you?”

  Jay bit his lip and hissed out the corners of his mouth. “He kept your secrets. He was good as an iron vault. That who you learned from?”

  “Kinda lost track of who taught who,” she said. “He did right by me. When I heard he was in Rahway, I reached out. We took care of you best we could. Now maybe you can drive on home, and take care of me for a change.”

  Jay swallowed dry. The more he dug, the less he wanted to know.

  “Found some papers in the old house, Mama.” Jay frowned out at the muddy Passaic. “Says your name’s Evangeline. What they calling you these days?”

  “Huh,” she said. “What’s it matter? You’re gonna call me Mama anyways.” She paused for a puff. “A lot’s changed since you been away.”

  “Could’ve used more letters,” Jay said. “Got real low in there.”

  “I know I should’ve wrote more, there’s a lot of things happened.” She sighed. Jay could smell the smoke of her Winston. “A lot of things, and a letter wasn’t gonna help any.”

  He sensed it, like a burn mark on a photograph where Andre’s face had been.

  “Can I talk to Papa?”

  “Not if you’re expecting him to talk back.” She hummed with the memory of distant pain. “Defan Andre’s gone, baby.”

  Jay’s breathing slowed to death. He didn’t blink. He could see her lips pinch around the Winston’s filter.

  “They caught up with us, and that’s how it played out. I was gonna try and call, but didn’t see the good. Thought you might do something rash, get yourself killed, or worse.”

  Jay clutched the edge of the table. The wood creaked in his grip.

  “Who,” Jay said.

  “You know I don’t like that voice. Send that boy away now.”

  “Why’d we come here,” Jay said, through gritted teeth.

  “Why you think?” She took a long drag. “You remember. You called her the Witch. It’s a long story, and I got a shift to finish.”

  “You owe me the truth.”

  “Hey. Don’t you tell me what I owe. Whatever me and Andre did, we did for you,” she said. “You want to know why, ask that Strick. If anyone’s to blame, it’s that rotten son of a bitch. He’s the root of it all.”

  Jay took Andre’s knife from his boot and ice-picked the picnic table, again and again. The fat squirrel shot up a tree. He pried out the blade out and tested the edge on his thumb. A curl of callused skin peeled away.

  “Reckon I’ll give him a visit,” Jay said, in the voice she didn’t like. “I’ll be heading south when I’m done. So I better like what I hear.”

  She chuckled a long, smoker’s laugh. “I cut hair in a salon behind Little Ray’s. You come on home and we’ll talk about it over a couple po’boys, but you won’t like the story one bit. There’s nothing about it to like.”

  Jay gave her silence in return.

  “Love you, son. Don’t forget it. We’re kin, but I’d have saved you anyhow.”

  Jay exhaled through his nostrils.

  “Be smart, now. Do what you’re gonna do, but be smart about it. Then come home where you belong.”

  “I will.”

  Jay closed the phone, and slipped the knife into his boot.

  Chapter 32

  The Hammerhead cruised the dark highway at speed. The stereo thumped the opening bass notes of AC/DC’s “Live Wire,” as Bon Scott told the world to get the hell out of his way. Jay kneaded the tomahawk handle in one handle, the steering wheel with the other. The smooth hickory was a bony handshake, a tenuous bond to his lost father.

  He hugged the hills to Strick’s house and rolled up the farm road behind the rows of Christmas trees a hair above idle. Put on his kit and padded to the garage. One door was open, where the Porsche ticked as the engine cooled. The Harley sat beside it in the dark, keys in the ignition.

  A little black Toyota sat parked in front of the house. Jay crept behind a hydrangea bush and peered through a corner of the window.

  Two milk-white bodies glowed on the floor of the candlelit parlor. A slender woman with big dark curls spilling past her shoulders reached toward the man. Skin loose at his hip and belly, arms mottled sandstone, legs pasty and thin.

  Jay swallowed and walked to the garage. They would be a while.

  He pushed the Challenger in neutral to block the Porsche in.

  Inside the garage, he stuck a pen light in his mouth. Set his tool box on the concrete floor by the Harley and went to work.

  Andre had taught him to swing a hammer, throw a baseball, and catch a fish. Paddled him into the waters of Bayou Teche in a pirogue to fish the bottom for big cats, while Jay cast his cane pole for sac-au-lait. Jay’s first catch was no bigger than Andre’s palm, but he showed him how to remove the hook and kill it quick. They gutted it and fried the filets in Mama Angeline’s cast iron skillet. Jay had eaten a lot of cooking since, but nothing in his memory ever tasted as good as that panfish did, dipped in cornmeal, sweet and crisp.

  Strick’s garage smelled of oil and cigarette smoke. The memories turned to a
shes in Jay’s mouth.

  A door slammed. Jay flicked off his penlight. The woman, now clothed in a pencil skirt and a hastily buttoned blouse, walked barefoot to her car clutching a pair of heels.

  Strick Senior ran naked out the door behind her.

  “You want something to remember me by, try my name.” She slammed the Toyota’s door.

  Strick mouthed silent, sad-eyed apologies through her driver-side window. The car veered out the driveway, and he chased it for a few steps, and slumped his shoulders. He ran a hand through his hair and watched the tail lamps shrink into the dark like a rocket escaping the atmosphere.

  Jay padded inside and waited.

  Inside, Strick poured himself a scotch from the crystal decanter, and plopped naked onto the enormous puff of chocolate leather sofa. Legs splayed, the candles lit the chicken-skin of his balls and the fine gray down of his chest. He sipped and stared out the bay window at the half moon.

  Jay stepped from behind the front door and closed it with a click. “You done with your saggy-ass stargazing?”

  The scotch tumbler hit the carpet and Strick froze in a half crouch. The upholstery squeaked under his skin.

  “Don’t get up,” Jay said, and twisted Andre’s tomahawk in the candlelight. The blade rippled gold. “Unless you’re looking to get circumcised.”

  Strick cupped his hands over his genitals.

  “You figure out who I am?”

  Strick nodded, and melted into the cushions.

  “Know why I’m here?”

  “Matthew said he paid you,” Strick said. “If you came looking for more, the well is dry.” He waved a hand over the room. “This is all leased and mortgaged to the bone.”

  “I pissed on your son’s money,” Jay said. “And that’s no figure of speech. I don’t understand you folks. Money’s everything to you. Maybe you roll those bills nice and tight, and fuck ’em when no one’s looking.”

  “Can I at least put some pants on?”

  “A little chilly, ain’t it? No, I like you exposed and vulnerable. Like I was in the police station, when you sweet-talked me into that confession. What happened to the lawyers? You fired my father, they couldn’t pay one themselves.”