“I’ll be whatever the fuck I want to be.”
Oh good. What a thrill.
The guy has basically been a creep since his voice started changing, and he almost flunked Geometry and English Comp. When he was a little kid, I remember, he was an age-grouper, like Babe, and he did okay. But he never showed the promise, never had the discipline; after a while he just sort of rebelled against it, and started really bagging it, a couple of coaches got discouraged, and Mom and Dad stopped investing.
“Where’s Dad?”
“He went to get Alka-Seltzer.”
“Alka-Seltzer? What the fuck for?”
“I don’t know, asshole.” He plucks out another Marlboro, sticks it in his mouth without lighting it, shrugs. When he talks, it bobs up and down between his lips—like he’s some bad movie actor, trying to look tough—but he just looks pimply and pathetic instead. “He said his stomach’s fucked up. That’s all. So there’s some pharmacy open, be said he’d be back.”
Poor Roberto. Stupid slob. For a moment, I feel pretty sorry for him.
Then, too, the football coach at junior high said he was a good thrower and sprinter and wanted him on the team. So he went to the tryouts, did really well, but when he made it—and he was going to be first string, for Christ’s sake—he just never bothered showing up for practice, and coach kicked him off. Dad was pretty pissed about that one. Plus, there is this girl he likes, Marianne, who apparently is the junior high heartthrob, and she doesn’t know he exists. Go for it, Robo! I told him. Ask her out! Make your move! Because, I figure, you have to go for broke in these matters of sport or love. But he never did anything about it, never even asked her to dance at the ninth-grade dance, just hung out and looked at her all night and went outside to sneak cigarettes; and now, of course, she is going out with some shit-head from the football team and, rumor has it, they’re already fucking.
So on all these levels, he’s basically kind of a loser, and the fact of the matter is that he’s never been a winner. All of which makes for a great relationship between Roberto and the rest of the world—especially between him and Babe, and him and me. Still, for all that fucked-up shit, when we first saw Babe in the hospital he was the only one who cried.
“You want to come, Robo?”
“Which car are you taking?”
Drizzle spatters my supershades. I twirl the keys triumphantly. “Between you and me, the BMW.”
“Shit.” He kicks a wet sneaker tip into mud and snow. The hint of a smile twists his mouth corners, then fades. He shrugs. “Nah.”
“Okay, see you later. But you’d better guzzle some Listerine, man. Old Lucy’s on the warpath in there, and if she catches you smoking she’ll tear your ass in half.”
The BMW glistens, dry and shining in the golden-gray garage door lights; the door hardly makes a sound when you open it; and the insides, plush and leather, still smell new. I slide in, press a remote switch for the garage-door opener, listen to the door squeak heavily up like a big flapping wing, and, far off, the cold sound of rain. Ignition. Gas. It starts like a good dream; quiet hum, pickup and engine throb almost unnoticeable, beeping seat-belt signal ceases. I turn on dims and the dashboard lights up. CD buttons illuminated. Numbers glowing green.
Party pooper. And I love my car.
Okay, power tool. We are ready for action.
*
It’s weird, meeting her at the train station. I’m used to airports. She’d come back from these weekend swimming meets, usually with Dad. Later, though, she’d go with some coach, or some team, or alone. And I remember, when I was really young, how big she seemed. Coming down escalators, suitcase in hand. Looked like she was taller and broader-shouldered than everybody else. Which couldn’t have been, really; but that’s how I remember it.
Now, though, I am as tall as her. And almost miss her—because, I realize, I’m looking for someone dark-skinned, dark-tanned, and much, much taller. Until there she is, practically in my face.
“Hey, Jack.”
“Yo.”
“You look great!”
“Thanks!”
“Actually, you look like a Nazi.”
“Oh, shut up,” I say. Then lean forward, a little stiffly, and we do this thing we have always done—we bump the tips of our noses together—and, suddenly, we’re hugging.
I tell her she looks great, too; which is almost true. I mean, she is too pale, almost white, looks kind of strained, and is still lugging around a little extra weight; but you can tell she’s been working out a lot, too. She has more muscle than fat, is beginning to look pretty tough around the thighs and chest and shoulders. Plus she’s wearing makeup, for the first time in recent memory, and the color of lipstick looks pretty good, the mascara makes her eyes seem bigger, and her hair’s been trimmed. I wonder if she’s done it for herself or for Mom. Wonder how to break all the good news to her that the white-gloved grandparents are coming, Roberto’s practically flunking school, and Mom and Dad have gone apeshit.
“Come on. You won’t believe the new car.” I pick up her suitcase. Gallant Jack Delgado. But it’s heavy, and after staggering a few steps with it I nearly fall on my ass, and my supershades pop right off.
She rescues them. Wipes them with a tissue. Tries them on.
“Wow.”
“What?”
“Dulls the brilliance of your smile, Jacko. How the hell can you see?”
I tell her it’s not important what you see when you’re wearing them, or even how much you can see; what matters is how other people see you. She hands them back, half-smiling.
“Good for you, dude. Spoken like a true Delgado.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“I don’t know. It’s just that we’re supposed to be a certain way in our family, you know? Not the way you really want to be inside—but the way they want to think of you. Mom and Dad, I mean.”
Outside, the drizzle has turned to rain. Suburban train station—nothing dangerous around here, really—but I make a complete circuit of the BMW anyway, checking for dents, chips. Which, if they existed, would fry my ass but good. There aren’t any; Jack Delgado’s butt is saved for another day. I open the trunk while she’s staring at the car and toss her luggage in, almost dislocating my shoulder. Then make a big deal of opening the door on the passenger side, holding it for her like the gentleman caller should have done for the crippled chick, Blue Roses, in that southern play we had to read last year in Sophomore English. She gets in slowly, like she’s moving in a dream, this creepy blank look on her face, and I think: Oh no, Babe, don’t go nutsy on me!
She doesn’t though. Instead, when I get in, feel the rain-spattered back of my black bomber slide along the seat, adjust my supershades so they’re sitting perfectly, just so, on my nose, she smiles at me. It’s a big, genuine smile, the kind I haven’t seen from her in years. Then she crosses her eyes, puffs up her cheeks, pouts until she looks like some insane wild duck. It’s the way she always used to make me laugh when we were kids. And it still works; despite myself, I can’t stop my face from cracking and I can feel my shoulders shake, belly rumble, laughing so hard and so suddenly that, for a second, I feel I might melt.
*
We open windows even though it’s cold, blast the CD, burn rubber through puddles, both of us sucking gum and blowing bubbles like a couple of brats. Halfway home, she turns the music low.
“How are Lucy and Ricky?”
“Okay.”
“Really?”
“They bitch at each other a lot. Worse since you left, I think. I mean, I’m okay around it, and Toots doesn’t understand much. But I think it’s really fucking up Roberto’s head. Not that, like, his head wasn’t fucked up all along.”
“Yeah? What are they fighting about?”
I shoot her a glance and am glad for the supershades, because they hide it.
You, I almost say. Instead I shrug like I don’t even know, and I speed right through a yellow light before it turns re
d.
That’s when the cop car pops up out of nowhere. Blue and red and white-yellow lights spinning on top, scoops up right behind me.
“Uh-oh.”
“Fuck,” I mutter.
“Better pull over, Jacko.”
But I don’t, just slow down and crawl along, hoping in this kind of insane way that it’s not really me he wants to pull over. Until I see him, through rain spattering the new back window, pull something from his dashboard and hold it to his mouth; and then, like in some science fiction film, this megaphone voice blasts out for a radius of about twenty miles:
YOU IN THE GRAY BMW. PULL OVER TO THE SIDE OF THE ROAD.
My chest thumps, the way it does near the end of a race. As if I’m about to die. I can feel myself sweat. I pull over, stop. Supershades slide down my nose.
“Oh, shit.”
Babe turns the music off, rummages in the glove compartment for the car registration.
“Got your license?”
“Yeah.”
“Get it out.”
I do.
“Now take those things off, Jacko. You don’t want to look like some kind of skinhead moron.”
I toss the supershades onto the dashboard. Gray light floods into my eyes—from the raining sky, plush interior, gleam of passing headlights on the wet, fresh gray body of this car.
I tell myself: You have bought it now, Jacko.
But Babe has taken charge, and I let her. Feeling very young. Very small. Still having this weird obstinate kind of absolute faith that, if I do what she says, she will save me, save us both.
“Listen,” she says, “don’t say too much—let me do the talking, okay? Just act kind of chastened and humble. You know? Like, the basically nice well-intentioned high school jock who got caught playing this harmless trick. And whatever you do, be sure to call him Officer, and say Yes Sir.”
Numbly, I nod. Mr. Police Officer Sir is taking about a million years to get out of his car with the spinning colored lights, and I know it is to play this cat and mouse game with me, fray my nerves even more. When he does get out he leaves his door open, stalks slowly, slowly, heavy-booted and heavy-footed, to the back of the BMW and writes down the license number; then, heavy-booted, with his thick brown matte-textured leather cop jacket zipped just above the holster at his hip, and the gun handle sticking out, and a nightstick on the other side, and rain spattering the one-way mirrored lenses of his round, mean sunglasses, he approaches. Leans down at me through the open window, unsmiling. I cannot see his eyes.
“Any idea how fast you were going?’’
“No,” I mumble. “No Sir.”
“Take a guess.”
“Um—too fast?”
“Yeah.” He pulls the shades down his long, stern nose with one brief motion of a thumb. Over the top rim of them he glances at Babe, then back at me. “Good guess. You want to give me your license and registration, please.”
It’s not a question. I hand both over with shaking fingers.
Babe leans halfway across me. When she speaks, her voice is calm and earnest. “It’s my fault, Officer. I told him to go as fast as he could. I mean, I just got here, and I haven’t seen my family in a really, really long time, and I’m, like, late for Christmas dinner.”
He doesn’t change expression. He doesn’t even look at us again, just down at the registration and driver’s license like he’s examining them for important clues.
“Who are you?”
“Babe—I mean, my name is Mildred Delgado, Sir. I’m his sister.”
“You say you just got into town, Miss Delgado? Where from?”
“From a swimming meet, Sir. See, I’ve been away for a really long time at school, and I’m doing all this special training because I want to qualify to go to the Olympic Trials next year—”
“The Olympics?”
“The Trials. It’s where you compete to get on the United States Olympic team. See here’s my—this card—”
She fumbles through purse and wallet for a few seconds, pulls out some laminated thing that is red, white, and blue—an old official swimming association card saying it is okay for her to travel to and compete in certain sanctioned meets—with her name on it, and all her old club affiliations, and date of birth, and our address. Mr. Police Officer Sir looks at it over the rim of his shades, through the open window, without changing expression. Then he waves it away. When he talks, he talks to Babe.
“What event do you swim?”
“Mostly the hundred breaststroke, Sir. But sometimes I do the two—the two hundred—and I’m also on these relay teams, and other stuff—”
“Think you’ll make the team?”
“I—gosh, I don’t know, Officer! I really, really hope so! I mean, it’s sort of what I’ve been working for since I was a really little kid, you know, like, all my life, and my family has just really been behind me all the way. And my brother here, he runs cross-country and track for Brewer—”
“Brewer High?”
“Yes, Sir.”
The mirrored lenses turn my way, merciless and chilling.
“Mr.”—he glances down at my driver’s license—“Delgado? James Delgado?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“They call you James or Jimmy?”
“Um—Jack, Sir.”
“Well, Jack. You a good runner?”
I want to reply, but can’t. There’s this block in my throat. I shrug instead, looking sullen, I know—and I know it’s a mistake, but it’s all I can do. Babe chimes right in.
“He’s great, Officer! He does the mile and cross-country—you ought to see him—he’s terrific. They are winning, like, practically everything this year.”
“Look at me, Jack.”
I do. And see my own pale, frightened face, very young and ill-shaven, staring back at me in duplicate from the mirrored lenses of his real cop shades.
“Do you think it’s okay to disobey the law?”
“No, Sir.”
“Do you know how dangerous it is to speed?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“I could give you a citation, Jack, for going twenty miles above the speed limit. And a fifty-dollar fine. Do you think that’s fair?”
“No, Sir. I mean—I don’t know, Sir.”
“Oh, God!” moans Babe, “It’s all my fault! Please, please Officer, please don’t give him a ticket! I mean, if you have to, give the ticket to me. I know he’ll never do it again!”
A flicker of a smile softens the hardcore face, then dies.
“What do you think, Jack? Are you going to break the law again?”
“No, Sir.”
“Is that a promise?”
“Yes, Sir.”
He hands the registration and driver’s license back to me. My hands won’t lift to hold them; Babe reaches across and takes them instead.
“I won’t write you up this time, Jack. You’re a lucky guy today. But consider this a warning.”
“Yes, Sir.”
“The only place I want to see you speeding is on the track, in a race. Got that?”
“Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir.”
“And you, Miss. You shouldn’t encourage anyone, much less a family member, to drive over the speed limit. First of all, it’s against the law. Second of all, it is dangerous.”
“Yes, Officer. I’ll never, ever do it again—I promise.”
“Athletic family, huh? I think I’ve heard your name somewhere, I forget where. Good luck at the Olympics.”
“Thank you, Officer. Thank you so much.”
“Drive carefully now,” he says. And pushes the shades back up his nose, stalks away from the car with gun and nightstick riding his hips, drops of water pearling his leather jacket in the rain.
I don’t start up until he’s careened smoothly away at a lightning pace, tearing out of sight around a curve in the road, his white and blue I-mean-business car hugging all the contours. Watching him go, I lean back. The sweat’s gushing down my face, over my ribs
from my armpits, even soaking through the denim legs of my jeans. Suddenly it seems intolerable to be without my supershades anymore, and I grab the fuckers off the dashboard, harshly.
“Jack, it’s okay.”
“Christ, I feel like such a moron. Where’d you learn to pull all that innocent girly jock shit off?”
“From Liz.”
“Liz—”
“Liz Chaney.”
Oh, I say, and hope that this mention of the name doesn’t send her off into her nutsy never-never land again; but it doesn’t.
She seems okay. Really. Truly.
Well, almost.
But, for a moment, I remember the way she was—before, long, long before, it seems, even though maybe it was just a couple of years ago—how I used to run up to her at the airport, so happy that she was back for a visit. Like she was my bodyguard within the family. With Babe around, I’d stop caring what they fought about.
But remembering too much makes me feel like I might cry. And the truth of the matter is that I’ve already just about blown my manly cookies for the day. Hunched over the wheel of my mother’s new BMW crying, because I almost got a speeding ticket, but didn’t because my big sister saved my ass by bullshitting some cop while I sat there frozen with terror, is not exactly the image I want to present to her—not to Babe, not to myself, or to the world.
I dread this fucking Christmas dinner like I’ve never dreaded any fucking Christmas dinner before—even though they are all pretty gruesome. I want to warn her somehow, but can’t. And I certainly can’t save her from it, any more than I can save my own sad ass, because I don’t know how to start talking about it, where to begin; because the old Babe I used to run to at airports is only here with me in flashes, now, and whatever else she is or will become is stuff I will never, ever know. But she was my friend, my best, best friend, and I miss her. I miss her.
I mutter a couple of swear words and jam keys back into the ignition, peel off the side of the road setting windshield wipers to fastest speed. I’m careful, this time, to stop at all the stop signs and red lights. Even though, with my supershades on, I want to run them all. And if I was some cyborg robot android headhunter sent from the future, and I was lugging around a sawed-off twelve-gauge and an Uzi submachine gun, I would just hide behind the cool, mirrored lenses and run them all down—all the obstructions: vegetable, mineral, human.
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