The Drive

by Tyler Keevil

  She waited as I dug my backpack and dirty clothes out of the trunk. I also gathered up the various souvenirs I’d gotten along the way: my Asskicker cup, my last eagle feather, the Wizard of Oz tape I’d bought in Trevor, and the soother keychain those clerks had given me. I stuffed them in a bag and followed Bea towards the water. We had to cross a gangplank to reach the dock and houseboats. Hers looked just like an old-fashioned cabin, with board-and-batten cedar siding and a gabled roof. She stopped out front, still cradling Sprite in her arms.

  ‘Here,’ I said, holding out my bag. ‘I brought offerings.’

  She peered inside, and pulled out the soother. ‘Just what I need.’

  ‘Did you get my postcards?’

  ‘I got the one from Trevor. It was hilarious.’

  ‘The second is probably still on its way.’

  Bea opened the door. Waiting in the entrance hall was a big black Labrador – as high as my waist, and built like a bull. It whimpered at us and wagged its tail.

  ‘This is Belle,’ Bea said. ‘Belle, say hello to Trevor, and Sprite.’

  She put Sprite down on the floor.

  I asked, ‘Is that a good idea?’

  The two of them stood and faced each other. Sprite arched her back and let out a low hiss, but in return Belle just lay down and panted at her. After a minute they touched noses and started sniffing around each other, in that way animals do. We left them to it and Bea led me into their living area. It was the same as a regular house, with a breakfast bar dividing the kitchen and lounge. In the centre of the lounge stood a wooden coffee table carved in the shape of an elephant. A set of sliding doors led to the back deck, which sat level with the water.

  ‘Does this thing have an engine?’ I asked.

  ‘Some do – but most are floating homes, not real houseboats.’

  ‘I didn’t know there was a difference.’ I was peering out the side window. There was a dried starfish dangling from the eaves. ‘This is so you, Bea. What a place to live.’

  ‘Beats being landlocked,’ she said, and put my gifts on the table. ‘You hungry?’

  ‘I’m not really eating. I’m on a kind of fast.’

  ‘Cool – me too.’

  ‘What for?’

  ‘Me and Venus are on vacation, so we’re doing a ten-day cleanse. All we’ve had is maple syrup, lemon juice and cayenne pepper.’

  ‘Oh.’ I let my bag drop. It slumped over and laid flat, like a dead badger. ‘Well, my fast isn’t like that. Mine’s a reverse cleanse. All I’ve had is beer and hardbar and cigarettes.’

  ‘For how long?’ she asked.

  ‘On and off for a couple of weeks, I guess.’

  ‘That’s long enough.’

  Placing her hands on my shoulders, she guided me to the sofa and pushed me down on it, then went to get two glasses out of her kitchen cupboards. She poured us both a drink from a pitcher on the counter. ‘Your detox starts today.’

  She handed me a glass. The liquid inside was cloudy. I took a sip. The mix of citrus and syrup didn’t sit well together, and the cayenne left an after-burn on your tongue.

  ‘Nice.’

  ‘You get used to it.’

  From upstairs, I could hear music – wailing vocals and the thrash of guitar chords. I looked at the ceiling.

  ‘That’s Venus, rehearsing. She’s got a gig this weekend.’

  Bea went to the bottom of the stairs, waited for a break in the song, and called up, ‘V? My friend is here.’

  I heard the whine of feedback, followed by the sound of heavy footsteps. Then Venus appeared on the stairs. She looked stocky and squarely built, like a block of ice. She was wearing black jeans and a black tank top, and had a lot of piercings on her face: in her nose, her lips, her eyebrows. Just as she reached the bottom of the stairs, Belle trundled by, and Sprite scampered after her. They were playing tag, chasing each other around the place.

  Venus wrinkled her nose. ‘What’s with the cat?’

  ‘Trevor brought it. Trev, this is Venus.’

  We didn’t bother pretending to hug. She held out her hand, and I shook it. Her fingers felt cold, her grip brittle. She had a band of thorns tattooed around her bicep.

  ‘Nice to meet you.’

  ‘Same here.’

  We both let go. Venus slumped into a lounger by the kitchen, stretched, and took a sip of my drink. She saw me looking at it and smiled.

  ‘Sorry – was this yours?’

  ‘No, go ahead.’

  She took another swig. ‘How long are you staying, Trevor?’

  ‘Not long.’

  Beatrice smiled. ‘You can stay for as long as you want.’

  ‘Thanks,’ I said.

  I was smiling too. We were all smiling.

  chapter 58

  The first place they took me was a juice bar in the middle of the Mission. Out front it had a small balcony, shielded by an awning, with chrome tables and chrome chairs. Inside, pieces of origami dangled from the ceiling on fishing line. When you opened the door, the breeze sent all the origami spinning: cranes and insects and dragons and giraffes and butterflies and flowers. The air in there was ripe with the scent of pulped fruit and vegetables.

  While Venus got us a table, I followed Bea to the till. She marched right over to it and scissor-kicked her foot up on the counter. She wanted to show the clerk her new shoes. They were high-top sneakers with flat white laces – similar to old-school Converse.

  The clerk wolf-whistled. ‘I’m jealous. Where did you get them?’

  He cupped his hands around her shoe, cradling it like a glass slipper. He was a beefy guy who looked like a surfer: tanned skin, sun-bleached hair, big delts and shoulder muscles.

  ‘Thrift Town. Five bucks.’

  ‘You are such a bargain-whore.’

  She let her shoe drop, cocked her head to one side, and adopted a Valley girl accent. ‘Tell me about it. Now are you, like, going to serve me some juice or what?’

  ‘Of course.’ He twirled a blending-cup in his palm, like a cocktail artist. ‘Are you and V still on your fast?’

  ‘The last day. But we can juice. What do you want, Trev?’

  The guy looked at me for the first time.

  ‘This is yours?’ he asked. ‘Did you get him at Thrift Town too?’

  ‘Yeah,’ I said, ‘I was lying in the bargain bin, naked. It was nuts.’

  Bea laughed, and so did the guy. After that I was all right by him. Bea ordered us a round of strawberry-alfalfa iced smoothies. While the guy diced and ground our ingredients, she leaned on the counter and chatted to him, one leg bent back at the knee like a character in a Fifties film. She had his complete attention, and the attention of all the other customers, too. She was like a miniature sun, with her own gravitational pull. You couldn’t help getting drawn into her orbit.

  The guy asked, ‘Are you going to Burning Man this year, gorgeous?’

  ‘Of course, gorgeous,’ she said, imitating his surfer-drawl. ‘We’re taking a play.’

  Venus was waiting for us on the patio. The table she’d chosen was divided in half by a shaft of sunlight, and she was sitting on the shady side, with her arms crossed, staring at the street. I went out there to join her.

  I said, ‘Thanks for letting me stay.’

  ‘I’m used to it. Everybody comes to Beatrice.’

  ‘Like pilgrims or something, eh?’

  ‘Yeah. Or something.’

  After that we sat in silence, not looking at each other, until Bea strutted out. She had a tray flat on her palm, waitress-style, balancing three tall glasses filled with reddish slush.

  Venus said, ‘What about our fast?’

  ‘It’s the last day. You’re allowed to juice on the last day.’

  ‘No – you juice after the last day. After ten days.’

  ‘I wanted Trev to try this.’

  She placed her tray on the table, took the seat between us, and handed out the smoothies. At first Venus wouldn’t have any of hers – she t
ook her straw and gripped it like an ice pick and stabbed repeatedly at the slush in her glass. I ate mine in slow spoonfuls, savouring the tongue-numbing taste, and studied my placemat. It was a piece of paper with folding patterns and instructions written on it, so customers could make their own origami figurines.

  Between sips, Beatrice said, ‘Your phone call scared me.’

  ‘Sorry. It’s been a rough ride.’

  ‘Tell us.’

  I poked at my smoothie, scooped up a bit, and let it slither off my spoon.

  I said, ‘For starters, I’m impotent.’

  Bea nodded, concerned, accepting this as if I’d told her I’d broken my wrist.

  Venus said, ‘Only old men get impotent.’

  ‘That’s what I thought.’

  ‘For how long?’ Bea asked.

  ‘Ever since she told me. Nothing happens down there – not even when I went to a hooker.’

  ‘Oh, God.’ Bea lowered her head and covered her eyes, as if shielding them from something very bright. Or very embarrassing. ‘I was worried about you going a bit wild.’

  She actually seemed kind of impressed. Not Venus. She slammed her glass down on the table, making the chrome ring. ‘Those girls get treated like slaves. You know that, right?’

  I held up my hands.

  ‘I know. But it wasn’t what you think. We really bonded, me and Sunita. Remind me to send her a postcard. I owe her – for helping me get away.’

  ‘From the brothel?’ Bea asked.

  ‘From these guys that were after me. These bikers.’

  Venus rolled her eyes, but Bea wanted to hear the whole story. I tried to explain about the hitcher and his brother, about stealing the twixer and the chase through the desert, about the Cobras tracking me to the brothel. But it was the same as my story about Sprite and the diner – it came out all wrong and sounded far-fetched and unbelievable.

  ‘Sure,’ Venus said. ‘You stole whisky from the Hell’s Angels and now they’re chasing you all around the coast.’

  ‘They’re not really Hell’s Angels. And it’s mezcal, not whisky. I can show you the bottle – it’s in my car.’

  ‘Awesome,’ Bea said, pointing her straw at me. ‘We’re sampling it later.’

  ‘I’ve been through some really weird shit.’

  She patted my cheek. Affectionately. ‘I know, Trev. But maybe it was…’

  ‘What?’

  She hesitated, and Venus answered for her. ‘Totally imaginary.’

  I thought back, but none of it was clear to me. Ever since crossing the border I’d been drinking so much, and sleeping so little. Then there’d been the hitcher and his fucking buns.

  ‘Well,’ I said, rubbing my temples, ‘I was pretty high on peyote a lot of the time.’

  Even Venus laughed at that.

  We sat in the juice bar all afternoon. Sunlight poured down over the street and sidewalk, but beneath the awning the patio was sheltered and shady and porcelain-cool. I was dying for a real drink – an alcoholic one – but kept that to myself. We ordered a few glasses of lemon water to wash down the smoothies, and talked about the work Bea was doing for the woman’s shelter. That was how she and Venus had first met.

  ‘V’s been doing it longer than me. It’s really harsh, Trev. Some of the women who come in are just broken. Venus is a rock for them.’

  She reached out and squeezed Venus’s hand. Venus’s nails were painted black, and glistened like the minor keys on a piano. I stared at their fingers, at the way they interlocked.

  ‘Have you heard anything from Zu?’ I asked, trying to sound casual.

  ‘She’s called me a couple times. She feels awful.’

  ‘She should.’

  I picked up my placemat and studied the origami instructions. They looked pretty complicated. I gave it a go anyway. I bent the paper in half, and folded it along the dotted line down the centre. I had no idea what I was making, but I needed to be doing something.

  Bea said, ‘You have to at least talk to her.’

  ‘What’s the point?’

  Venus yawned, deliberately, and said, ‘The point is, you have to decide what you want. You either want to fix things and make it work, or you want to end it and move on.’

  I focused carefully on the next fold. It was a tricky one – a kind of inverted triangle that doubled back on itself, like a lightning bolt.

  ‘It’s not that easy,’ I said, running my forefinger over the crease. ‘Just imagine if Bea cheated on you. You’d still love her, but you’d also be bitter and hurt and infuriated.’

  She shoved the rest of her smoothie aside. ‘That would never happen.’

  ‘I’m not saying it would. I’m just using it as an example.’

  ‘It’s a stupid example.’

  We bickered back and forth while I tried to figure out how to do the next few folds. Bea listened and smiled, letting us butt heads, making a neutral comment every now and again. We were still at it when the clerk came over to clear our glasses and spoons away.

  ‘Hey, bunnies – you dig the shakes?’

  ‘Unreal, Tao.’ Bea touched his wrist. ‘Come sit with us, if you’re not busy.’

  He put down his tray, turned a chair around, and sat straddling it with his arms folded across the backrest. His features – aquiline nose, full lips, dimpled chin – all fitted together perfectly, like a Roman bronze. He was probably the best-looking man I’ve ever seen.

  ‘And this is…?’ he said, nodding at me.

  ‘This is Trevor. We were just talking about his issues.’

  ‘You want to share?’ he asked me.

  ‘I think I’ve bored these ladies enough.’

  ‘Good. Then we can talk about my favourite subject.’ He touched his fingers to his chest, intentionally effete. ‘Me.’

  He started telling us about a guy he’d picked up on the weekend, at a gay bar called Mystique. The guy had fallen in love with him and wouldn’t stop calling. He wanted Tao to pee on him, apparently. Or that’s what the guy had said when he was drunk. Tao related all this in a matter-of-fact, deadpan manner that was ridiculously funny. Stand-up-comic funny.

  ‘It’s not that I have anything against watersports,’ he said. ‘But it all seems a little too soon. I need to know a guy pretty well before I’ll give him a golden shower.’

  I was giggling so hard I gagged up a bit of smoothie. My stomach was still adjusting.

  ‘I can’t believe he asked you that,’ Bea said.

  ‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘What a total fag.’

  Everybody went quiet. Tao looked at me. ‘Oops,’ he said.

  ‘Sorry.’

  Bea patted my hand. ‘You’re still learning.’

  I took a sip of water. After that, I kept quiet and let them talk and concentrated on my origami. It turned out to be a horse. Or it was supposed to be a horse. I’d made the legs too short and it looked more like a donkey. I put it down in front of me on the table. The others were discussing a party cruise, which was being hosted by one of their mutual friends the following night. Tao wanted us to come along, but Bea wasn’t sure about it. Venus didn’t seem to care. She was rocking in her chair, balanced on its back legs, with her hands laced behind her head. You could tell she was a lot happier now that I’d made an ass of myself.

  chapter 59

  ‘This girl turned up the other week. About our age, maybe a little younger.’

  Beatrice and I were sitting on the sofa in their living room. Venus was in the kitchen, making peppermint tea. Since it was still technically the last day of their fast, we couldn’t drink. They couldn’t, anyways. Instead we’d decided to watch the Wizard of Oz tape I’d brought them, since I’d never seen it. While we waited, Bea was telling me about her job.

  ‘Her name was Alison,’ she said. ‘She’d left her boyfriend, and come to us to hide from him. Like a lot of our girls, her bruises were hidden: on her ribs, her back, her thighs.’

  I winced, imagining it.

  ‘But she al
so had these raw red marks on her wrist. Her boyfriend had been handcuffing her to the bed whenever he went out, to prevent her from running away.’

  ‘Jesus.’

  From the kitchen, Venus called out, ‘Fucker deserves to be castrated.’

  I sighed and let my head flop back on the sofa. It was a big three-seater, with those beanbag cushions that mould to your body. I said, ‘That kind of thing makes me ashamed to be a man.’

  ‘You could always turn tranny,’ Bea suggested, ‘or get a sex-change.’

  ‘Sure – just call me Trevine.’

  ‘You should move down here, and become our sister.’

  ‘I will, just so I can break the news to Zuzska. Imagine that. I’d be like, “Look what you’ve done to me. I’m a woman now.”’

  Bea laughed. ‘As if it’s her fault.’

  ‘Of course it’s her fault.’

  On the coffee table in front of me was one of those digital photo frames. It cycled through various photos of Venus and Bea: huddled in a tent during a rainstorm, and sitting rinkside at a hockey game, and leaning over a birthday cake, their faces lit from below by the candle-glow. There was a photo of them with Tao, too, during some kind of costumed race.

  I said, ‘I need to go to the bathroom.’

  I went in and locked the door and sat on the toilet for a bit. Then I splashed water on my face, and took a quick slug from the mickey I’d picked up on the way back from the juice bar. It was a cheap Chinese rice liquor that tasted a bit like sake.

  When I came back out, Bea asked, ‘Okay, honey?’

  ‘It’s funny,’ I said, and sank down beside her, ‘but I can’t be mad at her any more. All that rage burned through me on the road. Now I just feel empty and ashen, like an urn.’

  ‘That’s probably a good thing.’

  Belle and Sprite came in from the hall, and curled up at our feet. Entwined like that, black and white, they looked like a living yin and yang symbol – except in this case the yin was a lot bigger than the yang.

  ‘Is that normal?’ I asked.

  ‘It’s natural,’ Bea said.

  Venus brought out the tea. They had a Japanese teapot and matching cups. She put them down on the elephant table, then dropped between us – plonk – like an icicle that had fallen from the ceiling. She poured the tea and offered me a steaming cup. I scorched my tongue on the first sip, and had to spit it back out.