After we rounded the curve and C. J.’s jaw muscles had relaxed to the point that he was able to pry his teeth apart, he made another attempt.
“Uh, my sister needs the car to go to Beaumont.”
I was pretty sure that was a lie because I knew his sister was eight years old, but I didn’t interfere. Every man must work out his own destiny. I felt certain that C. J.’s destiny included a trip down the Roller Coaster but I wasn’t a prophet. Maybe he would be the one to break the heretofore-unbreakable fortitude of Darnell Ray.
If Darnell had any good qualities, and I must admit it was a disputed question, they would be his constancy and his passionate determination to make every moment of life entertaining. He was an unassailable rock of resolution. Once he had embarked, no quantity of supplication could stay his course. C. J. may not have known it before the Roller Coaster, but I was confident he would know it before the end of the ride.
“Hey, look . . . ,” he began again, but a vicious S-curve buried in enough sand to start a private beach loomed ahead, and his jaw snapped shut reflexively as he gripped the window and braced himself.
Driving through deep sand at high speeds is almost like driving on ice. Once you start sliding you have little traction, especially if you are skidding because you slammed on your brakes. Darnell knew better. He started into the curve by shifting back down into second gear and punching the gas. The Hound of Hell spun around in a flume of sand as we rounded the first curve going sideways. It’s a strange sensation to look straight out the windshield and see fence posts zipping past like cars at the Indy 500.
Halfway between the two curves, Darnell pulled his foot off the accelerator, spun the wheel back the other direction like a cowboy doing rope tricks, and punched his foot back down. We spun 180 degrees and slid around the second curve, watching the pine trees on the other side of the road racing past in pursuit of the fence posts.
When C. J. finally found his voice, he lost his temper. “You idiot! What if there was a car coming the other way?” he screeched in tones capable of shattering a windshield.
Darnell just grinned and continued to stare down the road. “But there weren’t.”
“But what if there was?” C. J. demanded, bringing his voice down three octaves, which was still several octaves above his normal level.
“But there weren’t, so it don’t matter,” Darnell said deliberately, as if he were explaining something obvious to a retarded child.
C. J. found this answer so infuriating that he couldn’t even articulate a reply. Strange guttural noises emanated from his throat, and he lunged across the seat at Darnell. I tried to push him back, but it was Darnell jerking the wheel to the left that slammed C. J. back against the door. A slight correction to the right kept us from plunging into the ditch.
C. J. grabbed his elbow, which had made sudden contact with the window handle, and rehearsed a few phrases in Cajun his brother-in-law had taught him. I had a Cajun uncle, but he never gave me any lessons on these particular phrases, so I can’t give you the exact translation. I got the impression it had to do with details of Darnell’s family tree. The gist of it was that, according to C. J., if Darnell had one of those big family Bibles on the coffee table with the genealogy in the front, there would be crucial gaps in the record on the paternal side for several generations. This exercise in oral history took some time and distracted C. J. enough for Darnell to make several astounding maneuvers without eliciting further comment.
We traveled on down a dirt road I had never seen before, buried deep in the woods. The sun advanced more quickly than expected, and before long it disappeared behind the tree line. This didn’t necessarily mean that night was imminent, since the true horizon was well below the tree line, but it did mean that the light was beginning to fade. And the further we went, the more the pines became mixed with hardwoods that overhung the road.
Before long we found ourselves on a narrow, red clay road that twisted and turned through the hills. Like most East Texas roads it had a ditch on each side, outside of which the ground rose back up level with the road or above it. Fence lines had disappeared, and the trees crowded closer and closer to the edge of the road. As the light waned, soon all we could see was a narrow corridor covered by an archway of trees.
The road was only wide enough for one car, but Darnell sped down it at forty or fifty miles per hour. The further we went, the more pronounced the curves and hills became and the deeper the road cut into the terrain. I watched the walls rise on either side. By the time Darnell was forced to turn on the headlights, we were speeding along a tunnel with six-foot clay walls on either side. I didn’t know roads like this even existed in Fred. The curves were so sharp it was impossible to tell what lay around them, and the hills had crowns so abrupt that the headlights shot up into the canopy of leaves and pine needles. Sometimes it seemed possible that there was no road in the darkness on the other side of the hill.
But more terrifying than the uncertainty of the road was the very real possibility of a car approaching from the opposite direction. It took no time for me to become alarmed to the point of panic.
I decided to make a helpful suggestion. “Turn on your bright lights.”
“Why?”
I thought the answer was obvious, but I wasn’t leaving anything to interpretation. “Because I can’t see where we’re going.”
“You don’t have ta see. Yer not drivin’.” I realized that he wasn’t willing to diminish the thrill of the ride by being able to see the road.
“Yeah,” C. J. insisted. “Turn on your brights. We can’t see.”
Darnell’s response was to turn off the lights completely. Cries of dismay echoed through the piney woods. He turned on the lights and we tabled our complaints.
Then, as if to heighten Darnell’s delight and my dismay, it began to rain. The canopy of trees prevented most of it from reaching us, but some drops made it through. Darnell turned the wipers on and continued to hurl through the darkness. The wipers slid across the windshield once and quit.
“What’s with the wipers?” C. J. complained. “I can’t see the road.”
“You don’t have ta see. Yer not drivin’.”
“Why aren’t the wipers going?” C. J.’s voice had an edge of hysteria that must have amused Darnell. I can’t think of any other reason he would have volunteered the next bit of information.
“If you want the wipers ta work, you have ta hit the dash.” Darnell pounded the top of the dash once with a fist and the wipers slid across the windshield once again. C. J. tried it and they cycled again. He began pounding on the dash in regular intervals as we careened down the road.
Since it was evident that pleading would have no impact on Darnell, I settled into my own private sanctuary of terror. I lived each curve and summit in mortal dread of an oncoming car.
After what seemed like hours, but was probably only about twenty minutes, the road flowed into a straight gravel lane with shallow ditches on either side. I breathed a protracted sigh of relief and a prayer of gratitude to see it was wide enough for two or three cars. It was premature, however, because Darnell skidded to a stop, turned the truck around, and headed back into hell.
At that point I was forced to a philosophical crisis. I felt sure I must either resolve my anxiety or go mad. I reasoned with myself and my Creator in this fashion: I am not in control of this truck. Reasoning with the driver is out of the question, as he is beyond reason. Therefore I will either survive or die. Either way I will meet my fate in a manner entirely out of my control. So be it. I closed my eyes with the intention of keeping them closed until the truck stopped swaying and dipping, twenty minutes later.
C. J., on the other hand, dealt with his fear differently. After his nonstop remonstration on the outward journey, at which Darnell had only grinned, he had reached his own philosophical crisis when Darnell turned the truck around.
“No, sir! I am not going back through that again. Stop this machine-from-hell; I’m getting o
ut.”
Darnell pushed in the clutch, gunned the engine, and turned his face to the passenger side. The green glow of the dash lights reflected off his glasses, momentarily turning them into opaque green circles. Even his lips seemed to turn green as he grinned and responded, “Look, I’ll just slow down ta twenty and you can jump out.” He slowed the truck down.
“I mean it. Stop this truck.”
Darnell repeated his offer with the same ghastly green grin. The illumination from below cast strange shadows on his face, his high cheekbones leaving his eyes in darkness. He looked like a goblin from some B movie desecrated by Ted Turner.
“That does it. I’m getting out of this truck no matter what.” C. J. opened the door and attempted to jump. I grabbed him by his belt loops and pulled him back in. While he was off-balance, I reached across him, slammed the door, and locked it. After a few more attempts on C. J.’s part, we were already into the breech, and he had to abandon his escape attempt as Darnell punched the truck up to thrill speed once again.
When Darn ElRay finally deposited us back at home, I was a quivering mass of nerves. We tumbled out of the door onto the driveway, and Darnell sped off in a cloud of dust. I turned to see C. J. staggering after him, hurling handfuls of sand at the truck.
In the Fortress of Solitude, I tuned in a medley of “The 1812 Overture” and “The Battle of New Orleans.” I scribbled in my journal with trembling hands and wondered if God would hold me to a promise I made in mortal fear for my life. If so, how could I explain to Dad, the Baptist preacher, that I was going to be a priest?
CHAPTER TWENTY Some months later I was lying on my bed, in the winter of my discontent, listening to the radio vacillate between Handel’s “Water Music” and “Blue Eyes Crying in the Rain” and staring at the poster on the door, which proclaimed “Abandon hope all ye who enter here.” This warning was usually directed toward Mom, who said it had been so long since she had seen the floor in my room she had forgotten the color of the carpet. I didn’t have the heart to remind her the floor was done in tile.
However, the poster more accurately described my own despair. Despite my Grit route, I had no money, a serious crisis for a sixteen-year-old. Without money I couldn’t afford a car. Without a car I couldn’t get a job. Without a job I couldn’t get any money. Without money I couldn’t afford a car. Without a car . . . wait a minute, I think I already did that part. Anyway, you get the picture. I was deep in the throes of a recession that showed signs of deepening into a depression with both financial and emotional implications.
I was startled from my melancholy by a blond head poking into the room. “Whatcha doin?” Hannah plopped down on the edge of the bed.
“Nothing. Go away.”
“Robert White, Bruce Gunn, and Luther Gorman all asked me out for the Valentine banquet. Who do you think I should go with?”
I snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. You know you’re not allowed to date until you’re sixteen.”
“So what’s your excuse?”
I kicked at her but she was already out the door. She hurled some comment about a pigsty over her shoulder as she disappeared down the hall.
Hannah enjoyed tormenting me by pointing out the disparity between her social life and mine. And, with her usual unswerving accuracy, she hit the bull’s-eye that marked my current tender spot. My need for cash was not the result of greed. I was hoping an infusion of capital in my personal economy would stimulate interest from romantic investors. My emotions were surfing on the crest of a rising tsunami of hormones, and I was desperate for the tender caress and passionate embrace of some dark-eyed, dark-haired, dark-skinned island beauty with no tan lines. Actually, after the disaster of Becky Tuttle, I was willing to settle for a bucktoothed, dishwater-blond cowgirl with freckles and a brother named Joe Bob.
Unfortunately, neither the island beauty nor the cowgirl knew of my existence. (More accurately, the cowgirl had seen me once at school when I tripped on a carpet stain and disappeared into an open locker. I waited until the bell rang and the crowd disbursed before I clambered out and slinked to class. Or is it slunk? Slank? Oh, never mind! The island beauty, on the other hand, disappeared every time I opened my eyes. Not a trait that encourages a stable relationship.)
On my last birthday I had realized, to my horror, that I was actually sweet sixteen and had never been kissed. (Except by Aunt Edna, an experience I had tried ardently, but without success, to avoid and, once it had happened, to forget.) Other Fredonians of my age seemed to have little trouble establishing amorous alliances. Even Ralph had managed to snag a girlfriend. And he had never been particularly noted for his looks or charm. Well, for that matter neither had I, but that wasn’t the point. The point was . . . well, forget the point! The fact was that he had a girlfriend and I didn’t.
And as if things weren’t bleak enough, Hannah reappeared at my door. “Come on,” she said impatiently.
“What?” I asked without moving.
“Dad said to come ‘rouse you out of your slough of despondency.’ So, come on.”
“He said what?”
“Oh, you know how he talks.” She made a face. “Just come on. We’re meeting in the kitchen.” Her summons delivered, she left me to follow. When I arrived at the kitchen table, everyone else was already there.
Heidi was gathering up the college catalogues and application forms she had scattered all over the table. “Now just wait a minute while I get this stuff put up.”
I sat down and shoved a pile out of my way.
Heidi glared at me. “Cut that out! I just got that stuff all organized.” I ignored her.
Heidi was anxiously plotting the course of her maiden flight from the nest to college, and she jealously guarded all the forms as if they were rare navigational charts. While she was capable of vexing me on occasion, I was grateful to her for at least one reason. She, too, had experienced difficulty adjusting to the social climate of high school, having done so only after months of anxiety and travail, like a woman in childbirth. Hannah, on the other hand, seemed to have entered junior high a complete social icon, as if she were Venus stepping fully formed from the surf of the Mediterranean.
Dad took charge of the situation. “Heidi, don’t worry about all that. We’ll only be a minute.” He pushed his glasses up on his nose and cleared his throat to be sure he had everyone’s attention. “Your mother and I have been doing some planning for the past few months. This is the last summer we will spend together as a family before Heidi goes off to college. We think it would be nice to borrow the pop-up camper from your Aunt Edna and Uncle Lucas and drive out to California to see your Aunt Wilma and Uncle Mort.” He glanced at Mom for confirmation of the announcement. She didn’t notice. “And take in such sights as befall us along the way.”
I smiled imperceptibly. Dad was always throwing in odd phrases when he talked. I think he knew it caught the girls off guard, and I enjoyed anything that irritated them, if only slightly.
The announcement sounded innocent worded like that. However, I translated it: We will take three teenagers halfway across the North American continent (including a mountain range and a desert) in a nine-year-old Ford Galaxy, pulling a trailer that would herniate Babe (Paul Bunyan’s blue ox), inflicting Southwestern culture on them (the teenagers) whenever possible, and then return.
Kind of changes things, doesn’t it? Perhaps Dad became a preacher because he was an idealist at heart. And only an idealist could have seen the trip in Dad’s terms.
And Dad really saw it in the terms he had used, even when we were enduring it. That was part of the mystery of Dad: the gritty underside of life didn’t seem to bother him. Not that he didn’t realize it was there. Whatever he was, he wasn’t naive. It just seemed to have no effect on him. The gum on the shoe, the pencil lead that breaks in the middle of a difficult problem, the elevator that stops at every floor when you’re late for an appointment on the thirty-seventh—all the things that I was doomed to notice and chafe against, Dad seem
ed to take as part of the equation.
Despite the hazards I saw lurking in the announcement, at the word California, I drifted into a trance. Ever since I had seen hippies in Cincinnati, I had been captivated with the concept of the counterculture. When we moved to Fred, I was plucked from an urban environment where flower children flourished, only to be planted in a dense thicket where the light from the Age of Aquarius rarely penetrated. I was like a cultural-exchange student, except I had no interest in exchanging cultures.
Though I was emotionally attuned to the counterculture, I had little knowledge of it and even less exposure to it. Therefore, the vacation announcement moved me profoundly. After a few years of managing on a trickle of information, I was going to actually travel to California, the fountainhead! To be given the opportunity to make the pilgrimage to the Mecca of Cool at the culturally significant age of sixteen was an omen that my destiny awaited me there. I shivered with anticipation, certain that some serendipitous coincidence would initiate me into the inner sanctum of Hipness. I began to dream of lithe girls in hip-hugger, bell-bottomed, patch-covered jeans wearing headbands to hold back straight hair that hung long enough to sit on. I visualized chance encounters, bumping into each other in a head shop or a record store.
“Oops,” I would say. “I’m sorry. I’ll get it.” I would pick up the eight-track I had accidentally knocked from her hand. “Far out! Iron Butterfly. I have this one. It’s one of my favorites.”
“Groovy,” she would answer. As I gave her the tape, our hands would touch. She would look suddenly into my eyes, as if startled, and the electricity would ignite a pure but passionate desire. The tape forgotten, we would be lost in each other as . . .
Welcome to Fred (The Fred Books) Page 16