Chapter Seventeen
Jesus, that girl is choice, King thought, gazing into the backseat of the station wagon. He stared at the blonde’s breasts, at the folds of the Jefferson Airplane T-shirt that held them in place. He’d polish those apples any day. He placed a foot on the car’s running board and leaned in. He couldn’t make out any bra lines at all. His mind jumped to Janice. He hoped she was halfway to San Francisco by now.
“He’s not sitting on my lap!” the blonde barked, turning away from him. She crossed her legs—bare, shiny, endless—and folded her arms across her chest.
Taken aback, King looked past the fox to her seatmate in the middle. The skinny redhead peered up at him. No tits at all. Legs like knitting needles. The girl offered him a sympathetic smile.
How old are these girls? King suddenly wondered. These sure weren’t Swedish airline stewardesses vacationing in the Great American West. They were kids. Probably high school. His hard-on wobbled and began to retract.
The redhead scooted over a few inches, banging hips with the frizzy-haired girl on the other side of her. “You can probably fit,” she said. “Might not be very comfortable, though.” She grabbed the blonde’s arm and pulled. “Come on, Mary, move over.”
“Don’t touch me,” Mary Bowen snapped, jerking her arm free. “He can’t fit in here. There’s no room.”
“Come on, now, girls, we’re all in this together,” the man in the baseball cap said from behind King. “I’m sure we can squeeze him in.”
“We can’t, Coach,” Mary Bowen said, her eyes beseeching him. “You can see we don’t have room as it is. I’ve had Summer’s elbow in my side the whole way.”
“Oh, you wish!”
The coach sighed. “We can get one more up front next to me, then. Robin, come on up.”
“No, I want to stay back here,” the frizzy-haired girl said. “Summer can move up.”
“You’re smaller than Dana,” the coach said. “I need to be able to move my arms. I’m driving the car, remember? Come on, let’s get moving.”
“We have to catch up to those men,” Mary said. “We have to really hurry.”
King stepped off the running board and straightened up. “You know what? I’ve changed my mind,” he said.
“What do you mean?” Coach Prinzano asked.
“I’ve decided I don’t want to go to Stockton. That was my girlfriend’s idea.”
“Well, we’re not going to take you back.”
“I’ll be fine. It’s only a couple of miles.”
The coach pursed his lips, like he was holding in a fart. “It’s farther than that, friend. And it’s not safe in Mammoth View. You know that. Don’t mind Mary. We can all fit.”
King slapped the man on the shoulder. “Thanks for the concern, Coach,” he said. “Really. But I’ll be fine. I was an army ranger in a previous life.” He turned and headed back the way he and Janice had come.
Coach Prinzano stood there dumbly, watching him walk away, until Mary Bowen piped up. “He said he’s fine, Coach. Let’s go.”
King smiled to himself, pleased to have the station wagon behind him, out of his sight. He’d rather shoot himself than sit next to that little bitch for the next four hours. In a couple of years she was going to turn on the Johnny Carson Show and see him on the couch next to Ed. She’d remember this moment—she’d realize she blew it. That she’d had the chance to chat up a Broadway star and passed it up. King thought about the time a few years ago when Carson made a joke about a shortage of toilet paper, causing a run on the stuff. People were so stupid, so prone to fearing the worst. A world without toilet paper! He smiled to himself, satisfied. He stepped off the road and breathed in the mountain air. He was going to miss this air. He refused to look back at the car as it pulled away. He was going to make it on his own.
King felt good for the first half-hour or so. The trees shooting up into the atmosphere, the sounds of birds, the perfect human aloneness of the enterprise. It blew his mind. He should do this more often, he thought. Had he ever done this? He listened to pine needles crackle under his shoes. He closed his eyes against the breeze. He touched tree trunks as he passed them, rolling the palms of his hands over the rough bark. His paranoia was lifting. He decided that was all it had been. He had nothing to worry about. There was no reason for him to run from Mammoth View like everyone else. No one knew anything. It wasn’t his fault everyone had freaked out. There’d been an earthquake! They couldn’t blame that on him. He skipped through the soft padding of the forest floor—throwing his arms out and kicking his legs—before he realized what he was doing. He pulled himself back into a normal walking stride. The jocks had called him a drama fag in high school. His own brother, the basketball star, had called him a drama fag. King had been an athlete, too, but being in theater had trumped sports. The problem was, no one respected artistic creativity. At least not until you became a celebrity. That was the problem with the whole country. People laughed at artists, taunted them at school, beat them up for dressing different and acting different. Unless they were up there on the big screen. Somehow that changed everything. Did anyone call Burt Reynolds a drama fag when he was in high school? Probably. But now he had the biggest movie in the world—that insipid Smokey and the Bandit—and every boy in the country wanted to be just like him. Kids imitated his high-pitched cackle. That was a drama-fag laugh if there ever was one.
King let his mind drift to the start of the day. It felt like ages ago. Epochs. He saw himself flipping on the lights at the station, one by one—tick, tick, tick. Stepping into the booth and closing the door behind him. Sitting in the chair and cracking his neck. Testing out his announcer’s voice as a warm-up, going as deep and resonant as he could. He had tried out a girly scream and grinned at the result. He did a good girly scream. It must have been great to be in radio in the ’30s and ’40s, when it was glamorous and daring. When it involved actors, real professionals, not disc jockeys. He had taught himself all the old-school sound effects: twisting cellophane, shaking metal sheets, squeezing a box of cornstarch. He could make it sound like a thunderstorm or a man staggering through the desert. He could perfectly simulate the sound of a knife stabbing deep into flesh. Janice hadn’t said a word about his show today. It annoyed him that she clearly didn’t bother to listen, even though he’d specifically asked her to tune in. That hurt more than her breaking up with him and leaving him on the side of the road. Not so long ago Janice had wanted to marry him. She was grateful for him, and for good reason. He’d made her who she was, taught her about sex and how to be an adult. How to be cool. Her next boyfriend, whoever the hell that turned out to be, should send him a thank-you card. King snapped his head around, as if someone might be following him. His foot came down on nothing—he’d misjudged the incline—and he stumbled. As the foot clunked awkwardly, a spasm of pain rolled through him, traveling up through the spinal column.
King stopped walking. He dropped his head, rubbed at his back with his knuckles. His euphoria had gone, just like that. Weariness replaced it, not so much physical as emotional. He had to think about what he was going to do next. What he was going to do until he was flush. How he was going to eat and pay bills without a paycheck coming in. He shook his head, shook out his arms. Not now, he decided. He took a deep breath of that pure mountain air and let it loudly whistle out of his lungs. This was not the time to figure out such things.
He made his legs move again, took long strides to work the pain out of his spine. He tried to pick up where he’d left off with the nature-loving. The trees, the sky, the breeze. All that. He wondered what nature lovers think about when they’re out in nature.
His mind jumped back to his show today, his last one ever. He considered it a triumph, even if no one else did. He certainly wasn’t surprised no one else did. No one had any taste anymore. No one had any class. He’d tried to prove otherwise time and time again. He’d tried to make a
real career in radio by being more than a stupid record-spinner. He wrote a letter a couple of years ago to Norman Corwin, the legendary radio dramatist, asking for a meeting. He’d wanted to pick the great man’s brain, suggest a collaboration. Corwin wrote back—three typed sentences on an otherwise bare white page—informing him that he was teaching a college class in the fall and inviting him to audit it. Once the rush of receiving a letter from Norman Corwin had worn off, he tore it up and tossed it down the garbage disposal. A college class? He was a colleague, not a wide-eyed undergrad. He’d been nominated for a San Diego Radio Broadcasters Award. He had it on good authority that he placed a close second in the voting.
King leaned against a tree—he needed to rest. He didn’t have enough thoughts to sustain him on a long walk in the woods. That was the problem, he decided. He was a doer, not a thinker. He needed to play a game while walking, like looking for state license plates during a drive on the Interstate. Something to keep his mind occupied. He stretched his back and slowed his pace. What he needed was to get high. That was obvious. He could walk for hours if he was high. He could do anything when he was high.
He was seventeen years old the first time he tried the demon weed. He was wearing his James Dean jacket—the red breaker with the high collar—and feeling rebellious without a cause. His friend John Davis had bought the grass from a mechanic he worked with at the gas station. John had been Slim in Of Mice and Men, Grant High’s biggest theatrical success in its history. King obviously had been George. He and John had been fast friends since the eighth grade. John was kind of his Tonto, his faithful second. King had mentioned that he wanted to try marijuana a few weeks earlier, and so John had gone out and made it happen. After school, they sat under an elm tree at the far end of Mister Magnusen’s orchard, rolled the cigarettes as best they could, and lit them. They hadn’t been smart enough to bring girls with them. They hadn’t known that when you’re high any girls will do. He took to marijuana right away—he loved the way it made everything go soft—but it wasn’t until his sophomore year in college that he became a regular user. That was when his roommate introduced him to a guy who sold the stuff out of his trunk.
It made sense that weed scared the government. Free thinkers always scared people who were invested in the status quo. That was a good thing. He wanted to scare the old men who ran the country, the old fools who decided what was acceptable and what wasn’t, the politicians who started the Vietnam War and the justices who stopped Milton Luros from illustrating the Kama Sutra. He wanted to be dangerous. He lit up whenever he needed a burst of dangerous creativity. When he needed to finish the bridge of a song, or nail a reaction look that wasn’t in the script’s directions, or get through a monologue that went on too long. He did his best work while high, which had to be why he felt so exhausted after just half an hour of hiking. He’d been working at a top level for weeks. He saw it all come together this morning, but it had happened so suddenly—and ended so suddenly—that he hadn’t had time to properly come down from the high. That was dangerous too, hanging out there on the edge, being mentally and creatively blue-balled. He trudged on, toward the town that soon would be a permanent part of his past, just one more bad memory on the way to greatness.
______
Tori knew exactly what to do when she was in danger. Head straight to the study, do not pass Go, do not collect two hundred dollars. She’d snatch the key that was taped behind the empty fish tank, unlock the desk, take out the pistol. The thing was heavy—she thought that every time she hefted it. Sometimes, when no one was home, she held it in both hands and dropped her arms, like she was a grandfather’s clock. Just to feel the full weight of it. Dad always told her to respect the gun, that it was a serious thing.
She wouldn’t mess around with it when someone was actually after her, of course. When that happened she would grab it, check the chamber (nothing’s more useless than an unloaded gun, her father said), and lower herself into a crouch. This was not mere theory. Her father needed her help, needed to know she could protect herself if he couldn’t. He wasn’t a young man anymore. He loved to say that, and it was true. His hair had gray flecks in it. His eyes—those eyes! her friend Brianna had grossly chirped that time, after he smiled at her—had developed permanent half-circles under them.
Her father showed her how to use the gun when she was twelve. Took her to the range, held her arms the first time so the pistol wouldn’t fly out of her hand when she pulled the trigger. They went back and did it again the following weekend. Three days later came her initiation. They were sitting in the den watching Laugh-In. She was slurping up the last of her bowl of SpaghettiO’s while he smirked at the TV, a cigarette hanging from his mouth. The man didn’t even knock, like a civilized person. He just called out, “Hey Billy, it’s Austin,” causing Dad to tip his head slightly, as if he wasn’t sure whether the words had come from inside his head or real life. He nodded at her. She put her bowl down and ran—she was fast even then—staying low so the unwanted visitor couldn’t see her slip through the entryway and into the back of the house.
Her father walked to the window between the kitchen archway and the front door. He peered around the curtain. “What the hell do you want?”
“Can I use your john?” the voice responded. “Mine’s broken.”
Dad snorted his annoyance. “Are you fucking kidding? You came all the way over here to use the can? Use the McDonald’s. Go to Garrity’s.” He eased into a crouch when Austin didn’t immediately reply.
Tori inched up to the window on the other side of the door and looked outside. She spotted a large man in a leather coat standing on the mat and holding his crotch. He had a jungle adventurer’s hat on his head, pushed back off his forehead. She leaned closer. She could feel the cold through the single pane. She resisted the urge to put her finger on the thin mist of condensation where her breath had hit.
“Come on, Billy,” the man said. “I’ve got to drop a deuce. I don’t want to do it at goddamn McDonald’s. I’ll air it out, I promise.”
Billy flicked his eyes at Tori, who held the gun against her shoulder. She set her legs in the ready position. She felt her pulse pounding in her neck. The gun slipped in her hands and she tightened her grip. Billy waved at her with his whole arm—Go away! Go away!—and, stung, Tori took a step back, into the doorway, just out of sight. She let her arms drop, felt the gun swing. She could relax, she told herself. Everything was all right.
She heard her father open the door.
“Thanks, Billy, you’re a life saver,” the man said.
Tori quietly backpedaled into the den to return the gun to its hiding place. She was heading over to the desk when the bang made the floor jump and she fell. Her knee throbbed—the pain radiated up her leg and zeroed in on the small of her back—but she forced herself to her feet and ran into the foyer. The front door hung open; somehow it had popped off the top hinge. Then she saw her father on his back, flailing. Three men were on top of him. One of them punched him in the head. The big man, Austin, stood off to the side, watching, hugging himself. His brows rose as if magnetized, and he froze at the sight of her. The other strangers soon stopped what they were doing. They all looked at her.
“Hello, honey,” the puncher said. “Why don’t you go in your room and leave the adults to talk?”
Tori stretched her arms out, her finger rubbing the pistol’s trigger.
The man smiled. He had a large gap between his front teeth that matched the dimple in his chin. His black hair was slicked straight back, but a handful of strands had fallen into his face. It looked like a toddler had finger-painted on his forehead.
The gun bobbed at the end of Tori’s sightline. She wouldn’t be able to pull the trigger; she was sure of that. But the men didn’t know it—or at least they didn’t know it with certainty. The man with the gap stood up slowly, his hands flapped upward in a jokey “I surrender” gesture. The other two did the same
, glaring at her the whole time.
“All right, Billy. You got a good girl there,” the puncher said without looking at him. “She must love her daddy—God only knows why.”
Gap-tooth waved his minions out the door, including Austin. He smiled at Tori again, whacked his foot against Billy’s leg, and walked out, closing the broken door behind him. Only then did Tori’s father turn over and face her. Blood had collected in the groove over his upper lip. His right eye drooped.
“Dad, you’re bleeding!” she cried.
“I’m okay.”
“Who were those men?”
“You should have stayed in the back,” he said, sitting up and wiping the blood from his lip. “You know better.”
Tori couldn’t believe he was mad at her. He was really P.O.’d. “Why were they beating you up?” she demanded.
“An argument,” he said. He stood up, stepped over to the window, and looked out.
“You were arguing with them?”
“Yeah. It was just an argument. About . . .” he sighed. “About politics.”
“What?”
“Politics. Never mind. It doesn’t matter. It was a disagreement at a bar.” He was beside her now. He took the gun from her hands and dropped it in his pocket. He held Tori by the shoulders. “Well done, T. You looked after your old man.”
Tori squinted at his face. It was beat up but inviting. A comforting face. One eye still twinkled. “You’re not mad at me?” she said.
“I am. A little.” He rested a hand on her head, cracked his back with a groan. “Now let this be a lesson to you, Victoria. You treat people the way you want to be treated. And you never, ever talk politics with strangers.”
Tori looked behind her. Seeing an empty road, she stopped running. Nothing like that had happened since. It could have been the reason they moved to Oildale the next year. Worse neighborhood, but bigger house—an L-shaped ranch-style with three bedrooms. But she still went to the range with her father a handful of times every year. She still checked for the key taped behind the empty fish tank every week or so. She still woke up with a start whenever the wind blew a tree branch against the side of the house.
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