The Last Open Road

by Burt Levy

  I remember dialing up Julie's number and kind of shuffling back and forth from one foot to the other while I waited through the silence and desperately tried to figure just what the hell to say. Especially if her mom answered. But I lucked out and Julie picked up the phone herself, and it sent a wave of cold, tiny shivers through my system when I heard her say, "Hello?"

  "Uh, er, hi, Julie. . . ."

  "Buddy?"

  "Uh, yeah, ah . . ."

  "Where are you?"

  "Uh, at the grocery store over by my apartment, actually. Right between the rye bread, mayonnaise, and piccalilli."

  "What on earth are you doing there?"

  "Well, uh, I guess I'm sort of calling you, aren't I?"

  There was a long pause, and I got this feeling like maybe her mother had just breezed through the room. "Listen, Buddy," she whispered, her mouth right up against the receiver, "you stay right there at your place. You hear me? I'll be over in a little bit." And she hung up—click!— before I could say another word.

  I had to grab the bread rack to keep from keeling over into the condiment shelf. Julie Finzio was actually coming over to my apartment . . . COMING OVER TO MY APARTMENT?! And I instantly realized I'd better get my ass over there and tidy up so Julie wouldn't think I was some kind of major-league slop hog living in a walk-up garbage dump. I ran across the street and bounded up the stairs three at a time, and when I finally threw the door open, I was shocked to discover it was even worse than I remembered. Then again, I hadn't been using it for much except to flop for a few hours every couple nights, and I can't say as I was ever a persnickety housekeeper. Which is undoubtedly why the place reeked from the remains of a decomposed peppers-and-egg sandwich and some well-aged carryout coleslaw I'd somehow neglected to throw out. Not to mention that several layers of used coveralls were decorating what I laughingly referred to as my "furniture," and orphan socks were scattered thither and yon like they'd been having some sort of Walt Disney ankle dance party while I was gone. And a quick glance in the mirror confirmed I was not looking all that presentable myself. Fact is, the last time I'd been real intimate with a bar of soap was when I stopped up that gas tank leak on Butch's old Ford. Fortunately, it took Julie more than an hour to sneak out of her mom's house, and that gave me just enough time to rush around my apartment like an electrified crazy person, throwing windows open and chucking old garbage and the worst of the coveralls into the trash out back. I mean, I could always go back for them later, right? I even sneaked into my aunt's house and gleeped the fan out of her kitchen window and a couple of those sachet things out of her linen drawer to maybe make my apartment smell a little nicer.

  Lord knows anything would've helped. . . .

  Now Aunt Rosamarina normally didn't approve of me coming into her house unless I knocked first and waited for her to open the chain lock a quarter inch so she could verify that I was indeed her nephew Buddy and not some escaped mental patient cleverly disguised to look and sound exactly like me. But it was Sunday evening, so I knew she'd be in the midst of one of her sherry-soaked Sunday night bubble baths, which included one bottle of lilac-scented bubble bath, one bottle of light cream sherry, and about twenty-five gallons of extremely hot water. She'd lay there in her tub for hours on end, and she could get herself very relaxed on your typical Sunday evening. In fact, I don't believe she even knew I was in the house that night.

  I set my aunt's fan up in the window with those sachet things dangling in front of it on an old shoelace, and I must admit my apartment was starting to look and smell almost as good as your average tenement slum. The only problem was the bed. I mean, it looked so damn obvious, sitting there smack-dab in the middle of the floor. It seemed as if that bed had somehow inflated itself—like a blow-up beach toy!—until it filled up half the room. And it didn't help that the bedclothes looked like they'd been dragged through a swamp and subsequently run over by a bulldozer. It goes without saying that I didn't have any fresh sheets or pillowcases, and, seeing as how time was growing desperately short, I finally just grabbed the whole mess with both hands and flopped it over—mattress, sheets, socks, magazines, half-eaten doughnuts, and all!—and covered it with the wool Army blanket my mom gave me for cold winter nights.

  With the apartment more or less squared away, it was time to rip off my clothes, stash them under the sink, and take a lightning-quick shower in my eighteen-by-eighteen metal stall. I banged the shit out of my knees and elbows on account of the temperature would fluctuate from Just Right to Ice Cold and back whenever my aunt reached her toe up to run a fresh stream of hot water into her bath, and there is just no place you can jump inside an eighteen-inch Sears shower stall without bouncing off the damn walls. The neighbors must've thought I'd taken up the kettledrum, you know? And of course I didn't have a bar of honest-to-goodness bath soap on hand (no surprise) so I resorted to a bottle of dish soap I had under the sink. At least it figured to make me smell nice, even if I felt a tad on the slimy side.

  I was just drying myself when I heard a gentle knock on the door. Jee-zus! It was Julie! I scrambled to wrap the towel around me as the door swung open, then damn near dropped it when I saw Julie standing there with the soft evening sunlight flowing in around her like some sort of gauzy halo. She was wearing that sleeveless yellow sweater I liked so much and her hair was all done up in springy black curls. And boy, did she ever look great! "Jeez, Buddy," she smiled, looking down at my towel, "you didn't have to dress up or anything. . . ."

  "Uh, sorry, Julie. It's just I was, uh, sorta trying to get the place cleaned up a little, see, and I, uh . . ."

  "You call this cleaned up?" she laughed, her eyes sweeping around the room. "Jesus Christ, Palumbo, you've been trying to get me up here for months, and now I can't for the life of me imagine why."

  "W-Well," I stammered, "I just got back from Grand Island, see . . ."

  "Don't worry about it," Julie grinned as she waltzed herself inside. Just like that. With me standing there in a towel and everything! She came straight up to me, put her hands on my shoulders, and gave me a hot little peck on the cheek. "So," she said, "how've you been?"

  "Oh, I dunno," I gulped. "I guess I been OK. How bout you?"

  "OK, I guess. I've kinda missed you, though. Sort of, anyway. . . ."

  "I've kinda missed you, too."

  "Oh, really?" she snorted. "That's news to me, Palumbo."

  "Look," I tried to explain, "I been real busy with the traveling and all. . ."

  "I guess so! In fact, you been so damn busy you can't even find the time to call me or ask me out on a frickin' date, haven't you?"

  "Aw gee, Julie, your mom always answers and hangs up on me. . . ."

  "Oh? And how would you know? You haven't so much as tried to call for at least three weeks."

  "Aw, it hasn't been that long. . . ."

  "Like hell it hasn't. The last time my mom hung up on you was three weeks ago Friday. August 8th, to be exact."

  "Are you sure?"

  Julie nodded, and I knew better than to argue. Women possess an uncanny memory for precise dates, times, and circumstances whenever they require such information to make a male of the species feel guilty and/or apologetic. "Well, y'gotta understand," I said lamely, a slow burn working its way up my cheeks, "I been real sorta, you know, busy, see, and. . ."

  "So, I guess that means I'm just not important to you anymore. Is that it?"

  "No, Julie, it's just. . ."

  "Or maybe it's just I'm not real good company, huh? I guess I must bore you." She wasn't really scolding me, but more sort of teasing me the way girls do when they think you deserve to squirm a little. "Gee, Buddy," she continued airily, "it's too bad this just doesn't mean anything to you anymore. . . ." And she leaned in real close so her lips were right up against my ear and whispered, "Isn't it?"

  Jee-zus, her breath went through my system like the hot rush of air through a subway tunnel on a warm summer night. I put my arms awkwardly around her and prayed she wasn't paying m
uch attention to the hard, hungry lump rising up underneath my towel. "G-Gosh, Julie," I mumbled into the top of her head, "I've really missed you. Honest I have."

  "You have? Really?"

  "Uh-huh," I nodded, nuzzling gently against her curls. "Fact is, I can't tell you how good it is to see you again. Honest, Julie. Why, it makes me feel. . ."

  "I can see how it makes you feel," she laughed, shooting me one of those dirty-girl winks she'd picked up from the movie magazines.

  As you can imagine, that turned me the color and temperature of a freshly baked beefsteak tomato. I embarrass real easy, no lie. In fact, I can get embarrassed just thinking about getting embarrassed, if you know what I mean.

  "So," Julie continued, kind of wandering over and sitting herself down oh-so-casually on the edge of my mom's Army blanket, "how've you been, Palumbo?"

  "Aw, OK, I guess."

  "Really?"

  And that's when I felt this god-awful big sigh come out of me, like the last bit of air leaking out of a bad tire. "No," I finally admitted, looking at the floor, "not really. I've been working my goddam ass off at Westbridge—for nothing! —and I've just about had it with that piece-of-shit race mechanic job over in Manhattan."

  "You have?"

  "Uh-huh. Why, it's got to where it just isn't worth it anymore, you know?"

  "I sure do," Julie nodded, leaning forward on the edge of the bed and resting her chin on her hands.

  I didn't have the slightest notion what to do or say next. In the flutter of a heartbeat the room got very quiet. So quiet it was almost deafening. "Uh, gee," I finally asked, "can I, er, get you anything, Julie?"

  "Well, what've you got?"

  My eyeballs took a quick rotational inventory. "Well, um, when you get right down to it . . . ," I admitted helplessly, rolling my palms upward, ". . . nothing."

  We got a pretty good laugh off that.

  "So," I asked her, "how're things going over at the Sinclair?" I was still standing in the middle of the room with my towel wrapped around me, trying to figure out how to get myself over to the bed without having it look like I was actually trying to get over next to her. "How's that new mechanic working out?"

  "Which one?" Julie laughed.

  "Whaddaya mean, which one?"

  "Well, we've had three since you left. . . ."

  "You have?"

  "Uh-huh."

  "But, gee whiz, I've only been gone a couple weeks."

  "Well, you know what they say about good help being hard to find. Too bad you left, Palumbo."

  "If you remember, I didn't so much leave as got my ass fired," I reminded her.

  "Yeah," she smiled, "and it was a pretty nice ass to have around, too."

  All by themselves, my legs carried me over to the edge of the bed and sat me down beside her. And Julie didn't seem to mind one bit. In fact, it almost seemed too easy, you know? "So," I said again, my voice cracking a little around the edges, "your uncle's been having some wrench trouble?"

  "And how!" Julie laughed, tossing her curls back. "The guy who came right after you wasn't too bad, but my uncle caught him stealing parts out of the storeroom to do side jobs and fired him on the spot.

  "That must've been a pretty ugly scene."

  "Oh, it was. And then we had this big fat guy from Clifton who didn't show up half the time."

  "That's nice."

  "Uh-huh. And the last one was even worse."

  "What could possibly be worse than stealing parts or not showing up?"

  "How about dropping a customer's car off the lift?"

  "Yeah," I had to agree, "that would be worse."

  "It was actually pretty funny. Honest it was. He was trying to fix the exhaust on Mrs. Muccianti's Pontiac, and he had it hanging off the side of the lift—"

  "So he could get at the pipe, right?"

  "Right, so he could get at the pipe. But then one of the bolts was rusted or something, so he went and got this big, long, uh. . . ."

  "This big, long breaker bar."

  "Right. This big, long breaker bar. And he hooked it up on the bolt and started yanking and pulling—"

  "And pulling and yanking." I could almost see it, you know?

  "Anyhow, he's leaning on it for all he's worth, and then something snaps and he goes sprawling one way while Mrs. Muccianti's Pontiac topples off the other."

  I imagined a little cartoon soundtrack of trash cans falling down flights of stairs. "So what happened then?"

  "Well," Julie giggled, "the car sort of landed between the lift and the wall. On its side, you know? They couldn't get the lift down because the car was under it, and my uncle wound up having to drag it out of there with the tow truck before they could flop it back down on its wheels again. It was a hell of a mess."

  "I bet he was real happy about that."

  "Oh, he was downright thrilled."

  "What did he do?"

  "Well, for starters he chased that poor guy down the block with a monkey wrench. Wouldn't even let him back in the shop to get his tools. The guy had to find a traffic cop to make my uncle let him get his toolbox. It was pretty funny, honest it was. At least if you weren't my uncle or Mrs. Muccianti. . . ."

  "Did it do a lot of damage to the Pontiac?"

  "Oh, not too bad, considering. It put a little pavement rash on the side and most of the glass got broken and a bunch of gas and oil spilled all over. My uncle couldn't even light a cigarette inside for the rest of the day."

  "Now that's serious."

  "Yeah. It was the guy's first job, too."

  "His first car?" I asked incredulously, my eyes flickering like birthday candles. "That wasn't exactly real professional of him, was it?"

  "No, I guess not," Julie agreed. "I think maybe he was a little stiff, too. You could smell it on him."

  "You'd be surprised how much of that goes on in the wrenching business."

  "No, I don't think I would, Buddy."

  "No, I guess not."

  And then all of a sudden we were just sitting there looking at each other again, so I kind of leaned in and kissed her. Not one of those wet, steamy, Hollywood kisses, but just a nice, gentle kiss that was all soft and warm around the edges. The kind of kiss that makes your toes curl. "You know, Buddy," Julie sighed, "I bet you could get your old job back if you really wanted it."

  "You think?"

  "Yeah, I do. Big Ed comes around asking for you all the time. He won't let anybody else touch his cars. Not even the Cadillacs. I think he's taking the Jaguar over to some guy in Englewood, but you can tell he's not real happy about it. And this skinny guy in a black suit keeps dropping by with one of those MG things."

  "That's gotta be Carson Flegley."

  "Yeah, that's him. He looks kind of like, I don't know . . ."

  "Like an undertaker?"

  "Yeah, that's him all right. Anyhow, he asks about you all the time, too. And that rich kid with the other MG . . ."

  "Cal Carrington?"

  "Right. The handsome one. He's been by once or twice himself. Even gave my uncle a couple dollars for some spotlight you guys stole off his tow truck."

  Good for him, I thought.

  "Anyhow, you really oughta drop by and see how things are. My uncle hasn't been feeling too good lately, and—"

  "Hasn't been feeling good?" I asked, surprised I cared much one way or the other. "Why, that old fart never acted like he felt good a day in his life. How the hell can he tell the difference?"

  "He's been going to the doctor a lot."

  "He has?"

  "Yeah. Twice last week."

  "You know what's wrong?"

  Julie shook her head. "But you know my uncle. He wouldn't go near a doctor's office unless he thought he was pretty sick. That's why he needs a really solid mechanic to help out around the station. Somebody he can trust, you know?"

  "Oh, sure. And he's really gonna trust me, right? Gee whiz, Julie, you were there when he fired me. Hell, you were the damn reason he fired me. . . ."

&nbs
p; "I wouldn't be surprised if that's all blown over, Buddy. Especially now that he really needs somebody. Besides," Julie added, looking at me out of the corners of her eyes, "I don't think he gives two shits about what I do or who I do it with. Not really. He just doesn't want to have to look at it."

  "Or have it happen on company time."