Chapter 3.
After the football game, Jacob Marak basked in adoration. Slaps on the back, handshakes from various coaches, and praise from parents and kids who said "Good game, Jacob," as he took a drink of water near the sideline ropes. His mother, Renee, sat with a blanket over her knees in the middle of the bleachers and waved. To boost her pride and sharpen the envy of the moms around her, Jacob blew his mother a kiss. Stars in her eyes.
Before leaving the field, the football team gathered near the fifty yard-line for a speech from the head coach. Jacob bowed his head for a short post-game prayer, peeking out of one eye, waiting until his teammates' heads were downcast at the lawn. When it seemed safe, he scanned the sideline to inventory the girls waiting for post-game extracurricular activities. Two for me, he estimated. Maybe three. A bird in the hand – never as good as two in the bush under the bluff behind the Barry farm, where a tire bonfire already smoked. Two sophomore volleyball players. A junior cross-country runner. Then there was the senior girl in the band, holding her clarinet case and waving to him. A fish in a barrel. Winning the game – that was nice. But winning and having a cooler full of beer on ice and girls waiting – that was sublime.
The coach concluded his prayer and Jacob quickly put his head down and closed his eyes, regaining humility. He silently thanked the Lord for sophomore girls and volleyball legs and jealous clarinet players and most of all he thanked the Lord for Judd Blanks, who had purchased the beer and charged no underage markup. Amen.
"I want to see you all in the morning," said the coach. "We need to watch the video of the game to correct some mistakes. Don't do anything stupid tonight."
Jacob and his friends laughed their way to the locker room. No, they would not do anything stupid, like go home. They showered as quickly as possible and slapped cologne on their bodies from a shared bottle of Drakkar. Still wet from slipshod toweling, Jacob pulled on his clothes and ran out to his truck.
"What are you doing?" asked Jacob's best friend, Aaron Mixon, when Jacob immediately pulled out a beer from the cooler. "The coach is right there."
"Oh, you're right, Aaron" said Jacob. "Guess I better do it fast." He laid the beer horizontal in his hand and leaned the can back and forth until he felt the bubble inside. He punched his thumbnail through the aluminum, using a trick Judd Blanks had showed him one afternoon after unloading square bales. Jacob had years of practice on soda cans, a trick perfected for when he started drinking beer at age fifteen. Hardly a drop dribbled onto the seat as Jacob lifted the can overhead, opened the pop-top to let air in, and shotgunned 12-ounces in a few seconds.
"Midnight curfew," Jacob said wiping his mouth. "No time to waste. Smoke?"
Aaron took the cigarette but held it low and unlit under the dash.
"We have a small window of time," said Jacob, lighting his cigarette. "Not only tonight, but I mean this year."
"What are you doing? Don't light it yet," said Aaron. "You're going to get us nailed. He's looking this way." Aaron waited for Jacob to stop, but he didn't. "The coach, Jacob."
"Let him look. It doesn't even register in his brain that we could be doing something wrong, don't you see? We're in the parking lot of the school." Jacob inhaled again. "Who in their right mind would risk smoking in front of the faculty?"
"He'll smell the smoke. You can't hide that. He'll see the cherry."
"Oh?" Jacob put the cigarette between his middle-finger and ring finger, then inhaled through his fist like a smokestack, bugging his eyes, and watching the lit end glow bright. At the same time, he pressed the brake and accelerator so that the wheels spun and squealed. The modified muffler growled when Jacob wound the engine to five thousand RPMs and barked the tires on the dry pavement, speeding away on his oversize tires. Jacob's non-cigarette hand waved to the head coach who returned a thumbs-up and a proud-of-you pursed expression to his star running back.
With the coach out of sight, Jacob threw his empty beer can on the school lawn. He laughed. How could he help but laugh, when people were so wonderful? People liked to be fooled. They even wanted to be fooled. And whenever Jacob had been caught fooling, the outcome only fortified his belief, because forgiveness always followed. Time and again this proved true. He had mastered the downcast look of a dog, for use in confession or detention or when facing a girl who had just found out about the other girl – and the glowering of the punisher soon withered. And they would get over it, whatever it was that he did. They always did. They all did.
He drove to the other side of football field. Two silhouettes waited near a fence, as promised in the note passed during his study-hall hour. Jacob shined his headlights on the girls.
"I don't even care if we make it to the party," Aaron said. "As long as we got girls, we should just drive around."
"I care," said Jacob.
The girls climbed in, giggling, reaching over Aaron to grab the wheel and slide over the top of him.
"Can I have a beer?" asked one of the girls, named Tricia.
"Sure," said Aaron.
"I don't like beer," said the other, Ellen. "Do you have any wine coolers?"
"Not in this truck," said Jacob. "Beer or nothing. But I know a trick. If you don't like beer, I know a way to learn to like it."
"What trick?" said Ellen, opening the beer that Aaron put in her hand. Her perfume emanated from her face whichever direction it turned.
"Play the song," Jacob said. Aaron reached for a Nirvana tape in the sun visor and stuck it into the tape deck. While the tape rewound, Jacob said, "Now every time you can't understand the lyrics, you take a drink." A loud crackling started when Aaron pushed play. The city limits of Immaculate passed in the rear view and they turned onto a gravel road, with the music blaring.
"You're already fifteen drinks behind," Jacob said after the first lyric, lifting his can to his mouth.
The girls laughed and shrugged. Tricia chugged and Ellen sipped. Aaron signaled to Jacob that his empty can needed throwing. Jacob veered toward a no-passing sign and the can sailed thirty feet wide of the target.
"I wish that linebacker from Sharpsboro was going to be there tonight," said Aaron.
"Why?" asked Ellen.
"So I could punch him."
"For what?" She shook her head, shocked at the idea.
"Just because," said Aaron.
"Forget about him," said Jacob. "Aaron tells me you're a virgin, is that true?"
"I did not say that," said Aaron.
"Oh my God," said Ellen, "that's none of your business."
"She is," said Tricia, sipping her beer and smirking while Ellen shoved her.
The confirmation tripled Jacob's interest in Ellen, until Ellen said, "So is Tricia!"
"Shut up," said Tricia.
"It's nothing to be ashamed of," said Jacob. "I'm a virgin."
"You are?" Ellen said. "I don't believe that."
"I am," said Jacob. "This morning I woke up and had this amazing feeling come over me. Dazzling light, angels, shit flying around, and I knew then and there I was born-again." He turned his head toward Ellen and acted as if his arm, neck, and steering wheel had fused together, turning the wheel with each turn of his head. The truck veered into the ditch for a moment before he turned his eyes back toward the road.
"It was such a wonderful feeling, Ellen." Each time he spoke, he turned toward her and took his eyes away from the road, crossing outside the white line and into the ditch grass. "If only you could know what it feels like to be born-again. It's better than the original."
"Watch the road!"
"I felt special," Jacob said. "Not the retarded special, but special."
"You're going to hit the culvert!"
"I can only hope…"
"Don't. Jacob, stop, please!"
"That tomorrow…"
"Jesus!"
"I can be born-again, again. Hold on."
The truck leapt over the field driveway into a hayfield, where he revved the engine and made donuts in the land, spinning his tires, kicking up dust and dead alfalfa. Ellen screamed until she lost her breath, gripping Jacob's knee. On the other side, Tricia laughed and leaned into Aaron, whose arm wrapped around her waist.
Jacob had spent the afternoon spent waxing his truck. Now a coat of dust covered the red paint. While waxing, Jacob had ignored the grain augur and it overflowed with corn twice. He left the mess on the ground, knowing that Ray would shovel it back into the augur. The corn was not going anywhere and Jacob was.
Down a long winding valley road, the music blared from the windows and the girls took aim at traffic signs, leaning over Aaron and Jacob to reach out the window to toss their empty cans, allowing prolonged brushes and less than coincidental touches on their jeans and sweaters. The Barry farm neared at the bottom of the valley.
"Cigarette?" said Jacob.
Tricia said, "No, I don't smoke. My grandfather died of smoking."
"Your grandfather?" Jacob repeated. "You didn't expect him to live forever, did you?"
"How rude!" said Ellen. "What a terrible thing to say."
Entering the valley Jacob's truck passed a pile of junk, an appliance graveyard of old washing machines and rusted hot water heaters, the unofficial country dump where cars and trucks from all around Immaculate crept at night to unload the undisposable. Stacks of tires listed between prone furnaces and freezers. A flickering glow appeared ahead in the road as they approached the turn. The glint of taillights from parked cars sparkled. A person leaned against a truck. Jacob's headlights illuminated the boy, Shawn Geiger, stoking a one-hitter with another stoner. Laughter came from somewhere in the trees. Passing a parked vehicle, the tell-tale bass beat of a country song teetered up and down. Further on that beat was replaced with the sound of a classic rock song coming from another car. The good children of Immaculate were home in bed saying their prayers, the remainders were here.
Rounding the corner, Ellen's eyes grew as she saw the tire fire burning. A shape leaned over the flame holding a bottle rocket, which caught fire and shrieked toward the bluff overhead. Another person splashed diesel onto the fire causing the flame to rise up to the armpits of all standing nearby, and those gathered retreated like roaches only to return and reclaim their places along the fire, the glowing edge between light and darkness.
Ignoring the fact that no parking spots remained, Jacob put his truck in reverse and backed toward the fire. Those sitting by the fire did not move, but their eyes grew wide and a few of them jumped when it became obvious that Jacob did not intend to stop, and he did not stop until his tailgate reached sitting distance near the pile of burning steel-belted radial tires.
For the next hour faces continued to gather around the fire. Cheeks grew red as the air temperature dropped and the fire grew hot. A car sitting near the fire blared music, with all four doors open, and the trunk popped to maximize the sound, playing mostly country music, and a rap song on occasion until a protest forced the song back to country or rock.
With the tailgate down, Ellen and Tricia climbed into the bed of the truck with Aaron. Their feet dangled near the fire. Jacob wandered, taking swigs from whatever bottle passed in front of him, schnapps, Boone's wine, Windsor, Blue 100. He offered cigarettes to the desperate underclassmen who lacked buyers of their own. If Jacob noticed a new face in the crowd he befriended him or her. He observed who arrived with who and who departed with who. People liked to tell Jacob theirs and others' secrets. Once they started to talk, he asked questions, showing interest – but not too much – but also offering advice – with jokes. They seemed to enjoy that. He assured them that their secret was safe, that Jacob Marak was on their side. This collection of knowledge he updated at every chance. Knowing the history of everyone made life easier, since he knew what to speak of, and more importantly, what not to mention in certain company. As the night wore on, feet staggered and secrets spilled.
Halfway across the circle of fire, he noticed a girl, a face startling enough to make Jacob interrupt a horse-farmer's son from finishing his twice-told story about getting kicked by a Palomino. Nothing to be gained from hearing it again, Jacob excused himself by pushing the bottle of cheap rum back into the kid's chest. Jacob marched toward the girl, who stood with several of her friends, none of whom attended these parties, or parties of any kind.
He said, "Did you finish your homework early tonight, Tara Ingeston?"
"No, I did not," she said. "I don't do homework on Friday nights."
"No?"
The buzz enveloped Jacob, warming him, lips and fingertips vibrating, a glorious feeling after a game of hard hits. Tara had no business being here, this skinny nerd-girl, and he touched his index finger to her neck where the V of her shirt opened and a necklace with a miniature cross pendant lay in the perfect symmetry of her modesty. The tiny cross lay in his hand. He said, "From Ethan?" He let his eyes go from the necklace to her collarbone and to her thin neck until he stared into her eyes.
"Yes."
He let the cross fall to her chest again. "Lovely."
She changed the subject. "Where were you on Wednesday night, for the volunteer food drive that you signed up for?"
"I had to skip, but not without a heavy heart. I wanted to be there, but…Wednesday night is blackjack night."
"Your father would kill you."
One of Tara's friends said, "But would anyone miss him?"
"Ouch," said Jacob, when the girls laughed. "What are you doing here, Tara? I think if any father would be killing anyone, it would be yours and you."
"Why does it matter to you? I can go to parties."
"True," said Jacob. "But you don't go to parties. So that's why I'm wondering."
"Maybe I want to go out now and then. I'm a senior, I'm tired of staying in."
"But not everyone would approve. Like Ethan. Or did you break up?"
"Not everyone needs to approve. He knows."
"Ok," said Jacob, shrugging. "I was just checking on you."
"It's not your job to check on me."
"I can see why your father keeps you in a cabinet. Might be a wild side waiting to come out. Skinny thing like you could be full of surprises."
The mouths of her friends dropped. Tara responded, to their elation, "A dumb thing – like you – should be quiet."
"If you need a beer or anything…"
"I've got some, thanks, Jacob. Now, go off and rob the cradle. I see you've found two new tramps."
"I forgive you for saying that," he said, backing away. The other cross-country girls scowled at Jacob. As he left he smiled when he heard the tall one say, "He is a total ass." The other replied, "How can Ethan be his brother?"
The party grew in size and a drunken trio of boys decided that a second fire was necessary. Rather than kindle a new flame elsewhere, the remaining diesel fuel was poured along the grass in a long stream, to a new pile of sticks, tires, and dead logs. The fuel touched the original fire and a flame slithered through the dark until it burst into life at its new endpoint.
A couple slipped away. A car arrived, a car left. Older alumni, ones who had never left town, mingled in groups proportionately smaller to the number of years they had been out of school. A loudmouth ranted about Chevys and Fords. Someone drank from a funnel. Another lit a cigarette on the wrong end in the dark and took some time to realize his error. Girls danced and only one boy joined them. Several boys examined a new shotgun that one had brought with him, pulling it out from its cloth case to aim at the harvest moon, taking turns one at a time. Deer stories sprung up. Antlers and points and neck girth and tracking blood in the snow, shining, baiting, bag limits, and 12-gauge versus 20-gauge, bow-hunting, trespassing, legal bucks and bambis, and have you ever eaten the heart? In another circle the young farm experts gathered. Outside earshot of their fathers, they spoke
with authority on corn, the wet season, cost per bushel, moisture percent, stalk-chopping, chisel-plowing, air-drying, heavy duty rotor-drive, front wheel assist, hydraulic male tips and female couplers. A sow barn burned down last week. A shame, a real shame. Wonder if the fire department found bacon inside. Reminds me of another joke. This song is good, but his other songs suck. Joe never slept with Gina – she said he got whiskeydick. Bush won the war but raised taxes after saying he wouldn't. Clinton might have been a draft dodger. If I were eighteen I'd vote for Perot. Sharpsboro is a town full of Pollocks and pansies. I'm half Polish. She's at least a C-cup. My cousin said he once saw a stripper whose bra size was triple-G. John couldn't come out because we left him on the lawn last week and his parents found him passed out. That middle linebacker for Sharpsboro gave me his number last week, but I am not calling him. Why would you date anyone from Sharpsboro? Our offensive line is way too small to stop the Westbranch defense. The worst thing you can do is neuter a dog too late in life. I'll smoke it with you. My uncle huffed gas and look at him now. This could be the year the Vikings win the Super Bowl. Can you just imagine one hour with her? I wouldn't touch him if he was dying. Liquor then beer, in the clear. Beer then liquor, never been sicker. It's triple-sec, vodka, and something else. I've taped every episode of Baywatch. Why is she crying? Parents getting divorced. Cry me a river. That dead cat on the way out here, did you see it? John Rattan ran it over on purpose. Sounds like you need new spark plugs. The dirty channel is fuzzed out but if you watch closely you can see a boob every few minutes. Framing houses ain't rocket science but some do it better than others. If only someone would pay me to drink beer I would be set. Roger fell down in the fire. Does anyone have a magic marker? Barry's wife stabbed him once with a steak knife. Making a pipe bomb is surprisingly simple. You need to think about something else while you do it, but not baseball – watch Jeopardy or Wheel of Fortune, some game show. I saw a Chevy rip the hitch right off a Ford once. Get drunk, get laid, be somebody. If she sleeps with him I'll kill myself after all the time I've put in. She only sees you as a friend, you're nothing to her. Next year at college I'm going on spring break.
"Next year I will be in the Marines," said Jacob, smoking the last of a cigarette and stomping on it. "And before I leave I'm going to knock down my old man, and then I ain't coming back to this town."
The wind circled, smoke from tobacco and tires stung the eyes. The crackle of the rubber in the pit receded and revealed steel belts. Acrid smoke spewed skyward, invisibly under the guise of night. The noise in the valley swelled. Cars continued to line up until the dirt road could hold no more and people began to park in the hayfield above and walk down a steep trail that led from the bluff to the valley floor. The party continued until exactly 11:18 PM, when suddenly and abruptly, the blue-light splash of a police car somewhere on the dirt road ruined everything. The hiss of 'Cops!' travelled like an electrical current toward the party as one of the stoners ran from group to group to sound the alarm like Paul Revere. A county deputy drove slowly, only showing his spotlight when he needed someone to clear the path on his way to the epicenter of the party, the bonfire.
Feet scattered, young and old. Those over twenty-one years also ran, to avoid the charge of supplying minors with alcohol.
On the tailgate, Aaron stopped nuzzling Tricia's ear when the rumor of police reached him. Like a rabbit, he took off into the valley. No more sweetness to offer, he left her behind. Tricia and Ellen stepped down from the truck and followed his lead. Jacob watched them run, unwilling to leave his truck. If the police wrote him a ticket, his football glory would end – but his pickup took precedence. Tara Ingeston stood alone by the fire.
A new rumor came from the furies flying around him. Someone had blocked the cop. That meant Jacob had a few minutes. The stream at the bottom of the valley came to mind. How deep could it be? He knew of a trail that followed the valley floor and came out on the lower acres of Barry's fields, but it was on the other side of the stream.
"Tara, over here," said Jacob, motioning to her.
She ran to him. "Jacob, I can't get a ticket."
"I know a way out," said Jacob, opening the passenger door and pointing to it.
"Shouldn't we run?" She put her hand over her mouth.
"There's another way."
"Where?"
"Trust me, I've driven it before. No one else knows about it."
"Really?"
He shut the tailgate and jumped in the truck. "Buckle up," he suggested. Tara scrambled for the seat belt as Jacob turned the key. With his head out the window, he shouted at a few people lingering in his path and when they did not move fast enough he bucked and braked until they parted. Down the hill, into the weeds, snapping branches and plants along the way, he cringed at the thought of his red paint. A large stump and fallen tree blocked them from going further.
Tara said, "Now what? Jacob, there is no path."
"There is, can't you see it?" He stepped on the gas and drove around the stump, knocking down saplings and young trees. A branch jabbed the windshield causing them both to flinch. Tire tread grabbed, mounted, and eventually climbed stumps and clumps of land, the front-end of the pickup bounced until suddenly they reached a clearing. Jacob laughed.
"What about the water, Jacob?"
"We're going across."
"Can you make it?"
"Doubt it. Four-wheel drive can do many things, but float ain't one of 'em."
"That was your plan?" She scoffed, then braced herself, palm against the glove compartment as the engine grew loud. "Please don't kill us."
Jacob accelerated, gaining speed until the bumper splashed into the water and the wheels bounced over rocks. The wheels spun, jumping up and down against the shock absorbers, until the front end touched the muddy bank on the other side. Jacob turned the steering wheel from side to side to try and make his tires grab the bank of scrubby bushes and plants. The pickup gained foot by foot until finally in a surge the wheels found rock and pulled itself upward and onto a hiking trail.
"We made it!" said Tara, grabbing Jacob's arm. The truck ambled slowly down the hiking path, with Jacob patting the dash like a horse.
"Mud," Jacob said, pointing at the windshield. "Usually means a good time."
"Now what do we do?" she said.
"We'll figure something out."
"I mean, should we go home, or go back to get some of the others."
Jacob laughed. "We're not going back there. I don't want to push my luck with the stream again."
"But the other girls…"
"It looks to me like they ditched you, Tara. And my crew ditched me. So we don't owe anyone anything. But you and I – we're free."
"I feel bad."
"Screw 'em."
She smiled at him. "I don't think like that."
"Such a goody-goody." He rolled down his window to light another cigarette.
"Whatever. Give me one of those."
"Excuse me?"
"You think I'm such a homebody. I just don't flaunt things like you do. And you know, everyone is catching on to you. You can't be a hypocrite forever without the world figuring it out eventually."
"I'm no more a hypocrite than anyone else is." He watched her light the cigarette. "Including you, apparently."
"Oh yes you are. The plank is in your eye. Remember that verse?"
"Verse?" He laughed. "I'm just aware of the bullshit, Tara," he said, leaning over to take back his lighter. "It's all a game, Tara. Another beer?"
"Yes, I'll have one more beer, but that's all. If everything is a game, then does anything matter?"
"No, it doesn't," he said. "But playing the game matters. The game is everything."
"Who taught you that? Judd Blanks? Ethan's told me some of the stuff he says. Like that thing about Asian girls. Completely ridiculous."
"Nobody t
old me anything, I just know." He considered showing her the beer-shotgun trick, but Tara – no, she was too smart for that. "It's obvious, Tara Ingeston. It doesn't matter if you get in trouble."
"Then why did you try to escape tonight?"
"Running is sometimes part of the game. Getting away with stuff. That's the fun part."
"What if you'd been caught?"
He laughed. "I'm more worried about my paint than getting a ticket. I ruined my truck to save you. Now you owe me."
"Owe you what?" she said, exhaling smoke.
"I don't know. A favor."
"Don't pretend that you just wrecked your paint to save me."
"I sure did."
"Why would you do that?" She took a drink. "Why would I believe you?"
"Because you take the game more seriously than I do, Tara. You think it's real."
"For one thing, it is real. I do not believe that's why. All of your junior high babies were gone. You didn't have a girl. You saw me. So you grabbed me. You thought, I'll grab Tara and see if she's good for a go."
He tipped his head back against the seat back. "Well, if that's the way you think of me… are you?"
"Don't even think about it."
"If you assume I'm dirt, I'll be dirt," said Jacob. "But you should know, that I had a crush on you before Ethan and you were a couple. Always had a thing for you. Not sure why."
"Good Lord."
"And I've spent the last three years watching you in class. Actually, it's more like the last eight years. Church, too. My favorite reason for going to church is that we always sat two rows behind Daddy Ingeston and his daughters. Just seeing you and your sister's dark hair made me feel…closer to heaven."
She put her finger in her mouth, pretending to gag.
Jacob said, "And I see you looking back at me, Tara Ingeston. It's not like you hide it."
"Why do you always say both of my names?"
"Because I like the sound of it."
"I'm not one of your ten-year-olds," she said, scoffing. "And I never look at you in school."
"How many times in English class have I caught you looking at me? A thousand? Ten thousand."
"Because you always stare. You think I don't see you doing it? You're a psycho."
"Woah," Jacob said, as the tires hit a bump. "Oh, damn, I didn't see that gully. We might be stuck. We found big mud."
Neither gully nor mud, the pickup was not stuck at all. Jacob accelerated and turned the steering wheel, while pressing his foot on the brake, feigning a struggle with the terrain.
"Go!" said Tara.
"I'm trying," said Jacob, gripping the wheel hard and gritting his teeth. "We're not going to get out of this one. Maybe I can back up." But rather than putting the pickup in reverse, he dropped the gear selector into neutral, revved the engine several times, and then acted upset. "Oh crap, we're screwed now! Damn. Oh man, now the wheels aren't even turning. I'll get out and see if I can tell which tires are stuck."
"This was a terrible idea," said Tara.
Outside in the dark, Jacob circled, kicked the tires, scratched his head, and pushed on the rear of the truck, rocking it back and forth. Soon he returned to the driver's seat and turned off the engine.
"I guess we might as well have another beer," he said.
"What?"
"We're dug in."
"Oh great." She leaned her head on the dash. "What am I doing here?"
"Beer?"
"Why not. Sure."
"Kiss?"
"Don't touch me." She laughed.
A laugh this time. An improvement. Another beer, more talk. More laughter. An hour passed. Jacob grew serious, then silly, and Tara leaned closer. Another beer and then she admitted, that yes, in English class they did steal looks at each other. Then mock pushing, so that their hands could touch and link fingers. Cool fingers from the aluminum can. He watched her gentle hands, the flexing of her neck, the little necklace rested on her chest. Then came the awkward moment when the conversation settled. Waiting, lingering in the shadows of the dome light with butterflies in their stomachs, her face flush, and Jacob – Jacob had already been flush for an hour. He leaned in, eyes closed, and when he felt her lips he opened his eyes to watch her shoulders sag with her sigh, exhaling her defenses, and he placed his hand on her waist to untuck her shirt from her blue jeans. But suddenly she pushed him away.
"We can't," she said.