“Who did you say you knew at the party?” he asked, not entirely convinced of something.
“Jessica and Fessica. I work with them,” I said. “And went to school with them.”
That charming grin finally made an appearance.
“Ah, Jessica and Depressica,” he said. “My two favorite pop tarts.”
I wanted to ask what that meant, but I didn’t. He looked down and got lost in some private thought and shook his head and laughed before looking back up at me and getting back to business.
“I’m Alex,” he said, extending his hand.
“Dade.”
“Right. So I need like forty-five minutes before I can leave,” he said.
“Okay.”
“So . . . you can wait out here if you want. Or you can go. Or whatever. Happy to help you out, though. Any friend of those girls is a friend of mine. Not that either of them have what you could really consider friends.”
I laughed. “I hear that. I mean, I’ll just stay and wait. If that’s cool with you.”
“Sure,” he said. “Whatever. If you’ve got nowhere else to go.”
“I don’t,” I said.
“Okay,” he said. “Be out soon.”
He gave a halfhearted wave good-bye and went back inside to close the place. He wasn’t gone for thirty seconds before I began to tell myself that I was being stupid, that waiting was a dumb idea. It made me look weird. I considered just leaving. I could swing by Pablo’s house and see if he was awake. It’d been a long time since I’d snuck up to the little window of his basement bedroom to see if he wanted to fool around. I pulled out my cell phone to call him, but when I saw his name on the screen it looked awful. I thought about him playing keg commando at the party the previous night. I scrolled up and called my mother instead.
“I’ll be home late,” I told her.
“That’s fine,” she said. “Pablo came looking for you. Is he okay? He seemed anxious.”
She sounded tired beyond the point of being angry at anyone or anything. I imagined her wandering through that house she never wanted, touching all the appliances and flipping through the hundreds of stations on the huge flat-screen television in the family room. I knew how lonely our house could feel when there was no one else in it, and for a moment I wished I was at home so she could feel me sleeping on the other side of the wall that divided our bedrooms.
“Yeah,” I said. “He’s fine. I’m with him now. I’ll be out with him pretty late. I should go, though.”
“Thanks for calling,” she said numbly. “Be safe.”
I hung up and waited on the curb. The neon sign blinked off, making the tall lamps that dotted the lot the primary sources of light. I waited. Eventually I stood up and leaned against the side of the building near the glass entryway and watched as Alex and Jay went about cleaning the restaurant. They turned off the Latin music and turned on some New Wave eighties music at full blast. They went around lazily picking up chairs and putting them on tabletops, and sometimes they would stop to play air drums along to a song or blindly bounce around. I watched as they mopped the floors and wiped down the tables and the front counter. There were parts of Alex’s movements—the lazy U-turns he made when mopping, the way he sometimes couldn’t figure out the proper way to brush his hair out of his eyes—that made him seem young and careless, but then he’d get all stiff-backed and shoot Jay a glare for doing more dancing than cleaning and reveal an unexpected sliver of responsibility.
I met them outside the rear entrance after their shift ended. They made plans to go to a party the next night, while I stood off to the side in silence with my hands stuffed in my pockets. They spoke for a few minutes and then Jay left, giving a nod and wave as he walked away. Alex turned to me, rubbing his eyes and letting out a yawn. His Taco Taco shirt was unbuttoned to reveal a white wife beater. There was a bit of chest hair visible in the valley of the shirt’s collar. I caught myself staring at for it a few seconds too long and thought to myself, Look at you. You’re memorizing him already.
“Having a job blows,” he said. “You ready to go?”
I nodded. “Yeah. Sure. Totally.”
He gave me a look, something studious and unsure. Had he noticed me staring? A jolt of worry shot through me. I followed him over to a black Chevy Citation parked in the corner of the lot. There were patches of rust on the doors and hood, and a dark red pinstripe running around the body of the car. The interior smelled like cigarettes and watermelon air freshener. The backseat was a mini landfill composed of fast-food wrappers, tattered skateboarding magazines, empty soda cans, and other assorted trash. He turned on the car. “Working Overtime at the Clarity Foundation” poured out of the speakers at full blast. He quickly reached for the volume knob and turned it down.
“Sorry about that,” he said. “I always rock out before work. Gets me psyched.”
“Oh my God. I love the Vas Deferens. Vasectomy is, like, my favorite album.”
“Yeah, everybody loves the Vas Deferens after they used their song in that stupid car commercial,” he muttered before pulling out of his parking spot. “And Vasectomy is good, but Emotional Aviary Death Watch is way better. At least in my opinion.”
“As an album, Emotional Aviary Death Watch is definitely better,” I said, suddenly convinced.
We drove through town past the darkened doctors’ offices and the brightly lit car dealerships.
“So, do you go to school?” I asked, trying to sound casual.
“No. I don’t go to school. I sell weed.”
“And you work at Taco Taco.”
“And I work at Taco Taco,” he said with a slow nod. “I sell weed and I work at Taco freaking Taco.” He raised his hands, gestured up at the gray upholstery that sagged from the ceiling of the car. “This is my life. So my dealer just lives a bit outside of town. You got time, right?”
“Yeah,” I said. “I’ve got time.”
I slouched in my seat and tried to look relaxed, when in reality I just kept wondering what I’d gotten myself into. I didn’t know this guy. He could take me anywhere.
We were passing the Gas-N-Go when I caught a glimpse of Pablo and a few of the other football players hanging out in the parking lot. They were all draped over the hood of Bert McGraw’s lime green Camaro, paper-cupped drinks in their hands. It all moved by so fast, something wildly out of my control. Part of me wanted nothing more than to make Alex stop the car so I could walk up to them and scream, just loud rage flying in their faces. It would’ve told my story better than words ever could. They were several blocks behind us before I became aware of how fast my heart was beating, how clenched my jaw was.
“You okay?” Alex asked.
“Yeah,” I lied. “I’m fine.”
We got on the interstate and took it north past the city limits. About ten miles later he took an exit that took us west over the interstate onto a two-lane road. Soon the lights around the exit ramp faded out and there was nothing but flat farmland all around. He cracked his window a bit to let in a stream of cool evening air.
“Do you want to see something awesome?” he said.
The light from the dashboard made his face look green. He reached down and clicked a button under the steering wheel and the green light went out along with the headlights, and the car was thrown into darkness. The moon lit up the road in front of us. I grabbed on to the door handle.
“Dude, turn ’em back on,” I said. “This is so not safe.”
“You’re missing it. Look.”
“But we could hit—”
“Jesus.” He leaned over and pointed out my window. “Just shut up and look.”
I looked out at the pasture. There were thousands of lightning bugs swirling in the air over the field. It was as if a million tiny stars had descended to the earth and were all lightly flashing out of sync. I told myself that it was okay to be driving in the darkness with this guy, that I should enjoy the moment.
“It’s been like that for the past week o
r so,” Alex said. “I think it’s mating season or something.”
“It’s beautiful,” I said. I don’t know why, but I was surprised he was so into this, surprised at his hushed tone of voice. He flicked the headlights back on.
“I’ve tried to explain to people what it looked like,” he said.
“But you kinda have to see it for yourself.”
After about a mile he turned the car down a gravel road and pulled over to the side. He shut off the car and killed the headlights.
“We have to walk a bit,” he said. “Parking right in front makes me paranoid.”
The sounds of the engine and radio were gone and there was nothing but the heavy quiet of the outdoors. We got out of the car and I followed him toward a cornfield.
“We gotta walk through here,” he said.
I followed him over the barbed wire fence. The cornstalks loomed in tall rows on both sides of us. Above us the clouds slid slowly across the starry sky.
“I used to do this all the time,” I said.
“Do what?” he said.
“Wander through the cornfields,” I said. “I lived on a farm when I was younger.”
“Did you milk a lot of pigs?”
“Um . . . no.”
“No? Why not?”
“No. My parents weren’t farmers or anything.”
“So you didn’t get to, like, artificially inseminate any horses or anything?”
I didn’t respond.
“That was a joke, dude,” he said.
“I know.”
“You got all quiet on me.”
“No, I didn’t.”
“Yeah, you did.” He was far ahead of me, just a shadow rustling a few yards away. “You could have laughed. Artificially inseminating horses is funny. I saw it on television once. Laughed my ass off.”
I laughed softly at this, and when he heard me he started laughing too.
“And you don’t have to agree with me, you know,” he went on. “Just because I think Emotional Aviary Death Watch is the Deferens’ best doesn’t mean you have to.”
“Oh,” I said, embarrassed and blushing in the dark. “Right. I mean, it’s hard to pick a favorite.”
“If Vasectomy is your album, then it’s your album,” he went on. “Don’t let me take that away from you.”
There was nothing mean about the way he was saying it, but it still felt awkward to be called out. We didn’t say anything else for the rest of the walk. When we came out of the other side of the cornfield, we were standing in the backyard of a weathered little house. Its sunny yellow paint was peeling, and the windows were cracked and dirty. Beyond it was a dirt road and on the other side of that were more cornfields, always more.
Alex walked up the porch steps and slapped his open hand hard on the back door. We waited. Around us the night moved. Wind rustled the corn, and the chirps of crickets pinballed around us, first here, then there, then over there. Then came the sound of heavy footsteps from inside the house. I thought Fee-fifo-fum and the door swung open.
The guy who answered was taller than Alex by at least three inches. He had long, stringy black hair and a flat nose and a bushy black mustache so fake-looking that it had to be real. He had the carved-from-stone physique that led me to believe he worked out constantly. His blue jeans were caked with mud and his pectorals pushed aggressively against the old Guns N’ Roses T-shirt he was wearing. He glared at us.
“Fuck do you want?”
At first I thought the guy didn’t know who Alex was, that there’d been some terrible confusion that was going to lead to us getting beaten up, but then the guy flashed a yellow grin and slapped Alex on the shoulder.
“Just kiddin’,” he said. “Get inside.” He quickly took me in from head to toe and back again. “Who’s your friend?”
“This is Dade,” Alex said, stepping inside. “Dade, this is Dingo.”
I nodded and extended my hand. Dingo looked at it like I was holding a Bible tract. He gave me an intense glare before giving me a firm handshake. The skin on his fingers and palms was cold and rough with a gritty texture, like he’d been playing with dirt recently.
“Come on in, kids.”
He led us into a dark little kitchen. Every inch of the kitchen counter was covered with empty bottles of Bud Light. The doors of the cupboards had been taken off to reveal empty shelves, and the small kitchen table in the corner of the room had been cut in half.
“What happened to the table?” Alex asked
“It got broken during the filming of our first music video,” Dingo said, leading us into the next room.
“You guys made a music video?” Alex laughed.
“We did.”
The living room of the cottage was small. It was barely big enough to fit the sofa, coffee table, and television that it held. The lights were off. There were two guys around my age sitting shoulder to shoulder on the couch watching the television. One was skinny with red hair and a long pale-skinned face. He held his chin close to his chest and looked up at me in a manner that was strangely demure. The other was blond and jockish. He sat with his legs apart and his arm up on the back of the couch and sneered benignly at the television. When we came in they moved apart so Dingo could sit between them.
“Have a seat,” Dingo said, motioning to the floor in front of the couch.
I looked at Alex for permission, but he didn’t notice. He just plopped down in the narrow space between the television and the coffee table and stared at the TV. I maneuvered myself down beside him. Dawn of 1,000 Werewolves was on. It was the sequel to Johnny Morgan’s first film, Night of 1,000 Werewolves, the starting point of my crush on him. I’d always found it inferior to the first one for many reasons, the main one being that Johnny Morgan wasn’t in it. Johnny had gone on to bigger and better things and the role of preppy werewolf slayer Kip Tracer was taken over by a shiny-faced actor named Jack Jackson who looked at least forty but was still somehow playing a college freshman on a campus full of werewolves. He looked like Johnny only in the vaguest sense.
“What are we watching?” Alex asked.
“Dawn of 1,000 Werewolves,” I said.
“You know it?” Dingo asked.
“Totally,” I said.
“It’s, like, the best bad movie ever,” the redhead on the couch said excitedly.
“My favorite part is the toga party with the keg filled with blood,” the other one said. He moved his mouth as little as possible, maybe to keep his sneer intact
“Oh my God,” said the first kid. “Totally. I love that suddenly there’s a vampire in this movie about werewolves. So random.”
“Yeah,” his friend said. “But it totally works. I mean, college is, like, full of surprises.”
“This is Thomas,” Dingo said, nodding toward the redhead. “And this is Louie. You guys know Alex. This is his friend Dave.”
“Dade,” I said.
“Sorry. Dade.”
On the screen Jack Jackson sprinted across the quad, a preppy pink sweater tied around his neck and a legion of snarling werewolves on his tail. It felt weird to be watching the movie in this creepy little house when I’d seen it so many times in the comfort of the family room. The idea drew an invisible line between this strange, dark moment and the rest of my life.
“So what can I get for you boys?” Dingo asked.
“Just some good old-fashioned marijuana,” Alex said. “Same as always.”
“I think I can do that. Follow me.”
He led the four of us back into the kitchen, where we took the stairs down to the basement. There was a turquoise-colored washing machine with a matching dryer against the wall, a weight bench, and a circle of metal folding chairs around a large wooden crate. In the corner was a drum kit, two huge amplifiers, and two beat-up guitars that looked like they’d been tossed to the concrete floor in a fit of punk rock indifference. The floor was littered with cigarettes and ash.
“You guys in a band?” I asked.
?
??We are,” said Dingo. “We’re called Death Grip.”
“I still don’t like that name,” Louie said.
“I like it,” said Thomas.
“That’s because you like things that are dumb.”
“Alex is our manager,” Dingo said.
“What he means is sometimes I hang out and watch them play and tell them what songs suck, which is all of them,” Alex said.
“Har har,” Dingo muttered.
We each took a seat around a crate. Dingo opened it up and pulled out a cigar box filled with little bags of weed.
“You guys want to smoke some before we transact?” Dingo asked.
“Let’s do it,” said Alex.
Alex and Dingo both looked over at me.
“Just a little,” I said. “I don’t wanna get too stoned or what ever.”
“Suit yourself,” Dingo said. He pulled a joint from the box, lit it, and took a hit. “Here, kid,” he said, passing it to me while still holding smoke in his lungs.
I took a medium-size hit. The smoke was sweet and liquidy, like sugar water rolling around in my mouth. I sucked it down into my lungs, and told myself not to cough, that I didn’t want to look like an amateur in front of these guys. I exhaled a large cloud of smoke toward Thomas and Louie and then handed the joint to Alex.
The pot haze came quickly, like a blanket dropped around my head. My heartbeat sped up, and I crossed my legs slowly like I was moving through melted caramel. I wondered how much longer we were going to be there. I thought of my mother lying in bed, fading in and out of a dreamless sleep. And where was my father? With Vicki, of course, in a motel room that my mind created at that very moment, someplace with brown sheets and a tattered Bible in the nightstand, red velvet wallpaper and a bathtub with a clogged drain.
“You guys hear about that girl in town who got kidnapped?” Louie asked after taking his hit.
“Yeah,” Thomas said. “She’s been gone for like a week or something.”
“I think it’s only been a few days,” I said.
“But still,” Thomas said.
“A week, a few days,” Dingo said. “What’s the difference? She’s dead. Gotta be.”