Boy Minus Girl (16 page)

“Out getting drunk, probably.”

“I meant Mr. Mister.”

“Oh, he’s good,” I say. “He gets along real well with my Rusty. I think he misses you, though.”

“I miss him.”

“Is there anything I can get you? Maybe something from the motel?”

She shakes her head. “Your mom brought me my things from there and checked me out. Do you know she won’t let me pay her back for the motel bill?”

Mom, Mrs. Coupon-clipping Penny-pincher, paid for Uncle Ray’s stripper girlfriend’s motel room? Unbelievable.

“I brought you a little something.” I shrug off my backpack, unzip it, and remove the Tupperware containers and napkin-wrapped silverware from inside, handing them to her.

“It’s some of my mom’s pork chops and applesauce.”

“Bless your heart,” she says.

“How’re the nurses treating you?”

“You’d think I have leprosy or something, the way they wear masks and rubber gloves when they come in here. And your dad says I’m not even contagious. Shoot, this food smells good.”

“Eat up!”

She nods as she cuts into the pork chop and takes a bite. I grab my backpack and dash into the little bathroom, where I don my top hat and cape.

“And now, Ladies and Gentlemen, for the moment you’ve all been waiting for,” I call out in a cheesy announcer’s voice, “the Great Linguini!”

I sweep out and perform magic tricks for an amused Cookie: cards, scarf and ring, the vanishing coin. I’m about to make her fork bend when the door opens and a gray-haired nurse, wearing a surgical mask and rubber gloves, freezes at the sight of me.

“What’re you doing in here?” she snaps as her mask moves up and down. “Didn’t you see the sign on the door? This patient has a communicable disease. . . .”

Cookie winks at me. “Maybe you should go, Les.”

“And it’s well past visiting hours,” the nurse says.

“I’ll stop by tomorrow, Cookie.”

“Before you go,” Cookie says, motioning me over. “Please be careful.”

“Be careful?”

“I have a feeling you might be in some sort of danger.”

“Danger? What kind of danger?”

“I don’t know,” she says. “It’s just a feeling I have.”

When I step into the hallway, I see three nurses huddled together whispering. Upon spotting me, they scatter like mice.

It’s almost ten o’clock and Uncle Ray still isn’t home. Rain pelts the windows. I pace my bedroom floor, rehearsing what I’m going to say to him about his having to leave here. The phone rings and I answer it.

“I kissed her!” It’s Charity.

“What?!”

“Kristy Lynn Hagel and I made out tonight,” she says.

“Really?” My heart sinks a little.

“We were up in my room studying for finals, and I kept dropping hints, y’know, telling her how pretty she is and stuff. She seemed to be enjoying it, so I finally said to her, ‘You have very kissable-looking lips.’ And she said, ‘Why don’t you kiss them and find out.’ So I did. It was amazing.”

“Tongues?” I ask, feeling my you-know-what start to harden.

“Uh-huh.”

I switch off the overhead light, then move to my beanbag.

“She seemed a little nervous,” she says, “but she must’ve liked it ’cause—get this—she’s invited me to sleep over at her house tomorrow night.”

“Wow,” I say, breathless, as I quietly unfasten my jeans. “How, uh, far do you think you’ll go tomorrow night?”

“I don’t know.”

“Do you think you’ll, y’know, get naked with her?”

“Les, are you getting off on this?”

“No!” I’m terribly embarrassed. “That’s ridiculous.”

“I think you are!”

“Why would I even care what two lesbians do?”

“A lot of guys are into it. . . .”

“I’m
so
not into sick shit like that.”
Why can’t I sound convincing when I lie?

“Oh, so what I do is
sick
?”

“Maybe not sick, but it’s not exactly natural,” I say. “Let’s face it, evolution and survival is all about reproduction, right? And if people can’t reproduce, we can’t survive. And two women together—they—you—can’t reproduce.”

“I didn’t know we had an underpopulation problem.” She laughs mirthlessly.

“And what do you do when you can’t reproduce? You recruit.”

“You’ve given this a lot of thought.”

Actually, I’m only quoting what Reverend Bachbaugh spewed from the pulpit a few months back in a sermon entitled “Protecting Your Children from the Homosexual Agenda!”

“Let’s just be honest,” I say, “you’re trying to pull Kristy Lynn over to your side.”

“My ‘side’? Les, I’m not forcing her into anything she doesn’t want.”

“It’s like you want to destroy her life or something,” I say. “It’s totally selfish.”

“I think you’re totally jealous.”

“Of a bowwow like Kristy Lynn? Ha!” I say. “You know, I feel sorry for you. I really do. It’s pathetic what you’re doing.”

“I may or may not be a freak of nature, but at least I’m not a bigot.”

“I’m sick of you! Our stupid nonfriendship is over!” I slam down the receiver and call myself every filthy word I can think of. God, I’m such an idiot.

Seduction Tip Number 12:

Size Doesn’t Matter

Ten-thirty rolls around, and I contemplate going to the living room to watch
The Tonight Show
when I notice that the 1965 Harker City High Railroaders yearbook is still lying on Uncle Ray’s bunk. I sit down and start to thumb through it. In the index Uncle Ray has three page numbers beside his name. On the first page is a photograph of a very young Uncle Ray, hair slicked back, standing in front of an old car and holding up some kind of auto-body-shop trophy. The following picture, his class photo, is surprisingly generic; and the last picture, in the back of the book under the heading “Unforgettable Couples of ’65,” features a smiling Uncle Ray with his arm around a very pretty young woman with long dark hair who is resting her head on his shoulder. I squint at the girl’s face: it is my mom.

She must be about seventeen. She is wearing a big dress and is positively beaming.

Her arm is around Uncle Ray, too.

I stare at the picture for the longest time, my chest thumping. Thunder crashes.

The people in this photo look like they’re much in love. I comb through the yearbook several times, but that is the only one of them together. Then, in the back of the book, on the autograph pages, I see Mom’s neat cursive. “Dear Ray,” it reads, “I can’t tell you how much you mean to me. You have made me the happiest girl in the world. I’ll love you forever. Your Bev.”

Your Bev. Your Bev. Your Bev.

I have questions. I need answers. I tiptoe to the front porch, sit on the porch swing, and stare out at the rainy night. Was Mom the girl Uncle Ray told me about that night at the drive-in? Mom is nothing like Cookie or Shelleby or the other women Uncle Ray goes for. Could Mom still have feelings for him? Does she really love my dad? My parents aren’t the world’s most affectionate couple. But they aren’t the coldest, either. They always
seem
to genuinely care for each other. But is that love? I know Mom would never cheat on or leave Dad; she’s too Lutheran and too concerned about going to hell and what the neighbors would think.

Lightning illuminates the neighborhood, followed by a deafening rumble.

About an hour later headlights appear in the downpour. A hatchback with a loose muffler stops in front of our house. The passenger door opens and Uncle Ray struggles out.

“Thanks for the lift!” he calls, and tosses his cigarette.

The hatchback rattles off. I stand as Uncle Ray staggers across the lawn.

He totters onto the porch, stops at the sight of me, and slurs, “Well, well, well . . .”

“Er, I have something important to ask you.”

“And, dear nephew, I have something important to ask you.” He hiccups as he sways to and fro, rain dripping down his face. “But maybe you better go first.”

I step closer to him, lowering my voice. “Did you date my mom in high school?”

“Oh boy, I gotta sit down for this.” He pours himself into the nearby lawn chair. “She tell ya about that?”

“I looked in your yearbook.”

From his shirt pocket he extracts a pack of Pall Malls, tamps one out, lights it, and takes a deep, contemplative drag.

“Was Mom the woman you told me you never got over?”

“Ten points for the boy!” He slaps his knee, the glowing orange tip of his cigarette floating in front of him.

“It’s too—I mean—you two don’t strike me as each other’s type.”

“Yeah, well, your old lady wasn’t always your mom.”

“Do you think that that she still has feelings for you?”

He guffaws. “Homicidal feelings. And even if she still felt something good for me, she’d never act on it. Or admit it.”

“Why do you think she took up with Dad?”

He shrugs. “After someone like me she probably wanted stability. And if there was anyone who could provide that it was Roger Eckhardt Jr.”

“So she
settled
for my dad?”

He shakes his head. “I think she really loves him.”

“You’re just saying that.”

“No, your old man’s good to her, and she loves him for it. . . . It’s my turn to ask you for something.” He reaches into his jacket and produces a handgun, the one I found in his duffel bag.
Is this the danger Cookie had a feeling about?
He holds the gun barrel in his right hand and points the butt at me. “I want you to kill me.”

“Shut up, Uncle Ray.”

“I mean it, goddamn it!” He continues to hold it out to me. “You know you want to. Y’said you hated me. I’m giving you permission.”

“You’re just drunk.”

“Yeah, and what do I have to live for? Huh? Tell me! We both know I’m never gonna succeed at anything, that I’m gonna keep on hurting people. You’re the only person who ever respected me, and now I’ve lost that—”

“Uncle Ray, stop it. . . .”

“You’re a minor.” He thrusts the gun at me again, but I step back. “You shoot me and you won’t even go to jail. Just tell the judge I shot at you first. Look, do it for Cookie and all the other countless women whose lives I’ve destroyed. Hell, do it for the whole goddamn female gender.”

I roll my eyes and have started for the house when I hear the click of the hammer.

Uncle Ray has the barrel pressed against his temple. My heart stops.

“This might be the one thing in my life I do right,” he says.

“You wanna do something right for once in your life? Don’t make your only brother have to find your brains splattered all over the front porch.”

“He’s seen a hundred dead bodies—”

“But never his brother’s. It would kill him. You know it would.”

Ka-boom!

I flinch, but it’s thunder.
Thank You, Jesus!
I breathe again.

Uncle Ray looks at me for a long moment, then lowers the gun. “You’re right,” he mumbles. “It would kill him.”

He hangs his head, dropping the gun into his lap. I reach down and snatch it from him. He doesn’t even look up at me.

“C’mon,” I say, “let’s try and get some sleep. Been a long day.”

“Gonna get longer.”

It may at that.

Seduction Tip Number 13:

All of Her

“It true your uncle’s black girlfriend has AIDS?”

I stop chewing my cabbage biscuit and glare at Kenny Stone, a dumb seventh grader, over the lunchroom table.

“Y’know,” he continues, “my aunt who runs the motel had to throw away the sheets from that woman’s room and scrub down the mattress with ammonia so her next customer wouldn’t get it.”

“Kenny,” I say, clearing my throat, “your aunt is an idiot. I’m guessing it runs in the family.”

Tray in hand, I stand and look for another place to sit. Charity is across from Kristy Lynn. Howard, who is not speaking to me, is at the geek table.
God, what’s wrong with me? Why don’t I have more friends?

I head for the gym to climb some rope.

After school I see Charity about to straddle her bike and I run over. “Charity, can we talk?”

She looks at me, still clearly pissed off.

“I’m sorry about what I said last night on the phone,” I say. “It was insensitive of me. And you’re so right, I am a little jealous of Kristy Lynn.”

“Oh, Booger.” She throws her arms around my neck and squeezes me.

“So, are we still on for the talent show tonight?” I ask.

“I’m game, if you are.”

I pull my bike from the stand.

“Where you headed?” she asks.

“To see Cookie at the hospital.”

“Mind if I join you?”

“I’d like that.”

Soon we’re coasting down the Walnut Street hill, the steepest hill in town.

“Maybe we should rehearse one more time before tonight,” she says. “Iron out the kinks.”

“Probably not a bad idea.”

We gain momentum, and as the Broadway intersection approaches, I clinch the brakes only to discover—they are gone! Panic catches in my throat and I know instantly what has happened. I go to stick out my feet but the speed is too great, the incline too steep.

“Les!” Charity yells. “Stop!”

“Brett cut my brakes!” I shriek.

I shoot through the intersection and narrowly miss the grille of an oncoming UPS truck. Up ahead, less than a block away, a slow-moving freight train dead-ends the street.

“Les!”

I am downtown, which means no green lawns, no cushioned landings in sight. As I veer to the right, my front tire strikes the curb, catapulting me like a cowboy from a bucking bronco. And in that moment, as I am airborne, time slows, just like they say it does. I look down at the approaching concrete facade of Burger In A Box and anticipate how painful my crash will be, and how I shouldn’t let my brain get smushed.

Wham!

The right side of my body hits the sidewalk, and I feel as if I have been struck by that truck. After a million little particles of light explode in front of my eyes, my arm begins to burn, and now I feel shaky all over, and nauseous.
Mom. I want my mom.
When the lights fade and the world comes into focus, I see my right arm covered in blood and Charity standing over me, fear contorting her face.

“Oh my God, Les!”

“How’s my bike?”

She helps me up—the ground feels as if it is pitching. Regina rushes out of the diner and shows Charity and me into the little bathroom behind the fry bin. Even hands me a fresh bar of Irish Spring.

“Go on and clean yourself right up,” Charity orders, turning on the faucet. “I’ll call your folks.”

I stare at myself in the mirror: I am ultrawhite and my chin is scraped and raw. Feeling as if I might throw up, I sit on the toilet and cradle my pounding head in my hands.

“Your mom’s on her way,” Charity says, and goes about dampening paper towels.

Within ten minutes Mom rushes in in her crisp white uniform, carrying a gleaming first-aid kit, massive concern written all over her face.

“You’re going to need stitches,” she says in full Super Nurse mode as she dabs alcohol-soaked cotton balls on my wounds. “How did this happen?”

“Lost control of my bike.”

Mom takes excellent care of me.

“Mom,” I say as she pours iodine onto my knee gash. “I love you.”

“Well, gee, honey. You’re not dying—and I love you, too.”

Later, at Dad’s office, Charity observes as Dad sews four stitches into my arm and disinfects and dresses my other wounds. According to the X-rays, I didn’t break anything, but I have sprained my arm and have to wear a sling.

“But I need my right arm for the talent show tonight,” I tell Dad.

“Nope, young man, there’ll be no talent show for you tonight,” Mom says.

“Aw, Mom, c’mon.”

“You’re in no condition to perform,” she insists.

Charity steps up and says, “I’m his assistant, Mrs. Eckhardt. I can help him. I promise you we’ll be careful.”

“Yeah, Mom,” I say pleadingly. “I’ll be assisted.”

“Well, all right,” Mom says. “Come now, I’ll drive you home.”

In our driveway Mom unloads my bike from her trunk.

“I have to get back to work, honey,” Mom says as she shuts the trunk. “Try to get some rest. I’ll be home at six sharp.” She climbs in her Buick and is off.

I crouch down and examine my bike’s damage: the front tire spokes are bent, as is the front fender, and the handlebars look out of whack. Then I notice something strange out of the corner of my eye: an unfamiliar blue Ford pickup parked across the street. An angry, redneck-looking guy sits in the cab, watching me, a shotgun rack hanging behind him. The driver’s door opens, and I quickly turn back to my bike, debating whether to run or not. I listen as heavy footfalls approach.

“Hey, you! Boy!”

I look up. Leo, Shelleby’s husband, hulks over me, his Paul Bunyan-like frame eclipsing the sun.

“Your goddamn uncle gave my wife the clap!”

“Er—sorry.”

“You tell that sorry son of a bitch that I’m outta jail and he can’t hide in your house forever. You tell him we got us a score to settle.”

He spins on his concrete-encrusted cowboy boots and swaggers back to his truck. What exactly is this clap?

As expected, I find the back door of our house locked. Then I notice someone leaning against our backyard fence—a large brown-bearded guy in a dirty T-shirt; he has to be Leo’s brother. With trembling hands I slip the key out from beneath the ceramic bullfrog and thrust it into the lock. Once inside, I bolt the door and exhale.

Upstairs I find my bedroom door locked and jiggle the handle. “Uncle Ray, it’s me.”

“You alone?”

“Uh-huh.”

The door cracks; Uncle Ray, looking haggard, peers out, then opens the door all the way. “What happened to you?” he asks, relocking the door behind me.

“The outcome of your swell advice on standing up to Brett.”

The curtains are drawn, and Uncle Ray is in desperate need of some deodorant.

“You didn’t tell the Neanderthal Brothers I was here, did you?” he asks.

“ ’Course not.”

“Story is, you haven’t seen me, you have no idea where I am. Understand?”

“Uncle Ray, how many more people are going to show up here looking for you?”

He hobbles to the window and carefully peeks out. “He and his fellow mouth-breathers have been out there all afternoon.”

“Why don’t you call the police?”

He shakes his head and lets the curtain fall back into place. “Hey, where’d you put my gun? Can’t find it anywhere.”

“I threw it in old man Krause’s pond.”

Stricken, he faces me. He winces and smites his forehead with his right palm. “You didn’t. Please tell me you didn’t.”

“I was afraid you were going to kill yourself!” I say.

“Does your old man have a gun?”

“This is Dad we’re talking about.”

He rubs his temples. “Listen up,” he says. “When it gets dark tonight, you’re gonna help me get into the trunk of your dad’s car, while it’s still parked in the garage. Then you’re gonna drive me down to the rail yards, and I’m gonna hop a freight out of this bad-luck burg.”

“Uncle Ray, I’ve driven exactly once in my life! Besides, those guys will just follow us.”

He nods, looks down at the floor, and resumes rubbing his temples.

“Plus,” I say, “I have my talent show tonight.”

“Your show! This is my life we’re talking about here! Hold on, I’ve got it! Saw it in an old gangster movie: late tonight you’ll go outside dressed like me, right? You start walking away down the street and they chase you down, thinking you’re me. Meanwhile, I climb in their car and drive off.”

“And I’m left to face them? I don’t think so.”

Uncle Ray bites the corner of his lips, continues rubbing his temples.

“Maybe Dad’ll have an idea,” I volunteer.

“No,” Uncle Ray says. “We’re not involving him in this. Absolutely not! This is our problem.”

“Don’t you mean your problem?”

He collapses in my desk chair and buries his face in his arms. “I’m so screwed.”

As I look around, I see my magician’s cape and hat on the dresser, and the idea strikes me like an epiphany. “I’ve got it,” I say. “I know how we can get you out of here.”

He raises his head, looking at me. “What? Tell me! Talk to me!”

“I promise I’ll get you on a train tonight on one condition.”

“What?”

“You have to call Cookie, talk to her, and tell her goodbye.”

He shakes his head. “I’m not good with shit like that.”

“If you can sweet-talk her into falling in love with you, the least you can do is give her a decent goodbye. Do it or I won’t help you.”

“Shit. Jesus H. Christ. Damn it. Oh, all right.”

“Roger, did you notice there’s two men in a pickup parked across the street?” Mom says that evening at the dinner table. “They seem to be watching our house.”

Dad, chewing his Shake ’n Bake chicken, leans forward in his chair, pushes back the curtains, and squints out the window. “You don’t say.”

I exchange worried glances with Uncle Ray, who is seated across the table from me. I clear my throat and say, “Uncle Ray is going to go with us to the talent show tonight.”

“That’s great,” Dad says, and smiles at Uncle Ray, who nibbles a drumstick.

Uncle Ray fakes a grin. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

The phone rings and I answer. “Eckhardt residence.”

“This Doc’s boy?” a deep masculine voice asks.

“Yes.”

“You tell your daddy if he’s gonna take care of a nigger whore with AIDS, he’s just lost my business.”

“Who is this?”

Dial tone.

Dad throws me an inquisitive look.

“Telemarketer,” I say as I hang up the receiver. It rings again. “Eckhardt residence.”

“This is Gary Mills at the hospital. Let me speak to your father.” He sounds angry.

I hand the phone to Dad. “Mr. Mills.”

Dad grouses, “What is it, Gary?”

For the next few minutes Dad nods and listens, then says, “No, I will not transfer her. . . . That’s not the nurses’ or the hospital board’s call to make. . . . Gary, I will not give in to their hysteria. And you shouldn’t, either. . . . She’s my patient and she’s going to stay right here until she’s healthy enough to leave. Goodbye.”

Dad hands me the phone and says, “I’ve never heard such nonsense in all my life.”

I hang up the phone. My dad’s battling people who are more paranoid than he is! And he’s being so calm, so sensible.

“How’s she doing?” Uncle Ray asks Dad.

“Since when do you care?” Mom says to Uncle Ray. “Since when do you care about anyone but yourself?”

We all stare at her in silence.

“That woman’s life could very well be ruined because of you!” Mom continues, gathering steam. “And you’ll just move on to some other floozy, like you always do. You only hurt people. That’s all you’ve ever done! You swoop in all flashy, and then—and then you offer nothing lasting, and—poof!—you’re gone.”

Mom’s bottom lip is quivering as she bolts and disappears down the hallway. Dad gives me a sidelong expression as he stands and goes after her. Uncle Ray and I remain in the silence, and I think about how Mom might still be in love with my uncle Ray. And how she’ll never admit it to anyone including herself.

A half hour later a composed Mom helps me get into my tux and cape while navigating my sling and bandages. Then we all pile into her Buick. As we start down the street, I glance back and see Leo’s pickup following us. Uncle Ray sits low in his seat. His hands are trembling.

Cars and people jam the street in front of the junior high school.

“Why, would you look at this turnout,” Mom says.

“Uh, Dad, you better drop us off by the front door,” I say as I look back at Leo’s blue truck, four cars behind us. “Uncle Ray can’t walk too far.”

Dad nods and steers us toward the entrance.

Uncle Ray, Mom, and I join the throngs flowing into the auditorium. I see Leo leap from his truck, but the milling crowd prevents him from catching up to us.

In the foyer Mom stops to greet Principal Cheavers while I lead Uncle Ray down the aisle. I notice an empty seat beside Sheriff Bottoms and his daughter, Geraldine. Before I can tell Uncle Ray to take it, he already has. Leo is standing by the entrance, scanning the crowd.

Backstage is preshow chaos. Kenny Stone, playing the scales on his tuba, sounds like an elephant after a chili-dog-eating contest. Regina, in leg warmers and pink tights, does some sort of stretching exercises. Beside her some guy with a green Mohawk . . . wait! It’s Howard.
I can’t believe it’s Howard!
He’s totally shaved his head except for the spiked green strip down the middle. He’s wearing a neon green nylon tracksuit, matching green wristbands, and Adidases.

“Howard?” I say.

“Name’s Spike.”

“I—I hardly recognized you.”

“That’s because I’m Spike, the new me I’ll be in high school. I’m making my debut tonight.”

Is this horrifying or awesome? Both?