Now Is the Hour (45 page)

It's all right on this side, Billie said. You've got plenty of room, she said. They're just flipping you shit, she said. You're doing fine.

I eased the pickup into the parking place, my front end lined up with the Chevy and the Pontiac. I shut the pickup off.

Cheers and clapping from inside the Pontiac.

Smooth move, Ex-Lax! someone yelled.

Billie rolled up her window.

On my side, in the '58 Chevy, two seniors from Pocatello High. As far as I knew, nice guys, into hot rods.

Billie handed me my Coke. Before I could say anything, Billie stuck a cigarette in my mouth, lit it, then lit hers.

Billie's cigarette was a circus. A Ferris wheel, then the Tilt-A-Whirl.

Rig, Billie said. Look, I know this place freaks you out, but just listen to me for a minute. Just a minute!

Something about Billie was differnt. Her hair was differnt. It was still ratted, only it was parted down the middle with a pigtail on each side. She was wearing a fuzzy pink sweater with pearls on it. It was loose knit, the sweater, and you could kind of see her bra underneath. She was wearing hip-huggers, bell-bottoms, something I'd never seen her wear before. You could see her bellybutton. A new small pink satin purse with a gold clasp. Her earrings were hippie earrings, Indian beadwork in the shape of a bird. Every time she moved her head, those birds flying, flying. No blue eye shadow. The only thing the same was the pink lipstick, her Midnight in Helsinki nail polish, and her white-strapped sandals.

Me, I was no differnt. Same old Levi's, my chambray shirt, my black Converse tennis shoes. All of them clean.

Billie took a sip of her vanilla Ironport Coke with lots of crushed ice. Chewed on the ice. Through the window, behind Billie, in the root-beer brown Pontiac, two girls from Highland High.

In her best Simone Signoret: Rig.

It's your birthday, Rig.

Billie's sip on the Coke, the crunch of the ice on her teeth.

There was something about Billie's eyes. Maybe it was the no blue eye shadow. Simone Signoret: And it's Saturday night, and you can do whatever you want, Billie said.

Something rolled over in my stomach.

I laughed my chest up a quick laugh.

What do you have in mind? I said.

Billie's cigarette, spurt spurt spurt, then razzle razzle razzle, back to spurt again. Billie's eyes opened wider, and she seemed to take in all of me for a moment, and in that moment while she was taking me all in, she was thinking of just the right way to say what she had to say.

Tonight's my treat, Billie said. Let's do something completely different!

Like sit in the Snatch Out? I said. Come on, let's go. I want to talk.

Billie lowered her eyes to her shiny pink satin purse with a gold clasp. Billie's little fingers, her Midnight in Helsinki blue fingernails. Inside in there in her purse, a plastic bag.

Billie lifted out the plastic bag.

In the plastic bag were six joints rolled fat.

Really different! Billie said.

That quick I had no breath, just cigarette smoke inside me. My heart banging in my chest, in my ears.

I quick grabbed Billie's hand and pushed Billie's hand back down into her purse.

What are you doing?!

I was whispering, but I was yelling too and I was coughing.

I quick looked over at the two guys in the '58 Chevy. They were cool. Then on past them, up the line of cars. Across the Snatch Out, the line of shiny cars in front of us all the way from Pole Line
Road to Ashby. Then over to Billie's side, at the root-beer '57 Pontiac and the two Highland High girls. On down the line of cars past them.

When my eyes got back to Billie, in Billie's blue eyes it was Midnight in Helsinki.

When I got a breath between coughs, I said: What the hell are you doing with
joints
in your purse!

Billie's cigarette was in her mouth. When her lips moved, the cigarette went up and down.

Oh, don't have a
cow!
Billie said. It's just a couple of joints.

We're going to smoke six joints? I said.

No, silly, Billie said. I'm going to
sell
them.

Sell
them? I said. Are you crazy? What if there's a narc?

Billie's eyelids went halfway down over her eyes. Whenever her eyelids did that, Billie started acting like my sis or my mom.

Billie's cigarette was a windshield wiper, then a straight dive to the ashtray. She leaned over, kissed me a quick peck on the cheek.

It's your Catholic sense of doom again, Billie said.

There's no narcs, Billie said. What I'm doing is completely safe. What time is it? Billie said.

Billie's fingers were back into her pink satin purse again. She moved the plastic bag aside, reached in, and pulled out a man's wristwatch.

Eight o'clock, Billie said. On the nose. Any second, it's going to start happening.

Start happening? I said.

Billie's hand reached up to the rearview mirror. She pulled the mirror around and looked in the mirror. Out of her pink satin purse came her gold lipstick tube. Billie pulled the tube open. That little pop of air. As she turned the bottom of the tube, the pink lipstick rolled up and out and was on Billie's top lip in the middle. One pink swipe down her lip on the right. Then the lipstick was up top on the left, the pink swipe down the left side. Then across the bottom lip, starting from the left corner, the pink lipstick tube stayed in place as Billie moved her bottom lip across.

Just act like everything is perfectly normal, Billie said.

The she rolled her lips against each other like after putting on lipstick.

Billie put the lipstick back into her purse, pulled the plastic bag out, folded the bag, put the bag in my shirt pocket. She patted her hand on my shirt pocket three times.

Who was this girl?

Billie gave me a big smile. A smile like I was the only boy in the whole world.

Just reach in and pull one out when I tell you to, Billie said.

Relax, Billie said.

This is
different,
Billie said.

Happy birthday, Billie said.

It wasn't long, and the two girls from the '57 root-beer brown Pontiac got out of their car. One of them, the one with bleached-blond hair with a flip, knocked on Billie's window. Billie rolled down the window.

Come in and sit, Billie said.

Billie scooched over, and the two girls slid into the pickup. The girls and Billie were talking a mile a minute. I didn't get what they were talking about, so I just watched the shiny cars pass by. After a while, Billie looked over at me. That same smile, like I was the only boy in the whole world.

Cheryl, Karen, Billie said. This is Rigby John.

Both the girls were real cute. Probably really popular. The way they smiled was nice but you could tell they were checking me out. Cheryl and Karen both said, Hi, Rigby John, together, and the way they said my name, they sounded like they were singing, so they started laughing.

Then they were off again, the way girls do, talking, talking. So comfortable with each other. Their long hair and their perfume smells and sitting close, touching each other.

Sometimes, I think I could watch girls all day. Not in a bad way, like looking to screw them or something. Just looking. How their hair is, how they smell. Jewelry on them, how bracelets fall down their arm, or an earring catches the light. The way they start moving when they get around you because you're not like them.

Then Cheryl said something about the Senior Summer All Night Party. They all talked and talked some more, but it wasn't long, and Billie and Cheryl and Karen were all looking at me again.

Billie laughed that laugh of hers that started in her chest, then moved her whole body.

So, Rig, Billie said. You want to go to the Senior Summer All Night Party with me?

A flash of heat in my cheeks. It took me awhile to speak. You know, the breathing thing. Which was weird because I think it made me look cool, the way I was silent. But underneath I wasn't cool. My mother. I knew my mother wouldn't let me go to an all-night party.

Sure, I said.

More talking and laughing. Cheryl flipped her hair. Karen touched the peace symbol that hung from a piece of leather around her throat. Billie got out the cigarettes, passed the cigarettes around, and we all took a cigarette. I lit a match, and there was the joke about three on a match and there we were four, all of us crammed in the pickup. On the radio, the Box Tops were singing “The Letter.” Outside the windshield, headlights and exhaust fumes, an endless parade of kids in their cars.

So, do you have the stuff? Karen asked.

How much is it? Cheryl said.

Billie patted her hand on my shirt pocket.

Two dollars, Billie said.

Two dollars for one joint? Cheryl said. Or two dollars for two joints?

Two dollars for one joint, Billie said.

That's cool, Karen said. We each want a joint.

Here's four dollars, Cheryl said.

Billie looked at me, her eyelids down halfway. I reached into my shirt pocket, pulled out the plastic sack, unrolled the plastic sack. My fingers weren't shaking. I pulled out two joints and handed one joint to Cheryl, one joint to Karen.

That moment, handing out the joints like that, the way Cheryl and Karen were looking at me, something stirred in my balls.

Billie saw it too. In my face, Billie saw what was happening in my balls.

There were three more girls that night. Two together at once, then another one alone fifteen minutes later. I don't remember their names, and they didn't come in and sit with us and smoke like Cheryl and
Karen. Billie knew all three of them. Seemed like Billie had a lot of close friends. They all stood outside Billie's window, and Billie talked to them for a while and then Billie patted my shirt pocket and her eyelids went down halfway, and I reached in my pocket and pulled out the joint and handed the joint to Billie and then Billie handed the joint to the girl.

The three girls were all real differnt. One was tall with short black hair. One was heavyset with braces with a stick-on red star on her forehead, and one was a black girl with an afro who Billie kissed on the cheek. Three differnt girls, but each girl, it was the same way. When they saw me go into my pocket for the joint, they looked at me like I was the coolest guy they'd ever seen.

Billie opened her pink satin purse with the gold clasp. In her purse was the man's watch, her lipstick, and ten one-dollar bills. Billie took the bills out, fanned the ten dollars out in her hands.

Yummy! Billie said.

Then: Here, Billie said. Put this money in your wallet.

The ten one-dollar bills in my wallet with the couple I had looked like a million.

There's one joint left, I said.

And with that I started the pickup, put the clutch in, put it into first. As Billie and I were driving out of the Snatch Out, two cars honked their horns and waved. Just as we pulled up to Ashby, out of the '57 root-beer Pontiac, Cheryl and Karen yelled: Wooo! Right on! Billie and Rigby John!

Instead of turning right, Billie and I turned left.

On the radio, the Buffalo Springfield was singing “For What It's Worth.”

Billie had that smile on. I was the only boy in the world.

I shifted real smooth from first into second.

Happy birthday, Rig, Billie said.

Let's paint the town red! I said.

Let's paint it pink, Billie said.

The rest of that night was something like a circus ride, something like a dream. Billie and I smoked our joint parked in Buddy's Pizza's parking lot. I was scared at first smoking out in the open like that, but
Billie wasn't, so I figured if Billie wasn't scared, I wasn't going to be scared. Plus, I kept thinking of how all those girls had looked at me that night. The guy with a pocketful of joints.

The grass hit us fast, and my head was spinning, but I felt clear and strong.

Out of Billie's pink satin purse came another surprise. My birthday present. Billie had made me and her plastic laminated fake IDs.

My kiss to Billie was two lips against two lips soft with a kind of suck, tobacco, and the taste of pink. Billie fit in just right under my arm.

I'd never felt so close to her as I did that night. Something in me was differnt, I don't know what, but I felt I was all brand-new. I'd completely forgot all about George Serano, and the truth I needed to tell Billie. At that point I couldn't even remember what it was I was going to say.

We put our cigarettes out, and then the loud metal-to-metal pop of the driver's door, and Billie and I were out in the warm night and high, right in the middle of Saturday night. The wind blew from the west, and the wind was warm, and the way the wind hit our faces, we were invincible.

Hand in hand down East Fifth Street, Billie and I walked to the corner of Fifth and East Center. The other side of the tracks. The
other
side of Pocatello. Where the old Pocatello House used to be. Black people. Indian people. Mexican people. Neon lights and all kinds of people on the streets everywhere. The world so strange and new, especially while we stood waiting for the light to change. I wondered if we might see Flaco and Acho. It was like Billie and I were in a big town like San Francisco or something.

There was a line to get in the Blind Lemon.

Billie and I held on tight to each other's hands. Just before we got to the bouncer, Billie pulled out her pink satin purse with the gold clasp and pulled out a cigarette. I lit the cigarette. Billie took a couple puffs, handed the cigarette to me. Our fingers touched.

Praying, Billie said.

Smoking is praying, she said.

The bouncer was a college guy in khaki pants and a white oxford button-down. His glasses were horn-rimmed and he had a crewcut. He looked like one of the Kingston Trio or one of the Brothers Four.
He was sitting on a high stool behind a podium. There was a lamp on the podium. Bugs in the light of the lamp. A frat ring with a blue stone on his finger.