“Course it makes sense, genius. It’s the frickin’ bloody truth.”
JJ
snapped the top off a beer and clanked it against the whiskey bottle in Bobby’s hand. “To our friend, Petey! The best little ’aphrodite in the valley.”
“An’ now we knows why he was always dressing up in his mama’s clothes,” added Bobby as they chugged a cheer.
Peter’s face wriggled and seethed like a pocket-load of worms, but he held his tongue.
Sam sighed. “We gonna work on this thing or just stand around and b.s. all day?”
“Why? What the hell’s your panic?” fired back Bobby.
“No panic. Just got some stuff to do, that’s all.”
“Ya right! Like what?” chided
JJ
.
“I don’t know. Just stuff.”
“Just stuff! What kind of frickin’ stuff?”
“Just some stuff I said I’d do for Vic, that’s all.”
Bobby’s eyes narrowed as
JJ
and Peter shared a malicious glance. “Vic? What the hell you doing for my old lady now?”
“Not much,” Sam reassured slowly, looking down at his boots. “Just gonna fix up the dance floor a bit at the hotel.”
“Now why the hell you gonna do that?”
“She asked me to, Bobby. Since you’re too busy and all. It isn’t much. I don’t mind.”
“Ya? Well, maybe I mind, Sammy. Ever think of that? I told her right from the get-go I didn’t want her wasting a buncha money on some stupid studio.”
Sam shuffled his feet. “I wasn’t ’specting her to pay me—”
“No? Then what was you ’specting?”
“Nothing, Bobby. You know I don’t mind helping you guys out. Besides, she seems real excited about it. She was telling me she’s already got eight kids signed up.”
Bobby shrugged the surprise off his face. “That right? Well, that still don’t mean she’s gonna make any money.”
“Maybe she’s not really doing it for the money” Sam started, then hesitated. He knew he shouldn’t continue on. Knew he should just lay the words back down and let the moment slip away as he usually did. But for some reason he didn’t. Maybe the planets had perfectly aligned that day. Or perhaps Zeus had chosen to pass overhead in a flaming chariot, baptizing him with a brief moment of courage that clouded his judgment. Whatever it was, it proved to be a colossal mistake as he let his words trip on.
“Maybe sometimes she gets a bit lonely out—”
“Lonely!” flared Bobby. “Why the frick would she be lonely, asshole?”
Sam sat quietly but Bobby was pissed.
“You wanna hear about lonely? You should read the bloody paper, Samson. Story in there ’bout some poor bugger locked up for eight years for something he didn’t never do in the first place. You want friggin’ lonely? That’s friggin’ lonely. Here, ya wanna read it? It’s in my truck. I’ll even go get it for ya.”
Sam said nothing, his eyes sliding away to the ground.
“Hey, it ain’t no problem, Sammy. I don’t mind. I’ll jus’ go an grab it for you,” Bobby shot as he headed for the door. Slamming the truck door behind him he reappeared in the shed, pranced over to Sam and flung a ratty paper in his face. “There! Read it for yourself, Sammy boy,” he stabbed, his grin breaking into a nasty snicker as Peter and
JJ
’s voices joined in from behind.
Sam took the paper from Bobby’s hand and set it down on the workbench beside him.
“Oh, that’s right, ain’t it? You can’t read. Now why am I always forgetting that?”
It had always been this way for Sam. Raised in the earthy tongue of his Cree grandmother, he’d been deposited at six years old into a classroom of strange people speaking strange noises, which they assumed he understood. But he hadn’t understood and, unsure of what was expected of him, had quickly developed the lifelong habit of looking away and smiling shyly whenever he was spoken to. Which had, along with his unnatural size, helped to fasten a permanent label of
slow
across his young back. Sam was however, not slow.
And yet somewhere between conceptualization and delivery, there existed a dark moment that swallowed his sentences before he could deliver them back out his mouth. The problem, simply enough, was that while Sam spoke in English, his thoughts were in Cree. Alcohol had set him free. Freed his tongue and his lips and his fists so that even if his words got too jumbled up, a right hook could still adequately convey his expression.
An older model Dodge truck spun around the corner and screamed up the street toward them. They watched it with disguised interest as it pulled toward the big open door of the shop.
“Now, who the hell might that be?”
JJ
asked into his next drink.
“Miller’s truck, looks like,” offered Peter helpfully.
“Obviously it’s Miller’s truck, you moron. But that sure as piss ain’t Miller driving it.”
“Looks like that kid that works for him.”
“Hmpff. Wonder what that little pecker wants,” added Bobby as they watched Mark swing free of the truck and saunter toward them.
“Hey!” he tossed by way of greeting. “You old men give me a hand with this here tranny, or will it aggravate your hemorrhoids?”
“Only hemorrhoids get aggravated around here’ll be the one hanging where your face should be, ya smart ass. Thought Miller said he couldn’t get me one of these till next week.”
Mark shrugged. “Don’t ask me. He just said to bring it over, so I’m bringing it over. Can ya give me a hand?”
“Sammy,”
JJ
ordered. “Give the candy ass a hand with it, will ya?”
Setting his carving aside, Sam walked over to the truck, gathered the transmission up in his arms and set it easily on top of the workbench.
Mark’s face sprung a cocky expression.
“What’s this piece of shit?” he chided, thumping at the ’cuda’s front tire with his foot.
“Hey! Watch your mouth, punk. This here car’s about the finest piece of mother you’ll ever see cruising atop four wheels.”
“Ain’t look like it’ll be doing much cruising for some while yet.”
“You think not, hey? Well, that just goes to show how much an ignorant pup like you ain’t know. Ain’t that right, Bobby? Got plans for this bitch, I do.”
“Oh yeah? Like what?” asked Mark, losing the edge off his chippyness.
Everyone had heard how much
JJ
had got for the last car they’d fixed up. How some hot-shot rich kid from the city had dropped a fistful of money on it so he could be king of the drag-racing strip. Rumor was Mark and some of his buddies had plans to begin fixing up a car of their own.
“Like what? Like what, he says.”
JJ
rolled his eyes at Bobby. Pulling a new case of beer out of the backseat, he snapped one open and thrust it at Mark. “Here, sit down and have a barley sandwich while I tell you, like what.”
“Can’t. I’m ‘sposed to be working.”
“Oh, shee-it!” hollered
JJ
. “I think I hear my freakin’ granny calling. Hey, Bobby! You hear that? Someone sure as hell sounding a lot like my freakin’ granny ‘round here.”
“Aw, shit,” Mark mumbled, grabbing the beer
JJ
was waving around in front of his face. “Give me the damn thing then. But I gotta hurry. ‘Sposed to get the truck right back so’s Miller can make a delivery.”
“Miller’s delivery can wait. You got the important one of the day done right here. By the time we boys get done with this here car, the bitch’ll be so hot punks like you’ll bow down on yer knees and worship her every time she passes by.”
“Not friggin’ likely! Only bitch I bow down on my knees to worship is the one I’m about to lay,” Mark shot back, provoking laughs and a cheer.
“We’re taking the ‘ruf off too,” piped in Peter.
“The what?” asked Mark, looking down at Peter as if he’d only just now noticed him.
“The ‘ruf. Whole thing.”
“Ruf?” Mark’s eyes bypassed Peter altogether by the six inches of clearance he had over his head and directed the query to Bobby. “What the hell’s a ruf?”
“Roof! He can’t never bloody say it right. Friggin’ ’aphrodite.”
Mark’s face twisted up as he tried to make sense of this, then let it go. “Ya gonna cut the roof off?”
“Ya. You know, like a convertible. Broads dig that.”
“Broads? Ain’t you guys forgetting yer married?”
“Might be married pus-head,” John Jr. retorted stuffing a beer into Mark’s other hand. “But we ain’t friggin’ dead.”
Mark took the beer, drained his first one then pried the cap off with his teeth and flicked it out the window and into the sandbox. “What color ya painting it? Red?”
Three answers collided together.
JJ
silenced the other two with a dirty look then started again. “I’m thinking orange. You know, real bright tomato orange. With big bloody yellow flames licking up the sides—”
“Sounds like shit,” Mark spat, laughing at the insulted fury that bristled across
JJ
’s face.
“No . . . not orange,
JJ
. You said I could paint it purple. You promised,” whined Peter, using his sleeve to catch a dribble of snot hanging off his nose.
“You promised . . . you promised,”
JJ
taunted back gleefully. “Well, I’m changing my promise piss-ass ’cause I don’t bloody like purple no more.”
“Hey!” interjected Mark. “Got an idea.” He strode over to a shelf full of mismatched cans of spray paint and started rooting through them. “Here, why don’t you each take a section and give it your best shot then we can decide what looks best.”
JJ
pushed in beside him and grabbed his colors first, promptly scoring off the hood and the car’s best side while Peter and Bobby scrambled over one another to carve up what was left.
“Wait! Wait, you guys! No fair!” Peter squealed as he struggled to snap off the top only to find that the purple the can’s lid had promised was really more of a cotton candy pink.
Mark found a derelict chair where he deposited himself so he could watch and jeer in comfort. Soon tiring of this, he hoisted himself back up and proceeded around the car slowly, his swagger starting to stagger as he got down to work on another beer.
A piercing scream snapped their attention over to the woodpile where Peter was scrambling to zip his pants up, his eyes locked to the ceiling.
“Ooh! Look you guys! Look! Up on the ‘ruf. Friggin bat! Scared the frickin’ piss outta me!” He shuffled back quickly as the others crowded around to see. A tiny, furry brown mound hung motionless from a rafter above them.
“Maybe it’s dead,” Peter offered hopefully.
“Ain’t dead, ya idiot.”
“How’s you know? Looks dead to me.”
“’Cause it’d fall on the friggin ground if it was dead, ya moron. It’s just pretending.”
“How come?” Peter asked, scrunching up his nose in disgust.
“Just trying to trick us,” answered
JJ
.
“Chuck something at it.”
“You chuck something at it, piss-ass.”
“Here. Look out,” a voice ordered from behind them, Mark stepping forward with a wrench and winging it at the rafter, bouncing it off the little creature’s gauzy wing. Instantly the bat snapped to life, mouth wide in a silent warning to its invisible tormentors. Hanging limply, its injured wing quivered lightly.
“Eek!” screeched Peter, tripping backward over Bobby and rolling across the floor. “Gross! It hissed at us. The friggin’ thing hissed at us. Knock it down,
JJ
! Knock it down!”
JJ
looked around him for a weapon, seized upon a rusted shovel leaning against the wall, lifted it high and gave the bat a quick poke. Again the bat’s mouth sprang open as it tried to ward off an attack. The boys cringed in spite of themselves. Sam watched his friends curiously. There was something about this audacious creature’s response toward them that provoked them to fury. How dare it, barely a hand big or a pound heavy, open its mouth to hiss and try to drive them away. Any of them could kill it with one blow. And yet it held sway over them, held the power of aversion. Mark grabbed the shovel from
JJ
’s limp hand and swept the bat onto the floor, all of them stepping back quickly to give it wide berth even though they knew the creature was essentially harmless and totally helpless with its damaged wing. Hitting the ground hard, the bat scrambled upright and turned again to face them, its mouth now permanently splayed wide open. Bobby picked up a long stick, crept forward and poked it in the mouth.
“Eek!” Peter screamed again, this time receiving a hard clout on the back of his head for yelling in
JJ
’s ear.
“Hey you guys,” Sam’s thick voice tumbled up from behind them. “Leave it alone, hey. It ain’t hurting nothing.”
If any of them heard, they paid no attention and Peter slithered through the crush of bodies, leaned as close to the bat as he dared and doused it with a spray of purple paint. Anxious, boisterous laughter broke out above him as the bat recoiled, gagging. Encouraged, he let it have it again.
“Come on, you guys,” Sam spoke a little louder. “Just leave it alone, okay?”
Bobby grabbed a can of silver spray paint off the shelf and joined Peter on the front lines. The bat lay crumpled on the floor unmoving, its soft fur layered with a sickening purple. Feeling brave, Bobby eased forward and prodded it once again. The mouth flared open in an automatic response and excitedly he quickly filled it with toxic silver. A heavy hand knocked the can rolling from his grip, and he looked up to see Samson standing over him, shovel in hand. Raising it slowly overhead, Sam hesitated as he caught Bobby’s eye then brought it down hard, crushing the bat dead.