Random Acts Of Crazy (26 page)

I liked that Trevor could find common ground with Mike. Joe, on the other hand, was looking for common ground with me. And by common ground, I mean flesh we could rub together. His hands were in his own lap but if eyes could fuck, his eyeballs would be halfway up me by now.

Trevor pulled in neatly next to the covered BMW and we all piled out. Joe fished his car keys out of his pocket and handed them to Mike, who made appreciative sounds when the Beemer was revealed.

“Damn fine car.”

“The best my parents’ guilt can buy,” Joe agreed. Mike climbed in and you could hear the sigh of sitting in luxury, of a clean car unmarred by bumps that dump coffee on the seats, grease and mud and grime and plain old wear and tear. It was a finely-oiled machine designed for status and prestige. Around here, a brand new king-cab Dodge or Toyota Tundra might grant that. Mike could appreciate a different culture, though, and he caressed the steering wheel the way a 17-year-old boy might enjoy his first handful of bare breast.

Mike tried to turn the car over. Nothing. Trevor got a little skittish suddenly, excusing himself to go to the bathroom inside the trailer. Joe leaned against my shed and grinned a loopy smile. Mike fumbled with the controls in the front seat and finally found the hood latch, popping it, and then climbing reluctantly out of the car to amble around the front, reaching in the small slit of the hood to find the full release lever, pulling up and securing the hood in an elevated position.

“Jesus Christ. What a joke!” he muttered. “Nothing’s wrong with your car, Joe. You kids playing a joke on me?”

“What do you mean, Mike?” I asked. Trevor’s disappearance puzzled me and made my hinky meter go on alert. Had he sabotaged the car? Why?

“Someone just pulled a bunch of hoses loose and undid a spark plug. Nothing wrong with the car. Give me a minute and I’ll loop it all back in place.” Mike’s meaty hands worked with a deft precision I found myself admiring. I wanted to turn to Joe and say, “See? Even in this backwater town I went and found you someone to fix your fancy car.”

So I did.

Joe just ignored me, walked over to Mike, and asked, “What do you mean?” His left hand reached up to lean on the edge of the upright hood, but Mike’s reflexes were faster, grabbing him at the wrist before he could put his full weight on the edge. That was a rookie mistake, and one of the fastest ways to injure a guy working on a car. Meekly, Joe pulled back and shoved his hands in his pocket, a lock of hair falling over his eye and making him look like he was on a midnight photo shoot for Vogue.

“I mean your car is fine, Joe. Someone just pulled on the parts for kicks. Some kids around here, I guess.”

“Not around here,” Joe mumbled. “A kid from Massachusetts,” Joe declared, his voice surprisingly jocular compared to what I imagined was a storm of fury inside him.

Trevor

Stepping into the trailer was a bit like dodging land mines. I escaped from one set by getting away from Joe; the second Mike looked under that hood, he’d know it had been messed with. Pretending to need the bathroom was my only out.

Cathy sat at the cluttered dining room, giving me that look moms seem to cultivate over time, the judgment and disappointment like a language they hone on Rosetta Stone the way they make us polish our Spanish.

“Hi, Cathy,” I said politely, pointing down the hallway toward the bathroom.

She just nodded, a gesture of understanding, and I ran in to use the facilities and gather my thoughts, which were a jumbled, rush mess right now. What the hell were we doing? Joe had his hands and mouth all over Darla and I…didn’t care? Not quite. I cared. I didn’t care in the way I was supposed to care. And neither did Darla or Joe, it seemed. This was like some complicated, hokey Disney family special, except it involved me and some very real-life problems with high stakes.

Continue and be burned?

Never try and regret it?

As I washed my hands and ran wet fingers through my hair, cooling down and trying to get my brain to slow down, I caught my face in the mirror. Same blue eyes. Same blondish hair. Same shit-eating grin and body.

Different man. How could I change so radically in two days?

Coming out of the bathroom, Cathy smiled at me and beckoned me to sit at the table across from her. Uh, oh. This was going to be one of those parent grill sessions, wasn’t it? Stifling a groan, I did what she asked. I was sleeping with her daughter, after all. She had the right to ask me a few questions, I guess. Beside, it bought me time before getting chewed out by Joe, who would be wicked pissed right now as he learned what I’d done.

“You enjoying your time here, Trevor?” Her voice was a gravelly version of Darla’s, and her hands were extremely well manicured, like my mom’s.

“Yes, Ma’am.” Where did that come from? We didn’t do the “Ma’am” and “Sir” thing in Mass. All the parents were on first name basis. None of them wanted to feel old.

“But you’re about to leave.”

Ouch. “Yes.”

“You know, Darla has a cousin who lives near Boston.”

“OK.” Where was this going?

“And her cousin has been trying to get her to move there for a long time.”

That’s
where this was going. Was Cathy afraid I was trying to take Darla away? I mean, two days did not equal asking Darla to
move
. Staying silent seemed like the safest course here, Cathy’s eyes boring into mine. What was I supposed to say? Choosing the Joe approach, I let my own awkwardness fill in the blanks and hoped she’d speak up first.

Like all parents, she did. “I like having Darla here. She helps a lot.” A pained smile spread her features wide as my fists clenched at my sides, my teeth grinding together. We really weren’t so different, were we? Parents who wanted to tell us what to do, even as adults. Darla’s mom was disabled and needed to use her as a crutch. My mom was disabled in her own way – heartbroken and convinced she needed to turn me into Uberboy.

What if we just broke free?

Like so many other lessons in life, you just have to try it and see what you experience. How could I do that with a tightly-controlled schedule of How to Be Perfect, a project-managed specimen that proved my parents could produce a kid who didn’t need to be institutionalized?

What they didn’t realize was that at the rate they were going, and Mr. and Mrs. Ross, too, Joe and I were going to end up in a very different kind of institution.

Or, worse, like clones of our parents.

No.fucking.way.

And Darla? If Cathy didn’t give her a chance to spread her wings and go where the wind took her, then she’d end up just as stifled. A flash of anger made me start to speak, but Cathy interrupted before I had the chance.

“And I think it’s time she went and visited her cousin Josie in Cambridge.”

“Mama!” I hadn’t heard Darla step into the trailer, but as I turned around and followed her voice, there she stood, her face a mask of shock, wild hair backlit by the foyer light. “What are you talking about?”

“It’s time you go, Darla.” Cathy folded her hands primly on the table top, worrying a piece of paper that had the words “GRAND PRIZE WINNER!” on it. I took a good look at Darla’s mother and saw that she’d gone to some trouble with her appearance, wearing lipstick and something on her eyes. Her expression was more animated, and she tapped the paper.

Darla stepped forward and reached next to me, her shirt sliding open as she bent down, giving me a heady whiff of her scent and a nice view of her rack. I should have been able to suppress that right now, under the circumstances, but I was horny as hell and frustrated as fuck, knowing we were about to head out and leave her behind. A few more hours, a handful of days…more. I wanted more.

Cathy handed Darla the paper and a second form under it. As she read both, Darla’s eyes widened, her face spreading into a friendly, eager look of promises fulfilled, of hopes granted, of something she hadn’t had – ever, if her countenance were to be believed. It made me want to scoop her up and take her away, to give her that feeling of having enough, of being wanted enough, of being – dare I say it? – loved enough to be something I gave her every single day.

“You got your aide hours?” Darla sputtered.
Aide hours
?

“Yep. Fifteen a week. Paid for by the state, and I can hire who I want. Guess who is coming to work for me?”

“Who?” Darla shook her head over and over while Cathy reached for a cigarette case. Man, I hadn’t seen one of those since I was a little kid and Grandma Connor still smoked. It was a cheap beige vinyl case and looked like a freakishly elongated change purse. She slid a cigarette out and pinched it between her lips, lighting it with a neon-green lighter in the outer pocket of the case.

“Jane!” Cathy took a long drag off the newly-lit cherried cigarette, her eyes glued to Darla to catch her reaction.

“Jane?”

“She got her CNA a few months ago and needs a job. I talked to her today – always liked her, Darla, and I still don’t understand why you don’t hang out with her more.”

“It’s not my fault I – ”

“Wait. Wait,” I said, holding my hands out in a gesture that stopped them both. “What are aide hours?”

Cathy took a long drag and blew perfect “O” smoke rings away from me. Transfixed, my eyes glommed on to them as she explained. “I lost my foot eighteen years ago, Trevor. I have diabetes. I’ve spent years on disability and I have some issues that require medical care and daily assistance. Darla’s been helping me for years, unpaid.”

“The state just approved Mama to have someone come here and do all that, now. And Jane was my best friend – ”

“
Is
your best friend,” Cathy corrected.

“Whatever.”

“Is, Darla Jo. Just because you can’t stand that asshole she married – ”

“Mama!” Darla seemed shocked to hear the profanity coming from her mom’s mouth.

I decided they needed to finish this in private, so I slipped out as I heard Cathy say, “Besides, I won a grand prize, Darla! A year’s worth of laundry detergent from…”

Joe

The engine roared to life as Mike conjured magic and made my BMW start. I loved Mike. Mike was my new best friend right now, and Trevor could go suck santorum out of a porn star’s ass for all I cared right now. Motherfucker. He sabotaged my car and we both knew it.

And I loved that crazy asshole for it.

He walked down off the trailer’s porch, stepping tentatively to make sure he didn’t crash through, and as he approached the now-running car I trotted to him and threw my arms around him in a big hug.

“Asshole,” I said. “You broke my car, didn’t you?”

“Just disabled it,” he said.

“Thank you,” I whispered. I really meant it, too, much to my great shock. I fucking
meant
it. We stood there in the dark, the moon shining a bit of light on us, Mike sitting in my car touching the leather seats and the controls like a teenager with his first chance to finger fuck a girl, and the three-legged kitten limped by, like some sort of superstitious symbol I couldn’t figure out.

We could leave now. Except I was way too fucked up to drive, so I said, “Good thing I rented that hotel room.”

Trevor’s eyes locked with mine as Mike turned the car off and climbed out, starting toward me. In the periphery I knew people were around, Mike’s form one of them, and I heard footsteps coming from the trailer, the lilt of Darla’s voice mixing with another woman’s. Her mother’s, perhaps. But at that split second, all I knew was the placid, powerful look that Trevor transmitted to me, a calmness and focus in him that somehow he infused in me, sending molecules from his core into mine, making me feel more centered and grounded and real than I’d ever felt. Friends for seventeen years and I’d never felt this.

All it took was a day here in the middle of flyover country and I got exactly what I needed.

Darla’s voice shook me out of my zone. “You guys OK? You’re creeping me out. What’s with the alien stare?”

“Joe just inserted my microchip and we’re calibrating,” Trevor said slowly, a taunting grin stretching his mouth.

“If ‘calibrating’ is a euphemism for something else, then I don’t want to know.” She hooked an arm around Trevor’s waist and he whispered in her ear. Tipping her head back, she laughed into the night sky.

“What’s so funny?” I asked as Mike threw the keys my way, tipped his cap, and headed into the trailer with Darla’s mom.

“He said, ‘If you want to know, come back to Joe’s hotel room’.”

“And?” I asked.

“And what?” she questioned. Her eyes were hooded by shadow and hesitation.

“What’s your answer? It’s an open invitation.” Shaken by my own courage, I let the question hang in the air and climbed into the passenger side of my car. Trevor could drive – I was still fucked up enough to know I had no business being behind the wheel, but loose enough to lower my inhibitions and propose something I didn’t even have the vocabulary to explain.

Muffled voices came through the window until Trevor opened his door, threw his body in, slammed the door and started the car. A few seconds of pause, and then we backed out slowly, the car’s beams lighting a wide radius of the road, small critters scampering off as we drove slowly down the rutted driveway.

“What did she say?” I asked, unable to contain myself. I felt free and easy and ready for whatever life threw my way and hoped Darla was one of those things.

“She gave me a kiss and said that if we see her, we see her. And if not, don’t take it personal.”

“Personally. Not personal.”

“
I
know that. Just relaying what
she
said.” Trevor handled the car like a pro, and as we drove away I realized we could just head straight home. I didn’t leave anything important in that room. Not one fucking thing. All of this could be a joke we told months from now, a goofy story we embellished, making fun of the toothless rednecks who took Trevor in, turning them into a caricature, a narrative device to make us seem smarter and more sophisticated, reinforcing stereotypes and mocking our own transgressions with a lovely classist twist.

And one day ago I’d have done just that.

Not now.