Seeing Off the Johns (14 page)

“Are we on empty?” he asked.

“No, but we should fill up to be safe.”

“Alright, I'll get it.” Chon unbuckled his seatbelt and opened the door to go in and pay for gas.

“Stop it,” Araceli said, loud but not angry.

“What?”

“You paid for the tickets to the game and then you paid for the burgers. Stop it. I'll pay for the gas.” Araceli got out of the Suburban and started for the store. Chon followed her. “I'm not going to let you pay, so don't even try.”

“Fine,” he told her. “I just thought I'd walk into the store with you. Keep you company”

Araceli gave the cashier a twenty. The guy didn't bother to put down the phone to make eye contact when he whispered
thanks
. Chon hated gas station service like that. Worse, he hated more the fact that it was something he noticed.

Araceli walked quickly to the pump, as if she were racing Chon. She took the handle off the hook and put it in the Suburban's gas tank.

Seeing that she was having some difficulty, Chon offered silently to help. Araceli grimaced at his gesture, but he insisted by grabbing the handle, squeezing it, and thumbing down the lever that rigged it to pump on its own.

“Don't mean to step on your toes. I'm good with these things, kind of my job,” Chon said.

They stood there, listening to the sound of trucks idling at the station and trucks passing by on the highway, to the rush of gasoline flowing through hoses into the Suburban. Chon grabbed a squeegee from a bucket next to the pump. He went to work ridding the Suburban's windshield of dead bug parts. He did it in a few quick motions, and had the squeegee back in the bucket by the time Araceli's twenty dollars' worth of gas was done pumping. When it was, Chon put the handle on the hook and opened the driver's door for Araceli. He made a gesture like a chauffeur.

“Thank you for your business today. Be safe in your travels and come back and see us if ever you're down Greenton-way,” he said in faux-broadcast voice. “I mean, Driscoll-way,” he corrected himself, speaking normally.

Araceli didn't move. She had been watching Chon's gas station attendant routine, arms crossed and lips uncurved in neither smile nor frown.

She pointed the ignition key at Chon and said “Listen,” in such a tone that Chon didn't know what to expect her to say next. “I'm not being bitchy or cold. I just get tired of guys always trying to pay or to treat or to step in and fix something that's not broken or help me with something I can do on my own. John did it all the time. It pissed me off no end. I just wanted to let you know that. So I did.”

She was dead serious. She stood there, arms crossed, left hand in the crook of her
right elbow, right hand extended to Chon with a truck key claw as a pointer—like she was going to fight him using the Praying Mantis kung-fu technique—her face not really scowling, though it might as well have been for as unused to seeing Araceli unsmiling as Chon was.

“So I won't pay for you,” Chon said, cautiously. “And I'm sorry about pumping the gas.”

“Well, it's your job,” Araceli said. “I'd give you a tip, but I just used all of my cash for gas.”

“Don't worry,” Chon said. “I'll pay the tip…wait, never mind.”

Araceli laughed and threw the keys at Chon. When they bounced off of his chest, she laughed harder. Chon bent down to pick up the keys and rubbed his chest where they had hit him.

“So now you become violent with me?”

She walked away from Chon around the back of the Suburban.

“I was hoping you'd drive,” she told him. “I'm feeling kind of tired.”

“No problem,” he told her. “Just don't hit me with anything while I'm driving.”

They got in the Suburban and buckled up. Chon adjusted the driver's seat to accommodate his long legs, and Araceli turned down the radio and leaned her seat back to roughly the same angle as a dentist's chair. She closed her eyes.

Chon put the car in gear and turned onto F.M. 665 towards Alice. They crossed over Highway 77. Araceli spoke without sitting up in her seat.

“They came through here, John and Robe. They drove up 77 when they left—when they died.” She stopped here, seeming to be listening back to the word she'd just said—like she had never said it, not just about the Johns, but in her life, like she was learning a new word in a language foreign to her ears and tongue. “They drove up to Highway
181, where they died.” She said it differently this time, like she had just learned the word and wanted to use it as much as she could so as to not forget its pronunciation.

“Why?” Chon said. “Why would they come over to 77 when they could have taken 16?”

Araceli made a quarter turn away from Chon and curled her legs up. Chon looked over at the ball she'd made of herself and wondered if she was turning toward sleep or away from his question.

“We don't know,” she said, not moving to face him. “They didn't tell anyone that they were coming this way, they always did that. But where they died, off of 181, I think they were visiting a girl John had told me about. He said she lived in Sinton.”

“A girl?” Chon asked.

“Yeah,” Araceli said so quiet that Chon almost didn't hear her. “He had told me about a girl he'd met, from Sinton. He said she didn't mean anything and just happened to mention in passing that she was from there. It's probably nothing, but that's where they ended up dead—just north of there.”

She stopped there. “I'm tired,” she said. I'll try to sleep now.”

Chon lowered the volume on the radio. He shook his head and rubbed his eyes to ready himself for the dark, silent drive ahead of him. Then he looked over at Araceli. Having her there next to him, comfortable enough in his presence not only to have him drive her father's car, but to turn over and sleep with him roughly a foot away, made Chon want to rise to the occasion. He wanted to live up to being handed the keys and told all these secrets. He adjusted the rear-view mirror to get a better view of the road behind him.

“And Chon,” Araceli said, scaring him. “I care about you.”

Chon didn't immediately remember the conversation they'd had so recently. The
words Araceli said were enough to make him forget about anything she had said before she said them. She turned her head to the side, like she was talking to the ceiling of the cab.

“And Henry cares about you.” Now Chon remembered. “You're cared about.”

She went back to resting her head on the seat and trying to sleep.

“Thanks,” Chon said. She didn't say anything back.

Realitos is a town even smaller than Greenton, the last town you pass on Texas Highway 359 before you get to Greenton. Chon drove through it after midnight, remembering that the last road in town on the way home has a small church at its end, just a block off the highway. He crossed himself with his right hand as he entered the home stretch. There was only a sliver of a moon glowing in the sky. If it were daytime, Chon would be able to see the water tower standing over the east side of town and carrying all of Greenton's barely potable water in a tank with the town's name and running Greyhound logo painted on the side. He was looking up at the sky in front of the glow of the car's headlights when he noticed the glow receding. The glow of the instrument panel and even the turquoise LCD glow of the time on the car's radio unit began dimming too. Chon tried not to panic.

Then the engine died and the steering and brakes locked up. There would certainly have been an accident if the Suburban were not the only vehicle on the road. Chon had to use all of the strength he could force into his hands to pull onto the side of the road. The sudden change in speed and Chon muttering
fuck, fuck, fuck
woke Araceli.

“What's wrong,” she asked. “What's happening?”

“It turned off on me,” Chon said, his heart pounding so hard he could feel its rhythm on his dry throat. “It just died.”

“Is it the battery?” Araceli adjusted her seatback so that she was sitting upright. She looked groggy but no longer frightened.

“No,” Chon said. “Well, yes. But the battery wouldn't die while the engine is on.” Chon tried the key in the ignition. The starter was clicking in futility. “It's the alternator.”

“Can you fix it?”

“No. I'm not even 100% sure that's what it is,” Chon admitted.

Araceli leaned her head on the window beside her and closed her eyes, like she wanted five more minutes of sleep before getting up to face the day.

“Okay,” she said and sat up. “I'll call my dad. My mom made me bring her cell phone in case of an emergency.”

“Smart lady,” Chon said. The fact that Araceli had a phone to call for help calmed him. He hadn't released the steering wheel from his sweaty grip. He let go and rubbed his hands on his jeans and tried to slow his breathing.

Araceli dialed a number. After a while, she pressed the ‘end' button on the phone and put it down on her lap.

“Shit!” she said. “I think he might still be at the fence job by Zapata. It went straight to voicemail. There's no reception down there.”

“So no Henry either?” Chon asked.

“What would he do if we called him anyway?” She had a point.

“So are you going to try your house? Maybe he's there and his phone is off.”

“Yeah, but maybe he's not and my mom will answer and panic. She could come get us, but she doesn't know anything about cars and my father would kill both of us if we left the Suburban out here. Can we call your house?” she asked.

“My dad knows less about cars than your mom does.” Chon was starting to feel nervous.

“Okay then,” Araceli said and dialed a number in the phone so quickly as to indicate muscle memory in her thumb from having dialed it too many times to count. She brought the phone to her ear.

While it was ringing, Chon asked, “Who are you calling?”

Araceli was listening hopefully to the line. Her answer was short. “A mechanic.”

The conversation Araceli had on the phone was short.

“Mr. Mejia,” she said. “It's me.”

“I'm fine. I'm fine,” she reassured him. “The reason I'm calling is I'm having car problems. Yeah. Hold on.” She covered the phone with her hand and asked Chon where they were. He told her. “We're just outside Realitos. About five miles. The car just turned off. We think it's the alternator. Yeah. Okay. Thank you so much. See you soon.”

She put the phone down and rubbed her eyes and shook her head.

“He'll be here as soon as he can,” she told Chon. He nodded, indicating that he thought this to be a good thing. “Are you okay?” she asked him. “You seemed pretty freaked out there for a while.”

Chon put the headrest behind him to use. He let out a long exhalation of relief. “I really was,” he told her. “I'm just glad you knew the home number to a mechanic who would come out and help us in the middle of the night.”

“Yeah, well…” Araceli started but didn't finish.

“And how about you?” Chon asked into the silence of the sentence Araceli let die. “You seemed pretty freaked out yourself when you woke up. Are you okay?”

“Yeah, I'm fine. I'm just glad you were driving. I would have probably started screaming and crying and run the car off the road.” Araceli laughed a little at this thought.

“You might have cried and screamed,” Chon said. “But you wouldn't have run the car off the road. I had to fight the damn thing to park it here. We were a couple of seconds from being half-parked in the road.”

“Oh Chon, you saved the day,” Araceli joked. “My hero.” She reached over and laid a soft palm on Chon's face. She was flashing a good-spirited smile to go with the playful tone she had set up.

The gesture froze Chon and scrambled his brain a little. He looked over at her, eying her hand on his face. Then he looked at her hard, letting her know he wasn't capable of joking right then because of what her touch, what she, was doing to him—what she always did to him. She took back her hand—Chon could see clearly even in the near black of the starless night around them that she looked down and blushed.

This was where a smoother guy would say something to win the moment for romance. But Chon couldn't come up with the anything at all to say, let alone the right thing. Later he was glad that the paralysis wasn't limited to just his voice, because all he could think to do at that moment was grab her—grab her and squeeze her and, for as long as she allowed it, come as close to occupying the same space with her as possible. Would she have recoiled? Would all his hopes for winning her have been left to die on the side of the road?

Yes. He had readied himself for heartbreak from the onset of his pursuit of Araceli.

In the end, his inaction seem prudent and considerate and prescient. Just minutes later, Andres Mejia passed them on the highway going in the direction of Realitos, only to slow down, make a U-turn, and park his truck behind them on Texas Highway 359 southbound.

Araceli jumped out of the car. Chon sat and watched in the side-view mirror as Andres got down from his truck—a slender man made to look big for all of his muscles—
and very delicately leaned down a little to wrap his arms around Araceli. They spoke for a bit. He said something that made her laugh, and they came up to the car. Chon opened the car door a crack when they came close.

“Pop the hood,” Andres instructed him.

Chon did. He joined them in front of the car. Andres handed Chon a flashlight wordlessly and placed his toolbox on the ground. He worked the hood's latch, then opened it and set it up on its prop rod. He held a hand out to Chon, who placed the flashlight in it. He shone the light onto the car's internal organs and poked at the alternator belt. He reached into his toolbox and pulled out a couple of small wrenches. With these, he loosened one of the battery cables from its terminal. Then he grabbed a crescent wrench. He adjusted it to fit a bolt on a pulley through which the belt ran. He stuck it in and—with one hand, like he expected it to be easy—gave the wrench a turn. It didn't budge.