Authors: Jack Ketchum
You couldn’t even talk to her much lately, she was so loaded half the time. But talking to her was something to do other than bouncing chipped pieces of the fence’s concrete base off the pitcher’s mound so Tim figured he’d try it anyway.
“You ever wonder what happened to Brian Wilson?”
“Huh?”
He tossed a big chunk of the concrete and saw the dust fly. They’d have to clean up the mound for the game tomorrow. Big chunks of the stuff all over the place.
“
Hello? Earth to Jennifer?
Brian Wilson? The Beach Boys? Ever since
Pet Sounds
, all you get is this hippie-dippie Beatles rip-off shit.
Wouldn’t it Be Nice, Sloop John B
. I just don’t get it.”
Hell, he was talking to himself. She swigged the beer. Despite her grip on the fence she was starting to droop again.
“You better finish that one and then lay off. Ray’s gonna be pissed at you.”
“Ray couldn’t care less.”
“He’s gonna care if you puke all over his boots.”
“Ray doesn’t care
what
I do.”
“He’ll care if you puke.”
“I’m not gonna puke.”
He tossed another, smaller chunk. It fell short. He had to pry them out now with his fingers. He swatted a mosquito on his neck. In this humidity the little fuckers were everywhere. The palm of his hand came away sticky with his own blood. And probably somebody else’s. He hated that. He wiped it on his jeans.
He watched her tilt the bottle up and drink. He had to admit, he still thought she was pretty as hell after all these years, even half in the bag. It was hard for him to figure Ray, who didn’t seem all that interested anymore. But Ray had other girls. He had the gift and Tim didn’t.
He wondered how much she minded. About Ray having other girls. You could tell she did mind but she’d never say how much. He’d never seen her go after Ray about it, not ever, though there was no way to know what she said to him in private. According to Ray she’d never said a thing but you couldn’t tell with Ray. She might have.
There was no way he could ask her. They didn’t have that kind of open thing together.
He wished they did and wondered why after all these years they didn’t. He wished he could really talk to her about some of the important stuff. About Ray. About minding.
About the other thing.
The girl had died. Word traveled fast in this town, and he guessed it was all over summer school. He and Jennifer had been hanging out in the parking lot after the 3:15 bell waiting for Suzy and Dan and Sheila and whatever other kids would want to score a joint or two and the whole damn lot was buzzing over it.
He still remembered that night four years ago as though it had happened yesterday. Specific events would come back to him at peculiar times. He’d be sipping a cherry Coke at the counter of a soda fountain waiting for Ray and he’d remember pulling up and finding them both gone and finding the note telling them to stay put and he’d remember Jennifer’s panic, not knowing what in hell had gone wrong but both he and Jennifer scared to drive away, scared of Ray and just as scared to stick around some dead girl’s body. Not knowing what to do, whether to load the tent and all their gear into the car or not and consequently not doing anything, just waiting by the cold remains of the fire.
He’d be walking toward the school with half an ounce of pot rolled into joints in a plastic Baggie in the front pocket of his jeans and he’d remember the way Ray looked when he returned without her. Somehow she’d made it to the road, stumbled out in front of a car, he said. Ray had crouched in the brush and watched two men load her into the backseat of a Mercury and drive away. He was furious, fucking crazy. And Tim could see that he was scared too.
He’d remember all this in glimpses, blinks in time that would catch him unawares. The panic to load their stuff into the trunk and the long drive west all the way to the Delaware Water Gap so they could dump it. The drive back. Jennifer crying. Ray fidgeting behind the wheel, saying how he should have kept the lantern, dammit, the lantern was brand new and expensive. The long heavy silences.
He avoided silences now.
Like this one.
“So. You thought about it yet?”
“’Bout what? Brian Wilson?”
“Nah. About what you want to do tonight. Me, I still say Don’s.”
Don’s was a drive-in restaurant just out of town, one of the last drive-ins in the lakes area and, he guessed, one of the last in the state. But they served great chocolate egg creams and it made a good change from the beer. Good burgers too. He watched her finish her bottle and toss it into the grass under the bleachers.
He considered going after it, putting the empty back in the six-pack but decided against it. He’d look like a wuss.
“Doesn’t matter what I want to do,” she said. “Or what you want to do. It’s what Ray wants to do.”
“Sure.”
“It’s true.”
“Bullshit. He always asks.”
“Yeah. He asks. Then he does whatever he wants to do.”
He looked at her. Propped up against the fence, staring up into the moonlight. At least she wasn’t reaching for another bottle yet.
“Shit. Whatever,” he said.
He stooped and tried to loosen another piece of concrete. The problem he had was that he always bit his fingernails, so the concrete wouldn’t come free. He stood and kicked at it with his heel a few times and that did it. He popped it off the pitcher’s mound. He was fucking bored to tears. He didn’t even feel like drinking. It would just screw him up for later.
For
what
later? What comes later?
Same-old, same-old?
He pushed the thought away.
Come on, Ray
, he thought.
Could you hurry it up a little, please?
“Fuck Brian Wilson,” she said. “You ever think about Twiggy?”
He grinned and shook his head. Now at least she was talking.
“No. Not lately.”
“Know what her real name is? Lesley Hornly. Homsby. Something like that. No ass, no tits, arms and legs like sticks so they call her Twiggy. Makes millions of dollars and I bet you wouldn’t even want to fuck her, would you.”
“No.” Though there were plenty of times he figured he’d fuck pretty much anything.
“
That’s
what I don’t get.”
“What? The money thing?”
“Yeah. Why’s she make all that money? When a guy wouldn’t even want to fuck her.”
“I guess some guys would.”
“Who?”
“I dunno. Some hippie would I guess.”
“Not even fucking
hippies
would want to fuck her. She’s got no
tits
, man! Janis Joplin’s got tits. Whatser-name, Grace Slick’s got tits.”
“Yeah, but not big ones like Joplin’s.”
“She at least looks like a woman for godsakes! What’s all this bullshit with Leslie Hornsby?”
“Little girls.”
“Huh?”
“Some guys like little girls. They like kids. Look it up in your Funk and Wagnalls.”
She didn’t laugh. Didn’t even smile. Instead she reached down for another beer.
Oh shit
. That killed the first six-pack, four for her and two for him. Good thing they had another. Ray’d be pissed if there wasn’t one for him when he arrived.
“Sick,” she said. “That’s sick.”
They saw the headlights in the distance moving down Hanover Road, slowing, the car beginning to turn into the parking lot and he got the six-packs off the ground, the empty tucked under his arm and the full one in his hand and with the other hand he took her arm. He practically had to pry her off the backstop.
“C’mon, Jennifer!”
“It’s just Ray.”
“Jennifer, you’re not stupid. You know the drill. It might not be Ray and it
could
be the Man. Now c’mon!”
They headed for the entrance gate next to the bleachers. She was staggering, bumping up against his hip. If they had to run she was going to get caught. But he was the one with the beers. And he could outrun any cop, especially through the woods behind the gym which he knew like the back of his hand. If he had to he’d take the open bottle from her hand and all they could get her for was trespass. Unless she got hostile which nowadays with Jennifer was perfectly possible.
Then it was drunk and disorderly.
The arc of light swept over them. The car pulled up in the middle of the lot.
Ray’s Chevy.
And about goddamn time.
He could feel her straighten up beside him and let his hand drop from her arm and looked at her. Her eyes seemed brighter, clearer, less the drunken slits they’d been just a moment ago. Ray’s magic working in her. Even her face seemed to have softened in the moonlight.
He wished he could have that effect on somebody. Especially her.
He had to admit it to himself. For him it was still Jennifer.
The car door opened and there was Ray with his strange listing gait coming toward them through the headlights. Ray’d told him once that a couple of mafioso types had shot him in both legs years ago when he was still just a kid, like twelve years
old
or something. He’d been running away from a drug deal gone bad and even shot the way he was he’d still managed to get the hell out of Dodge.
That was the reason he walked funny to this day.
Tim didn’t know whether to believe him or not. On the one hand Ray had dealt dope for a long time, both on the street and out of his parents’ motel and if you were dealing you could easily run into some pretty rough characters now and then—though the twelve-years-old bit was hard to swallow. There was also the fact that, like Tim, who had a genuine heart murmur, Ray hadn’t been drafted. He hadn’t passed the physical. On the other hand Ray could definitely exaggerate. He loved turning stuff into drama, loved to scare the shit out of you when he could and loved his bad-ass image.
Tim had considered asking him once if he could see the scars but that would be like saying he didn’t believe him.
“You guys been here long?” He was smiling.
“Few minutes.” Jennifer shrugged.
“Long enough, Ray.”
“Sorry about that, Timmy.”
He put his hand on Tim’s shoulder and leaned over to give Jennifer a kiss.
“I got hung up over at the motel. Ice machine’s out again and the people in 409 are throwing themselves a little party if you know what I mean, couple of babes, so I had to send Willie over to the Seven-Eleven for a bag and you can’t leave that fucking desk alone for a minute, y’know? C’mon. I got somebody here I want you to meet”
They walked toward the car and Ray lit a cigarette and so did Tim. They leaned in through the driver’s side window and Tim took a breath, inhaled the smoke too fast and right away started coughing like he’d just come down with TB, which made him feel like a total jerk because there in the passenger seat was the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on unless you counted the movies.
This amazing girl. Smiling at them. Big wide grin.
“Tim, Jennifer, I want you both to meet Katherine. Katherine just moved here from San Francisco. How ’bout that? Her car’s got a flat back on Mulwray Road. She was hitching into town and I stopped and thought well hell, we’re
going
into town, why don’t we just give you a lift.”
“Tim thought maybe Don’s Drive-in,” said Jennifer.
The drive-in was on one side of the lake, town was on the other.
“Nah. We
been
to the drive-in! The drive-in’s
for kids
!” He clapped Tim on the shoulder. “We’re goin’ into
town!
Hit the bars.
Part-eee
!”
Tim wondered if the girl was old enough to drink. She didn’t look it. He guessed it didn’t matter. Both he and Jennifer were a year short of twenty-one too but in a lot of places Ray had clout or to be exact his dope had clout so it didn’t matter. He glanced at Jennifer.
“Whatever,” she said.
The light in her eyes was gone again.
He looked at the girl, this amazing girl. And then he looked back at Jennifer.
No surprise.
It was strange and maybe even ridiculous the directions sex could turn a man, he thought. Ever since this thing with Sally started he found himself gardening again, something he hadn’t wanted to do with Evelyn while she was alive but did only at her urging because Evelyn was a Brit and the Brits did dearly love their gardens. But now here he was, digging in the dirt just for the hell of it. An ex-cop, six-foot-three and two-hundred pounds, sweating in the sun over a patch of violets by the back porch stoop.
When the cat came by as she usually did around this time, Ed filled the empty water dish with fresh cold water from the outdoor tap and went inside for the Friskies dry he’d bought her the other day and kept for her in the cupboard. The cat was already drinking when he returned. He set the bowl of cat food on the stoop and watched the cat chow down. Friskies was noisy food, all hard little pellets. He enjoyed the crackling sounds and supposed the cat did too. He thought that they probably reminded her of tiny bones breaking, of who she was down deep.