Melissa McInerney
April 2015, Issue 1
All Tomorrow's Parties
July Fourth, 1976. On a boat dock somewhere outside of Houston, a group of kids waited for the holiday to really start. The sunshiny day gave way, the heat and humidity blurring the edges of the gray watercolor dusk. The guys clowned around, a few with skateboards clacking on the asphalt. The girls huddled on the boat dock, shorts sweatstuck to their behinds.
Jodie sat next to her best friend Deanna and hoped her parents would not say goodbye. Earlier in the afternoon, she had said, ‘Mom, just say goodbye now, please,’ trying not to roll her eyes. Her dad, ridiculous in his red, white and blue plaid shorts, said, ‘You ashamed of your old man now?” She was, at least in public. She didn’t say that.
The red taillights of the last of the family cars disappeared. The lake was theirs. Deanna leaned back, her biceps sinewy and tan. Jodie folded her arms across her legs. She was conscious of the whiteness of her limbs, the thin inadequacy of her muscles compared to Deanna’s.
Deanna pulled a slim tube out of her cutoff jean shorts and slicked on some Watermelon Kissing Potion. The sickly sweet odor reminded both girls of the last four years, long hours spent confined in the straitjacket of a small town Texas high school.
Jodie shook a cigarette out of its red and white box awkwardly, a move she’d practiced unsuccessfully for a long time. She lit it with the heavy Zippo lighter her uncle had left last Christmas next to the ashtray her mother primly placed on the deck. She loved the authoritative snap of the top closing. She inhaled, a shallow, puny effort.
Deanna reached over and whisked the cigarette out of her mouth. “Jesus Christ, Jodie. You don’t smoke.” Deanna’s effort set the ember crackling. Smoke hovered in her open mouth until she drew it up her nostrils. Jodie had practiced the ‘French inhale,’ too. Hers looked nothing like Deanna’s.
Sometimes Jodie was surprised at their friendship, wondering if it would ever have happened had their last names not destined them to be linked forever: McMurray and McElroy. Always in the middle of the line, always in the center of the classroom since fourth grade, they set about forging a bridge. Besides being white, female and living in the same town, they could not have been less alike. Deanna’s parents were divorced, her dad out on the oil rigs weeks at a time. Deanna’s mom was the receptionist at the orthodontist’s office, buxom and friendly, her hair rolled and sprayed into an amazingly unnatural array of waves. Deanna and her mom lived in an apartment on the edges of the Kingwood, part of it but not really.
Jodie lived in one of the first houses built in Kingwood, ‘The Livable Forest.’ The house was sharply angled and modern. Her mother took great care with the teak furniture and museum prints inside. Her dad worked for an oil company too, only he drove off in a suit with a briefcase to a glass high rise in downtown Houston. Her mother was the librarian at the elementary school, her hair undyed and cut short. Sitting on the prickly carpet at Deanna’s, or the Danish tulip barstools at Jodie’s, the two told each other everything. Like the time Jodie cheated on a test in sixth grade, or the time last year when Deanna lost her virginity to Tommie Gibson. And that’s where they united, the emotions and hopes not so different after all.
One of the guys whizzed by on his skateboard, a blue bandanna hanging out of the back pocket of his jean shorts. A few strands of his hair rose from his head, the rest cemented to his scalp with a pungent mixture of sweat and not-quite-rinsed-out shampoo.
“Kirk got tickets to the Allman Brothers,” Deanna said. “I wanna go, just not with him.”
Jodie swung her waist length hair around her left shoulder, a move she’d picked up from “The Sonny and Cher Show” and reached for the cigarette. She sucked in the smoke.
“Kirk is such a fucking baby sometimes. He bitches about his parents all the time.”
“Are they getting a divorce?” Jodie asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t give a shit either.”
“Don’t you hate the Allman Brothers?” Jodie asked.
Deanna was watching a dark blue pickup roll into the parking lot. Jodie watched too, sitting up straighter when she realized Bud Alcott was in the truck with Tommie Gibson.
Twilight takes its time in Houston. The shadows were slowing disappearing, pockets of darkness settling in where the undergrowth was thickest. The lake was a still, shiny patina of grays and purples. The trees hung heavy green and black at the edges. Houston grew haphazardly. The suburbs were like tree rings, fat when times were good. Times were very good. The boat docks, the picnic tables, the tennis courts and their homes, all brand new, part of the grand ‘planned community’ Exxon built. The parents had been lured there in the hope that their kids would play happily on the greenbelts and in the neighborhood pools. Instead, the kids cruised the neighborhood restlessly, flush with cash with nowhere to go. Deanna slapped at a mosquito and Jodie was glad she had submitted to her mom’s spritz of bug spray earlier.
A ripple of energy had rolled over the large asphalt parking lot. Cars parked at picnic areas, kids climbed out and claimed the tables, plonking ice chests on the benches and tossing packs of cigarettes, lighters and keys on the table tops.
Tommie’s truck stopped at the picnic table closest to the dock. Tommie and Bud jumped out of the truck. Tommie handed Bud speakers, one at a time, clunky black squares with red and black wires twisting from the window to the roof. Bud leaped into the back of the truck and fiddled with the wires until ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ burst from the speakers. Bud vaulted over the side of the bed and glanced over to the dock to see if Jodie had noticed. He wanted her to notice.
Jodie did see Bud. She saw everything, and was so busy overthinking her next move that she was blind to the important things. She wouldn’t quite believe that Tommie thought she was smart, or that Bud admired the way her tiny waist flared into the wide hips she hated so much.
While the music blared, Tommie and Bud set up a half dozen rusty webbed lawn chairs. Tommie sat down at the table and rolled some joints, licking the edges of the paper with a lusty flourish.
Deanna jumped up from the dock, slicking on more lip gloss and brushing the damp wood rot from her shorts. Jodie followed her lead, like always. Deanna was far savvier than Jodie when it came to the unspoken rules of being a high school kid in 1976. She knew how to flirt, how to talk to teachers and parents, how to get someone to buy liquor for them, or get pot. Deanna always knew who to call for concert tickets and where the best parties were.
Now she sauntered over to the guys. She stood in front of Tommie and examined the ends of her hair. Jodie swung her hair back and followed, feeling like a clumsy puppy.
Bud shook one of the chairs for her and she lowered herself cautiously, hoping the frayed webbing would hold her weight. Bud sat next to her.
“Did you like the books?” Bud asked.
Bud had loaned Jodie some Carlos Castaneda and Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception at the end of school.
“I liked Castaneda. Do you really think he could project himself and fly? And what about lucid dreaming? I think I can do that but I don’t know,” Jodie answered. She tore the silver paper from Deanna’s pack of cigarettes into tiny pieces as she spoke.
Bud pulled his chair closer.
“I’m not sure the flying is a metaphorical flying. Or his perception that he was flying,” Bud said.
She unconsciously leaned towards Bud.
Tommie thrust himself in their conversation and held out a lumpy joint.
“Are you talking that trippy philosophy shit again? Man, just toke and shut up.”
Jodie smiled and took it. She liked Tommie well enough. He was one of those guys that fit in everywhere.
“Yeah, we’re talking that trippy philosophy shit again. I loaned her some books. Those things with paper you read?”
“I’m not reading anything that doesn’t have a fold-out page in the center, man.”
Jodie laughed, a nervous titter. She had seen the magazines that her brothers had hidden below the sink in the bathroom. The pictures had both titillated and depressed her. She had posed in the fogged up mirror, hating her smallish breasts and big butt.
The jocks had set up their keg across the lot and their shouts traveled across the parking lot. Jodie knew a lot of them from her dad’s work: company picnics, dinners, and the country club. The company moved its headquarters to Houston three years ago, and the families flocked to the club, eager for ready-made friends.
She watched them as they pushed and slapped each other, a loud display of raw maleness. She couldn’t figure out if they were made of more primitive, physical stuff or if they were just stupid.
K101 had gone commercial-free for the holiday. The jocks’ speakers joined with Tommie’s and the air reverberated with Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper.’ More cars circled the lake, their headlights searching for friends. Kids had started cruising on foot, moving from table to table. The smell of cigarettes and pot drifted through the air, a scent marking the lake as theirs surely as the smell of bug spray and charred meat had marked it ‘family’ earlier.
Deanna lit a cigarette and watched Junkyard Thomas move from table to table. He did this soul handshake that fascinated Deanna, his hand clasping the other person’s so the tens and twenties wouldn’t be seen. Then he did a shoulder slap fade, the baggie with pills or pot or mushrooms sliding into the awaiting hand. She swung her right leg back and forth, her sandal slapping the bottom of her foot, surprised at some of the people who bought from Junkyard. Tommie had a falling out with Junkyard, claiming he’d been shorted, but Deanna thought Junkyard’s total devotion to getting high on anything scared Tommie.
She took a long drag on her cigarette. She was bored with this same old crowd. No, that was not true. She was powerfully attracted to Tommie. She didn’t know what it was about him. He was such a dickwad most of the time. She liked his strong square hands, the way his shoulders stretched his t-shirts tight, his thick, wavy hair. Deanna hated that he made her feel like a sixth-grader with her first crush.
Kirk and three other guys drove up in Kirk’s Camaro. He had a good fake ID so he always bought the liquor. Deanna, edgy with want for Tommie, jumped up and went over to him. She hugged him and stepped away. The smell of him, starchy and minty, did not push thoughts of Tommie away. Kirk whipped out a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack. Let’s get this party started, motherfuckers.
Great clouds of mosquitoes came with the dark. The sickly lemon light high atop the telephone poles at the boat dock fuzzed like a dandelion with bugs. Houston shouldn't exist at all. The city rose up out of a pestilential swamp, fueled by the oil tankers that chugged up the ship channel, dredged from the Buffalo Bayou in the 1890s. Like a bratty little sister, Houston vied and schemed to be Texas’ biggest port.
When Jodie had met Tommie she was surprised to find he was a native Houstonian. His dad had built a lot of their homes. Jodie wasn’t attracted to Tommie. His view of the good life meant working for his dad for ten bucks an hour. “That’s enough to keep my truck gassed up and my head messed up,” he had said. Jodie knew Deanna liked him. She knew Tommie was Deanna’s first. Comparing Tommie and Bud, Jodie could see how Tommie’s easy athleticism and sinewy looks snared Deanna. Jodie preferred Bud, with his eyes that lit up when he shared his thoughts with her.
The deejay came on the radio and in his stoned, deep voice, announced his intention to play songs about America. The thundering ricochet of ‘Born to Run’ boomed from the speakers. Guys scrambled from their chairs and whooped. Bud stood up, arched his back, and threw his head to the sky with a primal scream. Jodie’s stoned mind stuttered as it tried to fit the song into the category of America and gave up. She sang at the top of her lungs, face to face with Bud during the chorus. Jodie’s fist punched the air, the crackling energy filling her with rage and hope, a swirling vortex of teenage angst ready to burst.
As the last chords faded away, some of the guys lit firecrackers and bottle rockets. Bud swung Jodie around, his arms wrapped around her waist, her long hair flying in the air like a flag. She laughed and laughed, the pfftt-bang of the bottle rockets with their white-orange tails filling the sky. He set her down and for a second their eyes met. She lifted her face to his and a bottle rocket streaked into her leg. She screamed as the lit fuse burned her calf. Bud kicked at the wooden stick with its tiny firecracker head. It popped two feet from them, a fierce little mass of white-hot energy.
Bud put his arm around Jodie and she reached up and grabbed his dangling hand, pressing her body into his. There was no kiss.
Massive amounts of firecrackers materialized, from trunks of cars, beat-up backpacks, purses and pockets. The asphalt soon was streaked with black powder marks and shreds of paper. The air filled with a rotten-egg smell of sulfur and the acridness of smoke. Shadowy bodies darted from the sudden flare of lit fuses.
The bangs from the firecrackers gave Deanna a headache. She sat next to Jodie and watched Bud, Kirk, Tommie and all the guys run around like eight-year-olds.
“I’m breaking up with Kirk.”
This announcement didn’t surprise Jodie in the least. The pairing of Deanna and Kirk had seemed to spring up from convenience. He had a car, Deanna needed rides. He had pot, Deanna liked to smoke. He took her to concerts. She paid him back the way he expected.
“Tonight?”
“Why not? I’ll never have to hear about his fucking parents again.”
Jodie envied Deanna’s breezy attitude towards guys. It was like she knew a secret language that Jodie couldn’t master. Jodie tried to flirt but always said something that sounded vaguely dirty, sparking a conversation that left her rattled. Bud was different. He was smart, for one thing, and he didn’t try to hide it. He listened to her, for another. They had been in the same honors classes for three years now and their introspective journeys had meandered along the same paths. The romance part had snuck up on her, a slow, steady stream of little things: the shape of his hands, the quick toss of his head to get his hair out of his eyes, the tap of his pen as he studied, his way with words.
Tommie chased Kirk, a fistful of lit firecrackers in his hand. Bud stood laughing, the lighter still aflame in his hand.
“Buncha stupid morons,” Deanna said.
Some kids at their high school had already settled down. More than one girl had gotten pregnant and married, their futures like their bridal gowns, lain out, tried on and zipped up. That future depressed Jodie. In her mind there was a great beautiful life waiting for her after the arcane, capricious rules of high school. She was certain there would be freedom: freedom of thought, physical freedom, freedom from incomprehensible rules.
The furious bout of activity had brought the two groups together, the guys shooting rockets at each other, the girls faux screaming and running to the woods. Kirk leaned against a tree, out of breath from chasing some guys and throwing firecrackers at them. He lit a cigarette. Deanna sauntered up, an unlit cigarette in her hand. Kirk leaned over and lit it.
“My dad’s leaving for good next week. First fucking day of college. They wanted to wait ‘til I left home,” Kirk said.
Deanna made no comment. He took a deep drag and went on, how they shouldn’t have gotten married and he was so sick of them fighting…Deanna tuned him out. She remembered Kirk’s house, the wedding picture of his mom and dad. His mom’s belly was hidden under a hideous tent of pale pink chiffon. She had looked like a ripe peach, her eyes flat and a determined look on her face. His dad did not touch his mom, he leaned away slightly, his arm up like he was blocking her out. He had the look of a daguerreotype picture, grim lines frozen on his face.
Kirk drew on his flask. Deanna knew him well enough to know he was looking for that numb place where he wasn’t too high or drunk, just blank.
The smoke hung in the trees, giving the whole park a horror movie vibe. A few cars pulled out around eleven. Couples tried to find pockets of absolute dark where they could be undisturbed. Clumps of people sat in circles, bright orange embers moving lazily in the dark.
Jodie and Bud sat on top of a concrete picnic table near the lit parking lot.
“They must’ve gotten the plans from a Soviet designer,” he joked.
Jodie gave a polite laugh. Bud said that every time they were at the lake. They were the ugliest picnic tables on the planet, great slabs of gray on top of slabs of gray, devoid of any aesthetic qualities. The only thing they had going for them was that they were indestructible. She was tearing up the silver flap of paper from a pack of cigarettes into tiny squares. It was a nervous habit from childhood, something to do with her hands when she was flustered.
“So you think God is real?” she asked.
“No, I think people need to think he’s real. To them he is real.”
“Is that valid?”
“Reality is what you think is real,” Bud said.
“What if I thought I was Jesus Christ? Wouldn’t that make me crazy?” Jodie asked.
“I don’t know, what if you were Jesus?” Bud answered back with a question. These philosophical threads left Jodie exhilarated and strangely worried. What if he was wrong about everything? What if he was right? Were they just little smidges in the universe for a nanosecond in time?
“God, I hate it when you answer my questions with a question. Stop it.”
“Okay, you’re Jesus Christ. If Jesus was here now they’d lock him up,” Bud said.
They talked more about reality, perception and what life was all about. Jodie was stuck on reality, Castaneda’s assertion that his spirit body could fly while he was under the influence of peyote. “We need to try it to find out,” Bud said.
“I agree. Peyote or LSD? There must be differences.”
“Dave says LSD grabs your brain and squeezes it dry. Peyote is kinder and more colorful.”
Bud’s brother Dave was hunkered down in Austin, working at the Hole in the Wall, spending every spare dollar on drugs and music. Their parents had banned Dave from the family home, claiming his “god-damned hippie values” were ruining the family. Bud pointed out that Dave carried a 3.8 average at the University of Texas, so he must be doing something right, an observation that earned him a hard backhand from his father.
“When are you leaving?” Bud asked Jodie. Jodie said orientation was the second week of August and she thought she might as well stay. She was going to UT, like half the college-bound kids from Humble High. Bud said, “Cool.” They fell silent. High school had dragged on forever. This summer had dragged on until tonight. July fourth. Summer halfway gone.
The fireworks had slowed to a few erratic pops, a few of the younger guys intent on maiming each other with Black Cats. Tommie prowled the edges of the picnic tables restlessly. He stopped near the jocks’ table. Carla Bennett and her friend saw him and walked to where he leaned against a pine tree. They began telling him about Junkyard’s bust two weeks ago, and arguing over the details.
“It wasn’t pot, Lisa, it was Quaaludes.”
“You’re wrong. I heard he was so wasted he tried to sell to the cops.”
Carla grabbed his belt loops and pulled him close.
“Hey”, she said. He looked down. The dim light made the thick streaks of blush on her cheeks look as though an alien with pink index fingers imprinted her face. When she looked up at him, her eyelashes looked like an old dried-up black paintbrush. He brushed her hair back and smiled.
“I’m bored. Wanna take me home?” Carla asked.
“No, baby, I’m not driving tonight,” Tommie answered.
Carla pouted for a moment before she giggled and pushed him away. She and Lisa walked back to their drunk, broad-shouldered admirers without a backwards glance.
Deanna and Kirk were making out. They had already broken up. This was the goodbye kiss, well over ten minutes long now. Deanna didn’t know why Kirk became ten times more attractive the minute he casually agreed to split.
He slipped his hands under her shirt. The feel of his hands, the smell of his beer breath, it was like a switch. On to off. She pushed his hand away from under her shirt and left him sitting there with a hard-on.
A half moon hung heavy in the mucky air just above the southern pines. The guitar solo playing curled like the fronds of ferns in the air. Jodie’s curfew was two am. Why she had one at all was bizarre, since she was leaving home soon. Jodie wanted to lean over and kiss Bud. She wanted to sprawl across the cement slab and offer herself up to him, a vestal virgin like in that Procol Harum song.
A virgin. She didn’t want to go off to school a virgin, a thought that solidified at that instant. Bud’s face looked very, very young and unformed to her. Would he be the one? A thrill leapt through her, the idea of her decision redefining the rest of the summer. She studied Bud with this new certainty and blurted out “Are you a virgin?”
“What?” Bud asked to cover his shock. Jodie apologized and said that it was none of her business. She reached into her pocket for another piece of paper but there were none. Her hands fluttered over her hair restlessly.
Bud wasn’t a virgin. He dated a girl from church for two years before his pleas had worked. They had done it twice before she had said she couldn’t live with her faith if she kept seeing him.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her. Instead, he said, “Maybe…are you?”
A silence, filled with all the insecurities and doubts they both had, replaced whatever magic the fourth of July had brought.
Two cop cars rolled slowly towards the lake. ‘Pigs’ someone yelled. Time speeded up, the languidness of a holiday winding down replaced with frantic urgency. Anyone who was underage scuttled off into the thick woods east of the boat docks. Anyone with a car ran to hide questionable things and stake out their property. Anyone holding rifled their pockets and purses, stashing baggies and flasks under leaves, picnic tables, wherever, to be searched for fruitlessly in the future. Everyone else popped gum into their mouths, dabbed drops into red-slit eyes, and tried to look sober.
It was all a big stupid game. Jodie and Deanna drifted back in the shadows. Deanna knew the drill. They partied, the cops tried to catch them. Groveling and politeness worked when caught. A holiday was a night to be smarmy, obsequious even. Most of the jocks were bold, waving and leaning over the patrol car window.
Tommie knew both officers, they went to high school with his dad. He climbed into his car and waited. Bud had migrated back to his buddy and sat in the front seat, eyes straight ahead. They always hassled ex-football players, especially Tommie, who had gone over to the freak side. Jodie and Deanna huddled off to one side and worried they wouldn't have a ride home.
“Shut up Tommie, shutup shutup shutup,” Deanna muttered under her breath. Something was going to happen with Tommie tonight. What that would be she hadn't a clue. But something.
The officers climbed out of their car heavily, the thick-soled black shoes fixing them to the ground with authority. Dark rings of sweat filled large spaces under their arms. The black webbed belts hung with the tools used to subdue: a nightstick, handcuffs, a radio, a whistle, a knife, and the Colt .38 Special. Officer Novark asked him to step outside.
“Yessir,” Tommie said.
Novark swiveled him around and pushed his head to the hood. He kicked Tommie’s legs apart and patted him down a little rougher than necessary.
Kirk rolled by in his car, a smirk on his face. Deanna shot him the finger behind her back. She would never see him the same way again.
Officer McQueen spent his time shining the flashlight into the car. Bud stared rigidly ahead, willing his muscles to relax.
“You girls with these losers?” Novark called to Jodie and Deanna.
Jodie didn’t move. Deanna stepped towards the car.
“They were going to give us a ride home, sir.”
Officers Novark and McQueen snickered. McQueen said conversationally to Novark, “These pussies don’t deserve to give these ladies a ride home.”
Novark said, ‘Naw, they don’t, do they Tommie boy?’
Jodie hated their casual authority. She was humiliated for Tommie and mad at Bud for just sitting there even though she knew he couldn’t do anything. Tommie answered in a loud, clear voice, “No, sir.”
The officers thought this was pretty damn funny. McQueen guffawed, his flashlight beam bobbling into the darkness. Novark loosened his hold on Tommie.
Deanna pulled Jodie towards the car. “That is true, sir, but they’re all we’ve got.”
McQueen slapped his knee several times he was so tickled at this. Novark let Tommie go and opened the back door with a slight bow. “Ladies?”
Deanna and Jodie piled into the back. No one but Bud saw the leer on Novark’s face as he watched the two girls climb in.
Officer Novark waved Tommie into the car. “You don’t mind if we follow you all home, do you?”
Four voices: “No sir!”
The park had emptied out. Tommie’s car chugged along at exactly nineteen miles per hour, no radio, no conversation, nothing being lit, and nothing being drunk. Tommie turned at the 7-Eleven, intending to drop Jodie off first. The cops turned into the parking lot, where Tommie could see two guys sitting on the edge of the sidewalk in front of the store. Another guy leaned against the store. Tommie slowed down and peered into his mirror. “Fuck,” he breathed out as he realized one of the guys was Junkyard.
“What?” Bud said.
Tommie pulled over and began a three-point turn. He turned off his lights and rolled to a stop off to the right side, where trees partially hid his car. The officers were out of the car. The two guys who were sitting rose and faded off to the other side of the parking lot. Jodie and Deanna leaned over the seats. “What’s going on?” Deanna asked, her watermelon-slicked mouth not two inches from Tommie’s ear. He pointed to the parking lot, where Novark had his hand on Junkyard’s right shoulder, kicking his legs apart. McQueen’s face was nose to nose with Junkyard’s, contorted with rage.
What happened next shocked all four of them.
One minute Junkyard was standing, the next he had stumbled back into Novark’s arms, his head whipped to the side. Junkyard threw his arms in front of his face but that didn’t matter. McQueen’s knee rose to smash Junkyard between his legs. As Junkyard folded over, McQueen clasped his hands and brought his knotted fingers up into Junkyard’s face. The whole scene, backlit by 7-Eleven’s garish fluorescent lights, had the feel of a war newsreel, like the images from Vietnam they’d all grown up with.
“Oh, my God,” Jodie said. “Do something!”
Her right hand slapped Bud on his shoulder. Bud’s mouth had dropped open, a clichéd look that was nonetheless true; he could hardly believe what he was seeing. All of them had heard rumors of Novark and McQueen’s late night justice, but the sixties were over, this stuff wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.
“Like what?” Tommie said, the harsh gasps of his breath punctuating the benign words. What could they do? The futility of ‘doing something’ settled on the four like a poisonous gas. No one spoke as Novark held the floppy body of Junkyard and McQueen hit him. McQueen stopped. Novark lowered Junkyard to the pavement gently.
The cops walked heavily to the patrol car, their heads down. Tommie cursed and backed the car up. The feel of a knee sinking into a soft vulnerable groin, knotty knuckles cracking into the contoured hollows of a face, he knew from experience. Until tonight, that had made him feel powerful. He’d never given a thought to the person being beaten.
“Motherfuckers,” Tommie said.
“Motherfuckers,” Bud said.
“MOTHERFUCKERS!” Deanna yelled.
The four screamed the word at the top of their lungs, the tension in the car exploding like a Roman candle.
“America, home of the free and the brave,” Bud said.
“Unless you’re Junkyard,” Jodie said.
The roads were empty.
The radio played ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’, a bouncy bit of nothing so wholly wrong that Bud’s hand collided with Tommie’s in a rush to turn the radio off. Bud, Deanna and Jodie sat in silence, their earlier excitement gone, replaced by a numbness that maybe this was the way the world was. Tommie, who already knew and accepted the inherent unfairness of power, beat out an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel.
“C’mon, let’s go find somewhere to party,” he said.
If only Bud had turned around and looked at Jodie. He didn’t. The angle of his face that Jodie could see was shadowed. She tried to imagine cupping that face in her hands, holding onto him as she spread her legs willingly. She could not get Novark kicking Junkyard’s legs apart or McQueen’s knotted fingers smashing Junkyard’s face out of her mind.
Jodie thought maybe she had it all wrong. That Bud, being a guy, knew these things. She had no way of knowing that Bud was stewing up in the front seat. That he wanted to turn around, show Jodie that he was more than her smart nice friend. That maybe he would have gotten out of the car, confronted the cops, if only he had the balls.
Tommie turned the radio back on at a lower volume. He lit a joint and drew in a deep hit. He tried to hand the joint to Bud, but Bud waved it away. Pink Floyd filled the car, the dreamy vocals diffusing the tense energy in the car. Tommie handed the joint to Deanna.
Deanna took it, mostly to brush her fingers over Tommie’s hard, callused hand. She wanted Tommie to want her for more than the comfort she could give him. She wanted her life to be claimed. She wanted Tommie to tell her he was her future. She took a shallow drag, mostly for show and pushed it towards Jodie.
The streets rolled by, the homes lit up tastefully to show off the landscaped perfection. This late, the bugs were gone and a quiet settled into the air. Jodie imagined the families inside, exhausted by the excitement of the fourth of July, slumbering dreamlessly. She saw their pets snuffling in their sleep, occasionally pricking their ears at the imagined sounds of fireworks.
Tommie wasn’t ready to go home. Jodie passed the joint back to him. He didn’t want it anymore. He stuck it in his ashtray and snapped it shut.
“C’mon, let’s do something,” Tommie said. “The airport? Denny’s?”
Jodie turned to Deanna. Deanna slightly shook her head. ‘Good,’ Jodie thought. She couldn’t believe Tommie could have seen what she saw and not want to do something. They were civilized, and civilized people didn’t act that way. She was so confused. If they were so civilized, why did she expect Bud and Tommie to jump out and fight? A deep exhaustion enfolded her like a mantle of heavy sand. She said, “I think I’d better go home.”
Tommie nodded. He turned right to go to the apartments where Deanna and her mother lived. “The poor side of town,” Deanna joked. It was closest. Jodie watched as Tommie walked Deanna to her front door and kissed her, a proper, sweet kiss. He walked back to his car. Jodie knew she’d talk to Deanna in the morning. She’d ask Deanna why she touched her lips and smiled as they drove away.
Deanna would not have an answer to Jodie’s question. She wasn't confused about Tommie and Bud. What could they do? Kirk was a distant memory, erased in a flash of violence. She couldn't get the sight of the spray of blood that arced as Junkyard’s head snapped back out of her mind.
Limp bunting hung from the balcony. One of her mother’s friends snored on the sofa. The kitchen table was clear but the counters held covered bowls and unopened bottles. The apartment smelled like beer and hot dogs and cigarettes.
Jodie expected Tommie to go the long way and drop her off, as he usually did. Instead, Tommie drove the seven blocks to Bud’s. Jodie couldn’t look at Bud. She was soft, coddled, unprepared for what the night had held. Her senses had been piqued to the point of nervous exhaustion. Thoughts flit through her mind without touching down. Virginity. Violence. Vigilance. Vanity. Vacancy. Yes, the vacancy of a weary mind.
Bud paused before he opened his door. He turned to Jodie and said, “You okay?”
“Not really. That was…”
“Yeah. Too much, man.”
Bud reached over and gave her a one-armed hug. For an instant, the hug took away everything that had happened that night. He walked up the sidewalk. Jodie wondered if he was thinking what she was, that she wanted time to push forward and slow down, all at the same time. Maybe that’s what Castaneda and Huxley had tried to do. Slow down the good parts, speed past the bad. He disappeared, the front door dissolving into darkness as he clicked off the front porch light.
Tommie drove Jodie home in silence. She walked up to her own front door. She watched Tommie pull out of her driveway. If she hadn’t turned away, she would have seen that Tommie didn’t turn left to go home. He left the wide, hopeful streets of his new home and headed to the older, dimmer streets of Humble, where Carla Bennett waited.
Jodie sat next to her best friend Deanna and hoped her parents would not say goodbye. Earlier in the afternoon, she had said, ‘Mom, just say goodbye now, please,’ trying not to roll her eyes. Her dad, ridiculous in his red, white and blue plaid shorts, said, ‘You ashamed of your old man now?” She was, at least in public. She didn’t say that.
The red taillights of the last of the family cars disappeared. The lake was theirs. Deanna leaned back, her biceps sinewy and tan. Jodie folded her arms across her legs. She was conscious of the whiteness of her limbs, the thin inadequacy of her muscles compared to Deanna’s.
Deanna pulled a slim tube out of her cutoff jean shorts and slicked on some Watermelon Kissing Potion. The sickly sweet odor reminded both girls of the last four years, long hours spent confined in the straitjacket of a small town Texas high school.
Jodie shook a cigarette out of its red and white box awkwardly, a move she’d practiced unsuccessfully for a long time. She lit it with the heavy Zippo lighter her uncle had left last Christmas next to the ashtray her mother primly placed on the deck. She loved the authoritative snap of the top closing. She inhaled, a shallow, puny effort.
Deanna reached over and whisked the cigarette out of her mouth. “Jesus Christ, Jodie. You don’t smoke.” Deanna’s effort set the ember crackling. Smoke hovered in her open mouth until she drew it up her nostrils. Jodie had practiced the ‘French inhale,’ too. Hers looked nothing like Deanna’s.
Sometimes Jodie was surprised at their friendship, wondering if it would ever have happened had their last names not destined them to be linked forever: McMurray and McElroy. Always in the middle of the line, always in the center of the classroom since fourth grade, they set about forging a bridge. Besides being white, female and living in the same town, they could not have been less alike. Deanna’s parents were divorced, her dad out on the oil rigs weeks at a time. Deanna’s mom was the receptionist at the orthodontist’s office, buxom and friendly, her hair rolled and sprayed into an amazingly unnatural array of waves. Deanna and her mom lived in an apartment on the edges of the Kingwood, part of it but not really.
Jodie lived in one of the first houses built in Kingwood, ‘The Livable Forest.’ The house was sharply angled and modern. Her mother took great care with the teak furniture and museum prints inside. Her dad worked for an oil company too, only he drove off in a suit with a briefcase to a glass high rise in downtown Houston. Her mother was the librarian at the elementary school, her hair undyed and cut short. Sitting on the prickly carpet at Deanna’s, or the Danish tulip barstools at Jodie’s, the two told each other everything. Like the time Jodie cheated on a test in sixth grade, or the time last year when Deanna lost her virginity to Tommie Gibson. And that’s where they united, the emotions and hopes not so different after all.
One of the guys whizzed by on his skateboard, a blue bandanna hanging out of the back pocket of his jean shorts. A few strands of his hair rose from his head, the rest cemented to his scalp with a pungent mixture of sweat and not-quite-rinsed-out shampoo.
“Kirk got tickets to the Allman Brothers,” Deanna said. “I wanna go, just not with him.”
Jodie swung her waist length hair around her left shoulder, a move she’d picked up from “The Sonny and Cher Show” and reached for the cigarette. She sucked in the smoke.
“Kirk is such a fucking baby sometimes. He bitches about his parents all the time.”
“Are they getting a divorce?” Jodie asked.
“I don’t know. I don’t give a shit either.”
“Don’t you hate the Allman Brothers?” Jodie asked.
Deanna was watching a dark blue pickup roll into the parking lot. Jodie watched too, sitting up straighter when she realized Bud Alcott was in the truck with Tommie Gibson.
Twilight takes its time in Houston. The shadows were slowing disappearing, pockets of darkness settling in where the undergrowth was thickest. The lake was a still, shiny patina of grays and purples. The trees hung heavy green and black at the edges. Houston grew haphazardly. The suburbs were like tree rings, fat when times were good. Times were very good. The boat docks, the picnic tables, the tennis courts and their homes, all brand new, part of the grand ‘planned community’ Exxon built. The parents had been lured there in the hope that their kids would play happily on the greenbelts and in the neighborhood pools. Instead, the kids cruised the neighborhood restlessly, flush with cash with nowhere to go. Deanna slapped at a mosquito and Jodie was glad she had submitted to her mom’s spritz of bug spray earlier.
A ripple of energy had rolled over the large asphalt parking lot. Cars parked at picnic areas, kids climbed out and claimed the tables, plonking ice chests on the benches and tossing packs of cigarettes, lighters and keys on the table tops.
Tommie’s truck stopped at the picnic table closest to the dock. Tommie and Bud jumped out of the truck. Tommie handed Bud speakers, one at a time, clunky black squares with red and black wires twisting from the window to the roof. Bud leaped into the back of the truck and fiddled with the wires until ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ burst from the speakers. Bud vaulted over the side of the bed and glanced over to the dock to see if Jodie had noticed. He wanted her to notice.
Jodie did see Bud. She saw everything, and was so busy overthinking her next move that she was blind to the important things. She wouldn’t quite believe that Tommie thought she was smart, or that Bud admired the way her tiny waist flared into the wide hips she hated so much.
While the music blared, Tommie and Bud set up a half dozen rusty webbed lawn chairs. Tommie sat down at the table and rolled some joints, licking the edges of the paper with a lusty flourish.
Deanna jumped up from the dock, slicking on more lip gloss and brushing the damp wood rot from her shorts. Jodie followed her lead, like always. Deanna was far savvier than Jodie when it came to the unspoken rules of being a high school kid in 1976. She knew how to flirt, how to talk to teachers and parents, how to get someone to buy liquor for them, or get pot. Deanna always knew who to call for concert tickets and where the best parties were.
Now she sauntered over to the guys. She stood in front of Tommie and examined the ends of her hair. Jodie swung her hair back and followed, feeling like a clumsy puppy.
Bud shook one of the chairs for her and she lowered herself cautiously, hoping the frayed webbing would hold her weight. Bud sat next to her.
“Did you like the books?” Bud asked.
Bud had loaned Jodie some Carlos Castaneda and Aldous Huxley’s Doors of Perception at the end of school.
“I liked Castaneda. Do you really think he could project himself and fly? And what about lucid dreaming? I think I can do that but I don’t know,” Jodie answered. She tore the silver paper from Deanna’s pack of cigarettes into tiny pieces as she spoke.
Bud pulled his chair closer.
“I’m not sure the flying is a metaphorical flying. Or his perception that he was flying,” Bud said.
She unconsciously leaned towards Bud.
Tommie thrust himself in their conversation and held out a lumpy joint.
“Are you talking that trippy philosophy shit again? Man, just toke and shut up.”
Jodie smiled and took it. She liked Tommie well enough. He was one of those guys that fit in everywhere.
“Yeah, we’re talking that trippy philosophy shit again. I loaned her some books. Those things with paper you read?”
“I’m not reading anything that doesn’t have a fold-out page in the center, man.”
Jodie laughed, a nervous titter. She had seen the magazines that her brothers had hidden below the sink in the bathroom. The pictures had both titillated and depressed her. She had posed in the fogged up mirror, hating her smallish breasts and big butt.
The jocks had set up their keg across the lot and their shouts traveled across the parking lot. Jodie knew a lot of them from her dad’s work: company picnics, dinners, and the country club. The company moved its headquarters to Houston three years ago, and the families flocked to the club, eager for ready-made friends.
She watched them as they pushed and slapped each other, a loud display of raw maleness. She couldn’t figure out if they were made of more primitive, physical stuff or if they were just stupid.
K101 had gone commercial-free for the holiday. The jocks’ speakers joined with Tommie’s and the air reverberated with Blue Oyster Cult’s ‘Don’t Fear the Reaper.’ More cars circled the lake, their headlights searching for friends. Kids had started cruising on foot, moving from table to table. The smell of cigarettes and pot drifted through the air, a scent marking the lake as theirs surely as the smell of bug spray and charred meat had marked it ‘family’ earlier.
Deanna lit a cigarette and watched Junkyard Thomas move from table to table. He did this soul handshake that fascinated Deanna, his hand clasping the other person’s so the tens and twenties wouldn’t be seen. Then he did a shoulder slap fade, the baggie with pills or pot or mushrooms sliding into the awaiting hand. She swung her right leg back and forth, her sandal slapping the bottom of her foot, surprised at some of the people who bought from Junkyard. Tommie had a falling out with Junkyard, claiming he’d been shorted, but Deanna thought Junkyard’s total devotion to getting high on anything scared Tommie.
She took a long drag on her cigarette. She was bored with this same old crowd. No, that was not true. She was powerfully attracted to Tommie. She didn’t know what it was about him. He was such a dickwad most of the time. She liked his strong square hands, the way his shoulders stretched his t-shirts tight, his thick, wavy hair. Deanna hated that he made her feel like a sixth-grader with her first crush.
Kirk and three other guys drove up in Kirk’s Camaro. He had a good fake ID so he always bought the liquor. Deanna, edgy with want for Tommie, jumped up and went over to him. She hugged him and stepped away. The smell of him, starchy and minty, did not push thoughts of Tommie away. Kirk whipped out a pack of cigarettes and a bottle of Jack. Let’s get this party started, motherfuckers.
Great clouds of mosquitoes came with the dark. The sickly lemon light high atop the telephone poles at the boat dock fuzzed like a dandelion with bugs. Houston shouldn't exist at all. The city rose up out of a pestilential swamp, fueled by the oil tankers that chugged up the ship channel, dredged from the Buffalo Bayou in the 1890s. Like a bratty little sister, Houston vied and schemed to be Texas’ biggest port.
When Jodie had met Tommie she was surprised to find he was a native Houstonian. His dad had built a lot of their homes. Jodie wasn’t attracted to Tommie. His view of the good life meant working for his dad for ten bucks an hour. “That’s enough to keep my truck gassed up and my head messed up,” he had said. Jodie knew Deanna liked him. She knew Tommie was Deanna’s first. Comparing Tommie and Bud, Jodie could see how Tommie’s easy athleticism and sinewy looks snared Deanna. Jodie preferred Bud, with his eyes that lit up when he shared his thoughts with her.
The deejay came on the radio and in his stoned, deep voice, announced his intention to play songs about America. The thundering ricochet of ‘Born to Run’ boomed from the speakers. Guys scrambled from their chairs and whooped. Bud stood up, arched his back, and threw his head to the sky with a primal scream. Jodie’s stoned mind stuttered as it tried to fit the song into the category of America and gave up. She sang at the top of her lungs, face to face with Bud during the chorus. Jodie’s fist punched the air, the crackling energy filling her with rage and hope, a swirling vortex of teenage angst ready to burst.
As the last chords faded away, some of the guys lit firecrackers and bottle rockets. Bud swung Jodie around, his arms wrapped around her waist, her long hair flying in the air like a flag. She laughed and laughed, the pfftt-bang of the bottle rockets with their white-orange tails filling the sky. He set her down and for a second their eyes met. She lifted her face to his and a bottle rocket streaked into her leg. She screamed as the lit fuse burned her calf. Bud kicked at the wooden stick with its tiny firecracker head. It popped two feet from them, a fierce little mass of white-hot energy.
Bud put his arm around Jodie and she reached up and grabbed his dangling hand, pressing her body into his. There was no kiss.
Massive amounts of firecrackers materialized, from trunks of cars, beat-up backpacks, purses and pockets. The asphalt soon was streaked with black powder marks and shreds of paper. The air filled with a rotten-egg smell of sulfur and the acridness of smoke. Shadowy bodies darted from the sudden flare of lit fuses.
The bangs from the firecrackers gave Deanna a headache. She sat next to Jodie and watched Bud, Kirk, Tommie and all the guys run around like eight-year-olds.
“I’m breaking up with Kirk.”
This announcement didn’t surprise Jodie in the least. The pairing of Deanna and Kirk had seemed to spring up from convenience. He had a car, Deanna needed rides. He had pot, Deanna liked to smoke. He took her to concerts. She paid him back the way he expected.
“Tonight?”
“Why not? I’ll never have to hear about his fucking parents again.”
Jodie envied Deanna’s breezy attitude towards guys. It was like she knew a secret language that Jodie couldn’t master. Jodie tried to flirt but always said something that sounded vaguely dirty, sparking a conversation that left her rattled. Bud was different. He was smart, for one thing, and he didn’t try to hide it. He listened to her, for another. They had been in the same honors classes for three years now and their introspective journeys had meandered along the same paths. The romance part had snuck up on her, a slow, steady stream of little things: the shape of his hands, the quick toss of his head to get his hair out of his eyes, the tap of his pen as he studied, his way with words.
Tommie chased Kirk, a fistful of lit firecrackers in his hand. Bud stood laughing, the lighter still aflame in his hand.
“Buncha stupid morons,” Deanna said.
Some kids at their high school had already settled down. More than one girl had gotten pregnant and married, their futures like their bridal gowns, lain out, tried on and zipped up. That future depressed Jodie. In her mind there was a great beautiful life waiting for her after the arcane, capricious rules of high school. She was certain there would be freedom: freedom of thought, physical freedom, freedom from incomprehensible rules.
The furious bout of activity had brought the two groups together, the guys shooting rockets at each other, the girls faux screaming and running to the woods. Kirk leaned against a tree, out of breath from chasing some guys and throwing firecrackers at them. He lit a cigarette. Deanna sauntered up, an unlit cigarette in her hand. Kirk leaned over and lit it.
“My dad’s leaving for good next week. First fucking day of college. They wanted to wait ‘til I left home,” Kirk said.
Deanna made no comment. He took a deep drag and went on, how they shouldn’t have gotten married and he was so sick of them fighting…Deanna tuned him out. She remembered Kirk’s house, the wedding picture of his mom and dad. His mom’s belly was hidden under a hideous tent of pale pink chiffon. She had looked like a ripe peach, her eyes flat and a determined look on her face. His dad did not touch his mom, he leaned away slightly, his arm up like he was blocking her out. He had the look of a daguerreotype picture, grim lines frozen on his face.
Kirk drew on his flask. Deanna knew him well enough to know he was looking for that numb place where he wasn’t too high or drunk, just blank.
The smoke hung in the trees, giving the whole park a horror movie vibe. A few cars pulled out around eleven. Couples tried to find pockets of absolute dark where they could be undisturbed. Clumps of people sat in circles, bright orange embers moving lazily in the dark.
Jodie and Bud sat on top of a concrete picnic table near the lit parking lot.
“They must’ve gotten the plans from a Soviet designer,” he joked.
Jodie gave a polite laugh. Bud said that every time they were at the lake. They were the ugliest picnic tables on the planet, great slabs of gray on top of slabs of gray, devoid of any aesthetic qualities. The only thing they had going for them was that they were indestructible. She was tearing up the silver flap of paper from a pack of cigarettes into tiny squares. It was a nervous habit from childhood, something to do with her hands when she was flustered.
“So you think God is real?” she asked.
“No, I think people need to think he’s real. To them he is real.”
“Is that valid?”
“Reality is what you think is real,” Bud said.
“What if I thought I was Jesus Christ? Wouldn’t that make me crazy?” Jodie asked.
“I don’t know, what if you were Jesus?” Bud answered back with a question. These philosophical threads left Jodie exhilarated and strangely worried. What if he was wrong about everything? What if he was right? Were they just little smidges in the universe for a nanosecond in time?
“God, I hate it when you answer my questions with a question. Stop it.”
“Okay, you’re Jesus Christ. If Jesus was here now they’d lock him up,” Bud said.
They talked more about reality, perception and what life was all about. Jodie was stuck on reality, Castaneda’s assertion that his spirit body could fly while he was under the influence of peyote. “We need to try it to find out,” Bud said.
“I agree. Peyote or LSD? There must be differences.”
“Dave says LSD grabs your brain and squeezes it dry. Peyote is kinder and more colorful.”
Bud’s brother Dave was hunkered down in Austin, working at the Hole in the Wall, spending every spare dollar on drugs and music. Their parents had banned Dave from the family home, claiming his “god-damned hippie values” were ruining the family. Bud pointed out that Dave carried a 3.8 average at the University of Texas, so he must be doing something right, an observation that earned him a hard backhand from his father.
“When are you leaving?” Bud asked Jodie. Jodie said orientation was the second week of August and she thought she might as well stay. She was going to UT, like half the college-bound kids from Humble High. Bud said, “Cool.” They fell silent. High school had dragged on forever. This summer had dragged on until tonight. July fourth. Summer halfway gone.
The fireworks had slowed to a few erratic pops, a few of the younger guys intent on maiming each other with Black Cats. Tommie prowled the edges of the picnic tables restlessly. He stopped near the jocks’ table. Carla Bennett and her friend saw him and walked to where he leaned against a pine tree. They began telling him about Junkyard’s bust two weeks ago, and arguing over the details.
“It wasn’t pot, Lisa, it was Quaaludes.”
“You’re wrong. I heard he was so wasted he tried to sell to the cops.”
Carla grabbed his belt loops and pulled him close.
“Hey”, she said. He looked down. The dim light made the thick streaks of blush on her cheeks look as though an alien with pink index fingers imprinted her face. When she looked up at him, her eyelashes looked like an old dried-up black paintbrush. He brushed her hair back and smiled.
“I’m bored. Wanna take me home?” Carla asked.
“No, baby, I’m not driving tonight,” Tommie answered.
Carla pouted for a moment before she giggled and pushed him away. She and Lisa walked back to their drunk, broad-shouldered admirers without a backwards glance.
Deanna and Kirk were making out. They had already broken up. This was the goodbye kiss, well over ten minutes long now. Deanna didn’t know why Kirk became ten times more attractive the minute he casually agreed to split.
He slipped his hands under her shirt. The feel of his hands, the smell of his beer breath, it was like a switch. On to off. She pushed his hand away from under her shirt and left him sitting there with a hard-on.
A half moon hung heavy in the mucky air just above the southern pines. The guitar solo playing curled like the fronds of ferns in the air. Jodie’s curfew was two am. Why she had one at all was bizarre, since she was leaving home soon. Jodie wanted to lean over and kiss Bud. She wanted to sprawl across the cement slab and offer herself up to him, a vestal virgin like in that Procol Harum song.
A virgin. She didn’t want to go off to school a virgin, a thought that solidified at that instant. Bud’s face looked very, very young and unformed to her. Would he be the one? A thrill leapt through her, the idea of her decision redefining the rest of the summer. She studied Bud with this new certainty and blurted out “Are you a virgin?”
“What?” Bud asked to cover his shock. Jodie apologized and said that it was none of her business. She reached into her pocket for another piece of paper but there were none. Her hands fluttered over her hair restlessly.
Bud wasn’t a virgin. He dated a girl from church for two years before his pleas had worked. They had done it twice before she had said she couldn’t live with her faith if she kept seeing him.
It was on the tip of his tongue to tell her. Instead, he said, “Maybe…are you?”
A silence, filled with all the insecurities and doubts they both had, replaced whatever magic the fourth of July had brought.
Two cop cars rolled slowly towards the lake. ‘Pigs’ someone yelled. Time speeded up, the languidness of a holiday winding down replaced with frantic urgency. Anyone who was underage scuttled off into the thick woods east of the boat docks. Anyone with a car ran to hide questionable things and stake out their property. Anyone holding rifled their pockets and purses, stashing baggies and flasks under leaves, picnic tables, wherever, to be searched for fruitlessly in the future. Everyone else popped gum into their mouths, dabbed drops into red-slit eyes, and tried to look sober.
It was all a big stupid game. Jodie and Deanna drifted back in the shadows. Deanna knew the drill. They partied, the cops tried to catch them. Groveling and politeness worked when caught. A holiday was a night to be smarmy, obsequious even. Most of the jocks were bold, waving and leaning over the patrol car window.
Tommie knew both officers, they went to high school with his dad. He climbed into his car and waited. Bud had migrated back to his buddy and sat in the front seat, eyes straight ahead. They always hassled ex-football players, especially Tommie, who had gone over to the freak side. Jodie and Deanna huddled off to one side and worried they wouldn't have a ride home.
“Shut up Tommie, shutup shutup shutup,” Deanna muttered under her breath. Something was going to happen with Tommie tonight. What that would be she hadn't a clue. But something.
The officers climbed out of their car heavily, the thick-soled black shoes fixing them to the ground with authority. Dark rings of sweat filled large spaces under their arms. The black webbed belts hung with the tools used to subdue: a nightstick, handcuffs, a radio, a whistle, a knife, and the Colt .38 Special. Officer Novark asked him to step outside.
“Yessir,” Tommie said.
Novark swiveled him around and pushed his head to the hood. He kicked Tommie’s legs apart and patted him down a little rougher than necessary.
Kirk rolled by in his car, a smirk on his face. Deanna shot him the finger behind her back. She would never see him the same way again.
Officer McQueen spent his time shining the flashlight into the car. Bud stared rigidly ahead, willing his muscles to relax.
“You girls with these losers?” Novark called to Jodie and Deanna.
Jodie didn’t move. Deanna stepped towards the car.
“They were going to give us a ride home, sir.”
Officers Novark and McQueen snickered. McQueen said conversationally to Novark, “These pussies don’t deserve to give these ladies a ride home.”
Novark said, ‘Naw, they don’t, do they Tommie boy?’
Jodie hated their casual authority. She was humiliated for Tommie and mad at Bud for just sitting there even though she knew he couldn’t do anything. Tommie answered in a loud, clear voice, “No, sir.”
The officers thought this was pretty damn funny. McQueen guffawed, his flashlight beam bobbling into the darkness. Novark loosened his hold on Tommie.
Deanna pulled Jodie towards the car. “That is true, sir, but they’re all we’ve got.”
McQueen slapped his knee several times he was so tickled at this. Novark let Tommie go and opened the back door with a slight bow. “Ladies?”
Deanna and Jodie piled into the back. No one but Bud saw the leer on Novark’s face as he watched the two girls climb in.
Officer Novark waved Tommie into the car. “You don’t mind if we follow you all home, do you?”
Four voices: “No sir!”
The park had emptied out. Tommie’s car chugged along at exactly nineteen miles per hour, no radio, no conversation, nothing being lit, and nothing being drunk. Tommie turned at the 7-Eleven, intending to drop Jodie off first. The cops turned into the parking lot, where Tommie could see two guys sitting on the edge of the sidewalk in front of the store. Another guy leaned against the store. Tommie slowed down and peered into his mirror. “Fuck,” he breathed out as he realized one of the guys was Junkyard.
“What?” Bud said.
Tommie pulled over and began a three-point turn. He turned off his lights and rolled to a stop off to the right side, where trees partially hid his car. The officers were out of the car. The two guys who were sitting rose and faded off to the other side of the parking lot. Jodie and Deanna leaned over the seats. “What’s going on?” Deanna asked, her watermelon-slicked mouth not two inches from Tommie’s ear. He pointed to the parking lot, where Novark had his hand on Junkyard’s right shoulder, kicking his legs apart. McQueen’s face was nose to nose with Junkyard’s, contorted with rage.
What happened next shocked all four of them.
One minute Junkyard was standing, the next he had stumbled back into Novark’s arms, his head whipped to the side. Junkyard threw his arms in front of his face but that didn’t matter. McQueen’s knee rose to smash Junkyard between his legs. As Junkyard folded over, McQueen clasped his hands and brought his knotted fingers up into Junkyard’s face. The whole scene, backlit by 7-Eleven’s garish fluorescent lights, had the feel of a war newsreel, like the images from Vietnam they’d all grown up with.
“Oh, my God,” Jodie said. “Do something!”
Her right hand slapped Bud on his shoulder. Bud’s mouth had dropped open, a clichéd look that was nonetheless true; he could hardly believe what he was seeing. All of them had heard rumors of Novark and McQueen’s late night justice, but the sixties were over, this stuff wasn’t supposed to happen anymore.
“Like what?” Tommie said, the harsh gasps of his breath punctuating the benign words. What could they do? The futility of ‘doing something’ settled on the four like a poisonous gas. No one spoke as Novark held the floppy body of Junkyard and McQueen hit him. McQueen stopped. Novark lowered Junkyard to the pavement gently.
The cops walked heavily to the patrol car, their heads down. Tommie cursed and backed the car up. The feel of a knee sinking into a soft vulnerable groin, knotty knuckles cracking into the contoured hollows of a face, he knew from experience. Until tonight, that had made him feel powerful. He’d never given a thought to the person being beaten.
“Motherfuckers,” Tommie said.
“Motherfuckers,” Bud said.
“MOTHERFUCKERS!” Deanna yelled.
The four screamed the word at the top of their lungs, the tension in the car exploding like a Roman candle.
“America, home of the free and the brave,” Bud said.
“Unless you’re Junkyard,” Jodie said.
The roads were empty.
The radio played ‘You Make Me Feel Like Dancing’, a bouncy bit of nothing so wholly wrong that Bud’s hand collided with Tommie’s in a rush to turn the radio off. Bud, Deanna and Jodie sat in silence, their earlier excitement gone, replaced by a numbness that maybe this was the way the world was. Tommie, who already knew and accepted the inherent unfairness of power, beat out an impatient rhythm on the steering wheel.
“C’mon, let’s go find somewhere to party,” he said.
If only Bud had turned around and looked at Jodie. He didn’t. The angle of his face that Jodie could see was shadowed. She tried to imagine cupping that face in her hands, holding onto him as she spread her legs willingly. She could not get Novark kicking Junkyard’s legs apart or McQueen’s knotted fingers smashing Junkyard’s face out of her mind.
Jodie thought maybe she had it all wrong. That Bud, being a guy, knew these things. She had no way of knowing that Bud was stewing up in the front seat. That he wanted to turn around, show Jodie that he was more than her smart nice friend. That maybe he would have gotten out of the car, confronted the cops, if only he had the balls.
Tommie turned the radio back on at a lower volume. He lit a joint and drew in a deep hit. He tried to hand the joint to Bud, but Bud waved it away. Pink Floyd filled the car, the dreamy vocals diffusing the tense energy in the car. Tommie handed the joint to Deanna.
Deanna took it, mostly to brush her fingers over Tommie’s hard, callused hand. She wanted Tommie to want her for more than the comfort she could give him. She wanted her life to be claimed. She wanted Tommie to tell her he was her future. She took a shallow drag, mostly for show and pushed it towards Jodie.
The streets rolled by, the homes lit up tastefully to show off the landscaped perfection. This late, the bugs were gone and a quiet settled into the air. Jodie imagined the families inside, exhausted by the excitement of the fourth of July, slumbering dreamlessly. She saw their pets snuffling in their sleep, occasionally pricking their ears at the imagined sounds of fireworks.
Tommie wasn’t ready to go home. Jodie passed the joint back to him. He didn’t want it anymore. He stuck it in his ashtray and snapped it shut.
“C’mon, let’s do something,” Tommie said. “The airport? Denny’s?”
Jodie turned to Deanna. Deanna slightly shook her head. ‘Good,’ Jodie thought. She couldn’t believe Tommie could have seen what she saw and not want to do something. They were civilized, and civilized people didn’t act that way. She was so confused. If they were so civilized, why did she expect Bud and Tommie to jump out and fight? A deep exhaustion enfolded her like a mantle of heavy sand. She said, “I think I’d better go home.”
Tommie nodded. He turned right to go to the apartments where Deanna and her mother lived. “The poor side of town,” Deanna joked. It was closest. Jodie watched as Tommie walked Deanna to her front door and kissed her, a proper, sweet kiss. He walked back to his car. Jodie knew she’d talk to Deanna in the morning. She’d ask Deanna why she touched her lips and smiled as they drove away.
Deanna would not have an answer to Jodie’s question. She wasn't confused about Tommie and Bud. What could they do? Kirk was a distant memory, erased in a flash of violence. She couldn't get the sight of the spray of blood that arced as Junkyard’s head snapped back out of her mind.
Limp bunting hung from the balcony. One of her mother’s friends snored on the sofa. The kitchen table was clear but the counters held covered bowls and unopened bottles. The apartment smelled like beer and hot dogs and cigarettes.
Jodie expected Tommie to go the long way and drop her off, as he usually did. Instead, Tommie drove the seven blocks to Bud’s. Jodie couldn’t look at Bud. She was soft, coddled, unprepared for what the night had held. Her senses had been piqued to the point of nervous exhaustion. Thoughts flit through her mind without touching down. Virginity. Violence. Vigilance. Vanity. Vacancy. Yes, the vacancy of a weary mind.
Bud paused before he opened his door. He turned to Jodie and said, “You okay?”
“Not really. That was…”
“Yeah. Too much, man.”
Bud reached over and gave her a one-armed hug. For an instant, the hug took away everything that had happened that night. He walked up the sidewalk. Jodie wondered if he was thinking what she was, that she wanted time to push forward and slow down, all at the same time. Maybe that’s what Castaneda and Huxley had tried to do. Slow down the good parts, speed past the bad. He disappeared, the front door dissolving into darkness as he clicked off the front porch light.
Tommie drove Jodie home in silence. She walked up to her own front door. She watched Tommie pull out of her driveway. If she hadn’t turned away, she would have seen that Tommie didn’t turn left to go home. He left the wide, hopeful streets of his new home and headed to the older, dimmer streets of Humble, where Carla Bennett waited.