Boys of Life (30 page)

I looked at her—this quick look. But it was a look I didn't even

I to give her. As BOOn as she said what she said, she realized it was thin ice. What I liked about Verbena was, you could depend on her not to make mistakes, which was why I trusted her to hang around with.

Mo: ourse didn't nonce a thin^. She was busy climbing

into the car to sir behind the iceeiing wheel. Estachio leaned in on top ot her. pointing to the odometer he proud about.

"It's a really ugly car," I told \ erbena.

it's historic," the ^.ud. "Like me. You can pur up with i little ugliness tor d I the historical."

"I think you're this ; beautiful history/ 1 1 told Verb

□ PAULRUSSELL

and she swatted at me. It wasn't something she ever did when Monica

watching, I noticed.

"This Edsel's not the cheapest thing in the world," Estachio was telling Monica. "You want cheap, I can show you cheap. But not every car's an Edsel. All those dreams that went into it."

It was funny—I could tell he really wanted to be talking to me instead of her, but she was the one who seemed to know something about cars. I think he was contused. He kept looking at me like he wanted me to be in this conversation too.

I asked him it there was anything cheaper than six hundred.

He looked disappointed. I guess everybody always asked him that.

He put his hands in his pockets. The wind was blowing all ot us around like crazy. Verbena was hanging onto her hat with one hand and her skirt with the other— still, it seemed like acres of maroon skirt were billowing out like a sail.

"Woo," she said every time another gust oi wind would lift up first her hat and then her skirt. She was flapping in the wind like some flag.

Monica didn't really notice the wind. That always impressed me about her—when she Started concentrating on something, she totally

entrated on it. This afternoon she was concentrating on t

"We want an automatic," she said. "It doesn't have to have an

ail conditioner, but it has to have B radio. And tour doors. And American-made."

"Where'd you learn so much about cars.'" 1 asked her

"I keep im n," she said. "How come \ou don't know

ibout them?"

"I live in New York," I told her

i didn't gron tip m New York. You're b Southern© like me

OUI blood."

I remembered how much I used to like Wallace's pickup when I i It made me flunk maybe Monica wrai right it I'd never lefi : probably bi lot ol thi

• nt it I'd iu\o left KeneiMU I had to in that i In |ei it all the

mm and man king

.idlll.U I

D

B O Y S O F L I F E D

ner of the lot. "Check this girl out," she called to me, stroking one of the tins with her hand. "Picture taking this shark down the highway."

"You should buy a car too," I told her. "We could drag race."

"Drag my butt," she said. "What're you thinking about getting a car tor anyway? Don't tell me you're going to up and leave us now?"

"Leave.'" I said. "Where's there to go. 7 "

With Monica talking to Estachio, Verbena and I could say whatever we wanted. The wind would blow all our words away anyway.

"So what's up with you and this Monica girl?" she said.

I'd been wondering when she was going to ask me.

"Does it bother you?" I asked. I'd never brought any of the guys I was seeing around, probably because usually I never saw them for more than a night or two and so we didn't have to think of other things to do with our time than have sex.

"Irs not like somebody blowing cigar smoke in my face," Verbena said. "Anyway, I'm not your momma, thank the lord. But surprised— yes, I'm a little surprised."

"Maybe I'm a little surprised too," I admitted. "But it's nice to be surprised, right?"

"It's nice to be surprised," she said. "Some of us done went and built our whole careers around it. And I'm happy for you. You've done vour work here. You don't want to stick around forever. You got your own lite to live now."

"I haven't said anything to Carlos," I told her. Not that he'd have minded—I would've been the one who minded, not him.

ire still stuck on that man, aren't you?" Verbena asked me. A gust of wind rocked us. Dust and newspapers were swirling around in an empty part o( the lot.

"I'll always be stuck on him," I had to say. "He's still got me."

The wind was carrying those newspapers higher and higher, like birds, like T.J.'s pigeons.

Verbena looked sad. Where she was standing she couldn't see that little cyclone of wind. I could tell she didn't want to hear what I just told her.

"I tell you what," she said. "This is your old Verbena talking, but you can trust me, ri^ht? What I sav is, buy the cheapest car you can rind here today, and take that nice girl Monica and head for as far away trom here as you can get. Keep driving till you think Carlos'll never find you, and then drive some more atter rh.it. Ir's what you u< I do."

D PAULRUSSELL

"He found me in Owen, Kentucky," I said. "Remember that? It he could find me in Owen, he'll find me anywhere."

"The man casts a mean shadow," she admitted. "He's a total eclipse you're never going to get out from under. But you need to get to where you can at least see it. See around it. And shy girl, you can't do that here. You ain't ever going to be able to."

"Hey," Monica was calling to us. "Hey, come here."

She was standing by the ugliest car in the world.

"Two hundred dollars," she said. "1976 Buick Century. King of the highway. Built to last."

"It's half rusted through," I told her.

"Half rusted through," she said, "it's still solidei than any other car you'll find." Estachio was nodding—he was very enthusiastic, even though he looked kind of disturbed that Monica instead ot him was the one making me a sales pitch.

"I would describe the color," Verbena said, "ai shit brown. It I was asked to do so."

"Nobody's asking," Monica said. "What about it, Tony? Do we the two hundred. 7 Can we do it.'"

It looked like the kind of car people back m Owen drove. I'd never seen an Ugliei car.

"A mean shadow," was all Verbena said. Monica looked at me.

"A little joke," I told her. "It's nothing." 1 felt sick in my stotn ach. I reached in nn pocket and pulled out my cash. "Look," I laid,

r twenty dollars. That's everything. vThat've you got on you?"

"A hundred." she laid. "How abotll telling it tO us fot I hundred

.1 Estachio.

"A hundred fh C," he Mid.

"We only have i hundred twenty." She took my twenty and pui

it with her money ami waved ii in Ettachio'i face. He looked iway,

ii anothei cai lot He tapped on his cheek with his

"A hundred fifty." he ^-\\^\

■Mi I'm ■ »ld him She kepi w*\

h in hi hundred twenty dollars ( ouni

"A hundred tit t \." he ^.uvl

her

he rum i m hei m I holding u up n k in

B O Y S O F L I F E D

her pocketbook and pulled out some dollar bills. "Ten, twenty, thirty, 11 she said, counting them our to Monica.

"Verbena." I said. "What 're you doing?' 1

She snapped her pocketbook shut, and reached up behind her with one hand and pulled her dress down. "There used to be this thing," she Said, "called the underground railroad. You ever heard ot that.' The

underground railroad?"

None ot us ever had.

"Well, it don't matter," she said. "This here's been a whistle stop on the underground railroad. If you ever want to know."

"A'erbena," I said, "I don't know what you're talking about, but thank you tor the money. I'll pay you back."

"You'll get that car on the highway," she said. "It you want to p.iv me back, you'll drive like a demon till you hit the Mason-Dixon line, and then you'll just keep on going."

B O Y S O F L I F E D

that neighborhood—it must've been lost, di maybe the driver was in the neighborhood to buy drugs. Probably From Rate or Nicky or some' body like that—money that'd end up going tor another of Carlos's movies.

Monica'd overslept, which was a little disappointing. 1 waited

around her apartment while she took a shower. She'd packed everything she wanted to take in tour big duffel bags, plus her guitar.

where's your stuff?" she asked me. She was letting me dry her hair with a towel—something I always liked to do.

"I'm not taking ,\n\."

"What d'you mean, you're not taking any?"

"Like I said—I got all I need." I spread my arms out wide to show her, hut she wasn't too impressed. I think for the first time lince she met me, she thought I was maybe a little too weird. I think she was wondering whether she should have second thoughts, even though it was sort ot her idea in the first place and I was just going along with it because what else could you do?

"You're sure.'" she said. "We can stop off and pick stuff up." mpletely sure," I told her. "I'm tree as a bird."

"You're crazy as a loon," she told me. "I love you. You're completely insane."

And we were off. It was so long since I'd driven I could hardly rememher how, hut it was early, and we were going against the rush-hour traffic pouring in from New Jersey.

"Bye bye, suckers," Monica called out the open window as we dived into the Lincoln Tunnel. In four years I hadn't been out ot the

except twice, th.it time we went to Montreal tor the film festival,

and when we were shooting Creeping Bent on that estate up the Hud-

I both those times I was with C Sarins, so in a way they didn't

irloi somehow managed to carry the city with him wherever

he went. No matter where you were, it you were with him then m some fOU weren't out ot'the ut\. Even I suppose it you were in Owen,

Kentucky. He'd lived in the city there so long something had rubbed

kind o\ hectic nervous energy, rhis power line talking crazi-ness that'll always be different from country crazinCSS, which is slow and deep ,md hardly ever sayfl a thing.

We drove down through New |ersey, cut .un^ Pennsylvania and

\\'e>t Virginia—WILD, WONDERFUL WEST VIRGINIA Said the si^n ai the border—and bv ni rem Kentucky. W I ai BOOM

little motel in the middle ot nowhere. I think the t.it old countn woman

□ PAUL RUSSELL

behind the counter thought we'd just gotten married or something, the way she was all triendly to us— and we might as well have, the way we went at each other that night. It was the best sex I ever had with Monica—I guess because we both wanted so bad for it to work out. I know I was really trying hard, and I think it did work out, I think it was probably just great.

But then after she'd dropped off to sleep it sort oi hit me what it was I was doing. I wasn't freaked out, exactly—but I do remember saying to myself, Tony, you've just made a pretty big move. I think sitting there next to her in bed with the light on—she was completely conked out, but then she'd been the one to do most of the driving that day—I wasn't sure this was what I wanted to be doing. But I knew I was already into it. This was a girl I really liked a lot, she was nice to me and she made me feel like she needed me. Still—I remember doing this crazy thing. I picked up the phone book that was on the nightstand next to the bed, and I stayed up for hours reading thai book, all night in fact—all those names of people I didn't know, all those little eastern Kentucky towns I didn't even know where thev were. Looking, 1 guess, for somebody, anybody, I could call.

The next day, around the middle of the afternoon, we got to Owen. We'd planned it that wa\—to stop through there on the way to Mem phis. I don't know what I thought I was going to find 1 hadn't heard

troin anybody in Owen, nor my mom or Ted or anybody, in the ne.uk five years since I'd been away. To tell the truth, pan of me dreaded

going back-I telt gmlrv about all those people 1 JUS! walked QUI on.

Pan of me was still seeing ii ai a completely selfish thing to've done. But I waa alto nervoui n, to see him after five yean. It

Kan! tO think of him as being an\ more than fourteen like- he was

he'd be nineteen. 1 had this terrible teat 1 might Mm wail i the street and not even recognize him, he'd Kn>k

so different

1 bn'i flunk Id have gone back it ii hadn't been thai Monica

in- tO f-ilk about it. whu h I n< | time we met. she had tins big

thin >uth like it w.is t.ue we «

• mm h 1 k * hool, and

!,d the lui I where Walla* t and 1 worked l

Hindi. -111.11. whu h looked

uaed to go there !!>«• onl\ thing thai waa different was D

B O Y S O F L I F E □

the one thing I*d known was going to he different, the one thing that had to he. My mom wasn't living in Owen anymore. Nobody knew where she went. The house trailer was still there—hut new people were living in it, this hlack family that'd gone and turned the tront yard into a trash heap with all these bright plastic toys and hubcaps and just plain junk they'd let pile up. The woman who came to the door of the trailer was even fatter than Verbena, if that's possible. She just barely fit in the door, and not at all into these purple sweatpants she was trying to wear. But she turned out to be nice. She told me she didn't know my mom, that she'd gotten the trailer from some cousin of hers who'd lived in it for about a year, but then he moved away to Louisville and so she moved in.

She was impressed when we told her we'd driven down from New York. "I'd just love to go to New York City," she told us. "Broadway, Harlem, the Statue of Liberty. But I'll never get to go. I'll be stuck here till the day I die." She looked like she was about thirty.

"You never know," Monica told her. "You could always just hop a bus. That's what I did."

"I got these four kids," the woman said. "I got responsibilities. My traveling days are over and I never even traveled. But ya'll come inside, have a cup of coffee. I never met anybody from New York except mv cousin Billy, and he's a fool."