Going Nowhere Faster (17 page)

The line went dead. Somewhere in the house Chopper sighed, a wheeze that was like letting the entire world slide off your shoulders all at once.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN

THE FAST actually really not all that fast . . . maybe even a tad slow AND THE actually not all that furious . . . maybe even sort of pleased FURIOUS

In the morning, I dragged my bike to Keith’s house. It was heavy and my shoulders were sore and my neck and wrist and back and ankles hurt. A couple of times I thought I heard a big muscle car coming and ducked into the bushes, but both times it was just Chevettes with lousy mufflers.

FIVE THINGS ONE TYPICALLY LEARNS WHILE SPENDING TOO MUCH TIME IN THE BUSHES:

1. Dirt is cold and wet.

2. Bugs live in there, but prefer your neck.

3. When a raccoon is surprised and hisses and then rears back on its hind legs, it is almost never a good idea to continue forward under a bush and say things like “Nice raccoon. Pretty raccoon.”

4. If you got lost in the woods and were forced to live off what you could forage amongst the bushes, you’d try approximately one nibble of mossy bark and then just lie down and starve.

5. Emerging from the bushes just when that really short woman who works at the drugstore comes jogging by in her teal sweatsuit and scaring her and then watching confusedly as she screams and tries to climb a tree and then brushing mud off your face so she recognizes you and then helping her back down the six inches she made it up the trunk and apologizing profusely is pretty much a lousy idea.

I’d never been to Keith’s house before, which was actually an apartment in an L-shaped building over a cement courtyard with blooms of flowers and animal-shaped shrubbery. Very un-Keith. I leaned my bike against the mailboxes without locking it, then taped a note on the crossbar. It said: “TRY SLASHING THE TIRES NOW, JACKOFF. YOU WANNA STEAL THE WHOLE THING? GO AHEAD.”

I rang Keith’s bell. There was no answer, so I rang it six times. I rang it one time for six minutes. I rang it to the rhythm of “Super Freak,” by Rick James. Finally there was an annoyed voice.

“What?”

“Keith, it’s me,” I said. “Stan. Let me in.”

“I don’t know any Stan,” the voice said, and then shut off the microphone. I hit the buzzer nine more times. Then I gave up and climbed the fence. The wires sticking out at the top were pointy and cut my hand. It was becoming a collection. When I got to Keith’s door, I kicked it, three times, hard. While I was winding for the fourth, he opened up. It was too late to stop my leg, so I kicked him in the shin.

“Ouch,” he said. He was wearing an orange bathrobe that was ratty and stained, and smiley-face boxers. His enormous belly jutted out, covered with hair. His legs were pale and white, except the shin, where I’d kicked it, which was red and would soon be blue. He needed a shave and a haircut and a mustache trim. In one hand he held an enormous bag of M&M’s, the size of a pillowcase.

“You need a mustache trim,” I said.

Keith shrugged, and left the door open, walking back into the apartment. It was clean and neat and tastefully decorated. There were chintz curtains and framed Klimt prints and matching lamps. It was completely impossible.

“No way,” I said.

“Way,” he said. I followed him as he flopped onto the couch. The springs groaned. He pulled a blanket over himself and looked at the ceiling. “What you want?”

I found the remote and turned down the volume of the sports channel. An announcer was screaming about the lack of foresight in one team calling a time-out with six seconds left, when they should really have waited until there were only five seconds left. It gave me pleasure to cut him off.

“I want you to come with me.”

Keith groaned. “Where?”

“It’s a surprise.”

“Do they serve beer at the surprise?”

“No.”

“Do they have Supreme Nachos at the surprise?”

“No.”

“Then I’m not going.”

“Yes, you are,” I said. I grabbed his arm and tried to pull him up. He didn’t budge. I grabbed his leg and yanked and tugged. He didn’t move an inch. He reached for a handful of M&M’s and started humming. I went into the kitchen and found a broom. I jammed it between the cushion and his back, and with a mighty shove, levered him onto the floor. He landed facedown, nose mashed into the carpet, and just lay there, motionless. His breath stirred dust bunnies that raced under a desk.

“C’mon, Keith,” I said. “Get up!”

“Why bother?” he said. “My store is ruined. The delinquents have finally taken over. What’s the point?”

“They haven’t taken over,” I said. “Really. I can prove it. But you have to come with me.”

“It’s comfortable down here,” he said.

I began to whack him with the broom. I started with his feet and worked upward. When I got to his shoulders, he stood and said, “All right already.”

“Go get dressed,” I told him. “And get your car keys. I’m driving.”

Outside, there was a new note on the crossbar of my bike. It said: YOOURE GONNNA GET ITS. GETS IT. GET IT. For a second it terrified me. After that, I was just plain scared.

“What’s that mean?” Keith asked.

“Nothing.” I put the bike in the trunk of his massive Lincoln. Inside, I adjusted the seat forward and then pulled a pair of his boxers out of my pocket. I’d found them in his dresser. They had little blue lambs all over them.

“Those are my boxers,” he said.

“This is your blindfold,” I corrected, and pulled them over his head.

“I can’t see.”

“That’s the point,” I said, and then peeled out into the street.

“You’re driving too fast,” he said.

“How do you know? You’re blind.”

“I can smell it.”

“That’s not driving too fast you smell,” I said.

Keith shrugged and then began forcing potato chips through the fly.

We pulled behind the store, crunching slowly over gravel until we were a few feet from the back door.

“Are there doctors at the surprise? I don’t like doctors.”

“No doctors,” I said, taking Keith’s hand and leading him into Happy Video. I turned on the lights and arranged him in the center of the room.

“Okay, you can take your boxers off.”

Keith reached down and started unbuckling his belt.

“The other boxers,” I said.

“Oh.” He pulled the lambs off his face, freeing his mustache and eyes and afro. Happy Video was completely cleaned up. The holes in the walls were fixed and the whole thing was repainted a pleasing yellow. There were new pine shelves along one wall, my father having figured out a way of building them so they had twice the display room of the old shelves. And they only leaned a little to the left. There were new cubicles in the center to display
New Arrivals.
There was an expanded
Classics
section. There was a display case my father had built for cameras and VCRs and DVD players, with a sliding glass door that actually slid. In the wrong direction, but it still slid. There were new posters and bunting that Olivia had picked out and strung. There was even a porno room, with a swinging saloon door, like in a John Wayne movie, instead of the old curtain. The place smelled a little farty, but even that felt right, a loving contribution from Chopper.

“Wow,” Keith said. The place looked great. It looked fantastic. “Wow,” he said again.

“Well?” I said. “What do you want to do?”

He wiped a tear from his eye. He ran his big hands over the new cabinet, and then along his new desk.

“Open up, I guess,” he finally said.

I went to the front of the store and tore down the yellow police tape. I propped the door open and turned the
CLOSED
sign around. I looked back at Keith, who was still in awe. By the time I got to the desk, one of the BMX kids had stuck his head in and said, “Hey, guy, you got
The Terminator
?”

I worked most of a shift, and when it was over accepted a hug from Keith.

FIVE THINGS MORE DESIRABLE THAN KEITH-HUG:

1. Lowered into oatmeal vat

2. Forced to wear Timmy the Sock Puppet costume

3. Hugged by reasonably hygienic Sasquatch

4. In the center of a week-long group sneeze

5. Being the favorite soft thing in the pocket of Lennie from Of Mice and Men.

“You, Stan, have both impressed and surprised me.”

I said “Mmmpfhneff” for a while, until Keith let go, and then I said, “thanks.”

Outside, my bike was gone. Completely. Just not there. No notes or further damage. Gone. Actually, it was a relief. My shoulder already felt better. By the time I’d walked home, what with having to dive into the bushes fifteen times (fourteen Chevettes and a Corolla), it was getting dark. Miles was in the driveway, leaning on his car.

“You, Stan, are covered with dirt and leaves.”

“I just applied for a job as a tree,” I said. It made so little sense, he didn’t even bother responding.

“Anyway, I think we have a problem.”

“What?”

“My car’s acting weird. I think there’s really something wrong. I’m not sure we’re going for Slurpees, let alone to Cali.”

He leaned over the hood and pointed to a bunch of stuff: tubes, valves, metal parts.

“Maybe it’s that tube,” I pointed.

“It’s not that tube.”

“Maybe it’s that valve.”

“It’s not that valve.”

“Maybe my dad could check it out.”

Miles looked askance. He peered back at his engine protectively. “I dunno. You sure I let him get his hands on it, it’s not gonna suddenly run on Pop-Tarts?”

“Shut up,” I said.

We walked into the backyard. My father was at his worktable, lowering rusted gears into a bucket of some solution. We peered over, watching the grease and rust flaking away.

“New thing I’m working on. Smith’s E-Z Instant Cleaner.”

“Looks like it works pretty good,” Miles said.

My father stroked his beard. “Unfortunately a bit too good.” He pointed to the bucket, where the gear was now completely shiny, almost new in parts, and then to other buckets where the gears themselves had begun to dissolve. My father went to the chalkboard and erased part of an equation, then wrote in a missing cosine. Then he added a four and an NaCl.

“Dad? Miles is having some problems with his car. Can you look at it?”

“Are you going to tell me the truth if I ask why Miles has a swollen nose?”

“Definitely,” Miles said.

“Not,” I said.

“Fine,” my father said. “How about your eye? Or wrist? Or neck? Is this a NATS thing?”

“No,” I said.

“NATS?” Miles asked.

“I was busy hating you then,” I said. “I’ll tell you later.”

“Chad Chilton?” Miles guessed.

“Who?” my father asked.

“Can we PLEASE go look at the car?”

My father scratched behind his ear with the tip of a plumb bob. “How about we go see this car?”

“Good idea,” Miles agreed.

We walked out to the driveway, Chopper following behind and panting heavily from the thirty-yard exertion.

“Miles and I are going to California,” I said. “Instead of college. Or whatever.”

My father blinked. He looked at his feet and his hands. “Really?”

“Yes.”

“And I assume, since the house is not on fire, you haven’t told your mother yet?”

I nodded. “Correct.”

When we reached the car, my father sighed. “You intend to go in this?”

“The MilesMobile,” Miles said proudly.

My father peered under the hood. Then pulled out about three feet of worn rubber tubing. “Not if you want to make it over the county line.”

“I told you it was that tube,” I said.

“That’s not the tube you pointed to,” Miles said.

My father then pulled out a little metal box that looked like a fan. It was a fan. “Bearings are shot here, too.”

“We’re screwed,” I said.

“We’re screwed,” Miles said.

“Well, I have a surprise for you.” My father smiled. “I was saving it, but I suppose now is as good a time as any.”

“Smith’s E-Z Flying Carpet?” Miles guessed.

“Smith’s E-Z Atomic Transporter?” I guessed.

My father led us into the garage. A round shape was hidden under three white tarps. He yanked them off, one at a time, as an orange VW bus was slowly revealed.

“Whoa!” said Miles.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Yours,” my father said.

“Mine?”

“Yours.”

“COOL!” Miles said. “OURS!”

He popped the rear door and checked out the engine. I checked out the big whale-fin spoiler on the roof. There was also a huge pair of metal antlers welded to the front, and a red button on the dashboard that said
LIFT OFF
beneath it.

“What’s that do?” I asked.

“Never, ever touch that,” my father said. “Ever.”

I immediately pressed it. Nothing happened. He smiled.

“Dad, you
do
have a sense of humor.”

“Shhh,” he said. “Don’t tell your mother.”

Miles climbed off the luggage rack and slapped my father five. “What a ride! Way to go, Mr. S!”

“But what does it run on?” I asked.

My father smiled. “What do you think? Vegetable oil.”

He was so proud, I couldn’t act disappointed. But I didn’t have to when I looked at Miles and he was beaming. “Vegetable oil! Awesome! Those hippie California chicks
love
the environment!”

Miles threw the door open and climbed inside. There was red carpet in the back and posters on the sides and a tiny fridge and a little desk and tools and bunks on the walls that folded in when you weren’t sleeping. It was unbelievable.

“It’s the van I always wanted when I was in college,” my father said.

“Mr. S, this so
rules
!” Miles said.

“Is this what you’ve been working on all this time?” I asked. “This must have taken forever.”

My father shrugged.

“But what about your other inventions? And where did you get the money?”

“Well, actually, I sold my plans for bio-diesel conversion to GM twenty years ago. As it turns out, we’re pretty well-off.”

“But — but . . . ,” I stammered.

“You’re a rich kid?” Miles laughed. “You need a new haircut, Trump Jr.”