Seeing Off the Johns (6 page)

The John stars were Ms. Salinas' idea. The Mejias were left with some debt after the funeral. Keeping up with the Robison's arrangements was no easy task. Andres refused any of Arn's offered money to bridge the gap. Julie had life insurance policies on herself and Andres and had even taken one out on John, but it was a minimal thing—who can ever foresee having to pay for the funeral of your youngest son? Who would want to? Everyone in town knew of the Mejia's financial problems, so Ms. Salinas took action. What better way for the boys' teacher to get over her own grief than by helping out?

Ms. Salinas brought up the idea of selling car magnets—stars, like the Johns were and would have been—to raise funds to erase the Mejias' debt. They agreed—so long as the money made from such a venture would be split evenly with the Robisons. Arn had reservations about accepting any such money but didn't object because he knew his agreement on the matter would be the only way he and Angie could help Andres and Julie.

The magnets were bought at a discount from Ms. Salinas' cousin, the owner of a copy shop in Laredo, who informed her of the fact that the color burnt orange is trademarked by the University of Texas and, as such, could not be used commercially. So it was decided that Greenton High's spearmint green would do as the color for the stars, which read “JOHNS 3:16.”

Art Alba was the only storeowner in town who initially agreed to sell the stars profit-free. When the other stores caught wind of his offer and changed theirs to match, Andres Mejia told them they could all fuck themselves and made The Pachanga the exclusive handler of the stars.

The funeral costs were recouped after a week. The Mejias and Robisons, when they saw that the sale of the stars was not likely to soon die down, decided that all the proceeds would go to a charity.

They had discussed giving the money to UT, but what for? The school had more money than it needed and hadn't regarded with wonder and awe the Johns the way the Johns had regarded UT. Then there was the Bee County hospital that had treated the boys. But it was agreed by all four parents, without being said by any of them, that the hospital that couldn't save their boys could burn to the ground for all they cared—and this was also their sentiment regarding the rural ambulance company that responded to the accident. Angie Robison suggested Greenton High and they all agreed. The dirty business of wiping their hands clean of the profits made by the memory of their dead sons was complete. The money would buy new uniforms for the baseball team.

Fake stars were popping up in the surrounding counties, one or two actually surfacing in Greenton. They were shoddy replications. Ms. Salinas' cousin in Laredo had made a simple but distinguishing augmentation to the shade of Greenton's spearmint green, which lightened it a bit. The counterfeiters couldn't seem to duplicate this. Some people were even coming into The Pachanga and purchasing scores of stars to sell at a marked-up price in counties farther away to people who were sympathetic to Greenton's loss. The Mejias and Robisons, it would seem, were alone in their compunction regarding profiting from the deaths of two teenagers.

Chon was helping a customer, a man in a black Mercedes that had overheated, when Henry walked in.

“Well, sir, we have a water hose at the side of the building that you can use to cool your car down before you put the coolant in,” Chon said, giving Henry a nod. Henry gave him a nod back and walked to the soda fountain in the back of the store.

“But you're not supposed to take off the radiator cap when the car is hot,” the tall man in khaki shorts and polo T-shirt said. Chon could tell the guy was a Mexican national from his accent and his clothes.

“Well, not really, but you've been parked for a while. We can be careful when we open it.” Chon tried to speak slowly, breathing out through his nose—the way the training video Art had all of his employees watch instructed in dealing with elderly and mentally challenged customers and armed robbers. “Listen, sir, I'm just trying to get you out of here as soon as possible. You keep saying you're in a hurry.”

“Fine, fine,” the man said. “So we cool it with the water and fill it with coolant, but won't some water stay in the radiator?”

“Well, yeah, but that's fine. It'll just dilute the coolant a little bit, but it's totally fine,” Chon said, looking back at Henry who was calling the guy a jerk off with his hand.

“No. The manual says to only put 50/50 coolant in the radiator, no water,” the man said, putting his car's manual on the counter and giving a chortle as if to tell this kid that there are complexities of German engineering that he would never comprehend.

Chon let the sarcasm roll off his back. He had become near immune to assholes of all nationalities.

“Alright then, you'll want four gallons of coolant. They're across from the Pepsi cooler in the back,” he said.

The man made his way to the automotive section. As he walked up the last aisle, Henry walked down the first—smiling and shaking his head the whole way. He leaned against the ice cream cooler and crossed his arms. Chon showed Henry the palm of his hand and gave him a nod. Just wait.

“$13.99?” the man yelled from the back of the store.

Chon smiled at Henry, who tried to hold back a laugh.

“You people charge $13.99 for a gallon of coolant?” The man came back to the counter with two gallon jugs of the stuff.

“Yes sir, it comes out to $15 a pop after taxes,” Chon said, giving the man his back to Windex and squeegee the window behind the register.

“That's bullshit,” the man said.

Chon turned around and scanned the jugs. “Well, sir, I don't set the prices here. I just ring stuff up and make change. But, I mean, you're kind of in the middle of a desert. There are towns and houses and stuff, but you see the sand and the cacti? That means you're in a desert.”

“So you're going to be a smartass now?” the man said.

“No, I guess I'm just making excuses for my boss. Anyway, it'll just be the two of these?” Chon asked.

“Yes, that'll be it.”

“So you're going to risk putting the water in? Because the first gallon and a half of coolant will evaporate and be sucked into the car, you'll need at least four gallons of coolant to top your car off.” Chon pointed at the man's car in front of the store. He was feeling big—in control, like he was winning some respect from the man or at least evening a score between them that wasn't being kept—until he looked at the car. The wheels, dirty from not having been washed in a while, were of a quality that Chon had never seen in a town where driving in luxury was a brand new truck with a Flowmaster exhaust system or a Lincoln or Caddy that one of the town's retirees spent all of their squirreled-away money on and only drove to the post office and back. The curves of the car, its tinted windows and ultra bright headlights, fit the iconic hood ornament perfectly. Chon had seen it on TV or in magazines so many times that he hadn't thought seeing the real thing would come as such a shock. But it did. He wanted to walk outside and touch it—to feel what it was made of and complete the sensory experience.

“Well, whatever,” the man said. “How much is it?” He looked at the number on the register, pulled out his wallet, and let a hundred fall down to the counter in front of Chon. Chon gave the man his change. The man walked out of the store to his car. He popped the hood and sat reading his car's manual in its dome light glow.

“What an asshole,” Henry said.

Chon stood looking out at the man sitting in his car. He threw a towel at Henry.

“Go help him,” he said.

“Me? I don't work here. Let him figure it out,” Henry said, turning around to see what the guy would do.

“Man, I told him to open his radiator and flush it with water. He's probably going to burn himself. You know he doesn't know what he's doing,” Chon said.

“Well, why don't you go help him then,” Henry asked. He looked back at his friend and seemed to get something.

“Fine,” Henry said, and walked out of the store.

Chon watched Henry go and talk to the man, who had tried to open the hood just as Henry walked over to get the nozzled water hose from the side of the store. Henry found the latch the man hadn't been able to. Using the towel to protect his hand and forearm from the steam that would issue forth, Henry opened the radiator and proceeded to spray water into it to cool it down.

“The dumb asshole's radiator cap wasn't screwed on right. He must have smarted off, private school-style, at the last guy who changed his fluids,” Henry said, drying his hands with a paper towel. “You could have helped him, you know.”

Chon had mopped the store up in the time it took Henry to help the man. “Yeah, I know. But I had him. I made him look like the asshole he was. How am I going to turn around and help him outside when I just won inside?”

“Won what?” Henry asked. “The guy was trying to buy some coolant to fill his car. Sure, he was an asshole. Sure, you made him look like more of an asshole. But what did you win when he didn't even know he was playing your little game? You got him, but he didn't even know he was gotten. You think he's even going to remember you tomorrow, or even me?”

Chon shook his head and scanned an 18-pack of beer. “Give me some money,” he said.

Henry handed him a twenty. “My tip for helping the businessman from Tamaulipas,” he said.

Chon paid the money into the register and put the change and the beer on the counter.

“I know we're not being taped,” Henry said, looking up at a shot of himself from
behind on the TV monitor above the counter, “but it still feels weird seeing myself on this monitor.”

“That's the point,” Chon said, waiting for his register totals to print out. “That's why they don't even bother recording anything. Watching yourself do something wrong is enough to make you think twice about doing it.”

Chon put the printout in an envelope and slid it under the office door. “You know so much about this store,” he said, standing in the doorway, Henry waiting for him to lock up the shop, “that if we ever break up, I'll have to kill you.”

“Shit,” Henry said, “I'm only with you for your car.”

They got in the Dodge-nasty and rode silently, with the windows down, a dry breeze rolling into the car. It was a nice enough night, by Greenton's hot standard. It had reached 103° earlier that day. Another night wasted drinking beer and watrching TV with Henry didn't seem too bad a prospect, because what else was there to do?

When they arrived at Henry's house, Chon noticed a Suburban parked where he would otherwise have parked his car if he were coming to pick up Henry. He raised an eyebrow at Henry.

“They've been hanging out and drinking and talking about Mejia and my cousin like they had already been married or something,” Henry said, looking at his uncle's Suburban. “He'll be there all night and pass out on the couch. My dad's trying to be cool, but he has to work in the morning—alone, because my uncle won't show up. My dad's getting annoyed with this, it's almost every night. Fuck it. Let's just ride around.”

Chon veered left at the Y,' the place in South Greenton where Main forks and becomes Smith Street going southwest toward Zapata and Fal Street going east toward Falfurrias. The night was cooler than usual. Summer's end approached. But autumn's crawl into town wouldn't bring any leaves changing colors, fluttering down from trees. There would be no
cold snaps and little or no call for scarves and earmuffs or thick jackets. Chon would be back in school—that was autumn in Greenton. Back to a place like a prison, sitting in a room full of people who shared the same insecurities and desires but who were too self-absorbed, too teenaged, to notice that everyone else felt exactly the same.

In a week Chon would return to school for the last nine months of his sentence, but he would do it with a mission and a hidden smile.

He turned the car right onto Old Cemetery and parked, rolling his window down while Henry pulled out two beers from the case in the backseat. Chon opened his beer and took a pull. Henry turned on the Dodge-nasty's radio. On certain nights, radio stations drifted into Greenton from San Antonio. On days when storms were blowing in, stations could be picked up from Houston or Mexico. Chon leaned back on the headrest and closed his eyes, letting a satisfying belch come up slowly and feeling the day's work roll off his shoulders while Henry moved the radio's dial through white noise and evangelists. He even skipped some good songs in search of foreign frequencies bringing in brief bands of new, cool, hip elsewhere.

Henry opened his beer and took a drink. “One more week, man. One more week and it's back to that goddamn hole,” he said, looking out of his window at the ditch as if he'd heard a scuttle. “I don't care how much my father needs my help at work. I'm just going to drink beer and watch TV and sleep till noon between now and then—if I can get a beer from the goddamn fridge before Araceli's father drinks them all.”

“So he's there like every night?” Chon turned the radio up a notch.

“Pretty much, with my aunt out of town,” Henry said, taking another drink.

“So, when's she getting back?” Chon asked. He tried to crush his empty beer can, but only bent in one side, pinching his hand nearly to the point of bleeding. He grabbed another, opened it, and had his first sip before he looked over at Henry who was staring
directly at him, waiting for his eyes. It startled Chon. He thought his nonchalance was sufficient cover for the interrogation.

“Listen, man. I'm not going to help you out,” he said, then put his beer on the dash in front of him. “I've never had to bring it up because Mejia was always in the way, but now…I'm not going to help you with my cousin.”

Chon made to speak, but Henry cut him off.

“I mean, I knew it was going to come up, and if that's not what was happening just now, I apologize. But even if that's not what you were doing, you eventually would. My aunt left last week for Corpus to bring Araceli back home. She'll stay there with her best friend, the one Araceli stayed with all summer. They'll all go to the beach and shop for school clothes and try to not think of Greenton or any of the bullshit here. Then at the end of the week, my aunt will come back with Araceli so she can finish school. That's what I know and that's all I'll tell you. After that, bro, you're on your own.”

Chon looked over at Henry, then at the sky out Henry's window. Lightning traced faint blue branches across the sky over Falfurrias in the distance. The storm's rains were flirting with the smell of Greenton's dry-cracked orange dirt and with Chon's senses and his need for the doom-jazz mood of a rainy night. He drained his beer for lack of anything to say and came up coughing before the bottom of the can.

Henry grabbed a couple of beers and got out of the car. Chon opened a new beer and followed Henry.

“So that's it, right? We don't need to talk about this again?”

“Fine by me,” Chon said.

Henry nodded and looked over the cemetery at the storm in the distance. “Why do you think rain only ever comes to the edge of town?” he asked. “It's like, nine out of every ten storms that come by stay out of town. Isn't that weird?”

“Would you want to come to this town, even to visit, if you didn't have to?” Chon said.

“No, but it's not like the rain stays somewhere better. Falfurrias and Benavides suck too.”

“But they're not here,” Chon said.

“You know, people have been sneaking into the cemetery at night to visit their graves,” Henry said. “My dad and uncle came over all drunk the other night and saw some people.”

“Place looks empty to me,” Chon said.

“Well, yeah. It's Sunday.”

“So they've been sneaking in and what, just hanging out?”

“I guess. You wanna go?” Henry asked.

“Why would I want to sneak into the cemetery?”

“Why would you want to park your goddamn car next to a cemetery in the middle of the night? Because there ain't shit else to do.”

Chon shook his head at this. He couldn't argue so solid a point if he tried.

“And to see them,” Henry added. “You don't have to be all sad and obsessed like everyone else in this town—all morbid and weird and shit. But it's also kind of strange that you haven't come by to see them. Before whatever the fuck you think happened happened, they were people you knew. People you played with. People who are dead.”

“And what? Seeing them will help me heal or something like that?” Chon asked.

“How the fuck would I know? But at least you'll have gone.” Henry put his two extra beers in the back pockets of his jeans and waded into the knee-high dried whitish-brown grass. He cut a path through the ditch and around the cemetery fence with such confidence that Chon was certain he'd been to visit the Johns already this summer. Chon rolled his eyes and followed. Henry got to a post that Chon would not
have noticed was severed of its connection to the dozen or so bottom links of fence. He pulled up the fence and, with a practiced agility Chon wouldn't have expected of his big clumsy friend, duck-walked under.