Train Wreck Girl (12 page)

“Where are your speedos?” she asked.

“Next time,” I said. I didn't do the lambada with her, either. But I did break out all my best Prince moves. About halfway through my jig, one of the other next door drunks came over to me. She said, “You're Sophie's boyfriend, aren't you?”

I nodded.

She said, “She's passed out in the bathroom stall. If I get her out, will you take her home?”

I nodded again. Fuck it, I thought. At least Sophie's finally sleeping.

Sally went into the bathroom with her friend. They both came out a minute later. Sophie had an arm over each of their shoulders. She looked confused and tired. She had red hand prints on her face and red elbow prints on her knees. I put my arm around her.

“Can you walk?” I asked.

“A little.”

“Just lean on me,” I said, and I walked her home.

She apologized a dozen times on the way home. “I'm sorry, Danny,” she kept saying. “I'm sorry.”

It was exactly what I needed to hear. But it was also the last thing I needed to hear.

The next morning brought chaos. You could say Bart had predicted it. But Bart created a lot of the chaos, too, so it was more of a self-fulfilling prophecy than a prediction.

He woke me up at seven
A.M
. to do shots. We drank until he had the date with the Jesus girl. He stole Sophie's car to take the girl out. The people passed out on my floor came to life. I could hear the next door drunks milling around. Everything became a mass of movement: trips to the grocery store and breakfasts acquired and showers taken and more booze purchased and trips to Sullivan's for fresh-squeezed screwdrivers and a general migration to the front lawn and tables set up and a keg tapped and guests arriving and basketball games commencing and by the time noon had rolled around, the party was in full swing again. Sophie slept through most of it, thankfully. I was glad she was sleeping again.

Bart came back early from his date. He'd found out the hard way that the Jesus girl was after his soul. Nothing more, nothing less. He also found out the hard way not to steal Sophie's car. She attacked him as soon as he got back to my pad. Jumped on his back and started swinging at him, closed-fisted. I let her take a few shots. She deserved it. He had taken her car without asking. When enough was enough, I pulled Sophie off Bart and convinced her that she'd said it was okay for him to borrow the car. She looked at me to see if I was lying. I could see in her eyes that the meth bender was far from over. I let her go. She started really drinking.

Bart had managed to score some weed and acid during his trip to the church. He rolled a joint and told the story and drank a beer and someone handed him a bottle of tequila and he turned it up and guzzled about four shots' worth. He staggered out onto the part of the street in front of our house that had been designated as the basketball court. He was barely able to stand. Rick called out that Bart was on his team. A couple of guys on the other team laughed at Bart. As soon as the ball was in his hands, though, Bart was back in form. A star again. He dribbled until he could shoot, then shot. Eleven baskets in a row. No one else even got to touch the ball. Bart got kicked out of the game. He went back to my bed to pass out.

By this time, Sophie was wired and drunk and I'd had enough. I took her into the backyard to have a heart-to-heart. I kept it simple. “I've had enough,” I said. “You and me are over.”

Sophie's glance darted around the backyard. She looked like a trapped cat. I started to walk away. “Wait,” Sophie said. She started talking. She told me everything that was wrong with me. I agreed. She told me a whole lot more. I decided I needed new friends. I walked out the back of my backyard and across the Sandals parking lot. Alone. I walked all the way to the beach.

A few of the next door drunks were at the beach. They had lawn chairs set up and a cooler. Lester waved me over. There was an empty lawn chair. He invited me to sit in it. He gave me a can of beer. I said hello to everyone in the group. Helen was there.

“I thought you were having a party at your place,” she said.

“I think the party was having me,” I said.

Sally raised her beer. “I'll drink to that.”

I took off my shirt and kicked off my flip flops. All of those random and chaotic events from my place were getting to me. It felt good to sit in a small, calm group with no drama around me. Or, there was probably drama among the next door drunks, but I didn't know what it was, so I didn't have to care.

Lester reached over and tapped my beer with his, like we were toasting. “Maybe today's the day she'll leave,” he said.

I smiled. “Today's the day she did leave.”

“Your crazy girlfriend?” Helen said. “Really?”

“Really,” I said.

“Did you kick her out?” Sally asked.

“Yeah, but I think she was sick of my shit, anyway.”

“What did you do?” Helen asked.

“It couldn't have been what Danny did,” Sally said. “We found her passed out on the toilet last night. Danny had to carry her home. It was the saddest thing.”

“Really?” Helen asked.

“Really,” Sally said.

“So what happened?” Lester asked.

“Near as I can tell, when she was beating up Bart for stealing her car, she decided she was in love with him,” I said. “At least that's what she told me after I told her we were quits.”

“Bart? Your buddy Bart?” Helen asked. “The one who's always drunk at my bar?”

“One and the same,” I said.

And that was it. Helen started telling Bart stories. Lester started telling Sophie stories. Sally told next door drunk stories. And so on. Nothing mean, but enough to laugh about. Things settled down. I stayed away from the chaos for a little while.

That night, I found myself surrounded by the whole crew of next door drunks. We were in the middle of the block party—among the beer tent and the carnival games and the food stands and the mass of people—taking over the dance floor. Pink speedos abounded. Apparently, Swoboda had been at the dollar store and found a clearance bin full of the pink men's bikinis. Two for a dollar. He'd bought twenty and passed them out to anyone who'd actually put it on. I'll admit it. I got mine.

The goofiness from the Bungalow abounded once again. Swoboda on his dribbling spree. Alex—the guy who'd been in the bra the night before—rocked the sprinkler. The karaoke kid was breakdancing. Sally and the original pink speedo guy—who was wearing regular baggies at this point—were dancing in that old New Wave style: all swinging arms and kicking feet. And I danced with Helen.

We'd been hanging out all day. Now she nuzzled close to me, grabbing my belt, unhooking it, and dropping my pants. I joined the pink speedo armada. I did my best lambada. I put my hand on her hip and swayed back and forth with her. She stood on her tiptoes and kissed me.

That was the real beginning of the end.

The nagging id inside me wanted to beat up the wheelchair dude. I spent a lot of time trying to figure out how I could do that and still feel good about myself.

The past was weighing on me too heavily. It was too much. I'd left one ex-girlfriend dead on the train tracks in Flagstaff. I had another exgirlfriend—the one who'd tried to kill me—back in town, floating around in the same circles I floated in. I couldn't think about either one. I couldn't bring myself to think about all the life that Libra was missing. I couldn't bring myself to think about Sophie stabbing me. I couldn't bear to let these thoughts run through my mind one more time. Really, with problems like this, it just made sense that all my anger should be directed toward someone safe, like the wheelchair dude.

What's more, the past wasn't so much the past. At the very moment when I tried to rationalize reasons that would allow me to beat up a guy in a wheelchair, two very significant people from my past hung out with me. Bart and I were having lunch at Duke's. It was about two in the afternoon.

Bart was giving me shit about Taylor. He did this in a very Bart way. He told Helen about it, in front of me. He said, “What do you think of a thirty year-old man who spends all his time with a twelve-year-old girl?”

“I'm not thirty,” I said. “I'm twenty-nine.”

“Okay, Helen,” Bart said, “what do you think of a twenty-nine-year-old man who spends all his time with a twelve-year-old girl?”

“What do you think of it, Bart?” Helen asked.

“I think it's creepy. They hang out all the time. They're probably gonna hang out after lunch.”

Helen looked at me. “Are you?”

I nodded. “We're going surfing in about an hour,” I said.

“And, watch, she's gonna come over to our house wearing next to nothing and Danny's gonna invite her inside and I'm gonna have to sit there like, oh shit, there's an underdressed adolescent in my living room.”

“She's not underdressed,” I told Helen. “She wears what girls wear when they go surfing.”

“Which is what?” Helen asked.

“Bikini top and board shorts,” Bart said.

“That is next to nothing,” Helen told me.

“She's a kid. We go surfing. That's it,” I said. What I didn't say was that there was a little more to it. Part of the reason I liked Taylor was because I had no history with her. Nothing bad had happened between her and me. No issues needed to be skated around. I couldn't say that about any of my other friends.

“What do her parents think about you hanging out with her all the time?” Helen asked.

“We don't hang out. We go surfing. And it's not all the time. It's just sometimes.”

“What do her parents think about you surfing with her sometimes?”

“I don't know. They're cool with it, I guess. They must be. Her dad's the one who told her to take lessons from me.”

“And who are her parents?” Bart asked. “Do we even know? Has Danny even met them? Ask him that, Helen.”

“Have you met this girl's parents?” Helen asked.

“No.”

“And ask Danny if this girl looks like Rosalie,” Bart said.

“Who's Rosalie?”

“Rosalie is Danny's old high school girlfriend.”

“Is that true, Danny?” Helen asked. “Are you hanging out with a little girl who looks like your old high school girlfriend?”

“We don't hang out,” I said. “We go surfing. And, no, she doesn't look like Rosalie. Bart just thinks that because they're both black girls.”

“No, dude. That little chick looks like Rosalie,” Bart said.

“Something's fucked up there,” Helen said.

“Nothing's fucked up,” I said. “You guys know me a little.”

“I know this,” Helen said. “You're gonna make that little girl fall in love with you. Because that's what girls do with you, Danny. They fall in love and you break their fucking hearts.”

So that was it? The past was really closer than I thought? We weren't sitting there talking about Taylor at all. We were talking about me and Helen and Bart and Sophie being back in town and all that shit all over again. I dropped a ten dollar bill on the bar, left my burrito half eaten, and said, “Fuck you guys. I'm going home.”

And on my bike ride home, I tried to think of justifications for beating up the wheelchair dude.

It was typical crappy, blown out Florida surf. Taylor and I stood on the shore in front of the 3
^rd
Street walkway, looking at the ocean. “Should we even go out?” she asked.

I watched the waves peak and close out. I knew what it meant to go out there. I figured it would be good for Taylor to ride these waves. You could learn a lot about how waves build and form on days like this. I nodded. “It's worth it,” I said.

I paddled out into the chop. Taylor followed.

A day like this meant that you had to paddle all the time. Chase every little peak and chop. I went after a little peak, caught it, rode it for about five seconds, and it closed out. I saw Taylor right behind me, trying to do the same thing, missing the peak. I paddled back out and showed her how to do it. I pointed out the way the peaks built. I swam into the right position. She tailed me. I told her when and where to paddle. She caught a little wave. It only lasted a few seconds, but she was stoked.

“I didn't know you could ride waves like this,” she said. “It's awesome.”

And, see, that's the other reason why I liked surfing with Taylor: everything was brand new to her. She could ride these crappy waves and think it was awesome. She could learn something. She could find a way to have fun with shit like this. I could still have fun out there, but it would never be new to me again.

After about an hour, I'd had enough. I'd gone out surfing to try to forget about Sophie and Helen and Libra and all that. Surfing helped a little. It distracted me, but it didn't free my mind. I caught a little peak that actually turned out to be a half-decent wave. I rode it nearly into shore, then swam the rest of the way in.

Taylor was still out. I'd leave it to her to catch her own wave in. I walked up onto shore and sat down. I cast a glance up at the 3
^rd
Street walkway, and, sure enough, the wheelchair dude sat there. He had his camera with him. He looked away when I looked at him. I really need to kick that guy's ass, I thought. I still hadn't come up with a good rationalization, though, so I just sat on the beach and watched Taylor.

She had a hard time catching a wave without me to guide her. She paddled back and forth up the coast, chasing chop and getting frustrated. She started to just swim in, apparently thought better of it, and swam back out. She sat on her board and caught her breath. While she was doing this, a wave came right for her. She swung her board toward shore and started paddling. It was perfect. Waist high and enough face to ride. She rode it for maybe seven or eight seconds, pumping on the wave, trying to carve a little, getting all she could until the wave closed out and her session was over.

A few minutes later she was sitting on the beach with me, looking out at the waves. She said, “I can't believe how fun that is.”

“You never know until you paddle out,” I said.

“I guess not. I guess you have to try things.”

“That's the funny thing about regret,” I told her. “It's better to regret something you have done than something you haven't done.”

This brought out Taylor's
you're crazy
look. “Did you make that up?”

“Nah. I got it from a Butthole Surfers song.”

“A what?”

I remembered that Taylor either wasn't born or was just an infant when the Butthole Surfers were good. I didn't want to explain. I let it drop. We sat in silence. I stared out at the choppy water. No one else was out surfing. Just little peaks and close-outs. A lot of wind.

After a minute, Taylor said, “What do you regret, Danny?”

“Everything,” I said.

“Be serious.”

“I am being serious,” I said. “Lately, I'm regretting it all.”

“What's the big one? What's your number one regret?”

“What's yours?” I asked. Because, really, when someone asks a question about something like that, isn't it because they want you to ask that question of them?

Taylor bit her lip and looked east. I could see she was thinking about how to say it. “Okay,” she said. “There's this guy at school, Chip Summers. I hate him. He's like, this total asshole. And he's got this super expensive mountain bike that he's always bragging about. I get so sick of him. Like he's the king shit because he's got an expensive bike. And he's got one of those fancy locks for it. Like the horseshoe shaped locks. So I took some super glue and I squeezed it into the keyhole of the lock. Now he can't get his key in the lock. The bike is just stuck there at school. And I'm like, who's the queen shit now.” Taylor was all grin.

“You don't look like you regret that at all,” I said.

“I do,” Taylor said, still smiling. “ ‘Cause it wasn't enough. I wanted to get at him worse.”

“Do you have a crush on Chip or something?” I asked.

“Gross! No!”

“Then why are you doing this stuff to him?”

“ ‘Cause he called me a nigger,” Taylor said.

“Okay,” I said. “So now we have to find new ways to get back at him.”

“That's what I'm saying,” Taylor said.

“Here's a good trick,” I said. “You get one of those hair removal creams, like Nair or something, and you squeeze it into the top of his shampoo bottle. When he washes his hair, big chunks of it will come out.”

“I thought of that,” Taylor said. “I even thought of a way that I could get into his house to do it. But then I was like, no, he's got a little sister, you know, and what if they, like, share the same shampoo bottle?”

“Good thinking.”

“I heard that doesn't work, anyway.”

“Oh, it works,” I said. “Believe me. It works.” Because Sophie had done that to me once. I lost half my hair and had to shave the rest of it off. I looked like a skinhead for a month.

“It doesn't matter, anyway, because I did something way worse.”

“What did you do?”

“I stood behind Chip one day when he was opening his locker. And I memorized his locker combination. I said it to myself, like, a hundred times in my head. And, after school, I tried opening it, just to make sure I got it right. And it worked. I totally got into his locker. Then I shut it and went home. Then, I went back to school the next day and I told Sandy Kelleher what I did to Chip's bike lock. Because Sandy's, like, this total gossip whore. If you tell her anything, you tell the whole school. So, next thing I know, Chip is after me. He's calling me a jungle bunny and making monkey sounds at me and yelling at me in the halls and being a huge dickhead. I didn't say anything back to him. I just bit my tongue and took it. And the next day, which was yesterday, I brought a knife to school.”

“What kind of knife?”

“One of my stepfather's old hunting knives. He doesn't use it anymore. He said I could have it. So I took it to school and, halfway during first period, I got a bathroom pass and went to Chip's locker and put the knife in it. Then I went to Dean Glenn and started crying and told her what Chip had said and also added that he said he was gonna bring a knife to school and stab me and I was worried for my life. So Dean Glenn, who's the only black woman in the school besides me, says, ‘Let's go take a look.'

“That's when they found the knife and expelled Chip.”

“Holy shit,” I said. “Remind me to never cross you.”

“It's pretty bad, huh?”

“Yeah, that's pretty bad.”

“Am I a bad person?”

“No. Just make sure you don't tell anyone about this but me.”

“Oh, I won't.”

I smiled. Crazy kid. I shook my head.

Taylor said, “At least he can't call me a fucking nigger anymore.”

I got up and grabbed my board. “I need to be getting home,” I said. We started walking for the boardwalk.

“Now it's your turn,” Taylor said. “What's your number one regret?”

“I don't know,” I said. Though I did know. I walked up the boardwalk steps.

“Do you regret your tattoos?”

“Enough with the tattoos,” I said. “They look cool.”

“What about those scars in the middle of your tattoos? The ones on your belly?”

“I'll tell you about those when you're older,” I said. Because I didn't even want to think about that shit. I kept walking across the beach and up the boardwalk stairs.

The wheelchair dude was there. I'd been thinking about him the whole time Taylor told her story. She'd given me an idea. I stopped when I got to the wheelchair dude and said, “Clay Barker?” Like it had just occurred to me who he was. “That's right. I knew I recognized you. Dante Jones introduced us at one of those cop parties in Cocoa.”

The wheelchair dude shook his head.

“No. No. I'm pretty sure about it. You were talking about playing football for Merritt Island High. You were on the team that won state in '79, right?”

Clay kinda smiled. How could he not? He was on that team. He did win state. He didn't say anything to me. He just tried to keep down the smile.

I pointed to Taylor, standing behind me. “Clay, this is Taylor.”

Taylor put out her hand to shake his. He shook hands and said, “Is Taylor your first name or last name?” he asked.

“Fuck you,” she said.

“Listen, man, I was gonna have some drinks with Dante next Monday night. Why don't you come down and hang with us? We're going to Duke's. Around seven.”

Clay said, “I don't know.”

I knew he'd be there, though. It was his job. So I said, “It's up to you, man. We'll be down there either way. Maybe I'll see you then.”