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  "Um, yeah... I've lived here all my life, ya know? I knew Elliot really well."

  "Josh never talks about him."

  "Well, things kind of fell apart after he died."

  "The other day when my dad stopped in here for coffee, there was some guy outside of Josh's house screaming for Elliot."

  "That's Harlan... Uh, the dad. Josh and Elliott's."

  "But I thought Elliot's dead."

  "He is, but Harlan gets these ideas sometimes...that he's still alive."

  "What? That's..."

  "Nuts? Absolutely."

  "How? Uh?"

  " Drowned. He and Harlan were on a boat out by the levee. Something happened and the boat capsized. Elliot got caught in an undertow."

  "Jesus! That explains a lot."

  Lindsey glances toward the counter, as if she's in desperate search of anything that might get her out of a conversation about dead brothers and Crenshaw's Creek's crazy stock.

  “Come on, dude. Let me get you some coffee.”

  Coffee. My stomach churns at the word. Even in small sips, it's a horrible idea. “No, thanks.”

  She zips away toward the counter. “Well, at least a doughnut.”

  "Sure, that's cool."

  She scoots along toward the counter and opens the glass bake-case, grabs a sheet of wax paper, and snatches a couple of glazed donuts.

  "Hey, Caleb," she calls.

  "Yeah?"

  There's this studious look on her face, like she's in deep thought. "Do you like poetry?"

  "Uh..." is all I can manage to spit out. It's a trap. I can tell already. There's not really a good answer. If I say 'no,' she's gonna peg me as some sort of idiot, who doesn't appreciate literature. If I say 'yes,' she's gonna morph into one of those annoying writer girls, who's constantly hounding me to read her shit. "I like comic books."

  "That's a shame," she says, as she drops the donuts onto a black ceramic plate. "I was kind of hoping to meet someone who's reading repertoire's a little wider than Field & Stream."

  It's as if I'm Captain Kirk, trying to talk my way out of the Kobayashi Maru, the classic no-win situation. I just know—because Lindsey has that smart girl vibe about her—that the next step is reading her poetry, where I'm left with no other alternative than to tell her lies. No matter how terrible her purple prose may be—even if it makes me want to slit my wrist—I still have to tell her how wonderful it is. "I read Sun Tzu's Art of War."

  She nods. Puts a finger to her cheek. “If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles."

  Oh, crap! She's read it. I just pulled The Art of War out of my hat, because Wesley Snipes referenced it in one of his movies. I really haven't read it and have no idea what it's about. Why are all the really hot girls always so weird? At this point, there's nothing to do but play along. Smile. "You've read it?"

  She comes around the counter with the plate. “I don't get you.”

  “How so?”

  She sets the plate on the table and pulls out a chair. "You walk around with Josh... drinking at the football game... pretending to be all dumb." She sits down.

  I hold my hands out in a what gives? "Well, maybe I'm dumb."

  "I took a peek at your test scores. I'm not supposed to... but I was curious. Trust me: you're smart on paper."

  I nod as her eyes wander carefully across the room. "I test well."

  "No." She shakes her head, turning back to me. She takes a chomp out of a doughnut. "That's not it."

  A smile creeps across my face as I lean back in the chair. I find myself nodding slowly. "Out of the rolling ocean... the crowd... came a drop gently to me. Whispering, I love you, before long I die, I have traveled a long way merely to look on you... To touch you."

  Lindsey leans forward and clasps my hand. My head spins for a moment and it's so hard to breathe. My heart skips, then pounds. I'm afraid I'll slip into a panic attack.

  "Go on," she says softly.

  "For I could not die till I once looked on you... For I feared..."

  "I might afterward lose you," she finishes with me. "You like Whitman!"

  She's practically in tears. If this doesn't get me in with her, nothing will, but it's a mixed bag. Good that Lindsey has a soft spot. Bad that I now have to spend my evenings looking up corny pieces of poetry.

  Nonchalant. "He's alright."

  Her hand slides up my arm. "I saw you coming."

  "Well, that's because, there's a hole in your window."

  She laughs. "No, but I think ya know what I mean."

  The sound of someone clearing his throat carries from the doorway. I pull away from Lindsey, as my eyes dart toward him. There stands Josh with his arms crossed and a shit-eating grin spread across his face. "Caleb!" He practically sings my name.

  "Josh, uh..."

  "Welcome to Kentucky, the land of beautiful horses, and fast women."

  "Josh!" Lindsey growls, glaring at him coldly.

  "What? I'm not cool enough for your Dead Poet's Society?"

  She shakes her head at him and shifts her gaze back to me. There's a rosiness in her cheeks, a hint of embarrassment. "Thank you for stopping by. I better get this cardboard over the window before Marilyn gets back."

  "Actually, I should get home before M&D send out search & rescue."

  Chapter 16

  Sunday, September 12

  It's one of those mornings, where I wake with a dream stuck in my head. My eyes are open, but it's just as easy to believe that I'm still asleep. Thoughts pass slowly through my mind like clouds on a sunny day, shapeless, undefined, drifting. It's half-fiction,half-memory, just kind of melting together. It's geeks in cages, jocks getting head-checked, a make-shift truce, and drug-runners with machine guns. This can't be real.

  Outside on the road, a horn honks. There's the occasional sound of wheels on gravel as a car pulls into the lot. Mom and Dad are already in the Big House—the church and not prison. They're probably half way through Prayer Breakfast by now.

  White light flashes from the road and the reality that I'm standing in front of my bedroom window, with the curtains wide open, wearing only my boxers dawns on me. I've been standing here—just kind of spaced out—for longer than I can remember. It's probably not the kind of thing anyone would notice, especially since anyone out this early is bound to have cataracts that are older than I am. Sunday School doesn't start for forty minutes.

  White light flashes across the parking lot again, lighting up the church. It's too sunny for lightning and it's too quick to be headlights. Barely awake, it takes me a moment to register that it's a camera flash.

  Across the road, a black sedan is parked on the right-of-way. A tall, lanky man with short-cropped red hair leans against the car. He's dressed in gray slacks and a white shirt. A large camera, perhaps a 35mm with a long lens, hangs from his neck. He eyes the church carefully, with one hand on his camera, ready to snap a picture if the opportunity presents itself. He stays near his car and doesn't come close to the church for a better shot.

  “What the heck is he doing?” The obvious answer is taking pictures, but the more important question is: why? It seems that if we were going to do church pictures, there would have been a little bit more of an announcement. The bushes along the front sidewalk need trimming and weeds are overtaking the parking lot. It's not the kind of thing that my goose-screw father would let slide.

  "Dress, Caleb. Quick! Fake your way through a wardrobe decision." It needs to be nice enough to keep Mom off my back, yet not so nice that it appears that I'm running for public office. Gray slacks and a white shirt with blue stripes.

  There's something about that guy with the camera that really bothers me. I don't know why; it just does. Maybe because it's because this is a weird town, filled with weird people. Maybe it's because it seems this town has more skeletons in its closets than the Sphinx. It just rubs me the wrong way. I don't like strange people in strange cars, just snapping pictures at random. So, there
's a real urgency. I gotta get dressed and get down there to find out who that guy is before he gets away. Just because... I'm weird like that.

  One of these mornings, I'm gonna break my neck, coming down the steps like a ninja in a bad kung fu film, but not this morning. I land with a loud thud! on the hardwood floor, but nothing falls, nothing breaks. It's a mad dash across the kitchen, I slip once and nearly fall over the corner nook, but again nothing breaks. I yank the door open so hard and fast that it slams against the wall, leaving a little dent. Mom's gonna kill me—no doubt—but not until she finds out about it. For now, all I care about is finding out who that... The photographer's nowhere in sight. The black sedan's gone from the right-of-way.

  The breeze blows a cloud of cigarette smoke through the open door. Of course, it's Josh, puffing away on his Pall Mall, not caring if he's caught smoking. He's dressed in tan trousers and a brown blazer and patent leather shoes, done up like he teaches at a Liberal arts college.

  "Josh, what're you doing...here?"

  He holds out his hands in a look I don't like this either. "Marilyn says I need to try new things. I suggested surfing, but she thinks this is safer... church."

  Grin. “She doesn't know about the rattle snakes, does she?”

  Shakes his head. “She has no idea.”

  Back slap. "Well, uh, welcome. I guess."

  "Plus, there's really nowhere to surf around here." I'm not really paying attention to him at this point. My eyes are peeled for that black sedan.

  "What about Marilyn. Is she coming?" I ask.

  "No way! Not really her thing."

  "Whatever happened to 'what's good for the goose is good for the gander?"

  "Don't know. Guess we're all hypocrites.”

  “Do you know whose car was sitting over there a minute ago? The black sedan?”

  His eyes follow my finger to the right-of-way.

  “Uh, what kind of random bat-shit question is that? Why d'ya ask?”

  “He was hangin' out snappin' pictures of the church.”

  “Why?”

  “That's what I wanted to know.” My dress shoes sound like horse hooves on the porch, as I stomp down the stairs. “You coming?”

  Inside the foyer, Misses Hickman shuffles along toward her Sunday School class. Her son, Jimmy “Coke Bottles” is noticeably absent.

  “Good Mornin', Misses Hickman,” I call to her. She throws a half-smile in my direction, nods, but doesn't say anything.

  “Where's Jimmy this morning?”

  “He's not feeling well.” She pauses, mid-step, kind of frozen, like a dozen questions occurred to her all at once. There's no way of knowing just what Rooster told her—if he told her anything—but she still has to know that something's wrong with Jimmy. She smiles again and whatever she had thought of asking me just kind of melts away. She moves along to her Sunday School class.

  Josh taps my arm. “Hey. Where do these steps go?" He holds the door open and stares up into darkness.

  "It goes up to the steeple."

  "Ever been up there?"

  "Uh, never really had a reason to."

  If ya know anything at all about Josh, ya know he's not the kind who asks for permission. He just does things and then kind of skips over the ask-for-forgiveness part too. He's up the first flight of steps before I can get out “Uh, we're gonna be late.”

  "What? Do you get demerits if you're not at Sunday School on time?"

  "No... Actually, nothing happens. If Dad finds out, he can get that little vein popping out in his forehead, but other than that... nothing."

  "Then, let's go." He spins around and bounds up another flight of stairs—coming to rest on a landing that runs across the base of the steeple. A large metal structure that looks like the bottom side of an old bridge spans above us. There's thick coats of white paint and places where rivets hold metal seams together. The fluttering of wings echoes overhead, as an occasional pigeon flies through the steeple.

  Steel rungs lead up the side, stopping just below a catwalk by a large vent, where light streaks in. Josh doesn't ask—he just starts climbing.

  "Josh, I don't know if it's safe up there." There's no way of knowing when someone last climbed upon the rungs. They could be rusted and brittle. "No one goes up there anymore."

  He doesn't look down. He keeps climbing, while flakes of rusted metal and chips of paint trickle down on top of me.

  “What am I doing?” My hands curl around the steel rung and I pull myself up. Josh climbs onto the catwalk ahead of me and peers through the vent.

  "Man, you've lost your mind."

  "What?” He glances down toward the landing below, then he reconnects his gaze with me."It's fun to get a little high sometimes."

  "No, Josh. We can't..." But it's no use. He's not listening to me anyway. He digs into his pocket and pulls out a sandwich bag and a Zippo lighter. It's no small wonder what he has packed in the sandwich bag—a half dozen tightly-rolled joints.

  "I raided Marilyn's stash this morning.”

  I climb onto the catwalk and grab at his hands, as he starts to open the bag. "No, Josh. We can't. Not here."

  "No one's gonna know. No one comes up here anymore. You said so yourself."

  "I'm gonna know."

  "Well, so what?"

  "Josh, this is still Church. So, not here. Okay?"

  "Jesus, Caleb! You're too much. You always worry about stupid stuff."

  "Not... here."

  "Oh, unclench already. I'm not gonna smoke it. Just wanted to freak you out."

  Below us, the sound of passing conversations echo into the steeple. As Sunday School lets out foot traffic increases near the sanctuary.

  “Dad's going to kill me when he finds out I missed Sunday School.”

  He shrugs. “Pastor's usually don't kill their kids... unless they're possessed by a demon or something.”

  “Well, you've met my dad.”

  “I just think he'll do that thing where he shakes his hands at you and talks you to death.”

  “Easy for you to say. You don't have to sit through it.”

  “Yeah, your dad's kind of high-strung for a man. Are you sure his testicles finished dropping?”

  “Josh! What kind of question is that?”

  “I'm just saying. It happens to some people.”

  A while later the organ begins to play and the sound of worshipers settling into the pews echoes up to us. Soon, the choir begins to sing and Peggy Collins hits a high note that nearly breaks the glass.

  “Jesus! What was that?” Josh's eyes grow big as he tilts his ear toward the sanctuary.

  “That's Peggy Collins. She's the choir's mezzo-soprano.”

  “Is she fat?”

  Josh earns the you're-freaking-stupid look from me. “No, she's crazy Olive Oil skinny, but if you ever see her, you'll get the feelin' that someone's missin' a perfectly good tablecloth.”

  My description of her wardrobe seems to be lost on Josh. He gives me that you-just-farted face.

  “Uh, I mean her dresses look like couch cover material.”

  He gets it, cackles. “That's hilarious.”

  “Wait until you hear Buddy Olsen in a moment. He's the music director.”

  “Does he suck?”

  “Ya know, his voice isn't actually that bad, but he's never figured out that he should start lower. By the time he gets to the high notes, his voice is so shrill that dogs come running from West Virginia.”

  The sound of hymns and prayers carry up into the steeple, until it's time for Dad to begin his sermon.

  Dad comes to the pulpit. The sound of him unfastening his watch carries through the church. He always begins the same way, by taking off his watch. It's his way of saying “time doesn't matter for a little while.”

  He reads a few verses of scripture, then he starts talking about Christ in the temple.

  “Your dad's preachin' on the money-changers in the temple? Really?”

  “Sounds that way.”

  �
��That's kind of ironic.”

  “How so?

  A peculiar expression spreads across Josh's face. For a guy, who usually blurts out whatever's on his mind, he looks like he finally said something he regrets. He clams up and just sits there with a look of oh, man! What did I just do?

  “Josh?” I prod.

  There's something weird in his eyes, like fear or doubt, maybe both. “Uh... I don't know. I...” He stammers.

  For no apparent reason, he cracks a grin. Whatever doubt hat hung upon his face melts away. He shakes his head, laughs. “You never cease to amaze me, Caleb.”

  I'm half-wince-half-snarl. “What's that supposed to mean?”

  “It means you're clueless—out of touch.”

  “What does that have to do with my dad? His sermon? Money-changers?”

  She shakes his head. “You and me, Caleb... We're a lot alike. Ya know?”

  But I don't really wanna hear it. He's insulted me and my dad. He just sits there all smug.

  “Caleb, come on, man! Get back here!”

  Chapter 17

  Monday, September 13

  "Caleb!" One. Two. Three, and Four. Pause. "Caleb. Time to get up."

  "I'm up." The words are hardly out of my mouth when it hits me that I've been up for a while and there's some serious tenting going on in the bed sheets department.

  "No, really. I need to hear ya moving." The door knob rattles, there's a thud, and a moment later light peeks through the cracked door. In a split second, I raise my knees in a hurried effort to hide my boner. I'm sure I'm not the only teenager in the world to wake with a raunchy case of morning wood, but the abject horror of having it noticed by a parent is just about insufferable. The nightmare of our 'nocturnal emissions' discussion still lives in my memory.

  His head pokes through the door, as I roll to the edge of the bed—wadding and cramming my blanket between my legs. As my feet hit the floor, it occurs to me just how ridiculous I look. Having your entire blanket wadded between your legs is hardly a natural sleeping position. "Uh... Caleb. Your mom..." He's stammering! He never stammers, unless he's seriously uncomfortable. "Your mom... wanted me to... tell you... Pop Tarts for breakfast."