A Death On The Wolf (19 page)

I got dressed and went to the bathroom to pee and brush my teeth. As I looked in the mirror at myself, with the toothbrush hanging out of my mouth, I noticed a small red spot on my left cheek just beside my nose. I had managed to make it through to my mid-teens with a clear complexion. So now that I was turning the coveted sixteen, was this going to be my reward? My first zit? This day wasn’t shaping up to be all that great. I would be getting my first car, but would not be able to drive it. And now acne appeared to be taking up residence on my face. At least I was not worried about getting my driver’s license. I was prepared for the test, even if I had to use Daddy’s car for the driving portion. No matter what, this day would end with me being a legal driver in the State of Mississippi.

“
Whose car is that out there?” my sister was saying as I walked into the kitchen. She still had on her nightgown and was looking out the window in the dining area that faced our driveway and Aunt Charity’s yard.

Aunt Charity was over at the stove taking the last pieces of bacon out of the skillet. “You’ll have to ask your father,” she said.

“
Where’s Mary Alice?” I asked and walked over to the window where my sister was standing.

“
She’s getting dressed. You want to go over there and get her?”

“
Yeah,” I said and looked out the window. Dick’s new car was sitting in our driveway. “What’s Dick doing here?”

“
Who?” Aunt Charity said and placed a platter loaded with strips of crisp bacon on the table.

“
Dick Tillman,” I answered.

“
Your father is out there somewhere, so maybe he came over to see him about something. The pancakes will be ready shortly so go on over to my house and get Mary Alice. And tell your father to come on. And if Richard Tillman is out there, see if he wants some breakfast.” With spatula in hand, Aunt Charity walked over and kissed me on the cheek. “Happy Birthday,” she said.

I smiled and said, “Thanks.”

“
I forgot, Nelson!” my sister screamed. She was bouncing on her toes and holding her hands up for me to take her. I picked her up and she hugged me tightly. “Happy Birthday!” she said loudly over my shoulder.

“
Thanks, Sachet.” I carried her with me out into the back yard but I didn’t see Dick or our father anywhere. The air was thick and humid. “Daddy!” I hollered and waited. There was no response, other than a couple of cows mooing out in the pasture. I set my sister down on her bare feet. “Go get dressed,” I told her. I headed over to Aunt Charity’s to get Mary Alice.

A heavy dew lay on the grass, so my sneakers were wet and covered in grass clippings as I stepped up on Aunt Charity’s front porch. I took them off and went in the house. I went straight to Mary Alice’s room, and since the door was open, I walked in without knocking. She was standing there wearing nothing but sandals and a pair of loose fitting, pale yellow pedal pushers. She was fumbling with her bra.

“
I’m sorry,” I said, “I thought you’d be dressed.” I turned and retreated from the room.

“
Wait, Nelson,” Mary Alice called to me. “Will you help me with this?”

I stopped, and without turning around said, “Help you with what?”

“
With my bra.”

“
Let me go get Aunt Charity,” I said. After all, what did I know about a girl’s bra?

“
Quit being silly and help me. I can’t get it fastened.”

I turned and walked over to Mary Alice. She was facing away from me and I quickly sized up the problem. She had somehow managed to get the bra twisted when she slipped it on and the hooks in the back wouldn’t line up. “You’ve got it twisted,” I said. “I think you’re going to have to take it off.” Mary Alice reached up to slide the straps off her shoulders. “Let me go out,” I said.

She turned to face me. “You can stay,” she said as casually as if she’d just told me the time of day. She turned back to face the bed and I swallowed hard as I watched her remove the bra. She held it out to me over her shoulder and said, “Will you fix it?”

I took the undergarment from her hand and untwisted it. It was pink, of course. As much as I tried to avert my eyes, they were drawn to Mary Alice’s near nakedness. The sight of her bare skin was driving me crazy, especially knowing what I could see if she were to turn around.

“
Here, it’s un-twisted,” I said and put the bra back in her hand.

She slipped it back on, twist-free this time. “Will you fasten it?” she asked.

I fastened the hooks and then gently stroked my fingers across her shoulders and back. Her skin was soft and velvety. “Why’d you do that?” I asked.

“
Do what?”

“
Let me see you half naked.”

Mary Alice turned back to face me. “I’m not half naked, Nelson.”

“
You don’t have a shirt on,” I said.

“
Can you see anything you wouldn’t see if I had a bathing suit on?”

“
No, I guess not,” I said.

Mary Alice stepped over to the bed and picked up her pink polo shirt and slipped it over her head. I watched her shake her hair and run her hands through it. I went over to stand beside her. She reached out and touched me, feeling my shirt, then pulled my face down to hers and kissed me gently. “Happy Birthday,” she said when our lips parted.

I took her face in my hands and kissed her; it was my first attempt at a full-on, open-mouthed kiss and Mary Alice returned it in equal measure. Our tongues met in passion for the first time, and the taste was intoxicating. When this second kiss finally ended, I opened my eyes and looked at Mary Alice. Her lips were wet and puffy, and her eyes were closed too. She opened them, and for the briefest moment she appeared to be looking at me. “I love you, Mary Alice,” I said, staring into her unseeing eyes.

She smiled and put her arms around me in a tight embrace. “I love you, too,” she said.

“
Hey, y’all!” Daddy’s voice came booming from down the hall outside Mary Alice’s room.

I turned to see if he was at the door. He wasn’t. Mary Alice quickly moved away from me. My balls were aching and I was trying without much success to will the erection in my pants to disappear. “We’re comin’,” I hollered.

“
Well, come on. Charity’s got breakfast ready and she’s havin’ a fit. She said she sent you over here ten minutes ago to get Mary Alice.”

Breakfast started off awkwardly—for me, not Mary Alice. I was quite certain I sat there eating my pancakes with the perfect “cat that ate the canary look” on my face. Mary Alice, on the other hand, looked as angelic and innocent as ever. Just a scant few minutes ago we had been passionately kissing in her bedroom and said openly that we loved each other.

“
Where is Dick?” I asked as I helped myself to some more bacon off the platter.

“
Down at his station, I expect,” Daddy said. “Doesn’t he open up at eight?”

I looked up at the clock. It was five to eight. “Yeah, so why is his new car sitting in our driveway?”

“
It’s not Dick’s car,” Daddy said. He looked over at Aunt Charity and I could see the two of them knew something I didn’t. I looked at Sachet. She was oblivious to the conversation, lost in the world of pancakes, syrup, and bacon.

“
Whose car is it?” I asked. “It looks like the one Dick got.”

“
It’s the car you saw Dick working on yesterday,” Daddy said.

“
I don’t understand,” I said and took a sip of orange juice. “Dick said that car was his.”

“
It’s not,” Daddy said.

“
Well, whose is it, then?”

“
It’s yours if you want it,” Daddy said.

I looked at Daddy. What he was saying didn’t make any sense. “Mine? I don’t need two cars.”

Daddy laughed and then explained what was going on. He had asked Dick to check out Mrs. Borcher’s Impala, just as Dick had told me. And Dick had to put a battery in it to get it started and drive it over to the station, again essentially what Dick had told me. But what Dick didn’t tell me was that the oil had never been changed in the engine. When he got it up on the rack he found the factory oil filter still on there and when he pulled the drain plug barely two quarts of thick black oil oozed out. He pulled the valve covers and found the engine full of jet-black sludge. He told Daddy he could try to flush it out, but after six years of running nothing but the factory fill, he felt the engine was probably shot. That was three weeks ago and Daddy had immediately started looking for another car for me. Uncle Rick to the rescue. He put Daddy in touch with an engineer down at MTF who was selling his ’62 GT Hawk that had been babied since the day he bought it. He had just done a full tune-up and radiator flush; all it needed was brakes and tires. Me seeing the car at work yesterday, Dick letting me start it up and park it, that had all been orchestrated by Daddy and Dick to gauge my reaction to the car, to see if I liked it.

“
So do you like it?” Daddy asked me.

“
Yeah, I like it,” I answered.

“
You think you could be happy with that Studebaker rather than the Impala you thought you were getting?” For some reason Daddy seemed to think I had my heart set on getting an Impala. Why, I didn’t know—there was nothing especially desirable about a ’64 Impala, at least not the one Mrs. Borcher had owned, anyway.

“
Daddy, I just want a car,” I said. “I don’t care what it is.”

“
Really?” My father’s face brightened. He had actually been worried I would not want the Studebaker.

“
That car is way cooler than any old Impala,” I said. “Did you already buy it from the guy at MTF?”

“
Yes.”

“
So how much cheaper was it than the Impala?” I asked. I was already reaching in my pocket for the $402 I’d saved. The Studebaker was two years older than the Impala, so I figured it would be less than $500.

“
He wanted eight-hundred for it, son. I got him down to seven-fifty.”

“
Seven-hundred and fifty dollars?” I said in disbelief. So now, not only did I have a cool car that I couldn’t drive because I couldn’t afford to put tags and insurance on it, I was going to owe Daddy nearly $250—assuming he was still willing to kick in the $98 he would have on the Impala. It was looking like I’d be seventeen before I’d be driving my car. I fished the wad of twenties and two ones out of my pocket and put it on the table by Daddy’s plate. “That’s four-hundred and two dollars,” I said. “I’ll pay you the rest when I can. I’ll see if I can work more at Dick’s until school starts because I won’t be able to work as much then.”

Daddy picked up the money and thumbed the edges of the bills. “You forgot about the brake job, oil change, and new tires.”

I shook my head and looked down at my half-eaten breakfast. “How much was all that?”

“
Almost a hundred bucks,” Daddy said. This was getting worse by the second.

“
I’ll pay you back for that, too,” I said.

“
You’re awfully quiet, Charity,” Daddy said. “Don’t you have something to tell your nephew?”

I looked up at my aunt. She had a big grin on her face. She cleared her throat and said, “The car is my gift to you, Nelson.”

“
And the tires, brakes, and oil change are on me,” Daddy said. “And the tags and insurance.”

Now I was beaming. “So I can drive it today to get my license?”

“
Yep.”

I got up from the table and went over and gave my father a big hug. “Thank you, Daddy.”

“
You’re welcome, son,” he said and patted me on the arm.

“
What about me?” Aunt Charity said.

I went over to her and said, “You have to stand up for this.” She wiped her mouth properly with the napkin then stood up. I grabbed her in my arms and twirled her around the kitchen. Sachet was squealing and Mary Alice and Daddy were laughing.

“
Oh, Nelson,” Aunt Charity said in a pant, “put me down. Put me down.”

I set her down and kissed her on the cheek. She was red-faced and flustered. “Thank you,” I said. “That is the greatest birthday present ever.”

“
Do me now!” Sachet said.

“
What did you get me for my birthday?” I asked her.

My sister stood up in her chair, held out her arms, and said, “Me!”

We all laughed as I went over and picked up Sachet and spun her around the kitchen so fast it made us both dizzy.

“
You ready for your test?” Daddy asked me.

“
You bet,” I answered as I set Sachet back in her chair.

“
Let’s go,” he said and got up from the table. He handed the wad of money back to me. “Take a hundred out of this for play money. The rest, we’ll go by the bank and deposit in your college savings account.”