Boy Minus Girl (4 page)

I quickly return the gun to the duffel bag.

“Time for Johnny Carson!” she yells.

“Not tonight!” I yell back. “Too tired.”

She denies Dad. I’ll deny her.

The last time I look at the digital bedside alarm clock, it’s almost two a.m. and Uncle Ray still isn’t home.

Seduction Tip Number 3:

Developing Your Sex Sense

The next morning at school I find it difficult to concentrate or to look any female in the eye. Who in my very own school is shaved down there? What makes a girl decide to shave or not? Is it just a matter of taste? Like how a girl styles her hair? Or is it a—a health thing? What does Charity Conners do?

Keeping myself concealed is my biggest challenge this morning. By lunchtime I’m desperate for relief. So, while everyone is in the cafeteria innocently eating cabbage biscuits and peach cobbler, I sneak into the empty and dark gymnasium and stuff some napkins into my underwear. A double check to make sure I’m alone, then I proceed to the corner where the climbing rope dangles. Hoisting myself onto the thick cotton-and-hemp cord, I press my thighs together and strain to pull myself up.

Up and down, up and down. That familiar warm, intense, and intoxicating pulsing starts, and then I hear: “Eckhardt?!”

I twist around and look down at Coach Turkle framed in the doorway, his beefy hands on his hips. “What the hell’re you doing?”

“Uh, hey, Coach.” God, my voice is so warbly. “I was just . . . practicing.”

“You know better than to be in here without supervision.”

I ease myself to the floor as Coach Turkle approaches. “Practicing, huh? I like to hear that, Eckhardt.” He pulls on the rope, as if making sure it’s secure. “Y’know, rope climbing is a terrific full-body workout, and it could save your life someday, too. Tell ya what, I got some time right now, let me show you a few things.”

“Coach, you don’t have—”

He reaches out, handing me the rope. “Go on now.” I moan inwardly.

“The rope needs to go between your legs like so,” he says as he threads it around my knees and back between the insteps of my sneakers.

My hands burn, my arms are shaking.

“Now clamp your feet together.”

I do, discovering that when I support my weight with my feet, my arms no longer shake.

“When you clamp your feet like that, it functions as a brake, freeing up your hands and arms,” he says. “Now, I want you to start inchworming yourself up: bend your legs, loosen the brake with your feet, and pull yourself up about a foot. Let’s see you do it.”

My heart pumps and my arms strain, but it isn’t too painful—tough, but manageable. Soon I have climbed higher than I’ve ever been. I glance down and feel dizzy, seeing how small Coach looks.

“You got it!” he says. “Remember to bend those legs.”

Looking up, I can’t believe I’m a mere few feet from the red line that marks the Monkey Club.

“Go on up to that line, Les! You can do it!”

My arms are starting to shake again. I think I feel a hernia forming.

“You’re almost there!” he yells. “Take a breather, then do one more big pull!”

I inhale deeply and heave myself up. Suddenly my nose is touching the red line. Coach claps and cheers. “You did it, Les! You did it!”

I cling to the rope, catching my breath and laughing. I have done the impossible! Only the most in-shape jocks make it to the Monkey Club.

“Now inchworm your way down—slow and steady,” Coach orders. “Just do the reverse of what I showed you.”

When my sneakers touch the mat, I’m breathless but feeling really good. This is the most working out I’ve done in years, or ever. Coach Turkle pumps my hot and tingly right hand.

“You’re stronger than you think, Eckhardt,” he says. “A little more refinement of your technique and we’ll have you clambering up to that ceiling like a three-toed monkey. What do you say I meet you in here tomorrow, same time?”

“Uh, okay.”

“See you then.” He cuffs my shoulder before ambling out of the gymnasium.

I collapse on the mat, my chest heaving from laughter. Who knew? What else could this Monkey Boy do?

“Fact—or fallacy?” asks Howard. “The human eyeball moves one hundred times per second.”

“Fact, but only when Charity Conners walks by,” I quip.

Side by side we’re coasting down Walnut Street on our bikes while balancing Frosty Queen milk shakes.

“Fact—or fallacy?” Howard continues. “Kangaroos have been sighted in North America—”

“Hey, Leth-bian!”

Shit-shit-shit
. I begin trembling all over. Brett’s bike pulls up on my right. Misty, his skeletal stoner girlfriend, all long black hair and pale yellow roots, shares the banana seat with him.

“Aw, look, Little Lord Leth-bian and hith lard-ath butt buddy are on a date.” Brett reaches over, snatching the shake from my hand. He takes a long suck, then hurls the cup.

“Thanks a lot, Brett,” I say.

Brett glares at Howard and growls.

“I, uh, suddenly remember something I have to do,” Howard says, his voice quavering, as he turns and disappears down a side street.

Dear Jesus . . . how about a lightning bolt through Brett’s head about now, huh?

“Y’know why I hate’th ya, Leth-bian?” Brett rams his front wheel into mine. I keep control of the weaving handlebars until I hit the curb and catapult onto a lawn.

I clamber to my feet, only to be met by Brett’s fist in my gut. Landing hard on my butt, I feel as if I’m going to vomit. Brett’s shadow falls over me.

“I hate’th ya ’cauthe your dad’th a rich doctor and you’re an ugly faggot,” he says, and shoves me down.

“C’mon, don’t hurt him, Brett!” Misty pleads.

“Shut up, bitch!”

He body-slams me, his full weight crashing into my midsection and knocking the air from my chest. A million little white dots swirl in front of my eyes, and the earth feels like it’s pitching. I lie waiting for oxygen to refill my lungs when I hear a rumbling car engine and the squealing of brakes.

“What the hell?!”

I sit up on my elbows and watch Uncle Ray hop out of his Corvette and charge over to Brett, who jumps to his feet and raises his hands. “No harm done, thir, no harm done.”

Uncle Ray violently grabs Brett by his shirt collar, gets in his face, and hisses, “You so much as sneeze in his direction again and I’ll reach into your ugly mouth and pull your asshole up through your throat. You understand me, you worthless piece of shit?” Brett, who is on his tiptoes, nods vehemently, his butt-ugly face the color of milk.

“Now fuck off while you can still walk!” Uncle Ray releases Brett, who scrambles to his bike and tears off, Misty chasing after him and yelling, “Hey, wait up!”

Uncle Ray extends his hand, pulling me to my feet. “You gonna let him get away with that?”

“C’mon, you saw how big he is!”

“He bullies you ’cause you let him,” he says. “One good blow to the tip of his nose and he’ll leave you alone.”

“Yeah, but first I’ll get killed.”

“Not if you do it right.”

Uncle Ray holds up his flattened hand. “Make a fist and hit me with all you’ve got.”

“Look, Uncle Ray, in case you haven’t noticed, I’m not exactly the physical type.”

“You’re perfectly capable, just need to develop your upper-body strength. Now shut up and hit me!”

I punch him as hard as I can.
Ouch.

“You call that a punch? Try it again. C’mon, faster and harder.”

So I hit again.

“Faster!”

I fire away, remembering what Coach Turkle said earlier today: “You’re stronger than you think, Eckhardt.”

Uncle Ray drops his hand. “Not bad. You have potential, kid.”

I blink at Uncle Ray a moment. “You serious?”

“I’ve known a hundred guys like that idiot. The only thing they respect is pain. If you want him to leave you alone, you gotta take no prisoners. C’mon, let’s put your bike in the trunk.”

I’ve never ridden in a convertible before. It’s low to the ground. The leather seat feels good against my legs, and the wind whips my hair as the sun blasts my upturned face. Used to riding in my mom’s high-up Buick, I feel as if I’m sitting in the cockpit of a jet fighter. I gaze in awe at the glass-covered dials of the instrument panel and the big black-and-white fuzzy dice dangling from the rearview mirror. With his right hand on the marble-like blue-and-white gearshift, Uncle Ray, sitting way back in his seat, steers with just his left index finger. If I had this car, I know I could land Charity. I sit up tall so everyone can see me.

“Didn’t your old man ever teach you how to defend yourself?” Uncle Ray asks as he heads out of town on Tripp Street.

“This is Doctor Dad we’re talking about.”

“I know for a fact that your dad was taught how to use his dukes. When you do retaliate, try to do it in front of that moron’s girlfriend or his buddies—maximize the humiliation. Remember, take no prisoners.”

Uncle Ray downshifts and spins the wheel to the left, pulling into the Frosty Queen and Sleep Inn Motel lot. In front of the café he switches off the engine and turns to me. “Have a favor to ask you.”

“Sure.”

In a low voice he says, “If anyone you don’t know should ask about me, tell them you haven’t seen me and you don’t know where I am. Got it?”

“Why? Are you the Kansas City killer?” It shoots out of my mouth before I realize it.

Uncle Ray looks at me a moment—perhaps startled, but it’s hard to tell behind those Ray-Bans—then grins. “Yeah, I’m a killer all right.”

I swallow hard.
Okay, he isn’t the Kansas City killer
.

“C’mon, Magnum, P.I.” He opens his door. “I’ll buy you a Coke.”

The Frosty Queen is thick with grease and cigarette smoke. A couple of farmers in seed caps hunch at the counter. On the juke Waylon Jennings twangs on about Luckenbach, Texas—Waylon and Willie, and the boys. A hot young waitress with blond hair and bright green eyes sashays on over.

Uncle Ray smiles his killer smile. “Well, well, well.”

She grins a little self-consciously.

“Shelleby, is it?” Uncle Ray says, referring to the name tag resting on her right boob. “Now, I bet there’s a fascinating story behind that name.”

Her smile widens as she gathers the menus from the counter. I see she’s wearing a wedding ring. “My mom wanted to name me Shelby, but Daddy wanted Shelley. So, they just combined ’em.”

“Shel-le-by. A girl so nice they named her twice.”

She blushes. “Just you two?”

“Yes, Shelleby, Eckhardt party of two,” Uncle Ray says in a pompous voice. “My secretary made reservations for four o’clock.”

“Secretary?” she asks.

“Wait,” Uncle Ray says, “isn’t this Spago?”

“Yeah, and I’m Christie Brinkley.” She rolls her eyes good-naturedly and shows us to a corner table. “What can I get you two to drink?”

“I’m just having coffee. Les, what would you like?”

“Dr Pepper, please.”

Shelleby collects our menus and heads toward the counter. Uncle Ray’s eyes linger on her butt and he shakes his head. “Mmm-mm sweet.”

“God, Uncle Ray. Wish I could talk to women like you do.”

“Now why can’t you?”

I shrug. “I always get nervous.”

“Nervous about what?”

I laugh in an “isn’t it obvious?” way. “Being turned down.”

“Kid, I’ve been turned down more times than a sheet at the Motel 6.”

“You have?”

He nods. “But I can live with rejection ’cause I know it’s just one less ‘no’ I have to hear before I get a ‘yes.’ Law of averages, law of the jungle.

“If you let the fear of being turned down stop you from pursuing chicks, you might as well throw in the towel right now.” Uncle Ray leans in close, his elbows on the table, as if he was about to share a deep secret. “Most guys sit around with their thumbs up their asses waiting to hear back from one woman—or worse, they wait around for a woman to hit on them! Big mistake. You have to be constantly pursuing. Like a shark. For every five women I hit on, I get maybe one phone number.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not outgoing like you.” I’m disgusted by how self-pitying I sound.

“Then ya just gotta force yourself to be.”

Shelleby returns with the coffee and Dr Pepper.

“Why, Shelleby, honey,” Uncle Ray says, “what’re you doing working in this fry bin? You belong on film with those peepers of yours.”

She blushes again, clearly trying to keep her composure. “Will that be all?”

“For now,”
Uncle Ray says, very suggestively.

Shelleby sashays off, and I glance out the window as the Trailways bus hisses to a stop (a wooden bench under the Frosty’s awning composes the Harker City bus depot).

“You have to be willing to walk up to a perfect stranger and strike up a conversation,” Uncle Ray says, “like I did with that Shelleby.”

“But what do I say?”

“It’s not what you say, it’s how you say it—with your eyes, your posture, your verve.”

“What’s ‘verve’?”

Scanning the room, Uncle Ray reaches into his jacket pocket and removes a small silver flask. He unscrews the top, pours a brownish liquid into his coffee, and stirs. Up till now I have never seen a flask except in old movies on TV.

“Most morons see a woman they’re attracted to and instantly pull back ’cause they don’t want to make a mistake,” he says between sips of coffee. “Chicks smell fear in a guy like a hound smells coon. Makes the guy look weak and unmanly. Window of opportunity closed. So it’s crucial that the moment you see a babe, within seconds, you say hello. Make it a knee-jerk reaction. Women like fearless guys. Fearless guys get laid.”

“Did you know all this when you lived in Harker City? Or is it something you picked up on the road?”

He settles back and tastes more coffee. “I once had a friend, Joey. He was the master. Bald, kinda pudgy. But he got laid left and right. I watched him operate. Taught me it’s not what you have but how you present it. The rest I learned from the school of hard knockers.” He laughs at his own joke.

I sip my Dr Pepper. Cool and fizzy and sweet. Dad always warns me that soda pop is nothing but pure sugar that’ll rot your teeth and turn to fat.