Drive (16 page)

I see stars when you give it to me, stars when you kiss me, stars make me come…out at night
.

Under your sky and under your thumb, keep saying
I'll run, then I'm nailed down again by…starlight
.

I got back a lot of guitar picks.

When Chantel opened the door to her apartment, we seemed to explode, tossing jackets and luggage. But I held on to one.

“How much did we make?” Daniel said, grabbing for the duffle.

I held it over my head. “A million bucks.”

“Jens! We've got to see, we've got to count it.”

Actually, I knew. I'd been counting all along, ticking off cassettes in my head. I was flying.

“It's me,” Chantel called suddenly from the kitchen. “He doesn't trust me.”

She came back, carrying two beers and a pop.

I unzipped the duffle bag, turned it upside down and shook it. The money fluttered down onto the middle of the floor, 618 dollars in small bills. Chantel squealed and Daniel dropped to his knees, laughing, grabbing it.

“Holy shit! I'm great!”

“No, you're just talented – I'
m
great,” I said, tumbling him over with an easy push, my foot on his shoulder.

Chantel's tank top had twisted, showing the white line of her bra strap, and the pink, curvy edge of the tattoo. I was sure it was a heart, with wings.

“And I thought you were just another used car guy,” she said, grinning as she handed me a beer.

She gave the other one to Daniel. He glanced at me, a little triumphant, but when he was done, he didn't ask for another.

He argued that Chantel deserved a cut of the money.

“I don't want it. It wasn't my gig. But when it's my turn in the studio, boy, you're going to play your fingers off, for free.”

I was sure he would have walked through fire and nails, if that's what she wanted.

“Hey, I was going to ask. Where's the Fender?” Chantel said to Daniel.

“He made me —”

“Leave it at home, safe,” I finished for him. He shot me a dark look but I hurried on. “What'd you think of the headlight thing? Every time you moved, the light just rippled – fantastic! You know, if you ever release a CD with Night Drive on it, that should be the cover,” I told Daniel excitedly. “You in front of a headlight with the guitar, the grill of the truck behind you…”

When Chantel went to the bathroom, he turned on me.

“I can
talk
now, Jens, by myself.”

“And maybe you say too much. You don't tell our shit to a stranger.”

“She's not a stranger –”

“I know what she is!” I caught myself, and my voice dropped again. “Daniel, some things you keep in your family.”

“Like what?” he demanded.

“Like…I never sent you a birthday card.”

“Well, you didn't.”

“Okay! But we're guys. Guys don't…do cards.” I tried to lighten up. “Am I going to turn on the radio and hear a song about it?”

He straightened in his chair. “So maybe I can't bullshit my way through life. Maybe I write about what matters to me. I'm not ashamed of that.”

“And if I made a tape, I wouldn't be ashamed to put my real name on it!”

He glared at me. He opened his mouth to speak, but just then Chantel walked in. “I hate to break up a great party, but I've got to work tomorrow.”

I gathered up the money and stuffed it in the bag, which I put on the end of the couch I'd already staked out. Daniel and I moved the coffee table without a word and he spread his sleeping bag out on the floor. Then I went into the bathroom so they could do the goodnight kiss thing. I didn't want to see.

I brushed my teeth, foaming and rinsing and foaming again. I hadn't meant to do that, pick a
fight. I didn't even know why I was so aggravated. We'd had a great night – it had been fun being a team. And even my stomach had flipped when I poured it out, all those tens and twenties fluttering to the carpet.

You're leaving tomorrow, I told myself. It's back on the road and back to normal.

The lights were turned low when I came out, and Chantel was gone. Daniel strode past me for his turn in the bathroom. I took off my jeans and left them at the end of the couch; I wasn't going to get caught without my pants.

I crawled in and lay there, thinking. It was strange how things had turned around. Daniel was the shy one but he could show his heart to the whole world. I made a career out of talking to strangers but I couldn't tell my brother anything.

He came back and turned off the last light. The drapes to the glass balcony door were half open and the moon painted the room in white lights and blue shadows. Daniel shuffled out of his pants and slid into his sleeping bag, but he didn't put his head on the pillow. He clutched it to him and laid on top, both arms wrapped around it.

I wanted to tell him I'd meant it, what I told the crowd from the hood of the truck. I thought he was the best guitarist in the province.

“Daniel?”

“What?” He was still mad.

“I'm sorry about the card. I just forgot.”

He was silent for a moment. “Well, I wasn't going to get one for you, either. So we're even.”

I listened to the hum of the refrigerator, the soft ticking of the cat clock. The couch was against the wall that I knew was her bedroom. I could feel every shift, slight vibrations as she moved in bed. On the floor Daniel rolled over, taking the pillow with him, squirming as he tried to get comfortable. We should all have been dead tired.

I could smell Chantel. It might have been a drift of air from all her perfumes in the bathroom, or a trace she'd left on the couch. Or maybe she'd pressed the scent on Daniel when she'd kissed him.

I should have taken care of myself in the shower, followed the fantasy all the way – safe, silent, fast. But even the thought made me sting. I wasn't a kid anymore. I couldn't help listening to Daniel breathe, wondering if he'd fall asleep before me.

I must have dozed off. I woke up as he walked past, a glimpse of his bare, sinewy legs like a ghost. The moon wasn't shining in anymore; the room was all shades of gray. I blinked, waiting to hear him go into the bathroom.
Instead there was a shuffling sound, his hand brushing wood. Then the faintest click of the knob as he opened Chantel's door and went in.

On the other side of the wall, she giggled.

My skin was burning. They'd planned this. She'd planned it. Daniel wouldn't have gone without an invitation. In plain English.

I felt the tremor as he walked over to the bed, then the low murmur of her voice, no words but I could imagine. I could imagine it all. How it'd look as she threw back the covers to him, the curve from her waist to her round hips, the winged heart over her soft, heavy breasts.

They were getting louder, forgetting themselves, excited whispers and rushes of sound. They both had smoky voices. I could see the silences in vivid detail, mouths and hands, and all the parts they could touch.

My brother moaned.

Oh, God. I couldn't listen to this. But I couldn't stop, either. My erection was straining against my shorts, and I could hear my own breath now.

This is sad, Jens. This is so fucking pathetic.

I hated that she could do this to me. Even as I took myself out, even as I rode the fantasy of that pink mouth and painted hair, peeled away her black, trampy clothes in my mind and made
her see stars, on the bed, against the wall, on the floor of the Rosetown Raiders locker room.

The girl who said I had a peasant's body was Marie Gagnon. I was in grade eleven and I was aware of every female in my school and on the planet, but there was something about French girls that made me stare. That shiny dark hair and brown eyes, black eyelashes that could brush you off in a flutter.

Marie Gagnon wore thick eyeliner, black on top, blue underneath. When she wore lipstick it was dark burgundy, red so deep it looked purple, a color that could mark your skin and clothes forever. There was a group of about ten girls who came to all the Raiders games, then hung around after to talk when we came out.

It was no secret that Marie was waiting for Jeff Styrchak, grade twelve and six feet two, a tight end who could barely remember the plays from one game to the next. Marie was not interested in football.

“In uniform and on the floor, that's how I'd like his tight end,” I heard her tell her friends once. They burst into laughter.

But Jeff had been dating the same girl for three years. He said hi to Marie on the way to his car. So when she hung around she talked to me. Away from her group, I thought she was nice. I'd spend all week thinking of something to
say to make her laugh. She had a car and sometimes she'd drive me home. We could steam up the windows pretty good, saying goodnight. I thought she liked me.

One day in school I overheard her telling her girlfriends she wanted to get into the Raiders locker room, just to see it.

“In the dark, that's how you'd like to see it!” somebody hooted.

“Face it, Marie, Jeff's not going to give you the tour,” another girl said.

Marie smiled wickedly. “That's why you have a second string. You know, alternate players…”

“Not the Chocolate King!”

“Yeah, but he's got a peasant's body,” she grinned, “and it's in the right uniform.”

I stopped liking Marie Gagnon. But I didn't stop wanting her. After the next home game I found a way to take her back to the locker room once everyone had gone. I was still wearing my jersey over my jeans, a three-pack of Trojan condoms in my back pocket.

Marie was excited to be there, even though I'd left the lights off and it was too dark to really see anything. Lockers and benches, the dusky smell of sweat – it meant nothing to me.

“This is one of my fantasies,” she whispered against my ear, then she bit it.

And my neck, and my lips. She pulled up her own sweater and my jersey, and her bare skin and soft breasts were a hot shock against me. I was bursting out of my clothes. I threw our coats onto the floor.

I wanted to forgive. Wrapped up by her, breathing into her silky hair, strength and pleasure driving me in raw thrusts, I was ready to forgive and forget and love.

“Oh,” she moaned under me. “Oh, Jeff.”

That's when I started to say it, in my mind at first but over and over, the power of those two terrible words rushing through me, driving me harder, until I couldn't stop, until I gasped it in her ear.

“French slut.”

Supernova, against a black, black sky.

•

I was a mess. There was a box of tissues on the table beside the couch. I cleaned myself up and pulled the sleeping bag around me again, heavy with relief. But maybe it was the wrong thing. Like water over a dam the feeling flooded through me, a scalding wave that squeezed my throat shut.

I just wanted somebody. Somebody who liked me right now and today. I was trying so hard. I wanted somebody to hold me and say it'd be okay.

My chest was throbbing where Daniel had hit me.

Breathe, Jens.

I opened my mouth and took a careful, thin breath, like that first one on the lawn. Then another, and another, controlling it.

See, it's okay. You're okay.

There were no more sounds from the other room. I realized there hadn't been for awhile. I wondered if Daniel would come back, and if I should pretend to be asleep when he did.

I heard the door open and decided fast, sliding down, my face in the crook of my arm, but high enough so that I could still see through my half-closed eyes.

Chantel sauntered out wearing Daniel's T-shirt, the edge of it brushing the bottom of her white panties. She glanced at me on her way to the kitchen. Her cigarettes were on the counter and she lit one, a yellow burst in the darkness. Then she walked over to the balcony doors and stood looking out, blowing smoke against the glass.

She was completely unconcerned, almost serene.

“I guess you got what you wanted,” I said.

She was so startled she dropped her cigarette, then crouched, scrambling to find it before it burned the carpet. I pushed up onto my elbow,
my lower half safely hidden in the sleeping bag.

“It was a pretty smart move to get in on the ground floor,” I continued, my voice quiet and even.

Chantel found the cigarette and stood up, facing me. She folded her arms self-consciously over her chest but she held her ground, legs long and white. I expected her to defend herself, maybe even say that she loved him or something.

“You have a problem with women, don't you, Jens?” she said. “I mean, you want us, but you don't like us.”

It caught me off guard, a slap. My face was on fire.

“Maybe…maybe it's just you —”

“I've been trying to figure it out,” she said, shaking her head. “You were raised the same, by the same parents. But somehow he's the only one who can communicate, who can have a relationship…”

“He didn't talk until he was four years old! They thought he was retarded!”

She looked at me, her features cold and clean without makeup. “And he thinks you're a god.”

She strode out, the long ash from her cigarette blowing off, falling onto the carpet.

I woke up and it was Monday. The realization ran through me like a cramp. I sat up on the couch, my heart beating quickly, the apartment silent and still around me. Through the balcony glass I could see the sky, a solid cover of clouds that had swept in through the night. It would rain today.

I shrugged out of my cocoon and went for another shower. I hated to use up the hot water but I really needed it. I felt grimy.

Shaved and dressed, I rolled up both sleeping bags, thinking about money. The Starling show plus what we'd made last night totaled 898 dollars. If we added in the Fender money – less what we'd used – we were at 1,248. Halfway there.