Fireball (29 page)

‘Look,' he said, ‘I know Chris is your best friend. I know he's had a raw deal, and you've got to look out for him. But these were police officers. These were officers of the law. Chris slammed the door in their face. Do you think that was an intelligent thing to do?'

This speech was really taking its toll on him. I could tell how badly he wanted a beer and I felt like saying, ‘Hey pops – why don't we both grab a couple of cold ones and forget about the whole thing?' I didn't, though. Instead I sort of hung my head and said, ‘I guess not.'

‘Just because you're friends with Chris doesn't mean you have to get involved in situations like that. If he's going to do something foolish, you don't have to do the same.' He squeezed my bicep, as if he wanted me to respond. ‘Okay?'

I nodded. It was funny. For the first time ever, I felt a little older than my dad. You know – like I was humouring him. I understood what he was trying to say, but things had gone way, way beyond that. There was no use even talking about it, really. I might as well have been on a runaway train, listening to him give me advice through a radio.

47

Karen told me everything. Don't ask me why. I guess she had to tell somebody, and she was too scared to tell Chris, so she decided to tell me. As soon as she started she couldn't stop. It came out all at once, like a spurt of vomit. We were on the phone. Usually I phoned her but this time she'd phoned me. I was happy about that, until I found out why.

‘We got arrested,' I said, trying to show off. ‘We spent the night in jail.'

‘I have to tell you something.'

‘Sure. What's up?'

I was sprawled on my belly in our basement. Her first words stabbed me right in the spine, nailing me to the floor. After that I couldn't move. I felt like a butterfly being pinned into an insect collection. Each sentence twisted the pin a little deeper. It pierced my lungs and speared my heart and burst through my chest. I started crying – I couldn't help it.

I asked her: ‘Why?'

‘I was drunk,' she said, sobbing, ‘I was so drunk.'

She had been. I'd seen her. But it was no excuse. Not unless he'd raped her.

‘Did he rape you?'

‘No.'

After that neither of us said anything for about thirty seconds. The telephone receiver felt hot as a blow dryer against my ear. I listened as she choked on her tears, trying to bring herself under control. I wasn't crying like that. I was crying in this completely bizarre way. My face felt all twisted and these shudders were wracking my body, but I was wasn't making any sounds. I don't think Karen even knew I was crying. Through the window, I could see two birds pecking happily at our lawn. One of them came up with a worm and flew off.

‘What's going to happen?' Karen whispered.

‘He won't ever talk to you again.'

‘Don't say that.'

‘He'll hate you forever.'

‘You're lying!'

I wasn't, though, and she knew it. This was the end of everything. Outside, houses crumbled and bridges collapsed and skyscrapers toppled. It was like a miracle. Actually, it was more like the exact opposite of a miracle. A catastrophe, I guess. Or an apocalypse. Jules had stuck his dick inside her, and the whole world just fell apart.

‘You tell him or I will,' I said, and hung up.

I've imagined it so many times it's like I actually saw them. Julian is always on top. His eyes are closed and he's grimacing in this really disgusting way – almost like it's hurting him. Sometimes he's still wearing that stupid laurel crown. Other times he's totally naked. Either way, he doesn't know what he's doing. His movements are jerky and mechanical, like a giant robot gigolo that's only programmed to screw. He throws himself into her again and again and again, gritting his teeth and making these strange little pig sounds. He's not paying any attention to her. He could be banging away at anything, but she doesn't care. She's too drunk to care. She spreads out wide as a starfish, receptive and exposed. And once they're really going at it, once he's really giving it to her, she starts moaning and running her hands all over his bloated muscles. She even leans forward to lick his big birthmark. You know – just sort of lapping at it with her tongue. Jules loves that. That pushes him over the edge.

Somehow, his coup had succeeded.

Once I recovered from the shock, it didn't seem that improbable. It just seemed pathetic. And cheap. I don't know. The whole thing is so shitty I don't even like thinking about it. Or talking about it. Karen wanted to talk about it. She phoned me a bunch of times, after he died, but I kept hanging up on her. It's not that I blame her for his death. Not really. I just don't see the point. It's impossible for her to understand how important she was to him. I mean, I don't think he ever told her. He never even told me. He didn't have to, though. It was obvious. She was this soothing spring he'd found in the middle of the desert.

Then she vanished, like a mirage.

48

We came up behind this Volkswagen van, lumbering along like a fat drunk on a bicycle. They hadn't finished repaving that part of the highway – which meant there was only one lane going each way. A bus ploughed past in the opposite direction, followed by a long line of cars. Chris couldn't overtake. We dropped down to sixty, waiting for a break in traffic.

‘Smell that?' Chris asked.

A magic, smoky scent drifted in through the open windows, tickling my nostrils. The hippy driving the van was obviously burning a fat one. Until then, I'd totally forgotten about our bag of weed. At the beach I'd picked it up without thinking. Now I knew why. I'd picked it up so I could reach into my pocket and hold it out, super casually, like a gambler who's just drawn the exact card he needs.

‘Check this out.'

Chris glanced over, then did a little double take.

‘What the hell?'

‘I took it when Bates dropped it.'

‘You genius. Let's hotbox this thing.'

We both rolled up our windows. I opened the bag and pulled out our pipe and carefully broke up bits of bud with my fingernails. It smelled so rich and green I wanted to eat it. I worked carefully, almost solemnly. This was going to be the most important bowl we'd ever smoked so I had to make it a good one. I added pinches of weed to the pipe and tapped it down with my thumb. Then I sparked the lighter and worked the valve as I inhaled. The first hoot went straight to my brain, spinning me off into giddiness.

I offered up the pipe. ‘Here, man. It's going good.'

Chris took it in his right hand and drove with his left. Sweet smoke filled the cab, wrapping us up like silk. We passed the pipe back and forth, back and forth. I'd packed it pretty tight and it burned for ages. By the end my fingers felt all fat and useless, like baby sausages, which only happens when I'm absolutely fried. I started experimenting with them. I flexed them and wiggled them and pressed them against each other.

‘How you feeling, Razor?'

Chris couldn't keep a straight face. He knew all about me and my fat fingers.

‘I'm rocking and rolling, man.'

‘Rocking and reeling, huh?'

‘Yep. Keeping it real, all right.'

‘Hey,' Chris said, ‘how the hell do you work the siren on this thing?'

‘Beats me.'

‘Come on. We need the siren to scare the shit out of these stupid hippies.'

I said, ‘But I like hippies.'

‘Hippies are dinosaurs.'

We both started fiddling with all the buttons and switches on the dash. We got the windshield wipers and fluid going, then the signal and hazard lights. Chris even honked the horn a couple of times. By that point we were both laughing our asses off, but it took another five minutes to find that stupid siren. I don't even know which one of us hit the button. All of a sudden it just came on, out of nowhere. The red and blue lights started flashing, too.

The Volkswagen van dropped down to about twenty klicks, guilty as anything. Chris didn't even give them time to stop. He swung across the centre line and gunned it, overtaking. I stared at them as we roared past. The driver was this guy in a straw hat with a scruffy beard. His girlfriend had tiny breasts and huge sunglasses. In a lot of ways, they reminded me of my parents in those old slides from South America. At first, they looked terrified. Then they saw Chris grinning at the wheel and me holding the pipe in my hands. After that their faces went totally blank, as if they'd both been hit on the head at exactly the same time. They'd seen us, all right, but they couldn't really believe what they'd seen.

For that reason, I'm pretty sure they didn't rat us out.

Chris switched the siren off but left the windows up. We rocketed along in our cocoon of smoke and music. It didn't seem so bright out any more. It was as if a veil had been draped over our car. Everything outside looked murky and dim and strange. Just then, when we were more seared than we'd ever been, when we were going faster than we'd ever gone, the police radio crackled and dispatch started talking. That had happened before, but this was the first time the woman actually seemed to be speaking to us.

‘Dispatch calling car twenty-six. Come in, over.'

We stared at the speaker, like a couple of cavemen who'd never seen a radio before.

‘Repeat, car twenty-six, come in, over.'

Chris picked up the receiver. It worked just like the ones on television. There was a little button on the side. All he had to do was press the button and speak into the mouth­piece.

‘This is car twenty-six, over. What's your problem?'

‘You didn't check in, two-six. Just making sure every­thing's okay.'

Chris wiped his face with the back of his arm. He wasn't messing around, either. He took it super seriously, like somebody talking to God.

‘No,' he said. ‘Not really. Nothing's okay.'

‘Could you repeat, two-six?'

‘I said nothing's okay. Everything's totally fucked.'

There was a pause. Then, ‘Officer Bates? What's going on, over?'

‘Bates isn't here. We left him at the beach.'

This time, the pause was longer.

‘Who is this? You know it's illegal to mess around on the police band?'

Chris glanced at me, almost like he was asking my permission to say what he said next. ‘What about beating the shit out of a cop and stealing his car – is that illegal, over?'

He didn't wait for a reply. He just yanked on the mouthpiece, snapping the cord. Then he tried to huck it outside, only he forgot that his window was closed. The receiver cracked against the glass and bounced back into his lap. He stared at it for a second, sort of surprised – as if a giant insect had flown in and landed on his thigh.

We burned out faster than usual. Maybe it was something to do with the heat, or how insane the day had been. But pretty soon the smoky haze dissolved into a dark gloom. We opened the windows but even that didn't help. Nothing helped. The murk surrounded us, thick and heavy as swamp water. I felt like I wanted to die, and I'm pretty sure Chris felt even worse.

‘Do you think she sucked him off?' he asked.

‘I don't know, man.'

‘Do you think she got on top?'

‘I don't know, man.'

‘Do you think they used a condom?'

‘I don't know.'

‘I hate her. I thought I loved her but really I hated her all along.'

‘Don't say that.'

‘I hate her,' he said, just to fuck with me. ‘I hate her I hate her I hate her.'

Then something happened that I almost couldn't believe. Chris cried. He didn't cry for very long and he didn't cry like a normal person. There was no sobbing or shaking or anything like that. There were just a few tears, streaming down his cheeks. He blinked over and over, trying to see. Then he gripped the steering wheel like he wanted to choke it and sort of threw his body back and forth against the seat.

‘FUCK!' he screamed.

After that we drove in silence, the tears drying on his face. I smelled something rank and sick blowing from up ahead. It must have been a piece of road kill, rotting in the heat.

‘You know what I think?' he said. ‘I think she did it on purpose.'

At first, I wasn't sure who he meant.

‘She popped the clutch and drove right into the sea. She was tired of all the bullshit. And a little insane – like that guy at the funeral said. I guess that makes me insane, too.'

I shook my head. ‘It's everybody else who's insane.'

For a second he didn't say anything. Then he smiled – this super sad smile – and came out with something that nearly made me cry.

‘Yeah,' he said softly, ‘they're insane in the brain, all right.'

‘Riding the old brain train.'