Gods in Alabama (27 page)

He had to blow-dry his pretty—”

He stopped talking abruptly and came to a dead stop so fast I was two steps beyond him before I realized he was no longer beside me. I looked back. He was staring ahead at the concession stand. He was no longer smiling, and his eyes were no longer kind. I followed his line of sight.

At the head of the line, standing with a boy who could only be her date, was Rose Mae Lolley. She had not seen Jim Beverly yet.

Her hand was moving with its customary slow grace to pull her mink-brown braid around. She draped it over her shoulder and was musingly stroking its smooth length as she waited for the senior she was with to pay for their drinks. She was wearing a long-sleeved shirt, cranberry red, so sheer that a hint of her pale belly glinted through. She was obviously wearing a black bra. Her knit skirt was long and black, like mine, but tighter, with a slit on the side that came to about mid-thigh. She had on knee-high boots, and I could see a sliver of her thigh, framed in a triangle formed by the slit and the top of her boot.

As if she felt my gaze, her head turned languorously and our eyes met. Her eyebrows went up in astonishment as she took in my outfit. In another moment, she noticed Jim Beverly standing beside me. Her mouth opened, and then she gave her head a tiny shake. She lifted one shoulder in a slow half-shrug of disbelief, then turned away from us, sticking her hand in her date’s back pocket and worming up under his arm, showing us her elegant back.

We both stood silently, and then Jim Beverly said, “I thought you had to pee?” without looking at me and with no inflection.

I scurried obediently to the ladies’ room, where I bolted myself into a stall and leaned against the door, trying not to cry and ruin the pretty makeup job Clarice had done. I pulled the band out of my hair so savagely that I broke it. I threw it on the floor and combed my braid out with my fingers. When I had myself together, I went back out into the lobby. Neither Jim Beverly nor Rose-Pop and her date were there.

I went back into the theater, and made my way to our row. On the screen, a pretty girl who looked much too young to be a scientist was holding up a test tube and saying, “The light! It’s like poison to them!” in a wonder-filled tone. Jim Beverly’s seat was empty. Becky Spivey from school was sitting on the other side of Rob, whispering to him. I said, “Excuse me,” and made my way past both of them. I sat down in my chair. Clarice leaned across Jim Beverly’s empty one and said, “Where did he go?”

I shrugged. “I went to the bathroom.”

I wasn’t sure how much I should say, especially since Rob and Becky Spivey might overhear. Clarice looked over her shoulder worriedly.

Rob was tapping at me from the other side. “Where’s Jim?” he whispered.

“I went to the bathroom,” I said again.

A guy behind us made a shushing noise.

I folded my arms around myself and put my eyes on the screen. Rob was still in whispered consult with Becky Spivey. He turned to me again and whispered, “Hey, a bunch of people are already down at the gulch, so do you want to maybe skip out of here? This movie blows.”

“You go ahead,” I said quietly.

“C’mon, it’ll be fun. Becky’ll take us in her car, and we can meet up with Jim and Clarice later at Mr. Gatti’s.”

Becky Spivey leaned over. “Come on, Rob, she doesn’t care.” I could smell butter on her breath. She was wearing a tank top, too, a peach one. She was spilling out the top of it as she leaned over.

Between my insistence that he go, Becky’s cleavage, and the person a few rows behind us releasing louder and more enraged shushing noises, we finally got Rob unglued from his seat.

“Are you sure you don’t care, Arlene?” he asked.

“She said she doesn’t mind four times now, go already,” said the shushing guy loudly. And Rob went.

Clarice watched them leave and then leaned across Jim Beverly’s empty seat again. “What on earth’s going on?”

I whispered, “Rose-Pop,” to Clarice. She pointed back towards the concession area and whispered, “Out there?” I nodded.

Clarice sat up straight in her chair, looking back at the screen.

I looked behind me up the aisle and realized she had looked over my shoulder and seen Jim Beverly returning. He had a huge tub of popcorn and two Cokes balanced in his hands. He sat down between us and said, “Where’d Rob go?”

As quietly as possible, I tried to give him a brief explanation, but three words into it, the guy a couple of rows behind us piped up again. “Do you mind?”

Jim Beverly whipped around so quickly that some of the popcorn came spilling out of the tub and scattered at his feet. “Yeah, I do fucking mind. Do I need to come up there and explain why?” he said loudly.

When the guy did not answer him, he turned back to me and said, “So. Where’s Rob?” in a casual, conversational tone.

Clarice was looking at him with round, surprised eyes.

I explained about the gulch party and Becky Spivey and meeting up later. He handed me the popcorn tub and said, “Well, this is his.” Then he handed one Coke to Clarice and stared morosely at the screen, gulping at his own Coke. He sucked about a fourth of it up through the straw in thirty seconds.

Clarice and I were watching him now instead of the movie. He reached into the pocket of his baggy Levi’s and pulled out a flat pint bottle of vodka. “Sorry I was gone so long,” he said to Clarice. “I had to make a run out to the Jeep.”

He peeled the plastic lid off his Coke and spiked the hell out of it, pouring about a third of the pint into it. He tilted the pint bottle towards Clarice, indicating her Coke. She shook her head and set her Coke down on the floor, whispering, “I didn’t even want the Coke, remember?” He capped the bottle and put it away.

We sat in silence through the second half of the movie. Jim Beverly was brooding. He glared at the screen with malevolent eyes, gulping down his spiked Coke so fast that I developed a sympathy ice headache. I could sense Clarice’s discomfort. She sat stiffly on the other side of him. When his Coke was gone, he got hers off the floor and poured another third of the pint into it. He gulped that one down, too.

At last the credits rolled and the lights came up. We filed out with the few other people who had been in our theater. The guy who had been sitting a few rows behind us was gone. He must have slipped out quickly to avoid us.

As we made our way up the aisle, I noticed Jim Beverly was listing a tiny bit to starboard. Clarice had noticed it, too. By the time we made it out to the Jeep, neither of us had any doubts that he was halfway to stinking drunk.

“So, what? We meet up with them over at Mr. Gatti’s? Or go down to the gulch?” Jim asked.

Clarice smiled up at him as he fumbled around with his keys.

She said, “Hey, Jim, why don’t you let me drive. I always wanted to drive a Jeep.”

He looked back at her, incredulous. “You aren’t driving my Jeep. What, do you even know how to drive?”

“Yes, I know how to drive,” she said, laughing. “I got my learner’s last month.”

“Oh, your learner’s,” he said. “Yeah, great, whatever. Get in.”

He managed to get the passenger door open.

I clambered into the backseat, but Clarice stayed right where she was. “You might as well give her the keys,” I said. “Clarice won’t ride with anyone who’s been drinking.” I buckled myself in.

Clarice shot me an exasperated look as Jim Beverly drew himself up and looked down at her. “I’m not drunk,” he said belligerently.

She lifted one shoulder and said, “Right. You’re just scared to let me drive your car. What do you think is going to happen? I’ll run it into a chicken truck and get you in trouble with your daddy?” Her voice was half sassy, half mocking.

“I’m not scared,” he said, slurring the
s
.

“Whatever,” she said, looking away.

“Fine. You want to drive so bad, here.” He looped his index finger through the ring on his keys and dangled them in front of her. “Take the keys.”

She reached for them, but he snatched them out of her reach.

As soon as she put her hand down, he dangled them in front of her again. She reached for them, and he snatched them away. She folded her arms across her chest. He dangled the keys in front of her again. She just stood there with her arms crossed, shaking her head at him. He said, “Come on, puppy. Jump for it. Jump for it, puppy. Bounce a little.” He was laughing.

She thumped him in the chest with the back of one hand.

“You’re such a jerk,” she said.

“I know, I know,” he said. “Sorry. Come on. Get in.”

“No,” said Clarice. “I’m not riding with you when you’ve been drinking. Give me the keys, and we’ll go to Mr. Gatti’s. You can have a couple of slices of pizza, we’ll hang out with everybody, and you’ll be totally fine to drive us home. Come on, I’m a good driver. I do this for my friends all the time. I learned how to drive because Missy Carver’s older sister was so drunk once she couldn’t get the car out of reverse. And it was an automatic. Just give me the keys.”

She was smiling up at him, sweetly reasonable, and for a moment I thought he was going to do it. But then he closed his fist around the key ring and said, “No. Bad puppy. Get in the Jeep.”

“No.”

They stayed in a Mexican standoff for a few seconds, and then Jim Beverly climbed in through the open passenger door. He pulled it shut behind him and crab-walked across into the driver’s seat, steadying himself with the roll bar. He sat down and jammed the key into the ignition.

“Get out, Arlene,” said Clarice.

I rolled my eyes and unbuckled myself obediently, slipping between the front seats. I rested my butt on the passenger seat, reaching to open the door, but Jim Beverly snaked one long arm across me and caught my wrist, stopping me. “You’re not the boss of her,” he said to Clarice, laughing again.

“Get out, Arlene,” Clarice repeated. She was deadly serious.

I hesitated. I couldn’t help liking where I was, sitting in the front seat of Jim Beverly’s Jeep, with his warm, callused hand holding my wrist.

Jim Beverly felt my hesitation, and he let go of my arm and turned the key. The Jeep’s engine came to life. “We’re going to Mr. Gatti’s,” he said. “You coming or not?”

“Arlene,” said Clarice.

“Going once!” he said, and tapped the gas and hit the brakes.

The Jeep lurched forward a foot and then stopped.

“Going twice!” he said, and lurched us forward again.

Clarice took two running steps to catch up to us, used the back bumper as a step, and grabbed the roll bar, vaulting herself into the backseat just as he took off for real. He was laughing like crazy, and I was a little, too. Clarice reached into the front seat and gave me a hard pinch as we rocketed out of the parking lot onto Firestone Drive.

“This is so not funny,” she said.

“It’s a little bit funny,” Jim Beverly said.

Clarice buckled herself into the back. “I think you better just take us home.”

He leaned towards me sideways and said in a stage whisper, “I think Mom’s pissed.”

The Jeep listed to the side as he leaned, and we bumped briefly up onto the curb. Jim Beverly jerked the steering wheel hard, and we thumped down. He got us centered on the road, laughing and cussing under his breath.

Clarice had grabbed my arm as the Jeep bumped up and down.

“You better stop this car and let me drive, you asshole,” she said.

“Too late,” said Jim Beverly and got on the entrance to the highway. “I’m taking you candy-asses on home.”

Rocketing along on the highway in the dark, I lost the brief fear that had surged when he ran us up on the curb. I was instead exhilarated to be beside him, and the nastiest inside bit of me couldn’t help but enjoy the reversal, having Clarice for once in her life take the backseat while I rode shotgun. My long hair was whipping around my face, getting in my eyes, and I gathered it up into a wad and held it against my head with one hand.

Next to me, Jim Beverly got the flat pint bottle out of his pocket again. It was less than a third full. I tried to hold the irritating pieces of my hair flat as Clarice and I watched him unscrew the cap and take a healthy swig, steering with one knee pressed up against the bottom of the wheel. I glanced back at Clarice. She was holding her breath. As soon as he had capped the bottle and had one hand back on the wheel, she started yelling at him.

“You better exit and let us out right now. I mean it. Right now.

You asshole. You total asshole.”

Her color was high. I had never seen her so angry.

“You want out?” he said. “Fine. Jump out.” The Jeep was doing over sixty.

Clarice shut up and did not speak again for the rest of the long ride down the highway. Jim Beverly polished off the bottle.

Finally we saw the exit to Route 19 coming up, and he took it smoothly, rocketing off the lit highway into the darkness of the access road. Nobody spoke until we had gone through Possett and were heading down the solitude of Route 19, soybean fields on either side of us.

“Damn, but I have to pee,” Jim Beverly said.

“You’re not coming in my house drunk like this to use the bathroom,” said Clarice. “My daddy would kill me for getting in a car with you, and my mama would kill you for making me.”

“I don’t need no toilet,” said Jim Beverly, and he cut the lights on the Jeep. The road disappeared in front of us, and he banked hard right. I grabbed the sides of my seat, and Clarice let out a short, sharp scream. The Jeep ran off the road onto the shoulder, bumping us up hard and then landing us with a jarring crunch, leveling as we hit the plowed field.

“Stop. Stop. What is wrong with you?” Clarice was almost screaming.

“Gotta piss!” said Jim Beverly, in a voice that was a perfect marriage of cheerful and hateful.

I clung to the seat as we thumped our way over the plowed rows, tearing a swath through some farmer’s crops with nothing but a thin patina of moonlight to guide us. About 250 feet into the field, Jim Beverly braked and we skidded sideways before coming to rest in the soft soil. He hopped out and walked a few feet away from the Jeep. We heard the metallic slide of his zipper going down and then a pattering noise as he urinated on a young soybean plant. He released a long, loud sigh of relief.