Jane Two (14 page)

“You sure, Mic? There's forty-five cents left. But if you get something, you're just as big'a crim'nal as me.”

“It's forty cents, dumbass! And I'll have an ice cream san'wich, please, ma'am.”

Firefly choked down the last of his Fudgsicle, disfiguring his mouth with brown glop, just as a sun-straw blond California surfer-type guy reeking of body odor approached us in nothing but a Speedo and flip-flops. Ominous like a giant praying mantis behind his mirrored aviator shades, he was very fit and very tan, and seemed very intent on us.

“Nice shades. Jeezus, this beach bum smells like he bathes with a crystal. Or shit, right?”

The man had stopped directly in front of us with his hands on his hips.

“Okay, which one of you is Mickey, and which one is the Food Flea?” He growled when he spoke.

“Who the hell wants to know, Leif Garrett? You eyeballin' my friend here? Mic, will y'look at this faggit, he's nekked!”

“I can hear you, you little shit. You do know you're standing right in front of me, don't you? I'm Coach Randall, and I need you to watch that tongue.” As our new swim coach's eyes seared a laser burn around Firefly's slack-jawed and chocolate-ice-cream-slathered mouth, he reached over and removed my ice cream sandwich from my hold and threw it in the trash without taking his gaze off Firefly.

In awe, Firefly finally conceded, “Fuck, I'm sorry about them cuss words. That last one, too, even.”

“I'm guessin' you must be the flea. So you must be Mickey. Your principal told me all about you.” I wasn't sure what Coach Randall had heard, so I kept silent. “But I think Mr. Totter's an asshole, so, you two should be all right with me. C'mon. Let's warm up. Oh yeah, and there's only one rule. You can't eat for an hour before practice. If ya do, well, you'll see.” Then Coach Randall looked at me and softened a bit. “After practice, I'll buy you another ice cream sandwich.”

Right then and there, as we walked together from the Snack Shack to the pool, Coach Randall started making us learn his oath he had picked up on Maui as a surfer.
I pledge allegiance to the health of this wondrous jewel that is my body. One instrument, under God, that every positive act I intend to contribute to this world is necessary for, and without which, the provisions of love, knowledge, and goodwill
—on and on it went, but by the end of our first practice, Coach Randall had succeeded in beating the oath into us.

And sure enough, right off the bat Coach Randall exhausted us both, traversing that pool more times than I could count. By the end of practice, Firefly was puking up his Fudgsicle and wailing about the loss of our extorted funds. Our teammates fled the pool as I grabbed two skimmers and helped Firely clean the water, since I did not want to swim in his vomit, either. There were two Olympic-size pools right next to each other, and the twelve- to sixteen-year-olds' team in the other pool kept ragging on Firefly about the puke.

“I couldn't help it. Hey, can I have a bite, Mic?”

As promised, Coach Randall handed me a new ice cream sandwich and then headed over to the other pool, shouting instructions to each lane, mostly kids with kickboards doing laps. I savored the first bite slowly and then handed the remainder to Firefly, who wolfed it and immediately wailed, “Brain freeze!” and threw himself into a poolside conniption, banging himself in the head with the skimmer lid, then wrapping the skimmer net around his head as he rolled around by the edge of the pool.

“Okay, I'm fine.” Calmly, he stood and looked around. “Is there more ice cream?”

In the parking lot just past the fence, I noticed the red Firebird, so I moved closer with the skimmer, still pretending to scrape the surface of the water. At the adjacent pool, Coach Randall talked through the wrought iron fence to Kevin, leaning on the hood of his car.

“Oh, he's a fuckin' pothead. Coach'll get him arrested.”

“Shhhh.” I sidled closer to the wrought iron gate to eavesdrop.

“What the fuck's wrong with his car? Fuck, I want that car.”

“Shut up Firefly, I wanna listen.”

“Kevin, don't let the others see you smoking!” Coach Randall snatched Kevin's cigarette and doused it in a puddle poolside. “I don't care how good you are, if you don't put in during practice, you're not swimming in the meets.” Grinning, Kevin was looking right at me once again. “Hey, are you hearing me? Kevin, eye contact, right here!” Coach Randall was gesturing big to get Kevin to look at him. Kevin never responded. “Kevin, you gotta show up for practice!”

“You ain't the boss of me,” Kevin bit off.

“Kevin, Jesus! Hey!” Frustrated, Coach Randall glanced around and waved the swimmers to focus on practice.

Kevin grinned and gave me the peace sign, then fired up his plank and drove off.

On our way home, Firefly and I biked by Sandpiper Drive past Jane's house, where the movers were in the truck. The house looked empty, as if this was maybe the last load.

“Ya know, Mic, it's quicker to take Bentliff the whole way.”

“This is the way you gotta go, so I might as well just go with you then go around.”

“But we could drop by your house and eat somethin'.”

“We're nearly to your turnoff.”

“God, I don't know how you don't get tired ridin' this far. I'm fuckin starved.”

We reached the end of Sandpiper, where Firefly had to go straight to reach his house, and I turned onto Bentliff.

“All right, see ya tomorrow, man.”

“Yeah, meet you at The Ditch first thing.”

I waited till Firefly was out of sight, then turned right around, riding back by Jane's. From the ficus hedgerow, I sat on my bike and observed the movers loading furniture. After a while, I set my bike down and pushed past the branches to the other side, and peered around the corner. After Jane's couch got loaded onto the truck, the movers glanced over at me and went back into the house. I crept around the side of the garage and looked in the backyard, where her trampoline was rusting. I was appalled—
her
trampoline was rusting. I headed back around to the front. One of the movers was strapping in a chifforobe against the inside wall of the truck, so I ventured closer.

“Hi, sir.”

“Hey, kid!”

The mover went back into the house, and I took a step into the garage, where Jane's paints remained on a table. Her canvases were stacked up against the wall. Another mover came walking out with a taped-up box.

“Hi, sir.” The mover ignored me and mounted the ramp into the truck. So, I got a bit closer and tried again, looking up at him. “Hi, sir.”

“Hi, there!”

“Do you know if the Bradfords are home?”

“They've been gone most of the day.”

“Do you know if they're gone for good?”

“Electricity ain't even on in the new place yet; guessin' they'll be back if ya wanna wait.”

The mover jumped off the truck, and when I was sure he was all the way inside the house, I approached Jane's workbench with her brushes and paints like I was approaching a shale precipice. I picked up an old brush encrusted with dried paint and inhaled the pungent chemical scent Jane breathed every day. I put on Jane's headphones and felt the foam that had wrapped her ears wrap mine.

“Hey, kid, you a friend'a the little girl?” I jumped and yanked off the headphones.

“Um, I don't know…maybe…”

Chuckling, the man continued on into the truck to set down his boxes, smiling to himself.

“Well, when are you gonna know for sure?” It took a second for me to figure out if he was still talking to me or not, but there was no one else there.

“I thought maybe today.”

The man nodded knowingly and went back into the house. I looked at the paintbrush in my hand and then back to the door to see if anyone was looking. I ran through the bushes to my bike. Struggling with my bike that was caught up in ficus, I dropped the brush but caught it before it hit the ground, and rode off. As I rode past, I waved at Mr. and Mrs. Milan parked out on their supreme green lawn and realized I was waving Jane's paintbrush. Without disentangling their clasped hands from each other's, they waved back at me as one.

Lined up on aluminum lawn chairs in my yard, I found Mom, Dad, Lew Hoagie, and his can of Miller High Life and a cigarette surrounded by remnants of the garage sale they had had out front. As I was riding up the drive, Lilyth was finishing selling her black velvet wall tapestry of a tiger to one of Magda's grimy new boyfriends.

“Yes, I'm sure she loves it. Just buy it for her, stupid.”

“Hey, Touchdown, what do you say, Mic?”

Lew raised his beer and cigarette to me in greeting.

“Um, I don't know, Mr. Hoagie.”

He was already pretty drunk, and his short shorts were riding up his chicken legs toward his gut.

“You want to go to Shakey's tonight, Sug?” I hugged Mom and remained attached to her hip. “Your dad and I made a hundred and eight dollars today.”

“Wow, yeah! How'd ya do that?”

“Garage sale, Sug.”

“Whole neighborhood came over and bought all the junk your mom's been keepin' for a rainy day, and Lew sold his Purple Heart from Vietnam.”

“And his Bronze Star. Them medals was so
nice
.”

“Fuckin' meant nothin' t'me,” slurred Lew.

“Mickey, go put your bike away so we can eat, 'cause we gotta stop by the Piggly Wiggly, too. Lew?”

“Bring me back one of them hamburger pizzas, Genie. And a six-pack, if you're goin' by the grocery. I only got four left.”

I ran my bike toward the house, while my parents and Lilyth gathered up to get in the car. Molded to his chair on our lawn, Lew stayed.

“You sure, Lew? Don't taste so good out of a box.”

“Tastes better if it ain't burnt, Genie,” Lew slurred aggressively.

“Watch yourself, Lew, she cooks things exactly how I like 'em.” Staring Lew down, Dad put his hand on Mom's shoulder.

“Sorry, Paul, I meant no disres…,” quailed Lew, completely stewed.

My dad watched him sternly. “Lew.”

“Yeah, Paul?” My dad just kept watching Lew, but Lew was past giving a shit. “What the fuck does Genie know about nice medals?”

“Lew, that's enough!” Dad shot back.

“It's
fine
, Paul, Lew's just drunk. I don't take it personal. He's a
nice
man, I know that.”

“Let's go.” My dad kept an eye on Lew while holding the car door for my mom and kissed her as she stepped in. “I'm sorry, Genie.”

“It's
fine
, really. Paul, he's one of your oldest friends, I know he don't mean it.”

We piled into the Gran Torino, and when I turned around to look back, Lew was already passed out.

At Shakey's we feasted on pizza and Coke. Mine tasted like Lilyth's perfume and I felt nauseated. Lilyth had on cutoffs and kept wiggling her shoulders to Little Eva's “Loco-Motion” on the jukebox, readjusting her button-down shirt that was not buttoned, but tied. Mom kept scowling at her and they started bickering, so Dad rolled up his Shakey's placemat, I guess to tune them out, and tapped me on the head. I wanted to roll mine up, too, and have a sword fight with him, but I needed it for something else.

“So, how's swim team, son?”

“It's good, I think Firefly might drown, though.”

“That ain't
nice
, Sug! Lawrence is a
fine
boy.” Mom broke off her wrangle with Lilyth to admonish me.

“Well, I do,” I said.

My dad leaned down and stuck me in the ribs saying, “That's all right, son, so do I.”

“Paul, you hush up! That ain't kind.”

“When's first meet? I'll be there.”

“Last week in June, Paul, you're…”

“I work for myself now, Genie, I'll give myself that day off. Let's hope Firefly gets in shape by then, 'cause I ain't jumpin' in after him!”

We laughed, even Lilyth, and I curled the edge of that Shakey's placemat with my fingers. I liked the woven texture of the paper it was printed on. The waiter brought over Lew's to-go order, and handed it to Lilyth, looking down her shirt as she reached up for it.

“Medium hamburger pizza y'all ordered. I put extra cheese on it, too, but I didn't charge you.” The waiter smiled eagerly at Lilyth locomoting her cleavage rhythmically at him. He completely ignored the rest of us sitting there like we were the curtains. Dad grabbed the box from Lilyth and stared at the waiter.

“Charge us! Go back to your goddamn cash register and charge us!”

“Yes, sir. Y'all ain't gon' tell my boss, sir, please?”

“And why shouldn't I?” My dad stared him down for a good long time, then whispered, “Get the hell out of here.”

The waiter disappeared.

“Dad! Mom, tell him.” Lilyth looked humiliated.

“Tell him what, Lilyth?”

“That
hormone
was lookin' at you like you's a T-bone steak. He can damn well charge us.”

Lilyth burst into tears, and reminded my parents, “And yet you don't do nothing about Mickey smoking!?”

I couldn't duck, so I prepared to take my punishment for something I had not done.

“Oh, Lilyth, stop it! Mickey, have you ever smoked?” my dad asked, as he looked right into my eyes.

“No, sir,” I said.

“Well there you go, then,” Dad concluded.

“You're just gonna believe him? Why don't you ever just believe ME?” hissed Lilyth.

“Different people require different methods.”

“That is bullshit!” Lilyth stormed out.

“That was fun.” Dad sighed.

“But, Paul, why would she say that if he hadn't done it? Paul! Go talk to her! And Mickey, this iddn't over.”

Dad got up, obeying Mom's request, and when they weren't looking I slid my Shakey's placemat off the table and folded it in half, tucking it inside my shirt. At the Piggly Wiggly I ran straight in so I could go frost-whiffing. I loved the freezer section—the smell and sound when you open the big glass doors, and the weird thing the sudden cold does to your nostrils. Crinkling them up inside. But mostly, right then I wanted to get the dirty scent of Lilyth's perfume out of my nose. And frost-whiffing did the trick. It was a cool spring night, but I rolled down my window anyway and hung my head out till we got home. My dad pulled the Gran Torino into the driveway as T. Rex's “Cosmic Dancer” was finishing on the car stereo. It was dark and Lew was right where we left him, passed out and tilted off to one side in the lawn chair, cigarette in his lips burned down to the filter. I helped Dad unload groceries from the car as Mom and Lilyth approached Lew.