On Archimedes Street (3 page)

Flip shook his head no.

“Then c’mon,” Dutch said, sliding one foot into a pedal and hoisting himself onto the bike. “Let me take you for a ride. Show you the Redemptorist hot spots and something of uptown.”

“Why not?” Flip removed the lock and hopped on his bike to follow where Dutch led.

D
UTCH
SALUTED
the sunrise in a booming baritone. “Hail, Helios in your fair chariot! Do not surrender the reins to overstepping Phaëton.”

A groggy Flip was in a foul mood. He couldn’t believe he’d agreed to a 6:00 a.m. stunting session. “What? Who’s this Phaëton?”

“You could look it up. Haw! Haw! Haw!”

“You know what? I don’t need your shit at the crack of dawn. Take your Phaëton and shove it up your ass.”

“Touchy, touchy, sensitive hothouse plant with a hair-trigger temper. Tsk, tsk. Phaëton is my cousin once removed. He’s a notoriously reckless driver. Drives a gold Lexus and has two DUI citations under his belt. He downed several other kinds of belts beforehand.”

“Yeah, right.” Flip mounted his bike and prepared to pedal away.

“No, wait. Cheese and rice. Touchy, touchy. I’m going to have to watch my step around you, I see that now. I just mean that there’s no time like early morning for stunting. Not many people awake at this hour to see you making a horse’s ass out of yourself.”

“Speak for yourself, ass.”

“No, I’d rather speak for you. I do it so much more eloquently. But look what I brought for us.” Dutch reached for the back pocket of his jeans and withdrew two cloth bandannas, one black and the other yellow. “Blindfolds.” He presented them with a flourish.

“Blindfolds! What kind of nut job are you? You intend to stunt
blindfolded
?”

“Yes. The theory is that by eliminating visual stimuli, you become much more attuned to your sense of proprioception, where your body is in space. Improves balance and coordination. I haven’t had a chance to test the theory because I never had a stunting partner before.”

“I have a different theory to test—whether, if you had another brain cell, it would rattle. Of all the dumb-ass ideas….”

“Here, I’ll go first. Let’s start with something simple. The backhop.” He handed Flip a blindfold. “Put it on me.”

“Okay, but you’ll never get me to try this.” After Flip tied and adjusted the blindfold on Dutch, he led him to his BMX. Dutch swung confidently onto the saddle and stood on the cranks.

“Stand beside and grab me if I start to tip over, okay?”

“I should be having my head examined, but okay.”

“Ready? Here I go.” Dutch reared up on the back wheel and balanced. Then he basically started using the bike like a pogo stick, making it hop up and down. He started a chant. “O, most wicked speed to post; O, most wicked speed to post; O, most wicked speed to post; O, most wicked speed to post….” He started moving the bike in an orbit with his body as the axis.

It was a strange and comical sight. Flip couldn’t help cracking a grin at the muscled giant, blindfolded with a black bandanna, jumping up and down in a circle.

“O, most wicked speed to post; O, most wicked speed to post….” He brought the front wheel down with a thump. “‘With such dexterity to incestuous sheets.’ Ta-da!” He whipped off the blindfold, brought one foot to the ground, settled his rump on the bicycle saddle, and grinned like an idiot.

“That was
Hamlet
,
wasn’t it? I remember that from senior-year English.”

“It reads! Imagine that. You could knock me over with a feather.”

“Why are you backhopping to
Hamlet
?”

“I don’t know; it just came into my head. Posting. Riding up and down. Now it’s your turn. Your bandanna is yellow to go with your hair.”

This guy was a whack job. But Flip had to admit he’d been amused. “Oh, shit. All right. I know I’ll live to regret this.”

“I’ll be right here,” said Dutch as he adjusted the blindfold. “I won’t let you fall.”

Then Flip was up on the rear wheel, bouncing the bicycle up and down in a circle. “Oh, I think I need to post; Oh, I think I need to post….”

“Haw! Haw! Haw! ‘O, most wicked speed to post,’ you illiterate.”

“O, most wicked speed to post; O, most wicked speed to post….” After two minutes of “posting,” Flip started to wobble, and Dutch placed one hand on a shoulder and the other on a hip, to steady him. The front wheel hit the ground with a thump, and Flip put a foot out to steady himself. Dutch didn’t remove the hands until he was sure Flip had regained his footing.

Flip removed the blindfold and looked pointedly at Dutch’s hand. “Are you perving on me, trying to cop a feel?”

“If I were copping a feel, there would be no question in your mind about it. You’d know for certain.” Dutch smirked up a dimple. “Wasn’t it great, backhopping blindfolded?”

“You know. Actually?” Flip grinned. “It
was
great.”

“So what stunts do you want to try?”

“The tailwhip.”

“Okay. Then can we do the surfer?”

“Let’s do it in this order: The easy endo, the can-can, the bunny hop, the crooked grind, the tailwhip, and let’s end with the surfer. Oh, and for the crooked grind, let’s do mirror images. I’ll do the left rear peg and the right front, and you do the right rear and left front.”

Dutch was grinning hugely. He was in heaven. “Don’t biff it!”

They clearly had some stunting chemistry. They seemed able to anticipate each other’s moves in the graceful wheeled ballet. Flip called out the stunt, and they performed in unison. There was competitiveness, certainly, but somehow they brought out the best in each other. As they realized what was happening, their excitement mounted. “The surfer,” Flip called out the last stunt.

This was hands-down the most ambitious stunt of the morning. As their bicycles glided slowly forward, they both balanced on the frames, facing each other, one foot on the saddle seat and the other on the top tube. Simultaneously, they grinned in triumph.

“Dutch! There you are, you asshole!” Flip heard a feminine voice shout.

Dutch jerked, lost his balance, and fell forward onto the still-balancing Flip. They collapsed in a tangle of spokes and handlebars.

“Oof!” Flip pushed at him. “Get offa me. You weigh a ton. And you totally biffed. I win.”

“Owie. My knee’s all scuffed and scraped. And it wasn’t my fault I biffed. She distracted me.” To Flip’s astonishment, Dutch asked, “You like pussy, Flip?”

As if on cue, a young woman called out again from the other end of the quad. “Dutch! Did you hear me, you asshole?” A sling supported her heavily cast left arm.

“Shit. Here she comes.” Dutch looked glum, and Flip perked up visibly.

As she hurried over, Flip rose and dusted himself off. “Do I like pussy? Well,
duh
.” Of course he did. But, to his intense embarrassment, he’d come close only once, if you didn’t count oral. But that had been back in Ohio. Flip figured that in New Orleans pussy wasn’t kept in a crystal jewel box with a heart-shaped lock and that fathers didn’t dance with their daughters at chastity balls and that girls didn’t sign damn abstinence pledges.

“Well, that’s good,” said Dutch. He righted his bike and slung a leg over to sit on the saddle seat. “Because I have more pussy chasing after me than if I were a piece of fresh-caught pompano.”

Looking at Dutch, Flip could well believe it. Dutch wore a baseball cap with a very small brim, giving him a little-boy look girls would like, Flip bet. Black hair softly curled, and gray eyes. All muscles, taller than him, six five, maybe? Looking like a man-kid who had not yet grown into huge feet and hands. And he exuded virility. Flip noticed for the first time the humongous basket being pushed up and out by the bicycle seat. Girl candy, for sure.

“This one’s called Mimi.” As she neared, Dutch said, “Mimi, meet Flip. He’s here from Ohio and lonely. I want you to be nice to him.”

“Hi, Flip. Welcome to Redemptorist. Watch out for the company you keep, though.” She turned to Dutch. “Still stunting, I see—or should I say
aspiring
to stunt? Some
ass
-piration! You stink at it, and it is
so
last century. Why don’t you just leave stunting to the crowd of fifteen-year-old losers who can’t get a date?”

Flip frowned at this but kept quiet. He studied Mimi intently. Petite, great face, perky tits, and a body that just wouldn’t
quit
.

“Oh, go break your other arm and then have fun wiping your ass.” Dutch glared at her.

She smiled sweetly in return. “Where’s my money?”

“Oh yeah. I forgot,” Dutch lied. He pulled out his wallet and handed over what looked like at least two hundred dollars. Flip was intrigued.

“Thank you.” Mimi tucked the cash into the back pocket of her jeans, which tightly caressed a very fine bottom. “Dutch, a bunch of us are going to the Rock ’n’ Bowl tonight. Great new band. Come on with us.”

“Nah, I can’t. Take Flip.”

“Same old lovable Dutchie, aren’t you, Dutch?”

“That’s my name; don’t wear it out.”

“And you’re welcome to join us, Flip.”

“What happened to your arm?” asked Flip.

“That brute over there got carried away. He doesn’t know his own strength,” Mimi simpered at Dutch.

“In your wet dreams,” Dutch mumbled into his collar.

“But the cast comes off today! I’m celebrating! Rock ’n’ Bowl, eight o’clock! Hope to see you
both
. Bye!” Mimi sauntered off. Looking back, she winked at Flip and, suddenly serious, addressed Dutch. “You haven’t forgotten about—you know—that business matter? Recommending me?”

“Yeah, yeah. I’ll see what I can do,” Dutch blatantly lied. Mimi hesitated, then fixed a narrow-eyed, appraising stare on him before turning away.

When Mimi was out of earshot, Flip said, “Don’t like her much, do you?”

“Nah.”

“She’s really cute. What’s wrong with her?”

“She’s broke,” grunted Dutch.

“
Hah
! Ahahahaha!” Flip almost fell off his bike. “Dutch,” he snickered.

“That’s my name; don’t wear it out.”

Flip looked at a grinning, predatory Dutch as Dutch circled him on his bike. “‘That’s my name; don’t wear it out?’ Jeez, how long have they been keeping you back in the fifth grade, Dutch?”

“Fifth grade! Shit! If only I
could
go back! Remember when the cream first came out? The grody bedspread with embarrassing stains, after it came back from the wash? Bike racing with your buddies? Playing
Battleship
? Yeah, fifth grade. Nothing like it since.”

Obviously a case of arrested development
, thought Flip.

Dutch glanced at his watch. “Well, see you later. Gotta go to the bookstore. Still need to get my Anatomy and Physio texts.”

“Oh, yeah? I’m taking that course too,” said Flip. “Premed?”

“Too true, too true.”

“Don’t tell me you’re also taking The Bible as Literature.”

“That would be a yes. Been saving that baby for a loaded semester. That Bible gig is the easiest course on campus. Sister Immaculata has given the same final exam for at least ten years now.”

“So I heard.”

“For a new guy, you hear a lot.”

“Yeah.”

“Listen, why don’t you come with me to the bookstore and then stop by my house? It’s not too far. Let’s make concrete plans for nailing the flatland BMX stunting title.”

Flip shrugged. “Sure.”

“A
NOTHER
PIECE
of coconut cake, sug?”

“Yes, please.”

“You’ll get fat and deflate the bicycle tires.”

“Oh, stop it, Dutch,” said the woman Dutch had introduced simply as Say-Say. “Look at him so strapping and handsome. You can’t put fat on a racehorse, now can you?” She reached to pinch Flip’s cheek.

Flip was glad to be sitting on a stool at the marble island of the large, immaculate kitchen. It was not so intimidating. The rest of the house had at first awed him into wordlessness. Though Say-Say and Dutch had both called it a “cottage,” it was huge and filled with stuff you could just tell cost the Earth. Everything looked like it was out of some magazine. These people were rolling in money, it was clear.

He munched his coconut cake silently, almost sheepishly. It was delicious, and he was glad to have an excuse not to speak. Suddenly, he felt tongue-tied around Dutch. He swallowed the last bite. Oh, this was ridiculous. So Dutch was rich. So what? Why should he be cowed?

“Where did you and Dutch meet?”

“On campus. I saw him stu—” Dutch kicked him under the counter. “Ow!”

“Studying the class schedules,” Dutch finished.

Say-Say’s eyes narrowed in suspicion. “You’re not stunting again, are you? You’ll kill yourself! I googled it. This boy, only twenty-two! Dead. And do you wear a helm—”

“The cake was great, Say-Say,” Dutch told his mother. “Come see my man cave, Flip.” Dutch yanked his arm.

“Nice to meet you, Say-Say, if I don’t see you lat—” But he didn’t get to finish. Dutch pulled him by the arm up the grandest staircase he’d ever seen and shoved him into his room. Dutch closed and locked the door and leaned back against it.

“She clucks over me constantly. Drives me berserker. Our patio is perfect for stunting, but will she let me? No.”

“You should have told me. I never would have mentioned it.”

“That’s okay. So, this is it.” Dutch swept his arm to indicate the room. “What do you think?”

Flip took in his surroundings incredulously.
That it was decorated by the Parker Brothers for a nine-year-old hosting a board game convention.
But he definitely felt more comfortable here than in the grandiose living quarters. “It’s great.”

“Isn’t it?” Dutch was clearly proud.

“So, about our plans to take the stunting world by storm.”

“Oh, let’s not talk about that. We can just figure it out as we do it.” Dutch moved to what proved to be his closet and started rummaging in it. “I just wanna hang out.” He started tossing items out into the room. A tennis racket, followed by a football, followed by inline roller skates, followed by a catcher’s mitt. “Aha! Eureka!” He emerged with a pogo stick. “I knew I still had it.”