Punkzilla (16 page)

Anyway this man got out of the car. There was nothing particularly special about him. He was tall and needed a shave and maybe he was even a little tan but in a natural way. He was sort of old and young at the same time like maybe as old as the Major but maybe a little younger it was hard to tell. He didn’t have one of those potbellies that older dudes get and his hair was sort of long and gray but in a cool way like it was almost silver. I got the sense that he’d been around like maybe he had one of those ancient souls you sometimes hear about. He wore jeans and a beat-up plain black T-shirt and a pair of Chuck Taylors.

He put the hood up and started checking his oil when I walked over to him. I said “Hey” and he looked at me over his shoulder and said “Hey what?” and I was like “You drivin’ east?” and he said he was heading east and I told him how I was trying to get to Memphis and he said “Memphis huh?” and I nodded and he said “That’s not just east. You gotta go south too.” I said I know and then he asked me if I was in some sort of a jam and I said I wasn’t and he was like “If I take you to Memphis what do I get out of it?” and I told him I had money and then he finally turned completely around and looked at me. He was holding a rag that was stained with motor oil. He was taller than I thought too even taller than you P which is tall.

He said “How am I supposed to know you’re not some sorta serial killer?” I told him I wasn’t and he said “You never know about that type of thing.” I went “I’ve never killed anyone” and then he put the rag down and said “You been drinkin’?” and I said “Maybe” and he said “Sure smells that way” so I told him that I’d had a few and he was like “You’re a little young for that don’t you think?” and I went “Are you like my dad or something?” and he said “Not that I know of. You tryin to tell me I should take a blood test?” and I said “No” and he was like “Well that’s a relief” and then he asked me my age and I told him fifteen even though technically speaking I wasn’t yet and he said “Just what I need. An underage drunk on my hands” and I was like “I’m not a drunk” and he said “What are you then a beverage consultant?” Then he dropped the hood on the LeBaron and said “Memphis is pretty far. I was planning on heading due east” and I told him if he could get me to Interstate 55 that I could get south on my own which was true P because I had figured it all out with that atlas.

Then I offered him a hundred and forty bucks and he said “That’s a lot of money. You could open a taco stand with that kinda cash. You ever think about opening a taco stand?” I said “No” and then he asked me if I liked tacos and I said that sometimes I did and then he sort of sized me up but not in a creepy way and said “You just got that backpack?” and I nodded and then he told me to get in and said “But if you murder me I’m gonna have to kick your ass. Deal?” and I nodded and got in his car.

The inside of the LeBaron smelled like lighter fluid and peppermint. He listened to classic rock and rolled down the window to smoke Pall Malls which I’ve heard are like the most powerful cigarettes ever created and it made me want to smoke so bad it was like there was a cat clawing out the inside of my stomach. He had this brass Zippo lighter that he flicked at a lot but besides the radio and the sound of the LeBaron that was pretty much the only noise for a long time. We hardly talked for a hundred miles P but for some reason I wasn’t tense. I just looked out the window and sort of thought about the past few days and all the weird shit that had happened. I had this sad feeling when I thought about Lewis the she-man and for some reason that made me think about you and how you’re dying and I almost lost my shit but I didn’t because I kept digging the nail of my index finger into the knuckle of my thumb and now I have this total red mark there.

I knew things would be cool when he gave me a cigarette. He offered it without asking. P I know you don’t smoke but I think smokers have superpowers when it comes to other smokers. When he lit me he said “Now don’t go gettin’ lung cancer on account of this.”

After I finished the cigarette I almost asked him for another one but I didn’t want to push my luck. I could tell he was one of those guys who doesn’t like a mooch.

About ten minutes later he said “You smoke like you know what you’re doin’” and I said “I know how to smoke” and he was like “Drinkin’ smokin’. What else you got up your sleeve? You know how to play poker?” I said “No” and he said “You a black belt in karate?” and I was like “I wish” which is true P because if I was a black belt or I had world-class equivalence like Fat Larkin I probably wouldn’t have gotten jumped because my senses would have been mad honed and I would have known those dudes were behind me in the bathroom with that forty of Bud.

We got off the highway near this town called Gothenburg and he asked me if I was hungry and I was pretty starved even though the cigarette definitely helped calm my stomach. There was a Wendy’s just off the exit and as we were pulling into the parking lot he said “So much for watching my cholesterol” and then he asked me my name and I told him and asked him his and he said it was Kent and then he asked if I minded if we hit the drive-through because he said he was on a tight schedule and I said I didn’t mind at all. Man I was acting polite P and I have no idea why. Maybe it was because he was so cool.

I ordered exactly what he did which was a single with cheese and a small Frosty. Kent got a salad too.

After he put our order through he rolled up the window and said “No roughage huh?” and I said “I don’t roll like that” and he was like “You don’t ROLL like that?” Then I told him salad was for old people and he said “Tell that to your colon when you hit about thirty-seven.”

While we were eating this song called “Gimme Shelter” by The Rolling Stones came on the radio. I’ve never been much of a Stones fan P but it sounded really good in the LeBaron. I think Kent had one of those high-end German systems called Blaupunkt that Fat Larkin used to talk about all the time. While we ate Kent sort of sang along to The Stones under his breath. I asked him if he liked The Stones and he said they were the best. He said he liked the Beatles too and then we didn’t speak for a while.

Nebraska was really flat. There were like a hundred miles of fields on both sides. Fields with silos and farmhouses and big red rickety barns that seemed like they were leaning away from bad news. I thought Missouri was boring but Nebraska was like looking at some stupid painting of the land for three hours.

I was about to fall asleep when Kent said “So what’s in Memphis anyway?” I told him you were there and he asked me if you were older or younger than me and I told him how you’re twenty-seven and I told him how Mom and the Major and E were in Cincinnati but how I’d been hanging out in Portland for the past six months. Kent sort of nodded and then he didn’t ask anymore questions. He didn’t give me the third degree about why I was hitchhiking or how come I wasn’t in school.

By the time we got to Iowa Kent and I were getting along pretty well. We stopped for dinner at a Ponderosa outside of Des Moines and that’s when he asked me if I wanted to keep traveling with him. He said “So you sobered up yet?” and I told him I was cool and then he asked me why I drank and if I was bored with life and I said maybe a little and then he said he could turn me in so I asked him if he was a cop anyway and he went “A COP?” and sort of grunted.

After the waitress brought us waters I asked him if he drank alcohol and he said “You’re damn right I do but I’m allowed to” and then he ordered a steak with a baked potato so I did too.

I was totally biting his style P which is something I learned from Branson. If you copied him in any way he would be like “Stop bitin’ my style Zilla. Stop BITIN’!” Once I started wearing one sock pushed down on my left ankle because he was doing it and he stopped me from walking out of our room and made me pull it back up and called me a biting-ass bitch so I’ve tried not to bite anyone’s style since but I sort of couldn’t help it with Kent.

After we ordered Kent pulled out a cell phone and made a call. He had an old ghetto BlackBerry like the kind with the wheel on the side. I think he called some skeezer because the first thing he said was “Hey Angel.” I tried to be polite and not listen. The conversation didn’t last very long and I distracted myself by watching the waitress talk to the cook. She was pretty young maybe like a college student and she had a decent face but she couldn’t stand still for more than three seconds and I thought that that would drive me crazy if she was my girl. I mean I’m nervous enough about shit especially lately and not being on my medication probably doesn’t help. The last thing I need is a skeezer with the heebie-jeebies.

After Kent put his BlackBerry away he asked me if I liked being his travel partner and I told him it was okay and he said “It’s just okay?” so I admitted I liked it and then he asked me if I wanted to continue on with him through the rest of Iowa and Illinois. He even said that if things went well he might be able to get me all the way to Memphis. I told him I would pay him but he said I didn’t have to and then I asked him what he wanted in exchange for it and he said “Just be my partner. Watch my back” and I said okay and then he said “But no drinkin’” and I nodded and then he said “Unless I’m doin’ it” and we both laughed. It was the first time I had smiled in a while and it made my face feel really weird and tired.

The next day he got a shave and a haircut at a barbershop in this town called Grinnell and he offered to pay for a haircut for me too. I was like “You think I need a haircut?” and he said “You LIKE lookin’ like that?” and I went “Lookin’ like what?” I thought he was going to say “Like a girl” but he didn’t instead he said “Like a punk” and then I said “But I am a punk” and I told him how in Portland they called me Punkzilla but he was like “You’re not in Portland anymore” so I got my hair cut really short like sort of a shaggy crew cut and now I’m blond again.

When I was walking back to the LeBaron Kent said “There he is” and I liked when he said that P I have to admit that I liked it a lot.

That night we stayed in a motel in eastern Iowa. I was so tired I fell asleep in the car and woke up while he was carrying me into our room. I looked up at him and he said “Just go to sleep” and I nodded and woke up the next morning in the opposite bed with my clothes on. He had taken my New Balances off and placed them at the foot of the bed.

The best was the shower. I stayed in there for like a half hour. I used the motel soap and shampoo and Kent got me a toothbrush and some toothpaste. He told me to make sure to brush my teeth and that he didn’t want a travel partner with dog breath so I brushed the shit out of my teeth and looked at myself in the mirror at my short blond hair and then I checked to see if I had gotten my first pube but I hadn’t.

That morning we drove across the Mississippi River into Illinois. I had no idea how big that river is P. You could see these boats in the distance. They looked like big floating birthday cakes. Man that area of the country seemed really old-fashioned like maybe they didn’t know about the Internet or like at any moment someone was going to start playing a banjo or something but I have to admit that I liked that feeling P. At least looking out on the Mississippi I did.

As we were going over the bridge Kent said “So what do your parents do besides put up with you?” and I told him how the Major’s a retired Major in the army and how Mom is basically just a mom. He said “Being just a mom can be rough business” and I told him how she’s depressed and how I worry about her and he asked if I talked to her much and I said not lately and he suggested I give her a call and said I could use his cell phone so I took his ghetto BlackBerry and called home and after a few rings Mom answered. She was like “Hello?” but I couldn’t say anything. She said “Hello?” again and I felt like all the blood was leaving my stomach. I swallowed as hard as I could and then hung up and gave Kent his BlackBerry back. He said “No luck?” and I shook my head and then he asked me about the Major like if I got along with him and I said not really and then I told him how I got sent to Buckner and he asked me what I did to deserve that and I told him I basically screwed around too much and he was like “I gather you didn’t care for all the military stuff” and I said I didn’t and he said he didn’t blame me which was cool and then I asked him if he was ever in the military and he told me about how he got drafted for Vietnam but how he went up to Canada to hide and how he spent twelve years up there and then I asked him how old he was and he said “Older than you think” and I said “What are you like sixty-something?” and he said “I’m like for me to know and you to find out how about that?” and then he told me about how when he was my age he lived in Burlington Wisconsin and how his parents moved around a lot and how his dad was a tool-and-dye man and how his family had to go wherever his dad could get work and how he went to the first half of high school in Vermont and the other half in Clearwater Florida and how before he went up to Canada he’d spent a few years on a fishing boat up in Alaska.

Then I asked him if he had any brothers or sisters and he said he had a sister Rita who had died five years ago from a stroke and then I asked him what he did for money and he said he mostly painted houses and drove around the country like he would drive peoples’ cars across the United States but he said the LeBaron was his and that he was on a thinking vacation.

And then I asked him if he was married and he said he was but that she left him for some rich bastard and how the rich bastard left her for some teenager with big blue eyes. His ex-wife’s name was Marty which he said is short for Martina. Then he said they were planning on meeting up later and I was like “Word” and I was really looking forward to meeting her too P because I figured anyone he was involved with must be mad cool.

While the radio station played a rock block of The Clash Kent looked over and asked me how my new haircut was treating me and I told him I liked it. After that most of Illinois was a blur like tons more fields and all these cows sort of standing around like men talking about money or something. The weird thing about cows P is that when it’s about to rain they huddle like they’re playing FOOTBALL or something! I was like “What are they doing?” and Kent said “Makin’ plans. They’ll prolly take over this godforsaken world at some point. The cows and the goats and all the other things we pump the hormones into. I’d trust them more than that fool who’s running things now” and he totally meant President Bush P. See you would have loved this guy!