Punkzilla (6 page)

The first thing he asked me was if they beat me at Buckner. He was like “They beat you at that school?” and I told him that sometimes they did and then he asked if I hit them back and I lied and said yes and looked at my fist like there was a piece of glass in it.

Steve the insomniac doughnut maker drove me all the way to Pittsburg Kansas where I spent the night under this bell tower thing on the campus of Pittsburg State University. I pretty much froze my ass off and woke up face-to-face with a squirrel whose eyes were black and jittery.

That day I managed to eat for free in their cafeteria. What I did was I found this math book in a garbage can and sat down at a table and pretended like I was reading it. A few minutes later this pale girl with little baby teeth sat down across from me and asked me if I was the provost’s son. I had no idea what the provost was but I was like an actor P I really was. I was totally playing it cool. She was wearing this huge orange and red sweatshirt that said “Go Gorillas” on the front. Eventually I told her that yes I was his son and I thought I had her fooled but she smiled all conceited and said “Dr. Yarworth is a she.”

I said “Oh” because I couldn’t say much else. When you get caught lying I’ve learned that Oh is about the safest response. Then she asked me if I was actually reading the math book and she was still smiling at me with her weird little teeth. I said I was and then she said she was impressed because it was an advanced calc book so I flipped a page and made a face like knowledge is boring. Then she asked me my name and I gave her yours.

She said “Like the Rabbit?” and I went “Exactly” and then she started scratching her skinny pale arms.

I asked her her name and she said it was Margaret so I told her Margaret was a pretty name and she said thank you and got all quiet and bashful and started looking down at her lap. She had a lot of peach fuzz on her cheeks and I wondered if her hormones were messed up like maybe she burped a lot or could grow a circus beard. Then she told me how all her friends called her Mags and I tried imagining her friends and they were all pale and skinny and wore sweatshirts with gorillas on them. She told me how she was studying to be a special-ed teacher which made me remember this special-ed cadet at Buckner Floyd Bausheck who had a face like a catfish and always walked around with his mouth open because he was so congested. I told Mags she seemed like she would be a good teacher and she must have liked that because she stopped scratching her arms and offered me the rest of her chili. While I was eating it I could feel her staring at me but not like in a sexual way. It was more like I had survived a car crash.

Then out of nowhere she asked me if I was a premature baby. She said “Were you a premature baby?” and then she told me how premature babies grow up to be near-perfect human specimens. That’s what she said P near-perfect human specimens I shit you not!

She told me I had a lovely face and that I possessed an androgynous beauty and how I must be appealing to both sexes. What a weird thing to say to someone right? I felt like stabbing her with her fork like I got mad homicidal feelings because of her comment. There was this huge clock in the cafeteria and I felt like it was watching me too like it knew my thoughts like it was somehow connected to Buckner and would let them know about any sudden movements I might make.

When I finished her chili I asked her if I could borrow five bucks and I told her I was good for it but she gave it to me and said I didn’t have to pay her back. I think that as a general rule lonely people give other lonely people money a lot.

Later I walked into town which was pretty small and boring with an Ace Hardware and a bowling alley and some fast-food places and a RadioShack. I eventually found Highway 69 where this guy Alan Skymer picked me up. It started raining pretty hard which helped because I looked good and pathetic when he pulled over in his Crown Victoria. Alan Skymer had a brown beard and was dressed like a janitor meaning he wore one of those navy blue uniforms. I asked him if he was in the custodial profession and he shook his head and said he was a meter man. I asked him what that was and he said “I read peoples’ meters.” I said “Like gas meters?” and he was like “Gas electricity water distance time . . .”

I stopped asking questions after that because every time he spoke he smiled this private smile and he would laugh in this weird way like he was casting some ancient spell that was going to give him pleasure later. He had these big yellow teeth that made me feel a little nauseous P. And things did eventually get weird that night when he asked me to put my Buckner gym shorts on. We stopped at a Motel 6 way on the west side of Missouri like near the border in this town called Joplin and when we checked in to the motel the man at the front desk asked Alan Skymer if I was his son and Alan Skymer said “Nephew” and patted me on the head and I played along and called him “Uncle.”

Anyway when we got settled in our room I went to the bathroom and when I came out he had gone into my bag and laid all my stuff out on the end of one of the beds. He said “Are those your gym clothes?” I nodded and then he stared at them for a long time like he wanted to try them on or something. I kept having this feeling that the TV was going to suddenly turn itself on to some blaring talk show with like Oprah or Montel Williams or Jerry Springer. I kept waiting for that to happen but it didn’t.

Then Alan Skymer asked me if he could hold my hand and I said “Like HOLD hold it?” and he said he only wanted to hold it for a few minutes. He had mad bad breath P like beef stew gone bad and KFC coleslaw but I let him do it anyway.

His hand was big and hairy. Up close he had one of those faces that seems young and old at the same time like a shop teacher or some guy who owns a store where you take broken-down kitchen appliances. Maybe his brown beard had something to do with it. He looked at me really intense-like for a minute and then his face turned all red and he closed his eyes and put his head in my lap.

So I can’t believe I’m telling you this P but then Alan Skymer said “Can I get closer?” There was something in his eyes that I trusted. I’m not sure what it was because like I said before he had been laughing in that weird way and he had those big yellow teeth but I nodded anyways. He had those sad pleading eyes that clowns sometimes have. Clowns and Saint Bernards.

I had never gotten a blow job before P but I just closed my eyes and tried to imagine Cornelia Zenkich from back home like her walking around naked on our lawn and then leaning back against our maple tree and that really helped a lot. When I came he said “Isn’t there anything?” and I said no that I didn’t come like that yet and he seemed a little disappointed.

When it was over Alan Skymer kept telling me how beautiful I was and he asked if he could do it again but I said no and he was very polite and good-natured and then I told him I was going to go sleep in the car because I was feeling mad disgusted and I kept looking at myself in the motel room mirror and sort of hating what I was seeing like my eyes and my mouth and the way my nose sort of turns up a little at the end like a fucking rabbit and he said “Okay okay” and then I put the things back into my gym bag and went out to the Crown Victoria and tried to lie in the backseat and not think about what had happened. There were cars parking and leaving and people talking and headlights panning across the windshield and it made me feel really lonely and unsure of things.

About an hour later he came out to the car and watched me through the rear windshield. I rolled the window down and he said “I just wanted to say good night.” He was wearing wire-rim glasses now. He went from looking like a shop teacher to looking like some nerdy freak librarian. I said “Okay” and then he said “Good night Neph” and went back into the motel room and turned the light off.

“Neph” made me really anxious and I started clawing at myself like at my chest and neck and I was clawing so hard I thought I was going to make myself bleed. I eventually stopped when the red streaks started showing up on my face. I could see them in the rearview mirror. I looked like I had run through the forest and gotten scraped by a bunch of low-hanging tree branches.

I couldn’t sleep but I didn’t get out of the car because I thought if I did I would try and murder him. I was going to use my alarm clock but I wasn’t confident that I could hit him hard enough because Alan Skymer had a pretty big head. But the next thing I knew I had my alarm clock in my HAND like I was squeezing it really hard and I was out of the car and there was the smell of diesel fuel and the sound of cars driving on the highway and then I tried to open the door to his room but it was locked and so I was going to try sneaking in through the window but then the door opened and he was standing there in a pair of pajama bottoms that had yellow smiley faces all over them and he wasn’t wearing a shirt and his chest was weird and flabby and hairless and he said “What’s wrong?”

I didn’t know what to say and I was totally fucking busted and I looked at my hand which was holding the alarm clock and I said “I thought maybe you’d need this to wake up tomorrow” and he said “They got one next to the bed” and I said “Cool” and he said “Thanks for thinking of me though” and I said “Sure” and then I turned and walked back to the car and sat in the backseat and started squeezing the alarm clock so hard in both hands I thought I was going to break it.

We didn’t talk much the next day. Being in the car was like being trapped in a museum or something. He wouldn’t even put the radio on. I didn’t stay in a motel room with him that night even though he offered. It was a nicer one too with a pool and a Jacuzzi.

P I never found out much about Alan Skymer like what he meant by calling himself a meter man or why he wore the same blue janitor’s uniform the next day. I did see him put this gold ring on though so I’m pretty sure he was married. What’s weird is that I can’t remember what kind of license plate he had and I never forget those details. It was a strange experience like strange in a scientific way but I’m glad he drove me all the way to the western edge of Kansas to this little town called Goodland. He let me out in front of a movie theater where one of the Shrek movies was playing. He said good-bye and gave me forty bucks and I used six of it to see the movie and another four for popcorn and Coke. There were all these families lining up to see the movie. Lots of little kids with Kansas Jayhawks T-shirts and baseball hats. For some reason I felt really bad for all of them. I wanted to yell at them to run away while there was still hope to like get the fuck away from their parents and board a ship to some deserted island or some place where they could create their own society with their own rules but I didn’t even open my mouth. I don’t remember anything about the movie because as soon as it started I fell dead asleep.

That night after the movie theater cleared out I met Carson Block who’s that logger from Vancouver I was telling you about before. He was standing outside the theater next to a black SUV with Canadian plates. Some terrible country song was blasting out of the driver’s side window and I was like Oh shit no not country music but I couldn’t be choosy right? Carson was obese like maybe three-hundred-some pounds and he had a big meaty face and one of those extra chins and he also had a little red mustache and wore cowboy boots. After he took his shoe off and shook something out of it, he turned to leave and I asked him point-blank if I could get a ride with him. He turned and saw me and said “A ride where?” and I went “As far as I can get.” Then he like sized me up a little and asked me if I was in some sort of trouble but I said no and that I missed my ride and then he asked me what direction I was heading and I said north. I have no idea why I said north P it just came out. Maybe it’s because of Santa Claus and the North Pole or the North Star or some ridiculous shit like that.

He said he was definitely going north and asked me where my parents were. And I said “That’s who I’m trying to get to. My parents.” Then he asked me where that was and I said Oregon and I have no idea why I said that because I had never even THOUGHT about Oregon before. He said “Portland?” and I said “Yeah Portland.”

The he pointed at his SUV and told me to get in.

The inside was huge and all leather and smelled like a candy apple. I was still pretty clean-cut with my Buckner hair so I’m sure he thought I was a decent enough kid and not like no punk or nothing. He didn’t talk a lot but he liked to use this toothpick to stab at his gums. We listened to just about every famous country song there is. I liked the stuff by Johnny Cash the best. Carson never sang along to anything or turned up the music. I think he had some serious ice water in his veins. His stillness made me want to smoke like crazy but I didn’t dare ask him for a cigarette because not only did he seem like the last person in the world who might smoke but he also probably had some DVD about lung cancer stashed in the glove compartment.

We drove all night and most of the next day. We wound up staying at a Best Western just outside of Salt Lake City.

Like I said he was really fat but not in a gross way meaning that he showered and wore deodorant and shaved and changed his socks and underwear but man did he have a lot of loose flesh like it really flopped around in waves. In addition to being clean with his hygiene he was also really detailed about folding his clothes and keeping his suitcase neat.

Nothing bad happened with Carson Block even though I kept expecting it to especially after the dick-sucking saga that went down with Alan Skymer. Saga’s the correct word right P? I’m almost positive it is.

The only thing that was a little weird was that I think Carson Block was tempted to turn me in because I overheard him talking on his cell phone in the bathroom. He was telling someone how he picked this kid up who he was planning on dropping off in Portland and he was asking whoever it was on the other end if he should “make a call” meaning to the cops I’m almost positive. Then he just said “Uh-huh” a few times and flushed the toilet.

When he came out of the bathroom I was sitting in a chair by the window. He hiked his pants up around his waist and closed the bathroom door and just stood there. I asked him if he was going to call the cops and he said he thought maybe he should but that he wasn’t going to and then he said he was going to go to Burger King and asked me if I wanted anything. I said I’d eat a Whopper but I said I was broke which wasn’t completely true but he said he would get me one and then he left and came back a little while later with my burger and an orange Fanta. He ate a Double Whopper with cheese in the bed and I ate my regular burger at the little table by the window in about four bites and all you could hear was us swallowing and breathing.