Thrash (10 page)

11

“Nora, your ride is here.”

Brody lived on the same floor as me. He’d been outside tending to the vegetable garden when Thrash arrived. And he liked to snoop.

I grabbed my coat and rushed down the stairs. I was listening to the final message on my phone as I leapt out the door.

“Nora, it’s your mother. Again. I know this is your new number, call me. We have things to discuss.”

I rolled my eyes and deleted the voicemail. This was the third call in two days.

My mother was starting to get on my nerves. I wasn’t sure how she got my new number. I was using a pre-paid phone. She should not have been able to find me, but my parents had resources and connections.

One of my friends from back home probably leaked the number. I had only shared it with two, though, and they didn’t seem likely to give in to my mother. Perhaps she had found someone at the Initiative to give her the number?

Well, it was too late now.

I didn’t have the money to go and get another phone, so maybe if I ignored her long enough she’d go away. It wasn’t likely, but I was hoping.

“Hey, baby girl, you ready to get going?” Thrash smiled at me as he looked me up and down.

I was wearing tight black jeans and a light blouse. The blouse looked very nice. It was gauzy and draped well over a tank. There was a faint floral print on it, not too busy, but pretty. It went surprisingly well with my leather jacket. Soft and solid at once. I had picked up both a few months back on clearance. With my old heeled boots, the outfit was the perfect thing for a date on the back of a motorcycle.

“No dress?” Thrash exclaimed, looking mock horrified even as he eyed the low cut of my tank through the blouse. “Makes me sad not to be able to see those legs the way god intended. You’ll be safer, though.” He grinned back at me as I climbed up behind him. “You still look stunning.”

I blushed, glad that I could hide my face in his shoulder. I had been told that I was beautiful at almost every art gallery, but I had learned a long time ago that pretty words were as valuable as vomit. What mattered was whether the person uttering them meant what he said.

Thrash meant it: he thought I was beautiful, and not just for my clothes or my body. It was in the way, he drew my arms under his; in the way he reached back to gently tug a stray wisp of my hair.

“Helmet,” he said absently, handing it back to me. The bulb of plastic was apparently a given. Which made me feel better. If we ended on our side at some point during the ride, I might get seriously torn up, but my head wouldn’t pop like a watermelon on the pavement.

There was a bright thought.

I shook it away, and took a deep breath. “So, where are we headed?” I asked as I propped the helmet between my chest and his back.

“What are you doing?” he chuckled, glancing over his shoulder.

“Hair!” I muttered around a scrunchie. I pulled my hair back into a quick ponytail before sliding the helmet on. ”Ugh, I don’t want helmet head.”

Maybe I shouldn’t have said it, but my bluntness made him laugh outright.

“You’re too cute.”

I beamed at him within the echoey plastic. “Where are we headed?” I asked again.

He looked over his shoulder again so I would be able to hear him.

“I know the perfect little place, just down the road.”

He didn’t have to tell me. The rush of the wind as we rode, the way it wrapped around me… That was what I really wanted. I was aching for the feel of riding with him.

As he revved the engine and began to pull us out of the lot, I smiled, excited and happy. This was good. This felt… right. We were having a good time, and I felt pretty and comfortable.

I wasn’t a shake-it, tease-it-up-and-flaunt-it girl. They were very pretty and I had a grudging respect for their courage, but I would be very foolish to try to be like that. I was me. What was more, I liked me. I didn’t want to put anyone else down for being themselves, but I needed someone who wanted me for who I was.

With Thrash, I could be myself and he still liked me. It was such a nice feeling. But then, I was pretty sure Thrash didn’t have much time for games, not when it came to what mattered. This was the guy who had jumped off the roof out of loyalty to a friend. He hadn’t sworn that kind of devotion to me, but he didn’t seem like he’d be wasting his time with me either.

I didn’t want to play games either. I had grown up in a world full of unspoken rules. The mind-games and the labyrinth of who and why had always left me a ball of anxiety. When I had told my mother about the knots of panic in my back after every social, she had just sent me to a masseuse. The way she had said it left no doubt that she thought I was being overly dramatic. In the end, she had threatened to send me to a psychiatrist.

That would have been all well and good, but ever since I had left home, I hadn’t felt like that. I had felt happy and healthy, and even in the midst of the stresses of a tight budget and not understanding what the rest of the world seemed to already know, I had never felt so terrified and helpless as I had in the elegantly decorated homes of my parent’s class.

I wasn’t normal. I hadn’t been able to adjust, to just enjoy it, or go with it, or do what I was supposed to do.

So I had left. I didn’t hate them. I just left. And I wanted to be left alone.

My mother was not leaving me alone. I hoped her intentions were good, but honestly, I didn’t have a lot to go on there. We had become so estranged over the years, I couldn’t imagine us having a stable or fair conversation.

It would be, “Do this because I say so,” and “Why can’t you just accept who you are?” As though money made me who I was. Money had shaped me, but I was myself. Sometimes I wondered who I might have been had I been born around people like Thrash or the lady at the coffee shop. Would I be happier? Discontent? Worn out?

One thing I didn’t doubt: I would want to paint, and I would enjoy being on the back of Thrash’s motorcycle. Would I have met him if I had been raised another way?

There was no way to know… All I could do was accept who I was, and be glad of where I was now.

Thrash headed east, driving past an old steel mill. It still seemed to be working, spewing out sulfuric fumes from its hefty smokestacks onto the surrounding area.

This was such a beautiful and terribly sad place. Even I could see the signs of industry, but they were tattered and worn out. What was left behind was poverty and scattered debris. Broken glass and cracked, dirty bricks.

In spite of all of these things, Braddock still had its own poignancy. I preferred places like this. They called to me, begged me to capture their weary pride and broken beauty.

As if he understood what I needed to see, Thrash drove down along the Mon River and across the train tracks. We went past the mill, and the urban landscape gradually died out , opening into the dull texture of fields and overlapping trees. My fingers itched, longing for a brush and thick acrylics. Before I knew it, we were heading back into the urban again, lights and street lines flashing by. It was all so quick.

My nose was beginning to ache a little from wind, but I didn’t mind. Being on the back of a motorcycle is one of the most freeing things I’ve ever experienced. In spite of the rumbling engine and rough road, my arms felt comfortable around Thrash’s chest. The blood pulsed through my legs and shoulders, easing the lingering aches that came with sitting over a canvas for too long.

I didn’t want the ride to end. I didn’t want to let go.

Thrash drove until we entered into another town. We took a left, rumbling past a series of retail shops and on til we hit the historic section. Here in this place, old buildings had lived a thousand lives. The current reincarnation was a hodgepodge of brick throwback and artsy-fartsy.

Thrash parked the bike along the street and hopped off, throwing quarters into the meter.

“Where are we?” I asked, deeply curious. Every area had a place like this, but this one was close enough I might even be able to get to it by bus. Maybe. We had driven maybe a half hour out. I definitely wanted to try to get back here, anyhow.

“Greensburg,” he replied. “There is a little place I know around here that I think you might like.” He smiled at me, so open and different. He didn’t seem to know how to be like this at the clubhouse, but it made our dates together special. “This way,” he said, leading me down the street. We took a pass through an alley to reach a little gallery.

“This is nice,” I said, looking it over. It was quaint, a gem in my eyes. I could imagine my artwork here, and maybe that was the point. I looked over at him quietly, my lips pursed slightly in thought.

“It’s a coffee house, too,” he said, eager as the child he might once have been. He grabbed my hand and pulled me through the doors. He was a big guy, his cut on, his muscular stature blowing through the hallway. The kind of guy I never ever expected to take me to a place like this. Never mind that I had met him in a far snootier gallery than this. He had been dressed differently. He had been the chameleon in the crowd. Tonight he was a proud biker with his artistic date.

This definitely wasn’t a bar or a biker den. An acoustic guitar played in the background.

He beamed down at me, out of place and utterly at home. “Tonight it’s open mic.”

DeMarcus was full of surprises.

* * *

By the end of the night, I was glowing with excitement.

“Thank you so much!” I gasped, looking up at him. “I really did have a good time.”

It had been wonderful. I couldn’t believe Thrash knew so many people. The gallery was called Ohiopyle Art Collective, and it had specialized in unique takes on traditional forms of art. The styles had been older, like my own, but the artists had been current, looking at the world in their own unique way using techniques that were weathered and true.

There had even been some modernism and abstract in there, but it had called to me. These artists spoke to the soul, not the pocketbook.

I had loved walking through the steady stream of work. Care had been put into the displays, ensuring that each piece had the space to shine, that it was complimented by its neighbors and that the artist’s name was tastefully displayed, not too prominent, but clearly visible if a viewer was interested.

DeMarcus had asked me what I thought and we had enjoyed talking about each piece. We didn’t always agree, but those times had been just as fun. I had gotten to learn more about him, and more about myself.

I realized that I had grown in the past year. A lot. I had never done well when people asked me my opinions on art. Tonight… Tonight I had not only known what I thought, I had shared it with someone else – a date no less.

“The night isn’t over yet,” he told me. His eyes twinkled, as if the skip in my step was funny. I tried to calm down, but it wasn’t happening. Instead I just smiled up at him happily.

“Where are we going?” I asked, skipping ahead a bit. It was silly, but I didn’t care. This was a night to be a little silly. I was out with DeMarcus, and DeMarcus was wonderful.

He grinned. “I thought we could go for a little ride, see where the road leads us.” He walked me over to his bike and slid on. I crawled over the back, slipped my helmet on, and took a deep breath.

Each time I got on that bike, I shook myself free from another set of chains. There were chains inside me that were bolted to my family, while others were connected to various bits and pieces of my old life.

I wrapped my arms around this man’s chest. His body against mine, the swell of my breasts against the curve of his back, stole my breath.

He chuckled as he slid his helmet on. “I know I said hold on tight, but make sure that you give me enough space so I can breathe.”

“Sorry,” I squeaked, but I only loosened my grip a little. It was a good thing, too.

This time, when he took off, I felt the difference. He wasn’t driving to suit me. This time, he was driving to show me what he and this bike could do.

I clung to him, trying to breath in the sudden rush. I didn’t want to get off, though. In fact, I was surprised how quickly my body adjusted. The ride was trance inducing.

We sped down side roads, the twists and curves of them soothing me, only making me want to go faster, harder. Especially around the turns. I liked the feel of it, the pull of gravity and the thrill of danger.

He drove until we reached a wide river. We drove across the bridge that crossed it and on to a little town center, the kind that was manufactured in order to sell kayak rentals and white water rafting tours.

Where were we going?

I thought we would go on. Instead, he pulled the bike into a parking lot and took off his helmet. Okay then…

“What is this place?” I asked.

It was dark out, but the moon and stars were so bright outside of the city.

I pulled off my helmet and looked up into the night sky in awe. It was more beautiful than any of the paintings in that coffee house, or any of my own.

“It’s gorgeous,” I breathed.

When he said nothing, I turned to look at him. He wasn’t staring at the sky. He was staring at me. I smiled at him.