Facing the Music (7 page)

It was weaker than before.

The battery was getting tired.

Flames leaped under the car.

The guy blew the horn.

He looked sort of dead.

He had this big hole.

It was in his head.

The yellow flames went WHOOSH!

Then the paint started burning.

It was really getting hot.

Nobody would want it now.

The guy's hair was curling.

Fire was coming out everywhere.

The gas tank blew up.

There was this big explosion.

It knocked the kid down.

The car rocked with it.

Two of the tires blew.

The car sat lower then.

The kid said oh shit.

He regretted throwing the brick.

He touched the door handle.

Some of his skin melted.

His fingerprints were instantly gone.

It didn't hurt a bit.

He knew it should have.

It scared him pretty bad.

He could hear music playing.

He rubbed his melted hand.

The guy's hair was gone.

Smoke was thick and black.

It choked him something awful.

He coughed and gagged some.

He ran across the road.

He was needing the telephone.

The emergency number was 911.

He learned it in school.

His class visited the firemen.

They mentioned playing with matches.

They didn't mention throwing bricks.

He ran fast toward home.

But halfway there he stopped.

He didn't have enough time.

He had to go back.

The Mustang had turned black.

The tires were burning off.

Coils of wire fell away.

It wasn't worth much now.

The guy's shirt was burning.

The kid could smell it.

It looked like an Izod.

People were pulled over gawking.

One man came running up.

He was evidently a hero.

A shirt swaddled his hands.

The man grabbed the door.

The hero screamed a little.

The door handle had him.

It wouldn't turn him loose.

The fire rolled around him.

It started curling his hair.

He tried rescuing the driver.

The driver was buckled up.

He was also shoulder-harnessed.

The hero finally got loose.

But he screamed a lot.

His clothes were smoking bad.

He fell and rolled over.

The grass was scorched black.

He was beating himself silly.

His arm had turned black.

The kid watched all this.

The hero flailed the grass.

Somebody needed to get help.

But of course nobody did.

Some people won't get involved.

The car was fully involved.

It wasn't worth twenty bucks.

The motor was probably okay.

The aluminum transmission had melted.

The hero was still screaming.

Suddenly they heard an airhorn.

A big red truck arrived.

Firemen jumped off the truck.

They started hollering Jesus Christ.

One fireman hollered holy shit!

The driver was pretty nervous.

It was his first run.

He didn't set the brake.

The nozzlemen pulled the hose.

They were ready for water.

They were holding it tight.

The driver engaged the pump.

This disengaged the rear wheels.

Nozzlemen were screaming for water.

The hose was pulled away.

The truck was rolling backwards.

The firemen were chasing it.

They were really yelling loud.

It rolled into a ditch.

It was a deep ditch.

It was really a canal.

The canal held deep water.

The truck was pointing up.

The motor had already quit.

They couldn't pump any water.

The hoses wouldn't work now.

The Mustang driver got smaller.

The kid took it in.

He looked for the brick.

It was under the Mustang.

He tried to get it.

He thought about his fingerprints.

But he didn't have any.

So he let it go.

The firemen were screaming loud.

One had sense and radioed.

A crowd of spectators gathered.

A van with newsmen arrived.

There was an anchorman inside.

They started setting up cameras.

The announcer straightened his tie.

The Mustang was solid black.

The fire department came running.

They carried some powdered extinguishers.

They weighed almost twenty pounds.

They started mashing the handles.

White clouds of chemicals rolled.

Fire flashed here and there.

People coughed and almost gagged.

The gas tank kept burning.

They couldn't put it out.

They ran out of powder.

It was only baking soda.

Most people don't know that.

Firemen make money servicing them.

These had steak suppers sometimes.

They played bingo and drank.

Once they had a party.

Some of them got drunk.

Then they had a run.

Their food was barbecued goat.

But the goat burned up.

So did the Mustang driver.

The other truck came then.

A captain of firemen arrived.

He issued orders and radioed.

They stretched lines and attacked.

Only one tire was burning.

Bystanders muttered about their incompetence.

The firemen were pretty embarrassed.

An ambulance pulled up next.

The firemen acted very important.

They bullied the ambulance attendants.

They pried open the door.

One joked about Crispy Critters.

This is a breakfast cereal.

The captain's face turned red.

He began questioning some witnesses.

The kid sidled off unobtrusively.

His Spam was still waiting.

He went to the dog.

The dog was getting stiff.

He picked up one leg.

It stayed up like that.

He looked at the car.

A wrecker was driving up.

He'd never seen a wrecker.

He stuck around to watch.

The anchorman made eyewitness reports.

Several people were interrogated live.

They rushed home to brag.

They were almost real celebrities.

They would phone their neighbors.

They would phone their friends.

Neighbors and friends would watch.

The almost-celebrities would celebrate.

The parties would be gay.

The kid would see them.

He would recognize them all.

It would all be over.

Johnny Carson would come on.

He would be safe forever.

He would request a puppy.

His father would deny him.

He would make different promises.

His daddy would say no.

There were licenses and fees.

Puppies always grew into dogs.

And dogs sometimes chased cars.

And cars sometimes killed dogs.

And bricks sometimes got thrown.

Boys still go to woodsheds.

But fathers must be cautious.

Kids are violent these days.

Especially where pets are concerned.

It was muddy where we parked and I had to be careful not to get on soft ground. That's just a blank space. When I tried to touch her, she slapped my hands away. I heard him slip the safety off. “I don't want you to if you don't want to,” she said. Then we went inside. I don't know why I drove all the way through. She didn't say. And then Julie came in. I figured that would make her happy. She had some kind of a fit all of a sudden. “Lock the doors,” she said. He had the wrench up in one hand and his fingers were greasy and black and trembling. I didn't want to tell her. We got inside and we sat down. The blood had scabbed on my face. “Don't,” she said. I crawled on my hands and knees to the first one just as he picked up the rifle. She wanted popcorn. You see all this stuff on TV now about abortions, and once I saw a doctor holding a fetus in his fingers. She'd left me some sandwich stuff in the refrigerator. I
got dressed and turned off all the lights and locked the door. I don't know how many times he hit me. She didn't want to. She said that everything was a mistake, that she didn't love me. He begged hard for his life. And for no reason then, he just slapped her. When I thought of all that, I started feeling good. He looked like he was half asleep. The first boy pulled her panties down around her knees and she whimpered. They say they don't cook their hamburgers ahead of time, but they do. There was a little road that ran back behind, where all the black people were buried. I'd have to hunt under the seat for my socks. “Don't open it,” she said. I wiped it with my hand and looked at it. But I wasn't really sure. Then he grabbed her legs, panting, and spread them apart. We lost track of time. I could have reached out and grabbed it. I recognized the second boy. He slapped her so hard her face leaped around sideways. Everybody has to have love. And it seemed like it ruined everything. But that car was there again. It happened quickly. What Julie and I were doing was no different. It was an adventure story. I think I said please to him that night. You can't ask things like that. I didn't even know if we could live together. But I knew she'd be on my side anyway. I worried about it for a long time, that I'd get caught. But I knew we had to try. I didn't want to turn his soul loose if he wasn't ready, so I told him to pray. It's a big step. He had a motor jack set up in front of the grill. One of them said that he didn't have any matches. Houses were all around. I had to keep my shirt on in front of my mother so she wouldn't see the scratches on my back. I stopped outside the city limits and got us a beer from the trunk.
She wasn't showing yet. I was trying to get up but I felt like I was drunk. I didn't figure he was ready. “Open that door,” he said. I got up on my knees. I'd been planning on staying overnight with some friends at the spillway, but it started raining hard about ten o'clock and we didn't want to sleep in our cars, so we just went home. When we'd first started doing it, we'd always used rubbers. I'd put off telling Mother. And it was driving him nuts. He jammed the rifle against my head. I wanted to go for pizza. Just his feet were sticking out from under the car. She said he was always buying her coffee and eating his lunch with her. I didn't say too much. We were quiet for a while then. I was wet with mud and it was cold on my legs. None of that mattered. And then she got pregnant. Trying to get her hot. So I just kept my mouth shut. I thought they were going to kill us. I listened. But she didn't even say anything about it. I thought we were going to talk. “Somebody with car trouble, I guess,” I said. I think my mother wanted to ask me why I wasn't going with Julie anymore, but she didn't. We finally got out there, and the woods were dark and wet. She had her hands up in front of her face. I've even seen her in bars. It was so clear when it was happening. It didn't change anything. “I don't want no part of it,” he said. Once we did it right there on the couch with her mother in the next room. I knew I had done the right thing. The first one handed the rifle to the second one and pushed her dress up. I could never go over there without thinking about all those dead people under the stones. Finally it was over. I didn't know if it would work. I put my face between her breasts and closed
my eyes and just laid there. If we weren't doing it we were talking about doing it. I finished my beer and then got back in the car. He wanted to know who it was but I didn't say anything. “Thanks,” she said. I didn't want to marry her. The road was wet so I drove carefully. It's not something you should do without thinking about it. She said he loved to dance. I cranked it and we sat hugging each other until it warmed up. Before she got out of the car, I made her tell me where he lived. She chain-smoked cigarettes and had brown stains on her fingertips. I wondered if maybe she'd had a child born out of wedlock herself. “Don't,” she said. “Please don't.” I thought, If you were married to her, you could do this all the time. Mother had offered to buy some for me, but I told her I wanted to take care of things like that by myself. I didn't want to embarrass her. She was talking about baby showers and baby clothes. I could see the rifle lying there, pointing toward the road. Her mother was strange to me. We started dressing. “Hurry up,” she'd say. “Hurry up and get it in me.” There was something about it on the news. He had his finger on the trigger. His soul was what I thought about, and mine, too. Her mother looked up when I went in, but then she turned away, back to the television. She had mud all over her face and she didn't want me to look at her. There was another boy standing in the rain, watching me. “I love you,” she said. They had her tied when I came to. I had to go home finally. He didn't hear me walk up to the car. The porch light was on when we pulled in and neither of us said anything. I figured she'd probably scream. I wiped my forearm across my eyes. He was probably about
twenty. Maybe it wasn't even my baby. “When you going to tell your mother?” she said. I didn't know what I was going to tell my mother. You could hear that rain drumming on the roof while you were taking your clothes off and then when you were naked together on the backseat, with the doors locked, it was just the best thing you could want. Down behind the fence there were squirrels and deer. They used to live beside her. I didn't know what to do. Give up my whole life for her and the baby? I walked up on the porch and knocked on the door and heard her mother tell me to come in. I got her in my car and the first thing she did was pull my hand up her dress. She wasn't rude, but I could see that she just didn't want to talk. By then I couldn't do anything. He must have brought the whiskey because she never kept liquor in the house. “You bout two seconds away from gettin a bullet through your head,” he said. But I wasn't ready to marry her. Then she squatted down, like she was going to pee on the ground. It was where we always went. She said she didn't want to get married. We held hands. “Ya'll done lost your fuckin minds,” he said. “I want to,” I said. It was cold outside. I parked my car in the woods and walked back down the road quickly, then went over a barbed-wire fence and down through a pasture. I know he was thinking about that night and what he'd done to us. She had her hand on my dick. I looked at Julie. “Don't,” she said. That woman always seemed so hurt. I didn't know what to say. “Hell, she wants it,” he said. We'd rest for ten minutes, kissing, and then we'd start again. I wanted to tell my mother and ask her what I should do. We pulled out finally and headed out of town. This night was a night we were
going to talk. I thought I was going to wreck the car. You can't do without it. I couldn't see anything. We talked some more. She'd take her nails and scrape me so hard I'd almost tell her to stop. The rifle fell into the mud. “What are you waiting on?” she said. I got to be an expert at getting fully dressed sitting down. I was afraid she'd get up and walk in there and see us on the couch, but it didn't stop us. The first boy had her by the arms and he was dragging her toward a tree. “Tell her to open the door,” he said. I'd always thought that having kids was something you should give some thought to. There's nothing blacker than woods at night. You could have her whenever you wanted her. There were a lot of people on the square when I cut through. She unbuckled my belt and unzipped my pants. We ate in the parking lot. We had to hurry because the movie was about to start. And then we said we didn't care what it was as long as it was healthy. When I went to bed, I pulled the covers all the way up over my head and saw it all again, every word and every sound and every raindrop. I didn't want her to have an abortion. I guess it was kind of like when you're little, and you've done something your mother or your father is going to whip you for, but you're hoping that if you beg hard enough they won't. I rolled the window down. He ran off into the woods with a crazy little cry. I got up quickly and went to meet her. “You get out of that car,” the boy with the rifle said. He sounded drunk. I took a drink of it. I like adventure. It surprised me when she said she did. I think she felt guilty about the night we got rained out on our fishing trip. She slid up on the console next to me and we left. The second one turned around and looked at me with his
dick sticking out of his pants. She laid her head back down. I couldn't understand why they were doing what they were doing. She pushed her dress up and pulled my hand in between her legs. I tried to talk to her for a while, but it was never any use. She got to telling me all about her job, and how this man who worked there was always trying to sweet-talk her on break. I had an old pistol that had belonged to my father. She said leave it alone. I had some beer iced down in my car and I asked her if she wanted one. Or three. “Get out,” the one with the rifle said. She did say that Julie would be ready in a few minutes. I sat in the driveway for a long time just looking at the house. The one I hit got up off the ground. People were watching television within sight of us. I was running late when I got home, but she had my clothes ironed and laid out for me. It couldn't have been easy for her. I'd thought he was hurting her because of the way she was moaning. I went inside quietly and washed the blood off my face with a wet towel. They had a nice home there, but he was a long way from the house. I romped on it a little and the back end slid. She said if I wanted to take care of her, take her home. Something cold touched the side of my head. “Please, God,” he said. I asked her what she would do about her clothes. When it was dry we'd take a blanket out of the trunk and spread it on the ground. The first thing she did was go over to the boy and spit on him. I knew we'd have a good time. She always made me lock the doors. I couldn't understand why nobody was coming to help us. “Listen,” I said, “I don't know what you guys want.” I could tell that she was happy. But one night we ran out or I forgot to buy some,
or something. It didn't have a jack under it anywhere. The dates were so faded, and the names, too, that you couldn't read them. She didn't know the third one. Sometimes we'd tear each other's clothes getting them off. She told me on the way home. I knew the leaves were wet and cold and I knew how they felt on her skin. She raised up and looked at me. The tires were spinning in the mud. But then I thought that maybe she was just lonely. “You want to do it up here?” I said. “Or you want to get in the back?” But we were running late. She was on her knees and I could see him lunging at her face. I asked her if we were finished and she said yes. We'd have to find a place to live. I didn't want it growing up with just its mother's name, either. She had enough on her already. She was like me. I could have let him live. There were cars passing on the road and I kept thinking that one would surely pull in. I didn't even know where Julie's daddy was. There was a fifth of Wild Turkey on the kitchen table. I used to hunt there. He put his hands up in front of his face and closed his eyes and said, “Jesus, Jesus, oh please Jesus.” The night I came in from fishing, I went to bed quietly and tried to go to sleep, but I could hear them moving in her bed, and once in a while, her moaning. But she got up that night and put on a robe and told me it was all right. I was afraid it would hurt her too much. I could do it, too. I just wanted her to be happy. The only thing we could think about was getting it into her as quickly as possible. I loved that rain. She said, “If I could dance, I'd marry that man.” I was hungry and wanted to fix myself some breakfast. Some were killed in the Civil War. Blood was in my eyes. You could see
the ruts deep in the mud where the tires had gone before us. That night was no different. I took her blouse and bra off and she got on top of me. I told her that I wanted to take care of her. He was gone the next morning and we didn't talk about it. I said I hoped it was a boy. “You just shut your mouth,” he said. I thought about it. His eyes didn't close. Give me a good old love story anytime. It was one of those space movies. The foot of the fetus was smaller than his thumb. It was just like shooting a dog. I yelled for him as loud as I could. The first boy went around and tried to open the door. I made a decision right there on that backseat, naked, holding her. Julie drew up and leaned against her side of the car. I didn't say anything. My mother would be a grandmother. “You can't hide it forever,” I said. But sometimes when you do things, you have to pay for them. She had on a red dress and white shoes. She had already gone somewhere, on a date, I guess. Almost all of her friends were married and she wasn't used to dating and she probably worried over what I thought about it. I went into her room and I woke her up. I thought about it. I don't know how long we did it that night. It seemed like that broke the ice. There was blood dripping off my face. It made everything seem so nice. “What do you think?” she said. You can't place your order and pull on around and have it ready within thirty seconds without having it cooked ahead of time. She was two months pregnant. So I went out there and got her one. His hands relaxed and one of his feet kicked. They have to. But it was only a matter of time. “We don't want any trouble,” I said. On that backseat with her I felt I had all the happiness I'd ever need. They had her tied on