How To Steal a Car (3 page)

Gasoline is more flammable than I’d thought. There was a huge
whoosh!
and I jumped back, but not quick enough. I ended up losing all the hairs on my right arm, my right eyebrow, and some off my bangs too. Fortunately, my clothes didn’t catch on fire. My mom freaked, of course, and so did my dad when he got home. You’d have thought it was the worst thing anybody had ever done in the history of people doing bad things. But I didn’t feel all that bad about it until my dad said, “Did you burn the necklace too?”

Actually, it was the one thing I kept. But I didn’t tell him that.

I was grounded for a week and they made me see a therapist. After a couple hours of taking tests and talking and crying, the therapist told my parents I was a normal kid who sometimes had difficulty expressing her feelings. She also told them not to give me any more dolphin stuff.

I mention this because it sort of relates to what later happened with Alton Wright’s Hummer. Because people just love to know things about you, as in
Kelleigh Monahan has a dolphin fetish
or
Stuey Kvasnick has only one testicle
or
Kathy
Forest will do it with any guy who smiles at her.
Anything that makes you predictable and classifiable, like it gives them a mental file drawer to put you in and forever after that’s where they keep you. It only takes one thing for them to create that file.

Even your closest friends.

Will called me up a week after the first car thing and said, “Hey.”

“Hey,” I said back.

“Doing anything Saturday?”

“Why?”

“I need a favor.”

The Hummer dealership was only four blocks from the car wash. The guy at the service counter took the key without looking at me. He asked me my name. I told him it was Cordelia Fink. He set the key on the counter, typed something into his computer, and frowned.

“Did you purchase the vehicle here?”

“It’s my boyfriend’s. Alton Wright?”

The service guy stared at me for a couple seconds. What he saw was a girl wearing a Minnesota Twins baseball cap (my dad’s) that covered up all her arguably silky black hair.
She was also wearing an oversize pair of Gucci sunglasses (my mom’s), a baby blue tunic top (also my mom’s), and lipstick (which I never wear). I was
incognito.

The guy typed in Alton’s name. He scrolled around a bit, then said, “I’ve got a
Dennis
Wright.”

“That’s Alton’s dad. The car’s probably in his name.”

“You know you could have just called this in,” he said. “We could have made a new key from the VIN number. Had it ready for you.”

“Next time I throw my boyfriend’s spare keys in the lake, I’ll be sure to do that.”

The service guy laughed. “Alton Wright. I remember that kid now,” he said. “I don’t blame you.” He picked up the key. “I’ll have Johnny cut you a new one. Take about twenty minutes. He’s a little backed up this morning. Make yourself comfortable.” He pointed me toward the customer lounge.

I texted Will.

getting key. 20 min.

A few seconds later Will texted me back.

hurry!

When I got to Ducky’s, Alton Wright was in the lobby, yelling at the manager. I stopped outside the open door to listen.

“Sir, I’m sure your vehicle will be ready any moment now—”

“Since when does it take an hour for a Speedy Detail?” He pointed at the sign behind the counter. “‘In and out in thirty minutes!’ That’s what the sign says. ‘Speedy Detail—Fastest Auto Detail in the Metro.’ That’s false advertising!”

“If you’ll just wait here, sir, I’ll go back and find out what’s taking them so long—”

“Damn right you will.” He looked at his watch. “See if I ever come back here!”

The manager disappeared, and so did I. I didn’t think Alton Wright would recognize me—he probably didn’t even know who I was in the first place—but why take chances? I ran around the building to the back entrance of the detailing shop. Will was waiting hard.

“What
took
you?” he said, not very nicely. He grabbed Alton’s keys from me and ran back into the shop, yelling, “I found them!”

“You’re welcome,” I said to the air.

Later that same day I called Jen to vent.

“Your boyfriend was rude to me,” I said.

“Your
boyfriend’s rude all the time. Maybe we should order a new one.”

“From Boyfriends ‘R’ Us?”

“Or eBay. What did he do?”

I told her about the key thing.

“Why did he want a copy of Alton’s key?”

“Don’t you remember? He wants to put a dead rat in Alton’s Hummer.”

“Oh.” Even over the phone I could tell she was making a face. “That doesn’t sound like something Will would really do.”

“Remember last May? Will was walking by the curb and there was this puddle and Alton came driving by and, like, soaked him on purpose. Will was pissed for days.”

“Sounds like he’s
still
pissed. You think he’ll really do it?”

“No. But just knowing he can if he wants to is probably enough. Anyway, I still have the copy of the key.”

Which is why I wasn’t completely surprised when Will texted me a couple of hours later.

I walked over to Charlie Bean’s and found Will at the back table, sipping on an iced coffee. I tossed the duplicate Hummer key on the table in front of him.

“Cool,” he said.

“You owe me twenty bucks and a Phrap-o-chino.” That was Charlie Bean’s quadruple-shot blended espresso drink, the best legal alternative to mainlining crystal meth.

“Cool. Only I’ll have to owe you. I’m tapped.”

Tapped
is normal for Will Ford. He spends all his money on music and games. I bought myself a Phrap-o-chino.
When I got back to the table Will was still staring down at the key.

“Did you find a dead rat yet?” I asked.

“Why would I want a dead rat?”

“I thought you were going to put a dead rat in his car.”

“Where would I get a dead rat?”

I shrugged. I was not about to advise him on dead rat procurement.

Will took the straw out of his iced coffee and twisted it into some weird shape—a rattrap, maybe. It took him about a minute of intense twisting and folding, and when he was done, he straightened it, blew through it to puff it out, and put it back in his drink.

“No rat. I need you to help me steal his Hummer.”

See what I mean? You steal one car and all of a sudden all your friends decide that’s what you are.

“Look,” I said, “just because I stole one car—and I didn’t really
steal
it; it’s more like I
borrowed
it—that doesn’t mean I’m your designated car thief. I got the key for you. Steal it yourself.”

“I don’t know how to drive,” he said.

“I don’t see how that’s my fault. You’re the one who didn’t take the test.”

“My parents think you have to be twenty-five to drive,” said Will, all pitiful and hangdog, a look he does particularly well.

“I don’t get why you’re so pissed at Alton,” I said. “I mean,
I know he’s a stuck-up jerk, and it was shitty of him to tsunami you, but isn’t stealing his Hummer kind of extreme?”

“Why did you think I wanted the key?”

“For the dead
rat!”

“He’s been telling everybody I’m gay.”

“Really?” I wanted to ask,
Are you?
But I didn’t.

“He told all the guys at Ducky’s I’m gay.”

“Oh.”

“I’m not.”

“I wouldn’t care if you were,” I said.

“The guys, they don’t really think I’m gay, but they’re having fun giving me shit about it. It’s a pain, y’know?”

I could see where that would be a pain.

“That’s not all,” he said. “You remember when Alton asked Jen out last May?”

“Sure. She said no.”

“Well, he’s also telling everybody that you and Jen are lesbos. And that I’m like your
beard.”

“I think a beard is a
girl
who dates a gay
guy.”

“Whatever. I just thought it would be fun to borrow his Hummer.”

I sucked down the last of my drink. I had to admit, the idea of boosting Alton’s Hummer was sounding a little less crazy.

Just for the record, Jen and I are not lesbians.

Roast chicken, wild rice, steamed kale,
and a salad. I got away with not eating any kale. The rest of it was pretty good though. My mom can cook.

“You don’t have much to say tonight,” she said to me.

“I’m thinking about the white whale,” I said. “I know it’s a metaphor but I don’t know what for.”

“How far are you in the book?” my dad asked.

“Chapter four. The entire chapter is about a
bedspread.”

He laughed.

“I’m not kidding. And I have a hundred and thirty-one chapters to go.”

He laughed harder.

“Did
you
read it?” I asked.

He helped himself to more chicken. “I read the CliffsNotes version.”

“Michael!” said my mother.

“
And
I saw the movie,” he said with a grin.

“I’m sure you’ll get through it,” my mother said to me, giving my dad her we-must-set-an-example look.

“Metaphors in famous old books are always about politics,” my dad said. “Or sex. I’m sure it will all make sense by the time they get to the harpooning.”

“Did you know that everybody thinks we’re lesbians?”

“Who?” Jen asked. “Everybody who?” We were talking
on the phone so I couldn’t see her, but I could tell from the nasal sound in her voice that she was lying on her back with her head hanging over the edge of the mattress.

“Everybody. Alton Wright’s revenge for you not going out with him.”

“I couldn’t go out with him because my parents have this ridiculous ‘no car dates’ rule!”

“You’re supposed to say it was because you are devoted to Will, our one true love.”

“Oh yeah. That too.”

“Will wants me to steal Alton’s car.”

“Really? And do what with it?”

“He has an idea.”

I put on my black-on-black auto theft outfit and sneaked out about an hour after midnight. Will was waiting behind the garage.

“Hey,” he said, looking me over. “Cool.”

“Let’s go.” We started walking. “Where does he live?” I asked.

“Over by General Mills.”

I stopped. “That’s like four miles from here!”

“So?”

“You could have told me.”

“Sorry.”

By the time we got to Alton Wright’s house it was two in the morning. The Hummer was parked at the curb, under a streetlamp. All the lights in the house were off. We stood in the shadow of a crabapple tree and looked around to make sure there were no late-night dog walkers or other signs of life. All we saw was a raccoon running across the street. My heart was starting up its mosh pit again. I grabbed Will’s hand. It was cold and sweaty.

“If we get caught, this was your idea,” I said.

“Okay.”

“I can’t believe you talked me into this.”

“Me neither.”

There is no real difference between scared and excited. Think roller coaster. Think first kiss. Think stealing a car.

I don’t know what triggered it, but after we stood there saying nothing for about two minutes, I felt my body start to move. A couple of seconds later I was unlocking the car door. I jumped in and stared at a completely unfamiliar set of controls. It took me almost a minute to figure out where the key went. Finally I shoved it in and turned it and felt the engine rumble. Will was banging on the passenger window. I fumbled with the buttons until his door clicked open. He jumped in and we took off.

“Shit, shit, shit,” he said. I looked over and he was grinning all across his face.

I knew exactly what he was feeling.

The Pit was a sinkhole in a vacant tract of land just on the other side of the freeway. A few months later it would get turned into a landscaped pond in the middle of a new commercial development, but back then it was a deep hole about a hundred feet across and filled with water. Local legend had it that the hole was five hundred feet deep and there were old cars and dinosaur bones and whatever down at the bottom. It used to be a popular swimming hole, but after years of crazy parties, the number of broken beer bottles reached critical mass and then somebody threw a dead raccoon in there and it floated there for days. Even after it sank, this dead-animal smell sort of hovered over the pond, and after that nobody swam there.

There were a bunch of trees and bushes around most of the pond, but there was one place you could drive right up to the edge. I pulled the Hummer up as close as I dared and stopped. The headlights skimmed the top of the pond; I could see various unidentified things floating there. They looked to me like dead bodies even though I knew they were just plastic bottles and bags and branches and stuff. I turned the lights off and we got out. The muddy, slippery bank below us sloped steeply down to the water ten feet below. A rotten, fishy odor hung in the still air.

“Now what?” I asked.

“Now we test the underwater performance of the Hummer H2,” Will said. His voice came out high-pitched.

“I am
not
driving into the water,” I said.

“Put it in neutral. We’ll push it in.”

I don’t know how much a Hummer weighs, but there was no way. It was like trying to move a tank.

“Pull it forward,” Will said. “Just a little. So the front wheels are over the edge.”

It took him a few minutes to talk me into getting back in the car and trying it. I kept one foot on the brake and sort of jerked the Hummer forward a few inches at a time.

“A little farther,” Will said. He was standing outside, looking at the front wheels.

The nose of the Hummer was pointing slightly down. I eased up on the brake for just a second and felt the SUV move another couple inches.

“Just a little more,” Will said.

Again, I eased up on the brake and felt the front tires go all the way over the edge. I jammed my foot down hard on the brake, but this time the vehicle kept on going, sliding over the lip of the bank, moving slowly but unstoppably down toward the water. I froze with my foot on the brake and my hands locked on the steering wheel. I think I was screaming.

“Stop!” Will shouted. Like I wasn’t trying.

The Hummer slewed sideways on the muddy bank and began to tilt to the right. I
know
I was screaming at that
point. There was an awful splashy crunch as it tipped onto its side. I fell across the seats and whacked my head against the passenger window as the Hummer slid nose first, on its side, into the water. I flailed around in the dark, trying to figure out which way was up. For some reason my brain wouldn’t accept that the driver’s side of the SUV was now above me. I could hear Will shouting, but it sounded like he was a mile away, and then water started pouring in through the open window, which actually helped me get my bearings. I twisted around and got my feet on the passenger door and stood up and grabbed the edges of the driver’s-side window and pulled myself up. I was half out when Will grabbed me and pulled me all the way and we both fell with a shout into the water, and again I was disoriented, not knowing which way was which, but somehow I got my head back above the water and managed to splash my way to shore, and so did Will, and then we were on the slippery muddy bank spitting and gasping and making retching noises, or at least I was, and Will was going, “Shit, shit, shit!” and then I was sobbing and pummeling him on the shoulder with my fists and all we could see of the Hummer was the left rear taillight sticking up above the scummy brown surface.

That was the closest I ever came to getting killed.

Will walked me all the way home. It was a long, drippy,
squishy walk. For the first part of it we didn’t say much, just listened to the
squoosh, squoosh, squoosh
of our wet shoes. Then Will said, “Your squooshing is louder than mine.”

“That’s because I got wetter,” I said.

“I think we both got as wet as is humanly possible.”

“Yeah, but I was wetter for longer.” I noticed that Will was walking funny, like he was bowlegged. “How come you’re walking weird?”

“I’m having crotch problems.”

“Explain.”

He stopped and tugged at the wet legs of his jeans. “It’s like they’re climbing up my legs.”

I started laughing, then Will was laughing too, and then he was walking with his legs really far apart, swinging them all stiff and holding his arms out in front like a zombie, and we both started laughing even harder.

That lasted about a block.

What was strange was that the whole way home we never talked about what we had done. I kept seeing the image of that one taillight sticking up out of the water, and imagining myself stuck inside the Hummer, all drowned and bloated like the dead raccoon.

It was four-thirty when I sneaked back in. I threw my stinky, sodden clothes in the washer, took a long shower, and went to bed.

“Are you on drugs?” my mother asked me the next morning.

I pulled my bedspread off my face and glared at her.

“I’m just tired.”

“It’s eleven o’clock. I’ve already been to my Rotary club meeting, gone grocery shopping, and gotten a haircut.”

“Your hair looks nice,” I said.

“Thank you.” She gave me the Look. “I heard you taking a shower in the middle of the night.”

“I couldn’t sleep.”

She gave me some more of the Look, then said, “Well, it’s time to get up.” She walked off to perform her next highly productive task, leaving my door standing wide open which she knew I hated. I checked my clock just to make sure she wasn’t lying. She
was
lying: It was only 10:53. Which meant I’d had about five hours of sleep. I sniffed. I sniffed again. Something smelled fishy. I sat up and sniffed my arm.

It was
me.
Rotten fish-smell girl. I’d thought I’d washed it all off when I got home, but the nose-wrenching aroma of
eau de pit
had penetrated my pores. I got out of bed, headed for the shower, and promised myself that I would never, ever let Will or anybody else talk me into doing anything stupid ever again as long as I lived.

Ha.

I spent the next few days half expecting a SWAT team to surround the house and arrest me for Hummer-drowning, but nothing happened—except that four days later Alton Wright was driving a brand-new Toyota FJ, eyeball-searing orange, paid for by his parents. So it was almost like we had done him a favor. Will went back to his original plan, saying he was going to find a dead rat someplace and hide it in Alton’s spare-tire compartment.

“Why not a dead squirrel?” Jen said. “They’re easier to find.”

“It has to be a rat,” said Will.

There are many reasons to steal a car. The most common reason is because the car thief needs to get someplace, and a car is the best way to do that. Other reasons to steal a car are money, thrills, and revenge. If you steal a car to get back at somebody, though, you are probably only getting back at their insurance company.

I heard my mother say once that the hardest part of being a parent is not knowing which of the things you say to your kids is going to stick. Well, relax, Mom. Ninety-nine percent of it doesn’t. But still, I knew what she meant,
because that little remark my dad made about reading the CliffsNotes version of
Moby-Dick
—I don’t even know if he was kidding or not—really got to me. I mean, there I was struggling with “Call me Ishmael” (the lamest opening line since “In the beginning…”), with five-hundred-some pages to go, and my dad tells me I’m more or less wasting my time. Unless he was kidding, which he might have been. So I was a little peeved at him and ready to give him a taste of the silent treatment when he got home, but he was all stoked over the latest development in the Elwin Carl Dandridge case and didn’t notice me being pointedly sullen.

“I’m going to get it thrown out of court,” he said to my mother, pouring himself a celebratory scotch on the rocks.

“That’s wonderful!” she said. I was surprised she didn’t jump up and down and clap her hands.

I, crushed into the sofa by the weight of
Moby-Dick,
turned the page. I was on chapter fifteen—a hundred twenty to go—and Ishmael still hadn’t met Captain Ahab, let alone any white whales, but he had a lot to say about clam chowder—an entire chapter, actually. My father’s verbal victory dance, disgusting as it was, was far more interesting.

One of the private investigators who worked for my dad’s law firm had turned up a witness who claimed that he and Elwin Carl Dandridge were partying at some bar downtown at the exact same time victim number seven was being raped
in the back stairwell of her dormitory. The witnesses even had a cell phone shot of Dandridge standing at the bar in front of a TV that was showing a baseball game. According to my dad, the particular game on the TV—once they got their experts to testify which inning of which game it was—would corroborate the witness’s testimony, proving that Dandridge was not the rapist.

“I thought they had his DNA,” I said.

“They do! That’s what makes it so great. If he couldn’t have done that one rape because he was someplace else, then
all
their DNA evidence for
all
the rapes becomes suspect. And best of all, the bar he was in is a
gay
bar.”

“What difference does that make?”

“Well, if Dandridge is gay, then why would he go around raping girls?”

“But…he’s
guilty,
right?”

“If he was someplace other than the scene of the crime, then no.”

“But what about all the
other
rapes?”

He shrugged and sipped his drink.

“That sucks!” I said.

“Kelleigh!” said my mother.

“Well, it does. What if he gets off and then rapes
me?”

“I’m sure that won’t happen,” my mother said.

My dad swirled his scotch, listening to the ice cubes clinking the sides of the glass.