My Best Man (12 page)

‘“You don’t want to drive it?” I ask incredulously.

“Why not,” she squeals, jumping in. “Ahhh,” she sighs, “the smell of a new car makes little Virginia get all wiggly.” She en the cigarette lighter and fires up the joint. “So,” she says, grabbin the stick shift and putting it into reverse, “is the sales guy’s this big?”

“I haven’t found out yet. He’s married, you know.” “Married men are perfect, Harry. They’ll always buy you thin and the sex is great because those married guys never get any home.” She guns the car, pops the clutch, and jets off down street. “And it’s so easy to get out of those relationships if thin

“

go wrong.

“Is that so?” I laugh. “I was thinking about marrying Amity,” I tell her jokingly. “Does that mean I’ll have great with other guys?” ,

“Nobody gives it up better than Mrs. Harry Ford!” she wind flying in through the sunroof.

By the time we’re rolling down University Avenue, our route to the airport, past upper-middle-class homes designed to like Tara, with yards full of huge oak trees and feminine beds, we’re stoned out of our minds. The sun pours in through roof, Boy George sings “Karma Chameleon” on the radio, and smoke the joint down to the nub. God, Winston wouldn’t reco me. Neither would Matthew. Nor my mother. I’m probably than ever to the person they wish I would be. “We better get thing back,” I yell over the radio as we approach a four-way “I’ve had it for almost half an hour. Let’s roll down all the to get rid of the pot smell and be sure to toss the roach out.”

While I fumble with the window controls on the console, fishes the roach out of the ashtray.

Slam.t Boom.t We’re smashed against our shoulder belts. “Shit!” I croak.

“Fuck me on Sunday!” Amity yells.

We’re over a curb and smashed into a stop sign.

“Fuck!” I yell, the metal sign bent in front of us, the gash it leaves in the hood horrifying to our eyes.

“Oh, my Gawd!” Amity inhales. She’s still holding the roach.

Even smashing into a stop sign can’t cause her to part with it. “Back up! Back up!”

She puts the car in reverse and plunks back down over the curb. We jump out and survey the damage. It’s not good. The bumper is indented in a decidedly V shape, and the front grill and top of the hood is gashed in.

“Babe, I’m so sorry,” Amity moans.

A cop car, from around the corner of nowhere, flashes his lights, gives a single whoop from his siren.

“Shit! Where did he come from?” She drops the roach and quickly covers it with her foot. Smooth as a card shark she reaches into her pocket and slips me a piece of gum while hardly moving her arm. “You were driving, Harry.”

“What?” I ask, my heart racing. I awkwardly shove the gum into my mouth while she starts to chew her own. “Why me?”

“I’ve been drinking champagne, Harry. I won’t pass a test if he gives me one.”

The officer approaches the car. The absolute stereotype. A big, fat, doughy white guy with puffy fingers that are probably full of mayonnaise. He’s got no necl and too much forehead, and his cheeks look as if they’re storing walnuts. He checks out Amity as he asks, “Who’s the driver?”

“Me,” I answer.

He looks at me and with his backwoods accent says, “License?”

I hand him my Kansas license. He grabs it with his swollen hands, holds it into the sun to see better. I get the feeling he can’t

read. I swear he’s just staring at it, turning it over, looking for my picture. Surprisingly, he seems oblivious to the pot smoke that’ still seeping out of the car. Maybe, with all the windows down and the sunroof open and Amity’s perfume, he doesn’t smell it. it’s because he’s breathing through his mouth.

“You don’t got no license plates, Kansas,” he drawls as if my name is Kansas.

“We’re just test-driving it, Officer.”

When he laughs, I see that even his tongue is fat. “Hell of way to test-drive it, son. We’re going to have to file a report.”

Amity slams into save-your-ass mode. She jumps into the sat ion her accent thicker than I’ve ever heard it. “Officer, husband and I are just so excited!” Exsawted! “He’s planning buying this new car, and this is his first time to drive it, and of us was trying to adjust the side mirrors so we could see while the other found the control for the headlights.” “Did we do something wrong?”

He looks past me to the smiling Southern belle. A young Kelly. “Why’d you need the headlights?”

“It’s always safer to drive with the headlights on. Even the day,” she says smoothly.

All of a sudden he becomes polite. “Yur right. That’s defensive drivin’. You married to Kansas here, ma’am?”

“Just recently,” Amity glows, taking my hand. “Don’t worry. I’ll make a Texan out of him yet.”

I know she’s just playing this out in order for us to escape,

no one has held my hand and claimed me since the day my dropped me off at my first day of kindergarten. I hold tight Amity’ shand.

He noisily inhales through his fat throat. “No doubt. you’ve bent the stop sign. Damaged city property.”

“Oh, but just hardly.” She grabs the officer, grinding the

into oblivion with her instep as she leads the cop to the sign. “Look, a big ole strong man like you can bend this thing back. No problem.”

“You think so,” he asks, putting his hands on his doughy hips and puffing his sagging chest up.

“Go on,” she purrs. “Help us out. I know you can do it.” The cop pushes against the sign. It doesn’t move.

“Harry, get over there and help the officer,” Amity conducts. Together, we’re able to push the sign until it’s almost vertical. “There!” Amity decrees. “Good as new.” She walks over to the cop and grabs his fatty biceps. “You’re so strong. Forget those firemen. If my pussy’s ever stuck in a tree, I’m going to call you.” The cop blushes. “What about the car?” he asks.

“You know it’s less than five-hundred dollars damage, Officer. There’s no need for a report. It’s going to be embarrassing enough having to return it this way to the BMW dealership.” Bay-ErnDubbya Daylership.

He looks at her. Thinks. Thinks about her pussy. Then he says, “I shouldn’t be doin’ this, but all right. You get that car turned in, y’here? And make sure you set them mirrors ‘fore you drive off.”

She relaxes, smiles, cocks her head. “We certainly will, Officer. Thank you.”

He returns the license to me and walks back to his car. We sit and for a moment do nothing. Then I start the car, turn the headlights on, and drive away cautiously. We slowly inch down the western stretch of University, lined with brick duplexes inhabited by grandmothers who sit on their porches and knit pot holders while watching cops pull over stoned Yankees. “Shit,” I say, practically slumped over the wheel.

“Bubba, I’m so sorry. I’ll pay for the damage,” Amity says, anxiously rubbing one eyebrow.

“Don’t worry, sweetheart. It wasn’t your fault. Neither of us Were watching the road.”

“I just don’t ever want to cause you pain, Harry Ford,” says seriously. “I can’t believe I’ve done this to you.”

“Hey, if it weren’t for you, that cop would have filed a rep You saved my ass.”

“This is University Park, Bubba. They don’t like outsiders. knew right away you were a Yankee, Harry. You need to deve your Texas accent. And use a few phrases like “Y’all’ this “Y’all’ that. When you’re working, say to the passengers, “D up. We’re ftrin’ to land.” And instead of “How are you?” say “I all right?” And when you agree with how somebody is feeling, “Myself.” Can you remember all that?”

My theater training pays off. “You bet your sweet ass.” ] bet yur sweet ayuss.

“Good boy, Harry.”

“Here’s what we’re prepared to offer you,” JT says, tapl his pen on a legal pad. I’ve dropped Amity off at home, and l sitting in JT’s office, the glass windows obscured by minibli he’s rotated shut. “You buy the car, and we overlook the dam Or you buy the car, and we can fix the damage at below cost c six hundred dollars.-, and we’ll simply tie it into your payments. you don’t buy, and we go-through your insurance company, I’m afraid the damage is set at thirty-two hundred.”

He doesn’t know that I don’t carry collision coverage on VW, so I’m not covered for the BMW. I’d have to come up v over three thousand dollars and get nothing in return. “I’m not s I qualify financially to buy the car,” I tell him sheepishly.

“Harry,” he says sexily, as if he wants to rip my clothes, “everybody qualifies. I’m tight with Gary, our wonder boy in finance department. I’ll push it through for you.”

“Man, I don’t know,” I say, pressing my palm into my fore he “I mean, I don’t really need a new car. I don’t know if a BM even my style. I really didn’t come here expecting to buy a ca

“Then why did you come here?” JT asks, biting his pen through smiling teeth, both his eyebrows raised.

I move my hand down my face and rest my chin in it. Look at him. Grin.

“Look, Harry. Your car’s almost twenty years old. It’s time. There’s nothing wrong with driving a BMW. You’re not going to turn into a capitalist pig or yuppie scum or whatever it is you’re afraid of. We can transfer your Amnesty International sticker from the Volkswagen to the BMW,” he teases. “You’ll still have enough money to write those checks to Greenpeace. But you’ll love driving this car, I’m telling you. And if for any reason you find you can’t afford it, you can return it at any time, and we’ll buy it back from

“

you.

My grin changes from good-natured to wry. “For a lot less than I paid.” “That’ sa fallacy. We can give you almost what you paid. Really. There’s no risk, buddy. Your little accident today was just life telling you to wake up. Come on, Harry. Don’t you want to grab life by the balls?”

I think about his balls. And the third credit card that arrived yesterday, with the preapproved seven-thousand-dollar spending limit. “What the fuck? I’ll do it.”

“Great,” he says, standing and coming around to meet me on the other side of the desk. I stand and we shake hands. He holds on to my hand and tells me, his face inches from mine, “I’ve never had a customer I didn’t satisfy.” He’s so hot my clothes are going to ignite.

He finagles the paperwork, and I sign on the fifty-two dotted lines, and with the credit card down payment, and a small amount on another credit card, and the trade-in with the VW, and the rest financed through the credit union at the airline, my payments are only $512.47 a month for four years. And since I make $17,000.00 a year as a flight attendant, it will only cost me, after taxes, about

two-thirds of my salary a year for four years which means I have to eat nothing but those little squares of cafeteria lunch, and dinner for four years.

As we’re wrapping up the transaction, shaking hands outside the car, JT penetrates me with his arctic eyes, hands me a and says, “This card is different from the one I gave you at gym. It has my private number on it. My wife doesn’t answer private phone. And I want you to call me if there’s anything I can do to make you feel satisfied.”

Is this what I would be like if I married Amity? Would I up being a hungry animal on the prowl for the real nourishment need? I’m sometimes wondering if I’m falling in love with and I know I love being with her, but I also know I’d never able to deny my natural feelings for men. Would it be fair to myself to her if I could never tender my body in full? Maybe but it’s my heart that wants her, and isn’t my heart more

“Call me soon. Don’t make me wait,” he whispers.

Shit. At the moment, my dick has so much more feeling my heart.

We have eye sex for a second; then I drive away. In a Beamer with a dented hood and bumper.

When the bills start coming in, I make the minimum on the Rolex, and somehow eke out the first car payment. It me with nothing in the bank. I can’t even afford a square of Amity graciously pays the rent in full, as an apology for the BMW. But I still don’t have any money for food or bills. decide to call my mother. I know she’s sympathetic, and now my father is gone she’ll be more apt to help me. I also know kept a tight rein on her, and she’s been brainwashed into it’s for my own good (translate: future heterosexuality) for her withhold, which spikes my anger. After all, Winston has a Brink’s truck worth of cash over the years, while I’ve toed

own humble line, never inching over. The least she can do is give me a loan. I’ll pay it back. With interest, if she wants.

“How’s Amity?” she asks almost before we’ve even said hello. “Fine, Mother. She’s out on a trip,” I answer into the phone. “And your children?”

I’m always stunned when my mother dishes out a little sarcasm; it seems so incongruous with her jaunty personality. “They’re fine, Mother. Harry Jr. has the best batting stats in Little League, and Amber and Amity recently won the Mother-Daughter Pageant. And how are things with the general?”

“Just fine. He bought me a new water fountain for the backyard and installed it himself,” she answers proudly, shifting right back into the surrealism of her real world.

“I got a BMW,” I blurt, shifting into my own current realism.

“Oh, thank God,” she says. “I was always afraid someone was going to recognize you in that VW!”

I was sure she was going to say, “I was always afraid that someone was going to hit you head-on, and you’d be killed.” That’ s what most mothers of rear-engine drivers say. “Well,” I answer positively, “BMWs are very recognizable, very acceptable cars.” “You’ll have to tell Winston.”

“Well, I sort of got it for me and for Amity.” I’m shameless. I didn’t plan this lie it just came out. But I’m completely prepared for its effect.

“Harry Ford,” my mother gushes, “I’m so proud of you! Thinking of Amity before yourself. I’ve had a hunch things would come to this.”

“Well, don’t get too excited, Mom. It looks like I’m going to need your help. You know I’ve never asked for much, and it’s long been made clear by Dad that any requests would have been denied anyway. And even with him gone, I know the conditions of the will have been clearly spelled out, but I was wondering if I could ask you for a small loan. I’m in kind of a bind.”