Boy Minus Girl (10 page)

“Not for another two hours,” Dad says crisply, glancing at his watch on his way out the door.

Uncle Ray motions me over and whispers, “I need ya to pick me up some whiskey. Grab my wallet on the dresser over there and take out a twenty.”

I do as he asks.

“Just go to the back door of the Dutch Lunch and knock as loud as you can,” he says. “Vera should answer. Tell her you’re my nephew and that I need a bottle of Jack Daniel’s Black Label. You can keep five for yourself. And, kid, I need it fast.”

After dinner I brush my teeth, put on a clean shirt, mousse my hair into stylishness, and slap on a little of Uncle Ray’s Polo cologne. From down the hall I hear the crackle of Dad’s ham radio. I inform Mom, who is knitting on the sofa and watching
Wheel of Fortune,
that I’m going over to Howard’s for a little while.

“My, don’t you look spiffy,” she says.

“Not really.”

“Well, be home by dark.”

The Dutch Lunch squats on a low-end part of Main Street, next to a boarded-up pawnshop and the rail yards, and is notorious for its bar fights. It is the last place on earth I thought I’d ever go. A handful of rusty pickups and motorcycles are parked diagonally in front. I bike around to the graveled alley, look around, and tap on the weathered back door. The stench of stale beer is nauseating, and I notice several fly-swarmed trash cans overflowing with empty bottles. I knock harder, hear the clicking of the lock, the door opens, and—oh, God, why do you hate me?—there stands Brett Jenkins. I’m too stunned to run. We blink at each other for a good ten seconds. Brett seems every bit as shocked and confused as I am. Country-western music mixed with the sporadic clacking of pool balls echoes around us.

“Leth-bian?”

“I’m here to see a lady named Vera.”

“Huh?”

“Brett,” a gruff woman’s voice calls out from behind him. “Who is it?”

A lady with penciled-on eyebrows appears behind him. Her Miller High Life T-shirt strains, and she has a trail of cigarette ash down her left boob. She rasps, “What do you want, kid?”

“Are you Vera?”

“What’s it to ya?”

“I’m Ray Eckhardt’s nephew.”

“Brett, you know this kid?”

“Yeah,” Brett mumbles. “I know the fag.”

“Heard Ray’s in bad shape,” she says. “How’s he getting along?”

“Not so hot,” I say, and hand her the twenty dollar bill. “He sent me for a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.”

She opens the door further and motions me inside. The place is dark and thick with haze. At the end of a short hallway I can see pool tables, the jukebox, and a bar.

“Brett, y’better have him wait in our apartment while I fetch his J.D.”

“Do I hafta?” he whines.

Smack!
Her hand strikes upside Brett’s face like lightning. I step back, terrified.

“Don’t you ever give me mouth, boy!”

Brett just sighs indifferently and leads me into a depressing room. A tattered sofa faces an old black-and-white TV with tinfoiled antennas. Beside the dish-stacked kitchen table, a baby kicks in a high chair, its very wide face smeared with what looks like pureed carrots. The baby doesn’t look normal: its slanted eyes are too far apart and its mouth hangs open.

“C’mon in, homo.”

Standing there in that awful, smelly apartment, I know why Brett hates me. I even feel sorry for him. The dick-wad.

“Can’t believe you had the gutth to come here,” he says as he sits beside the baby, who is now crying and slapping its hands on the tray. “Thought you Eckhardth were too good for a playth like thith.”

“Maybe you don’t know me as well as you think.”

“I don’t wanna know you at all,” he says, and grabs a small yellow plastic spoon from a glass jar on the table. Brett is feeding the baby! I am on Mars. I decide to embrace the weirdness.

“I want you to stop beating me up,” I say.

“Oh yeah, and what’re you gonna do if I don’t?”

“I’ll tell everyone at school you have a retard for a brother.” I hate myself for saying it, but as Uncle Ray told me, “You gotta take no prisoners.”

He glares at me a long moment, then points his finger at me. “You do that and I’ll fuckin’ kill—”

His mother thunders through the door and hands me a heavy paper sack and a five dollar bill. “Here ya go, kid.” I place the bottle in my backpack and glance at Brett, who stares bullets at me while continuing to feed the baby.

Once outside I pedal off. The Bank of Harker City digital clock flashes 6:55. I’m right on time.

When I pull up to Burger In A Box, Regina, still in her waitress uniform, is leaning against the building, dragging on a Kool.
Can I kiss a girl who smokes? Maybe I could, somehow, skip the kissing and just get right to her tits?

“Hey there, Regina,” I say, and brake dramatically in front of her, my back tire skidding on the concrete. “So, how about we go down to the park and hang out?”

She glances around, as if looking for someone, then shrugs.

“Great!” I exclaim. “Climb on.”

I move forward on the seat as she squeezes on behind me. Never before has anyone ridden on my bike with me; it’s hard to steer and even harder to pedal as we wobble all over the road. If I get a hard-on, this could be fatal.

“Finish your literature report?” I ask.

“Uh-huh.”

“What book did you choose?”

“
Hollywood Wives
by Jackie Collins.”

“Sounds fascinating.”

About a minute later, as I struggle to steer us down Main Street, I ask, “So, what’s it like working at Burger In A Box? You must see a lot of crazy stuff there, huh?”

“What’s so hard in your backpack?” she asks.

“Oh, that’s just a bottle of Jack Daniel’s.”

“Hot damn!” She squeals and squeezes me as if she had just won a new dinette set on
The Price Is Right.

Harker Park is empty and leafy and deep with shadows—perfect for my seduction.

“Well, m’lady, let’s go on over to the teeter-totter,” I say as I climb off the bike.

“
After
we break out the whiskey,” she counters.

With shocking swiftness she has my backpack unzipped and the bottle uncapped.

“You surprise me, Eckhardt,” she says after her first swig. “Thought you were a total dweeb, but boy was I wrong.”

“Hey, Les is more!”

“Heh-heh. I guess it might be.”

She laughs a little and takes another swig, then offers me the bottle. It tastes like what I imagine kerosene might taste like, and it takes every ounce of self-control to swallow it. Regina is already on her fourth nip when I snatch the bottle and cap it. “Let’s, um, pace ourselves, what do you say?”

The silly grin that creases her face tells me she is already buzzed. “So, you want to get down in my panties, don’t you?”

“What?!” I nearly fall over.

She fires up a cigarette and says, “That’s why you showed up at the Box today.”

“That is absolutely not true,” I protest. “You just seem like—like a nice girl. Someone I’ve always wanted to get to know better.”

She exhales smoke out the corner of her mouth. “Guys only hit on me ’cause they think I’ll put out.”

I look around, all horrified, my mouth ajar, as if looking for those dirty, dirty bastards. “I can’t stand guys like that,” I say. “All they think about is a girl’s body. They don’t care about who she is inside. So uncool.”

I keep noticing she is glancing expectantly at the street.

“Trust me, Regina, sex was
the
furthest thing from my mind.”

“My mom says never trust a guy who says ‘trust me.’ ” She flicks her ashes, then inhales more smoke. “Here’s the thing, Les-is-more, I’m not as easy as everyone says. But I wouldn’t mind making out with you a little. You’re a freak, but kinda sweet.”

My heart speeds up. “Really? You mean it? About the making out?”

I’m finally going to kiss a girl! And hopefully get to touch her bazookas!

“What do you say we move to the bench over by the old cannon?” I ask, in an unfortunately high-pitched voice.

“I need some more J.D. first,” she says.

“More” turns out to be about five big swigs for her, and two timid ones for me.

As we sit, I carefully place my arm across the back of the bench. She turns and looks at me expectantly. But I never asked Uncle Ray what to do once I have a girl “in position,” and I haven’t gotten that far in
The Seductive Man
. Sweat breaks out on my forehead and palms.

“You know, when you really compare them,” I say in a quivering voice, “
The Addams Family
was a much wittier show than
The Munsters
.”

Regina looks at me as if I am singing the Soviet national anthem. “We gonna make out or what?”

“Of course,” I say brightly.

She closes her eyes. My heart pounds in my ears as I stare at her glistening pink lips.
How will I know if I press them too hard? What if I am bad at this? Will she tell everyone?
Once, I overheard Stephanie Sanderson at school tell some girls about how Jared Clark kissed like a lizard. Can I somehow get out of this?

She cracks one eyelid and gives me a “what’s the holdup?” look.

Time to act. A deep breath. Lean forward. I ram my lips into hers.

“Ouch!” She pulls back and rubs her mouth.

“Sorry.”

“God, Eckhardt, haven’t you ever done this before?” “Of course. Yes. Definitely.”

She sighs and closes her eyes again. This time I move in slowly. Wow. Her lips are surprisingly soft and moist, and her face smells of baby powder and hamburgers. I am kissing her and it is good, a turn-on. Her mouth, it opens a little bit. And my heart flutters. Now she has placed her tongue on top of mine, which lies beneath hers like a dead eel. Now what? In an attempt to cover all bases, I race my tongue around her mouth like an out-of-control power hose. I whip the sides of her mouth, and get scraped by the sharpness of her teeth.

Regina makes a choking sound, and I suddenly find myself licking air.

“What are you doing?” she asks.

“What? You—you don’t care for my, um, technique?”

“Geez. Here, why don’t you just sit back and let me.”

Eyes closed, she ever-so-gently places her lips on mine. Feeling her soft tongue stroking mine—it is a-mazing. My skin tingles, and I fear I’m going to explode in my jeans. Me, Lester Scott Eckhardt, is French-kissing a girl! And right here in Harker Park! Not twenty feet from where Dad used to take me to ride the kiddy train! Right where I had my fifth-birthday party!

All through junior high, at school dances, Howard and I would sit by the wall and make fart noises with our armpits and jump folding chairs with the other rejects while the “studs” made out with girls on the dance floor. Now I am a stud! Legit. I will no longer gawk at couples and wonder what it feels like to make out.
I know
. Uncle Ray is a genius!

Mom will be furious if I marry the daughter of the “loose” woman who runs Burger In A Box. Well, Mom will just have to live with it. I’m not giving this up for her, or anyone.

Still kissing, I boldly drape my left arm around her shoulder and gently pull her to me. I place my right hand under her blouse and feel the soft, warm skin of her belly. Hmm . . . a bit flabby but, still, what the hell, it’s a girl’s stomach. I slowly run my hand up until I feel the swell of her right one. Oh yes. I start to shove my fingers under the stiff fabric of the bra.
Rrrr-rrrar
—some sort of car is approaching but who cares? My digits inch around and—oh my God! am I grazing a nipple?

Suddenly Regina jerks back and looks over my shoulder. I turn and see a banana-yellow muscle car come to an abrupt stop on the street.

“Who’s—?” I start to ask, but Regina pulls me to her and places her mouth determinedly on mine. She just can’t get enough.

“Reggie, you whore!”

A tall, angry guy in boots and shoulder-length hair storms out of the car.

“You know this guy?” I ask.

“Yep. He’s my boyfriend.”

My heart leaps into my throat. “Your boyfriend?” My first inclination is:
Must bolt!
He thunders toward us.

“Go away, Tadpole!” Regina shouts.

TAD
is embroidered on his oil-stained coveralls. He’s one of the mechanics at Jim’s Standard Service Station. He looms over us, his Yosemite Sam mustache quivering with fury.

Meaty, greasy hands on hips, he asks, “What’re you doing with this faggot?”

Why does
everyone
think I’m gay?

She points at him. “Leave me alone, Tadpole! Go back to your slut!”

Wow. Who knew monosyllabic Regina could be such a foulmouthed pit bull? I clear my throat and say in my calmest, smoothest voice, “I believe there’s been a misunderstanding—”

Tadpole clinches my collar in his fist, pulls me to my feet, and shakes me. “If you touched my woman, I’ll kill you.”

Hard to breathe.

Dear Jesus . . . I’m sorry! Forgive me! Help me!

A panic-flash: will I end up like Uncle Ray?

“Put him down!” Regina screams, and yanks on me.

He continues to shake me violently. “You ain’t never gonna tell me what to do, y’cheatin’ bitch!”

“
I’m
not the cheater!” she screams. “I know what you and Rhonda did last night!”

He whirls to her and I feel his grip loosen a little. “What’d she tell you?”

“That she gave you a hand job!”

“That two-faced ho!”

So . . . so this is the real deal: I’m a mere pawn in Regina’s vengeance game. She doesn’t dig me any more than Charity does. Still, I was used to make another guy jealous. That’s progress, right?

“Why don’t I, uh, leave you two alone to discuss this . . . ,” I say as he hurls me to the ground, knocking the air from my chest. White dots float in front of my eyes and the earth pitches.

“I was drunk,” I hear him plead. “I don’t love Rhonda. She’s a whore. I love you, Reggie. You gotta believe that.”

I slowly sit up and refill my lungs.

“You love me?” she says.

“ ’Course I do, baby,” he says. “You know I do.”

Aw
. As the stars start to fade, and the ground stabilizes and my breathing normalizes, I watch as Regina and her Tadpole walk arm in arm to his muscle car.