Downers Grove (20 page)

“You're not going, are you?” He sounded remorseful. I looked into Bobby's eyes and suddenly realized how lonely he truly was, that he really had no one to turn to, that he more than likely had nowhere to go, that everything he told me about his past was probably lies or pleasant landscapes he'd created for himself. Why else would he be so aloof and yet so needy?

He waited for an answer.

“I can't,” I said.

Bobby looked both ways, as if the cops were ready to ambush us any second. I reached in my pocket and handed him another portion of my life savings. He took it and stuffed it in his pocket.

“It's not much,” I said.

“It's more than I deserve.” He leaned over and kissed me. “I really appreciate it.” He looked up as the last cars of the train whizzed by, smiling nervously, trying to be reassuring, but Bobby was obviously completely unsure himself. He shook
his car keys, as if he got what he came for and was now anxious to get the show on the road. “I wish there was some way I could return the favor,” he said.

“How about a ride home,” Tracy said before I could say anything.

Bobby led us around the back of the Tivoli Theater to an alley garage. Tracy took the backseat and I sat up front with my mechanic. Bobby cranked the stereo. It was too loud to talk, so I just leaned against the car door and watched Bobby drive. Tracy and I occasionally glanced at each other, but that was the extent of our communication. Bobby was wired, smoking like a fiend. His lips moved slowly, as if he were having some kind of private confession with the voices in his head. Oncoming headlights flushed the car with pockets of light, black shadows slid through the car.

When we pulled up to the intersection at Fifty-fifth and Main I glanced out the window and watched my worst nightmare roll up beside us. I saw them and they saw me. Neckbrace and his friends jumped out of the car and started barking like dogs.

“What's this all about?” my mechanic asked.

“Go!” I said.

My mechanic looked at me like I was crazy. “It's a red light.” He pointed.

“Go!”

“I see they got a new windshield.” Tracy laughed.

“It's a different car,” I said.

The monsters circled Bobby's car. Neckbrace took a swing with a baseball bat and knocked out a front headlight.

“Who the fuck are these assholes?” Bobby threw his car in reverse and nearly backed over the onion-headed one.

“Jealous boyfriends,” Tracy said.

Bobby made a U-turn in reverse and took off down Main Street. Chuckie and his collection of future ex-convicts piled back into their car and gave chase. My mechanic turned left onto Maple, but the deathcar was right behind us. He turned right into Denburn Woods, but they stuck with us like paint.

I was waiting for some smart-aleck comment from the backseat, but Tracy was busy trying to figure out how the seat belt worked.

“Why are these guys so angry with you?” my mechanic asked.

“Wormface tried to rape the dish of Downers Grove,” Tracy shouted while looking out the back window. “We gave them a little medicine, but I guess they need another dose.”

“What did she say?”

“The last time they fucked with us one of them ended up in the hospital.” I turned and saw the deathcar racing up behind us.

“Chrissie threw a car battery through their windshield,” Tracy yelled.

He looked over at me and smiled. “That wasn't very nice,” he said.

“Hey, wait five minutes, you'll want to throw a battery through their windshield too,” I protested.

Bobby swerved through one cul-de-sac after another, winding back toward the tracks. This was the first time I ever prayed for cops. There are eight zillion cops in Downers Grove and not one anywhere in sight. They were probably all busy busting a kegger in Woodridge or something.

The deathcar stayed on our case, skipping stop signs. When we got trapped at a traffic light the white plague pulled up beside us and began hooting and hollering like a bunch of dogs again. My valentine waved a gun at us while his buddy in the backseat made obscene gestures with a baseball bat.

“Oh my God, he's got a gun.” I shook Bobby's arm.

“What an asshole,” Tracy said. “Thinks he's a fucking Quentin Tarantino or something.”

“I don't need this right now,” Bobby chipped in.

When the light turned green Bobby accelerated and the deathcar followed beside us. Neckbrace reached out of the window and fired his gun at Bobby's front tire.

“Oh my God, he shot at us.” I grabbed Bobby's arm.

“Let go!” He shook away my hand. Bobby swerved onto the shoulder and almost took out a mailbox. He looked worried and that made me even more scared.

“We need to find some cops,” Tracy shouted. “That guy is fucking crazy. He'll kill us.” Bobby pulled ahead and cut them off. Neckbrace and his friends swerved into the right lane and rolled up beside us.

“No cops,” Bobby said. “Ask him if he wants to race.”

“What?”

“Go ahead, ask him.”

“Are you crazy?” I asked.

“My car against his, winner takes all.”

Tracy rolled down her window and tilted her head toward them.

“You're dead, bitch!” my sweetheart said, pointing his gun at her. “You and the other one. We don't care about the faggot.” He laughed, as if what he said was funny.

“My friend wants to race his car against yours, what do you say?” Tracy asked.

“You want to race?” He seemed surprised, then turned to his friends. They discussed it for about half a second, then my valentine pointed his gun right at me. I about shit in my pants.

“We're just gonna wait until you run out of gas.” He laughed hysterically like some psycho wanna-be, then turned and took another shot at Bobby's front tire. Missed again. Bobby accelerated and pulled ahead of them.

“Fasten your seat belts,” he said.

“They already are,” Tracy said.

Both cars rolled side by side with increasing speed. The next light seemed as distant as an airplane in the sky. The two cars accelerated at a wreckless pace, dipping into the first hill and rising up the next.

“Get down.” My mechanic pressed my head beside him. “Cover your face.” I grabbed the seat belt and braced my feet under the glove compartment. Bobby swerved out into the opposite lane like he had lost control, but then whipped the car back and punched the front end of the deathcar. My legs banged against the door. Bobby slammed on the brakes and the car spun around in a half-circle, then came to a stop. I leaped up and saw the deathcar jump the curb and veer into someone's front yard. It seemed to swerve slightly to avoid the house, but then slammed into a massive oak tree. There was a huge explosion of shattered glass as the car wrapped around the tree, flipped over, and rolled into the other end of the house, finally coming to rest upside down in the next driveway.

“Oh my God.” Tracy crawled up from the backseat.

“Are you all right?” Bobby asked.

We both nodded. I was speechless. I cut a quick glance across the yard but couldn't really see anything. A house light went on and then the porch light. My mechanic turned off onto a side street and drove steadily away from the accident.

“I hope he's happy with himself,” Bobby said.

“Thrilled, I'm sure,” Tracy responded.

M
OM
sat in the grandstand with Grandma and my brother, snapping pictures with her Instamatic camera to glue into the family scrapbook, proof this really happened.

I wore a white dress under my blue graduation gown and threw my flat cap into the sky like everyone else, but that's where the similarity ended.

ALCOHOL BLAMED IN THE DEATH OF THREE TEENS, the headline said.

“It's so perfect,” Tracy whispered. “The world will never know.” Her slippery kitty-cat face smiled ear to ear. “And who could have known that Skyler Dickerson was on board?”

It turns out Skyler was some minor football guy who ended up in the wrong posse at the wrong time. He was my age. He was in my class. Nobody else will ever know him, but nobody in my class will ever forget him.

I was relieved the curse had been fulfilled, but I wish I hadn't
witnessed it from the front row. It could have just as easily been me. Whenever I close my eyes I see flashbacks of my valentine and then the crash. I still feel trapped in the moment. I never liked him, but I never wanted to see him die.

“They always seemed a little shifty to me,” I heard one teacher say to another, “but almost all the kids give me the creeps these days.”

Most of my classmates were stunned. Parents hovered close to their children. Everyone seemed overwhelmed by the collision of grief and joy. An eerie quiet descended over the football field when the principal bowed his head and asked for a moment of silent prayer. Speeches floated by like painted wind. I couldn't hear any of it, my ears were still buzzing with accusations from the corners of my guilty conscience.

Tracy said not to worry, that the story would fade as quickly as soap bubbles in the bathtub, but when the memorials and testimonials began about the “three promising young men” I felt an overwhelming compulsion to run up to the microphone and confess everything. Some girls were crying, some were holding flowers. It was very upsetting to think people my own age were dead. I could feel sweat gathering in every pore of my body. The ceremony seemed to go on forever and ever. Nobody really stuck their neck out for them, besides some cheerleader who recited a cheeseball poem about them waiting for her in the sky. Some kid down the row started cracking up and then a few others did too, and that made me feel a little better. I felt sorry for Neckbrace and his hooligans, but life spills, and it's every marble for itself. When those two cars kissed, my heart just about exploded with terror. I thought for sure I was gonna pull a Princess Di.

“You know we're going to hell for this,” I told Tracy as we marched out of the football field.

“We have time to make up for it.” Tracy took off her sunglasses, cleaned them with the sleeve of her graduation gown. “Think of it this way. It was a test. We passed.” She put her glasses back on. “I have to go deal with my grandparents. Call me later.”

I stumbled around the tipped-over folding chairs cluttering the football field and wound passed the crowd clogging the entrance to the parking lot, scanning my peripheral vision for guys with sunglasses and walkie-talkies, still certain that the county sheriff would be waiting with a paddy wagon, that handcuffs would be strapped to my wrists any moment now. I looked over at the school, then back across the football field. A queasy wisp of nostalgia tidal waved through my jaded system.

That's when I saw my mom's old Ford at the far end of the lot and my mechanic standing beside it. I felt a lump in my throat, ran over, and kissed him a good one.

“What are you doing here?” I asked. “I expected you to be long gone by now.” I glanced around the parking lot, more paranoid than ever. Bobby looked as if he hadn't slept all night. He was gaunt and shaky, sucking a cigarette as if it were his only source of nutrition.

“Wouldn't want to miss the big day,” he said. “Did they give you your piece of paper?” he asked.

“Got it.” I waved it up in the air. “Where did you get my mom's car? I thought it was a goner.”

“The guys at the station gave it to Danny. It needed a ring job, but he got it running. I had no idea it was your mom's old car, that's really bizarre.” Bobby opened the door.

“It's cleaner than I've ever seen it,” I said. “What happened to your car?”

“It was pretty messed up. Danny put it in deep storage. I probably should have ditched it anyway. I'm sure the cops are looking for it by now.”

“So what are you doing here?”

“I just wanted to make sure you were all right,” he said.

“I'm all right,” I said, lifting my gown to show him the bruise on my leg.

“Nice souvenir,” he said.

“Did you hear they all died?” I asked.

He nodded. “Did you know them?”

“Not really,” I said.

“They didn't exactly give us a lot of room to negotiate.”

“It's not your fault.”

“You didn't tell anybody did you?” he asked.

“No.”

Bobby seemed really freaked, and it kind of scared me to be with him now. He bounced around the car like a pinball looking for a hole.

“You sure you won't come with me?” he asked.

I couldn't say no, so I shook my head. He kissed me, as if that would change my mind, and to be honest, it almost did. I tried to be brave, but tears just fell out of my eyes and started dripping onto my graduation gown. It wasn't just Bobby. It was everything. I was so exhausted. My head swung down in self-defense.

“You gotta come,” Bobby insisted.

“No, Bobby. You go if you want to. I'm staying.”

“What about the cops?”

“What about them?”

“They're gonna piece the story together sooner or later.”

“And so what if they do? Those fuckers shot at us. We could have been killed. They lost control of their car. It wasn't my fault. It just happened.” I stared at him, but he couldn't really look at me. There were no words. Everything was transmitted through the electric silence that crackled between us. Bobby looked scared. I could see his teeth mashing side to side.

He got in the car and rolled down the window. I tried to memorize the outline of his hair, the thickness of his eyebrows, anything that would sustain the paint of memory and prevent it from peeling.

I took a deep breath. “If I get in that car I'll end up just like you,” I said.

“What's wrong with that?”

“You're just gonna run away all your life, aren't you?”

“I'll stop somewhere.”

“I don't see it, Bobby.”