Last Stop This Town (17 page)

“Do you come into the city a lot?” Walker asked innocently.

“Yeah. I usually read my poetry at ‘The Pillow Room,’ but I thought I’d give this place a try. Big mistake.” She laughed.

“I think they’re into stuff that’s a little more… edgy,” Walker offered by way of explanation. Onstage, a man in an ape suit was standing in front of a full-length mirror with a video camera, apparently recording the camera’s reflection.

“Yeah,” Genevieve agreed. “Maybe next time I’ll get a midget to drag me around by my nipple rings.”

Walker laughed. Then he felt the need for clarification and asked, “You don’t really have nipple rings, do you?”

Genevieve laughed and shook her head no.

Suddenly, Pike returned. He was alone, but thoroughly stoned. He saw Genevieve and thought he recognized her. “Hey, aren’t you the girl from our school who makes her own clothes?”

Genevieve just smiled and replied, “Hi. Genevieve.” She offered a hand and Pike shook it. Pike grabbed a chair from a nearby table and sat down with them.

“Where’s Haley?” Walker asked.

“Taking the Browns to the Superbowl,” Pike replied colorfully.

Walker rolled his eyes at Pike then turned back to Genevieve. “So where are you going next year?”

“Harvard,” Genevieve replied matter-of-factly.

“Seriously?” Walker was thoroughly impressed.

Genevieve smiled. “Yeah. Why? Are you surprised?”

“Yeah,” Walker admitted, before backtracking, “I mean, not that you’re going there. You seem really smart. It’s just… how did we never cross paths before?”

Genevieve leaned in and looked Walker in the eye. “We have A.P. Calculus together…” she felt insulted to have to remind him.

“I’m sorry. That’s right,” Walker said before quickly moving on to, “Well, I’m going to be in Boston, too. Just outside. Brandeis.” Then he uttered his trademark line, “We should exchange emails.”

Genevieve just stared at Walker for a second, then laughed in his face. Not in a terribly insulting way, just an honest reaction to what she correctly perceived as an incredibly dorky pick-up line.

She turned to Pike. “What about you, Pike? Where are you going next year?”

Pike smiled broadly, the same smug way he always did when he envisioned his future as a professional suntan-lotion applier. “University of the Pacific. Nothing but sand and surf.”

But Genevieve looked confused. “University of the Pacific in California?”

“Is there another one?” Pike gloated. “Gonna major in bikini inspecting.”

Genevieve raised an eyebrow. “You know that it’s not actually on the ocean, right?”

“Yes, it is,” Pike corrected her. “They have classes on surfing and a graduate lifeguard school.”

“May be,” Genevieve conceded, “but the University of the Pacific is in Stockton, near Sacramento. That’s
northern
California. About two hours from the water.”

Walker was really starting to enjoy this.

Pike shook his head. “No. That’s not right.”

“Yeah, it is,” Genevieve said with certainty. “My cousin went there.”

Pike looked crestfallen.

Genevieve was amazed at this oversight and asked, “Didn’t you visit the school?”

“No,” Pike admitted, “but in the catalog…”

Pike never finished that sentence. Instead, he just slumped down into his chair and muttered, “Fuck.”

Genevieve put a sympathetic hand on Pike’s shoulder. “You poor dumb bastard.”

She smiled at Pike, and in that instant, Walker knew he was in love.

Walker uncharacteristically manned up, asking, “Hey, listen, do you want to go to a party with us?”

“Sure,” Genevieve accepted the offer casually, adding the caveat, “as long as there’s no dramatic haircutting involved.”

“Hey, no promises,” Walker joked.

They laughed.

Pike unfortunately was still a bit shell-shocked. His funk was turning into a full-blown depression when suddenly Haley returned, wrapping her arms around Pike in a romantic embrace.

“God, pot makes me so horny,” she whispered in Pike’s ear, but loudly enough for everyone to hear. “Want to go back to my place?”

Walker raised an eyebrow to Genevieve.

Pike emerged from his funk. “Yes, yes I do.”

“Oh, and my roommate may want to join in,” Haley added. “Is that a problem?”

“No, no it is not,” Pike assured her.

Haley took Pike by the hand.

Pike was back!

Walker called after him, “Hey, what about the party?”

Pike shouted back, “I’ll just meet you guys there.” And he headed out with Haley.

On the way out the door, Pike asked Haley, “Your roommate’s not a dude, is he?”

“No.”

“Is she a fattie?”

“Uh, no.”

“Does she have two legs?”

Haley stopped him. “Do you want to do this or not?”

“Yes, yes I do.”

They continued out the door.

D
YLAN AND
N
OAH
finally arrived at the towing company lot in Queens. They had to take a taxi because the subway seemed a little too complicated (and possibly dangerous at this time of night). The lot was located on Flatbush Boulevard, not the worst section of Queens but pretty close to it. Homeless people milled around on the corner and Noah was pretty sure he saw a prostitute giving a guy a blow job in an alley.

“Three Brothers Towing” was about what you might expect from a tow lot: a bunch of cars surrounded by a barbed wire fence. Random used car parts also littered some sections of the lot, and at the only apparent entrance was a small booth with a little plexiglass window. Behind the window was a fat, balding, greasy, douche-bag with “Anthony” emblazoned on his Three Brothers t-shirt. He was chewing tobacco and watching the Mets game recap on a little TV. The guys walked up to him.

“Hey, what’s up, man?” Noah started.

“License plate” was all Anthony said. He didn’t even look up.

Dylan answered, “933 TOX. Connecticut plates.”

The guy punched it into his computer and read off from the computer screen, “One fifty city fine, eighty-eight towing charge, nineteen impound fee, mileage is thirty-eight fifty. Total is… two ninety-five fifty.”

Dylan looked at Noah expectantly. After all, it was Noah who got him towed.

Noah rolled his eyes but didn’t put up a fight. He pulled out his emergency credit card and passed it through the little window.

But the guy slid it back. “No credit cards, dipshit.” He pointed to a sign above Noah’s head that read, “Cash only.”

Noah checked his wallet and turned back to Dylan. “I don’t have that much cash.”

Dylan checked his. “I’ve only got forty bucks left.”

Anthony didn’t look up from the TV as he said, “ATM across the street.”

Noah saw the ATM outside a bodega and the two of them crossed the street. As Noah began the process of withdrawing his cash, he commented, “Is tonight everything you dreamed it would be?”

But Dylan was still a true believer, replying, “Don’t be so negative. You’re going to remember this shit forever.”

“I’m gonna remember this three hundred dollars, that’s for sure.”

“You got me towed, Ivy League, you pay the piper,” Dylan said with a little chuckle.

Just then, a voice boomed behind them: “Yo! Gimme your wallet!”

Startled, Noah turned and saw a gang of scary Albanian dudes. Noah had no idea if they were really Albanians—they could have been from any Eastern European country as far as he knew—but he had read an article about the Albanian mob recently and the idea had stuck with him.

Noah tried to reason with them. “No, wait, I need this to get our car—”

But the lead guy just pushed Noah to the ground and grabbed his wallet.

Dylan thought seriously about making a stand but it was six against two, and who knew what these guys were packing.

The gang leader turned to Dylan and ordered, “You too, Zac Efron!”

Dylan reluctantly handed over his wallet.

The transaction complete, the gang turned to leave when…

A melodic version of “Short Skirt/Long Jacket” started emanating from Dylan’s pants.

Dylan tried to act nonchalant, ignoring his ringing phone, but the guy with his wallet just smiled, like,
Nice try.

“Phones,” he ordered.

Now Dylan tried to bargain. “Come on, man. I just got this.”

The guy punched Dylan in the stomach and took his phone. Noah handed over his own phone voluntarily and the gang took off.

Walker and Genevieve stood in front of the empty space where the Cube was once parked, Walker on Genevieve’s phone. “No answer,” Walker reported.

Walker hung up and gave Genevieve her phone back.

Noah was pretty shaken by the mugging. “Are you all right?” he asked as he helped Dylan up.

“Yeah, great,” Dylan joked, still doubled over in pain.

“We need to call the police!”

“Yeah, I’m sure they’ll put out an APB,” Dylan mocked.

But Noah was pretty worked up and ran back across the street to the tow lot. At the booth, he reported to Anthony, “We just got robbed!”

“Yeah, I saw that,” Anthony replied with not even faux concern.

Noah was incensed. “You saw it?! Why didn’t you do something?! Call the police!”

Anthony finally looked up. “Ooh, or maybe Batman!”

Dylan just stood there, unsurprised by the reaction Noah was getting. But Noah was still trying to reason with the guy. “Look, we’re from out of town, obviously. I’m just trying to meet up with my girlfriend at this party on Front Street. If you’d just give us our car back so we can get out of here, I will send you a check, I promise.”

“Yeah, that’s not gonna happen.”

“This is fucking ridiculous! They took our money and our phones. What are we supposed to do now?”

Anthony just shrugged.

Noah was desperate. He started racking his brains for a solution. Then an idea floated into his brain that was so perfect that Noah impressed even himself.

“Okay, how about this? If you give us our car back now, we’ll pay you in weed.”

For the first time in their brief relationship, Anthony was finally paying attention to Noah. “Excuse me?”

Dylan pulled Noah aside. “Are you crazy?”

But Noah was confident. “Do you want to get out of here or not?”

He returned to the window. “There’s a brick of weed in the car. You can have an ounce in exchange for giving us our car back.”

Anthony thought about it for a second. “What’s the plate number again?”

Dylan reminded him, “933 TOX.”

Anthony punched up the number again and got the location of the car. Dylan passed the key to him through the window and Anthony instructed, “Hang on.”

Anthony walked across the lot and found the car. He used Dylan’s key to unlock it and looked around in the back seat. There was Pike’s book bag. Anthony opened it and saw the brick of marijuana. He looked around, then took the whole book bag.