Running Wide Open (3 page)

“What’s that?” I asked, standing in the doorway.

“Richard Petty’s 1970 Plymouth Superbird.”

There wasn’t even a hint of impatience in Race’s voice, so I took that as an invitation to keep talking.

“Why’s it got that big thing on the back?”

“The wing? That helps hold it down on the track. It’s a superspeedway car and it can go over 190 miles per hour.”

I was five years old. I had no idea what 190 miles per hour meant.

“That’s more than three times as fast as you guys went on the freeway coming here,” Race explained, setting the car down and swiveling in his chair to face me.

“Wow. Can I have it?”

“No, but I’ll draw you a picture.” He fished a pad of paper and a pencil out of his desk and scrawled for a few minutes, creating a totally cool replica of the Superbird. When he was done he ripped the page from the tablet and handed it over. “How’s that?” he asked, shooting off a grin that would have made me follow him into the bloodiest battle.

When we went home later that night I stuck the sketch up on my wall, where it had stayed for almost ten years. I hadn’t seen Race after that, and for months I’d wished he’d been my big brother, instead of my uncle. But I was kidding myself if I thought that he was gonna fill that role now.

I stuck the Superbird drawing in the top drawer of the desk. Then I broke down the boxes I’d emptied and slid them under the bed so I wouldn’t have to get new ones when Race kicked me out.

With my unpacking finished, I rooted through the closet until I found the box Race had made a crack about. Good thing he hadn’t pressed the issue. It wouldn’t have done much to promote my bad-ass image if he’d figured out I liked to read.

In my crowd it was acceptable for a guy to check out the occasional comic book or dirty magazine, but I read
real
books. Current authors like Alden R. Carter and Chris Crutcher, and even the stuff they taught in school. I totally got into how a writer could pull you away from the world and manipulate your feelings. It was like painting, except the pictures were created with words and ideas instead of watercolors or oils.

I flopped down on the bed with my dog-eared copy of
Stotan
. The mattress drooped seriously in the middle, folding around my sides like a taco shell. No matter. Within minutes I was drawn in by the story.

“Hey, Cody, come out here and get some dinner.”

Race’s voice jolted me. I slapped my book shut and shoved it under the pillow.

“Cody?”

“I’m coming.”

In the kitchen, I found my uncle ferreting through the cupboards for clean plates. “Turn on the TV,” he said. “There oughta be something good on cable.”

I picked up the remote—complete with duct tape to hold the batteries in place—and flipped through the channels until I found MTV.

The plate Race handed me a minute later held nothing but a huge, orange mound of macaroni and cheese.

“Real balanced meal, dude.”

“You don’t expect me to wash more than one pan, do ya?”

From the appearance of the kitchen, it looked like it had been a long time since he’d washed
any
pans.

Race grabbed a second plate off the counter and sank into a chair that was covered with clean laundry.

“I probably oughta get you enrolled in school tomorrow,” he said, “but maybe you could use a few days to get used to things first.”

“Sure.” I kept my focus on the Guns and Roses video I was watching.

“Somehow, I expected a little more enthusiasm than that.”

“I appreciate it, dude. Seriously.” To show I meant it I gave him a few second’s eye contact before loading up my fork. You can get a lot of macaroni on a fork if you stab it instead of scooping it. The noodles all squish up and compress.

Race sighed. “Your dad sent some money. If you need anything, we could go get it tomorrow.”

“Cool.”

“You a big Guns and Roses fan or something?”

I shrugged.

“Do you always talk this much?”

“No.”

He gave up and pulled a magazine out from under a couple of beer bottles on the coffee table. It had race cars on the cover.

We ate in silence until my plate was empty. “You got any more of this stuff?” I asked.

“Sure. Over there on the stove. Finish it up if you want.”

There wasn’t much left, so I sat down with the whole pan. My lack of manners, which would have made Mom go nuclear, didn’t attract a glance from Race.

Somewhere in the distance a train whistle sounded. I didn’t think much of it until it wailed again, this time much closer and accompanied by the clatter of wheels. As the noise got louder, the trailer began to shake. Dishes rattled in the cupboards. Beer bottles jiggled off the edge of the coffee table. Race sat quietly on the couch, flipping the pages of his magazine.

“Holy shit!” I hollered. “How often do those things come through here?”

“I dunno. I don’t hear ’em anymore.”

“You don’t
hear
them?”

“Not really.” Race kept his eyes on the magazine. “It’s not so bad now, but before I had cable, they used to really mess with the TV reception.”

I stared at my uncle, unable to believe people actually lived like this, then got up to drop the pan in the sink. As I headed for my room, I hesitated.

“You gonna give me your list of rules?”

Race blinked at me. “Uh—yeah. If you go someplace, let me know where you’ll be, and if you’re gonna smoke, try not to burn the trailer down.”

“That’s it?”

“Well, aside from not doing anything illegal. But I already told you about that.”

I couldn’t believe it. Back home there were tons of rules. The problem was they changed from week to week, so I’d developed a policy of doing whatever I felt like and not getting caught.

Race seemed pleased to finally have my full attention. “You wanna go see a movie tonight or something?”

What did he think this was, a
Brady Bunch
re-run? Still, something about the way he wouldn’t quit with the nice guy routine almost made me want to give him a break.

“Not really,” I said. Then, before he had a chance to suggest anything else, I retreated to my room and cranked the music.

* * *

In bed that night the full force of reality hit me. I was in a whole different town—a total burg compared to Portland—away from my friends and everything I knew. Dad might not be on my list of favorite people after banishing me to the nether regions of the state, but at least I was used to him.

I thought of my mother, off partying in Phoenix. A familiar anger gnawed at me, and I hated myself for caring. You’d think by now I would’ve learned she wasn’t gonna change. You’d think I could’ve let it go. But some hopes keep springing back to life, no matter how many wooden stakes get driven through their hearts.

If I’d had any brains I would’ve considered myself lucky when she left. It was better than being criticized all the time—reminded I was weak and worthless like my dad. But something in me couldn’t see past the injustice of her sneaking off and leaving things unresolved. You can’t start a fight then walk away from it.

Shutting my eyes, I drifted back to the biggest mistake of my life. I felt the nozzle of the rattle can under my finger, heard Mike shouting, “
Cops!”
I saw red and blue lights spill over the sidewalk as beer surged through me, fanning my anger until it roared up like a grass fire.

And there in front of me, the dripping orange paint spelled out what I couldn’t say to my mother’s face:
Saundra Everett is a worthless bitch
.

Chapter 2

The next morning sunlight fought its way through the trailer’s grimy windows to burn away the previous night’s doubts. But I was still in Eugene and it still sucked.

The thing was, I didn’t really mind my uncle. There was something about his puppy-dog friendliness that was hard to blow off. I could see myself getting to like him, but what if I gave in to that feeling and he decided I was too much trouble? Even worse, what if he didn’t like
me
?

After experiencing a new level of hell trying to wash up in a shower that wasn’t big enough to turn around in, I moussed my hair into its proper spiked form then went to confront my new life.

Race snored away in the front room. I found half a box of Cap’n Crunch in the cupboard, poured it into a pot, and dumped milk on top.

With Race monopolizing the couch, the only place to sit was the chair with the laundry on it. I picked up the remote and hunted till I found a channel that was showing a
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
cartoon.

Race groaned, blinking at me across the room.

“You snore, dude,” I said.

He grunted, worked an arm out from under the blankets, and squinted at his watch. “I don’t think I’ve been up this early since the last time I was up this late.”

“It’s seven-thirty,” I informed him, fixing my attention on the TV, where Raphael—the coolest of the Turtles—was kicking some bad guy’s ass. “This is the time most people get up.” I steam-shoveled my spoon into the pan, bringing it up fully loaded and dripping. A couple pieces of cereal escaped, disappearing into the pile of clothes underneath me.

Race burrowed back under his covers. “Turn it down,” he said. “I don’t get up till nine.”

After having those damned trains rattle me awake several times during the night, I wasn’t feeling particularly sympathetic. I clicked the volume down exactly two notches. Race didn’t fight for more.

The Cap’n Crunch didn’t do much to stave off my hunger, so when the cartoon was over I got up to search the kitchen. I didn’t find any cereal, or even bread for toast, but I did discover some eggs in the fridge. As I mixed about half a dozen with the last of the milk, Race woke up again.

“What are you doing?”

“Cooking breakfast.”

Race rubbed a hand across his face, sighed, and hefted himself up, wadding his blankets into a ball and tossing them to the far corner of the couch. “You already ate all the cereal,” he pointed out, waving a hand at the empty Cap’n Crunch box on the kitchen floor.

“So?” There’d hardly been enough in that box to satisfy a three-year-old.

“So somebody has to pay for that stuff.” Race edged around the coffee table to shut off the TV then pull a clean shirt from the pile of clothes I’d had been sitting on. A semi-clean shirt, anyway. He had to pick bits of soggy Cap’n Crunch off it.

“Any food left?” he asked, padding barefoot through the kitchen.

“Dude, there wasn’t any food
before
I ate.”

“Guess it’s time for a grocery run.” Race opened the freezer and pulled out a carton of Twinkies. He tipped out the last cake then tossed the box toward the garbage can. It missed.

“Very nutritional breakfast you’ve got there,” I said, watching him tear open the wrapper with his teeth and devour the Twinkie in two bites.

“Don’t knock it till you’ve tried it.”

* * *

That afternoon Race dragged me to the grocery store, where he loaded up the cart with all sorts of healthy foods like Twinkies, potato chips, and microwave burritos. He seriously altered the structural integrity of everything in the pile by tossing a six-pack of beer on top. Not normal beer, like Budweiser or Miller, but some weird brand called Guinness.

On the way home, I had to draw the line when I heard Jimmy Buffett start in on
Margaritaville
for the fourth time in two days.

“Don’t you have any other tapes?”

“Sure, there’s a box around here somewhere. I just can’t ever find it.”

“Y’know, there’s this amazing device called a radio receiver, and it’s built right into your stereo.”

Race turned to grin at me. “No kidding?”

I pulled my feet off the dash and scouted the floorboards until I found a shoebox full of cassettes. After popping the offending tape out of the stereo, I glanced at its title.
Songs You Know By Heart
. Now wasn’t
that
the truth.

We didn’t get back to the trailer until after three.

“Look, kid,” Race said. “I gotta go to the shop and put in some time on that roll cage. You wanna come along?”

“Nah, I think I’ll stay here.”

Something in Race’s posture went slack, like he’d just found out the cop who’d pulled him over for speeding was gonna let him off with a warning. “Okay. Well, if I’m not back by six, go ahead and fix yourself something to eat.”

I spent the afternoon vegging in front of the tube. It was nice having the place to myself, at least until my channel surfing landed me on
Lord of the Flies
. It’s this story about some British schoolboys who get stranded on an island. The society they form slowly disintegrates until they start killing each other. I didn’t know what it was about that movie, but even though it spooked the hell out of me, whenever it was on I had to watch it. The idea that little kids could treat each other that way didn’t surprise me. People were messed up. The whole world was messed up. By the time it was over I was thoroughly depressed.

Six o’clock came and went, but Race didn’t show up. I didn’t feel like cooking, so I ate a bag of Doritos. That only took the edge off. A half-gallon of chocolate ice cream helped, but I had to break down and cook a frozen pizza before I filled myself up.

Race still wasn’t home by a quarter after seven. No big surprise. There had to be a hundred things he’d rather do than hang out with some strange kid.

Around eight I got up to snag a Pepsi. As I moved Race’s beer aside I thought, why not? It wasn’t like he was here to stop me.

I’d never had Guinness before, but I figured beer was beer.
Wrong
. Guinness was nasty. It tasted
burnt
. Still, it was alcohol. Race hadn’t appeared by the time I choked down the first bottle, so I got myself another. The second one wasn’t quite as bad. The third tasted almost decent.

As the alcohol percolated through my body, satisfying every brain cell and muscle fiber, the stress of the past two weeks melted away. I lit up a smoke and explored Race’s music collection. Not a single CD in all those cassettes. It was rock, though, and respectable stuff at that: Queen, CCR, Van Halen. I selected Pink Floyd’s
The Wall
and stuck it in the tape deck, cranking the volume and slumping on the couch with my fourth beer.