Take Me There (8 page)

I knew if I went home and spent the night sitting alone on my bed, staring at the walls, I’d get myself in trouble. I had some phone numbers. Girls I could have called. Knew any of them would come over and help ease the loneliness that was becoming a black hole inside of me. They’d bring weed, too. The good stuff. But then I’d wake up the next morning and I’d be more alone than ever, or else I’d find myself with a girl I didn’t recognize, because daylight had turned her into something cold and hard.

I kept driving until I saw a sign near Pier Street that caught my eye—
THE JAVA HUT
. I noticed the picture of the hut before I noticed the words. I recognized it from the logo on Jess’s friends’ shirts, and I wondered if they worked there. I parked and went inside, knowing the chances were one in a million that Jess would actually be there, which of course she wasn’t. I ordered an iced coffee and started walking Baby Face toward the Strand. There were people dancing around a bandstand just south of the pier, cops patrolling on bicycles, and vendors selling food out of booths. Some kind of Fourth of July Beach Bash. The Fourth wasn’t till Wednesday, but they were getting an early start.

Farther down the beach, Baby Face and I passed couples dancing to music from stereos, kids playing volleyball in the sand, and couples holding hands and rollerblading. Here I was, out with my dog. A total loser. At least I’d showered.

I looked at all the faces, hoping to accidentally bump into Jess, but finally gave up and went back to my car when it started to get dark.

I put Baby Face in the back while I sat up front and rolled down the windows.

That’s when I saw her coming out of the Java Hut with Jason.

They walked down the sidewalk arguing and stopped right beside my car. They didn’t see me, but I scrunched down in the seat, anyway.

“Come on, baby,” Jason said, stopping not eight feet in front of me. He pulled Jess close and rubbed up against her. I could tell he’d been drinking. “You don’t need to take a stupid SAT prep course. My parents gave me the keys to the cabin. Don’t you want to spend the week with me, alone?”

Jess pushed him away. “Have you heard anything I’ve been trying to tell you? If I don’t get a decent score I’m gonna have to take the test again.”

“I hear you all right. The stupid SATs are more important to you than I am.”

“It’s a little bit harder to get into Stanford than UCLA, especially since I don’t have an uncle in the registrar’s office.”

“Yeah, well, this is supposed to be the time of our lives, and I’m not having much fun. I have needs, and you haven’t been taking care of them.” He grabbed her hand and guided it toward his crotch. I wanted to jump out of my car and belt him.

“Take care of yourself!” Jess told him, pulling away.

“That’s what I been doing, and I’m getting damn tired of it.”

“You’re disgusting! Is that all you ever think about?” she said, and then she turned and ran in the opposite direction.

“You aren’t the only girl out there,” he yelled after her. He got inside a red Jeep parked beside my Mustang and drove right past her. I wanted to follow him and run the bastard down, force him off the road into a ditch where he belonged. But then I saw Jess running down Hermosa Avenue all alone, and I wondered what I should do. I could have offered her a ride, but I figured it would freak her out for me to suddenly show up out
of nowhere, so I got out of the Mustang and followed her on foot, keeping my distance.

The avenue got more deserted the farther away she got from Pier Street. I wondered where she was going. Then I saw a black van cruising in her direction. The driver looked familiar, and I realized it was Spider at the wheel, with Ajax beside him. I ducked behind a car as he passed. With their tattoos covered up and their belts cinched tight, they almost looked like they belonged. It surprised me how smooth they could act when they tried.

Ajax got his nickname from his squeaky-clean record. His father is a judge up in Sacramento and pulled a lot of strings to keep his son from soiling his legal reputation.

I waited and watched in silent horror as they flipped a U-turn and started following Jess.

Jess saw the van and tried to dart down a side street, but Spider made a quick turn, sped up, and pulled in front of her. Ajax threw open the passenger door, jumping out of the van and blocking her path down the sidewalk. Spider walked around the back of the van and came up behind her.

Jess was trapped between them. “Get away from me,” she yelled.

“Is that any way to act?” said Ajax. “We just want to invite you to a party.”

I ran toward them with no idea what I’d do when I reached them. Jess saw me, and her look of confusion followed by betrayal almost froze me in my tracks.

She thought I was with them.

What else could she think? Why else would I show up there on that dark street at the same time?

“So, what’s the hap, sweetheart?” Ajax asked, his voice echoing off the empty pavement as Spider threw open the van door.

“Leave me alone!” screamed Jess. Ajax took a step toward her and she raised her arm, bringing a set of keys across his face. Then she turned to run.

“Ouch! Shit! Bitch!” Ajax yelled, pressing his hand to his bleeding cheek. Spider stepped out to block Jess’s path and started pushing her toward the open van. “You like it rough. We can play it rough,” he told her. They weren’t even trying to be smooth tonight.

I was still a good fifteen feet away and knew that by the time I reached them, they’d already have her inside.

“Spider!” I yelled, having no idea what I’d say next, but at least it was enough of a distraction to make Spider look up and stop trying to force Jess into the van.

I slowed down as I walked toward them, trying to give myself time to sort out what I was going to do. I couldn’t just order them to let her go. They might hurt her to spite me.

I put on the biggest smile I could manage. “Spider, what up, homie?” I thrust my hand toward him, and he reflexively reached out to grab it before he thought about what he was doing, letting go of Jess, giving her just enough time to wiggle away from him and edge past me, hurrying back to the avenue, frantically punching the numbers on her cell phone. Ajax and Spider started after her, but I stepped in front of them. “Whatcha doin’ down at the beach? I thought Eight Ball was havin’ a thang down at the Krazy Eights.”

“Lookin’ for party favors,” Ajax said.

My stomach tightened. “Man, you better watch your asses,” I warned. “Five-oh is thick up in here.”

“Dat a fact?” Spider asked, giving me the once-over.

“Guess the city put out extra security ’cause of that Fourth of July thang going down at the beach,” I said, though what few cops there were all seemed to be at the party.

“We ’preciate your concern,” Ajax said, eyeing me suspiciously. “Come on, Spider. Let’s bounce.”

They got back into the van, and only then did I allow myself to turn around and look in the direction Jess had gone. She was just rounding the corner. To my horror, Spider sped off in her direction.

I ran full-out to the corner and rounded it to see the black van heading down the street, Jess nowhere in sight. Where had she gone?

Then I saw her, sitting in the passenger seat of Jason’s red Jeep as it drove past me. She turned toward me, hand pressed against the glass, eyes cold and unreadable.

W
E PASS A TOWN IN
T
EXAS CALLED
H
EREFORD, AND THE
whole place smells like cow shit. I roll my window up to keep out the stench, but it doesn’t help.

We hit Amarillo around midnight, the first real city since Albuquerque. Wade is asleep in the back with Baby Face, but I don’t have any problem finding Highway 27.

It ends up being a long stretch of darkened two-lane highway. The only light for miles is the reflection of my headlights off the stripes in the road. My eyes burn, threaten to close. It would be so easy to fall asleep and slide off onto the shoulder.

A semi truck honks and I realize I’ve drifted across the center stripe. The truck is all decked out with red and blue lights for the fourth of July. It brings back a long-forgotten memory of Christmas, the year I turned six. I was supposed to be in bed, but I was up waiting and watching for my father or Santa Claus, whoever came first.

Dad had been gone a lot, making extra runs to California for his trucking company, working overtime for holiday money.
He had promised me a brand-new BMX bike, and I had no doubt he’d come through. He was always returning from the road with special presents for me and Mom—a cap gun for me, a new dress for her.

There was a boy up the hill I used to play with. Can’t remember his name. T.K., J.T., something like that. He was older than I was by a few years, and I must have annoyed him, but when you’re in the country, friends are few with lots of miles between. One day right after Thanksgiving we were making tunnels in the dirt out behind his house with our Hot Wheels, and I was bragging about how my mother was going to take me all the way to Austin to go see Saint Nick at the mall. He told me I was a baby for still believing in such things. “Don’t you know your daddy is Santa Claus?” he said.

Christmas Eve Mom kept telling me to get into bed and stay there or else Santa would get mad and wouldn’t come to visit our house, but I didn’t care. My father never minded me waiting up for him, so I figured if my dad really was Santa, I was safe. If he was just some fat guy dressed in red, I’d take my chances.

Mom kept looking out the window, worried. It had started to snow, which it never did in Quincy, and the dirt road leading up to our house was getting icy.

Mom finally quit arguing with me and let me sit on the couch with her, watching out the window and holding my hand so tightly I thought she might crush the bones.

It was late, and I’d fallen into that place between waking and dreaming when I heard the cuckoo clock belch out twelve long, shrieking birdcalls. I looked out the window and saw the most amazing sight.

The huge outline of a sleigh all lit up in red and green and
white, bigger than I ever imagined, rolled to a stop in front of our mobile home. There were no reindeer; it was powered by diesel and moved on wheels, eighteen of them. When I saw my father walking up the gravel driveway, pushing a new red bike, I turned to my mother and told her breathlessly, “It really is true. My daddy is Santa Claus.”

I ran outside and jumped on the bike, without even stopping to say hello. Then I rode up and down the driveway, pumping my legs as fast as I could, catching snowflakes on my tongue, feeling the cold wind biting through my Spider-Man pajamas.

Up close you could tell it was a truck with lights arranged to look like a sleigh, so it was easy for me to understand how other kids got confused. I also understood why lately, my father had been so secretive about what he was keeping in the back of his truck.

It was about a month later that the police came and took my father to jail, and all my dreams went with him along with my belief in things like happiness and hope.

Christmas and Santa Claus.

W
ADE NEVER CAME HOME THAT NIGHT
. S
ATURDAY MORNING
I told Gomez he was sick, hoping I could cover for him long enough to talk some sense into him. I had just returned from cashing my paycheck and was about to leave for the day when Jess walked into the front lobby. She looked around and then proceeded to the front desk, where Gomez was going through the invoices.

“My car is making a funny noise,” she told him. She didn’t even look in my direction, which was hard since I was standing less than three feet away. I wondered why on earth she’d come back. I was pretty sure after what had happened the night before she would never want to see me again.

“How long?” asked Gomez.

“It’s been doing it for a while. I forgot to mention it when I was here.” Only then did she glance at me, but she looked away just as quickly.

“What kind of funny noise?” Kip asked as he came to stand beside me.

“Kind of a chirp, chirp, chirp, like a little bird.”

“What kind of bird?” Kip asked, smiling playfully.

I mouthed the words
Leave her alone.
She looked like she’d been crying.

“Oh, and the steering wheel has started shaking, but only when I’m coming off the freeway,” Jess added.

“Rotor could be going,” I told her.

“Can you fix it?” she asked, finally looking me full in the face.

“Sure.”

“I thought you were leaving,” Gomez said, trying to hide a smile.

“Just pull her into the bay,” I said to Jess, ignoring him.

She nodded and walked back out to her car.

“Third time’s a charm,” said Gomez. “If you don’t ask her out, you’re a fool.”

“She has a boyfriend.”

“Then why did she conveniently forget to mention her funny little noise? She wanted an excuse to come back and see you.”

“She’s not here for the reasons you think.”

“Son, you got no idea why she’s here.”

I walked back into the garage and saw Jess standing next to her car, chewing on her thumbnail, and I realized Gomez was right. I had no idea why she was there.

I put her car up on the lift, took off the right front wheel and the caliper underneath, and then slid off the rotor.

“Were those guys last night friends of yours?” she asked.

“Nope.” I walked past her to the brake lathe and started shaving off the warped edge of the rotor. When I walked back to her car, I was surprised to find her still standing there.

“But you knew them. Those guys from last night,” she said as if there had been no pause in the conversation.

“Yep.” I slid the rotor back in place.

“They were going to hurt me?”

“Yeah,” I said without looking up at her.

“And you stopped them.”

It wasn’t really a question, so I didn’t answer her.

“What were you doing there?”

“Heard there was a big party down at the beach. Thought I’d check it out,” I lied, though it sounded like a good enough explanation.