The Measures Between Us (2 page)

“They don't look like they scare too easily,” said Lucas.

“Even so.”

Lucas took a long sip of beer and smiled. “Of course,” he said.

“Where are my manners. Flooders is what we call people who piss themselves on the roller coaster, the ride across from the ride Mouse runs.”

“Much obliged, Lucas,” Mouse said, raising his beer toward him. “Now I'm confident they'll stay. And to answer your question: All dry tonight, dry as the motherfucking Sahara. The flooders stayed home. Buncha daredevils gracing us this evening, maybe it's a full moon, maybe it's all that rain—what we need right now is dryness.”

As everyone drank and got high, Mouse dug a pack of cards from beneath a sofa cushion. He shuffled several times and then divided it in half and started a game of war with Lucas. “Hope
you kids don't mind,” he said, concentrating on the cards. “It's a little tradition. We wind down every night with a few rounds.”

“It's the only game we can remember the rules to,” said Lucas. “Poker's too complicated, and even if we could remember the rules, we don't like taking each other's money.”

“We take other people's money all day,” Mouse said. “Doesn't seem right to just give it back to each other a few hours later.”

“Who's winning?” asked Jack.

“It's war, son,” Mouse said. “There are no winners.”

Cynthia laughed and seconds later put a hand on Jack's knee to assure him she wasn't making fun of him. He smiled himself and hoped he wasn't blushing.

A few minutes into the game, a red light flashed against one of the walls. Lucas parted the venetian blind with his finger and gazed outside. “Five-oh,” he said. He checked his watch. “Usually they're gone by now, unless someone's temper's gone mental.”

“Could be they're here for Richmond.”

Lucas nodded.

Mouse looked at Cynthia. “Richmond doesn't much like the wife he's married to,” he said.

“Are the cops coming this way?” Jack asked.

“Why?” Mouse said.

“Just wondering,” Jack said. He gestured at the joint on the lip of the ashtray.

“Believe me, they don't care about a little weed,” said Lucas, settling back into the card game.

“You two on the run?” Mouse said.

“No,” said Cynthia. “Do we seem like that?”

He shrugged. “Not really. Just seems like everyone's running from something, big or small, illegal or no. And your boy seems
a little twitchy.” He flipped the top card off his deck: an ace. “Lucas here, for example, innocent and harmless as he looks, is running from a series of ex-girlfriends, several of whom have vowed to use a box cutter in the service of making him less of a man—significantly less. They've warned him that falling asleep at night, as is the right of every American or Arizonan or naturalized citizen, might not be so prudent. They've threatened to make him eligible for one of those boys' choirs very popular round Christmastime.”

Lucas turned over an ace of his own.

“Motherfucker,” said Mouse. “Here we go.” They each dealt three cards facedown. “You two like to dance?” Mouse asked.

“Why?” Jack said.

“Why?” Mouse repeated. “Why? 'Cause I want to know. Something wrong with my curiosity?” He looked up from the stalemate and stared at Jack through the smoky air. “Mostly because I want to know if I should ask Lucas, once we have emerged from this battle, to cue up one of his Al Green records. You see, Lucas here is old-school. Look through his music collection and you won't find a single rap album. Isn't that right, Lucas?”

Lucas nodded.

“And why is that, Lucas? Enlighten us.” Mouse said.

“Rap's not music,” Lucas said, concentrating on the cards. “Rap is what happens after music dies, after people give up and conclude their heart does nothing but pump blood and has nothing to do with shame and love.”

“See,” Mouse continued, “he's twenty-three, right near yourselves, I imagine, but he's got the outlook of a fifty-year-old. My friend has seen things you and I have only dreamed of. Isn't that right, Lucas?”

Again Lucas nodded.

“Like what?” Cynthia asked.

“Are the cops still out there?” Jack said.

“Examples,” Mouse said, focusing on Jack. “Your girl wants examples. She wants something to turn over in her hands, like clay. Women won't just nod and pretend to understand, like we do. They don't like to let things go. They've got these souls that get mired.”

Jack took a deep drag off the joint being passed around and said, “Evidence. She wants evidence.”

“Right,” Mouse nodded, “now you're getting on board. Okay, you want examples, so here's one. Couple months ago we're in Tuscaloosa. Ala-fucking-bama. Ever been there?”

Jack and Cynthia shook their heads. Lucas was at his record collection, head bent sideways so he could read the spines. The albums were stored in apple crates.

“Good. Don't. Only reason to go there was a rib joint called Dreamland, presided over by one of your garden-variety three-hundred-and-fifty-pound black men. Name of Tiny or Smalls or Little Man or somesuch. Only that shit's closed now, except no one bothered sending me a telegram, either, so I just keep bragging to Lucas and the other young folk about how well we're gonna eat once we hit Alabama. I'm telling 'em, ‘Save room, stop shoving them lamp dogs down your throat.'

“Then we get to the fairgrounds, we get the rides up, we do the safety checks, we lock everything down. I catch Chester the haunted-house man chewing a Slim Jim and I actually snatch it out of his mouth and wave it around in front of his face like some limp dick and say, ‘This isn't food, this is a guess at food.' Then we pile into a car and drive to a boarded-up place. Sign's still there, too, like a taunt. Perry, who runs the Whack-A-Mole,
goes, ‘Now what? KFC?' And I tell them, ‘If you all are hitting KFC, you should drop me back at the fair first, because it's some kind of sacrilege to go to Kentucky Fried Chicken when you meant to go to Dreamland.' My way of thinking is you can't deepen the insult by patronizing an establishment that very well might have played a part in the demise of a quality rib joint, all because people want to have their food handed to them by a sullen teenager with a headset, without having to peel their ass off the seat of their car. But I digress.

“Okay, back to Lucas here and his all-knowing self. Third to last night of the Tuscaloosa fair, closing time. I'm slowly getting over the Dreamland thing. It takes a while, the true disappointments in life. Lucas is chaining up his ride, counting his takes, and this couple—man and a woman, in the neighborhood of eighteen or twenty years old—come up to him. They're nice looking, definitely on the above-average side of things. The male half of the party, he tries to hand over a stack of tickets, more than were required for admission. Only Lucas tells him, ‘Sorry, man, ride's shut down for the night.' ”

Mouse paused and stared at Lucas. “I rememberin' this right?”

“So far, so good,” said Lucas.

“Now our boy starts begging and pleading. Says, ‘Aww, come on, just let us on, who's gonna care? Please?' Turns up his accent, too, which I'd hazard has occasionally bought him some traction with the ladies if not even his mother. And Lucas is like, ‘Sorry, man, no can do. Rules are rules, and I'm shitcanned if I break them and I got rent to pay and future ex-wives to support. Come back tomorrow. Midway opens at eleven o'clock sharp.' But this cat, he's determined. He has it in his mind that neither his night nor his life nor who knows what the fuck else will be complete
lest he be granted the chance to ride the bumper cars, at this precise moment on this precise night. Predictably, he starts trying to sweeten the offer with some money thrown in, maybe due to Lucas mentioning his rent obligation and the ladies who will cloud his future.

“Still faithful to the story, as it went?” Mouse asked.

Lucas nodded, opened a fresh beer. Foam poured out, which he sucked up before it dribbled down the can.

Jack motioned that he'd like another too.

“Okay, our man's there continuing to beg and plead, with his girl right by his side, and Lucas is just going about the business of closing up the ride. He's politely declined the promise of additional monetary remuneration, and he's sort of half pretending this gentleman isn't loitering in such close proximity. Night after night we do the same thing—we could do it in our sleep if we had to—so it's not surprising that Lucas could do it with someone who wouldn't shut the fuck up standing right there.

“So what do you think our boy does? Walk away he does not. Close his mouth he does not. Search for a more amenable colleague he does not. Disappear into the nighttime? If only. No, instead he leans close into Lucas and says, his voice now dialed down a notch or two, ‘Listen, man, if you let me on this ride, you can fuck my girl.' The girlfriend doesn't hear, so she and her pretty face and pretty hair are just smiling merrily along, unaware that the dude she's with has just offered her as trade for a lousy ride.

“Feel free to jump in here at any point, Lucas.”

“Nahh,” said Lucas. “No reason to. You tell it as good as me. Probably better.”

“You're picturing the situation, right?” Mouse said, looking at Jack and Cynthia.

They nodded.

“It's the girl, her boyfriend, and Lucas. Ride's still, unmoving as a statue. Security guys are prowling around but they're nowhere close, not that they and their half-assed selves would be of much assistance—I mean, this has just graduated into a character problem, not just a we're-closed situation. Okay, what does Lucas do. Lucas pauses his routine and says to the guy, ‘Are you serious?' And the guy nods and says, ‘Serious as the cancer that buried my grandmother.' So Lucas looks the girl up and down, such as he might genuinely be considering the offer. He looks at her with enough admiring detail to note that she's wearing one of those tank tops that don't go quite down to the waistband of your pants. It looks like an accident but it's not. There's a little sparkly thing in her belly button, which seems to be popular nowadays, though if you ask me, I'd say it always makes the girls look a little, well, easy—not that there aren't hours of the night when easy looks good. And she's wearing jeans, and she's not like a movie star or anything, but well, well within the realm of attractive—and of a much higher grade than most of the women who drift into our company, present new friends notwithstanding.”

Cynthia smiled and looked at the floor.

“Then Lucas goes up to her, right up to her ear, same as the boyfriend did with him, and starts whispering. He steals a look at the boyfriend, who's now got a smirk, as if Lucas has signed on and they're working out logistics. Only what Lucas says is this: ‘Listen: Baby, stay with this man and he will be responsible for your death and demise. I don't know how and I don't know when, but should you want to live a full and prosperous life, should you want to preserve the natural order of things by which it is the children who grieve at the funerals of the parents and not
vice versa, then you need to insert miles if not nations between you and him. Put yourself on a plane, stow away on a Freightliner, or walk until the soles of your pretty little shoes turn to dust.'

“And you know what she whispered back?”

Jack and Cynthia shook their heads.

“‘Take me home.' Same as the John Denver song.
Take me home
. Said it like a Bible verse, true and inarguable as sunlight.”

The stereo had gone silent. One side of Al Green was over. Lucas stood up to flip the record and retrieve a fresh beer.

“You two haven't danced once,” Mouse said.

“Couldn't,” said Cynthia.

“Why's that?” Lucas asked. “Some leg handicap you haven't apprised us of? Some prejudice against the Reverend Al?”

“The story,” said Jack. “We wanted to listen to the story.”

“Story's all done,” said Mouse. “Maybe y'all should cut a rug now.”

Jack looked at Cynthia and she nodded. They both stood, and Lucas slid his chair over to give them more space. He turned back to the game, to the effortless rhythm of flipping one card after another.

Mouse focused on the war, too, but from time to time he glanced up, his smile warm and wide. It wasn't so much dancing as leaning, since there was so little room. They swayed through one song and then a second, maybe a third. It was too late, and too far into the beer and pot, to count.

“I knew it,” Mouse said to no one in particular. “I knew these two liked to dance.”

Back at the car, Jack could not wait and neither could Cynthia and he kissed her, the two of them hungry, pressed against the
door. He gripped her hips just over the waistband of her jeans, steadied her body against his. The parking lot was empty. Everyone had left hours ago, fastening drowsy children into car seats. They had tuned their radios to WEEI to find out if the Sox were shattering their hearts again. There were no more policemen, no more Mouse and no more Lucas.

With Cynthia's leg fenced between his, Jack reached behind her and found the door handle, opening the car just enough for the two of them to slip into the backseat. There he slid his hands up her shirt, to her silky bra, cupped her breasts. She kept kissing him, and in between she murmured words that weren't quite words but permission. He fumbled with the hook and gave up before too long, moving his hand inside the fabric instead, holding her hardening nipples.

She ran her fingers up his jeans, knees to thighs, and he was so hard it felt like he might burst through the denim. He opened his eyes for a second, less, saw a rush of hair and motion. Maybe the security guards spidering across the grounds knew what the steamed-up windows meant and maybe they did not. They were far away, wherever they were.