Paradise (pt 4)

A few days before they left for Hawaii, the boy and the girlfriend were driving in the girlfriend’s Jeep on the freeway, whipping in and out of lanes. In the early days, when she wanted the boy to like her, she took him driving on back Texas roads, teaching him to drive stick and roll joints. He started pushing her Jeep down the street in the early hours, driving through neighborhoods until he was good at it, looking for something but he didn’t know what, coming home before his father woke up at dawn. One night he was lost and the Jeep kept stalling and almost went into a ditch, coasting into a gas station with the boy white knuckled. There was a guy at the pay phone and he asked if he needed help; he was drunk and smelled like puke, but the boy was so rattled he let the man drive him back to his father’s house, and after they pushed it into place they jacked off together: and that was the first time the boy saw that he was not leaning against the Jeep at all but into it, his arm through metal that felt like cold bristles, yelping and yanking it free.

When he was finished the drunk walked away without a word, leaving the boy to slide his hands through everything he could find: tires, trees, concrete, brick, not stopping until the light came on and his father stood in the doorway in his drooping underwear, asking him what the fuck he was doing outside at that hour.

As the girlfriend launched the Jeep around the other cars she sang with the radio; if she didn’t know the words she just went la la la, and handed him the joint, slapping her hands on the wheel. The boy was surprised she’d asked him to come with her after last week when he saw that she had a guy at the house when his father was working; he would have been gone all day if not for a flat; for days she hadn’t even looked at him.

She turned down the volume. I want your dad to marry me, she said, coughing. You think he’s gonna ask me in Hawaii?

The boy handed her back the joint, his hair flapping wildly into his eyes; his mouth was sandy and dry. This hadn’t occurred to him.

She went la la la.

I couldn’t sleep the other night, she said. So I got up to watch tv and saw you were out in the driveway. I waited a little while and then I woke your dad up.

Later the boy would realize that he could have just let go, could have just let the Jeep pass through him and float off to wherever he landed.

He didn’t see anything? the boy asked.

She took one final drag off of the joint, coughing while she stamped it out in the ashtray, and though she said no more the boy heard her loud and clear, and she saw that he knew and gave him a wink, stepping down hard on the gas.

*

The boy comes back to the table where his father is picking his nose. He sees the guy leave the bathroom and walk out of the restaurant without looking back. His dick is still burning from the guy’s hand.

Your food was cold so I tossed it, his father says. That was eight bucks.

I had the squirts, the boy says, and his father laughs and the girlfriend says gross and gets up, asking the boy where the bathrooms are at; she and his father kiss. His father watches her go, eating shrimp with his mouth open.

I should have left her at home, he says. When we get back I’m telling her to move out.

She thinks you’re going to marry her, the boy says.

His father picks up the plate and licks it clean. They all do, he says through his teeth.

*