"Let's not go to Farnesi's," Brenda says, "I'm tired of people."
Everyone is going to Farnesi's, so I'm disappointed, figure she's having a bad time. "Have to go home?"
"Oh no," she says coming up close. "Don't have to be in till one," she whispers and French kisses me in the ear. That settles that.
*
We have the ragtop up now. Lots of kids out that didn't go to the dance. I just turn right at Robertson and start dragging Main, honking at the cars I know, which is most of them. But I'm not sure what Brenda wants to do. I still think maybe she'll want to talk about school, like homework and stuff, so I get a little uneasy. I drive over by the show, the Sierra Theater, drive around the Sierra Drive-Inn right next to it. There's a new carhop the guys have been taking about. The place is crowded though, just one parking place left but when I start to pull in, Brenda says, "Don't stop here."
At the south end of town, at the corner of Robertson and Fifteenth, I make a circle through the dirt parking lot around the Palm Drive-In that serves those greasy rolled-up tacos I eat a ton of every now and then. Melvin jumps out of his car, flags me down.
"Hey, I've got a drag for you," he says when I get my window down.
"I don't need one tonight, Melvin," I tell him, feeling a little chill in the air. "I don't drag with girls in my car."
"Oh, Bobby, this guy's from Mountain View. Says he's heard about your car. Has a '55 just like this except it's blue, a rag top and everything."
"Tell him to look me up another night."
"Won't be another night. Get him while you can. Make a name for yourself."
"Not tonight, Melvin."
"How about, maybe later, Bobby? I'll try to keep him around. Say 'Maybe later,' for me, okay. Say that you'll look me up at Farnesi's. I can accept that." He starts to grin a little at how excited he is.
"Okay," I say grinning back. "I'll look you up. Maybe later."
So we are dragging Main again, and Brenda is quiet for minute, then she says, "Thank you, Bobby." And she kisses me on the neck, under my ear. Sort of comes out of the blue.
"What's that for?" I want to know.
"For not being like other guys. For being a gentleman."
As we pass in front of the park, she points. "There it is."
I see it too. A baby blue '55 Chevy with a ragtop. It's pulled up to Main from a side street, stopped at a stop sign, and as we pass, it pulls in behind us, blinks its lights once.
There are two sets of railroad tracks at the north edge of town. In between them, there's enough space to park in the gravel. They pull up beside me.
"I'll just get rid of them," I tell Brenda.
When I get the door open, she says, "Bobby. Are you sure? You can take me home, if you want." The interior light is on, shining highlights in her blond hair, Love Me Tender on the radio. I look at that white blouse she's filling up and the calf of her leg sticking out from under her skirt and a little gold chain around her ankle.
"It's not even close," I tell her.
Two guys in the car. The passenger talks first, and I just heard the driver call him Gordy.
"How about a go?" he asks. I look down, see a beer can between his legs. I can tell, he's tall and skinny. Has a flattop. Kind of reminds me of an old blond-headed Leroy.
"Na. Not tonight," I tell Gordy. "Got my girl with me." And for some reason, just calling her "my girl" sounds real good.
"What you got in it," the driver wants to know. He looks to be about twenty-five, heavy set, maybe a little fat, lost a little hair.
"Straight stock."
He smiles real big. "Ya, I heard about it when a kid in San Jose had it. I would sure like to make a run at it."
"Could be the same car. Maybe not. I don't know who had it the first year. Another time."
"You know Charles Kunze?"
So here we go again. The whole world has Charles on the brain. "Heard of him."
"You tell him," Herman says, "Mary still longs for him."
"First thing next time I see him."
"Make sure you get the name right. 'Mary.' You got it?" Then he laughs big. "Sure you don't want to try me? I don't get over here much. I hear you're Lenny Hammer's little brother."
"When he was a live."
"It's a sign of the times. They don't make a Hammer like they used to."
I don't have much to say about that.
He shakes his head, looks away from me. "What a shame. Tell Charles that Lenny's going to haunt him to the grave."
"Jesuschrist, Herman. Do you see that girl?" It's Gordy interrupting, and he's looking at Brenda. Maybe I should've closed my car door. "Where did you find her?"
"She's just a friend." Don't like him prying into my business.
"We've got to come to Chowchilla more, Herman. It's like I was telling you. When it rains here, girls puddle up in the streets instead of water."
"I'm not hard to find," I tell him, walking off. "Another time."
"We'll see to it," says Herman.
I hear Gordy talking as I close my car door. "They grow 'em in the fields here, Herman. I tell you, they come out of the ground like potatoes. He probably pulled her off a cornstalk."
We head back up town. She moves over against me and asks if she can shift the gears for me. So when I have to slow going around the Palm Drive-in, she gears down while I work the clutch.
"Why you doing this?"
"So you can put your arm around me."
She pulls my coat open and gets inside it with me, gives me a squeeze.
"You've known Charles for a long time, haven't you?"
"He was my dead brother's best friend."
"I remember him. And I remember Lenny, too."
"You do?"
"Sure. He was my cousin's boyfriend."
Small town. "You mean..." and now I am hunting for a name, "Helen was your cousin?"
"Helen is my cousin. She's still alive, Bobby. Lives in Merced. They moved there after Lenny got killed, to get her out of Chowchilla. Her father worked at the Bank of America here. He just changed to the branch in Merced."
The next time I cross the tracks, as I start to turn right to drag around Farnesi's, she says, "Go left." So I go left, and we're heading out into the country, but just on the other side of the bridge over the Ash Slough, she tells me to turn right on a dirt road. Actually not much of a dirt road, just kind of a lane that goes a ways into a peach orchard and then quits in tall grass.
"This is good," she says.
"Were you at Lenny's funeral?"
"Yes. But let's not talk about that, okay? I've got you on my mind now."
I'm not quite sure what that means, except I feel the swelling in my pants. I don't remember her at the funeral. But I figure it can wait. I cut the lights and shut off the motor but leave the radio going and she adjusts it to make KMJ 560 come in better. I turn down the music a little, and when she turns her head around to look at me, I kiss her.
God, I never knew a girl could slobber so much.
I lean back toward my door, bringing her with me, turn a little so she's between me and the seatback, and we sort of lay down. I kiss her real slow like, and she moans. I put my hand on the front of her blouse. When I get my hand inside, she undoes her snap and I just get weak all over. Bev sure didn't have tits like this. And Bev had those tiny little girl kisses. I can't believe how easy this is. She just keeps moaning and groaning.
Just as I get going good, she stops right in midstream and I figure, Well that's all for tonight.
"Bobby," she whispers. "It's awfully crowded in the front seat."
"What should I do?" I whisper back.
"You are such a gentleman, aren't you?"
"I just don't want to stop."
"I don't either. I just want more room."
"Maybe I could put the seat back a little."
"No. I want to do it, Bobby. Do you want to do it?"
I can't get any words to come out.
"I want to do it in the backseat."
&nb
sp; *
Now that I've taken Brenda home, I'm thinking about seeing if anything's going on over at Farnesi's before heading home, but first I stop at the Beacon station on the corner of Robertson and First Street just before the tracks. Ask old crippled Ben to fill my Chevy with that 100-octane premium and go to check myself out in the bathroom mirror. Got a little stuff on my shorts and I'm worried about that, so I throw them in the trash can, lock the door so no one comes in while I got my pants off. I wash the lipstick off my face and there's plenty of it, see only a little on my collar, maybe Mama won't notice, then try to comb the calf-licks out of my hair. It's not like me, being out alone at night. Usually I at least have Leroy with me. Feels good to be alone. I just feel so free. Free and yet I have myself a girl. A serious girl this time.
Ben has just finished washing the back window. He's dragging that lame leg of his around like it's a suitcase. He's been pumping gas in Chowchilla as long as I can remember. Never seen him with a clean shave or a clean pair of pants.
"Where you headed, Bobby?" he asks. He's a nosy sucker.
"Farnesi's. I'm starving," I tell him.
*
The dirt parking lot at Farnesi's is still crowded. It's only a little after one. I walk away from my car, and just as my hand hits the door of the restaurant, I catch a look at a half-moon coming up through trees off to the east. It's a swinging door with glass squares that let a little light through, and as I push it open, Thomas sees me from his table in the middle of the room.
"Hey Bobby, we could've used you on the football field tonight," he shouts. Bev's sitting across from Phyllis and damn if that's not Leroy sitting next to her. Bev sees me and jumps up, heading for the bathroom. Phyllis is looking down into a Shirley Temple like it can talk back. Bev asks Phyllis to go with her. So Leroy jumps up like he didn't mean to be sitting with them, and walks across the room to sit with Wayne.
"Could've used some of your speed on defense," Thomas adds. He sticks his arm out to stop me as I go by.
"Looks to me like you got beat bad enough without the likes of me out there." I brush his arm aside to walk on past.
Thomas shouts after me, "Hey, Bobby, what the hell's wrong with your old man?"
I don't know quite what to say to that. But I go back and he gets up from the table. Thomas is the biggest kid in high school, so I have to look up at him, his freckled face. It's kind of hard to look around him too.
"Came into the shop a couple of days ago," he says, "chewed Daddy out about the tractor we just sold you guys."
"Hell, I don't know, Thomas. Why are you getting red in the face at me? I haven't heard anything about it."
"Came in to our showroom banging on the equipment like he wanted to tear up the place. Threatened to give my daddy a whipping cause his tractor's using so much oil. What the hell does he expect?"
"Maybe just wants it to work like your daddy told him. Maybe he's pissed cause it drinks more oil than he can beer. That's a lot of oil, Thomas. Heard him say the other day it was matching him can for can."
Thomas shakes his head and sits back down.
"Glad you had a good game, Thomas," I throw over my shoulder.
Melvin, Wayne and Eugene are sitting in a booth across the room, where Leroy's joined them squirming in his new seat. Wayne is just sitting there with steam rising off him. I don't like the idea of sitting with him. Their booth is next to the door that leads into the bar and the bathroom where Bev's gone. Melvin has been kind of antagonistic lately too, but I guess I can get along with him. His home life is suffering. Melvin doesn't even have an old man, so he says. Has a stepfather, mean as hell and old enough to be his grandfather. Melvin stays with his brother Johnny most of the time. Had a fight with his stepfather not long ago, trying to keep him from beating his mother. Put the old man in the hospital. Broke the end of his nose off so that it was just hanging by a little flap. Melvin's not very big, but pound for pound they say he's the toughest kid in town. They had to sew the nose back on. I need to talk to Melvin after what Wayne told me, so I go on over.
"Ah, here he comes now, and with Brenda's pussy all over him. She sure is a juicy little girl. So how's your hammer hanging?" is the way Melvin starts in on me. Looks like he might've had a dentist filing on that chipped tooth.
"Not too bad I say." Even surprises me how convincing I sound. But I wish he wouldn't talk like that about Brenda. It wouldn't have been so bad except that here comes Bev and Phyllis back from the bathroom, Bev with fresh red lipstick and her hair pulled back over her ears, those ears just hearing everything. She gives Melvin one of her favorite eat-shit looks. She walks past me with a face blank as a rock. Phyllis picks up her Shirley Temple, giving me a cute smile.
I pull up a chair, sit at the end of the booth. Melvin and Leroy are sitting on the ends next to me.
"I don't want to hear about it," Leroy says. He looks sullen, like he's sobered up some too.
Melvin usually smokes Camels but tonight he's rolling his own. And he's not letting me off the hook. So while he's shaking the little cloth pouch to get a line of tobacco on that piece of brown paper, he looks up at Leroy. "I do want to hear about it," he says. "How was she, Bobby?" He's still looking straight at Leroy. "How big are those tits? How round is that ass? How much padding does she have in that bra?"
He is just shooting in the dark.
"Silence says a lot," he says. "Particularly with lipstick on your collar," then laughs.
"He didn't get any," says Wayne. "He wouldn't know how if she offered." He elbows Leroy. "That's a new Bobbyism. 'Can't use a piece of ass.'"
Leroy laughs but has to strain to get it out. "Why don't you shut up about it?" he says. "I don't need to hear anymore about Bobby's obsession with tits. Put a quarter in the jukebox, Bobby. I want to hear that Green Door song again. Trying to figure out what's behind that sucker. Flip the pages on that thing, Eugene. I think it's G9."
"I hate that song," I say. "'Green Door. Green Door.' You're not using my money." Leroy has a hangover. I stare Wayne down again. He looks over at Eugene. Eugene is looking at a menu.
"I want a cheeseburger and fries," says Eugene.
"Well, I'm glad you finally got some, anyway," says Melvin, still looking at Leroy. He's using big wood matches that he strikes on his pant leg to light that spit-soaked homemade cigarette. "I was beginning to worry about you."
I feel like I should deny something but he has me boxed in. Wish I hadn't thrown my shorts in the trash.
But Melvin is not leaving it there. "Lean in here, Bobby," he says quietly, tosses his head. "You ever punch Bev?"
"Ah, shit, Melvin," says Leroy. "Don't talk about it. I haven't had a date in six months. Have some consideration."
"Stick it, Leroy. I talk about what I want to." He's fumbling in his pocket for another match.
"You've got a girl," says Leroy. "You're not hurting. It's been a long dry spell."
"You've always lived in a desert," Melvin says, then he turns to Eugene. "Eugene didn't have Bobby's luck tonight. Didn't get any, so he says, Bobby. Your sister's still a virgin for one more night."
I might have to chip another tooth if he doesn't shut up.
"I'm really disappointed in you, Bobby" and he's talking loud again. He strikes the match, tries to light that cigarette. "I wanted to see a good drag race tonight. And you let me down, Bobby."
I look at him straight, smile a little. "I'm sure it won't be the last time I disappoint you."
"No doubt," he says. "It was those two from Mountain View. They left twenty minutes ago, thought you wouldn't make it back with Brenda having that noose around your neck."
I just shrug him off.
"Hey, there's your good buddy."
It's Charles, sticking his head through the door from the bar side and beckoning to me. Everybody turns to look at Charles. I've decided not to see him anymore but feel like I have to see what he wants.
"Hurry back," says Leroy. "I've got to get home, but I want to know what Charles wa
nts. Daddy's going to kill me. I was supposed to be in an hour ago."
Everybody in the place watches me. I stand in the little hallway joining the bar with the restaurant. Four more years before I can go in the bar. I smell hard liquor on Charles' breath.
"Herman says, 'Mary still longs for you'," I tell him.
Charles looks real pleased. "Ah, sweet Mary," he says. "Well, we'll just have to do something for her."
There's a woman on a pay phone right next to us with lipstick smeared around her mouth, a Pall Mall in one hand and a drink in the other, the receiver caught between her ear and her shoulder, and I can hardly concentrate on what Charles is saying for listening to her. She keeps telling her daughter that she is twelve years old and that that is old enough to take care of herself and little sister. She doesn't care if the dogs are raising hell in the backyard. Charles is trying to get me to set up a stunt he saw pulled on a bunch of kids. Tells me about it but wants me to keep it secret. The woman on the phone keeps pulling at the red handkerchief she has wrapped around her hair for a scarf and tells her daughter over and over that her daddy isn't coming home because he's in Oklahoma and that's a long ways away and that she's looking for another daddy for her right now if she'll just be a big girl and let her stay a while longer. This stunt Charles is talking about isn't the kind of thing I like to do so I put him off. But I'm already starting to think about who I'd like to pull it on, and there's old Thomas Powers sitting over there all propped back in his chair with his chest sticking out like he thinks he's a big wheel same as his old man. But it sounds to me like someone might get hurt during Charles' stunt. The woman starts to whine, stamps her foot twice and hangs up the phone, checks the change slot, pulls her car keys out of her purse as she hitches up her baggy slacks. She walks off and I realize where I have seen her before. When I went in the Cotton Club to get Papa, just before he beat Curt, she was the girl that walked away from Papa.
I go on back to Melvin and Eugene. They're both eating cheeseburgers with potato chips. Wayne and Leroy are gone. Guess Leroy ran out of time. Bev and Phyllis are both gone too. Place is beginning to clear out.
"What did Charles want?" asks Melvin.
"What does he ever want? More trouble."
Melvin hands me a check.
"I didn't have anything," I say, try to hand it back to him.
"It's Leroy's. Said you owe him money."
"Leroy said I owe him money?"
Melvin raises his arms like I just pulled a gun on him. "Leroy's not my problem."