What was their logo? An indolent stare, slightly rounded shoulders, the shirt unbuttoned to expose the top of the chest, the collar turned up on the neck, the drapes threaded through the loops by a thin suede belt buckled below the navel, shirt cuffs buttoned even in summer, a tablespoon of grease in the sweeps of hair combed into a trench at the back of the head, iron taps on the needle-nose stomps that could be used to shatter someone’s teeth on the sidewalk, the pachuco cross tattooed on the web between the left forefinger and thumb, and more important, the total absence of pity or mercy in the eyes. I know that anyone reading this today might believe these were misdirected boys and their attire and behavior were masks for their fear. That was seldom my experience. I believed then, as I do now, that most of them would go down with the decks awash and the cannons blazing, as George Orwell once said about people who are truly brave.
The Ford pulled to the curb, the twin custom mufflers throbbing. “Looks like you’re lost,” said a greaser in the passenger seat.
“I sure am,” I replied.
“Or you’re selling Bibles.”
“I was actually looking for the Assembly of God Church. Y’all know where that’s at?”
I saw his eyes take note of the bad grammar and realized he was more intelligent than I thought, and no doubt a more serious challenge.
“You’re cute.” He put a Lucky Strike in his mouth but didn’t light it. His hair was jet-black, his cheeks sunken, his skin pale. He scratched his throat. “Got a match?”
“I don’t smoke.”
“If you’re not selling Bibles and you don’t have a light, what good are you? Are you good for something, boy?”
“Probably not. How about not calling me ‘boy’? Hey, I dig y’all’s heap. Where’d you get the mufflers?”
He removed the cigarette from his mouth and pinched it between his thumb and index finger, shaking it, nodding as though coming to a profound conclusion. “I remember where I’ve seen you. That bone-smoker joint downtown, what’s it called, the Pink Elephant?”
“What’s a bone-smoker?”
“Guys who look like you. Where’d you get that belt buckle?”
“Won it at the junior RCA rodeo. Bareback bronc and bull riding both.”
“You give blow jobs in the chutes?”
My eyes went off of his. The street was hot and bright, the lawns a deep green, the air swimming with humidity, the houses an eye-watering white. “I can’t blame you for saying that. I’ve shown the same kind of prejudice about people who are made different in the womb.”
“Where’d you get that?”
“The Bible.”
“You’re telling us you’re queer?”
“You never know.”
“I believe you. You got a nice mouth. You ought to get you some lipstick.”
“Go fuck yourself,” I said.
He opened the door slowly and stepped out on the asphalt. He was taller than he had looked inside the car. His shirt was unbuttoned, the sleeves filling with wind. His stomach was corrugated, his drapes low on his hips. His eyes roved over my face as though he were studying a lab specimen. “Can you repeat that?”
I heard a screen door squeak on a spring and slam behind me. Then I realized he was no longer looking at me. Valerie Epstein had walked down her porch steps into the yard and was standing under the live oaks, on the edge of the sunlight, shading her eyes with one hand. “Is that you?” she said.
I didn’t know if she was talking to me or the greaser on the curb. I pointed at my chest. “You talking to me?”
“Aaron Holland? That’s your name, isn’t it?” she said.
“Yes,” I said, my throat catching.
“Were you looking for me?” she said.
“I wondered if you got home okay.”
The greaser got back in the Ford and shut the door. He looked up at me, holding my eyes. “You ought to play the slots. You got a lot of luck,” he said. “See you down the track, Jack.”
“Looking forward to it. Good to see you.”
He and his friends drove away. I looked at Valerie again. She was wearing a white sundress printed with flowers.
“I thought I was marmalade,” I said.
“Why?”
“Those hoods.”
“They’re not hoods.”
“How about greaseballs?”
“Sometimes they’re overly protective about the neighborhood, that’s all.”
The wind was flattening her dress against her hips and stomach and thighs. I was so nervous I had to fold my arms on my chest to keep my hands from shaking. I tried to clear my throat. “How’d you get home from Galveston?”
“The Greyhound. You thought you had to check on me?”
“Do you like miniature golf?”
“Miniature golf?”
“It’s a lot of fun,” I said. “I thought maybe you’d like to play a game or two. If you’re not doing anything.”
“Come inside. You look a little dehydrated.”
“You’re asking me in?”
“What did I just say?”
“You told me to come inside.”
“So?”
“Yes, I could use some ice water. I didn’t mean to call those guys greaseballs. Sometimes I say things I don’t mean.”
“They’ll survive. You coming?”
I would have dragged the Grand Canyon all the way to Texas to sit down with Valerie Epstein. “I hope I’m not disturbing y’all. My conscience bothered me. I didn’t go looking for you last night because I had to get my father’s car home.”
“I think you have a good heart.”
“Pardon?”
“You heard me.”
I could hear wind chimes tinkling and birds singing and perhaps strings of Chinese firecrackers popping, and I knew I would probably love Valerie Epstein for the rest of my life.
SHE WALKED AHEAD of me into the kitchen and took a pitcher of lemonade from the icebox. The kitchen was glossy and clean, the walls painted yellow and white. She put ice in two glasses and filled them up and slipped a sprig of mint in each and set them on paper napkins. “That’s my father in the backyard,” she said. “He’s a pipeline contractor.”
A muscular man wearing strap overalls without a shirt was working on the truck parked under the pecan tree. His skin was dark with tan, the gold curlicues of hair on his shoulders shiny with sweat, his profile cut out of tin.
“He looks like Alexander the Great. I mean the image on the coin,” I said.
“That’s a funny thing to say.”
“History is my favorite subject. I read all of it I can. My father does, too. He’s a natural-gas engineer.”
I waited for her to say something. She didn’t. Then I realized I had just told her my father was educated and her father probably was not. “What I mean is he works in the oil business, too.”
“Are you always this nervous?”
We were sitting at the table now, an electric fan oscillating on the counter. “I have a way of making words come out the wrong way. I was going to tell you how my father ended up in the oil patch, but I get to running on.”
“Go ahead and tell me.”
“He was a sugar chemist in Cuba. He quit after an incident on a ferryboat that sailed from New Orleans to Havana. Then he went to work on the pipeline and got caught by the Depression and never got to do the thing he wanted, which was to be a writer.”
“Why would he quit his job as a chemist because of something that happened on a passenger boat?”
“He was in World War One. The German artillery was knocking their trench to pieces. The German commander came out under a white flag and asked my father’s captain to surrender. He said the wounded would be taken care of and the others would be treated well. The captain refused the offer. A German biplane wagged its wings over the lines to show it was on a peaceful mission, and threw leaflets all over the wire and the trench, but the captain still wouldn’t surrender. The Germans had moved some cannons up on tra
in cars. When they cut loose, they killed half my father’s unit in thirty minutes.
“Ten years later, he was on the ferry headed to Havana when he saw his ex–commanding officer on the deck. My father insisted they have a drink together, mostly because he wanted a chance to forgive and forget. That night his ex–commanding officer jumped off the rail. My father always blamed himself.”
“That’s a sad story.”
“Most true stories are.”
“You should be a writer yourself.”
“Why?”
“Because I think you’re a nice boy.”
“Somehow those statements don’t fit together,” I said.
“Maybe they’re not supposed to.” She smiled, then took a breath, the light in her eyes changing. “You need to be more careful.”
“Because I came up to the Heights?”
“I’m talking about Grady and his friends.”
“I think Grady Harrelson is a fraud.”
“Grady has a dark side. There’s nothing fraudulent about it. The same with his friends. Don’t underestimate them.”
“I’m not afraid of them.”
She jiggled her sprig of mint up and down in the ice. “Caution and fear aren’t the same thing.”
“Maybe I’ve got things wrong with me that nobody knows about. Those guys might get a surprise.”
“Number one, I don’t believe you. Number two, it’s not normal to brag about your character defects.”
“Sometimes I believe I have two or three people living inside me. One of them has a horn like Harpo Marx.”
“How interesting.”
“My mother says I’m fanciful.”
I could see her attention fading.
“I have a term paper on John Steinbeck due tomorrow,” she said. “I’d better get started on it.”
“I see.”
“I’m glad you came by.”
I tried not to look as stupid as I felt. I could see her father working on his truck, the muscles in his forearm swelling as he pulled on a wrench. I wanted her to introduce me to him. I wanted to talk about trucks and pipelines and drill bits. I didn’t want to leave. “Sunday night is a good time to play miniature golf. The stars are out and the breeze is blowing from the south, and there’s a watermelon stand with picnic tables close by.”
“See? You talk like a writer. Let’s get together another time.”
“Sure,” I replied. I hadn’t finished my lemonade. “I can show myself out. You’d better get started on your paper.”
“Don’t be mad.”
“I’m not, Miss Valerie. Thank you for inviting me in.”
“You don’t have to call me ‘miss.’ ”
I got up from the table. “My father is from Louisiana. He gets on me about manners and proper grammar and such.”
“I think that’s nice.”
I waited, hoping she’d ask me to stay.
“I’ll walk out with you,” she said.
We went through a dark hallway that smelled of wood polish. A man’s work cap and raincoat, a 4-H Club sweater, and a denim jacket with lace sewn on the cuffs hung from wood pegs on the wall. A man’s galoshes and a pair of white rubber boots, the kind a teenage girl would wear, rested on the floor. There was no housecoat or woman’s hat or house shoes or parasol or shawl or scarf in the hallway.
Also, there was a solemnity about the living room that I hadn’t noticed before. Maybe the effect was created by the nineteenth-century furniture and the radio/record player with a potted plant on top of it and the empty fireplace and the couch and chairs that looked as though no one sat in them. I had thought Valerie Epstein lived in the perfect home. Now I wondered.
“Is your mother here?” I asked.
“She died during the war.”
“I’m sorry.”
“She’s not. She did what she thought was right.”
“Pardon?”
“Her brother got left behind when her family fled Paris. My mother had herself smuggled back into the country. The Gestapo caught her. We think she was shipped to Dachau.”
“Gee, Miss Valerie.”
“Come on, I’ll walk outside with you,” she said. She put her arm through mine.
The porch glider was swaying in the wind, the trees swelling, yellow dust rising into the sky. I could smell the odor of rain striking a hot sidewalk. “Can I have your phone number?”
“It’s in the book. You’d better hurry.” She glanced at the sky. “Don’t get into trouble. You understand? Stay away from Grady, no matter how much he tries to provoke you.”
“My father will let me have the car tonight. We can go to the watermelon stand. I’ll pick you up at eight and have you back home in less than an hour.”
“Nobody is this stubborn.”
“I call it conviction.”
“Back home by nine?”
“Promise,” I said.
Her eyes crinkled.
IT RAINED MOST of the night. When I woke in the morning, the sun was pink, the sky blue, the sidewalks streaked with shadow and moisture. I loved the dead-end street where we lived in our small brick bungalow. All the houses on the street were built of brick and had fruit trees and flower gardens in the yards, and there was a wall of bamboo on the cul-de-sac and, on the other side, a pasture dotted with live oaks that were two hundred years old. I sat down on the front steps with my sack lunch and waited for my ride to school. Saber Bledsoe, my best friend, picked me up every school day in his 1936 wreck of a Chevy, one he had chopped and channeled and modified and customized and bought junk replacement parts for, although it remained a smoking wreck you could smell and hear coming from a block away.
There was nothing Saber wouldn’t do, particularly on a dare. At school he flushed M-80s down the plumbing and blew water out of commodes all over the building, usually between classes, when people were seated on them. The most hated teacher in the school, or maybe the whole city, was Mr. Krauser. Saber sneaked into the teachers’ lounge and stuffed a formaldehyde-soaked frog in Mr. Krauser’s container of coleslaw and caused him to puke in the faculty sink. Saber also unzipped his pants and got down on his stomach and stuck his flopper through a hole in the floor above Krauser’s classroom, letting it hang there like an obscene lightbulb until Krauser figured out why all his students’ faces looked like grinning balloons about to pop.
I was determined this would be a good day. Probably nobody noticed my erection in the middle of the drive-in. So what if I had gotten into it with Grady Harrelson? What could he do? He’d had his chance. The hoods in the Heights? Valerie had said they were just neighborhood guys. I had taken Valerie Epstein to the watermelon stand and driven her back home and sat with her on the glider and even patted the top of her hand when a streak of lightning crashed in the park. Nobody paid any attention to us.
Maybe in the Heights I had found a part of town free of my problems. Maybe I had found a place where fear wasn’t a way of life.
Wrong.
As soon as I got into the car, I could tell Saber was agitated. He backed into the street and headed toward Westheimer, the floor stick vibrating in his palm, his T-shirt rolled up to his armpits. He looked at me, then his head started bobbing on a spring, and he gave me what was known as the Saber Bledsoe stare, a cross-eyed, openmouthed reconfiguration of his face indicating disbelief at your stupidity.
“Why mess around? Just join some suicide unit and go to Korea,” he said.
“You have to run that by me again, Sabe.”
“The word is you got into it with Grady Harrelson at a Galveston drive-in. Then you went up to the Heights and were driving around with Valerie Epstein.”
“Where’d you hear that?”
“Where did I not hear it? You told some greaseballs to go fuck themselves, one greaseball in particular?”
“There’s no way you can know this.”
“The guy you almost got it on with was Loren Nichols. He shot a man in the chest with a dart gun at Prince’s drive-in.”
Saber had light red hair he wore in a flattop combed back on the sides, and green slits for eyes and the innocuous stare of a lizard and a peckerwood accent and a level of nervous energy that made you think of a door slamming. He pulled a cigarette from a pack of Camels with his mouth.
“They came by my house last night, Aaron,” he said, the cigarette bouncing on his lip. “Somebody must have given them my name.”
“Who came by?”
“Loren and three other greasers.”
I felt a hole yawning open in my stomach. “What did they want?”
“You.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I told them my old man was drunk and had a baseball bat, and they’d better drag their sorry asses out of my driveway. Guess what? Before I could get the words out of my mouth, the old man came stumbling out of the garage with a Stillson in his hand.”
“We need to forget this, Saber.”
“It’ll be all over school by second period. You helped bust up Grady Harrelson and Valerie Epstein?”
“No.”
“Doesn’t matter. The story will be a legend by this afternoon. You actually went out with her?”
“More or less.”
“That’s like getting laid by Doris Day. You’re a hero, man. Does she have a sister? I’m ready.”
Chapter
3
FOURTH PERIOD, SABER and I had metal shop. The teacher was Mr. Krauser, living proof we’d descended from apes. He had been a tank commander in France and Germany during the war and used to tell stories about how he and his fellow tankers smashed their Shermans through French farmhouses for fun. One of the vandal tanks crashed into a cellar, which Krauser thought was hilarious. He also told us how, as an object lesson for his men, he dragged an elderly German civilian by the collar into the street and occupied his home. Once while drunk at the bowling alley, he borrowed a knife from a student and sawed off a bowler’s necktie.