I went to my room to get ready for work. I kept the Vas Deferens on as I showered and then dressed in the khakis and white collared work shirt that all the Food World employees were forced to wear. I smiled brightly at my reflection, and there was an unexpected moment where I somehow found myself sorta handsome. I thought of the guy I’d seen the previous evening. I wondered what he’d think of me right then, of my retro tie and my shaggy hair and the pair of expensive Italian dress pants I found buried in a bin at a thrift store downtown. Could a boy like that ever like me? Maybe.
It was Saturday, and Saturdays were always busy at Food World. The parking lot was filled with the SUVs and minivans of housewives there to throw down hundreds of dollars on their family’s weekly grocery supply. I parked my car in the employee lot at the side of the building and entered through the fire door out back by the Dumpsters and bread racks. The supervisors went there to smoke throughout the day, and the door was always propped open with a cinder block. The old purple-haired woman who worked in the bakery was out there with her back against the open door, the smoke from her Capri drifting back into the store. I gave her a friendly nod when I entered. She just kept staring off into space.
I waited with the other employees in the break room for my shift to start. It was white-walled with a long boardroom-type table. The sound of the lights humming in their fixtures and the low drone of the pop machine created two dissonant notes, the perfect depressing soundtrack for waiting to clock in for work. Two freshmen were at the end of the table whispering to each other and chuckling dumbly.
I took a seat at the opposite end and flipped through one of the Food World newsletters that came out every month. As usual, it was filled with stupid crap. There were retirement announcements from employees at Food Worlds across the Midwest and breathless updates in the deli menu (“Banana custard is being discontinued and will be replaced with hot mocha pudding as of July 1. The banana custard will not be returning to the Food World deli menu in the near future. We ask that you please inform all customers of this change so they can plan their summer menus accordingly.”). There were recipes from Food World employees, mostly the older men and women who spent their semi-retired years bagging groceries on the early-morning shift, and these all seemed to involve raisins, nuts, or okra, sometimes a lethal combination of the three. On the back page there was a produce-themed crossword puzzle.
The door to the break room swung open, and Jessica walked in. Instead of a tie she wore a hot pink rhinestone brooch at the neck of her collared shirt. She pointed at me and let out a sharp burst of laughter before walking over to the pop machine and inserting a crisp dollar.
“What’s so funny?” I asked.
She looked over her shoulder as she pressed the diet soda button.
“Oh, nothing,” she said. The smirk on her face suggested otherwise. “Nothing at all.”
My face felt hot. It was times like these that made me wish the desire to inflict pain upon others was an inherent part of my nature, but it wasn’t. I shook my head and went back to the newsletter and stared at an article about the upcoming car wash the Cedarville High cheerleading squad would be holding in the Food World parking lot to raise money for new uniforms.
Jessica took a seat directly across from me. She sipped slowly from her diet soft drink and stared at me. Her hair was a whiter shade of blond than it had been last night, and between this and the thick layer of foundation on her face, she looked especially trashy. The two freshmen at the end of the table stared at her and me like they knew something was about to happen.
“Yeah, I’m not laughing at anything,” she said. “Except for the fact that you spent a good portion of my party getting busy with my sister. What’s up with that, Dade? Is the whole gay thing not working out for you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. I gave a quick glance at the freshmen. They were slack-jawed. “I barely talked to your sister last night. I got her some water and helped her to her room.”
“Well, that’s not what she’s telling everyone,” Jessica said. She sat up straighter in her chair, seemingly satisfied with how well her mortification of me was going. “She told me that you fingered her for, like, three hours. That’s gotta be grounds for getting your butt pirate license taken away. Or at least enough to get it suspended.”
I stared at the newsletter, my anger emptying the words and images of all their meaning. I could feel Jessica and the unfamiliar freshmen watching me and waiting for my reaction. I thought about telling her how I spent the day of the party having sex with her best friend’s boyfriend, but I knew that would only make things worse.
“Who did she tell this to?” I finally said.
“Just me so far,” she said. “But I’m sure by the end of the day everyone will know.”
“Why?”
“Because, Vagisil. Inquiring minds want to know.”
I went over and grabbed my punch card from the rack on the wall and slid it into the time clock without saying anything. The freshmen snickered.
“Shut the hell up,” I said to them before leaving.
I usually checked in with my supervisor at the beginning of my shift, but instead I headed directly to the movie rental department. I found Fessica behind the counter reading Teen Diva. Some blond starlet smirked icily from the cover. She gave me a terrified look when she saw me storming toward the counter.
“You told your sister I fingered you for three hours?” I hissed. “Are you out of your mind?”
“I didn’t tell anyone that,” she said, her voice cracking. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I just saw her upstairs. She told me you told her that we hooked up.”
She bit her lip and looked down at the magazine she’d set on the counter.
“Do you hate me now?” she asked.
“Um, yeah. Pretty much. My social life is complicated enough as it is. I don’t need shit like this making it worse.”
Her eyes were tearing up. She pulled a crumpled tissue from the pocket of her khakis and wiped her nose.
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I don’t know what I was thinking.”
“You obviously weren’t,” I said. “Why would you do that? Did you really think I wouldn’t find out?”
“I don’t know,” Fessica said. She was really crying now. “Jessica was just making fun of me all this morning. I was helping her dye her hair and she kept asking me if I got any at the party. She was just teasing me and being mean, and then she said something about you and it just went downhill from there. She started insinuating all this stuff, so it wasn’t all me . . . but I really didn’t try and disprove her. I didn’t think she actually thought it was true. And she probably doesn’t. She’s just being Jessica. It was a dumb conversation. I’m sorry. I didn’t think it’d get this far.”
I looked down and kicked at the floor. The toe of my shoe left black scuff marks. I couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for her. Her magazine was lying open on the counter at a page with a quiz called “How You Can Tell if He’s Worthy of 2nd Base.” And then I thought of something.
“I won’t kill you in your sleep if do something for me,” I said. “There was a boy at the party last night. He was coming as I was leaving. I didn’t recognize him from school. Maybe you saw him.”
“Maybe. What did he look like?”
“Sleeveless black hoodie. Hip haircut.” I resisted the urge to describe him as cute. “He asked me if I wanted to buy pot.”
“Oh. Alex. He’s my sister’s friend. Well, not her friend. He sells her and all those guys weed. He went to Cedarville South.”
Cedarville South couldn’t even be described as a rival high school in our town. It was dubbed Slacker Academy because that’s where they sent the “troubled” kids, the ones who skipped class all the time and got into fights. School days at Cedarville South started at noon and ended at three, a stoned blur for most of the student body. They offered classes with names like Meditational Co
llage and Modern Facts. Like everyone else at my school, I’d always regarded the kids who went to Cedarville South as losers, slackers, and burnouts, kids with switchblades in their socks and homemade tattoos on the insides of their wrists. I was a bit weirded out to discover that my crush went to school there, but at the same time there was something about this that excited me. He was already proving to be unlike everyone else I knew.
“Where can I find him?” I asked.
Fessica screwed her face up. “Why?”
I just wanted to see him one more time. He could just give me that grin again. That would’ve been enough.
“I just do,” I said.
“Do you do drugs?”
“Yeah. I need the hookup.” The phrase the hookup sounded insanely stupid coming out of my mouth. The only time I’d done drugs was when I’d smoked pot with Pablo.
“Do you like boys?” she asked.
I didn’t know what to say. The only other person that had actually asked me if I was gay was Bert McGraw, and that was during our confrontation in the lunchroom. The one good thing about people just assuming I was a queer was that I never had to confirm or deny it, and without my input, there would always be a tiniest speck of doubt in their minds. Without me, they could never know for sure.
“What does that have to do with anything?” I said.
“I’m just curious,” she said.
“Did you ever think that maybe it’s not any of your business?” I asked. “Just tell me where I can find him. You owe me.”
“I mean, did you not wanna do that stuff with me last night because you’re gay, or did you not want to do it because you’re not, like, into me?”’
“Seriously, I can’t talk about that with you, Fessica. I’m sorry, but I can’t.”
She looked down at the magazine on the counter, at the beauty secrets yelling to be heard over each other.
“Please,” I said. The desperation in my voice made her look up at me again. It was a tone that surprised even me. “Just tell me where I can find him.”
Chapter 6
She told me he worked at Taco Taco, a Mexican fast-food joint located in the parking lot of an abandoned strip mall a couple miles away from Food World. She said she was sure he was working that night, that he worked nearly every night there because he was saving up to get out of Cedarville. I drove there in my used BMW after work with my tie loosened and the top of my shirt unbuttoned. The sun was almost gone, turning the hem of the western sky a warm pink. As I drove, I thought of Fessica locked in her bedroom for the rest of the evening. I wondered if her mind went back to me the way mine sometimes went to Pablo.
I parked in the back of Taco Taco, next to one of the two massive yellow Dumpsters. I got out of my car and was immediately met with the spicy stench coming from the garbage. Beans and meat and rancid vegetables.
“I don’t even know if he’s gay,” was the last thing Fessica had said to me before I left her in the video department that afternoon. I didn’t know either. I was acting on some instinct that I didn’t know I had. I’d never gone out of my way for a guy before. Even my and Pablo’s first encounters were totally initiated by him. I never went out of my way to follow crushes around high school. I never approached anyone with the hopes of getting a phone number or even a name. I was afraid of giving myself away. I didn’t want anyone to know. Sometimes even I didn’t want to know.
I leaned against the car and shut my eyes.
You’re crazy, Dade, I thought. You’re stalking some guy you don’t even know. This won’t work out.
I walked around the side of Taco Taco to smoke a cigarette before I went inside. I needed something to calm me down. I took two drags before my stomach began to twist. Maybe it was the smell of beans and meat coming from the Dumpster around the corner or maybe it was my nerves or just the cigarette. I crouched down and puked on the ground. It came out brown and lumpy and left an acidic aftertaste in my throat. Some of it splattered onto my black work shoes.
Good, I thought. I’m glad I puked on these damn shoes. I hate these things.
There was a little blue metal newspaper dispenser near the entrance filled with copies of the Penny Saver, and I used one to wipe the vomit off my shoes before going inside.
Taco Taco was a pretty trashy place. I hadn’t been there since third grade or something, and its appearance hadn’t changed a bit. There were orange plastic booths throughout the dining area and a few plastic potted plants that still somehow managed to look like living things on the brink of death. About half of the overhead lights were burnt out, creating small dark areas throughout the restaurant. There was no one there except for a tall black guy with dreadlocks behind the counter. He was chewing on something and casting a vacant stare in my direction. He was about my age, attractive, with a narrow face and thin mustache. Flamenco music cracked from blown speakers in the ceiling, a man howling sadly in Spanish along to an acoustic guitar. I went up to the counter.
“Welcome to Taco Taco. Would you like to try the Deus Ex Mexicana?” His words came out in an empty, rehearsed stream. The tag on his shirt said his name was Jay.
I reached into my pocket, felt for money. I wasn’t hungry, but I felt like I should order something. I at least needed something to drink to get the vomit taste out of my mouth. There was a square window behind Jay that revealed a surprisingly clean metallic kitchen. I could hear someone else moving around back there, but I couldn’t see who it was.
“What’s the Deus Ex Mexicana?” I asked.
“It’s this month’s special burrito. Ground beef, chicken, steak, black beans, red beans, pinto beans, hot sauce, chipotle sour cream, and fiery guacamole. Five ninety-nine, plus tax. Comes with an orange soda and a shot of Pepto-Bismol.”
“Do you guys just have like quesadillas or something?”
He gave an exaggerated eye roll and let out a loud sigh.
“Alex,” he called into the kitchen. “Do we have quesadillas tonight?”
A voice called out, “Nope. No quesadillas tonight. Try back tomorrow.”
“No quesadillas,” Jay said. “I think we got tacos, though.”
My pulse raced, and the sick feeling in my stomach came back. That had to be him back there. I stood on my tiptoes to try and get a better glimpse of the kitchen. From somewhere in back was the sound of a faucet being turned on.
“Is Alex back there?” I asked.
“You one of Alex’s friends?”
“Sorta.”
“What’s all over your pants?” Jay asked.
I looked down. I thought I’d only gotten puke on my shoes, but there were little chunks of vomit all over the front of my khakis as well.
“Damn, man,” he said. “You sure you need Mexican food right now?”
“I got sick. I’m sorry. It just happened.”
“You want some Pepto-Bismol?” He pulled a bottle of the stuff from under the counter and placed it in front of me. The bottle was covered with grime, like it had been rescued from the bottom of the Dumpster out back. He called out over his shoulder, “Yo, Kincaid! One of your white junkie friends is here. He’s got puke all over his pants.”
“I’m not a junkie, dude,” I said.
“I’m finishing this drive-through order,” the voice called from the kitchen. “Can you tell them to wait outside?”
Jay nodded, turned back to me. “He said to wait outside. He’ll be right out.”
“I’m not a junkie,” I repeated.
“Denial’s not just a river in Egypt, son.”
“Can I get something to drink at least?” I asked.
He rolled his eyes and filled up a cup of soda from the fountain. “Here. On the house. Now go wait outside.”
I left and sat on the curb several feet away from where I’d puked. From the unseen everywhere came the intermittent rush of cars passing by. I forced myself to stop staring at my vomit and looked out across the empty parking lot at the vacant strip mall whose trim still bore the discolored outlines of o
ld store signs. I remembered shopping there a few years back. There’d been a discount shoe store that my mother loved called Sole Mates and a beauty supply store staffed by girls with neon eye shadow and trailer park hair. Now everything was closed. I wondered where those neon-eyed girls were now, if maybe they’d escaped Cedarville just like I was about to.
A voice behind me said, “Hey.”
I turned around. His hair was different than it had been last night. Now it was combed down so that it hung right above his eyes. He was wearing baggy black trousers and a purple collared shirt with “Taco Taco” embroidered in yellow stitching above the right breast pocket. He gave off the impression that he was overwhelmingly bored and maybe a little stoned. I liked the fact that he seemed like someone who didn’t care too much about anything. I was beginning to think that caring too much was what got people into trouble.
“I didn’t hear you come out,” I said.
“Came out around back. From the kitchen.” He looked me up and down like he was trying to place where I was from.
“You don’t know me,” I said. “I met you outside of the party last night. My name’s Dade.”
He pulled back a bit. “Yeah? And?”
“Well, you asked me if I wanted to buy some pot, and I didn’t. Not then. But now I do. Something came up.”
He nodded slowly and kept staring at me, studying me. The charm from the previous night had been dulled with doubt and suspicion. Something about his smoldering gaze made him look like one of the mechanics in Lube Jobs 4.
He glanced around the lot. “You caught me at a funny time. I’m dry at the moment. Gotta meet my guy after work, so I won’t be able to hook you up for another couple of hours.”
He looked back at me and waited for my reply. I’d never actually bought drugs before. I always just smoked Pablo’s weed. I wasn’t sure how drug deals worked, what the rules of conduct were. Should I say I’d leave and come back? Tell him I’d call him tomorrow? Or just say yeah, and wait around? I looked down at my feet and kicked the grimy toe of my dress shoe at the ground.