Runaways
A Novel by
Doug Lambeth
Published by:
Sashee Press on Smashwords
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Copyright© 2010 Doug Lambeth
Discover other titles by Doug Lambeth at Smashwords.com:
Itchy Donner
Our Lady of the Lowriders
Rainbow Gliding Hawk and the Last Stand of the Patriarch
This book is available in print at Amazon.com, BarnesandNoble.com and Lulu.com
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locals or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Runaways
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Scooter
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Chapter 1
“I don’t love you anymore.”
My spoonful of Cheerios hovers right below my mouth. I suppose I shouldn’t, but I go ahead and shovel them in. Big mistake, because as Jane’s words hit I’m soon hawking and gagging Safeway nonfat and Cheeri-oat fragments all over the table.
“I’m running away with Dr. Dwayne,” she continues.
“Our periodontist?” I croak, milk dribbling down my chin. I’ve never seen Dr. Dwayne’s mouth; he always wears a mask while he hacks away at my gums. But now, as I think of it, I sensed a smirk below the mask during my last visit. And I thought he was just contemptuous because he knew I hadn’t been flossing.
“He’s an exciting, stimulating man,” Jane adds, loading her purse with supermarket coupons from the kitchen junk drawer.
“Are you going to the store?”
“Yes.”
“I need deodorant,” I say.
Jane sighs tiredly. Apparently, she finds me dull. I suppose exciting, stimulating Dr. Dwayne doesn’t wear deodorant. “This will be the last time,” Jane sighs again.
“For what?”
“Getting your deodorant.” She gives me a long, sad look. “Sorry, Scooter.”
“Don’t call me Scooter.”
“I thought you liked the name?”
“Not anymore. It’s a little kid name.” I sound surly to myself, but I can’t help it. My wife has just announced she’s running off with a guy who slices gums for a living. And that’s exciting to her.
Which means I must be really boring.
“We’ll talk more later, but you need to know, Scoot—Jimmy, I get Crystal. You can have her for a week during the summer and alternating Christmases. My attorney said I could press it if I have to. Since you haven’t been that interested in her at all.”
“You’ve talked to a lawyer already?” I ask, more upset by that than the fact that she’s planning on estranging me from my own daughter. I don’t know why. I guess I’ve been a lousy father. But I’ve never been able to warm up to the kid—she’s seven and sullen and sulky and a lot like her mother.
“Dr. Dwayne’s lawyer. He’s got everything written up. As soon as you hire your own lawyer he’ll send it over for you to sign. You’ll find it more than fair.”
“How can you be so....”
“Cold?”
“Yeah. And calculating.”
“I read a book. I’m empowered.”
“By Dr. Dwayne’s dick.”
“Don’t be crude. It’s over, Jimmy. Accept it. Get on with your life.”
Jane has never looked tougher. She’s like a middle linebacker zeroing in on a hapless QB, relishing the thought of hitting him low and blowing out his ACL. A cold milk dribble dangles on my chin and then drips on the table. But I don’t wipe it off. I’m too stunned.
“You’ll be fine,” Jane says, heading out the door. “I’ll see you tonight. I’ll help you pack your stuff. And I’ll pick Crystal up from school. Bye.”
And with that she’s gone. Amazing. She’s acting like all she’s doing is running to the store—not torpedoing my life. It’s weird, though...just now, as she was heading out the door and kicking me in the figurative crotch, she’s never looked better. Jane’s not an ultra-model-babe or anything—she’s one of those “attractive” women—whatever that means. But now, clutching her purse full of coupons for orange juice and tampons, she was like Xena, The Warrior Princess, ballcrushingly scary but sexually alluring. Great. I’ve been a little distant, maybe a little less than sexually attentive lately, and now, the second my wife tells me she’s dumping me for a periodontist, I’m horny.
God’s sure got a weird-ass sense of humor.
I grab the phone. As it touches my chin, the cold milk film smears the mouthpiece. I don’t care. I need to talk to Erica.
I’m sitting in Eric and Erica’s cluttered living room. Toys litter the threadbare carpet, scattered randomly like those pictures you see after the tornado pulverizes the trailer park in Alabama. Battered Barbies, disemboweled G.I. Joes that look like they stepped on landmines, electronic game guts—all the detritus of seven home-schooled, rowdy kids. Eric and Erica started breeding early and often, and by the time Erica hit thirty-two she was the proud mother of six towheaded demons from hell. She stopped for a few years, and then little Eli came along as an exclamation point. The oldest girl, Elizabeth, helps Erica out with the feeding and educating, but she’s planning to head off to some bible college next year. Poor Erica. She’ll be stuck with the rest of them for years to come. So many rugrats. Don’t get me wrong, they’re cute kids and all, but seven of anything is too much. Especially if you have to feed them.
“Doctor Dwayne?!” Erica says, her mouth spitting Doctor Dwayne’s name out like it’s a turd-filled bonbon. Ezekial, her six-and-a-half-year-old, runs shrieking into the living room chased by Boomer, their Corgi. Boomer likes to herd the little kids. He nips at Eli’s diaper and pulls it down half-mast. “Just a second,” Erica sighs, exasperation and exhaustion flopping over her face like a limp dishrag. Poor Erica. My all-time best buddy, the woman I should’ve married, reduced to breeding, home-schooling, and chasing Corgis and towheaded kids whose names all start with “E”. She follows them out into the kitchen, and I hear her scolding Ezekial for not keeping an eye on Eli, and then she yells at Elishaba and Elizabeth to get busy studying the bible passages they’re supposed to memorize.
Erica and I were band fags in high school. She played the tuba, I pounded spastically on the bass drum. We wore the geeky uniforms and marched in sad little formations during football game halftimes, either ignored or insulted by the fans. Eric was the QB, the ultimate stud, and when Erica caught his eye—because for a band fag she was awfully cute, even in her ridiculously towering feather-topped hat and pearl white tuba—he pursued her relentlessly. Any thought I might have had at having Erica for myself—which never occurred to me until Eric went after her—disappeared with Eric’s broken field scrambling pursuit. He had quick feet, and he bagged her in no time. He would’ve been a great linebacker.
They got married the day after high school graduation, and then the babies started arriving with biennial regularity. For some reason she’d always get pregnant in the summer, and invariably deliver in late February; I told her she should name her kids permutations of George.
Eric went to work in his family’s beer distributorship right out of high school. He’d wanted to play college ball, but his dad, the ultimate hard-ass “I didn’t need no college and neither do you” kind of guy made him work. Probably just as well; with all the babies, Eric would’ve had a hard time memorizing X’s and O’s.
When a pallet full of pony kegs tipped off a forklift and crushed his dad in a foamy cascade of Budweiser, Eric saw Jesus. He became born again—because you never knew when Jesus would call you home in a tidal wave of Bud—and he dragged Erica along with him. She loved him with all her heart and soul, but I know she has never bought into the holy-roller stuff. She’s too smart and too cynical to be a bible thumper, but she goes along.
Good old Erica.
I wish to hell I’d married her instead of Jane.
She finally comes back into the living room, kicking an armless Prom Queen Barbie out of the way.
“Sorry, Scooter,” she sighs, plopping down on the couch next to me. “These damn kids....”
“Would you ever leave Eric?” I ask. I don’t know why.
“Of course not. I love him.”
“What if you fell in love with somebody else. Like a periodontist or something.”
“Nope. Wouldn’t be right. I mean, if Eric were bad to me or the kids, maybe. But I made a deal, a commitment, and as long as he keeps his end of the deal, I keep mine.”
“I shoulda married you,” I say miserably.
She touches my hand with surprising tenderness but says nothing. You have to understand something about me and Erica; we’re pals, the way most guys are pals. I’ve never kissed her, except for a clumsy peck on the cheek the day she got married. But we’ve been buds, confidants, everything you look for and are lucky to get in a best friend but never seem to be able to find in a spouse.
We met freshman year, right after I got cut from the football team. I’d tried out for a lineman spot, because although I was a klutzy dork I was big; but size couldn’t overcome geekiness, and when the coach posted the names of the loser spazzes who didn’t make the team, I was secretly relieved. I’d already gotten thumped pretty good in two-a-days, and I knew that if I’d made the team the only position I’d have been any good at was a living tackling dummy.
The afternoon I got cut I was leaning against the side of the gym, waiting for a buddy who made the team to give me a ride. I felt both self-pity and relief. I must’ve looked pretty forlorn and pathetic, because Erica wandered over from a cluster of girls waiting for their rides.
“Hi,” she said.
“Hi,” I said. I knew vaguely who she was. We were in Algebra I together, although we’d never spoken.
“Did you make the team?” she asked.
“How did you know I was trying out for the team?” I asked. I looked at her for the first time. She was all gawky elbows and knees and freckles and braces; but still, that first time I really looked at her, there was something about the hell-raiser smile, the too-smart twinkle in her eye, that made me like her. Not as a girl, mind you. But as a bud.
“I’ve seen you out there. You aren’t very good. All the big guys were crushing you.”
“Yeah. That’s why I didn’t make the team.”
“Too bad.”
“Not really.”
“Why?” she asked.
“Because I’m kind of a pussy.”
She laughed at that. And then we were friends. She talked me into joining the marching band; I’d never touched a bass drum in my life, but she gave me a cram course and the band director, who was in dire need of bodies, let me join. So I marched and boom-boom-boomed my way through high school and Erica was my best friend.
My only friend.
That’s the weird thing. I never hung out with guys. I knew them, but I never did anything with The Guys. Only Erica. And as she grew up, and the braces came off and the breasts popped out, suddenly my best pal was a very pretty, fine-looking young thing.
But I didn’t do anything about it.
Because we were just friends.
Everybody in high school assumed we were a couple; it was a natural assumption since we were always together. But they should’ve noticed there was never any of that clingy stuff between us, the “IloveyousomuchIcan’tletgoofyouevenforaminute” that you saw the real pairs doing. We just laughed and scratched and made fun of the world and were friends. And then Eric bagged her and things changed.
Eric’s a good guy. He always understood my friendship with Erica; probably it didn’t bother him that his girlfriend and wife-to-be’s best pal was a guy because he thought I was gay. So did a lot of people after he hooked up with Erica.
I asked other girls out, trying to get over the irritation of being branded a rump-ranger, but nothing interesting ever came of it. And I didn’t start hanging with guys, because if you haven’t hooked up with pals by the time you’re a junior in high school, you never will.
So I ended up in sort of third-wheel limbo land with Eric and Erica. I went on a lot of dates with them...I know, it’s relentlessly weird, but that’s how things worked out. Eric didn’t mind, and Erica expected it, so we ended up as a strange little trio.
But it was because of Eric hooking up with Erica that I found my career. Hanging out with Eric, I heard lots of insider stories about the football team and the coaches, and I realized that I wanted to be part of sports somehow. Since I was too much of a pussy to play, and I didn’t want to be an ultimate loser like a team manager or something dorky like that, I decided I’d write about it. I got into the school newspaper, discovered I knew how to write, and before I knew what had happened, I was the head sports reporter for the Weekly Trojan. And after high school, while Eric and Erica were breeding, I went to college, got a journalism degree, met and married Jane, moved back to the home town, and ended up with a job as Jimmy “Scooter” Biffman, lead sports ace with The Daily Reporter, specializing in coverage of high school athletics in the tri-county area. Life was good.
Until a little while ago, when Jane decided to dump me for Dr. Dwayne.
Erica’s hand rests gently on mine. “Scooter,” she whispers. “I’m so sorry.”
I look at her. All the years, all the kids, the diapers, the bible readings, everything, but she’s still the same cute little braces-and-elbows kid who was my best pal. Is my best pal.
My heart races. It’s pounding. Oh shit...am I having a coronary?! I’m only forty, for Christ’s sake, too young to be checking out. What’re the symptoms, your jaw’s supposed to hurt, isn’t it? And what about your arm? One of your arms is supposed to ache or something.
“Scooter?” Erica asks. “What’s wrong?”
“Gasping....”
Erica expertly smacks me on the back. Something about the painful whack knocks me back into the now and my massive myocardial infarction symptoms disappear as suddenly as they appeared.
“There. Sometimes when Ezekial gets panicky all I need to do is get his attention off himself and he’s back to normal in no time.”
“Panic? I was having a panic attack?”
“Scoot, Jane dumped you for Dr. Dwayne. You’re entitled.”
“Jane dumped me.”
“I never liked her, to tell you the truth.”
“No shit, Er. You were the only person I danced with at our wedding who told me my new wife was Hitler with breasts.”
“I was right, too. I should’ve used a more vivid description. Like the ‘C’ word.”
“Be nice. What would Eric think if he heard you talking like this?”
“Pray, I suppose,” she sighs. Erica gets weary of the holy stuff. It’s not her style.
I flop back against the couch. Yowling kids fight out in the family room, and Erica will soon have to go and referee her litter. I’m just an annoyance, I know. Even though we’re best buds, it’s not like she can do a whole lot.
Except....
“I need someplace to stay. She’s kicking me out.”
Erica stands, heading out to discipline somebody whose name begins with “E”. “Eric will be home in a little while. We’ll talk. I think there’s space in the trailer. If that’s okay.”
“Sure. Great.”
Erica gives me a sad, tired smile and vanishes into the kitchen. Kids start to yowl, in anticipation of their chewing-out. I sit on the couch. I feel heavy, like I’ve gained fifty pounds in the last couple of hours. I want to eat; plates of spaghetti, Doritos, Pop-Tarts, Cadbury Eggs (if only it were Easter), beer, something, anything....
This is it. The first step of depression. Ultimate munchies, like you’ve been smoking pot for a week.
I’m gonna be fat and alone and living in Eric and Erica’s trailer the rest of my life.
Fucking Jane.
I realize suddenly that I’ve never really cared for her.
Erica was right.
She’s a...I can’t bring myself to think it. But she’s a “C”-word.
“May the peace of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ come upon you and give you his peaceful salvation. May His peace give you peace. May your peace come from His peace. Amen.”
“AMEN!” all the “E” kids respond to Eric’s prayer. I’m still trying to get all the “peace’s” straight as Erica dishes up savory slices of oatmeal-extended meatloaf and a massive pan of Stovetop Stuffing. She and Eric have a hard time making ends meet, since Erica stays home to breed and home school, and the money Eric makes is good but only goes so far with such a crowd. The only perk of his job is beer, but he doesn’t drink and neither do the kids, so what good is it? Erica called Eric and gave him a heads-up what was going on with me, and being the good guy that he is, Eric brought home a couple of expired Michelobs. Eric’s real thoughtful for a born-again guy.
We eat, but there isn’t much normal conversation. With the massive crowd of kids, there’s always a spill, a fight, tears, something. Eric and Erica must have terminal indigestion; by the time dinner’s over all the squabbling has left me frazzled and nervous. Eric leads me out to the living room to have another beer while Erica and Elizabeth and the rest of the “E” girls clean up. That’s the way things are in this house—females do women’s work and men don’t. The boys wander off to study and fight over who gets to use the one computer. I don’t know how a house full of kids can survive with only one computer these days.
It’s strange. Eric’s a together guy, always has been, but I’ll bet he can’t boil water or turn on the washing machine. First his mom took care of him, then Erica. I’ll never understand guys who are proud of being helpless. Maybe that was part of the problem in my marriage; I did everything, from cleaning the toilets to changing Crystal’s diapers to sautéing onions for recipes.
It occurs to me with the sudden certainty of all-knowing clarity...Jane took advantage of me. I was whipped.
Eric shuffles painfully bow-legged ahead of me. He’s aging quickly. He moves like John Elway right after he retired. I sit on the couch—moving broken toys—and suddenly Eric is in front of me, putting his hands on my head. I know what’s coming.
“Oh, most heavenly Father, give your son Scooter the strength to persevere through the troubled times that lie ahead. Fill him with love and peace. Amen.”
“Amen,” I say, not so much that I’m into the praying, because at this point in my life I’m not sure there’s any supreme being except maybe for Springsteen and Elvis, but Elvis is dead so he doesn’t count. Eric rests his hands on my head longer than he needs to; I want him to finish up so I can get back to chugging my warm, flat Michelob. He’s whispering some holy mumbo-jumbo, and I’m having a hard time remembering the studly football player he once was. Now he’s tired and pasty. I’ve noticed that about religious people...the color drains from their skin. Why is that? A sinning scumbag has nice healthy-looking skin. I look down at my hands. They’re tanned and healthy. Obviously no holiness here.
Eric finally wraps up the praying and creaks into the battered La-Z-Boy like he’s a hundred years old.
“You need to get those knees scoped, Eric. You’re gonna be walking like Frankenstein pretty soon.”
“I know,” he sighs. “Can’t afford the time off right now. Business isn’t as good as it could be.” Eric doesn’t often talk about work because he hates it. He knows he’s trapped. What a shame. We all start off our lives with such high hopes, but it seems like for 99.9% of us, things end up shitty.
“Er ask you about the trailer?” I ask. The thought of living in their beat-up Airstream in the back yard is less than appealing, but I’m short of dough and it’s probably only going to get worse with lawyers and all, and at least here I’ll be close to the only friends I have in the world.
“Yeah, it’s fine, Scoot. I’ll run an extension cord out to it, and the hose. Be good as gold.” Eric sighs; he looks at me, and his eyebrows knit into an odd shape, kind of like he’s surprised, scared and amused all rolled into one.
“What?” I ask.
He doesn’t say anything for a long moment. Eric’s still a good-looking guy, craggy and manly, and the age creases beginning to sneak into the hollows below his eyes only accentuate his attractiveness. I hate to sound like a fag, but he’s still a stud. I bet he fends off women all the time, unless his Jesus armor is so strong that they don’t even bother.
“I’m....” he starts to say, his voice really quiet and raspy.
“What?” I ask, expecting some more “Heavenly Father bless you” stuff.
“I’m...really...happy for you,” he says, and the sudden tortured look on his face, the shock and horror is such that it’s like he just said he loves Satan or something.
Still, it is an odd thing to say to a guy whose wife dumped him a few hours before.
“Whatcha mean, Eric?” I ask lightly, trying to soften the big leaden turd his weird statement just dropped into the room.
“I mean,” he says, struggling for the right words. “I mean that you’re free.”
“I guess you could say that,” I say. “If that kind of freedom is good.”
“I envy you,” he whispers, his eyes darting to the door.
Oh shit.... There’s trouble here, trouble I never noticed. I thought Eric and Erica were solid, that they were the one constant I could always count on: Eric and Erica, in love and dropping babies till the day Erica started menopause or Eric couldn’t get it up anymore.
“Oh man,” I moan. “Don’t tell me this, Eric. I’ve had enough shitty news for one day.”
“No, no, no, it’s not like that!” he says desperately. “I’m not...interested in going the same way.”
“Then what the hell are you talking about?” I ask, feeling sudden loyalty to Erica surge through me. Eric’s my pal, but Erica was there first; she’s the one who really counts.
He rubs his eyes and puts his head in his hands. “I don’t know,” he says. “Forget it. Forget what I said.”
And then he quickly gets up, mumbling prayers, and does his hobbling hopalong shuffle out of the room.
The Michelob tastes sour. I hope expired beer doesn’t have botulism in it or something....
“Hi Crystal,” I say. I’m talking to the back of her head as she surfs the net. The kid is computer obsessed; I realize that I have no idea where she surfs or who she’s talking to online. I suppose I should’ve kept a closer eye on it, but for some reason I never got around to it. For all I know she’s hanging out in chat rooms with Ted Bundy wannabes.
She doesn’t answer, so I move closer and try again. “Hi, Crystal.”
“I’m busy,” she snaps. Now I know why I haven’t spent much time with her. She’s crabby and annoying. She takes after Jane.
But this is important, and I can’t let my negativity toward her get in the way of fatherly duties, so I sit on her bed and study her profile in the computer screen’s glow. She’s awfully cute, pug nose and long blonde hair. She already has nasty little boys pursuing her; her teen years are going to be a nightmare, especially if her attitude gets any worse and she gets any cuter.
“Has your mom told you—“
“That she kicked you out? Yes.”
“Oh.” She said it so matter-of-factly that it hit me like a Randy Johnson fastball in the scrotum. “Are you okay?”
“Yes!” she snaps, but it’s not because she’s upset that I’m leaving. It’s because I’m bugging her while she tries to surf. I decide to put this off for awhile—maybe forever, who knows.
“Okay, if you want to talk, I’ll be around. I’m going to stay with Eric and Erica for awhile,” I say.
“Whatever.”
As I leave her room I’m torn. She is my daughter, and no matter how much she’s...indifferent to me, I still love her. Desperately. But I don’t like her, and the thought of leaving her and Jane doesn’t bother me nearly as much as it should.
I pack my clothes and bathroom stuff. Jane’s watching Entertainment Tonight and isn’t interested. As I leave I say, “I’ll come by on the weekend and get the rest of my stuff.”
“Fine,” Jane says, not unkindly. Just disinterestedly. She’s so enraptured by a story about Brittney Spears that she can’t be bothered to look at me.
“Fine,” I say. There’s nothing else to say, I suppose, but I do anyway. “I hope it wasn’t always bad for you,” I blurt. I don’t know why. Looking for some human kindness or reassurance, I suppose.
She doesn’t look away from Brittney. “What?”
“Never mind.”
The walk out the front door, down the lumpy cement path I poured a couple of years ago in a fit of frenzied home improvement, the shuffle to my beat-up Camry in the driveway, is the longest, saddest walk I’ve ever made. I’m leaving what I know—it wasn’t perfect, but what is?—for the unknown. Time in Eric and Erica’s trailer, and then what? Suddenly single. Will I hang out in bars? I don’t know how to meet women...it’s not like I ever had much practice. Maybe I should just stay alone; I’m forty, the gut’s starting to swell, the forehead’s headed north, how am I going to attract women anyway?
I slam the Camry’s trunk after I throw my meager belongings inside. Fourteen years of marriage, over, poof!, that’s it. I get to start all over.
I’m inside the car now, don’t remember getting in. Drop my keys on the floor, don’t pick them up, staring at my ex-home, my ex-life, ex-wife, ex-daughter.
And before I realize what’s happening, I’m weeping, big honking snorts, I don’t usually cry but I can’t stop, Jesus, what’s happening to my life, I’m finished, I don’t know what I’m going to do, but I’ve reached the bottom, things can’t get any worse, and—
“We’re gonna have to let you go, Scooter,” Louise says.
The blood drains from my body and pools in my feet; if I tried to stand up I’d pass out. “What?” I gasp.
Louise grimaces. She’s a nice lady for a boss, a few years older than me and the first female managing editor The Daily Report has ever had. She’s one of those do-everything women—mom, over-achiever boss, climbing the ladder, active in local politics, cooks, sews...I don’t know how she has time for anything. And to top it off, she’s really a good, decent person. In fact, right now, while I sit in her office as she fires me, the tears are in her eyes, not mine.
“What?!” I say again, this time with some vocal cords.
“We’ve been bought. American News.”
“American News?! They’re...evil!” Maybe an overstatement, but not by much. American News is a conglomerate company that buys up small and mid-size papers, guts them, and runs USA Today-style mush.
“Yeah. But you know how they are. They don’t value local news. Particularly local sports. I’m sorry, Scooter. I really am.” She reaches for a Kleenex; I expect her to offer it to me, but instead she’s wiping her own eyes, and blowing honking tear-snot. Louise is a good person to be fired by; at least you feel wanted while you’re being kicked out the door.
“Is there any chance...they’ll reconsider?” I ask.
“No. I’ll be honest with you, Scooter, I’m probably gonna get canned before the week is out. They just want me to do the dirty work before they bring in their own stooge.”
I look out through her glass-walled office. My colleagues work diligently in front of their computers. “How many are getting...laid off?” I ask. I can’t bear to say the word “fired”.
“Over half.”
“And I’m the first?”
“Yeah.”
“Thanks. I guess.”
We both laugh bitterly. That stops Louise’s tears. It’s a good thing; she’s going to be crying a lot before this blood bath is over.
“You’ll land on your feet, Scooter. You’ve got too much talent.”
“Thanks. This just comes at a bad time. Jane left me for our periodontist yesterday.”
I shouldn’t have told her that, because here come the tears again. “Oh Jesus, Scooter, that’s terrible! I’m so sorry.”
I shrug. The shotgun blast shock effect is wearing off already, and I’m thinking ahead. “Life sucks, Louise.”
“Will you stay in the area?”
“I dunno. I’m living in a friend’s trailer for the time being.”
“You know that whatever I can do to help, career or otherwise, I’m here for you. Or somewhere, after I get fired,” she laughs uncertainly.
“You’re the best, Louise. I mean that. But I don’t know what I’ll do. Guess I’ll update the resume and put a personal ad in the paper. How ‘bout something like, ‘Unemployed local sports reporter, seeking rich Cindy Crawford lookalike. Am willing to cook and clean. Will provide sexual favors as needed’.”
“I’d work on it a little,” she smiles. “It’s kind of overwritten.” A sniff, but the tear valve is off again. Good.
We chitchat a little, but I sense it’s time to go. She hands me a check for a month’s severance—which amazes me, since American News is notoriously cheap—and when I walk out of her office I’m officially unemployed. I was planning on interviewing Coach Kowalski over at St. Anthony’s and doing an in-depth on a retarded kid who kicks field goals for the Kennedy Trojans, but now that’s all history. It’s going to be a thin edition of the paper tonight; I suppose it’ll be filled up with junky wire service crap and bland features and not a word of local news. I watch as Ed, who covers the city desk and edits the entertainment section, trudges into Louise’s office. She’s already yanking Kleenex, and I feel sorry for both of them. But this is history to me now, and I’ve never been real close to anybody here, so I surreptitiously empty the few personal possessions in my desk into an empty Xerox paper box, and I’m gone without a word.
Now what? I drive aimlessly through town, get on the freeway and just drive. Nowhere, no purpose. Nothing to do, nobody to see, nobody who cares. Well, not entirely. Eric and Erica care. But they have their lives; I can’t be too much of a bother to them. I’ve got to start out on my own, remake Jimmy “Scooter” Biffman.
But how?
*****
Chapter 2
“Tough forty-eight hours,” Erica says, sipping a Kool-Aid. I know she’d rather be having a beer—she could pound the brewskies in high school before Eric decreed holy prohibition—and as we sit on saggy lawn chairs in their toy-cluttered back yard, our feet resting in the thin, scratchy lawn, I find myself again wondering—
How would things have changed if I’d only hooked up with Erica, if I’d beaten Eric to the punch. Who knows what might’ve been?
“Stop thinking about it,” Erica says. She has the creepy ability to read my mind sometimes, but I can’t imagine she’s zeroed in on this thought.
“So what am I thinking about?” I ask.
“Me.”
I gulp my Kool-Aid.
Creepy.
We silently watch the sun set over the ratty wooden fence. Its last rays reflect weakly on the polished surface of their Airstream...my new home.
Kids make noise in the house, but Eric is ringmaster for the evening. When he heard I got canned, he figured I’d need some alone time with Erica...Eric’s the best. Although his cryptic “You’re lucky” statement still worries me. I wonder what exactly he was talking about?
Mosquitoes buzz around my head, and Erica impatiently swats at the air. “It’s almost biblical, you know?” she says, looking into her palm. She caught and squashed a mosquito in mid-buzz. I’ve never been able to do that.
“What?”
“What’s happening to you. You’re on your way to being like...fucking Job or something,” she giggles. Eric frowns on foul language, and I think Erica gets a little coochie buzz out of saying “fuck” in a sentence about the bible. Rebel, rebel.
“Refresh me. Who’s fucking Job?” I ask. My bible junk is rusty, not that it was ever very coherent.
“God kept throwing trouble at him.”
“What’d he do about it?”
“Took it like guys in the Old Testament are supposed to. Bitched and moaned but in the end appreciated God for kicking his ass.” Erica sips her Kool-Aid and giggles again. “Fucking Job.”
She must’ve slipped some vodka in her Kool-Aid when Eric wasn’t looking.
“Thanks. Nothing like Old Testament ass-whuppin’ to make you feel like a million bucks. Am I gonna get boils, maybe some kind of plague?”
“At the rate things are going I wouldn’t count it out.”
“I’ll make sure to share with you.”
“That’s not how it works. God only throws the nasty stuff at people who can take it. At least that’s what Eric says.”
I usually like to banter and shoot the shit with Erica, but I’m not in the mood tonight. It’s my life she’s joking about, and I’m suddenly not finding very much funny.
“You should write a book,” Erica blurts out, giggling again. I’m sure she’s been drinking. I wonder where she stashes her booze?
“About what? High school sports in the tri-county area? I don’t think it’d be a best seller.”
“Okay, something else. You can write. There must be something you can write about.”
“My autobiography. ‘Portrait of a Fucked-Up Loser’.”
“Yeah. No. Too much of a downer. Something happier.”
A mosquito drills my neck. I’d swat it, but why bother? There’ll just be others. Jesus, listen to me. I’ve really given up. I swat it. I feel the satisfying blood-splat as I squash it against my skin. Okay, Scooter shows some spunk. He killed a bug. The first positive thing that’s happened in the last two days.
“I don’t have anything happy to write about, Erica. It’s a dopey idea.”
But Erica’s not listening. She’s staring into the indigo-smudged dusk sky, like she’s waiting for a shooting star to swoosh by at any moment. “No...no I’ve got an idea!” she says breathlessly.
“What?”
“Write about what happens.”
“To who?”
“You!”
She turns to me, full goofy grin and twinkly eyes. I haven’t seen her this excited in a long time. The years of babies and diapers and “Praise Jesus” have drained away—this is the Erica I knew way back when, when we were kids.
“You mean a diary?” I ask.
“Kind of.”
“That’s boring, Er. What am I gonna write, ‘Got up, shaved, drove around, looked for a job’...nobody cares.”
“Sure, you put it like that, it’s boring. But if you write it...cool, put in tension, then it’s great.”
“What tension?”
And now her grin gets really big. “Sexual.”
“Are you nuts? Write about whacking off?”
“That’d be gross,” she says, looking at me like I’m a perv. “I’m talking about the Jimmy “Scooter” Biffman search for the perfect woman. Everybody loves a love story, and everybody wants to see the nice guy win. So go find the perfect woman, the replacement for dragon Jane.”
Now, I admit that at this very moment, in this very place, I’m in kind of a bad psychological state. I’m not big into all the self-analysis garbage that seems to be a lot of people’s only reason for living; I take things as they come and hope for the best. But right now, out in the backyard, being eaten by skeeters and wondering if Erica is drunk or crazy or both, I have to admit that something about her notion intrigues me.
“The Scooter quest for love.”
“Yeah!”
“It’s kind of early for that, isn’t it? Jane only dumped me yesterday.”
“All the more reason to start now. The hurt’s fresh, and you sure don’t want her back. It’s not like a big love affair blew up or something. She’s a loser. Now you go out and find the right one. And write about it, make it funny. You’re funny, people will want to read it.”
It’s stupid, ridiculous, absurd.
But I’m intrigued....
“I still need to work, though.”
“Cash in your 401K.”
I’ve got seventy-five grand in my 401K, but the thought of liquidating it to do some bonehead blue sky deal woman hunt is too much.
Still....
“What if there’s no end? What if I don’t find anybody?” I ask.
“Then....” Erica sips the Kool-Aid dregs and licks the edge of the glass. “Then I’ll provide the happy ending.”
I don’t know how long mosquitoes’ drill-tongues are, but by the jolting shudder that passes through my body I think one punctured my spinal cord.
“Erica!”
She doesn’t say anything; she just tosses me a flirty grin.
“Er, I don’t know what’s going on with you and Eric, but don’t be talking like that.”
“Why not?” she says. “I’m bored. We’re bored. He’d never say anything, but I know he feels the same way.”
Actually, he would say something. But I don’t tell her that. “No he doesn’t. No you don’t. You guys love each other more than anything in the world, you two are solid, you’re dependable.”
“We’re boring.”
“So what?! There’s nothing wrong with boring.”
“Apparently Jane thought so.”
“Jane’s not you. She’s—“
“Satan.”
I sigh. What the hell is going on? Has everybody lost their fucking minds? So I say, “Have you lost your fucking mind?!”
Erica throws her head back and laughs deeply. Her voice has gotten husky over the years. Her laugh sounds like one of those old ladies who smoke too much and have their reading glasses dangling on jeweled chains around their chicken skin necks. “This is it, Scoot. Your chance to do what everybody who’s trapped wants to do! You can hit the road, crank up the stereo, go find the woman of your dreams.”
“This is crazy!” I’m starting to get mad.
“No it’s not, it’s real. It’s life we can live vicariously through you.”
“You won’t provide the happy ending,” I huff.
“You’re such a dork,” she laughs.
“Promise me you won’t provide a happy ending!” I say, and as the words leave my mouth I realize how idiotic they are. If I was honest I’d admit I’ve always wanted Erica, and the thought of finally being with her is tantalizing. Even if Eric and the kids....
Stop it! What am I thinking?! Too much stress.
“So you gonna do it?” Erica asks.
“No!”
She starts to sing Born To Be Wild. I try to be pissed off, but I can’t, so I laugh with her. I can’t help it. Everything is too absurd right now to be upset about anything.
“So where do I look for the new Ms. Right? Bars?” I ask.
Erica leans back in the chair, runs her hands through her curly hair. Damn, she’s still cute.
“No. You don’t want big-haired trailer trash slobs. For this to be any good you’ve got to have a noble quest. You’ve got to look for her in a place that makes sense, that we want to read about. But it’s a good question. Hmmm.”
She sounds like an editor. But the journalist in me can’t stop thinking about it. Maybe, just maybe....
“Is there someplace where guys my age can go on a love quest without the accompanying sleaze factor?” Maybe a college campus. Lots of potential there. The only problem is that I’d be laughed out of the universe by a bunch of hard-bodied twenty-two-year-olds.
Erica “hhmmmms” thoughtfully. I’m suddenly off in fantasy land thinking about sorority babes-o-rama. Not gonna happen.
“I think,” Erica says, “that you should look backward instead of forward.”
“What are you, a fucking fortune cookie?”
She smiles like a Buddha.
“She was hot,” Eric says, drooling over a picture of Heather McAndrews with a little more enthusiasm than I think is healthy. The three of us are on the couch poring over pictures from our high school yearbooks. This was Erica’s brilliant “look backward” idea: hunt down the high school babes o’ the past and try to bag one.
“But they’re all probably married, Erica,” I objected. “It’s been twenty years.”
“People get divorced. Look at you. And maybe if you’re charming enough they’ll leave their husband for you! What a great ending that would make!”
“Yeah, just what I want to be, a home-wrecking sleazeball.”
But Erica prevailed, and before I knew it, we’d parked on the couch with Eric—who for some reason thought it was a great idea—and now I’m taking a trip down memory lane, looking at pictures of incredibly young people with bad hair.
My people. My past.
“What about Cindy?” Erica asks. We gaze down at the senior portrait of Cindy Alvarado. I smile at the memory of her tight butt. I spent a lot of time leering at her.
“Don’t think we ever spoke,” I say, regretting it. I didn’t know at the time that looks were less important to women than personality. It’s all about attitude. Wish I’d realized that when I was sixteen. I might’ve had a whole lot more fun than pining after Erica and flogging my crowbar raw during my nightly excursions to the land of buxom, wanton fantasy women who wanted me only as their meat boy.
Erica scribbles Cindy’s name down on the ever-growing list. “You can talk to her now. It’ll be great, looking all these people up.”
“I’ll never find them,” I say, already regretting that I let Erica start this. The more she gets into it, the stupider it seems.
“That’ll be my job. And the kids. They know their way around the web like nobody’s business. We’ll find these people.”
“Great,” I say weakly.
“This is so cool!” Eric says. He’s way more into this than I am. And that’s when it hits me. It’s why this idiot idea might be worth something...because Eric’s the kind of person that might actually want to read something like this. The vicarious search of an almost-middle-aged loser for a babe from the past. Who hasn’t wondered if they could fire something up with that hot blonde from second period algebra? It’s why they have high school reunions—so people can get that little buzz of seeing the past and wonder...what might have been?
I didn’t go to our reunions. I didn’t see any reason to. There wasn’t anyone I cared to see—Eric and Erica were the only high-schoolers I cared about—and anyway, Eric and Erica went and filled me in. They told me about the balding slobs and flabby girls and....
“How many of these women have you seen at the reunions?” I ask.
“A few,” Erica says. “But it’s weird. Most of the ones we’re picking out weren’t there.”
“Probably because they’re in prison,” I say miserably. “I don’t know about this,” I add, the doubt blowing away my momentary “Hey, this isn’t such a bad idea!”
“Quit whining,” Erica orders. She’s in her take-charge mode. I haven’t seen it much since she started breeding—unless it was directed at the kids. To Eric, and even me, she’s become deferential. This crazy idea is changing her in a hurry.
“Forget it, Erica, I’m not gonna do this,” I say, starting to stand up. I’m shocked at the iron grip that locks onto my wrist and pulls me back down to the couch. It’s not Eric; it’s Erica.
And she’s not smiling.
“You need to do this,” she says through clenched teeth. “It’s important.”
“To who?” I ask.
“Everybody,” Eric answers. And Erica nods.
What the fuck is going on with these people? Is this some sort of sick and twisted thing with them, like a perverted three-way that they’ve always dreamed about or something?
“You need to heal,” Erica says. “You’ve been wounded.”
“Maybe time would be a better idea than hunting for a new woman,” I say. “Don’t most people take more than forty-eight hours to get over huge life-changing things like marriages going tits up and jobs being yanked?”
But they’re not listening. Erica’s already writing another name down on her list, and Eric points at a picture. “Hey,” Eric smiles. “What about Adonna Moore?”
And it’s weird...hearing the name of a girl I hadn’t thought about in twenty years takes the words of protest that are forming in my throat and shoves them back down somewhere deep inside. I’m not whining anymore.
Because of the name.
Adonna Moore.
“Oooh, we got Scoot’s attention,” Eric grins.
What is it about that name?
“Well, well,” Erica says. “This is news to me. I didn’t know you had a...thing for her.”
“I didn’t.”
“Then how come you’re looking so mooney?”
“I dunno.” I grab the yearbook from Eric and study the picture. Adonna Moore. She was one of those girls in high school that you notice but don’t notice. She was mildly pretty; what my mom would’ve called “attractive”. She had that kind of tomboy thing going. She was jocky—I think she played basketball and softball—and if I remember she was very sure of herself. I had her in a few classes, might’ve even dissected a frog with her, and I always thought she was okay. Nice. Forgettably pretty.
Attractive.
But now, so many years later, something strikes me about her. It must be the wisdom of hindsight, the 20/20 view looking back. I realize she was special. I just didn’t know it at the time.
I study the picture.
Long hair, brown expressive eyes, nice facial structure, strong shoulders, alert, intelligent....
Why the fuck didn’t I pay any attention to this girl in high school? What was I thinking?
“Did she have a boyfriend?” I ask. “I don’t remember.”
Erica frowns, trying to remember. “She was a jock. That’s all I recall about her.”
“I don’t think so,” Eric says. When Eric concentrates it’s really obvious, like some kind of head muscle is flexing. “Seems to me some guys on the team asked her out and she blew ‘em off. They talked about her like she was a lesbo.”
“Eric,” Erica sighs. “You sound like such a cracker.”
Eric shrugs. I doubt he knows what a cracker is.
“Great,” I say. “One that might have potential and she’s probably a leather dyke.”
“So you find her and bring her back to the manly side.”
“I don’t think I’m the right guy for that,” I say.
Erica watches me oddly. Like she suddenly doesn’t trust me. “How come I didn’t know about this?” she asks. It’s as if she’s my wife and I just confessed to boning the next door neighbor.
“I told you. Something just struck me when Eric said her name.”
“What?”
“That she might’ve been special.”
Erica yanks the yearbook from my hands, and the sudden grumble-shout of fighting children floats into the living room from the back of the house. “See what they’re up to,” Erica orders, and Eric meekly trots off to be Super-Daddy. Erica glares at the photo of Adonna Moore.
“Are you jealous?” I ask, laughing but incredulous.
“She’s not that hot,” Erica says, slamming the yearbook closed. “You could do better.”
“You got a problem with her?” I ask, goading. This is turning fun.
“No!”
Eric comes back out carrying weepy, snotty-nosed Elishaba. Little Eli tags along, whining, “I didn’t do anything!” Which, of course, means that he did. But seeing Eric carrying his weepy little cute-as-a-button daughter stabs me with a sharp pain of loss.
Crystal. My own daughter. Already rapidly becoming even more estranged from her dad. I’m sure Dr. Dwayne knows more computer stuff than me. He’s probably playing some horrendously violent video game with her right now, blasting aliens they’ve named “Scooters” to smithereens.
I look at Erica. She’s sitting with her arms folded, pouting. Strange. I’ll never understand people—especially women. Even Erica, who I know better than anybody in the world, is capable of utterly baffling me. A few minutes ago she’s all into this stupid woman hunt scheme, now she’s seething with apparent jealousy because I acted mildly interested in somebody from twenty years ago. A potential lesbian I’ll never meet.
I decide things couldn’t get any weirder, and beg off to go be alone in the Airstream. Eric and Erica tend to their brood. Eric says goodnight.
Erica doesn’t.
Weird.
The Airstream is pretty comfy; it’s all I need, really. A little musty, and there’s a few mouse turds around, but all in all it’s an okay place to hang. Lots of closet space, nice little sink and toilet, comfy bed. Eric even hooked up an ancient black-and-white TV to the cable for me. What a guy. Always so thoughtful.
I flake out on the bed and channel surf. The images are tiny and grainy, but as always I stop surfing at the Discovery Channel and watch as a bunch of gonzo dinosaur scientists dig up bones. They’re more like rock stars than science geeks, and I wonder if they’re actors. Harrison Ford has had a big effect on these guys. I bet the old style sci-nerds are insanely envious of these studs with their earrings, tattoos and really hot graduate assistants. It’s like an old Van Halen video.
But I soon lose interest; no matter how you edit it, watching people tweeze and toothbrush stuff out of sandstone gets boring.
I surf onward.
Until the cell phone rings.
I hesitate, but I decide it can’t be anything bad, because what more bad news could I get? It’s probably some telemarketing geek; maybe I’ll have some fun with him. If it’s for carpet cleaning I’ll ask if they can get massive amounts of blood and brain matter out of hi-lo Berber.
“’lo?” I say suspiciously. Always good to sound a little crazy to a telemarketer.
“Daddy?” Crystal says, and my heart breaks.
“Hi honey!” I say. Tears immediately well in my eyes, and I realize how beat-up I am about this. I’ve been in denial.
“Guess what?” she says, sounding breathless and excited like she used to sound when she was little and I was still her hero.
“What?” I say, wiping a tear away and grinning hugely. Nothing like the sound of a tiny little voice saying, “Daddy” with love to cheer you up.
“Dr. Dwayne said I could go to computer camp this summer!”
If she had stabbed me in the heart with the sharpened heels of streetwalker Barbie I doubt it would’ve hurt as much. Because I can hear the triumphant snottiness in her voice; I’d told her last week we couldn’t afford to send her to the computer camp she wanted to go to. Way too spendy.
“That’s great,” I say, icy. The warm Daddy thoughts are replaced with resentment and irritation.
I don’t like this kid very much.
The phone slams down, and I’m about to click off, when Jane comes on. “You there, Scooter?”
“Yeah. Glad Dr. Dwayne can afford to do the right thing for Crystal.”
“Yeah,” Jane says without the slightest irony. “He’s a good provider.”
Jesus. A good provider?! She’s talking like they’ve been married for twenty fucking years!
“You want something, Jane?” I ask. I am SO sorry I answered the phone. What was I thinking?
“I thought you should know, Dr. Dwayne and I spoke to the attorney today.”
“Yes....”
“And we decided it would be best if you didn’t have visitation rights with Crystal. It would just confuse her, and we want a stable home life for her with Dr. Dwayne.”
“I—“
“You can fight it, of course,” she says, “but do you really want to? Is it that important? Because I’ve never gotten the feeling that you care all that much about your daughter.”
It’s right now that I make a choice. I could rant and rave, scream and threaten, call her names, do the aggrieved spouse thing.
But I don’t.
Because she’s right. I don’t care all that much. Maybe someday, maybe when Crystal is older and not so snotty, then we’ll reestablish our relationship. But there isn’t one now. And I’m not sure I want one.
So I click the phone off.
There’s nothing more to say.
It’s funny though; as I flip through the channels desperate for something to watch, something to take my mind off my life, tears roll down my cheeks and drip off the bottom of my jaw. I don’t know the last time I cried this much. Maybe never.
After a while the tears slow, then stop. I’m rubbing snot pearls on my sleeve when the cell phone rings. I shouldn’t answer it. If it’s Jane with more fucking divorce demands I don’t think I could take it, or if it’s Crystal with triumphantly bratty “Guess what Dr. Daddy Dwayne’s gonna let me do!” I know I can’t take that.
But I have the feeling it isn’t either one of them. So I answer.
Well, not answer, really. I click the phone on and say nothing.
And I’m greeted with nothing but the faintest hint of breathing. So I breathe back. It’s like two obscene phone callers are on the same line.
I wait. Who is this? Not Jane. Jane doesn’t let a minute, a second, keep her from giving her opinion. And it’s not Crystal. Dr. Dwayne maybe? Feeling guilty that he stole my family, he’s calling to apologize but can’t find his voice?
I finally give in.
“Who is this?” I whisper.
“Are you sure about Adonna Moore, Scooter?” Erica whispers back. Her voice sounds strangely thick, like she’s got a cold. But unless she caught one in the last hour I don’t think that’s it.
“Do you always call people and just breathe at them?” I ask. “It’s creepy.”
“Are you sure about Adonna Moore?” she asks again, stronger. I realize her voice is thick with...anger? Jealousy? Something weird I’ve never heard before.
“Erica,” I say, trying to sound final. “I don’t give a fuck about Adonna Moore, I don’t give a fuck about anybody from high school or college or anywhere else. I’m not going on this goofy woman scavenger hunt. We were just talking, kidding around. My fucking life has crashed and burned, do you honestly think I can go do something this stupid a write a best seller out of it?!”
Erica doesn’t usually piss me off, but right now I’m steaming. She’s not being a supportive best friend. She’s being a weirdo.
“If you go,” she says, “you have to promise me something.”
“I’m not going anywhere! I’m going to live in your Airstream trailer for the rest of my life!”
“If you find her, and if anything...happens between you—“
“Nothing’s gonna happen!”
“I want you to know. I want you to realize that if I hadn’t married Eric—“
“I don’t want to hear this!”
“I want you to know that I’ve always regretted not...being with you. You know that, don’t you?”
“Erica—“
“And if you want, I’ll...”
“Don’t say it. Don’t say anything else. You and Eric are forever, Jesus, you’ve got a million kids, what are you saying?!” I know what she’s saying, but I don’t know what else to say.
“If you find her, what’ll you do?”
I sigh. “I don’t know, Er. I’m not gonna find her. I’m not gonna look for her. I’m not gonna look for anybody, I’m not gonna look for anything except a job and someplace to live.”
“Are you sure about her?” she presses on. “There were lots of others.”
“What’s your problem with Adonna Moore?” I ask, intrigued by her weirdness about somebody from our distant past. “You have a fight with her or something?”
A long silence, then a tired sigh. A sniff. I imagine her in the den, cordless phone pressed hard to her face, her freckles angry red, eyes watery. I know exactly how she looks, the expression of her eyes, the tilt of her head, everything about her. I know Erica so much better than I ever knew Jane. I could be sitting in the same room with Jane, and if I closed my eyes I could forget what she looked like. Not Erica. She’s such a part of me that I know her better than myself. At least I thought I did until this Adonna stuff started.
“Okay, then,” she whispers. “Tomorrow we start.”
“Start what?” I say.
“Tomorrow....” is all she says.
*****
Chapter 3
The pounding on the Airstream echoes with a metallic clank. I try to open my eyes, but they’re glued shut by sleep boogers, and anyway, why get up? No job, no wife, no life.
Might as well sleep the day away.
But that pounding won’t let me.
As I come back into consciousness, I imagine the source of the sound. It’s not really metallic, I decide, it’s more of a thud against metal. If I didn’t know I was in an Airstream trailer, I probably wouldn’t even think there was a metal tinge to the sound.
But as I intellectually theorize the sound’s source, it just keeps on getting louder and louder, more annoying and insistent and pretty soon I’m gonna have to tear my eyes open and make the sound stop, because no way am I going to be able to sleep.
“What?!” I grumble. Why won’t the world just let me alone?
“Get up!” Erica’s voice orders, muffled and softened by the Airstream’s insulated walls. But not muffled enough to shave off the irritation. “It’s after ten!”
“So?”
“So get up. We’ve got work to do!”
“I don’t have to work. I got fired.”
“GET UP!”
And I do, because she’s pissed. She’s in Mom mode, and I still respond to that tone of voice even though my own mom has been dead ten years. Once an obedient little boy, always an obedient little boy.
I stumble to the door and fling it open. Big mistake. The sun blinds my newly-peeled-open crusty eyes and it hurts like somebody’s driven spikes into my head.
“Cute,” Erica says. I peek through my fingers at her. She’s dressed casual, cute as ever, with Eli and Elishaba at her side. “Don’t mind Uncle Scooter,” she tells the kids. “He didn’t sleep well.”