Past: Fast Car
When I got home from school, Jessie and Avery were sitting in the living room playing with paper dolls cut from Mom’s clothing catalogs. Avery looked up at me and I thought she almost looked scared. I probably did look a little weird. I didn’t like to ride the bus because all the kids were so loud and their noise felt like this huge weight pressing on my chest. So I walked home, even though it was raining.
I pulled off my wet shoes – stupid of me to wear Chuck Taylors in the rain – and wiggled my toes. Jessica and Avery were still staring at me; both of them had dropped their scissors and cut-outs and I didn’t know what to say. I tried to smile at them but it didn’t work very well. So I tried to just ignore them and sat down on the couch behind them, grabbing the remote and flipping the television on.
“Zachary.”
I looked up and saw Mom standing there in the doorway between the living room and the kitchen, a flowery patterned dish towel in her hand.
“Come in here and wash the dishes,” she said. “I have to get Avery to her ballet lessons. You can watch the kids for a couple minutes, right?”
Switching the television back off, I stood up and carefully stepped around the bits and pieces of magazine paper scattered around the floor. I walked on past Mom and into the kitchen, then asked over my shoulder, “How long will you be gone?”
“An hour or so. I need to pick up some groceries, too. I’ll take Zoe with us so you don’t have to watch her,” she replied, her voice fading out as she turned to Avery and out of my line of sight.
A few minutes later, when my arms were already buried up to the elbows in suds, I heard the door slam and I knew that meant mom was gone, leaving me and the dishes alone with Jessie and Mackie.
I was just putting Zoe’s sippy cup in the dish drainer when I heard this awful, loud rumbling from the driveway, and the sound of gravels being thrown all around. A few of them rained down the side of the house and I knew Dad would be mad if they left any dents. Hurriedly, I dried my hands on the dish towel and ran to the window. I could see Taylor walking up the driveway, a shiny red Camaro sitting there. It had a few dents and scratches and didn’t look brand new, but like someone had just given it a wash and wax. I supposed it was the culprit of all that noise. I ran to the door to answer it, but Taylor had already swung it open and was walking inside, shaking the rain out of his hair.
“Anybody home?”
“Taylor, where the hell did you get that car?” I asked, throwing the dish towel over my shoulder and peeking around Taylor to look out at the car.
He shrugged and walked on past me to the kitchen. “Alex’s uncle got me a good deal on it.”
“With what money? You don’t have any money, not even for a good deal,” I replied, following behind him. He was bent over in front of the refrigerator, the blue light from inside it making his face glow. It didn’t realize surprise me that Alex had something to do with this car – he and Taylor had been best friends ever since Taylor took that job at the record store.
He straightened back up, clutching a Dr. Pepper in his hand. “You know that money Mom and Dad gave me for college?”
I nodded slowly, and I could feel my eyes growing wide. “You didn’t.”
“I did.”
“But, but… you can’t do that!”
“It’s done, isn’t it?” He asked, plopping down on a stool at the counter. “Besides, they know I don’t want to go to college. At least I’m not letting their money go to waste.”
“Somehow I doubt they are going to agree,” I replied, sitting down on the stool across from Taylor.
He took a few long, deep swigs of the soda, then slammed the can down on the counter.
“Let’s go somewhere. See what my new car can do. It’s kind of old, but I think it can still go pretty fast,” he said, his blue eyes sparkling.
“No. No, no, no. Mom will kill me,” I replied, shaking my head.
Taylor tapped his fingers on the counter, looking like he was full of electric energy just dying to get out. “Come on, she won’t find out. We won’t be gone long and the house will still be in one piece when we get back. I swear. It’ll be fine.”
His words weren’t that persuasive, but his face was. He was always good at convincing me to go along with his stupid schemes. All Taylor ever cared about was the next thing he could do for fun. And I was just along for the ride. So I sighed and flung the dish towel down on the counter.
“Alright, let’s go. But we better hurry.”
“That’s the plan, Zacky.”
He was up and out the door before I could say anything else, so I had to just follow behind him, hurrying to slip into my shoes and jacket on my way out the door. He curled himself up into the driver’s seat of the car and I slipped into the passenger seat. It was worn leather inside and it smelled kind of strange, like old smoke. Taylor put the key in the ignition and after a few sputters, the car started up and the radio blared to life with an old Led Zeppelin song.
“Where should we go?” Taylor asked, looking over his shoulder as he backed the Camaro out of the driveway, kicking up another storm of gravel.
I shrugged. “It doesn’t matter to me. Anywhere, just to get out of that house for a while.”
He nodded, then shifted the car into drive and peeled out down the road. I could just imagine all the neighbors rushing to their lacy curtains to peer out and see what all the noise was. Taylor steered the car down our street, then turned left, heading to the little bit of the city that was sprawling toward our neighborhood. I could barely see through the rain splashing up on the windshield, and Taylor told me he needed to get new wipers. I guess maybe he hadn’t gotten such a good deal after all, if the car didn’t even have good wipers. Then again, I drove an old beaten down van, so maybe I didn’t have room to talk anyway.
A few minutes later, we pulled into the parking lot of The Dingo, our favorite restaurant. Taylor asked me if I wanted anything and I shook my head. He grabbed a wadded handful of bills from the console and stepped out into the rain, pulling his denim jacket up over his head.
While he was gone, I decided to explore the car a little bit. I popped the glove compartment open and started to fish around in it. He had a bunch of cassette tapes, and some of them I was pretty sure he had stolen from me. I dug through the papers – registration, proof of insurance, some stuff from Honest Jim’s Used Cars – and felt my hand touch something smooth and wooden. I wrapped my fingers around it and pulled it out. It was a small box with a deep red rose painted on the top. I slid the top open and inside I saw two rolled cigarettes and something that didn’t look like tobacco at all.
I had just touched my fingers to one of them when the door flew open and Taylor sat back down, a large milkshake in one hand and a bag that smelled like burger and fries in the other.
“You should put that back,” he said, digging his hand into the bag and pulling out a handful of fries.
I stared up at him, then back down at the little box in my hand, then back up at Taylor. “Is, is this… what I think it is?”
“I don’t know, Zacky. What do you think it is?” Taylor asked, slurping on his milkshake in that way that always annoyed everyone around.
“It is.”
Taylor smiled at me. “Maybe it is. How would you know? Seriously, put it up.”
“Me and Shelby…” I said, letting the sentence trail off. I was used to the bad looks whenever I mentioned Shelby, but Taylor didn’t seem to mind her like everyone else. I knew she was a little strange, but I liked her.
“Forget putting it up. You know that old lot where that super market used to be?” Taylor asked, already starting the car up and putting it in gear.
I nodded. “Yeah, I think so.”
“Good. We’re going there.”
He spun the tires as he pulled back out onto the street and I saw some old man in a Buick give us a dirty look. I still held the box in my hands trying not to look down at what was inside it, as we sped down the road. I watched the road fly by us and thought about that one time behind the school with Shelby. She wouldn’t tell me where she got it or how many times she had smoked pot before, but if she asked me to try it with her, she knew I wouldn’t say no. I remembered coughing and sputtering, and how we had to rush to put the thing out and hide it when we heard footsteps.
Before I knew it, we were parked behind a dumpster where the Piggly Wiggly used to sit. It had burned down a couple years ago, I remembered, and a big dark spot still marred the crumbling foundation.
Taylor grabbed the box out of my hand and pulled a lighter out of the pocket of his jacket. He gave me a smile and pressed the joint to his lips, flicking the lighter to the end of it. I watched it spark to life, smelled the lighter fluid from his special Zippo that he had bought for his 18th birthday. The joint sizzled and crackled as Taylor sucked on it, his cheeks hollowing even more than they were naturally. He held the joint out to me, his eyes wide and his lips pressed together in a thin, tight line.
My hands were still shaking when I carefully plucked it from his fingertips, trying my best not to burn myself. I remembered the instructions Shelby had given me and held the joint to my lips, drawing in the smoke as hard as I could. When I felt my throat begin to burn, I held the joint back out to Taylor, being careful not to open my mouth and let the smoke escape. My vision went blurry and tears start to well up in my eyes. The burn had worked its way down into my lungs and I exhaled long and slow, watching the cloud of smoke fill the air around me.
The whole car seemed to fill with smoke as we passed the joint back and forth. I don’t know how long we sat there. I knew it couldn’t have been long, but I was still worried that we wouldn’t make it back to the house before mom returned. But that worry was pushed back, under the surface. I liked that feeling. It was a numb that was totally different from the numb I was used to. It wasn’t hollow and empty; it was calm, almost serene.
I let my head fall back against the seat and felt the car’s engine vibrating inside it as Taylor drove back home. The raindrops still pounded against the roof of the car, each one sounding like it must have been the size of a brick. I knew that was wrong, though. But I couldn’t shake the thought. I must have closed my eyes somewhere along the way, because I felt Taylor’s hand on my shoulder. The car was idling in the driveway of the house, and I was relieved to see that it was the only car there.
I didn’t know what to say to Taylor, and my tongue felt like it weighed a ton anyway. I wasn’t sure I could even lift it to speak at all. Taylor gave me a nod and I fumbled to open the car door. Each footstep felt like it caused a tiny earthquake. I unlocked the door and walked in, and looked around. It was mostly quiet, but I could hear the soft hum of a television from down the hall where Mackie’s room was. Satisfied with that, I walked up the stairs to my room and collapsed on the bed.
My mind was comfortably blank and I let my weight sink into the mattress, imagining myself swimming in a deep, blue sea. The fact that I couldn’t really swim didn’t bother me at all.