The Highway Kind(34)

My father owned a slate-blue Belvedere with a 318 engine and a posi-rear. The day Ted came back we took Pop’s car to the airport, picked up my brother, had lunch at our town’s Greek diner, and drove back over to our street. Ted almost cried when he saw the ’Cuda parked in the driveway. “It’s for you, son,” my father said. Ted was still in uniform and it’s hard to forget the way he looked, tall and handsome, and how he hugged our father, the way they held each other, on the sidewalk that day outside our house. I wasn’t jealous. I only wanted my father to look at me with admiration, the way he looked at Ted. I just didn’t know what to do to make that happen.

Ted moved into his old room and settled in. He registered for the upcoming semester at our community college, a couple of classes to ease into it, and got a job as a salesman at a store that sold high-end audio equipment, which was something of a craze at the time. He had always had an interest in electronics, loved rock music, and had bought a tube-amp stereo when he was overseas, so the gig was in his wheelhouse. Despite the fact that he was somewhat introverted and not a guy you’d think could talk someone into it, Ted seemed to like the job.

When Ted wasn’t working or in his room listening to records, he was washing, polishing, checking the fluids, or driving his ’Cuda. He was rarely alone. He’d had a girlfriend, Francesca, since tenth grade, and they’d survived the usual infidelities (him with Southeast Asian whores, her with a couple of local guys) during his deployment. Francesca took care of her invalid father and worked in the box office of a single-screen movie theater up at the shopping plaza, so she was frequently occupied. When she wasn’t riding next to Ted, I was in the shotgun bucket beside him. Since he’d returned, we’d gotten pretty tight.

The summer after I graduated was a good one. Gerald Ford, a decent man, had stepped in as president, the war had ended, and a kind of calm was in the air. I wasn’t going on to college, but I had worked hard to earn a high-school diploma, and I felt as if I had accomplished something. Pop told me that I could shadow him in the garage, and if I took the courses offered to Esso employees, I could eventually become a certified mechanic. Also, I was going around with an older girl named Diane, who had been graced with raven-black hair, lively green eyes, and curves. She was patient, taught me how to last, and showed me what a woman liked. We saw each other a couple times a week, and when we didn’t, she never asked why. I was relaxed and free.

Ted and I liked to motor around town at night. In our state, the drinking age had been lowered to eighteen because of the war, so I was legal. We’d ride with open cans of Schlitz between our legs, the windows down, Ted’s hand cigaretted and resting on his side-view mirror, the deck playing Allman Brothers, Robin Trower, Johnny and Edgar Winter, Deep Purple, and Zeppelin. Ted used all three speeds of the automatic, as the Slick Shift was engineered to prevent accidental slippage into reverse or neutral when moving up the ladder. My father kept the ’Cuda tuned just right, and Ted knew how to drive it. I clearly remember the feel of those nights, the wind warm in my face and hair, the streetlights dancing like fireflies off the buffed black hood of the Plymouth, the smell of Ted’s cigarettes, Johnny Winter’s “It’s My Own Fault” on the stereo. And always, under the music, the rumble of the ’Cuda’s dual pipes.


There was a quiet road about five miles north of our town where the suburbs turned to country, a straight quarter-mile strip of two-lane without traffic lights. That was where the kids in our crowd congregated and raced. Ted and I ended up there one night in August and ran into the Mahoney brothers, who were standing around a ’68 cream-over-red AMX, looking to drag someone. Walter Mahoney, the oldest and toughest of the brothers, owned the car.

The Mahoneys were Irish Catholic, just like us. We went to the same church and had known one another all our lives.

Ted pulled alongside them and let the engine run so they could hear it. He was looking to cop an ounce of weed. The Mahoneys sold pot and always had the best shit. Ted was smoking regularly since he’d come back to the world, and I had fallen in love with it too.

Walter stepped forward. The middle brother, a spent-head named Jason, came with him. Mike, the quiet one, hung back. Walter was built in the shoulders and chest. His hair looked home-cut and it was military short. Jason’s hair was long and receding, and he wore a bushy Vandyke beard. Though not yet twenty, he would soon be bald. Mike had long curls, which furthered the impression that he was soft. They were all wearing Levi’s, patched in places, and pocket T-shirts with Marlboro hard packs wedged in the pockets. Walter was smoking a cigarette now. He hit it down to the filter and kind of flipped it off his fingers as he approached. A flip, not a flick. Walter had perfected the move.

“Ted and his trip-black ’Cuda,” said Walter.

“What’s good, Walter?” said Ted.

Walter bent down into the window frame, looked at me, and smiled in a way that no guy likes. “Hi, Ricky.”

No one called me Ricky, not even my mom when I was a kid.

Ted said to Walter, “You holdin’?”

“I could be,” said Walter. “What are you looking for?”

“An O-Z,” said my brother.

“I have it at the house,” said Walter. “Columbian. Price went up. It’s fifty this time.”

“For an ounce? Shit.”

“I can get you some Mexican if you want a headache. This is primo. You’ll trip, Tedward.”