The Highway Kind(68)

Faby Apache was beautiful, muscular, and very strong. But it hadn’t been pleasant to be caught between her thighs and hammered to the ground. He accepted the mescal as a reward.

“I hear you have an old Bronco,” said a young man introduced as Lorenzo. He looked to be very drunk and dangerous. He had long black hair and lots of ragged tattoos and kept on telling Jeff that the feds wanted to send him back to jail. His T-shirt shilled for a band called Eyes Set to Kill.

“Thank you for the drink.”

“Can you give me a ride?” he said. “It’s a very pretty truck. Faith told me about it.”

“Who’s she?”

“The girl who brought you the cheap beer at the pool,” Lorenzo said. “And the club sandwich on wheat toast. No bacon.”

“She’s very pretty.”

“Yeah?” Lorenzo said. “She’s fourteen, dipshit.”

“Oh.”

“And my little sister.”

Lorenzo wanted to take the Bronco through the piney hills at night. Jeff worried the car would get muddy, that something might break, that he might bust a tire or, God forbid, twist the frame. “What the hell do you have a four-wheel drive for if you don’t use it? Are you some kind of pussy?” Lorenzo asked.

“I’m no pussy,” Jeff said and agreed to let him drive the Bronco. He’d drunk half a bottle of mescal. He told Lorenzo he wanted to eat the worm but Lorenzo told him there was no worm in that bottle. Lorenzo drove with two other men in the backseat and made Jeff run shoeless behind them, trailing the Bronco like a dog. They told him this was a rite of passage for all Apaches: if he followed the Road of Trials, he would be their blood brother. Jeff thought maybe he might sell the story, a first-person account, to Outside or maybe Men’s Journal. “How Mescal Turned to Apache Blood.”

Jeff was a runner, knew the Hollywood Hills as well as a coyote, but after a couple miles or maybe a hundred, he stopped, bent at the waist, and tried to catch his breath. The moon above them was huge, painting the pine trees silver. Damn, he wished he had a pen. He’d write down that description and use it in a novel sometime. Shining silvery pines. “No más,” Jeff said.

One of the Apaches, a laughing, grinning teen, tossed a Dos Equis bottle at him. It missed by a mile and shattered against a rock.

“What’s next?” Jeff said.

“You look at my sister?” Lorenzo asked.

“No.”

“I like your Bronco,” he said. “How much?”

“It’s not mine.”

“Everything is for sale.”

“My brother-in-law bought it in Malibu,” Jeff said. “And he’d never sell it. He loves this truck more than my sister. Okay? So what’s next?”

Lorenzo turned around in the driver’s seat, lighting up a cigarette, smoke coming from his nostrils. “What are you talking about?”

“The Road of Trials,” Jeff said. “The Native American way. Joseph Campbell and all that shit.”

“Oh, man,” Lorenzo said. “I almost forgot. We were just bullshitting you, man. Come on. Get in the truck, we’ll drive you back to the casino. Just don’t look at Faith again.”

“He owes us for the beer,” one of the men said. “Beer costs money.”

“And the mescal,” said the other. “He drank most of the bottle.”

“I like this Bronco,” Lorenzo said, driving fast, hitting ravines and rocks, feeling the custom wheel in his hands. Jeff had to hold on to the roll bar or he’d fall out into the endless trees. “I dreamed of this night the whole time I was in jail,” Lorenzo said. “I knew it would come.”


Jeff played blackjack in the casino most of the next day. The casino paid him out chips for what he’d lost and gave him a voucher for a full buffet breakfast. Lorenzo and his two boys said Jeff owed them fifty bucks. They said they’d come back for it at noon and he’d better have it or else. Lorenzo said he needed cash to provide refreshments for his family. Tonight, Faith would dance for ten hours without interruption. Only through a test of strength, endurance, and character would she truly become a woman. No one should go hungry waiting for all that mess.

Head in hands, Jeff kept losing. Lorenzo took a seat next to him. He had on a T-shirt that showed Geronimo and his boys. It said Homeland Security—Fighting Terrorism Since 1492.

“You know my sister can’t smile for two days.”

“I know how she feels.”

“Where are you from?” Lorenzo said.

“I told you,” he said. “California.”

“Is that where you learned to gamble?”

Jeff stared at him.

“I didn’t play cards until I went to jail,” Lorenzo said. “Lots of time to learn there.”

“I worked my way through grad school playing poker,” Jeff said. “That’s how I got my MFA and published my book.”

Jeff doubled down. The dealer snatched up the cards and the last of his chips.

“You lost again?” Lorenzo said. “Damn, man. It’s like you are cursed or something.”

“Don’t worry about me,” Jeff said. “I’ll pay you.”

“I don’t worry,” Lorenzo said. “We’ll just take the Bronco.”