Mosquitoland(41)

I am Mary Iris Malone, the Mistress of Moxie.

Stepping lightly into the hallway, my trusty high-tops lead us onward (ever onward!) through the small-town bustlings of the Independence police station. We fly past the bulletproof window protecting the captured dregs of society; past the closet-sized kitchen, with its engine-oil coffee and floppy box of day-old donuts. With buoyed spirits, surging stealth, and the white-water rapids of adrenaline, we follow my Velcro-laden friends into the foyer of the station: past the old lady in hysterics over her lost cat; past the debauched he-she in cowboy (cowgirl?) chaps; past the gorgeous guy with a black eye—

I stop on a dime. Walt runs into my back, giggling.

The guy with the black eye. It’s him—17C, from the Greyhound.

“Come on,” says Walt, still chuckling under his breath. “We’re breaking out of jail.” He grabs my sleeve, and pulls every part of me—save my heart—out the front door.





23


The Many Perfections of Beck Van Buren

“SORRY, LITTLE LADY. C’aint sell it to you without you got a valid driver’s license.”

The guy pulls an apple out of I-don’t-know-where, then plants it in his Moses beard. I can only assume there’s a mouth in there somewhere.

After our prison break, I was all set to hitchhike, when Walt spotted a FOR SALE sign in the window of a blue pickup in this guy’s yard. The problem is this: for certain, shall we say, cycloptic reasons, I’ve avoided taking the driver’s test like the plague.

I pull my permit—which the great state of Ohio only requires a written exam to obtain—from my backpack, and flash the card in Moses’s face. “I have this. Same thing, basically.”

He cracks a bite of his apple (damn thing is crisp), chews, says nothing.

Walt unlatches his old suitcase, pulls out his Rubik’s Cube, and gets to work. Moses raises his eyebrows; I can actually see his patience waning.

“Okay, fine,” I say, pulling out a wad of cash. “How about three hundred dollars? That’s fifty bucks more than you’re asking, cash in hand.”

Walt clicks the red squares into place, claps me on the shoulder, and does a little jig right there on the front porch.

“What’s wrong with him?” asks Moses, still eyeballing Walt.

“He’s Walt, man. What’s your excuse?”

Moses stops chewing momentarily, then backs up to shut the door.

“Okay-no-wait-wait-look, I’m sorry. My friend and I just walked from the police station, so we’re—”

“You see Randy down there?” he asks, cracking another bite.

“I . . . what?”

“Officer Randy. You see him?”

“Yeah, but—”

“How is that ole sonuvabitch? Still a rat bastard?”

I am Mary Iris Malone, a baffled bag of bones. “Are you gonna sell me your truck or not?”

“Not,” he says with a mouthful.

I twist my mom’s lipstick in my pocket. “Okay, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Kid, I got stuff to do. Without a license, I c’aint sell her to you. Now you and your . . . friend, here, need to clear off my porch.”

“I have a license,” says a voice behind us.

I turn to find 17C scrolling through pictures on his camera, standing in the front yard like a deep-rooted tree, like he’s been there for years. Somehow, that black eye only makes him more desirable.

“And you are . . . ?” asks Moses.

A) Perfect

B) The god of Devastating Attractiveness

C) A flawless specimen, created in a lab by mad scientists in an effort to toy with the heart of Mary Iris Malone

D) All of the above

I circle D. Final effing answer.

He sticks his camera in a duffel bag and straps it around his chest. “I’m Beck,” he says, stepping up onto the porch and throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Her disapproving big brother.” He turns sideways, mere inches from my face. “I thought I told you to wait for me in the parking lot, sis.”

Pushing my bangs out of my eyes, I’d pay literally, probably, I don’t know, maybe four hundred dollars for five minutes of prep time in a mirror right now.

“Oh, right,” I say. “Sorry . . . bro. Forgot.” My usual witty vocabulary seems to have regressed into mushy, fragmented infant-speak.

Beck sighs, leans in toward Moses. “She’d lose her arm if it wasn’t attached.”

“Head,” I mutter.

“What?”

“I’d lose my head if it wasn’t attached.” I roll my eyes, praying it looks sisterly.

“What did I say?” asks Beck.

“You said arm.”

He gives a psshh. “I don’t think so.”

“Walt?” I say.

Without looking up from his cube, Walt corroborates. “The new boy said ‘arm.’”

Beck shrugs and turns back toward a bewildered Moses. I can almost hear the rusty wheels churning in his head, processing our little production. From somewhere behind him, he pulls out another apple and cracks a bite.

“You said cash, right?”



WALT TOSSES HIS old suitcase in the bed of the truck; we pile in and pull out of Moses the Apple Eater’s front yard. Beck mentions food, to which Walt and I hastily agree. On top of being insanely hungry, I’m not relishing the idea of exchanging stories with Beck. I’d love to know who he is and where he’s going (not to mention how he got from the Greyhound bus yesterday to the Independence police station today), but I’m sure he’s wondering the same about me. We’ll catch up, but we’ll do so with full stomachs.