All the Ugly and Wonderful Things(37)

Either way, I figured if his car had any go, it’d be at the start, and I was right.

When we came off the line, he was in the lead. I did like always, hung back a little to see what he had. In the squeeze, I was half a car length back from him, but I pushed on through, and coming out the other side to the open flats, I put my foot to the floor. That Barracuda damn near redlined on rpms, the speedometer needle squeezing up past 105. Wavy was laughing out loud, when we reached the finish. Guy in his rice burner ate our dust.

We coasted down to the turn around and circled back to get our winnings.

I pulled up at the end of the row of cars and shut the engine off. Before we got back on the road, I wanted to make sure I hadn’t rattled nothing loose. As soon as I popped the hood, a couple guys come over to look. They couldn’t quite believe I’d hit 105 in the quarter mile.

The guy in his Mazda came barreling in while we were standing there. He threw it into park and jumped outta the car. Didn’t even bother to shut the door.

“You f*cking bumped me, *!” He grabbed my arm to turn me around, so I put my hand on his chest to make him step back.

“I didn’t bump you,” I said.

“You f*cking bumped me in the tight spot!”

“Show me. You show me where I bumped you, because I wanna see it.”

The guy stepped around me and started looking down the side of the Cuda.

Now I shoulda been trying to throttle him back, but I went and popped off with, “New car. Maybe you don’t got the hang of it yet.”

“You f*cking bumped me, dickface!”

By then we had an audience. Some of them started looking over the cars, too, but there wasn’t a mark on the Cuda. Because I hadn’t bumped him. He prolly clipped that dune.

“I don’t see anything,” Billy said.

“Motherf*cker!” The guy kicked the front quarter panel on the Cuda. He wasn’t wearing boots, just sneakers, so I figured worst he’d done was give me a scuff, but that was bullshit. I went to grab him, but he backed up, right into Wavy. She shoved him back, and he smacked her.

I grabbed the front of his jacket and slammed him into the side of the Cuda. If somebody was gonna put a dent in it, it’d be me. I punched him in the face until I was the only thing holding him up. Then I dropped him on the ground and kicked him a couple times for good measure. Next thing I knew, I had Billy on one arm and Wavy on the other, pulling me back.

“You better stay down, man,” Billy called to the Mazda guy. “He’s liable to stomp a mudhole in you. I seen him do it.”

Before I could, a couple of guys who knew the Mazda * came and got him by the arms. They walked him over and sat him on the bumper of somebody’s Charger. I turned around and got my head cleared enough to see Wavy standing there with a big red mark on her cheek.

Nobody stopped me when I walked across to that *’s crap car and planted my boot in the door. I kicked it half a dozen times, stove that f*cker in. If he could still drive himself home, he was gonna have to get in from the passenger side.





WAVY


I’ve been hit harder. The guy didn’t even knock me down, but Kellen went crazy. After he kicked in the car door, he came back to me with a black cloud look on his face. He leaned down to look at my cheek, close enough I could see tiny freckles of blood on his face. Not his blood.

“Goddamnit,” he said. “I’m sorry, sweetheart. I’m so sorry.”

He tilted my head up and brushed his thumb over my cheek.

“We need to get some ice on that before your eye swells up.”

People whispered as he opened the car door for me to get in. The guy in the Mazda was sitting on the bumper of another car. His face and his blue satin jacket were covered in blood.

“You still owe me a hundred bucks,” Kellen said to him. Then he slid into the front seat next to me and started the car.

I sat in the middle and Kellen kept his arm around me while he drove. He breathed out hot and angry on top of my head.

“I’m sorry, Wavy.” He apologized until I had to say something.

“Not your fault.”

He kissed the top of my head five, ten, fifteen times.

At the gas station, while Kellen pumped gas, I folded my arms on the window ledge and watched him. He was calmer, but he was still under his black cloud.

He leaned down to kiss me again, and I wanted to go on being kissed, but instead he went in to pay for the gas and get some ice for me.

While he was inside, two police cars pulled into the gas station. One sheriff’s deputy, one highway patrolman. The cops got out and walked over to the car, looked at the tags.

I knew what could happen when a dark cloud and the police came together, so I opened the door and got out of the car. That way, when Kellen came out of the gas station and saw the cops, I was there to take hold of his hand, where his knuckles were bloody. Even though I knew it would hurt him, I squeezed his hand hard, to hold him.

“Evening, officers.” Kellen squeezed my hand back, so I knew he understood me.

“This your car, sir?”

“Yes, it is.”

“We had a report you were causing trouble down at the barrens south of Garringer. Is that true?”

“No, I wouldn’t say I was causing trouble.”

“We had a report you assaulted somebody and vandalized his vehicle.”