Blacktop Wasteland(19)

“What you want, old man?” the boy asked when he noticed Beauregard.

“Where’s Ariel?” Beauregard asked in return.

“Why you asking about my girl, nigga?” the boy asked.

“Because I’m her daddy,” Beauregard said. At first the words didn’t seem to register. As they sank in, the boy’s face broke into a wide platinum-toothed smile.

“Aw shit, man, I thought you was some old dude trying to holla at my girl. My bad, man. She in the store with her fine self,” the boy said.

Beauregard thought he was entirely too comfortable talking about how fine Ariel was. “What’s your name?” he asked the boy.

“Lil Rip,” the boy said.

“No. Your name. What your mama calls you when she mad at you,” Beauregard said.

The boy’s smile faltered. “William,” Lil Rip said.

“William. Nice to meet you. I’m Beauregard. You be nice to my girl, alright?” He squatted and extended his hand through the open car window. Lil Rip stared at it for a second before extending his own hand. Beauregard grabbed it and squeezed as hard as he could. Years of gripping pliers, stretching serpentine belts and pulling apart brake calipers ensured that was quite hard. Lil Rip winced. His lips parted slightly, and a few drops of spittle fell from his mouth.

“Cuz if you don’t, if she ever tells me you giving her some problems, you and me are gonna have problems. And you don’t want that do you … William?” Beauregard asked. He clamped down on Lil Rip’s hand even tighter before finally letting it go. Then he straightened up and walked into the store without waiting for an answer. Lil Rip flexed his hand.

“Crazy motherfucker,” he said when Beauregard was almost out of earshot.

Ariel was standing in front of the drink cooler. She was sporting a pair of cut-off denim shorts and a black tank top that Beauregard thought was at least one size too small. Her mop of brownish black curls was piled up on the top of her head in a loose bun. Beauregard’s dark chocolate genes and her mother’s French and Dutch genetic code had given her a light toffee complexion. Her light gray eyes were a gift from her grandmother.

“Hey,” he said. She turned, gave him a once-over and then turned back to the drink cooler.

“Hey,” she said.

“How’s the Mustang holding up?” he asked.

“I’m driving it so it’s doing alright, I guess,” she said. She grabbed a fruit drink out of the cooler.

“I met your friend. Lil Rip. The one with the teardrop tattoo,” Beauregard said.

“It’s not a tattoo. He had me draw it for him with my makeup pen,” she said. She pushed an errant lock of hair out of her face and then poked out her bottom lip and let out a gust of air. It was her tell when she was upset about something. He had watched her do the same thing in her car seat when he wouldn’t let her have another piece of candy.

“What’s wrong?”

Ariel shrugged her shoulders. “Nothing. Just getting ready for graduation. Me and the other five dummies who couldn’t graduate with the rest of the class.”

“You ain’t no dummy. You had a lot going on,” he said.

“Yeah. Like Mama getting her third DUI and wrecking my car. Of course, that ain’t no excuse, according to her and grandma,” Ariel said. She shook her bottle of juice lackadaisically in her left hand.

“Don’t worry about them. You just concentrate on college and getting that accounting degree,” Beauregard said.

Ariel blew air over her bottom lip.

“What?” Beauregard said.

“Since I won’t be eighteen until January, Mama has to co-sign for my student loans. She says she don’t want to put her name down on nothing like that. She says I should just take classes at J. Sargeant Reynolds and get a job until January,” Ariel said.

“I could sign for you,” Beauregard said.

“I don’t think Kia would like that, do you?” Ariel asked. She put one hand on her hip and kept shaking the bottle of juice. “It’s okay. I’ll just get a job at the hospital or Walmart or something. Go to school in the spring,” she said. Her body language said she was resigned to the fact that college was on hold for now.

But she didn’t sound resigned to the idea. In fact, she sounded pissed. Beauregard thought she was about to blow up on him. He felt like their conversation was on the verge of devolving into a clichéd confrontation. She would start screaming at him about why he hadn’t done more for her. She would ask why he hadn’t taken her and raised her in his house. He would respond that he had only been seventeen and fresh out of juvie when he got her mother pregnant. He readied himself to take whatever came out of her mouth. He deserved it. Ariel deserved a better father and a better mother. She deserved a father who wasn’t barely treading water. She deserved a mom who wasn’t eating OxyContin like Tic Tacs and washing them down with vodka. She didn’t deserve a grandmother who took one look at her tawny skin and cranked up Fox News as she tried to pretend her granddaughter wasn’t half black.

Ariel didn’t scream at him. She didn’t ask him anything. She just shrugged her shoulders. “It is what it is, I guess. I gotta get Rip to work,” she said.

Beauregard stepped aside. He wanted to ask for a hug. Wrap his arms around her and tell her he was sorry he hadn’t been stronger. Apologize for not taking her from that viper’s nest of a household. Tell her that every time he went on a job, he gave her mother half his earnings. Let her know he fought for her. Actually, fought her grandfather and her uncles and her mother for her. That he was the reason her Uncle Chad walked with a limp. Pull her close and whisper in her ear that her grandmother filed a restraining order to keep him away. Wouldn’t even accept child support from him. That once he got married he filed for custody, but the judge took one look at him and threw the case out of court. Squeeze her tight and say he loved her just as much as he loved Darren and Javon. He wanted to say all those things. Had wanted to say them for a long time. But he didn’t. Explanations were like assholes. Everyone has one and they are all full of shit.