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by Mark Suder Massey | 09 Nov 2007, 0:43
Charcoal clouds hung thick and low over downtown. Even though the sun wouldn't set for another two hours it felt like twilight. The school bus had left ten minutes ago. After walking up and down the block twice and looking at every parking meter, my dad and I finally stopped in front of one that flashed EXPIRED.
"And then I sold it to him for five dollars so I can buy a Happy Meal," I said.
My dad popped his jaw back and forth. "The truck's gone."
"What?"
"The truck is gone."
"But why?"
My dad looked at me, eyes flaring. "Why do you think, son?"
"I—I don't know."
"For being so smart sometimes you don't know how to use your head." He looked away, speaking through his teeth. "It was towed, Dennis."
I felt sick and scared, and didn't even consider saying I told you so. Shaking his head, my dad walked over to a thin white sign and started mouthing a phone number.
"Denny," he called out. "Write this down."
"I don't have a pen."
"God damn it," he said, slapping his front pockets.
After a while I spoke. "They probably have pens inside you could—"
"No."
We walked around to the front of the science center and found a pair of payphones. When I heard my dad drop change in the slot I turned and stared at the street. Less than a minute later, without saying anything, he slammed the phone down. "The tow yard's about five miles from here," he muttered. "Industrial area. By the water." His face was gray, his mouth tight.
Just then I felt a drop of rain on my hair.
"Great," my dad exhaled, lifting his palm up to the sky.
A green taxi cruised by, slowing, the driver staring at us. When my dad put his hands in his pockets the taxi sped off.
"There's gotta be a subway station around here somewhere," my dad said, starting to walk.
We rode the subway to the end of the line. At first my dad stood by the subway car's map, studying it with his arms crossed. I kept looking at his dyed blue shoes. Eventually he sat back in the orange chair, silent, glaring at the opposite wall. I was dozing off when the announcer said, "Fultinham station. End of green line."
The station was rundown and desolate. Half of the fluorescent lights were flickering, the air felt rotten, and heavily vandalized posters covered the tile walls.
"I need to check my balance at an ATM," my dad said, grabbing a map from an abandoned kiosk.
After five minutes of wandering and a dozen mazelike staircases we found the ATM. I tried to stand beside my dad but he grabbed my tricep and gestured at a bench about twenty feet away. "Damnit, Denny. Wait over there. How many times do I have to tell you? The ATM is a private thing."
I felt furious, unwanted. At that moment the entire day clattered around me, bleak and heavy, stamped so completely by my dad. In his poverty I saw nothing to be proud of. In his pride I saw much to be ashamed of. I winced, thinking of everything my dad had said and done that day. If not for his temper he'd seem clownlike. I wanted to explain to everyone that I didn't choose him, that I wouldn't become him, and that although I was stuck with him I never had to like him. He was just my dad.
I walked right past the bench, tiptoed down the stairs, and ran through the terminal.
The restroom was empty. Cinderblock walls, painted white, soared to a beige corrugated roof fifteen feet above me. Opposite the stainless steel sinks was a single mirror, tall and narrow and made out of shatter-proof metal. In it my reflection was warped, the red water gun rippling in a comical way.
First I made tough-guy faces, arms crossed. I flicked the gun nonchalantly at myself before lowering it to my hip. Then, spinning 90 degrees, I turned in profile and aimed the gun at my reflection's forehead. I narrowed my eyes and in a low, hoarse voice, said, "which a you punks whacked Johnny?". I pulled the trigger, recoiling as the stream of water struck the mirror.
I walked ninja-style to the restroom's entrance. Instead of a door there was a tall metal gate, eight inch squares forming a grid. A chain and padlock dangled from where the gate was locked in the open position. From where I stood, a foot inside the restroom, I could only see the empty terminal outside. In my tough-guy voice I said, "Lieutenant Barlow, facing certain death, singlehandedly shoots down the dreaded Botticelli gang." Raising the gun, I took a breath and spun out of the restroom, firing blindly.
Somebody very close to me laughed. I opened my eyes, seeing two gangly men with bad skin. The one with the baseball hat had a wet splotch on his shirt. The other man, glancing around, was wearing a leather jacket. The two men looked at each other for a moment, nodded, and stepped closer. Nobody else was around.
I looked at the man with the baseball hat, then swallowed and looked down. "S—Sorry. I didn't know anybody was out here."
The man with the baseball hat pulled at his shirt, looking mournfully at the splotch and then back to me. He shook his head several times. "If you pull a gun on a man you better be prepared to finish the job."
"I'm sorry," I said. "I was just playing around."
The man in the leather jacket glanced behind his shoulder, then squinted at me. "Kid, do you know what the police would do to you if they found out you was shooting at us? Shit. Unlicensed gun. Jail time for sure."
"Here." I offered the water gun to the men. "You can shoot me. Fair's fair, right?"
"Get inside the bathroom," the man with the baseball hat said, "and maybe we won't call the police."
I looked from one man to the other, then turned the gun on myself and squirted my shirt. "See? It didn't hurt or anything. I gotta go now."
The man in the leather jacket stepped to one side of me, blocking me from running. "Punishment's just beginning," he said, reaching out with one arm.
I threw the gun down and scrambled up the gate. Halfway up I felt a hand clamp around my ankle. Stumbling, my mouth crashing into the metal grid, I was too scared to scream. I jerked my foot until my shoe came off in his hand. Then I kicked wildly, feeling my heel strike something fleshy before I got my feet back on the gate and kept climbing.
"Grab him by the pants," one of the men hissed.
"Little fucker kicked me in the nose," the other man said.
A hand yanked on one cuff, then the other. I felt my waistband catch on my hips, beginning to slide down.
"Yeah, like that. Pull his pants off if you have to."
"Little shit's not getting to the top."
My pants were caught on the wide part of my butt. When I tried to kick my ankles were blocked by the taut denim. The pulling got stronger, my elbows popping as my waistband began to slide down my butt. Just as my fingers started to slip I heard the a thud of fist on flesh and one of the men saying, "what the fuck?"
Suddenly nobody was pulling on my pants. I rocketed to the top of the ten foot gate, turned to sit on it, and looked down.
My dad was there, hands up in a defensive crouch, the two men standing directly below me. "Denny," my dad shouted, looking only at the men. "Stay up there no matter what."
"Hey, uh, it's not what it looks like," the man in the baseball hat said.
"The hell it's not," my dad said, his voice terrifying even to me.
The man in the baseball hat threw a wild punch but my dad caught it, sliding in gracefully and flipping the man over, hard, on the concrete. The baseball hat rolled off. Still holding the man's arm, my dad danced to one side, pulled the arm rigid, and kicked the man's elbow in backwards. The man screamed.
Metal glinted as the other man pulled a knife from under his leather jacket. He stood there, knees bent, knife in a fencer's grip. For a few seconds everything was motionless. Then the man in the leather jacket thrust at my dad's chest, my dad moving just enough to avoid the blade and lock the man's arm in a hold. Gliding forward, my dad shoved the man backwards and into the air, the gate rattling as the man's skull slammed into it. In one motion my dad kneed the man in the face, then brought his heel down to smash the man's knife hand. Moaning, the man dropped the knife and it clinked to the concrete.
My dad snatched the knife, eyes flared, breathing heavily. The man with the baseball hat was lying in the fetal position, clutching his broken arm. Slumped against the gate, the man in the leather jacket was motionless.
My father looked at me. "Come down now, son."
I climbed down. As I stepped around the man in the leather jacket I saw his closed eyes, the blood streaming down his nose.
I picked up my shoe from just inside the restroom, then ran to stand behind my father. I was shaking.
"Put it on," my father said. "Quick."
I did what he said, waiting for him to scold me for running off.
"Are you all right?"
"Yeah," I said, standing up. "They just scared me a little, is all."
My father looked at me for several seconds. "Do you want to go to the police?"
"I just want to get out of here."
"But we're in the right. We can press charges, get these guys arrested."
Suddenly I was crying. "I don't want to see them again. I don't want them to know our names. I don't want—"
My dad pulled me into him and held my head against his side. "You were very brave, just now, son. It's all right."
"We have their knife," my dad said, his voice loud and crisp. "And if they try to follow us I will kill them."
He stomped each man's head, hard, making sure they were unconscious. And then we were running.
The tow yard's office was tiny, had lime green tile floors, and smelled like burnt coffee. Behind the bullet-proof glass partition the clerk was reading a science fiction book. He sat in front of an old computer, and beside him there was a cork board covered with bright scraps of paper.
"Can I help you?" the clerk said into his microphone.
My dad cleared his throat. "My truck was towed here. This afternoon. A white Toyota."
"Yeah, I know the one. Method of payment?"
"Debit card. Visa."
The clerk looked at his computer screen. "That'll be two eighty three thirty." There was a hiss as a revolving tray popped out of the bullet-proof partition.
Clenching his jaw, my dad pulled his wallet out and fished for the debit card. "When I called earlier the teleprompt said it would be two sixty five." My dad put his card on the tray.
The clerk nodded, his eyes blank as he withdrew the tray. "Yeah, the prompt's kind of old. Gotta keep up with gas prices, ya know?"
My dad grunted, his jaw working.
The clerk ran the card and waited. After a few seconds there was a nasal beep.
The clerk wasn't looking at my dad. "Ah, your card was denied."
"Try again," my dad said, his face turning red.
Again the machine beeped.
"Run it again," my dad said, hands flexing on the Formica counter.
"Look." The clerk raised his eyebrows, setting my dad's card down. "It says insufficient funds, all right? If you don't got the money now we can arrange a payment plan. Twelve percent per month."
"I will never go into debt again," my dad said, his voice tight.
The clerk sighed and looked away.
"Dad," I said, reaching in my pocket. "I have a few bucks, I could—"
"No."
"Take it, dad."
"That's your money and you're saving it for McDonald's."
"We're family, dad. We help each other."
After a few seconds my dad looked at me, his eyes red. He nodded and swallowed. "Thank you."
My dad put his hand on my shoulder, then looked back up at the clerk. The tray opened. "Please knock that off the balance first," my dad said, placing the five dollar bill on the tray. "Then run the card again."
The clerk typed something on the keyboard, deposited the bill into the register, and ran my dad's card. I held my breath. Finally, without beeping, the machine printed a receipt. The clerk shook his head, smiling faintly.
"You're in J-14," the clerk said, setting the receipt and a claim ticket on the tray and pushing it back to us.
We were driving slowly toward downtown. Around us the factories and empty lots were gradually turning to commercial and residential buildings. Now that the rain had stopped the streets looked wet and new.
"Thanks, dad." I looked at my hands. "For protecting me, I mean."
"You don't need to thank me. That's what fathers do."
He was quiet for a while.
"Are you mad at me?"
"Mad?" My dad looked at me, then back to the road. "No. I'm just sorry you had to go through that. And that you had to see me be violent."
"But that was so awesome when you kicked those guys' asses! Like a movie, only better."
My dad chuckled. "It was?"
"Totally! The dojo is so dumb for laying you off."
He shrugged. "Yeah, well..."
I looked at my dad for a long time, looked at him until my eyes started watering. "Fuck Vernon," I said, my voice shaking.
My dad's face went stern. But then he turned to look at me, his eyes glinting, smiling with his lips closed. "You know... The tank's nearly full. What do you say we just drive around downtown for a while?"
I tried to keep a straight face but seconds later I was grinning hugely. "Can we listen to that streets-with-no-names song?"
My dad turned on the stereo and hit rewind. "That's exactly the one I was craving."
Air rushed in, crisp and clean as my dad began to unroll his window. Taking his cue I unrolled mine. And then the tape clicked as it hit the beginning, and the organ chords hummed and the guitars started fading in and my dad turned the volume up higher than I'd ever heard him play it before. When the drums kicked in I got goosebumps. I'd never felt so safe, so charged with potential. I leaned into my dad, my father, my destiny, and as I rested my head on his shoulder there was nowhere else I'd rather be.
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