TWO

That same summer night…

Two teenagers, a boy and a girl, creeping down a dark hallway…

Angela always refused pot, but she’d been known to drink wine. His father had some good wine. Even good champagne.

Brad and Angela were skulking down the hall of Brad’s father’s house. Brad lived in the guesthouse, on the other side of the tennis court. He didn’t think of this house as his. Brad was skulking along because he didn’t want his dad to catch him; Angela was just imitating Brad. Skulking can be infectious.

It was a big house, self consciously modern back in the sixties. Rows of oddly shaped windows; lots of skylights.

Brad glanced up through the bubble skylight. Smog dirt had settled on the outside; the moon, up there, looked warped and grimy through the dirty curved glass.

“All these gold records…” She whispered, looking at the dusty old gold record plaques on the walls of the hallway.

He made a hand sign for “keep your voice down” though she’d only whispered. He whispered in her ear, “Some of them are for being a producer, only a few’re for his own stuff. He only had three real hits.”

“Three more than most people…”

There was a framed poster of Brad’s dad, Mace. In the dark hallway it was hard to see, like Mace’s career now.

“Your dad was this big rock star and he buys a house in Silbido? I thought they all went to Malibu or something.”

Brad paused at the half open door to the den. “Keep your voice down! He used to have a house in the Bahamas. Wish he hadn’t fucking sold it…but when the band burned out…”

She looked over Brad’s shoulder, into the den. Pieces of something glittered, yellow and knifelike, on the rug. She gasped softly. “There’s a smashed gold record on the floor in there—”

“Will you please, please keep your voice down, baby—never mind the smashed gold records. He gets smashed, he smashes records. He has shit-fits now and then, forget it….Now be quiet and I can get away with this—I’m pretty sure he’s sacked out from drinking and snoring somewhere…”

“I don’t know—I can feel someone close, Brad.”

He gestured for silence, and reached through the partly open door. Opened the liquor cabinet, reached into it—

Yelled, “Ow, fuck!” at the lance of pain as someone slammed the liquor-cabinet door on his wrist. He jerked his hand back, off balance now, falling through the room’s door, knocking it inward, wide open.

A desk light switched on, and he saw his father, Mace, looming over him, grinning, swaying.

Shit.

Mace’s long gray-streaked black hair was loosely tied back; he had a three-day growth of salt-and-pepper beard; the sweatpants of his red jogging suit tucked were into snakeskin cowboy boots. In the weak, indirect lamplight his wolfish face showed every line he’d ever snorted.

“Braddy boy! What’d she say, she felt someone close by? Braddy boy’s the one who feels me! How’s that wrist, Brad! You can’t do the time, don’t do the crime, kid!”

Trying to sniff dismissively, shrug it all away, Brad got to his feet. Why’d she have to see this?

Mace was gazing blearily at Angela. “Whoa-oh! That’s the Angela chickie, isn’t it? The princess of purity? How you doing, girl thing?”

She shrugged. “Um—’girl thing’ is okay.”

Mace laughed. “Good sense of humor. You okay, kid?” Brad stepped back from Mace’s inquiring hand. Mace made a “whatever” hand gesture and from somewhere produced a joint—big enough, really, to be a spliff. He fired it up with a Zippo, took a hit, and, voice squeaky from holding the hit in, offered it to Angela. “You partake?”

Brad winced. It was different, your dad offering hits. “Mace—shit—” He hadn’t called Mace “Dad” in years.

Angela smiled, “Just say no, right?”

“Very good,” Mace said, smiling woodenly. “Good attitude. That’s what I told Betty Ford, at the clinic. Just say no, Betty, I said. Who said you could fucking steal my liquor, Brad?”

“Okay, I’m sorry, Mace. Thought you wouldn’t mind.”

“That’s why you were sneaking, because you thought I wouldn’t mind. You’re so full of shit.”

“We’d better go, Brad,” Angela said. “Sorry, Mister…”

“Mace, just call me Mace. You know—if the problem is you want a man who knows what he’s doing, you give me a call. I’m a very understanding ‘older man.’ All kinds of experience.”

Brad groaned. Angela pretended to be interested in a gold record on the hallway wall.

Mace gazed at her body a long, expert moment, sucking on the spliff, then he blew smoke at the ceiling and gestured dismissively. “Why don’t you wait out at the boy’s chick-magnet, girl thing?”

She blinked, then realized Mace meant the van. She nodded and hurried out.

Brad was glad he hadn’t left the keys in it. Freaked out by his father, maybe she’d take the van and split.

Mace grabbed Brad’s upper arm, drew him into the den. Brad jerked loose again. “I should kick your ass, Dad, you know that? You do know I could do it, don’t you? You just about came on to her.”

“No I fucking didn’t. I was kidding her. Here…” Mace took a bottle of Jack Daniels from the cabinet, slapped it against Brad’s gut. “Take it. You’ll get laid this time, kid. This is the shit.”

Clutching the bottle, feeling ill for some reason he didn’t understand—he should be glad Mace’d given him the shit, shouldn’t he?—Brad turned and almost ran out the door and down the hall.

He heard Mace laughing softly, behind him.

Corey’s old Impala was scuffed down to the primer. The engine groaned when it started; he’d had it tuned, when he’d worked that summer job at Wendy’s for a couple of months, before getting into the argument with the manager, but it hadn’t helped much—the whole transmission really needed replacing. You pressed on the accelerator and you waited and when it was in the mood it accelerated.

He drove his friends Wade and Megan down Pacific, moving jerkily in the thick cruising traffic. He looked at them in the rearview, shook his head—the two black teenagers in the back, making out. Megan with her cornrows, her long dangling earrings, her dashiki with the slit up the side; Wade in his basketball jersey and jeans, his hair clipped short. Liplocked with Megan. “You guys are making me ill. It’s called ‘find a room.’ I mean—feeling like a chauffeur is bad enough but I’m not into, like, Corey’s Rolling Boudoir.”

Why had he come? Corey wondered. Wade’s car was broken. That was the excuse. But was he hoping to see Angela out here? Was he afraid to?

“You see that, Megan?” Wade said, turning to Corey but talking to Megan, “How he says, ‘boudoir’? I’m impressed.”

“Corey got an A in French,” Megan said. “I’m sorry, Corey. He’s a monster, I can’t keep him under control. Raging hormones in this monster.”

“You want to talk about monsters,” Wade began. “Let us now speak of monsters. It’s right here…”

“Don’t say it,” Corey and Megan said at once, and Wade laughed.

“I can’t believe,” Corey said, “you talked me into this shit. I hate cruising the strip, it’s like some kind of mating ritual for teenagers out here, and you guys are doing all the mating. If I look in the rearview I’m suddenly a goddamn voyeur.”

“Pull over, I’ll get in the front,” Megan offered, pushing Wade firmly away and leaning to put her folded arms on the back of the shotgun seat.

“Meeeeeee-gannnnnnn!” Wade moaned. “Don’t leave me, baby! I’ll get in the front! You get in the back! But Corey’s got to promise not to squeeze my monkey love. You know he wants to squeeze my monkey love.”

“Fuck you, Wade,” Corey said pleasantly.

“Ooooooh!” Wade and Megan said together. Megan asking, “Is that a first?”

“Just a rarity. But this time we have a winner. I heard him. Mister Proper Guy said fuck you.”

“I cuss sometimes, you fucking liar,” Corey said.

“That’s twice anyway,” Megan said. “No you are not getting in front, Wade, I am!”

“You don’t have to,” Corey said. “But if you could use your tongues for something else—like talking—that’d be nice.”

“Hey Corey?” Wade said, looking at the girls in the SUV beside them. “You know you’re gonna see her out here somewhere. Brad’s going to want to show off his date.”

Corey managed to look blank. “Who?”

Megan and Wade looked at each other. Another synchronized comment: “Who?”

Wade shook his head. “He’s almost believable, isn’t he?”

Corey changed the subject. “I’ve had enough of breathing fumes and listening to designer car-horns. Let’s go to, like, I don’t know—somewhere else. A movie. Something.”

“Too late for a movie,” Wade said. “We’d be past curfew. You’d have to tell the cops, ‘I’m the sheriff’s son.’ And I know you don’t want to do that shit.”

Corey felt a stony anger then. And showed it by stonily saying nothing.

Megan looked at him. Then scowled at Wade. “You know he’s sensitive about that. He lost his job because the manager asked him to get his dad to patrol by more often and he told him to go to hell—”

“Sorry, jeez, just kidding. I like Corey’s dad. Best cop in the world.”

“Wade? Just shut up about it.”

Now it was Wade’s turn to cast about for a subject change. “How about we go to…the beach! Upper Beach Park!”

Corey shrugged. “Whatever. Anything to get us away from here.”

“Somebody waving at us on the sidewalk over there,” Megan said. “At least I think it’s us he’s waving at.”

“I hope not,” Wade said. “It’s that fucking Stanny.”

Corey thought, Anyone to buffer him from the sexual heat in the back seat. “What the hell.”

He pulled over—Megan and Wade groaning on cue, a groan that wordlessly meant Not Stanny in the car please—and Stanny didn’t wait for someone to open the door, he opened it, and crammed himself and his little amp and his guitar in the front seat, bringing in the aromas of sweat and car exhaust, grinning with way too many teeth.

“Dudes! My guardian spirit rescuer dudes!”

“Oh Jesus save us,” Wade muttered.

“Fucking Brad stranded me, man. I’m gonna find another band, he can suck my dick.”

“Please, don’t generate unthinkable images here, Stanny,” Megan said.

Stanny looked at her. “You taking Latin, or something in summer school?”

“Forget it.”

“Seriously, thanks Corey, I need a ride. Where we going?”

As he spoke Stanny switched on the little amp, began to riff.

“We’re going to Pollo Loco, because I want a Dr Pepper or something and—Stanny, I don’t want to shout over that thing.” Corey reached over and switched the amp off. Then he heard a noise from the back seat and sighed. He nodded toward the back where Wade had once more gathered Megan into his arms.

Corey said, “Welcome to the goddamn Love Connection Limo, Stanny.”

“Sick! Can I watch?”

Brad’s van was pulled up at a turn-out, overlooking the beach park. In the back of the van, on the mattress, Angela sat with her knees drawn up between her and Brad; he sat across from her. Both of them with their backs against the thin metal walls of the van. Between them, the bottle. Brad had his MP3 player plugged in, playing Metallica: the downloaded Garage Incorporated album. The only light came from a single overhead interior light.

“I just play Metallica on MP3 because it pisses them off,” Brad was saying, leaning forward to pour more Jack into her Burger King Chicken Run cup.

“Brad—god—enough.”

“You only drank like an old lady tea-sipping drink.”

“I don’t know why I drank any. I thought maybe it would put me in the mood to be what people want me to be. But it doesn’t.”

Grudgingly, she took another sip.

“Hey fair is fuckin fair, everybody here’s got to be equally drunk. And is everybody drunk here?” He turned to the shadows at the back of the van. “I say, is everybody drunk back there? No?”

She giggled. Brad swilled more Jack, then scooched over beside her and made his move.

She let him kiss her, for a moment—and then turned her head.

Fucking ice queen.

He grabbed her shoulders, pulled her toward him, bent to kiss the swell of her breast—maybe that’d turn her on.

She sighed and simply put up with it.

Excited by the warm silky pressure of her breasts against his face, he tried to press her down on the mattress, spilling her drink. “Brad you’re getting me all wet!”

“That’s what I want!”

“Your getting this stinky booze on my dress you dipshit!” She shoved hard, and writhed out from under him—she’d had a fair amount of practice, with various guys. She drew her legs up and pushed him back, scrambling away. “I’m not letting you drive if you drink any more, Brad!”

“Your frigid act is bullshit, Angela. No more blue balls! You’ve been holding out for me—and now I’m here. Admit it! You’re not hosin’ me on this one! Admit you’re waiting for me to make the real move!”

“You are totally full of shit!”

“Admit it!”

Then he launched himself at her, and fell onto her, making her shout with pain. She thrashed under him, slapping at his face; he grabbed one her wrists, pulled her blouse down with his other hand, hearing fabric rip, exposing her nipples. The sight of them seemed to send power surging through him. He caught both her wrists, deliberately squeezing them hard enough he could feel the bones straining, and she made a sound that was somewhere between a squeak and a scream, and tried to knee him in the crotch. He pushed his face down against her breasts, so close, he could hear her heart beating like a terrified rabbit’s. He dragged his lips up her breasts, her collarbone, heard her whimpering something at him but didn’t register exactly what the words were in his turgid excitement—something about how it wasn’t real, it wasn’t happening, don’t don’t don’t—but he chose not to believe it and he tried force a kiss from her—

She stopped thrashing and let him press his lips to hers—

And she bit his lips, hard.

“Ow fuck! You cunt!” He recoiled from her and she punched him hard in the solar plexus.

He doubled over and she wriggled out from under him and backed against the van’s rear door. “Take me home. Now! Or I’ll prosecute you, Brad! It’s called sexual assault!”

He was kneeling, staring at her, poised on the edge of an abyss. He could jump her. He could…

But there were tears running down her cheeks.

He turned away, crawled up to the front seat and sat there a moment. Then he turned back to her. “Get out of my van.”

“What? We’re miles from town!”

“Get the fuck out of my van!” He blasted the horn in his anger. “Out!” Another blast. “OUT OF MY VAN!” A long blast on the horn, on and on… Shouting the whole time, his voice blending with the van’s horn.

“All right! When you should be apologizing you’re kicking me out in the middle of nowhere!”

“I’m gonna have to get stitches in my lip. Get out!”

They glared at one another. Then she turned and fumbled at the back door, found the handle, turned it, and with an effort shouldered the heavy door outward. He waited until she had stepped onto the pavement then he started the van, put it in drive and stomped the accelerator, peeling away without even closing the back door, so that it banged against the latch with the sudden motion.

He looked at her just once in the rearview, a small figure barely visible in moonlight and a faint wash of red taillight. Then that was gone too and he accelerated onto the highway.