EARL BOWED and swept his arm through the air to usher us into the alley. He whistled quietly through his teeth and cracked his knuckles as we walked along. The tune sounded like maybe something of Fats Domino’s. He dug his elbow into my ribs to demonstrate that we were into something good together.
We came to a leaning double garage with an unpainted apartment above it. The garage was empty and smelled of dust and old lawn mowers. Earl started us up the chancy-looking stairs on the outside wall, L.A. first, then me, then himself. He sang a line about somebody’s baby being called Shoo-Ra under his breath as we climbed, and halfway up the stairs he leaned forward and bumped his forehead lightly against the small of my back.
On the landing at the top of the stairs L.A. looked down over the railing and then back to Earl, and when he nodded she opened the unlocked door. We all went in. There wasn’t much light but I could see a small square wooden table, a chair and a bed with no sheets, just an army-green blanket and a bare pillow. The little kitchen had a gas stove and a short refrigerator on the counter, and between the bed and the table was a window with a roll-up shade pulled most of the way down. A million little stars of light sparked through the brown shade from the sun behind it. All over the floor, on the table and bed, everywhere, there were dozens of pint and half-pint empties, all rum bottles with the caps missing.
Mom’s boyfriend Jack was a whiskey guy when he wasn’t drinking beer. The bottles he brought it home in were generally bigger, and he got rid of them when they were empty. I watched L.A. pick up one of Earl’s flasks and sniff it.
“What does this stuff taste like?” she said.
“Never mind that,” said Earl. “Here, let me make you a place to sit.” He pushed the blanket and a couple of empty bottles back from the edge of the bed. He ignored L.A., but she came over and sat beside me anyway, rolling the football back and forth along her thigh. She looked around at the room.
“This is a nice place,” I said dishonestly. The bed smelled kind of like fish and wet dogs, which started a tickle of queasiness in my stomach. There was an old calendar on the wall over the table that showed a couple of naked boys on a wide stone porch with a lake and snowy mountains in the background.
“Oh, you ain’t seen nothing yet,” said Earl, planting himself in the chair with his back to the door and his knee against mine.
“Where’s your TV?” I said.
“Don’t need that,” he said. “Plenty to stay entertained with.” He scratched at the black spider tattooed inside his left forearm, then pinched and pulled at his crotch. “We can make our own fun.”
“How about the movie?” said L.A., cocking her head at him.
“Sure,” he said. “But listen, you guys want something first? Maybe a little Thunderbird to start us off right?”
L.A. shook her head. I said, “No, thanks.”
Earl seemed disappointed. He walked over and got a foil-wrapped package from the freezer compartment of the fridge and came back to sit down. He took a small twisted cigarette from the foil, used a Zippo to light it and took a long drag. He held the smoke down for a while and then kind of groaned it out through his mouth and nose. The smoke smelled like burning rope.
“Want a little hit?” he said, holding the cigarette out first to L.A., who shook her head again, then to me.
I took it and tried to draw on it as he had done, which made me cough. My eyes watered. Then I tried again and this time managed to control my cough reflex.
Earl had a tiny gob of white spit at each corner of his mouth. “Maybe we ought to have a little game first,” he said. “I can think of some good ones. Y’all know Yellow Dog?”
I drew in smoke again and had no trouble at all this time. Earl was looking back and forth from L.A. to me. He seemed anxious to get started.
L.A. twirled the football, shaking her head and glancing at Earl out of the corner of her eye, saying, “That’s pretty dumb.”
By now my stomach had somehow settled down completely, but I noticed the world was getting kind of cockeyed and I seemed to have dislocated my mind somehow. I began looking around Earl’s place, smiling and wondering if he had any Twinkies.
“Hey, okay, you’re right,” said Earl. “That is dumb. I know what’d be good! Strip poker! How about that?”
I just couldn’t stop grinning, but L.A. was serious as Saint Peter. So was Earl, only in a frustrated kind of way. By now he was beginning to pay more attention to L.A., and it seemed to bother him a lot that he couldn’t get her interested in anything. He was sweating harder than ever, and he kept looking from her to me and back again as if he were running out of ideas. The time for Twinkies seemed to be about over, and I could sense L.A. silently changing gears.
Then Earl suddenly hunched forward and grabbed my leg, jamming his hand hard up along the inside of my thigh.
“Whoa,” I said.
In half a beat L.A. was up and over to the dirty window. She jerked the little doughnut on the string at the bottom of the shade and released it, letting it roll the rest of the way up, where it whapped around a few times before stopping. Outside, there were treetops in every direction, and among them a few green-shingled rooftops.
“Hey, look, Bis!” said L.A., pointing. “You can see Gram’s house from here!” She looked excitedly back at me.
“Hah? What?” said Earl, standing up, turning his head to the window, bending to take her line of sight.
“Right there,” said L.A. “You can see Daddy’s new truck and everything. He must be going back on day watch this week. You should see, Bis, it’s like being up in a tree.” She turned and caught my eye. I looked out the window.
“Day watch?” said Earl. “What day watch?” He stared at L.A., who just gazed innocently back at him. He scratched his neck, thinking. He walked over to the sink, then back to the window and looked out again.
“Isn’t it neat?” said L.A.
Earl shivered. He was starting to get a constipated look. Finally he shook his head.
“Ratfuck,” he said under his breath, the gap in his teeth making it sound like “ratpuck.”
L.A. was finally beginning to show some enjoyment, and of course I was still seeing the humor in everything, but now Earl seemed to be getting more miserable by the second.
“Double-dog ratpuck,” he said. He gave his head a last shake, took off his cap and ran his hand through his oily-looking dark blond hair. Then he moved over toward the door. “That’s it,” he said tiredly, reaching for the knob to open the door and let us out.
But L.A. said, “Wait.”
He jerked his head around. “Huh, what?”
“Did you forget about the movie, Mr. Earl?”
“Tell you what, little sister, I think we’re gonna just forget that whole deal.”
L.A. was beginning to look a little put out with Earl. I heard the last of her sucker cracking between her teeth.
“But we had it all planned,” she said.
“Yeah, well, that’s off now. Come on, let’s go.”
“Not yet,” said L.A.
Earl’s expression tightened. “Hey,” he said. “Don’t bust my nuts, all right? Y’all need to just cut right on out of here.” He glanced at the window. “Your Gram and them’ll be waiting on you.”
“But it was all set,” said L.A., laying the stem of her sucker on the pile of Camel butts in the mayonnaise jar lid on Earl’s table. “All we wanted was a chance to make a little money. You know, like real actors.”
“Money?” squeaked Earl in disbelief.
L.A. watched him, looking sensible and composed. I cleared my throat. We heard the refrigerator compressor come on.
“For chrissake,” Earl said. It looked like the air was going out of him a little at a time. “Money.”
“Daddy always says people should be reasonably compensated for their efforts,” L.A. recited. Her eyes, without actually moving, seemed to flicker slightly toward the window. Earl’s did the same.
Which caused me to picture Uncle Cam, who as far as I knew never owned any kind of watch. Plus I would have considered it a toss-up whether it was more likely L.A. had ever in her life called him Daddy or the sun was going to stand still in the sky. I didn’t think he had any theories about kids getting paid either, but then I admit I wasn’t exactly clear in my head at the moment. I did know he didn’t have a new truck and never showed up at Gram’s house at all, any more than that was actually her house we were all thinking about outside Earl’s window.
“I don’t have no money, man,” Earl told L.A., putting his hand on his hip pocket and looking wearier than ever.
“Let me see,” she said in a friendly tone, setting the ball on the bed next to me and holding out her hand for his billfold. “I bet you were gonna buy some more cigarettes and rum.”
Earl let out a long breath and handed over the billfold. L.A. dug around in it for a few seconds. Behind a thin leather flap she found a ten and two folded fives. She took both of the fives and looked up at Earl. “This should be fair,” she said. “Five for Biscuit and five for me.” She handed back the billfold. Earl just blinked sadly as he took it from her hand. L.A. picked up our ball, and we went to the door. She kind of straightened herself up and in her most serious voice said, “Thank you very much, Mr. Earl. We do appreciate you.”
But Earl didn’t answer, just kept staring at her.
A minute later we were down the steps and out to the alley. The sun was lower now and looked redder behind the trees, the world gradually squaring up and losing some of its funniness. Looking back, I saw Earl watching us through the crack of his door.
L.A. watched him watching us for a minute, then turned to me. “He really should be more careful,” she said.
I shrugged. “What’s for dinner?”
“Meat loaf,” L.A. said as she tucked my five inside the waistband of my jeans. “I know what you’re thinking.”
“We’ve still got an hour. I can do both,” I said. “You?”
She shrugged. “Why not?”
We started off along the alley to head north on Lancaster toward the Dairy Delite, the idea of Twinkies losing some velocity but still bouncing around in my mind.