Did that make me an asshole? Probably yes.
After hours, I was flying the Fastmobile. Coach knew nothing about it, being dead strict once the season started. Training was not just weight room and practices. Training was clean living. Getting our sleep. Fast Forward would swing by and pick me up after Coach was in bed.
That night, we’d pulled in at the drive-in just ahead of the second feature, as you do. First is always a Disney thing, second is the slasher. The idea being let the kiddies have theirs, then put them to sleep in the back seat before the real movie starts. Fair enough, where else can a family go for fun, but trust me, those kids are not sleeping. Mom and Stoner used to put me down like that, and the nail-head guy from Hellraiser got burned on my tiny brain for life.
But you can see the screen from all over, so why not hop from this to that tailgate to be sociable. Fast always came well supplied, just like in the days of our pharm parties. Or on this night, that I will remember to my grave, it was tequila shots and PBR chasers. I took a stroll around on my own and found a couple of teammates, Clay Colwell and Turp Trussell. Clay had a kid brother in a wheelchair, and drugs of choice coming out Clay’s deadlift-ripped ass. They were breaking curfew like me. I felt restless. We found another crew that were second string, not guys we hung out with a lot, but they offered their bong and I took a few hits, to be Christian about it, before moving on. The weed smoke throughout the establishment was sufficient for a modest buzz. It was cold for September. Some kids had built a fire at the back end of the gravel lot, where they let you do pretty much anything you can think of. Past that was the woods, where people brought blankets and did the rest of what you can think of. I stood shivering in the dark, letting the weed hit, watching the movie, which was Demon Island. Memorable name, but this movie was dead idiotic. These rich teenagers on some island vacation, handcuffed together in couples, running around for unknown reasons trying to find underpants hidden in the jungle. Told you.
And there she was, swanning her way between the cars. I swear she glowed in the dark.
“Dori?” Saying her name was like begging, pleasegodplease. She stopped and turned, the longer side of the silvery hair turning towards me, then away. Fairy nymph deer fox, if I moved closer she might run away. “It’s me, Demon,” I said, so quietly, like a baby might be asleep between us. “We met at your dad’s store. That day you brought him in for the party.”
She didn’t move.
“Is he doing okay?”
She moved closer, and I could see the little heart shape of her face. The silver eyebrows and pointed chin, the mouth I wanted to suck on. I smelled menthol, or maybe imagined it.
“He’s not ever going to be okay. I left him alone tonight. I shouldn’t be here.”
“Isn’t there anybody else that can help you all out?”
No answer. Her whispery creek had stopped running. Maybe she had no idea who I was. “Sucks,” I said. “I grew up just me and my mom. I had to take care of her a lot.”
“How is she now?”
I wanted to lie. And I didn’t. “Dead. They both are, her and my dad.”
“Shi-it,” she said. “And here I thought the football heroes came from the nicer homes.”
“Even a lowly orphan can be a mighty General,” I said, and God forgive me for what I thought: She knows I’m Eighty-Eight. Girls give it up for that. She shifted her weight, a bird fixing to fly away. I nearly blacked out from how bad I wanted to hold her.
Finally she spoke. “No lie, you’re state property? DSS guardianship and everything.”
I felt more stoned than I was, swimming around in my head for a place to land. I asked how she knew about that, and she said the DSS had their doubts on her dad raising a girl alone. He never lost custody, but it was touch-and-go. She actually knew Old Baggy. I’d forgotten the lady’s name, but she said it. She knew things I kept locked up. My eyes had made friends with the dark and I could see all of her now: the little white dress and lace-up sandals, the bag of popcorn. I wanted her to throw it on the ground and run off with me. Not to the woods. Some better place.
“So. I better go find my people,” she said. If people meant person, like a boyfriend, I needed to vaporize him. She stretched her head to one side. “They’ll be wondering.”
“Me though,” I said. “I could be your people. If you want. Like, next time, or whatever.” I was not normally this terrible at asking a girl out. Never, honestly. This was epic.
She laughed. “What in the world is scaring you so bad?”