“That I won’t see you again.”
“Oh, my goodness, Demon. You don’t have any idea, do you?”
I asked her, idea of what. Even in the dark I could see her black eyes finding me out.
“You’re the one all the girls will be writing to in prison. Oh, my Lord. They’ll roll on the ground pulling each other’s hair out to get on your visiting list.”
Then she was gone. And I was a mess. She knows my name. That’s what I was thinking. Not, that was weird, what a righteously fucked-up thing to say, that I’m going to end up in prison. What can I say. Love. It’s an unexcusable train wreck.
For the next while I had weight and occupied space, too shocked to think. I watched the handcuffed movie couples having their bad day. This squatty monster thing beat one of the guys with a shovel till his head came off. Another guy tried to fight, and it ripped off his nuts. I’m not making any of this up. For about fifteen minutes I’d wanted this night never to end, now I was ready for it to be over. And then. Here comes Tommy Waddles. Walking along all fretful, balancing a flimsy box of tall cups. My first thought: Who buys drinks from the concessions, cheaper to bring your own, and my second thought: Damn. It’s Tommy. How did I know it was him? The hair. Still too much for his head, standing straight up. I hollered and he said who’s that, and I told him. I told him I still had his T-shirt he gave me to sleep in at Creaky’s.
He almost dropped his concessions box. We hadn’t seen each other in close to five years. The Lee County drive-in evidently is a portal to other dimensions.
Tommy was still the best of men. He wanted to know everything. I told him my living situation now was the type of fosters we never believed existed: good food, nice people, not in it for the money. He himself was eighteen so out of foster care. He never did get adopted, but that’s okay, he was living in an apartment with friends. He had a job and a girlfriend. Tommy goddamn Waddles. I came with him to meet his roommates, eight in number, all in one Camaro. At the drive-in you paid per vehicle, which led to any number of pile-in shenanigans. The concession drinks were because they’d forgotten mixers. These guys were discussing their plan of buying old horses from farmers and selling them for dog food in Canada. After my first Jack and Coke I remembered to tell Tommy I was hanging out with Fast Forward now. I invited him to come say hello, but he said that’s okay, he’d better stay and look after his ever-more-shitfaced roommates.
After my second Jack and Coke I spilled my guts about Dori, that I was in love and everything. Just talking about her made me want to run off and find her, to settle this people question. Tommy got it. He’d fallen for his girlfriend over the computer. His job was at the newspaper, emptying wastepaper baskets and cleaning their coffee room, but they let him have his own account on a computer and that’s how he found this girl. She was awesome and in Pennsylvania. It sounded like the sex potential was pretty limited there, but probably Tommy was more of a gentleman and not as fixated on that aspect of the girlfriend enterprise.
The movie was winding down, the squatty demon had done about all the damage one movie allows, and I didn’t want to miss my ride home. The Lariat was easy to spot because of this battery camping lantern he always set up on the tailgate, kind of festive. Bugs bombing around the light. Fast Forward had his arm around a tall, skinny girl that guys called Car Wash, not to her face. She had on a silky type dress with her hipbones jutting out like furniture under a sheet. Fast Forward was ignoring her, arguing with Big Bear and some other ex-Generals over who had the better offensive game, Riverheads or Surry. Nobody making very good points. To be honest, the tequila shots had won the day, but neither was any man giving an inch. They were going to die on their hill of Riverheads or Surry. Fast Forward tried repeatedly to say “onside kick recoveries,” and for the first time ever, I wondered if he was okay to drive. I could get us to my house, no problem, but getting the keys would be the trick. Unless he passed out first.
And then who should appear but Rose Dartell. Like I said, a portal. She stomped out of the nowhere darkness into our little circle of light. Fast Forward with deep feeling was saying words like sourced overtime and legal lorward flateral so he didn’t notice Rose until she chucked down something heavy in a paper bag, on the tailgate. I felt the clank of the metal in my teeth.
Fast looked at her, wide-eyed, a notch more sober.
She glared back. “I had to drive halfway to fucking Kentucky. BJ’s closed at eleven.”
He shook his head fast, like he’d caught a shiver. “What?”