A Tale of Two Trucks (6 page)

“I mean, if I could’ve asked for a painting—if I could’ve even come up with something—it would look just like that! It’s
perfect
,” he declared, making me beam with pleasure.

For the tailgate we decided to continue the hunting theme, so I painted a tree with a blind in it, the end of a rifle poking out and covering up the crossbar of the
F
, and on the other side I put a huge twelve-point buck, its antlers hiding the
U
. Then it was time for a break, and Joe insisted on taking me out to dinner so I wouldn’t have to cook.

We went to Applebee’s again, and over my Fiesta Lime Chicken and his New York Strip, he asked me about Brandon. It was hard, especially since I realized now how naïve I had been back then. But I felt like I owed it to Joe, not only because he’d opened up to me about his baby, but also because he was asking about it because he
wanted
to know—because he
cared
. It was comforting to have him listen so intently, wincing when I came to the part where I’d found my lover with someone else.

“I’m surprised that’s
all
you did to them,” he quietly remarked.

“If I were as big as you, I’m sure I would’ve ripped off their arms and legs and beat them with their own limbs,” I growled. Then we both laughed at the mental imagery. “I may be small, but I’m fierce!”

“I will testify to
that
,” Joe said, raising his right hand and trying to look serious.

While we shared a Triple Chocolate Meltdown (my favorite), I felt comfortable enough to tell him a bit about my mother, by way of explaining why I’d been so needy when Brandon came along, and also why I now shunned one of my old hangouts.

“But with the photos of what he did to
my
truck now, you should be able to march right in there, right?” Joe prodded.

I took another bite of the melting ice cream and chocolate fudge before answering, noncommittally, “Maybe….”

“Tell you what,” he said with a warm smile that lit up his eyes, “let’s go hang out at my old bar tonight! A lot of the guys from work go there on the weekend, so we should be able to find some of them. And I’m sure for a round of beers, one of them will let me borrow his car, and all of them will
swear
that I never left the building!”

“Oh! So you want to put our plan into action right
now
?” I asked, feeling my pulse quicken.

“Well, yeah! Ya gotta strike while the iron’s hot. And this way, I’ll even have an
alibi
!”

We both chortled evilly before heading out into the night.

Chapter 9

T
HE
success of our plan hung on the condition that Brandon was as much a creature of habit as he had been when he and I were still living together. I was confident he was, at least in this matter: every Saturday night, and most Friday nights, he would go to Cocktales for a few drinks and some dancing. And regardless of how good a time he was having, he would always leave no later than ten o’clock, because even on the weekends he got up at the same time in the morning.

I’d thought it an admirable trait at first, when we were dating, but later on I wondered why he couldn’t be more flexible. We’d argued about it often, since I liked to sleep in when I could but he would get sulky if I didn’t fix him breakfast. Now, of course, Joe and I were going to exploit his punctuality. It’s a dangerous thing to make enemies when you’re that predictable!

We stopped by Joe’s place to pick up his old, nondescript gray hoodie and a pair of leather work gloves. I wished we had the time to go to my place too so I could change, since I’d worn a bright fuchsia shirt over my favorite pair of white skinny jeans. I felt rather nervous about walking into a straight bar dressed like that. I imagined big, burly bikers and tattooed toughs looking at me and cracking their knuckles.

“Don’t worry—you’ll be with my friends,” Joe assured me when I voiced my concerns. “Besides, you’re
supposed
to be distracting! You have to distract everybody from the fact that I’m not gonna be there. It’s just too bad you didn’t bring your white feather thingy.”

“My boa is for special occasions,” I informed him archly. “And you’re right, it
is
going to be a challenge to distract people from the elephant in the room—or not in the room, as the case may be….”

“Hey! I resent that. I’m more like a… like a….”

“Water buffalo.”

That earned me a painful punch on the arm, although Joe might have meant it as a light tap.

“
Ow
! Hey, that just gave me an idea—can I paint a herd of buffalo on the other side of your truck?”

“Turn left up here,” he said suddenly, and in a minute we were pulling into the parking lot of the bar.

I was relieved to see there were mostly normal-looking people inside, although there were a couple of bikers too—not the gangster type, thankfully, just the touring-with-my-wife type. I was hidden behind Joe as he walked back toward a table where several members of his crew welcomed him.

“Oh, hey! You brought your little friend,” one of them said with a smirk, noticing me. I could feel my face turning red-hot, but Joe just laughed and clapped me heartily on my back.

“Yeah. He’s never been here before, so I thought I’d show him how we have a good time. Guys, y’all know Mike, right?”

“Sure,” and “Hey, Mike!” greeted me, and I tried to smile back. Joe offered to get me a drink so I asked him in a whisper if I could get a cosmopolitan here. He grinned and whispered back that he’d have to see my ID. I punched him in the arm (no harder, I’m sure, than a gnat) and he grimaced and rubbed the spot as though I’d grievously injured him.

“So, uh, Mike,” one of the guys began, “what’s up?”

“Actually, we had a rude awakening today,” I said, wishing Joe were telling it instead, but steeling myself. “He crashed at my place last night—”

“No
way
!” another guy gasped, and they all stared at me.
That
sure got their attention in a hurry!

“Not like
that
,” I hastened to clarify. “He came over for pizza and fell asleep on my couch watching TV. What was I supposed to do? Drag him out the door?”

“We
did
work hard yesterday,” the guy who’d asked me (Aaron, I think) conceded.

“Anyway, he left his truck parked in my driveway, but apparently my ex came by in the middle of the night and trashed it. I mean, rotten eggs, rotten tomatoes—the
works
!”

“
Shit
!
He thought it was yours, didn’t he?”

“Dirty bastard!”

“Exactly!” I replied, more confident now that I had their support. “I feel so
awful
about it—”

“Don’t,” Joe interrupted, coming back just then with my cosmo, which he set down carefully in front of me, and a handful of beer bottles for his buddies. “It’s not like you knew he was gonna do that!”

“No,” I admitted, “but he’d just seen me in my new truck. I should’ve known he wouldn’t take kindly to that.”

“But rotten eggs and tomatoes?” one of the burlier guys (Hank, I’m pretty sure) asked incredulously. “That’s low!”

“We parted on… less than amicable terms,” I said dryly. It was the understatement of the year, and the guys could tell.

“That’s not even the worst of it,” Joe said, taking over. “He even spray-painted my truck with… less than flattering phrases! So, I decided to come to my amigos for a little help in a… conspiracy, of sorts.”

“Whaddaya need?” and “I’m in!” were the immediate responses. These guys were solid!

“First, I need to borrow a car,” Joe answered with his voice lowered, and everybody crowded in over the table. “I have to go teach this guy a lesson! But I can’t be seen, right? So, in a bit I’ll go to the head, and if anybody asks, I need you all to swear that I was here the whole night.”

“John owes me a favor,” one of them remarked, indicating the bartender. “I can make sure he’s with it too!”

“You can take my car,” Hank offered, slipping Joe his keys.

“If you leave your credit card with us, it’ll look like you’ve been buying drinks all night,” Aaron grinned with obvious ulterior motives, and Joe handed me his card.

“Keep it down to three rounds, all right?” he told me, and I nodded.

“Be careful, Joe,” I couldn’t help saying. He smiled reassuringly, almost making me melt.

“Only a coward goes around smashing eggs on cars in the middle of the night. It won’t take much to scare
him
!”

W
HILE
Joe was gone, I played pool with the guys, chattering cheerily as though I hadn’t a care in the world, but I was inordinately uncoordinated and had a rough few games.

“Don’t worry,” Hank said to me in an undertone when I paused to take a drink of my second cosmo. “Joe knows how to handle himself!”

I was touched and terrified at the same time. If Hank could tell how worried I was about Joe, how obvious was I? I didn’t want these guys to get the wrong idea about us (especially since there was no “us”) and say something to Joe that would spoil the friendship we
did
have. I decided it was time to quit moping; it was time to do something fun and distracting!

“Hey, is there anything good in that jukebox?” I asked, and Aaron grinned and gave me a couple of quarters. I searched through the titles and—glory hallelujah!—found some Gloria songs. The guys all roared with laughter when “Bad Boys” started playing.

“You are too frickin’ funny!” Aaron chuckled, then insisted I teach him how to dance. It was tough going, because he simply
couldn’t
swing his hips, but I jiggled mine enough for both of us. They’d all had two of the three rounds on Joe and were “happied up” as Gramma would say, so they guffawed as though my moves were the most hilarious thing they’d ever seen. Some of the other customers were enjoying the entertainment too, as Hank kept putting quarters in the machine and choosing other disco favorites.

“May I cut in?” Joe asked, blindsiding Aaron and practically knocking him out of the way.

“Sure!” I said, elated to see him back safe and sound. I didn’t notice that another Gloria song, “Everlasting Love,” was on until a bit later, since I was busy trying to get Joe to move his feet in time to the beat.

When we left the dance floor, it was to the applause of most of the people in the joint, and I flushed with some embarrassment. Still, it was a nice vibe, even when Joe’s buddies snorted and chortled.

“You two sure make a pair!” Hank declared, almost giggling.

“Yeah—a regular Mutt and Jeff!” someone else pointed out.

Joe only grinned and bought them their third round of drinks with the credit card I’d slipped into his back pocket while we were, for lack of a better word, dancing.

“S
O
?
How’d it go?” Aaron asked Joe when we were all settled in around the table again.

“Easy as pie! I caught the guy coming out of his usual bar, right, with this blond kid who looked like he was twelve, and told the kid to take a walk. I had my hood up so they couldn’t really see me, but I stayed in the shadows anyway, like Mike said. Then when I grabbed the guy and slammed him up against the wall, I swear he must’a pissed his pants! So then I said to him, ‘Hey, bastard, you know who I am?’ And he’s all, like, whimpering, saying there must be some mistake, and I told him, ‘I’m your worst nightmare!’ I know, I know—it’s cliché, but it totally
worked
! And I said, ‘If I ever catch you around a certain neighborhood, with or without rotten eggs, you’re dead meat, you hear?’ And I slapped him around a couple of times to make sure he knew I meant business. Then I shook him up a bit and growled, ‘And if you
ever
come near a certain blue truck, yer gonna wish you’d never been born! Got that?’ And he nodded like a bobblehead until I set him down. I sure wish I could’ve seen the look on his face!”

So, our mission accomplished, Joe and I headed home, dropping off a somewhat inebriated Hank along the way.

Chapter 10

T
HE
next morning was Sunday, so I slept in with impunity, waking up without the alarm clock interrupting my beauty sleep. I yawned and stretched luxuriously, then opened my eyes—to find Joe sitting on the edge of my bed, holding a plate covered with a paper towel.

“Good morning, Sleeping Beauty.” He grinned. “I brought you some breakfast!”

I blinked, wondering if I were dreaming, and rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. Nope, he was still there.

“Uh… you made breakfast?” I said, still befuddled.

“Yup. Not sure you’ll like it, though,” Joe replied, a little downcast, and I opened my mouth to tell him that anything he made would be fine, it’s the thought that counts, yadda-yadda-yadda. But then he pulled off the paper towel with a flourish, revealing a bowl of dry Cheerios (we’d run out of milk the day before) and a slice of burnt toast. I biffed him with my pillow.

“All right, all right! I get the hint—you want a decent breakfast too,” I grumbled, rolling over to the side of the bed. Before I could stand up, though, he’d caught the sleeve of my nightshirt—a T-shirt I’d gotten on clearance in the big-and-tall section when we were shopping for him.

“That’s
my
shirt!” Joe claimed, tugging at it.

“No, it’s not. You have one just like it, remember?”

“Yeah, and I snagged it on a nail the first time I wore it. Here’s the tear, right here!”

“I know. That’s why I switched them.”

“You didn’t have to do that!”

“Yes, I did—it reflects badly on
me
, as your Fashion Consultant, when you go out in rags and tatters.”

“Well… I want it back!”

“Joe, don’t be ridiculous. It doesn’t matter what I wear to bed, so just leave it.”

“It doesn’t matter if
I
wear it to bed, either.”

“You’ve got plenty of shirts to wear to bed!” I pointed out, getting exasperated.

“But I want
this
one back,” he insisted, and I couldn’t tell if he were joking or serious.