Everybody Knows Your Name (23 page)

“Don't worry about it. How'd you get in the gate?”

“Some kids came out the pedestrian side. I walked my bike through.” I lean forward and see Ford's motorcycle parked against the curb.

There's an awkward pause then, and I watch Ford as he glances around my porch and takes in where I live. He gets this look that communicates everything about how this scenario is so far from what he had. It's kind of the face you'd make if you were going to give one of those low, sinking whistles at being shocked by a price.

That look tells me exactly how much he wanted his life to change. And why he pretended to be someone else in the hopes that it could happen. And how it's possible that he was just trying to play a different part and got caught up in it to the point where it wasn't as much lying as it was wishing.

Ford goes from looking at the chandelier hanging in the foyer behind me to looking into my eyes. I stare at his face, and I find out that I am easily able to see the gray.

He says, “Look, I need to be with you.” My chest feels like it could crack at that admission. “I need you, okay.”

“Well, here's the thing,” I say. “I love you.”

His whole face changes like he's been lit from within. “Well, here's my thing—I love you.” We break into what I can only describe as dumb smiles at each other. “Will you come with me?”

“Like, right now?”

Ford thumbs in the direction over his shoulder. “I have to get to Calumet. I want to show it to you. The only problem is that I just missed my flight, and two of us aren't going to work on my bike.”

Out of the corner of my eye I see Scott appear in the dining room threshold, waiting to see what I'm going to do. I'm sure he's heard the end of our conversation. I disagree with what he said at Del Taco, that we're just ending up as nothing. I don't think you ever get over people you loved. It's just one day you get the strength not to go back there because you finally know what's bad for you.

Before, Scott told me that I think too much, but now I don't even have to put a second of thought into what I want to do.

I say to Ford, “I have a car.”

It's after sunset the next day when we take the worn-out steel bridge over the Saint Francis River. The familiar rhythm of the bridge's warped roadway feels like an old friend waving me home.

“Take it all in.” I motion like royalty at the not very exciting landscape out the windshield. “As far as the eye can see, this is all my domain.”

“It's breathtaking,” Magnolia says in an exaggerated way that might be her attempting to pull off a Southern accent. “My, my, my.”

“Is it? I guess I was too distracted by your beauty to notice.” I reach over and awkwardly stroke her cheek with the back of my hand, doing my impression of a creep who does things like that. “You see, before you, Bella, my life was like a moonless night. And then you shot across my sky like a meteor. My eyes were blinded by the light.”

“I've already had enough.” She laughs, grabbing my hand, intertwining her fingers in mine. “How do you even know
Twilight
?”

“A lot of the girls who sent me fan letters kept mentioning it. They said I was like Edward, except with normal skin.”

“Whatever, you know you read it.”

I'll admit, the Arkansas Delta isn't the most exciting landscape on earth, but to me it has a sort of muddy charm. Maybe it's just because I grew up here. I may not legally own a single acre of land, but this is all still mine: my turf, my hood, the land of my fathers. All that stuff. It's weird how much confidence can come out of something as simple as knowing your surroundings.

Magnolia's watched the delta pass by her window for hours. The slow-moving brown rivers. The endless fields, harvested and bare now. The one-stoplight towns. The mobile homes that sit out in front of, and replace, the rotting wood farmhouses from better days. She watches them all go by like an astronaut getting her first look at the surface of the moon.

“Right here, past Dead Man's Curve, people race their cars sometimes. One night Will Portis flipped his Chevy over in that ditch. Thought he was going to drown before we could get him out.”

Magnolia tips her head against the window and stares into me. “We have ditches at home too, you know. I want to see some real South.”

I give her the sternest look I can pull, and I put on my heaviest drawl. “Listen, li'l darlin', you're just lucky I brought you to these parts at all after I had to come save you from that surfer boy, from havin' to listen to his stories about getting spiritual with them dolphins.”

She keeps her face serious too. “I think it's just that there's nothing I love more than long, flowing blond hair.”

“All right, that's it. Get out.” I reach over and tip her toward the door. “Just open that door and jump. I'll be nice and slow the car down. Remember to roll when you hit the pavement, and you'll be fine.”

“
You
get out! I'll show myself around,” she says, and tips me back. We end up in a fierce battle of arms and elbows, which she wins by leaning over the armrest and suddenly kissing me. I try to keep an eye on the yellow line as she pulls my face toward hers. It's hard to drive straight with her lips and the smell of her hair, but luckily, the road's all ours.

Except for a couple of power naps, we've pretty much driven fifteen hundred miles straight through. To sum up those fifteen hundred miles, you've basically got: city, mountain, desert, desert, desert, desert, Great Plains, Great Plains (getting less Great and more Boring at this point). Things turn green again, and you're in Arkansas.

Back in Arizona, we passed cool rock formations that looked like old castles, but Magnolia doesn't have any love for the desert.

“Maybe it's because I grew up in one,” she said.

I argued that Southern California isn't really a desert, that there are lots of trees and green things. But she said modern people did that, and all the palm trees and sprinklers are just Los Angeles pretending to be something it's not. I told her that sounded just like something she'd say.

If it were up to me, I would've stopped to check out every single point of interest on the road. I want to see all the petrified forests, the meteor craters, the Grand Canyon, the average-size canyons, ancient Indian ruins, and especially Billy the Kid's grave. But this last performance ahead of me tomorrow (and Magnolia's complete lack of patience) has kept us on a tight schedule.

So instead of grand canyons and dead underage outlaws, we've settled for cheeseburgers in Flagstaff and tacos in Albuquerque. In New Mexico I finally called the production office and told them not to worry. I'd be there. We haven't bothered with a hotel because we're only stopping for power naps. In the car last night, parked underneath a faded neon cowboy on the sign of the long-abandoned Six-Shooter Motel, the temperature dropped until our breath covered the windows with white frost.

Curled up in the backseat, we held each other for warmth like a couple of stranded Antarctic explorers. And inside the icy car, surrounded by nothing but desert night and empty highway for a hundred miles, it felt like we couldn't have been more alone. Finally, truly alone. We woke up stiff and half-frozen.

We've taken turns DJing with Magnolia's MP3 player. A sample of this past afternoon's playlist:

1. Alicia Keys—“Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart” (Magnolia's pick)

2. Bob Dylan—“Blood on the Tracks” (mine)

Magnolia took exception to my insisting the entire Dylan album be listened to all the way through, so she paid me back with:

3. Britney Spears—“Till the World Ends”

When I asked if it was some kind of punishment, Magnolia launched into a long lecture on the artistic value of pop music. She said, “Some things that just sound simple really have complex things going on underneath.”

I said, “I hope that goes for me too.”

4. Spoon—“The Underdog” (my choice)

A sing-along because Maggie also knew this one.

5. Fleetwood Mac—“Gypsy” (hers)

Magnolia got sad talking about the sadness of Stevie Nicks's voice. I told her that Fleetwood Mac was always what I'd pictured in my head when I imagined the beaches of California. Like somehow that sound translated perfectly into the place. She said, “Yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about.”

6. Led Zeppelin—“When the Levee Breaks” (all me)

Guess we got into a kind of seventies groove here.

7. Haim—“The Wire” (all her)

8. Iggy Pop—“The Passenger” (mine, but Magnolia loves the song too)

9. Prince—“I Would Die 4 U” (Magnolia's)

Come on now—everyone likes Prince.

10. The Rolling Stones—“Exile on Main St.” (back to me)

Once again Magnolia was skeptical when I told her
Exile
is an album you have to listen to in its entirety, straight through. But this time, I won. Look, I don't make the rules.

So we crossed the country to our own soundtrack. Sometimes neither of us could shut up, and we talked over each other about how she wants to write and how I want to make music, and the future in general.

“God, I hope we'll know each other years from now,” she said while driving.

I looked at her. “It'll be our own faults if we don't.”

Sometimes we just sat quietly, staring out the windshield or nodding along to the music. Sometimes Magnolia would wake up from a nap and start bouncing her shoulders in her seat to whatever song was playing, and suddenly we'd have crazy energy and roll down the windows and sing along really loud to our audience of bored cows and lonely windmills.

But when I start getting really close to home, recognizing town names and roads I know, I realize that before this drive, I saw my hometown as a separate piece of the world, tossed off by itself. Now I spot the rusting silver water tower of Calumet, and my mind slides it into its proper place, right in the middle of the big old American puzzle.

Then there are flashing blue lights in my rearview mirror.

Magnolia looks over her shoulder, surprised. Only people who don't get pulled over very often look that way.

“Were you speeding?” she wonders.

I keep a wary eye on the cruiser behind us. “I don't think so.”

“Oh God, but we're so close,” she says, pointing at the town visible a few miles ahead.

“Maybe they just want to give me a hero's welcome,” I say, not believing this at all, but not wanting to scare Magnolia.

I pull off onto the shoulder, watching in the mirrors as the cop does the same. He steps out and adjusts his clothes in the reflection of his cruiser window. He tugs at his uniform, trying to make it stretch over his big belly. That's when I realize who he is.

“Oh, shit,” I say.

It's Steve Greggs, Cody's nemesis. And just like that, all the confidence and good feeling of the past day is flat gone, and I start to feel that trapped animal feeling coming on.

“What?” Magnolia is concerned.

“It's just—I know this guy. He doesn't like me.”

Steve walks up to my window, and I roll it down. He shines his flashlight directly into my eyes, half blinding me.

I squint in the direction of the glaring light. “Hello, Officer . . . Steve,” I say, trying to sound as friendly as I can manage.

He lets out a disturbing laugh when he realizes it's me he's pulled over. “Well, well, well, if it isn't our local celebrity! I saw that California plate and figured it had to be someone with the circus coming to town. But I didn't know that I was pulling over the
main
attraction.”

“I don't think I was speeding.”

“I didn't say you were speeding.” Steve nods toward the back of the car. “You've got a brake light out.”

“Oh, sorry, I didn't even know. Swear. We've just driven all the way from California.”

Magnolia leans over so she can talk to him. “It's my car, officer. It's not his fault.”

“Uh-huh.” Steve rolls his eyes at her and holds up a hand. “You just sit your butt down and shut your mouth, hon. You're not in California anymore.”

I know he's a born asshole and it's in his very fiber, but I'm not going to let him be an asshole to her. “That's unnecessary, man. Just write me the ticket, and I'll get it fixed. I'm kind of in a hurry.”

“Naw, doesn't work like that, big shot. I'll decide what's necessary. Ford, why don't you step on out of the car?”

Now I'm beginning to get real nervous, the way this feels like it's going. “Why?”

“Don't make me say it twice, or I might have to cite you for being disorderly too.”

I sigh and get out as Steve stands back, one hand resting defensively on his sidearm. “Go ahead and put your hands on top of the car,” he says.

“What does this have to do with the brake light?” He's enjoying embarrassing me. The smug look on his face sets loose a righteous anger inside me. If America had pageants for being a dickhead like they have pageants for beauty, Steve would run away with the crown.

“Do it now.”

“This is bullshit,” I say, and turn slowly, putting my hands on the car. I look down through the passenger window and can see Magnolia looking back at me, confused and worried. Steve frisks me.

“What are you looking for, Steve? I don't have a weapon, I don't have drugs—you
know
I'm here to sing in the show. You
know
that.”

“We'll see about that, Buckley.” He says my last name like just pronouncing it puts a bad taste in his mouth. He throws everything in my pockets on top of the car and pulls my driver's license out of my wallet. “Now you just sit still. Don't you move a goddamn inch. I'm going to run you.”

Steve returns to his cruiser. I'm so angry, I can barely breathe. Magnolia climbs into the driver's side seat to talk to me through the open window. “Why is he being such an asshole?”

“It's my family. He wants to embarrass me. Something isn't right. If he takes me—”

She looks astonished. This possibility had never occurred to her. “But why would he take you?”

“Whatever happens, don't get involved.”

There's chatter on the police radio as Steve steps out of the cruiser. In the dark I can only see him walking as a silhouette against the bright headlights from his car. He steps behind me and says, “Well, Ford, here's your license back.”

I turn to face him and immediately I'm hit in the face with a blast of liquid. My skin feels like it's on fire. I reach for my face as my eyes close tight against the pain. Pepper spray. Military grade. I don't even realize I'm yelling until Steve sprays my mouth and I feel it burning my throat. Within seconds I'm on my knees vomiting, then dry heaving. Mucus starts pouring out my nose, and I really can't inhale. I'm sure that's Magnolia yelling, but I can't hear much of anything besides roaring in my ears. Can't get my breath.

Then, suddenly, my arm's twisted behind my back, and I'm pushed facedown on the asphalt, a knee between my shoulder blades. I feel the handcuffs going on behind my back, biting into my wrist joints. When I catch my first breath, I use it to curse him.

“You bastard,” I say, wheezing.

Calmly he says, “I told you to keep your hands on the car.”

Now I can definitely hear Magnolia shouting at Steve—I think she's out of the car. “What are you doing?” she yells. “What's wrong with you? He didn't do anything!”

“Get back in the car, miss. This man has a warrant for public intoxication and disturbing the peace over in Ouida County. I'm taking him in. You're just lucky I'm not impounding the car.”

Steve pulls me up by my arms, sending a pain through my shoulder blades. I try to open my eyes, but it's like they're full of gritty sand. Magnolia is still yelling, “This is police brutality. I'm a witness! Police brutality, asshole!”

Then Steve's shoving me into the backseat of the police car. I blink over and over, trying to clear my eyes. Tears pour down my cheeks, but everything is a dark blur. My feelings are a blur too. They're a hot red blur of anger, humiliation, and worry about Magnolia, all from this one guy doing something just because he can. I hear her yell something indistinguishable to him, and he says something about “scoops” back.

Then the car shifts with Steve's weight as he gets in. I lie back in the seat and kick the metal cage that separates us as hard as I can. “Do you feel like a big man now with your pepper spray?” I ask him. “My brother was right: you're just a fat coward. That Ouida County thing is four years old.”

I hear the leather of Steve's seat creak as he twists to face me. “In my car you're nobody. In this town, you and your family don't count for shit. Shame you're going to miss your big show, being locked up in jail and all, but at least you'll be with your own kind. Maybe I can get the guards to turn on a TV so you can watch yourself lose.”

He starts the cruiser, and we pull away. Blinking my eyes frantically so I can see out the window, I can barely make out Magnolia in the flashing blue lights, standing in the road next to her car.