Now Is the Hour (29 page)

I was a bag of Redi-Mix cement again, a forty-pound block of extra-sharp Cheddar. Big nose, crooked bottom teeth, and a face full of bloody toilet paper.

Billie was acting cool, like she had it all together, but she was just being an actress. Inside, her stomach was grumbling and she was afraid she was going to fart again, plus she had her period, and she thought she smelled bad.

We got to all of this later in Mount Moriah, but as it was
happening, Billie and I, the both of us just went along, pretending everything was cool.

Two weeks I had my nighttime driver's license, and it was my first time driving out at night alone, and nobody, not even Sis, knew I was doing it. I didn't know what the fuck, so I did what everybody else did — drove the loop. Slow idling through the Dead Steer past the parked cars and the kids in the cars, then out across two lanes of traffic onto Pole Line Road. Cars lined up at the stoplight, squealing tires on the green. Then across from the Portland Cement Company and the Kraft cheese factory, turn signals flashing, and I was back across two lanes of traffic again, the cars, the kids in cars, slow idling through the Snatch Out, then the loop again, cruising the Snatch Out, the Dead Steer, over and over.

Billie wanted a Coke, so I drove through the Snatch Out where the cars went through where you ordered food. Into the speakerphone, Billie ordered a cherry Coke Ironport for her and a vanilla Coke for me and a large French fries for both of us. I pulled up to the window, and we got the French fries and the Cokes, and I gave the money to Billie, and she paid the cashier. When the cashier saw my face, she looked at me like I was the Blob or the Monster from the Blue Lagoon.

We drove the lower end of the loop, onto Ashby Street, then right to the stop sign on Hall. Across Hall, then into the Dead Steer. I reached over for a French fry and instead I picked up the ketchup cup. For some reason, I don't know why I didn't know it was the folded extra-thick heavy-duty waxed paper ketchup cup, but I didn't, and then what do I do but stick the ketchup cup in my mouth.

When the ketchup cup is in my mouth was when I knew it was a ketchup cup. But what do I do? I was afraid Billie would think I was a dork so I swallowed the ketchup cup.

That was when Billie looked down at the French fries and said: They didn't give us any ketchup.

So I made a big scene of going back to the Snatch Out and telling the cashier she didn't give us any ketchup. I went to the walk-up window, not the drive-through, and the cashier, when she handed me the ketchup out the window, she said, Did a porcupine get you?

We cruised the Dead Steer, then I crossed the two lanes of traffic, no problem, onto Pole Line Road. I drove down Pole Line Road and stopped at the red light. Everything was going fine. We were eating
the French fries with the ketchup, drinking our Cokes, the music on the radio “Little Deuce Coupe.” The light turned green. The car next to us squealed out, but I didn't squeal out.

It was when I went to turn back into the Snatch Out, it was when I flipped the directional signal, and the signal was flashing right, it was when I turned right across the two lanes of traffic of Pole Line Road, that I looked up and from out of nowhere there was a pair of headlights headed right for us.

The long, high sound of brakes and squealing tires. The car behind the headlights slid and fishtailed, a swerve all over the road. Either I had to gun the engine or put on the brakes, but I didn't do either. The moment before the shit hit the fan — in the cab of the pickup — the dashboard, the windshield, my hands on the steering wheel, the radio “Little Deuce Coupe,” the knees of Billie's black stretch pants — everything got real bright. Billie's hand was on my arm, her tiny blue fingernails. The open gold hand on the gold chain against the skin of her neck. Together Billie's eyes and my eyes stared ahead at the same air between us. That was when I threw my whole body up against Billie Cody. The incredible softness of her. My neck against her neck, my shoulder and my arm up to cover her face.

In my ears, it was that awful thwump and then broken glass. Billie Cody and I were catapulted into the air. We landed all broken and bloody on Pole Line Road.

But none of that happened.

The first thing I knew was I was the closest to a human being that I can ever remember. Billie's breath in and out, her breasts against my chest and her heart. When I could, I turned my head and looked out the pickup window. Below me was the hood of a red '56 Mercury. Its bumper was so close to the pickup's running board I couldn't open the door.

In the car, it was Sis and Gene Kelso.

Then everything was as fast as it was slow. Sis's head out of the window started in yelling at me, cussing a blue streak.

You dipshit, you almost got us killed, and I'm going to tell Mom.

Then Billie got into it, saying, Go kiss Old Rose, and Up yours, you stupid asshole. Gene Kelso and I, we were just looking at each other, going, Holy shit.

Fiasco.

It took me awhile to get the pickup started because my hands were
shaking so bad. I couldn't get the clutch right, the gas. The whole Snatch Out was watching. I don't know which was worse, almost getting killed, or driving through the Snatch Out after almost getting killed. All the parked cars we drove by, you could tell, everybody in them thinking: Rigby John Klusener is one dumb ass.

I tried not to show how freaked out I was, but it wasn't just my hands that were shaking. All the way through the Snatch Out, the muscles in my legs and my back, even my neck muscles, were shaking.

Don't ask me how, but the pickup stopped on Ashby Street. On Ashby, the way you always turned was right and then drove to the stop sign on Hall, then across Hall to the Dead Steer.

Billie said: Turn left.

Billie's face was pure white and not just from the Snatch Out neon. We were both train wrecks.

Billie laid her hand on my leg and left her hand on my leg.

The pickup turned left.

You got a cigarette? she said.

The cigarettes Billie pulled out of my shirt pocket didn't look so good either. With her foot, Billie pushed the cigarette lighter in and then Billie was lighting my cigarette. Who could tell which of us was shaking the most.

A fucking fiasco.

Billie threw her head back, inhaled, exhaled through her nose, then inhaled again.

The cigarette was a little orange whirlwind by her ear, then the dive to the ashtray, the flick of the ashes with her index, then up again, the cigarette pointing off into the distance, Billie said — like big deal, so what, who cares — she said: I've got a grand idea.

Windshield wiper, the cigarette, back and forth.

Let's smoke all these cigarettes, she said, one right after the other, then buy some more, and we'll go to my most favorite place.

Billie's pink lipstick lips were a little screwy off to the side. She poked the cigarette in there. In the dash light, Billie's face right then looked like my first best friend.

And park, she said. It's my most favorite place in the whole world.

Mount Moriah is Pocatello's cemetery.

When Billie said, Turn in here, I said, We can't go in there. And Billie said, Sure we can. And I said, It's the cemetery. And Billie said,
So? And I said, It's night, and Billie said, So? And I said, You're not supposed to drive in there at night. And Billie said, But this is my favorite spot.

As fate would have it, Billie's most favorite place in the whole world was an important place for me too. I didn't have any idea how important. I'd been there only once before when I was just a kid.

Billie's favorite place in the whole world was in Mount Moriah Cemetery. Who was buried in that cemetery, in that particular favorite place of Billie's, was a baby boy I hadn't thought about in a long time.

And something else. I probably would never have recognized Russell's grave if it wasn't for the wind. Where we were parked in Billie's favorite place was toward the back of the cemetery in a little cul-de-sac. The lights were off, the radio was on, and Billie and I were smoking, smoking. Clueless. I was fucking clueless. The only thing on my mind was how was I going to get my forty-pound-block-of-Cheddar-cheese arm up over Billie's head and around her shoulders.

Then the universe conspired, and I looked up just as a gust of Idaho wind hit an elm, and the elm branches shook, then swayed slow back and forth. The way the elm tree moved, I could feel the way it moved inside my stomach.

The wind was Thunderbird breathing.

My eyes followed the sway of the elm from the top branches in the moon, down and down through its candelabra arms, down to its thick trunk, down.

Sis says it was sunny, but I remember that there were umbrellas and that we all stood under umbrellas, and that I was wearing my overshoes. I stood to the right of Monsignor and the altar boys. I got to smell the incense.

Then it was the Door of the Dead and them wiping the rain off the folding chair because Dad has to sit down he was crying so hard.

Just like that, I was out the pickup door, running to the elm tree. Billie was yelling something, but I didn't pay her any mind. Then my back was smashed against the elm tree, and I was walking around the elm tree always with my back against the elm tree. Around and around until I found in my mind how I stood that day.

Then I was standing in that same spot, then kneeling, cleaning away the leaves and grass of all the years.

Nobody, none of us in my family, ever came back to visit his grave.

A piece of moon came through right onto the metal plaque.

Russell Thomas Klusener. 1955–1956.
Agnus Dei.

Billie knelt down next to me. She had her hand on my shoulder. Something about the way her hand was on my shoulder.

My first date with Billie Cody. It was in the middle of the night, next to a big old elm tree, I was kneeling in a cemetery, Billie's hand was on my shoulder, and I was crying. Weird, deep sobs in me the way you throw up. My face was down in the grass, I was eating grass, digging down, trying to get to dirt.

The whole time, Billie's hand tender, the way I'd never known, right there on my shoulder.

How can we carry pain around like that and not know it?

That was what I said in the middle of the third cigarette. Snot was still hanging out of my nose, I kept trying to snuff up.

How can we carry pain like that around and not know it?

Billie sat cross-legged on one side of
Agnus Dei,
I sat cross-legged on the other side.

Who was he? Billie said.

My brother, I said.

It's so weird, Billie said. This has always been my favorite place.

I ate the ketchup cup, I said.

I know, Billie said. I'm so glad we came here.

My face, I said. I tried to shave today. Did I freak you out?

No, Billie said.

I look like bloody murder, I said.

People stare at me all the time, Billie said. So I don't ever stare.

Tear duct cancer? I said.

No, Billie said, boobs.

Oh, I said.

Billie, I'm so sorry about back there, I said. I almost got us killed.

Who was that bitch in the car? Billie said.

My sis.

Then I said, Were you embarrassed? The whole Snatch Out was looking.

When I said Snatch Out
,
Billie laughed that great laugh of hers that took over her whole body. Her cigarette was italicized language and quotation marks.

We're still alive, Billie said.

Then: Billie, I said, I've never been with a girl before, I said. I mean, this is my first time even on a date.

Me too, she said.

Really? I said. So you still like me?

Like you? Billie said.

On the pickup radio, out through the cemetery, around the trees and headstones, Donovan's “Mellow Yellow.” The cigarette in Billie's hand was hot-boxed, a big orange fire sucked all the way up to the filter. The slow exhale from her lips was a cloud of moon.

I think I love you, Billie said.

Like you? I think I love you.

Oh my heavens pretty woman so far. The same thing my mom and dad said, Billie and I said. Only it was the other way around, who said what to whom. They were sitting in a car listening to “Melody of Love.” Billie and I were next to the pickup listening to “Mellow Yellow.” No idea what the fuck this means, or the implications, other than it's the universe saying the apple don't fall far from the apple tree.

That's something hard for me to believe, though. I've always been so differnt from them, my parents.

But then, so far the universe has had a lot of surprises for me, what I thought wasn't at all the way things were, and after all that's happened, I wouldn't doubt for a moment there's a couple more surprises coming down the road.

Highway 93, my getaway route to San Francisco, is one long shiny black ribbon of tarmac. From the east, the alternating white line in the middle of the road comes right up to me, goes right on past me, then heads west on up the road and disappears. Somewhere in the direction of the Pacific Ocean.

California California California.

Since the semi truck, there's been just one car passed, a convertible yellow Buick, going at the speed of Mom, going eighty. One big flash of noise, headlights bright and dim, bright and dim, a yellow streak, horn honking. Somebody with long blond hair in the passenger's seat, waving at me, flashing me the peace sign. Or maybe it was the bird.

Whatever it was that happened, it was loud and bright and didn't last long.

I was standing at the time. For a while, there I was back up standing, the perfect picture of a hitchhiker, on my feet, my thumb out, poised and ready to go. You got to think positive. You know, like the
color orange back in the first grade when I found the color orange on the inside lining of my jacket.

Faith, hope, and charity.

Flaco, Acho, and Billie Cody.

Just having these three people in my life is proof enough for me my life's been lived successfully. Plus then there's George. Cost a lot, though.