Vision Quest (2 page)

Kuch is down first. He's very strong and he's quick. He pops right to his feet, screaming, trying for an escape. But I go to a double-heel trip and haul him back down to the mat. He's too out of breath now to keep up his steady stream of war cries. I counter his sitout. I follow him on his roll. I try to pin him toward the end of the round, but either I'm too tired or he's not tired enough. I can't take him to his back.

Now I get three minutes from down. I throw my best moves from here. I walk out on him—“crawl” out, actually, charging on my hands and knees, like a giant little kid escaping from his playpen; then I explode into a sitout and reverse for two points. I pop to my feet, bellowing like a goosed dromedary, and use a standing switch for two. I lock his arm and roll, escaping for a point. I buck back and hip over, reversing for two. I throw an outside
switch and lean back hard for leverage on the arm Kuch is trying to hold me with. I'm levering hard and have almost worked behind him to gain control when he lets me go and pulls his arm away. I fall flat on my back. He's on me in half a breath and I'm pinned. Renewed, he whoops and dances and kicks me in the ass a few times, smiling. We go back to the referee's position and wait for Coach's whistle.

Carla picks me up from
practice. Whenever she can she drives me downtown, where I work part-time as a room-service boy at the Spokane Hotel. When she's working herself or when she has something to do, I take the bus or just hitch. There're always plenty of people driving downtown.

“Well?” Carla asks.

“I kicked ass,” I reply.

“How badly?”

“Twenty-three to five.”

“You got pinned again!” Carla knows how to keep score. I get pinned fairly often in practice, but I've never been pinned in a match.

“Fucking rubber-arm.” I sigh, shaking my head.

“What can you do?”

“A guy rubber-arms you when you lean back too hard and hesitate on the switch. You're leaning on his arm for leverage, and if you hesitate at all, he can pull his arm away. You fall right on your back. I've got to stop hesitating. Either that or go to a sitout or a standup all the time.”

“Is Shute a good rubber-armer?” Carla asks.

I squinch my face.

“I know,” she says. “Is a pig's pussy pork?”

I have to laugh. That's one of our local clichés from which Carla usually refrains. She must have been keeping it in reserve for just such an appropriate moment.

“Gotcha.” She smiles smugly.

We stop at Strick's bakery. Carla likes to buy day-old doughnuts and maple bars for Dad's breakfast. Carla eats granola and Dad has eggs, meat, and a doughnut or a maple bar. I drink a can of Nutrament, and if my weight's down enough I might eat a slice of liver or a wheat-germ burger, too. Having breakfast together like that is a good way to start the day.

“Is the exhibitionist still in the hotel?” Carla asks. Part of the fun of working in a hotel is all the people you meet. I try to keep Carla informed about them.

“He was naked again, toweling off after a shower like he always is. But this time he drops the towel, flashes me a shot at his root, and gets an immediate hard-on. His cock jerked up in stages like a drawbridge. I just stood there. I told him to give me a call when he was through. I meant so I could pick up the tray. He just smiled and scratched his nuts.”

“The human body well kept is a beautiful thing,” Carla says. “I don't really think there should be any limits to the fun people can have with it.” Then she says, “And I think your friend Tanneran is after mine.”

“Your what?” I ask. I'm a little tired and slow-witted after a hard practice.

“My body,” Carla says.

“What makes you think that?”

“He asked me to come to his house.”

Gene's my friend, so I have my doubts about the sexual nature of his invitation. Maybe Carla's flattering herself. It could be true, though. Gene's a very horny stud and he's got what they call a “penchant” for high school girls. He's also got good taste and Carla is dynamite subdued. Maybe Gene just doesn't know Carla and I are together now.

“Do you want him?” I ask.

“No.”

“Would you like me to talk to him about it, then?”

“Yes,” Carla says. “But not because I can't. It would just make me feel better about us. Okay?”

“Sure,” I reply. Now I'll have to talk to Tanneran. Shit. But it's good of Carla to let me know what she expects of me. Having a serious girlfriend is not all fun and games. There's responsibility in it.

*  *  *

Carla is related to the reason I'm working during wrestling season. It was partially because of Carla that Dad lost his job and is being sued for fifteen thousand smackers. He decided he didn't want to work for anybody else again, so he sold our cabin at Loon Lake and our boat and pickup, borrowed a bunch of money, and opened Spokane's first Honda car store. Shortly after Dad lost his job he and Mom broke up. He lost our poodle in that deal, and I lost part
of my mother. I felt like I should help Dad, so I sold my 450cc Honda motorcycle and vowed to work as steady as I could through the school year to earn money for college. This was one of the big reasons I decided to graduate early. Chances are I'll get a wrestling scholarship, but they don't pay for everything. I had other reasons, too.

Carla walked into the store one afternoon last July with three hundred bucks. She'd been hitching since Chicago and was fed up with it and wanted to buy a car that would get her to the Pacific Ocean. The store was a big Buick dealership downtown near the freeway and Dad was sales manager. Dad was out when Carla came looking for a car. Ray Lucas, one of the used-car salesmen, showed Carla the back row, where all car dealers keep their clunks. In the back row last July sat a '62 Rambler wagon, a '65 Imperial, a '49 Chevy pickup, a '66 Buick, and a '53 Ford coupe. I remember because Dad and I were looking for a cheap car to run as a claimer in the stock car races. I was all set to buy that Ford if it was any good at all. I figured to bash out the windows, rip out the upholstery, and weld in a rollbar. I'd dropped by after work that day so we could test-drive it. Dad thought the bearings might be about gone.

I saw the commotion from way down the street. Five or six people were gathered on the sidewalk, looking through the cars toward the back of the lot. I walked the Honda through them, then rolled down the driveway and pulled up next to Ray Lucas. He was leaning against the trunk of a
'71 Buick, looking down at the bloody dentures in his hand and spots of blood that ran down his white shirt and burgundy pants and onto his white shoes. Dad was talking to a girl about my age who instantly reminded me of a Raggedy Ann doll. In one hand she clutched a bouquet of paper money, and from her shoulder hung a cheap packsack out of which poked a beat-up cardboard sign that said
WEST
. The old Ford coupe hung from the company wrecker in the alley. The girl stuffed the bills in her packsack, then tore off her shirt and wrapped Dad's bleeding hand in it. She wore a man's white cotton tank top undershirt, through which her beautiful round breasts were visible to the crowd of us. Dad tried to take off his suit coat to put around her, but he couldn't get his sleeve past the wad of flannel.

“Your fucking father cracked up,” Lucas gummed.

Two bike cops pulled in, flanking me, followed by an ambulance. They leaped off their bikes and grabbed my arms. “Dad!” I yelled. He turned and ran toward us, waving his bloody flannel mitt.

“It's not the kid!” yelled Lucas. “That's the one!” He pointed at Dad. “The guy's gone crazy.”

The cop let me go and raised his hand in front of his chest to show Dad to keep his distance. Dad slowed down and walked the rest of the way to where I sat on the bike. “It's all right,” he said to the cop. “It's all over.” He rested his elbows on my headlight and sighed.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I don't mind a man making money,” Dad said. “But I don't like him stealing it.”

“What happened?” I asked.

“Your fucking father flipped out is what happened,” Lucas said. He shook his bloody dentures in Dad's face. “This crazy bastard broke my teeth!” he yelled at the cops.

The ambulance attendant made Lucas lie down on a stretcher. “For Chrissake,” said Lucas. “I'm all right.”

“We got a call somebody was hurt,” the guy said.

“Well, it ain't me,” Lucas replied.

One of the cops took Lucas's statement and the other took Dad's. All of us, except Dad, leered at the girl. “Fuck you guys!” she screeched, giving us the finger. She turned and fingered the mechanics who stood looking at us from the shop door. She fingered the salesmen looking at us from behind the showroom window.

The ambulance attendant taped Dad's hand and the girl grabbed her shirt from my handlebars.

“Pull that Ford in, park the wrecker, and go down to The Shack and wait for me,” Dad said, flipping me the wrecker keys. “Buy her a sandwich,” he said, pointing to Carla.

Carla and I walked the six blocks to The Shack. I'd have taken her on the bike if I'd had an extra helmet. But I didn't, so I had to push it along the curb. First a guy in a Dodge van stopped to give me and the bike a lift; then a guy in a Toyota pickup stopped. By the time I told them
I was just walking with a friend who didn't have a helmet and thanked them for the offer, Carla was two blocks down the street. I pushed the bike at a dead run to catch her.

“I'm Louden Swain,” I puffed. “That guy back at the car lot was my dad.”

“I know,” she said.

“What's your name?” I asked. God, she was beautiful. She had curly red hair that blew a little in the breeze. Her nose was small and her face was lightly freckled. Her breasts swayed slightly at the speed she walked.

“Carla,” she replied.

“What happened back there?” I asked.

“According to your dad, that guy he punched sold me the car for too much money.”

“How much did you pay?”

“A hundred and forty dollars.”

I could have bought that old Ford for fifty bucks. Lucas sold it to Carla for $140. Dad and I could have dropped another engine in it for that kind of money. She thought she was getting a deal because Lucas filled it with gas. Someone had primered it without sanding, so from a distance the finish looked fuzzy. Carla got off on the idea of a fuzzy car. She also liked all the space created by its lack of a backseat. “Lots of animals could have ridden there,” she said. She made it as far as the freeway ramp.

We got to The Shack and Carla went in without waiting for me. I hustled the bike around to the parking lot and was
sprinting back to the door when Dad pulled in. I walked over to his car. “That was fast,” I said.

“Doesn't take long to lose your job,” he replied.

I didn't press for details.

We spotted Carla in a booth at the very back. Dad said hello to all the waitresses and to six or eight guys in coats and ties seated at the counter and in the booths. They acted a little funny, so I figured maybe they'd already heard what had happened. The Shack's right on what they call “auto row,” so a lot of car-business guys eat there. I'd been meeting Dad for lunch or dinner at The Shack for as long as I could remember. When I was real young Mom would dress me in little suits with hats and short pants and take me down to show me off. Then when I got older I'd take the bus by myself.

“Sorry about putting you through all that,” Dad said to Carla.

“I'm sorry about the trouble I've caused you,” she replied. “And thanks very much for getting my money back.”

“That's all right,” Dad said. “That's all right.”

Dad ordered breakfast, which he eats any time of the day or night, and Carla ordered a burger. I drank water and sucked the ice. It was only a couple weeks before this that I'd decided to drop to 147 for my last high school wrestling season. Normally I wouldn't have begun dieting until September to reach my usual 154, but I was trying to be as slow and gentle with my body as I could so that in
December, when the time came to coax out those seven extra pounds, I'd have its loyalty. I weighed 176 then.

“You can stay with us if you want,” Dad said.

“Sure,” I said. “We've got plenty of room.”

“We'll find you a decent car,” Dad said.

“Sure,” I said. “For a hundred and forty bucks we can find you a car that'll get you anywhere you want to go.”

“That's very, very kind of you,” replied Carla.

Mom told Dad Carla was dirty. Carla's jeans were a little mungy, but she was clean. She washed her panties in the sink in the basement bathroom and hung them from the shower-curtain rod. A little spot of blood shown faintly. I figured she was having her period. She rinsed the sink after she brushed her teeth.

Dad gave Carla my bedroom. I could have slept on the davenport in our other basement room, but Mom wanted me to sleep upstairs. Since she and Dad slept in the two upstairs bedrooms, I would have had to sleep on the davenport in the living room. I didn't feel like doing that, so I moved out to the backyard. I slept in the carport when it rained.

I was working mostly nights, so Mom and Dad and I didn't see each other very often for the rest of the summer. They were usually asleep when I got home and looked in their rooms to tell them good night and turn off their TVs. And I was usually asleep when they came to tell me good-bye on their way to work in the morning.
Dad would come about seven thirty. His footsteps were louder across the cement and he never came all the way to my cot. Sometimes his footsteps would wake me and sometimes it would be his voice from the corner of the garage saying, “So long, Son. Be careful on that goddamn motorcycle.” An hour later I'd wake to the tap of Mom's high heels or to her hand messing with my hair and her voice saying, “Bye, sweetie. Hope you make lots of tips tonight.” I regret not seeing Mom more often then, because she left us for a china-and-glassware man at the end of the summer, and I'm afraid it was the last chance I'll have in my life to live with her. I don't think she left because of Dad's losing his job and selling the cabin and getting sued and stuff. After Mom started to get well she really got into her job selling china and glassware at the Bon Marché. There may be such a thing as a china-and-glassware syndrome. She had already begun to fall away from Dad before Carla and the lawsuit.