Last Stop This Town (20 page)

Dylan smiled. “Pretty sneaky, sis. Now what?”

Noah looked around, saw no one else in the parking lot, then elbowed the Malibu’s rear tail light, breaking the glass.

“What are you doing?!”

“Relax,” Noah assured him. “I saw this once on ‘The Wire.’”

He cleared out the broken glass and plastic from the tail light cavity and stuck his hand into the hole. He fished around for a moment, looking for the emergency trunk release, when suddenly, voilà! The trunk popped open.

“Holy shit, that was awesome!” Dylan exclaimed, thoroughly impressed.

“Hop in,” Noah said with a sly grin.

“Are you serious?”

“It’s a Trojan Horse,” Noah explained. He patted Dylan on the back and with a hint of condescension added, “Didn’t you ever read the
Iliad
?”

Dylan answered in his best yokel voice, “Nuh uh, they only learned us ‘See Spot Run’ in remedial English.”

Noah climbed in and Dylan followed. Then Noah closed the trunk down on them.

It was pretty damn dark inside the trunk. There were flares, a dirty spare tire, and some rags that looked like they were used to clean a rhino’s ass. But the guys didn’t care. Their hearts were pounding with excitement and this was one of the craziest things they’d ever done.

“Now what?” Dylan asked.

“Now we wait.”

P
IKE CAME OUT
of the bathroom defeated. He’d tried everything, replayed in his mind every porn clip he’d ever seen, and rubbed his member raw. But nothing worked; the drugs in his system were just too much to overcome. So he came out of the bathroom with his head hung low.

Cassandra saw his sad puppy-dog eyes and asked, “You want me to shove this up your ass?” She held up a giant purple dildo.

“Is that a trick question?”

“To stimulate your prostate,” Haley explained. “It’ll help you get hard.”

Pike looked at them. Sex with two beautiful girls and the only price was a monster dildo up the ass.

Pike pondered the decision for what seemed like an eternity.

He sighed. “Have fun, ladies.”

And he sulked away.

Pike retrieved his clothes, got dressed, and let himself out. He walked out of the building, sullen. On the top step of the brownstone, Pike stopped and looked down at his crotch.

And gave it the finger.

“FUCK YOU!!!”

He wandered off.

Up on the roof of the abandoned fish processing plant, the city lights sparkled and the Brooklyn Bridge towered only a stone’s throw away. Walker was on top of Genevieve, making out with her.

This was truly unlike anything Walker had ever done. He’d had girlfriends on occasion and had even made out with a few random girls at parties. But this was different. He really liked this girl, and thinking about her made his stomach hurt. Maybe this was love, Walker considered. Whatever it was, it was nice. And more importantly, it was easy.

Everything was easy with Genevieve. They just clicked, and Walker didn’t find himself second-guessing everything he did. She had led him upstairs and Walker smoothly initiated the romance without any planning whatsoever.

Things were moving slowly forward. Walker had her topless and was letting his hands roam all over her body. It was getting pretty hot and Genevieve was giving Walker the green light to keep going.

As much as Walker wanted to stay in the moment, something deep inside of him pulled him out and he had a moment of self-reflection.
This is it
, he thought.
I’m really going to do it.
He’d built up this moment in his mind so much over his entire adolescence that there was simply no way to let it happen without at least a little out-of-body sense of awe.

But this stoked the fires in Walker’s brain, and once those neurons were firing, it was hard to turn them off. A thought leapt into his head where it was weighed, analyzed, and approved for speaking.

Walker stopped kissing Genevieve and started to confess, “I should tell you, I’ve never done this before. So I might not be that good. I mean, I don’t really know—”

But before he could get the whole speech out, she covered his mouth with her hand.

“Don’t talk.”

She removed her hand.

“Okay,” Walker agreed.

“What did I just say?”

“Don’t talk.”

“And are you following my instructions?”

“No.”

“Still talking…”

Walker finally just smiled. He kissed her and they started to make love.

Back in the trunk, Noah and Dylan passed the time talking. It was obviously an odd place to bond, but after they got used to the smell and overcame their claustrophobia, it was kind of nice.

They talked about the Army and what Dylan would have to do to make Rangers. They talked about memories, like Noah’s tenth birthday party where Jack Unger laughed so hard a pepperoni came flying out of his nose. And they talked about Sarah, about how maybe all the fighting was really just them being scared for the future.

During a lull in the conversation, Dylan asked, “You know what a wingman is?”

“Yeah. I’m supposed to keep the ugly friend occupied while you bang the hottie.”

“No, seriously. In air tactics.”

Noah shrugged.

Dylan explained. “People think it’s all about following the leader and doing what he says, but the wingman’s real job is to
protect
the leader.”

Noah looked at Dylan, his face illuminated by a sliver of light coming through the busted tail light. “What are you saying?”

Dylan met his eyes. “The wingman doesn’t need the leader. The leader needs the wingman.”

A tear welled in Noah’s eye. It was the most emotional, heart-felt thing he’d ever heard Dylan say. And he was just about to return the sentiment when suddenly, they heard a noise.

Noah peeked out through the tail light. “It’s them. Three Brothers Towing.”

They heard some more noises like a chain, some metal scraping, and a hydraulic, then the car jerked up and Noah fell into Dylan. Dylan screamed as Noah’s knee lodged into Dylan thigh, but Noah shushed him.

Some more noises, then the car started moving. As the car was towed away, the guys bumped their heads and got tossed around the trunk.

Dylan looked at Noah. “I hope you know what you’re doing.”

“Me, too,” he replied.

A thought popped into Noah’s head sometime during the bumpy ten-minute ride to the impound lot. What if they were taking them to one of those car crushers? It made no sense—he knew they didn’t crush cars for parking illegally—but what if there were a mix-up? Or the Three Brothers just did it anyway, as a goof? Would they ever even find their lifeless bodies, compacted into a tiny cube like Wiley E. Coyote in a Road Runner cartoon? And if they did, what would they say? All he needed was the headline “Gay Lovers Suicide Pact” haunting his parents for the rest of their lives.

He was just about to tell this to Dylan when suddenly the car stopped. It was lowered to the ground, they heard some more noises, then it was quiet.

The guys waited another minute to be sure, then Noah slowly pulled the emergency release and the trunk opened.

He peeked out. Sure enough, they were inside the towing lot.

Noah saw that the coast was clear and slowly climbed out. He silently helped Dylan out of the trunk, then motioned to him and pointed toward the back of the lot.

It was the Cube.

The two slinked across the lot until they arrived at the Cube. Dylan took his keys and manually unlocked the passenger door to avoid any noise. He did the same to the driver’s door and got in. They closed their doors without a sound.

Once again, their hearts were pounding. Sure, it was Dylan’s own car they were stealing, but it sure felt like grand theft auto to them.

Dylan put the key in the ignition and whispered, “You ready?”

“Let’s do this.”

Dylan turned the key.

Suddenly, Wreckx-N-Effect blasted from the radio, blaring “ALL I WANNA DO IS ZOOMA-ZOOM-ZOOM-ZOOM IN A BOOM-BOOM!”

Dylan darted for the volume control and turned off the “Rump Shaker.”

Noah’s heart started beating again as they waited a moment to see if anyone heard them.

Sure enough, Anthony came out of his little booth to see where the noise had come from. And he was soon joined by his other two brothers, Sal and Vinnie, who came out of the main building.

“Shit,” Dylan sighed.

But there was no turning back now.

“Punch it!” Noah ordered.

Dylan floored the accelerator and the Cube raced out of the lot. Unfortunately, the gate was locked.

As they zoomed forward, Dylan screamed, “What about the fence?!”

“Ram it!”

“
That’s
your plan?!”

“I didn’t think this far ahead!”

But the discussion was moot.

BOOM!

They rammed the fence.

One side of the gate exploded off its hinges and shot up into the air while the other side swung open. The Cube accelerated onto the main street and the gate landed behind the car.

Dylan looked back in the rear view mirror. Both of them were pumped up on adrenaline and couldn’t believe it.

“Holy shit!” Noah exclaimed.

Back in the lot, the original asshole, Anthony, yelled, “They’re stealing that car!”

Vinnie shouted, “Mother fuckers!”

“Get them!” Sal ordered.

The three brothers jumped into their cheesy muscle car and sped after them.

It was roughly two a.m., the Cube was racing along Flatbush Avenue at sixty miles per hour, and three insane Italians were chasing them in a Camaro.

Noah saw the Camaro gaining on them and yelled, “Head towards the bridge!”

“Which way?!”

“There!”

The Cube turned onto the Manhattan Bridge.

In the Camaro, Vinnie, the youngest of the three brothers, and sporting a thick bushy moustache not unlike Super Mario, yelled from the passenger seat, “They’re taking the bridge!”

Sal, the eldest, with no official beard, just a thick layer of five o’clock shadow, floored it.

Still, the guys had a good thirty-second lead. The bridge dumped the Cube out onto Canal Street and as they sped along, they saw a guy walking.

“Pike?” Dylan wondered aloud, not sure if he was right.

Noah yelled, “Stop! Stop the car!”

Dylan slammed on the brakes and the Cube skidded toward the curb, leaving a trail of burnt rubber. The noise got Pike’s attention and he looked up just as the Cube screeched to a halt right in front of him.

He leaned in through Noah’s open window. “Hey, guys.”

Noah screamed, “Get in!!!”

Pike saw that some shit was going down and quickly jumped into the back seat.

Dylan peeled out.

Stopping for Pike had given the Camaro time to catch up, and now the Italians were only a few yards behind them.