Nobody Bats a Thousand (26 page)

She slowly came out of the store, walked around the back of the car, and got in. “No problem, let’s go.”

I took off, made a left out of the parking lot, and looked at her only after I’d driven about a quarter of a mile. She was just sitting there quietly, looking out at the night.

“So what gives? What happened? Was he calling the police?”

“No problem.” S
he turned and smiled. An expression that made her
look
like an entirely different person. “I just told him I thought he was so nice overlooking our little problem that I was going to drop off my brother, and then come back and give him a better blow job than he could ever imagine.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah,” her voice was soft as she spoke slowly. “He gave me all my change, two packs of smokes and a free lighter.” She smiled again.
“You
can’t beat that.”

I just shook my head. My blood pressure must have lowered, because I felt more r
elaxed.
I kept checking the mirror every ten seconds, ready to be red-lighted and pulled over at any moment, but there were no headlights behind or in front of us. Mine was the only car on the road.

“Tell me when we get to Jensen. I know how to get whe
re we’re going from there.” S
he reached back, pulled two beers from the package, opened then both and handed me one.

“Can I ask how old you are?”

“Nineteen.  How old do I look?”

“You seem older than nineteen.”

“I know I don’t look my best.” S
he pulled at the chest pocket of her overalls and looked down. “I’ve been painting.”

“Like pictures?”

“Like walls.  My Auntie was going to pay some guy to do it.  Shoot, I need the money worse than him I’m sure.”

“I hate to paint.”

“Not me, give me a roller and let me at it. Nothing to it just hump thos
e walls, baby, hump those walls.” S
he uncapped the tequila, took a big swig, and handed me the bottle. “
Here.
”

I took it, looked at it, but tried not to smell it. I just tilted it back, took a big pull, and held out the bottle until she took it back. My throat, chest, and then stomach burned.

She took another drink, chased it with her beer then offered me the bottle once again. 

“No, I’ll wait.  Jensen’s the light right up there. Where are we going?”

“To my cousin’s.
Make a right at the light then take the first right, another right, and then a left.
”

I didn’t mention it, but I knew we were headed to the worst part of town, our little taste of the ghetto in the desert. In just a few minutes we were right in the middle of it, dark streets with old worn houses and run-down apartments, old beat-up cars and older cars turned into low-riders with perfect bodies and shiny paint jobs. I knew in this neighborhood you wouldn’t find any kids named Ashley or Brittany or Ryan or Josh, they’d all be Juan or Wang or
Tawana
or Maria.

“Your cousin lives here?”

“Park behind that white pickup.”

“Are you sure she’ll be awake?”

“
He’ll
be awake. He doesn’t sleep much, and he goes to work real early.”

I parked in the dim excess of a weak streetlight. The only one I could see in either direction for a hundred yards.

“Come on, grab the beer.” S
he got out, slammed the door and starting walking up to a small apartment complex that looked abandoned.

What was I doing with this girl?  She was beautiful and crazy and seemed nothing but trouble. I knew I should just drop her off and get the hell out of there. The last thing I wanted to do was leave my car parked on this street, but I was like a zombie who couldn’t say no, and now it seemed I had no choice but to pursue her. I locked both doors and followed until I was standing next to her as she banged on the weathered door of one of the apartments.

“Wh
o is it?” t
he question came in an incredibly deep voice came from the other side of the door.

“Rita.”

The door opened, and there stood a giant with a full brown beard and long greasy hair to his shoulders. He had to be close to seven feet tall but with arms, neck, and chest thick even in proportion to his height. He had on just jeans and a sleeveless T-shirt. Single-colored tattoos decorate
d his arms, shoulders, and neck
. “Come on in, baby.”

Rita went right in. I hesitated then followed her inside.

“Larry, this is Billy. He saved my life.”

The guy held out a massive calloused hand, which I shook. “Call me Stretch, everybody does, except her.”

We were standing in a small kitchen, which had just a refrigerator and a motorcycle, an old Harley with extended forks, parked on the linoleum where you would normally expect to see a kitchen table. Rita gave the giant a beer that he took with him into the larger room of the apartment where there was just a couch, a small table, a lamp, and a radio on the floor.

Rita handed me a new beer and put the twelve-pack into the refrigerator. “Come on.” She directed me to the small couch where the giant was sitting, leaning over the table, snorting a yellowish line of some drug from the glass cover of a picture with a wooden frame. He jerked back, tilted his head back, sniffed hard a couple of times, leaned forward, slid the picture frame under the couch,
and then
opened his beer. “So what’s wrong girl?  If it’s that fucken Mexican you married I’ll ring his fucken neck.  All you have to do is ask once.”

“No, he’s not here.
” Rita was sitting cross-legged on the floor across the table from us. “He called a couple of days
ago, but I wouldn’t talk to him.” S
he pulled the tequila from her pocket, drank at least a shot, recapped and set the bottle on the table. “I just had to get away from Auntie Fay’s and Uncle
Mel’s. Cathy was having a party.” S
he shook her head while she sipped her beer.
“Grit balls and ex-cheerleaders.
It was
like being on a bad acid trip at a pep rally in the middle of a rodeo.”

Larry picked up the tequila, took a drink and washed it down with beer. “I don’t know what to tell
you girl, but you can stay he
re as long as you want.” H
e pulled back and peeked through the curtains to his right. “I’m leaving any minut
e.
As soon as my ride gets here.”
H
e continued to peek outs
ide. “That
your
VW out
there?” H
e looked at me.

“Yeah, what’s wrong?” I started to stand.

“Nothing, you’re okay parked there. Nobody will fuck with it as long as it’s behind my truck. If you parked a block away, either way, these homeboys would have already picked it up and carried it away.”

Rita crawled over towards the wall, plugged in the little radio on the floor, started messing with it, and soon tuned in some jazz on what must have been a station from L.A.  A car horn honked.

“Got to go.
”
Larry stepped right over the table
with ease
, walked to the kitchen, and picked up a tool belt and a small ice chest. “Got to drive all the way to Needles and get
started before it gets too hot.” H
e stopped and looked around like he might have forgotten something. “Hang around if you want to, girl. Just lock the door if you leave.”

“Thanks Larry.”

“See ya,” he said as he walked out the door.

We sat in silence except for a jazz saxophone solo coming from the radio. Rita was looking down at the floor or the table, deep in thought. Her dark green eyes were clear, almost floating. Here I was with this gorgeous wild girl. I didn’t know if being alone with her meant anything or would lead to anything; whether I should run away while I still had the chance or expect to be ready for the greatest night of my life. I knew the only way I could keep from appearing stupid or naïve to this beautiful, worldly woman, nineteen going on forty, was to keep my mouth shut. But finally the nervousness brought on by the silence got to me, and I had to speak.

“So you’re from Las Vegas?”

“
Born
and bred.”

“So what does your husband do?”

“None of your business!” she snapped at me, her manner terse and scary for a few seconds before she mellowed again. “I’m sorry. I just don’t want to talk about it, okay?”

“Sure…sure, but you were wrong about something earlier.”

“Wrong?”

“About not looking good.
Even in those overalls you were the best looking chick at that party, the best looking by far.”

“Yeah?”
S
he scooted closer to the table and smiled, her eyes brightening as she looked directly into mine. She rested her elbow on the table, her chin on the palm of her hand. “You know, you’re cute too.  But I don’t remember seeing you at the party, how come?”

“I tend to lurk in the shadows.”

“Me too,” she said just before she killed off her beer and tossed the empty can over her shoulder where it bounced on the kitchen floor before sliding to a stop. “Get us another beer, would ya Billy?”

I didn’t need one but got up and got her another,
and then
I excused myself and went into the bathroom to unload a piss I’d been holding for about twenty minutes.

In the bathroom I flicked on the light and closed the door. Old Stretch wasn’t the worst housekeeper, but this apartment had probably seen a thousand tenants, and the bathroom had the feeling of a public restroom with everything stained and old. I did my business, and then stood staring into the mirror, trying to figure out what was going on. Here I was in the middle of the ghetto in a giant killer’s apartment alone with the most beautiful woman I’d ever even talked to, who obviously had to be trouble because she was too good to
be true, and the strangest part of it all was I was starting to feel comfortable about it all. I wasn’t as worried as I should have been. I strangely felt rather at home.

I came out of the bathroom just as she was heaving another empty can over her shoulder. I got her another beer, and as I set it on the table in front of her I noticed she had killed off most of the tequila. There was only about an inch of the gold left in the bottle.

I walked to the window and looked out at my car.

“Don’t worry,” she said. “If Larry said it will be okay, it will. He doesn’t bullshit anybody. He always tells the tr
uth. That’s why he’s an outlaw.  J
ust relax, that’s why everybody is so fucked up. Nobody knows how to just relax and have a good time.”

“No?”

“No. They may think they do, but they don’t.”

I sat down.

“Billy.” S
he looked directly into my eyes. “What’s your biggest fear?”

“I never thought about it.” A
nd I hadn’t. Most everything in life scared me to some degree, but I had never stopped to pick out one specific thing.

“Well think about it, isn’t there something that really makes you worried?  That really makes you afraid?”

My first thought was Gina or anybody else finding out I was here, but I wasn’t about to let that secret out.  “Well one thing, but it’s kinda stupid when you try to put it into words.” 

“What?  Come on, it’s just me and you. I won’t think it’s stupid.”

“Okay.
” I had this thought, this picture in my mind, but I knew it wouldn’t come out right. I knew it would really seem dumb put into words. “Okay, here goes…it’s like, I’ll be killing time watching some worthless crap on TV, and I dunno, I start to worry th
at’s all I ever really will be,
just some worthless jerk with nothing better to do in life than work some worthless job to survive to watch worthless crap on TV.”

There was dull silence for just a moment, a moment I felt lamer by the second for my idiotic remarks, but thankfully she skipped right past my tirade and on to another question.

“What about craving? Do you believe cravings are good or bad?”

“You mean like a drug addict craving dope?”

“No, that’s different, that’s almost artificial. I’m talking ‘bout what’s already inside not a direct reaction to coke or smack
.” S
he pause
d
to think.
“Like
craving chocolate cake.
Mayb
e it’s your body telling you it
need
it. Maybe fat people crave food because they are
supposed
to be fat. I’ve known girls who’ve craved dirt when they were pregnant. They actually ate dirt.  It was like their bodies or the baby inside them needed the m
inerals. As
weird as that seems.
” She stopped
talking and
looked at me until I started to feel a little uncomfortable.