splat chapter thirty-one

Suzie did a lot of thinking in the early morning hours, getting up to pee a lot behind the car and developing a splitting headache. She thought about being homeless. She wondered if she'd get arrested. She thought about running away on a freight train. She thought about finding a job, a new place to live. She worried about the guys, about Auntie Mae.

She spent several long moments thinking about driving to Nelson's house and unloading all her stuff there. Hi, Hon, I'm moving in. What do you want for dinner?

She looked forward to seeing Nelson when he drove into work that morning. He'd get there, and find her, and they'd crawl into the back of the spacious Cadillac, and they'd make spectacular love and then drift off to sleep on the cool leather seats.

She woke up in a sweat. The leather seats weren't cool, they were clammy, covered with beer-drenched sweat, smoke permeated sweat. Suzie's mouth stank, her armpits stank, the sweat from her pores stank. She reeked of beer, stomach acid, and smoke. Her teeth were scummy. She needed a shower. She needed a long time in the bathroom.

She lay there thinking kind thoughts about the customer restroom inside the shop, and counting the minutes until it would open. It wasn't very private, and she was allergic to the air freshener. They kept the temperature uncomfortably cold, and the most memorable decoration was a badly patched fist hole in the wall. Probably a customer. But it was heaven to her.

Suzie planned to wash her hair under the tap, then get naked and sponge herself off, and then rinse out her clothes and put them on all wrung out. She might even give her old skanky driving gloves a scrub. She wouldn't even think of doing these things in the bathroom out on the shop floor. It grossed her out just to think of it.

It was hot in the car. All the windows were down, even the sticking one, and there was no breeze. Suzie's skin stuck to the seat and made a peeling sound as she turned over. The sun was up past the trees, and the moment it touched the car it began to sizzle.

Suzie's breath grew flammable. She felt the scorch on her arm and started dreaming she was a dragon just learning to use her powers. She awoke to find the sun coming in the window on her arm, burning scales. The car smelled very bad. Suzie felt like she'd been beaten with sticks. She decided to get out and stretch and find a new spot to pee in.

While she was squatting beside the dumpster wondering why her head was pounding, a car came driving in. She hastily pulled up her shorts and rose. They'd seen her, oops.

It was the well-dressed black woman from the day before. The woman recognized her, too. They stared at each other for a long moment while she parked the car. Then they both looked over at Nelson in the passenger seat. Suzie turned away after a moment and walked around to the front of the building to give them some privacy.

She heard the woman drive off with squealing tires thirty seconds later. Nelson came vaulting around the corner. 'Gee, Baby, it's good to see you. What brings you here so early? Stick around for a minute and I'll roll us up a joint. We can smoke it right here. Nobody's going to be in for awhile.'

That gave him a thought. He sidled up to her. 'Would you like to go somewhere quiet for a few minutes?'

Suzie pushed him away, sharply angry. Her head pounded with the effort.

She was feeling conflicted. Evidence of another girlfriend upset and hurt her. She strongly wanted to punish him. But she still wanted the whole thing to go her way. She wanted him to tell her she was the only one. She wanted to fling herself into his arms and sob, whining, Oh, Nelson, I'm homeless. My house burned down last night, and I didn't get a wink of sleep. I feel sick. I think maybe I was exposed to toxic chemicals. I'm worried about getting arrested. I just want someone to hold me and make it better. Oh, Nelson, I need a place to live.

She desperately wanted him to say, Baby, just move in with me and we'll be happy. But she knew he wasn't going to say that. And so she couldn't say all those things she wanted to say. She couldn't throw herself into his arms. She couldn't afford to let him comfort her.

All she could say was, 'The car you loaned me doesn't work. I need my car back.'

'I don't know if you've noticed, but it's not here at the moment,' he said, unconcerned. She looked at him questioningly.

'It's gone,' he repeated.

'What do you mean?'

'It's just gone.' He shuffled his feet, then grew animated and tried to make light of it. 'Oops, I must have misplaced it,' he mocked himself. 'Where did I put that darned car?' He put his hands on his hips and nodded sorrowfully down at her. 'I said it was being worked on,' he whined. 'Don't you trust me, Baby?'

She whipped her head up and stared at him. 'No. Who is that woman who dropped you off?'

'Oh, she's just a friend. A customer really, like you.'

'What do you mean, a customer? I'm not a customer. I'm your goddamned girlfriend.'

'Of course you are, Baby. She means nothing to me. You're the only one I love.' He puts his hand to his heart. 'Except for Mom.' He went to hug her.

She butted out of his embrace. 'My car. I want my car.'

'It's not all the way fixed,' he warned. 'Of course, you can always take it back the way it is, but it won't run, and what good will that do you? Better let me finish fixing it before you take it. Plus, you know how much I love you, it won't cost you nothing. Save you 300 bucks.'

'I'm worth a lot more than 300 dollars.'

'Certainly, of course. You're priceless. That's why I'll give you the shirt off my back. All you gotta do is ask.'

'Well, I'm asking. Can I have my car back?'

He grabbed his head with both hands and tugged. 'You don't understand,' he said theatrically. 'How can I make it clear to you, Baby? Your car is gone. Off the lot. I'm pretty sure it's over at a buddy of mine's specialty repair place being looked at, but I just can't give it back to you right now.'

She ignored the pretty sure part. And the right now part. 'I need to have a car, Nelson.'

'I know you do, Baby. Listen. I'm gonna give you my car. My own personal car that I can take up the steepest mountain and drive through creeks with. You'll love driving it.'

And he dragged her to the front of the building, where his old, dusty brown beat up Isuzu Trooper sat well off the ground on extra large, muddy tires, the windshield cracked in a dozen places, including what looked like a bullet hole. A big rock, probly, Suzie thought.

Nelson's hand was on his heart in a show of sincerity. 'It's my pride and joy, I want you to know that. It's my own personal car, not a borrowed car, understand. I want you to take good care of it.' He opened the door and handed her inside, dropping the keys into her hand. 'A 1984 Isuzu Trooper. The first SUV.'

'Now, it's a manual transmission,' he explained while she put on her driving gloves. She rattled the gearshift and took it out of gear, tested the brake, pumped the clutch. Suzie looked around the filthy interior. It reeked of old dope smoke. There was the stub of a cigar in the cup holder, and roaches littered the floor along with clods of dirt and cellophane wrappers and crumpled up McDonald's bags.

She tried to start the car, but the starter cranked feebly and refused to turn the engine over. Nelson dismissed the problem. 'It's just running low on juice, it's nothing. Come back tomorrow and we'll see about getting another battery in there for you. It never gives me any trouble, but you're not used to it.' He winked. 'I understand.'

He continued detailing what made this car so special. 'Now wait till I show you how to start it. The trick is, is that you've got to keep feeding it gas or it might tend to stall, at least until it warms up.' (This was a lie. The engine never warmed up enough to keep the idle above stall. But by the time she figured this out, she was miles away.) She got it started after several tries, the starter going rinna rinna for awhile. It stalled immediately. She started it again and pumped the gas pedal like she had a spastic foot. The empty gas tank light came on. She was thinking, This is bullshit.

She had a hangover so bad she could hardly see, and there was Nelson, palming off another broken down vehicle and giving her complex instructions that her life depended on, and all she could think of was going somewhere quiet and lying down.

She turned the engine off and went to get her stuff out of the Cadillac. Then she gave it the once over to see if she'd left anything. She wasn't going to miss that particular loaner.

Nelson had busied himself with opening the bay doors, and was hovering just inside waiting for her to finish going back and forth with her shit. 'I've rolled us a big one,' he announced enthusiastically.

Suzie grimaced. 'You know,' she said, 'I don't have time to hang out.'

'It'll make your hangover feel better,' he said persuasively. It must have shown on her face.

He was right. She stood at the wooden worktable beside him, carefully keeping her distance. She didn't want to talk. But he was nervous. So she decided to push him.

'About that girl who dropped you off.'

'Who? Oh, she's just a friend. Baby, you know you're the only one for me.' He went to put his arm around her, and handed her the joint. Great clouds of smoke escaped into the air of the shop as he began to hack and cough.

Suzie moved away while he stood convulsed. He looked pitiful. But she didn't find a lot of pity in her heart for him. He was more pathetic looking. And she was not in a mood for empathy. He was such a liar.

He straightened up and started pleading again. She stamped up to him and thrust the joint into his hand. 'You know, you can just cut that out right now. I know damn well she's your girlfriend. You've just been taking advantage of me, when I was thinking all along we would get together as soon as you...changed your life, got free, whatever.'

He stood there with a sorrowful expression. 'You've just been putting me off, haven't you?' she continued. 'This excuse here and that one there. Your son being too young, your roommates and how you support them and they depend on you. Telling me I can't come to your house.' She screamed at him, jumping up and down. 'You've been lying to me all along!'

He squealed. 'No! You don't understand. The thing with my roommates, they're a fragile bunch of people. And that girl who drove me in today, she lives real close by and offered to give me a ride.'

But Suzie saw a pattern, going right back to the first time she walked into the garage and saw him standing tall against the sunlight. Lies, manipulations, callously using everyone. Including her. She got in the truck. 'I'm sick of this, Nelson. You can have your car back when you return mine.'

'Oh, Baby, don't be like that.'

She started the engine and pumped furiously on the gas. 'When it craps out on me I'll just leave it. You'll find it at the impound lot.'

Nathan and Nubby were pulling up in Nubby's beat-up old Honda. Suzie took the opportunity to slip away. She got as far as the stoplight in front of the garage before the Trooper stalled again. She had to restart it in the street, using all three pedals to keep the car from stalling again immediately and rolling backwards, feebly cursing the broken emergency brake.

She drove Nelson's wreck straight to the gas station and put five bucks in it. As she was unscrewing the gas cap, she noticed a bunch of police cars zooming down the street the way she'd come. She thought maybe they might be going to Nelson's, and a feeling of hopeful joy uplifted her.

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next, somebody gets theirs