Kirby Michael Wright

New Boston

Uncle Bobby gave his nephew a bottle of Aqua Velva aftershave as a parting gift. Maybe he’d caught a whiff of George at the Jolly Trolley Casino and wanted him to be more appealing to the fairer sex. My pal’s odor was somewhere between gas and charcoal. He was my height but had better muscles. George had a cocky swagger, as if aching for a fight. He’d punched out a bully on The Hill who strong-armed me for money. George had wanted to teach the bully “a real lesson” by throwing him through a plate glass window, but I talked him out of it.

Before pulling out of the driveway, Uncle Bobby slipped me an International Hilton pocketknife. He was good at giving keepsakes that made you feel special. Each time I opened and closed the knife I felt like a boy. I dragged the blade over my forearm and shaved off a few hairs, the way I did in Cub Scouts.

George drove his Catalina past the pink-and-white tent façade of Circus Circus on Las Vegas Boulevard. After Tropicana Boulevard, the deadlands emerged. The raw desert threw up treeless mountains and bone-dry hills. The sun hovering in the east was an angry eye. It was late morning. It felt as though the planet was the same time everywhere. Distant trucks shimmered in heat mirages. George veered to avoid a crossing snake, tapping his fingers on the wheel to “Riders on the Storm.” The song seemed to fit my pal. He was a former gang leader in New Jersey and a black belt. Sometimes I called him Wildman to honor his violent past. As a reward, he occasionally called me Killer. Maybe the reward was a result of me tagging him in the jaw when we sparred in the basement of Baker Hall. I wanted to live up to that nickname but wasn’t sure how. We passed an abandoned dinghy on a flat-tired trailer. George dipped his pinkie nail into the coke and snorted the white.

The only breaks from desert monotony were the overpasses, which made it feel as though you were gliding through tiny tunnels. Entrances were decorated with portraits of rams, roadrunners, and other wildlife. The 93 South rose and dropped. Roadside scrub shivered in the breeze thrown by the Catalina. A cop car’s lights flashed ahead—he pulled over a red Trans Am. I thought about getting stopped and being arrested for possession.

The rest stop was packed with trucks and RVs. I could see five miles down the road. It felt as though the land would swallow us and spit us out into a zone of hell. Green signs with miles to go meant nothing when our destination was hours away. We zoomed past campers, trailers, and drivers slow as snails. A jagged mountain looked like a monument to the Wild West. I imagined the ghosts of natives, settlers and gunslingers searching the barren terrain for things they remembered.

The broken white lines and the forever view made Texas seem far away. The freeway rose, dipped, and rose again. Telephone poles lining the southern side were crucifixes. A pack of crows fought over a roadkill rabbit.

We reached the bridge connecting Nevada to Arizona. It had curved arches on either side. Seeing the ice blue water of the Colorado River restored my hope that we’d eventually leave the desert behind. Massive palms were rooted in the river’s northern banks. George said we were closing in on Kingman.

I sprawled out on the bench seat in back, resting my head on a red gas can wedged in the corner. The sound of splashing gas lulled me to sleep. I dreamt the world was on the brink after a nuclear exchange with the Soviet Union. Phones didn’t work. No TV. Jobs ended. Travel by rail, plane, and bus vanished. Only cars and trucks moved, but they died when the gas ran out. Life became hand-to-mouth.

“Wake up, Sleeping Beauty,” George said.

“Huh?” I asked.

“Welcome to Phoenix.” He pulled into a Union 76. The station’s temperature sign flashed eighty-two degrees. It was warmer than Vegas. My eyes burned. I wasn’t sure what caused the tears but guessed it was from the smog. A dark gray blanket hung over the station as George spurted twenty-eight–cents-a-gallon ethyl into his tank. There were round Sunoco storage tanks across the street and warehouses with gleaming metal roofs. I tasted oil on the tip of my tongue. Beyond the tanks and warehouses, the ‘burbs spread out like tentacles. It was a great place to work on a tan if you could stand the taste of oil. It would be a bad place to die. I couldn’t fathom my soul finding the strength to exit my body in this city.

George lit a Kool after pumping. He was a dragon blowing smoke through his nose. I figured he was shifting his drug of choice to slow down his intake of coke. Why wasn’t I worried about getting caught? Did I want prison? Who knows. But I didn’t want to be behind bars without Wildman watching my back.

Upon leaving Phoenix, I told George about my crush. He called my infatuation “puppy love” and said I was better off forgetting Betty, especially since that Vegas goombah was probably her boyfriend. He warned the mobster might want to eliminate his competition. I frowned. “He’d bury me under that old racetrack.”

“Or dig your grave in the desert,” my pal said.

George turned the wheel over to me two hours into our drive to Texas. He chain-smoked riding shotgun before closing his eyes. He rested his head on the half-open window, using his hand for a pillow. “Sweet Home Alabama” played on the radio. I cranked it. I tried singing along but my voice was flat. I drove a steady eighty and flew through Tucson. It was easy driving in hot, bright sun. As co-pilot, I felt like the understudy of an older flyer searching for meaning in cities and towns. Almost everything I saw was unexpected. I realized this journey, no matter what happened, would stay with me forever. A tumbleweed spun across the freeway. Skinny cows chomped on scrub. George had told me he was dropping out. I had no intention of following his lead. But the road did have certain advantages—it was hands-on learning without blackboards, deadlines, or grades. The 10 swung south, delivering us to El Paso. The crossing had a row of white barricades flashing red lights.

I nudged George. “We gotta stop.”

He cracked an eye. “What the hell for?”

“Checkpoint’s crawling with cops.”

“Drive right through.”

A fat officer perched on a barstool was stationed behind a barricade. He cradled a shotgun. There were two more cops huddled in the shade of an inspection station. They all wore blue sleeveless tops and dark blue pants. No hats. I braked and parked. He eased off the stool with the gun and moseyed over to my open window. “Where you comin’ from, boy?”

“Colorado.”

“State your purpose.”

“Sightseeing,” I replied.

The cop spit. He reminded me of an angry bulldog. “Open the trunk.”

Wildman got out. He rested his arms over the Catalina’s roof. “Open for what?” he asked, giving the officer the stink eye. “Wanna see my dirty underwear?”

The cop said nothing. George popped the trunk. The cop leaned his shotgun against the rear bumper. He dug around in back for a few minutes before slamming the lid.

He moved the barricade and waved us through. I thanked God he hadn’t searched the interior.

After five hours of driving with only one sagebrush pee, we reached the WELCOME TO STANTON sign. It was subtitled “Home Of 3000 Friendly People And a Few Old Sore Heads.”

“Hungry?” George asked.

“Famished,” I replied.

“My treat for lunch.”

Driving to town, I spotted a pair of vultures camped on a cactus. One groomed its wings. Behind the birds, a green donkey rig sucked oil out of the ground. The donkey head moved up and down in perpetual motion. The wind kicked up, blowing puffs of smoke-like dust.

I reached the city limits of Stanton. A milk-white water tower with a red buffalo logo loomed over downtown like a sentinel. The tower marked the location of the old jailhouse. On the main drag, we passed the White Motor Company and the Texas Theater. The playhouse was adorned with two big red stars. There was a TEXAS SOUP COOK-OFF banner suspended over Saint Peter Street. The sturdy brick buildings along the main drag harkened back to an oil town with steady employment and large families. I wondered how many Stanton men had died in our country’s wars.

I parked in front of Stanton Drug & Grill. The building was made of apricot-colored brick. I swung open the glass door and followed George in. We were greeted by the aromas of hot oil and sizzling fat. There was a row of red vinyl booths along a mirrored wall. A chubby Hispanic lady flipped burgers on the grill behind a chipped countertop. We grabbed a booth. A girl who looked as though she could be the cook’s daughter was our waitress. We ordered double cheeseburgers and malts.

The pharmacy took up the span of the back wall. A grandfatherly man in a white coat filled orders behind the counter. There was a clay doll of a pharmacist holding mortar and pestle on a shelf above a rack of snacks. A line of women waited to buy drugs, one rocking a baby. The gals knew each other and made a big fuss over the baby’s blue eyes. A grandma in a straw hat bragged she had the winning recipe for the soup contest. Men-chatter from the booths competed with women gossip. Most of the guys wore cowboy hats. A few checked us out. Those without hats had crew cuts or were bald. The men gabbed about high school football, failing rigs, and the Dallas Cowboys. One was excited about a big cotton harvest in nearby Malta.

Our orders arrived. The meat had dark brown blotches from well-done grilling, but it tasted outstanding. I gobbled down my burger in minutes, in-between gulps of vanilla malt. The malt was so thick I couldn’t use a straw. George’s appetite had improved; I figured it was due to his break from coke. He finished his burger and sucked hard on the straw stuck in his chocolate malt.

“That’ll take forever,” I said.

He picked up his glass and gulped. His Adam’s apple bobbed like a float.

George started a conversation with Josh, a guy wearing Army fatigues in the adjoining booth. He looked down in the dumps. Josh was in his early twenties and my size and build. He told George he was “on the run” from the military and begged George for a ride to Little Rock.

“AWOL?” George asked.

Josh nodded. “Ya gotta help me. Got no friends. No money. Nowhere to go.”

I heard Texas in his voice. I think the rebel in my pal made him want to help. He let Josh ride shotgun. I didn’t mind sitting in back. I think George wanted me behind to keep an eye on our passenger. I flicked open my pocketknife and held the blade inches below the front seat. I imagined Josh making a grab for the wheel and me sinking the blade in his neck. He talked about boot camp and getting punched out by the sergeant for failing to clear a wall. He said living in a barracks with a hundred other recruits was like living in prison, with slop for meals and lights out by nine. I felt for him, yet at the same time didn’t trust him. He had a tattoo of a hula girl on his forearm and black stars on his hand.

Why George had offered Josh a ride was a mystery. I think he enjoyed flirting with danger and dodging arrest. I knew he was troubled. Before we’d left the dorm, he’d slammed two fists through a basement window and blamed being high on acid. He’d done acid only once before as a freshman, when a senior lured him onto the Baker Hall roof, slipped him blotter acid, and ordered him to jump.

“Gotta piss,” Josh confessed.

“I’ll stop at the next station,” George replied.

We pulled over at Texaco. The station shared a lot with a Stuckey’s restaurant. They were built so close it appeared they were joined at the hip. Joss got out and darted for the toilet.

“We gotta lose Mister AWOL,” I told George.

“He bug you?” George asked.

“We’ll go to jail if the cops stop us.”

George lit a cigarette. “Aiding and abetting.”

“You got it. They pull you over for anything in Texas.”

“And ask to inspect your dirty underwear,” he chuckled, blowing smoke at the windshield. “Should we split?”

“Yes.”

George floored it and we burned rubber out of the lot. I looked back and saw Josh dart out of Texaco. He was fast. Josh chased us for a good mile before giving up.

Four hours east of Stanton, we reached Fort Worth and Dallas. I didn’t know where one city ended and the next began. To me, it was one giant megalopolis. George took the six-lane Harbor Bridge over monstrous Lake Ray Hubbard. It was an inland ocean. The bridge wasn’t more than ten feet above the surface of a lake tinted green. A train track ran parallel to the bridge. Sailboats and other pleasure craft scooted across the water. It was hard to tell the lake’s width. I saw a double-decker pontoon equipped with a water slide. Yellow kayaks raced along the shore. There were wetlands directly below the bridge, with mud flats extending out. Herons, egrets, and pelicans shared the flats. It was a refreshing change from city driving, with water views stretching to the east. Fishermen crowded a pier, their poles hanging over the water. They were hooking crappie. A cool breeze off the water blew through my open window.

George took a long puff and flicked the butt out the window. He ignored the lake. He seemed focused on making it to the other side and getting to New Boston. We were two hours away from Dennis and his wife. I guessed he was worried about seeing his brother after a three-year hiatus and whether their high school problems would flare up.

Approaching New Boston, George said he had something important to tell me about his big brother. Dennis “the Menace” had been a thorn in George’s side since birth. His brother had reached through the bars of his crib, grabbed his baby body, and slammed him over and over against the bars. That was his earliest memory. Their rivalry came to a head during a joint high school party. George invited Jeannie, a fellow freshman, to the gathering. Jeannie was a fox. Dennis, a senior, told George his girlfriend was a slut. During the festivities, Dennis lathered Jeannie up with shots of whiskey. George found them in the master bedroom. “Worst day of my life,” George admitted.

I couldn’t understand why he’d stayed friends with Dennis. I’d had trouble with my big brother too, but nothing like that. Maybe my pal thought it was easier on the family not to advertise what Dennis had done, but I ached to launch a knuckle sandwich to test his jaw. George had dumped Jeannie and spiraled into a series of relationships that fizzled. He couldn’t find a woman to love. That gave him a mean edge, like an over-sharpened blade that had turned brittle.

We followed the 82 through the heart of New Boston. There was a mural of a settler arriving in 1840 on a red horse-drawn stagecoach with yellow-spoked wheels. Most of the downtown businesses had two-story false fronts, some with canvas awnings hanging over entrances for shade. Locals buzzed sidewalks fringed with curbside weeds. Three girls in denim overalls waved. We passed Cowboy Guns, Longhorn Grill, and Riverbend Flea Market. A cop car followed. Two officers were inside. It was a blue and white cruiser with blue lights mounted to the roof.

“Company,” I told George.

“I know,” he said. “I’ve been watching. They’ve got a Plymouth Satellite.”

“Is that fast?”

“Fast enough,” George replied.

He pulled the Catalina over, got out, and waved. The Satellite parked behind us. George raised his arms, as if surrendering. The cops were out of their car in seconds. They had Navy-blue uniforms and matching cowboy hats. One touched the handle of his holstered gun. Both looked like ex-football players.

“I’m lost,” George admitted.

“What business you got here?” one cop asked.

“Visiting my brother.”

The second cop flashed a suspicious look. “What’s his name?”

“Dennis Holiday. Works for Mobil. Lives in Shady Lane with his wife.”

The fact George had family in town calmed the officers down. One unfolded a map. They had us follow them through a neighborhood of small gray homes. The street seemed abandoned, except for two guys changing a truck’s oil in their driveway. The leafless trees reminded me of skeletons. We passed a red brick church framed by evergreens. We continued trailing the Satellite to a sign for Shady Lane Village. The park was tucked behind a mesquite grove. The cops pointed to an access road. We took it. The Catalina’s tires churned the gravel.

“Those two had plans,” George told me.

“Cutting our hair?”

He smirked. “Worse than that.”

Dennis Holiday lived in a double-wide, a stone’s throw from Texarkana. He’d saved the down payment for a real home but was waiting to get transferred to Denton. Roxanne, his wife, had a chipmunk face and an hourglass figure. I didn’t know what she’d seen in Dennis. He had early Beatles hair, a pinhead jaw, and shifty eyes. I didn’t trust him. He’d met Roxanne at a big oil party in Dallas, where she performed as a Mobil Oil cheerleader. Their pad was roomier than it appeared from the outside. An orange shag rug adorned its floors. Horseflies crawled the windows and a yellow wasp buzzed the kitchen. It was filled with cheap furniture, the kind you buy as kits, assemble at home, and lose half the screws. A wall was dedicated to New Jersey family photos, mostly Christmas oldies. George didn’t smile. The only sign of his affection was an arm draped over his kid sister’s shoulders. Dennis handed us Miller High Life in bottles. We hunkered down at a rickety kitchen table. I could tell George was attracted to Roxanne by the way he kept checking out her butt. She wore white shorts that showed off her long legs. She was bent over the stove making lasagna.

I burped after my first swig of beer. Dennis laughed. “Don’t drink much suds, do you, freshman?” he teased.

“Hardly,” I replied.

The brothers seemed to get along, but there were dead air moments in their conversation. They reminded me of two boxers feeling each other out in the first round. Dennis had a habit of blinking with only one eye. It made you think he was lying. He said he was sick of working as a Systems Engineer for Mobil and was ready to move on to greener pastures. He hated living in the sticks. He asked George about his engineering classes. Wildman said he was dropping out of CU.

“That’ll go over big with the old man,” Dennis said.

“Need time to figure things out.”

“Time for what? Your degree’s worth 20K-a-year, easy.”

“I’ll work a year before going back.”

“Don’t be a bum, lil brother.” Dennis polished off his beer and cracked open a second. His framed diploma on the wall said he’d graduated summa cum laude from the University of Texas in Austin. He reminded his brother there would be great offers upon finishing his degree. His fatherly advice impressed me until I remembered what he’d done at that high school party. He was the kind of guy who could either be your best friend or your mortal enemy. “Anyhow,” Dennis said, “I’ve got good news.”

“Let’s hear it,” George said.

“I know how to get you guys free lodging.”

“Spill the beans.”

“We used a secret handshake at my frat, one that would get a free night at any Delta Chi in the South. Wanna learn it?”

George nodded. “Sure.”

“If it’s free,” I quipped, “it’s for me.”

We crashed after lasagna dinner and watching a rerun of The Lawrence Welk Show for laughs. George had the guest bedroom. I got the living room couch. The couch stunk of stale beer. A rooster crowed me awake before the crack of dawn. Something smelled good. Roxanne was frying bacon and eggs. I was hungover from three beers. My eyes were glued to Roxanne. Her pink tube-top revealed hard, pointy nipples. Roxanne saw me looking and winked. George stumbled out of the guest room with bloodshot eyes.

“Welcome, Sleeping Beauty,” I said.

He flopped down at the table. He lit a cigarette. “Killer,” he said, “the Colorado comedian.”

George announced our departure, and I followed him out to the Catalina.

Dennis stood on the cement landing outside the front door. He crossed his arms, tucking his hands under his biceps to make them bulge. “Go ravage LSU,” he said.

“Why there?” I asked.

“Killer chicks in Baton Rouge.”

“I can go for that,” George said.

“Remember the handshake,” Dennis reminded him.

“They’ll make me Honorary King of Delta Chi,” George laughed.

We climbed into the Catalina and George churned down the gravel road. He wanted to make Baton Rouge before dusk. The college town was five hours away. He hit the coke. He took Interstate 49 south and followed the signs for Baton Rouge. There were desolate stretches of arid countryside but also forests. It grew warmer. Soon we were passing Shreveport. George didn’t want to stop because he’d heard the city was the murder capital of America. We passed boarded-up homes and high-rise hotels. My pal’s iron grip on the wheel meant he wasn’t going to relinquish control.

I think George thought of driving as the closest thing to flying, a way to gaze down at the world as if he created it or at least was responsible for some small part. Maybe he saw imperfections in the cities and towns that would help him find faults in himself. He was on a quest to discover the truth, including the weak spots hindering his ability to love. I guessed he wanted to change what was wrong inside before it was too late, before he was throbbing with self-hatred and old man regret.