The Weir

“How come you’re so stuck on this chick?” Arm wanted to know while sitting on the hood of Butch Parker’s Fairlane in the Willow Grove Cemetery one spring morning during second-hour physics, sharing a fatty with Butch.

“What makes you think that?” Butch said.

Arm chuckled.

“You’re always bringing her up.  Don’t take no prophet to know who your God is. I only need to look at your life.”

The sleeves of Butch’s windbreaker snapped against his skin.  The bangs of his hair whipped across his brow, sticking briefly in place, then whipping fiercely back across the top of his skull.

“I don’t know.  I guess ... I don’t know.”  He shrugged.  “What you said.  I guess I can’t help it.”

Arm took the popping fatty from the tips of Butch’s thumb and index finger.

“There’s always a reason.”

“There is?”

Arm chuckled.

“Like what, is it her body?  Is that what you miss?”

“It’d be on the list.”  Butch took a hard toke.  “Pretty high up there, in fact.”

“Understandable.”

“See?”

Pot smoke puffed haltingly from Butch’s nostrils.

“Okay, then, what happens when she gets old and wrinkled, and you keep getting handsomer and handsomer?”

“She does?  I do?”

“Hey, what can I say?  It’s the way of the world,” Arm said matter-of-factly, twirling his tobacco-stained hand toward the sky.  “The circle of life.  That’s why we need fairy tales, like the Titanic.”  He took the fatty from Butch.  “I could go for some donuts, buddy.  Couldn’t you go for some donuts?”

Butch said nothing, as the winds of spring shoveled their sweetened blue through his hair.

“I’m buyin,” Arm said.

“She got to be pretty big, somehow,” Butch said, sounding as though he were talking to himself.  “Big, you know?  It just happened.”

They rode to the bakery.  Arm gave the lady with the big loose-skinned arms behind the counter a decent workout, sending her from end to end of the donut display.  Butch paid for the donuts.

Inside the Fairlane, as they rode toward the Lake Pearl beach, Arm gobbled his donuts in bites of two, shoveling them in so that his cheeks ballooned in shiny bulges.  Even the creamiest, frostiest, most jellied donuts met the same fate, oozing their remnants across the corners of his mouth and toward his jaws.

“Ahh,” he exhaled, lips powdered with sugar, “a colossal, good thing.”

They rode on through second hour and into third, the radio on low, windows halfway down.  The winds purled into the car, tracing temporary pictures with Arm’s and Butch’s cigarette smoke, snapping them to pieces and back out the windows.

“My grades are slippin to an all-time low,” Arm said.

“Same here.”

“I doubt you have to worry.”

“How so?”

“I mean, since when was the last time you ever flunked a quiz or test?  Nineteen-Twelve?”

“I’ve had my share.”

“Tell me another good one.”

“I’m dumb with girls.”

“Naw, you’re just too serious.”

“Not you, too.”

“I try not to be.”

“That’s not what I mean.”

They rode past Rene’s house, a four-story maroon manor less than a block from the country club.

“There it is, babe,” Arm said, looking out his window.  “Your Mecca.”

Butch leaned forward to get a glimpse.  He felt like a tourist.

Arm shook his head.

“There’s bucks for you.  Filthy, man.  I can’t figure how you even got half a chance with her.”

“Hey, we got along,” Butch said.

Arm pulled a half pint of bourbon from his jean jacket and unscrewed the cap.

“Yeah, that’s what it looked like, all right, to your average objective observer.  But the wall was there.”  He tipped the bourbon and let out a hissing sigh.  “The wall was there.”

“What wall?”

“The wall of dough, guy.  Somethin you ain’t got no control over,” Arm said with a wave of his hand.  “See, you and me, we grew up in a modest financial situation.”  Suddenly, Arm was speaking in formal tones, his face tilted slightly upwards, red lips dampened, as though he were delivering a speech to a large assembly.  “You’re an only child, so you probably got all you could get, but me, I got two brothers and a sister, so I know what it means to share a loaf of bread and a Largemouth bass.”

“Huh?”

“Yup.  Holes in the linoleum, cracks in the paint, old man workin up a sweat, old lady’s big day out at the beauty parlor, bad grass in the backyard ... you name it, your little angel ain’t lived it.”  Arm placed his foot on the dash.  He was wearing a flimsy hush puppy shoe and fuzzy orange socks.  “It ain’t no surprise she dumped you, but it’s nothin to be ashamed of.”

“You know, I swear I got this same speech, or a variation of it, from Assface.”

“And there you have it, Freddy.”

“Come on, Assface is rich?”

“Assface is status.  I don’t know about rich, but you and me, we don’t star on the football or basketball team, do we?  He gets applause, his name in the paper.  Hey, and we ain’t no studs like that.  He’s got looks, big muscles, good hair, blue eyes, I’ll bet.  White teeth.”  Arm paused to run a finger across his own brownish-yellow teeth.  “Besides that, he is rich—richer than you or me.  My old man’s a paper mill grunt.  Yours is a shirt salesman.  His old man owns two car dealerships, rips people off left and right.  Like it’s a big party.”

Butch’s insides were twisting, but his face remained serene.  His palms were sweating, but the backs of his hands remained dry.  He was pleading, but his words remained steady.

“She never complained to me.  We went out.  We had a good time.  And she seemed pretty independent, extremely independent.”

“So?” Arm said.  “You sound like a talk show.”

“So, what’s she need a rich guy for?  You’d think she’d want to make her own money.”

“No way, buddy.  When’s the last time you’ve seen some chick from a rich family celebratin the ol’ fiftieth with her tow truck-drivin husband?  That just ain’t the way it works.  Rich chicks need rich guys,” Arm said, waving his free hand for emphasis, “guarantees they’re going to be able to continue their lifestyles.  They need that guarantee.  Security, Butchie.  You got security to offer?  Big-time bungalow, cookie-cutter McMansion in the new subdivision?  Down payment for the Hummer or the Escalade?  Tuition for the kid’s private schooling?  Funds for her exercise classes?  Her clothes?  Listen, bud, she may be Miss America in holey jeans now, but the day that hot little bod of hers goes to pot, trust me, you’ll be left holding the bill.  And then what?  Temptations, extra-marital affairs, divorce proceedings, spoiled-brat kids on Ritalin and filthy rich counselors vacationing in Tahiti.”  Arm tipped the bourbon again.  “Oh, I’m sorry, brother.  How inconsiderate of me.”  He held the bottle toward Butch.

“May I ask you a question?” Butch said, taking the bottle.

“Shoot.”

“Have I just entered the twilight zone?”

“Twilight zone, future shock, a visit from the oracle, whatever you want to call it, my friend.  I’m just trying to show you the future.”

“And the future is?”

“Wrinkles.  And financial portfolios.”

Butch thought of Rene’s completely wrinkle-free centerfold legs in the cheerleading skirt, her hips swaying side to side in the October morning light.  He thought of her thin black mustache, the powdery smell of her sweater, the cool-leather feel of her thin hands, the wet shine of her lightly lipsticked lips parted in a half smile in winter.  He was blinded by those memories, stricken dumb, and he suspected it, but felt no worse for the wear.  He sipped a half-shot from the bottle.

“But we’re from the same town, barely a mile apart.  Come on,” he said.  “What’s she think, she lives on Park Avenue?”

“Park Avenue, Boardwalk, Easy Street ... what’s the diff, pal?  When you got it, you got it, and when you got it, you get used to getting it.”

Butch tilted his head to one side, thinking.

“So if I were you,” Arm said, “I’d try to put this chick behind me, or in front of me, depending on your view.”  He took the bottle from Butch, gulped a double-shot and hissed the alcoholic exhaust.  “She’s poison, pal, not your kind of lady, I’m afraid.”  He held the bottle toward Butch, wiping his mouth with a jacket sleeve.  “Better lighten up, try to enjoy the moment, ‘cause pretty soon it won’t matter how rich or poor, educated or uneducated we are; we’ll all be on the treadmill.  We’ll all be sportin some version of the Burger King uniform.”

“How come we went out for so long, then?” Butch said, taking the bottle from Arm.  “How come she gave me little pins to stick on my jacket?  What about the cupcakes she baked?  And the pies?  She used to send me little cards with baby bears and things on them.  How come she bought me gloves for Christmas?  How come she gave me a box of chocolates on Valentine’s Day?”

“It was your slow massacre,” Arm said.  “Turn here.”

“Come on.”

“What can I say?  Your stagecoach turned back into a pumpkin.  She saw through your princely demeanor.  She kissed you and you turned back into a frog.  It’s all a guess, but I say all you need is cash, pal, cash.”  He tilted his head quickly to one side, raised his brows and frowned with a thought.  “Or good credit.”

“What makes you know so much?”

“Thirty-thirty vision, I suppose.  Plus, Toot tells me things.”

“What about Toot?  Will she wrinkle?”

“Not a chance.  She’ll die young and broke but damn beautiful.”  Arm motioned through the windshield.  “Right here.  Don’t turn.”

“Where’re we going?”

“To the weir, guy.  To the weir.”

“The weir?” Butch said, showing his teeth.

“You betcha,” Arm hissed, a half grin on his face, eyes widened and glazed over.

“But we don’t have much time.”

“Which is why we’re here.”

“Three classes is a lot to miss in one day, a little over the limit, you’d think.”

Arm shrugged.

“We’re seniors.”

“Tell my mom that.”

They drove down a two track, through trees leafy and green with the new spring, winding along a dirt path that gradually turned to gravel.  And then the trees backed away and up ahead appeared a one-story cement building and, next to it, a cement foundation that resembled a swimming pool.  The foundation was enclosed in a high chain-link fence.

“Yahoo,” Arm said.

The Fairlane’s wheels crunched to a stop.  Butch and Arm got out.  Butch felt light-headed.  The morning sun reflected whitely from the fence and foundation.  Butch and Arm approached, their feet crunching unsteadily upon the gravel.

“Wait a minute,” Butch said, placing a hand on Arm’s arm.  They stopped.  “What’re we doing?”

“The fish, guy.  We came to see the fish,” Arm said, resuming his advance.  “The fish before the slaughter, life before death.”

Butch held his position momentarily, then followed, shading his eyes from the increasing glare.

Arm broke into a trot, swinging his arms in an easy motion.  He picked up the pace.  Little clouds of gravel dust puffed up around the sides of his hush puppies.  Soon his arms were swinging in full motion and he was moving at a frightful clip, like a fullback churning up field for a first down—hulking, smoking, unstoppable.  Butch trotted along behind.

At the foundation, Arm gripped the chain-link fence as though he were a boy at the zoo.  His mouth was open.  Butch raised his arms above his head and leaned his elbows into the fence.  Dark waters brewed within the borders of the foundation, purling over grates and grids of various sizes and elevations, twisting through screens.

“What’s all this?” Butch said.

“The fish,” Arm said, sunlight reflecting from his face.  “They’re pretty cool.”

Butch peered into the gurgling waters.

“What fish?  I see pipes, I think.”

“They run every twenty minutes, gobs of them babies.”  Arm held out his hands, palms cupped and facing each other, fingers slightly spread, as though he were holding a precious vase.  “It’s supposed to be pretty cool.”

“Supposed to?  Who said this?”

“What’s it matter, long as it was said?  I’ve heard it.”

Butch looked at the one-story cement building.  He could not make out the white sign marked with red letters, but the letters made the unmistakable shape of a warning.

“Since when’ve you been into this?” he said.  “Fish?”

“Listen,” Arm said, pulling his face closer to the fence, making it rattle.

Butch leaned forward, too, waiting with Arm in silence.  He heard nothing but the low gurgle of the waters, a fading rattle rippling around the fence, the clatter of a generator next to the building, the wind hooting high in the trees.  Arm leaned back, mouth still open, and rolled his eyes toward the sky, then down to the waters.

“Are you sure about this?” Butch said.  “I’ve never heard of it.  I didn’t know this place was here—well, I knew about it, heard about it, of course.”

“Shh,” Arm said, nodding toward the far end of the fence.  “Let’s go down there.  We might get lucky down there.”

Butch followed Arm, trying to breathe at a normal rate.  At the other end, Arm squatted at the fence, gripping it with one hand above his head.  He and Butch looked hard for signs of fish.  The spring sky reflected off the dark waters, rippling.  Now and then a blooping sound came from the water, and a bubble rose slowly to the surface, popping at the top.

“We might be out here all day,” Butch said.  “That’s a lot of detention.”

“Ain’t it great?”

Arm smiled.

“Not really, not if you knew my parents.”

“I know your parents,” Arm said.  “They’re kind people.  They’d understand.”

“I’ll give you kind, perhaps, but understanding is a whole new ballgame, particularly in this case.”

“There you go, again.  What’s to worry about, guy?  We’re graduating.  Our records are all set.  This is the second semester of our senior year.  They know we can’t concentrate anymore.  They know our learning potential’s extinct.  They know we’re gonna coast.”

“I wish I could believe you.”

“I’m telling you, I know it for a fact.  The teachers know the sponges in our skulls can’t absorb no more.  They see their words dripping out our ears and noses and mouths, and let me tell you something, guy: They’re getting sick of us makin a mess of their floors, and the janitors ain’t appreciating all the extra moppin.  That’s a fact.”

“As long as I’m standing out here with you, in the real world, I can believe that.”

“Shh,” Arm said.  “I think I see movement.”

“How come we’re being so quiet?” Butch said.  “That generator, or whatever the heck it is, practically drowns out anything we say.”

Arm straightened up, loosening his grip on the fence, and looked in the direction of the cement building.

“Good point,” he said.

They leaned against the fence in silence, watching the waters.

“Can we go now?” Butch said.

The booze and weed had begun to burrow into his stomach lining.  He wished he had finished his donut.

“In a minute.  Hang on.”  Arm backed away from the fence and stepped toward the woods.  “I just wanna go down here quick.  Come on.”

Butch let out a small screech, barely audible over the rattle of the fence, the hoot of the wind overhead, the clank and grind of the generator.  His hands would not separate immediately from the fence, but stuck there as if glued.  He stopped to concentrate on unlocking his fingers, eyes grown wide, upper lip fluttering, as one by one his fingers slipped away.

Arm led Butch down a path that ran alongside a creek.  The brush grew thicker, the twigs and rocks and other debris upon the path more plentiful, crunching underfoot.  Arm stopped at an inlet big enough for two and squatted a few inches from the creek.  Butch stood next to Arm, his knees even with Arm’s ears.  Arm picked up a twig and rolled it in his fingers.

“What’s going on?” Butch said.

“Oh, nothing,” Arm said.

He stuck the twig in his mouth.

“Uck,” Butch said.

“I was just thinking.”

“About what?”

“About ... ”

Arm shrugged.

“About how we’re going to be in detention for the next ten years?” Butch said.

He bent over, picked up a small rock and tried to skip it across the creek.  It hit the water weakly, flipped into the air and plopped back down through the surface.

“Naw,” Arm said.  “About the smell.”

“Huh?  What smell?” Butch said.  “What smell?  Did you take a shower?”

“About the smell I smelled around here last fall.”

“The smell?”

Butch looked around.

“Yeah.  The worst thing I ever smelled in my life.  I was out here hunting.  There was this big pile of leaves and branches, and that’s where I smelled it.”

“And?  So?”

“And so I’ve smelled a lot of bad things in my life, but this, dude, you should’ve smelled it.  Wicked.”

“Okay,” Butch said, trying to guess what Arm was getting at.  “Why’re you bringing this up?  What was it?  Did you figure it out?”

“Well, not exactly.  The smell was wicked, like I said.  And I’ve smelled a lot of bad things in my life, but this ... you had to be there.  This had a rotting flesh scent to it, if you know what I mean.  Human flesh, buddy.  Nothing could smell like that but a dead human.  Wicked.”

“And how would you know?”

“Call it instinct.”

“There’s no way,” Butch said.  “Out here?”

“I don’t know.”

“In Smoky River?”

“You didn’t smell it.”

“Did you check it out?”

Arm looked at Butch, stretched his lips together in a half smile and lowered his eyebrows.  He picked up a small rock and lobbed it out to the middle of the creek.

“What do you think?”

“I wouldn’t rule it out.”

“It stunk.  Stunk.  Like nothing I ever smelled before.  Pretty wicked.”

Arm shook his head.

Butch listened to the waters of the creek as they trickled and blurped downstream, showing hardly a sign of motion.  He and Arm continued to squat, saying nothing, as the wind howled far away overhead, and the trunks of the trees cracked hollowly in response.  A brown leaf spotted with green floated by, poised upon a small rainbow.

“Hey,” Butch said, pointing at the leaf.

He said no more, only followed the progress of the leaf with his index finger.  By the time Arm looked, the leaf was well downstream, the rainbow out of sight.

“What?” Arm said.

“Shouldn’t we be heading back?”

“Too late, now.  Might as well take the medicine and smile.”

“You’re joking.”

“What’s it matter?  So we miss a couple classes.  Like that makes a difference.  Like anybody gives a rip.  It ain’t like it’ll make much of a ripple in our academic standing.”

“Holy cow,” Butch said, swinging an arm between his legs, scraping the clay dust bank with his fingertips.

“You should do like me,” Arm said.  “Join the army.”

Butch stopped swinging his arm and looked at Arm.

“Come on,” he said.  “Tell me another good one.”

“No joke,” Arm said, saluting.

“I can’t picture it.”

“The few, the proud.”

“That’s you, all right.”

“Are you happy for me, Butch?”

“Of course, now tell me the truth.”

“No joking, pal.  Just call me G.I. Joe.  Signed up last week.”

“How?”

“Career night, pal.”  Arm’s nose and cheeks were beaming.  “When you were listening to those nerds in their suits, I was chewing the fat with one of them recruiter dudes.  Plus, it was a smaller arena, a smaller crowd—a couple guys, couple burnouts, a coffee table and a couple chairs.  And them G.I. Joes in their dress blues.”

“No wonder you’re so willing to get me in trouble.”

“You’re not in trouble.  You got a bright future.  I gotta wear a visor, it’s so bright.  In a gloomy way.”

“What for?  I can picture you with a gun, perhaps.  And shooting one.  That’s for sure.  But why can’t I picture you scrubbing the latrine?  Or making your bed?  Saluting someone?  Is that you?”  Arm snapped to attention, again saluting Butch.  “Like I can hear you barking, ‘Yes sir,’ and all that,” Butch said.

“Neat, huh?”

Butch stared at Arm.

“You’re not fooling, are you?”

“Maybe I’m wasted, but no foolin.”

“Okay, so what does Toot think?”

“You’re the first I’ve told.  What do you think of that?”

“What about your parents?”

“They think I’m going to Tendleville U.”

“But why?  What for?  You never gave any indication.”

“Money,” Arm said.  “The answer’s simple.  Money.  Pure and simple.  Just like we were talkin about.  It don’t cost nothin to have them shave my head and bark commands at me.  Don’t need to fill out no financial aid forms, submit your SATs or ACTs.  Bend over, pass your physical and you’re in.  Go the distance, do your pushups, make your bed, cooperate, and you’ve got your college paid for.  It’s smooth sailin, then.”

“I’d think you might be worried about passing your physical.”

“What?”  Arm stuck out his chest.  “I’m a specimen.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I might like a beer now and then, do a fatty, what have you.”

“And donuts,” Butch said.  “Don’t forget the donuts.”

“But that doesn’t mean I can’t serve my country, right?”

“I suppose.”

“That doesn’t mean I can’t blow up a few bad guys for the sake of a better economy.”

“But I’m still worried for you, friend.”

Arm reached over and laid a hand on Butch’s shoulder, patting it a couple of times.

“And you know I appreciate it.”

“I’ll bet Toot’s not going to be pleased.”

“Toot’s cool,” Arm said.  “She’ll recover.”

“You two seem pretty tight.  You’d think it’d put a strain on things, no?”

Arm raked another small rock out of the dried clay and lobbed it into the creek.  The sleeve of his army jacket snapped once in the wind.

“You’d think so.”

“It’d bug me.  I know that.”

“Don’t I, though.  You’d be AWOL.  Hey, what’ve I been telling you?  It’ll be a good test,” Arm said.  “Might show whether we’ve got anything going beyond the physical, no?”

“My least favorite kind of test.”

“Mine, too, if you want the truth.  But Toot and me got a good thing going.  If we don’t, this’ll prove it, right?”

Butch looked at Arm’s face, trying to detect a sign of fear or gloom, but it appeared to be the same old face of Arm.

“Then again—forgive me, friend—sometimes it’s hard to tell what you two have going,” Butch said.

“How do you mean?”

Butch thought for a moment.

“I’m not sure,” he said.  “It’s just a feeling.”

They were silent.  The creek tinkled.  The wind howled hollowly in the treetops.

Arm looked toward the sky, wrinkled his nose.

“A feeling.  I’ve been known to get one, from time to time.  It’s about the only thing that scares me.”

Butch chuckled.  Arm again laid a hand on Butch’s shoulder.  They watched the water.

“I’m getting a little nervous here,” Butch said.

“Nervous?”

“Yeah.”

“About what?”

“I forget.  Class, I think.  Are we going?”

“The fish,” Arm said.  He stood up and smoothed out his jacket.  “Where’d they all go?”  He looked around.  “This is nuts.  They’re supposed to be here.”

“Perhaps it’s too early,” Butch said, standing up, too.

“What, you mean they’re still sleeping?”

“No.  Perhaps it’s too early in the spring.”

“Well that sucks,” Arm said, flinging up his elbows and kicking at the dirt with a hush puppy.  “That just sucks.”

“No big deal,” Butch said.

“Yes, it is.  I bring my best friend out here to see the fish, and they let me down.  Somebody’s gonna pay.  Somebody’s got to pay.”  Arm made a fist.  “I won’t stand around for this, Butch.”  His upper lip curled up and fluttered, and he kicked again at the dirt.  “I’m gonna write a letter.  That’s it.  That’s what I’ll do.  I’ll write a letter.  Tell you what.  You write it; I’ll sign it.  What do you charge for something like that?”

“What do you want me to write?”

“I don’t know.  Write that somebody lied about the fish.”

Butch lowered his eyebrows and scrunched his lips together in a frown.

“And to whom do I write this?”

“Let me see.”  Arm lowered his face and pinched his chin with a thumb and index finger.  “How about,” he said, looking at Butch with widened eyes, “how about we go right to the top?”

“What, you mean, like, the President?”

“Hey, that’d be cool,” Arm said, “but no, I was thinking more like the Governor.”

“The Governor.”

Arm slapped Butch’s elbow with the back of a hand.

“How about that?”

He flicked his eyebrows up and down, a huge grin on his face.

“I can’t write,” Butch said.

Arm quit grinning.

“Neither can I, man.  But hey,” he said, slapping Butch again on the elbow, “Toot can.”

He flicked his eyebrows up and down.

“There’s probably a perfectly good reason why the fish aren’t here,” Butch said.  “You’d hate to make a big noise about something ... ”  He waved an arm weakly, palm up, fingertips spread.  “ ... you know, that could be solved with a phone call or two.”  Arm gave no response.  Butch looked at Arm, who continued to flick his eyebrows up and down.  “Am I right?”  Arm held his arms straight out to the sides, palms up, and genuflected slightly, still grinning at Butch as though he were on a stage, soaking up the applause.  “All right.  Go ahead, if you want.  Toot can write it.”

“Yeah,” Arm said, socking Butch in the biceps.  “Wait a minute.  Can Toot write?”

“I don’t know.  She’s your girl.”

“Toot,” Arm sighed, smiling.  “Toot’s my girl, all right.  Now the question is, can she write a letter to the Governor?  I mean, a letter that’ll make him sit up and take notice?”

“Notice?” Butch said.  “The Governor?  Sit up and take notice?  For what?  Fish at the Smoky River Weir?”

“You got it.”

“Can we go now?”

Arm appeared to think it over.

“Yeah, sure,” he said, laying an arm around Butch’s shoulders.  As they walked up the path toward the fenced-in waters, Arm extended his free arm out to the side, acknowledging the general scene, and said, “All this?  All this?  We walk down the trail of life, you and me.”

Butch glanced at Arm.  It was the same stony face, carved with the same half grin.  Arm and Butch stopped once more at the fence to watch the waters.

“You know,” Butch said, “this isn’t so bad.  Who needs fish?”

The waters blankly blurped.

“I do,” Arm said.  “I came to see the fish.  The fish.”

The angle of the sun cast shadows of the chain-link across Arm’s face, drawing it in a rigid net of black mesh.

“Tell you what,” Butch said.  “Let’s make a pact.  We’ll meet here again in, say, ten years—right here, at this spot.  And we’ll wait for the fish.”

“I’ll bring the beer,” Arm said.

“You serious?”

“As an aspergillum full of holy water.”

“Really?  So we’re going to meet here in ten years?”

“But what if I’m dead?” Arm said.

“How?”

“I don’t know.  Something.  Army accident.  Friendly fire.”

“You?” Butch said.  “You’ll never die.”

“I guess you’re right,” Arm said.

And so they rode out the remainder of physics class, and on through third and fourth hours, the wheels of the Fairlane jouncing them down the hard streets and back roads of Smoky River, their high school shoulder bones buzzing in the dash light, thick-winged rock and roll circling the interior, cigarette smoke curling out the windows.  And bass drums pounded through their guts and straight through their spines.  Arm rhythmically slapped the palms of his hands into Butch’s dashboard, head bowed, long hair whipping around, exploding like little bombs.  His hands flapped like the wings of a bird.  Sometimes Arm screamed along with the music, his voice gritty and high-pitched.  Sometimes he screamed for an entire song, catching Butch up in the emotion.

They rode on, making a life of one morning, down black highways and white back roads that carried the wheels of Butch’s Fairlane nimbly through the green woods, branches bending groundward, or whipping against the blue sky and low-flying clouds of the country.  They bumped down two-tracks, knifed around sharp bends in the road, spun the tires up hills, spitting soil into the exhaust.  They pounded a brew or two, smoked Arm’s lumpy cigar-sized fatties, filling the interior with leafy fumes and the fragrance of barley and alcohol.

And they let the wind come in and slice through the smoke and sound.  And sometimes the wind was like an invisible balloon flubbering against the sides of their faces, sometimes like a stream flowing across the glass and snapping the fringes of their hair.  Sometimes Butch and Arm sat motionless in their seats, saying nothing for miles as the music ground on and the Fairlane’s tires snapped and crackled over twigs and through the brush of ravines, gathered wet stones and sand in their treads, crunching on the open roads that ran behind the factories and through the little villages near the factories.  And then it even rained, and raindrops from wind-blown branches of the willows in the cemetery splattered against the Fairlane’s windshield and across its windows.

Butch Parker and his friend Arm were two heads on opposite ends of the front seat in Butch’s red Ford Fairlane, pumped full of a purposeful vacuum of emotion, blood traveling hot to their brains, smoke filling the passages to their throats and channels through their lungs.

And life, as disappointing as it sometimes seemed to Butch Parker, was the coolest thing there ever was.