Sassafras, Part 43


Joan

I stayed at Tanner's talking with Rick for a while after Billy left. We both agreed that the bartender probably knew something, but Rick didn’t want me to talk to him. He said Matt would be more likely to talk to him than me. I guess he was right, but I still wanted to be there. I looked around by the pool tables, but I couldn’t see anything out of the ordinary. I remembered one night there had been a fight at Tanner’s. There were still clumps of hair and streaks of blood all over when we got out of school, but there wasn’t any blood or hair now. If there had ever been any it was cleaned up now.

Eventually it was time to go. I would have stayed there with Rick all night, but he had to go to work at 7. Of course, when we got to Jenny’s car it wouldn’t start. I turned the key and turned the key, pumped the gas, crossed my fingers, everything I could think of. Even when Rick tried to start it he couldn’t get it to run.

“What now?” I asked.

“Don’t worry,” he said. “It doesn’t sound that serious. I think I could get it running if I had some tools. Do you know if there is anything in the trunk?”

“I don’t know. I’ve never looked in the trunk.”

He took the key out of the ignition and we walked to the back of the car. The trunk was a mess. It was dark, so I couldn’t see what was in it. Rick felt around and didn’t find any tools. “Is there a flashlight in the car?”

I got inside and looked around. “No, I don’t think so.”

He shut the trunk and walked back over. “I have some tools at my apartment. I could go get them.”

“Or we could go get them,” I said and put my arms around him.

When he mentioned going to his apartment to get his tools I saw a chance to spend some more time with him. I knew it was only a matter of days, maybe a week at most, before I had to go back to New York, back to the real world, and I wanted to spend as much time with him as I could. I remembered what a horrible mess I made of things in Atlantic City with Greg. I wanted to make sure Rick knew I wasn’t interested in anything but him, not his money or his car or his apartment, that I wasn’t upset about his past or worried about the future, so I kissed him like it was an Olympic event and I was going for the gold.

I poured everything I could into that kiss, and felt him respond in the same way. Kissing him usually left me feeling breathless and weak, but this time was different. It felt like the longer we kissed the stronger I felt. I barely felt like the same person. I could feel his hands sliding all over my body, pulling me even closer to him, and I forgot about everything but him. All I wanted was to stand there kissing him all night, feeling the energy surging through me. I didn’t even care if I went to his apartment anymore. All I wanted was to feel him next to me, to kiss him and never have to stop.

“Okay, we’ll go to my apartment and pick up the tools to work on Jenny’s car. I hope I can get it running for you, but I don’t know. I ride to work with another guy that lives at the Monte Vista, and he’s driving tomorrow, so if I can’t get it working you could drive my car.”

“Oh, I couldn’t drive your car.”

“Sure you could. I won’t need it. I’ll be at work all day.”

“I know, but I can’t drive a stick shift. I never could.” I still remembered how embarrassed I had been in Driver’s Ed when I tried to drive a manual transmission. There were always two students in the car. One would drive somewhere and then they would switch and the other one would drive back. The other student in the car with me was Paul, one of Sassafras’s royalty, a football player. Maybe I would have been able to learn how to shift gears if he hadn’t been in the back seat laughing at me the whole time. The teacher finally gave up and told us to switch places, so the other guy drove to the lake and back. When we got back to school Paul made sure everybody knew what a horrible driver I was.

“Well, I’ll just have to fix Jenny’s car.”

“Do you think you’ll be able to?”

“I won’t know until I look at it.”

He walked me to his car and even opened the door and kissed me again before I got in. He had a real nice car. I don’t know what kind it was, but it was a stick shift, and it was fascinating watching him drive. There were hills and stop signs and corners, so he was constantly shifting and moving his feet, like he was dancing. Quite entertaining. I would have stalled the car at least once, probably twice, before I made it out of the parking lot.

I wouldn’t have recognized the Monte Vista when he pulled into the parking lot if I didn’t see the big sign. They had painted it, and changed some of the trim, but it wasn’t much of an improvement. The whole place looked like it was on the verge of collapse. A couple of the apartments must have been empty because they had busted windows, and one didn’t even have a door. I couldn’t believe Rick lived there. It reminded me of my first apartment in New York, except it was quieter. It was never quiet in New York. “You know, when I was in school everybody called this the No Tell Motel. People said you could rent rooms by the hour, but I don’t know if that was true or not.”

“It wouldn’t surprise me,” Rick said. “This is the worst place I’ve ever lived in. Except Bowling Green, of course. I can’t believe I let you talk me into taking you here. Maybe you should just stay in the car while I run up and get the tools.”

I looked around the cracked parking lot. There used to be a pool in a corner of the parking lot, but it was filled in now, just a fenced in patch of weeds. You could only tell there had been a pool because they hadn’t taken down the diving board, so it stood there floating over the dead weeds and trash. A couple of people were sitting in front of their apartments in lawn chairs, drinking and yelling at somebody inside, and I saw curtains move in a couple of windows where people were watching us pull into a parking spot. This place was giving me the absolute creeps. “There is no way I’m staying in here by myself,” I told him.

“Yeah, why don’t you come up with me,” he agreed and leaned over to kiss me. We had to walk past the guys sitting in their lawn chairs, but it turned out they were friends of Rick’s. He worked with one of them, a guy named Tony, with tattoos up and down each arm. He was thin and had long blonde hair pulled back in a ponytail. They joked around a little as we walked past. Tony said his girlfriend was coming by with their baby. We should stop by after we took care of business, he said and laughed. I felt myself start blushing.

“Just so you know, he’s one of the other ex-cons that live here. He’s alright, we ride to work at Purina together.” I looked over my shoulder at him sitting in his lawn chair drinking a beer in the parking lot. He didn’t look so scary anymore, but it was easy to picture him in jail. I still had a hard time imagining Rick ever being in prison. I looked up at him, and tried to imagine him locked up somewhere, but just couldn’t.

We walked up a flight of stairs and down a walkway until we got to 36C. I remember thinking it sounded like a bra size and tried not to laugh. His apartment was small, about half the size of mine in New York, which wasn’t very big to start with. The inside looked nicer than the outside. It was all tan and brown, with just a little kitchen, a table and chairs, and a couch and TV. I had been hoping once we were alone Rick would at least kiss me, but he just told me to wait on the couch and started rooting in the closet. All he wanted to do was get his tools and go back to Tanner’s. At least I was with him, not sitting at home alone. I tried to be happy just being there with him, but I kept remembering things he did last night, things I wanted him to do again.