Chapter Two
In short, we were fed up. Lucy had always wanted out, no matter what. I was less sure. Now, with all the cash rotten Ol’ George had so suddenly produced she finally saw her chance. If I wouldn’t come along, fine with her, she’d simply head off alone. Can you imagine that? Leaving me behind, with just my parents and around a hundred and ninety seven overbred provincial assholes who neither appreciated good ice cream nor spaghetti? What was to become of me? This was the prime of my life! Seventeen years old, ready and willing, with looks …. To be honest, nothing close to Brad Pitt but hey, who cares?
Just don’t think my sister’s urge to get out came as a total surprise to me. Like I said, Lucy’d often talked about her plans, though to me it had always sounded more like some unattainable dream. Now the bag, or better its contents had suddenly changed it all. It was what she’d been waiting for all this time, her dream come true. She would finally be able to pull it off – and she had it all worked out. The trip to L.A. What to do when she arrived, where to rent an apartment, what job to take so that she wouldn’t be losing too much time before one of the many great talent-scouts constantly on the hunt for her talent would discover her.
When, during the months before the lucky find, she talked about her plans to leave I often felt kinda betrayed. I thought she didn’t care about anyone or anything except herself, more of herself and then maybe sometimes me. That had changed though. After all she’d asked me first. But still, her plans had some huge gaps to fill. To avoid spending too much on the trip she more or less relied on her looks to get there.
“Somebody will take me along,” she said.
“But what if twenty miles down the road the guy turns out to be some freak - worse than the ones we have walking around here, and it’d be too late to pull back?” I countered. “Did you think about that?”
Nope. Once a driver would get her in sight he’d be on his brakes with both his legs in no time. She and her rack would probably be causing century’s biggest crash on the interstate.
“You can’t just put yourself at the crossroads holding up a thumb half expecting prince charming to pick you up. Any freak would offer you a ride. You can’t just rely on pure chance alone.”
“You think I’m too dumb to judge people, huh? Tell me Damon, who do you think you are, the world’s only psychic showing stupid humans back onto the right track?”
“Come on Lucy, calm down will ya. It was just good advice, nothing more. After all not everybody can be knocked out as easily as Tim Bracket.”
“O.k. bro’ - you happy when I tell you I’ll take the bus?”
She’d pick some rich tourist, wiggle a little and that’d be it. That’s what she thought. Please don’t ask me to explain how anyone can get to be so naive.
Like ever so often, things went a little different, though Lucy stuck to her promise and waited. Days, weeks even. For a month all flights went past. Maybe Delta Airlines bought themselves some new planes or Boeing finally decided to change some rotten parts in whatever model to silence the aerospace industry’s enemies.
Anyway, we didn’t get any tourists, nor a businessman visiting the bolt plant.
“I’m so tired of waiting,” Lucy told me that one morning, hands on her hips. “Tomorrow I’ll take the first guy stepping out of Louis’ bus. Airport Harry called. He’d have one coming in around ten.”
Louis is the proud owner of Midville’s sole means of public transportation: his chrome bus. Huge, in his late forties and black, that is Louis, not the bus. They needed to lower the driver’s seat to stuff him behind the steering wheel. He is also my best friend.
To understand Lucy’s urge you must know that whenever he was not working for the airlines, Louis took locals from A to B, drove the kids to school and picked up stranded passengers at the airport to give us Lopos our much needed work. Sort of like a cab, just that Midville of course didn’t have any of those, just Louis’ bus. You weren’t going anywhere without it. And I tell you, it felt great sitting alone in a bus, being driven to the doctor or the dentist. You felt important, you could even endure some pain for this kind of public display. I mean the pain of being the spaghetti in class and the one with the sister everyone keeps staring at ….
Louis has ears, I don’t mean their size - although the biggest potatochips are lilliputs compared to his pancakes. I mean he listens. While getting a ride home from school, I often told him what we had going on in class, me being the smallest and all.
While driving on with Sam Cooke singing ‘Soothe me’ from the stereo, his huge hands resting on the wheel, looking straight through the windshield at the sun and the wide plains, Louis said: “Son, just let them be. Being small ain’t what counts in life, it’s what you can give to others that takes you along the road.”
Things always sounded so intelligent coming from his mouth. The way he stared at the distance was as if he’d be reading the truth out of some virtual book written over and through the entire planet and everything on it. Imagine: letters going over rivers, through clouds and over faces, through the rain and over buildings, so everyone would be able to read and understand why things are the way they are. That would leave nobody stupid and maybe Lucy, if ever she would have taken the time to read it, would have stayed.
During those rides it often was as if Louis kept on reading, telling me to let go and to take it easy. One day my time would come, he often said. All I’d need was a little bit of patience. And ever so often I calmed down, my thoughts wondering about what he’d told me, drifting off to some faraway truth. His voice like the water in the river carrying me along, me drifting on my back ….. drifting endlessly ……..
So there I was, this little italoguy nobody wanted to be with, hanging from the lamppost at midnight in this town in the middle of nowhere, flies shitting on my enlightened head, trying to think ….
Of course it wasn’t just lucky bitch Lucy who wanted to leave. Deep inside I shared the same dream but somehow lacked the courage or the drive to undertake the necessary steps to bring my hopes closer to fulfillment. It simply never crossed my mind to consider the possibility of quitting. I felt more like Thelma in the first scene of ‘Thelma and Louise’ with Lucy being Louise dragging me along, except she wasn’t dragging no more. She wanted to go for it alone, without me getting in her way. And for that I had just myself to blame.
The more I thought things over, the closer I got to the conclusion that I would never be able to change her plans. She couldn’t be stopped from leaving. Once she’d made up her mind and fixed things, if only in her imagination, she simply couldn’t be talked into turning back. If this was the way she wanted it, I thought it best for both of us if I would stick with her and try my best not to let the trip turn into a complete disaster. I knew that I’d have some of the finest cussing and shouting coming my way, the moment she’d realize I’d be coming along anyhow. But I’d gotten used to those. Over time I had grown me quite a good buffer to her moods. It would need far more than just the shouting to really hurt me deep inside.
I slid down the pole and walked over to our house which was stuck to the back of the ice cream parlor like a piece of spit out gum. My Dad was responsible for the shitty construction. But what to do when you can’t afford an architect? Also, as you probably would have guessed by now, architects were about as scarce as decent pussies in Midville….
Anyway, Lucy’s room at the back. It was dark with the shades drawn; I couldn’t even peek inside. Damn! I’d wanted to tell her right away. But as I was standing there in front of her dark window chewing over things, I changed my mind. It could wait until morning. No need to rush. I’d find a way to tell her then. I swore to myself that I’d be the strong one this time. I wouldn’t be giving in, no way. I’d made up my mind and nobody, not even my redfaced sister screaming like a spooked pig, stomping her feet in the dust and shaking all over, would ever be able to make me change my mind. I imagined us standing there waiting for the bus. It would be me and her staring at each other, waiting who would be the first to give up and start grinning.
I decided to call it a day and went over to my room which was situated at the other back-corner of the house, packed as little as I could in my backpack - and instantly tore it all out again. She’d get suspicious before I even would have had the chance to explain myself:
What are you carrying your backpack for bro? Why you copying me? Can’t you just for once think for yourself?
I didn’t want her erupting into one of her hysterical performances in front of our parents. Outside, well…yes. No way to avoid that anyhow… But if she’d already be letting hell loose at breakfast, the chance for us two to escape without our parents getting the hint would be second to none. Then we’d have Mom preaching about all my lost chances, me quitting school and all, whereas Dad would probably just be yelling something like “I forbid!!!” calling upon all the saints, his face darkred and both his forefingers tapping my chest. No thanks. Lucy’s solo performance would be more than enough for me to take.
I’d have to make it look less suspicious. A small bag would have to do. Even if she would start asking questions, it could still be I’d just be going on a daytrip with Louis. Just a t-shirt or two and my toothbrush, maybe a book, my ipod. I can’t stand the crap Lucy listens to. Louis introduced me to the right stuff: Bootsy Collins, Freddy King, Solomon Burke.
In bed I wrote Mom and Dad a goodbye letter, thanking them for everything they had done for us over the years, telling them it wasn’t their fault. We wouldn’t be leaving them, just Midville. Well, of course we left them behind, but they weren’t the reason. It was time for us to go see the world. We needed to see for ourselves if we could find a way to give some meaning to our lives. We couldn’t imagine finding anything close to that in Midville. Time had come to make a change. And it wouldn’t be a farewell. I promised to write and that I would come visit them regularly, no matter what.
I’d leave it on my bed in the morning so Mom would be the first to find it.
I looked at the posters on the wall: ‘Mars Attacks’, Miss July looking cheeky, fumbling with a pink sponge somewhere between her legs, my comic book collection. I wouldn’t be seeing much of those over the next couple of weeks, maybe even months. I fell asleep and dreamt of all kinds of strange people getting out of the bus: French chefs who were in reality oyster-like aliens trying to take over the planet. Japanese businessmen wanting to buy our entire town and everybody in it to rebuild it as a themepark for tourists visiting the US. A German sex-club manager who wanted Lucy in his freak-club show in between a four-breasted woman and ‘Long Don’. Get the picture?!