[excerpt] be cruel to me, 'cause i am a fool for you
“Do I contradict myself?
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
- Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself
“It’s not gonna work.”
Caleb ignores her pointedly and shoots me a conspiratorial look from across the hood. Behind her giant sunglasses, Alex rolls her eyes and taps ash to the ground from her filched pack of fags I got for her from a Kwik Shop, impatient and irreverent.
“Caleb,” Jayma repeats, standing her ground for all the good it ever does her in these situations. Fuel, engines, mechanisms, pistons and shocks. That was Caleb’s territory. “We can’t. Not this one.”
“She’s fast, Jayma,” he cajoles, caressing the bodywork with his words. “We need fast.”
“It is orange.”
He sucks in an injured breath at the same time I do, both of us offended on her behalf. She’s a timeless classic, and she is fast, a Camaro 1973 singing glory to the highest in the shining Kansas sun. “Don’t,” he warns, stopping to gather his composure. “Jayma, not to her.”
“Bloody fuck,” Alex says, passing me her cigarette. “Just let him get his rocks off for the length of the state. He’s about to cum all over the damn thing and I don’t want to see that, Jayma, I do not. I will hold you personally responsible if that happens.”
Caleb lets himself laugh conspicuously, telling us all that it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Sometimes, Lexy, sometimes it’s almost like you care. Gets me all warm and fuzzy and everything.”
Alex turns her gaze on him, and it takes just about everything I have in me to keep my smile to myself. “Got your knickers in a bunch, Al,” I murmur around my tail end of her fag, making it more of a friendly observation than a reprimand, though in all likelihood she sees right through it. Without looking, she plucks the cigarettes from my lips, the brush of her fingertips sending something electric straight down and out. It’s distracting enough that I don’t realize exactly what’s about to happen until it’s too late to stop her. “Almost, Caleb,” she agrees ignoring me as she takes her last drag, and with all the gleeful deliberation of knowing you’ve got the better word in an argument, ashes it out on the hood of the car. “Almost.”
The laugh is from Jayma, hiding her face behind her hand in the bare minimum display of tact. It does no good whatsoever, gets worse the longer she tries. From Caleb there’s nothing but silence, and an open-lipped, pain-stricken expression on his face. Fuck the actual impending cataclysm, this is the end of the world, a desecration from which she’ll never recover. I brush the ash from the wound, expose where the paint bubbled up ugly and burned away. It’s not pretty, and I have to look away. Except that when I do it turns out to be in Caleb’s direction, and it’s me I find him looking at, an expression of blame plastered firmly on his face.
“What?” I mouth, thinking that commiseration is more in order. She’s done a terrible thing, absolutely terrible, doing that to this car.
He doesn’t answer, just looks, between me, Alex, the car, and back and forth and back just like that, Jayma still trying not to laugh too hard off to the side the soundtrack of the hour. I follow his trajectory, follow the thought, startle unhelpfully as Alex slips her hand into my back pocket for the lighter I’d nicked from her early.
Caleb’s expression grows more pointed, becomes the briefest, most halfhearted of glares, and finally degenerates into a smirk the likes of which grates instantaneously, the feel of her fingers still on my body.
“Oh, fuck all!” I exclaim, yanking the door open seconds after Caleb pops the lock mechanisms. “It’s from 1973, there’s no bloody lo-jack installed. Everybody get in the damn thing.”
Caleb bounces on his heels like a kid on Christmas morning, drops into the driver’s seat like if he doesn’t get in fast enough his parents will take it back to the store. Alex claims the passenger seat like she’s daring Caleb to say something, and Jayma, still keeping the appropriate distance of disapproval, finally waltzes up to the car as Caleb is putting the top down. She swipes Alex’s cigarette and sunglasses, arranges them as if they belonged to her all the while. Across the roof of the car, I think for the first time I see a glimmer of excitement behind the shades, not quite able to be concealed. “Alright,” she says with a certain consecrated flair, maneuvering her long legs over the car door as if she’d been doing it all her life. “Let’s rock this bitch.”
Very well then I contradict myself,
(I am large, I contain multitudes.)”
- Walt Whitman, from Song of Myself
“It’s not gonna work.”
Caleb ignores her pointedly and shoots me a conspiratorial look from across the hood. Behind her giant sunglasses, Alex rolls her eyes and taps ash to the ground from her filched pack of fags I got for her from a Kwik Shop, impatient and irreverent.
“Caleb,” Jayma repeats, standing her ground for all the good it ever does her in these situations. Fuel, engines, mechanisms, pistons and shocks. That was Caleb’s territory. “We can’t. Not this one.”
“She’s fast, Jayma,” he cajoles, caressing the bodywork with his words. “We need fast.”
“It is orange.”
He sucks in an injured breath at the same time I do, both of us offended on her behalf. She’s a timeless classic, and she is fast, a Camaro 1973 singing glory to the highest in the shining Kansas sun. “Don’t,” he warns, stopping to gather his composure. “Jayma, not to her.”
“Bloody fuck,” Alex says, passing me her cigarette. “Just let him get his rocks off for the length of the state. He’s about to cum all over the damn thing and I don’t want to see that, Jayma, I do not. I will hold you personally responsible if that happens.”
Caleb lets himself laugh conspicuously, telling us all that it was the last thing he wanted to do. “Sometimes, Lexy, sometimes it’s almost like you care. Gets me all warm and fuzzy and everything.”
Alex turns her gaze on him, and it takes just about everything I have in me to keep my smile to myself. “Got your knickers in a bunch, Al,” I murmur around my tail end of her fag, making it more of a friendly observation than a reprimand, though in all likelihood she sees right through it. Without looking, she plucks the cigarettes from my lips, the brush of her fingertips sending something electric straight down and out. It’s distracting enough that I don’t realize exactly what’s about to happen until it’s too late to stop her. “Almost, Caleb,” she agrees ignoring me as she takes her last drag, and with all the gleeful deliberation of knowing you’ve got the better word in an argument, ashes it out on the hood of the car. “Almost.”
The laugh is from Jayma, hiding her face behind her hand in the bare minimum display of tact. It does no good whatsoever, gets worse the longer she tries. From Caleb there’s nothing but silence, and an open-lipped, pain-stricken expression on his face. Fuck the actual impending cataclysm, this is the end of the world, a desecration from which she’ll never recover. I brush the ash from the wound, expose where the paint bubbled up ugly and burned away. It’s not pretty, and I have to look away. Except that when I do it turns out to be in Caleb’s direction, and it’s me I find him looking at, an expression of blame plastered firmly on his face.
“What?” I mouth, thinking that commiseration is more in order. She’s done a terrible thing, absolutely terrible, doing that to this car.
He doesn’t answer, just looks, between me, Alex, the car, and back and forth and back just like that, Jayma still trying not to laugh too hard off to the side the soundtrack of the hour. I follow his trajectory, follow the thought, startle unhelpfully as Alex slips her hand into my back pocket for the lighter I’d nicked from her early.
Caleb’s expression grows more pointed, becomes the briefest, most halfhearted of glares, and finally degenerates into a smirk the likes of which grates instantaneously, the feel of her fingers still on my body.
“Oh, fuck all!” I exclaim, yanking the door open seconds after Caleb pops the lock mechanisms. “It’s from 1973, there’s no bloody lo-jack installed. Everybody get in the damn thing.”
Caleb bounces on his heels like a kid on Christmas morning, drops into the driver’s seat like if he doesn’t get in fast enough his parents will take it back to the store. Alex claims the passenger seat like she’s daring Caleb to say something, and Jayma, still keeping the appropriate distance of disapproval, finally waltzes up to the car as Caleb is putting the top down. She swipes Alex’s cigarette and sunglasses, arranges them as if they belonged to her all the while. Across the roof of the car, I think for the first time I see a glimmer of excitement behind the shades, not quite able to be concealed. “Alright,” she says with a certain consecrated flair, maneuvering her long legs over the car door as if she’d been doing it all her life. “Let’s rock this bitch.”