Chasing Tail Lights Read online

  "What do you want to do?" I whisper. It's funny that Anne so hates it here at her home, while I wish I could move in. My almost regular weekend stay overs are not enough. If I could live here instead of my house during the week, then I'd be awake for school and not laying in the darkness of my own room. I'm here so often, I probably should pay rent.

  Anne crawls out of bed and across the floor, and shoves some towels under the door. She flicks on the small light near her bed, then opens the window. The cold air blasts into the room, but Anne just wraps the thick blanket around her, pulls her bone white pipe from beneath her mattress, fills it, then lights up. "Do you know how to drive?" she says after inhaling.

  "Not really, why?" I ask, thinking that good memories of sitting on Daddy's lap and steering hardly qualify as driving.

  "Let's run away," Anne says, very definitively. She hands the pipe and the decision over to me. Her eyes are bloodshot, but not from the dope; it's our first taste of the night. She's tired from constant fights with her parents, mainly her father, and mostly about my being her friend.

  "Anne, why does your father hate me so much?" I ask, ready to swallow the acid of her dad's loathing. I can't just feel good; sometimes I think rejection is my real drug.

  There's the expected awkward silence, although silence is rarely one of Anne's best qualities. "Because he's an arrogant asshole obsessed with money," she finally says. Even though we're whispering, since her parent's bedroom is across the hall, in my ears she's shouting.

  "What do you mean?" I ask. Since her father barely speaks to me, I don't know him.

  "Here's how the world works according to my father," Anne says. Even though the room is cold, I've moved myself from the confines of the sleeping bag to sitting on the floor, leaning against Anne's big white oak desk. She hands the pipe back, then uses her free hand to jab me lightly in the arm. I still flinch; Anne's become my best friend, but I still feel allergic to human touch. "He says you hang with trash, you end up stinking yourself."

  "What does that mean?"

  "What do you think it means, Christy?" she says. But I know, and it makes me sick.

  "You're my friend no matter what he says," Anne says, putting the subject to rest, even if we are not. At these almost weekly weekend sleepovers, we stay up much later than she's allowed, then sleep late the next morning. It's the freest feeling in the world.

  "No matter what anyone says," I say, taking a deep hit on the pipe.

  "So, let's go, what do you say?" Anne says, moving toward her closet. She starts throwing some clothes into her normally stuffed monogrammed bright green L.L. Bean backpack.

  "Where are we going?" I ask, gathering up my own belongings, which barely fill my bag.

  "I guess we'll have to finally do it, "Anne says as she removes the towels from the door.

  "Do what?" I respond, the click of the door unlocking distracting me.

  Anne opens the door, the hall light shines in, and darkness, at least for the moment, disappears. "Chase tail lights."

  Anne hands me the car keys as we slip outside of her house unnoticed. We open the garage door; every little crack and pop sounds like gunfire, but the chain reaction doesn't occur. The sounds outside don't cause the lights inside her parent's bedroom to click on. We open the doors to her mom's FT Cruiser and almost leap for joy as we land in the seats.

  "Where to?" I ask, trying to find where the key goes to start our journey. Anne expertly lifted the keys, along with all the money from her dad's wallet, before we crept clear of her crib.

  "I don't know. None of my relatives would let me stay with them. They'd turn me in. One big happy family, "Anne says sadly, realizing the obstacles ahead. "How about you?"

  "Maybe Aunt Dee," I respond, unsure but looking for any out I can find.

  "Then let's get going," Anne says, pointing out the ignition slot. I turn the key. When the car starts, classical music bursts out of the speakers, which Anne quickly turns down. I look into the rearview mirror, then into my memory of driving with my daddy. For once, a good memory conquers all my bad sad ones, as I slip the car into reverse and we exit the garage.

  I almost take out the mail box, but do a last-second correction. I get the wheel turned the right way, and we are on our way. I decide not to get on 1-69. Instead we take Miller Road out toward the mall, which is where Anne and I started the evening. We took the bus there, much to her parent's chagrin, watched a movie while Anne filled us with soda, popcorn, and candy, and then got picked up by her mother. Her mother doesn't seem to dislike me as much as her father, but as Anne says, her house isn't a democracy. Even if it was, she says, her dad's vote is worth two of her mom's. Anne doesn't even get one.

  "I want to dye my hair blond, what do you think?" Anne says out of nowhere. "Do you think there's anyplace we could do that tonight?"

  I shrug again, keeping my eyes on the road. Even if my hands are slightly shaking, my feet are steady on the pedals, and the driving is becoming less terrifying. "Why would you?"

  "I hate how I look," Anne says, as she pulls down the mirror on the visor.

  "Anne, you're gorgeous, "I say, wondering even as the words slip out of my mouth if I've said something wrong. People at school, no doubt, think I'm a lesbian, since I've never had a boyfriend. I don't seem all that interested in boys, and I look a lot more like a boy than a girl.

  "I don't think so, "Anne says, staring at the mirror not at me. "I hate how I look."

  "You're too smart for that," I reassure her. Anne's got plenty of boys at school who want her, and I think she enjoys that more than anything else. She doesn't like them, she just likes them liking her. For all her bluster, Anne's really pretty shy around boys, just like me.

  "Well, so are you, Christy, but you don't believe it," she says, but I know it's just to be nice. Sometimes I think, in those dark places of my mind I visit far too often, that Anne only likes me because I'm not beautiful, so she can be the center of attention. But I let these dark thoughts vanish as we cruise by the mall, then turn around. If Anne's going to try to tell me I'm beautiful, I might as well believe her rather than Ryan's constant "ugly bitch" comments.

  "Where does your aunt live?" Anne asks, knowing full well the answer. She lives in Grand Blanc, south of Flint, but we're headed in the opposite direction.

  "You caught me," I say, driving carefully so we don't get caught. "We're going—"

  "To Glen's house," she says, then we both laugh.

  We continue to laugh, listen to music, and laugh some more as wejust make a loop from Glen's house, back to the mall, and back to Glen's over and over again. It's unsaid, but somewhere in the middle of the night just before the light of day, both Anne and I know that we're not going to Aunt Dee's to stay. We know that we're not driving across the state to Lansing to relatives of Anne's that she reconsidered and thought might let us stay, and that we're certainly not going to stay the night at Glen's. Just like my daddy said, chasing the tail lights sometimes takes you home, which is where we both decided we're probably headed. Running away seems like a good idea, until you realize there's no place else to go. As we drive deep into the night, I realize while you can run, you can't hide from your secrets.

  "We should get home," Anne finally says. While the sun isn't rising yet, it's close enough. We've both been yawning more than talking for the last hour. I'm used to sleepless nights, but it's never been because I was having so much fun that I wanted an endless night.

  "Now what?" I ask, knowing Anne has all the answers.

  "How about a little revenge?"

  "What do you mean?" I ask as we cruise very slowly through Flint's battered streets.

  "Let'sgo pay a visit to Seth Lewis, or should I say Seth Loser."

  "I don't know," I reply, my voice wavering between fear and fearlessness.

  "Why do you let him treat you like—"

  "I'll make you a deal," I say to stop her from telling me what I already know too well.

  Anne moves in her seat so she's kn
eeling, not sitting. "What's that?"

  "You stand up to your dad and I'll stand up to Seth," I say, delaying the inevitable.

  "Define 'stand up', " Anne says. I'm focused on the road, but I know she's smiling wide.

  "I can't, but you know what I mean," I say, thinking of my home, not hers. "Tell him that he doesn't control you, that he doesn't own you."

  "Nice speech," Anne cracks, since she normally dominates 90 percent of our conversations. "But until that day, why don't we take something from Seth."

  "He doesn't have anything," I remind her.

  "Then, fine, Christy, let's leave him something," she shouts, as we drive to a twenty-four-hour Meijer's. The bleary-eyed clerk never even flinched at two fourteen-year-old girls buying two cans of spray paint at three in the morning. Instead, he had the look of Flint, slightly battered, tired, and wondering when better days were coming. Anne pays with cash, and we're in front of Seth's house in minutes.

  With no streetlights or stars above us, a lonely half-moon guides us as we spray-paint "Seth Loser" in his driveway. I'd never tasted vengeance before, so I didn't know I had been starving.

  The energy rush of revenge doesn't last long. It's not long after we're back driving in circles that Anne falls asleep. I drive past the mostly deserted parking lot of the GM Truck Assembly plant. It's lit up with this strange neon glare. Yet, there's something in the light, or this night, that hits me like a bolt of lightning and makes our evening spent driving in circles a simple straight truth: you can't really run away from anything, because whatever you think you're running from is always with you.

  When I turn onto Anne's street, I see the lights on in front of her house and the police car. Unlike my neighborhood, a police car in front of the house at five in the morning isn't part of the normal scenery along the Miller Road mansions.

  I wake Anne up before we pull in the driveway, where her father awaits. He's wearing a long black satin robe over pajamas. She sees him, and I watch as Anne quickly calculates in her head, like doing a math story problem, the duration of her grounding. The rest happens so quickly, almost in superspeed, as Anne walks toward her house, head down, and the police walk toward the car, staring at me, eyes up. I don't say anything as I leave the safe warmth of the car for the cold uncertainty of the police cruiser. They protect my head, just like they show on TV.

  "Are you taking me to jail?" I ask in a small voice, almost cringing as I speak.

  The one cop laughs loudly, which is better than swinging his nightstick at me. "If we put every kid in jail who stole a car and ran away, we'd need a jail as big as a mall."

  "We're taking you home," says the other cop, also white, also overweight, but a little angrier. "It's up to your folks to deal with this mess."

  I don't say anything as I listen to the crackle of the police car radio. It's because of my family that I'm in this mess. I'm guilty, I want to shout, but I'm not to blame.

  As the car starts to pull away, I look over my shoulder at the scene taking place at Anne's front door. It's a good thing the car window is closed, the radio is crackling, and the big cop car engine is racing, because if not, I'm sure I could have heard—even from this distance—the sound of Anne's father's hand smacking against the skin on her face.

  22

  february 13, senior year

  "So, Speedy, who Witt we get our weed from now?"

  I'm laughing too much to answer Anne's question. I took a small bag from Ryan's private stash as my retirement gift, and we're sitting in Anne's bedroom making the most of it. The fact that I'm alive proves that sometimes Ryan is more bark than bite.

  "How about somebody at your job?" I ask, thinking I don't want to do business with strangers in the strange land of getting high. Anne is braiding her hair, just like she's twisting the truth with Tommy. We both told him we'd stop getting high. We both lied.

  "I don't think so," Anne says, then giggles for no reason, other than the fact we're both incredibly stoned. "How about your new boyfriend Terrell, can he score for us?"

  "He's not my boyfriend." Terrell and I flirt, make each other laugh, but nothing more. Our hands remain by our sides. "Maybe he's one of those straight-edgers."

  "At least he is straight," Anne says, but I don't react and Glen's secret stays safe.

  "Shouldn't you be working tonight?" I ask, to change the subject. Anne's parents are out at some society occasion, so we created our own high society event.

  "All work no play," she says since we're talking about her job, then passes the joint, of which she's smoked more than her share. "Work makes Anne a dull girl, just like Daddy likes it."

  "So did you quit your job or what?"

  "No. I want to, but Daddy would stroke out," she says, then hurls herself onto the floor, twitching like a fish, and we laugh even more. She seems comfortable on the floor, so I fling myself off the sofa and curl up next to her. We've got everything we need: a big bag of Cool Ranch Doritos, a small bag of weed, a liter of Coke, and a lifetime supply of air freshener. There are pine forests that won't smell as natural as her room by the time the doctor returns.

  "Let's smoke out!" I say, then inhale like life itself depended upon it. Sometimes it does.

  "My boss is getting creepier. The other day he accidentally on purpose put his hand on my ass," Anne says, with less laughter.

  "Like Seth Lewis creepy or like—"

  "Well, my boss is a little older," she says. "And my boss is at least part human."

  "Maybe he's also part zombie," I crack, then do a zombie impersonation. We laugh like our mouths are disconnected from our minds as we shovel down chips. uMmm, brains."

  "His brain is about two inches long, I think," she says, holding her thumb and forefinger barely apart, and placing them between her legs.

  "You know this how?"

  "He's always hovering around me; it's just creepy." Her fingers are now closer together.

  "Want Tommy to get medieval on his ass?" I ask, striking a thug poser pose.

  "Christy, would you tell me something?" she asks, stuffing chips in the vicinity of her mouth. "What did Tommy do? He didn't kill somebody, did he?"

  "What do you mean?" I say, then roll over so my back, not my mouth, is facing her.

  "I know he's already done time in jail, but he won't tell me why, Speedy. Will you?"

  "No way, Doctor," I say coldly, even as the warmth of the weed works its wonders.

  "You tell me, and I'll tell you something," she counters.

  "Like what?" I say, turning back now to face her.

  "It's big," she says.

  "Not like your boss!" I say as we both chant "little dick, little dick" until we're laughing so hard the sounds from our mouths are recognizable to no one, not even people as stoned as us.

  "Deal?"

  "I really shouldn't," I say, but I'm also too stoned to really care, and she should know.

  She takes a hit off the joint, then hands it to me. "And you don't do anything you're not supposed to do, do you?"

  "Okay, but swear you won't tell anyone else, okay?" She does a cross my heart motion as I nail Tommy up on his. "About two years back, he came by the house and picked up Mitchell. It was a really hot night and they were cruising in Aunt Dee's car, trying to look real cool."

  I pull too much smoke into my lungs and start to cough, worse than Mama's hack.

  "So they end up over on the north end of Flint, and something happened," I say slowly.

  "So, what did he do?" Anne says impatiently, and I don't blame her. I'm not a good storyteller, mainly because most of the stories in my life are like this one, not worth telling.

  "He almost killed a guy."

  "What happened?"

  "So, they're driving around, and somewhere on Pierson, they got a flat tire. It's like one in the morning and you got two young kids way out of place on the north end."

  Anne pulls closer to me, as I force the words out.

  "A carload of kids pulls up. Four of them in Mount Morris
varsity jackets. Tommy says they were drunk, but I don't think that matters. Tommy had changed the tire and was putting the jack back in the trunk. They were ready to leave. If they'd got done a minute earlier, or if these kids had stayed at their party a minute later, none of this would have happened."

  "Wrong place," Anne says, then shakes her head.

  "Tommy says he doesn't remember a lot of the details. He says when people talk about stuff seeming like a bad dream, that's what it was like. Tommy said they were going to rob them or steal the car, but he didn't give them a chance. One of the guys got in his face and shoved him. Then another one of the guys pushed Mitchell down and knocked the glasses off his face."

  "What did Tommy do?"

  "Nothing until it looked like the guy was going to kick Mitchell, then Tommy lost it. He grabbed the jack and smacked the guy right in the head. Said he went down like he'd been shot."

  "Then what?"

  "The other guys came at them, so he defended himself, then got the hell out of there," I tell her, remembering only some of the details from what Tommy said in court. "Because of how bad he beat down the rest of the guys—one lost an eye—they said the attack was too violent to claim self-defense. Me, I think there comes a time when you do what you gotta do."