Fuzzyland : Part 5

Dead Boys: Stories
by Richard Lange

(Page 5 of 9)

It's not that I don't understand her disappointment. I made it to sales manager once at a Toyota dealership, but they put me back out on the lot after less than a month, saying I wasn't cutthroat enough. The owner's son took my place, and it just about killed me to keep going in every day. We had debts, though. We were in way over our heads. It was a shameful time, but I didn't crack. Two months later Sonny Boy went off to rehab, and I was back on top. A good couple of years rolled by after that.

While Liz and the girls clear the table, I follow Tracy onto the patio. She closes the sliding glass door and retrieves a pack of More menthols from its hiding place inside a bird house. Placing the elbow of her smoking arm into the palm of her other hand, she stands with her back to the door so the girls can't see her take a drag. It's a pose I remember from when we were kids, a skating rink pose. That's where she and her dirtbag crew hung out before they were old enough to drive. Barely thirteen, and rumor had it she was already screwing some high school cokehead. Guys called her a whore to my face.

The backyard is tiny, maybe fifteen by fifteen, no grass at all. A shoulder- high fence separates it from the neighbors' yards on all three sides. I can see right into the next unit: a Chinese guy on his couch, watching TV. The sound of a Padres game curls through his screen door. I tried to talk Tony out of buying this place, but he wouldn't listen. His deal was always that I was too negative. Now Tracy is stuck with thin walls and noisy plumbing.

"You guys are still the happy couple," Tracy says. "Obviously."

"Most of the time, sure."

"The good part is you don't seem a thing like Mom and Dad."

"We got lucky, I guess."

Tracy's shoulders jerk. She turns her head and spits vomit into a potted plant. I'm not sure what to do. It would frighten her if I took her into my arms. We're not that kind of people. I'm sorry, but we're not. She wipes her mouth with the back of her hand and hits her cigarette again, then walks past me to stand against the fence, looking into the neighbor's yard so that I can't see her face. A gritty layer of ash covers everything now, and more is sifting down. The smell of smoke is stronger than ever.

"I still have some of the insurance money from the accident," I say. "What if you take it? You should get that shop going as soon as possible."

"Everything's up in the air," Tracy replies. "Maybe I'll go back to school."

"Use it for that, then."

"You've got it all figured out, huh?"

"Hey . . ."

"It's funny, that's all."

She kneels to drink from a hose attached to a faucet at the edge of the patio. After the rape, she drove herself to the hospital. Nobody else in the family had that kind of fortitude. Our dad was a notorious hypochondriac.

Carrie slides the door open with great effort and says, "Mommy, what are you doing?"

"Watering the flowers," Tracy replies.

We play Uno and Candyland with the girls, and then it's bedtime. Sundays are their father's, and he's picking them up early in the morning. Liz manages to get them upstairs without too much whining on the promise of a story. Tracy gathers the toys scattered about and tosses them into a wooden chest in the corner of the room while I go to the refrigerator for another beer.

"They love their Auntie Liz," Tracy says.

I hope she means that in a nice way. I think she does.

There's a knock at the door. Tracy looks worried, so I stand behind her as she answers. The police officer on the porch gives us an official smile.

"Mr. and Mrs. Milano?"

"Ms. Milano. He's my brother."

The cop scribbles on his clipboard. "Okay, well, we're out warning residents that they may be asked to evacuate if this fire swings around," he says.

"Oh God," Tracy sighs.

"Right now things are looking good, but you should be prepared just in case."

"God fucking dammit."

When the cop leaves, Tracy turns on the TV, but there are no special reports or live coverage. Liz comes downstairs, and I fill her in. She asks Tracy what she wants to pack, and Tracy says, "Nothing. None of it means anything to me." It's embarrassing to hear her talk like that. Liz treats the comment as a joke, though, and soon the two of them are placing photo albums in a plastic trash bag.

I decide to venture toward the fire line to see if I can get more information. Liz insists on coming along. We drive down out of the condos to pick up a frontage road paralleling the freeway. There's an orange glow on the horizon, and we make for that. A new squeak in the car gets on my nerves. I feel around the dash, desperate to locate it, and things get a little out of control. I almost hit a guardrail because I'm not watching where I'm going.

"Dammit, Jack, pay attention," Liz snaps. "Are you drunk?"

Copyright © 2007 by Richard Lange

About the Author

Richard Lange was born in Oakland, CA, in 1961 and spent his childhood in various small towns in California's Central Valley. He moved to Los Angeles at 17 to attend film school at the University of Southern California. While there, he took fiction writing courses taught by T.C. Boyle and was awarded the Ed Moses Fiction Writing Grant two years running. He also worked 32 hours a week at a supermarket in order to pay for costs his scholarship didn't cover and feels that he learned as much there as he did in school.