even though I hold her tight.

Copyright (c) 2019 by Randall R. Peterson ALL RIGHTS RESERVED This is a work of fiction. All persons, locations and actions are from the author's imagination or have been used in a fictitious manner.

… even though I hold her tight.

By R. Peterson

          I never used to believe in love-at-first-sight … I do now. It was my senior year in High School and I’d been on only one or two real dates in my life, if that’s what you want to call the only girls I’d gone out with who weren’t backseat members of the Canyon Roadster’s Car Club.

            I was just taking my books from my locker getting ready for my first hour biology class when everything suddenly got real quiet. The stunning new girl it took everyone a week to realize was just a new Janice Stone, with a makeover from heaven, appeared promenading down the hallway. All the guys fell back against the lockers, legs weak and with hearts slamming against their ribs like sledgehammers. All the girls stared with poison eyes holding their breath until the potential guy stealing bitch was out of earshot and then the claws and insults would come flying out.

            She was an angel and she obviously knew it. The smile on her face was genuine and she was obviously in love … but who with? Roger Doggett and several members of the football team had already asked her to homecoming but I’d heard she turned them down.

“She likes guys with fast cars.” Tony Lemmon nudged me in the shoulder just as Janna passed. “You better get that wrecked cop-car rolling if you want a chance at that snatch!”

            “Plenty of guys around town got fast cars,” I told him.

            “I hear she’s looking for a guy to drive the back roads of Comanche County after midnight looking to run down and catch the witch’s ride,” Lemmon said. “You ever seen the ghost car?”

            “I’ve glimpsed the tail-lights a couple of times … I think,” I told him. “I’m not sure it ain’t a dust mirage.”

            “Old lady Descombey keeps her garage closed up tight,” Tony said. “So you never know when the 1949 Buick Roadmaster parked in there is rolling. I don’t know anyone sane with enough balls to go up to the witch’s door let alone knock.”

We were almost to Biology class when Vice Principal Dunn tapped me on the shoulder. “Principal Wilson wants to see you in his office right now,” he said.

            “I got class,” I told him.

            “Frankie Haskel, class is one thing you don’t have,” Dunn smirked. “Now get your butt in there pronto … or you can forget about graduating.”

I walked back and threw my books in my locker then headed for the principal’s office. Nineteen fifty-eight was starting out to be my bad luck year.

            Principal Leroy Wilson leaned back in his chair and motioned for me to take a seat in front of him.

“You need money?” he asked. He didn’t look like he was going to give me a loan.

            “Who doesn’t,” I told him. “But I’ve got a job after school and weekends working at Roy’s Conoco on the east end of Townsend,’ I told him. “I get by.”

            “I’ve heard from more than one source that it was you that stole the cash receipts from the cafeteria yesterday when Mrs. Moore went to the bathroom.”

            “Me?” I gasped. “I didn’t steal that money!”

            “Then why are people saying you did?”

            “I don’t know,” I told him. “But I know someone you’d better ask.”

            “Who’s that?” Wilson leaned forward looking interested. I knew then that no one had ratted me out. I think the old bull just called me in on a hunch because I was a hood.

            “Tony Lemon,” I told him. “I saw him stuff a yellow bag with Gold Strike Bank printed on the outside in the bottom of his locker,” I said.

I passed Tony when I was leaving Wilson’s office. “I got tapped. What’s going on?” he asked.

            “Some kind of witch hunt,” I told him. “They’re shaking down everyone over the missing lunch-room money. He’ll say it was you … tell him to stuff it.”

            “Sounds like the old bastard,” Tony growled as he opened the door.

I ran down the hall and pulled the empty bank bag from the bottom of my locker where it was hidden under a dirty gym towel. I stuffed the cash in my pocket and then tossed the bag in the bottom of Tony’s locker. I was at the far end of the hall when Wilson and Lemon appeared at the other end, being flanked by the school security guard. They didn’t see me.

            “You can search me, you can search my locker … I didn’t steal anything!” Tony was telling them.

I allowed myself to breath. Maybe this school year wasn’t going to be my best … but for Tony Lemon it was going to be hell.

-------2-------

            There were two oil changes waiting and the pumps were extra busy. It was after eight O’clock before  I was able to drive the 1858 Chevy Del Ray into the second lift bay of the Conoco station. The less than one-year-old four-door was minus the front bumper grill assembly, both fenders, the hood and a windshield. I’d bought the almost new but completely wrecked car at a salvage auction for six hundred dollars after a Montana State Police Captain named Buck Jennings drove it up a pine tree chasing a speeder at sixty miles an hour.

Buck liked fast cars and had added a special intake manifold and two four barrel carburetors to the already souped-up 348 big block Chevy engine. I put in a new radiator, fan, and water pump and the car purred like a kitten. The only problem was getting to the timing and linkage to the duel carbs adjusted just right so the secondary kicked in when the gas pedal was pushed to the floor. It was supposed to exceed 140 MPH on the open road … I hoped it would. Right now the front half of the car was an engine on a frame and wasn’t at all street legal.

That would all change in a few days hopefully. A salvage yard in Missoula was rumored to have a nineteen fifty-eight Del Ray with severe damage to the rear end.  I could get all the parts I needed, including a windshield, for two hundred bucks. I was taking Saturday off and a friend with a truck was driving me to what passed for a big city in Montana. I hadn’t figured out what shade of black I was going to paint the restored car but I smiled as the bell rang and I walked out to the pumps.

Janice Stone liked fast cars huh? In a few weeks, there wasn’t going to be a faster car in western Montana. In  the mean time, I had to figure out a way to ask her out. She was still some what of a loner, all the popular girls hated her because she was breathtaking and she still sat with the fly-strip girls in the back of the lunch room. There was still a chance, but I’d have to work fast.

-------3-------

            Joslyn Crane pulled up next to the Ethel pump in her father’s 1952 Ford. Why the old man always had to have expensive fuel put in his old clunker nobody knew. “Fill it up,” Joslyn said. It looked like Joslyn was babysitting, kids filled the front and back seat. Ten year old Charlie Crane unrolled the back window when I was filling-up the car. He handed me a quarter. “Get me a pack of Camels from the machine would ya?”

I laughed and flipped the quarter back in his punk face. I leaned into the open window and whispered to the scowling brat. “You got to have hair on your nuts before you can smoke kid! Unless you give me two bucks. ”

Joslyn pretended not to hear but I could feel the heat from her hair curlers reflecting off the rear view mirror.

            “I’ve got hair on my balls!” Charlie protested.

            “If you do it’s a hair-piece,” I laughed.

            “Want to bet!” Charlie was out of the car and undoing his belt just as the gas pumped stopped and I replaced the cap.

            “Oh my God!” Joslyn’s curled hair was standing on end as she stared at her little brother standing to the side of the car with his pants down. “Charge this to my father,” she screamed and then peeled away from the pumps.

Charlie Crane chased after his big sister but it was hard trying to run and pull up his pants at the same time. Joslyn stopped and picked him up a quarter block away.

I could hear her yelling as they drove away.

-------5-------

It was afternoon before I got a chance to speak with Janice, Janna as everyone was now calling her. I almost walked to her table twice in the lunch-room but chickened out. I could tell every guy there was thinking the same thing. If I struck out, my shame would follow me like a bad smell for years.

            It was just before last hour when I caught her in the hall. I was standing next to Tony Lemon’s empty locker. He’d been expelled and was doing a week in the crow-bar hotel.. We were almost alone. I stuck a cigarette in my mouth and stepped in front of Janna. In my mind I looked just like James Dean. She stared at me but the smile never left her face. “You can’t smoke in school,” she said.

            “It’s not lit,” I told her.

She surprised me by taking a pink Zippo lighter from her purse and lighting the end of my Lucky Strike.

            “If you’re going to get expelled, you might as well enjoy it,” she said.

            “You’re a real cat ain’t you?” I said with the cigarette dangling from my lips.

            “You just going to stand there … or are you going to ask me?”

My voice was suddenly gone. I had to wait until it got back from the bathroom or wherever the hell it disappeared to. Her enchanting eyes were looking me over like I was a budget piece of meat in the supermarket … some kind of stinky fish. Her smile never wavered, as she took in my greasy pants, my dirty white t-shit and my black leather jacket with Canyon Roadster’s Car Club printed on the back.

            “You into fast cars?”

My voice was still taking a piss. I nodded like the dummy Charley McCarthy while Edgar Bergen drank his nightly glass of water.

Finally when I thought Janna was going to walk away, my voice returned. I hoped that what everyone said about her was true. “I’ve got a 1958 Chevy Delray with a turbo thrust 348 big block,” I stammered like an idiot. “It used to be a state police car until the bear driving it tried to climb a pine tree. If anything can catch that 1949 Ghost master you’re chasing she can. I got some body work to finish up, but then how about going for a ride with me sometime after midnight? I know all the back roads in Comanche County like the back of my hand.”

Janna stared at me for a minute until I started to fidget. If I’d had a gun I think I would have shot myself for talking out of my head. Why did I have to say the back of my hand? She probably thought I was into masturbation. The hall was starting to get crowded. I was scared. She was out of my league, out of anyone’s league and we both knew it. Then finally she smiled. “You get your super-fast car on the road … and we’ll go out.”

I fell back against my locker with my mouth hanging open as she walked away. I couldn’t believe it. I’d have my Delray on the road in one week if I had to work all night long every night and steal all the parts I needed.

I saw Principal Wilson enter the hallway and I picked my smoke up off the floor and flipped the lit cigarette into Lemon’s almost empty locker before he saw it. There was still some crumpled bits of paper in the bottom of the locker and I imagined I could smell smoke as I skipped last period and ran out of the school. I would show up at work at the Conoco a little early. I would need all the money I could beg borrow or steal and there was a lot of work to be done. But things were definitely looking up. 1958/1959 was going to be the year-of-the-hood in Cloverdale.

TO BE CONTINUED …