Dennis Tafoya - The Dope Thief

He said, “I would never hurt you, you know that.”

“Oh, stop. I’m not frightened of you, I’m frightened for you, dipshit.”

“Well, listen to the mouth on Stanard Hicks’s daughter.”

“ Yeah, well, my boyfriend is a bad influence.”

They drove for a while, the windows open, music low. There was a blare of horns and Ray swerved, fought for a second to hold the road.

“Shit!” A car loomed on the left, shot past. They heard the kids inside shriek; saw the soap on the windows. GOOD LUCK! CLASS OF 1994. He lifted his fist. “Goddamn kids today.”

“Careful, hon. You just stole this car you and don’t want to crack it up already.”

He shook his head. “ You think you’re superbad?”

She looked at him out of the corner of her eye, shook her head.

“So,” he said, “Cornell, full ride?”

“ Yes, and you know who got me in?”

“ You got you in. You worked hard for that.”

“I did, but it was Farah Haddad who wrote this absolutely incredible letter for me.”

“Huh.”

“I know you didn’t think much of her, Ray, but she really stuck it out for me.”

“Well, that’s good. Not that you didn’t deserve it.”

“You know, she also told me she thought you were the brightest boy she had in years.”

He made a noise. “Really? A C or something would have been a good way to show it. She failed me.”

“ ’Cause you didn’t give a shit, pardon my French.”

“ Yeah, well, what the fuck.”

“Exactly.” She shook her head. “And you practically wrote that paper for me on Vonnegut. Out of your head.”

“It was easy.”

“Not for everyone, Ray, for you. Because you’re smart. You think. All I did was add punctuation to what you told me and I got an A off McGlone. And he doesn’t give A’s.”

“Then why are you mad at me?”

“It should have been yours! You should have kept it together and stayed in school and gotten your own damn A’s.”

“Hon, we can’t just fight when we’re together. All we got is what? A month or two and you’ll be off to school?”

“And then what? For you, I mean? What are you going to do?”

“I don’t know. A buddy of my dad’s said he might be able to get me something down the quarry.”

They came to a light, and she moved across the wide seat of the Lincoln and put his arm over her shoulder and laid her head against him.

“You can be more, Ray. Everyone knows it.”

“No, no one knows it. I’ll be okay. And you’ll be off to see the world. Get that degree, man, there’ll be no stopping you.”

“Why don’t you come with me?”

“Is there a quarry in Ithaca?”

“Raymond, will you please?”

“Oh, Marletta, this is the way it is. Guys like me knock around, get work at the filling station or a factory shop. And the brilliant girls they fall for go off to Cornell and become doctors and lawyers.”

“Oh, I am leaving. Do you know why?” She lifted her head and poked him hard under the ribs.

“Shit! That hurt. Anyway, why wouldn’t you?”

“I would stay for you, Ray. I love you, you… dumb-ass.”

“Now you sound like Bart. The dumb- ass part, not the love part.”

“Is that who screwed you up so bad?” She watched his eyes. “Was it Bart beating you and your mom, or going to jail? Or your mom leaving?”

“Now you sound like the social worker at the Youth Authority.”

“Well? What did you say to the social worker?”

“I don’t know, Mars, I’m not the kind likes to dwell on the past. You know me, I’m more of an accentuate- the- positive sort of guy.”

“Yeah, that’s you all over.”

“What? I do nothing but smile when I’m with you. I think sometimes I must look like I’m retarded.”

“You say that, but what good does it do, Ray?”

“It does me all the good in the world.”

“Really? ’Cause to me it looks like a waste of time.” She slid across the seat and put her hand on the door.

He sat up and his voice was low in his throat. “A waste?”

They turned into the parking lot at Lake Galena, and he had barely pulled into a spot when she got out and slammed the door. She walked down the short hill without looking back, and he got out and closed the door and trailed after her, his hands stuffed in his jeans.

He got close to where she was picking stones out of the dirt and trying to skim them, the loose sleeves of the gown flapping. The first one shot in at a hard angle and splashed her. He sat on the grass a few yards behind her. “ You got to lean, hon. Get your arm parallel to the water.”

“I know how to skim rocks, thanks. I need to know how to steal a car you’ll be the first one I call.”

“Mars.”

The next rock she threw hard, and it arced out over the lake, a long high course that ended with a small splash. “You told me you thought I was beautiful.”

“You are. The most beautifu l girl I’ve ever seen.”

She turned to him and sighed. “See? You say that and I am beautiful. I feel beautiful.” She lifted her arms. “And smart and capable and all the things you ever said to me, they…” She shrugged. “They helped me to be all those things. They made me see myself differently.”

“I did that.”

“Not just you. Farah Haddad, too. And Mrs. Cross, from the gym. Even Stanard Hicks, in his way.” She sat down facing him in the grass. “But when I say what I see in you, when I tell you that you can do things, can be things, it’s just, I don’t know. Wasted breath.”

“It’s not’”

“Yeah, it is.” She dropped her head. “I tell you you’re smart, you break into a house and nearly get shot. I tell you I love you and you steal a car and get sent away for three months.”

“That’s not your fault, Mars. You can’t think that.”

“I know it’s not, Ray. It’s something in you. I don’t know how it got there, though God knows enough crappy stuff happened to you.”

“Oh, my life isn’t that bad.”

Her eyes flashed and she smacked the ground with her hand. “Will you stop! Will you please for one blessed minute stop and listen to me?”

She stood up and stomped over to him, and he thought for a minute she was going to slug him for real, her fists balled and her face taut and red.

“You’re throwing your life away so fast I can’t… I can’t even keep up with it. I tell you I love you, I love you so much it takes my breath away, and it’s just nothing, it makes nothing happen. You can’t stop screwing yourself up, can’t give yourself a break. Can’t finish school or just stay around for me.”

He reached up and touched her hand, but she shook her head and turned away. She let herself drop down facing the water again.

He said, “It’s not a waste.” He picked up a short length of stick and touched her back, trying to tickle her neck.

“Oh, please.”

“No, you have to think of it that you’re the only one who keeps me going at all. The only one who has anything good for me. I know I screw up, but without you it’s just worse. You’re the only one who cares whether I live or die.”

“That’s some fun for me.”

“You say you don’t matter, I’m telling you you’re the only one who does.”

“I can’t do that alone, Ray. That’s too much for me to take on by myself.”

“Who else is there?” He sounded lost, and she turned and looked at him and her eyes were red.

“There’s you, Ray. You have to care about yourself. I mean at least a little. Enough to stay out of prison and not, I don’t know. Not mess with other people all the time. There has to be some small part of you that I could count on to keep on track.”

They sat for a while, listening to the almost imperceptible sound of the water’s edge, tiny breaking waves slapping at the rocks. Across the water a family poured out of vans and SUVs and set up a picnic in one of the pavilions. The low sounds of adult chatter and the high voices of children carried across the lake. One of the smaller kids made a beeline for the water, and a man who was maybe his father grabbed him at the water’s edge and scooped him up into a giant whirling arc, the boy screaming. It took Ray a minute to hear that there was excitement in the whoop from the boy, not fear, and he heard the word “again” from the boy so that the man was forced to swing him out over the water again and again while the boy shrieked in mock terror and clutched at him. Ray looked down at his clenched hands.