Bud Smith: F 250

Los Angeles. That was the worst. The whole time I was there, I felt like my blood was glue. My teeth were packed solid with grits of sand. I drank way too much and didn’t sleep. I thought about Seth the whole time and his big plan to get us out to Los Angeles. Here I was, doing what he wanted to do. He was dead. I was alive. But there was no joy in it at all.

The whole tour, I kept looking out at the crowd of people and hoping to see June. I never did. We weren’t in communication. She had no idea how I felt about her. I’d just figured it out myself. She didn’t have a crystal ball. …well, maybe she did. That wouldn’t surprise me.

When the tour was over, we went back to Seattle. I figured the band was probably done with me and that I’d go back to doing session work for the label, but their manager liked me and asked if I’d like to fly out to Idaho, where there they were from, to work on some new material. I agreed.

In the meantime, I was back in the apartment. I missed a lot of things about New Jersey. Mostly the weirdos I left behind. My place was small and cramped but clean. Where were all of Feral’s boxes? Where were his VHS tapes and records?

I took out the photo strip.

I stared at June.

I grabbed my bag that I never unpacked.

I went back out onto the street.

Texas sun. Sweat.I waited outside the entrance to the lecture hall building, pretending to read the campus newspaper. I’d never read a newspaper in my life. I could see in through the glass door. The security guard at his desk was splitting time between watching a basketball game and checking the IDs of kids walking in. I wondered if the security guard was gonna hurt me as bad as Boyd had that night at the boardwalk.

The second he stood up to use the bathroom, I slipped inside and past his desk.

There were two lecture halls. One was empty. The other one was crammed solid with kids. I opened up the door and walked inside.

I’d seen this kind of thing in movies, a college lecture hall, but was never in one myself. It could easily hold three hundred kids. I looked up at them as they sat amphitheater style: legs crossed, slouched in their flip-up plastic chairs, but “Where’s June Doom” was all I thought.

I scanned the rows. There were too many faces. I kept thinking I saw other people that I knew, but they had no purpose being in Texas (or in some cases alive). Maybe all the dead were here in Texas.

I was standing in the aisle far too long. The door opened again, and the man who must have been the professor walked in. He carried a leather briefcase. He wore a corduroy blazer. His hair was long, gray, and slicked back. He was running this show. He whisked past me as he made his way to the podium in the center of the lecture hall.

I was running out of time, or it felt like I was running out of time, so I took the stairs two at a time. I passed rows of oblivious kids, who were focused on the professor … not me. I needed to find June. I was going crazy. I really was.

Why did I have to find her right that minute? Was something bad gonna happen to my brain? I had no real idea. I couldn’t really explain it. The thought had just been growing and growing. It sent me away from Seattle in a dizzying circle.

I took a flight to Austin-Bergstrom International Airport. I hadn’t slept the night before. Nervous energy. So much nervous energy — a steamroller crushing my spine. On the flight, I downed Jack and Coke after Jack and Coke, but they didn’t have any effect on me. I couldn’t get drunk, so I just stopped. Completely.

That was that. The last drink I ever took.

Our jet skidded into a wall of heat and dust and still-air. Then, after a cab from the airport to the university, I just kept asking, asking around on campus, till I found a girl who knew exactly who June was.

“Red haired chick with the Joy Division shirt? She’s in my Classicism vs. Neo-Classicism course.”

I bounded to the top of the lecture hall. The professor started to talk on the microphone. He welcomed everyone and made a comment about what a nice day it was outside, about how all the birds were going crazy for it and would probably shit all over his Jaguar.

“That’s all they seem to enjoy. Who am I to stop them?”

There were some laughs. I took a seat and looked down at him. He told another joke.

“I’d like to save all that bird shit for a year and dump it on their tree from above in a hot air balloon. Wonder how that would make them feel.”

Everyone laughed at that. I settled into my seat, still scanning the backs of all the kids’ heads.

Where was June?

The lights began to dim. I realized the professor was going to have an audio-visual accompaniment with his lecture. I sank down into my seat, relaxed, became comfortable with the idea. I wasn’t gonna find her right now, but somehow I’d weaseled my way into a college lecture.

The professor began to show slides. He began to talk about them. It was done in such a way … a way I’d never even considered before. I found myself surprisingly enthralled. I got sucked into his lecture, entranced by everything he was saying. I almost had to slap myself.

Jesus Christ! Here I was, finally, in a fucking college lecture. I wanted to shake the kid sitting next to me and ask, “What took me so long to get here? Why did I hold out tooth and nail against this?”

About ten minutes went by. The light changed below; the door had opened. I watched a figure walk into the lecture hall. A girl.

It was her.

I couldn’t see her. She was cast in shadow. But I knew it was her. No doubt in my mind. She sat about six rows below me and two seats in.

Instantly, I stood up and started making my way down the aisle like a lunatic. I climbed over the back of the empty seat beside her and tapped her on the shoulder as I sat down.

“June,” I said.

She flinched away from my touch.

“June,” I said, “it’s me.”

“What the fuck,” she uttered as if drenched in cold water. “What are you doing here?”

“I’m here for the lecture.”

“Lecture? Are you insane?”

“You were late,” I said a little too loudly.

The professor stopped talking into his microphone and looked up into the seats. He couldn’t see us because of the lights shining on him, but he was conscious of our noise.

“Seriously, why are you in Texas?”

“You,” I said. “For you!”

“Don’t be crazy,” June said.

“Hey, I got off an airplane and came here to find you.”

The professor spoke into the microphone, “Is there a problem out there? Am I interrupting something important?”

“Let’s get outta here,” June said.

She stood up, and I followed her through the lecture hall, down the hallway, and into the brightness.

I kissed her.

We fell against the block wall. The security guard at his little desk leered at us. We were high entertainment to him. June kissed me deeper. I was looking for all the answers to my life in her mouth.

I found most of them.

That Christmas, June came backto New Jersey. We’d been seeing each other a lot. I took whatever excuse I could to go see her in Texas. She came and stayed with me in Seattle on all her breaks.

We both missed snow. There were many feet of it in my hometown, where all my friends were. We met in Denver and hopped on a flight together to Newark. Feral picked us up at the airport in Seth’s old car. The Altima.

“Why are you driving this?”

“Van was hit by a train. Cut in half. Probably for the best.”

“Oh,” June said.

Feral said, “How’s your hot blonde girlfriend?”