Roadside Bodhisattva Part 7

Sue grinned wickedly. "Oh, I always bring that."

I got fl.u.s.tered. "Well, all right then."

Sid came out. He had on clean clothes. "You the angel that washed these?"

"Thats me," Sue said.

Sid took Sues hand, bowed down and kissed it. "You got a big heart, young lady."

Sue seemed to eat up this cornball s.h.i.+t, and I got a little angry. She smiled and said, "Oh, it was easy"

"Im gonna keep your aunt company. You guys have a ball."

"Well try," Sue said.

Sid went into the rental office, while I went to take my shower. My clothes from the road, all washed and folded, were waiting inside for me. When I came out, Sue was nowhere to be seen, so I headed back to the trailer.

She was inside, sitting on my bed, already spinning the wheel on my iPod, which she had lifted from my pack. That burned me a little, but I tried to put that stupid feeling aside. I should just be glad to have her company. I noticed she hadnt bothered with my books.

I sat down on the edge of Sids bunk. The trailer was so small our knees were almost touching.

"Not bad, not bad," Sue told me. "No rap though?"

"I dont like that hip-hop s.h.i.+t."

Sue shrugged. "Your loss. Lets listen to some Foo Fighters."

She dropped my iPod into a dock she had brought Soon the music was filling the trailer. I bet Sid wouldve had a fit if he had to listen to our music, him and his geezer tastes. So much for his surface coolness.

We talked a little, mostly about school and stuff. Around seven-thirty, I began to get hungry. Last night I had been too tired to think about my stomach, but tonight was different.

"What do you guys do for supper around here, with the diner closed?"

"Oh, sometimes I whip up some mac and cheese, or nuke some fried chicken. Why, you hungry?"

"I could eat something."

"Lets go then."

We carried my iPod and the dock back to Sues rooms. She fixed the food while I sat at the tiny table in the kitchenette. When she was done, we both chowed down.

"Man, that was great. Can I give your aunt some money to buy some more groceries for us?"

Sue had lit a cigarette. She kept looking at the clock on the wall. It was nearing eight-thirty. "She wouldnt mind." Sue got up abruptly. "Kid, would you mind cleaning up? Ive gotta be someplace."

"Uh, no. I mean, sure, go ahead."

Sue ran out. I wanted to look where she was going. Was someone picking her up, or was she taking Anns car again? But I held back. Her business was her own.

I pumped up the volume as I cleaned the dirty dishes and pans. It mustve been pretty loud, because soon Sid stuck his head in from the office and yelled, "Kid A! Turn that s.h.i.+t down!" Didnt I predict hed hate my music this loud?

Four.

Ann counted out the money into my hand, which was kinda puckery from hours in dishwater. "Thirty, forty, fifty, sixty, sixty-five. That seem fair, Kid?"

I did some quick addition in my head. When you figured in my share of Yasmines tips, my pay for the past week came to about a hundred bucks. No taxes taken out either, since Ann was doing everything under the table. Even back home, when I had an after-school job for a few months at the mall stocking shelves at a Sam Goodys, I had never made that much. I felt rich.

"Yeah, thats cool."

I gave Ann a big smile, but the one she gave back was kinda lame. I got worried.

"Anything the matter? Is it the money? Can you really afford to pay me and Sid?"

Ann tucked some loose hair behind her ear. I noticed a streak of gray mixed in with the brown. "Well, more or less. You two have been invaluable around here the last week. Deer Park is looking better than ever. Yasmines not b.i.t.c.hing so much about being overworked. Even Angie smiles once in a while. But business is flat, and I was basically just sc.r.a.ping by even before I added you and Sid to the payroll. I dont mind though, because the difference between paying you guys and not paying you doesnt really represent much of a margin. If I ever decide to close this place, my decision wont hinge on what I spend on the help. Its the costs like electricity and propane and food and gasoline, unavoidable stuff that keeps going up and up, that are going to kill me."

This was more information than I really wanted. I wondered if this was the kind of boring thing Ann and Sid talked about each night, when Sid hung out with Ann on the couch in the front office of the lodge, with a c.r.a.ppy old black-and-white Radio Shack tv filling the time between guests showing up. After that first night, when Sid came back to the trailer so late and a little grumpy, and I had thought he was maybe s.c.r.e.w.i.n.g Ann, I had changed my mind about what they were up to. Sid didnt seem boastful enough to be getting any. I figured hed be grinning all day like a happy idiot if he had gotten into Anns pants, and wouldve let something slip to me. But he hadnt. And besides, Sue also felt that there was nothing nasty going on between her aunt and Sid. And she should know, since she shared her bedroom with Ann.

But even if the adults had to waste their time on this business s.h.i.+t, it didnt apply to me. I wasnt the owner of Deer Park, and I didnt feel like I should have to worry about the survival of the business. On the other hand, I had made the mistake of asking Ann how things stood, and I figured I should at least sound like I was taking her problems seriously.

"Thats tough, Ann. Maybe things will turn around for this place. The whole countrys hurting right now, I guess, but if things pick up-"

Ann smiled bigger then. "Youre sweet, Kid." Without any warning, she grabbed me and hugged me. She felt pretty s.e.xy for a geezer babe, and I got kinda nervous that maybe Id embarra.s.s her with a woody, so I pulled away as quick as I could without seeming like I was trying to escape. My face felt hot. I remembered something I had meant to do, and doing that thing meant a welcome change of subject.

"Uh, Ann, Sues been feeding me supper almost every night in your apartment. I wanna give you some money for groceries."

I dug a twenty out and handed it to her. "Is that enough?"

"Kid, you dont have to bother."

"No, no, I really want to. Its only fair."

She tucked the money into her pocket. "Okay. Anything special you want me to lay in?"

"Uh, how about some of those frozen pocket things, with the cheese inside?"

Ann laughed. "Ill get a stack of them, and any other horrible junk food I can possibly bring myself to purchase."

"Neat. Uh, Ann, Im gonna go help Sid with the painting now."

"Go, go."

I took off my ap.r.o.n and left the empty diner. It was four in the afternoon, and Yasmine and Sonny had gone home. I didnt know where Sue was.

As I walked across the lawn toward the cottages, I felt kinda mixed up inside. The money in my pocket made me happy. And I didnt feel guilty for taking it, despite Anns tight finances. After all, the Prophet says, "Before you leave the market place, see that no one has gone his way with empty hands." But being tied down to this steady job, postponing my travels on the road. Well, that still sucked, no matter how hard and how often I tried to pretend it didnt. I felt like Jack when he had signed up for the fire ranger school. "I wasnt a free bhikku any more." The tug-of-war between the two feelings, and between the two books, left me confused.

I wondered if maybe Sid hadnt been right when he said Kerouac and Gibran just didnt belong together.

And then there was the way things were going with Sue. Or not going.

I figured Id talk to Sid about my problems with Sue, but not about my changed feelings about the two books I tried to live by. I didnt want to give him any cause to say, "Ha-ha, I told you so!" That seemed to be one of the things that adults liked to say best.

Sid was working on the front side of the cabin we had started sc.r.a.ping first, a week ago. We had gone like robots down the line of cottages, prepping them all before we could ever even crack open a single can of paint, just like Sid insisted we should. The constant sc.r.a.ping had been pretty boring, but I had to admit that somehow doing it day after day sharpened your focus, made you more of an expert, at least in that one crummy area of work. Today was the first shot I was going to get at using a brush, which seemed a lot more interesting to me.

Standing on a low ladder, Sid worked at the eaves, laying on broad lines of dark green paint in a slow, steady way that seemed to cover a lot of square feet of boards almost before you realized it.

"Hey, Sid, do we have to paint all the fronts first? Or am I actually going to be allowed to work on a different wall from you at the same time?"

Sid turned half around without getting down. His face and arms were sunburned even darker than when I had first met him, from so much outdoor work. The dark tan made his old zit scars disappear somewhat. Maybe one day soon hed finally look good enough to Ann to score with her.

"Well, well, well, if it isnt the budding Michelangelo. I dont know if youre gonna be allowed to paint anything yet This is too much fun. Maybe Ill just keep you around for stirring the paint and was.h.i.+ng the brushes."

"Yeah, right, I read Tom Sawyer too, you know. Just give me a brush and let me get busy."

"Oh-ho, a literary man! I shouldve known, what with your consorting with ol Jack and that other joker. All right, you can join in. But let me give you a few pointers first."

I stood as patiently as I could while Sid told me about not overloading my brush with paint, and how to make a proper stroke, and s.h.i.+t like that He finished up by saying, "You see these dropcloths Ive laid down? Well, a dropcloth is not an excuse to be sloppy. Look at em this way. Theyre like a safety net for a trapeze artist. You never want to use it, but youre glad its there when you need it. But the dropcloth of the perfect painter would be completely spotless."

Something about this part of Sids speech got my attention. It reminded me of lessons I had heard at the Zen temple. "Why would a perfect painter even need to lay down his dropcloths then?"

Sid grinned. "He wouldnt be perfect if he didnt bother."

After Sid poured me a plastic handle-bucket full of paint from the can, I moved to the side of the cottage where a second stepladder stood, climbed it and began to paint. The sharp smell of the paint got mixed up with the old weathered smell of the cottages boards and the living smell of the nearby trees and the car smells of the highway. I burped and tasted the four chili dogs and c.o.ke I had had for lunch.

After a few minutes I got up my nerve to talk to Sid about Sue. Not being able to see him made the conversation a little easier.

"Sid, uh, what do you think of Sue?"

"Shes a smart girl. Cute as a bug. Seems to have a lot of common sense, and maybe even some big dreams, which are even more important. But I dont particularly like how she makes her aunt nervous by taking off at night. Christ knows what kind of crowd shes hanging out with."

I got a little p.i.s.sed. "If she has all those good qualities you mentioned, then shouldnt she be trusted to make her own decisions?"

"Well, yes and no. All the character in the world only goes so far when you factor in lack of experience. A person your age or Sues age just hasnt been through enough c.r.a.p yet to recognize a lot of lifes traps when they open up under your feet."

I stabbed the brush at the wall. "I am so sick of that line! Either you can see things the way they are or you cant, and it doesnt matter how old you are. Whats right and whats wrong shows itself to you, and you either have the smarts to tell which is which, or you dont. You ran into geezers who dont have a clue, and ten-year-old kids who can spot a phony from a mile away. Age has nothing to do with anything!"

Sid didnt answer me right away, and I wondered if I had gotten him angry. But when he finally did say something, his voice was calm and maybe even a little sad.

"Kid A, you sound just like me when I was your age. And thats why I know theres nothing I can say that will change your mind. And thats also why I wouldnt be young again for all the G.o.dd.a.m.n dope in Mexico. Youre gonna find out that experience matters, matters a lot. And unfortunately, its gonna be a painful lesson. But I will say one thing. If right and wrong were as easy to tell apart as you seem to think, then wed all of us be saints."

Sid sounded so sincere about me getting hurt somehow that I couldnt stay p.i.s.sed at him. Maybe I was a little flattered too at how he had said I reminded him of himself at my age.

"Well, were gonna have to agree to disagree then."

"Agreed," he said, then laughed. I laughed too.

When we quit laughing, Sid said, "So, you must be pretty taken with Sue if you bothered asking my opinion of her."

"Well, yeah, of course. I-I like her a lot. Id like to hook up with her."

"Whats stopping you?"

"Im trying my best, but these friends of hers in town are more appealing to her than I am. Shes always ditching me to go see them. How can I compete with some guys Ive never even met?"

"Have you ever asked Sue to go along with her into town?"

"Uh, no, I havent."

"That doesnt show much interest in her life."

"I-I thought Id be b.u.t.ting in where I wasnt wanted."

"Maybe. Maybe not. But at this point, what have you got to lose?"

I thought about this idea. It made sense. But then another angle opened up to me. "Hey, youre not suggesting this because you think Ill report back to you and Ann about whatever Sue does, are you?"

"Kid A, youre the one who brought up this whole topic, not me. Im not the G.o.dd.a.m.n FBI. Do whatever you wanna do. Im just saying that unless you can insert yourself deeper into Sues world, shes always going to see you as this vague guy hanging out on the fringes of her life."

"All right then. Ill give it a try"

We painted without talking for about half an hour. Then Sid said, "Kid A, maybe you can help me."

I figured Sid was gonna ask me to talk him up with Ann. But his next words were so far off that mark that they surprised me.

"Im working on unknotting our pal Angie. Its gotten to be kind of an obsession with me. At first, I was just hanging around with him to make things go smoother for you and me. I didnt want him regarding us as compet.i.tion or some kind of menace to his cozy setup. So I listened to him talk about cars and sports and other impersonal s.h.i.+t, and made all the right sympathetic noises. But the more time Ive spent with him, the more Ive gotten really intrigued by his character. Theres something hidden inside him, some sore spot hes been nursing for a long time. I figure if I can get him to open up about whatever the h.e.l.l it is, it might be good for him. Good for everybody."

"How can I help with that?"

"For the first time hes invited me back to his place for a beer tonight, once he closes up the garage. Id like you to come along."

"Wont me being there make him clam up?"

"I dont think so. Ive got a hunch that his troubles have something to do with kids. I think you being there will strike some kinda chord with him, and h.e.l.l come clean."

"This probably means I wont get to see Sue tonight."

"Probably."

I thought about this request for a minute or so. "Will I have to drink beer too? Im not real big on beer."

Sid roared. "Kid, I will personally buy you a G.o.dd.a.m.n crate of Yoohoo if you do me this favor!"