I laughed. He dropped his arms from our shoulders, seeing people noticing us. He did talk to June, he said, and she seemed like a nice lady. But he hadn’t met the daughter.
“She’s the one that was passing out the cake.” I knew they’d spoken. I’d seen it.
“With the giant snuggly boyfriend attached,” Maggot added.
Fast ignored him. “I know which one she is. Just didn’t get a proper introduction.”
That was on me, I’d screwed up. “We can go find her now,” I said, but he didn’t seem keen. “Or some other time. We’re over here a lot. She and Maggot are like brother and sister.”
Fast Forward was watching people around the fire that were all watching him back. Like at any moment he was going to bust an astounding move. Feels so empty without Fast Man. Maggot piped up that if he wanted to meet the hotcake cousin, he’d have to clear it with the boyfriend and his deer rifle. Of all the times in my life I wanted to punch Maggot, that one was memorable. I could feel the energy of Fast Forward pulling away from us.
Then Rose intercepted out of nowhere, worming through the crowd to bring him a beer. I was buzzed enough to watch it as a football play: Rose finds her gap, assesses the depth of coverage. Turns her numbers to the receiver and makes a quick slant for a run/pass combination.
He took the bottle from her and drained it. Rose watched him without kindness. If she was a football player, she’d be the one that gets you on the bottom of the pile and spits in your helmet. He handed the bottle back and told her it was time we hit the road. She dropped the bottle and walked away. Yikes. Maggot had decided to stay the night at June’s. I went to hunt up Mouse.
I found her sitting in lawn chairs with June and Ruby, explaining something that involved a lot of pointing to their chins and cheeks.
“Fast Forward says it’s time to go.”
She looked up, her head cocked like a bird’s. June and Ruby too. They all three gave me that look women get, Who died and left you boss, mister?
“So, what should I tell him? Do you want a ride?”
“When I am finished talking with these ladies about foundation contouring, yes.”
“I’m not sure I like the sound of this Fast person,” June said. “Is he drinking?”
“No ma’am,” I said, glancing at Mouse. “You’d like him. Everybody does.”
Mouse pushed herself off the lawn chair, which was actually a drop for her short legs. We found Fast Forward and made our way out to the road. Most of the parked cars were still there, even with the party dying out. June’s house would be wall-to-wall carpeted with drunks tonight. We walked in the middle of the road, hearing people in the woods. The saggy skin of pup tents glowed in the moonlight. A waste of a starry night I thought, to sleep in one of those. Then I heard a couple going at it hard, so privacy was the reason. Sorry to say, their secret was out. Mouse and Fast were talking, too quiet for me to hear. He seemed to be asking for some kind of intel. She was louder, so I caught answers without the questions: “High school, I’m positive,” and “It better be, because I am going to be seeing bad spray tans in my nightmares.”
I caught up, and asked Fast Forward didn’t he think the Peggots were a good bunch.
“Bunch.” Mouse said. “What comes in bunches, let me think. Grapes. Bananas.”
“Honey bunches,” Fast Forward said.
“Of oats! That’s it. Oat party! Watch out for the horses.” She slapped his ass.
I told Fast Forward I was sorry he didn’t get to talk to June or Emmy.
Mouse asked if we were discussing Mrs. Robinson and Elaine, and I told her I didn’t know them. “Are they Lee County Robinsons?”
She snorted.
Fast said the lady had her shit together, and the daughter was attractive. But the boyfriend was a knuckle dragger. “Chucklehead,” he said. “Serious bumpkin seed.”
“Ohhh yes,” Mouse agreed.
I wasn’t thrilled with the new situation, but Hammer was good people and I said as much.
“He’s screwing his own cousin,” Mouse said. “I guess that’s normal for you people.”
I tried to explain how they were divorce cousins and not blood kin, but I was exactly the wrong degree of sober. Which is just enough to hear how stupid you’re sounding.
“Still gross,” she said. “Like Woody Allen and his adopted kid. Eggs in the same nest.”
I said it wasn’t that kind of eggs. Mouse clearly thought I was an idiot. Up ahead of us was some commotion, guys yelling “Go, go, go!” Tearing towards us, and then a blast. A rain of something fell around us in the dark.
“What in the holy mother fucking hell,” Mouse inquired.
“A kyarn blow,” I said.
“A cornblow. Of course,” she said.
“Not corn, kyarn, like roadkill. It’s this thing where you bury an M-80. They used to put a dead animal in the hole, but now mostly it’s just gravel and sticks. So it throws shrapnel.”
I couldn’t see her face in the dark, and didn’t need to. Burying M-80s was ignorant. Fast Forward yelled at the guys to ask if the coast was clear, and they said yes, they’d only lit the one. Mouse walked fast, grabbing his arm. “A do-over of the fucking Civil War. Charming.”
“Or practice for the next one,” he said. Which was true, a lot of these guys would sign on to go blow up Afghanistan the day they were old enough. Their shot at seeing the world.
“Oh, my, gawd. Don’t they have anything better to do?”
“Not really, no,” is what I told her. “Welcome to Dixie.”
I hate that I said that. Looking back. As hacked off as I was at her, I still just took it. There will always be those that look down on your station in life and call it a sty, but if you get in there and wallow, that’s on you. Plus, to hear Mr. Armstrong tell it, this is not even Dixie. Our ancestors here had to save their hides from Confederate gangs that rounded them up and drove them shackled to the lines, to shoot Yanks and save somebody else’s fat-ass plantations. There’s north and there’s south, and then there is Lee County, world capital of the lose-lose situation.
