weed.”
“We were never on the same grapevine, Alex. Did Susan ever have an opinion about that guy who died? Or the guy going to jail for seven years?”
“I guess she agreed with my side of things.”
“How’d you keep her quiet?” he said.
“I didn’t do anything. After that night we stopped seeing each other. I think that was August, and a month later we were off to different colleges.”
“Didn’t you expect some legal repercussion?”
“I don’t know if I expected anything,” I said. “I sure feared it. I suppose the police knew the chasers were hoods. I heard they found the bats inside the wrecked car. Brass knuckles, too.”
“So it was good riddance?”
“Maybe so. They could’ve found witnesses to your fight and traced the Riviera, but they never did and nobody came forward. I waited for that other shoe to drop for months after that. Hell, I waited all through my freshman and sophomore years.”
“But you skated, just like always?”
“It’s deep in the past.”
“You took part in two illegal car chases,” he said. “Speeding, reckless driving, stop-sign violations. How’s your conscience on that?”
“Like I said, they made their move and I reacted. My conscience never came into play.”
“Gotcha.”
It was time to clam up. Once again Tim had shaped history to his favor, to put down someone else. In his smug slam of my conscience, he couldn’t grasp that my actions that night, right or wrong, stemmed from his grief at the drive-in. If I hadn’t had to rescue him, the two chases wouldn’t have happened.
But Tim kept hammering. “The guy who wanted to punch out my lights has been deep in the ground ever since.”
“His buddy bought the blame. Can we change the subject?”
“But, Alex, you knew they’d smashed that GTO.”
“I knew they’d left the road,” I said.
“You didn’t go back to see if anyone was hurt.”
“I could’ve learned the hard way that they were fine and ready for action.”
“Didn’t that give you a weird sense of power?” said Tim.
“Not wanting to be injured?”
“Leaving them there to maybe die. You could’ve made a difference.”
“What’s your fascination with all these details, Tim?”
“Hell if I know. Why is it something you want to sweep under the rug?”
“I had one thought in my mind,” I said. “I wanted my girlfriend, her father’s car, and my ass as far away from those fools as I could get. Now it’s history.”
He was quiet for a minute before he said, “Ever wonder what ever happened to Susan?”
“Mom told me a few years ago that she was divorced twice and finally landed a rich boyfriend. They live on an island near Spain.”
He finally went quiet. I went back to work on the skiff, spritzing cleaner, scuffing my knuckles as I jammed the scrub brush into corners, finding pockets of mildew that Al had ignored all year.
“After that summer,” said Tim, “with Raymond and you gone, I got to be the orphan.”
“You mean ‘only child,’ right? I can’t imagine you stuck around the house much.”
“Why bother?” he said. “The old man didn’t get it. Even when I was in junior high, he didn’t understand I wasn’t that bad. I was a fuckup, I won’t argue, but I wanted to be good. He didn’t believe I was smart, maybe smarter than he was. So I did what any red-blooded American boy in my shoes would do. I tried to prove to his nasty ass that I was dumb and evil, and I did it to piss him off and disappoint and embarrass him. Except it pissed me off, for some fucking reason, that you could ignore him. You didn’t let his bullshit get in your way. You went off to be good and smart on your own. I had to stay back and fight my little fight.”
“So here we are today,” I said.
“Yep, in your Keys.”
“Having arrived by different routes of travel.”
“More different than you can imagine,” said Tim.
“What will you do here?”
“Are you asking do I still want to be a decent human
“We were never on the same grapevine, Alex. Did Susan ever have an opinion about that guy who died? Or the guy going to jail for seven years?”
“I guess she agreed with my side of things.”
“How’d you keep her quiet?” he said.
“I didn’t do anything. After that night we stopped seeing each other. I think that was August, and a month later we were off to different colleges.”
“Didn’t you expect some legal repercussion?”
“I don’t know if I expected anything,” I said. “I sure feared it. I suppose the police knew the chasers were hoods. I heard they found the bats inside the wrecked car. Brass knuckles, too.”
“So it was good riddance?”
“Maybe so. They could’ve found witnesses to your fight and traced the Riviera, but they never did and nobody came forward. I waited for that other shoe to drop for months after that. Hell, I waited all through my freshman and sophomore years.”
“But you skated, just like always?”
“It’s deep in the past.”
“You took part in two illegal car chases,” he said. “Speeding, reckless driving, stop-sign violations. How’s your conscience on that?”
“Like I said, they made their move and I reacted. My conscience never came into play.”
“Gotcha.”
It was time to clam up. Once again Tim had shaped history to his favor, to put down someone else. In his smug slam of my conscience, he couldn’t grasp that my actions that night, right or wrong, stemmed from his grief at the drive-in. If I hadn’t had to rescue him, the two chases wouldn’t have happened.
But Tim kept hammering. “The guy who wanted to punch out my lights has been deep in the ground ever since.”
“His buddy bought the blame. Can we change the subject?”
“But, Alex, you knew they’d smashed that GTO.”
“I knew they’d left the road,” I said.
“You didn’t go back to see if anyone was hurt.”
“I could’ve learned the hard way that they were fine and ready for action.”
“Didn’t that give you a weird sense of power?” said Tim.
“Not wanting to be injured?”
“Leaving them there to maybe die. You could’ve made a difference.”
“What’s your fascination with all these details, Tim?”
“Hell if I know. Why is it something you want to sweep under the rug?”
“I had one thought in my mind,” I said. “I wanted my girlfriend, her father’s car, and my ass as far away from those fools as I could get. Now it’s history.”
He was quiet for a minute before he said, “Ever wonder what ever happened to Susan?”
“Mom told me a few years ago that she was divorced twice and finally landed a rich boyfriend. They live on an island near Spain.”
He finally went quiet. I went back to work on the skiff, spritzing cleaner, scuffing my knuckles as I jammed the scrub brush into corners, finding pockets of mildew that Al had ignored all year.
“After that summer,” said Tim, “with Raymond and you gone, I got to be the orphan.”
“You mean ‘only child,’ right? I can’t imagine you stuck around the house much.”
“Why bother?” he said. “The old man didn’t get it. Even when I was in junior high, he didn’t understand I wasn’t that bad. I was a fuckup, I won’t argue, but I wanted to be good. He didn’t believe I was smart, maybe smarter than he was. So I did what any red-blooded American boy in my shoes would do. I tried to prove to his nasty ass that I was dumb and evil, and I did it to piss him off and disappoint and embarrass him. Except it pissed me off, for some fucking reason, that you could ignore him. You didn’t let his bullshit get in your way. You went off to be good and smart on your own. I had to stay back and fight my little fight.”
“So here we are today,” I said.
“Yep, in your Keys.”
“Having arrived by different routes of travel.”
“More different than you can imagine,” said Tim.
“What will you do here?”
“Are you asking do I still want to be a decent human
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