Give Me Some Truth Page 9

  “Clearly you’ve never been in a guys’ locker room,” he said, laughing. “Not sure, but the trailer is the only place with air-conditioning and carpet in this whole workplace, so it’s the only spot in the whole place that’s really nice to take a break. I think they feel guilty for being in there with the office ladies, so they put on a show for, um, everyone’s amusement.”

  “It had to start somewhere,” I said. “Sweaty grown men don’t take off their shirts and flop around with each other on their lunch break, generally.”

  “Locker room. Wrestling is macho bullshit. When you get out of the shower, someone snaps a towel on your ass yelling, ‘Slap boxing!’ Suddenly, you’re on defense. Tons of fun.”

  “So, like, naked, you’re saying? Buck. Ass. Naked?”

  “That’s usually how you shower. Why am I telling you this?”

  “Trying to explain why two adult mechanics sometimes wrestle for our amusement.”

  “I don’t know,” he said, shrugging. “You can be sure I’ve never initiated naked slap boxing. Some guys grow up and, maybe, some guys don’t.”

  “Well, maybe one of the reasons you get singled out,” I said, trying not to be too mean, “is because they know you’ll cave. Because you’ve never started anything.”

  “Oh, really. Has that worked for you? Do girls slap-box in the locker room?”

  “You wish,” I said, laughing. “Well, I haven’t done that, exactly, but my mom didn’t want to let me have this job. I stood up to her, and now here I am.” After the first week, she’d almost doubled orders, because no one wandered away, thinking they had to stand around waiting for me to bead and trying to say funny one-liners, hoping they weren’t risking me screwing up. They could just come back the next day. And she didn’t have to worry about my “slutty mouth” anymore. The deal was sealed and I could earn my own paycheck that was nobody else’s business. I left out the part that I had to spend a couple hours each evening beading stupid initials, otherwise I would lose this job. Small price.

  “Why do you want to know so much about those creepy assholes anyway?” We heard the compressor go off in the break room and knew it was time to get to work.

  “Just curious,” I said, relieved. “Let’s go before they come looking for us. They’re always in a worse mood if that happens.” Jim Morgan flew around the corner. I felt bad that we hadn’t gone into the break room.

  “Hey, kiddo,” Jim said, putting his big hand on my head and shaking it gently, something he did regularly these days. It was weird not to be able to tell anyone what I thought of Jim, but this was exactly what Liz was “Keeping an Eye On” me about, so I had to play it cool.

  Out of nowhere, Liz appeared. Jim headed out.

  “Standard day, twerps,” she said (that meant cleaning buses). “To shake it up? Each of you do one alone, without the other one’s help.” Some days, she allowed us to work together and other days, not, even though we worked faster when we were both doing the same bus. “First one done goes on a parts run with me after lunch and the other one does another bus solo.”

  “Why would I want to go on a parts run?” I asked Lewis as we headed to our buses.

  “Well, it should take, tops, twenty minutes, but they usually take an hour, maybe more. They go back roads, lower than the speed limit, shoot the shit with the parts dealers, stop for a coffee, whatever.” Not exactly exciting, but that did sound way better than breaking down bus tires, dragging exhaust systems to the upstairs storage, or scooping out the disgusting mud traps.

  Lewis and I looked at each other across the bay through the giant bus windshields as we Windexed them. At ten o’clock, someone yelled, “Break!” The Real Workers streamed over to the break room as a group, but Lewis wandered over to my bus, assessing my progress.

  “I’m way ahead of you,” he said, looking at all my untouched surfaces. “If you want to go, I can slow down. Be the gentleman.”

  “So generous. Don’t worry about me.”

  “Suit yourself. Listen, I’m totally burnt. I’m just gonna crash in one of your backseats here, all right?” He scrunched in one of the benches before I could protest, disappearing. Almost instantly, tiny snores came from the back. The bay would be empty for a half hour, despite the fact that break was supposed to be fifteen minutes.

  “No break for you again?” Jim said, appearing outside the bus door, startling me. I held my hand up to my lips in the shush signal, and glanced in the rearview mirror. No stirring. Jim leaned into my bus, not quite stepping up, his arms on the frames. I stood quietly and came down toward him. At first, it didn’t seem like he was going to let me pass, but when I touched his bicep and pushed gently, he dropped it and we went quietly out behind the building where his official truck sat.

  “Still getting shorted on your break? You know, they legally gotta give it to you.”

  “I thought you might come by,” I said, and he smiled. It wasn’t wholly true, but it wasn’t exactly a lie either. I did always look forward to the times he’d catch me alone. We never chatted about big things, but he listened to what I had to say. He even noticed me doing one of my conceptual beadwork pieces one day, when I’d told Lewis I was staying on my bus to work. It was a beadwork version of that drawing on the Beatles album Revolver. Marvin was going to make a bunch of tiny soapstone men and corn-husk dolls for the collage part.

  “You still working on your Revolver art thing?” I nodded. I’d tried to hide it back in my beadwork bag that first time, but he asked to see it. He’d touched it, running his fingers over the beads and the velvet, smiling, telling me it was soft like skin. “Can I see how far you got?”

  “I didn’t bring it today,” I said, a lie, but it was on the bus with a sleeping Lewis.

  “Maybe tomorrow?” he asked. “If I come by? Whose head are you working on?”

  “Between John and Paul right now.” I pretended there wasn’t another way to interpret that, but it gave me that little lightning zap I got sometimes when I saw Jim. We heard the compressor come on. Break over. “Listen, these guys are noticing that you’re coming over more this summer than usual.” It was amazing what you could overhear if you paid even a little attention to others. “That’s what they said anyway. Are you?”

  “Maybe I got more reason to come over here this summer,” he said, his smile widening, splitting that bushy mustache. “I get ya, though. I got an idea. Nice surprise for you,” he said, turning his head a little and grinning. “Maybe I’ll see you at lunch. You better get back in there,” he said, and slipped in the bay door, heading toward the break room like nothing was out of the ordinary. I watched him all the way until he went through the door. When he came back through a couple minutes later, Lewis was up and getting ready to go back to his bus.

  “What’s Jim doing here again?” Lewis said, behind me. “Doesn’t that guy ever work? Even if it’s just hassling his own kid workers for the rest of the day.”

  “Maybe he needed something?” I said, not looking up. Jim passed through without looking my way, his school truck flew back out into the parking lot a little later. He slowed to a stop and waved Kenny over. Kenny jumped up on the boost step and talked with him a minute.

  Lewis didn’t know Jim had been at my bus, and I decided to keep it that way. “You better get back to your bus.” He dragged his feet across the bay and started back on his dash, sweeping paper towels across the giant windshields, and then climbing down to monkey with the hose and soap bucket. Somehow it never occurred to him that stalling only made the day feel even longer.

  Just before lunch, Liz inspected our buses and told us she’d let us know after lunch who was going with her. Right after, Kenny invited Lewis and me to the office trailer. Another wrestling day. We were Designated Audience, so we were getting AC and a show—Two Bonuses! There was no way I was turning down AC. The two younger mechanics and Dave Three Hawks, the older helper from the Rez, came leaping in after us, all slapping at each other.

  “Ladies and gentlemen,” Ken
ny said, holding a spray bottle as a microphone. He was the perpetual ref/announcer. Dave peeled his shirt off and stomped around the trailer striking Incredible Hulk poses, while people laughed. Anna, who ran the office, sighed, laughed, and grabbed her lunch. “Today’s match of Bus Garage Wrestling Federation brings us—”

  “Me,” Lewis said, standing up and yanking his own T-shirt off. It got caught on his glasses and he had to untangle himself while some of the others chuckled. This was maybe not my best suggestion. Lewis wanted to be like the Real Worker guys who walked around shirtless on hotter days, but he was so scrawny that the few hairs on his chest looked more like two pink spiders stopped halfway across a birdcage from each other.

  “You?” Dave said, trying not to split his head open with a giant grin.

  “This is highly irregular,” Kenny said. “I need to consult with our champ.” He walked over to Dave, and I was surprised we actually couldn’t hear what they were whispering to each other. Dave eventually shrugged and stepped away, going back to Hulk poses.

  “Today, we have a special challenger to Bus Garage Wrestling Federation! Weighing in at … what d’ya weigh, kid?” Lewis hesitated. “No lyin’. We got eyes.”

  “A hundred and twenty-three,” Lewis finally said.

  “Weighing in at the Sesame Street weight—”

  “What?”

  “One. Two. Three. Learning to count, is …” Kenny started grinning. “The Count! Ah! Ah! Ah!” Everyone cracked up, since Lewis’s sad goatee did make him resemble the Vampire Muppet who counted on Sesame Street. I wondered if Kenny watched Sesame Street trying to learn how to read as a pre-retirement hobby. “And we all know the Champ. Dave ‘The Predator’ Three Hawks.” Dave’s last name was close enough to a good nickname that Kenny had to work extra hard to find him a suitable nickname that Dave would still tolerate.

  “All right, fair fight!” Kenny said, hitting the typewriter’s carriage return button, dinging its little bell. Lewis crouched, making himself even shorter. Dave did the same, crouching farther. They ran at each other, grappling and chest bumping. Lewis’s legs were at an angle just so he could keep his balance. Dave’s reach was longer. He headlocked Lewis and reached under his knee and poked. They went down, rolling on the floor. It was clear to everyone in the room—except maybe Lewis—that Dave (who played for keeps) was, in fact, taking it easy on him.

  Lewis got a decent footing and put all his energy into one push while Dave was on his knees, and down they went, Dave on his back. Lewis quickly jumped up and sat on Dave’s chest, putting all his weight into pinning Dave’s shoulders to the floor. People yelled and hooted, counting down from ten, and almost no one noticed Jim Morgan step into the trailer, his T-shirt draped across his shoulders. His Happy Trail, the thick line of hair so neat it looked like he combed it, bloomed into a full-on tree of hair across his chest. It was the first time I’d seen where that trail led up to. He winked at me as Kenny dinged the typewriter carriage return. Lewis war-whooped, jumping up and down. What had I started this morning?

  “New round-one champeen!” Kenny said, grinning at Jim. “In a surprising upset, The Count takes The Predator down for the count!” Everyone laughed as Dave pretended to need the hand Lewis offered. “And we have a second unprecedented event! What a day for Bus Garage Wrestling Federation! Here to take on the new champ is a guest wrestler!” Others looked around, puzzled. I had a bad feeling, replaying the morning in my head.

  “Coming to us all the way from the Buildings and Grounds crew, I give you Jim ‘The Bee Gee’ Morgan!” Kenny said. Given everyone’s expressions, this might have been unprecedented, but I could picture Jim and Kenny talking in the parking lot this morning.

  Lewis glared briefly at me and sighed. He could walk away, but he’d never live it down. Jim shook hands and stood straight up, waiting for the bell to ring. He didn’t want to give one moment to wrestling theatrics. For a second, Lewis didn’t know what to do, but eventually, he charged. Jim held out his arm, stiff, and grabbed the top of Lewis’s head. This time, he gripped.

  Lewis could make no forward movement. He flailed about, trying to get his arms up high enough to unlock Jim’s elbow, but Jim just kept knocking Lewis’s arms aside, like Lewis was a particularly large mosquito. Lewis stopped for a few seconds to catch his breath, and Jim immediately let go. Lewis stumbled forward and Jim got him in a headlock, Lewis’s head clamped in Jim’s armpit. They scrabbled around, turning in choppy circles. Lewis kept trying to get his hands to meet around Jim’s back so he could lock his fingers, but he just did not have the reach. He did one lunge into exactly the right position his opponent wanted.

  Lewis had a typical Indian ass, which is to say, in the minus territories. (Even older Indian women mostly grew guts instead of butts—people joked that those ladies belong to the Robin Clan.) This was an unfortunate bit of Indian anatomy for Lewis at that moment. Halfway through the match, his Levi’s had slid down, even though he was wearing a belt cinched tight.

  Jim, almost casually, reached down to the exposed waistband of Lewis’s white briefs, grabbed a tight fistful, and yanked so hard that Lewis’s feet came off the floor. He grunted and spun slowly, and Jim kept yanking—you could see the sharp detour where the material was wedged deeply into Lewis’s butt crack. Lewis tried getting his left hand around to grab some part of Jim’s face, but nothing worked. He looked like a drowning man desperately reaching one hand to break the ocean surface, hoping a lifeguard would spot him.

  Jim gave one last hard tug and the elastic waistband in his hand loudly ripped away from the cotton around it. He let go and casually got a leg around one of Lewis’s. He slammed Lewis on the floor so hard the windows rattled, then leisurely climbed on top, settling fully on Lewis’s belly, knocking the wind out of him. Jim leaned forward, one arm on Lewis’s chest, an inch from his throat. Kenny, this time alone, counted the pin and rang the bell.

  Jim climbed up, victorious, a look of boredom on his face. He had played harder than the guys usually did. When he’d slammed Lewis to the floor, the trailer shook in ways I hadn’t ever felt. But I guess there were no rules about how serious or not serious you decided to be.

  “Jeez, Jim,” Dave said, coming up to him after the count. “If I knew you were gonna go full bore on the kid, I wouldn’t’ve let him win the first round.”

  “Bull,” Jim said. “You should be glad you made that decision. I coulda beat your ass fair and square too. Now where’s the prize?” Kenny handed over the pool of prize money, everybody’s collected desserts from the lunches and what looked like about fifty bucks.

  “Pleasure doing business with you folks. Let’s do this again sometime,” he said, still keeping his T-shirt hanging over his shoulder.

  “No problem,” Dave said. “I’ll match you anytime.”

  “Too easy,” Jim said. “If that kid could beat you. I need someone to make this interesting.” And with that, he left.

  “Come on, twerp,” Liz said, stepping out and whacking Lewis on the head. “Need you for a parts run.” Lewis followed her out, hobbling but trying not to show it. He pretended to clean his glasses on his shirt, refusing to look at me (I was gonna get blamed for this).

  The rest of the garage crew stepped into the summer heat, heading back to our bays. When I got to my bus, there was a crinkly lunch bag on the light control box, just out of sight for anyone not in the driver’s seat. FOR U, CASE U GET HUNGRY. ALREADY ATE SUM was written on it in the kind of grease pencil we all used to mark measurements. Inside, there was a single Twinkie and a half a Hostess cherry pie. No wonder Liz treated me the way she did.

  Not that I cared.

  “You and Marie still ready for tonight?” Lewis asked. Emphasis on “Marie.” It was the end of the day and we were getting the break room ready for tomorrow. We hadn’t said a word about the wrestling match yet. I had the spray bottles out cleaning while Lewis set up the two Mr. Coffee machines (regular and decaf) so the Real Workers just had to flip the switches the next
morning.

  “Six thirty, right?” I asked, knowing seven was more likely. I’d finally grasped the looser schedule of Indian Time, which my mom refused to acknowledge. I now had to juggle her overcompensating sense of time, this uncompromisingly exact time clock at work, and the “we’ll get there within a couple hours of the stated time” that Indian Time operated under.

  “More or less. You’re probably still safe at seven,” Lewis said.

  “What’s tonight?” Jim said with a grin, bursting into the room. He looked at me when he asked, but not before smirking at Lewis. Lewis gave a close examination to the coffee filters, pretending he hadn’t heard Jim.

  “Some of us are going to some Farmer John shindig tonight,” I said. “What’s it called again?” I honestly couldn’t remember. Our Science Project unit was a ten-minute drive away, and that difference was oddly familiar and disorienting. Like the huge world the crew faced on Marvin’s other favorite, Land of the Giants. There a safety pin became a harpoon or grappling hook or whatever the tiny crew needed it to be in that episode.

  “Sanborn Field Day,” Lewis said.

  “Always a good time,” Jim said. “Why don’t we sign you out, Loser, so you can go get ready? Maybe lick your wounds so you can give me a run for my money next week?” He put his arm around Lewis’s shoulder and started guiding him toward the entry.

  “I’m waiting with Maggi,” Lewis said. “We walk together.”

  “Oh yeah,” Jim said. “Now you’re the gentleman. No problem, I’ll give her a ride.”

  “It’s okay, Lewis,” I said, wanting desperately to be out of this situation. “My mom borrowed a car, so we’re going shopping a little with my first paycheck. And Jim, that offer? Your crew position?” I didn’t want to reveal that, but I also didn’t want Jim suggesting he’d made some other offer, as much as I might find that intriguing.

  “What about it?” he said to me, instantly softer, nicer. He took his hands off Lewis in the entry and turned to smile at me. Lewis frowned in confusion. Maybe he’d forget to ask for clarification. “Still stands.” I smiled and kept wiping off the cigarette machine on the opposite wall, avoiding the curiosity signal Lewis was silently transmitting to me.