of all those childhood illnesses - mumps, measles, a bout of scarlet fever. Making me feel absurdly like crying. I had nine inches and seventy pounds on her.
'Sure,' I said.
'All right,' she said. 'Leave the light on. Sometimes it helps.'
And with a final doubtful look at my dad, she went out. I had something to be bemused about - the idea that my mother had ever had a nightmare. One of those things that never occur to you, I guess. Whatever her nightmares were, none of them had ever found their way into Sketches of Love and Beauty.
My dad sat down on the bed. 'You really don't remember what it was about?'
I shook my head.
'Must have been bad, to make you yell like that Dennis.' His eyes were on mine, gravely asking if there was something he should know.
I almost told him - the car it was Amie's goddam' car, Christine the Rust Queen, twenty years old, ugly fucking thing. I almost told him. But then somehow it choked in my throat, almost as if to speak would have been to betray my friend. Good old Arnie, whom a fun-loving God had decided to swat with the ugly-stick.
'All right,' he said, and kissed my cheek. I could feel his beard, those stiff little bristles that only come out at night, I could smell his sweat and feel his love. I hugged him hard, and he hugged me back.
Then they were all gone, and I lay there with the bedtable lamp burning, afraid to go back to sleep. I got a book and lay back down, knowing that my folks were lying awake downstairs in their room, wondering if I was in some kind of a mess, or if I had gotten someone else - the cheerleader with the fantastic body, maybe - in some kind of a mess.
I decided sleep was an impossibility. I would read until, daylight and catch a nap tomorrow afternoon, maybe, during the dull part of the ballgame. And thinking that, I fell asleep and woke up in the morning with the book lying unopened on the floor beside the bed.
PART I: DENNIS - TEENAGE CAR-SONG Chapter 8 FIRST CHANGES
If I had money I will tell you
what I'd do,
I would go downtown and buy
a Mercury or two,
I would buy me a Mercury,
And cruise up and down this road.
- The Steve Miller Band
I thought Arnie would turn up that Saturday, so I hung around the house - mowed the lawn, cleaned up the garage, even washed all three cars. My mother watched all this industry with some amazement and commented over a lunch of hotdogs and green salad that maybe I should have nightmares more often.
I didn't want to phone Arnie's house, not after all the unpleasantness I had seen there lately, but when the pre-game show came on and he still hadn't shown, I took my courage in my hands and called. Regina answered, and although she was doing a good facsimile of nothing-has-changed, I thought I detected a new coolness in her voice. It made me feel sad. Her only son had been seduced by a baggy old whore named Christine, and old buddy Dennis must have been an accomplice. Maybe he had even pimped the deal. Arnie wasn't home, she said. He was at Darnell's Garage. He had been there since nine that morning.
'Oh,' I said lamely. 'Oh, wow. I didn't know that.' It sounded like a lie. Even more, it felt like a lie.
'No?' Regina said in that new cool way. 'Goodbye, Dennis.'
The phone was dead in my hand. I looked at it awhile and then hung up.
Dad was parked in front of the TV in his gross purple Bermudas and his Jesus-shoes, a six-pack of Stroh's crashed down in the cooler beside him. The Phillies were having a good day, belting the almighty hell out of Atlanta. My mom had gone out to visit one of her classmates (I think they read each other their sketches and poems and got exalted together). Elaine had gone over, to her friend Della's house. Our place was quiet; outside, the sun played tag with a few benign white clouds. Dad gave me a beer, which he does only when he's feeling extraordinarily mellow.
But Saturday still felt flat. I kept thinking of Arnie, not watching the Phillies or soaking up the rays, not even mowing the grass over at his house and getting his feet green. Arnie in the oily shadows of Will Darnell's Do-ItYourself Garage,