I said get it out of here, drive it if you have to, but don't you leave it where I have to look at it! That's it! The end!'
'How do you feel, Dad?' Arnie asked, shifting his gaze.
Michael opened his mouth again to speak.
'He feels as I do,' Regina said.
Arnie looked back at her. Their eyes, the same shade of grey, met.
'It doesn't matter what I say, does it?'
'I think this has gone quite far e - '
She began to turn away, her mouth still hard and determined, her eyes oddly confused. Arnie caught her arm just above the elbow.
'It doesn't, does it? Because when you've made up your mind about something, you don't see, you don't hear, you don't think.'
'Arnie, stop it!' Michael shouted at him.
Arnie looked at her and Regina looked back at him. Their eyes were frozen, locked.
'I'll tell you why you don't want to look at it,' he said in the same soft voice. 'It isn't the money, because the car's let me connect with a job that I'm good at and will end up making me money. You know that. It isn't my grades, either. They're no worse than they ever were. You know that, too. It's because you can't stand not to have me under your thumb, the way your department is, the way he is' - he jerked a thumb at Michael, who managed to look angry and guilty and miserable all at the same time - 'the way I always was.'
Now Arnie's face was flushed, his hands, clenched into fists at his sides.
'All that liberal bullshit about how the family decided things together, discussed things together, worked things out together, But the fact is, you were always the one who picked out my school-clothes, my school-shoes, who I was supposed to play with and who I couldn't, you decided where we were going on vacation, you told him when to trade cars and what to trade for. Well, this is one thing you can't run, and you fucking hate it, don't you?'
She slapped his face. The sound was like a pistol-shot in the living room. Outside, dusk had fallen and cars cruised by, indistinct, their headlights like yellow eyes. Christine sat in the Cunninghams' asphalted driveway as she had once sat on Roland D. LeBay's lawn, but looking considerably better now than she had then - she looked cool and above all this ugly, undignified family bickering. She had, perhaps, come up in the world.
Abruptly, shockingly, Regina Cunningham began to cry. This was a phenomenon, akin to rain in the desert, that Arnie had seen only four or five times in his entire life and on none of the other occasions had he been the cause of the tears.
Her tears were frightening, he told Dennis later, by virtue of the simple fact that they were there. That was enough, but there was more - the tears made her look old in a single terrifying stroke, as if she had made a quantum leap from forty-five to sixty in a space of seconds. The hard grey shine in her gaze turned blurry and weak, and suddenly the tears were spilling down her cheeks, cutting through her make-up.
She fumbled on the mantelpiece for her drink, jogged the glass instead with the tips of her fingers. It fell onto the hearth and shattered. A kind of incredulous silence held among the three of them, an amazement that things had come this far.
And somehow, even through the weakness of the tears, she managed to say, 'I won't have it in our garage or in this driveway, Arnold.'
He answered coldly, 'I wouldn't have it here, Mother.' He walked to the doorway, turned back, and looked at them both. 'Thanks. For being so understanding. Thanks a lot, both of you.'
He left.
PART II: ARNIE - TEENAGE LOVE-SONGS Chapter 21 ARNIE AND MICHAEL
Ever since you've been gone
I walk around with sunglasses on
But I know I will be just fine
As long as I can make my jet black
Caddv shine.
- Moon Martin
Michael caught Arnie in the driveway, headed for Christine. He put a hand on Arnie's shoulder. Arnie shook it off and went on digging for his car-keys.
'Arnie. Please.'
Arnie turned around fast. For a moment he seemed on the verge of making that evening's blackness total by striking his father. Then some of the tenseness in his body subsided and he leaned back against the car, touching it with his left hand, stroking it, seeming to draw strength from it.