to kids from the high school and nearby Horlicks - kids desperate to keep their death-traps on the road.
The station was open twenty-four hours a day, and Buddy worked the late shift, from 9 p.m. to 5 a.m. Around eleven o'clock, Moochie Welch and Sandy Galton were apt to drop by in Sandy's old dented Mustang; Richie Trelawney might come by in his Firebird; and Don, of course, was in and out almost all the time - when he wasn't goofing off at school. By midnight on any given weekend there might be six or eight guys sitting around in the office, drinking beer out of dirty teacups, passing around a bottle of Buddy's Texas Driver, doing a joint or maybe a little hash, farting, telling dirty jokes, swapping lies about how much pussy they were getting, and maybe helping Buddy fiddle around with whatever was up on the lift.
During one of these late-night gatherings in early November, Sandy happened to mention that Arnie Cunningham was parking his machine in the long-term lot out at the airport. He had, in fact, bought a thirty-day ticket.
Buddy, whose usual demeanour during these late-night bull-sessions was one of sullen withdrawal, tipped his cheap contour-plastic chair abruptly back down on all four legs and put his bottle of Driver down on the windscreen-wiper cabinet with a bang.
'What did you say?' he asked. 'Cunningham? Ole Cuntface?'
'Yeah,' Sandy said, surprised and a little uneasy. 'That's him.'
'You sure? The guy who got me kicked out of school?' Sandy looked at him with mounting alarm. 'Yeah. Why?'
'And he's got a thirty-day ticket, which means he's parked in the long-term lot?'
'Yeah. Maybe his folks didn't want him to have it at . . . '
Sandy trailed off. Buddy Repperton had begun to smile. It was not a pleasant sight, that smile, and not only because the teeth it revealed were already going rotten. It was as if, somewhere, some terrible machinery had just whined into life and was beginning to cycle up and up to full running speed.
Buddy looked around from Sandy to Don to Moochie Welch to Richie Trelawney. They looked back at him, interested and a little scared.
'Cuntface,' he said in a soft, marvelling voice. 'Ole Cuntface got his machine street-legal and his funky folks have got him parking it out at the airport.'
He laughed.
Moochie and Don exchanged a glance that was somehow both uneasy and eager.
Buddy leaned toward them, elbows on the knees of his jeans.
'Listen,' he said.
PART II: ARNIE - TEENAGE LOVE-SONGS Chapter 23 ARNIE AND LEIGH
Ridin along in my automobile,
My baby beside me at the wheel,
I stole a kiss at the turn of a mile,
My curiosity running wild -
Cruisin and playin the radio,
With no particular place to go.
- Chuck Berry
WDIL was on the car radio and Dion was singing 'Run-around Sue' in his tough, streetwise voice, but neither of them was listening.
His hand had slipped up under the T-shirt she was wearing and had found the soft glory of her breasts, capped with nipples that were tight and hard with excitement. Her breath came in short, steep gasps. And for the first time her hand had gone where he wanted it, where he needed it, into his lap, where it pressed and turned and moved, without experience but with enough desire to make up for the lack.
He kissed her and her mouth opened wide, her tongue Was there, and the kiss was like inhaling the clean aroma/taste of a rain forest. He could feel excitement and arousal coming off her like a glow.
He leaned toward her, strained toward her, all of him, and for a moment he could feel her respond with a pure, clean passion.
Then she was gone.
Arnie sat there, dazed and stupefied, a little to the right of the steering wheel, as Christine's dome-tight came on. It was brief; the passenger door clunked solidly shut and the light clicked off again.
He sat a moment longer, not sure what had happened, momentarily not even sure of where he was. His body was in a complete stew - a helter-skelter array of emotions and erratic physical reactions that were half wonderful and half terrible. His glands hurt; his penis was hard iron; his balls throbbed dully. He could feel adrenalin whipping rapidly through his bloodstream, up and down and all around.
He made a fist and brought it down on his leg, hard. Then he slid across the seat, opened the door, and went after her.
Leigh was standing on the very edge of the Embankment,