American Boy - Larry Watson [28]
“Are you serious?” Johnny threw down his pencil. “What are we sitting around here for? Let’s go.”
“Now?” said Louisa. “All right. What the hell. Let me get my coat.”
Before she exited the kitchen, she paused in the doorway. “They’re just underpants, you know. Everyone wears them.”
“But not everyone has a bullet wound,” said Johnny.
8.
LOUISA LEANED FORWARD TO TURN the radio dial. She was trying to steady the signal from Fargo’s KFRG, but just when it seemed as if the Four Seasons’ high harmonies had finally found their way to us, Johnny would turn a corner or round a curve and the radio would resume its guttural hiss.
When Louisa wasn’t cursing the radio reception she was complaining about the lack of heat in the Plymouth Valiant. The car was officially Johnny’s mother’s, but he was free to take it anytime the keys were hanging on the hook next to the back door. I had similar privileges with our old DeSoto, but since my mother usually drove the car to work, I seldom had access to it in the evening.
We were shoulder to shoulder in the compact car, and every time Louisa shivered I felt it. “If there’s any heat coming out down there,” she said, waving her foot back and forth under the dashboard, “I sure as hell don’t feel it.”
“I need to keep the defroster running full blast a little longer,” explained Johnny, as he rubbed the heel of his gloved hand at the frost forming on the windshield. We were on our way to a little roadside tavern about five miles outside town. Louisa didn’t want someone in a liquor store or bar in town seeing her carry a case of beer out to a car that looked like Mrs. Dunbar’s.
“By the way,” said Louisa, “the guys who usually buy your liquor for you—how much do you pay them?”
She looked to Johnny first. He didn’t answer, and I knew why. But what were we thinking?—that she offered to do this because she was so fond of us? “Sometimes we give them a six-pack,” I said. “If it’s a big order.”
“A six-pack. Gee.” Louisa huddled deeper inside her plaid wool mackinaw. It was another ill-fitting garment, but in this case it occurred to me that its original owner had probably been Lester Huston.
“It’s usually someone’s older brother,” Johnny added. “But we’ll pay you. What’s fair?”
“I don’t know. A case of beer ... Five bucks?”
“What do you think, Matt? Five okay with you?”
“Sure, fine. I’ll kick in.” I knew if I didn’t agree, Johnny would pay it all himself.
Louisa pointed toward the glowing blue neon of a Hamm’s beer sign on the right side of the road ahead. “There it is. Just pull into the lot and leave the engine running. Maybe the car will be warm by the time I come out.”
Before she got out of the car, we each gave her five dollars.
“Okay,” she said, pocketing the bills. “And you said Budweiser?”
“Or Schlitz.”
About five minutes later, Louisa Lindahl exited the Red Hawk Bar with a case of Blue Lake Lager, everyone’s beer of last resort. “This was what they had cold,” she explained. “I thought we could have a few before we go back to the house. Unless you have to get right back to your homework.” She offered no change from the purchase.
“As long as I’m home before my folks and the twins get back from the carnival,” Johnny replied cheerfully.
“I’ve got all night,” I added.
“So let’s go,” said Louisa. “You know some out-of-theway place we can park?”
Before he put the car in gear, I knew where Johnny would take us.
Johnny stopped just short of the pine trees that seemed planted to hide the entrance to Frenchman’s Forest. We were not far from the clearing where Lester Huston and Louisa Lindahl had lived together in their ramshackle cabin. I knew he’d drive to the Forest, but I didn’t know he’d choose a spot as loaded with memory as those pine boughs were laden with snow.
Louisa recognized the significance of the site, but it didn’t appear to present any emotional difficulty for her. As soon as the car was parked, she twisted herself around, got up on her knees, and reached over into the backseat to pull out bottles