Hick - Andrea Portes [0]
HICK
andrea portes
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Unbridled Books
Denver, Colorado
Copyright © 2007 Andrea Portes
All rights reserved. This book, or parts thereof, may not be reproduced in any form without permission.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Portes, Andrea.
Hick / Andrea Portes.
p. cm.
ISBN-13: 978-1-932961-32-4
ISBN-10: 1-932961-32-1
[1. Runaways—Fiction. 2. Family problems—Fiction. 3. Coming of age—Fiction. 4. Swindlers
and swindling—Fiction. 5. Sex—Fiction. 6. Automobile travel—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.P83615Hic 2007
[Fic]—dc22
2007000105
1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2
Book design by SH • CV
First Printing
for mom
“There never was such a country for wandering liars. . . .”
MARK TWAIN
ONE
ONE
You know why you keep losing, cause, guess what, you’re a fucking loser.”
If I could grab you out your seat and make you fly past yourself and set you down in the middle of this red wooden shoebox, you’d be staring at my mama. You can see her now, ruddy-faced and getting a little too loud, some kind of aging Brigitte Bardot, ten years later and twenty pounds past what might have been, sitting there in a yellow tank, pink nails and blond flip-up hair. And the shoes, the shoes are the crowning glory, the angel on top of the tinsel tree, yellow plastic mules with a flower etched on the strap, just above her chipped pink toe-berries. My mama’s littlest toe looks like a shrimp. she’s half in the bag and not caring about bra strap showing or big brass laughing or acting slutty.
That’s my dad, there in the corner, hunched over the bar like some kind of beaten question mark. He’s staring fixed into his 7 & 7. Seven for give up. Seven for make do. Not much left over. There’s no doubt in my mind that if he could dive headfirst into the ice-cube clinking whiskey pool dangling at the end of his fingertips, he would.
If you threw Elvis and a scarecrow in a blender, topped the whole thing off with Seagram’s 7 and pressed dice, you would make my dad. He’s got tar black hair and shoulder blades that cut through his undershirt like clipped wings. He looks like a gray-skinned, skinny-rat cowboy and I would be lying if I didn’t say that I am, maybe sorta kinda, keep it secret, in love with him.
And you would be, too, you would, if you met him before drink number five or six. Just meet him then. Get lost before things get ugly.
His name is Nick, but call him Nicholas, like that Russian royal from my yard-sale World Book, cause if anybody in Lancaster County looks like some displaced king, it’s my dad, shot through time like a diamond in a dirtbox.
My mama’s name is Tammy, last name Cutter. And the worst part about it is, my dad can’t stop being in love with her. Even as she sharpens her knife on the bones sticking out his back, even as she slurs her words, even as she makes goo-goo eyes at strangers, even then, he tilts his glass and shrugs and jiggles the change in his pocket and waits for her to love him back.
“I mean, they never win. They never win. Tom Osborne is just not a winning coach.”
She lowers her voice to a loud and confidential whisper.
“I mean, if you ask me, he’s just a dud. Just an old dud. He’s not hungry enough to win.”
And then, like she’s gonna show you what true hunger looks like, she throws her head back, sucks down the rest of her berry-lime cooler and slams the empty glass on the bar like a drunk German, itching for a fight.
If you want to know how to reach us, you can call us here. Let’s just say that’s your best shot. So, here’s the number, just ask for Nick. Let’s just say the phone may or may not be working back home. Let’s just say next to the line marked O for office, you can just put down the Alibi and Bob’s your uncle. If you want to track us down on foot, it’s that red neon sign three miles outside