Silver Chevy Silverado Part 3
You know that feeling before a storm? The wind whistles, leaves rustle. Not in a menacing way, but in melancholy anticipation. There’s this electricity in the air. The atmosphere is unstable. Suddenly the polarities of the world become apparent. The clouds start condensating, becoming heavier and darker with their burdens until eventually they can’t hold on anymore and they let it all out. You’re standing in no-man’s-land and you know it. You’re conscious of your position in the middle phase––something’s gonna happen soon. You’re on a bridge and when you get to the other side, it’ll be completely different. The animals sense it first. They don’t come out of their dens and nests. They prepare for the storm.
“Come over!” someone shouts over the hedge to my right.
I sit up onto my knees, only seeing a head in the distance over the foliage.
Him? Why is he asking me to come over? Did he forget our previous interaction? Because I don’t think it ended on a very good note.
“But I’m reading!” I yell back.
I’m not reading, actually. I’m journaling––but my book is lying right next to me. I don’t know why I said I was reading. I guess reading seems more urgent and a better excuse not to go over than journaling does.
I peer over the hedge again, watching him as he lights a pipe. The pungent smell of weed wafts through the air and penetrates my nose.
He waves his hand in a motion towards himself and shouts, “Come on!”
Damn it.
I leave everything lying on the lawn and hop over the hedge, staring at the patchy green grass as I approach him. I don’t even know why I’m doing this. He obviously doesn’t like me. But if he doesn’t like me, why is he initiating an interaction?
The intense afternoon sun blares onto my body and I feel like an ant under an interrogation lamp. I squint, my eyes adjusting from the shaded area I occupied previously to the strong rays of a setting sun.
As I approach him my stomach contorts itself into a million knots. I don’t want to say the wrong thing and have him make me feel horrible about it for days after. I don’t want him to pick me apart.
I feel like I’m walking on eggshells.
I shouldn’t even care.
I should stop caring.
I attempt to un-squint my eyes as I approach him, my eyes tracing up from the ground.
He’s shirtless.
God damn it. It’d be much easier to hate him if he wasn’t hot.
“What’s up?” he asks, reaching into his pocket, extracting a pack of Camels, and selecting a cigarette. As he places it on his lower lip, he stares right through me. I’ve never met someone with eyes like his. I remember the first time I spoke to him, they were attentive and kind. I study him for a bit longer. His gaze is oddly distant today. There seems to be a disconnect––but they’re still incredibly mesmerizing.
I realize I’ve been staring at him for too long so I turn my face away. “…Nothing,” I say, flustered.
“You were just hanging out on your front lawn alone?” he asks, taking a drag. My eyes drift down to his bare chest but I catch myself quickly and respond.
“Yeah…well kinda…but I was reading.” Could I be anymore incoherent? I can practically hear the eggshells cracking underneath my feet.
“What are you reading?”
“The Inferno by Dante Alighieri.”
He responds with a shrug. I kick myself for answering honestly instead of diverting the conversation back to him. I don’t need him to tell me I’m a dork.
He takes a step towards me and the tangy aroma of weed pervades my nostrils once more. Maybe that’s why this conversation is insanely dry.
“So what have you done today?” he asks. He takes another drag and as he exhales the smoke, I smell something else besides weed and tobacco.
His breath is heavy with the scent of alcohol.
This whole interaction is bizarre and confusing. Didn’t he imply that other day that we weren’t friends? Why is he asking me what I’ve done today?
I stare blankly at the ground for a good five seconds. I feel something in me shift, but I’m not sure what it is. “Uh…well let’s see. I went on my morning walk, made some pancakes and coffee, gardened a little, and played some video games––” Stop talking.
“Video games?”
Shit. “Yeah.”
“You’re a gamer,” he snorts in that all-too familiar condescending tone.
“Well, no. I just play the games my brother had for his old Xbox 360.”
i receive a grunt as a response.
He picks apart everything I do and I’ve been nothing but nice to him.
God this is awkward.
I watch the smoke of his cigarette swirl and swivel through the air in a silky light grey streak. He takes out his phone and starts scrolling mindlessly.
He asks me to come talk to him, doesn’t really talk to me, and then whips out his phone. What the fuck is going on?
When his cigarette dwindles down to just the pale yellow filter, he glances at it for a moment, then flicks it onto the road. I physically reel at the sight of him intentionally littering, especially since it's a cigarette bud.
Now it’s my turn.
“You’re just gonna fling that onto the road and not pick it up?” I ask.
“Yeah, you got a problem with that?” he snaps, grabbing another cigarette from the pack.
“You know that pollutes our oceans and contaminates our water supply.”
He rolls his eyes to the gods and scoffs. “The street cleaners will clean it before it goes anywhere.”
“When was the last time you saw a street cleaner come through this street?”
“Look, this is where my taxpayer money goes, so I’m gonna use it––and I pay a lot of taxes.”
“Oh yeah cause you’re in such a high tax bracket,” I snort.
“Whatever,” he spits, walking back to his garage and grabbing a twenty-four ounce can of Heineken. My legs instinctually take a couple steps back.
I don’t feel good. Something’s not right. The first time we spoke he wasn’t like this. What’s different? He had just come from work then––he was probably sober. That morning we spoke and he was rude, he had some alcohol. Right now, he’s high and drunk––and I doubt the cigarettes help.
He turns around.
“Woah, woah where are you going?”
“What?” I ask, my quivering voice riddled with anxiety.
“You’re just gonna call me a loser and leave?”
“I never called you a loser I just––”
“You did!”
“No! I just pointed out that you probably aren’t in a high tax bracket but it’s okay because I’m not either! It was a joke, I swear!”
“No, no. I got exactly what you were saying. You think I’m a loser. It makes sense, I mean, I still live with my parents. I have a mediocre, low-paying job and I party all the time. I do drugs––in fact, I’ve done every fucking drug in this world. I smoke a lot, I drink a lot and, like you said, I’m not in a high tax bracket.”
He takes a step closer. The concentrated stench of weed, tobacco, and alcohol radiates off of him to configure the most repulsive and fear inducing concoction––the scent of sheer volatility.
My stomach leaps into my throat.
I attempt to distance myself but find my back against a tree. He stumbles forward, slamming his hand onto the trunk of the tree right beside my head. He downs half of the large beer can and wipes the side of his mouth with the back of his hand, his erratic eyes and intense gaze violate me.
I’m frozen with terror.
I could shove him off and run home––it’s only a few long strides from where I’m standing––but suddenly the distance seems insurmountable.
“You know, I drank a fifth of whiskey earlier too, let’s add that to the list,” he says, almost slurring. His marajuana-and-alcohol-laden breath molests my nose as he exhales.
“What list?”
“Oh, you know, that mental list you keep of all the repulsive shit I do. Let’s see, I mean, just within the last couple hours I've smoked cigarettes and flung the buds onto the street, I’ve smoked weed, I drank too much alcohol, and I’m drinking even more alcohol now.” He leans his face even closer to mine. I feel like I’m face-to-face with a raging bull. The kind eyes I once used to revere have transformed into the most spiteful pair of snake eyes known to man. “Did I forget anything?” he hisses.
I feel hot tears well up behind my eyes. I don’t dare blink. “Look, I’m just your neighbor. You asked me to come over and talk to you. There’s no list in my head. I don’t know who you’re mad at and I don’t know where this is coming from, but I barely know you and I just made a joke––I didn’t mean anything by it––”
“Shut up!” he shouts. Slobbering spit flies onto my cheek but I don’t have the strength to wipe it off so I just let it slowly drip off the side of my face.
He’s breathing heavily. The hand he hit against the trunk is still there, trapping me in a malicious embrace. Veins protrude from his neck and onto his jaw. His previously calming green irises are being suffocated by red bulging bloodshot vessels. Who is this person?
“You think I wanted my life to be like this? You think I wanted this? Well I didn’t, and I still don’t––but I’m stuck here.” he slurs. “You think a stupid kid like you knows anything? I know everything.” He pauses. “Like I know this––I know that you like me,” he scoffs, “or at least you did. You’re so obvious. I see the way you look at me and talk to me––the way you get all flustered and fake-shy.” He proceeds to pitch up his voice and flail his arms to produce a wildly inaccurate imitation of me. In doing so, he releases me from his cage and I feel as if I can breathe a little again. “Oh me, oh my! Why, I am just a damsel in distress! Please, give me attention!”
“I think I’m gonna go,” I say shakily, inching to the right and then backwards towards the safety of my front yard. My mannerism is slow and intentional, as if I was confronted by a rabid animal.
But before I can get very far, he grabs my arm.
“Leaving so soon? But the fun just started! I was gonna tell you that I don’t fucking like you. You’re nineteen! You’re a kid. You’re weird. You reek of desperation! And you talk like you know what life is, but you don’t even know your face from your ass! You’ve never lived! You don’t know what life is! You’re a fucking child for God’s sake!” His eyes scan downwards and back up. I hunch, suddenly feeling naked. “I mean, your body definitely isn’t shaped like a child’s,” he chuckles dangerously. “I’ll give you this much––you’re hot––but that’s about it. The most I’d do is fuck you.”
I feel vomit rise in the back of my throat. This is too much.
“Just stop!” I scream, a single teardrop falling from my left eye, I feel it mingle with the slobber that’s still left over on my face. I twist and rip my wrist from his grasp.
“Fine!” he roars, tossing his head back and slamming the last half of his beer. He crushes the can in his palm, throws it in the back of his truck, and opens the door.
“You’re gonna drive?” I shriek, walking towards him now instead of away. “Are you crazy?”
He chuckles as he climbs into the driver’s seat. “I do this all the time.”
“You’re fucked up! You could kill someone! You could kill yourself!”
He laughs in the most mocking, fiendish tone. “Yeah, and?”
With that, he slams the door of his silver Chevy Silverado, backs out, and speeds off to God knows where.