Too Cool
Part 1
Triple E is broke. He cruises the streets of Gunnison searching for someone to roll. Jeanne has a buck and some change. Ava has two dollars. Tom has three. The car is almost out of gas. It has been a jittery day moving through the mountains, the tires skidding on patches of ice, slipping toward guard rails, jagged canyons. The radio has warned of another storm coming. They need to get gassed up and out of the Rockies, get to the plains of Utah before the storm hits.
"What should we do?" says Jeanne, trusting Triple E to have an answer. "Should we just get as much gas as we can and keep movin? Maybe we can find someone to roll in Utah. There are rich Mormons in Salt Lake, Triple E." She shivers and looks away from him. "God, it's cold. I can feel the cold pressin on the glass." She touches the window. Leaves the imprint of her fingers on the moist glass. "I should've stopped and got me some pants," she says. "This skirt is dumb." She tugs at the hem. Her kneecaps poke out smooth and brown. She is wearing a fur jacket. She has on ankle-top boots made of white suede. Her gaze wanders to Triple E, her eyes seeking assurance. He turns the heater up and she turns back to the window. "So cold," she says. "We gotta get outta here." She is not in her element. She is playing at being bad, doing her best to measure up to him, her love, her Triple E.
From the back comes Ava's tiny voice "This isn't workin," she says. She and Tom have been arguing and now they are both slumped at opposite corners of the seat, glaring out the windows at the ghastly snow. Tom says she is smothering him, why can't she lay off? Their lives at stake and all Ava wants to do is suck-face. Doesn't she know there's a time and place for everything? The goddamn car jerking all over the ice, six inches from death, cops looking for them, money running out, and she wants what? to make out? wants to talk about love and babies and shit?
"What the fuck wrong with you, girl?"
Ava has taken the hint. She has squashed herself up, her arms crossed, her face turned away, and she says it again, "This isn't workin."
"What isn't workin?" says Triple E.
"Me and Tom nor nothin," she says. "I don't know why I come. We don't know where we're goin, we don't know what we're doin, cept runnin round creation with you, Triple E. You're the one fought the law, you're who they want, not me, not us guys."
He can't argue with her. He nods, his eyes on her in the mirror--petite bit of a thing, fragile as a sparrow. She is fourteen years old and his cousin and he should be looking out better for her; but there is this thing she has about Tom Patch. And when he jumped in the car at school and said he was going with Triple E and Jeanne, Ava hopped in with him, eyes bright, ready for adventure. Triple E knows he should have made her get out of the car right then. But he didn't.
"Nobody's makin you stay," he tells her. "I'll let you out anytime you say, Ava. You can go on home."
"Like how?"
"Like, just call your mom. She'll come get you."
Ava is quiet a second or two, then she tells him to forget it, she is staying.
Parking next to a grocery store, Triple E watches as customers come out and get into their cars and drive away. A woman, hunched in a heavy coat and carrying a grocery bag in her arms, comes out of the store. Her purse dangles at her elbow. She walks past the parking lot and keeps going up the street.
"There," says Triple E. "You guys wait here."
He gets out of the car and walks behind her. The street is packed with houses on both sides, but just a few blocks away is white prairie wilderness. The sun is setting. Distant mountains huddle shoulder to shoulder like conspirators, their peaks lost in ashen clouds. Bitterbrush and trees and sage meander over the slopes fanning out beyond the town. Trees are scattered over yards and terraces. The sidewalks are gray, icy. Snow hardens along the curbs and against the wheels of parked cars. Icicles hang from the edges of peaked roofs. Lights in windows glow in a yellow haze of frost.
Past a streetlight on the corner, there are shadows beneath the black trees. When she enters the shadow, Triple E will go for her purse. He watches her carefully as she crosses the street, then moves into the gloom. He can see she is being careful, trying not to slip on the ice. He, too, is unsteady. Salt grips the soles of his shoes, but he feels like he might bust his ass any second. Hurrying close behind the old woman, he is about to snatch the purse from her arm, when she turns around. Looks at him.
"My-my," she says, her voice raspy, "isn't it just freezing to death out here? Where's your hat, honey? You should have a hat on."
"Uhnnh," he mutters.
"You'll get frostbit ears."
"Ummm," he says.
They walk together across the street. He sees a wrinkled patch of face bunched inside a knit cap and a scarf tied beneath her chin. He takes her arm and helps her up the curb. She is shaky and leans on him trustfully. His fingers are inches away from her purse.
"Thank you," she says. And then she says, "You're Masterson's boy, aren't you? I thought I knew you. You're Billy Masterson."
"Uhhh," he says.
"It's me, Ida."
"Oh, uhhh."
"How's your dad, Billy?"
"Okay."
She looks him up and down. "You been to military school or something?" she says. She has a crooked lip. It lifts at one corner and slopes downward at the other. Lots of vertical lines encircle her mouth. Her breath steams. His too.
"Uh-huh, military school," he says, running his hand over his buzzed hair.
"Those are parade shoes, you're wearing, aren't they?" She points at his shoes. The shoes are buffed a very shiny black, the edges are laced with snow.
"Yes, ma'am."
"I know parade shoes when I see them. Wilfred was thirty years in the army."
Ida talks fast, like she is afraid he'll go away if she doesn't keep talking. She says she knows military school is hard on boys, but it's good for them in the long run, builds character, gives a boy proper American values and self-discipline. If she had her way all boys would go to military school soon as they turned twelve. "Too many boys running on the streets where they're nothing but trouble. Denver especially," she says. "I'm glad I don't live there no more. What those people do to one another, it's criminal. Give me the country, give me the mountains. How old are you now, Billy?"
"Sixteen."
"Ah-yes," she says. She settles her gaze on him. "It's what I like about Gunnison. Nice kids like you. Been taught the values." She pauses a moment to clear her throat. She keeps squeezing Triple E's arm, yanking lightly on the sleeve of his jacket as they walk along. "The worse thing Nixon ever did, you know, was take away the draft. Young men and all their excess energy, they need a place to burn it off. Draft them in the army. Give them pride in themselves and pride of country, that's what Wilfred always said."
"I guess," says Triple E.
"I miss my Wilfred," says Ida, her voice small. She turns at the walkway in front of her house. The house is pillowed in snow. It looks rumpled, homey, like something from a fairy tale. The porch light is on. Smoke rises from the chimney. "Nice seeing you again, Billy," she says. "Tell your dad hi from Ida."
"Sure will, Ida," says Triple E. He watches her mount the porch, her gloved hand carefully gripping the rail. After she goes inside, he stands in front, stamping his feet, trying to decide what to do. The kitchen light comes on, and he can see her moving around, putting groceries away. The sky lowers around him, and he finds himself wishing he could go inside Ida's house, not to rob her, but to sit with her beside the fire, warming his feet, watching tv, safe from winter and everything.
When he gets back to the car, Jeanne and Tom are just coming out of the store. They have a bag of groceries: two packages of Oreo cookies, a box of vanilla wafers, some Twinkies, a gallon of milk, and Dentyne chewing gum.
"You bust the old bitch?" says Tom.
"She got to her house too soon. Where's Ava?" Triple E says.
Ava isn't in the car. He scans the parking lot for her.
Nobody knows where Ava is.
"She's havin a snit," says Tom. "She'll be back."
They eat some cookies. They wait and wait, but Ava doesn't show up. Finally they drive around the streets looking for her, up one, down another. No Ava.
"Shit, what happened to her?" says Triple E. "Goddammit, Ava."
"Maybe she moto-vated," says Tom. His arms are draped over the seat, his face half-wedged between Jeanne and Triple E. It is an angry face, smoky brows and black eyes, an aggressive nose and chin. Triple E can smell vanilla wafer on Tom's breath.
Jeanne agrees that Ava has moved on. Triple E pulls the car to the curb and sits awhile idling, watching the gas gauge, trying to figure out what to do.
"Let her fly-away home," says Tom. "Let her go. We got more important things to worry about right now than that little birdbrain."
"She's my cousin, man. I can't just leave her here in the middle of nowhere," says Triple E.
"You told her she could go," says Jeanne.
"I guess," he says.
So finally he is forced to leave her. The car is almost out of gas, the clouds are slithering in darker, meaner, spitting snow.
"Let's just keep on," says Jeanne. "I want out of this, it's scary."
He drives back toward the highway and stops at a gas station near the edge of town. He pulls up to the full-service pump and an attendant comes out. He is a boy in overalls and a backwards baseball cap, shuffling along, hands in his pockets. He smirks at Triple E and says, "This is full-service here, dude."
"Fill'er up," Triple E tells him.
The kid shrugs. He grabs the nozzle and stands there kicking his boots together, his breath smoking, while the tank fills. When he is done and has hung up the hose, Triple E starts the car and drives away. The kid gapes after him a second, then takes off for the office, his arms waving.
A man comes out. The kid points. The man runs toward a car nearby and jumps in it, tears out onto the highway.
Says Tom, "He's after us."
Triple E speeds up. Rock walls fly by on one side, the frozen Blue Mesa Reservoir on the other. Snow is falling again. The car behind them is gaining. The man is flashing the lights on and off and blowing his horn. Triple E rounds a long curve and feels the Oldsmobile drifting, the engine straining. He knows if they hit any ice now it is all over, they will fly into the lake, break through. Drown.
"Whoa!" says Jeanne. "Jesus, Triple E, look out! Look out!"
The rear of the Oldsmobile shucks loose, fishtails. The car drifts. Gravel spews behind them as Triple E hits the passing gear and muscles the car through the curve. The fishtailing stops and they head into another curve snaking to the right this time, gravitating in the direction of rock that climbs crookedly into the gray sky. Again the rear of the car lets go. It slams the rock face, bounces back. A hub cap flies off. It skitters over the pavement and shoots onto the ice, keeping pace with the car for twenty or thirty yards before spinning out. Jeanne has one hand on the dashboard, the other hand on the seat back. She keeps muttering, "Oh God, oh God."
Triple E can see in the mirror that the car behind them is falling back.
"We're losin him," he says.
The snow is thick as floating wool. White walls enclose the car. The walls soak up sound, creating an eerie tunnel of peace that goes on mile after mile. The motor purrs. The windshield wipers work back and forth. Triple E and his friends are quiet, watchful, expectant. The highway leaves the canyon and the river and starts climbing. Evergreens thicken. The road winds, climbs, curves. Triple E pushes speed to the edge. The tires slip now and then, but always catch in time to keep the car from rocketing into the void. The wipers can barely keep up with the snow. It's all a blur of white.
At one point, red lights abruptly flash in front of them. A police car swishes by, slams on its brakes. Triple E can see it in the mirror, skidding as it tries to come to a stop and turn around.
"Somebody's phoned ahead," he says. "If they got our license, they know this puppy's stolen."
"Let's just stop," says Jeanne. She clutches his arm. "This isn't worth it, Triple E. Remember what happened last time we tried to outrun the cops?"
There is a scar on his forehead, where bullet fragments had knocked him down one night when the beginning of the end began. He sees the night and the long alley. He hears shots cracking in the air, the warnings to halt and then more shots and the sense of being punched, and he falls, his rifle clattering away from him. This time he and Jeanne might not be so lucky. He imagines the two of them dying in a hail of bullets a la Bonnie and Clyde. He presses harder on the gas pedal. There is no going back. All the stuff he has done, they will lock him up forever this time, throw away the key. He looks in the mirror and can no longer see the red lights.
Tom is looking too. "He quit," says Tom.
Triple E takes the next two-lane going north. He eases off the gas. The snow is letting up a bit. The car is cruising. Things are looking better.
After a few minutes of hopeful watching, Jeanne relaxes on the seat. She lights a cigarette and passes it to his lips. When she hands it to him, he can see her hand trembling. "It's gonna be okay," he says. "We'll be outta these mountains in an hour. It'll be warmer in Utah. No snow on the highways. We got it made now. Right, Tom? Two hours at the most and we can kiss Colorado goodby." He glances over the seat at Tom.
"Fuckin cars these days, the metal's too thin, too light. There's not enough weight to hold roads like this," says Tom.
They start down. The grade is steep at first. There are some tight curves bordered by pines and broken granite. Deep gorges to fall in. A few miles on, they enter Black Canyon, the facings rising like tomahawks on both sides, craggy edges at queer angles as if threatening to fall forward and slice the road or the car in half. Flickers of light cling to the clouds above.
Once past the canyon the grade is easier. They climb and then descend. They are gradually leaving the mountains, moving toward washboard rolls of lesser hills, gentler curves. Triple E turns on the headlamps and sees snowflakes doing kamikaze dives through the beams. The road turns slushy, the tires make a sizzling sound.
As the miles accumulate, everybody starts feeling better. Jeanne's hands no longer tremble. She and Tom and Triple E laugh about the look on the attendant's face. Major geekboy. They discuss the stability of the car on the river curves. Triple E says he should have stopped early on and put some heavy rocks in the trunk to keep the back tires from slipping. He had noticed it before how the ass-end tended to drift. Tom is right, thin metal no good.
Triple E doesn't tell them, but long before he stole the Oldsmobile, it gave him premonitions of death. He believes he will die in an Oldsmobile because when he was a little boy he saw one slip over black ice and roll into a ditch, and his father stopped to help. He and other men jumped in the ditch and started pulling on the driver, pulling him out of the wreckage and laying him on the snow, and then Triple E's father returned to the car and said the driver was dead. Triple E took it as a sign from heaven--stay out of Oldsmobiles. When he became a car thief at twelve, he took anything available, but not Oldsmobiles. Until this one. Two-tone green, brand new, and owned by Renee Bridgewater. There had been other makes in the Goodpasture lot, but the keys to the Olds were in his hand and he was in a hurry.
"When we get to Salt Lake, we'll trade this in on a road-hugger," he tells Tom.
"Firebird," says Tom.
Jeanne slides over and snuggles up to Triple E. He runs his hand up her skirt and they fool around. Just the feel of her smooth thigh and her head on his shoulder, the smell of her hair, makes his heart quicken. In the deepest pockets of his soul flows the essence of Jeanne, Jeanne, Jeanne, and he is awful happy she came with him. He squeezes her leg some more. She turns herself around so that she is face to face with him, half in his lap, and she kisses him, while he keeps one eye on the road.
"Watch your drivin, man," says Tom. "I don't want to die a fool."
They break over a rise and can see miles down a long slow grade. Far away are tiny red lights winking. Jeanne turns around and sits up straight. She puts her hands over her eyes, like if she can't see the red lights they don't exist.
Tom says, "A roadblock. We're big-time now." He is leaning over the seat again, his elbows between Triple E and Jeanne.
The barrier of light is a mile or so away, dinky in the distance, like lights on a Christmas tree, but there is no doubt that what they see is a roadblock. They stop the car and sit for a time staring as the wipers beat back and forth and Jeanne makes groaning noises and Tom cusses. Triple E thinks about punching the Oldsmobile and flying at the roadblock at a hundred miles an hour. Would the cops pull back? Would they shoot? Would they leave their cars in place to see if he chickens out?
Jeanne says that maybe they had better cool it. Cops in front, cops behind, what choice do they have?
Tom says they should turn around and go back. Wait for dark and then slip through Gunnison and over Monarch Pass, go to Salida or something.
Triple E remembers an access road he saw a few miles back. He wonders where it goes. "I think you should get out," he says to Jeanne. "Just walk down there and they'll take care of you. Tell them we kidnapped you."
"What're you gonna do?"
"I'm not goin back, that's for sure."
She puts her arms around him. She says, "What can they do to you, huh? Put you back in reform school? When you're eighteen they'll have to let you out. That's not so long, Triple E. It's just two years. Once we're eighteen, we can do what we want and nobody can stop us, not the law even can stop us when we're eighteen."
"Two years is forever, Jeanne. Two years. No way."
"You gonna grow wings and fly outta here?" says Tom.
Triple E chuckles. He says, "I might just grow wings if I have to, but for now I'm gonna try some road I saw back there. Maybe it has an outlet somewhere. I'm gonna find out."
Jeanne leans her head on his chest. She squeezes him. "You," she says.
"I'll send for you when I get where I'm goin," he says.
She hesitates a few seconds, then she sits up and says, "All right then let's do it."
"Is it what you want?" he says.
"Where you go, I go," she says.
"What about you, Tom?"
"I don't care. Get us the fuck outta here," says Tom.
(Continued in Part 2)