His shoulders sank, and his expression darkened.
“You're not upset, are you? ‘Cause look at you now. Big strong man.” She wrapped her fingers around his biceps and waited for the anger to pass. The traffic slowed to a few stragglers, the last of these a blue and white Plymouth Duster that inched into the space fronting their car. “You've got to time this right,” Erica said. “Not before she gets out, not after she closes the door, but just as she steps out.”
He honked the horn, startling the driver exiting her car—a teenage girl in a denim vest and white peasant blouse, beads spangling to her navel—who froze when Erica pushed open her own door. “Hey there. I'm Nancy. Nancy Perry.” Erica came around, stopped at the bumper, flashed the peace sign.
The girl let go of the door and took three steps in their direction, intrigued by the sudden disruption of her routine. Peering over the top of her sunglasses, she moved forward, bell-bottoms dragging along the asphalt, the eagle feathers that hung from her belt stirring with each step. “Nancy Perry?” Despite her uncertainty, the girl let Erica approach. She jumped nervously when the driver's door clicked open, and Wiley stepped from the car, grinning and showing her his teeth. His appearance must have spooked her, for she tensed for flight.
“My boyfriend,” Erica said. “He's a freshman at Tennessee.”
“Looks like you're the last one back from lunch. No hurry to get to class?”
“Gym,” she said, and shrugged her shoulders.
He was nearly upon them both. “Hey, nice belt.”
The girl blushed, bowed her head.
“I haven't seen you around,” Erica said. “Thought I knew all the cool kids.”
She shielded her eyes and tried to remember if she had seen them before. “I kinda keep to myself.”
“Oh really?” Wiley moved closer. “What's a girl like you doing all by yourself?” He reached out and flicked at a feather on her belt. “Maybe you want to come for a ride with us, angel?”
The invitation surprised all three of them. For a moment, the bo-hemian girl mulled the offer, her eyes glistening as she ran through its connotations, wicked with excitement, but then she looked away to the building. Erica waited for the answer too, wondering at his intent, and when the girl waved shyly and went on her way, relief replaced anxiety. “See you in school,” she hollered after her. Once the girl was out of sight, Erica smacked Wiley on the shoulder and arched her eyebrows.
“Never mind that,” he said. “It worked, didn't it? Scared so stiff, she forgot to lock the door. I'll see if I can get it started.”
In their glove compartment, there were a dozen yellowed mimeographed sheets emblazoned with the AOD logo: “How to deal with the Pigs,” “How to free the Masses from American Imperialism,” “How to beat Big Business,” “How to buy a Gun under an Unassumed Name,” “How to hot wire a Car.” Wiley unfolded the page, and by the time Erica had screwed on the new plates, he had brought the Duster to life, popping up behind the steering wheel full of unbridled pride. They wrapped the guns in the Steelers blanket and threw them in the back with their gear, and then took off to find the western highway. In the ashtray were a half dozen joints, which they lit up and smoked one after another, leaving Knoxville behind in a reefer cloud.
They spent the night in a ten-dollar motel near Nashville, where the night manager begged them to listen to his latest song, crooning sad lyrics and strumming an out-of-tune guitar, painted cobalt with a dozen flaking white stars. Everyone had a dream to sell, some story about what had gone wrong. The man with the blue guitar reminded Erica of her long-gone Pap, her mother's father, who used to strum an old ukulele and make up ditties for her delight. She had not thought of him since he passed away, when she was nine.
Thrilled by the first of their crimes, Wiley was a terror in bed, starting up again just as she began to doze, and a third time after that, which left them famished and light-headed near midnight. She pushed her foot against his bare back. “Get us something to eat, would you? Something real. A burger and a shake.” He rolled over and lifted his eyelids to see her stretched out naked as a concubine on a seraglio couch. “Chocolate,” she said.