Jesus. I meant things like the Mr. Goodbar I ate after it ran through the McCobbs’ washer. But this Angus individual was like, frayed-electric-wire level of shocking. I think the boy version worked better, except for that not being a person. She leaned into the cart with her elbows sticking out and tore around the store playing her sick game. She’d hold up a box and yell, “Which do you like better, yo—this, or toe jam? This, or shark piss?”
We left some shoppers ready to lose their lunch and moved on to menswear. I told Angus I wasn’t buying any clothes.
She stared. “What is your deal, dude?”
“No deal. Thanks all the same.”
She shook her head like I was a mental case. Which pissed me off. I didn’t yet know the rules here, fine, but I couldn’t see Angus getting to treat me like a dipshit.
“I like what clothes I have, okay? I’m good. Can we just go?”
“You’re good. This is the look you’re going with, then. Color-blind scrub opens up a can of Wayne’s World.”
“Screw you!” I said. I laughed though, because the other choice was punching a girl, not allowed. Plus she wasn’t wrong. That day I was passable, Bugle Boy T-shirt and army jacket, but I’d been sporting some too-wide collars and a lot of acid wash. Baby-shit-brown tennis shoes, shaped wrong, like shoes from some other century. “It’s not really my stuff,” I said. “I mean, it is. But I got it all free from this girl Jane at my grandmother’s.”
“You’re going for drag queen then, in some Jane person’s clothes.”
“Not hers, her brothers’. Their hand-me-downs.”
“Shut up. Miss Woodall has boys living in her house?”
“No. I never technically saw any brothers. Just their clothes.”
Angus looked me up and down. “May I say the brothers of mystery have handed you down some weird-ass apparel?”
I told her to go to hell, for real. I didn’t feel like explaining how you get used to people looking at you like trash, so it’s hard to care what kind of trash you put on the trash every morning. Or that my other choice of shoes came with a bread bag. I told her I wasn’t color-blind, not that it was any of her business. Just not picky.
“So be picky. Clothes make the man. What’s the Demon angle?”
A coach’s daughter in a castle house gets to have angles. It was not the flat cap today but an old-time man hat with a tiny orange feather in the hatband. And orange Chucks. So like, matching, she’d thought it out. But I had a boy brain, zero cash, and no possible Demon angles. Our cart was blocking traffic around a marked-down underwear rack, and Angus gave no shit.
“Shoes,” she said. “Everything starts there. Essay question. What shoes would you want to wear to the ass-kicking of your worst enemy?”
It was tempting to picture that. Enemies I had. For kicking Stoner across a parking lot, right away my mind started drawing in extra features the shoes would need, like poison-dart spikes and jet packs for a quick getaway. Nothing real, in other words. I couldn’t give any answer, and she acted again like I was being a purposeful irritant.
“Just say!” she yelled. “What the hell kind of shoes would make you happy?”
“Fine, Air Maxes!” I yelled back at her, because who wouldn’t. “But I’m not getting any the hell kind of shoes today because I’m fucking broke, okay?”
Some shoppers hit their brakes, like they’d never heard an f-bomb before. To be fair, there were kiddies about. I notched it down. “I don’t have any money,” I said.
Her gray eyes got that water look they could have. She seemed worried, maybe running her mind backwards over her morning with this new broke-ass version of me, just like I’d had to do after the girl surprise. “Sorry,” she said, and for once I didn’t mind that word. It looked good on Angus. I’d been waiting for it.
“Forget it,” I said. “Can we just get out of here?”
“No. I’m saying, sorry for not getting straight with you. My bad.” She whipped a slice of silver out of her pocket and tilted it up and down in the light, like a mirror flashing code. “Meet the Master,” she said. Kissed it, put it back in her pocket, and said yes, we were getting out of there. I would be kicking no ass in Walmart Nike knock-offs.
We flew that credit card all over the damn county. From Walmart Supercenter to Shoe Show to T.J.Maxx, ferried around by Snake Man. No cash needed, the Master did the talking, or in some cases just Coach’s existence. Like at Hardee’s for lunch. We walked in the door with a freaking force field of worship around us. Guy at the counter didn’t even ring us up, just said on the house as usual, say hi to Coach. The manager came out to say the same, and asked if Coach was putting in some person to sub for QB1 with the elbow injury. U-Haul told him he was not really in a position to say, being only assistant coach, but don’t be surprised if that substitution happened. Everybody in the place kept watching us while we ate. Like, if we dropped a fry on the floor, they might grab it up for a souvenir. Did I like all the attention? Maybe, if nobody knew the real me and I could pass for some person that just normally wore Air Maxes without a speck of dirt on them. U-Haul, definitely yes, on liking the attention. Angus was so chill, you couldn’t guess.
Angus shocked me up one side and down the other. By being into cars, for one thing. It started with seeing a ’57 Nomad, and after that we had a contest of naming anything cool we saw. U-Haul knew a lot, but damned if Angus didn’t know her share. This chick was not your average. You’ll say sure, being raised with a dead mom, but guess what, I grew up with a dead dad and you won’t see me doing girl shit. Plus they had this Mattie Kate individual around the house at all times. Not just for chores, she’d sit with you in the kitchen after school and drink Cokes and talk if you had questions, which I had a few. Should I be doing my laundry, making my lunches? Answer: No. She did all that. I told her I was pretty used to doing everything for myself like laundry and worst case, paying the rent. She laughed and said not to be putting her out of her job. She said mine was just to be a little boy. Weird. I’d not had that job before.
She knew I was no tiny tot, though, because she asked if I needed her to get me an electric shaver. (Embarrassing, but yes.) And got me a thing of Old Spice deodorant without asking did I want it. (More embarrassing.) She was just this extra-nice lady with no husband and a little boy that played Pop Warner football. She had wrinkles around her mouth and wore the elastic-type pants like an older lady but not totally over the hill, you could tell. Her eye makeup she did like bird wings. The point being, if Angus had questions about girl-type things, vacuuming or eye makeup, she had somebody to ask. Pretty sure that didn’t happen. Angus seeming more like the type to go get inked with some me-not-pretty thing like a barbwire necklace. But she picked no fights with Mattie Kate or her dad. Nor even U-Haul, which was a concern. The man oozed slime. He was always touching and petting his face and grimy red hair and other things that were just wrong, like the seat of the booth where Angus had been sitting, after she got up to refill her drink. Creepster. But he’d been working for her dad forever, and people get used to things.