The summer after I graduated was a good one. Gerald Ford, a decent man, had stepped in as president, the war had ended, and a kind of calm was in the air. I wasn’t going on to college, but I had worked hard to earn a high-school diploma, and I felt as if I had accomplished something. Pop told me that I could shadow him in the garage, and if I took the courses offered to Esso employees, I could eventually become a certified mechanic. Also, I was going around with an older girl named Diane, who had been graced with raven-black hair, lively green eyes, and curves. She was patient, taught me how to last, and showed me what a woman liked. We saw each other a couple times a week, and when we didn’t, she never asked why. I was relaxed and free.
Ted and I liked to motor around town at night. In our state, the drinking age had been lowered to eighteen because of the war, so I was legal. We’d ride with open cans of Schlitz between our legs, the windows down, Ted’s hand cigaretted and resting on his side-view mirror, the deck playing Allman Brothers, Robin Trower, Johnny and Edgar Winter, Deep Purple, and Zeppelin. Ted used all three speeds of the automatic, as the Slick Shift was engineered to prevent accidental slippage into reverse or neutral when moving up the ladder. My father kept the ’Cuda tuned just right, and Ted knew how to drive it. I clearly remember the feel of those nights, the wind warm in my face and hair, the streetlights dancing like fireflies off the buffed black hood of the Plymouth, the smell of Ted’s cigarettes, Johnny Winter’s “It’s My Own Fault” on the stereo. And always, under the music, the rumble of the ’Cuda’s dual pipes.
There was a quiet road about five miles north of our town where the suburbs turned to country, a straight quarter-mile strip of two-lane without traffic lights. That was where the kids in our crowd congregated and raced. Ted and I ended up there one night in August and ran into the Mahoney brothers, who were standing around a ’68 cream-over-red AMX, looking to drag someone. Walter Mahoney, the oldest and toughest of the brothers, owned the car.
The Mahoneys were Irish Catholic, just like us. We went to the same church and had known one another all our lives.
Ted pulled alongside them and let the engine run so they could hear it. He was looking to cop an ounce of weed. The Mahoneys sold pot and always had the best shit. Ted was smoking regularly since he’d come back to the world, and I had fallen in love with it too.
Walter stepped forward. The middle brother, a spent-head named Jason, came with him. Mike, the quiet one, hung back. Walter was built in the shoulders and chest. His hair looked home-cut and it was military short. Jason’s hair was long and receding, and he wore a bushy Vandyke beard. Though not yet twenty, he would soon be bald. Mike had long curls, which furthered the impression that he was soft. They were all wearing Levi’s, patched in places, and pocket T-shirts with Marlboro hard packs wedged in the pockets. Walter was smoking a cigarette now. He hit it down to the filter and kind of flipped it off his fingers as he approached. A flip, not a flick. Walter had perfected the move.
“Ted and his trip-black ’Cuda,” said Walter.
“What’s good, Walter?” said Ted.
Walter bent down into the window frame, looked at me, and smiled in a way that no guy likes. “Hi, Ricky.”
No one called me Ricky, not even my mom when I was a kid.
Ted said to Walter, “You holdin’?”
“I could be,” said Walter. “What are you looking for?”
“An O-Z,” said my brother.
“I have it at the house,” said Walter. “Columbian. Price went up. It’s fifty this time.”
“For an ounce? Shit.”
“I can get you some Mexican if you want a headache. This is primo. You’ll trip, Tedward.”
“Kind of rich for my blood.”
Walter looked at Jason, who smiled in his way that said serial killer. Girls walked backward when Jason entered a room.
The kid brother, Mike, lit a cigarette and stared at his shoes, a pair of saddle-colored stacks that I’d seen in the window of the Hanover store in the shopping plaza.
“Tell you what,” said Walter. “You can have the ounce for nothin’ if your ’Cuda can take my AMX in the quarter-mile.”
“What if I lose?”
“You owe me double. A hundred.”
“So you want me to race with your Rambler.”
No one called the AMX a Rambler or considered it one. AMC had replaced the ultra-vanilla Rambler badge years ago and was making pretty good cars now. Ramblers were slow and boring. Ramblers were for guys who only stuck the head in when they fucked their wives.
“Can you handle it?” said Walter.
“When?” said Ted.
“Right now.”
Ted shrugged. “Pull it over to the line.”
“Ricky might want to get out,” said Walter, “so you’re not carrying the extra freight. ’Course, he don’t weigh but a hundred pounds.”
I reckon I was around one thirty-five then, but the comment cut me, just as it was meant to.
“Rick’s my copilot,” said Ted. “He can stay.”
Walter and his brothers walked away.
“Fuckin’ slopes,” said Ted, and shook his head.
The Mahoney brothers had an Irish last name but slanted eyes. Their father, retired army, had been stationed in occupied Japan after the Big One and had brought home a bride.