Sprout

guessing about the accent here, but it adds something, don’t you think?) Or, who knows, maybe Mr. Petit would just say what he said when Holly died. One less mouth to feed. Did I mention that’s what he said? He said it to the paramedics as they put Holly’s bloated, eyeless body into the back of an ambulance. Oh well. One less mouth to feed .
    Oh right. Jesus. That’s who died. And now they’re revivin’ him.
    Christians. God save ’em, ha ha.
    The gate kicked open, and I saw that the shaved head wasn’t Ty’s. I figured it must be his brother L.D. He was a little taller than Ty (but still short), a little thicker (but still wiry), the same pointed chin and quick, almost spastic movements as he yanked the gate out of the way and his dad’s truck jerked forwards like a horse at the starting post. No, not spastic. Frightened. As if he knew that if he didn’t get the gate open fast enough his dad would just drive over him. In fact the pickup never quite came to a stop after Mr. Petit pulled onto the road, and L.D. (like I said, just guessing here) had to slam the gate and then run like hell to catch up. He had one foot on the running board and one hand on the door handle as gravel spat from beneath the truck’s rear tires and it shot towards me.
    I hunkered down in my seat, wishing I’d thought to wear a cap to cover my telltale hair, but L.D. (still guessing) was too busy getting in the truck and Mr. Petit had things to do, places to be, and then, well, neither of them knew me from Adam, right? They sped past, filling the road with a cloud of dust, at which point I assume I became as invisible to them as they were to me. Still, I kept my eyes peeled in case they turned around. At 69th Street the brake lights winked once, twice, and I held my breath until the dust settled and I saw that the truck was well and truly gone, and then, when Ty stuck a pistol through the open passenger window and said, “Bang!” I jumped so high I hit my head on the roof.
    “Ty! What the hell—”
    Before I could finish, he pulled open the passenger door and slipped in the car and grabbed my head and pulled it onto his. The sixteen or so hours since our last kiss—the tasteless dinner, the worksheet on imaginary numbers and the fifty pages of The Heart Is a Lonely Hunter —all disappeared, along with the seat cushion and the Taurus and Tobacco Road. I felt the rough branch of a cottonwood beneath my butt, wondered if every kiss would put me back there, swaying, shivering in a breeze, the guttural growls of a pink-eyed St. Bernard in my ears. The hand holding the gun was pressed against my head the whole time, but I didn’t even think of pulling away. Kissing: it’s that good.
    “Rufus,” Ty said when he pulled off me.
    Somehow I knew. “The Andersens’ dog? How’d you find out?”
    “I asked my dad,” Ty said. And then, a moment later: “Peng-you.”
    I headed south on 61, towards town. I made it to town. I made it through town. I headed out the other side of town. As 61 merged with 50 (and went four-lane to boot), I thought, one of us better do something, or we’re gonna end up in Oklahoma.
    After his initial boldness, Ty suddenly found himself fascinated with everything in the car except me. There was certainly a lot to be fascinated with, although none of it was particularly, well, fascinating. Takeout containers from about ten different fast-food and convenience-store chains, bits and pieces of months of Hutchinson News es, beer bottles and cans, pop bottles and cans, the associated detritus of same (caps, cartons, six-pack rings, used straws with dried brown bubbles clogging their hollowness like cholesterol-choked arteries), empty gum and candy wrappers (original flavor Hubba Bubba and watermelon Jolly Ranchers especially), half-chewed or -sucked candies, Styrofoam peanuts, real peanuts, a book of Peanuts cartoons. I’m just making that last one up, but you get the picture. It was just trash, and a lot of it.
    “Good God ,” Ty said, as he threw one bit of greasy paper after another out the window. “Your dad is, like, six years old .”
    “Um, Ty?”
    “Oh-oh-oh!” Ty’s voice went up an octave. “A dirty six-year-old!”
    I glanced over, saw that he was holding a little black square adorned by what appeared to be a pair of bodacious tatas. Though I’d never actually purchased them before, I’d been in enough truck stop restrooms to recognize the Rough Riders logo.
    Ty waggled the condom