This week, we're excited to feature "A Ride Home" by Benjamin Schwartz, the second winner of our Primal Tongue short story contest, co-sponsored by Osiail Publishing. Ben lives and teaches in Dover, NH, with his wife and two boys. And things are good, thanks for asking.
Read on!
A Ride Home
“So, weren’t you in the Caz’s math class with me?”
“Yeah, yeah! That class sucked, right? I got like a D or something, I think I failed.”
She keeps getting closer to me across the back seat and she has those shoes my sister wanted but they were too expensive. I sort of remember her from that class, sort of, but she looked like a bunch of the other girls with their North Face vests, I wasn’t there a whole lot. Fucking Caz said I was high or something and I got kicked out for like a week. This girl is cute, though, I couldn’t believe it when she came up to me at the mall and the two guys in front seem all right, I guess they go to school with me, too. It’s a sick car and the stereo’s pretty sick also. The song is kind of MTV shit, but it’s all right, nothing gay or anything. I can feel the bass vibrate the seat and windows and press my cheek against the glass and yell to the kid driving, Josh, maybe, I think.
“Shit, you gotta feel this! What kind of amp do you have in here? Huge right?”
“I don’t know, man. I just kind of got the car.”
The girl slides next to me to yell between the two front seats, “You mean your mom just got it for you!”
“Whatever, Destiny. I just got it. Either way.” I can see him looking at me in the rearview.
“That’s sick! How much did you pay for it? Like ten grand? No way! Was this ten grand? Shit.”
“I don’t really know. I just got it.”
The girl, Destiny I guess, taps me low on the leg and rubs her fingers together like he’s got a whole of money. I just keep talking to him..
“Right. But how much did you get it for? My sister had one like it but she had to give it back.”
“She had to give it back? Was it hers?”
“Fuck yeah it was hers! She didn’t steal it or anything but the guy came and took it back. I guess.”
The two kids in the front look at each other and kind of laugh, they’ve got the hats and sweatshirts, but they wear them funny—all clean. It’s a nice car, though and I like riding in it with them and the girl is cute, right next to me now. Destiny leans right over me and presses her face against the window and seeing her do it makes me almost feel the cold glass against my cheek like I know how smooth it feels. Her hand is leaning hard into my leg, holding her up, so close her yellow hair tickles against my mouth. Over her shoulder I see the kid in the passenger seat turned to watch us back there, he’s smiling and hitting the driver on the shoulder to watch and I can see his eyes in the mirror.
I wave my hand in the air a bit, throw a little gangster sign, and go: “Bammmmm, bammmm, babammmmmmm” to the beat and the girl starts laughing, still across my lap. She reaches up all quick and puts her hand on my face so I almost jump back but keep it cool. She pushes my cheek against the glass, facing her so our noses are almost touching and she keeps her hand on my cheek and she’s pretty much just laying on me now smiling and nodding our heads to the bass shaking the glass.
Up front I see the kid in the passenger seat cracking up but I can’t really hear him over the music but he’s pulled his hat down low over his face and looking at the ceiling. He won’t stop hitting Josh on the shoulder; he’s also laughing and I see his smile as he looks at the rearview down at the road back at the mirror. I take my face off the glass and kind of sit back and Destiny climbs off me moving her hand around my leg a lot and I kind of scootch away because I don’t want her to feel that I’m hard and I pull my hoodie down low over me. I don’t know if she’s one of their girlfriends or something, I just nod my head a bit more to their shit music.
The girl leans forward and talks to the guy in the passenger seat and he’s saying something I can barely hear and she’s saying, “I will, I will, fucking relax” and she sits back and starts talking like we’re friends asking me about work and stuff.
I tell her, “Dunkins kind of sucks but it’s all right I hate waiting around for my mom to take me home.”
“You were waiting for your mom? When I talked to you?”
“Yeah she works longer than me. I can’t cause I’m only fifteen now.”
“Where’s she work?”
“Funkin Dunkins.”
The kid in the passenger seat turns around between the seats, “You work with your mom, man?”
“Yeah, I gotta wait till she gets out, so it takes forever, it fucking sucks, can’t wait til I get a car. I was thinking something like this. Maybe a Jeep. Jeeps are sick, right? My uncles’ got a Jeep he sold me, doesn’t work though, I gotta fix it, it needs something.” I say the last part to the girl so she could know that I’m going to fix it. “I’m in auto shop now.”
The kid in the passenger seat slaps the girl on the knee and holds his hands up like he’s waiting for something, she slaps his hand back and tells him to fucking relax then she looks back at me, “That’s really cool. I like jeeps.”
“Yeah, they’re sick.”
I don’t even know where we’re going, maybe this is just what they did. If me and my friends had a car it would be sick, we’d do this all night. The only kid I knew who had a car, it was his brother’s, he couldn’t even take it to work. But we rode around in it once. I was glad I was by myself at the mall when they picked me up. James wouldn’t have gone with them, he only hung with the gangster kids who thought these kids sucked, but whatever, he was kind of a dick sometimes and these guys seemed alright.
“So, hey, are we going to a party or something?” I ask her, thinking maybe that’s what we were doing. All the parties I’d been to we’d always hoped for girls like this to come, but it was always just me and James and my sister with a few beers and butts stolen from my parents.
“Oh, you go to parties?” She said and she hit the back of the passenger seat with her hand. The kid there turned the music down and it got a lot quieter and he and
Josh leaned back.
“Oh yeah, shit, all the time. Me and my boys steal shit and party all the time. All the time, it’s sick. Music and shit.”
“Yeah?” The girl moves a little closer and wants to talk more, I think, so I keep talking.
“Smoke and everything. We just chill in our neighborhood all the time. Smoke and shit.”
“You can get that?”
“Shit yeah, I just steal that shit from my mom.”
They all kind of look at each other and move around and the CD ends and slides out of the dashboard. Destiny is smiling huge and it gets me smiling too.
“Do you think you can get us some, you know, for a party?”
Oh man, James and my sister would never believe this shit! I swear! Me setting up a party with tons of hot girls, I almost wanted it to be over so I could tell everyone. But I just play it cool, keep talking, look at the girl.
“For a party? Hells yeah, we just gotta stop by my house.”
“Your mom’s not home?”
The kid up front is putting a new CD in and laughing and says, “No, she’s at Dunkin Donuts. Remember?”
“Oh yeah! That’s right, perfect!” The girl grabs my thigh with both hands and squeezes hard, excited. “Thank you so much, it’s like so nice of you to help me out.”
Josh and the other kid give each other some little high five and the girl slaps one of them on the shoulder. I jump in too late and end up patting the passenger guy on the arm, man, this is going to be a party, I’ll probably have to fake sick tomorrow and skip, but I want to tell everybody. The driver kind of shushes everyone and talks to me in the rear view.
“So you live down on Winter St., right?”
“Yeah, that’s my hood! Right by the projects, you know where that is?”
I can’t believe they know where I live.
“Oh, I know the projects. Yeah, you know it!” Josh said and the girl’s laughing and he throws his hand around trying to do a gangster dance. He turns the stereo way up so the windows are rattling. I’m glad again that James isn’t here, even if we are going to party and I wish he was here.
We drive almost the whole way home with the music blasting. I do some move like I seen some kids on my street doing and the girl tries to do it back and it looks real funny on her and she cracks up, throwing herself against me so her hair’s all over my face and I can smell some hairspray or shampoo or something. I laugh and keep dancing in my seat trying to get her to do it again. The song sucks but it’s loud and the car is nice and I want to roll into my driveway in it and step out.
At the stop sign before we get around the corner from my street the kid in the passenger seat turns the music down and leans into the back seat. I lean against my seat belt toward him. He still has to yell a bit over the music and the other two laughing.
“Hey, is your mom’s stuff good?”
“Yeah, Marlboros, you know.”
“What?”
“Marlboros. They’re sick.”
The kid hits Josh on the shoulder, talks directly into his ear and he turns quickly around to look at me and punches the steering wheel. I can hear the girl going, “What, what, what, tell me” leaning forward between the seats. The passenger is twisted around to talk to her, but the other way, by the door, so she leans over that way. The kid says something and she hits him hard on the head and stops dancing with me and stays on the other side of the seat. She just looks out the window the other way from me.
Somebody turns the music back up and nobody says anything until we turn onto Winter St. The car stops right on the corner and I can see James and my sister a little away on the curb. Nobody says anything or turns the music down, the door locks just click up and I jump out, turn and pop my head back in, “I’ll be right back!”
My house is right there and I turn to start running, just going to grab the smokes and come back out, when I hear the girl from the window,
“Fucking loser.”
The kid driving backs the car out and squeals the tires. I see her hand stick out the window and she gives the finger. I just stand by the spot where she had been until James walks over to me.
“What the fuck you doing with those guys?”
I don’t really know what to say, I couldn’t tell him about the party or anything else.
“Huh?” James said.
“Just getting a ride. Driving around.”
“Yeah?” James and me watch the air fill back in the empty space their car left. “Go grab some of your mom’s smokes.”
“Yeah.” And I know that after I go in, I’m not coming back out, but I go in anyway.
