Books by Philip Hoy
Bounce...
No one in the car is speaking. Jai is squeezed between you and Rudy in the back seat, hugging her knapsack to her chest, bare knees pressed together, a booted foot on each side of the drive shaft. You stare out the driver’s side window. The Tears for Fears cassette is playing again, “Mad World.” Gus’s doing, you suspect. The beat ticks by with the same rhythmic blur of the passing headlights, while the song’s drifting melody and drawn-out harmonies seem to work in opposition, suspending time. You are outside of yourself, floating, a contradiction of sensations and emotions.
You want to wrap her in a protective blanket, ask her why she’s been crying, and tell her everything will be alright. You want to kiss her mouth, pull off that oversized sweater, and touch every part of her.
The beer isn’t helping.
“Is that the indoor swap meet?” she asks.
“The swap meet?” repeats Rudy, sounding offended. “No. That’s the mall. The swap meet is at the drive-in, and that was last night.”
“Really?” Her gaze continues to track the mosaic half dome of the building’s main entrance. “That was a mall?”
“A fashion mall,” says Rudy. “It’s where Matt and Gus get their preppy clothes and Eric buys his concert shirts.”
“The fuck I do,” says Eric. “Your poser-ass might. Mine come directly from the shows, with tour dates.”
“That’s right,” says Rudy as if he’s only speaking to the back seat. “The ones his brother goes to.”
“Fuck you, Rudy,” says Eric. “Your Olivia Newton John shirts don’t count.”
“What about his Donny and Marie?” asks Gus. “That counts, right?”
“Hell, yes,” says Eric, and then he starts singing with an exaggerated twang, “Cause I’m a little bit country…”
Rudy and Gus join in with the refrain. “And I’m a little bit rock n roll.”
Jai is quiet again. You steal a glance at her, follow the tense line of her jaw past the twice pierced lobe of her naked ear up to the perfect roundness of her shaved head. Loud enough for only her to hear, you ask, “You’re not from around here, are you?”
“Well, yes, I am, sort of,” she says, not meeting your gaze. “I’ve kind of been away.”
“Are you visiting,” you ask. “Are you moving back?”
She looks at you now, attempting a smile, and you are again struck by the sadness in her immense, dark eyes. “No,” she says. “I won’t be here long.”
You feel the car slow and veer to the left. “Gotta take a wiz,” says Eric.
He pulls into a Chevron gas station, the nice one with the urinal inserts that smell like cinnamon gummy bears, continues past the pumps, and parks around the back just outside the men’s restroom.
“Do you need to go?” you ask.
She leans forward, looking left and right as if she’s about to cross a busy street. “Yeah,” she says, lifting the hood of her sweater. “I guess I do.”
You climb out of the back seat and she follows. Outside, she stays close, which you like, but when you move toward the restroom, she nearly follows you inside.
“Oh, uh…” You let the door close behind the others without entering. “Yours is on that side,” you say, gesturing toward the edge of the building with your chin.
“Oh…” She frowns at the blue stick-figure on the door. “I see.” Maybe she’s thinking this would be a good place to ditch her. Maybe she’s right.
“Want me to go with you?”
“Will you wait for me?”
“Yeah, of course.”
You walk with her around the corner and show her the door, but as soon as it closes behind her it opens again and she sticks her head out. “You can come in,” she says. “There’s no one else here.”
Once you are inside, she locks the door behind you and disappears into one of the two stalls. You enter the other, lift the seat with your toe, and unbutton the fly of your jeans. For a moment, you think you will not be able to go. The thought of Jai listening to you take a piss has made you too self-conscious. But your bladder is painfully full and less shy than you think. Soon, there is a similar sound coming from Jai’s stall, not as loud, but maybe more intense, like a faucet filling a sink, at least in comparison to your own gurgling stream. You don’t know why, but this makes you smile. A small accomplishment, your first time listening to a girl pee.
Her toilet flushes. She unlatches her door. You take a moment longer to finish, then button up and do the same. When you come out, she is rinsing her face in the only sink. You wait until she’s done to wash your hands, but when you finish, you turn to find her holding hers beneath the silver nozzle of the hand dryer, even though it’s still off. You reach around her to push the raised button. When it cycles on, she laughs, a brief burst of air. Then she gives you a sideways, embarrassed look and laughs again, a giggle this time, as if resisting the tickle of the warm air on her skin. When her hands are done, she pats her face dry with the sleeves of her sweater.
Maybe she’s been living on a farm, you think, or some kind of hippy commune. From the way’s she’s dressed though, you doubt it. “Better?” you ask.
She looks at you. The mascara stains on her cheeks are mostly gone, but what remains of her eyeshadow continues to give a dark, bruised appearance to her eyes. “Better,” she says, lifting the hood of her sweater. “Thank you.”
The guys are waiting in the car. When Rudy gets out to let you and Jai in, he gives you a knowing look, barely restraining the smile on his lips. Inside, Jai removes her hood and sits closer to you than before, no longer clutching her knapsack but setting it on the seat between her and Rudy. No one says anything or even glances in your direction, but when you look up, Eric is grinning at you through the rearview mirror. “Where to now?” he asks.
“What about that party?” suggests Gus.
Rudy leans forward in his seat. “Yeah, you’ve been talking about it all week.”
“Let’s do it,” says Eric, pulling back on the highway. “If it sucks, there’s always Foster Freeze.”
“Foster Freeze?” asks Jai.
“Burgers and ice cream,” explains Rudy. “And they’re open late.”
Eric ejects the Tears for Fears cassette, replaces it with Kiss, and turns up the volume. “I was made for loving you baby...”
No one says anything for the next few minutes. When the song is almost finished, Eric lowers the volume and turns toward the back seat. “Dude,” he says to Rudy. “Remember when—” He does a doubletake over his shoulder. “Hey, where’s Rudy?”
You look past Jai to Rudy’s side of the car. “Dude,” you start to say, but he isn’t there. The seat is empty.
“Oh fuck,” says Jai. “Stop the car.”
It doesn’t make sense. “I swear he was here a second ago.”
Jai has pulled her knapsack onto her lap again. “That fucking little thief,” she says, reaching into her bag. “I said stop the car!”
Gus twists around to look into the back seat. “What the hell?”
“He’s gonna bounce,” she says. “Any minute, any second now!”
Eric is shaking his head. “Bounce what, bounce where?”
“From where ever he was when he fuckin took my shit, okay? He has to come back where he left!”
“Eric,” you say. “Just stop the car, man.”
“Fuck!” he shouts, slowing the car and pulling off to the side of the road.
“This is crazy,” says Gus. “Are we sure he even got on?”
Several cars wiz by before Eric swings onto the highway again, making a wide U-turn into the opposite lane.
“Slow down,” says Jai, leaning forward to peer out the windshield. “I can’t see.”
“Don’t tell me what to do,” snaps Eric.
“Shouldn’t we go back to the gas station?” asks Gus.
“He’s not at the gas station,” you say. “He was sitting right here. He was talking to Eric about a party.” Even as you declare this, you begin to doubt it could be true. “Wasn’t he?”
“There,” says Jai, pointing past Eric into the oncoming headlights of the opposite lane. “There, on the side of the road.”
You try to follow her line of sight, but the passing cars make it impossible. Eric must see something though, because he immediately pulls over and makes another U-turn as soon as the road is clear.
Now you see it, a dark shape on the shoulder of the road, a bag of garbage, maybe. Then you make out the bottom of a shoe … and Rudy’s striped shirt.
Eric is out of the car first with Gus right behind him. Jai clambers out the passenger door and you follow.
Rudy is lying on his side and hugging his right arm to his chest.
“Oh, my God,” you hear Gus say. “Is he okay?”
Eric is kneeling next to him. “I think his arm might be broken.”
Gus looks out into the vacant darkness bordering the highway. “How did he get here?”
Eric turns on him. “He fell out of my car, dipshit. How else?”
“That’s impossible. My door, I would have known.”
“Well, you missed it.” He looks back at you and Jai. “Dude, get over here.”
You step forward. Rudy’s eyes are closed but his teeth are clenched in a grimace of pain.
“Gus, take that side. Matt get his legs.”
Gus moves around to Rudy’s other side as you kneel down and wrap your arm beneath his knees.
“Aaaaah!” Rudy’s body stiffens beneath you.
“Watch his arm!” shouts Eric.
“Then how am I supposed to lift him?” screams Gus.
“Here,” Eric says. “Put your hand underneath his back, grab mine. Got it?”
“Yeah, yeah, I got it.”
Rudy groans in protest as he’s lifted in the air and continues to moan loudly as the three of you, feet shuffling through the dirt, carry him back towards the car. Jai holds the door open as wide as it will go as he’s maneuvered into the front seat.
You slide into the back again, somehow ending up in the middle with Jai on your left and Gus now in the seat behind Rudy’s. Eric is staring into his side mirror, waiting for the road to clear. “He needs to go to the hospital,” you say.
“No shit,” says Eric, making yet another U-turn across the highway.
Jai turns to you, frowning. “A hospital?” she asks. “As soon as they find it in his system they’re going to call it in.”
“Find what,” asks Gus. “The beer?”
Eric is glaring at you through the rearview mirror. “Matt, your psycho girlfriend is really starting to get on my nerves.”
Jai abruptly folds her arms around her knapsack and turns her face to the window.
Rudy makes a whimpering sound and twitches in his seat.
Gus leans forward, his head close to Rudy’s. “What’s that, buddy? What did you say?”
“Back…” Rudy’s voice is a hoarse whisper. “I need to go back.”
“No man, you’re safe now,” Gus reassures him. “We got you. We’re gonna take care of you.”
“Please,” says Rudy, sounding close to tears. “I need to go back.”
Eric catches your eye in the mirror again. “Fuck,” is all he says.
Rudy continues to mumble incoherently for the next few minutes and then, suddenly, is quiet. Ten minutes later, Eric is pulling into the hospital parking lot.
“Dude,” says Gus. “Where are you going?
“I’m parking.”
“But the emergency entrance is over there.”
“No shit, but we’ve been drinking and I don’t have a license.”
“Oh yeah.”
Eric pulls into an empty space about three rows from the hospital entrance. “And don’t say he fell out of the car.”
“Well, what do we say?” you ask.
“The monkey bars.”
Gus sighs and shakes his head. “Sounds like Rudy.”
You carry him to the emergency room in much the same way you got him in the car, Eric and Gus bearing most of the weight with you holding his legs. Jai seems especially nervous and follows at a distance, eyeing the dimly lit entrance from beneath the hood of her sweater. No one comes rushing out in gloves and masks to transfer Rudy onto a gurney and roll him inside like they do in the movies. The only person around is a white-haired man in jeans and a grey flannel shirt standing a few feet from the entrance smoking a cigarette. His expressionless gaze sweeps over the four of you, settles for a moment on Jai, and then drifts into the distance again. You reach out to push open the pair of glass doors, but they automatically swing inward as soon as you step in front of the sensor. Jai hesitates, takes a step back, and lets the doors close in front of her.
The brightly lit room is both smaller and more crowded than you would have imagined, with only a single glass window in the center of the farthest wall. Rudy is semiconscious again, clutching his arm to his chest and whimpering in pain as you carry him that way.
A lady in a blue uniform, her pale hair pulled back in a tight bun, looks up at you.
“Our friend is hurt,” you say, sidling up to the glass with your arms wrapped around Rudy’s knees.
“Is he breathing?” she asks, tilting her head to see past you.
You move sideways, allowing Eric and Gus to shuffle closer. “Yes, but—"
“Is he bleeding?”
“Well, yeah,” answers Eric, now closest to the window, “a little, mostly scratches. His arm looks broken though and we think he might have a concussion.”
She pushes a clipboard through the open space at the base of the window. “Have a seat. Fill this out. We’ll get to him as soon as we can.”
You free one of your hands from beneath Rudy and grab the clipboard.
“Uh, have a seat where?” asks Gus.
“Over there,” you say, gesturing with your chin to the back wall where a man in faded-blue sweats and leather sandals is sitting with two empty chairs on each side of him.
“No way,” says Eric. “He’s been hacking up blood since we got here.”
“Really?”
As if on cue, the man clears his throat and begins coughing into a clenched fist, each burst louder and wetter than the next. You quickly avert your gaze.
Directly in front of you, a woman with a red-faced baby in her arms is staring impassively at the four of you. Two young children, a boy and a girl in matching striped pajamas, occupy the seats next to her. She turns to them. “Dale la silla,” you hear her say. “Siéntate con tu hermano.” The little girl slides off her chair and climbs up to sit with her brother. They both watch wide-eyed as the three of you lower a moaning Rudy into the hard, plastic chair next to them.
“Here.” You hand the clipboard to Gus. “You have the neatest writing.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“You guys got this?” you ask.
Eric’s gaze moves from you to the glass doors and back again. “Whatever,” he says, shaking his head. “See if you can find a soda machine or something.”
“Yeah, for sure.”
You find her outside in the parking lot below the illuminated Emergency Room sign with the large arrow pointing in the direction from which you just came. She is sitting on the curb with her knees drawn up to her chest, her long legs completely hidden beneath her oversized red sweater. Even her hands have been retracted into their sleeves with only her mouth and the tip of her chin visible beneath the drawn down hood.
“I’m sorry, Matt,” she says without looking up.
“It’s okay.”
She lifts her face to you. “No, it’s not. You’ve been so nice to me, but…” Her gaze falters and drops. “I just can’t go in there.”
“It’s okay,” you say again, lowering yourself to the curb next to her. “You don’t have to.”
For a moment she is quiet, then she takes a deep breath, hugging her knees even tighter, and then slowly exhales. “How is he?” she asks.
“Waiting. They gave us some forms to fill out. It might be awhile.”
Her hand appears and she uses it to slowly push the hood off of her head. You watch as the palm of that same hand absently caresses the shaved crown of her perfectly round skull before disappearing into her sleeve again. Then she lowers her chin onto her knees. “I don’t understand,” she says. “I thought I’d be gone already. I don’t know why I’m still here.”
“Are you in trouble, Jai? Are you hiding from someone?”
She turns to you. “Hiding?” The side of her mouth twitches into a smile, which she promptly frowns away. “No, but, I mean, it’s a hospital, right? There must be face-cams everywhere.”
“Face what?”
“Facial recognition cameras. You know, narkware?”
“I don’t know what any of that is.”
She looks at you, her gaze moving over your face as if for the very first time. You see her eyes take you in, cataloguing all the parts of you, your blue plaid shirt, the Velcro band on your wristwatch, the worn spots in the knees of your jeans, your dusty shoes. “You really don’t, do you?”
You suddenly feel foolish and have to turn away.
“What is today?” she asks.
“Friday,” you say, surprised by the anger in your voice.
She doesn’t seem to notice. “I mean, the date.”
“October seven.”
“What year?”
“Really?” You turn to face her, expecting to find her laughing at you. Only, she’s not.
“Yes, please tell me what year this is.”
“It’s nineteen eighty-three.”
“Nineteen eighty—” Her voice catches, a small scared sound in the back of her throat. “Oh God,” she whispers. “I’m dead.”
THE MISADVENTURES OF MATTHEW VAN DER BOOT is a work of fiction. All names, characters, and places are fictitious, and any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental … no matter how many times you ask.