Page 109 - What They Did to the Kid

What They Did to the Kid 97

underage, you were afraid to come in.” He disappeared back into
the general store. Fred thanked me for a buck-fifty for the seven
gallons. I was happy. A guy I didn’t even know called me names. I
was passing. I was one of the boys.
“Yippee!”
“Put the beer in the back seat,” Rip said. He and Kenny each
carried two six-packs. “I wanna chug.”
“Put it in the trunk,” I said. “I don’t want any trouble with the
Wisconsin Highway Patrol.”
“You boys be careful now, hear?” Alice came out to the front
porch wiping her hands on her store apron.
“Hey, lady,” I yelled. “You’re a witness. I’m being kidnapped.”
“To the Point, man!” Kenny yelled.
“I’ll drive you, but I got to be going.”
All the way back Kenny yelled “Lullaby of Birdland” and Rip
would yell, “Da da dee” and they’d laugh like some Morse Code to
a punch line of an in-joke. For the third time in twenty minutes I
passed the two kids pushing the bicycle. This time they stared as the
red Volkswagen roared by.
“Can you get like parts for this car?” Kenny asked. Then he
turned to the back seat. “Let’s get drunk.”
“We are drunk,” Rip said. “We are like so drunk we don’t even
know Bug man’s name.”
“O’Hara.”
“So, ‘O’! We’re drunk and it’s your goddam fault.”
“My fault?” I said.
“No. I mean, his fault. Out there floating on the lake since six
this morning. With the goddam car keys.”
“Who?” I asked.
“Deacon,” Kenny said.
“Deak’s got the car keys like in his trunks,” Rip said. “He never
heard us yell at him once. We killed a whole case and he never heard
us yell once.”
“A third of the beer was Deacon’s.” Kenny looked crossed-eyed
into the back seat.
The rhythms of the car seemed to be lulling them.
“A third was his,” Rip said, “and we drank it. Therefore we are

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