Читать книгу King - Tanya Chapman - Страница 5

I came home in a great mood but now everything is wrong again. I’m walking around the trailer singing angry songs at the top of my not-so-puny voice, and I don’t care who in this unglamorous place I wake up.

I don’t make up words for songs very well when I’m drunk or angry, and now I’m both, so I’m singing ‘What the hell is going on?’ with ‘It’s all wrong, it’s all wrong’ as the chorus. Pretty stupid.

King’s not home. That’s what made everything bad again. I want to go back to the quarry, to be anywhere except here. I want to talk to Old Joe so he can tell me that something good will come out of this. But I can’t think of a damn thing that Old Joe or anyone else could tell me to make this stupid situation even close to okay. I find King’s guitar and take all the strings off, which is super-bad because it bends the neck. I twist the tuning heads and hear the notes go flat and then flatter and then wind themselves down to just plain noise. I look around for more destruction, but there’s nothing else I can think to touch that would piss him off more. So I sit and try not to cry like a silly little girl.

I try not to think of King and the caps girl in some field somewhere doing god knows what. The more I try not to think about it, the clearer the scene becomes. I can practically hear every word they’re saying from wherever they are.

I have to chill out, so I figure that this is as good a time as any to water the flowers. I go out to the back of the trailer, turn on the hose and get the spray gun. I think of the caps girl. I can’t help it. I try to remember if she’s pretty, if she’s prettier than me. I think of King playing caps with her and the one time I saw him look at her. I try to analyze his face. But there is nothing in my memory. Their features turn into expressions that I can’t figure out, knowing glances that I never saw. I wish I wasn’t so drunk so I could remember if the looks really happened. Then again, I’m glad I’m drunk and wish I was drunker because the fact, the real fact, is that King isn’t here -again.

I even went for a float first, and I still beat him home. That’s a lot of time to play with, especially on a drunken night. I yank the hose to the front of the trailer and think violent King thoughts. I stand in the middle of the lawn, press the trigger on the spray gun and start weaving in a too-drunk-not-drunk-enough circle.

And then there’s the top of King’s head popping out of a patch of waist-high flowers. I have the gun spraying right against his chest, and he’s soaked.

His voice is sleepy. ‘Hey, Hazel, hey, what are you doing watering at this time of night?’

‘I heard it’s better to water at night.’

‘Yeah, I think I heard that too.’

I haven’t turned off the gun or moved my aim. The water is still spattering full blast against his T-shirt. He must be sitting in mud by now.

‘Why don’t you come over here?’

‘Because it’s wet over there. And I don’t want to wreck my dress.’

So he stands up and walks right into the water with it soaking him even more, and he takes the gun out of my hand. Then he picks me up and takes me to a dry part of the flowers. We lie down on our backs, side by side, and stare up at the night.

‘You know, Hazel, when you lie down here and all you can see is the top of the flowers and the stars, it’s like we’re the only two people in the world.’

‘I wish we were … I wish the caps girl didn’t exist in the world.’

‘Ahh, the caps girl.’

‘Why do you do it, King?’

At first, I think he’s not going to answer or that he’ll pretend he doesn’t know what I’m talking about. I think if he does that, I might have to hit him. I’ve been waiting a long time, all night almost, to let the violence reign, and now I have the person who makes me the maddest in the world right here. But I have no chance.

‘I don’t know, I don’t know anything. You just get so mad. Sometimes the biggest thing I do is make you mad. Sometimes I feel like I’m trying to exist and the only thing that reacts to my trying is you. Maybe you are the only one who knows that I’m here. I need to see that sometimes. You know?’

‘Over and over?’

‘Maybe.’

We lie there for a while. King smooths the hair from my forehead, and I can feel the anger leaving me with every stroke. I remind myself that he was here all the time. I remind myself that my anger is really all because of me. I relax and let King hold me and make me feel comfortable again.

‘Hey, King, you know that girl who lives three doors down, she’s kind of slow?’

‘Yeah.’

‘Well, she has a friend now.’

‘Oh yeah?’

‘They ride their bikes together. He comes by her house, waits in the driveway and rings the bell on his bike until she pokes her head out the front door. And then he says to her, “Want to go for a bike ride?” And she runs right out the door with two cans of pop that she’s been holding behind her back since she heard his bell. She gives one to him, and they take off down the road together.’

‘That’s beautiful, Hazel.’

We look at the tops of the flowers and the stars for a while.

‘You know, Hazel, there’s this girl who wears flowered dresses all the time, even in winter, because she wants to bring a little something magical into the trailer park where she lives. Only, I want to tell her that there’s always a little something magical following her around whatever she wears. And sometimes when I look at her, I can’t believe that she’s with me. It’s like I have to shake it into myself. And when talking to her and touching her doesn’t make her any more real, I have to wreck shit up so that I can watch the fury and know that she cares about what I’m doing. It’s a shitty way to go, but sometimes I think it’s the only thing I’ve got.’

‘Does that mean you’re sorry?’

‘Only if you’re sorry for whatever it was I heard you do to my guitar.’

‘I don’t know if I’m sorry for that yet.’

‘Close enough.’

He laughs and holds me tighter, and we fall asleep in the flowers.