Crank

This is a short fiction piece I wrote a while ago. Well, it isn’t done, but here is a draft. It is called ‘Crank,’ or, if you want to go all literary on my ass “falling in love with the idea of me.” I don’t remember why I decided to call it that. I like “Crank” better. 

 

Utah at 3AM. 

            We have to get to San Diego, we just have to.  We’re going from New Jersey to California. We can do it.

We have to.

The World Beer Cup starts in less than five hours and we still have another eight before we even get to the city. Somewhere around Toledo, Ohio we started taking speed and we haven’t come down yet.

Maybe it’s because we keep taking it.

We have so much speed hidden in the lining of the backseat that we could build a snowman. We pulled the lining and everything out and stuffed it. There’s a Velcro flap covering it all.

There are going to be 650 breweries there. There are going to be more than 2800 beers there.

We are one of them. We have three of those beers.

Jeremy reads this out of the brochure every few hours.  The paper shakes in his hands every time he holds it up to read.

 I can’t remember when I slept last. I think it was somewhere in Nebraska and only for twenty minutes.  There were cows and corn and the smell of shit coming through the air conditioning vents. Jeremy pulled over to the side of the road to piss and a trucker blasted his horn as he passed by. We were parked too close to the lane, I guess.   

I smacked my head on the window and have been up since.

I’ve crossed nine state lines that I’ve never crossed before. I’ve seen thirty-four different state plates that I’ve never seen before.

This is what happens when you live in a small town with your mother who gets to travel only because she screws any guy who is willing to buy her a drink at a bar. They buy her stuff, take her places.

Sometimes she takes you, too. But not really.

I had more babysitters than I did A’s in grammar school.

I could ignore it when I was younger, she’d either send me off to my father’s or I’d find a pair of earplugs and read all night under a blanket with my flashlight.

She’s not trying to find a new husband anymore, she’s trying to get her cock fix. I can’t wait until she gets to the age where the guys stop getting it up, she might try and act like a normal mom then, but I’m not holding my breath. With my dad dead, though, I guess holding my breath is all I can do to hope to have normal parents ever.

Routes 80. 90. 81. 70. 15. So many roads passing through so many towns. The two of us have never been past the Mississippi.

This is all new territory.

We’ve screamed “Highway to Hell.” We’ve screamed “Don’t Stop Believing.” We’ve screamed, windows down until we start coughing and hacking and slamming our fists against the dashboard, like it would matter. Jeremy and I slap high-five every time we pass a truck that blasts its horn for us.  We are like little kids out on the highway.

Little kids with driver’s licenses and lots of speed.

The Brewers Association holds the World Beer Cup every two years. The president slash founder says the mission is to spread awareness of quality beer in the world. On the weekends, we drink PBR. We don’t touch our own stuff; we just sell it in bottles we take out of the recycling bins at the college in our town.

The classy kids, the ones in college living off trust funds, they buy our shit up because of the fancy labels and the high alcohol content. We gouge the price for them so that we can buy groceries for another week.

Jeremy has got an account that he can access when he turns twenty-five. His great-uncle or someone left it for him. We’re going to really expand the operations then, instead of just doing it in the second bedroom in our basement apartment.

We just have to wait until then. Another year and we’ll be okay. Right now, though, we’re living off whatever we make from the beer and my night shift Target job and what Jeremy gets from selling speed.

Hooray for that added dollar on minimum wage for working overnight, it buys us ramen and electricity.

Jeremy is leaning into the backseat, trying to get more speed when he lets out this choke-cry-garbled mumble thing. We’re out of speed, he says.

Fuck.

!

The gas station has exactly four lights on. They’re in a square pattern, leaving the pumps in shadows. Plate glass windows are partially blocked by shelves with what look like chip bags on them. A cashier is sleeping behind the counter; he’s young and his hat is pulled down over his eyes.

The door’s locked when I go to pay. Guy looks like he might have shit himself when I bang on the door.

To me, I feel like I hit the door maybe four times and not that hard. But then again, everything feels slow to me, the world is liquid toffee. Vaguely, I’m aware that I’m on hyper speed, so I guess I hit the door seventeen or eighteen times.

Really fast.

I guess that’s why he’s scared, probably thinks he’s getting robbed.

He shouts through the door, it’s a little muffled,  “Yeah?”

“We’re paying for gas is all. We need some food, too. Have any coffee?” I say.

My hands are shaking in my pockets, my arms are vibrating like tuning forks.

The kid steps back and lets me in, shuffles around the counter again. I pay then buy some chips. Jeremy is yelling outside.

“Fuck. What the fuck, man.”

The shop boy follows me out—we’re the most fun he’s probably ever seen. Just think, two guys with shaggy hair and beards and bloodshot eyes arrive in the middle of the night and start freaking out in front of you.

I probably would shit myself too.

I walk up to the car and Jeremy is lifting and closing and lifting the hood.

“It isn’t working. It stopped working.”

Hiss, slam, click. Hiss, slam, click. That damn hood. I wish he would stop. It isn’t his car and he probably isn’t paying attention to his hands right now. Stop it, I want to say, but Jeremy is speaking again.

“You’re lying, your being stupid,” I say. I bump him out of the way and stand in front of the car.  I feel my eye twitching. I have this moment where in my head I am outside my head and I see my eye twitching.

“No, man, no I’m not. Check it out.”

I’m about to when the kid opens his mouth.

“So what are you guys doing out here?” he asks. He tells us his name is Tim.

“We’re going to the World Beer Cup, man. We’re presenting. We brew our own shit, man,” Jeremy says, he bangs on the trunk where we have all our stuff.

Cases of Slurred Words Pale Ale, That’s What She Said Lager, Why Don’t We Take Some Pilsner.

“Give me some, guys.”

“Aren’t you like, fifteen, dude?” I say. He doesn’t have facial hair. His face looks too new.

“I’m eighteen.”

“That’s still too young. I may be tweaking out but I know that’s illegal, plus we need the stuff to sell. Make money, you know like you’re doing here.”

Three semesters of business marketing classes and in my head I sound like a marketing genius.

My brain is slow and I realize I’m not marketing at all, I’m just yelling at some immature kid. An immature kid like I was a few years ago begging people to give me beer.

Begging people when my mother was going through one of her “sober” phases where she wouldn’t drink inside the house—she said she was trying to keep her vices away from me, so she would go out and drink. It was sort of nice, not having to sit at the breakfast table with some guy I didn’t know and wouldn’t see again, bottles of vodka and orange juice acting as a centerpiece.

I think I sort of like him. I think I am like him.

He’s my doppelganger. I am like this kid on the Utah state line in the middle of what looks like goddamn nowhere where they probably don’t even have liquor. I feel bad for him. If I were in his position, I’d be doing the same thing.

He looks a bit hurt, like I had kicked him in the face or something, but I didn’t.  I want to give him some.

I want him to grow up like me, even though I don’t know him. I know nothing about Tim, except that he is up at 3AM in Utah, too.

“Why are you here, Tim?” I say. I shake my head side to side to get the hair out of my face and I swear he gives me a look like I pulled a giraffe from my armpit. I guess I’m shaking too much again.

“I need the money.”

“Why,” I say.

“Why does it matter? Do you guys want me to call you a tow truck or something? No one can come for a while though, probably, there really isn’t anyone around. James doesn’t get into work here until six.”

“But we need to be there by eight,” Jeremy says.

“That’s not going to happen,” Tim says, staring at the trunk now, like he was trying to punch holes in the metal with his irises. He wants that beer so bad. I want to ask him if his parents drink, if his pastor drinks. I hope to God they do, that they’re not depriving him and making him go elsewhere to get drunk.

That just fucks people up.

“Call a truck,” I say. “Getting there at all is our priority right now.”

“Do you guys have Triple A?” Tim says.

What the fuck is Triple A? I barely have insurance.

“Okay, whatever, I’ll call into town and leave a message,” Tim says.

There’s a big Coca Cola clock over the door of the convenience store. It’s almost four.  It’s still as dark as it was before. I imagine somewhere far off back the way we came, past the horizon the sun is coming up. Back east there is orange light just starting to spill over mountains and trees. Over my mom’s house. I wonder if she’s got anyone there tonight, if he’s giving her money.

Jeremy is running laps around the gas station. Into darkness behind the store. Into light where we can see him. He’s a health freak, yet brews beer, sells and does speed. I don’t get it, unless it’s just all that speed in him. I think he’s taken more. I’m just waiting for his heart to stop, like our car.

Our car is still broken. Unless it isn’t, unless Jeremy is an idiot. I slide into the seat and turn the key. It turns on. Jeremy was wrong, it is working fine. I cut the engine. I want to leave. I want to talk to this kid some more. He’s all alone. I’d want people around if I were him, too.

Tim taps me on the shoulder through the open window.  “Truck should be here soon. Randy wasn’t happy, but he’s going to charge a lot to fix it, so I guess that makes things better in his book.”

“Cancel it, Tim.”

He nods, like he expected this. “Sure thing, Randy is old as fuck anyway, his hands are all shaky and it would take him forever to do anything.

This kid sounds like me at his age. What’s that going to mean for him in six years? Unless he moves out of here, he won’t even have three measly beers to show for his life.

What am I doing with myself? I want to call my mother and ask her that. See what she has to say. Would she tell me things will be all right? Or is she going to give me back the crap I’ve given her since I was little, a smart mouth and a cold shoulder. I probably deserve it at this point. What would my dad say at this point? Would I even be here if he was there at all? Would it have been different if my mother had just settled with one guy I could’ve gotten to know?

We still need to get there, though, so I can prove that I’m worth something, that I’ve done something productive in the two years since I got my generic communications degree. I need to show people that I can come up with stuff, too, that people will enjoy me. No, not that, that people will enjoy the idea of me when they drink our beer. They will think, well shit, those guys that made this must be cool as hell.

All I’m asking for is people to like the idea of me. I need to get to that festival. It will help, I swear it will. But that can wait, the idea of me isn’t going to change in the next twelve hours. The beers are already brewed and bottled, I have already poured myself into them.

I want to make Tim realize that he’s got so much going for him. That even though he may be in this Mormon place that his parents still love him.  That they’re trying their best, I hope. That he’ll be able to look back at some point and respect them, love them. I want to reassure him that he’ll get that beer he wants eventually, that he can get the hell out of Utah and do stuff.

 “Fuck it, Tim” I say. We’re walking back towards the store at this point. He said he wanted to get his jacket. He looks at me, his head cock to the side just a hint.

“What else are we going to do? We’re going to be late anyway. Want to get a beer or something?”

“Sure, man,” he says. He’s trying to be cool about it, like I was the first time I took a hit off a bong, until I started choking in front of the first girl who had let me touch her.

She didn’t let me anywhere near her after that. Not even during games in gym class.  He unlocks the door and we step inside. The lights in the back are on and the room glows a little, like when I put a blanket over a flashlight as a kid.

“Do you have any liquor in here?”

“If I did, don’t you think I’d be drunk, man? This place is dry.”

He’s pulling his jacket on while I try to open the door. It doesn’t budge. It shakes, it rattles, but doesn’t open. I start beating on it and this time I can feel for real how many times I’m hitting it. The bell above the door sounds like it should be on a runaway sleigh, hijacked by drunken elves. Damn locked doors.

Jeremy stops running to laugh, then continues his laps.

We walk to the car. I pop the trunk and toss our one bag of clothes to the ground. Selecting a couple of our ales, I take out a pocketknife and begin popping the tops.

We toast with Slurred Words.  Tim is delighted, taking deep draughts from the bottle, pausing to burp and then repeating.

I sit down on a bench near the store.  Tim joins me, his bottle empty. He’s eyes mine as casually as he can, so I give it to him. Whatever, I didn’t want it anyway.

My eyelids are drifting down. I want to sleep. I stand up ready to pop some more speed until I realize we don’t have any more. I sigh and sit down again.

“So what are you going to do in San Diego?”

Get vindicated from growing up. “Be able to show my mom what I’ve done.” Show myself what I’ve done.  “Feel a little bit better about living in a basement apartment with two other people and two cats.”

“Well, why?” Tim says. He looks genuinely confused.

“Why? Because look at me, Tim, I live a shitty fucking life and have accomplished nothing since college. I’m my parents all over again.”

“No you’re not,” He says. His voice is calm and level, “If they haven’t been here, you aren’t like them.”

This kid, this other version of me, he says this to me and it hits me hard. Its real simple, but I get it. He’s right. I see myself in him, but I’m wondering where my knowledge and insight like that is. Did I ever have it? When and where did I lose it? Was it somewhere on this trip, evaporating like sweat off my body?

Jeremy comes over. “What the hell? Why aren’t we going, man? We’re going to be late.”

I look up at him. He’s breathing heavy and has his hands clasped behind his head like he’s about to do some sit-ups. “We’re going to be late anyway, why do we have to rush now?”

We’re going to be late to the Cup. We’re not going to be allowed in today, probably, and we probably won’t get to sell our stuff. If we’re lucky, they’ll let us in for the second day.  We might sell it. I might get to meet a few people, make a few contacts. I might find a phone and call my mother and tell her where I am. I might keep a few extra bottles to drop off here on the way back for Tim.

Jeremy has stopped huffing and has taken one of the beers from me. He’s sipping, staring at my feet.

“You were so into this, Pete. What happened?”

I shrug.  It isn’t like we’re not going to get there.  Before we left we had dreams that this would be our big break, but who were we kidding?  How delusional were we? I want to tell Jeremy that none of it really matters, that even if we impress some people who say they know beer, that it won’t get us anything. We’ll continue to do speed, and drink and live in a tiny apartment. And even when he does get his money, we’ll still be the same people. We still won’t get the girls that we want and we’ll still have the same parents and cats.

“Man, I know we said we were going to be huge at this thing. And I know that we’re not. We’re just two fuckups who got some beer making kit and decided to take it further. But why are we stopping now? Don’t you want to go on?” He’s pointing at me with his beer, “We’ve driven, God, like three thousand miles already. We’re so close to just experiencing something and you want to give up now?”

I shake my head. “I’m not giving up, I’m just slowing down.”

I don’t tell him that I’m afraid that if I leave I’ll never see Tim again, I’ll never see myself again. I’ll never be able to look at myself long enough to see what’s going on, see what I should be doing instead of what I am doing. I want to keep this moment, this gas station.

I look at Tim, he’s staring into the mouth of the beer bottle.  He’s looking for something, and I guess I should be, too. I should be back in that car, on the way to San Diego. But no, not yet. Jeremy is swaying, staring at the wall above me. Waiting.  I pop open another beer, he can wait a little longer.