Later that night, I went straight to Russell’s garage to work on the car with him. A heavy smell of gasoline and old cars filled the air as I walked in. Russell’s garage always smelled like that. I wasn’t sure if it was just his garage that smelt like that, but boy did it reek in there. It was so disgusting in there. Piled in all the corners of the garage were piles and piles of heavy duty trash bags, filled with junk from years past. The only clean thing in there was the tools, which weren’t even his.
“Hey, Jonah,” he said as I walked into the garage. He was working on something under the hood of the car, but I didn’t know what.
I walked over and sat down in a chair near the car. “Hi. What are you doing?”
He looked at me and smiled, still keeping his head down to look at his work. “I’m fixing the cooling system for the race.”
I nodded mindlessly. “Need any help?”
“No,” he said, grunting as he tightened something with his wrench. “You wouldn’t get this. It’s too complicated.”
I nodded mindlessly again. It was a moment before I actually answered back. “Hey, Russell?” I asked.
“Yeah?”
“I was just wondering… how do you pick up girls? Just wondering.”
He laughed a little, and threw his hair back as it fell to his face. “Uh, is this about that girl we met at the diner?”
I got quiet.
He stopped messing with the car, and stood up straight. “Okay, just… look. Girls like a good chase. You need to come on to her. Do what I did and come onto her at the diner. Once you have her so annoyed, you have to just ignore her.”
“Ignore her?” I repeated.
“Exactly. Then, they come onto you.” He bent back down to work on the car.
“But then won’t she just be glad I’m not annoying her anymore? That means I’m giving up. Won’t she be glad I’m not going after her anymore?”
He sighed. “You have a lot to learn. Just, trust me. Do what I say, and trust me. She’ll chase after you. Hey, soon you’ll be good enough to score way more chicks then just her.”
“Russell,” I started. I didn’t know how to tell him. “I don’t know if I can do that. Isn’t that a little sexist?”
“A little sexist?” he repeated. “Girls are meant to serve us. They were meant to make us happy. If I want to score a girl, I can. And there’s nothing she can do to stop me.
“But…”
He glared at me. “Jonah, how many girl have you ever dated?”
I thought about that for a moment. I finally answered back quietly, “two.”
“Exactly. I’ve had more experience than you.” He bent down to work on the car again. “Trust me, Jonah. Someday, this’ll come in handy.”
“But the girls you’ve seen are all greasers. This one’s a soc.”
He sighed. “Jonah, I don’t know what to tell you. You can either take my advice and try, or screw it like Jack did.”
I thought about that. Russell’s idea was sexist, and I knew that. But he was right. I can either stay friends with Brooke and hope for something to happen between us, or I could listen to Russell’s advice and go after her. I decided to change the subject. “Russell, I’m scared.”
He walked over to his tool chest that he stole from his neighbor. He pulled out a screw driver, and began to mess with the license plate. “’Bout what, kid?”
“What if something bad happens to me?” I asked.
“Nothing bad will happen to you.”
“I don’t know, Russell. I mean, you saw that guy’s ride. It’s hauls ass. I can’t beat that in a race. And you saw how angry Mike was with us. He’ll probably skin me alive no matter what.”
“I’ll protect you. You have to do this.”
“Why?”
“Those socs. They’re all just stuck up snobs with their clean blond hair and shiny blue cars. All they ever do is beat us at everything. I hate them. You have to do this for every greaser out there who hates socs.”
“But what if they hurt me?”
“Then you kick their ass’ right back. I know you can do this. You’re going to beat them.”
“I’m not sure if I can.”
“You’ll be fine.”
I shifted uncomfortably. “Were you ever in a drag race?”
He didn’t reply. He just looked down at his work with a large frown on his face.
“What are you doing?” I asked, trying to get him to talk to me again.
He looked up at me, but kept his head down to continue working on the car. “I’m popping off the license. This way, if you get caught, you can just run away. The Man can’t trace the license back to you if they don’t have it.”
It was surprising. Russell was never really smart. But when it came to avoiding getting caught for something, he’s the guy you want to go to.
I lit a cigarette and leaned forward. “I don’t get it, Russell.”
“What?”
“How come you’re smart enough to fix up a car and smart enough to think of popping the license plate off, but you can’t pass high school?”
“I’m dumb, kid. Got suspended so many times. Failed all my classes.” Once he was done messing with the car for the night, he stood up and stretched. “You should go home. Peter’s gonna hack at you if you don’t get home.”
I began to walk out the door with Russell behind me. When I got to the door, I came to a stop and turned to face him. “Since when did you start caring about what Peter does?”
“I care about you.” He motioned for me to move out the door. “Now, go. It’s already eleven.”
I walked out the door, and down the streets. I could see my breathe turn white once it hit the cold autumn air. It was almost as thick as the smoke from my cigarette. I shivered. Once I got to the steps of my house, tossed my cigarette butt on the ground and walked into the house.
Inside, on our dingy couch, staring straight at me was Peter. In the chair next to him was Jack, looking worried as he stared at Peter with warning eyes. Peter glared at me. “A drag race, Jonah?” he yelled.
I was silent for a moment. “What are you talking about?” I lied.
“What the hell are you doing Jonah? Are you trying to get yourself arrested?”
“I don’t--”
“Jonah! I know you’re competing in a drag race.”
“So?”
“I don’t want you doing that! You need to drop out!” he yelled. His eyes were dead serious, and scared me a little.
I was quiet for a moment, scowling off to the side. I turned my head back to him and slowly said, “no.”
His expression worsened. “Jonah! You could go to jail, or worse, get killed. Drop out! For the love of God, drop out!”
“I can’t,” I snapped.
“Why not?”
“If I drop out, I’m a coward. If I do this, I could win their respect. They can’t hurt me anymore if I beat them. You just don’t understand!”
His expressing got even worse. I didn’t think it was possible. “You’re right, Jonah. I don’t understand! I don’t see why you have to put your life, and everyone else’s lives in danger for something so stupid.”
I looked past Peter at Jack, who was sitting there and looking at me uncomfortably from the corner of his eye. He knew I was mad at him. You could see it in his eyes. I was mad at him. He was the one who told Peter, and he was the one who got my in so much trouble. I’d always thought he was the one on my side, but I guess now I realize he would rat me out at some point. I wanted to yell at him, but I knew if I did, Peter would get mad at me like he always does. I started to walk away, but he stopped me by saying, “Jonah! Wait! We’re just trying to protect you.”
“I don’t need your protection. I’ll be fine on my own.” And just like that, I was sitting on my bed as if I was back at home. I waited and waited for a beating. For something to happen. But nothing happened after that. It’s as if I did nothing wrong. If I had said that to my father, he would be chasing me down Main Street with a stick by now. My eyes grew heavy, and I began to fall asleep, there in my lousy excuse for a bed.
Before I had a chance to actually fall asleep and relax for once, Denny came in. He sat on the edge of my bed. “Hey, Jonah.”
I moaned and sat up. “What do you want?”
“I want you to stop this.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Cut the crap, Jonah! Jack told me what you’re doing!” I had never heard Denny yell at anyone. He was always either shy or hyper, never aggressive like that.
I was quiet for a moment. “I’m not dropping out.”
“Why? You know it’s the right thing to do. We all know.”
“I have to do this. Do you want me to be a candyass?”
He shook his head. “No. But you have to drop out. Just imagine what would happen if you went and got hurt. It wouldn’t be their fault, Jonah. It would be yours.” He walked over and hopped into bed before I got a chance to respond.
I thought about what he’d said, and what would really happen if I went. It wouldn’t be good. I came to the conclusion that they were right. All of them. Everyone who has told me that I shouldn’t compete in this is right about all of this. I shouldn’t be going through with this if it’s going to hurt me or anyone around me. I looked over at Denny’s bed. “Hey, Denny?”
“Yeah?”
“I can’t do this.”
I could hear him laugh a little, and I could tell he was expecting that. “So don’t,” he told me. “Just tell me. Are you doing this all for Brooke?”
“…What if I was?”
“If you are, I think you’re better off not. Girls don’t like that kind of stuff, especially not a soc.”
I wasn’t sure who to believe. Russell or Denny? Although, this wasn’t my biggest problem right now. There were many things I could spend my time worrying about, but yet I center all of my concentration on Brooke. Am I going insane? I think so.
That night, I had a dream about the drag race. It was half good and half scary. In the dream, I almost got in an accident. That was the scary part. It was an adrenaline rush, but it was the bad kind of rush. The good part was that I’d won the race and everything was pretty much perfect from there. It was like my life was finally falling into place, but then I realized that it wasn’t real. My life is still like hell, and I still have to put up with everything that’s going on.
