Beau, Lee, The Bomb Read online

  We continue down the Shoreline Highway, as they call Highway 1 through here. It’s straight but narrow like a country lane. We make good time. We own the road and the quiet and thoughtful ocean over on our right.

  There a couple of hostels to choose from at Point Reyes. The one we pick looks super busy and fun. We drive up and sit still in surprise.

  It’s totally a youth hostel and about a second from the beach, and there are millions of young people milling around even now at this time of year. People coming and going and it’s a festive-looking place.

  The only problem is we are all under seventeen, which hasn’t been an issue so far, but I read in the info it’s a lot cheaper to stay if you say you’re a minor. What worries me is if we all admit to being underage, will they even let us stay? Or get weird and call the cops? I’m still pretty sure we’re on the lam. And if we don’t get the discount rate, it’s twice as expensive. Plus, there are so many people here. The joint is jumping! And I noticed Leonie eyeballing these two cute guys. So that’s freaking wonderful.

  We sit outside in the van and consider before we go in. I don’t recognize the music that’s playing. I know of the three of us I look the oldest so if anyone is going to play the sensible elder statesman it should be me.

  We get out of the van, leave the window open a crack for The Bomb, and lock it. We stand there and look uncertain for a sec, which is about the worst thing you can do if you are trying to pull a fast one.

  “I’ll go in and say we need accommodations for three UM,” I say, practicing my older, deeper, sensible voice.

  They both look at me blankly.

  “What does that even mean?”

  “Unaccompanied minors. My brother Paul and I traveled that way.”

  “No, that sounds too weird.” Beau frowns. “Why are you suddenly tripping? We have stayed a bunch of places, no big deal.” I agree. I don’t even know why I’m suddenly tripping.

  Then I do. I realize it’s because there are so many people around our own age and I’m used to that always becoming an unpleasant situation. Also Leo, who is a piece of work to keep out of trouble around guys.

  Also, money. We’re just chugging through it.

  I go inside and am just about to go up to the front desk when Beau comes up to me.

  “Listen, Leonie asked this guy to be our big brother or whatever if we need him to. We can totally get the cheap price now!” He looks pleased.

  I do not. Of that I am sure.

  “Beau! No! Yeah, I bet she did! Omg! For what in return? She does mental things, y’know, Beau!” I look out the front door as best I can. I don’t see her.

  It’s my turn at the front desk.

  They totally do not care how we got there, and when we say we are students, they don’t even card us and we get the rate. I don’t know why I get myself so cranked.

  We hurry out to find Lee, and she is talking to this guy with a beard that looks like Jesus. Assuming that you think Jesus looked like a hot white guy with a beard.

  They are deep in conversation, and she is twiddling her hair. Beau and I exchange looks, and we go see what she has blabbed so far.

  “So, yeah, we’re from Seattle.”

  “Cool . . . the Emerald City, right?”

  “Um, yeah. I think so.”

  “Nice. How old are you?”

  “Si—uh . . . eighteen.”

  “Great.” Jesus looks really happy. I pipe right in.

  “Such a lie! Omg! She is sixteen!”

  He looks at me and then back at her. A few times. You can see he’s hoping she’s the one telling the truth but that he’s pretty sure it’s me. He gets a little flustered.

  “What?! Seriously?! Omg! Listen, um—Leonie, you shouldn’t tell people that you’re of age when you aren’t. Omg, you said your friends were the ones who were underage.”

  “So what does it matter how old I am? I’m old enough.” Leonie glances at me savagely. Whatever.

  “So what?! So it’s a huge deal! You’re underage! Honey! Do you not get that? I was going to ask if you wanted to go get something to eat maybe and then who knows. But sixteen?! That’s jailbait! Are you crazy?! No way!”

  Leo looks at him angrily. “Don’t worry about it! I can take care of myself! I won’t tell anyone! I don’t even care!”

  Jesus looks at her sorrowfully. “But you should care! I wouldn’t do that, ’cuz if I did, I would be using you. I’d be taking advantage of you. Can you see? I wouldn’t do that, Leonie.”

  Jesus leaves us. Fast.

  Leonie stink-eyes me. Hard. Starts to say something snotty, but I short-circuit her.

  “Oh, Leonie, don’t you even dare be mad at me! What were you even thinking—if you ever do think—trying to get us busted much?” I am boiling with anger. I’m keeping my voice down with difficulty and hissing like some giant teapot. “You don’t even get it! That was the appropriate response when a grown man finds out some random chick is sixteen years old! Not like despicable Ratskin, the child molester!”

  She glares at me, then turns without a word and lunges off. I turn to Beau.

  “Beau, we are in the first room on the right. Go find her before she goes off looking for trouble just to show me, ’kay? Which I’m sure she will find.” He nods and disappears after her.

  I take our stuff back to the van so I don’t have to rent a locker, then get The Bomb and her leash and head out to the beach.

  The Bomb is like a people magnet. Especially for kids. She is getting much more confident and friendly and not so startled by every little thing. It’s only been a couple days and already she is adapting to her new reality. Plus, her milk is drying up fast and she’s not so skinny.

  We wander around, and I throw sticks we find on the beach but neither of us has any heart for it. We sit on a log. I do, anyway; she stands on it, and we watch people get firewood for a bonfire on the beach. We stay far back from the circle. I look to see if Itchy and Scratchy are at the fire but no luck.

  We wander and wait, and I finally put The Bomb back in the van, get her all snuggled in with the pillows (and her thick fur), and grab the sleeping bags to go to the room and read. I get something to eat from the vending machines and wait and look around and still no crew. They’ve been gone a while.

  When I go back to the room, I suddenly feel very alone, even though there are two other people sleeping in nearby bunks. I am reminded sickeningly of how awful my life was before. How blank. I hear the old oppressive desperate static of solitude and silence.

  I crawl in my bunk and wait, my internal emptiness eerily echoing, frozen in place.

  When I finally hear them come into the room, I get a little unhinged with relief. But when I hear them whispering, I feel my temperature start to rise.

  They are high . . . like really, really high.

  It’s late, and there are other people besides me in the room. Beau and Leonie are both laughing and trying not to, and this results in them laughing like hyenas and not being quiet at all.

  The other people in the room start to complain and so I grab them both and pull them out of the room and into the van. The Bomb is seriously glad to see them, and they are deliriously happy to see her.

  After a little while, it starts to dawn on me that they are not just high on weed; it’s something different and stronger. They are weaving and laughing in hysterics. And saying weird things . . . like weirder than usual.

  I get them in the van and start the engine because it’s cold and we don’t have our sleeping bags since they’re back in the room.

  The Bomb is sniffing them and wagging her tail uncertainly.

  “Yeah, check it. She can tell you guys are messed up.” I indicate her hesitation.

  “We’re fine. She knows shwe love her!” Leo is defensive and slurring. Her hair is wild and snarled.

  Beau just tee-hees helplessly. Then Lee does too. Then they start to shush each other so that they start laughing harder and harder till eventually they are just clicking.<
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  “Ack, ack ack ack ack yackackackyackyack.”

  Flopping over and flailing their little fins and making that little tick in their throats that is only one step away from crying and two from peeing your pants. I roll my eyes as I watch them in the rearview.

  I roll with epic numbskulls.

  They stop quacking and quaking finally and lie still, propping each other up, holding their collective tummies, wiping their eyes, getting their breath, and snorting in relapse till they sit quietly in some new phase of highness. I watch them in the mirror. Then I turn and face them. We all look at each other.

  “Rusty, you are so beautiful!” Leonie bursts out. “Your face looks like chrome in the moonlight! For reals!”

  This sets Beau off again, and he has to repeat “for reals!” several thousand times like some extra chunky nut bar. Then Leonie tells him to shut up. Then he tells her to shut up. Then she says, “No, you shut up,” then he says, “No, you shut up,” and thus they continue, gasping and writhing with glee for several hundred thousand more repetitions. I shake my head.

  “You guys are freaking hilarious. Seriously. I wish Conan O’Brien could see you; you’d be totally famous.” They grow palsied with laughter. Their eyes bug out. “Yak! Yak! Yak! Yak yak yakity yak yak!!” they inform me. They shake when they laugh like a bowl full of jelly.

  I wait them out, my eyes skyward.

  Then I continue cautiously. Their eyes look weird. Like pure black.

  “So what did you do, exactly? What did you take? Did you have something to drink?”

  “No! We know better than that! No roofies! We just bought a joint off some dude. It tasted weird, though. Beau, did you think it tasted funny?”

  I look at Beau. He nods and slides down the backrest onto the seat.

  I freak.

  “And you smoked it anyway?! Idiots! What is wrong with you?! Somebody probably messed with it! I knew it!”

  “Dude, seriously, we only smoked some weed,” Leo insists. She pauses and looks at me intently. “Omg, Rus, listen. I see the flesh on your face, Rusty . . . and it’s glittering! Omg, Rusty, you are totally like Edward! Beau! Rusty is like Edward!”

  “That is so tight, Russss . . .” Beau sounds like a spider from Mars. He reaches up and traces his finger down the inside of the van window. Draws rainbows in the condensation.

  But Leo isn’t done. Not even.

  “Omg, Rusty, seriously—wait—oh no, your face is falling off! It’s totally dropping off in clumps, like—glitter glue! On your lap! Ahh! It keeps doing it! Yuck! Dude! You’re freaking me out! Make it stop!” Grossed out, she flaps jazz hands at me.

  Beau turns slowly and looks at me owlishly, then turns back to Leonie. Shakes his head.

  “Leo. Leo. Rust has no control over her face. . . . You must stop it, Leonie.” Beau is very solemn. He’s all profound: a faded Yoda. “Rusty cannot control what her face does. You must control her face. You made her face fall off with your mind . . . so only you have the power to put it back. So put it back on her, dude. Put her face back on! Wait . . . first . . . can you see what’s underneath?” He looks at me, squinting.

  “Underneath are . . . eye sockets . . . made of diamonds,” Leonie whispers. She’s awed. “And . . . wait—there are tears on your cheekbones . . . made of pearls! Oh, poor Rusty . . .”

  They both squint at me.

  “Yeah, I figured. . . .” Beau closes his eyes and conducts music only he can hear.

  Leo looks at me. Then she frowns. She knows the look on my face, whether or not there is flesh on it. “Just don’t lecture us and harsh our buzz, ’kay? Don’t.”

  I look away from both of them. I don’t want to lecture. I’m not gonna . . . but I have to.

  “Sorry, I am so going to lecture you! You were so lucky! Whatever you smoked wasn’t just some pot; it was mixed with who even knows what by some sketcho! I’m surprised at you both! You should know better than to take stuff from strangers! I’ve seen how you are when you’re high—I’ve seen you a lot, Leo—but you are acting much weirder this time.”

  They look at me like, “Oh boy, here we go.”

  “But, Rusty, you said you thought weed should be legal,” Leo begins feebly.

  I start lecturing them like a librarian. An insanely bad-tempered librarian.

  “See, and this is exactly why! ’Cuz it’ll be a little more rational—not to mention harder for you two to get your lil’ koala paws on!”

  “Nuh-uh, Rust, it would be exactly the same.” Leo is stonily certain.

  “How?! This way you could get popped and maybe go spend some quality time with a bunch of seriously bad kids whose best day was just smoking some weed!”

  They stare at me and nod, bemused. “That’s true, Rus,” Beau agrees.

  “Oh, well, whatcha gonna do?” Leo asks. Then she gets distracted and looks alarmed. She checks the skin on her face to make sure it’s still there.

  I practically screech I’m so vexed.

  “Re-legalize it nationally! It’s too stupid. Beau, you said your mom and Matt smoke; I know my mom has too, ’cuz I smelled it when her friend got chemo! And it’s not like she’s some Scarface drug mom—she’s an RN, for gawd’s sake! What—are we gonna hafta go spring our old-ass parents from jail for blazin’? Or: ‘Hi, honey, it’s Grandma. I got busted for torchin’ a blunt—again. Would you come spring me?’ Seriously?! Plus: so counterproductive. It doesn’t make sense, and kids know that. Then they don’t respect other laws that do!”

  My fond and captive audience looks at me. Leonie nods to Beau sagely. She explains.

  “She gets like this. . . . She has ‘theories’ and she can keep going for hours. She’s like the Energizer Bunny.”

  Beau nods. “I’ve noticed.”

  “Not to mention the money you’ll get from taxing it!” I add. “Good-bye, Great Broke Ass Recession—Hello, National Health Care! Hello, College!!”

  “It’s cool, Rust. We totally agree with you.” Beau’s voice is soothing. So I chill out.

  Literally. It’s cold. I had shut off the engine, but now I run it again.

  I change the topic to what’s been on my mind.

  “Turn your phone on and see if your uncle has called, Beau.”

  “I did. He didn’t,” Beau answers slowly.

  We sit and think. I do, anyway. They just coast.

  Leonie stirs from her reverie. She turns to look at Beau, reassures herself that his face is still totally covered in skin, then settles back, thinking out loud.

  “I don’t even know what you think he’s going to do that will help. I mean, I know what will help. It’s actually easy, hon: Just don’t be gay, Beau. Find some hot chick and get over it! Wait, I know. . . . We should totally go out! I can fix this! I won’t let you be gay, Beau! I can totally hook you up. You should choose me. I got this.” She pats his face as they sit slumped together in the backseat.

  “Omg, Leonie, sometimes you are such an epic spaz,” he tells her lovingly. “Listen, I am so gay. I am sooo hella gay you wouldn’t even believe it. You are totally hot . . . but it just doesn’t thrill me, you know? No offense, honey.” He pats the hand patting his face.

  “How do you know? Have you even tried? Have you ever even kissed a girl?”

  “Yuh! When I was fourteen. I kissed her, and we made out, and it was okay, but mostly it was just weird, you know? She wanted to be my girlfriend too, and I tried to be all, ‘Yeah—

  absolutely!’ But it didn’t take me long to figure out that I was way more into hanging out with her older brother. They never knew that, though.” He laughs in remembrance.

  “Well, I think you should at least try!”

  “Leo, you shouldn’t do that with other people’s feelings. I found that out . . . very bad.”

  “Well, fine then, suit yourself. How about we just move to some big old gay town and you can be like the gay mayor! That would work too.” Leonie looks modestly proud of her brilliant suggestion.

  “Y
eah, see, no way.” Beau shifts and gets a little crabby.

  “It’s crazy for me to have to do that. Why? How is it even that big a deal? Why should I have to go away and leave my friends and family to live in some gay concentration camp? How ’bout everybody who’s not gay doesn’t worry about it, and then maybe I could be the mayor of Anydamnplace, USA, who also happens to be gay, but so what, nobody cares? And the world would go on spinning along just the same as before I was the mayor of Anydamnplace, and everything is just as good or bad as it had always been. Why is that so impossible?” He has his irritated face on again.

  “It’s not, Beau,” I tell him. “It’s the future. We just have to go get it.”

  “Fine. So that is what I am going to find out how to do.”

  Leo’s suddenly cross, probably because it dawned on her that Beau turned her down.

  “Or whatever! What’s Uncle Frankie going to say to us, anyway, that’s so hella off the hook? ‘Come on down to San Francisco and get your gay on happily ever after’? Please. He doesn’t know you. He doesn’t know sh—”

  Beau interrupts her.

  “Maybe he does and maybe he doesn’t, but he’s the only gay guy I know, or even know of, and I want to at least meet him.”

  “Well, I certainly hope it helps!” Leo sniffs. “But I think you’re deluded!”

  I feel it’s time to remind Leonie of a thing or two.

  “Oh, what about you, missy? Like you have it all together?” I catch her like a mousetrap.

  “What? You do?”

  “No, but let’s just talk about you for now: You let anyone put their dirty, freezing hands all up on your body and let them call you crappy put-down names, which you then respond to! Omg, Leonie, you need to step up! Tell those sorry butt-wipes to step off! And to shut up! You are worth so much more than that trashy behavior! And you’re beautiful. Like ridiculously, unbelievably beautiful! You don’t even have to be a freak like us; you just are here because of your own crap behavior!”

  I’d been wanting to say that! But I also knew she wouldn’t want to hear it. And I was right. She yowls like an angry cat.

  “Whatever! Then we are all here because of our own behavior! You’re a freak ’cuz you eat too much and got all big, and Beau’s here because he chooses boys!”