"You ready for this?" Dougie asks me. We're sitting at the corner of 10th and Blanding. The light is red and Dougie taps his foot on the floorboard until it changes.
     I want to tell him it will be fine. But I don't.
     "I haven't seen him in seven years, since my thirteenth birthday. Did I ever tell you that story?"
     He had. A billion times.
     "Well, on my thirteenth birthday, my dad takes me down to the lot. He tells me to take a look around, pick any car I like. So I walk around, find this black Mustang that hasn't even been stickered yet."
     "That?" he says. "You want to learn to drive in that? It's a stick. It'll be hard."
     "I tell him I don't care. If I'm going to drive anything, it's gonna be that Mustang."
     I sneak a peek at my watch, turn my wrist over and glance at the long stretch of scar tissue running parallel to the band.
     "So he goes into the office," Dougie continues," and finds the keys. He hands them to me, tells me to get in. He shows me how to start it up, work the clutch, change gears. All that stuff. And then he lets me drive around on the roads behind the dealership."
     I run a finger over the raised tissue, remember how I couldn't bring any friends over to my house because of where I lived and my drunk mother who'd scream and lock herself in the bathroom and pound on the dryer so it'd make this horrible thumping hollow sound like distant drums.
     "Of course I end up wrecking it," Dougie's saying. "I hit the clutch instead of the brake, panic, hit the stop sign. But my dad's not even pissed. He's sitting in the passenger's seat laughing."
     "'I didn't imagine it like this,' he says. 'Nice job, boy.'"
     "I didn't get it," Dougie tells me for the upteenth time. "Then my mom tells me he got a fat lump from his insurance company."
     I pull onto the highway. We're only a few minutes from the dealership. Dougie's tapping his foot again. I reach for the glovebox, pull out a cigarette and light it with shaky fingers.
     "My mom wouldn't let me see him after that. She said his hands were dirty and she wasn't going to let him soil mine as well. That was seven years ago," Dougie says. "I wonder if he's changed any."
     I pull into the lot, park my car by the office. When I step out I feel like I'm on that swing again, the one where in second grade I got shoved off by an older girl who pointed and laughed and said, "Look at trailer trash," and I became the dirty girl who no one would play with.
     Dougie walks towards a man in a wrinkled pants suit. He extends his arms but Dougie only offers his hand. He takes it and says, "Son, it's good to see you again." Then he turns to me and says, "take care of him." His arms jut out, then he looks at Dougie and sticks his hand out instead. I take it and realize it's the same color as mine. Some things never change.



About the author:
Kelly Spitzer, a native to the mountain desert of southwest Colorado, now lives in the Pacific Northwest. She holds a degree in political economy from the Evergreen State College and is currently working on a series of political mystery novels featuring P.I. CJ Maroon. In addition to her articles, Kelly's writings have appeared, or will be appearing, in Retrozine and Orchard Press Mysteries.

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