Chapter 135
Elliott nodded as he headed down the main street of town and then turned down the highway that would take them out of town a few miles to Lawson’s Point. His parents said they knew he was responsible and trusted him to do the right thing, so long as he never left town without their permission and was home by midnight. He was pretty sure Lawson’s Point was still considered part of Norman, and he also thought his parents were aware that all the kids went there to hang out. Some of them drank beer and smoked cigarettes, and some of them just talked about doing those things. Some of them drove down the road a little ways and made their cars rock back and forth for a few minutes, and some of them just watched from afar wondering if they’d ever be the ones in the back of the car. So far, Elliott had drank a few beers and smoked a few cigarettes, but he’d never gotten the courage to ask Nancy (or anyone else) to inspect the back seat of the Monterrey with him. He was under the impression that Nancy, who had to be home by 11:00 and never missed a Sunday church service, would just say no anyhow. He didn’t want to put any pressure on her. But if what Cliff said was true….
“Hey, you’re going to miss the turn if you don’t slow down!” Reggie said, bringing him back to reality. Elliott hit the brakes and made the corner a little too quickly, causing Reggie to grab the dashboard to brace himself. “Shit, man.”
“Sorry,” Elliott muttered. He had impeccable reflexes, always had, but that didn’t excuse him from driving recklessly.
“No problem, man. I just want to get to the point in one piece.”
“Why you comin’ out here anyway? Who you got your eye on?” Even in the dim light of the harvest moon, Elliott could see Reggie’s cheeks pinking out of the corner of his eye. “Who is she, Reg?”
“No one in particular,” Reggie assured him. “Just looking to get a little tail, that’s all. Don’t particularly care from who.”
Elliott nodded, seeing his final turn up ahead of them. “Can’t blame you there.”
Reggie was pensive. “You… you’ve done it right, man? I mean… you… you ain’t no virgin like me are you?”
“Me? A virgin?” Elliott asked, shaking his head. “Hell, no. I was twelve years old the first time I was with a girl, a woman. Snuck off behind the church building after service one day. Man, I’ll never forget her. Sally Tanner. Beautiful woman. Sixteen, big, bouncy breasts.”
“That’s what I thought,” Reggie nodded, having heard the story lots of times before. He had no way of knowing none of it was true whatsoever and that Sally Tanner existed only in Elliott’s mind. “Man, you still got that farm girl down the street?”
Another make-believe girl. “Nah. Since I’ve been seeing Nancy, I cut ‘er off. She don’t sneak out from her home schoolin’ mama no more. Shame, though. That girl sure had nice curves.”
“What was her name again?” Reggie asked, and Elliott could tell by his tone the question was more than just for clarification. This was a test.
“Helen,” Elliott said thoughtfully. “Never caught her last name, though. Just ran into her one summer down by the creek that runs past our houses.”
“Ain’t that this creek? Settler’s Creek?” Reggie asked as Elliott pulled in next to an old beat up pickup truck and another older model Ford.
“Hell, I don’t know how the water ways work around here,” Elliott said, backhanding him in the shoulder. They got out of the car and headed over to the point, which was nothing more than a rock overhang that jetted out over Settler’s Creek. They called it Lawson’s Point because it sort of came to a point, and old Mr. Lawson had made a point of telling all of the kids to stay off of his property. They never listened, though, and the cops stayed away for the most part because they had better things to do than harass members of the high school football team, especially the first team in as far back as anyone could remember that actually had a winning record.
Somewhere around a dozen kids or so congregated in groups sitting on the rocks or the ground. Some held bottles, others were smoking. The trees here were scraggly, and many of them were covered in moss. There was a thick section of wood down the private lane toward Lawson’s homestead, the direction most people drove if they wanted a few minutes of privacy, and every once in a while, some kid or couple would come back telling tales of seeing glowing eyes in the trees. Elliott didn’t believe in ghost stories. He’d learned a long time ago the scariest monsters in the world are all human.
Nancy was there, standing next to her friend Linda Smoot who had buckteeth, but other than that, was fairly pretty herself. Linda looked up at him and smiled in admiration, her red hair catching the light of the full, harvest moon hanging above in a cloudless sky, but it was Nancy who caught his attention. She was no longer wearing her cheerleading outfit but was, instead, wearing a pink dress that buttoned down the front and flared out at her narrow waist. She twirled a lock of her dark hair around her finger as he approached, and he couldn’t help but lick his lips, his heart pounding out of his chest. Maybe tonight would be the night he asked her to join him on down the road a bit.
Until recently this had been Cliff’s hangout point of choice, so some of the other kids were still a little standoffish as Elliott approached. He knew he could likely persuade them that his presence over Cliff’s was an improvement, but he didn’t want to pull his eyes off of Nancy long enough to do so. For now, they’d just have to be uncomfortable if that’s the way they felt.
