Still, it was all he had to offer.
Howard sighed.
“When I was sixteen, I was in love,” he said.
“A girl in my school, Lizbeth Toland, same class. We were tight, went everywhere together.
I gave her my junior class ring. We called it ‘han gin” out’ back then. We talked about going to college together, getting married, having children.
It was pretty serious.” Tyrone stared at him.
“It’s kind of hard for you to imagine me with anybody except Mom, isn’t it?” Tyrone nodded.
“Yeah.” Then he must have realized that might not sound too good, because he said, “Well, no, I mean, well, I–I never really thought about it.” “That’s okay. For the longest time, I believed my parents must have found me on a doorstep or under a cabbage leaf-the idea of them having sex together was beyond my comprehension.” Tyrone shook his head, and Howard could almost read his thoughts: Gramma and Grampa? Having sex?
There was a puker pix.
“Summer after my junior year, I went to ROTC camp. Lizbeth and I wrote each other every day–snail mail mostly. And we talked on the phone when I could get to one. She said she missed me, couldn’t wait for me to get back, and I felt the same way.
“Then I got a call from my best friend. Rusty Stephens.
He’d been at a bar one night sneaking in to drink beer with a couple of buddies. They’d seen Lizbeth there, with somebody he didn’t know, partying pretty good.” “That’s terrible,” Tyrone said.
Howard nodded, knowing his son knew just how he had felt when he’d heard it.
“Yeah, I thought so. I called her, asked her about it. She had a perfectly reasonable explanation. She’d been in the bar, sure enough, but the guy she was with was her cousin, come to visit with his folks, and her mother had told her to take him out. So it was family, it didn’t mean anything, they didn’t do anything, it was her cousin.” Howard shook his head.
“I believed her. How could I not?
We loved each other, we trusted each other. And I wanted to hear there was a reason other than what I was most afraid of, so I was happy.” “So what happened?” “The summer went on. Rusty called again.
He’d seen Lizbeth out again, dancing, drinking.
Different guy, different place. He took it upon himself to follow them when they left.
They drove up to Lover’s Point, parked in the guy’s car, fogged up the windows in the middle of July.” “Oh, man,” Tyrone said.
” “Right sentiment, but I used harsher language when I heard.
I was pretty torn up about it. I called Lizbeth and asked her about it.
She denied it. Said whoever told me they’d seen her was a liar.
“So here’s the situation. Either my girl was stepping out on me, or my best friend was a liar.” Tyrone shook his head.
“What did you do?” ” “I checked it out. I called a couple of the guys Rusty said had seen Lizbeth. They confirmed his story, at least part of it.” “That’s terminal,” Tyrone said.
“Yeah. But it gets worse.” His son raised his eyebrows in question.
“How could it get worse?” “I called Rusty. Told him to go see Lizbeth and to get my ring back. If she was going to lie to me, we were through.” “Did he do it?” “In a manner of speaking. He went to see her, told her what I’d said.
She refused to give him the ring, but they talked for a long time. She said some… unkind things about me.” Tyrone blinked at him.
“Called me a “stupid shithead,” Rusty said.” “Jesus.” “So, I thanked Rusty for his efforts and said I’d take care of it. I bought a train ticket and waited for a long weekend in August when we didn’t have much going on at camp. Went home.
I got there on a Friday night late, caught a cab to Lizbeth’s house. When I got there, I saw Rusty’s beat-up old Chevrolet parked out front. He must have come by to try and talk to her again, I figured. Maybe even to get my ring back.
Good old Rusty.
“I got out of the cab, walked over toward Lizbeth’s front door, then I heard a noise coming from the Chevy–and I stopped and looked into the car.
I saw Rusty and Lizbeth wrapped around each other in the front seat, both of them half undressed.” “Fuck,” Tyrone said.
Howard considered saying some thing about his son’s language, but this wasn’t the time. In the grand cosmic scheme of things, a bad word didn’t mean much.
“It didn’t get that far,” Howard said.
“I thought I was going to die, right there, on the spot. I didn’t know whether to pull good old Rusty out and beat the crap out of him, or to turn and take off before they noticed me.” “What happened?” “I stood there for what felt like a couple of million years, watching them kiss and fondle each other. It didn’t seem real, like it was a bad dream. Then all of a sudden I got cold, really cold, as if I had turned to ice. August and it was probably still eighty-five degrees outside, hot, muggy, and I was cold. I reached out and tapped on the driver’s-side window. They both jumped a couple of feet. When they turned and looked right at me, I smiled and waved good-bye.
Then I left. The cab was gone, and I started to walk home.
“Rusty caught up with me a half a block or so away, on foot.
“He said, “John! I can explain!” “And I looked at him and said, “No, you can’t.” I was as cool as a barrel full of liquid oxygen. On the one hand, I wanted to smash his face in, but on the other, I was somehow. removed from it all. Like it was some kind of dream or vision, that I wasn’t really even there. I said, “You u aren’t my friend anymore Rusty. I don’t want to talk to you, ever again.” his “Jesus, Dad.” “Yep. Lost my girl and my best friend at the same time. I didn’t know then this kind of thing happens all the time, so often it’s a cliche, and I don’t guess it would have mattered if I had known.
They were both lying scum and they deserved each other.
I could have punched Rusty’s teeth in, but I figured, like my mom ma used to say, karma will get them. People who do crap like this will get theirs someday. I didn’t want to have anything else to do with them, even to the point of not bloodying my knuckles on Rusty’s lying face.
“So I understand how you feel about all this, Tyrone, and all I can say is, you’ll get over it eventually. It’s terrible now, but someday, it won’t seem so bad.” “Yeah? You still remember what happened to you pretty good.” “I didn’t say you’d forget it. And it’ll never go away completely, but it won’t hurt as much as time goes by. Eventually there’ll be a little scar that only aches a little if you poke hard enough at it. I know this doesn’t help much, but that’s the truth.” There was silence. Howard waited, to see if they were done, if he should leave or if the boy wanted to talk more. Finally, Tyrone said, “So, what happened to them? Rusty and Lizbeth.
Did karma get them? They get run over by a bus or like that?” Howard grinned.
“Not exactly. They got married right after graduation. Went to college. He’s now a medical doctor, she’s an English professor, they have three kids, and according to my relatives back home who keep me up to date about such things, they have a wonderful marriage.” “So much for cosmic revenge.” “Thing with karma is, it might take a couple of lifetimes to catch up with you,” Howard said.
“Oh, good.” “What’s done is done, Ty. You can’t take back what you saw and heard, and if you could arrange to drop a piano on Bella and her new friend, it really wouldn’t make you feel any better.
Revenge hardly ever brings peace with it. Besides, if Lizbeth and I hadn’t split, I’d never have met and married your mother. I figure I came out way ahead on the deal.
No comparison.” He smiled.
He got a small smile back from his son.
“You gonna eat supper?” “I don’t think so. I’m really not hungry.” “Okay. I’ll cover it with Mom.” “Thanks, Dad. And, uh. Dad? Thanks for telling me the story.” “You’re welcome, son.” Wednesday, January 12th, 7:00 P.m.
Washington, D.c.
The garage sure felt empty.
Michaels stood in the doorway to his garage, looking at the larger of his two big metal tool caddies. His most recent project car, the Plymouth Prowler, was gone, sold within a couple of days after he’d gotten it running right. He’d cleaned it up, and had taken it out only a few times, top up–it had been too cold and wet to drive the little convertible the way it was meant to be enjoyed–before his phone had rung with a potential buyer. That was how most of these things were done among the people he knew who restored old cars. Somebody told a friend, who told somebody else that this guy had a project car that was close to being finished, and if you were interested, you didn’t want to wait for an ad on the net, because by then it would be too late.