That Was Then, This Is Now - Page 12

"Boy, I hope I see someone I know," Cathy said. "Here I sit, surrounded by beautiful boys."

She gave me a teasing grin. Mark raised his eyebrows. "Well, if you feel that way about it . ." He put his arm across her shoulders. We were sitting pretty close together because all four of us were in the front seat. Cathy was next to me, Mark on her other side, and M&M was hanging out the window, gravely watching people, waving if he was waved to, yelling back if he was yelled at, always slightly surprised at the crudity of the calls, as if he hadn't heard the same things a hundred thousand times before.

I put one arm across Cathy's shoulders too She beamed. "It's so nice to feel wanted."

A couple of blondes in an orange Camaro came by on M&M's side of the car and made him an indecent proposition. I thought that kid was going to fall out the window, he was so shocked. The rest of us laughed.

The Ribbon was a two-lane street with an extra lane at the traffic lights for left turns. When we stopped at the light we were in the middle lane, with cars on both sides of us. The blond chicks in the orange Camaro were on our right, and they were still talking to M&M. I didn't catch much of the conversation, but Mark did and he was talking to them too, trying to see around M&M, who took up a lot of the window. On our left was a green outasite Corvette with a couple of guys in it, waiting for a left-turn signal. They looked like real snobs. You can tell just by looking that some guys are snobs. Especially ones with Corvettes. The one on the passenger side glanced over at us and--I still don't understand why--popped off with a really obscene remark. I sat stunned for a minute--the thought of Cathy's hearing such a thing just froze me. Then, so quick I didn't even realize what was happening, Mark reached past M&M, opened the door, pushed M&M out of the way, ran around to my side of the car, and punched the foul-mouthed guy in the nose, literally smashing his nose in. It was their turn to be stunned. Before they could move, Mark was back in the car. He jumped into the back seat and yelled, "Take off!" The light had turned green so I stepped hard on the accelerator. The Corvette was supposed to turn left, and all the cars behind it were honking, so they turned left. I thought maybe they'd come after us--they were older guys, maybe eighteen years old--but they didn't. We drove up and down the Ribbon without seeing them again.

"You're a fast worker," Cathy said. I wondered if she was mad at me because I hadn't been the one to punch that guy. She was my girl friend, I should have done it. I was halfway hacked off at Mark for showing me up.

"Well," Mark said in a mock serious voice, hanging over the front seat, "I get these impulses."

"Impulses to jump out of cars and hit people?" Cathy said dryly, and I realized she didn't think Mark was a hero for what he'd done. As a matter of fact, she didn't think too much of it.

"They hit us first," Mark said, sitting back in the seat. "A hit don't have to be physical. I couldn't hit them the way they hit us without hitting you, too."

I had always known that, in spite of his lousy grades, Mark was every bit as smart as I was. But it was still surprising whenever he proved it to me. Cathy was quiet. Then she turned around and looked at Mark for a long time. "I never know what to make of you, Mark."

"Why make anything of anybody? Why not just take people or leave them?" Mark was in a funny mood. I could tell; I had seen him in that mood before. He was never that way with me, but I'd seen him suddenly turn on people, like a teased lion who's had enough. I remembered the night Charlie was killed--Mark grabbing up the shotgun and firing away. I don't think I could have done that, even if I had known Charlie was dead at the time.

"I don't like being analyzed, baby," Mark said. "So don't."

I couldn't tell him to lay off, because he had a point. Cathy did like to turn everyone inside out and look at him. It didn't bother me, but I could see where it might bug some people.

"I'm sorry," Cathy said, even though she wasn't. I had to say something, so I said, "Let's get a hamburger."

We turned into a big drive-in called Jay's, which was always crowded. It was a set up with a stall for each car and a little deal that had a menu and a button on it. You pushed the button and a voice came out of the deal and said, "Order, please," and you told the speaker what you wanted--in this case it was three hamburgers, one steak sandwich, a cherry-pineapple Seven-up, and three Cokes--and about ten minutes later a chick appeared with the food. It was slightly spooky.

The place was crawling with kids. It was mainly a Soc hangout. There used to be a drive-in over on our side of town where the "hoods" went, but the Dingo was bombed and had burned down so we had started coming over here. Kids were driving through the parking area looking at the kids who were sitting in their cars. It was the same thing that was going on in the street, only on a smaller scale. They had a cop stationed at the drive-in to prevent trouble. He was on a first-name basis with a lot of the kids there; he was a friendly, good-natured cop who didn't mind getting splattered by a water pistol now and then. I didn't much care for him though, due to my feelings about cops in general. I began telling Cathy about the time the cops had beaten me up when I was thirteen.

"You shouldn't have been running around drunk in the middle of the night," she said.

"I never thought of it that way," I said.

"Who would?" came Mark's voice from the back seat. I realized right then that whatever chance Mark and Cathy had ever had of becoming friends was gone. I had already sensed in Cathy the same hostility toward Mark that he had for her. That put me in a really great position.

"Hey, there's Terry Jones. I'm going over to see him," Mark said suddenly. He gave the cop a quick glance--you weren't supposed to get out of your car at the drive-in. They came up with this rule about a year ago because all this switching from car to car was causing fights, and what was worse, cars were left empty in the stalls for hours at a time while the owners were running the Ribbon in someone else's car. This doesn't make money for the drive-ins.

"Mark doesn't like me much, does he?" Cathy said. M&M looked at her, astonished. For the first time I was sick of her honesty.

"You don't like him either," I said.

Not used to having her honesty turned back on her, Cathy was silent for a minute. "I guess we're fighting over you. Isn't that funny?"

"A real riot," I said dryly. I looked across the street, watching some little twelve-and thirteen-year-old teenyboppers make fools of themselves--smoking, trying to act cool, pushing each other, screaming and swearing so loud I could hear them. I had a sudden recollection of Mark and me at twelve, smoking our heads off, clowning around, hoping someone--usually some little long-haired chick--would notice us and see how cool we were. All of a sudden it seemed like I was a hundred years old, or thirty at least. I wondered if, when I got to be twenty, I would think how stupid I was at sixteen. When I remembered us, it didn't seem possible that we had looked as silly as these teenyboppers, but I guess we had. At least then we weren't worried about looking silly. We were sure of ourselves, so sure we were the coolest things to hit town. Now I wasn't so sure.

That was strange too: in the past I thought in terms of "we," now I was thinking in terms of "me."

"There sure isn't anything to do in this town," Cathy said, breaking in on my thoughts of the good old days.

"We could go to a movie," I said, even though I didn't have the money to go to the movies. Or money to go bowling, or money to go out to dinner, or money to ride go-carts, or to go to the amusement park.

"No, I don't want to go to the movies. There's nothing to do in this town except drive up and down."

"That takes gas," M&M said, "and gas takes money," even though neither Cathy or me had mentioned money.

"Well, let's go drive up and down some more," I said, flipping a switch on the magic dealie that signals a car-hop to appear and pick up our tray.

I was thinking about what Cathy said. There was nothing to do except drive up and down the Ribbon, even though we lived in a fairly large city. It wasn't New York, but for our part of the country it was a

good size. All the adults in town screamed about the kids driving up and down, but what did they expect us to do? Sit and twiddle our thumbs like they probably did when they were young? No, thanks.

We drove up and down the Ribbon again--it was getting hard to find a place to turn around. Usually the shopping center at the far end was good for a quick turn-around, but somehow the cops figured out that that was against some law that had been gathering dust for years, so they sat in the shopping-center lots giving out tickets. If a kid got a ticket he immediately went around collecting money from friends and strangers. Usually he got at least a nickel or a dime from each person. I have never known anybody who took advantage of this custom by collecting money when he didn't really have a ticket. This would have been like squealing on someone you saw cheating, or refusing to lend or give or sell your senior theme to some promising junior.

Tags: S. E. Hinton Thriller
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