The Kingdom of Childhood

girl.”

“I told him we could charge him with trespassing on federal property, but so long as there’s an adult going to set him straight, we won’t pursue it. I’ll let you two work that out.”

“Oh, we will,” she muttered as she signed the clipboard.

Once enclosed in Russ’s red sport-utility vehicle, Judy turned toward him with a look that made her earlier glare seem angelic. “What the hell, Zach.”

“I felt like driving.”

“You felt like driving. My car. And practically getting arrested. God, are you ever lucky I knew how to play along when he called.”

Zach shrugged.

“And now here we are in Russ’s car,” she continued, “you in your T-shirt with cat hair all over it, forcing me to sign off on a document that says I picked you up at seven in the morning. How is that going to look? Are you trying to get me arrested? Or to find yourself in court giving a blow-by-blow of all this in front of your mother?”

He shrugged again. He recognized the melodrama. It was a mom thing. The best course of action was to shut up and let her vent it until she was done.

“You have nothing to say for yourself,” she prompted.

He considered that, then said, “I’ve got to pee pretty bad.”

She banged the steering wheel with both hands. “Damn you, Zach. You’ve got some serious nerve. You’ve got chutzpah.”

“Chutzpah?” He laughed. “Is that like R-R-R-Rudi?”

Her open palm collided with his face in a burning slap. Hand flying to his cheek, he sneered at her. “Ow. What the fuck.”

“Don’t you mock me,” she ordered, but her tone had a nervous waver.

“Don’t you hit me, goddamn it. What the hell was that?”

She turned the key in the ignition. “That was me snapping you out of it.”

“Snapping me out of what?”

“Your attitude problem is what.”

“My attitude problem?” He felt his face growing hotter by the moment. “Who the fuck do you think you are, my mother? Even she doesn’t hit me.”

“Don’t start with me, Zach,” Judy warned. “It’s not like you’ve never taken your aggressions out on me.”

“When have I ever done anything like that to you?” he said. All the muscles in his body seemed to shiver with fury. “When have I ever laid a hand on you because I was angry.”

“Why would you be angry?” she yelled, her voice filling the car. “You call all the shots. You’re the one who walks away happy no matter what. You take advantage of me and scare the shit out of me and then you have the nerve to sit there with that smug look on your face mocking me for being upset. How dare you.”

He set his jaw and met her angry stare. “You owe me an apology. It’s one thing if you’re pissed, but you don’t hit me. Nobody hits me.”

“I am pissed.”

“That’s fine. If that’s how you want to be about it, I’m gone.”

“Maybe that’s not a bad idea,” she countered. “Go. And rub it in my face while you’re at it, so I won’t be tempted next time you try to seduce me while I’m babysitting you. Go get in Fairen’s bed, since she’s obviously the one you really want. See if she puts up with your shit.”

That hit a nerve. He remembered Fairen’s cold eyes and angry words at the rest stop, the way his heart had lurched when she pulled her wrist from his grasp. He said, “Don’t be a bitch.”

She barked a laugh. “I’m a bitch. Imagine if that officer had done his job a little better. Found my car and ran the tags. Called your mother. I’d go to jail. My kids would never speak to me again, and my husband would divorce me. In twenty years I’d be living in some roachy little rented room and put ting on a hairnet to go to work. All because I gave you a blow job.”

He cast a narrowed glance in her direction. After a moment he said, “You’ve done a hell of a lot more than give me a blow job.”

“Yeah, you seem to be suffering for it. That punishment fits the crime, don’t you think?”

She threw the car into gear and turned the corner toward where her Volvo sat on the shoulder, not very distant at all. He rolled down the window and turned his face toward the wind, allowing his silence to be its own reply. When she pulled up behind the Volvo and cut the engine, he didn’t budge. He stared out at the trees and let the stillness gather.

“You still owe me an apology,” he said.

“Fine,” she replied. Her voice was breezy and hard at the same time. “I’m sorry I hit you. All right?”

He said nothing. Her tone made it clear she felt no remorse. He felt a sting at the corners of his eyes and thought glumly back to the previous night, when he had found himself toying with the idea that he and Judy were a sort of dirty Bonnie and Clyde and that it bonded them somehow, made them not just two mismatched people who hooked up when it was convenient, but a pair. Now he felt foolish in his delusion.