“Amen, brother Styles,” Todd Gramolini says, catching the pulpit rhythm if not the words of Sam’s speech.
Rick Woods gives up and joins in the chorus of amen, brothers and give-us-The-Words from the rest of the bus.
Sam waits for it to die down to expectant silence. He stands and looks up and down the aisle with great solemnity.
“E-e-eat me,” he says in an eloquent stutter, and the boys on the bus explode in laughter, cheers and applause.
At Greenspark Academy the girls’ bus is emptying when the boys’ parks next to it. As Sam unlocks his truck, he sees the tails of the Mutant’s coat whipping around the corner of the building, headed for the path that climbs the wooded hill behind the school. It will take her east to Kansas Street, exactly in the opposite direction of her home on Depot, in the village. At the main road, he turns east himself, takes the left onto Kansas and spots her a block ahead.
He beeps; she stops and cocks her head at him.
“Ride home?” he asks.
Hopping the curb, she skids around the truck and hauls ass into the cab in the intake of a frozen breath. She hunches on the seat, shivering.
“Jesus,” she whimpers, “it’s so fucking cold.”
Sam spreads a hand in front of a vent; the truck won’t be putting out heat for a couple more minutes.
“You want my jacket?”
She gives him a sour look. “Fuck no. Just drop me at Scotia.”
Chapin lives on Scotia. Sam nods.
“Between hanging that moon and the way you dress, you should have frostbite of the fanny,” Sam ventures. “You talk to the girls about the gym?”
The Mutant stares out the window. “Yeah.”
“The guys didn’t go for it.”
She is unperturbed. “Who needs’m? Drop me here.”
Out of the truck as quickly as she was into it, she flies up the Chapins’ walk with her coat skirts billowing open.
“Deanie!”
She glances back over her shoulder.
“You’re welcome,” he calls.
She flips him a double bird and bounds up the Chapins’ front steps. He watches her smack the front door with the flat of her palm. Dropping her backpack and gym bag, she hops from foot to foot. When J.C. opens the door to let her in, Sam drives away.
4
As the closing door shuts out the cold, the Mutant snugs up tight against J.C. for the warmth. He lifts her up and puts her down again with her feet on top of his and walks her through the foyer into the living room, where the fireplace is throwing feverish heat. Tipping her right off her feet, he picks her up and drops her onto the couch and hands her the Walkman he has just abandoned to answer the door. When she settles the ‘phones over her ears, she hears Dylan insisting everybody must get stoned.
J.C. disappears toward the kitchen and returns with a mug of hot black coffee and a sugar pot. It’s not granular sugar but cubes, in which she takes a childish delight. She dumps four into the coffee. J.C. unhooks the ‘phones and takes back his tape player, dropping it and Himself onto the couch next to her. He puts his sneakered feet on the glass coffee table. In pirate drag, he wears a black silk scarf around his head, a muscle shirt and baggy pants like pajamas in the colors and images of regurgitated pizza.
His parents are not at home. In all the times she has been inside the Chapin house, the Mutant has never actually seen the Chapins and suspects they may have forgotten how to get there.
“Win?”
She nods. It isn’t important to him but she appreciates the effort he makes. J.C. has a salesman’s ability to interest himself in his customers long enough to convince them he is their close friend. The smoothness of his con amuses her.
Producing a joint, he waves it under her nose. “Wanna get wrecked?”
“Yeah. I earned it.”
He raises an eyebrow. “Oh oh. What’d you do, D.?”
“Mooned the guys’ bus.”
J.C. curls up, sniggering. “Oh, shit, I miss all the good stuff.”
The Mutant shrugs. “You don’t miss much, J.”
Grinning, he takes a drag on the number and passes it to her. “Samson must have appreciated it, he chauffeured you over here.”
“He wanted to give me a tract, tell me about how Jesus changed his life,” she lies, to be witty. “It’s a short ride and it’s so frigging cold out, I figured I could stand it that long.”
“Right. Must have been the cold making your titty-bumps stand up when you came through the door.”
The Mutant brings her coffee mug to her face to feel the warmth.
Slowly, J.C. stretches his legs, shifts his hips and relaxes against the back of the couch. He sucks in a lungful of smoke, closing his eyes while he holds it.
“C’mere,” he says after a while, his voice smoky with dope and seduction.
Putting down the mug, she moves within his reach. She takes another toke and leaves the jay burning in the ashtray.
J.C. undoes the scarf around his head and she wraps it around hers, tying it at the back to make a kind of wimple. He likes costumes.
“Sister Mary Doobage,” he laughs into his fist.
She straddles him and he slides his hands under her shirts and inside her tights, squeezing her buttocks, grinding his crotch against hers as she works her tongue around his tongue. She lets him nudge her head down to his crotch. She’s tired and would like to have this over quickly, as it usually is when she blows him, but after only a moment, he stops her and tugs her tights down. Kneeling between her legs, he lifts her bottom and shoves his spit-wet cock into her with deliberate crudity.
She closes her eyes and inhales the musk of his healthy sweat, the complex scent of his expensive aftershave. This is business but it’s nothing like the way Tony goes at her. J.C. never hits her, he shares his dope, and his body is young and feels good to
