Her chain belt and the ones between her legs click faintly in her brief passage across the seat. Her face is buried against his jacketed shoulder; her shoulders shake but she makes no sound. He can feel the chains on her face through his jacket. Hand on the back of her neck, he is intensely aware of its odd, scratchy fragility. His fingers follow the channel of the indented stalk of her neck up over the bulge of her skull, in an instinctive soothing gesture. The skin is cold and pallid, prickly with stubble the color of black pepper. Blue veins pulse visibly in a schemata that reminds him of his baby sister’s skull when she was a newborn. But then as suddenly as she has dissolved in tears, the Mutant scoots back across the seat, where she blots her face and blows her nose again. She clears her throat and stares out the window with embarrassment.
“You okay? Want me to stop for some cocoa again?”
She shakes her head negatively and then gestures toward his overturned lunch bucket on the floor. “Hey, ‘god, you done with that?”
“Go ahead. I missed lunch today. I was just spoiling my supper when I saw you. You know, you really ought to bulk up some. It would help with your stamina. And lay off the butts. You play ten minutes straight, you’re winded.”
She dips into the bucket, hooking out the remaining half of his second sandwich. Mouth filled, she settles back with a sigh. “Did you really kick the shit out of the boys’ room? Put your foot through the ceiling?”
He flexes his hand in her direction. “Hand. Put my foot into a mirror. Minute I did it I felt like a major asshole.”
Laughing, the Mutant kicks the glovebox reflexively and it pops open, spilling its contents again. That makes her laugh harder.
Sam leans over and rips the door off the glovebox onehanded. “Fuck it.” He flips it to her. “Put a couple crimps in it and use it for an ashtray.”
The Mutant punctuates the offer with a few more kicks to the dash before she settles down. She helps herself to the banana in the lunchbox. “I told you you were an asshole, ‘god.”
The odor of banana makes Sam’s mouth water. He waggles his fingers at her, begging for some of it. Getting up on her knees, she leans across the cab to feed it to him.
“What’s this God shit?” he asks. “You keep calling me that.”
Sitting back on her heels, she twirls the banana skin. “Short for Godzilla. Then I heard the guys call you Bigger Than God. And that’s the way you act and you get treated, isn’t it? Like you can do no wrong. Bet the d.c. gives you a fucking medal for renovating that shithouse. Probably name it after you, put up a plaque.”
Sam grins. “This is the first time I’ve ever had to go before the d.c.,” he admits.
“Shit. It’s about fucking time you found out how us scum live.”
“I could have waited.” Sam rolls his shoulders uneasily. “Anyway, it’s not the d.c. I’m sweating. It’s my old man.”
The Mutant drops the banana peel and wipes her fingers on her coat before she shrugs him off. “What’s the worst he can do? Bruise you up a little? You’re as big as he is, almost, and younger—you can give as good as you can take.” She grins. “If he wasn’t bigger than God too, I’d figure you were doing steroids. They come to all your games, don’t they?” Her tone is wistful, then turns resentful. “The only way my mother would come to a game is if they gave away free beers and shots.”
Sam peers into the beams of the headlights. The snow is beginning to blow. There’ll be work tonight.
“My mother’s never seen me play either,” he admits. “She gave me some bullshit once about how she wanted to but my father might be there. I ask her what she thinks is going to happen, she runs into him at a game. She says, it might be unpleasant.” He is surprised by a sudden dryness in his throat. “Well, shit. You know. Unpleasant.”
The Mutant is staring at him, her eyes curious and bright and unreadable. He feels like some kind of specimen.
“Sorry,” he mutters. “Family shit sucks.”
“No shit. All the same, your old man’s there for you. It must be something to have somebody proud of you.”
Everything she says is disconcerting, like the faint shuffle of those chains she wears. He can’t think what to say in the face of the shame that overtakes him at his ingratitude.
“Bitch if you want,” she says, “nothing to me.” Her voice cheers as she changes the subject. “Those mixes you make. You like moldies? I’d have figured you for a headbanger.”
“Grew up on moldies.” He jumps at the chance to move on to something less painful. “I’m not too discriminating. I like noise. Grunge, industrial shit, hardcore, rockabilly, it’s all fine by me. Any kind of fusion—you ever heard any punk-reggae or zydeco-reggae? What does it for you?”
She gropes in her gym bag for her Walkman and pops the tape into it.
He takes a hasty glance. “Sisters of Mercy!”
“I lifted it in Lewiston a couple weeks ago.”
Sam flips the cassette back to her in disgust. “Jesus, Gauthier, you know what a terrific advertisement for brain damage from drugs you are?”
“And what’d you do to get so fucking stupid? Jerk off?” she retorts.
Pissed at her, he forgets he is supposed to stop at the corner and starts to turn onto Depot Street.
“Shit!” she yelps. “Stop! Right here!”
He reaches past her to yank the door handle for her. “You’re gonna catch your death, tramping around half-dressed in this shit.”
“Fuck you, Mom,” she yells up at him.
He extends a middle finger. “You’re welcome.”
Great. Now she’s got him speaking her language. Next time he gives her a lift anywhere, he’s gonna tape her mouth shut.
He turns for home. There’s nothing on the radio but
