The Milk Wagon Page 10

  Sammy, one of the St. John kids, raised his hand. “Did you say Saturday after next? What time?”

  “Oh, I don’t know. How does nine sound?”

  “In the morning?”

  “Yes. In the morning.” Four of the St. John students groaned.

  “Is there any possible way you could push that back, Ms. Cooper?” Sammy asked. “Our homecoming dance is the night before and we – uh, we may want to sleep in a bit.” He laughed like a hyena through the last part.

  Kat remembered those days, and she knew that if she didn’t take it into account, attendance would be sparse. “For you, Sammy, sure. How about eleven, then?”

  He looked at his friends. Most shrugged their shoulders with a nod, and the deal was struck. Eleven it was.

  They spent the next twenty minutes scheduling another workday over the holidays and looking at potential dates to meet once school got back in session. She then had the boys move some of the temporary walls and pull out the risers and start blocking the stage. The girls unloaded four bolts of muslin out of the storage room in the back, and Emily took point laying it out. Kat planned to drape it throughout the gallery and turn the place into a winter wonderland.

  Just before seven, she rounded them up, thanked them for coming and reminded them to be on time for the next meeting. When they left, she went to the bathroom to freshen up and brushed her teeth with the toothbrush she kept in her purse. When she was rinsing her mouth, she heard the door chime. She listened, and when she heard footsteps, her heart skipped a beat.

  She hurried out and saw a man standing in the middle of the floor staring at her. He had a funny look on his face.

  “Um, hello,” she said. She could barely breathe.

  Yes, she was expecting him, but not like this. Seeing him all cleaned up out of uniform was almost too much for her. And he was carrying a rose.

  “You look amazing,” he said.

  “Why, thank you. You don’t look too bad yourself.” She took Rick Papania’s arm and locked the door on the way out. It took all she had to keep from leaning up and giving him a peck on the cheek.

  It was her first real date in over three years.

  Chapter 25

  According to legend, the unofficial St. John homecoming week kickoff party known as “Fish Feeders” began one chilly weekend in October 1977, when a group of St. John seniors gathered for a night of drinking and bonfire gazing at Gulfport Lake. It was essentially a public boat launch and picnic area – a perfect spot for a late-night party. Out of the way, no neighborhoods nearby, and very little police presence to speak of. The boys stacked old warehouse pallets fifteen feet high and ten wide on the beach, doused them with gasoline and lighter fluid, and lit a bonfire that could be seen from planes taking off at the airport two miles away. Ford and Chevy pickup truck beds served as mobile beer coolers while 8-track stereos blared licks from the Stones, the Allman Brothers, and Jimmy Buffett for the benefit of those trailblazers who kicked off their shoes to dance in the sand. They started calling it Fish Feeders after a few lightweights puked in the water after taking on too much Thunderbird.

  For the first couple of years after the inaugural event, the date was chosen randomly, but over time everyone settled on the Friday before homecoming week, which was a great way to rouse school spirit, if not other things. The Chief and the rest of the hounds quietly looked the other way – not that they could do much anyway because it was an off-campus event. One of the cooler teachers, Ms. McGuffee, actually attended Fish Feeders ’78 as a student herself, and my oldest brother, Will, told me that one year Father Tommy, our school chaplain, showed up with a shillelagh in one hand and a bottle of Jameson in the other. He blessed the fish and then got canned with everyone else before challenging Timmy Sneed to a bareknuckle fistfight. The bout never happened, and Father Tommy settled for warbling a mumbled version of Danny Boy by the fire, using his stick as a conductor’s baton.

  Hop, Mark, and I did not have liquor, but we did come stocked with beer Mark bought from the lackey who managed the warehouse where his band – Wombat Revolution – practiced. Mark was going through his INXS phase and thought the name had a good Aussie ring to it, although I had yet to hear them play a song. We had to give the dude five dollars for his efforts, but it was worth it. Unfortunately, my mom watched out for such things, so Mark and I thought it would be a good time to actually test the capacity of the Trapper – and it passed with flying colors.

  My discovery of the Milk Wagon’s best kept secret was purely by accident. I had barely been driving it for two days before the radio started dropping out whenever I hit a bump, and I took it upon myself to see if I could find the problem. I opened up the ashtray halfway to create some space to access the speaker cable, but instead of finding the wire, my finger hit a latch, and with a click, two linear feet of bottom trim dropped open from the radio to the glove compartment, revealing a storage area about six inches deep.

  It had been retrofitted with a hidden piano hinge, and the interior of the box was treated with some type of spray-on velveteen to muffle anything that might bang around. It was clearly not part of the original vehicle, and I would have never noticed it had I not come upon it by mistake. When I showed Mark, he thought some of the city boys might have been using it to run weed, but I wasn’t sure, and I never found out. The only time I actually used it to conceal something was one morning on the way to school when Hop showed up with the Madonna Playboy he bought at the fart mart on O’Neal Road. It was not his first purchase of the gentlemen’s periodical, and wouldn’t be his last, but it was the first time he tried to bring one to school, which I thought was a bad idea. Of course, I checked it out, and after a detailed review I ultimately concluded he had wasted his money. Like a virgin? Not even close.

  As predicted, a twelve pack of Bud Light lined up side-by-side fit just about perfectly. It was actually a can short of a dozen because Mark wanted a road pop so he grabbed one for the ride over. I was planning on drinking a few myself once we got there. It was our first official Fish Feeders, and I had arranged to stay at Hop’s that night – as had Mark, which meant we would probably end up sleeping in the Milk Wagon. Once we hunkered down, none of us would be driving.

  By the time we arrived, the festivities were just getting under way. I could hear the hum of generators off in the distance as a DJ ran his sound check from the back of a pickup. A pointy-elbowed senior with her hair pulled back into a ponytail sat on the tailgate selling t-shirts at eight dollars a pop. I pulled up under the streetlight by the main gazebo with the rest of the juniors. Bursts of laughter, talk of girls, and stories from Fish Feeders past could be heard all through the parking lot. Music from car stereos rose and fell in the background, giving the place a festival vibe. It was exciting for all of us, and to me it felt a lot like the first day of school combined with the last day of school mixed in with a bit of Christmas Eve. We were heady with the euphoria of being amongst friends – and the feeling of anticipation as to what lay ahead was palpable.

  “Frazier! Get over here!”

  Sammy Mallette was perhaps the most animated of the group, and I heard his cackling well before he called my name. He already had his Fish Feeders t-shirt on, and I estimated he had been there for a while based upon his condition. Somehow, he had managed to get a keg and set it up in the trunk of Freddy, which was lined with plastic bags and filled with ice.

  “What’s happening, my brother?”

  “You, baby,” he said, handing me a plastic cup. “Gonna be a good night.”

  “You know it,” I said, taking over the pump, “how in the world did you get ahold of a keg?”

  “Borrowed it from the yacht club.” Sammy’s dad was a charter captain, and Sammy spent a lot of time on the docks. “They had ’em stacked ten deep outside for a party tonight, and I figured they wouldn’t miss it. That’s where I got all this ice, too.”

  “Good for
you, man.”

  “No, good for us,” Hop said, grabbing a cup. Soon most of the juniors gathered around the old Cadillac, and at first, it was mostly guys. We took advantage of Sammy’s illicit haul and felt the cloak of invincibility start to materialize as we reloaded. The lack of female presence was noted, but we were enjoying our hang time, so no one really complained. We knew they were coming, but we didn’t know quite when. About an hour later Mark sounded the alarm.

  “Well looky there,” he said, pointing behind us. A string of headlights a dozen deep bounced down the road like a nighttime Mardi Gras parade, and when we realized it was the girls, we waved them over. By the look in their eyes, they were equally stoked to be there, and it was clear by the way they poured themselves out of their cars that they, too, had started early.

  I saw Chrissy first and worked in a little early evening flirting, but we eventually broke off to mingle with the rest of the crowd. If nothing else, I set it up for a circle-back in the event it looked like I could end up solo. I strolled over to the senior section, and after taking a little hazing, drank a round with Andy Tanner, who had always been cool to me, even if some of the other upperclassmen were turds. I made a couple more social stops and headed back to Freddy for a refill and found Sammy crawling out of the trunk. He had just hooked up a new one. Chad and Trey were using the empty as a makeshift bench.

  “Two?”

  “Freddy’s back seat is huge. I got one more in there for good measure. Stood them on their side and used a seatbelt to keep them from tipping.” He paused to wipe the sweat off his brow. “This is Fish Feeders, Matt. Our first one. We need to do it right. Set the standard for next year.”

  “That we do, Sammy.” I double checked the connection on the tap and started to prime the pump. When I reached over to grab a fresh cup, a hand holding an empty appeared from behind.

  “Fill it up, sir.”

  Emily snuck up on me yet again.

  She was wearing a miniskirt with tights and a thin knit sweater that bunched up at the sleeves. A slight breeze had her tucking and retucking her hair behind one ear. She had no idea what that little move did for me. It also didn’t hurt that she had knee-high boots on.

  “Well, well. I didn’t see you in the caravan.”

  “Rode with Marcia. Not planning on driving tonight,” she said with a smirk and a head bob.

  “Why, Emily Miller,” I said, “I believe you’ve been drinking.”

  “Yup,” she said, giggling. “Don’t judge me.”

  “Oh no, I’m not judging,” I said. “I’m just glad to see you out letting your hair down for a change.”

  She put her arm around my neck and leaned in, crushing the good parts of her left side against me and whispered, “you ain’t seen nothin’ yet, Matt Frazier.” Then she pulled away, slammed her beer, and said “another.”

  I had never before been in the presence of such a perfect human being. I had spent nearly half an hour talking with Chrissy earlier, and I barely felt my heart rate go up, much less anything else. Now, one minute with Emily, and I was a mess. Her proximity alone made everything around me brighter, and suddenly thankful to be wearing jeans.

  “Talked to Nate lately?” I knew I shouldn’t have asked – at least not at that moment – but it was a fair question. I figured he would show up with Emily, but now that she was here and he wasn’t, I started to get concerned, if not interested.

  “Nope,” she said, exaggerating the “-ope” into a popping sound with her lips.

  “Do you know if he’s coming?”

  “I hope so, but we haven’t talked in a few days. It would do him some good to hang out with us tonight.” I agreed. Nate had become increasingly withdrawn, almost to the point of silence, since we saw him running that night. The one time I was able to corral him, he reassured me he was okay but that he still needed to work some things out. We hadn’t spoken since. Emily squeezed my hand then leaned in. “Just being here is already doing me some good,” she whispered. She gave me a kiss on the cheek and walked off.

  And just like that, thoughts of Nate disappeared into the night. I must’ve let half a beer pour out onto the ground before Mark jabbed my side to let me know the tap was still running.

  Chapter 26

  As the music played, the crowd grew, and little by little, people started congregating towards the beach. Per tradition, the lighting of the bonfire happened at ten straight up, and as I turned to make my way up to the mountain of pallets, logs, and boards, something akin to an air horn sounded and caught my attention. When I looked up the road near the entrance, I saw a new row of headlights coming down the trail; these sat higher in the air, and there were a lot of them, probably fifteen or more. The DJ killed the music as they lined up in the parking lot, one jacked up four-wheel drive after another, some with whip CB antennas bouncing around the back.

  I knew right away they weren’t from St. John, and I had to shield my eyes to read the license plate on the front of the lead vehicle. It was the West Harrison Red Rebels. Our homecoming opponent.

  Somehow, they had gotten wind of our little kickoff soiree and thought they would pay the home crowd an early visit. The driver’s side window of the lead vehicle rolled down, and a big green stream of spit shot out and splattered on the concrete. He hit the horn again, and it was so loud up close, my hair vibrated, and one tooth way in the back started to hurt. The door swung open, and the biggest redneck knuckle-dragger I’d ever seen stepped out just as Hank Williams Jr. twanged out something about a family tradition. This guy had more facial hair than the Pittsburgh Steelers’ front four, and I estimated, just by the way he was standing, that he could have fathered one, maybe three kids, all probably more closely related than they should be. He pulled a lacquered piece of wood out of the bed, slapped it in his hand a few times, and spoke.

  “This here’s ‘Cousin.’”

  It was an axe handle, and sure enough, the word “cousin” had been roughly etched and burned in the side. The business end where the blade should have been was nothing but splintered wood and dark stains.

  One by one the other trucks parked, and more good ol’ boys got out flanked by the occasional good ol’ girl, and even though it was chilly, most had cutoffs on. I checked them out, and I would say a respectable third of them were dateable in a farmer’s daughter kind of way. I looked over at Andy Tanner, and he had stepped from around his Camaro to size up the new arrivals as well.

  My first thought when I saw how big they were was that they were going to beat our ass on the gridiron next week. My second thought, which was not nearly as pleasant, was that they were going to beat our ass right then and there. We were outnumbered, outgunned, and really had no means of retreat. The Frazier family might have been known for a lot of things, but fighting wasn’t one of them, and if we were going to come to blows, one thing was for sure.

  It was not going to end well for me.

  The standoff continued as more trucks parked and more people got out. I wouldn’t have thought that many people would come all the way out to Gulfport Lake looking for trouble – as a rule, most schools played in their own back yards unless there was a personal affront of some sort. When there was an offense, it usually involved someone jumping the fence and snaking on someone else’s girl, but I had heard no reports along those lines. Not saying it didn’t happen, just saying I wasn’t aware of it.

  As fate would have it, most of the St. John crowd moved closer to the beach when the convoy rolled in. Except for my dumb ass, that is, and when Big Boy surveyed the scene like a field commander on the front line, his eyes landed on me. I had a penchant for talking myself out of situations like this, but at that time I was rendered mute. No icebreaker, no insult, no utterance of any sort came to mind. So there I stood, cup of beer in one hand, suddenly conscious of the very different sartorial choices he and I had made in preparation for our night out. I had on a Members’
Only jacket, faded jeans, and Sperrys, and he looked like he was dressed for a day of interning at the taxidermist.

  The only thing I could think to do was make a peace offering, so – being careful not to make any sudden movements lest I startle the bear – I motioned to the keg and grabbed an empty cup. Before I could hand over the proverbial olive branch, however, a laugh erupted from behind the line and broke the silence.

  “Matt Frazier, you drunk son of a bitch,” the voice said, still laughing. It had a nasally country twang that would have been good for telling jokes. “We drive our ass all the way out here, and all you offer us is some stale beer served out of a trunk of – what is that, a Cadillac? And you call us rednecks?”

  All eyes turned to me from both sides, and I wasn’t sure whether to smile or run. Even though he called me by name, my mind pulled a blank, and it wasn’t until the heckler stepped into the light that I started to breathe again. He had a bottle of Jack in one hand and a good-looking Winston Cup-type blonde in the other. He pointed at me and winked. “I told you we was going to party down one day. Tonight is the night!”

  It was one of my old friends from Lyman, Lance Glenn. He walked up and gave me a hug.

  “You old country bastard,” I said. “You scared the nuts off me.” I reached over and shook the hand of the bouncer, who introduced himself as Hayden. He smiled, revealing a gap-toothed grin that took the edge off his menace.

  “Don’t listen to Lance,” Hayden said (he pronounced it Laynce). “I like me a good beer. Even better if it’s draft.” Sammy had one poured for him before Hayden finished the sentence, and Hayden finished it before Sammy could pour him another. Even though everyone took a breath, people were still watching us. Lance felt it too. “So what now, Frazier?” he whispered out of the side of his mouth.