Burn Scars by Eddie Generous (best novels for beginners TXT) 📕

home, but she’s good most of the time. Her bad days are bad though, but she can feed herself and dress nine days out of ten. She’s not a total old wacko like the nursing home biddies.”

Rusty had no reply. Again, what could he say? They rode back to Logic and Dwayne paid Rusty with a twenty-dollar bill—a raise of $3.15 an hour. It took longer than expected, but that was better; even if he wasn’t happy to be there, three hours beat the hell out of two. Most of the stuff in the boxes fit into emptied drawers without hassle anyway. They’d been packed away as such because there were no box-lifting days left for Dwayne’s mother.

—

“She calls all the time,” Christine said. She hadn’t moved from the bed, but looked like she felt better. “She shouldn’t be on her own. You don’t see it ‘cause you’re on the road, but Dwayne runs out there at least once a day. Sometimes you can see he’s been crying when he comes back. He won’t talk about it in front of people, but we’ve all taken her calls.”

Rusty had fixed himself some toast with margarine and a mug of coffee. He sat in the brown chair by the foot of the makeshift bed where Christine stretched out with the TV remote. She had on the Sunday movie that was sponsored by Tempur-Pedic beds, meaning half of the commercial breaks were the same.

“Be pretty neat to have a moving bed,” Christine said, the ads obviously working some marketing Voodoo on her.

Rusty wasn’t ready to switch topics and said, “I didn’t know the guy had any emotions.”

“I think he’s driving himself crazy. Maybe Linda’s doing it. Now that I know about…I know, I’m not supposed to talk about it.”

“Probably okay here. Help me with perspective.”

“Yeah, how so?”

Rusty scratched his head. “It’s driving me a bit crazy. I keep thinking about how bad it could go. Like there’s too many steps riding on me not screwing up, which doesn’t seem right. They planned it out and added me last minute…I don’t know.”

“Huh, and you, Cary, and Linda seem to be doing all the work, according to Linda’s master plan.”

“Yeah, see? That’s what I was thinking and the whole thing is that I’m supposed to look like a screw up so nobody will figure it’s me, but I do screw up, plenty. So why put it on me?”

“I bet it’s Cary. He’s knows you better than the rest. Knows you won’t screw up. Not when you’re really focused. When you want to, you get it right.”

“Like when?”

“I don’t know, sometimes,” Christine said after a matinee graphic lit the TV screen for ten seconds, suggesting the movie would be back after another string of ads; a commercial for a new Tom Hanks movie came on. “If it works out, after you finish school, are you going to try for college?”

“Man, I’m mostly thinking about what happens if it doesn’t work out. But then, I mean, how does it really come back to me if Cary does how he says? And he will, he’s like that. With me anyhow.”

Christine squared her shoulders to Rusty. “You have to think more for yourself. The top people hardly ever go down, haven’t you ever seen any movies? You’re the very bottom rung. You need to protect yourself. It’s good that Cary promised you, but you have to make sure you don’t end up the loser here.”

“Yeah.”

“Yes.”

Rusty brushed crumbs from his hands over the plate. “I’ll think of something.”

“Think you’d better, and soon.”

 13

Cary clutched the grooved grip of the door handle, the color in his cheeks had gone pale, but he managed a tight grin as he bounced around the passenger’s seat of the worn out Freightliner. Rusty had the speedometer up over fifty and was taking wide, bumpy corners through the dew damp field, sending mini-rainbows left and right like a leprechaun divesting his gold portfolio. He’d called Cary first thing and asked to come out and practice. Cary said nothing about school and answered that he’d be out there and that the coffee pot would be on.

“Look out!” Cary shouted.

Rusty slammed on the brakes, kicking hay stalks and topsoil in heavy ruts out the back and up under the front wheels. The truck stalled and a peach-colored deer bounced across the windshield’s view. The cooling engine ticked and the dash fan’s blow grew shallow running on battery power only.

Cary started laughing the way he did whenever something bad almost happened.

“Geez,” Rusty said and put his hand to his chest, heart jackhammering.

“Look at that color, huh?”

“Man, I’m only seeing spots right now.”

Cary tapped the dash. “You’re doing all right though. Going to be different with a trailer, but just slower and shifting a touch trickier. You won’t be going that far though.”

“So how’s the shift work into the higher gears? This button?” With the engine quiet, the transmission’s high-low shifter did nothing and Rusty thumbed it a half-dozen clicks as if it were ballpoint pen.

“It’ll be a new truck, probably a thirteen-speed with a paddle, but same idea. It’s a bit different from a tractor, but feels about the same to me. Just shift when it feels right, no need to touch the red like you’ve been doing.” He pointed to the RPM tachometer. “Have to keep a good speed up, though, never know what you’ll hit, even with only a few minutes of driving. Can’t get pulled over, that’ll be the game if that happens. Hopefully nobody’ll come up on ya when you’re waiting for me either. If we’re lucky, and I think we will be, it’ll be us and a whole lot of empty roads until we get further south.”

Rusty rubbed his hand through his sweaty hair. “How long am I waiting again?”

“The end