Blacktop Supernova
Luke, fifteen years old, handsome and stupid, yanked on the steering wheel of his daddy’s old Chevy Nova race car as it fishtailed us through the midnight parking lot of the abandoned Murder A&P. We called it the Murder A&P because before it was abandoned two summers ago, Jenny’s older half-brother got got there along with a couple of his buddies because they sold fake weed to some eleventh-grade lunatic with a revenge fetish. Jenny hadn’t been back there since her brother bit it, but she said that it was okay, that she was ready, and moreover this was the only place big enough and dead enough for Luke to drive the Blacktop Supernova without anybody seeing and telling on him to his daddy.
“Jenny, wanna turn up front?” The way Luke drew out her name turned the question into not-a-question, but she shook her head. I knew from a whole childhood of being Jenny’s best friend that her closed eyes and her creased brow meant that she wanted to go home real bad.
“Take a turn in front, Jen, it’s real fun,” I begged, because I knew she’d refuse, and she did. See? I wanted to beg Luke. See how I get it, see how Jenny doesn’t?
When Luke asked Jenny to take a spin on Saturday night after we ran into him at the gas station snack bar, I jumped to say yes for her even though I knew she didn’t like him one bit. I figured Jenny’d ask me along as a buffer, and I was right. She didn’t like any of the boys at school even though every single one of them wanted her. Jenny was delicate and pretty like a doll, or a blown-glass vase. Sometimes her easy prettiness made me want to grab her bird-thin arm and snap it in two. Other times it made me want to swaddle her in my clothes and bubble wrap and duct tape and carry her around under my arm all safe like a rolled up carpet. Luke hooted out a laugh as he over-corrected, skidding so close to a dumpster that I could have flung an arm out of the window to touch the wet graffiti spatched onto its side. He claimed to know all kinds of tricks from his daddy’s derby days, but all he was showing us were donuts and spin-outs.
Jenny whimpered quietly in the back, eyes shut tight, fingernails digging crescent moons into the fake-leather upholstery of Luke’s seatback. I laughed through clenched teeth, trying too hard to be cool with everything. Luke tossed a smile to Jenny over his shoulder, but she didn’t catch it. Luke was a champion smiler. That’s why all the girls loved him. I begged God to make Luke smile at me the way he smiled at Jenny, but once he gave up on getting Jenny to have fun he only glanced at me and looked back at the asphalt.
The car fishtailed again when Luke floored it, and I laughed a funny little girl laugh that I had practiced in the bathroom mirror until I got it just right. Good teeth on display, nose wrinkled just a bit, looking up at Luke through my eyelashes, until he clipped a curb and the old race car went jerking to a stop.
“My dad’s gonna kill me,” Luke moaned, pacing around the car. The racer didn’t look wrecked, but it had sure sounded wrecked when he tried to turn the engine over. The wheel that clipped the curb drooped sideways just a hair, like a chicken holding up a broken wing. Luke knelt down and put his whole body into pushing the wheel straight, but it wouldn’t budge. I offered to take a turn but he brushed me off. “Stay in the car, Jenny,” Luke called, even though Jenny hadn’t made a move to get out of the backseat. Instead, she widened her eyes at me, calling me over to her in that universal girl way. I pretended I didn’t notice.
We ended up deciding to push the car back to Luke’s. Jenny clambered over the center console to sit up front and steer while Luke and I strained and pushed against the trunk, but once we were beyond the Murder A&P parking lot, Jenny flung the door open and hopped out. I hollered after her but she waved me away, stalking off in the direction of her mom’s place. Luke cussed under his breath, punched the old Nova’s taillight, and made me take Jenny’s seat up front.
Luke pushed the car down the easy road to his dad’s place on his own, his face blank and cast a rich red by the taillights when I glanced in the rear-view. He thanked me all bro-like when we finally ground to a stop in his rutted dirt driveway, but there was something new and ugly and afraid in his eyes when he mussed my pixie cut up with his knuckles while saying goodnight. Laughing, I ducked out from under his noogie and walked home alone in the dark. Luke had a way of looking at girls that made them think they were the center of the universe, all golden and worthy. The problem with boys that look at you like that is that sooner or later they’ve gotta look away, and once they do, you remember you’re just a person.
Jenny didn’t talk to me at church on Sunday, but at school on Monday morning she acted like nothing was the matter at all, so I gave her the pudding out of my lunch and pretended we were all right, too. I didn’t see Luke on Monday, but in gym on Tuesday he had a chipped canine tooth and a black eye that was going yellow at the edges and didn’t smile at anyone all day, not even Jenny, and that made me feel just fine.
Julian Greenwood Dooley lived in Los Angeles for a little while, but he’s back home in Manhattan now. Reach him on twitter at @bigboytoadking.
