Ventura Highway
Henry and Jonas sat watching a re-run of The Rockford Files in the den that used to be a garage. Henry’s mother was in the kitchen, listening to the radio, smoking and otherwise making herself useless, as Henry’s father liked to comment.
“I want a pop,” said Jonas.
“Rude!” replied Henry. He thought: I can’t believe I let this guy stick his dick in my mouth.
“Am not.”
“Are too. It’s rude to make demands on your host.”
“Oh, you’re a host?”
“Damn straight!”
Mrs. Truck stuck her head in, cigarette pinched in the corner of her mouth, eyes slitted.
“You boys need anything?”
“I’d love a pop, Mrs. Truck,” said Jonas, and Henry, for a quick second, thought to tell him to go home.
“Grape or rootbeer.”
“Grape, please, Mrs. Truck.”
“Henry?” she asked, but before Henry could reply, she fled. “Oh, I simply love this song!”
As the volume went up on the radio in the kitchen so that the boys could hardly hear the heated banter between Rockford and Becker, Jonas gave Henry a face full of smug satisfaction.
Later, up in Henry’s bedroom, after Henry had given Jonas what he’d come for, Henry looked at Jonas’ grape-pop-stained lips and said: “You know, I don’t like you very much.”
“What are you talking about?” asked Jonas as he fiddled with Henry’s framed photo of Scott Baio. “I’m your best friend.”
“Yeah?” said Henry.
“Definitely.”
Sitting in the den watching a re-run of Adam-12, Henry asked Jonas if he was happy.
“I’m OK,” said Jonas, licking Cheeto dust from his fingertips.
“No,” said Henry. “I don’t mean just right now. I mean always.”
“No one is always happy, Henry.”
“You know what I mean. In general. Are you happy?”
“Sure,” said Jonas without giving it a thought. Then, turning to Henry: “Aren’t you?”
“Sure,” said Henry.
Later, upstairs, as Jonas zipped up and Henry took yesterday’s t-shirt to his face, Henry asked him again: “Really, you think you’re happy?”
“Henry, for fuck’s sake, what’s your prob?”
“Nothing. I don’t know. Sometimes I wonder if everyone is walking around pretending to be something when really they’re something else. I mean, is this it?”
Jonas, looking at himself in the mirror and licking his fingertip to slick his eyebrows, said: “Come on. I want a pop.”
Sitting in the den watching a re-run of Emergency!, Henry’s father came home early to fight with his mother. While they screamed over the radio and over the sirens from Squad 51, Henry said to Jonas: “I want to go to California.”
“What?”
“I said,” said Henry, louder, “I want to go to California!”
“When?”
“Now.”
Upstairs, after Jonas yelped almost loud enough to overpower the screams from downstairs, Henry pulled a duffle bag out of the closet and began packing, starting with underwear and socks, folding them just so.
“Whattcha doin’?” asked Jonas.
“What’s it look like?”
“Looks like you’re packing.”
“No shit, Sherlock.”
“Wait. What? You’re serious?”
“I am.” He stopped packing. “You coming?”
Jonas’ eyes widened. “To Cali-fucking-fornia?”
“Alligator lizards in the air.”
“What the fuck?”
“Like it says in that song my mom likes. Alligator lizards in the air.”
“You’re out of your fucking mind. You are totally, totally looney. Okay. Okay. Okay. How, exactly, do you plan to get there? Tell me that.”
“Hitchhike.”
Jonas threw his arms into the air.
“You’re mental!”
Henry kept packing while Jonas looked on, both awed and horrified. Henry zipped the duffle bag and gave Jonas a hard look. “Well?” he asked.
“Well what?”
They walked through the kitchen unnoticed, Henry’s parents still stretching to be the first to penetrate the other’s jugular. Jonas was not going with Henry, but he said he’d walk him to wherever he was going to try to bum a ride.
It was nearly a mile to the highway in a drizzle, and Henry walked it with determination, Jonas having to play catch up every so many steps. They didn’t speak.
Someone had built a little lean-to along the road, probably for their kids to wait for the school bus. Henry and Jonas took a seat. Henry took out a pack of his mom’s Virginia Slims. He lit one, took a long, purposeful drag, and then handed it over to Jonas, who blew smoke through his nose and then said: “You’re really doing this?”
“Yup,” said Henry, taking back the cigarette.
“Don’t you think it’s dangerous? We’re just kids for fuck’s sake!”
Henry began singing: “Aw, come on Joe, you can always change your name….”
A car approached and Henry leapt to his feet and, standing nearly in the road, stuck out his thumb. He repeated this for a half hour, singing the song whenever Jonas tried to intervene. Finally, a white Caddy stopped. Both Henry and Jonas leaned forward to look at the middle-aged man behind the wheel.
“Henry,” began Jonas. But Henry already had the passenger door open.
“Where you headed?” asked the driver.
“California.”
The man laughed. “Well, I don’t know that I can take you quite that far, but at least I can take you in that direction.”
With that, Henry began to get into the car. Jonas put a hand on Henry’s shoulder but Henry shrugged it off. He threw his duffle bag into the back seat and got in, closing the door on Jonas. He rolled down the window.
“See ya.”
“Henry!”
Henry looked straight ahead. “Let’s go,” he said. The Caddy started off.
Jonas stood in the middle of the road and watched until the car dipped over the horizon. And though he knew it to be utterly ridiculous, he found himself regretful that he didn’t have the balls to go too.
J. Edward Kruft received his MFA in fiction writing from Brooklyn College. He is a multiple Best Short Fictions nominee, and his stories have appeared or are forthcoming in journals including Barren Magazine, Jellyfish Review and Lunate. He is editor-at-large for trampset. He used to lip-synch at parties to The Devil Went Down to Georgia but he has since retired from this endeavor, which he credits for saving his marriage. He lives with his husband, Mike, and their adopted Siberian Husky, Sasha, in Queens, NY and Sullivan County, NY. His fiction can be found on his Web site: www.jedwardkruft.com and he can be followed on twitter: @jedwardkruft.
