Chapter 13

the sound: Moody Blues – Just a Singer, Cheap Trick - Surrender, David Essex – Rock On, The Hollies – Long Cool Woman, Starz – Cherry Baby, Blondie – Heart of Glass , Jethro Tull – Aqualung, Uriah Heep – Easy Livin, CCR – Bad Moon Rising, Ozark Mountain Daredevils – Chicken Train, Charlie Daniels – Devil Went Down To Georgia

We drive for about 20 minutes, the wind whipping my waist long hair around me like a halo, and I’m distracted by it. I’m distracted enough to find myself sitting in the front seat of a mustang headed along the freeway in Minneapolis but not distracted enough to forget the mountain of man in the backseat, gently chiding Boomer and BarnYard as to just which liquor store they should stop at.

We pull into the parking lot of a Liquor-Mart and I am flummoxed at all the advertising…”2 for 1 Brewsky’s…cans or bottles” “Fifths for $4.50” I think that maybe I’m in booze heaven and just for a moment I forget where I am and what I seem to have gotten myself into.

Robert leans forward and quietly speaks to me, his voice masked under the noise Boomer and Barnyard are making around their discussion of booze selections for the evening, “I understand your fear little girl”.

I catch my breath, scared again, “yo you do?” I breath

“ah-yup” he replies “tell you what….jest cos yer nervous I’ll make ya a little deal. A little deal but a good deal cos I’m a fair man.”

I turn sideways in my seat and look at him….”Robert certainly is large” I think once again and now I can’t stop my mind from running round with thoughts of white slave markets and girls disappearing off of the face of the earth. In a flash I realize by comparison that all my troubles at home somehow seem not quite so “big”.

“ah-yup…I’ll make you a deal fair and square….these 2 jackass’ are gonna go in to that there store and buy us all sometin to drink, and what they are gonna buy you is just one can o’beer.

Then we are goin to go over to the house and you are gonna have that one can. After that one cab iffn you are still scared as white as ya are now, I’ll have Boomer put you on a bus back to Canada.”

I’m afraid to breath.

I’m thinking that this just might be the break I need. “One beer..that’s it…one beer and then I can get the hell outta Dodge! Maybe there’s a way to get outta this after all.” I take a deep breath and smile at Robert and agree.

Robert smiles and nods to the boys who head into the liquor store. We sit in silence, Robert looking off into the city streets and I look at my hands in my lap, wearing that smug little smile Mike always said I get when I think I’ve come out on top.

The door to the LiquorMart crashes open and out falls Boomer and BarnYard laughing and swaggering followed by a grizzled old timer pushing a moving dolly.

A moving dolly…carrying a keg of beer…and I begin to fear the worst.

“one…..

single…..

can of beer….”

As the dawn of realization comes over me I turn to glare at Robert and he smiles and winks at me. Boomer and Barnyard howl at the joke. I slouch down in my seat and think that maybe now would be a good time to take up praying for a living.