"California Girl" - читать интересную книгу автора (Parker T. Jefferson)

2

1954

“BECAUSE THE VONNS are direct descendants of murderers, that’s why,” said David Becker. “One of their relatives got hung in Texas. And I saw Lenny Vonn bust a brick with his bare hands once. One chop. That’s exactly what he’ll do to Nick’s head. The Vonns are crazy.”

The Becker brothers. Four of them, walking down Holt Avenue in Tustin for a rumble. June and still light out, the sun stalled high above the groves like it didn’t want to come down. Air sweet and clean with the smell of oranges.

Nick was second oldest. He imagined Lenny Vonn’s hand crashing into his skull. Wondered how a skull compared to a brick. Nick was sixteen and strong, had played Tustin varsity football as a sophomore, started both ways. Not a talker.

Andy was the baby. Twelve, skinny, buck-toothed. He wasn’t officially a part of the rumble but figured there was no way Lenny Vonn could crush Nick’s skull. Nick was God.

David, the one who had seen Lenny Vonn break the brick with his hand, was eighteen. He was the oldest and smart but graceless and unformed.

“I’ll yank Casey Vonn’s head off and piss down his neck.” This from Clay, fifteen. He smiled at each of his brothers in turn, a clean, straight-toothed grin that was both knowing and mean.

Clay had gotten them into this. Grabbed dumb Casey Vonn’s new baseball cap and tossed it over the fence to the German shepherd that snarled and snapped and threw himself at the chain link every time the school kids came past. Clay laughed while the dog tore it to shreds. Told Casey he’d throw him over next time. Casey so dumb he believed it.

The next day at school Casey’s big brother Lenny shoved David hard against the lockers and said it was rumble time for what happened to Casey’s cap. Lenny was large and chinless, with an enormous Adam’s apple and sideburns like Elvis. Brothers, said Lenny, three-on-three, the packinghouse, no weapons. On David’s face, breath like coffee and cavities. David asked Lenny to forgive Clay, said he’d pay for a new hat. Lenny spit in David’s face.

The Becker brothers angled into one of the grove rows, walking along the irrigation ditch, clods of earth throwing them off-balance and doves whisking through the sky above them. Nick led the way.

“The Vonns got two sisters,” said Clay.

“Can they fight?” asked Andy.

“Maybe I’ll make out with them when we’re done beating up their brothers,” said Clay.

“They’re seven and five,” said David. He knew right from wrong and wrong angered him. He was going off to college in September. He stopped and shook out a Lucky Strike and tapped it on the side of his lighter. Nick saw his hands shaking.

“Gimme a cigarette,” said Clay.

David gave Clay the pack and lighter. He lit one and put another behind his ear.

“Me, too,” said Andy.

“No,” said Nick.

“I don’t want to do this,” said David. He coughed. He’d spent hours the night before praying for courage.

“Fine,” said Nick. “It’ll be me and Clay.”

“I can fight,” said Andy.

“No,” Nick and David both said.

Clay’s cigarette looked good so Nick plucked it out of his mouth and took a puff.

Nick saw by the look on his face that David didn’t want his baby brother to see him get his ass kicked.

“Keep your hands high,” Nick said. “If we stay back-to-back we’ll be all right.” Like there was a science to this kind of thing.

The SunBlesst packinghouse sat behind the railroad tracks in the middle of the grove. The tracks marked the city limits but everyone thought of the packinghouse as being in Tustin. It was a big wooden building with a metal roof and twenty-foot-high metal sliding doors that let the conveyors swing out to the freight cars. The wood was black with creosote. On one of the doors was a giant painting of one of the SunBlesst orange box labels. It showed a raven-haired beauty holding out a perfect navel orange and smiling. Behind her were rows of orange trees. The sky above the trees was indigo blue and the words California Girl charged out of it in bright yellow letters. Once someone had left a flatcar of labels outside and the Becker boys threw them into a Santa Ana wind that blew them all over town, onto the lawns and streets and school yards, and everywhere he went for a week Nick saw that pretty woman offering him an orange.

The Vonns were waiting for them by the railroad tracks. Lenny had his T-shirt tucked in tight and his cigarettes rolled into his right shirtsleeve, Levi’s cuffs rolled into two-inchers, work boots. His brothers more or less the same. Black hair and big round ears. Lenny flicked his smoke into the gravel and stared at Nick.

Nick figured it was him against Lenny, Clay against Casey, and David the oldest against the middle Vonn kid, Ethan. “What do you say, Lenny?” he called out.

“I say fuck you.”

“That’s all?”

“And your whole ugly family.”

Casey Vonn laughed. Then Ethan.

Nick stopped at the bottom of the railroad berm, where the gravel led up to the ties and tracks. David and Clay came up beside him. Sweat rolled down David’s cheek. Nick turned to see young Andy hanging back in the orange grove.

“You know, Lenny, we could just apologize to you and not fight.”

“It’s too late for apologies. The dog ate the hat. It was new.”

“Then you apologize to us,” said Clay. “How about that?”

“For what?” asked Lenny.

“For being so dumb,” said Clay. “Look at you dumb shitheels trying to be cool.”

War screams, then, and gravel chattering and dust rising as the Vonns hurled themselves down the berm.

Nick figured on a left from Lenny because of where Lenny kept his cigarettes. Lenny flew toward him and Nick stepped away and got him with a left hook. Lenny wheeled and came back at him and Nick drove a straight right into his nose. Felt the crack. Lenny went to one knee, wiped the blood off his face, and looked at it. Pouring like a faucet thrown on.

“Gung fuggin kiw you.”

The blood unnerved him and Nick let Lenny stand up. Knew it was a mistake but let him up anyway. He caught Lenny coming in with a big left haymaker that landed high above the ear and sent a bullet of pain up his hand.

Then someone clobbered Nick from behind and he was down before he felt or heard it. Looking back, he saw Clay pummeling Casey, David down and looking his way but no opponent in sight, Andy still watching from the trees. Then a shadow falling above him and Nick understood someone was about to club him again.

This time he heard it. Ethan behind him with something big and heavy. Felt the jolt, then the loud whine in his ears. Lenny kicked him in the face. Kicked him again in the ribs. Nick felt the fight huff out of him.

Clay slugged Casey one more time and climbed off. Saw Ethan Vonn swing the short thick branch at Nick and his brother crumple like something dead and Lenny kicking him hard.

Clay covered the distance fast and jumped Ethan the clubber from behind. They fell onto Nick and rolled off. Clay came up with the club and caught Lenny low. Lenny stumbled back, two disbelieving eyes wide open through the blood as Andy rocketed through the air and knocked him to the ground.

Ethan struggled to his feet, turned, and labored up the berm.

Nick got himself upright as Lenny shrugged off Andy and sidled away, half crawling and half falling after his brother.

Clay kicked at him but missed.

Andy, on hands and knees, breathed fast and hard.

“Yer fuggin dead,” said Lenny.

“Yeah, yeah,” said Nick.

“Dumb shitheels,” said Clay.

Nick picked up the club, then took a knee like they did in football. His head hurt and he felt the vomit stirring inside. He watched two Lennys make the top of the berm, faces and sideburns and shirts soaked in blood. Twin Caseys clambered up next, both blubbering, eyes swollen and lips cut. He felt a hand on his shoulder and he knew without turning it was David.

Nick looked up to see four girls looking down at him from the tracks. Then just two. The bigger one had brown braids and wore a dirty pink blouse. The younger one was dark-haired and dimpled and had an inquisitive look on her face.

The older one stepped down the berm a few feet toward the Becker brothers and launched a white rock that flew wild. Then another. She scurried back up and ran away.

The younger one followed her sister’s footsteps almost exactly. She had a faded blue dress and a red ribbon in her hair and a pair of scuffed brown cowboy boots. An orange in each hand. The SunBlesst girl’s baby sister, thought Nick. Looked about five.

“I am Janelle Vonn and those are my brothers,” she said.

She dropped the oranges and scrambled back up the gravel and out of sight.