Read Online Vision Quest by Terry Davis - Free Book Online Page A

scared me,” he said. He sounded like he was ready to cry.
    I had climbed over the fence and come through the breezeway and out onto the lawn again. “God, I’m sorry, Dwight,” I said. “I just couldn’t help myself.” And then I started to laugh again. But then I saw he had peed his pants and it made me feel ashamed.
    Finally Dwight started to laugh, too. He began to pick up his papers and I helped him. “You really scared me,” he said. “I must have looked funny.”
    â€œYou flew through the air,” I said, starting to guffaw again.
    Carla and I lifted his double bag over his head and brushed the dewy grass off him, ignoring the pee smell, and waved him good morning. I brushed the wet grass off my front and turned for Carla to brush my back. “You’re really a bastard,” she said, refusing to brush me. I asked her if she wanted to drive and she said she did.
    The old Ford had to be double-clutched, and Carla took a while to get the hang of the shifting. But once we got out on 395 she didn’t have to shift, so the ride was smoother. The windows wouldn’t roll up and the heater had a leak, so we were cold till the sun got up a little. I would laugh a little to myself, then shut up, then just go to pieces and laugh till tears ran down, thinking of Dwight flying through the storm of newspapers. Carla asked me to explain what was so funny.I tried, but couldn’t stop laughing. Then she began to laugh, too. She wished she could hear some music and cursed the old truck’s lack of a radio. I pulled the tape player out of my wrestling bag and clipped in a special traveling-music tape. She liked that. Then I took out my tea thermos and poured us some. Carla drinks a lot of tea.
    â€œYou come prepared,” she said.
    â€œI’m just waiting for the day some millionaire will get a flat or run out of gas. I’ll change his tire, drive him to a gas station, pour him some tea and honey—and he’ll pay my way through college.”
    â€œWhat he’ll do is hit you on the head and you’ll wake up with an asshole the size of the Chicago Loop.” She giggled as I squirmed a bit in fun. “I’m very interested in that bag,” she said, looking down at my big old wrestling road bag. “What else do you have in there?”
    She was bent over a little and through her second button I could see a nipple register its protest against the cold morning. Her hair was blowing out the window and back against the broken gun rack. God, she looked good driving the old yellow Ford. Among other things it made her freckles redder.
    â€œOh, I’ve got a couple pairs of socks and some shorts and towels, some soap and a thermos full of Gatorade,” I said. I didn’t mention Dad’s old 9mm Luger.
    Carla flipped out when “John Wesley Harding” came on the tape. I knew she liked Bob Dylan because that’s what sheplayed all the time on the stereo at the New Pioneer while she drank tea like an addict. I had the tape loaded heavily with Dylan tunes I recorded at Kuch’s house. I had some Merle Haggard, some Leon Russell, some New Riders and Grateful Dead, and a couple obscure Jim Croce and John Stewart truck-driving songs. It was definitely a tape for the old Ford on 395 North and for Carla.
    We talked about music and books and kids at Lake Shore, Carla’s old school in Chicago, and kids at David Thompson. We were laughing so much and having such a good time we forgot to watch the gas gauge. We ran out on the Colville side of Addy and I had to walk back and get some.
    More than anything else, I was fascinated with Carla’s independence. There are lots of really beautiful girls around and lots of soft ones who are smiley and bright-eyed and in shape and smell good and don’t smoke cigarettes. But I just have the feeling that few of these attractive girls keep time with their own clocks. But Carla had had a