Heartbreaker by Maryse Meijer

Author:Maryse Meijer
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780374714840
Publisher: Farrar, Straus and Giroux

JAILBAIT

For stealing two beers and giving a clerk the bird at a Super Stop I spend one night in jail. They put me in a cell with eight other guys waiting for their rides. I ask someone lying on the only bench if I can sit down. The guy stretches out his legs and tells me to fuck off.

I get my one phone call and talk to Bea at a pay-phone-type situation chained to the wall. It’s five in the morning and neither of us has slept; I’m smiling into the receiver and I can tell she’s smiling, too.

I came right then, she tells me, her voice so warm and close I know she’s got her mouth right up against the phone. Just, God, the back of your head, she says. When they put the cuffs on you and made you get in the car. It was the hottest thing I’ve ever seen in my life.

* * *

Within a week Bea’s asking me if I’ll do it again. I do, same store, same beer. The clerk is making the call before I can get the cans in my jacket pockets. The cops ask me what the hell I’m doing. I say I’m thirsty. I think about Bea, in the parking lot, watching me. I get a hard-on and I hope she can see it, though maybe it’s too dark. In the backseat I ask the cops if they can turn on the siren and they say, Shut up, wiseass.

This time, when they book me, I’m in a holding cell by myself, but only for a few hours before the cops tell me to stop wasting their time.

Bea comes to get me, hyper, eyes jumping like she’s coked up. Just being near the jail gets her this way. She tries to look past the lobby to where the cells are, but a set of green double doors blocks her view.

What happened? she asks. Did anything happen?

Not really, I say.

Why are they letting you out so soon?

I guess they need the room, I reply, shrugging. They don’t think stealing beer is a big deal.

Bea’s mouth goes hard. You need to do something bigger, like a car, she tells me.

How?

It doesn’t matter. Smash the window or something.

I tell her that auto theft is a lot more serious than filling my pockets at the Super Stop.

That’s the point, idiot, she says.

I say You’re crazy, and then she’s mad, and we drive the rest of the way in silence.

At home she darts out of reach whenever I put my hands out to touch her. Come on, I groan; she shakes her head, stomping around the coffee table, rummaging for cigarettes, the remote, casting me these little pissed-off glances. When I try to talk about something else she turns the TV up louder and louder.

Okay! I say finally. Okay, I’ll do it, shit, and she yelps and throws her arms around my neck, practically choking me.

Tomorrow, she says. Do it tomorrow.

And that’s how I end up with a tire iron in my hand, crouched over the windshield of a red Mustang convertible.

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