Going Bovine by Libba Bray

Author:Libba Bray [Bray, Libba]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9780375893766
Publisher: Random House Children's Books
Published: 0101-01-01T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT

Which Treats of My Visit to a Keg Party and of My Chance Encounter with the World’s Grumpiest Yard Gnome

Within thirty seconds, Gonz is snoring lightly. It’s 12:20, and I’m wired. I can’t turn on the TV, so I put on my shoes and pad out to the Mister Motel’s parking lot with its magnificent view of I-10. A big semi roars past, followed by another. All those trucks carrying things that people think they can’t live without—new sofas and light-up sneakers, ponchos and twelve different kinds of processed cheese in cubes, strings, squares, or shred pouches.

I trip along the access road to the blinking yellow lights of the underpass. On the other side of the freeway, there’s a Gas-It-N-Git all lit up like a fluorescent mirage.

There’s only one car in the lot and no people except the guy behind the counter, who’s watching a little TV he’s got by the register. I’ve got three dollars in change in my pocket and I slide it all into the pay phone. My fingers are stiff. I keep dropping coins that I have to pry off the pavement.

The phone rings a few times. Dad picks up. “Hello?” he says in a barely awake voice. For a second, I don’t say anything. I just listen to his sleep-heavy breathing on the other end of the line.

“Dad?”

“Cameron? Is that you? Are you … Say something. Please.”

His voice sounds different to me coming from so far away over thousands of miles of thin wire. It doesn’t sound pissed off and controlled. I hear other notes in it. Fatigue. Hope. Sadness.

“Cameron?” he whispers. “I know you can hear me. I don’t care where you are right this second. I just want you to know you are my boy. You’re a part of me and I’m a part of you. Always.”

“Dad?”

“Cameron?”

“Love you,” I say, just as a big semi roars past on the highway, taking more stuff to more people to pack around the empty spaces of their lives.

Mom’s waking up. I hear her asking Dad what’s going on, who’s he talking to, did the doctor come in? Dad tells her it’s nothing, go back to sleep.

“Cameron?” Dad whispers. “Can you hear me, pal?”

A recorded operator voice politely asks me to deposit more change, but I don’t have any more, so I hang up. It feels like there’s a walrus sitting on my chest, and my eyes sting. I’d give anything to get high right now, to get good and numb.

There’s a girl at the other end of the Gas-It-N-Git standing around like she’s waiting for something. She’s got on shorts and a fake fur jacket, even though it’s muggy and my T-shirt’s sticking to my chest in places, leaving those little pellets of sweat, like a giant connect-the-dots. I nod to her on the way in, and she ignores me, which is fine, really.

The unnaturally bright lights hit me like a punch. That and the rancid nacho cheese smell from the big dripper beside the counter is working me over pretty good.

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