Asleep at the Wheel 3

Terry had a magnificent head of long feathered shoulder length hair. It was the hair of an angel circa 1979. It was the kind of hair that looked really great riding his kid's Huffy down the street with a cigarette in mouth, a 30-pack of Lite bobbing up and down on his left knee and his favorite Kansas concert T-shirt stuffed into his back pocket.

"I'm gonna get that kid a new bike for Christmas. Something a little bigger. He's a little too old for this one," he thought, aluminum bullets of malted hops and barley going up and down on his left knee like a soon-to-be-drunk merry-go-round.

Terry was a regular sight on the mean streets. He lost his license drinking and driving. There was no way he was gonna give up beer though. No one could make him do that. As humiliating as it might be to ride a child's bike in broad daylight, it was the price he paid to keep drinking. Assholes would honk at him and he'd ignore them or flip them off depending on his mood. No one likes to be made fun of, but it was almost worth it when he'd get home and pop the tab on that first still cold smooth brew. Ahhhhh.

One night, Darla had me follow Terry at a discreet distance so we could find out where he was going. Terry was in my graduating class and in his day had been King of the Greasers. He gave Matt Dillon a run for his money. To this day he had a very lean body due no doubt to years of smoking and spending all his money on beer instead of food and child support. Darla thought he was hot in a "dirt baggy sort of way" and I think it really got her motor running to have me participate in her strange stalking behavior. She knew I was no eunich who served her whims without getting emotionally or at least hormonally involved. I participated because it was the best I could get and I hoped that one day I could turn this skanky behavior to my advantage.

The only smart thing to do would have been to cut her off, but that wasn't as easy as it should have been. I'd get some desperate call at three in the morning about some crisis or other and it made me feel needed and important to her.

So there I was driving down the street, circling the block occasionally, avoiding the notice of a guy I went to school with who just might wonder -- if he ever noticed me -- why the fuck I was tailing him. Luckily, his mind was on beer. Terry was peddling his way to the Drugtown where, apparently, the most beer could be had for the least amount of money. There were closer places to buy beer, after all. Terry seemed to have his priorities.

"Oh my God, he's so hot. I want him to stroke the kitty," Darla said to no one in particular and me. "Take me you greasy bastard."

Darla would occasionally get these obsessions with guys who were otherwise just not in her usual circle of acquaintances. In a man, these moments would play themselves in a few minutes with a woman sighted only once and briefly. If it were the girl at the convenience store, we might like running into her every time we went in there. We might even come on to her and tell our friends about her. But we certainly wouldn't make our female friends drive us around following her. To be fair, most women wouldn't have their guy friends do that either.

But Darla was operating on a different level. Not a higher level. Not a spiritual level. No, Darla was just eager to see what would happen. How much of this would I put up with? I was kind of curious about that myself.