Page 52 of Vile Bastards
I’m so busy fighting through the panic that I don’t realize we’re heading toward the Pleasant Hill area. There’s not a lot out there (yet), so I wonder where it is that he’s taking me. It occurs to me then that I’m in Kellin Bohnes’ car, in the dark, on a cold November night, rocketing away toward the countryside.
We pass a lot with a large sign advertising a future tract housing development, Archer Realty TM. And then, less than thirty seconds later, we pass a full-blown construction site with yet more cookie-cutter houses, Archer Realty TM.
They have a Kafkaesque fragility to them, like they’re so insignificant and disturbing that they must be a sign of something terrifying and pertinent.
“Fuck, I hate fuckin’ tract housing.” That’s what leaves my mouth because, yeah, I’m Scarlett Force. This is Prescott. I will say and do whatever the hell I want, and everyone else can straight stuff it. Living to please other people is a one-way ticket to emotional turmoil. Growing up in the southside, it’s obvious that underneath the world’s feigned civility, there’s rage and anger and hatred, injustice and violence and despair. I don’t have to play along with any of it. “Should we burn these down, too?”
“They might multiply, like a wet Gremlin.” Bohnes presses down on the gas, and the Chevelle cannonballs into the blackness. We make a sharp right turn near the sign for Mt. Pisgah (it’s a nature preserve) and then follow a winding road into the woods.
Bohnes rolls with this slick, easy confidence, driving dirty out of necessity rather than simple habit. He grew up on the streets of Prescott and fended for himself at an early age. Why wouldn’t he know how to outrun a cop or make a clean getaway? It’s in his blood.
I admire that in him. Mostly, I admire the sumptuous leather beneath my ass, wiggling into the bench seat and entwining my fingers together behind my head. My eyes close, and I listen to the purr of the engine, the shushing of the tires on the pavement, and the faint crackle of a nearly muted radio.
“I’m breaking every well-known Prescott girl rule there is,” I admit. That is, don’t go out with a crazy Prescott boy alone; always travel in groups or at least double date. If you must go out as a couple, for God’s sake, don’t let him take you somewhere private. Mostly, just don’t ever date a Prescott boy, period. “Please don’t kill me out here.”
“You find that funny now …” he starts, and then I open my eyes to see we’re quite literally turning into a cemetery. It’s an old one that I’ve never been to before. I squint my eyes out the window at the sign. Ferndale Hill Cemetery.
“Only in an ironic sense,” I add, and then he’s stopping the car and I’m climbing out and looking up the hill at an impressive array of headstones, obelisks, and mausoleums. The night is cold, but Bohnes grabs a hoodie from the backseat and tosses it to me. Even though it probably looks ridiculous over the top of my blue satin dress, I drag it over my head, pull my overly long hair out of the neck of the sweater, and find myself enveloped in Bohnes’ burnt sugar smell. Like caramel, nice and sticky.
I don’t ask why we’re here. We grew up in Prescott. A cemetery is basically a park, and it’s not entirely unreasonable to visit one on a date though I’d caution any and all of my girls against it. That’s why Bohnes is special, because he isn’t like that. Because I don’t have to worry about him doing anything to me that I don’t want, even if he is crazy. He’s just not that sort of crazy.
“Follow me.” He heads up a set of stone steps, holding out his hand to help me up. Luckily, we don’t have to go far or else I’d have taken off the heels. I might be the baddest bitch you’ve ever seen in stilettos, but that doesn’t mean any reasonable person wants to run in them. Or fight in them, as the case may be.
We pause beside a large, stone mausoleum with an empty scroll carved into the stone above the door. There’s a small table, two folding chairs, and a firepit set up alongside it.
Bohnes squats down, lights a clove cigarette, and takes a drag before flicking it into the metal firepit. The logs go up with a whoosh, like he doused them in lighter fluid or something. It’s meant to be cool, and, if I can get past my own cynicism, I think it probably is.
“What is all this?” I ask, taking a seat in one of the chairs as Bohnes unzips a backpack on the ground near the other and draws out a white cloth. If all this stuff is here, that means he came out earlier and set it up.
