Fever Dreams and Drunken Scribbles

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Fever Dreams and Drunken Scribbles - book excerpt

Chapter One

CHICKEN CAR

I remember the first time I saw that damn car. It was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. It was bad enough I had to wear the stupid Chicken Shack uniform, which was red with three yellow chickens strolling across the front with the words “Get Clucked!” on the back, but now there was this god-awful travesty on wheels.

“Ain’t she a beaut?” asked Tim, my boss, and owner of Chicken Shack. The fucker had a twisted grin and a gleam in his eye. I swear, he was as proud of that car as he was of his kids. Maybe more. But to be honest, it kind of makes sense because his kids aren’t all that great. They’re miniature reproductions of him and his equally-obnoxious wife, Tina, so that makes sense. After all, you don’t breed two jackasses and get a thoroughbred.

Tim was standing beside his chicken car with his arm stretched in a pose along its side, like a used car dealer trying to sell a Buick. Tim looked like a used car salesman, too. He was wearing the same light blue Herb Tarlick off-the-rack J.C. Penny suit he always wore. His black hair—at least what was remained above his ever-receding hairline—was slicked back with what looked like a quart of motor oil. His oddly-thin face also wore the goofy, suspicious “I’m-trying-to-pull-some-shit-over-on-you” expression of car dealers everywhere. I’ve never known Tim to do anything particularly wily other than him screwing Darlene, my crew chief, in the walk-in freezer behind his wife’s back. But if you’d ever seen or met Tim’s wife, you would totally get it. If it were me, I’d rather screw Darlene, too, which is not to say Darlene is any kind of a looker. She’s pretty damn fugly, yet she’s still better than Tina. If I’m being honest, Tim is prettier than Tina, too, and he’s both a man and ugly.

“I had her special made,” Tim said of the chicken car.

I was sure he did. I couldn’t imagine anyone other than Tim wanting to own such a grotesque monstrosity. It was a bright yellow Cadillac that was probably older than my grandpa’s grandpa. And the yellow was so bright it burned your retinas looking at it. There was writing printed on the door that read: CHICKEN SHACK. Then, below that, in cursive: GET CLUCKED! And yet none of these details are the thing that made it so... special. No, that would be the giant chicken head. Yes, there was a chicken head. A great big, smiling plastic chicken head sticking out from the top of the car’s roof.

I hated that thing the moment I laid eyes on it. As I spoke to Tim, I couldn’t help but have a slightly mocking tone. I knew it was there and could hear it when I spoke. But Tim didn’t seem to notice. He was so in love with the car that he was utterly oblivious, like he couldn’t imagine anyone not loving it or, worse, mocking him for owning it.

As if the chicken head wasn’t strange enough, I noticed it had teeth.

“This chicken’s got teeth,” I said.

“You’re damned right it does,” Tim said proudly.

“Chickens aren’t supposed to have teeth, Tim.”

“Yeah, but don’t you love it?”

“Sure,” I managed. “It’s certainly... something.”

That was in the summer. Now it was fall. Tim came to me asking for a favor a week before Halloween. I had just burned the hell out of my arm dumping straight-out-of-the-bag-store-bought chicken strips into the fryer. I was standing over the popping grease, inspecting the pink skin on my forearm when I felt Tim’s hand on my shoulder. I turned to look at him, and he was, of course, grinning like a damned fool.

“What’s up?” I asked, trying not to sound as annoyed as I felt anytime I had to have any sort of interaction with him.

“You do a good job here, Colin,” he said.

I nodded, knowing that was bullshit. I did the bare minimum, and yet somehow, that was more effort than any of my coworkers put in. But I was still a terrible worker in the same way that the best smelling dog turd still doesn’t smell good. It’s just less bad than the others, and that was me—a slightly-less-stinky turd.

“Next week is Halloween,” Tim said.

Who gives a fuck? I know I didn’t. But I didn’t say that. I may have only made minimum wage working at Chicken Shack, but even that meager amount was substantially more than nothing.

“I’ve got the chicken car signed up to drive in the Halloween parade,” he said, grinning. He was so proud I thought he might burst at the seams at any moment.

“Uh, cool,” I managed.

“I just got some bad news, Colin.”

I waited for the punchline.

“My wife’s Uncle Dinky is quite ill, and frankly, it looks bad.”

Uncle Dinky? Uncle fucking Dinky?! Are you kidding me?!

“Dinky lives in Oregon, so Tina and I will be gone all week,” Tim said. “Nelson’s gonna take over while I’m gone. But there’s a problem.”

This guy had more problems than a math book.

“Since I’m gonna be gone, there’s no one to drive the chicken car in the parade.”

“What about Nelson?” I asked.

“No, no,” Tim said, shaking his head. “Nelson can’t drive because he’s got two DUIs. Of course, he still drives anyway, but he’s worried someone might notice him driving in the Halloween parade in a giant chicken car.”

I tried to picture this in my head. I did, and it was horrible.

Tim met my gaze and said, “I’d like you to drive in the parade, Colin.”

I stared at him. “Me? The chicken car? In the parade?”

He nodded, grinning big, mistaking my horror for enthusiasm.

“Isn’t it great?”

“I, uh... I can’t do that, Tim.”

“Sure you can,” he said, slapping his hand on my shoulder again.

I was about to concoct a story explaining why I couldn’t when Tim said, “I’ll give you a raise if you’ll do it.”

“How much?”

“A dollar.”

“A dollar an hour raise?” I asked incredulously.

Tim beamed. “Anything for the driver of my chicken car.”

So that was that. That was how I, Colin Booth, wound up driving that yellow eyesore in the Halloween parade.

My girlfriend Maggie broke up with me two days before the parade. We were sitting in my 1987 Camaro with the heater blasting us. It was cold, and it was dark outside. I had lost track of time but knew it had to be close to nine. We were parked in the country on a gravel road, and Angus Young was screaming from the speakers.

Maggie was rambling about something, but I didn’t know what. Something about her friend, Cheryl. I didn’t care about any of it. Don’t get me wrong, it wasn’t that I didn’t care about Maggie. I did. She was the greatest. She’s got a great rack and a hell of a sense of humor. But sometimes, when she spoke, I tended to tune out. It wasn’t on purpose, mind you. It was like she spoke at a frequency that my ears couldn’t quite hear.

She was still talking when I leaned over the console to attempt a kiss. She turned, made a face of disgust, and moved away.

“What’s wrong?” I asked. “Don’t you wanna make out?”

“Is that all I am to you—a piece of ass?”

“No, of course not. But I’m not gonna lie, I do like having sex with you.”

She looked into my eyes. “Can I ask you something?”

“Sure.”

“What was I just saying? Just now, before you tried to kiss me?”

I squinted and cocked my head, trying to find the answer, but all I knew was that it had something to do with Cheryl. So that’s what I said: “You were talking about Cheryl.”

She raised an eyebrow. “What was I saying about her? Do you know?”

I had no clue, so I just stared at her stupidly. She sucked her teeth, and her pissy expression became even pissy-er.

“This is what I’m talking about, Colin!”

I blinked. “What?” Were we fighting now? I didn’t even know. The fight just seemed to come out of nowhere. One second I’m trying to kiss her, and the next, she’s all pissed off and angry.

Maggie exhaled hard and crossed her arms. She was staring out the windshield when she said, “I don’t think we want the same things out of life.”

I stared at her. “Things out of life? What are you talking about? I was just trying to kiss you. What the hell, Mags?”

She turned to look at me again. “You have no ambition. No drive. No goals. Look at yourself, Colin. This is all the life you want, isn’t it? I think you’re actually happy with things the way they are. You’re in a holding pattern.”

“Holding pattern?” I asked. “What does that mean? Look, I like my life, sure. I think it’s great. Don’t you? Tell me what’s wrong with my life. Just one thing.”

“You’re thirty-six, and you live with your parents.”

“So what? A lot of guys I know live with their parents. Some of them are a whole lot older than me.”

“You’re a loser, Colin,” she spat. “I knew it when we met, but I tried to ignore it. I told myself you could change, but I know now that you never will.”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” I said. “I’m not a loser. Just look at my badass Camaro. How can a guy with a sweet ride like this be a loser?”

She shook her head angrily, so overwhelmed with frustration that she didn’t know what to do. Then she said, “I’m through.”

“Through with what?”

Her eyes locked on mine. “I can’t be with you anymore.”

I felt like I’d just been slapped. I sat there staring at her for a long moment. “What do you mean? Like what, tonight? Or forever?”

“I want to break up.”

“Really?” I couldn’t believe what I was hearing. We’d been going out for nine months, and I’d really thought she might be the one.

“Take me home,” she demanded, turning to stare out the side window.

“Wait,” I said, unsure how to finish the sentence.

“What?”

“Could we at least have sex one last time?” I asked. “I’ll even wear a rubber this time, and I promise I won’t take it off in the middle like I did last time.”

I figured that was probably the wrong thing to say, but I wasn’t prepared for the way she reacted. She let out a loud, angry grunt that was a mixture of disgust and frustration, and she slammed both of her fists against the dash.

“Hey! Hey!” I said, holding my palm out. “I get that you’re mad, but don’t take it out on the car!”

Maggie turned and threw the door open. Before I even knew what was happening, she was out of the Camaro, slamming the door so hard the whole car shook.

I got out and stood there, staring at her over the top of the car. “Get back in, Mags. We can talk about it.”

She stood there with her back to me. “I’m not getting back in that car. I’ll walk, thank you very much.”

“It’s cold, and we’re ten miles outside of town,” I pleaded. “It’s too cold to walk. Just get back in the car.”

“I won’t!”

“Fine,” I said. I got back inside the car, backed out, and sped away. I decided if Maggie wanted to stage a dramatic escape, I’d let her. “Have fun walking,” I muttered, watching her fade into darkness in the mirror.

My dad lost his shit the night before the parade. He was always in a crappy mood. He’d worked in a factory making cabinets all his life, and he had always been drunk and angry anytime he was home. But now he’d lost his job, so he was even drunker and angrier than before.