deep red bells (bucktommy)
Mom gives him an appraising look when he slides into the passenger seat. Derek doesn’t fail to notice how much quieter she is than usual when he waves out the window.
“Who’s that?” She asks as he buckles himself in.
“Uh, just a customer. He offered to give me a ride. Said he’d wait with me after I told him you were coming to get me.”
“So, you’re closing down the bar with strangers now? Or was he still loitering outside,” she asks, mind seemingly already made up about something. “Took you a while to give me a call.”
“No, not a stranger, uh, he comes in a bit. Just was keeping me company while I counted the till, helped put the stools up.”
Mom looks behind them both in the rearview as she navigates off the main road and toward the direction of the house. “Wasn’t a local.”
Derek nods. “He’s not. Comes through a lot though, he-he’s an amateur car restoration guy, drives out to a lot of car shows here and southwest.” And a helicopter pilot, he doesn’t say, even though that’s what he thought was the most interesting thing to learn about Tommy when he first sat down at the bar months ago.
“You better not be getting ideas, boy.”
“Of course not, he just does restorations, not trying to sell me on anything,” he replies. “I don’t even have a license anymore. What would I do with a vintage car? Still, nice to look at.”
Mom hums, and doesn’t say anything else. She turned off the AM when he got in, and an unsettling silence settles over them.
“You might’ve seen him a few times, I know he goes to the diner,” he says, tries to joke, “he’s a good tipper, I know you always remember those.”
She smiles. “Well, guess I’ll have to keep an eye out. Offer up a free cup on the house if I see him.”
Derek had told Tommy that his mom was expecting him, was going to pick him up so Derek couldn’t take him up on a ride home. He’d told Tommy that ever since his accident his mom had been like this, and he was fine with it, but she was a little protective and got suspicious of strangers who she thought might be trying to take her baby boy away. Tommy had stopped sucking a hickey into his chest and said, Just tell her I grew up in towns like this, was an army brat, stopping here reminds me of home.
“He said he grew up in places like this as an army brat. He’s a firefighter in LA now, so stopping by places like this helps with the homesickness.”
He can tell he’s worded it wrong, said the wrong thing when she says, tightly, “Lonely life, sounds like.”
A year ago dad sent him down to grab the twenty gauges out of the second vault down in the shed when he struggled to aim the twelve shooting pigeons. Underneath the butt of one was an old LAFD duffel and, curiosity getting the better of him, inside was a familiar, worn wallet full of credit cards and a California drivers license that expired in 2022, a passport stamped for Peru, both with a faded, younger version of himself smiling back at him. Buckley, Evan.
Mom had found him after he’d taken too long, and the look in her eyes sent ice up his spine, paralyzed him. It wasn’t until she reached out with shaky hands and gently took the bag from him with a soft, “Oh drat, that’s where those old things have been. Don’t, don’t you worry about this, okay?” that he knew he was safe.
“Yeah,” he says now, just as soft.
Mom rubs her jaw, looking behind them again in the mirror. “And that truck that was in the parking lot, was that his?”
“Guess so,” Derek replies.
When they get home, Derek watches mom greet dad where he’s waiting in his recliner with a kiss and a whisper in his ear. A sleepy memory of floodlights chasing him down a dark road sits up wide awake in his chest.
Derek slips into his room and takes out his phone.
I’m sorry but I have to lose this number.
Stay safe on the roads. If you see someone gaining on you, floor it.
