I'm Evan Myers. I'm a college freshman.
When this summer ended a man walked up to me in a parking lot and said if he ever saw me again he was going to take a crowbar and break my legs and then crush my balls one by one with a hammer. There's two of them so the `one by one' part made it sound worse.
I blame my mom for the whole thing.
I had taken a year off after graduating high school. I managed to make it until Christmas before my mom said I had to get a job since I "couldn't keep sleeping until noon every day."
My father was dead and as such had no opinion.
She took to waking me up early and she even once said my room smelled. It's the kind of thing that could stick with you if you ever went nuts later on in life. Standing before the judge--trying to excuse myself for the serial killings. "Your honor, my mommy said I smelled."
I got a job at a box factory. A box factory is a factory where they make frigging cardboard boxes. It's ALL they do. I decided I better have a job so I wouldn't be smelly.
I found out I was working with only men. I guess a box factory isn't a place for women or, they being generally so much smarter than men, they are not stupid enough to come to a place that makes boxes.
I had to work in the industrial part of town. I got up at 6am to be there on time. I started going into this nearby diner whose only reason for existence was to feed all the men who worked in the industrial section of town.
At first, I went there because it was the only place I could smoke without freezing. Missoula, Montana is cold in January and no one was allowed to commit the unpardonable sin of smoking in the box factory.
I soon went for another reason. There was a waitress there and I loved to watch her. She always had this shine on her skin. It could have come from the heat of the grill but I preferred to think of it as a natural glow--like the kind you see in movies when some girl has just had sex and you think she might burst into song.
The fact that I would have to spend the rest of the day surrounded by ugly, stinking men did nothing but enhance her appeal. She had dark hair and I could tell that when it wasn't scrunched up over her head that it would be long and curly. She didn't wear much make-up--just a little bit of lipstick and some stuff on her cheeks. I don't know what it's called. I don't know about womany things like make-up and whatever. Anyway, I didn't care if this girl was older than me, I liked looking at her.
I never did find out how old exactly. Twenty-seven maybe.
After I had been coming there a few weeks she would stop in the morning and have a cigarette with me. One morning, she just sort of threw herself into the chair opposite me. It happened so fast. It was like having a bird land on your head.
"You look wide awake," she said.
"My name is Evan Myers," I said. Whenever I'm stuck for something to say I usually say this.
"Hi, Evan Myers." She put her cigarette in her mouth and sort of raised her eyebrows at me.
"You look like Cher," I said. It was true.
She twisted her neck to one side and blew smoke over the left side of my head, "I do NOT!" But I could tell she liked what I'd said.
"You do," I reaffirmed. "Since the first time I came in here I thought you did."
"Is that why you were looking at me all the time?" she challenged. She was testing me. She probably thought I was going to spontaneously combust because I'd be so thrilled that she was talking to me.
I met her head on. "No, I was looking at you because you're gorgeous."
This surprised her, I could tell. She did that funny thing with her face that people do when someone has said something they weren't expecting--like the face you would make if a squirrel suddenly talked back.
She took a long drag on her cigarette. "You're a charmer. Do you work around here?" she asked.
"Yeah," I said, leaning back on my stool to show her how relaxed I was. "I just started this month at the box factory." Then I added just so she would know I was not a moron, "I'm saving for college."
She had both elbows on the table and she was leaning into them so that her arms made an upside down V. Her head was sitting on the point of the V in a cloud of smoke. She was looking right at my eyes. I was making a real effort to only look at her eyes. I read in Details magazine where girls liked it when you talked to their head and not their breasts.
"I'll go to college." I said. "But I'm not a boy. What's your name?" I knew her name. I saw it on her nametag. It was Lorraine. But I asked anyway.
She tapped at a nametag that indeed said `LORRAINE'. It gave me a chance to lean forward and look at her chest.
"I never see you eat," she said.
"I come in to smoke. I can't smoke where I work."
"If you come back at lunch I can slip you something from the grill. No one will know."
"Yeah," she smiled and crushed out her cigarette. "Our secret."
I could tell that she liked this--the idea of a `secret'. I bundled into my coat and felt like winking at her but decided against it at the last second. I had already half-winked though so I squinted like I had an eyelash in there. I damn near died when she took a step towards me. I must have flinched a bit cause she said, "Hold still, silly," and put her finger up to the corner of my eye and made to wipe something away. "That's got it," she said. She smoothed her apron and went back to refilling coffee cups.
I realized that I was still standing there with my coat on just looking back at her. She had come so close to me that I got a whiff of her perfume. I can't describe it but it was mixed with a greasy bacon smell. Let's call it Springtime Strawberry Pork Sausage.
After that I started coming into the diner not only in the morning but at lunch breaks and after work as well. Lorraine always found a way to give me something off the grill and I never had to pay for it. She said it was `cause she thought I should save my money for college.
"Someday you're going to be rich and then you can pay me back," she'd say. She started leaning in closer to me whenever she said anything. I liked it.
"You big liar," she'd coo. "You'll go off to college and forget all about this place."
This made me laugh. I liked Missoula. I wasn't going anywhere. "I'm going to the University of Montana right here. It would be hard to forget about you from a half-mile away." I thought I should add something about how I wouldn't forget her anyway. So I did.
When I came in after work, Lorraine always had lots of time. I never saw a boss. I only saw her and a couple other waitresses who were nothing to look at--the kind who, when they bring your food, you keep staring down at the plate. Oh, and there was a cook too. He looked sort of like the guy in the movies who when you see him in the beginning you just know he's the bad one. I bet he's been in prison.
She wore a wedding ring but she almost never mentioned her husband except to roll her eyes. I'd say things to her like, "I bet he loves coming home to you at night." You know, real horrible phony stuff like that.
This wasn't all I said to her. I would just throw these things in every once in a while to make sure she kept coming over to talk to me. It was like feeding a cat. A cat always comes back to where it knows it can get food and women are like cats.
I'm an optimist. I know this because all the tests I took in high school told me so. I could have told them that if anyone would have bothered to ask me. I always try to look on the bright side.
"I thought I'd be famous and traveling all over the world by now," she'd say.
"My kids take up all my time."
"Your husband should be helping you with the kids!"
After saying things like that, I'd get a big smile from her and she would reach across the table and touch my arm.
Sometime in early April, it was raining like hell and I came in all soaked and sexy. I find people who are wet to be sexy so I assume everyone feels this way. This brought out the mother in her and she patted my face and neck with a towel. If I had known this was going to happen I would have hosed myself every frigging day before coming in there.
Turned out that the rain was a godsend because she let me stay past closing time.
"It'll let up soon. You can't go out in this rain."
I loved this because it made me feel like I had been invited into some inner circle.
With her not having to hop up every few minutes it was a chance for us to get into an intense conversation. You know, the conversations you have when you're drunk or trying to get laid.
"Tell me about your husband," I asked. I wasn't interested one goddamn bit in her husband.
"You don't want to talk about him?"
"I married him. He's my husband. That's that."
She blew a smoke ring. The rain poured down.
"I was young," she started. "We were both young."
I waited for more but apparently in her mind this explained everything.
I wanted to push further. I wanted her to say something she couldn't take back.
Put both hands behind my head and stretch.
"Then you never did," I said. I like to provoke.
"How could you know anything about love? I forget you're just a kid."
"I don't fall in love," I said.
She hesitated. Finally, she bit her lip, "Bob."
God that's reason enough not to love him. "Why don't you love Bob?"
"But you said it so you must have meant it."
She blew smoke in my face. My eyes watered. "Nice," I said.
"You really do have beautiful eyes, you know. It was the first thing I noticed about you," she said. "Your eyes are older than a kid's eyes."
"I'm sure that a girl your age might think so."
She got up to look out the window behind me. I think she got up so she could move to my side of the table. "I think you're lonely," she said.
I didn't like the sound of that. "What do you mean?"
"It's nothing," she said. She must have seen my nose crinkle up `cause she added, "Don't worry."
She was still standing with her arms crossed looking out the window. The rain showed no signs of letting up. I stood up next to her. If I had the guts, I would have wrapped my arms around her waist and buried my face in her neck. Yeah, right.
Lorraine turned from the window and said she was going to drive me home.
We huddled under a newspaper and ran to her car. I saw this big puddle in front of us and I had an almost uncontrollable urge to jump with both feet hard into it and splash her. It would have been my way of saying I liked her a lot. I didn't do it though and I think it was probably a good call on my part. I have instincts about these things. My name is Evan Myers and I have instincts.
I watched the streets slip by from the window of her Toyota. They looked different when it was raining. It was like living in two cities really--a dry one and a wet one. I preferred the wet one.
"No." I glanced at her from the corner of my eye. She still had on her `LORRAINE' nametag. I would have given anything to have that. "Here, pull over at the 7-11. This is close enough."
She pulled up to the convenience store.
I already had the door open and my legs swinging out. I leaned back into the car, "Thanks for the lift."
I stood in the rain and watched her drive off. I bought a pack of smokes and walked home. With my hands buried deep in my pockets and my ballcap pulled low I imagined I might have looked suspicious. Everyone knew me though. My name is Evan Myers and I've lived in that same house my whole life.
As summer approached, it became clear to me that I didn't want to ever work in a box factory again as long as I lived. It was the same thing over and over--an endless pile of cardboard. Lorraine's job was like mine. She filled and refilled coffee cups, she grabbed plates as they came off the grill--ORDER UP!--and she did it all day long.
An afternoon in July I was sipping a lemonade after work. With the hot weather and a factory that had little ventilation you ended your shift looking like you had gone swimming in your clothes. I suppose you were expected to shower but the locker rooms were vermin-ridden, disgusting places where I was not going to be naked thank you very much.
Lorraine sat down and curled up her nose, "Evan, dear boy, you really need a shower."
"Hmm, well there's no showers there."
How does she know that? "How do you know that?"
"You've never met him." She said it as a fact.
"Maybe I have without knowing it," I said.
"I'm having a party tonight for a few friends," she leaned forward in that upside down V again. "Maybe you want to come?"
"You mean at your place? With Bob?" Now why the hell would I say that?
"No, Bob's away in Dillon this week."
"And you decided to have a party while he's gone?"
"That's the best time to have a party--when Bob's away."
She pointed at my T-shirt which had dried but was still sweat-stained. "It's a hot tub party and you look like you need to be in a tub."
Damn, I didn't just fall out of the turnip truck. "Of course," I said. "I love them!" It was true--I did love them and I had been in one before when I went with my mom to a meeting she had in Coeur D'Alene when I was fifteen. They were great!
Lorraine laughed, "Okay, don't forget your bathing suit." She was getting up to leave. She leaned over and whispered, "It wouldn't bother me if you forgot!"
I damn near had a stroke until she cuffed me on the side of the head and said, "Kidding!"
"I'll pick you up at the 7-11," she said.
"I'll make a beer run and swing by and get you at the same time."
"Um, I don't suppose if I gave you some money..."
"Yes," she said as if agreeing to an assassination. "I'll buy beer for you."
"Thanks!" Wahooo! My name is Evan Myers and I have a married woman who will buy beer for me! Fuck you, Montana!
I showered as soon as I got home--three times. Bathing suit meant almost naked. What would I look like? I put on my bathing suit and checked myself out in the mirror. I tried to stand sideways and look out the corner of my eye at myself so I would get a better idea of what I would look like to someone else who was looking at me. It never really worked. All I was doing was hurting my damn neck.
Lorraine picked me up in her car. We bought the beer and went up to her place.
Lorraine and Bob had a townhouse which was small and seemed even smaller with about twenty people in it. Almost everyone knew who I was and I didn't know how the hell that happened but no one was surprised to see me. The hot-tub was in the back yard.
Summer nights in Montana are long. It wasn't dark yet and I didn't feel like stripping down with everyone watching me. I figured another two or three beers and I would be feeling plenty comfortable so I spent most of the early night playing video games in the den. No one seemed to wonder where I was.
When people started coming into the house wrapped in towels, I figured the hot-tub would be less crowded so I walked out there again. Lorraine was wearing a black one-piece and there were six others in there with her. There was some drunken encouragement so I pulled off my shirt and shorts and threw them in a pile next to the towels. Lorraine immediately scooted over to make room and I stepped in beside her.
"Evan, how do you like the factory?" some hairy guy with a beard asked me.
It looked like he expected me to recognize him. "Do I know you?" I asked using my beer can as a pointer.
He snorted, "I've only seen you every day for the past six months."
"No problem," he kind of growled. I don't get along well with men. They don't like me and I'm kind of afraid of them. All that hair and everything. You know.
I lucked out and got the spot where the water jets out. Lorraine and the others were talking about people I didn't know. It seemed that I was like a rubber duck. I was cute to have around but I wasn't expected to say anything. I put my head back and just enjoyed the babble, the alcohol and the warm water.
My hand brushed up against Lorraine's leg. I kept my index finger on her thigh and moved it back and forth. I was counting on the fact that there were witnesses in the hot-tub to let me get away with it without her killing me.
One by one, people started going inside. This was fine with me. Lorraine moved her hand onto my leg. If I had been sober I probably would have died right there I swear to God.
She stopped and said, "I'm going to dry off in the kitchen."
By now there was only one other guy and girl in the hot-tub and they made to get out too. I guess the prospect of being alone with the rubber duck was too much for them.
Lorraine still hadn't moved to get out and her finger was still on my leg underneath the bathing suit. "Where are you going?" I said but it came out more like a croak.
The three of them got out. I put my head back and looked at the moon. I remembered looking up at it when I was little and imagining that I could see people walking around. My mom told me that if I looked hard enough I just might be the first person to see a space alien. She kept me busy for hours looking for things like that.
With my head back I started to feel the tiniest bit dizzy so I closed my eyes. The next thing I knew I felt the water lap up against my chest from the ripples of someone getting back in the tub. With my luck it was going to be the hairy guy.
But it was Lorraine. She was sitting opposite me. She put her leg straight out so that it rested against my chest. I grabbed a hold of her foot and ran my hand along her calf and back down again. As I brought my hand to her foot I kind of pulled her leg so she almost lost her balance. This set both of us to giggling.
I put my legs out and she sat on them. I bounced her up and down the way you did a child in the swimming pool. My arms were around her and I didn't know what to say. I did know I wanted to kiss her.
I leaned towards her and put my mouth next to her ear. "You are much prettier than Cher."
I moved my head ever so slightly in her direction. It was my `kissing move'. I used it to see if it was alright to kiss a girl. If she moved back then it wasn't.
I don't know how long we kissed for but it had at least relieved the need for conversation. I got the impression that she would have been just as happy had I been a deaf-mute.
I kissed her neck and brought my hand to her breast. I moved up to her straps and was taking it down when a voice came from about fifteen yards away in the darkness. It was a man's voice. "Lorraine!"
It was the hairy guy from the loading dock.
He walked out of the darkness and to the deck of the hot-tub. He wasn't even looking at me. "Lorraine, come in now. Party's over."
"Doug," she said. "This is none of your business. Go inside and have a drink."
Hairy Doug looked at me then and it wasn't a friendly look. "Evan," he said. "It's time you went home."
Ordinarily, I would have done whatever a large man with a John Deere cap wanted. However, I had alcohol and a throbbing erection to give me a fool's courage. "Lorraine doesn't want me to go."
It took Doug a while to speak again. Finally, he pointed his finger at Lorraine and spoke quietly, "Bob's my friend and I'm not going to keep quiet. Not this time, Lorraine." With that he went back towards the patio doors. I wondered what other times he was talking about. He called out to me again, "Evan, you get your ass in here."
I giggled, "My ass is fine where it is."
I heard the patio door slide shut. Lorraine put my hand back on the strap of her bathing suit and helped me bring one down and then another. Her breasts pressed up against my chest and I slid the rest of the suit off as she wiggled to help me. She brought her hands down to the waistband of mine and slipped it off. Everything felt so different under the water. We started kissing again and this time she sat on my lap with her legs on either side of my waist. I just moved my hips around a bit hoping to strike gold but she had to reach down and guide me in.
She was saying, "Baby," ever so softly. I wasn't certain where she ended and I began because the hot water swirling around threw off my normal sense of that. My neck and back arched upwards so that I was looking at the moon as I came inside her. At that moment, I probably did see a space alien. I was in heaven.
I went to say something but she put her finger to my lips and shushed me. That was fine with me `cause I am sure that whatever I would have said would have been moronic.
We eventually got back into our bathing suits and went into the house with one towel wrapped around both of us. There was no one left from the party except Lorraine's sister who was sitting at the kitchen table smoking.
I used the bathroom and could only hear snippets of their conversation. I heard Doug's name mentioned and Bob's too. I came out of the bathroom. I wasn't sure if I was going home or not?
I didn't have to wonder long, "You can sleep here tonight," Lorraine said.
Something was a bit different in the morning once I was showered and it was time to take me home. Maybe it was just the hangover. We didn't talk much in the car on the way to the 7-11 and I was just anxious to be back in my own room where I could think about all this. When we pulled into the store parking lot she said, "Don't worry about Doug."
I got out of the car and she pulled away without looking back. I reached into my pocket and thumbed the hard piece of rectangular plastic that I had put there in the middle of the night. I pulled it out and looked at her name tag --'LORRAINE'.
Two days later I was leaving the factory after my shift.
I was criss-crossing the parking lot when I heard a door slam and saw someone get out of a truck. Doug walked quickly towards me and I resisted the urge to run. He walked me towards his truck with his arm around me. I was panicking and figured he was going to take me for a ride and then shoot me. I already imagined myself on the news. Before we got to his truck, he stopped me and turned me around so that I was looking into the bed of it.
There were some tools scattered around. He whispered in my ear, "If I see you again I'm going to break both your legs with that crowbar. Then I'm going to take the hammer and crush your balls one by one."
"Do we understand each other?"
"Yes." I was shaking like a leaf and felt I was going to be sick.
"You're not coming into work anymore, are you?"
"Yes. I'm going to go home now." My name is Evan Myers and I never wanted to leave my bedroom again.
What the hell had I done to deserve this?
I had to go back into work to pick up my last pay and to turn in my gear. I figured I was safe though since I only had to go into the upstairs office and not the factory floor. Besides, my mother was with me and nothing bad can happen to you when you are with your mother. The secretary handed me an envelope and wished me luck at college.
As I turned to leave a man called out, "One minute."
He came towards me and I could clearly see `BOB' on his nametag. I was glad my mom was with me.
"You forgot this," he said and handed me a bag.
"Good luck at school," he said.
"You're going to University of Montana, right?"
"Staying here in Missoula, huh?"
"Ah good. We'll always know where to find you then."
I looked at the floor the whole time he was talking to me. I didn't bother looking in the bag `cause I had a pretty good idea of what was in it already. I got a lecture in the car on the way home from my mom about being more personable.
When I went up to my bedroom at home I pulled my bathing suit out from the bag and threw it in the corner.
So, you can see how it was all my mom's fault. If it wasn't for her making me go to work none of this would have happened. I managed to forgive her by the time school started in September. I suppose some of it might have been my fault as well. I learned a lesson, that's for sure.
There is a coffee shop across the bridge from the U of M campus. It's in a Best Western right on the banks of the river. I like to go there between classes. I feel claustrophobic in the dorms. The room is so small. I could stand in the doorway and spit and hit the far wall. That's just an expression by the way. I don't actually spit in my room. My name is Evan Myers and I am not a pig. Plus, I can't smoke in the dorms.
I usually bring a book to read between classes. The waitresses are all getting to know me. There's this one who I think is really fine. Today, she sits down across from me when she brings me my coffee. She looked about the same age as Lorraine and I immediately notice her wedding ring.
"Hi," she says. "You're getting to be a regular."
"My name is Evan Myers," I answer. "Has anyone ever told you that you look like Cher?"
"Get out!" she giggles and taps my forearm. "I don't!" But I can tell she likes what I said.
I play it cool. "What's your name?" I ask, ignoring her nametag.
"Julie," she answers. She scoots the chair closer to the table--closer to me.
She starts asking me questions about school--the kind of getting to know you questions that are so lame but necessary. I'm not really paying attention. I watch her lips move and wonder if she has a hottub and if her husband ever goes on trips to Dillon.
My name is Evan Myers and I think Missoula can give me all the heaven I want.
Photo: Anne Lies