Dion laughed.
"Whattaya say?"
"I don't know."
"You're not gonna pussy out on us, are you?"
Dion thought for a moment. The phrase cruising around carried connotations of passed bottles and passed joints in dark car backseats, images which made him extremely uncomfortable. On the other hand, he didn't want to alienate the only friend he'd made here so far. He looked at the long-haired kid leaning against the hood of the Mustang, and turned back toward Kevin. "Where're you going to go?"
"We're going to have some fun with Father Ralph."
"Who's Father Ralph?"
"Episcopal priest," Kevin said.
The long-haired kid grinned. "My dad."
Dion shook his head. "I'd like to, but I already- have some plans. Maybe next time."
Kevin looked at him. "What plans do you have? Sitting at home with your mom? Come on, it'll be fun."
Dion felt his options narrowing. "What are we going to do?"
"You'll see when we get there," the long-haired kid said.
"Paul always likes to keep it a secret," Kevin explained, "retain the element of surprise. But I guarantee you it'll be great."
"It's not illegal, is it?"
"Fuck it," Paul said. "This guy's a pussy. Let's leave him."
"No." Kevin moved defensively next to Dion. "I go, he goes."
"That's okay--" Dion began.
"No, it's not. You want to sit with your momma and watch the damn TV
while we're harassing Father Ralph and looking for bimbos?"
Yes, Dion wanted to answer, but he said, "No."
"Fine." Kevin nodded to Paul. "We'll meet you at eight at Burgertime."
Paul shrugged his shoulders, smiling indulgently. "See you there, then."
Paul got into the Mustang, racing his engine, and Dion and Kevin walked across the parking lot toward Kevin's Toyota. "He's kind of a wang sometimes," Kevin said apologetically, "but overall he's all right. You get used to him."
"You guys hang out together a lot?"
"Not as much as we used to."
"So why does he hate his dad so much?"
"He doesn't hate him. It's just ... well, it's a long story." They reached the car, and Kevin used his key to open the door. "We'll go by your place, tell your mom the plan, then we'll cruise by my house."
"Okay," Dion said. "Sounds good."
"Unless you want to skip telling your mom, give her a little scare, pay her back, let her wait up for you this time."
"I'd like to, but I'd better not."
"It's your call," Kevin said.
The two of them got into the car, and Kevin put his key in the ignition.
"Fasten your safety belts."
Before Dion could comply, they were off.
Kevin's room was the type usually seen only in movies. The walls were decorated with what looked like authentic posters of old horror films sandwiched in between an amazing collection of metal signs: stop signs, street names, yield signs, Coke signs. From the ceiling hung a lit display advertising 7-Up.
The shelves above the king size waterbed contained row after row of records. In the corner, next to the free-standing television, was a working traffic signal, flashing green-yellow-red in sequential order, and next to that stood an old life-size cardboard cutout of Bartles and Jaymes. Dion stood in the doorway, taking it all in. "Wow," he said.
Kevin grinned. "Pretty cool, huh?"
Dion stepped into the room. "Where'd you get all this?"
"Around."
"Did you--?"
"Steal it? No. My uncle did, though. Some of it. He used to work for the transportation department in San Francisco, but they fired his ass.
Before he left, he took a few souvenirs." Kevin laughed, pointing toward the stoplight. "I don't know how he got that one."
"This is great!"
"Yeah." Kevin scooped a pile of coins from the top of the dresser into his hand and grabbed a small wad of bills. "Come on, let's hit the road."
"I thought we weren't going to meet him until eight."
"Yeah, but I don't want to hang around here all night. We'll find something to do. Let's go."
They ended up simply driving around aimlessly. Dion asked where Penelope's winery was, and Kevin took him down a narrow road which ran along the edge of the foothills just outside of town. He stopped the car for a moment, pointed at a large white wrought iron gate.
"Beaver-chomping territory beyond. them there walls."
Dion tried to see something, anything, on the other side of the gate as they passed, but the daylight was gone, no lights were on, and whatever buildings lay within the property blended in with the foliage and the black background hills.
They drove by twice more, but saw nothing either time.
"Give it up," Kevin said. "No one's home. Besides, we'd better move out.
Paul's probably waiting."
Burgertime was straight out of American Graffiti, a chrome and tile drive-in complete with uniformed carhops. Paul was indeed waiting, and three other guys Dion did not recognize were sitting next to him on the hood of the Mustang. Paul grinned as the two of them got out of Kevin's.
car. "Well, if it isn't the famous butt brothers."
Kevin flipped him off. "Knick knack paddywack, give your mom a boner."
Paul laughed, pushing himself off the car. "Well, we're all here now.
You ready to hit the pavement?"
"Yeah," Kevin said.
"All right. We'd better take two vehicles this time." He looked purposefully at Dion. "It's getting crowded."
"We'll follow you," Kevin said, either ignoring or not noticing the slight.
"See you there."
The two cars raced quickly through the Napa streets, slowing to the legal limit only at known speed traps, those intersections where the city's men in blue consistently sat in wait to nab unsuspecting motorists. The buildings changed from commercial to residential, the garish glow of signs giving way to the low illumination of lighted living room windows. The houses became spaced farther apart, the roads more winding, as rural tendrils encroached onto city space. Finally the Mustang pulled to a stop just before a huge oak tree whose massive leafy branches overhung the pavement.
Paul and his friends got out of the car, Paul carrying a brown grocery bag.
Dion and Kevin met them halfway between the two vehicles.
"Hope you all wore shitty clothes," Paul said. "This is going to involve some dirty work." He gestured toward a two-story Victorian house on the other side of the oak. "My old man's camped out in the living room in the back of the house, and we're going to have to circle around through the trees and bushes to get to the window:"
The rest of them nodded in understanding.
"Let's make this quick." Paul disappeared into the blackness beneath the tree, and the other four followed. The night topography was confusing to Dion, but Paul obviously knew the way, moving swiftly between trees, around seemingly identical bushes, until suddenly the back of the house was before them.
They crouched low between the branches of an oleander. Behind the translucent curtains covering a large double window, backed by the flickering blue glow of a television, they could see the indistinct shadow of a stiff backed man.
"What exactly are we going to do?" Dion whispered.
"You'll see." Paul grinned. "Come on." He crept forward through the underbrush. The rest of them fell in behind him until they were just below the window. Putting a finger to his lips to shush them, Paul opened the sack. Inside was the object he had spent half of his afternoon working on.
A huge clay penis.
It was hard for Dion not to laugh as Paul placed the gigantic phallus on the windowsill. Grinning, Paul looked from one face to another. "Get ready to roll," he whispered.
Dion's heart was pounding in his chest. He had no idea what Paul was doing, and he was more than a little nervous. Still, he could not help laughing as he looked at the object, silhouetted against the inside light.