Free Christine by Steven King Page A

don’t know how it would have ended—with Arnie in jail, maybe, his precious car impounded—but somehow I was able to get my own hand up and catch Ralph’s hand by the wrist. The two of them coming together made a flat smacking sound in the dusk.
    The porky little girl burst into whiny tears.
    The porky little boy sat astride his Big Wheel with his lower jaw hanging almost to his chest.
    Arnie, who had always scuttered past the smoking area at school like a hunted thing, never even flinched. He actually seemed to want it to happen.
    Ralph whirled on me, his eyes bulging with fury.
    â€œAll right, you little shit,” he said. “You first.”
    I held onto his hand, straining. “Come on, man,” I said in a low voice. “The tire’s in my trunk. Give us five minutes to change it and get out of your face. Please.”
    Little by little the pressure of holding his hand back slacked off. He glanced at his kids, the little girl snivelling, the little boy wide-eyed, and that seemed to decide him.
    â€œFive minutes,” he agreed. He looked at Arnie. “You’re just goddam lucky I ain’t calling the police on you. That thing’s uninspected and it ain’t got no tags, either.”
    I waited for Arnie to say something else inflammatory and send the game into extra innings, but maybe he hadn’t forgotten everything he knew about discretion.
    â€œThank you,” he said. “I’m sorry if I got hot under the collar.”
    Ralph grunted and tucked his shirt back into his pants with savage little jabs. He looked over at his kids again. “Get in the house!” he roared. “What you doing out here? You want me to put a bang-shang-a-lang on you?”
    Oh God, what an onomatopoeic family, I thought. For Christ’s sake don’t put a bang-shang-a-lang on them, Pops—they might make poopy-kaka in their pants.
    The kids fled to their mother, leaving their Big Wheels behind.
    â€œFive minutes,” he repeated, looking at us balefully. And later tonight, when he was hoisting a few with the boys, he would be able to tell them how he had done his part to hold the line against the drugs-and-sex generation. Yessir, boys, I told em to get that fucking junk away from my house before I put a bang-shang-a-lang on them. And you want to believe they moved like their feet was on fire and their asses were catching. And then he would light up a Lucky. Or a Camel.
    We put Arnie’s jack under the bumper. Arnie hadn’t pumped the lever more than three times when the jack snapped in two. It made a dusty sound when it went, and rust puffed up. Arnie looked at me, his eyes at once humble and stricken.
    â€œNever mind,” I said. “We’ll use mine.”
    It was twilight now, starting to get dark. My heart was still beating too fast and my mouth was sour from the confrontation with the Big Cheese of 119 Basin Drive.
    â€œI’m sorry, Dennis,” he said in a low voice. “I won’t get you involved with any of this again.”
    â€œForget it. Let’s just get the tire on.”
    We used my jack to get the Plymouth up (for several horrible seconds I thought the rear bumper was just going to rip off in a screech of decaying metal) and pulled the dead tire. We got the new one on, tightened the lug-nuts some, and then let it down. It was a great relief to have the car standing on the street again; the way that rotted bumper bent up under the jack had scared me.
    â€œThere,” Arnie said, clapping the ancient, dented hubcap back on over the lug-nuts.
    I stood looking at the Plymouth, and the feeling I’d had in LeBay’s garage suddenly recurred. It was looking at the fresh new Firestone on the rear right that did it. The blackwall still had one of the manufacturer’s stickers on it and the bright yellow chalk-marks from the gas-jockey’s hurried wheel-balancing.
    I shivered a little—but to convey the sudden