Free Psychology and Other Stories by C. P. Boyko Page B

The sudden awareness of her own juvenility curdled her stomach.
    The man seemed not to have heard her. “What’s all your destination?”
    â€œThe city,” drawled Missy, tilting her head in the direction he’d come from.
    â€œWhich one?”
    â€œLoyola,” drawled Slim, eager to break into the conversation.
    â€œShitfire,” the man grinned. “Me too.”
    Before either girl could reply, he had ducked back inside the car and begun attacking the steering wheel. Through what appeared to be sheer strength alone, he managed to turn the car around and pull it across the highway—which luckily happened to be empty just then.
    â€œMeet me at the pumps,” he called to them through the cloud of black exhaust that the car belched into the air.
    The girls watched him leap out of the car and confer with the pump boy. He made several expansive gestures towards his vehicle, then hustled inside the filling station.
    â€œWell, there’s only one of him ,” said Slim tartly.
    â€œC’mon.”
    â€œYou’re crazy.”
    Missy looked around for her bag; remembering that it was already on its way to the city, she gave her look-around an air of sarcastic valediction, then launched herself towards the man’s car like a novice swimmer kicking off from the side of a pool.
    Slim chased after her. “But he lied! He was going in the opposite direction!”
    â€œHe’s going our way now,” she shrugged, but slowed her pace. “He probably turned back to get gas.” She stopped altogether and crossed her arms as though waiting for Slim, who was right beside her, to catch up. “I like his car ,” she said at last through an impenetrable fog of sarcasm.
    Slim looked at the car. It may have been a color once, but all the paintable surfaces had long ago been overrun by rust. There was a deep and complex dent near the back end which prevented the trunk from shutting properly. Over all of this—rust and dent and windows and tires—the entire vehicle was coated in a thin,even layer of dirt, like a rum ball that had been rolled in cocoa powder.
    â€œIt’s a hunk of junk,” Slim said. She noticed that the pump boy had come no nearer, but stood there still contemplating the car, or the vision of it that the man in the red T-shirt had conjured for him.
    Missy made the sort of sound that an heiress might make at the sight of squalor. “Would a rapist drive around in that hunk of junk?”
    Slim knew little of the automotive preferences of rapists, and doubted Missy knew more. But her question, as usual, was rhetorical, and did not admit much scope for reply. Slim responded with a sigh of expostulation, as if Missy had been twisting her words; but the argument was already lost.
    The man came out of the filling station and waved energetically, like someone in a crowd. He half strode, half jogged back to the car, clapped the pump boy (who had done nothing more than remove the squeegee from its bucket) on the back and pressed a coin into his palm. “Thanks, buster.” Then he threw open the car door and called to the girls, “Hop in, ladies!”
    â€œC’mon,” said Missy.
    Slim, to deny that she had been coerced, made sure to reach the car first.
    â€œThere’s a dog back here,” she said. The dog looked up at her without raising its knobby, triangular head from its paws. Slim thought she probably hated dogs.
    â€œThat’s Good Dog,” said the man from the front seat. “He’s a good dog.”
    Missy opened the front passenger door.
    â€œWhat’re you doing,” Slim hissed at her over the roof of the car.
    Missy made her eyes round and reproving, as if this were something they’d already discussed. “It’d be rude for us to both sit in back,” she whispered, and climbed in.
    The man started the car. Slim went around to the other side, where the seat was covered in books