Free Probation by Tom Mendicino Page A

called my reaction a swoon. And, just like when he was a senior and I was a lowly sophomore, Randy T’s eyes skimmed right over me, looking over the day’s orders, barely registering my existence.
    Randy T was one of the old man’s trophies. Still famous throughout Gastonia, the Big Man on Campus, in fact, had never been that big. He was graceful and agile as they come, had an arm like a rocket, and was an inspiration for an avalanche of four-syllable adjectives and inspirational inanities from sentimental sportswriters as far away as Wilmington. His perfectly proportioned frame was a canvas of solid muscle. He had a face that, decades after graduation, would still bring a sigh when middle-aged women stumbled upon a high school yearbook packed in a box in the attic. He was a god descended from Olympus—all five feet seven inches of him.
    Randy T had never made it beyond the first semester at the state teacher’s college in the northwest corner of the state, the only place that had recruited him. The old man plucked him up and dropped him into an apprenticeship. The fact Randy T had real aptitude for the work was a bonus. The other technicians had to wear navy cotton duck Nocera Heat and Air work uniforms. Randy T had the old man’s blessing to hit the trucks in a white wifebeater and jeans.
    Randy T was into being mellow that summer. Maybe it was a reaction to the profound humiliation he’d suffered when he came home early one afternoon to find his bride of seven weeks buck naked in bed with his best man. More likely it was the prodigious amounts of marijuana he smoked. When the old man told Randy T to look after me, he shrugged his shoulders and said cool. He offered me one of his unfiltered Old Golds and said let’s hit the road, coffee and bear claws five miles ahead.
    Much to my surprise, on our third day together, Randy T asked if I wanted to hang out after work. He wanted me to hear the killer new Cheap Trick album; we could order in a pizza or maybe Mexican. I thought Randy T must have the life. Buddies to laugh at his stories, to roll his joints, to toss him another beer, to worship him. But long after midnight, when we were ripped on his homegrown pot and staring at some stupid shit on the television, I realized his phone hadn’t rung all night. Randy T must have been lonely, nothing but his two toaster ovens, a coffee percolator, and a huge Mediterranean television/hi-fi console—his share of the wedding booty—to keep him company. Randy T was off chicks for the time being; he didn’t even want to talk about them. He still loved his wife and wouldn’t file for divorce. He was saving to buy a leather sofa to lure her back home.
    Randy T and I stayed stoned the entire summer, watching television with the sound off and the stereo cranked, sharing his bong, falling asleep on his floor. I’d show up at home every few days to drop off my laundry and raid the kitchen for leftover lasagna and chocolate cake to take back to Randy T’s. My mother fretted a bit about my random comings and goings, but the old man was thrilled I’d been taken under the wing of his young protégé and encouraged my newfound independence. He didn’t care if I was out all night as long as Randy T delivered my sorry ass to work by eight o’clock every morning.
    Randy T lived for rock and roll and hit the big arena shows when he could, but the closest big city was Charlotte and, back then, it was still just a puckered asshole on the South Carolina border. So every few months Randy T would head north to the university towns in the Triangle or to Richmond or, for the right band, all the way to D.C. itself. Which is where RFK Stadium was and where the Stones were playing the second week of August. But I was only eighteen, and as much as my father loved Randy T, hanging with him in Gastonia was one thing, the District of Columbia another. Randy T and I dug that the old man might not trust him to chaperon me in a city that was ninety