Free Ride Around Shining by Chris Leslie-Hynan Page A

the phone down into the door cavity, I bounced it off the child locks to set them.
    Turning off Grand, an Escalade pulled up alongside us at the light. It was the universal model, black with chrome rims of restrained ostentation. I didn’t recognize the car from the players’ garage, but in our whitewashed city every driver of an Escalade seems a baller, and I tried to make out who was inside through the tint.
    The car stayed with us to the red on Seventh, and then the passenger door popped for a second and someone spat out onto the roadbed. I got a glimpse of tan work boots. Until then, it might have just been some housewife on an ice cream run. I had a sudden sure feeling of where they were headed. Though they’d cleaned up their public image, the team still went to the club. It was the lifestyle league wide, you couldn’t buck it any more than you could drive a Camry or work at an electronics store in the off-season. “Only people don’t go to the club are the serious Christians and Doug Christie types,” Calyph had said once. “And me, if A ask you.”
    I tried to think of who might be driving. Oden could only be in the backseat, slouched, unsure, coming along for the camaraderie. Roy was too much the face of the team, sitting his firstborn on his lap during press conferences. He could be shotgun. They could be his tan boots, so bright and clean they could move through any room without taint. It was probably some modest old veteran leading the expedition. Maybe it was just Steve Blake, skinny and white as me. I wondered what Antonia would do, seeing someone who knew her. We’d have to duck out or join them.
    I supposed they’d be the sort to know how to carry themselves. I could see their faces, sure and easy, demonstrating how to be supreme club clientele. I could see them being offered a private room, and waving it off—it wasn’t that kind of night. They would turn away the Cristal and the status cognac and order all manner of odd drinks, and I could see us among them, in a palatable sort of experience. There might even be a brotherhood to it, as with Calyph on those rare times. “You don’t need to tip fives,” I saw Greg saying, like a guy in an instructional video that helps the beginners. “Just be consistent!”
    â€œIt’s there on the left,” she said, as we went by the club. I’d slowed a little, but only just. I saw the road in front of us, empty and wide, and then I saw the Escalade turn into the club lot behind us.
    â€œYes, ma’am,” I said, and let the life of wild possibilities leak away yet again, and turned to park in the tree-shaded dark.
    By the time we got in line, whoever was in the Cadillac was already inside. Antonia had brought a thin hoodie and slipped it over her shoulders. As soon as she had it on, she put up a tough face to go with it. It wasn’t such a bad look—with her gleaming knees and the thin crepe of her dress’s fringe beneath, she looked like one of those mythical halfsy-halfsy creatures. I wished I could pull her hood up, so the image would be complete.
    When we got to the bouncer, the atmosphere of the place came at us in its smoke and din. These were the years before the smoking ban, and the air was so thick it was like a community effort. The only element of the place not stained by smoke was the liquor itself, and everyone was diving down after that purity. I watched the bouncer run a thick finger around inside Antonia’s tiny bag.
    I saw her to a table and excused myself—for the bathroom, I said. I headed for the back stage, hoping to see familiar figures towering over the rail, their jewelry aglitz in the black light. Coming around the corner I could see there wasn’t any flash like that. The stage was empty, and beneath it I saw a guy in a leather jacket and tan boots at a table with his friends. Something had gone wrong with them. I could see the dull skin of