Rebel at Spruce High

Hoyt calls out at me from across the road. “The heck you doin’ out here, Toby-Tobes?”

Oh, Lord. “Enjoying the air,” I answer dryly, then look away.

A moment passes. “You need a ride or somethin’ …?”

He’s the last person I would’ve wanted spontaneously pulling up in front of me in my current state. I’m already ready for him to drive away and leave me be. Can I just disappear into the curb like an old, fading coat of paint? Can Hoyt just go away, please?

“Well?” Hoyt slaps the wheel. “Wanna get outta here or not?”

The answer is so obvious. “Yeah, I do.”

19 | TOBY

The wind dances through my hair as I ride in the passenger’s seat of Hoyt’s truck. He takes us down a farm road, steering one-handed, his left arm hanging out the window. My mind has gone from being totally numb to having a literal identity crisis. Who am I? How in a million years did I end up accepting a ride from Hoyt Nowak? Why would I ever willingly subject myself to this?

“So you ready to talk yet?”

Oh, right. Hoyt has a mouth and can annoy me by using it and stuff. “Where are we headed?”

“I’m drivin’ around in circles … if you haven’t noticed. Killing time. See that big oak? We’ve passed it four times now.”

“Oh.” I sigh and shake my head. “It isn’t worth talking about.”

“Problems with you and lover boy?”

We are not going to talk about Vann. “Hoyt—”

“It’s not him? Fine, fine, fine.” He chuckles in that mocking, cocky way of his. “So you got a bad score at the arcade? Is that it? By the way, did’ja just come from painting a house or somethin’?”

I nearly forgot all the paint stains. “Just from … painting.”

“So is that the problem? You got the painter blues? Or did you sniff too much and get high? Oh, was it your job, maybe? Did you finally get fired from Biggie’s for jizzing in the sauce?”

Yeah, this was a mistake. “Ugh. I change my mind. Pull over.”

“Fine, fine … I’ll just shut up and keep drivin’ around aimlessly wasting my gas ‘til you tell me where to go. Jeez, you’re touchy.”

We drive in silence awhile longer. He makes a turn, and soon, we’re passing by a farmland I think belongs to some relative of the Strongs—an uncle, if I remember correctly—which means we’re on the outskirts of Spruce. I could ask him to drop me off at Kelsey’s, but then I remember the whole putting-out-the-Kings thing. My mind wanders back to the argument I had with Carl and all the ugly things we said to each other, causing my heart to break again. I find myself touching my wrist, wincing as I notice how sore it is.

“Look, Toby-Tobes, obviously you’ve got somethin’ going on,” Hoyt reasons, “and don’t want to talk about it. That’s fine. But now that I’ve dropped G-Man off at the movies for his evening shift, I was just gonna head home and chill.” He slows as he comes to the next intersection, then eyes me. “When I got somethin’ going on and don’t wanna talk about it, I find just going someplace, chillin’, and doing-everything-but-thinkin’-about-it helps. So … either I go drop you off at your house to do that, or … we go to mine.”

I sigh. “Well, I’m sure as hell not going back to my house.”

“Alright. Mine it is, then.” He makes a turn, and down the road we go, diving back into town.

He lives in the other suburb that’s just outside the town, right down the road from where I believe Reverend Arnold lives. As he pulls to a stop, I find myself in front of a messy yard. He parks by the curb, since his driveway is a narrow thing already occupied by a beat-up three-decade-old car. I follow Hoyt across the lawn, hop over a hose, skirt around a tire, and finally make it to the door. His house is small, and the inside is shockingly cluttered. Something smells like it’s burning, which turns out to be his mother cooking in the kitchen. “Hey, booger,” she calls out. I don’t get a look at her, and Hoyt doesn’t take me to see her. He just calls back, “Hey, Mom. Goin’ to my room,” and leads me down a short hall to his bedroom. It’s like night and day from the rest of his cluttered house; with the exception of some dumbbells and a weight bench in the corner, his room is downright tidy. He’s got a small TV by the window, which he turns on as he drops onto the edge of his bed. After a second, he eyes me over a shoulder. “Settle in, Tobes. Drop your backpack wherever. Let your mind go away.” When he starts flipping through channels, I take a seat on his weight bench and drop my backpack to the ground, then stare at the TV where Hoyt has finally settled on a sports channel. Football. Surprise.