The Speed Queen Read Online Free

over and looked down at me. I tried to smile.
    "She'll be all right," she said.
    At dinner, I fell asleep in my chair. My dad said I just fell right off it. At the hospital the doctor said I had a fractured skull.
    On the way home I sat between them in the front seat. My dad was too upset to drive, and my mom kept reaching over me to stroke the back of his neck.
    "It's just a hairline," she said. "Phil, she'll be fine."

5
    My mom didn't think anything about Lamont. When I met him, I was living with two of my girlfriends in a bungalow behind the library in Edmond — Garlyn and Joy. This was after Rico and me broke up. My mom wasn't talking to me for a lot of reasons I'll get into later.

    Garlyn and Joy made a place for me. We were all drinking and going through a lot of jobs. But the place was clean, that was one thing we were careful about. Most of our furniture was plants because Joy had a talent for it. We'd all get up around noon and zombie around the house, cleaning up in slow motion. Garlyn had a crate of old blues records and we'd get stoned and eat cereal on the couch and listen to Lightnin' Hopkins and Sonny and Brownie.
    It's funny, half the songs were these guys in prison for murder. They'd be hooting and hollering stuff like / done killed my woman / don't you know she done me wrong. They weren't sorry exactly, more like they'd learned something from it, like they wouldn't make the same mistake again. We'd make up our own verses. / done paid that electric bill /I done paid it yesterday. Joy would sing into a beer bottle like it was a microphone and do Janis Joplin or put on a pair of shades for John Belushi. She could do all these dead people. We respected people like that, who'd killed themselves having a big time. We were like them except we weren't famous yet, or dead.
    That was the best part of the day then, before we had to get ready for work. We'd sit there drinking and singing until someone said, "It's that time." That might be a good place for some wind—when we leave the house in our uniforms. We all had to wear one. Joy worked the drive-in window at Taco Mayo; Garlyn had just moved to Crockett's Smoke House. I'd been at the Conoco only a month or so, and I knew that wasn't going to last because I'd already started stealing.
    I'd steal cartons of Marlboros and sixes of 3.2 beer. In the beginning it was mostly for myself. Later when I knew I was going to quit, I'd fill up a trash bag and toss it in the dumpster for Lamont to pick up. Another thing I took was gum. We always had lots of gum —Bubble Yum, Bubblicious, Wrigley's, Care Free. I'd bring it home in my purse. It was good because I felt like I was doing my part for the house. We all needed it, especially on the job.
    That's how Lamont got to know me; he'd take me home after my shift. The first time he offered I knew he was going to because he'd cruised through the lot twice. He came in around ten to eleven and parked by the air pump. By then I'd finished my bottle and I was feeling all right. At home I had another pint in the freezer, hidden in a box of frozen peas. It was a good time of the night.
    He waited until Alister Fred Fred, the graveyard guy, came in. You'd love Mister Fred Fred, he's a whole book in himself. They hired him as part of this outpatient placement thing the state was doing. He was basically nuts. He had this notebook he was filling up with scientific formulas to prove something about the planets. He showed me the diagram once. All the planets were lined up right in line with Oklahoma City — really with Mister Fred Fred. In a circle in a corner there was a smaller diagram showing this lightning bolt going through his head. He was trying to prove the planets were doing something to him, that they were against him somehow. I don't know what he thought anyone was going to do about it if he actually proved it.
    I gave Alister Fred Fred his name. Really he gave it to himself, I was just there when he did it. This counselor guy