“So, what’s the plan for the body?” Mickey asked. He laid in bed, hands behind his head, staring at the water-stained ceiling. Through the curtainless window, the waning crescent moon highlighted the brown marks above him. Usually, the lunar light reminded Mickey of the time he viewed the Sea of Tranquility through his father’s telescope. He’d just turned six, and ever since, Mickey dreamed of jetting off and walking among the orb’s craters and jagged terrain. But he wasn’t thinking about the moon tonight.
“What do you mean? We talked about this,” Billy said over his shoulder.
Billy rested on his elbow, atop his twin bed, his back to Mickey. He held a flashlight that illuminated the perfect body of Miss November 1986. When he slept, Billy lay prone, head buried in his pillow, a respite from the down-and-out reality surrounding him. Moonbeams exposed their dilapidated dump of a house which depressed and angered Billy. He’d lay on his side during the darkness of a new moon when all he saw was the digital clock on their nightstand. But the cyclic revelation returned with crescent moons and the ceiling’s stains that reminded Billy of drip buckets when it rained. Half moons came next, casting light on the cracks in the walls from the home’s sinking foundation. Full moons maliciously unmasked the infinite crappiness of the hovel—Billy loathed full moons.
The boys wore flannel shirts because the gas was off, which meant no heat, no hot water. Their mom, June, said a pipe likely ruptured, and EnerGas would repair it soon. June hated lying to her boys, but she didn’t want them to fret. She refused to burden them with the stress of another missed EnerGas Indigent Assistance payment. June’s brother, Ronnie, cut the valve’s lock and restored their gas the last time she couldn’t pay the bill. But a deputy taped a citation to their door, along with a warning—the fine would double if they stole natural gas again.
“We agreed to paint it Cranberry Red with Tuxedo Black racing stripes, Mickey,” Billy said.
“Yeah, I know. It’s just. . .”
Billy sighed, closed the magazine, and turned off the flashlight. “What? What’s the matter, Mickey?”
“The car is primer gray, Billy,” Mickey said.
Billy shoved the magazine under his mattress. He’d revisit Miss November another night. Mickey was talking, and nothing would shut him up for another hour, minimum. “You can’t paint a car without priming it first. So, yeah, the car is gray.” Billy hoped the discussion was over, but he knew better.
“It’s been primer gray for months, Billy. Before that, the car was sun-damaged Astro Blue,” Mickey said, inflecting exasperation and hopelessness.
The boys’ father, Boone, bought the 1970 Chevelle the summer after Billy graduated high school. “We’ll work on it together. Then you’ll have a decent ride when you get a job at the quarry,” Boone told Billy after he backed the trailer hauling the Chevelle into their driveway. Three weeks later, Boone moved in with the other woman in Conroe.
When Boone abandoned their mom, the boys made a pact. They’d work on the Chevy together until the car was perfect. Every tightened bolt, welded frame mount, and coat of Tuxedo Black paint would be a “fuck you” to Boone Hill Dooney and everyone in town who called their family worthless.
Between Billy’s feedlot wages and Mickey’s pay from Tamarack’s Machine Shop, the brothers gave half their income to June. The government, and Uncle Ronnie, helped with the family’s food and healthcare. June appreciated her sons’ willingness to contribute but insisted they save fifty dollars a week to spend toward the Chevelle. Billy and Mickey invested in seat covers, a tachometer, chrome wheels, a rebuilt alternator, and a Holley carburetor. There were cheaper carbs available, but for a Chevelle, it was a Holley or nothing. The brothers spent all their extra dough on the car in the summer of ’84—the year Boone shacked up in the other woman’s doublewide.
The following summer Mickey caught a nasty cough from welding all day at Tamarack’s. Dr. Anderson said it was an allergic reaction to the metal-fusing vapors. He wrote Mickey prescriptions for an antihistamine and prednisone and exited the exam room before Mickey or June could ask a single question. Dr. Anderson wasn’t shy about his distaste for Medicaid. He told patients their exams would take no more than seven minutes—a minute more, Medicaid would bankrupt him.
Two weeks later, Mickey had pneumonia. Dr. Anderson—in six and a half minutes—prescribed penicillin and bedrest and shot off to the next patient. Mickey damn near died that summer, spent a month staring out his bedroom window and at the water-stained ceiling.
With the money Billy brought home—including any overtime he could pick up—he bought sandpaper, Bondo, and gray primer. Before Mickey went back to school, Billy added a fan belt and a new battery he found on sale at Walmart. Mickey was sixteen, and Billy was determined to do what Boone hadn’t—give Mickey a car.
The engine’s timing was off, creating a horrible sound that worsened when Billy removed the car’s rusted muffler. If it weren’t for Pete Simmons, the boys’ friend at the Gulf station, the car wouldn’t have passed the required state inspection. Two years after Boone fled, the brothers had worked hard, but the Chevelle wasn’t the vehicular validation they’d envisioned. Billy slung grain sacks at Russell’s Feed Store every day since he was fifteen. With breathing treatments, Mickey continued welding part-time after school. The Dooney boys were determined, but the Chevelle was still primer gray.
The first week of September, Mickey drove to Carthage High in the 1970 gray jalopy. In the trunk, Billy put two quarts of oil and a gallon of antifreeze. The engine’s seals were old, so the car burned and leaked oil, and one of the radiator hoses would likely crack—hopefully not burst—any day.
“Beautiful paint job, Loony Dooney,” Jaydon Reynolds said on the first day of classes. “What do you call that, Melancholy Gray?” Jaydon’s gel-stiffened hair bounced as he laughed. Four of his toadies laughed obligatory approval of Jaydon’s remark.
Mickey would’ve punched the boy’s lights out, but Jayden’s daddy was the richest man in Carthage. Wrecking the town’s golden boy would bring the sort of trouble the Dooney’s didn’t need. Jaydon, other classmates, even the town’s adults had needled and mocked Mickey since kindergarten. Relentless ridicule was considered the appropriate punishment of the impoverished, the parasites living off the work of others.
In October, the brothers replaced the radiator hose that did burst and added a muffler. Judge Binkman ordered the new muffler along with a forty-dollar fine for an illegal exhaust system. When Mickey drove the window-pane-rattling, primer car past the country club, he’d interrupted the judge’s golf game—thus, the ticket.
“Mickey, we don’t have heat. There’s a one in ten chance one of us will freeze to death tonight, but you’re busting my balls about your damn car,” Billy grumbled.
“Yeah. I guess I’m just tired of people making fun of me because I drive a primer car.”
Billy let out a long sigh. “What difference does a car make, Mickey?” he said. “When we go to the store, there’s orange stickers on our food, letting everyone know we’re on food stamps. When you wear your one collared shirt, it’s no secret that Jaydon’s mom left it at the charity thrift store a year ago. Our dad left us for a weekday stripper because he saw more of an upside in Cinnamon than Mom and us.” Billy shook his head. A tear tried to escape the corner of his eye, but Billy stopped it with his flannel sleeve. “That car is just one more example of how pathetic we are.”
There was silence for a moment, and Mickey looked out the window at the waning crescent moon. “I know I’m a dreamer, Billy,” he said. “But are we supposed to give up? Do you think there’s no chance we’ll have a better life someday?”
“Do you believe our odds of success are the same as Jaydon’s?” Billy asked.
Mickey hated when his brother responded to his questions with a question. Rather than argue, he answered. “Of course not. Some people are born with everything, but there are others worse off than us.”
Billy scoffed and turned his back to Mickey again.
“There are people worse off than us, Billy,” Mickey continued. “Most of the world lives in abject poverty, you know.”
“I’m not talking about the rest of the world, Mickey. I’m talking about our world,” Billy said.
“I know. I know we’ll never be treated like Jaydon. He won’t interview for his first job because daddy will give it to him over a fine dinner. Inside dusty modular buildings, our interviews are like interrogations, with jagoffs scrutinizing everything about us. Our frayed collars, yellow teeth, and underwhelming résumés label us like those damn orange stickers on our food,” Mickey said. He grabbed an empty soda can from the windowsill, crumpled it, and chucked it at Billy.
“What the hell?” Billy said and tossed the can back.
“Listen to me.”
“I am,” Billy said and turned onto his right side, facing Mickey.
“So, do we give up and accept our fates? Are you going to apply at the quarry because Boone said it’s your best opportunity to succeed?” Mickey asked.
“Hell no, I’ll never work there.”
“I’m not going to give up, Billy. I can’t live believing this is as good as life can be—a house without heat, eating government cheese, and a doctor that’ll treat anything he can in six and a half minutes, Mickey said.
Billy looked into his brother’s resolute eyes and said, “Mickey, I love you. I’ll support you no matter what. But I also have an obligation to. . .protect you.” Billy didn’t want to patronize Mickey, but the sixteen-year-old was stuck in the clouds. “I’m worried you’ll charge full speed into the world expecting a fancy college degree or that you’ll run GE. You’re passionate, which is good. But the countless rejections you’ll face could hurt a guy like you.”
“What do you mean a guy like me? You don’t think I’m tough enough to handle the real world?” Mickey said, an edge to his voice.
“I know you’re tough. We’re both hardened from this shitty hand we were dealt,” Billy said. He paused for a beat. “But when you and Jaydon pull into the same parking lot, he’ll drive a new Porsche 911. And you’ll be in the primer gray 1970 Chevelle. And that’s how the world sees y’all—a fine-tuned sports car and an ugly junker.”
Mickey breathed a laugh. “I didn’t know you were into metaphors, brother.”
“What’s a metaphor?”
“Play dumb with someone else. I know you too well,” Mickey replied. But, if I work hard and fix the car right—new engine, transmission, and paint—I might have a chance.”
“I hope you’re right, Mickey. I really do. But, no matter what, some people are always gonna see that gray primer,” Billy said. He rolled to his stomach and buried his face in his pillow.
Mickey gazed at the water-marked ceiling by the light of the waning crescent moon in the frigid bedroom. He imagined walking in his spacesuit over the powdered moonscape, all worries left on Earth—the nightly vision he’d had for years. That night, a distant sound on the soundless satellite altered Mickey’s fantasy, the cackle of Jaydon Reynolds.