I told my friends I was supposed to meet with a teacher and went back inside and hid in the bathroom—I figured if I waited long enough he’d leave. The janitor ran me out of there so I wouldn’t interfere with his drinking. I killed some time walking the halls, then fooling at my locker. Finally the assistant principal who was locking up made me leave.
He was still outside. It was deserted now. He smiled and waved.
"Thought that was you I saw," he said. "Figured I’d wait."
I nodded. I didn’t know what to say.
"I hear you’re getting ready to be a high school graduate," he said.
I nodded again.
"That’s real good." He cocked his head, looking at me and smiling. "Your grandma don’t mind your hair being that long?"
"She hasn’t said anything."
"First time I came in with a duck tail she chased me with the scissors." He took a pack of cigarettes from his inside coat pocket and rapped it on his knee and a single cigarette jumped halfway out, and if he hadn’t been my father that would’ve been cool as hell.
He wanted to go get a hamburger. The inside of the Lincoln smelled like a strip club at six AM. The radio was missing. I reminded him how to get to McKenna’s, a place that had curb service. After we got our drinks he poured part of his Coke out the window and filled it back up from a pint of bourbon he pulled from under the seat. He offered me the bottle but I shook my head.
"Don’t drink?" he asked.
I shrugged.
He nodded. "Don’t seem to talk, either."
After seven years that crawled all over me. I turned away and stared out my window.