Orange Soda

Abstract

Orange Soda Leo Coffey (bio) Dan is fifteen and almost a foot taller than me. Even though I'm only six years younger, he thinks it's funny to call me a kid. Our daddies cut grass together, so in the summer we spend a lot of time with each other. We like to shoot BB guns at the neighbor's cats and swim in the creek behind my house. Sometimes we sneak into my daddy's closet [End Page 69] and hold the real heavy guns while we look in the mirror, but I always get nervous doing that. I think because my grandpa once told me about how he watched a man get his head blown clean off in Vietnam. I never could get the image of that man's neck spewing blood like a fountain out of my head. Sometimes when it storms, I dream about that man walking up behind me. I never fail to wake up just before I turn around, but I always know that it is him. It is one of those hot summer days in Ellenboro, North Carolina, like strip your clothes off as soon as you walk out the door hot. There seems to be no end in sight to our friendship as Dan and I make our way down US-74 on foot. We don't talk much; we just walk with our T-shirts pulled up over our heads to let some air onto our skin. My belly button pokes out like a budded flower. When we make it to the KwikStop, the parking lot is empty minus an old white Honda Accord parked by the air pump. I can hear The Lake playing a tribute to Whitney Houston from the speakers, the soft tune of her asking, "Where do broken hearts go? Can they find their way home?" She died earlier this week, and everybody's momma was torn up about it. I sit outside on the bench to the left of the door while Dan goes inside. Dan wants to get a soda before we walk to his house a half-mile further. He doesn't tell me that he doesn't have any money. There are piles of ash sitting along the bench and I lean down and blow them off one at a time, watching the wind redeposit every particle onto the asphalt. After a few minutes, the door creaks open and Dan walks out. He sits down next to me and lifts his shirt to reveal a bulged can shoved deep into his pants pocket. He cracks open the aluminum and takes a long sip like he hasn't ever had anything to drink in his life. His nose scrunches up as the [End Page 70] liquid tunnels down his throat. He swallows hard and takes a deep breath to make room in his mouth for words. "Damn! That's good shit," he says. He places the can on the pavement by his feet and removes a Snickers from his pocket. Sweat falls like shadows on the floor from the black hair that curtains his forehead. He devours the candy bar in a few bites and tosses the wrapper over his shoulder. It falls to the ground like a leaf. "You ever stolen anything, Clint?" Dan asks. I say no. "Why not? Think you're too good for it?" I say no. He takes a blade out of his pocket with his free hand and unfolds my fingers to place its metal weight into mine. My eyes grow wide with surprise. "I want you to go in there and steal something. Anything you want. And if that lady behind the counter says anything, you flash her this knife," he says. I say I can't do that. I tell him it's wrong. "What's more wrong-going hungry and dying of thirst? Or stealing?" I say nothing. "Fine. Well, you ain't having none of my orange soda, and you can turn around and go on home, too." It is hot as piss outside. I can feel myself growing more fatigued the longer we sit in the heat. I don't want to...