No Excuses-Final, Final Draft (I think)

“He called me a tramp!” I sobbed into the payphone.

“Who?” Tony asked.

“My dad.”

“Oh, Ronnie.” He paused and then asked, “Where are you?”

“At a convenience store near his house. I don’t know what to do. I can’t go home,” I hiccupped over another sob. “I just need to talk.”

“We can’t talk about this over the phone. Can you drive?”

“I think so,” I answered.

“Okay….Meet me at that gas station near Carowinds, the Exxon just off I-77. I can be there in about thirty minutes. Ronnie?”

“Yes?”

“Be careful.”

Hanging up the phone, I stumbled into my ’68 primer-gray Nova, wiped my eyes on a Hardee’s napkin, and started the car.

I wasn’t sure why I needed to see Tony, my boyfriend of almost a year. I just knew that I did. Our relationship, though the longest one I’d had to date, had been rocky. We had started dating the previous fall at East Carolina University. On the five-hour car rides back home for semester breaks, we had gotten to know each other, but something we saw in each other scared us both. We broke up. We got back together. How could I know that tonight would change the way I looked at our past and our future.

After driving for half an hour over inky back roads, I pulled into the parking lot of the all-night convenience store. Tony was waiting, propped against his blue, Volkswagen bug, one leg casually crossed over the other. He was dressed in his customary summer uniform of old cut off jeans and a tee shirt with the sleeves ripped out. The most expensive part of his ensemble were his black Sambas with the three white diagonal stripes on the sides. After years of playing soccer with his older brothers and high school team, he went nowhere without those shoes.

I pulled over and parked beside him in a corner of the parking lot beneath the bright, buzzing fluorescent lights. Not bothering to slide my feet back into my flip-flops, I reached for the cool metal door handle and stepped barefoot out onto the pavement still warm from the sun even though the sun had been gone from the July sky for over an hour.

I had stopped crying by now, but a fresh spate of tears welled up and spilled down my sunburned cheeks at the sight of him. He actually came. I called and he came.

The acrid odors of tar and gasoline grew fainter the closer I got to Tony. His unique summer smell of sweat, Speed Stick, and spicy cologne reached me just as he stretched out his arms. The tender look in his eyes said he wasn’t as afraid of our future as he had been. Neither was I. I stepped into his arms and blinked back the tears.

“Hey,” I mumbled.

“You want to talk about it?”

“He called me a tramp. We were fussing about that woman he’s dating, and Daddy said she was every bit as good as I am.”

“You mean Odine, the one he was messing with while he was married to your mom?”

“Yeah, her. He compared me to her! Can you believe that? And he said Mama was no better than her either. My mama is a saint!” More angry than hurt now, I started crying again. “That’s when I left and called you.”

“He’s wrong.”

I nodded against the hardened muscles of his shoulder. The freshly washed cotton of his tee-shirt soaked up the last of my tears.

“You do know he’s wrong about you, right?”

“I guess.”

“You guess? No, listen, he’s wrong. What kind of dad says that about his own kid?”

“A drunk one.”

“That’s no excuse and you know it.”

As we stood there, leaning against the hot metal fender and cars and strangers streamed in and out of the parking lot around us, I started to relax. I tuned into the lull of the cicadas in the tall grass as I tuned out the hum of the big trucks on the highway. I no longer heard the rowdy shouts of good old boys stopping to fill up on gas and beer. Daddy’s voice, too, grew fainter as Tony’s heartbeat filled my ears.

Looking down at me, he grinned and asked, “You want a Coke?”

“No. A Sun-Drop would be good, though.” I smiled back for the first time that night.

He sauntered back in his slightly bow-legged gait, cold drinks in hand. Our relationship had changed. He was the first man who had ever loved me for me. When I really needed him most, he was there. No questions. No excuses. He still is.