Monster Jam

"You’re out of time”

Jason looked for the voice that had seemingly just called to him from across the street, instead only finding the funeral home’s chipped and faded sign dwarfed in front of the Orlando Citrus Bowl, the stadium hanging over the blue horizon like a storm cloud at the beach. He could already hear the monster trucks. Warmup revs ricocheting off the old concrete and shaking through chipped cement sidewalks. Nobody was there.

He returned to the shadows hanging under the funeral home’s eaves, and his sweat cooled against his skin. Sliding a miniature plastic bag out of his wallet, Jason stabbed his car keys into the bag, dug into its corners, and snorted the last of his coke. The high wouldn’t be too intense; he had drunk enough to keep the worst of it at bay. This was equilibrium. Around the corner, the twangy thump of Lynyrd Skynyrd and pop country competed with a steady hum of milling voices. Jason licked the bag, and its cocaine residue numbed his tongue. The tailgate wasn’t missing him. Looking back to the sea of still parking lots out front, a lifeless concrete expanse greeted his stare, lonely blades of grass snaking through the gaps and shaking in the heat. Prickling ice sloshed in his gut, and he texted his guy to re-up.

The tailgate’s noise crackled against his face. It had gotten too big, too many other high schools finding out about his spot. A throng of bodies, recognized and strange, playacted as trash around plastic tables and trucks, donning cutoffs and jeans with Dale Earnhardt hats. They had always gone to Monster Jam, and the guys at the funeral home let them park in the back for cheap, silently sitting in lawn chairs as their long wisps of smoke rose like the heat nesting in their hair, old, spindly, and dark bodies shifting as they spoke amongst themselves, mouthing soundless words under the music.

“What did your mom want?”

Cole, stupid looking and short, grinned up at Jason. He wore a cutoff Alabama football shirt even though he was a Florida State fan.

“Nothing. Where’s everybody at?”

“Shotgunning. You want in?

“Sure.”

In a circle in the shade of a Chevy Silverado, they huddled over horizontal Coors cans, stabbing holes in their sides before raising them to their mouths and downing the beers in seconds. Jason repressed a burp as his football friends fought over the cooler, and his eyes focused on Chloe and Leah. Chloe went to his high school, enjoyed a pretty, round face below dark, dyed hair, and was madly in love with Jason. Leah, long, tanned skin surrounding wide eyes and lips, went to a different school but still hung around with Chloe. Jason thought Leah looked better. A buzz vibrated in his pocket.

“What time are we going in?” Cole asked.

Jason looked at his phone. $300 for a fresh ball. Could be there in an hour. He sent the Venmo.

“I don’t know. Maybe an hour?”

Shadows lengthened across the dirt and grass, music twanged off trucks, and Jason hunched over his phone, staring at the three dots bubbling on its screen, never actualizing into a text, a confirmation, from his guy, Kegan. Heat prickled behind his ears. The cocaine only paddled in his brain.

“We want to go in sooner,” Leah said.

Chloe hovered behind her shoulders. Jason’s eyes shot up from his phone.

“Why?”

“Because it’s fun. Monster trucks. Loud noises. Old people spitting dip in the bleachers. That’s why we’re here, right?”

“Well, the tailgate is fun, too,” Chloe said.

Jason smiled at them even though he hated them. He hated everyone at the tailgate, all uniquely uninteresting, brains running on instinct and static. They talked about people not things. Wasted breath and wasted time. That said, Leah looked good. Jason opened his mouth, yet something in the distance, cresting over the Chevys and chain-link fences breaking through the brush behind the tailgate, lurched his heart into his throat. Deeply shadowed and still, a figure stood in a vacant lot under the shade of sagging Spanish moss, unclear in the distance and sun. Like a standing silhouette. A rare, cold breeze washed through the trees, and the figure straightened its back as if to greet it, stepping closer as the tailgate’s sounds fell to a droning buzz and the air took on the taste of drying paint. The figure cupped gray palms around a black mouth.

“You’re out of time.”

Ice crashed against Jason’s neck, his knees locking as his body convulsed. Flailing around, he saw Cole pulling back a beer can with a toothy grin.

“What were you staring at?”

Rubbing the back of his neck, still damp and cool from the beer can, Jason looked towards the lots behind them. Each sat empty, flat, and vacant. He snatched the can from Cole and drank half of it, the ice shards sticking to its sides melting against his fingers. His heartbeat slowed. He turned to Leah.

“Why didn’t anyone else from Edgewater come today?”

“Nobody else was invited.”

“And you were?”

A surprised laugh gasped between her teeth. She smiled, and the hairs on Jason’s arms grazed her skin. Chloe emerged from out of Jason’s peripherals.

“I invited her!”

He nodded and drank the rest of his beer.

The sun wavered in the sky, and playlists lulled before restarting, familiar tracks returning to the top. Silver beer cans piled like discarded pyramids. Someone found a whiskey bottle, and Kegan hadn’t texted back.

Jason pulled from the bottle, his stomach jumping when the liquor landed, and knew he was losing them. They wanted to go in. Most of the tailgate had left, leaving only a ghost town of overturned tables and locked trucks, sweat drying against shirts as the sun sunk lower under the stadium. Ahead of them, engines rattled and sung as Leah and Cole fidgeted towards the sounds.

“Let’s do a drinking game. Just for a bit. Then we’ll go in.”

“I can already hear the monster trucks,” Cole said.

“No you fucking can’t.”

Flip cup. It was simple enough. They split across a plastic table in groups of three, Jason making sure to be aligned with Leah at the rear, and filled a quarter of their red solos with warm, foamy beer. Chloe asked Jason to remind her of the rules, and he ignored her, trash talking Leah with a smile. She returned his glare, light shimmering through the trees in a blurred, auburn glaze.

They played, Jason pulling from the whiskey bottle in between games, and the others twitched towards the stadium as the light turned orange and shadows joined across the grass, their necks following the purr of engines and crashes, towards the lights splaying above the Citrus Bowl. Monster Jam had started, and Kegan hadn’t texted back.

“One more game,” Jason said, “Then we go in.”

“You’re just going to keep losing,” Leah said.

Her hair dangled over a small pond of beer foam.

“I want to see the trucks,” Cole said.

“It just started. You know they don’t bring out the monster trucks until later.”

They settled into their spots, palms hovering over dented cups. It began. Chloe and Cole were up. One flip. Two flips. Three. Their cups synchronized in the air, spiraling and shining in the dying sunlight. Jason’s fingers danced against his drink. The cups landed upside down. Perfect.

Jason shot the beer to his lips and funneled it into his stomach. He set the cup down and positioned it at the edge of the table. Leah was still drinking. He glanced up at her and saw it.

Just past Leah’s shoulder, deep in the funeral home’s shadows, stood the figure. It stared at Jason. Pale skin gleamed from the darkness, and a red smile crept across its face. Jason straightened, his cup dropping to the dirt, as all sound distorted and flattened, filtering through his ears like he sat at the bottom of a pool. The figure flickered in the shadows. It walked towards Jason, spindly legs crossing into the sinking sunlight.

“Jason? Are you ok?”

He snapped his head towards Chloe.

“What?”

Her eyes widened as she stepped back. Jason turned back to the funeral home. The old men still smoked and sat, and nothing stood among its shadows. Leah flipped her cup and it rattled upside down over spilled beer. She shrugged her shoulders with a smile.

Everybody wanted to go in. Jason pocketed two beers for the walk over, the echo of engines emptying across the parking lot. He walked with stiff shoulders, a heat flaring in his forehead, not talking to anyone. Not even Leah. The heavy sensation of being watched prickled against his neck, and he heard a voice calling after him, the muffled words reverbing somewhere below the pitch of his friend’s laughter, but the beer quieted it. The parking lot spun him towards the stadium.

Jason thought of his first time. In the passenger seat of Kegan’s car, the night so black in the backwoods, impenetrable and unmoving behind the glass. He nestled a drink in his lap. The car rattled, and a small handle above the window knocked against the roof. The air smelt like weed and piss and liquor. Kegan mentioned towards the center console, and Jason lifted it up, a low, warm light revealing miniature plastic bags of cocaine and a revolver. Some sort of Smith & Wesson. Jason’s dad had never taught him about guns. Kegan told him to try it, so he grabbed both, emptying the coarse, rocky powder into his palm as he held the revolver in his other hand. A gasoline stench shimmied through the SUV. He leaned down and snorted what he could. Jason shot back into his seat. His face numbed and his ears rang. Sweat leaked down his forehead as the coke dripped down his throat, and his heart awoke, a teeming, pulsing energy grinding through him. The car was so small. It was always too small. Kegan laughed, and Jason rolled down the window, humid air battering inside. He needed to get out, to leave, to go back in time and prevent himself from ever feeling this way. Then, it passed. His overexcited heart settled into a manic rhythm, panic morphing into something else. Euphoria. The gun twitched in Jason’s palm. He fired into the trees. Kegan sped up, and Jason shot the blackness outside, music thumping in his eardrums while a dazzling, frantic delectation erupted through his body.

The noise was deafening inside the stadium. It blasted off the concrete and skidded through mounds of bodies, ripped denim and cotton scratching past sweat. Jason pushed forward, the group laughing and lagging behind him. They climbed to the top of the stadium, to the nosebleeds, with fresh beers. The massive monster trucks, all painted with flames or skulls or lightning bolts, raced around barricades and flew off dirt ramps, their whining engines reaching a crescendo as they straightened in the air before violently returning to the dirt, their axles buckling, and they crashed into the smaller cars, the dented beaters, the forgotten ones left to be rusted and ruined.

A voice snuck through the crashing metal and screaming crowd. It told Jason he was out of time. Jason forced his eyes to the trucks as his knuckles whitened around his phone. The voice whispered in his ear. He decided to get another drink.

“I’ll go with you,” Chloe said.

Leah joined them, the two girls following him through the mass of sweat and beer to the concourse, the air smelling like hotdog water, and they stood in line. Chloe left for the bathroom.

“You good?” Leah asked.

“Yeah. Just needed another drink. Good to get away from everybody.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, those idiots. I can’t stand them sometimes.”

Leah opened and closed her mouth.

“How much have you had to drink today?”

Jason ignored her. He placed his hand on her lower back, bony and damp, the skin warm underneath her shirt.

“I’ve been waiting all day to just spend some time with you.”

She shrugged his hand off.

“Just order the beers, Jason.”

Nobody said anything more. Jason bought the beers and gulped his down, the past few minutes already a distant memory, faded and unreal. Chloe sauntered over to them, and Leah left for the bathroom, leaving the two leaning against the harsh wall, the uneven concrete cutting into their shirts.

“This has been a really fun day,” Chloe said.

Jason looked down at her. His bare shoulder grazed hers. He leaned down.

“Yeah. It has been.”

He kissed her and tasted the surprise that gasped from her gut. Jason pulled her close, both hands on her hips, and they locked against the wall as the monster truck’s roars rebounded through the stadium and trembled the concourse’s columns. She pulled away, meeting his eyes and smiling, her mouth opening before Jason returned his lips to hers, silencing her against the shaking wall. A buzz vibrated in his pocket, and Jason pulled back.

“Jason. I didn’t know—”

“Hold on.”

It was a text. From Kegan. He was here. In the parking lot right by the funeral home. Jason stepped towards the stairs and felt Chloe’s hand against his arm.

“Sorry. I’ve got to make a phone call. It’s my mom.”

He left her, trudging down the staircase, looking back only once. Jason saw Leah standing in the middle of the concourse. She stared back with bored eyes.

The air was cool and still in the parking lot, half-lit lamps zapping in miniature circles. Jason shivered in his sleeveless shirt, the area around him empty, the white-lit stadium drinking all energy and noise. A black SUV noiselessly rolled through the parking lot with its headlights off. It stopped in front of him. He couldn’t see through the windows.

“Yo Kegan. You there?”

An electric whine emanated through the empty space, and the windows rolled down. A black figure sat behind the wheel. Indecipherable. The passenger door floated open, and Jason stepped inside, goosebumps shivering against a cold leather seat. The SUV glided through the parking lot, and the windows rolled up, the night darkening against the windshield. They picked up speed. The seat rattled. The shadowed figure leaned over.

“You’re out of time.”

It opened its mouth. A white beam of light poured through Jason, and his heart cracked against his chest. Tears welled in his eyes, but they wouldn’t fall. The figure laughed, and Jason shook as fire burned through his veins.