Vision Quest by Terry Davis Read Free Book Online

history. Beyond my great-grandparents on Dad’s side who came to the Columbia from Oklahoma Territory, I don’t know anything about my family. I ask, but nobody seems to know where anybody came from.
    I’m looking into the darkness and feeling Carlaincredibly warm beside me. It’s very quiet. I think about that day on the river and wonder what was really said and thought out there in the middle of all that mud.
    It’s five thirty and time to “rise and shine,” as Dad says when he can get up before I do. I feel good and ready to get moving. There’s plenty to do. I’ve got to hide in the shrubs and scare Damon Thuringer’s little brother, who delivers our paper, and I’ve got to run my three miles.

VII
    â€œWe may have a guest for breakfast one of these mornings,” Dad forewarns us from the door on his way to work.
    â€œHmmmm?” I look over at Carla.
    â€œHmmmm?” She looks back.
    For the past few weeks Dad has been staying out pretty late on nights off. Except Monday. On Mondays we watch pro football on TV.
    We woke up to lots of snow. I couldn’t scare little Thuringer this morning. I knew he’d see my tracks wherever I hid. We sit at the kitchen table and I mention to Carla that we’d better wax the DeSoto tonight. They’ll be salting the roads.
    â€œWhat do you mean ‘we’?” she asks. “Have you got an oozling in your pocket?”
    An oozling? I think to myself. What the hell’s an oozling? Carla is forever making up animals. The oozling is a new one.
    â€œOkay,” I say indignantly. “I’ll wax it myself.”
    â€œI’ll wax the DeSoto,” Carla says. “I was teasing. You’ve got to work , you’ve got to run , you’ve got to study , and you’ve got to sleep . I’ll wax the DeSoto,” she says. “And you’ve got tomake love to me. You said it burns up two hundred calories.”
    â€œIt’s the truth,” I say.
    â€œHow do you like my new animal?” She beams.
    â€œFine,” I reply. “An oozling sounds like a nice animal.”
    Before we leave I fetch the space heater from the upstairs closet and carry it out to the garage so Carla won’t have to look for it tonight.
    On the way to school I promise we’ll take a picnic out to Seven Mile to see the deer.
    *  *  *
    Carla didn’t take to me right away. She did, however, take to Austin Tower, a Spokane Community College basketball player from New York.
    She got a job right off at the New Pioneer, a health food store downtown. That’s how she met Belle, who was her first Spokane girl friend. They soon arranged things so they could work the same hours.
    Although I prefer the night shift so I can prowl around after work, sometimes in summer I get stuck on days. Some days I’d look out a Main Avenue window after I’d delivered somebody’s lunch and see Carla’s blue hat with the white polka dots bouncing down the street, her long rusty hair frizzing in curls beneath it like a bizarre noontime sunset.
    In late July a higher hat joined her. It was brown leather and floppy-brimmed and belonged to Austin Tower.
    Carla and I talked very little last summer. I think she took me for an archgoon. God knows I have my goonish aspects.I’m not what any truly discerning female would consider good-looking either. I wear my hair pretty short now, so I’m in trouble in the plumage department. I tried growing it long for two years. It grew straight out on the sides and curly on top. My head looked like a floral model of a geodesic dome. My junior year in physics the kids called me “Bucky Head.” I retain my pissy-assed little mustache. A guy as generally hairy as I am should be able to grow hair on his upper lip, but I can’t. I covet Kuch’s hair—ponytailed or braided.
    Anyway, Carla and I didn’t talk very much back then. She was not