Cheap Thrills, Mostly
Rangeman is discrete. It is a seven story high almost secret that you wouldn't even know the name of if you didn't take the time to notice the small brass plate by the main door that reads: RANGEMAN in neat block letters. This place is about as simple as the man who runs it.
The bat cave resides on the top most floor where Ranger does whatever it is super heroes do in their spare time; the two floors below that house employee apartments; every other level downward from that is committed to scoping out the bad guys with a sort of—what I consider—high tech security operation. Meaning, the company primarily services clients in need of advanced level protection. I guess that sometimes includes my mom, too.
The parking garage attached to the building houses cars that only come in sleek black. They're hot, perhaps in more ways than one. Ranger runs his operations with secrets and questionable morals.
Ranger meets us in the garage, angling every foot of his hard toned body in front of the elevator door like a wall of dark steel, but far warmer. "Yo," he says.
"Yo, yourself," my mom says, and then they both look at me like most adults do when they want to talk about something they don't want you hearing.
I scuff my shoes against the ground, stuffing my hands in the shallow pockets of my shorts, "I'm not a child," I tell them, dragging off, lost like the years that separate me from true adulthood. I know that I am—a child that is—we all are. Sometimes when my parents fight they still tell each other they're acting like children; though, I don't see how that's such a bad thing all the time.
Ranger appraises me in the careful way that isn't meant to be noticed, but I can still feel his look in the heat of my cheeks, the same way I know when someone is talking about me across the classroom at the high school. "Well, you're certainly old enough to drive." He tells me.
"I hate to ask," my mom says. She could fill the small parking lot of the Quick-Mart with each car that has met a fatal end in her hands. Mom is usually vague when talking about her past escapades but once, over dinner, my dad had told me about the car that was smoked out with a rocket launcher. I'd spilled my soda laughing so hard, and it was hell to clean up but not, I expect, nearly as messy as the vehicular explosion.
Though, no matter the ambiguity of the past, I've had my fair share of first hand encounters with the unkind. Once, my mom and I were picking up a cake from the store for Dad's birthday. A feral FTA, meaning failure to appear, that my mom had been chasing around town for days ran up to the car, stripped his pants off, stuffed them in the gas tank of the car, and then proceeded to light the ratty denim on fire. "Who's the liar liar now?" he had asked. I think, technically, it had still been him since it had been his pants on fire.
Anyways, Mom had done a flying leap into me and sent the cake in my hands skidding across the pavement, opposite the direction of our own bodies. By the time the fire department made it to the scene the FTA was gone and the cake looked more gravel flavored than chocolate, the words melted away so that they said something far less welcoming than 'Happy Birthday'. That year we'd eaten ice cream for desert instead.
"You didn't," Ranger tells my mom, winking at me as he tosses over the keys.
I grin, clicking the button and following the sound of the car beeping unlocked. It's a black jeep, sturdy, and I have to hoist myself up to get into the driver's side, sliding the leather seat forward almost all the way. "Don't worry," I tell him, rolling the window down, "I wont let her add another one to the list."
I think I almost see him smiling in the side-view mirror as I drive away.
Cherry calls me later that day. She asks if I'm going to the party. I want to ask if she's crazy; though, I'm sure I already know the answer, so all I say is no.
"Come on," she goads me, her words folding together into one, "you can pick me up and we'll go together."
I shake my head, but I know she can't see me so I make an indignant sound for good measure. "I don't have a car," I tell her. "What about yours?"
"Daddy needs it for business," she draws out the last word like business entails more than I could understand, more than she bothers to herself, "and Emily said she saw you driving in this shiny new jeep just under an hour ago."
"Emily who?" I ask, eyeing the car in question through the window of my mom's apartment. We have a perfect view of the back half of the lot, which comes in handy for scoping out potential serial killers lurking in the shadows, which, admittedly, happens more often than it should.
"Bartinelli," she sounds smug, "Emily Bartinelli."
"Bartinelli?" I scoff, "she can't see for shit. No, Bartinelli wears prescription level eye glasses, sits at the front of the room, and still can't take notes down right." I know this because I sat beside Emily in math last year and the one day I was sick I had to borrow her notes. I ended up failing that unit test.
"She has great facial recognition skills," Cherry tells me.
"Are you drunk?" I ask, rubbing at my temple.
"No!"
I pick Cherry up two hours later. The sun has gone down, bleeding out across the sky, and then falling away to black; clouds tumble in from the shore, full of salt water and smog, and I can feel the weight of the storm drawing down upon my hair, hairspray and all.
Cherry's house is a stand-alone brick building with high windows and a gated entrance. A dusty stretch of road leads up to the cast iron wall, shadowy in the night. Cherry's house hums; it always has, like their richness and energy comes from the air. I leave the jeep running and turn on the high beams, shooing away some of the darkness and lighting my way to the com and speaker piece attached to the side of the rail.
Their house worker answers my greeting. I can't exactly call him a butler because he gardens, too, and I can't exactly call him a gardener because I once saw him take out one of Cherry's ex boyfriends that was trying to sneak into the house. His voice is the regal sort that only makes my pre-party jitters worse, like I don't belong here, like he's telling me just that when, really, all he's saying is "Hello," and "I'll buzz you in," or even, "Please, Miss," when Cherry's mom Mrs. York—whom insists I call her by her first name, Catrine—tries to interrupt the call. She's always doing that, too, racing the nameless Schwarzen-butler to the call button.
"Sweetie!" Mrs. York says; her voice is lilting and contrasting with her worker-man. "Oh darling Mackenzie, Cherry will be right out."
Cherry comes rushing down the drive, the kitten heels of her shoes kicking up dust. She meets the gate as it opens and we each climb into the car. The interior lights throw our outfits into view and I see Cherry turn her nose up at the stitching pattern of my shirt. "I would have let you borrow a shirt," she tells me, buckling in. But I see the curt hemlines and clinging fabrics of her clothing and decide I wouldn't have wanted to borrow anything anyways.
"Hunter Vitali's house," Cherry directs me, leading my directions in a way that makes me think she's been there before.
The Vitali family is one of those long bred Italian households. Sometimes I'll see them at church when Great Grandma Bella makes me go with my dad. Hunter Vitali is in our year at school but only because he was held back for missing too many days of class in his freshman year. The oldest Vitali brother, Barney, just graduated from our high school. He's currently training in the police academy, a fact that makes me antsy if only because it means another connection my father may have to my social life. But Cherry only scoffs when I ask her if the eldest Vitali will be there. I hope that means he won't.
House parties always make me nervous, like I'm worried that my father will come in a break it up, or catch me doing something I shouldn't be. I try too hard to stay out of trouble, or at least that's what Cherry tells me. Really, I'm just trying to counteract the poor Plum luck that seems to follow me wherever I go.
But Joseph Morelli only shows up at the scenes of major crimes and I doubt that a few joints are enough to warrant his appearance. But word gets around, especially in places like the Burg, which is where the Vitalis live. It's a two story white house, the shutters are painted a bright red that I can make out even in the darkness. The floodlights are motion activated so that every time a lonely girl or a stumbling couple wanders by the flat concrete drive and postage-stamp yard are thrown into sharp relief. There's a kneeling statue of the Virgin Mary in the well-kept flowerbed. Tasteful. Maria Vitali is has won seven straight years of the Burg's best-maintained garden.
"You're sure Barney isn't going to be here?"
"Course," Cherry says, her heels already clicking down the sidewalk.