The Launch

Chapter Five

"I forgot to check what kind of laundry detergent my parents have."

"Who cares?"

"Well, I know that Tide works harder on blood stains, but isn't as environmentally-friendly as that PC Green brand. Mom probably gets the green kind, but is that going to work? We need those nasty phosphates to kick it for us."

"We could always just burn his clothes."

"True. That would also take care of the evidence."

JC pulls a sweatshirt off the rack and holds it up to me. It's bright red with a NASCAR logo on the front. "He's fatter than you, so this should work for him."

"Do you think he likes NASCAR?"

"He has probably optioned a comic strip property all about it. Anything that Middle American demographic loves, Ray loves."

"Perfect."

I take the sweatshirt from him and put it with the jeans, t-shirts and sweats we already have. "Where are the underwear and socks?"

"They've got to be here somewhere, as disgusting as that sounds."

"I forgot to ask him if he prefers boxers or briefs."

"He's not really in a position to dictate." JC wanders off down the aisle, presumably in search of reasonably priced unmentionables and not, say, a lamp. I follow him past a long rack of really sad-looking sweaters.

"Let's go with boxers, then. That way it will feel more like shorts and less like we're gripping on some dude's used gonchies." An involuntary shudder goes through me at this thought. I've shopped at Goodwill before, but never for clothing, strangely. It was a little unsettling to think who might have owned these clothes before and to further gamble that Goodwill staff hadn't missed washing the items we were touching.

"Here they are," says JC, stopping at a couple of racks of socks and underwear on little hooks.

I watch as he riffles through and selects a few pairs at random. The lack of sleep, hyper vigilance and perpetual dread I've felt since we started are now starting to grind down my ability to concentrate. Add that to the residual adrenaline shock from the violence back at the house and I feel somehow wired and sedated at the same time. I blink a lot more than what feels like normal. How much does a person blink, anyway? I'm going to be a zombie at work Monday.

"Good," says JC. "I think that's everything."

"Good," I say, nodding and blinking. "Are you getting this or am I?"

"I don't care. Have you got any Canadian cash?"

"Oh, good point. Let me check." We both get out our wallets and flip through looking for some familiar colorful bills. "I've got nothing."

"Me, neither," says JC. "Do you think they give U.S. exchange?"

I rub my bruised knuckles and just look towards the front window. I remember he is asking me a question.

"God, I'm tired," he says. "Let's just pay."

We walk up to the cash and I dump my arm loads of stuff onto the counter for the lady to rummage through. I pull out a couple of American twenties and watch her punching up the numbers on the register. It seems to take a long time because she is carefully folding each garment as if this were a Yorkville boutique. We're more the "cram it all in a garbage bag and hurry" type of customer, but I say nothing.

"That will be $63.28," says Lorraine, who is also looking tired and fretful this morning. She has on a baby-blue frock over a white turtleneck with some acid-washed jeans and her lost eighties big hairstyle looks a little slept on.