I met Cody at a gas station that was near Grace's house. I got in his car and explained what had happened. He laughed at the situation, "Those Christians don't make any sense."
"I know!" I said, "I just want to forget about everything. Let's do something fun."
"You wanna stay the night at my place tonight?" He asked, "I know of a party we can go to."
"Of course I do! I'm always down for a party!" I said.
"Well this isn't going to be like any party we've ever been to," he stated.
"What do you mean?"
"Do you remember Billy Smith? He graduated two years ago."
I nodded my head.
"Well he's the one who invited me. It's a college party, so that means there is going to be beer there!" He explained.
I had never drank beer before, but I was down for trying new things. "That sounds good," I said, "can you take me by the house to get my truck and some clothes?"
He agreed to take me home. On the way there, he was spinning the tires at every stop sign and red light.
A shiny red truck passed us in the four lane. That truck was beautiful! It was a chevy s-10. It was lowered and it sounded amazing. The next traffic light turned red, and Cody had a chance to talk to the owner of the truck.
"That's a good looking truck you have!" He said.
The owner of the truck yelled back over the sound of our engines, "it's a lot better than that little nova!"
I could tell Cody was irritated by that comment. He rowed his window up, and revved his engine. The guy in the s-10 replied by revving his engine. It sounded like a monster when he revved it. Cody was in the zone. I knew that as soon as that light turned green, he would stomp on the gas pedal, so I latched my seat belt.
The light finally changed. Cody stomped on the gas, and let off the clutch. The tires bit hard into the pavement, causing the front end of his nova to raise into the air. That was the first time I had been in a car while it was performing a wheel stand. I loved it! But, once the front wheels landed, I fell in love with the s-10 even more. It was already two lengths in front of us. Cody was furious. He had just been beaten by a truck. He slowed the car down; he had already given up since the truck was so far in front of us.
Despite Cody's humiliation, I had an idea! If that truck could move that fast, so could mine (with the right upgrades.) When Cody dropped me off at the house, I told him that I would meet him at his house in one hour. I had some things I wanted to do before I went over there.
I told mom that I was staying the night at Cody's house.
"Wait, I thought you went to church with Grace?" she asked.
"I did, I just left from her house," I said.
"Oh, so how did you like it?"
"I didn't," I said. I went into my room and closed the door. I took a picture down from my wall to reveal a hole in the wall. I got mad about my school losing a basketball game to our rivals and made the hole. I found good use for it, though. I could hide my money in it without my brother finding and stealing it. I had my life savings in that hole. I got all of my money out of it and began to count. I had one thousand, four hundred and thirty-one dollars. I put five hundred of it in my wallet, and placed the rest in the hole. I hung my picture back up, gathered some clothes to wear tomorrow, and got in my truck to leave. I checked my phone before starting my truck. Grace had texted me thirty minutes earlier asking if I was alright. I stared at my phone for a minute, trying to decide whether I would reply or not. As I continued to look at the message, I began to think about the wreck.
I threw my phone to the passenger seat and started driving. I didn't turn down Cody's road. Instead, I drove to the other side of town to Chris Harrison's house. He had a motor for sale and said that if I ever got another car, he would sell it to me. I drove up his driveway and he met me on his porch, "Matthew," he said, "what brings you this way?"
"My truck," I said.
"Alright, smart a-"
I cut him off, "no really, I started thinking about my truck, and I want to buy that motor from you, so I can go fast again."
"Is that so?" He said, "how much do you have?"
"I have four hundred dollars on me."
"Didn't I say five?" He asked.
"Well, how about we race for that extra hundred after I put the motor in? If I win, you forget about it, but if you win, I'll give you two," I negotiated.
"Alright, that sounds like a plan," he said, "but let's hurry and get it loaded into your truck because I've gotta leave in a minute."
We loaded the motor into the bed of my truck, then I paid him four hundred dollars and left.
I arrived at Cody's house exactly an hour after he and I separated. I backed my truck up to his garage, and went to the door of the house. I practically live there, so I didn't bother knocking on the door. I walked in, and he was asleep on the couch. I looked at him for a minute, then went into the kitchen. There was an empty one gallon ice cream bucket in the garbage can, on top of the other trash. I got it out and filled it with cold water. I carried the bucket into the living room and sat it on the floor in front of the couch to prepare myself for the punch to my face I knew I would get. I kneeled down to pick up the bucket. I was just about to dump it on him when Cody's dad walked in.
I looked at him with an innocent look on my face as I lowered the bucket. He held up one finger, signaling me to wait a minute, and went into the kitchen. He returned with a container full of flour. He started counting on his fingers, and on three, I dumped the water on Cody. Right after that, his dad dumped the flour on him.
Cody's dad stayed between he and I. Cody was bigger than me, but his dad was bigger than he.
Cody said, "I let you stay in my house, and you dump water on me!" All I could do was laugh, the look on his face when he rolled over was priceless!
He cursed and kicked as he traveled down the hallway to his room.
"I saw that new toy you have in the bed of your truck," Cody's dad said to me.
"Yeah I just bought it. I thought that maybe y'all were looking for something to do."
"We're always looking for something to do around here. What are you putting it in?"
"My truck!" I said.
"What are you trying to do, make a race truck?"
"Why not? I saw Cody get smoked by an s-10 earlier. Maybe in a couple of days, he could get beaten by a c-10 also."
"What?" He asked, "my son let a little s-10 beat him? I really don't feel bad about pouring flour on him now."
Cody came out of his room wearing different clothes. His dad confronted him about losing the race earlier. The only excuse Cody had was that the truck was just too fast. It really was fast to be a truck, but I wanted to build mine faster than that. We went to the garage and began to work. We were pretty good at what we were doing, we replaced the old motor in my truck with the one I just bought in a little over two hours.
When we finished, me and Cody test drove it to the party he told me about. There were so many people there that I didn't know. In fact, Cody was the only person there I truly knew. We stood around meeting people for about half the time we were there, but when the party started getting crazy, we got involved. I tried a sip of beer and nearly spat it everywhere. That was the nastiest thing I had ever had in my mouth!
Some guy grabbed the bottle out of my hand and gave me a different bottle, "here, try this one." He started drinking the beer I had and walked away. This bottle had a black label, but I couldn't read it because the lights were too dim. I shrugged my shoulders and drank it anyway. I felt it burn as it flowed down my throat. I could even feel it hit my stomach, but a few minutes later, the burning in my stomach turned into a fuzzy feeling. I drank some more of it. The more I drank, the better I felt. I drank about half of the bottle and sat it down. I was hiccuping like crazy. I noticed that Cody was not by my side anymore, so I spun around trying to spot him. I saw him standing a few feet away talking to someone. I started walking toward him and nearly fell, but I caught myself on some girl standing there. When I regained my balance, I looked at her and saw that I had pulled her dress down quite a bit to expose her breasts. I apologized and tried to back away, but two guys, significantly larger than I, were standing behind me. One grabbed me, and the other one made a fist and thrusted it toward my face. I could see it coming in slow motion, but couldn't do anything about it. My vision went black as soon as his fist made contact with me, and I felt myself fall to the ground.
