..... I was walking toward the music, this all-day country music thing my buddies and I were going to, when I caught sight of the boy off to the right, leaning into a red Toyota Tacoma. Probably a thousand vehicles out there, stretched across that field-turned-parking-lot, rain-sludged from the night before. The sun was high now, but the humidity was thick. Wet mud streaked fenders everywhere, dirt caked the knobby tires of the big four-wheel-drives. A row of Port-a-Potties stood nearby. Ahead, over the next rise of trees, guitars twanged, voices crooned, the crowd rumbled and roared and rumbled again. But for all that, the boy was the only person I could see, a lanky high school kid, t-shirt and ragged jeans, hunkered over the back windows of that extended-cab pick-up. He had his hands cupped around his eyes as he tried to peer through the tinted glass.
..... I'd seen that pose before, that look. Six days a week, all day, some nights, this is the kind of work I do. Keys left in the ignition, keys dropped behind the seat, keys that fell out of the purse somewhere. I got a deal with Triple A too, on call twenty-four/seven, so I always keep my tools with me, even on an off-duty Sunday like today. The boy was lucky that way - twice lucky, I thought then, since I'd told my buddies I might not even make the concert. But nothing on the tube, and it was the ex's weekend with our daughter so what else did I have to do?
..... The boy let out a little groan - I could hear it even over that dull tangle of music and voices beyond the trees. And that was when I saw that his knees weren't just buckling in frustration but bending and flexing, moving in slow rhythm, and that his hips were pulsing too, forward and back in small circles. I adjusted my glasses to make sure I was seeing it right.
..... "I'm next," he said, a slur to the words and louder than he'd meant, like he'd already had way too much to drink. "Don't take it all, I've got her next." He gave another low groan, something like desire, something like anger. "Damn." He went on like that, talking half to himself, half to whoever was in the back seat of that extended cab, and all the while grinding his groin against the sheet metal, like if he just pressed hard enough, he might get inside.

..... Later - much later - I'd think about the concert I never made it to, and about my buddies, half-drunk themselves, all of us in our 40s now but not feeling like it, most of us divorced. Second chance, we tell one another, and all of us - even the married ones - still talk about the girls who pass by, still admire a nice set of curves under a t-shirt or a tight little skirt, still vie with one another to see who can flirt most with the waitress when we go out. My buddy Bill always seems to have the easiest time getting those waitresses to flirt back.
..... Later, I'd think about some of the memories already swirling uneasily through my mind. About how Bill stood guard outside the closet at his parents' house when we were about eleven years old while Wendy Shannon and I took our turn playing Seven Minutes in Heaven, both of us still and silent in the darkness, barely breathing, hardly touching - just the brush of an elbow and Wendy's pitiful whisper: "Please don't." About fumbling around as a teenager in the backseat of my old Camaro, trying to get the right angle on Roberta Henderson, trying to coax her bra off. Busty Becky, all of us boys called her, and when a pair of headlights glanced through the back windows, there'd been a sudden panic, a "don't move," a "shhh."
..... Later still, I'd think about more mature loves: my ex-wife, Julie, and my daughter, Susan. I'd think about Sundays long past: family bicycle rides and afternoons at the pool and rainy-day crafts, and then how I'd coached Susan in pee wee soccer, Julie standing beside me on the sidelines. That's where our daughter's nickname had come from - Skipper - taking charge in every game, leading the pack, playing her heart out. And I'd think about that too, and how that nickname stuck even if our marriage didn't. Skipper's seventeen now. Seventeen.
..... But I didn't think about any of that at the time - not think, not really. Instead I just felt: shock and then confusion and then an anger that I didn't understand and couldn't articulate. The feelings came first.

..... "Look at that," said the boy, low and guttural, talking to himself, to no one. "Would you look at that?" He had only one hand on the window now, palm flat against it as if to balance himself, while his other hand rubbed distractedly against the front of his jeans. "Yo!" - louder - "Leave some for-"
..... "Hey," I called out. "Hey, boy," I shouted. "Hey, you." The wind shifted: a dank smell of urine from the Port-a-Potties behind me, a different edge to that honky-tonk jam over the trees.
..... The boy looked my way, our eyes met, and then he knocked twice on the window of the truck. After a moment, he just turned and strolled off as if I wasn't there - aimlessly it seemed, weaving a little as he disappeared into the maze of cars and trucks and vans.
..... I didn't follow after him - found myself unable to, or to move closer to the truck that was facing me now like a challenge. Unable to pull myself away either. Wondering about that knock-knock on the window. A signal to some embarrassed couple in the back of the truck, hurriedly snapping their jeans and tucking in their shirts? A signal just to the him inside the cab, some other boy saying "don't move" and "shhh," pressing his hands hard against some girl's mouth?
..... Rooted to my spot, my mind adrift, I finally pulled out my cell and punched in the numbers. As the call went through, I heard a sort of stutter ring, an echo of a ring, and I held the phone away from my ear, at arm's length, struggling to block out the hiss and crackle of the concert as I listened hard to that field of cars and trucks and vans.
..... "Dad?" I heard at a distance, and then louder, "Dad? Hello?"
..... It took me a couple of seconds to bring the phone back to my ear.
..... "Hey, Skip," I said, picturing her on that soccer field, her little legs pumping, her ponytail flying. "Hey, Susan," I started again. "It's me, your pop."
..... "Dad," she said flatly. That "duh" sound of hers. "Caller ID. Twenty-first century on the line, and it's for you."
..... I counted to three. I kept my eye on the pick-up. I tried again to blot out the music beyond the trees.
..... "Yeah," I said. "Listen," I said, listening myself, pressing my ear as close to the phone as I could. What was that noise there in the background? The sounds of the mall, of a restaurant? Some music? A stereo somewhere? A car radio? She shifted, she moved. I could hear it. The truck stood still. "I was wondering," I said, fumbling for what to ask, what not to ask. "Your mom and I, are we still taking you up to look at colleges next weekend?"
..... "Dad. We've planned on that for weeks. You didn't forget, did you?"
..... "No, no, of course not. I just- Is that one of her weekends or…?" But that had never been an issue. Amicable - that was the word we'd learned to use.
..... A muffled sound - the phone held away, her hand over the receiver, or the cell pressed against her chest. A voice somewhere, not hers, and then she was back. "Hey, Dad," she said. "I can't talk. I'm out with a friend."
..... "The new fella?" I asked. There was the question, struggling to be casual. "Your mom said you're seeing somebody new these days?"
..... Laughter on the other end - that other voice again. Clearly male this time.
..... "Dad, I gotta run, OK? I'll call later. Love you." And the phone went dead.
..... I held my hand on redial as I watched that Toyota a little longer, its silence and stillness.