by Pete Hautman
“Hey,” I say.
“Hi!” She has a cheerful voice—the kind of voice that usually bugs me, but it’s been a while since I’ve talked to anybody my age, so I’m glad to hear it. “Where did you come from?”
“He’s a Cake,” the angry guy says.
“What’s a Cake?” I ask. The way he said it makes me think it’s an insult.
He takes a drag off his cigarette and flicks it away. “Perfect Village,” he says.
I look at the girl, who is smiling. “I don’t know why Bran said that,” she says.
“ ’Cause of his shirt,” Bran says.
I look down to see what I’m wearing. It’s one of my dad’s polo shirts, with a little penguin embroidered on the chest. He used to wear it a lot.
“This is what they wear in Perfect Village?” I ask, wondering if that’s a real place or just something he made up.
“Don’t pay any attention to him.” The girl walks closer to me and peers into my face. Her eyes are intensely blue. “You’re cute,” she says.
“Allie is known for her crap taste in guys,” says Bran.
The faux Rasta laughs. He’s messing with his hair, twisting the end of a lock between his fingers.
“Are you guys from around here?” I ask.
“Yeah, we’re ancient Cahokians, Cake,” says Bran.
“How come he keeps calling me ‘Cake’?” I ask Allie.
“Bran has an attitude. He’s working on his self-loathing.”
Bran scowls loathingly.
“What’s your name?” she asks.
“Stiggy.”
“Where are you from?”
“Minnesota. I’m just driving through.”
“Minnesota! Brrr!” says Allie.
“It’s actually not that cold. Except sometimes.”
“You got a car?” Bran asks.
“Uh . . . yeah?”
Bran and the faux Rasta look at each other.
Bran makes a face that I think is supposed to be a smile. “Maybe you could give us a lift?”
“You don’t have a car? How’d you get here?” I ask.
“We walked,” says Allie. “We have a camp up at Horseshoe.”
That’s the name of the big lake I passed a couple of miles back.
“We were going into Fairmont for supplies,” she says. “But Randy wanted to check out the mounds.” Randy must be the guy with the dreads.
“There’s a Foodland just up the road,” Bran says.
“You just want a ride to the store?” I ask. I’m looking them over, trying to figure out if they’re dangerous. I don’t think so—just a couple of doofuses and a pretty girl.
Bran nods. “And maybe a ride from there back to Horseshoe?”
I look at Allie, who isn’t saying anything. She smiles and nods.
• • •
I pull into a parking space in the Foodland parking lot. Randy and Bran get out of the back and head into the store. Allie, in the passenger seat, stays.
“They know what to get,” she says.
“Those guys are a little ripe.”
“That’s just Randy. He doesn’t believe in soap.”
“So you guys are just . . . camping out?”
“For now. We’re headed south. There’s a Renaissance Festival in Louisiana. Randy juggles. I do food service. Bran does whatever. But the RenFest isn’t for another few weeks, so we’re hanging out until then.”
“You don’t have to go to school or anything?”
“I’m done with that. I did a year at KCAI. That’s where I met Randy.”
“Is that a radio station?”
She laughs. “It’s an art college. Kansas City Art Institute.”
“Oh, of course.” I’m surprised. She must be a couple of years older than me. Now I feel like a kid. “Is Randy your boyfriend?”
“He was, sort of. Now we’re just friends.” She kicks off her sandals and puts her bare feet on the dash. Her toenails used to be green, but there are only a few chips of polish left on them. “Do you have a girlfriend?”
“No.” I say it louder than I meant to, and she sort of flinches. “Not at the moment,” I add.
She nods, as if all is explained.
“Randy and I have been camping since June. Bran hooked up with us a few weeks ago at a festival up in Iowa.” She gives me a side glance. “What about you?”
“I’m driving down the river road,” I say.
“All by yourself?”
I nod, then feel the need to explain myself. “Things sucked back home. I’m taking some time off.”
“I get that. Do you have family back in Minnesota?”
I think about my mom, and my dad.
“Just my mom,” I say.
“I hear you. Maybe things will be better when you go back.”
“If I go back.”
She smiles at her feet but doesn’t say anything.
I hear a shout and look up. Randy and Bran are running toward the car, pushing a cart piled high with groceries. A bag of potato chips flies off the top; neither of them look back.
“Open the door!” Bran yells.
Allie pushes open her door and pulls her seatback forward. Randy and Bran start throwing stuff from the cart into the backseat: more chips, hot dogs, a bag of oranges, a carton of Marlboros, two six-packs of beer, a loaf of bread, and a bunch of other stuff. A man wearing a green apron comes running out of the store. Randy and Bran pile into the backseat on top of all the groceries.
“Go!” Bran yells. The guy in the apron is only about two seconds from reaching us. He looks really mad. Allie slams the door, and I hit the gas. The Mustang lurches forward. As we pull away, the guy punches the passenger-side window so hard, I’m amazed it doesn’t break. I almost crash into a cart corral but miss it by inches.
Bran and Randy are laughing hysterically.
“Did you see that guy?” Bran says. “What an asshole! Did you see him?”
I hit the parking lot exit going about forty.
“Left! Go left!” Bran yells.
We screech onto Collinsville Road. My heart is pounding. Allie is turned around in her seat yelling at Randy. “You didn’t tell me you were going to do that!”
“What?” Bran says. “Did we forget something?”
Allie spins back in her seat and crosses her arms. “You didn’t have to. We’re not broke.”
“Yet,” says Randy.
“Hey, we just saved about a hundred bucks.” Bran thrusts a yellow bag between our seats. “We got Funyuns!”
Allie shakes her head. “I didn’t know they were going to do that.” She smiles. I can’t tell if she’s embarrassed, apologetic, or just happy about the Funyuns.
Benches 2
You never know what people are going to do. I didn’t know my dad was going to kill himself. I didn’t know Gaia was going to leave me. My whole life was people doing things I never dreamed of. Including myself. I’d never dreamed I’d be the getaway driver in a grocery-store heist, for example.
The night that Gaia and I went for that long walk and ended up in East River Park, where my dad had killed himself—I didn’t know I was going to be such a jerk. I keep going back to it, wondering if that was the beginning of the end for Gaia and me. I mean, I really was a jerk.
She just wanted to sit on a bench and look out over the river. And I wouldn’t do it.
“Why not?” she asked.
It was a reasonable question. I should have told her. I wanted to. She would have understood.
“I don’t feel like sitting.” I said it kind of mean. There was a storm in my head. I wanted to break something. I wanted to break every bench in the park.
“Well, I do.” Her confusion was turning to anger.
“Fine. Sit. I’m leaving.” I turned away from her and started walking.
“Stiggy!” she yelled after me.
I kept walking. Gaia ran to catch up. She grabbed my arm.
“What’s the matter with you?” sh
e asked.
“Nothing.” I just couldn’t tell her about my dad. I mean, she knew that he’d killed himself. Everybody did. But I just couldn’t tell her he’d done it there, maybe on that bench not fifty feet from where we were standing. It was too close, too real.
The feelings I had about my dad were all mixed up. They included sadness, of course. And anger, and loneliness, and this miserable barfy feeling that always came when I thought about it too much. But the worst one was shame. I was ashamed of Dad for giving up, and ashamed of myself for not knowing, for not being able to help. Ashamed of being his son, ashamed of not being the son he’d needed.
I couldn’t stand for Gaia to see me being that person, so instead of explaining myself, I kept walking. She followed—it was getting darker, and I’m sure she didn’t want to be out there all alone—and tried to talk to me, but all I heard was the noise in my head. After a while she stopped trying and simply followed. I could hear her footsteps about ten feet behind me. I didn’t say anything until we were almost to her house.
My internal shit-storm had subsided by then—enough for me to say, “Sorry.”
“Nice walk,” she said shortly. I watched her walk up to her front door and let herself in.
Two hours later, after replaying things over and over in my head, I texted her an apology.
Don’t worry about it, she texted back.
I guessed she was awake thinking about things too.
“I Put a Spell on You”
Nina Simone
2:39
We park in a public lot at the eastern side of Horseshoe Lake. Bran and Randy get out and start stuffing all the stolen groceries into their backpacks. I see a canned ham, a bag of apples, boxes of crackers, a tray of Oreos, two loaves of bread, a can of sardines, a big bag of ice, and all sorts of other stuff. Hard to believe it all fit in the car.
“We have to walk in,” Allie says.
“Our camp is kind of illegal,” Bran adds with a laugh.
“You want to come check it out?” Allie asks me. “We’re out on Walker’s Island.”
“Also, we could use a hand carrying all this crap,” Bran says. “Here, Cake. You can carry this.” Bran tosses me a ten-pound bag of ice.
We hike across a short causeway onto the island and follow a trail through an open field. The ice is freezing my fingers; I have to keep moving it from one arm to the other.
On the far side of the island, the trail enters a wooded area. About fifty yards off the trail in a small, grassy clearing are two nylon tents partially covered with leafy branches, a fire pit with a grill made out of an old box spring, a picnic table, and a large red plastic cooler.
“Home sweet home,” Bran says. He takes the ice from me and puts it into the cooler, along with two six-packs of beer and a few other things from his backpack. Randy is starting a fire under the box-spring grill. I look around for Allie, but she has disappeared.
A couple of minutes later she emerges from the trees. She sees me looking at her and grins.
“If you have to go, we got a sort of toilet back there,” she says. “Look for the roll of TP.”
“Good to know.”
She starts transferring the remaining groceries into a cardboard box between the two tents. I’m wondering who sleeps where. Two tents, two guys, one girl. Does Allie have her own tent, or is she hooked up with one of them?
I go over and help her organize the groceries. Cans and bottles on one side, bagged items on the other. Allie tears open the bag of Funyuns and offers it to me. I take a handful. I’ve never had Funyuns before. They’re oniony but not much fun.
We get the food sorted out. Allie is sitting cross-legged on the ground eating Funyuns and watching Randy work on the fire.
I’m not sure what to do. I helped them carry their stolen groceries, and now I’ve seen their camp. Maybe it’s time for me to leave.
I say, “Well, it was nice to meet you.”
“Yeah, hey, thanks for the lift, Cake,” Bran says. Clearly I have served my purpose as far as he’s concerned. Randy, carrying an armload of dead wood over to the fire pit, says nothing.
“You’re not leaving, are you?” Allie says.
I shrug. “I should probably get going.”
“Why don’t you stay? Randy’s going to cook something. He used to work at the Majestic.”
Bran laughs and cracks open a can of beer. “Yeah, he was a dishwasher.”
“Sure, but he can cook,” Allie said. “Right, Randy? What are you going to make?”
“Hot dogs,” Randy says. He is arranging a pyramid of sticks under the bedspring grill.
“Fine dining, just like the Majestic,” Bran says.
“They’re organic,” Randy says.
“You helped with the groceries,” Allie says to me. “You should stay for dinner at least.”
In fact, I am hungry. I haven’t eaten since the Burger King back in Pontoon Beach. A hot dog sounds good.
“Okay,” I say. Bran gulps his beer and shoots me a look that makes me think it’s not okay, but Allie is smiling.
“Great!” she says. She ducks into one of the tents—the smaller one—and comes out holding some plastic plates and a roll of paper towels. She brushes some leaves off the picnic table and sets out four plates. Bran is over by the fire drinking his beer and talking with Randy. Allie is telling me about the Renaissance Festival circuit.
“Have you ever been to one?” she asks.
“Once. In Minnesota. A long time ago.” My parents took me. I must have been about eight. I remember trying to eat a giant turkey leg and watching a juggler. It was hot and dusty, and everybody was wearing costumes and we didn’t stay long.
That turkey leg was cooked in an electric fryer, Dad said. What a crock.
“I haven’t been to that one,” Allie says. “The Louisiana RenFest is supposed to be great. Last one we did, the Sleepy Hollow fest up in Iowa, I was Mirabella, a serving wench.” She bends over the cardboard box and finds a bottle of ketchup and a squeeze bottle of mustard. In an English accent she says, “In service of the Earl of Sandwich, royal purveyor of layered comestibles, savory tarts, strong ales, and Oscar Mayer bangers, I hereby offer rare condiments for the enjoyment of our discerning patrons.” She grins at me and places the bottles on the table. “The best part is the parties after everybody leaves at the end of the day. You should come with us! I’m sure you could get a job.”
“Seriously?” The idea appeals to me for a moment. Then I imagine myself wearing a costume and talking with a fake English accent. I imagine my dad seeing me like that. “I don’t think I’d look good in pantaloons.”
She tips her head and studies me. “With a leather tunic and knee-high boots, you’d look quite princely.”
Bran crumples his empty beer can, walks over to the cooler, and grabs another.
“Do you want a beer?” Allie asks.
I don’t, but I say, “Are you having one?”
She smiles and shakes her head. “Water?”
“Sure.”
She goes over to the cooler and finds two bottles of water. Bran doesn’t look at her. Randy has opened a package of hot dogs and is laying them out on the grill, lining them up precisely. No doubt something he learned at the Majestic while washing dishes.
“Randy doesn’t say much,” I observe.
“He has a rich internal life. You should’ve seen the sculptures he was making at KCAI—these wire-and-glass-shard things that looked like tornadoes.”
“How come you quit?”
“I didn’t really. Just taking a gap year.”
“What kind of art did you do?”
She snorts. “Paintings that sucked.” She goes back to the cardboard box, gets a bag of hot dog buns, and plunks them onto the table.
“Whole wheat,” Randy says.
A few minutes later Randy declares the hot dogs to be cooked. He picks them off the grill with his fingers and arranges them artistically on a plastic plate. We all sit at the table and
make a meal of hot dogs and Funyuns. Randy and Bran are drinking beer; Allie and I stick with water. The conversation flows fast—even Randy is talking, but it’s all about the festival in Iowa, and people I don’t know, and things that might have been funny if I’d been there. Mostly I’m watching how often Bran scowls at me, and how often Allie smiles. Randy doesn’t even seem to know I’m present. I eat three hot dogs and half a bag of Funyuns while thinking about how to gracefully make my exit.
Finally the food is gone. I stand up first and start to say thank you, but Allie interrupts me.
“Stiggy, you want to help me with the dishes?”
Dishes? There are four plastic plates and that’s it.
“Um . . . okay,” I say.
Bran goes back to the cooler for another beer. He cracks it open and watches as I follow Allie into the woods. We soon come to a crushed-gravel walkway.
“People come here to look at birds,” she says. “Mostly they stay on these trails, so nobody bothers us.” We cross the trail and continue through the woods. The brush is so thick, I can only see a few yards in any direction. After a couple of minutes the trees open up and we are looking out onto the lake. Allie squats at the water’s edge and cleans the plates, scrubbing them with sand, no soap. She stacks them on a driftwood log, then walks a few yards along the rocky shore and reaches into a pile of brush.
“Help me with this.” She is tugging at something. I see the front end of a canoe. I grab hold, and we slide the canoe out from its hiding place.
“You hauled a canoe out here?”
“Bran found it.”
“Found it?”
“Well . . .” Allie laughs. “Borrowed it, maybe.”
We drag the canoe down to the shore and nose it onto the water. She clambers into the front. I hop in back. We grab paddles from the bottom of the canoe and push out onto the lake. The water is dead calm. We pull in our paddles and float.
“This is nice,” I say.
She turns around in her seat, leans against the prow, and tips her head back. The way she moves is so loose and natural that it’s almost as if she is made of liquid, as if I could touch her and my hand would sink in to the wrist.
