“Neil,” he said.
“Okay, Neil. Here’s the thing. You know a guy named Cullen?” Cabot asked.
“Yeah. Cullen Witter.”
“Yeah? Friend of yours?”
“Went to school with me. He’s a year younger, though,” Neil said.
“Oh,” Cabot replied, “I need to talk to him.”
“So what?”
“Well, Neil, would ten bucks get me his address?” Cabot asked, taking out his wallet.
“I guess. I think he lives over off Eighth Street on the gravel road,” Neil said nonchalantly.
“Eighth Street?” Cabot said in that I-don’t-know-my-way-around-here manner.
“Right,” Neil said back.
“Neil, you’ve been a tremendous help,” Cabot said, smacking the ten into Neil’s hand.
Cabot walked toward his car and, after passing two people up, stopped the third and asked, with a face full of confusion and innocence, how to find Eighth Street.
“Okay,” the woman began, “keep goin’ down Main Street till you get to Machen Drive, then take a right and as soon as you pass the four-way stop, you’re there.”
“Is that a paved road?” Cabot asked.
“Yeah,” the woman answered.
“Thanks.”
In his motel room, Cabot could hear the sound of clanks, bangs, and heavy motors outside as a crew tore down the motel’s existing sign to replace it with the new one. He tried taking a nap, but the noise proved too distracting. He watched a few minutes of television before getting a headache and deciding against that idea as well. He had picked up a Lily Press from the grocery store on his way out, so he sat at the room’s small desk, flipped on the lamp, and began to read through it. The cover story was about the Lazarus woodpecker. Of course, Cabot could barely read the name Lazarus without thinking about his Bible. He remembered the story of Lazarus being told to him in Sunday school. He remembered wondering what it would have been like to witness Jesus roll the stone away from Lazarus’s tomb and watch the dead man walk out, still wearing his grave clothes. The article was about several of the town’s businesses embracing the recent tourism boom brought to Lily by the sighting of the bird. Cabot laughed when he read about the Lazarus Burger and laughed even louder when the article mentioned some woman giving woodpecker haircuts. But still, all Cabot could really think about was Alma, and more specifically, what he would like to do to the little punk she would be going out with that night. Over those several hours he tried talking himself into just flying home and being done with the whole thing, but he knew he couldn’t just let his long trip be wasted. So he packed his things, locked the door to the motel room, and drove off down the street. He followed the directions given to him and was soon putting on his turn signal at the gravel road.
Gabriel Witter laughed as Cullen ran childishly down the hallway toward his bedroom, having just shouted the strangest combination of words he’d ever heard. He repeated them back to himself. “Ornithological cannibalism,” he said, as he turned off his television and opened up a small green notebook filled with page after page of song lyrics. He turned to the first blank page and, after reaching up to grab a pen off his desk, drew a picture of a woodpecker eating a hamburger. He grinned when he was done and heard a car pull up and a door slam shut. Looking out the window, he saw Lucas’s car speeding away, dust floating everywhere. He looked over to the side yard to see that his dad’s work truck was gone, and as he walked down the hall toward the kitchen he noticed that his mom was asleep on the living room couch. He quietly poured Fruity Pebbles into a shiny white bowl and then opened the refrigerator with an I-hope-this-doesn’t-make-a-loud-sound expression on his face. After grabbing the milk, which was nearly empty, he shut the refrigerator door with the same stealth by which he’d opened it. He emptied out the jug onto his cereal and sat down to eat. Gabriel read over the newspaper his dad had left sitting there that morning, shaking his head at the long article about the bird and turning immediately to the classified ads. He was in the market for a set of drums. There were none listed in the paper. At the sink, he washed the remaining cereal out of his bowl, taking special care to make sure no colorful residue remained on the white edges and nearly burning his hands with hot water while doing so. He dried his hands off and grabbed the empty milk jug off the counter. Several previously discarded items fell to the floor when he opened the trash can. He picked them up, took the lid off the can, and painstakingly pulled the bag out while trying not to make very much noise. After finally getting the milk jug down into the bag, he tied the bright yellow plastic strings and quietly opened the back door. Gabriel tossed the bag into the large green trash can resting against the right side of the house, then yanked it into rolling position and made his way with it down the long, rocky driveway.
Cabot made his way down the gravel road slowly, and after passing two houses on the right, realized that he’d forgotten to ask the grocery store kid which house belonged to Cullen Witter. He continued on, though, hoping he’d see some name posted up on a mailbox or near a front door. As he rounded a curve, he saw what looked to be a teenager pulling a large green trash can toward the street. He pulled slightly into the driveway and waited for the boy, who wore a faded black T-shirt, to come closer. As he approached, the boy squinted and raised his free hand to block out the setting sun’s glow. He set the trash can down on its base and began to speak.
“Looking for someone?” he said politely.
“Witter?” Cabot managed to spit out nervously.
“Yeah?” the boy answered, looking around at his house.
“Umm … can you help me with something?” Cabot asked, struggling to come up with a game plan.
“Sure,” Gabriel answered, walking over to the driver’s side window.
“That’s all right,” Cabot said, opening the door and stepping out.
“You lost or something?” the boy asked.
“I guess. I dunno. Maybe,” Cabot said, looking back into the car behind him.
“Well, do you need to use the phone?”
Cabot quickly reached into the window of the car and into the backseat, where he grabbed a metal flashlight holding four D-cell batteries. He brought it up to his chest and stood before the boy, sweat dripping from his anxious forehead. The boy, still squinting in the sunlight, looked at the flashlight with confusion, and just as he went to look down the street in the direction the man had come from, Cabot lunged forward, swinging the metal and glass, knocking the boy square in the side of his head. The boy fell to the ground. Cabot immediately looked all around him. The neighborhood seemed quieter and emptier than any place he’d ever been in his entire life. The boy did not move. Cabot tossed the flashlight back into the car, walked around to the back, and opened the trunk. He picked up the boy, straining to lift him up high enough to get him into the trunk, and dropped him in as gently as possible. He looked down at the unconscious boy and whispered, “Your date’s been canceled, Cullen Witter.” He closed the trunk, got into the car, and drove slowly back toward town.
He sat in the parking lot of a small convenience store near the interstate for a few minutes, frantically trying to come up with a next step. He looked nervously in his rearview mirror but saw nothing more than cars passing idly by and the darkened interior of the store. He listened intently, waiting for the boy to stir or begin screaming for help. But nothing happened. He heard not a sound. Only his own shaky breathing. His own anxious heart. He decided, after considering his options, that knocking him out cold would not be enough to scare Cullen Witter into leaving Alma Ember alone. What he needed to do, he thought, was really make an impact. Really show this kid the seriousness of the situation he’d gotten himself into. With that, Cabot Searcy turned onto the interstate and made his way to Little Rock, his radio turned up, his fingers snapping, his lips moving.
When he came to, Gabriel Witter found himself in complete darkness. He tried to sit up but only smashed his head into something metal and hard. All around
him was the sound of movement, and grabbing the side of his head, he thought he heard music faintly coming from somewhere nearby. It took him a few minutes to adjust to the darkness, and as his eyes fixed on the red glow of the corners of his cage, he realized just where he was. In that brief moment, Gabriel thought about how being stuffed in a trunk never really happened in real life and how it was so much different than he’d always imagined during childhood games of cops and robbers. He thought about calling out but knew that this would only cause more trouble. He remembered the man standing in front of him. Charging him. Swinging at him. He was completely confused about why it had all happened, but he wasn’t naive enough for one moment to start cooking up any clever plans for escaping. His body drenched in sweat, Gabriel tried his best not to move, hoping this would relieve the aching of his head.
The movement stopped then, and he heard the metallic creak of the car door opening. The footsteps were almost loud enough to count, as if they were being echoed from all around him. When light suddenly burst into the car, Gabriel sprang up as one would do in the middle of a nightmare. He peered up to see his captor standing over him, a concrete ceiling and walls behind him, fluorescent lights on either side.
“Can you stand?” the man asked, pulling Gabriel from the trunk.
“Yeah, I think so,” Gabriel said, now leaning one side against the car.
“You probably already guessed who I am,” the man said.
“I have no idea,” Gabriel said, rubbing the side of his head.
“You know Alma, right?”
“Ember?” Gabriel asked, looking around at the vacant parking garage.
“Searcy. Her last name’s Searcy,” Cabot said sternly.
“Oh. We used to go to church together. She was Ember the last time I saw her.”
“You must think I’m some dumb-ass or something, huh?” Cabot raised his voice slightly.
“I don’t know anything about you except that you have a pretty big flashlight,” Gabriel answered.
“Cullen, this is not your lucky day.”
“Cullen?” Gabriel asked.
“Yeah, I know who you are,” Cabot said, nearly smiling.
“I’m Gabriel. Gabriel Witter.”
“Cut the shit, kid.”
“No. Really.”
“Really?” Cabot asked, his face red.
“Cullen’s my older brother.”
“Shit,” Cabot said.
“I’m so confused,” Gabriel said.
“Shit. Shit. Shit.”
“Are you gonna take me back home now?”
“Shit. Shit. Shit. I can’t believe this. I can’t believe this.” Cabot shook his head.
“Look, you obviously have some serious stuff to deal with, so if you wanna just take me home, we’ll forget about the whole thing. Deal?” Gabriel asked.
“Shit. I’m a damn kidnapper now. How old are you?”
“Fifteen. But let me go. It doesn’t matter. Just let me go.”
“And then you’ll tell someone and all of a sudden I’ll be all over the news and they’ll come find me somewhere and cuff me and take me to jail. Oh Jesus. I can’t believe this.”
“Look, I don’t even know your name, okay? So, why don’t you just get in your car, drive away, and we’ll be done with it?” Gabriel pleaded.
“That’s too easy. There’s some trick. You’re gonna give me up. I would. I mean, who wouldn’t want the guy who knocked him out and stuffed him in a trunk to go to jail? That’s crazy! Shit.”
“Get in the car and drive away,” Gabriel said, trying to sound forceful.
“I’m gonna need you to get back in the trunk now,” Cabot said with surprising calmness.
“No.”
“Do it now,” Cabot said, stepping forward.
“Just let me go home. It’s so easy. Just let me go.”
“I can’t. Get in.” Cabot held up the same flashlight he’d used earlier, and his face went a particular shade of angry that Gabriel wasn’t sure he’d ever seen on anyone in his life. Already dizzy from the first hit and knowing that he’d probably end up falling down flat on his face if he made a run for it, Gabriel followed Cabot’s orders.
As he closed the trunk door on Gabriel for the second time, Cabot noticed the picture on his shirt. It was a white figure, a man, with long wings behind him. He was stretching one arm out up above his head, toward the sky. Sitting back down in the driver’s seat, Cabot gripped the steering wheel and placed his forehead down against it. He thought about taking the boy up on his offer, figuring that maybe he was telling the truth. Maybe he wouldn’t tell anyone. And if he did, maybe he really didn’t know his name. But he knew the boy would put it all together. He’d figure it all out. It would be no time at all until Cabot wasn’t changing the world, but sitting alone in a jail cell with a bologna sandwich and a lidless toilet. He couldn’t let that happen. He started the car. He thought about the boy’s shirt. The white figure with wings. He thought about the boy’s name. Gabriel, the Left Hand of God. Pulling out of the parking garage, Cabot Searcy began to piece together the drawn-out puzzle that the last four years of his life had been. Benton’s suicide, the Book of Enoch, the Watchers, the vision of God, Gabriel, and the bird. The hours spent studying the fallen angels, the Grigori. The time spent theorizing and debating over the fact that God himself had stifled the greatness of human potential. Everything that had, in some way or another, led him to some nothing town where, as it seemed, things could come back from the dead, mistakes could be rectified, lives could be started over. And as he stopped at a red light just around the corner, Cabot Searcy realized his destiny.
CHAPTER NINETEEN
A Lavish Journey
I decided that Lucas Cader was my hero for punching John Barling in the eye, even if it had turned out that he was just some sad guy looking for fame and fortune. He’d still brought all this shit into town that I felt was unnecessary, and I wouldn’t soon forget it. And judging by his battle wound, I didn’t think Lucas would either. Mena told me one night after it happened that Lucas had to be pulled off the stage and was quite lucky that he didn’t get charges pressed against him. I couldn’t believe it. I mean, Lucas Cader beating up some bird guy. It was nearly as crazy as there being a bird guy in town in the first place.
“Your shirt’s cool,” Mena said to me as we three made our way into Burke’s one afternoon.
“It’s Gabriel’s. I’ve been raiding his closet,” I said.
“Oh. I knew you weren’t that cool,” Mena joked, punching me in the arm.
“Cooler than your banged-up boyfriend,” I joked back.
“Hey, ass-hat, what the hell?” Lucas said, slapping my arm with the back of one hand.
“Don’t start beating me up, Captain Ahab, I’m just joking,” I said, laughing.
For some reason, Mr. Burke, who, of course, owned Burke’s Burger Box, thought that because my brother had gone missing he could help me out by giving me free hamburgers. So, and this was only the second time, he walked over to our table, leaned down, and whispered to us that he’d take care of the bill. We thanked him, asked no questions, and I rolled my eyes to Lucas and Mena as he walked away. What I noticed that summer was that people generally have no idea how to react to strange situations like the one my family had been put into. People just couldn’t quite seem to figure out how to help or what to say or what not to say, even. They tried giving us things and offering us advice and putting different kinds of books in our mailbox. And then there were the avoiders. These were the people who bothered me most. These were the ones who, as soon as we walked in somewhere, tried their best not to make eye contact, or hid behind a food aisle, or pretended they didn’t see us altogether. I just couldn’t understand how these people justified avoiding not just me but my entire family. My mom said that people didn’t like being put in the uncomfortable position of speaking to us. I said that was bullshit. People didn’t like having to come up with something smart or helpful or sensitive to say, and th
ey weren’t intelligent enough to realize that all we wanted, all I wanted, was to be treated the same as I had been three months before. I wanted to be ignored because of my eccentricities, not because of my brother. And I wanted to be offered help from people because they cared about me, not because they felt some strange social obligation to do so. I wanted the world to sit back, listen up, and let me explain to it that when someone is sad and hopeless, the last thing they need to feel is that they are the only ones in the world with that feeling. So, if you feel sorry for someone, don’t pretend to be happy. Don’t pretend to care only about their problems. People aren’t stupid. Not all of us, anyway. If someone’s little brother disappears, don’t give him a free hamburger to make him feel better—it doesn’t work. It’s a good burger, sure, but it means nothing. It means something only to the Mr. Burkes of the world. But people will do these things. They did them all summer long. Offering free meals, free stays in condos in Florida, even free plumbing. And we let them. We let them because they needed it, not us. We didn’t let them help us because we needed it, we let them help us because inside of humans is this thing, this unnamed need to feel as if we are useful in the world. To feel as if we have something significant to contribute. So, old ladies, make your casseroles and set them on doorsteps. And old men, grill your burgers and give them to teenagers with cynical worldviews. The world can’t be satisfied, but that need to fix it all can.
Book Title #87: Alone in the World with This Feeling.
Dr. Webb says that had Lucas Cader never met my family, he may very well have slipped into the same messed-up life that had ended both his father and brother. And I thought about this very thing one night as Lucas and I played basketball in the dark outside my garage. I thought about how terrible I was at basketball and about how Lucas Cader seemed quite used to ignoring that and continued playing with me.
Where Things Come Back Page 16
