I'd Walk with My Friends If I Could Find Them

by Jesse Goolsby

  When he arrives, his apartment is cold, icicles hanging from the eves in front of the living room window. He turns the thermostat up to eighty, hoping it’ll hit sixty-five. Uncooked pasta sits in a pot for the dinner he had planned to throw together after work. The living room recliner calls to him, and he lights another cigarette. Marcus stares out the window, over at the post office, an old building with two flights of stairs. They’re finishing construction on a path for the handicapped. Marcus has never been in a wheelchair and wonders if anyone in the town will use the ramp. The route to the doors will be longer but easier on the legs.

  At dinner Kristen gives him a plain red shirt before pouring herself a glass of cheap red wine.

  “Something new,” she says.

  He hates the shirt but promises her he’ll think about wearing it.

  After the pasta they relax on the couch and flip through the television channels. Channel six, eight, eleven, twelve, and Kristen tells him to stop.

  “Keep it here,” she says. The evening news.

  Marcus holds the remote, index finger on the black channel button, ready to press. Colin Powell inside the UN, photos of Iraqi buildings taken from space, arrows, ultimatums. Marcus stays silent and listens for Kristen’s breathing, but all he hears is his apartment’s undersized heater humming and Powell’s voice: “We know that Saddam Hussein is determined to keep his weapons of mass destruction; he’s determined to make more.” In his peripheral vision Marcus sees Kristen put the tip of her finger in her mouth. As the segment winds down, he prays for anything except a piece about car bombings or friendly fire or any mention of Afghanistan, and his fears soon dissipate when a mug shot of Phil Spector appears in a small box near the left side of the news anchor’s head. “Producer of Let It Be arrested for murder.”

  Marcus turns off the television and puts his arm around Kristen.

  “We should get out of here. Go somewhere.”

  “Yeah,” she says. “I’ll go.”

  “Mexico is warm.”

  “Dreams. Only dreams.”

  “We can drive.”

  “You’re not serious. We work, remember?”

  “Closer?”

  “Marcus.”

  “I’m serious. Any place in the world you could go, where’d it be?”

  She pictures the gaping hole in the gigantic redwood, envisions her car driving through, a thousand growth rings surrounding her, but she feels Wintric in the vision, feels him in the car with her.

  “San Francisco,” she says. “Go see Bonds.”

  “Doable. In a couple months, it’ll be perfect.”

  Eleven at night, and she asks Marcus if he wants her to do anything special, and he summons the courage to say yes. He’s nervous, but after hundreds of classroom daydreams, he can give her detailed instructions. He undresses, positions himself in bed under all the blankets, closes his eyes, and waits. The streetlight shines in enough that when he opens his eyes, he sees her in the doorway and knows it’s no longer a fantasy.

  “Kristen,” he says.

  She stands in the doorway. She hears her name and waits in the near darkness. She knows he’ll call for her again.

  3

  Pollice Verso

  THREE MONTHS AFTER his prison stint for starting a forest fire that killed a man, Armando’s father drives his family past the Supermax outside Florence, Colorado. He’s in good spirits.

  “You know the guy that invented the Richter scale? Dude was a nudist,” he says.

  The Torres family laughs together inside their minivan as they head back to Colorado Springs after an overnight campout in the Wet Mountains. Fifteen-year-old Armando rests in the back seat with his younger sister. She holds her stomach and smiles. Armando half listens, half mentally undresses a girl in his grade named Marie who sports a pinkish birthmark on her cheek that resembles Wisconsin.

  “I can’t help but imagine a naked guy, poolside, when an eight-point-oh strikes a couple miles down the road. Bet he wishes he had pants on.”

  Armando’s mother smiles and play-punches his father in the shoulder.

  “So you got gladiators,” he says. “And they battle it out and finally one stands over the other one, sword high, and he checks out the emperor to see if the near-vanquished will live or die, and the crowd gives the thumbs-up. You say, ‘Good news,’ right? No, my dear family. Pollice verso. With a turned thumb. The movies have it wrong. Thumbs down, sword down. Thumbs up, dead.”

  “So we should give a thumbs-down when someone does something right?” Armando’s mother asks. “Weird.”

  “There’s a flower that opens up at night,” his father says. “Bats do the work, not bees. Your turn.”

  Armando extends both thumbs up and smirks at his sister. His mind works, and a school bus passes the other way. “There’s blind fish in caves.”

  “One huge, linked cave. In Kentucky. What else you got? Give me something good.”

  “My English teacher says Shakespeare ripped off his stories.”

  “Shakespeare didn’t rip off anything ’cause he didn’t write the plays,” his father says. “Edward de Vere, Earl of Oxford. That’s a fact. Listen up kids, read widely, but only pay attention to de Vere’s stuff and three others—William Blake, Bill Watterson, Jane Austen. That’s it.”

  “You’re full of it,” says Armando’s mother, “but you’re right about Austen.” Then, smiling back and winking at Armando: “Listen, a half, maybe a quarter of what he says is true.” She reaches and squeezes his shin.

  “Ask me anything about sports. Anything.”

  “We got the Olympics,” she says. By “we” she means Mormons. The Torres family has visited Salt Lake City twice: Temple Square, the tabernacle, two Jazz games. “We’re going.”

  “Luge and ice hockey,” says Armando’s father.

  “Maybe we can get him into luge,” his mother says, thumbing back at her son. Then, tone rising: “How many people can be into luge? A hundred?”

  “A thousand, worldwide. Still good odds.”

  “What do you say?” his mother says.

  “That’s headfirst, right?” Armando says.

  “It is? Forget it, then,” she says.

  “But you’d be okay with feet first?”

  “Drop it,” she says.

  “Figure skating,” says his sister. “I can see you in skates.”

  “I could wear pink,” he says.

  Armando’s father whistles, sees the approaching dotted yellow center line, flicks the left turn signal on, and accelerates out into the left lane to pass a brown truck doing forty-five, but as their van draws even the truck speeds up, so he pushes the accelerator, but the truck matches him, and four seconds in he peers over and spots two shirtless boys, the young driver smirking, glancing at his speed, and nodding to his buddy, and Armando’s father presses the brake, but the truck slows as well, and Armando’s mother reaches up and touches her window and says, “Hey. Hey,” and the dotted line goes double yellow and Armando’s father smashes the accelerator down and they fly along a bend, the van tilting hard, and a car coming for them in the far distance flashes its lights as the van’s engine wails a high-pitched squeal, and Armando freezes in the back seat, and his father’s head leans forward as the van gains a bumper ahead, then a full car length, and his father turns the wheel and cuts the truck off and the oncoming car whips past, horn ablaze.

  “Shit!” his father says, lifting his right arm up with a fist.

  His mother moans.

  “My God,” she says. “Slow down. Slow down. Now. Please.”

  Armando’s father lifts his foot from the accelerator, but the pedal sticks. He presses the brake and the van shakes.

  “Stuck. Pedal’s stuck. Shit,” he says. “Help me.”

  Armando glances outside and watches the red rock and pine trees flash by. Amid his still-forming fear he wonders if they’re doing a hundred.

  Later Armando will understand that his father’s mistake was not shifting the car to
neutral and not making any attempt to turn off the engine, but no one in the minivan knows that now, so while his father hammers down his left foot on the parking brake and his right on the main brake pedal, his mother unbuckles her seat belt and leans over the center console and yanks on the accelerator. The burning brake stench overpowers them. From the back seat Armando watches his mother’s lower back jerk and jerk. He has never seen her body move so wildly, and the sight scares him more than anything that has happened up to this point, until his body launches sideways, then presses taut, and he hears his father yell out “Na!” as the van begins its roll.

  His vision straightens and Armando makes out his sister’s wet face and the ground at the window behind her. Something presses on his neck and he reaches there and grabs at flesh, bone underneath, and he moves it away from him. A dangling, shoeless foot on a leg—his mother’s leg extending out at an impossible angle toward her body. He hears voices nearby and reaches out in the space in front of him, toward his sister, and sees his hands there before darkness overtakes him.

  One afternoon, eight weeks into Armando’s mother’s coma, Armando’s father picks him up from school in their loaner van and drives them past the luxurious Broadmoor resort and out on Gold Camp Road toward Pike’s Peak. Aspens flank the packed dirt path. They talk about the Broncos beating the Redskins, about John Elway, how he may have a couple more seasons left in him.

  His father says, “The guy once knelt on home plate at the Stanford baseball stadium and hurled a baseball over the center fence from his knees.”

  Armando pictures young Elway kneeling on home plate before the throw. Elway’s in uniform, warming up, windmilling his massive right arm loose as a crowd gathers near the backstop. A baseball appears in his hand, and in one superhuman motion he flings the ball high and deep. The ball still climbs into the sky as it passes dead center, headed for the clouds. Young Elway grins as Armando shakes the vision away.

  After a crest in the road his father turns south, guiding the van into a valley. A mile down the bumpier road he pulls the van off by a stream and parks.

  They follow the stream for a while and piss at the base of a rusted-out sign before peeling off and hiking up a hill, then resting on a granite outcropping.

  “Never eat an armadillo,” Armando’s father says. “Leprosy.”

  “I’ll never eat an armadillo.”

  “You never know when you’ll be tempted to try. Wyoming. New Mexico. Weird freaks out there.”

  “What’s the weirdest thing you’ve eaten?”

  His father smacks his lips. “Weird, of course, is relative. But to answer your question, human.”

  “Human?”

  “You believe me?”

  “I guess.”

  “Be careful.”

  “Okay.”

  “I ate a rabbit eyeball for twenty-five bucks.”

  “Dad.”

  “Hard Jell-O marble.”

  Armando looks out on the modest vista—gray rock and trees scattered together. He picks up a flat rock and tosses it down the hill. Tiny dust eddies circle into the afternoon. He sees dirt on his jeans and swipes. He imagines Marie calling his house and leaving a message he’ll find later that night. He recalls the yellow shirt she wore at school, the freckles on her neck. Near the end of the day she mentioned to him that she wanted to see Se7en—he’s heard something about a severed head in a box.

  “Your mom will wake up,” his father says.

  “Yep.”

  “I mean it, son. She’ll be back with us soon.”

  “You gave her a blessing?”

  “Doesn’t have to do with that.”

  “Okay.”

  “There’s free will, but there’s God’s plan. There’s volcanoes and shit too. God’s always watching, which is a pain in the ass. And, of course, Freud is always watching, which is less a pain in the ass, but still. So there you go.”

  The wind blows through the trees and they hear the branches move.

  On the way down they stay silent, but as they near the van, his father tells him to wait by the stream, ambles to the vehicle, and returns with a glass jug and matches.

  “It’s getting darker,” his father says. “Okay.” He uncorks the jug and holds it out to his son. “Smell,” he says, smiling, but Armando can smell the gasoline from where he stands.

  “Little smoke ’cause there’s no green on it,” his father says, stepping close. “Always pick dead ones.”

  Only then does Armando notice the tree next to him. It’s largely limbless save a few dead branches near the top.

  “I’ll do this one,” his father says. “Now listen. You just burn one. I got too cocky. Out of control.”

  He steps to the snag and pours gasoline over the bottom two feet of the tree.

  “Wow,” he says. “Yeah. That’s the smell.” He pinches a match and holds it in his left hand between his thumb and index finger.

  Armando stares in wonderment. “They’ll see the smoke,” he says.

  “Getting dark, son.” His father shakes his head. “And there’s no they.”

  “Okay.”

  “Most of the law is good, but some of it’s shit.” He shakes out his arms. “You already know that. You may think different, and I don’t care. Just never say I didn’t know what I was doing. You understand? Don’t ever say that.” He points the match at his son’s chest. “That’s the worst thing you can say about someone, that they don’t know what they’re doing. Doesn’t matter how old. We should hang kids that kill people. They know enough.” He pauses and examines the unlit match. “If you have a drink, that’s fine. Your mother will wake up and disagree.”

  “I try things.”

  “Good.”

  “Some things.”

  “Always believe in God. You’ll be tempted. People believe in gravity. No one knows what the hell it is. There’s no difference.”

  “What?”

  “Be suspicious of Jesus. No one understands what’s going on there.”

  His father strikes the match on the side of the box and cups the miniflame. Armando’s head buzzes, and he steps forward.

  “Can I?” he asks, but his father ignores him, and Armando sees his father’s mouth move, but no sound emerges. His father flicks the match at the base of the tree and the flame catches and climbs. The tree lights up quick—a twenty-foot torch.

  Armando can’t find words to say, but in his mind many cartwheel by: beautiful, free, power, hot, trouble, crime, glorious, God, coma, dead, Marie, prison, run.

  Then his father’s voice.

  “She said I was a slob or something. Things go back and forth, then you dig up the good stuff, and I end up calling her an über-bitch. So she says she’s going to stay at her sister’s in Cortez. Fine. ‘Good,’ I say. And she gathers her stuff, her priceless diploma. Gets in the car. All ready to go. But she sits out there forever. She’s not crying. Not doing anything. Just sitting. Not even touching the wheel. Finally she comes in. ‘It’s Sunday,’ she says. ‘Can’t spend money on gas on Sunday.’ That’s it. She stays.”

  “Mom?”

  “Can’t spend money on Sunday? Can’t live like that, man. Don’t talk about it.” He takes a step toward the fire.

  “And they say I killed a man. Bull. He killed himself. Intent matters. We pay people to kill. We give them awards. We call people heroes because they get shot down trying to bomb people. How does that make you a hero? You survive the Hanoi Hilton and you’re a hero? You firebomb Dresden or Tokyo and you’re a hero? Ask about LeMay.”

  “What?”

  “You need to know I’ve never killed anyone. Doesn’t make sense. Why would I do that?”

  “You wouldn’t.”

  “Go,” he says. “I want you to go.”

  Armando doesn’t move, still mesmerized. His father walks over to him and gently squeezes his neck.

  “Get in the car,” his father says. “I’ll see you at home. I mean it.” He turns his son to face him and smiles.
r />   “Dad, I don’t have a license.”

  “It’s okay. Drive slow.”

  “Dad.”

  “Now, son.”

  Armando opens the driver’s door and gets in. He lowers himself onto the seat and takes in the burning tree, his father’s back to him, and he squeezes the wheel hard and he reaches his feet out to touch the brake and gas pedals. He has practiced driving twice in their old van, but this is a newer Aerostar, electric doors and windows and side mirrors, and already he has decided not to adjust anything, but the seat is too far away and it takes him several nervous seconds to find the button that brings him closer to everything. Armando turns the key in the ignition—keys left in the van—then lights on, dashboard to life, a little brake, and he grabs the shifter and slides it to reverse, off the brake, and movement. The lights of the van spotlight his father as he pulls back, and once Armando reaches the road leading out, he shifts to drive but keeps his foot on the brake. He wipes his hands on his pants and peers over. A thought comes to him, and he watches the lit tree, his father’s hands on the top of his head, a piercing certainty: his mother will never wake.

  On the drive back Armando keeps it at thirty miles per hour. He focuses on the road, how close the van’s right-side tires parallel the shoulder, anticipating oncoming headlights, late-night loggers, but after thirty minutes of slow driving he enters a space of half awareness and replays the tree lighting, the glass jug, his father’s shiny face ranting, the invisible smoke flowing into the night. He considers his father, a man who seemingly knows everything but knows how to do little, who showcases benevolence and service, a diehard Broncos fan, a hugger, quick to smile and encourage. He’s also someone who attends every fire station open house to climb on the trucks, a man who lights a match and blows it out after every bathroom trip, a person who, no matter the intention, has burned someone to death.