Hit the Ground Running

by Alison Hughes

  Sometime. A future “sometime.” I like the sound of that.

  Dee scrubbed at her face with her hand, then turned and thanked the woman behind the counter, who smiled absently, pulled the phone back over the counter and turned to a real, paying customer.

  In the shade, without the sunglasses, Murph’s eyes were a bleary, red-rimmed, pale blue. They looked moist and naked and unprotected, and Dee was relieved when the sunglasses slid back on.

  “Well? All set?” Murph asked.

  “Yeah. Ready to go,” Dee lied.

  “Ready, Eddie?” asked Murph. “Ready, steady Eddie?” Eddie, sipping the brown slush, smiled and nodded. They hauled themselves back into the big rig. Twenty thousand pounds of truck, fifty-five thousand pounds of trailer (assorted electronics) and three people hurtled toward the border.

  The seven miles passed in a blink. A few gray buildings, five lanes leading up to five booths, and a sweeping arch protecting it all from the weather marked the border crossing. It was like the entrance to a national park, only with more lines, more booths, more Canadian flags. And more security, Dee noted uneasily, counting five video cameras focused on each lane. Her hand holding their passports was sweating.

  “Keep right/garder la droite,” read Eddie, butchering the French with hard r’s, pronouncing droite like it rhymed with Detroit.

  Dee leaned over to Eddie, speaking low enough that Murph couldn’t hear.

  “This is really important, Eddie,” she said as they slid into the trucks-only line. “Like, you don’t know how important. So when we get up to that little house thing, you have to be very quiet and leave the talking to me and Murph, okay?”

  Eddie was sort of listening, but he was preoccupied with chasing the last trails of brown slush around the bottom of the plastic cup with loud, dry sucks on his straw. She gave him a sharp nudge, and he looked up.

  “Okay,” he said hurriedly, seeing her tense face. “Okay, Dee. Got it.” He mimed turning an imaginary key at his mouth, tossing it over his shoulder.

  “So, Murph,” said Dee, keeping her voice casual, just interested. “What kind of questions do they ask you up there?”

  “Oh, the usual stuff. ‘Where you from?’ ‘Where you going?’ ‘Purpose of your travels?’ ‘Any fruits and vegetables?’ ”

  Fruits and vegetables? Well, at least I can answer that one without lying.

  “Have you been through this particular border crossing before, Murph?”

  “Only about once every couple of weeks. On my regular route.”

  Murph sighed and looked over Eddie’s head at Dee. The huge sunglasses made the look impossible to read.

  “Look, Dee, I like you guys. But when that border officer’s asking questions, I gotta be honest with them.”

  “I know, Murph.”

  “Don’t know the situation. Can’t lie.”

  “Wouldn’t want you to,” said Dee. What a liar I am. Of course I want you to lie, Murph. I’d dearly love you to say, “These here are my sister’s kids, just coming along for the ride,” and floor it all the way to Calgary.

  They crawled forward steadily. Soon there was just one truck between them and the booth. Dee sat very still, studying the border officer. He didn’t look at all like a slack-ass, unfortunately. He was a trim, athletic man of sixty or so in a dark blue uniform with a Canada Border Services crest on his sleeve. Is that a bullet-proof vest he’s wearing? It is. That is a genuine bullet-proof vest. God. The officer was one of those military-type guys who semi-shouted rather than spoke. Dee could hear him from where she sat. He leaned out to bark a few questions at the driver in front of them. Dee watched him scrutinize a passport, ask some more questions, then wave the truck on.

  Murph put the truck in gear and killed the country music mid-wail. Showtime. Dead silence as they slid up to the booth.

  “You again,” the border services officer (name tag: Randell Carmichael) bellowed at Murph, then his eyes slid past to settle on Eddie and Dee. “He-llo, you usually fly solo. Who you got there with you today?”

  “Well, sir, this here’s Eddie, that’s Dee,” said Murph. “Their car broke down. Picked them up on the I-15 outside of Great Falls.”

  The border services officer’s white eyebrows rose. He frowned.

  “How about I have a look at some passports.” Dee handed hers and Eddie’s to Murph, who passed them over.

  “So we got Dee…aaand Eddie Donnelley,” said the officer, comparing the pictures to their anxious real faces. Then he addressed Murph. “So you have no personal relation to these children?”

  “No, sir.”

  “Just being a Good Samaritan, hey?”

  “Helping out. They needed a lift.” Murph paused and, staring straight ahead, added, “They’re good kids.”

  The officer leaned in Murph’s window, his sharp eyes resting on Dee’s tense face. “I’m sure they are. You bet. No doubt about that.” He said it automatically, his voice providing cover for his busy brain.

  “So where did you kids drive up from before you broke down?”

  “Arizona.” Dee had been wondering how much of the truth she should divulge. But this man was no rookie officer; there was no hiding from those eagle eyes. Everything but Dad. Tell them everything but that, and we’ll get through to Auntie Pat’s and then call down a missing person’s alert when we’re safely in Canada.

  “Arizona!” he barked. “All the way from the Grand Canyon State! Seen the canyon?”

  Dee nodded and smiled faintly. Eddie stared straight ahead.

  “Quite a trip. Were you living there or just visiting?” The officer’s casual, conversational voice didn’t fool Dee. Booth-to-truck conversations, where one of the people talking was wearing a bullet-proof vest and could put the other person in jail, were not casual.

  Living or visiting? Can a visit last five years? Was it illegal for us to live there for all that time? Truth. Tell as much of the truth as you can.

  “Living there.”

  “Gotcha. Now, Eddie, important question: are you having a fun summer?” the officer asked, turning his attention to Eddie. His voice changed, softened a bit for the young one. Eddie looked over at him blankly.

  Dee nudged him. I said to be quiet, not to go into your idiot-kid routine. “He asked you a question, Eddie.”

  “Yup,” said Eddie loudly to the dashboard.

  Well, what’s he supposed to say? “Yeah, super-fun, sir, running for our lives from perverts, sleeping in the car, driving until I go squirrelly in my own head, learning that my dad’s gone and we’re never going back home, watching my sister have a complete breakdown.” Poor Eddie, what have we all done to you?

  “Good stuff, good stuff. So why are you heading into Canada?” he persisted. Eddie’s eyes snaked over to the officer and back to the dashboard.

  “Visiting our Auntie Pat. And Uncle Norm.”

  “And where do they live?”

  “Rolling Wood, Alberta.”

  “Nice place. I’ve been there. You can see the mountains clear as day, right from the center of town.” Eddie didn’t answer, but Dee knew he was intensely interested in the Rocky Mountains. He’d read her facts about them. Mount Robson was the highest peak. Marmots lived above the tree line. Grizzly bears were bigger and less common than black bears. Elk, though herbivores, should not be approached by people.

  The officer glanced at Murph.

  Here it comes. Here comes the million-dollar question. The question I don’t even know the answer to: Where are your parents? “Tell the truth and put it all on them,” Murph had said. “Make it their problem.” How much truth? She stared fixedly at the officer.

  “So where are Mom and Dad, Dee?” the officer asked, looking down and flipping through some papers, keeping up the pretense of casual chitchat.

  “Our mom is…she passed away five years ago,” said Dee, “and our dad is in Arizona. He’ll be following us up here when he finishes his work. But our auntie Pat, my mom’s sister, is expecting us. She invi
ted us.” Dee wiped her hands surreptitiously down the sides of her shorts.

  The officer ignored Auntie Pat, batting her away and zeroing in on the real problem.

  “Just so we’re all clear, did your dad give you a letter of permission to cross into Canada unaccompanied? Anything like that?” Well, shit! If I’d known that’s what you needed, I could have forged that. Easy.

  “No. Sir. We didn’t know we needed one.” She tried out a smilingly confused look.

  He didn’t smile. He looked preoccupied. He was punching something into the computer.

  “Granted, most kids don’t walk around with permission letters hanging out of their pockets. Specially if they’re visiting relatives. But we have to ask.”

  Murph sat silently during this exchange, looking straight ahead.

  The officer wrote something down, gathered his papers and leaned out of his booth again. He handed back Murph’s passport.

  “So all clear for you, Murph. But if you could just pull the truck over there to let these kids hop out, I’d appreciate it. Dee, here are your passports and a paper that you’ll need to present to another border services officer inside those doors on your left. Don’t actually know how long it will take…” He and Murph shared a look. “Have a good day, guys.”

  Murph pulled the truck over to the side.

  So we’re not just sailing through. Of course we aren’t. How could I ever have been so stupid as to think we could? This is official customs-and-immigration shit. Even Dad couldn’t smile and fudge the rules in this situation. Nobody can.

  None of the other cars or trucks in the lineups Dee had watched had been pulled over. Nobody else had gone inside. More officers, more questions, computer searches and phone calls. That first border officer was just the beginning. She clutched their passports and the official-looking paper with a shaking hand.

  “Sorry about this, Murph,” muttered Dee.

  “Sorry?” barked Murph. “What you got to be sorry about? Seems like you kids done pretty damn good to have got up here from Arizona. Look,” said Murph, pulling out a beat-up wallet from a back pocket, “gonna give you my card. Cell’s on there. You give me a call if y’ever…you know…well, anyways, here’s the card.”

  “Thanks, Murph.” Dee took the warm card and concentrated on it as her eyes blurred with tears. Murphy J. Wilson Trucking Services written in blue across a cartoonish red semi.

  “C’mon, Eddie, we better get going.”

  “’Bye, Murph! Thanks!” Eddie turned to Murph, who held up a hand for Eddie’s high five.

  “See ya, bud. Thanks for the cactus.”

  They slid down onto the pavement.

  “Good luck!” Murph called from the driver’s window. They turned, squinting into the sun, and waved back.

  That’s exactly what we need now. Luck. A little luck.

  They walked away from the truck, from the safety of Murph and the big rig, over to the doors of the gray building. Somehow, opening this door seems like a significant act. Like we’re frigging turning ourselves in, like this is the end of the road. Dee lifted her chin, avoiding the stares of the bored car people waiting in line to whisk through effortlessly into Alberta. People with simple, uncomplicated lives. People who thought a border crossing was a necessary hassle, a mere nuisance that added another fifteen or twenty minutes to a long day’s drive.

  She caught Eddie’s anxious look as they stopped at the doors emblazoned with the Canada Border Services crest.

  “Eddie and Dee Flee to Canada, take two,” she whispered, clapping her forearms together as if she were a director’s assistant. Eddie giggled.

  “Yeah,” he said. “But maybe there’s food in there. You think?”

  “Maybe. Probably. Who knows?”

  Who the hell knows what’s going to happen in there, Eddie?

  “Murph was nice, hey?” Eddie said.

  “Yeah, sure was.”

  They looked back, but the truck was gone.

  Dee pulled open the door and followed Eddie into the building.

  While she was hovering at the counter, Dee heard a man’s aggrieved voice coming from an office down the hall.

  “…did not expect to have to pay so much duty on a secondhand Oldsmobile…”

  A uniformed officer came over to them, holding out her hand for the paper Dee offered and looking past them for their nonexistent parents. Her dyed-red hair was pulled back tightly from her hard cop’s face, shellacked there by some powerful spray.

  She looked down at the paper, then up again quickly. Border officer number one had clearly heads-upped border officer number two.

  “Oh. Right. Just have a seat for a sec.”

  As she turned away, Dee swiped two wrapped candies from a bowl on the counter and handed one to Eddie. On the television in the small waiting room CBC News blared the latest atrocities. Nobody else was in the waiting room, but Dee never even thought of muting it or changing the channel. You don’t touch official stuff, even if it’s a TV.

  “Hey, Eddie, there’s a water cooler. You want some water?” Dee asked in that abnormally low voice people use in doctor’s offices. He jumped up, and Dee studied the bulletins and notices tacked on the corkboard. The rows of mug shots of Canada’s Most Wanted seared into her skittish brain. Imagine one of them coming at you on a deserted highway. She looked closer, wondering if the Montana creeper was on the list.

  Eddie busied himself pulling out too many cone-shaped paper cups, gulping water, ferrying one to Dee and filling up his again. Dee wandered the waiting room, idly watching footage of some uprising in Venezuela. As she watched the screen, she scanned the crowd footage, viewing it not just as a crowd but as a collection of faces. With a shock, she realized she was searching for a glimpse of her father. Ridiculous. Ludicrous. What would he be doing in Venezuela? Is this how it’s going to be for my whole life? Always thinking I might see him in a crowd? Scanning the faces on the news, always wondering?

  “Hey, easy on the water, Eddie. Bathroom there if you need it.”

  They waited in the chilly air-conditioning. People came out of offices, walked down the hall, giving them nothing more than curious glances. Dee tried to breathe slowly and control her heart rate. Eddie read lame jokes out loud from a book on the end table, 101 Canuck Yuks.

  “What do you call a crying deer? A caribou-hoo-hoo.” He frowned. “That’s stupid. A deer isn’t exactly the same as a caribou, so how would you guess that? Plus, it’s not funny.”

  Finally border officer number two came back. “Okay, kids, if you could come with me, please.”

  She led them down the corridor, past the old guy still complaining about his Oldsmobile, and around the corner, pulling up at an office with a nameplate: Officer Wilfred Crow. She motioned them to sit on the chairs just outside the office, then double-knocked quickly, opened the door and poked her head into the office, murmuring something to the person inside. There was an answering murmur, and the officer glanced back at Dee and Eddie, stepped inside and closed the door.

  Dee and Eddie sat looking at a large, slightly askew print of an oil derrick in a field at sunset. It looked like a giant bug, or an alien, with its long neck and metal snout feeding on the earth.

  “What is that?” whispered Eddie, fascinated.

  “Some kind of oil thing. Machine that gets it out of the ground somehow,” Dee said absently. She was straining to pick out words from the rumbling exchange in the office. Nothing.

  They both jumped as the office door opened suddenly.

  “Okay, in you go,” said the redheaded officer with a sweeping motion of her arms, shooing them in like cats. “Officer Crow here’ll help you out.”

  An old guy with a short gray brush cut, a lined, fleshy face and thick glasses sat behind a desk, reading a sheaf of papers. His uniform looked like it was barely able to contain the body struggling underneath, his huge stomach rolling over a thick belt.

  He glanced up. “Have a seat.” They sat.

  He flipped t
hrough the papers, straightened them and neatly paper-clipped the stack. He capped a pen, set it straight beside the papers and smoothed the computer mouse cord. Oh, great. A control freak. A details guy. She glanced around the bare, pristine office, hoping to find pictures of his children, grandchildren, evidence of him being a family man. She saw only a framed photo of an old, red-eyed bloodhound with a brass name plate: Roscoe.

  The officer looked up to find Dee staring at him. She shifted her gaze just over his shoulder, but it was a fraction of a second too late.

  “Dee and Eddie Donnelley.” A statement, not a question. “I’m Officer Wilfred Crow,” he said. He neither stood up nor offered to shake hands.

  “Anything to drink?” he asked abruptly.

  Booze? Is he asking us if we’re carrying alcohol?

  “Absolutely not, sir,” Dee blurted.

  The big man stared at her, then leaned back, hands over his paunch.

  “No, I mean, would you like anything to drink?” He said it slowly, as if to non-English speakers. “Tea, milk….”

  “Oh. No, thanks,” Dee said, flushing. Not for sale.

  “Do you have any hot chocolate?” Eddie asked excitedly. Completely bought.

  “Could have.” Officer Crow pressed a button on his phone and asked someone to “rustle up” a cup of hot chocolate.

  He picked up and scanned the paper in front of him, then opened and shut each passport. The silence lengthened. Dee hoped he couldn’t hear her heart hammering.

  “This,” he said, indicating the paper, “is irregular. Unusual.” The keen eyes behind the glasses pinned them to their seats. “You two are unusual. Minors traveling without parental consent raise every red flag we got. Especially ones who’ve traveled all the way across the country. It’s not like you’re just cross-border shopping.”

  “Well, you see, our father is following—” Dee began.

  “Yes, yes, I have all that. Your father is ‘following you into Canada.’ ” He curled his thick fingers into air quotes. “He might have foreseen that there would be problems for the two of you arriving at the border without him.” He sounded impatient. Their negligent father had made his kids a hassle. A problem. A nuisance.