by John Brandon
“Don’t worry, I don’t want to be anybody’s boss.”
Swin rolled his window the rest of the way up and chewed his cheek.
“Just don’t argue with me,” Kyle said. “I’ll listen to you until you start arguing.”
“Takes two to argue.”
“I’ve never argued with anyone in my life.”
They passed a parking lot full of teenagers, mostly Asian kids wearing visors. Kyle dug Nick’s teeth out and tossed them in a ditch. He and Swin agreed they would keep quiet and wait. They would get the packets and go on the trips. Soon enough, they would have their chance to explain all this. And if Frog’s people thought Kyle and Swin had killed Bright, let them think it. If they thought Bright ran off, let them think it. There was a chance Frog himself was dead. There was a chance Nick had been a cog in a hostile takeover, that one of Frog’s guys had usurped him. Kyle and Swin had to show they could run the Felsenthal operation. If they did that, whoever was in charge wouldn’t care that Bright was gone. Bright was friendless and without family. The unease came from the forty-four thousand dollars. It was supposed to go somewhere other than Bright’s dryer. Forty-four thousand dollars didn’t get lost in the shuffle.
“We’ll get a little perspective,” Swin said. “All you do is present your mind with the facts, then get plenty of sleep and protein.”
Kyle closed his eyes sluggishly, then reopened them, ignoring Swin. “I left a message with Colin. I got the number from the guy who originally introduced us.”
“Who introduced us?”
“Introduced me and Colin.”
“What did the message say?”
“That a few things had happened that he probably ought to know about.”
“And to call us back?”
“I thought that part was obvious.”
“Well, we don’t want him coming to the park, do we?”
“Why not?”
“I don’t want to see any of them face to face right now, to tell you the truth.”
A far-off look passed over Kyle’s face. “Shit, you’re right.”
“We’re not in trouble, though,” Swin said.
“He might think we’re luring him out here.”
“We wouldn’t do that.”
“He doesn’t know what we would do.”
A bunch of cows appeared in the headlights. They were off to the side of the road, jostling one another. Kyle slowed as he passed them. They’d escaped through a big gap in their pasture fencing and now they didn’t know where to go. They couldn’t manage to get back into the pasture. When he’d cleared the last cow, Kyle sped back up.
“What about you?” Kyle asked. “Any progress getting in touch with anyone?”
“Nada,” Swin said.
Kyle waited a moment. “Nada? That’s it? That’s your contribution?”
“Yeah, it is.”
Kyle squeezed the steering wheel and pushed his arms straight, sort of stretching, sort of venting frustration. “I don’t know what you been telling that nurse, but it better not be the truth.”
“Nothing.”
“She must want to know what you do.”
“Doesn’t seem like it. I’m being mysterious to no effect.”
“You need a lie you can stick with.”
“Lying is a strong suit with me.”
“And don’t think about running away,” Kyle said. “If the time comes to run, we both have to run. Don’t take Bright’s Bronco and leave me here with no emer-gency transportation.”
“Where am I going?” Swin said. “What, I’m going to work in a factory and buy a Saturn and read science fiction?”
“I don’t claim to know what you might do.”
“Me neither,” Swin said.
“If you get spooked, talk to me.”
“You sound like Bright,” Swin said. “I wish you’d calm down. You’re speeding.”
It was hard to calm down while talking to Swin. Kyle turned on the radio and let the seek drag through every station, no intention of sticking with one. Tacky music. Tacky opinions. News about an unprecedented filibuster. There was always something unprecedented. What Kyle wanted to hear was a woman close to his age, with no accent, reading complex instructions. God, he was tired.
“Tomorrow we’ll reopen the park and make sure everything’s spotless.”
“I’m opposed to spotlessness,” Swin said. “The park should be a natural ecosystem—nature on its own with no meddling from us.”
“Prepare to meddle.”
Swin yawned. “In case your honey shows up.”
“That’s right.” Kyle picked something out of his molars, trying to remember the last time he’d sat down to an actual meal. “We’ll tell her Bright’s on a trip.”
“That’ll only work for so long. That lie has a short shelf life.”
“I’m sorry I don’t have ten-, twenty-, and thirty-year-plans mapped out for us.”
“What if the boss in pink asks you to run away with her?”
“Yeah, she’ll probably do that. She’s probably got that in her day planner.”
“She’s waiting for you to make a move,” Swin said.
“Make a move,” repeated Kyle. “She’ll make a move if she finds out Bright’s dead. Fire us at the very least. Shut the park down and hold an internal investi-gation. Possibly just freak the fuck out and call the cops.”
“There’s no way she could get us in touch with anyone, anyway.”
“Please,” Kyle said. “She doesn’t know anybody.”
Swin concentrated a moment, and then released an amused breath. “Let’s get this straight. Bright went with an Indian... to Oklahoma. And that’s all we know.”
“That’s it?”
“You throw in a couple details, but you don’t care if the listener believes the details. It’s the apathy of authority.”
“Oklahoma with an Indian.”
“Don’t make up a name for the Indian,” Swin said. “Like ‘Overhears With Disdain.’”
Kyle got up early and searched Bright’s house for the guns the ranger had promised, not so sure Bright had been lying about the rifles and not wanting Swin to find them first. He ended up in the attic again, staring at old fitness machines that utilized rubber stoppers and planks. There were garden pots. Bright owned Christmas decorations. He had reindeer heads for the door handles, a nativity scene in which the holy family appeared to be Samoan. Kyle opened a box and found a lumpy tree apron full of bones— almost blackened human bones. The femur was smooth and knotted, like treated pine. Kyle lifted it and was surprised by its weight. The bones seemed old enough to be called remains. Kyle flattened out on his back and looked up at the bullet hole he’d patched and caulked, a skin-colored nickel that stood out from the wood. He laughed. He lost his breath but kept forcing out the syllable “ha.” Then he was quiet for a time. He made growling noises, pushing gurgling snarls up through his throat.
He heard the front door and heard Swin coming up to the attic. Kyle knew he should hide the bones, but didn’t feel capable of quick movements. He got himself to a sitting position. Swin came over and blinked into the box.
“I like to watch my calories,” he said. “You can go overboard with it.”
“Who the hell was this?”
Swin just shook his head.
“It was a fluke Bright died. He was a badass,” Kyle said.
“Yeah?”
“Somebody that doesn’t need the right situation to be tough.”
“You might be one of those,” said Swin. “Little old you.”
Kyle got to his feet.
“These would burn up your modem on eBay,” Swin said. “Think they’d let you sell bones?”
“Maybe we can look into a gun.” Kyle covered the bones back up with the tree apron. “As long as there’s no way it can be tracked back to us.”
“I know a pawnshop that might be worth a try. It’s not a shop, really.”
“I’m an idiot,” Kyle said.
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“A live idiot.” Swin tapped the box. “This guy here’s a dead wise man.”
Waiting outside the pawnshop door, Kyle noticed a wooden scooter and a lantern made of bronzed feathers. The shop was an old house, with no sign or anything. The owner opened the door, his mouth cocked upward, puffing steam. He held a beer stein full of stewed cherries.
“Not Halloween.” He swallowed with effort. “So why these kids at my door?”
“Halloween’s for Baptists,” Swin said.
The shop owner pulled the door all the way open and stepped aside. “Suppose that’s true.”
“Remember me?”
“I do.”
“This is Ed. We need guns.”
“For what?”
“A gun, singular,” Kyle said. “We work over at the park and we got our vacation coming up. What we like to do to relax is shoot targets, but all we have at Felsenthal is rifles. Our boss said we should try here for handguns.”
“Ranger Bright said you should try and get guns from me?”
Kyle nodded.
“He respects you,” Swin said. “Says nothing mystifies you.”
The shop owner slouched in thought, then spooned up more cherries. He slurped them around and got them to go down. “Shit, hang on.” He fetched a small radio from the kitchen and put it on the coffee table. The man on the radio described a fat pitcher the St. Louis Cardinals had acquired in a trade from Seattle. The kid was decent with every pitch, but didn’t excel at a single one.
“Why don’t you go to Memphis?” the shop owner asked. “It’s out of state.”
“I got a real problem with city guns,” said Kyle. “I want a gun from out in the sticks that somebody’s dead daddy owned.”
The man set down the stein of cherries. “What’s the plan for you two? You know, in life.”
Kyle and Swin looked at each other.
“We try to keep the meat on the bones and keep the bones moving,” answered Swin.
“Because it’s not too late to get in the raft and float downstream. Bad things are in store for those who don’t pay the community fees.”
“You’re a little nutty,” Swin said. “I like that.”
The commercials ended and a man on the radio said St. Louis had as good a shot as anyone to win the division. He rattled off a bunch of statistics that backed his assertion. The shop owner held out his hands as if he’d proved a point. “As good a shot as anyone.” He shut off the radio.
Swin crossed his legs and looked at his fingernails. “It’s fair to say you trade in underground goods. How much could one get for a set of human bones?”
“With the skull?”
“Say, without.”
“Depends on the person. Bill Clinton or an infant, you’d do okay. Now, a live person you can sell easy.”
Kyle stood. “Will you sell us a gun or not?”
“I will not. In your line of work a gun is as likely to get you killed as protect you.”
“What line of work is that?” Kyle asked.
The shop owner frowned. “Rangering.”
“What’s your line of work?”
“I guess I’m a ranger, too. I guess we all are.”
Kyle opened the door and waited for Swin, who shook the shop owner’s hand and slapped his shoulder. Kyle didn’t look at the guy. He didn’t appreciate receiving double-talk advice from a stranger. Kyle didn’t want a gun from this guy.
Swin wasn’t sure he had a plan, but he saw a possible picture of his future. He would never again be a college student, but there was no reason why, in time, he couldn’t be a college professor. They gave a certain number of professorships away based on nothing but intellectual merit. One could write a book or make a discovery and leap, overnight, from nowhere to tenure. For the true stars of thought, there were no ladders to climb, asses to kiss, or background checks. In ten years, this stuff with Kyle would be ancient and Swin could live in a big-windowed loft in a college town, where he would teach young girls how to have good taste. His shady past would give him a mystique. Eventually, a memoir: Mule to Emeritus, My Story. If this was a plan—to one day use his Arkansas experiences as some kind of academic bolster—then all his time here, every single thing that happened to him, was part of that plan.
Johnna showed up at Swin’s trailer half-drunk, glasses crooked, clasping a plaid thermos to her chest. She had on a pair of clunky headphones. She kissed Swin, then sat on the edge of the futon. Swin went back to his tiny kitchen table, which was smothered with graphs, testimonials, and photographs of pleased people. He was choosing a cell-phone company.
“Texas is ours this time,” Johnna announced. She pushed the headphones tight to her ears. “They can’t stuff the first-down run.”
Swin squinted, trying to look impressed. He knew nothing about football except that the Arkansas Razorbacks and the Texas Longhorns hated one another, and that Arkansas was a constant underdog in this rivalry. He flipped through the brochures. Minutes packages. Rollover. Roaming. The Cingular company, for some reason, stressed originality. If you had their phone, you could be an individual. Swin waved his arms to get Johnna’s attention. He mimed drinking, then made a puzzled face.
“Brandy and diet,” said Johnna. “Tie game.” She flipped the sipper on the thermos and sucked on it, then tipped her head down and shut her eyes.
Swin gazed at her and in a soft voice said, “Let’s stay together till we die. I’ll never tire of looking at you when the sun hits you through a window.” He watched her for what could have been a long time, enjoying the range of her facial expressions, then she pumped her fist and said it was halftime. Her team was up a field goal. She removed the headphones and took another slug of brandy.
“That outfit for me?” Swin asked.
Johnna had on scrubs and white sneakers. “I’ll be hung over in the morning and I don’t want to slog home and change. Lot of people say use a sick day, but I ain’t used one yet. I got seven weeks. There was this RN retired a year early.”
“You’re staying here tonight?”
“That’s the plan.”
“You should drink some water and maybe come back to the alcohol later.”
“I only got a couple swallows left.”
“We could make love now.”
“You should know this about me: the Razorbacks come first.”
Swin had a disgusting vision of an entire football team lining up to get a turn with Johnna. He had no idea how many guys she’d slept with. Could be two or two hundred. She rooted through the pantry and pulled out a box of croutons, shredded a wad of cheese, then mixed the two up and spooned it all down. She went into the bathroom and emerged with Swin’s electric clippers, calling for Bedford. Swin told her to hang on while he put down a sheet. Bedford came to Johnna, who was kneeling now, and sniffed her. Johnna whispered to him and let him sniff the clippers, and when she started it buzzing, Bedford jerked but didn’t try to get away. Johnna soothed him with one hand and scalped him of blue with the other. He yelped, but it was false; he was enjoying himself.
“Now you won’t look like a punk teenager,” Johnna told him.
Bedford’s natural color was a nutty red. When Johnna finished, the dog looked athletic—no longer a vagabond. He rubbed himself against the wall, then went into a series of pre-nap stretches. Johnna checked him here and there for missed patches. She cursed, groping for her headphones.
“Already?” she cried.
Texas had scored on the second-half kickoff. Johnna solemnly poured the rest of her cocktail in a tall glass. Swin gathered the sheet by the corners and shook it out the front door, sending wavy blue clumps tumbling over the grass. He tossed the sheet in the hamper, then randomly selected a wireless company, sliding the rest of the ads into the trash. He sat at the table and took another look at his life: a mobile home, a refugee dog, a redneck nurse, a deranged white boy, and a shithole park with a Jewish name. Seemed like a good book, but right now Swin was living it. He had to subscribe to some maga
zines or something. Maybe he would mail a picture to his sisters, a shot of himself and Johnna and Bedford looking pleased like the people in the phone brochures. He could ask for pictures of them in return, to be sent to a PO box up in Missouri somewhere belonging to a Mr. Suarez. If something bad had happened to his sisters, his sisters wouldn’t say. They would send winning pictures that showed them living their dreams and Swin could choose to believe these pictures. Swin didn’t want his sisters to think he was dead and, in an unconscious attempt to replace him, become slutty.
Johnna stomped. She was red in the face. Swin could tell things were going to pieces for the Arkansas football team. Interceptions. Personal fouls. Johnna shouted to herself. Arkansas’s quarterback was too well-rounded a person to lead a Southern team into battle. He didn’t get insulted, didn’t want to step on anybody’s neck. The Texas quarterback was drawing roughing calls even though he’d run for over a hundred yards. Their fullback was bigger than our tackle, and so on. For a time, Johnna called the Longhorn offense, seeming to know everything they’d run. She finished the brandy and produced her flask, which she emptied in three gulps.
“We ain’t got one screen in the playbook?” she asked. “One goddamn screen pass.”
She dialed off the headphones and detached them from her hair, then turned to Swin sweetly and said that what she’d like to do was dump off a few rounds at a tree stump. She held up her flask and said they could try to put holes in it. She didn’t want to talk about the game or about anything. She wanted to safely take target practice with her good friend Swin.
Swin was ashamed to own no gun. He and his partner, Kyle, he explained, had visited the shop where Johnna had tried to pawn the scooter, but the guy had played dumb about guns. Next, Swin said, they might try a flea market inside the Texas border that was sponsored by a bulletproof-vest company. Some guy who owned a tackle shop had told Kyle about it. Johnna had stopped listening, stopped blinking.
“That shop-owning son of a bitch. Moves here from God-knows-where. He’s a rotten Yankee if he wears socks.”
“He’s seen me for the last time,” said Swin.
“Not me, by God.”
“If he wants to be despised, that’s his right.”
