Arkansas

by John Brandon

  A fearsome pitcher who was thirty-nine years old in his rookie season stares at you. His teeth gleam. He is amused at playing a child’s game for a living. In your mind, you flip through a catalog of venues for your setup. You wonder if Thomas and Tim should try to recover what’s left of the money. You wonder if Felsenthal has a different ranger now. You wonder about the girl, Johnna. Your heart skips a beat and you toss the book off your lap. You were supposed to take your prune tarts out of the oven twenty minutes ago.

  Swin had arranged to phone his sister Rosa each Wednesday at nine, when dinner would be over and pre-bedtime scurrying would be in full swing. Rosa toured the house, pretending to speak to one of her suitors. Swin pressed the phone into his ear. A sitcom with a sarcastic toddler could be heard, and then a radio playing a racy version of the hokey-pokey. Swin heard Luz raising her voice over and over in light, wordless song, Rita reciting the Gettysburg Address. He heard Lizzie begging for help with her homework, mispronouncing the word “diorama.”

  “Use spaghetti,” Rosa told her. “You need spaghetti and you need food coloring.”

  Rosa calmed Lizzie down, then went outside to give Swin updates on each sister. Rosa herself was close to a decision about her dating life. She was leaning toward the jock because the nerd was too cocky and because the jock said “Yes, sir” and “No, sir.” Her project of becoming sane had hit a roadblock: she couldn’t keep herself from watching politics on TV. The desire for sanity was not a phase, she believed, but it was something that could only be accomplished by going through phases. Rita had quit organized running, and now ran on her own. She’d had a falling-out with her best friend/boyfriend, who, she’d discovered, had another best friend/girlfriend at another school. She had saved up and bought herself a microscope. Luz had gotten busier, and somehow calmer. She’d been granted her own cell phone by their stepdad. The only news about Lizzie was that she’d recently been sent home from school for laughing too much.

  Swin headed to the market for picnic supplies. He’d never been on a picnic, but he knew that fresh fruit and wine were standard. In Confederate areas, people brought fried chicken for the main course and a nut pie. The market didn’t carry a woven wood basket or a checkered sheet, so Swin put his bounty in a soft, blue cooler. This once, he would not urge vitamins upon Johnna, offering her instead an assortment of chocolatedipped gummy things. Chocolate made her predictable, less likely to demand picnics or throw out all her shoes, both things she’d done the day before.

  Swin chose a shaded spot halfway to the berry fields he and Kyle had tromped through. The hike gave Johnna an appetite. She devoured the chicken and pears with little help from Swin, but wouldn’t touch the pecan pie because it looked, to her, gelatinous. Swin accepted a smooch for the candy and uncorked the wine, a nonalcoholic type that tasted like carbonated fruit punch. He had prepared a picnic game, like in a Victorian movie he’d seen. The two of them had to alternate saying facts the other did not know.

  “I’ll tell you one. Our star receiver’s a turncoat.” Johnna slipped her legs underneath her. “He’s transferring out to California. That’s what happens when you recruit guys from out of state.”

  “That’s not what I had in mind. That’s more a news update than an obscure fact.”

  “The guy’s a pretty boy,” Johnna said. “That’s another fact.”

  Swin drank a little wine from the bottle and the sweetness made him pucker. “I put forth that the finest pinot noirs the world over are produced in the state of Oregon. I’ve heard that.”

  “I got one: My mother’s uncle-in-law invented the dude ranch.”

  “Is that true?”

  “In Arizona. He got the idea from all the Western movies they shot out there.”

  “Well, in Japan...” Swin racked his brain. “If a kid misbehaves, the other students beat him up. They have that much respect for authority.”

  Johnna stared at him.

  “They don’t cross the street without the walk signal,” he said. “No matter how clear.”

  “It’s a boy,” said Johnna.

  “Is that for sure?”

  “It is.”

  “You said you didn’t want to know.”

  “One day I did.”

  “It’s sure sure?”

  “A no-doubter.”

  “A boy?”

  Johnna nodded. “You never put a PI on me, did you?” she asked.

  Swin stared. “Never even thought about it,” he told her. He kept looking at Johnna. He’d never considered the notion that she wasn’t trustworthy.

  “I wouldn’t care that much,” she said. “Just curious.”

  “I trust you,” Swin said.

  “Why?”

  Swin ate a chocolate, sucking on it hard and then gulping it. “You’re too strong a person to need to do anything scummy.”

  Johnna sighed. “That’s a pretty good answer.”

  “You don’t have any sneakiness in your heart.”

  “Don’t overdo it,” Johnna said. She waved the topic away with the back of her hand. “I don’t want to exchange Christmas presents,” she said. “I want to get the baby some savings bonds so he can go to college.”

  “Or clown school,” said Swin.

  “Or open a gun range.”

  Johnna showed Swin her new sneakers, holding a foot up in the air and flexing it around, and this, oddly, gave Swin a boner.

  “Why don’t you want to get married?” he asked.

  “I don’t not want to get married.” She dropped her leg with a thud. “But we’re still in the infatuation stage. Even though we’re having a kid, there’s no denying we’re infatuated.”

  “That’s not an easy thing to deny.”

  “We should wait till we’re not attracted to each other to make a decision about marriage.”

  “What if that never happens?”

  “Give it time.”

  When they returned home there were two phone messages, both inquiring about an annual chili cook-off that Swin knew nothing about. He and Kyle had also received the following letter:

  Greetings Suarez and Mollar,

  You two will have to hold down the fort a bit longer. (I’m sure you’re capable of it.) My arrival at Felsenthal has been set for January 8th. I don’t know what you’ve been told about me, if anything, but I’m coming from Wyoming. I was at a Federal Game Preserve that’s been rezoned for a Military Woodland. What does that mean, right? I’d tell you if I could. It must’ve took some hard looking to find a state park in Arkansas for me, but I assure you I’m glad they did. I need to commend you for what it’s worth on running the park without missing a beat after the disappearance of your superior. I’ve been told that a full investigation will take place in March, so until he comes up deceased, we can always hold out hope. Have safe holidays. Me and the birdbrains will meet you soon.

  Ranger Marcus

  Kyle and Swin packed up the money from the dryer, over sixty grand, and took it to an out-of-business hardware store behind the Japanese fastfood joint. They picked their way into a garden section overrun with vines, shrubs that had busted their pots, rotten hoses, infested irrigation fittings. They pulled limp bags of fertilizer off a pile and buried the money underneath them. Neither felt the need to mark the spot; if anything, that would attract the attention of a marauding teenager.

  They brought out their litter-grabbers and wandered the park at random angles, eyes trained for wrappers and cups and bags. Mostly they spotted discarded pamphlets. The entire haul, compressed, fit in one garbage sack. They spread new mulch in the flower beds and medians, pruned the branches that overhung the road. They had to replace a strip of rubber that ran around a section of mud near the pond. They didn’t know why this area was special, but the guy from Wyoming might. Swin righted crooked signs while Kyle weed-whacked around the porch and trailers and around the booth. The damn booth—sunup to sundown, each man a six-hour shift. They collected fees and answered questions, but thankfully the cold kept mos
t people away.

  Swin found he could think in the booth. His mind was finally catching up with itself, showing signs of settling. He understood that he hadn’t escaped anything, in this life of crime he’d forged. It was the same life lived by sales associates. One tried to avoid pissing off one’s bosses, tried not to get caught in one’s illegal dealings, wondered what to do with one’s excess income, all the while finding time to exercise and keep the yard spiffy. There was no more rebellion for the thinking man, Swin knew. Rebellion was stored in a distant warehouse under a fake name. When you completed your quest, whether it was spiritual or intellectual or physical, and turned the last stone to claim your hard-won wisdom, you found that your wisdom, your reward, had been marked down for the Labor Day weekend, that your reward was cheaper if you possessed a club card, that if you bought ten spiritual and intellectual rewards the eleventh was free. Swin was a fool. Other people knew all this. That’s why smart people went into the kind of crime that ended them up in country-club jails in Connecticut for six months. The kind of crime Swin was involved in would put him in an state prison for the rest of his life.

  The booth contained a heater that crammed itchy air into Kyle’s nose. He got nosebleeds and ended up sitting his shifts in a coat and a Razorback ski cap. This much quiet was too much even for him. He told Swin to leave his ghetto-blaster in the booth and sat through Also sprach Zarathustra day after day until he felt he’d never heard it. The notes wanted to show each other up; they were pageant contestants who behaved with courtesy but secretly hated each other. The composition dragged on forever, then other times it seemed comically brief, a mere treatment. Kyle stacked boxes in the booth to rest his feet on, brought blankets and a deep Tupperware of batteries—in the mornings, a place mat to block the sun. When a visitor interrupted Kyle, he would rewind the tape and start from the beginning. He was okay with the fact that this piece of music would never change, not a note, that it was perfect no matter what anyone thought.

  Swin was using the ghetto-blaster to learn more Russian. He incessantly told Kyle what various household objects were called in Moscow. When he had to speak English, Swin used a Russian accent and a humorless facial expression. He fielded dozens of earnest calls about the chili cook-off, all from the same couple people. Apparently the cook-off was a long-standing event, an event that, at least for a few folks, had prestige attached to it. These people would not be evaded, Swin could tell. There was no getting out of it; he and Kyle had to pick a date, and that date had to be soon.

  They remembered about the chili peppers and minced some up, mostly for the hell of it, because it was something to do, scattered them over Bright’s grave, dropped Bedford in the middle of them. He tottered in a circle, snorting, then looked at Kyle and Swin with wonder. It worked, they guessed. But wouldn’t police dogs know that trick? It would be obvious something was being hidden. Anyway, when the cops got to the bottom of Bright’s real identity and saw his history, they might decide he just slipped off to some better scam. Kyle asked Swin how long the pepper would work for and Swin had no idea. It had been a mistake to bury Bright in the park, but it was way too late to do anything about it now.

  They decided to go ahead and get rid of Bright’s Bronco. When they moved it from its spot behind the house, it was apparent a car had been there. They raked the area and covered it with picnic tables. They found a hilly forest in Texas and dumped a gallon of gas on the Bronco, removed the license plate, tossed in a match, and watched the seats and carpet and console burn to nothing while the frame only grew sooty. They stood there and finished their cans of soda, wondering why the gas tank hadn’t blown. Oh well. Outside of a chop shop, there was no way to truly get rid of all traces of an automobile. The important thing was that when the authorities found the Bronco, it would be nowhere near the park.

  They were as ready as they’d ever be for the man from Wyoming. Kyle had a sense of accomplishment but he sensed the accomplishment was meaningless. His and Swin’s loose ends were tangled all over each other like a wad of shoestrings.

  Kyle deemed himself judge of the cook-off and declared that, to avoid being influenced, he had to stay up at the house until the tasting. Swin, as competition oversight chairman, set up tables and place-markers for his eight contestants: five solo women, an outfit from the Methodist church, two guys opening a diner out on the highway, and the pawnshop owner whose books Johnna had burned. The pawnshop owner suggested that the judging be blind, but the women found this idea sleazy. The pair opening the diner had failed in an attempt to bring North African cuisine to Fort Smith, and had now given up broadening Arkansas’s culinary horizons; if people wanted chili and burgers and chocolate ice cream every day of their lives, they would have yet another place to get it. One of the women was an unknown with a slippery accent and designs inked onto her hands. She’d come to America because it was a country where one could choose not to be religious.

  “Should’ve moved to LA or something,” Swin said.

  “I want churches around me, and pious people.” For the moment, she sounded Indian. “I like the clothing and the holidays.”

  “You can keep holidays,” said the pawnshop owner.

  “My aunt raised me,” the woman offered. “I am my aunt’s niece.”

  Swin asked where the woman was from and she said she was born in the Ukraine, but her aunt was not. Her aunt’s sisters, one of whom was the woman’s mother, had all died on a boat.

  “And your father?”

  “He was an agent of tile. He spoke many dialects. He once bought a barge of hats for the village.”

  “No dialects in America,” Swin said. “Black children invent slang and in time it makes its way to the dictionary.”

  One of the church men cleared his throat. “You probably think since we’re Methodist, we want to recruit a new arrival like you, but let me clear up a misbelief. We southern central Arkansas Methodists keep our God clear of school and City Hall and chili cook-offs. We are glad you didn’t go to California. They recruit in their own way with TV and movie screens. Nobody even—”

  “We get it,” said the tall woman. “Please, nobody mention California around him. This is what happens.”

  “Who mentioned California?” asked Swin.

  “You did.”

  “When?”

  “I don’t know, a minute ago. Let’s just start this shindig.”

  “Here, here,” said the pawnshop owner.

  The cook-off ran itself. Everyone sampled each chili, then they all broke into a song that glorified the loneliness of ranch hands and the power of good chili to, if only for a moment, alleviate that loneliness. There was a sack race, after which the African bistro chefs were forced to swallow hot peppers. The Methodists insisted on a prayer. It included veiled thanks for the earthquakes, fires, venereal diseases, and budget problems that plagued a certain West Coast state.

  Kyle strode down from the house with the trophy, which was covered by a towel. Silence fell and spoons were unsheathed. Kyle solemnly shook hands before each taste, employed a rolling, thoughtful chew. He made noises, squinted. After each chili he had a single cracker and a swig of Coke. He took his time, paced about, then whispered to Swin that he couldn’t tell one from another. Swin nodded, then gravely pointed at the foreign woman, whose chili contained a lot of cumin and lamb.

  When everyone else cleared out, the pawnshop owner came back to the house, claiming to know something Kyle and Swin might be interested in. It put Kyle on edge having the guy in the house, having him peering down the long hallway, surveying the kitchen, smirking at Swin’s dumbbells and jump ropes tumbled up in the corner. Kyle was glad when the pawnshop owner turned down coffee, refused to sit. He had no profitable link, the pawnshop owner stressed, but was passing information along out of courtesy. Two fat twins with an arsenal of orphans were taking appointments. Hot Springs. Weekend after next.

  “Nobody does anything without a profitable link,” Kyle said.

  “Old people do,”
responded the pawnshop owner. “I’m old at heart.”

  The pawnshop owner recited a phone number with a Memphis area code and told Kyle and Swin he hated to leave in such a rush.

  The parking lot of the Adult Vocational Learning Center was governed by a system of colored passes that Swin couldn’t figure out. He had a purple pass but there was only one purple lot and it was full of reserved spaces. The bare trees were somber and secretive, like boys who were trying to behave. Swin turned on his flashers and pulled over a curb onto a patch of brown grass. He reasoned that vans with their flashers on never got towed or ticketed. He remembered the couple hundred baby books and left a note on the windshield: BOOK DROP-OFF/CHECK BACK OF VAN.

  He crossed a footbridge and strolled past a couple recruitment booths—the Army, the Coast Guard, something where you worked from home—and into a windblown gymnasium. The men inside hoped to be mechanics and plumbers and masons. They acted warmly toward each other, clapping shoulders with the comfort of common ground. They had sweat in common, and usefulness, and probably beer. Swin had given up on bourbon but surely he could learn to like beer. You had to have a beer after you got off work, and if you stayed and had five or six then the little woman would get mad. She wouldn’t really be mad, though; she’d smile as she scolded you, like you were a naughty dog she loved. The men included Swin in their greetings, no idea he wasn’t one of them. Maybe you faked being one of these rugged men for a while and then one day you weren’t faking anymore. Maybe these guys knew as little about engines and drywall as Swin did.