by C. J. Skuse
“You gotta believe me, it was him. It was Dad, Beau. I saw him. I saw him.”
“All right, I believe you. But we’re gonna lose him —”
“Stay back here and try to keep an eye on where he goes. C’mon, now!”
It was him. I knew it was him; I didn’t need another look. I’d know my dad anywhere. Dad was like a brown bear, muscley and warm, and he had a smile that told you everything was gonna be all right. And even though Red Shirt Guy hadn’t smiled and was smaller than I remembered Dad being, I didn’t have a doubt in my mind.
I made it all the way up to the driver, but she was having none of my sweet appeals to stop the bus. “Miss, please step back and return to your seat while the bus is in motion.”
“You gotta stop the bus,” I said. “We need to get off.”
“You can get off at the next stop.”
“Where’s that?”
“Up here, by the Bellagio. Now please step back, miss.”
Beau joined me at the front. “He crossed the road.”
“Keep watching him, Beau!”
“Miss …”
“Oh, keep your hair on, I’m going already!” I shouted, trying to push my way back through the tourists to my seat. They’d formed some kind of human shield, like cows do when they’re being attacked by a bull (thank you, National Geographic Channel, for another piece of useless information), so it was much harder to get through. “Move out of my fucking way!” I shouted. The women tsked and tutted, probably ’cause there were kids around, but they got the hell out of the way.
The bus driver piped up then, spouting all this bus etiquette bullshit and how she could have me arrested for “abuse.”
The Deuce came to a halt and the doors opened and before any of the cattle could do what they were threatening to do and stop me from getting off first, I rammed into them, crawling beneath legs and being as pushy as I could until my feet were on the sidewalk. Beau had stayed with me the whole way, and he took my hand and we broke into a run and didn’t stop pounding the sidewalks and footbridges and plowing through shuffling tourists until we got to the walkway outside the Bellagio. We two-stepped it to the top of the stairs.
“Where’d he go?”
“This way,” said Beau, panting all the way as we crossed over the bridge. I stopped to stare through the Plexiglas barrier for signs of the red shirt. I looked and I looked and there was no sign.
Then I saw him.
“He’s there, he’s going past Bally’s.”
So we raced along and down the escalator as fast as we could, past milling tourists and guys with more coupon booklets and so-called VIP passes. I caught sight of the red through a sea of people, and we kept on pushing through. I caught up with the red; it was the red of a giant M&M greeting people outside a store. I shoved past it and kept on running and running and running until we’d gone as far as the MGM Grand.
Dad had disappeared. Like a ghost.
I kept looking and looking, but he was gone. We stood there, spinning around, searching in every single direction for the slightest hint of a red shirt, but there was nothing. T-shirts. Hawaiian shirts. Wife-beaters. Baseball caps. Laughing. Joking. Tan. Happy. Strollers. Suitcases. Camera phones. The big gold lion.
We stood panting.
“Wow,” said Beau, doubled over. “It was really Dad? Are you sure?”
And all I could do was nod. I started walking. I didn’t know where I was going. I just had to keep walking.
BEAU
FOURTEEN
THE STRIP,
THE STRIP,
LAS VEGAS, NEVADA
One of the dangers of being a kid is that you always believe you’ll find what you’re looking for right around the next corner. That if you dig deep enough in the sand, you really are gonna shake hands with someone on the other side of the world. That if you go to that end of the rainbow, a little pot full of gold will be waiting just for you. That if you strain hard enough on Christmas Eve, you can hear the tinkling of jingle bells in the sky. And kids take disappointment hard.
We had stumbled and crunched through the endless trees, over roots and dark soft dirt, walking and walking and walking forever, even though we were both exhausted and cold and out of breath and I was crying. Paisley had dragged me onward, convincing me the whole time that Dad was just around the next corner. And the corners were never-ending.
Ten years later, though we weren’t in the woods anymore, but on concrete, with the full glare of the desert sun beating down on us like the lashes of a whip, it felt exactly the same: running after shadows that could have been Dad, and getting absolutely nowhere. I was ready for disappointment, anyway; I had been since Paisley saw him from the bus. I knew it couldn’t be that easy, not after everything.
We went back to the Deuce stop at Caesars where we’d seen Dad watching the Jumbotron and rooting through the trash. We waited around, thinking he might come back. Paisley would have camped out overnight if she had to. But he’d obviously been spooked by Coupon Guy, and there was no sign of him. We walked up and down the Strip for hours, ignoring the dancing fountain displays and flashing lights, paying particular attention to the trash cans and bus stops, looking for red shirts and men with dark brown hair. But we found nothing.
I followed Paisley back toward the big gold lion outside the MGM Grand, and this time she went inside, along the red-carpeted walkways, past the gift shops and boutiques, until she’d led me to the glass-walled lion habitat. There was a little space between all the photo-taking tourists, and she stood at the window ledge and stared in.
I stood beside her. “So what do we do now? Do you want to go back to the Jumbotron, see if he shows up tonight?”
She didn’t answer.
“Talk to me, Paisley. Tell me what to do next.”
She just stared at two cubs playing with a blue ball. A voice-over was narrating their history and what they liked to eat.
I looked in at the cubs. “I know what you’re feeling, ’cause I feel exactly the same way.”
She pressed her head against the glass. “He’s right here. He could be around the next corner.” She looked at me sideways.
All I could do was nod. “Why don’t we try the homeless shelters? Seems logical that’s where he’d go.”
She shook her head. “Dad wouldn’t go to a shelter.”
“How do you know? He’s homeless; it’s possible….”
“He’d rather sleep on the streets. Trust me, I know my dad. He’s too proud.”
“You knew him when we were six, Pais.”
She threw me a look. I swallowed hard but kept going.
“I’m starting to think we’re not gonna find him,” I said softly. “I mean … he’s homeless. It’s gonna be even harder to get to him now. I mean, you remember what happened last time. We were the ones who were lost, and we ended up on every TV station in the Tri-State area.”
The blue ball bounced off the glass right in front of us, and Paisley backed away like it had suddenly become hot. Then she looked at me and started laughing. “Beau, you’re a friggin’ genius.”
“Oh God, what?”
She turned back to the cubs and stared at them for the longest time.
“Pais? What is it?”
She looked at me. “You hungry?”
“Yeah. What is it, Pais, what’s your idea?”
“Tell you later. Come on. What do you feel like eating? Domino’s? Mickey D’s?”
I shook my head. “I could manage something sweet. A donut, I guess.”
“Donuts. Yes, oh yes, this is gonna be good,” she said, clinging on to my arm and practically dragging me all the way through the front entrance. “Let’s go to Doh-Nutty’s.”
“That’s not the best donuts. The best donuts—”
“I don’t want the best donuts, I want Doh-Nutty’s,” she said.
“Okay,” I said, a little wary of my sister’s newfound vigor but hungry all the same and, as always, happy to follow her wherever she we
nt.
So we walked to Doh-Nutty’s, along the same side of the Strip as the MGM and just around the corner from our motel. There were only four and a half other people in there at the time: a white guy with long dreadlocks sat in a booth nodding his head before a plate of balls, which on a second look I could see were donut holes. A fat woman eating a plate of crepes sat beside a stroller. Her baby looked at me like it was saying, I don’t know why I was born, either. A couple in the corner were Lady-and-the-Tramp-ing on a churro.
Paisley put her shades on, nudging me.
“Hey, look,” she whispered. “They’re feeling each other up under the table.”
I looked, more fool I. She giggled and studied the lit-up donut menu above the counter.
“Yes please, what can I get you?” said the sweaty, harassed guy behind the counter. As far as I could see he had no reason to be so stressed. It wasn’t exactly busy.
“Can I get one of every single donut, please?” asked Paisley.
“Every single one?” the guy repeated.
“Every single one,” she said, smiling. “In fact, let’s make it two of every kind.” She looked at me from behind her shades and whispered, “Follow my lead.”
“What?” I said, still a little distracted by the couple in the corner. I came around to discover my sister had a sudden desire to be morbidly obese.
The guy started shoveling donuts into shallow white boxes labeled with the brown and green sunshine emblem of Doh-Nutty’s.
“Two of every kind for the lady,” he said, looking up at Paisley and giving her the most unctuous of smiles.
Paisley smiled back. “So how’s business?”
“Pretty good,” the man replied. “You know who comes here for her donuts?” He motioned to the huge billboard across the street picturing some diva in a sparkly dress.
“I thought she’d gone low carb!” said Paisley in mock shock. “Or gluten-free. Or was it a juice fast?”
“Not anymore,” said Doh-Nutty, shoveling a couple of Double Chocolate Fudge Melts into an almost-full second box and closing the lid.
“Wow,” said Paisley. “Then she musta gone back to the trusty two-finger upchuck. Good publicity for you, though.”
The man nodded and smiled, scooping up two Blueberry Whites with sprinkles and two Glazed Maple Creams for the next box.
She nudged my hand. Her eyes glimmered, cheeks flushed with excitement, just like when we were kids.
“Put your sunglasses on,” she told me.
“Why? What are you doing?”
“There you go,” said the man, placing three Doh-Nutty’s boxes on the counter. “Thirty-two donuts plus tax comes to $36.75.”
“Cool,” she said, fumbling for her purse. “But I think I can do better than that.” And I watched as her hand dipped inside her bag and pulled out this shiny silver gun. She pointed it right at Doh-Nutty.
Doh-Nutty stared at her in horror, his little ball of chewing gum falling out onto the counter with a thud.
“No, please!” he begged, moving backward and fumbling with the key on the cash register. The drawer popped open and he rummaged around, handing a wad of bills to Paisley.
The white Rasta in the corner stood up but made no attempt to come forward.
“It’s okay. We don’t want the money,” Paisley told the man. “We’ll just take the donuts.”
Doh-Nutty fumbled some more with the register and then backed away with his hands up.
Paisley nodded to me to take the boxes and looked up at something behind the counter.
“Is that a camera you got up there?” she asked the man.
He nodded.
“Can you get sound on it?”
He nodded again, more vigorously.
She looked up and blew the camera a kiss. “We love you, Dad!” she called out. And as she opened the door and pushed me out with the donut boxes, she turned back to Doh-Nutty and said, “When they ask you what happened, tell ’em the Wonder Twins did it. You got that?”
“W-wonder T-twins,” he stammered.
Then she smiled at him and walked out as calmly as she had walked in, shoving the gun inside the waistband of her skirt. And I walked beside her, staring, waiting and hoping I was dreaming, trying to keep up and desperately holding on to the three boxes of donuts.
I did this all the way back to the motel. On the way, we saw another homeless man searching through a trash can. Paisley gave him the top two boxes of donuts with her compliments. Then we walked inside the motel with the last one.
She went straight in and shut herself in the bathroom. I set down the one remaining box of donuts on my nightstand and turned on the light. I heard the toilet flush. Then she came out, sat on her bed, and began looking through the TV guide.
“Is that Goldie Hawn movie on tonight? The one where she falls off the boat and gets amnesia? I love that movie.”
“YOU HAVE A FUCKING GUN ON YOU?” I yelled at her. “HOW LONG HAVE YOU HAD A FUCKING GUN ON YOU?”
“God, turn off your CAPS LOCK, Beau.” She sighed. “I knew you’d be like this.”
“How do you expect me to be, Paisley? I mean, am I dreaming? Is this some kind of sugar-induced absurdist nightmare? That’s a real-assed gun, and you just pulled it on a guy selling donuts!”
“Yeah, but not ’cause I wanted to hurt him. I just want to get us on those Jumbotrons. Like the one outside Caesars. Anyway, it was your idea.”
My mouth was too energetic to find the right shape for my words. I paced the room. “My ide … Wha … ha … what was my idea?”
“You said when we were lost in those woods, we ended up on every TV station in the Tri-State.”
“And …?”
“We’re lost again, Beau. We can’t find our dad.” She stood up. “We need him to see us. To see that we’re okay. He doesn’t even know we love him. Skank has poisoned his head with all her crap. I want him to know we care.”
“How is pointing a gun at someone going to show him we care? Did you see how scared that guy was? Jesus Christ, Paisley. You’re not Scarface!”
She put her hands on my shoulders, and I shook her away. She grabbed on to me and I tried shaking her off again, but she held on.
“Listen to me, Beau, dammit.”
I stopped.
“There’s no point breaking your crayons over this, okay? This makes sense. We get ourselves on those screens, on that screen outside Caesars where we know he hangs out, Dad will see us. He was watching it before Coupon Guy started on him. We get famous, we’ll be one step closer to finding him.”
“We’ll be one step closer to prison, Paisley. Can’t you see that?”
“God, when did you become such a prude?”
“I don’t know. Maybe the same day you slipped down into the moral abyss?”
She started to protest again, but I didn’t care what she had to say. There was no excuse. She was making us another crime statistic. And I didn’t want to be what everyone expected me to be. I didn’t want any part of it.
She sat on the end of the bed and just looked at me.
“Can’t we just keep going down to the Jumbotron and see if he shows up?” I sighed.
“Too hit or miss. And we’ll probably always miss. This way, we can really put ourselves out there. We get a snappy little slogan, maybe even costumes. We rob a few small-time places—donut shops, candy stores, coffee bars. That ice-cream place off the Strip that we walked past the other day. Places people don’t expect anyone to pull a gun on them. We’re polite, we don’t hurt anybody, we take the shit, we leave our message, and we go. And then we come back here and wait for it to hit the news.”
I didn’t say a word.
“Maybe we could graffiti that giant M&M outside the store or something. Kidnap him for a ransom. Ten million M&M’s or Big Red gets it.” She laughed.
I didn’t laugh.
“I know how you feel about this, Beau,” she said. “You don’t wanna hurt people. You don’t wanna rob people. You do
n’t wanna be one of those clichéd troubled teens. Like me.”
I started to say something, but she interrupted.
“But we’ll be doing this for one reason: to find Dad. Or at the very least to let Dad find us. We can get our message to him that we’re okay and that we love him.”
“By putting a gun in someone’s face and stealing their livelihood,” I told her slowly. “No, I’m not doing it. No way. There has to be something else we can do. Where the hell’d you get it, anyway?”
“Skank’s nightstand.”
“It’s Virginia’s?”
“Yeah, and it’s not even loaded. Today is the first day I’ve even taken it out of the motel. I don’t know, I just … wanted it with me today. I thought it would come in handy after Steve the Texan pervert. And it did, didn’t it? Besides, I gave away the other two boxes of donuts to that bum, didn’t I? That was a kind thing to do. Steal from the rich and give to the poor.”
I got up and went to the window. “That Doh-Nutty guy wasn’t rich.”
“No.” She got up and stood beside me at the window. “But when we’re famous, he’ll get some good publicity out of it, and we can pay him back that way. His place’ll be jam-packed. He’ll be busier than a one-legged man in an ass-kicking contest.”
I shook my head. “Oh man. This sucks out loud.”
And that was when she started to get angry. “Put it this way, Beau. You can stay here and keep working your whole Jesus of Suburbia thing if you want, but I’m going. I am doing this. You’re either with me or you’re not.”
“Not,” I said, turning away from her and slumping down on my bed.
“Fine,” she said. I pretended not to watch as she adjusted the gun in her waistband, then pulled her shirt out over it, grabbed the keys from the desk, and headed out of the room. The door slammed behind her.
After a couple of seconds, I sat up straight and looked around. I could feel my heart thudding. She had really gone without me. Stay put, I told myself. I leaned against the headboard and just breathed for a while. I picked up the remote and flicked on the TV. There was a Dennis Quaid movie on and I tried losing myself in it, but it was pretty bad. I switched it off and felt for stubble on my chin. I took my new disposable razor out of my drawer and shaved over it, just in case any hairs came through later.
