The Drowning Game

by LS Hawker

  “Not exactly.”

  I heard buzzing coming from Dekker’s pocket.

  “Go ahead,” I said. I figured it was safe now because he wasn’t acting like a hostage anymore. He was acting how I’d always imagined friends might act.

  He dug out the cell phone, glanced at it then flipped it open and held it to his ear. “Hello?”

  The clerk came back, both rings on his right pinky. “I can give you thirty-­five hundred for everything.”

  That was more than I’d hoped for. It would get me to Detroit and hold me over until I got a job. I thought. I wasn’t completely sure, but it was a lot better than twenty-­six dollars.

  “Okay,” I said.

  The clerk nodded and produced a carbon copy form for me to fill out and a pen. He then lifted the Stoeger Double Defense. “They ain’t loaded, right?” he said.

  “ ’Course they are,” I said. I pulled it out of his hands, broke it and grabbed the shells as they popped out. I handed everything back to him. “There you go.”

  Dekker and the guy stared at me for a few beats before the pawnbroker said, “Be right back with your cash,” and went in the back room again.

  “So Dooley called my boss,” Dekker said. “Wanted to know what time I took the groceries out to you, what time I got back to work.” His eyebrow quirked. “I told her I took your groceries out to you, then gave you a ride into town and let you off at the cemetery so you could visit your dad. Then I went home because I got sick.”

  I pressed my lips tight together. The cemetery story was pretty good.

  The clerk reappeared and gave me an envelope with my money in it. “Count it, please,” he said. “Then initial this and sign here.”

  I did and then put the money in my pocket.

  “Thank you,” Dekker said to the old man.

  We walked outside and got in the truck.

  “Do you have the bus terminal address?” Dekker said.

  I gave it to him. “And then you’ll be rid of me,” I said.

  The terminal wasn’t far. When we got there, Dekker got my suitcase out of the bed of the truck and set it on the sidewalk. “Are you in the witness protection program or something? I gotta tell you, I am—­”

  “Thank you very much for your help,” I said. I pulled some of the pawn money from my pocket and held it out to him.

  He backed away from it. “I’m not taking—­”

  “It’s definitely the least I can do,” I said, stuffing it in his shirt pocket. “I put you through a lot today. I’m sorry. And I really appreciate your help.”

  He stood staring at me. I picked up my suitcase and headed for the terminal door.

  I didn’t look back.

  BACK IN MY truck, I felt enormous relief at being rid of that strange girl. It was just my luck to be kidnapped at gunpoint. It was like I had a fiery red arrow pointed at me that attracted the notice of every zombie freak goon out there. As I adjusted the rearview, I found myself rehearsing in my mind how I was going to tell the story to my bandmates when I got to Kansas City.

  But the conversation with Dooley and Randy King kept rolling through my mind. Something was fishy here. Petty could obviously take care of herself, but she was more alone than anyone I’d ever met.

  I put the truck in gear and pulled out onto Broadway before pity could overwhelm me. I switched on the radio, hoping to wash away the picture in my mind of that lone girl and her sad suitcase. My life was turning around, and I didn’t need any complications. No matter how beautiful she was.

  At a stoplight, I pulled the cash she’d given me from of my pocket and fanned it out. Ten one-­hundred-­dollar bills.

  A horn honk from the rear startled me into hitting the gas and moving forward, but I was so rattled by the wad of bills that I had to pull off the road.

  Traffic whizzed past me as I wrestled with what was left of my conscience. A thousand dollars would get me to Kansas City, and buy some great stage gear and plenty of good feelings from my bandmates. But Petty had given me nearly one-­third of all the money she had in the world. Surely she didn’t mean to give me that much—­maybe she’d thought they were tens instead of hundreds.

  On the other hand, maybe this was the universe’s way of telling me the band thing was going to work out, of urging me on toward stardom. Maybe this was a karmic gift for helping out the town weirdo.

  But even as I thought this, I knew it was bullshit. I knew it was a justification to rob this girl who was truly desperate in a way that I would never experience or fully understand. She was going to need every dime she had. This was not my money. I had to go back and return it.

  I made a U-­turn, cursing the angel on my shoulder.

  I BOUGHT MY ticket, pushed open the restroom door and, after I’d investigated every stall, walked into the last one. Luckily it was large. I wedged my suitcase between the toilet and the wall then sat on it. Unless someone got on his knees and looked under the door, I was invisible. From my bag I pulled a paperback and started reading but saw I’d become too engrossed and my OODA Loop would disappear entirely. I put the book back in my bag and promised myself I’d get it out once the bus crossed the Nebraska state line.

  It was going to be a long night. I sat listening, turning over in my head what I would do if Randy King came busting in there. My back ached from sitting awkwardly, but I hoped it would help me stay awake and alert.

  Twenty minutes later the restroom door opened and I heard high heels on the linoleum. Then I heard the stall doors being pushed open one by one. And finally:

  “Petty Moshen? Are you in here?”

  I held my breath, sitting silent and still. More clicking high heels coming toward my stall. A tinny knock on the stall door. A female voice Randy couldn’t fake. “Petty Moshen?”

  “No,” I said.

  “Aren’t you the one who just bought a ticket to Detroit?”

  “No.”

  “Yes, you are,” she said, irritation peppering her voice. “Come on out here. There’s a man who wants to talk to you.”

  How had he found me?

  “Please,” I said. “Please tell him I’m not here.”

  “Come on out of there, now.”

  “Please,” I whispered.

  “He says he has something of yours.”

  Has something of mine?

  “Does this man have a big mustache?”

  “No.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I think I’d probably notice if he did. This kid doesn’t look like he could grow any facial hair at all.”

  Dekker?

  The woman huffed. “Now come out of there. I need to get back to work.” Her shoes made brisk sharp sounds as she walked across the linoleum and out the door.

  I got to my feet and unlocked the stall. I went to the restroom door and peeked out. A blur of passengers—­all ages, sizes, and races—­trooped wearily past carrying suitcases and backpacks. In the midst of this migration stood Dekker.

  “Come out of there,” he said.

  I scanned the crowd once more. “Is anyone with you?”

  “It’s just me.”

  “What do you want?”

  He rolled his eyes. “Would you just come here?”

  I hesitated, then walked into the lobby, keeping an eye out for Randy or Mr. Dooley.

  “Nobody’s here,” Dekker said.

  “Why did you come back?”

  “I was at the last stoplight on the way out of town,” he said, “and I started wondering.” He lowered his voice. “What could make a girl so desperate she’d kidnap a delivery boy and then turn around and give him a thousand dollars? And all day I kept thinking you had a smudge on your face, but then at some point you turned your head and I saw what it really was.”

  I put my hand to the cheek Randy had slapped.
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br />   “So I had to come back and return your money and make sure you were going to be okay.”

  In that moment I had an odd sensation in my chest and arms. They were tingling. I realized what it was. I wanted to hug Dekker, and it was very nearly a physical pull. Which set off alarms.

  “I’m fine,” I said. “And I won’t take that money back. That’s yours. You earned it. I threatened to shoot you.”

  He seemed to mull this over. “When does your bus leave?”

  “Tomorrow morning at ten forty-­five.”

  “What are you going to do until then?”

  “Sit in the bathroom,” I said.

  “How about you come with me instead?”

  I looked at him and then away. My muscles all seemed to loosen then, while my stomach simultaneously contracted. Everything jumbled in my head, the signals in my body contradicting each other, jockeying for control. What was going on? “Come with me” sounded comforting, thrilling, and terrifying at the same time. My dad hadn’t trained me for this.

  “I don’t know if I can trust you,” I said.

  “I didn’t take you to the police, so that should tell you something right there.”

  “Maybe that’s where you’re going to take me right now,” I said, but I didn’t really mean it.

  “I know a place you can stay tonight, and it’s not the county jail.”

  “I don’t think I should—­”

  “It’s safer and more comfortable than a bathroom. Come on.”

  I thought about how Dad had said I could trust Mr. Dooley, and I could trust Randy King. But he’d also said, “You judge a man by his actions.” The way those two acted was not honorable. Dekker, on the other hand, had come back for me, and tried to give back the money.

  These were trustworthy actions.

  It seemed Dad hadn’t been the best judge of character. Maybe I could do better. Maybe I could figure out who to trust all on my own. I went in the bathroom, got my suitcase and hauled it out to the lobby.

  Dekker picked it up.

  “Let’s go,” he said.

  I followed him out the door.

  Chapter 13

  AS I LED Petty out of the bus station, I wondered if I was making yet another mistake. But I felt confident that for once I was doing the right thing. It didn’t have anything to do with how good-­looking she was.

  We got in the truck.

  “Just don’t ask me any questions,” Petty said.

  “Deal,” I said. “And don’t threaten me with bodily harm.”

  “Deal,” Petty said.

  “This girl I’m going to call I haven’t seen in over a year.” I opened my phone and dialed. “But we’re old pals. She’s from Saw Pole too. Did you ever know Ashley Heussner?” I shook my head. “No, of course you didn’t.”

  A raspy voice said, “Hello?”

  “Hey, Ash. It’s Dekker. I’m in town and I wondered if me and a friend could crash there tonight.”

  A prolonged squeal made me pull the phone away from my ear. Petty’s face showed alarm, so I covered the mouthpiece with my hand and said, “Everything’s okay. This is her way of saying she’s happy to hear from me.”

  “Dekker! I’ve missed you so much! Why haven’t you called? I can’t believe it’s really you! Yes, yes, yes! Come to my place and we’ll catch up! It’ll be so much fun!”

  I kept trying to interrupt and cut the call short, but Ashley made it impossible. “Okay—­okay—­when’s a good—­”

  “Just come on over. We’ll go out and get shit-­faced. You’re buying, right? You owe me! You know you owe me!”

  “Okay. We’ll see you soon.” While she was still talking, I clicked end, pocketed the phone and said to Petty, “You have to do that. She’ll keep talking. She’s probably still talking.”

  Then I pulled out the wad of hundreds Petty had given me. “I can’t take this.” I held the bills out to her.

  “Yes, you can,” she said. “I’m not taking it back. I can’t tell you how sorry—­”

  I held up a hand. “Let me explain how this whole apology-­slash-­forgiveness thing works. You say you’re sorry, and you really mean it. I say that’s all right, but, like, please don’t point a gun at me ever again. And you say I won’t, and you really, really mean it. And then we move on. But please take your money back.”

  “No.” She turned away and looked out the windshield.

  “All right, then,” I said, but I felt like I was taking the last remaining vial of a diabetic’s insulin. “I’m taking you out for dinner, and you’re going to order whatever you want to eat and drink, and I’m paying.”

  The silence that greeted this made me turn toward Petty, whose lips were trembling.

  “You okay?” I said.

  “Yes.”

  “You have any favorites? Places you like to eat?”

  She shook her head and turned it toward the window.

  “Ashley said to come on over. Would it be cool with you if we made a stop? I need to get some more cigarettes if we’re going to Ashley’s. She only smokes OPs.”

  “OPs?”

  “Other ­people’s.”

  “That’s fine,” Petty said.

  We pulled into a Walgreens lot, parked and got out. I remembered not to wait for Petty to go through the door first and walked inside past the automatic sliding door toward the beverages. I turned to say something to her and realized she was not beside me. I backtracked to the front of the store, where I found her standing and staring with her mouth open.

  “What is it?” I said.

  She gestured. “This,” she said. “I’ve never been inside a store before.”

  “Never?” I said, a little too loudly. I wondered what it would be like to see a place like Walgreens for the first time, dazzled by all the products and colorful packaging in real life instead of on TV.

  She was so awed, in fact, that she turned in circles—­she must have been so happy to be out in the world that she was twirling. I hoped she’d stop soon, because it was a little embarrassing.

  “You want anything?” I asked her. “Soda? A snack?”

  “I’m thirsty,” she said.

  I led her over to the drink case and she stared at the rows of energy drinks, sports drinks, flavored teas, sodas and water.

  “You want a Coke?”

  “Never had one,” she said.

  Had she ever eaten Twinkies or Doritos or any of the staples I grew up on? I didn’t want to ask, to draw more attention to her weirdness.

  “How about a bottle of water?” I said.

  “Okay.”

  I handed her a chilled bottle of Aquafina. Up at the counter, I asked the clerk for two packs of Camels and paid for everything with my new cash.

  “Thank you,” Petty said as we walked out the door.

  I nodded. As we stepped onto the sidewalk, two guys on skateboards whizzed toward us at high speed. I reflexively reached for Petty’s arm to pull her out of the way.

  What came next happened so fast I barely had time to process it. Petty brought her arm up whip-­smart, instantly and painfully breaking my grip on it, then bounced backward with her fists up. Just as quickly she dropped her hands in front of her, embarrassed when she saw the skater boys and realized I was only trying to keep her from getting creamed.

  “Whoa!” I said, impressed. “Do that again!” My finger and wrist bones rang from the force of her movement.

  Petty shook her arms out and avoided my eyes. “No,” she said.

  “Do you know like kung fu and stuff like that?” I couldn’t disguise my admiration, didn’t want to. This girl was a straight-­up badass.

  “Listen,” she whispered. “I’m not used to having ­people touch me.”

  Before I could stop myself, I let this sink in too far and felt the gi
rl’s loneliness and isolation so acutely I wanted to run from her.

  “It’s cool,” I said. “Don’t worry about it.”

  I led Petty back to the truck and unlocked her door. Then we drove to where Ashley lived, a large, old brick house with a patchy front yard.

  Petty followed me up to the front door, next to which were five mailboxes.

  “Why does she have all these?” she asked, pointing.

  “They aren’t all hers,” I said. “The house is divided up into apartments.” I smiled. “You know, hanging out with you is a little like hanging out with E.T.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t tell me,” I said, incredulous. “You’ve never seen E.T.? E.T., the extraterrestrial? You know, ‘E.T., phone home!’ ” I said that last bit in my best approximation of E.T.’s voice, but it came out sounding like Donald Duck.

  “I know what it is, but I’ve never seen the movie.”

  “The whole world has seen it,” I said.

  “My dad wasn’t real big on kids’ movies. A Clockwork Orange, yes. Disney, no.”

  A Clockwork Orange? Wow. “You have a lot of catching up to do.” I looked at the mailboxes and pointed at the one labeled HEUSSNER. “She’s in 1A.” I opened the door, and inside was a stuffy tiled foyer divided by a staircase. Somebody’s TV was blaring behind one of the doors on either side the stairs, 1B to the right and 1A on the left. I knocked on 1A.

  The sound of the TV lessened. “Yeah?”

  “It’s Dekker,” I called.

  The door flew open, drawing with it a billow of smoke which then rebounded outward. The smell hit me like a two-­by-­four to the face. But then the sight of Ashley’s face whacked me even harder. It was just a skull covered in scabby skin. She was shockingly thin, and her hair was greasy and dry at the same time, yellow with brown roots. Her eyes shone unnaturally bright.

  I’d made a huge mistake bringing Petty here.

  Ashley lurched toward me and clutched my arm with her skeletal, nail-­bitten hand. “Dekker!” she squealed, and pulled me toward her. She planted a big kiss on my mouth with flaky, dry lips. Her breath smelled like nail polish remover and cigarettes.

  Just as quickly and before I could stop her, Ashley pushed me away and reached for Petty, who jumped backward.