Trouble No Man

by Brian Hart

  “Gone.”

  “You buried them,” the militiaman offers, pleased with himself.

  The man doesn’t reply.

  “And you went to the lake.” He slings his rifle over his shoulder and squats in front of the man. He has a silver wedding band and dirty fingernails. “There were families, women and kids, sleeping in the main house. Did you know that?”

  “You want me to say I’m sorry?”

  “We’re here together,” the militiaman says, smiles. “That’s all the sorry I need.”

  The man lowers his head, thinks: Don’t run, you’ll just die tired. I’m already tired.

  “You’d think it would’ve been something as simple as proximity,” the militiaman says. “How we found this place. But it wasn’t. It was that HK your buddy was carrying. Registered to his wife, but from before they were married. It took us months to track down a marriage certificate. Then she wasn’t on the note for the property so we had to dig through more paperwork until we found an address. I’m talking paper files. All the digital files, financial anyway, they all been hacked and blacked, zero-sum game when it comes to tax collection, ’bout time.” He blinks and wipes the sweat from his forehead with the back of his hand. “Sweating like a priest in a preschool over here.” He leans his rifle against his leg and—“Stay put”—quickly removes the top of his ghillie suit. He ties the arms of the suit around his waist. He’s wearing a Dave Matthews Band T-shirt underneath.

  “But we got people for that,” he says. “People all they do is track fuckers down.” He hefts his rifle and with his left hand reaches inside his ghillie suit bottom and produces a data-sat phone and keys in a message. “We’ll be having company for dinner. They want to meet you. See what in the hell your buddy has stashed in his hidey hole.”

  The militiaman trades the phone for a can of Kirkland snoose from his pocket and loads his lip. He spits, offers the can. The man takes it and puts a pinch in his lower lip. Together they look at the bunker hatch across the yard.

  “You mind if I stand up?” the man asks. “My legs are gonna cramp if I just sit here.”

  The militiaman nods yes and takes a step back and watches him stand. “It’s like the old army shit, right?” he says. “They’d carry fucking everything, cannons and shit. Bring it along. Have Salvatore and O’Dell and Washington lug it up the hill.” The militiaman spits again, taps the snoose can on his rifle butt and puts it back in his pocket. “You know what kind of cannon we use? What kind of food we eat? Whose beer we drink? Fucking yours. We don’t carry shit. We commandeer.”

  The tobacco is twisting his stomach. The man spits, then hooks it with his finger and flips it on the ground. The militiaman turns and studies him.

  “What’re you going to do with my dog?”

  The militiaman shakes his head and takes a moment to carefully wipe a bit of dust from the forestock of his rifle, smiles to himself. “All right. Move your ass. Let’s see what we got going in that bunker.”

  Standing above the hatch, the militiaman takes him by the arm. “You’d tell me if we’re about to go boom, wouldn’t you?”

  The man nods but when the militiaman lifts the handle and they both hear the click, the man drops to his stomach and sprawls on the heavy wooden hatch cover and hangs on.

  A shock hits him in the chest and he’s lifted a few inches off the ground. With the sound of a cast-iron skillet being dropped on a concrete floor the steel door of the bomb shelter jumps from its hinges and smashes into the militiaman’s upper arm and spins him around. The dust swallows them.

  The man’s fingers are bleeding and it feels like someone is standing on his chest. But he gets to his knees and reaches out and pulls the rifle by the sling from under the militiaman. Through the warning tone ringing in his ears, the dog is barking. The man wants to tell him it’s OK, that he’s coming, but he doesn’t have enough air in his lungs to speak.

  He stands on unsteady legs and levels the rifle at the bloody, unconscious militiaman and pulls the trigger but the safety is on or it’s jammed and he’s fumbling with the action when the militiaman suddenly sits up and screams in pain. His arm is hanging, disjointed, broken from the socket, and arterial blood is pumping steadily from under his shirt. The man finds the safety, fires a reckless shot into the militiaman’s chest and he falls to his side and goes quiet.

  The dust is clearing. He sits down and cradles the rifle in his lap. He touches his face with the back of his arm and it comes away bloody. He has to move. There are other explosives set to go after the hatch. He knows this because the neighbor told him. He has to move. The dog is running toward him now with the chewed-through rope flagging from his collar. The man holds on to the rope and lets the dog pull him to his feet and to the far side of the barn, and when the charges rigged to the drained propane tanks finally go off, the whole structure sways but doesn’t fall.

  The neighbor’s house is ripped in half and the roof is on fire. Without warning his legs go out. The dog is beside him, leaning on him, shivering, it licks the blood seeping from the man’s ear into his beard. With trembling fingers he picks out the largest of the splinters and rocks embedded in his shins and hands but the smaller ones will require some cutting. He leans on the rifle to get to his feet and with the dog at his side walks through the field back to the bike and, with an overwhelming sense of what the fuck, continues north toward home.

  At his driveway he stops and waves the dog ahead to make sure no one is waiting for them. He unloads four shells from the rifle and wipes them clean and reloads them. The barrel has a ding in it, possibly from the hatch door, but he sights down it and it’s straight. The hot wind worries some loose roofing on the house, a nervous, chattering sound, and within the crumpling newspaper racket of the wind there continues the almost angelic ringing sound of permanent hearing loss.

  The black smoke from the neighbor’s makes a low column that feeds the general haze. The dog circles the house one last time then sits down in the driveway and waits.

  The man lays his bike down and with the rifle on his shoulder limps to the ash pit of the barn. When the dog barks the man walks to him and finds the unopened box in the driveway near the truck where he’d dropped it. He slings the rifle on his back and kneels down and picks up the box and holds it to his head. The dog comes close and sniffs at the box and the man drapes his arm over the animal and gives him a kiss.

  He stows the box inside one of his panniers, fastens the buckles, gives the whole thing a shake to make sure that it’s secure. They each have a drink of water and the man takes a moment to gather his courage.

  The dog goes into the house first and nudges his bowl around the kitchen as if he still eats there every day. Broken glass and crumbled drywall, splintered furniture and broken tile. Militia boot prints, a few spots of dried blood if you knew where to look. The photographs that remain have been smashed and stomped on. The man leans against the sink and connects the dots on the hole-punched appliances, stirs the thick dust on the countertop with his finger. He doesn’t try the faucet because he knows it won’t come on.

  He stops in the doorway of their bedroom. The clothes he changed out of are on the bed. He strips and puts them back on. He leaves his suit folded neatly over the bloodstain on the mattress. When he leaves he shuts the front door behind him. The dog walks out toward the gate and the man mounts his bike and follows.

  It’s well after dark when the militia convoy comes storming through, lights ablaze. They don’t slow, and after they pass, the man and the dog climb out of the ditch and move on.

  [23]

  R<35

  CA 93001

  He skated all day Friday with his old pal Pablo and some other Portland folks that were in town and that night ended up hooking up with a massage therapist/skate groupie he met at his regular sushi place. On Saturday, after awkwardly supping a wheatgrass-and-blueberry smoothie with the massage therapist—she didn’t want his number—Roy rode the Bonny to San Diego to see his mom and stepdad. />
  The house hadn’t changed much, Steve kept a tidy kingdom, fresh paint, luxurious lawn, Japanese maples. They’d weathered economic gloom and boom and were sitting pretty in a paid-for house that they could sell for—Steve ventured in the first few minutes Roy was there, as if on cue—a million, maybe a million five by next year.

  They ate roasted chicken and potatoes with a three-bean salad in the oversized dining room at the teak table with the woven placemats and pottery serving dishes that his mom had made when he was little. He didn’t know if she still did pottery or what she did with her time. She’d cut her hair short and let the gray take over. Her skin was tan and her nails were painted burgundy. Steve was wearing a baby-blue button-up shirt with Dockers, his uniform. Grecianed hair, a couple of inches of sideburns to let his flock know that he was, in the name of Jesus, still cool and rebellious.

  Roy’s half sister was supposed to be there too but she was on call. Yes, she’s a doctor, Roy thought. You don’t have to remind me every time I come here. When he told them the details of his sponsorships and approximately what he was being paid his mom said she was proud of him, but Steve didn’t get it and it wasn’t long before he started in with his Roy-v.-half-sister-Lisa knife-throwing routine where Steve was the magician, Lisa was his silent and beautiful assistant, and Roy was the idiot standing in front of the target.

  “Lisa will finish her residency next month,” Steve said. “She’ll have her pick of where she wants to go. Top of her class. She had a lot to deal with too,” Steve lamented, “what with the diabetes and being dyslexic.”

  “She’s a smart one,” Roy said.

  “Maybe it’s the hurdles we face that define us,” Steve said.

  “Or if we want to jump over them at all,” Roy said. “I choose—what’d you call it? Going around?”

  “Circumnavigation,” his mom said.

  “Right,” Roy said. “Thanks, Ma.”

  Steve touched his hands together. “I wonder sometimes what you think about when you’re alone with your thoughts.”

  “Money, cash, hoes,” Roy said. Steve smiled lovingly at his wife.

  “You’re taunting him,” his mother said, studying the art deco, frosted-glass-and silver-armed chandelier over the table.

  “But every day I pray over him,” Steve said. “Every day I pray and I ask God what will happen if he ever has children of his own. How will he act then?”

  “Just like you, chief,” Roy said. “King of my castle.”

  Steve’s faux bonhomie went suddenly dark. “You’re a lowlife is what it is. Look at you. You’re a dirtbag.”

  “Only my friends get to call me that,” Roy said, happy with how things were going.

  “He’s saying that you aren’t his friend,” his mom said to her husband.

  “Steve isn’t anybody’s friend,” Roy said. “Maybe Jesus will be his friend.” His mom shrugged, rolled her eyes, and pulled out another eyebrow hair.

  “He makes excuses,” Steve said, holding a palm up to his wife, “but by my lights his life is a total waste.”

  “OK,” Roy said. “Let’s sum up the life of Steve.” He leaned in and spoke quietly, something that had always stopped Steve from interrupting. “You went from being a nickel-bag weed dealer to passing the real estate exam—on the third try—to court-ordered rehab to weaseling your way into being the co-pastor/co-weasel of what, low and behold, became a money-hungry megachurch. Is that about right?”

  “You have no idea what I’ve been through,” Steve said.

  “And the last bit,” Roy said, “what I like to think of as the paving of the charitable path, paid off this house and branded your Botox ass with that smug little shit eater that you evangelist assholes like so much. As if real estate prices and ocean breezes were the equals of salvation and brotherly love. As if bullshit was in fact steak and eggs.” He pointed at his plate. “Or chicken and potatoes, as the case may be.”

  Roy’s mom got up from the table, raised her hands in silent exclamation, and went into the kitchen.

  “Fine, I won’t try and help,” Steve said. “I won’t lift a finger. It’s your soul.”

  “Amen,” Roy said, and downed his beer. With a smile, he gathered his mom’s plate on top of his own and took them into the kitchen. He grabbed a drumstick from the casserole dish on the stove and found his mom on the back porch having a cigarette. He chucked his chicken bone over the fence into the neighbor’s yard, wiped his hands on Steve’s overwatered lawn, and gave his mom a hug. When she asked goodheartedly about grandkids, Roy bummed a drag off her smoke and gave her a hell-no look. Steve had shut himself in the den to work on tomorrow’s sermon/watch porn and didn’t show himself again. Roy apologized to his mom, gave her a hug goodbye, and rode out.

  The next weekend he was invited to a skate-film premiere in LA. He recognized only a few of the heads in it, the rest were next-generation groms, raised in perfect concrete skateparks, some of which he’d helped build. Assholes used to take time out of their days to pull their cars over and kick the shit out of skateboarders. You used to have to know how to fight or at least take a punch. Now the kids not only had permission, they were encouraged. Sure, OK, the kids ripped, no debate there, but they were hatchery fish with weakened DNA, corrupted by their lack of corruption. They weren’t wild. What kind of American boy grows into a man without running from the cops or getting attacked by a homeless person? How could they learn about the perils of freedom without consequences? How did I get so old and when was the last time I went skating just to skate, no filmer? The credits rolled and he slunk out the side door.

  He met up with Yano and Derik afterward in the hotel bar where Tony had booked their rooms. Yano fished an envelope out of his jacket and handed it to Roy.

  “What’s this?” Roy said.

  “Title to my bike,” Yano said. “It’s still in the garage, right?”

  “Yeah. I haven’t touched it,” Roy said. “I mean I’ve started it a few times but I haven’t taken it out.”

  “It’s yours.”

  “Man, you should keep it.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “I’ll take care of it. I love that bike.”

  “Don’t wreck it,” Yano said. “And know that I don’t give a shit about the bike.”

  “I won’t wreck, man.” He knocked on his own head and Derik laughed, gave a sideways grin.

  “You’re a fuckin’ dork, Bingham,” he said.

  “I know,” Roy said. “But I’m old so it’s endearing.”

  “Proud a that shit now,” Derik said.

  “There’s no fighting it,” Roy said.

  Derik had been out of rehab for two weeks, but it obviously didn’t take because he was lapping Roy and Yano on beers. No hard liquor though, which was a step in the right direction. He said he’d been editing old footage to make a biopic about Rasheed. They talked about going skating but didn’t make any solid plans.

  After they left, Roy got his room key and went to his room and sat on the bed for a while, looked out the window at the traffic below. He flipped the key onto the bed and rode home.

  Waiting in his mailbox was a letter from Karen Oronski. His mom had forwarded it to him. He examined the handwriting on the envelope. He picked at the seal. He smelled the flap where she’d licked it—unless it was one of those peel-and-stick jobs—but he didn’t open it. The blood was pumping in his ears. Karen existed in a dimension separate from the one he had been occupying since he left her. In some part of his forever-juvenile brain he felt that if he opened the letter his whole world would suck into a black hole and he would disappear. He slid the envelope into the inner pocket of his leather jacket and zipped it in.

  Tony called the next day and asked if he wanted to skate some shitty New Mexican death pool for an ad shoot, and Roy said sure, why not, because he wanted the distraction. He changed the oil and filter in Yano’s CB, lubed the chain, changed the plugs, and replaced the pod filters. After he put some air in the tires, with
grease-blacked hands, he strapped his board to the seat.

  The two Red Bulls he got for breakfast made him twitchy. Traffic was muck. He fought his way out. He rode it like he stole it. He rode it like he didn’t give a shit about dying and it made him feel like he would never die.

  He sweated out the hottest part of the afternoon in Barstow, parked at a plastic table under an umbrella beside a taco truck in a dirt lot, and chased his four carne asadas with a couple of gas station tall boys. Train noise crushed car noise, replaced by jet noise, quieter then. What a shit hole. What. A. Shit. Hole.

  Down the road, back on the bike, he checked out some tarantulas and a roadkill rattler, watched the sunset paint the bluffs. He ventured that he could do this, motor the west, for the rest of his days. He envisioned a trailer park. He would die out here, riddled with melanoma, a failed liver, and a blue heeler with a red bandana for a collar—his only friend, a dog that bites. He missed Rasheed. He didn’t want to die. The desert wanted him to die. But Karen’s—still unopened—letter was like a golden ticket in his pocket, a get-out-of-jail-free card. Die alone in the desert, or open the letter.

  The motel clerk passed him a greasy six-inch square of plywood. He thought for a moment that it was a new form of room key, like there was some digital fob thing encased in the wood that could release the lock. He thought, This shit is going too far. But the clerk must’ve read the confusion on his face and told him to put the wood under his kickstand so it didn’t melt into the blacktop and fall over. Then she gave him a couple of shop rags so he wouldn’t use the towels from the room.

  “C’mon, I’m not that much of a trashball,” he said, but he probably was.

  The deadbolt wouldn’t lock properly and they’d lied about the HBO but he didn’t care. He bought a six-pack at the gas station next door and drank it while listening to baseball on TV and not opening Karen’s letter, which as it turned out took him most of the night.

  Tony texted him directions and Roy plugged in his headphones so he could listen to Google Maps tell him where to go. He followed instructions, if not the speed limit, and felt like a secret agent.