by Brian Hart
“I had plans that couldn’t wait. You,” he smacked Roy in the chest with the back of his hand, “you’re coming back with me.” His eyes went dark and evil and Roy settled onto his heels and waited but nothing happened.
“I need to go,” Roy said. Just stick to the plan, he told himself.
Mace ran a hand through his stubbly gray hair and again looked around the bus station. “You drove out here. Where’s that shitty van?”
“We told you, it broke down.”
“You drove all the way out here in your shitty van so you could turn around and ride the dog home?” Mace phrased it like a question but it wasn’t. The bones, tendons, and muscle of what he was saying was that Roy was not leaving. It wasn’t going to happen.
“I didn’t plan this, man,” Roy said. “I’m not going home. I don’t have a home to go back to.” All he had to do was get on the bus and everything would be fine.
“I had some things to take care of,” Mace said. “My truck is parked here.” He pointed toward the exit. The ICP kooks had departed. The path was clear. “You know how it goes, Caltrans cams, parole. Listen, I busted my ass so I could get back up here to you guys. Did in one day what should’ve taken three.” Mace gave Roy his most solemn nod.
“I don’t know what you get up to, man,” Roy said. “I don’t care.”
“You wanna know,” Mace said. “Look at you.” He placed his hand on Roy’s shoulder, a too-touchy convict. “Fighters, you know, boxers, the great ones, they don’t win by punching, they win by thinking, by making adjustments on the fly.”
“I’m not fighting anybody.”
“Everybody’s fighting somebody, homeboy,” Mace said. “Even you, which means you gotta be elastic. You’ve gotta be adaptable. It’s where the real strength comes from.”
Roy wanted to sit down and take his shoes off because wearing the same socks and shoes while he slept and sweated and walked around always gave him itchy feet. He wanted to scratch his arches until his footskin began to shed and lodge under his fingernails. He wanted to pull his toes until they popped. He wanted to live in motel rooms forever after or at least for a week or so. He wanted to walk away from Mace and not look back, but none of these things happened. Instead he put on his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets. He wasn’t sure if he was angry or not, he felt that he should be, but in some ways he felt relieved. If he went with Mace, he was off the hook. He already missed Karen and if he missed her this much now, imagine how much worse it was going to get.
He turned and hoisted his bag and walked toward the parking lot and a few moments later felt Mace’s hand on the back of his neck and it sent a shock through his body.
Roy twisted loose of Mace’s hand. “You know, she was dying to see you. She hauled my ass out here and we fought about it. We fought until I was at the bus station.” It felt good to bicker and make Mace feel bad and he wanted to hang on to it because behind it, his guilt about Karen was swelling. He’d left her. He’d walked off and left her with no one, like he said he would never do. The years and failures had eaten away at what he was able to accept but this was too much. She deserved better. She deserved a hell of a lot more than a parking garage in Reno.
“It hasn’t been easy between us,” Mace was saying. “You out of everybody should understand. She has these standards that I can’t always live up to.” He held his hand up in the air. “High fucking standards.”
“No, she just has standards. You and me are the fucked-up ones, not her.” Roy looked at Mace. “I thought I was going to Oakland.”
“No, you’re not. You’re coming with me. We’re gonna fix this.”
Poverty-class holiday travelers walked by with determination, not leisurely but late, hauling their garbage-bag luggage and herding their children. Mace pointed to where he was parked and Roy followed.
At Moody’s garage Roy was informed that the van had died due to a faulty relay. The overweight mechanic said it took him five minutes to find and repair the problem and the part cost twelve bucks. Roy gave him his last twenty. When he backed it out of the garage, he waved Mace off, like go home. I got it.
The smell of the van, the silence imposed by Karen’s absence, the sensory blankness of her not being with him, of nobody being there at all, upset Roy to the point that he couldn’t listen to music. Music felt like a betrayal. He drove with the window down, sipped from some old coffee he found in the cupholder and was saddened when it tasted like lipstick.
He looked in the rearview and Mace was swerving along behind him. At the house Mace parked him in and Roy wasn’t buying that he’d done it by accident. He waved to Mace when he walked by but stayed in the van. If Karen was inside, she could wait, or let her come to him. He wasn’t ready to grovel. He climbed in the back and took off his shoes and socks and squirmed into a sleeping bag and eventually went to sleep.
When he woke the sun was low and it was freezing in the van. The windows were fogged and it was quiet. He watched his breath plume. He was shivering. He fished around beside the wheel well until he found a beer and slugged it down in three slushy headache drinks, then pulled on fresh socks and tied on his shoes and opened the slider and pissed in the virgin yard of snow.
Karen was not there. Nothing had changed since they’d left. He went back outside and hauled all of Karen’s things inside and put them in her room, arranged them the way she would’ve. He put some of his stuff there too, but not all of it, nothing important. He needed to make a statement that he was willing but not that he was incapable of leaving.
He didn’t see Mace anywhere so he made a box of mac and cheese but with no milk or butter he ended up pitching it in the trash. When the furnace turned off he heard a new noise. He followed it to the basement and found Mace lifting weights under a bare bulb.
“Did you find her yet?”
“No.” Roy went to the workbench and looked over the gun parts and lubricants and tools. He pulled the handle on a small gun safe but it was locked.
“Nothing in there for you.” Mace slipped the collars onto the weight bar and then watched as Roy expertly assembled the Springfield .40 on the bench.
“My stepdad has the same pistol,” Roy said.
“Did he teach you to shoot it?”
“You can learn a lot from an idiot.” He worked the slide a few times and took it down again.
“I’m listening,” Mace said.
“Ex-cop Aaron said you’re not even supposed to have one gun, let alone a whole safe full of them,” Roy said.
“If nobody had what they weren’t supposed to have, nobody would have anything.”
“Really? Well, Confucius say he who goes to bed with itchy butt wakes with pink eye. Sun Fuckin Tzu.”
Mace counted under his breath through his push presses and when he’d finished dropped to his back on the mat and knocked out twenty-five speedy sit-ups. Back on his feet he used a chain to dangle a twenty-pound plate from his weight belt and with knees bent so his feet wouldn’t touch the floor went through a pull-up and dip routine on the bars he’d set up.
“What the fuck are you doing all this for?” Roy asked.
“I’m getting older. I need to keep up my muscle mass. I have to.” He unhooked the plate from his belt and pitched the hook and chain into the corner and put the plate back on the rack. He loaded the bar resting on the cage with more weight than Roy thought was wise and ducked under it, shrugged it onto his back. He took a few careful steps forward and steadied his eyes on Roy’s. “A man has to be capable.” The veins stood out on his neck and on his forehead as he dropped, nearly touched his ass to the floor, and lifted the weight back up. His Rocky II sweat suit was soaked with sweat. Get up cuz Mickey loves ya! Yer a bum, Rock. Mace did the last five reps quickly, measured his steps backward into the cage, and set the bar down.
He came out of the cage and sat down on the mat to stretch, grabbed his toes, dipped his head. “We have to do something, homeboy. We all do. We can’t wait for things to come to us. You’l
l see.” He fixed Roy with a heavy stare. “You’re waiting for her to show up here, is that it?”
“You’re here. Her stuff is here. This is her house.”
Mace got to his feet and cracked his neck left and then right, as if he were about to get in the ring. “I believe there are types of men,” he said, pointing at Roy. “You’re a germinal type, like a sprout that hasn’t been hardened off yet. I’m trying to save you that pain. I’m telling you it’s better if she lets you down than if you let her down. It’s better for you. You can build on it if it’s her fault but not if it’s yours. You’ll be living in quicksand if you leave her, sinking all the time.”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said. “She’ll come back here. We can talk then. We’ll figure something out.”
Mace caught him by the hood of his sweatshirt and slammed him against the wall face-first. “I’m not asking anymore, homeboy.” Roy didn’t struggle, he was terrified, too scared to fight back. Then Mace let him go, unwadded his hood for him, and gave him a pat on the back. “My wallet is on my dresser. Take a hundred. Go and find her. You’d better make an occasion of it. Reparations. Don’t come back here without her.”
Roy had to move Mace’s truck to get Carl out of the driveway. The snow had started again. He tried Karen’s phone, dreading that she might actually answer, but now it was dead, voice mail automatic. She was somewhere. The laws of physics required that she had to be somewhere. But, and this is what had him looking at the horizon, she might be just where she needs to be, and now I’m in the van. I’m on the road with a hundred bucks in my pocket. The fish has spit out the hook, but Mace was right. He had a responsibility. He owed her.
He went to the tiny public library and used their ancient computer to find Aaron’s business address on the yellow pages site. The street was a block off the highway, sad houses with mismatched fencing and junk cars buried in snowbanks. He parked the van behind April’s broken-windowed car, a garbage bag taped over the hole. The box van was in the back of the house, parked beside a detached garage with a welded stick-figure motorcycle and rider mounted on the gable. The problem with searching was that you might find what you were looking for.
He called her phone again but it was still off. He left the van running and went and knocked on the door. He waited. He watched Carl spew exhaust and he looked healthy, jackrabbit strong, ready to travel. Great set of tires. No one answered and Roy was relieved. He walked back to Carl and climbed in and drove away. He’d never thought he could lose her like this, actually lose her because he couldn’t find her, or worse, that he’d quit looking altogether.
[25]
R<35
AZ 85333
First thing in the morning his phone lit up with a text from Tony telling him that the video of his beating had made the national news. Getting out of bed took time and the pain was significant. He was afraid of going to the bathroom. His face was stiff and swollen and his stitches were oozing. He dialed the front desk and asked Jimmy to bring him some decent coffee, food.
He spent the day watching TV and sleeping. He dreamed of Karen and took it as an omen.
In the evening, there was a knock on the door and Roy stood up and opened it, figuring it was Jimmy, but it was two of the guys that had rolled him instead. Roy went to slam the door in their faces but they pushed their way in.
“Ain’t here to thump on you,” the shorter one said.
“I didn’t tell the cops anything,” Roy said, feeling like he was playing a part in a movie.
The tall one was in the minifridge and he pulled three beers and put them on the table. “Sit,” he said.
Roy sat down with his back to the wall. The tall man tossed Roy’s wallet and his phone on the table and then sat across from him. The short man stayed standing. They both wore flannel shirts and Dickies and the shorter one was wearing Rasheed’s signature shoe. They were older than he thought they were when he met them, but they weren’t much older than him.
“Where’s my bike?” Roy said, checking his wallet and finding his cash and cards intact.
“Out front.” The tall man held out his beer and Roy lifted his own, like cheers. “My name’s Smith and that’s Jones.”
“Like the song,” Roy said. “‘Smith and Jones Forever.’”
“I don’t know that one,” said the big guy.
“Silver Jews.”
“What?” said the smaller man.
“That’s who sings it,” Roy said. “The song. My bike’s really out there?”
“We regret any inconvenience,” said Jones, a crooked smile.
“You guys stomped me and kicked me under a truck,” Roy said.
“You gave our buddy an orbital fracture when you hit him with your helmet,” said Smith.
Roy couldn’t help it, he smiled. “I told the cops I wasn’t pressing charges but they don’t seem to care since that video is all over the place. I’m guessing you’ve seen it by now.”
“Yeah,” said Jones.
“That’s the thing,” said Smith. “We didn’t know who you were.”
“I’m not the governor’s nephew or something,” Roy said. “I don’t matter one way or another.”
“I used to skate,” Jones said. “I probably wouldn’t a rolled you if I’d known who you were.”
“My board was on my bike,” Roy said.
“You caught us at the end of a three-day bender,” said Jones. “Nothing was making much sense for me at that point. Jap bike, punk ass. All I saw.”
“Me too,” said Smith. “Anyway, your bike’s out there. I kept your board though, figured you could get another. They just give ’em to you.”
“Sure.”
“No hard feelings.” Smith stood and held out his hand and Roy stood and shook it, then shook Jones’s.
When he was alone in the room, he caught himself smiling in the mirror and did a double take on his busted face and quit smiling and sat back down. I used to skate too, he thought. How many times do you hear that? How many times had some crazy bastard in a gas station parking lot or in a bar told him that he used to skate with so-and-so at some pool somewhere and maybe he’d been there and sometimes he had.
The key was in the CB and it fired right up. He didn’t see any scratches. They’d burned through a half tank of fuel but they’d welded their logo, a silver-dollar-sized badge, onto his frame. He left it idling and returned to the room and grabbed his wallet and both phones, his trusted helmet. When he looked back, the door of the hotel room was wide open and the lights were on.
He rode slowly through Loyalton but didn’t stop. His body ached. He was scared to get off the bike. He was pretty sure he had bugs stuck in his stitches. A few people waved and he waved back. There was a new grocery store and the downtown blocks had been refinished and there were two competing real estate offices side by side, an art gallery, a T-shirt shop, a deli. Welcome to Jefferson, a billboard said. Coming soon. The 51st State. He didn’t know what the hell that meant and he didn’t remember the place being so hoedown touristy but then again he didn’t trust his memory as much as he used to. Rolled the last stop sign and with a twist of the throttle the CB pulled smoothly, front tire off the ground a couple of inches, as if it were hungry.
The barn was painted bright red. He could see it from the road and at first he thought he must have the wrong place because there wasn’t a barn and then the house was different too and he was sure he was lost. He stopped at the side of the road and killed the motor.
The barn’s foundation was so new that around it there was just backfill and nothing had started to grow yet. Roy had only seen barns falling down. He didn’t know they were still building new ones. The house was maybe remodeled or new, but the driveway was the same, the trees, the dogleg bend. Open fields, the nearest neighbor was maybe a mile back. He’d never noticed how truly country this place was. Hayfields for as far as he could see. He listened to a sandhill crane pair croak through a call-and-response routine and finally spotted them on the ris
e across the road moving through the hayfield. He fired up the bike and turned down the lane standing on the pegs.
Parked, with his helmet off, he could smell the rankness of the goats. He stood next to his bike and took it in. The house was a bungalow with a wraparound porch, light blue paint and white trim, a swing set, and a large, lush garden with raised beds and a fence like a penitentiary keeping the goats out. He watched as they came up from the field, a dozen or more white goats, walking leisurely along the fence line, jerking their heads and testing the air.
When he looked again, Karen was on the porch. Her dark hair was long and held back from her face in a braid, but otherwise she looked much the same, maybe a little thicker in the hips but she’d always had curves. She had on a faded black Disintegration shirt with a blurry Robert Smith on it, black jeans tucked into rubber boots. She wasn’t alone, there was a child with her, a little girl, with dark hair to match, in a blue-and-green striped sundress.
Roy set his helmet on his seat and walked to the bottom of the stairs. The child was watching him, half-hidden behind her mother’s legs. Karen looked more annoyed than surprised. He was waiting for her to say something. She put her hand on the child’s shoulder and guided her down the stairs.
“You aren’t Wiley, are you?” he said.
The child nodded and ducked a little further behind her mother.
“I’m Roy.” He was squatted down now, level with the little girl, and watched as her eyes found the stitches on his face.
“What happened?” Wiley asked.
“I fell down,” Roy said. “I fall down a lot.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Somehow I just can’t avoid it.”
“Are you Mama’s friend?”
“That’s right,” Roy said. “I’m a friend of your mom’s.”
“This is a big surprise,” Karen said.
“You look great,” Roy said.
