Kill Switch

by Chris Lynch

  “Da,” I say, running straight across the diamond. I get to him, pick him up, and he winces.

  “Are you okay?” I ask. “I am so sorry, this was a stupid idea. I am sorry. Are you all right?”

  He stares at me. He stares and stares and stares.

  It is a sandwich shop, about ten booths and a ten-foot counter. Smells like coffee. Smells like tomato soup. Smells like just enough Lysol to be reassuring.

  Soup and sandwich times three.

  “He will be fine,” I say to Jarrod, who looks uncharacteristically worried.

  “He doesn’t look good, Danny.”

  “He’ll be fine, once he gets his stuff.”

  “That’s what we all say.”

  “Food, for strength, then some medication, get his equilibrium back, then a good rest and he will be his old self.”

  “His old, old, old self,” Jarrod quips.

  I reach right across the table and grab his shirt, pulling him to me to make the booth seem a lot smaller. A teenage girl pushes a stroller across in front of us and stares as if we can’t see her. As if we are in a jackass aquarium or something. Don’t tap the glass, girlie.

  I look at my balled fist, Jarrod’s balled shirt, the uncomfortable defenseless look on his face.

  “How many times do you suppose this table has seen this scene?” I ask with what I hope is an apologetic smile.

  Jarrod shrugs. “Probably, like, a lot?”

  “What is even in this for you, man?” I ask him, still clinging to him.

  “I don’t know,” he says.

  I laugh. “You’re a good man,” I say right up close to his face.

  “The bar on the opposite corner is that kind of place,” says the cook with the Marty Van Buren sideburns. It sounds like a joke but he appears unamused. He delivers the soups and sandwiches himself, separating the goings-on by plunking down food. The waitress is having her own food at the counter.

  He walks away. I look to Da beside me and he looks rather drained of color.

  “Eat,” I tell him, picking up half of his tuna sandwich, which is now bleeding watery mayo onto him. He takes the sandwich listlessly, dunks a corner into his tomato soup so that both sandwich and soup mingle into a look that could kill your appetite. He bites, crunches into too much celery.

  I am very happy I got ham and cheese.

  “What is your plan, Danny Boy?” Jarrod asks.

  “My plan?” I ask. “What kind of plan could I have? I was going off to study philosophy in a few weeks, that was my plan. And even that was no kind of plan at all.”

  Jarrod nods.

  “It has to be getting worse by the day, man,” I say. “Worse for me and him both. There will be a lot to answer for, even criminal stuff, who knows. All I can say is, he’s in trouble down there, and I am not bringing him back into that, no way. I can’t.”

  Jarrod nods.

  I look over to Da to see that he’s getting along okay. Half the sandwich is gone, even the crust, and he is working at the soup. The management must have split a small bag of potato chips among the three of us because there are about five chips per plate and a slice of pickle, but nobody’s eating all that anyway. Da smiles a bit, winces, smiles, dunks his sandwich. I take this as progress.

  Jarrod has eaten everything. Now he’s collecting pickles and chips that don’t belong to him, but hey.

  “I’ll take him,” Jarrod says.

  “What?”

  “I’ll take him. He can live with me. At least for a while. He can share my boiler room, and as long as he does his quiet-old-guy thing more than his nutty-old-guy thing, we could probably get away with it.”

  Stress is about to cause me to blow, to grab him again and emphasize how stupid and reckless the plan is.

  Until I picture it.

  “What?” he says, smiling broadly but uncertainly. “What? What’s so funny? Dan…”

  I love this laugh. It feels so good it just perpetuates itself. Then Jarrod catches it; then, Da. It is joy.

  The waitress comes over with our bill, hands it to the old guy, and says cheerfully, “Thank goodness for stoners, or we’d never move this food.”

  We walk back into Venus Exotics, leaving Da in the car. He is in no running mood, a sore hip and a lit cigarette keeping him reliably planted in the backseat.

  True to his word, Matt hands over a bag with a few pill bottles inside, just like the pharmacist does.

  “I even gave you a little note with instructions inside, just like the pharmacist does,” he says with no small pride. “You take care of that ol’ boy. Sorry to say, kid, but I know that look. Good things don’t usually follow that look.”

  It stings.

  “So then, Matty, why don’t you give us one of your other products, that give an old boy a look that good things definitely do follow?”

  I did not say that.

  Matt quickly reaches out and bops Jarrod on the side of the head with something like a baseball bat that isn’t one. “There, that’ll give you a look.” He’s laughing; now he’s serious.

  “Here’s to wash it down,” he says and grabs me a large can of something called POW energy drink off a shelf.

  “Thanks,” I say warily. “But is this going to make him feel anything more than we want him to?”

  “Only a little extra consciousness, I’m afraid.”

  I shake his very warm, strong hand. I wait till I am out the door before giving it a precautionary wipe on my shirt.

  We tear away in the Subaru after a successful excursion, feeling a little like maybe we can do this.

  “All the best people are rascals,” Da says as he takes this pill and this pill and this pill with a swig of POW and we all cross our fingers.

  8

  Moods are elevated as we make the last turn into the college. Right stuff or not, the medication seems to be combining well enough in my grandfather to have produced a goodwill and camaraderie that fills the car up nicely. We are all pretty much tired of driving for now, though, and everybody’s looking forward to doing some nothing.

  But that doesn’t look like it’s going to happen.

  Jarrod quick-pumps the brakes before we get into the parking lot itself.

  “Damn,” he says. “There shouldn’t be anybody here.”

  “What?” Da and I say.

  I go a little bit frantic, and my newfound control and strength go floating like so much smoke straight out the passenger window.

  Da remains slouched way back in the car, out of sight, as we sit and ponder.

  “I got nobody else visiting, I swear,” Jarrod says. “And that isn’t any car connected to the college I know of. Nobody has been on campus for weeks, nobody is scheduled for another two, they always let me know in advance anyway, and if this is a student, lost and confused, it’s way early for that.”

  Da’s voice has dropped an octave.

  “You didn’t use that phone, like I told you not to, did you, Young Man?”

  I am absolutely certain he hears my Adam’s apple go ga-lulk right now.

  “No,” I say, clipped. “You took it, anyway, remember? So, see-”

  “Did you call anyone, Daniel?”

  Oh no. There are no lies of omission with Da.

  “Yes, but I used a landline-”

  “Who did you call?”

  “Lucy,” I say, flattened. “I called her cell from a pay phone.”

  “Drive,” he tells Jarrod.

  The driver tears away with surprising speed, and focus.

  “Go easy,” Da says. “Stealth is more important than speed. Stealth is more important than everything. They can’t catch you if they don’t chase you, so don’t make them chase you.”

  I sit, hands folded, in the shotgun seat, and I believe if my grandfather had a shotgun back there, I would not be in any seat at all. I remain silent for as long as-

  “That kind of screwup can be lethal,” Da says to me coldly. “It may be yet.”

  “I am sorry, Da. I am s
o sorry. I wasn’t-”

  He punches the back of my headrest. I think it is not violence. I think I am beginning to learn the difference between what is and isn’t violence. I think that was just “shut up.”

  “Driver,” Da says.

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Have you got one of those godforsaken cell phones?”

  “Doesn’t everyone?”

  There is a barely nonviolent silence.

  “Could you please loan your phone to my foolish grandson? His is back at the college. As long as they already know we are with you, one quick call won’t hurt. GPS can’t help them much if we are already right around the corner from them.”

  I take the phone, turn to Da.

  “Phone your sister, please. Get what you can.”

  I do what I am told, as I will continue to do for as long as I know him.

  “Lucy?”

  “Dan? Now whose phone are you using?”

  I try to focus through a separate conversation here in the car.

  “We will need a place to stay quiet for a while,” Da says.

  “I know a guy,” Jarrod says. “But I kind of figure you’re the kind of guy who would know a guy.”

  “I am the kind of guy who would know a guy, but all those kind of guys I know are the kind of guys we don’t want to know now.”

  “Um, what?”

  “Do you know a place?”

  “I do.”

  “Very good. For the time being, though, drive the opposite way to there.”

  “Why?” he asks.

  I punch him in the arm and he complies.

  “This is Jarrod’s phone,” I say.

  “Please, Dan, just come home, all right? They are not going to do anything to you. But Granddad has done stuff that you don’t even know. They just want to protect him and everybody else and just get him secure…”

  The phone is one of those annoying ones that sound like a little radio broadcasting to everyone in the vicinity.

  “Secure!” Da nearly vomits the word. “They want to make me secure. Isn’t that just kindness itself.”

  “I think he can hear you,” I tell her. “And he’s not wildly in favor of your plan.”

  “Too bad. You have to stop this before it gets all serious.”

  “Did you rat us out?” I ask as Da gives my headrest a hurry-up punch.

  “Why would I even have to do that? They were in my room so soon they practically hung up the phone for me. Please, Dan.”

  “How are Mom and Dad?”

  “Livid!” Lucy shouts.

  “Perfect,” Da says with contempt.

  “Tell them I miss them too.”

  “You are going to screw up everything,” she says. “College and everything.”

  Because Lucy is crying as she says that last bit, I think I feel something. Something small but sharp and electric zings through my chest.

  My sister, my pal, cares whether I have a future, and I care that she cares.

  What a chump. Pair of chumps, really.

  “It’ll be okay, Luce. I can’t just-”

  “He’s dangerous!” she shouts.

  A highway crosswind or something suddenly blows Jarrod’s attention in our direction. “Hiya, Luce.”

  Da reaches forward and grabs the phone from me.

  “I think this is good enough,” he says.

  He rolls down his window and, with Lucy’s little voice screaming DanDanDanDanDan like a tiny passing train, he takes his pick of the endless parade of pickup trucks passing us in the next lane, draws back that hellacious, accurate old right arm, and fires away.

  The phone zips on a line and clatters around the bed of an old Dodge. And takes its GPS signal with it.

  “I repeat,” Da says, “technology is for chumps.”

  “I found that phone in a couch,” Jarrod says. “It was perfect.”

  “Um, Da?” I venture with trepidation.

  “Yes, Young Man.”

  “Won’t they trace Jarrod’s car?”

  He punches my headrest again. Not becoming my favorite mode of communication. I miss my phone.

  “Glad you are catching on, my boy. I guess we are going to have to locate ourselves another car after Jarrod gets off the next exit to head us north.”

  “I don’t think so,” Jarrod says.

  I stiffen.

  “Excuse me?” Da says calmly.

  “It’s not my car, so it’s not registered to me. A student left it at the end of spring semester. Left it for the summer to go help stabilize things during the election in Haiti.”

  “‘Stabilize,’” Da says, laughing. “I love that old chestnut.”

  “Thanks,” Jarrod says, like he’s achieved something.

  “Where would we be without ya, J?” I say.

  “It doesn’t even bear thinking about,” he says, turning off and heading us north.

  “This is your guy?” I say when we pull down the narrow lane.

  “Yup,” Jarrod says.

  “This is the same guy as the other guy.”

  “He’s about the only guy I know. There is one other, but he’s not gonna want to know me anymore when he finds out I stole his car.”

  “But why are we here, man?”

  The combination of activities has conspired to leave my grandfather snoring in the backseat. I am jealous but there is no resting for me at the moment.

  Jarrod points to an array of windows in a row above Matt’s shop. “He rents out rooms. Nobody will find you here. Then you can make a plan for what to do next. He’s good at plans, actually. He’ll help.”

  I look up at the windows. There are little lacy curtains in each one, and a plastic flower in a milk glass. You can see the dust from the street. I have not the slightest doubt that Matt does all his decorating out of that dollar store where I got the baseball stuff.

  It hits me now. Like hunger, like cramps, like the full burst in your belly when you drink an icy Coke after having nothing in your stomach during a whole scorching summer day.

  I love baseball.

  “Let’s go talk to him,” I say.

  “Back for more already?” Matt says, laughing. He is closing up shop, no assistant helping him. “You guys are voracious.”

  “Got any rooms free, Matt?” Jarrod says.

  “A couple. What’s up, something wrong with The Shining?”

  “We just need to move on now,” I say, cutting Jarrod off before he can be more helpful.

  Matt looks back and forth from one of us to the other and back again with a sly, knowing lip curl. “I get a lot of that here. No problem. Where’s my pal?”

  “He’s in the car.”

  “He okay with stairs?”

  “Why wouldn’t I be okay with stairs?” Da says, walking in, bleary but with us. He is limping noticeably.

  “No reason, pal,” Matt says, though he is probably counting about five reasons in his head.

  We follow him through the front door, then he lets us all in the entrance next door. We tromp up the dark and curved stairway that is no struggle even for Da because the stairs are uncommonly short. It’s almost like floating up to the next level.

  “Most people here are singles, ha-ha,” he tells us quite unnecessarily, “but I do have one double room. You want three singles?”

  “We’ll take a double,” I say quickly, not wanting even a hint of another ramble by Da to happen. I shudder at the thought of his taking off here like he did in the relative safety of the woodsy campus.

  “One double, one single, then.”

  “Oh, just the double,” Jarrod says. “I’m gonna drive back to my place.”

  Da snaps right to attention. I gasp. “Jarrod, oh, no, you can’t.”

  “Right,” Da says, “you can’t.”

  “I have to be there,” Jarrod says. “I have to. There are things to do. Those guys will sure be gone when I get there, then we can just go back like it all never-”

  “No-no,” Da says with finality. “Oh
no, no, no. That cannot happen. You are a good boy, and have been wonderful to us, but you are going to have to be wonderful to us for at least a little while more.”

  Jarrod, in his endearing way, takes this as an invitation. As appreciation.

  “Oh, really, nice and all, but thanks. I honestly do need to, you know, physically be back there at night. It’s my job and everything so it’s the least-”

  “Really, no,” Da says. In his special-serious voice.

  “Jeez, even I got a chill off that one,” Matt says with a laugh. “The elder statesman can get quite the snarl on when he wants to, huh?”

  Jarrod sees less of the humor. He looks like he wants to cry.

  “Easy, Da,” I say, putting a hand on his hand.

  He turns on me, eyes reddish. He pushes me away and approaches Jarrod to make his point a little clearer. Jarrod might just piss himself, and if the place didn’t already smell like this when we got here, I might have guessed he’d already commenced.

  Before Da can snort in his face, I grab him.

  Really hard, really meaning it, I grab my grandfather’s arm and yank him forcefully in my direction.

  He is shocked as his piercing eyes rush up to mine.

  “Oh no,” he says to me. “Oh, no, no, no.” He turns away again.

  I yank him even harder. “Oh no yourself, Da. No, and no, and no. You leave him alone now.”

  He bites his lower lip and wrinkles his nose in a most threatening snarly dog fashion.

  I stare, scared witless, but keeping that to myself.

  He holds ground.

  I hold ground.

  Then I make my move.

  I bring both hands up to my face, filling almost all the space between us.

  “Shush,” I say calmly, all eight fingers waving in the water between us. “Octo-shush.”

  I walk past him, frozen there, because waiting for his response would be weak. Showing I cared what he thought now would be weak.

  Jeez, I wonder what he’s thinking.

  “Listen, Jarrod,” I say, “you have to understand how it complicates things to have you go back. We will work something out, don’t worry.”

  Two heavy hands thump on my shoulder, and I see Jarrod’s eyes go B-movie horror wide.