I made one sentimental detour, a drive-by of the trailer park. I wasn’t going to see Rozene again either. By the time I did she’d have a husband who was an insurance broker and be living in the suburbs of Seattle with a triple garage larger than our house, and a nanny for the kids so she’d be free to do her aerobics and volunteer work during the day. Down the middle row, I saw the brown Corolla, with its hood under the canvas awning at the side of her trailer. She must have left the car home for her mom. The cafe curtains had been pulled open but the windows were as dim as the insides of an empty packing carton.
We took the back roads, staying off Horse Heaven Highway until we got farther out of town, and headed east where there was more open space and nobody who’d ever heard of the Herald Stampede or Scanlon. Pretty soon we were passing three-wire fences instead of pickets, hen houses instead of garages, silos instead of neon signs. The setting sun shone like track lighting through a slot between the horizon and a ceiling of dark clouds. Even though there was a breeze blowing through the car from the window Willard had opened for the dogs to stick their heads out, my hands were sweating and I had to keep wiping them off on my pants.
“Where we going?” Willard yelled over the wind.
“Surprise.” The only destination I’d thought of was Seamus’s place in Manhattan, if the car would make it that far. I knew he’d take us in. Seamus was another bent arrow, someone who’d bummed around and fought off the responsibilities of the world, and he knew how impatient Dad could be with screwoffs like me and Willard. Trouble was, he might feel obligated to call Dad. As unreliable as he’d been, I didn’t want to test Seamus’s brotherly infidelity with Willard’s freedom.
Willard grinned at me and a wisp of hair danced on the top of his head. I thought he’d be nervous about going away, old people were supposed to be such creatures of habit, but he seemed grateful, the way a dog was when you took a thorn out of its paw. As far as stealing the car, I figured it was Willard’s anyway and Dad and Mom had even talked about buying it for me when I graduated. Besides, the car was small potatoes compared to our reasons for leaving.
Passing through the small towns—Frylands, Duvall, Novelty, Stillwater, Pleasant Hill—triggered recollections from Willard’s middle and deep memory. He talked about places where he’d bucked hay, played pool, square-danced, gone to church, played cards, hunted pheasant, fished, fixed cars, built barns, even worked on highway crews. I was relieved he was able to put aside the memories of his traumatic night. We could deal with all of that later. Right now, we were unrestricted as to time and geography. As long as there was gasoline left to be pumped in the free world, we could stay on the move.
The dogs had to pee once we reached I-90, so we pulled off onto Denny Creek Road and I let Willard and the dogs empty their bladders beside the car. My waste water must have evaporated because I just stayed at the wheel. I needed to import water, not export it.
At Snoqualmie Pass, the peaks of the Cascades had lanced the undersides of the clouds and they were dripping with rain. It was dark and I was glad we were on a separated highway because from a distance every car coming from the opposite direction looked like it was in my lane. Passing under an arc light I glanced into the backseat. Willard had his knees on the floor and his torso nestled in between Paddy’s butt and Mrs. Churchill’s flaccid muzzle. When we passed Cle Elum, at the toe of the eastern slope of the Cascades, we were officially in Eastern Washington, territory reputed to be inhabited by rednecks, militia, and just plain hicks if you believed the people from our side of the mountains. They voted Republican, worshiped Protestant, and named streets after John Wayne.
We pulled off for a boughten meal at Martha’s Cafe in George, which I chose based on the number of semis idling out front. I made Willard wear the brakeman’s hat inside out so nobody would be able to read his name on the front and I pulled a knit cap down to my eyebrows. A gum-snapping girl with red hair and tattoos on her biceps showed us to a booth with disposable placemats illustrated with events from George Washington’s life. “Three Times a Lady” was playing on the juke box. The counter must have been the smoking section because plumes of blue smoke rose from the heads of the guys in logger boots with belt buckles as big as cement trowels, who sat there working down their dinners and sipping coffee. Willard took off his hat and set it on the seat.
“Keep it on,” I said. “It makes us look like regulars.”
“Regulars?”
“Truckers.”
When I asked the waitress in my deepest voice which was better, the bacon burger or the cube steak, she said, “Beats me. I’m vegetarian.” Her name tag said “Starbuck” and I asked her what nationality that was.
She laughed. “That’s my communal name. We choose our own. My boyfriend’s Ishmael.” She cracked her gum as she spoke, with her pencil poised to write down our order in case we ever gave it. “You know … the great white whale and all that.” I looked over at Willard to see if he was getting any of this, but he was busy following his finger down the laminated menu, probably looking for something that would make good leftovers for the dogs.
“What grade are you in?” I asked.
She laughed again and I studied her very full, kissable lips. “You mean in the affairs of man or school?”
“Both.”
She looked up at the greasy ceiling register. “I turned tricks to earn my way through community college. But that was before Ishmael. I’m clean now, except for a little dope.”
So much for John Wayne.
We drove another fifty miles or so after dinner, but I had a splitting headache so I pulled into a rest area and parked as far away from the restrooms as I could get. “That’s enough for the first day,” I said.
“Suits me.”
Willard turned the overhead light on, gave the dogs the rest of his pancakes, and divided a single little pig sausage between them. I retrieved the snow emergency blankets out of the trunk, threw one in the back for Willard, and kept one for myself. They smelled like a combination of welcome mat and motor oil, but they represented heat. Willard tried to make room for his disciples in the back and finally gave up. The coonhound was too heavy to lift over the seat so Willard had to lead her out the back door and into the front one. While he was doing that, the other dogs broke out of the car for more sniffs and pees.
Once everyone was back in, Mrs. Churchill kept putting a paw on my seat, begging to get up, and I quietly pushed it back down so Willard wouldn’t know I was being so selfish. I sat up with my back against the door and shared a Hershey with Willard. He had a big sweet tooth, which was one of the reasons he wore dentures, but now that he’d crossed that hurdle the incentive to save his teeth was gone. Occasionally, the headlights of a vehicle entering or leaving the rest area illuminated the upper part of the car, then it was dark again, the freeway a dull hum in the distance. I tried to picture Dad finding my note and wondered whether he’d be sad or relieved I was gone. I’d been nothing but a pain in the butt for him since Mom. He’d think of calling my friends and then discover he didn’t know who they were. Couldn’t blame him; I had trouble with that list myself. Certainly he’d call Dirk.
Crap, Dirk! I’d forgotten all about the trial. He must have been relieved to find out there was no longer a defendant he had to testify against. He wouldn’t have to manufacture the big lie. On the other hand, there was no longer anyone alive who could deny what Dirk had sworn happened between the two of them.
“I used to read bedtime stories to your mother,” Willard said out of the blue. “Huckleberry Finn.” He sat cross-legged in the middle of the seat, the blanket wrapped around him like an Indian squaw, with a dog on each side. “I loved the trip down the river on the raft. Old Jim would get scared and Huck had to settle him down.” Willard chuckled to himself. “I ‘uz hungry, but I warn’t afeard, Huck.”
“Jim was the wise one, you know.”
“No, he warn’t.” Now Willard was even talking like Jim. “He was a slave.”
&nbs
p; “It’s irony, Willard.”
“Well, Kitty and me liked ‘im anyway.” He pulled the blanket up around his ears and I thought he might be mad at me for being so uppity, but then he started talking again in a voice that drifted slow like a wide river. “She promised me we’d go on one them steamboat paddle wheelers … float down the Mississippi clear to the Gulf of Mexico.” I thought I’d heard all their stories, but this one was new.
I felt a lump in my throat thinking of him and mom together on that steamboat. “How old was she when she promised you this?”
“Couldn’t have been any bigger’n a border collie. Tried to get the wife to go, but she didn’t like the idea of sleeping someplace she had to share a toilet.”
“Maybe you and I can take that trip, Willard.”
“Don’t pull my chain.” It was an expression he must have picked up at one of the construction sites.
“I’m serious.”
“What language you speaking?”
“I mean that’s where we’re going.” It came to me just then. There was no other place that made sense. Mom had promised it; I was going to do it. “To the Mississippi River.”
He slapped the upholstery and bounced up and down on the seat. “You hear that guys? We’re going down the big one!”
We talked about it some more and I tried to recall my grade school geography so I could tell him exactly where we’d be heading. Then I tried to settle him down so we could get some sleep, but he kept breaking into dialect and making wisecracks about whatever came into his head and laughing. I remembered the pills Dr. Miller had given me. Willard was supposed to have one the first night. Now I could see why; he was going manic on me. We didn’t have any water in the car so I explained how he had to get it down by making a big goober. Old people were supposed to be skeptical of new ideas, but not Willard. He squeezed out so much saliva that he was drooling like Diller by the time I slipped the pill between his lips.
I was still awake, with my eyes wide open and looking up at the seams in the ceiling upholstery when I heard him snoring. I kept thinking how proud Mom would be at the way I’d taken charge, how I was going to keep Willard out of the nursing home in Mount Vernon, and jail. But for the first time since we’d left, I felt alone and I was scared. I was scared because Willard trusted me and I was afraid I was going to let him down.
19
For the second day in a row, I was awakened by the dogs. This time they were barking and the air was heavy with the sourness of their breath. For a moment, I didn’t know where I was. My feet were cold where they’d stuck out the end of the blanket and my eyes were crusted over. When I raised up, my shoulder hit something hard that knocked me back down. I felt around, then grabbed what turned out to be the steering wheel. There was a second noise behind the dog noise, a tapping sound, metal against glass. Someone was tapping on the driver’s window with a coin. Mrs. Churchill, normally as placid as warm milk, had crawled over to the driver’s side of the car and was barking in my ear.
“Shut up, all of you! I hear it.”
The windows were glazed with hoarfrost, but I could see the shadow of someone’s head next to the glass, with knuckles in the foreground moving in a circle. Whoever it was wanted me to roll the window down. I looked into the backseat; Willard was sound asleep. Through the glaze on the rear window I saw a blue light blinking on top of the car behind us and my heart started racing again, the same gallop it did when Bagmore told me he’d seen Willard running from the fire two nights ago.
As I rolled down the window, I could see a man in a wide-brimmed hat and at first I thought he was Royal Canadian Mounted Police and we’d inadvertently crossed the border, but his name badge said, “W. Rasmussen, Washington State Patrol.”
“Good morning.” He had a friendly smile, pink in his cheeks, and bright, eager eyes that had already started casing the interior of the car from the moment I cracked the window. Even though it was daylight, he leaned over and shined a flashlight into the frontseat. Mrs. Churchill was wagging her tail now, anxious to make up for the poor first impression she’d made. Paddy stretched his head forward between the window and the headrest, desperate to be recognized. “These yours?”
“His really,” I said, pointing over my shoulder, not wanting to use names.
The officer leaned his head in behind mine and shone the light into the back. I could smell baby powder deodorant. He must have just come on shift. “Is he okay?”
I was relieved I’d given Willard the pill. Hopefully, he’d sleep through this little interrogation. “He’s a heavy sleeper. A little old, you know.” I gave a chuckle, making sure my teeth didn’t chatter. This was just like walking into one of those fancy hotels Willard talked about. I just had to act like I belonged here.
The trooper stood up straight and I could see he was on the lanky side, in excellent physical condition, not a wrinkle in his creased pants except for the sitting marks across the lap, which was at eye level. “Let me see your license.”
I looked down at the dash. The key was still in the ignition. I wondered if I turned it whether the car would start or sputter the way it had in the garage. Come on, Piper, you belong here. You belong here as much as he does. “Actually, he was driving … we traded seats … he’s shorter.”
“Give me his then.”
This was like one of those mazes in a children’s magazine; every pathway led to Officer Rasmussen. I got up on my knees and leaned over the seat. Willard was sleeping with his butt against the back of the seat. Diller licked my wrist as I pulled Willard towards me and dug into his back pocket for the billfold. It was just as likely his wallet would be filled with coins and bottlecaps from one of his treasure hunts as a license. The leather was weathered like he’d left it outside and so worn at the corners that the plastic credit cards stuck through. I flipped open one of the plastic windows to a picture of Mom with her Jackie Kennedy bouffant hairdo, a miniature of the high school graduation picture she’d shown me once from what she called her virginity chest. The rest of the windows, cracked and opaque, contained pictures but no license. The bill compartment was crammed with membership cards from the Humane Society, PAWS, Greenpeace, and Doctors Without Borders. Finally, I found the driver’s license, with Willard’s leprechaun likeness sealed beneath the lamination, and pinched it over to Officer Rasmussen’s waiting fingers.
“Car registration?”
I flipped the visor down and the clip-on case with the registration fell off and into my lap. Bingo.
“Be right back,” he said, and I watched his buns recede in the rearview mirror. There wasn’t an iota of hula in those tightass, military hips.
He left the door to the patrol car open and I watched him make a call on his radio. If we were going to run for it, this was the time to do it. Instead of using the car, I wondered if we’d have better odds going cross-country, like The Defiant Ones, shackled convicts running for their lives through swamps in the deep South. Of course, that would require Willard’s cooperation and he was still in a drug-induced coma.
“Willard! Time for breakfast.” I practically yelled, “Breakfast!” He shifted position and wrapped his hand around Diller’s hind hock like it was an overhead handrail.
We weren’t going to be the defiant ones.
It seemed like the longest wait and I wondered if the trooper had called for reinforcements. Maybe they were blockading the freeway. The morning sun had defrosted the windows on the passenger side, which meant that was the direction of the Mississippi River. Hopefully Officer Rasmussen would be satisfied with the documentation and be on his way before Willard woke up. I was still afraid that if Willard as much as saw the uniform he’d spill his guts.
I puffed out the window and my breath rolled into a churning fog. Maybe it was because that’s the way I’d last seen her, in a fog, but I thought of Rozene and wondered what she’d think when she found out I’d taken off. Would there be an enormous ache of regret? A tingle? There was already a yawning hunger in me I knew wo
uld never be satisfied. I couldn’t imagine ever taking the chance again with someone else that I’d taken with her. From here on in I had to reconcile myself to the fact I’d live my life out in the company of misfits like Willard, and if he ever left me I’d sleep with his dogs, and when they were gone, I’d find more strays like Willard had done.
“Overnight camping here is against the law, Ma’am.” I hadn’t heard him sneak up.
“We weren’t camping, sir,” I answered out of reflex.
He scratched an “X” with his fingernail into the softening frost on the outside of Willard’s window. “Looks to me like you’ve been here all night.”
“Yeah, but …” I wanted to explain how we hadn’t used the restrooms, how we’d hardly gotten out of the car. Could that be camping?
“This isn’t his car,” he said, “and the driver’s license has expired.”
“Maybe he’s got a new one in his bag …”
“I checked. He hasn’t had a valid license in nine years.”
“He’s forgetful, officer …”
“That’s not the bad news.” Officer Rasmussen had suddenly become pushy, the cherub smile had disappeared. He wanted to run over the top of us with his information. “He’s wanted for questioning back home.”
How stupid I’d been! I should have at least tried to get away when we had the chance. Against my better judgment, I’d sat there and done whatever Fuhrer Rasmussen asked me to do. I’d gone soft. “He’s an old man,” I said. “You can’t do this to an old man. He’s practically senile. How could he break the law if he’s senile?”
“Step out of the car, please.”
“Nazi,” I mumbled.
When I reached for the keys, he thrust his arm through the window and glommed his hand onto my wrist like a manacle. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” he said, as he managed to open the door while pulling me out onto the pavement by the wrist at the same time. The dogs spilled out the door and scattered like somebody had thrown a handful of marbles across the parking lot. “Call ’em back,” he said.
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