A Set Of Wheels

by Robert Thurston

  His words hit me like the proverbial sucker punch. I don’t want much either, I want to tell him, just something better. Just a way of life, just an idea that I can hold to my chest for more than ten minutes before it slips out of my hands, just Cora. God, no wonder I can’t stand Handles. He’s too much like me. I was just like that at his age. Christ, I’m just like that now, I’ve got to get him out of this car and out of my life.

  That fire now, he says, that was something. Almost gave me hope. But you guys aren’t hot shit. You couldn’t get near hot shit even if you were inside a burning john.

  I slam my foot down on the gas pedal, anything to get where I’m going faster. The Mustang shudders, shakes, rattles, and growls like a sonofabitch, but does manage a little extra speed. With a sigh of relief I see the exit road leading to the camp area. Only a few more miles now. Great.

  * * * * *

  Not so great. The camp area is deserted. Thoughts race through my mind like marathon runners who’ve misplaced their destination. We should have anticipated this. Why did we expect a group of nomads to be where they were yesterday, especially after we’ve made off with their vehicles? But, if they didn’t have vehicles, where would they go? How far could they get? In which direction? If I can’t find them, what do I do with Handles and Scotty? Keep them? No way. Dump them? Where? Go to a social agency, find foster homes? Why is Handles laughing his head off? Why is he jumping up and down in his seat? Why not, he doesn’t want his people to be here anyway. What do I do now? What do I do day after now? Why does the Mustang sound like it’s choking on a piece of food? What branch of heaven arranges my life and who do I see for a reevaluation?

  Back to the train, Handles shouts. Scotty, we’re going back to the train.

  What? Scotty says.

  Wait a minute, I say.

  For what? Handles says.

  What? Scotty says.

  I’m going to drive down there.

  Why? Handles says. You going to look for clues? Track them down like a bounty hunter? Look for footprints, hoofprints, for—

  Shut up, I say and start the car down the makeshift road leading to the clearing.

  For a moment I wonder if this is the right place. Maybe the raid was somewhere else, two valleys down the road or something. But, no, this is the place. I recognize it. There’s still debris from the camp around, cans and wrappers and stamped-out cigarettes, little joints still on their roach pins. There’s the place where Link copped the Toyota.

  I get out of the car, walk around, doing exactly what Handles said I would. Looking for clues, for footprints leading in a direction I can follow. Handles leaves the car and starts doing a victory dance, scampering here and there, laughing in a nasal nerve-splitting way, a laugh that’d kill off any remaining buffalo roaming the land. Scotty climbs slowly out of the car, a magic marker in each hand, looking like he’s ready to use them at the first sign of trouble.

  The morning’s gradually growing darker as storm clouds fill the sky. The air is getting heavy, damp.

  Stop in your tracks, shouts a gravelly voice from somewhere in the surrounding trees. At first I think it’s Handles playing a trick, but the voice is too deep, too adult. I whirl around, can’t see anything. I don’t know whether to be frightened or happy. Happy that I may get rid of Handles after all, scared I’ll wind up dead doing it.

  That’s the captain, Handles says. Boy, are you gonna get your face rearranged.

  I am somewhat uncomfortable with Handles’ obvious approval of my imminent plastic surgery.

  The captain? I say, the words catching in my throat.

  The famous Cap’n Chickenwings. You remember from when he almost destroyed your buddy except you stopped it by fighting dirty.

  I remember. As I picture the man in memory, the real thing emerges from between two moldy trees. He strides slowly, with determination, his muscular arms swinging in rhythm, his body threatening to split his clothes, his ugly face comfortable with its meanness. He is performing a ritual dance for me, exhibiting the potential of his power before actually using it on me.

  He would show up now, Handles mutters. Now we don’t get back to the train. I want to go back to the train.

  Forget the train, I say. What can I do with this guy?

  Do?

  To talk him out of mangling me. I mean, isn’t he glad to see you kids back?

  Who knows with the cap’n? I never saw him glad about anything. Probably he’s glad but he’s just too ugly to show it. He’s my pop.

  What? Your father? He’s—

  Now you know why I didn’t want to come back.

  Cap’n Chickenwings has stopped a few paces from me. He’s just looking. Looking me over. Sizing me up. What’s taking him so long? He can see that he can wipe me out in a flash. So what’s keeping him? He’s probably the sadistic type, wants to savor the torture mentally before actually inflicting it.

  Hey cap’n, I say as jovially as I can under the circumstances. What’s doin’?

  You’re one of those Wheeler bastards, aren’t you?

  Well, not exactly, I mean I—

  Not exactly. You’re not exactly a human being either.

  But, look, I’m here to—

  You don’t have to play cutesy games with me. You bastard, you took these kids away and I’m going to—

  But, but, I didn’t kidnap them or anything. They hid away in my car. I didn’t even know they were there, really. And, look, I’ve brought them back.

  And you were part of the gang that wrecked our camp, stole our vehicles.

  Well yes, but—

  But what? You know what those cars meant to us, for us. And you’re gonna claim you did it for the Lord?

  Hey I don’t think I even believe in God, I—

  Don’t start that sort of crap with me. I know about Wheelers. I know you’ll say anything to get what you want. And you want to stay healthy. Well, forget it. Start planning what size TV you want for your hospital room.

  But I brought the kids back.

  I’ll give you that. It’s why I won’t kill you.

  Cap’n, Handles says, this guy’s all right. He’s real nice to Scotty. Leave him alone.

  An unanticipated endorsement. Handles seems on the verge of tears. Maybe he’s only eighty or ninety percent monster.

  Yeah, cap’n, Scotty says.

  Scotty looks puzzled. I think he doesn’t know what he’s saying. He’s just backing Handles up. Still, an ally is an ally, no matter what size, age, or magic marker spots.

  Don’t worry, Handles, the captain says. I won’t do any permanent injury.

  Cap’n, Handles says. Don’t. I don’t like it when you—you don’t need to—I’ll run away again, I will.

  Of course you will, I know it. It’s a habit with you by now. Just stay out of this, Handles.

  Handles looks like he can’t wait to grow up so he can take a swipe at his father.

  The captain starts walking toward me, an oddly placid look in his eyes. Organs inside my body contract with fear. My skin crawls with fear. My vision changes all colors around me to fear. I can’t hear anything but fear. I taste fear. I tremble. I really tremble.

  The captain gives me a backhand slap across the face. My skull rattles around inside my skin. Before I’m accustomed to the pain, he punches me in the gut and suddenly I’m struggling to breathe in a vacuum. Doubled over, I watch his shoes move backward a couple of steps. I look up from my bent position. The captain is watching me, assessing when and where his next blow should come.

  Handles is crying. So is Scotty.

  Captain, don’t you ever learn? says a soft almost whispering voice to my left. I can’t look up to check out who it is. I may never look up again. My knees dissolve, they’re gone forever, and abruptly I’m kneeling on the ground.

  I know what I’m doing, Kay, the captain says. Punks like this—

  I know, I know. Beat up a punk often enough and hard enough, and eventually he becomes a beat-up punk. Terrific.

>   But, Kay, he’s a Wheeler.

  Something like a whine has seeped into the captain’s gravelly voice.

  Captain, I despise the whole Wheeler thing as much as you do. But I don’t think they should be beaten up in third-rate brawls.

  Kay, that’s where we usually part company, isn’t it? Damn it, his gang attacked us, stole our cars—

  We can get more cars.

  It’s not that easy any more.

  So we’ll get bicycles. Wagons. Covered wagons. What difference does it make? You want to beat up something significant, beat up his car.

  Looks like somebody’s already done that. And quite effectively.

  Yes, it does, doesn’t it?

  Somewhere in there, while I was collapsing with pain, the captain’s voice shifted from anger to amusement.

  Are you all right, son? Kay says to me. She is just behind me, but I can barely hear her. Her voice is not only soft. It’s weak and a little strained.

  I’m getting better, I say in a voice not much stronger than hers.

  Handles, come here, the captain says.

  Not on your life, Handles says.

  I’m not going to be patient with you this time, son. You know how worried you had me when I saw you were gone.

  Not much, I’ll bet.

  Kid, I swear, I’ll—

  The captain takes a deep breath. He’s clearly trying to keep calm. Against the odds.

  And, damn it, if you had to go, why’d you have to drag Scotty along with you? Did you think of Kay, how she’d feel? Did you?

  Captain, Kay says, it’s over, all right? Don’t torture him. Scotty’s back, he’s back, that’s all that matters.

  Kay, you’d forgive the God that’s killing you.

  I do, captain, I do.

  My breathing is more regular now and that part of the pain that wasn’t planning to stay around for a while has left me. I get up on one knee and look around. And see Kay.

  Scotty is clinging to her skirt. It’s a long skirt, heavy brown cloth with a black border at the hem. I look up past the skirt, past a white full-sleeved blouse with a lacy collar, past the string of green African beads, to Kay’s face. It is an astonishing face. I see her eyes first. Anybody would. Behind colorless glasses, they seem brighter than the rest of her features. No, not brighter exactly. More vivid, more alive. She’s beautiful but extremely pale, the whiteness accentuated by the delicacy of her features on a slightly too-round face, and the light blondness, almost albino-whiteness of her hair. The dark brown, almost richly brown hue of her eyes is about the only color in her face. The eyes, and the brown skirt, and the green beads against the whiteness make her look unearthly. I keep looking at her eyes. Besides being vivid, they also seem kinder than anybody’s eyes I’ve ever seen. Beautiful. I want her for my sister, mother, wife, and mistress all at once. She smiles (her lips, the lightest pink) as if she has just read my thoughts. She probably has.

  She reaches down and absentmindedly begins stroking Scotty’s hair. Looking at her and looking at him, I realize now where Scotty got his blond hair. Even so, there’s a difference. While his hair shines and sometimes turns bright yellow, hers is without sheen, almost as pale in color as her complexion.

  Good to see you again, she says to Scotty, her eyes full of love.

  Hi Mom.

  I’m glad you decided to come back. I missed you.

  I was gonna come back. So was Handles.

  I was not, Handles shouts.

  See, Kay, the captain says. I told you. He wants to run away for good.

  That’s right, Handles says.

  No, he doesn’t, Kay says. This is his third time running away, after all, isn’t it?

  I’m worried someday he’ll get the hang of it, the captain says.

  I will, too, Handles says sullenly.

  The captain raises a hand as if to cuff Handles, and the boy recoils, a bit over-dramatically. Suddenly the captain makes a strange sad guttural sound, grabs Handles’ arm, and pulls him close to hug him. Handles tries to squirm out of the strong man’s grasp.

  Can I go now? I say, standing up.

  Kay turns to look at me. I have to stare into those wonderful radiant eyes.

  Not yet I think, she says. You may not be aware of it, but there’s a gash on your cheek. I'll tend to it. Then you can have something to eat. Then you can go.

  I have to be somewhere by—

  You’ll be there. Don’t worry. They’ll wait for you.

  They? How do you know I'm meeting a—a group?

  She smiles.

  You’re wondering if I'm psychic, she says. People do, often. I’m afraid not, though I’d like to be. No, that was just a reasonably good guess.

  Mom, Scotty says, I’m hungry too.

  I know. You draw me a picture, and I’ll take it in trade for some hot soup and toasted sandwiches. Deal?

  Sure.

  Scotty collects his magic markers, grabs some paper from his cache in the car, and, in confident and bold strokes, begins drawing.

  * * * * *

  While Kay applies salve and bandages to my cut, I try not to look at her. But, of course, her eyes draw me. As a lure, they could land anything. All the sneak looks I take do not clarify for me what shade of brown her eyes are. Up close, they seem darker. Just as radiant but darker. I notice that her eyeballs are quite bloodshot, tiny red bloodlines crookedly raying out from each corner, so thin they’re almost invisible, as if they don’t want to mar the overall pale cast of her face.

  When she’s done with my cut, she says she’ll prepare some lunch.

  Lucky your gang missed my truck during your raid, she says. It was probably too broken down to bother with. Without it, we’d have to revert to origins and build a fire. C’mon, Handles, help me.

  Apparently her truck’s parked in the woods somewhere. She returns carrying a Coleman stove and a tank of compressed gas. Handles has an armload of food.

  Using a charred old frying pan and a battered misshapen pot, Kay makes each of us a toasted cheese sandwich—the cheese has an appealing nutty flavor—and a delicious vegetable soup. Then she apologizes that her stores don’t allow for very imaginative cookery. I tell her not to be sorry, I haven’t eaten this well since back east somewhere.

  Scotty, who proffered three drawings, hastily executed but pleasing abstractions, sits beside us and wolfs down food. Handles and the captain sit behind Kay, who is not eating at all.

  Not hungry? I ask her.

  She smiles sadly.

  Can’t hold down food these days. Would you like some more soup?

  Yes, thanks.

  She spoons out more, careful to catch a good load of vegetables with each swipe at the pot.

  You’re sick? I say to her.

  Apparently, she says.

  You been to doctors?

  Yes.

  What’d they say?

  That they’re overworked and nobody pays their bills anymore.

  I mean about—

  About what I really don’t feel like talking about. All right?

  Okay.

  She doesn’t sound annoyed. She is matter of fact. Kay does not discuss what she does not want to discuss.

  Scotty’s your son? I say, to show her I’m willing to go by her rules.

  Yes. No surprise there, right?

  But Handles isn’t.

  Handles is the captain’s son.

  Scotty’s father?

  Gone.

  Dead?

  Gone.

  You and the captain, are you together?

  She hesitates before answering, clearly unsure whether to answer me at all.

  If you want to think so, she says.

  I don’t want to think so. I want to know. Well, are you? Together?

  Not really. He takes care of—let’s pass on this subject too, ay?

  I’d like to be with you. With you and Scotty.

  She looks away. When I can’t see her eyes, she seems to fade out a bit.

 
No, she says.

  Why?

  There’s a reason.

  But you’re not going to tell me.

  That’s right.

  She puts a lilt into her voice as she says this, a little musical enunciation that manages to be simultaneously kind and firm.

  You and the captain, I say. Seems like an odd combination to me.

  You don’t hesitate to offer opinions, I see.

  I don’t mean anything by it. Just commenting.

  The captain’s a brilliant man.

  That’s hard to see. He doesn’t act it.

  He doesn’t choose to. The captain walked out on his life some years ago. He doesn’t look back at it.

  And you? Did you walk out on your life?

  In a way. In a very real way.

  How so?

  That’s another thing I won’t tell you. I’m sorry.

  Look, let me stay. I don’t want to go back to the gang. Wait. Listen. This is a different offer. I won’t get in your way, just give me a job with your people. I can be a cook, a bottlewasher. I can be Scotty’s nanny. I’d like that. And you could use the car. You really could.

  She looks off toward the Mustang. She seems tempted.

  No, I don’t think so, she says finally. You have somewhere else to go.

  I don’t know where.

  You’re not a Wheeler, really, I can tell that.

  Kay, I’m not even a hubcap. I don’t even know what I want out of life. I’ve been wandering since, well, since I bought that damn car. Even before that, really. Before, I was wandering without moving my feet.

  She smiles, a curious almost maternal kind of smile. The kind of maternal smile I never saw on good old Ma.

  That’s all right, Lee, she says. There’s really no law that says you have to get anywhere. We all think there is. We think we have to have a plan, we have to succeed, we have to make something out of our lives. I don’t think so. I’ve thought a lot about life, about my life lately. A lot. At first I didn’t think it amounted to much. There was Scotty, of course, but giving birth to a child, even a wonderful one like Scotty, is pretty much standard, isn’t it? But there wasn’t much else. A marriage that didn’t even fail, just came apart thread by thread. A failure at politics—oh yes, I was a city councilwoman, the token women’s rights leader for rights they were willing to give. Other political type women achieved more. I dropped out of a postgraduate program, never held a job for more than a couple of years. Didn’t add up to much.