Citrus County

by John Brandon

  After just a minute or two, he was back. He emerged and peeled off what appeared to be a ski mask and flipped the roof of his lair back over. He let it close with its own weight, like the hood of a car, and then, without bothering to drag the branches back on top of it, went back through the woods the way he’d come. Shelby watched his red shirt get smaller and smaller. She didn’t follow. She remained hidden, waiting. It seemed foolhardy, leaving her hiding space, abandoning the palmetto. She was about to betray Toby. She stood up and approached. The door was octagonal and had one little handle that latched and unlatched it. Moss and mushrooms were all over it. It was out of place, how moist and muddy the hatch was, in an otherwise dry section of the woods. Shelby began to reach for the handle and she heard a sound from inside. Her guts performed one ponderous flip. A small voice, muffled. It was singing. A child’s voice. Shelby knew there were physical actions she had to undertake, and the first one was lifting this hatch open. She was going to concentrate on the actions. She was going to keep doing the next thing.

  Toby awakened with a craving for an icy soda. His throat felt like it needed to be scoured. The lights in the room were off, but the door was open and even the scant light from the hall was harsh in Toby’s eyes. It was exactly as dim outside the window as it was in Toby’s room. It was dawn or dusk. In the coming hours, Toby would be expected to fall back asleep or he would be expected to face a day.

  Toby had never been in one before, but the sour, sprucy smell and the gamut of beeps he heard—monitoring machines, the bing of the elevator, the buzzing of the nurses’ call buttons—all came together in a way that could only be a hospital. Toby remembered being brought here. He’d been loaded into the back of a van. Stale rock music had been playing on the radio. He remembered a wheelchair, an elevator, but before that a police station, another place he’d never been. The station had seemed tiny from the outside, but inside it went back and back. Phones had been ringing and no one would answer them. A lady had administered a bunch of tests on Toby, then he’d been given a hot dog with no bun and a very small apple. This memory was sharp, the smallness of the apple. Toby had eaten it in three or four bites and hadn’t touched the hot dog. What Toby did not recall was the police arriving at his uncle’s house. He remembered walking back from the bunker after making one final check on Kaley. He’d had her dressed the way he wanted her and had let her hair grow out in the past weeks until it looked like that FBI agent’s hair. He’d gone back to the house to wait for night to fall, not meaning to go to sleep. He’d stretched himself out on the floor of his bedroom, wanting to get down onto something firm and permanent rather than his mushy mattress, and the next thing he knew he’d been awakened by a shot. He’d wanted to be shocked by the sound, that flat, resolute clap that could’ve come from Toby’s closet or from miles away, from some distant, cool place. He’d gone to the living room, and from there he could hear the radio from his uncle’s room, excited cops barking away. They’d found the Register girl. There were a bunch of them talking, all failing at keeping a calm, determined tone. Code numbers and directions. They’d kept saying Toby’s uncle’s name, Neal Showers. The singed smell of the shot was lingering in the house. Toby had known, had come to understand, that his uncle was in the next room, dead. His uncle wouldn’t make any more decisions, wouldn’t clean another thing or smoke another thing. Toby couldn’t bring himself to go in there. He remembered how it sounded, strangers on a radio talking about Uncle Neal, calling him all kinds of names that regular, tame people called people they didn’t understand.

  It was morning. Outside the window of Toby’s hospital room, the sun was rising. He propped himself on his pillows. He saw the TV up in the corner of the room, saw the remote control on the dresser beneath it. He wasn’t squinting anymore. Another type of beeping was coming from outside, a big truck backing up.

  Toby remembered riding in the back of the police car. There was a metal screen separating the front seat from the back. Two cops sat up front and one sat next to Toby, a guy with a thin, sly mustache. The guy kept asking Toby questions, mostly easy ones like his age and what sports he liked, but then he’d slip in questions about Uncle Neal. Toby had known enough to say nothing.

  Uncle Neal was gone. Toby’s uncle was dead. Toby would never know if he’d killed himself because he thought he’d be blamed for the kidnapping, or because he’d been looking for an excuse for a long time and this seemed like a good one, or if his uncle had meant to take the rap for Toby. Maybe, for the first time, Toby’s uncle had looked out for him. Toby had hastened his uncle’s suicide and his uncle had kept Toby out of trouble. They’d helped each other. Toby was very glad he hadn’t gone in and seen his uncle dead. He didn’t want that in his mind. That wasn’t the kind of thing, he imagined, you could clear out with a long walk.

  Toby heard steps approaching his room and then a nurse with black shoes was in the doorway.

  “Want the light on?” she asked.

  “No,” Toby said. “If that’s okay.”

  The nurse came over and pulled Toby straighter and plumped his pillows. She didn’t seem fond of Toby, but was nonetheless going to be a proficient nurse.

  “Did they get me from my uncle’s house last night?” Toby asked. “Or was it the night before?”

  “It was last night,” the nurse said. “They gave you something for sleeping. That’s why it feels like you got hit in the head.”

  The nurse had a mint in her mouth. The mint was gleaming white, and made it easy to see that her teeth were not. She opened a couple drawers and was not displeased at what she saw in them. She glanced at Toby’s chart, then went and pulled the blinds all the way up. She told Toby she’d be back in a few minutes to help him to the shower. The doctor would be coming by in an hour or two, and she wanted Toby alert.

  She picked up the remote control and walked it over to him.

  “Could I get a soda?” Toby asked. “A soda on ice?”

  “I suppose you can have a soda.”

  “Are there cops here?”

  The nurse nodded. “They’re down by the nurses’ station. They’re wearing regular clothes. I think it’s supposed to be a secret you’re here, but we’ll see how long that lasts. Those guys won’t bother you. They’re down there flirting with Stacy.”

  “I don’t want to see any cops right now.”

  “I wouldn’t worry. Stacy’s got her low-cut scrubs on.”

  The nurse tapped the door frame, meaning she was leaving.

  “Maybe two sodas,” said Toby.

  “A double.” The nurse might’ve smiled.

  “Is the little girl here?” Toby asked. “Is Kaley and her family here?”

  The nurse made a noise. If she’d smiled, that was over now. “No, sir. They took that child down to a fancier place than we got.”

  The nurse left and Toby turned his attention to the remote control in his hands. Menu. Mode. Function. He hit the power button and the screen snapped to life. He heard the announcers before he could make out what was on the screen. It was a soccer game, from Mexico or somewhere. People holding banners hopped in the stands. Toby pressed the arrow. A show from the eighties about teenagers. A show about barbecue. Toby needed a news network. He found one, and turned the volume up a notch.

  There was a shot of Uncle Neal’s property from above, from a helicopter. Toby could hear the blades whirring. The sight of Uncle Neal’s place gave him a pang—for what, he couldn’t say. A woman with a flinty voice began speaking, referring to Uncle Neal’s property as a compound. All of it could have looked placid and everyday—the house, the shed, the winding dirt driveway that stopped a ways short of the house—but with the wobbly camera and the eerie music swelling up, everything was sinister. The woman mentioned Kaley and a picture of her appeared in the upper corner of the screen. The woman was in disbelief that Kaley had survived her ordeal. They had a different picture of Kaley now. In this one, she was held aloft by someone and was clutching a popsicle. Next to the bright orange
of the popsicle you could see just how gaunt and colorless she’d grown, like the mint and the nurse’s teeth. Kaley looked terrible, really. She would’ve died. Toby could say that now. Anyone that laid eyes on her could tell she wouldn’t have lasted much longer. The station left the picture of Kaley in the corner of the screen while the anchorwoman returned her attention to the Showers compound. The shed, she said, was packed with hemlock plants. There were drugs all over the house, few of them strictly illegal. No food in the fridge. Old carpets that had never been cleaned. The anchorwoman said a lot of folks believed Neal Showers had gotten off easy, killing himself, that he should have had to face Kaley’s father and have his day in court and try his luck in prison. Toby looked down at his hands. They were pale, weakly veined. They didn’t seem capable of the things they’d done. Toby wanted to know how they’d even found Kaley. How had it all broken loose in the first place? No one was saying.

  In time, the station cut away from Uncle Neal’s place. They showed the anchorwoman. She guided her bangs into place and then started talking about Shelby, speaking reverently, speaking of Shelby as a hero. She had followed the nephew out to the bunker. Neal Showers had been sick enough not only to kidnap a little girl, but to force his nephew to help with the keeping. The anchorwoman was flabbergasted at the things that happened in the world. She promised that in the coming hours she would have full reports on Shelby, on the nephew, and on the bunker itself. She promised to describe in detail the conditions the little girl had endured.

  Toby removed his blankets and sat himself on the edge of the bed. Shelby. Shelby had figured it out. Somehow Toby was glad it had been her and no one else. She had never underestimated Toby, had she? Toby was relieved that Shelby knew the truth about him. He made his way to the window, one hand on the wall, and pulled the cord, dropping the blinds. He twisted the plastic staff and the room grew dim again.

  The commercials came and went and the anchorwoman began talking about Toby. Earlier she hadn’t said his name, but now she did. The woman spoke of him in pitiful tones. She said the name Milton Hibma. Mr. Hibma? Here he was, wearing a tie. Mr. Hibma was trying to get temporary custody of Toby. He was the boy’s geography teacher, the woman explained, a single man with no children. Toby had no family, no godparents.

  Toby remembered. Mr. Hibma had been waiting at the hospital when Toby’d been transferred from the police station. Mr. Hibma had left him food from the taco place. Nachos. Toby rolled to the edge of the bed and lifted up the trash can. The carton was inside, the cheese containers. Toby didn’t remember eating anything, didn’t feel like he could’ve.

  Toby shut off the TV. He was so thirsty. Mr. Hibma wanted him. Could that be true? Mr. Hibma didn’t bother with troubled kids. Since Toby had gone and tried to confess to him during lunch that day, Mr. Hibma had barely looked at him. Toby had woken up in an altered world. It only looked like the old world. Toby would have to change. He’d have to take the new world in stride. He had to shake the feeling that he was going to be punished, that he deserved justice. He was being treated as a victim. He was a type of victim; that’s what they all thought.

  Mr. Hibma had been up late, switching between a show about temp workers and a long commercial for a video of girls revealing their breasts. He had been preparing to turn the TV off and face the noiseless night, flipping through the cycle of channels one last time, when there was a newsbreak. The pictures in the corner of the screen weren’t matching up with the hastily written script. Shelby Register’s little sister had been found. She’d been rescued, alive. Mr. Hibma had listened to a description of Neal Showers, who’d killed himself, and whose nephew was now in the custody of the Citrus County Sheriff’s Department. Mr. Hibma sat up and took a swallow of stale tea. Neal Showers. That was the name Toby had always forged on his detention forms. Mr. Hibma could see the careful cursive. It was Toby who was at the police station. Toby.

  Mr. Hibma threw back a shot of bourbon, brushed his teeth, and tore down the empty roads that led to the county offices and the jail. This was the change. Mr. Hibma saw it. He didn’t have to love the kiss-asses. He had to love who he loved. He could be his own kind of teacher, one who took an interest in the Tobys of the world. Mr. Hibma didn’t have to give Toby all those detentions. He respected the boy. Mr. Hibma had been misguided in trying to take the drastic alteration of his life into his own hands. As usual, the world was supplying the change. As usual, Mr. Hibma was a character, not the author. And thank God. Mr. Hibma wasn’t up to being the author. He didn’t know how to save himself. Never was he less skilled, more doltish, than when he tried to figure and plot his own life.

  When he arrived at the station, he drove around the building, deciding where to enter. There were media vans and he didn’t want to be near them. He found a side entrance that seemed meant for deliveries, then collected every bit of identification he could out of his glove box and wallet—documentation proving his residence and place of employment and the status of his automobile insurance, credit cards and a valid driver’s license. He had a social security card, a punch card for a smoothie shop.

  Mr. Hibma went and knocked on the door until someone answered. He asked for the guy’s supervisor, saying he had information regarding Toby McNurse, and was taken to a small room with speckled tile on the floor where he waited for almost an hour. He decided, after much consideration, to leave the room, and he soon found the infirmary, where a nurse informed him that Toby had undergone his tests and was now resting. The nurse seemed a sympathetic person, so Mr. Hibma told her why he was there, that he wanted to claim Toby, that he was one of Toby’s teachers at school and that the boy was fond of him and that he was meant to help this kid and probably not meant for a damn thing else.

  The nurse sat Mr. Hibma down and gave him some coffee and again Mr. Hibma waited for an hour. He felt like he was in trouble. His hair felt greasy. He was on the verge of tears. He realized that he was very tired and agitated and that when he finally got to talk to someone with pull he was going to come across as raving. He drank more coffee. He could sit for ten more minutes, he told himself, and then he would have to go explore another part of the building. Mr. Hibma wondered if he was on camera. He imagined that by now the police social workers had confirmed that Toby had no family. They were doing a background check on Mr. Hibma. There were lawyers back there. The chief. Mr. Hibma needed a bathroom. He needed to piss and splash water on his face. Mr. Hibma thought back to the only other time he’d been in a jail. In college he’d missed a court date for underage drinking and cops had come to his apartment at six in the morning and pounded on his door. They had sat the eighteen-year-old Mr. Hibma in the back of a long van and then proceeded to pick up every deadbeat dad in town. It was something they did once a month. For hours upon hours Mr. Hibma had watched lawyers dragged from offices, mechanics led out of garages, old leather-skinned black guys called up from fishing holes.

  The door to Mr. Hibma’s little room swung open, causing him to spill coffee on his leg. A large, relaxed cop entered, not wearing a uniform but just a polo shirt with a badge embroidered on it, followed by Mrs. Conner. Mr. Hibma was dumbstruck. He did all he could, which was to sit up with a formal bearing and wait to be spoken to. Mrs. Conner smiled solemnly at Mr. Hibma, as if proud of him. The cop started talking. He was Mrs. Conner’s husband, Sergeant Conner. He’d been retired for years, but still had influence around the station. Mr. Hibma had pictured Mrs. Conner’s husband wearing a polo shirt and here he was, wearing a polo shirt. Toby was going to be released to Mr. Hibma on a trial basis, for thirty days. Thirty days was the minimum. If Mr. Hibma couldn’t make a thirty-day commitment, he should speak up now. Sergeant Conner went on, Mrs. Conner beaming at his side. Mrs. Conner considered Toby a problem child, Mr. Hibma gathered, and believed Mr. Hibma was doing a saintly deed taking him in. Mrs. Conner had put in a good word for Mr. Hibma. She and her husband were pushing this through. It was just a matter of time and signatures. Her husband explained that Toby would be mov
ed to the hospital for a short while, then would return to county custody for a week or so, until the hullabaloo died down. After all that was over, he would be Mr. Hibma’s temporary charge. Mr. Hibma had never seen Mrs. Conner out of school. Everything about her seemed exaggerated. Her hair was a vibrant red. Her teeth were big and straight. Her blouse was of some rough, stiff material and her perfume shrunk the room.

  The next day, Mr. Hibma rose late. He got up from his couch starving and foraged in the kitchen. Crackers. They were stale but they’d work. Mr. Hibma chewed up half a tin of ginger candies. He made tea and drizzled honey in it and took it to the couch.

  Mrs. Conner had come to his aid. Mr. Hibma’s campaign to befriend her had paid off. He was a friend of hers. Mrs. Conner was his buddy. His friendship with Mrs. Conner was cemented, while whatever he’d had going with Dale had ceased. The moment he’d gotten home from the police station he’d sent an e-mail off to Dale, to her website anyway, the first e-mail he’d sent in a very long time, telling her he wasn’t going through with his proposal, that he was shutting down the project. Mr. Hibma had not offered an explanation for his bailing out, had not told her that unlike her he now had something worthwhile to do with his life, had not revealed the fact that he was Shelby’s teacher and wasn’t really from Clermont. Dale had shot back a reply within five minutes saying she had never intended to come to Florida, that she’d been stringing Mr. Hibma along for fun, not that it had turned out to be much fun. He wasn’t capable of art, she’d told him. He didn’t have it in him. Did he honestly think, she asked, that she didn’t get crackpot proposals like his every other day? She knew Mr. Hibma’s type. He was a loser and his plans were the typically grandiose plans of a loser.