The Big Crunch

by Pete Hautman

  Her mother shrugged and looked away. June understood that to mean that while her mom sympathized with her, she was committed to maintaining a united parental front. So much for divide and conquer.

  Her father put his hands on her shoulders and looked into her eyes. “One week, then we have another conversation.”

  June nodded.

  Monday, at school, June told the Three Ts what had happened. At first it was gratifying to tell the story — her boyfriend stealing a car and driving all the way to Omaha was big-time romantic. Even if he hadn’t really stolen the car. The Ts were goggle-eyed with admiration and astonishment.

  “So is he in jail?” Tabitha asked.

  “His parents came and got him. I think he’s home now.”

  “Did you talk to him?”

  June shook her head.

  “Oh my God, you absolutely have to call him!” Trish said.

  “I can’t. I promised my parents I wouldn’t talk to him for a week. Besides, they took my cell.”

  “Use mine!” Tabitha pulled out her cell.

  “Are you kidding? You want to get me kicked out?”

  Tabitha rolled her eyes and stuffed her phone back in her purse.

  It was only six more days.

  At home, June went through the motions, doing her homework, her laundry, helping with dinner, acting like a good little biomechanical daughter.

  When she went to bed that night, June took inventory of her brain, an exercise of which her father would have approved. She imagined her mind as a big old house, like the one they’d lived in when she was a little girl: three stories plus an attic, huge walk-in closets, fancy wood trim everywhere. Her third-story bedroom was for her secret thoughts, the things she never talked about with anyone, the things that if she ever said them out loud might get her thrown into an institution. The hallways were for moving thoughts from room to room. The kitchen was for practical things, like how to tie a shoe, or remembering that two cups is the same as a pint. The master bedroom, where her parents slept, was for the things they told her, like how to behave and when to feel guilty. The big living room with the tall windows and the out-of-tune baby grand piano that none of them could play was where her thoughts swirled and collided. The cellar was for the things she feared: loneliness, toads, clowns, pain.

  June walked herself through the house, moving from room to room, dodging uncomfortable thoughts, remembering things she hadn’t thought about since forever. She opened the cellar door, then shut it quickly. She climbed back to the third floor, spent some time in her bedroom, then opened the door that led to the attic. She climbed the narrow staircase, brushing aside spiderwebs of thought. The attic was bright with sunlight blasting in through the large octagonal window at the west end. Nothing but a few boxed memories, abandoned dreams, and countless sparkling dust motes. She walked to the window and wiped the dust away with her sleeve. Outside was paradise, a beautiful green garden stretching as far as she could see.

  June backed away from the window, then transported herself back to her bedroom with its strange, comforting, deeply personal thoughts.

  Where was Wes? Not in the house, but someplace. She could feel his presence. She moved her awareness outside of her head — once again she was in her real bedroom, in Omaha.

  If she opened her eyes, she would see the digital hour and minute projected onto the ceiling.

  She kept her eyes closed.

  She could feel her heart beating. She tried to imagine what it looked like. She knew that the human heart was a complicated muscle pumping red blood through arteries and veins. Still, it did not feel like a thing of flesh. It felt like the throbbing nucleus of her being, the fiery core of her galaxy. And her heart was not located in that three-story house. The house was in her head. Maybe her dad was right. The things in her head — those she could control. Doors would open and shut, blinds and curtains would close, rooms could be rearranged. But what was in her heart … was that forever?

  SUMMER

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-THREE

  FOLLOW THE BLUE STRING, walk two paces, raise the heavy steel bar, jab it into the soil. Rock the bar back and forth to enlarge the hole, set the bar aside. Tease a seedling from the bundle riding on his back, bend over and place it into the hole, and gently pack the soil around its roots. Pick up the steel bar, follow the blue string two paces, repeat.

  Each bundle contained five hundred seedlings. According to Chuckles Johanson, one man should be able to plant a bundle a day. Wes could manage about sixty seedlings per hour. At his current rate, planting five hundred trees would take eight hours, not counting time for breaks and lunch.

  There were a hundred thousand seedlings to be planted. Wes, Robbie, and two other guys arrived at Johanson’s Christmas Trees every morning at six. They were paid fourteen cents for every seedling planted, or seventy bucks a bundle.

  A week ago, when Robbie had offered him the job on his uncle’s tree farm, Wes had quit his Jamba Juice job and signed on. The money had sounded pretty good. But after ramming that steel bar into the hard ground for three hours, a knot of pain had formed between his shoulder blades, his palms were blistering, and his leg muscles felt like molten rubber.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  So far, he had planted about forty dollars’ worth of trees.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  It was better than sitting around the house, doing nothing.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Every time he rammed the chiseled tip of the bar into the earth, a shock wave ran up his arms, smacked him in the back of his skull, and scrambled his thoughts.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Two thousand Christmas trees per acre. Fifty acres.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Were there Christmas tree farms in Nebraska?

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  June thought it was funny, him planting Christmas trees. “You’re like Johnny Christmas Tree,” she said.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  It was only funny if you weren’t the one who had to do it for ten hours a day.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  His plan to spend the summer in Omaha had died. He had killed it by being stupid. So stupid.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Every dollar he had saved had gone to pay back his parents and Alan’s father. His parents didn’t trust him. June’s parents thought he was a dangerous delinquent.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  He and June were still talking on the phone, but without a future, it got harder and harder to find things to talk about.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  He was sick of talking about France. Stupid, impossible fantasy. He didn’t even like French fries that much.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Their phone conversations were getting shorter.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Some days, he couldn’t remember her face.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Her face.

  June was in her bedroom, reading one of her mom’s romance novels, when she heard her parents talking.

  Or rather, she didn’t hear them.

  Normally, her dad was a loud talker, and her mom was medium loud. If they were having a conversation downstairs, she could hear most of what they were saying, if she wanted to. Almost none of it was worth listening to, so she didn’t pay much attention. But what she heard now was a low, almost subsonic murmur. Which meant that whatever they were saying, they didn’t want her to hear it.

  She put her book down and went to stand in the hallway at the top of the stairs. She could tell they were in the kitchen, but she still couldn’t make out their words. Barefoot, she started slowly down the stairs. One of the middle steps was creaky; she couldn’t remember which one.

  Creak.

  The low voices abruptly stopped. Busted. June walked quickly down the stairs and into the kitchen. Mom was sitting at the table. Dad was standing with his back to the sink
. June could tell from their expressions that whatever they’d been talking about, it had to do with her.

  “What’s up?” she asked, making her voice all perky.

  Her parents looked at each other, then back at her.

  “What?” she said. June wasn’t exactly scared, but she could feel herself tensing up inside, steeling herself to hear something she maybe wouldn’t like. “Did Dad get fired again?”

  “I did not get fired again!” he said, as if it was the most outrageous thing imaginable.

  “Are we moving again?”

  Her mom smiled. “Not exactly,” she said.

  At ten, Chuckles came riding over the hill in his ATV, parked at the edge of the field, and waved Wes over. Wes put down his bundle of seedlings and the steel bar and walked over to meet him. Robbie, who was working the other side of the field, did the same.

  On the back of the ATV was a ten-gallon orange thermos filled with ice-cold lemonade. Wes and Robbie sucked down two paper cups each as Chuckles grinned and nodded.

  It was easy to see how Chuckles had got his nickname. His lined, suntanned face remained fixed in a wide grin, even when he wasn’t happy. Robbie had told Wes that his perpetual grin was the result of a piece of shrapnel from a Viet Cong mortar. The reconstructive surgery had left him with a permanent smile.

  “You boys are doing a great job,” Chuckles said.

  Wes poured himself another cup of lemonade as Robbie sat down in the scant shade offered by the ATV.

  “How’re the backs holding up?” Chuckles asked.

  “Kinda sore,” Wes said.

  Chuckles bobbed his head. “Couple days, you’ll get used to it. You’ll get strong!” He flexed his biceps.

  Wes said, “Uh, Chuckles —” It felt weird to be calling the old man by such a silly name. “How come you don’t have a … like, a planting machine to do this? Somebody must make one.”

  “Sure they do, but those babies cost money. Besides, hand-plants have a better chance of growing up straight and tall. Nobody wants a crooked Christmas tree. Also, if I had a machine, I couldn’t be offering you young fellows work for the summer.”

  “He likes watching us slave in the hot sun,” Robbie said.

  Chuckles’s grin widened. “That I do.”

  Instead of getting faster as the day wore on, Wes’s planting speed decreased. Chuckles told him he could knock off at five, but Wes was determined to plant his entire bundle. By the time he finished, he was practically dead with fatigue.

  Chuckles was impressed. “You did good, kid,” he said, clapping Wes on the back. Wes nearly fell over.

  Wes didn’t get home until after eight. He would have walked straight to his room and flopped down on the bed, but his mom guessed what he had in mind and made him take a shower and eat a sandwich.

  As he ate his sandwich, she chided him for not wearing sunscreen.

  “Look at you, you’re burnt to a crisp.”

  “I put some on,” Wes said. “It must have sweated off.”

  “Use more next time,” she said.

  “Okay, whatever.”

  “Will you be working such long hours every day?”

  “Hope not. It was my first day. Chuckles says we’ll get faster.”

  “Well, I don’t think he should be working you boys so hard.”

  “It’s good for him.” Wes’s dad came into the kitchen for a glass of water. “Hard work never hurt anybody.”

  “Tell that to my back,” Wes said.

  “By the way,” his mom said, “your cell phone has been ringing off the hook.”

  “My cell phone is on a hook?”

  “You know what I mean. That incessant buzzing coming from your room every hour or so.”

  “Sorry. I meant to leave it off.” Wes finished his sandwich quickly and ran upstairs to check his phone.

  From: JKE

  OMG CALL ME CALL ME CALL ME CALL

  ME CALL ME CALL ME CALL ME CALL ME

  CALL ME!!!!!!

  Jun 15 9:59

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FOUR

  JUNE’S MOTHER HAD PREPARED A LIST — typed, single-spaced, two pages long.

  “You’re seventeen,” she said by way of opening the discussion.

  “So you keep telling me,” June said.

  Her mom gave her a sharp look.

  “Sorry,” said June, silently telling Sarcastic June to shut up.

  “Yes, well, Dad and I have been talking, and we think that despite what happened last month — with Wes — we think we can trust you.”

  “You can,” June said, wondering if it were true.

  “All things considered, Wes seems like a nice boy. And you seem quite serious about him.”

  June nodded eagerly.

  “Of course, your new job in Minneapolis will keep you busy most of the time, and I cannot express how important this job is.”

  June nodded somberly. Her job at the Minneapolis branch of Benford Bank, a temporary position, would be working with an army of other temps assembling the world’s most intricate and difficult jigsaw puzzle. Several days earlier, someone at the bank had dumped six thousand deposited checks into the bank’s paper shredder, along with several bags of other paper trash. The problem was that the checks had not yet been recorded or canceled, so now the bank had a Dumpster full of shredded paper. June’s job would be to sort through those tiny strips of paper, separate the ones that had once been parts of checks, separate those by color and pattern, then puzzle the strips together to reconstruct each individual check.

  “Why do people still use paper checks, anyway?” June asked. “Haven’t they ever heard of check cards?”

  Her mom laughed. “After this, I imagine the bankers are asking themselves the same question. They’ve asked Dad to spend six weeks — possibly longer — up in Minneapolis. They are showing a great deal of trust in El. This could lead to a permanent position.”

  “In Minneapolis?”

  “Yes, possibly. Nothing is for sure, so I’ll be staying on here — at least until we see how things go.”

  June pointed at the list on the table between them. “So what’s that?”

  “Rules.”

  “That’s a lot of rules!”

  “Do you want to go to Minneapolis or not?”

  “Sorry,” said June.

  Her mother looked at the top sheet. “Rule number one. No sex.”

  “Mom!” June felt her face go red. “We are not having sex!”

  “I’m not saying you did, or you would, or you wouldn’t. I just want to be perfectly clear.”

  “That’s pretty clear. Is kissing okay?”

  “I trust your judgment in that regard. Number two. You will be home by ten o’clock every night, no exceptions.”

  “Then when are we supposed to have sex?” June asked.

  Her mom gave her the raised-eyebrow look.

  “Kidding!” said June.

  “Rule number three. You will be responsible for keeping house for your father. That means cooking, cleaning, shopping, and laundry.”

  “All the time?”

  “Dad will be working long hours, and he’ll need you to take care of him.”

  “But I’ll be working too!”

  “June …”

  “Okay, okay. Next?”

  “Four. No drugs or drinking. At all.“

  “Gee, and here I was planning on developing a heroin habit,” said Sarcastic June before June could stop her.

  “Rule four-point-five. No sarcasm.”

  “You just made that up!” June said.

  “Rule four-point-five-one. No arguing about the rules.”

  June bit her lip and nodded.

  “Rule five. Keep your cell phone with you at all times. Rule six. Call me every day. Rule seven …”

  There were thirty-six rules. June clamped her mouth firmly shut and listened numbly as her mother proceeded to restrict her future behavior in every way imaginable. She pushed aside Sarcastic June, Fearful June,
Scornful June, and all the others, telling herself over and over that tomorrow she would be with Wes, and that was all that mattered.

  CHAPTER

  FORTY-FIVE

  HE WAS GETTING FASTER.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  His movements had become robot efficient, as rhythmical as hip-hop — perfectly timed, flawlessly executed.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Thinking? There were no thoughts. Except one.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  More of an image than a thought, really.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Her face.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Today, as soon as he was done with his bundle, he would race home, hit the shower, then drive downtown to Riverview Terraces, where June would be waiting.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  He wondered where she was at that moment. Driving up I-35 with her dad? Maybe they were already at the condo, unloading their stuff.

  Jab, rock, bend, plant.

  Was she thinking about him?

  June carried the last suitcase from the back of her Dad’s SUV, into the building, up the elevator to the seventeenth floor, down the short hallway to number 170, a completely furnished luxury condo, her home for the next six weeks. Wes would be knocked out by the view, looking out over the river in one direction and downtown in the other.

  She plunked the suitcase down in the entryway and flopped down on the long leather sofa.

  “June!” Dad was calling from his bedroom. June groaned and got up and went to see what he wanted. He had changed into a suit and was looking in the mirror, tying his tie. “Where’s my carry-on?”

  June pointed. She had set it at the foot of his bed.

  “Oh. Thanks.” He snugged up the knot in his tie, lifted the bag onto the bed, and opened it. “Cuff links,” he said, digging into one of the many small compartments. June helped him fasten the cuff links. Just like her mother would have.

  “Will you be home for dinner?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not, Junie. Business dinner with my new associates. You’ll have to fend for yourself.” He saw something in June’s face. “I imagine you’ll be seeing Wes.”