by Meg Gardiner
‘‘Ev.’’
I turned. Brian was walking toward me, carrying Luke. Beside them lumbered Detective McCracken, his mouth thin. With reserve he said, ‘‘Again, my apologies, Commander.’’ He ruffled Luke’s hair. ‘‘Be good for your dad, pardner.’’
Luke sank his head into Brian’s shoulder. Brian’s face had as much expression as a totem pole. But as soon as McCracken walked away, he loped across the lobby and bear-hugged me. His green flight suit felt rough and smelled of the cockpit: of plastics, close air, and exertion. He gave me a huge, amazed smile.
‘‘My sis, the tough chick. Kicking windows out of cop cars.’’ He kissed the top of my head. ‘‘Thank you.’’
‘‘Are things straightened out?’’
He made a disgusted sound. ‘‘We’re dealing with cops who were snowed by a Christmas-card photo. Yeah, everything’s dandy. Handing Luke over to the Lost Tribe of Insanity, that’s a goof any rube could make.’’
I raised an eyebrow, urging him to watch his words. Both Luke and the uniformed officer behind the counter were listening, the cop pursing his lips.
Brian looked out the door. ‘‘Is she gone?’’
‘‘Yeah.’’
His gaze lengthened. ‘‘They’ve turned her mind into a toxic waste dump. The lies she was telling . . .’’ An injured look fled across his face. ‘‘Let’s get out of here.’’
Outside, Luke squeezed his eyes shut against the sun. Brian said, ‘‘And don’t worry about offending these cops. They’re the same hicks who busted you for possession fifteen years ago, and all they demonstrated today is gross incompetence.’’
I faltered, taken aback. However, I said nothing, because just then I saw the two trucks parked next to Brian’s Mustang—Chenille’s baby-blue job, and the green Dodge. A dozen people sat in the back of them. I spotted Curt Smollek, and Shiloh, and Glory, my erstwhile fan. Isaiah Paxton leaned against the Dodge’s bumper. A creepy feeling threaded across my skin, like a crawling blue worm of electricity.
A spotted dog thrust its head out the window of Chenille’s truck and started barking, a sharp, repeating-rifle sound. Rak-rak-rak.
Beyond the truck stood Tabitha, and next to her Peter Wyoming. He had an arm around her shoulder and was speaking in a low voice, with his head dipped toward her. I recognized the look she was giving him. The Minx returns. I drew in a breath, hoping Brian hadn’t noticed, but of course he had. That was the point.
I murmured, ‘‘Just get in the car, Bri.’’
Paxton said, ‘‘You think this is settled, you got another think coming.’’
This was intended to be a piece of street theater. I put my hand on Brian’s back, trying to keep him moving, but he couldn’t let it go any more than I could. His face had gone scarlet. He set Luke down, telling me to hang on to him.
He walked toward Wyoming. ‘‘You. Elmer Gantry.’’
Wyoming didn’t move. He stood consoling Tabitha, looking like an ad out of a western-wear catalog, bolo tie over a white dress shirt, brown jeans with fancy stitching, tan cowboy boots.
Brian said, louder, ‘‘Hey. It’s time for you to hit the road, go back to snake handling down in Appalachia. Are you listening?’’
Wyoming’s complete indifference to Brian convinced me that he was. And I grasped that this was the apex of the man’s gifts: not bringing people to Christ, but bringing his adversaries to hysteria.
Paxton started toward Brian. ‘‘Why don’t y’all show some manners and shut up, instead of interrupting the Lord’s work?’’
‘‘My apologies to the Big Man,’’ Brian said, ‘‘but why don’t you go fuck yourself?’’
Brian shoved past him and grabbed Wyoming’s arm. ‘‘You leave me and my family the hell alone. Got that? Or I swear that you and Tabitha and all your followers, down to your butt-faced dog, will regret it. I will put you down permanently, so far under that you’ll have to crawl up a sewer to see the sky.’’
Wyoming had a strange look on his face, an extraordinary look. He was staring at Brian’s hand as though its touch were liquefying his flesh. He swallowed hard, almost gagging, and wrenched loose.
He bared his teeth at Brian. ‘‘What are you?’’ He rubbed his arm. His face looked as if it had fissured. ‘‘You lay hands on me but you’re not even here. . . .’’
Tabitha stood bone-still, her hand over her mouth. Shiloh got up in the back of the truck, the quote queen ever ready with scripture, and pointed at Brian. ‘‘ ‘We wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against’ ’’—her voice quavered—‘‘ ‘against the rulers of the darkness of this world. . . .’ ’’
Then Chenille swept toward her husband. ‘‘We don’t have to take this. Peter, get in the truck.’’
He moved robotically. Chenille jerked her head at Paxton, got him to help her shuffle Wyoming into the pickup. She slammed the door, hurried around to the driver’s side, and fired up the engine.
Wyoming slapped his hand against the window, fingers spread. His eyes were kinked with alarm. ‘‘What are you trying to do to me?’’
We retrieved my Explorer from the highway and picked up McDonald’s for Luke. Happy Meal: misnomer of the day. We drove to Brian’s place, a beige stucco tract home with a neon green lawn the size of a Ping-Pong table. Packing boxes and cheap modern furniture filled the house. Using a box as a table, Brian set Luke a place to eat in the living room and turned on Nickelodeon. Luke looked glazed. Brian kept up a stream of chatter, trying to coax Luke into engaging, without much luck. Do you want ketchup on your hamburger? Want me to take the pickle off? How about the TV, shall we find Scooby-Doo? You don’t watch that anymore? Oh. Awkwardness for everyone. And would you like fries with that?
When Luke finally started eating, Brian and I went into the kitchen. He unzipped the top of his flight suit, revealing a white T-shirt and his dog tags. Opening two bottles of Corona, he handed me one and stood by the sink drinking the beer from the bottle. Through the kitchen window the sun, falling toward twilight, cast jaundiced light across his angular face.
He said, ‘‘Wyoming’s a head case. Is he on drugs?’’
‘‘I’m starting to wonder.’’
‘‘Well, he’s seriously into the freak zone. They could be dosing Tabitha too. Maybe that’s how they’re controlling her. They lace her Kool-Aid, crank her up until she thinks she sees Pastor Pete with a halo and me with a rotting devil’s head.’’
‘‘It’s possible,’’ I said. ‘‘But her conversion isn’t a pharmaceutical reaction, Bri.’’
He leaned back against the kitchen counter and ran a hand across his bristling hair. ‘‘That woman, Chenille. Pretending to be Tabitha’s mother—what a mind job.’’
He was right. Chenille’s masquerade had implications beyond scamming the police. After Tabitha left home, and her mother’s church, SueJudi had barely spoken to her. The rift never mended. One winter morning SueJudi dressed in her finest clothes and drove north to the wild beaches near Vandenburg Air Force Base, where the U.S. Air Force Space Command tests its ICBMs. She smoked a pack of Camels, took off her jewelry, and walked into the pounding gray surf. They found her body downrange from the ballistic missile launchpad, as though she were a rocket that had fallen back to earth, having failed to achieve the stars.
Tabitha never cried, Brian told me, never in front of him. But deep in the night he would hear her in the bathroom, sobbing. When he tried to comfort her she would turn away, stony. Their marriage had already been corroding. Asking how she was doing always elicited ‘‘fine’’ and then silence. Eventually he stopped asking.
Enter Chenille Wyoming.
‘‘Talk about laying on a guilt trip,’’ he said. ‘‘Every time she sees Chenille, Tabitha’s going to feel like she should be making up to SueJudi."
‘‘And this time she’d better do what Mommy wants.’’
‘‘Mommy.’’ He scoffed. ‘‘Her husband sure isn’t playing Daddy, though.’’ He tilted his head back, drainin
g the beer bottle. ‘‘Shit. And they want to add Luke to their nuclear nightmare family.’’
I said, ‘‘Tomorrow morning we’ll get to work on a restraining order.’’
‘‘A piece of paper saying, ‘Keep away.’ That will solve exactly nothing.’’ He took a new beer from the fridge. ‘‘Do you carry a weapon?’’
‘‘No. And don’t think it, Brian. That would create a world of problems.’’
‘‘Bingo. That’s exactly what I want—to create an immediate problem for anybody who tries to touch Luke.’’
‘‘Forget it. It won’t help for both of us to carry.’’
I didn’t have to ask whether he had a sidearm. I knew he kept it on a shelf in his closet, the same place our dad had always stored his service automatic.
He said, ‘‘You’ve been a lawyer too long. After-the -fact maneuvers won’t help. We have to deter further attack, and we do that by projecting force. Tomorrow we’re buying you a gun."
"No."
He started to say more, but I stopped him. ‘‘It’s a moot point. California has a ten-day waiting period for handgun purchases.’’
‘‘That can be dealt with.’’
‘‘The subject is closed.’’
‘‘No. Kathleen Evan . . .’’
I turned and stared out the window. The mountains had darkened to black, and crimson twilight striped the horizon. After a moment Brian put down his beer.
‘‘I need a shower.’’ He left, his boots heavy, his dog tags ringing. I massaged my temples. Rocky homecomings: China Lake had supplied them to my family in abundance. I didn’t care for this vivid, second-generation replay.
After a minute I went into the living room. Luke’s dinner was congealing on his plate. I sat down next to him. ‘‘How are you doing, champ?’’
‘‘I’m cold.’’
I snuggled him next to me on the sofa. He wriggled and sighed and stared across the room with a bright heat behind his eyes.
I turned off the television. ‘‘Let’s talk about it.’’
Tension was strumming through him. I kissed the top of his head. ‘‘It’s okay.’’
His voice sounded very small. ‘‘I put the custody papers in the seat pocket behind you.’’ Mouselike: ‘‘I’m sorry.’’
‘‘It’s okay. I’m not mad at you. But from now on you have to leave my things where I put them, all right?’’
A tiny nod, but no relaxation. I held him close. ‘‘What else?’’
‘‘That lady with my mom said I was naughty. Is that why the police arrested you?’’
‘‘No.’’ Jesus in heaven. ‘‘Absolutely not. You did nothing wrong. You were a really brave boy today. Your mom lied, and so did that woman with her. She’s the one who was wrong.’’
‘‘Tell her.’’ Fat tears pooled in his eyes and fell onto the blanket. ‘‘Tell that lady I’m not bad.’’
I felt a squeezing in my chest. I clutched him. ‘‘I already did.’’
He looked up. ‘‘For real?’’
‘‘Yes.’’ I wiped away his tears with my thumb. ‘‘Listen to me. Sometimes grown-ups can be mean. They say things that are hurtful. When that happens, you have to remember that the people who love you know, totally and positively, that you are a great kid.’’
‘‘Is Mommy mean?’’
Just then Brian walked into the room, dressed in a white polo shirt and jeans, hair wet and spiky. Luke’s words pinned him in place.
He said, ‘‘Mommy isn’t mean. Mommy is’’—a wince— ‘‘mixed-up.’’
He sat down next to us. ‘‘What happened today was unfair. But the world can be a tough place. So you have to know who’s on your side, who to count on. You count on me and Aunt Evan. We’re here to take care of you. And you count on yourself. You stand up for yourself and you trust yourself to know what’s right and what’s wrong.’’
Luke sat very still.
‘‘It’s like when I’m flying. The carrier counts on me and my squadron to protect it from the enemy. I count on my wingman to tell me when trouble’s coming. And I count on myself to take action, because I’m the one flying the plane.’’
Luke pondered it for a while. ‘‘Is Jesse on my side?’’
I said, ‘‘Of course.’’
‘‘Nikki and Carl?’’ I nodded. ‘‘And my teacher?’’
‘‘All the way.’’
‘‘I thought so.’’ He tilted his head toward Brian. ‘‘Can I see your F/A-eighteen tomorrow?’’
‘‘You bet.’’ Relief threaded his voice. ‘‘Come here—hop on your dad’s lap.’’
But Luke burrowed against my side. Brian’s eyes, 20/10 vision, trained to spot a MiG at fifty miles, didn’t see it coming. They turned sooty with rejection. Give it time, I didn’t say. Ease off, understand that he just needs the familiarity of me, and by the way, petulance ill becomes a grown man. I said none of that, not with Luke there. Instead we listened to the wind surge outside, until Luke’s eyes closed and his breathing deepened. Brian scooped him into his arms and carried him to bed.
When he returned, I said, ‘‘How did you know about my dope bust back in high school?’’
‘‘Dad.’’
Fifteen years later I felt myself heat up. ‘‘He promised not to tell you.’’
He shrugged. ‘‘He was so angry—’’
‘‘Don’t remind me. He went off like a grenade.’’
Driving home one night, four of us girls had been stopped by the cops. It was Abbie Johnson’s pot, a baggie in her pocket that I didn’t know about. But it was my car. We got probation. Folks treated me as if I were destined to be a crack whore or, worse, a communist. My parents made me clean toilets with a toothbrush.
Brian said, ‘‘No. Dad was angry at the cops and the judge.’’
I gaped at him. ‘‘What?’’
‘‘He thought they did you an injustice. He couldn’t stop harping on how unfairly they treated you.’’
My whole body seemed to be ringing. Add a new revelation to the canon. Revise the texts.
I said, ‘‘This is why I don’t come back to China Lake. My life is lying in wait for me, and it’s not even the life I knew.’’
I slept on the sofa that night. About midnight I woke with a start, understanding how Tabitha had gotten my signature on the forged threat letter: she had traced it from the copy of Lithium Sunset I had signed for Glory at Beowulf’s Books. Annoyed, I punched the pillow. I felt soft flesh near my shoulder. Luke’s hand was peeking over the edge of the sofa cushion, just touching me. He was lying on the floor beneath.
Across town, about the time that I was sinking back to sleep, Sammy Diaz was closing out the cash register at the Pump ’n’ Go. Sammy was barely seventeen, just growing wispy sideburns, but it was his dad’s service station, so he took care of shutting down for the night. He noticed the two pickups at the pumps, crammed full of people—Anglos in their Sunday best, except for the big lady in the lavender broncobuster outfit who was squeegeeing the windshield of the Chevy. They were at the pumps a long time, pouring a quart of oil into the green Dodge, the lavender woman stopping into the minimart, asking him where they kept the Reddi-Wip. He pointed her to the refrigerator in the back of the store.
Things started getting weird when another customer came in and said, ‘‘Some guy’s locked himself in the men’s room and won’t come out.’’ Sammy hated messing with the men’s room. Cars he loved, and handling the cash register was fine, but the men’s room . . . man, he had no plans to become a janitor. Still, you helped a customer, so he took the men’s room key off the hook behind the counter, went around back, and knocked on the door.
A voice said, ‘‘It’s occupied.’’
Sammy could hear water gushing in the sink. Matter of fact, he could see a dark trickle curling out from under the door, rolling toward his feet. He knocked again, saying, ‘‘Sir, are you all right in there?’’
‘‘Just fine, washing up, just washing my hands.’’
The customer, an old white guy wearing a John Deere cap, said, ‘‘I can’t wait all night.’’ He said, ‘‘Open it; I gotta take a leak.’’
Sammy jammed the key in the lock and turned.
Steam billowed out, thick with an ammonia funk, rising from the hot water faucet. Inside, pressed back against the wall, stood Peter Wyoming. His arms were frothy with liquid soap from the dispenser. He was staring at the overflowing sink.
He swung his head toward Sammy. ‘‘I said I was washing up. Do you comprehend what it means to be clean? ‘Cleanse your hands, you sinners.’ ’’
The John Deere cap pushed past Sammy, unzipping his pants and heading for the urinal. A moment later he groaned with relief.
Behind Sammy came the sound of squeaky boots. The lavender woman appeared at his shoulder and said, ‘‘Peter. We’re ready to go.’’
John Deere said, ‘‘Judas Priest, lady. Close the damn door!’’
Wyoming said, ‘‘Give me a minute. I’ll wash them off. I will.’’ But he looked at his arms as if they were strangers, maybe his Whore of Babylon hand puppets doing a raunchy skit at the ends of his elbows. He didn’t move.
She clapped her hands. ‘‘Peter Wyoming!’’
He pointed a soapy arm at her. ‘‘This is on your head. Today’s performance was poorly managed, and look at the result.’’
‘‘It was your idea.’’
‘‘Chenille! Jeremiah two!’’
She got mad, Sammy was sure. She squeezed her mouth into a tight line and said, ‘‘ ‘Though you wash yourself with lye and use much soap, the stain of your guilt is still before me.’ ’’
John Deere shook himself dry. ‘‘Christ on a pony. From now on I’m pissing in the bushes.’’
Wyoming turned on him. ‘‘Don’t bother with modesty. Can’t you see what she is? ‘A wild ass, in her heat sniffing the wind!’ ’’ He raised high his soapy hands. ‘‘Who can restrain her lust? None who seek her need weary themselves!’’
A new man pushed Sammy aside and went in, a tall dude, slim and strong, with a dark face. He said, ‘‘Pastor, it’s getting late.’’
The sight of Paxton seemed to calm Wyoming. He let his hands drop and took the paper towels Paxton handed him, using them to carefully, carefully dry his hands. Done, he let them flutter to the wet floor. That was when he noticed Sammy standing fretfully in the doorway.
