Ricky hit the steering wheel as hard as he could.
Shit. That's not helping Dad at all. We're not getting anywhere like this.
He whacked the steering wheel again. It felt good for a couple of seconds.
Chill out.
Lianne slammed the car door and stalked down the street with her arms crossed tightly over her chest. Ricky got out of the car and caught up to her. He pulled one arm apart from the other arm and took her hand.
I'm sorry.
We all got issues.
I can't help it sometimes. Things get me down.
You can't let it get you down, Ricky. Life is beautiful. No matter what shit it throws at you. Can't let the meanness bring you down.
He said nothing.
Let's go for a walk, said Lianne.
They walked through the town. It was nighttime and at the movie theatre, The Jax, at the corner of Macon and Main, Ricky paused to let a group of girls, freshmen, maybe middle schoolers, in jeans and bouffant hairdos by them. They laughed and shared sticks of chewing gum. The movie was Horrible Bosses with Jason Bateman, Charlie Day, Colin Farrell and Jennifer Aniston. The theater door was standing open and inside, up a red-carpeted incline, they could see people eating popcorn in a hazy light, waiting for the movie to begin. The moon was a crescent in the sky, and Venus was burning bright beneath it. A freight train went by on the tracks behind a furniture outlet. Several broken down, narrow houses with slumping roofs and rickety front porches of intricate, peeling rails lined Juniper Street, parallel to the tracks. At the crossing, they watched the cars of the train going by. They walked out on a long road that turned to dirt and corn silos and stands advertising peaches in tattered signs. The feeling of desperation and hopelessness would not leave Ricky. The sound of the train's whistle seemed like a warning to him that the uncharted territory ahead would be a long and possibly fruitless traverse.
Lianne. We need to give this up. I'm thinking about your father. He must be worried about you. There's no way we're ever going to get to Canada. Let's face it.
Lianne stopped walking. Ricky went on, thinking he would continue and let her have a chance to think of a measured response. He heard her walking quickly behind, catching up, and guessed correctly that she was spitting angry.
You are incredibly dumb.
How?
By just being you. That's how. How would we ever be able to go back now, empty-handed? How can you even think that would be an option? With your father out there waiting for you and my mother somewhere playing on the radio, waiting for me. What kind of a jackass would even go there?
Lianne. I just don't see where or how we can go on.
For someone who is so smart in school, you seem to be lacking a few screws to your tool chest. Look at the sky. Look at this road ahead. How can you doubt there's a good reason for us to be here, right now, doing this?
Okay. No need to get too deep.
Let's turn around and go back and tomorrow we tell Grill and Fuzz Tone we will work another week, sell them the car, and get bus tickets for as far north as we can get.
Ricky was quiet. He stopped and turned around. Lianne watched his eyes in the dark.
Sometimes you are just so plain dumb, Ricky.
Sorry.
They walked into the field and sat together against an unwrapped round bale that smelled of wet, moldy grass. They spent a good part of the night in each other's arms, being as wrong as they had ever dared. When they got back to the warehouse, it was on fire.
Thirteen—Ripeness
Ricky and Lianne watched from the steps of the First Pentecost church. Across the street, they could see the brothers fleeing the warehouse via the loading dock in the front. Some of them were in flames, rolling off the edge of the dock to roll in the banks of silt and clay left over from the heavy summer rains and the overflow of storm drains. Two cars filled with dark-skinned, heavyset Latino men rolled slowly around the corner and to the front of the warehouse. Out the windows of the cars, Ricky could see the wide muzzles of sawed off, double-barreled shotguns and the reverberating licks of fire from them. Things were exploding inside the warehouse at the same time.
I've got to get the backpack out of the car, said Ricky.
Don't. You can't.
I have to.
Ricky pulled away and loped towards the warehouse, feeling the heat drying his eyeballs. He lowered his head, took a reading on the car and dashed to it. The door pulled open, and he jumped into the back. Grill and Fuzz Tone were already inside there, lying down as flat as they could. Fuzz Tone was using Lianne's pack with the tablet wrapped in their clothes in it as a pillow.
Li'l brother. Keep down.
Ricky pulled the pack out from underneath Fuzz Tone's head. She glared at him but said nothing, saving her energy in case of worse to come.
What happened?
Internecine warfare, li'l brother. Po Boy had it coming to him and some of the more opportunistic of the brothers are going down with him. Have no fear, I saw this coming.
Well, this car is about to catch on fire. So I'm getting out. I'll see you later.
Meet us in twenty minutes by the side of the bar. We will roll on out of here. You and the girl are welcome to ride with the Old Lady and me.
Where?
You're looking for your old man, ain't ya? That's as good a request for a quest I think I've heard in a long while. What do you think, Fuzz?
Shut up and get your head down. Those low riders are out and about. They'll shut you up for good.
Li'l brother's right. We're about to catch a fire.
Ricky slipped out of the car. Keeping low, he managed to get up the embankment to the street. The car on the corner was reversing to come back his way. He decided to make a run for it and sprinted for the other side and the safety of the churchyard. A shotgun blast sent a concussive wave behind him. He dove and rolled and picked up the pack and kept running. The second blast was wider. The car screeched to a stop. Ricky turned the corner, hugging the church wall tightly, scraping his arm on the clapboard as he tried to right himself. Lianne was standing there, staring at the sky. He grabbed her arm without a word, and they kept running. They ran down the zigzagging rows of tombstones in the graveyard behind the church. Ricky hit the ground under an old crape myrtle tree and pulled Lianne down beside him. They heard voices in Spanish at the edge of the graveyard, cursing. Then they could hear the whine of sirens, either fire trucks or police or both, and the voices were gone.
About time, said Ricky.
Gunfire and explosions continued in the distance. As they approached the street again, they could see the light of the fire above the line of houses. Ricky told Lianne about Grill and Fuzz Tone’s offering to ride them out of there.
What do you think?
I don't really trust them, but I don't see anything better.
Neither do I, agreed Ricky.
The two of them cut down the street several blocks and came out on Macon Road. One direction led out to the highway, the other way back to town. They walked down the road keeping close to the houses, jumping over plastic toys and dodging mailboxes and birdfeeders. Near the shopping plaza, a line of police cars came racing up from the highway. They got behind a minivan in the parking lot and squatted there, while the police cars took the corner, tires screeching.
Behind the Motorhead, Grill and Fuzz Tone were mounting two Harleys in full regalia and having a quiet conversation as if they were about to go shopping. When they saw Ricky and Lianne, Grill stopped as he was about to turn the key in the ignition.
Get on, li'l brother. You ride with the old lady, he said to Lianne.
Ricky climbed on the back and Lianne did the same. The two motorcycles started and they slowly rode away from the bar, onto Macon Road. Instead of heading for the highway, Grill continued into town several blocks and out the other side. Nobody saw them go. Despite the conflagration on its outskirts, the town seemed to prefer to slumber in ignorance. They cut down a long road, Bri
dge Street, which took them past the cul de sacs of recently built starter mansions and deep into farm fields and groves of forested hills. They came out at the intersection for Fayetteville Road and took a left and got on an unlikely entrance ramp in the middle of nowhere for Route 75 going north. The sun was beginning to appear to the east and lighten the sky around them, a slowly spreading stain. The whine of the engines grew higher pitched as they got up to cruising speed.
You all right, li'l brother?
Yeah.
Don't fall asleep on me. Stay upright and relax. We've got a few hours ride ahead of us.
That's all right. Where we headed?
Tennessee.
Good, thought Ricky. Now they were getting somewhere.
They rode for about eight hours straight, only stopping once in Pulaski for gas and a couple of energy drinks for Grill and an iced tea for Fuzz Tone. Ricky picked out a Mountain Dew and Lianne had an Odwalla juice. They took turns using the one bathroom behind a rack stacked with various auto fluids. Then they hit a two-lane county highway going into bottomland along a fast moving river and turned off north up a steeper pitch. The weather had a distinctly autumnal feel to it, and the cloud cover suggested rain in the forecast.
The house was a log cabin surrounded by converted school buses and crop-growing tunnels scattered on several acres of fields on a bluff overlooking the road. The river was probably on the other side of the bluff, thought Ricky, standing and stretching his legs. A couple of women walked out of the cabin and stood on the porch squinting into the sun. One was in her twenties, wearing a loose blouse and jeans, and the other was in her fifties or perhaps early sixties wearing a long dress.
Good afternoon, said Grill, smiling up at them amiably and swinging his leg off the motorbike.
The women greeted him hesitantly. The younger one in jeans came off the porch and met them in the drive as Grill stood and dusted himself off. Ricky helped Lianne off the back of the other motorcycle. She leaned against him unsteadily.
How can we help you?
I'm guessing you must be Arden.
I'm Arden, all right.
Last time I saw you, you must have been about ten years old. Your Dad and I go back a ways together.
You must mean Ned.
Ned Brown. Tell him Jordan Campbell's back.
The two women disappeared inside the house. Grill turned to Fuzz Tone.
You can get off now. We're here.
Doesn't seem like they trust your story too much.
Aw, Ned'll be fine. He's a good sort deep down. Grew up in Arizona, in a mining town.
Fuzz Tone got off the motorcycle, hopping up and down to get the blood circulating again in her legs. She had an almost reptilian cast to her face, extreme fatigue combined with a deep-set disillusionment with life, and Ricky thought nothing could faze her after the events of the previous night in McDonough.
A man came out on the porch, large, with overalls and a white beard reaching down his thick neck. He looked them over quickly with deep-set eyes. Ricky sensed the thoughts whirling in the man’s head as if they exerted a gravitational pull on his own. He coughed once and leaned on the railing.
Mr. Campbell.
Hey there, Ned. Grill turned and walked up to the porch steps and reached up and shook the old man's hand. He seemed confident and alert and somehow younger than his usual hung-over self.
You’re back to see us again. With a little troop of your own.
Yeah, well. Thought I'd pay a visit. It's not often I get out this way.
You're not wanted by the police, are you?
No, no, Ned. Nothing like that. Just on a little jaunt is all.
Well, come on in. Settle in a bit after we set down and talk and catch up. Good to see you, buddy. Good to see you.
While they talked, Ricky noticed several people walking in from the fields and climbing up into the school buses. They looked like they'd been working, dirty, in tee shirts and work boots, men and women.
Grill waved for them to follow as he walked up the porch steps. Fuzz Tone came up behind Lianne reluctantly, walking slowly. She liked being on the road on the motorcycles, not stopped again where their troubles would have a chance to catch up with them.
The inside of the house was decorated in Indian textiles and framed photographs of earlier days with people in various stages of building the agricultural enterprises of the commune. There were potted cacti and flowering plants around the main room and no furniture. The floor where they sat was laid out in a diagonal pattern of floorboards. Cellophane mobiles hung from the high-ceilinged roof and the wood range was topped with simmering cooking pots releasing the scent of cardamom and allspice. The young woman lit a large wooden, burled pipe and passed it to Ned, who smoked from it and passed it to Grill seated across from him. Ricky and Lianne declined, but Fuzz Tone sucked mightily at it and a softer look came into her face as her muscles relaxed. The young woman, Arden, asked Ricky and Lianne if they wanted anything to drink.
Sure, whatever you've got, said Lianne.
Why don't you come with me into the pantry? I'll get you something.
They followed Arden into a hall; and at the end of the hall was a small alcove with a freezer chest, some shelves housing several pairs of shoes, and a screen door leading out the back of the house. From the freezer chest, Arden pulled out a lemonade carton. It was half thawed. She poured out a thin stream of lemonade into two small plastic cups.
You two brother and sister?
No, said Lianne.
Thanks, said Ricky, taking the cup from the top of the freezer chest that was covered in rust spots like the hand of an old lady.
You want to take a walk?
Sure, said Ricky. Arden seemed nice. She led them out into the back. More people were coming in from the fields and there were several cars parked around in front that weren't there when they'd pulled up.
What is this, a school? asked Lianne.
No. We're an intentional community.
Everyone's married to each other?
Something like that. Actually, not really. How do you know Jordan?
They looked at each other. Ricky decided to let Lianne do the talking.
Actually don't know him very well. Our car broke down and they're giving us a ride.
Where're you going?
To find my mother and his father.
And, are they together?
Not that we know of, said Lianne.
Arden seemed nonplussed by the information.
They never were, said Ricky.
Arden looked at him with a strange sort of stare.
Well, do you want to meet some people?
That would be great, said Lianne.
Arden took them around to the school bus near the house. There they saw some of the members of the enterprise returning from the fields where they grew vegetables for sale in the community's various farm stands. Arden mentioned the names of several towns where they had farm stands. Some of the women in the next bus along from the house were back from a hospital and a retirement home where they worked. They were nurses and nurse’s aides, said Arden, with a proprietary air. Most of the women were in their late thirties or early forties, Ricky guessed, and there were children, including a teenaged girl named Julia. The children lounged around in the kitchen at the back of the bus or came inside half naked from the outdoor shower and changed with nobody minding a bit about the lack of privacy. Then Arden introduced Vargas, short and thickset, dark-skinned. Despite the introduction, she seemed to treat him with some hostility. Vargas seemed to be the farm manager. With him were Aunt Peggy, the woman they'd first seen with Arden out on the porch of the main house. And there was also a boy—they called him Scissorhands—with long black hair and dark features, who Arden claimed to be her brother. Vargas made Scissorhands approach them and offer them some homemade brownies from a tin. Ricky and Lianne, who hadn't eaten all day, wolfed down several of the brownies. They were dried and falling apart and tasted powd
ery and mildewed. The tin had a Gothic looking cover design, a grinning skeleton in a dress, which made Ricky think of Al and the low esteem in which he held hippies, but he thought he'd faint from the pleasure as he swallowed them down. He looked at Lianne and felt grateful for her company again, as if her wisdom would be the cover he needed.
They sat on the cushions lining the wall of the bus. Vargas sat down beside Arden and played his fingers up and down the window, drawing figures in the condensation.
Suddenly, claustrophobia got the better of Ricky. The brownies had been a bad idea. He thought about getting up.
You welcome to stay here, said Vargas.
Thanks, said Lianne.
What he got in that backpack? Is that all you got with you?
Yeah.
What you got in there, Ricky? Show them, said Lianne. He's not answering right now.
They were talking to him but his mind was far away, thinking of his father and mother and how he'd once thought their world would never end. It must have been his tenth birthday when he realized that people grew up and got older and nothing stayed the same. Even after that, for a few years, his memories seemed surrounded in a gauzy glow that must have been his mind's visual representation of contentment. This here, on the bus, was the opposite. People were striving to stay above the lip of total despair; and the arrangements, the buses pulled around the house with the crude paneling and the wood stoves, had no pull on them. It was all temporary and provisional and he realized this was the way most humans lived all the time and only ten year-olds could have any other impression of how things worked. There was so much for him to work out and no time at all to do it. What was the point of this? Where were they going, the people on the buses? And if he thought of the impossibility of ever finding Al buried in the bowels of Fort McMurray in the far North, it was enough to send him down into a well of self-pity and helplessness from which he would never be able to dig out. He pulled out the tablet and held it to his head for comfort. The cold stone soothed him. He thought he could hear his mother's voice. The words were inaudible, but if he listened hard enough he could hear something. He could almost swear on it. Then Vargas pulled it slowly out of his hand in a way that was almost imperceptible, undoing Ricky’s fingers as if they were vines.
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