Freedom Road

by William Lashner

  “Words on a page. And the girl helped.”

  “Ayana? I always liked Ayana. Frank says he loves me. He wants us to go around the world. Asia. Prague. He wants us to make a new life for ourselves in Paris.”

  “Most new lives are just like the old lives.”

  “Yeah, I’m learning that. But Paris does sound nice, better than some stupid college. You heard what happened in Chicago.”

  “I heard.”

  “Mr. Finnegan saved us both.”

  “Have you ever seen a more unlikely superhero?”

  She laughs. “So what are you going to do? Kidnap me and take me back to my life of wealth and privilege?”

  “Do you want me to?”

  “No. God, no.”

  “Then I won’t.”

  “So instead you’ll try to convince me how big a mistake I’m making. How I’m too young to run off like this. How bad he is for me. How much I need my education. How my future is hanging in the balance. How I’m about to ruin my life.”

  “Are you?”

  “What?”

  “Ruining your life.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Good. From what I could tell it could use some ruining.”

  She turns to look at him, a squint of incomprehension in her eye. “Then I don’t get it. Why were you chasing me?”

  “I told you. I promised I’d see if you were okay. Are you okay?”

  “Yes.”

  “Then I’m done.”

  And he realizes, as soon as he says it, that he truly is. He isn’t using reverse psychology to convince her to make the right decision on her own—he isn’t that clever— and he doesn’t know what the right decision is anyway. All he knows is that this jaunt is over, and he has no idea what to do with the remaining nub of his life.

  He is looking at the stable, as if it might supply the answer, when, in an act as sudden and surprising as a seizure, Erica hugs him. His granddaughter, who resembles so much his dear dead wife it hurts to even look at her, hugs him. And it feels so pure and rich that he can’t hug her back for fear of the sensation dissolving under the slightest bar of his pressure.

  “I knew you would understand,” she says softly.

  He shakes his head. “I don’t understand anything anymore.”

  They walk back to the mouth of the road together, side by side now, as if something has been resolved between them.

  “You couldn’t have mentioned school?” says Helen.

  “I seem to remember you dropped out,” says Oliver.

  Erica turns to him, her head tilted in confusion but a smile on her face, and she grabs hold of his arm. As they walk together Oliver notices a slight jaunt in his bent-back, splayfooted step. And why wouldn’t he have such a jaunt? He found her after all, and didn’t screw it up when he did, at least not as of yet. It is only the sight of Frank Cormack, standing next to Ayana and peering at the two of them from a distance, that brings him back to himself.

  What is he going to do about that piece of shit?

  “Stay calm, dear,” says Helen.

  “The hell with that,” says Oliver under his breath.

  “Frank, sweetie,” says Erica when they reach the battered boy, “this is my grandfather, Oliver.” She holds Oliver’s arm tight enough to keep him from lurching forward to strangle the reprobate son of a bitch. “He came all this way to make sure I’m okay.”

  “I heard a lot about you,” says Frank. “Erica talks about her old hippie grandfather all the time. And thanks, man, for bringing Hunter. Ayana told me where you found him and how you took care of him.”

  “You can pick up his crap from here on in.”

  “Like you ever did,” says Ayana with a laugh.

  “And call your brother,” says Oliver. “Tell him you’re still alive. He’ll be surprised.”

  “He won’t want to hear from me.”

  “Don’t be so sure. He asked me to look out for you. I told him I would. Which means you and I have some hard talking to do.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “Don’t be such a fucking idiot all the time.”

  “I’ll try.”

  “And don’t call me sir.”

  “Grandpop,” says Erica.

  “What?”

  “Can you try to be nice?”

  “Next you’ll have me swinging on a trapeze,” says Oliver. “A man needs to know his limitations.”

  Oliver Cross surveys the ruinous inside of the old stable, filthy with cobwebs, with leaves and trash and animal droppings. The front door is wide-open and the wheels on its track are so rusted he can’t budge it closed. An abandoned bird’s nest sits high and ragged in the rafters, beyond which he can see spots of the sky. He wonders what Helen thinks of the decrepit state of the place, but for some reason she is quiet, as if the life forces emanating from this building are so powerful they still her voice.

  Finally. He could use the silence.

  He knows he should do some rudimentary cleaning, yet the idea is so wearying that he decides instead to take a nap. Napping is one of the great pleasures of old age, that and being a cantankerous old fool. And lucky him, he can do both at the same time, as long as he’s not chewing gum.

  Oliver finds an old bed frame in the stable and rolls out a sleeping bag atop the rusted springs, but he lies uneasily atop the quilted bag and naps fitfully. His sleep is attacked by psychedelic shaped wisps of memory that rise from the land and out of the wood, assaulting him like wraiths: fights and kisses, work, sex, a smile from his wife. They trouble his sleep, these remembrances, until one, when it rises, snaps open his eyes. He is besieged by the memory of a gory night in that very space, a night of candles and chanting and the foulest of odors, the night when, with a scream and a spurt of unseemly blood, his baby was born.

  Angie midwifed and Gracie and Fire both assisted, their faces lit by candles set about the bed as they hovered over his writhing wife. Oliver had wanted to take Helen to the hospital in Colorado Springs for the birth, but Helen insisted on delivering at the farm, in their new home, in the arms of their new community, and as usual she had gotten her way.

  As the woman clutched Helen’s hands and mopped Helen’s brow and urged her on with song and chant, Oliver paced the dirt within the stable. It was all happening at a disconcerting remove. He wanted to be part of the moment, the second greatest moment of his life, but he felt elbowed out, somehow, by female solidarity.

  His wife screamed, the women chanted, Oliver paced.

  Then Helen shrieked so loudly it sounded like she was splitting in two. Oliver couldn’t take the separation any longer and leaped onto the raised floor beneath the bed. That’s when he first saw the thing, the bloody creature with the squashed head and writhing limbs, emerging like a sickness from the well of his wife. He couldn’t help himself from reaching for it like a baseball catcher. It all happened so quickly, the splat of blood, the slide and catch, Angie lifting the child from his arms, and then the slap, the howl, the biting of the cord, the placing of the baby atop its beaming, crying mother.

  “Come close, Oliver. Closer,” said Helen. “Come and see baby Fletcher.”

  When Oliver leaves the stable after his fitful nap, more exhausted than when he first lay down, he finds, to his dismay, that preparations for his grand homecoming party have begun.

  A fire has been built in the pit next to the stone ruins of the old ranch house. On a grill atop the fire, cast-iron pots are bubbling away, releasing burps of spice: cumin, cardamom, cinnamon, clove. A wooden table has been set with plates and pitchers, loaves of peasant bread, garlands of wildflowers, handmade candles. Music is playing over a jerry-rigged set of speakers, a playlist of the old stuff: Stevie Wonder, Neil Young, Gladys Knight, Dylan. Four dogs are running about in a pack, one of which is Hunter, dog-grinning ear to ear as his tongue lolls over his teeth.

  “Looky, looky,” says a short bearded Japanese man in a ragged voice, his eyes glowing as he slams Oliver in the shoulder. “A sight for stoned e
yes. You’re the one prodigal I thought would never come home.”

  “Crazy Bob,” says Oliver. “You got old.”

  “Beats the alternative,” says Crazy Bob. “And you lost your hair. You always had a good head of hair, it was your best feature. Now you look like a pissed-off turtle peering out of the soup pot.”

  “I thought you’d be somewhere in the bay, making tech, counting your money.”

  “I went,” says Crazy Bob, “but it didn’t take. I like building and fixing, fiddling, but here it’s a hobby. There it’s like a death march. Truth is, Oliver, I never was much one for work.”

  “I always admired that about you.”

  “I mean any idiot can work himself to death.”

  “And you’re not just any idiot.”

  “That’s my motto. Not just any idiot. Put it on my tombstone. So I came back to the farm. I like the pace. Not the winters, the winters are getting too hard to bear, but the pace is just right.”

  “What pace is that?”

  “No pace. That’s just it. The money was good, though. I liked the money. I liked shoving it in their faces. That’s what it’s really all about anyway, that and the planes. The planes are gravy, baby. Give the working man a few rides in those private planes and you’d have your revolution. So how you doing in the world? Killing it?”

  “Hardly.”

  “Not from what I heard. Sorry about Helen. I loved that girl.”

  “You shouldn’t have come back,” says a squat old man with a long gray ponytail standing behind Crazy Bob. “You had no call to come back.”

  “Flit?” says Oliver.

  “You killed the farm, ruined us all.”

  “Oh, leave him be,” says Crazy Bob.

  “I didn’t think you’d have the nerve to come back.”

  “You thought wrong,” says Oliver. “All I’ve got is nerve.”

  “Toby, get him a drink,” says Gracie, looking on from the table with concern on her face.

  “Oliver,” says Toby, standing behind Flit, tall and thin, his afro now gray, though still in his green fatigues as if the war ended only yesterday.

  “Toby.”

  Toby winks as he puts an arm around Flit and pulls him toward the fire.

  “Sometimes it’s hard to bury the past,” says Crazy Bob.

  “Is that Oliver?” says a wiry middle-aged woman as she wedges her way between Oliver and Crazy Bob. Oliver would have sworn he has never seen her before. “Yes, it is,” she says. “Give me a hug.”

  “No,” he says, backing away.

  “Oh, Oliver,” she says, tromping forward in her heavy boots and giving him one anyway. “It’s good to see you again. Tell me all about Fletcher.”

  “Who are you?”

  “You don’t remember?”

  “I have no idea.”

  “Wendy.”

  “Animal girl?”

  “That’s right.”

  “Wendy? What are you still doing here?”

  “I returned a couple years back, after my marriage died and the rat race got too damn ratty. I run a goat farm on one of the back fields. Completely organic. I sell the milk and cheese. Award-winning cheese, I might add. The key to a great cheese is keeping the goats happy.”

  “Lucky goats.”

  “Except when we eat them.” She laughs. “You’ll be having some tonight if you haven’t stayed vegan. There’s wild herbs growing in the field and you can taste them in the meat. So tell me about Fletcher.”

  “What’s to tell? He’s a lawyer.”

  “Funny job for someone who didn’t talk. Did he grow up handsome?”

  “He grew up fat.”

  She laughs again. “You have a lovely granddaughter. And she looks so much like Helen it took my breath away.”

  “I’ve noticed.”

  “I’m glad you’re back, Oliver.”

  “Why.”

  “Because we’re always needing someone to fix the chicken coop. Are you staying long?”

  “No.”

  “Too bad.”

  When he looks around he sees Erica staring at him from a distance. She’s looking at him strangely, like there is some bizarre creature perched on his head. He rubs his skull and then moves the hand down his face. What’s that he feels there? A smile?

  Gracie slips by his side and grabs hold of his arm. “It’s time to eat, Oliver. Hungry?”

  “Not in years,” he says.

  “Don’t worry, Crazy Bob will take care of that.”

  After a boisterous dinner of a beetroot salad from the vegetable garden, bread and cheese, grains, tempeh, Indian-style mashed eggplant, roasted goat leg, and wine from a jug, with which they all toasted Oliver’s return, the celebrants have repaired to sitting by the fire.

  Frank Cormack is playing his guitar, singing something soft and stupid, while Ayana and Wendy look on. Gracie is talking to Erica as if they are confidantes of long standing, while Angie, yes, old Angie, now withered like a dying dogwood, sits beside them. Crazy Bob, Toby, and Flit sit on rocking chairs like old men at the cracker barrel, drinking beers and chortling. Every now and then Flit eyes Oliver like he is a plague returned, but then Crazy Bob cracks another joke and Toby laughs and Flit turns away. The dogs are scattered about, including Hunter, who is curled on the ground beside Frank’s chair, his head lying on his paws, contented as only a dog can be contented. There are a few other folks around the fire whom Oliver doesn’t know, earnest fools trying to find a new life on an old farm.

  Amidst this scene of bonhomie and animosity and grace, Oliver stares into the fire and broods.

  For a moment, in the midst of his homecoming party, he felt himself cloaked in the comforting robe of self-satisfaction. He was back on the farm, back at the site of his still burning youth, with friends of yore and Helen in an urn by his side. He had achieved the goal of his mad dash west and was thinking, just for a moment, that maybe this remaining bit of life might not be so empty after all.

  And then it came to him, a revelation that burned the self-satisfaction right out of him like a flaming arrow in the gut.

  It had been a setup, this whole road trip piece of crap, a conspiracy among his dead wife and his granddaughter and Gracie. They had created a slapstick farce to force him to start his life over again here on the farm with purpose renewed. They had played on his pathetic need to save the world by giving him a world to save: Erica, Frank, Ayana, the farm itself, which these sloths had turned into a weed-infested wreck. The route to salvation is so clear, so easy even. A hug here, a dollop of advice there, a new tractor to plow the overgrown fields. They had even given him a goddamn dog.

  They are forcing redemption down his throat.

  “The hell with that,” he mumbles quietly enough so that no one notices.

  “The hell with what, dearest?” says Helen.

  “The hell with all your scheming. The hell with you. I don’t want to save the world anymore. I’m too old to start again and the thought of handing out advice like after-dinner mints makes me want to vomit.”

  “Don’t be a stick in the mud, Oliver,” says his wife. “You should be happy, you should feel renewed.”

  “You can stuff your renewal where it will do the most good,” he mumbles, loud enough for some to look his way, but he doesn’t care. “All I want anymore is for you to shut up and for my life to be over and done with, finally, Oliver out.”

  He considers standing up, walking to the fire, lying down amidst the coals, and letting the bright-orange flames wrap themselves around him like a cloak, warming his soul as they devour his body. It seems so perfect to do it here, in this spot where it all went to hell in a gash of fire, to use the same magical substance to turn himself into the same ash as his precious wife in the urn perched next to him on an overturned log. That would serve her right. And he would do it, honestly, lay himself gently down among the embers, if he didn’t have to stand up first, because the way his mind is swirling from the joints that Crazy Bob passed around ea
rlier, he doesn’t think he could manage that.

  So instead he continues to stare into the fire and continues to brood.

  He suddenly misses the sacred solitude of 128 Avery Road. He was left to his own devices there. He could hate cleanly and happily there, without any temptations to do anything about it. His suburban piece-of-crap house was a worthy place to wither and die. It had sufficed for his wife, why shouldn’t it have sufficed for him?

  But no, they had to plot and plan in this world and the next to save his life for him. Talk about a conspiracy of dunces. And sure, his paranoia might be an outgrowth of the weed—under the influence he had been known to envision gossamer conspiracies reaching to the very sky—but it doesn’t really matter because the truth of the situation is so evident that he can hear their goddamn voices relating it straight to him, with Helen leading the charge.

  Come on, Oliver. Get up, get going; rah, rah sis boom bah. Who around this fire can’t benefit from your wisdom? Your healing hand? Step up, Oliver, step in and be the man you always planned to be.

  “The hell with that,” he shouts again to his dead wife sitting next to him. The music stops, the babble of conversations stills, faces lit by the firelight turn toward him. “I don’t need your fucking redemption. I don’t need these fucking voices in my head anymore. The hell with all of them. The hell with you.”

  And then, despite the swirl within his skull, he grunts himself to standing and heads for the fire before wheeling around. He grabs the urn and turns to face them all.

  “Piss off, all of you. Especially you, Flit. Nice fucking ponytail.”

  Ayana lets out a burst of laughter as Oliver lurches away from them all, the little conspirators, lurches away like Frankenstein’s monster, heading toward the unkempt environs of the deserted stable with its tendrils of memory and the spiders ready to eat him alive.

  29

  I TOOK A PILL IN IBIZA

  Frank Cormack didn’t need a map to know where this whole ragged lurch to freedom had landed him.

  Welcome to Shitsville, USA.

  He was on the run from the law and the lawless, stuck on a crappy scrap of overgrown farmland inhabited by packs of old hippies and baby goats, and he had no money, no family he could count on, no friends who gave a damn, no road forward, no money, no money, and on top of it all, besides having no money, he was losing Erica.