Playing Tyler

by T L Costa

  Ani puts down her glass. “But if we managed to freeze Haranco’s assets then we would definitely get their attention. And freezing Rick’s accounts might trip him up enough to slow him down, keep him from finding us so fast.”

  “How close are you to being able to cut off their cash flow?” I ask.

  “Not very.”

  “No,” I say. “There’s an easier way to stop the program, and permanently.”

  They both look up at me.

  “The drones,” Ani answers for me, that brilliant, sexy smile spreading across her heart-shaped face. “We can crash the drones.”

  “Has he written you out yet?” I ask.

  “He can try,” she answers, fingers dancing over her keyboard. “But it’s my program, and I gave it a virus. He can’t keep me out for long.”

  “Why did you give your own program a virus?” Brandon asks.

  “So I’ll always have access. I can’t imagine writing a program and then have someone else shut me out. I do it for everything I write, it’s like keeping a safety line open just for me. A backdoor.”

  “Find an empty field, check the satellites. Just make sure you don’t hit anyone,” I add. Feeling just a little like we might survive this, it might all come out OK. “Can we do it from your laptop, though? Don’t we need to use the Universal Control System?” I walk over to stand behind her, looking over her shoulder at the screen.

  “I can do it from my laptop. Because I can get into the UCS from there.” She taps some more keys. “Do you think we can make it into Canada?”

  “They’re going to be looking at the border crossings, right? And we need passports,” I say eventually.

  “We’ll need passports,” she says.

  “Shit. Mine’s at home. They’re waiting for me to go home, I’m pretty sure,” I say, trying to keep my anger down. Just scared, I guess.

  “I have a passport,” B says, eyes still closed as he wraps a blanket up around his shoulders. “Need it since they keep taking away my fucking license. Take mine, get into the country, then declare refugee status.”

  I shrug. We look enough alike, especially in those pictures, to pull it off, probably, but, “They’ll be looking for any MacCandless. The second I cross, it’ll send up some red flag and I’m sure I’ll be dragged out back and shot or something. Besides, they’ll be looking for her, too, and a MacCandless and a Bagdorian crossing into Canada at the same time… we’ll be toast.”

  “Not if you declare refugee status at the border, man.”

  “Can’t.” Ani calls in from the other room, reading off the screen of her laptop, I’m sure. “The laws have changed. You can’t declare refugee status at a land border crossing, only at a point of entry from the air or water.”

  “Shit,” I say, mouth full, stomach trembling. “So that means what, we’d have to either fly in or take a boat? We can’t fly, they’ll never let us on a plane.”

  “The high-speed ferries out of Maine are closed for the season,” Ani says quietly as her fingers pound the keys.

  I take a swig of soda. “Can you ask for refugee status once you’re in the country, though? I mean, you just have to get in, right?”

  Ani checks. “Yes, once you’re in you can, but your case will apparently be frowned upon if you enter the country with fake documents.”

  “We can roll in by kayak,” I say, remembering our old family vacations in northern Vermont.

  “What?” B asks.

  “Lake Memphremagog, B, remember, we could go by boat. If the border patrol boats catch us, no big deal, we have real papers and we can ask for refugee status by boat, right?”

  Ani’s face brightens as she Googles. “Yeah, it’s the only water crossing anywhere nearby. We can pop on a charter or something.”

  “No, the pilot will phone in our IDs when we step on the boat.” I don’t like the idea of going to Canada to bring Rick down. It’s like throwing a rock then hiding behind your mom’s legs, counting on her to protect you. But still, it’s what we’ve got. Stay here and we’re hit. “Do you have a passport?”

  “No,” she says quietly. “But I’ve got other forms of ID for once we get in.”

  “Remember when you, me and Dad kayaked out to that island on the lake? We got pulled over by border patrol, they helped us navigate our way back to the house?” I ask B, remembering being small and afraid, sitting in my dad’s lap as he and B paddled around, water splashing up in my face.

  “Yeah,” he says, eyes distant.

  “It’ll be cold. But that’s how we’ll go,” I say, voice firm. “We borrow a kayak, get in, find Todd, then ask for refugee status. Blow up Rick’s program.”

  “And hope they don’t catch you,” B adds, voice a little unsteady.

  “Yeah, and hope they don’t catch us.” I take a big bite of sandwich. “Well, and that the lake isn’t frozen yet.”

  I look at B. He looks panicked, too. Really? Shit’s coming to the breaking point and they both think that I’m the one to figure this stuff out?

  “Brandon,” I say. “Does Kelly have a car?”

  “Yeah, of course.”

  “Right, well, when she gets home, I want you guys to get into her car, OK? Go someplace safe. I won’t be able to think straight if I think that they could come after you.” I hand him my bank card. “Drive south, west? I don’t know, just anywhere but here. Find a new place, start over, someplace warm.” He needs to get away from Kelly, she’s no good. But I need him to drive far away. To get away before Rick finds him.

  He stares at me. Just stares at me. Like he doesn’t really see.

  “No, you know what?” I say. “Go to the train station. Buy like six different tickets on like six different trains and then take a car. Then go by car someplace far away and I’ll email you when we get across the border, OK?” He’s still just staring. “B, you hear me? You listening?”

  “Yeah.” His voice floats away. “But it won’t work. That’ll buy you an hour or two, sure, but you need at least six, probably more like eight. Their technology is too good, Ty, they’ll know it’s a decoy.”

  I take B’s phone off of the coffee table and walk into the bedroom to call Peanut and Alpha. Have to try. Have to at least give it a shot.

  We head down to the street. B gave me his and Kelly’s entire savings back at the apartment before we left. I don’t want to know exactly how it came to be that they had four grand hiding in their mattress, but I take the money all the same because I have to. Ani and I are wearing like three thousand layers of clothes. Not too cold now in New Haven, but by the time we get to Vermont, out on the water, it’s going to be absolutely freezing. Ani left twenty minutes ago, going to meet her roommate Christy at a coffee shop nearby, where she arranged to pick up Christy’s car. She’s going to let us borrow her car in exchange for Ani “fixing” her grade in organic chemistry. Not a bad girl, Christy. Kinda stuck up, but it works out for us that she doesn’t really care about her stuff. Scary that Christy wants to be a doctor.

  B keeps pumping me full of information, giving me more clothes, more money, shoving his passport at me just in case, telling me who to talk to, what to say.

  Just for a second I forget about the marks on his arm, about the full bottle in the medicine cabinet, and he’s the brother he once was. Makes my heart feel three times as big. Then he looks up at me and we both remember and I have to push it all back down again so I can focus. So I can survive this.

  But I can’t survive this, really. There’s like no chance and he’s here now and I say, “Why aren’t you taking the medicine, B? You told me, you’ve always told me that you wanted to get better, to beat this. Now you’re sick and maybe even dying and now people are trying to kill me and still you’re sticking that shit up your arm.”

  His face drops, like a feather, like a boulder. “You have to understand, Ty, how hard it is. It’s like the more I want to beat it, the more I need it. I’ve tried so hard, so fucking hard, and still it’s winning.”

  �
�It’s not a person, it’s a drug! A disease, sure, but you are the one who’s still choosing to do it. And what was that in there? I’m trying to figure out how to stop people from killing me and you’re high?” My voice rises up like molten stone, “I needed you. I’ve always needed you and you just leave me to watch as you kill yourself. Expect me to sit back and watch. There’s nothing I can do, is there? Nothing. I can’t make you better, can’t make you love me again.”

  “You’re not being fair.” He shakes his head, face red, bottom jaw jutting out.

  “I’m not trying to be fair, Brandon, I’m trying to be your brother.” My throat hurts, my head hurts, eyes hurt.

  “I’ve tried so hard, so hard to beat this. To beat this for you, for Mom,” he says, words garbled. “But I can’t. You don’t know, don’t know what it’s like. I’m not strong enough.”

  “Bullshit.”

  We walk in silence. Silence that’s wound like livewire. Silence that says everything and nothing all at the same time.

  We go down to the street. We walk together to where Ani’s going to pick me up. Streets are pretty empty, no sign of suits. Or even nice khakis. Should be clear.

  He says, “They won’t stop, Tyler. They won’t stop until they kill you.”

  “So?” I say, feeling draining from my arms, from my fingers.

  “So let them think they killed you.”

  And then he meets my eyes. What is that supposed to mean? My heartbeat picks up. Ask no don’t ask just walk just do this he’s still pretty high and isn’t making any sense is all.

  He then turns to me, lips moving up a little in the corners. “You have your license?”

  “Um, yeah. Just got it a month ago.”

  He takes a deep, halting breath. “Still have a copy of your permit on you? Library card?”

  “Why do you need my wallet?” I pull it out, stomach contracting. Just to see, maybe he needs some of the cash back maybe he just wants to see if I’m using Dad’s old one.

  He opens it, looking at my library card, the pictures of us as kids that are stuffed in there from forever ago, the driver’s permit and the new license. He hands the license back to me, and slips the wallet in his pocket. “Take this.” He pulls out his own wallet and hands it over to me.

  “No.” My throat’s tight. Like someone is grabbing onto it and squeezing and I don’t know how to stop them. I don’t like this. This is wrong. Very, very wrong. He can’t be doing this he can’t he can’t he can’t.

  “Take it. Please.” His voice wobbles and I slip my driver’s license in my back pocket. My social security card is in my wallet, though, which he just took. Put in his pants. He opens the door to the car. Blue car, girly, probably Kelly’s.

  “Where are you going?” I ask, I know, but I can’t. Can’t let him…

  “Going home, Ty.” Tears. Tears redden his eyes.

  My eyes burn, heart like a fist. “You can’t… they’ll have it staked out…”

  “You need the time, Tyler. You’ll never make it to the border without a diversion.” The hair, he cut his hair to look more like me. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.

  “I’ve got a diversion. My cell phone is riding on the back of a Greyhound and my bank card is about to take a trip to Florida or some shit. Ani’s, too, B, we don’t…” Hell no.

  “It’s not enough. You know it’s not. But if they think that they’ve got you, then you might have enough time to get to Todd.” Tears falling, eyes begging, pleading, for what? Permission? Redemption? No no no no no. “You’ve always been the only one, you know. The only one who was there for me. You never once stopped believing in me, even after I had. You have to let me do this for you, Tyler.”

  The trees lining the street, dead and twisted and stuck into pools of dirt so old that it’s gray, stuck in the middle of a sidewalk in the middle of a city where the cars and people and shops all line up to watch the world fall into itself. The trees seem to come together, hang closer, hang over where we’re standing. So close to the street. So many people walking by. And none of them can stop this.

  “No.” I kick my foot into the ground and slap the wallet out of his hand. “No, fuck no I’m not going to let you do this, Brandon, you can drive out of here and find a new place and you can still get better I know that if you just…” The words come out frightened, barking.

  “You have to let me do this for you.” His voice is strong. “Let me have one thing, one choice that I can be proud of. Let me be your brother again, just this once.”

  “No.” Deep breath. “No, no, no, no, no.”

  “Listen to me, this is not your choice, this is mine, I can’t save myself anymore, Tyler.” His hands grasp me around my face, pulling me towards him, forcing me to look him in the eyes. Blue and endless and wet. “But I’m going to save you.”

  Heart stuck, caught like a fly in my throat. “No, please,” is all that comes out. Can’t talk. Three thousand things to say. One syllable is all I get. “No.”

  His hands wrap around my shoulders, and he pulls me to him, hugging me. Words need to come out, I need to tell him, I want to tell him, I want to stop him but I can’t do or say anything because everything seems to be moving around in my head at once.

  “You get to Canada. Get to Canada with that girl. You bring this whole thing down around them. There’s more in you than anybody ever sees, Ty. But I see it.”

  Oh no. Fuck no. This can’t be happening.

  Shit. Have to tell him, have to… “B,” I call, voice broken, undone.

  “There’s no shame in dying for people you love, Tyler.” He looks back. We stand there, staring at each other. Crying.

  Three thousand things. Three hundred thousand things flow in the air between us as I look at him, my big brother, my hero since like forever until he fell. And now, everything else, the time I caught him smashing oxy, the time I found him lying unconscious on the floor of the bathroom, all that just disappears and all I can see is that kid, my hero, one last time.

  But I can’t get anything out. My eyes feel like they are bleeding and my heart is being hacksawed and my legs can’t stay steady. But I can’t get one fucking word from my head and out through my mouth. Not one.

  “I know, Ty.” He smiles. “I’ve always known.”

  He shuts the door and drives away.

  CHAPTER 29

  SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 3

  TYLER

  We drive Christy’s Corolla three hundred miles up to Newport, Vermont. The worst ride ever. Long, quiet, waiting. Wondering if they found him yet. If he slipped out the back of the house when they came in, if he ran and is going to call. My only hope is that he flaked and pulled the junkie card, went to buy more H instead of doing what he meant to do. But I know that didn’t happen. And I’m just waiting for the news. Flipping through channels on the radio, waiting, like they would run a broadcast of my brother’s death. Like a junkie found shot in his house would make the news. Well, maybe, since we’re in the burbs. Still.

  Huge, racking thrusts of nausea pound on me. But I won’t get sick. Can’t. Don’t have time. Need to drive. Need to drive faster. Every car, every truck behind us is a potential threat. Every guy on his way to work and every family on vacation sets me on alert. I don’t think I can do this. Don’t think this will work. But I have to try. Have to try for her, for him. Shit. When did my life get so complicated? So wrong?

  We left B’s place around 7pm and we took the long way up, so it’s like 1am when we roll into Newport. Looking behind us, I check to make sure we’re the only car getting off at the exit. Only car rolling through town. Ani sees the place first. A place that rents kayaks and canoes, right on the lake. Closed for the season. Perfect.

  We park in the center of town. Leave the car in front of some grocery store and hop out into the cold pre-dawn air. Pulling on major backpacks, all that we own, the sound of the gravel crunching beneath our boots sounds too loud, like they can hear us.

  We walk. It’s not far, still, it feels good after suc
h a long car ride and as I watch the clouds of frost around our breath decorate the still morning before us, my stomach trembles. We’re close. Just have to get there. Stay focused. Steady. Faster. Walk faster.

  The rental place is closed, of course. We find a two-person green kayak that isn’t tied as securely as the rest and slip it out of its carrier and onto the bed of pine needles covering the ground. I write a note, apologizing for taking their boat, and leave a hundred bucks, figuring that’s probably enough to cover the cost of it. I sign the first note, which, thankfully, Ani catches and makes me rip up and stuff in my pocket, so I write another one and slip that one along with the money up under the door.

  “C’mon,” I say and grab her hand.

  Ani

  “Tyler… I don’t know. What if this doesn’t work?” I ask as I move towards the boat. He’s carrying the awkward kayak over an outcrop of rocks and sets it near the water. The moonlight catches in his hair, and I can only see half of his face as he turns to me.

  “Ani, look.” He runs a hand through his hair. “We can’t think like that. We have to do what needs to get done. Right now we’re putting the kayak in the water, OK? So let’s do that. Focus on that.”

  He’s pushing the boat towards the water that sloshes around his feet just above on the shoreline. It’s hard to see if his boots are actually submerged or not. It’s hard to see how I got here, to see what I’m really doing.

  What am I really doing? Mr Anderson’s program is wrong, so wrong on so many levels, but why should we have to be the ones to bring it down? We could both lose everything. Am I ready to leave school, my mom, Julie, Dad, everyone, for what? What do I gain by doing this when I only see negative consequences? Mom won’t see this as doing what’s right, she’ll see it as me being impulsive, see it as me falling for the wrong guy.

  A big splash and a quiet curse from Ty indicate that now his boots are wet for sure. Oh God, is this right? Once I get in that boat there’s no going back. If I cross the border then I have to finish this. “Ready?” he asks, standing in the quiet of darkness, starlight pooling in his eyes.