by Mike Markel
* * * *
The city spent two-hundred-and-forty thousand to build MacIntosh Skate Park about five years ago. The thinking was to give the sidewalk surfers a place to hang out, out of sight and, if possible, out of mind. That, plus a skater got paralyzed when a car hit him on a street. The whole park is less than a half-acre, tucked into some useless land off Thirteenth Street, right under the on-ramp to US 53. We have a uni stop by at least once a day, at different times, to keep the wool-hat crowd from relaxing. There’s just a few rules: keep the garbage under control, no tagging the on-ramp or the nearby industrial buildings, and no dealing or using.
We don’t work real hard at winning any hearts and minds. Some of the guys from the Salvation Army and the youth groups try to reach out and help the more forlorn kids, but the official police attitude is we’ll leave you alone if you don’t use the place for anything illegal. When it opened, we explained to the kids that a bunch of solid citizens on the City Council worried it would be a magnet for the local losers, and if they saw it turning into Needle Park they’d yank out the ramp, the bowl, the tube, and the vortex. One old fart said he’d personally pay for a bulldozer to strip off the Gunite and level the dirt mounds. Amazing how some people would rather see the situation go sideways than be proven wrong. Once or twice a year we break up a buy at MacIntosh, but all in all it was a good investment of a quarter mill.
I was there in my own car. I got out and scanned the place. There were about a dozen kids wearing their nonconformist’s uniform: from the Vans to the low-riders, dark tees, and hoodies. Two guys came down from opposite sides of the bowl, cracked heads when they collided, got up laughing and rubbing their skulls, and gave each other a fist bump. One of them, the smaller guy, looked a little shook up and was walking funny, but he was working real hard not to show it.
Tommy was there. He was easy to spot, with all the clothes black except for the red shoes. I watched him for a few minutes. He wasn’t real good, so he stayed on the wimpier ramps. I flinched when I saw him wobble, arms windmilling, then fall. He landed on an elbow, but he got up and rubbed it and grabbed for his board. He wasn’t wearing his elbow pads, of course. I remember him unwrapping them at Christmas, looking at the package like it was a gravy boat.
The good news was that he seemed to be getting on okay with the others. I was too far away to hear them talking, but the body language looked relaxed. This was what the mom of an underachiever calls progress: hanging out at the skatepark with a bunch of other dead-enders. A step up from sitting alone in his room at his father’s house, playing video games and smoking Spice.
He saw me out of the corner of his eye. He looked around, like he was hoping nobody would see him looking at me. He kicked down on the tail end of the board, flipping it up into his hands, and started walking over toward me. He walked slow, no reason to hurry. He kind of rolled his hips as he walked, like a skinny middle-class fifteen-year white boy who wanted to be poor and black, or at least Hispanic.
“Hi, honey.”
He wore an annoyed look. “I asked you not to come here.”
“Yeah,” I said. “I know that.” I just let it hang there.
“So, what do you want?”
“I just wanted to see you, see how you’re doing.”
“You’ve seen me,” he said. Someone from his group of lovely friends shouted something at him I couldn’t make out. He turned, smiled at them, then flipped them off. “And I’m doing okay.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Anything else?”
“You remember that history assignment that I called Mr. Hindricks about?”
He just looked at me.
“Did you get a chance to talk with him, see if he would let you re-do it?”
He shook his head. “No, just spaced that one.”
“You know, unless you can get a grade on that assignment, you’re gonna flunk history and have to take it again next year—or do it this summer.”
He looked at me, half bored, half annoyed, waiting for me to make a point. “Is that it?”
“Well, let’s see,” I said. “Got my job back, on the force. Working on a case. You know, Dolores Weston, the state senator?”
“Not that into politics,” he said.
“Anything you want to tell me, I mean, about your life? Anything?”
He looked at me like I had puke running down my chin. “Just hanging here with my friends.”
“Yeah, I see that,” I said. “Tommy, honey.” I was trying not to cry. I reached my hand out, my fingers grazing the sleeve of his sweatshirt.
He pulled his arm back, giving me a dirty look.
“I just wanted to say that I love you, and that I want you to live a happy life. I don’t care what you end up doing. You can go to college, not go to college. Doesn’t matter. But I want you to promise me that you’ll try to be happy.” I pressed at my eyes with my thumb and index finger. “Really try.”
“I see you’re still drinking.”
“No, honey. I stopped drinking. Three days, now.” I took a deep breath. “It’s just that I have to …” He had turned his head back toward his friends and wasn’t listening.
He turned back to me. “Can I go?”
“Yes, Tommy, you can go.” I closed my eyes as the tears streamed down my cheeks. In my brain I saw him as a little baby, smiling and laughing as he reached out to me. I opened my eyes and watched him get smaller and smaller as he walked back towards his friends. He didn’t look back at me. “Goodbye, honey,” I said quietly, but he was already too far away to hear me.
* * * *
I stood outside the room as people drifted out. Some of them acknowledged me by name. Others just nodded as they walked past me. A few didn’t know me. I tilted my head to look in. She was there, alone, standing next to one of the wooden chairs with little desks attached to them. Gathering up some papers into a folder and picking up her bag, she looked up as she heard me enter the room. She gave me a faint smile.
“Hello, Karen.” She put her bag down on the little desk.
“Hi, Sarah.” I didn’t know how to start talking to her. She was a tall, concave woman of sixty or sixty-five, with long broom-handle arms and exhausted hair, now mostly gray and gathered back in a plastic clip. Her eyes were circled by Bassett hound red rims. She wore a shapeless peasant dress, the plaid now a watered-down minestrone. When she moved you could see little U-shaped bumps for breasts, but no hips or stomach or anything at all until her stick legs emerged from her dress, a couple inches above her ankles.
She looked at me a second, then said, “I’m sorry, Karen, but I can’t sign your card unless you’re here for the whole session.”
I smiled. “I know that, Sarah. That’s not why I’m here.”
“Why don’t you sit, Karen?” She sat down.
“Do you have just a minute?” I sat down next to her. The chairs were set up in a circle.
“Of course.” She swiveled her chair so that it faced mine. She looked at me. “You’ve been crying. Is there something I can help you with?” She reached out her hand, putting it on top of mine.
“I just wanted to say thank you.” I couldn’t look at her face. Her hand was thin, covered with blue veins and some faint liver spots.
“You’re very welcome,” she said. “Do you want to tell me why you’re thanking me?” Her voice was soft, calming. I don’t know what she did for a living, but I bet it had something to do with helping people who’ve screwed things up badly—or were dying.
“The other night, you said something I’ve been thinking about.”
“What was that?”
“You were talking about how sometimes things go badly, but you have to keep going, keep trying every day, keep fighting to make the world a little less brutal.”
“That does sound like me,” she said. “I do believe that.” She paused. “Do you want to talk about that, Karen?”
“No,” I said. “Not really.”
“Are you sure?” Sara
h said. “I have time. You might feel better if we talked a little.”
“No, I don’t have anything to say about it.” I paused. “I really don’t have anything I need to say. I just wanted to say thank you. You don’t have to do this. I mean, these meetings. And even though a lot of people—me, specifically—don’t seem to be getting anything out of them, I want you to know that I do appreciate what you’re doing. I think you’re trying to do just what you said—make the world a little less brutal. And you accomplish that, I think you really do, just by talking with people like me. I’m going to try very hard to do that, I mean, in my own life.” I stopped talking.
“This is my phone number, Karen.” She took a scrap of paper out of her bag and jotted it down. “If I’m not here, I’m probably there.”
I nodded my head.
She stood, bent down over me, hugging my head to her chest. I heard her heart beating, soft with a steady rhythm.
Chapter 15
Driving west out of Rawlings was like traveling back in time. In the fifteen years since Bruce and I settled in Rawlings, it had come to look like every other small city in the nation—the same big boxes, office-supply, hardware, electronics, linens. If you wanted to buy exactly the same crapola as your sister in Seattle and your brother in Boston, just grab your plastic and get on Montana State Road 53.
Less than two miles out of town, the stores started to change. First came RV Row, five dealers each with hundreds of shiny white trailers and motor homes, all pimped out with air con and awnings and those slide-out living rooms so you could pack a widescreen, kick back, and watch videos about camping and hunting. Next came a bunch of dealers clearing out the snowmobiles at deep discounts—after all, you wouldn’t want to be seen on last year’s Ski-Doo.
The restaurants out here weren’t offering a cuisine, like they did in town. No eateries, no urban bistros, no unique dining experiences. No Thai, no fondue, no sushi. Out here it was good food, home cooking, and, in one case, good eats, complete with a free pie for a family of four. Every mile, the stores kept changing as neon signs turned to painted plywood. Army-Navy, gun shops, small-engine repair, lawn mowers, rabbits for sale, vegetables, firewood, clean fill, worms.
Ten miles out of town put me in the great, rolling prairies that dipped down into coulees and then climbed back up to swelling foothills. Every so often, there was a big old bunch of jagged rocks breaking out of the grasses, like whoever made Montana was saying, yeah, I’ll give you picturesque, but show me some damn respect. I can hurt you. The wind was up, as it almost always was, whipping grit onto my paint, pushing the car back and forth as I drove down the two-lane, headed west. Weathered fence posts supported thick strands of barbed wire, although it wasn’t always obvious what they were keeping in or keeping out. Thunderhead clouds streaked across the sky, throwing shadows on the endless plains grasses and the occasional grain silo and elevator. Herds of cattle, miniature black and white shapes, dotted the vista off to the north.
I had a small suitcase on the passenger seat. I’d tossed some things into it this morning—some underwear, a few turtlenecks, a pair of jeans—after I decided to head out to Lake Hollow on my own. It took maybe thirty seconds. After all, you pack for a trip, you think about what you’re going to be doing, where you’re going to be staying, what the weather will be. Do you need something for dress up? Shoes are always a big decision. But this time it was easy. I was going out to visit the Montana Patriot Front, stop by and chat with the Reverend Christopher Barry about a murder, probably get myself killed. What would I need? Nothing special, really. Jeans, obviously, because it’s definitely casual. Comfortable, sturdy shoes, a warm coat. Where would I be staying? No need for reservations to sleep at the bottom of a ravine, a bullet through my forehead, a big black crow pecking at an eyeball.
I’d swapped out my service revolver, a Smith & Wesson 9mm, for my own Colt Defender. After all, I was off duty. Way off duty since I’d found out Nick Corelli wasn’t being straight with me and Ryan about Willson Fredericks’ email. At least about that. What else he was lying about I didn’t know, but there was a real good chance it was a bunch of other things—and that I’d find out in the next twenty-four hours or so.
I reached under my car seat and felt the three extra six-round magazines I’d brought with me. I had them in case my life turned into one of those shitty video games Tommy used to play. With the fresh magazine in my Colt and those three extra ones, I could take out twenty-four Nazis—or twenty-three Nazis and one FBI agent, if he was really just another Nazi. I’d have to shoot straight, but I’m an okay shot, especially when my target was a black silhouette of a thug printed on butcher paper hanging on a pulley, coming straight at me at three miles an hour. Naturally, all bets were off if the guy was real, weighed maybe two hundred, and carried a brick.
I am truly an idiot.
I’d said all the goodbyes I needed to. I’d have liked to see Ryan one more time, but he wouldn’t have let me go. My thinking was if he didn’t know where I was going, he couldn’t stop me. I’d turned off my phone, gotten in the car, and started driving. I would just do this, just finish it off. Resolve it. Whatever it was. I wasn’t going to sit around headquarters, doing nothing, while that son of a bitch was out there, smiling about what he’d done to Dolores Weston.
Driving west out of Rawlings, toward the Continental Divide and the forests and Lake Hollow, where they keep Swastika City, there’s a lot of nothing. I’m sure if I remembered anything about glaciers and tectonic plates and geomorphology and all the other junk I’d studied in Rocks 101, which I took because I was afraid of bio, chem, and physics, this whole trip would be fascinating, right up through getting tossed into the ravine, which probably dates back a couple million years and through its strata reveals many interesting insights about the region’s history. But I remembered zip from Rocks 101, so instead of marveling at the magnificent vistas around me, I thought about the putrid stuff inside me. Not exactly healthy or productive.
I was coming to a stretch where the road snaked along one of the tributaries of the Missouri, running shallow and turbulent over the jagged rocks, tossing up silver spray. I liked this part of this drive, full of tight curves and a couple hairpins, which drove like a car commercial. I pushed the four tiny cylinders of my Honda, the engine pinging loud, the body leaning pretty good, not enough to roll it and tumble into the river, which at least two or three drunken teenagers did every year on this stretch, but enough to keep me concentrating and therefore not feeling too sorry for myself.
Then I was in the woods, filled with skyscraper pines and fir and cedar and spruce, which traced patches of shade on the road. I could smell the sweet wood and the juicy brown soil through my air vents. Every dozen or so miles, a little town would appear, not really a town, just a gas station and a convenience store and a bar. The smaller the town, the larger the sign telling you when it was started and how many people lived there.
Tommy once asked me what happened when someone in a little town died or was born. Did they change the sign? I didn’t know. They couldn’t afford to change it every time someone checked in or out, of course, but maybe once a year. Or they could make the signs so you could update the number when things changed. That wouldn’t be too expensive. Yet most of the signs looked as old as me, and a lot of them had taken quite a few rounds of small-arms fire. But I didn’t see one where the number gets updated. Life just goes on—unless you’re one of the ones who died.
That’s not literally true. Life does go on, even if you’re worm food. If you thought the universe died when you died—well, that would be crazy. I’m crazy, but I’m not that crazy yet.
Really, there was no reason not to head out to Lake Hollow. The Nazis were out of their minds, but at least you knew where you stood with them. Not so much with Nick Corelli and the chief.
I exited 53 at Lake Hollow and followed the directions I’d downloaded this morning. Spotting the hand-painted sign that read M.P.F., the Montana Patriot Front, I
continued down a pockmarked asphalt road that looked like it hadn’t been re-paved in decades. The pines grew thicker and taller. One had a blackened gash easily ten feet long, exposing the virgin wood. The trunk above the gash dangled awkwardly from the spot where the lightning had struck.
The road turned to gravel after about a half mile, and another hand-painted sign told me to keep driving straight on. Seeing a car approach me on the one-lane gravel path, I pulled onto the grass shoulder. The driver hit his horn and gave me a big wave, not only to say thanks but also, presumably, to greet a fellow patriot.
I drove on another quarter mile until I saw the Montana Patriot Front compound a hundred yards up ahead. I pulled my Honda off to the side and shut it down. The engine made little clicking noises as I got out and walked up toward the entrance. There was an entrance gate, like you see at ranches, but this one was made of three stripped logs, each a good foot in diameter. Very simple, symmetrical design: two vertical poles, about twelve feet tall, set fifteen feet apart, a third log spanning the two at the top.
Hanging from it was a black wrought-iron sign with foot-tall letters saying “Montana Patriot Front,” in a blocky typeface like you see in the Slow Down painted on the street. Attached to each vertical pole, level with the sign, was a stylized wrought-iron swastika, with each of the four arms jagged to look like lightning bolts. The entrance gate was meant to look real outdoorsy and manly, but it was high-quality work. The three poles were held together with mortise-and-tenon joints, the tenons sticking out a little on the sides. The wrought-iron sign alone must have cost thousands, and the three stripped logs were shiny with varnish.
Radiating out from each side of the entrance gate was heavy-duty hurricane fencing, eight feet tall, topped with another couple feet of razor wire. The compound appeared to be a rough circle, enclosing six or eight acres. Outside the fence was a thirty-yard perimeter where the trees and brush had been cleared. Inside the compound I saw two buildings in the distance, a few old pines, and a handful of cars parked off to the side of one of the buildings. Flanking the two buildings, a hundred yards apart, just inside the fencing, were a couple of wooden guard towers, ten-by-ten platforms with corrugated tin roofs, suspended twenty feet off the ground on sturdy looking studs, held secure with diagonal bracing. One guard on each tower.
