Prodigal Blues

by Gary A Braunbeck

  I heard the squeak of the Airstream's door being opened, then felt a heavy shake as the body was tossed inside. Another squeak, a couple of clicks, and Christopher walked across the lot with some kind of container dangling from his hand. I leaned back my head and closed my eyes. I heard something sloshing around. Then footsteps. The door opening, then closing. Another click, then movement beside me. I opened my eyes just in time to see Christopher light a cigarette.

  "Those things'll kill you," I said.

  "So will getting up every morning, eventually." He shoved the lighter back into its slot, then put the bus into gear and began moving toward the exit. "Lucky none of those trucks are hauling gas or kerosene." He looked out toward the merge ramp, then, just as we were passing our twin, flipped out the cigarette; it arced smoothly through the night air and into the passenger window. The inside of the bus belched flame, Christopher shifted gears, and were well onto the highway before the fire started getting really serious.

  "Here," he said, popping the lid off a plastic pill container. "Hold out your hand."

  I did, and he tapped out a pair of small blue pills, then handed me an opened can of Pepsi. "Go on, take those. You'll be okay, just take them."

  I knew I should ask what they were, but at that moment I didn't care. He said I'd be okay if I took them. Being okay sounded good. So I took them.

  Should've asked him what they were first, said Buttercup. Mojo's henchmen are everywhere.

  I told her to mind her own business and leaned back my head once more.

  Behind us, I could hear Arnold stirring awake. "Hey… what's… what's going on?"

  "I needed to stop for a piss," said Christopher.

  "Well thanks a lot for waking me up."

  "Do you have to go?"

  "…no, not really. But it would've been nice if you'd asked."

  Buttercup whispered, You're hanging with some real goof-a-doofuses, you know that, right?

  I closed my eyes, searching for the lake.

  Dad was whistling some off-key tune.

  And laughing.

  He hadn't laughed in the longest time. I wanted to find his boat. I'd heard the fishing was pretty good around here….

  10. All Who Ride In This Bus Shall Be Protected

  The order of events during the next four hours remains jumbled in my memory; the sedatives Christopher gave me weren't quite strong enough to knock me all the way into la-la land, but they did surround everything with a pleasant, numbed, gauzy haze where for a while the world moved in slow motion, as if everyone and everything were underwater. I know that we drove for quite a while. I know that everyone started waking up just as the sedatives started kicking in. I know that every time I closed my eyes I saw the dead guy's body lying in front of me, only sometimes he got up into a kneeling position and tore off his makeup to reveal Grendel's face underneath. I know I tried to keep my eyes open as long as possible after that.

  I remember Christopher and Rebecca talking about my waist size; had she noticed what it was when she was washing the pants? 38? Good. Does he look like he wears a large or extra-large shirt? It was decided that extra-large would be the way to go, just to be safe. The Marshall Tucker boys were singing about fire on the mountain and Arnold was complaining that they'd been listening to that same damn CD for the last six days, wasn't it about time something else was put in there and Christopher said music is always the driver's choice and Arnold said that wasn't fair and Christopher said okay jesus anything to shut you up what do you want to hear and Arnold asked if there was any Billy Joel and Rebecca vetoed that because Billy Joel's voice always sounded so sad and then there was a discussion over the virtues of The Beatles versus Pearl Jam or Led Zeppelin and then Thomas started singing about how dumb Bill and Dale looked when they were sleeping and Christopher said they had about ten seconds to decide and then he was going to crank up the Barbara Streisand and everyone groaned in horror and Arnold said that if there was any Frank Sinatra that'd be cool and Rebecca agreed and soon the Chairman of the Board was crooning away about those vagabond blues and they were all singing along and it sounded like fun so Buttercup joined in and I almost faded out for a bit but then remembered the feel of blood on my hands and the stench of shit in my nostrils and started crying again but not too loudly because I didn't want to spoil their sing-along and then there were very bright lights and the sounds of many cars and people and we came to a stop and someone got out and I opened my eyes and saw that we were at another major truck stop and then Christopher was gently slapping the same side of my face over and over tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-tap-Tap-TAP-TAP.

  "He awake?" asked Arnold.

  "He is now," said Christopher.

  "How'd he get all that blood on him?"

  "I told you guys once already, he got a nosebleed while you guys were sleeping back there. We need to get him cleaned up. Any sign of Rebecca yet?"

  "Yeah, I think I see her."

  One of the side doors opened and she climbed in, carrying several large plastic bags from various shops.

  "Get everything?" asked Christopher.

  "I'm going to pretend you didn't ask me that."

  "Sorry."

  "You'd better be. Jeez, asking me if I remembered everything." I wondered if it was cold out, she was trembling so.

  I came fully awake when something wet and cold and reeking of alcohol began running in circles around my face. I coughed, sputtered, and pushed it away. When my eyes were able to fully focus again, I saw Rebecca kneeling between the two front bucket seats, a large container of pre-moistened sanitary wipes balanced between her knees. "Sorry," she said. "I didn't mean to startle you, but we have to get you cleaned up. We're going to be dropping off Thomas in a little while and need you looking your best." She continued cleaning me off. "You must have really opened the floodgates. This is twice now that your nose has bled real bad." There was a tone in her voice that told me in no uncertain terms she did not for one second believe Christopher's story. She paused with a fresh wipe in her hand and looked into my eyes. "Are you all right?" She wasn't asking about my supposed nosebleed; she wanted to know if I was dealing with whatever it was Christopher and I had done while they were asleep.

  "I don't know," I whispered. She cleaned off my cheek, then leaned up and kissed me there.

  "You're a good guy, Mark. If I was ten years older, you might be in trouble."

  I smiled. "You're really sweet, you know that?"

  "Of course. It's nice to know you have good taste. Make sure you tell Tanya for me that she'd better keep you happy; I just might come calling in a few years if she doesn't."

  "Oh, she'll love hearing that."

  It took the whole container of wipes and at least half of another one to get all the blood and other liquids cleaned off. Christopher was standing outside, leaning against the front of the bus, smoking a cigarette. Rebecca handed me one of the large plastic bags. "New pants and a new shirt. You can change in the back seat. I'll sit up here, but I won't promise not to look."

  I tried remembering where I'd heard someone say something like that before, then decided it didn't matter. I fumbled my way into the back seat where Arnold helped me get out of my soaked clothes and into the new ones. My ruined jeans and shirt went into a trash bag that Arnold tied off and stuffed under the seat.

  "I almost forgot," said Rebecca, tossing a small package over her shoulder. "Your new socks."

  I finished changing, then used a few more sanitary wipes to clean my shoes; thankfully I'd worn a pair of work boots on the trip and they were dark enough that whatever blood remained on them was hardly noticeable.

  "Might wanna run a couple of them wipes through your hair," said Arnold. I did, and they came away bloodied. A comb was offered, and used, and according to the reflection from the rearview mirror, I looked presentable enough—aside from the gash across the bridge of my nose and the slightly bruised left eye. Rebecca cleaned the gash on my nose, then covered it with a flesh-colored Band-Aid.

 
; "My work here is done," she said.

  "Thank you."

  "Here," said Arnold, shoving something that looked like a wallet into my hand. I flipped it open and saw my driver's license through the plastic window of the only pocket; on the other side of the wallet's interior was a bright pointed gold badge that identified itself as belonging to a U.S. Marshal.

  "Is this thing real?"

  "You bet," said Arnold. "Grendel had a lot of connections."

  "Just make sure that when you flash that thing," said Rebecca, "that you cover up as much of your license as you can. The idea is for them to only see the picture of your face and the badge."

  "Are you alright?" I asked. "You're shaking like a leaf in the wind."

  "I'm okay. I guess… I guess it's just finally hitting me that… we're all going home, y'know?"

  I squeezed her hand. Her skin was slightly clammy. It must have been both chilly and damp outside.

  Christopher pulled open one of the side doors and examined the scene before him. "He looks good. You give him the wallet?"

  I held up the badge, making sure that my thumb and fingers covered everything on the license except my face.

  Christopher nodded. "That's exactly the way you need to hold it. Make sure you remember that."

  "I could go to prison for the rest of my life if I get caught."

  "Yes, but you're not going to get caught. I have magic powers. All who ride in this bus will be protected."

  "Man's got a line of bullshit three miles wide and twice as deep," said Arnold. "If I could lay it on like that, I'd be a star."

  Christopher snorted a quick laugh. "Does anyone need to go to the bathroom or dance a jig or get anything before we head out?"

  Everyone shook their heads, then looked as one toward Thomas, who had fallen back asleep. He even hummed in his sleep.

  Not looking away, Christopher whispered, "You got everything he'll need packed up and ready to go?"

  Rebecca did not look away from Thomas, either. "Yes," she said, with a deep and profound sadness.

  Arnold cleared his throat. "Should we, uh… should we wake him up now or wait until we're—"

  "Wait," said Rebecca. "Please. Please wait."

  "I second that," said Christopher. "All in favor."

  Everyone raised their hands.

  Christopher pulled in a breath, held it for a few moments, then let it out in a quick, hard burst. "Well, hell's bells, people. I never thought we'd ever be doing this."

  "Me neither," said Rebecca.

  "All in favor," Arnold said.

  Everyone raised their hands.

  "Who calls shotgun?" asked Christopher.

  "Me," replied Arnold, and we all took our seats. Once back out on the highway, Arnold moved to start the CD again but stopped when Rebecca said, "No music right now, okay? I don't much feel like it."

  Arnold shrugged. "I guess I don't, either." He sat with his hands folded in his lap, the quiet and ever-attentive student who everyone suspected was the teacher's pet.

  After a while, Christopher broke the silence. "Well, at least we won't have to worry about him messing up at line 757 again."

  Arnold shook his head. "He never could get that right."

  "Line 757?" I asked.

  "Beowulf," said Rebecca. "It was Grendel's bedtime story. Every night after he chained us back up—after we'd done our chores for the day, tending his gardens and all that—he'd pull up a chair in the middle of our room and have us recite it to him, beginning to end. Thomas always messed up line 757: '…the dealings he had there/were like nothing he had come across in his lifetime.'"

  "'Then Hygelac's brave kinsman called to mind/that evening's utterance," I said, "upright he stood,/fastened his hold till fingers were bursting./The monster strained away; the man stepped closer.' 'Beowulf and Grendel Wrestle', right?"

  Arnold turned around, staring. Christopher looked at me in the rear-view mirror. Rebecca leaned closer and said, "You know Beowulf?"

  I nodded. "I wrote a paper on it in college."

  "You went to college?" asked Arnold.

  "Yeah. I have a Master's degree in English."

  "Then why in hell did you tell me you were a janitor?" snapped Christopher.

  "Because I am."

  He glared at me from the mirror. "You have a Master's in English and you clean toilets for a living?"

  "I also strip and wax floors, empty trash cans, polish desks, dust shelves, vacuum carpets, and do windows. I'm told me and my crew are pretty good at it."

  "Why? Why would someone with your education choose to do that instead of teaching?"

  I shrugged. "What the hell difference does it make to you?"

  "Come on," said Rebecca, softly smacking my arm. "Don't be that way, please? Tell us."

  "Yeah, man," Arnold said. "I'd kinda like to know myself."

  "All in favor," said Christopher.

  Everyone raised their hands.

  "Motion carries, Pretty Boy. Spill."

  "You're going to keep calling me that no matter how many times or how nicely I ask you not to, aren't you?"

  "Stop trying to change the subject."

  I rubbed my eyes and sighed. "Look, my wife's been asking me that same question off and on for years. I've never been able to give her a good answer, okay? And I doubt that any epiphanies are going to occur now,"

  "'Epiphanies,'" said Arnold. "Sounds like a college word to me."

  "Very funny."

  "Then takes a guess," said Rebecca. "C'mon, Mark. You have to have some idea."

  "Maybe."

  "Well, then?"

  I looked down at my hands, saw the calluses on the palms, and remembered the way Dad's hands had always felt so rough whenever he hugged me or shook my hand or touched my cheek when I was a boy. He'd always seemed so embarrassed that his hands weren't softer.

  "When I graduated," I said, as much to myself as them, "Mom and Dad were so damned proud of me. Neither one of them had even finished high school, and here was their son graduating college. Tanya and I had just gotten engaged, so as far as they were concerned, my future was a lock. Dad still had about seven or eight years left before retirement, and I think it made him feel good to know that his boy was never going to have to work the line or walk a picket during a labor strike or worry about how much bologna he could afford for lunch because the bills had cleaned out most of last week's paycheck. Whenever we'd talk about my plans, Dad would get this look on his face about halfway through the conversation like he didn't understand what I was saying—of course by that time I'd get off on some tangent about Carson McCullers or James Agee or some other writer, and I'd be so busy talking about what books I wanted to teach to students that I forgot Dad wasn't much of a reader. Oh, he read Readers Digest and DAV Magazine, the articles in TV Guide, but novels and short stories, essays, poetry… I was talking way over his head. I didn't mean to. He tried to keep up, he asked all kinds of questions that I always had answers for, but the more we talked, the more I could see that he was… he was embarrassed. His son was smarter than him—I never once believed that, but what I believed wasn't the point; how he felt was. And my dad was embarrassed because he thought he looked like a dummy.

  "One night as I was filling out an application for an adjunct faculty position at OSU, I realized that once I started teaching, my conversations with Dad would become more and more strained, and we'd be reduced to asinine smalltalk—the weather, sports, inflation, politics—and I didn't want that. I didn't want him to feel like he couldn't talk to me. So I told my folks that until a permanent position opened up at OSU or Otterbein or Columbus State, I was going to take a temporary maintenance position because it paid well and I needed to get some money in the bank right away because, well, I had these student loans…

  "They understood, and weren't disappointed in the least. Dad even said that it was the sensible thing to do, because the adjunct faculty position didn't pay a whole helluva lot, and with my degree I deserved something more substa
ntial. Plus, it gave us all sorts of new things to talk about; the job was damned hard work, and Dad understood all about hard work, and respected me for my decision. Plus, it got so I was able to give Mom countless cleaning tips after a while and, boy, did she love that. I got really good at the job, was given a raise and put in charge of a small crew, and after a while was offered the supervisor's position at a sizeable pay increase with decent benefits, so I took it. I told Tanya that it would only be for another year or so, just to help us build up that nest egg before we got married. Then I told everyone I wanted to stay on until I could train a suitable replacement, but I somehow never got around to looking for one. Then it was going to be just until after Dad retired. And somewhere in there I started looking at the students who were coming in to OSU, how arrogant and sycophantic most of them were, walking around with this attitude that said they already knew everything and were just here for the diploma so they could get out in the world and make the big bucks. For them, college had nothing to do with learning, education didn't mean shit—it was all just a means to a hefty paycheck of one kind or another. And these were kids who looked at me and laughed because what was I?—just some stupid janitor with a mop in one hand and a bottle of Windex in the other. And it finally dawned on me that they way they looked at me, the way they treated me, the outright pity or contempt they showed… it was the same way Dad thought I looked at him.

  "So I decided, fuck this noise, and to hell with all of them. I had a good job and money in the bank and a wife who loved me and a dad I could talk to and a mom who needed ongoing household cleaning tips, so why mess with a good thing? I wasn't going to be a teacher who could inspire the likes of them, so why have an illusion shattered." I laughed without much humor. "Of course Mom and Dad are both dead now and our bank account isn't what it used to be. It probably won't be long before Tanya starts asking again if I've I found a replacement yet. I don't know how to tell her that I'm no longer that English grad she married. I'm just a janitor, mop in one hand, bottle of Windex in the other, and I'm actually pretty okay with that." I sighed once more, stretched my back, and look up at all of them. "Was that enough of a guess for you? Because I'm fresh out if it wasn't."