by J. D. Palmer
Josey sings a song that no one knows. Hell, no one has heard it. I smile, I’ve heard him mumbling it in the back seat, composing it as we drive.
“An empty field and an empty house,
Empty highways and leaves on the ground,
I do not know if you are around,
In the mountains or out of town.
All I can do is try…”
He stops singing and there is a moment of silence. Then he grins his devilish grin and rips into a song about sleeping with an older woman. Dancing resumes and the man who woke me up, I guess his name is Dixon, trots out a polaroid camera. Pictures are taken, in pairs or alone, happy and drunk and sometimes sad. Maria pulls me into a close embrace as our photograph is taken. She rips it from Dixon’s hands before the image has developed. She hovers over it and, pleased with what gradually appears, disappears down the hall.
I sit down, sweaty and almost carefree. A whiskey bottle is passed to me and I find Mickey next to me. He offers me a chew and I laugh and tell him I’m not man enough for that. Maria reappears and hands me the polaroid. She has scrawled her name on the back. “Maria Velasquez, me recuerdas.”
She mumbles a stream of Spanish and I shake my head. “I didn’t get that.” She looks at Mickey. “She says she wants you to keep it.” He gives a little chuckle. “Told ya you had a fan.”
I look up at her and give her a nod. Maybe she is flirting. Part of me thinks that she needs to do this, leave some physical part of herself so that she can face tomorrow. Another picture is placed in my hands. The pen is handed around and names are scrawled and pictures are gently placed next to me.
“Don’t you lose this now.”
“Something to remember us by.”
“Tell people what we did, right?”
“If you meet a woman named Emily, and she sees this and knows me… Tell her I’m sorry.”
I hold the pictures in sweaty palms and promise everyone to keep them. It’s odd. My fuzzy mind remembers learning in history class that Native Americans would not allow their pictures to be taken, claiming the photographs stole their souls. Here it’s almost the opposite. As if these small squares of ink have captured the spirit of the person, ensuring that they’ll live forever. Or simply proving that they lived at all.
I get up and weave my way outside. I don’t feel well. Too much liquor, I think. Or is it that I’m crushed by leaving these men and women to such a dark fate? Am I being selfish wanting to go home instead of fighting? Am I being a coward? Maybe John is right and I have turned into a person with no semblance of a backbone.
The rain feels good. A slight patter of droplets compared with the storm of the last day and a half. I raise my face and close my eyes and hope it washes me clean.
Footsteps scuff the sidewalk. Maria’s hand traces a path around my side as she slips around me and pushes her body next to mine. For a second she shelters herself beneath me, arms hunched together and a shiver that has nothing to do with the cold of the rain. Then her arms snake around my neck and she pulls my head down to hers. The kiss is deep and desperate, hands coiled in my long hair as we move into each other in a way both gentle and urgent.
My body and mind respond with joy to this release of tension and fear.
For a second.
I break the embrace, my torpid brain struggling to find words to tell her of why I can’t continue. Reasons that elude me but that I stubbornly cling to. Faith in the survival of Jessica and my child. Faith that though Beryl and I are not together there is still a bond worth keeping unbroken.
I don’t need to say anything. Maria is weeping, clinging to me now as she sobs, streams of Spanish pouring out of her. I do not know what she says but I hear the fear, the lamentation, the tremulous quest for something to live for.
I hold her as she breaks down. I hold her and am thankful that we don’t speak the same language and I don’t have to fumble through words of comfort. I hold her and hope someone is doing the same for my family. For Jessica.
Then she is gone, a shadow in the night.
I walk back inside and it’s quiet. Josey and a short blonde are disappearing down the hall. Mickey and Sheila are gone, as are most of the soldiers that aren’t passed out on the benches. No sign of Maria.
Theo rests his head on the table next to Beryl, bleary eyes struggling to focus. She sits still, tired and sober, back rigid and eyes unwilling to meet mine. I sit across from them for a second. I want to tell her what happened. Or what didn’t happen. I want to ask her if she is still mad at me. Is she waiting up to talk to me? Or to see if I go to bed with someone?
I want to tell her how much she means to me.
I’m fucking wasted.
I get up from the table, almost tripping, and start to totter off to bed. Nothing good can come from me speaking right now.
“I’m sorry.”
I turn, confused by the words. She looks at me, face hard.
“What?” Apparently that’s all I can muster.
She is rigid, tense. “I’m… You have a child.”
The words floor me. I am too drunk and too unprepared for this. She looks at me now, hard eyes that hide a jumble of emotions.
“You have a child. And… And Jessica. And I am… Broken.”
Her words are whispered, stuttered, forced out of a mouth knotted with tension. “There is no room for me.”
Silence. I look at Theo to see if he is listening and regret it. I shouldn’t worry if someone else hears this. I scramble, desperately trying to pull my wits together to respond appropriately.
“I’m the one who should be sorry.” And I should be. I had not thought of this, us, asking her to come with me as I look for my other life. Is it my other life?
“When we were… at Stuart’s…”
I am startled. My head jerking up to look at Beryl as she starts to talk about an unspeakable time. She stares straight ahead, the words coming more easily as they slowly tumble out.
“He took hope away. I didn’t know what was real because I didn’t care.” She pauses, face twisted in remembered pain. “I knew you were there, by the way. I knew. I heard you every day when you spoke to me.”
She cries as she speaks, but she doesn’t acknowledge the salty water making tracks down her cheeks. She forges on ahead, her will as evident now as it has ever been during these dark days.
“I… recovered… myself… Because of you.” Her red-rimmed eyes lock onto mine. “I love you, Har.” A moment’s pause, and then words tumble out of her mouth in a torrent that leaves me chilled.
“I love you. But I don’t know… if that’s simply because of… what we went through together. I don’t know… if it’s you… or if it’s because I’m messed up and you take care of me.”
“I don’t take care of you, you take—”
She silences me with a hand. “It doesn’t matter. You have your family. And I want to… to help you get there. But I have to…”
She can’t finish the sentence and it hangs there between us. I know what she means. She wants distance. She wants me to have the freedom to find my family without having to make a choice. I know it’s what we should do. I don’t know if it’s what I want, though. God, my mind is too befuddled to think straight. Or maybe I’m just as messed up as she is. With all the death and chaos we’ve been through it’s hard for me to find justification for letting her push me away.
Except for Jessica. Who may or may not be alive.
I look back at Beryl and wonder what she thinks about me. What she sees. This is the most she has shown the inner workings of her mind. Does she think that I am merely keeping her as some sort of placeholder? Or keeping her around in case Jessica is dead?
I don’t know what the right thing to do is.
“I love you, too.” I don’t go to her, unsure of my own feet and unsure if I could stomach a grimace on her face at my touch. So I stare into her eyes, the same way I used to look at her when we were imprisoned with a madman, willing her to take what str
ength I have to offer.
“Whatever you need. Just don’t leave me. Please don’t leave me.”
We are unceremoniously dropped off at our cars before the sun has crested the sky. They gas up our cars but we aren’t given anything else. I wouldn’t have taken it if it was. Theo drank too much beer last night and curls up in the back seat immediately.
Mickey is nothing but gruff nods and tells us all to get out as fast as we can. Everyone in his group is too focused on their day, their possible last day, to worry about long goodbyes. Maria gives me a quick hug but doesn’t make eye contact. Josey wasn’t awake for this and I’m almost glad.
This is a hard world to say goodbyes.
I corner Mickey before we leave and tell him about Montana. It’s awkward, we both know that he is as likely to leave this place as I am to stay. But I feel like I have a bond with this man. Someone who can go through hell and remain somewhat whole.
I need to make this effort for him. A man that I grew to trust, to feel a brotherhood with in just a couple days. Why?
He made it okay.
He made it okay to be a monster. To be something, anything, as long as it protects the people you love. And I needed to see that. I didn’t realize how much guilt I had been carrying with John, that every time he questioned me or questioned my actions I felt a part of my soul get stripped away. I felt like an evil person.
Mickey didn’t take that away. He just made me feel less alone for the first time in a long time. A man who isn’t afraid to change when the world changes, and somehow doesn’t become something warped into a lesser version of himself. I doubt we’d have gotten along had we met in the world before. Funny, that.
I tell him he’s invited to come up and cause hell up north and he spits on the ground and says he has no interest in fucking sheep. But he shakes my hand and I know, if there is nothing back home for me, I’ll come back.
If there is something here when this devil is done with it.
John makes one last attempt to pull him aside and plead his case. Mickey ignores him, striding away towards the cars but John jogs alongside him. “Please, please, think about what you are planning on doing. Think about the longterm effect—”
Mickey grabs John by his shirt and thrusts him into the truck. “Enough.” He leans into John, their faces inches apart. “I have had plenty of time to think about it. I have spent sleepless nights THINKING about it. Enough!” He takes a step forward. “Be on your way and live a long glorious life of peace and serenity, you ungrateful asshole.”
He says this but doesn’t let go of John. For a second I see the hidden side of Mickey, the part of him that is a burning building only barely contained. The stress of their mission threatens to allow the fire to escape his control and I get between them as Steven pulls his brother to a car and bundles him inside. Mickey takes a deep breath, his eyes hard, and thumps me on the chest.
“You’re a braver man than I. Good luck.”
And with that they’re gone, the truck roaring back towards Livermore. Everyone else is already loaded into their vehicles. I offer to switch with Steven and drive with John. I’m rebuffed. John is in the driver’s seat, waiting for his brother. Steven looks at me, shakes his head and repeats the mantra, “give him time.”
At least he’s here.
Beryl hesitates, I see her thinking about joining the brothers in their car and my heart aches. I don’t want her to push me away, no matter how good the reasons. In the end she climbs into the passenger side next to me, a different kind of silence between us than there ever was before.
We wind our way through the urban sprawl and back to the interstate. Theo snores in the backseat. I do my best to stay alert, mind clouded by worry and regret and a feeling of guilt I can’t pinpoint.
I’d kill for coffee.
The interstate is smooth, clear of cars and debris and as the sun crests the distant hills we start to pick up speed. But I do not feel the exuberance, the freedom of the road. I feel heavier, weighed down by everything that has transpired and is soon to transpire.
I am not a religious person in the sense that I believe in any god. I wasn’t raised in a church and my parents were disenfranchised Catholics. I always joked that I was too smart to believe in organized religion and too dumb to be an atheist. But I do believe in something. I believe that the universe has its own spirit, that we are all in essence the same life force swirling in and out of one existence to another. I don’t know what you would call that. But I pray to it now. I pray for all the division and chaos and anger to one day end. I pray that happiness still exists somewhere in this fractured world.
“Where are they?”
Two hours into the drive and Beryl reaches a hand out to roughly grip my arm. She is looking behind us.
“What?”
“Where are they?”
I look in the rearview and don’t see John. He had been staying fairly far back for awhile now. I figured he was letting me know just how large of a gulf lay between us. There is nothing but empty road.
I slam on the brakes, waking Theo.
“What? We okay?”
I don’t say a word as I turn around, worry roiling through my guts. Did they get caught by someone? Run out of gas…? No that’s not possible, Mickey gassed up our cars. Why didn’t I see them?
Theo asks again what’s going on.
“The brothers aren’t behind us, must’ve had to stop.”
We whip around and speed back the way we came. I curse myself for not paying better attention. A million horrible scenarios play out for me. Ran off the road. Captured. Tortured. Bound in chains to a wall. Fuck me, another death because I have to go home.
It’s with relief that I see the figure walk out into the road ahead of us. Steven waves his hands in the air, tattooed arms apparent. I roar up next to him, screeching to a halt and jumping out. Something isn’t right.
“Where’s John?”
Steven rubs a hand through his long hair. He takes a piece of paper out of his shirt and tosses it at me.
“He said we had a flat tire. I got out and he just left…”
He is trying not to cry. I read the note. John’s hand a lawyer’s, penmanship immaculate.
To you all, I’m sorry. I can’t stand by and let this happen. This world was filled with death and destruction before, it is worse seeing it now. I, we, have the power to stop wanton killing. Unneeded sacrifices. We can’t start to rebuild until we come together. I’m going back to stop them from destroying what little we have left. Do not follow.
I am stunned. I look to Steven, he has his hands on top of his head and he keeps his back to us. I can’t imagine what he must be feeling. Betrayal? Worry? Anger?
I pass the note to Beryl, Theo reads over her shoulder.
“What the fuck?” Theo tries to sort out the development through his headache.
“What the fuck?”
I walk to Steven. “What do you want to do?”
He vents some anger. “That fucking idiot! Fuck!” He marches to the car and leans on it. “Guess I have to go get him. Fuck!”
He paces and I stare at the ground and Theo leans against the car with eyes closed. Beryl and I exchange looks. She knows what will happen here. John asked me how long I could stand by and let people die. And now he’s forced me off of the sidelines. Not for him but for Steven. For Mickey and his platoon.
“Shit.” I pick up a stone and fling it into an empty field. I just want to go home. It’s as if I’m a mote of dust fighting an invisible wind, gusts that keep picking me up and taking me backwards.
“Why did he drive out here if he knew he was going back?” Theo is still confused, brows furrowed as he stares down at the note.
“He wanted us far enough away. Just in case… He was protecting his brother.” I say the words even as my mind is thinking ahead, trying to find an angle of action. Do not follow. John is relying on my passiveness to keep us out of the conflict. Relying on me to keep Steven away from the city.
“If I can take the car I can start now.” Steven is all ire, eyes closed as he talks to me and hand held out for the keys dangling in my hand. “I can catch up to him and bring him back. Or… You don’t have to wait. You can keep going and we can catch up later.” He snaps his hand out again. “Please?”
I look down at the keys. All I have to do is give them over to him. And that would be it. Another goodbye. Probably for good.
And I don’t know how much I want John back. But losing John would be losing Steven. A brother and a friend.
I look at Beryl, wanting her to shake her head. But there is nothing dismissive in her eyes. Eyes that hold me and make me remember when we first met the brothers. How scared we were. How I told her we had to try. How they stuck with me through my sickness. How John and Steven saved me in Camelot.
“We’re going,” she says, and it’s my turn to nod.
Theo perks up. “What?”
“We’re going.” I start to climb into the car.
Steven starts to look panicked. “No, no… Look you are going home. I don’t know what will happen back there or what—”
I put my hands on his shoulders and make him stop. “We’re family now. Okay? We are going.”
The relief is palpable in his eyes.
“How long?”
Steven is confused. “What?”
“How long since he ditched you?”
“Twenty minutes. Half an hour. I don’t know.”
“Let’s go.”
Theo looks around at us.
“We are seriously going back?”
“You don’t have to, but we are going now. Come on!”
He looks at Beryl. “Are you sure?”
She rolls her eyes and climbs into the car. Silently the others get in and reluctant fingers turn the keys in the ignition. I take a deep breath as I push the accelerator to the floor and we race back the way we came. Are you sure…?
I try to imagine what we’ll face ahead. A Chinese army? John on the side of the road? A nuclear blast?
What a shit-show.
Steven’s muffled voice comes from the back. “I’m sorry, guys. I’m sorry.”
