Prodigal Sons

by Mike Miner

  The creaks above him moved to the stairs.

  His mother’s eyes were puffy. She gave Luke a hug as if making sure he was real.

  Mr. Flanagan picked up the phone in the kitchen and dialed Mark in California. “Good morning,” his father said too loudly. “The early bird gets the worm, Mark.” He walked to the living room.

  “Can I make you something to eat?”

  Luke wasn’t hungry. “Sure.”

  “Eggs? Canadian Bacon?”

  “That would be great.” Anything to take her mind off Matthew, he thought.

  His father bellowed at Mark. Las Vegas was the new plan. “Okay.” He hung up.

  Mrs. Flanagan cracked an egg on the corner of the pan.

  His dad sat at the kitchen table, looking at Luke and drumming his fingers on the wood. “Mark is going to Vegas.”

  “So am I.” Luke liked the sound of the words coming out of his mouth. Waited for his father to look at him.

  Mr. Flanagan’s fingers stopped for a moment then continued faster. His eyes stayed on his fingers.

  Luke supposed his mother had heard him but didn’t bother looking at her.

  “Who’s paying for this trip?” His father’s voice was tired.

  Luke smiled. “I don’t care. I’ll pay for it.”

  Mr. Flanagan nodded, fingers continued tapping. He chewed his lips.

  Luke watched.

  “Why do you want to go?” his father said.

  Luke looked at his mother then back at his father. “Because Mom wants Matthew back and Mark can’t find him alone.”

  Mrs. Flanagan stopped what she was doing and turned toward them. “Let him go, David.”

  Mr. Flanagan held up his hands. “Okay.”

  Luke stood. “I need to pack.”

  “What about your eggs?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  “I’ll have ’em,” Mr. Flanagan said.

  Luke went upstairs then came back down.

  “I have no clothes and no suitcase.”

  His parents laughed. It was a heartbreaking sound.

  His mother drove him to the airport.

  Luke leaned over and kissed her cheek. Couldn’t remember the last time he’d done that. It didn’t help her control her tears. “I’ll find him.”

  “You do that.”

  The flight lasted five hours and fifteen minutes.

  In the cab on his way to the hotel, Luke tried to pretend he was Humphrey Bogart but there was nothing black and white about Las Vegas and he didn’t smoke. He had never been to Vegas before. It was about like he expected. Maybe a little more so.

  “Feelin’ lucky?” the cabby asked him. He was black enough to leave fingerprints on charcoal.

  “I guess.”

  “Best not to be guessin’.”

  “I guess you’re right.”

  The cabby’s smile was unnaturally bright. A neon smile, it matched the strip. The cabby pulled into Caesar’s and pointed at the front lawn. “Knievel jumped that back in the seventies.”

  “No shit?”

  “No shit.”

  Luke tried to look impressed.

  “That’s whatchya call pressin’ your luck.”

  “I get it.”

  “See that you do.”

  Luke watched the cab as it disappeared, and it seemed like it was some sort of last chance that he’d let slip away.

  MATTHEW 5

  Dawn in Vegas. A weird time. Mostly people trying to hang on to the night or their luck, unwilling to let either go. Nobody was winning. Everything muted, no big jackpots, no wild crowds at the craps tables. Along the walls the one-armed bandits lived up to their name but people kept pulling.

  Matthew wondered how long he’d been asleep in that stall. It was no way for a grown man to wake up. He walked into a lounge and sat at a bar with quarter slots sunk into it. A bartender threw a napkin at him. His name tag said he was Carlos from Cuba.

  “What time is it?”

  Carlos showed Matthew his naked wrist. He wondered if Carlos could speak.

  “Time for a drink,” Matthew said more because he liked the sound of it than because he needed a drink. His teeth felt like he’d been chewing sand. “How about a beer? An Amstel Light.”

  Carlos put a pilsner glass next to the bottle.

  Matthew threw a bill on the bar and poured the beer into the glass. Carlos took the money. Matthew took a sip, winced and rubbed his face. He decided he’d put shaving at the top of his to-do list. Start small.

  He passed some time, who knew how much, lost in thought. Wondered what time it was again. Wondered where the hell his watch was. Not a good sign. Wondered how many laws he had broken in the past few days, tried to count the crimes committed—assault, DUI, possession of illegal narcotics. Hell, he could probably be charged with kidnapping under the Mann Act. A spree. That’s what the newspapers would call it—Matthew Flanagan and his seventeen-year-old accomplice on a spree of mayhem, a drug-and-alcohol-fueled spree of mayhem. Agents of chaos is what they were. He had always been comfortable in chaos. How pleasant not to know where you might wake up the next day, or the day after that. He might be in Salt Lake City or New York, Miami (London?). His mantra, why not, echoed, a whisper in his head.

  Of course, there were answers to that question—Lucy, his house, his job, his family—but by concentrating, by squinting his imagination, he could see those things come untethered from him. Drift away like multi-colored hot-air balloons. Leaving him free. Free. To wander, to carouse, to not care—how nice, not to care. He almost didn’t. Almost. Maybe if he drank just a bit more.

  If Tommy hadn’t found him that morning. If he’d gone back to his room or wound up in somebody else’s. If he’d gone to another bar with a view of the sun rising, waking his conscience, making him miss something, someone. Who knows how the story might have ended.

  But she did find him. She came storming in about halfway through his beer. Carlos still hadn’t said a word. She sat next to Matthew and Carlos threw a napkin in front of her. “Hey Lady.”

  “Hey. I think your brothers are here.”

  Matthew chewed on that a second. “Say what?”

  “Two of ’em came in the room just now.”

  “How’d they get in the room?” How’d they find the room? “My brothers? What are you talking about?”

  Tommy grinned and looked up in feigned innocence. When did girls learn that? he wanted to know. “Well, I was having a bit of a party so someone else answered the door and let them in.”

  Matthew tasted his beer. “How do you know they were my brothers? Did you talk to them?”

  “No, but one of them could have been your twin.”

  “Luke. What about the other one?”

  She squinted, remembering. “He seemed older. Heavier. Darker hair.”

  “Mark. Wow.”

  “The older one got into it with one of my party guests.”

  Matthew laughed. “Yeah, that sounds about right.”

  “What are we gonna do?”

  He looked at her, amazed, as always, that anyone would ask him that question and expect the right answer.

  “I’m leaving. You coming?”

  She blinked as though she hadn’t realized there was a choice, then nodded. She had a bag with her.

  Matthew nodded back at her. “I don’t suppose you brought any of my things with you?”

  She shook her head. “No. No time. They were in your room.”

  Matthew sighed. “Okay.” He reached into his inside coat pocket and was amazed to find a valet ticket. He held it up. “Go get your car. I’ve got to make a phone call.”

  “To who?”

  Mark answered as Matthew somehow figured he would. Matthew couldn’t speak for a second. He used a phone in the lobby. He was torn. “Hey bro.”

  “I fucking knew it. Hey dude. What are you doing?”

  Mark was a little the worse for liquor. That made two of them. “Hey dude?” Matthew said.

  �
��Yeah?”

  “Do me a favor?”

  “What?”

  “Take my stuff home for me?” Matthew nearly choked on the word, home. He wasn’t sure what it meant for him anymore. Not what it used to. Wasn’t sure if Mark would take it to LA or Connecticut.

  “What the hell are you talking about?” The words came slowly and badly out of his brother’s mouth, like he was thinking about how to pronounce each one.

  “I don’t think I’m going to be able to pick them up.”

  “Why the fuck not? Come on, man. Come back with us.”

  A switch flipped in Matthew’s head. “No way.” He watched people checking in and out.

  “What the fuck are you going to do?”

  “I’m leaving. Take my stuff. I think I left my watch up there”

  Matthew could picture Mark craning to look for the watch. “Is Luke there?”

  “I don’t know where that guy went.”

  Matthew had an idea; he scanned the lobby for his brother. “Okay. I’m out of here.”

  “Where you going?”

  “East. Catch me if you can.”

  Matthew hung up. He squinted. No Luke yet. He wasn’t sure he could handle a physical confrontation.

  He stepped out of the lobby and saw Tommy in her jeep. Ready. Waiting. A desert breeze fingered her hair and her smile was full of young promise. It’ll be a shame when I let her down, he thought. But it certainly looked like a ride he wanted to take. She revved the engine. He looked at his naked wrist. He didn’t know what time it was or what day. Time to run away.

  “Why not,” he muttered and hopped into the passenger seat. “Hit it.”

  She was happy to oblige.

  He didn’t dare look back for fear of locking eyes with Luke. He couldn’t believe those assholes had come all the way out here to get him. Surprised it wasn’t his father. He enjoyed the wind on his face and told himself he was putting distance between him and his troubles. He couldn’t see the sun but its light painted the sky a startling blue in the east. It seemed like something worth heading for. They were headed for Never Never Land. First star to the left and straight on ’til morning.

  The freeway east out of Vegas went nowhere fast. Unless Mesquite, Nevada, counted as somewhere. The straight road stretched far into the distant horizon. “This is like driving on Mars,” Tommy said and she was right.

  Red rock and sand engulfed them.

  The road was not crowded and he was mildly worried. If his brothers followed there wouldn’t be a lot of cars to choose from out here. But they’d have to catch him and he didn’t plan on stopping any time soon. Eventually he would need a change of clothes.

  It was hard to keep track of time. The sun had staggered a few inches above the horizon but seemed too tired to climb any farther. There were few signs of life. Maybe time had stopped. He hoped his brothers had grabbed his watch. He wondered what he would have done if he’d been in their shoes. The distance in front of him looked a lot like the distance behind him. It felt like they weren’t getting anywhere.

  “Where are we going?”

  “East.”

  She made a goofy laugh. “I know east. How far east?”

  “Shit I don’t know. You talked me into this drive.”

  “Bullshit.”

  “Maybe.”

  She passed on that.

  An Egyptian sun presided over the desert. Sunglasses would have been nice. The sun was right at eye level. “Have you ever been here before?”

  He looked around. “Nobody’s ever been here before.”

  It was beautiful in a desolate sort of way. A place Ansel Adams would have loved. Tommy drove fast through it but it still felt like they were standing still. Cacti and sand and rocks. No homes, nothing man made except a mailbox every now and then. Next to dirt roads that stretched out of sight. The enormous sky tried to smother them.

  The radio was as desolate as the landscape, dusty and lonely. Gospel music and desert preachers.

  “What’s the furthest you’ve ever been from home?” he asked.

  “This is it.”

  They fought over the radio dial. He found a jazz station on the AM dial, Desert Jazz, DJZ, but she threatened to drive off the road. Someone was strangling a ham organ. Back on FM she found a country western station. Matthew groaned.

  “Are you kidding me?”

  “Whoever’s driving gets to choose.”

  “Pull over.”

  “In a little bit.”

  There were a lot of fiddles and some high-pitched squealing. Tommy hummed along. Matthew chewed up the scenery with his eyes. The music suited it but that didn’t make him like it. He was relieved when a commercial came on. Something about a ribs place in St. George, Utah. Utah. Matthew pictured the shape of it on a map. Mormon country. He looked at Tommy. He wondered how his black-eyed, slant-eyed companion would go over with the Church of Latter Day Saints.

  The DJ introduced the next song. It was a remake of a John Prine classic. Who the hell is John Prine? he thought. Tommy made a noise and turned the volume up. “You cannot be serious.”

  Tommy turned to him and started singing. Knew every word. She had a beautiful voice. It matched the woman singing on the radio. Even did the same twang. Matthew was flabbergasted.

  You come home late and you come home early

  You come on big when you’re feeling small

  You come home straight and you come home curly

  Sometimes you don’t come home at all

  It was a simple song with just a guitar accompaniment and it hit Matthew right in the gut. Tommy sang like a woman twice her age. Sadder than any girl should know how to sound.

  By the end of the song he had caught onto the chorus.

  So what in the world’s come over you?

  What in heaven’s name have you done?

  You’ve broken the speed of the sound of loneliness

  You’re out there runnin’ just to be on the run

  The next song was terrible but the other song lingered like a sweet scent in the air. Again she knew all the words.

  “What gives?”

  She smiled.

  “Two foster homes ago, my foster father was a karaoke operator at country/western bars. I was part of the act.”

  “No shit?”

  She shook her head. “Asian girl singing country tunes. It was a big hit with the country crowd.”

  She was still singing when they crossed the Utah border.

  MARK 3

  “Where are we?” Mark said

  “Nevada.”

  They were in a Ryder van Luke had talked Mark into renting. A one-way rental back to Connecticut. The desert was constant, endless, suffocating. Sand and sky surrounded them. Mark felt pressed between them.

  “Thanks, where do you think numb nuts is going?”

  Luke squinted at the map spread across his lap. He traced the road they were on east. “Tough to say. He’s probably not using a map so this isn’t that helpful.”

  “What do you mean?”

  Luke pointed to the vastness in front of them. Mark looked at the undulating landscape, rising and falling hills and valleys. He pictured them as waves and the highway a bridge.

  “Matthew’s just fucking winging it,” Luke explained, “going where he feels like. We’ve just got to guess right.”

  “Have we guessed right so far?”

  “Probably. I think so.”

  “You better fucking hope so.”

  “Two roads diverged in a wood and I, I took the one less traveled by. And that has made all the difference.”

  “Say what?”

  “Robert Frost? American poet? The Road Less Traveled?”

  “The road less traveled? We can’t let some poem be the reason we’re taking this road.”

  “It’s the reason Matthew’s taking this road.”

  He didn’t like it. Didn’t like Luke calling the shots, didn’t like that he didn’t know what shots to call. Mark was over his head
and out of his element. Yet Matthew and Luke seemed to thrive under these conditions. Why can’t people just live nice, quiet lives without all this fucking drama? Get up, go to work, go home, have dinner, go to bed, repeat. Occasionally get laid, have a drink, have a kid or two then fucking die. That was how it was supposed to go. Not driving in the desert with no idea when you were gonna be home again.

  “Radar Love” played on the radio. Mark turned it up and tapped the steering wheel to the beat.

  Luke sang along to the chorus, “We got a thing that’s called Radar Love…” Luke sang along to the bass and guitar as well. When the song was over the DJ came on and said, “Lord have mercy.”

  They shared a chuckle.

  Mark was tempted to ask Luke about his dating status but wasn’t sure how his brother would take it. Didn’t want to push him over the edge or anything. He figured they had a lot of miles left to cover and maybe Luke would bring it up himself. Matthew would have known what to do. Luke’s thoughts always seemed to Mark like deep, dark lakes. A lot of stuff swam beneath the surface. You never knew what monsters might splash out of there. It seemed unhealthy, to think so much. Mark had been thinking a lot on this trip.

  They kept on trucking. They passed a lot of sand and in a town called St. George, they stopped for a bite. The burger was undercooked but Mark ate it anyway. The fries were okay and instead of a Coke, Mark had a root beer. Root 66 root beer. It was pretty damn good and just about saved the meal. Luke had a turkey club and a beer.

  “You were pretty fucked up last night.”

  Mark smiled and nodded.

  “Been a while since you let loose?”

  “I guess.”

  “Do you miss it?”

  “What?”

  “Letting loose like that?”

  “I just did.”

  “Do you miss being able to do it whenever you want?”

  “Not really.” Mark took a bite of his burger and thought while he chewed. “I still do it often enough not to miss it.”

  “Does Peggy let you have it when you do?”