by Noah Bly
“What the hell?” he hissed, frantically seeking his own seat knob. “What’s wrong with him?”
Julianna sat forward. “I think it’s Larry Badder,” she said, frowning uncertainly at their scruffy observer. “But Larry’s beard is black, isn’t it?”
Sal continued beaming in at them all, admiring the contrasting colors and contours of their alarmed faces, framed perfectly by the windshield. “A trinity of touring tellurians watches me,” he extemporized, “as if I, and not they, were a portrait hung in the museum of man.” This image so delighted him he began to chuckle with pride at his powers of invention. “Who is the painter? Who is the painting?”
Sal Cavetti had grown up in Wainwright, but had left home to attend college in Indianapolis as a philosophy major. Midway through his freshman year, though, he’d happily stumbled upon his true calling as a poet (at the very same party where he was introduced to his herbal muse) and dropped out of school to work for his father at the family gas station. He found the work much to his liking; pumping gas and performing oil changes left his mind free to wrestle with the universal nature of man, and he thought himself the luckiest person in the world—if still sadly undervalued as a poet. His father, especially, seemed incapable of acknowledging Sal’s gifts, but Sal took no offense when Benito Cavetti referred to his son’s poetry as “the most God-awful crap I’ve ever heard.” Sal knew the hallmark of poetic genius was to be unappreciated, and he also knew that his father and the rest of the world would one day sing his praises.
“Good morning,” he said, raising his voice so the three strangers in the Beetle could hear him. A crow sitting on the fender of his dad’s tow truck across the parking lot caught his eye, and he took a few seconds to delight in its sleek black feathers before remembering what else he’d intended to say. “You folks need gas?”
Jon and Elijah glanced at each other as the man straightened again and removed a key chain from his pants pocket. As he shuffled over to unlock the padlock on the fuel pump, both boys slowly relaxed.
“I guess he works here,” Jon breathed to Elijah. “For a minute there I thought we were in deep shit.” He unrolled his window all the way and stuck his head out. “Can you fill it up, please?”
Sal nodded, looking forward to inhaling the gas fumes. “I’ll check your oil, too.”
Julianna brightened. “Yes, that’s Larry,” she said. “I’d recognize that voice anywhere.”
Jon opened his door and stepped out onto the asphalt parking lot. He groaned as he stretched, turning from one side to the other to crack his spine.
“Do you have a bathroom?” he asked.
Sal glanced over at him affably. “Yep. I’ll have to open up the station first, though. It’s inside.” He stared at the padlock in his hand, then at the gas pump, and lastly at the front door of the station. “An earth-child ambles through an orchard of possibility,” he rhapsodized, “plucking choices like immaculate apples from serpent-bejeweled trees.”
“What?” Jon asked, his face going blank.
Elijah opened his door, as well, and turned to face Julianna. “Could you hand me my shoes, please?” He indicated the space behind the backseat, hoping his sneakers and socks had dried enough by now that he could wear them.
Julianna began to do as he asked but then halted and made a face. “Oh, you! You know full well you didn’t bring any shoes with you today, Ben Taylor. Stop teasing me.”
“Oh, for God’s sake,” Elijah muttered.
“I’m a poet,” Sal explained patiently to Jon by the gas pump. “I’m the Allen Ginsberg of eastern Indiana.”
Jon blinked. “Oh.” He chewed on his tongue to keep from laughing.
Julianna’s expression soured in the Volkswagen. “Ginsberg is entirely overrated,” she whispered to Elijah. “Anybody who says differently should have his head examined.”
Elijah froze. He’d been preparing to step from the car and let Julianna out so he could crawl into the back and retrieve his shoes, but he’d forgotten what he was doing the moment she spoke. He stared at her over his shoulder.
Julianna’s young girl persona had withdrawn again, ousted by the older and far more mature woman Elijah now assumed was the “real” Julianna. Not only was her voice lower and more decisive, but her face had grown sterner, and her back had straightened, too, adding a striking elegance to her posture. For the first time since Elijah had known her, she looked at ease in the formal green dress, as if she wore such things all the time.
It’s like she’s got a short circuit, he thought, torn between apprehension and pity. A wire gets jiggled or something and she’s normal again, but only for a second.
He couldn’t imagine what she must be thinking during these flashes of sanity. Maybe some small part of her knew all along what was happening, and now and then it broke free, only to be trapped again by a waiting hand, and stuffed back into the cage of her madness. If there were only a way to keep her out of that cage for even a few minutes . . .
His pulse quickened.
If Julianna would just stay like she was now long enough to make a phone call, she could tell the cops what had been going on! They wouldn’t believe Elijah or Jon, but they’d believe her!
“Why don’t you like Ginsberg, Julianna?” he asked urgently, his fingers clenching the door frame. He couldn’t have cared less about the poetry of Allen Ginsberg, but the newly awakened hope in his breast warned him not to change the subject until he was sure Julianna could focus on something more useful.
She toyed with a seatbelt latch and peered through the open door at the red and white gas pump. “It’s not that I don’t like him. I do.” She closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose, as if her head hurt. “But so many other poets out there are just as good as he is, and I feel he gets an unfair amount of publicity.”
“Who do you like, then?” Elijah prodded, suddenly desperate to not allow her mind to slip away again.
She opened her eyes and met his gaze. There was an enormous, active intelligence in her expression; she seemed to be reading his mind and his heart at the same time. Elijah was certain she knew who he was, at last, and was going to tell him something that would make it possible for him to go home again, putting an end to all the sorrow and terror of the past twenty-four hours; he was barely able to contain his excitement.
She started to answer, but a wide yawn erased whatever she’d intended to say. She covered her mouth and shook her head, waiting for the yawn to run its course.
“I don’t know about you, Ben,” she said at last, smiling warmly, “but I could eat a horse.”
Elijah almost bit through his lower lip to keep from screaming.
Meanwhile, Sal was still juggling his options at the gas pump. “Should I fill your car first, or let you into the restroom?” he asked Jon, feeling as if a little spur in the flanks from a nonliterary layman might be helpful. “Either way works for me.”
Jon told him to fill the tank first and Sal nodded agreeably, removing the hose from the pump and making his way around to the front of the Beetle. He was moving in what seemed to be slow motion and Jon started to feel exposed again as a station wagon with two adults and three children, all staring at him, passed by on the highway.
“Don’t worry about checking the oil,” he said. “We’re kind of in a hurry.”
“Haste makes waste, daddy-o,” Sal answered.
Elijah got out of the car and turned around to let Julianna out, too. The pavement was already hot under his feet as he moved away from the door to allow her to rise beside him.
“I wish we still had Daddy’s car instead of Jon’s,” she murmured, wincing as she stretched stiff muscles.
Elijah slid into the backseat to get his sneakers. They hadn’t dried yet but he put them on anyway, figuring he could take them off again after he’d used the restroom. He was tying the laces when Jon opened the driver’s door and leaned in.
“Hand me my stuff, will you?” Jon indicated the plastic bag with his books
and the stolen money on the floor behind the passenger seat. He lowered his voice and grinned. “Did you hear the gas guy say he thinks he’s Allen Ginsberg?”
Elijah grinned back and passed the older boy his things. “Maybe we should get his autograph,” he whispered.
Jon snorted. “Yeah, I’ll be sure to do that.” He shook his head, untying the bag handles. “Jesus, people are weird.”
“What books are those?” Elijah had noticed the paperbacks when Jon had paid for gas at the last station, but he’d been too intent on the wad of cash at the time to get a good look at any of Jon’s other possessions.
Jon removed his three treasures from the bag and lovingly fingered their spines. “Walden, The Fellowship of the Ring, and Moby Dick. I had to leave almost everything else in my apartment, but I couldn’t stand to be without these guys.” He put them back in the plastic, feeling oddly vulnerable. “Do you like to read?”
Elijah blushed a little, thinking about what he’d been reading lately and how much trouble his preoccupation with unpleasant news had gotten him into at home.
“Yeah,” he said. “Mostly magazines and newspapers, though.” He glanced involuntarily over at the window of the station, trying to see inside. “Do you think maybe they sell U.S. News and World Report here?”
His blush deepened as Jon raised his eyebrows. Before either of them could say anything else they became aware that the attendant and Julianna were talking by the pump as the bearded man returned the gas nozzle to its slot.
“My name is Sal, not Larry,” he was saying. “Sal, as in Salvatore. But my pen name is Salvation. Salvation Onassis Cavetti.”
Julianna made an exasperated noise. “Don’t you start pulling my leg, too, Larry Badder. Did Ben put you up to this?”
Jon sighed. “We better get out there before she says something she shouldn’t,” he muttered. He dug around in the plastic bag and took out his toothbrush and razor. “Can you keep an eye on her when it’s my turn in the john?”
Elijah nodded. “Sure.” He looked over at the station again. He felt stupid for asking about a magazine; what he really wanted was a toothbrush of his own and some deodorant.
And a shirt, too, he thought belatedly. He was surprised at himself for almost forgetting to add this item to his wish list. Before the tragic events of the previous evening his partial nudity would have been foremost on his mind, but it hadn’t even occurred to him to worry about it for quite a while. He tilted his head to sniff at an armpit and winced at the sour odor.
Jon smiled sympathetically. “Yeah, I’m getting pretty ripe, too,” he said. “I doubt they sell much of anything here, but if they’ve got any BO juice I’ll get us some.” He paused. “We can see if they have magazines, too, I guess, while we’re at it.”
Elijah mumbled thanks.
The door to the station bathroom was flimsy and didn’t latch properly, so as Jon brushed his teeth by the sink he could hear everything Elijah, Julianna, and Sal said out by the cash register. Sal had turned on a radio, as well; Jon hummed along with a Winston cigarette jingle (“Winston tastes good like a cigarette should”) but winced as the advertisement ended and Shelley Fabares began crooning “Johnny Angel.”
“Oh, for Christ’s sake,” he muttered.
For the past three months, one of the girls he’d worked with at Toby’s Pizza Shack had serenaded him with “Johnny Angel” every time she saw him. He didn’t care for the girl at all—she told stupid jokes and smelled like sauerkraut—and as a result he’d grown to detest the tune. He tried to blot out the sugary melody by focusing on Julianna’s voice instead.
“Seth told me your cousin Annie just got engaged, Larry,” she was saying. “Who’s the lucky fellow?”
Jon wondered who Seth was. He spat out a mouthful of water, wishing he had some toothpaste.
“I don’t have a cousin named Annie,” the gas guy answered. His deep voice reminded Jon of a record player set at the wrong speed. “And like I told you before, ma’am, my name is Sal.”
“And I’m the Queen of Sheba,” Julianna replied with asperity. “I don’t know why every boy I know has to be so difficult.”
Jon grinned. He rubbed at the dark stubble on his chin but decided not to bother shaving since he didn’t have any shaving cream. He’d been right about the station having little for sale; there wasn’t even any coffee available. He tugged off his shirt and hung it on the doorknob over his plastic bag of belongings, then did his best to wash the stench and grime from his torso. It had only been about a day and a half since his last shower, but he felt as if he hadn’t bathed in months. He ran water over his head, too, getting the floor and the toilet seat as wet as his hair, and for a minute he lost the thread of the conversation in the next room. When he turned off the faucet again, Julianna was in the middle of telling a story to Elijah.
“. . . and then Larry’s sister and I ate the whole jar of rock candy! We were sick for days.”
“I don’t have a sister,” Sal protested. “Hey, do you guys want to hear one of the poems I wrote yesterday?”
“No, thank you,” Elijah blurted.
“It’s really good,” Sal coaxed.
“I’d rather you didn’t,” Julianna said. “You know how I dislike those pornographic limericks of yours, Larry.”
Jon laughed aloud. He was feeling better than he had in a while; the cold water had revived his spirits somewhat. He dried himself with a handful of coarse paper towels, then mopped up the water on the floor and the toilet seat. The bathroom was tiny but surprisingly clean for a gas station; the only graffiti on the wall was a neatly written sentence beside the mirror that read: For a good time, call your mom. The nine o’clock news broadcast mercifully replaced Shelley Fabares on the radio, and Jon tossed the towels in the trash and retrieved his soiled shirt from the doorknob. He started to put it back on, but on a whim decided to wash it instead and let it dry in the car. Snatches of the news broadcast caught his ear as he ran the shirt under the faucet: President Kennedy was vacationing on Cape Cod; the Tigers and the Yankees were playing a game that night at Tiger Stadium.
Elijah knocked on the door. “Jon? I have to pee pretty bad.”
Jon reached over to unhook the latch. “Come on in,” he said, opening the door. “I’ll be done in a sec.”
Elijah blinked, embarrassed to find Jon partly undressed. “Sorry,” he mumbled. “I didn’t mean to rush you.”
Jon turned off the faucet. “It’s cool.” He wrung out his shirt in the sink, then shook out the wrinkles in the fabric and stepped around the other boy. “It’s all yours, man.”
“You forgot your toothbrush and razor,” Elijah said.
“I left them for you.” Jon reclaimed his bag from the doorknob. “I know it’s kind of gross to share a toothbrush, but it’s better than nothing, right?”
Elijah’s stomach churned at the very idea of using someone else’s toothbrush, but he was nonetheless touched by Jon’s generosity. “Thanks,” he muttered, trying to hide a grimace as he handed the toiletries over. “I’ll just use my finger.”
Jon shrugged, unoffended. “Sure. We’ll buy some stuff for all of us the next place we stop.”
Julianna watched Jon emerge from the bathroom, closing the door behind him, and she flushed a little, admiring the loose fit of his khaki shorts around his slender waist. Thinking about the other time she’d seen him without a shirt, however, made her recall watching him break Günter’s lock at the Millers’ Dairy farm, and she pursed her lips.
He’s a common vandal, for goodness sake, she thought, annoyed at herself. I can surely find a better boyfriend than that!
“Unblemished and incorruptible as a clarion call,” Sal improvised, noting Jon’s wet hair and scrubbed skin. “Washed sinless and sparkling by holy water from a virginal, vaginal font, like a baptized baby Jesus.” He paused to let the profundity of his words resonate, then solemnly opened a notebook on the counter. “I’ll write that down for you.”
Julianna rol
led her eyes and Jon bit back a laugh.
“That’s okay,” Jon said. “I’m pretty sure I’ll remember it.”
Julianna turned away with an abrupt motion, and Jon realized she was struggling not to laugh, too. He watched her with a surprising tug of affection, suddenly wishing he’d known her before her mind cast loose from its moorings.
The news roundup was still on the radio but he was only half listening to it as he paid for the gas—holding the plastic bag beneath the counter, where Sal couldn’t see how much cash was in it. Preoccupied by thoughts about what items they were going to need to purchase soon, he began to ask Sal for a map of Indiana, wanting to find a good-sized town where stores would be open on Sunday. The radio broadcast interrupted him, however, before he could finish his sentence:
“The FBI is conducting a nationwide manhunt for two men accused of the attempted murder of a New Hampshire State Trooper and the brutal slaying of a New Hampshire woman in her home.”
Jon flinched and dropped his bag of belongings. The copy of Moby Dick slipped out of the bag onto the concrete floor with a five-dollar bill sticking from its pages; Jon stared down in shock at the cover of the book—a bleak picture of a ship on the ocean during a storm—not comprehending what he was seeing.
“According to a spokesmen for the FBI,” continued the broadcaster, “one suspect has been identified as fifteen-year-old Elijah Hunter of Prescott, Maine.” (A squeal came from behind the bathroom door, but Jon barely registered it.) “Hunter is a five-foot-eleven Negro male, approximately 145 pounds, last seen wearing a white shirt and blue jeans. Little is known about Hunter’s accomplice, but his name is believed to be Jon Tate. In addition to the murder charges, Hunter and Tate are being sought for arson and grand larceny, as well as the kidnapping and assault of a mentally ill woman from Bangor, Maine. The men are believed to be driving a green Volkswagen Beetle, and headed west. No other details are available at this time, but the FBI is asking for assistance from all state and local law enforcement agencies, and has requested that anyone with in formation about the fugitives immediately contact their local police. The men are considered armed and extremely dangerous, and a reward of five thousand dollars is being offered for information leading to their capture.
