Random Acts

by Franklin Horton

  Raven: Your mother was probably just protecting you. Didn’t want to introduce a new man into your life too soon.

  Amanda: Don’t give her too much credit. Apparently she was all about herself.

  Raven: I’m sorry. I don’t know what to say.

  Amanda: Not your fault. I'm calling Fox. I’ll call you later.

  Raven: I'm sorry. Should I not have sent them?

  Amanda: I needed to know. Everything my dad's been saying doesn't match up with what I've heard for the last six years. It explains my dad's attitude about social media though.

  Raven: What's his attitude?

  Amanda: He fucking hates it.

  Raven: Tell me what happens. Talk to you later.

  Amanda looked up to find Ben staring at her. "Everything okay?"

  She hesitated. “I need to call my stepfather. Will that be okay?"

  "Sure. The place is dead right now. Nobody else is coming in. The next thirty minutes is just about getting ready for tomorrow."

  Amanda smiled. "Thank you. I’m sorry but it’s important."

  “Don’t apologize,” Ben said, waving her off.

  The side of the bike shop had two enormous roll-up doors that opened to facilitate moving bikes and riders in and out of the shop. On a hot summer night, the doors stayed open until closing time. Amanda wandered out one of the bay doors and took a seat on a bench against the wall. Earlier in the day, the bench had been full of riders waiting for the shuttle.

  She pulled out her phone and stared at Fox's contact. She hesitated, not quite sure what she was going to say. Before she could talk herself out of it, she touched the icon and made the call. It was a nice evening, quiet and peaceful. Completely the opposite of how she felt inside at that moment.

  It was answered in three rings. Amanda could imagine Fox sitting in the big empty McMansion, probably watching sports on his gigantic flat screen television and surfing the Internet on his iPad, a tumbler of scotch sweating on a coaster at his side.

  "Hey, how's it going?” she asked.

  While it was a completely normal and innocuous statement, even that felt awkward. She wasn't certain if that awkwardness was because they were growing apart in her mother's absence or if it was the other matters pressing on her heart. Either way, Fox sounded excited to hear from her, although perhaps he was just better at hiding the truth of how he was feeling.

  Or maybe, like her mother, he was just better at hiding the truth in general.

  "Hey, girl, how are you? I've been meaning to call you. I must think about you a hundred times a day. I was getting ready to call you anyway and tell you I had some of your mom’s stuff boxed up to send you."

  The idea of going through her mother’s belongings caused a hitch in Amanda's heart. All this time, in her texting with Raven, she’d been discussing her mother as if she were a friend they both knew was up to something and they were trying to gather proof of it. The idea of going through those boxes, of going through her mom's personal possessions, brought home that this was her mother.

  This conversation was going to hurt. There was no way it would not rip the scab off several deep wounds. She just had to accept that and not let herself get sidetracked.

  "Listen, Fox. I need to ask you something. Will you promise to tell me the truth?"

  "Of course, sweetie."

  His reply was quick. Automatic. She doubted he’d be so quick with the answers she was going to ask for. She took a deep breath and cleared her throat.

  "The whole time I lived in Virginia, my mom told me a lot of things about my dad. She made it sound like he didn't want me and that she left because he never wanted a family."

  She hesitated and Fox remained silent. Over the phone it was impossible to gauge his reaction.

  "She always told me to never get into discussions on my visits with him about the breakup because he would get mad. So I never did. I was constantly scared I was going to say something he would take wrong and it would set him off. She led me to believe that was how he would react. I just assumed she was telling me the truth, that we moved to Virginia so she could start a new life away from a man who didn’t love her. Who didn’t love us."

  "That's exactly right," Fox said eagerly. "Your mother would not have lied to you."

  "I already know she lied to me so we can skip this Saint Mom bullshit," Amanda said flatly.

  Fox had no response for that. She’d already lost the sugar-coating. She might as well charge forward.

  "Were you guys having an affair?"

  It hurt to force those words from her mouth. Once they were out, they could never be put back in the bottle. Even if he didn't answer, her question had still been asked. That shadow of doubt was cast.

  "Amanda…" Fox said. There was a crack in his voice, a hesitation or stumble, something that forewarned this was dangerous territory. There was also an inference that he was disappointed in her for even saying such things. "Your mother is dead. Why does any of this matter now?"

  Tears rose in Amanda’s eyes and she gritted her teeth. "My mother being dead may end this for you but it doesn't end it for me," she hissed. "My relationship with my dad is based on the things she told me. A lot of them don't match up with what I'm seeing now. If my relationship with him is tainted by her lies, I need to know."

  "Amanda,” he repeated, exasperation in his voice. Glaringly absent was any denial. It was just as telling as any words he may have used.

  "You said you wouldn’t lie to me."

  "But I didn't promise to disparage and smear your mother!" Fox spat. “You can’t make me do that.”

  Amanda sighed. "Your obligation to her is over. If you can't tell me the truth right now then your obligation to me is over too. If you can't be honest with me then I don't want anything to do with you ever again. Should I hang up now or are you going to tell me what I want to know?"

  "Why would you think your mother and I were having an affair?"

  "You know, Mom always gave me the impression you guys met in Virginia. Through work. After we moved up there."

  Fox neither agreed nor offered any denial. Perhaps he sensed she had some proof or she wouldn’t be pursuing this so determinedly.

  "Remember a little thing called Myspace?" Amanda asked. "I saw a lot of pictures on there of you two together, looking awful chummy. They weren’t recent pictures either. They were pictures from when I was a little kid. From when my parents were still together."

  She found that being angry at him made it easier to keep going. Part of her understood it wasn't just him she was angry with, but also her mother. Fortunately for her mother, she was beyond the reach of Amanda’s wrath.

  "Your mother was trying to protect you."

  "If Mom wanted out of the marriage, why didn’t she take off and leave me with Dad? She made it sound like he didn’t want me, but I’m starting to think it was a bunch of shit. I think my dad was devastated when my mother left. What I found when I moved down here is a man who was traumatized and hasn't had a serious relationship since. What I found is a man who missed his daughter so much he buried himself in work because he just couldn't live with the fact she was gone."

  “Your mother let you have your visits. She didn't interfere,” Fox pointed out.

  "But she ruined them!” Amanda bellowed. “She lectured me before every visit that if Dad started talking about anything related to the breakup I should get up, leave the room, and call her immediately. She told me he would get angry at me. I was just a child! How was I supposed to handle that? I was too scared on those visits to even enjoy my time with him. She fucking lied to me!"

  "Amanda, don't talk about your mother that way."

  "It's the truth! She lied to me and ruined my relationship with my dad. Right now I'm left with nothing but the memory of her as a vindictive, lying cheater and I hate her for it."

  "I can't listen to you talk about your mother that way. She loved you. I’ll hang up."

  "You do what you have to do, but she manipulated me. S
he used me as a weapon against my dad. How would that make you feel? How would you feel to find out you'd been used as a weapon to hurt somebody who loved you more than they loved their own life?"

  Fox could not respond.

  “You’ve got nothing to say, do you?”

  "I think we should talk about this when you've calmed down."

  Besides the already volatile situation they were dealing with, telling a teenage girl to calm down was basically the same as throwing gas on the fire. Later, Amanda would only recall screaming at Fox and hanging up on him.

  45

  The Death Merchant sat in his car on the streets of Boone, North Carolina, watching the bike shop. This time he drove Victor’s tiny car instead of his mother’s Buick, not wanting to park near the bicycle shop in a car they were already familiar with. The sun had dipped behind the vertical hills several hours ago and the remaining light was fading quickly. The only sound in the car was his rapid breathing. It was hot enough that he should have his window down but he didn’t. His world was more internal now, more detached from reality. The sweating hulk he was anchored to meant little to him. Discomfort was inconsequential. Everything was about the mission.

  He saw Amanda and the young man working around the shop. He watched as they rolled bikes inside and took down the eye-catching banners meant to lure customers to the shop. He hadn’t seen Amanda arrive at work but he intended to follow her when she got off work. Somewhere on a dark, winding road he would force her to wreck and he would take her.

  He could not believe how easily she had gone on about her life without him. She moved on with an easy fluidity he could never grasp. In fact, it caused a pang in his heart just to see how little she cared about him anymore. She no longer messaged him. He was a ghost to her, a nearly invisible remnant of some phase of her life she imagined was gone forever.

  But the Death Merchant was not gone.

  He never needed her in his life. There was a rhythm to things before she came along. Every day was pretty much like the day before it and that was how he liked it. He wasn’t happy but he’d never been happy enough to know what he was missing. Then she came along. She interfered. She made him want things. She made his routine change. He began to look for her messages, expect and anticipate her communication. He sought her approval. She was like a nicer version of his mother. Perhaps even a version he could finally please.

  The only way to put his house back in order was to abort this mission and revert to a previous save. Just like when he made a stupid call in one of his single-player games and wanted to start over. He wanted to encapsulate that part of his life where she appeared and excise it like a tumor. Maybe he could go back to his house and live after all. Maybe no one would ever notice his missing mother and Stanley. Maybe they would lose the record of his arrest and his court case would never happen.

  The whole knockout game episode felt so distant he wasn’t entirely certain it had even happened. Perhaps Victor had only imagined it, a fantasy played out in Victor’s overstimulated imagination. But that was all about tomorrow and other tomorrows.

  This was all about today.

  The Death Merchant watched Amanda sit down on a bench outside and text. He checked his own phone but the messages weren’t to him. Of course she was texting someone else. He felt ashamed for even checking. He felt stupid and oh how he hated that feeling. It just showed how much she had affected him, how much he wanted her to message him again. It showed how much damage she’d done. He would repay the damage in spades.

  When he looked back up from his phone, she was on a call with someone. She was animated and gesturing like she was angry. He wondered who might be provoking such emotion from the girl. She stood suddenly and shoved the phone in her pocket, stalked into the shop, and was back out seconds later, pushing her bike. She shouldered her pack and hopped on her bike, disappearing into the darkness before the Death Merchant even knew what was happening.

  He sat bolt upright in the car seat and watched her go. She disappeared onto a trail into the woods, a light on her handlebars stabbing the shadows. His hand found the door latch and he fought the urge to take off after her. What could he do though? There was no way he was catching a fit young girl on a bicycle with his fat ass chasing her on foot. He considered pursuing her down the trail in his car but couldn’t see any way a vehicle could access it.

  “Shit,” he mumbled, starting to panic.

  He whipped out his phone and brought up a detailed topographic map of the area. Uncertain of what else he could do, he looked for a point where the trail intersected with a road. He found one.

  “Gotcha.”

  He tossed his phone on the car seat beside him and started the engine. Outside the shop, he saw movement and noticed the young guy running around outside. He had to be looking for the girl and was upset he couldn’t find her.

  “Join the fucking club, buddy,” the Death Merchant said in the silent car.

  The Death Merchant smiled when the young man did not abandon his duty. He could sense the boy’s angst, his hunger to follow the girl, but he didn’t. He went back in the shop.

  “She’s mine now, kid,” the Death Merchant whispered, pulling onto the street.

  46

  Ben had no clue what had happened to Amanda. One minute she was outside making a phone call, the next she was hurriedly pushing her bike out the door. She was upset, her face red, and she was crying. “What’s wrong, Amanda?” he’d called.

  She ignored him and kept going. By the time he got to the roll-up door, she was disappearing from sight, headed out onto one of the trails leading out of town.

  “Shit,” he said. “Amanda!”

  She kept going.

  He couldn’t let her run off into the darkness by herself, but he also couldn’t leave the store unattended. He had more bikes to bring in, then he needed to lock the store and set the alarm for the night. It didn’t take all that long but it wasn’t exactly an instant process. Especially with just one person.

  While he was rolling bikes in, he called his mom. “Hey, just wanted to remind you I promised to drive Amanda home,” he said. “I’ll be a little late.”

  “No problem,” she said. “Thanks for reminding me and you be careful.”

  “I will, Mom. Love you.”

  He hung up and finished closing. He hated lying to his mom about needing to follow Amanda but he didn’t want his mother to think she was a flake. He liked the girl, but his mom could he a hard-ass. She might fire her for running off like that.

  He’d didn’t know her well but he’d never seen her so upset before. He figured it had something to do with her mother passing away. That was understandable. Something like that had to mess you up. He couldn’t even imagine losing one of his parents.

  When he had everything locked up for the night, he slung on his own pack and started pedaling after her. He clicked on the LED headlight on his handlebars and the beam cut a bold swath ahead of him. He was in good shape and he was nearly tireless on this relatively flat trail. She had a head start, but he should be able to catch her before she got too far.

  Not that he had any idea what he was going to do with her when he did. He didn’t have much experience with calming emotional women. Still, some situations in life left you only one choice, one path to follow, and he was starting down his.

  47

  Tears blurred the trail as Amanda pushed herself, trying to put miles between her and the bike shop. She was afraid Ben would come after her and she didn’t want to deal with him at the moment. This issue with her mother and Fox was an old life problem and Ben was part of the new life she was working so hard to establish. She had thought she had a decent foothold but the new revelations had rocked her.

  Why did things have to keep screwing up? Why did things she couldn’t control keep interfering with her life? Sometimes she wondered if she wouldn’t be better off dead. Although she’d never had suicidal thoughts before, the idea of being free of all of this complexity was alluring.
She was tired of it. Tired of feeling emotionally wrung out, of being knocked off her feet by things she didn’t see coming.

  She tried to push those thoughts from her head and focus on the physical sensation of riding the bike. She’d gotten stronger from her daily rides and the pedaling felt good. She leaned forward, crouching over the bars. She stood on the pedals and rode in the highest gear she could manage. The effort gave her an outlet for her rage and the flood of endorphins worked to counteract all of the angry chemicals flooding her body. Every time her mind tried to return to the things she’d learned tonight, she pushed harder, accelerating until her lungs were burning and her focus narrowed to only what could be seen in her headlight.

  Her phone rang. Careful to maintain her balance, she snaked a hand to her pocket and retrieved it. It was Fox calling her back. She wasn’t ready to talk to him yet. He was just trying to make himself feel better and right now she didn’t care how he felt. She shoved the phone back in her pocket and put her hand back on the handlebars. With the speed and effort of her pedaling, the bike was rocking back and forth. This was no time to ride one-handed and lose control.

  She hadn’t gotten very far when her phone began ringing again.

  “Give it up, Fox,” she puffed.

  After several rings it quit, then started again. She grabbed it from her pocket, planning to put it on vibrate to silence it. This time she saw it was Ben.

  “Fuck,” she mumbled, feeling bad about the position she’d put him in. She’d be lucky to still have a job tomorrow. There was no reason he shouldn’t tell his mom about this and have her fired.

  She flipped the phone onto vibrate and tucked it into a handlebar pouch. She could see the display now without having to take a hand off the bars, keeping her from face-planting while checking the phone.

  She had to message Ben later and let him know what happened. She may even have to tell him the whole story. He deserved to know why she had run off. She didn’t want him to think she was a psycho or a stupid, emotional girl. It would be messed up if she ruined things with her first friend here.