Stick

by Andrew Smith

  “Thanks.”

  I opened a can of Coke. It was warm, but I didn’t mind at all. At least it didn’t stick to the roof of my mouth, unlike the only other nourishment I’d had since the day before.

  The truck driver’s name was Sutton Broussard. He told me all about how he came west from Louisiana; and now he drove artichokes to Southern California for a living. I’d never seen an artichoke in my life, but I guessed by the size of Sutton’s truck that people in Southern California liked them.

  I told him my real name and how I’d just turned fourteen three days before; but not much beyond that. I didn’t want to chance making any more trouble for Bosten by pretending to be him, and I wasn’t going to be driving again, anyway. So it didn’t matter.

  “Fourteen and driving your own car?”

  “I’m pretty tall.”

  “I can see that. I can see that,” Sutton said. “And Washington tags on it, too. You got yourself a hell of a ways from home, I’d say.”

  Maybe, I thought, he’d been paying a little too much attention to things. Maybe everyone just naturally noticed things that I didn’t think were obvious enough to care about.

  “You’re not going to do anything weird or anything, are you?”

  Sutton’s brow creased. “I was just about to ask you the same thing.”

  I took a gulp from the can, and Sutton said, “Why would you say something like that, anyway? Do you think a guy’s going to do something weird just because he offered you help?”

  He sounded a little defensive, maybe annoyed, too.

  But, yes, I guess I did think that.

  “I’m sorry.”

  We were on the highway now, moving fast. I felt like a giant. Sitting in the cab of that truck was like riding on the nose of a whale.

  “Where do you live, anyway?”

  “Nowhere. That car, until just now. But I’m on my way to my aunt’s house.”

  “I see. Oxnard, right?”

  “Do you live in this truck?”

  Sutton laughed. He pointed to a pair of small, discolored photographs taped to the underside of the shelf above his head. “That’s my wife and daughter. We have a house in Salinas.”

  I tried to think if I’d driven through Salinas.

  I couldn’t remember.

  Sutton cleared his throat. “Can you get me a Coke, please?”

  “Sure.”

  He popped the can open, still keeping his hands rocking on the wheel, and he said, “So, what happened up there?”

  At first, it shocked me, like he knew something about Willie and Brock, but then I noticed he began drawing a circle in the air around his ear. I made sure my Steelers cap was still on my head.

  “People usually don’t notice when I have the hat on.”

  “I notice things,” he said. “I knew something was wrong the minute I saw you pull into the rest stop. I saw how you watched those people with their dog. I could tell you were in some kind of trouble. Then, when I saw you start walking, I said to myself, ‘Yep, that kid needs someone to give him a little help.’ I notice things.”

  “Oh.” I took off the cap. It was so hot, anyway, and the wind in my sweaty hair felt good. I ran my hand over my head, surprised at how I could actually pull hair.

  Dad would never tolerate hair this long.

  “I was born this way.”

  Sutton’s head mechanically jerked, back and forth, from looking at me, to watching the road ahead.

  “Well,” he said. “I never seen anything like that before.”

  I am ugly.

  “I bet.”

  “Can you hear nothing there?”

  “Nothing’s the only thing I hear there.”

  Sutton laughed. “That’s fortunate, then. Must be nice to miss out on half the nonsense the rest of us have to endure listening to.”

  I had to think about that.

  “I don’t know.”

  “I believe so,” he said. “But I’m not going to ask you one more thing. So you don’t have to tell me nothing about that car back there, Stark, or where you came from. I don’t want to know.”

  “I was robbed,” I said. “An old man stole all my money, except for ten dollars I had hidden in my suitcase. That’s why I was walking.”

  I pictured Brock, cold and stiff, lying on the same couch where I’d watched two days’ worth of news broadcasts. They must have found the bodies by now. I tried to think if I’d left anything at all behind that might bear witness to my having been on the houseboat.

  “Some people don’t deserve to walk this earth,” Sutton decided.

  That made me feel sick.

  “I don’t hold grudges.”

  “Tell me how to do that, Stark. If I were you, I imagine I’d be pretty bitter.”

  “Not about the money. Or the old man, I’m not.”

  There were other things, though.

  “Okay. Look, if you’re tired, you can sleep on the bunk back there. You don’t have to worry about nothing. But one thing…”

  “What?”

  “We’ll be coming up around Bakersfield in an hour or so. I should tell you that we’re going to go through a highway patrol check station.”

  The thought of police scared me. Maybe Sutton could see that, too.

  “What for?”

  “They check all the trucks, usually. I was thinking you probably might not want them to see you.”

  “Why do you think that?”

  I shifted in my seat. My back was damp with sweat.

  “’Cause I think you probably ran off from your home in Washington. And that car you ran out of gas in was probably not willingly loaned to a fourteen-year-old with permission to drive it through three states.”

  “Yeah. Probably.”

  “They’re probably about bound to wonder what some white kid’s doing in a truck with me, too.”

  “You probably could say you’re my dad.”

  Sutton laughed. “Shit.”

  “I’m not tired.”

  But I went to sleep, anyway, on the little bed in the back of the cab.

  * * *

  I woke in terror, smothered in red, as hot as hell, struggling to breathe.

  I thought I was back on the houseboat. Somehow, I imagined I had just heard the crack of five gunshots, and I counted them: one two

  three

  four five.

  Just like that.

  And all I could see was red. The red corduroy spread on the little bed in the rental room that Willie said I didn’t have to pay for. I heard men’s voices. They sounded far away. I was being smothered. I needed air.

  I thrashed my arms and sat up.

  The truck.

  I’d completely forgotten I was inside a truck, somewhere in California. It wasn’t moving, and I could see a bar of flash- ing yellow lights ahead through the windshield. The cab was empty. The driver’s door stood open. Sutton must have covered me up with the red nylon sleeping bag I was under.

  To help me hide.

  We were stopped at the checkpoint.

  I inched higher and could see a row of parked highway patrol cruisers on the right shoulder of the highway in front of the truck.

  I put my head back down and covered myself again.

  I waited.

  I tried listening to the faint voices coming from outside Sutton’s open door.

  Thanks, Mike.

  kids

  McClellan

  north part of Washington

  no one said

  anything

  if they’re together

  where

  one of them

  I never saw him

  Oregon

  murders

  or

  fucking bloodbath

  something

  Toyota

  “I’ll keep an eye out when I head back through Fresno.”

  “See you next time, Sut.”

  “Sure thing, Mike.”

  It was like being back in that room, waiting and w
aiting. I felt the shifting of the truck as Sutton climbed back up into his seat, could sense the change of the air inside the cab when his door whooshed shut, then the tingling vibration through the thin cushion on the cot as the motor revved up.

  It was so hot under there.

  We began moving.

  I uncovered my face, breathed, and watched Sutton stow away some notebooks and papers on the shelf over his head.

  “What did they tell you?”

  Sutton visibly jumped when I spoke.

  “Holy shit, kid! Don’t just stick your face out and talk like that. I just about pissed my pants.”

  “Sorry.”

  The truck jerked forward, began rolling. Soon, we were back up to speed, away from the inspection area.

  “You’re okay. You can get up now.”

  I climbed up between the seats and let the air from the open window blow through my hair.

  “What did they tell you?” I repeated.

  Sutton glanced at me. “You got a brother?”

  “Yeah.”

  “What’s his name?”

  “Bosten.”

  I watched Sutton. I could tell he was thinking about things. Doing the math.

  “Where is he?”

  “I’m trying to find him.”

  “I’m only going to ask this once.”

  “Okay.”

  “Are you telling the truth?”

  “Yes. I pretended to be him. I have his license. So I could drive. What did they tell you?”

  Sutton didn’t say anything.

  “Look. I have his license. I’ll show you. You can see it doesn’t really look like me at all.”

  I pulled the empty wallet from my back pocket, slid Bosten’s license out, and offered it over to Sutton. He hardly glanced at it.

  “Okay. Sorry. I believe you.”

  “I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m just trying to find my brother.”

  “I know. Nobody thinks you did anything wrong. The cops. They think you’re in trouble.”

  We began driving up into the mountains. The road was steep and the truck seemed to crawl along, shuddering. And I told Sutton the whole story. I didn’t say why Bosten left home, but I did tell him about how Emily gave me sixty dollars, and then I stole my dad’s car and ended up stuck in a place called Scappoose. And I told him everything about April and Willie, and what happened with Brock on the houseboat; and how scared I was that I was going to die, too.

  Sutton just shook his head slowly. “Shit.”

  Then I didn’t want to talk anymore.

  At the top of the grade, Sutton pulled into a truck stop to gas his rig.

  “They have pretty decent burgers in here,” he said. “Let’s get something to eat. Okay?”

  “I only have one dime.”

  “I didn’t ask you anything about how much money you had.”

  * * *

  Sutton paid for my food. We ate quietly. The place was noisy enough, anyway, and my head was so full of words I couldn’t straighten any of them out. I kept wondering why there are people in this world, like Sutton, who are willing to help other people just because they simply can, and why there are people like Brock and Willie, like Mrs. Buckley, or people like Emily and her mom; like my mom and dad.

  But all my wondering always brought me back to thinking about Bosten and how he told me that things don’t make people the way they are.

  It doesn’t just happen.

  I had a vanilla milkshake.

  There is something about vanilla milkshakes that makes everything seem okay. At least, a little bit better. And I wasn’t wearing my cap. I was tired of wearing my cap.

  Sutton only drank water. The kind they give you in truck stops like the one we sat in, served in grainy plastic cups with big, clear cubes of ice. But despite the ice and the plastic, it always tastes like tin.

  He said, “I decided something.”

  “What?”

  But I knew what he was going to say. I was ready for it a long time before Sutton said it. He was going to tell me that when he got up to go, he wanted me to just sit there; that I was on my own now. There was no reason for him not to say something like that to me.

  I drive at night

  I blow things up

  I get people killed

  “I’m probably going to get docked for being late. But up ahead a few miles, I can turn off and get on the one-twenty-six. It’s maybe an hour and a half to Oxnard.”

  I studied him. I never met anyone like Sutton before. Well, maybe Mrs. Lohman, if she drove a truck.

  He said, “You know how to get to your aunt’s house?”

  “I’ve driven there before.”

  Sutton laughed. “Shit. You are not driving my truck. I don’t care how tough you are.”

  I never thought I was tough.

  * * *

  On the narrow stretch of highway that followed a shallow river basin cutting west toward Ventura, I slipped a sweating hand into my pocket and flipped that one dime around and around between my fingers. I tried imagining what things would be like when I showed up unannounced at Aunt Dahlia’s door, but it scared me to do that. Although I had absolutely no doubt she would cry and make a fuss over me, and take me in without any questions or rules, I tried to search somewhere in my heart for any faint kind of vibration that the road was bringing me closer to Bosten.

  But all I could feel was dark emptiness.

  I started shaking my head again, without thinking, trying to clear the pictures from my mind.

  Sutton asked, “What’s wrong?”

  I didn’t want to tell him how I kept seeing that old man, dead on the couch, and Willie’s bloody foot sticking out through the doorway of the room I’d slept in, on the cold and quiet houseboat on the Columbia River.

  “Nothing.”

  * * *

  The sun began to dip down behind the feathery tips of the picket lines of giant eucalyptus trees that had been planted in perfect lines to mark orchard boundaries and to keep the frost from settling on the endless rows of oranges and lemons. We drove across railroad tracks, through a tiny town named Fillmore, and then to another place called Santa Paula, where Mexicans sold produce or played music along the roadside.

  “We’ll have you home before sundown, Stark.”

  I said, “Thank you. But I just want to ask you one thing.”

  “Go ahead.”

  “Why would you do this for me?”

  “Because I know what it’s like.”

  I didn’t think anyone knew what “it” was really like. Not to me.

  “You do?”

  “I do.”

  “Do you ever eat Mexican food?”

  “Everyone eats Mexican food in California.”

  “One day, when you come back, all of us will go have Mexican food together.”

  Sutton said, “That’s a deal. Don’t forget. You owe me.”

  I wasn’t going to forget.

  * * *

  I guess everyone thought it was some kind of mistake. I mean, it was probably the first time ever that an eighteen-wheeler filled with artichokes arrived on Ocean Avenue and stopped on the sand-covered asphalt directly in front of Aunt Dahlia’s house.

  It seemed like forever since I’d been there.

  I didn’t need to do the math.

  The sun had dropped below the horizon out on the sea, and I realized that there was a certain unique color the light here would cast at precisely this hour. Down the street, I saw Evan and Kim and a few of the other kids who surfed on the Strand, walking barefoot, away from the beach with surfboards cradled under their arms. Evan looked back at the truck. I could tell he said something to the others—probably something like what’s that dumbshit doing down here? Of course, he had no way of knowing I was the dumbshit sitting in the cab. I almost wanted to yell out at him and his sister, but I didn’t want Sutton to think I’d just brush him off so easily and leave him there.

  “Those kids down there are friends of mine,” I
said.

  “Welcome home, Stark.”

  Aunt Dahlia’s door swung inward, almost suspiciously. I remembered how thin the walls of her home were, so I could only imagine how the rumbling of the truck’s diesel engine must have been shaking it.

  When she peeked her face out at us, I threw open my door and said, over my shoulder to Sutton, “Don’t leave!”

  I ran down and hugged her. I made myself not cry. I willed myself to be tough, like Bosten was and like Sutton thought I was, too; and Aunt Dahlia squeezed me and kissed me and kept saying over and over, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

  AUNT DAHLIA

  Aunt Dahlia tried to make Sutton come inside. She offered him some money, too. He wouldn’t take it. I knew that without him saying the first word about it. Sutton explained how he’d probably be in a little bit of trouble for his lateness and had to get moving down the coast, so he apologized for not staying.

  And the whole time I was lugging my suitcase down from the truck, and even while we stood there and waved at Sutton as he left, it seemed like Aunt Dahlia never took her hand off me for even a second.

  It was almost as though she was afraid that I’d vanish again.

  * * *

  She had lots of questions for me. I had just as many for her.

  But I knew right away, even before I got out of the truck, that Bosten wasn’t there. I could feel it. And wondering about him weighed heavily on me, like it slowed my mind down from being able to clearly understand anything else that was going on.

  It took Dahlia a good half hour to settle down. I told her I wasn’t hungry, but she insisted on cooking bacon and eggs for me. While she rumbled about in the kitchen, cursing her toaster for burning one side of the bread, I brought my suitcase into the bedroom that Bosten and I had shared. I guess I stayed in there for a while, thinking about things: about Bosten, about how this suitcase was in the same house where people had been murdered; and then Aunt Dahlia appeared in the doorway, like she still couldn’t believe it was really me, and she grabbed me by the hand and took me in to sit at her table.

  “Now, Stark,” she said, “you have to tell me what’s going on.”

  Just like that, I could see in her face that she had some idea about things. But there could be no way she knew even half of the bad stuff that had happened to Bosten and me.

  I sat down and began to eat, and Aunt Dahlia covered my left hand with hers.

  “I don’t know where to start, Dahlia.”