Glass crunches under a shoe. The firefighter standing in the door is a woman around twenty-five, she’s carrying a big EMT kit. She sees me, sees the gun. Freezes.
Too late, Henry. Too late to do anything now but run.
I tilt my head toward the street.
– The sheriffs out there yet?
She licks her lips.
– Not yet.
– How long?
– Couple minutes maybe.
I point at my leg.
– I need you to wrap this up. Quick.
She doesn’t move.
– It’s OK, you’re gonna be OK, I just need you to do your job.
She nods, walks over, kneels, and opens her kit. I reach down, grab the edges of the hole in my pant leg, and rip so she can get to the wound. She tears open a sterile pack and starts wiping blood away. I whine a little and grit my teeth. She stops and looks up at me.
– It’s OK, just hurry.
She looks at the wound.
– It needs stitches.
– Just bandage it, for Christ sake.
She starts wrapping my leg, going over the wound, and around the pant leg.
– The guy outside, next to the garage?
She’s concentrating on her work.
– Yeah?
– He alive?
– I don’t know, my partner’s on him. One of the neighbors said someone in the garage might be hurt. I came in here.
The wrap is done.
– Got any penicillin in there?
– Yeah.
– Better give me a shot.
She pulls out an ampoule, rips it out of its pack, and stabs me in the leg. I can hear another siren. The sheriffs. Time to go.
– Thanks.
I point at Danny.
– Why don’t you work on him and we’ll skip all the lying-on-the-floor-and-counting-to-a-hundred crap.
– OK.
She turns to Danny and takes his pulse. I open the door to the house.
STACY WAS a year behind me and Wade. She was a real good girl; honor roll, student government, extracurricular this and that. She was also the hottest chick in school. Being a star jock at school, I crossed paths with her brainy-but-popular crowd. I remember flirting with her once, not really trying to get anywhere except in the way teenage boys are always trying to get somewhere. But I didn’t try that hard. I didn’t have to try hard with any of the other chicks, so why bother with one who wanted me to work for it? What I thought. Wade’s crew of burnouts wouldn’t have crossed paths with her clique, wouldn’t have even had classes together, let alone social interaction. But I remember being baked with him in PE and watching her run track with the girls and him saying that if he could nail any chick in school she’d be the one. Man, I’d love to hear the story of how they hooked up in the first place. But Wade can’t tell me, and I can’t ask Stacy because she’s too busy right now beating me with her son’s hockey stick.
I STEP inside, close the door, and get one upside the head. I take a couple more weak blows before I get a grip on the stick and rip it out of her hands, and she comes at my face with her fingernails. I get my forearm in front of my face and shove her off as I run toward the back of the house. She keeps after me, beating on my back. I duck into the kitchen. Down the hall I catch a glimpse of her kids; the boy I saw before, another a few years younger, and a tiny little girl who’s going to grow up to look like her mom.
Stacy shoves me hard and I stumble into the kitchen as she runs toward her children.
– Get upstairs! Get to your rooms!
And that’s the last I see of her, herding the kids upstairs, away from the scary man. I head for the patio door at the back of the kitchen. Stop. There’s a pile of mail on the kitchen table. I flip through until I find what I want, and cram it in my back pocket. I go out the back, close the door behind me, and pause for a moment, staring back into the house. The Christmas tree and decorations, the Nativity scene, the mess of kids’ toys. Then the sheriff’s car sirens up in front of the house.
THEY’RE UP. With all the noise, how could they not be up? I come over the fence into the backyard, see the lights on inside, walk to the side of the house, and dump the guns over the gate into a bush in the front yard. I won’t carry a gun into my mother’s house. When I open the back door and come in limping, Mom starts to cry.
– Henry. Henry.
– It’s OK, I’m OK.
She’s shaking her head.
– Something woke us up, a crash and then, then, then.
She can’t talk, she’s crying too hard. Dad holds her.
– It sounded like guns out there, Hank.
I’m turning off the lights.
– I’m going to go away.
Mom buries her face in Dad’s chest. It sounds like she’s saying no over and over, but I’m not sure.
– The police are gonna know I’m here. I have to.
Dad is shaking his head.
– We can talk to the police, Hank, it’s time to stop this. It’s time to fix this.
– Dad.
– We can, we know people here, we can fix this and you can stop.
– Dad, listen.
He grabs me by the shoulders and looks into my eyes.
– You listen, son. Enough of this. It’s time for you to stop running from this trouble and do something about it.
I’ve never said no to my father, always done what he told me to do. I look back into his eyes.
– I killed people.
Whatever was going to come out of his mouth freezes in there, and dies.
– Some of the people they said I killed. I killed them. I’m a killer.
I go upstairs to my old room. I grab my money and the clothes I washed earlier and the phone Dylan gave me and I go back down. Dad is at the foot of the stairs, Mom next to him. Dad reaches for my hand as I come down, I pull it back.
– I need the keys to the shop.
He points at the table next to the front door. I grab the keys. I feel Mom’s hand on my back.
– Henry, oh my poor baby. Oh, baby.
She wraps her arms around me, and I feel Dad grab us both in his big arms and squeeze us together, trying to compress us into the one flesh we once were. But we are no longer. I am different. I pull myself free.
– Don’t try to protect me anymore. It’s not. I’m not worth it. Just.
Mom tries to hug me again, I look at Dad, he stops her.
– The police will be coming, tonight I think. You can’t lie about hiding me. Tell them you tried to get me to give up and I ran. It’s the truth. Tell the truth.
I reach for the doorknob. Stop. Turn and grab Mom and kiss her cheek.
– I love you, Mom. I won’t be back. I’m sorry. I love you, Dad.
I open the door and the dogs come barking down the stairs. Blow up the world and they won’t notice, fuck with the front door and they go berserk. I step outside. Over the barking dogs I hear Mom.
– We love you, Henry, no matter what.
I pull the door closed, and I’m running again.
THE SHOP is in the middle of town, about a ten-minute walk. I can’t move very fast with my leg, but I know a shortcut. I dig the guns out of the bushes, huddle there for a second as a van drives past on the street, then walk up to the corner, take a right, and climb a short chain-link fence. It’s not easy with one leg to work with, but I make do. On the other side, I sit down on the edge of the dry culvert, push off, and slide to the bottom. I hit bottom and get a shock of pain up my left leg.
I’m lucky it’s been a dry winter so far; there are only a couple inches of water down here. I splash through the darkness for a couple hundred yards till I get to the spot where steps are carved into the south wall of the culvert. They’re steep, like Kulkukan. I shake that vision from my head. No time for that.
At the top some kids have clipped a hole in the chain-link. I squeeze through and pop up under the bleachers of Patterson High’s football field. I weave through the lattice o
f struts, come out from the west end of the stands, cross the track that circles the football field, cross the field itself, and stop. Right in front of me are the baseball diamonds. I trot as quickly as I can between the diamonds, glancing at the spot where I broke my leg and U-turned my life.
Get over it, Henry.
The campus is pretty much like it was back in my day. I cross the quad with the big red P painted in the middle. This is where we used to grab unsuspecting freshmen and dump them facedown in trash cans for showing insufficient Tiger Pride, and then I’m on the street in front of the school looking at downtown Patterson in all its after-midnight glory.
CSM is tucked between a John Deere dealership and a U-Haul. I unlock the office door, go in, close it behind me, head into the shop, and flick on the lights. And there’s my car, wheels removed, up on jack stands. Right where Dad left it so he could start replacing the brake pads first thing in the morning. Thanks, Dad. Then the alarm goes off because I didn’t enter the code within thirty seconds of opening the door.
DANNY WAS wearing an America’s Most Wanted shirt, which means he’s a fan, which means he recognized me when I beat him up, because, according to The Man Who Got Away, I have my very own episode of America’s Most Wanted. Even a dildo like him could hop online and do enough research to find out where my parents live and come here looking for me. He probably thinks catching me will earn him a reward and make him some kind of hero. And it would, it would.
The sheriff and his deputies know who my folks are. They know Mom because they frequently dealt with her students at the continuation school and, after my shit went down, they spent a fair amount of time staked out in front of the house, helping to deal with the media and such. Danny or Leslie or one of their cronies are going to pop out with my name. How long till that happens? How long after that till one of the deputies remembers how close my folks live to Wade? How long till they get a report on the alarm at CSM and remember my dad owns it? How long will it take for these podunk cops to connect the dots and really be after me? And how long after that before the state cops and the FBI are involved?
Leslie is hysterical. Danny was unconscious when I last saw him. Ponytail Boy had two broken limbs and is probably in shock. Mullet Head? He didn’t look like he’d be talking to anyone soon. Fat Guy. Will he talk? Will he say, “Yeah, we spun up here after a wanted murderer instead of calling the cops because he beat up my friend and we crashed our truck here and…”? He’ll keep his mouth shut. That’s what he’ll do. That’s what he has to do for me to have a chance.
I’M PULLING tarps off of cars while the alarm continues to ring, calling to deputies who are otherwise engaged. The ’53 ’Vette is way too visible. Likewise the ’73 Jaguar XLS. The 1970 Mercedes 280 SL has no engine. The ’50 Studebaker Commander is buried at the back of the row. But the ’85 Monte Carlo SS is just right. I grab the keys from the rack on the wall and hit the ignition. Nothing. Of course, because no one has driven it lately and the battery is dead. I wheel the charger over, pop the hood, and stare at the big block 502; 450 horses and over 500 lbs of torque. I hook up the charger.
While the car is juicing I go back in the office and dig around the shelves until I find a greasy road atlas. I limp back toward the shop and trip over something. A box of CSM jackets, each one wrapped in plastic. My jacket! The jacket that Leslie had pressed to her daughter’s forehead. That’s the kind of clue that will get the cops here in a hurry.
I try the key again and the Monte Carlo rumbles to life, almost as loud as the alarm. I disconnect the charger, drop the hood, and hit the button to roll up the garage door. It’s almost one in the morning. Outside, the heavy San Joaquin fog is starting to muffle the valley. I ease between the other cars, hoping that Dad’s insurance is up-to-date. I stop the car just outside, go back, reach in, and hit the button, dropping the door. No reason to invite trouble. I’m behind the wheel, seat belt on. I take a right out of the drive directly onto Highway 33, and gun the engine, popping from first to second to third. The fucker is so loud I don’t hear the siren of the sheriff’s car until it bursts off of Poppy Avenue, right in front of me.
My left foot jacks the clutch while my right heel-toes the brake and the gas. I crank the wheel over. The rear of the Monte Carlo whips out and around and keeps whipping. Instead of pulling a nice neat one-eighty, I doughnut all the way around and end in a dead stop. The sheriff’s car swerves around me and streaks into the CSM driveway, out for bigger fish than a late-night joyrider like me. Cool. I pop into first and roll. The sheriff backs out of the driveway, pivots, and comes after me. I hit it, heading west, straight toward… Newman and the sheriff’s headquarters. Not cool. Let’s try that one-eighty again.
Clutch, heel-toe, crank wheel (not too much this time), come off the brake, into the gas, clutch coming out straight into second gear, rear wheels catching, sheriff’s car whirling into view through the windshield, jolting forward, teasing wheel to right as sheriff brakes and jerks left, correcting wheel for fishtail, left rear quarter panel banging sheriff’s left rear quarter panel as we pass, correcting again, and blasting back north on 33. Just like Jim fucking Rockford. The sheriff’s car gets turned around and is on me with full sirens and lights as I brake hard, take a right off of 33, and ease over the train tracks onto Las Palmas.
EAST LAS Palmas Avenue shoots northeast out of the center of Patterson and straight into ranch country until it bends due east and becomes West Main Avenue around the almond orchards, then turns into West Main Street as it passes through Hatch, and finally crosses the 99 just outside Turlock. It’s a fifteen-mile shot all the way out, but the first mile and a quarter is the tricky part, the stretch where the avenue is lined with huge palm trees, one every ten yards. You hit 100 mph there? The trees look like a wall. When I was a kid, we’d drag here when we thought we could get away with it. Right before getting into your car, you always said the same thing to your opponent: “Don’t fuck up.”
The Monte Carlo was clearly put together with an eye toward on-track drag racing, but it’s currently geared for street use. That slows down the acceleration a bit, taking your 0-60 sprint time from a flat six seconds to something around seven. Ho-hum. I lead-foot the pedal to the floor.
The dual carbs make a huge sucking sound as they fly wide open, the rear end bites down hard, smoke spews out from under the tires as I leave fifteen-foot twin stripes. The animal under the hood screams and I explode forward, the cop lost in the cloud of wheel-smoke behind me. I’m still in third when the speedometer hits 100.
I am not prepared to control something like this. No one is prepared to control something like this. I’m just trying to keep straight. If I waver I’ll lose traction and spin into the wall of massive palm trees flipping by on either side. I ease off the gas. The needle peaks at 110 and starts to drop. I want to check the rearview for the sheriff, but don’t dare move my eyes from the road. The last of the trees blinks away behind me and an ounce of tension leaves my shoulders. The sign in front of me announces that my lane must merge left due to road construction.
I take my foot off the gas and tap the brake. It works just fine. I scrub a couple mph off, down to about 90. There’s the lane shift. I tap again, again, blip the steering wheel left. Too much, I’m headed for the center divider. Tap, blip right to keep from slamming the divider, and shoot into the left lane too sharply. Orange traffic cones hammer off my right fender, and rocket, wheeling into the sky. I keep my feet off all pedals as the Monte Carlo scrapes past the five-hundred-yard gouge on my right where the tarmac has been carved away. I’m down to 70 by the time the road widens back out. I hear the siren behind me again.
The sheriff’s car is entering the construction lane. What the fuck am I doing? This isn’t a monster, it’s a car. I get back on the gas, pop into fourth, and the engine rumbles happily back up to 80. The last of the streetlights disappear behind me as our chase clears the town line. I see the next sign, the one that warns about the sharp turn up ahead that you should take at
30 mph.
It starts as a bend, swooping to the right between a fallow strawberry field and a windbreak of trees. I tap, tap, tap and get down to about 65 for the bend. Rubber screeches, but the tires stay firm on the road. Then I hit the hard angle of the turn. I can take it. This huge mother will stay on the road. I know it will.
There’s a little bump. It startles me, and I jerk the wheel a fraction to the left, overcorrect to the right, and the rear end slips and starts to carry me toward the trees. I dart the wheel into the skid, feel the tires grab, take it right, into the angle of the curve, lose traction again. And the road takes control.
The rear end spins around, I spin around, the trees reel in front of me, traveling from right to left a foot from the hood of the car, and disappear. Something crunches and jerks the car and bounces it back to the center of the road, spinning in the opposite direction now. I keep my hands clear of the wheel as it flings itself around, not wanting to break a wrist by trying to control it. I see the trees again, traveling left to right this time and much farther away. The car falls out from underneath me as it skitters off the road, then it jumps up to catch me, crashing into the field, still spinning, plowing the field into a storm of dust that screens me from the world as the Monte finally grinds to a halt.
In all the skidding and screeching and crashing, the radio has clicked on. I loll on rubber muscles, unable to move. My brain is a flat horizonless plain. I can sense, but not make sense of the siren screaming close by and the red and blue lights fluorescing the dust cloud outside the windows. Closer by, I recognize a voice. Yeah, that’s The Warrior, the late night DJ for 104.1. The Hawk. I loved that station when I was a kid. The siren stops, and through the blue and red haze, a shape starts to emerge. The deputy opens my door and points his gun at me. The Warrior stops talking and a song comes on the radio. Thin Lizzy. “The Boys Are Back in Town.”
THE DEPUTY seems to have been trained well. I mean, sure, maybe he should have ordered me out of the car before he ran over here and opened the door, but other than that I’d say he’s doing a pretty good job for a kid whose most serious calls are probably knife fights at local roadhouse bars.
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