The Porcupine of Truth

by Bill Konigsberg

  “It’s not your fault,” Aisha says.

  “Well, it feels a bit like it is. I had no idea. When I spoke to Lois a few hours ago, everything was fine. Then, I suppose, she spoke to her husband. She just called me, and she sounded very upset. I’m so sorry, Aisha. I mentioned that you are homosexual just in passing. I did not expect it would matter, especially because Lois seemed so kind. I wish I hadn’t said anything now.”

  “I’m glad you did,” Aisha says. “I don’t want to stay with someone who hates people like me.”

  “Well, me neither,” Laurelei says. “But I also don’t want you to spend the night on the street! I simply don’t know what to do. We don’t have any other contacts, and we don’t use credit cards. I could try to call a hotel and talk to someone….”

  “Don’t worry about it,” I say. “I have a card. We’ll be okay.”

  “Yeah,” says Aisha. “Don’t sweat it. We’re fine.”

  “Well, there is something else. Carson, Lois still wants to see you and give you this thing of your grandfather’s. She can’t do it tomorrow, though. The first time she could get away from her husband is Tuesday morning, so she wants you to meet her at eight a.m. Tuesday in front of the Tabernacle in Temple Square.”

  I laugh. “Um. So she turns us away, then wants us to wait two days to meet her? Could she figure out how to see us tomorrow, at least?”

  “I know, I know,” Laurelei says. “I just don’t know how to advise you.”

  I think about our options. We could figure out how to stay a couple of days in Salt Lake City. It’ll mean spending money, and it’ll mean taking some extra days away from Billings. I don’t know. Even though my mom will probably never, ever say no to me, my dad is sick and I should be with him.

  But how could I forgive myself for giving up my search for my grandfather? I picture him in the photo where he’s holding my dad as a young kid. His face like mine. I remember one of his puns: “When two egoists meet, it’s an I for an I.” His jokes like mine. He’s my blood.

  I turn to Aisha. “I want to keep going. I really want to know what this lady has for me.”

  I don’t know if I expect her to argue, but she doesn’t. “Well then, I guess we’re staying in Salt Lake,” she says.

  “I don’t know how to help, but if you can think of a way, we’ll do it,” Laurelei says. “I feel partially responsible. We both do.”

  “Don’t worry about it,” Aisha says. “We’ll be okay.”

  We ask Laurelei to tell Lois Clancy we’ll see her on Tuesday. Laurelei wishes us well, and we say good-bye.

  Aisha drives us to a nearby diner for a bite to eat. We’re both famished. While we’re waiting for our burgers and onion rings, she pulls up a site I’ve never seen before.

  “After I was kicked out of the house, I couchsurfed a couple nights,” she says.

  I crane my neck so I can see her screen. “I think you mentioned that.”

  She explains that there’s this site called surfingsofas.com. People open their homes to complete strangers for God-knows-what reason — insanity, possibly. She found a family in Billings and she stayed with them for two days before she decided she was in their way and left.

  “It’s worth a try. People review the folks they stay with, and vice versa.”

  And then the craziest thing happens. I think, Sure. Why not? I’m doing all new stuff I’ve never done before. What’s one more new thing? “Let’s do it,” I say.

  “Just no fucking Mormons. I’m over the fucking Mormons,” she says as she scrolls through people. “My soul is not getting saved in Salt Lake City. I have limits, you know.”

  As I scarf down my burger, she finds two possible hosts who seem cool. She reads their profiles to me. One is a couple in their thirties who do organic farming, and the other is a lesbian couple in their twenties. I might as well just turn into a lesbian at this point, because that seems to be the direction things are going around here. She sends the requests, and then she dives into her cheeseburger while I tear into my onion rings and begin to steal hers. In between bites, we stare at her phone, hoping to hear the beep that would alert us to a message from surfingsofas.com.

  “Did you know that the reason God burned down Sodom wasn’t because everyone was gay, but because of a lack of hospitality?” Aisha asks as she sips her soda.

  “Um. I did not know that.”

  “And of course the Clancys are religious. The husband’s a pastor. That’s very ‘love your neighbor,’ right?”

  I realize getting turned away by the Clancys is bothering her more than I thought. More than that, she’s right. Whatever their reasons for not letting us stay with them, the Clancys knew we were two teenagers alone in Salt Lake City. They had to know that if they didn’t take us in, we’d have no place to be overnight. “Some people suck,” I say.

  She stares down at the last remnants of her bun. “The last person to turn me away was Kayla,” she says, and I can tell from her tone that what she’s saying is painful. “It’s hard to find out someone you thought you might … love … doesn’t love you back. At least not enough to give you a roof over your head when you don’t have one.”

  Instinctively I reach across the table and intertwine my pinky with hers. She curls hers around mine, and I have to close my eyes because all I can think is, I gave you a roof. Why can’t you feel that way about me? I’d do anything for you. I would never, ever let you sleep in the goddamn zoo.

  After dinner, we drive the streets of Salt Lake City, which are completely impossible. N 200 W intersects with W 500 N, and you have to be just about a genius to know where you are in this town.

  When the clock says nine thirty and there’s been no beep, Aisha pulls into a Big Lots parking lot and checks her email anyway.

  “Nada on surfingsofas.com. Oh well.”

  “Oh well.”

  “I think it’s hotel time,” Aisha says, and I know she’s right, but I still wince. Right now my mom thinks we’re staying with friends. How the hell am I going to explain a hotel charge to her? She says yes to just about everything, but I’m beginning to wonder if we’re reaching the limit of “reasonable” expenses.

  The cheapest hotel she can find online is a Days Inn for fifty-four dollars. That seems reasonable-ish, so we drive there. I’m feeling fried, so I know Aisha must be feeling even more so, since she’s driven the whole way. She invited me to drive part of it, but the truth is, I don’t even have a license yet. We who grew up with a crosstown bus don’t have a lot of incentive to pass a driving test.

  At the Days Inn, the guy behind the counter doesn’t trust us from the start. He raises one eyebrow as we walk in, and his eyes dart back and forth like he thinks this is some sort of hookup. If only. He starts filling out a form anyway, and then he asks for our license and credit card.

  I give my card to him, hoping we can do this without a license, or with Aisha’s. He runs it through the machine and waits, looking at the screen. Then he shakes his head and flips the card back to me. “Declined,” he says.

  “What?” I say. “No. It can’t be.”

  He frowns. “Declined.”

  I look in my wallet. Thirty-six dollars. We don’t have any other way to pay. Should I ask Aisha what she has? I can’t. So we leave, out of ideas.

  We sit in the car and try to figure out what’s next. Aisha’s eyes look like they’re beginning to close.

  “Looks like we’re sleeping here,” she says, and I look around. There’s the backseat, where the Porcupine is currently lying on her side next to a shiny, satiny lavender pillowcase, and there are the two front seats. The backseat could possibly be comfortable for one.

  She offers me the backseat but I insist she take it, and we compromise on each getting it half the night. Before we close our eyes, Aisha checks surfingsofas.com and finds that both of our requests were viewed and not responded to. Yes, people do suck. In a last-gasp effort, even though it’s almost eleven p.m., Aisha posts a message on the surfingsofas.com Salt
Lake City bulletin board.

  My friend and I are sleeping in my car because our credit card wasn’t accepted at a hotel. We’re good people and we’re just here overnight. Anyone willing to put us up? We would clean your house if you’d take us in. Seriously. Call or text me at 406-555-2355.

  Aisha curls up in the backseat, her head resting on the lavender pillow, and I recline the passenger seat back as far as it will go, so my head is inches away from her knees. I turn my head left and she’s lying on her side, looking at me. She smiles, and I smile back.

  “There’s something kind of peaceful about this, isn’t there?” she says.

  “Yeah.”

  “The first night after my dad kicked me out, I slept like this and it felt like I was the only person in the world.”

  I imagine being alone in a car, and then alone in the world, parentless, on my own. It’s an exhilarating and horrifying idea, and I have to close my eyes.

  “Sometimes at home,” I say, “I sit on the radiator in my room and stare out the window into other windows across the way. All the blinds are closed, so I’m not, like, a perv. I just sit and think what it would be like to be in another life completely. Like, not in mine.”

  Aisha nods. “What hurts you so bad, Carson Smith?” she asks.

  I look away, out the front windshield at the mostly empty parking lot. Someone’s parked a U-Haul truck that takes up two spaces. Whose truck is that? What does their life feel like? Where are they running off to? I think of sitting on my radiator at home, and all the times in my life I’ve fantasized about taking off. I want to believe these people are going someplace better, someplace warmer, maybe. Happier. I have to believe that. Because if I don’t believe that, maybe life isn’t worth living.

  I hear Aisha sit up. I keep looking out the window at the empty parked cars, and then she hugs me from the side, around the seat. I hold my breath and start to count, and then I stop counting and try to just let the hug happen.

  What is it that those people have that I never have?

  Oh. This.

  I’ve never had this. I’ve had lots of things, but never this sort of connection. Aisha’s left arm falls across my chest, and a warm feeling radiates down my spine. I breathe a little bit into the hug.

  When she releases the hug, I want to cut the tension with a joke, and I have three pulling at my tongue. Instead, I say, “Kayla had no idea what she was missing. And you’re not the only person in the world.”

  She lets the words float there for a bit.

  “Neither are you,” she says.

  I reach back with my hand, and at the same moment, she reaches her hand forward, and we hold each other’s hands that way until we fall asleep.

  In the middle of the night, I find I don’t sleep so well sitting up. Aisha is softly snoring in the back, and I am suddenly wide-awake. I feel around down near my feet and find my grandpa’s journal. It’s like we’re having an ongoing conversation, and even if it’s one-way, I want it to continue. I read by the light of the moon.

  And then, underneath, in shaky handwriting:

  I feel numb. It’s like my grandfather lives inside my chest. I’m not a drunk, but I know that exact feeling, like, Screw the world, nobody loves me. It’s immature, but I’ve had that thought tons of times. Is that a Smith thing?

  Do you grow out of it?

  I think of my dad. He hasn’t grown out of it. He acts like the world has screwed him. I get that, but I don’t want to live my life feeling that way.

  My grandfather has lived more than thirty years since writing this. I wonder if he still feels that way, or if he got over it. I try to imagine what he’s like now. I have to believe he got past it. In that letter from last year, he sounded different. Wiser. How did that happen? Could he teach me?

  MY NECK HURTS when we wake up. Aisha had the backseat the whole night, and I’m fine with it. More important is to figure out what the hell to do for a whole day in Salt Lake City.

  Aisha drives us to a highway rest stop, and while she goes to the bathroom, I call my mother.

  “Hey Mom.”

  “Hi honey. How are you doing?”

  “I’m good. We’re good. Really good, actually. Um, one thing though. The card was declined?”

  “The credit card? It was? What were you trying to do?”

  “Get a hotel room,” I say, quickly scanning my brain. Did I tell her we had a place to stay?

  “I thought you were staying with friends of Aisha’s?”

  Crap. “Yeah. Um. That fell through.”

  “Where are you, honey?” I can hear the icy concern in her voice.

  “Um.” I take a couple of seconds to think out my options. I land on the truth. “Utah.”

  “Honey. I thought you were in Wyoming. I’m not sure I care for you running around the country without my knowing where you are.”

  I don’t say, But you said, “Whatever you think.”

  “Where did you sleep?”

  I gulp. “The car.”

  “Honey.”

  “It’s fine. It’s just gonna be one more day. We have someone we need to see tomorrow morning, and then we’ll come back,” I say, knowing it’s possible that’s not true. If Lois knows something about where my grandfather is, we may need to keep going. But I guess I can come up with another excuse then.

  “No,” Mom says.

  “What?” I’m actually jarred. I cannot remember her ever telling me no before.

  “You need to come back. Your father. You’re here to help me take care of your father.”

  “But you don’t need my help. I sat around all day in Billings doing nothing. Can’t I just have today and tomorrow?”

  “No,” she says, her voice gaining confidence. “That’s enough now. I’ll call the credit card company. No. Forget that. I’ll wire you money, a hundred dollars. Just enough to get home and for an emergency. Okay?”

  I close my eyes. My head is buzzing out of control. “No,” I say.

  “Excuse me?”

  “Sorry, Mom. I don’t mean to upset you. There’s something we have to do. When have I ever done the wrong thing, like, ever? You need to trust me on this one.”

  She takes a deep breath. “I hear that you feel the need to spread your wings and have some adventures. But this isn’t the right time. You need to come back here. We’ll talk about this later, when you get home. Find me a place where I can wire you money for gas. Then I want you to just drive straight through. Promise me.”

  My throat feels cold. Every muscle in my body feels tight. She’s telling me no for the first time in my life, and as much as I’ve maybe wanted that in the past, right now no is not an answer I can take. I need to go farther. I need to find my grandfather. It’s the most important thing I’ve ever needed to do.

  But I also need more money. We’re low on gas. Aisha and I have maybe fifty bucks between us. We’re stuck.

  “I’ll text you a place,” I say, and then, as soon as she starts speaking, I hang up.

  A few minutes later, a long text arrives:

  I understand you are upset and I want you to know that o hear that. What I want you to thin about is how much of this is you being upset about your father. I know this must be terribly difficult for you. I locate myself in that feeling.

  I’ve heard her talk like this before, like the psychologist she is, a million times. So why is it this time I start shaking?

  I don’t respond to the text right away. When Aisha comes back from the bathroom, I’m searching for a place my mom can wire us money.

  “You figure out what happened with the card?” she asks.

  “Yeah, sort of. No. It’s fine. My mom is wiring us some money,” I say, while texting my mom the information. I don’t tell Aisha it’s only a hundred bucks, which is not that much given that we no longer have a credit card. I also don’t tell her that the money comes with a directive to get back to Billings immediately.

  “Wow. My mom would not be that generous.”

 
; “Yeah, well,” I say, trying to figure out how we’re going to make this work. There’s got to be a way. Failure is not an option.

  WE PICK UP the money at a supermarket, where I also buy protein bars, because I’m famished. I give one to Aisha. As we’re sitting in the parking lot eating, the phone rings.

  It’s a woman named Stacy Bailey, who saw Aisha’s post on surfingsofas.com and invites us to stay with her and her family for the night. We check out her reviews, and they’re flawless. A deal is struck, and we get the Baileys’ address.

  Driving there, it feels good to have someone care about me — us — even a stranger named Stacy Bailey. She will make everything okay for a day. She’s our savior.

  Casa de Bailey turns out to be this huge McMansion with a garage big enough for three cars. Stacy Bailey is a skinny, middle-aged blond lady who greets us warmly at the door, and we walk into a large, high-ceilinged main room with two leather recliners facing what must be a seventy-inch television mounted on the wall next to the fireplace. Two floral-print couches sit across from each other, and on one of them rests a college-aged guy with a beard. He’s playing with his phone, and he doesn’t say anything to us as we walk in.

  Stacy says she has to get going, and she rushes to show us our rooms (separate!) and teach us how to use the TV remotes. She introduces us to her son, Gareth — the guy on the couch — who says, “No reality shows. Seriously. House rule,” without even looking at us. Mrs. Bailey groans and playfully smacks him on the top of the head.

  “Do something today,” she says. “It’s a Monday. Really. Please.”

  He says back, “Epic plans. Don’t you worry.”

  We follow her to the kitchen, where we stand and watch as she sets a world record for cleaning up cookie-baking detritus.

  “Thanks for taking us in,” I offer.

  She nods. “It was just, I listen to podcasts? And this morning’s devotional was about how Heavenly Father wants us to share what we have with others. My mind flashed on surfingsofas.com and I thought, We haven’t done that in quite some time. There your message was, waiting for me. I took it as a sign. I’m so glad you’re here. I hope you’ll forgive my busyness. We’d love it if you’d join us for a family dinner tonight, but for today, I’m sorry to say, you’re on your own. Is that okay?”