Stranger Son

by Jim Nelson

  "Did you get your money back?" she asked.

  "Check-out was at eleven this morning. I paid for another night to extend the time."

  "Oh, you can get out of that," she said. Learning how to work desk clerks was another little skill she'd picked up over the years. "Just tell them you need a late check-out. If they give you trouble, tell them you were going to live with the bedbugs but finally they were too much to bear, and if they're gonna charge you, then you're going to report them to the city. Most desk clerks don't want to get involved."

  "Check-out was at eleven," he insisted. "We paid for the night. Fair's fair. Besides, Frank and Emeril Abney are footing the bill. Another forty-two bucks is nothing to them."

  Thirty minutes later, the highway narrowed to two lanes. Traffic slowed to twenty miles per hour. Dense pine and fir trees rising from the umber Sierra Nevada soil lined both sides of the highway. Benford pulled the Ford into a gas station. He parked at a spot beside the coin-op air pumps.

  What caused him to pull over was a great green road sign with yellow lettering. It was erected just beyond the gas station atop plywood stilts:

  NOW ENTERING

  FREE STATE OF JEFFERSON

  PREPARE TO STOP

  With the car parked and the engine running, Benford produced from his split-handle medical bag the cold vial of blood and a scrap of the surgical tape. He'd hand-cut the tape to a rough oval shape the size of a lima bean.

  "What is that?"

  "Put out your thumb," he said. "No, the other side."

  He peeled off the paper backing of the oval-cut tape. The oval of tape was delicate and transparent. It curled like a lost eyelash. From a plastic sheath, he produced a sterile eyedropper. He removed its rubber bulb and handled the glass barrel as a pipette. With the tip of his forefinger on the top of the shaft, he transferred a single drop of blood from the cold vial on the center of the oval tape. The chilled blood oozed thickly from the nib of the dropper.

  With the vial and dropper set aside, he gently applied the prepared blood patch to the meat of her right thumb. He sealed it in place using the tips of a pair of tweezers, careful to press only along its edges. He leaned into her to apply it, eyes inches from her outstretched hand. He used a cheap hair oil in his horseshoe of hair, and she could smell the essences in it. The garlic from his Italian lunch also inundated her side of the car. Wiry black hair covered the tops of his stubby fingers, which were surprisingly dexterous in their task. Finally, he leaned back to reveal to her his handiwork. On the pad of her thumb sat an artificial blister of blood.

  "Don't touch it," he said.

  She withdrew her thumb to study it.

  "The border patrol has a machine to test if you're a bridge daughter," he said. "They'll have you press your thumb on it. Don't ask questions. Just do what they ask." He motioned to the blister. "Be careful how you move your hand. If they see my little fix job, the show's over."

  "They're taking my DNA?"

  "No." He returned the vials and droppers to his bag. "The test is cruder than that. It's a reduced-spectrum chromosome analyzer. It's high school biology stuffed in a box."

  Ruby never attended high school. She nodded in understanding, although from her expression, it was plain she did not.

  "Humans have twenty-three chromosomes," he explained to her. "Every cell of our bodies has a set of them. They're protein strands encoded with all kinds of things about your biology. Most hereditary diseases are encoded in your chromosomes, for example."

  "Like Hoff's Syndrome?"

  "Yes, like Hoff's." He began to continue and stopped. "Why do you ask?"

  "Well, when I was in pons, the doctor gave me and my sister special shots for Hoff's Syndrome. My mother said it ran in the family."

  "Your mother is mistaken," he said. "If you had Hoff's Syndrome, you would be dead right now. No Hagar with Hoff's lives past the age of twenty."

  Ruby thought about it, puzzled. "She seemed pretty certain there was a history of Hoff's in our family."

  "No," he said. "You sitting here is proof there is not." He twisted in the driver's seat to set the medical bag in the rear. The car engine remained running. "One of the human chromosomes is tied to gender," he continued. "I have an XY chromosome. Bridge daughters like you have an XZ chromosome. That's what makes you you."

  "Because of one chromosome?"

  "One chromosome out of twenty-three. XZ is why you're born pregnant. It's that pair that causes the gemmelius to form from the base of your spine. This is the delicate trinity that Mother Nature has arranged for humans. XX and XY come together to make an XZ. The XZ grows up and gives birth to an XX or an XY. The human cycle is a tripartite dance—a dance that requires three partners," he explained.

  One of the Origin First pieces of evidence of bridge superiority was XZ. Ruby never knew what it meant exactly. Now she knew.

  She held up the patch on her thumb. "So this—"

  "That's double-X blood. The border patrol's device is keyed to XZ."

  "That's why we stopped at your wife's house," she said. "For you to draw her blood."

  "She's sympathetic to Hagars too," he said.

  "Was she happy to see you?"

  "No," he said. "Not at all."

  "That's too bad," she said. "It doesn't sound like you did anything to hurt her."

  "That's what I tell myself," he said.

  Delicately and against his advice, she touched the surface of the blister on her thumb with her opposing forefinger. It was a pillowy red bead, chilled but warming up.

  "Do you mind me asking?" she said. "Why couldn't you have children?"

  His lips pursed. He stroked the wisps of his mustache hanging over his upper lip. Hands on the steering wheel, he peered straight ahead. They were parked before a rack of used car tires, each tread in varying states of baldness.

  "We did have a child," he said. "It took us years, but we managed. We had a beautiful little bridge daughter. Siobhan. We named her after my best friend in med school."

  Some piece of machinery under the car's hood began to whir. The engine idled at a higher pitch as though impatient to get going.

  "One night when she was five months, we put her down in her crib. The next morning, she wouldn't wake up. She came to this world and made us both very happy, and then she went away."

  "What happened?"

  "Infant bridge death. It's not well-understood." He released a deep breath of air. "After a couple of years, we began trying again, but…I don't know. Our hearts weren't in it. We were already starting to float apart."

  "I don't understand," she said. "Why can't they find out why she died? Couldn't they do an autopsy?"

  With a grim expression, he moved his hand to the shifter on the steering column. His hand remained there for a long moment. Benford stared down at the steering in thought.

  "When a man and woman fall in love, the natural thing to do is make a bridge," he said. "That couple is staring into the face of God. For some couples, God smiles back over and over. For some, He never smiles on them. For us, He smiled once and turned His back."

  Ruby felt awkward. She didn't know what to ask or say. She wanted to tell him she was sorry. When her grandfather died during the custody hearings, everyone told fourteen-year-old Ruby how sorry they were for her. When she was remanded to the state bridge house, the arbitrator said he was sorry for her. She did not feel any of them were sorry in the least. Words, she thought, cheap words, and she did not want to cheapen the moment with more of them.

  He shifted the transmission into reverse and backed up the car. The border was one mile ahead.

  Eighteen

  The twin lines of cars and trucks advanced at a ponderous crawl. The occasional lone vehicle sped past them traveling the opposite direction into California.

  "I can't believe all these people want in to Jefferson," Benford groused. He strained his neck in a halfhearted attempt to see over the vehicles lined up single-file ahead of them. "What the hell is taking so l
ong up there?"

  Their first clue was a chimney of dark gray smoke rising from the trees ahead. The column billowed up with great energy. As they approached the border, Ruby called out she could see the flashing red and white lights of emergency vehicles on the shoulder ahead.

  Parked on the opposite shoulder were a line of police cars. The Ford passed them at a crawl. They were California Highway Patrol cars, each unoccupied but with their headlights and taillights alternating—left, right, left, right. As they neared the border, they began to see the CHP officers themselves in their navy-blue uniforms. They stood in a clump talking among themselves and pointing at the smoke ahead.

  They finally reached the lowered gate at the border checkpoint. It was a makeshift affair erected fifty feet past the California-Jefferson state line. Trees had been removed by chainsaw to make room for a Quonset, leaving behind stumps like flat amber rocks across a pond. Parked around the Quonset were several Jefferson state vehicles, all shamrock green with the gold state seal on their doors and dried ocher-red mud sprayed up around their wheel wells.

  The focus of Benford's and Ruby's attention, however, was a burning California Highway Patrol car a quarter mile ahead. It stood on its side with its undercarriage exposed toward the road. Flames filled the interior. Smoke escaped through the broken windows and billowed up past the treetops. Several Jefferson state police cars formed a semicircle around the burning husk. A Jefferson fire truck was parked on the opposite side of the road. Officers and firefighters stood back and admired the flames and gusts of smoke. One used a light wand to wave traffic past one vehicle at a time, directing them away from the burning car. A film crew captured video from the TV van parked down the way.

  A border officer in camouflage pants, military boots, and a green uniform shirt approached Benford's side of the car. He wore a holstered handgun on his green belt, along with numerous other devices of purpose unknown to Ruby. A heavy gray box was holstered on his other hip. It was the size and shape of an oversized college calculator. With his hand, he made a circular motion, instructing Benford to lower his window.

  "What the hell happened?" Benford said through the rolled-down window.

  "CHP ran the border," the officer said.

  "What do you mean?"

  "He ran the border check," the officer said coolly.

  "I'm a doctor," Benford said. "Can I provide assistance?"

  "We have it under control." The officer leaned down to peer through the driver's-side window. He eyed Ruby emotionlessly.

  "Why would California Highway Patrol 'run the border?'" Benford asked.

  The clean-shaven officer stared back as though the question had no weight. "What's the nature of your visit to Jefferson?"

  Benford cleared his throat. "We're meeting a patient in Angels Camp."

  "And you?" the officer said to Ruby.

  "She's my nurse," Benford told him.

  The officer straightened up and sauntered to the front of the Ford. He removed a notepad and ballpoint pen from his breast pocket. Glancing down at the license plate, he jotted on the notepad. He returned to the driver's side.

  "License."

  Benford reached into his back pocket for his billfold. He extracted his driver's license and offered it. Without touching the card, the officer looked it over and jotted more notes in his pad.

  "Pop the trunk," he said.

  Benford reached for the release. The officer strode to the rear of the car. Highway gravel crunched under the hard rubber soles of his Wing Walkers.

  Ahead, flames and smoke continued to rise from the California Highway Patrol car. The Jefferson state police and firefighters stood their distance with a kind of appreciation of the display.

  The officer slammed the trunk down. Benford strained his neck out the window to call back. "Why aren't they doing something?"

  Ruby was twisted in her seat to track the officer's movements behind them. Benford whispered for her to quit staring. She ignored him. Neck craned and wide-eyed, she undid the seatbelt buckle to give her more maneuvering room.

  Three heavy taps came from her window. She startled and twisted back around. The border officer towered over her with a determined frown and dubious brows.

  "Don't worry," Benford murmured behind her. "Do what we talked about." He rolled down Ruby's window using the driver's controls.

  The officer had tapped the industrial-grade plastic of the gray box against the window to get her attention. With the window down, he set it heavily on the door frame before Ruby. A blue plate the diameter of a golf ball was presented to her.

  "I need you to press your thumb on the blue circle," he said.

  "Will it hurt?"

  "It's okay," Benford said.

  Mindful of Benford's instructions, she kept the blister out of sight as she placed her doctored thumb on the blue plate. From within the device came a heavy click and a whir. A faint pressure was made known on her thumb, but no telltale pricking of her own skin. She kept her thumb against the blue plate until he indicated she could remove it.

  "License," he said to her.

  "I—I don't have one." She did carry one, but it was phony. She used it for buying alcohol and forging prescriptions. "I don't own a car."

  "You have some kind of ID?" he asked.

  "She's my nurse," Benford said. "We're staying one night in Angels Camp and returning to Culver City in the morning."

  The officer stared down upon Ruby with a face that won poker hands. He held the gray box up and studied the digital readout. His face continued to reveal nothing. He left them and went to a wood pole just off the highway and among the weeds and stumps. A plastic pine-tree green box at the top of the pole was open. He reached inside and talked into a phone handset without dialing.

  "What's wrong?" she said.

  "Don't worry." They were both staring at the officer talking on the phone.

  "What happens if it didn't work?" she asked. "They turn us back, right?"

  "I don't think so."

  "They won't arrest us, right?"

  "Just keep your head on."

  Listening and nodding, the officer hung up the phone. He spent five, ten, fifteen seconds writing more notes on his pad. He clicked the ballpoint three times before returning it to its place in his shirt pocket.

  He reached into the box atop the pole. The striped bar blocking the road raised. He returned to the Ford at the same leisurely pace he'd used when circling them.

  "Take it slow until you're past the emergency vehicles," he said. "Speed limit on Jefferson highways is a uniform seventy except where marked."

  Benford—crazily in Ruby's mind—persisted. "Why aren't they putting out the fire?" He waved a futile motion toward the accident ahead.

  "No water pressure up here," he said. "It'll burn itself out. We're just making sure no one else gets hurt."

  "What happened to the patrolman?"

  "We'll be sure he gets back to his family." The officer took two steps back and waved them through. "Welcome to the Free State of Jefferson."

  Nineteen

  Half an hour past the border, Benford said, "Where do you want to be dropped off?" He checked the map displayed on his phone. "There's a couple of small towns before Angels Camp. Maybe you can pick up a ride to wherever you're going."

  "I'm your nurse," Ruby said. "I'm here to help with your examination."

  "Dammit, I told you, I don't need a nurse. Especially a pretend nurse. Now, really, I can't take you into this home. This is a professional call." When she protested, he said, "It's a question of medical ethics, all right? Never mind that if Frank Abney discovers I made this house call with his runaway domestic he would boil me alive. Never mind that. I can't let you be a part of this. It's a violation of doctor-patient trust."

  Ruby sat quietly in the passenger's seat, knees touching and hand tucked between the pants legs of her blue jeans. "Please."

  Benford began to let out another round of denials and caught himself. Hands on the bottom of t
he steering wheel, he sank back into the driver’s seat. "All right," he said coolly. "You need to tell me what's going on here."

  "I'm just trying to find my way," she said.

  He stared out at the passing scenery, shaking his head. "I should have seen this sooner," he murmured to himself. He said to her, "I put my neck w-a-ay out to help you. It's time you reciprocated with some frank honesty."

  Ruby had played a little game with herself since meeting him in the Pismo Beach hotel bar. She told herself he didn't need to know. She told herself he didn't want to know. It was as much a strategy to seeing Barry as it was a way to assuage her guilt. It was more about the latter than she cared to admit.

  "Is this some kind of vendetta against the Abneys?" he asked. "Just because Frank mistreated you doesn't mean you can take it out on this boy. Or is it—" He glanced at her. "This isn't some blackmail scheme you've cooked up?"

  "The boy you're going to examine," she said, stepping carefully. "He's my brother."

  He waited. "Okay. I'm listening."

  "Do you believe me?"

  "I'm listening," he repeated.

  It spilled forth now, the tremendous weight of her secret. With each revelation, she felt a kind of relief, and that propelled her to keep talking and free herself of more weight. When she finished, she waited for some indication from Benford. She wanted his approval dearly. She did not expect it, though.

  "That's why you were asking about Folsom before," he said. "Because your mother is in prison there." After a moment, he said, "So you're telling me you're an Abney?"

  "I didn't know it until a couple of months ago," she said. "We didn't grow up rich. My great-grandmother, she abandoned the family a long time ago. She was dis—disin—"

  "Disinherited?"

  Ruby nodded.

  "And this family we're going to meet," he said. "Do they know about you?"

  "I don't think so," she said. "I never heard of them before at all."

  He let the car drive itself for a quarter mile, a half mile, a mile. Benford did little more than nudge the wheel left or right to track the curves of the highway through the rolling woods.