You've Got Something Coming

by Starke, Jonathan;

They walked at a fast pace. Trucks held Claudia’s hand tight. They had left the navy duffel bag and the secondhand clothes and food and water behind. Claudia was in tears. He couldn’t worry about it now. They were zipping through the early morning streets of Billings toward Swift Thrift. Trucks didn’t have time to think. He shook out his free hand as they walked. Felt the burn along his knuckles. He didn’t need to look at them to know they’d turned red with swelling. He could feel it in the pulsing of his hands and that burn in his gut. He wished he could say he felt sorry or remorseful or some other bullshit thing the court would make him say. But it wouldn’t be true. He felt damn good. He was alive again.

  Claudia tried to talk as they hurried down the street. Trucks considered his longer legs would do twice her strides and tried to keep beat with her small movements. But she was distraught and confused and trying to talk it out.

  “Not now,” he’d said when she first said something. Right after they’d shot out of the rescue mission like flickering comets. He didn’t comprehend anything she’d said after that. His sole focus on getting away and trying to calm his body after the adrenaline dump. But it was hard to breathe in the cold while moving so fast.

  “Why’d you do that?” Claudia asked.

  “Hush,” he said. “This isn’t the time for talk. We’re getting some supplies and getting the fuck outta this place.”

  “But why? Why?! I don’t wanna go!”

  “I said it’s not the time for talk. Shut up a minute and keep moving. The only thing you need to be thinking right now is go, go, go, go, really fucking go.”

  Her sobs grew louder. Trucks pushed the pace. He was sure the police were out looking for them by now. But it was just an assault. It couldn’t be anything to get that worked up about. Far worse had to happen in Billings. Or maybe not. What did he really know of civilized places?

  When they reached Swift Thrift, Trucks pulled Claudia into an alley beside a dumpster. They were nearly hidden from the main street. He leaned her up against the bricks. Then he got down on a knee at her level and tried to look her in the eyes. Claudia wiped her tears and sobbed. Trucks gripped her shoulders. He squeezed them and rubbed up and down to comfort her and give her warmth. She kept trying to hide her face. Looking at all angles. Any direction that would keep her out of eye contact.

  “You gotta look at me, Pepper Flake,” he said.

  She stared at the ground. It really pissed him off.

  “Look, this is one of those now-or-never times. You wanna know about the good and the bad and who deserves the punishment and who gets off fine and what the fuck this world is made of? We talk about all that stuff a lot, don’t we? Well, let me burst that bubble completely—it’s shit, Pepper Flake. It’s a big spinning globe of shit out there. Few people care enough about people like us to even looks us in the eyes. June and Gerald are good people. Really good people, yeah. But don’t believe for a second that when the time came they wouldn’t throw us back out on the street with a ‘good luck’ and an ‘I did what I could.’ A few minutes of warmth and pats on the back and good karma for them. You think it’s about us? You think it’s ever about our well-being? Look at me.”

  He took her by the chin. She closed her eyes tight. She grabbed his wrist with both hands and tried to pull away.

  “Look at me. This is important. This is for you. This is for your future.”

  She struggled against him. After a while, Trucks just wrapped her in his arms. She tried to squirm out of his grip, but he held her tighter. Kept her from going. Claudia cried on. The more she cried and squirmed, the tighter he held her. He was utterly losing her in those moments. The vibration of her wails against his body. All the pain and loss she’d already suffered streaming out of her. The little energy she had left. And he held her that way for a long time. A light snow falling around them. The city subdued by shifting gray clouds.

  And then it was silent. A startling thing.

  Trucks pulled away and looked at Claudia. He kept his hands on her shoulders just in case. But she didn’t seem ready to run. Her eyes were dark red from all the crying. The lashes askew. Her face pink from the cold and the bitter taste of the world.

  Trucks let go. He stared at his girl.

  Claudia breathed in stutters. After a while she got her breath back. Everything since the children’s home had beaten her down.

  In a soft voice, she said, “I wanna go home.”

  Trucks said, “I know it’s probably not what you wanna hear, especially now, but this is it. This. Me. I’m all the home you got.”

  Claudia was drained of life and glow and feeling.

  “Wisconsin was just somewhere we were. Born there or not. Raised there or not. It was familiar out of habit. We’ve been around, me and you. Do you really think there’s any place for us? That we could pull out a map and close our eyes and point and find someplace that wants us? Where we finally fit? Where they accept us for what we are or what we’ve done or what we wanna do? Do you think that’s really out there? Because if you do, then all right. If you do, then I’ll make that happen. Just tell me. You tell me what you want, and we’ll do it.”

  Claudia shook her head. She leaned back against the wall. She sniffled a few times and rubbed her nose.

  “I don’t think I want you to be home anymore,” she said.

  Trucks put his hand to his mouth. His whole body shook. It was the kind of pain that can’t be expressed in word or image.

  “I…I know I really fucked up this time,” he said.

  “You lost all our stuff! Gerald’s coin and the perfume. I’ll never smell her again! And you hurt people. And you were bad to that woman. And you looked like mean guys in the movies.”

  Trucks turned to the side and threw up. Claudia jumped away. He coughed and wiped his mouth on his sleeve. Then he looked at her again.

  “I’ve really messed this up,” he said. “I’ve done it all wrong. I’ve been nothing but a failure, when all I’ve tried to do is what I thought was good and right for you.”

  She didn’t say anything. She kept her distance.

  “God, this pain. It hurts so much,” he said. “Is there anything I can do, Pepper Flake? There has to be something. I’ll find us a good place in an all-right town. Even if nobody wants us, we’ll be together. I haven’t left. I promised I wouldn’t go, and I’m still here. I’m here. Look, see? I’m here. It’s so important for you to see that and know that and realize…just realize all I’ve done to try to build a good kinda life for you.” He started to cry. Like it was just hitting him now. “And I just…I can’t have you feeling this way about me, Pepper Flake. I can’t. I just can’t.”

  Trucks shook uncontrollably. He turned and fell back against the bricks. Sat there in the snow with his girl a few feet away. Staring at him. Watching him fall apart.

  “I’m gutted, Pepper Flake. Just so gutted. You know what that means? You know what it means for a person to be gutted?”

  She shook her head.

  “It means all they’ve lived for has been ripped out of them. That life essence. That thing we carry that glows so strong when we’re young. And…and starts to fade as we grow. Blinks here and there like it’s gonna flicker out. I’m so damn sick. I’ve done it all wrong, and I don’t even know what to do anymore.”

  Trucks shook and cried hard. He put his hands over his face because he never wanted her to see him break like this. He wished she didn’t have to.

  Time blurred as he cried into his hands. Not understanding the noises he was making. Feeling like the beast he’d never wanted to become. His shaky hands covering his face. His eyes closed. Images of his life passing quickly like flipped pages. Twap-twap-twap-twap-twap. Mother—gone. Father—gone. Elle—gone. First punch. Pah. All those blows landed. Pah-pah-pah-pah-pah—devastation. All those blows taken. Pah-pah-pah-pah-pah—remuneration. The black eyes and the blood and the cracked bones. The movement. The breath. And then his girl. Claudia—redemption.

  He didn’t know if minutes h
ad passed. Time had sped and slowed. He wiped his eyes and looked over to where Claudia had been. But there was no trace of her. She was gone.

  Trucks barely had the heart to react. But he breathed in hard with all that was left. His chest hurt. When he moved to stand and go after her, he heard a sound beside him. Trucks turned, and there she was.

  Claudia sat down with her back to the dumpster.

  Trucks was overwhelmed with relief. He sat in the snow and just looked at his girl for a while. And his girl looked back at him. They looked in each other’s eyes like they were afraid to use words.

  Finally, Trucks said, “I’m nothing if not your home. And I might be a fuck-up and do things wrong a lot, but know I’ve always tried hard for you. None of this has been easy. And I know all this going is a weight on you. But it’s all I know. And I still think…well, maybe it’s just foolish, but I still think I can make us something good. And if not us, if you don’t want me around anymore, then at least find you something good in the hands of someone who can do better. But really, I’ll try whatever you wanna try. And maybe I’m just crazy, but I feel like all roads are open until we’ve got no more breath in us. And if we can just get out there again and try, who knows? Maybe my heart could change about this shit-pile world.”

  Trucks looked down at the veins running over his hands. The ligaments disappearing whenever he clenched his fists. It was his fuck-ups he could never get over. The way he pulled others down when he never meant to. All those blocks in his mind from his aching heart and the loss of people he’d loved or never got the chance to.

  “Mama,” she said.

  Trucks looked up.

  “What?” he said.

  “Tell me about Mama.”

  “Talking about her won’t do you any good, Pepper Flake. It’ll only bring sadness to your heart.”

  “Cause it’ll hurt?”

  “Yes.”

  “Cause she did bad to us?”

  “Because she chose other things.”

  “Like what?”

  “It’s not something to talk about now.”

  Claudia scratched the snow with a finger. Then she looked up, took the oversized gloves off, pulled out both of her hearing aids, and handed them to Trucks. She blew warm air into her hands, then put her gloves back on. “Tell me now,” she said. “Tell me so I know but it won’t hurt.”

  “But you won’t hear any of it,” he said.

  Claudia pointed to her ears. She couldn’t hear him.

  “Just say it,” she said. “Tell me the other things. Tell me about Mama.”

  Trucks held out his shaking left hand. The one he’d busted three times. Now swollen from the punches. Claudia folded her arms. She refused to reach out.

  Trucks pulled his hand back. Sat up straight. Cleared his throat.

  “Your mama was a hooker and an addict. I hate to say that’s all she was, but it’s what she became. What she made herself into. At least all I knew of her. Why I fell for her and all that is another story. It’s not for now. But there’s some good I can say about her. Like she went through with having you, even though she’d never wanted kids. But it was clear there was gonna be something special about you. So she pushed on, and she had you. And you two got the same hair. All those long, dark curls. It’s incredible. You wouldn’t think two people could look so much alike. And I was always struck by her green eyes. Like shining emeralds. Like she was some starlet or something out of those old movies. And she had an energy about her. Infectious. The kind of thing you felt you’d die about if you weren’t around to feel it. And that’s probably why I kept by her so long. But the hard stuff is that she never drew to you. She didn’t even barely try to be a mother. I’d tell her she had to try, that so much was in the trying, but she’d just go out and get all messed up. She’d promised to quit turning tricks and took this job waiting tables at a diner, but it wasn’t long before she went back to working the streets. She probably never really quit in the first place. But I wanted to believe she had. But she really probably didn’t. And most nights it was just me and you alone in that old rowhouse by the train tracks. Me feeding you all them mushed bananas and peas and carrots. And that old train. You probably don’t remember the train going through. Passing all those times. How I’d hold you to my chest so you could feel my heart going. Close my eyes and dance you around the room so you wouldn’t cry because of all the shaking walls. And I’d hold you, and we’d dance, and I’d pretend it was me and you out on that big old train. Rolling wherever the tracks took us. So many miles from all the bad we knew. Riding all the curves and bends and passing the open fields of the world. All that opportunity. All that hope. And your mama. She started being gone for longer. The stretches of time widening. Days to weeks. Weeks to months. And soon she was utterly gone. Like all I’d ever loved was a memory. And now it’s hard to remember anything but the bad things. Her drunk breath. Crushing up pills in the kitchen with a soup can so she could snort it off the counter. And how many johns she had in that time, I wouldn’t even count. I don’t even wanna think of it. She left us, Pepper Flake. She just took off and left us for the booze and drugs and street cash, and that’s really all I’m trying to say. And maybe she was never nothing better than a strung-out hooker. I don’t know. It’s what the boys from the gym would say sometimes when they’d had enough to drink to get loose. And I knew it was true, I guess. But I still told them all to shove it or make a move. Because nobody was gonna talk about my family that way. But she never really was family. It makes the word feel abused when using the word like that. But she carried you and gave you life. And for that I’m so thankful. And what you are inside is nothing like me and nothing like her. You came from somewhere else. Like the world knew you’d be fucked to all hell if you were too much like either of us. So it gave us you. No. It gave me you. And whether or not I can see hints of your mama or me in your personality, it doesn’t really matter. It doesn’t matter at all. Because you’re you. And it’s been the joy of my life to get to know you. And I’ll tell you that sometime. If you’ll have me. If you’ll keep me around. And maybe I’m nothing but poison to you, even if all I wanted was to be your home. And maybe I just need to find someone who can do better for you. It’s clear I don’t know a damn thing about how to do this. But I’ve tried, and I always hope you get that. But anyway. So that’s the story of your mama. A regular southside Klakanouse hooker who chose addiction over me and you and left us. It eats me up to even think of it. And she’s probably dead by now, but I’d never tell you that. But anyway, that’s the truth about her. That’s all there really is.”

  Trucks went quiet.

  Claudia nodded.

  Trucks leaned forward to hook the hearing aids over her ears. Claudia pulled away. Then she took off her gloves and held out her hands. Trucks put the hearing aids on her palms, and Claudia struggled to put the earmolds in. But after a while, she got them in.

  “What’d it sound like?” he asked. “When I was talking and you couldn’t hear.”

  “Like when you’re underwater and all you hear is blurry stuff,” she said.

  “Did you feel anything?” he asked. “About what I said?”

  “I just watched your face with the blurry stuff.”

  Trucks moved like he was going to sit beside her against the cold dumpster. Claudia shook her head.

  “You think sometime you can forgive me?” he asked.

  Claudia didn’t say anything.

  They sat there for minutes in silence. Watched their breaths go out. Trucks rubbed his knuckles against his hip. Then he put his hands in his coat pockets. Claudia stared at the brick wall across the alley.

  “Tell me a story about why Mama’s gone,” Claudia finally said. “So I can have something good to remember for now.”

  Trucks thought a minute. Then he remembered a theory he’d heard about once.

  “Your mama’s gone because she’s on Mars,” he said. “It’s a planet way far out. They suspected there was water up there, and
since there was maybe water the scientists said life could exist. So all the space programs in the world got together and started a mission to send people into outer space and all the way to Mars. They wanted to colonize the planet because it hadn’t been done before. So they searched the whole world looking for only a thousand people to go live on Mars. Can you imagine? A thousand people out of billions. And they knew they had to find the most unique and special people because they wanted to make a good impression on the universe. And so the space programs taught them all about the galaxy and how to space farm and sew space clothes and talk in a totally new language so they could survive on another planet. Then after years of hard training they loaded all the special people on ten huge spaceships and thrust them into outer space. Hurled your mama past the moon. And that’s where she is right now. Probably smiling down at you from that red planet, hand on her heart, real proud and happy like a goddamn space clam.”

  MODIFIED KARMA

  Before they went into Swift Thrift, he explained it to her direct.

  “We’re gonna need borrow worse than we did before. We don’t have enough money to pay for supplies and eat. So we have to make a choice. We either pay for everything and don’t eat, or we need borrow from the store and eat. What do you wanna do?”

  “That’s all we can choose?”

  “That’s all we can choose.”

  “Need borrow and eat, I guess.”

  “It’s a good choice.”

  “It kinda feels like no choice is a good choice.”

  “Now you’re learning,” he said.

  They turned the corner and walked into the store. Swift Thrift hadn’t been open long. A few customers sifted items on the shelves. A couple of old guys clanged gardening tools. A woman browsing candleholders sniffed empty glass jars.

  Trucks walked Claudia over to the luggage section. Suitcases, briefcases, laundry bags. The best he could find was a cloth tote bag. He folded it up, looked around, and got down on a knee.

  “I need you to come through for us,” he said. “Do you understand?”