“Robert Earl,” he called out as he pushed the door open the rest of the way. “Hey, bro. You taking a nap or something?” When there was no response, he said, “I delivered all of it. It all worked out.” From of the corner of his eye, he saw something scurry out from under a table and dart across the office. He fired the gun at it but missed, which was good because it was Mr. Big, who kept running through the door and into the warehouse space. Eric followed and watched him zip behind some large white bags of potassium pellets.
He cursed at the pig and then asked him where Robert Earl was. That’s when he noticed a line of small red rosettes painting an undulating line across the boxes and buckets of pool chemicals six inches above the floor. He followed the sinuous path across the room, past an empty pallet where he’d taken some but not all of the P2P this morning.
“Hey, Robert Earl,” he said. “Mr. Big is loose. Looks like he got into something, maybe got hurt.”
By this time Eric was petrified. He was starting to piece it all together but wouldn’t allow himself to think things all the way through until he saw the broad dull black pool of blood and Robert Earl facedown on the cement floor, his head twisted unnaturally away from him and his lady sunglasses flung to the side. His face, neck, and hands were purple, like a birthmark. Both his legs were spread amphibiously in a way no living person could have endured. Mr. Big climbed through the bags and boxes and jumped onto Robert Earl’s body and started licking a slick, nearly invisible spot on the back of his head where the bullet went in.
Eric held his head and backed away. He immediately wondered if the people who shot him were still here, but based on the growing stench, he figured they were long gone. He stuck the pistol in the back of his pants and tried to step around the blood and grab the little pig. Mr. Big didn’t want any part of being picked up, so he zigzagged across Robert Earl’s back as Eric grabbed for him. When the pig saw an opening, it bolted for the back door. Eric turned, pressing his right foot into the blood, and as he ran, he left a single, fading arc of footprints on the floor.
He eventually caught the pig outside. It squealed and squirmed, and Eric tried to soothe the thing like it was a cat, which only seemed to aggravate it. Eventually the animal bucked and corkscrewed so much that it flew from Eric’s arms and disappeared immediately into the brush.
“All right,” he said. “You’re on your own.”
FRANCIS COULDN’T PACK EVERYTHING, BUT he managed to get most of what she told him to gather into a military duffel he brought home from the army. She thought of things he wouldn’t have: save the underwear for last so it’ll be on the top, make sure he has a towel and a coat. He won’t need everything, it might not be permanent, maybe just a few months.
Francis told her she was probably right. She said to make sure the shower shoes go in there. “He’s prone to foot fungus.”
“I know,” he said. “But it’s gotten better.” Francis put some medicine, toothpaste, and a toothbrush in a Ziploc bag with a comb and the batteries for his implants. Francis took everything and brought it to the front room.
“He won’t have much time,” she said.
“If he makes it here at all.”
“Don’t start talking like that,” she said.
“I don’t know what Robert Earl has him messed up with, but they aren’t little kids anymore, so I’ll bet it’s not vandalism.”
“What about the notebook?” she said.
“What about it?”
“He should take it. You don’t want it here. Really, you don’t.”
“I don’t,” he said. “But I want him to come back at some point.”
“That’s manipulative,” she said.
“Yes, but it’s also true.”
“We both know truth hasn’t been anyone’s top priority lately,” she said, lifting one eyebrow.
After everything was packed, Francis sat in his chair without talking. He didn’t feel like sitting up and he didn’t feel like kicking out the recliner, so he slumped forward with his elbows on his knees and his head in his hands. He watched the clock and he checked his phone. More than once he started to dial Eric’s phone number, but he’d seen enough Law & Order to know that the police would check his phone records, and he didn’t want to mess the boy up that way. When he’d glance over at the couch, sometimes his wife would be there sitting with her legs crossed at the knee, sometimes she would be pulling some thread through her needlework, sometimes she would have her hands folded in her lap, sometimes that spot in the couch would be empty.
He couldn’t remember time ever moving so slowly. Except when that stockbroker stepped in front of his train in Connecticut. That moment had frozen so he could see it now like a photograph: his red hair, gray suit, bare feet. He was squinting, and his arms were straight, hands balled into fists. Then he was gone. The man’s name was Barclay, he discovered later. He’d been part of the legal mess those television people Barbara Stein and Chuck Vogel were in. It didn’t seem that serious on the news, but the man’s suicide suggested something worse. Now that Eric was in some trouble of his own, all Francis wanted was to keep his son from the desperation he saw on that man in that fraction of a second.
Francis heard the truck, finally, and the sound of the engine brought tears to his eyes. He lifted his head to the blank spot in the couch and she was there, smiling.
“Do you remember what happened when the prodigal son came home?” she asked.
Francis wiped his tears and nodded.
“Good, then you’ll know what to do when he comes through that door.”
Francis stayed sitting, his heart racing, as he heard Eric come up the steps. When the boy came in the room, he saw the olive duffel bag on the floor, the notebook on top. He had three envelopes in one hand and the truck keys in the other. He looked at Francis, and he seemed like a very tall and broad-shouldered little boy.
“You’re okay?” Francis asked.
“What’s going on?” Eric said.
“The police were here.”
“Crap.”
“That pretty much sums it up.”
“They were asking about Robert Earl?”
“How long ago?”
“Couple of hours.”
“What happened to Robert Earl?”
Eric shook his head.
“You’re in some trouble, boy.”
Eric nodded.
“You need to disappear.” Francis opened his wallet and took out all the cash he had. It was eighty bucks. “Take it,” he said.
Eric stepped forward and handed his dad his keys and took the money without protest. He looked at it for a moment and stuffed it into one of the envelopes. Eric walked past him, into his room and came back with his phone charger and the keys for his own car. He carefully took the trailer key off the ring and set it on the kitchen table.
Francis was standing already and gestured to the duffel. “It’s not everything, but it’s enough to get you by. We tried to think it through for you so nothing would slow you down.”
Eric noticed the notebook. He picked it up, and the duffel, then tried to hug his father. Francis felt everything start to quiver and melt inside of him, but he stood tall. “We better not talk,” he said. “It’s best I don’t know anything.”
Eric took his things to the door and stopped. He held up the notebook. “Tell her thanks,” he said, and then he walked out of the trailer.
Francis stood at the door and watched him load everything into his car. Eric looked up once, fired up the car, and drove out of the trailer park with the hoarse growl of the tiny aluminum engine filling the space behind him. Francis turned and went back inside, shutting the door behind him. He looked for his wife on the couch, but she was gone. He walked slowly through the trailer, room to room, ending in Eric’s bedroom. He crawled onto the bed, like a little kid, and fell asleep.
ERIC DOWNSHIFTED AS HE CAME off the road and onto the driveway of the relatives’ house where Jaymee was staying. Normally he’d text ahead an
d let Jaymee know he was coming, but under the circumstances, he stayed off his phone. As he was sitting in the car outside, he realized that the police can track phones, so he turned his all the way off. Almost immediately he felt isolated and disconnected, which caused him to worry deeply.
He went up to the door and knocked. Nobody answered. There were shadows moving deeper inside the house, and he didn’t feel like he could wait for anything, so he opened the door and went in. He could hear some kind of noise, a fight maybe. In the living room, Lexi was sitting on a chair crying. Jaymee was yelling at her. Lexi looked away from her sister, saw Eric, and pointed.
Eric read her lips. “Um, your boyfriend is here,” she said.
Jaymee stopped yelling and went to the door. What are you doing here? she signed.
Robert Earl is dead, he signed back.
Jaymee’s posture changed. Eric began to shake. He felt his eyes start to burn, but he dumped all that feeling into a bin in the very back of his mind and stood on the lid.
Lexi signed, You remember I can sign, too, right? Who’s Robert Earl?
Jaymee pulled Eric through another hallway. “Robert Earl? What?”
“Somebody shot him in the back of the head.”
“Who would do that?”
“Don’t know. Any of these meth cookers he’s working with?”
Jaymee dropped her chin and glared at Eric through the top of her eyes.
“There is no time,” he said. “Remember how we always said we’d run away together?”
Jaymee could see where this was going and she started shaking her head.
“The police are involved, too. They went to my dad’s today, looking for me.”
“No,” she said. “I am not—”
“I have to leave town right now. I want you to come with me. Before you say anything, I have eight thousand dollars in cash. If we leave now, we can make it to Tucumcari by midnight. Then California the next day.”
Jaymee just looked at him, no expression on her face.
“You’re not saying no,” he said. “This is it; if we’re gonna do this, we gotta do it now.”
“I can’t—”
“Don’t say it,” he told her.
“Shut up,” she said. “I can’t leave my sister.”
Eric’s face fell as he thought about how suddenly impossible everything felt. Jaymee lifted his chin and looked him in the eyes. “If I go, she comes, too.”
“Yes,” Eric said. “There’s room.”
Jaymee walked away without saying anything. There was more yelling in the other room, but Eric stayed where he was in the half-darkened space surrounded by boxes and bags and stacks of old and worthless things. He thought about how they’d all be on the road soon, and it felt like a movie. For the first time since he saw Robert Earl shot, he felt like maybe his luck would hold. He didn’t want to think about it too much because luck turns on a dime. He’d already seen that enough times to know.
The two of them were packed faster than he thought possible. Part of him thought Jaymee and her sister would be the kind of people who always had a bag packed. They probably had a whole plan worked out ahead of time. Jaymee would have had them run drills.
“She said okay,” Jaymee said.
“She rides in the back,” Eric answered.
“Screw you guys,” Lexi said. “Let’s get out of here.” She walked past them with a green duffel bag, a pillow between the handles. Lexi had a light-blue backpack covered in embroidered patches and buttons. Right in the middle was Captain America’s shield. Jaymee took Eric by the hand and led him through the hallway and the now-empty room. They went out the door and straight to his car. When they were situated, the girls looked at each other for one second, and then Jaymee reached back to squeeze Lexi’s hand. Eric looked up at the one lit upstairs window and saw Kathy watching them, one hand on the window, one hand over her mouth.
6
Small World
THE MOJAVE DESERT CONVERGED ON a small knot of on- and off-ramps, gas stations, and fast-food restaurants. It was midday and cloudless, the sun silently incinerating the bleached vault of the sky. A silver Nissan Sentra eased away from the straight flow of east-west traffic on the interstate and drifted down the off-ramp, decelerating, like a boat with its engine cut.
A flashing blinker, then a pause. There were no other cars. The Nissan turned down the frontage road, drove, signaled, then pulled into the nearly empty parking lot of a Burger King. A few seconds later, the car parked on the shady side of the building.
A man and a woman emerged, stretching their limbs. The woman reached both hands above her head, bracelets sliding down her arms. She rocked from one side to the other, wearing a gray racerback tank top and distressed jeans. She extended her fancy boots one at a time and rotated the stiffness from her ankles. In the front seat was a beach basket full of magazines. A bone-white Stetson sat directly on the seat behind.
The man kicked one foot backward, caught it, and leaned forward, balancing himself with the car door. He had on a blue golf shirt with an embroidered logo on the breast, tan khakis, white Reebok running shoes. He looked like someone who had escaped from a trade show.
She looked up at the Burger King sign at the top of its massive iron legs, then folded up her sunglasses and slid them into the neckline of her shirt. She watched him repeat his stretch with the other leg. He appeared to know exactly what he was doing, wobbly as he was in that pose.
“I’m going in,” she said, closing her door.
He dropped his foot, shut his door, and dashed gallantly to the building, but she arrived first and opened the door herself. A handwritten sign taped to the window said Hiring All Shift’s.
He held the door for himself, which allowed him to sort of appear courteous and kept him from being able to open the inner door. She turned immediately toward the bathroom. He followed.
He was in and out quickly, though he washed his hands for a full thirty seconds. He waited for her near the registers, watching CNN on a wall-mounted flat-screen television. It was talking heads discussing conflict in the Middle East. A woman from Al Jazeera made the point that new settlements in the West Bank indicate that Israel is not ready to come to the table, and as long as Americans support these settlements, it shows that they, too, are not interested in a resolution. During this discussion, the crawl at the bottom of the screen read: Television personalities Barbara Stein and Charles Vogel will be tried separately for white collar crimes.
“You didn’t have to wait,” she said, startling him. Her hair was now up in a ponytail, revealing her large earrings. He noticed that with her hair up and fresh lipstick on she looked a lot younger.
“It’s okay,” he said. “I’m not in a rush.”
She ordered a Whopper combo meal, and as she pulled out a small packet of folded bills, he leaned in and said, “That’s okay, I got it.”
“Doyle, you don’t have to keep paying for me.”
“I dragged you into this,” he said. “Least I can do is get you all the way home.”
“I let myself get dragged into it,” she said. “And I think I can handle a cheeseburger.”
Doyle stood down and held his hands up in resignation. She paid with a ten-dollar bill. The change was three dollars and thirty-five cents. She folded the singles into her one remaining five and jammed it all into the front pocket of her jeans.
Doyle ordered a salad and paid with a debit card. By the time he was done, she was sitting at a table facing the interstate. He stayed by the counter and looked back at the television, which now showed a commercial for a mutual fund. A slender older couple was riding bikes through a field of tulips, then sea-kayaking in Alaska, then nursing baby pandas. As the name of the mutual fund hovered over the waters of a fjord, Doyle found himself thinking about how long you’d have to work and be married to retire that way. Thirty years? Forty? Could anyone attain that kind of life? Would you tire of it in the end? What if you didn’t start until you were halfway done?
/>
After the commercial, a news story came on about Barbara Stein and Chuck Vogel. There was a split screen of the two of them in handcuffs getting into different police cars. The voice-over said the state of Oklahoma would try Chuck Vogel for manslaughter in the shooting death of a local man, then he would be tried for trading violations in federal court.
The slight Asian woman at the register called CJ’s order. Doyle feigned interest in the television as CJ walked up, but he watched her walk to the drink dispenser. The back pockets of her jeans had golden wings embroidered on them that seemed to flap a little as she walked.
“Excuse me,” the server said impatiently. “Mister, your food.” It was obvious that she had seen him distracted, and he felt like he should apologize. The server’s eyes were deferential, and so were his. He looked at the tray, which had only the salad in a clear plastic box. He could already tell that he wouldn’t like it.
“What kind dressing?” the server asked.
“Ranch, I guess,” he said. “And does this come with a drink?”
“Drink is separate,” she told him. “You want the combo?”
“I’ll just have a drink off the dollar menu, then.” He paid her with a twenty, and she gave him the change, which he dumped onto his tray.
When Doyle sat down, he faced the room. There was a heavyset man crammed into a booth by the window. He was typing something into his phone, which seemed to Doyle like someone trying to thread a needle with a bowling pin. A woman with two children sat in the opposite corner. One child was on his knees with his uneaten food spread around him. He was struggling with the package of the toy that came with his meal. The other child was in a high chair, screaming as her mother tried to feed her bits of french fry. She would throw them onto the tray and then try to squirm out of the chair.
CJ was half finished with her burger. Doyle checked his phone. Three weeks ago, the emails asking him where he was had all but stopped, the calls and voice mails, too. The rest of the world had gone on without him.
It Needs to Look Like We Tried Page 22