His versatility comes from doing jobs that could feed his art. He learned how to weld working on armor-plated cars right here in Detroit before they were shipped off for the first Iraq war. Learned woodwork in a sign factory. But the last while he’s had to take anything he can get to bridge the gaps, which seem to be getting shorter and shorter, because the money doesn’t last as long, and the guys doing the hiring look past him to younger, stronger men. Everyone’s always looking for the new thing, as if his age and experience count for shit. He’s only fifty-three. He’s still strong enough to work, any job you like, and he’s just as good as those kids. He’s got perspective.
It’s what he told that shrimpy little curator Patrick Thorpe. Practically begged him for a chance to be included in the group show – got down on his knees like a marriage proposal, in the middle of Honey Bee supermarket. Patrick hemmed and hawed and said he’d have to talk to the others, but why didn’t Clayton make something and they’d see.
It paralyzed him, of course. Everything he tried seemed like a dead thing under his hands. Until he heard Lou was back. Lou and Charlie. It’s good to be driving with a purpose, but that’s the easy part.
The talking was hard. Asking people if they’d seen a redhead in an old silver Ford Colt with a kid with her. He had to make up stories. They didn’t like that he was just a dad looking for his kid. Because that came with a big ugly question mark: what did you do? Nothing. That’s the problem. He let her go.
He went to the diner where he and Lou first met, and the manager said that she’d been back working her old job, but he had had to let her go when he caught her stealing singles from the tip jar. He heard she was living out of her car now, a real shame, but what was he supposed to do?
It gave Clayton a lead though, because there are only so many places a woman with a kid and no home but a car can go. He tried all the RV parks around Detroit, and then further out. In Muskegon, he found a lady who’d been renting her a trailer who said she’d got a letter from Lou promising to pay the month’s rent she skipped out on if she’d forward her mail to a Mail Boxes Etc. in Traverse City. She gave him the thin wedge of envelopes (bills, all bills) to pass on to her direct. Such a sweet little boy, the landlady said.
He tried to josh with her, about how he wanted to teach Charlie to use a welding torch, when he was a little older, of course, because a little kid might burn his own face right off, but the words came out wrong, and the woman frowned and said maybe it wasn’t Traverse City, maybe it was Grand Rapids. And she should probably hang on to the mail after all, but it sure was nice to meet him and good luck finding Lou, and could he please remind her about the rent.
After that, it was easy. The Mail Boxes Etc. was right next to a Walmart and there, in the parking lot, was the silver Colt, nestled up next to a shiny new RV with lace curtains and cream trim parked next to a row of trees clinging to their last leaves.
Across the lot, the glass storefront beckoned, a shining portal into the land of anything you want, 24/7. Come in, come in, it’s all in here.
Clayton knows you can camp overnight outside a Walmart, no trailer-park fees required. You could see the whole of America that way. A pilgrimage for the restless and the lost.
He pulled in next to the shopping carts corralled between the railings and turned off his truck. He sat there for a moment, under the corn-colored lights, listening to the engine tick over, noticing how the dark puddles were full of reflected neon.
Sleeping in cars, he thought. That’s no good for anyone. They could come home with him. Her and Charlie. He’d have to tidy up, but he’s got the room to spare.
He swung open the door of his truck and climbed down. Her car still had a crumpled bumper, same as when he met her. Both of their vehicles were a little battered, he thought, just like they were.
Lou was in front, her seat tilted right back. Funny how you can recognize someone just by the shape of their head. He thought he spotted the kid in the back of the car. Mop of curly hair among the rubble of their life. Boxes and blankets and crap. A CD boombox on top, the blue LED display the only light in the vehicle.
He tapped on the Colt’s window. Once, twice, his knuckles freckled with white scars and the beginnings of liver spots and old cigarette burns from back when he thought that might help.
‘Hey Lou,’ he said. ‘It’s me.’
She shifted, then sat upright in alarm. The stripe of light across her face and her wild red hair made her look like a girl in a music video, only not as pretty.
‘Roll down the window,’ he said and she did, but only a thin slice, enough for him to hear the kids’ lullabies playing on the CD.
‘What are you doing here?’ she whispered, probably harsher than she meant to.
‘I came to say hello.’
‘Oh no,’ she said, louder, tilting her chin to get her mouth closer to the crack of the window. ‘Get your ass out of here. I don’t want to see you. You hear me, Clayton Broom?’
‘I was in the area.’
‘Detroit’s four hours away.’
‘Maybe I live here now. It’s a nice place, Traverse City.’ He’d only seen what he drove through to get here, the night lying heavy on the empty streets. That’s when the borders are the most porous between the worlds, and unnatural things leak out of people’s heads and move freely.
‘You’re lying again.’
‘I joke around a little, I’m a joker.’
‘Ain’t funny, Clayton. Wait.’ She struggled with her seatbelt. He thought that was a strange thing to do, clip yourself in to a parked car. Maybe it was to hold her in place for sleeping. Like men strapping themselves into bunks on ships.
She yanked up the knob of the lock and eased the door open so she could slip out. The light inside was busted. She was wearing tracksuit pants, a green sweatshirt, and woolly pink socks. She was going to get them filthy out here.
She took his arm in a C-clamp grip, and steered him away from the car, right under the light, so he could see how much the color in her hair had faded. She used to dye it deep red, like hotel carpets, but the henna was growing out, showing brown and gray roots. Calico cat. Like the one that used to live with them when he was squatting with all those young artist kids in the building overlooking the kosher butchers in Eastern Market.
‘Why are you here?’ Lou demanded. ‘Middle of the night.’
‘It’s not okay for a man to look up an old flame?’
‘Flame.’ She laughed, but the sound was as brittle as the neon light of the logo. ‘What we had was a matchstick, Clayton. Burned out, like that.’ She snapped her fingers.
He tried again. ‘I wanted to see how you are.’
She put out her arms and performed a clumsy pirouette in her socks. She stumbled, which made his heart break a little more. ‘You’ve seen,’ she said. ‘Now you can take off.’
‘You’re living out of a car, Lou.’
‘Only for now. I had a place. I’ll get one again. I got a job interview here next week.’
‘Here?’
‘You never met someone who worked in a Walmart before?’
‘How is Charlie?’
‘Fine. He’s fine.’ She turned cautious.
‘I want to see him.’
‘You don’t got no business with him. Besides, he’s not even here.’
‘Where is he, then?’
‘Around. Visiting.’ Her eyes skipped to the car. One blue, one brown, the most striking thing about her sharp little face. Just like that calico cat. It used to claw and bite if you tried to pick it up. He shut it up in the cupboard above the sink once, as a joke. It broke plates. Scratched one of the girls up when she opened it. Hard to say who was more mad, the girl or the cat. He was sorry she got hurt, but it was funny as hell.
He tried again. ‘I brought him a present.’
‘What kind of present?’
‘Now you got time for me?’ He smiled, even though he was annoyed by the flash of greed that lit her up. She saw that he’d not
iced, and got pissy.
‘You want to come here, get me up in the middle of the night? Best you have something to make up for that.’
He felt sorry for her. All this need in the world. He tried to remember when he last slept.
‘It’s in the truck,’ he said, still hoping he could save this. ‘Lemme get it.’
She rubbed her arms and stared out across the rows of empty bays to the store entrance. A street-cleaning machine was chugging along across the road.
‘You want my jacket, baby?’
‘I want the present and then you can go.’
He pushed her a little. ‘No “how are you? Good to see you?”’
‘You wanna play like that? Okay. How are you, Clayton?’
‘Well, to tell you straight, Lou, I’m doing pretty bad. It’s the dreams again.’
‘Not this fourth-dimension shit again.’ She pinched down her arms, as if checking she was still there. ‘Ain’t nothing but your messed-up head.’
‘I don’t even have to be asleep. Sometimes I dream with my eyes open. I see things. Maybe some people are more open to it. I think some places the walls are thinner, like a cheap motel.’
‘You should probably go find one of those. I’m tired of talking. It’s late. I want to go back to sleep with my boy.’
‘No, wait, please, Lou. Lemme get his present, okay? Please. I came all this way.’ He went over to the truck and lifted it out of the footwell: a stout metal barrel made from an old muffler, with stumpy legs and a pointy head with pert ears and a snout. It still made him laugh to look at it. He turned, expecting her to share his delight. ‘Here. I made it specially for Charlie.’
‘What’s that s’posed to be?’
‘A dog. Every kid needs a dog. Look, it can bark and wag.’ He demonstrated the clever hinge he put in the jaw that opened and closed, the bouncy spring of the tail.
‘That don’t look like no dog I ever saw, Clayton Broom. That’ll put the fright into him. Probably cut himself on it, too.’
‘I smoothed off the edges, don’t worry. I wanted to let it oxidize so it would look like it had brown fur to match Charlie’s hair.’
‘He got red hair.’
‘You got red hair, baby.’ He laughed. ‘Right out of the bottle. Charlie takes after me. My hair was brown before it turned white.’
‘Don’t you know nothing?’ Her eyes went silvery with tears.
‘Hey, hey, baby, it’s okay.’ He tried to put his arms around her, but she shrank away.
She used to laugh at his jokes. He’s sure she did. He told her the story about the cat in the cupboard and she laughed and laughed. The prettiest waitress at the diner, he told her, even if it was a lie. He offered to drive her home one night after work, stuck around until her shift was over, even helped her mop up the floor, turn the chairs around. He took her back to her place, where she knocked back a half-jack of vodka and cried on his shoulder about her shit-heel ex-husbands. Two already and her the wrong side of forty. He told her about the world under the world, and that scared her a little, but it made her come closer too. They were both lonely and afraid and there’s nothing wrong with what happened next. Only natural.
‘I want to see him, Lou,’ Clayton said.
‘He’s not here.’
‘Who’s in the back of the car then? Yoohoo, Charlie-boy!’ He waved at the little boy shape sitting up among the boxes and the lumpy bags. Two years old. Exactly the right age. He and Lou were together before she took off for Minneapolis with that Ryan guy. He’d done the math.
‘Mama?’ The car door swung open, and Charlie slid out, rubbing his eyes. Clayton filled up with unbearable pride at how beautiful he was, this little boy. Better than all his art. The masterpiece of human biology. It’s a goddamn miracle is what it is.
‘Charlie, it’s all right, sweetheart. Get back in the car. Go back to sleep.’
‘Who’s that?’
Clayton stepped toward him, to ruffle his curls. ‘I’m your—’
‘No,’ she cut him off. ‘You and me, we did it once. Barely. Shit, I was so drunk.’
‘All it takes,’ Clayton said. ‘Birds and the bees, Daddy puts his penis in Mommy’s vagina, and the stork comes calling.’
She covered the kid’s ears. ‘You don’t talk that way in front of him. He got red hair, you lunk. Like his dad. Like Ryan. He’s not yours, dummy.’
The lace curtain on the RV twitched, a woman’s face peeked out.
‘No,’ he shook his head, hard. ‘That’s not true.’
‘I’m fucking telling you, you lunk. What’s wrong with you?’ She shoved at him again. Just like that little cat.
‘Don’t push me!’ He caught her skinny wrists, and Charlie let out a wail like a siren. It was all going wrong. Like everything always went wrong.
He was blinded by a flashlight in his eyes.
‘Everything okay over here?’ It was a security guard.
He let go of Lou’s wrists and shaded his eyes to be able to see the man. It’s got so he can’t trust in things to stay the way they’re supposed to be.
‘Everything’s fine, Wayne,’ Lou said, putting a flirty little kick in her voice. ‘But my friend hasn’t bought anything yet.’
‘I just got here,’ Clayton explained. ‘Five minutes ago.’
‘Sorry, sir, overnight parking is at the manager’s discretion.’
‘What’s that supposed to mean?’
‘It means you gotta buy something,’ Lou said. She sounded sorry. She always had a temper. But it was gone as quick as it came. ‘It doesn’t matter what. It’ll take you five minutes. Then Wayne here will be happy and we can sit and talk. I promise.’
‘You on first-name basis with all the security guards round here?’
‘Wayne looks after us. You too, if you go buy something.’
‘Store policy, sir.’ The security guard puffed up.
‘All right, all right. I’m going. You want anything, Lou baby?’
‘Um …’ she said, looking at the bright door across the parking lot.
‘Cigarettes?’ he offered. ‘An Energade? A pop or something for Charlie?’
She swiped at her eyes, rubbed the back of her hand off against her sweatshirt. ‘Yeah, all right. And a lighter. Or matches. Matches are safer for Charlie. I can give you money.’
‘Don’t worry about it. I’ll be right back. Don’t go anywhere, okay?’
‘Where would I go?’
The guard, Wayne, walked with him to the door, as if he just happened to be heading the same way.
‘She’s a nice lady. I don’t want any trouble,’ he said. He’d tucked his flashlight into his belt next to his pepper spray.
‘Me neither,’ Clayton said. He felt terribly tired, and the pinch in his spine was back. ‘Are you in love with her?’
‘What? No!’
‘Because she’s living out of a car? You think you can judge her? Because she’s got a kid? Is she not good enough for you?’
The guard shook his head. ‘Man, you gotta understand. You are here on my say-so. I don’t know what your problem is with your lady, but you need to sort it out peaceable or you’re both vacating tonight.’
‘Don’t take it out on her.’
‘Just saying. You got to act civilized.’ The glass doors slid open to release a blast of warm air, like an oven door. ‘Here we go, sir, happy shopping.’
Civilized. It’s the end of civilization, he wanted to shout at the guard. The whole country falling apart, the rich getting richer and the poor camping out in their cars – if they’re lucky. And inside here, it’s all slick and white with fluorescent lights and colorful packaging on the shelves of plenty – but it’s all empty, he wanted to scream. All this shit is nothing. But he kept a hold of himself, steered himself between the aisles and the Halloween decorations and picked up the things he needed: cigarettes, a bottle of water for the truck, Skittles for Charlie, and soda. He found a pair of shoes in the kids’ section. Sneakers with superher
oes on them, although he wavered between Batman and Spiderman. What did Charlie like? He didn’t even know.
It didn’t matter, he thought. Even if Charlie was Ryan’s kid. He could step up. Every kid needs a father figure, a stable home. Not a car.
‘Will that be all, sir?’ the cashier said with a smile as automatic as the sliding doors. He managed to say thank you and get out of there.
But the parking space where he’d left them was empty. He closed his eyes. In case this was one of his hallucinations. But the car was still gone when he opened them. He stood there, the plastic bag with his purchases dangling from his hand.
‘She took off,’ said the woman in the RV, leaning through the lace curtains, as if he couldn’t see with his own eyes. Crowing about it.
‘I can see that,’ Clayton said, trying not to cry. ‘I’ll give you these smokes if you tell me which way she went.’
She eyed the shopping bag and turned Judas quicker than you can change the channel. ‘Took off east. Back roads, I reckon.’
‘I reckon you’d be right.’ He tossed her the pack of cigarettes.
‘Menthol,’ she said, disgusted.
He might be able to catch her if he hurried. How far could she have got in that rattletrap car?
He roared through the deserted streets, through the suburbs with their neat little houses and manicured lawns, and onto the road out of town. A dull noise filled his head, like static on the TV swallowing up the rest of the picture, the same way fog was coming up from the lake, a white drift lapping at the edge of the tarmac. The needle on his accelerator leapt up to 60, 70. He lost himself in the driving, caught somewhere half-asleep, half-awake, the truck gulping down the miles of dark road.
Until he came round the corner on a road in the woods, and saw her tail lights up ahead, between the trees and the fog. He drove up right behind her to make sure, close enough to see the galloping silver horse on the badge on the trunk. He flashed his lights to tell her to slow down. He just wanted to talk.
He saw the silhouette of Charlie’s wild curls twist round in the passenger seat. She rolled down the window and stuck out her hand, waving for him to pass, even as the Colt sped up. He accelerated until he was right behind her and then veered out so that he could pull up next to her, winding the window down. He could hear her transmission screaming. No way she could keep this up. The needle nudged up to 80, 85.
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