Desperation Road

by Michael Farris Smith

  The storm came on strong and then it left as quickly as it had arrived. They walked into downtown with steam rising off the sidewalks and streets. Shop owners set plants and sidewalk signs upright and at a café customers sat around tables eating toast and drinking coffee. Church bells rang from somewhere. Deep and resounding chimes that caused the child to look up into the sky. Maben switched the bag from shoulder to shoulder, both sides tired now. Curious eyes followed them. These wet and worn people. A big one and a little one. The blisters on Maben’s heels burning and bleeding. At the end of Main Street they ran into the railroad tracks and she was right. Broad Street ran with the tracks. Maben set the bag on the sidewalk and bent over with her hands on her knees and the child patted her on the back and said it’s okay Momma. Maben forced a smile at her and raised up and looked one way and then the other. No sign of Christian Ministries Family Shelter and she had forgotten the number. Only remembered Broad Street. There was nothing to do but keep walking. A police car eased up behind them and from the rolled-down window the officer asked if they needed anything and Maben said no. But then she asked about the shelter.

  “Other way,” he said. “Hop in and I’ll take you down there.”

  “That’s okay,” Maben said. “We’re wet.”

  “Don’t matter.”

  “We’re okay.”

  “You sure?”

  “Yeah.”

  “All right,” he said and he drove to the end of the block and turned right.

  They retraced their steps back three blocks to where they started and crossed the street. Several more blocks and they moved out of downtown and walked past hundred-year-old houses. Some with boards across the windows and sagging porches and some rejuvenated with paint and new roofs and flower beds. Up ahead at a depot an engine pushed a railcar into another railcar and there was the sound of clashing steel and after that Annalee walked with her eyes on the train cars and she was still watching them when her mother said this is it.

  It looked like it might have once been a church or a schoolhouse. It was brick and rectangular and behind the front desk was a row of partitions that stretched to the back of the building and between the partitions were cots and small dressers and nightstands. The woman at the front desk wore her gray hair pinned on top of her head and she was small but sure when she looked at Maben and Annalee and asked them what they needed.

  “We need a place to stay,” Maben said and she dropped the garbage bag on the floor next to the girl. The woman came from around the counter and bent down to the child and asked her if she wanted something to drink. Annalee nodded and the woman called out and a teenage girl appeared from an office to the right.

  “Bring us some water. Towels, too,” the woman said and the teenage girl went back into the office and returned with two bottles. The first thing both Maben and Annalee did was to press the cold bottles to their foreheads. The grayhaired woman pointed them to chairs lining the wall and the three of them sat down. Maben rubbed the towel over her head and then did the same for Annalee.

  The woman said that her name was Brenda and then she began asking questions that Maben answered. Hardly any answers the truth. Annalee drank in silence, finishing her bottle before her mother. When Brenda seemed satisfied that the woman and child legitimately needed the place she explained that they had room but that it was only temporary. She didn’t explain what that meant. Today is Friday and we’ll start your clock. There is a small kitchen but if you mess it up you clean it up. We got the basics, so don’t go looking for a menu. No men allowed into the building at any time. If that rule gets broke you’ll be asked to leave immediately. We can put two cots in the same room so that you and the child won’t be separated. There are showers and towels and soap. Washer and dryer. I’m here all day and somebody else comes in at night and the door locks at eight o’clock and you gotta have a password to be let back in. And if you want to work there’s a café downtown that will let you wash dishes and work in the kitchen.

  Then she asked what was in the bag.

  “Everything,” Maben said.

  The garbage bag had punctured and torn and clothes pushed out of the holes.

  “Let me get you something else,” Brenda said.

  “No,” she said and she pulled it toward her. “This is fine. Can you show us our spot?”

  “That’s easy enough seeing as you’re it right now. Had one woman run off God knows where over the weekend and another end back up with her boyfriend. Same one she ran from in the first place. It never ends. You can pick wherever you like. All the spots are about the same size. You might want to get toward the back, though, cause the train don’t tiptoe when it comes through.”

  They picked a spot in the back close to the kitchen and the bathrooms and underneath a tall window because Annalee wanted to see the moon when she lay down to go to sleep. Maben dug through the bag and pulled out dry clothes for both of them and they changed. She wanted to unpack the entire filthy wad but had nowhere to put the pistol so she shoved the bag underneath her cot. She went into the bathroom and washed her face and she wet a cloth to wipe Annalee’s face but when she returned Annalee had fallen asleep. Maben touched the cloth to the child’s forehead and then she put it down and she lay down on the cot next to the child and the walking and the worry caught her and she closed her eyes and dreamed of sirens and strange men doing whatever they wanted to do with her and she awoke with a quick shout. She looked around. Figured out where she was. Looked at the child who hadn’t been bothered by her mother’s shout and slept on.

  Maben stood up and went into the bathroom and she sat down on the toilet. Buried her face in her hands. Began to breathe as if she’d climbed the stairs of a tall building. She felt herself beginning to sweat and she stood off the toilet and paced back and forth in front of the mirror. Tried to calm herself by humming and then singing but she couldn’t think of a song so she turned on the faucet and splashed water on her face and told herself to breathe like a normal human but that was damn near impossible.

  20

  MABEN LEFT ANNALEE ASLEEP AND SHE WALKED BACK TO THE front to talk to Brenda who was sitting behind the counter reading the newspaper. Brenda lowered the paper and asked her if she needed something.

  “That café,” Maben said. “Something to do.”

  “You gonna have to use sentences,” Brenda said and she folded the paper and set it aside.

  “You said something about some work.”

  “It ain’t glamorous,” Brenda said. “I can call down there and tell them you’re coming. You out of money?”

  “No. I got twenty dollars or so.”

  “Then you’re out of money.”

  “Can you watch Annalee?”

  Brenda turned up her nose. “Not usually. But since ain’t nobody else here I will.”

  “She’s sleeping right now.”

  “Fine.”

  Brenda picked up the telephone and called the café and told them she was sending someone down there to do whatever they need her to do. Maben thought that the woman put it perfectly. That it had long since been a theme. The woman hung up and gave her directions. Walk back down to Main. Turn right. Go one block. Turn right on Broadway. Two or three buildings down on the right. Maben thanked her and went on her way.

  She found it easily and a man named Sims met her at the door. He wore an apron and he had a towel slung over his shoulder and a pen behind his ear. The café was empty in the midafternoon except for a man in overalls who sat at the counter drinking coffee. Sims asked her if she could wash dishes and she said yes and he took her into the kitchen. She spent the afternoon washing dishes and mopping the kitchen floor and taking out the garbage. Whichever way Sims pointed her. In a few hours she said she had to go see about her kid and he opened the register and took out an envelope and handed her a twenty-dollar bill and she had doubled her wealth.

  “You did good,” he said. “If you want to come back tomorrow, come on.”

  She folded the twenty in
her hand. “You not open tonight?” she asked.

  “It’s Friday night. No reason not to be,” he said.

  “Can I come back later then?”

  He shrugged. “I suppose. If you want.”

  She said okay and then she walked back to the shelter and she found Annalee sitting on the floor with Brenda and the teenager who had brought them the water. Each of them with coloring books. She knelt and kissed the top of Annalee’s head. She was hungry and she made a sandwich in the kitchen and she walked back to the front and sat down with them and noticed that the child had gotten better at staying between the lines.

  Brenda looked at her watch. “I got to go here in a minute. New girl comes in and stays from now ’til the morning.”

  “She had anything to eat?” Maben asked as she nodded at Annalee.

  “About two dozen Oreos.”

  Brenda and the teenager stood up and went into the office and Maben relaxed while the child colored a bear with blue fur and green eyes. Ten minutes later another woman came in the door. A young black woman with a big purse. Maben stretched her legs out straight and listened to the women trade thoughts about the day and the upcoming night. Then she slipped off her shoes and pressed her thumbs hard into the bottoms of her feet. Annalee sat with her legs crossed and Maben asked her if they hurt.

  “Yes.”

  “Then stretch them out for me.”

  Annalee stuck her feet out straight and Maben began to massage the muscles in her small legs. She said not too hard and Maben eased up. Pressed her fingertips gently to the skin. Wanted to reach into the muscles and pull out the pain and tell her she would never have to run again because she was being chased but that would be a lie.

  Brenda and the teenager walked past Maben and Annalee and said they’d see them tomorrow. The black woman stuck her head out of the office and said let me know if you need something. Got some paperwork to do.

  Maben told the child she was going to get clean in the shower and Annalee followed her to the back. Sat on the cot with the coloring book.

  “You still hungry?” Maben asked.

  “Not really. My stomach hurts.”

  “I guess so.”

  Maben went into the shower and with the hot water on her neck she closed her eyes and mumbled to herself. It was a dream it was all a dream. A bad night like other bad nights and it was not real. Try and you can push it down. Way down. She nudged the hot water and made it hotter, almost scalding. And the steam rose and she begged it to be a dream. Her pleas as she sat in the backseat and he drove her into the dark and his hands in places they should not have been and the gunshots echoing across the vacant land and the harried face of the child in the motel room window. It was a dream. A nasty dream. The steam rose and the water spilled over her aching body and she felt it all and heard it all and it was not a dream but a nightmare and she felt it in the cloud of steam that shrouded her. The water so hot and her fears rising and with a quick twist she turned off the water and dropped her forehead against the slick tile of the shower wall.

  She stood still. The water dripped from her body and tapped like tiny reminders. She lifted her forehead twice and let it fall both times and then she heard Annalee singing to herself and she raised her head. Half smiled. She stepped out of the shower and dried off. Dressed and sat down with Annalee.

  “Got something I can color?”

  The child flipped through the book. “You want ducks or dogs?”

  “Ducks. Dogs bite.”

  “Not good dogs.”

  “No,” Maben said. “Not good dogs.”

  21

  BOYD GOT COFFEE IN A DRIVE-THROUGH AND SPENT THE MORNING riding and thinking about Russell. He didn’t want to but he couldn’t help it. There was no reason to think that Russell had been out on that dark road for any reason other than the one he had given. He probably felt like a rat out of a cage and he had seen the lights flashing and followed them and drove up on the scene by pure coincidence. No reason to believe anything else, Boyd kept thinking. He sipped the coffee and drove out on the highway down to the Louisiana line and back and he pulled into the truck stop for gas. As he filled the tank he leaned on the cruiser and took his sunglasses from his front pocket and put them on. He held his hand on his stomach and rubbed and pretended he had lost track of how much bigger he was now than he used to be.

  When the tank was full he got back into the cruiser and drove to town and then made his way out toward Mr. Gaines’s place. He hadn’t been there since before Russell was sent away and he remembered being in the little pickup Mr. Gaines had given Russell and remembered smoking cigarettes and drinking tallboys and coming in a helluva lot later than they were supposed to. He remembered the night that Shawna Louise rode between them and they both pawed at her and she slapped them away wearing big silver rings on all her fingers and lime green eye shadow and she laughed big like a game show host and how they turned off onto a gravel road and took turns making out with her and trying like hell to do other stuff but she kept slapping and cackling until they both gave up. So many nights like that after football games and double-dating and for no good reason on summer nights. The sight and sound of Russell had conjured up a long list of memories and he wished to God he would have bumped into him at the downtown café. Or at the liquor store. Or at the gas station. Or anyfuckingwhere other than out on the scene last night.

  He passed a flatbed stacked with hay bales and then slowed when he topped the hill and saw Mr. Gaines’s place ahead on the right. The pond where it used to be. The house where it used to be. The sunlight falling across the water like it always had. He came to a stop in the driveway and stared. He watched himself and Russell fishing. He watched himself and Russell sneaking out the bedroom window on the back side of the house.

  He sighed and ran his hand across his cleanshaven jaw. And then he put the cruiser in reverse and backed out of the driveway and drove into town. He had Russell’s new address on a piece of scrap paper tucked in his shirt pocket.

  Boyd thought he recognized the small house and was fairly certain he had helped Russell cut the grass or fix the fence or perform some other odd job Mr. Gaines had once given them. He got out of the cruiser and straightened himself. He walked across the small yard and up the front steps and as he reached out to knock the door opened. Russell stood there wearing only jeans that weren’t buttoned with his hair tousled. He held a white coffee mug. Russell opened the door fully and nodded and turned and walked to the couch. Boyd nodded back and followed him inside.

  “I been thinking,” Boyd said.

  Russell sat down. He sipped the coffee. “What’s that?”

  “I been thinking you’re a son of a bitch. You didn’t call me or nothing knowing you were getting out. Hell, I would’ve drove up there and got you.”

  “It don’t work like that,” Russell said.

  Boyd tapped the badge on his shirt pocket and grinned. “I got special privileges.”

  “Then sit down with your special privileges. If you want some coffee it’s in there.”

  Boyd sat down in a wooden chair next to the television. “You’re skinny,” he said.

  “You’re fat. Your old lady must love the big rub.”

  “Big rub? Never heard that one but I’ll ask her about it later on. You get any sleep?”

  “Not really.”

  “Me neither,” Boyd said. “We got us a situation and a half.”

  Russell nodded. Drank from the coffee cup.

  Say it, Boyd thought. Say you don’t have nothing to do with it though I know you don’t but say it just so I’ll hear it again.

  “Shotgun still loaded?” Boyd asked.

  “Yep.”

  “Who smacked you around? That face looks pretty new.”

  “It ain’t.”

  “Just takes longer to heal when you get old, I guess.”

  “Hurts longer, too.”

  Boyd stood from the chair. He looked around the living room. Down the hallway. A mostly empty hou
se and clothes lying here and there.

  “You ride around much longer last night?” he asked.

  Russell set the coffee mug on the floor and stretched out across the couch. “Not really.”

  “Bet it felt good.”

  “Bet what felt good?”

  “Riding around. Free air.”

  Russell sat up. “Somebody send you over here?”

  “Hell no, Russell. Just trying to catch up. I’m still pissed you didn’t let nobody know you were coming home.”

  “Larry figured it out.”

  “Who?”

  “Don’t give me that shit. You know who I’m talking about. The one who hates me. The ones who hate you are always waiting for you. So maybe you’re the son of a bitch,” Russell said and he got up from the couch. “I got to piss. Why don’t we do this later?”

  “Fine,” Boyd said. “I got shit to do anyway. Hey, you know I’m glad to see you.”

  “I know it. I don’t mean nothing.”

  They slapped hands and then Boyd walked outside. He stopped in the yard and looked back over his shoulder and through the open door he saw Russell go into the hallway and disappear behind the bathroom door. Quit being stupid, he told himself. Stupid is a bad way to start the day.

  Russell spent the rest of the day on the couch sleeping off the long night before and then late in the afternoon he got up and showered. When he was dried and dressed he stuck another Band-Aid on the small cut on his forehead though it no longer bled. He got in the truck and put the 20-gauge behind the seat and drove to kill some time before going out to eat fish with his dad and Consuela.

  He rode up and down Delaware like he used to do when he was a teenager and it didn’t seem any different. Carloads of summertime kids with arms hanging out windows and ponytails flopping in the wind. Music with big bumps throbbing in the late afternoon. At a fast food joint the parking lot was filled with young bodies sitting on tailgates and on hoods. Some sipping drinks from giant plastic cups and some licking ice cream cones. He swung into the movie theater parking lot and only pickups were parked. Athletes wore letter jackets despite the heat and a couple of others wore cowboy hats and had their thumbs stuck in their front pockets. When he passed they stared and tried to place him and then one of them said what the hell you looking at.