No Parking at the End Times

by Bryan Bliss

  But I don’t care what chances God or Brother John are giving. Not anymore. Whatever wires got crossed, whichever part is broken inside me, I don’t care. I’ll leave it unplugged for the rest of my life if it means having to be a part of this world. I can survive without Brother John or God. And if I have to, without Mom and Dad.

  Dad turns to me and says, “Abigail, you need to apologize to Brother John.”

  Of course I’m the one who needs to apologize, because that’s the most important thing. God forbid we get on the wrong side of Brother John! Here’s a novel idea: how about Brother John apologizes to me? Because unless I’m going to take everything away from him, that’s not happening. Not even close.

  I turn around and walk out of the office without a word, heading straight for the door.

  Dad races after me, blocking my escape. He doesn’t say anything and Mom is just as quiet. The church is empty now, the initial spectacle having worn off. Dad watches me, but I won’t look at him. I won’t be the first one to say anything.

  “You denied God,” he says, almost to himself. “You can take it back—God will let you take it back, Gabs.”

  I could claim crossed fingers—that I didn’t really mean it. As if using certain words will make me snap back together, back into the good girl I’ve always been. The one they are comfortable having sit in the backseat of the van doing—what? Nothing. I haven’t done a single thing to help us since we’ve been here. But that’s changing. Right now.

  “I didn’t deny God. I denied him.”

  Dad looks to Brother John’s office, afraid he heard me.

  “Dad, Aaron’s gone,” I say.

  “I know,” he says.

  “Then why are we here!”

  I try to push past Dad, but he holds me in place, searching my face.

  “I can’t make your brother come back,” he says. “All I can do is hope and pray that God keeps him safe.”

  The words hollow me.

  “That’s all you can do? He’s gone, Dad. We need to go find him because nobody else is going to do it. Not Brother John. Not God. That’s the only thing we should be worried about right now.”

  What I’m saying scares him; I can see it in his eyes, the way his shoulders tense and his grip tightens. But scared of what? Who?

  Dad composes himself and lets go of me.

  “You don’t have to trust me, Abigail. But now is a time when it would be good to trust God.”

  He looks up, a last-chance hope slathered embarrassingly across his face. As if I’m going to wrap my arms around him and say, Yes! God is going to fix everything!

  “I can’t,” I say. “Not if you’re staying here.”

  I could keep going, could list all the other reasons why I don’t trust anything other than what I can do for myself—not anymore. But what would it matter? He isn’t listening. He’s waiting. For me to say the words that will make him feel better. For some joke. And that only leaves one choice, a decision I made as soon as he chose Brother John over Aaron.

  I will hurt him.

  I will leave.

  But I don’t know if even that will work.

  I don’t say a word when Mom asks if we’re going to go look for Aaron. Dad shakes his head and mumbles something about consistency and how Aaron knows where we are. That he’ll come back when all his steam is gone.

  Aaron was right. Mom and Dad will never see that they made a mistake. They’ll never turn away from Brother John. I only hope that he hasn’t left already. That he and Jess aren’t on some bus right now, headed anywhere but here.

  Dad stands guard at the door until the sun begins to drop and the small room grows dark. I force patience into my body, reminding myself that he’ll be asleep soon enough. And when that happens, I’m gone.

  If anything, I’m really good at waiting now.

  I lay there, refusing to use the couch cushions Brother John produces from his office, or to get warm under the threadbare blanket he hands Dad before leaving. Mom is right next to me, huddled under her and Dad’s jackets. She isn’t using the blanket, either. Across the room, Dad sits against the door with his head raised. I can barely hear him, but even the soft words of his prayers sound like cannon blasts in my ears.

  When Dad finishes praying, he comes close to my face and whispers my name. I pretend not to hear him, to be asleep—Aaron’s best trick. He stands there for a moment before quietly putting the blanket over my body. In the faint light, through half-closed eyes, I watch as he lies next to Mom, wrapping his long arms around her body.

  Outside, a couple of teenagers laugh and yell, but we’re all used to this now—the constant movement, the sounds—and when a bottle breaks, nobody reacts. The teenagers move down the block, and then it’s quiet again.

  I wait for an hour before I stand up. I move deliberately in the direction of the bathroom, in case Mom and Dad aren’t fully asleep. I walk around the room—I could be going to pray—and eventually circle back to our makeshift bed. Mom and Dad haven’t even stirred.

  The first thing I do is go to Brother John’s office, which isn’t locked. I grab anything that might be useful. A small backpack, a flashlight with extra batteries. In his desk drawer I find ten dollars, but before I take it I pause.

  I have never stolen anything in my life.

  I try not to think about God, about what I said—who I’ve become. But again, nothing has happened. No lightning bolts. No boils or clouds of insects. And while the emptiness—that sense of loss—is still there, I do my best to ignore it. To give God a taste of what it feels like.

  I take the ten dollars and walk out of his office.

  The light from the liquor store washes over Mom and Dad in electric red. I hurry to the door and don’t look back.

  FOURTEEN

  THE NIGHT IS COLD, MORE SO THAN IT HAS BEEN. I RUN TO keep warm. And if I’m being honest, to keep myself from completely breaking down. Because that’s what I want to do—cry until I empty myself of every emotion, even the ones I don’t want to lose. When I get to the entrance of the park, Trumpet Man is sitting there holding his trumpet. He stares at me, surprised.

  But whatever interest he has initially vanishes, and he goes back to working the valves on his instrument. I stand there, shivering, and try to think. I’m almost certain Aaron’s in the park. But where? It’s huge and, at night, covered in shadows seemingly designed to hide the people who sleep there. Indistinct voices rise up from within the walls as Trumpet Man raises his horn and plays one soft note.

  “No chilling winds,” he says. “No poisonous breath.”

  I jog down the path, hoping I’ll find Aaron and Jess with the rest of the group, talking on the hill. But they’re not. A few people I don’t know are asleep on the grass, hidden under thick blankets. I run further into the park, stopping whenever I hear a voice or a cough in the darkness.

  I’ve run for almost ten minutes when I see the wave, carrying a girl high above the rest of the park. Tall and spindly, she walks cautiously across the cresting water, and then disappears suddenly, like she was pulled under.

  And then there she is again, walking on top of the wave, arms stretched out like wings.

  But it’s not a girl and the water is just a sculpture, blue and white concrete that forever breaks away from the park and toward the playground. It’s Skeetch. He places one foot in front of the other, like a gymnast on a high beam. When he looks down at me, he says, “Look at me. Just like Jesus!”

  He jumps off the sculpture and jogs over to me. Someone appears to the left of us, bundled for the cold, but shuffles into the darkness, disappearing. My instinct is to run, but I have no idea where else Aaron could be so I stand there, trying to seem relaxed.

  “Where’s Aaron?”

  “You know, that’s a damn good question. Where is that brother of yours? I’ve been looking for him all night.”

  When he takes another step toward me, I put up my fist and he laughs. “Seriously? What is it with you and that bitch ass brot
her of yours? Always starting trouble when people are trying to help.”

  He reaches forward and moves a piece of hair away from my face, letting his finger linger on my temple.

  My hand is a blur. It meets Skeetch’s nose, but doesn’t do much. He pushes me against the sculpture hard, bruising my back and holding my hands above my head. There’s onion on his breath and he hasn’t showered in who knows how long. When he reaches to wipe the hair out of his eyes, I try to move. He pushes me hard against the cement sculpture and laughs.

  “I’m not going to hurt you,” he says, leaning close to whisper in my ear. “Unless that’s what you want.”

  He smiles, letting go of my hands long enough for me to reach out and claw him. His skin rips under my nails. I feel the blood. In pure instinct, I put my knee between his legs as hard as I can, again and again until he falls on the ground.

  “You fucking bitch,” he groans, reaching for my leg—anything. But I’m already running.

  I don’t know where I’m going, but I move as fast as I can. I keep imagining Skeetch behind me, coming from the shadows, grabbing me. My stomach cramps like I’m sick, like I’m going to throw up, but I don’t stop. When I see the lights from a road ahead of me, I run straight through a small thicket of trees, dodging the trunks and branches until I’m under the yellow streetlights.

  A car honks when I cut in front of it. The driver yells. I take turns blindly, working myself deeper into the city, as far away from the park as I can get. As I careen around a corner, I trip, crashing to the sidewalk in a heap.

  The pavement is cold and sticky and I can’t breathe. I’m sucking in air wildly, but I can’t make my chest expand—can’t bring in any air. I can feel Skeetch’s hands on my body, can smell his breath. Everything that’s happened falls on top of me, every brick of emotion that I’ve kept stacked crumbles one after the other, and when I finally do breathe, it’s in one long cry.

  I try to stand up, but my legs quiver with exhaustion. Every breath feels like needles being stuck deep into my lungs.

  Across the street, a voice asks if I’m okay. It’s a couple, maybe college aged. When they come closer, the man leans down and reaches out to touch my forehead, which I only now realize stings. I flinch and try to scoot away from him on my hands.

  “Whoa, hey—it’s okay.”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. “I’m fine.”

  The woman whispers into the man’s ear and he nods. She pulls out her cell phone and says, “We’re going to call an ambulance.”

  I shake my head and stand up, forcing my legs to hold my weight. My entire body burns under my clothes. I start to walk away and the man says, “Hey—really. Stay still.”

  I move down the sidewalk. I can’t waste time with an ambulance, the questions that will inevitably come at the hospital. Where are your parents? Where do you live? Nothing I can answer, at least easily. Not anymore. So I walk away as fast and normally as I can, trying to catch my breath every few seconds. Trying to get off the street. Hoping Aaron will magically appear.

  I hurry around a corner and wait inside the doorway of a closed storefront, listening for footsteps—any evidence that Skeetch is coming. For an ambulance’s siren. The small space blocks the wind, but it’s still cold—too cold to stand still without a blanket or a decent jacket. Everything I have is locked up in the van.

  When my toes begin to lose feeling, I step out of the doorway and move as quickly as I can.

  I walk for an hour, trying to ignore the cold as it climbs from my toes to my legs and eventually across my entire body. By the time I see the large church—where we sometimes eat dinner, where they gave us the money—I can’t stop my body from convulsing with the cold.

  The door we use to line up for food is locked, as is every other door and window. But a huge black gate around the side of the building swings in the wind so I go through and close it behind me, if only to escape the wind for a little bit. The alley is filled with signs, old tables, and a collection of hoses. The two church buildings rise above me like twin giants, casting a shadow so deep that I can barely see anything except a subtle light at the end of the alley.

  I step carefully down the alley until I reach a small window at the base of one of the buildings. The heating system churns and gurgles behind the small pane of glass. I reach down and push on it. At first, the window doesn’t move, just dust and dirt spiraling into the air. But when I push harder, it rotates inward so the heat pours out onto my hands, my neck, my face. Heaven.

  When my hands and face are warm, I stick my feet through the small opening. As the heat warms my toes, I study the window—it’s no smaller than the dog door at home. How many times did Mom forget her keys and accidentally lock us out of the house, only for me to wiggle through that small rectangle and let us back in?

  I manipulate the rest of my body through the small window, lowering myself onto the concrete floor of the room. Once inside, my heart starts beating fast. What if there’s an alarm? Can I get out of this little room, which, now that I’m in it, is boiling? I try the only door in the room and it opens easily. I brace myself for the screech of an alarm, but the only thing I hear are the gasps and groans of the heater working behind me.

  An exit sign gives off enough light for me to see the room, large and carpeted. I walk across it slowly, expecting the lights to pop on at any second. But nothing happens. I move slowly through the dark church, opening doors and looking in the rooms, jumping every time the heating system kicks on.

  It’s creepy, but warm. Enough that when I see a couch in one room, I almost lie down. I’m so tired I can barely keep my eyes open, and the idea of sleep sounds wonderful. But I can’t fall asleep here. I can’t risk someone recognizing me from eating here with Mom and Dad, or calling the police.

  When I find the sanctuary, the Christmas trees are still lit. I stare at them from the hallway, the lights swimming together as my eyes lose focus. How much time have we lost in rooms just like this one? Sitting around and waiting for something to happen to us. None of us ever doing anything. Somebody has to act. And if God wants in on this, fine. He can jump in. But I’m done waiting.

  I wander around the building, trying to amuse myself with anything I can find to keep me awake until sunlight begins sneaking through the windows. Magazines on an end table. A pocket-sized pinball machine in what looks like the teen room. I treat myself to two packages of cookies in the kitchen. When I find a room filled with toddler toys, I almost turn to leave. Then I see the phone. A phone.

  I push the familiar pattern of numbers, burned into my memory from a childhood of calling with errands and begging to go fishing whenever Mom and Dad weren’t around. Uncle Jake is the sort who always answers his phone on the first ring, maybe the second. Like he knew when we needed something. But I’m still not sure he’ll answer until I hear his voice.

  “Hello?”

  I slide down the wall, holding the phone against my ear. I can barely choke out a response, anything.

  “Abigail? Is that you?”

  “Yes,” I say, and there’s silence on the other line. A long enough silence that I’m not sure if this was a good idea. Maybe we’ve been gone longer than I thought, somehow fell asleep, forgotten like Rip Van Winkle.

  “Good God, Abigail . . . ,” he finally says. “Are you okay?”

  “I’m sorry,” I say. What time is it in North Carolina? Here? I look out the window at the sky, suddenly unsure if he’s working nights at the mill. “Did I wake you up?”

  “Wake me up? You know better than to ask me a question like that,” Uncle Jake says. “You call me anytime and I’m answering that phone, okay?”

  Hearing his voice and how we fall back into this natural rhythm like nothing has changed tightens something in my throat. Like I’m still 5.2 miles away from his house and asking him to come pick me up.

  “You still there?”

  “I’m here,” I say, swallowing again and again, trying to push down the fears and, maybe, the pride.


  “Could you come get us?”

  The line is silent for a second. Then: “Yeah. Of course.”

  “Or send me and Aaron some money. That would work, too.” It comes out so fast that it probably surprises Uncle Jake as much as it did me. “I’m sorry to ask for it so bluntly, but Aaron and I need to get out of here right now. We’re coming home and we need bus tickets.”

  “Whoa, whoa—hold on a second.”

  I know I’m talking fast, but this is the only way we can get home and I need Uncle Jake to understand. To help us.

  “We could stay with you,” I say. “Would that be okay?”

  Uncle Jake says my name, but I keep talking, right over him.

  “I don’t even know how much a bus ticket costs.”

  “Abigail—Abigail.” I finally stop, and he says, “Where is your dad?”

  My throat gets tight. On the other end of the line, Uncle Jake sighs. Long and drawn out, like somebody readying themselves for pain.

  “I’m not with them anymore.”

  “Huh? What are you talking about? What happened?”

  I hear his voice. I understand the words. But I have no idea where to begin anymore, how to make sense of everything. What happened?—that question no longer applies. Now it’s only what’s happening. What we will do next. That’s all I care about.

  “I need to come home,” I say.

  The line is silent. I hear a truck passing, but I don’t know if it’s on his end or out on the street. The anger of earlier catches me, sending a crippling exhaustion I’ve never felt before. I close my eyes and say, “We need your help.”

  “What does that mean?” he asks. “Where’s Aaron?”

  I don’t answer him and he asks me again, his voice rising.

  “I don’t know,” I say.

  His silence says everything.

  “I’m going to call that church and straighten your dad’s ass out,” he finally says. “Right now.”