Deadroads

by Robin Riopelle

  “Works to a point,” Sol said. “Some days, I think everything would be better if I just popped a bunch of anti-psychotics.” He looked so sad and defeated Baz didn’t know what to say. “I’ll think about it, okay?”

  It was more than Baz had expected, frankly, and more than he’d bargained for, and he heard the Wagoneer start up and leave before he had a chance to say what was on his mind, which was ‘be careful’.

  It took Sol a while to spot DJ’s encampment. Police may have gone through the hovel or not. It was hard to tell, because it was in such crappy shape to begin with. The tarp had blown away, though, and was now caught in the branches of a cottonwood across the tracks. In the midst of it, improbably pristine, was the white plastic tub DJ had used as a chair.

  No cops, no police tape. Sol walked a little way up the track, looking for anything that suggested the ghost had been here, or the devil, but those guys didn’t leave evidence. He hadn’t found anything at Bart’s murder site, either.

  Without a human to inhabit it, DJ’s home looked like garbage. Without DJ, it was garbage. Sol lifted the edge of a piece of plywood, thinking that he’d stack it against a broken pallet, maybe stick the tarp under it, so that things weren’t quite so messed up when DJ came back.

  Night was nearing, and Sol looked around, mindful there were things that wanted him dead haunting the tracks. Last night’s cold, though, was hard to imagine in this freaky warm chinook, always Sol’s favorite thing about living close to the Rockies. He picked up a sheet of plywood and it slewed to the side. Sol looked down at the mish-mash of articles trapped underneath—canned goods, a few magazines, a collection of bottles, a blanket in tatters. Garbage, right enough.

  A ball of black hair the same size as a throw cushion.

  Sol bent down, one hand to the side, taking weight off his battered hip. He tilted his head, trying to figure out what it was, then prodded the fur with two fingers, ridiculously squeamish given his day job. Given his night job. What’s it gonna do, Sarrazin? Jump up and bite you? He could see now it was a small dog, muzzle gray, little stick legs stiff, nose tucked under curl of tail. It wasn’t warm; it had been dead for hours.

  Sol swallowed. The one thing the drifter had loved, the only thing that had loved him back.

  Loved or not, the dog was fresh meat no matter which way Sol looked at it, and something needed to be done about that. He fetched the white tub and walked stiffly with it down to the tracks, bent awkwardly and with no little effort, filled the tub with gravel and loose stones. A train passed, long on the whistle, this one heading west, over the mountains, snagging Sol’s heart.

  The dog was so small, it only took two trips to cover it with rocks. Sol placed the last stone on top of the cairn and rested his hand there, knew a determined coyote would make short work of his makeshift crypt, and coyotes, mais, they were all determined. His shoulder ached; he’d need to get it seen to, probably. I should be icing it instead of doing this. Still, this had been the right thing to do, for himself as much as the dog, or DJ.

  Same as what he’d do next.

  * * *

  The jail in Ogallala served three counties and it still only held sixteen prisoners at a time. Sol pulled up to the nondescript brick building, checked the address, hoped for the best. The best turned out to be an exclusively female staff who looked half-starved for something to happen. Sol was unsure if his entrance qualified, and wished for one split second that he’d brought Baz, who was a one-man happening under any circumstance.

  Still, a stranger with an EMS badge? It ought to be enough.

  A deputy came in behind him, threw a joke to the women, referring to them by their first names, and it knocked Sol off balance; he suddenly realized he was a mess. A bunch of butterfly bandages tacked across his brow like bows on a cartoon kite. His lip was fat and broken, his gait impaired with limp and wince. His parka alone made him look indigent, a loopy Gulf War vet. Merde, he should have taken Baz’s advice, cleaned himself up a little, but he’d been in a hurry, thinking of DJ, of how they’d talked about jumping on a train and heading west and how a jail cell in Ogallala, Nebraska was the very opposite of that.

  The deputy, who seemed to be dropping off paperwork, eyed Sol even as he flirted with the jailer taking the stapled forms, and the fluorescent lights were unforgiving, lethal. The whole front reception desk area was stark, sterile, made to be easily cleaned if someone bled or puked all over it. Sol had been in places like this for his whole working life, had a role here. Hell, in some ways he belonged here.

  Only one way to play it.

  He smiled as one of the jailers came over. She wasn’t returning his smile and she didn’t call him ‘sir’. “Can I help you?”

  Sol nodded. “Yeah. I’m an EMS worker from Denver,” and he fetched out his ID from his pocket and slapped it on the desk, aiming for unconcerned. Belonging here. “I’ve got a friend who’s been riding the rails around here for the last few years, and I’m trying to find him.”

  The deputy, perched on the side of a desk, was beef-cattle big, had probably been the running back in his high school days, had that easy way with the women behind the counter, was used to being heard and seen and obeyed. “Well, what are you doing here? You oughta be talking to the railway police, then, right?”

  “Yeah, I been to Bailey Yard and talked to some of their bulls.” Sol paused. He’d come here for a reason, no point in backing down now. “I heard that you picked up a guy this afternoon.” He met the deputy’s eyes and he knew that he wasn’t being deferential enough, that this guy would hand him his ass just for looking at him funny, but Sol didn’t have it in him right this second to look at the deputy any other way. “DJ? His name’s DJ. He’s from Maine.”

  The deputy’s eyes narrowed. “He’s a friend of yours? Homeless guy with an arrest record from here to Arkansas?” He came off the desk, glanced at Sol’s ID, handed it back to him with a jaded expression: so this was what a Denver paramedic looked like. He led Sol forward, past reception, and Sol cast a look to the women there, smiled for something to do. One smiled back; long odds to begin with.

  Smiling Jailer came closer, but it was only to unlock the sliding metal door. The sound of it set Sol’s teeth on edge, and he fought a momentary flutter of panic. The smell, the sounds, the oppressive fluorescent lights. It was coming back to him. Not merely recalling work, hospitals and uniforms. What he was feeling now, it went back further than that.

  Sol nodded to her, forced himself to. “He’s probably worried about his dog.”

  She returned the nod as though pleased that someone recognized the particular stresses of her job. “He’s awful upset about it. Hours now, shouting about it. The other prisoners, they complained.”

  “Gave you trouble, did he?” the deputy said. “A dead body spitting distance from that squat of his, and he’s getting worked up about a dog?”

  Smiling Jailer smiled again. “Not much trouble. But you know these guys, they hate being under lock and key, even if it’s for their own good.”

  Sol bit the inside of his mouth, had a moment of dread passing through the doors, a shrill klaxon ringing in his head as the lock was slid behind him. The deputy took him to a small waiting room, antiseptic as the rest, hallways a battered white along the way, narrow, dim shouts coming from further along the row. The skin on the back of Sol’s neck began to crawl, and he had to counsel himself to breathe normally—just a room, it’s just a room—while the deputy gestured to a metal chair behind a nasty table, marked up with ink and chipped beyond easy fixing.

  “We’ll see if DJ’s up for a visit, Mr. Sarrazin,” the deputy said. “You want a coffee?” Yessir, he wanted a coffee, wanted it bad, but his heart rate was already up, he knew that, and he knew it wasn’t because he was nervous about the cop, or being questioned.

  “Thanks, no,” he said.

  The deputy hesitated. “You all right, son?”

  Sol realized that while he’d been in plenty of police stations, worked with
cops all the time, liked them, hell, partied with them, there were cops and there were jailers. Though this was just a county jail, it felt like waiting for his old man to come out in the orange jumpsuit, make sudden and intense conversation, a whole week concentrated into sixty minutes. Sol would tell Aurie lies about how everything was all right, that he and Baz were doing just fine, that nothing was wrong.

  Sol quirked a smile. “Yeah, you know. I’m okay. Just had a call that went wild a couple of nights ago.” He motioned to his face. They shared a look, and Sol sincerely hoped they were actually sharing more than a look—that they were swapping experience, war stories.

  The deputy paused. “No kidding.” Maybe reassessing him.

  Sol swallowed. Only a matter of minutes before some part of this facade cracked. It was always better to be quiet than to yak your fool head off, though, so Sol waited, wondered if there was some paperwork he’d have to fill out. Sol had long known that there were certain kinds of people who became cops: those that wanted to do good and to protect the innocent. And those that liked to exercise power, those that thrived on the automatic respect. Sol hadn’t quite figured out this one yet.

  There had been a lot of the latter type in his dad’s joint, and Sol had seen the way they’d looked at him during his first weekly, then monthly, visits. They were seeing a criminal in the making, some scared seventeen-year-old kid with a spotty psychiatric history and a no-good father, haphazard attendance at school or employment on highrise construction sites when he wasn’t getting picked up for public disorderlies. Sometimes Sol had brought the barely-teen Baz, and that had lightened the whole visit, but Baz had acted out so badly afterwards that Sol didn’t ever think a trip to see Aurie was worth the subsequent fights and the drugs and the running away. It had been a long four years.

  The deputy wasn’t moving. Maybe Smiling Jailer was getting DJ. “Any chance you might cut him loose?” Sol asked. “He’s not gonna like being in a cell.” He shrugged a little, surprised at how quiet his voice was, how low. The accent. His heart going like a triphammer. The deputy had one hand on the door, which was still open. For that Sol was profoundly grateful. He knew that beneath his father’s plaid shirt, he’d sweated right through at armpit and back.

  “A boy died and DJ’s a witness,” the deputy explained. “And it’s cold out.”

  Sol nodded; one night in a cell, at least. He’d probably be able to calm DJ down, though, at least. His own sharp fear was strong in his nostrils: fear of places like this, fear of getting stuck in a place like this. “Okay. I’ll see if I can’t set him at ease about the dog.”

  “Suzie’s getting him now. You’re right. He’s damn twitchy.” Not the only one, Sol thought.

  It had been voluntary, his stay in the psych ward that one time, almost nineteen and out of his mind with worry and ghosts and Baz’s constant truancy, trying to fix what was all around him, not being able to control anything, his father flying into dark rages at every visit: You just send them away. Don’t talk to them, don’t monkey around. I showed you everything, and you learned nothing!

  Then someone ran down the corridor outside, calling for a medic.

  The deputy told Sol to stay put, stuck his head out into the corridor. Sol didn’t stay put, it wasn’t really in him to do that, he stood at the deputy’s shoulder as Suzie the Smiling Jailer—now near tears, not composed, not smiling at all—quickly relayed the news.

  Somehow, the prisoner had used the rope holding up his trousers to effect. No one had thought he was suicidal. No one had checked. Hell, after the ranting, the complaints from the other prisoners, it’s a wonder that another inmate hadn’t beaten him to death. The deputy saw Sol at his shoulder and told him again to sit back down.

  Sol wasn’t of a mind to sit back down. He pushed past the deputy, down the corridor, just going, not really thinking about what he was doing, a shiver starting up in him like shock but not, a deep fear, a hole in him that went straight down all the way to despair. You can’t die in a cell, DJ. He came to a locked door, the push bar unyielding and that’s when the deputy caught up with him. The deputy pushed him aside, and Sol knew that he must look crazed, some mix between psycho and vagrant. A long look passed between them. Sol knew all about jurisdictional issues, about what out-of-state certification meant or did not mean. Both of them knew what minutes might mean, as well.

  “I’m a paramedic.” It came out strangely, mostly because Sol’s throat had constricted at the thought of DJ knotting a rope. He couldn’t have said why; he dealt with stuff like this all the time. “Please.”

  The jailer pulled out her set of keys, looking to the deputy for guidance. The deputy nodded. And even though Sol didn’t want to do it, didn’t want to go into the lock-up, he was going to.

  One look, though, told him that there was nothing to be done. DJ was still hanging, and the best that Sol could do was help the deputy untie him, lower him to the floor, and by that time, the local guys were at the jail and Sol wasn’t needed, definitely wasn’t wanted.

  He watched them work, knew the drill, could do nothing, not with any of the equipment, not with Colorado certification. Not by putting a hand on DJ’s chest, because his ghost was long gone. Out of this place, and Sol would have to take slim comfort in that. He watched the whole dance; the strip being run, the beginnings of the report. No heroic measures, nothing heroic about this.

  The deputy finally noticed Sol again, and gently but firmly guided him by the arm, took him into the front where he was sat at a desk, the deputy opposite, pad of paper out now. He was asked questions about next of kin and date of birth and anything else he might know about DJ. Sol answered best he could, monosyllabic. He was thinking of the dog, of the cairn of stones. Finally, he was told to stay in touch, but he couldn’t remember his cell phone number so he made something up. Finally, he walked back out through the front doors, where a drift of snow still lingered in the shadows next to the brick wall, a line of trucks and police vehicles breaking the constant wind. The sun was only a glow beyond the far horizon. He couldn’t remember when he’d last eaten.

  This is no way to live your life, he thought.

  Sol had been here before, or a few places just like it, standing in front of police lock-ups, empty-bellied, beat up, in trouble and alone. It had been a bad stretch, that time when Aurie was first in prison, and Sol remembered little of it but anger, just months and months of it. There had been cops and fights and no keeping of noses clean, not until it became obvious that social services was going to separate them, would put Baz in a group home and Sol in juvie or worse.

  Their social worker landlady had stepped in, convinced Sol the only way to end it was with help, if you could call the antipsychotics and the brief hospitalization help. Sol’s trip to the psych ward had scared both brothers. Baz had settled down, settled in. The meds had given Sol a couple months reprieve from all the ghosts, had slowed down the craziness. Drugged silence had been a gift.

  After, their father hadn’t looked at Sol the same way, and that had been the end of their trust. The drinking, the fighting, it had mostly stopped, like Sol had sealed it away, cemented over a well. Grow up, he’d told himself, and it had been what was necessary. The only way to get rid of the anger was to not care, and that’s what he’d done.

  I am nothing like you, Papa, Sol thought, fumbling for his truck keys. And he knew he was exactly like his father in every way that mattered.

  FIFTEEN

  BIRTHDAY PLUS ONE

  The Old Roadside wasn’t much of a place, not for a birthday celebration. Not for a funeral, either, really, or a getting divorced party, or even just a beer after work. It was probably adequate for descending to a certain level of intoxication and certainly for getting into a Friday night fight, but not much more. Baz eyed what passed for a band in Ogallala the night after New Year’s Eve and despaired.

  Across a table only kept from tilting by a folded cigarette pack under one leg, Baz watched Sol shift from beer to bourbon. That likel
y meant that they would get thrown out before too long, but Baz didn’t want to ruin what was left of Lutie’s big day by pointing it out.

  Sol hadn’t joined them for dinner, had met them afterwards and hadn’t demurred when Baz suggested a birthday outing, had merely nodded without comment, and that ought to have been Baz’s first clue that things hadn’t gone well.

  Between bourbons three and four, Sol told them he’d buried DJ’s dead dog at the tracks and unstrung the suicidal drifter at the jail, two stark notions tied together with an inadequate ‘then’, followed by silence.

  That was that, and Lutie stared, and it was not exactly happy birthday with a candle on it. The next round came and Sol took his fast, and Lutie took hers thoughtfully, and Baz just took his because he didn’t want to think of much else.

  “Well, I’ve had worse birthdays,” Lutie stated loudly and Baz thought, The night is still young.

  Sol’s tattered eyebrow lifted and he’d had one too many drinks to wince. Feeling no pain stage. Hold him here, and they might be okay. “Me too,” he murmured so only Baz could hear, turning his glass as though he was trying refract enough light to set the table on fire.

  They sat in silence as the band finished murdering the song, and Sol’s eyes glittered, maybe looking for a fight. Baz paid attention, didn’t want to be Sol’s keeper, but roles got switched at a certain point on nights like this, and it was usually a good idea to pay attention to when that happened.

  “I always hated my birthday,” Lutie shouted above the next musical catastrophe, which Baz couldn’t even identify. “Next round’s on me,” and she made to rise, but the waitress was already there, too quick for Baz’s liking.

  Lutie continued. “Last year, all my friends forgot and I ended up in the ER, talking to the walls.” Her nose was in her purse, looking for her wallet. Without breaking any kind of rhythm, Sol passed some folded bills to the returning waitress, and Lutie glanced up, but Sol wasn’t looking at her.