Arkansas

by John Brandon

  Emerging onto the gravel driveway, he was stared down by that old man, the neighbor with the sunglasses pushed up on his head. When the man began to speak, Kyle said, “Tell the woman who lives here that a no-good thug was snooping around and you scared him off.” Kyle walked past him and paced down the middle of the street.

  In the van, he checked out the next trip. Hardy, Arkansas. Chevy Malibu. First they had to go to a town called Cobin—it sounded familiar. Saturday the twenty-first? That was today. They had to be in Hardy in... ten hours. What the hell was Her’s problem? Kyle raced home, realizing in stages that he didn’t have to panic. Ten hours was enough time.

  He and Swin ate and packed. Swin figured Cobin was forty-five minutes away, in the flat, soybean country. The Malibu would be waiting for them behind an old children’s museum. Since they didn’t know a thing about Cobin other than what Swin got from his Lost Arkansas travel book, Kyle didn’t want to leave the minivan sitting there overnight. He didn’t care about the van itself, and especially not the hundreds of books in the back of it, but he didn’t want anyone wondering why the van was there. Johnna could’ve dropped them off, but Swin said that was out of the question. Even though she was basically living with them now, she didn’t have to be involved in their work. So the only way to get to Cobin was to take a cab and get dropped in the town square. The cab company was a half hour from the park and had a fleet of two cars.

  The driver had a bowl cut and high-top sneakers, and he drove a Camry station wagon. He claimed to be a master of many professions. He asked if anyone had ever heard the term “Renaissance man,” and Swin said no, he hadn’t. The driver told Swin he was looking at one—a graphic computer artist with a passion for working wood. He recounted an argument he’d had at a flea market involving a guy who carved famous logos with a chain saw. This fool with his Husqvarna thought he was hot, but he couldn’t create his own designs, was limited when it came to detail, and stank the place up with exhaust. The driver slowed in front of a fragmented tree stump. He hopped out, heaved the largest piece into his trunk, then resumed the journey. Kyle asked for his card and was handed a wafer of bark with a name and number etched into it.

  “Tinsel plant?” the driver asked.

  “How’s that?” said Kyle.

  “You boys got spots at the Christmas factory?”

  “No,” Swin said. “We tried to work there last year, but it’s all politics at that place.”

  “They opened a new building for tree-toppers,” the driver said. “Everybody’s sick of angels. Know I am.”

  Swin stared out his window. “We’re Ivy League students on a new kind of fall break. We go to places nobody would want to, and get to them in ways nobody would want to.”

  “Learn about the real folks, huh?”

  “Being poor and handy doesn’t necessarily make you real,” Swin said.

  “No?”

  “Being threatened,” Kyle broke in. “Having your life threatened makes you real.”

  The driver mulled this over, then fell into a tour-guide mode, pointing out where things had burned or where tornadoes had blown through. He coasted into downtown Cobin and rocked to a stop in front of a barber school. Kyle handed him a fifty and the man thanked him and asked if maybe he needed an ornament, not one that was knocked into shape by a machine in a factory, but a sample of old-fashioned craftsmanship. He held up a display box of holly sprigs and sleighs, five dollars each. Swin put his face close to the display for a long time, then said sure, he’d take five for twenty.

  The pink spiral on top of the children’s museum looked very close, but in fact Kyle and Swin walked seven blocks before reaching it. The back lot was hidden by some kind of quarry, also abandoned, and there was the Chevy.

  In Hardy, they exchanged the Malibu for a Caprice Classic, an old cop car that, as they cruised the main strip of town looking for a place to eat, they couldn’t help fidgeting in. The bolts and flat hooks that had once held the caging were still there, as were the switches for the lights and sirens, now attached to nothing. They felt conspicuous in the cruiser, disliked; cars around them drove straight and stiff. Kyle wondered how many guys had taken the ride in this very car, guys in shock, wondering about a lawyer, wanting to cry or bash the window out with their foreheads, while the cop sat where Kyle sat, fiddling with his radio, sat up here chewing on mints and wondering where everybody was meeting for darts.

  Kyle and Swin made it back to Cobin and again waited for the cab driver in the Camry, who drove them back and dropped them off at the market where Swin had met Johnna. Swin called Johnna for a ride and he and Kyle sat under the awning to wait, getting nodded at by everyone who entered. One guy stopped short in front of them, snapped his fingers, and said, “Bright’s boys.”

  They kept quiet.

  “I left a note, little ways back.”

  Kyle thought. Something about the guy smelled like a cop, smelled like the car he’d driven around earlier that day. “Cooper,” he said.

  “Lawfully yours.”

  Kyle didn’t want Cooper to ask why they were sitting in front of the market, why they needed a ride. A helpful cop was the worst kind.

  “Yeah, Bright got transferred,” Kyle said. “Supposed to be a little training trip, then they kept him there permanent.”

  “Where at?”

  “Oklahoma.”

  “I’m Suarez,” Swin said. “This is Mollar. You off duty today?”

  “Off as I get. We need a couple barrels for the PAL field.”

  “Well,” said Kyle. “We’ll let Bright know you were looking for him.”

  Kyle stood and Swin followed, the two of them hedging toward the front lot.

  “Come on out to Stumbler’s Tuesday,” Cooper said. “Green building on 411. You can’t miss it.”

  “We just might do that,” said Swin.

  “It’s trivia. Everybody likes trivia.”

  “Thanks.”

  “We’ll make you have a good time, the hard way or the easy way.” Cooper made a clicking sound with his cheek, then swung around and went inside.

  Kyle and Swin shuffled up the road in the direction Johnna would come from, veering into the weeds when cars passed, watching the farthest hill for a clay-colored hooptie.

  “I know who doesn’t like trivia,” Swin said. “Kyle Ribb.”

  The next day, Swin rented a video called Savannah Smiles and watched it out in the minivan. This was his sisters’ favorite movie. They used to watch it hundreds of times and whenever they did Swin would act put out but would plop onto the couch and stare at it beginning to end, keeping his tears in with great effort. It was dusk now. A fervent wind blew, finding nothing to whistle against but the van. Swin rolled up a blanket to lean on and hit the play button. The movie was about two convicts— one tall, one short. The short one was in charge of scaring up meals, meals that the tall one always found fault with. The tall convict made gruff, astute remarks about the fact that half the world was rich and half the world was poor. Savannah, adorable and ignored, was from the rich half. Her father was an ambitious politician who held dinner parties at which he put on airs. Events conspired to force the convicts to kidnap Savannah.

  The short convict took to her right away, while the tall one viewed her as a dangerous nuisance. Savannah taught the convicts games and songs. Over the course of the movie, the tall convict accepted that his life was ruined and worthless, and also, despite himself, grew to love Savannah.

  On her lunch break, Johnna got Max, her favorite patient, out of his room and wheeled him to the hump of a small hill. They had a view of the clinic. Max was senile and for this reason Johnna wasn’t afraid to give him the snuff he was always asking for. He spit in his plastic cup and told the only two stories he had left, the one about riding the freight train and the one about seeing the dancing girls. Max gave Johnna a jar of barbecue sauce each day and each morning she sneaked it back into his room.

  “Suspension bridges are amazing,” he said. Then a mi
nute later, “How’s your love life, dear?”

  Johnna pulled a sugar packet from her chest pocket and emptied it down her throat. It gave her a shiver.

  “Love life’s swell, Max. The guy that knocked me up is sticking to me like white on rice.”

  “Those shoes are damned unattractive.”

  Johnna turned her feet in and admired them. “This outfit is the reason Swin fell for me.”

  “What’s a Swin?”

  Johnna huffed, conceding that it was a valid question. “A Swin is a rambunc-tious, handsome boy whose own intelligence is a burden to him.”

  “You an Arkansas girl?” Max asked.

  “Am now. I’m a convert.”

  “You’re almost a mama. Means your mama’s almost a grandmama.”

  “Mama’s dead,” Johnna told him.

  He snorted.

  Johnna’s mother had raised her in Texas. Johnna was an only child and had had no contact with her cousins because her mother had been ostracized from the family. Her mother had fallen in love with her nephew, who was only six years her junior, because he always did unpleasant chores for her and ate her food and understood her moods. She turned down an offer of marriage from the fire chief, and from that day forward was thought of as nuts.

  Johnna’s mother wore a lot of turquoise jewelry. Her favorite thing to call Johnna, when Johnna acted up, was “numbskull.” When the nephew stopped coming over, she complained incessantly about her monkey grass and took to having rum for dinner and just a slice of white bread before bed. Her only passion in life was her nephew. She never committed to a career or a hobby. Johnna had been in high school when her mother had her heart attack. Afterward, Johnna lived for two years in a well-appointed shelter where she ate jam on everything and read newspapers.

  “Shit, Max.” Johnna scrambled over and righted his spit cup. He’d dozed off and spilled on his pant leg. She dumped out what was left and gave the cup back to him. She’d have to wash his pants herself, so no one would know he’d had snuff.

  “When my old lady died.” Max made a face, swallowing some tobacco juice. “My old lady died, she didn’t know who anybody was, but she knew a thousand movie-star birthdays. Every morning she’d rattle off three or four.”

  It wasn’t hard to relish each day when you saw as many old people as Johnna saw, as many people who’d managed to accumulate money and retain dignity and raise families only to have it all go down the drain in their last years. Johnna had no desire to live a long life. Everyone was always claiming that life went fast, but that wasn’t her experience. Days were as limitless for her now as when she was a teenager. Each hour still had its own personality, and if it didn’t she could fill it up with her memories. She could walk herself through her younger days.

  In high school, Johnna could never bring herself to preen. She couldn’t bring herself to tell the gossips what boy she liked and then wait for that boy to find out. She liked boys who had unique hair and a bashful, snide way about them. Because she was pretty, she had to press herself on these boys. They often thought a joke was being played, but if she held her head close to theirs long enough, they’d kiss her. They’d kiss her like they were in hell and she was iced tea. A week later, when she moved on, they would accept her departure with docility, happy with what little they’d gotten. She’d been a confusing case—a girl with nerdy glasses who was eager to talk to anyone during school hours but couldn’t be found at night or on weekends, who kissed dozens of boys but didn’t do more than kiss, who either aced classes or failed them.

  Sophomore year she went out for soccer. She thought the girls looked cute in their cleats and shin guards and a lot of the games took place during school hours. She didn’t understand soccer; she would run down the field dozens of times without touching the ball and the coach would praise her. At halftime the girls would put on lipstick and straighten their socks. These girls had money. They were pleasant to Johnna out of a courtesy that had been trained into them. One game, while everyone was in a bunch awaiting a corner kick, Johnna picked out a girl on the other team and, when the ball came floating into the box, rammed the girl from behind, sending her sprawling into the goal post. Three of the girl’s teeth were knocked out. Johnna received a red card. The principal called her down to his office and said she was off the soccer team. He asked her to sign a disciplinary report, and to see what would happen, she refused. The principal watched the wall behind Johnna for a time, then sighed and dismissed her.

  “I’m free to go?” she said.

  The principal put on a snooty face. “We can’t make you sign it.”

  Junior year, she had a crush on her history teacher. He wore pants that were too big for him and showed the video of his trip to Australia every chance he got. Johnna started holding his gaze longer than normal, until he’d smirk and look away. Brushing past him after class, she would touch his hip. She would tell him he looked nice and he would scoff. Her grades in his class improved. He stopped calling on her. When he stood outside during the passing period to count down the seconds, singing to everyone that they were going to be late, Johnna stood behind him and mimicked him. She used her French book to construct amorous declarations, which he pretended not to understand. Johnna felt the power she had. During quiet reading time, when this teacher would try to foster a dreamy tone in the room—telling the class to focus on the gong of the flagpole, the shouts from the distant ball field, the buzzing of a fly—Johnna would sit there with her book shut, feeling sharp, pressing her breasts against her T-shirt, knowing he wouldn’t return her glare. After school one day she went into his classroom and propped herself on his desk, right on a stack of quizzes about some embargo. She slipped her glasses off and dropped them on the desk. She mussed his hair and he turned purple. His voice splintered when he told her to get down. She tossed her head back and tied her T-shirt up in a knot, slid toward him until her brown tummy was inches from his nose. His face was bright with pain. She wanted to giggle at him, in his rolling chair. When he shoved off from the desk, Johnna nearly pitched forward. He backed himself into a corner and slipped out of the chair, his body crumpling.

  “Stop it, Johnna,” he said. “I’m begging, okay? You win.”

  “What do I win?”

  “Just stop.”

  “God,” said Johnna. “Don’t cry.”

  But he did. Johnna felt adult and mean. Her mouth went sticky. She untied her T-shirt and smoothed the creases, found her glasses. She kneeled, not wanting to look down on him, and he pressed his eyes shut.

  Senior year, Johnna started watching Del Dial. Del didn’t take normal classes. He was allowed to haunt the library all day, writing articles that were published in magazines, his only friends the librarians. Sometimes, when everyone else was in class, he roamed the halls with his hands clasped behind his back. He had a lock of colorless hair that flopped from one side of his forehead to the other.

  The last week of school, Johnna walked out of an awards ceremony and went to the library. No Del. She wandered the halls, checked the bus loop, checked by the trailers—nothing. She sat on a brick planter near her locker, feeling cheated, letting her eyes zone out. Half of the lockers were wagging open. Johnna felt no attachment to the school, yet didn’t feel ready to leave it.

  She heard the tread of soft shoes and caught Del out of the corner of her eye. It was like a movie; right when she’d given up, here he was. He’d have to walk right in front of her. His lock of hair was undecided, hung forward. Johnna stuck her leg out, planting her foot against a locker, and Del slowed gradually before coming to a stop.

  “What are you contemplating?” Johnna asked.

  He looked at her leg, starting where her skin sprang tanly from her shorts, stopping a moment at the knee, squinting toward the ankle.

  “What were you contemplating before you started contemplating my leg?”

  “Is this a toll situation?”

  “I can’t make you sit down. That’s how the principal would say it.”
>
  Del shrugged with his cheeks and sat. Johnna set her foot down slowly and edged toward him, not wanting to frighten him.

  “I like your jeep,” she said.

  “My dad gave it to me. It’s military issue.”

  “It’s one high car.”

  “It’s a hunk of shit. None of the gauges work.”

  Del was sweating with nerves but had no problem studying Johnna’s cleavage. Her skin was shiny with the heat.

  “I go with the traffic,” he said. “And I get gas once a week. I always drive to the same places.”

  “Never been on a date, have you?”

  “I thought those were out of style.”

  “Never drank. Never did drugs.”

  “I’ve done heroin. It was research for a piece.”

  “You should write a piece on girls.”

  Del flattened his hands onto his thighs, drying his palms. His fingers were reddish and he had huge writing calluses on his right hand. Johnna leaned against him and crossed her legs. She took his hand, guided it under her shirt, and pressed it to her. Del sat bolt upright and gazed raptly into an open locker. He pressed his fingertips against her bra, tugged it insistently, fumbling.

  “Shove it out of the way,” Johnna said.

  He got to the skin. She felt his callus against her nipple. She let him get his fill of both breasts, waited until he was heartened enough to squeeze them, then she pulled his hand back out and he stared at it like he’d never seen it before.

  After high school, Johnna signed on with a temp agency and found that she excelled at any traditionally female job, anything organizational or bookkeepy, anything at a hospital, anything involving phones. She excelled at most anything. She was hired full-time at a lingerie-distribution warehouse—aisles and aisles and shelves and shelves and crates and crates of underwear. She started out filling orders and was soon overseeing the filling of orders, soon running the shipping and receiving department. She was signing for truckloads and people were coming to her to request days off. After six months, she was sort of comanaging the place, still earning her starting wage of eleven dollars an hour.