Arkansas

by John Brandon

  He had decided to use his Suarez identity. He couldn’t use his social security number, so he would be his own boss, a freelancer. He’d gotten hold of a catalog of courses and intended to take four of them, plus CPR, and four more in the spring. He would be a hyper-skilled handyman. He would be the greatest handyman there ever was and one of the most notable thinkers of his generation.

  An old man with a shiny tie and a tattered, understanding way about him took the podium. He held his head at angles, trying to clear his throat, then started talking about television production, about the crucial jobs that had to be done behind the scenes in order to get a show off the ground. He rattled off names and asked if anyone was familiar with them. When no one was, he said, “See?” These people were highly successful, wealthy. The old man chided his audience for believing that TV shows came from some magic mill in the clouds, rather than from people just like them. A man with a firm belly and a goatee raised his arm. The old man glared at him but did not interrupt himself.

  “One thing, Pops,” the man with the goatee said. “One little thing, Pops.”

  The old man had to look at him.

  “One thing you’re forgetting. TV shows suck.”

  The old man’s face clouded. “TV is immensely popular and its popularity grows with each passing year.”

  “Nature shows, maybe. And football. But those ain’t shows. That’s setting up a camera and hitting the button.”

  The crowd was getting behind the man with the goatee. The disagreement obviously stemmed from something personal, yet the crowd glared at the old man. A couple insults were hurled. Swin found the scene discouraging. He didn’t want these sturdy men who built things with their hands to be so defensive, so quick to take sides. They no longer seemed united by wholesome camaraderie. They were a clique of cool kids in high school, ridiculing a nerd who was running for a student-government office. Swin found humans vastly unimpressive. There was no limit to their ability to disappoint. Who cared if some old man wanted to talk about TV for a minute? The men in the crowd didn’t. They just wanted to be involved in the confrontation. Everyone was defensive. Everyone was ready to bristle up like a wolf guarding its hunting ground. But people weren’t wolves. It was high school, Swin concluded. Life was a big high school. Maybe crime was the right life for Swin. Maybe his most dominating characteristic was hatred for run-of-the-mill human beings. In crime, you saw very few people, and not many of them were run-of-the-mill.

  Swin yanked his collar. He was getting worked up. It was about a hundred degrees in the gym. How come as soon as the temperature dipped below fifty, everyone thought they had to crank their heater to the hilt? Swin had to stay. He had to get the information he’d come for.

  “I believe you know shockingly little about television production.” The old man coughed, finally clearing out whatever was in his throat. “It can take a crew of twenty-five to film a fishing show. Two dozen friends, down in the tropics—”

  “I believe you don’t belong here,” said the man with the goatee. “I believe your department’s failing and you’re trying to recruit these men away from honest work and into your faggy TV business.”

  The old man’s expression was serene and resigned. He looked more under-standing than ever.

  Kyle’s Christmas miracle was that Her called, sweet as a plum, and said the bad news was she was still alive and the good news was the next envelope was ready, that she’d leave it on the porch. Kyle fetched it and saw the trip wasn’t for another week—Fort Smith. He busied himself. He roasted a goose and prepared a cherry topping for it. He fired up the chain saw, cut down a rotting pecan tree, and sliced the trunk into small lengths that, when he and Swin attempted to stack them, collapsed into shards. On an unseasonably warm day, Kyle rented a pressure washer. He ran it up and down the vinyl siding in uniform strokes. He splattered the bricks. He made the porch wood gleam.

  Johnna took time off work, the first time she’d ever done so, and her good mood infected the house. She hung stockings and filled Kyle’s and Swin’s with coal. She hid shoes. She got Bedford drunk. She painted Swin’s nails. She put blue lights on the porch banister and reindeer heads on the doorknobs. Kyle sawed down a small pine tree. Making a stand proved too difficult without welding equipment, so he leaned the tree in a corner. Swin slathered it with tinsel and hung the five ornaments he’d bought from the cab driver.

  “I’ll make a stand next year,” Swin said. “When I’m a certified welder, I’ll fashion a tree stand the likes of which will make you shudder to behold it.”

  Johnna framed the baby’s savings bonds, along with the dollar Swin had won from his lottery ticket. Kyle’s gift to Swin was a juicer endorsed by a spry man with unruly eyebrows, and Swin gave Kyle a tape of Arnold Schwarzenegger crooning in German. Swin believed this present was hysterical and forced everyone to listen to the tape in its entirety. Johnna presented Kyle with a chess set. Swin agreed to teach him the game, but said before Kyle learned the rules, he needed to clarify his general philosophy of war, whether he was a compromiser, a savage, or a statesman, whether he would use subordinates cruelly, whether he was loyal to kings or sympathetic to coups. Kyle replied that he would stick with checkers. To Johnna, Kyle gave a draw-stringed cashmere hat that Swin said could be worn by a gay fighter pilot, and a novel about a nurse who solved crimes.

  For the short trip to Fort Smith, they drove a black Saab which they picked up in broad daylight at a Circle K. They made Fort Smith without seeing one cop and met a surfer-type with white hair and a long-sleeved T-shirt that read ROCK N’ ROLL: NOW IN LOW VOLUME in the parking lot of a run-down petting zoo. The surfer retrieved a coffee canister from a compartment in the Saab’s trunk and handed Kyle a carton of cigarettes containing ten thousand dollars. Llamas with wadded fur hung their heads over the fence and stared dryly at the transaction.

  “If they get aggravated they’ll spit,” Swin said.

  “Irritated’s the word you want,” the surfer said. “Spit like how?”

  “Yeah,” Kyle added. “Just saliva?”

  “I think so.”

  “That’s the lamest defense I ever heard,” said the surfer.

  Swin tilted his head, weighing it all. “I’d imagine they spit far and hard and precisely, or why would nature have them spit at all?”

  The surfer’s eyes lit up. “Nature doesn’t always make sense. It can be every bit as stupid as God.”

  Kyle threw a handful of acorns at the llamas. The acorns, rotten, veered off target and mostly hit the fence. The surfer struck a karate pose and crab-walked toward the llamas. He made airy shrieks. He waved his body like a cobra, calling the animals “llama motherfuckers.”

  “They’re domesticated,” Swin explained. “Or they could be depressed.”

  “You’re domesticated,” the surfer told Swin.

  “Not really,” rebutted Swin. “Not that I’ve noticed.”

  “You know, when I got here the sun was shining.” The surfer didn’t look skyward. He looked right at Swin. “You guys show up, now the sky’s like a slab of cement.”

  “It didn’t turn gray for us until we saw you,” Swin said, amused to be getting drawn into the surfer’s argument.

  “You and I both know who brought those clouds.” The surfer made a face that appealed to Swin’s sense of fairness. “Let’s be honest,” he said.

  “I’ll be honest,” Kyle said. “You’re a fuckface.”

  The surfer froze, peeking upward. He raised his finger expectantly. The rumble of thunder could be heard, loudly after a moment, and the surfer took this as proof that he was right. He chuckled and went to his car, as the first shy drops of rain tapped Kyle’s and Swin’s shoulders.

  Johnna thought Bedford deserved some pampering, so she took him to a dog spa down near the Texas border. His fur was shampooed, his eyes and ears cleaned, and then he was sent to the “pawdicure” room, where a girl with a loose bun spoke softly to him, telling him she expected him to behave like a gentleman.
The girl set Bedford’s front paws in a soak and lined up a bunch of filing and clipping implements. She was the type of person who didn’t have to look at what she was doing with her hands. She told Johnna about the history of dog spas and remarked on the weather and on a diet she was attempting. She said Bedford seemed wise.

  “Don’t feel like you have to talk to me,” Johnna said.

  “Really?” said the girl.

  “If I want to know something, I’ll ask.”

  “That sounds fair.”

  The girl had worn-out sandals and stately posture. She was stern with Bedford. She dried his paws then rubbed lotion into the pads. When she clipped a nail, she looked right in his eyes. The clippings shot this way and that, popping against the walls. The girl wasn’t wearing any rings, but that could’ve been because she put her hands in solutions all day. Johnna asked if she was single and she said she was.

  “I got a friend that might like you.” Johnna tried to look at the girl in a conspiratorial way.

  “I’m sure he would,” said the girl. “Would I like him?”

  “He’s taller than average. Kind of a loner. He’s got this solitude that, I don’t know, needs to be broken.”

  “What are you, his ex?”

  “No, I go with his buddy.”

  The girl jockeyed Bedford around and started on his back paws. She positioned her own feet for better balance. Her sandals were so old they were curling up.

  “Smart?”

  “It’s hard to say,” Johnna said. “He’s good at his job.”

  “What’s that?”

  “He works for the Parks Department.”

  “I don’t like outdoorsy guys.”

  “He doesn’t prefer being outside to being inside.”

  The girl set her clippers down and adjusted her bun. “He seems good but not too good,” she said. “I think you’re describing him fairly.”

  “Fair as I can.”

  “My name’s Jasmine.”

  Bedford made a noise, wanting to know if he was finished or what. Jasmine touched his side.

  “Write that name down,” Johnna said. “With some numbers next to it.”

  Jasmine searched for a pen. Johnna observed her, wondering if she and Kyle would hit it off, wondering if Kyle ever hit it off with anyone, if being set up with someone would annoy him. The only information Johnna had given out was that he worked at a park. Jasmine hadn’t even asked his name. If Kyle thought dating this girl was a bad idea, he could rip up her number and forget about it.

  Jasmine clapped a scented powder onto Bedford and set him down next to Johnna.

  “As a rule, I don’t get hopeful,” Jasmine said. “Still, I can’t help feeling that you and your friends are compelling people.”

  On her way home, Johnna tore up Jasmine’s number and let the pieces flutter out the window. This was no time to bring anyone new around. Johnna and Swin had a baby to concentrate on and Kyle had his hands full keeping them safe. It seemed unwise to Johnna to rock the boat she was in. The boat contained two guys to look after her, a nicer house than she had ever expected to live in, a baby that appeared healthy, and an even-tempered dog.

  The only kept-up houses in Hot Springs were the ones that had been turned into massage parlors. The town was hilly and rustic and, though clouds filled the sky, bright. It was the BOYHOOD HOME OF BILL CLINTON. Kyle and Swin walked down the main drag toward the baths. They were to go in the third one, with the empty flower beds and green shutters, at eleven-fifteen. Here they would finally procure guns, guns that were not defective, guns that would offer them a measure of security; that would, by Swin’s thinking, put them on even ground with anyone who might want to harm them; that would, by Kyle’s thinking, allow them to stop talking about and looking for guns.

  A courtyard with many fact-bearing placards separated the bathhouses from the rest of town. The naturally steaming water was once thought to cure syphilis and, when combined with walking on inclines, obesity. Wealthy families once flocked to Hot Springs for vacations, but now the place was eerie, like a set for a play or something. Kyle and Swin had walked a quarter mile and seen two parked cars.

  “They all have barren flower beds,” Swin said.

  He and Kyle approached the third house and noticed there were no windows; the shutters were tacked to the masonry for show. Inside was a cavernous lobby with stands meant to display statues. The light in the bathhouse came from above, through panes of tinted glass in the ceiling.

  “Men lounging naked together has fully passed from fashion,” Swin said.

  “Don’t see much syphilis, either.”

  “Rich guys in clubs still hang out naked. And the poor fucks in jail, when they shower.”

  “With these guns, we’ll never have to go to jail if we don’t want to. Gives you the option of ruining their party.”

  “Whose party?”

  “When they bring in fourteen cruisers and SWAT and the chopper— all of them with hard-ons to call you a fuckbag and break your teeth on the floor. You make them stand out there all night, till they’re lathered to their ears, then you just shoot yourself and they all have to go home and beat up their dog.”

  They made their way down a wide hall that led to the main bath. Swin called hello and his voice echoed. Kyle peered around the next corner and saw rows of individual baths and racks of towels. He waved Swin over and the two of them stared at the towels ponderously.

  Swin nodded. “Perhaps we’ll leave now.”

  Halfway down the hall a pair of beefy twins stepped in from the lobby, blocking it off, one cradling a black rifle. They seemed to cast a shadow down the hallway and onto Kyle and Swin. They were a dark cloud over all of Arkansas.

  “Gray Cypress,” Swin whispered. “Tell Johnna—Gray Cypress, Kentucky.”

  “Your sisters?” Kyle asked.

  Swin nodded.

  “What’d you say?” said the twin with the gun. “Don’t be talking in code.”

  “Can you guys communicate with each other?” Swin inquired. “Telepath-ically.”

  “We’re not twins.”

  “Where are the guns?” Kyle asked.

  “Forgot them.”

  “I’m guessing you still want the money.”

  “Sure, why not?” The gunless twin hocked up some phlegm and swallowed it, trying to seem tough. “Set it on the floor with your pistols, then back up three steps.”

  Kyle dropped the wad of cash on the tile and he and Swin backed off. Kyle didn’t have anything to tell Swin, in case Swin made it out alive and Kyle didn’t. Kyle didn’t have any secrets. He had nothing to confess, nothing to reveal that would help anyone.

  “And the guns.”

  “We don’t, uh...”

  “The guns.”

  “We don’t have any,” Kyle said.

  The twin with the rifle told his brother to frisk Kyle and Swin. He lumbered over and stripped off their jackets, pawing them like a bear. He paused, checked their ankles, then turned with a quizzical look.

  “Told you,” said Swin.

  “You came to a firearm deal with no firearm?”

  “If we had them, we wouldn’t need them,” Kyle said.

  The twins again aligned themselves, walling off the lobby. They forced Kyle and Swin toward the personal baths and stashed Kyle in a stall. The unarmed twin stayed to guard him, towering over Kyle. Kyle heard the other twin direct Swin out of the room, their footsteps fading.

  “Get in the tub,” the unarmed twin told Kyle.

  Kyle did so. He felt cold. The porcelain or ceramic or whatever it was felt like ice. It was as if the twin had his own weather system, his own chilling gales. Kyle strained to hear something from the rooms beyond but it was no use. When Kyle’s guard shifted his weight, his sneakers on the tile were like a horn blow. Kyle’s breathing was coming under control. He noted that the stall walls didn’t reach to the floor. There were no locks on the doors. The ceiling and its windows were fifty feet away. Anger at Swin was welling
up in Kyle, because Swin had kept harping about getting guns, but Kyle knew it was his own fault. People were built to harp, but that didn’t mean you had to listen. Kyle had let himself wear down. He’d been weak, agreeing to come to this remote spot in this unfamiliar town, and he deserved to be in this tub.

  “We work for you, don’t we?” Kyle asked.

  The twin nodded.

  “What were we supposed to do? What would you have done if you were us?”

  “You know damn well you don’t have to do anything to get in this spot,” the twin said. “Anyway, I ain’t you. Not by a long shot.”

  “No,” Kyle said. “You’re fat and you’re also lucky.”

  The twin was not going to laugh at this, or glower. He’d swallowed any good humor he possessed, any rage, and wasn’t going to let any of it gurgle up until this was over with.

  Kyle made every effort to appear resigned to his tub, hanging his arms over the rim and resting his head. “What about the pawnshop guy that doesn’t sell anything? Why’d he set us up?”

  The twin sniffed heartily. “Paid him.”

  “He’s got money.”

  “Told him what he was going to do and told him we would pay him for it.”

  “I was starting to think that was Frog.”

  The twin laughed in a forced way. Kyle was right. The pawnshop guy was Frog. He was there the whole time, six or seven miles away. It was Frog they’d tried to buy guns from, Frog’s books Johnna had burned, Frog that had entered the chili cook-off so he could send Kyle and Swin to their deaths.