A Thousand Miles from Nowhere

by John Gregory Brown

  Maybe, though, Henry had been wrong. Maybe there wasn’t, after all, a clear motivation for any of the things that people did. Maybe they just did them for no reason at all or because of stupidity or selfishness or cowardice or anger or for reasons that made no rational sense—because the clouds happened to be a particularly gloomy shade of gray that day, because the barking of an old dog chained to a sycamore tree just happened to sound exactly like the crunch of soldiers’ boots on gravel or the hum of bees like an engine in the head driving you mad.

  He didn’t know. Again, always, and forever, he didn’t know. He couldn’t think, couldn’t decide whether he should run out of the office, throw himself in front of a car just as the old man Hughes had done, or sit here and wait for whatever mercy or further punishment was headed his way.

  So he’d waited, or he simply hadn’t moved yet, hadn’t managed to organize the chaos in his head, before Marge returned. She walked right past him into Judge Martin’s office, then she stepped out a moment later and announced that the good and kind judge had agreed she could go ahead and make a day of it.

  “Of what?” Henry said.

  “We’re going to start setting things straight, Mr. Garrett,” Marge said. “Lord knows you deserve it.”

  He could have told her, of course, that this—that he—was a lost cause, that he deserved nothing, but he watched her retrieve her purse from her desk drawer and then rifle through it. When she found what she was looking for—her car keys—she nodded triumphantly and said, “Just wait until you see my baby, Mr. Garrett. It’s brand-new.”

  Marge’s baby was a red Mustang convertible.

  “I know, I know,” she said to Henry when he climbed in next to her, “this is not a good Christian woman’s car, but I’ll tell you what, it sure is fun.” She started the car and revved the engine. “My husband bought it for me. I had a health scare last winter. The big C.” She looked over at Henry as she tied a scarf over her head, and it occurred to him that maybe Marge’s hair, with its tight blond curls, was actually a wig. “In my ovaries,” she said. “Charlie was all torn up and he cried and said he wanted me to have anything I ever wanted in this world and then he went out and got me this.”

  She ran her hands along the steering wheel and laughed. Henry smiled at her. There was nothing in her face, with its pudgy cheeks and too-thick makeup and weak chin, that was pleasing, but she was—what? She was buoyant. He pictured her stepping out into the sea. She would simply float. The warm water would embrace her as though she were a swaddled child left among the rushes; it would carry her safely back to shore.

  “Turns out it was nothing at all. It was just a cyst,” Marge said as if she were still surprised, as if she’d just now been handed this good news. “When he’s doing the bills, Charlie swears he’s bringing her back to the dealer, but he won’t. And he knows I know he won’t, and that makes him even madder.” She laughed and shot out of the parking lot, the car’s tires screeching. “You just hold on, Mr. Garrett,” she said. “We’re going to have us some fun.”

  And Marge seemed to have a grand time despite the obstacles they faced. The mechanic at the repair shop where Henry’s car had been towed didn’t want to let Henry touch the car without orders from the sheriff, but once again Marge said Judge Martin had sent them over. She delivered this lie with an air of disinterested authority, as if she were a deputy on official business, but Henry was nonetheless surprised when the mechanic—Gregory was sewn in red script above the pocket of his gray shirt, though for some reason Henry doubted that was his name—shrugged and wiped his hands on a towel that was already black with oil and then led them out to the lot behind the shop, every bit of it covered with cars that had been smashed or crunched or dismembered, stripped down to grotesque-looking rusted skeletons.

  When he spotted his car, Henry was shocked by how bad the damage was, the front hood folded like an accordion, the front wheels flat, turned nearly sideways. It couldn’t have been the man’s body that had caused such ruin; Henry must have struck the guardrail. He didn’t want to look, but he pointed and the mechanic nodded and took them over. Something about this guy’s manner, a kind of lassitude or silent resentment, made Henry wonder if the man had previously encountered Marge and the judge in their professional capacity—for marijuana possession or failing to pay child support, or maybe for assault charges after a particularly nasty barroom fight.

  Henry opened the passenger door, which groaned as though it had rusted shut, as though the car had been out on the lot for months, but he wasn’t able to retrieve his checkbook because the whole dashboard was dented and the glove compartment was stuck. The mechanic pulled a screwdriver from the belt at his waist like a cowboy whipping out a six-gun for a shoot-out, said, “Try this,” and handed it over. Henry still wasn’t able to open it, so the mechanic leaned in, took the screwdriver from Henry, and with a quick flick of his wrist pried it open. Breaking and entering, Henry decided. That’s how he met the judge.

  Once Henry had his checkbook, Marge drove him over to the bank, but the teller told him they couldn’t cash his check because his bank was offline and wasn’t allowing any transactions. “It doesn’t say why,” the teller said. He was a young man with pitch-black greasy hair tucked behind his ears and an acne-scarred face, and as he stared at his computer screen and shook his head, Marge stepped up to the counter, leaned across it, and whispered, “Could you please just call the manager over?” She looked back at Henry and rolled her eyes. “If you take a look at Mr. Garrett’s check, you’ll see it’s from a bank in New Orleans. You know all what’s happening down there? The hurricane?”

  The teller looked up at Marge and then at Henry. He nodded hesitantly, as though he wasn’t exactly sure what Marge was talking about.

  “Well, Mr. Garrett here is from New Orleans,” she said.

  When the teller continued to stare blankly at Marge, she said, “He’s a refugee. He needs our help.”

  The boy picked up his phone and, turning away from them, mumbled into the receiver. A moment later a large man wearing a red-and-white-striped shirt stepped out of his glass-enclosed office. “Come on over,” he said, waving to Henry and Marge. “Let’s see what we can do for you, my friend.”

  Seated behind his desk, the manager listened as Henry recounted his flight from New Orleans, his three days of driving, and then the accident. “Sure,” the manager said, nodding, hands resting on his broad stomach. “Heard all about it.” Henry wasn’t sure if he meant the hurricane or the accident, but he didn’t ask. The manager agreed to give Henry two hundred dollars, holding on to the check until his bank was up and running.

  “Where can I get ahold of you if I need to?” he asked.

  “The Spotlight,” Henry said, and the manager nodded as though this confirmed some vague suspicion he’d had about Henry’s character.

  “We’re going to find him something better,” Marge said. “We’re just getting started.”

  Once they were done at the bank, Marge drove Henry through town, pointing out every landmark they passed as though she were conducting an official tour: the local veterinarian’s office, which was on the first floor of the largest house in Marimore, the second and third floors occupied by the veterinarian’s investment-banker ex-wife and their three children; the coin laundromat, which had all sorts of plumbing problems, or so Charlie had told her, and he would know since he’d made a bundle trying to sort things out; the Elkwood Salon, which used to be the sheriff’s office; the pharmacy and the new Catholic church, which hadn’t yet had its grand opening or christening or whatever they were going to call the celebration; the Marimore Historical Society and the post office and the library. When they passed a restaurant named the Briar Patch, Marge turned into the parking lot. “I don’t know about you, Mr. Garrett, but I’m hungry. And I’d like to get the branches of that phone tree shaking, so we’re going to have to make a list of whatever you’re going to need.”

  “I really don’t think I need anything,”
Henry said. “You’ve already done enough.”

  “Just hush up now, Mr. Garrett,” Marge said. “You could hardly be expected to know what you need, poor thing.” She waved Henry out of the car and then pushed a button on her key ring to close the canvas top. “And don’t you worry,” she said. “This isn’t charity. This is our mission. That’s what it says on the sign above the door at our church as you walk out, and I believe it. Welcome to the Mission Field, it says. That’s what my health scare did for me. Charlie says it got me not one but two new leases. One on life, and one”—she patted the canvas top of her car—“on this baby. And he’s right.”

  Henry followed Marge inside the restaurant and then to a booth in the corner. The walls were covered with amateurish cartoonlike paintings of wide-eyed rabbits engaged in various activities—throwing a football, hanging laundry on a clothesline, dancing in circles on a hillside, peeling carrots in a kitchen. The paintings made Henry think of Latangi’s apartment, of all the Hindu deities on her wall, and he felt as if they had just stepped into the temple of some bizarre rabbit-worshipping cult.

  Marge didn’t seem to notice the paintings. She glanced at the laminated menu, set it aside, hunted through her purse, and pulled out a notebook and pen. “Okay,” she said, looking up at Henry. “Let’s start with the basics and we’ll go from there. No offense, but I’m going to guess you’re in need of some clothes.”

  Henry looked at Marge. She reached forward to touch his hand. Henry smiled, tried to suggest he didn’t understand why she thought he might need clothes. Marge took her hand away.

  “I’ve got this feeling you’re a real character, Mr. Garrett,” she said. “You surely are.”

  So Marge had put together her list and, while picking her way through a chef’s salad, used her cell phone to start making calls. Then she’d taken Henry to a Walmart a few miles down the highway and said she’d just wait in the car for him. “A man needs some privacy,” she said. “And excuse me for saying so, Mr. Garrett, but I’ve learned from so many years with Charlie that there’s nothing worse than watching a man shop, especially for clothes. Worse than women. You’d think they’d stepped into a lion’s den, the way they’re just frozen there like they’re afraid to touch anything or even move. I can’t stand it.”

  “Not me,” Henry said, closing the car door. “I’ll be back in a flash.”

  “All the same,” Marge said, “I’ll stay right here. You take your time.”

  Inside, Henry had indeed felt as though he’d stepped into a lion’s den—or, more accurately, into one of his absurd dreams. The fluorescent lights cast a ghoulish purple-green glow onto everyone’s skin, and the high shelves—crammed with food and clothes and children’s toys and carpet-lined cat gymnasiums and kitchen appliances and bed linens—seemed as though any minute they might suddenly topple over and crush everyone beneath them. He imagined the Weather Channel reporter poking through the damage, imagined him saying that the local authorities had speculated that the shaking had started when a hurricane refugee, already responsible for one highway fatality, not to mention a ruined marriage and an altogether fucked-up life, stepped into the store.

  He thought about Endly’s and tried to picture the ruin there, the shelves overturned, water lapping against the storefront windows. Would anyone have thought to check, before leaving town or digging in to ride out the storm, if Henry had stayed behind? Had any of the homeless men in the neighborhood sought shelter there after discovering that Henry hadn’t bothered to lock the door?

  He needed underwear and T-shirts, another pair of jeans, some socks, toothpaste, a razor—what else had Marge written on her list? He wandered through the Walmart’s aisles and wound up at the back of the store in front of a long row of televisions, almost all of them playing the same cartoon—a veiled princess and an almond-eyed prince darting through narrow alleys and a busy street market atop a wildly flying carpet—except for one, a portable TV about the size of a paperback book, that was showing the news. There was no sound, or perhaps the cartoon’s noise, the zip and swoosh of the flying carpet and the blaring music, were drowning out anything on the tiny flip-top TV. It was showing a report from New Orleans, the camera panning across thousands of people gathered outside the convention center in a sea of trash. None of them seemed to notice the camera; they appeared too exhausted, their clothes stained with sweat, their eyes swollen, their hair disheveled. They slumped on the ground or sat on plastic milk crates or stood leaning against one another. Mothers held limp infants in their arms; children lay asleep on dirty blankets spread on the ground. They were all brown-skinned, every one of them, their faces ashen, dusty. Henry imagined his father moving through the crowd, notebook in hand, fishing for information: What songs have you been singing for comfort? What prayers have you been praying?

  Just outside the doors leading into the convention center, a woman in a wheelchair slumped forward, her head nearly to her knees. Henry could see, even on the tiny screen, that she was dead. He thought about Mrs. Hughes, heard her call out again to be allowed to see her husband. What in God’s name was going on there? Henry couldn’t imagine what they were all waiting for, what would happen to them. Where were the police or the army or the National Guard, anyone who could rescue them? Had someone told these people to stand outside and wait? Had they been told someone was on the way? Then the image shifted to a dusty roadway with armored vehicles and, in the background, a burning car, and Henry was confused for a moment, thought that this was somewhere else in New Orleans, one of the highways leading into the city, the army moving in to finally save everyone, but then he realized that the news had switched to another report, from Afghanistan or Iraq.

  “A real beauty,” Henry heard someone say, and he turned and saw a short, barrel-chested man standing next to him, his blue Walmart vest cinched tight at his waist and adorned with an oversize yellow smiley-face pin that announced I’m Here to Help!

  “Price is a little steep, but it’s worth it,” the man said. “You can take it anywhere.”

  “What?” Henry said, and he turned back to the television. “I don’t need this.”

  He hadn’t meant to be rude, but clearly the man had been offended. “Any questions, you just let me know,” he said.

  When the man walked off, Henry tipped the TV screen down and turned away. A real beauty, the Here to Help man had said. A real beauty. On the store’s booming loudspeaker, Henry heard what sounded like his own voice saying, Clarissa Nash? Clarissa Nash?—as if he were the store manager summoning a child who had wandered away from her parents. Yes. Clarissa Nash. He imagined her weaving through the aisles, lightly running her hands along the gleaming objects on the shelves, laughing when she caught her distorted reflection in the shiny surface of a waffle iron or mixing bowl or fog-free shower mirror. Soon, he was sure, she would turn into this aisle, into the lone row of television screens.

  Where have you been? he would ask.

  No. Not that. Why are you here?

  No. What did he want to say? What did he want?

  He was waiting for her. He would wait for her, and she would explain.

  He would go find her.

  But she wasn’t there. There wasn’t anything there. There hadn’t been anything, of course—just the clatter in his head, Amy saying, This time you’ve really fucking lost it, Henry. And he wanted to scream back at her, make his voice echo through the Lucky Caverns: Yes! Goddamn it, yes! Which meant “help,” he knew, and how is it that she didn’t know this? It meant “help.” Everything meant “help.”

  And Marge had finally come inside, had found him sitting in the pet-supplies aisle on a low stack of dog food, one of the bags torn, the dry food spilling out as if he’d been kicking at it with his heel. Behind Marge were a handful of Walmart employees, pressed up against one another in their blue vests as if they were a SWAT team responding to a hostage situation or a sniper, two of them brandishing their brooms as if they were rifles, and Henry actually laughed at the sight befo
re him, at the idea of bumbling, blue-vested, broom-toting soldiers, but then he remembered something he hadn’t thought about in years: the guy, a former naval seaman who had become a Black Panther, who’d entered the Howard Johnson’s in downtown New Orleans, shot some guests and employees, set fires throughout the building, then barricaded himself on the rooftop and shot at the people down below, the police officers across the street at city hall, and anyone else he could find in his rifle’s scope. Henry had been little, maybe seven or eight, but he remembered his father watching it all on their black-and-white TV. He remembered his father talking about the Black Panthers, about their angry protests, their violent demonstrations, but also the free breakfasts they offered to those who lived in the Desire housing project, their calls for racial equality, their demands for justice. Henry wasn’t sure if his father was telling him that he should admire the Black Panthers or fear them.

  What Henry had felt, though, when he saw the smoke pouring from the Howard Johnson’s and the ghostly shadow of the man the television cameras caught in the stairwell outside the building, what he had felt was an awful, sickening fear—the same thing he’d felt a few minutes ago looking at the images from New Orleans, watching the sea of weary brown-skinned bodies crowded together, spotting the dead woman slumped forward in her wheelchair.

  He looked up at Marge. She seemed on the verge of tears, and he felt sorry for scaring her. He’d thought for a moment—for who knows how long—that he was at Endly’s, the saccharine pop song swimming in his head something one of the scraggly artists had put on ironically (Olivia Newton-John? Celine Dion?), Tomas Otxoa sitting next to him in the La-Z-Boy and telling another story about his brother, the one about him calling home from his university in Bilbao and trying to speak to his mother in Basque as the Spanish operator listening in repeated again and again, You must use a Christian language.