Transcontinental

by Brad Cook

  “I absolutely am not!”

  The doctor grinned. “Sorry. Medical humor. The surgeons love it.” He pulled the glove off, then opened the folder and examined the x-rays inside.

  “Your paperwork says you fell down the stairs.”

  “Yes, that’s correct.”

  “I would like to remind you that anything you tell me is protected by doctor-patient confidentiality laws when you consider what I am about to say.”

  Rehema looked at him sideways. “Go on.”

  “Does the boy have your permission to be in the conversation?”

  “He does.”

  “I only bring it up because when an adult breaks a forearm, it is common for both bones to break due to the force required to break either one of them. And, the majority of the time I have treated patients with only the Ulna broken, it has been a direct result of them raising their hand in self-defense.”

  The room filled with an awkward silence.

  “Having said that… is there anything you would like to tell me?”

  Rehema clutched her purse to her body.

  “Any further actions or consequences are within your discretion.”

  “You know, I’m glad you said something. I would’ve regretted keeping it inside,” Rehema said. “It’s a result of domestic violence. However, the perpetrator and I have parted ways for good. I don’t want to press charges, I don’t want to think about it anymore, I just want it to be over.”

  Dr. Gupta nodded once. “Very well. Let’s get that arm in a cast.”

  * * *

  A few weeks out, Leroy could tell Rehema was getting frustrated with him. He hadn’t misbehaved, but he’d spent the majority of his time drawing in the guest room, which was being converted into a room of his own. He knew his isolation went against her communication ground-rule, but he was almost done, and it was a way to make that rule work, or so he hoped.

  Other than the guilt he felt for temporarily neglecting Rehema, Leroy was happier than ever. She was everything he’d hoped she would be, and far more—fascinating, caring, intelligent, and a much better cook than she gave herself credit for. And her passion for her job, for life, was infectious. Being near her lifted his spirits.

  It wasn’t all perfect, though.

  Sometimes at night, Leroy could hear Rehema sobbing down the hall. He could tell she tried to keep quiet, but occasionally her pain took over.

  It killed him to hear that. The love he already felt for her was powerful, but that made him feel guilty for other reasons. He’d always end up contrasting it with what he felt for his mother, which would bring him down. But he’d also come into a new appreciation of her. She was the woman who had birthed him, bathed him, clothed him, the woman who’d provided for him, the woman who’d made him who he was. He understood her and her pain on an entirely new level. To have your husband beat one of your own children to death… he couldn’t imagine. The knowledge of Baron’s existence and death settled like a deep ache into his bones.

  He was occasionally haunted by the images of violence he’d witnessed: the construction worker’s crushed leg, Clayvon’s gushing foot, Ant’s face.

  It was the thought of Ant that kept him up at night. Ant had done so much for him, and how did Leroy repay him? With a savage beating.

  It tore him up. He hoped his friend was okay. For a moment, Leroy considered what it would take to find Ant, but quickly shelved the idea.

  On a Friday evening, Leroy was putting the finishing touches on his final sketch when he heard Rehema arrive home from work. There were a few fixes he wanted to make, but he couldn’t wait any longer, and he certainly didn’t want to make her wait more.

  Sketch book in hand, he barreled out of his room.

  Rehema set her purse on the counter, then went to the fridge as Leroy clomped to a stop outside the kitchen. She pulled out a small package of crackers and frosting, ripped the plastic off, then dipped one and ate it.

  “This is just what I needed. What a week. How are you, hun?”

  “I’m ready.”

  “You’re ready? Ready for what?”

  “To tell you everything. You deserve to know. Sorry it took so long.”

  Brow furrowed, Rehema dipped another cracker. “Okay. Just let me take my shoes off before you drop anything too heavy on me, alright?”

  She changed and met Leroy on the couch, then turned off the TV.

  “Now I’m ready, too. I ordered a pizza. It should be here soon.”

  “Here.” Leroy handed her the sketchbook.

  She grabbed the cover, then Leroy put a hand over it.

  “Go slow. Some of it might be hard to get out.”

  Her gaze was comforting as she opened to the first page.

  It was a pencil drawing of Adalynne in her casket.

  Rehema looked it over. “This is… good. A little dark.”

  “Uh, so like you know, my mom killed herself.”

  She put her hand on his leg. “I’m sorry.”

  “I was lost, looking at her in the funeral home. I felt nothing. Then, out of nowhere, you popped into my head. Wasn’t much, just a blurry vision of your face. You were smiling. I knew I had to find you.”

  Rehema bit her lip, her eyes glassy.

  “Turn the page.”

  She did, revealing a sketch of Ms. Stacey’s messy living room.

  “That was my foster home, Ms. Stacey’s. I already told you about her a little. She wasn’t mean, she just didn’t really care about the kids.”

  “How can they let a person like that host foster children?”

  “Mr. Tom said they’ll take anyone they can get.”

  Rehema turned to the next page. It was a point-of-view drawing of Woods pointing a gun at the viewer. “My goodness! This happened to you?”

  Leroy nodded. “I told Ms. Stacey I was going to visit a friend before I ran away. Picked a random house and knocked, then got pulled inside. Next thing I knew, I had a gun pointed at my chest.”

  “Lord almighty! How did you get away?”

  “Once they realized it was an accident, they let me go.”

  Leroy thumbed to the next image − a sketch of the first boxcar he’d ridden, with colored pencil swirls for the huge paper rolls it’d hauled.

  “After they let me go, I found a train yard. A nice engineer let me ride in the back. It was the first train car I ever rode in. I loved and hated it.”

  “Wait, you rode a freight train? I thought you meant Amtrak.”

  “Not just one.” He turned to a black and white sketch of Ted and Cracker John by the fire in Boron. “When I got off, a man helped me run away from the bull, which is a railroad cop. He took me to this hobo jungle. That’s Ted,” he said, pointing. “The one with the beard is Cracker John. He’s really smart.”

  “Wow. Isn’t that dangerous to be hanging out with hobos, though?”

  He showed her drawings of Jordan and Sheila in their van-home, and Dale clutching a beer as he drove, crumpled cans littering the floor.

  “After a few rides, a man took me to Folsom Prison.” Leroy turned the page, showing the institution from afar. “He talked to my dad and got your name, then we went to a library and found your address on the world wide web.”

  “The internet, you mean,” she corrected. “Who is this man who took you all the way to Folsom? And why is my address on the internet?”

  Leroy shrugged. The next image was a sketch of a hotel lobby.

  “We caught another train, then stayed in a Reno hotel. It was one of the nicest buildings I’ve ever seen. I forgot to mention I like buildings.”

  “I have a future architect on my hands, huh? You have the artistic skills.”

  He blushed at her compliment. “Thanks.” He turned the page, and a vibrant image of the Salt Lake City Fair at night greeted them. “Took me a while to figure out how to draw this one. We came upon a fair one night, and Ant—the man I was traveling with—figured out how to turn it all on. We rode the ferris wheel until the cops
came.”

  “I want to know more about this mystery man.”

  Leroy ignored her and moved on. The next drawing was of the sleek interior of a BMW. “We figured out how to get into a train car called an autorack. They use them to move cars. I got to spend the night in a BMW.”

  “Generally I’m don’t support breaking into things, but I suppose the act was harmless enough. So you rode freight trains all the way here?”

  “Not the whole way. After that ride, Ant and I… separated.”

  On the next page was an image of the inside of a bathroom stall, with a man’s head poking in beneath the door. “I had to sleep in a public bathroom.”

  “I’m not sure I want to know the story behind that.”

  “Some drunk guy popped his head in.”

  Rehema flipped the page to a sketch of the huge metal gate outside of the SpiritWood compound. “After that, I got picked up by a pastor and a bishop. They convinced me to live with them at their compound in Missouri. A church called SpiritWood.”

  “Say that again?” Rehema said.

  “SpiritWood?”

  “Oh my goodness. I heard about them on Oprah! That Bishop Wood seemed like he was out of his gourd. They were being investigated for child labor violations. Was it as awful as it seemed?”

  “In some ways. If you were bad you couldn’t eat for the day, and they made us work like slaves. And we all had to shower together, which was weird. But we ate pretty well, and we had shelter.”

  The next image was the Jacaranda tree by the pond, with Leroy and Jemisha laying out on the branches. It was the centerpiece of his sketches, the one he’d spent the most time and effort on. It was his favorite.

  “That’s me and a girl I liked at the compound. They took her away.”

  “Took her away? Where?”

  “Bishop said to a sister facility. Who knows where.”

  Leroy turned the page. From the bottom, it showed the top of a boy’s head, apparently underwater as bubbles and leaves floated above.

  “They water baptized me, which wasn’t so bad, but then they made me seek for the Holy Spirit. Those people are crazy. They speak in tongues and shake and dance with their eyes rolled back into their head. For hours.”

  “Oh, baby, I’m sorry you had to go through that. I hope you don’t think that’s all there is to God, though. Not all religious people are crazy. God is what you make of him. He can be everything, or nothing.”

  That was a new idea. SpiritWood’s God was so black and white, so strict and defined, his own definition of God had never entered into it.

  Next was a pencil-shaded sketch of Clayvon writhing on the ground beside the moving train, clutching his lack of a foot, surrounded by a bright red puddle of blood. Leroy couldn’t speak.

  Rehema cast a comforting gaze in his direction.

  “You don’t have to—”

  “Yeah, I do.” He took a breath. “That was Clayvon. He was my best friend at SpiritWood. And it’s completely my fault that he lost his foot.”

  “Honey, you can’t blame yourself for these things.”

  “He was gonna run away on his own. Then I butted in, and asked him to come with me, and this happened. It’s my fault.”

  “You said it right there. You asked him. He could’ve said no.”

  “I gotta blame myself. To remember the things I do have consequences.”

  Rehema hurried to turn the page.

  The next drawing showed a pregnant woman in front of a trailer home, hand perched on her back as she drank from an upside-down flask.

  “She’s as bad as she looks. Her family picked me up when I was hitchhiking and made me return a bike and a drill to a store for money. I think they were stolen. Then, they just took me to their trailer.”

  “I want you to promise me right now that you’re not going to hitchhike ever again,” Rehema said. “Do you know how dangerous that is?”

  “It’s not that bad. I did it plenty of times.”

  “Someone could kidnap you, put your organs on the black market!”

  “That’s just in movies and TV.” Leroy turned the page.

  Mamacita and Inez stood in front of a Greyhound bus in the drawing.

  “See, that’s a safer mode of transportation,” said Rehema.

  “I had no money, but Mamacita,” Leroy pointed to her, “she bought me a ticket from Memphis to Montgomery. Just to be nice.”

  “That was incredibly kind of her. We’ll have to send her a thank-you card.”

  “Good idea.” He leafed to the next page. “This is Mamacita and her family at the dinner table. They let me stay at their house for a night. Her son, Miguelito, made a lot of money on the internet.”

  “Okay, so instead of a thank-you card, we’ll send a gift basket.”

  “Almost finished,” Leroy said, turning the page. “This is an alligator I saw on the way here. Seeing it in a pond surrounded by houses gave me the confidence to come see you. I knew no matter what, I’d survive.”

  He quickly thumbed to the next page. It was a picture of Rehema standing inside her doorway, a knowing, tearful look on her face as she confronted Leroy. “This is when I knew you recognized me.” He paused. “Best moment of my life.”

  The look on Rehema’s face was almost identical to the picture, but happier. A tear streaked down her cheek. “It might be mine, too.

  “The whole time, you were what kept me going, what kept me alive.”

  Rehema pulled Leroy toward her with her right arm. “That’s so sweet, Leroy. I can’t believe everything you went through. Is there more?”

  “That’s it,” Leroy said.

  But Rehema turned to a sketch of a handsome man’s scruffy face with a high hairline, thick eyebrows, almond eyes, and a long, rounded nose.

  “Is this him?” she asked.

  Before Leroy could answer, there was a knock at the door.

  She handed him the sketch book, then said “That must be the pizza.” She used her good arm to get to her feet, then grinned and said “Would you mind helping a feeble, disabled old woman? My wallet’s in my purse. Grab a twenty.”

  He followed her to the door, digging through her purse. He saw a brush, sticks of gum, an address book, a planner, and a can of mace, but no wallet.

  “I need a peep hole.” Rehema pulled the door open.

  Leroy kept digging.

  After a moment, she said “Oh, uh, hi. Just a sec.”

  “Rehema?” a man’s voice asked.

  “Can’t find the wallet,” Leroy said.

  “Rehema Shepherd?” he asked again.

  The second time the man spoke, the voice registered. Leroy whipped the door open, and there he was—dressed in a suit and tie, with a cane in one hand and a pizza box in the other, Antoine Bevilacqua unleashed that same old winning smile, albeit slightly more scarred. “I see you have made port, captain.”

  Leroy ran into Ant and embraced him.

  Leaning on his cane, Ant handed Rehema the pizza, then hugged Leroy. “I am so relieved to find you here. I worried you might have given up.”

  “I’m confused, are you also the pizza guy?” Rehema asked.

  Ant chuckled. “My taxi arrived behind the delivery boy, so I paid him and sent him on his way. But that is a pizza, and I am a guy, so I suppose I am.” He pulled a hand away from Leroy and held it out. “Antoine Bevilacqua. It is wonderful to finally meet you.”

  Rehema stared at him, a box in one hand and a cast on the other.

  “Why don’t we all go inside and eat this pizza?”

  “That would be lovely.”

  Leroy looked from Ant to Rehema and smiled.

  * * *

  In typical blustery fashion, Ant began his story.

  “We had just arrived in Topeka, and Noah—the railroad officer with whom I have a history—was abusing Leroy, so I called out to him. He advanced upon me and shot me with a taser, then began to beat me with his nightstick. The last thing I remember is Noah yelling about his sist
er, and an intense pressure in my face. Then, with a last crash of the nightstick, everything faded away.”

  “My goodness,” Rehema muttered, sitting across from Ant.

  Leroy watched them from a chair to the side.

  “Unconsciousness is unlike sleep. It does not pass in an instant. The doctors said I had been out for only a day, but it felt as if it had been a week. My nose was broken, as I am sure you can tell, and my kneecap was fractured.”

  Leroy shook his head. It infuriated him just hearing about it.

  “Then one day in physical therapy, I was informed that I was being charged with criminal trespassing. So, a few days later, I show up in court, my face badly bruised, walking with crutches.” Ant turned to Leroy. “You should have seen the look on Noah’s face. The brute was delighted to be there. Unfortunately for him, a lawyer friend from my University days agreed to take my case pro bono. He put Noah’s case and lawyer to shame. Not only were the trespassing charges reduced to a ticket due to lack of criminal intent, but we counter-sued the Topeka Police for excessive use of force, as I was of no threat to Noah.”

  “Did you win?” Leroy asked.

  “I probably would not be here if I had not.” Ant bit into a slice of pizza.

  “How much?”

  “Oh, nothing significant. Two-hundred fifty thousand dollars.”

  It stunned Leroy like a blow to the head.

  “When you refer to your University days, do you mean as student, or a professor?” Rehema asked, uninterested in the money.

  “Both. But I referred to my time as the latter.”

  “I’m a teacher, too.”

  There was a coyness to her Leroy hadn’t seen in their time together.

  “Well how about that?” Ant said, his eyes smiling as wide as his lips.

  “I teach Kindergarten. It’s not quite as heady as college.”

  “Yet equally important,” Ant assured her. “Early life education provides an essential foundation and desire for learning in later years.”

  Rehema crossed her legs. “I’ve always thought the same.”

  “What happened to Noah?” Leroy asked.

  “He got a month paid suspension.”

  “You serious? For beating you?”