Kids These Days

by Drew Perry

  I flipped a few corners like playing cards. “How much is in here?” I said.

  “Sixty-thousand-some-odd. I wanted it to be seventy-five, but it wouldn’t fit.”

  I said, “Can we please stop the car?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You don’t think whoever ends up in your books is going to see sixty thousand missing?”

  “Twice that. There’s a box for Carolyn, too. And no, I do not.”

  “And why is that?”

  He said, “Work it all the way through.”

  “Because it’s not on the books,” I said.

  “Hey, there we are. On to the bonus round.”

  “So you’re in all of it,” I said. “Right? Island? The cops? The undercover shit? Have you been in it all along?”

  “It’s not like that,” he said.

  “What is it like?”

  “I’m not going to tell you. Which is better, by the way, because that way you won’t know.”

  I said, “I think I’m owed some kind of—”

  “Listen to me,” he said. “They still don’t have anything. Everything they’ve got is circumstantial. Secondhand.”

  I couldn’t get all the way to being angry with him, which pissed me off. The problem was that it left me too alone, too stranded. And there was that same blank want, back again, filling up in me like water. I said, “Are you not getting that you just left the scene of the crime?”

  “That was not my crime. We both know that. That was the scene of someone else’s crime.”

  “Do we both know that?”

  “Are you accusing me of stealing my own machine?”

  “I don’t know what to accuse you of,” I said. “I don’t know what the fuck is happening. You have to tell me. I’m here. I’m in the goddamn car, too.”

  “You’re fine. I took you against your will.”

  I wondered if that would be enough. I said, “But are we talking about—what are we talking about here?”

  “It’s only ever money,” he said. “Nobody ever gets hurt. That’s why I hated what went on at Island. You don’t want actual police showing up around actual kids. Those jackasses, selling dope out of the back of the kitchen. What idiots. They can’t have been clearing more than a couple grand a week.”

  “Is it drugs?” I said. “Is that what all this is?”

  “Look. Between you and me and anybody else who can count to four, Hurley’s got to have a field or two out in the swamp somewhere. The crocus shit can’t be the only thing paying him. But it doesn’t matter. It’s all just money. Just numbers. Move little packets from one thing to the next. Do it enough times and finally not everybody knows where all the little packets are anymore, and you can put a few away. That’s all. It’s pretty simple laundry. You know how this works.”

  “I don’t know how it works,” I said.

  “You did it for a living!”

  “I sold loans.”

  “Call it what you want. That’s the same thing.”

  “It’s hardly the same thing.”

  “I thought you had expertise in this field,” he said. “I thought you guys knew all about this.”

  “Is that why I’m down here?” I said. “Is that why you brought me on? So I could mop up after whatever the fuck this all is?”

  “I brought you down here because you needed a job and place to live, and we had those things. There is nothing else. Like I said before, this is an unfortunate sideshow. I did not mean for this to happen. I am truly sorry. I humbly repent.”

  “How much of it is bullshit?” I said.

  “What?”

  “Me Kayak. The Twice-the-Ice. How much is bullshit?”

  He eased off the gas some. “None of it is. All that is real.”

  “A sea kayak rental doesn’t make a hundred thousand off the books,” I said.

  “They do fine over there.” He slowed at a yellow sign with a silhouette of an alligator on it, turned onto a gravel road. After a hundred yards he stopped the car at a wire cable strung between two sawed-off phone poles. He got out, unhooked it, got back in. It was clear he knew exactly where we were. “I’m not walking you through it,” he said. “I’m just not. We want for you not to understand. That way, later on, you can explain, in full, your complete lack of understanding to the authorities.” He got us going again, fought the wheel against the ruts in the road. “All you need to know is what you know right now. That Me Kayak, for instance, rents and occasionally sells some generally beat-up sea kayaks for a fair price.” He looked over at me. “And I need you to keep those kids on the payroll. Make sure they don’t fuck off too much on the job. Make sure they’re getting everybody to sign the insurance waiver before they go out.”

  I said, “Are you committing suicide?”

  “Jesus,” he said. “No. Not this time. No guardian angels needed, OK? I’m fine.”

  “You don’t seem fine.”

  “And yet I am,” he said, turning again, off the road and onto something that wasn’t much bigger than a deer trail.

  “What’s going to happen to you?” I said.

  “I’m optimistic I can still make a trade,” he said. “Just need to row up a few more ducks.”

  “What kind of trade?”

  “Couple of guys on the commission might be persons of interest in another investigation. A larger investigation. And I might have some useful information for somebody who wanted it.”

  I held the money in my lap. I was back in the kitchen, our old kitchen, and Alice was coming around the corner with the test kit, asking if I was sure. There was nothing I could do to stop what was happening. The inside of my head was completely lit up, every circuit flashing full. “Pete Brett?” I said.

  “That was actually separate. That was when I thought I could take care of everything on my own.”

  “You were going behind Friendly and Helpful—”

  “And now I’m not.”

  “Except they’re who we’re running away from.”

  “This isn’t running away,” he said. “This is buying time.”

  I said, “Persons of interest in what way?”

  “You really don’t want to know.”

  “Try me.”

  “Short version is they siphon off airline-grade diesel from a few regional airports and then resell it at some gas stations they’ve got between here and the Georgia line. They don’t see most of the taxes that way. Pretty sweet deal, really. Friendly and Helpful think they’re hooked into some Baltic crime syndicate, but I’m almost positive they’re just assholes stealing gas.”

  I wanted to say: Let’s go find Carolyn. We can figure something else out. What I said instead was: “Are you hooked into all that, too?”

  “Hell no, man. What do you take me for, a thief?”

  We broke out of the woods and into a clearing. There was a metal barn, and behind it a long flat field of mown grass, a windsock out at the far end. The door on the barn slid back and then there was Hank, the parachutist, standing in the open door. The back wall was open, too, and light flooded through around him. “No,” I said. “You don’t know him. You can’t.”

  “Of course I do. Why not?”

  “He flies up the beach—”

  “Everybody knows him. We had a gig lined up to sell his ultralight things, but it didn’t work out.”

  “What’s he doing here?”

  “I asked him to be here today in case things became complex.”

  “So you knew all this was coming?”

  “I got the money out after they took me in the first time, if that’s what you’re asking. I wanted to be ready.”

  “For this?”

  “Among other possibilities.”

  I said, “Where are you going?”

  He got out, tilted his seat forward, rummaged around in the back until he came out with that same pink duffel. Delton’s. “Nowhere,” he said. “I’m going nowhere. Tell the cops I’m all theirs as soon as I’m done.”

  “When w
ill I talk to the police?”

  “You said it yourself. You can see this thing from space. You’ll probably get pulled over on the way back home.”

  “Fuck you,” I said.

  “You don’t mean that,” he said. The car was still running. “Tell Carolyn this was not my original plan. Tell Alice I’m sorry. Tell her I knew what she wanted, and I ran you over anyway. And tell the kids at Island the state has a goddamn camera back there. No sense in me holding up my end anymore.” He leaned in, took hold of my shoulder. “I’ll see you in a couple days. This won’t even make the papers. I’ll be back to help you get everything straightened out. No worries, alright? You know how to get back home?” The question seemed made from some other language. He pointed behind the car. “Turn right at the end of the driveway. Turn right at the end of the road. Go straight until you hit the ocean. Turn right again.” I held where I was. I pushed my feet against the floorboard to make sure it was still there. “I’m sorry, Walter,” he said. “I really am. But sometimes this is how it goes.” He opened the duffel, moved things around in there, and then zipped it back closed. He said, “That kid’ll break Olivia’s heart, by the way. You know that’s what’s coming.”

  “What?”

  “He’s the nicest boy in the world, but she can’t even drive. How long do you think that’ll last?”

  “No idea,” I said. Like every other thing in the world.

  “She’s a smart kid,” he said. “If you talked to her, she’d listen.”

  “Why me?”

  “She likes you,” he said.

  “She likes you,” I said. “You let her stay with him.”

  “It’s not the same.”

  “What would I tell her that would make any difference?”

  Hank slid the door open a little further, and the metal groaned. There were planes in there with their wings folded up. “You’re right,” Mid said. “Never mind. I’ll call you later, OK? I’ll call Carolyn. Tell her I’ll call.” Then he turned around and walked away, toward the barn, or the hangar, or whatever it was. He shook Hank’s hand. The two of them walked through the building and out to the grass runway, where I saw there were already two parachutes set up, two buggies. Mid got himself strapped into one of the carts, and Hank climbed onto the other, his usual ride, and soon enough Mid was rolling out across the grass at what seemed like far too slow a speed until he bumped up into the air anyway, a white wing over his head, blue letters and numbers along one edge like a sailboat sail. He went up like he was tied to a string somebody was pulling. Hank followed, the POW-MIA chute unfurling behind him, and then he was off the ground, too, and they flew out toward the treeline, engines whining away, and then I couldn’t see them anymore, and then I couldn’t hear them, either. They had vanished. Where had they gone? the cops would want to know. Away, I’d tell them. Did you see which direction? West, maybe, I’d say. Inland.

  It was our flyer, I’d tell Alice.

  It was not, she’d say.

  It was.

  Of course it was, she’d say.

  I sat in the car, cool air blowing on my face and out Mid’s open door. I checked the gas gauge: Full enough. I could sit there a while longer. I was somewhere in Florida in a vandalized Camaro with a box of hundred-dollar bills in my lap. I didn’t have any idea at all about what to do next. I looked through the barn to the field, hoping hard that something would come to me. What were you doing? Alice would want to know. Waiting, I’d say.

  At the end of the gravel road I turned toward the interstate instead of the beach. It was like somebody’d spun me around a couple of times, hollered out go. I took inventory: Mid was gone. I needed to call Alice. She had the cell. She had the car. I had the Camaro and the cash and who the hell knew what in the trunk. Illegal furs. Automatic rifles. Bodies. I stopped at a fruit stand, got out to look. Jumper cables. The little doughnut spare. Nothing else. They were selling twenty-five pound bags of oranges at the fruit stand. I bought one, put it in the trunk. A mile down the road I knew it was a mistake, knew that when the cops asked, the dude would remember. The Camaro. The huge sack of oranges. All those oranges, he’d say. Just for himself.

  What plan I had was to turn around, though, before anybody was hot on my trail, before anybody was asking around about a person who looked like me. I needed a little pried-open space first, was all. I was headed back as soon as I knew what I might say to somebody—Carolyn, Alice, Friendly and Helpful—when they asked. Some version of: I have done this wrong. All of it. I apologize. My wife is pregnant. Here is the car. He left me there, flew away. He did not say where he was going. No, I’m not helping him. No, I don’t think he’d hurt anybody. No, I don’t think he’d hurt himself. Because I asked him. Because I thought I should. The cash was just like this, in this box. Give it to orphans. To amputees. To orphaned amputees. I don’t know anything. I have never known anything. This is what I’m trying to tell you.

  I drove. I watched the sky for Mid.

  At the interstate there was an old Howard Johnson, light blue with an orange roof. I pulled in. She’d kill me, I knew. I pulled in anyway. I parked the Camaro behind a Dumpster. I had the urge to cover it with branches, but there weren’t any. I found the front desk. I paid cash. That part was simple enough. My room was on the top floor, the third floor. I passed the cleaning people with their cart. It was still morning, or something like it. Inside, my ceiling featured the long fifties slant of the roof, triangled windows above some sliding doors that led out onto four feet of concrete balcony. Brown carpet. Two queen beds. I lay down on one. There was a water stain in the ceiling, which felt unfortunate, like a bad letter. I switched to the other bed. I could hear the trucks out on the highway. Did fathers do this? Was this fatherly behavior? I called the front desk and ordered a patty melt and a 7UP from the restaurant. I turned on the TV, set it to the channel that ran previews of the movies you could order. We owned no furniture. Alice was bleeding, Mid had flown away. Once the channel had cycled the preview through so many times I knew the exact sequence, I called Alice.

  “How are you?” she said.

  I started peeling an orange. “Terrible,” I said.

  “How’s Mid?”

  “Better than I am,” I said. “For the most part, anyway.”

  “Did you meet with the police?”

  “Yes.”

  “And?”

  Half the movie trailers had stars in them I’d never seen, too-skinny twentysomethings with perfect skin and excellent teeth. I was losing track of who was supposed to be famous. I was already out of touch with the BOJ’s generation, and her generation wasn’t even here. “I’m in a Howard Johnson,” I said.

  “You’re what?”

  “In a HoJo.” I felt myself measuring out the words. I put the orange down on the nightstand. “I’m out by the interstate. I checked in. I got a room.”

  “If this is a joke, I don’t get it.”

  “It’s not a joke. I’m in a hotel. I have the car. Mid’s gone.” It felt better, saying it out loud like that. It also felt true, which arrived with its own set of problems.

  She said, “I don’t know what any of that means.”

  “I don’t know what it means, either,” I said. “He drove me out into the woods and got out of the car, and Hank was waiting for him in some hanger, and they both flew away. I’m pretty sure he had it planned.”

  “What woods?”

  “When we got to the Twice-the-Ice, the police tried to arrest him. He drove off. I tried to talk him out of it. Then he gave me sixty thousand dollars and flew away.”

  She said, “Flew away in what?”

  “A parachute. Like the other one, like Hank’s. He had one waiting for him. Another one.” I looked around the room, which seemed to be getting dimmer. I wondered if they’d built all the Howard Johnsons the same in any given year—if they’d just traveled the same set of blueprints around the country, and if somewhere in Wichita right now there was someone sitting in room 303, talking to his wife,
and trying to keep his head from separating from his body. “I don’t think I feel right,” I said.

  “What do you mean? How?”

  “Like I could be losing my mind, too,” I said.

  “Are you? Did those things really happen?”

  “Yes,” I said. “Also, I bought some oranges.”

  “Stop screwing around. Are you screwing around?”

  “I really did buy oranges,” I said. I pulled a section off and put it in my mouth. “They’re pretty good.”

  “Give me the number where you are. I’m coming to get you.”

  “Don’t,” I said.

  “What do you mean, don’t? I’m coming to get you right now.”

  “I wanted to be still. Just for a minute.”

  “Which one are you in?” she said.

  “Which one what?”

  “Which Howard Johnson.” I could tell she was trying to keep her voice even, that she was upset. I’d upset her. It made sense.

  “I don’t know,” I said. I thought it was possible I might be remembering what was happening instead of it actually happening. “This one.”

  “Walter, stick with me, OK? Are you still in the state?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “I don’t think we drove more than a few exits one way or the other.” I checked the desk for a pad of paper or a phone book, but there wasn’t anything. “Listen,” I said. “Don’t tell Delton.”

  “Of course we have to tell her,” she said. “We have to tell everybody.”

  I said, “He could still come back. He said he would.”

  “Have you called the police?”

  “No.”

  “You need to call the police.”

  “We need to call Carolyn,” I said.

  “I’ll do that.”

  “He said she’d understand. He said this wasn’t the way he had it set up originally.”

  “He said she’d understand?”

  “Maybe not exactly that way,” I said. “Let’s wait until you get here.”

  “For what?”

  “For everything. To tell her. To tell anybody. Can we just wait until you’re here?”

  She said, “Did he say where he was going?”

  “No.”

  “Did you ask?”