Oasis

by Brian Hodge

  “Because I smell smoke,” I said. “I swear I do.”

  “Well, don’t look at me!” he cried. “And I don’t fart in my sleep! What is this, Pick-On-Greg-Night or something?”

  “Pay no mind, Chris,” Ashley said. “Sounds like your typical persecution complex to me.”

  “Oh, fuck you, Ashley,” Greg said.

  “That’s gratitude. See if I beat any more Cheetos out of you next time.”

  “Hey, shut up, you guys, I’m serious.”

  They quieted down. I think they finally realized that I wasn’t just giving Greg a hard time. I ejected the tape and we were still, listening.

  Phil sniffed the air. “Yeah, I smell it, too,” he said quietly. “That’s rank stuff, no dope smoke.”

  Slowly, Phil lifted his arm and pointed to a wispy gray finger of smoke curling lazily from the defroster vent in the dash. “Chris,” he said softly, calmly, “we’re on fire.”

  “OH SHIT, WHAT NEXT?” I yelled, jamming on the brakes. The tires screamed in protest again as I whipped over onto the shoulder and brought us to a shuddering stop and killed the engine.

  Doors flew open, and Ashley and Greg bailed out. Greg screamed for mercy and absolution and ran down a grassy slope that fell away from the interstate. At the bottom, he turned around to watch, in case the rest of us got burned to cinders.

  I ran around to the front of the car, my heart working its way up my throat. Laying a palm flat on the hood told me that the front, at least, was no warmer than usual. I opened her up, half expecting it to flare up in my face and send me reeling backward with singed hair and blinded eyes. A small fire burned on top and down the side of the engine, flames lapping at the sudden rush of cool night air.

  Phil was at my side and I think we had the same idea. We leaned into the car and I snatched up a grimy towel; I’d taken it from the trunk earlier when Greg had spilled water from his pipe. Phil grabbed the two-liter bottle of Sprite he’d been using as a mixer. Ashley stood watching as Phil upended the half-full bottle and splashed it over the towel and down my arms. I shivered.

  When the towel was soaked, I swung it into the engine compartment, splattering it onto the flames that licked around the carb and engine block. They weakened, and I swung several more times and finally tossed in the towel for good, draping it across the engine and snuffing the last of the flames with a hiss. Then, nothing but the normal tick of the engine.

  “You think it’s safe to try again?” I had no desire for a state police car to cruise along and see if we needed help.

  “I don’t know,” Phil said, scratching his chin. “Depends on what caused it.”

  “You got any ideas? You know me, I know how to gas ‘em up and drive ‘em, but that’s about it.” I looked to Phil for answers because he was more mechanically minded than I. Then I remembered: “A couple minutes before the smoke, I heard something pop. But that was when Greg was dying and we were all over the road.”

  “A pop, huh? Very loud?”

  “Not too.”

  Phil rocked on his heels, then shrugged. “It could’ve backfired through the carb, caught some grease on fire. That could’ve done it.”

  “So I can go ahead and drive it?”

  “I would.” Phil eyed Greg for a moment, who had just returned to us. “But if we get a few miles down the road and go up in a mushroom cloud, don’t blame me.”

  Greg’s eyes flared like an owl’s, and I told him and Ashley to get back in the car. They obeyed. Reluctantly.

  I fished the sodden towel from the engine, plopped it into the trunk, and slammed the lid shut. “You think that’s something I’ll have to get fixed? Like pay for it?”

  “If it just backfired, no. But if I were you I’d hose out the engine compartment soon. Get some of that grease out of there.” Phil understood the things I was leaving unsaid. “If you want me to poke around under the hood, see what damage I can do, just say the word.”

  “I might take you up on that.”

  Phil smiled, then yawned wide enough to fall into. “Only after we get some sleep, okay?”

  We got back up front, and I crossed my fingers while starting up the car. We rode back to Bloomington in silence. And the engine never made another complaint.

  Chapter 28

  Letter, from Aaron, dated Saturday, October 11:

  Chris,

  So how was the Van Halen concert? You know I’ll hate you forever for getting to go. Some people have all the luck. Seems like I was saying something like that to you once before. Sorry about that. We’re all jerks one time or another. I guess it was just my turn.

  Things are getting a lot better here at home. Better than when you were here over Labor Day, and absolutely better than right after Dad’s heart attack. Mom acts a little weird, though. Sometimes it almost feels like she’s keeping me at arm’s length, and other times she makes such a fuss over me it’s embarrassing.

  I’m really beat today. Yesterday I worked five to ten, then Bobby and Mitch and Hurdles and I went out. I had a few brews but still couldn’t sleep at all. Never had that problem before. That Hurdles is a lucky guy to have around, once you give him a chance and ignore how fat he is. And his zits. And oily hair. He never complains about how I smell when I get off work, either.

  Last night we even picked up a couple of girls. Mary Harlow and Sue Downes. Remember them? Hurdles drove us out to Tri-Lakes. He’s really hot for Mary but she was in the back seat fooling around with Bobby. Hurdles got pissed, I think, and he left to go for a walk. I didn’t mind. That left the front seat all to me and Sue. When Hurdles came back he was fine. I guess we’ll have to dig up some female for him. Can you imagine the heifer that would be hard up enough to actually go out with him? It boggles the mind. Turns the stomach, too.

  If you’ll excuse me now, I think I’ll pull up the floor and nap for a while. I think I can do it now. Mom says the last time she talked to you you said you were coming down for Homecoming weekend. Good deal. I was on the phone with Sue today, and I think I’ll be taking her to the dance on Saturday. We might double with Bobby and Mary. You can give me a few pointers on how to smuggle booze into the dance and get away with it, and how to get your date drunk without her catching on. You know, the good old Chris Anderson standbys. Glory days!

  Flushing off,

  Aaron

  There was a lot in that letter, but only one thing stuck in my mind from the first reading: Aaron and Tri-Lakes. But this was inevitable, really. Tri-Lakes, the second generation. The first generation’s survivors had left it open for claim. Time for some fresh faces.

  Time for some new blood.

  I tried to call him that night, but he was out to a movie, Mom said. So we talked for a while, and even though she was elated over having just gotten a full-time position with an area mental health center, she asked two or three times if something was bothering me. I assured her I was fine, but I don’t think she was convinced. You can never slip worry past your mother.

  I sat down and wrote Aaron a letter that night, asking him to stay clear of Tri-Lakes. I reminded him of our run-in with the boys from Harden, and that Rick did disappear up there. I left it at that. I couldn’t very well expect him to swallow everything I could tell about the place, and I wasn’t about to send him there to check out that tree for proof. So I ended up appealing to his common sense. Praying that it would be enough.

  And readying myself just in case it took more. For the love of a brother knows no limits.

  Chapter 29

  Homecoming. Phil would rather have been eaten alive by rabid weasels than miss it, since he was taking Connie to Saturday night’s dance. Their first. Break out the cameras.

  We made the trek home in Phil’s car. After seven peaceful, uneventful weeks with absolutely no bad news from home, taking the off-ramp and hitting town felt a lot sweeter than I’d expected. Everything looked different too, as if all the buildings had been uprooted, then set back into place just a hair off-center.

  We ha
d a happy little reunion at home. Mom immediately went on about how badly she thought I needed a haircut — I was getting shaggy, but still was in no hurry — but it didn’t seem to bother Dad. He just gave me a tired smile and said he was glad to see me.

  Defying the normally bland diet he and Mom had been keeping to these days, Dad barbecued ribs out on the grill and we feasted as if it were our last meal. Real food at last, not dorm food manufactured for the masses. Aaron and I knocked around in the backyard after supper. Dusk had set in, thick with the damp chill of late October nights. Someone upwind of us was burning leaves, and the air was hazy with their smoke. I shut my eyes and breathed it in, the perfume of autumn.

  “Remember when we had to rake out here every Saturday?” Aaron asked, kicking at a scattering of fallen leaves. This year, he and Mom were the only ones out here doing rake-time.

  “Sure,” I said. “You always bitched because you thought everybody else’s leaves blew into our yard.” Then I laughed. “I remember that time you got pissed because I kept jumping into your pile, and you started stuffing leaves up my shirt and down my pants. I must’ve had half a tree in my underwear before you were done. I itched all day.”

  Aaron chuckled to himself, then zipped up his sweatshirt. “Now it’s just me out here.”

  “I’ll help tomorrow if you want.”

  He looked up from the leaves to my eyes. “Really?”

  “Just promise to keep the leaves out of my Underoos.”

  I stuffed my hands into my pockets and looked around the yard, at the back of the house. At the spindly arm of the useless TV aerial still clinging to the side of the house. We’d been hooked up to cable for years, yet we’d still been unable to get Dad to get around to yanking the thing down. I loved him unreservedly, but was beginning to see where I got my tendency to procrastinate.

  Like right this very moment. I was stalling.

  “Did you get my letter last week?” I finally asked.

  “You mean about, umm, Tri-Lakes?”

  “That’s the one.”

  “Uh huh. I got it.” At least he didn’t sound mad over it. “But I don’t see what the big deal is. When we were there, nothing happened.”

  “Don’t you remember?” I asked. “Rick lost his … that’s where we lost him. No trace, remember? And that’s not the only thing to happen up there. You wanna end up on a police report, too?”

  Aaron took a step back, lifting his hands in surrender. “Okay, okay, I give.”

  Don’t press him too hard. “Have you been back up since?”

  “Good. Just stay away. Please.”

  “Sure, if you say so.” He still sounded so casual about it.

  I took hold of him by the shoulders. “Please, Aaron. Promise me.”

  I think that for the first time it dawned on him how deadly serious I was. He nodded slowly, never taking his eyes from mine. “I promise. You really mean this, don’t you?”

  “Yeah. I’m as serious as a heart attack.” I let the double meaning of this sink in, then turned loose of him, and the spell of the moment was broken. “Anyway. Enough of that. What have you got on tap for tonight?”

  “Mitch and Hurdles are picking me up later and we’re going to the game. Supposed to meet Bobby there.” Aaron snickered. “Bobby has to buy a suit tonight for the dance. Nothing like waiting until the last minute. What about you? Are you going?”

  “Wouldn’t miss it.”

  Old habits die hard.

  Homecoming was the one event that stirred up almost universal excitement. Only juniors and seniors were eligible for the prom, and the annual Valentine’s Day dance, where the girls ask the guys to go, left a lot of people out in the cold. But Homecoming had something for just about everyone.

  Festivities began on Thursday afternoon with a rally at the high school football field. The players for our team, the Rams, would suit up and let everybody yell themselves hoarse over them, and the cheerleaders would bounce out to strut their stuff. Then one cheerleader would run out carrying an opposing player in effigy, made from a jersey and football pants stuffed with old pillows, and a head made from a Styrofoam wig stand whose scalp was imbedded with toothpicks.

  They’d haul this poor dummy out and everybody would have a laugh and the players would knock him around a bit. A water tower rises on giant legs next to the high school parking lot across from the football field, looking like something out of The War of the Worlds. Each year, late Thursday night, some intrepid soul would climb the tower and hang the dummy, leaving him to dangle and sway in the wind. Climbing the tower was illegal, so this had to be done in secret. I’d handled the job last year, ever the daredevil.

  Phil and I made it to the parking lot just before kickoff. We locked the car and set off for the field. I glanced back and smiled at the water tower and the dummy, strung up and silhouetted against a blue-black sky, swaying gently as dark clouds roiled overhead in bruised clusters. He hung from a lower cross-brace this time. This year’s climber must’ve been from wimp city. No guts, no altitude.

  Once past the gates, we hung around the north end zone, where most of the students and recent grads stayed during game time. It felt good to wind our way through the crowd and catch up on the lives of people I hadn’t seen since summer or last spring. The people you tell you’ll always keep in touch with after graduation, but by August you find that you don’t miss them as much as you thought.

  The crowd groaned. Eight minutes of playing time and the opposition, the Rangers, had scored. Downfield, the marching band started butchering the theme from Rocky.

  We worked a serpentine path across to the far side, and then Phil seized my arm and pointed to a lone figure ahead, hair tousled as he hunched inside a yellow windbreaker. Burnt-Out Ben Goddard himself.

  Phil and I wandered over to greet him. He was eating a large wedge of chocolate cake wrapped in a napkin; when he saw us and smiled, his teeth were streaked with icing. He wiped his hands on his brown cords and shook with us.

  “How’s Andrews treating you?” he said to Phil.

  Phil bobbed his head enthusiastically. “No complaints. Of course, it does help to have this guy around.” He hitched a thumb at me.

  Mr. Goddard raised one eyebrow. “Uh oh. Major craziness. You too, huh?”

  “It seemed like the thing to do at the time.”

  Mr. Goddard rolled his eyes and shuddered in mock terror. “I’m just glad I got through there before you two level the place.”

  “We’re behaving. Except for that one orgy that got out of hand, but that wasn’t our fault … it was the goat’s.” Phil pointed at the new beard on Goddard’s face. It looked to be about two weeks along. “Growing it back?”

  He scratched at his throat, grimacing. “It’s about that time of year. I can feel winter on its way.” He grinned his chocolate grin and rubbed his cheeks. “Good and thick. It should be a rough winter.” He took another bite of cake, then scowled at the remainder in his hand. He offered it to us, crumbs falling to the ground. “Either of you want this?”

  Phil and I declined.

  “Smart fellows. I got this at the music department bake sale back there.” He pointed toward three card tables laden with cakes and cookies and things that defied quick identification. “I don’t guess they can cook any better than they play.” With a cautious look around, he wadded the napkin into a ball and dropped it to the ground. “If anybody asks, it was already here.”

  “Are you doing any writing these days?” Phil asked.

  “No, not much.” He kicked at the balled-up cake, sending it to vanish amid a forest of legs. “A couple months ago I got a story back from The Atlantic, and they’d written a few nice comments about it, and I suppose that should be encouraging. But it was still a rejection. I haven’t done much since.” He backed up to correct himself. “Any.”

  Then he stared off into space and I saw the man the other kids called Burnt-Out Ben. It was sad, because if you looked close enough, deep enough, you could tell tha
t it wasn’t drugs, it wasn’t even mentally detaching himself to watch people. It was a quiet desperation.

  The crowd cheered — the Rams had scored. More cheering when they picked up the conversion point. We slung the bull around awhile longer, and then Mr. Goddard’s wife joined him, and so Phil and I said goodbye and wandered back in the direction we’d come from. We found a spot to roost a while and watch the game, and the first half ended with the Rams leading 14-13. I would’ve preferred dead silence to a halftime show, but we got one anyway. The marching band took the field and farted through a medley of Beatles tunes. John Lennon might’ve rolled over in his grave.

  Just after the start of the second half, I saw three more familiar shapes weaving through the crowd a few yards away. The lean shape of my brother, the sturdier form of his friend Mitch, and the mammoth bulk of Hurdles Horton. I would’ve been willing to let them pass on by, but Hurdles saw us and, of course, couldn’t resist bellowing his greetings and good cheer.

  Phil groaned. “I could’ve lived the next six decades as a happy man without seeing him again.”

  “Hey hey hey!” Hurdles cried and slapped me across the back. The force staggered me, and I wondered if he’d been working out to replace some of that fat with muscle. When he shook hands with Phil, I saw that Hurdles’s hands were chapped-looking, raw and red. My own had looked similar after hours of washing dishes at Chuck Wagon. Surely Hurdles hadn’t gotten a job. “I haven’t seen you guys in months!”

  “We’ve been busy,” Phil said. “College, you know.”

  “That’s what Aaron tells me.”

  Then I realized they were incomplete. “Where’s your fourth Musketeer?”

  “Looks like the peckerhead wussed out on us,” Mitch said. He turned to yell something at the playing field, and I noticed that for a sixteen-year-old, Mitch had a good start on a moustache. One that might soon leave him looking old enough at a liquor store drive-up window. Pretty soon, Hurdles might well be finding himself cast adrift again.