Radical

by E. M. Kokie

  There are still outlines on the mirror where Aunt Gracie stuck photographs into the frame — twenty years of dust leaving a cloudy ring to memorialize their absence. Behind the mirror is a key, taped as far back as I can reach.

  Under the loose floorboard in the closet, pushed back as far as it can go, is an old lockbox I found at a secondhand store. I unlock and open it. I count out enough for the whole phone bill, count what’s left, and add a little more to the phone-bill stack. Then I put everything back, hide the key in a new location, and then I’m standing in front of Mom.

  I don’t say anything. I just put the money on the table, over the phone bill. Enough to pay what we owe and then some.

  She should be grateful. Instead she looks at the money like I just spit on the table, or like I’m trying to make her feel bad.

  I leave it there and go back out onto the porch. She’ll take it. She has to. We need our phones. Especially Mom and me.

  It hurts to give her my money. But it would hurt worse not to.

  I sit on the porch, legs hanging over the edge, recalculating my purchasing order for my pack. Dad never stops feeling like a guest here, so we’ll go as soon as Mom says we can afford it. Probably to an apartment. In a crappy neighborhood. I stare at the trees beyond the barn, listen to the birds. Feel the breeze, cool across my bare arms. I hope it takes years.

  I listen to Mom in the kitchen while I use the rod to run a patch with solvent through the bore. Then a few swipes with the brush, followed by clean patches until one comes through looking near as clean as when it went in. And finally, one last patch lightly soaked in oil to preserve the bore.

  We’ve got other guns, better guns. But when it comes down to it, I like the feel of this old Remington best. It’s not going to take down a deer or anything bigger than a squirrel at long range. But I love this gun. I trust this gun. She jams for Mark and Dad, but she works for me like she trusts me. Maybe because I baby her, or because I can feel how she moves.

  I wipe my fingerprints off the bolt, reinstall it, dry fire to make sure everything works, and then start wiping down all the exposed metal with a clean rag. Toxic fingerprints can eat away at the metal. An old T-shirt is perfect to get in deep, make sure it’s well cleaned.

  Dad’s truck comes down the drive.

  When he gets out of the truck, Mark’s not with him. I’d make a joke about it, but I don’t feel much like joking. Mark hasn’t done anything in months. He doesn’t work. He doesn’t train. He doesn’t help out around here. But he wanted to go to the club, so we went. And now he wanted to go back to the club, and Dad took him.

  Dad stops with his foot on the bottom step and looks at the rifle in my hands.

  “Just cleaning it before putting it away.”

  He holds out his hand for the rifle. Giving it to him feels like the last time I’m going to hold it. He opens the bolt, uses his thumbnail near the chamber to reflect light in, squints down the bore. He nods approvingly. “You take good care of it.”

  My throat closes around the lump of pride and anger and frustration all balled up there. I’ve been waiting so long for him to wake up and take this seriously, take me seriously. If I’d found Clearview, there’s no way Dad would have agreed to go out there. But Mark emerges from hibernation and he immediately gets what he wants. Whatever he wants. Dad always chooses Mark. They both do.

  “When you’re done, put your rifle away. Then give your mother a hand with dinner, okay?”

  My rifle. He’s never called it that before. “Okay.” He barely touches the back of my head as he walks by, just enough for my head to follow his hand and leave me leaning when he’s gone.

  “Where’s Mark?” I hear Mom ask.

  “Daniel will drop him off later.”

  “Haven’t seen him excited about anything in a long while,” Mom says. “But I spent half the afternoon trying to figure out how to pay the bills. The extra gas, his insurance and truck repairs, all of that adds up. He’s going to need to find something.”

  I can’t make out what Dad says, but Mom responds, “I’m busting my butt at temp jobs, staying with Lorraine all week, and then coming home and busting my butt here on weekends.”

  “You’re not the only one busting your butt. I’m out there —”

  “What? You’re what?”

  “For crying out loud, Charlotte!” That’s Dad’s all-encompassing response when he’s frustrated.

  Mom slams a cabinet, her response when Dad goes for the crying out loud.

  I can hear their voices, their movements through the house, and a door slams upstairs. Another fight.

  My Glock could use a good cleaning, too.

  I break it down and start with the solvent.

  I can still hear their voices now and then through an open window upstairs, but not what they’re saying, not from this side of the house.

  Eventually Mom comes back downstairs, back to the kitchen, starting dinner, from the sound of it. Mainly she’s slamming stuff around the sink. No way I’m going in there.

  I’ve got the Glock almost back together when a truck comes down the driveway.

  Mark, Daniel, and some other guy.

  “Hey,” Mark says, bounding up the steps past me as the truck pulls away.

  “Want me to leave this stuff out for you?” I ask.

  He pauses with his hand on the screen door and looks over his shoulder. “Nah, I’ll do it later.”

  No, he won’t. His gun will continue to collect crud because he’s lazy. Lazy and irresponsible, but he’s a boy, and that’s all that matters.

  I put all the cleaning stuff back in the workshop and then head into the house to lock my rifle and Glock back in the gun locker.

  “Wash up,” Mom says, before I’ve even got my boots off. She hates the smell of the oil and solvent. On days when Uncle Skips lets me work on cars at the station, she makes me strip down in the laundry room and put everything right in the washer. The laundry room soap smells like cheap pine, a manly smell Dad and Mark won’t balk at using. Instead I just go upstairs and take a fast shower.

  On the way back downstairs, I can hear Mark yammering away at Mom and Dad.

  Mom hands me the knife, and I take over cutting up the vegetables for the salad. It looks like the rest of dinner is almost ready.

  “And Daniel said he can pick me up this week so I can start right away,” Mark says. “As soon as I can, I’ll pay the insurance on my truck. But until then —”

  “It needs more than insurance,” Dad says. “Better talk to Skip about the repairs when he gets home. Maybe you can work off some of it.”

  Last week Mark would have sneered and sulked at that suggestion, but today he’s all eager beaver, ready to agree to anything.

  Mom takes her usual seat across from Dad. I put the salad on the table and fall into my place. Dad says grace, and then the conversation continues as if it never paused.

  “So, he wants to join,” Mom says, nodding toward Mark. “What about you?” she asks Dad. He just shrugs and eats his dinner. But Mom’s waiting for an answer.

  Eventually he puts down his fork, takes a sip of his iced tea, and looks directly at Mom. “I’m not sure yet. Right now all they’re asking is that I consider it and maybe help them build the tactical course.”

  “I don’t even know what that means,” Mom says. She shakes her head, taking a bite of her chicken. She probably knows she won’t win if he’s already made up his mind, but she’s not giving in yet. Not without some face-saving concessions.

  “It’s like an obstacle course, with different targets you have to shoot,” Mark says. “They’re going to build one in wooded terrain, and one that simulates close urban combat. And then maybe —”

  “For what? To train people to be killers? I don’t —”

  “No.” Dad gives Mark a pipe down look. He didn’t plan on giving her enough info to nitpick the details. “It’s like a fancier range.”

  “And members can work on survival techniques or hike th
e trails. It’s so cool. And they’re going to organize into . . .” At Dad’s glare, Mark stops talking.

  Mom stares at Mark, then at Dad. “And they want you to build these tactical training courses?”

  “Maybe. If I want, and if we can agree on the plans,” Dad says. “And the price.”

  “I’m joining.” Mark helps himself to more of pretty much everything. “I don’t care what you do, but I’m in.”

  Mom leans back in her chair and crosses her arms. “With what money? Whatever this ends up costing,” she says, ignoring his repeated protests that there are no fees, “you’ll also need gas, ammunition, truck repairs and insurance, and whatever else.”

  “I’ll make money. More than enough.”

  “How?” Mom asks.

  “Daniel’s been working steady for one of the other members. Landscaping. Construction. Painting. Sometimes other stuff. Good money.”

  “Oh, well,” Mom says, “if Danny Trace says so . . . Isn’t he the little genius who talked you into lighting your farts on fire?” I stifle a laugh. Mark set his pants on fire and then couldn’t sit down right for a week.

  “He said a few of the other members hire guys from Clearview, too.”

  When Mom doesn’t change her position, Mark says, “I’m an adult.”

  Mom just snorts at that. “You think we should let him join,” she asks Dad, “before checking it out more?”

  “Steven is a good man,” Dad says. “I trust his judgment. He has his son there.”

  Mom’s not won over yet.

  “Can I eat, please?” Dad asks, meaning he doesn’t want to discuss this anymore in front of us.

  No one asks if I want to join. No one even seems to acknowledge the possibility. And, unlike Mark, I could probably pay my way. Not that I would.

  After dinner, I would normally be on cleanup, but Mom sends me off to do some “homework” so she and Dad can talk without me there. I get the workbook and go out to the side porch, just around the corner so they won’t see me if they open the screen door.

  “They seem genuine about building something good,” Dad is saying. “They’re all part of the organizational committee. I would be, too. They’re still working out what this will be, and we could have a say in that.”

  “We?” Mom asks.

  I can’t hear Dad’s answer, assuming he said anything at all.

  “And what could this be?” Mom asks.

  “Friends, work, maybe more. A fresh start. Can’t hurt to be better prepared.”

  “Prepared for what?” Mom asks. When Dad doesn’t answer, she asks, “Am I going to have to start sniffing your clothes for bomb residue, too?”

  I let my head fall back against the house to keep from yelling. It was one time. One pipe bomb. For fun. And Mark was there, too. But every time Mom wants to make a point about how much she hates me training, she acts like I’m some kind of pyro, blowing stuff up every day.

  “If I’m interested,” Dad says, “I’m in it for the work. For the hope that it leads to more work.”

  “But?” she prompts.

  “But . . . they make a lot of sense. Things are getting worse. Unemployment, tensions. More taxes, and no one looking out for us.” I can’t hear what Mom says, but Dad says, “Charlotte, I’m just suggesting, maybe it’s time to be a little more serious. It couldn’t hurt to be better prepared, just in case.”

  “In case what?” Mom asks.

  “In case . . . whatever,” Dad says.

  Shivers crawls up my spine and down my arms. This is what I’ve been saying for a year.

  It’s quiet for several seconds, and then Mom says, “I don’t want to see you get your hopes up and then find out it’s a scam. Or not a scam, but not something we can afford. Not now, anyway.” I can’t hear anything, and then Mom says, “It just sounds too good to be true.”

  A bang, a cabinet slamming shut or something. “Why is it so damn hard for you to accept that maybe, just maybe, someone thinks I have value? That we have value?”

  “How much value?” Mom asks eventually, and even I can hear the softening in her voice, maybe because it’s clear Dad’s already made up his mind. Or maybe because it’s been a long time since Dad had any leads.

  “I don’t know yet,” Dad says. “I need to see what all they have planned and put in a proposal, but Jim Riggs said they’d rather a member did the work. So I think it’ll go hand in hand.”

  They must have moved, because I can’t hear them. I inch around the porch, closer to the screen door.

  “Then if it is a bust or too good to be true,” Dad says, “we say no thank you and we’ve lost nothing. But if it means work and more — a support system — I don’t think we can pass up the opportunity.”

  “Not a penny to them,” Mom finally says.

  “Fine,” Dad says.

  “If it gets weird, you’re out.”

  “Of course.”

  Weird for Mom means anything beyond shooting and camping. For a while she was convinced I was going to run away and join some kind of radical survivalist cult or, like, fall in with white supremacists. If she knew anything about anything, she’d know that none of them would want me, and I sure as hell wouldn’t want anything to do with them. I’m about the prep, not the politics or racist bullshit.

  “And Bex?” Mom asks.

  Crap. Maybe she’s not done fighting.

  “They’ve got girls, too,” Dad says.

  “Really?” Mom asks. “Girls?” she asks, meaning girls who look like girls.

  “Some of them were there today,” Dad says. “Seemed like a nice group of girls,” he says, meaning yes, girls who look like girls.

  “We agreed to start trying to redirect her interests back to normal things, things that will help her integrate back into a normal school,” Mom says.

  “Bex is fine,” Dad says, but even I don’t believe that he means it. “Maybe it would be good for her to be around other girls. To see that they shoot and camp, and still . . .”

  Look like girls is what he wants to say. Act like girls. Want to do girl things, and date boys.

  “I want her to come to the city with me,” Mom says. “There’s a summer program. She’d be back in a classroom, around normal kids. And then if she wants to do this stuff on the weekends, at least she’ll have both.”

  No way.

  “Hannah is in a program at the same place. They can go together. It will be good for her.”

  No freaking way.

  “What does it cost?” Dad asks. “It’s a valid question,” he adds, in response to whatever face or gesture Mom must have made.

  “Don’t worry about that. I’ve got it covered.” Nice. Dad will love being reminded that Mom’s making the money right now. “We will have to pick up a few things for her. She can’t go looking like she’s wearing her brother’s hand-me-downs. Just a few things to start, until she can see what the other girls are wearing. I can take her to the outlets next weekend.”

  I can only imagine what Mom would make me wear. And I’d have to deal with Aunt Lorraine every day, and Hannah.

  “What about the station?”

  “Skip will have to find someone else for during the week.”

  Mom doesn’t like me working there any more than she likes me training. I can’t win. I let my hair grow out the way she likes. I pay for everything for myself. I give her money. And still all that matters is that I’m not like Hannah, all girly and interested in “normal” things.

  She’ll never let me train for real.

  She’ll never let me really join Clearview.

  She won’t stop until I look like she wants me to look and act like she wants me to act.

  “Phone’s already ringing,” I say as Uncle Skip unlocks the door to the station. It’s not even seven yet.

  “Everyone with a weekend problem’ll be champing at the bit.”

  He flicks on the lights in back and in the service area. I head straight to the front.

  “Hey, Bex, what�
�s shaking?” Mike asks, leaning over the counter reading the paper.

  “Not much. Coffee?”

  I start filling the pot. Uncle Skip hollers from the back, “Go ahead and open. Bud’s coming by.”

  “Better be bringing doughnuts,” I shout.

  Bud does indeed bring doughnuts, and his own coffee because he says ours is weak as spit, but I’m busy taking the messages from the voice mail and just wave a thanks as he goes by.

  “Mullin’s Service Center,” I answer the phone, shuffling the messages in order of emergency. “Depends what it is. . . . Yeah, we can handle that. Yeah, no problem.”

  “Whatta we got?” Mike asks, already three-quarters of the way through a doughnut, powdered sugar all in his beard.

  “Two won’t-starts, blown tire, a weird clunking noise, Sanford seeing if you have time for a quick oil change and once-over this morning, a guy named Ben who says he’s calling about the camper?” I ask, and he takes that one. “And Mrs. Presley, twice. She says it’s shimmying again.” I waggle my eyebrows, and he laughs. Mrs. Presley has a thing for Uncle Skip.

  “Call Sanford and tell him to come on over,” he says. “I’ll take the rest.”

  It’s a steady stream of calls, cars and trucks at the pumps, lost tourists, regulars stopping in to see who’s around or to get a pop or gas. A lot of equipment, lawn mowers, and ATVs to be gassed up. Deliveries. Parts, pop, the supplier servicing the kerosene pump. Monday.

  Late morning I go out to help Mrs. Johnson at the pump so she doesn’t have to get out of her car, and then do a once-around, checking the pumps and picking up trash.

  Mr. Hirsch, Mr. Hoff, and Mr. Henderson (three of the Four Hs) play cards at the picnic table, drinking my coffee and talking, like they do most Mondays.

  “How’s tricks, Bex?” Mr. Hirsch asks.

  “Fine. Where’s Mr. Heinman?”

  “Prostate,” Mr. Hoff says, and the others grunt. “Gin!”