Rancher Daddy

by Lexi Whitlow

  I watch the world go by from my window, wondering what I’ve done. We’ve been on the road for hours already, and now the only scenery is orange groves and almonds, growing from the edge of the highway off into the flat landscape, as far as the eye can see. At least it’s green. I know the desert is coming soon. We’ll be in LA in no time.

  Should I have stayed at home and just blown off the whole stalker thing? The guy did crack my head and take those pictures of me, but he could have killed me then. Maybe he’s actually a really impotent stalker.

  Or maybe I just wanted an excuse to leave – with Maddox.

  When he disappeared so many years ago, I was shattered. I was shattered that he hid so many things from me too; that he didn’t trust me. He had such a rough start in life, yet he was such a good person, I couldn’t make sense out of why he just left without even a goodbye.

  We have at least four more hours on the road ahead of us before we’re anywhere near Los Angeles. Maybe it’s time to start asking the hard questions.

  The highway rolls by, trees blending into sky, darkness falling. I look out of the window, leaning away from him.

  “Why did you leave the way you did?” I ask him. “The night of my graduation. You just disappeared.”

  Maddox turns his attention away from the road for a second to meet my eyes. I can see his wheels turning. He’s trying to formulate a reply that won’t cause me to either claw his eyes out, or jump out of the moving vehicle; neither one of which I have the energy for right now. The man has worn me out, physically and emotionally.

  “Just tell me the truth.” I look away, back toward the orange groves.

  He draws in a deep breath and then sighs sadly. “I was made to understand the errors in my judgment.” Maddox replied. “And I was given the choice of signing up for the Marines, or basically having my already crappy life completely destroyed.”

  My parents.

  He took his turn to ask the hard questions. “How come you didn’t go to law school? Or marry some power suit your mother approves of?”

  I have to laugh at his second question. “I’m not marriage material,” I say. “And I didn’t go to law school because… mother really wanted me to go to law school. Choosing a Ph.D. in political science – the low-profile life of an academic rather than a power broker – that was just another thumb in her eye. It’s the little things I do that give me the most joy.”

  “Why do you say you’re not marriage material?”

  Good lord. Where is he going with this? This is fun, but — it’s not meant to last.

  “Any guy who wants to be in a relationship like that with me, only wants it because of who I am, or more to the point, who my mother is. I want no part of any guy like that. So… I don’t really do relationships. My last real boyfriend was lovely, and he didn’t give a rats ass about my mother – which added to his already considerable charms – but he was lacking in ways that are kind of essential to making a relationship work.” I roll my eyes. “We’re friends now. His boyfriend is adorable. They’re happy together.”

  “How long ago was this boyfriend?”

  “A couple years.” I answer. “I’ve just kinda dated around the edges since then.”

  “I’ve seen the dossier.” Maddox replies, his eyes narrowing.

  “The dossier?” I ask. “What the fuck?”

  “You know, you swear like a sailor?” He observes, then answers the question. “Your parents keep closer tabs on you than I think you’re aware of. When I got this assignment, your mother gave me a file. It included a list of every hook-up you’ve had since… I guess since before the gay boyfriend. He’s in there too.”

  What the ever-loving hell?

  “The list took up several pages.”

  “I hope there were pictures.” I quip. “I hope you got an eyeful.”

  “There were. A few. You certainly have a taste for… I dunno… skinny, nerdy guys. All getting their Ph.Ds. Not that I’m saying there’s anything wrong with that.”

  “Apparently you are.”

  “I’m not judging,” Maddox says. “I’m not perfect either. I have a penchant for petite redheads with bad attitudes. Some fixation from my past, I suppose.”

  “Fixation?” I observe. Then I repeat it. “Fixation?”

  “Isn’t that what they call it when you can’t shake some unfinished business from your formative years, you just keep going around the same circle, like a dog chasing its tail?”

  “So that’s what I am?” I say. “A fixation.”

  “You’re something,” he says. “Something I need to work out.”

  “Yeah. You do that.” I reply coolly. “Work me out of your system before you have to deliver me to the wolves. You’ve got five days. You saw the itinerary. You don’t want to be tardy. You need this job. And this little trip, it’s not gonna go over well with the boss.”

  I might just muster up the energy to scratch his eyes out after all.

  We hit the mountains north of L.A. just after lunchtime, and traffic is lighter than I expected.

  “We need to stop for gas and get something to eat before we head out to Twenty Nine Palms,” Maddox says. “What do you want?”

  “I don’t care,” I say. I’m not especially hungry.

  “Oh-kay,” he says. “But if you leave it to me it’s gonna be the In-N-Out Burger on Laurel Canyon.”

  “Whatever.” If he wants to eat gross crap, who am I to try to dissuade him?

  He drives another few miles and takes an exit, descending us into the ugliest gut of the San Fernando Valley my vivid imagination could never conjure. Miles and miles of concrete, nondescript strip malls (half of them empty, boarded up, dilapidated), and shitty little box-like houses, housing shitty little people with box-like lives. It’s hard to believe this place represents anything except suicidal tendencies.

  We get gas at a Mobil Station just across from the cloverleaf, then head up a block to the In-N-Out. In a rare moment of indecision, I tell Maddox to ‘just order me something’. Thirty seconds later I fear I may live (or die) to regret that decision.

  Maddox pulls up to the drive-through and after enduring the incomprehensible garble emanating from the loudspeaker at the menu board, he says, “Yeah. I want a 4x4 with extra cheese, fries and a Coke, and a 3x3 with fries and a Coke, and two chocolate shakes.”

  No! No! No! “Make mine Strawberry!” I say.

  “Correction. Make that a chocolate and a strawberry shake.”

  The speaker garbles something else, which – using some sixth sense I have not yet developed – Maddox miraculously understands. He replies. “Extra mustard, salt and ketchup. That’s it.”

  The menu board responds to him, and he pulls forward. He’s happy with anticipation like a kid at the fair.

  “I love In-N-Out,” he says. “I don’t get to do this often enough.”

  We’re back on the highway before I can unwrap the burgers and salt the fries. I have no idea what a 4x4 or a 3x3 is until I peel back the paper. Seeing the monstrous thing oozing grease all over the place, I am glad there is no such thing as a 5x5.

  “I think this is yours,” I say, handing Maddox a burger stacked with four meat patties, pasted with melted cheese; a sandwich so big I can scarcely comprehend what it’s going to do to his stomach.

  “Oh yeah,” he says, grinning. “Gimme that.”

  He shoves fries into his face with reckless abandon. I laugh at him and feel a little lighter as we head out on the road again.

  I unwrap my burger and am astonished. It’s one patty shy of double bypass surgery.

  I hold it up at him. “Really?” I ask. “This is like a pound of meat. How am I supposed to —”

  He grins. “You seemed fine with a pound of meat earlier.”

  “Oh, clever. Just so clever. I see what you did there.” I hold up the burger.

  He smiles, mouth full, chewing. “Eat it,” he says. “It’s good.”

  I take a bite.

  Oh. My. God.
Yes. Oh, fucking hell, yeah. That shit is delicious.

  We get through L.A. without too many delays, downing our burgers then dipping into diabetic coma territory with the shakes as chaser. Slipping into the valley, I decide to re-open our earlier conversation.

  “So petite redheads aren’t exactly a dime a dozen,” I say. “But you – a Marine with a body to die for – you haven’t been a monk, have you?”

  Maddox slurps his shake. “Not exactly,” he says. “But, I’ve been deployed overseas more than I’ve been stateside. Life on an aircraft carrier with four thousand sailors isn’t exactly hook-up central.”

  “I bet there were a few.” I pry.

  “A few.” He agrees. “Girls in the service. Or girls who gravitate to guys in service. No one to write home about.”

  “No big-time love affairs you wanted to tell your mom about?”

  He glances at me, then turns his gaze back to the busy highway ahead. “None,” he says.

  “How is your mom, anyway?” I ask. “You never say anything about her. She’s in L.A. Right? We could go see her.”

  I see Maddox’ expression darken. He says nothing.

  “How is your mom, Maddox?” I ask again, realizing he’s holding back.

  His jaw clenches. His eyes narrow.

  “She’s not good,” he says. “She’s doing chemo right now. She did radiation a few months back. She had surgery last year. She’s in a trial now. It’s experimental. It’s working — but — it’s just a matter of time.”

  I had no idea.

  “I’m sorry,” I say, but my words feel empty. Nadine Bryant was a beautiful women when I knew her. She was full of piss and vinegar, and she kept her generally inebriated husband jumping through hoops, but she was alive like few of us are. And she did a good job raising Maddox up to be a decent human being.

  “It’s alright,” Maddox says. “It is what it is.”

  “Can we go see her?” I ask.

  Maddox shakes his head. “That wouldn’t be a good idea,” he says. “She’s vain like a Hollywood star. She’s bald right now, and there’s a big scar across the back of her scalp. It would make her uncomfortable to be seen like she is. I wish it was different, but… it is what it is.”

  I wonder what my mother would be like, all her power gone, her body betraying her. The ability to control her world, obliterated. She’d be in hell. She’d make everyone’s life hell.

  “If you don’t want to talk about it, that’s okay, but...”

  “I really don’t want to talk about it.” Maddox interrupts me. “I can’t do anything about it, so I just deal. I do what I can to make sure she’s okay and the bills get paid. Beyond that, it’s out of my hands.”

  I watch the desert spin by, just outside of my window. It’s plain, but beautiful.

  It hits me all at once, and there’s a crushing weight in the pit of my stomach.

  “Maddox, did my parents get her into that trial?”

  “I said I’m not especially interested in discussing it, Avery.”

  “Maddox. Please.”

  He’s quiet for a span of thirty seconds, maybe more. “You know we don’t have that kind of sway on our own,” he says, his voice very, very quiet.

  I sit still with the weight of it. This explains so much. My mind is fragmented with all the pieces of it, but I can see it all fitting together. It’s just like my parents to orchestrate all of this. To control me. To get back at me.

  To use Maddox just because they can.

  This boy I knew, who never really got a chance to be a kid like I did, is now dealing with issues bigger than senate elections. He never went to summer camp, or played varsity football, or smoked weed under the bleachers. He got his first job when he was fifteen years old, and used the money to buy his own clothes, shoes, and school books.

  Now he’s taking care of a desperately ill mother?

  He’s a stand-up guy, and I’m a rogue princess bemoaning my own privileges. I don’t even know how he can tolerate being in the same airspace with me.

  “Mom always loved you.” Maddox adds out of the blue. “She knew your parents hated me, but she said you were worth waiting for.”

  She said that?

  “She’s the one who convinced me to come back and take this job.”

  Well there you go. Nadine, the sage. The prognosticator of all things meant to be.

  “She’s probably on some really debilitating medication.” I respond flippantly. “That’s probably why she said that.”

  Maddox scoffs.

  I am such a bitch. It’s a coping mechanism.

  I am so sick of driving, and I need to pee, but we’re almost there. We make a hard turn west, and suddenly we’re there.

  “Open the glove box,” Maddox says. “There’s some paperwork in an envelope in there I need.”

  I find it and hand it to him. He tucks it under his leg as he continues driving west through a fairly upscale residential area in the heart of Twenty Nine Palms. The landscaping is all palm trees and low, courtyard walls. The air smells of brittle, dry desert. Maddox navigates these streets with the intimacy of an old hand. I can tell he’s been here before.

  Before I know it we arrive at an intersection offering a left, a right, or a process through the main gate . Maddox goes straight and lands at the gate labeled “Visitor.”

  As he pulls up a uniformed guard steps forward. Maddox hands him an ID.

  “Lieutenant Salvatore should have added a civilian visitor permission,” Maddox says. “Her ID is right here.” He hands the guy my passport and drivers license.

  “Let me check this.” The guy disappears into his little, glassed-in box.

  In a moment he reappears, returning the paperwork.

  “I’m carrying concealed and have some gear in the back,” Maddox says. “Here are my permits.” He hands the guard a fist full of documents.

  Once again the man goes away and then comes back. “Pull over to the side,” he says. “We need to have a look.”

  I sit in the car while three guys with guns inspect the contents of Maddox backpack and the trunk. They pull out what looks like a battle rifle, check it, and replace where they found it. Words are spoken and the guys are all smiling. One of them pats Maddox on the shoulder. A few minutes later and we’re moving again.

  “I need a favor,” Maddox says, as he navigates us across the base to a nondescript gaggle of buildings near the water. “My old lieutenant, you’re about to meet him. I don’t want him to know we’re sleeping together. So… let’s just be really… professional. Okay?”

  I nod. This place is freaking me out enough. I don’t need to cause problems that might spark an international incident.

  Maddox parks near a building with no sign, and no indication of its purpose. He gets out of the SUV and urges me forward. Inside, the place is a warren of offices and cubbies. Maddox knows where he’s going and he leads me along. Every room we pass is staffed by a person with a razor sharp haircut, wearing a uniform. We pass a break room filled with ten guys who could all be Maddox’ clones.

  They’re all built. They’re all squared away. They’re all physically perfect. And they all have that same look in their eye, like they’ve been there, done that, blown it up, killed it, eaten it, and come home for the 4x4 at In-N-Out Burger – with a chocolate shake.

  I feel their eyes on me. They look hungry.

  “Look straight ahead.” Maddox coaches me. “Keep your eyes down and stay with me.”

  His hand is on my elbow, pushing me forward into the labyrinth of offices. After a few turns and twists that I could never map my way out of, we pause at a glass door bearing a neat plastic sign that reads “Lieutenant Salvatore.”

  Maddox puts his hand on the door handle and opens it. A young man at a desk, occupied behind a laptop computer, looks up.

  “Is Lieutenant Salvatore around?” Maddox asks.

  “Who’s asking?” The young man inquires.

  “Maddox Bryant. He’s expecting
me.”

  “Get the fuck out!” I hear a booming voice call from the next room. In a second a man who isn’t a whole lot older than Maddox appears from the threshold beyond. “God damn Bryant. You made it. I thought you were full of shit.”

  Maddox and this man share a fleeting bear hug, then the man’s eyes settle on me.

  “You were not kidding,” he says, sizing me up. “Alright. I’ll do my part to protect and defend the lovely off-spring of shit-head politicians, at least when they look as good as this one.”

  He hands Maddox two keys, then he looks straight at me. “I’m not a big fan of your mother’s politics,” he says. “But they don’t pay me to be partisan. Like Bryant here, I just do what I’m told.” He gives me a small wink. It would be creepy, but I can tell by his demeanor that he’s just screwing with Maddox. He’s not really flirting at all.

  He turns back to Maddox. “You know the drill. Leave it as you found it – or better. And don’t do anything that makes the neighbors complain. I had Rosa stock the fridge with the basics so you shouldn’t have to go back out for anything tonight. Oh – and don’t wreck my truck.”

  “Got it.” Maddox said. “I appreciate it, boss. I can’t tell you…”

  “Fuck that.” Salvatore said. “Sign back on for another tour. That’s how you show your appreciation.”

  Salvatore turns to me again, this time he’s serious. “You have no idea what an outstanding catch you have here, do you? I’d give my eye teeth to have this guy back with my team. He’s a damn fine soldier. You better treat him well. He deserves it. He’s one of the best damn Marines this team ever turned out.”

  He was living in a truck when the Marines got its hooks in him. He was homeless. Almost. He never planned on joining up. How could he be the best?

  I nod. “Yeah.” I reply weakly. What do you say to that?

  “With all due respect, Lieutenant,” Maddox says, almost glaring, “Shut the fuck up. She doesn’t care about any of that. And I need to get her tucked in and report back to her parents. It’s been a long day.”

  Salvatore grins. “Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. You’re on the clock. I know. When all this blows over and you get a couple days off, come visit. We’ll blow off some steam with the old crew.”