by Aven Jayce
Jack leans forward again, this time deciding on a song to end the silence... “Wild Horses.” It’s the one I selected when we were leaving the trail where my mom was killed. The first song on his playlist labeled “last breath.” The one he said wasn’t for our ears... the one he demanded be turned off.
That song.
“This is incredible. Who’s singing this version?” Quinn asks. He looks out his window, waiting for a response that doesn’t come. He turns back, trying to read Jack through his reflection in the mirror. The dark sunglasses prevent us from seeing any pleasure or pain in his eyes, and his stone face isn’t giving away a thing.
Quinn clasps his hands and tilts forward, his face inches from the back of Jack’s head. “Gives me the shivers,” he says. “The voice is powerful, yet calming... haunting guitars... it’s heavy in the same way being caught in a thunderstorm feels suffocating... dark skies, thick clouds, a pelting rain... then the feeling of coldness and gloom becomes this healing sensation when you listen to the lyrics... like the sun’s coming out.”
I watch them both—Quinn vanishing into the song while his head rocks in a steady motion—and Jack’s lips moving to the lyrics. He lets a whisper of the words sneak out, at one point telling us the singer’s Elliott Murphy, a name unfamiliar to me.
I turn back to the road, becoming one again with the countryside. My hand makes a slow rise out the window, hovering above a warm current before taking a speedy dive. I’ve done this time and time again since I was a kid, the repetition sedating, and adding to the tranquility is Jack’s choice in music, guiding my mind to think about my quick decision to be here, in this car, heading west—the choice between old and new.
It’s not easy to leave people behind, but sometimes you can’t have both worlds. If an incident in life forces a person to choose between a mom or a husband, what’s the outcome? The choice between the two would change from person to person, that I get, but would the decision be the same if it were a choice between staying with an aunt or leaving with a boyfriend?
Mother or husband?
Aunt or boyfriend?
If my mom were alive I can’t say for sure I’d pick a guy over her... with Nadine, things are different. The love’s not as strong, not as deep from her, and those missing feelings are emerging with Quinn.
... broken... tears... mm-mm cried.
... living... mmm-mm we die.
Jack diverts my thoughts for a moment by revealing a tender voice, a change from his normal bad boy facade. He hums, and every so often I can hear a word or two creeping out.
... drag mmm away.
Wild horses... mm-mm some day.
I bring my hand inside the window and slide closer to Quinn, putting my temple to his chest. He drops soft kisses atop my head and runs his fingers through my hair, combing it back into place.
“I love you,” I whisper, looking into his tired eyes. With a slow-moving tip forward, our lips join for an ardent kiss.
“Love you, too,” he whispers back.
Vehicles race past as the car slows and the song fades, coming to an end.
I think he’s pulling over.
The sound system’s turned off and the rumble strip thunders as we cross the solid white line.
“Is the car okay?” I ask.
He stops on half pavement and half dirt, sets the parking brake, and kills the engine.
“Is this...” I hesitate and stare at the single white farmhouse at a distance. The home surrounded by a moat of pine trees and miles of open farmland. “Is this where you want us to get out?” My pulse leaps.
Tap... tap-tap... tap... tap-tap.
His bandage amplifies the sound of his finger tapping the steering wheel.
Tap... tap-tap.
Quinn nudges me, swiping his finger across his cheek, then gestures toward Jack.
I see it—a spasm on his face and a twitch of his top lip—a man straining to hold in his emotions.
He removes a gun from his waistband and leans over the passenger seat to open the glove box, hiding the weapon under a thick pile of papers before slamming the compartment shut. He shifts back and glances at the traffic, waiting for a semi to pass before getting out of the car.
Standing next to us, he sets his palm flat against the glass, the same as when he presented us with Wade’s blood. It squeaks as it slithers down the window, disappearing into the pocket of his jeans.
“What’s he doing?” Quinn asks, ducking to watch his hunched walk as he passes in front of car, heads through a shallow ditch, and goes into a waist-high cornfield.
“Jack,” I call to him through the open window. “Where are you going?”
“Maybe he has to take a piss.”
“We just passed a rest stop a couple miles back.”
“He looks exhausted.”
“He’s been driving all day, could be crashing.”
“Could need some fresh air, too.”
I open my door and Quinn follows, the two of us advancing into the field.
The corn’s drooped and the ground’s cracked from the tireless sun... and the tired son is drooped and may have cracked.
He drops to his knees on a patch of soil where smaller stalks, the runts of the litter, are fighting to grow. With a tilt of his head to the sky, he begins talking to himself...
“Would you have killed her if she had asked? Could you have done it?”
He digs into the earth, raising a handful of tan soil, spreading his fingers to allow it to pass to the ground like sand falling inside an hourglass. He does it again, repeating, “Would you have killed her if she had asked?”
We stop several feet behind and listen.
“Would you have killed your mom if she had asked you to?”
“I think he’s directing that question at you,” Quinn says.
“My mom?” I question.
“If she asked you to kill her, would you have taken her life?”
I look at Quinn and he shakes his head, both of us unsure what he wants, what he’s doing, or what to say.
“I don’t understand,” I respond. “W-why would my mom want me to kill her?”
He bows his head and hides his face behind his hands, starting to tear up.
“Jack...” I whisper.
As we stand under the heat of the sinking sun, in some random Midwestern state, near some unfamiliar rural town, in a remote cornfield, I realize even Jack... Jack Jameson... a guy who has the means to do whatever the fuck he wants in life, who has the strength of three men, who appears to be resilient to fear and offers no remorse to his victims... now shows he has weaknesses so great that they can’t be suppressed or subdued at every moment of every day.
In this spot, as I look down and shuffle my feet on the dry earth, I now think he’s one of the strongest men I’ve ever met, for those who never show their weaknesses are the most cowardly of all.
Quinn takes a few steps forward and reaches out to touch his shoulder, stopping before making contact. I can sense he’s pondering what we’ve been through instead of offering help, but after another minute of observing Jack on the ground, he kneels by his side and takes the plunge.
“Don’t get mad, it’s just a question,” Quinn says, “but did you kill your mom?”
“Fuck no.” He removes his shades and rubs his forearm across his face, then uses the back of his hand to clear away his tears. “It’s just a question.. it’s...” he exhales and repeats, “If your mom wanted to die, would you take her life?”
I kneel in front of him and say, “Never.”
“I couldn’t either,” Quinn agrees.
“Even if she was dying? If she was sick and wanted help ending her life, still no, right? Tell me that’s true. You wouldn’t help her, even if she was going to die. You wouldn’t.”
I look to the earth again and the fractured soil where my mom now rests, starting to tear up. I offer the same answer to his question. “No... even i
f she were sick, I’d leave it to God. And even if I didn’t believe in God or look for his help, I’d trust the doctors would keep her pain free until the end, but I’d never cut someone’s life short. Never. I know others could, and that’s their choice to make but, in a selfish act, I’d want each second with her ‘til the end.”
“That’s why.”
“Why what?” I ask.
“Why I’m...” His voice rises with anger while his expression remains full of sorrow. “I’m furious every single day because... because my dad sat with his ex-wife, my mom, and guided her through popping a bottle of pills... that he sat in our house and made sure no one came in and stopped her... that he took her hand and played her that song, her favorite song when she took her last breath... and when she was gone, he left. He left like she had committed suicide on her own. He took off. He fucking left.” He takes out his switchblade and thrusts it into the ground. “He left!” He stabs the earth. “He left leaving his teenage son to find her body. He did that to me. How could he? They should’ve fucking told me. Both of them should’ve talked to me before it happened. And he fucking took off and never said a word to me about it. He led her into death and kept it from me. He made me find her. He made me find my mom no longer alive. She wasn’t breathing!”
“Shit.” Quinn looks down and shakes his head. “That’s... umm...”
Jack leaves the knife in the ground and forms a fist, lurching forward to punch the dirt with hatred so profound I can see it seeping out of every pore. He looks down, his eyes pooling once more, sending a tear to the ground that is instantly sucked into the thirsty soil.
“She had weeks left, days, hours... and all that time was taken from me.” He pounds his chest. “I needed that time. They should’ve told me. She took her last breath without me... she died and my whole life changed. I had no choice but to live with him, and everything fucking changed after that.”
“I’m so sorry.” I put my hand on his leg and offer what solace I can.
“I’m not fucking living the rest of my life with fucking people I can’t fucking trust, like my fucking, fucked up dad. And when I’m out of fuck’s to give in life, then my dad’s gonna be sorry. You can count on it. I’m so furious. That bastard needs to admit what he did. He helped her die and he kept it from me. For years he kept it from me. I’ll never forgive him for making me be the one to find her body. That asshole.” His jaw clamps tight and he clenches his teeth so hard that I swear they’re going to break. “Couldn’t he have been more careful talking about it with my stepmom last year when the person he’d hurt the most was within earshot? Why? I didn’t need to hear it. I never needed to find out. Why’d he have to bring it up years later with her?”
“Jack, I’m...”
“He knows I heard, his face went white when he saw me standing nearby, and still, still he won’t come clean and talk to me about it.”
“That’s why you made me say that to him... that killing my mom would be the ultimate sin.”
“The ultimate sin,” he says.
Quinn rubs his thighs and turns away for a sec, all three of us biting our lips to avert our tears. “Sorry, man. I get why you test people’s loyalty, sick and twisted as it is, I understand what it means to you.”
“I was fucking robbed of my time to tell her what I needed to tell her before she died.”
“I know, I didn’t get that time either,” I say.
“Same here. None of us had a last moment before they left us,” Quinn adds.
Jack stands and brushes his clothes free of dirt, then snaps and kicks at the cornstalks, bringing two down.
“Fuck.” He tosses out a couple of air punches. “I wish I hadn’t found out. It totally changed my relationship with my dad. Now, I’m torn between loving the sack of shit and wanting to take an axe to his head. One of these days I’m gonna split him in two. I’m gonna take his knife collection, all twenty-two of his blades, and shove ‘em in his chest so he can feel my pain... the fucker’s lucky I love him most of the time.”
Quinn takes my hand and helps me up, whispering, “Sounds like the old Jack’s on his way back.”
“That’s right, I am, because men can only be pussies for five minutes at a time, and only with their closest friends.” He wipes his face and yanks his blade out of the dirt, walking away. “Time’s up.”
“What? Who says?” I question.
“I do. Time’s up.”
“That’s it?” We start to follow him back to the car. “You consider us close friends and you’re helping us because we share the loss of our moms and because we’re loyal?”
“Time’s up. Let’s go. No more questions.”
“Wait. We’re not done.”
“We’re done.”
“No, we’re not. So pretending to hang me on that trail was about you and your dad, wasn’t it? You wanted me to say I killed her so it would be a substitute for what you want him to say—that he helped her die. Am I right? But I didn’t kill her.” He bolts toward his car. “Did you fantasize that I was him? Your dad? Because you want to hang him, right?”
“Hold your tongue or I’ll stick you in my trunk for the rest of the trip.”
“Jesus Jack, it’s okay to be self-reflective for longer than five minutes. Don’t you want to talk some more? This is a breakthrough. Maybe we can help. And it’s okay to cry, I don’t mind.”
“I don’t cry, I drip.”
“Okay, then drip all you want. Wait, slow down.”
He stops and tucks his sunglasses in the collar of his tee, staring at the Hellcat.
“Fuckin’ A.”
I look up and see what he sees, having the same reaction. “Fuckin’ A.”
“Please tell me that’s not a cop that just pulled behind the car,” Quinn says.
“It’s a state trooper, keep walking. Act like nothing’s wrong.” Jack starts on ahead, lowering his hand to his side and dropping his blade to the ground. “Don’t say a fucking word, I’ll do all the talking. Got it? Addie, keep your mouth zipped. I’ll handle this.”
“What are you gonna do?” Quinn asks.
“Exactly what I’ve been told to do.”
“Don’t kill him.”
“What? Yeah, that would be smart. He’s got my plate in the system by now. Just stay quiet.”
He wipes his face with his shirt and puts on a fake smile as we make it back to the road.
The trooper’s already out of his car and approaching the Hellcat, signaling for us to stop in front of it.
“This your vehicle?”
“Yes sir,” Jack answers, crossing his arms.
“Having car trouble?”
“No... I’ve been driving all day and needed to walk around a little, you know, stretch my legs, that kinda thing.”
“Did you see the rest area two miles back?”
“No sir.”
A semi roars past, discharging a fierce wind that slaps our faces and sends dirt into our eyes.
We’re motioned to move to the shoulder of the road as the middle-aged rotund trooper takes a walk around the car and peeks in the windows. He heads back to us and speaks into his shoulder walkie... “Run that plate number yet?”
“It’s registered to a Jack Jameson of South Lake Tahoe, California. No violations,” a voice responds.
“Copy that.”
He gives us the once over, spending more time scrutinizing over Jack than Quinn and me. With one raised brow, he studies his swollen nose, puffy lip, deformed earlobes, bandaged finger, and vivid arm tats, picking up on the overall sinister vibe he exudes. “License and registration.”
He nods and takes a step forward, sending the trooper to touch his gun and Jack to stop in his tracks. With a raise of his hands, he says, “Registration’s in the glove box and my wallet’s in my back pocket.”
“Step forward and place your hands on the vehicle.” The trooper waves him forward then points to Quinn and me, his big-knuckl
ed hand as still as a church mouse. “You two, stay put.”
Jack gets patted down. The wallet’s taken from his back pocket, flipped open, and his license is removed.
“Mr. Jameson, what are you doing out this way?”
Jack clears his throat, buying time to think of something to say.
“I gave my sister and her boyfriend a lift to Albany... she had summer orientation at the university there. Now we’re on our way home.”
Fuck, deeper and deeper we go.
The trooper looks at the fading marks on Quinn’s face from the fight at the river. “Your licenses.”
We say and do nothing.
“Take out your licenses.”
The warning from Jack’s side-eye not to speak is evident, and frankly, I doubt I can form a word.
Quinn’s a stone, not a movement or a peep, except for rising and falling shoulders from anxious breathing.
“No worries. I’ll get my registration and grab their licenses from the backseat,” Jack says, sliding his palms off the hood.
“Put your hands on the vehicle. Don’t move!” the trooper commands.
He gets back into position and mouths the word fuck with fixed attention on the guy as he walks to the passenger side of the car.
“My registration’s in the manila envelope right on top... the very top.”
The trooper stares at us as he opens the glove box then glances inside.
His gun’s in that compartment... or... even worse, I think it’s Trent’s gun... it looked like the one Trent had... but if it is Trent’s, where’s Jack’s? Is there a second gun in the car? And is it registered?
I need a muzzle for my brain.
Stop thinking. Don’t think.
Okay, he’s got the envelope, now just shut it... don’t look around, just shut the compartment.
“The licenses are in the back?”
“Yes sir. Look in the side pocket of her duffle bag,” Jack answers.
“Is there a reason these two can’t speak for themselves?”
The three of us bow our heads, Quinn and me with our eyes on our feet and Jack cemented to the hood. With that unified action, I’m sure we give the impression we’re guilty of something.
This is not good. Not freakin’ good at all. It’s time to pray to anyone and everyone. The guy’s gonna see I’m from New Jersey and that my last name is Moore, not Jameson, then he’ll question if Jack and I are siblings, and when he finds out Quinn doesn’t even have an ID... at his age, no ID? Waving red flags, giganto waving red flags soaring over our heads.