“Remember the way we felt traveling to Gracie’s farm the first time?” he says. “We were going to reinvent ourselves once again by pulling our food and our meaning from Mother Earth.”
“What could be truer than finding a new life in the land?” she says.
“It was true for a while.”
“But not forever.”
“The only forever truth I ever found was in you.”
He can feel her arms around him, her lips at his neck. “I’ve found another one, darling,” she says, “and trust me, it can wait.”
“At least you don’t have to worry about tomorrow.”
“I worry about all your tomorrows. And Fletcher’s. And Erica’s.”
“There’s nothing I can do for her anymore. I can’t return home and there’s no way forward. I’m done, I’m finished, I’ve nowhere to go except to you.”
“But he wasn’t telling the truth,” says Helen, before reaching through the twirl of his high to scratch at his chest.
“Who wasn’t telling the truth?”
“The brother. He was lying. He gave Frank help and money and probably knows where Frank and Erica went. Ask him again.”
“But if the brother gave him money, then why did Frank hold up the store?”
“To throw off the Russian. How would the police end up at the brother’s house right away?”
“Because Frank made sure they got his name,” says Oliver.
“To protect his brother.”
“Of course he would,” says Oliver as he feels Helen pull him onto his back. “It’s why they beat the brother bloody but not to death.”
“Now you’re getting it,” she says as she crawls atop him.
He felt wisps of Helen before in their conversations, the breath of a breeze, a twitch in a muscle, but this is more, this is substantial, heavy, blithely erotic. The weed the girl gave him must have been positively supersonic because it is as if, with the help of the drug, the crack in the universe has widened and coming through is not just Helen’s voice and Helen’s love but her body too, unbuttoning his shirt as she once unzipped his fly long ago, opening to him again like a most precious flower.
He puts his hands on her soft, naked flanks, opens his eyes with a hope so rich, so rich it hurts, and he sees . . . he sees . . .
He pushes the naked girl off with a shout and heave so strong Ayana rolls right off the bed, flopping onto the floor and waking the dog, who yelps and growls before barking as if he has been kicked. Oliver rises from the bed like an avenging ghost with a bent back and stands over the naked girl.
“What the hell, Gracie,” he says.
The girl looks up at him, naked and shocked, but not afraid, as if she has been here before, tossed on the floor like a piece of jetsam. “Why’d you do that?” she says. “I was just trying to be nice.”
He can’t help noticing the smoothness of her dark skin, the swell of her breasts. It’s not the sight, but what it does to him that forces him to turn around.
“Put your clothes on,” he says staring at the impression he left in the bed and then at the wall and the window beyond.
“You didn’t have to get all violent about it. If you don’t want me to—”
“Put your clothes on.”
“Okay, fine. I was just—”
“Now.”
“And who the hell is Gracie?”
“I was confused.”
“That makes two of us,” she says.
When she steps out of the bathroom, clothed with a T-shirt and a pair of shorts, he is sitting on his bed, his hands clasped before him, ashamed and angry. She stares at him for a moment, as if getting up the nerve to say something, before deciding against it and slipping silently beneath the sheets of her bed.
“I’m sorry,” he says.
“Yeah? What for?”
“For not being clear.”
“Oh, you were pretty damn clear. Throwing me on the floor like that was clear as a bell.”
“No, before that. I must have said something, implied something. Why would you think . . . ?”
“Why wouldn’t I? The way you only got one room.”
“So I could keep an eye on you.”
“The way you looked at me when I lit the joint.”
“Maybe I was looking at the joint.”
“The way you’re a man like every other man. Look, it’s no biggie. In my experience it’s always expected and I just figured if you’re going to take me to California, I’ll just do—”
“You figured wrong,” he says. “And even if it’s always expected, you can always just say piss off. Trust me, it feels good to say piss off.”
“I bet.”
“Say it.”
“Piss off.”
“See. Which of the Russian’s crew expects your favors when you stay with them?”
“None of your business.”
“When push comes to shove, I just want to know which asshole’s face to smash in first.”
She laughed. “Ken.”
“With the haircut?”
“Yeah.”
“You don’t think much of yourself, do you?”
“What about free love, Mr. Hippie Man?”
“With that asshole, what about it is free?”
“Maybe not all of us can afford to say no. Maybe some of us are just struggling to survive.”
“It’s easy to find excuses.”
“Piss off.”
“Good. Now you’re getting it. So let’s be clear. I’m taking you along to help find my granddaughter. I don’t want anything from you except the truth. Got it?”
“Got it.”
“If you think I’m after anything else, you know what to say.”
“Piss off.”
“Good. I’m sorry I wasn’t clear before. I didn’t think I had to be. Don’t you know how old I am?”
“Old.”
“Now here.” He reaches behind him for a book, a ragged cloth-bound thing with library stamps on its edges. “I saw this in the library and got it for me. But you’re the one who should read it.”
“What is it?”
“Just a book,” he says, handing it to her.
“How’d you take it out from the library? Did you get a card?”
“I didn’t say I checked it out.”
“Oh, you little thief.”
“Back in the day, Abbie Hoffman wrote a thing called Steal This Book. It seemed right for this one, too.”
“On the Road by Jack Kerouac. I heard of him, yeah.”
“Read it. But be careful. It’s like a bomb waiting to go off.”
She laughs, hefts the volume in her hand. “A little like you, hey, Oliver?”
19
PIECE OF MY HEART
Oliver Cross rises from his bed like a dark specter in the thick of the night. The girl is sleeping, but Hunter is restless. Oliver laces up his boots, brushes his teeth, packs his clothes, and puts the leash on the dog, all with as little noise as possible. Even so, the girl awakens.
“What . . . what are you doing?”
“The dog needs a walk,” he says.
“Okay. Good.” Her head drops back onto her pillow. “Pick up the crap this time.”
Outside, he leads the dog to the truck, throws the duffel inside, and drives to a nearby cemetery, where he lets the dog loose among the tombstones to do his business atop the dead.
As Oliver stands by the truck and waits for the dog to return, he hears a motorcycle approach. He turns just as a red-and-black motorcycle drives slowly by, the helmeted rider turning his head to stare at Oliver from behind the dark lens of the visor. Oliver fingers the lump at his neck as he follows the cycle’s path until it disappears, leaving the road deserted again.
When Oliver turns his attention back to the cemetery, the dog is out of sight. He wonders for a moment if the dog has run off, maybe he hopes he has—he supposes a dog’s life in Chillicothe, Ohio, is about as sweet as it gets for a canine—but the dog is evide
ntly more worried about losing Oliver than Oliver is about losing the dog. Back he comes, his head hanging low, sniffing here and there, studiously ignoring Oliver even as he sacrifices pure freedom to stand by Oliver’s side, looking away all the while, too proud to admit what just happened.
“That’s all right,” says Oliver as he opens the truck door and the dog jumps right in. “We all pretend not to give a damn.”
He drives around until he finds an all-night mini-mart, fills up his tank with diesel and then a cardboard cup with coffee. He wonders if this is the same mini-mart stick-jacked by Frank Cormack. He thinks about asking but decides against it when he looks up and sees the camera in the corner. He smiles for his parole officer before paying. The first sip burns his mouth with heat and acid and it feels damn good.
He checks his watch—he doesn’t want to be too early or too late—decides the time is right, and drives to the narrow street where Frank Cormack’s brother lives. The old blue sedan is still in the drive. There is a no-thruway sign at the mouth of the street so Oliver turns around before parking the truck right in front of the driveway, blocking in the sedan. He turns off the engine and waits, sipping the coffee and letting the bitterness strengthen his disgust.
But he is not disgusted at Frank Cormack’s brother. The brother lied, of course he lied; the only puzzle is why Oliver needed Helen to clue him in to that fact. If Oliver ever had the opportunity to lie—say to the draft board—in order to protect his brother, he would have jumped. Jumped! Why wouldn’t Todd Cormack think Oliver was a threat? Why wouldn’t he lie to Oliver as he had lied to the Russian? Oliver is here to remedy the lie, that is true, but he can’t blame the brother for what he did. No, his disgust is for himself.
He knows he is many things—depressed, dour, decrepit, a useless piece of dying flesh—but after his encounter last night with the naked Ayana he knows now he is also a fatuous old fool. As a young man he wanted to change the world—a pathetically banal desire to begin with—and this is where it has led him; he has become a doddering dotard dispensing little bromides mined from a life of utter failure to those who don’t give a damn.
But it’s not too late to rip the impulse out by its roots. The next time he starts playing the wise old man, he’s going to punch himself right in the face. He is smiling bitterly at the image of his own fist flattening his nose when the front door of the Cormack house opens and Todd Cormack appears. As he makes his uneven way down the steps and drags his lame leg along the drive, there is no mark of surprise on his face or in his movements; either he saw Oliver waiting or expected him all along.
Oliver climbs out of the truck, straightens his back as far as he is able, crosses his arms.
“It’s time for you to go, Mr. Cross,” says Todd. He is about Oliver’s height but bulkier, younger, more fit, even with the bruises and the limp. It wouldn’t be a fair fight, but when is it ever a fair fight?
“I told you I’m looking for my granddaughter,” says Oliver. “What makes you think I won’t keep coming back until you stop lying to me?”
“Self-preservation?”
“I’ve been beaten before. It tastes like licorice. You’ll have to kill me to stop me.”
“I looked you up,” says Cormack. “You made yourself pretty famous. I read the whole tragic story in the Philadelphia newspapers. I can’t say I’m not sympathetic.”
“Fuck your sympathy.”
“But I also learned you’re still on parole. I wondered if this little trip out of state was authorized, so I called a friend in the local police force to find out.” Cormack makes a show of checking his phone. “He should be here soon. I don’t want you to go to jail, again, Mr. Cross. I just want you to go away and leave my family alone.”
Oliver lifts a hand and rubs at the dent in his bald head. He hocks up a glop of phlegm that was stuck in his throat and spits it to the side.
“I was just a little younger than you when my brother was murdered,” Oliver says. “He was killed by the politicians, by the generals, by the money grabbers keeping the war alive so they could sell more bullets and bombs. I think of him every day. Truth is, I still haven’t recovered.”
“I’m trying to help my brother.”
“But you’re not helping him, that’s the point. He’s in trouble. Bad people are chasing him. And now to protect you, he has the cops after him, too, probably ready to shoot on sight. Without help, he’s going to end up dead. I’m the only one who might be able to give it.”
“How?”
“Tell me where he went. I’m looking for my granddaughter, but if I find him, I’ll help him any way I can.”
“And I can trust you?”
“Who else is there? And you tell me, who would you rather have find your brother first? If you read about my case, you know I never denied a single fact. I told the bastards nothing but the truth. I thought it would be enough.”
“Learned your lesson, huh?”
“I wouldn’t change a thing. When my wife died, all I had left was the truth, no matter how hard to face. And I’m telling you this: your brother’s undeserving of anyone’s sympathy as far as I’m concerned, but if I find him, I’ll help him. Like he was my own brother. Because of what happened to my brother. Do you understand?”
Cormack looks at Oliver for a long moment, then glances at his phone before looking down the street. “I wasn’t lying about the cop. He’ll be here soon.”
“Then it’s time to decide.”
“I don’t think you can help Frank,” says Cormack. “I think he’s too far gone. But he shouldn’t be dragging down that girl with him. If you can save her, that might be enough.”
Oliver stands with his arms crossed, saying nothing, since there is nothing to say. The brother licks a swollen lip before continuing.
“Frank had an old girlfriend in Chicago. Marisol. He was going to see her, try to scare up some extra cash before sprinting to the coast.”
“You have a last name?”
“No. Just Marisol.”
“An address?”
“That’s all I have. She sings. Folk and protest songs.”
“What’s she protesting?”
“Everything.”
“I know the type,” says Oliver. “I’ll be in touch.”
“Please don’t,” says Cormack. “Just go.”
And Oliver does go. But first he reaches out and shakes Todd Cormack’s hand, one heartbroken brother shaking the hand of another, the handshake itself a sealing of Oliver’s pledge.
As he is driving out of the street, a police car, lights dark and siren silent, passes him by. The cop peers into Oliver’s truck, Hunter barks, Oliver makes the turn. He considers driving directly west to Illinois, but considers again, and heads back to the motel to wake up the girl.
Oliver Cross hobbles around the front of the squat brick diner where they stopped for breakfast before slipping the phone out of his pocket and turning it on. He waits impatiently as it boots. There is a voice message. He presses the screen like he is trying to make a point in an argument with a Republican and then puts the thing tight to his ear.
Uh, Dad, yeah, uh, I assume that’s you. So Jennifer came looking for you. She knows you’re gone. I thought you were getting her permission. You left the county without permission? How stupid can you get, Dad, really? They’re going to lock you up again. We don’t need that with everything else going on. Christ.
I turned the phones you found over to the police. Apparently the water killed most of the circuits and the memory—the technicians said they were really foul—but they’re trying to get what’s left and maybe pull down some information from the cloud. They’re especially looking for contacts.
And just so you know, things have taken a turn. That guy you said Erica was with, Frank Cormack? Well, when I gave the name to the detectives, they put it in the computer and it turned out that he’s wanted for an armed robbery in Ohio. Yeah. And he gave his name to the clerk like he was some kind of Clyde Barrow, which is r
eally troubling, because we both know how that worked out—you made me sit through that stupid video when I was like ten, remember? There’s no telling what this jerk is capable of. But according to the police reports, Erica was not involved, which is something of a relief.
The armed robbery really got to Petra. She’s beside herself. And so am I. I hope you’re not out there mucking things up for the police. You should come back home, but you won’t because that makes too much damn sense, right?
Why do I think I should be with you? Why do you always make me feel guilty? Jesus, Dad, yeah. This is a little rambling, I know. I’ll get off. Don’t forget to eat and take your pills. Please find her, please.
And Jennifer said you had a dog. What the hell is that all about?
Oliver grins as he listens to the message. He is angry because it has all gone to hell quicker than he ever imagined, but he is grinning because it has all gone to hell quicker than he ever hoped.
But now that he is officially on the run, he wishes he had run a little farther after getting out of Chillicothe. Except the girl had been grumbling that she was hungry, so he asked the GPS for a nearby diner and ended up at this dump in a town called Washington Court House. He considers calling Fletcher and telling him to snap the hell out of it, but he can’t imagine the conversation being more productive than exasperating, so instead he decides to punch in a text.
His thumbs slide across the phone like arthritic eels.
“Where’d you go?” says Ayana when he returns to their table in the wide spare dining room and drops with a grunt onto his chair.
“To check on Hunter.”
“How is he?”
“Still a dog. Think that’s enough food for you?”
“Doubt it,” says Ayana. He ordered a bowl of oatmeal and a cup of fruit. Before Ayana sits two plates loaded with fried eggs, a double order of bacon, home fries covered with white gravy thick with sausage, double toast. “Hey, ma’am, yo, lady,” she calls out to the waitress.
“What can I do you for, honey?”
“How about a stack of pancakes.”
Freedom Road Page 14