Freedom Road

by William Lashner

  “Look at me.”

  “I am, Oliver. I see a man who lived his dream with the woman he loved.”

  “It wasn’t all sweet tea and flowers.”

  “Helen was a disappointment?”

  “No, never. She was magnificent to the end. I was the disappointment.”

  “Ah, there’s the rub. Everything’s possible until we screw it up ourselves. You need to learn to live without her, Oliver.”

  “Why?”

  “It’s the only way to live with what you did. The only way to give it meaning.”

  “I don’t need it to have meaning.”

  “I understand, but—”

  “You don’t. You can’t.”

  “You’re right. Sorry. This club does terrible things to its members. We become insufferable.”

  “What, you mean you detest this place, too?”

  “I love it, so help me. It is somehow more satisfying than the wives, the children I spoiled and then left, the pack of hyenas at the firm whom I call my partners. All I ever wanted to be was a member of the club and here I am, without regret.”

  “Well, you pursued it with an admirable relentlessness, I’ll give you that.” Oliver takes a long drink from his beer. “You’ve been a good friend, Finn.”

  “I stole your birthright.”

  “Birthright? Do I look like Esau?”

  “Once, maybe, but you don’t have the hair for it anymore.”

  “You gave my father someone to take care of, and you took care of him at the end. Whatever he granted you, you earned, and I’m grateful.”

  “I actually loved him.”

  “Me too. Where’d they go, Finn?”

  “I don’t know for sure, but she asked about the farm where her father was born.”

  “The farm? Seven Suns?”

  “She said she needed a safe place for Frank to recover. I hope you won’t be cross—well, you can’t help that—but I told her where it was.”

  “The farm. Hell. Isn’t that a peach? Does she have any idea who owns it?”

  “No.”

  “Good.”

  “So, what now, Oliver?”

  “It’s time to get the hell out of here. But first I need to settle up my estate. I might have some changes to make.”

  “Good idea. Let me call over Divit, that’s his bailiwick. You don’t mind if I sit in and have another Scotch?”

  “Knock yourself out.”

  “I’ll be billing for it, too. You know, it really is good to see you again, Oliver.”

  “Why?”

  “That, right there. That’s why. Oh, Wesley. Another round. And, please, let Mr. Prakash know we’d like to see him.”

  26

  BALLAD OF A THIN MAN

  There is a moment on the road to the farm, somewhere on a dead flat expanse with the mountains appearing like a mirage in the distance, when Oliver Cross senses this entire irrational chase will be as fruitless as his life. All his noble impulses and clever wiles will once again be for naught. Maybe it has something to do with the farm itself, which for Oliver continues to hold an air of loss and tragedy. Or maybe it has something to do with the way Chicago ended, how he crossed a line after his meeting with Finn that he needs to pay for. Or maybe it is the general sullenness of the girl, sitting as far from him as possible on the bench seat, staring out at the dreary prairie as if its very monotony is a foretelling of a numb future. But something has gone wrong and the bitterness of failure has already slicked itself on his tongue.

  “I’m so bored I could grind my teeth to dust just for sport,” says the girl.

  “We’re getting there.”

  “Where? You still haven’t told me.”

  “What’s that on the horizon?” says Oliver.

  “Nothing but clouds.”

  “Those aren’t clouds.”

  “Then what are they?”

  “The Rockies.”

  “And you think Frank and Erica might be somewhere in the mountains?”

  “In the foothills.”

  “What makes you think that’s where they went?”

  “Just a hunch. The Rockies are the beginning of the west. California’s somewhere beyond. Turn on the radio if you want.”

  “It’s all preachers and country music. It’s enough to make me puke.”

  “That would be entertaining at least.”

  “For you.”

  “The dog would like it, too. It’s almost feeding time. I could play a tape if you wanted.”

  “Your old crap gives me the creeps. You don’t have anything made since I was born. I mean really, Oliver, that’s just sad. Your music is so old and white it should be in the Senate.”

  “I have Hendrix.”

  “Wow. Now I’m impressed. You’re like every other old white dude. Look how radical I am, I dig Hendrix. Hendrix. Jesus, Oliver. He’s playing your music, not ours. It’s still just guitars and psychedelic shit with that same old beat.”

  “He was a genius.”

  “Sure, but if Hendrix rapped you’d throw him out with yesterday’s garbage.”

  “Maybe that’s where he would belong.”

  “Didn’t you hear? Kendrick Lamar won a Pulitzer.”

  “Who?”

  “Now that’s just embarrassing.”

  He thinks on that a bit. “Truth is,” he says, finally, “I embarrass myself. I also have Jimmy Cliff.”

  “Rock’s dead.”

  “Reggae.”

  “Doesn’t matter. All your music’s dead. And good riddance.”

  “Why the hell are you in such a twist?”

  “Forget it.”

  “Fine,” says Oliver. “Consider it forgotten.” But it isn’t forgotten, it is a thorn in his shin, and he has a pretty firm sense of what it is all about.

  When he had returned to the house in Humboldt Park after a long meeting with Finnegan and Prakash in a private room at the University Club, Ayana was shining. She had spent the night before playing guitar with Marisol, and the next day working on the songs and pick patterns her host had taught her. She was bursting with stories about how nice everyone was, how they had a little party for her that night, how she nervously sang her Tracy Chapman song for the group and everybody oohed and aahed.

  “Marisol said if I learned a few more songs and tightened up my guitar work she could get me some gigs here or there.”

  “We have to go,” said Oliver.

  “She said I could be really good.”

  “Get your stuff.”

  “Can we wait at least just to say goodbye? Sheila said Marisol would be back soon.”

  “We’re going.”

  “Oliver, please?”

  “Now,” he said.

  But before they left the city, he drove the girl to that abandoned factory in the deserted western sector. The cracked windows, the snaking metal ducts, the air of treacherous neglect. There were motorcycles in the lot, and light behind some of the windows. Two henchmen henched at the entrance. Oliver slowly passed it once, turned around, and parked a ways down the street. The factory was visible through the windshield.

  “What’s here?” she asked.

  “Death,” said Oliver.

  “What the hell?”

  “It’s being used by a gangster named Delaney. Marisol’s cousin gave Frank to Delaney because Frank owed Delaney money. Lots of money. I thought I was going to have to go in and get him out. I probably wouldn’t have survived. I was almost looking forward to it. But someone got here before me and bought Frank’s freedom. Do you want to know the price?”

  The girl just turned and looked at Oliver.

  “The Russian’s drugs.”

  “Wow.”

  “Well said.”

  “That’s that, I suppose.”

  “Not yet. Have you been in touch with the Russian since we left Pennsylvania?”

  “No. How could I? You threw away my phone, remember?”

  “There are enough phones in the world to choke the Mi
ssissippi. Every diner has a phone, every stranger we pass. Marisol has a phone, too. Did you call the Russian? Did you check in with your handler?”

  “Handler? Oliver? No, I swear. Truth is, I’m thrilled to be away from those assholes. I’m going west, man. California, right? Or someplace on the way. Fuck them and their bullshit. No, I haven’t. I don’t want to. Ever again.”

  She was looking at him with some sort of pleading in her eyes. Whether she wanted him to believe a lie or the truth he couldn’t figure, but just then it didn’t much matter. From out of his jacket he pulled the phone and a paper with the address that the blue-haired woman had given him.

  “You had a cell all this time?”

  “Of course I did,” he said, turning it on.

  “Who were you calling?”

  “That’s not what’s important. What’s important is who you’re calling now. You’re calling the Russian or one of his people.”

  “Wait a second. What?”

  “You’re going to tell him you’re outside the hideout where his drugs are sitting. You’re going to describe it, tell him the name Delaney, and give him this address.”

  “I don’t get it. Why?”

  “He needs to know that Frank doesn’t have his precious cargo anymore. He needs to know where it is. Maybe he’ll give up the chase. Maybe he’ll barge in here and try to get it back. Let these assholes kill each other instead of chasing Frank.”

  “Oliver?”

  “Do it,” he said.

  “I don’t want—”

  “Do it.”

  She did it. He stayed silent as she made the call and gave the information. Then he listened to the cursing and threats from the other side. That was the line he had crossed, forcing her back into that world, and he knew it even as he was crossing it. But what else was he going to do? If it came from him, they wouldn’t believe it. It had to come from the girl. When she finished, he pulled the truck away from that stinking place with a hard piece of hope lodged in his heart.

  Let the blood flow.

  It wasn’t long before the spires of the city flashed in the rearview mirror. Oliver suspected then it would be the last time he ever saw the royal skyline of his hometown. You would think he would have shed a tear, but the hell with sentimentality. Finn was old, and his father was a ghost, and except for a few paintings in the Art Institute there was nothing there for him anymore. His home now was in his love for Helen, and what was left of Helen was behind the bench seat, and so he was homeless, finally, and glad for it.

  So long and good riddance. Westward ho!

  But his race to the farm hadn’t gone smoothly, as if he was being made to pay for his transgression. To cheer up a suddenly quiet Ayana, he had taken her to a barbecue joint in Moline. Beautiful Moline, not exactly the barbecue capital of the world.

  “What are you getting?” she said.

  “Potato salad. Beans, maybe.”

  “No brisket? No pulled pork? The beef ribs look big.”

  “Is there an animal you won’t roast and chew?”

  “Stringy old men. Though with the right barbecue sauce, you never know.”

  “Funny.”

  The beans were good, and he had seconds, suddenly not caring about the chunks of smoked pork stirred into the mess. But his stomach cared, turning as soon as they hit the Iowa-Illinois Memorial Bridge over the Mississippi. Whatever he had eaten in Moline he ended up crapping out in a gush in a motel room east of Des Moines. He thought he could make it all the way to the farm the next day, stopping only to fill up with diesel and to feed and walk the dog, but his truck disagreed, having its own kind of intestinal distress outside of a place called Salina.

  “Your belt’s worn and your radiator hose is collapsed,” said the mechanic, wiping his filthy hands on a filthier rag. “It’s an old truck you got, mister. We need a get the parts in from Topeka.”

  That cost them another night, staying at the Starlight Motel with its fabulous neon sign, its aerosol scent, its pink walls and stiff sheets, with a microwave sitting atop the fridge so you could eat like a king while you waited for the parts to come in from Topeka. The television was on, tuned to some piece of trash the girl picked out.

  “Turn this shit off and walk the dog,” said Oliver over the celebrity groaning. “I need to get to sleep.”

  “I’m watching this. You walk the dog.”

  “I know you’re watching. I can smell your brain rot. Why don’t you read the book I got you?”

  “Fuck your book.”

  “What the hell’s got into you?”

  “I think the truck is telling us something. I think the truck is saying give it up.”

  “Why would I listen to a truck?”

  “Because maybe it’s smarter than you are. Maybe it’s time to call the whole thing off.”

  “What are you talking about?”

  “You made me call the Russian. You made me tell him Frank’s got nothing anymore. What makes you think Teddy’s still hunting him? Maybe the danger’s over. Maybe Erica and Frank are off on some great adventure. Maybe they’re already gone from where you think they are.”

  “Maybe they’re not.”

  “Maybe they don’t want to be found.”

  “Maybe I don’t give a shit.”

  “Maybe you’re doing this for some other reason.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, Oliver. I’m no psychiatrist. But you sure as hell need one.”

  “Probably.”

  “Let’s go home.”

  “Now you want to go back?”

  “You already sent me back.”

  “Freedom’s hard, isn’t it?”

  “Let’s let them be and go home, Oliver.”

  “This is my home, now.”

  “Where, here? This crappy motel in this crappy town in this crappy state?”

  “On the road.”

  “You and that stupid book.”

  “It’s a good book. Respect the book.”

  “Fuck the book. I read a little more in Chicago when I was waiting on you. I got to the part where he meets a girl on a bus, and falls in love, and screws her silly.”

  “Terry, yeah. Sweet Terry. I was always a little in love with Terry.”

  “Then he runs away because he was a college boy, and she was a migrant, and he didn’t want to spend his life picking cotton. He went back home to his college boy life in New York and the girl was left flat. Maybe even pregnant. But what did he care. I mean, she was a Mexican, right?”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “No.”

  “Well, maybe it was.”

  “Your Ker-o-what-the-fuck would have voted Trump for sure.”

  “Not when he was young. He wouldn’t have voted at all when he was young. But when he became an old drunk, yeah. There’s film of him complaining about dirty hippies to Buckley that makes me sick.”

  “Who’s Buckley?”

  “Some old fascist with a Brahman accent. But still, what the hell’s gotten into you?”

  “We need to look after our own, right?”

  “That’s what I’m doing.”

  “Then do it. I mean, Oliver, he’s your fucking dog.”

  Oliver walked the dog.

  And as he did, all his fatuous little explanations rose like pin bones to gouge his throat. She was right about the book, Ayana, damn right; he was a fool to even try. Every generation finds the voices that call it to order. Oliver’s mother was making Oliver and his brother sit down and listen to Gene Krupa even as Chuck Berry and Little Richard were tearing the face off anything she could have understood. Why should Kerouac’s riff on Thomas Wolfe have any call to the children of today’s insanity? And with the mash he’d made of everything in his life, what standing did Oliver have to push anything on anyone, a book, an idea, a cynicism or an idealism, a political view, a poem, a way of life. It was all illusion, the only truth of things was in the urn tucked behind the seat of the truck. The girl was nineteen and
utterly lost yet still she saw Kerouac more clearly than he ever had.

  Before they picked up the truck the next morning, he mailed the book back to the library in Chillicothe.

  And now, with the cab of the truck fetid with the stink of an animosity of his own dealing and with the sense of everything gone wrong, the girl, the dog, and Oliver are rumbling ever closer to the great ridge of mountain.

  Somewhere in a hollow beneath two high hills leading to Blue Mountain lies the farm. Seven Suns. A place of blood and ghosts. Oliver remembers making this same journey all those years ago, with a desperate hope that the three passengers in his VW van, one still unborn, would find a new and brilliant life there based on principles pulled from the heart and the earth instead of from the balance sheet of a bank.

  But this trip is made with clearer eyes.

  He slides off the interstate and rolls through the commercial crap of small-town America in the shadow of Pike’s Peak, the little airport, the holes strip-mined into the hills, the Walmart and Sam’s Club and fast-food burrito joints. They continue past the turnoff for Pueblo, until he hits old Route 115, now called the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway. It should bring fond thoughts of his brother, but all it does is piss him off. They lied to him and killed him and all he ended up with is this beaten stretch of rural road.

  “Did I ever tell you about my brother?” he says to the girl.

  “No.”

  “He’s dead” is all he says.

  The earth starts bulging with muscle as he heads south. And then things start to look familiar: a water tank, like half a barbell stuck into the ground, along with the mountainous rise on the right. There’s more development than he remembers, a tract of houses here, a strip mall and trailer park there, but even with the surface changes, the landscape is as ingrained in his memory as the venous back of his dying wife’s hand.

  They used to take this road up to Manitoba Springs, where they had a Mardi Gras–type fair that brought in good folk from up and down the Rockies. After the dancing, the drinking, the reefer and ’shrooms, the laughing and protesting, the organic tomatoes eaten by hand—sweet as cotton candy with juice and seeds dripping down chin and forearm—they would ride back down old Route 115 in their trucks and jalopies, and that pyramid-shaped hill of rock right there, just there, told them when it was time to take the right; a pyramid, like a noble grave for all the hopes that died in that spot of the foothills.