“She wasn’t eating at the end. She was just hurting. And we weren’t running off to Oregon to do something as natural as dying. She wanted to go out on her own terms and she had earned that right. It wasn’t about being legal or not. Fuck legal. It was about the doing of it, and I did it, and it still fills me with regret every minute of every day.”
“So it was a mistake?” said Ayana.
“I didn’t say that.”
“But you said you regret it.”
“Life is choice,” said the old man slowly, carefully, like he had chewed on this same piece of gristle for years now. “For every path you take, there are three you piss on. If you’re not living in a dream world, then the regrets pile up like corpses in a war. The only thing I never regretted was her. But sometimes, when you love so hard, you have no choice but to let go. So I let her go.”
The old man continued staring at the fire, as his words settled over them like a cold mist. Then, with eyes glistening like marbles in the firelight, the old man lifted his gaze until it locked tight onto Frank’s.
!Snap!
A spark flicked in Frank’s brain, right behind his eyeball, and it felt like a jagged piece of electricity had jumped right from the old man into Frank’s skull. And even as Frank jerked his head back the old man kept staring, as if to say, It hurts, doesn’t it? But he knew right then what he had to do to get in the old man’s pocket.
The dogs stirred, a couple barked as a light painted Gracie’s cabin, her field, and the scrub brush beyond. As the dogs bounced up and bounded toward the juniper tree, Frank heard a vehicle pulling slowly into the mouth of the drive.
“They’re back early,” said Crazy Bob. “That’s strange. The dancing probably hasn’t even started yet at Anchors. Wendy does love her line dancing.”
As the light died and doors slammed, Frank waited for the sound of revelry from the returners, the burble of laughter and alcohol-fueled high spirits. But instead his neck bristled at the barking of the dogs, and a low murmur of voices he didn’t recognize. He looked around. No one seemed worried or perplexed, no one but Erica, whose head swiveled to a whistle only her ears could detect.
Frank tried to rise but a fear pressed him down in his chair, pressed him down even as Erica stood. Frank was expecting the worst when a little girl, blonde and barely hip high, ran out of the darkness right up to Erica and gave her a hug.
It took him a moment to realize what was happening, but when it came to him it was dizzyingly clear. That was Erica’s sister, the perfect little sister she talked about all the time. And there, standing just outside the fire’s circle, with the shifting light giving them the aura of ghosts, were a big-bellied red-haired man and a woman, thin and blonde, with a gold necklace hanging over her white silk shirt, a hand over her mouth, and tears catching bits of firelight.
Frank wondered for a moment how Erica’s family had gotten here, until he spied, coming from behind the parents, a dark man in a suit. A suit. On the farm. It was the lawyer, of course, the slick, high-class mouthpiece who showed up everywhere and was working, somehow, for Oliver Cross. Son of a bitch. When he turned to look at the old man, the old man was looking right back with a crooked grin. All this time who had been playing whom?
The lawyer stepped around Erica’s parents and went up to the old man.
“Good to see you again, Mr. Cross,” said the lawyer.
“Prakash,” said the old man without getting out of his chair. “About time you got here. Have yourself a beer.”
“Yes,” said the lawyer. “I don’t mind if I do.”
And just that fast, Frank Cormack knew his manic run to Freedom! with Erica Cross had finally come to an end.
32
THE HIPPY HIPPY SHAKE
Oliver Cross is lying on his back, his ankles and chest once again stippled with spider bites, his nose once again clogged with crust. It’s déjà vu all over his face. So where the hell’s the dog?
He rolls over and sees the beast lying stretched on his side atop a blanket on the hard stable floor, facing away from the bed. The dog’s head perks at the sound of Oliver rustling behind him, and then falls back down on the blanket. Beyond the dog lies another cur, on his side, sleeping atop a pad on the floor: Frank Cormack. Maybe the two of them could eat out of the same bowl, Oliver thinks. It would save on the washing up.
Oliver cranks his back until he is sitting, stretching the bedsprings with a cronk, and then grunts to a rise. The dog jumps up in a startle as if a marching band has barged through the open door. Frank doesn’t stir.
Back bent, bare feet splayed, neck stiff, naked as the dog who bounds crazily about him, Oliver shuffles through the gaping front door and from underneath the cover of the newly leveled portico roof. The green, the blue, the white, the song of the birds and the hum of the insects, the hot yellow sun peering over the ridges to his right. And still no Helen. He clears his nostrils, one then the next, and breathes in the crisp morning air before heading to the bush.
“You’ve been waiting on me,” he grunts.
Ayana, leaning on one of the pillars, studiously looks away. “Have you seen Frank?”
“He’s sleeping on the floor inside.”
“Poor Frank. You really screwed him to a post, Oliver.”
“I gave him a chance.”
“By bringing in the family to whisk her away?”
“Is love worth fighting for?”
“Sure, I suppose.”
“Then I gave him a chance to fight,” says Oliver.
“I don’t think he sees it that way.”
“That’s his problem.”
“I’m leaving.”
“Goodbye.”
“That’s all you got?”
“What do you want, a brass band?”
“I need a ride to the bus station in Colorado Springs.”
“Okay.”
“And bus fare.”
“Okay.”
“And maybe some food money.”
“Fine.”
“Do you want to know why I’m leaving or where I’m going?”
Oliver lifts a hand and rubs his skull. She is here to talk. She has something to say, and wants him to say something back. But just then, in the crisp morning air, he doesn’t want to hear her mewings or his own, especially his own.
“I don’t give a shit,” he says.
“Your concern always leaves me dazed, Oliver.”
“I could fake it if that would make you happy.”
“Don’t put yourself out for me, old man. Just let me know when we’re leaving.”
“Sure,” he says, giving a final shake before turning around and heading back to the stable.
“Hey, Oliver,” says Ayana before he disappears through the door. “Why do you act like a crazy bird out here, wandering around naked, peeing in public, not giving a damn about anything? What the hell’s gotten into you?”
“This place brings me back to myself.”
“I don’t want to burst your bubble, but maybe, you know, that’s something to avoid.”
“Too late,” says Oliver.
After he dresses, he gently kicks at the sleeping corpse on his floor with a battered boot. Frank squirms but stays unconscious and Oliver kicks a little harder.
“What?” says Frank, pissed.
“We need to fix the roof and then the floors,” says Oliver. “For that we’ll need wood.”
“What do you want me to do about it?”
“I’ll bring you an ax.”
“What the hell?”
“Wake up, Frank. The birds are singing your song. I’m going into town to buy some wood and maybe some power tools.”
“Power tools?”
“I thought we’d saw the wood by hand, but you’d collapse after two boards. You want to come?”
“Anything to get out of this place.”
“We’ll also be taking Ayana to the bus station. We leave in a couple hours. I’ll feed the dog.”
“Good. Now let me sleep.”
Oliver fills a bowl with kibble and a bowl with water and leaves them outside the front of the stable. Hunter starts chomping, glancing once at Oliver as a warning that he’s not sharing.
“Capitalist swine,” says Oliver.
He didn’t stay around long enough the night before to see the results of the reunion he had engineered. He had set it all up with Prakash at his father’s club in Chicago, told him to get Fletcher out to the farm in three days’ time unless Prakash heard from Oliver first. And now there Prakash and Fletcher were, along with the rest of the family, which Oliver didn’t anticipate but understood. Fletcher might have been his son, but Petra was the fierce figure in that family. She wasn’t going to be shunted aside.
Petra had actually come over to him by the fire and tried to give him a hug, which Oliver was able to avoid with awkward thrusts and feints, but he couldn’t avoid her profuse thanks.
“Just be calm with her,” Oliver said softly. “No orders.”
Petra nodded tearfully. Oliver was sure Prakash had given the same advice on the ride down from Denver, because he and Prakash had discussed that very thing, including the legal freedom of Erica’s majority. But still he knew how hard it could be. While Petra kept mumbling her thanks, Oliver caught Fletcher staring at him from the other side of the fire, his face slack with complicated emotion. Parents are such fools sometimes.
But that was enough family time just then for Oliver. He took a fresh beer from the bucket and headed out into the darkness to fill in Helen on the goings-on. But Helen stayed quiet, as if still angry at his stoned accusation the night before. Or maybe she was just pissed at the tone of his voice. Whatever, he spent the night alone with his beer and the stars, before heading into the stable to sleep.
Now as he approaches Erica’s cabin he sees the strangest sight: his blobby middle-aged son in khaki shorts and a pink golf shirt, doing deep knee bends, skinny white legs flexing, arms thrusting forward from the bulbous torso with every dip like little pale pistons.
“What the hell are you doing?” says Oliver.
Fletcher stops his dipping and pistoning, takes a deep breath, wipes at his sweat-dripped face with the bottom of his shirt. “I’m working out.”
“Is that what that was? It looked like you were having a fit.”
“I’ve gotten fat.”
“It happens.”
“Not to you. You never got fat.”
“I worked for a living.”
“I work, too.”
“In boardrooms? At swanky corporate retreats? Is that work?”
“Can we not do this?”
“What else do we have?”
“It’s just being back kind of invigorates me. I barely remember the place, but still. I want to get strong again. I want to race like a coyote again. The firm sponsors a five K. You think I should start running?”
“Who from?”
“Daddy?” came a soft voice from behind a tree. Fletcher turns and the little girl comes forward and leans herself against her father’s hip. Blonde hair, scared eyes, thin arms as pale as her father’s. Elisa. Somewhere Helen’s heart is swelling.
“Say good morning to your grandfather,” says Fletcher.
“Morning.”
Oliver, speechless in the face of such innocence, nods.
“Mommy said you were going to try to find Erica and then you found her. Was it hard?”
“Not really,” says Oliver.
“You made Mommy so happy. If I run away will you find me, too?”
“Not if you’re better at hiding than your sister.”
The girl laughs and moves slightly away from her father. “I am better at hiding. I’m the best. In hide-and-seek Daddy never finds me.”
“Is he trying?”
“Of course I’m trying,” says Fletcher. “Usually trying to sleep.”
“Where did you take my grandmom?” says the girl.
Oliver’s tongue is immediately tied. How can he possibly answer this? How can he explain to this little person what really happened to her grandmother and why he did what he did? What answer can he give her that isn’t a sugarcoated denial of everything?
Before Oliver can mumble some platitude that would make him sick, the little girl goes on. “We liked talking to her.”
“We all did.”
“We would go to the fireplace, Daddy and me, and tell her things. You know, when we had news or something.”
“Ah, I see,” says Oliver. “And what did she say?”
“She didn’t talk back, silly. She was in the jar. But we still liked talking to her.”
Oliver closes his eyes and rubs his skull. Even dead she is a bigger part of their lives than he could ever be. Some things can’t be recovered.
“Come with me,” he says and he starts off for the stable. He glances back and sees father and daughter, his son and granddaughter, standing together for a moment, hesitating, before following behind. He slows to let them catch up and the three walk together. When they reach the stable he stops in front of the portico.
“We used to live in this building,” says Fletcher to his daughter. There is a note of pride in his voice that surprises Oliver. “We all slept in one big bed.”
“That sounds like fun,” says the girl.
“Don’t get any ideas.”
“Why does it smell like pee out here?”
“It’s the cows,” Oliver says.
“They got out of their pen?”
“Or the squirrels. Wait here a minute.”
He goes inside and when he comes out again he is holding the urn. The girl claps when she sees it.
“The Grandmom jar,” she says. “Is she still in there?”
“Still in there,” says Oliver. “I thought your grandmother would like to be part of this place. We were happy here, for a time at least, and it seemed fitting. ‘I bequeath myself to the dirt to grow from the grass I love. If you want me again, look for me under your boot-soles.’ That’s from Uncle Walt.”
“Who’s Uncle Walt?” says the girl. “Do we have an Uncle Walt?”
“No,” says Fletcher.
“I was going to scatter her ashes here,” Oliver says, “but your grandmother would be happier hearing you telling her all the good things that happen to you and your sister and your mother and father.”
“And you?” says the girl.
“She already knows what’s happening to me, good and bad. Here.” He bends over and hands the urn to his granddaughter and the girl takes it with a fierce solemnity before smiling wildly and hugging the urn tight like a teddy bear.
“Thank you, Grandpop.”
“And when you get tired of her,” says Oliver, “she liked the Pacific Ocean, too.”
“Why don’t you go show your mother and sister what your grandfather gave you?” says Fletcher.
“Okay, bye-bye,” says the girl before wheeling and running off, stiff legged, back toward the cabin.
The two men stare at the girl as she runs from them.
“That was almost sweet,” said Fletcher.
“I’m slipping.”
“Where’s the son of a bitch?”
“Inside the stable, pretending to sleep.” Oliver grinds his teeth, looks out over the ragged remains of the farm. “Let’s take a walk before you do something stupid.”
They walk quietly across the land, letting the earth speak to them. Memories twist and rise from the dirt like blades of grass beneath their shoes. This place was a crucible in both their lives, though in very different ways, and so as father and son cross the valley, they do so quietly. Can the father remember the way the son held tightly to his friends’ hands as they cracked the whip across these fields? Can the son remember the way the mountain wood came to life for the father beneath the soft rush of the plane, or the intentness of his wife’s eyes as she wrestled a canvas into purity? As soon as they talk they will fight, that is what has become of them, so for a time they walk across the land without words.
&
nbsp; “Why did we ever leave this place?” the son says, finally.
Oliver gives Fletcher a sideways glance. “Your grandmother took sick,” Oliver says, using the simple excuse he has used ever since they drove off the land for the final time.
“But we could have come back.”
“We have.”
“With Mom dead and you on parole, you figured now was the time? Erica said that some of the people here think you killed Lucius. She said you didn’t deny it.”
“I don’t care what they think.”
“We never talked about any of it.”
“There’s nothing to talk about.”
“Okay,” says the boy. “Good. So what are your thoughts about the future? Are you coming back home?”
“I busted parole. They’ll put me in jail again. Hell with that. Maybe I’ll stay here. Frank is helping me fix up the stable.”
“Frank? Mighty chummy with the scumball who kidnapped my daughter.”
“No one kidnapped anyone.”
“It is so like you to defend him. He should be in jail. He was dealing drugs before he stole from his drug-dealing boss. He absconded with my daughter, who is barely of age, and took her over state lines for immoral purposes. Isn’t the Mann Act still something? And he robbed a mini-mart with a gun. Not to mention the crap in Chicago that Divit told us about. If I had a shovel I’d knock his head off and bury both pieces right here.”
“I don’t doubt it for a minute.”
“What does that mean?”
“Frank’s a young idiot who made mistakes, but it’s a big club.”
“This is so typical. He’s a criminal who almost got my daughter killed and should be in jail, but he’s on the road, chasing America with a gun and a Camaro, a goddamn Jack Kerouac on steroids, and so he’s a hero. And me? Well, I work in a suit and tie, which means I’m just a piece of shit.”
“Ah, good,” says Oliver. “So you do get it.”
Fletcher stops cold and stares, before he starts laughing. “Piss off, Dad.”
“Good boy,” says Oliver without turning around.
“What’s with your neck?”
“It’s a little stiff.”
“Is it your nodes again?”
“The bed in the stable is not a bed.”
Freedom Road Page 28