Freedom Road

by William Lashner

“You’ve got to take care of yourself.”

  “Why?”

  “Don’t.”

  “Just come on.”

  They walk on together in quiet again, moving west toward the end of the valley, choking down the anger they still feel one for the other. They are both puzzled at its origin, both saddened by the losses, both forever in its grip. Somehow the river of their lives together that had sprung on this very land has been rerouted to a fetid pool of muck neither can escape.

  “Chicken coop’s still up,” says Fletcher. “And there are still cows in the pasture. Not very vegan of them.”

  “Purity is overrated,” says Oliver.

  “And Gracie’s still here. She gives me the chills, like some old harpy with loose stringy hair. But I was happy to see some of the others, Angie, Toby, and Crazy Bob. I always liked Crazy Bob. He used to give the kids caramels.”

  “The caramels without the acid, hopefully.”

  Fletcher trudges on in silence before he starts laughing. “I do remember he had this chemistry set bubbling away in the back of his cabin. Jesus, you guys were so cracked, all of you high as kites, dancing like waterfalls in the moonlight. No wonder it all went to hell. But the goats are new. Look at them all.”

  “They’re Wendy’s.”

  “I saw her last night when she came back from some bar.”

  “Tearful reunion?”

  “Once I realized who she was. I didn’t recognize her at first, it was just some strange stringy lady. But she remembered me. She hugged and hugged.”

  “She got me, too.”

  “Every time she clutched me close I felt like one of her chickens and my neck started tensing. I can’t believe she came back. Of all the kids, she was the one I was sure would leave for good.”

  “Why?”

  “Because, well, you know. You don’t know?”

  “Know what?”

  “I mean, who else could get Notail to follow her? She was pretty amazing like that.”

  “Notail?”

  “The coyote with the missing tail.”

  “Wendy?”

  “She was getting old enough. It was going to be her turn. Sunrise told her to run, but she had a different idea that would protect them both. Why, what did you think?”

  “It was your bat.”

  “Wendy asked to borrow it. But wait, you didn’t think . . . ?”

  “I bought you that bat.”

  “I was only seven, Dad.”

  “But you were a wild seven.”

  “Well, I wish I had done it. That son of a bitch had it coming. What do you hear about Sunrise?”

  “She’s a venture capitalist.”

  “Good for her. It’s not easy bucking the craziness, let me tell you. I bet it put Gracie’s back up.”

  “Yeah.” Pause. “Wendy, huh?”

  “Wait a second. Is that why you never bought me another bat?”

  “Didn’t I?”

  “In Little League I always had to use one from the team bag.”

  “I didn’t notice.”

  “Were you scared of me?”

  “Don’t be silly,” says Oliver.

  But thinking about it, he wonders: Was that it, the night of blood and fire, when everything between them changed? Had Oliver ever looked at his son again without seeing the smashed head, the intestines ripped out by the coyote’s teeth? Or was it his own sense of failure that was looking for an excuse and seeing it somehow in his son? He is still considering it when they reach the three-railed wooden fence surrounding Crazy Bob’s field. The fence is so old, and in such poor condition, it might still have some of the wood Oliver put in himself when he built it. Oliver rests his arms on one of the top rails. Fletcher leans on the fence beside him. The two men look forward so they don’t have to look at each other.

  “It’s nice to see some things never change,” says Fletcher.

  “It’s legal now in Colorado,” says Oliver. “Growing it, selling it. And no one knows those plants like Crazy Bob.”

  “I guess there’s money to be made, huh? But you couldn’t do it without consent of the land’s owner.”

  “That won’t be a problem.”

  “Why not.”

  “I consent.”

  “Wait, what?”

  “When my father died, I had Finnegan have the estate buy the farm from old man Oates. I didn’t know what to do with the money, but keeping my friends from being evicted off the land seemed like an okay deal. And maybe I had some guilt for leaving like we did.”

  “How much money was there in the estate?”

  “Enough to ruin us all.”

  “Did Mom know?”

  “Of course she knew. She always knew everything. But she also knew my father tried to hold his money over our heads like a whip. We didn’t want it when he was alive and we sure didn’t want it when he was dead.”

  “So you bought the farm with it instead.”

  “With some of it.”

  “And with the rest?”

  “I told Finnegan to do with it what he wanted. I figured he’d siphon it into nothing.”

  “And?”

  “Finnegan was cleverer than I gave him credit for.”

  “How much is there?”

  “Does it matter?”

  “Hell yes it matters. Money always matters. Why did we live poor all those years if you inherited this big estate?”

  “We didn’t live poor. We had a roof we paid for with work, food we paid for with work. We went to the beach when we wanted to swim, camped out when we wanted to drink in the stars. If I lived in some snooty stone mansion I’d have drunken myself to death.”

  Fletcher stays quiet for a while, letting it sink in. “Did you ever think the reason I chose the path I did was because I wanted better for my kids than I had?”

  “And how’s that working?”

  “Yeah. Did you ever use your dad’s money?”

  “To get your teeth fixed before my father died. Going to Chicago and asking for that was fun, but your mom insisted. And then that college you chose up in Vermont.”

  “I thought you got aid.”

  “It didn’t seem right to take from a kid who didn’t have the backstop we had. And we paid for some of the second opinions for your mother that the insurance sons of bitches wouldn’t cover. We always knew we had it if we needed it, which is a lot, but we didn’t want it to dominate our lives.”

  “Grabbing it by the fistful or refusing it out of pride doesn’t seem so very different.”

  “Don’t get too wise, it’s unbecoming.”

  “Why don’t you buy a new truck or something?”

  “I like my truck.”

  “It’s a wreck.”

  “So am I.”

  “We finally agree on something,” says Fletcher.

  They lean together on the fence, looking out over the field. The plants are still young, not yet bushed to the max, but there is a pleasant sweetness in the air.

  “There is money now in weed, I must admit,” says Fletcher.

  “There always was.”

  “The problem is there are so many regulations for a legal cannabis farm. It’s not easy complying, even out here. And the price of entry is high on purpose. They make it hard so they can keep it under control.”

  “Regulations and money. Too bad that’s not anything you have experience handling. Maybe Sunrise can help.”

  “And can you imagine my partners’ reaction if I started representing a pot farm. They’d go apoplectic.”

  “Win-win.”

  “Truth is, it could be a whole new practice area. Maybe we’d have to open a Denver office. And you’ll want to include Crazy Bob and Gracie and the rest in the operations, I assume.”

  “And Frank too.”

  “Hell no.”

  “Think about it, Fletcher.”

  “I don’t need to think about it. He’s a wanted felon. He’s a punk who can’t be trusted other than to screw up everything he ever touched. And
he stole my daughter from me.”

  “How’s it going with Erica?”

  “Not well. She says she wants us to leave her alone. She says it’s her life and she’ll do what she wants with it.”

  “I always liked that song.”

  “I don’t know what to do.”

  “Maybe start by taking care of the kid.”

  “So it’s a strategic gambit?”

  “He’s in trouble. Give him a hand. He doesn’t deserve it, but he needs it. That’s gambit enough. The world sometimes opens up when you step out of your narrow path. Besides, I promised his brother.”

  “Ah, so that explains it.”

  “And he reminds me of my brother.”

  “He’s nothing like your brother. Your brother was a hero.”

  “They’re both lost in someone else’s war.”

  “I look at my daughter, Dad, and my throat just constricts in panic.”

  “Trust me, I know what it is to lose someone more important than your own heartbeat.”

  “I know you do. I still think of Mom all the time.”

  “Yeah, the old bat too,” says Oliver.

  33

  PRETTY VACANT

  If you asked Frank Cormack then, right then, what ticked him off most about Erica’s family showing up unexpectedly at the farm, he would have told you it was that, for some insane reason, he hadn’t been expecting them to show up at all.

  What kind of dupe had he been? The same kind of dupe he had always been. Anyone looking at the thing with a clear eye would have known they were on the way as soon as the old man showed up in his ratty old truck, but Frank was too wrapped up in his own little hustle to see it. So when they appeared like ghosts in the shifting light of the fire, it felt like a kick in the gut.

  He shrank in his seat when they appeared. He had never seen them but had heard all about them in Erica’s late-night rants as the remnants of the sex and the drugs licked their jaws: the perfect little sister; the cold and demanding mother whose status depended on her daughter’s achievements; the work-obsessed father who stormed about with a Scotch in his hand, wondering what went wrong with his life. It sounded like a nightmare, something absolutely to flee, and he had believed when he started this run that he had been breaking Erica out of some sort of prison.

  But here, now, in the fire’s glow, they didn’t seem so god-awful. They hadn’t given up on her the way his family had given up on him. And when they looked at him, first the mother, then the father, picking him out as the problem right off—troublemaker had been written across Frank’s face from the time he was five—the anger in their stares showed only how much of a shit they gave.

  “Mom, Dad, this is Frank,” said Erica in a grotesque playact of a high school girl introducing the ’rents to her prom date.

  They wanted to wring his neck, especially the fat ruddy father—Frank could see his lips tighten and his fists clench—but all the father did was nod, curtly. When the women and the little girl slipped to the other side of the fire, the father held down the volume of his voice, though not of his anger.

  “Nice night,” said the father.

  “It sure is,” said Frank. “How was the ride down?”

  “Uneventful.”

  “We didn’t have it so easy.”

  “I heard.”

  “I figured the lawyer might have filled you in.”

  “What are your plans?”

  “Stay here for a bit, maybe. I need to rest the leg. Then Europe if we can swing it. Paris eventually, depending on the money.”

  “Right now I want to break your jaw so bad you’ll spend your life in Paris eating onion soup out of a straw.”

  “I don’t doubt it.”

  “I could do it, too. It wouldn’t take much with a druggy piece of string like you. But Erica’s looking over here with a worried gaze. And the sight of my daughter ministering to your broken body with tears in her eyes would have me projectile vomiting.”

  “I’ll keep her close, then.”

  “But know that if anything happens to her you’ll be answering to me and it won’t be pretty.”

  “Get in line, Pops,” said Frank, and they both smiled as if they were enjoying getting to know one another, and in a way they were.

  “My family’s staying in the cabin with me tonight,” Erica said to Frank when they had a moment together.

  “Why don’t they get a room in town like the lawyer?”

  “I can’t do that to them. They want to stay. And my father has history here.”

  “What about me, sweet pea? Where am I supposed to sleep?”

  “I don’t know. The stable?”

  “You’re killing me. You know how bad that place smells. And they leave tomorrow?”

  “God I hope so.”

  “Either they leave or we leave.”

  “Yes,” she said, and then she kissed him and the kiss was so sweet it almost choked him. “Either they leave or we leave.”

  “I don’t think they’re leaving without you.”

  “I think you might be right,” she said, already looking away to her sister and mother. “If I’m going to get through a night with my family, I’m going to definitely need some medication.”

  “That can be arranged,” he said.

  When she trundled back to her mommy and daddy and little sis, Frank bummed a joint from Crazy Bob and headed away from the ruined old farmhouse. The old man had already disappeared, as had the lawyer, and there was nothing anymore keeping him at the fire. By the light of the low crescent moon he picked his way past the vegetable garden and Gracie’s cabin, around the Camaro and the old man’s truck, and along the path to the reservoir. When he reached the slope leading down to the water he sat on a mat of grass.

  The moonlight danced on the calm surface of the pool. He lit the joint, lay back, grooved on the stars as he smoked. They were so sharp and bright, paving a shining path across the heavens.

  Marisol told him once that everyone was formed from stardust. Which meant those stars overhead might be relatives, parents or cousins. That one there might be his uncle Ernest. Hey, Ernie, how’s it hanging? He couldn’t help but admire them, the stars, so cold and brilliant, so impassive. There was something punk rock about them, all bright eyes and dead affect, all simple chords and snarling riffs, not giving a crap what you thought of them, just glowing, glowing. They were the goddamn Sex Pistols of the universe, oh so pretty, and oh so vacant. He closed his eyes and saw the startling array beneath his lids. And then he imagined what kind of star he’d be up there.

  Skittering, desperate, shifty and red, rushing here and there like a mad dog, like a money-mad dog, as the old man would have it.

  He snapped his eyes open, desperate to again see the cold brilliant stars with their utter lack of concern. How had he ended up like this? How had he lost his way so brutally?

  Somehow he had always felt like he was being left behind, like a truer life was being lived elsewhere. Like all would be well if he could only make it to Thursday nights at the club. Like all would be well with one big score. Like all would be well if he could get Marisol back. Like all would be well in Paris. He had never been to Paris, had no idea what it really was like, but the pictures were so beautiful. The pictures. His life would be perfect if only he could get there. Until he saw another picture of another place to skitter off to.

  Truth was, he just wasn’t big enough and that made him sad. Uncle Ernest was up there burning bright, not giving a fuck, and he was down here spinning like a top.

  When he felt the earth itself heave beneath him like it was somehow alive and trying to shuck him off, he took a last draw from the joint and flicked away the nub. Enough of that. Thinking too much only caused trouble. There was something about the old man and this place that chewed at him, like an infection. And Crazy Bob’s weed, having been grown right here, had the same disease.

  He didn’t remember how he got up from the reservoir and into the stable, but the boards beneath him con
tinued to heave even as the old man kicked him awake and started talking about wood. He tried to go back to sleep, lay curled on the floor beneath a thin blanket hoping the day would slip away from him, but his leg hurt and his side ached and his life sucked and there was nothing to do for it but to rise. When he finally stumbled out of the stable, dressed but still a bit wacked from the weed, Erica was waiting for him.

  “I brought you a muffin,” she said.

  “Bran I assume,” he said.

  “Sadly, you assume right.”

  Even though it was dry and medicinal, he still tore at it. “How was your night?”

  “My dad snores. I guess I knew this, but sometimes you don’t really know a thing until it’s shaking the timbers of a cabin in the foothill of the Rockies. The coyotes were coming up to the front door asking him to keep it down. No wonder my mom drinks.”

  “Other than the snoring how was it?”

  “Can we go?” she said. “Can we get out of here? Please. Let’s just go.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “I’ve never been more sure of anything in my life.”

  “Okay, okay, yes,” he said, the cavern in his chest filling with hope as the brochures of their next stops played like a slideshow in his mind. LA, Bali, Prague . . . The image of the Eiffel Tower sparkling in the perfect Parisian night slowed him down.

  “It’s just, being with them, right now in my life, it’s impossible. They’re trying so hard, being so careful. It’s like I’m a little porcelain vase that they’re afraid of breaking. But I can see in their eyes what they’re thinking, how much of a disappointment I am, how much of a problem. All they want to do is solve me, but I don’t want to be solved.”

  “They care. You can’t fault them for that.”

  “But it’s not me they care about, don’t you see? They care about their plans for me, which is something very different. They care about what they’ll say to their friends about me, how they’ll explain me. I’m another totem on their status pole. But as for what I want or need, all they want for me is not to be a burden anymore.”

  “I’ve heard this before, sweet pea. Maybe they just care.”

  “What, you’re on their side now? I saw you chatting gaily with my dad. Best buds now, huh? But you’ve seen them for one night around the campfire, I’ve lived with them all my life and I can’t do it one more day. Your stuff’s in the stable and I can pack up and be ready to go in like five minutes. My dad’s off with my grandfather somewhere. I’ll say goodbye to my sister, tell my mom we’re going into town—she won’t try to stop me—and that will be that.”