My father used to tell me evil had to be invited in. “It’s like a friendship at first,” he said. “You have to want to be friends with it. Open the door wide and let it play with your toys.” He used to rattle my Tonka trucks in my face with a goofy smile meant to look menacing and say, “The devil made me do it.” We had a routine, a little one-act play, that we’d do standing across the room from each other, me fidgeting and hopping—giggle-girl anxious:
“Daddy, are you the devil?”
“Hell yeah, pumpkin.”
“Will you play with me?”
Then he’d run to me and lift me up above his head to spin me Supergirl style.
My dad’s point, I think, was that evil doesn’t take people by surprise. In order for it to really get you, a tiny piece of you has to want it. He sure wanted it, my father. He drank it up until he lay down on the train tracks where he let it kill him. Literally let it split him in half. And that’s what I tried to do too, right? It’s what I’m still trying to do. Split myself in half.
In the warm, moonlit gloom of the diner, I search the wall and find light switches. I flip them all on and turn to face the long room. Their low hum kicks in. I see signs everywhere that once stated the obvious: COFFEE. CIGARETTES. PIE. THIS HERE IS SOUTH DAKOTA. Proud pictures of anonymous Native Americans on horseback. A wooden carving of just a head. Pictures of horses and buffalo. The inside of the diner has been cleaned recently. The shiny curl of the stools, the edge of the countertop, and the shelves along the back wall. It all sparkles.
The counter splits at the midpoint. Behind it is a swinging door with a diamond window of glass that must lead to the kitchen. I’ve triggered the lights in the kitchen too and they shine proudly through the diamond window.
I’ll check the kitchen for food. Then head back out to Veronica for the night.
Through the swinging door there is a small kitchen fully stocked with pots and pans. The grill with an oven below sits in front of me and to my right is the silver door of a walk-in freezer. To my left is a prep station.
“Diners are for waking you up and bars are for putting you back to sleep,” I say aloud in homage to my father. He would have wanted to bring this place back to life. Ray would have wanted to burn it down.
I still the swinging door behind me. With it closed, the kitchen feels safe. Almost cozy. The refrigerator is empty, the air inside of it warm, but when I open the metal cupboards, I find neatly stacked cans of beans and corn. Tomato sauce. Tuna. The cans are ordered, arranged with the labels out. I pull out a can of black beans, find a can opener, and a small pot. The stovetop clicks once, twice, and then the flame leaps up. At least one tank is still full on this property. I find some old spices and a spoon. I turn on the oven and open the door so the heat of it fills the room. With my back to the freezer, I eat the beans from the pan.
The warmth of the oven loosens my muscles further. I feel floppy. Soft. I’ll rest for a minute. My eyes burn when I shut them. I’m drifting, drifting, gone.
* * *
I wake with my hands on my forehead. The stove is still on. I can feel its heat, and I sit up and pull my boots away. The rubber soles are warm. The eyelets burn too hot to touch. My throat is sore. How long did I sleep?
The narrow kitchen spins, and I press my hand to my stomach. I have to pee or puke or both. I turn off the stove and test the kitchen sink to see if there is running water but the pipes don’t even groan; they’ve given up long ago. When I feel steady, I push out into the dining area. The building is empty. Outside, morning has arrived.
The sky is yellow and pink, and the world isn’t so scary. I walk across the parking lot—avoiding the spot where I saw that masked creature last night and find a space to squat and pee. The ground is brown with pine needles and shiny with frost. My urine is hot. A faint steam rises.
The world is steadier, warmer once I’ve finished peeing.
All my aches and pains holler, but yesterday’s damage isn’t too bad. The air is crisp, and the pavement is slick enough to skate across.
The diner remains warm compared to the outside world. I’m hungry, and I pull another can of beans down off the shelf. I put it all in a pot to heat, but the burner won’t light this time. There’s just the noise of the gas clicking on so I reach for my lighter. But it isn’t in the pocket where I always keep it. It isn’t in any pocket. I see it on the counter next to the stove and snatch it up. I know I didn’t put it there. I’d never leave it out like that. Pills. It’s my next thought and shame comes with it. I search my pockets. They are gone.
A low thump. And then another from beyond the kitchen door. It’s a purposeful sound.
A fist against a door, perhaps. A rap against a countertop, probably.
“Is someone there?”
I push open the kitchen doorway and stand still. The room appears to be empty. The silence and the growing daylight make me feel confident even as my heart begins to pound faster.
The door swings shut behind me; it flaps freely back and forth.
“Do you know how to get to the Badlands? I’m lost, actually.” I touch the rough edge of the counter with my fingertips. “I’m stepping out from behind the counter now,” I say. My blood is beating heart-attack fast.
There’s a click, a familiar noise. It’s Lowell’s gun, held by a little boy and pointed at me.
He’s young. Maybe seven or eight. A silver mask obscures his face. It looks as if it’s made of tinfoil, crumpled and shaped into wings. His eyes, nose, and lips peek through. The mask is beautiful. His fingers on the gun are dirty.
“Hello.” A greeting that comes out too loudly against the silence and then I hear the shot. It’s deafening. The room comes alive as my heartbeat increases, pumping through my limbs, climbing up into my ears and mouth. I smell the gas burner still trying to light and the little boy’s sweat. He exhales in a way that makes me worry he’s been holding it in since I first arrived at the diner. The gun drops to the floor.
My eyes stay with the boy as he pushes through the door and out into the light.
THREE
There is a neat little hole in the tin roof behind me.
Lowell’s gun rests on the black-and-white tile floor. The kid has dropped it near the door in his rush to get out. I move forward and pick it up. The barrel burns the skin at the small of my back as I stick it in my pants. I let it burn even as my jacket catches on the doorframe and I step out into the wintry world. The kid is standing perfectly still, watching me from around the corner of the diner. The shiny curves of his mask camouflaged by the shiny curve of the diner.
The mask covers up his features, all except his too-green eyes. Fierce as a cat’s.
“Why did you try to shoot me? I ought to kick your tiny ass,” I say to get some sense of authority back. He’s shaking. He’s wearing dirty jeans and a flannel shirt over a fisherman’s sweater. His tiny fists are clenched so tightly that I worry he’s going to make himself bleed.
“Shit, kid…” I pause, unable to think what I should say next. “I just needed to get warm. I’ll head out as soon as I can. I’m trying to get to the Badlands.”
“I’ve seen you before,” he says.
“I don’t doubt that. Last night, right? That was you?”
The air is crisp with cold but with the sun out it feels good. He’s still shaking.
“Are you cold?” I ask.
“Nobody comes up here anymore.”
“I see that. Are you from here?”
“This is where I live,” he says.
“Were you born here?”
“Nobody gets born here. Not anymore.”
“I’m from the Midwest.” A new tactic.
“I only remember here.”
“Should we introduce ourselves properly? Shake hands?” I step toward him but he jerks back.
“You have blood on you,” he says. I look down at myself and see the smear of it in the sunlight. A rusty brown extends from my right hip to my left thigh. The fingernails of
my right hand are encrusted with it.
“I had an accident.” I hold out the hand I scraped in the fall from Veronica as if showing him my rug burn of an injury is enough of a confession to put him at ease.
“I like your camper,” he says.
“Isn’t it awesome? It’s a Type 2 T3 with an air-cooled engine,” I say. “They started making ’em with water-cooled engines after that. Both have their problems but this is a good one. I know how to keep it running.” The little boy is staring at me. I’ve nerded out on him a bit. “I mean the roof lifts up and it’s got a tiny stove and fridge and everything.”
“Cool,” he says. “Where did you get it?”
“I’m sorry?” I ask, and then add, “I got it at the car place. Where people get cars. What kind of question is that?” I feel myself redden.
“Just never seen one like that.”
“Oh yeah? Well, my father owned his own shop so…”
“Can I see inside?” he asks.
“Don’t you think we should introduce ourselves before I let you see inside my van?”
He keeps his eyes on my face and his hands on the side of the diner. I take one step toward him. Then two. Hand extended to shake hello. Three. As I’m about to reach him, wrap his small fist in my open hand, he bolts, disappearing into the woods.
“Hey!” I yell after him. “I just need gas!”
Alone again. The woods are silent. Dead.
His question Where did you get it? echoes in my head. I have a sudden image of Lowell crawling toward me, creeping up behind me to pull me down into the ground, but when I spin around, there is only Veronica and the empty lot, pine trees, and more pine trees.
“Good morning,” I say to Veronica. I walk to her and rest my forehead on the passenger-side window. She is icy with frost, but I keep my head to her glass and let the cold burn my skin. “I’ll get you out of here. Don’t worry.”
The snow is holding back for the time being, but the sky has an overall gray look that suggests the snow won’t wait much longer. I can see the start of the potholed road from where I sit. It’s the only way out. There has to be some reasoning behind the location of the diner, obviously faulty reasoning, considering the current state of things, but someone must have thought it was a good idea at one point. If I can get even a little gas out of the pumps, this place will prove a great discovery.
I put my hands in my jacket pockets and find one of Lowell’s cigars remains. I hid the whole lot of them from him back when I got sick of smelling them.
Lowell showed me how to smoke one. He explained there is an art and leisure to it, but I can’t get over the smell or how fat it is compared to a cigarette, so undeniably a phallus.
“Can I try?” The boy’s voice startles me.
I turn slowly. There he is. Ten steps away, looking at me. He is so young. A little boy with a stray-dog look, and I have the urge to move the layers of clothing from his neck to check for tags.
“Don’t you think it’s kind of rude to shoot at people?”
It’s funny but even looking at him full-on, I can’t tell any more about him than I could with a ten-second glimpse. His dirty blue jeans are so long that they drag underneath the heels of his Christopher Robin boots. The mask is intricate, bigger than I’d thought, wings stretching above his forehead.
“Can I have a cigar?” The repeat question allows me to watch his face as he talks. The mask isn’t fluid; it’s stiff and doesn’t move from its spot even to make room for his words.
“How old are you?”
“Twenty,” he says. He takes a step forward with his hand held out for the cigar.
“You are not twenty.”
“Okay, I’m twelve.”
“Liar.”
He drops his hand to his side, and I realize I’m not ready for him to disappear. I hold out the cigar as an offering of sorts to keep him with me. He takes it quickly, snatching it in a movement that reminds me of a squirrel, and then steps backward, never taking his eyes off me. He plops down cross-legged on the pavement and sticks the cigar in the back pocket of his jeans.
“You’ll crush it,” I say and sit down again.
“I don’t smoke. That’s bad for you. So are those pills.”
“Then give them back to me,” I say, hoping he can’t see my heart beat faster under my layers of jacket and shirt.
“I can’t give them back. Those are gone, and I’ll make art with the cigar.”
“Art? Out of a cigar?” I ask.
“I preprapose things. My mom taught me.”
“Preprapose? You mean repurpose?”
“Yeah, repropose.”
“Is your mom here?” I ask.
“She’s not alive here anymore.”
“I’m not sure what that means but I’m sorry to hear it,” I say. “Nice mask. What are you supposed to be?”
“I’m supposed to be a boy.”
“That part is obvious.”
“Thank you,” he says. “Actually, it’s a special butterfly mask to attract the birds. I made it out of things I found,” he says.
“Do birds eat butterflies?”
“Sure. They are garbage eaters. Insects, carcasses, trash but mostly they like the shine of it. They like the diner too. I keep it all shiny for them.”
“Do they like guns?”
He thinks about this one, touches what would be his cheek if he weren’t wearing the mask.
“I’d never shoot one if that’s what you mean.”
“You’re not a killer then?”
“I didn’t say that. Not really. Lotsa things to kill around here but I wouldn’t shoot one of the birds. They carry history in ’em. I call them hill gobblers. If you cut one of ’em open, neck to a-hole, you’d find stories in there. So many stories.”
“That’s gruesome,” I say. “I used to call Ray, my stepbrother, Gobs.”
“I’m gruesome,” he says, clearly pleased. “And why Gobs?”
“Nothing. No reason, I mean. So, really, why the mask?”
“Really?” he asks, and tilts his head at me, birdlike. He’s all neck and long gangly legs. His pink lips chewed raw with worry.
“Sure, why not?”
“Burnt. Whole side of my face is gone.” He nods his whole head, mask and all, as if to say, Yep, yes, ma’am. Looks like ground meat all up in there.
“You’re lying.”
“I’m not. Pinkie swear,” he says, and holds out his pinkie to hook mine. I ignore it.
“You are not burnt, and you are not twelve.”
“I’m five.”
“You aren’t five!”
“Okay, I’m eight, and I’m all burnt up.”
“Eight I’ll believe.”
His pinkie is still held out between us and so I reach out and wrap it with mine. His hands are rough and chapped. He gives me a hard shake and then lets go.
“How did it happen? The burn, I mean.”
“Ligh’ning bolt. Slid right down and whacked me in the face.”
“Lightning? Come on,” I say.
“My daddy can control the weather. He can make it snow or rain or hail or lightning bolt my face. He wanted a girl. He got me, so BAM he lit me all up.”
“Jesus,” I say before I even give myself a second to think too long about what his daddy might have done to him, lightning or no lightning.
“No, not Jesus. My daddy. And you’re gonna need a hat. It’s gonna snow. Do you have a hat?”
“You’re fucking with me, right?”
“No, a hat is essential. And mittens,” he says. He’s earnest. Thoughtful even. “George wants that gun,” he says with his eyes steady on mine. It’s a non sequitur, and not at all a request.
“Who is George? And who’s Earlene by the way? And he can’t have my gun. That’s crazy.”
“Can I have it?”
I laugh loudly as an answer.
“You gave me a cigar.”
“A cigar and a gun are two very different things. And I n
eed my medicine back.”
“I needed it for him.”
“Are you George?”
“Nope,” he says, and stands up. “I’m Earl,” he says. “Can I have it or not?”
“Nope,” I say, imitating his inflection, and just like that, before the word is even able to float down and splatter around our feet, he’s gone.
“Hey!” I try to stand up as quickly as he has but my head spins. My knees feel weak, and I have to steady myself on the building. By the time I’m ready to run after him, he’s gone.
It’s time to get moving, to feed Veronica, and get to the Badlands. I stretch. Arms to sky and then down to pavement. I need gasoline. I’m sweating a little. How many hours until withdrawal symptoms appear?
“Hey, kid!” I cup my hands around my mouth and shout out into the incline of pine trees.
“What?” His voice comes from over my shoulder and I jump, hand to heart.
“Christ, kid. How do you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Appear like that. Like you’re some kind of fucking ghost.”
“I’m not a kid. I’m almost twelve and you shouldn’t curse.”
“You are not almost twelve. Eight, I believe, and eight is not almost twelve. It’s almost nine, depending on when your birthday is. And really, there’s no need to sneak up on me. I have the creeps already.”
“George wants that gun.”
“Well, Emma wants that gas. Do you know how to use these gas pumps?”
“No,” he says. “I’m a kid.”
“Okay, well, when’s the last time someone used them? Are they dry?”
“No one comes here. Not ever.”
“Great. Do you have family nearby, or a car? And, if you’re Earl, is Earlene your mother? I just need a little bit of gas and then I’ll get out of your hair.”
“Just me, George, and some version of Mama. Been that way for a while.”
“Okay, well, I need gas so I suppose that means I need to meet George.”
“You won’t like him.”
“I expect I won’t.”
“We can go meet ’im now if you want. You wanna?”
Tinfoil Butterfly Page 3