How to Disappear

by Ann Redisch Stampler

  “No big deal—it’s a phone.”

  “You can’t go getting me phones!”

  “What if I’m up in South Dakota and the only thing to talk to for miles is a cow?”

  “You got me this because talking to me is better than talking to livestock?”

  “Don’t forget phone sex.”

  “What?”

  “That was a joke.”

  It’s a cute green burner. Expensive for a prepaid.

  I want to hurl myself around his neck.

  He kind of grabs me, followed by neck-wrapping.

  Sweet.

  Sweet sweet sweet sweet sweet.

  I really like this guy.

  Damn.

  47

  Jack

  This is a bad idea.

  I don’t look like the prep guy who shows up at Yucca Valley Correctional with clockwork regularity because his mother makes him anymore. I look like Jeremiah from El Molino, unshaven and scraggly haired, a cross between a hipster and someone who’s been camping for too long.

  Don says, “Nice hair, Jacqueline.”

  “Nice jumpsuit. You have something to tell me you couldn’t say on the phone?”

  Don’s eyes narrow. “You’re here to dance like Pinocchio. Some people need to see me pull your strings.” His head bobs as if he’s inviting me to stand up. “So dance.”

  I don’t move. “You’re the one in the cage, not me.”

  “Don’t be such a smug bitch! You think you disappear in the middle of this, ditch my car, and nothing happens?” His voice is rising. He glances across the prison yard. “Try to look like a guy getting a message. Is that too hard for you? You don’t want to be sorry.”

  A you’ll be sorry from Don is his most reliable promise. He saves it for special occasions.

  “Fine!” I sound just like Nicolette with the defiant little fine of the defeated person: not as much fun when you’re the one who’s defeated. “Everybody knows you made me come. Take a bow. Can I go now?”

  Don says, “Are you stupid?”

  I look around the yard, wanting to figure out who he’s trying to impress.

  “Words need to start coming out of your mouth, Jack-off,” Don leans in. “And when you get around to doing this thing, make sure it’s an accident.”

  This thing I’ve been pushing further and further into the realm of the theoretical, parsing out directions I could go as if they were equidistant points on a compass. But here’s the reality: I’m taking concrete instructions from a man I visualize with slime dribbling out of the corners of his mouth when he speaks.

  “That’s why you wanted me to take your gun? So I could stage an accidental shooting? Clever plan, Don.”

  “Just finish her.”

  For a second, I hope she’s on a bus out of El Molino right now, heading for somewhere I’ll never find her. Then the thought of never seeing her again makes me feel something close to panic. Followed immediately by the image of my mother’s house burned to the ground.

  “Jesus! I’ll just make her disappear. She’ll go on a hike and whoops—something like that. Does that float your boat?”

  “It’s not my boat you have to worry about.” Don looks around as if he’s still trying to spot someone. “It’s Yeager’s boat. And you’d better float it good.”

  I’m making every muscle in my face stand down, a skill well honed when kids wanted to meet up after school to see who was the badder ass. I knew I could break them in half but declined, seemingly impassive, afraid of what I’d do to them if I said yes.

  If Don sees me panic, he’s right, I’m his bitch. I try to sound as much like him as I can manage. “How much longer does this puppet show have to take?”

  With an intensity that spews up through his rage, he says, “I flap my lips, you nod like a good little boy.”

  I start nodding.

  “Not that much!”

  “Fine.” I stop and sit there glaring at him while he tells me the plot of a science-fiction movie he got to see for good behavior. I nod at appropriate intervals until the buzzer goes off and visitors are ushered out.

  Just before he stands up, he says so quickly that it’s almost as if it didn’t happen, “The thing with Mom. I don’t know how long I can hold them off. They’re not nice guys. You’ve got to get this done.”

  “Don!”

  He’s on his way out before I can even get a read on his face. “Have a good one,” he calls to me casually, as if he didn’t just tell me his friends are going to execute my mother.

  This whole thing is a play I don’t want to be in.

  “Whatever you say.” I try to sound cowed pretty loudly on the chance he’s sneaking glances all around because we’ve got an audience that has to think I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do. I try to sound like I’m afraid of him.

  It’s not much of a stretch.

  The sprint to the car, the fumbling with the phone, the attempt to sound something other than scared shitless is getting old.

  Fortunately, my mother is so annoyed, she doesn’t notice.

  “Where are you, Jack? And where’s your phone? And why did you turn off the tracker? You’re supposed to be camping, not hiding.”

  I’ve called my mom on the burner. That’s how thrown off I am.

  “I might have left it somewhere. Sorry. I bought this cheap one.” There’s a long silence while she waits for me to elaborate. It’s like playing chicken with someone who doesn’t even have eyelids and couldn’t blink if she wanted to.

  “What did I say about being responsible?”

  How do I answer that?

  “Jack! Where’s your itinerary? Or are you just wandering through the countryside losing things?”

  “Just the phone. And a sweatshirt I could care less about.” I throw in the sweatshirt to give her something trivial to call me out on, and to distract her—a tactic developed over years of trial and error. It doesn’t work.

  “This isn’t safe! You were supposed to be sending me your detailed itinerary. And answering my calls!”

  “Come on.” I play the military card again. “Guys my age are fighting in Afghanistan.”

  “Don’t equate driving around aimlessly and letting your sweatshirt walk away with fighting for your country—”

  “The fact you don’t know where I eat lunch doesn’t make it dangerous for me to have a sandwich! It’d probably be more dangerous if you knew because then I’d be the wuss who has to ask his mommy whether he can have a beer.”

  “You can’t have a beer! You’re not traveling with Don’s old ID, are you?”

  And the save: “I just visited Don. With my own ID.”

  “You did?” Her tone softens as she imagines the loving-brother reconciliation that’s never going to happen.

  “He says hello.” He didn’t. The sentence tastes like rotten fish on my tongue, but the words have the desired effect. The thought of Don saying hi makes her sigh as if she just saw a cute bunny.

  “Here’s the thing, kiddo,” she says. “Why I’ve been calling you all day. There might be something hinky with one of my cases.” Her voice is very strained, like she’s choosing every word and laying it down gently in a careful sentence.

  “Hinky how?” She doesn’t say hinky. She doesn’t say kiddo, and she doesn’t talk about her cases.

  “I’d rather discuss this in person.”

  I don’t say anything.

  She says, “Exactly where are you? Are you still in Nevada?”

  Given that I’m not telling her where I’m headed, or why, or anything like why, all that’s left is irrational shouting. “Isn’t the point for me to be wherever I want? Isn’t the point for me to be free for a while?”

  “You’re in a state of unreality! Drifting around with plenty of money and no responsibilities to prove you can isn’t being free! It’s being a child with a car!”

  “The deal was you were going to go along with this. That’s what you said.”

  “Jack!” she s
ays, as if repeating my name would bring me to my senses. “It’s probably nothing, but get back here. Park Don’s car and hop on a bus.”

  This is when I start to feel sicker. “Did something happen?”

  “Come back here. How long will it take?”

  “Did something happen to you?”

  “Don’t raise your voice to me!”

  “I’m expressing concern, not coming back at you!”

  My mother sighs. “It was probably nothing. It’s not as if industrial polluters run around jimmying lawyers’ cars.”

  “Did somebody fuck with your car?” I can’t keep the panic out of my voice.

  “Language!” Then, deep breath, restrained tone. “Maybe someone made a mistake when I had it serviced. Maybe someone nicked the brake line accidently.” It’s as if she’s trying to convince herself. “I just think you’d be safer here.”

  You can’t miss the irony, how she thinks I’d be safer playing momma’s boy at home, when the only way she’s safe and I’m off Yeager’s shit list is when I seal the deal with Nicolette.

  Only I have to do it faster. This thing with the fire was the warning. Turning a car into a deathtrap is pure intimidation.

  Oh Jesus, Don, how could you let it get this far? This is Mom, not some live lizard you roast on a spit over a campfire. You made me watch that, too.

  I know what I have to do.

  I play my part. “You think I’d be safer with the lady some industrial polluter wants to ice than on my own?” I’m the road-tripping kid who has inexplicably lost all respect and reason. That’s what she believes, anyway. I think, Believe what you want. I’m saving your life.

  “Ice, Jack? This isn’t a joke! There was something with the steering column, too. Are you listening to me?”

  Who messes with a prosecutor’s car, not even bothering to make it look accidental?

  “Do you have security? Good security, not the old guys in the golf carts.”

  “The police are treating me like the crown jewels. Sweetheart, there’s nothing to worry about. But you have to get back here.”

  There’s plenty to worry about. But she’s got police watching out for her. This buys me some time.

  She’s saying, “Jack, be careful!” as I hang up on her.

  Part 4

  48

  Jack

  I don’t drive straight back to El Molino.

  There are things I have to take care of, steps to take. This requires planning and precision, a time and a place. I drive along the crest of the mountains and onto a service road that barely exists, carved into the precipice. Courtesy of Google satellite images, I’m here.

  The pavement of what used to be a parking lot is rutted, the trash cans upended. The NO OVERNIGHT PARKING signs are aerated where they were used for target practice a long time ago. There are no signs of human life, no telltale beer bottles, not a wrapper or a plastic ring that holds six-packs together anywhere.

  This is the place.

  Ravines and rocks, cliffs, and enough vegetation for cover: it’s harsh, rugged terrain. If you tried to run here, the likeliest thing is you’d go down without any help from me—it’s that rocky and uneven, unstable underfoot.

  I map where I’ve been with merit-badge accuracy until I find my spot. Then I stop charting and start memorizing.

  I have equipment to take down anything that comes at me. If it has a blade, I’ve got one: ax; bowie knife; camping gadget with corkscrew, box cutter, nail file, and useless little scissors; and a big, dull thing that looks like a machete that hacks through underbrush.

  Also, I’ve got what’s in the holster.

  The gadget is from my mom, from when I was a Scout. The bowie knife is from my dad. Compare: a gift that would be good for opening a bottle of white wine at a campsite ringed with Winnebagos versus a gift that could decapitate a bear.

  I get them both two weeks after my dad hears I’m not coming to his house on his weekend because my Scout troop is hitting the wilderness. He says, “Shit, Bella. My kid’s going into the desert with grown men in shorts?” I can hear him from ten feet away through the receiver my mom holds away from her ear.

  My mom says, “It’s Boy Scouts. It’s harmless.”

  My dad makes the sound that says he’s glowering.

  But my mom knows how to play him when he’s not too far gone. “It’s for survival skills. What’s the harm?”

  Two weekends later, when I’m at his house, my dad starts quizzing me on what plant roots to eat if you run out of food, and how to purify water. All I know is what kind of plant not to eat and a couple of birdcalls. He tosses me a survivalist handbook with sidebars about keeping your gunpowder dry and rebuilding a constitutional democracy from the ruins of the US after Armageddon.

  He says, “I bought you this. You get stuck out there with those assholes, I don’t want you to die.”

  I read the book.

  Don reads the book because I got it first.

  At night, Don and I trek onto the ten acres of manicured backyard. We pretend we’re Special Forces soldiers stranded between rows of ornamental shrubs, camped out by an Olympic-size swimming pool outside Kabul.

  I follow the diagrammed instructions to make Molotov cocktails, which we hurl across the diving board. A chair catches fire. Three guys who work for my dad come running outside, ready to take down an invading army.

  In the morning, my dad is there, eating bacon and eggs.

  He says, “What was wrong with that?”

  For once, Don doesn’t point at me. He’s figured out that I could blow him up. But my dad isn’t asking Don.

  I say, “It was in the book.”

  He keeps eating.

  I say, “I didn’t know it would start a fire.”

  Then I say, “It was stupid?”

  “It was loud. Do we want the police at this house? Do we want to attract attention to this house?”

  I’m not just afraid he’s going to hit me—that’s a given. I’m afraid I’ve caused something terrible to happen.

  The guy standing guard by the back door says, “Come on, Art, at least he didn’t put shrapnel in it.”

  My dad laughs so hard, the guy comes over and pounds him between the shoulders so he won’t choke on the bacon.

  He doesn’t say anything when he slaps down the knife between us on the console in the front seat of his car. The blade says, Life is gruesome, be prepared, go camping with assholes in shorts if your mother insists. But get ready, be armed to draw and quarter anything that comes at you because the insurance agent troop leader dads sure as hell won’t.

  • • •

  I wrap myself in the space blanket, but I can’t get warm. I fall asleep thinking about Scouts and toasted marshmallows, playing with Don, hiding in the bushes and throwing incendiary bottles at deck chairs.

  I imagine Don in an open coffin, eyelids folded down over dead eyes. Even for my father, in his closed, black coffin, my mother’s face collapsed and never plumped back up, not ever. And this happened after he’d divorced her and she hated him. Don’s a shit, but he’s not dying the kind of prison death it makes my mother sick to think about.

  My mother isn’t burying her kid or going up in flames when her dryer accidently on purpose blows up again, this time singeing her hair down to the roots, blackening her bones.

  Her car isn’t accidently on purpose losing its brakes on the interstate.

  No one is going to touch any of us.

  I have to do this.

  I have to make Nicolette Holland disappear.

  That’s why I’m here.

  49

  Cat

  “Did you miss me?”

  He’s standing in my doorway.

  He’s tanner than before. It suits him.

  He’s back! I hope looking shocked suits me.

  My getaway can wait. Underneath my new and different exterior, in this rapidly transforming vessel of moral decay, I’m still me. It’s got to be okay to like guys. Why can’t I
have whatever extremely low level of fun is possible under the circumstances?

  I pull him inside, bolt the door, and kiss him.

  Kiss him some more.

  He says, “You’re depraved. I should beat on drunks and leave town more often.”

  He hesitates for a second, looking at me. Hands me a bottle of rum. Then he kisses me back. And then some.

  “You smell like a campfire.”

  J crosses his arms behind my back, pulls me in closer. “It was South Dakota. You’re lucky I don’t smell like a cow patty. I was going to shower when I got back to my apartment, but there was this cop car outside when I was unpacking. So I ducked out the kitchen window.”

  “A cop car?” Does he even get how bad this is?

  “Calm down. They drive up and down my street every ten minutes looking for jaywalkers. What else is there for them to do around here?”

  “Look for us?” Then I might make too big a show of sniffing the air. His face. I say, “No, you’re fine. Really. Was it nice?”

  “Was what nice?”

  “Uh, the wedding. Groomsman. Bachelor party.”

  He sits down on the edge of the bed, looking embarrassed. Does the thing where he grabs on to the back of his neck and massages it. It must have been one amazing bachelor party. “It was home on the range. No strippers—just a lot of cows.”

  “Did you meet any cowgirls?”

  “You’re depraved and jealous.”

  Now he’s massaging my neck. Much better.

  “I’m so not jealous. We’d have to be together for me to be jealous and we’re so not together.”

  “Not us.” He stretches out on the bed, closes his eyes.

  I nudge him slightly. Nothing.

  “Did you drive all night?”

  He doesn’t answer. He’s asleep.

  I roll the desk chair next to the bed and sit there reading, my feet draped over him on the bed. His hand closes on my ankle.

  After dark, I wedge myself between him and the wall.

  Fully clothed, on top of the blanket.

  Not totally depraved yet, but slipping fast.

  50

  Jack