Wildman

by J. C. Geiger

  “Crazy.”

  “I know, right? But true north never changes. It’s always right under Polaris. So when the sky was clear, my dad would always say Make sure you’re navigating by true north, Lance. He’d say it in this really annoying way, and I kept using the compass, because I didn’t get what he meant. One night he kept repeating his stupid true-north line and I snapped. I said What the hell do you mean, true north? And he grabbed my chin and pointed it up at the sky and said Your eyes, Lance. Trust your own damn eyes.”

  “That’s intense. So can you find it?”

  “After that little episode? Oh yeah. It’s the last star on the handle of the Little Dipper. If it’s clear enough, I could show you.” He bent his head, trying to see out the window. “Anyway, that’s where he said he was going. To find true north.”

  When he turned back, she was looking at him the same way she had when he’d stepped out of the changing room, wearing new clothes.

  “Wow,” she said. “But how do you just leave your kid like that?”

  “I don’t know,” Lance said. “Can’t really ask him.”

  She nodded.

  “It sucks when they go,” she said.

  “What’s the story with your dad?” Lance asked.

  “Oh. He took his car with him.”

  Pines closed in on the road, swallowing the shoulder.

  “That’s the problem,” Dakota said. “He left. But he’s still the same. Another wife who looks like my mom. She drinks the same damn soda, Lance. He’ll just have to run away again. He never figured it out.”

  “Figured what out?”

  “The clues,” Dakota said. She ran a hand through her hair, bringing it down. Just a nose now. A sliver of cheek. “What they mean.”

  “And you haven’t either?”

  “No,” she said. “That’s why I’m still here.”

  He sat up straight. “But you can’t just wait around at The Float, right? What if it takes your whole life to figure it all out?”

  “I don’t need to figure it all out,” she said. “Just one true thing.”

  “One true thing,” he repeated.

  “One thing in your life that makes you stop and say This! This! No doubts. No wondering. Isn’t that how music is for you?”

  “Maybe,” he said, but the real answer was almost. Music could be real, but wasn’t yet. The notes had been sneaking out in Seattle. A kind of music he’d never played before. Notes that he had been hiding from Jonathan and Miriam and his mother. The kind of music that never felt closer than it did beside this girl, when she looked at him that way.

  “I can’t talk to anyone like this,” he said.

  “Me neither.”

  And now Dakota was watching the road. And so was he.

  “I can tell you anything, you know?” he said. “Because it doesn’t really matter.”

  The comment didn’t land how he expected. Dakota tightened her lips. A hard silence. The forest darkened. Trees turned to brittle shadows and the car took a quick bend in the road, skirting the edge of a rushing river. Froth churned a luminous white.

  “You know what I mean,” Lance said.

  “Yeah,” Dakota said. “You mean knowing me won’t have an impact on your real life.”

  “That’s not it,” he said. “This whole thing just feels like a dream, you know?”

  She smiled a little, and the acoustics straightened out. Lance wanted the drive to never end. He wanted to keep the windows up and seal in the moonlight. The look and feel of a small, tight place with Dakota inside. But they were already in the Trainsong parking lot. Their hands were opening car doors, because that’s what hands did when cars stopped, and when they stepped outside, the magic of the ride washed out around their ankles.

  They stared at each other across the hood of a Ford Focus, and Lance felt like he’d just woken up.

  “Oh damn,” he said. “My horn is still at The Float.”

  “Should we head over now? Or would you prefer to change into something pleated?”

  “I’m ready now, thanks.”

  “Okay, Wildman,” Dakota said. “Let’s roll.”

  Outside The Float’s back door, an exhaust fan exhaled warm grease. A muffled pounding, like fists on a wall, was coming from inside. A double-time, irregular meter. Maybe a 2/6 with a 3/4 signature. Lance almost had it figured out when someone screamed:

  You fuckers! Let me out!

  “Mason’s got someone in the walk-in,” Dakota said.

  She led him through the back door, past a rack of canned beans to where Mason stood with a small ring of servers and cooks in striped pants. Someone had shoved a broomstick through the walk-in freezer’s U-shaped handle. More pounding. Wood jumped and rattled.

  “Time for Quiz Bowl, Freezer Edition!” Mason shouted.

  “Damn it, Mason!”

  The captive beat the door.

  “Nice threads, Wildman,” Mason said. “Got a date?”

  “Hey!” The captive’s voice was familiar. “I just dropped three orders of fries. You’re going to burn your damn restaurant down.”

  “Stone,” Mason said, shaking his head. “You have the power here. Only you can save you.”

  So it was Stone.

  “Hey, Mason,” Lance said. “I wondered if I could pick up my trumpet.”

  “Trumpet,” Mason said. “Hmm. About this big? Black case? Spit-polished and called the Wild Thing?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Never seen it.” He turned back to the walk-in. “Hey, Stone. Bonus question: Where is Wildman’s trumpet?”

  “How the hell should I know?”

  Mason made a buzzer noise. Stone charged. The broomstick shuddered. Servers giggled, but the cooks looked nervous, like they might be next.

  “Mason,” Dakota said. “He’s injured.”

  “He’s fine. We were having a civilized discussion about the word emanciated,” Mason said. “Stone needed a time-out.”

  “Emanciated?” Dakota said.

  “It means really skinny, right?” Mason whispered. “Little African kids.”

  “Emanci-PATED!” Stone shouted. “It means free, idiot!”

  “Wildman?” Mason asked.

  “Emancipated means free,” Lance said. “Emaciated means really skinny.”

  “Yeah. Skinny, Mason,” Stone said. “Like the opposite of you.”

  Mason gasped. “Stone.”

  “Open the door, or I start breaking glass. I’m not fucking around.”

  “After hearing testimony from our judges,” Mason said, “we’ll call it a draw.”

  Mason yanked out the broom and the door blasted open. Stone whipped past them. The draft from the freezer frosted Lance’s arms.

  “Want to step inside, Wildman?” he said. “Cops will never find you.”

  “Funny. They called me earlier,” Lance said.

  “I heard. They were here looking for you,” Mason said. “Perkins the Prick said he’s left you three messages. Don’t worry. I told him you were the Wildman. You have too many outstanding warrants to give a shit about his podunk jurisdiction.”

  “Thanks, Mason. That’s helpful.”

  “I figured you’d be back in Bend. Now this could get awkward.”

  “Yeah,” Lance said. “So, hey. Before I get arrested, do you think I could grab my horn?”

  “We’re slammed, dude,” Mason said, suddenly frantic. “It’s dinner rush. Go have a drink, and I’ll be out in a second.”

  Dakota tried to say something, but Mason was already walking. Out in the bar, Rocco and Meebs had pinned down their usual table with a half-empty pitcher. Meebs gave Lance a high five. Rocco slapped his back. Apparently, in these parts, it was easy to go from someone whose ass people wanted to kick to someone they couldn’t wait to see. You just had to stick around a few days.

  “Return of the Wildman!” Meebs said.

  “Fugitive,” Rocco said. “When they start offering a reward, I’ll turn you in. I’m just saying it n
ow, so there’s no weirdness between us.”

  “What do the cops want to know?” Lance asked.

  “Just that Stone was driving,” Rocco said. “That’s all.”

  “Breanna was driving,” Lance said.

  “Not according to expert testimony,” Meebs said, tripping over the word expert.

  “You guys told him Stone was driving?”

  Meebs and Rocco simultaneously raised their glasses for a sip, like their arms were connected to the same lever.

  “We’ve been over this,” Rocco said. “Breanna is going to be a lawyer. Stone got discharged from the military, man. Like they discharged him.”

  “He’s a stoner,” Meebs said. “Wildman, look. The guy’s name is literally Stone.”

  “It’s not,” Lance said. “His name is literally James.”

  “Not around here,” Rocco said. He filled three glasses with beer and pushed one toward Lance.

  “I just don’t see why you guys give Stone such a hard time.”

  The table went still. Dakota, Meebs, and Rocco were all wearing the same expression. Like he just admitted he’d never seen Star Wars.

  “He plays guitar well,” Lance said. “Has a decent vocabulary. You know?”

  Meebs buried his head in his hands. Rocco rubbed his eyes.

  “I mean. Should we tell him about Purple Passion?” Meebs asked. “Or the Russian girls?”

  “More pregnant,” Rocco said. “That’s the best story.”

  “Yeah, yeah!” Meebs got all animated, like someone just dropped a quarter in his slot. “Okay, so Breanna goes off to school and gets pregnant.”

  “With Stone’s kid?” Lance asked.

  “Nope,” Meebs said. “Knocked up by a rich frat boy. So now she’s getting laid and getting paid!” He did a finger snap.

  “Anyway,” Dakota said.

  “Anyway,” Meebs said. “We’re at the campfire and I say, Hey, Stone, you should give Breanna a call. Nine months free birth control. And he gets this look. Puzzlement.”

  “Pure puzzlement,” Rocco said.

  “He says, Why wouldn’t I have to use protection?”

  “Oh, man,” Lance said.

  “Wait, wait, wait,” Meebs said. “So Stone says, Well, couldn’t she get more pregnant?”

  “No.”

  “Like pregnant again?” Rocco said, doing a pretty good Stone impression. “Like, with twins?”

  “Oh,” Lance said. “Yikes.”

  He looked back at the service window, trying to make this story fit with Stone. But Stone wasn’t there. Behind the bar stood a man Lance had never seen before. He was in his early sixties, cheeks like jowls, head shaved to gray stubble. His mouth gave him away: thin lips touched by a sour smile.

  This man was Mason’s father.

  “Anyone seen Mason?” Lance asked, scanning the room. But the server came before anyone answered—the same girl Mason had grabbed the day before. She took their order in a small voice. Just over a whisper.

  “Who’s Renee banging these days?” Rocco asked, when she was maybe out of earshot.

  “I think she’s onto the old man,” Meebs said.

  Mason’s father was fully grinning now, shoulders back, chatting up two young couples by the prize wheel. His whole body had changed. He looked like he’d been built with rusty metal but had somehow turned himself elastic, cheesy grin snapping all over his face. One of the girls had a foot up on a barstool, unlacing her white sneaker.

  “Girls would sleep with that?” Lance asked. That got Meebs. He snorted beer up his nose, coughing it out.

  “Can’t get a shift at The Float without giving it up,” Rocco said. “Isn’t that right, Dakota?”

  “Wouldn’t know,” Dakota said. “I don’t work here.”

  “Yet,” Meebs said. “You don’t work here yet.”

  “No escape,” Rocco said.

  At the bar, the blonde was in her socks. Her friends watched as she hauled back with her sneakers and tossed them into the rafters. They caught and did a limp little dance around a wooden beam. Mason’s father led the bar in applause, then cranked the prize wheel, which clickclickclicked and stopped on: free meal and round of drinks.

  The bar cheered. Mason’s father struck a bell by the service window.

  “Winner!” he shouted.

  “Decent prize,” Rocco said.

  “Blondes tend to do well,” Dakota said.

  The girl was laughing, hopping up, high-fiving her friends.

  “But she’s got no shoes,” Lance said. “What is she going to do without shoes?”

  “Go barefoot,” Rocco said.

  “The prizes don’t seem worth it,” Lance said, looking up. An uneven ceiling of treads and laces. Some of the pairs looked brand-new.

  “You could get a thousand bucks,” Meebs said.

  “Has anyone ever won?” Lance asked.

  “Hell no,” Rocco said. “Those assholes don’t even have a thousand dollars.”

  “They do,” Meebs said. “They got five grand hanging behind that flag. That’s Mason’s retirement plan.”

  “Thanks for your contribution, son,” Rocco said, slapping Lance’s shoulder. His cheeks burned. His name in black letters. One day, Mason would spend his money.

  “Seriously,” Lance said. “Has anyone ever won a thousand dollars?”

  “Totally,” Meebs said.

  “Bullshit, Meebs.” Rocco turned to face him. “It’s rigged. Everyone knows it’s rigged, idiot.”

  “How’s it rigged?”

  Rocco stared at the wheel. “Magnets.”

  “Fucking magnets,” Meebs said. “How do they work?”

  “Here we go,” Dakota said.

  “That couple in the Chevy Malibu—” Meebs started.

  “—couple in the Chevy Malibu,” Rocco cut him off. “Those were Mason’s cousins, you stoner. And they didn’t win.”

  “They did!” Meebs said. “I was sitting right here, eating my motherfucking grilled cheese—”

  Lance’s phone buzzed in his pocket. His mother.

  “Whoever it is, take it,” Dakota said. “This conversation lasts exactly seven minutes.” The call went to voice mail, and Lance got up and walked to the parking lot. The humidity was thinning in a cool early-evening breeze, fresh scents unraveling in the air. He closed his eyes and breathed deeply, hoping to ride something into memory. His phone buzzed. His mother, angry and shaking in his pocket.

  “Lance,” she said.

  “Yeah.” She took a long breath.

  “Are you ignoring me?”

  “No.”

  “Are you trying to make it so I can’t sleep. Is that on purpose?”

  I’m not calling the police back either, he thought. Don’t take it personally.

  “Mom.”

  His mother hadn’t cried the morning his father left—not in front of him. But her words were trembly now, and the warble in her voice put a lump in his throat.

  “I should’ve called,” he said. “Miriam and I had a fight.”

  “I know,” she said. “She’s worried about you.”

  “Why are you two talking all the time?”

  “Lance. Because we care about you. When are you coming home?”

  “The car’s not fixed.”

  “You know, I think it’s about time to say goodbye.”

  “To what?”

  She sighed. “Campus is only three miles away. Miriam will be close.”

  “Oh yeah. Life will be great, unless I actually want to do something.”

  “Like what, Lance?”

  “Like road trips. Like anything that matters.”

  “I’ll try to not be offended by that,” she said. “Listen. Tomorrow is Tuesday. We have our campus tour at three p.m. Wednesday is your Personal Banker orientation.”

  “At the bank?” he said. “I thought I didn’t start until next week.”

  “It’s just orientation.”

  “I don’t want to be a Personal Banker,
” he said. “I’ll have to work with Creepy Bill.”

  “You’ll be an associate. It’s good money.”

  He sighed. “I’ll be home by Wednesday.”

  “You need to be home tomorrow. Mr. Leeds is concerned.”

  “Mr. Leeds?”

  Lance pictured Bend High School’s football-coach-cum-guidance-counselor hunching over his computer with bent little arms, like a Tyrannosaurus rex on a tricycle. Jonathan did a good impression.

  “Everyone is now aware of your little episode, Lance.”

  “So now it’s an episode.”

  “Well. I just don’t want you to miss any major opportunities because you’re off having an adventure in the woods.”

  Possible comebacks tangled in his brain. A jumble of live wires.

  “How is my speech a major opportunity, Mom? I’m already valedictorian. I already picked my school. It’s done! Finished! There are no opportunities.”

  “What are you talking about, Lance?” she said, putting giant pauses between her words. “You have a great summer job. A full-ride scholarship. A wonderful girlfriend.”

  Yes, all the things. Like a musical stave barnacled with notes. Pages of dried ink to be played through. And the best you could do was play the notes exactly as they’d been written. Because everyone was counting on you. Because you had your assigned part, and your job was to play it perfectly.

  “Yeah,” Lance said, looking up. Breathing away the pressure behind his eyes. “Life is great, Mom. There are just no opportunities.”

  “Lance, have you been drinking?”

  “What—no!” But there had been two beers. Maybe two and a half. “You think if I have something real to say, I must be drunk. Awesome.”

  “I’m going to send Dave up tonight,” she said softly. “He’s happy to make the drive.” Dave was his mother’s smarmy real estate partner, with whom she’d had far too many late-night phone calls. Once, after a few glasses of wine, Dave had tousled Lance’s hair. That asshole was probably tooling around in his sporty new Subaru right now, listening to smooth jazz and cruising up Highway 97, wind flopping his comb-over all over the place.

  “If Dave comes here, I swear to god I’ll break his windshield with a baseball bat.”

  He didn’t know where he’d get the baseball bat. Mason, maybe.

  “Excuse me? Did I hear you correctly?”

  “I’m just telling you what to expect. If that man values his Subaru, he will not show his face here tonight.”