Lake City

by Thomas Kohnstamm

  He capitalizes on her moment of reflection to reinforce his point that she should do the testing once he’s out of town. He needs to be long gone. He can’t be implicated in any way; there’s too much riding on it with his legal scenario and all.

  “You have no idea how hard this has been on Tracey and some good news is going to be so important. To her. To us,” she says, learning forward in her chair. “You see, we also found out that Jordan’s got a few, I don’t even like the say the word, but handicaps. What they call ‘indicators of learning disabilities.’ Probably from all the drugs he got in utero. We have a line on the best specialized preschool in the city. Sold a house to a lady on the board. But we can’t move ahead with the application as foster parents.”

  “Well, as soon as—”

  “It’s gonna cost, and Tracey is gonna have to chauffeur him halfway across town and back every day. But it’s the one place that can support all his needs. This is what you’re making possible for him.”

  “Next stop, Stanford.” Lane finishes his coffee. “Like mother, like son, huh?”

  “Yeah, but that’d be his other momma: Tracey. I went to San Joaquin Community College. Over by Rancho Cucamonga. Worked events at the DoubleTree straight through.”

  Lane starts to perspire. Not from the coffee. A cold, anxious sweat that stings as it bleeds out from his pores. He wants to reiterate his negotiating points and get out the door before she further clouds his decision.

  The barista arrives at the table with Nina’s coffee and a handful of coins that he sets down in a stack in front of her.

  “What’s that?” she asks the barista.

  “Your change. Difference in price.”

  “Seriously?” She hands it back to him, throws in an extra couple of bucks and waves him off. “Keep it. C’mon.”

  Lane tries again as the barista walks away. “I’m outta here in a couple of days, and I wanted to say that I’m—I’m glad this all worked out. A few bumps in the road but, you know, assuming we don’t see each other again, I wish you and your family the best.”

  He gets a head rush as he stands up. She too rises, then leans across to give him a hug. He hugs her back with one arm, trying hard to conceal the sweat eating its way through his shirt. Trying hard to think of what to say next. He doesn’t want to tell any more lies but can’t think of any acceptable truths.

  “I had a feeling about you, Lane,” she says. “I’m good at seeing potential in people. Picking talent . . .”

  He digs in his jacket pocket, pulls out her pager and slides it across the table. “It’s alphanumeric.”

  “C’mon. I didn’t say it all dorky like that.” She puts it in her purse and passes him the iPod, headphones and all.

  LANE WALKS TO FRED MEYER up the network of alleys with the iPod in his ears, even though the battery is dead. The cut on his leg has healed to the point that it itches when he walks too fast and blood rushes to his feet and calves. He keeps a solid pace for a block or three and then stops to scratch, but not so hard as to disturb the scab.

  Inez will have to leave soon, and it is going to be hard to force that hand all over again. It’s a few days, is all. He kneels in the alley, scratching his calf through his Dickies. Inez is nothing if not obstinate.

  He comes to terms with the fact that he’s going to have to tell her the truth. Not the real truth. He’s not crazy. But something close enough to the truth that she will understand the need to disappear. He is going to have to tell her that she’s going to get tested. That she needs to get out of town now. He won’t say how he knows, or he’ll say he heard it around the neighborhood. No, he heard it from Lonnie. Lonnie, his friend from high school who somehow knows Jordan’s Aunties. It’s a risk. It’s flying close to the mountainside, but it will accomplish what it needs to do to exit this swirling disaster with his money and not directly harm either Nina or Inez more than he can stomach.

  “They’re gonna come and test you,” he practices. Who are “they”? He can’t say. He doesn’t know. The Aunties? The state? No, not that specific. Not that close to the true truth. But, yes, this can work.

  He’ll be straight-up. Or straight-up enough. Lane could live with that on his tombstone or his entry when he gets a page on that new online Wikipedia thing:

  Lane Bueche

  The Bill Clinton of Lake City Way

  Born into sub-ideal circumstances in North Seattle, 1974. Famed autodidact. Academic savant. BA University of Washington. PhD Columbia University. Expert on various important subjects. World-renowned humanitarian. Lived in Manhattan, New York City. Married to patron of the arts Mia Featherstone. He helped people, got stuff done and was always straight-up (enough to help people and get stuff done).

  He is getting closer to Fred Meyer. Once he talks to her. Convinces her. Then he’ll drive her to the bus station downtown. Help her pay for the ticket and then he’s in a quick countdown to cashing out his check and getting on a plane. Whether he hears back from Mia or not. He’ll have independence now. He’ll be in control and have time and space to make things right.

  Lane avoids Tom. Avoids the deli. Looks in the employee break room. The Home Essentials section. By the lottery machine. No Inez.

  When he finds her in the hidden smoking section, she’s in tears.

  She won’t answer him. Won’t look up. Won’t even hint at what’s wrong. She is crying and smoking with a jacket draped over her shoulders and her head on her knees.

  He puts his hand on her back and passes it up and down her spine, trying to soothe her. “Let me help you. You have got to get out of town for a few days, Inez.”

  She continues to cry. Her mascara melting down her face. Snorting to clear the tears and mucus pouring from her nose. She takes a drag and doesn’t respond.

  “What about Yakima? Say your grandma is sick and you can’t be reached for a few days.”

  She shakes her head and wipes at her nose and mouth with her sleeve. “We already talked about this.”

  “Think about Jordan.”

  “My money. My and Jordan’s money. It’s gone.”

  “Kevin? Shit, I told you.”

  “He showed up at my place,” she says between sobs.

  “Did he threaten you?”

  “He enlisted. Came to say goodbye to me and Jordie. He’s off to basic training. Then Afghanistan.”

  “With your cash. What a piece of—”

  “No, he left money. His signing bonus. Sold all his shit too. His decks. Mixer. Left the cash for us.”

  She clears her nose, spits on the floor in front of her and continues, “My mom. She took it. All of it.”

  Lane runs out of his boilerplate condolences after a minute and listens to her coughing and clearing her nose.

  “I shoulda never got my hopes up. Maybe this is all wrong and I’m not right. I’m not cut out for this,” she cries.

  “If you believe that, then it’ll become true. But you can change. Anybody can if they work at it. You can be a good mom. You’re already halfway there because you want to be. Stick with it. That’s all. It’s no big mystery.”

  “And you know this from your own personal success as a parent?” Inez asks. “I think it might be too late for me. When you’re broke and you had your dreams crushed enough times to understand that you’re always gonna be poor, you’re supposed to know better than to get your hopes up.”

  “My life coulda gone a million directions, and I never decided that’s as good as it was gonna get for me.”

  “You’re a white dude. With a mom who supports you, not vice versa. You can learn to talk better and change your clothes and hair and then look like any other successful person.”

  “That’s a rather parochial approach. Totally disregarding the depth and impact of the class dynamic.” Lane checks for new graffiti on the wall. There is a crude version of Tom. The mustache and hair are accurate. Erect penises spurt on his visage from three angles. “But your mom . . . Can’t you get it back? I mean, how’d you get rob
bed by somebody with no legs?”

  “Who said she robbed me? She’s my mom, dude. She needed it for an insulin monitor. The one covered by Medicaid doesn’t do crap and is half the reason she ended up in the hospital again.”

  “Why would you—I thought you were trying to—” Lane flounders. “Look, regardless, you still need to get out of town for a few days. I heard—through people who know stuff—that they’re gonna get you tested. For drugs. For sure.”

  “I told you, I don’t—”

  He kneels down so they are at eye level and puts his hands on her shoulders. He can feel the heat of her face, smell the salt in her tears. “Trust me: it is going to happen.” A tear beads on her bottom lip. He leans in to kiss her, to taste it right off her mouth. To protect her. Make it all stop. But, instead, he stops himself.

  She uses her shoulder to wipe the tear from her lips. “I got my first overnight with Jordan tonight, but come by tomorrow morning and—”

  “What the fuck, you two?” Tom bursts into the smoking area like he’s won a game of hide-and-seek. “How many times’ve I—I’m writing both of you up. Get back to work. Right now.”

  Lane stands up. “She’s on her break. And I’m off today . . . Tom.”

  “The hell’re you doing here, then? You know you can’t be doing none of this romancing stuff at work. Inez, down to my office right now.”

  Neither moves. Lane looks to the drawing on the wall and checks it against Tom’s face.

  “Did you draw that?” Tom squares up to Lane. “Let’s go. Right now. Both of you.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  “THINGS’VE BEEN COMPLICATED SINCE WE spoke the other day.” That’s all she gives him.

  Lane grips the receiver. Things have been complicated for him too. He figures that goes without saying. He presses Mia for more details.

  “I went to my framer with this really delicate painting on a banana leaf that I got on my Ecuador trip.”

  “When were you in Ecuador?”

  “You know . . . recently. But you remember my framer, right? The one on Thirty-Second. The parking was full. The lot around the corner too,” she says with increasing agitation. “There was no way I was going to waste my time trying to street-park. Anyway, it was a disaster. I ended up having to drive halfway downtown to this other ghetto framer, and then I missed my Reiki. Or not totally missed it but the first half hour of it. Which may as well be the whole thing. You know how long it takes to get an appointment with Sage? Anyway, I was so pissed—”

  She becomes aware of Lane’s silence. That he’s stopped affirming her grievances. She trails off.

  He remembers the argument they had when he told her about his conviction for selling the weed to the student with the Jeep and she said, “You should have known better: Wranglers are total high school cars.”

  “I thought you didn’t have money,” he says, regretting it before he finishes the sentence. He needs to punch a pillow. Get outside. Walk this off.

  “My dad, he—” She tries again: “Sorry, that’s not what I want to talk about anyway. That’s me being nervous. And I think, no, I know . . . Well, I’ve thought about it and I want to try to talk things through, Lane. In person. Things with us. See what we can figure out—together.”

  “I’m gonna be there. I’m gonna come see you. Give me a few more days.” As the words barrel out of his mouth, he gets more and more disoriented.

  “I thought that things would be different. But I haven’t felt what I felt with you again,” she says.

  “What do you mean ‘again?’ Felt with whom?”

  “I don’t—You know.”

  “No, I don’t know. With fucking Bray?”

  “I told you: he and I weren’t, we weren’t—Nothing like that. I’ve been feeling things out. Getting to know myself. Figuring what was right for me.”

  He has a million and one questions but doesn’t want to scare her off. This conversation is the little spark from the flint, smoldering in the dry straw. He must care for it. Nurture it. Give it the right amount of oxygen. Too much, too fast, and it will fade back into nothing. Yes, best to handle it in person.

  “I’m looking into a flight on Saturday. JFK. Can I come to the apartment?” he asks, his voice breaking apart toward the end.

  “Let me see. I have to deal with my—you know, stuff. But, yes. I’ll call you. I—I miss you, Lane,” she says.

  “Me too,” he says. “But you know that.”

  LANE’S MOM AND TOBY ARE both inside the trailer. Packing. Cleaning. Organizing. Reorganizing. They better not have found his check in there. Or worse, misplaced it. Thrown it out.

  Lane sticks his head in through the door. “I’ll have my things out of there tomorrow. I’m heading home. To New York.”

  He and his mom smile at each other. She sets down a bag with kitchen goods including reused Ziplocs, aluminum foil and her electric can opener. She hunches out the door and gives Lane a hug. “I knew it’d work out, Lane. You always make it work.”

  “Congrats, Lane,” Toby says, his ponytail whirling around to catch up with the rest of his head. “Sounds like you might end up leaving before us.”

  “Yeah, I thought you’d be outta here by now,” Lane replies.

  “We did too.” Toby picks at a rusted hinge on a cabinet.

  “Gotta get new tires for the RV,” Lane’s mom says. “Guy at Les Schwab says there’s no way we’ll make it over the Siskiyou Pass.”

  “Under normal circumstances, I’d go for it and hope for the best.” Toby puts his arm around Lane’s mom and pulls her close inside the cramped space. “But I got the world’s most important cargo onboard now.”

  Lane’s smile betrays nausea.

  “We wrote up a budget,” she says, showing him a pencil-marked page torn from a notebook. “Need to work a few more days to be sure we got enough to make it down. Gas ain’t cheap neither. Gonna be tight.”

  “I’m looking to pick up some quick work. Let me know if you hear of something,” Toby says. “Gotta make it happen fast ’cause my buddy in Laughlin can’t hold on to my gig down there forever.”

  The phone starts ringing in the kitchen. It rings the third, fourth time. Lane starts to get nervous.

  “Isn’t Chaz gonna get that?” he asks.

  “He’s at work,” his mom says.

  “The teenagers?”

  Through the window, Lane can hear the answering machine pick up. It’s Nina’s voice.

  “Lane. It’s important. Give me a call.”

  IT’S AS IF THE DIAL on gravity has been turned up. It is hard to keep his head upright. His organs feel heavy. Lane must focus to maintain his breath.

  Lane steadies his hands and calls Nina’s number back. Power pose, he repeats to himself while he tries to break out of the crushing force all around him. He shouldn’t be so unnerved by the noise of the teenagers playing video games in the other room. Or his mom and Toby debating whether they should go on I-5 through Fresno, 95 through Reno or go for it and head to Twin Falls and drop straight south on 84 and 93.

  Nina answers after the first ring. Lane goes immediately on the offense with a firm, bloodless “I thought you were gonna deal with things from here, Nina.” Daring her to throw a monkey wrench into his plans less than a day before he can cash the check. He looks at the clock on the kitchen wall and counts the hours until the bank opens tomorrow morning.

  “Easy now, Lane. Why the bad attitude?”

  “We had a deal, right? I did my part and now you do your part. It’s done.”

  “You haven’t heard yet. Have you?”

  “Heard what?”

  “It’s done.”

  “What do you mean? What’d you do?”

  “Me? Nothing. Her boss said she was—”

  “Tom?”

  “Whatever his name is . . . he surprise piss-tested her the other day at work. Caseworker’s been notified. Which is huge because they were giving me a lot more grief about testing than I’d anticipated.”


  “What’s gonna happen to her?”

  “Hard to say. She hasn’t even gotten the news yet,” Nina says, more matter-of-fact than gloating. “She’ll lose her job, which will put an end to the charade of ‘progress’ she’s been selling. She could go back to jail for violating probation. Not sure. It’s the judge’s hands that are tied now. Jordan’ll be ours. Before the day’s over tomorrow—at the latest.”

  “What if she freaks out and, like, tries to hurt herself?”

  “If the tables were turned, would you have shown the same concern for me? For Tracey?”

  “Yeah, of course I would. It makes me sad that she—”

  “Congrats, Lane. Be happy. You’re gonna get what you want, and Jordan is guaranteed a stable, healthy home. A good life.”

  “A different life.”

  “Yeah, different in a good way. But he’ll still get his Spanish. And maybe we’ll even let him meet up with her when he’s older.”

  “They’re not Mexican, you know.”

  “Whatever, Lane. Who gives a fuck? You worry about you . . . That’s what you’re good at, right?” Nina says.

  He imagines Inez’s face when she gets the news.

  “Go ahead and cash your check tomorrow,” Nina says.

  “Oh yeah, the check. Is that dated for tomorrow?”

  “Right. Look, I knew you had it in you,” she says. “Remember Lane: sometimes you gotta make that wolf soup.”

  He thinks about it, and agrees with the wider point, but isn’t sure she’s correct about the role assignments. Maybe they’re all wolves and Jordan is the piggy. Maybe they’re all piggies and the wolf is life.

  He gets off the phone and stumbles to the bathroom where he dry-heaves until Toby starts knocking on the door to ask if he’s OK.

  THIRTY-FIVE

  “DOTTIE OR LANE? I’M NOT seeing it.”

  “Take a wild guess.” Lane twirls the heavy black pen tethered to the faux marble countertop by an aluminum ball chain. He’s ready to sign whatever he needs to sign, get his money and get out the door. He walked into the bank already brimming with impatience and is now well past his limit.