Unraveling

by Owen Thomas

  “Red C-7.”

  “It’s like that catastrophe management trifecta they’re always aiming for in California where the earthquakes shake loose the mudslides just in time to snuff out the forest fires and quell the riots. It’s all in the timing.”

  “Red…C…7.”

  “Hey, if I get convicted of murder will you riot for me?”

  “If you don’t hand me that…”

  I hand her the strap.

  “What we need to do is find that little shit Brittany.”

  “She’ll turn up.”

  “Alive, I mean. Not in a landfill.”

  “She’s okay.”

  “Like you know.”

  “She’s okay. What you need to do is find her friend. What’s her name. The other one at Billy Rocks that night.”

  “Who? Carmen?”

  “Carmen. That’s the one. I need all three of those bars over there.”

  “They’ve already talked to her.”

  “Who? The police?”

  “Yeah. Chuck North and his goons. She doesn’t know anything.”

  “Like she’s going to rat out her friend to the cops.”

  “And what makes you think I’d have any better luck?”

  “Might not,” she says. “But it wouldn’t hurt to ask her.”

  “I can’t go anywhere near that school.”

  “Get her at home.”

  “Get her at home? I don’t know where Carmen lives. I don’t know her last name. I don’t think I could even recognize her. I met her once. She looked like a hooker. Jodi Foster in Taxi Driver... what’s her name… Iris. Iris was wholesome compared to this kid.”

  “You know her first name. You know her high school. A little social media magic and I bet you can light her up on a map in about twenty minutes.” She points. “Now all of those rubber things. No, wait, just the yellow ones.”

  “I don’t have a computer.”

  “Well I do. And are you telling me that this house is completely off the grid?”

  “There’s a computer in my dad’s office. But I wouldn’t know the first thing about finding this kid.”

  “We need to put the seat on. That’s where you went wrong. The seat was backwards.” I hand her the seat and she slides it into the silver track, bolting it in. “Now the red straps. If I can find her, you want to go talk to her?”

  “Who? Carmen?” I dump the thick rubber straps in front of her.

  “No, Iris from Taxi Driver. Yes, Carmen.”

  “I told you, I don’t…”

  “Dave.” Caitlin grabs the last length of black piping at her side and pokes it in my chest like a branding iron. She smiles sweetly. “If I find her, will… you… fucking… talk… to… her?”

  We take turns putting the CoreFlexx 9000 through its paces. Caitlin makes a production of binding my wrists and ankles into the patented rubber color-coded shackles and removes the locking bolt from the seat so that it can slide. It is the opposite of controlled muscle isolation. All I can do is squirm. As far as I can tell, the “exercise” comes in trying to spasm myself free from the clutches of a giant upside down arachnid. I feel like a hapless crewmate in an old Sinbad movie, plucked from the deck of the ship by a demonic perversion of nature no one has ever seen before. I wonder aloud whether the aerobic benefits might come from screaming for help. We laugh so hard at the ridiculousness of this contraption that my abdominals begin to hurt. When I finally stand up I am slightly dizzy. I have the beginnings of that strangely painful sensation in my arms and legs and stomach that I have taken the first overly ambitious step towards impressive physical fitness and I wonder if that is how the thing is supposed to work. They should call it the LaughRack 9000.

  It takes both of us to haul the metal spider carcass into a corner of the living room. I take Caitlin down to my father’s office and boot up the computer. I leave her, returning to the foyer to break down the box and clean up the packing material that litters the floor. The empty bottle of grape soda forces back into my head the kiss that I am trying not to think about. The kiss that confirms my credentials as a bonafide asshole. What the hell was I thinking? Cee Cee Lewis? Really? Has it come to that? So long Mae Chang, hello Sissy? Goodbye Saab Turbo, hello vanbulance?

  I haul everything out to the garage and pack it into the garbage can. When I return, Caitlin is in the kitchen sitting on the counter swinging her legs and peeling an orange. I stop short, surprised to see her. She looks up and gives me her sideways smile and tucks errant strands of hair behind her left ear. My regrets collapse and harden into an iron ball in the center of my chest, growing smaller and denser, transforming from regret for the foolish thing I have done to regret for the thing I am unable to do, which is to cross the kitchen of my youth, knock the orange out of her hand, pull off all of her clothes and carry her out to the couch to declare my love in a multitude of ways.

  She cocks her head and looks at me in a knowing way that makes me afraid she can read my mind.

  “What the hell?” I say gesturing at the orange. “Help yourself, why don’t you.”

  She holds out a slice and I take it.

  “Your dad has some seriously eclectic reading down there,” she says.

  “You give up on Carmen already? I thought…”

  “Carmen…” she mutters to herself, furrowing her forehead. “Oh! You mean Carmen Denoffrio? On Casper Circle? You mean Carmen Denoffrio who’s big into metal music and who likes to use the words ass and wicked and sick a lot, as in the new assistant football coach this year has such a wicked-hot ass it’s sick? You mean, Carmen Denoffrio who’s getting really sick of her wicked mother who likes to whore around with loser guys from work, leaving Carmen to make dinner for her kid brother who spends all of his time either on his ass playing videogames or up in his room jerking off which, when she really thinks about it, is, well, it’s just sick is what it is, Dave.”

  “Guess you found her.”

  She pops an orange wedge in her mouth, gloating as she chews.

  “Ten minutes. Social media. Digitized narcissism. Bonfire of the vanities, baby.”

  “A symptom of a culture in decline if there ever was one.”

  “Says the suspected felon.” She smiles again. “Fuckin’ wicked is what it is.”

  * * *

  Casper Circle is not easy to find. It’s in Worthington. We cross the Olentangy River and realize we have gone too far and double back. We have taken the vanbulance rather than my car only because I will soon need to pick up Ben from school and the idea of seeing his face light up as we pull into the parking lot is too much to resist. But as we troll slowly up and down unfamiliar streets looking for the home of Carmen Denoffrio, I am confident that the only way we could possibly draw more attention to ourselves would be if the vanbulance still had operating lights and sirens.

  Caitlin wants to pull over and ask directions. She slows as we approach a man up on an aluminum ladder cleaning his gutters. I convince her to go the end of the street. She turns right on Halverston. Casper Circle is only a block down.

  Like the surrounding neighborhood, Casper Circle is a modest, unassuming stretch of road with small, sun-faded split-level houses set comfortably back from the road on standard issue grass rectangles. Tall elms are scattered here and there, lending a certain aged, pastoral dignity that is wholly at odds with the ratty collection of plastic yard furniture and beat up cars lining both sides of the road. Tomorrow must be trash day. Plastic cans are overflowing at the end of every driveway like flowering brown carbuncles growing on the tip of each concrete tongue.

  The Denoffrio home is no exception. A shower curtain rod wrapped in dirty yellow vinyl pokes out of one of the cans. A pizza box has unfolded itself precariously over the lip of the other. Caitlin pulls up alongside and cuts the engine.

  “We’ve got to pick up Ben in twenty minutes,” I say.

  “We’ll be there. Let’s go.”

  “Wait…”

  “What?”

  �
�What are we… Nothing.”

  I follow Caitlin to the door, without any idea of what I am going to say to Carmen, a girl with whom I have danced up and down to the soothing tones of Electric Mayhem but to whom I have never actually spoken. Hi, I’m David Johns. I used to teach history at your high school before I was fired for poisoning your mind and contributing to your delinquency. Maybe you remember me from Billy Rocks, that night I caused a big scene and took your friend’s drugs. You have no reason to trust me and I’m reasonably sure you were somehow involved in the defilement of my car, but I kind of need you to tell me what you refused to tell the police; specifically, where I might be able to find your good friend Brittany Kline so that I can wring her neck and hand her over to the police.

  Caitlin rings the bell. We wait. She rings again and then knocks, but there is no sound of stirring from within. Cait cups her eyes and tries to look past the edge of the shade drawn behind the window beside the door. Increasingly confident that this errand will come to nothing, I reach over her shoulder and give the door a couple of solid knocks; as though it’s all in the technique.

  Nothing.

  I am simultaneously disappointed and relieved. Disappointed that we are no closer to finding Brittany. Relieved that I do not have to encounter a student of Wilson High.

  I turn and head back towards the vanbulance. But I am alone. Cait is on her toes at the top of the driveway looking into the narrow windows at the top of the garage door.

  “Can’t see,” she says, disappointed. “Let’s go get Ben.”

  The words are barely out of her mouth when the garage door jolts and begins inching upwards. A boy on a mountain bike nearly runs over my foot.

  “What the hell do you want?” he asks me, scowling, like he is ready to hit me. His face is very young, fifteen maybe, blooming with acne. He is beefy and broad across the shoulders and has big, dirty hands. He is wearing a gray Megadeath t-shirt with large gashes up the sides and a greasy Daytona 500 hat that, backwards, looks a size too small the way the pink flesh of his forehead extrudes around the strap.

  His appearance out of thin air startles me and I take a step backwards towards the curb. The garage door opener in his hand seems like a weapon.

  “You live here?” asks Cait, light as air.

  “Who the fuck are you, looking into my garage?”

  “Sorry. I’m Becca. That’s Rob.” Cait points at me as she reaches the sidewalk and I almost look over my shoulder. “You Justin?”

  “Yeah. So?”

  “We’re lookin’ for Carm.”

  “Duh. She ain’t here.”

  “Yeah. I got that. We were gonna hook up after school.”

  “Probably still out there.”

  “School?”

  “Cheerleading shit. Least she better be there.”

  “Why’s that?”

  “Grounded. Either here or there for a month.” Justin throws his head back and gives a throaty laugh roped with phlegm. He spits and pushes down on a pedal and rolls between us, turning up the driveway. “And she’s gotta take the bus ‘cause my mom hid the keys to her car.”

  “That sucks ass something wicked,” says Cait, winking at me.

  “You know it. Pooooor Carrrrmennn.”

  There is suddenly a loud grinding buzz as the garage door lurches into motion. Justin Denoffrio glides underneath into darkness, laughing.

  Caitlin and I are alone on the sidewalk.

  “Becca?”

  “Shut up, Rob. Get in the van.”

  * * *

  We are fifteen minutes late picking up Ben from school. He and his teacher are sitting on the curb talking and bumping knees. Jenny Daley is swinging my brother’s red Buckeyes backpack between her legs like a metronome. She looks up at us as we pull into the parking lot but then looks back to Ben, having no reason to think a decommissioned ambulance has any relevance to her afternoon.

  Ben knows differently. He is quickly up and jumping with his arms in the air, pumping his legs up and down, his face an expression of pure joy. It may be true that the flattened features characteristic of Down Syndrome dampen facial expressiveness, although I think such assessments fail to account for the average stranger’s inability to get past the difference in manner and appearance, inhibiting the ability to relax enough to read atypical facial cues. Nevertheless, nothing of my brother’s mental state is ever lost on me. He is the exact antithesis of Justin Denoffrio. His glee is alive and contagious. I feel instantly lighter. Though it will not last but a moment or two, this is the happiest I have been all day.

  Jenny, startled witless by Ben’s reaction, is up and restraining him by the arm as we park. By the time Cait stops and cuts the engine, Ben has broken free and is slapping the driver’s side door with the palms of his hands. He stretches up and down on his toes like he has springs under his heels. I wave across the cab at his bobbing head and then climb out. Jenny walks over and hands me the backpack.

  “I learned a lot about football,” she says.

  “I’ll bet. Sorry I’m late. Thanks for staying.”

  She waves me off and turns to head back into the building. “See you tomorrow.”

  As I watch her go, I catch myself thinking of her as a colleague; a teacher of children. Then I remember. I envy her, the sun on her back.

  On the other side of the van, Ben and Cait are hugging. His face is flattened against her shoulder. His eyes are closed. She makes big circles on his back with the palm of her hand, every now and then stroking the back of his head. I cannot help but think of Mae and the spine-stiffening terror she would feel at moments like this. Cait smiles.

  “Easy there, buddy,” I say. “Don’t break her.”

  He pulls free of Cait and gives me a hug and initiates our ridiculously complicated high-five routine. Cait watches and laughs and says she wants to learn.

  “Guy stuff,” I say severely.

  “Guy stuff,” says Ben. “Can I ride in the back? Lying down there in the back? On the bed in the back? Can I? Pleeeeeeeeze?”

  Ben is strapped into the gurney, eyes closed. His hand drapes dramatically off the edge towards the floor, like he’s been shot and is bleeding out. It sways limply with every bump in the road.

  “How was school Benny?” I ask, ricocheting the words off the windshield.

  “David, don’t talk to me ‘cause I’m sleeping back here in the ambulance, okay?”

  “Okay Ben.”

  “I had a tiring day and so I’m tired.”

  Cait laughs.

  “Okay Ben.”

  “Hey David?”

  “Yes Ben.”

  “Can we go to dinner at Safari Hut?”

  It is still early but I’m hungry and have nothing better to do except to go home and obsess over my ulcerated future. I look at Cait. She shrugs.

  “Whatever you say, bro.”

  “Okay bro. I’m sleeping now.”

  We are headed the wrong direction for Safari Hut. I expect her to take any number of turns that will loop us back around to the freeway.

  “You know where this place is, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “Quick errand.”

  “What errand?”

  She smirks.

  “You’ll see.”

  She is right about me seeing. Two miles from the school, I put it together.

  “No way, Cee Cee.”

  “Relax, Dave.”

  “You don’t get it. Do you understand that I have been …” I look over my shoulder back at Ben, who is holding his hands up to the skylight, framing the clouds with his fingers. I start again with a lower voice. “Do you understand the thing about me and school property?”

  “Yeah. You’re not going to set one foot on school property. You’re not going to leave this van.”

  “What are you going to do?”

  “Satisfy my curiosity.”

  She parks across the street from the visitor’s parking lot and turns off the
engine. She roots around for something beneath the seat, but I am too distracted at the prospect of being spotted to care.

  “Cee…”

  “Breathe, Dave.”

  I can see the words Bertrand J. Wilson High School above the double metal doors through which I have passed almost every day except weekends, summers, holidays, and college, since I was fifteen, and through which my passage is now strictly forbidden. The traffic in and out of the building is sparse. No one yet that I recognize. The flags of my former allegiance – federal, state, municipal and educational – hang limply over the windows of the office belonging to Principal Robert B. Robertson III. I have been on the other side of those windows, looking out at the parking lot now between them and me. I wonder whether Principal Bob is inside at this very moment taking casual interest in a decommissioned ambulance as he oils his hair and recites his daily Leviticus. I wonder if he has replaced his bobble head mascot.

  “Stay here,” says Caitlin. She is out and headed across the street before I can ask what in the hell she thinks she is doing.

  “Even if you find her, she’ll never talk to you.”

  She doesn’t hear me or pretends she doesn’t hear me and keeps walking.

  “Hey bro? Why are we at your school?”

  Ben unstraps himself and stands up. I watch Cait navigate the parking lot and cross the main walkway leading to the front entrance. She heads past the far edge of the building for the football field.

  “David, how come we…”

  “Cait needs to see somebody. She’ll be right back.”

  She slows to an aimless saunter, stopping to watch four boys at the thirty-yard line take turns throwing footballs into a dirty white bag. Beyond them, on the sidelines, a group of girls is sitting on the bleachers. Carmen Denoffrio is not among them. There is a pile of school color in a heap to their left, which I take to be pompoms. One of the girls gets up and starts feeding the pile of blue and yellow fluff into another dirty white bag. Cee Cee continues walking, skirting the end zone.