by John McManus
CULT HEROES
IN NOVEMBER 1995, on the eve of the federal shutdown, the high-school mountain biking champion of California set off down the Central Valley to look for his father. A Fresno Superior Court judge was demanding both parents’ signatures before she would approve Hunter’s emancipation petition. Unless Hunter found Arthur Flynn at a Flagstaff address from years ago, his mother would have to testify at a public hearing. It was a glorious fall day, the hills crisply amber against a mackerel sky. His friend Cody had come along on the promise of a ride. Both boys raced as expert juniors; both were skipping school.
“Thank God your mom’s crazy and your dad vanished,” Cody said near Bakersfield, “or we’d be in chemistry.”
Hunter forced a laugh even as he cringed to hear his mother described that way. She was devout, not crazy. Since her car wreck she’d been paying sixty dollars an hour—from Hunter’s race winnings—to a Christian Science practitioner who prayed with her for the pain to end. Lately those injuries had segued into something more deep-seated. After she tithed the entire purse from Hunter’s win in Tahoe, Cody had convinced him to cut her off. “Do it before you get sponsored,” he’d said after Bike Magazine labeled Hunter “the likeliest Jordan of our incipient sport.” In the inaugural run of the Leadville 100, Hunter had placed in the top ten overall, including adults. His nickname since then was Death Wish. Kids broke bones on those steep, rocky trails where winners topped forty mph. Worried parents sidelined many a natural talent, but to Emily Flynn, asking her son to slow down was like telling God she didn’t believe in him. Velocity was a beguiling illusion meant to test their faith, which explained why Emily at the time of impact hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.
East of Mojave the valley gave way to brown desert lined with ranch trails that Hunter gazed at longingly from the wheel. Lately he’d been staring at singletrack and doubletrack the way other kids looked at porn; something welled up in him until he needed to touch it, feel it under him. “Look,” he said to Cody, who glanced up from examining the road atlas.
“We’ll be like fifty miles from the Grand Canyon,” Cody said.
“Let’s drive up and see it.”
“No, let’s ride to the bottom of it.”
“It’s a national park. They’d arrest us.”
“Which is fucking dumb.”
“The trails are kind of narrow,” said Hunter, picturing hikers leaping to their deaths as he and Cody raged down a precarious path.
“It’s probably a fifty-dollar fine.”
“It’s more if you kill someone.”
“Or if you get a yeast infection from rubbing your pussy on the seat.”
“What?” said Hunter.
“Medical bills and all.”
“I’m just saying it’s narrow trails.”
“Then let’s hit Moab and ride Slickrock.”
“Okay,” Hunter said, liking that plan better. He was still adjusting to his coming freedom. After the emancipation, he would drop out of high school and buy an RV that he and Cody would drive to race after race, detouring whenever they felt like it to Slickrock’s petrified dunes or any trail in America. He’d been telling Cody it sounded awesome, and it did, except when he imagined his mother living alone.
There was the practitioner, of course. Recently Joseph had offered to hold Emily’s hand as she walked away from Error back into Mind. God helped people ready to render themselves fools in the eyes of others, Joseph had said, and Emily need only look to her sister—Hunter’s aunt Amy, who’d died of the flu—to see what became of fear. Hunter couldn’t tell whether the man was a grifter. Maybe Joseph was in love with Emily, as she seemed to be with him. Hunter imagined his concern was only a conjurer’s trick, as Emily would say about the sky shimmering above Barstow.
In the Rodman Mountains a butte with steep zigzagging paths mesmerized Hunter into drifting onto the rumble strips. When Cody snapped alert, Hunter pointed to the blunt hillock. The sun was sinking behind low mountains, causing the shadow line to retreat up the butte.
“We can beat it,” he said, pulling off.
Without even closing the van doors they rode three minutes flat to the base of the rise. Hoisting their bikes over their shoulders, they scrambled up a scree field. The light was withdrawing. In a skidding rush they raced the sun until the gradient eased and they could mount their bikes again, slicing their way up to the summit in time for another sunset.
“Fucking A,” said Hunter on that high dais, wishing he could pause time.
“What a beautiful painting God has made for us today,” Cody said, mocking Hunter’s mother again.
“It is beautiful,” Hunter might have replied, but that wasn’t part of the deal of Cody’s friendship. Nor could he agree aloud that the sight hardly seemed real.
“Race you to the bottom,” he said instead.
“First let’s admire God’s handiwork for a few minutes.”
He laid his bike down. As soon as he turned to face the radiant show of orange light, Cody leapt on his own bike and went screaming down the butte’s north face.
Hunter gave chase. It felt incredible to charge downhill. He rode headlong onto a jutting boulder that launched him out over Cody, through the air. He landed diagonal to the grade, skidding hard right. From behind him he heard Cody cursing, but just for show. A good race was what Cody had wanted, and Hunter, who liked to please people, was giving it to him. He bunny-hopped gully after gully. Feeling serene, he kept a lead all the way back to the van, where his worry resumed over his father.
Hunter retained no memories of Arthur Flynn beyond his mother’s few stories, which all took place during his infancy. According to Emily, Arthur had suggested putting Hunter up for adoption because of the shape of his head. “I’ve got a conehead for a kid,” he’d told every nurse at the hospital, irked in a manner that seemed jokey until he phoned Catholic Charities and arranged for a Sister Bernice to come by. A far-fetched tale, but could Emily have cooked up such a particular account of drenching the nun with a pitcher of sweet tea? Or Arthur’s last words to her, “Keep your napkin in your lap,” or the strange gifts he’d sent from the Arizona address: lingerie two sizes too small, a family-sized box of Crystal Light?
Driving east, Hunter rehearsed not mentioning those things to his father. Unless Arthur Flynn looked thrilled to see him, Hunter would ignore his face, demeanor, everything except his signature on a form.
In Flagstaff, after checking into a Motel 6, the boys drove to 310 Beaver Street to find an empty house with an auction notice posted in front. Hardly had Hunter registered relief before Cody said, “This blows,” so loudly that a neighbor heard.
“If it’s Buck you want,” said that woman from her porch, “find him at Charlie’s Bar on the main drag.”
They thanked her, drove away. “Should we try it?” Cody asked.
“I doubt Buck’s Arthur,” Hunter said.
“Hunter, on that piece-of-shit bike of yours, you’re a badass, but off of it you’re a festering pussy.”
“Okay, Cody.”
“Did you hear about the girl in New Mexico?”
He shook his head. He knew Cody was about to describe yet another victim of Christian Science.
“Her parents let her bleed to death. State took them to trial, but the court ruled in favor of religious freedom.”
Over the past few months, since the pedal incident, Cody had been telling Hunter about similar kids in practically every state.
“That’s a tragedy,” Hunter said.
“Could happen to you.”
“I’m not a hemophiliac.”
“It’s a cult like the Branch Davidians.”
“You’re right,” he said, in order to stop talking about it. He had a disquieting thought. His bike, a Cannondale Killer V 900, was hardly a piece of shit. Still, it paled beside the Litespeed Cody had stolen after giving a fake ID to test-ride it. Although Cody’s anesthesiologist father could afford any bike Cody believed he deserved, Cody had
told his parents off and they weren’t speaking anymore. Now he sought for Hunter to ditch his own mother, too, so that Hunter’s winnings could fund their racing life.
“This feels like something I should do myself,” he said to his friend. “Maybe you could go back and plan tomorrow’s ride?”
“It’s true a pussy wouldn’t plan as hard a ride as I will,” Cody said, and did a three-point turn back toward the motel.
Alone, Hunter crossed town to a strip mall laid out below the moonlit mountains he would explore tomorrow. Facing the pink neon of Charlie’s Bar he sat there arguing with himself. Head back now, he thought, and lie that Buck looked nothing like him, wasn’t even white. Emancipation had been Cody’s idea, not his. But to picture that Christian Science con man whispering away his mother’s pain sent Hunter trudging into the bar’s dim interior, the papers folded into his training journal.
He laid the book down on the bar. Above him hung the Arizona state flag and a rainbow flag, flanked by elk heads. Upbeat country was playing loud.
“Rum and Coke,” he told the bartender.
“How about just a Coke,” was the reply.
“I’m being emancipated from my family,” he said, taking a seat in a row of plaid-shirted men who were hunched over their drinks.
“Let’s see some ID.”
“It’s at home.”
“Maybe a Sprite.”
“Forget it,” said Hunter, as a ruggedly handsome fellow a few stools down seemed to take notice. He looked about fifty, with sandy hair and a sharp jaw like Hunter’s, and they both watched the bartender pour the Coke.
Hunter felt himself being observed. He took the drink and sipped, refusing to stare back. Eventually the man beside him left, and the sandy-haired guy scooted over onto that seat.
“Ain’t seen you here,” he said to Hunter.
“I don’t live here.”
“Name’s Buck.”
“Okay,” Hunter said, nervous.
“You like it?”
“The bar?”
“My name.”
“I guess so.”
“Most twinks do.”
“Most what do?”
“How about you?”
“How about me?”
“What’s your name?”
“Hunter,” he said.
“That’s cool. Hunter and Buck.”
“What did it mean, ‘Most twinks do’?”
“Sounds macho, and so does yours.”
So Buck was talking about their names. With a shrug Hunter feigned indifference. The truth was he despised his name. For a year now, he’d been a vegetarian. The kids in his class who hunted were the ones who said cycling was for fags. Hunters struck Hunter as cruel, callow people. When his parents had named him Hunter, they had misread him in a manner he could cite in the court petition.
“Let me guess why you’re in town. To hike the canyon.”
“I’m a mountain biker.”
“Ride the canyon.”
“Against the law.”
“Government’s shutting down.”
“Huh?” He wondered if Buck was a cop.
“Budget crisis. At midnight tonight every government employee’s being furloughed, thanks to Slick Willie.”
“Are you sure?” Hunter said, imagining himself and Cody becoming history’s first riders of the Grand Canyon.
“That includes park rangers.”
“But it’s still illegal.”
“I’ll take you.”
“We’ve got a car.”
“Who’s we?”
“Me and my friend.”
“So you’ve got a friend.”
“Are you surprised?”
“You two want company?”
“Not especially.”
“Pick cotton, and it’s time to look for snakes.”
That sounded like nonsense, of a piece with the lingerie and the Crystal Light. Then Hunter spotted two men holding hands by the wall.
“I know who you remind me of,” Buck said.
“Who?” Hunter shut his eyes to brace himself for the shame that he and Buck would both feel if Buck turned out to be the man. He isn’t, Hunter told himself. Wrong name, wrong face, wrong everything.
He opened his eyes to find that Buck’s dumbfounded expression hadn’t changed.
“It was up in Kalispell, Montana. Middle of winter, blizzard conditions, but we figured out how to stay warm.”
“How old was he?”
“About like you.”
“Is this how you picked him up, too?”
“Honestly, I doubt I had to try as hard.”
Hunter glanced at the form sticking out of his journal. All he needed was a signature. Whoever Buck was, he would probably forge one in return for a kiss or something. They could even laugh together about Hunter’s thinking Buck was his dad, Hunter was telling himself when he heard, “Case you change your mind,” and saw Buck slip him a business card that read Arthur Flynn, National Park Service Ranger.
He stopped breathing. “What’s with your finger?” Buck said, because Hunter’s right ring finger was dangling limply as he picked up the card.
“Cycling injury.”
“Well, call me,” Buck said, and then he walked in back.
Sensing scrutiny from all sides, Hunter stopped breathing. Did all the men want him? Or were they laughing at his stupid hope that Buck would be worth talking to? The air thinned, the walls closed in. It was like his mother’s Lord was doubling down on the illusion, pressing his face into it, a face he wished to inspect for similarities to Buck’s. Did the sickle curve in Buck’s jawline resemble Hunter’s, now that he’d chiseled himself down to competition weight? Girls at school had started whispering about him, which had given him a shivery thrill. Now he only felt sick.
He laid two dollars on the bar. Back in the parking lot he called his mother collect from a pay phone. He’d lied that there was a bike race, and now he told Emily he and Cody had tied for second place. “Some twerp from Utah beat us. How are you feeling?”
“Better now that Joseph is here,” she said.
“Isn’t it kind of late?”
“He’s been worried about me.” She sounded warmed by the idea. “It’s more than just the wreck; there’s something else.”
“The prize was a thousand bucks,” he said, to test her reaction.
“Will you and Cody split it?”
“We each get our own.”
“Congratulations,” she said again, too neutrally to indicate much. Did she know about the petition somehow? He’d been hoping not to tell her about the proceeding until it was over. To obtain her signature, he’d disguised the form as a permission slip for a race.
“In the morning we’re riding our bikes down the Grand Canyon,” he said.
“That sounds beautiful. But be careful.”
“We’ll wear our seatbelts,” Hunter said, and then quickly hung up, feeling mean for making fun of her like that.
Was Cody rubbing off on him, he wondered, driving back to the motel? What had come over him? Did he believe it had been Emily’s idea for Buck to flirt with him at a bar? She could have warned him; she must have known Hunter would go looking someday. She could have argued for a different name. He turned Pearl Jam up loud. Trying to feel better, he drummed all his fingers but one to the beat. His right ring finger drooped lifelessly against the wheel, same as every day since the evening when he’d swapped out his toe clips for clipless pedals. He’d been waiting for Cody to come ride. Tugging with a wrench, he couldn’t get the pedal axle to budge. He grabbed the opposite crank, pulled hard. When the axle finally gave, the force slammed his hand down onto a chain tooth.
The metal cut straight through to white bone. Hunter fainted at the sight. When he came to, his mother was kneeling beside him, applying pressure to staunch blood that wasn’t real. It was a test of their faith, and it lasted until Cody showed up and drove Hunter to the hospital.
“Are you totally insane?”
he said on the drive.
“I hardly feel it,” Hunter replied, still woozy.
The ER doctor, who said Hunter had sliced his tendon in two, sewed the wound up and referred him to an orthopedic clinic. By the time that office opened, Hunter still hadn’t asked for his mother’s consent for surgery. You couldn’t be made of matter if you reflected God’s nature. Afraid the question would erect a wall between them, he let it go. The tendon retreated up his arm, or appeared to, and his finger dangled limply from then on.
“Talk to him?” said Cody, back at the Motel 6.
Hunter held up his journal as if it contained the signature.
“Sweet. What’s Pussy Senior like?”
“Kind of fat,” said Hunter, knowing how quickly Cody lost interest in people who weren’t in riding shape.
“That’s lame. I found us a sick ride.”
“I found a sicker one,” said Hunter, piquing Cody’s curiosity. Where? Who’d told him? His dad? Some wino? A pro cyclist visiting the Center for High Altitude Training? Juli Furtado? Tinker Juarez? Hunter refused to answer until the eleven o’clock news, which confirmed that the US government had suspended its operations, and the entire park system was closed indefinitely to both visitors and rangers.
All the way up US 180, over blasting Metallica, Cody shouted into the predawn dark that they would be devirginizing the canyon. Not until they veered around the shut gate through a stand of pinyon pines did he quiet the music and fall silent as if in uncharacteristic reverence. A glorious sunrise was igniting the canyon prongs. “It’s surreal,” Hunter said, full of a strange unease, as if his mother was right, and his survival on the ride down depended on faith that the land was make-believe.