Ray Vs the Meaning of Life

by Michael F Stewart

  I stand and nod. “Maybe ask him to stop?”

  “That’s what you’re for,” he says. “I’m not getting out of bed at midnight to argue. Is that leprosy you got?”

  I make a note and continue down the line.

  “Washing machine ate my quarters,” another older man says, covering his mouth as if my bug bites could be contagious.

  I promise him a dollar and keep going to the next complaint.

  “Dryer stole my sock.”

  “That’s what dryers do, I think,” I say and lift my jeans to show two crusty socks, one gray, one whitish.

  “No, they don’t.”

  I promise him a sock. Six hours, some odd minutes until the meaning of life. There are six more complaints. No one’s worried about the pool, but I skip the little girl’s trailer and go straight to poolside to see what I can do about it.

  With a long stick I poke the berg. You know how they say the part of the iceberg that’s showing is only ten percent of the whole? Well the refrigerator on top is hiding the pickup truck-sized hunk beneath the cover. Leaves clutter the pool, and the rubber cover is torn but finally free of ice. I haul it to the side. The pool at least looks more like a pool because the blue liner bottom offers a false reason for optimism, but, if anything, the problem seems worse because the cover had been hiding yet more ice. The pigtailed girl takes a flying leap off the swing and tears away to her trailer. I drag the remains of the cover to the dumpster and feed it over the sides. Then I empty the rest of the garbage cans around camp and pile the bags one after the other into the bin.

  There’s a squeal and pigtails flap as the little girl, now wearing her bathing suit, races to the pool and then stands sad-faced, staring at the pool-bergs. Swim goggles hang from her fingers. I duck when she turns, and I sneak around trailers and come up on Pulled Beef from the other side to take my evening shift.

  “Hiding from a little girl?” Tina asks as I enter.

  “Don’t want to frighten her with my face,” I reply. “Besides, swimming isn’t as much fun as it sounds.”

  “Ah, so you’re protecting her from the disappointment of the joy of swimming pools, how good of you,” Salminder says, face smiling beneath an orange turban.

  I didn’t see Salminder with the fridge door open, and stare at him now. What do I say?

  “And death by drowning—why take the risk, right?” Tina adds. “If you opened the pool, that would mean she could swim, and that kind of fun can result in all sorts of injuries.”

  I need to respond, but I can’t say anything. Tina said Salminder doesn’t want anyone to know. But I’m sad, too. The silence stretches as Salminder’s smile fades.

  “Why orange?” I ask quickly. “The turban.”

  The smile grows again. “It has great significance in the Sikh religion,” he replies.

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  “It goes very well with my shirt.”

  “Oh,” I say and inspect the toes of my boots.

  “Tina told you,” he says.

  “I’m sorry, Daddy.” Tina touches him on the shoulder in a way that I don’t remember my mother touching me.

  “It’s okay, Sunlight,” he says. “I am glad.”

  We lapse into silence, but not the sort of efficient silence of the past where we’re all working as a team. This is another of those awkward dividing silences. We serve lines of jacks and a couple of the survivalists who flit in whenever the line’s gone and disappear again.

  “How’s your mother?” Salminder asks as dusk and mosquitoes settle over the park.

  “Okay,” I reply. “Not dying of anything.”

  Tina drops her knife.

  “Sorry,” I say.

  Tears shimmer in Tina’s eyes.

  “Are you dying?” I ask. Emotion clamps greasy fingers around my heart.

  “We’re all dying.” Salminder grins again, and I don’t know how he can.

  “Yeah, but . . .”

  “Some of us sooner than we’d like?” His smile isn’t quite so broad.

  Tina’s standing there with her eyes and mouth open wide. I don’t even know if she’s asked these questions yet.

  “Cancer,” Salminder says. “Will shorten my life, most likely. But I cannot let that stop me, or you, or my Tina from living.”

  “This guy, Dalen Anders, is coming today, should be here soon,” I say. “Maybe he can help you too?”

  “Wait. The guy from TV?” Tina asks.

  “I’d never heard of him,” I say. “But I think so.”

  “Why would he come here?” She seems way too excited by this.

  “He’s going to tell me the meaning of life,” I reply. Salminder laughs.

  “He’s big, Dad. He once cured someone of their fear of flying in five minutes.”

  “Fear is nothing to be afraid of,” Salminder replies. “Letting it control you is the problem.”

  “Yes, Dalen said that, too. The guy went on to learn how to fly a plane.” There’s a light back in Tina’s eyes. I don’t know if it’s because Salminder seems so okay with dying and all, or maybe she’s starstruck by celebrity.

  There’s sudden cheering and a big whooping shout over a megaphone.

  “Who can do it?” demands the voice.

  “You can!” replies the crowd.

  And more clapping.

  “When the student is ready, the teacher arrives,” Salminder says.

  I hesitate at the door. An hour remains of my shift, but the line for food has vanished.

  There’s another cheer.

  “Go on.” Salminder waves me off. “You owe me an extra—”

  I’m out of Pulled Beef before he can finish.

  Chapter 18

  The ribbed shell of a massive bus gleams in the setting sun. As I rush closer, the eyes of a gigantic head with a silver mane coalesce and stare down from an image on the side of the bus before a crowd of campers off shift. In the door of a bus that probably cost as much as the entire campground stands Dalen Anders. His eyes are the same intense dark as his photo’s; if anything they’re brighter, and the silver hair gives his skin the glow of burnished copper.

  He wears electric blue jeans and a white, ruffled silk shirt on a lean frame as he shouts, “Now someone tell me how one finds Ray, the RV Park King.”

  There’s epic silence.

  My mother cackles.

  Someone asks, “You mean, Swami Ray? He’s here somewheres.”

  Dalen’s smile broadens as he shakes his head. “Not here, this man’s worth probably in the order of a billion, a few hundred million at the very least. I got turned around somewhere back at . . . sorry, I blinked and missed the town, know what I mean? Where’s Sunny Days’ executive offices?”

  My mother hoots and hoots. “A billion!”

  “Yes, ma’am,” Dalen says with a measure of awe. “I’ve never seen an elderly lady like that eat so much caviar, like it was another food group.”

  “You’ve come to the right place.” Crystal points at the statue. “There’s yer lady. Old coot.”

  Dalen’s smile falters.

  I’m pushing through the crowd, hand halfway up. “I . . . me . . . I’m Ray.”

  “All hail, King Ray!” my mother shouts, and there’s scattered laughter.

  “You’re Dalen Anders? It was me on the phone.”

  His name’s printed on the bus and beneath it, Who can? You can!

  “Ray,” Dalen states but pulls me up to his side, smiling again for pictures. “Got something of a skin condition there, don’t you?”

  The way he grins, I keep looking for a television crew, but there isn’t one. “My grandma hired you,” I say.

  “It’s a real pleasure to meet you, Ray. It is a real pleasure.” He shakes my hand. “How old are you? Twelve?” he asks, not unkindly.

  Crystal and Mom are clutching each other, holding themselves upright, tears of laughter streaming down their faces.

  “Seventeen,” I say. “You’re in the right pla
ce.”

  Realization seems to dawn on Dalen. He claps his hands together and he leans back. “Of course, you’re a coder, aren’t you? Write software out of a trailer, an eccentric. What’s your social network? Surprised I haven’t heard of it.” I shake my head. “Campy YouTube videos then, millions of followers online.” Dalen’s smile cracks as Crystal’s piercing glee rings out. “So who are you, kid? Why am I here?”

  “I’m Ray. Just Ray. I need the meaning of life so I can inherit the RV park.” My arm takes in the swath of the park. “Sunny Days.”

  Dalen glances around as if for the first time. Looks back and nods at the big sign over the park entry. “This RV park. This is the only park? Not a hundred of these across the country or something? The McDonald’s of RV parks?” It’s like he keeps digging as if there’s gold here if he can only just find it.

  “Nope. Just the one.”

  Dalen slaps his forearms where a mosquito has bitten through the silk. The corpse leaves a red smudge on his shirt. The guru stares as if it’s a gunshot wound.

  “I’m afraid there has been some sort of mistake,” Dalen says, evidently coming to the conclusion that there’s nothing but bugs here.

  “I don’t think so. You help people figure out their lives, right?” The joy I’d felt at his arrival is quickly departing. Tina squints at Dalen. Everyone’s watching. There are even a few phones out recording.

  “Yeah, but, kid, I help billionaires. Not little—”

  I step right in front of him. “I need help. I don’t know what to do.”

  “With what? A bear problem?” Dalen smiles at his own joke.

  Mom gasps. “Bear got Grandma.”

  “Didn’t mean it as an insult,” he says with a wave and leans down, but still doesn’t set foot on camp soil. “Listen, if you let this go, I won’t sue you for misrepresentation.”

  “Mis—” I scratch my head.

  “False pretenses. Your grandma, I thought she was rich. Really rich,” his speech jutters.

  “You mean, you assumed she was,” I say, folding my arms over one another. I’m struggling, because part of me never wants to see this man again, but the other half of me says you don’t get as rich as he obviously is without being good at your job. I need him.

  “I won’t sue,” he repeats.

  “You can’t help me?” I ask.

  He jerks back as if I’ve delivered a jab. “I didn’t say I can’t help you, Ray.”

  I look down.

  “You won’t then,” says Obelix.

  The crowd of jacks press in tighter as the conversation grows quieter. Dalen’s eyes roll.

  The guy smiles for the cameras. Even Crystal and my mother glower.

  “I tell you what. I’ll cut you half my fee back.” He pulls a checkbook from his jacket, scribbles in it, and presses the check into my palm.

  “Who can do it?” he intones, but it’s half-hearted and results in silence. “Wow, actual crickets,” he mutters and backs up the stairs of the bus. “Get us the hell out of here,” he says to the driver.

  There’s a brief muffled argument and then the door shuts. The bus starts to reverse down the drive.

  “Well, wasn’t he a pea-brained peacock?” my mom says.

  My double asterisks back toward the sunset.

  Chapter 19

  The bus has no room to turn around, so it slowly bumps backward down the road. In the windshield Dalen stands watching.

  Tina taps me on the shoulder.

  “He’s a jerk,” she says and then her eyes widen. “Holy—I gotta become a motivational speaker!”

  She’s pointing to the check; on it is a number followed by more zeroes than I’ve ever seen. Fifty thousand dollars. Word of the amount ripples through the crowd.

  Mom starts shouting at Grandma for spending her money. I can’t take my eyes away from the bus as it nears a bend.

  “Take the money, bro,” Crystal says. “You were never going to figure out the meaning of life, this is more than you’d ever get from Mom, and she’s not going to give you nothing now you went and lost the other half of that.”

  And then I understand. In my hand is a check for half the amount Dalen Anders charges for coaching. Half. If I take this check, I burn through fifty thousand dollars. But if I don’t take the check and can convince Dalen to stay, I’ll have to spend two weeks with that guy and will have probably wasted a hundred thousand anyway.

  A tree branch groans and snaps as the bus brushes it. Like everywhere around here, the swamp isn’t far from high ground, and the tires run perilously close to the ditch. The phone and power lines go down, the generator kicking in on Grandma’s brain. And I see it, swinging in the front of the bus windshield, at times obscuring Dalen’s face: a dream catcher.

  A sign.

  I start to walk.

  “What are you—?” Crystal demands as I pass under the park gate.

  I start to jog. The rear of the bus is around the bend. I wave my arms and run as fast as I can. The bus accelerates. Dalen gesticulates at the driver, who keeps her eyes on the side mirror. My lungs burn and I stumble, scrape a shin, and scramble to run again.

  It must have hit a still muddy patch because the bus stops and then starts rocking back and forth. I rush up to the grill as the engine roars. I hold the check up high. Dalen’s eyes widen. I tear the check into shreds. The bus surges forward out of the muddy gully, hits me, and I fly back a dozen feet. My skull thwacks into the road. The bumper roars up over my legs. If it weren’t for all the mud and the ruts, I’d have been squashed, but the driver’s already got it in reverse and the bus worms as it backs right off the road and into the ditch. Pieces of fifty thousand dollars flutter about.

  “What the hell were you—?” Dalen launches off the bus, his expression twisting as he skids to my side.

  “I’ll kill ya, I’ll kill ya, I’ll kill ya.” It’s like a murderous train chugs behind me. It’s coming from camp, but my vision swims. “I’ll kill ya, I’ll kill ya!”

  “Are you okay?” Dalen manages before the train barrels past, catches him beneath his chest bone, and he sails backward to land in the muck.

  He cries as my mother rains fists from above.

  I reach down and press my hands along my legs, which lie within a wheel rut. There’s no pain. I pull up my pants and stare at the tire tread marks. I yank my legs out of the mud. I’ve been run over by a bus but I’m fine. Just fine. Watching my mother hammer away at the little semi-enlightened man, a lightness fills me.

  Dalen and my mom scream at one another as I climb to my feet, legs quaking.

  “You owe me one month,” I say over him. “My grandma paid already.”

  “Misrepresent—” he starts, but my mother holds a fist cocked.

  “One month, and I won’t sue for hitting me with your bus.”

  “You people are insane!” he shouts and rolls from beneath my mother to his knees.

  The bus keeps digging itself deeper into the swamp beyond the road. Without a tow, it’s not going anywhere.

  “One month,” I repeat. “Two weeks, actually. That’s all I have time for anyway.”

  He looks from my mom to the angry campers and back to me.

  Behind him, the bus honks, and the driver lifts her hands in surrender. “All right, fine, all right, let’s do this. How hard can it be? What’s the meaning of life for a seventeen-year-old? Video games and girls, right?”

  He hesitates in the silence, brushing as much caked mud as he can from his shirt. The campers close in on us, and he takes a step backward toward the bus. “Why don’t you come on up, Ray? Get started.” Glancing uncertainly from the campers to me, he motions to the bus door, which the driver opens. “Are you ready to change your life?” His smile flickers.

  Even though Dalen’s tone lacks conviction now, I take a deep breath and follow him aboard. I so am.

  Chapter 20

  “Ray, meet Charlie.” It’s a despondent intro. Dalen keeps picking at a shirt obviously ruin
ed.

  Charlie, the bus driver, gives an uncertain wave. She has short blonde hair and blue searching eyes. My ears are ringing from the hit, and my back’s scratched from the fall. It’s then I realize why she’s so pale. She’s worried I’m about to keel over.

  “I’m okay,” I say as everything swings left and then right. I struggle to hold my head still. “I think.”

  Dalen takes my elbow and drags me to a couch, first covering it in a towel before letting me sit. Out the tinted window my mother hisses up at the bus. Crystal’s joined her with a gun at her back.

  I smile despite myself.

  “Relax, have a soda,” Dalen says. He’s disappeared into a back room. The motor coach is one giant RV, but decked out with leather and inlaid wood. The kitchen has granite counters and a full-size fridge. When he returns, Dalen’s wearing a cotton T-shirt. The mud has been washed from his face. An angry bruise rises at his chin.

  “Normally I’d dress a bit better, but just in case that woman . . .” He trails off, brushing nonexistent dirt from his shoulder. “So, tell me about yourself.”

  I’m woozy. “Ray, short for Raymond. You met my mom, and the one with the gun’s Crystal, my sis. I’m seventeen.”

  Dalen leans in. “What do you do, Ray?”

  “I have a job. Flip burgs.”

  “Burgs?”

  “Burgers.”

  “Ah, hamburgers. Organic? Grass fed? Is it a chain—Never mind.” He shakes his head. “Why am I here, again?”

  I’m pretty sure he’s trying to convince himself. “If I can figure out the meaning of life, I get the campground. At least until Grandma resurrects.”

  “Resurrects?” he asks.

  “Yeah, her brain’s cryogenically frozen. She thinks we’ll have technology in the future to bring her back.” I point out the window toward Grandma.

  “Something to research.” He glances back to Charlie, who rolls her eyes. “But, Ray, I can’t tell you the meaning of life.”

  Here I was going to call Sam Peregrine for an appointment. The ice in my stomach. Maybe it had been there before Grandma died and playing video games helped me forget about it. But I recognize it now. It’s a block of panic. The meaning of the double asterisks and then the possibility of Dalen’s wisdom had held it in check. Now that panic freezes everything around it. It sends icy bits into my veins. My heart thunders. This jerk gets a hundred thousand dollars and I get . . . nothing? How can I face my mom? How can I face Tina or Crystal?