We'll Fly Away

by Bryan Bliss

  But he wanted Toby to know.

  Luke wasn’t even angry when he walked into the bar. Toby was in a booth at the back of the bar with Lily, Jimmy, and a tall guy Luke had never seen before. Toby was raising a beer to his lips. By the time Luke made it to them, Toby was staring at the table.

  That’s when he got angry.

  Luke wanted Toby to live in the shame, the knowledge that he’d messed up. More than anything, he wanted the recall of this moment to be immediate the next time he saw Toby. The moment when Luke would tell him it was either Lily or him.

  He glared at Toby for a few seconds before Lily finally stood up and reached her hand out.

  “We haven’t met yet—I’m Lily.”

  Luke took her hand reluctantly, and as soon as he touched her, Jimmy’s voice rang out over the music and talking in the bar.

  “Better watch it, son. That there is what you call competition.”

  People laughed, and Lily dropped Luke’s hand like it had caught fire, giving Jimmy a nasty look. Toby stepped out of the booth and got between Luke and Lily.

  “What are you doing here?”

  Luke looked around. Jimmy’s collective of drunks and petty criminals was draped over one another, watching everything. The rest of the crowd seemed just as interested. Luke knew he’d never get Toby to be real in here. As he was standing there, the tall, rangy guy joined Toby and Lily, giving Luke the eye.

  “You said you were coming to the match,” Luke said. “What happened?”

  “That was my fault,” Lily said. “I . . . Toby helped me at my house, and then I was late getting here.”

  Luke didn’t even look at Lily. He didn’t care what she said or did. But he did meet the stare of the tall guy, smiling as he drank his beer. Eyes never leaving Luke.

  “Do you have a problem?” Luke asked.

  “Me?” the man said, considering his beer for a moment. “Nah. No problem here.”

  Lily pulled Luke and Toby away from the table as everybody laughed. When they were out of earshot, Lily turned to Luke.

  “Please take Toby home,” she said.

  They both turned to stare at her.

  “What?” Toby said.

  Lily was still staring at Luke. “I shouldn’t have brought him here. And . . . shit.” She turned to Toby. “I’m sorry. But this place is bad news for you. Especially tonight. I . . .”

  She looked back at the booth, where Jimmy and the other man were watching. She shook her head and said, “Just go. Please.”

  Luke looked at Toby, gauging his reaction to Lily’s words. Toby didn’t even glance in Luke’s direction, though. Everything he had was on Lily, his body turning more pitiful by the second. Like he might break down in front of everyone. Luke wouldn’t let that happen. He grabbed his wrist.

  “Come outside with me for a minute,” Luke said quietly.

  Toby ripped his hand away from Luke, still looking only at Lily. When Luke tried to grab him again, Toby turned on him, wild like lightning.

  “Don’t fucking touch me,” he snarled.

  Lily dropped her head and tried to talk to Toby. “Just go with him. We can talk later.”

  “When? After you have another party?”

  The words didn’t make sense to Luke, but they stopped Lily cold. She only snapped out of it when the woman behind the bar said, “Lily, take that shit outside. Right now.”

  As Lily was nodding and pulling Toby toward the door, the tall man came walking up behind everybody. He put both his hands on Lily’s shoulders.

  “Did somebody say something about a party?” he said, smiling. “Am I invited?”

  Lily shrugged him off, but he traced his finger down her back, letting it linger just above the waistband of her jeans.

  Toby watched the whole thing.

  “Could you please get fucked, Bo?” Lily said.

  Bo ignored her, pointing at Luke and then Toby.

  “You heard Val. Time to take this party on the road.”

  “I’m not leaving,” Toby said.

  Luke and Lily groaned.

  “You sure it isn’t past your bedtime?” Bo said, laughing at Toby.

  Lily called Bo an asshole just as Luke pushed him. He went flying into the bar, knocking over a couple of glasses. Toby was still staring at Bo as if he’d finally figured out the answer to a problem.

  Bo had Luke by the shirt almost immediately, his hand raised. Before he could swing, Luke dropped down and hit Bo with an uppercut to the jaw. Two more times in the face, splitting his eye open. He was ready to hit the man again when Jimmy picked up a beer bottle and cracked Luke just above the eye.

  The room blinked out for a second.

  Then both of them were on him, a blur of ringed fingers and cowboy boots going to work. Luke kicked Bo off him as Jimmy landed a hard punch on Luke’s temple. He delivered two or three more hits before Luke spun away.

  Luke was fire and twisted metal. Hands up and ready for whoever came at him. Blind with it. But when Val yelled that somebody had called the cops, Jimmy froze and pushed Bo toward the back of the bar.

  Luke grabbed Toby’s arm and tried to pull him in the other direction, but Toby was dead weight. Still barely paying attention to anything but Lily.

  “What are you doing?” Luke said. “Fuck her. We need to go.”

  That shook Toby from whatever dream world he was in. He stared at Luke hard.

  “What did you say?”

  The adrenaline was draining from Luke’s body, replaced by a familiar cold fear. His words shook with it. “They called the police. We need to go.”

  “No, what did you say about Lily?”

  Luke couldn’t believe it. He leaned close to Toby and said, “Are you kidding me? Wake up. She doesn’t want you here.”

  “I don’t need your help.”

  Luke laughed. “Yeah, okay. When haven’t you needed my help? I’ve been sticking up for you your entire life. Every single time your dad kicks your ass—”

  Toby charged forward and hit Luke with everything he had. Luke barely moved, but it didn’t stop Toby. He came again and again.

  “Don’t do it,” Luke said right before the third time. And when Toby charged, Luke reacted. Popped him once on the jaw. As soon as he connected, Luke wasn’t sure if he was going to throw another punch or throw up.

  Toby looked more shocked than hurt. He didn’t move or say a word. The only sound in the room was sirens getting closer and closer. Before Toby could say anything else, Luke ran out of the bar and down the road as fast he could.

  26

  THE two sheriff’s deputies looked more annoyed they’d been called to the Deuce for another fight than concerned about what had actually happened. As soon as they arrived, the entire bar went into a sort of practiced precision. Val rubbed the bar top in never-ending circles, her eyes following every step the deputies took. The only time she stopped was when Jimmy and Bo appeared from the back. Bo’s left eye was swollen shut, like a piece of fruit that had been left in the sun to spoil. His right one wasn’t much better. Every few seconds, he flinched in pain and touched his face cautiously.

  Jimmy barely had a scratch on him.

  They told the same neatly coordinated story: It was nothing but a high-school fight, couldn’t say what about. His son could probably shine a light. When he said that, Jimmy’s eyes flicked to Toby briefly, as if daring him to tell it any other way.

  Even if the deputies didn’t believe their convenient account, even if Toby wouldn’t say a word to implicate Luke, it didn’t matter. Every person in the bar had something to say about Luke, half of them pulling out phones and bringing up the aggressive headshot every newspaper had used when he won the state title last year.

  Luke threw the first punch, they all said.

  Looked like he was going to kill them boys.

  But as soon as the deputies asked if anyone wanted to press charges, the entire bar acted like they couldn’t get away fast enough. It didn’t surprise Toby. He knew his fa
ther was involved with the cigarettes, and hell, everybody else in this room could be too. They wanted the cops to go after Luke and then forget they’d ever stepped foot inside the Deuce.

  When the deputies finally came to talk to Toby, he was holding a bag of ice to his swollen jaw and trying to stuff all the anger inside him into a pocket in the back of his brain. He’d pull it out later, if he ever saw Luke again. The words like acid. Like bullets. And he’d pump every last one of them into Luke.

  “So, you know Luke Teague,” the first deputy said, checking his notebook.

  “You guys go to school together?” the other one asked, like he didn’t already know the answer.

  “Yes,” Toby said.

  “What were you fighting about?”

  Toby readjusted the ice but didn’t answer. If Jimmy had taught him anything, it was how to stand up to questioning. How to get it over fast without doing a bit of damage. Single words were preferred, and if you could get away with just nodding or shaking your head, even better.

  Behind them, Bo was holding a new beer to his eye, while Lily whispered something to Val. His dad sat in a corner booth, watching every move Toby made. For a half second, Toby thought, What if I just blew it all up? Let slip the tiny scraps of information he knew.

  Cigarettes. His dad. Lily and Bo.

  He was suddenly very tired. So tired he could barely move or focus on the questions the deputy was asking him. At some point, he had to take control. He had to stop letting other people direct his life.

  The deputy pointed to Toby’s face.

  “You should press charges,” he said. “Bo over there won’t because he’s on probation. And your dad, well . . .”

  The deputy laughed, like he knew all about Jimmy. And he probably did. Every cop in town did, or at least it seemed that way. They’d get pulled over, and it was dealer’s choice as to whether the cop would lean in and bullshit with Jimmy before letting him off with a warning, or pull him out of the car so he could make good on any number of slights Jimmy had handed out over the years.

  This guy was a bullshitter to his core. Toby shook his head.

  “I’m not going to press charges,” he said.

  The deputy looked at him strangely, then shrugged.

  “Well, that’s on you,” he said, closing his notebook and putting it into the pocket of his shirt. He motioned to Toby’s face. “But somebody who does that to another person? It isn’t an accident. It will happen again.”

  Before Toby could say anything, Jimmy put a hand on the deputy’s shoulder and, beer in hand, smiled like he was about to sell the man a new car.

  “Shouldn’t you be out chasing meth heads and busting prostitutes, Darryl?”

  The deputy chuckled. “Well, Jimmy, maybe if your boy here wasn’t earning the family name, I could be.”

  They both laughed, and Jimmy slapped Toby on the shoulder, proud. Like he’d just hit the winning home run.

  “He took a wallop, that’s for sure. But you know what that’s like, don’t you?”

  The two men laughed again, and Toby tried to slip away. When he did, Darryl stopped him.

  “Hold up there, son.” He looked at Jimmy and spoke low. “I’m not about to tell another man how to raise his kid, but . . . you’d be making my life easier if he got gone.”

  Jimmy mulled it over. “Who am I to argue with the law?”

  He slapped Darryl on the arm, and the deputy gave Toby one last nod before he walked away, joining his partner, who was talking to Lily.

  Once Darryl was out of earshot, Jimmy said, “Go wait in the car. Once they’re gone, come back in. We need to talk.”

  There was no emotion in his voice, and when he walked to the bar without another word, a shot of cold went through Toby. He watched his dad laugh with the deputies, not moving until Jimmy finally turned around and acted surprised to see him.

  “Shit, boy, you heard the deputy. Get out of here!”

  Toby walked outside and sat in the El Camino. As he stared at the Deuce, he was tempted to crank the car and drive away. He didn’t have any money, but he could probably ransack the trailer for enough pawn-worthy stuff to get him to Tennessee, at least. He lived in that brief fantasy until the deputies got into their squad cars and pulled out of the parking lot. Almost immediately, Lily pushed through the door and scanned the parking lot, stopping when she saw his car.

  She walked straight for him, her mouth set in a hard line, and stopped just to the side of the door, as if she expected Toby to pull away. When the car didn’t move, she sighed.

  “Your dad wants you.”

  Toby nodded. Lily stared at the sky and didn’t move. She pulled out a cigarette and lit it, taking a drag and showing it to Toby. “I haven’t smoked in three years. A couple of months back here, and voilà. Every bad habit I had, back on me like a tick.”

  She leaned against the hood of the El Camino, smoking her cigarette and blowing smoke into the dark night sky. Every so often she’d look at Toby, like she had more to say, but chose to inhale instead. When she finished, she dropped the cigarette to the ground and rubbed it out with her heel.

  “If you left right now,” Lily said, “he wouldn’t have time to come find you.”

  “Because of the cigarettes,” Toby said.

  Toby wanted a reaction. Lily barely moved.

  “I guess I’m not surprised you figured it out. But yeah, because of the cigarettes.”

  “Any other reason you want me to leave?” Toby asked, his voice even. She shook her head, like the question wasn’t important. But this was all Toby wanted to know. He’d seen Bo’s hands on her. He wasn’t going to let her make him a fool too.

  She came over and leaned into the door of the car.

  “Luke fucked Bo’s eye up.” Lily laughed, amused. “So Jimmy’s going to ask you to help. And he’s going to offer you money.”

  She said his name so familiar. So cavalier. Bo. It was a sudden torrential rain, overfilling the river, and Toby couldn’t stop the water from coming over the banks. He opened the door and she jumped back, surprised.

  “What the hell?”

  “Probably should get in there,” he said, talking too loudly and moving like he couldn’t get past her quickly enough. Lily ran to catch him, her fingers barely brushing his shirt. As if she could stop him with the lightest touch.

  “Wait—wait.” She finally grabbed him, but he didn’t want to stop, didn’t want to give her any sort of chance to explain what he’d been too stupid to see from the very beginning. Her and Bo. Shit, her and Jimmy. They were all doing something behind his back.

  “Stop. It’s not worth it,” she said.

  Toby was tired of people telling him what to do. Tired of everybody thinking they knew what was best for him. For once in his life, he was going to be the one who decided what was happening to him.

  “I can take care of myself,” Toby said, his words still flat. If his dad wanted him to help, great. He might only get a hundred bucks, but that would be a start. That would get him a few miles away. And then he’d find a way to make another hundred, go another few miles. Until he was as far away as he could get.

  Lily cussed under her breath. “What’s your problem?”

  “Who was at your house last night?” Toby asked.

  She froze so quickly, Toby was surprised she didn’t fall over like a tipped statue. She wouldn’t look him in the eye as she pulled another cigarette from the pack.

  “I have a feeling you already know the answer to that question too,” she said quietly. Toby wouldn’t look at her, and she ducked down to look him in the eye. “What do you want me to say?”

  All of Toby’s bluster was gone. A single raindrop fell, landing in between them. He refused to look at her when he said, “I want you to say it didn’t happen.”

  Lily’s silence leveled Toby. He started toward the bar, but this time she didn’t stop him. The last thing he heard before he walked in was her cussing, and the click of her lighter.

  J
anuary 29

  T—

  Today I woke up with Sister sitting there staring at me. I was about to crack a joke about her being a closeted creeper when I saw her face. Like she’d been told the world was about to end. It’s this never-ending space that feels like the floor’s disappeared and all you can do is fall and fall and fall. I shot to my feet, already knowing what she was going to say.

  They took Eddie back this morning.

  Now, I know there wasn’t anybody looking. I know there weren’t any dudes out there trying to catch me in this moment. But still, when she said that? Man, I just nodded. Even though everything inside me started flying, T.

  I wanted to punch the damn wall. To scream and cry and fall apart. Because goddamn, even though I knew it was coming, even though I know it’s coming for every dude in this place, it hurt me in a way that I didn’t think was possible anymore. In a way that I didn’t even remember was there.

  That’s when I saw it: Sister was trying just as hard to keep herself right-side out. When she stood up, I didn’t know what to do. It was almost time for breakfast, but how was I supposed to sit there and eat when Eddie was back there all alone? Isolated like some kind of rabid animal.

  And make no mistake, T. That’s why they do it.

  That’s why they put you in a room all alone, away from everybody except your lawyer and, if you’re lucky, any family that still claims you. Put you in a room right next to the one where they’ll strap you to that gurney, stick those needles in your arm, and let you die in front of a room full of strangers.

  They do it that way because your life doesn’t mean shit to them. No matter what they say, that’s how they let you die. Like some kind of dog kicked to the side of the damn road.

  Sister bowed her head to say a prayer, the way she always does, and I grabbed for her hands. For a second, when I first touched them, small and cold, I thought she might pull back. That I might see she was actually scared of me, repulsed at hands turned claws, just like everybody else.

  But she took my hands in hers as if she’d been waiting for them all along, and whispered frantic words to the sky. When the guards finally saw us, she refused to let go. And when they promised isolation, promised Sister would never see me again, I still held on.