by Bryan Bliss
Toby threw himself back into his seat, an action that he knew made him look like a kid having a tantrum. Lily’s righteousness faded. Toby didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of tears, but they were close enough that he waited to ask the one question he had.
“Why?” Toby said, his voice breaking. But he didn’t care. At some point, he wanted the good parts of the world to arc in his direction. He wanted to rise above all the shit, which seemed to be infinite.
Lily reached for a cigarette, but the pack was empty.
“Like I said, I was in the Deuce a lot,” she said. “And I met Bo and he was older and, at the time, seemed impossibly cool. Especially when I was used to a bunch of literal choirboys.”
The words coming from Lily’s mouth were as flat as if she were telling him directions to her house.
“And . . . well, I don’t know,” she said. “I was confused. And I was excited about the money. So when he came over, I . . . Sometimes I think this whole state is cursed.”
Toby turned to face her, ready to yell. To call bullshit. When he was a kid, Jimmy would try to explain away the reasons why he beat on him. “You can’t keep your mouth shut.” “You need to learn some discipline.” As if any of that ever made a bit of sense.
“So with me . . .” He swallowed a few times before he started talking again. “Was it all just a joke?”
Lily reached her hand toward Toby tentatively. “Of course not.”
He wanted to believe her. He wanted to pretend that they’d had something real. Something that, given time and attention, would eventually work. Like a carefully rebuilt engine. But no matter how many ways he tried to believe it, what little faith he had in magic was gone. She wouldn’t end up with Bo. She wouldn’t end up with him. As soon as she got her money, she’d be on the first bus, train, or plane she could find. Back to Seattle, away from all this.
“God. This is what I always do. I swoop in and fuck up people’s lives, my own included. I’m more aware of it than you can possibly imagine.”
Outside, the rain started falling harder, streaking everything. He visualized the moment he handed the keys back to his dad. The moment he had the cash in his hand. Toby knew enough to expect a disappointment. But what if it really was more money than he’d ever seen? Ten grand. Hell, even five. That sort of money could get him out of the country, let alone the state.
“We should do this,” he said.
Lily started crying softly. “I’m sorry. I really am.”
Toby didn’t know what else to do, so he reached for the door handle. Before he could open it, she pulled him close, clutching his body like he might disappear. And maybe that’s exactly what they both were going to do—disappear. When he pulled away, her eyes were still wet.
“I’ll see you at the mill, okay?”
“Okay.”
Toby watched the taillights of the El Camino disappear around the building. He waited there, listening to the night, alive with sounds. Small animals scurried in the bushes. Birds, startled, rose from tree branches and disappeared into the dark sky. In the distance, the constant hum of the interstate reminded Toby that he had a purpose.
Toby walked around the side of the building and saw the truck for the first time. The sheer size of the rig stopped him in his tracks. It was easily twice the size of the El Camino and probably weighed ten times as much. There might be moving trucks this big, but he’d never seen one. Where the hell had Jimmy gotten this monster?
He forced himself to walk to the door of the truck and unlock it. Inside smelled like cigarette smoke and stale potato chips. He wiped crumbs off the seat and sat down, trying to steady his hands. His entire body. The steering wheel was as big as a Hula-Hoop, and the shifter rose up from the floor like a baseball bat. Toby toed the different pedals, unsure if he was happy when he easily touched each one.
He pushed the clutch in and tried to start the truck. The engine coughed and sputtered at first, but then, in a sudden roar of effort, turned over. He let it rumble underneath him, watching the clock and waiting for Lily to get a far enough head start.
He reached over and turned on the radio. It was tuned to a country station, which Toby ignored until the jangly song ended and a man’s gravelly voice announced that tickets were still available for the winter car and air show down in Charlotte. Thousands of cars. A couple of helicopters. And an old warplane that kids could investigate.
The ad ended with the sound of a plane roaring across the sky.
There were still five minutes before he should leave, but Toby couldn’t sit here any longer. He touched the side of his face and then reached down and wrenched the twenty-four-footer into gear. The heavy truck hopped once, twice, before smoothing out. As he was rolling toward the road, Toby turned up the radio.
Thank god for the dark and empty country roads.
He swerved and nearly put the truck in a ditch two times before he stopped overcorrecting and got the hang of the subtle movements of the steering wheel. Soon the long white lines of the highway stretched out in front of him, broken up by the dark puddles between the streetlights. Toby turned the radio up louder, opened the windows. The cool air calmed what was left of his nerves, and he told himself, There’s nothing abnormal about this. Thousands of trucks go up and down this interstate every single day.
He was one, two miles away from the exit when he realized, I’m going to make it.
Something flashed in the sky. At first he thought it was lightning. A shooting star, maybe. It disappeared into the clouds just as Toby realized he’d been staring a second too long. He was headed for the shoulder, fast.
He jerked the wheel, and the entire truck tilted like a bomb had gone off underneath it. He tried to correct, but the sudden spin of the wheel made the truck jump—Toby couldn’t tell how long he was even in the air, but it felt like an entire lifetime—and then landed on the hard pavement.
The last thing he remembered was the horrifying crack of the glass. The way the entire truck seemed to collapse around him.
And then everything went quiet.
January 30
T—
Today, when Sister came to see me, she looked like she hadn’t slept all night. I didn’t have to ask. I knew she’d been up with Eddie. Holding hands the way she does. Whispering those prayers she’s so sure work.
I wanted to scream at her.
What happens if all your praying doesn’t work? What then?
But when she sat down, her face tired and her hands shaking, I calmed my ass down. I sat there, waiting for her to speak—trying to figure out what I could say to make her feel better. But every time I opened my mouth, nothing seemed right.
So we sat there for a solid hour, neither of us saying anything. That’s when I realized there wasn’t anything I could say. All she needed was for me to sit here with her. So I didn’t say a word, T. Every few minutes I’d look at her, making sure she was okay. And then, right before lunch, Sister smiled at me.
“Eddie wants you to have a few of his things.”
I had no idea what Eddie wanted to give me, what he even had. Probably not much. That’s the thing in here, T. The weird way you try to leave a legacy. For some guys, that means telling jokes or giving away commissary. For others, it means getting up in your ear about God, the Bible. There’s more than a few dudes in here who are like that. But Eddie—Eddie had never played any of those games. He’d always been different.
I nodded, but there was something else bothering me.
“Are you going to be with him?” I asked.
Sister closed her eyes and nodded, wiping away a tear.
“Until they force me out of that room.”
Luke
29
LUKE didn’t stop running until he reached the apartment complex, sprinting up the stairs and throwing the door open. The boys were asleep, one under each of Annie’s arms. They jerked as Luke flew inside but stayed asleep.
“What are you doing?” Annie said.
His
entire body was shaking as she took in the cuts, the blood, all of it.
She stood up and came to him. “Oh my god, what happened? Are you okay?”
“I have to go,” he said, not sure where to start. What to take. His eyes stopped on the sleeping boys.
“You need to tell me what happened,” Annie said, her voice rising.
“I will,” Luke said. “If I left, would you come with me?”
She hesitated, looking at Luke’s hands. The cut above his eye was bleeding through the bandage. Luke was already shaking his head.
“No, it’s okay. I get it.”
Annie reached out grabbed his arm. “Hey, that’s not it. I just . . . I need to go downstairs and get a few things.”
She slipped out the door, leaving him alone in the quiet apartment. He thought he should probably pack some things too. Clothes, at least. But as he stood in the apartment, he couldn’t think of a single thing he wanted to bring.
As he stood there, Petey sat up, blinking.
“You hurt your eye,” was the first thing he said. Luke knelt down.
“I’ll be fine,” he said. “Go back to sleep.”
But Petey wasn’t having it. He sat up, yawning and rubbing at his eyes. “Can I tell you something?”
A surge of emotions overtook Luke. He couldn’t imagine not being around them, not seeing the daily changes in their personalities. They always surprised him in the simplest ways.
He choked his feelings back and said, “Of course, buddy.”
“Okay, I’m going to tell you all the rumors I’ve heard about the new Pokémon game,” he said.
Luke smiled and let him say every single word he wanted. By the time he was finished, Jack-Jack was awake and they were arguing about whether a certain Pokémon was legendary or, as Jack-Jack put it, “plain useless.”
“Guys, I want to talk to you about something.”
The phone rang in the kitchen and Luke ignored it.
“I’m going to leave,” he said. “For just a little while, I hope. Annie’s coming too.”
The boys stopped talking and both stared up at him, as if they didn’t understand. The phone rang again.
He heard the bedroom door open. Behind him, Doreen answered with a sleepy hello. For a second, she didn’t say anything—only listened. Ricky walked past her, shirtless and annoyed, and looked from Luke to the boys, as if unsure where to start.
“What are they doing up?” he asked. Before Luke could answer, he pointed at the cut. “And what the hell happened to your head?”
Luke ignored him and turned back to the boys. “Lay down, guys.”
Doreen came flying out of the kitchen, the cord of the phone snapping the receiver out of her hands. It clattered behind her.
“That’s your coach,” she said.
“It’s not a big deal,” Luke said, but his body was flush again. He couldn’t swallow fast enough. “Everything’s okay.”
“He said he talked to the police, Luke. The police.”
Luke didn’t doubt for one second that Coach O had called the police. He may have used generalities, “What if a boy got in a fight . . .” to keep all the angles open until he’d investigated every single one. Luke imagined this is the way the tough bastard had wrestled too. Annoyingly patient. Slow until you messed up. And then you got the hammer.
The boys’ eyes were wide with fear.
“The police? Is Luke in trouble?”
The twins started crying, and Luke bent down to calm them. But Doreen pushed him back and directed Jack-Jack and Petey behind her as she talked. “What about your scholarship? What about the state championship?”
In the kitchen, the phone was still on the floor. Ricky went to pick it up.
“Is this why you’re leaving?” Petey asked, his lip trembling. Doreen looked down at him.
“What did you say, honey? Leaving?”
“Luke’s leaving with Annie,” Jack-Jack said.
Luke couldn’t stop looking at the twins. He wanted to grab them from his mom and run to Annie’s car. All of them disappearing, just like that. He didn’t know how far they’d get before the police caught up with them—it could be the county line, it could be three states away—as long as it wasn’t leaving them here.
Ricky came back into the room, eyeing Luke. “Your coach wants to come pick you up. I’m going to let you decide what you want to do . . . but you aren’t staying here.”
Luke looked over at his mom. She faltered only for a second before she nodded and stared at Luke with the same hard eyes. He bent down, and Petey ran over and wrapped his arms around Luke’s neck.
“Guys, you’ll need to really do a good job at listening to Mom,” Luke said, calling Jack-Jack over too.
“I don’t understand,” Petey said. As soon as the words came out, Jack-Jack started crying.
“Can’t we all go with you?” Jack-Jack asked.
Luke tried to move Petey’s arm, but he clamped down so hard that Luke had to pull it off. He looked at the boys, both in tears now, and then up to his mom, wanting her to say something—anything to give him the peace of mind he needed to leave.
Instead, she grabbed Jack-Jack and Petey and hurried them to the bedroom. They both screamed and cried, pleading with Doreen to explain what was happening. The last thing Luke saw was Petey’s arm, reaching out in one last panicked motion before they disappeared.
Luke stared at the bedroom, fighting a million different impulses, each of which pulled him in a different direction. Run. Stay. Kick the bedroom door down and take the boys away. The result was a complete paralysis, only broken when Ricky said his name.
“Don’t make me call the sheriff,” he said.
Luke looked at the door one more time before he walked out of the apartment.
30
TOBY woke up to a woman yelling at him, the words coming more as sounds without any actual meaning. The first thing he felt was pain—glass everywhere—followed by a sudden hollowness that made him want to throw up.
“Are you okay?” the lady asked. When Toby unbuckled his seat belt, and tried to move, she yelped. “Don’t! You could have a broken neck or . . .”
Toby didn’t wait for her to finish. He pulled himself up and out of the truck, his vision blurry and every part of his body feeling like the broken glass that was spread across the highway.
He looked around, trying to blink the scene into focus. The truck was split open and cartons of cigarettes littered the wet road. Every few minutes, a car would pass slowly, gawking at the scene. Toby took a step and nearly fell to the ground.
“I saw the whole thing,” the woman said. “What were you even doing driving that truck?”
In the distance, Toby heard the faint yell of a siren. It helped him rally enough strength to stumble from the truck’s wreckage, pulling his arm from the woman’s grip—promising he was okay. Even though every step hurt, he willed himself into a sprint toward the woods that lined the road. He ran through the overgrown grass with his hands out, hoping to avoid tree branches—anything hanging darkly in the night. He ran until his legs and lungs burned and the sirens stopped getting closer.
Of course, losing the cops was only the immediate problem.
Toby picked his way back to town by running through yards, dodging automatic floodlights that popped on, momentarily lighting up the world. The whole time, he was trying to figure out how to deal with his bigger problem. Jimmy would be livid. His first thought was that he should go to Lily, warn her. But he wasn’t sure how she’d react. He’d ruined her escape plan too. And while he was sure she wouldn’t turn him over to Jimmy, he wasn’t so sure how she’d take the news that Seattle was off the table.
He stopped running, suddenly unable to breathe. As he stood there, bent over and sucking wind, he thought about Luke.
If Toby went to the apartment right now, a mea culpa on his lips, Luke would forgive him. More than likely, Luke was already tearing himself apart because of the punch. He’d offer up a gruff apo
logy and they’d do what they’d always done—adapt. Maybe he could convince Luke to leave with him, he didn’t know. But as he stood there, panic still crippling his lungs, there was one problem.
Toby wasn’t sure he could actually say those words.
He was tired of apologizing for other people’s sins. Tired of letting other people move him around like a chess piece. And even if he went to Luke’s, how long would it take for Jimmy to show? He might not even knock, just wait in the parking lot to snatch Toby as soon as they stepped outside. Or worse, come inside. Exposing Doreen, the boys—all of them.
He stood up and started running again, ignoring the pain. The panic. Running as hard as he could to the only place he’d ever been able to think. The place he and Luke had planned countless escapes.
The only place he’d ever really felt safe.
Toby reached out and ran a hand along the plane’s rusted frame, almost testing if it were real. He lowered himself into the shell of the plane and pulled his legs up against his chest, trying to think.
He needed his car. And despite himself, he wanted to find Lily—to make sure she was okay. That she understood what had happened. But he couldn’t risk going back to the Deuce tonight, or even the trailer. He would hole up in the plane and wait it out. Just like he had countless times before.
But he couldn’t get comfortable. Part of it was his aching body, but something deeper nagged at him. There had been no precautions—no masks to hide his identity, no gloves to mask his fingerprints. No talk about how he should protect himself if something had gone wrong. He didn’t even know where they’d gotten the truck in the first place. And maybe his denseness was the ultimate protection, the thing his father had been counting on all along.
Years ago, in the darkness of Luke’s living room, Toby had cried after another beating from his father. Before that, Toby had never cried in front of Luke. However, once the lights went off—Toby unable to get comfortable on the couch because of the bruise his dad had tattooed on his ribs—he finally let go. The tears came and came and, finally, so did the cussing. Words that Toby had used countless times before but now were less rebellion and more an exorcism. He told Luke he would never let a beating scare him again, no matter what.