He looked inside the driver’s side window. His dad’s socked feet rested right near The Kid’s face. Hot and smelly in the pickup. His dad’s undershirt was too tight, stained yellow in the armpits. The Kid’s mom had always bought his dad new undershirts when the old ones got like that, but since his mom had been gone his dad just wore the same old undershirts. The Kid liked when the undershirts were too old, when the fabric was thin, because then he could see all of his dad’s tattoos underneath.
On his dad’s left shoulder was a picture of The Kid’s great-grandmother, his dad’s grandmother, who had raised his dad out in the desert east of Los Angeles, somewhere on the way to Las Vegas. The Kid didn’t know exactly where. He’d never been there, had never met his great-grandmother. She’d died before The Kid was born. The portrait was a gray-toned drawing of her face, copied from an old photograph. She was a young woman in the portrait, wavy-haired, soft-featured. Her lips were set in a tight, thin line, her gray eyes looked straight ahead. She was very serious about posing for this picture. Her name and a date were written below the portrait in black script: Eustice Darby, 1922. His dad had told The Kid that the date was when the original picture had been taken at a portrait studio in Reno, Nevada. He told The Kid that Eustice Darby had been twenty years old when the picture was taken and that was a big deal back then, getting your picture taken, which was why she looked so serious. She didn’t want to screw it up.
His dad had gotten the tattoo after his grandmother died. The Kid didn’t know how long after, but he didn’t think it was a year. A year seemed like too long to wait to do something like that, to get a drawing of someone on your skin after they died.
The bottom of the portrait drifted away in ghost-like wisps. Just below, a long, winding snake stretched down his dad’s bicep, flicking his tongue at an unrolled scroll that said, Don’t Tread. There was sand from the desert sliding out of the snake’s mouth, down past his dad’s elbow, with all sorts of desert creatures twirling in the fall: a tarantula, a scorpion, a coyote, tumbling down to his dad’s forearm, where brick buildings sprouted, alleyways and phone lines, crooked streets with trash cans and a shining Cadillac and a police car. There were howling dogs and broken bottles. There was a pretty woman with fire-red hair and big boobs under her sweater sitting on the hood of a flame-painted hot rod. There was a yellow moon overhead, about mid-forearm, swollen and cratered. The sand from above just grit in the air down there, shining in the moonlight.
His dad rolled over on the seat, resettled.
Tumbling blue waves ran down the length of his dad’s other arm. The waves were drawn to look like woodcuts, like they were constructed from the same material as the two boats that tossed atop them, one at the shoulder, the other down lower at the elbow. The boat at the shoulder was a great, fierce pirate ship, its Jolly Roger flag flapping in the wind. There was a scruffy black crow sitting on the front railing of the ship holding a whiskey bottle with XX written on the label. The crow had little bubbles popping over his head and a couple of those same X’s for eyes. Orange-yellow flames shot from the mouths of a row of cannons poking through the prow. Two cannonballs had just been fired, arcing through the air toward the second ship, curving down the slope of his dad’s shoulder, leaving a trail of swirling smoke in their wake. The second ship was a small rowboat, trying to get away, banking around his dad’s elbow to the other side of his arm in an effort to avoid the oncoming cannonballs. Two sailors paddled furiously, their sad boat tossing dangerously in the churning waves. The rowboat had sprung a leak. A geyser of blue woodcut water shot up from boat’s middle, raining back down on the two desperate figures. Alarmed exclamation points hung above their heads. They couldn’t believe their bad luck. It seemed only a matter of time before the cannonballs caught up, before they were sunk.
Below the waves were three letters written on his dad’s knuckles in a real fancy, flourishing script, like something a king would write. These were The Kid’s initials. His dad had gotten that tattoo when The Kid was born. The Kid was glad his name was on the pirate arm, rather than the desert arm. The cool blue arm, rather than the hot brown arm.
The Kid always puzzled over the tattoos, tried to fit the pieces together, tried to unlock the mysteries, secrets, codes. The Kid felt that he could learn everything there was to know about his dad by studying the drawings on his skin. His dad had told him stories about the tattoos, how and when he’d gotten them. The Kid had heard the stories many times. Sometimes the stories changed. Sometimes they were completely different each time his dad told them.
His dad was looking at him from the other end of the truck with sleepy eyes, a sad smile. His dad always looked disappointed now when he woke up and saw just The Kid there, like he was expecting something else, something more.
“Hi, Kid,” his dad said.
The Kid waved.
“I got a new cell phone. It has a different number, though. We’re going to have to memorize a new number.”
The Kid nodded. He could do that, as long as everything else stayed the same, the contact plan, the Morse Code messages. He could memorize a new number as long as that was the only thing that changed.
His dad sat upright, turned down the radio, pulled on his boots.
“Are you hungry?” he said. “I’m hungry. Let’s go out and get a new backpack, something to eat.”
The mall was packed. Darby kept close to The Kid as they moved through the crowd. The Kid knew the layout far better than Darby, so he led the way, pulling them toward the shoe store where he could look at the backpacks.
Darby hated the mall. The endless circling for a space in the parking garage, the noise, the crush of people. He’d asked The Kid where they should go to shop and The Kid wrote, The Mall. When he’d asked The Kid if there was another option, The Kid wrote, Not that I know about.
Darby had worked a job here once, a few years back. The stock room in the men’s department of one of the anchor stores. They’d had to work fast, overnight, trying to save as much of the merchandise as possible, finishing the cleanup before the employees arrived in the morning and the store opened for the day, before the first customers came through the doors.
At the shoe store, The Kid found the rack of backpacks, tried a couple on. He walked back and forth across the crowded floor with each one, testing its fit and weight, looking straight ahead as he walked, briskly, stiff-jointed, a rehearsal for the way he walked to school, avoiding all the other kids. After a couple of attempts, he found a backpack that felt right, a blue and white model, Dodger colors. It was one of the smaller backpacks, but it still looked ridiculously large strapped to The Kid’s spindly frame.
Darby watched The Kid’s sneakers as he tested the backpacks. They were last year’s sneakers, scuffed and worn, probably too small for his feet. They hadn’t gone back-to-school shopping at the end of the summer. Darby hadn’t even thought of it. He’d forgotten that this was one of his responsibilities now.
They stood in the center of the store, looked at the walls covered with sneakers, all the new makes and models. They waited for a couple of seats to open up, waited for a salesman to come over and measure The Kid’s feet. It turned out that The Kid needed a full size bigger than he was wearing. The salesman squeezed back through the crowd, into the stockroom to get a box in The Kid’s new size.
“What do you think?” Darby said. “So far, so good?”
The Kid nodded, adjusted the straps of the new backpack.
It was still there, in the back of his throat. The speck, the fleck. Darby stepped out into the mall, keeping The Kid in his sight, found a trash can beside a wooden bench. Spat into the can, cleared his throat, spat again. No good. It was still there, lodged, a piece of the respiration mask, a tiny piece of rubber or plastic. Or something worse, maybe, something from the job site that had slipped through. Darby spat again. Still no luck. He thought about the ring, still in the glove compartment of the pickup. He still had to clear out the rest of the garage, get the ring into a drawer
at the back.
A woman and a girl were standing by Darby’s vacated seat when he returned, a mother and daughter, white, blond, the girl about The Kid’s age. The mother was blandly pretty, heavily made-up. Darby motioned to his chair, offering the seat. The woman nudged her daughter forward, but the girl stood firm, shaking her head. She tugged on her mother’s shirt to get her ear, whispered something below the noise of the store. The mother looked at The Kid and then at Darby. She gave a phony little smile. They didn’t want the seat. Darby hoped that maybe it was the tattoos, that the girl was scared of the tattoos, but when he looked at The Kid’s face it was obvious that he knew the girl, that he was the reason she was refusing the chair. The girl stood behind her mother, looked at The Kid like he was something vile, something contagious.
“Why don’t you go look at the shoes, Rhonda?” the girl’s mother said. “Why don’t you pick out something to try on?”
“Take a seat,” Darby said. “Have a seat. The salesman’s coming right back.”
The girl’s mother looked up at him, the rigid smile still fixed on her face.
“Thank you, no. She doesn’t want to sit.”
“Makes more sense to sit and wait,” Darby said. “He’ll come to you.”
“Really,” the mother said. “No. Thank you.”
The Kid kicked at Darby’s shin with his socked foot. He wanted Darby to stop, to leave it alone, let it be. Darby coughed again, tried to clear the speck from his throat. He didn’t want to let it be. He wanted this girl to sit next to his son.
“I’d like you to sit,” Darby said.
“No,” the woman said. “I’ve told you.”
Darby cleared his throat, cleared it again. “Take the seat. Please.”
The woman stepped in front of her daughter. Her smile was gone. “Do you want me to call security?”
The Kid kicked at Darby’s shin. Darby sat, finally, reclaimed his seat. Lifted his hands to the woman, palms out in surrender. She took her daughter by the arm and steered her through the crowd, out of the store. Darby coughed, angry, embarrassed, looking at the other customers who quickly looked away when he met their eyes. The Kid was looking down at the backpack in his lap, adjusting the straps with shaking hands. The salesman returned with a couple of boxes and a big smile, knelt in front of The Kid and reached out for one of his feet.
They got dinner in the food court, a few slices of pizza, a couple of Cokes. Darby felt a little vertiginous walking with their tray through the open space, the high ceiling, the sea of occupied tables, the echo-chamber noise. He made The Kid hold onto his belt until they found a table about halfway in. He cleared off a clump of abandoned burger wrappers, carried the trash to a garbage station. Spat into the can, trying to clear the speck. Still no luck. Looked up and couldn’t find their table, couldn’t find The Kid. Looked back the way they’d come, looked to both sides. Maybe The Kid had moved, had found a new table. Sweat prickled his armpits, the back of his neck. He looked for The Kid’s face out in the crowd, still holding someone else’s garbage.
“Waitasecond.” A man’s voice behind Darby. “I know the name. I know it.”
Darby turned. A tall, balding man in a wrinkled gray suit was staring at him, smiling, waiting for something, expecting something. He was holding a tray with an overlarge burrito and a paper plate of multicolored tortilla chips.
“Everclean? Everclean Cleaning Service?” The man nodded as he said it. “I’m right. I know I’m right.” He stepped toward Darby, extended his hand. “Tim Nevin.”
Darby looked at him, trying to place the face, the eager smile. A sales rep from an equipment manufacturer, maybe. One of the safety goons from Sacramento. Darby took Nevin’s hand, nodding like he recognized the man, looking out into the food court for their table, for The Kid.
“How long ago was it?” Nevin said. “A year and a half? Maybe two years, now. Probably closer to two years, right?”
Darby didn’t say anything. He didn’t know who this man was, what he was talking about.
“That was something, wasn’t it?” Nevin said. “I can’t quite get that picture out of my head. You know what I mean. Walking in on something like that.”
Darby tried to spot landmarks in the food court, things they’d passed on their way to the table. Nevin still had Darby’s hand, was still pumping the handshake.
“You guys were great,” Nevin said. “You saved my ass. The restroom looked brand new. Everyone came into work the next morning, nobody had a clue. We told everyone he died at home, right? Why tell them anything else?”
Darby said nothing, tried to pull his hand free. Bob would know this man. Bob would remember. This was Bob’s job.
“You remember, right?” Nevin said. “Brokerage firm in Century City, right off Santa Monica Boulevard. Eleventh floor.” He gave a loud, nervous laugh. “You couldn’t have forgotten that fucking mess.”
Darby said nothing. He didn’t remember. Middle stall of the restroom, stall door open, car keys, wallet, receipts from a trip to Vegas on the counter next to the sinks. The force of the gunshot covering the tiled wall of the restroom, the ceiling, the stall walls, the toilet, the floor. Darby didn’t remember. He said nothing, looked for The Kid.
“Yusef,” Nevin said. “His name was Ahmed Yusef. Middle Eastern guy. Worked for us for about a year. He’d just blown a ton of money over that weekend. Company money. He had a gambling problem, a drinking problem. You remember.”
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Darby said.
“You’re the right guy,” Nevin said, smiling wider, in on the joke. He squeezed Darby’s hand, nodded at the tattoos on Darby’s forearm. “I know you. Everclean Cleaning Service. You came in and cleaned up that fucking mess. Yusef in the bathroom stall.”
Darby shook his head, took a step back. Nevin held on to his hand.
“You’re joking, right?” Nevin said. “How could you forget that?”
“You’ve got the wrong guy.”
“I do not have the wrong guy.” Nevin’s voice got louder, higher. Fat red blotches emerged on his neck. “Are you kidding?”
Darby shook his head. Nevin held on to his hand.
“How could you forget?” Nevin said. “This was a person. This was a person who worked for me.”
“You’ve got the wrong guy,” Darby said.
“I do not have the wrong guy. Why are you saying you don’t remember?”
Darby looked out into the food court, searching for The Kid.
“Look at me,” Nevin shouted, jerking Darby’s arm. “How could you forget that? How can you tell me you forgot that?”
Darby dropped his tray, pizza slices and Cokes clattering, spilling across the floor. He shoved Nevin hard in the chest with his free hand. Nevin lost his handshake grip, stumbled and fell, landing on the seat of his pants,dumping chips and salsa across the front of his shirt.
“What the fuck is wrong with you?” Nevin said. “You were there. I remember you.”
Darby backed away, stumbled over his dropped tray, looking out into the food court for The Kid, desperate now, panicked.
“I remember you,” Nevin said. “You were there.”
Darby pushed through the crowd, calling The Kid’s name, his real name, a strange sound to hear, a lost word, until finally he saw The Kid’s big head poking up above the crowd, The Kid standing on a chair, frantically waving his hands, guiding Darby back.
What had happened at the mall? The Kid wasn’t entirely sure. His dad had gotten into an argument with Rhonda Sizemore’s mom in the shoe store and into some kind of fight in the food court. He’d dropped their dinner on the floor. Then they’d left the mall, fast. The Kid was still shaking from what had happened. He was worried that maybe Rhonda’s mom or the security guards at the mall had called the police.
It was too hot in the house, so they ate at the picnic table on the back porch, Chinese takeout they’d picked up on their way home. The Kid wondered what they’d eat when Y2K happened, when all the fas
t food and takeout places were closed or burned. The newscasts said they needed to start storing canned food, bottled water, powdered milk. They didn’t have any of those things, and even if they did, would his dad know how to fix dinner from them? His mom would. His mom had been a good cook. He and his dad used to play a game at dinnertime that his dad organized. While they were waiting at the kitchen table, his dad would lean in to The Kid and whisper in his ear like he was telling The Kid a secret, giving him secret instructions, and then his dad would count, whispering as his mom approached the table with dinner, One, two, three, and then he and his dad would both say, You’re a good cook, Mom, as loud as they could, and his mom would act completely surprised, smiling like she’d just won an award, like she’d never heard this game before, and she’d put the pork chops or spaghetti on the table and raise her arms in victory and hug The Kid and kiss The Kid’s dad lightly, just behind the ear.
After they were finished eating, The Kid got his new backpack and made the transfer of materials from the brown paper grocery bag, careful to make sure his dad didn’t see the goggles and facemask he’d borrowed from the toolbox. He pulled out the construction paper and magic markers, spread the paper across the picnic table. He folded each sheet of paper in half, addressed each to a different student in his class and the last one to Miss Ramirez. Twenty-three cards. He pulled Matthew’s Captain America comics out of the backpack, looked for good drawings to copy, superheroes in action, running, flying, smashing faces and brick walls.
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