Prodigal Blues

by Gary A Braunbeck

  "…bugfuck crazy?"

  "…yeah. I'm gonna be kind of tired for a few hours, so you'll have to drive."

  "Oh, after that French Connection re-enactment, I'd be driving anyway."

  He saw the look on my face. "How bad was I?—wait, don't answer. I already know. Would it do any good to apologize?"

  "How fast does that stuff work, anyway? I can't go another round."

  "If I need a double dose, I take the ones that dissolve in the mouth. They're twice as strong as the regular pills. They start to work within five to ten minutes, see?" He held out his hands; they were trembling, but only very slightly. After an explosion like his, most peoples' hands would be shaking like hell. "In another hour or so, I'll be back to my old self, more or less… whatever that is."

  "That might be nice."

  "Famous last words."

  "Could we not do this stumblebum routine again?"

  He nodded, then said: "All in favor."

  We both held up our hands. I couldn't speak for him, but even that much physical effort hurt too damn much for me.

  "We really should get the gun," I said. "Somebody's going to notice it."

  "But we're… we're protected by the bus."

  "Yeah, yeah, yeah, I hear you Pete Townshend—the magic bus protects us all." I started pulling myself to my feet.

  I failed.

  Miserably.

  "Your turn," I said.

  Christopher pulled himself to his feet, almost lost his balance and fell, but caught himself against the side of the trailer in time. "Jesus, Mark—you take martial arts or something? That was… ouch!… damn that was a nasty kick."

  "Blind shithouse luck." I lifted my arm. "Help me up."

  He did, and the two of us lurched slowly toward the front of the bus, hanging onto each other for balance. When we reached the tire beside which lay the gun, we stopped and looked down.

  "I'm not gonna try it," he said.

  "We could just leave it here."

  "Right. A murder weapon with both of our fingerprints all over it. That may be the most ingenious thing I've ever heard. Thank God we picked you, if we hadn't been careful we might have grabbed someone stupid."

  "Get in, I'll get it."

  Christopher did not so much climb into the bus as he did flop like a fish onto the floor of a boat, then pulled himself over into the driver's seat. He bumped his swollen nuts on the gearshift once and made a girlie noise. It was very entertaining.

  But not half so entertaining as when I bent over to pick up the gun and fell face-first onto the road. I was lying flat, covered in road dirt and the remains of a milkshake that had been tossed out by someone else before we got here, but at least I had the gun.

  From inside, Christopher called: "I think Mecca's in the other direction."

  "Not helping."

  "It wasn't intended to. My balls really hurt, Mark."

  "Tell it to my nose."

  "We need to get moving."

  "Famous last words—hold your horses." I grabbed the edge of the door and pulled myself around and then up, tossing the gun in onto my seat, then grabbed the inside door handle and used it to for balance. All in all it only took about a minute to get back inside. Not that bad, considering….

  "That was very graceful," said Christopher.

  "Your praise means all to me." I slammed the door and sunk into my seat, wondering why my ass suddenly hurt, then realized I was sitting on the gun, which I somehow managed to pull from underneath me without ever once lifting myself up. "I think this is yours." I handed him the gun. "By the way—not that I don't trust you or anything, but—would you mind checking to make sure you didn't lose your pills."

  "I didn't." He picked them up off the dashboard and shook them.

  I nodded my head, then said: "What now?"

  "Kentucky," he said. "We dump the load of shit in the back, then go to my folks' place so you can do your little act." But he didn't start the engine, he just sat there, staring out at the road and breathing hard.

  "What is it?" I asked.

  "…nothing…" he said, but I could hear the tears in his voice. A few seconds later he looked at me and I could see them in his eyes. "I keep thinking about Thomas. How… it shouldn't have happened, y'know? None of it should've… shit! I was supposed to be looking out for the rest of them, for all of them! I was supposed to be the one who thought ten steps ahead, just in case! They trusted me, and I… I…" He looked away, lowered his head, and wept.

  After I moment I reached out, hesitated, then put my hand on his shoulder. "It wasn't your fault, Christopher. What happened with Thomas and the fire wasn't any of your faults—except Grendel's. You did everything you possibly could, given those goddamn lousy circumstances. He's alive, and he's home, and he'll be happy. Maybe not right away, maybe not for a while, but eventually he'll be happy again, and he's got you to thank for that."

  "How do you figure?"

  "You're the one who decided to take action and then did. Do you think for one second that either Arnold or Rebecca would have been able to do that—just walk right up to that sick worthless evil pile of puke and jam that bone saw in his kneecap? Because I sure as hell don't."

  "They're damn brave kids."

  "I know that! I'm just saying that of the three of you who were in that room, no one else but you could've made that first strike. The rest of them didn't have that weapon in their hand; the rest of them didn't have the presence of mind to figure out that you had him outnumbered in a very enclosed space; they didn't have it in them to commit that kind of violence against another person, not alone, not by themselves, but you did—and you know why? Because the rest of them didn't have twelve years of god-awful nightmare memories to call on for strength—don't look at me like that. Yeah, I said 'strength'. That's what you showed then, Christopher. Okay, maybe it was vicious and brutal and ugly as hell but it was necessary—and it was still strength.

  "You should be proud of yourself for what you did. I don't know that I could have done it—I don't know that anyone could have done it, anyone but you. You took four incredibly frightened kids by the hand and led them out of a dark place of torment so unspeakably horrible that most people can't even begin to imagine it; you took them away from any more suffering at Grendel's inhuman hands. Their anguish is back there, you understand me? Yes, they'll have painful memories, and they'll have nightmares, sure—how the hell could they not?—but because of you their anguish has been left back in a damp basement along with the chains on the walls and the shadows in the corners and the echoes of all that screaming from below. And I hope it rots. I hope it lays there and sputters and becomes so rancid even the rats won't want it. Because that's where it belongs; not out here with you. You're beyond all that now, you're above it. You always have been. You just didn't want to believe it was possible that you were still a decent human being. Well guess what? I watched you kill a man in cold blood and I'm sitting here, looking right at you, and saying that you very well may be the single most decent human being I've ever met. It may be the only genuine distinction of my life to be able to say that I once knew you. I look at you and think about what you've been through, what you've done, and I feel completely and utterly insufficient. You're one of the best people I have ever met, Christopher. I'm proud to be here at your side, buddy. You bet I am."

  He was looking at his hands in his lap. They were quite still now. He took a deep breath, looked at me, then slowly reached out his hand, grabbed my nose, and yanked it back in place: the crack! that sounded in my skull filled the world and I screamed, doubled forward, and cupped my nose in my hands.

  "What the hell did you do that for?"

  "If you have to set a broken bone, it's best to do it when the other person isn't expecting you to. Hang on and I'll get a splint and some other things."

  I was in so much pain I couldn't move, so arguing with him about it didn't seem the constructive thing to do.

  He came back with another can of sanitary wipes,
some medical tape, and a metal nose-splint with foam padding on the inside. "You're gonna have a couple of black eyes after this one. On the bright side, maybe it'll give your face some character."

  "Oh, that's sweet, thank you."

  "Lean back."

  It took him about ten minutes to clean off my face, check my nose again, and apply the splint. "Use the rest of these to wipe off your hands and neck." He tossed the sanitary wipes into my lap. I checked my face in the mirror; the splint made my face look both threatening and silly. The two shiners were already starting to show. I had other cuts and scrapes on my face and neck that I didn't even realize were there until now. I had looked prettier in my time.

  "Still look better than I do," said Christopher, as if he'd read my mind. "By the way—thank you. For what you said. Thank you."

  "Uh-huh."

  "Do I get to hear about your grandmother now?"

  I shook my head. "Nope. I was promised a quote electrifying unquote game of 'Hide the Heifers.'"

  "'Bury the Cow.'"

  "Whatever. If by the time we're finished with all of this you have more cows, you get to hear all about dear old Grandma; if not, then you're just going to have deal with it."

  He started the engine. "Fair enough."

  I started to climb out.

  "What are you doing?"

  "Driving," I said. "I might be in pain but my memory's just fine. Move over. Go on, do it—the blue grass of Kentucky awaits us."

  14. That Other Guy

  Christopher lost the first three rounds of 'Bury the Cow' and decided like a graceful loser that it was time for him to drive again; by then, the pain of my nose was almost blinding me and the glow of victory was rapidly losing its charm, so I took a couple of codeine pills, leaned back in the passenger seat, and felt all shiny again for a while.

  I dreamed briefly of dead men in trailers rising to their feet and tearing away duct-taped cardboard, and when they opened their mouths to scream for help, inside of them were the faces of children, their mouths opened in a scream—they were the ones screaming for help, not the dead men—while the faces of other children screamed from inside theirs.

  I forced open my eyes and blinked against the sunlight as it strobe through the canopy of leaves above us.

  "I was about to wake you," said Christopher. "This is some really pretty country we're passing through—if you can forgive the diesel smoke you see hanging over the treetops every so often. Truckers tend to take it slow through here because these inclines are hell on gears, plus these roads can dip twenty feet or more with no warning. Because of the elevation, the atmosphere doesn't rid itself of exhaust fumes as quickly as it does in the lower parts."

  I rubbed my eyes, shaking myself further awake and away from the screaming dead men. "You sound like a tour guide."

  "I know." He looked out the windshield. Tears brimmed in his eyes but he was smiling. "You have any idea how long I've dreamed about seeing this road again? I knew it would be just the same. Most roads like this in Kentucky never change. Thank God."

  I sat up. Outside it was raining—nothing spectacular, just one of those constant gray drizzles that leaves the road slightly muddy and everything else looking as if it's shimmering from somewhere deep inside.

  Have you ever driven through Kentucky? Now, I know from books and television and movies that actual cities are rumored to exist there, but from the route Christopher was taking, you'd never be able to tell it.

  I have never seen so many hills in my life. The road we were on was this twisting, turning, narrow two-lane snake that wound through lush trees crowding closer to the side every time we made a turn. Even though it was only two-thirty in the afternoon, a luminous mist skirled across the road like ghost-tides lapping at shores no longer existent except in their ghostly memory. We were going uphill all the way so far, and I think we passed maybe four cars, at least three times as many deer, and two semis who moved with the deep-gutted roars and slow, desperate deliberation of dinosaurs crawling from the tar. The one time I dared to peek out the side window and look over into one of the deep ditches—just to see how deep it was—I about passed out from vertigo; the side of the hill (or was it a mountain?) dropped straight down, at least three hundred feet, and into a river speckled with the knotted, bare branches of trees gliding along, having caught a free ride on the current.

  Still, I stared at that sheer drop. "You've never driven this road before, have you?"

  "Nope," said Christopher. "But I've driven some damned dangerous ones, so don't worry—I'm not about to send us sailing over the side."

  "Could I have that in writing?"

  "Enjoy the view, why don't you?"

  "I'm trying."

  "Try harder."

  Eventually, and about as suddenly as a roller coaster, the road plummeted to a short steel bridge that rattled and shook like a bag of bones as we crossed it. Then I remembered that we had an actual bag of bones in here with us and heard the dead men screaming and felt sick and sad all over again.

  Through the windshield I saw the shear side of a mountain—a rock face—then the road hung a 90-degree to the left, pointing us through yet another set of hills lined on either side with yet more thick firs and pines. A family of deer stood among the trees nibbling at the grass; they lifted their heads and looked at us as we lumbered past. I felt like we were intruding.

  The road narrowed down to a single rutted lane here, and I occasionally spotted old, rusted railroad rails scattered among the trees, as well skeletons of homemade chairs, what looked like blankets, and swear I once spotted the remains of a log cabin.

  Here and there, up on the mountainsides in the distance, shelves of rock hovered over what looked like shallow caves.

  I pointed up toward one. "Are those caves or something else?"

  Christopher looked in the direction I was pointing. "That's a cave—if it was a mine, you'd see timber propping the entrance."

  "You know about mining?"

  "You bet. My grandfather worked these mines. He used to talk about it a lot after he got sick and came to stay with us.

  "All these mountains you're looking at, they're limestone with seams of coal. Sometimes the seam goes straight into the mountain, but usually it sort of just angles in and the coal shaft follows the seams. The shafts are propped with timbers, and generally slate lies above the coal. You take out enough of the coal and that slate—wham!—it'll come crashing down right on top of your head."

  "Even if there are timbers propping it up?"

  "Hell, yes. Timber gets soaked over the years, it weakens, doesn't take much to make it snap. Limestone is really porous, so there's always ground water. In those days, when my grandpa worked the mines, if a miner hit a narrow seam, he had to lie on his back in the water—can you imagine what that must be like? There you are, God-only-knows how deep down, in the dark, on your back in water, between all these rocks, pushing shovels backward over your shoulder to draw out loose coal."

  "I'll stick with cleaning toilets and doing windows, thank you."

  "Yeah… I wish Grandpa would have done something else. Goddamn mines killed him. Turned his lungs into blackened Swiss cheese and twisted up his back so bad he couldn't stand up straight. He had to use a walker to move around, and even then me and Paul had to help."

  I look ahead into the road. The canopy formed by the tree limbs grew lower and thicker the wetter it was made by rain, and soon Christopher had to turn on his headlights.

  "How much longer until we get to our first stop?" I asked.

  "About that," he said. "There's been a change in plan." He looked at me. "If you don't mind, I want to stop by my family's place first. I've been thinking about what you said, about how I'm above it now, better than him"—he gestured with his head back toward the trailer—"and I've decided that this has to end now. You talk to my folks, do your Mr. U.S. Marshal number, then I'll show myself and we'll call the cops and they can take him and do whatever they want."

  "What ab
out the bodies in there with him?"

  Christopher paused, blinked. "Think the police will believe it was self-defense?"

  "I honestly don't know—but after what you've been through, I doubt any judge is going to want to put you in prison."

  He nodded. "Well… I'll guess we'll see, won't we?"

  "You realize that I have no idea what your last name is?"

  He laughed. "I guess it didn't come up, did it? It's Matthews."

  I held out my hand. "Pleased to meet you, Christopher Matthews."

  He shook it. "A pleasure, sir."

  I sat back, checked myself in the mirror—the black eyes were so dark I looked like a raccoon—then patted down my hair and said, "My grandmother treated my dad like garbage his entire life."

  "Now we get to it."

  "You told me about your Grandpa, I'm going to tell you about my grandmother—unless you interrupt me again."

  He mimed zipping closed his mouth.

  "Look, the list of things she did to him when he was a kid—let alone what she did to him as an adult—would go on forever and depress the shit of you, so I'm just going to skip to thing that made me write her off permanently, okay?

  "The last Christmas before Dad retired, money was a little tight—hell, money had always been tight, but this year it was even tighter than usual, right? Dad only had sixteen dollars to buy Grandma a present, so the day before Christmas, he puts on his best coat and best boots and walks downtown because he doesn't want to waste money on a cab—no, my folks didn't drive, either one of them. I mean, they used to, but both their eyesight was going and, besides, they could always call Tanya or me. Anyway, he walks downtown—we're talking three, four miles in the middle of winter, ten degrees and snowing, a sixty-three-year-old man who's still recovering from radiation treatments from the first bout of cancer—he walks down and goes through all the stores, looking for something nice he can buy her with his sixteen dollars, and eventually he finds this really, really nice scarf, gloves, and perfume boxed set, thirteen bucks. He shoots the other three bucks to have them gift wrap it because Grandma is supposed to come over and pick up her gifts that night. Then he walks all the way back home in snow that's getting wetter and heavier.