Prodigal Blues

by Gary A Braunbeck

  "Grandma never showed up that Christmas Eve, she didn't show up on Christmas Day, or the day after, or the day after, not for New Year's… that present sat in their house for six fucking months before she got it—and even then she sent one of her other grandkids to get it, then went out of her way to call and tell him that she already had plenty of gloves and scarves but maybe she could use the perfume. It broke his heart. By then he was getting sick again—that little Christmas Eve stroll left him with walking pneumonia, and it was while he was being treated for it that his doctor discovered the cancer was back.

  "Flash forward. Both Mom and Dad are dead and buried—she didn't come to the either funeral, by the way, she had a little touch of the flu both times. She decides to move down to Kansas to be near her sisters and sets about looking up my sister, who's living down there with her husband, and trying to 'make amends.' My sister, by the way, made the drive all the way to Ohio and back for both funerals, and she was sicker than hell both times.

  "Okay, so Grandma tries to make all nicey-nice with Gayle, and Gayle's too polite to tell her to go to hell—we both knew she was just an old woman trying to get into Heaven any way she could. Grandma would call me sometimes to see how I was doing and reminisce about Mom and Dad like she ever gave a shit for either one of them. I tell her that I got nothing to say to her and hang up. So she sets about making Gayle her new, last best friend.

  "When Grandma died, she left a lot of money—well, what I consider to be a lot. It was divided up among her sisters and living children and grandchildren—but Gayle and me, she left us a real nice chunk of change, over ten thousand dollars. I didn't want her goddamn money, not after the way she'd treated Dad, and I told her lawyer as much. Well, Grandma must have suspected I was going to say that, because she left a codicil in her will that if I refused my inheritance, it was all to go to Gayle—provided that I signed all the necessary papers. By this time my sister has divorced her redneck hubby and wants to get the hell out of Dodge—or, rather, Topeka—as soon as possible, so she calls and asks me if I'd drive down to Kansas and sign the papers because if I did the money would be released to her that day. How the hell could I say no? I took the time off work, drove down, signed the papers, loaded up what Gayle wanted me to bring back, put her and the kids on a plane, and then had car trouble just outside Jefferson City. You were around for everything else, so now I think we're up to date."

  Christopher mimed unzipping his mouth. "You really loved your folks a lot, didn't you?'

  "Yes, I did—screw that past tense—I do. Just because they're not here any longer doesn't mean I don't still love and miss them."

  "I hope my folks have missed me half that much."

  "I'm sure they have."

  "Yeah…?"

  "Count on it."

  He looked at me and smiled. "I realize this is going to sound incredibly stupid, all things considered, but man am I glad we grabbed you and not that other guy."

  It took a second for that to fully register. "What other guy?"

  "Huh? Oh—there was a dude about four miles behind you at a rest stop with a couple of flat tires. I don't know what he ran over but it chewed the hell of them. We were doubling back to get him when Denise spotted you. She thought you looked nicer."

  "Oh."

  "I didn't mention that before?"

  "Must have slipped your mind."

  "Oh."

  I imagined this guy now all safe and sound at home, kissing his wife, hugging his kids, petting the dog, bitching about the bills, and said: "I hope the son-of-a-bitch is still stuck there."

  We looked at one another, then burst out laughing.

  The road dipped slightly, we went over another steel bridge—this one more stable than the last—and emerged onto a smooth and seemingly freshly-paved stretch of asphalt. The trees thinned out near the road but were just as thick in the distance, and the sheer rock face on either side of us had obviously been blasted and smoothed by human hands.

  "It'll be coming up on the right in a couple of miles," said Christopher. "You need to make yourself presentable—there's a light jacket in the black duffel bag back there. You should put it on to cover the blood on your shirt."

  I moved to the back, grabbed the duffel bag, pulled it open, and immediately shrieked as the skulls grinned up at me.

  "I said the black duffel bag."

  "Yeah… uh… sorry." I knelt there for a few moments, shaking, eyes closed, my heart pounding against my ribs, then took a deep breath, opened my eyes, and closed up the bag of bones. "Sorry, Randy," I whispered to the top skull. They'd be home soon, as well, to weeping families and waiting graves.

  I found the lightweight camouflage green jacket—it was a little tight across the chest and the sleeves were a bit short, but I'd deal with it.

  "Looks good on you," said Christopher as I climbed back into the passenger seat.

  "It covers up the blood."

  "Yeah, I know, but it looks good is what I'm saying. Looks like something a real U.S. Marshal might wear."

  "Thank you."

  "You're welcome."

  I took a deep breath, released it. "So how do you want to work this?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I mean am I going inside, are you going to stay out in the bus and listen with the magic dish, am I using the phone first, what?"

  He signaled for a semi to pass us, which it did with all the grace and subtlety of an elephant on a tightwire, then rubbed his eyes and said: "You go inside and do your voodoo like with Thomas's folks; I'll wait out here until you signal me." He shook his head. "I won't listen in on you this time." He looked at me. "No need."

  "I'll take that as a vote of confidence. What am I supposed to do to signal you?"

  "What do you think? Step outside and holler for me."

  "That'll work."

  We dragged along behind the semi for another three-quarters of a mile, until it pulled off into the large and surprisingly crowded parking lot of a truck stop complete with a small motel, three gas islands, a showering facility, car wash, and restaurant.

  "You never told me that your folks' place was so big," I said as Christopher maneuvered toward a parking space in an area designated MOBILE HOMES AND TRAILERS ONLY.

  "It wasn't," he said, the surprise evident in his voice. He killed the engine and looked out on the scene, open-mouthed. "Good God—Dad had talked about trying to expand the place, but I never thought… wow."

  The restaurant was one of those Mom-and-Pop establishments you pass on the road every trip; front porch, screen doors, neon beer signs hanging in the windows, a sandwich board with "Today's Specials" written in erasable marker, and an old-fashioned soda pop cooler out front—the kind with a lifting lid where you have to guide the ice-cold bottle through a series of metal tracks like a maze until it slides through a mini-turnstile at the end. All that was missing from the front porch to make it something right out of a Normal Rockwell painting was a wooden rocking chair and floppy-eared hound dog lying across the top of the steps.

  "The restaurant's a lot bigger than it looks on the outside," said Christopher. "At least, that's how I remember it." He looked at me and shrugged. "I have no idea how many changes they might have made. It's been… a while since I was here, you know?" He was trembling all over. "Hey, look over there." He was pointing to an area behind the restaurant, just visible between it and the motel; a green patch of field, where there sat, up on concrete blocks, the remains of a gray 1968 VW Microbus. "I can't believe they still have that thing."

  "Except for the no-wheels part, it still looks in fairly good condition to me."

  He laughed. "Maybe they'll sell it to you."

  "Right. Nothing against your folks or Volkswagens in general, but I don't give a shit if I ever I see the interior of one of these again."

  "All in favor."

  We both raised our hands. I reached over and squeezed his arm. "It's gonna be fine, my friend, just fine. You're home."

  "Not yet, I'm
not… but damn, I never thought I'd ever be this close again. Do me proud, Mark."

  "You know it. Look, it might take a while—remember how Thomas's dad reacted initially?"

  "I know. I don't think you're in any danger of having me take off on you. Oh, that reminds me"—he dug around in his shoulder bag and pulled out a couple of twenties—"you might want to order some food or something. Nothing irritated my folks more than someone who took up bar space without ordering."

  I pocketed the money, checked myself in the mirror one last time, then climbed out into the rain, which was starting to grow heavier.

  I stood beside the bus with my door open, staring at the restaurant.

  "What is it?" asked Christopher.

  "I think I'm as nervous about this as you are."

  "Not possible."

  I looked at him. "Maybe not, but I'm running a close second."

  "Which is just doing oodles to ease my anxiety, thanks so much."

  "What are you parents' first names? It might be helpful."

  "Joseph and Ellen."

  "And Paul's your brother, right?"

  "Right."

  "Any other names I should know? Sisters or anything?"

  "Not that I know of—but, then, it's been a while. Are you still here?"

  "I am now going." I closed the door and began walking toward the front porch. I kept thinking about what Trevor—the security guard at Muriel's—had said to me: I actually feel like I'm making a difference today, you know? How often does a guy get to say that?

  As I hit the top of the stairs and reached for the screen door I felt, for the first time in years, like a worthwhile human being once again.

  If I had any doubts about myself at that point, Arnold's words—You gotta be the one to finish this for us, Mark—erased them.

  They were all depending on me to do the right thing.

  Maybe, after all of this, Tanya could depend on me for that, as well.

  Odd, to believe your life has a purpose, after all. Good—but odd.

  I opened the door and stepped inside.

  15. A New Life

  The bar, on the left, was mahogany with a marble top, long and shiny and narrow. A series of small, round tables to the right and several booths against the walls were half-filled with truckers and other tired denizens of the road, all of them enjoying their drinks, their meals, their time outside their vehicles; a comfortably-scuffed, polished wood floor covered most of the front half of the place, giving way to carpeting in the back where three pool tables sat, each with its own cone-shaped light above: shadows moved outside the perimeter of the lights, phantom cues dipping into the glow to make the balls clack and clatter as they spun across the tables and sank into pockets. Gleaming brass horse rails braced the wall opposite the bar, as well as the bottom of the bar itself, while old-fashioned electric lanterns anchored on thick shelves just barely wide enough to hold them kept a constant air of twilight regardless of the time of day outside. The place smelled of cigarettes, pipe tobacco, beer, burgers, eggs, coffee, and popcorn, all of these scents mixing with the lemon oil used to polish the wood. It smelled somehow safe and welcoming.

  I took a seat at the end of the bar nearest the door—right next to a rotating rack of maps (DON'T GET YOURSELF LOST IN THESE HILLS, read the sign)—and examined all the framed photographs hanging on the wall back there; young men in uniforms from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and even a few showing a young man in desert gear from the first Gulf War. None of the faces looked familiar. I was hoping there'd be at least one family photo back there and that I'd be able to spot Christopher—I'd looked at his false face enough to know what the general shape of his features must have been like—but there was no little boy in any of the—

  —hang on.

  One black & white photograph, hanging down at the far corner, showed a boy of perhaps ten or eleven standing on the front porch of this place with a burly man and a stout, attractive woman. I was too far away to make out the faces.

  "What can I get for you?"

  She was about thirty-five, forty years old, with startling red hair and bright green eyes and the kind of smile more gifted and creative men write poems or love songs about. I smiled back at her, then realized what I looked like, pointed to my face, and said: "It's been a very long drive."

  "I was wondering," she said, not blinking or looking away.

  I ordered a Pepsi and some onion rings. After she left, I grabbed a couple of maps from the rack, looked at them without seeing anything, then slipped them into my coat pocket.

  When she came back with my drink I had the badge out, fingers and thumb covering everything except for my face on the license.

  She looked at the badge, at my photograph, then at my face. "Wow. I don't know that I've ever actually seen one of those—my uncle would sure get a kick out of this. Is there some kind of trouble, sir? We don't want no problems."

  I pocketed the badge. "No, God, no, not at all. But I need to speak to either Joseph or Ellen Matthews, preferably both."

  She looked at me and shrugged.

  "The owners?"

  "My husband and I are the owners of this place, sir. Have been for almost four years."

  "Then you bought this place from them—from Joe and Ellen Matthews, right?"

  She shook her head. "No, sir, we bought this place from my uncle, Herb Thomas—well, we didn't exactly buy it from him, not outright, we bought in. It was getting to be a bit much for Uncle Herb, running this place all by himself, especially after he put up the motel, and Larry and me—Larry's my husband, I'm Beth—we bought a two-third's share of the whole business. I—is something wrong? You look… kinda sick."

  I could feel something trying to shake loose inside, but I wasn't about to panic now. "I need to know… your uncle—Herb? How long had he owned the business before you and your husband bought in?"

  "Oh, Lord, Uncle Herb must've run this place… jeez, let me think… two, three years."

  "So it's been in the family for about seven years?"

  "Yes, sir."

  I picked up my drink with a trembling hand and emptied the glass in three deep swallows. I slammed it back on the bar with more force than I'd intended, making Beth jump and at least one pool player lean over for a better look.

  "I'm sorry," I said.

  "That's okay, mister—uh, officer. What is it you need, anyway? I'll do everything I can to help."

  "Is your uncle around?"

  "Not right now, but I expect him and Larry back any minute. You need to talk to him?"

  "Unless you can tell me who he bought this place from."

  She smiled and shrugged once again. "Sorry—I mean, I know he did buy it from someone… name might have been Matthews. I'm just not sure. But you can bet he'll remember. Uncle Herb remembers everything. Personally, I always thought that was part of what made him sick in the first place, him always remembering everything and the type of job he had before he retired. A person who remembers everything, they're always worried about something, you know?"

  I nodded. Beth went back to the kitchen to check on my onion rings. Someone put some money into the jukebox and played Marshall Tucker, "A New Life." Another song I always liked.

  Okay, I told myself.

  Okay.

  The place probably held a lot of bad memories for them, how couldn't it? You lose your child, have him stolen from you, and everything you look at reminds you of that loss. How could a family undergo a trauma like that and not be damn near ruined by it? Oh, sure, familial love can go a long way in helping you to deal with a loss, but how long did it take for this place to seem more like a headstone for what their family once was rather than the home it had been? Christ, I couldn't blame them for selling the place, pulling up stakes, and moving somewhere new. A fresh start. But, God—to have done that means that they had let him go, they had given up hope. And if Beth's math was right, if this place had been in her family for the last seven years, that meant that Christopher's parents had waited onl
y two years, maybe less, before giving him up for dead.

  And I suddenly hated them for that. How could anyone simply give up on their child still being alive? It's not like when you have the family pet put to sleep, or it just turns up missing one morning—"Oh, Fluffy's gone, dear me; guess we'll have to go to the shelter and pick out a new one"—no, this was a human being we were talking about. If Tanya and I ever had children and one of them turned up missing, I'd tear through anything that got in my way in order to find them. I'd never give up. Let alone so soon…

  I rubbed my eyes, took a deep breath, and checked my self-righteousness at the door. Yeah, it was easy for me to sit there and judge Joe and Ellen Matthews, not having any idea what they'd gone through for those two years immediately following Christopher's disappearance.

  —ever notice how the most vindictively moral advice on how to raise a child comes from people who don't have children? "Well, no, we don't," they always say when called on it, "but we know enough that if we did have them, we'd…"

  Blah, blah, blah.

  And so I sat there, having the nerve to judge the Matthews for their actions without having one iota of a notion as to their pain and grief. Maybe two years' waiting, two years' uncertainty, two years' worth of disintegrating hopes and guilt and God-only-knows what else—maybe two years of that was more than even the strongest of us could bear, so how could I blame—let alone hate—them for what they did in order to protect the remnants of their family?

  So they had given up, sold their business, and moved on to a new life.

  Maybe that wasn't such an awful thing.

  So the big question now was: Would Uncle Herb who remembers everything know where they had moved to? My bet was yes—the transfer of a property and business like this isn't exactly something that can be done in an afternoon, it takes time. And if the Matthews were in a hurry to get away after finally making what had to be an incredibly painful decision, then papers would have to have been sent back and forth in the mail, the money transferred into the Matthews' new bank account wherever they'd gone—hell, Uncle Herb probably had to call them at least once during the process.