Four Three Two One

by Courtney Stevens

  “Hey! A paramedic saved our lives. Give it to me up here, Wendy the Medic.” Rudy gave Wendy a high elbow because her hands were full. The dishes shifted dangerously to the edge. We all held our breath as she rebalanced. Rudy didn’t notice. He chattered on. “Wendy the Medic doesn’t sound as good as Wendy the Waitress, but you’ll make more money there than here. My mom’s a waitress. Well, sometimes. Sometimes, she’s a convict.”

  Caroline slid the orange juice glass to the table beside ours.

  “Tell me about your medic,” Wendy said. “The one who saved your life.”

  “Well, it’s probably a secret, but you see these three”—he thumbed toward Chan, Caroline, and me—“we were all on Bus Twenty-One. Not that one with the smokin’-hot hair”—he pointed this time at Becky—“she wasn’t there, but she’s with us, you know? In our souls. Like family.” Because he was drunk and patting his heart as he spoke about Becky, she admonished him, “Next time, mention my superhot lipstick.”

  “Too bright,” Rudy said. “You don’t even need it.”

  Becky whipped around to me. “Is that true?”

  I didn’t answer, but it totally was. Rudy and Wendy the waitress had already moved to the topic at hand. “What happened on Bus Twenty-One?” she wanted to know.

  “You know that explosion in New York last summer?”

  “Rudy!” I intended to stop this. “Let Wendy do her job.”

  “Oh, shoot, I’ve got time.”

  “Wendy’s not going to tell. Are you, Wendy?” He patted her wrist in a patronizing way. The dishes slid sideways again.

  “You’re drunk, Guthrie. Zip it and zip it hard,” Caroline told her cousin.

  “No need to shhhhh, you guys.” Rudy wheeled away from the table, spun three or four circles, and raised his voice to the restaurant. “Tomorrow. Green-Conwell. Accelerant Orange by the amazing artist medic, Carter Stockton. High nooooooon”—he howled—“that brave cowgirl and I are getting on a bus that blew last summer. You should check out the project online.”

  Mostly, the patrons ignored him. But to the overly interested, I waved my hand for them to return to their dinners. Without asking permission, I found purchase on Rudy’s wheelchair—there were no handles—pushed him forward, and declared, “You’re coming with me.” I was aware this was perhaps insulting, but I was also aware he was moments away from barfing.

  “Are we going to the bathroom together?” he asked, letting me steer. I heard his stomach. “I like it when we go to the bathroom together, Go. Get it? Go?”

  Oh, I got it all right.

  54. NO LONGER A BOX

  $97,935.00

  I locked the door behind us, my shoulders pressed against the cool metal while I tried to figure out what in the hell to do now that I had him here. To make matters worse, the cramped restroom smelled of Caroline’s shaving cream. Rudy performed an arduous study of his hands. His chin volleyed right to left, right to left. “I think my right hand is stronger than my left. I’m not sure,” he slurred. His lips turned downward when his eyes eventually found mine.

  “You look upset, Golden. Hey, does anyone ever call you Golden Gate Bridge?”

  “No.”

  “You’re upset. Did Chan hurt you?”

  I crouched against the floor and put my face in my hands.

  “I’ll tell him to stop.”

  “I know you will.”

  His face tinted green with coming sick. There were nightmares in his eyes. “Wait. Are you mad I tricked you into Mach One?”

  “You didn’t trick me.”

  “Is it the bus?”

  “Not right now.”

  His head fell forward and his chin smacked his sternum. When he popped upright, he asked, “Hey, why are we in the bathroom? Hey! Why are you crying, Go?”

  Was I? I did feel the heat of tears forming in the corners. Lucky for me, Rudy believed me when I claimed I was sweating. “I’m hot too,” he agreed, and shimmied out of his shirt. I caught the ball of fabric he launched into the air. “Why do they have two toilets in this stall?”

  “There aren’t two toilets. You’re drunk.”

  “On orange juice?” he said, unbelieving.

  “On vodka.”

  “Hey, Golden Gate Bridge, my stomach is here again.” He grabbed his windpipe the way he had after Mach1.

  “I’m sure it is.”

  “And I . . . I’m going to . . . throw up.”

  Yep.

  “You need to leave.” He reached for the doorknob and missed. “I don’t want you to see me on the floor.”

  “Rudy, look at me. Your wheelchair is a nonissue.”

  “We’re . . . in a . . . bathroom.”

  “Yes.”

  “And you’re leaving?”

  “Nope. You know why? Because I wouldn’t leave Becky under these circumstances, and that’s our rule.”

  He lurched and covered his mouth. The transition to the floor wasn’t graceful. He slammed the toilet seat against the lid and held on.

  “Go!” Chan pounded the bathroom door. “Let me in. I’ll help.” I turned my head as the contents of Rudy’s stomach splashed into the bowl. Vomit always made me dry heave. “GO! Let me help!” Chan said again.

  Rudy lifted his head and bellowed, “Leave her alone, Cowboy. You broke Go’s heart!” and hurled again.

  “She broke mine first,” Chandler said. “Go, let me in.”

  “Did you?” Rudy asked.

  I shook my head. “No. He’s just frustrated that he can’t rescue me.” To Chan, I said, “Chan, it’s okay, I promise. We’ll be out soon.”

  His footsteps retreated, and I flushed the vomit.

  Rudy collapsed against the porcelain lid. “You know,” he said, “she threw up all over me too.”

  “Who?”

  “Car-o-line. On the day of the bus.”

  His cheeks, already streaked, reddened with heat and memory. When he lifted his face from the toilet rim, he said, “I hit her so hard.”

  “What do you mean?”

  I’d been crouching around him, holding his hair and balancing us, but I dropped fully to the floor and scooted closer so I braced his weight. Rudy tilted his chin upward, staring at me, and like a child, ran his palm down my face. “Simon made Jim go to the back of the bus.”

  “Because he wanted to blow everyone up.”

  Rudy buckled, threw his head toward the toilet, and retched again. Less came up this time; his stomach was nearly empty. He sagged, and I was there. His back was slick with sweat. His face was ashen. When he spoke, he slurred fewer words. “Simon and Caroline came to Aunt Linda’s for the Fourth of July the summer before and we bought fireworks at a roadside stand. Simon caught four or five baby alligators that morning. They were no bigger than the palm of my hand. That night he taped M-Sixties around two and put them all in a box. Then, he waited to light the wicks until the alligators crawled to opposite ends. He killed them. And said the teeth were too small to put on a necklace. Simon sent Jim to the other end of the bus. Go, we were those alligators and the bus was our box.”

  I imagined the three of them in the orange grove.

  The M60s reporting. Bang. Bang. A mouselike screech from the animals. Alligator guts littering the ground, the tree, a smudge on Rudy’s knee. The cardboard is blackened in some places and obliterated in others. No longer a box. A single Valencia tree in bloom, fragrant, but unable to cover the sulfur. There’s Rudy. He’s horrified. His hands are laced behind his head, his back straight, his head cocked toward Caroline, hoping for some display of rage. She’s too numb. She drops to a squat and stares at the tree. Did she try to leave Simon after that? When the danger was still smoking and oozing? Simon bounding like a spring, swatting branches. “Did you see those suckers explode? I wish I had a thousand alligators.”

  “When he told you and Chan to leave, I slid to the edge of my seat. You tossed me your beanie. The second you cleared the steps, I hit Caroline with everything I had. We practically landed on y
ou.”

  I’d forgotten. The memory had been completely wiped until he said it, which was mildly terrifying. What else had I erased? “You got her out, Rudy. That’s all that matters.”

  “She was in the aisle.” He closed his eyes. “I still see her. She had little blue stud earrings. Her hair was parted on the left.”

  Gosh, he was right. I remembered the details as he said them.

  “I thought I’d cover those five feet and we’d roll down the steps. Which is what happened, except I hit Caroline so hard we slammed into the front dash and window first. She threw up. Impact and nerves. I pushed her down the well, tumbling behind her onto you and Chan. And then I was flying.”

  Rudy fell sideways, his head a weight on my knee. Then he turned and coiled around me, let himself sob.

  “Simon was always going to blow the alligators, right?”

  His hair was damp. I parted it left, then right. “Yes.”

  He lifted the dead weight of his legs and moved them closer to his chest, and then he swiveled and touched my heart, felt the muscle straining and pounding against my chest. “I didn’t make this happen, did I?”

  I smoothed Rudy’s hair again and again. “No.”

  There was more pounding at the door. Caroline’s voice. “Hey, you two. When Becky said we weren’t leaving until someone puked, she was joking.”

  “See?” I said. “You saved her life.”

  Rudy touched his forehead to my knee. His voice was small. “I’m not sure I did. She gave Becky her purple headband.”

  “Yeah, I think they’re . . . a thing.”

  “I don’t think she’d give it away if she . . .” Rudy pulled me into a fierce hug. He was shaking when he said, “Caroline told me once she wanted to die at Ellis Island. What if we’re just her ride?”

  55. THOSE WHO SAVE THE THINGS THEY SHOULD LOSE AND THOSE WHO LOSE THE THINGS THEY SHOULD SAVE

  $97,935.00

  The bathroom reeked of puke. I held Rudy, who also reeked. His sweaty body was pressed against mine and the dichotomy surged to life, the torso and shoulders of a rottweiler, the thighs of an elderly man. He wasn’t steady enough to transfer to his chair, and I wasn’t strong enough to help him. We all wish to be stronger than we are.

  The end. This is nearly over. That’s what Caroline told me at the fair. This is me relieved, she’d said. Rudy could be right.

  “Did you ever imagine this?” he asked.

  “Us in a bathroom stall?”

  “I guess.”

  So many twisted paths led us to a bathroom stall in Morgantown, West Virginia. A third-generation photo. The black-and-whites framed on Gran’s magnificent wall of history. Could I blame my involvement with Bus #21 on a man dressed in a smart wool overcoat and the serious woman pressed against his rib cage, the diamond on her hand mirroring the diamond I wore for three days?

  If the journey here were a road, that photo represented the driveway.

  Sure, I’d longed to see Ellis Island and re-create a cool family photo, but what I wanted last June was security, stability. Something steady and safe like the Hive that wasn’t a place. I’d pinned that security to Chan, thinking if he and I took a family photo, we were family. God, from here, the notion seemed juvenile. Gran used to say, “Chickadee, unfortunately, there are two types of people in the world. Those who save the things they should lose and those who lose the things they should save. Don’t be either.” I’d asked, “What are you?” She’d kissed my forehead and replied, “Oh, darling, I’ve been both. And you will too.”

  I’d been both. And now, Rudy was drunk, Chan was antagonistic, Caroline was . . . whatever Caroline was, and then, there was me; trying to hold everyone and everything together with waning willpower and false bravado. I was tired. And I didn’t think that was allowed.

  Beside me, Rudy shifted. “What do we do about Caroline?” He sounded sober.

  “For now, we watch her. We talk to her. Survive the day. Forget Ellis Island and Accelerant Orange if that’s what it takes. Then, we get her help.”

  “Agreed.” He nodded toward the toilet and flushed the bowl again. “If Caroline came here to die, and I came here to prove Simon didn’t destroy me, and Chan came because he’s jealous, what about you, Go? What are you leaving here with that no one can take? Chan? Me? Hope? Money for college? The ability to get on a bus again? A photo for your gran?”

  Every answer sounded saccharine. Like some too-perfect rosy line in a book. “I don’t know yet.”

  “Well, you have a few more miles to figure it out.”

  56. HAZZARD’S THE BETTER CHOICE.

  $98,320.00

  The tension at the table hadn’t decreased during our absence. If anything, strings were tugged tighter. No one had the energy left to be civil, much less kind. When Rudy returned moments later, pale and splotchy from splashing water on his face and neck, everyone stood to leave.

  Rudy donned a sheepish expression. “You guys want me to drive?” Chan dug his fists into his pockets and said, “That’s an awful joke, man,” which made Caroline rip the keys from the table. “I got you,” she told Rudy, and dropped a hundred-dollar bill between the salt and pepper shakers.

  We left, but we couldn’t escape each other.

  Dad’s call to the preppers in West Virginia led us off the beaten path, as I knew it would. A feeling started in the pit of my stomach that tonight would continue to be less Twisted Teacups and more Mach1. I didn’t share the theory with the others, but Rudy, Becky, and Caroline indicated mild discomfort when we passed the third hand-painted No Trespassing sign. Chan shot a knowing glance in my direction. We’d toured a few semi-local places like this as kids, and they were always frenetic experiments complete with basement stocks and munitions. If I was correct, passing the entry point would be telling.

  “Remind me again why preppers are prepping,” Becky said.

  “Disease plague. Nuclear war. Climate trauma—”

  “So . . . the collapse of the free world.”

  “Basically,” I said.

  “We should all be so wise,” she teased.

  I wondered how long she’d keep that opinion.

  For the last three miles, the trees caved around the Ford and gave the impression we were spelunking through moss-green tunnels. We bobbed silently along the rutted roads, no one daring to speak. Then came the flat, winter wheat fields, that were probably perfectly lovely in bright sunlight. We were, beyond a shadow of a doubt, in the crosshairs of a rifle.

  “What the ever-loving eff . . . !” Becky was staring at the entrance to Eight Echoes Summer Camp. Twelve-foot wooden fences topped with icing—an additional three feet of barbed wire and solar lamps—surrounded the property.

  “Jennings!” Caroline said, sitting forward in her seat. “Where did your dad send us?”

  “Chill, New York. I’ve met these people. They’re very kind. A little over the top, but kind. And they know we’re coming,” I said, but I had that itchy feeling.

  “Do they think we’re an army?” Becky asked, her voice reaching for humor and missing.

  “As long as we’re not the government, we’re fine,” Chan said.

  “Or aliens,” I added.

  Chan nodded. It’s not that all communes know each other’s goings on, but drifters of the world drift. And some of them stay in touch. Mom and Dad wouldn’t have sent us here if they were even slightly worried. Then again, they hadn’t seen the two wooden fifteen-foot deer stands serving as sentries. We eased to a stop and Caroline put the truck in park and left it running. I opened the door.

  “Jennings!” This time Caroline sounded afraid for me.

  Rudy still hadn’t spoken, but he tensed. I slid from the seat and raised my arms, palms open, at the stand. A spotlight, like the ones used by our favorite rednecks from home, hit my shoes and probed me like an alien life-form. I couldn’t see anything, and they saw everything. “Pete Jennings is my father,” I yelled toward the light. “He said you had a place for us to stay.�
��

  “I’ll be right down,” a young voice called from the tower.

  The boy who tromped down the steps in his military-issue boots was a boy. Thirteen? Fourteen? Young in a way Chan never was and old in a way I never had to be. Every gray, green, and black thread on him was military issue or military knockoff. He didn’t have a visible gun, but from Dad’s training, I logged the bulge at his ankle, and I suspected if he turned around there was another weapon tucked in the small of his back.

  “Two?” Chan said discreetly from the truck, concurring with my initial analysis.

  But the boy had another pistol, an appendix-carry. That’s the only reason for the loose-fitting T-shirt he wore. I held three fingers behind my back, and Chan said, “Agree.”

  “We’ve been waiting on you all evening,” the boy said jovially. “I need to check your license. Dad’ll skin me if I don’t. He’d be here to greet you, but he’s teaching a session on the uses of paracord in the next town over and it ran late.”

  I handed over my license. He shone a flashlight on the plastic and then near my face before shoving his hand at mine. “I’m Flynn,” he said as we shook.

  “Golden Jennings.”

  “I remember you from Kentucky. You’re the one with the grain bin.”

  “Sorry we’re so late. We were at the fair,” I explained.

  “Went last weekend. Did you ride the Mach1?”

  “I did.”

  His smile crested wide and large. He gave me a fist bump. “I can hop in the back or drive you to Hazzard. Whatever makes you happy.”

  “Hazzard?” Becky mouthed, but I shook her off.

  “You drive,” I told him, which made him like me more than he already did. Small boys liked driving a big truck. Flynn drove around several smaller homes and took a road that was less of a road than the one we’d come in on. We wound over a rise and into a valley of waist-high grass. I heard a pond or lake chirping and gulping, smelled it living, well before moonlight hit the calm black waters and winked with her sparkling eyes.

  “That’s Echo Lake,” Flynn said proudly. “And that’s Miss Hazzard.”