by James Wade
“Then we’ll leave.”
“And go where?”
The boy opened his mouth but didn’t say anything.
“That’s enough questions,” the girl said. “If you need to know every little thing, we can just as soon find another place to hole up. Jonah, I told you this was a bad idea.”
The old man furrowed his brow.
“I didn’t mean to offend, darling. Your business is your own. And I trust the boy.”
“But not me, huh?”
“All due respect, I don’t know you.”
“No. You don’t.”
The three of them were quiet, until Carson set down his coffee.
“What have y’all been a’hunting, out there in the woods?” the old man asked.
The girl and the boy looked at one another.
“What?” Carson continued. “It ain’t like y’all been slipping through the trees real quiet.”
“You been watching us?” the girl asked, rising from her seat.
“Naw. Just hearing you.”
“A backpack,” Jonah said. “We’re looking for a backpack. You seen one around?”
“Can’t say that I have. What’s in it?”
“I thought we already talked about what business belonged to you, and what didn’t,” the girl snapped.
“River,” the boy said.
“No, to hell with this.”
She walked out, and the cats again disbanded and again reformed their ranks.
The boy stood and looked toward the door and looked at the old man.
“You want to tell me exactly what all’s going on here, son?” Carson asked.
The boy looked pained.
“I can’t, Mr. Carson. I’m real sorry. I gotta go. I’ll come back as soon as I can.”
The old man watched him go and shook his head and drank his coffee. After a while he stood up and opened a can of tuna and opened the screen door and let the cats into the cabin.
He caught up with the girl under an old pecan tree where she was trying to find a nut that hadn’t already rotted away. It had stopped raining, but the trees were still shaking free of the water with each small breath of wind.
“I can’t do this shit anymore,” she said, throwing down a black shell. “It’s too hot, too wet, and I’m too hungry. I’m gonna go to China to be a doorman.”
“You’re gonna do what?” the boy asked.
“I saw it on TV a few months back. The rich Chinamen try to show off to one another by having white folks as their housekeepers and whatnot.”
“Really?”
“The taller the better is what they said on TV. I’m five seven, which is pretty tall for a girl. Especially a Chinese girl, I imagine.”
“Would you have to become Chinese?”
“How the hell would I become Chinese?”
“No, I mean like, be a citizen of China.”
“I don’t know, Jonah, it’s a joke. I’m not really going to go live somewhere they eat dogs.”
“Oh. Okay. What do you want to do?”
“Well, I’m not shacking up with some old man. I’ll tell you that much.”
She expected him to protest, but he didn’t.
“C’mon, then,” the boy said.
He led her away from the river banks and through a muddy sink and up a draw to an overlook dotted with maple trees.
“You better not be dragging me up here for the view. I’ve seen about as much of this river as I can stand.”
“I’m not. But it is pretty here in the fall, all these leaves turn red.”
“You’re not one of those fall people are you? Pumpkin spiced scarves and all that?”
The boy looked confused. “I like the fall,” he said, hoping that was answer enough.
He let his backpack drop to the dirt and he knelt and unzipped it and pulled the bright-blue tarpaulin from the main pouch and unfolded it threadbare across the ground. He spread it out, running his hands meticulous over each crease, then placing rocks on each corner to hold it down.
The girl stood with her arms crossed.
“This isn’t you trying to be romantic, is it?”
The boy shook his head.
“Here,” he said, pulling a can of Vienna sausage from the backpack. He tossed it to her.
“I take it back,” she told him. “You’re a natural Don Juan.”
They sat cross-legged on the tarp, and the boy used his pocket knife to peel thin slices of cheese from a block of cheddar. He opened a sleeve of saltine crackers and set it in between them. They ate in their own silence, but there was no silence to the world.
Woodpeckers echoed their work through the forest and ruby-throated hummingbirds passed by with the low thrum of their always motion. Insects called, seemingly from every blade of grass, and below them the river continued to expand, to spread across the land like slow-leaking ink, staining the earth with brown umber streams and brindled pools.
The girl leaned back onto her elbows.
“It is a nice view, though.”
Just before dusk, the storm clouds gathered again, and whatever agreement the sun was beholden to saw it sent away. The boy and the girl in river, cooling, cleaning, neither willing to talk about what might come next.
She splashed water onto him. He wiped at his eyes and stared her down. Her look was of defiance, mischief. His eyes narrowed. She took off and him behind her, both splashing and laughing. He lunged toward her and wrapped his arm around her waist as he fell, dragging her with him into the shallow water. Their skin touched in a half-dozen places and he felt them all. She slipped his grip and spun to face him, the boy on his bottom in the river, the girl crouched above him. Both smiling.
Water dripped into one of his eyes and he squinted it closed. They were both breathing heavy. She offered her hand and he took it. She pulled him halfway up, then grinned and shoved him back down. He recovered and kicked his foot out, spraying her with water. The chase was on again, and in that moment they were the children they were supposed to be.
They lay in each other’s arms in the back seat of the old Plymouth and listened to the sound of the rain and the sound of the river at night.
“Well, what now?” the girl asked. “You planning on living in this back seat?”
“Let’s go to the ocean, like you said.”
The girl smiled but it was a thin smile, defeated.
“Without that backpack, there’s no way to get there. The world costs money, kid. Without money, you can’t do shit.”
She sat up.
“You ever feel like, like there’s just too much?” she said. “Like maybe, if you only had one or two things to worry about, then maybe things would be alright?”
The boy nodded.
“I don’t know,” she continued. “I just . . . my momma. I always hated her. I used to think every bad situation she was in was her own fault, because she was a bad person. Or maybe not bad, but stupid. Like she just always made the wrong choices. But now, I . . . she was so young and with a baby and . . . everything’s just so goddamn hard, you know?
“People like us, we get reminded of who we are, every day. We’re the trash messing up somebody else’s pretty picture. The ones putting back toothpaste at the grocery store because we don’t have enough cash and we’re out of food stamps. The ones stuffing their panties with public toilet paper because they can’t afford tampons. I’ve stolen. I’ve begged. I’ve gone without. I’ve hated myself and my family and the place I come from.
“But when I found meth, it took me in. It told me it didn’t matter about all the other shit. Didn’t matter I was poor white trash. Didn’t matter what my momma was and how folks talked about her. Didn’t matter about what I’d done, or even what I’d do later. The meth told me I could do anything, and I believed it. But then the high passed an
d I wasn’t ready for it to end, wasn’t ready to let that feeling go. I kept using, kept chasing that euphoric dream of feeling like someone. The peace it brought, even for five minutes, I can’t tell you how good it was.
“Of course, whatever plans I made, they’d fade away as soon as I was coming down. And then it’s like, it’s like everything just stops. Your heart. Your breath. The whole world around you. You’re like a bay dog, just a hundred percent locked in on one thing. Shit, it’s hard to even think about those moments in between.
“It’s all just so fucking pointless,” she said. “The backpack’s gone. It got caught up in the river and is probably halfway to Houston by now.”
“Beaumont,” the boy said.
“What?”
“The river goes to Beaumont.”
“Jesus Christ. I don’t care.”
The boy shrugged.
“What was in it, anyway? The backpack.”
The girl looked at him.
“You know what was in it. You’ve known the whole time. Even a kid as weird as you wouldn’t spend this long looking for something without asking what it is.”
“You could probably make a lot of money if you sold it, huh?”
She nodded.
“It might even be enough for us to go to the ocean.”
“Sure. It could be.”
“But let’s say it suddenly turned up. Wouldn’t you be scared that you might want to keep it for yourself? Do the drugs, I mean.”
The girl cocked her head.
“Jonah.”
“Promise me you wouldn’t.”
Her eyes narrowed.
“Did you take my fucking backpack?”
“Promise.”
“Where is it?”
“I ain’t gonna tell you unless you promise.”
“I swear to fucking god, if you don’t tell me where it is I will drown you in a pool of mosquito water.”
The boy thought he might be making a mistake, but he led her to the shallow grave anyway. They walked through the dark, the boy apologizing, the girl not saying a word. They were a long time walking and when they finally stopped they could make out the false moonlight from the boy’s own trailer.
“You’ve got to be fucking kidding me,” the girl said.
He pointed at the ground and she dropped to her hands and knees and tore at the soft dirt. She uncovered first a strap and used that to pull up the rest and she clutched the bag across her chest and closed her eyes.
“I’m not going to use,” she told him. Her voice slow and calm and steady. “I promise.”
She stood and hugged him.
“You’re not mad?” he asked.
She pulled away and smiled, then swung the backpack hard against the side of his head.
“What the actual fuck, Jonah? You lied to me this whole time. You acted like, I mean—you asked questions about where it was. You made me look like an asshole.”
“You don’t look like an asshole.”
“Shut up. Oh my god, shut up. You don’t get to talk right now. I trusted you and you lied to me. Why did you do that?”
The boy was silent.
“Well?”
“You said not to talk.”
“Fucking talk. Answer me.”
“I was afraid you’d leave.”
The girl scoffed and shook her head.
“Well, congratulations, kid. You got to play make-believe that you had a girlfriend. Or any friend. But now, guess what? I am leaving.”
“I’m coming with you.”
“Like hell you are.”
“You don’t have a light. And you don’t know where you’re going.”
“I’m pretty sure I can figure out how to stay on the roads.”
“There’s snakes,” the boy said, desperate.
“Rather get bit by a real snake than a fake friend.”
The boy’s face had gone beet red and the tears began to come and he turned away from her and said nothing else.
She stood there watching his back rise and fall and she was a long time standing. Then she took a deep breath.
“Fine,” she said. “Come on.”
29
“What if it never stops raining?” Lonnie asked. “Like, what if, everything just floods?”
“I imagine we’d evacuate up toward Dallas or something,” Frank said.
“But I mean, like, what if there was nowhere to evacuate to? What if everything was flooding?”
“That’s not possible. Even if the whole world were under water, we’re Americans. We would just find the highest spots on earth and take them over. Like, in the Himalayan mountains or something. Mountains don’t flood.”
“I like the mountains. It’s cold though. I don’t like being cold.”
“Better than being drowned.”
Lonnie nodded and looked out the truck window.
“Mount America,” he whispered.
They turned south and headed toward the lake.
“You ever worry about getting robbed on these drops?” Lonnie asked, running his fingertips along the length of his forearm.
“Nobody would rob us,” Frank told him.
“Shit, I would absolutely rob us.”
Frank sighed.
“I don’t mean you and me specifically. I mean, nobody would rob us because that would mean they robbed John Curtis. Would you do that?”
“Why would I rob John Curtis?” Lonnie asked. “I work for him.”
Frank shook his head.
“Oh, hey,” Lonnie said, opening the glove box in front of him, “did you see where them good old boys from out in Kender beat up on that Mexican fella?”
“Yea, I heard about it. What are you doing digging through my glove box for. Quit that shit.”
“I don’t see what the big deal is,” Lonnie said, taking out a pistol and turning it in his hand. “I hadn’t never had no Mexican take a job from me.”
“You’ve never had a job in the first place. Now put that back and close it up.”
“That’s not true. I used to work at the Pizza Shack. I don’t imagine a Mexican even knows how to cook no pizza.”
“Mexicans know how to cook everything. You’ve never eaten anything a Mexican can’t cook. I said, put it back.”
Lonnie did as he was told.
“Well, still, I don’t have no problem with them being here.”
“I don’t have a problem with them being here. I have a problem with them coming here without going through the proper channels. We can’t just let anybody in.”
“I don’t know. It just don’t seem very nice. What if Indians had built them a wall, to keep white folks out?”
“They damn well should have. Look what happened.”
“I never thought of it that way,” Lonnie said.
He was quiet for a few seconds, then he opened the middle console and began rummaging through old packs of gum, cigarettes, and receipts.
“You ever heard of it flooding and being this goddamn hot at the same time?” he asked.
“I heard of lots of things,” Frank answered. “What the hell are you doing now?”
“I’m just looking.”
“Can’t you just sit and be still until we get there?”
“Where we headed?” Lonnie asked, then plucked a small canister from the console and held it up.
“New guy. Out near Rayburn.”
“I hate new guys.”
“He put in a big order. John Curtis said he’s alright. Put that back.”
“What is it?”
“It’s an air freshener spray.”
“Ozium,” Lonnie read the side of the canister. “I don’t know, you just can’t trust these tweakers, man. I want to sell to the professionals.”
&
nbsp; “Professionals?”
“Yea, doctors and lawyers and shit. What’s it smell like?”
“They don’t do meth. Cocaine, maybe. But not meth. It doesn’t smell like anything, it just gets out other smells.”
“Can I spray it?”
“No.”
“What about that one old boy? The radio guy? He did meth.”
“Yeah, and he was the talk of the goddamn town when it all come out. Lost his job and just about everything else. That’s why them sorts of people don’t do meth.”
Lonnie held the nozzle out in front of him and sprayed it and then began coughing.
“Goddamn it, I told you not to spray it.”
“Holy shit, that’s strong,” Lonnie said, rolling his window down. “I thought you said it didn’t smell like nothing.”
“It’s chemicals and whatnot.”
Lonnie stuck his head out the window and took a breath and brought it back in.
“Man,” he said. “Why didn’t you just say it smelled like chemicals?”
Frank stared at him and then shook his head.
“You ever think about what you might have done?” Lonnie asked. “I mean if you didn’t get into all this in the first place.”
“No.”
“You never even thought about it?”
“No.”
“I think maybe I could’ve been an accountant or something. Wear a suit to work and everything. Have a nice office with a nameplate.”
“Accountant?”
“Sure. Why not?”
“You know this fella’s buying fifteen grams?” Frank said.
“What?”
“That’s right. Having some sort of lake party I’d imagine.”
“You’re telling me we got fifteen Gs in the goddamn car?”
“Calm down. Nobody’s pulling us over out here. And if they do, they’ll be the sheriff’s boys. He and the boss got an arrangement.”
Lonnie breathed out.
“Fifteen grams,” he repeated.
“I shit you not,” Frank looked over at him. “Got a little accounting test for you.”
“What?”
“Yeah, come on. Fifteen Gs at eighty-five dollars a pop. What’s this old boy gonna owe us?”
The car was silent for several miles.