by Rick Mofina
Mr. Russell.
Russell was a lie. His name was Logan Conlin.
He didn’t even know who he was anymore.
He didn’t understand anything, anymore. Ever since his dad went off to Iraq, nothing seemed right. His dad wouldn’t talk about what had happened to him over there. But when he came back, he was weird. Different. He had headaches, lost his temper all the time, argued with Mom all the time. Logan’s friend Robbie said that’s how it was with his parents before they got divorced.
Logan didn’t want his parents to get divorced.
He needed both of them. Together.
Then came the worst moment ever, on the soccer field with Logan’s coach, Mr. Ullman. It scared Logan the way Dad wanted to fight him. The look on Mr. Ullman’s face-like his dad was a psycho. At night he heard Mom crying in her room. A couple of months later, things seemed better, but Logan still feared his parents were getting a divorce.
Then it happened.
Not with lawyers and courts and papers like Robbie said.
Dad just surprised Logan at school. Just showed up in his rig.
“We’ve got to go, son.”
Dad wouldn’t say where they were going, or why. At first it was like the coolest adventure. They just drove and drove. But as they left the city behind, his dad’s face got all serious and Logan got scared.
“This will be the hardest thing you’ll ever have to face, son. It won’t make any sense to you. It doesn’t make sense to me. Your mom’s in love with another man and wants to have a life with him.”
“That’s a lie!”
“I wish it was. I’m sorry. I know this is hard, but please listen. There’s no other way to say it. Your mom and I are splitting up and you’re going to live with me.”
“Turn around.”
“I can’t. There are complicated court orders. Laws, rules we have to follow. A lot of changes I’ll tell you about later. But the bottom line is we can never go home again.”
Never go home again.
“No! You take me home right now!”
“We can’t. There are rules and the law.”
“Then let me call her. I want to talk to Mom!”
“Logan, we can’t.”
He tried to punch his dad but only hit air. Something inside Logan broke in two. Pain shot everywhere. It hurt so bad he couldn’t understand why he wasn’t bleeding.
Then he felt nothing.
When they pulled into a truck stop near Barstow, Logan snuck to a pay phone on the wall just outside the washroom and tried to call his mom. He couldn’t remember her work number, had trouble making a longdistance call. Just as the operator came on, the line died.
His father had disconnected the call, replaced the handset then hauled Logan back to the truck.
“Son, I told you we can’t ever call her. We have to stick to the rules, the laws and the court orders. I’m sorry but that’s just how it is.”
Logan cried for several hundred miles as the Cali fornia desert rolled by and he fought to understand what no nine-year-old boy could ever understand.
All he knew was that something he loved had just died.
That something he needed was gone.
And all he could do was cry.
As they reached the outskirts of Las Vegas, his dad told him they were going to meet someone. Then Dad made a call on his new cell phone and they went to a restaurant at one of the big hotels where some woman waved to them.
“Son, this is Samara. Samara, this is my son, Logan.” “Hello, Logan.” She had a foreign accent and her hand was cold when he shook it. “Your father’s told me so much about you.”
Logan didn’t give a shit.
Just like he didn’t give a shit for the banana split his dad had ordered for him. Like that would make every thing okay.
“Son, I never told anyone this but Samara helped me during some pretty horrible times in Iraq. She saved my life. She’s a nurse from England and now she’s working here in the States-in a part of Montana where they’re short of nurses. That’s where we’re going to live, son. In Montana with Samara.”
“No, we’re not! We’re going home!”
“Son, I know this is a lot to handle and it’s compli cated.”
“I hate you, you fucker!”
The banana split sailed from their table, landing in an explosion of ice cream and glass near the feet of the startled waitress.
Gears clanked and rattled, brakes creaked. The school bus stopped and the doors opened to Logan’s place.
He tensed at the postbox with the name Russell. Sticking out like the lie it was. Dad said they had to change their names, something about court-ordered property law and complex rules.
Logan hated it here.
Dad was on the road driving most of the time, leaving him with Samara. She worked for the county and came to the school more and more for meetings about the big visit. At the start, when they got here, the other kids thought she was Logan’s mom.
It made him angry and sometimes he corrected them with his fists.
He got sent to the principal’s office a lot when they first got here. His dad and Samara thought putting him in the choir would help him settle down.
Samara kept saying that she thought he had a nice voice.
She never bothered Logan much. She made sure he did his homework and she took care of most of the house stuff. She made him what he liked to eat, like chili.
It was never as good as his mom’s.
Besides, she was always busy taking these nursing courses and studying all the time. Always typing on her laptop and talking to friends on her cell phone at all hours. She had a strict rule that Logan was never to touch her phone or laptop, something about patient confiden tiality.
He didn’t want to touch her stuff. He didn’t really like her.
Sometimes, late at night, he heard her talking on the phone in a strange language. From the action movies he’d watched, he guessed it was Arabic, or something. She was from Iraq. He told his dad who explained to him that Samara had friends around the world who worked with relief groups, like the Red Cross. These people did good things and she was just talking to her friends.
Whatever.
Why couldn’t Logan talk to his friends in California?
He didn’t understand it.
Once he secretly tried to e-mail his mother from a friend’s computer but he didn’t know her e-mail. Then they tried to reach her through the bookstore’s Web site but a thing popped up about credit-card security and Logan backed off.
What if what his dad said was true about there being some stupid mean law that he was not supposed to talk to his mom.
He yearned for her today as he got off the bus and walked down the long lane that cut across the flatland to their house, an ugly yellow square thing in the middle of nowhere.
Might as well be on Mars.
Logan saw his dad’s red rig parked under the tree where he was working on it.
“How was school?”
Logan shrugged.
“All the kids must be getting excited with the count down to the big day.”
“I think I’m going to be kicked off the choir.”
“What makes you say that?”
“The teacher says I’m not concentrating and gave me some extra work to do to prove that she should keep me on.”
“Then you’d better do it and focus, son. This is a big deal. Like meeting the president. You don’t want to blow it now. Samara worked hard to get you on the choir and you’ve put in the time.”
Logan looked out at the horizon and blinked at his problems.
“Want to tell me what’s on your mind, son?”
“Are you going to marry Samara?”
His father wiped his hands on a rag.
“I don’t know. We take things day by day, you know that.”
“Are you and Mom ever going to get back together?”
“We’ve been over that a thousand times, Logan.”
“How come if this pope thing’s such a big deal, I can’t call Mom and invite her? She would like to see this. Please.”
His dad sat on the truck’s step and pulled Logan closer.
“We’ve been through this. We can’t call her, ever, we can’t see each other. It’s over. It’s finished. We might not like it, but that’s the way it happened with the court stuff. We just moved on with our lives.”
“I tried to call her and e-mail her, Dad.”
“What? Dammit, Logan! When?”
“When we first moved here and a few times after.”
“I specifically told you never, ever try to call or contact her. Logan-” his dad looked away to soften another lie “-the court ordered us to do everything that we did. We are to have no contact with her, ever.”
“But I was really sad and you were gone. I tried to call but I couldn’t get through. It’s like our phone here won’t let me call our old number in California. Same with e-mails.”
His dad nodded and told him he had a block arranged with the phone and Internet companies. All part of the court’s rules, he said.
“Dad. I don’t understand. What happened?” Tears filled Logan’s eyes.
“We’ve talked about this, son. We’re just not part of her life anymore. That’s why we moved here. You’ve had friends whose parents got divorced. Well, it’s like that. People change. Mom changed. So we had to start over. Start a new life with new names in a new place.”
“But how can she just stop loving us? I don’t believe she did. I mean, that last day I saw her, she was hugging me. I told her I was worried that you might be getting a divorce. She said it wasn’t true, that she loved you and that she loved me.”
“Stop it, Logan.”
“How can she just not love me anymore? She’s my mom. She has to love me. I know she wouldn’t just stop loving me. I want to call her, Dad.”
His dad put his hands on Logan’s shoulders and looked him in the eye.
“I know this has been hard. But you’ve got to try not to think about the past. It’s not easy, I know. But we’ve got Samara, and believe me, son, after all we’ve both been through, she’s the right person in the world for both of us right now.”
A motor hummed as Samara’s van pulled up to the house.
“Hi, guys,” she called, smiling. “What’s up?”
“Nothing,” Logan said. “Can you make tacos?”
“Sure.” Samara looked at Jake then back at Logan. “Think you might give me a hand with some groceries in the van?”
That night, they ate a quiet dinner together.
Logan’s dad turned in early because he had to leave early in the morning for a job that would take him to Spokane, Salt Lake City, then Great Falls before he got back.
That evening after the dishes, Samara and Logan went outside to the chairs under the big tree. Under the brilliant stars, and to the sound of crickets, she helped him with his music. In the light that spilled from the kitchen window Logan saw concern on her face, as if something major was heavy on her mind.
“Logan,” she said. “I want you to know that no matter what you think about me, and no matter what anyone says, you and your dad are the two most impor tant people in the world to me.”
Logan said nothing as she gazed up at the Milky Way.
She seemed sad.
“Soon,” she said, “you’re going to be part of history. Soon, everything will be as it should be.”
The tear tracks running down her cheeks glistened in the starlight.
“The joy we crave will return for all of us, I promise you.”
20
Missoula, Montana
Jake drove west, hauling scrap metal and a load of grief about Logan.
The sudden move to Montana had been hard on his son. Seeing him struggling after all these months tore Jake up and he started asking himself if leaving every thing behind in California had been the right thing to do.
His hands tensed on the wheel.
Another headache was erupting, a real pile driver. He downed two pills then searched the plains and the Bit terroot Range, telling himself that moving here with Samara was not a mistake.
She had saved his life.
It was that simple.
But Maggie was his wife. They’d had Logan together. They’d had a life together.
How did they lose control of it all?
Jake blinked at the road markers and the memories flowing by: How he’d met Maggie in high school. Dancing together in the gym. How they’d drive to the beach in his old Ford pickup. How they’d talk for hours. Two lonely people who belonged together. She actually got him interested in books. He liked Joseph Conrad’s dark stuff. And he taught her how to drive a standard, at the price of a whiplash or two.
They’d shared dreams.
They got married.
Man, he was so happy. Then Logan came and life got even better. Jake felt lucky, took a calculated risk and got a loan on a bigger rig to earn more. Then on a run to Taos, New Mexico, his transmission blew at the worst time-when he was overextended. It cost him jobs and huge repairs. Gas prices soared. Bills piled up. Loan and mortgage payments became overdue.
It was desperation time.
The only way out was a contract job driving convoys in Iraq. It was risky. People got killed. But they needed the money. So he’d put his life on the line.
Then everything went to hell.
It started with the attack.
He never talked about it. Never told Maggie what happened. Dammit, even mentioning it to Logan was hard.
The attack.
Don’t think about it. Stop it.
His head began throbbing like a jackhammer drilling into his brain.
Stop.
All right. Be cool. Hang in there.
The trouble started after he got back from Iraq, with that day in the supermarket when they’d bumped into Ullman, Logan’s soccer coach. He was a good-looking guy. College grad. Smart. Smooth. Jake had heard the other moms talk about him.
It was the way Maggie smiled at Ullman.
He’d never seen her smile like that before.
Jake just knew.
She’d cheated on him with Ullman.
Maggie denied it. But he was convinced. He just knew.
But did he really know?
Now, as he looked at the serrated peaks, he asked himself if he could’ve been wrong about Maggie and Ullman; asked himself if he was the problem, if he was all messed up because of the attack.
Pop-pop!
Jake’s heart leaped, jolting him in his seat. A passing group of motorcycles backfired.
Pop-pop!
Like gunfire.
Pop-pop!
His head hurt, like it was being squeezed in a vise.
Pull over. Pull over.
Pop-pop!
The sounds sliced through the air and his skull. He geared down, got to the shoulder. Dust billowed, engulf ing him.
He shut his eyes.
Pop-pop!
Jake crushed his head in his hands to keep it from coming apart as dust swirled, choking him. It was futile…
…he was being dragged back…
Please. Just stop. Please…
…dragged back to Iraq…
21
The frontier beyond Tal Afar, Iraq. Near the Syrian border
This is not good…
His rig is slow-rolling through a busy market. They’d been cut off five miles back from the larger convoy and the main armored escort.
His radio crackles.
“Get your Kevlar on!”
Jake has a bad feeling about this. They are in a twenty-truck convoy hauling supplies to support a secret mission at the border. But they got cut off and now there are just six vehicles. A Humvee in lead, a Humvee in back. Jake’s Mercedes is the last rig. A guy from Spain, one from Amsterdam, and Mitchell, Jake’s pal from Texas whose wife just had a baby, are driving the other rigs.
Jake hates being cut off.
<
br /> Being cut off is like being plucked from the herd. They are going too slow. Too damn slow. This is a hot insurgent zone.
A kill zone.
He just wants to get to the damn camp without getting shot. Without getting rocks hurled at his windshield. Just get to the camp. Shower. Eat. Sleep. Count one more day closer to home. Closer to Maggie and Logan.
Now they are crawling.
Damn. Please do not be a checkpoint. Please do not tell me this is an Iraqi police checkpoint. Please.
Insurgents wear fake police uniforms.
“Okay, we gotta stop,” the radio bleats. “It’s a checkpoint.”
Jake curses. All the saliva in his mouth evaporates.
The diesel rigs idle in the broiling sun.
Eyes locked open, heart thumping, mouth dry, do-or die, trickles of cold sweat down his back, listening to the chatter on the air, scanning the stalls, the beggars pushing carts, the old men hunching over the open fires heating teapots, kids chasing a dog, hitting it with a stick. Stay alert, stay alive, delivering democracy to your door.
Maggie and Logan smile at him from the photo taped to his dash.
Get me through another day. Get me home, is all I pray.
Come on. This is taking way too long.
Scanning the old men, the kids, the dog, the burnedout cars, the idling trucks growl as beggars pass by pushing carts.
Radio chatter. A blur in his periphery.
Pop-pop!
Gunfire. A muzzle flash in the market and Hayes in the lead Humvee is frantic over the radio to the crew in the rear.
“T-Bone! Heads up! Behind you!”
Wham! The Hummer behind Jake is ablaze! A beggar’s cart tips.
“Ambush! Ambush!”
Hayes opens fire with his M2 lighting up the target behind Jake. People are scrambling, screaming.
Jake is trapped.
The air splits. The beggars fire an RPG!
Thump! The ground shakes. The rig in front explodes, burning fragments rain on Jake’s rig. A large chunk thuds on his hood.
A head.
Mouth agape, Mitchell stares wide-eyed at Jake.
Oh, Christ!
Mitch!
Oh, Jesus!
To his right, smoke puffs from the burned-out car. A grenade rips at the lead Humvee. Vibrations. Shadows in Jake’s mirrors; out of nowhere several men are splashing water on his rig. No. The smell. It’s gasoline!