Back Roads

by Tawni O'Dell

  She narrowed her eyes at me in disgust, but she bought the explanation. It was easy to accept coming from her brother the loser headcase.

  My next step should have been talking to Misty, but I never got around to it.

  The shirt bothered me though. I wasn’t sure why. During Amber’s Wednesday night dinner, I finally came up with an explanation. A bunch of Misty’s sloppy joe fell out of the bun and got all over her shirt. Amber freaked and started ranting about how hard it was to get greasy ketchup out of clothes and how Misty couldn’t afford to ruin a perfectly good shirt because God only knew when she’d be able to get any new clothes. She sounded just like Mom except Mom would have said it calmly.

  Dad would have smacked her. Not hard. He never smacked hard in front of Mom or at the dinner table. He would have reached out and cuffed her on the side of the head just enough to make her teeth click together and her ears ring for a second or two.

  I remembered Dad popping her in the mouth once, and Misty watching silently as penny-sized drops of black blood fell from her split lip and soaked into her new jeans. She hid those jeans from Mom to protect him. She threw them in the garbage can, not the best of hiding places but she was only five or six. Mom found them, of course, and she and Dad had a big fight.

  Misty had probably hidden the sunflower shirt too. The explanation made sense, but it gave me the creeps thinking about what he must have done to her to make her bleed that much.

  Betty would have told me to ask her. She would have told me to ask Jody what she saw the night Mom shot Dad and to ask Amber why she hated me so much. She would have told me to drive over to Callie Mercer’s house and burst in on the amazing dinner she’d be serving to her banker husband and her perfect kids on her glasstopped table on her polished stone floor and ask her why she fucked me. She was always telling me to ask Mom why she did it.

  I could never have CLOSURE until I got the answers.

  All week long I worked eight-hour days at Barclay’s, came home, asked if I got any phone calls, ate dinner, scraped trim for a half hour, asked if I got any phone calls, drove to Shop Rite, worked till midnight, came home, and woke Jody to see if I got any phone calls.

  I told myself I wasn’t being unreasonable. Callie could’ve called me if she wanted to. We knew each other. We were neighbors. Our kids played together. They rode the same bus. There were all sorts of excuses she could make. She could have come up to the house with another book or a recipe.

  I wasn’t completely without an ego though. Once I got through the first five or six hours Saturday and I hadn’t heard from her, I started to worry maybe someone or something was keeping her from me. Maybe her husband had found out. Maybe their house had burned down. Maybe she had hit her head and had amnesia. Maybe there had been a family emergency. Maybe she had been attacked by a rabid skunk.

  But as the week dragged on, I knew none of those things had happened because I questioned Jody every night at dinner and found out that Esme’s mom put Esme on the bus every morning and met her at the bus every afternoon, and she looked happy and healthy.

  I did my best to get Jody to go play at Esme’s house or invite Esme to ours but for the first time in the history of their friendship, Esme was booked solid for a whole week. She had a dentist appointment on Monday, her dance class on Tuesday, a Brownie meeting on Wednesday, and plans to play at Cruz Battalini’s house on Thursday.

  I finally decided Callie Mercer thought I was a joke.

  I couldn’t sleep at all Thursday night. I gave up and went upstairs around 5A .M. and sat at the kitchen table, staring at the phone. I knew she would still be asleep. I closed my eyes and made myself dizzy thinking about her stretched out naked in bed and me lying beside her. I knew what she felt like now. That was the worst part. Even if I could get her out of my mind, I couldn’t get her off my fingers.

  I sat there for about an hour, until I heard the girls opening and closing dresser drawers and the bathroom sink running. I went out the back door with Elvis at my heels and started walking.

  I stayed on Potshot Road for a while, then turned off into the woods. The morning was cool and misty and the woods were thick with wet spring undergrowth. Briars tore at my jeans and low branches swatted at my face, but I still went at a pretty good pace.

  It took me longer than I thought to cover the three miles to the Mercer house. I came out on the bank across the road just as Brad Mercer’s Jeep pulled out of their driveway.

  The bank was a steep one. More of a hill. Elvis and I took a seat on the damp ground back in the trees. We were about twenty feet above the road with a good view of the back of the Mercer house and their driveway curving around to the front. The bus stopped at the end of it to pick up Esme before going on to pick up Jody at the bottom of our road.

  I waited and watched, holding tightly to Elvis’s collar so he couldn’t bolt and give away our position.

  Esme came down the drive first, slipping her arms into her backpack. Zack ran after her, clutching a juice box in one hand.

  Callie came next, walking slowly so she could sip at the steaming mug of coffee she had cupped in both hands. She was wearing shorts even though it was still chilly, and she had on a big gray sweatshirt. She called out to the kids to stay away from the road. I heard her voice clear as a bell.

  She didn’t look or act any different. Esme lectured her about something and she shook her head at her. She smiled at Zack when he brought her a handful of gravel. She turned her back on them for a moment and looked at her hills while she drank her coffee.

  The bus came rumbling up the road and groaned to a stop below me, temporarily blocking my view. When it pulled away again, Esme was gone and Callie and Zack were waving.

  She reached down a hand for Zack. He took it and they walked back down the drive.

  I stood up. My jeans were soaked from sitting on the ground for so long and from tromping through the wet woods. I stared at her, willing her to turn around and see me, to look at me with pity or ridicule or indifference but to at least look at me. I was beginning to think I had imagined everything.

  I ended up getting to Barclay’s an hour and a half late and got chewed out royally for it. I had to stay and work an extra hour to make up for it so I didn’t have time to drive home for dinner. Friday night was Jody’s other night: scrambled eggs and Bac-O’s.

  I got to Shop Rite starving and dead tired. I bought two Milky Ways and popped a couple of NoDoz tablets from the box I had ripped off the other night. It was the first thing I had ever stolen. I was planning on buying them until I saw the price.

  Rick was usually long gone by the time my shift started, but tonight I saw his fat face behind the glass of his manager’s cubicle. He always stayed inside when he talked to one of us. Up there no one could tell he was short and fat and useless. He was an all-powerful head like the Wizard of Oz.

  He motioned me over. I was sure he had found out about the pills, and he was going to fire me.

  I didn’t get upset. I felt kind of relieved. We couldn’t survive on the shit wages I made at Barclay’s. I wouldn’t be able to get another job because Rick would tell everyone I was a shoplifter. We would have to go on welfare. I could sit back and let the government take care of us. Or the girls would go to foster homes and I would only have to take care of myself.

  “I had a complaint about you,” he said, without looking up from the papers he was pointlessly shuffling.

  Here it comes, I thought.

  As soon as the girls found homes, I was going to hit the road with Elvis. We could go anywhere. I’d start by visiting Skip. Then maybe my cousin Mike. That would be worth it just to see the look on his face when I showed up at his jock fraternity.

  “A customer complained you packed a hair care product in the same bag with produce.”

  “Huh?”

  “You heard me. And you didn’t put it in a separate plastic bag before you put it in a regular bag.”

  “Am I fired?” I said.

  “Chri
st, Altmyer. Could you be any stupider?” He sneered. “No, you’re not fired. Just don’t do it again. And one other thing.” He stopped me before I could walk away. “There’s some shelving sitting on the left-hand side when you walk in the storeroom door. I want you to set it up at the end of the cereal aisle and stock it with bananas.”

  “Bananas?”

  He blew out his nose in annoyance. “Some people want bananas to go with their cereal and this way they don’t have to walk the whole way to Produce if that’s the only item from Produce they want. Or maybe they weren’t planning on buying bananas at all but seeing them next to the cereal reminds them they like them sliced up on their cornflakes. So they buy them. Understand?”

  “Should I set up a shelf of celery next to the peanut butter too?”

  He gave me a flat stare. “They do it at the Bi-Lo and they sell a lot of bananas.”

  “Okay,” I said.

  I walked back to the cashiers. Church was busy bagging and talking to a woman about the superiority of Heinz pickles over Claussen. Not only were they cheaper but you didn’t have to rush them home to the refrigerator. You could put them in a cupboard and keep them there for months. He knew because his mom did it all the time. They had jars of pickles in their cupboards from last Thanksgiving. He wasn’t kidding.

  When I passed by him, he fixed me with a serious look.

  “Something wrong, Church?”

  “What did the boss want?” he asked.

  “He wants me to put bananas in the cereal aisle.”

  Before the words were out of my mouth, I regretted them. Church’s jaw dropped open. He set down the jar of spaghetti sauce he was about to bag and started shaking his head. “Why would he do something like that?”

  “People like to eat them on their cereal,” I answered him. “Rick thinks it’ll make money.”

  Church dropped his stare to his hands and concentrated. “It’s wrong,” he said. “Bananas can’t go with cereal.”

  “Don’t let it bother you,” Bud said from his register. “Sometimes it makes more sense to think about what something’s used for instead of what it is.”

  “No,” Church insisted.

  “Think about people for instance,” Bud continued. “If we divided up people by what they were instead of what they did, none of us would be working together. I’d be stuck with a bunch of old fogies and Harley’d be working with the other boys. He’d have to get his head shaved and start wearing an earring.”

  He winked at me.

  “No,” Church said again. “There’s nice people and mean people and that’s all. Right, Harley?”

  “Sure. I guess so.”

  He wandered slowly away from his station, with his skinny arms pressed to his sides and his skinny shoulders hunched forward looking like a closed umbrella, and sat down on his bench. Bud finished with his customer and started bagging for him. He didn’t look like he was ever coming back.

  I tried to slip away unnoticed but Church spotted me.

  “Don’t do it, Harley,” he shouted after me. “It’s wrong. I’m telling you.”

  I took my good old time putting the shelves up. They were cheap metal crap with about a hundred screws. I kept getting distracted thinking about Church and how I was violating his world order, and Rick and how I was doing his bidding, and all the boxes of PopTarts and granola bars sitting a few feet away from me and how I’d kill for just one. When I finished, I wanted to tear the whole thing down.

  I crouched down to pick up my screwdriver off the floor and heard a female voice from the next aisle over.

  “I said if you were good, you could pick out one snack.”

  “But Mom, that’s not fair,” Esme explained. “Every snack I pick Zack likes too so he actually gets two snacks. But he always picks Doritos and I hate Doritos so I only get one.”

  “Life isn’t always fair,” Callie growled.

  I couldn’t believe I had forgotten she did her grocery shopping on Friday nights.

  This was a perfect opportunity. I could see her but she had her kids with her so it would be safe. I could make polite small talk with her. I’d be obligated. She was a customer. And if she gave me one of her honey-dipped smiles, I’d know I might still have a chance. But if she looked at me like a school budget cut, I wouldn’t know what to do.

  I stood up and turned around so fast, I fell into the Wheaties and knocked a couple boxes on the floor. I put them back and raced to the opposite end of the aisle and waited there until I was sure she wasn’t coming toward me. Then I jogged to the front of the store, grabbed the orange reflective vest off its hook near the magazines, and headed for the door.

  “Did you do it, Harley?” Church cried after me.

  Once I got outside, I stopped to catch my breath.

  There weren’t many carts to bring in. I gathered up the few strays and took a seat on the cart return’s metal railing to try and calm my gut. I felt like I was going to puke. I probably wasn’t supposed to take those pills on an empty stomach.

  The sun had just gone down. The sky was gray tinged with blue. Across the road, the hills beyond the car wash looked even bluer. They rolled away from me like an ocean’s waves but without the violent motion.

  Technically they were mountains—part of the Allegheny foothills—but mountain was too colossal a word for them and foothills was too humble. Hills, on its own, sounded solid and comforting which is what they were most of the time.

  Laurel Falls was a nice enough town. Named after pink flowers and crystal waterfalls. Sitting at the bottom of a small cup of a valley. It was the county seat so it had its own fairgrounds and an old-fashioned red brick courthouse with big white pillars and a gold clock tower. It had a hospital, two malls, a drive-in, the new Super Wal-Mart, a YMCA, and a Planned Parenthood clinic that was always hopping. But it was too big. Eight thousand people last census.

  I didn’t mind working here but I was glad I lived in Black Lick, which was a town named after a poisoned chunk of salt. Population: 118. Me and the girls were 3 percent of our town. We were almost significant.

  A woman pulled in and parked her car and gave me a dirty look on her way into the store. She was probably going to complain I was a loafer. I didn’t care. I would have set there all night except while I was doing it I forgot the reason why I was out there in the first place until it was too late and Callie Mercer came wheeling her cart toward me.

  Esme saw me before I could do anything about it.

  “It’s Jody’s brother,” she announced, beaming at me and giving a royal wave. “Hi, Harley. Hi. It’s me. Esme.”

  “Hi, Harley,” Zack chimed in. “It’s me too.”

  Callie came to an abrupt stop in the middle of the lot when she saw me. Zack went lurching forward in the cart seat, then snapped back. A roll of paper towels tumbled out onto the blacktop. She bent down and picked up the paper towels.

  “I wondered where you were,” she said to my feet as I came up next to her. “I mean, I know you work here but I didn’t see you. Not that I was looking for you.”

  She wedged the paper towels back in the cart.

  “Not that I wasn’t looking for you either. I mean, if I had seen you I wouldn’t have minded seeing you.”

  She straightened up and pushed her hair away from her face. She finally looked at me and I looked at her. I imagined what it would have felt like to look in her eyes when I was inside her. I started thinking about Amber fucking that boy on the couch and how he hadn’t been looking at her. I wondered if she had been looking at him.

  I went back to that night in my mind and instead of lowering my gun and going outside, I blew his head off. It exploded like an overripe pumpkin, but it didn’t stop him. His body kept pumping away at Amber. The stump between his shoulders jerked back and forth sending blood spraying everywhere. Then he shuddered and collapsed from coming or dying or both. Amber pushed him off her and rose up from the couch, naked, spattered in his blood and brains, and she thanked me.

 
; “Do you need help with your groceries?” I asked Callie.

  “You don’t have to do that,” she said.

  I glanced down at my orange vest. “It’s kind of my job,” I said.

  “Oh, right.” She made an embarrassed laugh. “Sure. Thanks.”

  I started loading bags in her trunk while she leaned into the car to buckle Zack in his seat. I watched and put a bag, heavy with canned goods, on top of her loaf of bread.

  “Is Jody at home?” Esme asked me.

  “Huh?” I said.

  “Is Jody at home?” she repeated, firmly.

  “Sure.”

  “Mom,” she called out. “Can I play with Jody when we get home?”

  “It’s almost nine o’clock,” Callie responded with her head still stuck inside the car. “You’re going straight to bed when we get home.”

  “Brad had this business dinner tonight down in Latrobe,” she started explaining to me after she finished with Zack, “and tomorrow he has a golf game with the same people so he’s just staying there. I forgot about it so I didn’t have anyone to stay with the kids.” Her voice trailed off. “I’m sorry. You don’t care about any of this.”

  I finished loading and closed the trunk lid. Callie walked over and stood next to me and stared at her rear bumper. Her forehead was creased with concern. I knew what she was going to say to me.

  I wished I could be MOST GUYS. I wished I could just come out and ask her if she wanted to have sex with me again and if she said no, I would figure it was because there was something wrong with her and I wouldn’t let it bother me. Or I wished I could have kissed her. I never got around to kissing her mouth. I was pretty sure I was a terrible kisser so I wished I could kiss her like MOST GUYS and when I stopped she’d be wet and pliable.

  But I wasn’t MOST GUYS; and she wasn’t the Virgin Mary. She wasn’t a ruthless whore either. She didn’t want to hurt me, but she couldn’t fix me either. It was too big of a job. I think I scared her.

  “Harley,” she started.

  I didn’t want to hear it. I couldn’t stand to hear it.