East of Denver

by Gregory Hill

  I said, “I think he wants to drive.”

  “Let him,” said Clarissa.

  I tossed her the bag of coins, shouted, “Shotgun!” and jumped into the passenger seat.

  Clarissa climbed in back. “The key’s in the ignition, Emmett.”

  He started the car. Revved the engine. “Where to?”

  “My place,” said Clarissa.

  He said, “What’s our ambition?”

  I said, “We’re gonna decide what to do with those coins.”

  Dad said, “Those coins aren’t yours. They belong to the old man.”

  I said, “They belonged to Vaughn, Pa. But he killed himself. Now they don’t belong to anyone.”

  Pa was insistent. “They belong to the old man.”

  “What old man, Emmett?” asked Clarissa.

  Dad looked out the windshield. Clarissa repeated her question. Dad didn’t say anything. He drove. He turned left when he should have turned right.

  “Where are we going, Pa?”

  It was a mile before he spoke. “The old man had a place around here. We oughta go there.”

  Clarissa said, “Do you mean Ernie?”

  Dad nodded. “Yes. That’s him, Ernie Atkins. We should go see him.”

  Clarissa said, “Ernie’s gone. The place has been empty for thirty years.”

  I asked, “Who’s Ernie Atkins?”

  Dad started to answer but Clarissa interrupted. “Vaughn’s grandpa. Used to take care of the dump.”

  I said, “What dump?”

  Clarissa said, “The town dump. Before we had the landfill, there was the dump.”

  “He had a Caterpillar,” said Pa. “He pushed all the junk into a pile.”

  “That’s right,” said Clarissa. “Set fire to it every Sunday afternoon. You could set your direction by looking for that smoke. That’s what they say, at least. He’s been dead a long time.”

  Dad said, “He’s dead?” He thought for a minute. “Seems I heard something about that.”

  All of a sudden, Clarissa got a look on her face. Kind of dreamy and excited at the same time. She said, “Let’s put those coins in a hole in the ground.”

  That seemed like a weird thing to say. I didn’t say anything back to her.

  “Let’s bury ’em,” she continued. “They don’t belong to you or me or Emmett. Vaughn’s mom sure don’t deserve ’em. Vaughn was the rightful owner but he’s dead. So let’s give them back to Ernie.”

  “You wanna bury that bag of coins in a hole in the ground.”

  “Or drop it in an old outhouse. Something like that.”

  I said, “What about the bank?”

  “What about the bank?”

  “We had plans. You were in favor of those plans a while ago.”

  “I said maybe. And I was being inconsolable at the time. But I’m feeling a lot better. I’ve got focus. Don’t you see?”

  I said, “I see that your head’s all over the place. You’re grieving. I had a focus, too. I have a focus. I want to rob that damned bank and scram ourselves out of Strattford County.”

  “That idea’s pure crazy and you know it.”

  I turned around in my seat so I could look at her. “I don’t think so. Not a bit. Up until half a minute ago, you didn’t think so either.”

  She said, “I haven’t eaten in weeks. I’m weak and tired and I’m getting annoyed with all your second-guessing. We’re burying the coins. Shut up. Leave me alone. This is what Vaughn would have wanted.” She crossed her arms and pouted. The way her arms pushed up her boobs, it was distracting.

  I said, “The coins were important to him.”

  “You said yourself that they were just symbolic. We don’t even need them.”

  “They represent Vaughn and everything he stood for.”

  She said, “What did Vaughn stand for again?”

  I kept quiet. Vaughn didn’t stand for anything.

  “See?” said Clarissa. “He wouldn’t give a damn what we did with the coins. As long as we did something.” Her stomach growled.

  “How do you know what Vaughn would give a damn about? Maybe he’d want us to rob the bank. And if you’re so hungry, then eat something.” I looked at her. “Jesus. You’re just about sexy right now.”

  She hit me on the back of the head and half-screamed, “It’s not about sexy, you cro-mag! It’s about boredom and self-esteem and addiction. It’s about everything but sexy. HAVEN’T YOU EVER READ SEVENTEEN?!?”

  “Seventeen what?”

  “It’s a magazine. It’s a stupid magazine that stupid people read and it has all sorts of stupid articles about stupid eating disorders and my point has nothing to do with that stupid magazine. I just want to bury those coins.”

  She wasn’t going to get to me by being all dramatic. No pity here. She was breaking my dreams. “Why don’t you jus—”

  Pa slammed on the brakes so hard Clarissa bounced into the back of my seat and I bounced against the windshield. The car skidded to a stop in a cloud of dust.

  I looked at Clarissa. She looked at me. We both looked at Pa.

  He said, “Knock it off!” He said it like a father. “Yelling in my ear! I don’t care about your anything. You both need to be quiet or I’ll take you out of this car and put you in the ditch.”

  * * *

  We told Pa we were sorry. He started driving again. We sat quiet and watched the prairie crawl past the windows. After a couple of minutes, Clarissa said, “Shakes, you’re right. I was stupid. We don’t need to bury the coins.”

  I’m worthless when people get apologetic. I tried to stay angry but I failed. I said, “No. I was an asshole. You were right. We should bury them. There’s different ways to rob a bank.”

  Clarissa thought. “How about we bury just one coin? When we get to the old Atkins place, we’ll bury one coin. It’ll be our funeral for Vaughn. We’ll take care of the bank with the rest. How’s that sound?”

  This was called compromise. I liked it. I said, “It sounds real good. And after the job, we’ll still have those coins, right? We can bring them back to the Atkins place and bury them then.”

  She handed me the bag of coins. She said, “I’m sorry I got so mad.”

  I set the bag on my lap. “Me, too.” I meant it. I don’t know. When your friend kills himself it’s hard to be normal.

  She tapped my shoulder. “Did you mean what you said?”

  “What part?”

  “About being just about sexy.”

  “I wish you’d eat something.”

  Dad said, “Eat me.”

  * * *

  “It’s up here, I think,” said Pa. He turned left. We were north of Highway 36. The highway divides the country into north and south. Being from the south side, I didn’t know the north very well. Nothing much to distinguish one side from the other, just a bunch of wheat, grass, corn, and, every couple of miles, a house surrounded by a cluster of trees.

  “You sure it’s not on Road J?” said Clarissa. “I thought it was on Road J.”

  “We’re okay,” said Pa.

  “We’re going to the old Atkins place, right?” said Clarissa.

  Pa said, “We’re okay.”

  I could tell Clarissa wasn’t so sure about that.

  I said, “He’ll get us where we’re going.”

  We drove for half an hour. It seemed like he was zeroing in on a place, but we never got there. We’d come to an abandoned farmhouse, Clarissa would declare it the old so-and-so place but not the old Atkins place, and we’d move on. Clarissa kept nudging Pa to drive to Road J. He wouldn’t do it. He started sweating. My pa was lost and he couldn’t admit it. The bag of coins got heavy on my lap. It made my legs numb.

  “What’re we doing, Pa?”
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  “I’m driving.”

  “You know where you’re going?”

  “Well . . .” His voice was shaking. Not out of anger but uncertainty.

  I tried a new angle. “Hey, Pa. We were thinking about going to the old Atkins place so we could drop off some coins that belonged to Ernie. How’s that sound?”

  “That sounds all right.”

  “You know which way that might be?”

  “What might be?”

  “The old Atkins place.”

  He said, “Just up here. I think.”

  It was hot. My forearm was getting sunburned hanging out the window.

  In the mirror, Clarissa looked at me and shook her head. We pulled into the driveway of an abandoned farmhouse. A rotten barn, a chicken house, a windmill, and a stock tank. Everything rusted and shitted out. “This isn’t the Atkins place,” said Clarissa.

  Dad ignored her. He shut off the car and put the key on the dashboard. He got out.

  “I don’t like this,” said Clarissa.

  “What about it?” I said.

  “You hear things about this place.”

  I said, “Pa’s never led us wrong.” I thought about the buffalo and the cemetery. “It might not be where we want to go but it’s something good, I bet.”

  She said, “I’ll stay in the car.”

  I handed her the sack of coins. “Pick out a good one for burying.” I followed Pa. The grass was tall. They say there’s lots of rattlers north of the highway. I stepped carefully.

  I caught up. “You think this is the old Atkins place?”

  “Atkins place?” he said. “No. This ain’t it. I think your grandma might have gone to school in that building.” He walked toward the rotting house.

  It didn’t look like a schoolhouse to me. But Pa was never wrong when it came to this sort of thing. It was Grandma’s old schoolhouse. Had to be. There was probably an old stove inside, where Grandma would have brought in wood for the fire on a snowy day. Pa didn’t lead me wrong.

  As we walked to the house, I noticed that the grass outside had been stomped down flat. I pointed this out to Pa.

  He didn’t seem to care. I figured it for cattle, maybe. Or deer or coyotes. There was a pile of beer cans. Fresh, not faded like cans get from sitting in the sun. Probably from high school kids using the place for parties and whatnot.

  Pa walked up the front porch and opened the door. I followed. The ceiling was halfway caved in. I could see a blue tarp had been dragged over the hole. An empty can of tapioca pudding sat on the floor. Big old can.

  I whispered, “We should not be here.”

  “It’s all right,” said Pa. He walked across the squeaky floor. There wasn’t any glass in the windows. Just shards on the floor.

  He was looking around like he knew the place. He probably did. It wasn’t Ernie Atkins’s house, though, and Grandma damn sure never went to school here. Pa knew the place. I saw him working over nostalgia that he couldn’t place. It existed. He was here. But there was no putting it together.

  I heard a noise. So did Pa. We stood quiet. On the far side of the room, there was a closed door. Something was creaking on the other side of that door.

  He pointed to the door. “Let’s go into that room there.”

  He walked across the room. I followed a few steps behind. He pushed the door open. It was the master bedroom. I could tell it was the master bedroom because there was a mattress on the floor.

  It was stained with brown splotches and upon it was a woman on all fours, naked. Her hair was cut short and her elbows were locked. Her tits sagged like udders. A man was pumping her from behind. His fingernails, where they sunk into her ribs, were dirty like grease. The man and woman were totally silent. Creak, creak went the mattress. The man had his eyes closed, nose pointed at the woman’s spine. The woman looked up at us. Her eyes were yellow. Dad and I stood like cattle. Dad’s hand was still on the doorknob. The woman bared her teeth.

  I pushed Dad’s hand off the knob. He was staring at the woman with a look on his face. Startled. Shame. Amazement. He didn’t have a lick of fear. He sort of cocked his head. It was curiosity is what that look was.

  I pushed him backward, away from the door. The man with the dirty fingernails grunted. He still didn’t see us. The woman saw us. She hissed. We ran thru the house, crunching on broken glass, and escaped to the outside.

  There were children. Three of them. A toddler and a couple other kids, three, maybe four years old. They were all dressed in raggedy clothes and talking to Clarissa, who was leaning out the passenger window with her chin on her arms. When they saw us, the kids scattered. I pushed Dad into the driver’s door, shoved him across the seat onto Clarissa’s lap, and put the key into the ignition.

  “What the hell?” said Clarissa.

  I drove the car onto the road. I said, “Them kids you were talking to.”

  “Yeah,” said Clarissa.

  “We found their parents.”

  * * *

  After we were down the road a ways, I pulled over and we got everyone rearranged with Dad in the back seat and Clarissa sitting shotgun. I drove back onto the road and explained about the mattress and what was going on in that room. Clarissa just said, “Squatters. Poor squatters. Leave them be.”

  “What about the tapioca pudding? There was an empty can of tapioca pudding on the floor of that place.”

  She said, “If you’re curious about tapioca pudding, go see D.J. Beckman. I’m sure he ain’t at Vaughn’s funeral right now. And I bet he’s freaking out about the cops and all the pills and stuff. He could use a visit.”

  It had been a long day. I said, “What do you think, Pa? You up for more running around?”

  “Old Man Riles.”

  “Say again?”

  “That place we were at. Old Man Riles lives there. He fixes watches. Smart fellow.”

  “Used to live there,” said Clarissa. “He’s in heaven now.”

  “There ain’t much room up there,” said Pa.

  * * *

  I drove us to D.J. Beckman’s house. He was mowing his lawn in cutoffs and flip-flops. No shirt. One of those types that still think sunburns are fashionable.

  We got out of the car. D.J. saw us and shut off the mower.

  “Afternoon.”

  “Hotter than a witch’s tit,” said Dad.

  D.J. said, “Why ain’t you folks at the funeral?”

  I said, “We were disinvited.”

  “What funeral?” said Dad. We ignored him.

  Clarissa asked, “Everything going okay?”

  A lit cigarette appeared in D.J.’s hands. He took a hard drag. “Dandy.”

  “What funeral?” said Dad.

  “We were just at Vaughn’s mom’s place,” said Clarissa. “We combed the basement for incriminating evidence.”

  “Find anything?” said D.J.

  “Nope,” said Clarissa.

  D.J. cocked his head at Clarissa in her black dress. “You lost some weight, didn’t you?”

  Clarissa smiled. “Are you worried? About the sheriff?”

  D.J. shrugged. “I got more on them than they got on me. You know who oughta be worried is your pals there.” He pointed his chin at Pa and me. “Breaking into schools. That kind of thing will go on your permanent record.”

  “What are you talking about?” said Clarissa.

  Good. She was making like she didn’t know anything.

  “Seems I heard somewhere that your two friends recently entered Dorton School in an unauthorized capacity.”

  I shook my head. “Hardly.”

  “I saw your truck in the parking lot.”

  “Because we left it there. We carpooled to Strattford with some friends. Gas ain’t cheap.”

&
nbsp; “Is that why you were making all that noise in the music room? Banging on shit. Hollering like a pair of morons.”

  Dad said, “Who’s having the funeral?”

  D.J. said, “Musta been real fun, all that noise. Good old days. Music Free Time?”

  No need to keep playing dumb. I said, “It sure was.” My neck hairs stood up. “And maybe you could explain a thing or two about tapioca pudding.”

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” said D.J. His lips were lines.

  Clarissa said, “I don’t know what either of you are talking about.”

  Dad said, “All I know is that someone died and there’s a funeral but I don’t know who it’s for.”

  I said, “Tapioca pudding.”

  D.J. squinted at me, like he was trying to be Clint Eastwood. “You best leave it alone.” He was scary in that way that angry, shirtless people get. Like he could try anything. I bet he carried a set of brass knuckles in his back pocket. I didn’t care.

  I opted not to leave it alone. “It’s just weird, is all. How pudding travels from place to place.”

  Clarissa looked from D.J. to me and back. She chewed her lip, probably trying to decide if she should intervene.

  D.J. made a little nod, like he’d made up his mind about something. “See, I’m helping out some friends. The economy being what it is and all. They’re in the same boat you’re in, Shakes. Or will be once the banker gets your pa’s farm. Might want to stay on my good side in case I gotta go Robin Hood on your behalf, too. I’m an altruist, remember?” He pinched the cigarette dead and flicked it away.

  I winked at him as maliciously as possible.

  Pa yelled, “Whose fucking funeral?!?”

  “Vaughn Atkins, Pa. Vaughn Atkins is dead.”

  Pa said, “Seems like I heard something about that. Killed himself.”

  “So they say,” said D.J. “Believe half of what you see and none of what you hear, that’s what I say. One thing I heard is that he had a real fancy coin collection. The kind of thing that people would”—he paused—“covet.”

  “So what?” said Clarissa, with just a tad too much defensiveness.