The Free (P.S.)

by Willy Vlautin

  “My dad took the test when it first came out, when it was voluntary. My dad is very patriotic. He believes everything they say and above all he hates people who are weak. When he passed, he came home and made my mother and me go. This is before we even had to, before everyone was forced to. So we went down there and he sat in the room with us and didn’t say a word. My mother was really scared, ’cause she’d heard stories and I was crying, holding on to her. They had taken over part of a community college and set up a testing center. We both got the shot but nothing happened. It was only later, months later, that my foot got the mark. Now it keeps growing. Pretty soon it’ll be over my whole body.”

  “Maybe it won’t.”

  “I hope not.”

  “Can I tell you something?”

  “Sure.”

  “Maybe you’ll think I’m crazy.”

  “I’ll let you know if I do,” she said and smiled.

  “Last night I had a nightmare, and in the nightmare I was in a foreign country and I wasn’t sure why I was there. I was just there. I was in a truck with three other men and we were going along a road when a bomb went off and the truck exploded. I woke in a hospital with my head in a fog. I couldn’t get my thoughts back and my body wouldn’t work right. Years passed and I was stuck that way, lost in a fog with a broken body. Then one night, out of the blue, my thoughts came back to me and were clear. For whatever reason my mind was like it was before. I should have been ecstatic, but really underneath it all I knew it was just an illusion. Maybe not an illusion exactly, maybe more like a momentary reprieve. Somehow I was certain the fog would come back. So instead of being elated I was grief-stricken ’cause I knew then what my life would end up being. And the worst part, the part I couldn’t stop thinking about, was that I’d never get to sleep next to someone and put my arms around them. For the rest of my life I would never hold anyone. I would be in bed alone.”

  “That’s a horrible thought,” said Jeanette.

  Leroy nodded. “When I woke from the nightmare it was still night. I’d only been asleep twenty minutes. It’s weird how you can be asleep only a short time and have such terrible things happen in your mind.” A pain suddenly spiked through Leroy’s chest and he was again overcome with agony. He fell to the ground breathless, and as he did he could hear the soldiers coming up the stairs.

  “They’re here again,” Jeanette cried, and ran to Leroy and tried to lift him. “Can you stand?”

  Leroy’s vision began to blur. He tried to scream but he had no air.

  “It’s gonna be alright, buster. I’m going to take care of you. But we have to get you through the window.”

  “You should go by yourself,” Leroy said shakily.

  “That’s just the pain saying that. It’ll go away. Don’t give up.”

  The soldiers rushed into the apartment. Their faces were painted black and red. The first soldier pushed him down and pulled a knife from his belt and plunged it into his ribs.

  Leroy Kervin lay in a cold sweat, whimpering. His eyes were now closed and he was trying to move in the bed. “It’s gonna be alright, buster,” Pauline said as she held him still and waited for the doctor.

  8

  Freddie McCall drove to the Western Spoke Tavern, a sports bar near the town’s rail yard, and met a middle-aged Yakama Indian named Lowell Price. The large, nearly obese man sat at a small table in the back of the empty room with a half-finished pitcher of beer.

  “Freddie,” Lowell called out when he saw him enter. As he stood, his sweat pants slipped down his legs. He pulled them up with his left hand and shook Freddie’s hand with his right.

  “I didn’t mean to be late,” Freddie said. “I was waiting in the parking lot ’cause I didn’t see your truck. I thought maybe you hadn’t shown up yet.”

  Lowell sat back down and laughed. “Shit man, I don’t have my truck anymore.” There was a scar on his forehead and a birthmark that covered half of his neck. He wore a horseshoe ring on his left hand and had three tattoos on his right. His hair was long and black and held in a ponytail.

  “You want a beer, Freddie?”

  “It’s my only night off,” he said and nodded. He pushed the empty glass toward Lowell. “So where’s your truck?”

  “I had to sell it. I’m driving a ten-speed now,” he said and again laughed. “My nephew and me went to a Mariners game a few months ago. I got lost and drove down a one-way street and got pulled over. I blew just over the limit, but it’s my third one. They took both the truck and me. I had to call my little sister, and she had to drive up and get my nephew. Now everyone in my family has it out for me and I’m going to Coyote Ridge for a year and a half.”

  Freddie shook his head. “When?”

  “Sixteen days.”

  Freddie leaned back in the chair and looked around. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been in a bar. He couldn’t even remember the last time he’d had a beer. “You know, I thought the reason you called was to get your job back at Logan’s. But that’s not the reason, is it?”

  Lowell again laughed. “No, man. I’d rather go to jail than go back there.”

  “You know, I even made you a work schedule,” Freddie said. “And I was thinking about ways to get Pat to open up on Sundays again.”

  “He’s too much of a Bible eater for that,” Lowell said. “No man, I ain’t going back. That’s not why I called . . . You still working at the group home?”

  “Yeah.”

  “So she hasn’t married that guy, huh?”

  “No.”

  “You should have gotten a lawyer.”

  “I know.”

  “You still got the house?”

  “Sorta. It’s mortgaged twice. They shut off the gas two months ago. But on paper I guess it’s mine.” Freddie finished the beer. He looked at Lowell and Lowell poured him another.

  “You got a fireplace, right?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You have any wood?”

  “Just scrap wood. I picked some up from a warehouse the other night.”

  “My aunt has a couple cords you could probably have,” Lowell said. “Can you get a truck?”

  Freddie shook his head. “I don’t have a credit card anymore and you need one to get a rental.”

  “I can borrow my cousin’s. But you’ll have to drive,” Lowell said.

  “You’re serious?”

  “My aunt just bought a pellet stove. She’s got two cords of wood in her carport, but she doesn’t need wood anymore. She wants it out. I need to do something nice for her ’cause even she hates me, and she’ll put up with anybody.”

  “Thanks,” Freddie said.

  “There’s no use in me beating around the bush about why I called you,” Lowell said and lowered his voice. “I haven’t called you in a long time, but I’ve always liked you, Freddie. I’ve always trusted you. Look, I’ve got eighty-five pot plants growing in my house. The problem is my oldest sister wants to move back in there while I’m gone. It’s her place as much as mine. I can’t say no. She’s been living in Colorado. She used to be alright but she’s a Bible eater now, too. So I got to either burn the plants or give them to someone I can trust.”

  “I thought you’d quit that,” Freddie whispered.

  “I told you I did, but I didn’t. I used to sell to a guy and he got busted. I thought he was going to turn on me so I told everyone I sold the plants. But I just moved them to a different place for a while and started selling to Indians only.”

  “But I don’t know how to grow anything,” Freddie said.

  “My nephew goes to college in Ellensburg. He’ll drive down and handle most of it. If you agree, we’ll set it up in your basement. All you have to do is water them four times a week. He’ll do the rest. The lights are on timers and I have heaters that will regulate the temperature. It ain’t a lot of work.”

  Freddie rubbed his face with his hands.

  “I can get you between five hundred and a grand a month,” Lowell said. “My
nephew will come by twice a week to do most of the maintenance. He’ll sell it, but he won’t sell out of your house, and no one but him will come by. There’s a harvest in a month. You’ll get a chunk of money then . . . Look, I know you’re broke, and that’s why I’m asking you. The risk ain’t much, Freddie, but there’s always risk. And a year and a half is not a lot of time, but it is a bit of time. I’ve been growing for almost twenty years and haven’t had many problems. My nephew’s a good kid and to be honest, cops don’t care about weed like they used to.”

  “Can I think on it for a couple days?” Freddie asked.

  “I would if I were you,” Lowell said.

  “You mind if we get another pitcher?” Freddie asked.

  “We’ll get a couple more.”

  “You really aren’t coming back to the paint store?”

  “Shit no,” Lowell said and filled his glass.

  They met on the reservation a week later on Freddie’s day off. They borrowed Lowell’s cousin’s truck and took two trips loading and then unloading the firewood, leaving it in a pile on Freddie’s front lawn. When they were done, Freddie took Lowell inside the house and down the stairs to a large basement. Rows and rows of old cardboard boxes lined the walls. There was furniture, kids’ bikes, a weight set, old windows, two doll houses, a Soap Box Derby car, an old saddle, and tools. There was hardly enough room to walk.

  “You sure have a lot of shit down here,” Lowell said.

  “It was my grandfather’s house,” Freddie told him. “It’s been in my family for three generations. Every single one of them was a pack rat, and I guess I am, too, ’cause I can’t throw any of their things out. But there’s a back room.” He led Lowell to a door and opened it and turned on the lights. Inside the large room were two rows of fluorescent lamps that hung over a sixteen-by-eight-foot diorama.

  “It’s Gettysburg during the Civil War,” Freddie said. “I recreated the Battle of Gettysburg.”

  Miniature farms and trees and houses sat on the papier mâché hills. There were soldiers on horseback fighting and canons and wagon trains. There were half-destroyed buildings and tent hospitals and makeshift military camps. Hundreds of dead soldiers were strewn about.

  Lowell picked one of them up and looked at it. “Did you paint all these?”

  Freddie nodded.

  “How?”

  “I had a magnifying glass and used tiny brushes. It’s not that hard.”

  “Serves them right to kill each other after killing the Indians for so long,” Lowell said and put the soldier back down and pointed to a half-burned-out house. “And the houses, how did you build them?”

  “Some from kits. Others I built on my own.”

  “It must have taken years.”

  “Yeah, it did.”

  “Does the train work?”

  “It used to,” Freddie said. “But I’ve taken it apart.”

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Lowell said.

  Freddie looked at the battlefield. “Fifty-seven thousand men got hurt or killed during this one battle. More people than live in our entire town. And it was summer and they were left in the sun to die. Can you imagine what that must have been like? And what did it get them? Most of them were kids, hadn’t even kissed a girl. Most of them were dirt poor. All that death and destruction and I’m here a hundred and fifty years later painting fake blood on them like it’s a game. Look, I’m broke. If you’re serious about the money, you can use the room. If I go to jail, I go to jail. I don’t have my kids and I’m going to lose the house if I don’t do something soon. So what does it matter.” He went to the diorama and pushed one of the tables over and half of it crashed to the floor. Soldiers and trees and houses and buildings spilled out on to the bare concrete, and tears welled in his eyes. He wanted to stomp on the buildings and papier mâché mountains, but he couldn’t. He had worked so hard on them for so long. He went for the other table leg, but Lowell stopped him.

  “Don’t break the table, Freddie,” he said. “We can use it to set the plants on.”

  9

  Pauline stepped out of the elevator, clocked in, and was prepped by the day nurses. A CT scan had discovered a nick in Leroy Kervin’s bowel and he was in surgery. Mr. Delgado, the alcoholic with the GI bleed, was back, and there was a new patient in room 2, a middle-aged woman recovering from a ruptured appendix. The teenage girl, Jo, still hadn’t eaten, and the old rancher, Mr. Flory, was going home the next day.

  Pauline began with Jo. The TV and the main lights in her room were turned off and she could see the girl by the dim bedside light, closing her eyes as she walked in.

  “You can’t fool me,” Pauline said. “I know that trick. I’ve used it a lot myself.” Jo remained still, with her eyes shut, and Pauline took a tube of lip balm from her shirt pocket and set it on the bedside table. “I got you something. It’s like Chapstick but better. This place always makes my lips chapped and this stuff really works, and it looks like you could use it.” She waited for a moment but the girl remained motionless so she turned on the overhead lights and moved to the side of the bed where Jo’s abscessed leg was. “Alright then, straight down to business. I have to check the packings. You don’t have to talk if you don’t want to. Just let me know if anything hurts. If it does, all you have to do is tap on my arm and I’ll stop. Okay?” She waited for a moment but still Jo didn’t respond. Pauline pulled back the white bed sheet and blanket, lifted the gown, and inspected the three packings.

  “They’re looking better, Jo,” she said and covered up the girl again. “So how’s it been going with the food? They say you haven’t eaten yet.” She again looked at her but still the girl lay with her eyes closed. “How about some TV, then?” She turned on the set and went through the channels until she came to a car race. She kept it there and turned up the sound. She charted in the corner of the room and left.

  In the hallway she looked at her watch and went to room 7.

  “How are you this evening, Mr. Flory?” she asked. The old man was awake and lying on his side.

  “I’m going home tomorrow,” he whispered.

  “I heard they were cutting you loose tomorrow morning.”

  His face looked pale and exhausted, and she thought he’d aged years in the short time he’d spent in the hospital.

  “I’m going to miss you, Mr. Flory. You know I’d never met a real cowboy before you.”

  “I wasn’t much of cowboy,” he said.

  “I bet that’s just you being cowboy humble.”

  He smiled. “I’m going to miss you, too, Pauline.”

  “Good,” she said. “I like to be missed. They told me your wife and daughters just left.”

  “They went home to get the house ready.”

  “I bet it’ll be good to get home, huh?”

  “I don’t want to die here,” he said.

  “Don’t talk like that, Mr. Flory. You’ll make me cry.”

  “I’m just telling the truth,” he said.

  “Maybe.”

  “We both know.”

  “I bet your family will be glad to see you home.”

  The old man shook his head.

  “Why wouldn’t they be, Mr. Flory?”

  “I’ve been a burden to them all for a long while now.”

  “I’m sure they don’t think that. Probably just the opposite. But I know you’ll all be happy to be out of here. Hospitals are depressing any way you look at it, Mr. Flory. That is, unless you’re having a baby and neither of us are.” She laughed. “Anyway, make sure to tell your wife I’m going to miss her. She makes the best cookies I’ve ever eaten and she always looks so nice. She told me she dresses up hoping it’ll make you feel better somehow.”

  “She’s a good woman,” he said faintly.

  “I think she might like you, Mr. Flory.”

  He coughed again and tried to clear his throat. “She goes to church every week. It takes her an hour and a half each way to get there. Every week since I’ve known
her, no matter what, she goes. Even if it’s snowing and I tell her it’s not safe, she’ll go. There’s no arguing with her about it, no arguing at all. When we were first married I’d go with her, but I didn’t like the church. I didn’t like the priest. In my heart . . . in my heart I just don’t believe in it. I hate admitting that out loud but it’s true. Lately I’ve been thinking a lot about it. You can’t help it when you’re in my situation. But even now when I know I’m dying, I still don’t believe in it. I believe in something, but not that. I don’t think about it like a club or a business run by a celibate man. It’s hard to explain the way I feel. But now I start questioning things. I know you can’t force yourself to believe in something, but now I’m trying to. ’Cause if there is a heaven, if there really is, my wife and daughters will be there someday, but I won’t be there with them. ’Cause no matter how hard I try I still don’t believe.” The old man closed his eyes in exhaustion. “If it is true . . . then I’m gonna be without them forever and there’s nothing I can do to change it.”

  “You’ll be with them, Mr. Flory. They make exceptions for good-looking old cowboys.”

  He opened his eyes to see her. He reached out his hand and she took it. “I sure like you, Pauline.”

  “Thank you, Mr. Flory. I feel the same way about you.” She sat down across from him in the bedside chair and sighed. “But if you keep talking like this, buster, I’ll need a drink and a good cry. So we have to get back to business. How’s your pain tonight? They upped your dosage again, huh?”

  “The pain’s always the same no matter what they do,” he whispered.

  “I’m sure sorry about that. You got a rough deal. Hit the button anytime you want, Mr. Flory. I’ll let you sleep now. If you need anything, you know how to get ahold of me.” She placed her hand on his arm and squeezed it twice and left.

  In room 5 Mr. Delgado was alone and asleep, recovering from emergency surgery. Pauline checked his IV and vitals, made notes on his chart, and left. In room 2 the woman recovering from surgery for a ruptured appendix was awake. Her husband sat in the chair next to her holding her hand.