Damascus Road

by Charlie Cole

  “Tom didn’t let you tell her?” Grace asked.

  “She stayed another couple years,” I said. “Good years. Maybe that makes me a bad person. A bad son. A bad brother. I wanted my mom to stay, so shoot me.”

  “Tom might just do that, you know?” she offered.

  “Oh, thank you very much for that insight,” I said. “That’s incredibly helpful. What am I supposed to do with that?”

  “I’m just saying.”

  “Nice. Can we go please?” I asked.

  She turned over the car and dropped it into gear. We were back on the road. I had taken the time before we left to replace the driver’s side window. It was a trip to the junkyard and scrounging until I found the replacement, but I couldn’t see pushing ourselves out onto the road and not having a window. I was thankful I had.

  I fished my phone out of my pocket.

  “What are you doing?” Grace asked.

  “If we have to go back to that place, I want to make sure that it’s the right thing to do,” I said. “I’m not going back there just for kicks.”

  “Sure, okay, makes sense.”

  “Have you tried just calling Bobby’s cell?” I asked.

  “I’m not stupid, Jim,” she said. “Of course, I did. It’s disconnected.”

  “You do realize that I never said that you were stupid, right?” I asked.

  “Oh, I know.”

  “Just making sure,” I said. “What about his roommate? Or his girlfriend? Didn’t he have a girlfriend? Amber? Heather? Jennifer?”

  “No, no, and no,” Grace laughed. “Her name was Kelly, and they broke up. The roommate moved out. They couldn’t get along.”

  “Did he tell them where he was going?” I asked.

  Grace didn’t know.

  “Give me the numbers. I’ll call,” I said.

  I did call and I was nice, polite and undemanding. I took my time and walked them through the questions without hurry. Oh no, Bobby’s not there? Where could he be? I’m so worried… Did he say where he was going? And the dance went on. When I finished both calls, I rang off and sat looking at the phone in my hands, not saying a word.

  “So…what did they say?” Grace asked. She already knew.

  “I love it…just love it,” I sighed. “He went to New Orleans.”

  I stared out the side window, rubbing my beard stubble with my hand, elbow on the window sill.

  “Do you have any way to call Tom?” she asked. She didn’t want to ask, that much I could tell.

  “Tom calls from a blocked number every time,” I said. “I’m relatively certain he’s not in the phone book.”

  “So…what do you want to do?” she asked.

  I groaned and put my head in my hands, covering my face.

  “He’s proving a point,” I said.

  “Who? Tom?”

  “Yeah, he knows I’ll remember what happened,” I said. “And he knows that I’ll come running. He knows my first move before I make it, because it’s the only move that I could possibly make.”

  “What would be your first move?” Grace asked.

  “We have to find Louis,” I said.

  “Wait, what?” Grace was alarmed.

  “Bobby’s not in New Orleans by accident,” I said. “He didn’t suddenly decide to drop out of school and head down there at the same time that Tom came back into our life. I’m almost positive that Tom found him and invited him to come down. Tom’s trying to prove a point.”

  “That you messed up his future, so he’s going to do the same to you,” Grace muttered. “That’s great, Jim.”

  “Grace…I get it, okay?” I said. “I fucked up.”

  “And now your child is paying the price for it.”

  I could have argued, but there was no point in it. There was nothing to win, and I would only hurt Grace more if I gritted my teeth and hardened my position. Besides all that, she was right, and I knew it.

  I slumped back in my seat and let her drive. The road was relatively smooth, and the traffic sounds blended into a kind of white noise for me. My eyes closed in a long, slow blink before I opened them again. Grace reached for the radio and I didn’t stop her. She tuned through the stations, looking for something halfway livable before lighting on John Cougar Mellencamp’s “Ain’t That America.”

  Well there's a young man in a t-shirt

  Listenin' to a rockin' rollin' station

  He's got ah greasy hair, greasy smile

  He says, "Lord this must be my destination."

  'Cause they told me when I was younger

  Said, "Boy you're gonna be president."

  But just like everything else those old crazy dreams

  Just kinda came and went

  Ah but ain't that America for you and me

  Ain't that America somethin' to see baby

  Ain't that America home of the free, yeah

  The sounds of the road and the music enfolded me, and for the time being, nothing else mattered. I was doing what felt to be the right thing. I let sleep overtake me and faded away.

  Grace drove most of the day. Usually that would bother me, but I was bone tired. I took the time on the road to rest, let my body mend. I’d been in tussles before, crashed a car or two, but I’d never been sucked up into a tornado before. I decided that I wouldn’t do it again. Once was enough.

  I realized that I was smiling, ever so slightly to myself at the thoughts running through my head. I took the time to pray, the first time in a long time that I had done it. As conversations go, I was glad to be on speaking terms with God again. I had a lot to confess and one specific request on my mind.

  I missed Bobby. I needed to find Bobby. The thought kept percolating in my brain, unwilling to go away.

  “Grace?”

  “Yep.”

  “I’m sorry that I’ve been an idiot.”

  Silence.

  “I forgive you.”

  “Thank you.”

  I watched the rise and fall of the power line between the poles. The slow up and down hypnotized me as I pressed my head against the window. Up, down. Up, down. Crow. Up…

  I looked out the back window, but he was gone. Looking back out the front window, I saw a sign for a bookstore at the next exit.

  “Can we pull off there?” I asked.

  “Where?”

  “At the next exit, I want to go to the bookstore,” I said.

  “You read?” she teased.

  I mocked a goofy laugh.

  “You’re hysterical,” I said.

  She pushed the Cuda up the off-ramp and pulled into the used bookstore parking lot. I got out, eager to stretch my legs and do anything other than sit.

  I held the door for Grace, and we walked inside together. The place smelled like old paper, without the musty mildew smell that sometimes accompanied places like that. The air was dry, and paperbacks were stacked and piled on every surface in sight.

  Behind the counter was a waif of a girl. She looked up at us from under her heavily shadowed eyes. She was reading a tattered copy of an Anne Rice novel. Her hair was black as well as her clothes.

  “Hi! Can I help you?” she said. Her bright customer service voice was in jarring contrast to her goth appearance. I couldn’t help but shoot a look at Grace, who only stared back at me. This was my show.

  “Do you have a religion section?” I asked.

  “Oh, sure,” she said, pointing to the back corner of the place. “We’ve got a fairly good size selection. Are you looking for anything in particular?”

  “I’d really like to find a pocket Bible,” I said.

  She considered that more seriously than I would have given her credit for. She got up and motioned that we should follow.

  “We just had a woman come through in the past month,” she said. “She was the daughter of a country preacher. He passed away, and she had to deal with his estate. She had no idea what to do with his private library so she brought it in. I think he might have something there that could be u
p your alley.”

  “Oh, really?” I said.

  “Don’t you have a Bible?” Grace asked.

  “I do, but it’s one of those Gideon Bibles from the hotel,” I replied.

  “You stole your Bible from a hotel?” she asked, chuckling at me.

  “I…well, no…I …alright, I’ll send it back.”

  Even the clerk laughed at that. She was searching the shelf for us and seemed to find what she was looking for. She handed me the book.

  It was brown calfskin, soft to the touch and well-used without being tattered. It fit well into the palm of my hand, and I flipped through the pages. Inside were some notations, handwritten cross-references made in a steady, sure hand.

  “I’ll take it,” I said. “How much?”

  She named a price and I quickly agreed. We followed her to the front, and I peeled off the bills to pay her. She thanked me and went back to her book before we were out the door. I slid the Bible into the back pocket of my blue jeans. It seemed right. I smiled at Grace.

  “You happy now?” she asked, hands on her hips. She had a smile tugging at the corners of her mouth.

  I began to nod, stopped and shook my head.

  “Keys please,” I said, hand open.

  She gave in and tossed me the car keys. All was right in the world again.

  I fired up the Cuda and pulled out. As I closed the distance to New Orleans, I recognized some of the landmarks, stretches of road that I had pushed out of my mind. The memories came back of driving these roads, and I let them come, good and bad alike.

  Grace didn’t ask me if I knew where I was going. I knew where I was going to end up. My path may not have been the most efficient, but I knew that it was the one to get me there. I prowled the streets, letting the Cuda growl and prowl and lead the way. I moved along like a shark, moving continuously, gliding back and forth, up streets and down, searching out the right place.

  I found it at last. It was a hotel on the main strip with a place to rent and a view of the street. I parked out front. I looked up the street and then back behind us.

  “This is it,” I said.

  “You sure?” she asked, not really asking.

  “Yep, this is it.”

  I looked over at her, and Grace was staring back at me. Her eyes were open, innocent. She was not challenging my judgment. It was deeper than that.

  “We’ll find him,” I said. “This is how we’re going to do it.”

  She nodded, lips pressed tight together.

  We got out of the car and grabbed our bags. Together we walked inside. Grace rang the bell on the counter. I stared out the window at the people in the street, watching their faces, unfamiliar and foreign to me. I wondered how long we would look for him before we’d eventually find Bobby. Whether it was days or weeks or months, I knew that his mother would not stop until we found him. Neither would I, of course, but the scenarios that played through my head, the possibilities, made my heart ache.

  I didn’t know where Tom’s head was at. Did he want to cause us pain? Make us worry the way that only parents could ever worry about their children? Tom could very well be the sort to want to torture us, leave the clues that he wanted us to be in New Orleans and then steer Bobby as far away as possible, just to keep us guessing.

  Grace was talking to the dark man behind the counter in French, her accent perfect but more European than the Creole-flavored syntax of the local population. She was asking about the room, paying l’addition. Somehow, uneducated though I might be, I knew the term for “paying the bill” in six different languages.

  “We good?” I asked.

  “Oui,” Grace replied. “Yes. Upstairs.”

  I nodded and grabbed our bags to follow her upstairs. We stepped into the elevator and rode it up in silence. We stepped off onto our floor and scanned the area. We were falling into a rhythm with one another. This wasn’t a vacation. We weren’t there for fun.

  “Room 347,” she said.

  I walked in that direction and found the room. I watched as she keyed open the door. I stepped inside and examined the room. The bed was made and the bathroom clean. There wasn’t much more I could ask for. I tossed my bag in the corner.

  “You ready?” I asked.

  Grace dropped her bag in the closet.

  “Let’s go,” she replied.

  We locked the room and headed for the stairs. At the ground floor, we stepped out onto the street. The sounds of the street car bell rang in the air. We looked up and down the avenue.

  “You really think he’s here?” Grace asked.

  “I think we could have driven into a hundred different cities in the country and eventually Tom would have shown up looking for us,” I said. “He wants us to see Bobby.”

  “Then why not come out and face us?” she asked.

  “Because he wants us to suffer,” I said. “Feel some pain, some panic. He’s got something up his sleeve.”

  “What?”

  “No idea,” I said. “But I’m positive that he’s here.”

  We started down the street. It was dusk, and since we were nowhere near Mardi Gras, the streets were relatively tame. I had scoped out a garage a few blocks away. We angled up and over, working our way in that direction.

  The name of the garage was Clem’s, and I walked into the mechanic’s bay. Grace hung back and let me talk. Five minutes later I returned.

  “Anything?” she asked.

  “Nothing,” I replied.

  We moved on to the next establishment and the next, making our way on foot. Grace let me work the mechanics. I didn’t bother to ask her why it fell to me. I assumed for the same reason she let me kill spiders and take out the garbage. It was just another unsavory task.

  “What is this? The fourth or fifth one?” Grace asked.

  “Sixth,” I replied. “Sixth time’s the charm.”

  I walked in and found the guy running the shop. His skin was dark beyond discernment, making it impossible to tell his ethnic background. His fingers were stained black with grease, his fingernails worn down. I gave him the head nod and he acknowledged me.

  “Hey, man,” I said. “I’m looking for somebody.”

  “Somebody?” he said, repeating the word as if it were foreign to him. “I don’t deal in somebodies. I deal in cars. This ain’t that type of place.”

  It was an easy mistake in the neighborhood.

  “It’s not like that,” I said. “I’ve got a car. It’s a 1971 Hemicuda, and I want to give it to my son. I heard he’s in town. I got this picture here. Have you seen him?”

  He was shaking his head before he even looked at the picture.

  “No, man, I haven’t seen anybody,” he said. “I’m terrible with faces.”

  “His name’s Bobby,” I said.

  “I’m worse with names.” He smiled.

  I nodded and put the picture back in my pocket. We could do this all night and get nowhere. A thought occurred to me. I choked it back, considered it and decided to give it legs anyway.

  “Hey…” I said, a little louder. He looked up at me. “How’s Louis?”

  “Louis?”

  “Yeah, Louis,” I said, pressing my luck. “Is he still boosting cars? Running a crew?”

  I expected a quick answer, a flat denial, but it didn’t come. The mechanic looked at me and then over my shoulder at Grace.

  “There’s nobody here by that name,” he said, finally.

  “What name is he using now then?” I asked, smiling a bit.

  “I don’t know who you mean, sir,” he finally said.

  I nodded. He wanted to say something, but he wasn’t about to crack.

  “If you see him, you know, if Louis happens to come by, you tell him Jimmy Marlowe was here,” I said. “You tell him that I was here and looking for work. Can you do that? I mean if he comes by?”

  The man was struggling to play it cool, but he managed a shrug.

  “I don’t know anyone named Louis,” he said lamely.


  “You probably don’t, but he knows me,” I said.

  I slapped my hand on the counter and walked out.

  Grace was watching, waiting for me. She was expectant.

  “So? Anything?” she asked.

  “Be cool, act calm and walk with me like everything’s fine,” I said.

  I smiled wide and put my arm around her. She did the same, and we walked together. She threw back her head and laughed, long and loud.

  “What was that?” I whispered.

  “I was being cool,” she whispered back. “Women like it when a guy makes her laugh.”

  “Do I make you laugh?” I asked.

  “Not intentionally,” she said.

  It was my turn, so I laughed boisterously. I managed a look back behind us and saw a man walking in our direction. He was medium height and dressed plainly. Caucasian and trim, he could have worked for anyone.

  “Keep walking,” I said. “I think we finally got some attention.”

  Grace wanted to look, but stopped herself.

  “Where? Back there?” she asked.

  “Walk, walk, walk,” I said.

  At the next street I saw another man walking toward us from the right. It had taken me off guard when I saw the man behind us, but when I saw the second one, it suddenly made sense. Both men had the unmistakable gait of military men.

  “Left, go left,” I said.

  We did and Grace kept good pace with me.

  “What’s going on, Jim?” she asked. “Is it Bobby? Is it Tom?”

  There was a hint of panic when she said the latter.

  At the next intersection, I saw the third man closing from the left. He was walking right for us, moving fast and purposeful.

  “Hey!”

  The shout snapped the tranquility of the night air. Grace spun and saw the men converging. I was ready to take them on, but Grace knew the better part of valor.

  “Jim, we’ve got to go,” she said.

  “Grace, no…”

  “Jim, please…”

  Something about the “please”. It reminded me of my place in her life, where I belonged in the grand scheme of things.

  “Where?” I asked.

  “There,” she said and I turned to see.

  She was pointing at a cemetery on the other side of Rampart St. It was above ground and might give us the cover we needed.