The Free

by Willy Vlautin

  “Do you remember me?” Pauline called out through the glass. “I’m the nurse from the hospital. I’m one of Jo’s nurses. You’re Bob, right?”

  “What do you want?” he yelled back. He stood nervous, twenty feet away. He had on a coat that was too large for him. His jeans were the same—dirty, with holes, and his worn-out tennis shoes were covered in black electrical tape. His face was white and hollow. His nose and eyes were red and his forehead was covered in acne.

  “Is Jo here?” she asked.

  “Why do you want her?”

  “ ’Cause she’s sick. I want to make sure she’s okay.”

  Another boy came from the living room. She remembered him from hospital, Captain. He looked even older and larger than she remembered. He had on a leather coat and underneath it five or six T-shirts. He wore ripped black jeans and a red ski cap.

  “What are you doing out here?” he yelled in a man’s voice.

  “I want to help Jo,” Pauline said. Cheryl moved closer to her as she saw the bigger boy move toward them.

  “There’s nothing wrong with her,” said Captain.

  “I know she’s not alright and you know it, too. Look, I don’t care what you guys do out here, I just want to check on her. Her bandages need to be changed. I can do that, no big deal, and then I’ll leave. But if you don’t let me in I’ll call the police. I swear to God I will.”

  The two boys talked, and then Bob came to the door, unlocked it, and let them into the kitchen. There were empty fast-food bags and crushed soda cans and frozen-pizza boxes on the old white-tiled counter. The sink was clogged and filled with brown water and mold. There were white painted wooden cabinets in the kitchen and a framed crochet picture that read THE RANCH LIFE IS THE GOOD LIFE. There was a five-year-old farm equipment calendar on the wall near a large window, and a small kitchen table with two metal chairs underneath it. The floors were worn red linoleum and amid the trash on it were broken dishes, cups, and bowls.

  They followed the boys into living room where Jo lay on a couch in a sleeping bag. There was another boy in a sleeping bag on the floor near the fire. The room was dark, the only light coming from the kitchen and a single windowpane in the corner of the room. The rest of the windows were covered with garbage bags and cardboard held in place with tape. There was a small, dying fire in the fireplace and the room was cold. On the carpet near the front door were pallets and boards used for firewood and again there was trash: beer cans and pizza boxes and food wrappers.

  Pauline went to a large window and pulled the cardboard off it and light streaked into the room. She went to the sleeping girl and called her name. She put her hand on Jo’s forehead and then softly shook her until her eyes opened.

  “Hey in there, are you okay?” Pauline whispered. But the girl didn’t respond. Pauline drew back the sleeping bag. Jo wore flowered pajamas that smelled of urine. Gently she pulled the bottoms down the girl’s legs. The bandages were intact but a smell came from them. She peeled the top bandages back showing the packed wounds. They were each dark with blood and pus.

  Bob paced around the edge of the room while Captain put a piece of wood on the struggling fire and sat down in a chair.

  “Jo’s going to die if she stays here,” Pauline said and put the bandages back in place. She pulled up the girl’s pajamas. “We’re going to take her back to the hospital.”

  Bob stayed at the edge of the living room. He looked at the two women standing over the girl. “You ain’t taking her. We didn’t say you could. That wasn’t the deal.”

  “You’d rather have her die?” Pauline said.

  Bob looked at Captain, but Captain just stared at the fire. The other boy in the sleeping bag finally sat up.

  “I don’t want her to die,” he said. “I like Jo.”

  “Good,” said Pauline.

  “But could you help me, too?”

  “What’s wrong?”

  The boy undid the zipper and with great difficulty got out of the bag and stood.

  “Can I show you something?” he asked. He was scrawny with red hair and didn’t even look fifteen. His teeth were brown and he had dried blood underneath his nose. “Could you help me take my shirt off, Bob? I can’t do it on my own.” His voice was soft and meek, almost a girl’s voice. Bob went to him and helped take the sweatshirt off. The boy stood with his upper body bare and showed Pauline the inside of his right arm. It was bright red with an abscess the size of two silver dollars on it.

  “I’ve been washing it,” he said. “I’ve been putting rubbing alcohol on it, too, but it just keeps oozing this stuff out.”

  “You should come to the hospital with us,” Pauline said. “You’ve seen Jo’s legs. That’s going to happen to your arm. You can’t wash it away. If you don’t get it taken care of, you could lose your arm.”

  “She’s just trying to scare you,” Captain said and then stood up and held a metal fire poker in his hand. He looked at the redheaded boy. “I’ve seen those things get better on their own a thousand times.”

  “Look,” Pauline said and pointed at Captain. “You don’t know what you’re talking about. You know you don’t, so just quit it.” She looked at the redheaded boy again. “If you want to lose your arm then stay. I deal with these things every week. I know how they get. I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  The boy didn’t say anything. He just looked to Bob but Bob wouldn’t look at him.

  Pauline went back to Jo, who was now awake and watching.

  “We’re going to get you out of here, okay?” Pauline said and helped her out of the sleeping bag.

  “Don’t move her,” Captain said.

  “She told you to quit talking,” Cheryl said as she stood behind Pauline.

  Captain began nervously pacing around. He held the metal poker in his hand. The redheaded boy couldn’t stand anymore and sat back down on his sleeping bag, exhausted.

  “Jo is being treated for chlamydia. I’m sure one of you guys gave it to her. So get it taken care of.”

  “Can you get it from getting head?” said Captain.

  Pauline lifted the girl in her arms. “I can’t believe you guys would really treat Jo this bad. I just can’t. I don’t want any of you visiting her again. If you do, I’ll call security. After I call security, I’ll call the cops and have them come out here.” She held Jo as tight as she could in her arms and looked at the redheaded boy who was trying to put his sweatshirt back on.

  “What’s your name?” Pauline asked.

  “Cal,” he said.

  “Look, Cal,” she pleaded. “There’s a huge infection in your arm. They’re going to have to take all the infected skin and muscle and carve it out like they’ve done to Jo. I’m not trying to scare you. I swear on my life I’m not, but you could really lose your arm. We have room in the car and I want to take you to the hospital. That’s where you need to get it fixed. You’ll be alright if you come now. I’ll take care of you. I give you my promise on that.”

  “I ain’t got any money,” the boy said.

  “It doesn’t matter. You won’t have to pay for it,” Pauline said. “The hospital will take anyone. They took Jo and she doesn’t have any money. Please Cal, come with us. You can always come back here when you’re fixed up.”

  He wiped his tear-streaked face with his good hand. “I’ll go to jail if they find me,” he admitted.

  “Going to jail is better than losing your arm,” Pauline said. But the boy didn’t say anything more. He looked to Captain but Captain wouldn’t look at him. So he turned away from everyone and got in his sleeping bag again.

  Pauline’s arms grew tired holding Jo, but still she begged the boy. “Please come with us, Cal. Bob and Captain, they don’t know how bad your arm’s going to get, but I do. It’s not going to get better here, no matter how much you try to clean it.”

  Cal looked at her and tears welled in his eyes. “I ain’t going,” he said and lay back down. He turned his face away from them.

  Pauline’s arms
were beginning to shake. She couldn’t hold the girl much longer, so they left him there. They went out through the kitchen and Cheryl opened the back door and Pauline carried Jo to the car. She set her in the backseat and they left the old farmhouse.

  “Are you alright back there, Jo?” Pauline asked as she drove.

  “Yeah,” she said faintly.

  “Are you in much pain?”

  “Not really,” she said and closed her eyes. “Thanks for coming to get me.”

  “I couldn’t leave you out there alone. This is my friend, Cheryl.”

  Cheryl turned in her seat and said hello.

  “Hi,” Jo said.

  Pauline looked in the rearview. “Why would you go with them, Jo?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Please tell me why?”

  “They said they were going to leave town without me. They said they were going to Mexico and live on the beach, and I would never be able to find them in Mexico.”

  “But they don’t care about you.”

  “I know.”

  “But you still wanted to go with them?”

  “They’re the only people I know,” she said.

  13

  A soldier picked the lock on the cabin door and crept in. He found them inside, in the loft sleeping. He pushed the point of his rifle into Leroy’s chest until it broke his skin and muscle and split his ribs apart.

  Leroy woke screaming in agony. He tried to push the rifle out of him but his arms wouldn’t work; they wouldn’t move at all. With his spare hand the soldier threw off their blankets, leaving them naked on the bed. He saw the mark on Jeanette’s foot and leg and pulled the point of his rifle out of Leroy. He grabbed his radio, gave his location, and called them in. Jeanette tried to stop the blood leaking from Leroy’s chest, but the soldier took Jeanette by the hair and threw her to the ground. He spoke with an accent Leroy couldn’t make out, and sweat poured down his face as he ordered them to dress.

  They were forced to leave the cabin. Leroy walked half-dead and wheezing and Jeanette held him up as they went. Along a washed-out logging road they walked toward a military holding vehicle. The soldier was behind them when his radio called, and for a moment he was distracted. He stopped and set his gun down and took the radio from his holster.

  “We have to run now, Leroy,” Jeanette whispered. “We have to try now.” As quick as they could they ran off the road into the forest. Blood soaked through Leroy’s shirt and spilled down his pants and onto his shoes as they went. The soldier yelled at them to stop. He dropped the radio and grabbed his rifle and began shooting wildly in their direction. He chased in pursuit and was nearly on them when he fell and his gun went off. He’d shot himself in the leg. They heard him screaming as they disappeared into the trees.

  They didn’t stop running until they came out the other side of the forest, until they could see the ocean laid out below. Patches of sun hit the water miles offshore. Clouds and tankers were in the distance and the wind blew heavy. A small town was below them, in a cove. Leroy felt his strength suddenly come back. He lifted his shirt to see there was no wound where the rifle entered. There wasn’t even a scar.

  Nothing made sense.

  They ran down the hill until they reached the town, and Leroy led them through a maze of streets and alleys until they came to a marina. He led them past dozens of cabin cruisers, commercial fishing vessels, and sailboats. He stopped in front of a dilapidated twenty-six-foot fishing boat, and jumped on board.

  “What are you doing?” Jeanette said worriedly from the dock.

  “It’s alright,” Leroy said. “You don’t have to worry. I own this boat.”

  “You own it?”

  “Yes, now come on. Hurry!”

  He grabbed her hand and brought her aboard and started the engine. White-and-blue smoke billowed from the exhaust pipes, and the motor idled rough and uneven. He untied from the dock and backed out into the marina.

  “This is really your boat?” she asked.

  Leroy nodded. “We were fixing the body when my uncle died. If you think it looks bad now, you should have seen it before. My uncle got it off this old guy who lived next door to us. He had it in his backyard. It was covered with moss and algae and filled with rainwater. It had been sitting out of use for twenty years. The old man was a shut-in who never left his house except to go to the library and the grocery store. But he liked my uncle, so he gave the boat to him for free, as a present.”

  “Will it make it away from here?”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “We hadn’t really started working on the engine.”

  They headed north for hours and the engine sputtered and coughed but it didn’t quit, and finally just past dusk they came to Kingston, a naval base town. They found a public harbor, paid two nights’ moorage, and parked in a slip.

  They went to the city center to find food and sleeping bags. Along the way they passed a wooden marquee that read, WELCOME TO TORPEDO TOWN, USA. The downtown was desolate except for a rundown grocery store that was still open. They went inside to find it empty except for one cooler of beer and soda, a wall of military baseball hats, a glass case full of knives and glass pipes, and a back shelf with dozens of dusty and dented cans of food. They asked the cashier if there was a store where they could buy bedding, but the old man couldn’t speak English. They bought beer and all the cans that weren’t expired and went back to the boat.

  There was no propane to run the stove or the small space heater so they ate the food cold, out of the can, and listened to the radio and drank Rainier beer. There were no blankets of any kind. They huddled together on a damp mattress and waited out the night.

  When morning came, Jeanette left to find bedding while Leroy looked over the engine. The belts were frayed; there were exhaust leaks and oil leaks. He could see gas leaking from the fuel pump and from the carburetor.

  He walked through the marina asking for a mechanic, and was told of one whom he found sitting on a faraway dock, smoking a cigarette and reading a magazine. Leroy brought the boat over to him. The man looked anorexic with bad skin and a small bent nose. His hands were caked in grease and he wore stained coveralls and dirty white tennis shoes.

  He looked over the motor. “Well,” he said. “You’re right. I’d change the belts. Your fuel pump and carburetor are pretty shot, too. I can rebuild the carb, but it might be better to just get a new one. The fuel pump is nothing, it’s easy to put in and cheap. If it was me, I’d change the belts and plugs and wires and probably the distributor. The oil leaks aren’t that bad. You can leak a lot of oil and still get by. But you have a couple exhaust leaks that’ll hurt worse. I could try and get those stopped. How soon do you need it?”

  “As soon as you can.”

  “You’re not from here?”

  “No.”

  “Where are you heading?”

  “North,” Leroy said.

  “What’s north?” the mechanic asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Leroy said.

  The mechanic looked at him and smiled a mouth full of tiny, brown broken teeth. “Bring her back tomorrow and I’ll get it done.” He quoted a price. Leroy agreed to it then took the boat to the marina gas station, filled the gas and propane tanks, and went back to the slip. An hour later Jeanette came carrying two used sleeping bags, three blankets, and some old sheets she’d bought from a makeshift store in the garage of an old woman’s house.

  “Nothing in this town’s open anymore,” she said. “The only place I came to that was open was this old crazy lady who sold stuff out of her garage. It wasn’t cheap either. The sleeping bags were twenty dollars each and they smell moldy. She just sat there and talked, but I couldn’t understand anything she said. On the way back I met an old man on the street and he told me of a Laundromat that’s still open. I would have gone there but I’d spent all my money.”

  Leroy told her about the mechanic with the rotten teeth and took her below deck and drew the curtains shut. He turned on the ove
rhead light, and lifted the mattress off the bunk where they had slept. He removed a loose board from the bunk’s frame. In a small space below it a wooden box sat, and inside the box was seven thousand dollars wrapped in a plastic bag: his uncle’s life savings. He took two hundred from the bundle, giving a hundred to Jeanette and putting a hundred in his wallet. On the galley table he emptied an old coffee can full of change. They picked out thirty-odd quarters and went back to find the Laundromat.

  The whole town seemed even worse in the stark daylight. Everything was in a state of disrepair. Businesses were boarded over, cars were burned, and houses were vacant, their doors gone and their windows broken. Trash covered the streets: old bikes and grocery carts and rotten garbage. They walked nearly a mile and saw only three people, and the people they saw were old and frail. At the end of downtown, across from the railroad tracks, they came to a brick building. On it was a marquee that read, LILLY’S LAUNDRY AND DRY CLEANING.

  Inside, the ceiling was falling off in chunks from water damage, and the walls were stained from it. A short, hefty, middle-aged woman stood on a chair, and was bent over a rusty washing machine, cleaning it out. She wore a long denim dress that came down to her feet and underneath it a long-sleeve white turtleneck. There was a black work glove on her left hand and her face was wrinkled and blotchy.