The Free

by Willy Vlautin

  “You’ll just make it,” she said in a cheerful voice. “The last load was five minutes ago but that’s okay. I just live in the back, and I got nowhere to go tonight. Put the sleeping bags in the big washers, four and five. Don’t use number one, two, or three. The others just put in seven through ten. And only use the first two dryers. The others are broke.” She smiled at them and got down off the chair. She stood barely four feet tall. She put the chair back against the wall, and disappeared into the back.

  They put their things in the washers and sat down on a wooden bench and looked out the window toward the deserted street.

  “You know, when I was a kid,” Jeanette said. “I had a friend whose parents had a cabin a hundred miles north of Vancouver, British Columbia. It was on the water and the only way you could get to it was by boat. It was in the middle of nowhere. My friend and her family would spend a month there each summer. They would swim every day and explore the inlets in a small boat that had an outboard motor. When she got back she’d show me pictures. Hundreds of pictures. On the back of each one she would write down where it was taken and what it was about. You can’t believe how beautiful it was there. It seemed like the most beautiful place ever made, like the most beautiful place that ever existed. One summer they invited me and I’d never been anywhere. I mean I’d been to California, to Fresno once for a funeral, but that’s it. I wanted to go to the cabin in Canada, more than anything I did, but my father didn’t trust anybody. Even though he knew the family and thought they were decent people, he wouldn’t let me go.”

  “What about your mother? What was she like? What did she say?”

  “I’ve always liked my mother,” Jeanette said. “But she just did whatever he said. She always did what he wanted even if she thought it was wrong. Her whole life with him was like that. She’d just bend. It’s weird thinking about her. Sometimes I think I’m more ashamed of her than of him. At least he did what he wanted, what he thought was right even though so much of the time it wasn’t right. But her . . . I don’t know. It just makes me sad and sick to my stomach to think about her.”

  “Are they still together?”

  “No, he left us when I was in high school. He met a woman and moved in with her. He told us one night and then he was gone. He left all his things except for his guns and clothes. We didn’t know he had another life with a different woman. No one knew, but I guess he’d been with her for a long time. Maybe over a year. It’s strange that someone who always talks about the importance of family runs off with a woman no one even knows about. Runs off with a woman and doesn’t even help us pay our bills. Just abandons us.”

  “Maybe we should go where your friend’s place was,” Leroy said. “Maybe we could be like them.”

  “Do you think we could?” she said. “More than anywhere in the world, that’s the place I’ve always wanted to go.”

  “I don’t know if the boat can make it. But we can try.”

  “Then let’s try,” she said.

  The mechanic was asleep in a chair when they parked the boat in the shop’s slip the next day. On his lap sat a bag of mini candy bars, the wrappers scattered around his feet. When they jumped out and tied to the dock the mechanic woke and they talked of the repairs and the mechanic said he would have the boat done the next afternoon.

  Again they walked to the city center and went aimlessly past streets of failed businesses. They passed a community center with an empty swimming pool. They passed a closed-down high school. On a flyer in the window of a liquor store, they saw a poster that said there was a daily shuttle to an Indian casino. The shuttle left every hour from the parking lot across the street. They stood under the awning of an old building and rain fell and they waited until a small bus appeared and stopped. The door opened and inside the seats were filled with old people. The bus drove twenty miles before it stopped in front of a brand-new casino called Warrior’s Wind. They walked into the main lobby where a colored sign hung from the rafters: WELCOME NAVY UNDERWATER SPECIALISTS!

  Old people and soldiers milled about everywhere. The soldiers, some drunk and others half-drunk, were dressed in clean and new uniforms, and Leroy and Jeanette nervously walked through the casino, up and down rows of slot machines and past the table games and casino restaurants. They came to a lounge and sat at a table in the back and ordered two Rainier beers.

  There was a band playing in the back corner of the room. A woman with bright-orange hair sang while an overweight man sat beside her playing guitar. There were people dancing near the bandstand. Three soldiers who sat across from them began yelling at a soldier who sat alone in front of them. The soldier wore a different kind of uniform. He stood and began arguing with them so the three soldiers got up as well. They pushed the lone soldier, and he fell back past his table and knocked into Jeanette, pushing her over in her chair. As she fell to the ground her pant leg and tights got caught on a table leg and ripped, exposing her bare leg. Even in that light they all noticed the mark.

  Leroy grabbed her hand and they ran through the maze of the casino. They knocked over old people and weaved in and out of slot machines and gaming tables. Soldiers began chasing behind them. They found an exit and made it out to the parking lot. They could hear a growing pack behind them, all screaming, a sea of horrible noise. They couldn’t escape. They could feel the soldiers breathing down their necks; they could feel their hands reaching for them. They began saying awful things to them, whispering it in their ears. And then they were caught. They threw Leroy to the ground and stabbed him in the chest with a bayonet and shoved a hose down his throat.

  14

  Freddie McCall walked down the sixth-floor hall to find Leroy moving his legs around in his bed. It was as though his whole body were twitching in pain. His eyes were wide open. A faint moan came from the tube in his throat. His face was pale and wet with sweat. One nurse was holding him still while another added restraints to his legs. They increased the pain medication on the drip and waited until he settled. Then one of the nurses left the room.

  “It’s okay, buster,” he heard the other nurse say gently. Pauline looked up and saw Freddie in the room. “I know this looks scary. Leroy’s tolerance to the pain meds is increasing again so he’s waking up. He’ll be okay. It’s pretty normal for this to happen, but he moves around more than I’ve ever seen when someone’s intubated. We’ve restrained his arms but now we’re going to have to restrain his legs.”

  She sat with him until his breathing settled and his movement stopped, and then she double-checked the ventilator and the chest tubes. “I think he’ll be okay now,” she said and began typing on the computer in the corner. “The doctor will be down in a couple minutes.”

  Freddie nodded and then she left the room. He looked in his coat and took out a postcard, an illustration of a woman riding a rocket. She wore gold goggles and had flame-colored hair. The bikini she was wearing was blue and white and the rocket was cherry red. On it, in white cursive letters, it read, THIS IS THE SPACE RACE WE WANT TO WIN!

  He put the picture in front of Leroy’s face. “Look at this,” he said gently.

  Leroy began to open his eyes.

  “Don’t worry. It’s me, Freddie,” he told him. “I brought you a present.”

  For a moment it looked as though Leroy saw the picture, but just as he seemed to realize it his eyes closed again. Freddie put the postcard on the bedside table and took off his coat and sat down in the chair next to him. The nurse came back with the doctor. They examined Leroy and talked about him and again left. Freddie turned on the TV and clicked through the stations until he found an episode of Bonanza. He had twenty minutes until he had to leave for work.

  At 6:00 the next morning he left the group home and drove to his house. Even in the freezing cold the smell of the plants drifted up from the basement. Would the smell travel? Would his neighbors smell it? He’d been avoiding them for almost two years, since his wife and daughters left. What did they think of him now? And if they smelled the
marijuana, would they know what it was? Mr. and Mrs. Hughes were old and they didn’t worry him, but the Jacksons weren’t. Richard Jackson worked for the fire department. Maybe he suspected something already.

  He started the shower and turned on the box heater. He put his paint store clothes next to it, set the kitchen timer for ten minutes, and got in. As he stood under the hot water he looked at the old white shower tile and remembered his grandfather installing it. His grandfather smoking a cigarillo, with his greased-back hair, making sure each line was straight. He had been a perfectionist. It was his bathroom, it was his house, and now Freddie was losing it.

  He dressed and drove to Heaven’s Door Donuts and parked. He walked inside to see Mora leaning against the glass counter in red sweats and a white apron. She was watching the news on a portable TV that sat on a shelf in the corner of the room.

  “You’re ten minutes early,” she said.

  “Dale was on time for a change,” Freddie said. Mora moved her large body back and bent down and sighed from the effort. She took five donut holes from the lowest shelf, put them in a plastic basket, and set it in front of him. She poured him a half a cup of coffee.

  Freddie drank from it and took an old hockey puck from his coat pocket and set it on the counter. “I was looking through some boxes last night, and I found this. It’s from the ’82 season when the Winterhawks won the WHL championship. I’m not sure what game it’s from, but there’s writing on it. It’s my dad’s handwriting. It says ‘Hawks ’82’. It’s my after-Christmas Christmas present to you.”

  Mora picked it up and flipped it over and read the writing. She grabbed his hand and squeezed it. “Thank you,” she said. “Maybe it’s from the championship game.”

  “Maybe,” he said.

  “Let’s just say it is.”

  “Alright.”

  She took her purse from the shelf below the register, put the puck inside it, and leaned down on the counter again. “You look really beat this morning, Freddie.”

  “I know, but I’m okay,” he said.

  “Are you sure? Maybe you should go to a doctor.”

  “I’m okay, really.” He ate a donut hole and washed it down with coffee.

  “Did you get a chance to talk to Ginnie and Kathleen last night?”

  “I did what you told me and wrote down a list of questions. That seemed to work better. We were on the phone twice as long that way, but you can tell they get bored.”

  “Kids have no attention spans. You know that.”

  Freddie picked up another donut hole but set it down. He looked at Mora and suddenly tears flooded his eyes. He couldn’t explain why it happened right then, but he began to sob in front of her.

  “What’s wrong, Freddie?” she asked.

  He stared at the rows of donuts below the glass counter. He leaned across to her and whispered. “I can’t keep going on like this.”

  Mora reached over and put her hand on his arm. “I know,” she said. “How could you?”

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered and wiped his eyes.

  “Don’t be sorry. It’s okay,” she told him. “Tell me what’s going on, Freddie.”

  When he finally spoke, his voice was raw and so quiet it was barely audible.

  He couldn’t look at her when he spoke. “I keep making bad decisions. Why are all my decisions bad? I’m going to lose everything.” He wiped his eyes on his coat sleeves. “And I’ve failed everybody.”

  “Ah Freddie, don’t say that.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “It’s not . . . You’ve known me here for thirteen years, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Think of all the nice things you’ve done for me. When Raymond left me you’d come in here every morning and you could tell, just by looking at me, that I needed help. I didn’t even have to say anything and you’d invite me over for dinner. Your family took care of me. And you listened to me, Freddie. No one listens to me . . . You made me want to keep going when I didn’t want to. So don’t say you’re a failure. You’ve never failed me, Freddie.”

  She walked out from behind the counter and went to him and put her arms around him. She smelled of donuts and soap and she was soft and warm. He collapsed into her and closed his eyes as two white work vans pulled in front of the donut shop with their headlights shining in on them.

  He opened Logan’s Paint at a minute before seven. There was the early morning rush but by 10:30 it had cleared out, and he sat down and nodded off until 11:30, then got up, made another pot of coffee, and began placing restocking orders when Pat came in.

  “How was it today?” he asked with a frozen spaghetti dinner and a bottle of Dr Pepper under his arm.

  “Just over two thousand,” Freddie said. “The good news is they got the electrical and plumbing done on the Eccles apartment job. I stopped by yesterday on my way home. Drywall is going up next week and they ordered a hundred gallons of primer. My guess is they’ll probably do a hundred and fifty of primer, then take two hundred top coat by the time it’s over. Also, Gary came in. He’s starting a couple jobs on the reservation. He spent three hundred today and he says it’s just the start of it.”

  “Not bad,” Pat said and went to the refrigerator. He put the soda and frozen dinner inside and went into his office. Twenty minutes later he came out and heated the frozen dinner. “If anyone calls for me, tell them I’m in a meeting. I’ll be on line one with my wife.”

  Freddie nodded and continued his restocking orders, and the voice of James Dobson leaked through the wall.

  “This is no time for Christian people to throw up their hands in despair. The moral principles in scripture have guided this great nation since the days of its founding, and we must remain true to them. This is a moment for greater courage and wisdom than we have ever been called upon to exercise. If we now choose to stand by idly while our foundational social order is destroyed, the family, as it has been understood for millennia, will be gone. And with its demise will come chaos such as the world has never seen.”

  Freddie arrived at the group home that night in such a state of exhaustion he could hardly do his chores. He collapsed on the couch at midnight and fell asleep only to be woken an hour later by shrieking. He ran down the hall to find Donald naked and screaming at Hal, who was trying to hide in his bedroom closet. When Freddie entered the room, Donald panicked and began physically attacking Hal. He hit the middle-aged man a half-dozen times before Freddie was able to break it up. Hal collapsed in a ball on the closet floor, and Donald ran from the room. Freddie helped Hal to his feet and out of the closet but when he did, Hal suddenly became hysterical. He ran in circles and screamed and punched his hand through the bedroom window. The glass shattered and his hand came back wet with blood.

  Freddie ran to the bathroom and got the first-aid kit. When he came back to the room Hal was motionless. He just stood staring vacantly at his blood-covered hand. Freddie took him to the kitchen and put his hand in the sink, and blood poured from it. He turned on the water and put Hal’s hand underneath the faucet and cleaned the wounds. There were three large cuts that would need stitching. He’d have to go to the hospital. Freddie sat Hal at the kitchen table, opened the first-aid kit, wrapped the wounded hand in gauze, and then put a kitchen towel around it.

  When he finished, he made a hot chocolate and went to Donald’s room. The naked man sat on his bed, crying. Freddie gave him the drink, waited until he finished it, and then helped him into pajamas and got him back into bed. He turned off the light and shut the door and went back to the kitchen, and to Hal. He called the manager of the group home to let her know what had happened, and then he called Hal’s parents, who said they’d be right over. Freddie hung up and took Hal back to his room and dressed him and they waited at the kitchen table for his parents to arrive.

  It was twenty minutes later when the sound of a truck was heard and the headlights from it shone into the front room windows. Hal’s parents were an old, gray-haired couple. The woman w
as dressed in a red coat that came down to her knees. Her husband was thin with a leathered smoker’s face. He wore a baseball cap and a worn canvas work coat.

  “Oh Hal,” his mother said. “Why did you do it, baby?” She kneeled in front of him and put her arms around him.

  “Donald attacked him,” Freddie explained. “I broke it up but Hal got so upset he punched out the window in his room.”

  “Poor Hal has always been picked on,” she said. “His whole life has been that way. Instead of fighting back he just gets mad and smashes things or puts his hands through things. Windows or walls. He punched his fist through a TV once, didn’t you, honey?” She kissed Hal’s forehead while Hal’s father remained silent at the edge of the kitchen.

  “I think he’ll need stitches,” Freddie said.

  “You poor little boy,” she said.

  The man coughed and turned to her and said, “He ain’t a little boy.”

  “I know, Pop,” she said. “I know.” She looked at Freddie and whispered, “He thinks I baby him too much but what are you going to do? He’s our boy and he’ll never be anything but a little boy.”

  “He was a good patient, though,” Freddie said. “I think I got all the glass out, but the hospital will know for sure.”

  “That’s the thing,” she said. “Once the drama’s over he becomes catatonic. It’s the only plus side. It makes him easier to fix.” She took his hand and unwrapped the towel. The gauze was soaked with blood and she lifted it to see the cuts. “Oh boy, looks like he really did it.”

  “How bad is it?” her husband asked.

  “Hospital bad.”

  “Figures,” he said.

  “Well, Freddie, thanks for not calling an ambulance. Our insurance doesn’t cover ambulance rides. It would have cost us a fortune and we just don’t have that kind of money. Okay, Hal,” she said to her son. “You just stay here and I’ll be right back with a travel bag.” She kissed him again and then walked down the hall and came back carrying a small suitcase.