Hitchers

by Will McIntosh

  “This is not a disease caused by a contagious pathogen. We’re sure of that.”

  “How can you be sure?” Lakshmi asked.

  “Contagion of disease follows a pattern; it spreads from a point. No one who was not in Atlanta at the time of the anthrax attack has developed this new malady, so it cannot be contagious.”

  I could hear Lakshmi inhale as she formed her next question. “The CDC, the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the White House are all saying this is psychological. Is there any evidence to support this?”

  “The evidence is by process of elimination. It’s not a physical illness. It’s not some second secret supervirus the terrorists planted. That rumor is completely without merit. Given the symptoms, it’s clearly psychological.”

  I stopped at a light. A girl whizzed by on a red Huffy bike. She reminded me of Kayleigh. Kayleigh had insisted on a red bike; she hadn’t wanted a girly color.

  “There are rumors that there is an advanced form of the disorder...”

  I turned the volume way up, leaned forward.

  “...victims report not only losing control of their voices, but of their bodies. Do you have any information on this? Can you confirm these cases?”

  “We have encountered a few of these cases. It appears to be an advanced form of the same disorder.”

  “Bullshit,” I growled. The feds were probably afraid people would panic if they knew what it really was. They had to know by now.

  On second thought, the feds were probably right to keep it quiet. Let people get used to the voices first.

  Summer was waiting on her front steps. She hopped up when she saw my car.

  “Have you seen WSB News?”

  “No, what?”

  “They’ve got footage of a full-on possession, and proof it’s not this post-traumatic stress thing. The woman’s hands are trembling like mad, she’s got the zombie voice, and she answers detailed questions only the dead person would know—How tall was your first wife? What was your grandmother’s first name? They checked the answers and all of them were right.” Summer shook her head. “The whole thing is about to blow. They can’t pass this off by saying we’re all crazy or traumatized any longer.”

  Summer stared out the passenger window, watching pedestrians hurry by, hunched in the cold.

  “My guess is they’ll insist it’s a mental illness to the bitter end,” I said. “I just can’t picture the president on national TV, saying ‘The dead have taken over half a million souls in Atlanta. We’re doing everything we can to save them.’”

  “I see your point,” Summer said. She opened her window a crack, sending a burst of cool air through the car. I turned the heat down, in case she was too warm. “I was awake most of the night wondering what happens if they can’t save us. And we can’t save ourselves.”

  I only nodded; I wondered that myself, and I didn’t have any answers. Grandpa’s gleeful prediction played between my ears.

  A little more Thomas, a little less Finn every day.

  Until, what? No more Finn?

  “I’ve always been comfortable with not knowing what happens when we die,” Summer said. “Maybe there was something, maybe nothing. I was a true agnostic—I liked believing that anything was possible and I wouldn’t know the answer until I died.” Her head drooped. “Now I know the answer, and I can barely breathe I’m so scared. You actually saw what happens when we die. I can’t get past it.”

  I sighed deeply. “I try not to think about it. When I do it’s like the ground has given way and I’m falling into a bottomless pit.”

  “What do you think is happening over there? Have you thought any more about it?”

  I grunted a laugh. “All I do is think about it. I don’t know, maybe it’s hell, and the people who rescue dogs from the pound and recycle go to a different place.”

  Summer burst out laughing. “Shit, I need to adopt a pet in a hurry.”

  We stopped at a light; an old man, his spine curled so deeply he had to crane his neck to see, hobbled past the Avalon’s bumper. His hands were trembling. It was not the tremor of the aged, but the blurry vibration of the possessed.

  I gestured through the windshield. “That’s what it looks like.”

  “What?”

  “That old man. Look at his hands. He’s got a hitcher.” That’s what people were calling them; it seemed to have started on the support group website.

  She watched, transfixed. “I keep trying to imagine what it would feel like, but I can’t.”

  The old man stepped onto the curb; the light turned green.

  “No, you really can’t.” Again, I struggled to wrap my mind around the contradiction: Summer’s tormentor was Lorena.

  I spotted another, about two blocks further on, a blocky young guy in a charcoal suit. He looked all wrong in a suit. This was a flip-flop and shorts guy, a beer in a Styrofoam holder guy. I didn’t bother pointing him out to Summer, though she may have noticed him on her own.

  “Can I ask you something?” Summer said.

  “Sure.” As I spoke a spasm laced down my back, like a rope being pulled under my skin. “Oh, no.”

  “What?”

  I pulled the car toward the curb as the rippling spread, followed by tingling. I tried to warn Summer, but couldn’t get it out.

  Grandpa finished pulling the car over. “This is where you get out, Missy.”

  “What?” Summer asked, confused.

  “You heard me.”

  She looked at my hands, quavering, clinging to the steering wheel. “Here? I don’t even know where I am.”

  Grandpa looked up at the street sign. “You’re on Forsythe Street. Now get out.”

  Summer got out. Grandpa lifted a hand in farewell as he drove off. He glanced at my watch, though the Avalon had a clock two feet from his nose and the watch bounced as if it was on the end of a spring. “Let’s see if we get more than forty-seven minutes this time.”

  He turned right at the light. “We’re gonna have a little talk, you and me. But not just yet.” He drove around the block, headed back up Forsythe. Even before we pulled up in front of the Cypress Street Pint and Plate I’d guessed where we were going.

  When I was a kid Grandpa would often volunteer to drive me somewhere—to buy school supplies or whatever—then take a detour through the Pint and Plate. I didn’t mind because he always bought me a Coke, and he was unusually nice to me on those detours. “Don’t tell Grandma, now,” he’d say as he boosted a drink to his mouth, chasing each swig with a long, satisfied “Aaaaah.” He always knew the bartender, was warmer, more animated than he ever was at home. In the course of twenty minutes he’d down three whiskeys, then we’d be off. If someone asked what took us so long Grandpa would say I’d had trouble deciding, or the store had been out of what we were looking for and we had to go somewhere else. If no one was watching he’d wink at me when he said this, and after a while I’d watch for the wink. The wink was like a vitamin I was deficient in, and I drank it in.

  If Grandpa knew the bald, unshaven man who was tending bar that day he didn’t let on. All he said was, “Whiskey, neat.” The bartender started at the sound of his voice, but set a cocktail napkin down, then the drink on top. He quickly retreated down the bar.

  Inside I cringed as he let out that first long raspy “Aaaaaah” and set the shivering glass back on the napkin. The plan was for me to return to Deadland, to explore further and see what I could learn, but I was curious about the “little talk” Grandpa had promised. Besides, I didn’t relish going back to Deadland. It was scary.

  The bartender was staring at Grandpa’s hands. Grandpa folded his arms, pinning the hands under his elbows. “Let me ask you something. Which is right: The yolk of an egg is white, or the yolk of an egg are white?”

  The bartender peered at the ceiling. “Is white.”

  Now I knew Grandpa didn’t know this bartender. Every bartender who’d ever tipped a bottle for Grandpa knew this one.

  “You’re not
so bright,” Grandpa said humorlessly. “The yolk of an egg is yellow.”

  The bartender smiled nervously, nodded. “Got me.”

  Grandpa set his empty glass down. “Hit me again. See if you can’t get a little more in the glass this time. You’re charging me for a whole drink, aren’t you?”

  The bartender’s face grew stony. If he’d been dealing with a normal customer he looked like the sort who wouldn’t take any crap. Instead he poured noticeably more into the glass, then turned and walked to the farthest corner of the bar.

  Grandpa drained the glass in three gulps, pulled out my wallet and hooked a twenty. “Keep it.” The twenty fluttered to the bar.

  “You’re a big tipper,” Grandpa chuckled as he pushed open the door.

  “So,” he said as he walked, “dinner’s on you, is it? Because of all the money you’re making.” A young couple heading toward us paused. They looked alarmed, whispered to each other, then hurried across the street. The bartender may not have heard yet, but word was spreading about what shaking hands meant. “There’s only one problem, buddy-boy. It’s not your money. It’s mine.”

  He turned into a clothing store called Enki Mikaye. A skinny guy with a square jaw met him right at the door and asked if he could be of service.

  “Yes, I want a suit. A solid three-piece, double-breasted. Classic. None of this new styles crap.” Grandpa made it sound like changing fashion in men’s suits was entirely this salesman’s fault, but I didn’t think that was why the salesman took a step back. Besides the hands, Grandpa’s voice still held an unmistakable croak.

  Appearing visibly nervous, the salesman helped him choose a suit, plus an ensemble to go with it. It was an outfit I would never be caught dead in, and it cost me $1800.

  When he presented the salesman with my credit card, the guy slid it through, glanced at it, then at Grandpa.

  “Finn Darby. Toy Shop.”

  “Yes, that’s right.” Grandpa lifted his chin, as if daring the salesman to question it.

  The salesman slid the card across the counter. “It’s a wonderful strip. Wolfie is a hoot.”

  Grandpa was breathing out of his nose so heavily it was almost deafening. “Go fuck yourself.” He turned and headed for the door.

  “You’re an ungrateful little mutt,” he said as he slammed the car door. “I took you in when your no good father walked out on you. I fed you, I tried to show you how to get along in this world, and what thanks did I get?” He threw the Avalon into gear. “I want your comic strip,” he said in a whiny baby tone. The tires squealed. “And when you get hold of it, what do you do? You use cheap tricks—bells and whistles—because you’re not clever enough to do it the right way. You’re not a man, Finnegan. You’re still a boy, hanging on to everyone’s shirt tails. Mine, your mother’s, your spic wife’s. You expect everything to be handed to you.”

  Grandpa fell silent. He had quite a take on things. He took us in and fed us? He charged his own daughter rent. Mom had to buy all of our groceries separately; there was a separate part of the fridge for Grandma and Grandpa’s food, and we were not to touch it. Bells and whistles? The strip was a hundred times more popular than it had ever been under his hand, and that was right into the teeth of a huge decline in newspaper circulation.

  And the truth of it was, I had to change the strip. I’d felt boxed in by a strip frozen in time, with only two major characters and a finite stable of timeless toys (jump ropes, bicycles, teddy bears) to work with. I’d dreaded each return to that musty little toy shop, to those two earnest little twits, to my dead grandfather’s tight, Victorian humor. I’d been falling farther and farther behind my deadlines when I finally decided to defy my agent and the syndicate and update the strip, creating new characters and having a big chain buy out the little toy shop.

  I stewed, and waited for my body to return to me. How long had it been? An hour and a half, at least.

  Grandpa pulled out my phone, punched 911. The 911 operator asked what his emergency was.

  “My emergency? I don’t have a damned emergency. I’m calling information.”

  The operator told him information was 411, not 911.

  “Oh, that’s right.” He hung up without apologizing, dialed 411, and asked for the number for CNN.

  As he dialed, repeating the number in a whisper as he did so, my mind raced. What would Grandpa want with CNN?

  Grandpa said he wanted to talk to someone about Toy Shop, specifically how Finn Darby had stolen it from him without his permission. He was transferred, told the story again, then was transferred again. This final listener, a young woman with a Long Island accent, asked how he could be the creator of Toy Shop when the creator was dead.

  “I know I’m dead. You don’t have to tell me I’m dead,” Grandpa said. “I’ve come back. Now, will you run the story or not?”

  “How have you managed to come back?” she asked, sounding amused.

  “A lot of us have come back. The dead are everywhere, missy, or haven’t you noticed?”

  Sounding less amused, she said she’d have to look into it, and took his number. I could only hope they’d check with my agent, and he would deflect them.

  Our next stop was a jewelry store, where Grandpa bought two Rolexes at full retail and a set of gold cufflinks before ducking into another bar. Then we were off again.

  “It’s really something, to be young again,” he said as he drove. “I tell you it’s no good getting old. When you hit seventy, that’s it,” he made a chopping gesture, “blow your brains out and be done with it. Ah, here we are.” Grandpa pulled into Maserati of Atlanta.

  “I’ve always wanted an expensive car,” he said as he swaggered toward the showroom, flipping my keys in his palm. “I might as well spend it, right? I’m the one who earned it.”

  The son of a bitch. When he was alive he was so cheap he rinsed out and re-used plastic baggies. Now that he had my bank card he was going to live it up. Or maybe he was intentionally trying to bankrupt me, to get revenge for Toy Shop.

  A miniature poodle met us at the door, yipping and spinning in circles. Otherwise, the dealership was deserted. Evidently not many people were buying Maseratis, at least in Atlanta.

  “Can I get some help here?” Grandpa shouted.

  A young woman in a grey suit appeared. “Sorry, I was in the rest room. Can I help you?”

  “Yes. I’m Finn Darby, I have a lot of money, and I want to buy a Maserati.”

  The woman frowned. She was staring at Grandpa’s hands. “I don’t think I can help you. Please come back some other time.” The croak in his voice and tremors in his hands were definitely less severe; in another week or two he might pass for one of the living. But not yet.

  Grandpa froze. “What do you mean? I want to buy a car. You sell cars, don’t you? Isn’t that what you do here?”

  She took a step back. “Please go.” She was clutching her phone. My guess is she was debating whether to dial 911.

  Grandpa threw his hands in the air. “For God’s sake, I won’t bite. I just want to buy a car. Here—” He pulled my bank card from my wallet, held it out. “I can pay cash. Ten minutes and I’ll be out of your hair.”

  “I’m sorry. Just, please leave me alone.” She looked terrified.

  Grandpa lunged at her, clutched her jacket sleeve where it was hanging under the wrist. In a low voice he said, “I want a God damned Maserati. Now get your little ass in gear and sell me a car, and we’ll get along just fine.”

  It took Grandpa five minutes to pick out a wheat-colored four-door Quattroporte from their inventory. He didn’t want to look at the interior, only under the hood. When the saleswoman popped the hood and quickly stepped back, Grandpa peered at it, scowling with concentration before nodding once and saying, “That’s a beaut.”

  I groaned inwardly. My grandfather knew nothing about engines. He used to take a rag and a spray bottle of Formula 409 and clean the parts of his engine he could reach from his wheelchair, because he liked the id
ea of working under the hood of a car. Cleaning it was all he knew how to do.

  After strong-arming the terrified saleswoman into forgoing all of the usual paperwork, he headed to Grandma’s house, the Maserati growling in a low, unfamiliar rumble.

  Grandpa rapped on the locked front door, then peered in the window to be sure Grandma wasn’t hiding inside; he pushed behind the overgrown bushes in front of the house and retrieved a key hidden in one of those fake rocks.

  He headed straight to his studio, where his drafting table still sat, empty of pens, ink, paper. Cursing, he went to the empty shelves lining the far wall, where there had been tens of thousands of original strips, stacked floor-to-ceiling.

  “You sold them all, didn’t you?” He traced the grain of the wood with his fingers. “You rotten stinkers. All you care about is money. You’re a pair of God damned profiteers, I’m telling you.”

  Yes, I had sold them. Except for the really important ones, and the ones I’d kept as models for drawing new strips. I’d given the proceeds—over sixty grand—to Grandma. I felt a little guilty about it now, but when you dispose of dead people’s possessions it’s with the assumption that they’re going to stay dead, so there is no one to hurt, no one who’ll miss those things. Sure, you keep sentimental things, but not ten thousand original comic strips. Besides, he’d only kept them out of spite. He had no use for them, and certainly could have used the cash I could have raised selling them, but when I’d told him they’d bring maybe forty dollars each for the dailies, seventy-five for the Sundays, he’d scowled and asked what I got for a Peanuts original. Peanuts originals sell for twenty thousand and up. He knew that. He’d curled his lip in disgust, said if I couldn’t sell his strips for what they were worth, he’d keep them.

  He sat at his drafting table and opened the bottom drawer. It was empty, except for a tattered brown photo album.

  “Did you throw everything out?” Grandpa asked. “How long did you wait? A week?” He set the album on the table and flipped it open.

  “Hm.” He pinched his nose. “Hello, Mother dear.” His mother was a bland woman who looked like she was sucking on a sourball. He sighed heavily, flipped to the next page, muttering softly to himself. There was a photo of two ruddy boys standing in the mud, each holding a pail. Milking time. One of them must have been Grandpa, the other probably his brother, who died in World War II. He turned the page and grunted. There he was, singing in a pub. My mom once told me Grandpa wanted to become a singer, but once he married Grandma she put an end to that foolishness.