Jerk, California

by Jonathan Friesen

  “In that case, may I walk you to the car, Nae?”

  “Only if I can stay with you.” Naomi stares up at the sky. “You did shove my car out of a snowbank. I’d be an idiot to leave you now.”

  chapter thirty-seven

  “TWO MILES TO ROCKPORT,” I SAY. “SHOULD BE someplace to eat there—”

  The car lurches twice.

  “What’s that?” Naomi straightens. “What’s that mean?”

  Metal grates beneath the hood. “Means I hope there are tools for this gem in the trunk.” I steer onto the shoulder, where the engine dies. We roll to a stop.

  “Sam?” Naomi asks.

  I shrug. “Dead car.”

  She rolls her eyes. “Think you can you fix it?”

  I turn my body and face her square. “Yeah,” I whisper. My gaze travels from her waist to her face and back again. I stare on, and panic worms around my head. ’Cause there’s a kid in there. A baby who needs watching out for, who’s now stuck on the side of nowhere because I was too pigheaded to waste a few days at her friend’s.

  I replay my heroic find-my-dad speech and wince. Because with a little guy, nothing about this trip is the same. Not anymore.

  “What are you looking at?” She squirms.

  “Not sure.” I twitch hard, open the door, and step out into early morning. There’s no hint of sun in the east. Just shadowy mountains all around this flat valley. I whip around, hop back into the car.

  “What’re you going to do about the baby?”

  “Where’d that come from?” she asks.

  I don’t answer.

  She breathes deep, slumps down, and jams a fingernail in her mouth.

  “Adoption, I guess,” she whispers, and straightens. “It took me a long time to figure this out. Most days, it’s all I thought about.” She peeks at me, and her leg starts to bounce. Naomi’s lips part and shut, and her breath thickens. I know words fight to get out, and I force my muscles still.

  “Have you—have you ever been so angry and scared and confused that your brain shuts down and your heart shrivels up and all you want is to disappear?” She hides her face with her hands.

  I close my eyes and exhale. Yeah, I have. When I next turn toward Naomi, her head is bowed and her hands fidget.

  “I wasn’t even going to have this thing, Sam. I mean, God, there’s a room at Harvard with my name on it, a sports-medicine program waiting for me, a track coach there already planning for me—that school might be Mom’s dream, but it sounds like a good one, you know? But how do you do classes, run track, and live a little, with a baby?”

  Minutes of silence pass.

  “Then George and I got to talking about kids one day, and it all changed. One hour with a gardener—my grandpa—and when he pulled away in his truck, I knew I’d at least have it, but now it’s how to hide it, and what to tell Mom, and how to tell the school—I mean, damn! Damn, damn!”

  Naomi stops swearing and starts crying. “And it’s worse because what kind of person gives away her kid? Who does that? But there’s no way I could raise it.” She sighs. “I got Mom’s life to live, you know?” Naomi quiets. She folds her hands, places them in her lap, and whispers. “So I’ll find a place where Mom can’t kill me. I could go to Ireland, stay with one of my brothers. I’ll have this child.” Naomi swallows hard. “And I’ll hand it to a stranger.” She lets her head thunk against the glass.

  I reach out a twitchy hand. She grabs it, squeezes it. “I’m still so scared, Sam.”

  I want to tell her what it’s like to be given away, to never know your parent. I want to tell her about the hole inside that gets deeper as you get older until you’d do anything to fill it, even try to stuff it with an ass like Old Bill. But her hand shakes and she’s scared and for once my mouth obeys me and stays shut.

  Naomi sniffs and rubs her eyes and breathes deep. I smile at her and she forces one back.

  “Well, this car won’t fix itself. Let’s see if what we need’s back there,” I say.

  I get out, open the trunk, and sigh. “We should be okay.” I dig for the wrenches and flashlight and head up front. “Why don’t you get some rest? This might take a while.” Naomi nods and soon sleeps stretched out across the front seat.

  Hours pass, and I think of nothing. My hands don’t need my help.

  I finally straighten, stretch, and slam the hood. Greasy and exhausted, I lift Naomi’s head and slip my lap underneath. I turn the key and glance down at Nae.

  “Like a kitten.”

  My leg jerks, and Naomi opens her eyes, looks up at me. She doesn’t smile, but she doesn’t sit up either, and I have no idea what she thinks.

  “Good morning, Sam. Oh, good. You got it started.” She nestles down and closes her eyes, until my next jerk bounces her head off my leg. Naomi sits up, stretches.

  “Are we almost there?”

  “Yep. Just flew through Grand Junction.”

  We rumble behind a semi. Gas fumes fill the car and we hurdle forward, windows full down.

  Naomi slides toward me and rests her head on my shoulder, her hand on my thigh. I don’t know if it’s her head or her hand or the fumes, but I get happier by the minute. My thoughts won’t stay straight. Dad and Naomi and her kid bounce around inside my head and all I know for sure is that they all feel like family.

  “I’m looking for—there, that’s the address on the mailbox.”

  A hundred wind turbines dot the hills that surround the Windmill KOA campsite.

  I slow and pull in front of the office.

  “We’re camping?” Naomi says. “Let me see that map.”

  “It says Hostetler. Frank and Sue.” I frown and look around. “I don’t see a home around here. Unless they live in an RV.” I point toward the only other campers in the place.

  “But those wind things don’t match the sketch,” she says.

  I shrug, and we both slip out of the car.

  We step inside the office. It’s new and air-conditioned and I plop into a chair.

  “You two need a site?” A large, pleasant-looking man steps out from the back room. I jump to my feet.

  “I’m looking for Frank Hostetler. Is that you?”

  He smiles. “You missed him by, oh, two years. They used to live right on this spot, but they sold out during the drought.”

  I slump back down. “Do you know where they are now?”

  He points toward heaven. “They were good people. So that’d be my guess. Both of ’em, couple months back.”

  He wipes his forehead. “Sorry to be the one to tell you. You relatives?”

  “I don’t know,” I whisper.

  Nobody moves.

  “Tell you what. If you need a spot tonight, it’s on me.” He turns and shouts, “Tony! Set these folks up.”

  We step over to the rent-a-tent desk. Tony joins us on the other side.

  “Your biggest tent,” I say.

  “And your most comfortable,” Naomi adds.

  “Honey, if you wanted comfortable, you shouldn’t be roughing it with this guy.”

  I look at Naomi. She thinks hard.

  I grab the tent, head toward the door, and pause. “You guys are Windmill KOA, right? Those turbines aren’t exactly windmills.”

  “You’re right about that,” Tony says. “We took the name from the beauty that once stood on Frank’s ranch. Stood until last month. Damn storm took it.”

  I smile and nod. “Was it painted green, red on top?”

  “That’s the one. So you’ve been here before?”

  I peek at the map. “Saw a picture, is all.”

  We drive to our numbered fire pit. There are hundreds of choices, and they stick us right next to the RV. I’m too tired to complain.

  I drag out the tent and spread out canvas on dirt.

  George must not have known that windmill fell. No other reason he would have sent me into nowhere. “But then, you were a believer in wandering.”

  “You know how to put this up?” Naomi stands
over me and chews her nails.

  I smile, grab the hammer out of the bag, and whack a stake. “’Course. I used to live in one.”

  “You lived in a tent?”

  I shift to the other side, tug the fabric taut, and pound in another. “Not really lived in. More like escaped to. Old Bill’d get hollering and I’d get scared and go sleep in the tent by the barn. Nothing could hurt me.” I pause. “My little kingdom.”

  Naomi sits beside me. “What was it like? At home.”

  I set down my hammer and sigh. I want to tell someone—I want to tell her. But once I get going, no knowing where I’ll stop.

  “Had a German shepherd once. Duke. Belonged to Mom first, before Old Bill came on the scene. But Old Bill took to that dog. For some reason, Duke loved him most of all.”

  I check Naomi’s face. She listens, and I breathe deep. “Duke got into it with a badger. Lost a leg. He was still lovable Duke, hauling around after Bill, trying to keep up. But Old Bill stopped waiting and started yelling. Duke lowered his head and followed. Old Bill kicked him and he followed. Until one day Bill kicked too hard and Duke didn’t get up. I saw him crawl toward Bill. I watched Old Bill drop and apologize. Duke’s tail flopped all happy like. He lifted his head, rested it on Bill, and died.

  “But in my tent, nobody yelled, nobody kicked, and I was king.” I blink free of the tent peg. “If I would have known you then, you could have been—”

  I shut up.

  She squeezes my hand and I glance up.

  “I could have been what?” she says.

  “I’d have let you inside, is all.” I smile.

  Naomi scoots nearer, leans forward, and rests her head against mine. “There’s tonight.”

  I fasten the canopy to the tent and admire my work.

  “Tent’s up!” a kid screams from the direction of the RV. In one minute, we’re surrounded.

  Sounds like a hundred people shouting, but it looks to be only one family. One huge, children-everywhere family.

  My shoulder jerks hard, and I catch a kid’s gaze. He jumps up and trots over.

  “I’m Luke. What’s your name?”

  “Sam.” I grimace back.

  “Can we play in your tent?”

  “We were going to get settled.”

  Zip. Kids pour in. I look at Naomi.

  “Every king needs subjects, right?” She smiles.

  My tent bulges and lists and whoops.

  A large woman with a large smile and a large hat bustles toward us. Dressed all in white, she looks like an overweight brown angel.

  She stares at the tent, and my shoulder jumps.

  “Look’n like you got a fair piece of nervous in you. My kids’ll do that to people.”

  I don’t answer.

  “My name is Persephone Watkins. And these be my children.” She walks to the entrance and peeks in. “Luke, release your brother! Y’all sho’ think a heap of yourself, barging in like this after their kindly invitation.”

  “I didn’t really invite—name’s Sam, and this is my, this is Naomi.”

  “Mighty pleased to meet y’all. While’s we’s on introductions, that turtle of a man leanin’ against the camper is my honey of a husband, Albert.”

  I can’t see him—Persephone’s in the way. But I nod.

  “Where y’all headed?” Persephone asks.

  “California.” Naomi finally speaks. “Sam and I need to get to California.”

  chapter thirty-eight

  WE SPEND THE DAY WITH SEVEN WATKINS children. I don’t want them here. I want Naomi to myself, but they won’t leave, and come supper time, Persephone, Albie, their rat-dog, Brutus, and seven kids roast wienies around my fire pit.

  Naomi raises her eyebrows. She wants them gone, too. She wants me to kick them out. I nod and wait for a lull and open my mouth.

  “Why do you move your shoulder like that?” Luke asks.

  My heart thumps. I run my hand through my hair and want to be small.

  “Tourette’s,” I say quietly, and the fire cracks. Little sparks float up toward the sky. “I can’t help it. Got it from my dad.” I peek at Naomi, who wears a faint smile, and face Luke. “Got it when I was your age.”

  “Mom?” Luke squirms. “Could I get that?”

  Persephone pushes up from her bench and walks toward her boy. She tousles his hair. “Don’t reckon you will.” Then she walks to me and tousles mine. “But if you did, it’d suit me fine.”

  She is an angel. She turns and threads her way back to her husband.

  Noise returns. Baby Zeb coos. Three-year-old Sol skips to the table and grabs a bun. Luke shrugs his shoulders, runs, and tackles Sol. Nobody seems to care that I used the T word. They don’t understand that now they’re supposed to laugh, or mimic, or whisper. Bunch of ignorants, clueless that a kid’s job is to make others feel like crap.

  I hear my word and Persephone’s words all jumbled up, and I shake my head because it can’t be true.

  Tourette’s. Okay. Suits me fine.

  The words wash over me like a shower, and I close my eyes and feel years of grimy words smudge, loosen, and disappear. In my mind I see them—Jerky, Loser, Retard—piled on the ground, dissolving. I feel light.

  What’s going on?

  I crack an eyelid. Still nobody mocks, and my heart soars, and falls. How many years I hid, hid that word—the word I hate most in this world that could have set me free.

  Exhaustion wallops me, and I slump in my folding chair, feel Naomi’s kiss on my cheek, and fall asleep.

  The sun is down when I wake. Embers glow in the pit. I feel refreshed but I can’t remember where I am. Persephone hums and sews on the opposite side of the fire and her hum sounds like morning. But it’s dark and my brain’s in a fog.

  “Where are we?” I ask. I turn a circle, looking for clues.

  “Colorado don’t wanna quit.” Persephone nears me and together we stare out at a flat plain and the shadows of mountains in the distance.

  I turn and see our tent and remember. George. Naomi. Dad. I say nothing.

  “I never done asked y’all what business you have in California.”

  “My grandma lives there, ma’am.”

  She nods. Kids scream inside the RV. Albie’s low murmur follows and soon all is quiet.

  Outside, we stand for a long time.

  Persephone steps in front of me. Her gaze doesn’t give me an escape.

  “And you been campin’ the whole way?”

  “We’ve been following a map a friend gave me. There was something here I was supposed to see, but it’s gone.”

  “Sho don’t sound like much of a friend.”

  “Ah, no way he could’ve known. It’s not like the old owners could’ve told him.” I chuckle. “George was my best friend. Dad’s, too. For graduation he gave me a letter my dad wrote—”

  “What you thinking on?”

  Butterflies flutter around my gut. “Would have been nice if Dad could have seen me graduate, you know? I think he would have clapped.”

  Persephone squints, and looks far off over my shoulder. “He live in Minnesota, too?”

  “No.” I pause. “Died there, though, when I was two.”

  She shakes her head, says nothing.

  “Hated him all my life.” I stare at my tense hand. “For this.” I look back to Persephone. “He had it, too.”

  My eyes glaze. But it’s dark, and maybe she doesn’t see me.

  “But it wasn’t his fault. It’s not, you know?”

  She keeps looking.

  “The more I find out about him.” I pinch my forehead between my fingers like George used to do.“I want him to like me. That’s stupid ’cause he’s dead.” My toe scuffs dirt. “Figure his mom’ll clear things up. Thing is, if he liked me, wouldn’t he have left me something more than a note? I mean, after he died, wouldn’t something have come to me? That’s what Old Bill says. He says kids always get something. Didn’t anything Dad owned sort of belong with me?” And what i
f he didn’t—didn’t think much of me, just when I might like him?

  Thoughts weigh heavy and Persephone is silent. Suddenly I need to run. I back up and start to jog away from camp.

  “You done spent too much time listening to this world. Too much time!” she yells at my back, but I don’t slow. I run along the road that stretches into nowhere.

  Stars shine brighter than any I’ve seen. They fill the sky, but can’t reach down to the horizon. A ring of black mountains rises and eats them. I feel eaten, too, eaten and tiny and surrounded. And a little bit afraid. But I think of Naomi and her baby and keep going. With each step, I sink further into my run until there’s only room for the scritch of sneakers and those swallowed stars in my mind.

  I’ve run long enough, and I see him—a dark figure dashing in front of me.

  Dad.

  He’s just a blob, a black-on-black outline racing beneath the stars, but I know it’s him.

  “Dad!” The shape doesn’t stop. I speed up, and hear him inside my head.

  Catch me, son.

  He calls me “son.”

  My legs churn, and my face drips with sweat and tears.

  Slow down. Please.

  He does. Dad stops and turns. He wears a T-shirt and jeans and stretches out his arms. I reach out mine. Though I can’t see his face, I know he smiles.

  A little farther. Don’t stop, Jack. His voice surrounds me.

  My voice catches; I’m almost there. I must look dumb running with my arms in front of me, but I don’t care. I blink hard.

  He vanishes.

  “No!”

  I skid to a stop. “Couldn’t you stay around?” I yell, “Couldn’t you stay?”

  And I hear a whisper. I hold my heavy breath, spin, and search the night, because I know he’s not far away.

  chapter thirty-nine

  I WALK BACK TO CAMP AND QUIETLY UNZIP THE tent. Inside, a flashlight glows. “Naomi?” I whisper, “Are you awake?”

  A body plows into me, and I stagger backward. Naomi’s full of hugs and kisses and squeezes. I gently peel her off.