by Ivy Pochoda
21
JAMES, TWENTYNINE PALMS, 2006
It was as if Owen hadn’t come back at all. In the morning, James’s family was scattered just as they had been during his twin’s absence. His mother had gone out early and was nearly finished with the chickens in the coop, their feed thrown, their water changed. Patrick was in his consulting room, the smell of sage and piñon thickening in the hallway.
James ate breakfast alone. He sat with his back to the window that looked toward the interns’ cabins. He didn’t want to catch sight of his brother. He didn’t want to think about what Owen and Cassidy had done in the water after he’d slipped away. That was one secret he’d let his twin keep. But he couldn’t shake the vision of Owen naked on the flat rock—his brother’s winnowed body and his savage expression.
James was wheeling his bike over the gravel drive when he heard the first scream. It sounded like more intern nonsense. They were always pushing each other into the pond or pranking each other with scorpions or snakeskins. They didn’t realize how far their voices carried across the desert or how shocking their cries sounded. James propped up his bike and straightened the handlebars.
There was another shout. Then another, more urgent. Someone was being chased behind the cabins.
James let his bike fall.
The interns appeared at once, gathering in front of the adobes. Grace ran out of the coop. Patrick hurried from the garden. The group moved as a unit, circling around the cabin closest to the oasis.
Someone was scurrying behind a creosote bush. The figure dashed from one cluster of brush to the next, doubled over into a half crouch. It was Owen.
Patrick turned to the interns. “Get back,” he said.
The interns shuffled in place. A few of them tried to offer suggestions.
“I said, get back.” Patrick’s voice was thunderous.
The interns backtracked and disappeared to the far side of the cabins. But James could feel them watching through their windows.
Owen darted to another group of bushes. There were small cuts on his body, scrapes and scratches.
“He’s been out all night,” James said. “I saw him swimming in the pond before I went to bed.”
“Go back to the house,” Grace said.
James didn’t move. “What’s wrong with him?”
His parents began to approach the bush from opposite sides. Owen howled. His words were half formed, half coherent. His expression was feral. He shook his head wildly. “They’re coming,” he said. “They’re coming.” He turned and began to run. Patrick was there and caught him. Owen flailed and thrashed. Patrick fought to control his writhing limbs. Grace rushed to them. She stroked Owen’s hair and tried to comfort him in a steady voice.
Owen didn’t so much calm as freeze, his eyes wide and panicked, his mouth half open and his limbs rigid. Patrick held him. Grace cupped his cheeks in her hands. Owen’s eyes pinwheeled.
“What’s wrong?” James asked.
His parents glanced at each other then turned back to his brother. Owen twisted in Patrick’s grasp. He howled.
“What’s wrong?” James shouted. “What’s wrong with him?”
“Tell him,” Grace said.
Patrick didn’t take his eyes off Owen. “He’s tripping.”
“On what?” Grace’s voice was cold.
“It doesn’t matter,” Patrick said.
“On what?” Grace repeated.
“Peyote.” Owen thrashed. Patrick restrained him. “Owen, look at me. Owen.”
Grace tried to stroke Owen’s cheek, but he jerked sideways. “How did he get peyote?”
“You know—” Patrick began. “My cactus.”
“He stole your cactus, then figured out how to extract it and boil it all by himself?”
“It doesn’t matter how he got it.”
“It doesn’t?” Grace said. “You really think it doesn’t?”
“Not right now,” Patrick said.
She inserted herself between Patrick and Owen. “Go. Go back to the house. To your consulting room or whatever. Go play with your potions. I’m taking care of this.”
“Grace, this is what I do.”
“No,” she said. “Not this time. This is your fault. Now go. Go away.”
Patrick kicked a rock toward the national park.
“James,” his mother said. “You, too. Go with your dad.”
James didn’t move.
“I’m serious. I need to be alone with your brother. I know you’re scared. But believe me, it’s a million times worse for him.”
“They’re coming!” Owen screamed.
Grace gripped Owen’s face. “Jesus,” she said. “Owen, honey. No one’s coming. No one. You’re home. You’re safe.”
“Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!”
“No. No, they’re not. Look at me.” Grace brought her face close to Owen’s. “Look at me. Look at me.”
James watched his twin try to focus, trying to steady his roving vision on their mother’s face.
“Okay,” Grace said. “It’s going to be okay.”
She led him to an abandoned cabin. James followed, but she shut the door, forbidding him to come inside.
He stood in front of the door trying to count the differences between him and Owen. There were all the little ones he’d tried to ignore over the summer, the small superficial likes and dislikes. But since Owen had shot that hawk a chasm had opened between them. James had remained a little kid, a shadow on his parents’ farm. But Owen had plunged into a fast and shady world of nights spent alone or with mysterious criminals, encounters with interns in the pond, and psychedelic journeys.
He heard a whoosh of swirling fabric, the jangle of bracelets, and felt Cassidy’s hand grip his wrist. She too was wild-eyed. But unlike Owen, she didn’t look scared.
“I asked for the father, but I got the son,” she said. She twined her fingers into his. “We get the gifts that we are given. He was beautiful, like a moon rock unexplored.”
She smelled sweaty and swampy. James twisted his wrist to get away, but her grip was strong.
“I took him into the water. I told him we could see the galaxy in a single drop of water. Do you want to see?”
“Not really,” James said.
“My fingers hold the water’s whispers.” Cassidy waggled her free hand in front of his face, then pressed her fingers to his ears. “Listen. What do you hear?”
He heard the sound of Cassidy rubbing her hands into his ears, his hair rustling as she combed through it.
“He saw through my eyes. We saw the desert rise into the sky. The palm trees told us a story,” she said. “Let me take you.” She tried dragging James toward the pond, but tripped, tangling with her mess of skirts and falling into the sand where she drew circles in the dirt with her fingertips.
James looked from her to the door of the cabin he knew wouldn’t open for him, then made his way back to the house.
THE SETTING SUN LEFT THE SKY OVER THE SHEEPHOLE MOUNTAINS THE color of the flesh of an overripe plum. Patrick had locked himself in the consulting room all day. James killed time in front of the TV, not really watching the blurry picture. For a few hours, he’d been able to hear Owen’s intermittent cries coming from one of the cabins. But now the ranch was silent. Grace shuttled back and forth between Owen’s cabin and the house. Each time she passed James her expression was stony. She gathered whatever she needed to help Owen then hurried back to his adobe.
It was almost night when a car started in the driveway, sputtering loose gravel. The kitchen door opened and slammed. James heard his parents on the porch. Their voices were low, but their sharp, angry tone was unmistakable.
James moved to the kitchen and watched through the screen door. His mother’s station wagon was pulled up to the house. Owen lay in the backseat, wrapped in a blanket, his head on a pillow. His eyes were glazed.
“You know where he got it?” Grace asked. “One of the interns.” She loaded a bag in the hatch and slam
med the door.
“Okay,” Patrick said. “She’ll leave.”
“It’s a little late for that. And you know what else? She took advantage of him. In the pond.”
“He’s fifteen,” Patrick said. “I don’t think he was unwilling.”
Grace shook her head. “I should have known that this would happen. You always think you can control things, but you can’t.”
“So what?” Patrick took a step closer to Grace. He was shirtless and barefoot. “You’re going to leave because your fifteen-year-old son had a bad trip?”
“No,” Grace said. “I’m going to leave because you’ve created an environment where I’m supposed to think that my fifteen-year-old son having a bad trip and having sex with a twenty-year-old is no big deal.”
“It’s not—”
“You see, Patrick, that’s the problem. If this isn’t a big deal, what is? What’s next? What will be a big deal?”
“Grace, please.”
Grace looked past Patrick and saw James standing in the kitchen. “James, let’s go. I’ve packed some things for you.”
“Me?”
“Come on.” Grace stepped toward the car. “We’re leaving.”
James opened the screen door. “Where—”
“L.A. To stay with Grandma.”
“For how long?”
“Yes, Grace, for how long?” Patrick said. He grabbed her arm to stop her from getting in the car. “Why don’t you tell James what you just told me? Or were you pretending to keep that a secret too?”
“Tell me what?” James looked at Owen in the backseat.
An owl hooted from somewhere near the oasis—a lonely two-note cry. The western sky was darkening, no longer the color of a plum’s flesh but of its skin. The interns had come out of their cabins and were watching the scene on the porch.
“She’s not coming back,” Patrick said. “She’s taking you and your brother to live with your grandmother.”
“Now?” James said.
Grace broke free of Patrick’s grasp. “James, this is what you want.” She drummed her fingers on the roof of the car. “I should have done this ages ago. I shouldn’t have waited for something terrible to happen. Owen needs to go. You need to go. Get in. I’ve packed everything you need.” She got behind the wheel. “Come on James, our secret plan, right?”
But it wasn’t, not exactly. If this had been their plan, she would have let James in on what was going on. Because this departure was his dream, not Owen’s—running away from Howling Tree Ranch, leaving his father and the interns behind. He and his mother were supposed to go to Los Angeles. She was going to let him get a car when he was old enough, take surfing lessons, hit the beach in the morning before school. But now his brother had stolen it. It should have been him in the car and Owen on the porch, invited at the last minute.
If his mother had told him that she was leaving, made him part of the adventure instead of a bystander, he would have made a different choice. If she’d planned to leave because he wanted to instead of when Owen needed to, he would have climbed into the seat next to her.
James listened for all the noises that made him hate the desert—the scratching and shuffling—but he didn’t hear them. He looked around the ranch, taking in the sleeping coop, the pond in the oasis that held the moon’s reflection, the silhouette of the meditation rock.
“Can’t I come later, on a bus or something?”
“James, please,” Grace said. “This is what you want. How many times have you told me?”
James felt his father’s arm encircle him. He smelled Patrick’s sage and piñon odor, and this time he didn’t mind it. “You can go whenever you want,” his father said.
“I love you, Mom,” James said.
“Jesus,” Grace said. “Jesus.” She slammed the door. James watched her put the car into gear. The wheels spat loose rock. The station wagon began to roll toward the dirt road to the highway.
Patrick left his arm on James’s shoulder until the car crossed the yard. As the taillights dipped and bucked on their gradual descent toward the highway, Patrick rushed from the porch and ran toward the road. His arms pinwheeled as he stumbled over the bumpy ground. He let out a wordless bellow. He stopped, bent over, picked up a rock, and flung it toward the disappearing car. Then he continued down the road, half running, half staggering in pursuit of the dwindling taillights. After a few minutes, James could no longer hear the wheels of his mother’s station wagon. He listened for his father’s voice or the car’s return.
The chickens were scratching in their pen. James sat on the edge of the porch. Soon he heard Patrick coming up the drive. He was limping as he crossed the yard. His hair was wild, his shorts torn. When he stepped onto the porch, James could see that his feet were cut and bloody. He didn’t stop when he saw James. He just stormed into the house and reemerged with a six-pack of beer.
James left his father on the porch, but kept watching the driveway through the kitchen window. His mother’s departure didn’t seem real. She’d turn around. She’d come back. She’d drag him into the car instead of leaving him behind so easily.
He waited. The evening shadows stretched into darkness. Patrick finished his six-pack and jumped in his truck and headed to town.
After his father left, James went to his room and slammed the door. He dragged his bed over the invisible line that divided his half from his brother’s and began to sort through the disarray of their belongings—the haphazard pile his mother had left behind in the closet during her furtive packing. Then he stopped. There was no Owen’s and his anymore. There was no Owen and him. There was only James.
PATRICK WAS STILL OUT WHEN JAMES WENT TO BED. IN HIS SLEEP JAMES was vaguely aware of the pickup rolling into the driveway, the headlights casting into the house before extinguishing. He turned away from the window and resettled into his dream.
The first crash jarred him fully awake—an explosion of breaking glass. Another followed. Then another. James stuck his head out of his window. His father was standing near the fire pit. He watched him pick up a beer bottle then hurl it at one of the interns’ cabins where it shattered against the adobe wall. Patrick’s motion was wild, an unstable windmilling release, but he hit his mark more often than he missed. James counted as ten bottles connected with the wall.
A light came on in one of the cabins, and Cassidy appeared in the window. Another bottle crashed into her cabin. Her door opened and she stepped out.
“Bitch.” Patrick father hurled another bottle. “You killed my cactus. You killed my fucking cactus and you drove my wife away.”
She stepped into the doorway. Her hair was wild, her clothes more disheveled than usual. “You’re a liar.”
Patrick reached for another bottle. Cassidy ducked.
“You said you would come to my cabin. You lied.”
“You only hear what you want to hear.”
She lunged at Patrick and tried to wrap her arms around him. But he shoved her off. She stumbled sideways, then righted herself. “You drove your own wife away,” she said. “You did that yourself.”
Patrick hurled another bottle over her head. “You don’t know how to listen. You have selfish ears. You have a selfish mind.”
“You’re a liar.” She grabbed a handful of dirt and pebbles and flung it at Patrick. She raked her fingers through the air and down her cheeks. “You said we were on a journey together, that we were reaching out for each other across the desert.”
“Did I?” Patrick said. “Did I?”
“Yes,” she said. She doubled over, her body shaking. “Yes, you did.”
“I was wrong. I can’t help you. No one can help you.” Patrick lifted another bottle and threw it at her cabin. It crashed to the left of the doorway.
Cassidy hurried inside, slamming the door behind her. The next bottle hit the window, spidering the glass. The light in her cabin went out.
James could see the silhouette of his father’s spent figure. His shoulders were hu
nched. His arms dangled. He was out of bottles. He sat down at the edge of the fire pit. Then he wobbled for a moment, before collapsing to the desert floor.
22
REN, LOS ANGELES, 2010
The sun was up, filling Ren’s tent with dingy yellowed light, but the street was quiet. Ren had slept, he wasn’t sure when or how long, but he emerged from a near blackout, feeling rested but disoriented. His head was foggy with last night’s weed. His tent had a strange smell, not putrid exactly, but wet and metallic, like rusted metal. Then he remembered—the last thing he’d done before passing out was give up, invite the ghost that had been standing outside his tent inside. And then he’d crashed.
His neck hurt. He must not have moved all night. He reached behind him to adjust his backpack that he used for a pillow. But it wasn’t there. He sat up and searched the tent, worried that he’d slept so hard someone had snuck in, relieved him of his shit. He rubbed his eyes, trying to beat back the fog that lingered in his brain, pressing hard until he remembered—Flynn. Chances were he’d left his pack up at the Cecil when he’d fled.
At least he was clean. At least he slept. He could live without his few possessions for a couple of hours.
He unzipped his tent. People on Crocker were going slow. Darrell was standing in the street looking at a large collage that a man was wheeling around on his bike. He bent low to read what was written on the canvas’s border. A woman was passing out copies of day-old newspapers. A dude from a nearby camp had scored a box of donuts that he was offering around.
Ren was so distracted by the casual routine unfolding in front of him that it took him a few minutes to notice that Laila’s tent was up, right there in the square of sidewalk next to his. He must have been mad high last night to have missed it.
He stood outside his mom’s camp, listening, checking that she was in there. He thought he heard the ragged edge of her breath, but it was hard to distinguish from everyone else’s noise. He had to check, had to make sure that it really was Laila in there and that someone else hadn’t co-opted her spot.