We Are All Crew

by Bill Landauer

  “Y’all done me a huge favor,” he says. He has an honest to God Southern drawl. “That’s what you done. Y’all done Charlie Lee a big ol’ honkin’ favor.”

  “Hi,” Esmerelda says, stepping forward and holding out her hand. “My name’s Esmerelda. And this here’s Winthrop and Arthur, and that there driving the boat is Kang.”

  “Name’s Charlie Lee Bowden, and I’m pleased to meet y’all,” Charlie Lee says. He nods at each of us in turn. He wrinkles his nose at the sight of Kang. Then he leans toward Esmerelda and whispers, “’Scuse me for saying, little lady, but is that there an Injun you got driving this here boat?”

  Esmerelda frowns. “His name is Kang, and he’s a Native American.”

  Charlie Lee leans back against the gunwales and nods. “I don’t mean no disrespect, ma’am. I just never met an honest to goodness Injun—er, Native American before.”

  I cover my nose and moved further away from the guy. “So,” I say, “who was shooting at you back there?”

  “Po-lice,” Charlie Lee says. He sits up straight and looks at Esmerelda and me, sticking his thick jaw out at us. “See, they’s after me for doing the Lord’s work.”

  Esmerelda glances at me. We just left a camp full of religious wackos, and now we’ve picked up a Southern evangelist? It isn’t that I don’t believe, people. I’m sure there’s a heaven and a hell and that one of those celestial video game remotes holds sway over my destiny, but it’s all too far away, and talk of it bores me worse than the news on TV.

  “Like, just what exactly is the Lord’s work, Mr. Bowden?” Esmerelda asks with narrow eyes.

  “Well,” he says, “I’m afraid, little lady, y’all done gone and picked yourselves up one honey of a hitchhiker. I’m the Birmingham Kid.”

  “The . . . what?”

  Charlie Lee’s eyes fall, and his smile slips from his face. “Come on now. Y’all mean to say you ain’t never heard of the Birmingham Kid?”

  “No,” Esmerelda says.

  “Well, they call me that because I’m from Birmingham. Only I ain’t from there exactly—I’m from the town of Crawdad, Alabama, which is about an hour’s drive away. They done called me Birmingham because it was the closest big town, and I daresay it wouldn’t be right calling me the Crawdad Kid on account of my bidness.”

  “What business is that?” Esmerelda asks.

  “Well, ma’am, I go from place to place doing the Lord’s work.”

  “So you said,” Esmerelda chirps. “And just what does that mean? Like, why were those cops shooting at you?”

  “Well, the po-lice, they don’t always take too kindly to my crusade, although most of the God-fearing people do.” He hugs his backpack more tightly. “I just done a bit of work there in the town of Fenton, Kentucky, when the police caught on and run me off. Usually I find a house or some folks who appreciate the Birmingham Kid where I can lay up, but I didn’t find nothing of the sort this time. That’s how I come upon y’all, and thank heavens I did. Y’all done Charlie Lee a big ol’ honkin’ favor.”

  Just then, the doctor groans from the hold and something strikes the metal floor below. All of us, including Charlie Lee, go belowdecks—except Arthur, who takes the wheel from Kang.

  Seabrook has attempted to crawl back out of bed, but he’s collapsed before reaching the stairs. He’s lying on the metal floor. Kang takes his shoulders and I grip his feet, and we carry him back to his bed.

  “That man been shot?” Charlie Lee says.

  “Yeah,” I say. “Two days ago. Shot in the shoulder.”

  “Well, now that’s a darn shame. Y’all ain’t planning on taking him to no doctor, now are you?”

  Esmerelda narrows her eyes. “Why?”

  “Well, doctors are agents of the devil,” Charlie Lee says. “They’re all about taking people away from life everlasting and getting in the way of God’s will.”

  “What?”

  “Doctors,” Charlie Lee snaps. “Don’t listen to them, y’all. Y’all trust in the Lord. He’ll see your friend through.”

  is there a doctor in the house?

  The sky is just beginning to turn pink when we see the town. Houses poke up above the trees, and cars speed past on blacktop roads. Docks lined with bobbing white boats jut out from shore. Church spires rise into the sky, and a water tower that looks like an upside-down scallion pokes up from behind the rooftops.

  “Why, that must be the town of Crofton,” Charlie Lee says.

  I suck wind until my lungs are ready to burst. Just beyond the house, two golden arches hump—McDonald’s burgers are on the wind.

  Kang anchors upstream and out of sight, waiting for dark when we can sneak by unseen.

  Esmerelda comes up from the hold.

  “Kang,” she says, “he looks really bad.”

  We all go back down again. Seabrook is lying very still. His breath is coming in short, rasping spasms.

  “He needs a doctor,” Esmerelda says.

  We all stare at her. A hospital, of course, we decided we can’t do. But I don’t know if I’ve ever seen any living person look that color before.

  Esmerelda is crying. “I’m afraid he’ll die. Kang, we have to go over to that town and find a doctor.”

  Kang stares at her gravely.

  “We can make something up,” she says, tossing a hand at him as if he’d refused. “I mean, I know doctors are supposed to report stuff like gunshot victims. But we can make something up and leave before anybody has a clue.”

  Kang nods.

  Esmerelda exhales. “Okay. It’s settled. I’ll go.”

  Kang stiffens. He shakes his head vehemently.

  “What else are we going to do? Talking isn’t, like, your strongest suit, man. Plus, if something goes wrong, none of us knows how to drive this boat.”

  She and Kang go back and forth. Arthur signs at her. He doesn’t want her to go by herself. Charlie Lee and I watch them blathering on and on.

  As for yourstruly, I want neither option. I want to get off this ride, but what’s waiting for us if we do? If only we had one of those invisible cloaks that they have in that Larry Spackler and the Killer Animals movie.

  An idea pops in my head.

  “We go secret–agent style,” I say.

  stealth mission

  “This is ridiculous,” Esmerelda says. “Everybody is staring at us.”

  We’re hiding in an alley next to a drugstore. We make our way through the town, hiding in doorways.

  Despite what Esmerelda says, my disguises are awesome. I took the ponchos Kang got us, then borrowed some of his feathers and a few ribbons of Seabrook’s extra gauze tape to fashion us each miniature headdresses. Also, using some of the red paint Kang has for the hemp cooker, I gave us each a crimson war face.

  “The point is,” I say to Esmerelda, “those guys in black are going to be looking for three kids, right? Not three Native Americans.”

  When we first arrived in town, Charlie Lee, who’d been heehawing at our costumes, said he was off to get himself something to eat. We watched him saunter away, his overalls and backpack cruising down the hard pavement and right angles of a city street. He disappeared into a restaurant called the Steak Shack. The name made my stomach rumble.

  I was so starved, I might have considered going with him if I hadn’t spotted the man in the black suit. We’d been hiding in the entryway of a bank building with the Closed sign flipped over.

  It wasn’t a Green Police uniform—just a black business suit. He had a crew cut and sunglasses, and looked like a member of His Eminence’s security detail.

  But he passed us. He saw us, gave us a look with a knitted brow, and seemed in no hurry to loose saber-toothed rodents on us.

  “Look,” Esmerelda says. She’s taken off her headdress. “I’m going in there to see if I can get some kind of painkiller or something for the Doc, and maybe see if we can use a phone.”

  Arthur follows her. I wait outside to keep a lookout.

  Crofton
sure isn’t much of a town. One stoplight at the corner of Main Street divvies up a couple of bars, churches, and a Shell station. A handful of houses with rusting aluminum siding line the crumbling sidewalk. Probably zero music scene. Cars zip past without stopping, and the drivers don’t seem to look out the windows.

  I spot a metal box marked AT&T in the alley across from the drugstore. I run across the street to get to it, nearly into the path of an oncoming car. I glance over my shoulder to see if Arthur and Esmerelda can see me. Through the drugstore window I see a few adults moving around, but no sign of red faces and ponchos.

  There’s a push-button keypad at the center of the metal box, which bends and mangles my reflection. Attached to it is this super old receiver thing. What do they do in the movies? Zero for operator, it says.

  I press it.

  “Directory assistance.”

  “I want to call the Brubaker residence in Philadelphia.”

  “You want to make a collect call?”

  “What’s a collect call?”

  “Sir, that means the party you’re dialing will be responsible for the charges.”

  “Sure. Let’s do that.” I give the number.

  From the corner of my eye, I see the man in the black suit again. He emerges from an alley and stops on the shoulder. His mirrored shades flash in the late afternoon sun.

  I drop the receiver and let it dangle, then turn to run. I’m walled in on all sides by brick, and for a brief few seconds I wish I had the arms of those monster trees to dart back into.

  When I search for the man in black again, his back is to me. He’s wandering off in the direction of the restaurant where Charlie Lee had gone for dinner. He’s just a guy, he’s not a baddie, I tell myself.

  I exhale. Still no sign of Arthur and Esmerelda.

  I pick up the receiver and put it to my ear.

  It’ll be okay. His Eminence will send a car. Once he hears about the Tamzene and how great it is, he’ll pull some strings and maybe even bring those black-uniformed baddies up on charges.

  “They told me this was going to help your career,” I say to myself, rehearsing, as the line clicks and beeps, presumably darting across the country to connect me with the Compound.

  I realize how hollow I sound.

  As for that patch thing, I tell myself, it’s sure to be some kind of coincidence. That’s all.

  That sounds hollow too.

  I shake my head. I’ll tell Esmerelda and Arthur that it must have been a fluke. His Eminence’s people must have just spotted us on a spy satellite or something.

  They can’t ever know. I just want my mom.

  The phone rings once.

  From inside the Steak Shack, where I’d last seen Charlie Lee, I hear a shout: “God is great!”

  The door swings open and people scatter out. Old ladies and old men rush past with panicked looks in their eyes, mouths hanging open. Some of the people wear white, grease-covered clothing. Some of them are screaming.

  No sign of the man in the black suit.

  “Brubaker residence. Your security clearance code, please,” says the voice on the phone.

  The last person out the door is Charlie Lee. He has a smile on his face, and his eyes are flashing like crazy. He raises his knapsack over his head and bellows, “God is great!”

  Esmerelda and Arthur emerge from the drugstore and freeze.

  I hang up the receiver.

  Charlie Lee lowers his shoulders and runs directly at us. “Y’all better run,” he says, laughing as he passes us. He hustles down the incline in the direction of the Tamzene.

  We all stand there like a pack of goons for a second or two. Behind us the restaurant explodes in a massive ball of flames and wood splinters.

  We run after Charlie Lee.

  CHAPTER SIXTEEN

  cuisine

  A black curlicue of smoke twists over Crofton. The wheeze and sigh of its fire alarm is just beginning when we reach the Tamzene. In the dim light, I can barely make out Charlie Lee running ahead of us. I hear him whooping and shouting in celebration. Behind us the lights of Crofton are disappearing into small yellow squares.

  Charlie Lee climbs aboard first, shouting, “Start her up, Kang ol’ buddy! Give her some gas!”

  “Don’t do it! Don’t let him on board!” Esmerelda yells, but it’s too late—the engine hums to life just as she, Arthur, and I reach the hull. As we climb aboard, Kang speeds away.

  Esmerelda pushes past Charlie Lee and into the cabin. She glares, wicked pissed, at the Birmingham Kid from behind Kang.

  “Throw his ass overboard,” she growls.

  Kang frowns and glances at Arthur, who nods and signs something at Kang.

  Charlie Lee leans against the edge of the boat, gasping for air. The run made his cheeks red, and spread across them is that same psycho smile he was wearing just before the Steak Shack went up in flames. He turns the smile on Esmerelda. “Aw, now don’t take on so, Esmerelda. It was God’s will.”

  Crofton disappears around the bend. Cloudbursts of trees pile in on us and this psycho that might blow us out of the water. A few more digits into the phone, a quick story, and all this would have been finished.

  I manage to stammer, “What . . . what the hell . . .”

  “You’re a murderer,” Esmerelda says in a small voice.

  I can’t take my eyes off that green backpack that holds God knows what. I want Esmerelda to shut up. I want to keep Charlie Lee calm until the guys in the white coats show up.

  “Aw, hush now,” Charlie Lee says. “There weren’t no innocent people in that restaurant. They all run out the front before that bomb went off. You saw ’em.”

  Kang continues to steer but glances at Charlie Lee. His muscles flicker.

  Charlie Lee looks back at Kang, and he pales. “Now, y’all could throw me overboard, but who’s to say I won’t go to the first phone I see and put in an anonymous call to the po-lice and tell ’em about this here boat?” His cheeks allow a rubbery grin. “Oh yes. I can tell something is up with this here boat y’all are driving. You been looking over your shoulders all day long, and you didn’t pull into Crofton like regular folks. You anchored downstream. And you got a man with a gunshot wound in the hold that none of you seems too anxious to take to a hospital—sinful doctors or no sinful doctors. I dare say ol’ Charlie Lee telling the police what I know about the Tamzene and where y’all are is something you definitely don’t want. Which is what would happen, Mister Injun, not long after this here backside punches a hole in that there water.”

  Esmerelda cringes and mouths the words: Native American.

  Charlie Lee grips his bag to his midsection, and that mad scary smile reforms. “Now, the way I see it, y’all got two options. One, you kill me.” He gulps. “Not the prettiest of options by a long shot. Not only for ol’ Charlie Lee, but for yourself, Mister Injun. Y’all will not only have to explain to these here youngins what a cold-blooded savage you are, but you’d have a body to dispose of to boot. Not to mention it ain’t a Christian thing to do. Or option two, you keep on driving this here boat downriver—no longer than just a night and a day—and you drop ol’ Charlie Lee at the first town you come to, and ol’ Charlie Lee will take his belongings, and you’ll never see hide nor hair of him again. So help me God.”

  He pushes himself off the side of the boat and kneels, placing his backpack on the deck in front of him. Then he raises his arms up from his sides and spreads them out like wings.

  “Lord,” Charlie Lee says, “Charlie Lee is putting his life in Your hands now. Save me from the murderous hands of this heathen so that I may do Your work. Your will be done.”

  Kang steps out from the cabin and stands in front of Charlie Lee. Muscles tight, he takes a step toward the Birmingham Kid, but then stops, sighs, and rolls his eyes. He motions for Charlie Lee to stand. Then, slumping his shoulders, he returns to the cabin and takes the wheel back from Arthur.

  “Thank you, Mister Injun,” Charlie Lee says. He st
ands, clutches his backpack to his chest again, and leans on the railing. “And God bless you. God bless y’all, for that matter.”

  Esmerelda goes white. She wedges herself into the corner of the cabin and shakes her head.

  “I—I don’t believe this,” she mutters. “I mean, hello? We’re, like, gonna let this guy stay here? He’s got a bag full of explosives!”

  Shut up shut up shut up. This chick is always trying to act all grown-up and sophisticated and no-bullshit. She’s going to get us killed.

  But Charlie Lee is still super smiley, like we’re all joking. “Esmerelda, what makes you think I’m gonna hurt you?” he says. “Did I hurt anyone? Did you see anyone hurt back there?”

  Esmerelda doesn’t look at him. Instead she turns to Arthur, who nods and shoots Charlie Lee a frown. Like he’s going to do something! Both of them are pissing me off. Bringing this nut job on board was their idea to begin with!

  “Well, I put it to you, Winthorpe . . .”

  I don’t bother to correct him.

  “. . . didn’t it look to you like everybody got out in time?”

  I lean against the side of the boat and wish I was still back in Crofton, which is now a yellow glow over the tops of the trees. “I don’t know, Charlie Lee.”

  “Well, I think they all got out in time,” he says. “Anyway, it was the Lord’s will.”

  “Would you stop saying that, please,” Esmerelda says, continuing to glare at Arthur. I want to throttle her, people. “We’re going to drive you to where you need to go, but would you mind . . . oh, shit, man . . .”

  Charlie Lee continues to smile. “Maybe you ought to calm down.”

  “What’s in the bag, man? How did you do it—plastic explosive or something? Is it safe?”

  “It’s plenty safe,” Charlie Lee says. “Y’all don’t fret about it. I know what I’m doing”

  “I’m sure,” Esmerelda says. She rolls her eyes and clicks her tongue. “Well, why did you do it, then?”