by J. S. Bailey
Panting, Simon grinned at her enthusiasm. The Washingtons were an active family throughout the year, going for bike rides and jogging on the weekends, so climbing this beast of a mountain presented only a moderate challenge. The air grew cooler the higher they ascended the five-mile-long trail. It felt like bliss to Simon’s aching head.
Jasmine plucked a yellow wildflower growing beside the trail and tucked it behind her ear. “I could live up here,” she said. “It’s nice and quiet.”
Simon’s cell phone started ringing in his backpack. Or not.
He set the pack down, wondering how in God’s name he could have a signal out here in the middle of a mountain range, and pulled out his phone.
“Hello, Bruce,” Simon said. “How are you?”
His cousin-in-law’s voice came through amid bursts of static. “—ad news. We got a…at tire on the…inivan and…on’t know how to…on the spare.”
“What’s that? You’re breaking up.”
“…help us?”
“Bruce, I can’t understand you.”
“Will you change…tire?”
“Sorry, man, I can’t tell what you’re saying. Goodbye.”
Simon ended the call and turned off his phone. Keisha scrutinized him with deep suspicion. “What was that about?”
“No idea,” Simon said.
“Maybe we should go back and see if everything’s okay.”
Simon hefted his pack onto his back. “It’s all good. If something was wrong, I’d have been able to tell.”
IT took them a total of three hours to reach the mountain’s summit and a little bit less coming back down. When at last they pulled up in front of Alpine Rest at four o’clock that afternoon, the green minivan sat in its usual spot. The left rear tire had a spare fitted into place, and Darnell, the three-year-old, ran back and forth across the porch all alone in nothing but a red t-shirt and underwear.
No bears in sight.
“God help me,” Simon prayed aloud.
Simon felt like a man walking to his own execution when he opened the front door and stepped into the chalet. Shonté and Bruce stood in the kitchen and shot him looks of such hatred that his blood turned cold.
“Can I help you?” Simon asked.
Shonté’s eyes blazed, and tears sprang into them. “Where have you been all day?”
“Hiking. Remember? We were halfway up LeConte when you called. It’s a miracle the call came through at all.”
“We had a flat tire,” Shonté choked out through her tears. “We hadn’t even made it into Pigeon Forge. And we sat by the road for hours waiting for someone to stop and help us put on the spare.”
By a sheer effort of will, Simon was able to prevent himself from rolling his eyes.
Shonté wasn’t finished. “Then this cop pulled over and started asking us a million questions, and he searched our van! He said someone driving a van like ours held up a gas station in Sevierville this morning and apologized for the misunderstanding. But it was just awful! The kids were crying, and Darian was sure the man would take us all to jail!”
“Did he change your tire?” Simon asked.
“Well, yes. Eventually.”
“Good. I’m going to take a shower.”
Simon let scalding-hot water blast his aching muscles for twenty long minutes and heard a child crying the moment he shut off the water. Sound carried way too well in this chalet like it was some great wooden speaker that broadcast the smallest noises to the farthest corners of the structure.
“Never again,” he said to his reflection when he stepped out onto the bath mat, wondering how his health could survive the rest of the trip. Then he remembered the White Lightning hidden in the car and smiled.
“MOM, can we go into Gatlinburg for dinner tonight?” Jasmine asked. Simon looked up from the trail map he’d been perusing for lack of anything better to do, keeping his fingers crossed.
“I don’t see why not,” Keisha said. “Simon?”
“Oh, sure,” he said. “You’ll like the town. Lots of places to go shopping.”
“I don’t like shopping,” Catherine said glumly. To pass the time, she’d been looking through all the pictures she’d taken out on the trail.
“I saw an ad for free moonshine tastings,” Shonté butted in. “Can you imagine anyone drinking that stuff? Like sin in a jar.”
Simon made a point of not looking at her. “Go ahead and get ready to go,” he said to Keisha. “I’ll be waiting outside.”
He strode out into the late afternoon sunshine and buckled himself into the car. While he waited for the rest of the clan to emerge, a little voice inside his head said, You know Shonté and Company will want to eat with you.
“I know,” Simon muttered.
It will be very stressful.
“Tell me about it.”
Maybe you should consider medicating yourself first.
Making sure no one else had emerged from the chalet yet, Simon bent over and removed the jar of moonshine from beneath the seat, then swirled it around. He’d only drank a few ounces, so he had a ways to go.
“I can’t do it,” he said. “Not with my family in the car.”
Then just do a little bit; just enough to take the edge off your stress. It’ll be okay.
Well…
It was true his nerves were shot. It couldn’t be safe driving in such a stressed condition. It might be better for everyone if he soothed himself a bit before setting out.
He unscrewed the lid and took a few sips of fiery goodness, and the moment he’d hidden it away, Keisha and their daughters came outside.
Guilt washed over him when he saw them. Then Shonté and her brood followed, and the guilt vanished.
Keisha climbed in beside him while Jasmine and Catherine piled into the back. “What’s that smell?” Keisha asked, wrinkling her nose.
Simon turned the key in the ignition. “Smell?”
“I don’t know. For a second I thought…never mind.”
They coasted down the mountain. It didn’t take long for the alcohol to spread warmth and peace throughout his system, and a couple of times Simon caught himself drifting toward the center lines on the road, then toward the shoulder and back again.
“Are you feeling okay?” Keisha asked halfway to Gatlinburg.
“Just a little worn out from the hike,” Simon said. “I’ll be fine.” He forced himself to focus. It wasn’t like he’d had much to drink. The alcohol in his blood probably wouldn’t even register on a test if, God forbid, he got pulled over.
He slowed the car down to two miles an hour below the speed limit. It was best to be cautious.
SIMON took his time getting out of the car so Keisha and the girls were out ahead of him, giving him the chance to partake in a few hearty gulps of his new best friend. He’d drank almost the whole thing now and would have to find a way to buy another one without anyone noticing.
As he poured the rest of the jar into the remains of yet another Coke that he opted to take with him, he could see why alcohol had been forbidden in his family as a child. It felt like…joy. He had no other word to describe it. Alcohol was akin to the presence of God himself. Simon’s heart felt light, and as he caught up to his family, he started laughing for no real reason at all other than the fact that he loved his wife and children and was glad they were with him in this glittering tourist trap, Great Gatlinburg, Capitalist Gem of the Smokies.
Jasmine and Catherine stopped in front of a fudge shop and began oohing and ah-ing over the selection on display in the glass case.
“I’m not so sure we need sweets,” Keisha said to them. “Your father would have a fit over all that sugar.”
Simon shook his head. “We’re on vacation. A little sugar won’t hurt. Girls, pick out whatever you like, and just make sure you brush your teeth extra good tonight.”
“Thanks, Dad!” the girls chorused while Keisha eyed him with deepening suspicion.
Shonté and Company caught up with them when the
y stepped away from the shopfront with two bulging bags of fudge.
Shonté goggled at them, then looked up at the shop sign to make sure her eyes weren’t deceiving her. “You let them get fudge? Are you two feeling all right?”
Simon grinned at her. “I most certainly am.”
The two families moved on together down the sidewalk, but Simon’s grin wouldn’t fade away. In fact, it seemed to be stuck on his face like he was some beaming fool who’d never seen a town before and thought it the most exciting thing in the universe.
They walked past the place offering free moonshine tastings.
“Hey, Simon,” Bruce said, jerking his head toward the distillery sign. “You want to go get wasted together?”
Shonté spared him from answering. “Why should he do that? He’s acting wasted already.”
“No I’m not.” Simon tried to wipe off his stupid grin, but again it refused to budge as if his facial muscles had become paralyzed.
“How about we eat here?” Shonté said as they approached a burger joint. Then Ebonee punched Darnell, who let out a shriek that would have sent icepicks through Simon’s nerves at any other time, only now it barely registered to him. How could anyone ever be upset with the essence of God running through his veins?
“Here is fine,” Simon said.
He began to feel even more blissfully detached inside the restaurant. He ordered his food without remembering what he asked for and was genuinely surprised when the waiter brought out a triple-decker cheeseburger and an extra-large bucket of fries.
“I told you that would be too much for you,” Keisha said while he gaped at his dinner.
Had she?
Oh well.
He dug in.
Simon felt so much at peace that he scarcely noticed when Darian spilled his Pepsi all across the table, or when little Darnell flung his plate onto the floor, or when Alisha started sobbing that she’d found a piece of lettuce on her burger. He barely batted an eye when Shonté started screaming at Isaiah for picking his nose at the table, and didn’t flinch when Ebonee announced to the entire restaurant that she had just peed her pants.
Simon remained in great spirits when they got back to the car.
“I can’t believe I invited them to come with us,” Keisha spat as she savagely clicked her seatbelt into place and then folded her arms tight across her chest. “I’ve never been more embarrassed in my life.”
“These things happen,” Simon said. “No need to worry.”
Keisha pursed her lips. “Ugh. You’re just acting all cheerful to spite me.”
Simon was still grinning when they headed out of Gatlinburg on that lonely, dark highway. He was still flying high despite the massive cheeseburger and fries, probably due to the fact that his body wasn’t used to alcohol and didn’t know how to sober itself up in a timely manner.
Not that he had a problem with it.
Trees whizzed past them, and Simon laughed.
“What is it?” Keisha asked.
“I was just tinking…thinking…I’ve never had so much fun in my life.”
“Could you slow down a little? You’re taking these curves awfully fast.”
Simon went to step on the brake, but the car accelerated.
“Simon! What are you—”
Suddenly there no longer seemed to be any road.
“Dad, stop!”
There came a jolt and the sound of crumbling glass.
The last thing Simon remembered was their screams.
SOME PEOPLE STARED straight ahead, unseeing. Some never glanced in his direction at all. And some flicked their gazes his way, became fraught with suspicion, and glanced around to see if anyone was with him before moving onward. They had much better things to do than wonder why a little boy in a torn shirt and corduroys sat by himself on a bench in the center of a busy shopping mall.
Brian was used to being ignored.
He hadn’t learned his own name until he was three because Mommy and his daddies so seldom addressed him. Most of the time they smoked and drank smelly drinks that came in red and white cans, and after a whole huge box of the cans was empty and crumpled into the garbage, Mommy and whatever daddy lived with them at the time would start yelling at each other about grownup things like “trust” and “insecurity” and sometimes even a person named Pattie who was “some tramp.”
They yelled about him a lot, too, even though he could never figure out what he’d done wrong.
That’s when the darkness would edge in and Brian would cower in a corner, begging it to go away. Laughter lived in the darkness. Cruel, mocking laughter that spoke mean things that hurt him deep inside.
They hate you, Brian. The reason they fight is because of you. They wish you were dead.
And with tears running down his cheeks, he would whisper, “Please help me. Save me from the monsters.”
Because what else could the voices be?
Brian’s current daddy was a bald man named Craig. Sometimes when Mommy was out Craig would get mad and throw things. When Brian tried to explain to Mommy that the big bruise on his arm came from Craig’s metal ashtray that had been hurtled across the room at him, Mommy slapped him hard across the face and told him to stop making up stories.
Another time Craig had thrown Brian down the back steps when he’d thought Brian had taken his cigarette lighter. Something had cracked in Brian’s arm when he handed at the bottom, and when Craig rushed him to the hospital, he’d told the doctors Brian had tripped and fallen over a toy he’d left on the stairs.
Sometimes life was easier when you were ignored.
There hadn’t been any food in the house that morning. The fight last night had been so scary that Brian almost ran away, and Mommy and Craig must have been worn out from all the yelling and screaming because neither of the responded to his knocks on their bedroom door when he wanted to ask about breakfast.
Brian’s forehead had creased as he tried to think of what to do. He considered finding tools to get their door open and wake them up, but then the cruel voice returned: They want you to starve to death, Brian. They want you to die!
So Brian did the only thing he could think of: he left the house and ran.
After perhaps ten minutes of his chest hitching as he checked the roads for oncoming cars and raced across them when it was safe, Brian reached the Crosstown Mall. The mall had a food court with lots of restaurants and even a playground in the center of it. Sometimes his Aunt Sarah and cousin Blake took him to the mall when things at home got extra scary. Brian and Blake would play in the indoor ball pit and on the jungle gym and eat chicken nuggets and fries after that, and it would be so much fun Brian didn’t want to go home.
As soon as he got to the mall that morning, Brian planted his rear on a bench in the food court, realizing too late that in order to get food, he would need to have money.
He couldn’t remove his gaze from the nearest restaurant counter just a few yards away from him. The smells of cooking burgers and chicken nuggets made his mouth water, and hunger pangs stabbed his stomach like knives. Stealing was wrong—Mommy had said that to one of his old daddies before throwing him out of the house.
But if he didn’t steal, he would die of hunger, and that was much worse.
He squinted at the counter where people ordered their food. In line stood a man, a boy in a ball cap, and a teenage girl talking on a phone. None of them paid any attention to him.
If he was fast, he might be able to slip around them and go behind the counter without being seen. Only a couple people were working back there, and Brian was short, so chances were good that nobody would notice if he snuck back there and took a burger for himself. And some fries. You couldn’t eat a burger without fries and a Coke, too.
You’re an evil little boy, Brian.
No, he said to himself. I’m hungry. I’m not evil.
He rose from the bench and ran toward the counter.
“Hold it right there, son.”
Brian’s lim
bs turned to ice. He looked up and saw a man towering over him wearing some kind of police uniform. His blue eyes were stern like Mommy’s when she yelled at Craig.
Fear tightened Brian’s throat so much he couldn’t even say a word.
“Are you lost?” the policeman asked as he bent down eye to eye with him.
The lie came to Brian’s lips without any thought. “I’m waiting for my mom.”
The policeman’s eyes narrowed ever so slightly. “You are? And where might she be?”
Brian pointed at the nearest store—one that had a bunch of almost-naked lady statues wearing underwear in the windows. “That one,” he said, blushing. He didn’t like looking at ladies’ underwear. Things like that were supposed to be private.
The man gave a slow nod. “Okay, son,” he said. “Just be careful out here because sometimes bad people like to run off with little kids like you. Where were you going, anyway?”
“Um…” Brian looked down at his feet to think.
This time he could actually see the darkness cloud the edges of his vision. Good little boys tell the truth, so you’re not good at all! Come with us, Brian. You belong with us.
Brian shivered, and tears welled up in his eyes.
The policeman’s expression changed to something Brian couldn’t read. “You’re not here with your mother at all, are you?”
“Please don’t take me to jail!” Brian cried, the thought of being locked in a cage filling him with terror. “I’ll be good! I promise!”
At first the man looked baffled. “Jail?”
“Y-you’re a policeman. Policemen take people to jail. I’ve seen it on TV.”
The man’s expression softened. “I’m mall security, actually. My name is Harry.” He held out a hand, and Brian shook it. “And who might you be?”
“I’m Brian. Are you sure you won’t take me to jail?”
Harry smiled, but there was something sad in it too. “I’m sure, but I may have to call Child Protective Services if we don’t find out where your parents are. So where are they?”
Brian swallowed a ball of fear that had lodged in his throat. Mommy might be angry if he told anyone that he often went places without her. Most of the time, he’d go down to the community playground and play with the other boys and girls on the blue monkey bars and bright orange swings while Mommy was away at work.