Meet Me Here

by Bryan Bliss

  “I need to do this,” I say, ending the conversation as I lower myself carefully to the ground, ignoring Wayne’s cussing. When we’re standing in front of the truck, I put my hand on his shoulder. “In and out, I swear.”

  The trailer is set off from the rest of the park. Its windows are papered in thick black, and the yard is littered with metal folding chairs. Half an engine is propped up on cinder blocks, and a grill, covered with beer bottles, is filled with dirty water. The whole place smells like eggs. Before we come up on the porch, Wayne stops me.

  “Thomas, for real, these guys aren’t the type who like dudes just showing up.” He hesitates and says, “So don’t look at anything, don’t say anything. No matter what. Cool?”

  I nod, and Wayne steels himself, making fists with his hands and then releasing them. He breathes deeply once before knocking on the door, a flimsy, almost cardboard thing that shudders with each rap. Nobody answers right away, and I’m about to push in front of him and knock louder, harder when the door flies open.

  Jerry Lee, who looks like Wayne, but with a sharper face and a shaved head, appears in front of us. When he sees Wayne, he grabs him by the neck and drives us both off the porch. The pain is like a spike in my leg as I try to keep myself from falling in the dirt. A large dog runs to the door, barely getting past the frame before a piece of plastic cord jerks him back inside. He goes nuts as Wayne stumbles to his feet and pushes his brother.

  “What the fuck, Jerry Lee?”

  “Me? The hell you doing here?”

  “We’re looking for his brother, jackass,” Wayne says.

  Jerry Lee stares at me, wiping his nose with the side of his hand. “And who the hell are you?”

  “He’s—” Jerry Lee cuffs Wayne on the side of his head once, laughing when Wayne raises up like he’s about to throw a punch.

  “I didn’t ask you.” He turns back to me. “Well?”

  “Thomas Bennett.”

  Jerry Lee gives a theatrical laugh. “Oh, shit, soldier boy’s your brother?”

  I take a step toward the porch—I’ll push my way through the door if I have to—but Wayne stops me with a look. It’s angry but mixed with something else I don’t at first recognize: fear. He holds his hand out, like he’s approaching a wild dog. “Becky Patterson told us he went with Clem, so I thought—”

  “You thought? Nah, you didn’t think,” his brother says. “If you were thinking, you wouldn’t have brought him here.”

  Wayne shakes his head but doesn’t respond. I try to look past Jerry Lee, into the trailer. When I do, he jumps toward me. “Where the hell do you think you’re going?”

  “I want to talk to Clem,” I say.

  As soon as I say the words, Wayne groans.

  Jerry Lee looks at Wayne and shakes his head. “You’re a goddamn idiot. But fine. You guys want to talk to Clem? All right, let’s go talk to Clem.”

  He holds the door open without ceremony. I limp past him, but Wayne hesitates, only following after Jerry Lee starts to leave him outside. The trailer is small, a long rectangle of rooms stacked side by side like a railroad car. The dog drops its head and walks toward us, whining. When neither of us reaches for it, it turns around and lies down on a dirty pillow underneath the window air conditioner unit. Everything in the room is on: the television, the microwave, every light in the small trailer.

  “Clem’s in the back,” Jerry Lee says. Wayne tries to follow me, but Jerry Lee stops him. “You’re not looking for your brother. Sit down.”

  He points to a ripped-up couch, covered in dog hair, and then points me down the hallway. “Go on.”

  I follow the hallway and slide open a fake wood door when I reach the end. A skinny shirtless man is sitting on the bed, arranging the contents of a large gray cooler at his feet. Plastic tubing. A bottle of starting fluid. And boxes upon boxes of what looks like cold medicine.

  Clem looks up but isn’t surprised to see me standing there. Two bulldogs, like sentries, draw blood just below his collarbones, and something in old English is inked across his stomach. A silver cross hangs from his neck.

  “Well?” He closes the cooler and looks at me.

  “I’m looking for Jake Bennett.”

  Clem doesn’t act like he knows Jake. He stands up, puts a foot on the cooler, and stares at me. “Am I supposed to know you?”

  “I’m Thomas, his brother.”

  “Okay, Thomas. But why are you here?”

  Emotions collide. Why is Jake hanging with Clem? How does he even know this guy? I study the carpet, dotted with stains. “Just tell me where he is, and I’ll leave.”

  Clem bends down but doesn’t answer. He grabs a small Thermos and sticks it in the cooler. “Why do you think I know where your brother is?”

  “You were with him.”

  “Correction,” Clem says. “He asked me for a ride, and I gave him one.”

  When he stands up from the bed, I’m spinning the pieces of what’s happening in my head, trying to make them fit. Clem goes to his closet and pulls out a length of rope, wrapping it around his closed fist in big loops before setting it on top of the cooler.

  “Well, did you bring him back here?”

  Clem slams his hand down hard on the cooler. “Am I your brother’s fucking baby-sitter?”

  When I don’t answer him, he picks up one side of the cooler and pulls it out of the room, leaving me there. I don’t immediately follow him, but when I hear a crash in the living room, followed by yelling, I stumble out of the room and up the hallway as quickly as I can. By the time I get outside, Wayne and Jerry Lee are on the ground, wrestling. Mallory and Sin are standing just outside the porch, both of them taking cautious steps toward the melee as if they want to break it up. Wayne spins and ends up on top of Jerry Lee, pushing his forearm into his brother’s throat. At the last second Jerry Lee pivots his hips and throws Wayne off. Before Wayne can get close again, Jerry Lee pulls a large knife from the back of his jeans and points it at Wayne like a gun.

  “This is your fault,” Jerry Lee says, breathing hard. “What the fuck are you thinking, bringing all these people here? Soldier boy’s brother is bad enough, but I come out here and you’ve got two more sitting in this truck? Hell, no. You got to learn a lesson.”

  “Good lesson, genius.” Mallory looks angrier than I’ve ever seen her. “Because now we’re all stuck here.”

  “Y’all’s feet work just fine, I’m sure,” he says.

  “You want us to walk?” Mallory says. “It’s ten miles back to town!”

  “Walk?” I say. But as soon as the words come out of my mouth, I see the way my tires have sunk to the ground, four puddles of empty rubber. “What the hell?”

  I take a step toward Jerry Lee, but Wayne moves between us, putting his hands against my chest. “Just tires, man. Just tires.”

  And I know. But everything about tonight comes rushing into my body like a wild animal. It’s Jake’s not being here. My dad. The frustration of never being in control, ever. And now this. My body won’t stop shaking.

  Wayne is in my ear. “Not worth it. All right? Just tires.”

  Jerry Lee smiles as he wipes the blade on his shorts. “You should’ve had more sense than this, Wayne. Coming around here and expecting there wouldn’t be consequences. And now I’ve got myself a brand-new truck for the trouble. So maybe I should thank you?”

  “New truck?” I repeat.

  I fight through the pain, taking step after step until I’m right in Jerry Lee’s face. I wish I could take the knife from him, could twist it out of his hands, and put him on the ground the way I’ve seen it done in the movies. How many times? Instead, I push him. As hard as I can. He stumbles backward, smiles.

  “Big balls on this kid,” he says to Wayne.

  “You’ll see how big if you don’t fix my truck,” I say.

  Before Jerry Lee can say anything, Clem strides from behind the trailer, his scarecrow chest still shirtless. When he sees everybody, the truck in the distan
ce, he says, “The hell is going on out here, Jerry Lee? And put that damn knife away. What if a sheriff’s deputy comes driving by and sees that Rambo-ass thing?”

  I refuse to break eye contact as I speak, my heart like a jackrabbit.

  “He cut my tires.”

  “And he was about to come at me,” Jerry Lee says. “If he’s man enough.”

  Clem gives Jerry Lee an annoyed look. Shakes his head. “Will you shut the hell up? What were you thinking?”

  When he turns back to me, his smile isn’t friendly. “Now get the fuck out of here.”

  Jerry Lee laughs, even harder when I take a few steps at Clem and my leg buckles underneath me. Clem doesn’t laugh, just stares at me coldly. Mallory steps forward, talking directly to Clem.

  “We can’t walk home, not with his leg.”

  Clem’s eyes flash, just for a second, as he looks around the gravel road. “You guys come here uninvited. Walk into my house, asking questions and making demands. And now this?” He turns to Wayne. “Get your friends the fuck out of here before I really do something.”

  Wayne doesn’t wait for another word. He comes over to Mallory and Sinclair, trying to corral them. But I don’t move. “What about my truck?”

  Clem covers the five feet between us in two steps. He’s right in my face, his breath like old cheese. But before he can say or do anything—and God, I’m so ready for somebody to finally give me permission to let go, to get unhinged—I hear my name.

  Jake’s coming down the driveway toward us. At first I can’t believe it. He’s so thin, so pale that he must be a ghost. But then he says my name again, and I snap out of the dream.

  “What are you doing here?” he asks.

  “Me? Are you kidding?”

  “Get this kid out of here,” Clem says to Jake. “For real.”

  Jake tries to grab my arm, but I push him away.

  “Hell, no. I’m not leaving,” I say. “You left me in the hospital! Do you realize how long I’ve been looking for you?”

  Jake tries to pull me away, but I put all my weight into my good leg. He can still drag me forward, but it takes some effort. Behind us, Mallory, Wayne, and Sinclair watch us. Normally I’d be embarrassed, I’d want to take Jake to the side of the trailer so nobody could see this happening. But fuck it, I won’t hide anything for him anymore.

  “Let’s go,” he says, loudly, once again trying to guide me away from Clem. It’s a momentary flare of his former self, something that I know won’t last.

  “Look what they did to the truck. Do you even care?”

  Jake turns for a second, considering the wheels. He used to love that truck as much as I do. The day he turned sixteen and Dad gave him the keys, there wasn’t a happier person in all of North Carolina. Now he only shrugs.

  Shrugs.

  And that’s it.

  I pull away from him and walk up the gravel driveway, toward the road. I keep walking, ignoring the pain in my leg and Mallory, who’s chasing after me, calling my name. Jerry Lee yells out, “Don’t worry, I’ll take good care of your truck.”

  But I don’t care.

  I don’t care about the truck or Jerry Lee’s laughter. I don’t care about Mallory, pleading with me to stop, worrying about my stitches, and the tears of anger and pain coming down my cheeks. I don’t worry about Jake, who doesn’t jog to catch up even though I’m halfway out of the trailer park by the time he takes his first step. I’ll walk all the way across this country if I have to. And there’s not a damn thing Jake or anybody else is going to do about it.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  We’ve walked for what feels like miles, and Jake still hasn’t caught up. He’s fifty feet behind us, hands in his pockets, slow as time. None of us speak except for Wayne, who does nothing but curse Jerry Lee.

  Fuck.

  I don’t know how I’m going to get the truck back, let alone fixed. I have no idea what time it is or how I’m even going to get home before the sun comes up. And that doesn’t even begin to touch on Jake. It all hangs over me, pulling me down like a drowning man.

  Fuck, fuck, fuck.

  Each step is awful, like someone has packed broken glass under my skin. I’m trying not to limp because I know Mallory is worried and watching me. She’s been intentionally slowing the pace of the group for the past mile, and I’m still lagging. But I don’t want to give Jake the satisfaction of . . . what? Knowing that I’m in pain? I have no idea why that matters, but I march forward, barely blinking.

  When we come to Highway 10, Mallory’s had enough. She jumps out in front of the group, stopping us.

  “Okay, this is ridiculous,” she says. “You can’t keep this up.”

  “I’m fine,” I say, trying to keep moving. She blocks me easily with a hand to my chest and then bends down to check my leg. The stitches are still in place, but it feels swollen. And now that we’ve stopped, the pain is nearly unbearable. It’s all I can do to not scream when she accidentally causes me to shift my weight to my bad leg.

  “We need to call someone,” she says to Wayne and Sinclair.

  Everybody we know is at a party or halfway to the beach by now. Or drunk. But Sinclair and Wayne still brainstorm a list. Every number they call follows the same pattern. Dial, listen for a few seconds, followed almost immediately by some intense cussing when nobody answers. They’ve gone through almost ten numbers when Jake finally jogs up.

  “What’s going on?” he says.

  Mallory drops her hands to her sides. “Are you serious? Look at his leg.”

  Jake bends down to inspect my leg the same way Mallory did and says, “I’ve walked on worse.”

  “You’ve walked on worse? Are you kidding?”

  A peculiar look of nostalgia comes over Jake as he talks, completely ignoring Mallory’s indignation. The knives in her eyes.

  “You remember that, Thomas? When I cut my toe with the lawn mower? Nearly took the whole thing off.”

  It had looked like hamburger, but we walked back to our house, him trailing blood down the sidewalk and me freaking out. That was the summer we were supposed to mow lawns together. The summer before Jake’s junior year. The money was going toward the truck, which needed a new axle and—if there was money left over—a bed liner. I mowed all summer without him, getting the axle, the bed liner—and a new set of tires.

  But I don’t want to think about the truck or engage Jake’s sudden nostalgia trip. I refuse to look at him as I step around Mallory and start down the road again.

  “We could call your parents,” she says, easily matching my shortened stride.

  I want to fight. It would feel good to fight, to be loud and truthful. But I tamp down the urge to bring out the claws. And besides, Mallory isn’t the problem. I slow down and face her.

  “I can’t explain this to them. Not tonight. Okay?”

  I can tell she doesn’t want to concede the point, but she finally sighs and says, “As long as we can agree that you’re being an idiot right now.”

  She smiles, almost embarrassed. Before I can say anything else, Jake surges past us like we’re not even there, Wayne and Sinclair in tow.

  “That’s the best team Ford’s had in twenty years,” Jake tells Wayne. “Me, Teague, Wagner—Bryant? If it wasn’t for that bullshit call, we take State.”

  He marches them down the road like they’ve got orders, taking the lead for the first time in months. I try to keep up, to hear what he’s saying. To maybe figure out how he can go from mute to discussing high school football legacies with such ease.

  I’ve pulled ahead of Mallory by a few steps, but I can’t keep up with Jake. The last thing I hear is Wayne saying, “Bulllsshhhiiitt,” loud and with feeling. Followed by laughter that carries through the dark country night.

  The next sound is Mallory’s phone.

  “Is that Will?” I ask, pausing to wait for her.

  “Of course,” she says. When it beeps again, she nods and types out a quick message before looking back up at me. At my l
eg. She grimaces. “I know you don’t want to hear it, but—”

  I shake my head. “I can’t call them.”

  And yes, every step is a warning—infection, paralysis, worse. I’ve been so careful up until tonight about not risking anything. And in less than a few hours I’ve resurrected my friendship with Mallory, lost the practical use of one leg and now my truck.

  What can a five-mile walk possibly do to me now?

  “Something’s going on with you,” Mallory says.

  “It’s Jake,” I say, trying to shore up any emotion leaking into my face. Act like nothing is wrong. Be cool, I tell myself. Look at peace. But Mallory doesn’t buy it. She stops walking and gently pulls my arm until I stop, too.

  “I’ve known you for how long? And you’re going to lie to my face?”

  “I’m not lying to you,” I say. But I can’t look her in the eyes when I say it. Even if I wanted to tell her, what are the words? Even after everything we’ve done tonight, I still can’t explain what I’m feeling, what I’m planning for tomorrow. And of all the failures between me and her, this one might be the biggest.

  When I look up, I say, “It’s complicated.”

  She nods, as if I’ve dropped some serious philosophy on her. “I’m good at complicated. Trust me.”

  I try to look away again, but she won’t let me. “Seriously, Bennett. You can tell me anything. You have to know that.”

  The words slice me up, and her eyes are equally sharp, cutting through every defense I have. She stares at me, neither of us moving as Jake, Wayne, and Sinclair get farther and farther away.

  I’m so tired. Of this night. Of every single lie I’ve told. All of it. And when I hear Jake laugh—so loud, so clear—I don’t weigh it. I don’t plan it.

  I say it out loud for the first time.

  “I’m not going to the army.”

  She doesn’t respond at first, and I worry that she didn’t understand. I don’t want to look at her because I can’t take seeing even the smallest amount of disappointment on her face. I stare at the long road in front of us, immediately regretting telling her.

  But then she asks, “Why?”

  And I say, “I can’t come back like Jake.”