by P. K. Lynch
‘Holy shit!’ I must have jumped about three feet into the air. Dust rose and fell between the folds of the blanket. Marj gave me a real sharp look, pissed off with me for breaking the mood.
‘It’s alive, Marjorie. It’s fucking alive.’
‘What?’ She was over in two steps. She fell to her knees and lifted the wriggling bundle out of the hole and placed it to the side, her hands hovering in the air above as though to catch a fast ball. Two feet with three sharp claws apiece joined the snuffling nose in its quest for freedom. If it occurred to me or Marj to help, we didn’t do anything about it. He fought and scrabbled with the blanket until eventually it opened, and the resurrected armadillo was revealed.
‘Sweet Jesus,’ Marj whispered.
‘You think?’ I asked, honestly.
The armadillo rooted around on the blanket, oblivious to us, and seemingly none the worse for the hiccup in its day.
Marjorie ran to the car but I kept my eyes trained on that guy the whole time, in case he disappeared and we’d think we imagined the whole thing. I heard Freak whining about how hot she was and how long we were taking, but then the car door slammed and Marjorie was back with a plastic container of water. She put it down in front of the little guy and he dived straight into it, his tiny tongue lapping it right up. We watched in awe, both of us with jaws trailing the ground, neither of us doubting we were witness to a miracle. He began to wiggle away from us, his long nose on the hunt for food, when Marjorie grabbed my shoulder.
‘Should we let him go?’ she said, staring at me fierce. ‘He’s a long way from home. He might get confused, you know. This aint his natural habitat.’
The idea of driving the rest of the journey with a live armadillo in the car was too much for me. I dared to put my arm around her. ‘You kidding me, Marj? Look at the little guy. He’s a born survivor.’
She chewed her cheek and nodded. She hadn’t shaken my arm away. ‘I reckon some creatures do better away from their natural habitat,’ she said.
‘Aint that the truth.’
We stood together like that, each of us nodding wisely, until the armadillo disappeared into a scrubby bush. Then she stepped away from me so fast, my arm slapped against my body like a dead fish.
Marj was all for putting the remaining armadillos back in the car in case they came back to life, too. I told her if we didn’t bury them soon, they’d be so alive we’d have a million flies in the car with us. Finally, she accepted they were still dead and I got to cover them over. When we went back to the car, Freak was fired up. She’d seen the whole thing.
‘How do you explain that?’ she wanted to know.
‘I guess the little guy must have been concussed or something when we found him. Or maybe he was scared and played dead. He sure seemed dead to me.’ A red-faced Marjorie shrugged.
‘Or maybe he did die and that was his ghost. Maybe he’s come back to haunt the fucker who ran him over,’ Freak suggested. While we’d been conducting the world’s weirdest funeral, she’d been looking at the map and worked out we weren’t far from some shitty little place calling itself a ghost town. She wanted to pay it a visit. As lead-ins to conversations go, I thought it was a good one.
‘This place, it aint a ghost town with tumbleweed and shit,’ she continued. ‘It’s a straight-up ghost town with actual real ghosts. Haunted.’
She bounced up and down so that the car bounced too, and I thought if she burst that new tire she’d be keeping those armadillos company.
‘There’s no such thing as ghosts,’ said Ade. It was the first sensible thing he’d said in days.
‘I aint going to no place haunted,’ said Marjorie. ‘What I want to seek trouble for when I already got plenty?’
‘Oh, come on.’ Freak slapped the atlas onto her thighs. ‘You guys gotta learn how to live! Aggie, come on, speak up for me, sis.’
She leaned forward and punched my shoulder.
‘Ow! Quit it!’
‘No point asking you, is there?’ she laughed, scornfully. ‘You wanna get to the ocean so you can find your mommy. Did you know that, Marj? She aint coming to help you out. No, no, no, that aint it at all, is it, Aggie? Why don’t you tell us why you’re really going? Is it because you think you’re going to find your mommy?’
I twisted in my seat and battered my fist into her stomach, or would have done if the seat belt hadn’t held me in. Instead, I caught the edge of her knee and hurt my fucking wrist.
‘Alright, just calm it down,’ Marjorie said. ‘We aint going to no ghost town and that’s the end of it. That’s bad shit. Look at you two friends already squabbling like the devil’s in you.’
I fumed in the front seat. It wasn’t the devil inside me. It was Freak. She’d just given words to something I’d always known, but never understood. If I could just meet her, maybe I’d love her. I was ashamed by my stupidity. My heart raced fast enough to outrun Oprah, if only it could figure its way out of my body and into the world.
The best of the day was gone by the time we hit a long line of traffic, but Marjorie wasn’t worried. She switched the engine off and we sat for twenty minutes. She seemed to enjoy our confusion. I was beginning to think we were there for the night when the cars in front began to move. As we edged slowly down the road, I could see ahead more clearly.
‘Holy shitballs, Marjorie,’ I said. ‘Are we going on a boat?’
I sensed Freak sitting bolt upright in the back, bursting to ask questions but pride not letting her. Marjorie nodded like it’s an every day occurrence to take a car onto a boat.
‘Uh-huh.’
‘Holy shitballs,’ I said again, and leaned forward to get a good view. A guy in a yellow vest was directing traffic into rows. Onto a boat. A fucking boat. Cars and trucks inched their way on board, lining up to park wherever he told them.
‘Marjorie,’ I said, panic bubbling up inside. ‘I can’t fucking swim.’
Well, I didn’t see what was so damn funny but everybody burst out laughing. Even Ade, who hadn’t laughed in forever. ‘We’re not swimming across, silly Aggie,’ he said.
Freak rolled down her window and waved to a guy who was standing at the side holding a clipboard. He was bare beneath his yellow vest, skin brown as raisins. ‘Hey,’ she called. She shouted and waved her arm some more until he looked in her direction. ‘Excuse me!’ The guy looked around him, as though to make sure it really was him she was calling, then he came over.
‘Can I help you, miss?’ He pushed back his shades and leaned down to talk. His muscles flexed in the side mirror.
‘I was just wondering… Do you work out?’ Freak asked. Marjorie’s knuckles went white on the wheel. I turned round in amazement.
‘Excuse me, miss?’ the guy said.
‘I said do you work out? I figured you did.’ She touched his arm and slid her fingers down to his wrist. Ade turned redder than the whole of Texas. The guy took it well and laughed. ‘Yeah, I guess I might work out a little.’
‘Thank you,’ said Ade, abruptly, as he leaned over Freak and rolled the window back up.
‘Jesus, Ade,’ said Freak. ‘We were just talking.’ The guy shrugged and walked back to his workmates. Freak blew him a kiss. Ade took her hand.
‘That’s how you wind up in trouble, Freak,’ he said gently.
‘I know, baby. I love you taking care of me,’ she said, and snuggled in beside him. She shot Marjorie a look in the mirror. Every victory had to count.
It was our turn to board the ferry. A middle-aged fat guy with a face burned as boiled lobster guided us on. ‘Aint he heard of sunblock?’ Freak asked.
Lobster-man flapped his arms faster and faster to speed us up, but it didn’t inspire Marjorie. She inched us forward, tongue poking between her lips the way it always did when she concentrated. I’d first noticed it when she was putting her little rubber armadillos together. Freak called her the Frog, and at the time, I thought she was being funny. I knew Marjorie better now and was starting to find her quirks kind
of cute, but Freak wasn’t catching my vibe. From behind me, a small voice croaked, ‘Ribbit, ribbit.’
‘Marjorie,’ I said, once she’d switched the engine off and relaxed a little. ‘Would you mind telling us where the actual fuck we’re going?’
‘Just across the water. Won’t take more than ten minutes.’
‘I aint never been on a boat before. Not an actual floating one.’ I rolled down the window and stuck my head out. Exhaust fumes.
‘I love boats,’ said Ade. ‘I used to go on ferries all the time when I was a boy.’ He looked kind of wistful out the window at the cars all around us. ‘My grandmother lived on an island,’ he said. None of us replied. Truth be told, we didn’t know what to do with him these days. We were so nervous of whatever crazy thing he’d come out with next. Still, grandmothers seemed a safe enough subject and Marjorie obviously wanted to encourage him. ‘Oh, yeah?’ she said. ‘What island, Ade?’ But he just stared back out at the cars. I don’t think he even saw the gray sea beyond.
‘I thought it would be more blue,’ I said.
Freak wanted to know if we were allowed to get out of the car but none of us could tell her. We decided if others got out we would, too. We bobbed our way in silence, boat tilting from side to side.
It was dark and all the motels were full. We found the last two rooms on the island in a run-down place at the end of a dead-end street. Marjorie took the first room and left the three of us to share.
The room was big enough for two double beds. I claimed one, Ade the other, and Freak stood between us with her finger tapping her chin, pretending to wonder who she’d rather share with. Ade unplugged the TV and turned it round so the screen was facing the wall. Then he picked up the phone and ordered a pizza. He pulled the socket from the wall, wrapped the phone in a pillow case and put it in a drawer. I stifled the desire to ask was he positive there’d be no tracking devices hidden in the cheese.
‘Don’t you want to go out?’ Freak asked.
Ade shook his head. ‘Not while that car’s still in the lot.’
Freak went to the window, while I flicked the pages of a magazine so hard I ripped it.
‘The lot’s full,’ she said. ‘Which car?’
‘Dark blue station wagon. See it?’
Freak scanned the cars. ‘The ghetto sled? Yeah, I see it.’
‘It’s been with us since before the ferry,’ Ade said. Freak and I exchanged glances. I shook my head. Best not get him started again.
24
Next morning, Marjorie was real shook up and trying to conceal it behind a bad mood. She’d been to see her contact before we’d even woke up, and he hadn’t bought anything from her.
‘But he told you to come down,’ I said. ‘Thought he’d already seen your stuff and liked it.’
‘Yeah, he likes it alright. But that little worm aint in a position to be buying stuff. He aint the frikkin boss man.’
I followed her out to the balcony.
‘Damn it, Aggie,’ she said to me in a low voice. ‘If I’d known he wasn’t the boss, I would never have put that deposit down.’ She lit up a smoke with trembling hands and inhaled deeply. I was stuck for any words of comfort to offer. Started to think I was the only one that wasn’t loose with my money.
Sensing the drama, Freak came over to help. ‘You mean, you dragged us all the way here for nothing?’ Fake outrage barely disguising the glee.
‘I don’t remember inviting you along, Freak-face.’ Marjorie got right in her space and butted Freak’s head with her own. Freak backed down straight away. Marjorie paced the floor in small circles. She looked like a lion in a cat box.
‘What you always gotta push it for, Freak?’ I asked. ‘How far you gonna take it? Aint there a limit in Freak World?’
‘Sorry,’ said Freak, looking anything but. ‘I just figured she’d have checked it out for real before driving us five hundred miles for nothing.’
Marjorie was fit to kill.
‘It aint for nothing, Marj,’ I said. ‘The guy’s got a boss, right? When’s he back?’
‘Some time tomorrow.’ She flicked her cigarette over the side and fixed us with a death stare. ‘I guess we wait.’
‘Okay,’ said Freak, brightly. ‘Who’s for a trip to the beach?’ It was a question mainly for Ade.
‘Is that car still there?’ he wanted to know. ‘I’m not leaving if it is.’
‘Yeah, it’s there,’ Marjorie said, bored.
‘I’ll come,’ I said. Blue sea, salty waves; mermaids and sea creatures.
‘Marjorie?’ Freak asked.
Marjorie looked from Freak to me to Ade, and bared her teeth in a smile. ‘Nah,’ she said, ‘I’m good.’
Freak looked uncertain. ‘You can’t just stay in all day,’ she said.
‘Who can’t?’ growled Marj, settling onto my bed.
‘Ade?’ I could hear the pleading in her voice.
‘Not while that car’s there,’ he said.
I could see her thought process. Looking at Ade and then Marjorie.
‘Actually, now that I think about it, I’m feeling kind of sick,’ she said, and lay down on the other bed. Ade was sitting in the only chair and had his nose stuck in some tourist leaflets. The room was small and getting smaller.
‘Have a nice day, y’all,’ I said, with relief. Better to be alone than in bad company.
It felt good to move after being cooped up in the car the day before. And it felt good to be alone. I walked through the parking lot and headed back up the street to the main road, butterflies fluttering away in the pit of my stomach. The sea.
Something about having space around you leaves room for thoughts of the future to creep in. I’d no home in the city now. Maybe I could stay with Marjorie in her new place for a while. Maybe we’d become business partners. Hell, how likely was that? Maybe I’d just stay here. Pitch a tent on the beach. Maybe Momma would float back to the shore and find me one day. Maybe we’d go back for Jojo, together. Something about having space around you leaves room for childish dreams.
I reached the end of the street and looked for the beach. Nothing but a bunch of low rises far as I could see. Guess it was stupid to think I’d just fall upon it. I tried to remember which way we’d come in the night before, but we’d made so many stops looking for some place to stay, I’d lost my bearings. I made my best guess and took a left.
I passed a cafe with a few people eating outside. I thought about asking, but I was Little Miss Independent and I decided I’d find it on my own. Forty minutes later I was regretting that decision. I wandered up and down quiet residential streets and couldn’t see so much as a sign to point the way.
A little old lady was asleep on a lounger in her yard. As I stood at her gate with my hand on the latch, wondering if it would be too rude to wake her up, a navy blue station wagon pulled up a hundred yards down the street. It looked out of place in the bright morning light. An amused half-thought floated across my mind, something about the three of them back at the motel being free to go out now. I took my hand off the latch and began to walk down to ask the driver, when a nasally voice said, ‘I’m not asleep, sweetheart.’
I turned back round and she was sitting up, skin tanned as leather, hair white and fluffy as a dandelion clock. I waited as she struggled her way to standing and made her way over. The skin around her knees sagged and quivered with every step.
‘I’m sorry to disturb you, m’am,’ I said, as she reached the gate.
‘Disturb me?’ she wheezed. ‘Oh, you’re not disturbing me, baby doll. I haven’t seen a soul… oh, must be going on a week now. I’m thinking of making some mail orders just so I can talk to the mailman. What you think about that?’
‘Uh, that’s a plan, I guess.’
She lifted up her sunglasses and blinked away the glare. Her face had more cracks than dried mud.
‘What do you want anyway? I take it you’re not here because you want to listen to me shooting off all day.’
�
�Oh, m’am. I’m just trying to make my way to the beach. I guess I took a wrong turn somewhere.’
‘Bless your heart, honey. Would you like to come in for some iced tea? I guess not. Okay, let me think…’
It took us an hour to have a five-minute conversation, the upshot of which was I had to carry on down that road, taking the second turn on the left. I walked along the empty street, and when I saw a little golf cart carrying a family of five, I knew I was close. A kid waved a large inflatable dolphin as they passed. I ran after them until they turned on to a busy four-lane road.
I was stumped. I knew the water couldn’t be too far away. Even thought I could smell it. At last, between gaps in the traffic, there it was, on the other side of the road. I looked up and down for a decent place to cross and saw a walkover a few hundred yards away. My heart leaped and I moved towards it.
Beside me was a row of garages. As I walked past, one of them sprang open. Like an idiot, I yelled and jumped with fright. I laughed it off and turned to apologize, but before I even saw his face, an arm reached out and took a hold of me. It dragged me inside.
Could have fought harder. Yelled louder. Could have not frozen like some chicken-shit retard from the back woods. Could have not played deader than a fake-dead armadillo.
His arms wrapped around me and I collapsed in on myself. He carried my limp body to the open truck of the waiting car. It was a navy blue station wagon.
A strange smell enfolded me, and the darkness fell down.
25
At first it’s just dark. You think the lights are out. You sit up. Blink. Breathe. Your eyes will adjust so you wait. And wait.
Then it starts to crawl out.
The Wondering.
And the Fear.
Knocking at your senses.
You snap them away but soon,
soon there’s nothing you can do about it
and the realization slams into you.
It’s a body shock.
It’s not dark in here.
This is a wall of black like you’ve never experienced.