by Jamie Mason
He wondered if he should offer the gun to John for a good price. It would be less like begging. But John holding a gun, even just as a picture in Roy’s mind, gave him the chills.
He dug around in the bag of pork rinds with the hope of discovering one with all its corners intact. There weren’t any good ones left, only airy shrapnel and crumbs. He ate the biggest pieces first, pressing his lips together to keep from crunching too loud.
He looked away from the road again, this time for the last minibottle of raspberry vodka he’d hidden in the seat under a wad of napkins in case anyone walked by or rolled up on him. He poured it into the warm half-can of Red Bull waiting in the cup holder, and he shoved the empty bottle back under the tent of paper. He swished the can in a tight circle to mix the brew. It tasted like courage and melted SweeTarts.
Two minis were already burning in him, and a can and a half of the energy drink. He’d save the rest. It would top him off while he was talking to John. If he rationed it out just right, it would keep his bravery afloat. And he could always take a swallow of it when he needed to buy five seconds to think of something not stupid to say.
A wink of red over the rim of the can zapped him like a cattle prod. He took another big sip.
The tires of John’s car squealed lightly in his fast turn into the parking lot where, at the back, behind the grassy median, Roy waited for him. Sunlight streaked over the clean finish on the wheel flares in blinding, sinuous arcs. John’s car jerked to an angled stop next to Roy’s. The door flew open and John dodged around it as it slammed home.
“You piece of shit.” John reached through the truck’s open window and hooked Roy’s neck and dragged his head down. John’s hand was fever hot. “You piece of shit. Do you think you can get in on this now? After what you did? Do you think you have any claim, any right to anything?”
“What? John? What? Wait!”
John wrenched open the truck’s door and Roy spilled out onto the blacktop. He scrambled to his feet. The Red Bull can rolled away and chugged the rest of its magic onto the blacktop.
There had been a few shoves from John before that could have been written off as just kidding if Roy wanted to, which he did. It could have been worse.
This was worse. John had never come at him for real. Roy put out his arms to stop John’s charge. “Wait! Wait!”
John slapped Roy’s arms down. “Wait? Are you kidding me? Asshole, you set a quarter out on the curb. Today? In the middle of all this shit? You summon me up here, knowing fuck all about what is going on. But you think you do, don’t you? All of a sudden, you think you’re smart. Don’t you dare put your hands up now and squeal wait like a little bitch. Do you think this changes anything for you? Do you think you have something on me? Did you think I’d just roll over?”
“John, wait. Come on.” Roy stepped back two stumbling strides and ran his hands through his dirty, graying hair. It had been a good few days since he’d been able to shower. He could smell himself. “I didn’t mean to make you so mad. I just wanted to talk.”
John scanned him head to toe, and Roy wanted to fold flat under the miserable spotlight of John’s anger.
“How did you see it? Huh? Did you get yourself a smartphone? Dummy got a smartphone now? Is that it?” John sneered as if he were going to spit. Roy almost couldn’t imagine John spitting. People with ironed shirts and shiny red cars didn’t spit.
John was still midtirade and Roy came back on task, almost sharp with caffeine, but still drifty with the vodka.
“—do you get Wi-Fi in that heap-of-shit truck? Did one of your homeless buddies get YouTube pulled up on the internet for you? ’Cause I know they didn’t let you into the library looking like that.”
“I’m sorry.” Roy didn’t know all of what he might be sorry for at that particular moment, but he felt quite a bit sorrier than usual.
John stared at him, his shoulders rising and falling with the heaving of his breath. Something was off—really off—and the caffeine side of the seesaw lifted Roy into a short swell of clarity. He chanced a solid long look at John’s face. He was tight around the eyes, as if he couldn’t let all the way go of a squint. The little ridges between his eyebrows looked almost sad. He was pale and fighting to keep his shoulders straight. If Roy could recognize anything in the world, it was a back that wanted to stoop.
“What’s wrong? Is everything okay?”
“What’s wrong? What’s—” John leaned back and looked at Roy, regarded him fully up and down with an extraslow, searching pass of Roy’s face. For once, it didn’t feel like being scraped with a wire brush. John was checking for something.
Then John sent his own word back to Roy. “Wait.”
Roy shuffled back another small step, sneaking in another few inches between them, a bit more head start, just in case.
John tilted his head, and the more usual mocking study of Roy warmed back up on his face. His natural smirk bloomed and brought a little of his color back with it. “Is this just a regular day for you, Roy? What do you mean ‘Is everything okay?’ ”
Roy looked down at his wrecked boots. “I don’t know. I mean, I know you don’t like it when I need to talk to you. And I don’t mean to bother you. I never do. But . . . I don’t know, you just seem different.” Roy checked John’s expression. John seemed more like himself, and that was both good and awful. Roy kept on. More apology always seemed to help with John. “I just didn’t know if something else had happened to you to make you so upset. I didn’t know if you were okay.”
“That’s it? You just want to know if I’m okay. Well, wow, Roy. What do I do with that? And if I’m not okay, then what? Are you going to help me out? You gonna come to my rescue, Mighty Mouse?”
“No. I don’t know. I mean, I don’t know what you need.”
“From you? Let’s see, what do I need from you? You’re a pain in my ass, Roy. You’ve always been a pain in my ass. The only thing I need from you is never to have met you. That’s what I wish for on all my birthday candles and every shooting star. Did you know that? But since I can’t have what I wish for on fucking candles and comets, if you really want to help me out, Roy, then maybe just drop dead. That would do it. That would work fine.”
Roy’s throat clenched and his pulse banged into his vision. He hadn’t always been a pain in the ass. That wasn’t true. John wanted it both ways. He wanted it all the ways. Hey, Roy, need a pack of smokes? So wash my car. Do it real nice. Meh, that’s not good enough, Roy. You missed a spot. So, hey, Roy, how ’bout you cut my grass for pocket change? Hey, Roy, you stupid shit, I know you about broke your back doing my yard work, but get up early and clean out this garage, whydontcha. . . .
Roy hadn’t been a pain in the ass all the times he did everything John asked of him. He hadn’t been a pain in the ass when John had given him a gun and told him to come to the parking lot and point it at the people who would be buying the picture of the storm coming up over the waterwheel and the mountain. It was a nice picture. Roy had liked it.
Of course, he’d done it all wrong, which had ruined everything, but he’d never said a word or done a single thing that got them in trouble for it. He’d done everything John told him to do.
But here on the McDonald’s blacktop, Roy remembered that he’d never won an argument in his entire life.
John actually did spit. “Goddamn, I’m thirsty.”
Roy was usually unshockable. Not so in this moment. He very much wanted back the time earlier that morning when he decided to leave the quarter.
“What do you want, Roy? Why—fucking exactly—did you call me out here today?”
“I’m sorry, John.”
“You really, really are.” John opened his wallet, pulled out two $20 bills, and shoved them into the pocket of Roy’s best work shirt. He hadn’t wanted to put it on over his dirty undershirt, but it was as good as he could manage in getting ready for their meetup.
John shook his head at him. “I swear to fucking God, Roy. . . .”
John got back into his car and drove away.
CHAPTER NINE
* * *
Owen Haig’s seatback was in the fully upright and locked position and he twisted the clip on his tray table to secure it for takeoff. The latch set home with a satisfying little click that was more felt than heard. Owen was a big man, but trim, and he fit into his economy-class space with no room to spare. He could afford business class, if he were buying. Which he never was. Hell, his boss would be happy to pay for first class, if only Owen would ask for it. But it would be ski season in Satan’s back acres before Owen would float his ass in a plush leather recliner next to someone who had paid for the distinction.
Coach was fine if it got him where he meant to be more or less when he meant to be there. And with his luggage. He did, however, fantasize that people were much less inclined to chatter at strangers way up there in the front of the plane.
Owen wore dark suits with dark sunglasses, even indoors when it wasn’t ridiculous for him to do so. It wasn’t that he particularly liked navy, hurricane gray, or dead-star black for a palette. It’s just what they wanted him to wear. For him, it was nice that it made the dangling cord of the white earbuds more obvious.
At six foot six with covered eyes, blocked ears, and a disinclination to smile, he would’ve thought it might have been enough to guarantee that he’d stay alone in a crowd. But it wasn’t foolproof. Like a lighthouse rising out of the sea of everything, the fools sometimes found him anyway.
Between his employer’s expectations and his own efforts at generating a force field, Owen’s look was fairly specific. The Anningers, especially Mrs. Anninger, preferred their staff to present and act as if they should have a staff of their own—a collector’s set of nesting dolls of privilege. If the butler had a housekeeper, and the chef had a cook, and the personal shoppers all had harried assistants, the Anningers were just that much more buffered from all the sadness and tedious work in the world. Work that they possibly only grasped at the level of fable.
Of course they scheduled inoculations of misery into their itineraries with tours of Mumbai slums and Cambodian orphanages. But closer to home, none of them ever seemed keen to drive from the pavement to the gravel to the dirt in Appalachia, and they found reasons not to set a charitable course through the less manicured areas of Chicago or Dallas. But Mrs. Anninger always told Owen to send checks with the regrets when she turned down domestic outreach events.
They weren’t evil. Not really. Only remote, nearly alien. Owen wasn’t convinced they understood the concept of generosity, but they had to do something with all that money. The Anningers were generations removed from the merely wealthy. They were practically a different species.
Mrs. Anninger would have liked it better if Owen had put more effort into letting everyone know how well they paid him. It would have been good for what passed as a conscience’ sake, but he suspected they also liked the friction of a stubborn employee they could choose to suffer over.
His employers were easily bored, so he was busy. He did for them in capacities secretarial to diplomatic. He researched things; procured things. Sometimes he stood in as proxy to make matters easy for them or to make a point of their absence when they thought it necessary. He was a high-end errand runner.
By looking at him, some people wrote him off as a bodyguard, an enforcer. That was useful at times and it amused his bosses. But his size and his strength and his specific inclination to violence were his own, and as not for sale as his cock. He had applied all of those things adjacent to his professional duties at times, but on his own terms and without comment or suggestion from anyone who wanted to keep on his good side.
He did their bidding as he pleased and tempered it with the bare minimum of the image they wanted. He wore decent suits and bought the Mercedes, a sleek thing that he might have actually loved a little bit, once upon a time. Beyond that, he withstood being the source of their favorite discontent.
His costume made him look like an asshole. Owen had to admit that he might very well be an asshole. He pinged himself at least three times a day to better understand humanity in that regard and got nothing but his own brand of joy. He was an asshole in a world of different varieties of asshole.
Today he had the window seat.
A woman scanned the numbers along the aisle bulkhead and stopped next to Owen’s row. She drew back at the sight of him. He was used to it, if not almost all the way pleased by it.
“Wow! I’m glad I’m little. Bet you’re glad, too. They don’t leave us a lot of room, do they?” She shoved her bag, bright and unscuffed at the corners, into the overhead bin. “If you split the difference between me and you, you’d get a normal-size person out of it.”
She wasn’t that little. Average size. Cute. Curvy. Tight enough in the important spots. But still. You could tell a lot about someone by the yardsticks they used to measure themselves. She was utterly delighted to be traveling.
Owen cared not at all.
She kept her lid on until the first pass of the drinks cart. Owen asked for black coffee.
“I’m going to splurge,” she said, leaning into him as if it were the key to a conspiracy. She ordered wine and handed over her credit card.
If a screw-top split of economy-class chardonnay is a splurge, lady, that is also a yardstick.
But he nodded when she declared it not too bad.
In ten minutes, he knew her name was Charlotte (which she felt she had to clarify after introducing herself as Charlie, lest he think she was a Charlene or transgender), and he knew that she was headed to her sister’s wedding. Charlie herself had a wedding band on, but didn’t mention any husband.
Said sister had been married once before. She had three kids from that first marriage and still snagged herself a new man who was financially well-off and, get this, almost five years younger. The new husband didn’t even have any kids himself and treated Charlie’s nieces and nephew just like his own.
“Must be nice,” said Charlie, but she sniffed as if it didn’t exactly smell so by her estimation. The happy couple was making a huge, elaborate production—white dress, sit-down dinner, a string ensemble and everything—and Charlie thought that was fine, because why shouldn’t people celebrate good things?
Owen could only agree out loud and wish an aneurysm on her silently. He started calling her Ann in his mind and wished he believed in wishes. Aneurysm Annie. He fought the corners of his mouth as she blathered on.
Owen pulled a pack of gum from his pocket. He carried some with him when he traveled to make his ears pop on takeoff and landing, but the coffee was lousy and had soured on his tongue. He extended the pack to her.
“Would you like a piece, Ann?”
“Ann? It’s Charlie.”
“Sorry. Right. Charlie.” Owen had been told he had a charming smile, but he wasn’t quite sure how he managed it. “You remind me of an Ann.”
She smiled back, then shielded her mouth with her fingertips. “Do I need gum?”
“No, no. I was only going to have some and didn’t want to be rude. Because I’m going to have to be rude now.” Owen uncoiled the white cord of his earphones. “I have a program to listen to.”
“Oh.” Her face fell into a pout. “Sure.”
“It’s just a work thing.” He twisted the earbuds into his ears. “I need to have this done by the time we land. But it was nice chatting with you.”
“Okay. Thanks. You, too.”
As always, Owen mimed tapping up something on his screen, but he really just opened and closed a couple of apps and slid the silent phone back into his pocket. He never actually listened to anything. He merely enjoyed the peace in those times when the earphones worked as pest control.
CharlieAnn lasted another ten minutes or so, flipping through the catalog from the seat pocket.
She gave him a nudge. He popped out his right earbud and held it in his closed fist so she couldn’t hear all the nothing coming out of it.
&nb
sp; “Can you believe they charge sixteen dollars for Wi-Fi? I mean, I didn’t even know you could get internet on an airplane. That’s great. I love it! But sixteen dollars? After what I paid for this flight?”
Owen pressed his lips together and nodded in what he hoped looked like sympathy. He didn’t care if she felt validated, but it seemed a better gamble at getting her to shut up than making a case for $16 Wi-Fi or calling her a cheap, pointless waste of breath and skin.
She drew her shoulders up in a little shiver of naughty glee. “I think I’m going to splurge,” she announced again.
“Go for it,” he said, and worked his earpiece back into place.
For sleeping, Owen preferred dark rooms, no company, and a locked door. He almost never slept on planes. But he was nearly there. He’d drifted numb and weightless, with a dream just ahead, something bright and good, something he wanted to see—
She tapped him excitedly on the elbow and he crashed back into reality. His body jerked against the seat and he swallowed past a nap-dried throat.
“Oh! I’m sorry! I didn’t know you were sleeping. I thought you were just listening.”
Owen was all out of chitchat, and he was also all out of pretending as if there was any more stored away somewhere behind his eyes. So he just let her look at his blank expression and take inventory of the rest of his patience.
She was undeterred. “You’ve got to see this. Or have you already? It’s everywhere. So cool. I love it. It’ll make your day if you haven’t.”
Unbelievable.
And because he literally couldn’t think past the oblivious patter from this woman, this airy, happy, impossibly annoying creature, he let her direct his gaze to her iPad.
“Look at this kid. Watch what she does.”
Charlie was carbonated with excitement—about this video playing on the screen, about the utterly mundane adventure she was on, about life in general when she got two steps out of her routine. It occurred to him that some people would find Charlie irrepressible. It badly made him want to press her until she cried.