by Jerry Cole
The camera panned to the side to reveal the still-smoking field. Wyatt swept his whiskey glass to the side, watching as Marcia reacted swiftly, pouring another shot within.
“I see. And you really think it was the things—aliens from Venus, setting the fires?” the reporter asked.
“Absolutely,” Stephanie answered. “Do you have a better way of explaining it? Perhaps you could speak with Everett. He always knows exactly what to say.”
Stephanie weaved back, twirling to make her white skirt swirl around her. The effect was almost intoxicating. She looked the very portrait of freedom, much as Marney had mere days before. Wyatt swallowed, glancing toward Marney, whose eyebrows were stitched tight over her eyes. It was as if she was finally seeing herself in the mirror—the lunacy with which she’d operated the previous few days.
“So, there you have it,” the reporter said, her eyes directly into the camera. “We’re here on the ground zero of the Venus 50, clearly watching as it evaporates into the sky.”
The camera whirled to the left, showing the home in which Isaac and his father and his sisters remained. More cars had arrived, spitting out still more reporters. Wyatt’s head felt hazy with drink. He needed to eat something. He felt a brokenness, a lack of hope.
As the camera remained on the house, Everett McLean burst before it, flashing an enormous smile. Kenny groaned. In a moment, it was clear that something had broken within Everett. He looked haggard and strange, as though he’d just taken several shots of drink.
“Hello, there,” he said to the reporter, almost ogling her. His eyes skated up and down before landing back at the camera. “My name is Everett McLean, and I’ve been told that you wish to interview me regarding our mission.”
The reporter leaped back in front of the camera. “Yes. Everett McLean. You call yourself the leader of the Venus 50?”
“I do indeed,” Everett said. “Although I dare say the name deserves an upgrade, don’t you? It has a certain air of—strangeness. Whereas I can assure you, what we’re doing here is far less strange than you can imagine. We’re simply trying to unite our living souls with the greater purpose of the earth. I understand the rest of the world is small-minded, that it might be difficult to comprehend the truth. But if you come here, all of you, I’m willing to assist you. I will help you achieve more enlightenment than you could have possibly dreamed.”
The reporter tried to interrupt him, but Everett blared on. Marcia rapped Conrad on the shoulder, murmuring, “Turn that asshole off. I don’t want to see him in my bar.”
Conrad flicked the channel to find a ballgame. Marney flung herself deeper against Kenny, letting out a weak cry. Marcia swept the counter of the bar absently with a clean towel, stitching wrinkles tighter across her forehead. Wyatt studied her, sensing she brewed with something. An answer. A question. He couldn’t deduce it.
Finally, she spoke.
“Wyatt,” she muttered, her voice seeming to come from far within her.
“What is it?”
“That boy. That Isaac. You know he’s the son of the old man at the ranch, don’t you?” she asked. Her eyes penetrated directly through him.
“I do, now,” Wyatt returned.
Marcia sighed. “The thing of it is. I’ve known Thomas Baxter since he arrived in this town, round about eleven years ago. He came on account of his best friend, this cowboy named Zane. Both of ‘em had history that dated back decades. And it was clear, cross my heart, that one of ‘em loved the other, or maybe both. I don’t know.”
“Loved?” Wyatt asked. He cut deeper across his stool, bringing both elbows atop the counter. “What do you mean, loved?”
“Well, it’s complicated,” Marcia offered. “Thing is, out there in the fields, in the desert, these cowboys only have each other. The way Zane sometimes told it, Thomas was the only man in the world who ever understood him, and vice versa. But I think, in the end, Zane kinda died of a broken heart. See, Thomas would never allow it. He was too inside himself. He sees himself as a certain kind of person. And—now that I’ve met his son, Wyatt, I think I see the full picture. The reason why he could never be with Zane. Not that folks around here would have liked it much. But it wouldn’t have been the first time.”
“First time for a relationship like that?” Wyatt asked.
Marcia’s lips cut into a wry smile. “It’s like this. We here in Rhode’s Pike, we’re all a bunch of misfits. I suppose we’re not all so different from—what was it they call ‘em? The Venus 50? Right, we gathered here in this ghost town to get away from the world. And we kinda operate on our own rules.
“Course, when Zane died, Thomas himself went a little wild. He didn’t talk to anyone. Wouldn’t tell anyone what was wrong. He muttered at this bar—right on the stool you’re sitting on—for hours on-end, wondering if he’d done the wrong thing. Sometimes, he talked about his daughters, about his ex-wife. But never, ever did he say a thing about Isaac. Now that I met him, I understand it was just there beneath the surface. A kind of family drama that you can’t really name. You know?”
Wyatt thought he did. He cast his eyelashes toward his cheeks. All of life simmered with pain.
“But in the wake of it, I think me and Thomas—I mean, I think we created a kind of understanding between us. One he could more or less comprehend, the way he couldn’t think of him and Zane,” Marcia continued. “When his health started to deteriorate, well.”
At this, Marcia snapped up a cigarette paper and began to roll furiously, snapping the cigarette between her lips. She lit it, sucking at it until tight wrinkles formed around her lips.
“You’re saying you’re in love with him,” Wyatt offered, feeling the tension growing.
Marcia shrugged. “I’m saying that he’s the person I feel closest to in the world. The light’s fading from his eyes a bit, but I think... if he makes it through this... there could be a future for us. Although what kind of future this godforsaken town has for anyone is a guess for God himself.”
Wyatt nodded slowly.
“What I’m saying to you is this,” Marcia stammered, sucking down the last of her cigarette in record time. “I’m saying that you look at Isaac the way I think I look at Thomas, his horrible, wonderful, arrogant father. And if you have an inkling of what this could be between the two of you, don’t let it go. Everything deteriorates after a time. Hell, look at this town. It’s all boarded up. Hardly any of us will live through the next ten years.”
“Speak for yourself,” Conrad coughed, smoke billowing from between his lips.
“Conrad, if you live through the week, I’ll be surprised,” Marcia returned. Her eyes burned back toward Wyatt. “You’re so young, but you don’t know how little time you have left. Make your life whatever you need it to be.”
Conrad turned the station to another, one that showed a twenty-four-hour dance marathon in a nearby Texas town. Wyatt hadn’t a clue what day it was, what year it was, or even his personal age. Behind him, Kenny and Marney had begun to slow dance, Marney’s head dipped low on his chest. He cooed into her ear; tones that were meant to make her believe everything was going to be all right.
Perhaps it was going to be.
Chapter Eleven
Wyatt
Wyatt spent the remainder of the afternoon and early evening at the saloon. Both Marney and Kenny kicked into high-gear around three, when the first wave of saloon-goers from the teensy town stomped in for their afternoon beers. Marney’s delicate arm traced high, pouring pint after pint, while Kenny delivered them, engaging various members of the town in light banter. It seemed that the fresh blood had reinvigorated the crowd. Someone forced Conrad to turn off the television, to blast oldies music on the jukebox. Wyatt hadn’t noticed the thing the few other times he’d been at the saloon. Its dusty body was hunkered in the corner, now zipping along with a track from the ‘40s or ‘50s. Marcia perched beside him on her stool, dipping her shoulders to the left and right. Wyatt had lost track of the number of cigarettes sh
e’d smoked, but he supposed it was around twelve since noon.
Occasionally, Marcia allowed Conrad to turn back on the news, so they could have full view of what occurred outside. A few stragglers who’d entered reported that more cult members were abandoning ship, but that Everett had grown increasingly zealous standing atop an RV all over again, creating a sort of “royal court” over the various reporters in from out of town. This made Wyatt’s stomach feel caved-in, hollow. It was his fault.
When Conrad kicked on the station just after nine in the evening, Wyatt noted that several of the reporters had kicked away from Isaac’s house, leaving space in the driveway. All the lights were on in the house. When the camera zoomed in tight on the upper windows, Wyatt spotted a little red ball, zipping back and forth. He hadn’t imagined children inside, and asked Marcia what she knew.
“Yep. The old bastard has grandchildren,” she sighed. Her face grew clouded. “I always wanted grandchildren, you know it? I played with ‘em a few days back. Good kids. There’s three of ‘em in there. Not sure the old man even knows their names.”
Wyatt gave her a crooked smile. “No cowboy could be bothered with anything as lackluster as names.”
“Now you sound like the rest of them,” Marcia teased. “Hey, Marney! I’m gonna need a top-off. And stat. Look at her. She’s got the moves and the speed of a proper barmaid. They’ll be lucky if I ever let them go.”
“I think it’s time for me to go over there,” Wyatt murmured, mostly to himself.
Fortunately, or perhaps unfortunately, it was just loud enough for Marcia to hear. Her eyes, sharp and fast, moved toward his.
“If you feel it in your heart, then you have to do it,” she murmured, sounding more like a hippie poet than a barmaid in a ghost town. “I told you. You’re always running out of time.”
Wyatt crept up from the stool. He gave her a rather ominous nod, before bucking toward Marney in the corner. He swallowed hard; his nostrils flared.
“Marney, I’m going to need a car or an RV or something,” he said, marveling at the weight and authority in his own voice.
“Hmm?” Marney asked. She flipped her hair behind her shoulder. “What’s that, Wyatt?”
“I need to drive away from here, and I need to do it, now,” Wyatt said. “The people in the ranch house at the edge of the field, they aren’t safe there. I know these reporters. They’re just gonna eat at them until the old man passes away. And that isn’t the right way for anyone to go. Don’t you think?”
The red-faced cowboy at the table before Marney nodded his head, adjusting his hat so that his ears poked out on either side. “The man is telling you the truth,” he said to Marney, speaking to her as though they’d been friends for years. “It’s like I was saying earlier. In this town, we gotta take care of each other.”
Marney’s eyes glowed with understanding. She bit her lip, searching through the pocket of her white dress to jangle out the keys.
“You can take ours, Wyatt,” she said.
“But how are you gonna leave?” Wyatt demanded.
“Hmm. Haven’t thought that far,” Marney said. She gave Kenny a playful, childish smile over Wyatt’s shoulder. It seemed “Maybe check back in with us when you pick ‘em up?”
“And what about Clara and Randy?” Wyatt asked, remembering them with a last flicker, as though he hadn’t seen them in several years. It certainly felt that way.
Marney shrugged. “Clara has been flirting with Everett all day,” she said. “Randy’s about done with the whole thing, just like Kenny was. I don’t know. They have others they can rely on. We have to fight for ourselves, now.”
The man at the table gave Marney a firm nod, as though he felt he’d taught her a thing or two over the course of ten minutes.
Wyatt hadn’t another moment to consider anything else. Besides, this seemed like a valid plan. Wyatt shifted toward the door, taking a final glance toward Marcia. He expected the old woman to follow him out with her eyes, but she kept herself pressed forward, seemingly unwilling to give him any sort of final word of assistance. It was simply her way.
Wyatt stepped into the chill of the Texas night. How bizarre it was that the desert night ripped the heat directly out from under you, like a rug. He stepped lightly, as though he was trying to sneak up on someone, ducking toward the field. As he approached, he felt a sinister jolt up and down his spine.
It seemed that the camera crew had added a strange, increasingly strange light across the Venus 50, causing many to act out, for the camera’s sake. Several girls stood in the center, twirling about, allowing their skirts to flow. Everett was off to the side, gazing out at his “children” with the air of a lion looking out over his pride.
Several cameramen were treating the event with the air of artistic directors. They were instructing several of the girls, asking them to take one another’s hands and orchestrate even more specific dances. Everett called out occasionally, offering his own insights.
“Move the camera down a bit! You’re going to want to see those long legs!”
Wyatt was grateful no one spotted him. He walked, his hands gripped behind his back. Isaac’s father’s house was dimly lit, seemingly with orange lamps, giving it an eerie look at the edge of the field. Only three cars remained out front, two of which Wyatt remembered from before the media frenzy. As he approached, he walked directly past the reporter from that morning, who was chatting erratically with her cameraman, her eyes large, reflecting the light of the moon. They looked like marbles.
She stopped dead in her tracks and gaped at Wyatt. Wyatt, caught off guard, looked back.
“Hey,” she called. “Hey, wait a second!”
Wyatt stopped. He grimaced, feeling as though he was about to have an encounter he didn’t fully want to have.
“I didn’t see you around today!” the reporter said. “Some really good action in there. Our viewership is up like five hundred percent, if you can believe it. My boss hasn’t stopped calling me, almost crying with happiness. Granted, our station was on the brink of collapse. Nobody likes to watch the news anymore.”
“Mmm,” Wyatt tried, wondering how to yank himself out of the conversation.
“You aren’t trying again with the old man, are you?” the woman asked, her voice brightening. “It’s been a difficult thing to crack. I mean, it shouldn’t come as a surprise, but the old man did appear in the window a few hours back, telling all of us that he has a rifle and he’s not afraid to use it. A bit of a spitfire, of course, which is perfect for TV. But you know what’s not perfect for TV? A bullet in a reporter. Namely, myself.”
Wyatt tried to laugh along with her, but felt the laugh rolling around in his lower belly, unable to come out.
“Anyway. Let me know if anything comes of it,” the woman sighed, batting her false eyelashes. “I swear, this whole thing, it’s like a drug for me. I’m addicted.”
Wyatt ducked around, walking swiftly toward the ranch house. He heard the reporter muttering once more to her cameraman, something like, “What? Is that guy on the spectrum or something? A good writer, but like, obviously terrible at human communication. Thank God no one’s putting him in front of a camera, you know?”
Wyatt appeared at the steps of the ranch. From within, he could hear the rasp of a radio, along with a few light giggles that seemed from the children. Shadows shifted behind the drapes. How on earth could he possibly present himself as anything other than a monster? It was clear what Isaac thought of him, now.
He decided to wait. He perched himself just next to the steps, gazing out across the fields. Several of the cult members seemed half-drunk, or at least high on some sort of substance. Some kissed near the side of the field, their stringy arms wrapped around one another’s shoulders. One girl let out a moan loud enough for Wyatt to hear.
With Isaac so close to him, Wyatt’s body had begun to jolt with adrenaline, seemingly anxious to make love, to show the stirring feelings in his heart in a more external way. As if t
o prove himself, his cock surged tight against his pants. Wyatt’s shoulders flung forward. He felt as though he was trying to make himself smaller, quieter. He wanted to turn inward and give his thoughts complete power. Namely, he needed to focus on what to say to Isaac, when he finally saw him again.
Perhaps twenty minutes later, there was a fumbling at the other side of the door. Wyatt bucked to the side, turning his eyes toward the light crack that formed as someone burst it open, whispering in a harsh tone back into the belly of the house.
“You know what, Monica? I don’t know,” Isaac scoffed. “I don’t know what we should do. We’re kind of trapped here, aren’t we? Daddy won’t go anywhere else. He says this is the only home he’s ever known.”
“That’s ridiculous,” Monica returned. “The home we grew up with. That was his home, too. Why can’t he just accept that this world—this ain’t good for him. I will not sit by idly and watch while the reporters eat him until he dies away here. The stress of it is eating at him. Can’t you see that?”
“Not to be contrary, but he really seems to be coming alive because of all of this,” Isaac returned.
“So, you’re saying you just want to watch him fight reporters till the bitter end?” Monica spat back. “If so, I’m going to have to kick you out of this house, Isaac. That’s absurd.”
Wyatt remained in the shadows. Monica rushed toward the door and slammed it shut. The noise rang out across the fields. Luckily, it seemed that the Venus 50 had taken too many substances to do anything but remain in their own bizarre world, without noticing. The cameramen and women remained as well, stuck on the story of youthful idiocy.
Isaac stomped to the edge of the porch. From where Wyatt stood, he could see only a dark outline of him. He cut his hands across his hips and gazed out, muttering to himself. Wyatt couldn’t quite make out the words. His heart pumped. He knew it was nearly time to make a move.