Chapter 4
Pluto planted his back paws in Tiffany's lap and peered out the rolled down driver side window as they drove through town. He'd extended Sipe his usual greeting. Turned in a circle and then plopped down, waiting for that ear scritch due any dog so unquestionably cute. He shrugged off any puzzlement at Sipe's hesitation soon as Tiffany got into the cab and patted her lap.
"That's the park." Tiffany was locked into tour guide mode. "There's a barbecue under that roof over there, but no one really uses it. Someone pooped in it over the winter, on a dare."
She gave the tour in a kind of singsong voice. She had a pleasant voice. Sipe could almost imagine closing his eyes and listening to it until sleep came or he came to sleep.
"On the left here is Auntie’s. Remember that house back there just when we came into town? Those people, the Dobbs? They own Auntie’s and they own the Laundromat and the motel on the other side of town. The girl you saw on their pool deck, Brandi? Depending on who you talk to, her folks are going to own this whole town someday. Maybe by the end of tomorrow."
Sipe had seen the Brandi girl as a blur. He was a step behind the world. The kid was pointing things out, and he'd look, try and record them, but he was moving slow.
The truck had slowed to a stop. They sat at the intersection, signal light ticking. On the left, Auntie’s, on the right, the city park. Tiffany pointed out the windshield.
"Up there, that big white building is the school. Obviously, no one's going there right now. If anyone has to go to summer school I think they have to do it on the computer or something. Most our teachers go off and leave town come summer. They bail on this metropolis. Crazy, right?"
Tiffany pointed out the front windshield at the large white building directly across from Auntie’s. Don’s Automotive. An aged gas pump set into the gravel. Two big garage doors were rolled open, exposing the tailgate of at least one truck parked inside, waiting on rejuvenation.
"And that building there is the fix-it shop. Don’s kind of old so Mortie Henderschott runs it. Scott Grunley worked there after school, but he knocked up a girl. He took off. So after that, last year we didn't even have enough boys for a basketball team. It's ok though. We usually get walloped."
She pointed right, towards the propane tanks and the signs.
“Don put that up. Or at least approved some other old fart putting it up. That’s the Patriot’s Kiosk. Words of wisdom so you don’t forget your rights as a straight, god-fearing white person. I don’t know who put the mannequin there. Last election, someone told me, Don wore some of those clothes, trying to be Paul Revere or someone. He’s too big to fit into all of them. My uncle says Little Creek attracts way too many kooks.”
She shifted gears and signaled and turned onto Main Street. The truck gathered speed, enough to rattle something under the hood, all manner of metal or plastic building to the point it'd buckle. Sipe had driven the road just hours ago. Or maybe it was days ago.
Tiffany grunted and down shifted. The ride smoothed out.
Rolling down Main Street, the yards on either side all seemed similar. Brown lawns. The houses needed paint. Then about every third house there existed some dark green grass, flowers, some ideal domicile that was probably as well taken care of inside as out.
"That's Mrs. King's," said Tiffany. "Henry mows her lawn. Look at all those flowers, huh? She takes care of them herself. She says it keeps her young. She's 85. 85! Real nice."
Right after the flower explosion, two dirt roads branched off Main Street. The road alongside King's quickly shot up to a steep northward climb. At top of it a brick red house lined with pine trees. The hill still the same one the white schoolhouse sat perched on. Probably, you could cram every Little Creek resident on the southern face of the hillside with room to spare.
The next block was the last in town. The houses on the right vanished, replaced by a giant parking lot, a building the color of stained pine sat back of the lot, a hillside behind it, houses tucked into the segmented earth.
"Forest Service," said Tiffany. "It used to be kind of teeny tiny, but they closed up the office over in Dale, and all those people came over here. Some guys used the brand new parking lot here for speed racing last fall. It was pretty sad. I mean, they weren't kids. They were adults. Like you, you know? Nobody died, but some guy from Pilot Rock has to pee in a bag now. You can still see the rubber tracks all burnt in."
The truck slowed down and she signaled. Not a car behind her, not a car coming from the straight asphalt out ahead of them, where Main Street died and it turned back into the highway. Ahead, right after the slow turn through the penetrated hill the Zippy Mart, the crazed squirrel and the wind towers.
Turning, gravel crunched under the wheels. All manner of light green painted trucks were parked in the Forest Service lot. Tiffany slowed and rolled the steering wheel left, and drove them up the driveway to the brown house west of the Forest Service lot. A tin shed and a woodpile stood next to the house, jammed in between hill and home. There was no car parked out front. The garage door down, hiding any potential car inside.
Tiffany killed the engine. Pluto barked. Turned and licked Tiffany's nose. She laughed.
"Ok," was all she said and the dog leapt off her lap and through the window onto the gravel drive.
"This is Henry's. We need to get you inside, Mr. Sipe."
She tilted her head towards the Forest Service building.
"His mom's gone, but Gwen watches over him like a hawk. Any little weird thing, her sensors go off like an alarm. I wouldn't want to have to explain about you and a gun, now would I?"
He followed her, past the tin shed and the woodpile, around the corner and down a slope towards a picnic table and tree with a tire swing dangling from a branch. Her bright yellow hair sawed down, the tank top collar revealed a purple patch of acne beneath the base of her neck. Pluto investigated one of the clothesline poles at great depth until Tiffany whistled. Then he sprinted, not wanting to be left out of the potential fun. Sipe couldn't imagine moving even half as fast as the dog, not with the weight he felt inside his head.
A tinted window obscured the basement. Sipe's reflection like he was looking into a mud-puddle. A steep extension of hillside like a giant's thumb gripping the east-half of the house obscured them from any sightseers on the dirt road or over at the Forest Service. Tiffany dug a key out from her pocket, showed it to Sipe before shoving it into the door's key slot.
"Henry comes from the big city. So him and his mom keep their place all locked up. It's probably a good idea. You never know who might show up around here anymore."
Door open, Pluto shot inside. Dog claws clicked across the cement floor. Tiffany extended an arm, swept the air, indicating Sipe should go in ahead of her, Little Creek’s unofficial hospitality ambassador.
Water ran through pipes. The basement ceiling was partially exposed, displaying the network of black channels, papered over insulation. From the couch, Sipe could hear a slight squeak, Tiffany twisting the kitchen tap off. She issued an order and seconds later Pluto scampered down the stairs into the basement.
The door to the backyard was shut. The window tinting was only on the outside. Everything looked blue and green and summer perfect from inside.
Giving Sipe a tour, Tiffany had indicated where the basement light switch was located. The cellar door. The bathroom just around the corner from the washer and dryer nook. Further back in the dark was the furnace and a ping pong table.
The couches formed an 'L', one against the basement west wall, a table separating the two. He’d managed to sit without her help although she’d made a noise like Sipe was forgetting all the previous attempts, Mr. Wounded and Wobbling’s inevitable outcomes.
Tiffany stepped off the bottom basement stair step, two glasses in hand. Pluto hopped up on the couch and exposed his tongue to Sipe. Tiffany clu
cked, and Pluto complied.
"Good boy. No couch for you. Here. Water. Some lemonade." She set each glass down on the table in-between couches, right on top of a weathered magazine that had long ago surrendered to a single role as moisture sop.
She stepped back and pulled a bottle and a slip of paper out of her pocket.
"Aspirin. If you need it.”
She waggled the slip of paper.
"This is my number. You call me. Well, the number up top is mine. The one below is Henry. I should've labeled them. Do you want me to label them? Ok. I won't. Henry's phone is upstairs. The landline I mean, right next to the kitchen table. You'll see it. You didn't have a phone on you. Do you have a phone? You do? Well, it wasn't on you. It was gone when we found you. Unlike your gun. Your wallet."
Across the room Pluto snuffled a shirtsleeve leaking out of the clothes hamper. Something so remarkable needed a closer sniff. He rose up on his back legs, front paws pushing into the hamper. The claws didn't even click, but Tiffany still heard.
"Hey. Noodlehead. What are you doing?"
Tail thumping, Pluto relented, moved his snuffling floor-wards.
"Like I was saying, if you had a phone it was gone. Your wallet was on you. So was your gun."
The chubby child face dissolved. An adult woman peered out from the slightly hefty girl. The look implying his neck or was it his balls had been sold off.
"You should rest up. Once you're rested up we should talk. You'll be safe here. It's only Henry. His mom is in California, fighting fire. I mean, not only her, but she's one of the people in charge."
She set the slip of paper on his leg. Didn't press it down. Didn't hold it out, waiting for him to struggle, try and take it from her. She didn't need to show him that even something so simple as taking an immobile object out of her hand posed a degree of difficulty at this place, at this time.
Pluto scooted upstairs after her, passing her. Sipe looked up the stairs, but couldn't see her go through the door between the house and the garage. Just heard it open and close. Then another door opened and shut. No sound of plodding through gravel, but he could hear the little truck start up, pull back, and then drive away.
The last thing before he shrugged off thought altogether he was trying to move his lower torso enough so his head could please at least clear the couch arm. He didn't want to wake up with a crook in his neck. Moving to the other couch was work for another time.
One of his legs kicked, trying to catch, and compel the water weight north to slide on down. The limb strain was like a dog getting his belly rubbed, the leg spasms in contentment. Nobody rubbed Sipe's gut. His legs stilled. Outside a breeze ruffled tree leaves and altered the sunlight piercing the basement, rippled grass below the clothesline tines, and turned the tire swing at a leisurely pace, producing the musical note of a hung man's dead weight.
Sipe woke on the stairs.
Years ago, when he was seeing someone, when such things were still possible for a man of his stripe, Gibby had always told him about the sleepwalking. She thought it was funny. Scared hell out of one of her cats while the other watched Sipe like a researcher. The sleepwalking the way he'd made it from the baseball diamond to the field that morning. Same way he'd made it from the couch to the stairs.
Grasping the railing bolted into the wall, he pulled himself up from the stair steps. The stars dissipated. Walking the few steps up, he rested, turned, and sagged right around the corner, against the wall.
The door on his left pine. Garage access. He’d look into the garage later. He faced some kind of kitchen nook. Plentiful blue sky and sunshine beyond the window, the curtain. Sitting down in one of the kitchen chairs hit him as a good idea. On these legs, with this head, really, the only option. Whorls in wood on the tabletop, stained. He centered a finger pad on top of one. Surface only. A pattern. The table not something made, but something sold in a store. Memory rolled over. Ikea, south of Seattle, Renton, shopping with Connie, the Old Man. The Old Man breaking into a sweat, concerned they’d get lost. Right now, Sipe out sweating him, easy.
Braced, he looked. Past the nook, into the kitchen. A sink. A stove. Plenty of cupboards. The refrigerator. The doorway beyond gave a view onto a living room. A cathedral of light in there, parallelograms of sunlight, hinted at huge windows, curtains drawn back.
A ceramic bowl sat on the counter next to the kitchen table. Fruit. Some portion of the fruit going bad. A cloud of tiny flies hovered. Sipe’s attention wobbled, imagining flies in orbit above his body collapsed on gravel, astronauts lighting on and off Millie's Crater.
A phone hung on the wall adjacent to the kitchen table. The cord a long curly loop. Old plastic shell. Rotary dial.
The Old Man's edict: the most important number any employee could call, he didn't want it written down. He didn't want it saved on your phone on speed dial. Outside the organization, no one knew that number. If you told anyone outside the organization that number, you might as well shoot them because they were already good as dead. You might not admit you'd let the number slip, but the Old Man would know. And he'd know you knew he knew you'd fucked up.
Sipe had memorized that zero number, the one that did and didn't exist. He had a bunch of numbers written down on a card he kept in his wallet, but the zero number wasn't one of them.
Guys lost mobile phones right and left. It was amazing. It was like they were scattered by the technology that was supposed to help keep them organized. Instead, constantly calling on it tapped their brains, shattering a block of ice into smaller and smaller slivers.
By the time he sagged against the nook wall, sweating, and had a hand out, quivering, reaching for the phone, Sipe realized it might be dead tone. Some elaborate prop left in place for niche value. All his effort for nothing.
But it existed. The hum. His gift from the gods for the day.
The finger wheel clicked after each dial. A time machine. He was little again. Lived outside town again. Rode the bus to school. His sisters older, but weren't maturing, twisting, turning on one another, mostly turning on Sipe. If he dialed the Owens', Daryl might agree to meet him down at the creek, for fishing, at least for awhile, before Daryl suggested they take off, spot out the swimming hole, stakeout the bushes and try and watch the older kids swim. Some of the girls swam in just their underwear.
He sagged into the wall between the window and the phone.
The number rang. He'd dialed it right. If no one answered, he'd dial it again. He wanted to share, tell whoever picked up to guess what technological marvel was responsible for the call.
"Yeah."
The same voice that always answered. The ageless, timeless voice. Someone the Old Man kept on a religious regiment of vitamins, clean living.
"I’m bringing a package from California," said Sipe. "I lost the package."
The way it was supposed to work was the way it worked.
No response from the other line.
No acknowledgment.
The line went dead.
Eventually, Sipe mustered the strength to hang up the phone. For a long time he listened to the emergency note. The robot voice informing him if he wanted to make a call could he please hang-up and try again. By the time he could swing his arm up and slam the phone in the cradle he swore victory, busting up an emigrated halo of flies, sick of soured fruit, come to inspect the now newly christened walking dead.
The Lipless Gods Page 4