Chapter 24
Right as Gwen and Henry drove out of Little Creek, a helicopter flew overhead, banking towards the forest. Not Forest Service affiliated. Something black and insectile. A law enforcement investment.
Earlier, Gwen had almost ordered a meal to go along with her Outpost milkshake. She could’ve grabbed a snack at her house, too, but had settled for a drink. Two fingers of Bourbon. That second finger burning the back of her throat when the siren rattled Sheff Street and the bottom of the hill turned into an action movie. It wasn’t like she was flying off the hook. After watching mayhem unfold she hadn’t touched another drop. She hadn’t anticipated driving though, not that a mosey out of town, basically just out to the Zippy Mart was much of a drive.
Lori would hear about the excitement in Little Creek. Gwen would have to fib here and there. A lot here and a lot there if Lori’s car didn’t turn up.
It’d been years since she’d felt this level of anxiety. She couldn’t explain it to Henry. Or Lori. Maybe Alec if he was still around, but with Alec you could tell him anything and not worry. The self-centered son of a bitch so consumed with all things Alec your problems lobbed at his ears were like raindrops spattering the ocean.
Henry thought the helicopter flying over them was cool. He looked out the windshield on Gwen’s Hybrid, scanning the sky, practically bouncing up and down in anticipation of more whirlygigs.
“I can’t believe I’m doing this,” said Gwen.
“Why?”
“Because it’s unreasonable, Henry. Because I’m an adult.” Doing what a child wants me to. Tiffany wasn’t a child though. Her boobs dwarfed Gwen’s. Gwen careful not to share that bit of self-appraisal with Henry.
“Wow.”
“What?”
“The cop cars.”
“What? Where?”
“Down there.”
Henry pointed towards the intersection. Roof lights lit up, the cop parked at the side of the road. The cop playing traffic conductor, dead center of the intersection.
“Shit.”
Henry asked, “Are they blocking off the town?”
“I don’t know. Oh my god.”
“Are you ok?”
“What? I’m fine.”
“You don’t look fine.”
“I just have…It’s just…I have…Problems. With.” Gwen pointed at the jockey box. “Look in there. Please. There should be gum.”
“I don’t see. Oh. Here.”
“Big Red? Fuck. Sorry. I shouldn’t swear. That’s what I have? That’ll mask nothing. Cops smell that and they know.”
“Know what?”
“Nothing. Here. You chew some, too.”
“No.”
“Henry.”
“I hate cinnamon.”
“Do you want me to get arrested, like, what? two hundred feet away from the Collar’s place?”
“No.”
“Then shove it in your mouth, buddy. Chew it like you love it.”
Gwen missed her trash bag, the wadded up gum wrapper landing somewhere on the floor.
“Ick.” Henry, acting like he was taking medicine.
A logging truck got the official ok and started rolling again, gave the cops a little toot-toot salute, and an RV rolled up, next in line, headed north on 395. It was actually a substantial line-up, betraying most people’s estimation that no one really drove through here.
Of course no one was fleeing Little Creek, only Gwen and Henry. This afternoon providing the most excitement since Don Jennings had wandered town in nothing but a ski cap, snow boots, and a smile the New Year’s Day after the last presidential election, rope in hand, a noose, dragging the incumbent in effigy, taking hits off a bottle of Jack Daniels and urinating on his mobile decoration as his bladder dictated.
Slowing down, Gwen sighed.
“Remember,” she said, “we’re going to Heppner.”
“I know. Why?”
“Henry, I’ll be fucked if I know why. Sorry. But that’s where we’re going. That’s our story, and Henry, please, don’t make faces like that. It’s gum. I’m not making you chew a turd.”
“It tastes like a turd.”
“Henry.” Out of nowhere, her teacher voice. The Prius came to a full stop, and she heard the cop saying ‘ma’am’ and she flipped another switch, the teacher dealing with a parent smile. The mask. It came back so easily, but she didn’t have time to marvel at the resuscitation. She blew a bubble. Pushed the sunglasses up into her hair. Slammed the door shut on Gwen the Worrier, Gwen with the Crucifixion Complex.
The matron had put in a brief appearance. Bug helped his mom get from her bedroom to the bathroom. The woman gone bald from chemo, wearing a dress, probably nothing on under it, a nod to the heat, a nod to the pain in the ass of slipping in and out of underwear when you were so exhausted it didn’t even register you were wearing underwear.
The woman saw Sipe and he felt guilty, adding anything at all to her stress level, so when she came out, Bug helping her back to her bedroom, he made sure he was out of sight. In the front of the living room, he could just hear them moving, the lady laughing at something, and he liked that. Maybe she had a shot at getting rid of whatever was making her sick. If you could laugh, that was good, right? but maybe all it meant was she’d made peace.
Sullen, the choice word to describe Hope. Put upon. She kept messing with her hair. Changed for the never-materialized bailing out of town with Quinn Dobbs. She’d lopped it off on her own, and had left the bangs long so she could have something to play with it seemed. Raising her arms to groom herself the six millionth time since Sipe had arrived, he’d done his best to avoid noticing the t-shirt pulling taut over her bra-free breasts and nipples. They were perfectly proportioned. She knew it, knew with a rack like that no one cared about her slight second chin, the beginnings of a sloppy belly hanging over her shorts hem, the way she sighed every thirty-seconds like her suffering outpaced the Holocaust, outweighed the terrors of animals slated for a slaughterhouse.
She bedded down in a guest bedroom upstairs, the place she’d been hiding out since cutting out from the Dobbs’ cabin-to-be. Quinn had failed her. She figured that one out, Prince Charming with a liar’s tongue. Despite promise after promise, he had zero interest in taking her out of town, to Pendleton, Portland, Boise, Seattle, anywhere. Under cover of darkness she’d bailed on the cabin, walked back to town and ended up crashing in the railcars. Even with the piss smell, the mold, the rot, doing her Sleeping Beauty bit when Bug happened upon her. He gave her half his lunch, refused to slip her a smoke, and took in the sob story of the year.
About a week ago they snuck her out at night, she insisted it be at night, and Bug complied, even going so far as to let her lay flat in the truck bed although chances were pretty good just sitting in the front passenger seat they would’ve made it out of town unnoticed.
The Butcher’s Camp Massage deposit stowed in a gym bag. Hope had counted it a couple of times. Out at the cabin, bored out of her mind, her phone out of juice, the recharge cord M.I.A., counting it about all she could do for entertainment. Sipe could count it if he wanted, but at this point she knew for sure the total. And by the way? After awhile, money weighed heavy as fuck. Her shoulders still hurt, toting the cash from Butcher’s Camp, even worse the walk from the cabin back to town.
The knot couldn’t be worked out. Bug had refused to touch her, Quinn was useless in that regard, so the shoulder work Tiffany did at the Collar’s the first honest physical therapy effort anyone had tossed Hope’s way. Hope groaned, moaned, produced a steady stream of noise, Tiffany standing behind her at the Collar’s kitchen table, Tiff a workhorse, slickened up to her elbows with Wesson Oil, the closest thing to massage oil available.
Sipe bided time, walking around the living room, looking at wall hangings, framed photos, Bug in military regalia, or looking out the windows at the sun�
��s decline painting abandoned machinery in molten light, or standing next to the couch, rubbing his cheek and staring at a glassy reflection in a TV that might have a dead picture tube for all he knew, the model a good decade out of production.
Not a word from Connie. Tiff not able to reach him, Sipe either. The cops could have him. He could be running through the trees at Millie’s side. He could be dead. The cops might’ve aimed for her, shot, hit Connie instead. That chopper they’d all heard might be medevac, Connie’s spleen in ribbons, a lung a flattened sac full of blood. Sipe kept deciding to get in a car, drive to the town, lay waste to everything in his path until he’d secured the package, but then reality would set in. Some of that mission might get accomplished, but not all of it.
Bug off in the kitchen, boiling water and boiling an easy-on-the-stomach egg for his mother and Tiff evincing that stream of orgasm-moans out of Hope at the kitchen table when a car pulled up outside. Tiff saw Sipe tense up at the window and she said, “It’s probably Henry. And Gwen.”
At that, Bug appeared in the doorway between the kitchen and the dining room. He goggled, Tiff’s arms glistening, Hope’s shirt tugged down around her biceps, both shoulders slick from Tiffany’s ministrations. Sipe could guess a generous amount of teenage cleavage was on display, Hope even looking up from under her brow at her savior, a knowing smile and dimpling on display, like that’s right, all this right at your fingertips and you never took the plunge. You, Mr. Bug Collar, are a dumbfuck.
Once Gwen and Henry were on the porch, Sipe opened the door and Henry blinked at him and walked in right past him, the tall woman queued up right behind Henry. She chewed gum. Gave Sipe a look he knew measured him and concluded he fell short in every category that mattered.
“What did you do to Lori’s car?” she asked.
“I got run into. Shot at.”
She nodded. Blew a bubble.
“This better be good.” And she was past him, into the house.
The Lipless Gods Page 25