by Grant Farley
The guy looks at me. “No. But if that driver gets ahold of you, you’ll wish you were.”
That’s no way to talk to a dying kid.
“What about the blood?” I ask.
“Blood?” He laughs. He actually laughs.
He lifts my hand to my mouth, and I taste the tomatoes.
There’s blackness like looking through the wrong end of binoculars. The blackness is starting to close in. They roll me into the back of the ambulance. I see the Ace’s back framed by the door.
The blackness is closing in.
It’s not all over.
The blackness . . .
Not all over . . .
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Crazed Balloons
Charley steps from the trailer into the porch room holding a breakfast tray. He’s been waiting on me like he thinks he can pay me back for all the times I took care of his toes. He sets the tray on the table next to my bed. get well balloons bump against the ceiling above him and I have that same floating feeling, like my head is bobbing around waiting for the rest of me to show up so I’ll be heavy enough to stay down. I close my eyes . . .
Hey, kiddo.
“Mom?” I open my eyes and squint against the colors of her beads and yellow muumuu. Charley is gone, and one of the balloons is drooping toward the floor. She looks over at the empty tray. “You feel up to a visitor, maybe two?”
“Suurree . . .” I close my eyes.
RJ?
It’s her freckles that first shimmer into the for real. Then her hair brushes my arm and she’s sitting on the edge of the bed.
“Theresa?”
“I’m sorry,” she says. “I didn’t understand about your birds . . . the flying, and all . . .”
I drift away. When I open my eyes again she’s still there.
“You know,” she is saying as my eyes flicker open, “they picked me for over-the-line just to get back at you. Not ’cause they thought I could play.”
My mind drifts, but I keep my eyes open so she won’t disappear, until I figure out she’s talking about that last over-the-line.
“I should’ve walked away when I saw you sitting on that curb.” I feel her body shift on the bed.
“No, you shouldn’t . . . have . . .” I mumble. “The joke is on them.”
“What?”
I drift again and wait for my brain to form the words. “You are better than me . . . better . . . than all of them . . .”
RJ. You awake?
A sharp pain smacks the bruise on my shoulder.
I open my eyes and Manny is staring down at me. He’s wearing our black tee and jeans, but looking more like Nino every day.
“Damn, Manny, did you just slug me?”
“Yeah, I did.”
“Wha . . . why . . .”
“Theresa just kissed you and ran out, dude.”
“But I wasn’t even awake to . . .”
“Well, we’re good now. She was gonna kiss someone someday—she wasn’t ever gonna be a nun—so it might as well be you. Just don’t do it again.”
“But I didn’t even do it . . . the first . . . time . . .”
RJ, wake up . . . Doctor says you should stay awake as much as you can.
“Suurree . . . I’m awake.”
“Man, you’re a freaking legend now.”
“Yeah? . . . You should have been there, Manny. You left me hanging, dude.”
“Listen to me. I went with Nino-’n-Smitty up Dead Man’s Gorge when you were doing the Banzai.”
“What . . .”
“Only a couple guys were there. The rest were down watching the Run. They ran off just seeing Nino. Nino-’n-Smitty burnt the tree. Well, they half burnt it. They were worried the hills would catch fire.”
“So that’s why you weren’t there?”
He looks away. “There’s only the Ace and a few of the Jokers left. Some of the others got the guts to leave after they saw you do the Run. But you got to watch out. They’re full bore, and they’re out to get you even more than before. The old man, too.”
I try to focus on his words, but they’re weaving in and out like a dream.
“Hey, RJ, it’s like you’re a million miles away. You in pain?”
“Feels like I been beat all over. Doctor says no broken bones . . . I got a concussion.” I laugh and then don’t know why I’m laughing and so I laugh again.
“What can I do?”
“Tell me a story, something funny.”
He’s quiet, and I hold back another laugh just watching his eyebrows scrunch as he tries to find himself a story.
“Bueno,” he finally says. “Remember that Lone Ranger set I gave you when we were little? It had a mask and a toy gun and silver bullets. It wasn’t your birthday or nothing.”
“Yeah, I remember.”
“Didn’t you ever wonder? I mean, I didn’t have money to just go and buy something like that without it being a birthday or nothing.”
“No, I didn’t wonder. I just figured you stole the stuff and you were fencing it to me so Abuelita wouldn’t catch you.”
“I didn’t steal it,” he says.
“Yeah? Is this the story?”
“You tell this story to anyone, RJ, and I’ll . . .”
I lift two shaky fingers. “I swear.”
“Adelita and Maria were taking me shopping with them over in San Luis. Nino-’n-Smitty had just fixed up that little red Ford Falcon convertible that Adelita and Maria shared. You remember that car? They dressed me in my Sunday jacket, put me in the middle of the back seat, and drove with the top down into San Luis.”
I lie back and listen to his voice like through a fuzzy speaker. It’s good to have someone else do all the talking.
“They got me a haircut, the shortest I ever had. I kept rubbing my head, feeling the skin under the fuzz. They took me to the store and let me pick any toy under five dollars. Remember, RJ, you were loco on that Lone Ranger from those black-and-white Saturday-morning reruns? Galloping around with the heigh-ho Silver mierda and ta-tum-ta-tuming that song. So when I saw that set with the toy gun and the silver bullets and the mask, I picked that. Then they took me to JC Penney. We went to the ladies’ section. To the ladies’ underwear section.
“Hey, RJ. You listening to me?”
“Suuure. Ladies’ underwear . . .” I laugh.
“The women were all fussing over me. I got the jacket, I got the cut, and at seven gordito can be cute. Adelita sat me down in a chair next to a table piled with chones. Maria was behind me, telling the saleslady about our Abuelita, who embarrassed them because she wouldn’t go out to buy any new bras. So they were going to buy a bra for her. I was holding that Lone Ranger set on my lap still wrapped in the plastic. Maria told the saleslady they didn’t know Abuelita’s size but they got that part figured out ’cause they brought something about the same size. Then I felt this silky thing slide over my head, and I knew right away it was a bra cup. All the ladies were giggling. That one is too small, Maria says. Adelita ordered me to look up ’cause I’m staring down at that Lone Ranger mask locked in the plastic. That one is too big, Maria says. Then I felt this stiff cup fit right over my head and I knew what was coming: That one is just right!”
I’m laughing so hard I got to hold my head to keep my brain from popping.
Manny ain’t laughing, though, and I try and hold back in case he didn’t want it to be funny, but it’s no use. “Don’t know if that’s all made-up, but I didn’t know you could lay down a tale like that.”
“You’re the one who taught me to lie, RJ. But that story is the truth. There’s more. When we got home, I gave that Lone Ranger package to you without even opening it ’cause I didn’t want it no more.”
“Manny, you got to admit there’s a funny side.”
“I watched you all these years,” he says like he don’t hear me, “and I always remember you back when you were seven with that Lone Ranger shit. ’Cause that’s what you are, RJ, a pinche Lone Ranger. It’s like you ride from one adventure to another, without ever letting anyone touch you. All these years and no one can get close to you except maybe Charley, and maybe not even him.”
“That was a great story, but you shouldn’t have messed it up with a moral.”
“There’s something else. Listen to me, RJ. I ain’t playing Tonto ever again.”
Don’t know what that means . . .
“RJ! I’m done with that, you hear me?”
I’ll think on it later . . . All I see are the Blackjacks’ faces bobbing . . . bobbing like these crazed balloons.
CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE
Ablutions
Something is wrong. Something that just woke me. Not a dream, something wrong outside the trailer. A numbness around the edge of my brain that makes it hard to think. It’s too quiet outside. Very dark and very quiet. Something . . . someone was just here. I feel it. I sit up on the edge of the bed. The room spins. A balloon skitters on the floor. My head feels like there’s a freaking worm nibbling at my brain.
I pull on my jeans and T-shirt and slip on my shoes. I walk to the screen door, the floor making waves under me. It feels like the end of night, the sky fading to purple at the edge. What is it about the color purple? I should remember . . . The first bird screeches somewhere far away. I step out the door, down the back steps, and around the empty coop.
A red pentagram drips from the side of the trailer and in my head I’m back in that farmhouse facing old man Leguin for the first time with Charley asleep on the floor. But this pentagram is in the for real. It covers the toe end of the trailer where the sibs sleep. It’s still dripping fresh blood.
Peabody lies in the dirt with a crushed head. I’m moving like in a dreamworld . . . getting rags . . . wrapping the body . . . fighting down the gagging . . . and dry heaving on the hard dirt. I bury Peabody out in the field.
Then I stumble through the back door and step up out of the dreamworld back into the real trailer and I go to the can and scrub my face, my hands, my arms, scrub until it hurts. Then scrub some more. I swallow a couple aspirins and run my head through the water. The pentagram and Peabody aren’t just about revenge. The Blackjacks have sent me a warning.
No. An invitation.
I put the bottle of aspirin in my jeans pocket and sneak past a sleeping Charley out to the Stingray. The Banzai Flyer is dead. I promised Charley the Stingray, but he’ll have to wait. I hop on and kick off and glide under the dark sign and onto the street. The chain holds—Charley has already fixed it. Then I ride, pedaling like all my trips to Mr. Leguin’s have melted into this one.
My right side throbs from the bruises and my legs ache as I pedal. The head pain is creeping back. But the gliding through this cool air has cleared my brain a little. The sky is pink around the edge but still dark blue overhead. Black clouds are drifting up over Big Mama from the ocean. There’s a feel and smell in the air that hasn’t been there all summer. It’s going to rain.
Even from the top of the hill, the old man’s house looks wrong. I leave the bike in the bushes at the top of the hill and creep down. The pain is back in my head like the little worms are feeding again. There’s a black dot flicking down the sky. So even the Old Tumbler came back to the old man. It’s sad seeing that even he couldn’t escape all this.
Where are the Blackjacks? I stick to the shadows and come up behind the sheds. There’s no sound except my own breathing. The root cellar is off to my left. I edge along the shed until I come to the corner where I see the house. It’s a dark shadow against the dawn. The front door hangs open on one hinge. I force my feet to move, one after the other, across the yard to the house. The windows are jagged edges of glass. I sit on the porch step like I’m between two worlds, and I almost reach for a glass of sherry that isn’t there, and hear a whistle laugh that’s only in my brain. I shake my head and bite my lip until I taste blood to force myself back to the here and now. Then I stand up and walk through the busted door.
The old man’s chair and couch have been slashed to shreds. Pieces of a spindly-legged table and broken glass litter the floor. My footsteps echo on bare wood. The sliding door is closed. I open it and blackness oozes out at me.
“It’s time you visited the root cellar.” Leguin’s voice scratches out of that dark like little bird pecks, and it’s no dream.
“I thought you were . . . I was afraid you’d be . . .” I’m standing at the doorway, talking at the big shadow in the corner that I know is his bed.
“Dead? They have been afraid to kill me, thus far. This destruction is merely the residue of their fear, a fear that inevitably will lead them here. We have little time remaining.”
“Right. We got to get you out of here.” At least my headache has faded back to little wormholes.
“First you will take me to the root cellar.” Now I can just make out his outline sitting up in bed, propped against the wall.
“No way. I gotta get you off this place before they come back.”
“Light it,” he says.
The candelabra sits on the dresser. I use a match to light enough candles to give the room some flicker. He’s wearing that funky brown suit.
“Okay, let’s go.”
“Over here.” He nods at the floor by his bed.
I take a breath and step closer, knocking something that clinks on the floor—empty jars of Gerber Chicken and Noodles with Peas.
“Water.” He nods at a for real gold cup lying in all that mess.
“You want water? There’s no time. They could come back any moment. You can have all you want to drink when we’re gone. Come on, let me help you out.”
“No.” Rank breath seeps up out of his mouth.
“We got to—”
“First water. Then the root cellar.”
Root cellar? I’ve got two choices: drag him out kicking and clawing, or go along with his craziness as fast as I can and hope I can coax him out of here before the Blackjacks return.
“Okay, I’ll get water from the kitchen. Then we haul ass out of here. We do the root cellar another time.”
I grab the gold cup and rush to the kitchen and fill it and rush back.
“Here.” I hold it to his lips.
“No.” He jerks his head away. “Put it down. Take off my stockings.”
Great. Just when I think things can’t get no more weird.
“I ain’t . . .”
His eyes in that candlelight stop me. The melting blue has frozen into these ice cubes surrounded by the web of wrinkles.
“Ablutions,” he says.
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, but we gotta get out of here.”
“We must perform ablutions to purify and humble us.”
“I showered yesterday, and I already been humbled plenty.”
“First, you will wash my feet.” He twists around so his feet are dangling over the side of the bed and his wrinkles all scrunch up around the eyes, showing some kind of major pain.
“Like hell.” But there’s something that’s got hold of me and there’s no choice but to follow it to the end. “Okay. Let’s get it over with.” I hold my breath, kneel down in front of him, and grab a black sock that don’t hide the twisted thing inside it. I picture Charley and all our trips to the shoe salesladies.
I pull off the sock and stare down at clawed toes and a foot swollen like he’d walked barefoot across India like some pilgrim.
“Yes, I am afraid they are grotesque. Arthritis. We are in something of a hurry. I suggest you begin.”
“Huh? Right . . .”
“Dip your fingers in the bowl, and then lightly wash the feet, proceeding downward, culminating in the toes.�
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Even though it looks melted, his heel feels dry. Like it’ll crinkle up and blow away. I rub the water around on his skin, feeling his stare, but I don’t look up. I got to be one sick dude, ’cause this is like the closest I ever felt to another person in my whole life. Even closer than to Charley.
“Now finish by sprinkling a little of this, and I will do your feet.” He’s holding a glass bottle with a picture of the Virgin etched on the side.
“Is that holy water?”
“It’s from Lourdes.”
“We could use us a miracle about now.” I sprinkle the water over his toes.
“I have been saving this for longer than you can imagine.”
Nothing happens. I knew it wouldn’t. “Maybe it passed its expiration date.”
He whistle-laughs. “Now it is time for your ablutions. You will have to hold the bowl. I’m afraid my hands are not capable of that.”
“You ain’t touching my feet.” Why hadn’t I ever thought of being on the other side of this? “No way.”
“Indeed, I am.” He climbs off the bed and his whole body is shaking from the pain. “It is necessary.”
I sit on the edge of the bed and undo the laces. He pulls off my left shoe and sock. A shiver goes up me when his claws touch my bare foot. The water is cool. His hands shake, but they’re gentle, like when he was holding the Old Tumbler. His fingers slide along my heel, over the bottom, around the side, down the top, and then touch the toes.
I close my eyes.
Maybe when I open them I’ll be back on the porch that first day and this’ll all have been just a nightmare. I open my eyes. But I’m not back on the porch that first day. The old man is still hunched up in front of me like one of the shoe salesladies. But that don’t mean this isn’t a nightmare. He grabs my other foot.
He stops before he gets to the toes. He’s breathing hard, trying to hold in the pain. “I . . . I’m afraid that will have to do.” He leans against the side of the bed, sucking air.
“I got some aspirin.”
He shakes his head.
“Yeah, I guess you need something a whole lot stronger.”