“And what do we look like?”
“Careworn.”
Caleb’s mother smiled, cocked her head as if unsurprised.
“No trouble at home, I hope.”
“There’s always trouble, Sam. You know that.”
“Your husband?”
“Out of the picture.”
“Your oldest?”
She shook her head.
“Shame,” Sam said. “Terrible shame.”
Caleb’s mother picked up a picture frame from a wire shelf. It was a black-and-white picture of a younger man, head buzzed, goofy grin, head cocked to the side in adolescent cocksureness. Caleb figured it must be Sam as a teenager, probably taken when he was in high school, before he embarked on the tribulations of adulthood, stress and worry etching itself into his muscles and bones and face like dirt and grease from a hard day’s work.
“Heard about your father,” Sam said.
Caleb’s mom didn’t say a word. She didn’t move. Didn’t flinch. Just stood there frozen like she was trying not to exert any energy whatsoever.
“He was a good man. I wanted to pay my respects, but I didn’t want to be in the way. I’m sorry for that.”
“You knew Papa?” Caleb asked.
“Years ago.”
“They fought in the war together,” his mother said.
“Korea. Your Papa always had my back.”
“I didn’t know he was in the war.”
“He didn’t speak of it much,” his mother said.
“But you knew him?”
“Sure did,” Sam said.
“What was he like back then? What was it like to be in the war?”
“Caleb,” his mother said, shushing him.
“It’s okay,” Sam continued. “Let’s just say I felt a lot better with your Papa there with me. Let’s just say that.”
Sam picked up a rag from a shelf and wiped his hands before unwrapping a peanut butter cup. He studied the chocolate before taking a bite, turning it over, running his dirt lined fingernails along the grooves, then plopping it into his mouth. He chewed quickly, his jaw audibly clicking.
“What are you doing for work these days?” he asked Caleb’s mother. “I take it you’re sticking around here for a while.”
Caleb’s mother shrugged. “I’m figuring it out. Not much in the way of work around here it seems.”
Sam stuck out his bottom lip like he wasn’t surprised. “I could use a little hand around here. That is if you don’t mind getting dirty.”
“Not at all. Prefer it, actually.”
“Doesn’t pay much.”
“Doesn’t need to.”
“Good. Glad to hear.”
Sam had her fill out an application. Formality, he called it. Caleb helped her with her answers. For previous work experience she put down volunteering at First Baptist in Bartlesville, organizing canned food drives and Christmas toy fundraisers. Much of the rest was blank. Address. Phone number. Education. References. Nobody back in Bartlesville even knew where they were.
“When will you be able to start?”
“Right away. Today if you need me to.”
“And does”—he pointed to Caleb—“he have a place to go?”
Caleb’s mom hesitated. Just for a moment. Her lips puckered, eyebrows arched. It was like she was, for the first time, fully considering the consequences of her actions.
“I know of a place, and I hope I’m not crossing a line here,” Sam said, “but if you need a place to stay, I got a trailer for rent. It’s not the nicest place in the world, but it’s a roof.”
Caleb’s mom smiled at Sam. It was a forced smile. No teeth showing. Glazed-over eyes. Pupils narrowed. She looked embarrassed she had to ask. He’d just given her a job and now a home, but that didn’t mean her smile wasn’t genuine. If anything, Caleb’s mother had always been a grateful person. Grateful to others who gave. Grateful to God for his blessings. And this certainly was a blessing. Finding Sam. His generosity. They had been looking for him, but they didn’t have a number. Didn’t have his address. Just God looking out for them, and they found him within a week. That had to be it. His mom always said miracles happened when you least expected them. They could come out and bite you in the ass if you weren’t careful.
The rest of the day Caleb, watched old black-and-white movies in Sam’s office while his mother cleaned toilets, mopped floors, and disposed of bedpans, coming back every couple of hours or so to check on him, make sure he was okay. And he was. He ate a bologna sandwich with mustard and drank a cold Dr Pepper. He read a magazine he’d found, an old Sports Illustrated with Michael Jordan on the cover, and despite the dust and the weird chemical smell, he felt at home for the first time in a few days, like he could relax and leave his guard down.
After work they followed Sam down a two-lane highway until they found a dirt road heading toward the lake. The terrain was rocky and overgrown, the road walled in by thick woods. Squirrels darted through the underbrush, and long-abandoned homes crumbled inside the tree line, oaks sprouting forth from what once had been a bedroom. It was a wild place, full of energy and tasting like smoke. The road went on like this for about a half mile before giving way to a trailer park. It was a large place, much larger than what Caleb was used to, twenty acres surrounded by overgrown woods filled with blackjack oak and maple. The trailers weren’t much to look at, but were well-kept. Simple metal exteriors painted yellow or green or indigo blue. Out front, the tenants had smokers and lawn chairs. A few people were home, grilling dinner on charcoal grills. Near the back of the property was a long, muddy beach and a dock butting up against Grand Lake, a few fishing boats bobbing in the water. Sam owned all of it, he said, passed down from generation to generation. Large blocks of limestone littered the area, and hiking trails zigzagged through the woods. A large family of whitetail lived back there, nesting along the tree line.
Sam parked in front of a trailer near the back of the park. It was small and silver, the screen door rusting along the edges. Inside was a narrow kitchen with a sink, a stovetop, and a fridge. To his left was a laminate table with a couple of benches, and to his right a bedroom with two twin beds in it, the mattresses stripped bare and stained brown. It wasn’t anything like their old home in Bartlesville, which seemed like a mansion compared to this place, but it had four walls and a roof and insulation, and that was enough for now.
Caleb dropped his bags in the bedroom. On the wall, someone had drawn a picture with crayons. There was a snake in the middle, surrounded by women dancing. They had their hands above their heads and their tongues hung from their mouths. It was an odd picture, drawn by a child, the proportions all wrong, hands and heads way too large for their bodies, their eyes mere dots, but Caleb liked it nonetheless. He took it as an omen. This was a place where people could defeat serpents.
CHAPTER 2
THAT FIRST MORNING AT THE TRAILER PARK, his mother had already left for work when he awoke, the trailer smelling of coffee and toast. The sun had just broken the horizon, and faint light trickled in between the blinds, which wouldn’t quite close all the way. The place looked disheveled. The Bible lay open on the table, his mother’s notes left next to it. Last night’s dinner of SpaghettiOs hardened inside a saucepan on the stove, and he became overwhelmed with a debilitating loneliness. It wasn’t so much an abstract feeling. It gutted him. It weighed down his bones. He could feel it in his throat, a lump impeding his airways that was just as palpable and real as the old blanket on top of him, the threadbare pillow barely propping up his head.
He needed to get up. Idleness, he knew, bred sin. His mother had told him this his entire life, and so he got up and took a shower. The pressure was weak and the water was cold, dripping from the cracked showerhead, and so he made it quick, washing quickly as he shivered. Once dried and with his teeth brushed, he didn’t quite know what to do with himself. He could read the Bible; that would be what his mother would want him to do, but he wasn’t really in the mood. He felt
guilty about this, the taste of shame now latching onto the ball of loneliness in his throat, but his mother wasn’t around to chastise him. He’d save the Bible for later. Maybe in the afternoon.
Their new home was a mess, not just from the previous night but from years of neglect. Dirt lined the crevices of the cupboards, and the sink drain was oxidized with rust. The windows were opaque with dust and cobwebs, and water damage had warped the linoleum tile near the door. Wallpaper curled away from the sheetrock, and the carpet was worn thin, pockmarked with burn holes. He checked underneath the sink for cleaning supplies. A couple of rags, a half-empty bottle of Ajax. He found an old broom in the closet, its handle wedged between a couple of coats, but no dustpan. He started with the kitchen. He wetted a rag and wiped down the laminate, using his nails to dislodge what he thought was crusted cheese and mashed potatoes from the stove, knocking the crumbs onto the floor. He washed dishes the previous tenant had left behind the best he could, scrubbing at coffee stains with Ajax since he couldn’t find any dish soap. He then filled the sink with water and poured in more Ajax. Not much, but just enough for the water to bubble and turn chalky, and he started to feel a little better. It was good to be moving, to keep his hands busy.
Next, he focused on the floors. He swept first, opening up the screen door and brushing dust out the front door. The sun had risen, and birds chirped in the distance. It was still cold, but getting warmer. It was the first day of March, and soon he wouldn’t need his jacket anymore. Back inside, he got down on hands and knees and scrubbed the linoleum with a damp rag. It didn’t make much difference in the appearance. The lime tiles were still scuffed black from the soles of sneakers and work boots, both from him and his mother and from countless other residents over the years, the men and women and children who once called this place home. He wondered where they were now, what they were doing, why they left. He imagined one family: a mom, dad, and two sons. In his fantasy they didn’t have names. The father was a rancher. Wore plaid shirts and denim jeans every day, knuckles perpetually cut and bruised, never able to fully heal. The mother spent her days reading science fiction and fantasy novels and making decorative crafts to earn a little extra grocery money. She’d look back longingly over her teenage years, questioning the decisions she’d made throughout her life that had brought her there, but never for too long, for her own mother had always scolded her not to live in the past. The older brother would be ornery, constantly dirty, hands caked with soil, knees scuffed raw, staining his jeans in blood. Lips always curled into a mischievous smile. The younger brother envied him this, but didn’t want to be a burden on his overworked parents. Instead, he was studious, obedient, almost to a fault. Caleb figured they’d moved on to a place not unlike this one, Arkansas or Texas probably, doing the same things the same way, a life filled with routine and monotony, no chance of escape, either out of fear or lack of choice—Caleb wasn’t sure.
When Caleb was finished, he stood in the middle of the trailer, stretching his arms to see if he could touch both sides at once. It didn’t feel like home, but it was getting there, and so, satisfied with his work, he decided he’d explore the lake. Around the bank on the north side, the woods gave way to a clearing, and it was easy to traverse. For the first time in a long while, he didn’t shiver when he was outside. The air had a chill in it, but as he got moving, his body warmed and he was comfortable. Sweat even damped his forehead. There wasn’t a breeze to speak of, and so the lake was still. Across the lake, mansions towered over the forest canopy. Large windows reflected the morning sun, and the homes were built from stone and brick. In the distance he could make out Monkey Bridge crossing the lake. It was the only sign of life as far as Caleb could tell, cars and semis trundling past, people going to and from work and school, leading their lives in ignorance of what was to come. Caleb was jealous of that. Sometimes he wished he didn’t know the end of the world was near. That way he’d be able to lead a normal life with normal friends at a normal school, his only worries his upcoming math exam and if a girl maybe liked him in the same way he liked her. But he brushed these thoughts aside as quickly as they had come—no use pining for what wasn’t, his Mom always told him. He could only prepare for what was to come.
About a quarter mile from the trailer, Caleb came to a clearing. There was a sandy beach dotted with pebbles and trash and a large boulder near the back. In front of him rose a limestone bluff. It must’ve been sixty feet high. A lone pine grew out of its crest, jagged and bent, roots sticking out into the air without anything to latch onto. A path led to the top of the bluff. It wound around haphazardly, jagged with rocks, uneven and steep. As soon as he saw it, he knew he would climb it. An impulse that surprised him. Usually, he avoided heights. Anything dangerous, really. But this was a compulsion he couldn’t ignore, like trying not to eat a piece of pie on Thanksgiving.
The climb at the beginning wasn’t that difficult. Not too steep. Very few obstacles. But as he made his way higher, the grade grew steeper, and soon he had to use his arms to pull himself up, his hands searching for tenuous holds onto crevices and grips jutting out of the rock face. About halfway up, though, he got stuck. He couldn’t find a hold within his reach. He was cornered into the side of the vertical bluff at about a sixty-degree angle. To his right was a place he could grip, but it was three inches out of reach. The only place he could go was down. Unless he let his feet go and swung himself to it. The thought frightened him. Though he wouldn’t fall straight down the thirty feet below him, it’d be difficult for him to find his footing if he slipped. He’d tumble back down the stone trail, battered and bruised, most likely breaking a bone as he did. No one knew he was out there. He hadn’t told anyone. If he did fall, he could be there for hours before someone found him. Days even. He could die.
Then Caleb heard laughter. A girl and a boy. It came from above him, and at first Caleb was confused. School had started a few hours ago. There shouldn’t be any kids out there, and he worried he was hearing things. Maybe he was going crazy. After the exile, the desertion of his father and brother, after coming here, he’d somehow lost his mind and had started hallucinating. Then it came again. Laughter.
“You stuck?”
Above him Caleb spotted the source of the voice. It was a large boy, probably thirteen or fourteen, broad-shouldered, his cheeks still pudgy like a child’s, but the size of his neck like a grown man’s. Just his head peeked out from the side of the ledge. Next to him was a girl and a smaller boy.
“Can you reach that crack to the right?” the larger boy asked.
“No,” Caleb said. He reached again, but his fingertips fell just short.
“Wait right there.”
The larger boy’s head disappeared, and after a few seconds he reappeared at the top of the trail. He made his way down with ease, like he’d traversed this bluff countless times. His feet knew every stronghold, his hands bouncing off the limestone until he made his way down to Caleb. He braced himself with his feet and then grabbed Caleb’s hand, taking on his entire weight so that Caleb could grab the crack just to his right. He then helped Caleb all the way to the top.
The view wasn’t as grand as he’d thought it would be. In fact, it was disappointing. He could see for miles in each direction, every nook and cranny of the lake, the little alcoves and embankments. A few boats buzzed by. Fishermen probably, older men enjoying retirement. What struck Caleb, however, was the land surrounding the lake. In almost every direction he looked, the houses were in disrepair. Older, paint chipped, landscape overgrown. Crumbled chimneys. Fire-damaged roofs. There were a few nice homes, replete with glimmering pools and cabanas, but they were outnumbered at least fifty to one. It was the first time Caleb had ever been confronted with his own poverty. If he moved his and his mother’s trailer next to one of these mansions, it would look unseemly. It would be embarrassing. The rich neighbors would complain, their judgmental gazes locked upon their eyesore of a home, and for a moment Caleb was gripped with shame.
; “You’re the new kid, aren’t you?” the larger boy asked. “You and your mom just arrived yesterday?”
Caleb nodded.
“Name’s Scoot.” He reached out a large paw to shake Caleb’s hand.
Caleb introduced himself.
“This is Brandon.” Scoot pointed a thumb to the smaller boy. “And this is Catherine.”
Catherine curtsied like in those old movies his mother sometimes made him watch, and Caleb couldn’t help but find the gesture a little amusing. When done, she stood up as straight as she could and let out a loud, echoing belch, causing everyone to laugh.
“Why aren’t you in school?” Caleb asked.
“Why aren’t you?” Scoot asked back.
“I asked you first.”
Scoot smiled. “I like you.”
“We’re homeschooled,” Catherine said.
“All of you?”
They nodded in unison. “All of the kids here are,” Scoot said.
Turned out, Scoot and Catherine were twins, though they looked nothing alike, and Brandon was their stepbrother. Their parents had married about ten years earlier, after both their previous marriages had failed. Brandon never saw his real mother, who he said was addicted to meth, and Scoot and Catherine never saw their real father, who had a flair for blackjack and Tennessee whiskey.
“Don’t really miss him much,” Scoot said. “Don’t even remember what he looks like, actually.”
“So, what about you?” Catherine asked. “What’s your story?”
Caleb wasn’t sure how much to tell them. He had a desire to purge everything, his immaculate conception, the death of his Papa, his mother’s prophesizing the end of the world, the estrangement from church, the desertion of his father and brother. He had fears, was sometimes crippled with self-doubt about his ability to survive what his mother warned him was to come, but he also feared her reprimands, her disappointment in him. After what had happened in Bartlesville, he worried she blamed him. She told him she didn’t, but he didn’t quite believe her, her tone laced with insincerity. Instead, she told him to remain vigilant, to make better decisions going forward. She warned him of demons in human form come to stop them for the final fight between good and evil, but he wanted to trust Scoot. He wanted to trust Catherine and Brandon. They were kids just like him, and Caleb longed for someone to confide in besides his mother, to make a connection, some friends, telling them everything, it all pouring out in a rush while they nodded their heads and agreed that the world was weird and unfair and run by adults. Instead, though, he remained quiet.
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