Driver's Education (31 page)

Randal rips at a second piece of venison jerky. “I don't know if he's nuts,” he says. “Or just terribly lonely.”

“I think it's possible to be both.”

Despite the fact that we know he's the sole resident of Buford, when Fred reemerges we don't immediately recognize him. He's lost the worn jeans and the denim shirt. He's replaced them with wrinkled wool pants and a navy blazer that looks like it once fit him, before old age began to steal his height. The red ball cap's been exchanged for a turn-of-the-century top hat that says M
AYOR
in some regal font; the elk whistle for an oversized gold key. Beneath his nose is a fake mustache that's been too hastily attached: it slants at a forty-five degree angle.

“Welcome to Buford,” he says, his voice tripping into a Kennedy-ish accent: canned, practiced, forced. The result of watching too many filmed speeches.

“Oh, Jesus.”

He shakes each of our hands, again. “I'm Mayor Cornelius Buford, and it's my pleasure to welcome you to our humble town.”

I say, “Fred, please. We need to
leave
.”

Randal asks, “Wait. Your last name is also Buford?”

He pulls at the corners of his mustache. I keep waiting for him to fix it, to straighten it, but he doesn't; he's content with its cockeyed placement.

“All of us who've served as the mayor of Buford have been called
Buford.” He taps the brim of his hat with a crooked finger. “A bow to Major General John Buford, if you will, for whom Buford is named.” Then: “Now, what can I do you for?”

I place both hands on the desk. I spread my fingers, lean forward. “Look,” I say. “You know what you can do for us. You know our car has broken down. You know we're in a hurry. You said you could help. So
please:
HELP.”

He returns to fondling the edges of the mustache, plucking the polyester hairs as if they were guitar strings. “I believe you're confusing me with the keeper of this shop, son,” he says. “A fellow named Fred. I won't hold it against you—it happens more often than I'd like to admit. He's a good man, Fred. Can be lazy. And always a little late with his property taxes—but a good man.”

“This is hell.”

“No, son, this is Buford.” And then: “Now, what's this about a car?”

Randal steps forward; his hands are folded and held at his waist.

He says: “Mr. Mayor. What my friend is trying to say is that our car broke down and we're in quite a hurry—”

“That's actually
exactly
what I said.”

“—and that someone—someone else who is an entirely different person than you—told us we might be able to find some help here.”

“We're always happy to help here in Buford.”

“That's wonderful to hear.”

“I'll introduce you to Henry.”

“Henry?”

“The town mechanic.”

•  •  •

He leads us through the door behind the cashier's desk and into an office that doubles as a living space: a crisply made bed in one corner; a table, file cabinet, and hot plate in the other. The whole place smells like cedar and old mothballs. Along three of the walls are racks of hanging clothes, the countless uniforms this man wears to inhabit an uninhabited town. Some of the garments—a custodial uniform and a waiter's dinner jacket, for instance—appear as if they've gone through heavy use. Buttons missing
and the cotton frayed. A doctor's lab coat, though. A referee's jersey and a policeman's belt—those all gather dust.

He tells us to make ourselves at home: Randal sits on the bed, and I find a fold-out chair hidden between the file cabinet and the wall. I flex my toes in my shoes; I drum my fingers impatiently on my knees. On the desk I notice a framed picture that's been recently polished. It's of a younger Fred: his hair mostly full and windblown, his cheeks smooth and fleshy and tan. His arm is coiled around the waist of a young woman whose head is wrapped in a red bandana, blond wisps sneaking out from the edges. Her head leans against his chest; they both smile. Above them is the road sign Randal and I saw and read on the outskirts of town. Except in this photograph, there is a single difference. The population reads “2.”

I ask, “Who's this?”

He's busied himself with the racks of clothes, filing through the outfits in search of mechanic's overalls.

“That, son, is the first lady of Buford,” he says. “Mrs. Marlene Buford!”

I look toward Randal, who is looking down.

“And where is she now?”

“She's hiking. Buford has some of the most renowned hiking trails in all the West.”

“How long has she been hiking for?” I hear myself ask.

He's found the overalls. They were tucked behind a forest ranger's coat. He takes them from the hanger and clutches them to his concave chest.

“Nineteen sixty-two,” he says. He wraps one of the denim straps around two fingers on his left hand. The corners of his eyes become smooth, wet. “There's no better hiker than Marlene Buford.”

I lift the frame from the desk. I squint at the picture, the oldness of it, the way the color around the edges has faded to a glossy white.

•  •  •

Once he's changed into the overalls, we lead the man who might be Fred, but who is now called Henry, to the spot where Lucy has stopped. In a flurry of caked oil and dirt, he pops her hood and—whispering to himself—examines her insides. He tells us it won't be long—a jiffy—and
insists that we explore the surrounding wilderness (“beautiful country, by God, the most beautiful country you'll ever see”) to occupy ourselves while we wait.

Due west of the trading post we find a barely-there trail and follow it. It meanders past stout shrubs that prick at our calves and whose feathery needles become stuck in our socks. It climbs brief hills and then dips into thirsty dry ditches. Above us, the dying sun pulses pink against the sky.

After ten minutes of walking we come across a tree that springs from solid rock. It grows gnarled, like a rope that's been twisted too many times, and it has needles instead of leaves. We consider the tree's bark, and its roots, how it draws water and whatever else it is that trees need from unforgiving red stone. There is a wooden sign, a trail marker that promises that this specific tree has beguiled travelers since the first train steamed along the Union Pacific Railroad. We read it three times over. We read how this thing has come to be, how the men who laid the railroad intentionally diverted the tracks so this tree could live.

“I wonder how long this is going to take. It can't take long. We can't afford for it to take long.”

“It won't take long.”

Randal sets his pack on the ground and unzips it so Mrs. Dalloway can get some air. Wander around in the wilderness, if she likes.

“She's practically a cougar, after all,” he says.

She pokes her head out into the open, but that's it: she stays crouched, her eyes wild and attentive, darting between the insects that dot the air, the shrub's dry branches.

Randal leans down and scratches the bald space between her eyes. He digs into the outside pocket of the pack for the baseball we conned from the Gangster. Tosses it into the air once, palms it before it begins to fall.

“Catch?”

I pull a needle from the rock tree and snap it in half. “Sure,” I say.

I trot about ten yards from him, to a spot between a flat-topped boulder and a cluster of rabbit holes, and we begin tossing the ball back and forth, watching as it makes dull arcs in the dissolving light.

“I wonder what happened to her.” Randal jogs to the left, catching one of my off-centered pitches with two hands.

“Who?”

He hurls the ball back. It grazes the tips of my fingers and then bounces against the red dirt.

“You've got to work for those, McPhee.” Then: “The first lady of Buford.”

“Maybe he killed her.”

“He didn't kill her. She went hiking. She disappeared.”

“He dumped her body near the Continental Divide.”

“It's so heartbreaking—the way he's waiting for her to come back.”

“He cut her body in two. He put half of her in a river that heads west, and half of her in a river that heads east.”

Shadows pool around us. Fifteen minutes ago they were slight and anemic, but now they form indeterminate shapes. A lion or a butterfly at the base of a tree; two people kissing or the Empire State Building along the side of a smooth boulder.

Randal holds on to the ball—he doesn't toss it back to me. “He didn't kill her, Finn. You know he didn't kill her.”

“I know that. Obviously I know that. But it makes a better story, doesn't it? Very Stephen King. Very
Shining
-esque.” I lift both hands. “Here,” I say. “Throw me the ball.”

He pitches it to me, but this time it's harder than before. He doesn't rock back on his heels and lob it; he winds up and fires off a fastball that collides against my right palm with a dull, persistent sting.

“Do you ever consider that what we're doing might be wrong?”

“What are we doing?”

“I don't know. Changing all these stories,” he says. “Lying.”

RANDAL BAKER: Is it on?

FINN MCPHEE: Do you see the red light?

RB: I see it.

FM: Then it's on. (
Pause
) Try to look into the camera, not at me.

RB: But you're sitting behind the camera. When I look at it, I'm looking at you.

FM: Moving along.

RB: Okay.

FM: You've been wanting to do this for a long time. Are you excited?

RB: I guess?

FM: Try to answer in complete sentences.

RB: (
Sighs
) I've been wanting to do this for a long time and so I guess I'm excited.

FM: And what is it that you're doing?

RB: You know what it is that I'm doing.

FM: Yes,
I
know what it is that you're doing, but the people who are going to watch this, the people who are watching this DVD,
they
won't know what you're doing.

RB: Fine. Fine, okay. In a complete sentence: I'm here to set the record straight about what really happened during the road trip I took with Finn McPhee.

FM: Excellent. And why are you doing that?

RB: Because you asked me to so that these interviews could be a special feature on the DVD edition of the movie that you and your dad made. Because, according to you, audiences like to know the real story.

FM: Okay—I mean, don't say that. The audience shouldn't know that. Say something else.

RB: How about this—It was either this or sue you for making up shit about the things we did.

FM: But neither of us really has the energy to go to small claims court.

RB: Right.

FM: So here we are.

RB: So here we are.

FM: Let's move on. Why don't you bring us up to speed on what you've been up to over the past few years? Just explain how this all came about.

RB: After our little adventure, you stayed in San Francisco for another sixteen months.

FM:
Finn stayed in San Francisco for another sixteen months
: talk about me in the third person.

RB: Christ. Okay. After our little adventure,
Finn
stayed in San Francisco for another sixteen months.
He'd
just lost his job, and so I'm guessing
he
felt this overwhelming urge to get
his
shit together. (
Pauses, raises eyebrows
)

FM: Keep going.

RB: All right. I think he also stayed on the West Coast because there was the issue of his dad. I don't think either of them would ever admit this, but I really do think that Colin and Finn spent the last five years intentionally trying to misunderstand each other and distance themselves from the mistakes they'd both made. Basically, the father hated the son because he
fucked with reality for a living, and the son wished that the father could learn to lie a little better. But then Finn's grandfather, who was the biggest con artist of them all, died. (
Pause
) Are you sure you're okay with this?

FM: Yes. Just keep going.

RB: So essentially I think death reintroduced the father to the son and the son to the father. It got them reacquainted with each other in that way that only death is capable of. It made them rebond. Reconnect. And then, because this is a totally normal thing for a father and a son to do, they made a movie about it.

FM: Explain how that happened.

RB: I can't believe I have to pretend that you're not you. (
Pause
) Finn wrote the book, and his dad adapted the script. Then he called one of his few existing contacts in L.A., someone who still owed him a favor, and they made a fucking movie. A multigenerational story about two kids racing across the country while a man deals with his dying, larger-than-life father. They used some of the original footage Finn shot during our drive, and then they cast two actors to play us and recreate the road trip. Guess what they named them?