Authors: G.M. Ford
“What’s the difference? Either way, he’s gone.”
“Because . . .” she sputtered. “. . . because I don’t like being pushed around. I don’t like being handcuffed and dragged off to jail. Because I don’t—” “So this is about you,” he interrupted. His voice was sharp The tone brought her up short. “If you don’t want to help . . .”
she began.
“I just want to get the ground rules straight,” he said quickly.
“The ground rules are that I want to find out what’s going on here, dammit. I want to know how an Internet search could possibly bring that bunch of crooks to my door.”
He sighed and made eye contact. “People’s so-called rights are mostly an illusion,” Ken said. “Soon as things get tough, rights go out the window.”
She opened her mouth, but the look on his face swallowed her objections. Pain had taken root in his black eyes. All the stuff with his parents . . . the relocation camps . . . losing everything . . . all of it . . . didn’t take Dr. Phil to figure it out . . . their recent indignities at the hands of the government had loosened the cork in his bottle. His normal reserve had evaporated. He was more vulnerable than she’d ever seen him. She put a hand on his shoulder and left it there. Ken leaned forward again. He gestured toward the screen. “And this is with everything factored in?”
“Everybody between thirty and forty, male, Caucasian named Wesley Allen Howard.”
“There’s . . .” He scrolled down the page, and then again and again. “There’s two hundred seventy-three names,” he said finally.
“Apparently it’s a pretty popular name,” she said.
“Ya think?” he joshed.
“I can’t think of any other way to pare it down.”
“Me neither.” He shook his finger at the screen. “And that’s assuming this is all of them. It’s not like the Internet is a perfect source or anything either. There could be another few hundred of them out there, for all we know.”
“What we’re really looking for is somebody who was reported as a missing person about seven years ago.”
“Is that public information?” Ken asked.
“I don’t think so.”
Helen Willis folded her arms across her chest and stared out the window.
“We could call them all,” she said finally.
“And ask them what? Are you missing?”
“We could . . .” She paused.
“Think about it,” Ken said. “If they answer the phone, then they’re not the person we’re looking for. If they don’t answer . . .”
“Then maybe . . .”
“Then maybe they’re on vacation,” he finished.
“You’re so negative.”
“What I am is realistic.”
She walked back and forth in front of the windows. A winddriven mist hissed against the windowpanes, creating an impressionist landscape of dots and blots and wavering edges. Ken got to his feet. “You’ve narrowed it down as much as possible. I don’t see how anybody could do better.”
“Unless we got some help.”
“From who?”
She didn’t answer. Instead she crossed the room, all the way to the sink at the opposite end. “We could approach it from two directions at once,” she said.
Ken ambled her way. “How so?”
“We could try to find out if anybody by that name was reported missing in that time period.”
“From the whole country?” He shook his head.
“And I’ve got this,” she said.
“This what?”
She pointed to a pint glass on the windowsill. “This.”
The glass was old. The Coca-Cola logo on the side was beginning to fade. Half an inch of clear liquid filled the bottom. She tapped it with the tip of her finger.
“What about it?” Ken asked.
“The other night. The first time he ever spoke to me. Paul . . .”
She made a face. “I don’t know what else to call him.”
“What about the other night?”
“He helped me up here. He got me a glass of water.”
Ken’s eyes narrowed. “You’re thinking fingerprints.”
She nodded.
“That’s not something we can do without official help either.”
“I’ve got an idea about that,” she said.
“I’m all ears.”
She told him.
“It’s worth a try,” he said.
“First thing tomorrow.”
“Okay,” he agreed. “First thing tomorrow.”
He awoke to the sound of water. He imagined the gentle patter of rain on the roof above his room, the whistle of wind in the eaves, and the scrape of spring branches on the shingles. He smiled and nestled deeper into the covers. After a minute, however, the noise didn’t sound quite right. He opened his eyes, and then he recalled how they drove all the way to Alabama. Thirty-three hours straight. He remembered checking in to the cheap motel in the wee hours of the morning when she just couldn’t drive anymore. He pushed himself up on his elbow and looked around. Cinderblock walls painted a dull gray. The nightstand between the beds was scarred with ancient cigarette burns. The windup alarm clock read 7:35. The air smelled of old sweat and new mildew. He pulled his feet from beneath the covers, swung them over the edge of the bed, and set them down on the orange shag carpet. The shower stopped running. He could make out the muted sounds of Brittany moving around inside the bathroom. She was humming to herself. He found his jeans and his socks on the floor and slipped them on. He was bent over tying his shoes when the bathroom door opened. She had a towel wrapped around her head and another around her body. The former appeared to be a good fit. The latter exposed nearly as much as it covered. He found himself staring at the gentle curve of her hip.
“Oops,” she said when she saw him sitting on the edge of the bed looking at her. “Gimme a second here,” she said, pulling the towel closer around herself.
He redirected his attention to his shoelaces. He heard the towel drop and then the swish and rustle of fabric seemed to fill the room. Something in the sound warmed his innards. He attributed the sudden beads of sweat on his forehead to the hot moist air still rolling out of the bathroom. He rescued his shirt from beneath the bed, keeping his eyes averted as he buttoned up. His green Suzuki Landscaping jacket hung from a hook by the door. The black Nike bag sat on the floor beneath the jacket.
He pushed himself off the bed and walked over to the bag, rummaging around inside until he came out with a toothbrush and a nearly flattened tube of toothpaste.
“You done in the bathroom?” he asked.
“Sure,” she answered. “Go ahead.”
By the time he came back out, she was standing at the foot of the nearest bed dressed in a pair of jeans and a tight black T-shirt. A white arrow pointed upward. The bold lettering read my eyes are up here. She’d washed all the dye from her hair and cleaned the outlandish makeup from her face. “Whadda you think?” she asked.
“Looks good,” he offered.
She was picking at her dirty-blond hair. “I almost didn’t recognize myself in the mirror.”
“I like it,” he said.
“Really?”
“Yeah. You look pretty.”
“I figured . . . you know . . .” She waved a hairbrush in the air.
“. . . no sense making things any harder on the home folks than necessary.”
“They know you’re coming?”
“Uh-uh,” she said. “They knew I was coming, they’d probably move.”
The joke fell flat. She looked away.
He returned to his bag, replaced the things he’d taken out, and zipped it up. “They’ll be happy to see you,” he said.
“Don’t bet on it,” she said, stuffing yesterday’s clothes into a white plastic supermarket bag and then tying the handles together. The notion of being unwelcome stopped him in his tracks. The idea had never occurred to him. Without his realizing it, his dream of returning to find his former life was wholly presupposed upon the assumption that the people he’d left behind would be every bit as glad to see him as he would be to see them. The possibility that he would be turned away at the door sent shivers down the back of his neck. What if his sudden reappearance was an unwelcome intrusion into a new and satisfying life. What if the new life was preferable to the old and nostalgic reminders were unwanted. The prospect of rejection bounced around inside his skull like a steel ball bearing, clouding his vision, reducing him to slow motion as he shouldered his way into the jacket.
“Folks where I come from are real good at holding a grudge,” she said. She picked up the assortment of mismatched bags she’d brought inside. She raised her eyebrows. “You ready to go?” she asked. He nodded and picked up his bag.
Clouds of steamy breath preceded them onto the sidewalk in front of the room. The sky was a watery blue and devoid of clouds. In the distance a jagged mountain range showed its teeth. She unlocked his door and then circled the car and unlocked her own. The roar of a tandem rig pulled his eyes out toward the highway and the café on the other side. She started the car. The swish, swish of the windshield wipers sounded like a jazz drummer’s brushes playing counterpoint to the rattle of the engine. On each pass, the wipers pushed aside a microthin fan of moisture. Took a full ten minutes of swooshing back and forth before they could see well enough to cross the highway.
Rory’s Café was jammed with truckers, tiny butts and big guts, long wallets attached to their belts with chains. Down vests and soiled cowboy hats filled the dozen and a half stools running along and around a worn Formica counter. The service break was flanked by a pair of glass pie displays, where apple, cherry and pear, boysenberry and lemon meringue, coconut cream and a multitude of others competed for the gullet.
The front wall was lined with red booths whose venerable plastic cushions had been torn and taped and torn again until they resembled modern art. At the far end of the café, down by the restrooms, a couple of guys were on their feet, scooping up the check and dropping bills on the table for a tip. Brittany pointed and they headed that way.
It was the kind of place where everybody more or less knew everybody else and strangers were a matter of some scrutiny. The newly reincarnated Randy James heard the decibels of dialogue dim and felt the eyes poking at them as they made their way to the empty booth. Soon as they sat down, things went back to normal.
Brittany slipped out of her jacket and tossed him a menu. Before he could set it down on the table, a short Hispanic man appeared. He smiled and then wiped everything on the table, plates, glasses, cups . . . everything into a gray plastic tub. A final swipe with a damp rag and he was gone for as long as it took to find and deliver two fresh glasses of water. From behind the counter, a voice promised, “Be right with ya.”
In the booth behind Brittany, a quartet of what appeared to be locals erupted in gales of laughter and prolonged table slapping. The water giggled in the glasses. From the sound of it, they were drunk. Either again or still, it was hard to tell which.
“You’re not eating?” he asked when things quieted down and she’d made no move toward a menu of her own.
She made a face. “I’m not much on food in the morning,” she said. “But coffee . . . man, I got to have me some coffee.”
And she did . . . most of a pot, if he had to guess, sipping away contentedly while he put down eggs sunny side up, bacon, hash browns, and toast. He drank one cup of coffee and washed the rest of it down with water.
The new Randy picked up the check.
“I’m gonna hit the loo,” she said as they got to their feet. “I’ll meet you outside.”
He stood for a moment watching the sway of her hips as she pushed her way through the doors, then got in line to pay his check and was on his way back to the table to leave a tip when Brittany came out sauntering through the swinging door. She smiled at the sight of him, and he got that same feeling the sight of her wearing a towel had given him. She put a hand on his arm and was about to speak when a flannel-clad mountain blotted out the view. One of the drunks from the adjoining booth had wobbled to his feet. Fifty maybe, running hard to fat, his narrow red eyes nearly closed. Big wet lips hid a collection of brown rotted teeth. “Butcha see, honey,” he announced with a glance over toward his friends, “. . . my eyes are right there . . . right there on them nice titties of yours.” He reached out for her nipple with his thumb and forefinger as if to give her a pinch. His lips were pursed and making sucking sounds. She slapped his hand away. “Get lost,” she told him. From behind the counter, the waitress jumped in. “Stop it, Morris, you hear me?”
His friends in the booth were yakking it up, pounding on the table and spitting all over one another with glee.
“Oh, come on, baby,” Morris slurred. “Doan be that way.”
She tried to force her way past him, but he reached out to stop her. She tried to brush his arm aside but couldn’t budge it.
The waitress was leaning across the counter now. “I’m telling you, Morris. I’ll call the sheriff on the whole bunch of you. Don’t you think I won’t.”
“Shut up, Donna,” he slurred without looking her way. She headed for the kitchen at a lope. Morris reached again for Brittany’s nipple. His lips were making sucking noises again. That’s when the newly christened Randy hit him square in the mouth, sending a cascade of spittle, blood, and brown teeth arching out over the three mounds of mold still sitting in the booth.
The place was quiet enough to hear the sickening sound Morris’s face made when it hit the floor on a fly. Needless to say, Morris stayed down, his eyes closed, his ruined mouth agape, drooling blood onto the tile floor. After a moment he began to snore. His pals, however, had other ideas. Unfortunately for them, the story of their lives, once again, intervened. As usual, their timing was atrocious. They struggled to their feet just in time to confront reinforcements from the kitchen. Five guys wielding an assortment of kitchen utensils, the cadre led by a bald fellow in a stained apron clutching a metal baseball bat with both hands. “Get outta here,” he shouted. He waggled the bat at the curled figure on the floor. “Take him with you and get the hell out of here,” he ordered. The drunks made a brief show of manliness before two of them slung Morris’s limp arms over their shoulders and lifted him off the ground. The third ran ahead and opened the doors. The toes of Morris’s boots slid along the floor as he was half dragged, half carried toward the door. The guy with the bat wasn’t finished. He followed them out, pounding the head of the bat into his palm as he shouted, “You guys learn how to behave like civilized human beings, maybe you come back. Till then, I don’t want to see none of you in here no more. You hear me?”