Little Bastards in Springtime (41 page)

“Do you ever wonder why things happen?” Samuel asks, when we’re charging down the highway again. I was hoping he’d be the tough silent type, but he’s got a few things to say.

“Yeah, I guess—doesn’t everyone?”

“No, I don’t mean
why is the bus late?
or
why did my teacher give me a bad mark?
I mean, don’t you ever find yourself really wanting to know why certain big events happened, you know, in history and politics. Why the course of the world is as it is?”

I look over at Samuel to see if I can tell from his face what kind of answer he’d like.

“I do wonder,” I say.

“You see, a European education!” Samuel proclaims. “Here kids just swallow and regurgitate, no thinking, no wondering, no asking questions.”

“A European education,” I repeat. “You could call it that, I guess.”

I wish Papa would show up in the cab, he’d love to sit up here watching America slide by, talking about why things are as they are. And Dušan, he’d lie on the narrow back seat wearing his headphones, sleeping and smoking the whole time, pretending he didn’t give a shit where he was or why what is, is. The truck roars down the highway at a steady pace all the way through Maine, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and I feel like I’m in a trance that will never end, staring out the window at trees, fields, the edges of towns that go on forever. I love the highways that run through cities, when you’re so high up and sail by buildings right up close and have clear views of the streets and shops and factories and even into backyards and windows and can see people walking on the sidewalks doing their shopping and kids cycling and hanging out. I imagine what this ordinary day is like for those people, how they live in their city at different ages in their lives, through the seasons, how they think about it, and I get this feeling that maybe I could settle down in a city and live some ordinary days too, in between learning everything there is to know about the world’s crap and taking down the hypocrites and bullshitters.

By the time I’m dizzy with hunger, when Samuel finally pulls into a big service centre complex for dinner just beyond a city called Hartford, dusk has fallen. Samuel has talked on and off in a drowsy voice about conspiracies and mega-conspiracies and convinced me that the whole world is connected in creepy ways down to the last mayor in the shittiest little town, down to the dirtiest whores in the slimiest port, right up to the Pope, every head of state, every secret service, every arms manufacturer who drums up wars, every contractor who goes in after to
rebuild what was destroyed, all just doing business. With each other. In secret. It’s kind of like religion, Samuel’s logic, everything has an explanation and it all makes total sense, especially the parts that are most unbelievable.

We eat half an animal and a field of corn and potatoes and watch the light dim away to nothing outside the restaurant window. We sleep in the cab, Samuel on the back bench, me on the front, my stomach straining and painful, while the clothes I’ve grabbed from the centre’s Lost and Found dry in the laundromat. I dream about Mama on her hands and knees scrubbing the floors of our apartment back home, of militiamen packed into our kitchen cooking up a stray cat, of Dušan waiting at our local barber to shave his head monk-style, of Wounded Belly Boy Eddie trapped and terrified in a basement filled with swinging cow carcasses, all kinds of crazy weird shit. And there is Papa in the distance, on the river, in a kayak, shooting down whitewater rapids, his paddles like windmills, water spray glistening like jewels high in the air.

When Samuel wakes me, it’s four in the morning, the night has not lifted, a fine rain is falling, but I’m happy to get moving. In the laundromat I dress like a trucker, in denim and flannel, but none of it fits. Everything flaps and drags and makes me look small.

“We’ll get you a monster breakfast in a few hours,” Samuel says when he sees me. “Don’t you worry.”

We roll past early-morning towns, our lights plunging through fog, our roar heard by no one. I sense people asleep in their beds, I imagine the shape of their lives, I sip coffee. We say nothing until day has come, grey and drizzling, until we’ve stopped at a diner and eaten breakfasts that could feed a family back home for a week, bacon, sausage, steak, half a dozen eggs,
a pile of pancakes, a pile of French toast, hash browns, a plate of toast, butter, jam. And for dessert, hot chocolate with whipped cream, five cigarettes chain-smoked together standing under the awning, as we sniff the sweet smell of the fields beyond the parking lot.

‡ ‡ ‡

S
AMUEL STOPS JUST OUTSIDE PITTSBURGH AND
I climb down from the cab like an ancient bowlegged cowboy. Two days, one night in that tiny rolling living room, with Samuel interrupting his stories about capitalist-secret-societies-that-run-the-world to blurt out newsflashes for tourists. Sailing off the coast of Maine, mountain climbing in New Hampshire, whale watching in Massachusetts, fly-fishing in Connecticut, fields where bloody battles took place in Pennsylvania, every nation has had its civil war, that kind of thing. And New England autumns. The colours. He has no words for those. It’s nothing like old England, Samuel says, which he thinks I must have visited since in his American mind it’s extremely close to Sarajevo.

He’s going north, I’m going west. I wish I could keep going with him, but there’s nothing for me up there but more skulking around in cracks and crevasses. As I shut the door, he shouts, “The biggest conspiracy is that there are no conspiracies. Do the research, do the research.” And there I am, standing blinking in the vortex of giant highways as they collide and tangle around each other on their journey to somewhere else. A million tons of steel roars in every direction, racing to get stuff to where it needs to go just-on-time, America’s vast
gas-guzzling warehouse on wheels. The sun is a small white dot in a clear blue sky. Samuel has told me to wait until this time tomorrow. A friend of his will pick me up, a friend going all the way to L.A.

Wind and dust, a huge wasteland of tough weedy grasses, this is where I am. I flutter like a puny flag on a spindly pole as I figure out what to do. I can’t stay here, I’ll be blown high into the air like garbage thrown from windows, like fumes sucked into the ozone from a thousand shiny exhaust pipes. I’ll never find my way back down again. So I pick an off-ramp and walk along its soft rutted shoulder. It takes half an hour to get away from the massive four-leaf clover, over an hour before I’m out of range of the high-pitched whine of tires and pistons, before I smell manure, leaves, standing ditch water containing frogs, reeds, fallen branches.

Then, it’s just a quiet country road, one that farmers use to get to their fields with tractors, pickup trucks, hay wagons, combines, manure spreaders, maybe even the odd horse-and-wagon to entertain the kids, or at least, that’s what I’m imagining. It makes me calm. I picture haystacks, piglets, mud ponds, apple trees, warm, sweet-smelling milk, grass-stained eggs. But I see no farmyards around, only a house every now and then, with clapboard siding and flowering bushes.

I sit down at the side of the road like a kid waiting for the school bus. I know they do that here, drive all around the countryside picking children up one by one. I listen to birds, to insects, to frogs, the breeze, a lawn mower in the distance. This spring day is acting like summer. I try to think about my life in a clear way, the lessons, the advice, the experiences so far, to see what they say about this moment. I’m tired again, and hungry. I don’t have any money. As always, I think about Baka and how
they starved in the mountain forests but beat the Nazis anyway, but it seems different here, without all that group camaraderie and possibility of death and glorious triumph to urge you on. If there was a pay phone I’d make a call to Mama. I’d tell her that I’m okay, that I’m not doing anything bad, that I’m on a path to good, or whatever. I’d call Sava and say, we’ll meet again maybe when the time is right, maybe we’ll go to university together like my baka and djedica did. Maybe we’ll even study the same thing. I’d call Dr. Ghorbani and tell her, it’s true, I was having a conversation in my head with you the whole time.

I walk a few feet from the road, into high grasses and budding bushes. I find a sunny patch, I curl up, I fall asleep. When I wake it’s dusk, the sun is just a streak of purple on the horizon. I sit up and listen for the sound that woke me. I hear a car racing fast along the road, I hear voices laughing and shouting, and loud bangs, the sound of violent impacts at high speed. I get up, brush myself off, step out into the road to see what’s going on, and there is a pickup truck barrelling straight toward me. It squeals to a halt just a foot away and five teenagers jump out. One of them is holding a baseball bat.

“What’re you doing here?” the boy asks me, sauntering into my space. He’s jittery and aggressive, I recognize the state. For a moment I think he wants to whack me in the head with his bat, so I stand my ground, put my fists up, fire back at him with a snarl.

“What are
you
doing, a-hole?”

He steps back fast, and I feel the old power thrill. “Hey, no disrespect, man,” he mumbles, “it’s just mailbox baseball, man. It’s the best.”

“Oh yeah?” I say. “I’ve never tried it. Any of you guys have a place where I can crash tonight?”

The boys stare at me for a moment. “Where are you from?” Bat-boy asks.

“I’m just trying to get across the country. I’ve got a ride tomorrow. I need somewhere to crash.”

“Nah, can’t do it, man. Parents.”

“Nowhere you could sneak me in? Someone’s basement, a garage?”

“You might rob us or kill us in our beds, man. We don’t know you.”

“Hey, look at me. Do I look like I’d do that?”

“You can’t tell that shit just from looking at someone.”

“A car. I’d sleep in your truck here. I’d be gone early.”

“It’s not going to happen, man. Get a hotel or something,” Bat-boy says, then gestures at the others. “Let’s go, c’mon.”

“Please, guys. I’ll take whatever.” I can’t believe I’m begging from these ridiculous brats. I really want a place to sleep, I really want them to give a shit. I feel shaky, it’s strange, kind of like I’m going to fall to pieces.

The kids don’t care, they pile back into the truck and race off up the road, one of them hanging out of the window, the baseball bat cocked over his shoulder. They disappear around a corner and I hear another bang, the sound of wood splintering, loud shouts and whistles. At least they don’t have guns, I think.

Darkness suddenly envelops me. There’s no moon, there are no street lights or house lights, I can’t see anything except the very last of the day glowing in the western sky and a few jagged tree silhouettes. I stand shivering for a moment, then force myself to keep walking, eyes strained for a porch or garage light. But there’s nothing, I’m completely blind, every footstep forward is into a black void, and sounds of snapping branches and rustling leaves start to freak me out. I have a
strong feeling of presences on the road in front of me, mangy, starving animals or giant humans with hulking shoulders and wild, unnatural faces. I think I can see them, darknesses in the darkness, and I stretch my arms out to ward them off. I cringe and duck as paws come at me, as huge heads loom above me. I light my lighter, but all it illuminates is my grimy fingers. Soon I’m standing totally still; I can’t get myself to move in any direction. And, for the second time in my life, fear possesses me completely, a primeval demon devouring every last shred of rational thought. It takes over in sharp jolts to my heart, electrocution-style, and spreads out through my veins to every cell of my body, until I’m slippery with sweat, until I’m vomiting bile, until I know I’m under attack, I’m being tracked by the sniper with his night-vision goggles, by the soldier with the loud footsteps who won’t ever stop following right behind me, just a breath away, by the packs of rabid wolves who’ve taken possession of the world, in a perpetual night that contains nothing but danger and dread and death. I sit down on the freezing gravel, there’s nothing else to do, running away has never worked. I cover my face with my hands, I fold my head to my chest, I squeeze my eyes shut, I try to breathe slow and steady. And I wait to die, shot in the head, strangled from behind, ripped apart by rabid teeth, whatever my fate has in store for me.

B
UT NOTHING
happens except that time goes by, it could be half an hour or three hours or a thousand years, and then I hear a car. Fear surges again, but it’s countered by a small, shiny gleaming of hope. There is only one option left when you’ve given yourself up to the worst and it doesn’t come: prepare for something better. Humans, I think. Humans are unpredictable,
but any human driving from somewhere to somewhere in a warm car is better than enduring this night and this dark alone. So I stand up and turn to face the headlights coming toward me. When they’re close, I raise a hand like I’m hailing a cab, and in that moment the car swerves and bucks, then skids to a stop and stalls. It starts up again and rolls toward me. When it stops beside me, a man shoves a big shaggy head out of the window.

“Jesus Christ,” he shouts, “what the hell are you doing out here at this time of night?”

“I got caught by the darkness,” I say. My voice is quivering like a little boy’s.

A woman’s voice calls out, “You scared the bejesus out of us, standing there like a zombie.”

“Can you give me a ride?” I try not to sound like a demon-possessed crazy boy.

“Where to?” The man opens the door and gets out. He’s got massive arms, a huge gut, and he towers over me like a fairy-tale giant. “Who are you?” he asks.

“I’m, um, I’m just travelling through.”

“You don’t have a bag.”

“Yes, where are your bags?” the woman calls from the car.

“To where?” the man asks.

He has crossed his arms over his chest. Is he a cop?

Feeling desperate, I begin to bullshit. “Hey, guys,” I say. “It’s been a long day. I was riding with a friend and his car broke down. I tried to hitchhike but wasn’t getting rides. I left my bag with the car …”