Marvel and a Wonder (28 page)

“Yes?” she asked, and even hearing her voice, knowing it was really her, still in the same place, was enough for him. He hung up the phone, stared at it as if it might rear up like a rattlesnake and strike, and then shuffled off. He discovered a crumpled pack of smokes in the back pocket of his jeans, fingered one out, and started down the road, whistling a made-up ditty to himself. He was feeling reckless now; angry; lost.

About a mile and a half from the motel he found a bar, and a girl of age who was willing. The girl was young, no older than twenty-one, and although her chestnut hair and gray eyes were winning, her yellow teeth and dirty fingernails made him loathe her a little. There was a white and pink tattoo on her neck—a unicorn—and beneath its front paws was a pink swastika. She saw him staring at it and said she used to run with a white-power guy who got a job at a plating plant here in town. She looked like a cokehead or crackhead or junkie or some such thing. They did it in an alley, standing up, him turning her away, pants around their ankles. She did not stop talking. The whole time she was telling him about her hometown, Memphis; her caterwauling mother; the concerned stepdad; a job she used to have at a tool and dye plant; her voice bright, unending, a star growing fiercer and fiercer as Rick was trying to concentrate—“So my mom said if I didn’t like it I could leave, and after that I came up here . . . Wow, do you mind . . . my knees kind of hurt that way okay, thanks, and then I . . .”—but he was trying like hell to ignore her, glaring at the back of her shoulder, at the back of her head, the back of her left ear; he was saying something, some woman’s name, then he was slowing down, his thighs tightening against the back of the girl’s legs; then he came, and let go, and she fell on her side, looking up at him. He was digging into his wallet, unfolding bill after bill, and tossing them at her.

“You don’t have to do that,” she said, slowly picking up the bills. “I’m a person, you know. I’m a somebody.”

“What’s your name?”

“Wanda.”

“Wanda,” he said seriously, as if he had never heard the name before. “Wanda, do you know anyone around here who moves crystal? I’ve been out of town for a while and I’ve got a package I’d like to get rid of. You know anyone who can help me out with that?”

The girl nodded, shoving the rolled-up dollar bills into the front of her brassiere.

“You got their number?” he asked.

The girl nodded again, reached into her purse, found an uncapped black pen, and wrote the digits on the back of some religious tract. The faded, mimeographed cover was titled
The Beast
, the font grimly situated over a panel of red and yellow flames.

“Thanks,” Rick said, slipping it into the back of his jeans. “And Wanda?”

“Yeah?” The girl looked up at him, eyes glazed red.

“You oughta call your folks,” he said. “Because this town ain’t no place for a somebody.”

When he got back to the motel room, it was almost two a.m. He stood there smoking a cigarette outside the door, crushed it against the flat of his boot, and snuck back inside, climbing into bed. He lay there for a while, observing the cracks in the ceiling once again, thinking of old man Bolan, of the girl sleeping in the bed across from his, and slipped off to sleep, wondering what the old man could want with another horse.

* * *

Like a thunderhead, the shot rang out, creasing the air with a metallic crack, once again ringing in his ears, the old man startling awake, eyes penetrating the hoary shadows of the motel room, the smell of burned cloth and flesh, of copper, of antimony, of lead, the feeling of the projectile once again riveting his shoulder, knocking him back to the clotted ground, the crack of the bullet lodging itself somewhere along the back porch, metal striking wood, forever burying itself in the hand-painted grain of a colonial post. His heart was pounding so loud that he was sure it must have wakened the boy. He glanced over and saw that he was wrong; his grandson was fast asleep. The old man pushed himself on his side and stared at the clock, a blur of red dots and lines, tilting his head this way and that until he could read its digital face:
3:13.

He held his hand over the spot on his shoulder and was again startled, this time by the shape of the horse standing there, its great and tensed quarters confined by the smallness of the room. He sat up in bed, holding a hand out, the horse’s long eyelashes flickering before him, understanding at once that the horse had been sent here by Deedee, that if he could only put a hand to its mane, if he could only lay his palm against its milky throat, then somehow the horse would carry him to wherever his long-departed wife had been hidden. The bedclothes slid to the floor as he got up on weak, spindly legs, his breath as uncertain as his approach. When he saw the animal shudder, when he realized he was smelling its muddy, intestinal scent, he knew it was no figment, that it had come here to bring Jim Falls beyond the woods and green-capped hills to where his wife’s voice was a chiming wind, a solitary sound, where she was not just a ghost. But he hesitated, pausing there, bare feet on the green carpeted floor, seeing the boy lying there in bed, still asleep—like all sleeping children, looking younger than he really was. The old man worried what would happen to the boy, what kind of life he would live. When, finally, he made up his mind, turning to place his hand on the nape of the mare’s neck, he found it had disappeared.

* * *

Rick pulled himself from the bed, glancing down at his watch, unable to discern which way the two hands were pointing. Something was trying to kill him, something was trotting upon his head. He could hear the loud clang somewhere, echoing within the useless cavity that ran from his left ear to his right; a low, metallic thumping; and just then he was sure the girl had escaped. Shirtless, he crossed the carpet, throwing open the motel room door, certain he was going to see the dark blond hair disappearing in front of him, but the parking lot was lifeless: there was his truck and the trailer, three semi cabs, and a compact car parked at the other end, but there was no shadow of any kind of movement, no echo of a falling footstep. He glanced over his shoulder, saw the lithe form of the girl still in her bed, coughed a little, checked his watch once more. It was 3:20 a.m. He stumbled back to the uncomfortable bed.

A moment or two later, he heard the wallop once more, the sound ringing out with a distinct clang. This time he sat up in bed, calmly surveying the room, trying to trace the cause of the noise. After hearing it again, Rick stepped out of the motel room altogether, standing shirtless in the doorway, gawking at the invisible shapes of stray clouds hanging on the horizon, the whump coming once more, then again. Rick strode off barefoot across the parking lot, wincing at the sharpness of the gravel, following the sound to the rectangular trailer, standing beside it now, trying to get a glimpse inside, the horse striking its cleats against the floor. What he felt was an embarrassment then, the horse snuffling there, whinnying a little, eye to eye with the stranger gazing at him through the foggy window and ventilation slits, Rick buckling his pants and sliding the trailer bolt open, the bolt missing its lock, the door folding down into a ramp, the horse growing frantic in its movements, tail swinging this way and that, cleating the metal floor over and over, Rick stumbling up the ramp, the ripe putridity of horseshit and piss causing him to gag a little, searching around for a lead, a simple rope for the animal’s neck, bare feet squishing in manure and straw, whistling to the animal a little, placing a steady hand along its shoulder, talking to it, “Come on, now, come on,” the horse edgy at first, its anxiety as palpable as its smell, Rick finding the reins, the horse trying to turn but unable, clumsily knocking its head and forelegs on the side of the trailer. Rick, patient, tugged on the line again, the horse following now, steady, steady, steady, down the ramp, the parking lot reverberating with each step, then down, rearing a little, huffing, taking in the night air, the borderless gravel, the grandeur of the sky.

Whistling softly, cooing like a dove, around the side of the oblong building to a half-filled swimming pool—lounge chairs floating haphazardly in its deep end—the horse trailed behind Rick, ambling gaily, Rick stroking its neck, its muzzle, finding a green hose with a red spigot. He twisted it open and let the horse drink greedily from its spray, then, its thirst slaked, it sniffed at a row of mums and pansies that had been planted as border around the pool area. There, in the blue-green light of the half-f pool, stars reflecting in the frothy murk, the horse grazing on scrub, its gray-silver-white form ancient, unasking, Rick watched it like he had been made privy to someone else’s dream.

* * *

The boy stood beside his grandfather’s bed trying to wake him, but found he was unable. The old man was lying prone on his stomach, his face buried in a pair of pillows, floral comforter wrapped about his narrow body like a shroud. The boy began to panic, leaning over, listening closely for the old man’s breath, squatting there, staring at the stiff white locks of hair, the narrow ears covered in the same bristly fuzz, the neck long, badly wrinkled eyelids looking like they had been sewn up.

“Sir,” he muttered, clearing his throat. “Gramps?”

On the nightstand, in between the two single beds, the CB crackled and chirped. Some trucker from Arkansas by the name of Thunderbolt was spinning a loose one about a speed trap in West Memphis and a female cop—a
mama bear
in his own parlance—whose big brown eyes and wide hips were well worth the ticket and the lost time.

“Gramps?” Quentin shook the bed gently, watching the old man’s face. It did not move, did not tighten or twitch in the slightest. “Sir?” The boy sighed, panicking, his palms going moist with sweat. He put his hand on his grandfather’s ribs and gave them a harder shove. “Gramps?”

It was nearing eight a.m. and the boy had not eaten since sometime the day before. He put his ear close to the old man’s mouth, holding his own breath, listening hard, and there, clicking faintly against the still-glorious white teeth, was the sound of his grandfather’s respiration: insignificant, wheezy, the noise rattling softly there in the back of his throat. Angrily now, the boy shoved his grandfather’s chest, then again, the old, haggard-looking face still drawn up in ghoulish repose.

“Fuck this,” the boy whispered, and grabbed the old man’s wallet.

There was a vending machine at the end of the motel hallway with Stick-E-Buns and Pop-Tarts. The boy chose one of each, gobbling them up quick, standing beside the humming ice machine. He paused and thought of his grandfather, deciding to get him a stale-looking package of soda crackers. He leaned over and retrieved the crackers and then walked down the carpeted hallway, trying to listen to the sounds of other guests in their rooms. It was quiet. He thought he heard an electric razor, somewhere else a maid vacuuming. At the end of the motel corridor, a door on the right was ajar, and creeping along slower now, the boy paused, trying to glimpse inside. There was the sharp, snippy bark of a toy-sized dog, then another. Quentin peered around the doorframe to see an elderly woman in a pink Stetson and pink leather vest, white skirt ballooning above her knees, holding a pink Hula-Hoop, and through it—the hoop—one, then two, then three tiny white poodles were leaping. The boy stood there gawking, an unfamiliar smile breaching along his sturdy face, the woman whistling commands to the dogs, each of them yipping and leaping in reply. One, two, three, they leapt through the pink hoop, pink bows tied about their white furry necks.

Back in the room, the grandfather had not moved, a graying skeleton in a purple flower–patterned grave. The boy sat down on his bed, tearing open the Pop-Tarts, staring at the flickering images on the television set. A game show played on-screen. The boy watched for a few moments before the CB began to buzz again with garbled static.

“Old Rooster, you got your ears on? Over.”

The boy turned toward the CB, eyeing it suspiciously.

“Old Rooster, this is Happy-Happy. You on 17? Over.”

The old man did not move; the boy sat there, wondering what he ought to do.

“Old Rooster, got a line on that Texas trailer you were hunting. Over.”

The boy carefully set down the remains of his pink Pop-Tart and took the mic in his hand, awkwardly holding in the call button. “Hello?”

“Old Rooster, you the one looking for a pickup with Texas plates, hauling a horse trailer? Over.”

“Where is it? Over.”

“Got a twenty on that. Parked in a motel lot. Over.”

“Where?”

“Right off 65th Street. Name of the place is the Skyline.”

“Um. Okay. But . . . um . . . what’s 65th Street? Over.”

“That’s I-65. Across the state line in Nashville. Still carrying its load. Over.”

The boy stood, shoving his grandfather hard, forgetting the CB. The old man did not stir, though his breathing was louder now. The boy pulled the comforter back and saw there was a wide splotch on his blue-black shirt, the blood from his wound seeping onto the gray bedsheets and pillows.

“Gramps? You’re bleeding.”

He took the old man’s right hand and shook it hard, squeezing the brittle palm, feeling the unfamiliar rigidity of the hand against the soft flesh of his own fingers.

“Sir.”

“—”

“Jim.”

“—”

“Jim Falls.” The boy dropped the hand and muttered, “Don’t be dead. Please, Lord Jesus, if you are not just a children’s book, please don’t let him be dead.”

Slowly the boy reached out a hand and placed it over the old man’s mouth. It was warm. He could feel his grandfather’s breath faint against his palm. The boy pressed his hand down until the grandfather began to shudder.

One eye, bird-egg blue, finally parted open, the eyelashes like thorns stiffened by sleep.

“Come on, Grandpa. We got to go. They found her,” the boy murmured, the words as tremulous as the sun pausing there behind the dust-flecked curtains. “Grandpa.”