Boys in Gilded Cages (7 page)

“
I know,” Jack mumbled.
Eric extended his hand. Jack shook it limply.

“
You’ve got to firm up
that grip, boy!” Eric said with a grin. Jack gave him a courtesy
chuckle. “You need anything, don’t hesitate,” Eric said. “You hear
me? And keep me posted on your mom.”

“
Okay. Thanks,” Jack
said.

Eric got up to leave. “Bye, Son.”

“
Bye, Mister
Eric.”

The fire danced in front of the group of
friends – Petor, Harris, Santos, and a girl named Sinthia. Jack got
up to take a leak in the nearby woods.

In the thick of the woods, he hears an
ethereal echo: “Just because you’re in the woods, doesn’t mean we
can’t see you.”

Jack, knowing immediately who it was, zips
his pants. With his back turned, he asked, “What do you want?” He
turned toward Nathan, sitting crossed-legged in the dirt. “Why
don’t you just leave me alone?” Jack asked, frustrated.

“
Annoying, isn’t it?”
Nathan asked condescendingly. “Just showing up
uninvited…”

“
Stay dead,” Jack
said.

“
Coward,” Nathan said,
confrontational but calm.

“
I’m the
coward?”


“
Yup,” Nathan said,
unrelenting.

“What about you?” Jack asked, defensive.

“
What about me?” Nathan
said sternly. “And what happened to that cute little speech
impediment?”

“
Shut the fuck up!” Jack’s
voice was raised.

“
Not so meek when you’re
arguing with a dead man, are you?” Nathan taunted.

“
You’re not dead,” Jack
said with tears in his eyes.

“
What do you care?” Nathan
asked. Jack and Nathan glare at each other for a lingering second.
In the distance, Harris yelled, “Jack, who are you talking to?”
Jack looked back to find Nathan vanished, naturally.

Harris made his way through the shrubs and
weeds to find Jack standing there. He looked completely freaked
out. “What’s up?” He asked with a shaky voice.

“
Nothin’,” Jack
pouted.


“
We were looking for
you,” Harris said.

“
Where is
everybody?”

Jack, asleep to another documentary on the
History Channel, is woken by a knock on the door. It’s Eric Luptas.
He’s holding his hat. “Come on in,” Jack said.

“
How are you, buddy?”
Luptas asked.

“
I’m…um…tired.
Sleepy.”

“
Have you been
sick?”

“
No.”

“
It’s just, Ms. Luptas has
been asking about you haven’t made to speech class.” Eric Luptas
always seemed to walk on eggshells around Jack. “Can we
sit?”

Eric took a seat on the couch, and looked
nervous. “Jack, I’ve been a cop for a long time, and I’ve seen some
stuff, but this is by far the hardest part of my job, and I’m no
good at it. I’m gonna be as delicate as possible.”

All Jack could do was stare blankly. But he
knew.

“
How?” Jack asked, with a
disturbing numbness.

“
I don’t know,” Luptas
said. “They just found them. Dispatch girl says they were shot, but
I don’t know for sure.”

Jack, with characteristic coldness, asked,
“Where was she?”

Luptas sighed. “At a truck stop halfway
between here and Springfield. Thelma and that Tarrus fellow, they
were both in the back of his Semi truck. Been there for a
while.”

Jack stares down, maintaining his
expressionless demeanor.

“
Jack? You with me?”
Luptas asked. Jack made eye contact, tears welling.

“
Why don’t you just stay
with me and the Mrs. tonight,” Luptas said with sorrow and concern.
Jack gets up.

“
Why don’t you let me help
you get some stuff. Okay?” Luptas said in a father’s voice. Jack
shook his head no.

“
No?”

Jack’s brain was scrambled. “Will
you...um...like, um...stay...”

“
I will stay,” Luptas said
without hesitation.

“
Just for a while,” Jack
said, apologetic and pleading in tone.

“
I will do that,” Luptas
said.

Jack’s dissociative exterior started to
crack. Luptas put his hand on his shoulder. Jack teared up but held
it together. He sees Nathan for a split-second. Sitting on the
couch behind the two, he gives a knowing glare to Jack. Jack starts
to cry.

“
I knew. I already knew…”
As he starts to whimper, Eric rubs his back.

Eric eventually fell asleep. Jack, in an
altered state, curled up onto Eric’s chest, on the recliner. Eric
woke, but despite his surprise at Jack’s behavior, simply put his
arm around him.

The Cue ‘n Brew, where Thelma supposedly
worked the night she disappeared, was the town of Hawthorn’s only
bar. The owner, Billy Joe, was a well-intended but gruff man.

Billy Joe was cleaning the bar at about 7
o’clock in the morning, when there was a knock on the door. Cursing
under his breath, he opened the door to find Eric Luptas.

“
How’s it goin’, Eric?”
Billy Joe offered a pleasantry despite his work being
interrupted.

“
Okay, Billy J,” Eric
Luptas said.

“
Can I git you somethin’?”
Billy Joe asked.

“
A little early, ain’t
it?” After a pause, he gave in. “Yeah, a beer, I guess. Whatever’s
still cold.”

“
It’s always cold, my
friend,” Billy Joe said.

Billy Joe goes behind the bar and twists the
cap off a beer and hands it to Eric. Eric takes a seat. He looks
around. “I forgot how nice this place is,” he said.

“
Well, then,” Billy Joe
said, “You should come by more often.”

“
Ah, my jukin’ days are
over, Billy Joe.”

“
That’s why I got no use
for marriage.”

Eric nods in agreement. As Billy pour Eric’s
beer, he makes an observation. “Now, I know you didn’t come by here
and 7 o’clock in the morning to drink.”

“
You been watchin’ the
news?” Eric asks.


“
Mmhmm.”

“
Tell me what you know,
Billy Boy.”

“
Well...” Billy Joe said,
“one thing I know, she went home with a different guy every night.
She told one of the girls that it was a perk of the
job.”

“
She ever talk about the
boy?” Eric asked.

“
That autistic boy of
hers?” Asked Billy Joe.

“
His name’s Jack,” Eric
corrected him. “And he’s actually not autistic.”

“
Then what’s wrong
with—“

“
He’s got
dysnomia.”

“
Dysnomia?”

“
Yeah,” Eric said. There
was an elongated silence. “So, I’m gonna go ahead and guess that
no, she didn’t talk about him very much.”

“
Most of the stuff I know,
I heard from the other girls,” Billy Joe said.

“
Such as?”

Billy Joe hemmed and hawed for a second.
“He’d be caught talkin’ to himself. He said he saw his brother all
the time, like he didn’t know he was dead.”

Eric did his best to keep a stone face. “So
he was seeing and hearing stuff?”

“
Yeah.”

Eric was becoming more and more disturbed.
“He ever act violent?”

“
Well,” Billy Joe said,
“He was hanging out with those boys, you know. She said he’d come
home drunk and get mad and throw shit. But she never let on like he
beat her or nothin’. I don’t think he could take her, anyway.”
Billy Joe looked grave. “You don’t think he did it, do you?” Eric,
perhaps unconvincingly, shook his head no.

“
He stayin’ with you?”
Billy Joe asked, treading lightly. Eric was silent.

Billy Joe fidgeted for a second, battling
with himself whether to ask this question: “Does he know?”

Eric shook his head no, gently. “He’ll
probably never…”

Billy Joe intercepted Eric’s thought. “She’s
dead now. She can’t keep you from him now.”

Eric started to become emotional. His voice
cracked. “Ah, I can be there for him. Pay for college. Probably
bail him out of jail a few times...”

Eric and Billy Joe broke the somber mood
with a hearty belly laugh. “…But not knowing who I am is probably
the least of that boy’s problems.”

Billy Joe exhaled softly through his nose.
“He’s been lied to his whole life. No need for it. Just somethin’
to think about.”

Eric was eager to change the subject. “What
about that new man, Frank? Thelma ever say anything about him?”

“
She only worked a
couple’a shifts after she met him. I heard a bunch of details you
probably don’t want to hear. I know I didn’t,” Billy Joe said. “You
know how she was.”

“
Yeah. I know. Did you
know Frank?”

“
Hell yeah I knew him,”
Billy Joe said. “A real son of a bitch. Rough as a cob. Crazy too.
You think he did it?”

Eric thought for a minute. “Real easy to
come to that conclusion, ain’t it?”

The drive to Overland Park, Kansas was about
three hours from Hawthorn. Eric considered which path to take, so
as to avoid being spotted. Ultimately, I-70 proved the best option,
which wasn’t saying much.

He put on his hat and his sunglasses, and
walked into a trailer park with a sign for vacancies. He entered
the leasing office, ignoring the sign that asked patrons to remove
their sunglasses and hats.

An older lady greeted him at her desk. “Hi,
welcome! Can I help you?”

“
Uh, yeah,” Eric muttered.
“I need to rent a trailer for my son.”

“
And what were you looking
for? A one bedroom? Two?”

I need the cheapest trailer you have,” Eric
said. “I’ll pay for the entire year’s lease in cash today.”

The receptionist looked at Eric skeptically.
“The whole year?”

“
Yeah.”

“
What were you planning to
spend?”

“
Ah,” Eric thought for a
second. “Five hundred is probably my limit.”

“
Okay,” the receptionist
said with a returning sunny demeanor, “I think I have something to
show you.”

The trailer was decent enough. The bathtub
was rusted out, and the smell of rat feces was evident. The
receptionist wandered through the mobile home as if she was showing
a house in Malibu. “Central air, fairly new appliances, cable
ready. 350 a month.”

“
Why so cheap?”

“
It’s a cheap town,” said
the receptionist.

“
Yeah,” Eric asked, “how
big is this town, anyway?”

“
About as big as any town
in Kansas off I-70.”

“
Right. Any jobs around
here?”

The receptionist obviously wasn’t expecting
this many questions. “There’s a dairy farm near here. I think
they’re usually looking for somebody part-time.”

Eric nodded. “What about colleges?”

“
Uh...there’s a trade
school here,” she said. “Why are you renting here, if you don’t
mind my asking?”

Eric stammered. “This might be a
uh...getaway. There’s some huntin’ ground I’m fond of not too far
away.”

The receptionist put her hand on her hip.
“For your son, right?”

“
Yes, that’s
right.”

The receptionist relaxed her pose. “Let’s go
back to the office and get this started.”

The day of the funeral, Jack had all but
checked out. His face was sunken, and his eyes were fixed to the
floor. The Luptas family, along with Jack, walked into the
half-empty sanctuary of Hawthorn Baptist Church, and all eyes were
on them.

Marcia Cruz handed out the funeral programs
to people as they entered the foyer, and when she handed one to
Jack, she leapt at him, bear hugging him and sobbing. Jack could
have wilted up and died of embarrassment. Harris, Santos and Petor
were nowhere to be found.

Jack saw the silver urn containing his
mother on top of an altar that was inscribed: “This Do In
Remembrance of Me.” Above him was Father Redmond in an ill-fitting
suit, looking at Jack with a mixture of disdain for being a whore’s
son, and sorrow for his hell bound soul. Still, he gave a ten
minute sermon.