A Tree Born Crooked (16 page)

“Hey, waitress! Waitress!”

James leaned over the table and grabbed the sleeve of Rabbit’s T-shirt. Rabbit turned around with a smirk on his face.
 

“I guess she don’t care none, ‘cause she don’t seem to be in no big hurry to get over here.”

“Shut up about the waitress. I mean, what’s wrong with you overall? You been jumping all over the place, more than usual, you can’t sit still to save your life, and you’re sweating like a whore in church. You got something you want to tell me?”

Rabbit slurped his soda, forcing the straw down through the ice to make as much noise as possible.

“No.”

James looked toward the restrooms and then back at Rabbit.

“You got something you want to tell me now, so that you can save a little bit of face in front of her?”

Rabbit abruptly pushed his plate away and started peeling tiny strips off his napkin. James wanted to rip the paper out of Rabbit’s hands, but instead tried to wait patiently until Rabbit spoke. His voice was a raspy whisper.

“I need a pill.”

James sighed and leaned back against the vinyl seat.
 

“You got a problem with this oxy bullshit you been pushing?”

Rabbit scooped the mound of paper curls into his hand and dumped them onto his plate. He wouldn’t look at James.
 

“I told you I needed to go back to my trailer. I told you. But you two just wouldn’t listen. You just love telling me what to do all the time. Rabbit, do this. Rabbit, do that. I needed one little thing. I just needed to get my stuff, but no, you ain’t got no time for me.”

James looked over and saw Marlena coming out of the hallway. He had been about to say something, but he clamped his mouth shut. He couldn’t decide if Marlena should know about this or not. She turned and went toward the front of the restaurant instead of their table, but James leaned over and spoke quietly anyway.
 

“Is this gonna be an issue? You better just let me know right now, ‘cause I am not about to drive all the way to Mississippi with a geeked-out junkie.”

Rabbit shook his head.

“No, it ain’t like that. I ain’t no junkie. I ain’t one of them dumb tweakers can’t get off it. Hell, I’m not even on it. I just get stressed out and I get nervous and then that nerve in my back starts acting up. Hurts like you wouldn’t believe sometimes, you know? Remember how I messed up that nerve playing football in the backyard that one time? I’m in pain and then—”

James cut him off. Marlena was walking back toward them with a take-out box in one hand and a receipt in the other.
 

“Is it gonna be an issue, Rabbit?”

“No.”

“Alright then.”

Marlena came up to the table and started squishing her sandwich into the Styrofoam container.
 

“I paid, so let’s go.”

Rabbit stood up and shoved his hands down in his pockets.
 

“Marlena, I didn’t mean it like that, what I said to that lady.”

She closed the lid on the box and tossed her hair back. The anger was gone from her face, but she wasn’t smiling. James suddenly realized that there had been no reason to talk secretively. Marlena had known all along what was going on, and she was worried. James wondered if he should be more concerned than he was.
 

“It doesn’t matter.”

Rabbit pulled the Jeep keys out of his pocket.
 

“Still want me to drive?”

James snatched the keys out of Rabbit’s hand.

“No. If it’s alright with Marlena, I’m gonna drive for a while. And you’re sitting in the back seat.”

NINE

James rolled over on the lumpy mattress, trying to find a spot that didn’t have a spring about to break free of the few centimeters of padding and stab him in the back. It was no use. He sat up and opened his eyes, letting them adjust to the orange glow created by the streetlight filtering in through the window’s thin curtains. The Palms motel had advertised $39.99 a room on the yellow marquee beneath a blinking pink and green neon palm tree, and the rooms definitely reflected the rate. James had planned on making it to Pensacola before they stopped, but Marlena suggested they stay away from the big cities. No one had outright said it yet, but James could tell she was worried about being followed and found before they had a chance to get to Waylon. Besides, the lack of any real sleep was beginning to wear on everyone. Rabbit had stayed silent since Tallahassee, sweating and grinding his teeth in the back seat, and Marlena and James hadn’t spoken much either. They let the static-plagued radio channels fill the void in the Jeep and lull them into the subliminal state that only long stretches of highway can induce. More than once, James was startled as a Mack Truck came screaming past him. When Marlena pointed out the sign for the small town of Fountain, James had no problem making the turn.

They found The Palms about three miles off the highway, on the outskirts of town. It was wedged in-between two other motels and all of them looked like they housed more permanent residents than travelers. Across the road was a package lounge, an adult superstore, and a KFC with an empty parking lot at seven in the evening. When they pulled up to the motel, a domestic squabble was playing out in the doorway of one of the rooms between a fat man in a pit-stained undershirt and an emaciated Puerto Rican girl in pink high heels and a tube dress hiked awkwardly up on one thigh. James didn’t give them a second look. He didn’t care. He had given Marlena some cash, and she came back with two keys for rooms on the backside of the building, facing the tiny pool.
 

He had slept hard, despite the uncomfortable bed. But now he was wide-awake, listening for the nasal sound of Rabbit’s breathing from the double bed next to his. James kicked off the thin, starchy sheet and fumbled for the light switch on the wall between the beds. By the time he found it, he already knew what he was going to see: an empty bed. Rabbit was gone.
 

“Goddammit!”

James pushed himself out of the bed and pulled on his wadded-up jeans. He struggled into a T-shirt and grabbed his wallet and cell phone from the top of the broken TV. The bathroom was dark and the door open, but he checked just in case. A palmetto bug cowering behind the toilet was the only occupant. He took out his cell phone and called his brother, but it went straight to voicemail. He searched around for the motel key, but realized Rabbit must have taken it. Then another realization dawned on him. He pulled his wallet out of his back pocket and opened it. There had been three hundred dollars in twenties left after he had paid for the room and a bucket of fried chicken. Like Rabbit’s bed, his wallet was empty.
 

James kicked the wall, leaving a dark scuffmark, and then regretted it. Marlena was in the next room over. He didn’t want to wake her up if he didn’t have to. James found his duffle bag, checked to make sure that the .45 had bullets and stuffed it into the back of his jeans before pulling on his jacket. He glanced at the clock radio on the nightstand. It was just past midnight. Rabbit couldn’t have been gone for more than three hours at the most. James quietly shut the motel room door behind him and walked down the open, cement hallway, past the ice machine, to the half-empty parking lot. Fortunately, Marlena had held onto the keys and the Jeep was still there. James glanced around the parking lot, but it was deserted.
 

The clerk at the all-night package lounge across the street was of no help. The large, doughy man with a scraggly neck beard didn’t even look up from the newspaper he was reading when the bell on the glass door rattled. James scanned the store, bathed in blinding, flickering fluorescent light, before he approached the clerk behind the counter.
 

“Excuse me?”

The clerk didn’t look up.
 

“You believe this shit?”
 

He pointed to one of the personal ads in the paper.
 

“Single white female seeks divorced white male for long-term relationship. Enjoys shopping, sushi, and movies. Social drinker, non-smoker, refined taste.”

The clerk smacked his hand down on the paper and looked up at James.
 

“What’s a woman want with a divorced man? What kinda kinky routine is that? ‘Less she already wants him broke in. Probably wants him rich, too. And what the hell is sushi?”

James patiently answered.

“I think it’s some kinda fish.”

The clerk looked contemplatively back at the paper.
 

“Oh. Well, I been known to fish a time or two. Might have to give this one a call.”

He folded the newspaper in half and smoothed it out.
 

“And what’d you want, anyway? You want something from behind the counter or what?”

“I’m looking for my brother.”

The clerk stood up and made a point of surveying the store.

“You got eyes. You see somebody in here?”

James took a deep breath and tried again.

“I can see that he’s not in here right now. I’m wondering if he might of come in earlier. Maybe an hour or two ago.”

The clerk thought about it a moment.
 

“Real tall? Dark hair? Kinda girly looking?”

“Just the opposite.”

“Can’t help you then. That’s the only one been in here since near eight o’clock. Little fruity, if you ask me.”

James thanked the clerk, who ignored him and unfolded the newspaper again. The door slammed shut behind James and he stood in the parking lot, wondering what to do next, when a woman with a bruised cheek covered in flaking makeup walked across the road from the motel and approached him. She was disappointed that James wasn’t looking for company, but didn’t mind having a conversation with him for free.

“What, that jumpy little fella? You two related? You don’t look like you related.”

“Unfortunately, we are. So you’ve seen him?”

The woman unashamedly picked at her underwear through the back of her see-through dress and nodded.
 

“Sure. He come down here maybe an hour ago. Real high-strung, that one, huh? I’m just saying, he looked like he could use a cold shower or something. Speaking ‘bout a mile a minute, too. I could hardly hear what he was talking ‘bout.”

“But you did?”

“Yeah, finally. Wanted pills, you know. I sent him down the road to Bodie’s place. Well, it’s his sister Oveta’s place really, but the way you hear him tell it, he owns the whole damn street. Acts like he’s some kinda gangster, but I swear, that man can hardly button his own pants up. You think a girl looks like me should have to put up with that shit?”

“I try to stay out of other’s relationships. You said he went down the road?”

“Yeah. It ain’t far at all. Which is another thing Bodie ain’t got going for him. Got no incentive to get off his lazy ass and get me a car, so I’m stuck in this dump all day and night. Ain’t exactly the Taj Mahal.”

James didn’t even try to look sympathetic. She finally gave up and pointed at the road running alongside the motel, perpendicular to the highway.
 

“Just go on that way. Can’t be more’n three quarters of a mile. There’s a couple houses down there, but look for the one that got Christmas lights still on it. Oveta’s so dumb she don’t even know you supposed to take ‘em down, or at least turn ‘em off, by the end of January. She got lit up reindeer still in the yard and everything. I don’t know which one’s more retarded, her or Bodie.”

James nodded and thanked her. She called after him as he was walking away.
 

“And you tell that dumbass man of mine he better show back up here with something I don’t gotta smoke. He knows I got asthma problems, but he acts like he’s too stupid to remember. Keeps showing up with that weed when he’s sitting back at his sister’s on a pile of pills he don’t want to share. Just selfish.”

James kept walking, but gave her a thumbs-up sign over his head. There were no streetlights on the road, but the moon was half-full and bright overhead. James followed the broken yellow line down the middle of the asphalt and looked up at the crisp stars. He wondered what Marlena thought about when she stood out in the dewy grass at night and watched the sky whirl above her. When she had told him about doing that, he could imagine the edges of her face in the starlight. He wondered if she stood with her arms at her side or held out, as he had often done when he was a child looking up into the cosmos. He wanted to watch her watch the night.
 

~ ~ ~

Rudolph wasn’t the only lawn ornament glowing in the darkness. There was a snowman lying on its side, but still lit up, and a plastic Santa Claus that had been kicked in the face. They looked like they had been there for a while, not just since Christmas. A string of colored lights blinked on and off along the railing of the sagging front porch. From the street, James could hear thrash metal playing inside. There were no cars parked in the yard, though, so James didn’t think it was a party. It was just a weeknight at the fun house. A ragged cat hissed at him and ran around the side of the house as he stepped onto the porch. He felt the pressing weight of the gun against the small of his back as he knocked on the door.