Mr. Splitfoot (21 page)

“ID, please.”

“You want to see our driver’s licenses?”

“Correct.”

“But we’re not driving.”

“You’re trespassing. There’s no walking allowed on the highway.”

I look at them blankly. “Walking is against the law?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

The cops give us a lift to the next exit, another town where the houses have lights in each window. Homesickness raises questions like, Why don’t I live in a house? Why am I punishing El? I don’t know the answers, but walking can untangle knots, spread things out, so at least I can see the strands: walking, mothering.

We pass Walmart, Walgreens, Starbucks. Everything is new in this town, even the trash barrels. A man mowing his lawn watches us as if he’s on patrol. The town playground has forts, tunnels, platforms, and a padded surface. A father and daughter are heading home for supper. The sun is sinking behind the trees. Three teenagers, a girl and two boys, are on the swings, pivoting on pointed toes. Each of them wears headphones. Each of their faces is illuminated by the glow of a smartphone.

El told me that she worries about kids today, about me. She said we’re screwed because we’ve never known life without the Internet. And then she told me a story about the first time she heard Linda Thompson sing, “I hand you my ball and chain.” “You know Linda Thompson?” she asked me. “Of course,” I said, because I know everything now, that’s my job, to know one drop of shallow information about every single thing. El told me how she was driving home from work years ago, before the Internet, and how the radio station broadcast that Linda Thompson song and, like a tractor beam, it took her over, prickled her skin, lifted her up. Her body felt every signal the Earth was issuing, every twitch of spring coming in the winter air was palpable on her forearms because that song’s so good and it spoke to her. And Thompson’s voice. El pulled over just to listen. She waited through three more songs, frozen with a shred of paper she’d picked up off the floor, the receipt from an oil change. She waited with a pen in hand, like her life was depending on hearing that fast moment when the DJ would rattle off the name of the lady who sang that song. Hear it now or lose that beauty forever. The DJ said the name. El wrote it down. She drove twenty miles to a record store, ordered a CD the guy working there had never heard of, waited two weeks for that guy to call, drove twenty minutes back to the store, and left with Richard and Linda Thompson’s CD in her hands, holding it above her head like some Jesus cross umbrella, a relic of protection against death because she had found it and it had found her, and the chances of that encounter were so very slim.

El said that kids today never sit still long enough to see how the river changes. What, she wondered, was going to happen to people who think they know everything? What’s going to happen without chance? Good question.

My back aches. I’d like to stretch out on my side on the bench, but a janitor is securing a padlock on the trash dumpster out back. They lock their garbage here. Even the teenagers eye us suspiciously. We stay upright until the janitor and the teenagers are gone. Ruth and I climb to the highest platform on the “Play Structure.” We’re hidden. Ruth takes everything out of our bags. She even pulls out my broken phone. I look at its dead screen but not for long. It’s not like it’s going to come back to life again. She distributes blankets and extra clothes around my body, tucking them behind my back, between my knees as needed. Ruth knows how to make a bed. She takes nothing soft for herself but lies flat on her back looking up at the sky. She rests one light hand on the baby.

I’ve come to think of Ruth as the father of my kid. She takes care of us in a way I’d hope a father would. Ruth will smile the day this child is born. No one will smile more because the baby is hers too now.

“You remember your mom, Ruth?”

She shakes her head no.

“I do.”

She stares at me, wanting to hear more, but it takes a moment to think of anything nice about her mother. It’s actually hard to come up with even one good thing. Finally I get, “She had long, pretty hair like yours.”

Her eyes open wider, so ready for information her mouth gapes. Ruth is one big ear.

“I lived with her when I was a kid. It was a bad idea. Your mom was nasty. She’d tell El, ‘You’re fat. You’re lazy. Should’ve burned your face instead. Would have improved your chances for finding a man.’” I’m giving shape to a dark room in Ruth’s head. “Your mom was a drunk but we stayed. A house, a yard. I went to a good school, ate good clean food. El never left me alone with her, not when I was young.”

Ruth plies a bit of hair from the corner of her mouth.

“Your mom seemed to think that being cruel to El equaled being nice to you. She was twisted by guilt, and I’m sorry she was your mom, but I’m glad you exist, Ruth. I’m glad she had you.”

Ruth turns to keep me from saying anything too nice to her. But fuck it. I can be as nice as I want to Ruth. Why shouldn’t I? Someone ought to. I can even say I love her if I want. What’s she going to do? Tell me to shut up? “I love you, Ruth.” I hope El gets the message too somehow. “Thanks for coming to get me. Whatever this turns out to be.”

Night comes down and her breath deepens. Millions of stars overhead make the violence of the Big Bang clear. So much force that matter is still sprinting away from the center. I feel the velocity of space pinning me to this platform. I’m tiny but I’m going to be someone’s mom, someone’s everything. I touch the baby. None of this is easy to believe. The stars leave streaks, we’re moving so fast. Ruth breathes heavily. One small scintillation above—a gossamer thread of light—gathers oceans, every word ever spoken on the radio, each calorie of sunlight ever captured and stored in a kernel of corn. You know. Things like that. And the star beside it: the tongues of every lizard, spider, leopard. If spiders have tongues. One day the sun will suck us in. I’m not too angry about that. Lying in these stars, despite them, somehow I can imagine my child seat-belted in a minivan while I stress the importance of sharing chocolate Easter eggs or stuffed toy pandas or bags of corn chips with the other children. And I’ll mean that being alive matters, even being alive in the smallest, smallest way. And aren’t you lucky to be here.

We’ve been walking forever. The weather is growing colder. The leaves are turning. Some ancient program is switching on in my hormonal body saying winter is nearer than it was yesterday. Take shelter. Wolves, coyotes, and bears will become hungry, and a child, to them, will taste so sweet.

Ruth could tell me so much. When we sleep like this, I imagine all she knows, flowing into me, into the baby, a transfusion of history, stories, and maybe even some simple sketch, a rough outline, of what the hell is going on.

T
HEY STOP UNDER AN OVERPASS.
Mr. Bell does Ruth’s makeup in the headlights of passing cars. “Short vacation?”

Things had not gone well at El’s house. Ruth doesn’t want to talk about it.

“I’m glad you’re home.” Mr. Bell pulls one side of Ruth’s hair back and pins it there with a purple orchid as if he’s escorting her to prom. Mr. Bell’s breath is close. He paints her lips to match the flower. He touches them with a tissue.

“You stole that makeup from the other house.”

“You make me sound like a thief.”

“Thank you,” she says when he’s done.

He starts the car again. “What sort of job is this?”

Nat had arranged everything except transportation. “I don’t know. They got in touch with me.”

“Who are they?”

“I don’t know.”

Mr. Bell alters the angle of the rearview.

“They have a question for us,” Nat says.

“What question?”

“Hold on. I love this song.” Nat leans into the front, putting his arm in between them. He turns up the radio, hums along a little.

“Where’d you meet them?” Ruth asks.

Nat draws one hand up to his ear. “I didn’t.”

“You don’t know them? Did you check them out at all?”

“They called me,” Nat says again.

Mr. Bell looks put out. “Is this the place?”

Nat checks the address. “Yeah.”

The house is a low ranch, lit, warm, glowing as if it’s still Christmas. All three bend their necks to check it out from the safety of the car.

“I’ll wait here in case you’re not out in, what, an hour? I’ll come get you.”

“Why?”

“Because you didn’t check these people out, and while I know you think I do nothing to earn my share, that isn’t true. I always ensured your safety.” Mr. Bell draws one thumb down his sideburn, smoothing it.

Nat looks at the door mechanism. “What could be dangerous about dead people?”

“Ruth?” Mr. Bell clears this with her. “Are you sure you want to go?”

He’s making her feel more like a stripper. “It’s a job.”

“OK. But be out in an hour.”

“Ready?” Nat asks.

The car door shuts. Ruth follows Nat to the house.

“So they’re not looking for a person,” Nat tells her. “They lost a box.”

“Like a jewelry box?”

“No. Cardboard.”

“Cardboard is going to talk to you tonight?”

“The box is filled with cash.”

“How much?”

“I don’t know.”

“A box of cash?” Ruth stops ten feet from the house.

“Yeah.” Nat knocks.

The door opens.

The woman who greets Nat has silver hair. Her skin is encased in powder; she has coral lipstick, brown smoker’s teeth. She wears a tailored coat, a pencil skirt.

“Good evening.”

“Evening.” Nat steps inside.

The woman looks at Ruth, standing ten feet away in the darkness. “Hello.”

“Hello.”

“Cold out.”

“Yes.”

“Are you going to come inside?”

The living room is decorated in an American idea of Scandinavian simplicity: blond wood, graceful lighting, two prim couches upholstered in cream. The house smells of an Asian spice rack. Someone trying to improve herself by purchasing air fresheners.

There’s a round man in the living room. He’s wearing a long beige duster with taupe cowboy boots that are really just shoes, shorties. A counterfeit cowboy. “Nat,” the cowboy says. “Right?”

“Yes.”

The woman smiles quickly, limiting the glimpse of her teeth. “Please,” inviting them in. “Have a seat.”

A small tabletop fountain trickles in one corner. Ruth saw the same model for sale at a hardware store in town, had even considered a purchase.

“Make yourselves comfortable.” The woman smiles.

Ruth sits on one couch with Nat beside her. The walls are brain-colored.

Nat clears his throat, his voice rigid. “What can we help you with?”

“Both of you are mediums?”

Nat nods.

The woman sits opposite them, arraying her limbs on the sofa as a Hollywood starlet might. “Both of you are touched with the sight? How unusual.”

“It’s less sight. More listening.”

The woman turns toward the cowboy, throwing out an elbow. “I told you. Highly recommended. He knew there was something special about her.”

“Who?”

“Are you alone?”

“We are together.”

“Of course. We won’t take much of your time. I understand you’re in demand.” The woman claps a call to order.

“Thank you.” Nat drags his nails across the couch’s fabric.

“Hold hands?” Ruth asks, unsteady. “We need to do that, right?” Her speech is slow.

“Of course we do,” the woman says. “Of course.”

The four of them scoot in close. Ruth holds the cowboy’s hand while Nat begins to sizzle, saliva pooling at the top of his throat. His eyes shut and Ruth follows him, down or back or up, wherever it is he goes when he goes.

Ruth lifts her arms—and consequently one of the cowboy’s and one of Nat’s—to address the universe. She speaks like a hungry child reciting grace, rushed and reductive. “Great spirit, gather here with us today. Help these good people.” She’s hopeful. “Great spirit, finder of the lost, engage our souls in your work so that we may in turn serve the realm where you dwell.”

Then the room is silent for a minute, two minutes.

“Please,” she adds to her entreaty, a little late.

Nat grunts. His head rolls like a bowl ready to spill, swinging from four o’clock to seven, stopping at five. He opens his eyes.

“Ask your question,” Ruth instructs.

Nat growls.

“Slowly,” Ruth cautions as if they are approaching a wild creature.

The woman slides forward on the couch. She looks left and right. She closes her eyes, opens her sternum and arms. “Where is the vessel containing the trust?”

“Vessel?” Ruth looks for some clarity. “Trust?”

The woman lowers her arms, her chin. “What happened to the funds?”

“Money?” Ruth tries to confirm again.

“Yes. The trust.”

Nat raises their clasped hands to his brow for a moment, then down to his mouth, inhaling, dribbling spit on Ruth’s thumb. When he lets go, he gives a sour look. The room is still. Nat blinks, remains quiet until—Ruth hears it first—there’s a sound like dice. Nat’s jaws are shivering. His teeth click against each other, bones. “Unearth,” Nat says. “Catechism. Cataclysm. Really now.” Nat chuckles as if in response to an unheard dirty joke. His head swivels, lifting his left ear to the sky, then his right. His eyes are white. “What’s the matter? I thought you were going to dive. You thought I was going to dive? There’s no water in the pool.”