Stick (26 page)

“I was robbed,” I said. “An old man stole all my money, except for ten dollars I had hidden in my suitcase. That's why I was walking.”

I pictured Brock, cold and stiff, lying on the same couch where I'd watched two days' worth of news broadcasts. They must have found the bodies by now. I tried to think if I'd left anything at all behind that might bear witness to my having been on the houseboat.

“Some people     don't      deserve to walk this earth,” Sutton decided.

That made me feel sick.

“I don't hold grudges.”

“Tell me how to do that,         Stark.           If I were you, I imagine I'd be pretty bitter.”

“Not about the money. Or the old man, I'm not.”

There were other things, though.

“Okay. Look, if you're         tired, you can sleep        on the bunk back there.                             You don't have to worry about nothing. But one thing…”

“What?”

“We'll be coming up     around Bakersfield in an hour         or so. I should tell you            that we're going to go through a         highway patrol check station.”

The thought of police scared me. Maybe Sutton could see that, too.

“What for?”

“They      check all the trucks,     usually.      I was thinking you probably might not want them to see you.”

“Why do you think that?”

I shifted in my seat. My back was damp with sweat.

“'Cause I think you probably     ran off from your home in Washington. And that car you ran out of gas in was probably not willingly loaned to a         fourteen-year-old with permission to drive it through three states.”

“Yeah. Probably.”

“They're probably        about bound to wonder          what some white kid's doing in a truck with me, too.”

“You probably could say you're my dad.”

Sutton laughed. “Shit.”

“I'm not tired.”

But I went to sleep, anyway, on the little bed in the back of the cab.

*   *   *

I woke in terror,
smothered in red, as hot as hell, struggling to breathe.

I thought I was back on the houseboat. Somehow, I imagined I had just heard the crack of five gunshots, and I counted them:        one     two

three

four five.

Just like that.

And all I could see was red. The red corduroy spread on the little bed in the rental room that Willie said I didn't have to pay for. I heard men's voices. They sounded far away. I was being smothered. I needed air.

I thrashed my arms and sat up.

The truck.

I'd completely forgotten I was inside a truck, somewhere in California. It wasn't moving, and I could see a bar of flash- ing yellow lights ahead through the windshield. The cab was empty. The driver's door stood open. Sutton must have covered me up with the red nylon sleeping bag I was under.

To help me hide.

We were stopped at the checkpoint.

I inched higher and could see a row of parked highway patrol cruisers on the right shoulder of the highway in front of the truck.

I put my head back down and covered myself again.

I waited.

I tried listening to the faint voices coming from outside Sutton's open door.

Thanks, Mike.

kids

McClellan

north part of Washington

no one said

anything

if they're together

where

one of them

I never saw him

Oregon

murders

or

fucking bloodbath

something

Toyota

“I'll keep an eye out when I head back through Fresno.”

“See you next time, Sut.”

“Sure thing, Mike.”

It was like being back in that room, waiting and waiting. I felt the shifting of the truck as Sutton climbed back up into his seat, could sense the change of the air inside the cab when his door whooshed shut, then the tingling vibration through the thin cushion on the cot as the motor revved up.

It was so hot under there.

We began moving.

I uncovered my face, breathed, and watched Sutton stow away some notebooks and papers on the shelf over his head.

“What did they tell you?”

Sutton visibly jumped when I spoke.

“Holy           shit, kid! Don't just      stick your face out and talk like that. I just about           pissed my pants.”

“Sorry.”

The truck jerked forward, began rolling. Soon, we were back up to speed, away from the inspection area.

“You're       okay. You can       get up now.”

I climbed up between the seats and let the air from the open window blow through my hair.

“What did they tell you?” I repeated.

Sutton glanced at me. “You got a        brother?”

“Yeah.”

“What's         his        name?”

“Bosten.”

I watched Sutton. I could tell he was thinking about things. Doing the math.

“Where is he?”

“I'm trying to find him.”

“I'm only going to      ask this once.”

“Okay.”

“Are you    telling     the truth?”

“Yes. I pretended to be him. I have his license. So I could drive. What did they tell you?”

Sutton didn't say anything.

“Look. I have his license. I'll show you. You can see it doesn't really look like me at all.”

I pulled the empty wallet from my back pocket, slid Bosten's license out, and offered it over to Sutton. He hardly glanced at it.

“Okay. Sorry.      I believe you.”

“I didn't do anything wrong. I'm just trying to find my brother.”

“I know. Nobody thinks          you did anything wrong.  The cops.                                 They think you're in trouble.”

We began driving up into the mountains. The road was steep and the truck seemed to crawl along, shuddering. And I told Sutton the whole story. I didn't say why Bosten left home, but I did tell him about how Emily gave me sixty dollars, and then I stole my dad's car and ended up stuck in a place called Scappoose. And I told him everything about April and Willie, and what happened with Brock on the houseboat; and how scared I was that I was going to die, too.

Sutton just shook his head slowly. “Shit.”

Then I didn't want to talk anymore.

At the top of the grade, Sutton pulled into a truck stop to gas his rig.

“They have pretty decent burgers in here,” he said. “Let's get something            to eat. Okay?”

“I only have one dime.”

“I didn't ask you anything        about how much money you had.”

*   *   *

Sutton paid for my food.
We ate quietly. The place was noisy enough, anyway, and my head was so full of words I couldn't straighten any of them out. I kept wondering why there are people in this world, like Sutton, who are willing to help other people just because they simply
can
, and why there are people like Brock and Willie, like Mrs. Buckley, or people like Emily and her mom; like my mom and dad.

But all my wondering always brought me back to thinking about Bosten and how he told me that things don't make people the way they are.

It doesn't just happen.

I had a vanilla milkshake.

There is something about vanilla milkshakes that makes everything seem okay. At least, a little bit better. And I wasn't wearing my cap. I was tired of wearing my cap.

Sutton only drank water. The kind they give you in truck stops like the one we sat in, served in grainy plastic cups with big, clear cubes of ice. But despite the ice and the plastic, it always tastes like tin.

He said, “I decided   something.”

“What?”

But I knew what he was going to say. I was ready for it a long time before Sutton said it. He was going to tell me that when he got up to go, he wanted me to just sit there; that I was on my own now. There was no reason for him not to say something like that to me.

I drive at night

I blow things up

I get people killed

“I'm probably    going to get docked for being late. But up ahead a few miles,                           I can turn off and get on the  one-twenty-six. It's maybe an hour and a half to Oxnard.”

I studied him. I never met anyone like Sutton before. Well, maybe Mrs. Lohman, if she drove a truck.

He said, “You know     how to get to your aunt's house?”

“I've driven there before.”

Sutton laughed. “Shit. You      are
not
driving my truck. I don't care                                                        how tough you are.”

I never thought I was tough.

*   *   *

On the narrow stretch of highway
that followed a shallow river basin cutting west toward Ventura, I slipped a sweating hand into my pocket and flipped that one dime around and around between my fingers. I tried imagining what things would be like when I showed up unannounced at Aunt Dahlia's door, but it scared me to do that. Although I had absolutely no doubt she would cry and make a fuss over me, and take me in without any questions or rules, I tried to search somewhere in my heart for any faint kind of vibration that the road was bringing me closer to Bosten.

But all I could feel was dark emptiness.

I started shaking my head again, without thinking, trying to clear the pictures from my mind.

Sutton asked, “What's     wrong?”

I didn't want to tell him how I kept seeing that old man, dead on the couch, and Willie's bloody foot sticking out through the doorway of the room I'd slept in, on the cold and quiet houseboat on the Columbia River.

“Nothing.”

*   *   *

The sun began to dip down
behind the feathery tips of the picket lines of giant eucalyptus trees that had been planted in perfect lines to mark orchard boundaries and to keep the frost from settling on the endless rows of oranges and lemons. We drove across railroad tracks, through a tiny town named Fillmore, and then to another place called Santa Paula, where Mexicans sold produce or played music along the roadside.

“We'll have you      home     before sundown, Stark.”

I said, “Thank you. But I just want to ask you one thing.”

“Go ahead.”

“Why would you do this for me?”

“Because I know what it's like.”

I didn't think anyone knew what “it” was really like. Not to me.

“You do?”

“I do.”

“Do you ever eat Mexican food?”

“Everyone          eats Mexican food in California.”

“One day, when you come back, all of us will go have Mexican food together.”

Sutton said, “That's       a deal. Don't forget.         You owe me.”

I wasn't going to forget.

*   *   *

I guess everyone thought
it was some kind of mistake. I mean, it was probably the first time ever that an eighteen-wheeler filled with artichokes arrived on Ocean Avenue and stopped on the sand-covered asphalt directly in front of Aunt Dahlia's house.

It seemed like forever since I'd been there.

I didn't need to do the math.

The sun had dropped below the horizon out on the sea, and I realized that there was a certain unique color the light here would cast at precisely this hour. Down the street, I saw Evan and Kim and a few of the other kids who surfed on the Strand, walking barefoot, away from the beach with surfboards cradled under their arms. Evan looked back at the truck. I could tell he said something to the others—probably something like
what's that dumbshit doing down here?
Of course, he had no way of knowing I was the dumbshit sitting in the cab. I almost wanted to yell out at him and his sister, but I didn't want Sutton to think I'd just brush him off so easily and leave him there.

“Those kids down there are friends of mine,” I said.

“Welcome      home, Stark.”

Aunt Dahlia's door swung inward, almost suspiciously. I remembered how thin the walls of her home were, so I could only imagine how the rumbling of the truck's diesel engine must have been shaking it.

When she peeked her face out at us, I threw open my door and said, over my shoulder to Sutton, “Don't leave!”

I ran down and hugged her. I made myself not cry. I willed myself to be tough, like Bosten was and like Sutton thought I was, too; and Aunt Dahlia squeezed me and kissed me and kept saying over and over, “Oh my God! Oh my God! Oh my God!”

AUNT DAHLIA

Aunt Dahlia tried
to make Sutton come inside. She offered him some money, too. He wouldn't take it. I knew that without him saying the first word about it. Sutton explained how he'd probably be in a little bit of trouble for his lateness and had to get moving down the coast, so he apologized for not staying.

And the whole time I was lugging my suitcase down from the truck, and even while we stood there and waved at Sutton as he left, it seemed like Aunt Dahlia never took her hand off me for even a second.

It was almost as though she was afraid that I'd vanish again.

*   *   *

She had lots of questions for me.
I had just as many for her.

But I knew right away, even before I got out of the truck, that Bosten wasn't there. I could feel it. And wondering about him weighed heavily on me, like it slowed my mind down from being able to clearly understand anything else that was going on.