Strays (27 page)

Bran looked out, and indeed there was a man standing there outside the accord.  He wore the familiar faded jeans, and his lean, corded arms hung from the sleeveless holes of his t-shirt.  When Bran rolled down the window, the man outside squatted and grinned.  Bran recognized the shaggy mane of hair, the epic mustache, and the oily black shark’s eyes.

“Jack?”

“Hey Bran.  Took my advice and heading to Maupin, I see.”

“You know it.  Wow, what a coincidence meeting you here.”

Jack smiled, his shiny incisors flickering beneath the profusion of whiskers above his lip.  “There are no coincidences,” he said.  “No accidents and no coincidences.  There’s a reason I invited you.”

“What’s that?”

“Back-up,” said Jack. 

“Back-up for what?”

“I have a little problem,” Jack said.  “It’s coming this way.”  He scratched his upper lip at the corners of the mustache, and for some reason this motion looked affected.  “Didn’t think my problem would make it this far, but that’s why I talked you into coming out here, just in case it did.”

“
You
have a problem?” Bran asked.  Jack had seemed so in control, so together back at the liquor in Landes a week ago, that Bran had a hard time believing the man would have trouble with anything.

“I do,” said Jack.  “And I think you’re best equipped to deal with it.”

Brandon sat his seat up and puffed his shoulders back a bit.  “What is it?” Bran the Man asked.  “Tell me about your problem.”

Jack stopped scratching, and the ends of his bushy mustache curled up as he grinned.  “It’s the kind of problem I think you’re going to enjoy
solving
.”

*   *   *   *

Molly angled off I-80 and slowed the Impala with expert grace as it rolled up alongside the pumps at the Phillips 66.  Kyle sat as still as a boulder in his seat, hands pressed against the dash, eyes focused on a bug spatter on the windshield that had settled about eye level. 

“Here we are,” Molly said.  “Now what?”

Kyle did not move.  He held his position, like a sprinter waiting for the gun to send him off his marks.  He could still hear a dusky wheezing coming from the back seat.

Good,
the thing said. 
Soooo good.  Turn around now, Kyle.  Turn around and go home.  Your mother is dying, Kyle.  Your mother is dying because you’re kill—

“Shut up!” Kyle roared.  He pounded the dash with his fist and whirled about, staring into the now-empty back seat.  “Wherever you are, just shut up.”

He listened for the wheezing breath, but it had faded. So he looked at Molly.  She studied him with a gentle half-smile.  He half expected to hear her ask who he was talking to, but she said nothing, only watched, and the smiled never left.  After a moment, she gave him a single nod of her head.  Kyle did not need to ask what that nod meant. 
Go on,
Kyle, she was saying. 
Go on.

Kyle looked into the back seat of the car again, his eyes darting around for the thing that had been riding with them since Ft. Collins.  “Listen to me,” he said.  “I’m talking to you.  You are not my father.  Do you hear me?  You’re not my father!”

He waited for the voice, chuckling from deep in the shadows, but there was nothing.  He glanced back over at Molly.  Her grin had gotten wider. 

“Finished?” she asked.

“I’ve got to make a phone call,” he replied.

“Good,” said Molly.  “Do what you have to do, and I’ll top off the tank.”

*   *   *   *

Jack stood up suddenly, looking about the lot.  A trio of thin wrinkles appeared between his eyes, and the black holes that passed for eyes seemed to widen like puddles expanding in the rain.

“Hey,” Bran the Man said.  “What’s the matter?”

Jack was silent.  He placed his hands on the roof of the car and peered about, sniffing the air, hissing breaths in and out between his teeth.

“Yo, Jack,” said Bran the Man.  “You were saying something about a problem?”

Jack hissed a moment more and then crouched next to the Accord until that his black eyes were level with Brandon’s.  “I have something for you,” he hissed.  “All three of you, but especially for
you
, Brandon.  What do you think?  You guys have what it takes?”

“It depends,” said Marty, leaning over from the shotgun side to get a better look.  “Who the hell are you, Mister?”

Jack flashed a silvery smile through his mound of whiskers.  “Get out of the car,” he said.  “Go over by the pumps.  You need to check something out.”

“What is it?” Bran the Man asked, grinning.  “What’s going on, Jack?”

“There’s a girl there pumping gas,” he said.  “Dark hair, dark jeans.  I’m telling you, she’s the finest piece of flesh you’ve ever seen.”

Bran the Man blinked and smirked.  “Is she alone?”

“No,” Jack said, “But she
will
be.  If you do what I say, I promise, you can have her.  All yours, Brandon, to do with whatever you want.  What do you say?”

Bran the Man looked at Marty, whose face was like granite, and then back at DC, who was just a shape hovering in the shadows of the back seat.  He waited for a sign, a grunt, an affirmation, anything to indicate that this was a good idea.  He got nothing, so he made an executive decision.

“What the hell?” Bran the Man said.  “Wouldn’t hurt to take a look.”

“Depends,” said Marty.  “What’s this guy want us to do?”

“You heard him,” Bran said.  “It’s a problem we’ll all like solving, isn’t that right, Jack?”

“Let’s just say it’s something with which the three of you already have some considerable experience.”

“There you go,” Bran said.  “Sounds like it’s right up our alley.”

“I don’t know,” Marty said.  “You barely know this guy.  Me and DC have never met him.  What’s his angle?”  He turned around in his seat.  “What do you think, DC?”

DC was silent for a time, and Brandon turned as well and waited, doing his best to fix his face with that killer stare he once used in football huddles during the ‘Yotes’ run to the State Championship game.  Whatever he did, it seemed work, as it always had on DC.

“What does it matter?” DC finally said.  “Seriously, what the hell?  We’re the BTB, baby.  We’re the goddamn BTB.”

Calling Home

The pay-phones were located on the east side of the Phillips 66 building, opposite the lot where the truckers parked and well out of sight of the gas pumps.  Kyle had not been seen by the occupants of the Honda Accord, who had been sleeping near the truckers’ lot for the past 75 minutes.  By the time the BTB rounded the corner to give the “finest piece of flesh” by the gas pumps a look, Kyle was already dialing zero plus his home number.  When the operator came on the line, he informed her that it was a collect call, and then he listened to the phone ring some 900 miles away in the tiny town of Landes, population just over 10,000.

“Hello?” His father’s voice, a bit graveled and lazy from being drawn out of sleep.  Kyle glanced about for a clock to see what time it was but could not find one.  He guessed it to be around 1:00 a.m., 2:00 a.m. back in Kansas.  His father would not be happy.

“I have a collect call from Kyle,” said the operator.  “Will you accept charges?”

“Of course,” Dad said.

There was a click and a beep, and Kyle braced himself for the ass-chewing that would no doubt commence. 

“Kyle?” his father asked.

“Yeah, Dad, I’m here.”

“Are you all right?”  There was real concern in his voice, nothing close to panic, but he did not sound outraged as Kyle had predicted he might.

“I’m fine, Dad.  Everything’s fine.”

“Thank God,” Dad said, his voice still refusing to flirt with anything remotely sounding like irritation.  “Where are you, son?”

Kyle opened his mouth to speak, and he felt tears flickering the edges of his eyes.  He snorted to hold them back, and they fell into his nose from behind his eyes, trickling into his throat, choking back any efforts to be stoic or strong.  “I’m somewhere in Wyoming,” he croaked.  “At a Phillips 66 along I-80.”

“What are you doing there?” Real curiosity, still no anger.  Could this be happening?  Where were the roars, the screams, the bellows of outrage?

“I …” Kyle began but could not finish it.  That was a good question?  What
was
he doing there?  “I had to get away.”

“To Wyoming?”  There was a hint of mirth in Dad’s voice, and Kyle could imagine his playful grin.

“I don’t know where I’m going,” Kyle explained.  “But there’s this girl …”

“Ah, a girl.”  Still no anger from Dad.  Kyle realized in that moment that a part of Dad completely understood.

“She said I needed to come,” Kyle explained.  “I’m not sure why.  She makes out like I’m supposed to do …
something
.”

“Are you being careful?”

“Of course I am,” Kyle said, and then realized what his Dad was really asking.  “Oh, it hasn’t come to that yet.”

“But if it does, you’ll be careful.”

“Yes, sir.”

“You’re too young to have a little Kyle running around, right son?”

“Yes, Dad.”  He never bothered to mention that given Molly’s peculiarities, there was no telling what kind of child the two of them might make.

“So when are you coming home?”  Dad asked, and Kyle thought:
Here it comes.

“I don’t know.  When I’m done doing whatever it is I’m supposed to do, I guess.”

“You don’t know what it is yet?” Dad said. 

“No, sir, I don’t.” 

Dad was silent, perhaps only for a few seconds, but it felt like hours to Kyle. 

“I’m sorry, Dad,” Kyle finally said.

“Sorry for what?”

“For letting you down.”

Kyle could swear that he heard a chuckle on the other end of the line.  “You didn’t let me down, son.”

“What about Mom?”

“You didn’t let her down either.”

“But she’s worried, right?” Kyle asked.  “You said … I mean … I had a dream that she was worried so bad she was dying.”

“Your mother’s worried, yes, but she’s not dying.”  In spite of everything, Dad continued to remain calm.  “She’s here right now, just turned the light on.  I’m hoping she can tell by my face that everything’s okay.”

Kyle exhaled hard into the receiver, making it crackle with a sound like the wind. 
Lies.
  Lies were all that the thing in his back seat had to offer. 

“Everything
is
okay,” Dad said.  “Isn’t it, Kyle?”

“Yes,” Kyle replied.  “I just know I let you down.”

“Listen to me.”  For the first time in the conversation, Dad’s voice was stern.  “You listen right now, son.  You did not let me down.  Do you hear me?  I am not disappointed in you, not one bit.”

“But Tony,” Kyle said.  “And Eddie.”

“What about them?”

“They play sports and play music, just like you.  What do I do?  Nothing.”

“You don’t do
nothing
,” Dad said. 

“Tony and Eddie are
your
sons, Dad,” Kyle said.  “They’re so much like you.”

“So are you,” his father assured him.  “You just haven’t found your thing yet, the thing that you do.”

“I bet they wouldn’t drive off half-cocked like I did,” Kyle said, sniffing.  “They got everything good about you.  What did I get?”

“I’ll tell you what you got,” Dad said.  “You got the very best of me.”

Kyle felt the tears forming in his eyes and nose again, and he snorted and swallowed to keep them at bay.

“All of you, all three of my sons got the very best of me,” said Dad.  “Tony’s a great ballplayer, sure, and Eddie on that guitar, I tell you, it’s a thing of beauty.  But that’s not the best of what I had to offer them.”

“I don’t get it,” Kyle said, his voice soft and bleating.

Dad was quiet for a few seconds and then said:  “Your friend Sebastian was here today.”

“Seby Lee?  He’s not my friend.  He’s a freak.”

“He’s your friend,” Dad said. “He’s as worried about you as any of us.”

“Swell,” Kyle muttered.

“Listen,” Dad barked.  “I know Sebastian’s different, and yes, he even makes
me
a bit uneasy sometimes.  But he is your friend, the kind that would take a bullet for you.”

“He’s just a little geek, Dad, he’s a faggot.”

“I don’t like that word.”  His tone had changed again.  “Sebastian told me what you did.”

“What was that?”

“When you were kids,” Dad explained.  “When those boys were picking on him, and you stood up for him and made them stop.”

“Oh that.”  Kyle rubbed his eyes and slumped against the side of the Phillips 66 C-store, staring off into the night.  “I didn’t know what I was doing back then.  I just told a bunch of lies, and they all backed down.”

“They weren’t lies,” Dad said.  “In poker, we call that a bluff.”

“Same thing.”

“And whatever it is you said, it worked, didn’t it?”

“Well, yes.”

“Well,” said Dad.  “Maybe that’s part of what you got from me.”

“I’m sorry?”

“You said that Eddie or Tony would never go off half-cocked,” Dad explained.  “Well, maybe they wouldn’t, but I did.  A lot.  Before I met your mother, I was something of a wildcat.”

“I can’t believe that.”

“Yes, you can,” said Dad.  “I went a little crazy, and I crossed paths with a lot of rough fellows.  But you want to hear a secret?”  He did not wait for Kyle to answer.  “I never lost a fight in my life.”

“Really?”

“Really.  And do you know why?”  This time he did wait, but when Kyle was silent, he said:  “Because I always found a way to stay out of them.  Do you understand?”

Kyle nodded, hearing his chin scrape against the phone receiver.  “Maybe a little.”

“That’s what you did that day when you stood up for Sebastian,” Dad said.  “And whatever you think of your friend, what you did
that
day was the right thing to do.”

“I didn’t
want
to do it, Dad,” Kyle said.  “I wanted to beat the hell out of Seby just like the other boys did.” 

“I know.”

“Seby’s just a freak,” Kyle went on.  “And those guys were cool.  I wanted to be
their
friend, not Seby’s.”