Transcontinental (19 page)

She steadily regained her composure. “What’s with the bags?”

“It is a long story.”

“It’s not her,” Leroy said. “Let’s just go.”

She sized up Ant in his dress shirt and slacks. “Please, come inside and tell me about it. You look like you haven’t slept in days.”

Without hesitation, Ant stepped into the room.

“Ant, come on.” Leroy said. “We gotta find somewhere to sleep.”

“Rehema has invited us into her home. Do not be rude, Leroy.”

“She’s not Rehema.”

“You can watch television while I cook a nice meal. Maybe wash up, too.”

“You
love
television,” Ant said, an arm around Rehema, who welcomed it. “And I, for one, could certainly use a shower.”

Leroy shambled between Ant and the wrong Rehema into the room.
 

* * *

Leroy flipped through the channels, coming to a stop on a crude cartoon about a wallaby that he enjoyed. He’d been fielding questions from Rehema for the past twenty minutes while Ant took the world’s longest shower, hesitant to give her any truthful answers. Shortly, she’d gotten the point.

He didn’t even know what they were doing there. This woman did not matter, and every moment they wasted with her could be better spent elsewhere. Besides, something was weird about her. No one just allowed two complete strangers into their place right after meeting them.

A room away, Rehema poked at chicken sizzling in a pan. The savory scent nearly threw Leroy into convulsions; he couldn’t remember the last time he’d had a home cooked meal rather than food from a can or a drive-thru window.

A button-down shirt, left unbuttoned, hung from Ant’s shoulders as he split the steamy cloud drifting from the bathroom. “Your turn.”

Leroy headed over. “About time.”

Ignoring him, Ant neared Rehema. “Good lord, that smells amazing.”

“So what’s your story, what do you do? The boy didn’t make a peep.”

“I… am a professor.”

She lifted her eyebrows. “Must be fulfilling.”

Leaning on the counter, he said “You have a unique name, you know.”

“Honey, you don’t even know.”

“Well, statistically speaking, I do. You are one of two people in the country named Rehema Shepherd. Unfortunately for the boy, you are not her.”

“Fortunately for you, I’m the sexy one.” She pressed up against him.

“That remains to be seen.” Ant pulled her in close.

“But don’t you need to keep looking, since I’m not her?”

“Yes,” admitted Ant. “We should probably leave after we have eaten.”

“You can’t!” She pulled away, her eyes pleading at him, then returned her gaze to the chicken frying. “I mean, it’s dark, and you don’t have a place to stay.” She set a chicken breast atop each plate of yellow rice on the counter. “Why don’t you spend the night here? Get a fresh start in the morning.”

“Why, Miss Opal, I thought you had clients to see.”

“Nobody important. I’ll ring the front desk, have them work their magic.”

Ant helped her carry the plates to the table.

“Any other time you could not stop me, but Leroy will object.” Ant switched the fork and knife for each plate. “And there’s only one bed.”

Her eyes lit up. “So we’ll get another room!”

“That really is not necessary.”

Rehema reached up for his shoulders, pushed him down into a chair, then tenderly straddled him. “I’ll make it worth your while,” she said, nuzzling into his neck. “You can pay for the room, and whatever else you might owe me for, in the morning.” She dragged her tongue up to and over his mouth, then locked her lips over his, not noticing Ant’s distracted eyes.

When they pulled apart, Ant gazed at her. “I think I can make that work.”

They both turned upon hearing the bathroom door close. Leroy stared at the scene before him in confusion, but he wasn’t surprised.

Rehema hopped off Ant’s lap and gestured to the table. “Food’s ready.”

The conversation over dinner was sparse, though the TV in the background helped fill the gaps. Rehema did much of the talking as the two of them tore through their food. When they’d finished, Leroy stared at Ant until they made eyes, then motioned for them to leave.

Ant cleared his throat. “Actually, we are going to spend the night here.”

Leroy couldn’t believe what he was hearing. “Can I talk to you?”

The two of them departed to another room as Rehema savored her food, pulling the fork away from a smile that curved her lips.

Leroy notched up the TV volume. “I sat by while you threw your money away, but this is too much. We wasted a whole day. Let’s go.”

“Go where?” Ant inquired.

“Anywhere. Long as we’re moving, I’m good.”

“Movement is not necessarily progress,” Ant advised.

“I don’t care.”

“Think about this, Leroy. It is late, dark outside. Even if we
did
know where to go to catch out in this city, it would not be safe for a variety of reasons. Now, you got some semblance of sleep last night, but remember, I did not. I am weary. I need rest before we continue.”

“You think I don’t know why you wanna stay?”

“So you are willing to turn down a good night’s sleep in a bed?”

“There’s only one bed, and I got an idea who’s gonna get it.”

“I just talked to the front desk and reserved the room next door,” Rehema stated, hanging up the phone. “It’s all yours, Leroy.”

Leroy sent a disapproving look her way.

“I didn’t mean to eavesdrop, but you’re only twenty feet away.”

He gave Ant the same look. “Thanks for teaming up on me.”

“This is a win-win situation. How can you be upset?”

“It wasn’t my choice.”

“As is often the case in life,” Ant said. “Get used to it.”

Leroy grabbed the remote for the TV and flipped through the channels again, his hand quavering with pent up anger.
 

“I’m sorry if I’ve upset you,” Rehema said, rubbing one leg with the other. “They said the key should be up in just a few minutes.”

“He will be fine. Sometimes a child does not know what is best.”

“I’m not a child,” Leroy muttered. He felt betrayed. Ant had his Rehema, but what about Leroy? It was bad enough to know that his was in Tampa, if that one was even her. For all he knew she could be dead, nothing more than a skeleton rotting underground. He had to tame the urge to throw the remote through the TV. When a knock at the door sounded, he jumped off the couch.

“See you in the morning,” said Ant.

“Sleep well,” said Rehema.

“Yep,” said Leroy as he stormed out, snatching the key.

* * *

A raspy whisper sounded in his ear. ”Leroy.”

The room was dark but for the onset of day bleeding around the window shades. For a hazy second he thought he was back in the boxcar.

”Leroy!”

Turning, he found Ant crouched beside him, dressed and packed.

”Why you always right in my face when I wake up?”

”We must go.”

”Oh
now
you wanna leave, right when I get comfortable. Nah.” Leroy flopped onto his other side. ”Wake me up in a hour or two.”

”I am serious. We must leave immediately.”

”Why’s that?”

”I cannot pay for this hotel room.”

Leroy sat up in bed. ”What about Rehema?”

”I cannot pay for her, either. Luckily, she is a heavy sleeper.”

Ant ushered him out of bed, into his shoes, and out the door. They crept down the hall to the elevator. As Ant pushed the down button, a door slammed behind them. Leroy didn’t have to look back to know who it was. He glanced at the floor indicator above the elevator. Bottom floor. Of course.

Rehema hadn’t yet noticed them, and turned the opposite direction to check Leroy’s room. She slammed her fist on the door. ”Hey!”

”Keep quiet,” Ant whispered.

Leroy’s eyes were glued on the elevator. Just a few more floors.

She pounded on the door again. ”You better be in there, asshole!”

The elevator pinged as it opened.

Rehema’s head whipped toward them, her once soft demeanor twisted by fury. ”Uh-uh!” She charged down the hall, a wolf in a wool bathrobe.

They scampered inside, and Ant directed it to the ground floor.

”No! No you can’t!” Rehema’s hurried footsteps advanced.

Ant smashed the close door button. Nothing. He pressed again and held it down, and the doors jerked to life. In the closing gap, Rehema appeared, eyes as frazzled as her hair, nearly foaming at the mouth.

”Hope you don’t have a conscience, ‘cause you just killed me!” She fell to her knees, sobbing, as she disappeared between the doors.

Leroy looked on in stunned silence as Ant leaned against the wall and breathed a sigh of relief. He didn’t know what bothered him more—the movie scene that had just unfolded before him, or Ant’s lack of concern.

”Well, then. On to Tampa?”

”I told you this was a bad idea.”

”How do you mean? We all got something out of it.”

”Not Rehema.”

”Trust me, she did.”

”So you don’t even feel bad?”

Ant scoffed. ”Why should I? The woman tried to take advantage of us.”

”So you took advantage of her instead?”

”I never agreed to pay for anything.”

”If it was just money I wouldn’t care. She said we killed her.”

”We did no such thing. She is a woman, and as such, overly dramatic.”

”She obviously owed someone money.”

”This is not the twenties, Leroy. People do not simply get scrubbed out for a debt, especially one as insignificant as what we owed her.”

The elevator doors opened, the sight of a flustered Rehema replaced by the lush tones of the gold and purple lobby. As they breezed toward the exit, a jovial new concierge thanked them for their patronage.

* * *

Leroy couldn’t keep his eyes off the chalk scrawling on the boxcar wall—a cartoonish cowboy hat, formed of a crude sideways figure-eight brim and a hump of a crown, atop an emotionless face puffing a cigarette. Beneath it were two words in capital letters: Bozo Texino. It was simple, too simple maybe, and that’s why he liked it.

The graffiti held a sense of mystery. Who was Bozo Texino? Leroy was enchanted that merely by scribbling out an image and a few words, he had
become
somebody. For each person who saw it, Bozo Texino came to life, while in reality it was probably just some schlub who had caught a free ride.

Leroy had wanted to ask Ant about it since they’d hopped the eastbound hotshot, which thankfully traveled nearly twice as fast as his previous rides. Must’ve been at least six hours so far, he guessed, but he was realizing his sense of time wasn’t perfect. He didn’t know what to do with himself; long trips hadn’t been a trademark of the Smiley family. Even if they could’ve afforded it, his mom hadn’t the patience.

Leroy had wanted to ask Ant about it, yet he hadn’t. There was an inverse correlation between how much he thought about what Rehema had said, and his desire to speak to Ant. Sure, she had tried to squeeze some money out of them, but she seemed to have had a good reason for it. Her desperate words repeated on a loop in Leroy’s mind: “You just killed me!” It made him sick to his stomach to think of somebody getting hurt, let alone killed, because of him.

Still, Ant was right. What little money they had couldn’t be wasted on women and hotel rooms. She’d willingly let them stay, albeit under the auspices of passively robbing them. She’d put them in that position, so she shared the blame. Dog eat dog was how Ant had phrased it, but Leroy didn’t want to believe that the world worked that way — he liked dogs too much.

Leroy glanced at Ant, asleep on his back amidst the stacked boxes. He’d warned Leroy about riding in cars with stacked freight. In typical Ant fashion, he’d rattled off a couple stories about past experiences in which he’d seen people crushed, or blamed for destruction of property. However, after discovering he could lift the boxes with one hand, Ant had given Leroy the all-clear, as if Leroy couldn’t have figured that out on his own. He didn’t need Ant.

Leroy turned back to the graffiti and admired its smooth curves. He wished he could draw like that. Not that the shapes were especially symmetrical or well drawn, but there was no hesitation in it. Whoever had drawn it was confident in his hand. Leroy could work for an hour just perfecting a single slope.

“The legendary Bozo Texino,” Ant said from the floor.

“Know him?”

“Everybody knows
of
him, yet nobody knows who he is.”

It was a confirmation of what Leroy had suspected—disappointing, yet exciting in a meaningful way. It didn’t matter who he was in real life; he’d created an identity that had withstood the years. He was Bozo Texino. Leroy only wondered why he had picked such a silly name.