You Don't Know About Me (33 page)

He stared into the fire. “But maybe that's still too much of a curveball for most people. Maybe they strike out and go stomping back to the dugout like Jonah, condemning homos, gay marriage, and Tickle Me Elmos.” He smiled to himself. “Or maybe people see God's pitch coming, pick up the rotating seams on His big slider, and knock it out of the park.”

I watched his eyes flicker with firelight. He wasn't drunk. He was just filled with his own brand of Spirit.

After that, Ruah said he was tired and went to bed.

I hung out by the fire a little longer. Listening to the curveballs flying out of Ruah's mouth, and wondering if there was any truth to his zigzag God, had burned up the last s'more in my stomach. I needed one more.

The next morning we left the interstate and took a shortcut through a mountain range called the Blues. It wasn't much of a shortcut. The two-lane highway narrowed and got clogged with big RVs crawling up the steeps and spewing fumes.

On the west side of the Blues, the road didn't get wider, but some of the vehicles we got stuck behind smelled better: open-bed trucks piled with onions. Dry onion skins trailed behind the trucks; I tried to catch them as they flew by. I never snagged one, but my nose caught the cloud trailing behind: the sweet smell of onions.

I also thought about the things Ruah had said the night before. Especially about how Jonah had shown him that life's journey changes the way you see things, or it doesn't. I figured the same lesson held for any journey. I wondered if my trip, almost over, had changed the way I looked at the world.

The truth was, I felt like I'd seen more in the past week than I'd seen my whole life. And that I'd gotten more religion in a week than if I'd gone to Bible camp all summer. Of course, it would've been a tough sell telling Mom that Regular Bible Camp was nothing compared to Runaway Bible Camp.

For all my thinking, I didn't come up with a solid answer about whether my trip had changed the way I saw things. I felt more like someone who lives in a house with a couple of pictures on the wall, then I go up to the attic and discover it's filled with wild and different pictures. There's a picture of a dust storm, and one of sugary bowls of summer snow. There's pictures of more naked people than I thought I'd ever see in a lifetime. There's pictures of a Sun Dance, Spring's green breasts, a canyon with a rusty roller coaster. And there's a picture of a white camper, Giff, swimming through rain, dust, and sunlight. It felt like all those pictures were in the attic, and I couldn't decide which ones to take downstairs and hang on the wall.

I did figure out one thing. When you think you live in a house with just a couple of pictures and then discover an attic stuffed with pictures, it changes how you see the world right there. So I guess my journey
had
changed me a little.

But it wasn't over. Not by a long shot.

When we stopped at a gas station to fill up, Ruah pointed to a phone booth by the highway. He wanted me to go check in with my mom. He pulled out a phone card and told me to use it.

I didn't take it. “I just called her on Sunday … in Notus.” Of course, I didn't say all I'd done was leave a message, or that I'd made the call on his cell phone.

“That was two days ago,” he said, still holding out the phone card. “In case she got caller ID to find out the area code you're calling from, before you dial, press star-six-seven. It'll block the pay phone's number.” He pressed the card in my hand. “Now go call her or I'll call her myself.”

The last thing Mom needed was a call from a homosexual baseball player saying he'd been driving me around for days. I headed to the phone booth. I thought about faking the call, but Ruah kept looking my way as he pumped gas with his good hand. And the truth was I hadn't spoken to Mom directly since Kansas. Since then she'd probably prayed kneeholes into the living room rug.

I dialed star-six-seven and her number. She answered like it could've been anyone. “Hello.”

“Hey, Mom.”

“Billy?” Her voice sounded faint and faraway. I couldn't tell if it was the connection or it was her sounding zonked and stressed.

“Can you hear me okay?” I asked.

She stifled a sob. “Yes. Are you alright?”

“Yeah, I'm good.”

“Where are you?”

When she asked that, I relaxed. The star-six-seven thing must've worked. “Almost there,” I said. “Almost to New Orleans.”

“It's been a week. What's taking so long?”

“I got a little off trail.”

“What do you mean, off trail?”

I waited for a truck to rumble by. “I'll tell you about it later.”

“That's how the devil works,” she said. The strength was back in her voice, like the commander of the New J-Brigade had reported for duty. “He lays snares in the Way of Christ.”

“I know, Mom, but you'll be happy about this. Right now I'm riding with a Christian, and we've been doing some good fellowship.” I was hoping she'd be relieved, but it was like she didn't hear.

“The wicked walk on every side
,
”
she said,
“waiting to devour you like fresh bread
.
”

“Mom, it's not like I'm running through a forest full of witches trying to throw me in a cage, fatten me up, and eat me.”

“You think it's funny?” she snapped. The iron was back in her, hard as ever. “My heart is breaking, and you think I'm making up fairy tales. Lemme tell you what I read in the paper. A boy disappeared at a mall for several hours. When they found him, he'd been castrated. It turns out there's a gang you can't join until you kidnap a boy and castrate him.”

I eye-rolled. “Why do you tell me stuff like that?”

“Because it's true, and because I want you to come home.”

“That's what I'm gonna do, after I find out what I can about my father, Richard Allbright.”

There was a pause. When she spoke it sounded like hearing his name had done something, melted the iron in her. “That's what I fear most. That whatever's left of him will do to you what he did to me.”

“What did he do that was so terrible?”

“He made me stray. Those who err from the faith are pierced by sorrow. Since you were born, Billy, I've only wanted to make sure you'd never stray. I wanted to protect you from being pierced by sorrow. I pray every hour for God to save you from that. I pray for Him to protect you from Richard Allbright.” She fought back tears. “Come home now. Please, come home.”

A car hauling a trailer rattled past. I waited till she could hear me clearly. “I'm almost there, Mom. I've got to finish what I started. Then I'll come home. Promise.”

There was a long pause. She hadn't hung up. I felt her presence on the other end.

“It may be too late,” she said. The iron was back in her, but colder, like a diamond.

“Too late for what?”

“I did a providence check. The Lord revealed a verse from Psalms.
I will set no wicked thing before mine eyes: I hate the work of them that turn aside; it shall not cleave to me.
”

I swallowed. “What does that mean?”

“Come home now, and you won't have to worry about the meaning.”

It felt like I was standing outside a cave. I couldn't see the animal waiting for me in the darkness, but I knew it was there, ready to pounce. “What if I don't?”

“I'm telling you one last time, Billy. Come home now.”

“You didn't answer my question. What if I don't?”

She let me hang for a moment, then her words crackled in the phone. “If we perish, we perish.”

The line went dead.

I stood there, not wanting to believe it. Not wanting to believe that she was making me choose between her and my father.

I lost it. I smashed the phone in the cradle again and again, trying to keep the tightening coil in my chest from escaping. The coil won. The first sob jumped out. I cried like a windup toy with bad gears. The only thing I could control was keeping my back to Ruah. Like I could hide anything. Through my glaze of tears I saw cars shoot by. I didn't care what they thought. They were total strangers. Like my mother.

When my pathetic tear-ectomy was done, I wiped my face and turned around. Ruah was back in the camper. Maybe I caught him looking my way in the side mirror, maybe I didn't. The camper twitched as it started. He was ready to go. I thought about walking over, saying goodbye to him, and going home.

I felt something brush against my leg. The receiver was still dangling by the cord. I picked it up, put it back in the cradle. Then I echoed her words: “If we perish, we perish.”

I got in the camper. Ruah had his sunglasses on and didn't say anything. A man with a Seeing Eye dog would've known I'd been crying.

After a few miles he said, “You wanna talk about it?”

I shook my head. “Mm-mmh.”

“That's fine.”

My insides wanted to go back to anger. But I pushed the rage down in my gut, not letting it into my head. I had to think things through. Mom was telling me to come home as the Billy Allbright she wanted, or not come home at all. But I'd made my decision. I was going to Portland. Even if it meant that when I got home she wouldn't look at me.

A bizarre thought hit me. I'd been spending a lot of time with blackmailers and people who were being blackmailed. The Potlatchers had blackmailed me, Ruah's agent was blackmailing him, and now Mom was basically blackmailing me. It was amazing how different the Potlatchers were from Mom and how much they were alike. Nico and Momi blackmailed me into the movie they wanted to make; Mom was blackmailing me into the movie she wanted to make:
Billy Allbright, Little Boy Christian
. And when it came to Ruah—even though he was gay and a big-time baseball player—we had something in common. We were blackmailees.

The way I saw it, if the two of us were going to beat all the blackmailers, we had to stick together. We were on the same team. And teammates shared secrets. The day before, he'd showed me a picture of his dead friend. Now it was my turn.

I reached under my T-shirt and pulled up the key hanging on my shoelace. “Guess what this is?”

He raised his shades. “Looks like a key.”

“Yeah, a key to buried treasure.”

I told him about the DVD of my dying father and how it had burned up along with the leather Bible and my GPS in Dogleg Canyon. I told him how my treasure hunt was for a “bad book” in which Mark Twain had outlined a sequel to
Huck Finn
. I told him the book was at Boot Heel Collectibles in Portland. Then I pulled out my last page of
Huck
and read him the clue poem.

When I was done, he said, “Is there a reason you're telling me all this?”

I didn't want to say how I thought we were teammates and needed to share secrets. That was too corny. I just said, “Because it's my future now.” I held up the key. “It's the only place I have to go.”

“Okay, say you find this ‘bad book,' ” he said, “then what?”

I couldn't believe he wasn't all excited about the book, and didn't want to know more about the treasure I was going to collect. “What do you mean, ‘then what?' ”

“What are you gonna do?”

“Not go home.” I told him about the phone call and how Mom threatened to shun me if I didn't come home right away.

“Your father's gone,” he said. “Your mother isn't. Do you think you're ready to go solo?”

“If I sell the bad book for half what my father said it's worth, I'll be fine. I can get a place in Portland and go to school there.”

He shrugged. “Yeah, I suppose you could.”

It bugged me that he was doing it again: acting so
casual, acting like starting a new life was as simple as choosing what socks to wear. “You think it's a dumb idea, don't you?”

“I didn't say that. I'm just wondering about your mom. How she'd feel about losing you.”

“She pretty much told me how she feels.”

“Do you think she meant it?”

“You don't know her. When she puts someone out of her life, she makes 'em dead. That's what she did to my father.”

“What if she was willing to bend a little this time? What if she wanted to come live with you in Portland?”

A gonzo thought like that had never crossed my mind. “It might be okay. As long as she got it.”

“Got what?”

“That my life was mine now, not hers.”

“I'm glad to hear you're flexible.”

“On one thing I'm not. Finding out everything I can about my father.”

He chuckled. “Like mother, like son.” He pulled a hard face. “You know what you want, and you're sticking to it.”

I didn't like how he was twisting it on me, like I was the one being rigid. But I didn't say anything. He had no idea how unfair she could be. I figured I'd give him a taste of his own medicine. “What about you?” I asked.

“What about me?”

“Are you gonna let Joe Douglas blackmail you? Are you gonna let him keep being your agent?”

He smiled. “I'm hoping to win a doubleheader.”

“What do you mean?”

“If I dump him as my agent, I win the first game. If I keep playing baseball under the ‘Don't ask, don't tell' rule, I win the second.”

“How can you win both?”

“I can't.” He lowered his sunglasses over his eyes. “Unless T.L. performs a miracle.”

“Yeah, but what if there's no miracle? What if you get rid of him and he tells the world you're gay?”

He scoffed. “You mean, what if I wake up to a sportspage headline that says ‘Branch Out at Homo-Plate?' ”

“Would they do that?”

“The media's the only sport with no foul lines or out-of-bounds.”