Damascus Road (20 page)

“Are you alright, Jim?” Grace asked. Her face was close to
mine again, her hair hanging down over me like a curtain on all sides, so that
all I could see was her face.  

I shook my head.

“No.”

I let out a dark little laugh, and my face broke into a
crooked grin.

"You jerk!" Grace said and slapped her hand down
on my stomach.

I groaned and laughed.

"Ow," I said.

"You could have been killed," she said. "You
should have been killed!"

"I know," I conceded. "But I wasn't. And I'm
here now."

"Ugh, you just irritate me so much sometimes,
James," she said, pacing.

"Grace?"

"What?"

"Thank you," I said.

She opened her mouth to say something, but nothing came out.

"I don't deserve you, Grace," I said. "But
you've always been a blessing to me, and I have always been too much of a fool
to see it."

"Do you want me to contradict you?" she asked,
beginning to smile.

I shook my head.

"I've missed out on things that I haven't seen. Haven't
appreciated things like I ought to," I said. "I just didn't see it
before. I've been blind to it."

"What's different, Jim?" she asked. "One
minute you're jumping into tornadoes and the next you have some newfound
appreciation for life."

"I don't know," I confessed. "Maybe it was
one of those moments, you know? The...what do you call it?"

"An epiphany?"

I nodded.

"An epiphany."

"I'm sorry that I have been a terrible husband to
you," I said.

She looked at me as I sat there on the grass, soaking wet,
covered in cuts and scrapes and abrasions.

"Are you alright?" she asked, with genuine
concern.

"I'm better," I said with a smile.

I begrudgingly decided to let Grace drive the car. Well,
that's not completely accurate. She refused to give me the keys back, and I was
too tired to chase her. I slumped into the passenger seat and put my head back
against the headrest.

"Home, James?" she said with light humor in her
voice.

"As you please, milady."

She dropped the car into gear without grinding the
transmission. That's my girl. She drove us back to the farm house. I looked out
the window, staring vacantly at the devastation left behind.

We drove in silence, past the devastated crops and the
overturned tractor. We saw a tree by the roadside that had been completely
uprooted and turned on its top, stuffed back down to the ground. We saw barns
torn apart, missing boards, missing roofs, some even torn bare of everything
but the bare frame of the structure. We did not talk about it.

She pulled up in front of the farmhouse, and I saw the spot
where the propane tank had been, as well as the burned out hulk of the Land
Rover. The farmer and his wife were surveying the damage. Duff and Bud were
trying to rock the Suburban to get it back on its wheels. I saw Erik sitting on
the front step, holding his bandaged head. He looked up when he saw us
approach.

"Did you park the car by way of Oz?" Duff asked.

"There's no place like home," I replied.

The Robinsons turned out to be a very understanding couple.
Considering the devastation we had brought to their doorstep, they were
incredibly gracious hosts.

Caleb Robinson was a farmer by trade, the third generation
in his family to till the soil and pray that the rain would come to feed the
crops. He lived every day at the mercy of the weather and the sun to give life
to his harvest. His face was weathered and lined. His eyes were the blue of
clear sky. His hands… I had never seen anything like them. The very earth of
the land was in the lines of his hands. I had seen him wash his hands at
breakfast and the skin of his hands was permanently that way.

He was married to Ruth. For dinner the first night, we had
chicken that Ruth made. Before dinner, everyone else was inside, and I sat on
the steps of the house, watching the sun set. Ruth came out of the house and
walked past me, excusing herself in her soft, quiet voice. I scooted aside to
let her pass, but the butcher knife in her hand caught my attention. She walked
toward the chicken coop in her sun dress, knife in hand. The chicken that night
never tasted better.

“Thank you for your hospitality, ma’am,” I said as we sat
around the dinner table.

“You are certainly welcome, young man,” Ruth said.

She was frying the chicken in a cast iron skillet.

“Your new propane tank should arrive tomorrow,” Erik said.

“Now, I did tell you that it’s not necessary to do that,”
Caleb said. I could see from the way his shoulders relaxed and the frown on his
brow softened that he was thrilled to hear the news. He forked mashed potatoes
into his mouth and smiled contentedly.

“More than happy to help, sir,” Erik said, smiling despite
himself. “I’ll also help get the cars cleaned up and off the property.”

“Much obliged, sir,” Caleb said.

Ruth served the chicken with mashed potatoes, sweet peas,
and kohlrabi. We sat around the table, storm chasers and wanderers and the salt
of the earth and somehow, from each of our separate backgrounds, we knew what
needed to come next. We waited and watched as Caleb folded his calloused hands
and bowed his grey head. His voice was kind and gentle and deep.

“Amen,” we all agreed.

And just as unanimously, we dug in to the meal. The only
sounds that were heard were silverware and chewing.

“Must be good, Ruth,” I said. “Everybody’s quiet.”

This gained some chuckles around the table. I liked the feeling
of being around these people. Somehow the storm and the explosions and Erik
wanting to date my wife all seemed to go away.

I noticed that Caleb was staring at me while he ate. I
diverted my attention to my peas, then stole a glance back to him. He was
looking at me over a chicken leg.

“Sir?” I asked good-naturedly. “Something on your mind?”

“Caleb, not now…” Ruth whispered.

“Shh, Ruth…”

They shared conversation in a terse whispered exchange that
would have put the most sophisticated SATCOM burst transmitter to shame. They
sat back, and I could see that the matter was settled. Caleb looked at me
again.

“Son, is it true that you were caught up in a tornado?”
Caleb asked.

Bud and Duff looked up at me like springer spaniels spotting
a mallard.

“That’s…well…” I stammered, a little unsure how to explain.

“Yes, sir,” Grace volunteered. “James here was in fact
caught in a tornado.”

“And it lifted you up off the ground?” he asked, still
looking at me.

“Yes. Yes it did,” Grace said.

“What were you doing out there?” Caleb asked.

“He was talking to God,” Grace said. Ruth looked at Grace,
and Grace tilted her head in some form of woman-to-woman conversation that
seemed to explain everything.

Dinner was incredible. Ruth followed it up with freshly
baked apple pie with ice cream. Duff and Bud regaled us with stories of
tornadoes they had chased, while Erik explained how his company had provided
the disaster relief. As for Grace and I, we could not stop looking at each
other.

After dinner, we walked outside. I held her hand as we
strolled across the yard. The sky was clear and the stars shone in the sky.

“It’s beautiful out here,” Grace said.

“It sure is,” I said.

She was looking at me and try as I might, I did not have a
response to divert her attention.

“What’s wrong?” she asked.

I sighed.

“It’s serious, okay?” I said.

“Okay…”

I turned to look at her.

“Something’s been bothering me,” I said. “Something that Tom
said.”

Grace lost her smile completely.

“What?” she said, her teeth clenched in anger at his name. I
suspected she blamed him for the pain and misery that I had gone through; and
for that, I could not completely blame her.

“Tom told me that he was going to take away my future,” I
said.

“What does that mean?”

“I think he’s going to go after our son,” I said.

“After Bobby?” Grace asked.

I nodded.

“I’m afraid so,” I said. “Where is he now? Is he still in
school?”

Grace bit her lip and shook her head.

“He’s been struggling lately,” she said, her voice
quivering. “He dropped out. He was afraid to tell me.”

“He dropped out?” I tried to keep the disappointment out of
my voice. ”Where is he? Do you know?”

“He wanted to go down south,” Grace said. “He was frustrated
with school and said he wanted to do something easy and fun.”

“Grace, we need to find him,” I said. “I found you, and Tom
was right behind me. We need to find him fast before Tom gets there first. We
have to put an end to this.”

She nodded and clenched her jaw.

“Jim, don’t let him hurt my boy,” she said.

I shook my head.

“There’s not a chance in the world that I would ever let
anything happen to him,” I said.

She hugged me fiercely.

“I’d like for you to come with me,” I said. “Come with me,
please.”

Her face turned hard, determined.

“Where else on earth would I be?” she asked.

Redline

OUR SON’S NAME WAS ROBERT PATRICK
MARLOWE. Grace loved the name. Robert had been her grandfather. Patrick had
been mine. She didn’t realize that his initials were RPM until she saw the name
on the birth certificate. I haven’t heard the end of it since then.

We called him Bobby.

Grace and I had packed the Cuda with our belongings and said
good-bye to Caleb and Ruth. We knew that somehow, someway, we would probably
meet up with Duff and Bud again, and whether I liked it or not, Erik Balfour
would not be far behind.

We pulled out at first light, but Ruth still insisted on
feeding us golden pancakes and sausage and eggs over easy on toast. The coffee
was a wonder in itself, like bottled lightning. We said our good-byes and
hugged our friends until we finally pulled ourselves away and got in the car. I
rolled down the window and waved to them, and they waved back.

I saw a crow sitting on the roof of the house, atop the
weathervane. It was watching us, Grace and I, and not moving. Its head moved in
tiny avian jerks, and it blinked at us a moment before taking flight.

I turned over the ignition and turned the car east. Our plan
was preliminary at best.

“I don’t think we’re going to find Bobby in Oklahoma,” I
said.

“No, I doubt that very much,” Grace replied.

“I think he would be bored out of his mind,” I continued.

“Mm, where then?”

“South, I think,” I said.

“South… Texas?” Grace asked.

We looked at each other. Bobby ridiculed the modern day
cowboys who wore hats and boots and drawled their Texas drawl. He thought they
were slow and ignorant and sounded thick as hillbillies.

“Probably not,” I conceded.

We drove east, eager to escape Oklahoma. I for one would be
happy if I didn’t see a tornado for the rest of my days. Somehow, I knew that
Grace would probably return to her profession, but that was a topic for another
day. The only thing that remotely loomed on our horizon was finding Bobby.

“What does that leave us?” Grace asked, thinking out loud.
“Florida… Georgia…Mississippi…”

“Louisiana…” I said.

We sat in silence for a moment. Grace turned and looked at
me. I didn’t really want to look over, because I knew what she was thinking.

“New Orleans,” she said through clenched teeth.

“New Orleans…” I answered.

I had about a hundred reasons that I wanted to disagree with
her, tell her that she was out of her mind and that there was no way she could
possibly be right. I railed against the idea of Bobby being in New Orleans, but
for all the wrong reasons.

Whether I wanted to admit it or not, I had a feeling that Tom
was ahead of us in this hunt again. Grace had been her own person, and she
would have seen Tom coming, would have known him for what he was, recognized
him as a threat. Bobby wouldn’t have that benefit. He wouldn’t have known Tom
the way that I did.

Reflexively, I pressed the gas pedal a little harder.

I hadn’t been there for Bobby. I hadn’t been a good father.
When my son needed parenting and guidance, I had been on the road. I had no
excuse.  I busied myself with checking the speedometer and the rearview mirror
only to see my own expression and reddened eyes. I looked away quickly.

“Jim,” she said. “Can you tell me about it?”

“About what?”

“Tell me about when you were in New Orleans?” she said,
carefully weighing her words.

“No, no way,” I said. “I don’t ever want to talk about that
place again.”

“Jim, it’s okay…you can tell me,” Grace said, her voice
soothing, but firm.

I thought about it, opened my mouth to say something.

“I have to get gas,” I said.

Grace sighed and didn’t push me.

I spotted a gas station and pulled off  the road. I pulled
in and pushed the Cuda into a slot next to a gas pump. Grace got out and walked
inside without saying anything to me.

She was upset. That much was obvious, even to me.

I walked around the car, picked up the gas nozzle, unscrewed
the gas cap and started pumping. I leaned back against the car, listening to
the melodic, methodic, thump-thump-thump of gas pumping into the tank. How many
times over the years had I been here? In this spot? Pumping gas in some nowhere
gas station in the middle of nothing but miles of road in every direction.

I’d done this in the Midwest and everywhere from the point
of Key West to the pinnacle of Maine to the deserts outside of Arizona and New
Mexico, up to the lush greenery of Washington State. There was nowhere that I
wasn’t willing to go. Or so I thought. The idea of New Orleans took me
off-guard, the memory of the place raw and painful even with the years of
distance to dull the wounds. I tried to push it further out of my mind. I
looked down the road, squinting against the road dust, trying without success
to see what it held for me out there.

Without deliberate thought, I took the balisong blade from
my pocket. I flipped it open in a fluid movement, then back without pause. Open
and closed, open and closed. My life didn’t hold that amount of certainty, but
at least this one thing in my hand did. It obeyed and was faithful and didn’t
talk back or ask me where I was or what I thought I was doing. I let the
balisong do its dance, spinning through my fingers, trying not to think of how
I’d used it last, fighting with my brother, his own knife poised to kill,
battling in the storm as we each tried to kill our only sibling. Cain and Abel
born again.

 Grace was at my side, before I realized it. She put her
hands over mine and took the open knife from me without struggle or debate. She
flicked her wrist, and the knife obeyed and closed at her touch. She secured
the clip that held it closed. Her face was kind, smiling even, but it was clear
that she wasn’t going to be denied what she wanted. Her open right hand was waiting,
her right hand offering the closed blade. I knew what she wanted and didn’t
argue. I gave her my car keys and she slapped the knife into my palm.

I knew there was something wrong with me, because I was
actually happy with the trade.

“Get in, cowboy,” Grace said. “You can talk while I drive.”

I opened my mouth to protest, but I had a rare moment of
clarity. I could argue the point, no question. I could deny her request and
make it difficult on me, but the truth be told, she wasn’t going to let up until
I told the truth anyway. It was easier this way, and I didn’t feel like
arguing.

“Big Easy, huh?” I said warily.

“Mm-hmm.”

She was in the driver’s seat before I could say anything. I
strolled around to the other side and, taking my time, I dropped into the seat
beside her only to find her looking at me. I noticed the key wasn’t in the
ignition. I pointed to it.

“Do you plan on using those keys?” I asked.

“As soon as you tell me what happened in New Orleans,” she
said. “All of it...”

“I was an Army brat, Grace,” I said. “You know that. I lived
in a lot of places.”

“But why there? What happened?”

“I’m not proud of what I did,” I said. “It was before I met
you. I rebelled against everything, anything.”

“What happened?” Grace demanded. I saw steel in her eyes,
that I hadn’t seen before. At least not recently. Not for years. Not since we’d
been together.

I looked out the windshield, out at the open road. Somehow
that made it easier if I didn’t have to look in her eyes when I told the story.

“Tom and I…we weren’t always at war,” I said. “He was my
brother, and I would do anything for him. I’d move heaven and earth for him
when we got along.”

Grace nodded, urging me along.

“We were teenagers, and Ellis was off somewhere, doing who
knows what,” I said. “Everything was classified or beyond top secret. It was
never uncommon for men in suits to arrive at the house in the middle of the
night. He would always leave with them, no matter what. Even if he was supposed
to be spending time with us, he would leave with them.”

I chuckled darkly, without humor.

“I came up with an idea to get his attention,” I said.

“You got into trouble,” Grace said, offering the one piece
of the puzzle that she knew.

“I suggested to Tom that we start stealing cars,” I said,
making the mild correction.

“You what?”

I held up my hand.

“You wanted to hear this, yes?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“Regardless of the fact that we were Colonel Ellis Marlowe’s
kids,” I went on. “We didn’t know how to steal cars. We did get lucky a couple
times. A guy left his car running outside a shop while he ran in to buy a
candle to burn to his favorite saint. We took it for a ride.

“But we realized that we didn’t know anywhere near the
breadth and depth of what it took to boost cars,” I said. “So we went looking.”

“You went looking for a car thief?” Grace asked.

“Not just a car thief,” I corrected. “The car thief. His
name was Louis. That was the only name we ever knew him by, and to be honest,
I’m certain even that was not his real name.”

“So, you found him?” she asked.

“We found him,” I confirmed. “And not only that, but we
agreed to do anything he asked. Easy jobs, hard jobs, anything we had time for.
He was cautious at first of course, but we were brothers, and nothing was
tighter than family.”

“So, he trusted you?” she asked.

“Implicitly,” I smiled bleakly. “He showed us everything
from opening doors to popping ignitions to hotwiring cars to bypassing security
systems.”

“You’ve got to be kidding,” Grace said.

“We were minors,” I went on. “Young and willing and immune
to prosecution in the adult legal system.”

Grace nodded in acceptance, then shook her head.

“Why didn’t you tell me this before?” she asked.

“Because I haven’t gotten to the bad part yet…” I said. “We
stole cars in New Orleans. Anything, whatever it took. We learned to be crafty,
real grifters. We stole anything, everything. We learned to drive, to navigate
the streets on knowledge, on instinct. We were the darkest of thieves. Nothing
was going to stop us. We were spoken of in whispers as the brothers who could
steal anything on the streets.”

“Did you get caught?” Grace asked.

“No,” I replied. “We got even. Ellis never paid attention to
us the way that we wanted. So we decide to take out our frustration on the
people that were always taking him away from us.”

“You didn’t…” Grace asked, eyes wide.

“It wasn’t until later that we discovered that we had stolen
the car of a CIA section chief,” I said. “Ellis had all kinds of visitors
giving him briefings, intelligence, updates. On the night that the next person
showed up, Tom and I stole his car so Ellis wouldn’t be able to leave home.”

“No way…” Grace said.

“It didn’t work, of course,” I said. “Ellis took his own car
and left with the spook anyway, so our plan didn’t even work.”

“Did the secret agent man ever get his car back?” Grace
snickered.

“He did,” I said gravely. “Granted, Tom and I knew well
enough to cover our tracks. We stole the car, took it for a ride, and then
parked it a ways across town. We even wiped down the vehicle for fingerprints.”

“So, what’s the problem?” Grace asked. “Aside from grand
theft auto.”

“I left a partial print on the door,” I said. “I overlooked
it.”

“What happened?” Grace asked.

“Ellis found it,” I said.

“But how did he…?” The answer came to her before I had to
say it. “Ellis fingerprinted his own kids?”

“He did,” I said. “But that’s not the worst. I knew that
Ellis figured it out, so I approached him, told him that I knew. I told him
that I was to blame.”

“What did he do?” Grace asked.

I shook my head.

“Jim, you can’t stop now. What happened?”

“Ellis blamed Tom for the whole thing,” I said. “It didn’t
matter that it was my fingerprint, not his. He blamed him for that. I expected
to get punished. It was my fault.”

I breathed, not sure if I was ready to go on.

“Ellis beat Tom so severely that I was sure that he was
going to die,” I said. “Ellis called in a medic from his old unit, just so he
wouldn’t have to report it to the authorities. It never got out.”

I didn’t want to look at Grace. I didn’t want to see her
expression, because if I did, somehow it would all be real again and not buried
in the past where it belonged. I shivered. I heard Grace take a shuddering
breath, and I couldn’t take it anymore. Tears were flowing down her cheeks, and
her face was completely empathetic.

“That’s horrible…so horrible,” she said.

“I know,” I agreed.

“Why didn’t you tell anyone?” she asked sharply.

“Who?” I asked. “Who was I going to tell? His commanding
officer? The spook whose car we stole?”

“Your mother, Jim,” Grace said. “Why didn’t you tell your
mother?”

“Tom wouldn’t let me…”

“He what?” This news took her off-stride.

“My mom was on the verge of leaving our father for years,” I
said. “She loved us, without question. But I think her relationship with Ellis
was toxic on some fundamental level. It was slowly eating away at her. Tom and
I both knew that she would leave him one day, and the longer she stayed, the
better it was for us. We tried not to think about whether or not it was better
for her.”

“Tom didn’t let you tell her?” Grace asked.

“She stayed another couple years,” I said. “Good years.
Maybe that makes me a bad person. A bad son. A bad brother. I wanted my mom to
stay, so shoot me.”

“Tom might just do that, you know?” she offered.

“Oh, thank you very much for that insight,” I said. “That’s
incredibly helpful. What am I supposed to do with that?”

“I’m just saying.”

“Nice. Can we go please?” I asked.

She turned over the car and dropped it into gear. We were
back on the road. I had taken the time before we left to replace the driver’s
side window. It was a trip to the junkyard and scrounging until I found the
replacement, but I couldn’t see pushing ourselves out onto the road and not
having a window. I was thankful I had.