The Day I Killed James (10 page)

I figure we’ll leave tomorrow. So I guess I’m going to have to find wisdom tonight in my sleep.

TWO

Betrayals Large and Small

So that’s what I get for allowing about a cubic millimeter of soft spot to form in my heart for that juvenile delinquent. I gave her my bed and slept in the barn, and this was how she repaid me. I got home in the morning with this pathetic bag of fast-food breakfast for both of us, and the little shit was lying on the bed reading my journal.

The minute she saw me, she threw it back under the bed.

“Ah,” I said. “Very good. Now it’s all erased again. Now you’ve rewound time and nothing is wrong at all.”

I was still in the process of processing my anger. And we both knew it.

She sat very still with her eyes wide, waiting for me to say it.

So I did. “Get out.”

A long silence. No movement. No glorious lack of juvenile delinquent journal invader.

Then she said, “Out?”

“That would be the operative word, yes. Out.”

“You mean, like, for good?”

“Yes. It will be very good to have you out.”

“But you were going to drive me to my grandmother’s.”

“Yes. I was. Before you betrayed my trust completely.”

She slunk out without further comment. I was beginning to see her mother in a slightly new light. There was definitely something about the kid that made you want to see her walk out the door.

Sometime around dark the door opened and Frieda walked in without knocking. See? I’m occasionally right about something.

She had a pile of my clean laundry in her hands. Stuff I had left in the dryer. She had even folded it. Frieda is like that.

“Okay,” she said. “Tell me the story about the kid sitting on the curb.”

For reasons hard to explain, I decided not to hit that one head-on. “Now why would you even notice a kid sitting on a curb? What’s it to you?”

“It’s making my parents paranoid. Or I guess I should say
even more
paranoid. They’re hiding behind the curtain, drinking vodka and peeking out the window at her. They probably think she’s some kind of miniature CIA agent watching the house.”

She might have been exaggerating to be funny. But with her parents you never know.

“So why would you think I know the kid-sitting-on-the-curb story?”

She pulled a very small pair of jeans off the top of the pile. Much smaller than I could ever wear. They were, in fact, the kid’s jeans. “Maybe because she’s sitting out there in hugely oversized jeans and a T-shirt I know is yours, and some clothes her size seem to have made it into your load of laundry. That and the fact that you and the little curb sitter are just about the only two females in the world with that rather unusual haircut.”

I rubbed my eyes. Sighed. “Do I really have to tell you the story? Or can I just go out and take care of it?”

“You’re not much of a storyteller,” she said. “I’ll take door number two.”

The kid glanced over as I sat next to her on the curb. But she said nothing. We both said nothing. For a truly bizarre length of time.

Then she said, “I wanted to know something about you. You don’t tell me anything. I wanted to know the things you won’t tell me.”

“The things I won’t tell you are none of your business.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s not that easy. You can’t just do bad shit and then say you’re sorry. Two words don’t erase what you did.” A long silence fell as I considered my words in light of what she might have just read in my journal. Speaking of the things we do wrong. But maybe she had only read a couple of pages. Which was probably still enough. “How much did you read?”

Long pause. “Up to the part where you were talking to your father. After you came home.”

“So basically just about all of it.”

“I guess.” Long pause. “I’m sorry.”

“Yeah, you said that.”

“Except I’m not. I mean, I am. But if I hadn’t, I wouldn’t have known…you know.”

I raised a finger and pointed it at her nose in warning. But it took me a minute to figure out how the warning was going to go. “Don’t start thinking I have what you need. Because I don’t. Don’t think I can march you through what to do after something like this happens, because I’m still totally lost in it myself. If I can’t even save myself, how am I supposed to save you? It’s pretty hopeless, kid.”

She chewed on that a moment. Then she said, “At least we’re in trouble together.” A bit too brightly, I thought.

“God. What did I do to deserve you? Oh. Never mind. I just remembered.”

We sat quietly for a minute longer. I could hear crickets singing, and a tree frog. They have big lungs, those tiny frogs. A guy rode by on a bicycle with flashing reflector lights blinking in the dark. I envied him. I wanted his life. I knew it was simpler than either of ours. Probably better than the lives of two pathetic curb sitters put together.

I said, “I ate both of our breakfasts. Hours ago. But I might have an energy bar or something. You get to sleep in the barn tonight. We’ll leave in the morning.”

“So you’re still gonna take me?”

“I have to do
something
with you.”

“Thanks. I really am sorry about the journal.”

“Let’s just try to get some sleep. We’ve got a long trip ahead.”

Journal Entry _________________________

The last entry I will ever write in this journal

I really only took it out because I was going to destroy it. Seriously. I was going to rip out all the pages a few at a time and burn them in the bathroom sink. But I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Some weird little thing in the back of my head says I wrote it all down for a reason and I might want to see it all laid out. Someday.

Besides, now that I’ve quit smoking, I don’t have a match. I don’t have one single item designed to create fire.

I like to think the first reason is more important.

On the other hand, I’m damn sure not putting any more of my guts out in black and white so other people can sneak a look without my permission.

I think when I’m done with this final entry I’ll fold this journal up in a sweater and put it in the drawer. Hopefully it will be safe while we’re gone. After all, the little sneak thief will be with me.

Speaking of the devil, as I write this she’s using my laptop. Visions of hard-drive crashes dance in my head. But she swears she just wants to look up directions to her grandmother’s house. But I might be getting better at knowing when she’s lying. And she might have been lying. But I’m not sure. Maybe I’m being too suspicious. Hard to blame me by now.

I only get a wireless connection about half the time. And I have no printer up here, so she has to write down the directions. Which may explain why she’s taking so long.

Meanwhile I’m trying not to obsess about her teeth.

She came here with the clothes on her back. Which means no toothbrush. Which means it’s been about three days since she brushed her teeth. And we’ll be another two or three days on the road.

I guess we have stops in our future.

What a note to end on, eh? Somebody else’s teeth. But this is the end. My journaling days are over. Not a moment too soon.

THREE

Irritating Role Reversals

So there we were. Headed up Highway 101 in my crappy old car. With the juvenile delinquent journal invader sneak thief in the shotgun seat. We hadn’t made any stops yet. I was trying not to obsess about her teeth. No point being codependent. After all, they were her teeth. Not mine.

Things were actually looking fairly good. Something about the aimless, unfinished feeling of driving. I’m loath to admit it, but I actually had that Willie Nelson song, the one about being on the road again, running around in my brain.

It might almost have been a good day.

Then the kid opened her mouth.

“So we have to go through San Francisco anyway. Right?”

I glanced over at her. Sensing a bit of subtext.

“Not exactly. Why?”

“Doesn’t this road go to San Francisco?”

“Yeah. More or less. But we’re going to skirt around it. Not go right through the city. Otherwise we’ll get bogged down in traffic.”

“Oh.” Disappointment. Subtext.

A knotty feeling in the pit of my stomach. Which means I’m smart enough to know when I’m about to be sucker punched.

“Why? What’s in San Francisco?”

“Nothing.”

“Then why are you asking?”

“No reason. I guess.”

I sighed. “Why not just spit it out, kid?”

“If we’re not going through there, then it doesn’t matter.”

“Okay. Theoretically. Let’s just say for the sake of conversation that we were about to go through San Francisco. What’s in San Francisco?”

“I just thought maybe we could stop and see James’s mom.”

My foot hit the brake with no forethought whatsoever. And stayed there. The driver behind me leaned on his horn and then passed me on the left. I pulled over onto the shoulder. Pulled on the hand brake. I could feel my heart racing. I could hear my pulse pound in my ears. Feel it throb in my neck. I held the wheel tightly so I would never need to know if my hands were shaking. But I suspected they might be.

We sat there for a moment in this overpowering silence.

“Would you please repeat what you just said to me?”

She started to open her mouth, but I cut her off at the pass.

“No. Stop. Don’t say it. Don’t ever say that collection of words in that order ever again.”

More silence. She was looking down at her lap.

“How do you know James has a mother in San Francisco?
I
didn’t even know that, and I knew James.”

“It wasn’t hard.”

“But
I
didn’t even know it.”

“You could have. If you’d wanted to.”

She pulled a folded sheet of paper from the back pocket of her jeans. More than a little bit dog-eared. Handed it over to me.

Now I would have to loosen my death grip on the wheel, answering the question about my hands. Just as I suspected, they were a little shaky.

I unfolded the paper.

In loopy, surprisingly legible handwriting, the kid had written, “He is survived by his father, James Stewart, Sr., of Reno, Nevada, and by his mother, Lorraine Bordatello, of San Francisco.”

“You found his obituary.”

“Yeah.”

“Did it say anything about brothers or sisters?”

“No, just a mom and dad.”

“Great. Nice to know it was their only child I killed. So you found this on the Web at the same time as you were getting directions to your grandmother’s.”

“Oh. I forgot that.”

“You never got directions to your grandmother’s?”

“Sorry. I got excited that James’s mom lived on our way. And I forgot.”

“Then how are we supposed to find your grandmother? Do you at least have her address?”

“Yeah. I know it by heart. We can get a map or stop for directions or something when we get to Bellingham.”

I handed her back the paper and she folded it up again and stuck it back in her pocket.

I watched my side mirror for a gap in traffic and then pulled onto the highway with a slight screech of tires. Trying to head north calmly. As if nothing had ever happened.

“Are you mad at me?” she asked a mile or two later.

“Oh, no more so than usual.”

“So are we going to stop and see James’s mom?”

“No.”

“Oh.”

About ten miles of silence. That I was hoping would last.

“Why not?”

“Why would I want to see James’s mother? She’s just about the last person in the world I want to see.”

“You could confess.”

“Ah. Now it sounds much more appealing.”

“It might help.”

“And when she screams at me and cries and says I murdered her only son? Tell me how this is going to help?”

“Because you can just look her in the face and say, Well, anyway, I came and told you the truth and that’s the best I can do. And then you’ll always know. That you did the best you could do.”

“Let’s not talk for a while.”

“Okay.”

We drove in blessed silence. We didn’t even talk when we stopped at a supermarket and bought a toothbrush and toothpaste, and trail mix for lunch and dinner.

I was attempting to wrap my brain around the sudden change in logistics. I’d just become marginally comfortable with the idea that I would somehow lead the kid out of her guilt and trauma. Even though I knew I didn’t know what I would need to know to lead anybody out of anything. But I thought it would dawn on me. I thought I’d get a brainstorm and pass it on. I fully expected to step up to the role of leader.

The idea that the kid knew more than I did about the subject was just plain irritating.

Turned out the juvenile delinquent came with a small consolation prize. A moving car tended to put her to sleep. Even in broad daylight.

It was just barely dark when I found us a Motel 6 in either Berkeley or Oakland, I’m not exactly sure which. I let her sleep while I paid for the room, running up a credit card bill I’d need a job to pay off.

Back when I had a mother, my mother told me that Motel 6 got its name because a room used to cost six bucks. I suppose it would be inconvenient for them to change their name now to Motel 46.95. But part of me felt like they owed it to me to try.

I had to actually go back to the car and poke her in the ribs to let her know we’d gotten somewhere.

“What?” she said. She had a bit of dried drool at the corner of her mouth.

“We’re stopping.”

“Where are we?”

“The East Bay.”

“What’s an east bay?”

“It’s a place.”

“But where is it?”

“On the east end of the bay. Hence the expression.”

“What bay?”

“The San Francisco Bay.” I’d been trying so hard not to say it. “Now will you please come in? I need to get some sleep before I go on.”

I opened the door to our tiny, cheap second-floor room. As promised, it had two beds. Besides that, I really didn’t care.

The kid flopped onto a bed immediately.

“Brush your teeth,” I said.

“Oh. Right.”

While she was gone I got undressed. Put on just a long T-shirt, from my little overnight bag, as pajamas. I don’t generally use pajamas, so I’d had to improvise. I pulled another clean T-shirt out of my bag and threw it on the kid’s bed.

Then I got under the covers. I wanted this night to be over before any more questions could happen.

She came out and stood over her bed. “Is this for me?” she asked, holding up the T-shirt.

“Yes.”

“Thanks.”

“You’re welcome.”

“So are we going to see Lorraine Bordello?”

That was just the question I’d been trying to avoid. I wanted to be pissed but ended up laughing at her mispronunciation instead. Just a little snort. I was tired and not filtering my reactions well.

“What’s funny?”

“It’s Bor-da-tell-o.”

“So? I was close.”

“Not really, kid. A bordello is…like a brothel.”

“What’s a brothel?”

“It’s like a bordello. Will you please stop asking so many questions and go to sleep?”

“Okay, okay. So in the morning we’re just driving on again?”

“I’ll figure that out in the morning. Now go to sleep.”

The good news is, she did. Almost immediately. The bad news is that, when sleeping on her back in an actual bed, the kid snored like a buzz saw.