Episode 15
Did I hear that right?
Those glowing images Ernie put in my head—
traveling with Fran and Hoodoo in the first place, pleading at the abandoned gas station when she blew him off and didn’t choose him even after Hoodoo slugged him, his faded memories triggered by a little white sandal in the Haw Creek infirmary, the way his voice cracked when he told me about her following him around wanting him to read to her, his face when he saw her photo on the Missing Child poster
—ended abruptly with his words, “I can’t stand her.”
I don’t know what to say, so I finish brushing my teeth and reach for the comb. He doesn’t say anything either, but when he gives it to me, I feel tense vibes coming off him like radiation and I step away to keep from being burned.
He finds extra toilet paper in an overhead cabinet in the corner, and stuffs three rolls on top of the other items in my duffel bag. Ever the practical guy.
On the path, him marching ahead, me bringing up the rear, I wonder when it will be safe to speak. Then he says, “None of it was Mom’s fault, but she’s the one taking the brunt.”
No, I think. You are.
“You don’t live with her? You stayed with Fran and your dad?”
“When he was granted custody—unfairly, because he’s a prime manipulator—all she got was visitation. I see her on my birthday.”
“In two months.”
“Yeah,” Ernie says without emotion. He’s stuck in the past, but I think of the future.
Eighteen, the magic number. Ernie will officially be a man, and in 4 years and three months I’ll be walking out of East Wind forever. Then it dawns on me: I’m out now. Question is, for how long. I want to go into town, but the chance that my mug actually is on a wanted poster—and some citizen might recognize me—is greater than whether a grownup like John will be remembered from his childhood.
“AHH!”
“What?” Ernie turns, puzzled and maybe put on guard by my exclamation.
“John wanted to be a kid again at the festival before leaving the country.”
Ernie teasingly messes up my hair. “You just figure that out?”
We tramp through the last few yards of underbrush and into the familiar clearing. So the plan is to flee. Excited, I’m swept into the whole fugitive thing again, but with a deeper understanding of the guys I’m fleeing with.
John’s giving up his home place and the probability that he can clear his name. Ernie’s giving up university and a better relationship with his mother.
All I’m giving up is some doubtful friendships and an excellent education. Being a minor, I’m facing a worse place than East Wind if I’m taken into custody with these two. Or East Wind at its worst if I’m returned, which is unlikely after they let me escape.
What will we do in another country? How do they intend to handle the border red tape? My companions are inventive and capable, and my confidence soars along with eagerness to experience whatever’s ahead.
John’s gone into town already—or swiped it from a camper—because he’s reading a newspaper. He looks up, watches us spread the wet things. His hair’s wet, too, so he’s been swimming in the river one last time. Alone. Dangerous. There are deep pools and the water’s swift in the
middle.
“I need running shoes,” I say. “And if Ernie’s going to disguise himself as a poet, he should have a pair of brown leather sandals.”
They look at me with surprise and amusement. “Easy enough,” John tells us.
“Actually, I had sandals,” Ernie says. “They’re in the SUV.”
We don’t go there. Instead we wash the coffee pot and cups at the edge of a backwater. But mentioning the SUV prompts me to wonder where Hoodoo and Fran are. Is Jordan out of the hospital yet? And is Bob the Reporter still with Martin the Cuz, or is he pursuing the story of the
runaway scandal at East Wind?
Ernie breaks the comfortable silence with, “John, we should pack up. There’s details that need to be taken care of.”
“Yeah, we will. First, look at this.”
‘This’ is below-the-fold news in a small town daily, so when I do see my face in shades of gray it doesn’t bother me the way I’d expected. It’s an old school photo, but clear enough that I won’t be buying my shoes in Glen Alpine.
“Pity you can’t grow a mustache,” Ernie jokes. He reads the article aloud and there’s not much there. I imagine kids my age being stopped by cops all across the country.
Then I notice the name attached to the report. Robert. Good ‘ol Bob. If he didn’t know me in the farmhouse, he will the next time he sees me. My eyes meet Ernie’s. “Yep. Time to hit the road.”
Focused on touching base with his past, John never asked who the visitors were that sent him flying yesterday morning, so we fill him in about the Suits, Bob and Martin. He heaves a sigh. “That’s not good. I was counting on Ernie driving, but now he’s a target too.”
“Let’s buy the kid some decent shoes. We can discuss other stuff later.”
“Not in this town,” I remind him.”It’s my picture in the paper.”
“Three sitting ducks,” Ernie observes. “Time for drastic measures.”
John starts packing up the cooking gear, cooler, and empty beer cans. Ernie and I roll up our blankets and de-flate the mattresses. We un-pitch the tent and force it into its storage bag. In half an hour, only dry ashes can tell anyone we’ve been there. No stray cigarette butts, no footprints, and as soon as Ernie moves the Caddy to rocky ground, no tire tracks. John’s methodical and thorough. Just like Ernie. I vow to watch and learn, and be just like them.
We get in the Caddy. Instead of asking ‘Where to?’ Ernie announces, “I know a couple of guys who can help.”
He guides the car back the way we came and when the Interstate lies before us he heads in the same direction we were going before. Away from Glen Alpine, away from everywhere I’ve ever been and toward the unknown.
Fifteen minutes of countryside later, John says, “What can they help with?”
“First things first,” Ernie tells him.
I’m surprised Ernie’s taking charge like this. Dumbfounded that John’s letting him. Maybe the denial, anger, guilt, and whatever the other stages of grief are, have worked their way out of his system and he’s too numb to object. I’m too happy to worry about it.
After two boring hours of radio, silence, more radio, silence, and a patchwork of fields, signs for towns I never heard of, woods, fields, and more signs, we finally pass one that’s a relief to us all: ‘Rest Area 3 miles.’
Not caring to remember the other rest areas I’ve had the ill-luck to visit, I run into the building before anyone can stop me with any cautions. Rested, I meet them strolling along, grinning. John gives me money and I buy some cola and a pack of peanuts. While they’re inside, I dawdle on a bench, sharing with a squirrel, and wonder what they’re saying to each other. If the last hundred miles is any guage, it’s not much.
Oops. They come out together, arguing.
John pokes Ernie’s shoulder with a forefinger, hard enough to hurt. “Forget it! It ain’t gonna happen.”
Ernie buys himself a drink and a pack of cheese crackers. Sits on the bench beside me.
John goes to the Caddy, parked as near behind some bushes as Ernie could put it, but not on the sidewalk or grass where it might draw the attention of an overeager attendant. I expect him to get in the driver’s seat, but he doesn’t.
“Still won’t let you paint her?”
“Have I said that she sticks out like an old maid on a basketball court?”
“Probably. But as long as we’ve left the Suits behind, what does it matter? They’re the only ones who can connect you to me or John.”
“At the moment, that’s true. Things have a way of changing.”
“He’ll come around. When he has to.”
“Maybe. First, a couple of other stops.”
“You know where you are, then.”
“Yep.”
I look around me with more interest. If Ernie’s in home territory, is he going to say Goodbye to his dad, or find his mom, or drive by his house and I’ll see where he lives. What’s around me right now is just a shady pit stop on the Interstate, though, and maybe we’re miles from his destination.
Neither of them says a word when we return to the car, and Ernie keeps heading—west. The sun’s still behind when we exit at a dusty collection of shacks and rows of tables stretching for maybe half a mile in what apparently used to be a pasture on the other side of an access road from the four-lane.
Ernie parks in an almost-illegal space, way down on the end of a line of cars on the grass, under some trees. “Not pines,” John tells him. “Took me an hour this morning washing the goo of campground pines off her.”
It’s a flea market and I have high hopes for finding a camera.
We find plenty of other stuff, too, mostly useless, but Ernie picks up a new cowboy hat and a belt with a gaudy silver buckle and a really classy pair of boots made of soft leather. “Black market,” he says, but buys them anyway. With a small wad of John’s money. John’s wearing oversized silver sunglasses and a ball cap, and loads up a paper bag with fruit and vegetables we can eat without cooking.
I’m looking for running shoes when I spot a whole table full of cameras, and buy one that my cartridge works in for only five bucks. I test it by ratcheting the film and taking a couple shots of the old guy who sold it to me.
It’s refreshing to have money and things to look forward to besides swimming every day in the East Wind pool, and listening to Steve tootle on his clarinet and Jerry bitch about his chores. The only thing I really miss is the library. Finding a book stall, I fill a plastic bag with paperbacks. One of them is an S.E. Hinton I’ve never read. Life is complete.
Well, no. No shoes yet, though there are plenty to choose from. They’re all either too big, too small, or too heavy for summer wear. I’m about to sink a couple dollars into new tennies when Ernie calls me over.
“Here’s what you need.” He hands me a pair, navy and white, lightweight and streamlined. I try them on and agree. Money exchanges hands. “I could use another tee shirt. I was wearing this one when I went over the wall.”
“This would be better.” Ernie holds up a frilly pink dress and a curly black wig. “They’ll never think to look for a girl.” He laughs as he tries to set the wig on my head. I dodge and we scuffle. He drapes the dress over my face. I try to fight it off without ripping it. You rip,
you pay.
We’re laughing like crazy when John hurries up to us, not exactly scared, but tense. “Couple of cops.” He nods and we both look.
Shaved heads, khaki creased enough to cut you, polished and loaded down with stuff on their belts. Walkie-talkie, cell phone, pager, handcuffs. Guns.
They’re talking to the old guy who sold me the camera. Hugging my bag of purchases, I sprint around a canvas booth, John right behind me with our groceries.
Jogging along a dirt driveway behind the line of vendors, we’re probably drawing more attention than if we’d sauntered away like Ernie’s doing, carrying his running shoes, my worn-out sneaks, and a guitar he’s picked up somewhere. Guitar? And I thought he was disguised as Richard Petty.
We make it to the car without a tail, and in a few minutes he catches up to us and slides into the driver’s seat. Something’s been nagging at me for a couple of days, and I just now realize what it is. The car doesn’t have seat belts. I point that out, adding, “What if a highway
patrol pulls us over?”
“Vintage cars don’t need belts,” Ernie assures me.
Yeah. Right. And the first time we’re stopped and a patrolman asks for driver’s license and registration, will they hand it over? That move would land us in cuffs or set us off on a cross-country chase.
Seeing those cops has started my worry cycle again, like the dryer that used to sound off like a train horn when the permanent press was ready to quit, but the tub kept turning anyway, and if you didn’t take the clothes out, the churning would continue for a few minutes until you forgot about it and then the horn would blast you out of your daydream, and Whatever-her-name-was would yell, “Get the damn things NOW, Vinnie.”
Wherever I end up, I hope I don’t have to do the laundry.
After another hour, Ernie zooms up an off-ramp which either wasn’t marked or I wasn’t paying attention. We drive through an industrial area, then a residential area, then a seedy old downtown outskirts area to a public parking garage.
John comes out of his trance. “Where the hell are you taking us?”
In the rear-view I see Ernie’s closed smile. Then he says, “Ever hear of the Cayman Islands?”
TO BE CONTINUED!