East of Denver (21 page)

“What's in the safe?”

“A toilet. There's a toilet in the safe. And I gotta take a shit.”

He looks at me like I'm crazy. I'm probably crazy. So far today, I've been snake-bit and I've taken an orange pill.

I say, “Do you want me to take a dump right here on this carpet?”

He says, “Hell no.”

“Then you need to open that safe.” I slap him on the back and shuffle toward Neal's office.

He follows, puts him arm around my waist. “You can't even walk right.”

“Then help me.”

He brings me to Neal's door. I knock. Clarissa opens it. I work my way out of Dad's arm and slither thru the door, which Clarissa shuts before Pa can enter. He knocks a few times. I hear him say, “Shakes?” Then there's no noise.

I lean against the wall and slide to the ground. I try to put my head in my hands but it hurts too much. Pa's out there, wandering. He doesn't know what's happening. I don't know what's happening. This is out of control. This is off the reservation. Whatever this is, it's conclusive. We burned everything.

I cry. It hurts to cry. The tears are stones birthing out of my eyes. I curl up on the floor and shiver. Sorry, Dad, this is your reward. You're the third generation of pioneers, people who built a farm, survived in a semi-arid landscape for a hundred and twenty years. And you end up wandering around a bank while your son's lying on the floor with a snakebite on his neck. Four generations. Lying on a floor. Wandering in the hall. I wish I would die.

Clarissa puts her hand on my back. Miss Angie is still in this room somewhere.

Clarissa winks at me. “I told you Crutchfield would get his.” She seems proud.

I say, “It seems like you're doing all the getting.”

“I'm sorry, Shakes, but D.J. had a better plan. A lot of people have asked me to help them rob this place. You wouldn't believe it. Kids, old-timers, everybody. If it makes a difference, you were the first person I said yes to.”

“Out of pity.” My head hurts.

“Partly. And also because it sounded fun. But it couldn't have worked. You need guns, Shakes. You can't rob a bank with collectible coins. D.J. was willing to use guns.”

Miss Angie coughs a fake cough.

Clarissa says, “I mean, it wasn't entirely his idea. Miss Angie and Kelly, they started it. They're from Denver. They didn't bring me in on it until a couple weeks ago. After you and I had given up on the job.”

I start to speak, but my throat's too scratchy.

Clarissa says to Miss Angie, “Can you get Shakes some water, please?”

“No.”

Without replying, Clarissa fills up a paper cup and brings it to me. It helps.

She says, “You were saying something?”

I shake my head.

She continues, “I had started eating again and I was starting to feel good about myself. Like it didn't matter what people think. I felt like doing something bold. But I knew you weren't the person to do it with. You're not action-oriented. D.J. and Angie and Kelly, they've got it all figured out. And they promised no one would be hurt. And look, no one has been hurt. We'll get the money and then we'll go away.”

“You have a getaway plan?”

“D.J. is in charge of that part.”

She misinterprets my look of dismay.

“Don't worry, Shakes. You'll be right here. You'll be fine. You're not going to die.” She sighs dramatically. “I never dreamed you'd show up in the middle of all this. I thought you'd be moping around the farm with Emmett. Of course it's good luck that you did. We'd be completely screwed without Emmett right now.”

There are clanking noises coming from outside the door. Metal taps metal. Not aggressive. Exploratory. Pa is doing something out there. Clarissa's eyes brighten. Then she looks hard at me and the brightness goes away. “Remember the last time we talked on the phone? When I said I wanted to come visit? I was going to tell you about everything. I was going to tell you all about this and make you promise not to tell anyone. Then, afterward, I was going to give you some money so you could get back on your feet after the foreclosure.”

I stare at her.

“But you hung up on me. So screw you.”

I don't want to explain about the telephone being shut off. It doesn't seem important. I say, “D.J. is a jackass.”

“Yep. And he's mean. But he has a heart, sometimes. He's been taking care of Angie and Kelly. He keeps them fed.”

On the other side of the room, Angie slaps her belly. “He doesn't keep us fed enough.”

I say, “What about Vaughn?”

Clarissa says, “What
about
Vaughn?”

“Is he even actually dead?”

“Of course he's actually dead.”

“We didn't go to the funeral. I didn't see the body. All I know is that you
said
he's dead. Maybe you've kidnapped him and stuck him in that safe and this is all going to be a big joke on me.”

Clarissa looks hurt. “Vaughn's dead.”

I say, “You never intended to rob the bank with us. You gave him hope. You're always trying to give people hope.”

“That's not true.
You
gave him hope when
you
suggested we rob this place. Not me.”

“It's your fault he's dead. You lied to us. You lied to him.”

Clarissa says, “Vaughn Atkins killed himself.”

“He killed himself with D.J. Beckman's pills and now you're robbing the bank with D.J.”

Neal Koenig groans. I had forgotten he was even there. Miss Angie kicks him in the knee. Clarissa clams up. She won't look at me. She's just as much of a weakling as I am, but being like me doesn't make me respect her.

We hear more clanking. This time, it's aggressive, purposeful clanking. Pounding. A grunt. Then the groan of iron being dragged across iron.

There's a commotion outside the door. People are hollering. Something heavy slams against the wall.

Clarissa runs out to see what's going on. She opens and closes the door too quick for me to see anything.

I hope Dad's killing them all.

Neal is wheezing. I know they aren't going to let us go. They never let you go. Assholes from Denver. I knew it, the second I saw them banging each other on that dirty mattress in that abandoned house. They were dirty, meth-eating assholes. They're the kind of people who would murder a cat for no good reason. I bet they killed my cat. They killed my cat and I drove my cat to the farm and I found dad living in squalor with a dead woman in the bathroom, and now we're all here except the cat and Unabelle.

I say to Miss Angie, “I expect you'll kill me.”

She's playing with Neal's toy car again. She looks directly at Neal. “I don't know why a grown man has toys on his desk. It's immature.” She pronounces the “t” in “immature.”

Outside the door, there's an angry, whispered discussion. I hear voices but not words.

Neal's breath sputters around the apple in his mouth.

Miss Angie hops off the desk and squats in front of him. She rolls the toy car over Neal's face. She presses it against his nose so he can't breathe. The shotgun is lying on the desk.

The voices outside have grown calm.

I say, “Take the apple out of his mouth.” I'm feeling hungry. It's been quite some time since I ate an apple.

Miss Angie removes the car from Neal's nose and says, “After I get out of here, I'm going to buy me a car just like this one.” She giggles like a teenager. I suspect she's in her mid-thirties. Her meth face makes her look like she's a thousand years old. She continues, “Except when I buy my car, it'll be a real car. Not a Chinese toy. Always buy American. That's what I say. It's practical. We need to bring back tariffs on foreign goods. They need to stop manipulating the currency.”

More sounds of iron. Another burst of whispers. Someone says, “Fuck!” I can't tell if it's an exclamation joy or anger.

I want to know what they're doing to Pa out there. I don't want to know. I want Miss Angie to shoot me in the eye. The shotgun is sitting right there on the desk. Dirty cat-killing meth vampire.

Miss Angie says, “I'll drive my new car all the way to Cincinnati. I'm gonna go to Kings Island and ride every single ride 'til I puke ten times. I'm never gonna work again. I'll buy a Harley and take it to Mexico. I'll run with the bulls. I'll grow delicious apples in my own orchard.”

She isn't watching me. My hands aren't tied. Why don't I just die? Pa's still out there. Something's happening. While Miss Angie rants her idiotic fantasies at Neal, I stand up slow. I make my hands into fists. I'm going to grab that gun and swing the butt into the back of her neck. It'll knock her out and then I'll untie Neal and then we'll take the gun and liberate everybody. And me and Dad will steal all the fucking money. It's our money. The banker owes us. Mike Crutchfield. Hadn't thought of him in a while. It makes me even angrier.

“. . . I'm gonna buy one of those sea monkey aquariums. I'm going to buy X-ray specs and fake dog shit and everything. I'm going to become a magician. I'll be the magician and my assistants will be sexy faggots in Speedos . . .”

I reach my hand toward the gun.

“. . . I'll start a restaurant that serves only my favorite foods. Peanut butter sandwiches, peppermint schnapps, um, rye bread. And tapioca pudding. I love tapioca pudding more than anything in the whole world . . .”

I close my hand over the barrel.

She spins around and shoots me in the stomach with a pistol.

I recall a conversation I had with Vaughn Atkins when we were kids, probably around seventh grade. We were talking about things we wanted to do before we died. At first it was stuff like screwing Christie Brinkley or doing a tomahawk slam dunk in the closing seconds of game seven of the NBA finals. But then we moved deeper. I clearly remember my top three things I wanted to do before I died:

 

1) Get bit by a shark.

2) Get shot.

3) Rob a bank.

 

When I lifted my hand off my stomach and saw the circle of blood on my palm, I thought, I gotta find me a shark, pronto.

This made me chuckle.

Miss Angie was still yapping. “. . . thirty-two kinds of ice cream, monkey brains, even though they're grody . . .” She was pointing the pistol at Neal's knee. Neal's eyes were squinted shut, waiting for her to pull the trigger.

I didn't feel that bad. Really, once you've been bit by a rattler, a gut shot is nothing. And this wasn't Dirty Harry. Judging by the look of that pistol and the fact that my ears weren't ringing, I'd been shot by a .22. Nothing. Barely a step up from a BB gun. I could take a few more of those before I dropped dead. Gimme some more orange pills and you could shoot me with a cannonball.

Still yapping, Miss Angie stepped over me, picked up the shotgun from the desk, and returned to her place next to Neal.

I slid to the floor. I said, “Would you mind removing that apple out of Neal's mouth?”

Miss Angie stopped talking. She pressed the barrel of the shotgun against the apple. If she pulled the trigger, the shot would send the apple thru the back of Neal's head. She said, “I would not mind.”

There was a crash in the hallway. I heard Clarissa shout, “Leave him alone!”

Miss Angie's finger caressed the trigger of the shotgun.

Something happened. The room was filled with a terrible roar. It wasn't a gunshot. It was bigger. The gun was still in Miss Angie's hands and it wasn't smoking and Neal wasn't bleeding.

Miss Angie and Neal heard the roar, too. A mighty, apocalyptic sound. Neal didn't seem to care. Like he was used to thundering, rumbling, vicious noises. Miss Angie, though, she was startled. Her eyes opened up wide, her chest heaved like a frightened deer.

This was something bigger than snakebites and bank robberies and gunshot wounds and forgetful old men. The earth was peeling apart. Miss Angie and I looked at each other as if the world was going to end and we were both sorry it had to be this way.

Then we recognized the sound, both of us at the same time. It was an airplane. It was the sound of my dad's Cessna.

CHAPTER 26

FARTHER THAN A KITE

The roar became a thrum.

Kelly shouted, “Angie! Get out here.”

The moment of unbashful fear that Miss Angie and I had shared was over. She made as if to hit me in the head with the butt of the shotgun and then ran out the door.

I said, “Neal. You all right?”

He nodded. I peeled the duct tape off his face and took the apple out of his mouth. His lips were stretched. His teeth were red with blood.

After a couple of deep breaths, Neal said, “Call him. Now.”

I knew who he was talking about. I didn't want to call him.

“No. I gotta help my pa. I'm gonna get those cat-killers.”

Neal gave me a worried, confused look. He said, “Call him.”

“That man steals farms. And airplanes.” I pointed to the hole in my stomach. “See that? It's his fault. I'm snake-bit and shot. So fuck Mike Crutchfield.”

Neal nodded earnestly. He licked some blood off his lips. “I'll grant you, he can be difficult. But call him, please. He can save us. He keeps a gun in the plane. There's innocent people in that lobby.”

From the sound, I could tell that the Cessna had landed. It was taxiing behind the bank.

Neal said, “There's not much time.”

“Okay.”

I walked to Neal's desk and picked up the phone. The line was dead. I shook my head. “They clipped the wire.”

Neal said, “I've got a phone in my pocket. Untie me. Hurry.”

I couldn't unfasten the cords around his wrists. The knots were tight and my fingers were slick from blood. My tummy was starting to ache.

Outside, the airplane engine sputtered to a stop. Neal pointed his head to one of his pants pockets. I reached in and pulled out his mobile phone.

I said, “I don't know how to use these things.”

“Push ‘Unlock' and then push star.”

“Where's ‘Unlock'?”

“Look at the screen. It's the button right under where it says ‘Unlock.'”

I pushed the buttons, the phone lit up. I said, “Gimme the number.”

He said, “I can't remember. It's in there. Scroll thru past calls.”

“How do you do that?”

“Push ‘Menu' and then hold the down arrow.”

I pressed some buttons. A duck-shooting game came up on the screen. Fuck this. I put the phone on Neal's lap and ran out the door.

Clarissa and Pa were in the hallway. Clarissa had her arm around Pa. Pa was holding a handkerchief against his nose. Somebody had socked him hard. He had blood on the front of his shirt.

The safe was open. I felt a moment of pride. He did it. I felt regret. We could have done it.

Miss Angie and Kelly were inside the vault. Next to them, the shotgun was leaning against the wall. Miss Angie held a canvas bag, into which Kelly was dumping the contents of a safe-deposit box. He had a swollen eye and a split on his cheek.

Clarissa, Pa, Kelly, and Miss Angie, they all four stopped what they were doing and looked at me. Clarissa's eyes were wet. Pa's eyes were angry.

Miss Angie let loose of the canvas bag, reached into the back of her pants, and pulled out the pistol.

She said, “Mind if I shoot him some more, Kelly?”

Kelly shook his head. “I do not mind at all.”

Miss Angie pointed the gun at my face. I was tired of having guns pointed at me.

Pa said, “Don't do that.” His voice was shaking.

Miss Angie said, “How about I shoot them both, Kelly?”

Kelly said, “Go for it.”

Clarissa just stood there.

I held Pa's hand. It was big and full of cracks and calluses. It was also warm. I tried to enjoy holding his warm hand. You don't get many tender moments in a lifetime.

D.J. Beckman rushed in, breathing hard and sweating out of every hole in his skin. “Hurry up, fuckers. Crutchfield is coming. He's got a machine gun.” Beckman looked at me and Pa holding hands.

I said to D.J., “How's it hanging?”

He said, “Queer bait.”

Kelly dropped the safe-deposit box on the floor. “How's he know? How's he know we're in here?”

Neal Koenig stepped out of his office, walking cocky, hands still tied behind his back. “Because,” he said, spitting a pencil out of his mouth, “I warned him.”

For a moment I thought, This is ridiculous. Then I saw that everyone was thinking the same thing. We were trapped in a moment of collective idiocy. The things that were happening, they simply couldn't be possible. Me, Angie, D.J., Kelly, even Clarissa, none of us knew what to do. It was all too stupid.

Dad knew what to do. He grabbed me by the wrist and he started running. I stumbled, ran, tried to keep up. Kelly and Miss Angie just stood there. Pa put his shoulder into D.J. Beckman's chest and dropped him to the ground. I saw Clarissa's face then, and I was happy to see she was crying.

Pa saw her face, too, and he stopped. I bounced into him. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a gold coin. He looked at it curiously. It was the same three-dollar coin he'd picked up off the floor at Vaughn's place.

Everybody watched him, ready for him to say something amazing. Waiting for him to wrap this all up with some profound one-liner.

Pa tossed the coin to Clarissa. It spun slowly in its arc. Clarissa opened her palm. The coin landed flat in her hand. She bent her head down to look at it.

Pa said, “I swear I saw you in a movie once.”

They can't all be profound.

Then he was dragging me thru the door to the front lobby, past Jimmy Young and Mr. Pridgon and Ezra Rogers, all still sitting on the floor. He pushed the front door open and we were out of the bank and running on the blacktop under the sun.

I slid to my knees. Before Pa could help me, footsteps pounded and Mike Crutchfield was sprinting right at us with a real-life M16 strapped over his shoulder.

He skidded to a stop and said, “You worthless old coot.” He punched Pa square in the face.

Pa staggered back a step and then stood up straight. He didn't say anything. Punched in the nose twice in one day. Blood trickled out of his nostrils. He stretched his neck this way and that. Then he put on that smile he used to get when he was in the middle of building a contraption in his shop. He looked into the distance.

The vessels in Crutchfield's temples quivered. “I saw what you did to my farm.”

Pa said, “Whose farm?”

Crutchfield said, “As of noon today—”

He didn't finish on account of there being a whole bunch of gunshots inside the bank. Pop! Pop! Poppoppoppop!

Crutchfield ran toward the bank. Before opening the front door, he pointed a finger at us. I know he was trying to be menacing but he looked silly. I nodded real easy, like a good country boy.

Crutchfield went into his bank.

Oh, was it a pretty day.

Pa lifted me onto his shoulder. I didn't feel hurt anymore. As he walked step after step, I watched the ground pass by. He ducked so I wouldn't bang my head on the wing of his plane. He sat me on the ground and leaned me against the wheel strut. He opened the door, put me in the copilot seat, and then walked around the plane and climbed into the pilot's seat. We were sitting in the airplane.

Pa slid the window open and shouted, “Clear!” That's what you say right before you hit the ignition.

He turned the key. The engine started right up. The prop spun so it became invisible. He pulled a red knob. Got it just right. Satisfied that the engine was running good, he taxied onto the road in front of the bank. No cars. He said, “It's a go.”

He throttled up. We built speed, he pulled back on the yoke, we left the road, we cleared the power lines, and we were flying like two stones in a bird.

Clear over the country. The land fell away. We passed over the softball field, the school, and, further along, the little strip of town that was Dorsey.

The land became golden squares and green circles. Quarter-mile-long sprinklers sent thousands of rainbows arcing over the corn stalks.

A line of smoke points to a place that used to be a farm. Pa passes the plane low over our old house. It's burning. The roof has collapsed. Flames stretch tall over the crumbling walls. While the rattlesnake was biting my neck, Pa had been lighting that fire. Burning the trash.

Down below, the volunteer fire truck is on the way, followed by a cloud of dust, followed by endless dozens of pickups.

Floating, gentle.

“Hey Pa?”

“Yes.”

“We're pretty high up.”

“Higher than a kite.”

“You think people get what they deserve?”

“They get lucky sometimes.”

“There's always luck.”

“Lucky slots.”

“You win some.”

“You lonesome.”

“What do you think's on the other side of that horizon?”

“We're on the other side.”

“Pot of gold.”

“If you're lucky.”

“You are.”

Pa aims the airplane down toward the ground. We build up speed. Parts of the plane begin to rattle. The engine whines. Pa's got a half-smile on his face. Just before we slam into the earth, he pulls back on the yoke. The plane veers up. I'm squished into my seat. I blink my eyes. We're heading toward the sky now.

Pa says, “Let's see if this thing can do a loop-de-loop.”