Hitchhikers (6 page)

I can hear Bobby in back, moving things
around, so I take a seat on the couch next to the window so I can
look out and keep an eye on Lila. She seems perfectly content to
lie out there. I imagine if she’d actually gotten a whiff of Paul
she would have freaked out. I should have listened to my own
instincts and run.

“Here we are,” Bobby says from behind the
large box he’s carrying. I jump up to help him. “Not sure what
all’s in here anymore, but I’m sure there’s some that’ll fit
ya.”

“Mostly I need a winter coat,” I tell
him.

He raises his eyebrows at me and I can
practically hear him thinking,
Winter? It’s only September!
He doesn’t say it out loud, though, and I breathe easy.

The inside of the box smells even mustier
than the rest of the trailer. Bobby starts pulling clothes out and
flinging them everywhere. “Too big, too big,” he mutters.

I begin to wonder if his son simply outgrew
these clothes, until I see the shrine.

Not a shrine with candles and shit, but there
are a clump of framed photos there on the table next to the
television. No dust or used tissues or candy wrappers on that
table. I look away before Bobby notices me noticing it.

He dumps a few pairs of pants into my arms,
t-shirts and sweatshirts and not one but two winter coats and tells
me to try them on. “The bathroom’s right past the kitchen.”

It’s also the size of a closet. I struggle to
maneuver in the tight space. Both pairs of jeans fit better than
the ones I stole from Paul, and the cargo pants. All the shirts
too. The winter coats will be nice and warm, filled with down. I
return to the living room.

“Everything fits,” I tell Bobby, then
shamefully drop my eyes. “But I don’t have a bag or anything.” I
hate to be begging this way. I’d prefer not to have a bag, but with
winter coming I should be thinking about gathering supplies. I
don’t need another winter like last winter.

“Ah, we can scrounge somethin’ up for ya.” He
says this as he is sitting on the couch tuned into the television.
Yet he doesn’t look like he’s going to get up and scrounge around
for anything.

Unsure of what to do, I make myself look busy
folding the clothes and stacking them neatly on one end of the
couch. The television is playing a soap opera, not something I
would have expected Bobby to be watching.

Then I hear the snoring, and I know Bobby
isn’t watching soap operas. He’s taking a nap.

Should I take the clothes and beat it? No,
Bobby will wake up and his son’s clothes will be gone off with some
stranger and he’ll become suicidally depressed. Should I leave the
clothes and take off? I really do need a winter coat, and you can’t
beat a free one.

I sit down on the other end of the couch.

The soap opera doesn’t hold my attention for
long. I find myself staring out the window at Lila, who is herself
napping out on the makeshift porch. The afternoon wears on until my
focus drifts to the inside of the trailer.

It’s been so long since I’ve had any kind of
a home that the mess of this one bothers me. Bobby’s lucky enough
to be able to stay in one place and live here without worrying
about winter and starving to death, yet he can’t even wash his own
dishes. It’s been so long since I lived at home with my parents
that I don’t even remember if I was a neat freak or if my room was
as messy as this.

I start by gathering up the trash from the
coffee table and floor. I smell the trash can in a cabinet under
the sink, overflowing with garbage. I close my eyes and inhale. I
catch the faint scent of new plastic in a narrow closet in the
hallway and find a box of new trash bags there. Within only a few
minutes of cleaning the bag is near to full. Then I start on
getting all the dishes near the sink and run the water, using
liberal amounts of dish soap.

The housework puts my mind into a lulled, zen
kind of place. I don’t have to think about anything more
extraordinary than scrubbing off crusted eggs and ketchup and
tomato sauce overgrown with mold, and dishpan hands. I can pretend
I’m an ordinary kid, resigned to doing ordinary chores.

I have finished the dishes and am in the
process of sweeping the dirt and food crumbs out the door of the
trailer when Bobby says behind me,

“What have you been up to?”

I turn to look at him, a guilty expression
creeping into my face. Is he offended that I found his place
disgustingly messy? Then I see the smile in his eyes, and my
shoulders relax.

“I might have to keep you around, Dannyboy,”
Bobby says.

Instantly my hackles are up again. No nausea
or dizziness this time, just a different voice echoing in my
head,

dannyboy dannyboy what have you been up to
dannyboy

Lila whines from outside the open door. Her
eyes look up at me like she knows something’s wrong.

“You interested in some dinner?” Bobby hasn’t
noticed the way my hands are clamped around the broom handle, or
the cold sweat pushing through my pores.

“Sure,” I say through gritted teeth.

I hear him rustling through his cabinets.
“Let’s see… you like mac and cheese?”

I nod, swallow, then say, “Sure,” trying to
keep that edge out of my voice.

He doesn’t know, I tell myself. He doesn’t
know that’s what my father used to call me.

I step outside and lean the broom against the
wall of the trailer, and sit in one of the lawn chairs. Lila comes
over and puts her head in my lap.

Hug her squeeze her throttle her

My fists remain clenched. Can’t touch her –
don’t want to hurt her.

Staying here is a mistake. Staying here puts
Bobby in danger. Lila too. I should be alone, like I’ve been for
the past three years. Monsters don’t have pets, or nice lonely men
to be their surrogate fathers. Monsters don’t deserve these things.
And I am a monster.

After I eat, I’ll thank Bobby for the clothes
and take to the road again. Maybe I can even leave Lila with
him.

You might think that after those two loaded
hot dogs for lunch only hours ago, I might have less of an appetite
for dinner. Three bowls of macaroni later, I finally feel full.

“I knew it was a good idea to make two
boxes,” Bobby says.

“Thanks so much for… for everything,” I say
as Bobby pushes away from the table. He picks up both of our bowls
and puts them in the sink, then shuffles off to the living room
again. “Uh, you know, for dinner, and the clothes and all?”

“Don’t mention it,” Bobby calls over his
shoulder.

I stand and hesitate near the sink. If I want
to have any light when I head off I should leave now. But I can
tell Bobby will leave those dishes in the sink until mold starts
growing again, unless I wash them. And what harm could it do? Bobby
has given me so much, the least I can do is one last sinkful of
dishes.

And when those dishes are done, and Bobby’s
eyes have slipped shut by the light of the television, and I’ve
repacked the boxes with all the clothes I won’t need, I enter that
bedroom down the hall.

It’s worse than the shrine.

Now I know Bobby’s son must be dead and gone.
The little bed is neatly made up with a faded Star Wars comforter.
Books and toys line the shelves. I drop the box down on the bed and
pick up a sealed package containing an action figure of Han Solo.
There is a thick layer of dust coating the top. I wonder if Bobby’s
son was a serious collector. Or if he’d ever been here at all.

The clothes are practically new, the toys are
new, the books have no creases on the spine.

For the first time I wonder where Bobby’s
wife is. Did she take their son and leave him here all alone?

I place the box back on the floor, on the
square spot where the carpet looks brand new instead of dulled over
by dust, and head back into the living room. Lila is whining at the
door so I let her in, and then I sit down on the couch, pull an
afghan over me, and warm my toes under Lila’s body curled at my
feet.

The television’s dancing lights and muted
sound send me to sleep.

I snap awake in the dark. Lila is sitting in
the middle of the living room, watching me, her eyes green.

(Did I kill him – no don’t look)

It is a colossal effort to turn my head, to
look at the place on the couch beside me.

(Blood you’ll see blood everywhere)

But I don’t see any blood. Bobby is sound
asleep, just as I’d left him. He is obviously breathing, but I
don’t hear any snoring. I don’t hear anything at all. The
television is silent, its black eye watching me.

“You need to go back.”

My head whips around looking for the source
of that voice. A girl’s voice.

(Kayla’s voice)

No - that’s impossible.

The window near me is open, letting in a
chilly breath of air that reeks of autumn and decay. I look out. No
sign of a teenage girl.

Not even the crickets make a sound.

“We need you back home.”

My head whips back to look for the source of
that voice. It sounded close, closer than anyone could sound from
outside, but even though I have better hearing than most people I
don’t know where it came from. It’s just me and Bobby and Lila. The
hair on my arms is standing on end, every pore in my body painfully
alert.

The voice almost sounded like it was coming
from inside my head.

Vibrations rumble through my head darkness
swimming in sweat

I swallow and try to hold off. I don’t want
to kill Bobby. I don’t want to kill Lila.

Nausea

No, no, no.

Lila’s eyes catch mine. Immediately I feel a
flood of calm. No nausea. No dizziness. Her eyes anchor me to this
place, this safe place where I am warm and well-fed.

“You must go home.”

That voice again, soft and feminine. It is
Lila, I know it is.

“Yes,” I say.

Then I wake up. Everything is sideways. I’ve
slipped over so my head uses the couch’s hard armrest as a pillow.
Lila is asleep on my feet. Bobby is snoring. The television plays
its late-night reruns, filling the room with a babble of voices and
laugh tracks.

I start to sit up, then stop. Relax.

Go home? Does it make any sense? No one out
here knows anything of what happened that day, my thirteenth
birthday. I’ve been running all these years, but where has it
gotten me? A few states over, homeless and hungry, with no plans
for a future aside from “go someplace warm.” It could be the police
aren’t looking for me anymore. It could be no one found those
bodies.

And even if I am wanted for murder, maybe
it’s time I stopped running and faced it like a man.

Yes, I will go back.

My eyes close and I pull the afghan tight
around my shoulders.

After breakfast.

It continues like this for weeks. I tell
myself I will leave after lunch, after dinner, tomorrow, next week.
But I like Bobby. I help him cook meals that aren’t straight out of
a box. We drive into town and I help him sell hot dogs. Sometimes I
walk to the grocery store and buy ingredients for dinner while he’s
working. Sometimes I sell hot dogs while he sleeps in the truck. He
sleeps a lot.

Some days, if I’m restless with nightmares
and sleep too late, I only wake up when Bobby’s truck rumbles to
life. Usually he leaves a note,
Didn’t want to wake you. Make
yourself at home.
Or,
See you for dinner, cook something
good!
On these days I clean the trailer, vacuuming and dusting
and sweeping and scrubbing. One day I find a pair of hedge clippers
and trim the weeds around the trailer.

I’ve got a flair for cooking. Maybe it’s just
Bobby being nice and the crap I’ve grown used to eating over the
past three years, the bruised fruit and pizza crusts from the
garbage, but what I make tastes good to me too. It’s surprising,
considering what I’m working with, but somehow I can tell by scent
what needs to be added. In the kitchen the warm smell of good food
cooking wraps around me like a blanket. I can almost hear my
mother’s voice, asking if I want to stir or crack the eggs or lick
the spoon, singing along with the radio. I can almost feel her hand
on my head, just resting there, like she could protect me this way,
keep me safe.

We both knew that when my father got home it
wouldn’t be safe.

A few times, like today, the memories of my
father and what he would do to ruin dinner made me think it was him
coming through the door and not Bobby. I found myself gripping the
knife I had used to cut up beef for a stir fry, backed into a
corner.

“Easy there, Dan,” Bobby said as he entered
the trailer. He held out his hands. “It’s just me.”

I couldn’t get my jaws apart to say anything,
my teeth were clenched so tight. But I did put the knife down and
look away, pretending to be busy washing the vegetables. My heart
is hammering in my chest.

Bobby has learned not to call me Dannyboy. He
has learned to go to bed at night and not share the couch with me.
He leaves me alone after these incidents and lets me get myself
together. Except for that one time he found me curled up in a ball
on the floor

(I don’t even remember how I got there)

with Lila licking my face and hands. On that
day, he stroked my hair until I stopped shaking so much, talking to
me about his son, Little Bobby. I don’t remember the first part of
what he said, but once I was able to focus on his voice I listened
real hard, about how he taught Little Bobby how to throw a baseball
and how he went to all of Little Bobby’s baseball games, how Little
Bobby was going to play for the major leagues someday. When Bobby
lost his job during the recession, and found out his wife was
cheating on him, he funneled all of his energy into Little
Bobby.