Hitchhikers (7 page)

When he got to the part where his wife left
him and took Little Bobby with her, that was when Bobby asked me
how I was doing.

“I’m okay,” I told him.

“I bet you are,” he said, not sarcastic but
matter-of-fact. He never mentioned it again. Never yelled at me for
letting Lila hang out in the trailer with me, but considering that
the place seems so much bigger now that it’s clean, and I vacuum
her fur up on a daily basis, there’s not much reason to keep her
out.

I cut the strips of beef in a slow,
methodical rhythm, keeping my movements as steady as possible and
my mind as blank as a new layer of snow. But it won’t go away.
Memories of my father keep punching through the blankness.

“
Stop with the women’s work,
Dannyboy.”

Flinching, feeling the tightness as he
grabbed my collar and pulled me away from the counter.

“
Come on, let’s wrestle.”

These were the good days, when we would
wrestle.

“
Gotta learn how to be the leader of the
pack, Dannyboy. Come on, show me what you’ve got.”

I was too afraid to give it all I had. What
if I really hurt my father? How angry would he get then? So I held
back, grappled with him until he laughed and pinned me to the
ground, digging his elbow into my back and pressing my face to the
floor, squeezing every molecule of oxygen out of my system, his
grin hanging over me, waiting, just waiting, for me to think I was
about to die.

black spots dancing in front of my eyes,
behind the tears being squeezed out, losing sight of my mother in
the kitchen, she’s disappearing and she hasn’t even turned around,
I’m dying and she won’t even turn around to see

It’s a few moments before I realize Bobby is
waiting just outside the kitchen area. I blink and look up at
him.

“How’s dinner coming along, kiddo?”

I clear my throat. “A few more minutes.”

It’s safe here with Bobby, I keep telling
myself, smelling the sizzle of the steak and the weaker aromas of
the pea pods and broccoli.

“Why is this happening now?” I ask Lila after
Bobby has begun snoring in the bedroom. My fingers scratch her
velvety ears. “I’m safe here. I shouldn’t be freaking out like
this.”

Lila looks at me. She’s just a dog. She
doesn’t have any answers for me. I roll onto my side to stare at
the television.

I shouldn’t be afraid of those memories. My
father is dead. I killed him. There was no way he could have lived
through what I did, any more than that old man and his wife, or
Paul the pervert, or any of the countless others I’ve woken up to
find dead. I shouldn’t still be afraid of my father.

I should be afraid of myself.

I still don’t know what triggers it. I always
had a feeling it was hunger, or anger. But it wasn’t always. And it
was only less likely to happen when I was feeling full and safe and
warm. And it hasn’t happened once since I’ve been with Lila, or
this whole time I’ve been living here with Bobby.

It would be helpful to know what “it” is. Am
I a psychopath? A multiple personality? Is a secret CIA program
controlling my brain?

None of the late night reruns of Dr. Phil
have cleared this up at all.

All I know is that it doesn’t feel like a
part of me that does that,

(the killing ripping apart eating thing)

more like a psychotic hitchhiker in my
brain.

If I go home, and they are looking for me as
a murderer, maybe I don’t go to jail. Maybe my lawyer can plead
insanity and I’ll be in a mental hospital for the criminally
insane.

I think I’d prefer jail.

It’s not that I’m denying I have a mental
disorder. It’s more that I don’t trust people. Especially doctors
who’d want to drug me up and who’d probably only make it worse. I’d
rather be in a cage than a straightjacket.

My two options – jail or hospital. Probably
why I chose the open road instead.

This time when I begin dreaming I know it is
a dream. My cousin Kayla stands before me in the white dress she
wore to church on Sundays. We always went to church, my mother,
Aunt Jennifer, Kayla, and me. My father and Uncle Red never came.
Sundays were their hunting days, but even if they didn’t go hunting
they stayed at home rather than come to church with us. I hated
those days. My father would see me in the suit and tie my mom made
me wear to church and say things like, “One day you’ll see dressing
like a sissy ain’t gonna make God love you.”

Kayla’s white dress has puffy sleeves and a
white ribbon around the waist. Now that I see it on her, standing
in the moonlight, looking fifteen instead of twelve, I realize that
she hadn’t worn that white dress for a least a few years before I
left. It’s a dress for a third grader, not the teenager wearing it
now.

She’s even wearing lacy ankle socks and black
Mary Janes.

I stare at her from where I lay on the couch.
I know she is a dream, so why bother getting up?

“There are things you don’t remember, Danny,”
Kayla says. “Things you don’t remember because you don’t
understand.”

“Like what?”

She smiles at me. “Like what you are.”

“And what am I?”

“You are a part of me,” she replies. “As I am
a part of you.”

“What does that mean?”

“You need to come back,” she says, not
smiling anymore. She is starting to glow.

“Why? Why do I need to come back?” I cover my
eyes with my arm. Her glow is becoming painfully bright. “The
police will get me. They’ll lock me up. I’m safe here. Why can’t I
stay here? I don’t want the police to catch me.”

“Then you will need to avoid the police. We
need you back home.”

“Why? Why?”

Because I can’t see, I barely realize she is
so close to my face until her lips are on mine. “You can save us
all.”

How? How can I save anyone, when I can barely
take care of myself?

All day it weighs on my mind. “You have to
come home. We need you… you can save us all.” I am distracted
helping Bobby out at the hotdog stand and burn several dogs.

“Something on your mind?” he asks, feeding
the charred meat to Lila.

I shrug.

The days are colder now and I’m thankful for
Little Bobby’s jacket and gloves, although standing in front of the
grill keeps me warm. But now Bobby’s handing me a hot dog with the
works and telling me to go have a seat. The guys at the discount
electronics boutique next to the Dollar Store are on their lunch
break, which usually starts off the “lunch rush.”

Sitting on the bed of Bobby’s truck, I stare
in the distance thinking rather than eating. On the one hand, I
would like to see my mother again, but I can’t imagine she’d be
willing to forgive me for killing her husband. I can’t even forgive
me. Even after all he did…

Would she welcome me home with open arms? Her
son, the murderer?

Hell, she probably wouldn’t even recognize
me.

It’s just one more reason not to go home.

Of course, other scenarios play out in my
head. One where my mother thought I’d been dead all these years,
killed by the same maniac who killed her husband: she sees me, her
face blank with disbelief as I walk up the driveway, until she
finally recognizes that it’s me, her son, I’m alive, and I’m back,
and then she’s weeping and running crazily down the driveway to hug
me and finally I’m home and that emptiness which has accompanied me
for so long disappears with a painful pop and I’m crying too…

I’m crying in real life, not just my
imagination. I slap the tears away before anyone can see. (Lila
saw, but she’s just a dog)

I never let myself think about that. Never
never never. I couldn’t go back home, so I saved myself that pain
by not thinking about it. Now, because of those stupid dreams, I’m
thinking about it. I shouldn’t think about it. I should keep on
going south, like I had planned.

(And what if you’re in the south and you’re
still killing people? They’re big on the death penalty in Texas.
They might not even let you see your mom again before they executed
you.)

But…

What if?

What if my mother is in trouble? What if she
knows something that could help me stop killing people?

“One dog with ketchup on it.”

I am broken from my thoughts by a loud,
clipped voice. Bobby’s customer is a police officer. His eyes are
obscured by sunglasses and his blue uniform is free of wrinkles.
Instinctively I hunch down and start eating, hoping he didn’t
notice me.

Too late.

“That your boy?” the officer asks, nodding at
me.

Bobby looks over at me. “Yup.”

“How old?”

Bobby doesn’t skip a beat. “Sixteen.” Bobby
doesn’t know that my sixteenth birthday is only a few weeks away.
It’s the same lie I would have told.

“You will need to avoid the police.” That’s
what Kayla said in my dream last night. What if this cop wants to
arrest me right now? See some proof of my age?

“How come he’s not at school?” the cop
asks.

Bobby slathers ketchup over the top of the
hot dog and slides it over to the officer, accepts the cop’s crisp
five dollar bill and gives him change.

“He a drop out?” the police officer
presses.

“Homeschooled,” Bobby says, finally.

“Good.” The officer’s final words before
climbing into his patrol car and driving away. Only when he is out
of sight am I able to breathe normally.

I am quiet the rest of the day. Bobby accepts
my silence on the long truck drive home. Home. I call it home now.
It’s not my home, I think as I throw something together for dinner
while Bobby takes his afternoon nap. I remember my mother’s
cooking, and forget about what happened when my father came home. I
remember those sunny afternoons in the kitchen with her. That is
home. Not this.

At dinner Bobby says to me, “You know, the
couch isn’t very comfortable. If you want you could sleep in Little
Bobby’s bedroom. Have a little space of your own.”

I nod and chew thoughtfully, but I don’t
answer him.

It’s time to go.

It’s midnight and I’m padding across the
carpet in the dark, carefully not to make a sound. There was a
backpack in Little Bobby’s things and I’m going to take it, even
though I spent almost three years living hand to mouth. This time
I’ll do it right. I’ll pack warm clothes, and some food, and my
money. The collar and leash for Lila, too, just in case. Maybe I’ve
learned to control that dangerous side of me.

I take longer packing than I should. I
consider carefully each item I place inside. Do I really need
another t-shirt? Should I take a second pair of shoes?

(how will Bobby feel when he wakes up and I’m
gone with half the things that remind him of his son?)

In the kitchen I take the basics: bread, a
water bottle, a can of peanuts, a package of deli meat, three
apples, some granola bars. I want to write a note, but I don’t know
what I would say. Thanks for the stuff?

Lila watches me with her green eyes.

“Okay, then, let’s go.”

As quietly as I can, I open the trailer door
and Lila and I leave. We walk into the night, not looking back.

Lila leads the way. She trots ahead, sniffs
the air, and decides which road to turn down. I let her, because
it’s dark. After weeks of turning on the light in the evenings when
I couldn’t see, I feel blind, stumbling through the night. I’m
tired, too. Nightmares have robbed my sleep all week, and anxiety
drained my days. Not even the cool night air, biting through my

(Little Bobby’s)

jacket can make me feel alert.

I never paid attention to the dates, not
during that whole time I lived with Bobby. The reruns on TV, the
repetition of our every day routine made it feel like a time warp.
Time didn’t pass there.

It isn’t until later, on toward dawn,
watching frost form on the roadside grass, that I become aware of
how long I stayed at Bobby’s. September is gone. Any chance of
Indian summer erased. Those warm days when I slept outside with
Lila under a lilac bush are gone. I pull my knit hat over my ears
and suck my chin into the collar of my jacket.

Winter is beginning already.

Up ahead, Lila turns and passes under a sign
that says Route 36 West. West toward home. How does Lila know where
to go? I’m so tired I don’t care. The sunrise isn’t beautiful. It
stabs my eyes and makes me squint, and makes me want to fall down
and sleep.

A truck with a bed full of chicken coops
rolls up.

“You need a ride?”

The man is short a few teeth, but Lila hops
into the truck bed, and I follow suit. The chickens cluck their
disapproval.

The smell of chicken shit in my nose and my
head clanging against the rail, I stumble into sleep.

I wake in a cold sweat, the words

happy birthday to me

echoing in my head. The truck has come to an
abrupt stop, but luckily the toothless wonder driving hasn’t come
round to check on me yet. I pick myself up, let Lila lick the salt
off my face, then we disembark the chicken mobile.

“Thanks for the ride,” I manage to say before
heading down the road. Unfortunately the sun tells me that we’ve
only been driving about an hour, and the lack of sleep is killing
me. It’s too bright. My eyes feel gritty and my mouth tastes like
dirty socks. I didn’t think to pack toothpaste.

There’s no place to sleep here. It’s another
country road, lucky to be paved, stretching as far as I can see
into the distance. Fields of wheat blowin’ in the wind. The kind of
road where trucks whip by, their drivers half asleep. I can smell
the road kill already. Not safe to sleep on the side of a road like
this. Not safe to sleep in the fields, either: it’s near reaping
time. Machines cutting down the fields.