Mule (30 page)

My mother drove by in her Sentra with Cristina. They waved at us; they'd be waiting at the aquarium to help Kate get the kids out of the car. There, my daughter would run around and look at the fish while the adults took turns pushing Evan in his stroller, talking about things the way normal people did, as though the lives we lived were normal ones.

But our lives weren't normal ones. "I want to stay with you," Kate pleaded with me outside the car. "I don't want us to be separated."

"You have to go on like usual."

"How am I supposed to act like nothing's happening?"

"You pretend. You've done it before. You're good at it. This is what we have to do. This is how we pay for it."

"I feel sick."

"I do, too."

"I wish we hadn't done it."

"I'm sorry if I made you."

"I'm sorry if I made you feel like you had to."

"I'm sorry about all of it, Kate."

Just before she pulled away, I tapped on her window. Kate powered it down. "Be nice to my mother."

"I always am."

"We may never see her again."

Kate looked at me a long time. Then she began to cry.

"Put on your sunglasses."

"You know I will."

"Don't let the kids see you crying."

"You know I won't."

 

Did I sleep that night? How could I? I paced the living room, fed Evan when he cried, consoled Romana on my shoulder when she called from her crib for me. How gentle children seem when they're that small. But then they grow up to be all these people. People just like we were.

In the kitchen, I started to salve my worry with vodka but poured the glass down the sink. There was no one I could call, no way to get more information. When I went out on the patio to smoke, the world around me was calm. It seemed like an average night,
was
an average night for most of the billions of people in the world. But it wasn't an average night for me; my nights hadn't been average for a long time. Would there be any way out of it now? What would that way be? Had we exchanged selfishness for the balance of whatever had been good in our lives? The love Kate and I had for each other? Our children as expressions of that love in the world? Had we really needed to risk losing everything to realize all we'd had from the start? What could we salvage out of it, if we were given the chance?

For example, would we be willing to give up the money if we could get out of this for free? I asked myself as I looked at the night. The stars glittered above me, and the answer that came to me was: I still wanted the money. I was a coward. I was too afraid to live life without the money.

When I finally went in and lay beside Kate, I whispered, "Are you sleeping?"

"No."

"But are you trying to sleep?"

"I've got this nightmare running through my mind."

I had to tell her about what had happened in New York. I said, "I've got all that same stuff running through my head, too. I hope there'll be a day when we don't have to think about it."

Kate said, "Will there ever be a day like that? We're always going to have to think about it. Maybe it won't feel like it does right now. But the things we've done can't just be put away."

"Putting the children at risk, right?"

"That's it. And being as greedy as we've been. There were other things we could have done. But we didn't even try. When we look back, we're going to say, Why didn't we just deal with the hard times like everyone else had to? We're going to have to hear them talk about how they struggled through. Then we're going to feel ashamed."

"Kate? What if I had something to tell you? What if I told you about all the bad things I've done out there?"

Kate turned and looked at me in the dark. I could feel the caution that came into her. She said, "What are all the bad things you've done out there?"

"I've done things I'm always going to have to live with. I've done things I'm always going to regret."

Kate thought about that. She said, "I know you'd never hurt anyone. I know you're not like that."

"I have something to tell you."

She sat up in bed.

I said, "I don't know what I'm going to tell you."

"Did you hurt someone?"

"Yeah, I hurt someone."

"Who did you hurt?"

I didn't say anything.

"What did you do? You're frightening me."

"Kate, there's only one person I could ever truly hurt."

She didn't say anything. Then she said, "Me?"

"Yeah."

"You hurt me?"

"Yeah. I hurt you."

She was shaking her head. "But I asked you. You said you'd never do that. I asked you never to lie to me, and you said you wouldn't."

I was quiet for the longest time.

She said, "Did you lie to me?"

Time and time and time and time. Breathing and not wanting to say it. So long a time that I knew she knew the answer was yes. Then I told her about all the runs to New York that she hadn't known about, that a person had been waiting at the end of those runs for me.

"Who was that person?" Kate said in a quiet voice.

"It was a woman."

She was quiet, thinking. Then she said, "It was the night you didn't call."

"It was that night."

"What did you do?"

"I cheated on you."

"You cheated on me?"

"Yeah."

The passage of time. Time and time and time.

"You cheated on me with that person?"

"Yeah."

The passage of time.

"Why did you cheat on me with that person?"

"I don't know why."

Now it was Kate's turn to control the passage of time. To make me wait. To make me know that there had been a consequence. Finally she said, "You don't love me, do you?"

"Yes, I do."

"But you did that."

"Yes."

"Because you didn't love me at that time?"

"I don't know why."

"Why didn't you love me at that time?"

"I don't know."

"Yes, you do know. Tell me why."

"Because."

"Because why?"

"Because you let me do the drives."

Silence. Time. The birth of a chasm.

"Because I let you do what you wanted to do?"

"Because you let me take those risks."

"Because I let you do what you wanted to do."

"Because you didn't make me stop."

A sundering. A mitosis. The division of a continent.

"This isn't my fault."

"I know that."

"I've never felt as awful as I do right now."

"I've been sorry every moment since."

We lay there a long time. Time did not make it better.

Finally Kate said, "Maybe we rushed into this. Maybe we didn't really know each other. And now we have these kids. How could we have done this to them? My heart is broken. Completely, completely broken. One of us has to leave. One of us has to leave right now."

"I'm the one who will leave."

"I don't know that I'll ever want you to come back."

"I'll do whatever you say."

I dressed in my driving clothes in the dark. I looked at my sleeping children, kissed them, touched them as though for the very last time. I took three bundles of money from the teapot on the stove, gathered my car keys, my wallet, my phones. Then I left the house.

 

I drove across town and checked into the Ritz, because a motel would have depressed me more than I already was. I hadn't dared go to the 8th Street house because that would have been even worse: the pictures on the walls there of when we'd been happy. Kate and I in Austin. Kate and I in the cabin with our new baby. Those people we'd once been who would condemn me now. Still, that plush room at the Ritz might as well have been a cell. What was Kate going through? I texted her where I was staying. She did not text back.

Should I have told her what I had done? I did not know. Had it made me feel any better about myself? It had not.

How could I have done this?

Should I wait to call her? Hadn't I hurt her enough already?

I snatched up the phone, called. It went directly to her voice mail. What could I say but, "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I'll do anything. I love you." And it went to her voice mail the dozens of times I called after that.

I chain-smoked on the balcony. When dawn broke over the city at last, I called room service for oatmeal, put a cigarette out in it when it finally came. Would the TracFones ever start ringing? At eleven
A.M.
, the first one did: Eric Deveny.

"Got your new line, my man. Prudent, prudent. Still seeing you on Tuesday?"

"On time as always."

"Then you're going up to see your girlfriend?"

"Yeah."

"You ever hit that shit again?"

"You know I haven't."

"Yeah, that's what I think I heard about it. Anyway, once is better than never, right?"

"That's right."

In the afternoon, the second one rang: Darren Rudd.

"Did you read the news?"

"What news?"

"Front page of the
L.A. Times.
Half of Siskiyou County taken down."

"Are you kidding?"

"When they took down Billy, they were taking down three dozen other people, too. They have my name on their list."

"What are you talking about?"

"Got a computer? Google 'City Councilman Arrested in Mount Shasta.'"

"What would it say if I did?"

"It would say that I'm in a lot of trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"RICO. Do you know what that is? Or else CCE. You don't know what that is either, do you?"

"I know RICO. I don't know CCE. Letters aren't good, Darren."

"These ones are the worst of all. They mean I'm going to have to lie low. Real fucking low. It means I'm going to have to get my hands on a new identity."

"You going to leave the country?"

"They've locked me in."

"Am I going to get my load on time?"

"You have to. Now I need the money like you wouldn't fucking believe."

I set him up with Jerome's number, called Jerome, told him someone besides Billy would be making the switch with him this time.

"What happened to Billy?"

"Billy's on vacation."

"On vacation to where?"

"Timbuktu. How the fuck am I supposed to know? You think I give a shit about where anyone goes on vacation?"

"Man, chill out. However it has to get done, I'll do it."

"Drive fast and swerve a lot."

As I sat in that room that interminable weekend, the only thing I knew for certain was that the load coming from Cali would be the last. The last no matter how it turned out. Even if Darren Rudd could somehow get me more, I was done. I wasn't going to do it anymore. I killed those desolate days by smoking, staring at the TV, missing my family, thinking about my life. Every time I thought about Kate, my heart broke all over again. This is what my acts had led to, a destruction of everything important to me. I felt as empty and alone in that room as though I were locked up already. A quiet came into me, an acceptance. Was this how people felt when they were finally tossed into prison?

I read about the Siskiyou County bust in the hotel's business center, about the city councilman and the charges he faced, the reactions of the people around him who hadn't known. Who hadn't had any idea. They were shocked, amazed, all the things you'd expect. The message boards after the articles were filled with comments from stoners about the injustice of the marijuana laws when alcohol and tobacco killed so many people. The simple fucking stoners didn't know.

Monday came and I was on the road. When I pulled off the interstate in Tallahassee that evening, Emma was waiting by her rental, a white Mustang, in the lot of the Motel 6. She passed me a keycard, told me the load was in the room.

"Where's JoJo Bear?" I asked her. The evening was cool and quiet, no one else around.

Emma didn't say anything. Suddenly I knew something was wrong.

"JoJo's in the room, James. JoJo's in the room with the guy in there."

"There's a guy in there?"

"He came with Jerome. He put a gun on me. He took away my phones. He put his gun on Mason in Dallas. He pointed his gun at Bayleigh. He told Mason he'd kill me if he called you. There was nothing we could do. What does he want? Who is he?"

I looked at the door of the room. I knew right away. I told her, "He's somebody who's in a lot of trouble."

"What kind of trouble?"

"You know what kind of trouble."

Emma thought about it. She said, "What's he doing here?"

"I'm not sure."

"I couldn't stop him. There was nothing I could do. Once he pointed the gun at Bayleigh, I didn't even think about trying. It was the worst two days of my life."

"I'm sorry."

Emma said, "Are you going in that room?"

"I have to go in that room."

"I don't think you should."

I looked at the door of the room. The room I would have to go into now. I knew that if I didn't, things would only get worse. The person in there knew too much about me.

"It's all over," I said. "You know that, right?"

"It ended for me when he got in my car."

We looked across the lot at the door. The door someone was waiting behind for me. Emma said, "Remember when I saved your ass in San Angelo? I never told Mason about that. I'd never seen anyone as shattered as you. If I hadn't come out and got you, you'd be in prison."

"I know."

"Can't there be a way out of this?"

"I don't know."

"What am I supposed to do?"

I looked at her. She wouldn't be standing here if it wasn't for me. I said, "You're supposed to get in your car and leave."

"Leave you behind?"

"Yeah. And go home. This is something I have to deal with for fucking around in all of this."

"You'd better have a plan, James," Emma said. She looked around the darkening lot. She hugged me. "Be careful." Then she hopped in her car and was gone.

Was it time to text Kate "Emergency"? Would I ever see her again if I did? When I opened the door of the room to get my answer, I said to the man in it, "Hi, Darren."

"Hi, James."

Darren Rudd was sitting on the edge of the bed in his calfskin jacket, looking at a basketball game on the TV. He seemed calm, maybe bored, his yellow hair shaved close to his head like a pelt. The black duffel bags were beside him. Seated on top of one of the bags was JoJo Bear.