Niagara Motel (19 page)

Most people in the airport seemed pretty worried and upset too. Some people cried and were comforted by others, some people cried alone.

The sunset was a purple haze. I leaned my head against a glass
wall and watched the sun drop toward the ocean like a big red Plinko chip. I waited at gate number forty-seven for the last flight to Buffalo, crossing my fingers on both hands. And my toes. The redheaded airport lady at the gate knew I was trying to get on the plane because I'd been trying to get on it for over twelve hours. I looked away from the window and watched her as she checked her computer and spoke into a walkie-talkie. Then she looked at me and did that thing with her finger that people do when they want you to come over to them.

I ran over to her.

“You still want to get on this flight?” she said.

“
Yes!
”

“You're lucky, someone hasn't shown up.”

I hugged her and she laughed. “Thank you,” I said.

“Get home safe, kiddo,” she said.

Then I ran over to the window where I'd left Angel in her backpack and strapped the backpack to my chest and paid the money for the ticket and got on the plane.

30

As the flight attendants explained how to put on an oxygen mask, I thought of Meredith. Well, Meredith's body, stuck in the back of the Korean Grocery store. What would happen to her, and who would make sure she had a proper funeral and a proper burial, and who would plant a red fern beside her gravestone? Would she even get a gravestone? I didn't know the answers to anything, and I didn't know what I could do about any of it. I watched the pretty flight attendant show us how to click two parts of the seatbelt together and tried not to think about anything.

I sat between a lady and an old man. The lady got the window seat. She had ginormous breasts and a glass eye. She told me that her name was Linda and she had flown to L.A. to audition for a part in a movie about a weatherman who wakes up and it's the same day, over and over again.

“Sounds like kind of a boring movie,” I said. “No offense.”

She shrugged. “I think it'll probably be one of those movies that people either really love or really hate. If it ever gets made, that is.”

“What part would you play? If you get it, I mean.”

“The love interest,” she nodded and her glass eye bobbed up and down.

“Do you think you got it?”

“The audition was cancelled!” she said. “Because of the riots. All of Hollywood's shut down, if you can believe it.” She blew her nose into a Kleenex. “I'm just glad I made it out of there before the airport closed,” she said. “Did you know we just got on one of the last flights out of L.A.?”

“No.”

“They're shutting it down. Who knows for how long.”

“The whole airport?”

“That's right. And the buses too.”

“To everywhere?”

“No one comes in, no one leaves. Not until they get a handle on this thing.”

“How are they going to do that?”

“What? Get a handle on it?”

“Yeah.”

“They've had to call in the National Guard,” she said.

“The army?”

“If you can believe it.”

Then Angel coughed and spit up a gob of milky white stuff. The old man beside me chuckled and snorted a bit.

“Is that one of those dolls that wets itself and cries and everything?” Linda said.

“Not exactly,” I said.

“It looks so real,” Linda said, peering into the backpack. “My niece works in a doll factory in New Jersey. They're making them so life-like now, it's amazing.”

The man sitting on my other side said, “That's no doll, lady. That's the real thing.”

Linda looked at me. I nodded. She looked at Angel again. Then back to me. “Just what exactly are you doing with a baby in your backpack, young man?”

“It's kind of a long story,” I said. “Would you mind if I just looked out the window for a while?”

Linda looked at me for a moment and her real eye got sad and her glass one kind of floated to the side as she nodded. “Sure, sure. That's fine. You can tell me about it some other time.” Then she turned to look out the window, and I leaned forward so I could see out the window too.

The trees were green and the land was brown and the ocean was
shimmery blue, sparkling in the day's last light. You would never know that things were such a giant mess in the world from 30,000 feet in the air.

After a while, I fed Angel some formula and then she fell asleep and so did Linda. Linda snored as she slept but her glass eye didn't close. It rolled around to the side and stared straight at me. The eye was milky-blue and it gave me the heebie-jeebies. I wanted to reach up and pull her eyelid shut over it, but I didn't. Instead, I stared at the grey seat-back in front of me and wished that Meredith was there.

The man in the aisle seat next to me said, “That your baby?”

“It's my best friend's baby,” I said. “She died yesterday.”

The man nodded slowly. “You gonna look out for her now, then?”

I looked down at Angel, curled up like a bean, sleeping. I nodded.

“That's good. That's good,” he said, nodding. Then the man reached into his bag and slid out a yellow pamphlet and put it in my lap. “Have you accepted Jesus into your heart, son?”

I looked at the pamphlet then looked at him. “I'm not your son,” I said.

He stared at me for a second. “Would you like to say the Sinner's Prayer with me?” he said.

“What's that?” I said.

“It's when you invite Jesus into your heart.”

“Jesus can come into my heart if he wants to, I guess,” I said. “There's other people in there too, so I guess one more can't hurt.”

The man looked at me and I looked at him. His face was wrinkled like an old paper bag.

“Okay, then,” he said and bowed his head. He began to pray. I think he wanted me to repeat after him, but I didn't. I just listened to him. He went on for quite a while and before he was finished, I fell asleep.

When I got off the plane in Buffalo, I could tell by the cool, fresh air and the quiet shush of traffic that things were okay in the state of New York, and people weren't rioting or killing each other or wrecking their own city. The sun was rising and hot-pink light shot through the clouds. I walked away from the airport and kept my thumb out and pretty soon a car picked me up. It was a gold Nissan 240SX. A man with icy-blue eyes drove and he told me his name was Paul. His girlfriend was Karla and she sat in the passenger seat and had puffy blonde hair. I asked them where they were headed and they said St. Catherines and they said they could take me to Niagara Falls, no problem, since they had to go through there anyways to get home.

They asked me all kinds of questions about where I was from and where I was going and they especially wanted to know all about Angel and where her mother was. But I didn't want to talk about Meredith with them so I just said, “She died in Los Angeles yesterday.” And they said they were sorry to hear that. Angel woke up and started squirming and making small squeaky noises. Karla turned around and cooed at her and made mushy faces at her. She asked if she could hold her. But Karla had long fake nails that were painted salmon-colour and looked sharp, and I didn't want her to scratch Angel's skin with them. I told her that Angel was just born the day before and she was premature so she probably shouldn't be held by too many people or else she could get sick, which was probably true.

“Oh,” Karla said, scrunching up her face. “Okay then.” She looked at Paul with a pouty mouth and Paul glanced back at us, then back at her and shrugged.

Other than her salmon nails, Karla looked pretty normal and so did Paul. But there was something about them that made me feel cold and shivery inside. It was a watery, heavy feeling in my guts. I remembered how Meredith had said that sometimes the most normal looking people can be the weirdest people, and I figured that was probably true
about Karla and Paul. We didn't say too much for the rest of the ride. As we were going across the Rainbow Bridge, it started to rain really hard. It seemed to me like the sky was crying.

We pulled up to the border crossing and Paul talked to the guard. The guard was a freckle-faced guy with big teeth. Paul told him they were returning from a trip to see their friends in Buffalo.

“This your son?” the guard said, nodding at me.

“My nephew.”

I nodded at the guard.

He nodded to me again.

I thought that it was kind of strange at first that Paul lied to him about me being his nephew, but then I remembered the signs that I had seen in some places that said,
It is illegal to pick up hitchhikers,
so I figured that's why he lied. So he wouldn't get in trouble.

Paul talked to the guard a bit longer and then the guard said, “Have a nice day,” and waved us through.

I stared at the falls and rolled down my window so I could hear them thunder as we drove past.

“Where should I drop you off, kid?” Paul asked.

“At the hospital, please.”

“Sure thing,” he said.

“Ew,” Karla said. “I hate hospitals.”

“Better than morgues,” Paul said. Then they laughed.

As we pulled in front of Niagara General I thanked them and got out of the car carefully so I wouldn't hit the baby-backpack against anything.

“Maybe see you around, then,” Karla said.

“Yeah,” I said. But even though they were nice enough and gave me a ride and everything, I hoped that I would never see them again for as long as I lived. I felt a feeling when I was in the car with them, and it was not good. It was not good at all.

PART THREE

HOME IS WHERE YOUR MOM IS

31

I made sure Angel was all right in her backpack and she was sound asleep, so I strapped the backpack to my chest and went inside the hospital and took the elevator up to Gina's floor. Heather stood behind the desk eating a muffin as I came down the hall. I zipped the backpack all the way up so that Heather wouldn't get upset about Angel being in there and try to take her away from me. She looked at me and smiled and set down her muffin. When I got up to the desk she said, “She's been discharged.”

“What?”

“Sent home. Two or three days ago now.”

“Oh,” I said. “So … she's all better?”

“She's in recovery.”

“Oh.”

“Wait,” Heather said. “I've got something for you, hold on a sec.” She went into the little room behind the nurse's counter and came back with a honey-dip donut and handed it to me.

“Thanks,” I said. “Did she leave a message for me or anything?”

“Nope, not that I know of.”

“Okay. Thanks, Heather.” I walked as fast as I could back to the elevator without jostling Angel around too much.

“Good to see you, Tucker!” Heather called down the hallway.

I waved to her as the elevator doors closed and she waved back. I ate the donut on the way down to the main floor and wondered what the world would be like if everyone was as nice as Heather.

I didn't know exactly where to find Gina but I started walking toward the Niagara Motel. The rain made the smoky smell of the fires come out of my hair; it smelled like something else too, something hard and mean. Angel was zonked out and I zipped the backpack
almost all the way up, leaving only a tiny air-hole so she wouldn't get wet.

When I got to the Niagara Motel, Chad was behind the desk. I watched him as he cracked an egg into a glass of beer and drank it. Then he burped and lit a cigarette. “Holy shit,” he said when he finally looked up and saw me. “I thought you were dead.”

“Not yet,” I said.

“Where's my fucking car?” he said.

“It's on the side of the highway near Albany, New York. Or, at least, that's where it was last Friday.” I took off my backpack and fished around in it for a minute.

“It broke down?”

“Yep.”

“Son of a slut!” he banged the edge of his fist into the counter.

“Here,” I said. “I rescued this for you.” I handed him the baby-blue lace garter belt.

He looked at it and blinked.

“It was on your sun visor,” I said.

“Yeah, I know,” he said.

“I thought you might want it.”

“What I
want
is my car,” he said, stuffing the garter belt into his pocket. “Where's Meredith?”

“Meredith died yesterday in Los Angeles, California,” I said.

“Get the fuck out of here,” he said.

“But … I don't know where else to go.”

“She's dead?”

I nodded.

“How?”

I unzipped the baby-backpack and showed him the contents.

“Holy shit,” he said, pressing his palm to his forehead.

“Is Gina here?”

“Huh?”

“Gina? Gina Malone? My mom?”

“Room one-oh-eight,” he said and handed me the key as he stared at Angel.

“Thanks,” I said. I started to walk down the hallway but turned around halfway. “Chad?”

“Yeah?”

“I'm sorry about your car,” I said.

He shrugged. “I can get another one.”

I nodded and turned around and kept walking until I got to room one-oh-eight.

I tried the knob and it wasn't locked so I went in. Gina sat on the bed reading a magazine and eating Doritos. “Tucker!” She opened her arms and I ran to her. I let her hold me and kiss me all over and cry and cry and I cried too and then the baby woke up and she started to cry too.

I told Gina everything, well, all of the important parts. I left out some stuff that she didn't need to know about, like me shooting the gun with Timothy and smoking pot with Poppy and River, but mostly I told her everything, and Gina just sat on the bed shaking her head and holding Angel like she was a precious, miraculous thing, which, I guess, she was.

The whole time I was telling Gina about what had happened, the phone beside the bed kept ringing. It rang probably two or three times, but she never answered it. Finally, when I was finished, I asked her, “How come the phone keeps ringing?”

“Well, I can't dance anymore,” she said. “Or at least not for a long time.” She nodded to a silver cane that leaned against the wall.

“Oh no,” I said.

“Yeah, so I decided I would try being an independent escort for a while,” she said.

“Oh,” I said. “The classy date.”

“That's right,” she smiled. “It's only been a few days, but the phone has been ringing non-stop. I'm not booking anyone until late next week though, because I just need a little bit more time, but I think I'll be working a lot.”

I nodded. “That's good, I guess.”

She settled Angel in between two pillows and then gave me a super-hug which is a hug that crushes your spleen and almost squishes all your guts out. “I love you so much,” she said. “I missed you like crazy.”

“Me too,” I said.

“I'm so sorry about your friend,” she said, brushing some hair away from my face.

I looked over at Angel.

“We're going to get this all sorted out. Don't worry. We'll go see Meredith's brother tomorrow. First thing.”

“Okay,” I said.

“I have to let the group home know you're back. They've been calling every day since you guys took off. There were people out there
looking
for you, Tucker, did you know that?”

“No.”

She sighed and ruffled my hair. “I'm going to run you a bubble bath,” she said. “You stink.”

While I was in the tub, Gina called Bright Light and fed Angel and ordered pizza for us. We ate on Gina's bed and watched a movie on TV about a goth man who had scissors for hands. After it was over, Gina fed Angel again and gave her a bath in the sink. Then she made a little nest for Angel on her bed out of pillows and blankets
and told me it was time for me to get some sleep. I got into the bed across from hers, and she came over and pulled the covers up to my chin and tucked me in all tight and gave me a kiss on both cheeks and the forehead. And even though I'm eleven and way too old to be tucked in, I think that probably no matter how old you get, it is still one of the best feelings in the world to be tucked in by your mom.

The next day we got some baby clothes and diapers for Angel and then took the bus to the Don Jail in Toronto. It took forever to get there, but Angel slept the whole time. On the bus, Gina told me about the dream she'd had while I was away. “It was awful, Tucker. One of the worst dreams I've ever had. One of those crazy ones where it's all so real that I think it's really happening. And it went on and on; it seemed to last a decade.”

“What happened?” I said.

“Well, you were on this trip, and you kept taking rides from all these monsters.”

“Monsters?”

“Horrible people. Like mass murderers and serial killers and rapists and psychopaths. And I was so worried for you. I was
so, so
worried because I knew they would hurt you. But the worst part was that there was nothing I could do about it. I wasn't there with you, I was just watching it all happen, you know, that kind of dream.”

“Yeah.”

“But they didn't hurt you. Every time, you just barely got away. I don't know how. It's like you had a force-field of protection around you.”

“Huh,” I said. I looked down at the bracelet that Poppy had given me and twisted it around my wrist.

“And
Elvis
was there. He wasn't a bad guy, he was just singing and playing guitar, but he was in the dream too. It was so weird.”

I smiled, thinking of Relvis.

“Anyways, you're home safe with me now,” she said. She squeezed my shoulder and gave me a little kiss on the head.

We didn't talk too much for the rest of the way there but I thought a lot about everything.

When we got to the prison, we had to be searched before we could see Steve, and the guard took Gina's nail file and my Swiss Army knife away and said we could have them back when we left. We were shown to a little cubicle with a plate of glass, two chairs, and a phone. I sat in the chair next to the phone and Gina sat in the other one and held Angel on her lap. On the other side of the glass, a guard brought Steve in. Steve wore an orange jumpsuit and his hair was black and shaggy and fell to his chin. He sat down in the chair across from me and looked into my eyes. They were the same green beach-glass eyes as Meredith's, and it hurt me to look at them because I knew that I would never look in her eyes again. Steve's hands were handcuffed together, but he picked up the phone.

I picked up the phone.

He raised his eyebrows.

“Hi,” I said.

“Hi,” he said. “Do I know you?”

“My name is Tucker Malone. Meredith was my best friend. She died giving birth the day before yesterday in Los Angeles, California. This is her baby.”

Steve looked over at Angel and his green eyes got soft and watery. He blinked hard a few times and sniffed and rubbed his face. “What's
her name?”

“Angel,” I said.

He smiled at the baby. I could tell by the way his face crumpled up that he already loved her. “She's so small,” he said.

“She's premature,” I said.

He nodded and wiped his eyes again.

“Meredith said to bring her to you. She said you would know what to do.”

He looked up to the ceiling and half-laughed. Then he stared at the baby for a while. She made gurbally sounds and Steve smiled big at her. “Don't tell me you're the father,” he said, turning to me.

“No,” I said. “Uh-uh.” I could feel my face get hot.

Gina shook her head.

“Who is?”

“I … I don't know,” I said.

“Did Meredith know?”

“I'm not sure,” I said. “She never said anything about him.”

What good would it do for Steve to know that Angel's father was a rapist? It wouldn't help Angel. It wouldn't help anything. It was the kind of lie I felt okay about telling. Maybe Angel would never have to find out.

Steve was getting out of prison in twenty-eight days. He had a girlfriend named Kim who lived in Niagara Falls and he told us to take the baby to Kim tomorrow after he'd had a chance to talk to her. Kim would look after the baby until he got out and then they would raise her together.

“She's been wanting a baby for a while now anyways,” he said. “Guess she got her wish.” He gave us Kim's address and phone number and Gina wrote it all down on the back of an old receipt. “She works nights so she'll be home all day,” he said.

“Okay,” I said. “Steve?”

“Yeah?”

“Do you think it would be okay if I came to visit Angel sometimes. Just to see how she's doing?”