The Last Exit to Normal (7 page)

When we got home, Dad was sitting on the front porch with a file in his lap. We’d made one
other stop along the way, and Edward had loaned me some money. I’d purchased something for Billy, but left it
in the van for now. I’d give it to him later. Dad looked at me when I got out of the car and gaped.
“What happened to my son? Edward? Is he sick?”

Edward smiled. “Love is in the air.”

Dad leaned back. “Oh. Enough said. You look nice, son.”

Miss Mae banged out the door, a scowl on her face and her hands on her hips, ready to breathe fire about
something or other. Flinty eyes riveted on me, and she closed her mouth. Then she walked down the stairs and looked
me up and down like I was a cow at auction. She nodded, brought her hands to my collar, straightened it, pressed the
lapels down, and patted them with gnarled hands. “Very handsome.” Then she turned around and walked
up the stairs, muttering about me possibly turning out human.

As she reached the screen door, she turned around. “You get your chores done or I’ll
make you wish you had a suit of armor on instead of those new duds, boy. I ain’t foolin’ around, either.
I’ll switch those stitches into your skin if you make me say it again.”

CHAPTER 9

I
n regular–person speak, what Miss Mae meant was that I had to get
my chores done before I went on my work date or I’d be bludgeoned with a giant-size wooden spoon. I went
inside, stuffed the rest of my new clothes in my dresser, and walked out back.

When Miss Mae wrote on my chore list that I needed to paint the fence, I didn’t realize I had to
fix
it before I did. Twenty feet of it lay on the ground. I found a hammer and a can of nails in the woodshed,
grabbed the shovel, looked around for the wheelbarrow, and remembered that Billy had borrowed it.

As I walked across the lawn, I heard the familiar banging of bricks being dropped into the metal tub of
the wheelbarrow. I shook my head on my way over, thinking about Billy getting strapped because I’d helped
him.

I knew it before I saw it, and as I came around the corner, I saw Billy loading bricks. Mr. Hinks’s
car was gone. My stomach crawled. “Hey, Billy.”

He looked up, didn’t say anything, then bent to his work.

I took a breath. “Is he gone?”

He nodded, not looking at me.

“He’s making you move them back to the first pile, isn’t he?”

He stood up. “You dumb or something? Stay away from me.”

“It’s not your fault, Billy. You know that, right?”

He kept piling bricks in. “Don’t look like it matters much, do it? You ain’t from
here an’ you don’t know nothing.”

My guts crawled even more. I watched a stray cat slink along the fence line, remembering it as the one
who’d rubbed itself between my calves the first day we’d arrived. Charcoal gray. I’d seen Billy
petting it the other day on his back porch, playing cat’s-paw with it. “I know I’m not from here,
but it wasn’t your fault and I’m sorry.”

Billy straightened, a broken brick in his hand, his sweaty face contorted. I couldn’t tell if there
were tears in his eyes or if it was just sweat. “ ‘Sorry’ don’t cut it around here, faggot.
My dad’s right. You prob’ly just want to put it in me, like he says.”

I’d dealt with stuff before, but never in my face like this. “Whoa. Not even, man. And
your dad is an asshole for even saying it.”

Billy’s eyes swept to the cat slinking along the fence. He walked a few steps to the back door,
opened it, then reached inside. He brought out a rifle.

My stomach fell to my feet, images of being blown away by an eleven-year-old boy flashing through my
head. “Hey, man, put that away.”

He looked at me like I was the biggest dork in the world, levered a round into the rifle, took aim, and
shot the cat. It jumped, then crumpled to the ground. The shot echoed, but it wasn’t that loud. Not like I
expected it to be.

I stared. “Dude, no way. Why’d you just do that?”

He stared at the cat. “Ain’t your business.” With that, he walked over to the cat
and nudged it with the barrel.

I’d seen my fair share of bad shit back in Spokane, but I’d never seen somebody kill
something for no reason, like this kid had just done. I looked at him. There was no feeling in his eyes. Complete
indifference that he’d killed a living thing. I pointed to the cat. “There was no reason to do that, man.
None.”

He put the rifle back inside the door. “Ain’t your business.”

I stared at the cat. Blood seeped from its mouth. This kid was whacked in the head, and I
couldn’t believe I’d just seen him do what he’d done. “That was wrong. Totally
wrong.”

He shrugged. “Stray.”

“You were playing with it the other day; I saw you.”

He ignored me. I stood there staring at him for a moment, but his face was as blank as a sheet of paper. I
turned around and walked inside.

Dad was sitting at the table, with paperwork spread out in front of him. I slouched into a chair.
“That kid over there is a nutcase.”

He looked up. “How so?”

“He just shot a cat. Didn’t you hear it?”

“I thought it was a firecracker.”

Miss Mae walked through the room, not bothering to stop. “Subsonic .22. Good for
pests.” Then she disappeared. Apparently everybody who lived more than five miles out of a city was a firearm
expert.

I stared at Dad. “I’m clicking my heels three times, Dad.” I closed my eyes, then
opened them. Still here. “This place is not right.”

Dad stood up. “Is he still out there?”

“Yeah. His dad is making him move all those bricks back for no reason.” I gave him a
look. “You know, building a work ethic.”

“I’ll be right back.”

A few minutes later, Dad came back in and sat again, staring at the table.

“What happened?”

“Not much.”

“What did he say?”

“Well, after he told me to go away, he told me that there were strays all over the
place.”

“So he should shoot them? God, Dad, we’re not talking pellet gun here, and I
don’t care if it’s a sub-whatever .22, it’s a rifle. Like a real one.”

He shook his head. “I’m not concerned about the cat, Ben, I’m concerned about
him.”

“I told you Mr. Hinks is screwed up. He beat the crap out of him with a belt right at the back
door yesterday because I helped with the bricks.”

“You’d better get your chores done.”

I stared at him. “What?”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“Of what? Billy?”

“Yes. I said I would take care of it, and I will.”

I knew my dad too well. Ever since I was a little kid, he had to follow the proper rules and regulations,
and he never took anything else into consideration. Like Billy getting it double if the authorities were called. “If
you call the sheriff, he’ll beat the crap out of him again, Dad. You can’t.”

Dad’s eyes sharpened. “I said I’ll take care of it.”

I walked outside. I could hear Billy moving the bricks, and I stood by the garage for a few minutes,
listening. The kid had busted that cat like it was nothing. He’d killed it because it was there, and it slid off his
back easy as anything.

I imagined him over there, spending another four hours working because of me, and I couldn’t
figure out if I felt sorry for him or not. I sat on the back-porch steps and lit a smoke, glancing over at the house every
few seconds. Why should I feel sorry for him? I didn’t really think you could call it murder, but that was the
closest thing to it that I could think of, and besides, it wasn’t any of my business anyway. Miss Mae was right. I
should
stay away. But I wouldn’t.

I snuffed my butt out and walked over to the minivan, grabbed a bag from the backseat, and went next
door. Billy looked at me, dumped the wheelbarrow on the pile, and turned around, trundling over to the old pile. I set
the bag down on the bricks, calling to his back, “You can put it in our woodshed if you don’t want him
to know I gave it to you.” Then I walked back home.

I decided to mow the lawn because first of all, the motor would drown out the sound of the damn bricks,
and second of all, I needed the wheelbarrow to dig postholes for the stupid fence, and I wasn’t about to go over
and get it. Twenty minutes into trying to get the mower started, I knew why people wore boots to work in. They were
good for kicking things that didn’t work right.

I finally got the thing started and mowed like a madman, my arms aching from the day before and my
hands killing me. I had two hours before the hay date, and I wanted to take a shower before I walked down to
Kimberly’s house.

The mower didn’t have a bag on it, so I had to rake, and by the time I got done with the backyard
and moved back to the front to rake, I saw the sheriff pulling up in his truck. My dad had called. Leave it to him to do
things properly.

The sheriff got out, nodded to me, and walked down the Hinkses’ driveway. “Hey, Billy,
your daddy around?” he called.

I listened from the yard, and Billy answered. “No, sir.”

“Come on down here for a minute, huh?”

Billy came down. The sheriff glanced at me, and I started raking. He turned to Billy. “How ya
doing, partner?”

“Fine, sir.”

The sheriff leaned down, his hands on his knees, and looked into Billy’s eyes. “Daddy
coming home soon?”

“He said six.”

The sheriff looked at his watch, then at Billy. “Your daddy whip you yesterday,
son?”

Billy nodded.

“On your bottom?”

He shook his head. “No, sir.”

“You just turn on around and let me take a peek, then.”

Billy shook his head.

The sheriff took off his sunglasses. “Turn around, Billy.” The sheriff twirled his finger
as he said this, and Billy did, turning around and looking over his shoulder. The sheriff hooked a finger under the shirt
and lifted it. I could see the welts from where I was. It almost hurt just looking at them. He studied the marks.
“You get in trouble?”

“Yes, sir.”

The sheriff lowered the shirt and turned him around. “For what?”

“Bein’ bad.”

“Like what kind of bad?”

Billy glanced at me. “Not doing my work the way I was supposed to.”

“You shoot a cat today?”

Billy nodded.

“Particular reason?”

“Strays get into the garbage and the garden. Make a mess.”

The sheriff nodded. “Fair enough.” Then he sighed, taking a minute. “I’ll
tell you what. You abide what your father says from now on, okay?”

“Yes, sir.”

He straightened up. “Get on back to work, then.”

Billy walked back, and the sheriff turned toward his truck.

I stopped raking and called to him: “You know what’s going to happen if you talk to Mr.
Hinks!”

He looked at me, then stopped walking. A moment passed. “What’s that supposed to
mean?”

“You know what it means, Sheriff. He’ll just get more of the same.”

He took a toothpick from his breast pocket and popped it in his mouth, hitching his belt up. “I
suppose I don’t know that.” Then he tipped his hat to me. “Take care.”

As I watched him go, I realized one thing: Billy Hinks was alone in this world, and nobody cared about it.
I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. “Sheriff?” He turned. “So you can just shoot shit
around here any time you feel like it?”

He smiled. “This isn’t the city, Ben.”

CHAPTER 10

B
y the time I got out of the shower, got dressed, and went downstairs, it was
four-thirty. I didn’t want to be late, and I realized I wouldn’t be having dinner, so I grabbed a couple
pieces of bread from the bread thing, spread some peanut butter on them, and walked out, saying goodbye to whoever
was around to hear it. Miss Mae called to me from her room: “Get in here.” I walked to her door,
looking in. She sat in a chair by the window, reading a book. She looked up. “You have manners at that Johan
house, understand? I won’t have my good name smeared around this town on account of some boy who
don’t know no better.”

“Your name is different than my name. Me Campbell, you
Evil.
”

She snapped her book shut, fire in her eyes. “I don’t need
you
to tell
me
what my last name is, and the first day I do, I’ll be in a pine box being laid to rest next to my dead husband.
Now get. And don’t smart off to me.”

“Yes, ma’am.”

As I hit the lawn, I saw Billy out by the curb, on the skateboard I’d left him. The bag lay
crumpled on the driveway. He glanced at me, then hit the board, skating a few feet before hitting a pebble and tumbling
to the pavement. Just then an old Ford Bronco, with three guys in it around my age, passed, slowing as it came by Billy.
One of the passengers, a guy with blindingly white, straight teeth and a high school baseball cap, leaned out the window
and smiled. The Bronco idled next to Billy. “Hey, freak, you all right?” The other guys laughed.

Billy stood up, shifting from one foot to another and looking anywhere but at them. The guy laughed
again. “Your daddy know you’re in the street, scaring people? Get inside, boy!” More laughter
ratcheted from the Bronco.

Right then Miss Mae’s voice cackled from behind me: “Ronald Jamison, you get off my
street an’ leave that boy alone ’fore I call your daddy and have you strapped for bein’ the
no-account you are! You hear me?”

Ronald Jamison laughed; then the driver goosed the Bronco and they were gone. I turned, giving a
questioning glance to Miss Mae. She shook her head disgustedly and tottered inside, slamming the screen door
shut.

As I passed Billy, he ignored me. “They hassle you a lot?” I asked.

He didn’t look up. “I ain’t supposed to talk to you.”

“Then don’t.” I walked on.

“Hey.”

I turned.

He picked up the board, looking away. “It’s cool.”

“Yeah.” I started walking again.

“Hey.”

I turned.

He looked at my outfit, then at my cowboy hat. “That hat ain’t gonna do.”

I smiled, then tipped my Stetson to him and moved on down the street.

Kimberly’s house, like so many other places in the town, was a three-story Craftsman with a
porch running along the front. Kimberly’s truck was parked outside. I walked up the steps, took a deep breath,
and knocked. A minute later, a hulking blond giant with arms bigger than my legs answered the door. From the worn
shit-kickers on his feet to the John Deere cap on his head, he was cornfed trouble if I ever saw it. Except he
wasn’t Kimberly’s dad. Way too young.

He had the same eyes as Kimberly and the same blond hair, but from there the resemblance ended. I
didn’t know if they had the same smile, because he wasn’t smiling. He was looking at me like I was a
stray cat in Billy’s rifle sight. I took a deep breath. “Hi. Is Kimberly here?”

“Who wants to know?” His voice had all the menace and depth of a killer, just without
the German accent.

His body took up the whole doorway. My first thought was to tell him I had come from the church to
pick her up to go pray for refugee children. “Ben. Campbell. I . . .”

Then a voice from heaven called from somewhere in the house: “
Dirk!
Leave him alone!
Dad!
”

Footsteps through the living room brought another male to the door. This one wasn’t six-four
and menacing. This one was around fifty years old, balding, pudgy, and wearing office slacks and a white-collared
button-up shirt. He looked like an accountant, with his round face and round glasses. He had the same eyes as the guy
who looked like he was going to stomp me into the porch. I realized Edward had been playing a game with me. Big Boy
moved out of the way.

The older man held his hand out. “You must be Ben. I’m Mr. Johan.”

I shook his hand, refusing to wince, because any sign of weakness in front of Dirk would mean
he’d eat me. Though Mr. Johan’s shake was rock hard, there wasn’t a callus on his hand.
“Nice to meet you, sir.”

Dirk looked at my hat and smirked, shaking his head and mumbling something about a clown as he
disappeared into the house. Mr. Johan scooted me in. I couldn’t help but think he looked like a well-dressed and
genteel Mr. Potato Head, then banished the thought because Dirk might be some sort of psychic redneck and smash me
with a sledgehammer.

The first thing I noticed was the cows. At least a hundred porcelain miniatures were spread throughout
the living room. Pink, blue, black-and-white, polka-dotted—they sat on shelves and tables and glass-encased
boxes. Somebody in this house had a clinical fetish for bovines, and it scared me. Mr. Johan took a seat in a recliner,
looking at my hat. “Have a seat, Ben.”

I did, picking the chair closest to the door in case I had to run. I tried not to stare at the weirdness of the
cows. “Thank you.” I figured the safest bet was to keep it simple. One-word answers. That way I
couldn’t say anything stupid.

Mr. Johan noticed my eyes wandering, but he kept staring at my hat. “Mrs. Johan likes
cows.”

I nodded. “Nice.”

He smiled, a joke in his eyes. “If you like cows.”

He waited for me to say something, but for the life of me, I couldn’t think of anything intelligent
to talk about. “I like cows.”

He sat back, crossing one knee over the other and folding his hands like my old shrink, Dr. Fruitloops,
did back in Spokane. “You look nervous.”

“I always do. It’s a thing with me.”

He gave a short laugh. “Kimberly’s brother can come on strong.”

Edward’s manners class pounded through my head, but I was totally flustered. I have a tendency
to say what’s on my mind when I’m out of sorts. My palms were sweating. “I’m sure
he wouldn’t kill me. Maybe just maim me.”

This time Mr. Johan laughed outright. “Dirk is nineteen. He works for Mrs. Johan’s
sister in Wyoming, busting horses. He’s visiting.”

“Oh.” Hopefully he’d be leaving in six or seven minutes.

“Kimberly tells me you’re interested in courting her.”

I shook my head. “I just want to date her, sir.”

He looked at me. “Excuse me?”

“I’m not that kind of guy. Really. We’re going to bale hay.”

He smiled. “ ‘Courting’ means ‘to take out,’ Ben. ‘To
date.’ ”

“Oh.” I looked anywhere but at him, and it looked like it was back to being the social
retard of the year.

“You’re from Spokane, right?”

I nodded.

“How do you like it here?”

“Well, I hated it until yesterday.”

He laughed. “It must be difficult to come to such a different place.”

I shrugged. “It’s not really that bad. Hot.”

He looked me up and down. “You seem to have changed your appearance since
arriving.”

“Well, Kimberly said we’d be doing work, so my stepdad took me shopping today at the
Saddleman.”

He raised his eyebrows. “Your stepdad?”

“Edward. My dad’s husband. You know him, right?”

Mr. Johan took a breath, then smiled. “Yes. Eddie. He’s a bit younger than me. Very
interesting circumstance for you, I’d bet.”

“I’m fine as long as I take my medication. No violent outbursts, anyway.”

He stared blankly at me.

“I was joking, sir.”

He broke into a grin. “Oh, I see. Yes. A joke.”

Just then Kimberly came downstairs and saved me. I stood up. “Hi.”

She smiled, then stared at my hat. “Hi. Ready? We’re late.”

Mr. Johan walked us to the door, shaking my hand again and telling Kimberly she should be home by
nine. We walked to her truck, and when I got in, my hat hit the roof and fell into the gutter. She looked at me and smiled
when I picked it up. I closed the door. “So, why is everybody staring at my hat?”

She took a baseball cap from the seat next to her and put it on. “My dad?”

“And your brother. They were looking at it like it was a lava lamp or something.”

“You wore it inside.”

“So?”

She smiled. “You’re not supposed to wear hats inside. My parents are sort of
proper.”

“Oh. Sorry.” I glanced at it sitting on my lap. “Is it dorky?”

She burst out laughing. “It’s the goofiest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“I thought you’d like it.”

She put the truck in gear and drove. “I like the spikes better.”

“Really?”

“Yeah. They’re different.”

The image of our kids switched to them running around with spiked hair. “Everybody here has to
do the same things and look the same way, don’t they?”

She paused, then said, “This is a pretty conservative place.”

I rolled my eyes in agreement. “The three of us go over well here, huh?”

She giggled. “Like a fart in church.”

“What?”

She laughed. “Never mind. It’s just a saying. My uncle says it all the time.”

“You didn’t tell me you had a brother.”

She smiled, shifting into third. “I have a brother. There. I told you.”

“He’s . . . big.”

She nodded. “He’s just a typical big brother. Protective of me.”

“I don’t want to have sex with you.”

She laughed. “What?”

“I mean, you can tell him that. You know, just baling some hay. Nice innocent stuff. Tell him
I’m a eunuch or something.”

She sighed. “I can take care of myself, thank you very much.”

“So, you
do
want to have sex? Because if you do, it’d be fine, but I usually
don’t do that on the first date.”

She laughed. “You just say whatever comes into your head, huh?”

“Ben’s lifelong problem.”

She glanced over at me. “You look different. I’m surprised.”

“Why?”

“Because you don’t seem to be the kind of person to conform so easily.”

I didn’t tell her that the only reason I would conform to anything was the female gender.
“Well, I thought, When in Rome, do as the Montanans. And we are going to work. I needed boots and
stuff.”

“You’re funny.”

“Thanks. It makes up for being ugly.”

She giggled as we hit the edge of town, and then looked over at the horizon. Clouds had gathered like
huge, filmy cotton balls. “It’s going to storm.”

“It actually rains here? I thought it was like the Gobi Desert or something. Rain every hundred
years.”

She smiled. “Oh, it does. Comes in quick, too.” She looked again. “You
haven’t seen a summer storm here, have you?”

“Nope.”

She sped up. “We’d better hurry.”

As we drove, the silence made me edgy. “You know Billy Hinks, right?”

“Sure. Why?”

“What’s their deal, anyway?”

“Let me guess. Mr. Hinks doesn’t like you.”

“Yeah. He’s pretty harsh on Billy.”

“Sort of a bad situation. Dad says that ever since Mrs. Hinks left, Mr. Hinks has been bitter.
Angry a lot of the time.”

“She left, right?”

“Yeah. One night. Just up and left. Nobody even saw it coming. She was quiet, though. Never
talked much to anybody.”

“People around here don’t like them too much, do they?”

She looked at me. “They’re sort of weird, I guess.”

I told her about the three guys in the Bronco.

She grunted. “Greg Thompson, Ron Jamison, and the tagalong, Cobie Wilson.”

“Let me guess. The town bullies.”

She shook her head. “Not really. Ron can be a jerk sometimes, but Greg is nice. Cobie just does
whatever Ron does.”

I tried to remember what Greg, the driver, looked like, but couldn’t. “Greg is nice,
huh?”

“Yeah. We dated for a little bit before school let out.”

“Past tense, right? Like in ‘date
-ed
’?”

She smiled. “Whoa. Slow down there, boy. We’re going baling, not on a
honeymoon.”

I smiled. “Well, it is a kind of date. I just like to know the field, you know? Know who
I’m up against.”

She laughed, but there was an undercurrent of gloom. “I think I’m the one who decides
who I date, Ben Campbell, and I’ll tell you one thing: I don’t date jealous guys.”

I backed off. “So, what’s the deal with beating kids with belts around here?” I
told her about Billy.

She shrugged. “That happens.”

“Yeah, but generally speaking, it’s considered child abuse.”

“People do things differently around here. It’s not like the city, where kids can do
whatever they want.”

I remembered the sheriff. And my dad. I was getting sick of the whole “different” thing.
“Oh, so that’s the excuse? We-all ’round here do stuff different-like, so you jus’ keep
yer nose outta our biznass?”

She drove in silence for a minute, then set her chin. “No, as a matter of fact, it’s not that
way.”

I told her the whole story, including killing the cat. “So you think that putting welts on a
kid’s back for basically what amounts to talking to me is fine?”

She looked straight ahead. “No, I don’t. But that’s not the point. Billy did
something he wasn’t supposed to, and he got in trouble for it.”

I didn’t buy it. “So you got strapped when you were a kid?”

“No. Daddy doesn’t strap girls. Dirk got it, though. A few times.”

“I don’t know. It just seemed . . . mean.”

“Was it that bad?”

“Bad enough that my dad called the sheriff.”

“Really?”

I nodded.

“What did he do?”

“Looked at the welts, then told Billy to do what his dad says from now on.”

She hesitated. “Well, if the sheriff saw them, I’m sure it’s fine.”

“What was his mom like? Usually the mom takes the kid when she splits.”