The Long and Faraway Gone (36 page)

 

T
he TSA agent at the airport was thorough but apologetic.

“Sorry, sir,” he said every time Wyatt winced.

“I mentioned, didn't I,” Wyatt said, “that I was in a car wreck less than a week ago?”

“Yes, sir.”

“Did I mention that I was clinically dead at one point?”

“Is that right?” But the TSA agent's look said,
Bullshit.

“Are you going to buy me dinner at least?” Wyatt said.

The TSA agent had probably heard that line a few hundred times. He peeled off the latex gloves he'd used to pat Wyatt down.

“All done, sir,” he said. “Have a nice flight.”

Wyatt retrieved his personal effects and laptop bag. His uncle, who'd passed through security without setting off any alarms, stood beneath the giant overhead monitor that listed all the flights departing Oklahoma City in the next few hours. Wyatt liked the monitor, a new feature of the new airport. It made him think of a train-­station destination board in an old black-­and-­white movie.

“I'm going to tell you again,” his uncle told Wyatt again.

“You're just coming out for a visit,” Wyatt said.

“I'm not moving out there.”

“It's just a visit. See if Las Vegas agrees with you, and we'll go from there.”

“I like it right here, Mikey. I've lived my whole life right here in Oklahoma City.”

Wyatt supposed he could say the same thing about himself.

“That's why you need a change of scenery, Uncle Pete,” he said. “Showgirls. Velvet-­voiced crooners. And that's just where I get my teeth cleaned.”

His uncle chuckled.

After they landed at McCarran, down in baggage claim, Wyatt recognized a guy waiting for his bags at the next carousel over. Bledsoe, his old buddy, whose promising future as the Mirage's senior VP of sales and marketing had been nipped in the bud. Bledsoe was out of his usual expensive suit and in cargo shorts, a Hawaiian shirt. He looked rested, relaxed. On his arm, laughing, was a petite blonde with bangs.

How about that? Wyatt thought. Maybe the loss of Bledsoe's dream job had turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to him. Maybe his life had been shaken to pieces at exactly the right time, in exactly the right way. Maybe he'd kicked his meth habit and rediscovered his passion for . . . whatever Bledsoe might have forgotten he had a passion for.

Maybe? Why not?

It
had
been bullshit, what Wyatt told the TSA agent. Wyatt had not been clinically dead, not even for a second. But he liked to think so. He liked to think that sometimes an ending cleared the way for a beginning.

Sure, that might be bullshit, too. But it was a philosophy Wyatt thought he could get behind. He was prepared to give it a try.

His uncle watched a team of uniformed flight attendants march past in lockstep. The tinted doors of the terminal slid open, and the flight attendants disappeared into the hard, bright light of the desert.

His uncle looked at him. He seemed resigned but resolute.

“What happens now?” he said.

Wyatt couldn't say for sure. Nothing. Something. Anything. Who knew?

He grabbed his uncle's roller bag. “Only one way to find out,” he said.

 

O'Malley

August 1986

Time, if O'Malley had his way, would turn the corner and make its way back to the beginning. A fresh lap, like horses pounding around a track. Time would run rings around you. What a beautiful world that would be.

Instead, though, here O'Malley stood, left behind, enveloped by the dust of his own life. Almost nineteen years old. Nearing the end of another summer.

What cruel fate was this?

Indeed.

There was nothing dreamt of in his philosophy that had prepared O'Malley for the possibility he might spend the rest of his life at the Pheasant Run Twin Theater in Oklahoma City. Neither Rousseau nor Hobbes had sounded the alarm. The Clash had remained silent on the matter.

He'd only skimmed Rousseau and Hobbes, to be honest. Maybe he should have read more closely.

Karlene was leaving in a few weeks. Tate was leaving. Everyone was leaving. Do you know who was staying? Bingham. Bingham and O'Malley, together till the bitter end.

Theresa was already gone.

Even Grubb was going to college. Grubb! O'Malley hadn't bothered to apply anywhere. His grades were very, very bad. He'd skipped class for four years, he'd blown off tests. It was a principled stance against the narrow-­minded hegemony of the public-­education system. So he'd told himself at the time. Now he wished he'd listened less attentively.

He had no money anyway. No money saved. Nothing. His step-­aunt said he had to start paying rent or get his own place.

His step-­aunt was getting crazier and crazier every day. A few weeks earlier, O'Malley had woken up in the morning soaked from the waist down with lighter fluid. His aunt had boiled him an egg and asked why he smelled funny.

Today, eleven o'clock, O'Malley still had an hour until work. He stopped by Rainbow to swap for the new Nick Cave album. He shared his musings on the nature of time with the friendly, long-­haired freak who occasionally manned the counter. The friendly freak wore a Cramps T-­shirt and a plaid skirt. It was not for O'Malley to ask why.

“Do you get where I'm going with this labored analogy?” O'Malley said.

“Like horses on a track?” The friendly freak nodded and used a ballpoint pen to write something on the ball of his thumb. “The hooves of time. I'm gonna use that, man.”

The friendly freak had started a rock band. So he claimed. He was on the prowl for lyrics.

“No charge,” O'Malley said. “Remember me in your memoirs.” He handed over the movie pass. The friendly freak accepted the pass, but with a mournful shake of his head.

“Has to be the last time, man. Sorry.”

“What do you mean?” O'Malley said.

“Has to be cash from here on out. My boss, man.”

“No fucking way.”

“Yeah. Fucking way.”

The friendly freak felt bad, so he threw in, gratis, a
MARS NEEDS GUITARS!
promo card. O'Malley drove to the Sonic on May. He'd left home at ten-­thirty. It was almost noon. He was now that much closer to age nineteen, to the end of another summer.

He was happy that Theresa and Heinz were together now. He loved them both. He wanted them to be happy.

Yesterday Bingham had invited O'Malley into his office. O'Malley sat down and crossed his legs. He straightened the lapels of his blazer.

“How my I help you, Mr. Bingham?” he said.

O'Malley could think of three reasons, maybe four, that he might be in trouble at the moment. A part of him hoped Bingham had finally mustered the courage to fire his ass. A large part of him.

“I need an assistant manager,” Bingham said.

He had to repeat it.

The hooves of time.

“Think it over.”

Never, O'Malley wanted to say. But he didn't.

“I was just like you once, you know,” Bingham said.

Fuck you, O'Malley wanted to say. That isn't true.

At Sonic his foul mood lifted a bit when O'Malley got a gander at his carhop. He'd never seen her before. She was incandescent, with two feathered wings of dark hair that framed her face like parentheses.

“You're new here,” he said.

“How astute of you.”

His foul mood lifted. O'Malley's heart lifted. He couldn't explain why, exactly, but this girl gave him hope for his future.

“I've been sent here,” he said, “to observe the indigenous inhabitants.”

“I'm not one of them.”

“No. I know. I can tell you're not long for this world.”

She understood what he meant and laughed.

“God,” she said. “I hope not.”

“In Thailand there's a festival I read about. Once a year in November, during the full moon. The ­people make paper lanterns and then light them. The lanterns rise gently into the night sky. The effect, I'm assured, is transcendent.”

“Get me to the airport,” she said. “Put me on a plane.”

O'Malley's second favorite Ramones song, “I Wanna Be Sedated.”

“Hurry, hurry, hurry,” he said, “before I go insane.”

When he returned for the lunch the next day, though, the girl was gone. O'Malley's regular carhop didn't know her name. He told O'Malley the girl yesterday had just been filling in. Usually she worked at a different Sonic. There were lots of Sonic drive-­ins in Oklahoma City, spread all over the metro. The regular carhop didn't know which one the girl worked.

That, O'Malley supposed, was just his luck.

 

Genevieve

September 1986

Maybe saying no to drugs did get easier with practice, Genevieve considered as she turned her back on the sexy carny and walked away. At least it couldn't get any harder. That thought cheered her up, believe it or not.

She found the pay phone she knew was over by the south gate and dropped in a sticky coin.

“I can be there in five minutes,” Howard said.

“No,” Genevieve said. “You don't need to come. I just wanted to call and, you know, check in.”

“That's what a sponsor is for, Genevieve.”

“I've got to get home, Howard.”

“Stay right there. I'll be there in five minutes.”

Ugh.
Genevieve knew well the futility of arguing with Howard. He was a dog with a bone. Howard said so himself.

“I'll meet you in the parking lot,” she said.

She didn't want Julianna to see them and start asking questions. If their mother ever found out that Genevieve had joined AA, it would just confirm once and for all how fucked up her fucked-­up daughter really was.

“I'm on my way,” he said.

Genevieve hung up. Howard lived ten minutes away, in one of the big houses over by Mesta Park. Genevieve would spend five minutes in his car so he could do his sponsor thing. But that was fine, that was only fifteen minutes total. She had only been gone for ten so far. It still wasn't even
dark
dark yet.

While she was waiting for Howard, Genevieve walked up to the rodeo arena so she could peek around the corner and keep an eye on Julianna.

Genevieve watched her eating cotton candy and had to smile. Genevieve needed AA. She needed the meetings and the slogans and the sponsor, the stair steps to reinvention. She really did. But she knew what she needed most of all, what she couldn't live without, was the little dork sitting on the curb, meticulously stripping the last pale wisps from the paper cone.

The cotton candy was pink. Genevieve guessed that Julianna had picked the color because it matched her new Pink Panther. Genevieve planned to give her such shit about that, all the way home.

 

Acknowledgments

I
had a lot of help writing this novel, starting with my terrific agent, Richard Parks, and my terrific editor at William Morrow, Trish Daly. My cousin Steve Harrigan read an early draft of the first several chapters and provided an essential boost of encouragement right when I needed it. Sarah Klingenberg was willing and able to answer research questions at any time of the day or night.

I'm also enormously grateful to Liate Stehlik, Carla Parker, Danielle Bartlett, Joanne Minutillo, Maureen Sugden, and everyone else at William Morrow and HarperCollins for their expertise and hard work on my behalf.

The best thing about being a mystery-crime writer is that you become part of the wonderful and amazing mystery-crime community. I want to thank all the writers, readers, reviewers, bloggers, marketers, and booksellers who have been such an invaluable source of support and advice. In particular, I'm indebted to Jon and Ruth Jordan, Jen Forbus, Sean Chercover, Marcus Sakey, Timothy Hallinan, Bud Elder, and Dana Kaye.

There are so many other people who've also been incredibly generous with their time and friendship. Thanks in particular to the Sanchez-Westenberg family, the Shuford family, Thomas Cooney, Rosemary Graham, Julie Chappell, Hank Jones, Lisa Lawrence, Mary Stroemel Hauk, Christine Hieger Carter, Becky Westerlund, Chris Borders, Bob Bledsoe, Adam Klingenberg, Jake Klingenberg, Sam Klingenberg, Lauren Klingenberg, Squire and Hannah Babcock, Roxanne and Matt Robertson, Rosa Standiford, and Elva Aldaz.

My colleagues and students at the University of Oklahoma and in the Red Earth MFA program at Oklahoma City have been a constant source of joy and inspiration. They're the best, truly, and I'm lucky I've had the opportunity to work with them.

And I can't say it enough, how incredibly grateful I am that I ended up with two sisters like Ellen Berney and Kate Klingenberg.

Finally, and most important, I want to thank my wife, Christine. She's the reader I write for, and always will be.

 

About the Author

LOU BERNEY is the author of the novels
Gutshot Straight,
named one of the best debut crime novels of the year by
Booklist,
and
Whiplash River,
nominated for the Edgar and Anthony awards. His short fiction has appeared in publications such as the
New Yorker, Ploughshares,
and the Pushcart Prize anthology, and was collected in
The Road to Bobby Joe and Other Stories.
He's written feature screenplays and created television pilots for, among others, Warner Brothers, Paramount, Focus Features, ABC, and Fox. Currently he teaches in the graduate creative writing program at Oklahoma City University.

Discover great authors, exclusive offers, and more at
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Also by Lou Berney

The Road to Bobby Joe and Other Stories

Gutshot Straight

Whiplash River