On his front porch, he struggles for a moment with the doorknob, then bursts inside, the three of us right behind him. He paces around the living room, checking out one window, then the next.
“Settle down,” Bobby says. “Have some wine.”
The captain looks at him. “Are you infected? Are any of you infected? I have to know. I can’t let infections in here.”
“You know us,” Padgett says. “You know we’re not infected. We’re on your side.”
But the captain’s like, “I don’t know about that, man. You may not be who you say you are.”
There’s a scratching sound at the door, and the captain’s eyes flare wilder. “That’s them. They’re going to get in through the cracks.”
The scratches are followed by a bark. It’s Dobie, the captain’s dog.
Padgett explains this but the captain’s like, “How do you know? It could be a trick.”
“No, look,” says Padgett, “I’m going to open the door and let him in. It’ll be fine.”
“I smell carbon monoxide,” the captain says, cowering in the corner. “That’s what they smell like.”
The door opens and Dobie comes trotting in all happy and ready for company, but when he sees the captain, it’s like he knows something’s wrong. His tail stops wagging and his ears lie back. Cautiously, he approaches the captain, stopping a couple of feet away. It’s amazing—there’s so much concern in his brown eyes. He’s been through this before.
“Dobie,” the captain says. “Oh God, it’s you. It’s you, boy.” He kneels down and the dog licks his beard sympathetically.
I’m like, “Wow, the dog knows what’s going on.”
“Dogs are good at that kind of thing,” says Padgett.
Bobby walks over, squats next to Dobie, and pets his neck. “Why don’t you take Dobie in the bedroom with you and try to get some rest? We’ll stand guard out here.”
The captain searches Bobby’s eyes, I guess to see if he’s really who he’s supposed to be. “Okay, man,” he says, satisfied for the moment that Bobby’s really Bobby. “Right. I can trust you. You know what’s what. It’s the Nogo Gatu, isn’t it? They’re out there.”
Bobby nods. “It’s them, all right.”
“Maybe we can hold them off.” A little speck of hope cracks through the thick fear in the captain’s eyes.
“We’ll try our hardest.”
Bobby helps the captain into the bedroom, Dobie following close behind. It takes some persuading, but finally the captain lies down on top of his bedcovers, fully dressed. Dobie hops up and lies down too, the captain’s arm wrapped around him. For about ten minutes, we all stand guard around the bed as the captain mutters softly to himself. I can’t make out the words, but it sounds like a prayer or a spell.
He doesn’t go to sleep, but he seems calm enough now that we leave him there and walk out to sit on the front porch. Bobby stares toward the woods. From the drained look in his eyes, you’d think he halfway believes the Nogo Gatu might really be gathering out there, planning their attack.
I’m like, “That was weird. I’ve never seen him freak out like that. And all because a couple of parts on the aero-velocipede wouldn’t fit together.”
“That’s not all it is,” Bobby says. “It’s more than that.”
“It’s been coming on for a while,” Padgett says. “I could tell. He goes through cycles. They’re not completely regular, but I’ve seen it before. He goes through these periods where he gets higher and higher, and then you know pretty soon it’s going to bottom out. He held it off this time longer than usual, probably because of Bobby. I mean, it’s just a theory, but I think it’s because Bobby reminds him of his little brother.”
“You mean the one who died in Vietnam?” I ask.
Padgett nods and Bobby goes, “His brother was lucky. He didn’t have to drag that war back here with him.”
“I don’t know,” Padgett says. “The philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche said that whatever doesn’t kill you will only make you stronger.”
“Yeah, well.” Bobby stares into the distance. “Some things just take a longer time to kill you.”
The way he says it gives me a chill.
“But look at the captain,” Padgett says. “He didn’t let what happened to his brother kill him. He doesn’t let the Nogo Gatu kill him either.”
“Don’t be so sure about that,” Bobby says. “What do you think he’s building Angelica for? All she needs to do is get up in the air, and after that it doesn’t matter if she keeps flying or not. If she flies, she flies. If she crashes, she crashes. Like a Russian roulette machine. The only thing the captain doesn’t know is I’m taking her up first, and I don’t care if she crashes either.”
I can’t believe what I’m hearing. This can’t be Bobby. I would say he’s just drunk or stoned on OxyContin, but I know he’s not. Maybe he’s bummed about the captain and thinking about the war again. I don’t know. But I can’t believe he’d really crash that stupid flying machine on purpose.
“You’re not going to get the chance to see if it’ll crash,” I tell him. “I won’t let you go anywhere in that thing. I’ll take a sledge hammer and bust it to pieces first.”
He looks down at his hands. “You might as well bust me to pieces instead.”
“Screw you, Bobby.” I’m on my feet and looking down on him now. “You can’t say that crap to someone who loves you. You just can’t say it.”
“Listen to you. You think you love me, huh? I told you—you don’t even know me anymore. How could you. Small-town Ceejay, living amongst the green fields and the rolling hills. What could you know about how it is to be stuck in some desert where it’s a million degrees outside? You suspect every hajji you see and wish you had an extra set of eyes because everywhere you go it feels like there’s a rifle trained on the back of your skull. Cars are burning on the side of the road, and you don’t want to look in them because you might see a fried kid in there. No, you don’t know me, Ceejay.”
I lean in and stare into his eyes. “But you aren’t there anymore. You’re here with me. Right here. And I do know you. I know you one hundred percent. And I’m not going to let you start talking about giving up. That isn’t you, Bobby. I know it’s not.”
He stares back at me for a long time without saying anything. His brown eyes—they used to be so deep, but now they’re as thin as pennies. Then a sad smile edges across his face. “Okay,” he says. “Okay. Have it your way. That was just stupid talk on my part anyway. I mean, who would crash an aero-velocipede they helped make with their own hands? Nobody. I’m just an idiot blathering about nothing. It doesn’t mean anything.”
“It better not.”
“Of course it doesn’t.” He grabs my hand and I sit next to him. He puts his arm around me and squeezes me tighter than any time since he’s been back. “You’re my girl,” he says. “You know that, right? You’re the guardian angel of my messed-up soul.”
32
The next evening, Bobby’s slated to take Dani and little Ian to a movie, so he won’t be at the captain’s. Which is good as far as I’m concerned. It’s one thing to hang out with the happy-Yimmies captain, but obviously the seriously weird Nogo Gatu–infected captain is no good for Bobby at all. Still, even though the captain calmed down by the time I left last night, I can see why Padgett thinks it’s important to go out and check on him.
I’m on lunch break with Uncle Jimmy when Padgett calls. Besides wanting to go to the captain’s tonight—the first time that it would be just me and him without Bobby—he also wants me to stop by the bowling alley before he gets off. Says he has something important he wants to talk to me about. For the rest of the afternoon, as I’m slathering paint back and forth on the job, I keep rolling that over in my mind. Just what is this important something he needs to talk to me about?
Of course, I still haven’t found out what he was about to say right before Richard barged in on us last night, so maybe he’s figuring to finally get
that off his chest. And from the way he was going on, I suspect I might just know what it is—he’s going to ask me if I want to be more than just friends. Maybe he’s even got it in his mind that I should move to the city with him. Either one would be crazy, but somehow I can’t help being a little excited about the notion. Not that I’d say yes, but it would sure be nice to have someone ask for once.
After work, I head to Gillis’s to see if he’ll give me a ride to the bowling alley. Padgett doesn’t get off till nine, so I figure I’ll hang around with him there and then we’ll drive out to the captain’s. Should be easy, right? Gillis, he’s been the same guy my whole life. He may be obnoxious sometimes, but you can count on him. Or so I thought.
He steps out on his front porch in just his jeans, no T-shirt or shoes. It’s not the most attractive sight in the world, but I’m used to it. I ask him about giving me a ride to the bowling alley, and he starts quizzing me about why I want to go. I explain everything except the part about what I think Padgett might have on his mind about me and him.
Gillis stands there with a little sneer on his face like I just asked him to drop me off at the sewage treatment plant. “What do you see in that dude?”
“Padgett? He’s a good guy once you get to know him.” I even suggest that if Gillis talked to him a few times, they might become buddies, though actually I doubt that.
“Is that all he is to you?” Gillis says. “A buddy?”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve seen the way that dude looks at you. He doesn’t think he’s just your buddy.”
“I don’t know about that.”
“I do. I’m a dude. I can tell.”
“Well, so what if he does have a crush on me. What does that matter?”
“I knew it—he does have a thing for you. A wimp like that.”
“He’s not a wimp,” I say. “He’s just smart, which is more than I can say for most of the guys around here.”
“Jesus, you’ve got a thing for him too.”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“Well, don’t expect me to drive you over there. According to you, I’d probably be too stupid to find the way.”
“So you’re not going to drive me?”
“No.”
“I don’t get it. What’s it to you if he likes me anyway?”
He waves his hand as if he could flick the question out of the air. “It’s nothing to me. Nothing at all. Get Brianna to drive you. I’m busy.”
He walks back into the house, slamming the door behind him, and I’m left standing on the porch thinking, What the hell?
Twenty minutes later, Brianna’s driving me to the bowling alley and I tell her the story. “Can you believe that?” I say.
“Of course I can believe it,” she says. “Don’t you know what it means?”
“That he’s been snorting crank?”
“No, stupid, it means Gillis has a thing for you.”
“No way.”
She looks at me like I’m a child. “Why else would he get mad because he thinks somebody else is interested in you? He’s in love with you. He’s always been in love with you.”
I’m like, “That’s stupid. He’s never said anything close to romantic to me. Most of the time he treats me like a guy, except when he gets drunk. Then he treats me like I’m a slut he picked up at the truck stop.”
“Come on, Ceejay. What do you expect? Guys don’t know how to act around you. You’re like this badass chick. What do you think they’re going to do, buy you a box of chocolates? Talk French to you? Make you a mix CD of love songs? No, they’re not going to do any of that. Gillis is probably just being the kind of guy he thinks you want.”
“Well, he’s wrong about that.”
“Yeah, but how’s he supposed to know any better when you’re always going around with your armor on?”
“If a guy wants to look hard enough, he’ll see past that.”
“Really? Like who are you talking about—Mr. White?”
“His name’s Padgett. And if you really want to know—yeah. Matter of fact, I wouldn’t be at all surprised if he asked me to be his girlfriend tonight.”
She studies me for a moment, her mouth hanging open. “You’ve got to be kidding.”
“Why is that so hard to believe?”
“Well, I mean, you and him are pretty different. And that’s an understatement.”
“So what? Do you think a couple have to be exactly the same?”
“Wait a minute. Are you telling me you’re going to say yes?”
“I didn’t say that.”
She throws back her head and laughs. “Oh my God, you do—you have a thing for Mr. White. That’s hilarious.”
“Don’t be stupid. He’s the one who has a crush on me.”
“And you’re loving it!”
“Shut up. God, you can be such a pain in the ass sometimes.”
“So you’re telling me you don’t have any interest in him at all?”
“Not that way.”
“Okay. Whatever you say.”
“Well, that’s what I say. And if you tell anyone else any different, you’ll wish you hadn’t.”
We ride in silence for a while. I’m still a little infuriated with her, but finally I have to ask the question—“So, Gillis, huh? He really has a thing for me? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“I did. In about seventh grade. You just laughed at me.”
It’s hard to make the concept fit in my brain. I have to admit, it’s kind of flattering, even if Gillis is an idiot, but I also can’t help feeling sorry for him. After all, I know how it is to carry around a crush on someone year after year without them showing any interest back. That’s one thing I don’t plan on doing again.
Brianna drops me off in front of the bowling alley, and I tell her not to wait. The place isn’t doing much business. Padgett is sitting behind the front counter reading a big, fat book, but he looks up and smiles when he sees me walking toward him. “Hey, Ceejay, you ready to do some bowling?”
“Yeah, right. Sign me up for a league.”
It’s stupid but all of a sudden I’m nervous. I’ve never had The Talk with a guy before. I have no idea what I’ll say back to him.
He closes the book and goes, “I’m glad you got here early. I’ve really been wanting to talk to you.”
I’m like, “You have?” But inside I’m all like, What if I accidentally say yes when he pops the question?
“Yeah,” he says. “Although—I have to tell you—I was a little nervous about how you’d react. Here, come back into the office with me.”
There’s a small office behind the front counter. Inside, he pulls a chair over so I can sit next to him at the desk. With the paperwork piled up, the bowling plaques on the walls, and the musty smell, it isn’t exactly the most romantic place in the world.
“So,” he says. “There’s something I’ve been thinking about for quite a while, but I wasn’t really sure about it till now.”
“Really? What’s that?”
“Well, remember when Bobby was talking about how things could take a long time to kill a person and how he planned to be the first one to take Angelica up even if she crashed?”
“Sure,” I say, thinking this is a pretty strange lead-in to asking me to be his girlfriend.
“Well,” he goes on. “I’ve been doing some research, and I’m ninety-nine-point-nine percent sure that Bobby’s problem is something called post-traumatic stress disorder.”
“What?” That’s all that will come out of my mouth. I’m completely stunned.
“Post-traumatic stress disorder,” he repeats. “PTSD for short.” He goes on to explain how he read all about it in a couple of books and on about six different Web sites. It’s a mental problem, he tells me. People get it when they’ve gone through something so horrendous their minds have trouble dealing with it. Their chemical balance gets thrown out of whack. They get depressed and anxious, can’t sleep well, and have
a hard time relating to others. Sometimes their brains will replay the terrible thing they went through over and over, and they can’t shut it off. “Here,” he says, “let me pull up one of the Web sites.” He starts clacking away at the keyboard on the desk.
But I’m like, “I don’t need to see any Web site. You think some online idiot knows more about my brother than I do?”
“No, really,” he says. “This is a valid Web site. PTSD, it’s the real deal.”
“What are you saying?” With just a few words, he’s completely obliterated all my stupid, wimpy, nervous feelings about him going romantic on me. “Do you think Bobby’s some kind of mental defective? You think he needs to go to a shrink? Because that’s a load of crap. I don’t care how bad it got in the war, my brother’s way too tough to let it drive him nuts. You’ve been hanging out with Captain Crazy too much.”
It’s weird. I have to fight back the tears. I don’t know if it’s the strangeness of life lately, or if it’s just the disappointment of having Padgett ambush me like this. All this time he’s lulled me into thinking he’s Mr. Supportive, and now instead of asking me to be his girlfriend, he lays this theory on me about my brother being a nut job. I’m not going to let him see me cry, though. I don’t let anyone see that.
“Look,” he says, “there’s nothing to get defensive about. No one said anything about your brother not being tough. You have to be tough to deal with something like this. You have to have character. It’s a battle.”
“What kind of battle?” I say. “A battle against crazy?”
“There’s all kinds of battles, you know. Everyone has something they have to fight their way through. What I’m saying about Bobby is he’s still at war, only it’s in his mind now. And we’re his army. We’re going to help him fight it. The first thing we need to do is talk to him about getting into therapy. I’ll even drive him into the city for it if that’s what he needs.”
“You’re not driving him anywhere,” I tell him. “Bobby doesn’t need to yammer about his feelings to some psychotherapy wimp with a ponytail. It’s just stupid. Yeah, maybe Bobby’s partying too much, but a lot of people party too much. He’ll settle down.”