Chapter 14
When his father bailed, Henry was six. There was a comeback period, a year later, but it failed to sustain. The second time his mother fell apart more, those assurances that the Humpty Dumpty of a marriage had been put together again proven false.
This past winter, when Alec expressed his need to flee Little Creek or watch his grasp on sanity disintegrate, Henry anticipated some emotional display similar to what Lori had shown years earlier, but the well turned out to have run dry. Watching his mom and stepfather negotiate the terms of surrender she was matter-as-fact as a postal clerk explaining shipping rates.
“You want to leave when?” she’d asked.
“Soon. Probably Friday. That’s the earliest Clive can pick me up. Lori. God. I’m so sorry.”
“Ok. Well. You’ve got the couch until then.”
That Friday, Lori made Henry go to school. And she went to work, not like she was in the Forest Service office either, right across the street, available for teary goodbyes. There was a controlled burn to supervise out in the woods, near Nickel Creek. Friday night, they ate in town, at The Outpost, and home, Lori let him stay out late, Lori with a book on her lap and still nursing some Scotch when he stumbled in from movie night at Tiff’s near 1 a.m. Getting up to pee Saturday morning, he heard a steady clink-clink-clink come up from the basement, and he investigated, but he didn’t even need to go downstairs to figure out the weights on the trainer were going up and down. The weight machine Lori’s gift to Alec this previous Christmas, never quite used, now abandoned, now hers.
Soon as Sipe and Tiffany were back, and Tiffany told Henry all about Butcher’s Camp and their brief return drive around Little Creek just to look around to see if Hope might be wandering out and about like she never ever did, Henry told Sipe the lady, Susan, had called.
“What does that mean? Wub?” asked Tiffany.
From Henry, a shrug. Sipe stared at Henry, and it was like the head wound, its internal component, was ceasing blood flow, squishing normal brain function out like water from a sponge. Words and thought trickling down his spinal column like cloudburst rattling down a storm drain. Henry convinced he could’ve flit his hands around and around and Sipe’s eyes would’ve been dead to tracking any motion.
Stunned, thought Henry, like his mom when his dad had given details, the first time, what he’d been doing and for long and with whom.
“Who’s Wub?” Tiffany asked Sipe.
“The Wub,” said Henry.
“He’s a guy,” said Sipe.
“Someone you know?” asked Tiffany.
“Yeah.”
“Wub.”
“Like rub,” said Sipe. “He doesn’t talk right. So he can’t say rub. It comes out as wub. So, someone made a name out of it. Like it was a joke.”
“And he’s coming to help you?”
“No. Not really.”
“Then why’s he coming?”
Sipe clasped both hands to the back of his head and looked out the giant living room windows. The sun coming through, partitioned by the wainscoting, forming three rhomboids of warm yellow, cozy spots on the carpet. Sipe could imagine a bright flash, a mushroom cloud, everything out there in sight turned to ashes, dust.
“Wait. What did she say again?” Tiffany asked Henry.
“That they sent a closer. She looked into it and they sent a closer and the closer is the Wub.”
“What’s a closer?”
“I don’t know.”
A car drove out of Little Creek, blazed past the fence line bordering the unused patch adjacent to Henry’s lawn.
“What’s a closer?” she asked Sipe.
He didn’t look at her. He said, “They clean up.”
“’They clean up’. Maybe they should call them cleaners.”
“They have. They do. The Old Man doesn’t like the term.”
“Who’s that? The Old Man?”
Sipe shook his head.
“What do you want to do?” asked Tiffany. She stepped towards Sipe. “I mean until this guy shows up, do you want help keep looking for Hope?”
Sipe turned. Not looking at the kids.
“I gotta find Connie. It might not make any difference. Even if I find him. Even if Connie tells him exactly what happened. Jesus Christ.”
“Are you ok? You seem a little worked up.”
His fingers were in his face. Right under his nose. The right side of his face lit up by the slightest pressure on his bruise. The kids both looking at him like he’d been digging for gold. He lowered his hand.
“I gotta find Connie. Millie. Goddamn. I gotta do that at least.” He looked at Tiffany. Henry. “And if I can’t. It’s like you two can’t exist. I don’t think anyone being just a kid would matter. To him. He likes to do what he does too much.”
Henry thought Sipe pale and muttering like this was like some prophet or battle-scarred survivor in a movie telling the ragtag band of heroes they weren’t quite comprehending the devastating power of the earth-devourer winding its way through nebula and asteroid fields towards their front door.
“Wait a second,” said Tiffany. “You just said ‘Millie’.”
“Yeah.”
“’Millicent’.”
“I don’t know.”
“’Woods’? No. ‘Timbers’?”
“I don’t know.”
Tiffany pointed at Sipe. Snapped her fingers.
“That. There! Your thing. The magazine. The People you loaned me. Just now. When we were out at Butcher’s Camp. Look.”
Sipe twisted and turned like he was on fire, or trying to see his shadow. He swatted his side, held it, and the left hand unearthed the magazine from the inside jacket pocket. He looked at it.
“Here,” she said, hand out. He handed the magazine to Tiffany, pre-empting what would’ve likely been his own sad, frantic rifling of pages. She turned to a certain page and handed the magazine back to Sipe.
“There.”
Sipe stared. Turned a page. And another. And another.
“Whoa. Stop. That’s it. They don’t do long articles,” said Tiffany.
There she was. Grinning. In full-color. Ms. Stun Gun. The picture was scrawled over in ink. Sipe couldn’t quite make out the scrawl.
“I think it says ‘To a great lay, Millie’.” Tiffany giggled.
Sipe turned pages. Some more pictures. Millie swimming. Millie in a kitchen with some old lady.
Still looking at the magazine, Sipe said, “Where is this?”
“’This’ what?”
“Pendleton. That’s around here?”
“It’s, yeah. It’s just like 60 miles from here.”
“She lives there? She’s got some business there?”
“Fitness club, yeah. Like the magazine shows. She’s like the pride of Pendleton, I guess. I mean if you’re an Olympic athlete of course people are going to treat you like royalty. At least she was until her problems.”
“What problems?”
“It’s in there. Kind of. Drinking. Drugs. She punched someone, too. I can’t remember who. I think it was some swimmer from Russia. I guess it doesn’t matter. She has her fitness place and all.”
“Pendleton.”
Sipe didn’t look at them. Looking into the air immediately in front of him, a personal Iron Man moment like in the movies, thought Henry, schematics and armor updates floating in non-space.
“I need to get there,” said Sipe. “I need to get there now.”
“What about Hope?” asked Tiffany.
Sipe pointed at Henry. “You got keys to the car in the garage?”
“I don’t know,” said Henry. “I don’t know where they are.”
“You don’t know where they are?”
“No. I don’t drive yet. My mom has them. And she’s not here.”
“No spare?”
“No. I don’t
know.”
“Bullshit.”
“Sorry.”
“Then the truck,” Sipe said to Tiff. “We go back to your place and get the truck.”
“It’s gone.”
“What?”
“That’s why we left it there. I told you. Uncle Norm needed it.”
“For what?”
“It’s his truck. If he needs it and tells me I leave it for him. Jeez.”
Sipe laughed. Waved towards the living room windows, magazine still clenched in his hand.
“This is. Ok. This is. Maybe you don’t get this. I get this. You don’t. Let me make it, let me put it so you get it. I need Connie. I need to find him. I need to get him. I don’t have him when this guy, The Wub?, shows up…You see this? Right here? My face? This, what this lady did?, Millie? Millicent?, ok, it’s just, it’s nothing compared to what The Wub will do. It’s nothing. It’s a slap. In comparison, it’s a slap. He don’t slap. He doesn’t slap. Ok? He hits. He tears. He rips. He likes it. Let me tell you, let me make it clear, kind of guy he is. One time he broke this guy’s ribs. A little insurance salesman guy. Some poor slosh got behind on what he owed. Most guys, that’s it, they’ve done their job. A lesson has been taught. The Wub, he waits, and comes back, and craps on the guy. Right here, right on his chest. Because he felt like it. Because he could. It doesn’t matter that I am who I am. That he knows me. They don’t allow for fuck ups unless you somehow make amends. I have to do that. Quick. Right now. I need, I need to be moving. I need a car, ok?” He pointed at Henry. “I need yours, right now.”
“You said you’d help me,” said Tiffany. “You promised to help find Hope.”
Sipe shook his head. “No.”
He stepped towards Henry, and Tiffany reached out and placed her palm on Sipe’s right shoulder.
“Wait. Just wait a minute. You told me you’d help-“
Sipe grabbed her wrist with his left hand. The pressure made her cry out.
“You don’t get it? You didn’t understand all that that I just said?”
“You’re hurting me.”
He dropped the magazine. Passed her wrist off to his right hand, turned her, and grabbed her left shoulder in his left hand, then started to lift her right arm at an angle behind her back.
She screamed.
“I need those keys. I need those fucking keys, Henry. Get ‘em. You don’t, I break her arm.”
Sipe wrenched on her arm and she screamed, louder. Her head and her upper torso dipping down now towards the base of the TV stand.
The boy surprised him. Henry slapped at Sipe’s head. The slaps graduated to punches. Sipe released Tiffany. Turned. Brushed a punch away, and he grimaced as Henry’s fist landed almost a bull’s eye where Millie had stomped him. He straight-armed Henry. Shoved the kid back and when Henry found his feet and crouched and lunged, Sipe stepped right, and swung an open hand into the kid’s cheek. The way Henry landed it was like he was demonstrating the best way to simultaneously embrace and lift a widescreen TV. The top heavy Beeper on the TV stand edge wobbled and thumped onto the carpet.
“I’m calling the cops!” Tiffany stepped on the People, sliding, tearing the magazine and nearly sprawling as she ran into the kitchen. When Sipe tried to pursue, some phantom hand latched onto his brain and twisted it, spinning both eyes up towards the skull top. He closed his eyes, kept moving, bounced into and then off both sides of the doorway.
On the far side of the kitchen, past the stove, Tiffany stood between a cabinet and the counter sticking out like the short end of an ‘L’, behind her the kitchen table and chairs and in the corner the phone hanging on the wall. She had a mobile phone in hand.
“Don’t you come any closer. Don’t. You lied to me. You told me you’d help.”
Her face gone hot pink, almost a rose color, and wet with tears.
“Right now I have to go.”
“You hurt me.”
“I need keys. That’s all.”
“You hurt me.”
Sipe held his hands up. Empty hands. Look. Look how empty they are. Moving slowly. Closing in on the jittery squirrel. She sniffled and wiped her nose with the back of her hand. Her face so darkly pink he thought of fruit gone bad, rupture-ready at a touch.
“Henry has a gun. Lori does. He’s getting it right now. You better go,” said Tiffany.
“She had a gun, I would’ve found it.”
“You looked. I bet you looked. Someone like you, you probably looked for anything to steal, didn’t you? Fuck you.” Snot, some back throat bubble, rendering the ‘fuck’ near silent.
“Don’t touch me,” she said. “Don’t you touch me. It’s dialing. It’s dialing.”
She held the phone towards him. If it dialed, the tone was too quiet to reach his ears. If he dared another step, he might be vanquished. A light that burned, a light from God would come on out from her hand.
“Hey!” Henry shouted.
Turning to look back into the living room, something hit Sipe in the shoulder. It didn’t stick. It fell. Keys clinked on the tile floor. Then there was a thump, near the doorway. A carrot. Right on the floor, next to Henry’s feet. The pinkest carrot. Lingerie now decorated the floor. A Bible. The box of See’s Candies. Henry looked at it, too. Henry had a small box in hand. Sipe had seen the box earlier, alone, poking around Lori’s bedroom dresser.
“There.” Henry looked at Sipe, pointed at the keys. Henry’s face red. “There. The keys. The fucking keys to the fucking car!” He threw the box, too. Not quite at Sipe. At the kitchen floor. It rolled, landed with the open end up.
Henry had run to the back of the house and grabbed the box and run back, digging the keys out.
Crouching down to gather the car keys, half-expecting another brain spasm, Sipe silently acknowledged the smarts of the fire fighting mom, savvy, guessing some potential thieves, even men with blood on their hands, transformed into conservative little church ladies come upon certain sights, certain private things.
Henry knelt, gathered the Bible, the box of candy, all of it, off the floor, and started throwing it back into the box.
Walking towards the garage, past Tiffany, Sipe didn’t look at her. He could hear her breathing. He could still feel her flesh in his hands.
The garage door rolled open on a rope. The car meeped when he pulled on the driver side door handle.
Sipe backed out of the garage, from dimness into brightness, counted the little bars indicating the gas tank status. He could breathe, but he couldn’t. The girl screaming. She seemed capable, big as she was, she should be able to handle Sipe, but once he got in control she’d been his. His fingers sinking into her shoulder that pink and warm meat. He closed his eyes. Thought of things, cigarette smoke, a dirt clod, his sisters dressed for some school function. He could remember pitching dirt clods, him and Tracey Shortner, playing war from a ditch, lobbing dirt clods at passing cars. Both boys getting in trouble. His mother shucking the role of judge and his sisters meting out justice in her absence. Ten dirt clods a sister, aimed at his head, 30 paces away, but it turned funny because the dog kept trying to catch them midair.
He was starting to shift into drive when Tiffany ran out from the garage and ran in front of the car, and around to the driver side. She pressed her palms onto the window. She talked louder than she needed. The car engine quieter than cat purr.
“Let me go with you. You don’t know where that place is. Timbers Athletic. I can help you. You can find him, your guy? You can find him easier if I help. Then we can come back. And you can help me. I help you find him and you help me find her. You promised.” She slapped the window. “You promised.”
Sipe looked out the windshield. He could just go, right now. Right across from the driveway on the other side of the gravel road was the Forest Service, all those windows w
ith tinted glass, and that big girl in there, Gwen. She could be watching right now. Wondering who was taking Lori’s car and where.
“Please,” said Tiffany. “You promised. Please.”
He’d decided. She didn’t need to fall apart again like that, he was sold on the deal, just befuddled by all the switches and buttons embedded on the car door’s inside. How do you lower the window? He tried a door button. The locks clicked. Technology well beyond Sipe’s grasp. He covered. He tapped the glass until she opened her eyes, stopped with the scrunched up, crying face. He looked at her and pointed at the front passenger seat.