Bebe Moore Campbell (27 page)

24

THERE WAS NOTHING ON THE HIGHWAY BUT LONG-DISTANCE haulers, rushing by with a
whoosh
of air, oil drips, and prodigious honks. Brad kept to a moderate speed. Not too slow. Not too fast. Not too noticeable.

If I had to put a tag on the mood in the car, it would be regretful. The station wagon was full of unspoken woulda-shoulda-coulda’s, sentiments that don’t travel well on a mission. Jean was close to tears, but she kept them in; I’ll give her that. Brad was stoic and stern, a displaced captain who might have been scheming for a comeback. Only Trina was upbeat, chattering into the night to no one in particular, jumping from thought to thought, each sentence a trapeze she could swing on to the next one. Flying high. One sleepless night, one missed pill, one glass of wine, one joint, one hit of crack or meth or Ecstasy, or one false move could take her back over the edge.

Brad took a dark road. Jean leaned over the seat, retrieved a battered map from the glove compartment, and began navigating. Rather, she attempted to navigate. When we passed the same apple orchard twice in an hour, we were officially lost. Bethany didn’t venture an opinion, but Jean, Brad, and I whispered back and forth, hissing and spitting through our teeth until we veered onto a two-lane highway that was a little more traveled.

“I have to go to the bathroom,” Trina said. She’d been napping, and now she yawned and stretched.

“I have to go too,” Angelica said.

Angelica had been quiet for so long that the sound of her voice startled me. The fact that she could string two coherent sentences together at times and say something absolutely normal struck me as an incongruity of the highest order. After living with her for more than two weeks of baring her breasts, slicing her legs, and talking to invisible people, I had lost sight of her capabilities. Maybe her medication had started working also. I’d been so absorbed with my own child that I hadn’t paid attention to Angelica. But now as I looked at her, I could see that her face was fuller, her skin smoother. The hair that had seemed so stringy before was softer looking. The most recent cuts on her legs had already started to form scabs. When she saw me staring at her, Angelica smiled.

“We’ll have to find a gas station,” I said.

Brad made a little noise in his throat, a slight clenching motion with his hands, his silent no. I understood his apprehension. Anything could happen in a public place. But my bladder was calling, and the thought of three women peeing in the bushes was depressing.

The sun was coming up. An old man in a pickup directed us to a convenience store attached to a gas station. We followed him to a narrow road and beeped our thanks. A mile later, we pulled in and filled up. Brad, Bethany, and Angelica got out first. Ten minutes later, when they returned, a grim-faced Brad motioned that it was Trina’s and my turn. We were halfway between our car and the store when the police drove up. There were two cops, a man and a woman. Behind them, separated by a wire barrier, was a huge German shepherd. The woman eyed us as we walked past the car. I smiled; she didn’t. The dog began barking when I passed, as though my scent had indicated that I was prey.

I glanced back at the Volvo. Jean’s neck was craned toward the police. She was rubbing her pointer finger across her top lip, back and forth, back and forth.

Brad waited outside while Trina and I went into the bathroom. On our way out, he bought some snacks. As we were all walking toward the door together, the cops were coming in, each wearing a holstered gun Brad and I inhaled at the same time. My breath was nose-stinging sharp. I tried not to look at Trina, who was between us.

From the car, the dog was still barking, the sound louder and angrier than before.

“Wonder what’s wrong with him,” the man said.

“Maybe he’s hungry,” Trina said. She stood still and smiled at the police.

The police looked at Trina and then at each other.

“Did you feed him?” the woman asked.

“Yeah, I fed him,” the man said.

“Did you feed him poison?” Trina asked. “They try to poison me all the time.”

The barking was deafening. For a moment that was all I heard.

“Do you want a soda, honey?” I took Trina’s hand and led her to the refrigerated section. When I looked back at the cops, they were staring at us.

As Brad drove off, the police were coming out. Nobody said a word for five miles, except for Trina, who kept repeating that the police were trying to poison the dog.

“They’re not trying to kill the dog,” Angelica said. “They need the dog.”

I thought about group, visualized Mattie, Milton, Gloria, and me siting together, listening to a speaker, some expert who had information on the latest medication, the latest study on schizophrenia, depression, or bipolar disorder. For a moment, I longed to be back in that cocoon, telling the others about Trina’s bout of paranoia, hearing their voices saying, “Yes, yes, that’s just the way it is.”

Barking. I heard barking. Jean turned around before Bethany and I did. Right behind us was the police car. We were on a two-lane highway that served as a bypass for an adjacent town. Early-morning traffic consisted of a perfect flow of cars zipping by, the drivers on their way to work, maybe dropping kids off at school. Nowhere in LA did cars move in this unimpeded way.

“How far from here to where we’re going?” I asked.

“I’m not sure,” Brad said.

I peered into the mirror again. The police car was moving up, crossing the solid yellow line. Why? I heard Jean cursing softly. She was looking out the back window.

“Would you mind not doing that?” Brad said to her.

“How far?” I repeated.

“I don’t know,” Brad said, his voice a loud snarl.

My heart was beating to the rhythm of fear. When I glanced into the rearview mirror, the cop who was driving glared back at me with eyes that didn’t blink. His partner was on the phone. Was she talking about us, checking the license plate of a ten-year-old Volvo, calling for backup?

Behind me, Bethany drummed her fingers on the back of my head, rest. When I turned my head, I could smell the nicotine on her fingertips. She gave me a nervous smile.

“Quit it,” I said.

I didn’t see the turnoff until the very last minute. An exit to the unknown. A split-second choice: keep going or veer right to another path.

“Turn, turn, turn!” I said.

Brad kept going straight. “No need to draw attention to ourselves,” he said.

“Are we lost?” Trina asked.

Angelica began to laugh. Trina joined in. If I hadn’t been so distracted, I would have realized it was a bad sign.

“No,” Brad said, careering down what looked like the main drag of a hardscrabble town.

“We’re not lost,” Angelica said. “We’re escaping.”

Behind me, Bethany’s fingers were silent, her lips tightly bunched in what looked like a knot.

In group, everyone would wait their turn to rise and recount the travails of coping with a mentally ill relative. At the end of the evening, members would leave feeling supported, less isolated. Not hunted. Why hadn’t I made my peace with that? Why had I thought there was the possibility of a quicker fix?

Behind us, the police car made a hard right and disappeared. A hot flash steamed my entire body. In a moment my forehead was dripping. They could come back, of course. The cops could be waiting for us at the next intersection. These roads were their domain, not ours. If they wanted to find us, they could. We still needed to get rid of the Volvo.

The town faded away after less than a mile, as Jean tried to pinpoint our location on the map. The suburbs were a blink, a couple of housing tracts surrounded by farmland. We found ourselves on a thin ribbon of road, flanked by growing things. We sped along for a good ten or twelve miles, past fields of artichokes and garlic. The odor of the latter seeped through the closed windows, mixed in with the air-conditioning, chilling and assailing our sinuses.

“Pass the spaghetti,” Trina said, looking at Angelica, who obliged her with a chuckle.

The next odor—the bracing, pungent scent of unwashed animal flesh and manure—overcame us several miles before we saw the source. “Yuck,” Trina said, holding her nose. Cattle. Two hillsides full. The herd was settled, peaceful, content with just sitting and staring and mooing. Acres of dark-brown-and-white hides, legs folded beneath their massive bodies.

I was attacked by a bout of acute envy. Oh, to be able to rest on the side of a mountain, chew my cud, low a bit, and mind my own business. Wouldn’t that be the bomb?

We could still smell the cattle for miles after we passed them. The scent was just beginning to grow faint when a red light on the dashboard started flickering on and then glowing steadily as the engine began sputtering and the wheels started to wobble. At the last minute, Brad managed to get the car on the right shoulder before it stopped.

“Are we out of gas?” Trina asked.

Not that simple. The tank was three quarters full. When Brad tried to start the car, it wouldn’t even turn over.

All the women looked at him, as though an auto mechanic’s skill is an automatic outgrowth of testosterone. I sure as hell didn’t know a fan belt from a transmission. When Clyde and I were together, if anything broke I always expected him to fix it. But neither one of us could fix broken things. To his credit, or maybe because of masculine conditioning or pride, Brad went outside, lifted the hood, and poked around inside. He returned to the car within five minutes,
clueless
stamped over his face.

“Can we walk back and see the cows?” Trina asked.

“No,” I said.

“It’s not that far.”

“No!” This time a shout. I turned to Brad. “We can’t just sit here.” Brad didn’t respond, which infuriated me. I began dialing my auto club on my cell phone.

“Maybe you’d better wait,” Bethany said. She put her hand on my hand. I snatched mine away.

“I’m calling the auto club, and I’m not waiting.”

“Let’s step outside,” Brad said.

We walked about twenty feet from the car in silence.

“Why are you acting like such an asshole?” Bethany asked, when we stopped.

I glared at her. “Maybe I’m tired of being with people who don’t know what the hell they’re doing.”

“Wait a minute,” Brad said.

“You wait a minute. How could you not know that one of your people had been arrested? You sure as hell asked
me
that. Do I look like someone who has a record?”

“There was nothing about you that—” His face turned red. “Look, we slipped up. I admit it.”

“Damn right you slipped up. And my child and I are in jeopardy because of it.”

“We’re all in jeopardy,” Bethany said, “not just you and your precious perfect child.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“It means I see the way you look at my daughter.”

I was quiet for a while. “Look, I just want to get out of here,” I said finally.

“If you give me a chance to think, I’ll call someone in the program,” Brad said. “That’s better than risking exposure with outsiders.”

“All right.” I glanced at Bethany, then turned back to Brad. “I’d like to speak with Bethany alone for a few minutes.” Brad walked back to the car. “Listen,” I said, “I’m sorry if I hurt your feelings.”

“My feelings? Fuck my feelings. Don’t you dare write off my kid.”

“Bethany—”

“I’m not here because I want her to get a degree from Brown and meet the perfect young man. I want to keep her alive. That may not be enough for you, but it’s enough for me.”

“Bethany—”

“You should try to see the God in her.”

The religious reference took me by surprise. Bethany had never struck me as someone who believed in any power other than her own indomitable will. “All right. I hear you,” I said. But really, I didn’t.

Trina was begging to take a walk when we got back. She wanted to stretch her legs, smoke a cigarette.

“No,” Brad said. “Nobody gets out.”

“I’m not going to run away,” Trina said, lighting her cigarette. “I just want to walk back and forth a little bit.”

“I don’t want you going anywhere,” he said.

“Just over to that bush,” she said, pointing to some low shrubbery about twenty feet away.

“Okay. Just to the bush. I’ll walk with you,” Brad said.

“No. Just my mommy.”

Brad got out and leaned against the door of the car, watching us.

We marched away, Trina puffing as I dodged her smoke.

“Does Daddy know where I am?” she asked.

I didn’t answer.

“He’ll be mad.”

“Trina—”

“When are you going to kill me?”

Good ol’ paranoia, banished but not gone.

“I’m not going to kill you, Trina. I love you.”

She ignored my sentiment, the logic. “Are you going to let them kill me?”

“No.”

“You’ve been trying to have me killed for so long.”

“Trina, why would you say such a thing?”

“Because it’s true.” She stopped walking, then moved forward, pushing her face closer to mine. Behind her back, Trina flexed her fingers; the knuckles cracked like tiny guns.

It came back to me, the way the group had taught me to respond to Trina when she was manic. An expert from USC had facilitated a session on communication. I summoned his words, played them back in my mind.
Use sentences that begin with I, so that you own your feelings.
Agree with her.

“I can understand why you feel that way.”

The words didn’t stop her, but she hesitated.

A phone rang; the noise was faraway and tinny. I patted my pockets, then began moving toward the sound in the car. “Come on,” I said, taking Trina’s hand, pulling her along. “That’s my phone.”

She wouldn’t move.

I saw Brad coming toward us.

“Trina—”

“Are they coming to kill me? Are the killers calling you?”

“I can understand why you feel that way.”

“My daddy will save me,” she said, falling in step with me.

Right.

By the time we were sitting in the car and I was fumbling through my bag, the telephone had stopped ringing. The numbers flashing belonged to the shop. It seemed so far away: Dolce and Gabani, Armani, DKNY. Another planet. I checked for other messages. Clyde’s was a terse two-seconds-to-air time reminder: “Call me.” Orlando’s was a performance piece: “Hey, baby. I miss you. Hope you’re relaxing and clearing your mind. The play is looking good, at least I am. We’re in previews this week. I hope you’re back for the opening. The kids are all right. Did I tell you that I miss you, baby? Call me.”