Prodigal Blues (34 page)

"I'll take that as a vote of confidence.
 
What am I supposed to do to signal you?"

"What do you think?
 
Step outside and holler for me."

"That'll work."

We dragged along behind the semi for another three-quarters of a mile, until it pulled off into the large and surprisingly crowded parking lot of a truck stop complete with a small motel, three gas islands, a showering facility, car wash, and restaurant.

"You never told me that your folks' place was so big," I said as Christopher maneuvered toward a parking space in an area designated
MOBILE HOMES AND TRAILERS ONLY
.

"It wasn't," he said, the surprise evident in his voice.
 
He killed the engine and looked out on the scene, open-mouthed.
 
"Good God—Dad had talked about trying to expand the place, but I never
thought
… wow."

The restaurant was one of those Mom-and-Pop establishments you pass on the road every trip; front porch, screen doors, neon beer signs hanging in the windows, a sandwich board with "Today's Specials" written in erasable marker, and an old-fashioned soda pop cooler out front—the kind with a lifting lid where you have to guide the ice-cold bottle through a series of metal tracks like a maze until it slides through a mini-turnstile at the end.
 
All that was missing from the front porch to make it something right out of a Normal Rockwell painting was a wooden rocking chair and floppy-eared hound dog lying across the top of the steps.

"The restaurant's a lot bigger than it looks on the outside," said Christopher.
 
"At least, that's how I remember it."
 
He looked at me and shrugged.
 
"I have no idea how many changes they might have made.
 
It's been… a while since I was here, you know?"
 
He was trembling all over.
 
"Hey, look over there."
 
He was pointing to an area behind the restaurant, just visible between it and the motel; a green patch of field, where there sat, up on concrete blocks, the remains of a gray 1968 VW Microbus. "I can't believe they still have that thing."

"Except for the no-wheels part, it still looks in fairly good condition to me."

He laughed.
 
"Maybe they'll sell it to you."

"Right.
 
Nothing against your folks or Volkswagens in general, but I don't give a shit if I
ever
I see the interior of one of these again."

"All in favor."

We both raised our hands.
 
I reached over and squeezed his arm.
 
"It's gonna be fine, my friend, just fine.
 
You're home."

"Not yet, I'm not… but
damn
, I never thought I'd ever be this close again.
 
Do me proud, Mark."

"You know it.
 
Look, it might take a while—remember how Thomas's dad reacted initially?"

"I know.
 
I don't think you're in any danger of having me take off on you.
 
Oh, that reminds me"—he dug around in his shoulder bag and pulled out a couple of twenties—"you might want to order some food or something.
 
Nothing irritated my folks more than someone who took up bar space without ordering."

I pocketed the money, checked myself in the mirror one last time, then climbed out into the rain, which was starting to grow heavier.

I stood beside the bus with my door open, staring at the restaurant.

"What is it?" asked Christopher.

"I think I'm as nervous about this as you are."

"Not possible."

I looked at him.
 
"Maybe not, but I'm running a close second."

"Which is just doing oodles to ease my anxiety, thanks so much."

"What are you parents' first names?
 
It might be helpful."

"Joseph and Ellen."

"And Paul's your brother, right?"

"Right."

"Any other names I should know?
 
Sisters or anything?"

"Not that I know of—but, then, it's been a while.
 
Are you still here?"

"I am now going."
 
I closed the door and began walking toward the front porch.
 
I kept thinking about what Trevor—the security guard at Muriel's—had said to me:
 
I actually feel like I'm making a difference today, you know?
 
How often does a guy get to say that?

As I hit the top of the stairs and reached for the screen door I felt, for the first time in years, like a worthwhile human being once again.

If I had any doubts about myself at that point, Arnold's words—
You gotta be the one to finish this for us, Mark
—erased them.
 

They were all depending on me to do the right thing.

Maybe, after all of this, Tanya could depend on me for that, as well.

Odd, to believe your life has a purpose, after all.
 
Good
—but odd.

I opened the door and stepped inside.

T
he bar, on the left, was mahogany with a marble top, long and shiny and narrow.
 
A series of small, round tables to the right and several booths against the walls were half-filled with truckers and other tired denizens of the road, all of them enjoying their drinks, their meals, their time outside their vehicles; a comfortably-scuffed, polished wood floor covered most of the front half of the place, giving way to carpeting in the back where three pool tables sat, each with its own cone-shaped light above:
 
shadows moved outside the perimeter of the lights, phantom cues dipping into the glow to make the balls clack and clatter as they spun across the tables and sank into pockets. Gleaming brass horse rails braced the wall opposite the bar, as well as the bottom of the bar itself, while old-fashioned electric lanterns anchored on thick shelves just barely wide enough to hold them kept a constant air of twilight regardless of the time of day outside.
 
The place smelled of cigarettes, pipe tobacco, beer, burgers, eggs, coffee, and popcorn, all of these scents mixing with the lemon oil used to polish the wood.
 
It smelled somehow safe and welcoming.

I took a seat at the end of the bar nearest the door—right next to a rotating rack of maps (
DON'T GET YOURSELF LOST IN THESE HILLS
, read the sign)—and examined all the framed photographs hanging on the wall back there; young men in uniforms from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and even a few showing a young man in desert gear from the first Gulf War.
 
None of the faces looked familiar.
 
I was hoping there'd be at least one family photo back there and that I'd be able to spot Christopher—I'd looked at his false face enough to know what the general shape of his features must have been like—but there was no little boy in any of the—

—hang on.

One black & white photograph, hanging down at the far corner, showed a boy of perhaps ten or eleven standing on the front porch of this place with a burly man and a stout, attractive woman.
 
I was too far away to make out the faces.

"What can I get for you?"

She was about thirty-five, forty years old, with startling red hair and bright green eyes and the kind of smile more gifted and creative men write poems or love songs about.
 
I smiled back at her, then realized what I looked like, pointed to my face, and said:
 
"It's been a very long drive."

"I was wondering," she said, not blinking or looking away.

I ordered a Pepsi and some onion rings.
 
After she left, I grabbed a couple of maps from the rack, looked at them without seeing anything, then slipped them into my coat pocket.
 

When she came back with my drink I had the badge out, fingers and thumb covering everything except for my face on the license.

She looked at the badge, at my photograph, then at my face.
 
"Wow.
 
I don't know that I've ever actually seen one of those—my uncle would sure get a kick out of this.
 
Is there some kind of trouble, sir?
 
We don't want no problems."

I pocketed the badge.
 
"No, God, no, not at all.
 
But I need to speak to either Joseph or Ellen Matthews, preferably both."

She looked at me and shrugged.

"The owners?"

"My husband and I are the owners of this place, sir.
 
Have been for almost four years."

"Then you bought this place from them—from Joe and Ellen Matthews, right?"

She shook her head.
 
"No, sir, we bought this place from my uncle, Herb Thomas—well, we didn't exactly buy it from him, not outright, we bought
in
.
 
It was getting to be a bit much for Uncle Herb, running this place all by himself, especially after he put up the motel, and Larry and me—Larry's my husband, I'm Beth—we bought a two-third's share of the whole business.
 
I—is something wrong?
 
You look… kinda sick."

I could feel something trying to shake loose inside, but I wasn't about to panic now.
 
"I need to know… your uncle—Herb?
 
How long had he owned the business before you and your husband bought in?"

"Oh, Lord, Uncle Herb must've run this place… jeez, let me think… two, three years."

"So it's been in the family for about seven years?"

"Yes, sir."

I picked up my drink with a trembling hand and emptied the glass in three deep swallows.
 
I slammed it back on the bar with more force than I'd intended, making Beth jump and at least one pool player lean over for a better look.

"I'm sorry," I said.

"That's okay, mister—uh, officer.
 
What is it you need, anyway?
 
I'll do everything I can to help."

"Is your uncle around?"

"Not right now, but I expect him and Larry back any minute.
 
You need to talk to him?"

"Unless you can tell me who he bought this place from."

She smiled and shrugged once again.
 
"Sorry—I mean, I know he
did
buy it from someone… name might have been Matthews.
 
I'm just not sure.
 
But you can bet he'll remember.
 
Uncle Herb remembers everything.
 
Personally, I always thought that was part of what made him sick in the first place, him always remembering everything and the type of job he had before he retired.
 
A person who remembers everything, they're always
worried
about something, you know?"

I nodded.
 
Beth went back to the kitchen to check on my onion rings.
 
Someone put some money into the jukebox and played Marshall Tucker, "A New Life."
 
Another song I always liked.

Okay, I told myself.

Okay.

The place probably held a lot of bad memories for them, how couldn't it?
 
You lose your child, have him stolen from you, and everything you look at reminds you of that loss.
 
How could a family undergo a trauma like that and not be damn near ruined by it?
 
Oh, sure, familial love can go a long way in helping you to deal with a loss, but how long did it take for this place to seem more like a headstone for what their family once was rather than the home it had been?
 
Christ, I couldn't blame them for selling the place, pulling up stakes, and moving somewhere new.
 
A fresh start.
 
But, God—to have done that means that they had let him go, they had given up hope.
 
And if Beth's math was right, if this place had been in her family for the last seven years, that meant that Christopher's parents had waited only two years, maybe less, before giving him up for dead.

And I suddenly hated them for that.
 
How could anyone simply
give up
on their child still being alive?
 
It's not like when you have the family pet put to sleep, or it just turns up missing one morning—"Oh, Fluffy's gone, dear me; guess we'll have to go to the shelter and pick out a new one"—no, this was a human being we were talking about.
 
If Tanya and I ever had children and one of them turned up missing, I'd tear through anything that got in my way in order to find them.
 
I'd never give up.
 
Let alone
so soon
…

I rubbed my eyes, took a deep breath, and checked my self-righteousness at the door.
 
Yeah, it was easy for me to sit there and judge Joe and Ellen Matthews, not having any idea what they'd gone through for those two years immediately following Christopher's disappearance.