The Burnouts (12 page)

Every moment was precious. Will sent his son to his room for acting out, then he and Lucy chuckled about it as soon as the little rascal was gone, because the boy was just like his old man. The three of them never missed a dinner together. They’d go back for seconds and thirds of Lucy’s famous cooking. They’d talk about dream vacations. They’d joke and laugh and gossip about any relative that wasn’t within earshot, mainly Uncle David. Maybe Lucy would make rhubarb pie on Will’s birthday. He loved rhubarb pie.

Will felt a twinge of sadness. He remembered he was dying. It wasn’t fair. His life could have been so good. He would have treasured every minute. He wanted to age. He wanted to lose his hair. He wanted to lose his looks. He wanted to watch Lucy gain weight over the years. He wanted a life. But it all faded away, and for his final moments, no matter how hard he tried to wish himself back to his dream life, Will stared at the dirty, speckled elevator floor. He closed his eyes.

A heavy thump vibrated the floor.

Will’s eyelids widened. His vision was murky but he saw someone in a gas mask on the floor next to him. David.

Will couldn’t trust it. It had to be a dream. He watched David kneel at his side.

“Don’t breathe,” David said.

Don’t worry
, Will thought.

“Nod that you understand me.”

Will managed to blink rather than nod. It seemed to be enough for David. He grabbed Will by the head and nimbly undid the filter off the front of his mask. Less than a second passed before David shoved a new one in. It locked on to the front of his mask with a plastic
click
.

Air. It flowed into Will’s mask like a breeze. Will sucked in a breath so big he thought he would bust a rib. If his lungs had taste buds, he bet that first breath would have tasted like a banana split.

“You okay?” David said.

Will managed to nod. David kicked him in the liver.

“What the fuck were you thinking?” David yelled. His voice came out distorted through the small speaker by the chin of his mask.

“Hey!” Will shouted between pained breaths.

David kicked him again, this time in the shoulder.

“Cut it out!”

“Do you
ever
think? Is there anything in that fucking head of yours?”

David was leaning so far over him that he had to slide up the wall to get to his feet. David speared his finger into Will’s face shield as he yelled.

“Answer me!”

Will knew he’d put his brother in a horrible position. He knew David had just saved his life. But David’s finger was in his face, and Will found it so infuriating that neither of those facts seemed important.

“Go fuck yourself,” Will said.

Will saw anger in David’s eyes that he’d never seen before, and then David hurled his fist at Will’s face. Knuckles crashed into Will’s mask. Will dropped to the floor and stared in horror at the face shield to his mask.

There was a giant vertical crack in it.

“Oh shit, oh shit, oh shit,” David said and dropped down beside Will.

Will couldn’t move. The crack in front of his eyes was his entire world. It traveled down the plastic like a lightning bolt, angling left to right.

“I didn’t mean to …,” David said as he dug through his backpack. “I’m sorry—don’t … just little breaths, okay?”

Will did as David said. If that crack was enough to make David scared, then Will knew he should be shitting his pants. David pulled a disposable lighter out of his pocket.

“Stay calm. Okay? I can fix this,” David said as he sparked the lighter and held the flame up to the top of the crack. Will
took infant breaths as he watched the plastic begin to smoke and soften under the flame. David moved the lighter down the crack at a slug’s pace, leaving a warped trail behind.

Behind David’s mask, sweat fell down his face in steady streams and fogged his face shield near the temples. His anger had vaporized, replaced by emotions that Will was accustomed to seeing on his brother’s face: fear and guilt.

“Come on, come on, come on,” David muttered.

Why was it, Will wondered, that the moments he felt closest to his brother were the ones when they came close to killing each other?

“I think it’s gonna work,” David said, flicking his eye to meet Will’s.

He finished melting the bottom of the crack, and Will dared to take full breaths again. His vision was now marred by a thick, blackened stripe of bubbled plastic scar tissue. If he closed his right eye, the world looked distorted. He felt like an ashtray.

David fell back against the wall with an exhausted huff, like he’d just fought off a heart attack. They looked at each other as they both gulped down air. Will couldn’t help but be struck with a sense of déjà vu. Here they were again, sitting in their elevator home after a blowout fight, hiding from the rest of the school.

“Thanks,” Will said.

“Sorry,” David said.

“I deserved it—sort of.”

David stayed quiet.

Will knew he owed David the real explanation. If there was ever a time to clear the air, it was now. Will just really wished it wasn’t. He’d come into the school hoping that he wouldn’t have to. He’d planned on finding Lucy and lifting them both out before David even knew he was gone, and then he’d tell him. But it didn’t happen like that. He had to tell him now … or maybe he should warm up to it.

“How’d you find me?” Will said.

“Lucky,” David said. His voice was sour.

This was going to suck.

“I didn’t mean to drag you into this,” Will said.

“No?”

“No, I didn’t come back here just to stress you out, you know. I had a real reason—”

“You got Lucy pregnant.”

He stared at David, stunned by the very truth he was about to reveal. David shook his head.

“Goddamn it, Will.”

Will instinctively reached for his forehead to ease the tension in his head, but his hand bounced off his gas mask.

“I’m sorry,” Will said. “It was an accident.”

“No shit?”

Will sighed. David was going to be mad at him forever.

“How did you—how did you find out?” Will said.

“Saw Mort. I guess everybody knows you and Lucy were together,” David said. Disappointment dripped from his every word. “I guessed the rest.”

They sat in silence again.

“You should have told me,” David said.

Will met David’s indignant eye. He saw what he’d been dreading there, what he’d been hoping to avoid—betrayal. Stabbed in the back by his own flesh and blood.

“We thought you were dead,” Will said in a rush.

“Yeah, I got that part.”

“It’s not like either of us thought we were going behind your back.”

“So, then, I’ve got no right to be upset? Is that what you’re saying?”

“I guess I’m saying …,” Will paused and wondered why he was holding back. “I’m saying, join the club. I was in love with Lucy first, and that didn’t stop you from moving in on her.”

“I said I was sorry about that, back then,” David said.

“Yeah, and I said sorry just now. Does that make you any less pissed off?”

David’s face was puckered with a frown. Will knew he was bringing up ancient history, but he needed David to understand that when it came to Lucy, Will won. David could be as hurt as he wanted to be. What Will and Lucy had was deeper. That was just the way it was.

“Ever heard of condoms?” David said.

Will wanted to fire something back, but his child’s life hung in the balance. Everything wasn’t about Will anymore.

“I’m sorry,” Will said.

“What?” David’s tone was aggravated but his face was scrunched up in confusion. Clearly, Will apologizing was a new experience for him.

“I know we had it good out there on the farm. It was great. I didn’t mean to fuck it up. I didn’t mean for any of this to happen. I’m just trying to do the right thing.”

David stared at him with the same confusion, but only for a few more seconds before he closed his eyes and sighed. He exhaled, and all the tension in his body seemed to exit with his breath.

“I know,” David said. He massaged his neck. “I know you are.”

David had forgiven him after arguments in this elevator so many times in the past. Their love for each other would always be stronger than any conflict that came between them.

“Hey, remember when I wanted to knock a hole in the floor so we wouldn’t have to leave to go to the bathroom?” Will said.

One side of David’s mouth tilted up.

“How long did we fight about that?” Will said.

“Four months? Five?”

Will chuckled. “I still say it’s way more convenient. You’d only have to go into the school for food!”

“I can’t believe you want to get into this—what don’t you
understand about me not wanting to watch you shit? About my house smelling like your ass?” David said, his smile widening.

“So the other person has to go up top and not come back till the smell’s gone. Is that so bad?”

“What about the giant pile of it that would build up at the bottom of the shaft? That would stink the whole shaft up.”

“I never smelled anything.”

“What does that mean?”

“I don’t think that’s a real problem, that’s all I’m sayin’.”

“Did you crap off the roof?” David said, pointing above.

“Well … yeah, I always figured you did too, but that we both kinda knew not to talk about it,” Will said.

“No, I did not do that! I went to the bathroom like a human being.” David laughed. “What’s wrong with you? It’s like living with a gorilla. How many of your turds are down there right now?” David said.

“Ballpark? Hmm. Let me think. I’m not great with math.”

“You have to use math?”

“I think I could guess my average weekly total. And if I multiply it out …”

“Jesus Christ, that means like every day. If you have weekly totals, that means pretty much daily.”

Will couldn’t stop laughing from how riled up David was getting. David was laughing in bursts, between stretches of mock outrage.

“No, okay, I’ll be honest,” Will said. “If I really had to put a number on it, conservatively I’d say thirty-five.”

“Thirty-five! Are you being for real?”

Will was being for real. Thirty-five was his best estimate.

“Yeah. About.”

David laughed and shook his head. He threw his hands up in the air. “I give up,” he said. “You are a maniac.”

“I like to be comfortable, that’s all. Hard to relax in the bathrooms when you always have to watch your back.”

David smiled, but he didn’t say anything back. Will didn’t know what to say next either. The jovial mood began to fade, but it wasn’t uncomfortable. It was normal. Will really was sorry he’d dragged his brother into this, but he couldn’t deny that he was relieved to have him here.

“I hate the idea of Lucy alone in here,” David said.

“It kills me.”

“Let’s go find her,” David said.

“You mean that? With two of us, we can definitely do it.”

“Definitely,” David said, but he didn’t get up.

Will didn’t move either. With David behind him, he felt a renewed confidence, but his body felt like a bag of sludge. He’d been going full throttle for a day straight, and it was taking its toll.

“I just need to catch my breath,” Will said.

“Tell me about it.”

Will closed his eyes for a second.

DAVID OPENED HIS EYE TO THE BRUSHED
steel wall of the elevator. He’d had nightmares on the outside that had started like this. Back in school again. But this was no dream. He reached up to wipe the sleep from his eyes and the drool from his chin, but his fingers hit his face shield. He was still half asleep. His filtered breath echoed in his ears.

He looked at his watch: 9:05 a.m. David scrambled up to a seated position, his back against the wall.

No. That couldn’t be right. He looked at his watch again. He tapped on it with one finger. The digital seconds clicked along without a care for him or his rising panic. David looked over at Will. He was in a heavy sleep.

“Oh shit,” David said and stood. “SHIT!”

Will jumped awake.

“What the fuck?” Will said.

“Get up,” David said.

“I am up.”

“No, I mean, stand up. Let’s go. We gotta go.”

Will blinked a few times and shook his head like a dog. He stared at the floor, confused and groggy.

“Now!” David said and reached down to take his hand. He pulled Will up.

“What’s going on?”

“It’s morning. We slept through the night.”

“What?! You didn’t set an alarm or something?”

“I slept through it. I guess we were more wiped out than we thought. We’ve been running around with no water and …”

“Fuck!” Will said.

David pulled on his backpack. He dragged the milk-crate stepping stool to the middle of the elevator and got up on it. He slid the hatch open, and they made their way out of the elevator. Every movement was sloppy. His mind was moving twice as fast as his body.

“We’ll find her,” Will said when they made it to the hallway.

But they didn’t. As they searched, David watched the hours slip away until noon. Room after room and hallway after hallway, they didn’t find a trace of her, or get anything close to a lead. Eventually the halls started to blend together until it became hard to remember which ones they’d already explored. The time they had to spend hiding from people aggravated David, because they weren’t making progress, but
he wasn’t sure that they were making progress the rest of the time either.

The two of them crept down another hall, side by side.

“Did you ever miss it?” Will said after a while.

“Miss what?”

“McKinley.”

David gave Will a look.

“Yeah, I’d write about it in my journal every night.”

“Really?”

“No. Why would I miss being locked up with no daylight and no food?”

Will shrugged. “There’s more going on in here than that. You were a rock star for a while. You aren’t that outside. You’re hanging out with a bunch of fifty-year-olds, shucking corn.”

David passed a decrepit classroom. He remembered what Mort had told him in the Stairs, that sometimes, he would go to the old Loners’ turf when he needed to relive happier times. He’d been moved when he’d heard that, but he didn’t feel that way now. He felt sad.