The Flying Troutmans (19 page)

 

sixteen

HEY, MIN, I WHISPERED.
The kids were sleeping and the sun was rising. I'd finally managed to get through to her.

Hattie? she said. It was only my name but hearing her say it killed me.

Yeah, I said. Yeah, it's me.

How are you? she said. How are the kids?

We're all great, I said. How are you? Are you okay?

Yeah, she said. I'm all right.

Really? I said. You are?

Yeah, she said. Well, you know…yeah, I'm fine. The kids are okay?

Totally, I said. They're great. They're fine. They miss you like crazy.

I miss them too, said Min.

I know, I said. Hey, is Superman still your roommate?

No, she said, Lex Luthor came around and…

Yeah, yeah, I said.

They're really okay? she said.

They are, Min, they really, really are. Rock solid. You too?

I am, yeah, she said. I'm fine…well, you know, I'm here…but yeah, I'm fine. You're sure they're all right, Hattie? said Min. Are you telling me the truth?

Positive, I said. I'd let you talk to them but they're sleeping right now.

But it's…Shouldn't they be getting ready for school?

What? I said. Oh, yeah! Damn. You're right. I should get on that.

I promised myself this would be the last time, or very close to the last time, that I would lie to Min.

Okay, but, Hattie? said Min.

Yeah? I said.

They said I could probably go home soon.

Really? I said. That's fantastic! That's great. Wow. That's really great.

Yeah, said Min. I seem to have gotten through to the second lieutenant. But they'll only discharge me if there's someone at home to help out.

Yeah, I said. Oh, yeah. Well, yeah! I'll be there, obviously, right? I mean, of course I will be.

 

Are you at home? said Min.

Mmmhmm, I said.

We listened to each other breathing. I heard someone coughing on her end. I heard some other things.

Hey, um, Min? I said.

Yeah, she said.

Why aren't you at the beach? I said.

Nice, she said, why aren't you?

Good question, I said. I'll meet you there.

Where?

At the beach.

Okay, she said, which beach?

You know the one, that very large one with all the sand, I said.

Oh, yeah…, she said, the one next to all that water?

Yeah, that one.

Sounds good, said Min. Sounds like a plan.

Scissor-kick, I said.

I am, she said.

Like crazy? I said. Ha ha?

Shut up…yeah, she said.

I am, too, I said.

We should maybe float on our backs for a minute or two, she said. Like, rest…

Yeah…I said. Very soon. We should try to get a little bit closer first…

More breathing, more treading. I heard a public announcement, something about breakfast being over in five minutes. I heard Min's name being called.

What the hell is that? I asked her. You're being paged?

They want me to eat, she said.

Oh, I said. You should go?

I guess so, she said.

Or like forty lashes or something? I said.

Worse, she said, I'd have to share.

Oh, like in Group?

Yep, she said.

You fail breakfast, I said.

I know, said Min. I fail Crafts, too, spectacularly.

Yeah, I said, I hear those skills skip a generation. Thebes is a master.

Yeah, said Min, what's her latest project? Has she made you a novelty-sized cheque yet?

No, not yet. She's more into performance art lately. I looked over at the kids, both fast asleep.

I told Min I'd call her later, the kids were great, the kids were happy, the kids were aces, and we'd all be reunited in the sweet by and by when we met on that beautiful shore…

 

Twentynine Palms is the proud host of the Marine Corps Air Ground Combat Center, the world's largest marine base, said Thebes as we were getting ready to check out.

Fuckin' A, I said.

We're meat, said Logan. And it's pronounced “core,” dufus, not “corpse.”

We had to hurry. Thebes said yeah, now she did want to meet Cherkis, she felt better about it. She'd put on her least filthy outfit, the royal blue terry cloth shorts and top. Her hair was by now impossible to comb. But it didn't matter.

Hey, do you ever brush your teeth? I asked her. She had her holster on, she'd patted her face a couple of times with a dry washcloth, whatever, she hated water. She leaned against the wall and said she was ready.

So, here we go, said Logan. Cherkis hunting. Let's do this thing. He was using his knife to scratch inside his cast. His hickeys had faded to green and yellow and had all bled together so it looked like he'd recently been strangled. I felt like I had an ice pick stuck between my eyes, I could barely open them, it was the mother of all headaches, and I couldn't take a breath without paroxysms of pain shooting from my brain to my chest and back again.

We were going to hit an art gallery on the main drag first to see if anyone there had heard the name Cherkis. While we were loading our crap back into the van, Rajbeer got out and ran around the parking lot, barking and pissing everywhere. A little girl, about three, came up to Logan and pointed at Rajbeer and asked, Can I ride she?

Her,
said Logan, and no, I'm sorry, but I don't really think so. Thebes was trying to round up the dog and this girl wouldn't stop talking to Logan, about her socks, about her blanket, about her Barbies, about her grandma, about her baby brother, about her nightmares, about how her socks bothered her ankles, about a boy in her daycare
named Ed. Thebes had wrangled Rajbeer into the van by now and I wanted to go.

Hey, do you have parents around here or something? I asked the girl. She pointed at the motel. Where? I said. Like, which room? She stared at me. Oh, for Christ's sake.

I asked her to come with me and I took her hand and we started knocking on doors. One opened and the guy said yeah and I said is this your kid and he said no. She didn't belong in the next three rooms either. Finally, a woman opened a door and said yeah, oh, sorry, the girl was hers, she did this all the time, thanks a lot.

 

Twentynine Palms, said Thebes, would be fourteen people with their hands out, going what? What? And one with one hand in his or her pocket.

Do we have anything to eat? asked Logan. Thebes fished around in the cooler and threw him a giant Oh Henry! bar.

I don't see any soldiers, said Thebes.

They're in foxholes, I said. I was in such a hurry, I was bumping into curbs and slamming my brakes down at the last second for red lights that jumped out of nowhere.

Shit, I'm burning, I said. I had dropped my cigarette but hadn't bothered to find out where. Logan reached over and grabbed it and threw it out the window.

Do you want me to—

Yes!

Logan and I switched seats and he drove. His driving was improving but he still had this tendency to sail
through stop signs and red lights. I told him to concentrate on seeing other cars and especially pedestrians and then slowly ease into seeing signs as well. And remember to brake going into the turn, gas going out.

Thought the rule was no smoking in the van, he said. Are you still burning?

I'm trying to stay calm, I said.

I appreciate the effort, he said.

Thebes had on her giant diamond necklace and she'd found her angel ring. What foxholes? she said.

 

You're looking for somebody by the name of Cherkis? said the woman at the gallery.

Yeah, Doug Cherkis, I said. I was told that he might have been doing his art around here somewhere, or running a gallery, or something like that? I put my elbow on her desk so I could prop my head up and I squinted at her. Ring any bells? I asked. The kids were studying some abstracts on a long, white wall.

I'm so sorry, said the woman. You know, I just can't…That name is not at all familiar to me.

Really? I said. Would it be all right if I poured myself some of that coffee?

Oh, of course, she said. I'll get it. Would you like cream or sugar?

No, thanks, black is great.

Doug Cherkis, said the woman. Doug Cherkis. You know, a friend of mine might know if there was a Doug Cherkis around here. The woman gave us directions to her
friend's place, she had a studio in her house and it wasn't very far from the gallery. Her name was Lilah.

I thanked her and she wished us luck.

Hey, kids, I said. Van. March, I said. I looked at the woman. Did I just say “march”? I asked her. She smiled and shrugged. She lived in a town filled with soldiers.

Oh, your cup, I said.

Take it, she said. She told me I could keep it as a souvenir.

I thanked her and we left.

On the way over to Lilah's I whipped into a Discount Everything to buy a few groceries and some more pain-killers. The kids played Frisbee in the parking lot while I shopped. It was subarctic in there, air-conditioned down to zero. I had to keep moving or I'd freeze to death. I raced up and down the aisles throwing discounted everything into my cart, trying to maintain my circulation and stay alive. It's fun to be challenged, I guess, to have even the well-documented evidence that human beings need a certain body temperature to sustain life discounted. On the way back to the van I saw a piece of paper lying on the ground with the word
Faith
written on it in big letters, so I picked it up. I turned the paper over and realized that it was an Account Close Authorization for a Miss Faith Mae Hopkins. I put it in my pocket anyway.

It took us three minutes to get to Lilah's place. Thebes and Logan argued about how much the window should be left open for Rajbeer not to suffocate to death from the heat. Logan said he'd wait in the van this time. Okay, I said, but I made him promise he wouldn't take off.

Thebes and I went into the house/studio, a groovy space, the walls painted orange and purple and covered in goofy art. A girl, maybe a little younger than Thebes, said, Hey, what's up?
Buenos días!
She'd been sitting cross-legged on the hardwood floor, spinning herself around in circles.

Bonjourno! said Thebes. They stared at each other and grinned.

Yo, Mom! yelled the girl. We are not alone!

A blonde woman came out of a room in the back and said hello and welcome. She looked at Thebes. I looked at the other girl. We were all staring at each other and grinning.

You totally know Doug Cherkis, don't you? I said to the woman.

 

So, yeah, turned out the kids had a half-sister, almost an exact replica of Thebes but about two years younger. A sophisticated nine, she said. Her name was Antonia. She took Thebes outside to show her some stuff and then Logan shot hoops with them behind their garage, laughing his head off as these two little look-alike girls, his sisters, tried to block and tackle him.

But Cherkis wasn't there. And when he
had
been there he'd gone by the name Charles instead. Doug Charles.

Do you think that's because he didn't want to be found? I asked Lilah.

No, she said, he just thought Cherkis sounded dumb, I think.

She told me that about five or six months ago he'd
gone to a place called Calexico, a border town, which was near a Mexican town called Mexicali. They weren't really talking much any more. Doug is a bit of a loner, she said. I asked her if he'd ever mentioned Min and the kids and Lilah said yeah, he had a couple of times, but he hadn't gone into much detail.

He kept a lot of pictures of her, though, said Lilah. He didn't show them to me, but I found them in one of his boxes. They looked really happy together. Then Lilah told me that she thought the reason she and Cherkis had never really connected in a big way was that he was still in love with Min.

Do you really think so? I asked her.

Well, she said, he was always distracted. He was sweet, and he was great with Antonia, but he would often stare out the window like he was expecting someone to show up any minute. You know, he'd stare at planes whenever they flew over, he'd disappear for periods of time. Once he told me he was planning on going on a road trip to Canada but I guess he changed his mind.

Lilah told me that Cherkis had gone to the border to join a group of anarchists or something who were committed to keeping track of and documenting the actions and injustices of the U.S. Border Patrol.

How far is it from here? I said.

Maybe a hundred and fifty miles? she said. You'd go straight south through Joshua Tree National Park.

Does he have a phone number that you know of? I said.

No, not that I know of, she said. They have two-way radios. They're living in tents in a kind of no-man's land.
Sometimes he'll call from a phone booth if he goes into town, to talk to Antonia.

But do any kids live there? I said.

In the town? she said.

No, like with the people in the tents, I said. Is it possible?

She didn't know. Maybe. Why not? But there wouldn't be much for them to do.

 

When the girls came back into the house they were talking non-stop. Thebes was telling Antonia a story about dancing.

Logan and I went to our community centre sports banquet, she said, and he got a bunch of awards and I won a deflated basketball for participation and wore my little black dress from my neighbour and some of her old high heels and a black choker and danced with a boy named Dang. There's a tall Dang and a short Dang, she said. I danced with the short Dang but Logan said I should have danced with the tall Dang. Logan sat at a different table with his friends and then danced weirdly, like a robot, and then left in a green car full of girls.

Then Antonia told Thebes about her grandma's birthday party.

We had a nice birthday party for Grandma, she said, even though we forgot to get her the one thing she had asked for, which was a splatter lid for her frying pan. Then we took her to a play.
Romeo and Juliet.
It was really good except it was interactive so we had to keep hauling Grandma out of her little foldy chair so we could move
around to the various scenes. I really liked it. The guy who played Juliet's dad had the palest blue eyes that I've ever seen. When I told Mom that Benvolio and Paris sure looked a lot alike, she said yeah, I guess that's because they're the same guy.