The More They Disappear (34 page)

The window was open and a damp blanket of air settled, and her breath felt shallow as a ghost's. She slipped out of bed, careful not to wake Lyda, and nudged open the closet, counted the many Mary Janes that dangled there. Belle of the Ball Mary Jane dancing the night away in a champagne gown. Beachcomber Mary Jane lounging by the sea in a swimsuit. Rocker MJ in a ripped T-shirt and jeans. Today, it seemed important to find the right Mary Jane. She started with jeans and a gray V-neck stretched thin from wear. Over that she added a flannel shirt that had been Pappy's. She'd worn the flannel every day for a month after he died. Even now she touched the fabric and whispered hello. Then she ran a brush through her hair, pulled it behind her ears, spread cover-up over her bruises, and added lip gloss. When she looked in the mirror, the girl that looked back was the truest Mary Jane she knew.

She had a headache, a stomachache, jitters from withdrawal, but she wouldn't let the pain overcome her. She opened the jewelry box on her desk and pocketed her last hidden Oxy, glanced back to make sure Lyda was still sleeping. She decided to write a note—an explanation. She held a pencil over a piece of paper but struggled to find the right words. The thought that came to her was one countless teachers had written on her report cards. It didn't matter whether Mary Jane was a grade school chatterbox, a middle school prima donna, or a high-school outcast, her teachers wrote the same seven words over and over.
Fails to live up to her potential.

When she finished the note, she placed it somewhere hard to find, and crept down the stairs, gripping the banister with both hands, careful not to make noise, careful not to stumble. On the porch, she took out the Oxy and held it like a gemstone. She wanted to be better than this. She wanted to be stronger, strong enough to flush this pill down with the rest, but she wasn't that strong. No point in pretending. She crushed it with the base of her mother's lighter and snorted the dust. It felt right.

She could have turned back, could have walked into the house and slipped beneath the sheets and slept until the sheriff came to get her or her parents sent her away to rehab, but she wanted control over her own destiny. Downtown lay ahead like an apparition, and she followed streets that sloped toward the river. The diner's fluorescent Mountain Dew sign flickered, and through a layer of dust on the window, she watched two men sip coffee. The cook stepped out for a cigarette. Her jet-black hair was tied in a bun and she wore an apron that said,
SCREW HOME COOKIN
'. Mary Jane nodded hello. A newspaper trapped against a nearby bench flapped in the breeze.

The pavement turned to rubble as she reached the edge of town. In lots where brick row houses had been razed, vacant trailers perched above weedy, rock-strewn ground. When she reached the river's edge, Mary Jane traced her fingers over the graffiti of the town's half-built floodwall. She thought about how if you build a wall to protect yourself, you just make it worse for someone downriver, someone without a wall of their own.

She scrambled along the banks of the Ohio. It had rained overnight and debris dredged up by the floods floated by. Tree branches crested like snakes and runs of yellow mud from the bottoms surfaced as foamy crests of smogwater circled in the swells. Mary Jane tossed a stone into the riffling current and made her way along a sand shoal to the base of the bridge that crossed into Ohio. A dead bluegill—a tiny, ugly thing—had washed up along shore and been gnawed at by turtles. She grabbed the rusted iron rungs bolted into the bridge support and climbed. It was a game they'd played as kids: Who could climb the highest? And when heights no longer frightened them, they'd tossed rocks at the climber. And when those rocks became too small, they'd found larger ones.

Ochre flakes broke off the rungs and fluttered to the ground like dying moths. Mary Jane's feet slipped along the wet and gusts of wind broke across her face and whipped her hair. She paused to rest, put the flat of her hand against the cool concrete. When she looked down, she was not afraid.

When she reached the top, she grabbed the cool wet metal of the bridge's railing and pulled herself onto the asphalt. She was surrounded by the sounds of a world without people. The wind moved in circles and she put her arms out as if they were wings. The river rushed and a pair of waterbirds called out to each other. Mary Jane watched them wheel in the swirling winds, their bodies going whichever way the breeze took them, their necks craning down in search of fish.

She sat atop the railing as the fog lifted. The sun played hide-and-seek with heavy gray clouds and a soft rain started to fall. She licked her lips and tasted the wet. Before her was the river, cutting farther west than she'd ever make it. They'd misunderstand her no matter what she did, but she hoped this might save them from the truth; she hoped that once she was gone, the story of what she'd done would disappear with her. She'd been so wrong. She'd done terrible things and pretended there weren't consequences. She'd done terrible things because she was afraid of being alone.

A waterbird came up from the river with a fish in its beak, and Mary Jane imagined a world of every action's opposite. In that world, the bird would miss the fish, or perhaps the fish would get the bird. In that world, she never would have run to Mark in Lexington. She never would have run because the bullet that killed Lew would get swallowed back in its chamber. The gun would be in someone else's hands, some hunter who missed his shot, and the bullet would lodge into an ancient tree, which would scar over and bury the guilt inside. Mary Jane pictured that tree, deep in some woods she didn't know and had never seen. She went on like this, into a world where she hadn't become just another face in the crowd, a world where the best hadn't been first and the worst hadn't been last. There were better worlds out there. She just didn't know how to reach them.

She didn't say goodbye, didn't offer a prayer, but she kept her eyes open and paid witness. She tilted forward and let go. The sky became a blur until the snap of hard water ripped through her and she gasped and choked as the cold worked back from her fingers. Then her arms went weightless and her heartbeat slowed. And slowed. The current took her.

*   *   *

Every landmark Mark passed, every mile that brought him closer to Marathon, made him sicker. When he reached the county line, he looked away from the sign that spelled out Mary Jane's last name in all caps. He'd been forced to check out of the Day's Inn by three and reached Leland's early. It was eerily quiet as he parked, so he hiked into the woods to collect his thoughts and waited for the sun to set. In the branches of a nearby shrub a spider spun its web. He watched it climb up and down a seemingly invisible thread of silk, watched it pivot and turn as if in thin air. He counted the pill bottles in his bag and squeezed them in his hand. He didn't want to keep dealing drugs but he had no choice. Leland offered him a lifeline, and after he sold his stash, Mark would become like that spider. He would travel invisible roads. He would look out for himself and no one else. And for that reason he'd survive.

Where he'd go, he didn't know. What he'd do, the same. He'd repent. Or try. It wouldn't do much good. It took a lot for a person to realize the evils they were capable of, but Mark knew. If his father had sought to create a monster, he'd succeeded. Monster born of monster. Mark would never not feel shame. Maybe after he settled someplace no one had ever heard of, he'd call the newspaper and rat his dad out, write a note to Mary Jane and apologize for letting things get so broken, do his best to make amends. But none of it would wash the blood from his hands.

He thought of Chance's last words:
I do nothing upon myself and yet I am my own executioner.
They seemed to suggest a world full of innocents. And perhaps they were all innocent—himself, Mary Jane, Lew, the elderly people selling their prescriptions to keep the heat on, the kids popping pills to get high, even his father—but it seemed more true to say the opposite, to say,
Because of what I do upon myself, I am my own executioner
.

*   *   *

Harlan and Paige drove her rusty Datsun up the switchback into Leland's property. He was wearing a flannel and jeans and Paige had on a short skirt over black tights and a suggestive top, but still Harlan worried they'd be pegged for cops. The idea of going undercover in a town as small as Marathon was ridiculous.

“Remember this place?” he asked.

“Looks better during the day,” Paige replied.

The parking lot's ruts had muddied from rain and the Datsun's wheels spun and the steering wheel jangled. “This thing's almost as bad as my truck,” Harlan said.

“Almost.”

A steady stream of cars followed them in. The racetrack had turned into a soupy mess lit up by floodlamps like the ones rich boys put atop their jeeps. A couple of ATVs cruised at low speeds, and spectators tossed their empties onto the track, which the drivers took aim for and crunched into flat pieces of aluminum that refracted the light. An attempt at a PA strung along slanted poles crackled out a country song.

Girls in midriff shirts stalked the grounds, their heavy makeup turning them into little Lolitas. The older women dressed the same but their bodies had become skeletal from hard living, their faces carved with deep tracks and sunken cheeks. The worst had thin, tattered hair that had been dyed so often it looked burnt. Half the men looked like farm boys while the other half wore jerseys and fake diamond jewelry, the latter's high-pitched voices spouting a language foreign to Finley County, a language learned from television and rap videos. Harlan looked at Paige and felt a pang of guilt. He hadn't told her the real reason for their visit, had lied and said they were just out there to get a feel of the place. Eventually, Paige might come to understand why he'd cut a deal with Leland, but she'd never fully agree with the decision.

A group of kids caked in white makeup and boasting safety pin piercings pushed through the crowd and congregated on the gate of a pickup beside the Datsun. People heckled them and the kids seemed to feed off the anger, but when they spoke to one another “Oh my Gods” and “likes” peppered their speech—just like any other group of teens. Three country toughs in ripped shirts, one sporting a Confederate flag on his cap, walked by and gawked at them. One of the ghosts—a girl with straight black hair—screamed, “What the fuck are you looking at, hillbilly?” The redneck didn't take the bait, so she turned her gaze to Harlan, and said, “You too, asshole.”

“Come on,” Harlan said to Paige. “Let's go.”

Paige hesitated, so Harlan pulled her toward the dirt track. “I don't like those vampire freaks,” she said.

“They're just kids. Doesn't matter if they whistle Dixie or paint their face. They're just trying to fit in.”

He bummed a couple of beers from a guy with a cooler full of them and handed one to Paige.

The smell of dope drifted toward them, and he followed it to a group of women passing a joint. One of them made eye contact and beckoned him with her slouch. He drained his beer and stomped it into the ground as she came over. From afar she'd had the outline of a beauty but up close it disappeared. Spray-on tan, blue-veined arms, loose skin on a skinny frame. She offered him the last of a blunt. “Toke?”

Harlan shook his head.

“Boring,” the woman said and walked away.

“You gonna let people smoke dope night in front of you?” Paige asked.

Harlan realized he needed to come clean or else Paige would blow their cover. “Our goal,” he said, “is to not draw attention. In a minute we'll make our way up to Leland's trailer, and a little after seven, I'm going to bust a kid that's dealing drugs. You're going to stay outside unless something goes wrong.”

“How do you know the guy you're looking for will be there?”

“A little birdie told me.”

“And what about Leland?”

“Who do you think the birdie was?”

Faces floated by, all with a hint of familiarity but none with names Harlan could have called out. “If people recognize you, say you're off duty,” Harlan said. “And keep a beer in your hand. It'll help you fit in.”

“At least I look the part,” Paige said and pulled down on her skirt. They headed up the hill past the old Abbot place. Next door the shades of Leland's trailer were drawn. The farmhouse's garden had reverted back to wild and become a den for rodents and chirping insects. They passed rotted trellises snared by roses whose canes ran across the ground like rows of shark's teeth. “What a shithole,” Paige said. Harlan tried to remember the house as it had been when he was a boy, told her it hadn't always been so run-down. They passed through tall, gone-to-seed grass and came upon a notch they could use as a lookout. Deep in the woods there was light from a bonfire that reflected off mirrors strung in the trees. The ether of voices and scurrying sounds of night slipped to them. “They call that the enchanted forest,” Harlan said.

A little before seven, a shadow stepped out of the woods, made straight for Leland's trailer, and knocked on the door. Leland flipped on the outside light. “Is it him?” Paige asked.

Harlan grabbed her arm and squeezed. “Shh,” he said. And then, “Yeah. It's him.”

Harlan crept up to the trailer after Mark went inside. He thought about pulling his gun, thought about kicking the door in, but realized there was no need. Instead, he took a deep breath and turned the knob.

He saw Leland first and then Mark, who stood up from the couch as if to run, though there was nowhere to go. Harlan rushed at him and yelled “freeze” and “police” and all those things movie cops yell before tackling Mark to the ground.

“Damn,” Leland screamed. “Take it easy.”

Harlan slapped handcuffs on the kid and rolled off. He was breathing heavy as he brought Mark to his feet, all the adrenaline draining out of him, the soreness setting in. Paige sauntered in a minute later, collected the drugs, and read Mark a monotone Miranda rights. The kid nodded his head ever so slightly when she asked if he understood.