Floating Staircase(100)

“You remember the cemetery? You called me a murderer. And I told you I didn’t kill my nephew.” He picked up the bottle of bourbon and poured two more shots. “What I’m saying, Glasgow, is maybe we’re both right.”

We stared at each other for a long, long time. At first I didn’t understand what he meant . . . and when it finally dawned on me, it didn’t strike me all at once like an epiphany but rather it gradually trickled in, filling all the recesses and crevices and gouges of my brain like black water into a pair of drowning lungs.

David Dentman eased back in his seat. Sweat dampened his brow. He lifted his shot glass and examined it as if it might be the last drink he’d ever take.

“To fathers,” he toasted.



When Adam arrived at the bar, I was still at Dentman’s table, although Dentman had left some time ago. Adam came up behind me, dropping a hand on my shoulder.

Startled, I jumped out of my seat, nearly knocking the half-empty bottle of cruddy bourbon to the floor, where presumably it would have eaten through the floorboards.

“Who walked on your grave?” Adam said.

“Forget it.”

“Everything okay?”

“Everything’s fine,” I said, summoning a smile. “Sit down. Have a drink with your little brother before he leaves you for sunny California.”

Adam sat, picking up the bottle and pulling a face. “What is this stuff?”

I pushed an empty shot glass in his direction. On the jukebox, a Springsteen song came on, harmonica wailing. “Just drink.”

We spent the night in approximate silence, thinking so much but never needing to speak a word of it.

Like brothers.





EPILOGUE/PROLOGUE:

WE WERE A SPECK ON THE LANDSCAPE OF THE WORLD

We were a speck on the landscape of the world. Can you see us? A glittering scuttle across this charted topography, reflecting great bursts of silvery sunlight and emitting exhaust, trundling the curves and slaloms and straightaways as if we were the only significant thing for miles and miles. And perhaps we were. Our little Honda trekked along, burdened with the weight of our escape, low enough to the ground to scrape the undercarriage on certain passes.

Look closer and you would see us—me behind the wheel, sunglasses on, my hair freshly cropped, my face newly shaved. I was Tom Cruise, Tom Sawyer. Beside me, Jodie played Tom Petty and Sheryl Crow and Better Than Ezra on the radio, sunglasses also on, her body looking smooth and taut and untouched, smelling clean and of soap. The days were long and sunny, marred not by a single passing cloud. Nights were cool and pleasant. The land hugging us was fresh and new, all of it, and it made us feel fresh and new as well. Everything—everything—was fresh and new.

Occasionally, I would glance at the rearview mirror, my memory still holding strong to the last image of my brother’s family watching as we pulled out of the cul-de-sac and out of Westlake forever, waving good-bye, heartfelt and heartbroken yet hopeful of the prospects of all that awaited us. We’d embraced. Be good, little brother. Now we drove in some remote county of some remote state with the little rural town of Westlake nothing more than a fleeting, dreamlike memory, and once I thought I could actually still see them framed in the rectangle of reflective glass, waving.

We stopped at roadside diners in forgotten locales and imaginary realms. We ate greasy hamburgers as thick as Bibles and sucked down milk shakes with the zeal of lifelong competitors.

We spent the first night in a small motel off the main highway. A million stars lit up the sky, and we stood for a while in the parking lot just gazing heavenward. We showered together in a mildew-smelling shower, then made love in a strange bed, and after Jodie had fallen asleep, I drifted outside to gaze at the sky some more.



If you’re content in the notion that you know where things stand—or at least think you know—and you are happy about those things, then close your eyes. Go on. Keep them closed.



A different night, in an isolated part of the country, I awoke with a scream caught in my throat.

“What is it, baby?”

“Nightmare,” I breathed. “Tell me.”

“I dreamt we were in one of my books,” I said.

“You’re sweating so much. Come here.”

Jodie held me tight to prove her existence, but I could not help but think, None of this is real. Don’t be fooled by it. Nothing ends this perfectly. It was the therapist’s voice from my childhood. You lost your mind that day on the floating staircase, and Jodie couldn’t take anymore. She left you, Travis, and you never found the boy, and you fell apart. The clues are all there; they’ve been there all along. That’s the truth behind the fiction. That’s the clarity here. Everything that happened after that day is merely the imagination of a wistful, regretful writer who should have done things differently and is making up for his mistakes the only way he knows how: by rewriting them. So don’t be fooled.

Don’t be fooled.



We drove for days, relieving ennui by singing along with the select few radio stations we were able to harness from the air. Somewhere west of Mesa Verde, having just crossed old Route 666, there was a dull report, like a gunshot. The whole car shuddered. Continuing down the highway, I could feel the frame of the vehicle bucking against the road. Jodie grew nervous.