Mosquitoland(27)

“I mean—what. Are. You. Doing?”

I might just never stop smiling. “Well, I’m . . . taking an accidental nap under a highway overpass, I guess.”

“No,” he says, hell-bent on solving the cube. “I mean as a part of big things.”

Walt’s statement is vague at best, gibberish at worst. But here’s the thing: I understand exactly what he means.

“I’m trying to get to Cleveland,” I say. It’s not a lie, but it certainly doesn’t answer the spirit of the question. “By Labor Day, if possible.”

“Why?”

Traffic is pretty much at a standstill under this bridge. If I’m gonna do this, now’s the time. I begin sizing up drivers for the best prospective ride, by which I mean, someone who doesn’t look like an ax murderer.

“Reasons are hard, man.”

“Why?” he asks again.

I hate leaving this kid by the side of the road, but surely he has someone with him. “Walt, are you with a friend, or . . . your mom, or something?”

“No. She’s with the white pillows. In the casket.”

I turn toward him. He looks serious enough.

“Hey, look,” he says, holding up his Rubik’s Cube, now complete. “All done. Done good. Good and done.”

“Walt—where do you live?”

He throws his head back, messes up the cube, as if he doesn’t trust himself not to peek. “New Chicago,” he says. “Do you like shiny things? I have lots of shiny there. And a pool.” He looks me up and down. “You’re a pretty dirty person right now. You could use a pool. Also, there’s ham.”

I am Mary Iris Malone, and I am 100 percent intrigued.

“You wanna come with me?” asks Walt.

I push my bangs out of my eyes and slide my backpack on. Mere feet away, traffic inches along, luring me with a steady hum of engines. “I don’t think I can, buddy. I’d like to, but—”

Without a word, the kid tears up, turns, and walks away.

Watching him go, I can’t explain the why, but I know the what—I feel like a sack of shit.

A Subaru (with a plastic bubble attached to the top like a giant fanny pack) rolls to a stop in the traffic; its passenger-side window rolls down.

“You need a ride?”

Inside, a nice-looking woman checks her rearview mirror, then smiles at me. Her son, presumably, sits in the back seat, engrossed in some handheld video game.

“Traffic’s starting to move, hon,” she says. “In or out.”

I open the passenger door and hop in. “Thanks.”

“No problem.” She lets her foot off the brake, and creeps slowly through the heavy traffic.

We pass a derelict white building on the right. Off-white, really. The offest white there ever was.

“You traveling for Labor Day?” she asks.

I set my JanSport between my feet. “Something like that.”

“You and everybody else.” She points through the windshield. “Long weekends, people really come out of the woodwork, you know?”

I nod politely. From the back seat, her kid grunts, mutters something about how dying is lame. I’ll assume he means a video-game death.

“So,” she says, “where’re you from?”

“Cleveland,” I answer, wondering how many questions this ride is going to cost. I reach into my pocket for the comfort of my war paint.

“Nice town. We love Cleveland, don’t we, Charles?” She continues talking, but I’m no longer listening.

I am no longer anything at all.

The lipstick is gone.

“. . . to an Indians game for his father’s birthday. Didn’t you, Charles?”

I reach down, unzip my bag—the box, the coffee can, a water bottle, shirts and socks . . . no lipstick. “Pull over,” I mutter.

“I’m sorry?”

Where did I see it last? I definitely had it when I left the bus. I had it when that stupid girl offered me cigarettes. I had it . . . in my hands when I fell asleep. “Can you pull over, please? I have to get out.”

“Are you sure?”

Let it be under the bridge. “Yes, I’m sure. Pull over.”

The woman, forever nameless, pulls the Subaru to the side of the highway. I grab my bag, give a halfhearted “Thanks,” and hoof it back to the bridge.

Please let it be there.

Due to the crawling traffic, we’d only gone about a hundred yards or so. I arrive under the bridge breathless and search every square inch near the spot where I’d fallen asleep. To make up for my lack of vision, I quadruple-check, but it’s no use. The lipstick isn’t here. I stare at the ground, unable to move, unable to think, just . . . thoroughly not able. And just as this reality sets in—of arriving at my mother’s sickbed without one of my primary Reasons—I see it.

Not the lipstick.

Kneeling, I rub the cracks in the pavement: the nose, the tail, the feet . . . such a specific shape, my Pavement Rabbit.

Do you like shiny things? I have lots of shiny there.

I see an image on the horizon: every step is intentional, quick-footed, as if it’s late for something.

I put my head down and sprint.



“DO YOU LIKE the Cubs?” asks Walt.