Mosquitoland(34)

“More for me,” he mutters.

Shivering, I sit up and pull the blankets around my shoulders. I must have fallen asleep while I was pretending to be asleep. Pretty damn effective, I’d say.

“How’d you sleep?” The corners of Caleb’s mouth curl into a faint smile.

“Like a log,” I lie. “You?”

“Same.”

I scan the clearing quickly, avoiding Caleb’s shifty eyes. “Where’s Walt?”

“Shit pit,” he mumbles, chews, puffs. I see him glance toward the tent, and wonder if he’s already made a pass at Walt’s money. I’m guessing not, or he wouldn’t be here.

He’s trying to figure out what to do with me.

I grab my backpack and rummage around for the makeup-remover pads, eager to be rid of last night’s war paint. Mud or not, the pads should do the trick. Unfortunately, they’re at the bottom of the bag, forcing me to acknowledge my many talismans of disappointment: one wooden box (wherefore art thou, Ahab?); one cell phone (thirty-nine missed calls); one bottle of Abilitol (if habit is king, I’m the joker); one terse letter (Think of whats best for her. Please reconsider.); and last, but certainly not least, one Hills Bros. coffee can (behold! the Mistress of Burgling). A morning of harsh disappointments tends to slide down the gullet a little easier with some fresh java behind it. But as New Chicago seems to be heavy on the tainted meats and light on the gourmet beans, I’m forced to swallow my disappointments as they come.

I locate the makeup remover and begin wiping the caked mud off my face.

“You know. . . ” says Caleb. His cigarette is now a stump. Sucking down the last of its juices, he flicks it into the ashes of last night’s campfire and looks up. His turned-off eyes stir a strange combination inside me, of both fight and flight. As if waiting for his sentence to finish itself, Caleb sits with his mouth open, the accusation there in spirit, but not word. Not yet. The thing is, it doesn’t have to be spoken. I can feign ignorance till I’m blue in the face, but I was there. I know the deep end of his soul’s pool. I know Caleb’s dark secret: not who he is, but what. A shadow. A creepy-ass-Gollum-Gollum-schizo-effing shadow.

“Hey, hey, Mim!” Walt yells, bounding out of the woods, buttoning his pants. His face is still covered in dried mud. When he sees my clean face he stops. “Is the war over?”

Lord bless and keep the House of Walt for all of eternity!

“Sure is, Walt. Come here, let me clean you up.”

Caleb tosses his bedding into the tent, his accusations dangling on the tip of his tongue. “Well.” He yawns. “I’m gonna take a shit in the pit and a wash in the lake. Walt, I got something I wanna talk to you about when I get back.”

“Okay, Caleb.”

Then, looking at me, he winks. “You too, sweetie.” He retreats into the woods before I have a chance to give him my eat shit squint. (It’s a dynamite squint, too, one I save for the purest of *s.) After cleaning Walt’s face, I stick the pack of makeup remover back in my bag. My good eye lands on my bottle of Abilitol, and for a split second, I imagine the shape of a great grizzly charging me head-on. I see its sharp claws, its glassy eyes, its lolling tongue—I catch my breath and stuff the bottle down in the bag.

Fuck it. I can miss a day.

“Hey, Walt,” I say, a plan beginning to take shape. He’s eating ham—like it’s his first, last, and only—watching a bluebird tug a worm from the ground.

“Yo, Walt,” I whisper.

The bird seems desperate for its early, earthy breakfast. Walt is enthralled. “Hey, hey,” he says, still staring at the bird.

“You ever been to Cleveland?”

His head turns from the carnivorous bird to me. In my ear, I hear my mother again. Have a vision, Mary, unclouded by fear.

I have limited experience, but I know this: moments of connection with another human being are patently rare. But rarer still are those who can recognize such a connection when they see one.

The camera zooms in on Walt’s piercing eyes.

It cuts to a close-up of my own.

The connection is there, wriggling below the surface, just like that worm. And what’s more, we both feel it.

In the distance, Caleb is splashing around, making a ridiculous racket.

Walt looks toward the lake, then whispers, “He won’t like it.”

May the House of Walt live forever and ever, Amen!

“No he won’t, Walt.”





20


Run, Run, Run

IT FEELS NICE to be out of those cutoffs and into some real clothes again. Downright delightful, actually. Pulling my repacked JanSport tight, I wrap one of Walt’s extra blankets between the straps and my chest. The kid has spent the last few minutes packing one of those hard, fifties-style suitcases full of canned hams, blankets, and God knows what else from that decrepit blue tent.

“Okay.” I put my hands on his shoulders. “We just need to get back to the overpass. We can get a ride from there, okay? Just stick close and—”

Suddenly, Walt raises an arm. In his hand, he’s holding my mother’s lipstick like a champion’s torch. “I found your shiny,” he says, avoiding eye contact.

I reach for it, but can’t stop looking at Walt—the kid is about to cry.