He just needs things explained a certain way, Grandpa said, and nothing distracting him. He can fix anything under a hood as good as I can.
What’s gonna happen to him if you kick it tomorrow, Roger? Carl asked. I mean you’re only sixty-eight, but shit happens. Is he gonna run the shop by himself? Is he gonna handle the money, and the overhead, and upkeep on the equipment? Is he gonna handle these dumbshit rich pricks that have a breakdown on the highway and get towed in, and piss and moan about the labor costs because they’re having a bad day and they need someone to bitch at? And that’s a moot point, anyway, ’cause you need state certification to run the shop, and I don’t see how he’s going to have that. Carl’s voice got a little nicer then. I’m just saying someone’s gonna have to look after him. And it ain’t gonna be me and Tonya. We’re going down to the Gulf Coast after I retire. Look, I get that you don’t want to think about this, but you’re running blindfolded on what happens to him when you’re gone. You need to have a plan.
Owen had stood there outside the door, waiting to hear what Grandpa would say back to all that, but Grandpa hadn’t said anything. The man only let out a long breath and then Owen heard his chair creak, the way it did when he leaned it back and put his hands through his hair.
Now and again that conversation would come back to Owen, when he was having his cereal in the morning, or cleaning up the tools in the shop.
What happens to him when you’re gone?
Memories like that were just the sort of thing that made him want to draw something.
That day in the desert, with the turtle, had ended with the kind of sunset you sometimes saw in magazines. Against the red sky there had been a few high, feathery clouds, and an old jet trail flattening out and unshaping itself in the wind way up there. Owen had made a few quick sketches of that, and then gotten in the pickup to head back to the house, but before he could turn the ignition he heard a voice in his head say, I think I’ve got one.
He stopped. His hand fell away from the key. He turned in his seat and looked into the truck bed, as if the voice had come from there, though he already knew it hadn’t.
Mark it, the voice said. Off-axis three seven … two? Mod track’s pretty strong, but try to dial it in.
It was a man’s voice, coming to him as if from far away, and it was rough and broken, like the man was speaking through a mouthful of gravel.
That’s a little better, the voice said. It sounded much closer now.
Okay, good, yeah. Now just step out. Yeah, leave the room, I’ve got it.
Owen felt his heart banging against his rib cage. Was he going crazy? Was this how it started?
The voice spoke again, as loud as if the man were in the truck’s cab with him, though still garbled and pebbly.
Tell me your name.
“What?” Owen found himself saying aloud.
Tell me your name. Don’t be afraid.
Sweating now. His breathing kicked up into high gear, trying to keep pace with his heartbeat.
You’re not crazy, the gravel voice said. I promise. Please tell me your name.
In a single convulsive move, Owen grabbed the ignition key again and turned it. When the old pickup’s engine rolled over, he goosed it hard, dumped it into drive, and floored it. The truck fishtailed a little and then the tires bit into the desert two-track and Owen was racing along.
You can’t ignore me. You can’t get away from me, either.
Owen stabbed the ON button for the radio and cranked the volume high. The gospel station out of Cold Spring washed out at him. He punched one of the presets and got Ozzy Osbourne singing “Flying High Again,” and turned the volume dial as far up as it would go.
But even over the music, and the scream of the engine and the rattle of the old truck’s suspension, the voice was still there.
You don’t have to be scared of me.
There was maybe a minute or two when Owen almost believed he could make it go away. It wasn’t the music or any other noise that helped; it was the hard concentration it took to drive this fast in the desert. The quick thinking he had to do when little turns and cross-ruts would come sliding into his headlights, and he’d have only half a second to brake or veer. It was the kind of thinking that normally wore him out in no time at all. It was wearing him out right now, too, but it also seemed to push the voice away, if only a little.