“Jesus! I’ll just make her disappear. She’ll go on a hike and whoops—something like that. Does that float your boat?”
“It’s not my boat you have to worry about.” Don looks around as if he’s still trying to spot someone. “It’s Yeager’s boat. And you’d better float it good.”
I’m making every muscle in my face stand down, a skill well honed when kids wanted to meet up after school to see who was the badder ass. I knew I could break them in half but declined, seemingly impassive, afraid of what I’d do to them if I said yes.
If Don sees me panic, he’s right, I’m his bitch. I try to sound as much like him as I can manage. “How much longer does this puppet show have to take?”
With an intensity that spews up through his rage, he says, “I flap my lips, you nod like a good little boy.”
I start nodding.
“Not that much!”
“Fine.” I stop and sit there glaring at him while he tells me the plot of a science-fiction movie he got to see for good behavior. I nod at appropriate intervals until the buzzer goes off and visitors are ushered out.
Just before he stands up, he says so quickly that it’s almost as if it didn’t happen, “The thing with Mom. I don’t know how long I can hold them off. They’re not nice guys. You’ve got to get this done.”
“Don!”
He’s on his way out before I can even get a read on his face. “Have a good one,” he calls to me casually, as if he didn’t just tell me his friends are going to execute my mother.
This whole thing is a play I don’t want to be in.
“Whatever you say.” I try to sound cowed pretty loudly on the chance he’s sneaking glances all around because we’ve got an audience that has to think I’m going to do what I’m supposed to do. I try to sound like I’m afraid of him.
It’s not much of a stretch.
The sprint to the car, the fumbling with the phone, the attempt to sound something other than scared shitless is getting old.
Fortunately, my mother is so annoyed, she doesn’t notice.
“Where are you, Jack? And where’s your phone? And why did you turn off the tracker? You’re supposed to be camping, not hiding.”
I’ve called my mom on the burner. That’s how thrown off I am.
“I might have left it somewhere. Sorry. I bought this cheap one.” There’s a long silence while she waits for me to elaborate. It’s like playing chicken with someone who doesn’t even have eyelids and couldn’t blink if she wanted to.
“What did I say about being responsible?”
How do I answer that?
“Jack! Where’s your itinerary? Or are you just wandering through the countryside losing things?”
“Just the phone. And a sweatshirt I could care less about.” I throw in the sweatshirt to give her something trivial to call me out on, and to distract her—a tactic developed over years of trial and error. It doesn’t work.
“This isn’t safe! You were supposed to be sending me your detailed itinerary. And answering my calls!”
“Come on.” I play the military card again. “Guys my age are fighting in Afghanistan.”
“Don’t equate driving around aimlessly and letting your sweatshirt walk away with fighting for your country—”
“The fact you don’t know where I eat lunch doesn’t make it dangerous for me to have a sandwich! It’d probably be more dangerous if you knew because then I’d be the wuss who has to ask his mommy whether he can have a beer.”
“You can’t have a beer! You’re not traveling with Don’s old ID, are you?”
And the save: “I just visited Don. With my own ID.”
“You did?” Her tone softens as she imagines the loving-brother reconciliation that’s never going to happen.
“He says hello.” He didn’t. The sentence tastes like rotten fish on my tongue, but the words have the desired effect. The thought of Don saying hi makes her sigh as if she just saw a cute bunny.
“Here’s the thing, kiddo,” she says. “Why I’ve been calling you all day. There might be something hinky with one of my cases.” Her voice is very strained, like she’s choosing every word and laying it down gently in a careful sentence.
“Hinky how?” She doesn’t say hinky. She doesn’t say kiddo, and she doesn’t talk about her cases.
“I’d rather discuss this in person.”
I don’t say anything.
She says, “Exactly where are you? Are you still in Nevada?”
Given that I’m not telling her where I’m headed, or why, or anything like why, all that’s left is irrational shouting. “Isn’t the point for me to be wherever I want? Isn’t the point for me to be free for a while?”
“You’re in a state of unreality! Drifting around with plenty of money and no responsibilities to prove you can isn’t being free! It’s being a child with a car!”
“The deal was you were going to go along with this. That’s what you said.”
“Jack!” she says, as if repeating my name would bring me to my senses. “It’s probably nothing, but get back here. Park Don’s car and hop on a bus.”
This is when I start to feel sicker. “Did something happen?”