The McCobbs by this time were fighting like cats and dogs. I’d hear them going at it in the kitchen before I was even awake, and at night up in their room, voices raised to be heard above crying babies. And even still Mrs. McCobb sometimes would up and tell me for no reason, like while she’s putting in a load of laundry, that she would never divorce Mr. McCobb.
If true, that’s about all that could be ruled out in the department what the hell next. In July the landlord threatened to kick them out unless they paid their back rent. Which they did, by dipping into the cash I’d earned at Golly’s. No confusion now about me chipping in. Did they plan to tell me? No. I found out from Haillie that heard her parents discuss it, taking my cash out of the drawer where they kept it. I went postal. The poor kid pissing herself, to see the level of catfuck she’d let out of the bag. I stormed upstairs, yelling how I was going to turn them in to DSS. How would I do that, without going into various not-legal things I’d done to make this money they’d taken? No idea, I just went with my gut. Some items in their bedroom got busted, including a lamp. The babies went off like a car alarm. Not a good scene. I took what was left of my cash, put it in a peanut butter jar, and said if they wanted my help they could fucking well ask.
What else were they going to use, though? Honestly, once I got over my Hulk moment I was more worried than mad. Without any car they were in pitiful shape. Sending their grocery list for me to bring home from Golly’s, then freaking out over paying double for a can of beans, etc. But they couldn’t very well walk the five miles to Food Lion. Mr. McCobb was getting whittled down to size. He still talked down to the wife and kids, but me he started treating like one of his buds. He was drinking a good deal of beer in the afternoons now, so I’d get home of an evening to find him in the kitchen wanting to share his tales of woe. Rarely was I in the mood. But if I went in my dog room he’d just follow me in there, which was worse. No place for two guys to sit, for one thing, underpants lying around for another. That weren’t even mine.
He felt like a loser, not providing for his family. He said it almost killed him to take my money and then get yelled at in front of his kids. He’d go all sorry, and the dog would look up at him with the whites of her eyes showing, and I’d feel like it was me that should apologize. Shame was a shithole I knew. He’d get in these sloppy moods of giving me life advice, like I was his real son. Which, even if beggars can’t be choosers, would not have been my first choice. He always ended up saying the same thing: If you spend one penny less than you earn every month, you’ll be happy. But spend a penny more than you earn, you’re done for. He’d look at me with those dark, sad eyes and lay this on me. That the secret of happiness basically is two cents.
By late summer the dog-grooming side of the fight had gotten nowhere, signs pointing to Ohio. Mrs. McCobb’s parents would call and she’d get the kids on the extensions, both crying. Daddy’s so mean they can’t have the littlest thing, no Barbies, no Lisa Frank, waah. My Lord, to think of Mr. McCobb moving in with those in-laws. A hot mess. They decided on leaving town before school started. Baggy would have to find me a new placement. And at least I’d finally be done worrying about that household, where the man of the house was the one sleeping in the dog room.
Now I could worry about my own next stop on the road to hell, with a caseworker that was not on the case. I had to call her to ask, was I going back to Creaky Farm. She said Crickson, and no. The DSS had discovered he was committing infractions, so they removed his fostering privileges. They were looking for somebody else to take the hardship cases. “Our kids that resist permanent placement,” was how she put it, and of course I thought of Tommy. He would not resist but throw his arms around a permanent placement. Never to draw a skeleton again.
Around this time I made my plan. Dangerous possibly, crazy for sure. All I can say is, you try living in crazytown for a while and see what you cook up.
All I had to my name was the jar of money I kept stashed in my backpack day and night. Every dollar I got paid, I stuffed in there on top of whatever the McCobbs had left me after paying off their landlord. I’d had no chance to make an exact count. No privacy at work, nor in my room at night, with the baby-cam. Those two watching me count my money, they’d pop a vein. But I got paid for eight hours most days, and had worked eight weeks that summer more or less. Less, due to Ghost going on some bad jags. It would have to be enough.
Because now it’s August. Mrs. McCobb is packing anything as yet unpawned into cardboard boxes, Mr. McCobb probably is weighing the pros and cons of a bullet in his brain, and still nobody can tell me where I’m going to live. Baggy’s idea of working on it is asking the same questions again. Did I have friends that could take me in a pinch? She’d checked back with the Peggots, which was embarrassing. How many times did I have to hear it? No, they did not want me. They did say I could come visit for a few days before school started, to spend time with Matthew. Meaning probably Maggot was bored, wearing eye makeup around the house and driving everybody nuts, and it dawned on the grandparents that I might be a good influence. And I thought: Damn it, I told you this. What I said to Baggy was, “Tell them I’ll consider it.”
The other thing she kept asking about was relatives. Did I have any. Had we not been through this? Lady, look it up. Mom: orphan, foster care, no living relatives she knew of, plus dead. Dad: skip straight to the dead part. Also not existent, according to my birth certificate.
But he did exist. Mom was very clear on that. Her story about the day I was born and some old biddy coming for me, okay, questionable. But the older I got, the more people said I looked like him. That I came from somewhere, in other words. From somebody.
The first Thursday of August, the McCobbs had a U-Haul truck sitting in their driveway pointed at Ohio. I’d told Baggy I was going to the Peggots. She wouldn’t have to give me a ride, they were picking me up. I’d stay there until she sorted out my placement. My last morning in the dog room, I crammed what I could into my school backpack: clothes, drawing notebooks, money jar. The rest was trash. What toys I had, I’d given to Brayley. I let the plug out of my bed and sat on it to let the air out. I would miss those kids, especially Haillie. I’d bought them goodbye presents from Golly’s: a plastic horse for Haillie and a pint of bubble-gum-flavor ice cream for Brayley. I rolled my bed up with the sheets and stuffed them in a laundry basket that I carried outside. I tried to say goodbye to the Mr. and Mrs. but they were yelling at each other over how to fit a queen-size mattress in the U-Haul. Whatever. Haillie gave me a hug. Brayley wiped off his pink ice cream beard and waved from the steps. Ghost rolled up and I got in his pickup and that was me, over and out on the McCobbs.
It was a weird day at work. My head was not in the normal place, but it wasn’t just me. I mean, a lady leaning out her car window and yelling for a solid half hour about had we seen her motherfucking husband that had done hightailed it with her SSDI check. Also, finding a mother skunk with her four babies inside a twist-tied bag of trash. She’d made a little hole and got her family in there. This is skunks, right, so getting them all out is another story. Lethal Weapon III.
At the end of my shift the Peggots did not pick me up. I’d lied to Baggy, knowing she’d never in this life or the next one call up the Peggots to check. I told Mr. Golly I wouldn’t be able to come in the next day, not a lie, so he gave me my week’s pay early. I picked up some items I said were for the McCobbs, and to put it on their tab. Candy bars, Slim Jims, easy-to-carry type things. If Mr. Golly noticed this wasn’t the usual McCobb grocery list, he didn’t say anything. With a good hour of daylight still hanging, I turned my back on Golly’s. Walked out to the junction, turned south on Highway 23, and stuck out my thumb.
It probably wasn’t five minutes before a guy pulled over in a rusted-out El Camino, those half-car, half-pickup type of deals, with two muddy dogs in the back. I thought that was a good sign, as regards the guy not being a child molester. Why carry around dogs to crime scenes? Anyway, I got in. Wherever those dogs had been to get so muddy, this guy was right there with them. He had dried mud on the sleeves of his shirt and caked in his hair. But fine, not blood. I thanked him for picking me up. He asked where I was headed tonight, and I told him Tennessee.
He laughed. “Where at in particular, buddy? Tennessee’s kindly big.”
I said it was a place he’d probably never heard of before. Murder Valley.
He told me I was right, that was a new one on him. But that he’d not be able to forget a name like that, now that he’d heard
it. I said no, sir. You never do.
24
The muddy guy was a preacher. He’d been camping out at some lake in Kentucky, and had to get home and cleaned up before Sunday services. I’d say he was wise to schedule in the extra time for that. He said it was a small church in Carter’s Valley where he preached. I pictured those places you see on a Sunday drive, out on the bendy back roads, people coming out the door in their overalls and housedresses. Nothing high or mighty about their God business. This guy was like that. He said fishing was something he did to clear his head. Sitting with his dogs at the water’s edge listening to the birds and frogs all singing their praises, he felt right close to God.
He asked me who all lived in Murder Valley that I was going to see, and I said my grandmother. He asked how long since I’d seen her. Not wanting to blow smoke on a guy that’s just come from visiting God, I said I couldn’t remember. Because look, if Mom was telling the truth about this lady showing up the day I was born, would I remember that?
I knew her name though: Betsy Woodall. It felt like a power to say that aloud, similar to how I’d gone all Hulk that time and claimed back my money jar. Snake handler or child beater the lady might be, but still mine to claim. People owe their kin. Her dead son should have been paying me his social security all these years, to name one example. Worst case, she’d turn out to be somebody that never existed, due to my mom making her up. Or if real, I might not find her. Knowing where my dad was buried was no guarantee of her living in the same town. Also, I might get picked up by the cops, if anybody was looking. So really there were quite a few worst cases, I wasn’t stupid. None of them looked worse than the fix I was already in.
He asked how old I was, and I said going on fifteen. Again, not a lie technically, you’re going on it till you get there. We shared his bag of sour cream and onion potato chips and he told me a lot of tips on fishing, which I didn’t mind hearing even though I’d learned from the best. Mr. Peg knew the right lure for every hole, figuring in clouds or sun, what bugs are hatching out. His tackle box could keep a kid fascinated for life. Grown men, I’m saying all of them, wanted to know how he caught fish every damn time. His answer: You have to hold your mouth right. I never knew for sure if that was a joke. I’d sit holding my pole and watching him, working on my Mr. Peg face. Painful shit to remember now, due to being mad at the Peggots. But the preacher had a lot to offer as regards nightcrawlers versus hula-poppers. Carter Valley is far deep in the sticks, and it got dark on us, so he went out of his way to drop me off at a truck stop, thinking I’d have better luck at a place where things stayed busy all night.
He was not wrong about the all-night action. Being a godly type person, maybe he wasn’t up on the particulars. I was trying to get my bearings under those weird pink lights, bugs flying all around, and this lady walks over wanting to know if I have any ice, and do I need a blow job.
She didn’t mean the ice you get in the five-pound bag. That much I knew. But I was way outside my game. Gas fumes burning my brain like an aerosol-can high. This hag of a person, Jesus. Skeleton-skinny and older than you’d want her to be, given how she was dressed, like she’d got halfway through the job and quit. Black bra, little white undershirt thing, miniskirt, collarbones and stick-thin legs, putting it all out there. I told her no ma’am, but thanks anyway.
I should have run. I wish. But like any kid I’d just had it ground into me that you don’t disrespect your elders, and she wasn’t done with me. She said if I rubbed her the right way, she’d rub me back, and didn’t I have a little something for her? Maybe an eighty, or even a forty?
Eighty or forty what, I asked her, and she said, “Honey, I’m wanting an oxy real bad.”
No need to ask this time. I walked away. She followed me, which was awkward because I wasn’t really going anywhere. I’d planned on taking a whiz by the road and then trying for my next ride, but after her special offer, no way was I whipping anything out. I headed for the truck-stop mini-mart and she stayed right on me, talking more or less to herself. She walked like she was having some trouble at it, with this giant bag of a purse banging her hip. My heart was jumping. It felt rude to blow her off but I did, hurrying through the glass doors, past all the shelves of snacks and souvenirs straight for the Rest Rooms sign at the back. The guy at the checkout was working his Willie Nelson angle, braids and bandanna, minus Willie’s baked chill. He kept his eyes on me like I had “Runaway” on my T-shirt. My shadow disappeared in another aisle, but she was still over there. Never did I feel so saved to get in the door of a men’s.
Two trucker guys were talking to each other at the urinals, so I went in a stall and peed. Then sat down on the throne, pants up, just to be someplace quiet and try to think.
“I knew the damn thing wasn’t his, whenever I seen him with it,” one of the truckers said. “I should of called the law on him right there.”
“Son of a bitch is in Texas by now. You know he is.”
They weren’t discussing me, but I still felt jumpy as hell. The place smelled like Clorox and piss and was lit up like a nightmare. All that bright light on all those white tiles was making my ears ring. I had to stay put till my lady friend out there found other waters to fish in. Meanwhile it seemed like I should know how much money I had. I dug in my backpack and got out the peanut butter jar. Even before I stormed the fortress and got it back, I’d spent time that summer thinking about my hourly, times weeks I’d worked, which came out to a number that wasn’t real. A lot of dollars. Obviously the McCobbs took a chunk for their rent, but I still hoped for something decent, in the hundreds. If I showed up at my grandmother’s with cash on hand, she would see I was a person that could do a day’s work and was worth something. Not trash.
I waited until the trucker guys left before I opened the jar and started pulling out the mess of cash. I was paid mostly in small bills and coins, so the jar was half full of quarters and probably weighed five pounds. My hands were shaking. I dropped some bills trying to flatten them out on my lap and sort them into kinds. The change I wasn’t even messing with yet.
I heard the door open and somebody come in, but he didn’t say anything so I kept going, trying to keep it all on my lap. The coins were noisy, so I set the jar on the floor. I got the ones into piles of ten and counted, a hundred and nine dollars total. Next I got through the fives, and was up over two hundred dollars before starting on the tenners. A lot of them. Damn. I was rich.
“Hey redhead. Come on out and play nice.”
Christ Jesus, it was a lady in the men’s room. Her. I held my breath as long as I could before letting it out. I heard her moving around.
“I see you got a jar of money in there. You fixing to buy me a diamond ring, honey?”
My eyes went fuzzy for a second. I held still. Then picked up the jar off the floor.
“I’m just kidding around with you, sweet thing. I’ll suck your pretty cock for free. How’s that sound? And then me and you can take that money and go have us a party.”
