Prodigal Blues

I found the lightweight camouflage green jacket—it was a little tight across the chest and the sleeves were a bit short, but I'd deal with it.

"Looks good on you," said Christopher as I climbed back into the passenger seat.

"It covers up the blood."

"Yeah, I know, but it looks good is what I'm saying.  Looks like something a real U.S. Marshal might wear."

"Thank you."

"You're welcome."

I took a deep breath, released it.  "So how do you want to work this?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean am I going inside, are you going to stay out in the bus and listen with the magic dish, am I using the phone first, what?"

He signaled for a semi to pass us, which it did with all the grace and subtlety of an elephant on a tightwire, then rubbed his eyes and said:  "You go inside and do your voodoo like with Thomas's folks; I'll wait out here until you signal me."  He shook his head.  "I won't listen in on you this time."  He looked at me.  "No need."

"I'll take that as a vote of confidence.  What am I supposed to do to signal you?"

"What do you think?  Step outside and holler for me."

"That'll work."

We dragged along behind the semi for another three-quarters of a mile, until it pulled off into the large and surprisingly crowded parking lot of a truck stop complete with a small motel, three gas islands, a showering facility, car wash, and restaurant.

"You never told me that your folks' place was so big," I said as Christopher maneuvered toward a parking space in an area designated MOBILE HOMES AND TRAILERS ONLY.

"It wasn't," he said, the surprise evident in his voice.  He killed the engine and looked out on the scene, open-mouthed.  "Good God—Dad had talked about trying to expand the place, but I never thought… wow."

The restaurant was one of those Mom-and-Pop establishments you pass on the road every trip; front porch, screen doors, neon beer signs hanging in the windows, a sandwich board with "Today's Specials" written in erasable marker, and an old-fashioned soda pop cooler out front—the kind with a lifting lid where you have to guide the ice-cold bottle through a series of metal tracks like a maze until it slides through a mini-turnstile at the end.  All that was missing from the front porch to make it something right out of a Normal Rockwell painting was a wooden rocking chair and floppy-eared hound dog lying across the top of the steps.

"The restaurant's a lot bigger than it looks on the outside," said Christopher.  "At least, that's how I remember it."  He looked at me and shrugged.  "I have no idea how many changes they might have made.  It's been… a while since I was here, you know?"  He was trembling all over.  "Hey, look over there."  He was pointing to an area behind the restaurant, just visible between it and the motel; a green patch of field, where there sat, up on concrete blocks, the remains of a gray 1968 VW Microbus. "I can't believe they still have that thing."

"Except for the no-wheels part, it still looks in fairly good condition to me."

He laughed.  "Maybe they'll sell it to you."

"Right.  Nothing against your folks or Volkswagens in general, but I don't give a shit if I ever I see the interior of one of these again."

"All in favor."

We both raised our hands.  I reached over and squeezed his arm.  "It's go

"Not yet, I'm not… but damn, I never thought I'd ever be this close again.  Do me proud, Mark."

"You know it.  Look, it might take a while—remember how Thomas's dad reacted initially?"

"I know.  I don't think you're in any danger of having me take off on you.  Oh, that reminds me"—he dug around in his shoulder bag and pulled out a couple of twenties—"you might want to order some food or something.  Nothing irritated my folks more than someone who took up bar space without ordering."

I pocketed the money, checked myself in the mirror one last time, then climbed out into the rain, which was starting to grow heavier.

I stood beside the bus with my door open, staring at the restaurant.

"What is it?" asked Christopher.

"I think I'm as nervous about this as you are."

"Not possible."

I looked at him.  "Maybe not, but I'm ru

"Which is just doing oodles to ease my anxiety, thanks so much."

"What are you parents' first names?  It might be helpful."

"Joseph and Ellen."

"And Paul's your brother, right?"

"Right."

"Any other names I should know?  Sisters or anything?"

"Not that I know of—but, then, it's been a while.  Are you still here?"

"I am now going."  I closed the door and began walking toward the front porch.  I kept thinking about what Trevor—the security guard at Muriel's—had said to me:  I actually feel like I'm making a difference today, you know?  How often does a guy get to say that?

As I hit the top of the stairs and reached for the screen door I felt, for the first time in years, like a worthwhile human being once again.

If I had any doubts about myself at that point, Arnold's words—You gotta be the one to finish this for us, Mark—erased them.

They were all depending on me to do the right thing.

Maybe, after all of this, Tanya could depend on me for that, as well.

Odd, to believe your life has a purpose, after all.  Good—but odd.

I opened the door and stepped inside.

15. A New Life

The bar, on the left, was mahogany with a marble top, long and shiny and narrow.  A series of small, round tables to the right and several booths against the walls were half-filled with truckers and other tired denizens of the road, all of them enjoying their drinks, their meals, their time outside their vehicles; a comfortably-scuffed, polished wood floor covered most of the front half of the place, giving way to carpeting in the back where three pool tables sat, each with its own cone-shaped light above:  shadows moved outside the perimeter of the lights, phantom cues dipping into the glow to make the balls clack and clatter as they spun across the tables and sank into pockets. Gleaming brass horse rails braced the wall opposite the bar, as well as the bottom of the bar itself, while old-fashioned electric lanterns anchored on thick shelves just barely wide enough to hold them kept a constant air of twilight regardless of the time of day outside.  The place smelled of cigarettes, pipe tobacco, beer, burgers, eggs, coffee, and popcorn, all of these scents mixing with the lemon oil used to polish the wood.  It smelled somehow safe and welcoming.

I took a seat at the end of the bar nearest the door—right next to a rotating rack of maps (DON'T GET YOURSELF LOST IN THESE HILLS, read the sign)—and examined all the framed photographs hanging on the wall back there; young men in uniforms from WWII, Korea, Vietnam, and even a few showing a young man in desert gear from the first Gulf War.  None of the faces looked familiar.  I was hoping there'd be at least one family photo back there and that I'd be able to spot Christopher—I'd looked at his false face enough to know what the general shape of his features must have been like—but there was no little boy in any of the—

—hang on.

One black & white photograph, hanging down at the far corner, showed a boy of perhaps ten or eleven standing on the front porch of this place with a burly man and a stout, attractive woman.  I was too far away to make out the faces.