Mosquitoland (14 page)

“I don't understand the problem,” I say. “We already told you what happened on the roof. You can't keep us here, we've done nothing wrong.”

Randy shuffles his papers around. Blimey, looking at his giant head almost makes me wish I'd stared at that dumb eclipse with both eyes wide open.

“You know what I did yesterday?” he asks. “Arrested an accused child molester. So you'll have to excuse me if I'm less than cordial.”

The words of Officer Randy take me there.
(I'd like to be friends, Mim. You want to be friends, don't you?)
The clicking of Walt's cube brings me back.

It's quiet for a moment; Officer Randy sighs, says, “Okay, look. Bottom line. I've got two minors involved in a possible murder attempt.”

“Dude. We were the murderees, not the murderers.”

“I know that. And under normal circumstances, I'd call your parents, explain the situation, tell you to expect calls from an attorney, and send you on your merry way. But these aren't normal circumstances, it would seem. These are very odd circumstances.”

Constable, you have no idea . . .

“Because when I ask you a simple question—what's your name, where're you from, where're your folks—you clam up. Ahab vouches for both of you, says you're heading to Iowa, or something, but he's a moron. Either way, that's not enough to—”

“Cleveland,” says Walt.

Randy frowns at him. “What?”

“Cleveland, not Iowa.” Walt has his head down, completely enthralled with his cube.

Think fast, Malone.
I lean in across the desk and lower my voice. “Okay, fine. Officer, my name is Betty, and this is my brother, Rufus, and we're from Cleveland. A few years back, I was self-diagnosed with abandonment issues and—”

“Self-diagnosed?” Randy interrupts.

“What did I say?”

“You said self-diagnosed.”

“That's right.”

Next to me, Walt is nodding emphatically.

“So anyway,” I continue, “after our parents died, my brother here was put under my guardianship.”

“How old are you, Betty?” Officer Randy asks, scribbling away in a notebook.

“Eighteen,” I answer, barely able to keep a straight face. “So I took Rufus here under my wing. Well, I've had a few abandonment episodes recently, real ugly shit, you understand? So we're headed to Boise to live with our Aunt Gerty. I've got a job lined up with Pringles, and Auntie Gee has agreed to let us live in her bonus room above the garage.”

Randy's pen stops abruptly. “Boise's in Idaho,” he whispers, a
gotcha
smile spreading across his huge face. “Ahab said
Iowa
.”

I clear my throat and cross my arms. “Yeah, well, like you said, Officer. Ahab's a moron.”

Officer Randy furrows his bulging brow.
Dear God, please let him buy this story
. There's no telling what sort of chain reaction a curious cop in northern Kentucky might set off. I could kiss my Objective good-bye, that's for sure.

“You guys wait here,” he says. “I'm gonna get on the horn with the captain and see what I can do about getting you to Boise.”

The human bobblehead wobbles from the room. I hop up, poke my head out the door, and watch him disappear around the corner.

“Okay, Walt, listen up.” I turn, expecting him to be in la-la land with his cube. Instead, he's standing right behind me, smiling, suitcase in hand. God bless him. “We're not arrested, but it looks like we're gonna have to break out of jail. You with me?”

“Hey, hey, yeah,” he says, bouncing on his heels.

Closing my good eye, I will every ounce of stealth, speed, and moxie into the toes of my Goodwill shoes. Mom—the flame of my fuse, the wind in my sail, the tick-tick-ticking clock in my ear—is sick. Labor Day is two days away. Forty-eight hours. I breathe in, out, in, in, out. I am energized. I am galvanized. I am mobilized, oxidized, and fully realized.

I am Mary Iris Malone, the Mistress of Moxie.

Stepping lightly into the hallway, my trusty high-tops lead us onward (ever onward!) through the small-town bustlings of the Independence police station. We fly past the bulletproof window protecting the captured dregs of society; past the closet-sized kitchen, with its engine-oil coffee and floppy box of day-old donuts. With buoyed spirits, surging stealth, and the white-water rapids of adrenaline, we follow my Velcro-laden friends into the foyer of the station: past the old lady in hysterics over her lost cat; past the debauched he-she in cowboy (cowgirl?) chaps; past the gorgeous guy with a black eye—

I stop on a dime. Walt runs into my back, giggling.

The guy with the black eye. It's
him—
17C, from the Greyhound.

“Come on,” says Walt, still chuckling under his breath. “We're breaking out of jail.” He grabs my sleeve, and pulls every part of me—save my heart—out the front door.

The Many Perfections of Beck Van Buren

“SORRY, LITTLE LADY.
C'aint sell it to you without you got a valid driver's license.”

The guy pulls an apple out of I-don't-know-where, then plants it in his Moses beard. I can only assume there's a mouth in there somewhere.

After our prison break, I was all set to hitchhike, when Walt spotted a
FOR SALE
sign in the window of a blue pickup in this guy's yard. The problem is this: for certain, shall we say,
cycloptic
reasons, I've avoided taking the driver's test like the plague.

I pull my permit—which the great state of Ohio only requires a written exam to obtain—from my backpack, and flash the card in Moses's face. “I have this. Same thing, basically.”

He cracks a bite of his apple (damn thing is crisp), chews, says nothing.

Walt unlatches his old suitcase, pulls out his Rubik's Cube, and gets to work. Moses raises his eyebrows; I can actually see his patience waning.

“Okay, fine,” I say, pulling out a wad of cash. “How about three hundred dollars? That's fifty bucks more than you're asking, cash in hand.”

Walt clicks the red squares into place, claps me on the shoulder, and does a little jig right there on the front porch.

“What's wrong with him?” asks Moses, still eyeballing Walt.

“He's Walt, man. What's your excuse?”

Moses stops chewing momentarily, then backs up to shut the door.

“Okay-no-wait-wait-look, I'm sorry. My friend and I just walked from the police station, so we're—”

“You see Randy down there?” he asks, cracking another bite.

“I . . . what?”

“Officer Randy. You see him?”

“Yeah, but—”

“How is that ole sonuvabitch? Still a rat bastard?”

I am Mary Iris Malone, a baffled bag of bones. “Are you gonna sell me your truck or not?”

“Not,” he says with a mouthful.

I twist my mom's lipstick in my pocket. “Okay, I think we got off on the wrong foot.”

“Kid, I got stuff to do. Without a license, I c'aint sell her to you. Now you and your . . . friend, here, need to clear off my porch.”

“I have a license,” says a voice behind us.

I turn to find 17C scrolling through pictures on his camera, standing in the front yard like a deep-rooted tree, like he's been there for years. Somehow, that black eye only makes him more desirable.

“And you are . . . ?” asks Moses.

A) Perfect

B) The god of Devastating Attractiveness

C) A flawless specimen, created in a lab by mad scientists in an effort to toy with the heart of Mary Iris Malone

D) All of the above

I circle
D
. Final effing answer.

He sticks his camera in a duffel bag and straps it around his chest. “I'm Beck,” he says, stepping up onto the porch and throwing an arm around my shoulder. “Her disapproving big brother.” He turns sideways, mere inches from my face. “I thought I told you to wait for me in the parking lot, sis.”

Pushing my bangs out of my eyes, I'd pay literally, probably, I don't know, maybe four hundred dollars for five minutes of prep time in a mirror right now.

“Oh, right,” I say. “Sorry . . . bro. Forgot.” My usual witty vocabulary seems to have regressed into mushy, fragmented infant-speak.

Beck sighs, leans in toward Moses. “She'd lose her arm if it wasn't attached.”

“Head,” I mutter.

“What?”

“I'd lose my
head
if it wasn't attached.” I roll my eyes, praying it looks sisterly.

“What did I say?” asks Beck.

“You said arm.”

He gives a
psshh.
“I don't think so.”

“Walt?” I say.

Without looking up from his cube, Walt corroborates. “The new boy said ‘arm.'”

Beck shrugs and turns back toward a bewildered Moses. I can almost hear the rusty wheels churning in his head, processing our little production. From somewhere behind him, he pulls out another apple and cracks a bite.

“You said cash, right?”

WALT TOSSES HIS
old suitcase in the bed of the truck; we pile in and pull out of Moses the Apple Eater's front yard. Beck mentions food, to which Walt and I hastily agree. On top of being insanely hungry, I'm not relishing the idea of exchanging stories with Beck. I'd love to know who he is and where he's going (not to mention how he got from the Greyhound bus yesterday to the Independence police station today), but I'm sure he's wondering the same about me. We'll catch up, but we'll do so with full stomachs.

At Walt's prodding, Beck pulls into a line of cars at a fast-food place called Medieval Burger. When this trip is over, I'm going to have to look into one of those trendy full-body cleanses, something to detox all this processed meat out of my system.

“Did they even have burgers in the Middle Ages?” I wonder aloud.

“Oh, sure,” says Beck. “Nothing more refreshing after a long day of crusading and pillaging and walking through the mud and what have you.”

Oh God, he's
witty
. “The Middle Ages were quite damp, weren't they?”

“And dreary.”

Walt flips on the vintage turn-dial radio of the old truck and scans the waves. Landing on a Reds versus Cubs baseball game, he claps his hands and leans in to listen.

The line inches forward, stops.

“So?” says Beck.

I turn to find him looking at me, arms crossed.

“So what?”

“How about a name, for starters?”

“How about
your
name?”

“I already told you. It's Beck.”

“I just figured that was, you know, an alias or something.”

Before he can respond, his cell phone rings. Pulling it from his jacket, he checks the caller ID and answers. “Yeah, hey.” Pause. “No.” Longer pause. “Claire, listen . . .”

I become inexplicably interested in the analogue clock in the dashboard. It appears to be broken, as neither hand is moving. Interesting. Inexplicably so.

“It'll just take a few minutes,” he says. “I know.” Pause. “Okay, Claire.” Short pause. “Thanks.” He hangs up.

Color me intrigued.

“So.” He glances sideways. “What about that name?”

I'm ready this time. “What, you mean—for the truck? Fabulous idea.” I twist around, look through the cab window, and tap my chin. “I'd say he looks like a Phil.”

Beck smiles. “I have an uncle named Phil.”

“No shit.” I pat the dashboard. “Uncle Phil it is.”

We pull up to the speaker, and I wonder if Beck is as grateful for the interruption as I am. One of us is gonna have to break eventually.

We give our orders and drive up to the window.

“Here,” I say, taking a twenty from Kathy's can. “I got this.”

Beck doesn't even put up a fight, which is both mildly curious and annoying. We pull into an empty parking spot while he divvies out Walt's burger and fries, then his own. “So,” he says, folding up the bag.

“Umm, my food is still in there.”

“Oh, I know. And you'll get it—but it's gonna cost you.”

“You mean more than the twenty bucks I already dished out?”

Beck unwraps his burger, takes a bite, and nods. “S'good, too,” he says, his mouth full. “Real . . . medievally.”

I smile, wondering whether I'd rather punch him or jump him. “And what exactly does medieval taste like?”

He holds up the bag with my food in it. “Care to find out?”

I've never been part of a conversation like this, where my heart is jelly and my brain is in my shoes. I should be pissed at his boyish antics, but right now
should
is miles away.

On the radio, the broadcasters discuss an impending rain delay. Blissfully engaged, Walt digs into his fries; Beck is already halfway done with his burger. I roll my eyes, sigh in my most overly dramatic tone, and offer my hand across Walt's back. “Fine, I'll go first.” Beck takes a bite while shaking it, and if I thought his look was stunning, his touch is downright majestic. “I'm Mary Iris Malone . . . but only my mother gets to call me Mary.”

I'm in deep before I know it. With a few carefully omitted details (the
BREAKING NEWS
, my war paint, my solar retinopathy—God, freak show, anyone?), I proceed to unload on Beck. I tell him about the divorce and the move and the conversation I overheard in the principal's office. I tell him about Mom's mystery disease in Cleveland and the series of letters I flushed down the bus toilet, my only proof of Kathy's awfulness. I tell him about the bus accident and Arlene and Walt and Caleb and our perilous rooftop episode, which landed us at the police station. It's that scene in the movie where the nervous girl just keeps talking and talking, but unlike the douchebags in those movies, Beck actually seems interested in what I'm saying. And I hate admitting this—probably because I don't like being the most predictable character in my own film—but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't wearing my cute face the entire time. (I know my cute face when I feel it.)

Once done, I come up for air. “Wait, where're we going?”

“North,” says Beck, merging onto the highway. “You said Cleveland, right?”

I vaguely recall him starting up the engine during my soliloquy. “What, you're gonna drive us?”

“How else you plan on getting there?” He hands over my food. “And here. I officially lift the embargo.”

I'm not above eating fries while being indignant. If anything, indignation is bolstered by fries. “Umm, these are amazing. And—lest you forget, Uncle Phil
belongs
to me. I bought him with my cash-monies. That's how we plan on getting to Cleveland.”

“Umm, yes they are. And lest
you
forget, I'm the one with the license.”

“Just because I don't have a license—God, seriously, how good were these when they were warm? Never mind, I don't wanna know. Anyway, I know how to drive.”

“I'm sure you do. But really, it's no problem. I'm sort of passing through, anyway.”

“You're passing through Cleveland. On your way to what, Lake Erie?”

He gives another one of those half smiles. “Canada, actually. Or—Vermont.”

Before I have a chance to point out that Cleveland really isn't on the way to Canada or Vermont, the skies open up. It's a heavy rain, each drop bursting like a water balloon on the windshield. After a few minutes of squinting and leaning over the steering wheel, Beck gives up, and pulls to the side of the highway to wait it out. In the new stillness of the truck, the warbled radio mixes with the pounding rain to create an odd sort of half silence. Broadcasters are going through stats now, filling time during the rain delay. Walt has his hat pulled down over his face, but other than that, he hasn't budged.

“So you're from Cleveland, then?” says Beck, sipping his soda.

I shake my head and unwrap the burger. “After things went to shit, Mom sort of relocated there. It's where she always wanted to be anyway. I grew up in Ashland, about an hour outside Cleveland.”

“And she's in the hospital for this . . . disease, right? Your mom, I mean.”

Reaching between my feet, I unzip my backpack and hand over the envelope with my mom's PO Box address. “For two months, I received a letter a week. Then three weeks ago, they stopped. This was the last one I got, and the only one since the move.”

“You think your stepmom, Cassie—”

“Kathy.”

“Right, Kathy.” He hands back the envelope. “You think she's been hiding letters from you?”

“She always gets to the mailbox first. She tried to get me to quit calling so much. It's obvious she doesn't want us to communicate. Plus”—I pull out Kathy's sixth letter—“here—this is the letter from Mom to Kathy, the only one I didn't flush. I'm pretty sure Mom asked if I could visit, to which Kathy said no, to which Mom replied . . .”

“Think of what's best for her,” says Beck.

“Bingo.”

Beck holds it for a minute, slurps his drink. “It's got an error.”

“I know.”

“Think of
whats
best for her.” He holds up the note as if I haven't read it a hundred times. “She forgot the apostrophe.”

“I
know
.”

He looks down at it again. “Hmm.”

“What now, a dangling modifier?”

He smiles, hands back the crumpled letter. “It's probably nothing.”

“Well, if it's probably nothing, then it might be something. What is it?”

“Nothing.”

“Well you can't just say
hmm
,
and then say it's nothing. A
hmm
is something. You have to tell me.”

He chews his straw in I-don't-know-what . . . knee-wobbling sensuality. “So. You just gonna go camp out at this PO Box and hope your mom stumbles in from the hospital to check her mail?”