Ransom (4 page)

The lead car of the caravan that we were traveling in, pulled to the side of the paved road. We were in the backwoods, where fields of golden wheat stretched across the landscape. I couldn’t help but feel half good when I spotted civilization in the form of a farm, its red silo rising high above the rest of the place. I shook my head in disgust. I hated these kind of bush country venues where all that surrounded you was wilderness. What I wouldn’t have given to spend the night in a town where the bars were plentiful, the beer was cold, and the women were prime picking, rather than roughing it.

Sanford, the road manager jumped out of the polished black half-ton pick up truck and strode toward me. Tall and gangly with a smile that took up half of his face, Sanford had always been my favorite crew member. He was someone who could expertly organize everything for Gabriel’s venue without even breaking a sweat. Though now, with the sun beating down on his shaved head, I saw an uncharacteristic sheen of moisture on his brow. He stopped next to the open window of the truck that I was driving.

“Your Pa wants you to keep an eye on Gabriel while we organize the build,” he said with a kindly smile. I shook my head then released a mirthless chuckle at the absurdity of the comment. Everyone knew that for all intensive purposes I was Gabriel’s bodyguard, caregiver, cook and whatever other job was needed. Pa had clued in long ago that there was nothing I wouldn’t do to protect Gabriel, including taking a bullet in the chest if it came to that. In Pa’s estimation you couldn’t buy that kind of dedication. So it was plain stupid to force Sanford to relay the bullshit that had Pa written all over it. But that was Pa, ever the controlling boss, who for the most part scared the shit out of everyone who worked for him.
 

I tipped my head forward and sighed. Without the breeze of the moving truck it was hotter than a tin roof in the deep south. I felt more sweat trail down my temples and the back of my neck. Despite the fact that the truck had the luxury of air-conditioning, Pa insisted that no one use it so we could save on gas. It made for some hellish trips, but I had learned the hard way that crossing Pa on that little detail wasn’t worth the grief, or in my case the whooping I would get.
 

“Sure thing,” I said.
 

I brought my gaze to Sanford. His denim colored eyes twinkled with amusement. It was clear from his expression that he expected one of my customary smart ass cracks. None came. After ten hours of driving, all my sarcasm had left the building. Sanford shrugged and quirked an eyebrow before he hitched up his faded jeans. Even with his leather belt cinched in at the waist on the last hole, his frame seemed too thin for conventional clothes. It never ceased to surprise me that he and I were both 6’1,
 
yet I was a full sixty pounds heavier than him.

“Well I best get to it,” Sanford said.
 

“What’s the hold up here?”

Though I had heard his voice long before I had even been born, it never ceased to make my spine go stiff, my jaw clench and my stomach twist into tight knots. I wasn’t sure if that was a standard reaction for a father and son, but not every father was Billy Sanders.

Pa was a couple of inches shorter than me, but still had at least thirty pounds on me. He was all rangy muscle, his arms and neck thickly corded beneath his thin white cotton shirt that he always paired with black wool dress pants, and polished black shoes that you could see your face in. His thick, once copper-colored hair, had gone completely white long ago when he had been in his late twenties. Pa always kept his hair short, slicked away from his face. But the most distinctive, and in my opinion chilling feature about him, were his eyes that were a milky blue, alien and inhuman. In all the years we had been on the road and with the multitude of people I had met, I had never found anyone sporting eyes like his.
 

From as far back as I could remember I had always avoided looking at him straight on. I knew I was probably being paranoid, still, every time I did stare into the chasm of his gaze, it felt like I was observing pure evil.
 

I was more than thankful that I didn’t take after Pa at all. From my chocolate brown eyes, to my short spiky dark hair, I was all Ma.
 

Sanford turned to face my father. He knew better than to show anything less than the greatest respect for his boss. Sanford was one of the longest running employees because he knew how to play by the rules, and if that meant he had to kiss a little ass, he did. His subservience pissed me off a little because he didn’t have to put up with my father’s bullshit. Sanford could walk and never look back again. I envied him because I always imagined what my life would look like away from there. In my fantasy I would have lived in a house, not in hotel rooms, or trailers on the road. I would have had a job, a regular nine to five life, maybe even doing something I had always dreamed about, like being an Architect.
 

From the time I had been a small kid I had always loved building things from designs that I figured out in my head. In the beginning I had constructed structures from sticks that I gathered from beneath the trees in our back yard. Ma was the only person in the world who had known about my unspoken passion. Unknown to me, she had silently saved whatever money she could, until she had enough to buy me a yellow bucket set of colorful Lego blocks for Christmas. Back then money had been tighter than the skin on a frogs ass, so Ma and I kept the gift a secret.
 

I had hidden the Legos from Pa for my whole life. Even now he had no idea that I still had them squirreled away from his watchful eyes. I no longer built anything with the blocks, and instead did real builds of the temporary stage that we raised and tore down in forty-eight hours or less at every venue. But in the quiet of the night when I was alone, more times than not I would take the old blocks out and hold the brilliant plastic in my calloused hands, noticing how tiny they appeared now.
 

With the blocks in my hand I would take the time to remember Ma. Glossy black hair, plump cheeks, and a full figure. Though I knew her life with Pa had been hell most of the time, sometimes, when he was away from us, I had caught a glint of a carefree smile. Cloudless brown eyes. But it was always a mere flash and just enough for me to crave more. As soon as Pa was back she would return to being the stone robot who tread lightly as if on eggshells, hoping that she didn’t upset the balance and trigger Pa’s rage.

“I’m speaking to you boy.”
 

The fury in Pa’s voice snapped me back to the present. Unfortunately my trip down memory lane had managed to reopen scars that I constantly worked to forget, to pretend didn’t exist.

“Yes Pa, sorry…”

“Always dreaming, too much like your Ma,” he said.

The acid in his tone was sickly clear, Ma had meant nothing to him and neither did I. Suddenly, it felt like I was in a vacuum, where only Pa and our raw hatred for each other existed. Rage made my face go hot; I was so close to losing it, and already had a poisonous retort balanced at the tip of my tongue. He glared back at me with disdain, challenging me to do something stupid, something I was all too good at. Pa knew where all my buttons were, and that my anger always rested on the periphery of me, ready to consume me, make me do things that I knew would only get me hurt.

“I…” I started to say, but stopped immediately when I saw Gabriel hobble up behind Pa and Sanford. Seeing him struggle to walk, silvery metal braces over his black wool pants that were a carbon copy of Pa’s, made me go quiet. His cotton shirt, another replica of Pa’s, rippled in a breeze that seemed to have come out of nowhere. He leaned hard on the crutches that circled his forearms. His oversized straw hat, the only part of his outfit that wasn’t like Pa’s, kept most of his face in shadows, and covered the pained expression that he hid expertly, yet sometimes I would still catch when his guard was down. I knew exactly how much he suffered, doing things that people without juvenile arthritis took for granted, like walking, doing the buttons on his shirt, or something as simple as holding a glass to his lips for a drink of water.

My fury drained away immediately. I threw open the truck door, then jumped out, slamming the door behind me. In three long strides I was past Pa and Sanford and in front of Gabriel.

“Gab you know I can carry you, this road is total crap and you’ve been sitting for so long,” I said, ready to scoop him into my arms.
 

He shook his head, tipping his face up to mine. He had Pa’s light blue eyes but unlike my father’s, Gabriel’s eyes were just the opposite. His eyes made you want to gaze into them, like what it would feel like if you could look into the eyes of an angel. The curls of his white-blond hair were sweat-soaked and plastered to his skin, framing his cherub like face, impossibly white with a splash of rosy color on just his cheeks.
 

He grinned, lifting his near invisible eyebrows when he did. And in his aura I was helpless to do anything but smile back. I studied my little brother, noticing that despite the fact that he was going to be sixteen in a few months, he was still less than a hundred pounds. Gabriel could have easily passed for someone nearer to ten or eleven. The only sign that he had even come close to puberty was his voice, surprisingly deep, and for some reason had never had any of the squeaks and pitch issues that most guys his age had.

“I’m fine,” he said.
 

I knew it was his standard response and that it meant very little. Gab always minimized the pain and suffering he lived with on a daily basis. No matter how many times he told me he was okay, I knew different. His perpetual denial of something so obvious made me long to magically heal him, take away the arthritis that twisted his bones and ate at the cartilage of his joints. I didn’t understand why someone who could supposedly talk to dead people, and had performed a few documented
healings
, couldn’t heal himself.

“That’s debatable,” I said.

Gab shrugged, a clear sign that he was done with the subject. If there was one thing we both shared it was our stubbornness. And we both got in trouble because of it, I got in fights because of my inability to back away from a confrontation. Gabriel pushed his body beyond its capabilities until he collapsed with fatigue.
 

Gabriel continued on, moving toward the trailer that was a few cars down. Watching him struggle with every step, as if walking was the most taxing feat he could do, hurt me more than words could describe. Seeing that someone I loved was in utter agony, made me feel beyond helpless, but I had to pull my shit together. No matter what I wanted, Gabriel wanted to be independent in the ways that he could. It made sense since ninety-percent of his life was controlled by Pa, and the seemingly endless shows.

I followed Gabriel down the road, not bothering to glance back at Pa. Even so, I could feel his eyes bore into my back. I was sure he wished it was me that was crippled with arthritis not Gabriel, it was one of the only things we agreed on.

4. RANSOM

With Gabriel asleep in his trailer, Pa, who hated seeing me idle for even a moment, had ordered me to help with the build of the venue. I never let him know that the builds were the best part of being on the road. I wasn’t afraid of manual labor, in fact there was nothing more satisfying then starting with a blank canvas piece of land and finishing with a completed stage. In my opinion there was nothing more real than hard work, because it made me forget everything but every board, screw and nail I used to get the job done.
 

The build of the stage had been excruciating. The field had been wide open with not a speck of shade. Even stripped to the waist I had been drenched in sweat. A layer of dust from a close-by barren field, kicked up by a sporadic breeze, had coated my bare skin. The heat had been unbearable and had made me dizzy enough that a couple of times I had wondered if I’d had heat stroke. Lucky for me a short break and an icy cold Pepsi had been enough to revive me. Now with the stage set and Gabriel handled, I was free for the night.
 

Not that I had ever felt burdened by caring for Gabriel. What I did for my little brother was more of a need to help, a desire to smooth out all the kinks of his life. If my wishes could have been granted I would have taken it all away, the pain, the twisted limbs, but since I didn’t have a magic lamp, I did what I could.

“Hey Ransom,” Dave said, moving toward me.
 

The overpowering stench of his cologne hit me when he was just a few feet away. I quirked a smile, reasoning that it was better than the alternative, sour sweat and body odor. Dave had worked as hard as I had all day, and since the trailers tanks could only hold so much water, getting water for washing up was at a premium. Meaning that most of the guys who did the most physically taxing work weren’t afforded a shower, and were considered lucky if they got a basin of water to wash up at days end. Even clean clothes were somewhat of a luxury because when we were on the road for the full summer, we only got a chance to do our laundry when we passed through a town with an automated Laundromat. I hoped this town was equipped with a place to get the washing done since I was down to my last two pairs of clean boxers.

“Dude, ready to rip this town apart?” I asked.
 

Dave’s laugh that could have been described as a guffaw, made his prominent Adam’s apple dance up an down. With his poppy eyes, shaggy blonde hair that was reminiscent of a seventies hippy style, and his pencil thin mustache, he was an odd specimen to behold. But what he didn’t have in the looks department he made up with unabashed charm. It seemed every time we went out, Dave had more ladies hanging off his lanky frame than seemed humanly possible.
 

“Yeah man, I even scored a dime bag of weed for the night,” he said with a twitch of his eye that he had intended to be a wink. My shrug was non-committal. Weed wasn’t usually my thing, I stuck to booze since my reaction was more predictable with alcohol. Drugs not so much. The one time I had done hot knives of hash, I had gone from side-splitting laughter to crying like a baby, not something I was very proud of or ever wanted to repeat. The last thing I wanted was to get a rep for being a wuss. So for the most part I had avoided all of it.