The Road Out of Hell (3 page)

A stinking chicken ranch.

Uncle Stewart gripped him by the back of his neck and announced that it was time to get going. It would take days to drive all the way through the States to southern California. Uncle Stewart announced that their first stop in California was going to be a visit to his parents in Los Angeles. Sanford remembered his grandparents well enough from when they had lived up here nearby, but he barely knew them. His naturally shy nature gave him no comfort in the idea of their home.

Uncle Stewart snatched up Sanford’s small duffel bag with one hand and kept the other on the back of his neck while he walked him out of the house. The hurried good-byes passed in a blur. Sanford noticed that his father’s handshake felt extra firm. He figured that it meant his father was sorry that he couldn’t do more to help. The thought felt good.

He felt better for a moment when Jessie hugged him. The hardest thing was to leave Jessie behind. She had been his protector often enough, but there was nothing she could do in a situation like this. It struck him then, getting back to his previous thought, that she could hardly be expected to take him with her and support them both. And Jessie was far too protective of him to ever agree that he could quit school and work, just to escape their family home.

“You’d better write to me,” she whispered into his ear.

“Don’t let ‘em do this, Jessie!” he blurted out and immediately regretted it.

“What? Come on now, Sang.”

The nickname always got his attention. Nobody else called him that. Her voice was so soft that she practically breathed the words to him.

“I know you’ll make the best of everything. Why, I’ll come and get you myself if I have to, soon as I’m able to do it.”

Then she let go of him. He hated the feeling of helplessness and could not imagine how grownups managed to get used to it.

By the time they hit the United States border at Montana, they had been driving for nearly twelve hours over some pretty poor roadbed. Sanford was glad for the chance to stretch his legs at the border, so he hardly bothered to pay attention when Uncle Stewart told him what to do next.

“All right, now: no matter what, you keep quiet. I do the talking. It’s legal for me to cross back over, but to get you into the States we have to claim you have dual citizenship.”

“How do I do that?”

“You don’t. That’s why I’m telling you to shut up. We have to make sure your story works. You need to let me take care of it. The way you do that is, you keep quiet and you say nothing to nobody. My goodness, you really can be thick sometimes.” He placed his hands on Sanford’s shoulders and focused his gaze on him. “Stand. Stay.” Then he went off to get some lies going.

Sanford felt so intimidated by the foreign-looking American uniforms that he didn’t mind hanging back. He stood in the corner and watched the whole process, marveling at the energy that his uncle invested into lying to these people. The part of the story that Sanford overheard had something in it about Sanford being born in the United States but they lost his papers and somebody was dying down in the States at this moment, in a hospital. “God, it’s a saga,” Sanford muttered under his breath. Meanwhile, Uncle Stewart kept up a nonstop patter at the guards while he wove one excuse into another until it seemed that in the end the officials waved them across into the States just to get them out of the way.

As soon as Sanford and Uncle Stewart cleared the border, they fell into a pattern of driving through the daylight hours and then camping near the road at night. Uncle Stewart staked claim on the car seat, so Sanford slept in blankets on the ground. He didn’t mind. It felt good to stretch out straight. Otherwise, the long ride was mostly an ordeal of boredom. He passed the time by studying sudden wild shifts in his uncle’s moods.

For most of this trip, Uncle Stewart was wide awake and excited, nearly frantic. But then there were those periods when he would slide down into foul moods and glower for a couple of hours. Sanford found that the strangest part was the way he always pulled back out of it. He would start talking up a blue streak again, whether or not anything had actually happened that could logically make him feel any better or worse.

The weather got noticeably warmer while they moved south, and that was nice for a while. Uncle Stewart put the convertible top down so that they rode with their hair flying while he shouted over the sounds of the engine and the onrushing air. Sanford figured Uncle Stewart liked shouting over the wind because it forced Sanford to work at understanding what he was saying. So far, the only thing that had made his uncle happy at all was for Sanford to pay complete attention to him.

At the moment, Uncle Stewart was half an hour into the topic of Hollywood movies. His tone was beginning to take on a strange urgency, as if he had a solemn duty to figure out what should be done about the current state of American movies and that he needed to have the answers ready by the time they got down to Los Angeles. “It’s typical! I am telling you.
Completely
typical procedure for Hollywood movies! So when you do something stupid like putting that nasty old queen Greta Garbo in the female lead—and F.Y.I. here,
The Paradise Case
is only going to be the biggest picture that David O. Selznick has ever done. Are you listening? Good! This is important! Anyway, this fool, this idiot, this hopeless moron puts her in the lead of his biggest picture even though she’s supposed to be some kind of crackpot who treats everybody like garbage and even though he
could
have cast Jeanette MacDonald.”

He reached over and poked Sanford. “Jeanette MacDonald! Do you hear me?”

“Yeah, I hear you!” Sanford yelled to keep him from poking again. Stewart’s fingertip felt like a knitting needle.

“Okay, then, do you know who she
is?”
Uncle Stewart jeered. “No?” He playfully slapped the back of Sanford’s head, as he had already done several times that day. “Well I am telling you this and you had best hear me loud and clear, buddy:
on top of
beauty that drives men crazy, Jeanette MacDonald has
talent, humility, and brains!
Can you say that?”

“Sure,” Sanford replied into the wind.

“Then let’s
hear
you! Talent, humility, and brains!”

It took Sanford a moment’s worth of blank staring before he realized that it was an actual request.
All right,
he thought,
if this will do it for him,
eager to give him the expected answer and get him to relax, maybe even stop and take a break. “Talent! Beauty!” Sanford bellowed in Uncle Stewart’s direction. But before he finished, Uncle Stewart reached over and struck him in the back of his head with the flat of his hand. This time the blow was so strong that Sanford’s chin bounced off of his chest. He bit his tongue and felt a mouthful of fire.

Uncle Stewart glanced over at him and broke out laughing, as if the two of them were famous friends. “You look like you just shit yourself!” He dropped the friendly mask before he continued. “It’s talent,
humility,
and brains! Didn’t I just say that?”

“Yes,” Sanford shouted back, maybe a little too fast.

“Well then, what are you trying to do, piss all over me?”

“What?”

“Are you saying that you are willing to repeat two-thirds of what I tell you but you intend to just ignore the other third, then?”

“What are you talking about?”

Uncle Stewart hit him in the back of the head again, and this time Sanford saw stars. He stared straight into a swimming school of twinkling lights, trying to get his vision into focus. As a small-framed boy with a passive nature, Sanford had already learned how to tense any part of his body just a split second before the impact of an oncoming blow, but the skill was useless with a strike to the head. It took too long to get his arm up there. Uncle Stewart kept catching him unprepared.

Meanwhile a rush of guilt flooded through him. The truth was that he could have avoided that last blow altogether. Uncle Stewart was correct that Sanford knew what he meant. He had to admit to himself that he tried to play dumb and Uncle Stewart saw straight through it. Sanford made an indelible mental note:
Do not lie to Uncle Stewart unless you are prepared to really put one over. He’s an expert and he will catch you.

Uncle Stewart laughed. “That last little love tap got your attention, didn’t it?” Sanford looked in his direction and nodded. He couldn’t see him clearly yet, and he was still too surprised and frightened to speak. “Good,” Uncle Stewart continued. “So try it again: Jeanette MacDonald would be a far better choice for the female lead in Mr. Selznick’s next picture, because of her …”

“Talent,
humility,
and brains!” Sanford immediately chimed in.

Uncle Stewart’s face lit up so brightly that Sanford realized he had scored a point. “Exactly!
These
are the values that ought to drive American movies today. But when you think about the sheer size of the audiences who see these things, you have to realize that they represent
money,
my friend! Money creates phony goodness and reveals all women for the whores that they are!”

“You mean like with prostitution?” Sanford asked, being thirteen. This time the blow to the back of his head snapped it forward so hard that he landed against the passenger door, fighting dizziness while his ears rang. Outrage filled him, and he instinctively turned to glare in shock at Uncle Stewart—who burst out in good-natured laughter.

“You should see your face! Don’t worry about it. Just don’t interrupt me. Because in fact, I was going to tell you about
values,
all right?”

They slowed down to cross a set of railroad tracks. On the other side, he pulled off to the side of the road, put the car in neutral, and set the brake. Sanford felt a rush of fear and fought the urge to jump out and run.
Run where?
He didn’t know any men who behaved like this, but he sensed that it was a variation on his mother’s explosiveness. This meant that if he ran, it would only enrage Uncle Stewart in the same way that it enraged her. Winnie’s violence could be endured by making a game out of dodging her, but Uncle Stewart would be able to chase him down. It would not matter how fast he ran. Uncle Stewart hit a lot harder than Winnie did.

Even in that moment, Sanford automatically kept his distress to himself. He knew better than to cower before his uncle.
When they see that, it makes them want to hit you again.
He turned to look at something safe like the floor while he kept his left arm ready to whip upward and cover his face.

But Uncle Stewart did not strike out at him this time. Instead he turned and looked straight ahead through the windscreen, then inhaled deeply, closed his eyes, and slowly let the air back out. His eyes remained closed for another few seconds until a smile crossed his face. His features softened and his expression turned coy, like somebody who has a secret. When he opened them, the anger was gone from his face. He regarded Sanford with bored amusement. When he spoke, his voice sounded so different that it reminded Sanford of a flirtatious teenaged girl. “Your mother told me how much trouble you are to her. Dreamer. Can’t pay attention. Don’t like to go to school. But that was back there, and you’re not back there any more. I’m the adult and you’re the kid. You do what you’re told. You don’t give me grief. This is how we get along. Together. In life. Correct?”

Sanford picked up his cue and tried to respond, but his throat caught. Nothing came out but air. He got the immediate sense that it would be a dangerous transgression of some kind for him to misspeak, even though he was not sure why. He tried a second time. “Yes.” This time the sound came out.

He was almost too late. Uncle Stewart’s eyes flashed with annoyance as if the familiar anger was about to return. But a moment later the relaxation came back over him. When he spoke, he was still using that odd girly voice. “So as I was about to say, about the values, is that you take all of the children of the world who have talent, humility,
and
brains, and you nurture them. You cherish them. You … well. Then you get
rid
of all the rest! And there you have the making of
Utopia,
buddy! Simple as pie.”

Uncle Stewart was looking at him as if he expected a response, but Sanford had nothing. The best he could do was to mutter: “Um, all right.”

His uncle gave him a strange smile. Like a nasty girl. Sanford had never seen him use it.

“You can say that again,” he said with a solemn nod. He put the car in gear and released the brake, then pulled onto the road and accelerated with a heavy foot. “All we need is the
willpower
to do it!”

“Do what?” Sanford asked, guessing that further questions were allowed.

“Get rid of all the rejects!” Stewart shouted over the growing headwind.

Sanford figured he should work at keeping the conversation going. Anything to keep him happy. “How does somebody do that?” It seemed as if he would somehow tread lighter with Uncle Stewart if he avoided asking how
he
would do it.