Travelin' Man (5 page)

“I don't got to be nowhere. I told my mama I was staying at the apartment. Wanna do something?”

“Naw. Thanks. I got to get up early in the morning.”

The waitress is clearly irritated by them lingering at her table, there being only so many opportunities to collect tips in an eight-hour shift.

“Can I get you boys anything else?” she asks, which KC correctly interprets as
get the hell out.

“Where's your car?” Rodriquez asks, surveying the lot for KC's blue Civic.

“I walked,” KC says, not offering an explanation.

“How far?”

“It's just down the road.”

“Dude, you're gonna get killed walking on the side of the highway in the dark. Come on. I'll drive you.”

“I'll be okay.”

“Get in the fucking SUV, KC. I said I was gonna drive you.”

KC reluctantly agrees and settles into the passenger seat. It's a clear night and the brightness of the full moon is undimmed by the hazy skylight that blankets Spokane. There's a pair of entwined rosaries, far gaudier than Mr. Chandler's simple wooden cross, dangling from the rearview mirror. The kid is either more religious than he'll admit or he's superstitious and they're some sort of lucky charm. Rodriquez, who's just been ragging KC for having his nose in a Bible, assumes he's about to be called out as a hypocrite when KC fingers the string of beads.

“I know. They're embarrassing. My mother made me hang them so the Virgin Mary will protect me. She gets wacko sometimes. She made the priest bless this car before I could drive it.”

He cranks up the volume of the local hip-hop station, making conversation impossible. It's a short ride to the motel and KC thanks him again for bringing the records.

“So, where's your car?” Rodriquez asks.

“There it is,” KC lies, pointing at a random silver Camry.

“What happened to your Civic? It was bomb, man. I loved that color. Why'd you ditch it?”

“Lease was up. I got a good deal on this one.”

“Come on dude,” Rodriquez says. “Let's take it out and see what it can do.”

“It's kinda late. I got to get up early in the morning.”

“It's fucking nine o'clock, KC. I'll fill your tank when we're done if you don't have money for gas.”

The kid's persistent. He walks across the lot and circles the car, giving the Camry the once over.

“Come on, dude. Toss ‘em over,” he shouts, demanding KC throw him the keys to a stranger's car.

“Fuck it, Rodriquez. It ain't mine,” KC confesses in exasperation. “The Civic got trashed.”

“You in a wreck? That what happened to your face? Tecchio said you got busted up by a queer. I knew he was full of shit.”

“Yeah, something like that,” he mutters, a vague, ambiguous answer.

“So how you goin' to Seattle if you don't have a car?”

“Bus.”

“Dude, that will take you like a whole fuckin' day.”

“Yeah.”

“I'm gonna drive you!”

“No.”

“I fucking mean it. It'll be fun. You and me. The team ain't back until Saturday and fucking rehab is a joke. They're just making me go because the Rangers said I had to. My agent says I'm getting called up to high A next week anyway.”

KC's stung by the announcement of Rodriquez's good fortune and the opportunities that lie ahead for him. KC's bonus was a pittance compared to Rodriquez's, but last week they'd both been valued prospects with promising futures. Coach Freeman was certain KC would be in AA next season. Now he's got nothing, not even a car, and no one's gonna step up to rescue him. Even the Freemans will turn their backs on him when he's forced to admit why he's been kicked off the team.

“Go get your shit, KC. You can come back home with me tonight and we'll get an early start.”

“No, man. This place is cool. You don't need any trouble. What if Tecchio comes back and finds me?”

“Seven o'clock then,” Rodriquez says, juiced for an adventure. “I'm gonna set my alarm.”

“Sure,” KC says, knowing Rodriquez never gets out of bed until noon and that he'll be long gone when the kid comes to pick him up, if he even remembers his offer in the morning.

 

KC's up at dawn, carefully packing his records in the duffel so they're well-cushioned with socks and tee shirts if the bag gets knocked around. He nearly jumps through his skin when he's startled by a fist banging on the door. Check-out time isn't until noon but that creepy Indian guy wants him gone and is going to send him on his way without offering him the free breakfast buffet of instant coffee and powdered donuts.

“Let's go man! The sun's up and I'm ready to hit the road.”

Rodriquez is dressed like a trucker, or at least a teenage kid's idea of a trucker. His jeans are tight and his boots are scuffed. He's wearing a sleeveless work shirt over a white, ribbed guinea tee. His mesh CAT cap is too big for his head.

“You can just drop me off at the bus station, Rodriquez,” KC says. “You must have a million things to do today.”

“Hey, can I ask you a favor? Can you call me Domingo? Just for today. You want me to call you Kevin?”

“No. No,” KC responds, sounding harsher than he'd intended. “My name is KC. No one calls me Kevin.”

Except his Pop-Pop. Even his mother has called him KC since his Little League days.

“Throw your duffel in the back seat, KC,” Rodriquez says as he climbs behind the wheel.

KC's surprised to find a packed bag already in the Escalade.

“Running away from home?”

“No. Why?” Rodriquez asks.

KC's only busting balls and thinks it odd that the kid seems so nervous. Rodriquez probably keeps a change of clothes in the SUV for whenever he can make a spontaneous trip to see his mama.

“Nothing. No reason,” KC says.

“Hey, I brought you something to listen to, KC. I know you hate my music. So I borrowed some of Tecchio's discs. You like these dudes, don't you?” he asks as he slips
Vital-ogy
into the disc player.

“Sure,” KC says, not wanting to disappoint Rodriquez. And he does like Eddie Vedder. He actually loves him, but listening to Pearl Jam makes him sad. Sometimes if he hears “Nothing Man” when he's alone, it's hard not to cry. He and Charlie Beresford had driven to the Meadowlands to see the band play the summer they were hauling furniture. That was the first time they'd kissed and he's never allowed anyone else to kiss him since Charlie. He was stupid back then, believing they would always be close, that time and distance would never change their feelings for each other. His face still burns with shame whenever he thinks about how Charlie had treated him, how embarrassed he'd seemed when KC had shown up at his college after his stepfather threw him out of the house. He'd never wanted to see or hear from Charlie again and thought he'd covered his tracks if the jerk he'd once thought was his friend ever came looking for him. But anyone can find him now by typing
KC Conroy
into a search engine.

He never responded when Charlie tracked him down in Kingsport, Tennessee, during his Rookie League year. Charlie's frequent emails to the message board on the Spokane Chiefs web page, asking KC to contact him, went unanswered. Sometimes he is tempted to write back to ask how Charlie's mom is doing, if her cancer is gone, and if his dad still pesters him about not having a girlfriend. Charlie always insisted he couldn't wait to get out of their house and be on his own, never appreciating how lucky he was to have a real mom who made lasagna and spaghetti and meatballs and a dad who worried when his son was out all night. Charlie didn't know anything about growing up in a house where he was an unwanted burden, an outsider, a mistake his mother regretted, an unwelcome intrusion on the life she'd made with the man who'd married her. KC's never had a family, not a real one, only his Pop-Pop. His stepfather had given him his name but never thought of him as a real Conroy like the sons and daughter who shared his blood.

“Hey, you hungry?” Rodriquez asks.

They haven't passed three exits on the interstate before he's insisting they hit a drive-through for sausage and egg sandwiches before the breakfast service is over. KC thinks the kid must have a tapeworm since he eats everything in sight and can't gain any weight. Rodriquez is trying to bulk up, put on twenty or thirty pounds of muscle. Tecchio says he knows someone who knows someone who knows how to score this shit that's guaranteed undetectable. Completely, totally undetectable. KC threatened to break that fucking Tecchio's neck if he tried to get Rodriquez mixed up with juicing. Two guys on the Chiefs roster have already been suspended this season, their already slim chances of making it to the Show now a lost cause. He hopes he's scared the kid straight by threatening to call Rodriquez's mama if he ever uses any supplement stronger than soy protein.

Rodriquez forces a loud, impressive belch as they take to the road again. He turns down the volume of the music as if he wants to say something, then reconsiders, and decides to call his mother. Someday he's gonna have to stop being a mama's boy, but KC knows it must feel good to know his entire family dotes on him. One of his older sisters lives in Spokane with her husband and is always bringing home-cooked meals to the apartment for her baby brother and his roommates. The tamales are the best KC's ever eaten.

The phone rings as soon as he says goodbye to his mama, but this time Rodriquez's face is stern and grim. He gives one word responses,
yes
and
no,
then abruptly cuts the conversation short.

“Look. We'll talk about it when I get back. I don't know. A couple of days. Okay. Yeah, me too. I'll call you later.”

KC stares out the windshield, focusing on the highway ahead, not wanting to intrude on a private moment. But he can't ignore the obvious when Rodriquez starts pounding the dashboard with his fist. He spits out a torrent of Spanish that even a gringo like KC recognizes as curses, all a prelude to tears.

“What's the matter Domingo?” he asks.

“I'm fucked. Really, really fucked.”

KC doubts a kid with the world at his feet is truly fucked. Every small speed bump in the road is blown out of proportion when you're eighteen. Someone with a charmed life like Rodriguez is immune to disaster. Only one thing could precipitate such an emotional reaction.

“Fuck it, Rodriquez. What did you do? What did you take? Where did you get it? From that fucking Tecchio?”

He hands the boy a clean handkerchief to wipe his face and allows him a few minutes to catch his breath.

“You flunk the test Domingo? They gonna suspend you?”

“No. No. It ain't nothing like that,” he says, sucking up a nose full of snot and handing the soiled hankie to KC.

“Keep it dude,” KC insists. “Who was that?”

“Maria.”

KC's only met her a few times. Rodriquez rarely brings her to the apartment. KC's having a hard time recalling her face. He remembers she's shy, quiet, a surprisingly plain and heavy girlfriend for a teenage millionaire whose bank account and the promise of a life of fame and recognition could easily score him a smoking hot babe. Tecchio's woman, who can be a real cunt, mocks her behind Rodriquez's back. She calls her Mrs. Babar, the lady elephant. Everything about Maria is subject to criticism. Her frumpy clothes, her frizzy hair, the dimples in her chubby elbows.

“I was so fucking stupid. If I'd tried to use a rubber she would have accused me of cheating and that I was afraid of giving her VD or AIDS or somethin' because I was fucking around. And she said she couldn't get pregnant. She told me she was on the pill. And I fucking believed her.”

No one knows about the pregnancy but the prospective parents and now KC. They need to decide their future without the moral supervision of parents and priests. Maria's a good girl, Rodriquez says. He insists he made her do it, that she wanted to wait until they were married or at least officially engaged.

“She says we'll go to the clinic if that's what I want. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck,” he cries as the tears begin flowing again.

KC realizes Maria is cleverer than anyone had given her credit for. It's apparent now there was always something going on behind that blank, round face. She's known the father of the child in her womb since the third grade. He's too frightened his mama might learn of their grievous sin if they choose to end the pregnancy.

“Maybe she could put it up for adoption,” KC suggests. “Don't you think that's the best thing to do?”

Rodriquez says he's cool with the idea but Maria's given him an ultimatum. Either she gets rid of it before anyone knows she's pregnant or he marries her. She won't settle for having her reputation tarnished as an unwed mother who gave her baby to strangers to raise, bringing shame upon her strict, religious parents.

“She's a Catholic. So am I. It's a sin. Murder. What should I do KC? You gotta tell me. I don't want no kid. I don't want to marry her but I don't want to go to hell.”

It's a terrible thing to kill a baby. But KC knows it can be just as bad, maybe worse, to let it live. He still remembers the bitter, angry voice of his mother, drunk and stoned, shouting at her father while KC lay trembling and frightened in the bed he shared with his Pop-Pop in the next room. Yet another man, like the one before him and the one before that, had just told her it was over, that he couldn't raise someone else's kid. Her words are burned into KC's memory.