Cordell 2

Malcolm King does not sleep well. The evenings tire him and the mornings start at 5:00. Most nights, he pops awake at 12:30, like some peccary, although that  is a bad analogy. Malcolm is not all that sociable these days. Maybe a solitary owl, perforce strutting stiff-legged on his Genium prosthesis. Roman calls him The Six-Million Dollar Man, the only other person here abouts old enough to think of that retro-reference. Hardly that, but certainly the best, thanks in no small part to Dr. Levi Fisher.  This most recent leg is a tech indulgence Roman and Angela Montreal tolerate better than his new flat screen and the dish defiling his roofline. Malcolm King is sixty-nine and does not sleep well. ESPN on his 30” passes the time between 12:30 and 3:00.  Fox 10 Phoenix lets him know what the weather is blowing in. Aching joints aside, it is hard to know what tempests are brewing south of the Grand Canyon, on or off the Havasupai Indian Reservation.

He lifts himself heavily from the narrow bed, first thought to his bladder. Malcolm King thought he was building a spacious refuge, now he has to watch his toes as he hops blindly to the door. Malcolm built the first double adobe house all by himself. He made and lay the bricks in the summer of 2000, Sidney Poitier’s Lilies of the Field stuck in his brain like an earworm. It was lonely-meditative healing. It was a step away from Franklin’s self-annihilating trajectory. It was years before the word reached him he was a grandfather. The compost toilet lies close to Ruby-Leigh’s door, not convenient. Fifteen years he has shat and farted as he pleased. Now he is back to worrying about what a woman thinks.

That first house, before the bustling Montreal’s joined him, was such a clumsy-experience that now it is the barn. His second effort with Roman and Angela Montreal was better. It is all repurposed, reused eco-virtuous. Three simple rooms and a water closet opening onto a work yard flanked by two afterthought-sheds. Earth roof on telephone poles because it is green and passing eyes will not see the shine of corrugated tin. A second compost toilet and outdoor shower, very nineteenth century. Very virtuous, like the homes the ranchers built in the 1880s. A place to contemplate the cattle herds overgrazing the desiccated grassland. Angela Montreal added touches here and there as if it was her home. A constellation of Mason Jar window-points along the east wall. A table fit for family. A crucifix that still hangs useless on his wall.

Malcolm added the courtyard wall around the big tree; half adobe, half woven willow covered in grape. After a year of sharing with Roman and Angela, living with a very pregnant Angela and young son Marco, Malcolm needed a gate. Marco and the two that followed pretty much ignored that. The Montreal’s still treat it like the commons or a playpen. It seems to work. Years past, Samuel and Indiana Faulkner showed up one day with Cordell. Indiana left Samuel and more years past. Marco grew up left to work, then Franklin died, things changed.

There has been no fresh snow. Malcolm stands on his single leg at the kitchen sink, appreciating the moonlight filtering through the cottonwood. So peaceful here. He is well shut of the Boston before. A curl of woodsmoke rises from the Dwarf wood burner he added to the boys’ shed. Roman scorned that purchase, tried to convince him to make his own. Rudy-Leigh would have none of that. “You experiment on your own daughter, Roman.” The three boys will be snug in their beds, sleeping like the young sleep.

“Why did you take this boy into our home?” Ruby-Leigh asked when it became apparent that Malcolm intended to detain Kale Euller. “You don’t owe that old man anything. You’re just going to bring trouble down on our family.” She was watching her son’s in the courtyard, the usual boyish antics that rattle a person’s peace of mind. “What in the world are you waiting for?”

Malcolm remembered watching his grandsons trying to bring the older boy down to the ground. Keon need this. His grandson climbed the hills like some animal prowling a cage. The solitary nature of Keon’s ramblings, were all so frighteningly like Franklin’s prowling with his no-good friends in Boston. Franklin’s son following father into whatever danger presented itself. The boy thinks he is a mountain goat on these hills. Searching for his manhood, Malcolm understood. Levi Fisher’s kooko in the nest eased the fever.

Malcolm considers Ruby-Leigh’s bewildered-exasperation. Levi’s grand nephew has an attitude, chip on his shoulder. Not much better than Asher Montreal, all adolescent-angry. “Why did you take this boy into our home?” She wanted to know. To pay a debt.

“You don’t owe that old man anything!” Ruby-Leigh snapped, slamming a school book down on the table.

He did. What did a girl born to peace know about a soldier’s debts to pay? Malcolm owed Doc two lives. The prosthetic Terminator leg (Keon’s quip) reminds Malcolm of the last drop everyday. The VC round that chipped his leg, hit him like a low tackle. There was not enough shit in his system that muggy Vietnamese morning to make him forget that. After that, it was just Doc’s steady voice and the morphine calming him down. “You’ll be fine.” Last words before the dustoff.

Life goes on and you make of it what you will. Malcolm took the family business and had a family. It was always a struggle, but it was all that Malcolm had. His Rebecca went to the cancer far too young. So it was just him and the boy. Stock the shelves, watch for shoplifting, haggle over credit, lock it up. Franklin running with the wrong crowd, searching for his manhood. The day came, Franklin took three to his chest in a driveby. Malcolm found himself at Boston General waiting helpless for word on Franklin. Who steps out to tell him he still has a son, Levi Fisher, Doc.

It took eight days before Malcolm brought up the connection. Levi Fisher shrugged it off. Levi Fisher was too restrained to state the obvious. There was no recognition on his part, just polite, arms length, bedside manner. Cool-cucumber Doc, doing his thing. Plenty of practice playing the detached doctor after all those years, all those times he dipped his busy fingers into humanity. Malcolm accepted that, thoughts mostly on his boy. Things thawed between them, mostly because Malcolm would not let it go. Two lives he owed Levi Fisher after that.

Dr. Fisher brought his son back that time. Gave his young son a second life he wasted anyway. Gave him scars to flash for street credit, “Impresses the bitches.” Franklin bragged. Malcolm hoped for change, and then despaired. Malcolm had to leave, could not watch the story end. Malcolm swore he would never go East again, swore he was shut of his son Franklin. There were still words between them, the new Internet thing to keep them family. Franklin said Baptist-choir Ruby-Leigh made him a new man. Ruby-Leigh changed things, but she never changed Franklin.

Malcolm was settled in, watching the Pueblo children grow, scheming new ways to green his life. The satellite TV was his easy fix of Americana. Routine trips to Phoenix or Flagstaff was all he cared to know of the wider world. Even a Black president could not draw him out. It was a month before Malcolm King got the news that Franklin took a bullet Dr Levi Fisher could not fix. Not that Levi had a hand in that second operation. Malcolm often wonders if Doc could have changed the outcome. Levi always seemed to have the touch.  

Malcolm grit his teeth and headed home. The way things were with Ruby-Leigh, he brought the family back. No way in God’s green earth was Malcolm staying in the Bronx. Keon and Vondell got an emptied storage shed to bunk in. Malcolm gave up his room to Franklin’s grieving widow. Life found a new (crowded) normal. Malcolm had to worry about his farts and smells again.

Now his debt to Levi left Malcolm with another body underfoot. The adults agreed that barring medical emergency, they only drove over the barrier once a month. Email message or not, Malcolm decided a month of grumpy Kale Euller was enough. That would make Samuel Faulkner and Ruby-Leigh happy. The next trip into town, Malcolm would punt the sassy runaway back East where his folks could tan his hide for running after his granduncle.

Ruby-Leigh has set up a scraggly Christmas tree a cautious distance from the wood stove. The boy’s stockings lie beneath it. Drive the boy in today and his folks will have him home for Boxing Day. Malcolm took a sip of water from the kitchen sink, then grunted at the boy-crowded shed with its trickle of smoke. Damn touchy boys, all in your face, me, me, me. He tried to be a good parent. I’m too old for this shit. Sixty-nine years old, Malcolm had lost patience with sassy teenagers.

A slab of Angela’s cornbread with a slather of prickly pear jam accompanies Malcolm’s hops back to his crowded refuge. 12:30 am has its charms, so quiet. Quiet like before the Faulkners joined The Pueblo, quiet like the Arizona desert when he built the Barn. Cannot stop change, near seventy, Malcolm King knows that. Back in his room, he sits-habitual in the wingback chair. The room could use some heat, but instead, he throws a blanket over himself. He is not up for some foreign, late-night-filler sport tonight, so it is Fox 10 Phoenix, recycled news.

Blinking, automatic chew, swallow-hard, hit the rewind on that. There is no rewind and no need. Like reading obituaries, Malcolm has a horrid fascination for the Silver Alerts. His heart is good, but he can see himself wandering away someday, mind-dazed demented-looking for Franklin or his Boston home. Amber Alerts are painful reminders of young Franklin on the streets, parts unknown, apprentice-dealing. Even now, with Keon and Vondell roaming the drug-free wild-scape, Malcolm holidays his mind through Amber Alerts. What did he tell Kale? The world is toxic. Levi Fisher brought the poison home. 

Public service blurb sandwiched between hyperactive offer of double-your-value, four-monthly-payments orthopedic miracle and an old fart crowing he is king of my own castle again! Malcolm (I’m so screwed) King does not need a rewind button. Another painful swallow while he digests the tangerine flash of Kale-not-Kale, school-boy-serious and the Luxor Winnebago damnation. Shaggy mop of hair, younger face, maybe not the boy bunked down with his grandsons. He remembers the face of the old man gliding up the stairs better, but green Luxor Winnebago?

“You son of a bitch, what have you gotten me into?”

Take a deep breath, Malcolm warns himself. Did you get the name right? Not sure, not Kale. Kale Euller’s parents might be panicking, Levi and their son dropped out of sight. Levi so sick, their son missing in action, maybe just a harmless panic. The name is not Kale… Jeremy? 

This don’t-call-me-Kale, I-hate-Kale teenager is unexpected trouble. Malcolm King knows he is the wrong demographic in America to sort this out. Everything about this works out wrong. Malcolm takes another chew on Angela Montreal’s cornbread. Best case, white boy reunion-homes with a convenient-intentional lapse in memory. How could the boy forget where he was for a month? Dream on, Malcolm admits. It is all a shambles now because the Pueblo (on or off the Havasupai Indian Reservation) is not legal. Malcolm can see the Waco-siege, remember-the-Alamo-outcome broadcast on live TV. Malcolm’s thank-you-for-your-service forgotten, just the black father-of-slain-drug-dealer caught aiding and abetting kidnapping. Black lives won’t matter in the rush. Kidnapping? Malcolm has to think on this.

There is the one window just over Fourteen’s head. It sends a morning-glow of diffused light across the room to where the tiny wood burner lies. First impressions, the adobe shed reminds Fourteen of the simple cabins on Barry Gordon’s Jurassic Park in the Upper Peninsula. The dinghy cabin, where a Fourteen seduced his first man-child, seemed of a size. Give it this, it is bright with boys. Above his head, Fourteen can hear the soft snore of the younger brother, Vondell. The older, Keon, does not snore. His body shifts comfortably from time to time, weighty enough to send vibrations down to Fourteen. The single-adobe shed-bedroom and that northern faux log cabin share a cold earthiness. Fourteen draws it into his lungs.

Keon must have elbowed his little brother. Fourteen hears a soft exchange, shifting bodies, then a return to stillness. He slides a hand down, awake to his dawn-erection. Barry wheezed with a visceral male-bull triumph through sex. Always a mechanical affair until the orgasm short-circuited his awkward body, defibrillated the seventeen-year-old into the final coughing-spasms. Vondell’s little snorts recall the final Barry-wheeze-in-pain release of cum. So much anger in those Michigan fucks.

That’s the connection, Fourteen realizes, betrayal. Betrayal is a cold, bare room with the taint of dust in the nostrils. The Gordon family, with their routines are like this bewildering congregation of strangers living in the cold Arizona outback. The collection of rustic buildings, haphazard under sheltering-concealing cottonwoods, are just more of the same. Then there is Fourteen himself, disconnected, hurting from the latest callous mutilation.

The boys are surfacing. Most days, the younger will do something frisky, like drop onto the lower bunk. Fourteen will roll toward the plaster wall, adolescent determined to not be roused. The older gives him space. The older wants to friend him, makes reserved overtures, cautious of a stranger three years older. Fourteen rolls away from that too. The young girl named Kye in Flagstaff, offering verbal SnapChats, got more love. That was before the latest abandonment.

Fourteen has been … unpleasant. So rare, Jeremy Gates can replay each time, he recalls his father’s steady, dust-dry voice. “Is that the kind of person you think you should be, Jem?” Grayson Gates can reach him that way. Or God forbid he starts, “Your mom is disappointed …” and in a cheesy Our Town moment Jeremy recalls his better angels. Remy Gates can do it with a look. Remy Gates and Cameron Krueger’s mom, two peas in a pod.

Fourteen misses the familiar presence beside him in the bed. It is a gaping tooth thing. His body is the tongue probing reflex. His fingers on his cock are picking at the scab, wondering if it is healing, but really opening the wound so the healing leaves more scars. Despite the brothers over his head, Fourteen pushes back the heavy blanket. The morning air summons the Luxor Winnebago risings. Recalls Levi sliding the sheets down so he can greet the morning cock thrust playfully. Give him a full-bladder orgasm, in a familiar luxurious muscle-stretch ritual. The hard piss afterward is another orgasm in itself. Luxor Winnebago mornings, Fourteen remembers. In the moments after, sitting in his underwear and hoodie sipping coffee, because the old man won’t keep the heat on. Not talking about the sex, but knowing the old man’s eyes are on you, making you more than you thought you were; more than fresh cream in his last cup of coffee.

Drifting through the days at this compound everyone calls the Pueblo is amnesia. There is the August Fair, the trashy floor of the Bronco, the persistent dry-grass now of the barn. That stays with Fourteen. The months with Levi, sometimes they are just a dizzy dream. It is all gone, leaving this anger. This hurt he cannot name. This emptiness that draws him to Malcolm King’s old face, and draws his fingers to a morning wood. The hurt is eased by a splash of warmth across his neglected chest. There is no Barry-wheeze-in-pain release; just a soft intake of breath and a soundless sigh.

He is curled back into himself, blader suggesting he should get up. Adolescence and the utter uselessness of his existence suggests there is no point. He barely moves when the younger brother lands right on his hip. “Morning Fourteen! Rise and shine!” Fourteen does not shine. The older brother ignores him. Fourteen’s storm clouds are a shower, but Keon has his own tangerine. You be like that, I’ll wait, the boy is quiet-shy optimistic. Fourteen is some scruffy alley cat Keon leaves fresh bowls of kindness for.

“We’ll take you climbing today, Fourteen.” Keon takes a stab.

Voice through the door, “There are things to do today. Get moving boys.” The voice is quarrelsome.

There is nothing to do today, Fourteen responds to the woman.

Ruby-Leigh always sounds quarrelsome. The Pueblo is her father-in-law’s fantasy escape from modern chaos and the way her husband Franklin set his life-trajectory on an intersection with death. Everyone gets that she is simply biding her time, checking Malcolm King’s pulse, waiting to get on to somewhere. Fourteen gets this. He gets the quarrelsome-biding-your-time exasperation with the Pueblo. It does not make them allies. There is unsurprising friction.

What is left of Fourteen’s WASPy tangerine leaves a sour aftertaste in the woman’s sociability. Fourteen’s being screams white suburbia and charter school privilege (But not, no way in Remy Gates’ house). Fourteen’s well-white-bred, wash-the-dishes attitude makes no headway in this contrary wind. Fourteen is an unnecessary complication, something she and Malcolm King can add to the long list of things to fight about. Behind his back, too loudly, Ruby-Leigh calls Fourteen “the Morman” on account of the short hair, clean white shirt and (tight) black pants he wears monotonously.

At a bark from Ruby-Leigh, the brothers scramble into assorted clothes. Fourteen follows slowly. Fourteen is a frayed thread at loose ends. The King boys have their morning routine, so does Fourteen. He dresses for a winter run, heads to the house, and takes his time in the bathroom. The King brothers are eating oatmeal. Holidays are fuzzy at the Pueblo. Everyday is a holiday, every day is work. The brothers are cramming for a test their mother has prepared. This is their homeschool routine. Ruby-Leigh ignores the Morman. “After lunch we are cleaning out the barn. Kale, we need some more wood chopped. Don’t be running around the bush all morning.”

“We were going to take Fourteen rock climbing today. Snow has finally melted off the cliff.” Vondell complains.

“School comes first and those rocks are icy death for you boys.” The answer is repetitive-brusque. “School comes first, otherwise, the pair of you won’t be ready for junior high, let alone high school. Dropout Fourteen stands ready in Thrift Store sweats as an appalling illustration of human waste. “Malcolm is in his room.” It is an unnecessary remark. Fourteen’s routine is part of Ruby-Leigh’s routine.

Fourteen nods his head politely. This awkward sleepover is endless. Just once in the prepubescent before, he stayed a winter weekend with Isaak Dougherty. Jeremy Gates stumble-bumped heads with the Dougherty family change of plans. He was the tag-a-long extra at swimming lessons and a birthday party. Then there was grandma Dougherty’s emergency room crisis. Jeremy’s tangerine soured just before Sunday School. Isaak’s father hovered over Jeremy trying for contrition as he phoned red-faced for a ride home. Everyone thought it was time for that phone call. The Pueblo sleepover is like that. Everyone (except the brothers) think it was time for a phone call. Christmas is going to be like that, Fourteen realizes.

Fourteen nods his head politely as he contemplates the basket of corn muffins he made with Angela Montreal. He should take one now, because he knows he will not feel like eating after the daily pilgrimage to Malcolm’s room. “Help us clean Fourteen, then we can show you the climb!” He tries a smile. Keon is trying harder than Isaak Dougherty, but Fourteen is wishing he could say, Sorry, mom and dad are picking me up.

“Finish your breakfast, test time. Kale will get out of your way while you work.” Just a reminder to the lingering boy crowding the space that Franklin’s family is crowding Malcolm out of. Fourteen is always Kale when Ruby-Leigh refers to him (except the Morman privately). Something about odd-ball nicknames makes her uncomfortable. Franklin had street names, thought them fly. In her own before, she thought them fly too.

Hands shoved deep into his hoodie pocket, Fourteen stands at Malcolm’s shoulder. The old man is hunched over some paper and pencil account book. He looks at Fourteen gimlet eyes wary, like he looked at Franklin’s punk friends. The old man waits Fourteen out.

“Are you driving out this morning?” Fourteen cannot keep the anxious tremors clear. This is the morning ritual inquisition. Nothing can be this frustrating. To be free, but not free, to spend his days in self recriminations, dreading-yearning for the welcome hugs in Chillicothe. The questions have to be faced, answered in his own way. Jeremy-Fourteen making his stand.

Wordless, Malcolm opens a Daytimer on his desktop. The same blank pages From the day before. There is the routine stomach cramp. Before Fourteen can ask the next question, Malcolm flips to the next week, where there is the dentist appointment for Keon and Vondell. “Next week,” Malcolm sighs. “The truck is not going in either, in case you were wondering.”

“Okay,” Fourteen chokes. He could cry, later he might. He turns away from the frustrating old man, and then turns back angry. “It has been eleven days!” The frightening part is that Fourteen is no longer sure of that. There is a timelessness to life on the Pueblo.

“Just be patient,” Malcolm sighs. He saw the Amber Alert three times during the night. The only thing he knows is Levi Fisher and this fucking boy can-will screw his family over. I was lied to, is all he can think to say to the trigger-happy SWAT and Kevlar FBI cowboys. Malcolm owes Levi nothing now, every brother for himself.

Fourteen is not done with Malcolm King. “Look, I'm not stupid. Just because I'm a kid doesn't mean I'm stupid. Levi has had more than enough time to get to Vietnam. What is he doing taking a vacation?” Fourteen almost adds, is he sucking off another boy? He does not, because he is not quite certain how the people on this hippie dippy Pueblo viewed that sort of thing, and it hurts too much to think Levi would do that. “It's not fair that I'm stuck here. If you just ran into Flagstaff, or got to the fucking highway for ten minutes, you would probably get his message. How hard is that to do?”

Tell him what you know. Hope the kid doesn’t explain where he has been. That would be too much to hope. This Jeremy Gates, standing belligerent before him, will tell the police everything. The Pueblo is not safe, his refuge is not safe. Sixty-nine, seventeen years of life I built here, I can’t start over. Malcolm needs time to think.

“He was not well,” Malcolm starts.

“No shit, he's not well.”

“I'll thank you not to use that sort of language in this house around my grandsons.” It is still a battle to clean the Franklin-Boston street talk from his grandson’s lips. Keon, in particular, has a boy-crush for the visitor. Malcolm pauses to think, “Your grand uncle is not well. He might have gone back into the hospital. You mentioned he did that for a week before you came to me.”

“When are we going back to the city?”

“When we need to. People waste too much time driving around running extra errands.”

“Taking me back is not some extra errand. Let me get on the internet. At least let me talk to my parents so they know I'm okay.” Christmas ...

Malcolm feels exasperated. The Amber Alert does not explain what strange trajectory this angry teen is on. What’s the story? “You got something you need to tell me?” This takes the boy aback. Malcolm can see it in the young face. The sudden shrewd-uncertainty in the shifty eyes that will not meet his challenge.

No shit, I have something to tell you. Fourteen stares at a stack of books beside the small TV. He tries the Navajo carpet on the floor. Explanations did not work with Levi. Malcolm has a bobcat-killing 45 slung handy on a peg. Explanations end with some old Boomer pointing a gun at him. Later there are scalpels. Seventeen days and Fourteen has not found the way out.

Malcolm snorts his own frustration in the silence. The boy is a runaway, Levi picked him up because he is a do-gooder, lonely old man. “You should have talked to your parents about being okay before you ran away from home. I’d have wupped your ass for that nonsense.”

Franklin was a runner at this boy’s age, younger truly. A heavy hand made no difference. The streets had that sort of pull on his son. Drug money mattered more than an allowance helping out at the store. Malcolm grinds his teeth, this morning confrontation is an old story between the two of them, their morning routine for three weeks. The kid has his secrets, so let’s play the game. “If I let you talk to your parents before I hear from Levi, then your parents might have a chance to stop him from doing what he needs to do.” Malcolm wants the problem gone. “Go do something useful.”

“Useful would be me going home for .... Useful  would be me in school. I'm going to be a year behind at this rate.” Malcolm isn't listening. Fourteen has a mind to sweep a stack of dusty books of the table, watch them scatter on the floor. After the morning ritual, he needs fresh air. He grabs a muffin from the table, stalks out into the cold.

Roman and Angela Montreal lived in the Hobbit-bee hive directly across from Malcolm King's adobe house. It lacks the private courtyard.  A truck-worthy path separates the two establishments. The Montreal home seems more like termite mounds to the young boy’s eyes. Instead of one large building, the Montreal's are building a series of beehives butted up against each other. It looks rather Timbuktu meets the Michelin Man.

The latest beehive belongs to Inez, and this has sparked renewed debate amongst the adults over what the best building materials are. The Montreal family have opted for dirtbag construction. That lacks the authenticity and the organic purity of the Pueblo’s adobe. The long fabric tubes are new manufacture. The floor is carbon-intensive cement.

The latest project coiled up against the largest room long before the first snow.  Fourteen watches briefly as Inez and her brother blade shovelfuls of stucco over the long sausage-skin bags, waterproofing the coil-pot walls. Sheets of heavy plastic curtain the high walls where the random snowfalls might bring ruin. Fourteen has little interest in their ambitions. He fears he might be here when they complete it.

His mind on his troubles, Fourteen starts off towards the high fenced garden, solar farm, and the unnamed trees and shrubs that seemed to go on endlessly in the Arizona desert. Without Levi's watch to help him, this is a timeless run that will continue until hunger or the pair of brothers lure him back to the Pueblo.

Sandwich layers of tan and black and rocks rise above the ice-rimmed pool. Fourteen studies the terrain. It looks almost step easy from where he stands. A cold breeze washes down the canyon from the north where snow still lies heavy about the Grand Canyon. Just along the edge of the Pueblo’s pool, a fringe of dormant grass emphasizes the white line where water meets parched rock. Further up, life springs tenaciously from cracks and ledges along the face of the rock. Where the cliff meets sky, short trees stand tiptoes on the edge. Fourteen knows the top is terraces of rocky risers and sloping gravel treads.

Fourteen watches Keon’s assent. Thin-strong arms straining, fingers dig deep into shadow-black fissures. Keon is a monkey. Thin legs swing free beneath his body. You can see the muscle cords along his shoulders straining with the weight. He knows this cliff intimately now. Vondell said so proudly. It is like Vondell wants the teenager to admire his brother. Keon does not brag. At times, a leg is slung high up to the shoulder, grasping for the next foothold spot along the rock. Fourteen touches his own shoulder, conscious of its weakness.

Keon seems to climb sideways along the wall, hanging by one deceptively strong arm, reaching with his thin running shoe for ledges or slopes Fourteen cannot even see from where he stands. Fourteen admires the young boy’s straining muscles and tight stretch of fabric across his frame.

Incredibly strong fingers are able to hold the entire weight of his young body. The fingers at Fourteens thigh contort and hook as he unconsciously imagines Keon’s movements. “He knows the way up.” Vondell assures him. “Bet it’s slippery though.”. Fourteen hears the pride-worry there. Fourteen’s don’t-give-a-fuck attituded whispers envy.

Keon looks uncertain about which way he wants to go. Maybe he found some ice from last week’s snow. It looks like he has to come back down. Instead he seems to see a spot along the rock and reaches out a foot. This new foothold twists his body sideways once again. That leads to a second foothold, and with a push of his legs, he reaches out to a handhold Fourteen cannot see. This leads to another. Keon is defying gravity. His motion changes and moving up the layered wall with confidence. Fourteen admires his persistence.

Keon climbs up through the easy finish. He scoops some snow into a ball and sends it down to Fourteen. Vondell whoops in triumph for his brother, although they both admit it is a familiar path to the top. Keon drops a ready line down so that he can help Vondell up. Fourteen stands in the warm sunlight watching the eight-year-old follow his brother up. Vondell chatters breathlessly all the way up. “You’re wasting breath. Shut up Von.” Keon calls down. The hesitations and incidental grunts giving the older boys a sense of the effort he expends. Keon watches silently, rope slowly passing behind his body.

Fourteen declines the offer to climb. He sits throwing pebbles in the pool while the boys take turns repelling down. They walk back slowly from the cliff face. “Don't you miss the city?” Fourteen asks Keon.

“Sure I do, I go crazy out here sometimes. Mom promises will go back. You know when Grandpa ...” The explanation does not continue. “But you know I love this climbing. Being out here is really cool. I guess I could climb in the city. People do that, climb walls, fences, up fire escapes.”

“Is that what your neighborhood was like?”

“A little.” Keon agrees. “Maybe next time you can climb with us.”

Fourteen’s answer is, I’m not going to be here that long. It does not get said.

Yesterday, the Kings did their Christmas thing. Very uncommercial, very subdued. Keon and Vondell dug into their stockings while Fourteen stayed curled up in the bottom bunk. He skipped breakfast so he could run. He curled up back in bed after that. Levi ruined Thanksgiving with his trip to the hospital. Fourteen had not thought far enough ahead to Christmas. Christmas with Levi in the Winnebago, maybe on the beach in California. That would be so much better. “Just go away!” He growled at Keon when the older brother invited him to join the family. It hurts too much to think of Christmas. He is glad it is over.

The usual quiet is broken by the sound of Roman's truck coughing to life. Fourteen jolts off the lower bunk where he has been drowsing the morning away. Malcolm King’s copy of Gary Collins’ Going off the Grid falls off his chest. Outside, he watches the back of Roman Montreal’s truck begin the tortured journey back to the highway where Levi abandoned him three weeks before.

Samuel Faulkner and Malcolm King are arguing good-naturedly besides Inez work site. “Put a green roof on. 75% energy savings, like the walls.” Samuel suggests. “Six-inch green roof. You know it is the right thing to do. Forest Service snooping overhead won’t notice the new build.”

“40 pounds per square foot. Roman has laid out 130 square feet here. You want to distribute over 5,000 pounds onto six posts. Inez wants to walk on it. Hard to get anything to flourish up there.” Malcolm likes the conversational give and take.

“Romeo has a line on scrap steel truss. More than strong enough.” Samuel shrugs, “Not organic, and that is Romeo’s thing, but he figures since they are now new.” Samuel knows the strange kid is stalking stiff-legged toward them. The kid should be in the truck with Romeo, like I asked.

“More than 130 square feet of roof. Roman plans an overhang on this one. It needs a membrane anyway.” Malcolm sees the teenage-fury bearing down on them too. He still cannot see the best thing to do. What a mess, he frowns. “We have the lumber, plywood. Lets see what these trusses look like when he gets back.”

“Roman is driving out,” Fourteen blurts.

“The whole family is. Angela wants to visit family in Phenix.” Malcolm answers, tossing a glance Samuel Faulkner’s way. Samuel has this way of fading into the air when Kale, The Morman, Fourteen… Jeremy Gates, comes around. Samuel turned his back on the world. Went so dark that his wife left him ten months in. The boy Cordell abandoned him next.  

“You said I could go on the next trip into town.” Tears forming in the boy’s bright eyes. Whatever this boy’s story really is, he wants out.

“I did not. I told you that you could go on the first trip after Levi contacts me. There is no room for you in the truck. They won’t be back for a week.”

“What do I care about when they are coming back?” Fourteen snaps explosively. “I’m fucking out of here old man. The truck bed is empty. I could have road back there. You are not even trying old man.”

 Malcom sighs, “My phone is along for the ride. When Roman gets back, I will have the all clear from Levi, your granduncle Levi.” Too much sarcasm? The runaway does not notice, apparently.

“Levi is fucking dead. You know it, he has to be. He's had plenty of time to get to Vietnam and .... I've kept my end of the bargain. I've waited, and waited. I'm done with waiting now.” It is an angry challenge.

“Roman and Angela are already gone.” Samuel Faulkner observes unhelpfully. Malcolm gives the other man a guarded look; joining the conversation is unexpected. “Jesus, just let the kid go. He doesn’t want to be here. It will be better if he's gone.” Samuel stares hard at Malcolm.

There is more to this than Fourteen can understand. Three weeks and Fourteen has not figured out the place. He feels like the new kid in school. He is the new kid. Everyone fits in here, everyone else has history and a purpose in this outpost past civilization.

“I've had it.” Fourteen whispers on last time, vicious-exhausted. He's not talking about Malcolm. He's talking about the succession of men setting the terms, forcing him along with their plans. All it amounts to is a succession of shity nows that suit their inexplicable after-lives. He has learned though. There is no percentage in pitching a Jeremy-Gates-fit like he did in the back of the Bronco. That will just get him beat across the hood of some convenient car.  He turns away. Stamps back to the non-room he has been sharing with the brothers. As usual, the brothers are home schooling in the kitchen. Fourteen grabs his bag from under the bed.

The black gym bag is always carefully packed, emergency evacuation ready. It has been since the moment he arrived. Fourteen’s fingers dig down to the bottom where the Ziploc bag lies discreetly hidden from the curious brothers. He finds the reassuring geometry of the Beretta Nano. No belt whipping this time, Bobcat has claws now. The Illegal documents with Kale's name mean nothing to him, but the other documents are precious to him. They bear his name. The birth certificate, school card, all of it. Even the odd Caribbean passport is real. Levi Fisher said so. All the lies Levi has told others, all the lies Levi told about him, these documents make him Jeremy Gates. It reassures Fourteen to see Levi knew he was more than just Fourteen. He zips up the black bag.

There is the tangerine splash of hoodie on the bed. Fourteen knows it will be a long walk into his after freedom. He cannot judge the distance. If he is careful, he will not be sidetracked. The road will be marked by Roman Montreal’s tire tracks. He can follow the Montreals. This is crowded America. The West is closed. Contrails in the sky, there have been helicopters flying past on the way to the Grand Canyon. I won't be alone, he reassures his beating heart. Fuck fear, Fourteen plans to finally jackrabbit with a bobcat determination.

Fourteen stops at Filene’s. It will be a long, cold walk in a hoodie and a pair of Thrift Store canvas. Keon showed him Filene’s when they took the tour. The Pueblo shopping center is in the Barn, in Malcolm’s first room. Malcolm King named the room, painted the sign on the storeroom door: Filene’s.

“What’s it mean?”

“Just some old department store in Boston.” Keon shrugs. Angela Montreal keeps it organized and rat proof. Seventeen years worth of waste not, want not distributed on shelves, packed into boxes. It is the ultimate thrift shop experience, full of outgrown-spurned apparel, toys and furnishings. It is the ultimate generational attic. Vondell finds a teddy he cast off. Decides to repatriate it to his bed, something old, new again. Sometimes Filene’s is like that. Fourteen dismissed it all, caring less how people organized their lives in this hole; now he is back.

It will be a long walk, and the snow might fall. It will get dark. Fourteen shops Filene’s for the coming hike. Fourteen shops the bleak Boxing Day Sale of the Pueblo’s thrift.

They all go their own way about this place. That is part of the agreement. Malcolm excuses himself.

He's an old man, he can hardly be expected to keep track of his two grandsons, let alone this strange kid he has been saddled with. Damn Levi anyway. Malcolm might have guessed there would be more complications. He might have broken his monthly habit, drove back in to check for Levi’s email. He thought there would be time. In the other man's shoes, Malcolm would have took the time to see what fifty years had done to Vietnam. In the New Year should have been soon enough.

Just a small hassle, Malcolm had assured himself, assured Ruby-Leigh and Samuel Faulkner. Levi Fisher said the boy’s parents knew their wayward son was with him on the road. Levi claimed he was the kid’s guardian. Swore Kale’s parents approved of their son was keeping an eye on the old man (and his money) as he trucked around America one last time. Levi earnestly convinced Malcolm that Kale’s family would think the boy was still with Levi.

Kale Euller's parents would be understandably upset. Malcolm was prepared for some brief-awkward confrontation with the Euller family if it came to that. Just honouring my old friend’s last request to die with dignity. Malcolm thinks very little of those days in Vietnam. Not much dignity in the dying there. Not much dignity in the way Franklin died in the driveby. Done is done, folks. You have the old man’s money now, the fancy house by the sea. Your stupid truant son is back safe and sound, let it go! A short conversation, then everyone goes their separate ways. That was how Malcom thought it would go in the harmless, Orange Alert before.

What if the stupid kid left the road?

God damn kid! Malcolm snarls to himself. Maybe he is thinking of the stubborn white boy losing himself in the Arizona desert. Maybe Malcolm is thinking about all the times he lost son to the streets. God damn all teenage boys! 

“Well Doc, I let you kill yourself.” That settles one debt in a twisted sort of way. “I’ll find your god damn fake nephew before he freezes in the dark, and that should settle the other.” He almost yells this.

Half a mind to take the boy on to Phenix, maybe leave his Amber-Alert-ass on the side of the highway. Hope he has no clue how to lead them back to the Pueblo. Nobody at the Pueblo wants him back. The boy is hotter than the Chevy Franklin boosted on his twelfth birthday. Let him freeze in the desert, good riddance, only Ruby-Leigh and Angela Montreal won’t hold for that. Keon and Vondell would dumb-ass hightail it after their new friend.

“You’re just bring trouble down on our family. Find the boy and send him back to his people.” Ruby-Leigh warned before he left. Malcolm ignored that. He has to find the boy. His daughter-in-law has no idea.

Fourteen must be jogging. That is the only explanation Malcolm can give for why he has not run the boy down yet. He’s a running fool, that boy. Nothing better to do than read my books, run circles around the compound. Only, Malcolm worries the boy left the road on one of its braiding detours.

“I’ll come with you!” Keon decided.

“You won’t” Malcolm and Ruby-Leigh together-chime.

Keon climbed into the Bollinger anyway. “Get out,” Malcolm ordered. He could call Roman pretty soon, get him to turn around, trap the boy between them. Roman has his cell phone, everyone’s phone. I’m too isolated. First time ever, Malcolm wishes he had internet. The amber alert tells him nothing.

Abducted, what does that mean anyway? Did Levi snatch the teenager? Worse, maybe the FBI will think Malcolm King abducted the boy. Crazy peg-leg, PST hermit, black-guilty-lives don’t matter. Found with the white boy. Sure as Dixie they will string me up. They will end his privacy, chase him out of the desert and back to the city where Keon and Vondell would join a gang, do drugs, get shot.  Malcolm has his own deck of cards to shuffle as he starts down the road.

That is his long drive. Working out excuses, fearing the worst, cursing Fourteen, puzzling out the whole damn mess Levi Fisher stuck him with. Watching the twists and turns ahead, hoping somehow this can come out right, keep the Pueblo safe-forgotten by the world.

Malcolm takes the road slowly. There were no forks this close to the Pueblo. He can see the braided tracks of tires. The runaway was probably smart enough to follow them. “Damn teenagers” it is Malcolm’s new mantra. Take a breath old man, watch the blood pressure. 

This Jeremy Gates seemed to be a good kid when he met him in Flagstaff. Privileged like Levi Fisher, but personable. Ruby-Leigh rebuffs his help. Keon and Vondell light up when the older boy is around. The boys want him back “The boy has to come back.” Malcolm muttered to himself. The Bollinger inches its way over the next obstruction.

Some miles ahead Fourteen is limping badly. Malcolm King and his partners have done far more road work than the boy can recognize. Sharp rocks still find their way through the worn soles of the used hiking boots he picked out. Room to grow means room to chafe. He is short on water and the scuds of snow look gritty. Fourteen tries to remember where the next stream crosses the road. Beyond the foot ache, Fourteen is giddy with this solitary now adventure. He is moving forward. He is moving homeward.

The Vietnamese necklace still circles his neck. Fourteen thought to ask Keon if he would help remove it. Awkward questions might arise. So why is this thing soldered on your neck? There is a good question, Fourteen admits. There is a long story behind that, and it is a self-illuminating-humiliating story Fourteen does not want to tell. At times, he thinks the silver trinket is a good reminder not to be a fool again. At times, it is a reminder of other things, Fourteen things.

He hears the sound of the Bollinger without recognizing what it means. His attention is on a glittering stream of water he has glimpsed just down the road. It is the branches scraping against the electric vehicle that finally alert him to the approaching confrontation.

Malcolm King sees the boy stop. Fourteen does not turn round. He seems to hesitate looking towards the brush and scrabble, as if considering running off in that direction. Instead the adolescent boy resumes walking towards the water. Malcolm ponders his next move.

Vondell asked his grandpa when he was going to get his Mango season. "Your mango season?" Malcolm asked, distracted. Vondell rolled his eyes. His growth spurt, he explained. Vondell was chubby seven then, just come to live in Arizona. He lacked the King stretch to set him over other boy’s his age. Both grandsons dreamed of the NBA. “Long time yet, little man.”

This was Fourteen’s (never gonna be NBA) mango season. The Morman missionary clothes were a flood pants blast from Malcolm’s past. White-sock-flash too short. The boy took his solitary steps like a basketball player, though. Careful, fluid, unconsciously maneuvering the mismatched adolescent parts. Three years maybe, till it all knit together.

Fourteen is trudging along in Malcolm’s worn leather jacket. Awesome in the 90s, it found its way onto the shelves at Filene’s when Malcolm’s old bones needed more warmth. The boots were Indiana Faulkner’s by the look of him. Kid dressed sensibly, anyway. The brushed-black leather hangs over the mismatched adolescent parts, so much room to grow.

Not too mismatched, Malcolm decides. The boy is determined, Malcolm sighs once more, feeling his age. He put the breaks on the Bollinger and takes a swig of water. Samuel wants the boy gone.

Malcolm drives past Fourteen and stops at the water’s edge. In the rear view mirror, Fourteen pauses, black bag slung beneath one arm protectively. His face is shrouded-warm in the bright orange hood. The leather coat is so big, the cuffs cover his fingers. Malcolm takes another swig of water while he waits. Fourteen swings wide around the parked car and stops just short of the slow moving stream.

Fourteen needs time to think. He uses it to fish the steel bottle from his bag and catch some (hopefully) clean Arizona winter water. It vanishes down his throat. He stoops down to refill. Fourteen made it through the box canyon part of this long hike. He forgot the water was here. He remembers the slow drive from the turnoff. He remembers the empty road back to the Luxor Winnebago. Walk on, don’t talk, be done with all these men.

“I can’t let you go Kale.”

“I’m not Kale. I told you I hate that name.” This is a teeth-grinding, adolescent-raspy retort. He is looking down the road across the stream that will soak the boots, wick up his pants. Fresh truck tracks mark the way forward.

“Okay, it’s Fourteen then. Be Fourteen if you like. That changes nothing. Levi left you with me. I’m responsible and I cannot let you go off on your own alone. Nothing good will come of that.”

“Levi promised. He said I could go home.” Finally, Fourteen turns toward the Bollinger and the yet-another-old-man with plans for him. “It has been too long!” Fourteen exclaims. “I could have been home for Christmas!”

Malcolm King stays in the car, his arm resting on the window. No point in getting out. You’re not going to wrestle this strapping kid back into the car. Fourteen (if he likes) has edged his black travel bag around so he can put the water bottle away. The hand remains thrust in the bag fumbling around. Anger and uncertainty play across his face like the dapling clouds above.

Fourteen’s fingers are on the Beretta Nano solution to his problem. He should do it. It is what John would do. Why not? It is almost like Levi Fisher was telling him to use it back there in the Luxor Winnebago. This is why Levi left it in the black travel bag, insurance that the after-March would happen.

Whip it through the sauce! A voice urges Fourteen. Make the old bastard drive you right to a cop shop. If he will not do that, then carjack the fancy electric. Make the old man limp back through the canyon. If he won’t get out… Fourteen trembles at that thought.

This is how these men get their shitty afters. Fourteen shifts the Beretta Nano into the palm of his hand. You’re still in the before, Greyson Gates’ voice counsels him. You pull that gun on him and you’re in the after.

Try talking again! Fourteen’s chest is so tight, he cannot breath.

“Mr. King, you’ve got it wrong. Levi was feeding you a line.” Fourteen gasps for breath, his finger pulls back the trigger. He might shoot his bag (not that one) if he had thought to load the chamber. Good thing Fourteen did not load the chamber. Good thing he paused for air. Damn good thing! He has played this losing hand before on Levi Fisher.

My name is not Kale Euller. My name is Jeremy Gates. I’ve been kidnapped and… Even in his after-thoughts, Fourteen cannot say rape. Patrick and John in the barn, he still cannot say rape. Levi rescued me, he liked to sleep with me. I’m stuck with you so he can get away. Yes, that is what he wants to say. Only, that went so well when he tried it on Dr. Evil. That explanation brought the Beretta Nano out, brought the cold-hearted scalpel out. What will Malcolm King do with the truth, Fourteen wonders.

“Your granduncle was what?” This comes out flat-tired from Malcolm King. They are just exchanging lies. Franklin King was an exceptional liar at Keon’s age. By the time he was seventeen, Franklin hardly bothered lying. I know about the Amber Alert, Jeremy Gates. Malcolm realizes the boy before him does not know about the alert. Levi Fisher was what? And Malcolm does not have the answer to that either. He only knows he needs more time to think things through.

Fourteen stares hard at the old man in the Bollinger, hand on the gun, still thinking it through, still playing his ever-losing hand. Levi Fisher’s friend. Quite a thing to take a teen off the road, risk the wrath of parents for it. So the old man listens to his story, looks at the different passports; believes he is Jeremy Gates, FBI manhunt material. Fourteen is savvy enough to understand accessory after the fact. This (and soliciting a minor) is why Levi went all in when Fourteen blurted out the truth for the first time. The truth shall set you ... The truth left the quaking boy trussed up once more, then all the rest.

Fourteen shifts nervously as he puzzles out what to do next. He remembers he has to pull the slide rearward. He cannot do that one handed. Fourteen works it through in his mind. Say he starts fumbling with the micro, and Malcolm King pulls out his own Saturday Night Special solution to the new problem. Fourteen does not think he has the John Cannon stone-cold killer in him. He is pretty sure he cannot pull off a Dr. Levi Evil bluff. Where is a goat to kill when you really need one?

This is America’s dusty-snow covered back closet. Jeremy watched Breaking Bad, saw the cute kid shot off his bike, dissolved in a barrel of icky stuff. Hell, Mr. King will drag my body behind a rock and drive away. Let the coyotes and the buzzards scatter the bobcat bones. I’ve killed people, Levi told Ian Holland. Malcolm King did too, before he lost a leg. Jeremy Gates? Not so much. He thinks too much (good thing), and maybe he has not been hurt enough to put a bullet into a man’s chest (yet).

“Your grandfather was what?” Malcolm King challenges again. It is cold. There are things to do. This Jeremy Gates is a trial. 

The boy wilts in the sun. The hand comes out of the bag and he zips it up. Malcolm meets his stare. “I knew Levi was dying. He wanted to do it in Vietnam. Why would I stop him? He should have trusted me to let him go.”

“Then you would be his accomplice… like I am now. He did not want that for you.”

The boy cocks his head, and then nods understanding. Malcolm watches Fourteen look down the road. He thinks about some further words to coax the boy into the car. Decides the silence is best.

I’m not ready. I don’t know what I am doing. I can’t do shit, Fourteen admits to himself. This is a tangerine low. Defeated, he walks around the Bollinger.

They are silent for a while, then Fourteen starts to talk. “Did you check your phone?”

“No,” Malcolm King confesses. “There is no reception along this stretch.”

Fourteen sighs heavily. All they have to do is drive just a bit farther down this goat trail until Malcolm can download his mail, check for messages. “Did you even think to bring your phone?”

”I knew you would not get that far. My phone is with Roman anyway. He will bring it back with all my messages in a week. Levi will have sent a message. Next trip you can go out. Maybe we all go out for a holiday.”

How did Levi even set this up with the crazy old man? How long were they passing messages back and forth? Michigan, Wisconsin, Bull Shoals. Bull Shoals, Levi whiled the time away waiting for his war buddy to answer. Then there was Santa Fe. Fourteen looks at the unnamed countryside passing by.

I can’t do shit, Fourteen accuses himself again. There are tears he does not want the old man beside him to notice. His life has been suspended in that barn, suspended by a dead goat in an Ohio pasture. Too stupid, too chickenshit to end this shitty now. His chest hurts.

Shane and Jeremy Gates taught themselves to swim when they were six. They grind their way through every birthday-Christmas game that comes their way. School is another sort of grind. His dad drilled products 1 to 12, coaxed him through pre-algebra variables. Levi in the Jeep beside Bull Shoals, watching Fourteen ride a clutch (poorly). The engine stalled eight times. “You can do it.” He does it. Fourteen face plants, rolls, loses the rope in the polar-bear-dip waters, trying to find his feet on the wakeboard. Blaze yells, “Try again!” He does. I can do shit, Fourteen decides, When I try.

Fourteen looks at the unnamed countryside passing by. “What is that tree called?” He points at one beside the road. Malcolm King glances at it.

“Mesquite.”

“Mesquite,” Fourteen echoes, filing it away. “That one?”

“I’m not sure.” Malcolm King sounds amused.

“Does it rain a lot?”

“You missed it. Mostly in the summer.”

“It looks so dry, even with the snow.”

“It’s a desert, son.” Malcolm concludes.

“Does the pool dry up?”

“No, that is why I built there.”

“There’s been some snow. Does it get deep, like back east?”

“No, it usually melts.” Malcolm gives his answer further thought. “Sometimes we get snowed in. This road closes. If that happens, you will have to stay longer.” Another reason to hold the boy while I work things out. They go on like this as they drive back to the Pueblo.

Fourteen bouncing back, ignoring the scrapes and bruises, letting the tangerine infuse his growing body. Christmas is over, maybe for my birthday. My birthday is soon, Valentine’s Day, fifteen, mom’s Blackforest cake, home. He is tired of being pushed around.

First thing Fourteen does is kick his bag under the bunk bed. He looks at Keon reading some school thing for his mom. “Teach me how to climb.”

Philip Marks’ Stories in the Human Calculus and A Father’s Love are particularly powerful reading. I hope you take the time to enjoy them as much as I did. I’ll take a moment to express my appreciation for the added dimension he has gifted to this story of Jeremy Gates’ coming of age.