Cordell 3

Vondell crashes to the floor, either because Fourteen is tickling him, or because he finds himself in his brother’s way. Keon snags him on the way down, so the chubby boy makes a soft landing. Keon and Fourteen paused to check for sibling damage. No harm done, the older boys resume the battle. Fourteen keeps fending off the bean pole eleven-year-old with a pillow.

Keon is barely two inches shorter than Fourteen, but the older boy has the weight. Fourteen does not press his advantage. He is in a happy now, problems shucked free, letting loose. There is always something unspoken-erotic about boys wrestling, at least there is for Fourteen. Jeremy-Shane grapples, admittedly, being a matter of differing perspectives. Shane simply sharing a bro-moment, Jeremy stealing bases. Motives never merged, worst luck for Jeremy Gates in the innocent before.

Keon is underwear-model cute as he tries to straddle Fourteen’s hips. Dan Gordon was only twelve. Fourteen remembers his righteous disgust. Perv a little kid? Levi was (mostly) playful about the young Michigan boy. To be sure, from seven decades on, several years was nothing to the old man. It seemed so pedophile-pervy to Fourteen, at the time. Dan and Fourteen, a two-year chasm Fourteen could not imaginatively leap. He had been too fresh on the road at that point, too interested in what a man might teach him (seventeen or seventy).

Keon’s eleven-year-old endocrine system is still drafting the necessary hormone-memes, probably post dating them to next Christmas. Fourteen’s near-fifteen endocrine response is signalling a distressingly Levi-like, fuck that small detail impulse. Wrestling Keon, Fourteen’s cock is perking a little evil. The boy on his hips is sort of Fourteen-on-Levi sexy. Vondell scales the bunk bed to cock block Fourteen’s visceral reaction to the boy-grind (good thing).

“You should call the State.” Ruby-Leigh is telling her father father-in-law. They talk like Fourteen cannot hear them, but the bathroom is right there off the great room. “This can't go on.”

“It's not his fault.”

“I'm not saying it's his fault. I'm just saying you didn't sign up for this.”

“He's no trouble. The boys like him well enough, he gets on with Angela, makes a good sourdough.” Fourteen could open the door, just walk out into the middle of this. They have to know he is listening.

“He's not ours.”

“The snow has been bad.” This has been Malcolm’s excuse for six weeks. It took a private word with Roman and Samuel to get their cooperation. Roman was skeptical, thought delay would make the Amber Alert crisis worse. Samuel Faulkner cursed under his breath, then backed Malcolm.

“The snow’s been bad.” Ruby-Leigh sings it out. “Two winters we’ve lived out here, snow’s never been bad this long. There are things we need. Boys need a chance to get out.” She returns to the main. Argument, “You should call the State.”

“Okay,” Malcolm capitulates. “When the road is open.”

Fourteen picks up after himself at the sink, scatters some sawdust over the fresh deposit in the toilet. He will take the pail out later. When the road is open. Fourteen looks at his shaggy hair in the mirror. It is getting back to where it was when … but that was August in the Ohio before. This is a timeless Arizona now. He can hear the door open onto the noise of Keon and Vondell in the courtyard. There is the signature thump of Malcolm moving back to his sanctuary.

Fourteen tries to be less trouble. He practices being in Malcolm’s house without leaving any clues that he had been there. He takes a book from Malcolm’s shelf, puts it back exactly so. Fourteen never turns on the TV or sits at the kitchen table while Ruby-Leigh browbeats her boys about their homeschool portfolios. Fourteen never asks for seconds at the King dinner table. He never asks Malcolm and Ruby-Leigh for anything. Ruby-Leigh never had a teenager, Malcolm forgot whatever he knew, so it does not occur to them that there might be anything he needs. When he needs clothes, he goes back to the shelves in the storage barn. He leaves his outgrown clothes carefully folded on the shelves. Something for the brothers, perhaps.

He is glad that they do not know his birthday is next week. When the road is open, is his only birthday wish. Pack up the Christmas leftovers and give them to the poor. Fourteen tried to walk out of the Pueblo by himself. Small mercy that the Kings excluded him from their morning Christmas cheer. There was a tree. Of course there was a tree of sorts. Fourteen tried to be oblivious to it. It was a different sort of winter weekend than the one with Isaak Dougherty. Only, Fourteen was the tag-a-long at the family celebration once again.

I must have blocked it out completely. How could I do that? Too easy to answer that. Life was spartan in the Pueblo. However Ruby-Leigh might celebrate Christmas in the Bronx, the Pueblo did not traffic in conspicuous consumption. Small mercies for Jeremy Gates. Christmas was not here, south of the Grand Canyon. Christmas was mom and dad in Ohio. The days just keep piling into months, Fourteen thinks. What are they doing at home? What is it like without me? Fourteen does not think that. The lonely boy cannot think that. Only, Fourteen cannot stop feeling that when he sees the Montreal’s and the King’s together.

“Teach me how to climb.” Fourteen demanded.

“I got you something.” Keon replied hesitantly when Fourteen was brought back to the day after Christmas.

“I got you something too!” Vondell chimes in.

The brothers sit beside each other, as if they have been waiting for him all this long depressing time. Little virtue-sacks Fourteen recognizes from beneath the Christmas tree. Hand decorated present-pouches for the occasion. Remy would do that. It is a painful thought.

Fourteen takes the biggest off his pillow. “That’s mine!” Vondell points out. Disney Pixar car, “That’s Lightning McQueen.” Fourteen knows he should smile, say thanks. This regift touches-hurts him.

“Thanks, Vondell. It is sweet. Should we put him with your other cars, so he doesn’t get lonely?” That earns Fourteen a grateful smile. “Take him out for a spin, just in case I forget.” The little boy nods his head.

Keon gifts him a Moleskin and three pencils. “I don’t know. You can do your drawings in it.”

This is something else Keon does better than Fourteen. He sits beside the boy. “That is cool Keon, but how about we trade these for some climbing lessons?” Keon would do that for nothing, but he grins agreement. Fourteen lets the softness of that memory shroud Ruby-Leigh’s sharp tongue. The long weeks (don’t think months) are not his fault.

Malcolm King is at the window, watching his family at the table. The temperature is inching toward 50 degrees and the boys are coltish-frisky with a soccer ball. He hears the boy behind him. “Take a walk with me. I need your muscles.”

Keon would ditch his mother’s lessons. Ruby-Leigh would let him for the extra time with Vondell. Malcolm will have none of that. He needs the time with Levi’s problem. He does his best to play the ball with Vondell, while Fourteen finds his well used orange hoodie. It is curious how the boy can open to Keon, then draw it all away when he turns to Malcolm or the others. He shrouds his tangerine, buries it in the waiting. Always arm’s length, this boy. Trust issues, Malcolm concludes.

The this ‘n that of the Pueblo is not a Levi Fisher all-in-order. Everything in place in the Luxor Winnebago reflection of Levi’s life. In the Pueblo, everything is, well, somewhere someone left it. Levi taught Fourteen how to make an old man orgasm, and how to pick up his clothes. This hippy-dippy compound is a hoarder's paradise. Less is more and garbage is anathema (Malcolm’s word). So nothing is garbage. Everything might repurpose (if it does not rust or rot).

They walk in silent mistrust, at an old man’s limping pace until Malcolm brings them to a flatbed trailer piled with never-to-be-wasted scraps of milled lumber. Fourteen’s face registers his surprise. “I’ve been here a long time, boy.” The old man flips back a threadbare tarp and sits heavily on the bed. “I had a Hemi back when we started. Such an oily pig, but very useful. There was lots to bring out.” Fourteen’s mouth opens as if to speak. “Yeah, I know, the road. You had to go slow, I can tell you.” Malcolm slaps the weathered boards, affectionately, or to suggest Fourteen join him on the trailer.

Men like Fourteen. Jeremy Gates used to wonder-hope that would be true. Will I be hot and dateable? Jeremy Gates worried. Beware of what you wish for, his mother used to say. His gaydar is poorly developed. Fourteen keeps his distance. Malcolm King seems asexual-old, prostate-uncomfortable like Jeremy Gates’ grandfathers. Men like Fourteen.

Fourteen is not inclined to share a seat with Malcolm, so they talk like this. “You want to go, I know.” The boy is looking less The Morman as he stands stork-like on one foot. The other rests heal against the worn denim of his 501s. Levi’s, Fourteen is aware of the irony. The Timberlands on his feet are barely worn. The boy meets his eyes, then lets them be drawn to pyramid of melting adobe. Everything Levi Fisher said about this boy was a lie. But what was the truth?

You want to go, who doesn’t know? Fourteen patient-practices his breathing.

“How did you come to be with Levi?” Malcolm continues on impatiently with his next question. “Why did you stay with him?”

Fourteen would like to say, Because I’m stupid.  He was duped into believing the antique silver threat of the promise-ring-end (still) soldered to his neck. He would like to believe he was easily seduced by the high-tech watch and his Generation Z naive faith that, there’s a Bluetooth app for that. Levi Fisher and Fourteen were friended by the network. “Like I said, he was sick and needed my help.”

Malcolm King would like to say, But you are Jeremy Gates. He was duped by the lie. Seduced by his sense of honour. Levi staunched the red flow, shepherded Malcolm to the dustoff. Malcolm could do no less. Only, he cannot say Jeremy Gates, Amber Alert, because then he knows. If he knows the long-reach-arm of the law will know, then Malcolm King is truly fucked. Before this fugitive is found, Malcolm has to know. “Is it safe?”

Fourteen is too young to understand that reference. He hardly hears the muttered phrase. “I took care of Levi. I hope he is okay.” Fourteen plants both boots firmly on the ground. Hands thrust down the jean pockets. “Why haven’t you heard from him?” Bright eyes drop to the stretch of lies between them. “I want to know if he made it … back.”

That was settled weeks ago with Levi’s prompt email. That was settled the moment Angela Montreal distributed devices to their waiting owners first trip back to town. Levi Fisher kept faith with this boy, even if he betrayed his comrade. “I’m sure he made it.” Malcolm grudgingly responds. The (broken) satellite TV connection made that clear. Levi’s Vietnam ending makes the witching hour news just as the amber alerts are stuttering to a ticker tape footnote. National attention has switched its macabre gaze to the next American tragedy. Jeremy Gates has had his fifteen minutes of fame. Little wonder why Malcolm King turned his back on America. But why did you stay with him? The question seems unanswered.

“Dr. Fisher,” Malcolm continues with a different path. “People are confusing. You see that in the news, you see it in your life, your family.” Malcolm reaches down and finds a pebble. He juggles it to hide his nervous fingers. “We like to call them good, or bad. It is not that simple, is it?”

“No,” Fourteen responds.

Why did you stay with him, and how does that help me? Help me, Jeremy Gates. The boy’s eyes are blinking slow at the rock in Malcolm’s hands. His thoughts follow his own paths. Who are you? Malcolm asks in an existential sort of way.

“You know Franklin?” Malcolm asks, the whole conversation is tied together by some Dark Matter fifth-force Fourteen cannot perceive. He nods at Malcolm. The brothers mention Bronx-Franklin-dad like the dead man is some landmark in their lives. Dad said, dad did, dad thinks. Nothing Jeremy Gates would not slip in when he was tweening. That was life in his before. Now, of course, a Levi thinks, Levi said slips through, but Fourteen and Jeremy Gates think they are strangers.

“Keon’s father,” Fourteen voices.

“I mean,” Malcolm clears his throat. “You know about my son?” Another nod from Fourteen.

“Franklin was a punk at your age, dangerous. School yard drug dealer, gang banger. Grew into a bad man.” The words are flat. Malcolm has his firewall shielding him from the furnace.

“Did you love him? After all he did?” Fourteen imagines not. Ruby-Leigh, always dismissive of The Morman, doubts Malcolm cared in her querulous way. It was not fair, she said of Malcolm stepping away. Typical adult, tapping out on people, so familiar to Fourteen.

“Of course I loved him.” The old man’s voice is waspish.

Malcolm remembers. He was not going to cling to a relationship with Franklin. Franklin was going to die. Malcolm recalls their last emotion-charged exchange. I think you’re going to overdose, or someone’s going to kill you, or you’re going to kill someone. Franklin scoffed at that, called his father a weak old man. Nothing was going to change between them. So Malcom prepared himself emotionally. He left the East Coast and went somewhere he could forget the prodigal son. He knew he was not weak. He just never talked about the trials in his life. “My son Franklin was a drug dealer, but he was a good man to his sons. When I see the boys, I remember that. Maybe he was a better father than I was.”

What does this gentle, pampered fourteen year old boy know of life? Why is Malcolm trying to explain life to this middle class snowflake? “People hurt the ones they love when they try to protect themselves.” It wasn’t all my fault. “Guilt is a strong thing.” Malcolm owns how Franklin turned out. It just happened, though. Franklin took up with sons of his old neighborhood friends. Friends who took wrong paths themselves. Malcolm excuses himself for that neglect.

This boy with his easy life. People are searching for him. Malcolm has to wonder if it was Keon on the run, would the amber alerts be out there? The boy probably had a helicopter mom at home dropping hellfire on the FBI. “My wife and I worked hard, had little time to parent.” Malcolm suddenly adds, defensively.

“My parents both work. Mom’s a pharmacist, so she works all night, sometimes. I was always in daycare or at Troy’s house.” Fourteen turns away, shaken by the memories. It’s never a good idea to talk about home. Standing here is dangerous. This meandering conversation is a minefield.

“Good people make mistakes. You liked Levi?”

Fourteen considers the question as he might if he was walking through that field of Claymores. Sure he did, and since he is Kale Euller to this man,  the stubborn nephew who went and ran away from home, just to take care of his beloved grand uncle. It follows that he has to like Levi.

Malcolm holds up the stone in his hand. “And David put his hand in his bag, and took thence a stone, and slang it, and smote the Philistine in his forehead, that the stone sank into his forehead; and he fell upon his face to the earth.” Fourteen blinks.

“King David,” Malcolm explains. He is looking at the stone as if it was a new thing. “As a young boy, he did this fine thing. He killed Goliath and saved everyone.” He nods thoughtfully at the boy, as if Fourteen understands his reference. “You have to see Levi like that. Like I do.”

“Like how?” The different army medals he found in the army medical bag seem somehow connected to the old man’s ramblings.

“Don’t you see how Levi is like old King David?” Fourteen frowns and his head shakes imperceptibly.

Malcolm goes on to say that Levi was like King David, young and upright in the eyes of God. He grew into a different man. Old King David lusted after another man's wife and sent that man to his death just so he could have her. “Don’t you kids study the bible anymore?”

“Did Franklin?”

Malcolm lets this pass. Seventeen years, the nights are long. Old men don’t sleep well. TV is not the only way to pass the time. He considers his words. “Then it happened one evening that David arose from his bed and walked on the roof of the king’s house. And from the roof he saw a woman bathing, and the woman was very beautiful to behold. So David sent and inquired about the woman. And someone said, “Is this not Bathsheba, the daughter of Eliam, the wife of Uriah the Hittite?”

Fourteen is unimpressed, but realizes Malcolm recites something like his Grandpa Herbert does in church. Malcolm considers the sad state of America’s moral roots. “You don’t know your bible? Keep anything in that head of yours?”

Fourteen shrugs. Suddenly he is singing in a high sweet tenor.

“I've known this boy since I was really small

We grow up hand in hand

But now he's grown his beauty shows

Can I keep him as my friend?

Friendship works in mysterious ways

It looks a lot like a thief in chains

But I want both from this beautiful boy

But are these just growing pains?

Fourteen stops, embarrassed. Malcolm King will not know he changed the words from she to he. “Bailey McConnell.” As if this will unpuzzle the old man. Fourteen blushes. He watched the YouTube video endlessly when he was twelve. “So yeah, I memorize stuff too.”

“King David does a selfish thing. He sends Bathsheba’s husband off to die.”

“Okay, that’s harsh ….” Fourteen sniffs.

“People change.” Malcolm says. “Time passes, people change. It doesn't change the young man standing with the slingshot facing down the Giant. Levi was young David when I knew him.”

“On account of what he did in Vietnam?”

“You know Purple Hearts?”

“While Levi was in the hospital, I found this doctor bag. Full of old stuff, maybe from when he was in Vietnam. Some medals, one was purple I think.” Dr. Fisher’S bag reminds Fourteen of the Dr-Evil-side of Levi Fisher. Sharp scalpels, cold-selfish before reasons for hurting people now. Everybody seems to have a clean before. Cute naked-statue poses, the image comes to Fourteen, Statue of David, Levi when he was hot. “Levi never talked about it much.”

“I got one for this leg.” Malcolm slaps the prosthetic. “Most of us don’t talk about those times. Got to to just live that sort of thing to understand.” Malcolm sees what he has been groping for with this conversation. “Levi had a medal ….”

“There were lots.”

Malcom says, “I didn't know Levi that well in Vietnam. I wasn't there that long. He seemed the earnest type. He was one of those fresh-faced white boys.” He pauses significantly, as if to say like you, then continues on. “Who would do some damn fool thing like jump a bus to Mississippi, get killed by some cracker cop, and then they find his body burned in some Bayou. Young David, see?”

“The good and the bad in people.” The way something in their before twisted them so much they have to hurt other people in the after. Fourteen’s thoughts touch on Levi. The bomb was a fake, the scalpel was not. The rest of it ….

“So you liked Levi did you?” Malcolm asks again.

“I liked him,” Fourteen repeats softly.

Jeremy Gates, fourteen, amber-alert-looked-for. Malcolm King cannot bring the conversation to where it needs to end. Is this boy a victim? Is he some thoughtless runaway who latched onto a sick old man? Did good-hearted Levi just needed to untangle himself from an accidental legal complication?

Malcolm’s family, the whole Pueblo, needs this teenager to respect their privacy. What is your real story? Malcolm has to ask. He needs to know, but maybe it is better not knowing. Knowing means he becomes part of it and cannot plead ignorance when it all comes out. What is your story? He has to ask, because he cannot run any further from his own past.

“What is with the name Fourteen? Why did Levi call you that nickname?”

“I was Fourteen before I met Levi.” He was Fourteen in the barn. He was fourteen when Jeremy Gates YouTube-crushed on a young British singer-songwriter, stole the boy’s heart-words for his own.

Fourteen eyes the old man on the flatbed trailer. The old man is just staring at him. Malcolm looks like he is not sold on the Fisher-Grand-nephew thing. What does he want me to understand? Why are we talking about Levi and how he changed?d “Levi saved my life,” Fourteen reassures Malcolm King.

“We have that in common,” Malcolm agrees. “Let’s be straight.”

Fourteen is jackrabbiting a bit at this. Being straight is not his experience since the stormy August night. Malcolm King is struggling with something. Fourteen turns and walks toward the adobe bricks, kicks a corner just to see it crumble. Now he is six feet farther from the old man, six feet safer.

“There are amber alerts out on you Jeremy Gates. People are looking for you.”

That sets the pulse racing. The name, the truth, the lost hope, but the whole Levi-King-David bible lesson leaves Fourteen in a fog. “They should be.” Fourteen turns on Malcolm King. “How long have you known?”

“Long time.”

“Long time.” Fourteen echoes. “Long time, I’ve been here.” The accusation-automatic-angry, bobcat-angry but cloaked in jackrabbit-caution. “Christmas?” He chokes out. His hands are in his pants to stop them from trembling.

“Sure,” Malcolm concedes. He massages the thigh above his prosthetic.

“So why the Fuck ….”  Jeremy Gates will not finish that question. So obvious, Jeremy Gates knew the answer to this question when he stood by the stream, hand on Levi’s Beretta Nano, letting the old man lure him back into Bollinger. You selfish old men. All you fucking selfish men. This just whispers-angry-resigned in his head. “So you are out here to fuck me over.” He shakes his head slowly at the inevitable now.

“I brought you out here to talk straight.” Malcolm wants to stand. The cold is seeping into his bones. He keeps still. Standing down this boy, all High Noon, just makes this worse.

Talk straight, lay on the bad news. It is so predictable now. Fourteen knows the answer, needs to hear it. “Why didn’t you just drive me home?” He cannot do this without a crack in his voice-heart. The old man on the trailer looks John-stony at him, ready to pull out the Saturday-Night-Special answer. The old face reminds Fourteen of Levi. At least Levi managed stunned-chagrined as he pulled the reluctant gun free. Levi had Mỹ Sơn Temple on his mind. Nguyen Huu Tuan was poltergeist-guilting him West, Far East. What ghosts are driving you, old man? “So you want to fuck me too?”

Malcolm lets the cursing slide. “Well Fourteen,” the nickname comes convenient, “People have their reasons to get away. I don’t know your story, except someone wants you back. You’re running away from your life is maybe your business.” Malcolm has to pause. The boy cannot know his story. The need to distance himself from Franklin’s self-destruction. The boy might guess, hear things from the brothers, have heard things from Levi Fisher. “My experience is that you are never quit of the things you run from. Levi knew that, for sure.” Malcolm takes a frustrated breath. “You think we are going to fuck you up? Boy, you road in here to fuck me up. Fuck up my family, too.”

Fourteen does not see this. He shakes his head, forms fresh words.

“My business is my business. I like it here just fine. I have my family to raise. Your amber-alert-ass should not be not my problem.” Malcolm pauses to consider. “I do owe Levi Fisher. You said you owe Levi too.”

Pass that by, “I would never have stopped Levi. I know you thought you were just helping. I won’t talk about your family, being out here if that is important to you.”

Malcolm does stand up. He shakes his head. “You are never quit of the things you run from. You think these people looking for you won’t want to know where you ran to, who you ran with? I know liars, Fourteen. You are a piss-poor liar, boy.”

“Okay Boomer,” Fourteen spits-bitter. “What now?”

“I’m thinking on it.” Malcolm answers quiet. “We can stop dancing around this, you and me. Just be clear, you don’t ride out of here, till I say so, till my mind is clear.” Fourteen stares back with gritted teeth. Malcolm King as much as tells him he is a prisoner still. Damn Levi for giving him a shred of hope.

“I’ll walk out.”

“You don’t think I see you planning?” Malcolm smiles-superior. “I hold it to be the inalienable right of anybody to go to hell in his own way. You know Robert Frost?”

“I don’t know,” he replies, “two roads diverged in a yellow wood.” Grade five, or something. 

“That is the way of the Pueblo. Leave everybody alone. Let everybody else do what they want. Just stay out of everybody else's hair. That is the right of it. When you have a mind, you take that walk out into the desert again. Follow the road not taken, do whatever. America is not that big. You’ll bump into someone, something … eventually.”

Fourteen hates the smug-knowing in Malcolm’s droopy eyes. The old man knows he will not try a winter trek, not yet. What does the old man hope? That Jeremy Gates will go native, drink the kool aid and build his own mud hut? All the watchful eyes here. Fourteen knows that for all the nice talk, he is never far from an easy Saturday-Night-Special solution. That is always somewhere in the cards Jeremy Gates shuffles and deals out. Malcolm starts the walk back to the Pueblo.

“You heard from Levi, didn’t you.” Fourteen stares at the old man’s back.

Malcolm stops short, does not turn around. “The fancy necklace around your neck is not a bomb. You know why he would say that?” Malcolm shakes his head. “Levi Fisher is dead.” Malcolm keeps on walking. It does not seem to matter what Fourteen does.

Fourteen sits on the flatbed trailer, just another discarded thing waiting for a new purpose. His heart hurts. Maybe it is a heart attack. Can a fifteen-year old have a heart attack? He starts crying, it hurts that bad. He lifts his feet onto the trailer and curls over his knees. It is what he wanted, he reminds himself bleakly.  So much Jeremy Gates might cry for, but for now, Bathsheba’s hot-tears are for old King David.