Things You Need Page 11

  My scalp prickled with unease. My heart pounded the way anyone’s does when they jerk awake at the wheel. I nearly slammed on the brakes when, glancing out the window to see which street I’d turned onto, I saw the Texas Instruments 8010 sitting on the passenger seat. For some reason, I’d lugged it back out to the minivan for my Wednesday night scavenging.

  Or, more disturbing: I’d never taken it out of the minivan at all. Which made me think maybe all my blurry memories of the past week were nothing more than echoes of other weeks playing themselves over in a loop. Maybe I’d never left the minivan at all, never stopped driving, and had been driving ever since.

  I tried to remember what I’d eaten last night for dinner.

  Did I have luck in collecting bottles and cans on Monday? What road had I walked? Had anything unusual happened at the Mobilmart the last week?

  Nothing. And the kicker? I had no idea what talk shows I’d watched all week, either.

  I felt close to losing it, then. Close to slamming my foot on the gas and sending my minivan careening down the street into whatever came by, be it another car, truck, or kid on a tricycle. Anything to snap the colorless, unbroken stream my life had become.

  ***

  In all the time before I started finding these things, I never once allowed myself to wonder why my life had fallen apart, never let myself ponder where things had first gone wrong. I had repressed those questions, too scared of facing the answers, and where those answers would lead.

  Even though that was what I needed the most.

  ***

  A sudden urge tugged at my brain, heart, and soul. I pulled over to the curb, braked and parked the minivan. The pile of garbage before a yellow Concord with black trim had something I needed. Slowly, feeling distant and far away, I got out and stood before the refuse piled on the curb and saw what I needed. Two things, actually.

  One: A wooden crate full of smashed vintage soda bottles, circa 1960s. Shards of Coke, Dr. Pepper, Pepsi bottles and the emerald green bits of a few 7UP bottles. Two: The wreckage of a homemade, cheap plywood comic book rack, littered with torn and crumpled comic books, all the classics: Batman, The Astounding X-men, Superman and ROM: Space Knight, shredded into ruin.

  I stared, my face rigid, when a brisk, non-confrontational but stiff voice asked, “Can I help you?”

  I glanced up and saw a middle-aged man wearing a white-dress shirt and tan khakis, easily upper-middle class, probably disturbed in the middle of dinner by me pulling up to his curb. Sharp, clear blue eyes weighed me, his stance casual, but poised and wary, regardless.

  I opened my mouth but remembered the scavenger I’d encountered on my curb years ago, realizing this man wouldn’t see the broken soda bottles and destroyed comics. He couldn’t see them. Only I could.

  Because I needed them.

  I swallowed thickly, cast my eyes down and whispered, “No, I’m fine.” Got back into my minivan and pulled away from the curb as quickly as possible while retaining some shred of dignity.

  I waited until nightfall, driving and turning down an endless variation of streets with no names until I somehow returned and collected those smashed bottles, destroyed comic book rack, and ruined comic books.

  Because they were what I needed.

  ***

  When I was only twelve my alcoholic father came home from another Saturday night with the boys, drunk and raving about the usual: Liberal hippy democrats ruining the government. Blacks, Hispanics, and welfare ruining the economy. How his shrewish, spineless hag of a wife undercut his God-given right to run the household by letting his faggotty son read comic books and write stupid stories and collect those stupid soda bottles.

  The routine Saturday-night run-through. It usually ended with Mom reluctantly letting Dad man-handle her into the bedroom to keep his hands off me. It usually worked well enough.

  But not that night.

  She said something different. I never discovered what because she packed her bags and disappeared for good the next day. Whatever it was broke the routine because I heard Dad roar. Heard the smack of a calloused hand on flesh. Mom screamed. Then his heavy Timberlands pounded their way to my room. I was, as usual, sitting on the bed writing in a black and white marble notebook, surrounded also by several issues of Spider-man, Superman, and The Incredible Hulk.

  He kicked my door in so hard it slammed against the opposite wall. Without a word he hauled back and decked me with a hay-maker I can still feel ringing in my jaw when I’m tired or stressed.

  I sprawled onto the floor, head spinning, bleeding from my mouth and nose, then everything dissolved into a medley of pain, curses and punches, a few kicks. How I came out of it without broken ribs I’ll never know.

  I don’t remember much, save two devastating sights which came back to me the instant I saw those broken soda bottles and ruined comic books lying on the curb. At the height of his rage Dad attacked my flimsy, cheap comic book rack—made by him in a moment of kindness, from lumber mill castoffs—and ripped the comics from their plywood slots, tearing and crumpling their pages, screaming and cursing. Then he snapped each shelf and tore the whole thing from the wall.

  Afterward, the coup de grace. He grabbed my Louisville Slugger (which he’d bought for my tenth birthday despite knowing I hated sports) from where it leaned against the wall. He wound up and in one swing cleared my knick-knack shelf of those carefully collected, cleaned and arranged vintage soda bottles. Their shattering sounded as shrill cries in my ears.

  I passed out to the sight of Dad swinging up and down, pounding those broken bottles into dust. The torn pages of my comic books fluttered around us, dying butterflies of my youth.

  ***

  My father abused me off and on in similar escapades until I fled to college, leaving behind a man who eventually got knifed to death in a drunken bar fight. I want to say he only abused me physically and emotionally, but that would be a lie.

  ***

  I can’t defend what happened between Emily and me. But the pattern is clear now, isn’t it? Two scarred souls who tried—despite the consequences—to heal each other of their festering wounds. And of course I don’t know for sure because she kept her plans secret, but I think Emily killed herself less because of shame but more because she feared her father’s jealous reaction if he discovered her secret.

  How do I know she wasn’t ashamed of us?

  Why else would she address her suicide letter to me?

  ***

  I’m still driving. I’ve found lots more things since the broken soda bottles and ruined comic books. A box of my G. I. Joe action figures Dad threw away when I turned nine because I was “too old for baby toys. Boys don’t play with dolls.” Also, some of my stuffed animals. One of them my beloved Pound Puppy, which Dad had insisted on throwing out when I’d turned five, because “how can you stop wettin the bed when you act like a damn baby?”

  Lately I’ve been finding my old black and white marble composition notebooks here and there. I haven’t looked in them (afraid to see what I wrote years ago), just piled them in my minivan with all the other things I’ve found.

  See, I don’t collect scrap metal anymore. I collect things I need. I drive all the time, now. I have no memories of stopping for food or gas, or ever going home or back to work at the Mobilmart. It’s always Wednesday night. I’m always turning down yet another street I don’t recognize, searching for what I need and while I keep finding things, I haven’t yet found what I need the most.

  A dog-eared copy of The Illustrated Man.

  The one I gave to Emily, with an inscription which is dreadfully ironic now: Live Forever! I think I’ll be driving around forever until I find what I so desperately needed and should’ve accepted the first time around. Maybe if I had, I wouldn’t still be driving.

  7.

  I laid the last page down on the pile strewn at my feet. I slumped where I sat next to the word processor—a Texas Instruments 8010—and covered my face with my hands. The instant darknes
s made me sleepy.

  So tired.

  Of everything. My job. My life. Driving from school to school. Doing my shuck and jive to get kids selling magazines, kids who half the time didn’t give a rat’s ass. Tired of them, tired of the same motels, the same cars so alike I couldn’t remember anything about them, the same old bar whores. I was tired of the whole damn game.

  That’s why I’d bought the .38, of course. I’m sure you saw that coming a mile away. How could I have missed it? It was right in front of my face. Had been for over a year. How many times can you sit in your motel room—or cabin—and cradle the gun you bought for “personal protection” before you get the message, loud and clear?

  Anyway, sitting before a pile of paper spit out by a Texas Instruments word processor, on which was written a story about a guy as lost as me, I was starting to get the message. I had to face why I’d bought the gun. Had to admit why I felt compelled to hold it and stare at it for hours, why I’d been doing so for months now. I was tired of everything. Right then, sitting there cross-legged on the cool, wooden floor, I knew what I needed for me not to be tired anymore.

  needed

  we have

  things you need

  This is nuts, my fading rationality protested. So I’ve got a little lost time between The Motor Lodge and here. So what? And that weird shopkeeper, babbling about things we need or whatever. He set me up for this, sure enough. And the lock on his door must be broken. It was unlocked when I tried to get back in; it’s locked now because it’s broken. The lock is broken, or something in the door-handle is, for sure. And what I saw in the Magic Eight Ball? I’m tired. Hallucinating. And on the camera? Some guy messing around making a low-budget ghost story, and word processors have memories, right? You could type something on them and save it, print it out later. So yeah, this story was already saved and an electrical short or something turned it on, printed it out. That thing on the reel-to-reel was just an old radio show. That’s it, that’s all.

  But where’s my car?

  Why’s it gone?

  “I don’t know,” I rasped. “Someone stole it. Or towed it. Something.”

  Which of course made no sense whatsoever, but you gotta understand, part of me was facing for the first time the reality that I wanted (needed) things to end. In response to the shock of my realization, my brain was flailing to come up with any and all rationalizations to explain my situation.

  make? color? model?

  do you remember anything about the rental?

  was there a rental?

  I licked my lips, brain sluggish. I had no answers. I didn’t want to think about them, or about the blank spot between me holding the .38 and then driving around town. I scrambled for something else to focus on, anything, my mind whirling.

  An idea struck me.

  “The telephone,” I whispered. “I can call the police. 911. Did Patchett give me his number?”

  Odd, huh? I remembered dinner with Mr. Patchett, the English teacher from Clifton Heights High. Remembered how great the food was at The Skylark Diner, but I couldn’t remember much after holding my .38.

  I didn’t think about it, however, as I scrambled to my feet, suddenly energized, digging into my pants pocket for my cell, kicking myself for not thinking of it sooner. I’d call the police, 911, someone, explain how I’d accidentally got locked in this old junk shop, and they could roust the shopkeeper (forgetting, of course, how I never got his name, but figuring in a small town like this everyone knew everyone) or maybe the store’s owner to come get me out.

  I suppose I should’ve expected what came next. I mean, given the circumstances and all the crazy things happening, it was the most logical thing. Still, I felt my heart thump when I tried to swipe-unlock my phone and nothing happened.

  The screen was dead.

  “What the hell? I charged it back at the cabin. Didn’t I?” I grabbed my hair and barely stopped short of pulling it out. “It was charging in the car . . . ”

  what car?

  do you remember?

  “ . . . I know it was!”

  The store phone. The store had to have a phone, right? I stuck my dead phone (it shouldn’t have been dead; I had charged it) back into my pocket and spun on one heel. Powered by a manic desperation, I strode down the aisle toward the sales counter. Of course, there had to be a phone somewhere, and a store phone directory, or at least emergency numbers tacked on a board.

  There it was: I could see it as I neared the counter. An old black phone. Not a rotary, at least, not that old. I reached the counter, grabbed the receiver off the cradle and was already finished punching in 911 and waiting impatiently with the earpiece pressed against my ear before I realized there was no dial tone, no busy signal, no static, nothing.

  All the purpose in me faded, replaced by a dull emptiness. I felt useless, directionless, hopeless. What was the use? There was no point in doing anything, or saying anything, or trying to.

  Something trilled. An electric warble.

  A cell phone.

  An old school cell, by the sound. One of those early low-tech jobs, on which you could only call, text, and maybe play basic games. And sure, yeah—a junk shop these days probably would have a box of old cell phones, or Tracphones or whatever.

  It trilled again.

  I spun away from the desk, scanning the shelves filled with clutter. To my right, somewhere. The row against the wall? Two strides and I was there, and heard the trilling again, several steps down the aisle. About halfway down on the bottom shelf was an old wicker basket full of cell phones. Flip phones, bulky Tracphones, one or two slide-out phones . . .

  One on top lit up and trilled. An iPhone, surprisingly new-looking. Its screen flashed: Unknown Caller. Not wondering even for a second how or why a newer iPhone in a basket of old phones in a thrift store could suddenly power up and receive calls, I grabbed it, swiped my thumb to unlock the screen and put it to my ear. “Hello? Can you hear me? Listen, I don’t know who this is, but you’ve got to . . . ”

  “Please! Omigod, can you help me? I need help! I can’t-I can’t find-Oh, God, I can’t . . . ”

  A PLACE FOR BROKEN AND DISCARDED THINGS

  The sheer size of Save-A-Bunch Furniture impressed Shane Carroll the most, initially. He hadn’t expected it to be so large and sprawling. Also surprising, it was a re-tasked high school, which was unexpected in itself. Such a modestly-sized town as Clifton Heights not only having two in-use schools but also an unused high school on its outskirts. Converting it into Save-A-Bunch also impressed Shane in its utilitarian efficiency.

  It hadn’t taken long, however, for another feeling to impress itself upon him as he and Amanda strolled through its labyrinthine hallways, past recliners, sofas and armoires. He couldn’t name the sensation, exactly. A nagging sense of unease? Discomfiture? An odd displacement which made everything feel slightly out of place?

  He didn’t know what it was. Something about the old school’s halls—now lined with refurbished and used furniture of all kinds—set him slightly off kilter. He didn’t know why. Everything looked clean and orderly. Recliners and sofas neatly pressed against lockers, allowing ample space in the halls for patrons to peruse safely.

  The lobby likewise had impressed Shane. It had been arranged professionally and with meticulous care. A massive cherry wood desk greeted customers upon their entrance, serving as a front counter and customer service area. On it sat a sleek laptop computer, a corporate telephone with extensions, a fax and small copy machine, and two neat piles of various purchase forms. Behind the desk stood two cherry wood bookshelves full of binders, no doubt an inventory of the store’s offerings. No one had been there to meet them, but Shane figured a store this size kept all its workers busy.

  Finishing off the lobby was a waiting area featuring a voluminous brown leather couch, two matching leather recliners facing it, separated by an ornate glass-topped coffee table, scattered with several magazines. All the pieces had price-tags attached to them. A n
ice touch: A ready-to-purchase waiting area.

  All throughout, the ceramic tile floors were swept clean and polished spotless. Walls gleamed with fresh coats of paint, as did the lockers, which impressed Shane, too. Though not in use any longer, the lockers appeared neat and brand new, rather than battered and chipped by time.

  Still, something about the lockers nagged him. Especially the ones with furniture pressed against them. He’d struggled to pin down his feelings as he and Amanda browsed, but the best he could determine was a vague restlessness spawned by a trapped sensation. The furniture wasn’t pressed against the lockers to provide walking room. They kept the lockers closed, keeping something inside them.As if the lockers were apt to open on their own . . . .

  It was a silly notion, to be sure. One he banished from his thoughts almost immediately.

  Almost.

  Because as they rounded corner after corner, Shane become more intrigued with what might be in the lockers. Surely, when the school closed and was then refurbished, every locker couldn’t have been cleaned out completely. What might remain, shut off from the world, coated by layers of dust and time? An old love note, discarded and long forgotten by its author and intended audience? A ball cap? Maybe an outdated textbook, or an empty soda bottle? A box of cigarettes and a lighter?

  Shane’s curiosity mounted when Amanda, without saying anything (no surprise there; she hadn’t said much of anything to him lately) wandered into a classroom filled with end-tables. Compelled by his curiosity (and his nagging unease), Shane sidled up to the row of lockers and casually (glancing around, as if he were sneaking past an Employees Only barrier) triggered the latch. He’d figured it might stick, but to his surprise it clicked smoothly. He pulled the locker open.

  He expected its interior to be cobwebbed and dusty, full of bits and pieces of years gone by: Broken pencils, crumpled paper balls, candy bar wrappers. As the locker door yawned open, however, he saw nothing but a clean, spotless interior. At first glance it appeared empty.