Hide 1: Untethered Read online

  Chapter 2

  HAD TO MOVE TO the back seat to lay down … not sure how long I’ve been here. It feels like forever. It’s so hot my skin itches but I don’t want to move. It’ll only bring more pain.

  The engine sputters and sounds like a dying bull and I can feel the car start to slow.

  “Awwwww, for Pete’s sake, come on you piece of … not now! Hey, where’d he come from? Idiot. Can’t be too smart if he’s out here,” Dad says to himself. As far as he knows, I’m still a heap of sleeping mess.

  The car comes to a jerky stop. I can’t tell if Dad’s braking or if his shitty car is finally dying.

  Dad, apparently not concerned about the car, fixates on something outside. I sit up just enough to get a look at what he’s checking out but it’s too bright outside and all I see is some blinding, sun-warped shape coming toward us. My vision is a bit blurry from waking up and the windows are layered with dust, except for a patch of window that Dad must have wipered clean. Can’t really tell where we are.

  Then the passenger door opens and I duck down. Great. Dad’s giving someone a ride.

  A wave of heat stings my eyes. I wipe my mouth; it’s wet, full of drool. And there’s a nice little pool of spit and blood on the back seat where my head was. How long was I out? How long has Dad been driving? And why would anyone pick up a hitchhiker?

  Thanks for caring, Dad !

  There’s no justice for the backseat. Not if you’re bleeding. Not if you’re a kid. He’d rather be with a stranger than be alone with his beat-up and passed-out son. It must be guilt. Who wants to be alone with the nightmare he let happen?

  Dad says to the guy, “Hey, buddy. Where in the world do you think you’re going? You know people die out here?”

  From way back here I can’t hear the stranger’s answer.

  “I’m telling you the car’s dead.” Dad listens. “Alright, alright, I’ll try it.” Dad keys the engine and it turns over. “Well, look at that! You’ve got the Midas touch. Jump in, Buddy, while she’s still running. I can’t bear to think I left anyone to die.” Except for me that is.

  The door slams shut and the vibration makes me spasm in pain again. Dad continues, “I’m Billy Roe … got a name?”

  “John Bruce,” the stranger replies. His voice sounds dry.

  “Well, John, it’s your …”

  “John Bruce,” he repeats as if Dad didn’t hear his last name.

  “Okay. Um … John Bruce then.” Dad sits up in his seat, lays on the gas and we’re moving again. “Me and my buddy, Ike, hitchhiked through this desert once. It was so damn hot! Kinda like today, but worse. Ike, he got blisters on his ears and nose. I guess we were just stupid-ass kids. Now that was a bad situation. Mark my words, the desert’ll kill you.”

  The desert. I knew it felt hotter. I lean closer to try and hear the stranger.

  “Yes, it is good you came along, Billy Roe,” he says.

  Dad laughs, “Billy. Just call me Billy. The only person calling me Billy Roe is that bitch at the unemployment office.”

  The stranger doesn’t laugh.

  I can see the top of the stranger’s head from my position. He turns toward Dad, his head barely making it above the headrest. A red baseball cap covers up what could be dark brown or black hair. Sunglasses sit loosely on his nose. They seem so big on him, or maybe it’s something with his head.

  “Your name is Billy Roe, is it not?” He asks. It’s funny how he speaks. Like he just stepped out of some old movie where the characters talk all proper.

  “Yup. That’s my name.” Dad clears his throat, yet again. “So, John, uh Bruce, where’re you headed?”

  “A-ri-zona.” The stranger says as if sounding out the word for the first time.

  “Alright, well, we’re heading that way it looks like. I’ll take you as far as I—”

  “—To a little town in A-ri-zona. I think you would like it, Billy Roe.”

  Dad glances at him. He must hear it too. The guy’s voice doesn’t sound right. I had a friend with a cleft palate who sounded kind of like this guy. What was that kid’s name? Damn, he was my good friend too. My fucked-up memory. Can’t I even remember a friend’s name? It’s like someone pulled a magnet over my hard drive.

  John Bruce tilts his head, “If you drive me, I would greatly appreciate it. It is quite hot in the desert.” Air rushes out after every other word, like he's got a leak.

  What the hell’s making him talk that way? I got to know so I peek over the front seat. He’s turned the other way and I can’t get a good look at this face. But I can see that his hair is definitely black and skin is incredibly pale. Paler than Mom, who is practically as white as a bed sheet. Another thing about his skin … it’s weird because he doesn’t seem fat but he’s got that turkey gizzard thing, the extra skin under his chin. But nothing is as odd as his head, which seems so small compared to those huge sunglasses. It makes me want to knock them off his face.

  Curious, I inch further up.

  “What happened to you, Keegan Roe?” the stranger says without turning.

  Shit! “Uh … ” Did he catch me looking? “What?” The cotton in my nose makes me sound like I have a cold. I sit up and immediately the car feels like it’s spinning. I drop one hand to the seat to steady myself. Then hold my stomach with the other. Please don’t puke.

  “He lives! Hey, Pal, we picked up a weary traveler. John Bruce.”

  “Hey,” I manage, “How did you know my name?”

  Dad says, “Yeah, did I--”

  “Billy Roe told me.” John Bruce tilts his head from one side to the other. Strange, I don’t remember Dad saying my name but I’ve given up on my memory as a place to hold facts.

  Dad doesn’t argue. Then John Bruce does a slight turn toward me and I see his eye through the side of those oversized sunglasses for a split second. It catches the light in some bizarre way. “Your face, what happened to your face, Keegan Roe?”

  None of your business, I want to say. “I … fell.” I bet Dad’s crappy fix makes me look all trauma victim with the bandages.

  The stranger shifts in his seat. Silence.

  I poke my loose tooth with my tongue as I stare at the back of his undersized head.

  The stranger glances at Dad.

  Dad finally, “Oh no, it wasn’t me,” he says, “Keeg’s just clumsy is all. Right, son?”

  “Uh …” I play with the idea of making Dad squirm. He deserves it. “I guess.”

  Dad clears his throat again. “So. Are we close to this town of yours, John Bruce?”

  “Not far. It is under two hours from this location.” He’s got a funny way of saying things. Like a pilot talking to passengers he doesn’t want to scare.

  “I don’t know, two hours.” Dad looks at me in the rearview mirror. “What do you say, Keeg? Should we help the man out?”

  Hell no! my gut yells. But nobody ever listens to my gut. Even I’ve gotten used to ignoring it. And Dad’s grin makes it clear he’s going to do it no matter what I say. He must enjoy watching me sit helplessly on the sidelines because he knows I’ve never been allowed to say no in our home. “I don’t think … whatever.” Blood collects in my mouth from the tooth. I swallow it.

  “There you go, you hear that Mr. Bruce? Keegan says we’re going to help you out.”

  “Thank you. You are kind,” he says. Yeah, thank you for choosing Air Psycho.

  It doesn’t matter where we go. Dad never has a plan. It’s the one thing about Dad that makes me feel like trouble is waiting right around the corner. The Billy Roe way; out of one bad situation, into another. Jump in a car and start driving. Damn using your head, right Dad? Then pick up a stranger in the middle of the desert. Why? Because he can’t stand to see someone in trouble? That’s bullshit. What about me? I was in trouble. Why’d he wait so long to help me?

  Anger boils from the bottom of my feet to the top of my head. I want to reach over the seat and steer the car off the road
into some telephone pole. Instead, I’m forced to watch Dad make real plans with a complete stranger while his son sits like road kill just two feet away.

  Definitely no justice for the back seat.

  I look up at the stranger ... and he’s looking right at me. There it is, his whole face at last. There’s no reason for his weird speech. No deformed lips. Nothing. My arms start tingling and my neck itches; I’m officially creeped out. “I have to take a piss,” I say and look away.

  Dad grunts to let me know he heard me but I can tell it’s not going to be any time soon. God forbid I should slow down bringing the stranger home.

  I look out the open window and try to remember how I got here. I can feel the last day all over my body. In bruises. In a broken nose. In a loose tooth I can’t quite get out of the way of my tongue. The aches eventually calm …