Just North of Nowhere (22 page)

Leading, the old lady duck-marched the family into Karl Dorbler’s Wurst Haus Market. The ninth kid stayed put; sat his butt on the wagon's rear wheel and turned his attention to the sky. Vinnie looked too: a cool blue day.

Three seconds later a sharp call came from inside the store.

The kid waited a too-long moment, waited another, then pushed off with a jerk, scuffed his way to the Wurst Haus door and banged inside. The door whacked shut.

The horse dropped a big one.

“That one's trouble,” Esther said.

Vinnie turned. The restaurant porch was jammed with the Eats' breakfast feed. Twenty-some-odd Sons of Norway clutched forks and knives and gave the empty street the same attention the trip-twenty got during darts' finals.

“Go on,” Vinnie said, “go tend your businesses 'stead of other folks's.”

The crowd began to chew again, then it moved.

Vinnie looked back to the street.

With traffic nominal, he'd have sworn there was nothing unusual about the morning. Except the wagon. Thing sat in front of the Wurst Haus like a hammer-swacked thumb. The horse crapped.

Esther yelled from the doorway. “Vinnie, you look like you're sitting on a wind turd! You gonna eat this piece of free pie, or am I gonna give it to Bunch and put it on your tab?”

“I'm coming,” Vinnie grumbled.

He gave Commonwealth a warning look before going to rescue his pie.

That ninth Goddamned kid popped up a couple, three mornings later, Esther dragging the boy by his ear to the open window of the prowler. She leaned over and yelled at Vinnie's snoozing face, “I want you to jail this Goddamn child, Goddamn it, Vinnie!”

Vinnie hated business before coffee. He really hated people yelling at him when his newspaper was laying across his gut.

The dirty kid bounced on toes, straining to get enough altitude to keep his left ear from being peeled off. Waving and wiggling, he raised a stink of sweat and lived-in clothes. Close up, the kid showed older, 15, 16 maybe.

Esther wasn't the screaming sort. She talked plain, was sometimes blunt and frequently rude, but that was usually enough. She cussed, but almost never because she had to. In particular, she wasn't one to demand people be put away. In real particular, Esther was smarter than most folks younger than she was, so she didn’t fuss over the things they got up to. Vinnie had never seen her so red-faced over a Goddamned kid.

“What...?” Vinnie started.

“Caught this individual burglaring a pie out my back door, four-thirty this a.m. Okay. I give him a talking. I feed him. I tell him he can work off the meal doing a few dishes, cleaning the kitchen, finishing what Bunch didn't. Even told him his parents wouldn't have to know about it...
and
he could keep the pie – French apple with the sugar-icing top everyone likes so much!

“Screw you, lady,” the kid squealed. Nasty voice!

Esther gave his ear a quarter-twist, hoisted another inch. Kid shut up, dancing on two toes. She didn't miss a beat. “Next I know, he's not only running, he's scooping my cash drawer...”

“...Lousy twenty bucks...” The kid toe-danced again.

“Scoops my cash! Then, when I snag him...” Esther shoved the kid's face through Vinnie's rolled down window till their noses nearly touched, “...he gives me such a line of crap, I tell him he’s going to share it with you so you can laugh your ass off and throw him to jail...”

Vinnie and the kid were eye-to-eye.

“...then he starts crying tears, so I let up some and THEN he kicks my shin, grabs my money – AGAIN – knocks over the magazine rack by the door and hauls ass.”

She let the kid down onto the flats of his feet. “I’m faster'n the little punk. So here he is.” Esther nudged him. “Go on. Tell th’ officer.”

Kid's breath smelled of breakfast grease and yesterday. Vinnie didn't flinch. Neither did the kid. Their eyes narrowed.

Esther's face shoved alongside the kid's in the car window. “This some cop and crook silent-thing, or can anybody join in? Fer cripes’ sake, Vinnie!”

Vinnie shook the door handle. “Gimme room,” he growled. “Lemme out!”

An hour later Vinnie and the boy stared at each other across the cribbage table at Township Hall.

Esther had finally gone back to the restaurant. She'd watched Vinnie pat-down the kid; watched him remove the cuffs; watched him print and mug the boy; stood around as though she didn't trust that Vinnie had learned police procedure at Sheriff Daddy’s side when he was the Goddamn kid's age – younger!

All for show, anyway. The Goddamn kid was a juvenile offender, a squiggly zone of law, Vinnie felt. He went through the motions anyway; figured it’d put the kid off balance.

First word out of the kid’s mouth after they'd gotten to the statement-taking part of the show, and Esther shouted she'd heard enough happy horseshit from this punk for one lifetime and stomped out, slamming. First word!

Vern Dobbins – the boy – sat across from Vinnie. “'Kay, Vern, where you from there?”

“Earth,” the kid said.

That was it. Esther was gone!

        Things didn’t improve with time and further questions, not even a little. Nothing the kid said made sense. Happy horseshit it was, but Vinnie wrote it down, each comment, on a four-by-five card, numbered, like Sheriff Daddy taught him, day-one.

After he’d run his questions, Vinnie shuffled to the beginning of the deck in silence. He flipped from one implausible Vern Dobbins statement to the next. He looked at the crummy kid, then back to the cards. Time to time, Vinnie snorted, shook his head, or arranged his eyes as though something made sense, another thing might be questionable, or something else was so stupid only a doofus'd believe it, and what’d the kid think Vinnie was anyway, a doofus?

The kid didn't blink, sweat, or whimper. He sat like a preacher waiting for a green light.
It’s about a pie, for cripes’s sake
, Vinnie thought. And
Esther’s shin. And, okay, the money drawer, too! Hell, maybe he’s so used to bullshit juvie procedure he knows all he has to do is wait till dad or mom shows up
.

Vinnie tossed the notes on the table. The cards splayed out between them.

“Earth, huh? Okay. Now,
this
is Earth, right? That's what you said, right?”

Kid nodded.

First time the little snot had said it, Vinnie figured he was smart-assing, but, nope, the Kid meant it. He was from Earth.
This
Earth. As though that was something special.

“But your dad, now...”

“He ain't my goddamned...” the Kid squirmed.

“Right, right...your dad ain't your dad – and watch your damn mouth – and he's from where again?”

Kid sucked a snot running down his upper lip. “Earth,” he said. “This one!” he added like Vinnie was an idiot.

“Oh! Now, Vern, I thought you said he was from the other....”

“That's Gram Kingsolver! Jesus Christ...”

“I ain't telling you again, there. Language...”

“It's Gram Kingsolver that’s from the Old Place, Original Earth. We're spawn of the Saved, New-Earth born.”

Vinnie clicked the pen against his big front tooth. “So your grandmother? She's the only one of you, there, from...” Vinnie scraped up the cards, made like he was looking for the right one. “Yeah...” He pretended to quote from the statement, 'subject alleges Grandmother comes from place subject describes as, quote, old original earth, unquote, destroyed... destroyed... before he was born...'“

“She ain't my grandma,” the kid said. “I never said that. She's Gram Kingsolver, not my Goddamn grandma.”

Vinnie gave him the hairy eyeball.

“...not my grandma.”

“...not your grandmother, but she's from...”

“The Earth as was destroyed back in the olden times. 19...”

“Yeah, 1930...” Vinnie said.

“’32! Exactly 1932! Damn.” the kid said.

“Was destroyed in 1932! And your grand – Gram – and a few others were “spared” and came here and settled this...” He gestured in a wide sweep that took in the room, the building, the town...the works! “Settled the world.
This
Earth.”

“Yeah. Like the Book says. We're spawn. You, me, the family, all the rest.” The kid sulked.

Vinnie tapped his pen against his teeth.

“Youse all been raised to forget how we was saved before.” The kid blinked then ran his line by the numbers. “We hold to that truth and are persecuted for our belief.”

“Kid,” he leaned forward, “This town's been here...cripes,” Vinnie tried to remember. “Since 1842!” He made up a year.

“They want you to think that...”

“'They!' Who's 'they'? Look at the graves up in the Lutheran church...”

“...ever look
inside
them graves?”

“And, we got old Ken...he goes back...been alive more’n a hundred...!” Vinnie was yelling, “a long time and Old Ken doesn't say anything about the end of the world in 1932!”

“Yeah!” the kid said, slouching, “What's he know!”

Not much
, Vinnie agreed but didn't say it.

“Old Ken knows plenty, Kid. And you're telling me, him, all the people in the world, all the billions, they all been born since 1932?”

“...I never seen no billions!”

“They're there, Vern! Look at the world! Look on the television! Billions! Now you're saying all those people come from just a couple dozen, a couple hundred or whatever, folk that came here in 1932?!”

“I never seen billions. I seen the family. I seen this town. A couple more crappy towns like this. Anyway, the Father does what he wants,” Vern smiled at Vinnie.

“Goddamn, Vern! You are arrested for stealing!” Vinnie screeched when he yelled. It was not effective. He threw pen and cards across the room. They fluttered like snow. Even less effective.

Six feet and five inches of Vinnie stood up between floor and ceiling. He hovered over the kid. Hovering was effective. Vern's face melted into a sulk. “Esther, there, gives you her trust and you steal! Belief tell you to do that? She gives you another chance; you assault her, you steal again! God say to? Goddamn it, kid. Esther trusts folks! Mostly. Pretty far, anyway. Punk kids, she figures, are just temporary stupid. Figures they do crappy things because they have to for a while, then they get over it!”

That was how Vinnie felt, anyway. Temporary stupid was the way he’d been. The way he described Esther, that was his mom's way of treating him at Vern's age. He figured if Esther had been there, she’d agree.

“I never seen Esther Elias as mad as she is with you, Vern!” Vinnie sneered the kid’s name. “You are taxing the charity of a saint, Vern. As an officer of the law, now, I am inclined to agree that throwing your sorry butt the hell in jail might be the better part of valor! What you got to say about that? Vern?”

Vern stared past Vinnie's crew cut. “'Kay,” he said. He leveled eyes on Vinnie. “Family’s hauling ass and damn if I am. Going to look for another Earth, Gram says; out in space.” He stared as though little teevees were playing on Vinnie's eyeballs. “She says, the world's ending again. You, that lady, this shit hole town and all stay-behinds are gonna blow to hell.” Nothing for a second. Then, “So lock me up. We'll watch together.”

Goddamn kid said it so simply a chill tingled the hair, back of Vinnie's neck.

That
was new information.

Following the kid's directions, Vinnie nosed the prowler off County H a quarter-mile past Karl's (Bad) Kabins. From there, they bounced into deep bluff country along what was left of an old lumber road. The town cruiser torqued back and forth along the deep ruts in the road worn by the family's wagon. Bedrock and root knuckles tore at the muffler and exhaust system.

There goes the alignment
, Vinnie thought. “Hate making Goddamn Einar happy,” he said aloud.

Slouched in back, the Goddamn kid didn't care. Despite mid-day bright, the woods here were dark. For most of the last century, second-growth timber had filled what men had cleared. Beyond the narrow path, trunks had swollen. Low branches had thickened, drooped, and edged onto the old work roads until only a low way remained through the slowly closing forest darkness. Either side of the vehicle, green brush licked the windows, scraped the doors like fingernails on slate.

Old horse shit, fresh horse shit, marked the way.

Then, they arrived.

From the time Vinnie had been old enough to run with his pals, then, later, alone, he'd gone hiking, drinking, shooting, or had just plain come to hang out, wander the forest around Bluffton. Daddy Sheriff was no woodsman. Vinnie never learned forest ways from the old man, but, boy and grown-up, Vinnie always felt better surrounded by trees. Truth was, he always felt better alone. That was Mom in him. She liked trees. Trees made her laugh. Then she left.

'Course Vinnie had never been to just this spot, but he thought he knew about everywhere there was to go; everywhere there was to
be
, in and around the township. Learning that was part of becoming a man, he figured; knowing what was where surely was part of the job he'd fallen into as an adult.