The Last Exit to Normal (18 page)

CHAPTER 24

M
rs. Lindy sent us off with a hundred dollars of guilt money for gas and food. I finally gave in and took it when I realized I was being an ass to her. I was pissed, though, because every time I looked around her nice house and thought about her nice life, a skinny little kid sleeping in a closet barged into my mind.

I knew the trip was sort of a waste. She’d already started things with the custody hearings, and I knew what I’d done hadn’t made a difference and wouldn’t make a difference on the legal side of things. I hadn’t swayed her one way or another. She’d done it herself.

But it wasn’t a waste to me. It was worth the shit I’d get from Dad and Edward, and even if Miss Mae strung me from the nearest tree, I’d smile through it. I’d gone because it was the right thing for me to do, and that made all the difference in the world.

Dirk hauled ass home, and as the afternoon slid into evening, Kim fell asleep in the back. Dirk and I talked about Wyoming. He’d left school and gone to work at the ranch, and he loved it. He was saving to buy his own spread, and when he told me how much he made a year managing the place, all expenses paid on top of things, I could see how he would like it. Another two years, he said, and he’d have enough to buy a thousand acres somewhere and start his own business.

After pulling off at a rest stop to catch some sleep before blasting our way back to Rough Butte, we drove up in front of my house in the middle of the afternoon. Dad was sitting on the front porch with Edward. I said goodbye to Kim and Dirk, then headed up the walk. Neither said a word. I topped the steps. “Hi.”

Dad looked at me. “Pack your things.”

I stopped, stunned. “What?”

“I said, pack your things.”

“Am I going somewhere?”

He swallowed. “Yes. I called your mother, and she’s agreed to take you.”

I winced. “I’m not living with her.”

“Then you’ll be on the street, Ben, because you’re not living here anymore.”

“Why? Because I went to Las Vegas to find Billy’s mom?”

He blinked, but let my comment pass. “No. Because you don’t have a shred of respect for anybody here, and you don’t seem to understand that being an adult doesn’t mean walking all over the people who love you. You might think you’re a man and that you can do whatever you want, but you’re not. You’re a seventeen-year-old boy who enjoys hurting people, and I’m done with it.”

I clenched my teeth. “You told me to deal with it, so I am. Maybe you should do the same.”

He nodded. “I am. Pack your things.”

“No.”

Edward interrupted: “Ben . . .”

“No. What is this? Another lesson for Ben? Gonna give it to me straight, Dad?”

He leveled his eyes at me. “You are not living here anymore.”

I shrugged. “Call the sheriff, then. Have him take me.” I pointed to the phone sitting on the table between them. “Pick it up. Call.”

“Why are you doing this, Ben?”

“What am I doing, Dad? Huh? You blew me off when we got in that fight, then didn’t say a word to me for days, then called me a liar about the cats. And I don’t care if you got into a fight with that bastard over it, because it’s not like I haven’t had my ass kicked because of you.”

“Tell me one reason why I should have thought you didn’t do it.”

“Because I didn’t! And I told you I didn’t!”

He shook his head. “I don’t see that as a reason for you to worry Edward and me out of our minds for the last two days. If you want to be spiteful, you can go somewhere else.”

I stared at him. “Oh, it’s called ‘spite’? I thought doing whatever you want without regard for your family was called ‘coming out.’ I guess it’s different for me?”

He set his chin. “Go.”

“You’re really doing this, aren’t you?”

“No, Ben, you’re doing this.”

“Fine. Then I am.” I slammed the door shut on my way in, then stomped up the stairs to my room, thrashing around for my bags. He could go to hell. He could threaten me all he wanted and it wouldn’t work. If he wanted to throw down, we’d throw down.

“Are you done being embarrassed yet?”

I turned, and Edward was standing there. I stuffed a shirt in my bag. “Why would I be embarrassed, huh?”

“Because you’re acting like a foolish spoiled brat, and you should be embarrassed.”

“Great. Anything else to add?”

He ticked off the items with his fingers, looking up at the ceiling: “Let’s see. Selfish, immature, irresponsible, rebellious, mean, and angry. I probably missed some, but those jump out at me.”

“Yeah, sure. And he’s the angel.”

“No, he’s not. Neither of you are. I would call it being human.”

“What do you want me to do, then? He kicked me out.”

“Maybe you should apologize.”

I smirked. “You’re not allowed to apologize in this house, remember? You get hit with a spoon.”

He shook his head. “Maybe you didn’t understand her, Ben. She wasn’t saying that you should never apologize, she was saying that you should never act in a way that would demand it. There’s a big difference there, and honestly, if you walk out that door, it’ll be because you let it happen, not because your father made it happen.”

I slumped on the floor, deflated. “I tried, man. I took care of Mr. Hinks, I put the antlers back up, I went to Las Vegas to get Billy’s mom back, and nothing is good enough. Don’t you see it? I can’t do anything right, Edward. It’s like my life is cursed.”

“Like a voodoo curse?”

“I’m serious.”

“So am I.”

“That’s stupid.”

He smiled. “Bingo. In fact, it may be as stupid as you two going in circles about it.”

“Dead-end road, man. That’s all I see.”

“You love him, and he loves you.”

“Cut it with the Barney routine, Edward.”

“Nothing wrong with purple dinosaurs.”

I shook my head. “I’m not going to grovel.”

He turned. “Then don’t.”

Miss Mae made herself scarce, and Edward sat reading a
GQ
magazine on the sofa when I finally came down. Without my bags. “Where’s Dad?”

I thought I saw an almost imperceptible smile cross Edward’s face. He kept reading. “He needed to get out. Try the restaurant.”

“Am I still kicked out?”

“I don’t know. Maybe you should ask him.”

Tired of the whole “maybe you should ask him” gig, I hopped in my truck and drove, resisting the urge to light a cigarette. I figured if I could spend thirty hours riding in a truck with no smoking, I could quit. Dad’s minivan was parked in one of the slots in front of the building. “
BENJAMIN’S
,” in fancy script, lit the front of the place. It didn’t make me feel good.

Edward and Dad had taped butcher paper over the windows to hide the renovations they were doing, but light came through the cracks and I knew Dad was in there. I got out of the truck and stood on the sidewalk, looking at the place.

Nobody stirred in the streets, and with all the stores closed and the park across the street dark, an aloneness came over me. I wasn’t even mad anymore. I was just done. Finished. I knew Dad was right about respect and all that, but it seemed hollow coming from his lips.

This wasn’t about the gay thing. This was about him doling out destruction and expecting everybody around him to deal with it the way he wanted. I realized that me standing in front of these doors had been a long time coming, and now, as I stood there, I had no idea what to do.

He’d ruined my life, and as I stood on the sidewalk, looking at the sign with my name on it, I realized that my mother wasn’t the one who had left. The second he’d said “I’m gay,” he’d been the one to leave.
Let the chips fall where they may. I am who I am.
I hadn’t set this up, he had. He’d screwed our lives up, and once Mom was gone, he’d spent three years fobbing me off on other people and expecting them to fix our problems. Now I was out the door.

I remembered telling Billy why people ran. I thought about his mom and the judgment I’d put on her. My dad had spent forever running from who he was, and by the time he stopped running and blew my life up in my face, I realized I didn’t know what else my mom could have done.

I stared at the sign and wondered if, before he’d come out of the closet, he figured Mom would take me. If he figured he’d be free to live the life he’d known he was meant for. I thought so. See the kid every other weekend, take him out to dinner, buy him a new skateboard. Put away the boyfriend for a couple of days while good boy Ben was around. I shook my head. Who had abandoned who?

I studied the sign for a minute longer, then got back in my truck and drove home. Miss Mae was asleep, and I didn’t talk to Edward, just grabbed my stuff, snagged a blanket from the hall closet, and walked out.

CHAPTER 25

A
s I hunkered down in the bench seat of my pickup, parked who knows where on the side of some dirt road in the middle of Eastern Montana, I tried to imagine Dad and Edward at home.
He’s really gone? He left?

I didn’t know, though. Half of me thought this was some kind of lesson for him to teach me and it pissed me off, but the other half said this was for keeps. No turning back. I was on my own. That feeling sunk into my chest, and I fell asleep with it nagging me.

I woke up to that happy-go-lucky sun damning my eyeballs and a not-so-happy sheriff tapping his nightstick on my window. I squinted, groaning. There were like eighty thousand miles of dirt roads around here, and it was just my luck. I rolled down the window. “Hi.”

Sheriff Wilkins eyed me, then studied the cab. “You okay, son?”

“Yeah. Fine.”

He nodded. “Got a call from George Tyler about an hour ago saying there was a broke-down truck on his road.”

I shook my head. “Not broken-down.”

“Something going on?”

“My dad kicked me out of the house.”

“Gotcha.” He paused, scratching his ear. “Plannin’ on going back?”

“I don’t know.”

He tilted his hat back on his head. “Things happen, I suppose.”

“Yeah.”

“Tell you what, huh? You come on by the jail at around eight tonight and I’ll set you up with a cot. You can sleep there until things are ironed out with your dad.”

“In a cell?”

He smiled, then laughed. “Other than Keith Donner getting drunk every once in a while and causing a ruckus with his brothers, I don’t think I’ve had anybody in there for three years.”

“Thanks. I’ll think about it.”

He nodded. “I lock up at around eight.”

“I’ll remember that.”

He tipped his hat. “Keep your chin up, huh?” Then he walked back to his truck and drove away.

After taking a leak and stretching, I drove into town, parking in front of the Cascade Café for some breakfast. Milton Treadway owned the place, and I’d met him once when he was sweeping the walk in front of his door. I’d been skating by, and he told me to mind not knocking him down and breaking his hip.

The Cascade was where all the old-timers met every morning over coffee, and it was in full swing. I took a seat at the bar and Milton took my order, his craggy and wrinkled face almost hiding a set of bright eyes. He looked at me, taking in the John Deere cap on my head and the work boots on my feet, and smiled. “Look a mite different than the last time I seen you.”

I smiled. “Smells good in here.”

He gave a gravelly laugh. “Might be the only place in town for breakfast, but it’s the best.” Then he was back at the griddle, cooking up orders.

A few minutes later, he plopped down a huge plate of biscuits, sausage gravy, and two eggs done over easy. All the orders had been cooked for the time being, and Milton leaned his elbow on the counter, eyeing me. “I hear yer daddy’s opening a rest-o-ront down the street.”

I nodded, sopping up gravy with a chunk of biscuit. “Yeah.”

“Hear it’s going to be a fancy steakhouse-type thing. Like you might find in the city.”

“Yep.”

He wiped the counter. “Can’t say I wouldn’t like to have myself a good steak every once in a while that I don’t cook. All the trimmings and such. The wife just might like that, too. Womenfolk like gettin’ taken out, you know. All fancied up and such.”

I finished up. “Yeah. I heard Edward say it won’t be too expensive, either. Big steaks.”

Milton took my plate. “Might just be a good thing around here.”

I left then, leaving six bucks on the counter, and drove home. I parked at the curb, hopped out, went to the shed, and got my tool belt. Ten minutes later, Miss Mae came outside. She nodded. “Good boy.”

I stopped working on the fence. “Miss Mae?”

“Yes?”

“I’m going to have to get a job that pays more.”

“Figured on that.”

“If I still pay you for the truck, can I keep it?”

She nodded. “That will do.” Then she trudged inside, leaving me to the fence.

A few minutes later, Dad walked out the back door and across the lawn. I kept working. He stood there for a moment. “I thought you moved out.”

“If that’s what you call it, fine.” I nailed a board. “I had a deal with Miss Mae.”

“Where are you staying?”

I turned. “I guess that’s not your problem now, is it?” Then I bent to another board, tacking it up. Dad stood there for a long moment, then turned and walked away.

I finished the fence by four, then walked down to Kim’s. Mrs. Johan answered the door. She smiled. “Hello, Ben. Kim has been trying to reach you.”

“I’ve been busy. Is she here?”

She shook her head. “She’s out at her aunt and uncle’s, helping can peaches.”

I thanked her, then drove out to Kim’s uncle’s place. Dirk’s and Kim’s trucks were in front of the house, and Uncle Morgan, still in casts, sat on the front porch. He smiled. “Well, if it isn’t the feller who saved my hide. How goes it, son?”

“Fine, thanks.” I looked at his casts. “How are you?”

“On the mend. Doc says I’ll be eighty percent by next spring. That damned tractor had it out for me.”

I looked around for Dirk, then thought about something. “Are you hiring?”

He studied me. “Looking?”

“Yessir. I’ll do anything.”

He smiled. “Kim was a mite upset this morning. Said she called your place and it turns out you and your daddy had a falling-out?”

“Yes.”

He nodded. “Got room and board in the bunkhouse, three squares a day, and twelve hundred a month if you’d be interested.”

“I don’t want this because I helped you.”

His eyes twinkled. “Come winter, Dirk’s gotta head back to Wyoming and I’ll be hiring out anyway. He can teach you the farm until then, but if you see it as charity, I can respect that.”

I thought about school starting in a bit, but feeding myself was more important at this point. “You were going to hire out anyway?”

“Sure was. Hard to find good hands, and I’d be happy to pay for Dirk showing you the ropes.”

“Then I’ll take it.”

He nodded, rolling a cigarette. “Start tomorrow if you’ve a mind.”

“I have to finish up a couple of things for Miss Mae tomorrow. How about day after tomorrow?”

“Deal. We got the town potluck tomorrow at four anyway.” He smiled. “They’re gonna have to wheel me around in a damned wheelchair, but I ain’t missed it going on thirty years and I ain’t about to miss it now.”

I’d forgotten about the potluck. “Okay.”

He flipped his thumb to the barn. “Expect you came to see a girl. She’s in the barn.”

Kim was hanging tack on a hook when I entered. I kissed her, and we sat on a bale of hay. She smelled like peaches. “Are you okay?”

“Yeah. I’m fine. Your uncle just hired me, and I think it’ll be good. About time I did something, anyway.”

She squeezed my hand, smiling. “It’s hard work.”

“I can do it.”

“I know you can.” She looked down, studying the hay-strewn floor. Something small, probably a mouse, rustled between the hay bales. “What about your dad?”

“I don’t know.”

“I think you should try and make things better.”

I took my hand from hers. Shadows fell long in the barn, and its musty smell in the early evening soothed me. “Maybe the best thing I can do is make things better with myself first. Besides, he’s done with me. At least for now.”

“What if it’s too late by then?”

I looked at her. “I don’t know, Kim. Half the time I feel like a little kid around him and the other half I just want to hit him in the face. Nothing is ever right, you know?” I stood and paced up and down. “I don’t know. I just don’t want to be around him. There’s too much shit between us, and all the little things just seem to get bigger every time something happens.”

“I’m sorry.”

“For what? That he decided to have a family when he knew he shouldn’t have?”

“No, I’m sorry you two can’t get past it.”

I rubbed my temples, done thinking about it. My head pounded. “Are we still going to the potluck tomorrow?”

She nodded. “We’re bringing a bunch of stuff. My mom’s teriyaki meatballs are awesome.”

“Cool. I’ll pick you up?”

She shook her head. “I’m going with my mom to help set things up. Meet me?”

“Four?”

“Sure.” She looked at me. “You could stay in the bunkhouse tonight, you know.”

“Naw. I’m fine. Besides, I’m not starting work until Saturday.”

“Where are you staying, then?”

I smiled. “Your bed?”

“Ha-ha. Be serious.”

“I’ll be fine.” I kissed her, and I realized right then that something was happening between us. I was falling in love with Kimberly Johan. The kind of love that said I wanted to be with her more than anybody else. “You should get back in and help your aunt.”

“Ben . . .”

I smiled. “I’m fine. You forget that I’m a city kid. I spent half my life on the streets.”

She rolled her eyes. “Yeah, right.”

I ate dinner at the Cascade a couple of hours later, and as I drove by Dad’s restaurant afterward, I saw the minivan in front of it. Edward and Dad, especially Dad, had been putting in long hours. I slowed as I passed, trying to catch a peek through the blocked windows, then pulled up to the sheriff’s office down the street.

I hopped out of the truck and walked in, and the place looked almost exactly like the jail on
The Dukes of Hazzard.
Three cells; a couple of desks, one with a mini-TV on it; a locked cabinet full of rifles and shotguns; calendars on the wall; a clock; and a coffeepot. Oh, yeah—and the sheriff sitting at one of the desks, filling out paperwork.

He looked up. “Hello, Ben.”

I set my bag down. “Hi.”

He stood, walking to the first cell. “Not exactly a Holiday Inn, but it should do.”

“No problem. Thanks for the offer.”

He put his jacket on, grabbing his keys. “Coffee is in the cabinet below the pot. Help yourself if you’ve a mind.”

I looked at him. “Why are you doing this?”

He put his cowboy hat on, smiling. “When I was thirteen years old, way back when, my older brother took me on a road trip across the United States. He was around your age, had a ’37 Buick, and the damn thing broke down every five hundred miles to the mark. Anyway, one time we were stuck in some Podunk Alabama town, freezing our asses off in the middle of the night. Nowhere to stay, nowhere to go. Sheriff comes up and checks us out, right? Hell, we thought he was going to arrest us for loitering. Instead, he did the same for us as I’m doing for you.” He opened the door. “Suppose it’s a tradition with me.”

“Cool. Thanks.”

He nodded, tipping his hat to me and smiling. “Might want to get that suspended license taken care of before you get in more trouble than you can afford.” He looked at me for a moment, seeing the dread in my eyes, then chuckled. “We might bend a few of the laws we have around here for the sake of practicality, but I can’t ignore everything.” Then he was gone.

I took my boots off and tucked my socks into them, lying down and wondering how a cop could be so not cop-like. I always thought my dad would have been a perfect cop. He lived by the book, followed the rules, and was totally uptight, just like every cop who’d chased me, cuffed me, or treated me like dirt, but the sheriff wasn’t that way. He knew about my license, he was letting me stay here, and for a moment—just a brief instant—I thought that it might be cool to be the sheriff in Rough Butte.

Quickly banishing the sinful thought of Ben Campbell, lawman, from my mind, I padded to the desk to see if the little television got reception. As I did, my eye caught the cabinet next to it. Files. I went to the front door and checked that it was locked, then went back.

Back in his halcyon days of criminality, Ben Campbell had learned one thing well, and that was picking locks. After a couple of minutes with two paper clips and a wiggle-waggle or two, I pulled the cabinet door open. Bingo.

I slid over the files until my fingers came across the
H
section.
Hellerman, Hempton, Hill, Hinks.
Hinks, Norman J. I pulled the file out, whistling as I opened it. Norman had a record. Quite a record for a man of the cloth. I read it and learned that it had started when he was twelve years old and went on up. I counted: he’d been arrested eight times. Defacement of public property, shoplifting, malicious mischief, public intoxication, two counts of assault on different occasions, and three counts of domestic battery. I thought of Mrs. Lindy, then backtracked to the assault charges.

The first one blew me away:
COMPLAINANT: EDWARD INGERSON.
I read further. Edward had been fourteen then, Norman sixteen. Two other boys had been involved, and my stomach lurched as I read the notes. He’d been chased into a barn, taunted, and beaten with fence boards by the three older boys. The sheriff at that time, a man named Logan Vern, noted that the apparent reason had to do with the victim’s sexual orientation. Third-degree assault charges had been filed, only to be dismissed by the judge, who cited “boyhood rambunctiousness” as the cause.

Reading the notes left in the Norman Hinks file from each of three sheriffs over the years, their handwriting different but still scrawled, I noticed none of them had kind words for the man.
You reap what you sow, you ass-hole,
I thought.

After reading his file, I put it back and stopped, eyeing the next three files. Then the fourth:
INGERSON, EDWARD.
My eyes widened. Our Edward has a criminal record? I gently lifted the file from the cabinet, still queasy from imagining a fourteen-year-old Edward, terrified in that barn.

I opened the file, and was relieved. One charge. The year he moved to Spokane. Possession of an illegal substance. Marijuana. I smiled. Good old Ed and I had something in common, and I didn’t blame him at all. I’d have been baked out of my head all the time if I’d lived here as a gay kid.

I put the file back, smiling at the thought of Edward lighting up a fatty in the fields, and hit the
J
section. There, two inches deep, was Ron Jamison’s file. I smiled. “Know thine enemy,” somebody had once said. I flipped it open.