Читать книгу Black Mad Wheel - Josh Malerman, Josh Malerman - Страница 14

For his three hours to think, Ross heads home. Mom is home. And as far as Ross can remember, Mom knows best.

He’s got the data, his copy of the papers, folded and stuffed into his coat pocket. It’s an important feeling, walking the streets of Detroit with a secret in his coat. On a different day, he might find it thrilling, like espionage on television. But right now his enthusiasm is tempered by the crystal memory of the sound he listened to in the control room.

Ross brings a hand to his belly as he crosses the grass on Indiana Street and takes the steel stairs that lead to the back door of the duplex he shares with Mom.

Mom.

And how’s he going to ask Mom about this one?

If there’s one person Ross knows who is unimpressed by the United States Army, it’s Mom. Hell, back during World War II, when the other Danes were getting praise and encouragement from home, Mom would send Ross letters beseeching him to go AWOL. War is embarrassing, Mom would say. And none of this fighting will mean anything in ten years.

Of course she was both right and wrong about that. Twelve years removed from the war, it did feel a lot less important. And yet … the world had changed. In many ways for the better. And if Ross were given the chance to contribute like that again …

… shouldn’t he?

He finds his keys in his pants pocket and unlocks the back door.

“Ross?”

Right away. Ross doesn’t even get the chance to take a deep breath. It’s like Ruth Robinson can hear it when her son’s got a big decision to make.

Can hear it. Like a sickening sound, eh, Ross?

“Hey, Ma. Home.”

“Why?”

Mom doesn’t miss a beat. She may be fifty-eight years old and walk around the house in her pajamas all day, but Ruth is as sharp as she’s ever been. Ross knows this better than anybody else.

“Session was canceled.”

He reaches into his jacket pocket and fingers the document that he’s already read.

“Why?”

Ross looks up and sees Mom is already standing in the kitchen doorway. Glasses on a band around her neck. No hiding from her now, she’s already seen his face. She already knows something is on his mind. Still … he’ll try.

“Oh, you know … kids. We got any chicken?”

Mom pauses an unnatural beat before answering him.

“Sure. In the fridge.”

Ross is trying to act cool, but at thirty-one years old, it’s harder to deceive Mom than it used to be.

And isn’t he going to have to tell her? Isn’t he planning on saying yes?

For a hundred thousand dollars each, aren’t all the Danes planning on saying yes?

“Thanks, Ma,” Ross says, pulling a plate of chicken from the fridge and placing it on the kitchen table. Mom is wearing a blue bathrobe, her hair as curly as her son’s. She’s leaning against the doorframe. Studying him.

Ross sits down at the table and looks at the chicken and suddenly feels ill. As if the sound from the control room was made of chicken, too.

“Take your jacket off,” Mom says.

His jacket. Ross hasn’t taken it off. Why not? He knows why not. Because there’s something to hide in one of the pockets. A piece of paper explaining why he should fly to an African desert and put his life on the line. For America.

Again.

“What is it, Ross?” She doesn’t mince words. She doesn’t wait on things long.

Ross shakes his head.

“Nothing, Ma. Just … nothing.”

He jams some chicken in his mouth and for a second he thinks he’s going to vomit it right back up. The initial taste is stunning to his system. He looks to the plate again, half expecting to see gray meat there; something bloated, something bad.

“Nothing,” Mom repeats. And the way she says it, Ross has no choice but to look at her.

So he does. And the two hold each other’s gaze for a full thirty seconds before Ruth shakes her head.

“The army,” she says.

“Yes.”

“What do they want?”

Ross reaches into his coat pocket and pulls out the folded paper. He holds it for her to take. Ruth looks at it like it’s a spider, like something she isn’t sure she wants to put her fingers on. But she crosses the small kitchen and takes it from her son. She slides out the second chair at the table, sits, unfolds the paper, and places her glasses on the bridge of her nose.

Ross, feeling better for having eaten after all, eats the rest of the chicken as Mom reads. When she’s done, she doesn’t turn the paper over, doesn’t crumple it up, doesn’t toss it away.

“Don’t do it,” she says. Flat. Three syllables.

“I’m going to, Ma.”

“Don’t.”

“Why not?”

Ross feels a rush. He’s decided to do it after all.

Ruth places her elbows on the table and leans closer to him.

“Mystery,” she says, “is bad enough on its own. But mystery with the army?” She shakes her head. “Means they’re hiding something.”

“They don’t know where it is. Somebody’s hiding it from them.”

“Uh-huh.”

Dismissive. But even now, with Mom saying no, Ross feels the swell of yes.

It all comes down to a single word, doesn’t it, Ross? he thinks. A single word that propels you and your bandmates, your best friends. One word that got you guys in the army in the first place, got you into a band, gets you into trouble three or four times a week. One word that weighs more than one hundred thousand dollars apiece.

“Adventure,” Mom says, shaking her head. “You can screw your adventure.”

Ross nods. Of course, she’s right. And yet … that is the word. Always has been.

Philip calls it the Path.

“They need us,” Ross says.

“Who’s they?”

“America.”

Mom scoffs and slams both hands down on the table. Hard enough to rattle the chicken bones on Ross’s plate.

“America doesn’t need you, son. America needs a psychiatrist.”

“We know sound. We can find it for them.”

“And then? Then what? You just point to it and … presto … you’re back home?”

Ross hasn’t thought this far ahead. It scares him, briefly, that he hasn’t thought this far ahead.

“Well … yeah. Something like that.”

Mom shakes her head again.

“That’s not even mystery, Ross. That’s ignorance. Don’t go.”

“Ma.”

“I don’t like it. Don’t go.”

“Ma.”

Ross is smiling. Peacefully. Any red rush has left his cheeks and he looks the part of the grown man he is.

Adventure.

The Danes.

And the popularity and esteem he and his friends have received from being both veterans and musicians. How can they say no when they get so much out of saying yes?

“Did you read what happened to the other two platoons?” Mom asks.

Ross nods.

“Of course I did.”

“Did you?”

“I did. They all came back home safely.”

“No,” Mom says. She slides the paper in front of her son and points to the part she’s talking about. “Read.”

“Ma, I read it.”

“Read again.”

Ross sighs and looks down. He feels a pang of fear, embarrassment, like he’s about to see a whole new paragraph that states clearly the first two platoons were sentenced to death by hanging.

But that’s not what Mom is pointing at.

“All members of the previous platoons returned home safely. Empty-handed and flummoxed, but safe.”

“That’s it,” Mom says.

“They couldn’t find it,” Ross says.

Mom shakes her head for the last time.

“Flummoxed, Ross. You know what that means?”

“Of course.”

“No you don’t. Flummoxed doesn’t just mean they couldn’t solve the mystery. That would be ‘unsatisfied.’ Flummoxed stays with you the rest of your life.”

“Ma.”

“These men, they’re gonna wonder about that sound … forever.”

“Ma.”

“They’re gonna hear it in their sleep. They’re gonna hear it awake … on the streets.”

“Ma.”

“Don’t do it, Ross.”

Ross places his hands over hers.

“A hundred thousand dollars,” he says. “Each.”

Mom gets up from the table. She takes the plate from in front of him, holds it sideways over the small silver garbage can so that the bones slide into the bag. Then she places the plate in the sink.

“Flummoxed,” Mom repeats, leaving the kitchen. Then she appears again in the doorway. “Two weeks?”

“Two weeks,” Ross says. “In and out.”

Mom nods.

“Bring me back some sand.”

DUANE AND LARRY hit the bar. Where else are they going to go to make a decision like this? Duane takes the stool facing the door. He always faces the door, wherever they go. World War II did that to him. Larry doesn’t mind. Duane faces the crowd, too, sitting at the drums.

Together they’ve got this corner of the bar covered. An old bluesman, Swoon Matthews, sits alone at the other.

“You know Philip is gonna want to do it,” Larry says. “He doesn’t say no to anything.”

“Doesn’t mean we have to.”

“No, it doesn’t mean we have to.”

They order White Russians, the drink they drink when they’re trying to mellow out. Both of them can easily recall the sound of the air in the studio splitting apart … the sound of scorched space, and the image of a black mad trail behind it.

“What do you think?” Larry asks, already knowing what Duane thinks.

Duane shrugs.

“Sounds dicey is what I think.”

“How so?”

“The other two platoons. I don’t like it.”

“Don’t like that they didn’t find anything?”

Duane shrugs again, but it’s not dismissive.

“Yeah, maybe.”

Larry weighs out how to say what he wants to say.

“I bet we can do it.”

“Of course we’ll find it.”

The drinks come. Larry pauses. Sips. Then says,

“You just said that like we’re going to go.”

“So I did.”

“So you think we’re going?”

Duane points discreetly to the end of the bar. He whispers now.

“Check out Swoon,” he says. “You checking him out?”

Larry is.

“Yeah, sure.”

“What do you think Swoon would do? You think he’d fly to Africa for the army?”

Larry thinks about it.

“No. I don’t think he would.”

“And why wouldn’t he?”

“I don’t know, Duane. Because he’s a hundred years old?”

Duane shakes his head no. Sips from his Russian.

“Because he’s content with doing the same thing every day.”

“And you’re not?”

“Have we ever been?”

Larry nods along. Entering the bar, he thought he was going to be the one doing the convincing. But Duane has turned the tables. Feels wrong. Like one of them ought to be saying this is crazy.

“We’re thrillers,” Duane says. “If you haven’t figured that out by now, go hang out with Swoon for the rest of the day.”

Larry eyes the old bluesman. His curly white hair sleeps uneven upon his black wrinkled forehead. He wears sunglasses indoors. Maybe he’s looking back at Larry. It doesn’t matter. Right now Larry needs to look at this man. Needs a reminder of how easy it is to slip into the rest of your life.

“Some people settle before they should,” Larry says. He doesn’t have to explain what he means. Duane gets it. He speaks this language.

“No doubt.”

The two former soldiers and current bandmates sip their drinks. White Russians are to be enjoyed, endured. And decisions like this one are meant to go slowly, even if the decision is already made.

“So what’s holding us back from telling the others?” Larry asks.

Duane shrugs.

“Nothing. We got three hours is all.”

“Something’s bothering you.”

“Yeah, something’s bothering me.”

“In the report.”

“Yeah, in the report.”

“What is it?”

Duane pauses before reaching into his pocket. Larry thinks his drummer, his friend, is going to pull forth the folded papers. Instead he pulls out a packet of cigarettes, taps one out, and lights it.

Duane breathes deeply. Exhales.

“Why didn’t he stay?”

“Who?”

“Mull.”

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t read the papers.”

“Yeah, I did.”

“Well, you didn’t read them close enough. Mull flew with both platoons to the desert, but he didn’t stay for the mission. Why not?”

Larry opens his mouth to speak. He raises his glass, drinks, instead.

“He’s got different work to do,” he finally says.

“Mm-hmm. You see Swoon there?”

“Yeah, I see him, Duane.”

“Yeah. You know why he’s content just being Swoon in Detroit?”

Larry thinks about it. Sometimes Duane gets like this. Cryptic. Usually it leads to something profound. But right now Larry doesn’t want profound. He wants easy. He wants Duane to say they’re going to make a lot of money doing a good thing.

“It’s because he’s scared,” Duane finally says.

“Sure. But what does that have to do with—”

Duane grabs Larry by the wrist.

“Mull is scared of that sound. Scared him whiter than the white he is.”

Duane slowly releases Larry’s wrist and settles back onto the stool.

“Naw,” Larry says without confidence. What he thinks is, So am I.

“Uh-huh,” Duane says. He sips from his drink, allows an ice cube into his mouth, crushes it. “Here’s an officer in the United States Army, brave enough to step into the lives of four strangers with a pocketful of sound, but he’s too chicken to sit out there and listen to it himself.”

“It’s the army, Duane You know how it works.”

“This is different. I saw it in his eyes in the studio. When the tape started rolling. Saw him looking at those wheels like they were delivering the worst of his nightmares. He knows that tape inside out, every beat of it. Slipped on those earplugs just before the sound started. He’s scared, Larry. Scared of something more than a new weapon.”

Larry laughs. “Now you’re just talking crazy.”

But Duane doesn’t smile. Smoke rises around his eyes and for a ghastly second he looks mummified to Larry. Like he’s never gonna move again.

“There are things worse than a new weapon,” Duane says, finishing his drink.

“Like what?”

“Like the kind of person that would build it.”

“THE FIRST PLATOON was deployed a year ago. Almost to the day. I wonder what I was doing that day.”

“You might’ve been in this exact same bedroom.”

Philip smiles. Not without concern. He’s lying down beside a girl named Marla. He’s dressed. She’s not. They don’t love each other, but Christ they have fun. Philip met Marla on the Path.

“But get this,” Philip says, sitting up so that he’s resting on his elbow. “The second platoon was deployed six days after the first returned. So that would make it … about … about ten months now since the second platoon returned.”

“So?”

“So why the long wait? That’s what’s got me worried.”

“They were looking for guys like you,” Marla says. Her red hair half hides her face. The bedsheet only mostly covers her.

“Maybe,” Philip says. “And another thing.” Now he sits up, cross-legged on the mattress. “Why hasn’t the sound gotten any more intense?”

“How do you know it hasn’t?”

“The report has wave files. There’s absolutely no difference between the first time it sounded and the last.”

“So?”

“So that means that … if we’re talking about a weapon or something being built … it was already built by the time they first heard it.”

Marla nods her head.

“So don’t go.”

Philip’s face scrunches up in a way that makes him look ten years younger.

“Don’t go? No, no. That’s not what I mean. Look, I don’t expect the army to tell us … everything. They never do. It’s the army.”

“Okay,” Marla says. Her smeared dark eyeliner gives her face a Day of the Dead feel in the waning sunlight. “Then go.”

Philip agrees. Mostly.

“Yeah. Go. Go. But don’t go … naïve.” He gets up out of bed. “The reason for the wait is …” He looks up to the ceiling, thinking. “Is because they decided to forget about it. But then … then … the sound kept showing up. So they decided to go looking for it again. Maybe that’s what happened.”

Marla smiles.

“Either way. Two weeks in the desert. A lot of money and you’re a hero all over again.”

She’s only half kidding, but the look that crosses his face worries her. He doesn’t smile. He only nods, and Marla understands that she’s accidentally spoken the exact reason and motivation for Philip wanting to go.

“And the reason the sound hasn’t changed …”

Philip stops speaking halfway through the sentence and looks out Marla’s apartment window. Below is Detroit, its streets bustling with teenagers in cars, homeless men and women folded against building foundations, stray dogs and men in suits who avoid them.

“Just be careful,” Marla says. She gets up, too, but doesn’t bother getting dressed. She leaves the bedroom.

“I gotta split,” Philip calls to her. He looks through the glass, not quite realizing that he’s hoping to see Larry, Duane, and Ross down there in the streets. Is he hoping to see them confident, their bags packed?

Philip feels a solitary slash of fear course from his neck to his legs. Then it settles somewhere inside him, but does not leave.

Marla reenters the bedroom with a glass of water. When she hands it to Philip he sees he’s still wearing the watch he took from the manager of the Sparklers.

He thinks he should find the guy, return it.

Can’t go to Africa. Gotta return a watch.

A silly thought, of course; further proof that Philip is scared.

“Don’t get killed,” Marla says.

“I won’t.”

“Oh yeah?”

“That’s not my story. Not how my story is gonna end.”

“That’s just about the most naïve thing I’ve ever heard you say. You think anybody thinks their story is gonna end the way it does?”

Philip drinks the water.

“Don’t get killed,” she repeats.

“And don’t get dressed,” he tells her.

Marla smiles.

“I figured you’re gonna be gone two weeks without a woman. May as well give you a two-week memory on your way out.” She touches the piano key hanging at his chest. F.

Philip only half laughs. He looks so serious to her. Too much so.

“Hey,” Marla says, folding her arms under her breasts. “What’s wrong with you?”

“This is a big deal,” he says. And even now there’s a different look in his eyes. Something childish.

“I know,” she says. “I’ve just never seen you this way before.”

“It’s nothing,” Philip says. “I mean, it is, but … it’s just … the sound staying the same … never changing … worries me. Nothing is like that, you know? Everything … changes.”

Marla opens her mouth to say don’t go, but Philip places a finger over her lips.

“I’ll see you in two weeks,” he says.

Marla salutes him. And Philip leaves her apartment.

Below, on the street, Philip tries to shake the feeling, the fear. Everywhere he looks, Detroit seems an exaggeration of itself. The man sweeping the sidewalk outside Bankman’s Diner is dressed so right for the part that he almost looks staged. The awning for Adele’s Hair and Beauty practically shines. In fact, looking around, it’s as if the whole city is a set, a movie being filmed, everything in its place. Even the orange-painted bricks that make up the front wall of Perry Drugs, the place the Danes shot the cover for their 45 “Be Here,” look perfectly, symmetrically stacked.

Philip feels like he’s seeing it all for the first time. Through other eyes. Eyes watching that movie, maybe. And the effect the filmmakers are going for is …

This is a great city. Don’t leave.

Christ, even the sky looks painted.

He makes a right on Elizabeth and sees his three bandmates standing outside the studio door.

Their bags rest at their feet.

For a moment, Philip wonders if they’ve seen him, too. And if they haven’t, could he duck around the corner, slink into a shadow, think about it a little longer?

Ross waves.

Philip waves back.

He’s stepping off the Path. He can feel the tug of someone else’s rope, mystery dirt beneath his boots.

“Fellas,” Philip says, arriving. “Looks like we’re going to Africa.”

Ross smiles.

“I’ve already got a theory on what’s making the sound. I think it could be a combination of—”

Philip raises a finger.

“Hang on. Let’s call Mull first. Tell him we’re in.”

Philip opens the studio door and takes the carpeted stairs two at a time. Passing through the lounge, he spots the same books that have been lying on the coffee table for months. The kitchen smells like coffee and booze. He experiences an alien combination of feelings: nostalgia for a place he hasn’t left yet, and claustrophobia, too … as if the walls of the studio get narrower the deeper he goes into it.

By the time he reaches the control room, he feels a little dizzy with it. As if the sound he is agreeing to go hunting for remains, lingers in the room.

He picks up the phone, planning to call Secretary Mull.

But Philip calls home first.

When his mom answers, he feels that fear again. That movie set feeling, too. As if the phone is a piece of plastic and the woman speaking is an actress. The alternative, Philip thinks, explaining to her what he’s about to do, is too unreal to accept.

This is a great city. Don’t leave.

“Well, if you think it’s the right thing to, Philip, then nobody’s going to stop you. You always do what you feel you should.”

“Mom,” he says, looking through the control room glass, into the live room, where he imagines he heard a sound, the furthest phantom wisp of a chord. “Thank you.”