Chris Whitaker: We Begin at the End

She hung up when she heard him, and then fell against the brick, a long road from anywhere, too small to be alone, the sky a gathering storm she could not outrun. Her brother saying hello, quiet like he was in on a secret, and her unable to find a word, not a single word to say to him, not even sorry for what she had done and what she would do.

She spent her last two bucks on milk and a dry bagel.

She sat there four hours, the sun crawling its arc, the hand of a clock that pushed morning to the blaze of afternoon. In the gas station a woman worked the counter, a magazine hidden behind, her head down and tired. She wore large glasses and had a stain on her shirt. She gave Duchess the key to the restroom, smiled quick as she did, like she knew the crossroads the girl lived at and had seen so many like her before.

Inside smelled bad, graffiti scrawled on every surface, romantic declarations Tom & Betty-Laurel Fucked Here , numbers to call for a good time. Duchess carefully stripped off her T-shirt and jeans, washed herself with soap she pumped from the dispenser then dried off with paper towels. She splashed icy water onto her face, the tired creeped from her eyes.

Outside she watched truckers, trying to select the right one based on nothing more than a gut instinct that had not steered her all that well in the past.

An hour later she settled on a big guy with a plaid shirt and handlebar mustache. He drove a clean rig, the name Annie-Beth on the hood, a heart on either side.

She approached him and he smiled, took in her wet hair, Stetson, small bag and ninety-pound frame.

“Where do you need to get?”

“Maybe Vegas.”

“Vegas, huh.”

“Yeah.”

“You a runaway?”

“No.”

“I could get in trouble.”

“I’m not a runaway. I’m eighteen.”

He laughed at that.

“I’m passing Fish Lake.”

“Where’s that?”

“Utah.”

“Alright.”

As they drove she watched the world, view high and commanding. The cab smelled of leather. The big guy was Malcolm, like his parents expected him to stop growing at five seven and work accounts. There was a plant on the dash, she took that as a good sign. And a photo of a girl not much older than her and a woman beside.

“Is that Annie-Beth?” she said.

“My girl.”

“Pretty.”

“Sure is. That’s old now … nineteen. University, political science.” Pride colored every word. “I check in with her every night. She’s just, she’s so smart we didn’t even know where it came from. A blessing.”

“That your wife with her?”

“Used to be. I liked to drink.” He pointed to a pin on the dash. “Eighteen months sober.”

“Maybe she’ll take you back.”

“Not on the cards for me yet. I got a plant, cactus, I keep that healthy for six months then maybe. It’s all about taking it back, right.”

She looked at the cactus on the dash, long dead. She wondered if he knew, and also just how hard it was to kill a cactus.

He tried asking her a little, she gave nothing so he quit, pushed his visor down to cull the bright and then rode mile after mile.

She slept a little, woke with such a start he told her it was alright. She saw red rock, dried-out yellows and orange, sunset on a road so long and straight she wondered if she was dreaming.

At a truck stop he told her that was all. She thanked him and he wished her well.

“Go home,” he said.

“I am.”

At the edge of a town that did not have a clear name, Duchess walked beneath a silver sky, her feet so heavy it was all she could do to keep them moving. Tall buildings either side, painted colors that lightened with each step. Yellow planters and sapling trees, dying stores and floating noise, a bar across the street that fluttered neon. Sounds that told her not to go in. She stood there, her bag pulling the skin from her shoulder, eyes so tired edges blurred and streetlights smothered. Across, each step wayward and hard to point. She breathed in stammers, not knowing how to be any longer, her hands numb from the weight, the occasional memory of Robin lighting up her chest, all fire and hatred for the man who had stolen her old life and discarded it so carelessly, like litter in the wind.

She pushed the door against better judgment, fought her way to the bar, the men, and some women, parting, the light all red.

The bartender was old and she asked for a Coke before she realized she didn’t have enough. As she fished in her pockets he set it down, read her well and then pushed it toward her in an act of kindness so distant she had almost forgotten it existed.

She found a corner and put her bag down, sat on a low stool and closed her eyes to the sweet drink. A man with a guitar held the other corner, and he called on regulars and together they played and sang and the bustling crowd watched and sometimes laughed. There wasn’t one that could hold a tune, but Duchess stared on like she hadn’t heard music in the longest time.

For a moment she closed her eyes, wiped dirt and sweat that crossed her face and found her mother, holding Robin up to the stars like he was something blessed instead of another mistake.

And then she found herself on her feet, and she was moving and again the people parted, the women watching her like she was a child, the men watching her with something like curiosity.

She passed the pool table, breathed smoke and beer and the breath of tired men, leaning on each other, some swaying to the guitar.

When the music died she reached the corner, and the guitar player dipped his hat and she dipped her own in reply.

“You want to sing, girl?”

She nodded.

“Alright then.”

She took a seat and looked out, meeting them in turn, some smiles and some not.

She leaned, whispered because she wasn’t sure of the song’s name, only the words, but the man got it and smiled like she’d chosen well enough.

He played and she sat silent, he didn’t seem to mind when she closed her eyes and missed her cue, there were murmurs but she blocked them out and instead let those chords carry her a year back, when her mother was someone she could reach out to, never quite grasp but the feeling was there. She saw her brother, and then her grandfather, the reparation in his love stealing all the air from her chest.

She opened her mouth and sang.

She told them she was on their side, when times get rough.

The murmurs fell silent, and the men at the table stopped lining their shots and instead moved toward the little girl who sliced heaven wide open, her soul bared and burned, the man beside so transfixed he almost could not match her with his chords.

She was down and out, on the street. Darkness had come and pain was all around.

She was under no illusion, his blood would not cleanse hers. But she would do it, she couldn’t not.

When she was done she let the silence hang. The old man came from behind the bar, and he handed her an envelope stuffed with bills. She frowned till he pointed to the sign. SING TO WIN, monthly, a hundred bucks.

She did not wait for the cheers, she would hear them carry out into the lonely night as she left with her bag and found her way to the bus station.

This was her path to perdition.

A girl on her way to right a lifetime of wrongs.

44

WALK SPENT A NIGHT AND day dealing with the fallout.

There were questions from Iver County PD, he said little, they were still trying to figure out why Darke had broken into the Noble house. Walk did not help much with that. He said he was tired, sick, that he’d write a full report in the coming days. He wouldn’t speak of Duchess and the tape. He’d find a better angle.

He climbed into the rental and drove someplace he could sleep. A motel fifty miles from anywhere.