Miriam Toews - The Flying Troutmans

Thebes, I said, do you want to have a pillow fight?

Do you?

Well, I don’t know, it could be fun…do you?

I guess, if you do.

So for the next half-hour or so, while the Dickwad family in the room next to us pounded on their walls and told us to shut up, I fought the kids with a Polyfil pillow and eventually let them beat me into a fetal position on the floor. It was maybe seven-thirty or eight in the morning. I had to get the van into a shop, but this time we were all going together.

First, though, Thebes had a long, hot bath and I washed her hair and tried to dig the chunks of dirt out of her scalp without removing her brains. How long before this dye comes out? I asked her.

I don’t know, she said. Ten or twelve washes.

Well, shit, I said, you’ll be like twenty-two years old before it’s gone.

Your mama, she said.

No, yours, I said and she splashed water in my face.

WE WERE PACKED UP, READY TO GO, Thebes was clean and shiny, in her secondary white outfit, and Logan was making a Herculean effort to be charming in spite of having had no sleep that night and no access to the remote control. There was a knock at the door. I thought it would be the cops, the front desk woman with a registered complaint, or the people in the next room waving nunchuks and cans of mace, but then I remembered that this was the United States and all that would happen was that we’d get our faces blown off and die instantly.

See who it is, Lo, I said. He peered through the peephole and said it was some dude in a toque and he was carrying a ton of stuff.

Like, weapons? I said.

No, said Logan, like casseroles.

It was Adam. I was so happy to see him. I was inordinately happy to see him. I threw my arms around him and all the stuff he had and hauled him into the room and introduced him to Logan and Thebes, who were looking slightly perplexed. I told them how I knew Adam and Adam told them that he’d seen both of them last night without them seeing him.

You’re a pretty shooter, he told Logan, who mumbled something, and then Adam told Thebes her hair was awesome and she smiled shyly and thanked him for noticing. She showed him a few of her kung fu moves and he taught her one he knew.

He’d made the casseroles himself as soon as he had dropped me off at the court, and he also brought some CDs he’d burned and a bag of weed. I tossed the bag into my backpack before Logan could see it and thanked Adam for everything and then I tried to lift him off the ground, which was stupid, and told him we were about to check out and find a mechanic and then hit the road to Twentynine Palms. He said he knew of a guy who could fix our van for really cheap, and so we followed him in his truck to this guy’s place way out on one edge of Flagstaff. When we were driving Thebes asked if Adam was a methamphetamine addict or a scam artist and I said no, I didn’t think he was either of those things, and he wasn’t actually from Flagstaff. And he’s not a ghost either, I said.

I almost drove off the road in an effort to keep up with Adam and to surreptitiously observe Thebes in her post-trauma recovery. I didn’t know if it was true that she hadn’t really meant to hurt herself. Maybe she hadn’t really meant to kill herself. I didn’t know if this was a typical thing for an eleven-year-old to do when her mother couldn’t remember who she was and she was on her way to visit a father who also probably couldn’t remember who she was.

I’m gonna see if I can use this mechanic’s phone and I’ll call Min again, I told her.

I wanna talk to her too, said Logan.

Yeah, of course, I said. Then it occurred to me that maybe I had just made a tactical error. I’d assumed that Min would be more coherent on the phone during the day, when she wasn’t under the soporific influence of the blue torpedoes, but maybe she’d be just as spaced as before and this time not only would she not know Thebes, she wouldn’t know Logan, or me, for that matter, and we’d all want to open up a vein.

I followed Adam onto a gravel driveway and into a yard cluttered with the decaying body parts of old cars, trucks and tractors.

Doesn’t look like he’s got much of a track record of fixing things, said Logan. A pit bull came flying out of nowhere, barking, and hurled himself against the side of Adam’s truck. Holy shit, man, said Logan, I don’t do pit bulls. Don’t open your door. Thebes said she wasn’t afraid and put her hand on the door handle and Logan grabbed it and said, No, Thebie, don’t, those dogs are banned in Canada.

Give it some of the casserole, I told Thebes. Logan, let her go, you can stay in the van if you want. Hell yeah, he would, thanks, he said. He put his headphones on and dropped out of view.

Adam had got out of his truck and was patting the dog and talking to a guy who’d come out of the house. He turned around and waved at us to come on over there. Thebes and I got out of the van to see what was what. Adam told us the guy’s name was Freak and we all introduced ourselves. Freak did the entire hand slapping, punching thing with Thebes, skilfully, and then also told her that he dug her hair and stylin’ holster. And then he went over to the van for a look under the hood.

He’s the real deal, said Adam. He’ll fix it.

What’s the dog’s name? said Thebes.

Lucille, said Adam. After Freak’s mom.

Freak came back over to us and said he’d have the van fixed in two hours, max, and we could hang out and do whatever we wanted while he worked.

How’d you get that fur and shit on your front bumper? he asked.

We hit a deer, I told him.

I’ll Power Vac it off, he said. But I don’t know if I can fix the dent. I told him there was a boy in the van and not to worry about him, he was afraid of Lucille.

Lucille’s baked, said Freak. She loves everyone. But I don’t really love her. She doesn’t know it, though. I got her from a junkie who was going to rehab and couldn’t keep her. I’ve only had her for like a week and she’s already broken into my stash four times. Her name was The Beef, but I’m a vegan and I changed it.

Why? said Thebes. Were you going to eat her?

No way, man, said Freak, she’s all muscle. That bitch is ripped. She’s mellow now, though, but I still don’t love her the way she deserves to be loved.

Well, said Thebes, what does she answer to better, The Beef or Lucille?

Neither, said Freak, she doesn’t answer to anything. You can call her whatever you want.

I’m gonna call her Rajbeer, said Thebes.

After that kid in your class who doesn’t know you’re a person? I said.

Yeah, said Thebes.

Why? asked Adam.

Because I like his name, said Thebes, and because I really wanted to be friends with him.

Cool, said Freak. Rajbeer. He said he was gonna get to work on the van and we should make ourselves at home, his casa was our casa, and there was beer in the fridge.

Cherkis had tried to see the kids after Min had chased him down the street, screaming, with Thebes on her hip and me and Logan playing inferno in the backyard. He had sent letters and a bit of money, when he had it, and had tried to ask Min if she wanted him to take the kids for a while, or forever, so she could try to get her life together. But every time she’d told him to go to hell, she could handle it on her own.

I tried to tell her that he only wanted to see them every once in a while, he was their dad, he missed them, he just wanted to say hi. He was trying to help. One time he showed up at their house and asked to see the kids and she freaked out and told him she’d call the cops and then called me and I had to go over there and ask him to leave and then she bundled the kids up, it was January or something, and put them in the car and they all drove away to one of her friends’ places so Cherkis wouldn’t be able to find them.