Eric Puchner - Model Home

That night in the smoke-filled RV Jonas couldn’t sleep. His thoughts turned thick and gooey again, refusing to cook into words. Eventually, after the moaning below had stopped, he climbed down from the loft and crept past the naked, snoring bodies in bed and stepped out into a campground packed with RVs. The sky was slathered with stars. Wandering the row of motor homes, thirsty and goose-pimpled, Jonas realized he was wearing a stranger’s pants and nothing else. His teeth began to chatter. The RVs were all dark except for one parked next to a junky playground, flickering like a candle. From inside rumbled the muffled din of explosions. Jonas peered through the window and could see a family arrayed in chairs, watching TV in the dark and passing around a bag of popcorn. A girl in plaid pajamas was sitting on the floor just below him. She ate some popcorn from the center of her hand and then licked her palm. If the window were open, he could have reached through and touched her. Jonas sat down in the dirt and put his ear against the side of the RV, hugging himself for warmth, listening to the cozy booms exploding in his head.

Warren touched the place where his heart hurt. A gentle clawing weight, as though a kitten were sitting on his chest. He’d been having the pains since Jonas ran away. By now, the sixth day of his disappearance, they’d become a familiar occurrence, enough to make him stop what he was doing. Warren stared through the windshield at one of Melody’s neighbors sitting on his roof; he was kicked back in a La-Z-Boy, fiddling with a Rubik’s Cube. Warren tried to imagine how he’d gotten the La-Z-Boy onto the roof. The world, full of casual mysteries, made the pain in Warren’s chest seem less troubling.

When the pain subsided, he got out of the Oldsmobile and walked through the dust to Melody’s trailer. He hadn’t seen or called her since the day with the antenna. In truth, Jonas’s disappearance had startled him from a kind of daze. He felt like Rip Van Winkle, waking up after twenty years and returning to his ruined life. This was ironic, since he hadn’t slept for days.

Warren knocked on the screen door, startled by its noisy rattle. It was only now that he noticed the motorcycle in Melody’s front yard. It had a leather seat with little springs under it, the whole thing painted a military green. The gas tank was emblazoned with a star, like the prop from an old war movie.

“How can I help you?”

A strange man was eyeing him suspiciously through the closed door, his face pitted with tiny commas. Warren might have considered him ugly before Dustin’s accident. “Is Melody home?”

“At the hospital,” the man said.

Warren stared at him. “She’s… okay?”

“Her dad’s got pneumonia. Coughing so hard he busted a rib.”

Warren stepped back from the door. It amazed him that other people had problems.

“Whom shall I say has graced us with his charms?” the man asked. He was not smiling.

“Warren. We’re friends.”

“Right. Stupid me. The knife salesman.” The man leaned close to the screen, poking his finger into it as if trying to break through the mesh. “Did you know, Warren, that more people are killed annually by donkeys than die in plane crashes?”

Warren headed back to his car, taking the long way around the trailer to avoid the man’s eyes. Ducking under the men’s T-shirts fluttering on the clothesline, he caught the familiar scent of Melody’s detergent. The neighbors’ pig was gone from its pen, which had been cleaned up and raked free of shit. He’d never cared much for the pig, but its absence unnerved him. He thought of Jonas and the way they’d cleaned his room impeccably for his return.

Melody’s brother was doing chin-ups from the sun visor above the kitchen window. Warren tried to sneak by, but his shoes crunched on the gravel and caught Kenny’s attention. He was wearing shorts and aviator sunglasses, his long hair matted with sweat. Warren felt his heart stop and catch, like a bike changing gears. It had been doing this lately as well. Kenny dropped to the ground and asked if everything was all right.

“There’s a man inside,” Warren managed.

“Roland,” Kenny said. “Melody’s husband.”

“I thought they hated each other.”

“They get along much better now that they’re separated.” He laughed. “Anyway, he’s just staying here for support while Dad’s in Lancaster. Or so he claims, when he’s not dropping factoids.”

Kenny caught Warren staring at the zinc oxide on his chest, explaining that he couldn’t afford to get too tan or no one would hire him. People liked their Jesuses white. He went on to talk about a Nicaraguan Jesus he’d met in L.A. and Warren tried to follow what he was saying, but his words began to melt together, a puddle of gibberish.

Kenny lifted his sunglasses. “Are you sick?”

“Why?”

“You’re shaking.”

Warren looked at his hands. Certainly he felt unwell. He wasn’t sure if this was the same as being sick. “I do feel cold,” he said, surprised. “What’s the temperature?”

“One hundred and four.”

Kenny put his arm around his shoulders and led him into the narrow strip of shade under the window awning, clearing some broken glass away with his flip-flop. He sat down with Warren in the dirt, still hugging him with one arm. It was nice to be held. The sunglasses, the lotiony, tropical smell, were just like Dustin’s. The chill in Warren’s body retreated into his bones.

“My twelve-year-old son’s gone. He ran away.” Warren didn’t know why he was telling him this. “It’s my fault.”

“Probably not,” Kenny said.

“Something bad happened to his older brother, an accident, and I used to wish it was him instead. All the time. I couldn’t stand to look at him.”

Kenny nodded. He did not seem shocked by this.

“I had a gig once at this evangelical church,” Kenny said finally. “They hired me to stand there during Sunday service and help people pray. You know, one by one. I put my hand on their heads and they prayed for whatever they wanted.” He let go of Warren and flipped his hair back, plucking a sweaty hank from his eyes. “Would you like to pray for your son?”

“I don’t believe in God,” Warren said.

“That’s okay. I work for myself.”

Warren looked at him. He seemed to be serious. Kenny knelt in front of him and laid a hand on Warren’s head. His sunglasses reflected Warren’s face, turning it moosey and distorted. Warren closed his eyes. He did not know how to ration his prayer. There were so many things he could ask forgiveness for: for loving Jonas least of his children; for giving up on life; for being here at all, in grease-stained khakis, at a strange woman’s trailer. Once, as a boy, Warren had asked his mother if animals ever prayed to God; she’d told him that they didn’t need to, that God heard them through their suffering. The thwup s of a hammer echoed nearby, fading into the relentless buzz of cicadas.

“Please,” he said, “bring Jonas home.”

Something touched his ear, gently, but it was only a trickle of sweat. Kenny nodded and stood up, his right knee cribbled from the gravel. There was nothing left to say. The sun shone, the bugs bugged, his son was still missing. Warren thanked the freelance Jesus in front of him and headed back to the car. As if remembering something, Kenny popped into the trailer for a minute and then caught up with Warren, holding a sheaf of papers.

“It’s a petition,” he said. “We’re getting as many sponsors as we can. They want to raze this whole place and put in a gated community.”

“Here?”

“Fucking developers. Dad’s lived here for thirteen years. They think because it’s a trailer park, no one’s going to raise a stink.”