Brock Clarke - The Happiest People in the World

“I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,” Kurt said. He said this really, really slowly, as slowly as he possibly could. He often did this with his parents: he would talk slowly so that it would seem to them that he must be on drugs and so that they’d eventually ask, all worried, “Are you on drugs?” and he’d get to say, in his normal voice, “No, I can’t believe you’d ask me that!” because even when he was on drugs, the drugs didn’t make him talk that way. “I’m sorry, but you can’t park here,” he said, slowly, slowly.

“What?” the woman said. “What did you say?” And then she beeped again! Unbelievable, this woman and her horn. No wonder she couldn’t hear. The horn had probably deafened her, the way she leaned on it all the time.

The three of them moved to the driver’s window, Kevin and Tyler flanking Kurt. Kurt leaned over slightly, just barely entering the car’s space. It smelled to him like Delray Beach, Florida, and also Telluride, Colorado, but really it only smelled like the rental cars his parents had rented to get them from the airport to those places. “I said,” he said, “you can’t park here.”

“Oh,” she said. “I thought you said something before that, too.”

“Well, I didn’t.”

“No, hey, you did,” Kevin whispered. “You said, ‘I’m sorry.’ ”

“I didn’t.”

“You did,” Tyler said. “You said, ‘I’m sorry, but. .’ And then the rest of it.”

Kurt all of a sudden felt tired, especially in the eyes. He wished he had this woman’s huge sunglasses to rest behind. “I said, ‘I’m sorry,’ ” he said to her.

“Apology accepted,” the woman said, already backing out into the street. Fast, too. With Kurt’s head pretty much still inside the car window! What a bitch! “Bitch!” they yelled, as the car drove west. Once the car was out of sight, they continued to talk about what a bitch the woman was. Who the hell did she think she was? And who the hell was she? She was a total bitch, whoever she was! Etc. And only when they were done with that did they notice that Kurt was no longer holding the stranger’s pad of paper. It wasn’t on the ground anywhere, and neither of the cronies could find it on their persons. It was gone. Their memory of the strange word that meant “counter” was gone, too. All that any of them could remember was that they’d probably all mispronounced it. This was the worst: they’d failed to remember anything about something except that they’d failed at it. This was a lot like school, of course, not to mention everything else.

Henry entered the Lumber Lodge just as the cronies were exiting. He smiled and held the door open for them, but they did not thank him or even seem to be aware of his existence. He closed the door behind him, then entered the bar. It was empty. But Henry didn’t feel like he was alone. He could hear footsteps overhead. Someone took four steps, then stopped, then took four steps back. There was a long pause. Then another four steps, another brief stop, then another four steps. It was like someone was trying to speak to him in code. He’d felt this way in the restaurant, too. Those clocks, for instance: what were they trying to tell him? He’d been in hiding in two of those places — Berlin and Moscow. Surely those clocks must be some kind of sign or clue. But then again, he’d never been in hiding in London or Cairo. And then there was the clock labeled BROOMEVILLE. It was the only one that was running, but did that mean that Henry had plenty of time in Broomeville, or that time was running out? He didn’t know, but he felt strongly that someone probably did. He also felt strongly that someone was watching him. Locs had predicted this. She’d told him, Don’t worry. Someone’s always watching you in Broomeville . But he did worry. That’s why he’d drawn that cartoon in the restaurant. It gave him some sense of control: Everything is going to be just fine, because I know you’re watching me! was what the cartoon was meant to communicate. But to whom? When Henry had left the restaurant, there was only Kurt. He didn’t think Kurt was the one watching him, and if he was, then that probably wouldn’t be so bad: Kurt seemed like a good kid. He wouldn’t mind if it was Kurt’s mother watching him, either. Don’t worry. Kurt’s mother is always watching you in Broomeville. That sounded much better to Henry. Although it would sound even better if he knew her real name. He didn’t like calling her “the woman” or “Kurt’s mother,” not even in his head.

Henry heard more footsteps overhead. Then a furious crashing of feet on wood, and then a door to the left of the bar flew open as though it’d been kicked, and Henry saw the woman jump from two steps up. When she noticed him looking at her, the woman smiled sheepishly, and girlishly, as though to say, My mother always told me not to run down the stairs.

“I was just getting your room ready,” the woman said. She handed him a key. It was attached to a piece of plastic with the number 24 on it.

“I don’t even know your name,” Henry said.

“It’s Ellen,” Ellen said. “I brought your suitcases up there, too.”

“Thank you, Ellen.”

“I hope you don’t mind,” she said.

“Why would I mind?”

“Because I rifled through them a little bit, too.”

Rifled? Henry thought but did not say. Then he did a quick mental accounting of the contents of his suitcases. Clothes, bathroom things. What else? Anything incriminating? The expression on Ellen’s face said, Come on, we both know what I found in the suitcases, and Henry wondered whether he should be worried about her watching him after all.

“So, you’re Swedish,” she finally said.

She took my fake passport! Henry thought. But then he remembered it was in his inside jacket pocket, not in his suitcase. He patted the spot, just to make sure. Locs must have told Matthew he was Swedish or was pretending to be Swedish. And Matthew must have told Ellen. And Ellen had told Henry that almost everyone called him Matty, not Matthew.

“Matty told you,” Henry said, and she smiled at him. Gratefully, he thought, and also a little sadly, he thought.

“Come on,” she said. “He’s at the baseball game.”

BY THE TIME THEY got outside the Lumber Lodge, it was snowing. Snowing! Evidently, Ellen felt the same way. “Snowing!” she said. But then she looked up and got a snowflake in the eye.

“Oh, wow,” she said. She blinked rapidly and then began tugging at the underside of her right eye.

“Does it hurt?” Henry asked.

“It’s only snow,” Ellen said. “But yeah, it does hurt a little.” She tugged her eye again, then blinked slowly, once, twice, three times. “I really should wear glasses.”

“They would protect your eyes from the snow,” Henry said.

Ellen blinked once more and then looked at him with wide eyes. “Instead of contacts,” Ellen said.

Contacts? Henry thought. And then he thought: Kontaktlinsers . He wore them, too, special kontaktlinsers that helped correct his nearsightedness and also made his blue eyes brown.

Anyway, it had apparently been snowing for a while, because there was a rusty blue pickup truck parked in front of the Lumber Lodge and its windshield was covered with snow. Ellen got into the driver’s side of the truck, and Henry into the passenger’s side. Ellen then did several things in quick succession. First, she put the key into the ignition and turned it, which started the truck with a roar and then a rattle. Then she turned the windshield wipers on, but the snow was crusted on the glass and wouldn’t wipe off. Henry offered to get out and scrape, but Ellen waved him off. “It’s cold out there,” she said. Then Ellen turned on the defrost, and cold air came blasting into the truck. Then she turned on the radio. A man’s voice came out. He was talking about the weather. They listened for a few seconds, and then Ellen punched a button on the radio and another man’s voice came out. Henry recognized it immediately: sports talk radio sounds the same no matter what language it’s spoken in and what sport is being discussed. They listened to that for a few seconds, and then Ellen punched another button and another man’s voice came out, talking about politics. After a few seconds of listening to that, Ellen turned off the radio. She lit a cigarette and smoked it halfway to the filter before glancing at Henry. The glance was half dare, half apology. “Matty doesn’t like to see me smoke,” she said. Finally she put the car in gear. To Henry, all of this seemed like preparations for a very long journey. But not even a minute later, Ellen stopped the truck and said, “We’re here.”