John McManus - Born on a Train - 13 Stories

We should turn around and go the other way, she said.

And then what? he said.

Keep driving, she said.

To where? he said.

South, so we won’t breathe the radiation.

Once it’s happened it’s happened.

It’s cumulative, she said.

You think south’s the answer to everything.

Put the air on recirculate.

It’s too late, he said.

Maybe the car will filter out the fallout.

That’s not what cars are made to filter.

At least we can try, Sam’s mother said.

Recirculate gives you cancer, he said.

Fallout gives you cancer, she said.

No, it just kills you.

I’m scared of how my stomach hurts. My tonsils feel like fingernails.

We shouldn’t talk about this in front of Sam, he said.

Don’t look at me, she said. Look at the road.

That’s a stupid thing to say, said Sam’s father.

Why is it a stupid thing to say? said Sam.

Your mother knows what makes it stupid.

Of all the days to act this way, she said.

Christmas isn’t supposed to be happy. It’s to make us feel like shit.

Sam’s mother put her fingers to her forehead. Sam’s father sped the car up every time he finished talking. Why would Jesus lie about his own birthday? he said.

Why would Jesus drop a bomb on us? she said.

Jesus is very mysterious, he said, laughing. Sam, what if I told you your birthday’s the first of May, and you thought it was December.

But it is December, said Sam.

You can fake a birth certificate, said his father.

Don’t worry, said his mother. Your birth certificate’s real.

It’s just a piece of paper with some ink, his father said.

Sam looked out the window. He liked his birthday, and he didn’t want a new one.

If it was May he’d be a Taurus, said his mother. You can’t fake that.

Maybe he is one, said his father.

He’s way too smart to be a Taurus.

She turned and rubbed Sam’s pant leg with her hand. Sam loved his mother’s voice, how she spoke so calmly and how she taught him so many different things. His Gemini was moving out of Jupiter, so his life was going to change. He’d figured it meant his brother, but maybe it was the sky, which looked like his Nehi grape would have looked if it were melted to the glass. He thought about nuclear war, how it could shut things down so he and the baby would never have to go to school, and he drew sevens with his pink crayon on the paper sack that held the money. Seven was the best number. He drew it seven times and seven more, and when he ran out of brown space on the bag he drew new sevens on top of the other sevens.

Sam, said his mother, I don’t want you to be scared just because I’m scared.

Her face looked wet as she smiled at him and stroked his knee. I’m not scared, said Sam.

It’s okay to be scared, but you don’t need to be.

Okay, he said, still drawing. It made him sad the way she smiled, but then she turned to the front again and whispered in his father’s ear, and he wasn’t sad anymore. Disasters were exciting; they brought everyone together, and everybody had to think about the same thing. Now the sky was his crayon’s color, pale pink like dogwood blossoms, and he drew thick, furious sevens as he watched it grow.

Sam, his mother said.

What?

You’ve still got that crayon in your ear.

No, he said, it’s in my hand.

His mother turned to the window and put her head against it and sighed.

Just let him draw the sevens, said his father.

It’s not that they’re sevens, she said, and she turned to Sam and added, You’ll be starting kindergarten soon. You should think about getting a new favorite color.

Where do you get one? said Sam.

You just think of one, she said.

Why can’t pink be my favorite color?

This is a different place. People are different here.

You don’t know that they’ll be different, said Sam’s father.

His mother cleared her throat. I think we can assume.

That’s just you. You’re fostering an environment.

That principal could barely talk, she said.

But we’ll have the money for the Montessori school now.

That money’s not even enough for the baby.

How much does the baby cost? said Sam.

His mother swallowed. Different things, she said. Depending.

Sam’s father picked up the walkie-talkie and said, Come in, Ground Control.

I’m in, said Sam.

Over.

Over.

Count the money, over.

It’s too dark, his mother said.

Sam can see fine in the dark, his father said.

He’ll hurt his eyes, she said.

It’s one of his special powers.

I’ll never understand what it is about you and powers.

He squinted at her and mumbled something Sam couldn’t hear.

Shut up about it, she said. My family was here since the eighteen hundreds.

Once a German, always a German, he said.

You get to be the good guy, and I’m the big bad voice of reason.

It’s the German blood, he said.

You’re undermining me.

You’re fostering an environment.

Sam, she said, I think pink’s a very pretty color.

He continued drawing, because they’d talked about it several times before.

If the world were just us, she said, I’d never say a thing.

What’s your favorite color? he asked his mother.

Ground control, said his father. Over.

It was blue, she said.

Did they make fun of you for it? said Sam.

Is your mission complete, over.

Not for that, his mother said.

I’m working on it. Over.

I know there’s not enough, said his mother.

There’s always more, his father said.

No, she said, there’s not going to be any more.

The money was mostly tens and twenties, with some ones mixed in, and Sam counted it carefully to make it be enough. It was fun to add the figures in his head. Numbers were his favorite thing. When cars passed on the highway, he did the squares and square roots of the license plates, but tonight the road was empty. His parents’ license plate was seven cubed, three hundred forty-three and several letters, until his father stopped to switch it at a wayside. He got a Mississippi plate from the hatchback and crouched behind the car with a flathead screwdriver in his fist. Sam opened the door to see what the new number was, but his mother stopped him.

I want you to stay in the car and keep me company, she said.

Why? he said.

It’s cold.

I’ll be okay.

You’re safer here.

I’m hot, he said.

Take off your sweater.

His father heard them talking and yelled, Come out if you want to.

Stay right here, his mother told him quietly.

Can’t I get out for just a second?

Can’t you please just stay?

Sam wondered if he should disobey her. He never had before, but he needed to know the license number. Sometimes his mother didn’t understand things like that. His father rapped a finger on her window; when she waved him away he rapped again. She rolled it down a half an inch, and he growled something into her ear. He opened Sam’s door and pulled him out into the night. The trickly flux lines made triangles, and he knew which ones were scalene, which were isosceles, acute, obtuse, and they stretched to the horizon like a range of upside-down mountains suffering a slow, endless earthquake.

We don’t know what it does to breathe this air, his mother said.

Sam’s father ignored her and shut the door and stood very still until he walked behind the car. Your mother’s having a hard time right now, he said. I need to remember that.

Sam nodded. The number had no sevens, no matter what kind of math he did to it.

You left your walkie-talkie in the car, his father said. You’re incommunicado.

But we’re right next to each other, said Sam.