The Most Important Thing

  “Coke.”

  “I’ll get some.”

  As I ate, he sat opposite, not talking. He was staring at me.

  “You look just like Mickey,” he told me for the second time. Then he said, “Sounds like you two don’t get along.”

  “It’s okay.”

  Head bent, he studied his hands. With his cap down, I couldn’t see his face. Without looking up, he said, “Does he ever talk about me?”

  “No.”

  He looked up. “His mother?”

  I shook my head.

  I thought he might say more, but he didn’t. Instead, he sat there until abruptly, he jumped off his seat, walked toward the front door, wheeled around, yanked off his cap, and in an angry voice, cried out, “I don’t hear from Mickey for years. Then, out of the blue, he calls and tells me his wife is in the hospital and his kid — you — is coming. What kind of crap is that?”

  Stunned by his anger, I said, “Do — do you want me to leave?”

  “Your ticket is for next Sunday.”

  “I — I could change it.”

  “Trust me, I checked. It costs too much. I don’t have the money. You’re here until Sunday. I have a patio. I’ll be out there.”

  As if trying to escape, he shot by. Momentarily, a back door banged.

  Dazed, I remained at the kitchen counter, my appetite lost, not sure what to do. All I could think was: He’s crazy. I have to get out of here. I went to my room, got out my cell phone, only to remember it was dead. There was that phone in the kitchen, but I was afraid he might come back and listen. I didn’t use it.

  Sitting there, I thought, No wonder my father doesn’t like this guy. For the first time in my life, I felt sympathy for my dad. Is that why he sent me here? To see what a jerk his father was?

  I don’t know how long it took me to get up my nerve to edge out the back door. Road was sitting on a faded and torn couch, apparently just staring at the small grass yard, in the middle of which stood a concrete birdbath. No water in it. No birds.

  I stood there for a while, but Road didn’t seem to notice me. I said, “I want to go home.”

  “You can’t,” he said. “Suck it up.” Then he said, “I get angry.” It was a statement, not an apology. “Just leave me alone. I do stupid things.”

  That sounded like a threat.

  I retreated into the house, trying to decide what to do. I didn’t see how I could get home. Deciding it would be best to keep out of his way, I started for my room, but curious, I snuck into his room.

  His bedroom had a narrow bed, a small table next to it, and a bureau. Nothing else. There was one window, with another dream catcher hanging from the frame. All I could think was, He really must have lots of nightmares.

  I was about to leave the room when I noticed a small framed picture on one wall, the only picture on the walls in the whole house. It was a black and white photo of a kid, someone about my age. When I looked at it, it took me a while to realize it was my dad.

  Next to Road’s bed was a small table with a drawer. Listening to make sure he hadn’t come back into the house, I slid it open. A pistol lay there.

  Really scared, I sat in my room trying to decide what to do. The image of that pistol and Road’s words — I do stupid things — wouldn’t leave my head. I considered finding a police station. Get out of here, I kept thinking.

  When Road didn’t appear, I went out back. He hadn’t moved.

  “Going for a walk,” I said.

  “I’m not going anywhere,” he said, sweet as a rusty nail.

  I stepped out onto the sidewalk but had no idea where to go. I started walking. At the corner, I looked down the street. In the distance, I could see the mountains. I walked toward them. Not because I thought I’d get there, but because I needed a direction.

  Seven blocks later, I reached a big park. There were joggers, people playing volleyball, and others doing exercises, as well as kids shooting baskets. I went over to the court and stood there, watching. After a while one of the kids shot me a bounce pass. I took it as an invitation, and played.

  An hour later, the kids took off. I had half a mind to ask if I could go with them. I didn’t. Not knowing what else to do, I headed back down the same street I’d come — mountains at my back — until I found Road’s house. I stood outside for a while, until, reluctantly, I walked in. He was sitting in his large chair, reading a book. His cap was still on. It was as if he was branded with the words Viet Vet.

  He looked up with those tired eyes of his and for a moment, just stared at me. I could almost see what he was thinking, that I looked like my father. Maybe that was his problem. All he said, however, was, “Where were you?”

  “At the park, playing basketball with some kids.”

  “Good,” he said, and went back to his reading.

  He made a dinner: some packaged frozen meat loaf, with potatoes and peas. He had gotten some Coke. Doughnuts for dessert.

  We didn’t really talk. The click of forks and knives on plates, and sounds of chewing, seemed loud. He asked me what grade I was in, and what were my favorite subjects; the questions adults ask kids when they can’t think of anything to say. He knew kids like cats know computers.

  “The food okay?” he asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “What do you eat for breakfast?”

  “Oatmeal.”

  “You have a lot of friends?”

  “Sure.”

  But no questions about my father — his son — or my mother. No mention of his outburst. Didn’t really ask anything about me. And I was afraid to ask him about that pistol.

  All the same, I’d catch him staring at me, as if he were trying to make sense of me. Or was he looking at Mickey? When I returned his gaze, he’d avert his eyes.

  Dinner done, he said, “Get yourself a book. That’s the entertainment here. Tomorrow, we’re going up into the mountains. Camp out.”

  “I’m — I’m not sure I want to.”

  “You don’t have a choice,” he said.

  Upset, I went to my room. Why are we going camping? What’s going to happen? Should I run away? How am I going to get out of this?

  I found a book called The Outlaw Trail: Butch Cassidy and His Wild Bunch, which I tried to read but couldn’t — too much killing. Instead, I lay in bed trying to make sense of Road. The best I could come up with was that he was a time bomb, like those suicide bombers you see in the news.

  Wondering how and when he would explode, I fell into fitful sleep.

  By eight o’clock the next morning, we were in Road’s truck, moving fast, with two duffel bags in the back. Road gripped the steering wheel like my father did, tightly with two hands, his eyes locked on the road. He had his cap on, like it was a crown.

  I was strapped in a seat belt, feeling as if I were being kidnapped. The dream catcher hanging from the rearview mirror post swung back and forth like a pendulum in an old clock. Or a time bomb. Though I wished I knew where we were going and why, I didn’t say anything, but wondered if Road could hear my heart pounding.

  We got on a freeway, drove through suburbs, then swung west on three-lane Interstate 70. As the highway slanted sharply up, snowcapped mountains loomed before us. In moments, we were among them, as if being swallowed.

  After twenty minutes of silent driving, Road said, “Denver is another word for dull. But the mountains, they’re something special.”

  Still going higher, we sped by some small towns, but didn’t stop. A few times Road pointed and said, “That’s a played-out mine. Probably a hundred years old. Or older. They dug deep, took what they could, and left. Colorado history is boom and bust. Mostly bust. Like me.”

  For the most part, all I could see were tall green trees, and mountains capped with snow. Here and there were cascading waterfalls. “Spring snowmelt,” said Road.

  Ahead of us, the sky was full of dark clouds trailing what looked to be thin curtains of mist.

  Road said, “Storms coming.”

&n
bsp; “We going to be okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  “You camp a lot?” I asked.

  “I like to get away.”

  “From what?”

  “Myself.”

  After almost an hour’s drive, cutting through high mountains, Road took an exit marked BAKERVILLE. NO SERVICES. We traveled along a two-lane road, not passing or being passed by anyone. The sky was gray. The trees around us were gigantic, the rocks high and close to the road. If there was a place called Bakerville, I never saw it.

  After a few miles, Road slowed the truck and cut onto a narrow, bumpy dirt road. We bucked along for about half an hour, going deeper into dark forest. Hanging branches sometimes slapped us. As the truck jounced, the dream catcher flung about wildly, as if full of nightmares. I held on, wondering where we were headed. The dirt road came to an end. We stopped. Road turned off the motor. The deepest silence I ever heard took over.

  I peered around. The world was mostly green, dark green. High above, treetops were swaying. Beyond the trees, I could see churning clouds. I said, “Where are we?”

  “The best place. Nowhere. Roll up your windows.”

  Road got out, slamming the door behind him. He seemed to like the sound of leaving.

  Having no idea what was happening, I reluctantly got out. The dirt lane had ended, but in front of us was a clearing maybe fifteen yards across. It was carpeted with grass, like a tiny park, or cemetery. In the middle was what appeared to be a circle of stones, surrounded by old logs. It reminded me of some ancient shrine we had studied in school, where they did human sacrifices. Wondering if Road had his pistol, I wished I wasn’t alone with him.

  As we got out of the truck, a thud of thunder came.

  Road looked up. “It’s a-coming.” He pulled up one of the duffel bags, flung it over his shoulder, took up the other one by a cloth handle, and hurried into the clearing. “Come on!” he called.

  I followed.

  Once in the clearing he knelt down and began to pull sticks and cloth from one of the bags. Next he flung out a ground cover, then worked to set up a tent. Overhead, thunder banged. It grew darker. Treetops began to snap back and forth, like angry whips.

  Not knowing what to do I sat on a log and watched Road work. When I saw the butt of Road’s pistol sticking out of a side pocket, I knew I didn’t want to share a tent with an angry man with a gun.

  The sky got even darker. Thunder rocked and rolled. Rain started falling.

  The tent was up. Road heaved the duffel bags into it and said, “Unless you want to get wet, you might as well get in.” He held back a flap and crawled inside.

  I hesitated, not wanting to go there with him. But when the rain began to pelt, I did. Surrounded by dim blue cloth, it was as if I had crawled into some kind of cocoon. I wiggled in only to have lightning crackle overhead like a series of pistol shots, enough to make me start. The tent fabric flickered with the light. Crashing thunder boomed. Rain beat down so hard I felt I was inside a drum.

  Road tied the front flaps together. Then he sat back, clutching his knees. “We’ll be dry,” he said.

  “Will it last long?” I asked.

  “Never know,” he said.

  I sat there listening to the storm. Getting up my nerve, I said, “Why are we here?”

  Road didn’t answer. He just sat there, holding on to his knees, his Viet Vet cap pulled low, staring straight ahead. Of course, he knew I was there, and had heard my question. He didn’t react.

  I eyed the tent flaps, wondering if I should run away, bolt for the truck, and lock myself in.

  Then, speaking softly, Road said, “You asked me how come your father and I don’t get along. Well, as I see it, a man can’t tell the truth until he gets to a safe place.”

  Overhead, lightning cracked and thunder burst. I flinched. “Is this safe?” I whispered.

  “Just us against a God-made storm. Can’t get safer than that.”

  I waited, feeling as if I was on the edge of something bad.

  He took a deep breath. “How come your father and I don’t get along? Long story short: Soon as I got out of high school — eighteen — not wanting to wait and be drafted, I joined the army. Get it over with. Before I did, I married my girlfriend, Nancy. She was seventeen. I was sent to ’Nam. Call it hell. Two tours.

  “When I got out of the army, Nancy didn’t know me. I didn’t know Nancy. I didn’t know myself. And when I got out, I didn’t know my new kid, Mickey. Your father.

  “By then, Nancy had had enough. She wanted a life. I didn’t blame her. Divorce. I got full custody of your dad. Off she went. I didn’t know where. Never saw her again. I doubt your father ever saw her, either. A few years back, I heard she died.

  “I thought I could be a father. I couldn’t. Only real thing were the nightmares, day and night. Let me tell you, the worst thing about having been to hell is you don’t have words to describe it. Worse, it’s trapped inside”— he touched his head —“like a car with its motor running, but you’ve locked yourself out, so it keeps going. Way I figure it, words are the keys that open the door. That’s why I keep reading. Searching for the right words, the keys. Maybe I’ll find them. If I do, I’ll get inside my head and turn that motor off.

  “Point is, I was a lousy father. The worst. Too much anger. Drink. Other bad stuff. For your father’s eighteenth birthday, he gave himself the best present ever. He took off. Left no word. I didn’t know where he went. I don’t blame him. I was — am — full of bad thoughts, bad actions, ghastly memories, and nightmares . . . always nightmares. What do they call it? Shell shock. These days, PTSD.

  “Every few years your father and I pull the thin strings that still seem to connect us. Never completely cut. We hold on, but don’t ask me what we’re holding.

  “You wanted to know how come. That’s how come. I’m what you might call a casualty of war. And Mickey — your dad — he’s one, too. Do you get on with him?”

  “Not really.”

  “Then you’re a casualty of war, too.”

  He became silent. Just sat there, holding his knees, rocking back and forth a bit. Outside, the storm went on, but it didn’t seem as bad as the storm inside him.

  I said, “Was the war that bad?”

  “That’s why I have so many dream catchers. Trying to keep the nightmares from coming at me.”

  “Do they work?”

  “Still looking for one that will.”

  “What happened in the war?”

  He was silent, and then said, without looking at me: “You really want to know?”

  “Yeah.”

  Then he said what he had said before. “You look like Mickey when he was your age. He tried to get me to love him. Oh, yeah, he tried.”

  We sat there without talking. I had the sensation that the tent was its own world. We could have been in a cave deep in the earth. Or in a capsule shooting through space surrounded by nothingness.

  Then Road began to talk. And he didn’t stop. What he told me was astonishing. The fighting. The boredom. Friends he saved. Friends who saved him. Friends he lost. People he killed. Men, women, children. A lot was awful. A lot was brave. But all ghastly.

  He went on and on. Sometimes I stopped listening. That didn’t stop him from talking. Or looking at me. Sometimes I thought he was not talking to me, but to my father, telling him things he had never told him before. A few times, he even called me Mickey.

  I never heard anyone talk so much. It was as if he hadn’t talked for years and was making up for lost words. It was as if something inside of him was making words, and they came pouring out of him, like one of those snowmelt waterfalls.

  The storm went. The sun came. We sat on the logs. I could see blue skies above the trees. He still talked. He built a fire. We had hot dogs, beans, packaged cookies. He kept talking. I had stopped listening a long time ago. It didn’t matter. He kept talking. All day. That motor inside him never stopped.

  It grew dark. I went into the woods to pee.
When I looked back, the electric lamp Road had turned on in the tent made it look like a lump of gold in the night.

  I nodded off. Road led me into the tent, let me lie down, threw a blanket over me. As I fell asleep, I saw him through the open tent flaps, sitting by the fire, looking into the dwindling embers. For all I knew he was talking to the flames.

  I slept.

  When Road woke me in the morning, it was cold but bright. The grass had a coating of thin, white frost. When I breathed in, it was like drinking cold, clear water. He had a fire going. I sat down on one of the logs, and he handed me a cup of hot cocoa. He sat on a log opposite.

  “You okay?” he asked.

  “Stiff. You?”

  “Good.” Then he said, “I talk too much?”

  “No.”

  “Pretty awful.”

  “I guess.”

  “You guess right.”

  I said, “Why do you have a pistol?”

  “It’s fake.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Walmart plastic. I figure it might scare someone off. I wouldn’t trust myself with a real one.”

  “Who would you shoot?”

  “Myself, probably. Come on, let’s head back.”

  The next five days went fast. Something had changed in him. He was easier to be with. As if he really wanted to know, he asked lots of questions about me, my father, my mother.

  We did things, too. The Colorado History Museum. A Rockies game at Coors Field, where the view of the mountains was better than the game. We rented bikes and went along what he called Cherry Creek, down to the Platte River where they once found gold, the gold that brought his ancestor to Colorado. He took me to a town called Marshall, and we rode horses. Mostly he talked. I tried to listen, but I’m not sure it mattered to him that I heard. What mattered to him was that he talked.

  On Friday — two days before I was going to leave — he told me he had that carpenter’s job, replacing some steps for a guy he knew. He said he would be back in about six hours.

  I knew exactly what I wanted to do. Soon as I was sure he was gone, I pulled a stool from the kitchen, climbed up, pulled down on that overhead noose in the hallway. The wooden steps came down silently.

  I climbed up and found myself in a low storage attic. There were cardboard boxes piled up in complete disorder. The boxes seemed filled with junk, books, clothing, and papers. One box had been pulled forward, and was open. I had the impression someone had gone into it recently.