“The thingy just snapped right off,” she explains. “And the lower thingies won’t budge.”
“Lug nuts,” says her skinny companion impatiently, through the open window. “They’re called lug nuts!”
“You guys want me to call a tow truck?”
“Ain’t got no money for a tow truck,” he says, spitting out the window.
“We’ve got Triple A,” I offer.
“Never mind that,” he says. “I’ve got business in Missoula. Then we gotta make Jackson ’fore she busts. Ain’t got time to deal with this rice burner. Damn cylinder block’s made out of aluminum cans, anyway. Probably wouldn’t make St. Regis, even if it did have four wheels.”
With that, he climbs out of the car with a cigarette dangling from his mouth.
“I’m Peaches,” says the girl, standing upright. “And that’s Elton.”
Elton looks like a skinned weasel—weak chin, beady eyes, long body. He’s wearing a dirty Copenhagen cap, with the brim pulled down low, and a flannel shirt that looks like it may have survived a house fire.
“Elton’s got a lousy back,” she explains. “That’s why I’m changin’ the tire.”
“Fishin’ injury,” he explains.
Something about Elton doesn’t inspire confidence. Could it be the fact that he’d let his pregnant girlfriend change a tire on the shoulder of an interstate in the rain? Or maybe it’s just those beady eyes. He doesn’t seem dangerous, exactly, or even malignant, just sort of shifty.
“So, you goin’ as far as Missoula, hoss?”
“Let me talk to my friend,” I say. “He’s in charge.”
Elton nods doubtfully and spits on the ground. “All right, then.”
I stride back to the van and station myself by the passenger’s window, signaling to Dot to roll it down as an eighteen-wheeler speeds past, spraying me with a light mist.
“These guys need a ride to Missoula,” I explain.
“I dunno,” says Trev. “Dude looks sketchy to me.”
“The girl’s nice,” I say. “And she’s pregnant—really pregnant.”
“What do you think?” Trev asks Dot, over his shoulder. “It’d be crowded back there.”
“Fine,” she says. “But I wanna smoke first.”
Dot crawls around the driver’s seat to smoke on the shoulder in the rain, as I give Elton and Peaches the thumbs-up. Peaches soon hefts two huge suitcases out of the rear hatch and begins conveying them toward the van with tiny, hard-won steps.
“Don’t let that right one drag,” says Elton from behind her. “It’s gettin’ muddy!”
Ten minutes later, Elton, Peaches, and Dot are all crowded into the backseat, and we’re driving along in silence.
“So, business in Missoula,” I say, by way of making conversation.
“That’s right,” says Elton.
“What kind of business you in?” I inquire.
“None of yours,” he says.
“Elton’s gonna make us rich,” says Peaches. “He invented a—”
“Shush up,” says Elton.
“Well, you said that—”
“I said it ain’t patented yet. Don’t go runnin’ your mouth.”
“Your secret is safe with us,” I say.
Elton meets my gaze with narrowed eyes in the rearview mirror. “Well, I ain’t takin’ that chance, hoss. Not until I got my patent. And not until I got all my ducks in line so far as investors and such.”
“Oh, c’mon,” says Dot. “Just tell us.”
“Hell no. I ain’t tellin’. Ain’t nobody gonna steal my idea.”
“Well,” I say. “At any rate, sounds like you’ve dotted your i’s on this thing.”
“Hell yes, I did. I got a whole business plan wrote up. I even sent it to myself to get it postmarked—see, then I kept the whole plan sealed up in the envelope. That’s to protect the idea until the patent comes through. In some cases it’s admissible in a court of law. Long as it’s postmarked and sealed up tight. I got ’er in a safe deposit box.”
“Boy, you’ve really covered your bases,” I say.
“Hell yes. Fella don’t just squat on top of a gold mine with no protection and no plan. You gotta keep a lookout. And you gotta know how to mine that gold. Idea’s only as good as its execution.”
“You’ve got that right.”
“Hell yes, I do.”
“Must be a hell of an idea.”
“Hell yes, it is.”
“I don’t blame you for keeping the lid on it. Probably smart. The suspense is killing me, though. Must be a good one.”
Flush with excitement, Elton leans forward, and speaks in low earnest tones. “Fine then, I’ll talk around the edges a little bit, but I’m not tellin’ my actual idea. Just the edges.”
“Fair enough.”
“And this don’t go no further than this van, you hear? I’m dead serious about that.” Like a leery weasel, Elton frisks us with beady eyes. “You got that?”
“Got it,” we say.
“Well then, first, let’s talk about basic business principles and whatnot. For starters, you gotta consider—even before you consider the capitalizin’ part—whether or not there’s a market for your idea. And there’s a market for mine. Trust me, I worked in the industry. Matter of fact, there’s a bunch of products already on the market tryin’ to do roughly what my product does, but none of them work for diddly.”
“Like what?” says Dot.
“Well, for starters, you know them fake electronic dog boxes they sell to keep burglars away? Them ones that’s motion-activated, so that it sounds like you got a watchdog?”
“Yeah.”
“Well, they don’t fool nobody, and they sure as shit don’t scare nobody. Fact is, they got a zero point zero percent success rate at burglar deterrin’.”
“You researched it?” says Trev.
“How d’ya s’pose I ended up in the joint in the first place? By burglin’ houses, that’s how. And who d’ya suppose oughta know more about deterrin’ burglars than a burglar? You want a game warden, hire a poacher. So, yeah, I researched it plenty. Eighteen months on the inside gave me plenty of time to think about this—really wrap my brain around it. Idea like this don’t just come to a guy like a flash of lightnin’. Takes concentration—a whole mess of considerin’. Like I say, you gotta ask yourself all the right business questions: Who’s gonna capitalize it? Who’s gonna handle the manufacturin’? You gotta ask yourself, is my idea executable?”
“So what’s your idea?” I say.
Again, his beady eyes meet mine in the mirror, squinting fiercely. “Nice try, hoss.”
“Right, the edges, sorry. Well, what about the capital, where does that come from?” I say.
“He’s got a plan for that, too,” says Peaches brightly.
“And what’s that?” I say.
“He won’t tell me. He has ’vestors lined up, though.”
Determined to be mum on the subject, Elton’s thin lips are set, his eyes evasive.
“Oh, just tell us your idea,” says Dot.
“Yeah, c’mon,” says Trev. “How good could it be?”
This one gets Elton’s attention, he locks eyes on the back of Trev’s head.
“Tell ’em, honey,” says Peaches.
“Look at it this way,” I say. “You’re a guy who likes to dot his i’s. We could be like your focus group. Help you iron out any wrinkles in the plan. You know, head off any questions your investors might have. That’s how your corporate think tanks do it.”
Elton considers, scratching his weak chin a few times and looking out the side window at the Montana landscape. “S’pose there’s somethin’ to all that,” he says.
“And besides,” says Trev. “You’ve already applied for the patent, right? So it’s probably processing as we speak. Plus, you’ve got the sealed envelope. By the time anyone tried to steal your idea and get a patent, you’d already have the patent.”
“True,” he says. “You
gotta point there, hoss.”
“So just sketch it out for us,” I say. “Give us the general idea. Without the schematics.”
Elton gives me a final snake-eyed once-over before making the leap. “Okay. I’ll give you the gist of it. But just the edges.” He leans forward in his seat. “See, it’s kinda like one of them boxes with the fake dog barks I was on about, except that this is even better ’cause it makes a burglar think there’s a human bein’ inside. Human bein’ is gonna deter a burglar better than any dog. Only takes a porterhouse and a tranq to disarm a damn dog, no matter what he is. Believe me, I know.”
“So like your box is a person talking?” says Dot.
“Better,” says Elton. “Burglar’s gonna get wise when he hears every house on the block has the same voice talkin’. And then you gotta have two voices, ’cause who sits and talks to themselves on and on? I s’pose you could have different voice selections or different models, but that’s just making things too complex. The most successful business ideas are simple.”
“So what is it?”
Elton folds his arms, and leans back on the bench seat, his weasel eyes smiling for the first time. A quick mirror-check of Peaches confirms that her eyes are smiling too.
“My box,” says Elton triumphantly, “is a TV.”
“A TV.”
“Right.”
“I don’t follow.”
“You know, like instead of a dog barking, my box—and it’s got a name, but I ain’t tellin’ it—has a recordin’ of somebody watchin’ TV.”
A short dull silence settles in along with Elton’s revelation. I hesitate to comment. Who am I to shit on Elton’s dreams? But I just can’t help myself.
“Why not just use a real TV?” I say.
“Because this is smaller. Who wants a big TV sittin’ in their entryway?”
“Right,” I say. “But who keeps a TV right by the door? ”
“You don’t, dummy. You keep the box by the door. That’s the whole point.”
“Okay. But what I’m getting at is, your idea—the box—is supposed to make burglars think that somebody’s inside watching TV, right? So they won’t break in.”
“Now you’re getting’ it, hoss.”
“Right. Okay. I mean, yeah, I can see why a dog would be right by the door, because he knows somebody is out there. But who keeps their TV right by the door?”
“Hoss, you ain’t the sharpest tool in the shed, are you? You don’t have to keep your TV right by the door. That’s why I invented the box.”
“No, I mean, like why the box in the first place? Wouldn’t it just be better to use a regular TV? I mean, since the sound would be coming from where people normally keep their TVs—instead of coming from right behind the front door? Wouldn’t it be more realistic?”
If not stunned by this line of questioning, Elton appears at least a little confused, as though he’s just found himself in the ring with a southpaw. For a brief moment the implications appear to trouble him, and he’s back on his heels, circling, figuring, looking for an opening. But soon his eyes light up again, and with a wink in the mirror, he goes in for the kill.
“Well then, hoss. In that case, you just keep the box by the TV.”
grand canyon
Not until the AC goes tits up east of Seligman do I really begin to fathom what a terrible idea this southwest vacation was. What was I thinking? Arizona in August. Wife seven months pregnant. I must be an idiot. By late afternoon, Janet is so sweaty and blotchy she looks as though she might faint at any moment. Piper slumps in the backseat, her fair skin burned lobster red. The car is a blast furnace with the windows open wide.
“How much farther?” says Piper.
“Almost there, honey,” Janet moans.
The truth is, we’re still sixty-odd miles shy of the south rim.
“Maybe we should just stop in Williams,” I say. “Bag the Grand Canyon for today. Get a motel and rest up—maybe take a swim.”
“No!” says Piper.
“Mommy doesn’t feel good,” I say. “She needs rest.”
“No, no. I’m fine,” Janet says, her eyes closed. She pats me on the thigh and smiles weakly. “It’ll be fun.”
“But I just think—”
“Really, I’m fine,” she says. “I think it’s starting to cool off.”
“Ha!” says Piper. “Cool off? It must be a gazillion degrees. How many more miles to go?”
“Not many,” I say.
“How many?”
“About sixty.”
“Oh brother,” says Piper. “Why did they have to put the Grand Canyon way out in the middle of nowhere in the first place? Why couldn’t they put it where we live?”
Janet smiles weakly once more with her eyes closed. “Be patient, sweetie,” she says. “It’ll be worth the drive.”
“How do you know?” she says.
“I just know,” says Janet, who leans over and rests her sticky head on my shoulder. Laying a hand atop her swollen belly, she opens her eyes briefly and looks up into my face.
“How about you, handsome?” she says to me. “You doing okay?”
“Tip-top,” I say.
“You’re sure?”
“I’m sure.”
Within minutes, they’re both asleep, and I’m wending my way north through the scrubby pinewood toward the south rim, all alone. But nowhere near alone. Because I can feel the weight of Janet’s head on my shoulder, and her cool breath on my neck, and I know for certain that she will always be there beside me. And in the rearview mirror, I can see Piper, her determined chin pressed fast against her sunburned sternum, her little mouth twitching in sleep, and I know with equal certainty that she will always be my little girl, no matter how big she gets. And next to that, what’s the Grand Canyon?
the story with peaches
By Alberton, the rain has let up, though Montana’s signature big sky remains hidden behind a low sheet of gray muslin stretching from horizon to horizon. In the past hour or so, the cramped mountain landscape has gradually unfolded into a sprawl of green grazing lands, peppered with poplar-ringed farmhouses and grain silos, broken on all sides by a relief of knobs and rolling green hills. The interior of the van is at once stuffy and moist. I can smell the cigarette smoke clinging to Elton’s ragged flannel. Something smells like wet dog.
Trev is asleep again, mouth open, chair tilted back at a twenty- degree angle, his hands stuffed in the pockets of his big blue hoodie. I’m proud of him, and a little shocked. He’s been a great traveler despite the absence of routine. Never have I known him to be so flexible, and I can’t help but think Dot has everything to do with it.
Dot has resumed wearing headphones, face pressed to the fogged-up window, looking sleepy-eyed out across the landscape. Peaches sits in the middle, with Elton slumped beside her, his weak chin resting on her shoulder, snoring intermittently. Peaches has slipped on some jeans in lieu of her cotton dress and borrowed one of my sweatshirts, a faded black pullover. Her big stomach rests on her knees, out in front of her, where she lays a protective hand on it. Though her grammar may suffer, her voice is melodious. What is almost drawlish coming from Elton sounds like gentle strains from the mouth of Peaches. One projects laziness, the other ease.
“Actually, it don’t matter much that Leon kicked us out,” she says. “We was plannin’ on deliverin’ the baby in Jackson all along. My mama’s there. And my insurance coverage is there. Elton got the minimum nine months’ parole since he copped, so we ain’t gotta be in Montana but another week, anyhow. Says he don’t need to worry as long as he keeps his nose clean for seven days.”
“Things have a way of working out,” I observe.
“We got it all planned out already. We’ll wait till next spring to get married. Elton’s gettin’ what he calls start-up money from his ’vestors. That’ll get us settled. Overhead, he calls it. He says it ain’t good to be overly optimistic, on account of it bein’ bad business. Says a lot of good ideas fail on account o
f too much optimism. So he says he might have to sub-size our income for a while. He did some cookin’ back in Henderson.”
Mental note to self: Don’t eat in Henderson on the way back.
“Do you know if it’s a boy or a girl?”
“He’s a boy.” Here, she lowers her voice. “Elton wants to call him Elton. But I like Daniel, after my granddad.”
“Daniel’s a nice name,” I say. “So, Peaches is your real name?”
“Yeah, I know, funny name, huh?”
“You’re asking a guy name Benjamin Benjamin?”
“But I’m used to it. Peaches, I mean. Folks in Henderson say it suits me.”
Indeed, she’s just a sweet kid, any way you slice her. Rosy-cheeked, genuine, forthcoming. How long before the optimism runs out? How long before Elton runs out on her or gets jugged again? How long before she’s buying formula with food coupons? How long before the cumulative effect of all that disappointment exacts its toll, and Peaches starts holding her cards close, and those cheeks start going sallow, and she looks more like a Madge than a Peaches?
“So when’s your due date?”
“Not for three weeks,” she says, as though three weeks were an eternity.
“You excited?” It’s a question I need not ask, because even in a dirty sweatshirt, with her wet hair hanging in straggles, and Elton snoring fitfully into the nape of her neck, she glows.
“I can’t wait to get my hands on my little bubba. My mama already made up the sewing room into a nursery—made it into a circus theme.”
“What about Elton?”
“Oh, he’s excited in his way. He just don’t show it much. Sometimes he acts scared about it. But last week up in Helena, I caught him pricin’ teddy bears when we was at Target.”
“That’s a good sign.”
“We wasn’t there on account of the baby, though. We was there pricin’ various antitheft alarms and thingamajigs. Market research, Elton calls it.”