A Thousand Steps

32

He’s home by two-thirty, perched heavily on his upended red bucket in the driveway, folding and rubber-banding the papers as fast as he can. His tree-trunk muscles feel huge and cumbersome, not so much painful as inflated.

Sara has paid him fifteen dollars and sent him home with the picnic basket restocked with two sandwiches, potato salad, and an apple, all of which he shovels down while doing the papers. She told him to hang on to the basket and fork and return them to her sometime.

He looks at the Schwinn Heavy-Duti standing loyally by, wonders if he’ll have the strength to make up the hour and a half of delivery time he lost in Emerald Bay. Considers doing the route in the Westfalia but with all the stops and starts it would actually take longer. More complaints. Old Coiner on the rampage. Wear and tear on Mom’s van. He mildly shudders at the thought of what she might be doing right now out in Dodge City.

He feels terrible about working for Sara when he could have been looking for Jasmine. But he needed those fifteen dollars.

So now, on his paper route, he strains and finds new strength. He thinks of his pain as deserved punishment. He gets the job done more or less on time.

On the way home he gets two meat burritos and a side of rice at Taco Bell with Sara’s money. He puts the bag of food in the front basket and slogs for home up Coast Highway, every gentle rise feeling like he’s on the Tour de France.

Grail and Christian are standing outside Mystic Arts World and Grail waves Matt over. “Matt!”

He pulls onto the sidewalk and stops, straddling the bike. His groin and hamstrings twang with pain.

Grail jokes about Furlong bringing him in for questioning but not having anything to arrest him for except possession of a bag of dog shit.

“That was funny,” says Matt.

“I’ve got another easy delivery tomorrow if you’re interested,” Grail says.

“I can’t,” says Matt. “I’m looking for Jazz door-to-door. It takes time, and I did some extra work today that I shouldn’t have.”

Grail shrugs, purses his lips. “I’m bumming for you, man. I had no idea what all went down, until I read that article. She’s here in town for sure. You’ll get her back. I’ve got every brother keeping watch for her. We all like her. There’s lots of us who care. It’s not Jasmine’s Karma to be treated like that.”

“She is being treated like that. But I hope you’re right.”

A moment of silence for Jasmine Anthony.

“You look bigger,” says Christian.

“I think I’m growing,” says Matt.

Grail takes a look inside the Taco Bell bag in Matt’s basket. “You know, Matt, about tomorrow, it’s the same gig as last time, same book, same customer. Take about five minutes of your life and I’ll go five bucks this time.”

Matt considers, but not for long.

“That’s different.”

“Sound judgment. See you tomorrow.”

Back home, Matt devours the Taco Bell, then showers before picking up Laurel for their evening hunt for Jazz.

Drying off, something feels wrong. Standing in his underwear in front of his mom’s mirrored closet door, Matt looks at himself and sees a stranger who has a face like his own, but a taller, bigger body. Muscles showing, and more hair on his legs and chest.

On a wall in his former bedroom there are two columns where he and Kyle used to chart their heights, weights, and dates. He gets a pencil and a measuring tape, which put him at five feet eleven — he’s grown two inches in six months. So, Dr. Anderson was right — those drastic, long-lasting aches in his joints were just growing pains.

On the scale he weighs in at 165 pounds, twenty pounds gained in those same six months.

Back in the full-length mirror he gives himself a critical once-over, then assumes muscleman poses. His stomach muscles are visible. His biceps bulge when he flexes. His neck muscles move under the skin and his always-too-big Adam’s apple looks as if it’s finally found the right person. He can’t believe how sore he is, all those eucalyptus logs up and down and up and down, and the paper route, and the walking and knocking. He could sleep a week.

He tries to find pants and shirts that aren’t too tight, but can’t. Kyle’s are still too big. Thrift shop tomorrow, he thinks, if he can find a few minutes to shop.

But he gets to Laurel’s on time and they continue their quest, which for Matt is transforming into a somber duty. Being with Laurel makes him feel strong and good, but it’s not enough to deflect his mounting doubt. His search for Jasmine makes him think of Kyle’s tunnels in Cu Chi, where all you will find is either nothing, or bad. He wonders if he’s just exhausted.

Before every knock Matt takes a deep breath and tries to jack himself up for a good presentation. Sorry to bother you, but I’m Matt Anthony and this is Laurel Kalina, and we both live here in Laguna Beach. My sister has been kidnapped...

He feels that he’s betraying Jazz with his pessimism. And maybe even belittling Kyle by comparing his search with Kyle’s, descending underground to kill or be killed.

He thinks of what Bette Page — his sophomore mythology and folklore teacher — said about the delusional Don Quixote, who imagined himself to be a knight and attacked windmills he thought were ferocious giants with a flimsy wooden sword. She said the story was intended to be funny. Matt wonders if he’s like that guy. Delusional. Funny.

No, he thinks: Jazz’s monsters are real.

After the Pageant of the Masters and a late dinner with Laurel, Matt drives her home. She’s been quiet since he told her at dinner that the job he’d done that morning was for Sara Eikenberg’s father. Parked at the curb in front of her house they kiss tenderly and for so long that Matt’s log-tortured abdominal muscles start to cramp and he has to draw back, upright into his seat.

“Is something wrong?”

“No, my ribs just hurt. It’s from the logs.”

A strange, low-grade ache comes over him.

“I feel like you’re changing,” she says.

“I’m getting bigger. Everything hurts right now.”

“No, your heart is changing.”

“I can’t stop thinking I’ll never see her again. We did fifty-nine houses today and I never had the feeling we were anywhere even close to Jazz. When that guy laughed in our faces about me chasing the kidnappers on foot, I wanted to kill him.”

“Keep the faith, Matt. God will bring her back.”

“Doesn’t that mean he took her away?”

“Everything happens for a reason.”

“I’ve never believed that.”

“I do. It doesn’t mean you always get what you want. I say a prayer for Jazz every night. You should too.”

“Okay.”

“Sara Eikenberg has kind of a reputation, you know.”

“I really didn’t. She’s funny and honest about things. And trying to make herself better, at the Vortex.”

“She’s a Jokewood snob,” says Laurel.

After making sure that lights are on and the front door is unlocked, Matt gets into his sleeping bag in the garage.

He hasn’t felt this bad since the mumps when he was five. Waves of pain, dull and incessant.

He squirms within it, his mind serving up ugly half dreams: logs that turn into severed bodies and severed bodies that turn into logs. He envisions Jazz and what has happened to her and what might be happening right now. How could he have let her get away that night? Will that be the last time he sees her? He feels his irresponsibility in not even having a fucking driver’s license so he could chase after her, of not being fast and strong enough to run down that van and pull her out. He feels the weight of so many doors in town still left to knock on, while Jazz waits. And waits. He wonders if he’s abandoned his mother out in Dodge when she needs him most. He likes Sara but feels guilt for this, loves Laurel but feels her drifting away from him.

He turns on his stomach, buries his face in the pillow, and shakes.