The Flying Troutmans

seventeen

I DROVE THROUGH THE PARK as fast as I could, which was excruciatingly slowly because the road was narrow and curvy and park rangers were all over the place. It was all desert and sky and scrubby bushes and some oddly shaped trees.

The Joshua tree is named after a biblical story in which Joshua reaches his hands up to the sky to stop the sun by God’s command, said Thebes. Why would God want the sun stopped?

Have you noticed how freaking hot it is out here? said Logan.

We talked about the strangeness of a day in which you find a sister you never knew you had and meet your father, who was once an artist and is now some sort of vigilante.

Before parting, Thebes and Antonia had promised to write and e-mail and do amazing things together someday. Antonia told Thebes they could go to Burning Man when they were older, or Disneyland or the Leaning Tower of Pisa or whatever, and she gave Logan a guitar that she’d found in the garbage but that still worked. He asked her to sign his cast. Thebes made Antonia a kite with stuff she had in the back of the van. She’d drawn a picture of herself on it, waving and smiling. Lilah took a few Polaroids of all of us and gave them to us to keep.

When we were in the van, Thebes put her arms around Logan’s neck from behind and said, Don’t you love having two little sisters?

I braced myself for the inevitable yeah, like I love being hung upside down by my nuts and Chinese water torture, or whatever, but instead Logan turned around and smiled at her and mussed her hair and said yeah, he did, but she, Thebes, would always be his favourite.

She kept her arms around Logan’s neck for a long time and he didn’t tell her to stop.

Hey, Thebes, I said.

Yo.

Can you make me a kite like the one you made for Antonia? I too wanted to see Thebes waving at me from the sky, top star in the firmament, goofy on the earth and up above it.

Can do, daddio, she said, and flung herself backwards into her pool of art supplies.

Logan, I whispered.

What? he said. He was whispering too.

I love you, I said.

Fuck off, he said, smiling.

I put my hand on his knee because I didn’t know what else to do and he touched it briefly with his own, unbroken one.

We were out of the park, flying down the 86 South towards the U.S. — Mexico border, past the Salton Sea, which was really a lake, man-made, I think, and crawling with pelicans. I remembered Min trying to befriend a pelican on this beach that was next to the campground we stayed in one summer. She pretended she was a pelican, she had the walk and the sound they made down pat. She tried for a long, long time to get that pelican to hang out with her but he was shy and reluctant and then finally she asked me to lie on the beach like a dead fish that she could pretend to be eating and maybe that would tempt the pelican to come on over. I tried to act like a dead fish but I was laughing too hard to be convincing. Min was pretending to peck at me and it tickled like crazy and even though she was whispering at me out of the side of her beak to be quiet and act dead I couldn’t stop laughing. Finally she said okay, forget it, this isn’t working, let’s tan.

We lay together in the sun and I fell asleep and when I woke up I was feeling cold and she’d taken her towel and put it around my shoulders and then rubbed my back and arms to warm me up. She smiled at me and told me that she was really happy that I was her sister. You were a great pelican, I told her. Yeah, no, she said, but thanks. I was a terrible fish, I said. No, she said, you were an excellent fish, A-plus, just not a good dead one. She told me she was proud of me.

I didn’t know if she meant because I had agreed to pretend to be a dead fish so that she could befriend a pelican, but I didn’t care.

We were just a few miles out of Calexico, in a place called El Centro. I’m gonna make one more super-quick stop for gas, I said. You guys just wait in the van.

May I speak to Min Troutman, please? I said.

Min isn’t here any more, said the desk nurse.

What do you mean? I said.

She discharged herself this afternoon, she said.

What do you mean? I said.

She’ll continue getting treatment as an outpatient, said the woman.

Yeah, but, what do you mean? I said.

She went home today, said the woman.

Yeah, but there’s nobody there. She told me you’d only let her out if there was somebody there to help her, I said.

She told us there was somebody there, said the woman. I think she said it was her sister.

I phoned the house. There was no answer. Just the machine with Thebes going, Bonjourno! The Troutmans are outie. Leave a message but it better be good.

Min, it’s me, Hattie. Are you there? Can you pick up the phone if you’re there? I told her that the kids and I were fine, just out on a short road trip, we’d be back soon, and I asked her again if she was there, but there was no response. If she was there she wasn’t picking up the phone, which wasn’t unusual, she never answered the phone. Are you really not there? I asked again. Just wait for me, I said. Just hold on.

Ready? I said to the kids.

For what? said Logan.

Just…I don’t know, for this, I said.

Well, yeah, said Logan. The whole point is—

I know, I said. Thebie? Ready?

Rock ’n’ roll, she said.

I looked at her in the rear-view mirror. Her hair was up Smurf-style again and she’d stuck glitter to her cheeks and eyelids.

Why is your lip bleeding? said Logan.

I don’t know, I said. I think I bit it by accident. Hey, put in a CD.

Which one?

I don’t care, whatever, I said.

He flipped through his CDs and put one in.

Is this your favourite band? I said.

No, he said. But I like them.

What is it, like emo or something? I said.

Kind of, he said.

Turn it up, I said. I didn’t want Thebes to hear what I was saying.

Logan, I said.

Hattie, he said.

We’re just gonna say hi to Cherkis, hang out awhile and then blast. We have to go home.

Yeah, said Logan. Hmmmm. He was scratching inside his cast again.

Min’s out of the hospital, I said. They said she went home and I tried calling her but I only got the machine.

She hardly ever answers the phone, said Logan.

Yeah, I know, I said.

She’s probably okay, said Logan. Now he was carving into the dashboard.

Yeah, I know, I said. But the thing I’m trying to say is that I’m not going to leave you guys with Cherkis, even if he does say it’s all right with him.

Okay, said Logan. That’s cool.

What are you writing? I asked him.

The date, he said.

Well, you might as well sign it too, I said.

Fine, he said. Beneath the date, he wrote the f — ing Troutmans. Thebes popped up from the back seat and watched him carve. When he was done, he snapped his knife shut and changed the CD. Thebes yanked the cap off her glitter pen, leaned forward and changed the signature so it read the flying Troutmans.

We pulled onto a narrow dirt road next to a bunch of tents pitched right up by the border and we all got out of the van, broken, cut, bleeding, bruised and filthy and armed with small, dull knives, toy pistols, concealed scalpels and a pit bull that somewhere along the way had lost its killer instinct.

It’s not Paris, said Logan.

We walked across the sand, through scrubby bushes, and up to a group of people sitting around cooking something on a camp stove.

Cherkis looked up and stared at us.

How’s it going? I asked him.

Holy shit, he said.

Hi, said Logan.

Thebes looked at Cherkis and smiled shyly and dug her toes into the sand and then cleared her throat but didn’t say a word.

This is Thebes, here, I said. And Logan.

Yeah, said Cherkis, I know. I mean I figured it out. I’m just…I don’t know what to say. Wow! You guys are so…big! Sorry, he said. He started crying. Then he started laughing, wiping tears from his cheeks, apologizing again, and we all laughed nervously together, while Thebes kicked up tiny clouds of dirt.

Cherkis jumped up and came closer. He was smaller than I remembered him being. Skinny like the kids and constantly in motion. He was wearing a dirty black T-shirt and jeans and big motorcycle boots. His hair was really dark but there was a streak of silver in it. He opened his mouth and closed it again and shook his head and then put his arms out.

Man, am I happy to see you guys, he said, just like the way Logan had dreamed it, kind of, except that it had been my father popping out of the ocean and not his popping out of the sand. Logan put his arms around his father and Cherkis motioned for Thebes to join them in their awkward embrace. She looked up at me and I pointed to the guys and she moved towards them and they held one another in a huddle. I watched them and I asked myself again, the way Thebie had as Logan’s fake basketball coach, Who do you have, Hattie? And I answered, Min.

I sat down and introduced myself to the others sitting in the sand. We made small talk and I tried to explain what we were doing there. Then I left them and wandered over to a drunk guy, a comrade, laid out on a blanket and asked him if I could sit there in the shade with him for a few minutes. He said the thing to do is drink ’til you don’t can’t. He didn’t ask me who I was or what I was doing there and I gave thanks to the universe. If I were to move in a love direction, I asked him, which way do you think it would be?

Cherkis finally let go of his kids and went running off to his tent and brought out a whole bunch of photos of Thebes and Logan when they were little.

There’s you, he said to Logan, when you were Superman on Halloween. You’re three years old in this picture. You were so sad when you had to go to bed. Min and I had some friends over and you were crying your eyes out and waving goodbye to everyone and saying, but everybody knows I’m Superman. Logan stared at the photo.

And there’s you, Thebes, with your underwear on your head.

Cherkis showed Thebes and Logan all the pictures and told them the stories behind them.

Hey, said Cherkis, how’d you get that cast on your arm? Logan shrugged and said he didn’t know. Things break? said Cherkis. Logan smiled.

Thebes asked Cherkis if he’d be interested in an oversized novelty cheque and he said oh yeah, more than anything.

The anarchists had a Ping-Pong table set up and we played a wacky game where everyone gets a turn. You hit the ball and then throw the paddle down, take a few steps sideways, and the next person picks it up and hits the ball when it comes back. If someone had seen us from the air it would have looked like some kind of tribal dance around a green square with white lines on it.

Then Logan and Cherkis went off into the desert for a walk and talk, and Thebes flew the kite she’d made for me and let everyone have a turn. We all watched her wave and smile at us from three hundred feet in the air. After that she ran over to the van and got the fireworks she and Logan had bought and when Cherkis and Logan came back we set them off.

We watched them explode in space and float back to earth, and Cherkis explained to Thebes what he was doing there at the border. We count the go-backs, the ones who stay and linger on the line and the ones who make a break for it, he said. We count them all.

Hey, Cherkis, I said, can I talk to you alone for a minute?

C’mon, Thebie, said Logan, let’s play a game of Ping-

Pong. I’ll use my left hand.

Cherkis and I walked over to the van and sat down on the back bumper. It was really dark there. He switched off his flashlight and we stared at the stars.

Min’s not doing well, I said, not at all.

I know, said Cherkis, Logan told me.

Yeah, I don’t even know exactly where she is right now, I said.

I know, said Cherkis.

I have to go home and find her, I said. I want to leave tonight. I know we just got here…

Yeah, it’s okay, said Cherkis. I asked Logan if he wanted to stay with me for the summer and he said yeah, he’d love to.

He did? I said. But…

Yeah, he said he’d love to but that he couldn’t because he had to get back to take care of Thebes and Min. He said you were probably heading back to Paris.

Hey, I said, can you hang on for just a minute?

Cherkis shrugged and said he had all the time in the world.

I ran over to the Ping-Pong table and asked Logan if I could talk to him alone for a second. I hustled him off into the shadows and asked him if it was true, if he really wanted to hang out there with Cherkis for the summer. He said yeah, but he wasn’t going to, obviously.

But, wait, I said, why don’t you? You should! If you want to, you should.

Well, no…my mom…and there’s Thebes…so…

Okay, I said. You should stay. However Min deals with it isn’t your problem. It’ll be my problem, okay? You should hang out with your dad for a while if that’s what you want to do. Thebes and I will go back and I’ll take care of her and Min and I’ll explain to your mom that you love her, that you haven’t left her, and that you’re coming back for school in the fall. That’s only a couple of months away.

Yeah, but…, said Logan.

Seriously, Logan, I said. It would be fun. You should be having fun. I’m gonna stay with Min and Thebes for as long as they need me, probably longer. I’m not going back to Paris. You just stay here and get to know Cherkis. Do you want to?

Yeah, said Logan. But—

Okay, I said. You’re fifteen. Take care of yourself. You can worry about the rest of us sometimes, a bit, if you have to, but it’s not your job to take care of Min or Thebes. It’s my job. I want the job. I promise I’ll take care of them, but promise me you’ll take care of yourself?

Well, said Logan, I guess…He smiled. A beautiful, heart-stopping smile, all badly disguised tenderness and tentative joy.

Yeah? I said. I smiled back. I punched him on the shoulder. I didn’t know what else to do.

Okay, he said, sounds good. He punched me back and then, strangely, he picked me right up off the ground and twirled me around for a second or two.

Hey, are you freaks dancing? It was Thebes.

Yeah, I said.

No, said Logan. He put me down.

Let’s finish our Ping-Pong game, T., he said.

I ran back to Cherkis to tell him that Logan would spend the summer with him after all.

Really? he said. Really? Well, that’s…what about Thebes?

No, she wants to go back, I said. But she’s having a blast right now. I think—

Do you think Min will be okay with her? he asked.

I don’t know, I said. But I’ll be there too. I’m not going back to Paris. I asked him if he knew where the nearest airport was.

I guess San Diego, said Cherkis. It’s about a hundred miles from here.

Do you want the van? I said. You and Logan can use it for the summer.

Well, but, does he have a licence? asked Cherkis.

No, not technically, I said, but he knows what he’s doing, mostly. I asked Cherkis if he could drive me and Thebes to San Diego that night. If we were lucky we could be with Min the next day, if she was at home. If she wasn’t at home, I’d find her. I had found Cherkis, after all, I could find Min. I remembered something weird that Logan had written on the back of a parking ticket I found in the glove compartment. Part of me is missing, but I will find the enemy and destroy him! I hadn’t known what he meant, but maybe now I could start to piece it together. We were all playing an elaborate game of Hide-and-Seek.

And would you mind keeping Rajbeer too? I asked him.

A son, a van and a dog, he said. Anything else?

He shone the flashlight into my face for a second and I closed my eyes and smiled and told him no, that was it for now. Although, I couldn’t guarantee that his two daughters wouldn’t want to stay with him someday too.

No guarantee, he agreed. He asked me how Antonia and Lilah were doing and I told him they were fine and missed him.

I miss them too, said Cherkis. I miss everybody.

Then I told Cherkis a story about a day I’d spent years ago with Min and the kids, shortly after she’d run him out of town. She was away visiting some friends in Washington and I was looking after Logan and Thebes. Logan was about four and Thebes was just a baby, still nursing. Min had spent hours pumping breast milk and putting it all into small glass bottles that she marked Property of Theodora Troutman. She hadn’t really wanted to leave the kids but one of her friends was getting married and wanted her to be there and I was happy to stay with them. It was just for a few days.

So the day she came back it was her birthday, and it was a beautiful, sunny day and Thebes and Logan and I went to the airport to pick her up. Thebes was too young to understand much but Logan was really excited about seeing her again and was running around and jumping up and down in the waiting area, wearing little sneakers that flashed when he ran. I had put a bright pink dress and sunhat on Thebes and I was helping her walk around and around while we waited, holding her hands because she couldn’t quite do it on her own yet.

There was this glass wall separating us from the arriving passengers but we could see them coming. So, then, there was Min. We were all waving and smiling at each other. She looked really happy. And beautiful too. She was wearing this goofy orange beret and a long gauzy skirt. But then she had to stop at an official-looking desk before she could come through the door to the area where we were waiting, and so she had to turn her back to us for a minute while she was talking to the guy behind the desk. Logan asked me why she wasn’t coming out and I said I didn’t know exactly, but then someone standing beside us said that the desk was where arriving passengers had to pay the airport tax. I had never heard of it.

So, anyway, Min was talking to the guy for quite a long time, every so often turning around and smiling and waving or making these cartoony expressions of frustration, rolling her eyes a lot, and we’d all smile and wave back, but we didn’t know why she wasn’t coming out. And then, suddenly, Min was throwing her beret to the floor and she was dancing. She had turned to face us as she danced, and the kids both laughed and giggled while she did this comic combination of tap and ballet and the guy standing next to me asked me what she was doing and I said well, she’s dancing, looks like, and he said yeah, okay, cool. And then we saw Min look at a few passengers walking past her and she pointed at her hat and kept on dancing, and it was really beautiful in this odd way, like a silent film, because we couldn’t hear anything, and her gauzy skirt and all her hair was swirling around, and the kids were loving it.

And then some of those passengers started to smile at her and reach into their pockets and pull out change and bills and throw them into her hat. Some of them clapped, and Logan did too, and he told the guy next to us that that was his mom, the one dancing, and the guy said she was great, Logan was lucky.

Finally, she must have figured she had enough money, because she stopped dancing and dumped all the change onto the desk and it looked like the guy was counting it and then he nodded and I guess told her she could finally go, and she turned around and curtseyed and smiled and pretended to brush some imaginary dust off her hands and came through the glass wall to meet us.

Now Cherkis was crying and I took his hand and we stood around and watched the kids play under this big trouble light they’d strung up from poles. Some smaller fireworks were still going off and Rajbeer was running around, barking like crazy. Cherkis and I watched the white Ping-Pong ball bounce back and forth across the net for a while, it was kind of mesmerizing, and then Thebes spiked it hard and it hit Logan right between the eyes, and he laughed and the ball went spinning off into the darkness like a tiny plastic universe out of control.