The Flying Troutmans

nine

SO, WE WERE WHISTLING SOUTH ALONG THE I-25 and Logan was looking at the map. I want to go to Moab, he said. Moab, Utah.

Why? I asked.

I don’t know.

What is that again? I said. Moab.

He shrugged. No clue, he said.

I think it’s from the Bible, I said. It’s a people. Moabites or…

Mother of All Bombs, said Logan.

No, I said. Well, yeah, but…Or it’s a place…in Jordan? Egypt? Moab. Hmmm.

Moab, said Thebes. Bastard son of Lot. Moab, said Thebes. An ancient region by the Dead Sea, or its people. Etymology of Moab, she said. A corruption of “seed of a father” or as a participial form from “to desire,” thus connoting “the desirable land.”

Thanks, Thebes, I said.

The Holy Rashi in Humash, said Thebes, explains the word Moav to mean “from the father” since “av” in Hebrew means “father.”

Great, Thebes, thanks, I said.

Fritz Hommel, said Thebes, regards Moab as an abbreviation of “Immo-ab,” which means “his mother is his father.”

Thebes, thank you.

Just helping a brother out, she said, and slammed her dictionary shut.

So, yeah, let’s go there, said Logan.

Thebes, I said, do you want to?

I’m down, she said. Where is it?

Logan was still studying the map. Hey, he said, if we went to Moab we could check out Mexican Hat and Tuba City. They’re kind of on the way to the Painted Desert.

Are they towns? asked Thebes.

Yeah, he said. I guess so. Concept towns or something.

When Logan was a baby Min would tie him up in a bike seat with an old scarf and then they’d ride all over the city. Sometimes he’d fall asleep, and wearing this huge kid’s bike helmet he looked like an extraterrestrial, and it would thump against her back and she’d have to reach around and prop it up and hold it there, his giant, oversized head, while she rode around with one hand. She put him to sleep under tables in cafés, on friends’ couches, in fields at rock concerts. She took him everywhere. When he was four he’d get up really early in the morning and make calls to people he knew, like me, to see how we were doing and to tell us about his morning.

Hey, I said, remember how much Min hated your kindergarten teacher?

Yeah, he said. His kindergarten teacher had called Min up and told her that he was concerned that Logan didn’t know how to stand on one foot and that he didn’t know his colours.

That was crap, Min had said. He’d been hopping on one foot since he was a year old and knew his colours at two. She asked the teacher if maybe Logan was just being funny in a five-year-old way when he said blue was red or whatever, or maybe he just didn’t feel like hopping around on one foot, why should he? Then the teacher told Min that he’d send Logan, this tiny kid who had just barely started school, to the principal’s office if he didn’t cooperate with the testing thing. So Min had said okay, as soon as he did that he should call her because she’d have his ass fired at the very same time.

And then Logan told me this story about how one day, long after he was out of kindergarten, like when he was eleven or twelve, he and Min had seen that teacher waiting at a bus stop when they were walking home from the grocery store and Min started hopping around him on one foot and saying all kinds of goofy things like oh, look, it’s very important to be able to do this. Can you do this? Because if you are not able to hop on one foot you may as well kill yourself. Nobody will hire you. Nobody will marry you. Nobody will want to be your friend. She went on and on.

I had to beg her to stop, said Logan.

She was still pissed after all those years, eh? I said.

That’s a long time to be mad, said Logan.

Then I told Logan about something else he’d done when he was four or five. Min had asked me to take him to his Orff class at the conservatory. It was the first one and the teacher had gone around the room asking their names. Logan said his name was Logan “I don’t wanna be here” Troutman.

Yeah, he said, he vaguely remembered that. He hadn’t felt like doing that Orff stuff either.

So, yeah, I said, while the other kids were dinging the triangle or knocking some pieces of wood together, you were lying on the floor doing this seal act, rocking on your chest with your arms behind your back going orf, orf, orf.

I used to be cute, he said. Adoptable.

Oh, c’mon, I said. You’re still adoptable. It was supposed to be a joke, but it was a stupid one given the circumstances.

Thebes popped up. See, she said, Logan did funny, clever things and all I liked to do was lie in the sandbox and have a nice, long crap in my diaper and then fall asleep in the sun. Min said it was my favourite thing. Like I was some rat or wino or something.

You were a contented kid, I said.

Not that ambitious, said Logan.

But really, he said, who adopts fifteen-year-old boys?

Well, I said, I guess, yeah…not many people.

They go into group homes, said Logan.

Or foster homes, I said. But only until they’re eighteen.

And then? asked Logan.

Well, I said, they go wherever. They do their thing. They’re adults then.

Hey, said Thebes. She punched Logan in the arm. Remember when you burst that blood vessel in your eye from vomiting so hard when you got drunk with your basketball team?

I still have it, he said. He opened his left eye wide and looked at Thebes.

Dude! she said. You should wear a patch. I’ll make you one.

They went on like that for a while. I was happy they were talking. Remembering. Reminiscing about their childhood, like it hadn’t all been one long march to the frozen Gulag.

But, said Logan, a fifteen-year-old could technically live on his own, right?

Okay, bad times are gonna roll, I thought. Logan is planning to run away before we find Cherkis.

No, a fifteen-year-old cannot live on his own, I said.

Pippi Longstocking wasn’t even fifteen, said Thebes, and she—

Yeah, but she was a character in a book, I said.

And she was Swedish, said Logan.

So there would have been a solid safety net of social programs to help keep her afloat, I said. It doesn’t work here.

Yeah, but the point of Pippi was that she didn’t need anybody or any social programs to help her, said Logan. She was that strong.

Yeah, I said, but unhumanly so. She could lift a horse. Can you?

Well, I don’t know, said Logan. A small one, maybe, but that’s not my point. There was more to her strength than that. It was—

You could so not lift a horse, said Thebes.

Yeah, I probably could, said Logan.

No, you couldn’t, she said. But I could probably flip a horse.

I could eat a horse, said Logan.

Oh, the things they could do to horses. They pingponged back and forth for a long time about horses and tough Swedish girls while I looked for a gas station and/or grocery store.

Min was married briefly to a grip a few years ago, long after Cherkis had hit the road. The grip’s name was Darius. They met on a movie set. Min was working as a driver, or maybe as a caterer. I wasn’t sure. When the shooting was finished, they drove down to Vegas to spend Min’s wages on blackjack. The plan was that if she and Darius made enough money from blackjack they would get married at the Elvis chapel, for the hell of it.

Logan didn’t care what they did. Min told me that he spent the entire time in Vegas in front of the cracked bathroom mirror of the hotel room perfecting his Robert De Niro impersonation and trying to get the family thrown out of as many casinos as he could.

Min and Darius chose package B, which included a limo to pick them up and drop them off, a medley of Elvis tunes by the impersonator, some flowers, a videotape of the wedding, and a guy named Juan to be the minister. Is it real or what? Darius asked Min. Of course it’s real, she told him. Not that she really cared. She didn’t care about being married to anyone, she just wanted to be loved. But she didn’t want to be taken care of. Or she did. She told me that Thebes had taken her hand and crammed it into Darius’s. She wore a dress that was red on the top and then gradually faded into light orange at the very bottom.

When they got home Darius lived with them for a while, but then decided that what he really needed for his personal growth was to get rid of his possessions and take a very long, indefinite trip to the North Pole. That’s great, Min said. She was tired of having all that self-esteem anyway. Blech. Feeling good was lousy for her art.

They said goodbye to Darius. He told Min she shouldn’t take it personally, that she had taught him so much about love, and he told Thebes he’d send her a Christmas present straight from Santa’s workshop. Right, right. He and Logan had nothing to say to each other.

Denver was coming up any minute but we decided to bypass it and veer off west on the I-70 towards the mountains, and the desirable land of Moab. Logan was reading a new Q magazine he’d bought at the last gas station. Thebes was reading over his shoulder.

Hattie, she said, your boyfriend, Ryan Adams, is two-timing you with Winona Ryder.

I just said I liked his music, sort of, I said.

She told me her last assignment in school, before she was sprung, had been to research the life of an important individual in musical history.

Who did you do? I asked her.

Beyoncé Knowles, she said, from Destiny’s Child.

What do you think the odds are of me ever achieving knighthood? said Logan.

Oh, I said, sixteen to one, around there.

What do you have to do to be knighted? asked Thebes.

I don’t know, said Logan, something great.

Okay, here we go, I said. I pulled into a gas station and up to the pump.

Thebes wanted to pump the gas. She jumped out of the van with a karate kick and almost smashed into the other guy pumping gas. He looked at her like he was about to be assaulted by Happy the dwarf.

I don’t know, said Logan, but I think Thebes is starting to smell bad. I told him it was very considerate of him not to have mentioned it when she was around. I asked him if it was my job to get her to shower or bathe and he said he had no idea. He thought yeah, probably, and that she would need aggressive encouragement because it wasn’t really her thing. He got out of the van and suddenly there were about six Japanese teenagers standing around him. They pointed at his headphones and smiled. He smiled back at them.

Rock ’n’ roll? one of them said.

Yeah, said Logan. Rock ’n’ roll.

Rock ’n’ roll! said the guy.

Yes! said Logan. Rock ’n’ roll.

They were all smiling and feeling groovy. I told Logan I wanted to use the pay phone to call Min and he said he wanted to talk to her too.

The hospital said Min wasn’t available. Oh, I said, what exactly does that mean? They asked if they could phone me back later in the day, after rounds. No, see, I said, the thing is I’m at a pay phone. Can I phone you later?

What are they saying? said Logan.

Well…not much, I whispered.

Ask to speak to Min, he said.

I did, I said. I can’t right now.

Can you just tell me in a nutshell how she’s doing? I asked the woman. Thebes was wandering around the parking lot looking at the ground and occasionally bending down and picking things up.

Well, said the woman, there have been a few incidents and she’s—

What kind of incidents? I asked. Logan looked at me. It’s okay, it’s okay, I whispered to him.

She’s not adapting to the program the way we would have liked her to, said the woman.

Oh yeah? I said. So, what does that mean? She’s fine, I whispered to Logan. Stupidly gave him two thumbs way up.

Well, she’s somewhat hostile towards the nurses, said the woman. And her roommate. And her doctor. She refuses to speak. She won’t eat. She won’t get out of bed. Not for any reason.

Oh, that’s not…that’s unfortunate, I said. The woman agreed.

She’s good, she’s good, I said to Logan. Is she okay? I asked the woman.

The woman said yes, she’d been sedated and was resting. She couldn’t say much more than that but if I could call back, after rounds, she was sure the doctor could tell me more.

All right, okay, I said. I lowered my voice and asked the woman if Min had indicated any interest at all in seeing me or her kids.

Not that she knew of, said the woman. In fact, she said, one nurse had told her that Min had said she’d never had children.

Okay, I said. Can you just tell me exactly at what time I’d be able to speak to her doctor?

No, she couldn’t, she said, it varied, it depended on how many patients the doctor was seeing and how long it would take for him to see them. Et cetera, she added.

But ballpark, I said. I had developed a killer headache in the last five seconds. I put my hand on Logan’s shoulder. I felt like I was going to fall. I could hear Thebes singing something over by the Free Air. She was twirling around, fully inhabiting her weird zone, lit up by the sun and laughing.

You okay? said Logan.

Of course! I said.

I’m sorry, said the woman, I wish I could tell you more. Really, it would be best if you could call again later. Tell me your name again? In case I’m able to pass the message on to the patient…

Min! I said. I mean, no, Hattie! Hattie Troutman. I’m Min’s sister. What the fuck?

I hung up and smiled. Okay! I said. Everything’s fine. Gold. She’s busy.

She’s busy? said Logan. Doing what?

Oh, stuff…like, you know, I said. They have meals and then they have Group and then they have sessions and then…tests…They walk around too, don’t they? It’s nuts.

Well, he said, why’d you ask if she was okay?

I don’t know, I said. No, I do know. Because that’s obviously the big question, right? Is she okay? I mean, that’s what we want to know, right? That’s why we’re calling the hospital. I sat down on the pavement and leaned against the cinder-block wall of the gas station. I closed my eyes and tried to pray but all I could do was channel Bowie and think about how planet Earth was blue and there was nothing I could do.

What are you — Are you okay? asked Logan. He crouched down beside me.

Oh, yeah, I said. It’s just so hot…isn’t it?

When I came to I was stretched out in the supply room with a fan blasting cold air five inches from my face and Logan and Thebes sitting cross-legged on the concrete floor beside me, staring. I looked at the kids and smiled.

Wassup, player? said Thebes.

Thebes, said Logan. Jesus.

I showed Logan how to start the van with the screwdriver. If you get pulled over, tell them you’re sixteen, I said.

What do I do if they ask to see my driver’s licence? he said.

Oh, I don’t know, I said. Stall for time. Don’t get pulled over.

He’d drive to a town called Fruita and then we’d deke down to Moab. First of all he stopped at a grocery store and he and Thebes ran in and bought some cheese and salami and something she called shabu-shabu and bread and fruit and water and a bunch of jumbo-sized chocolate bars and fireworks and a stylin’ cover with flames on it for the steering wheel and a bottle of wine for me and a corkscrew.

I lay in the back seat of the van and listened to a family in the parking lot discussing our licence plate.

What the hell is that? said the guy.

It’s not what, it’s where, honey, said the woman. It’s a licence plate.

Yeah, said the guy, but what the hell does it say?

It says something like Anaconda, said the woman, or…

No, it doesn’t, it says…lemme see.

The guy slapped his hand on the back window and I sat up and opened the side door and said, It says Manitoba, okay? Manitoba.

Where the hell is that? said the guy. In California?

Yes, it is, I said.

Well, now, there you go, hon, mystery solved, said the woman.

When I opened up the bottle of wine, Thebes said whoa, you yanked that cork out of there like you were saving it from drowning. She got out her markers and drew a screaming face on the cork. She made me a sandwich and cut it into tiny triangles, bite-size. I lay on the back seat with my head in her lap and she tried to cheer me up. She made the rescued cork sing songs from Super Fly and she played games with me. Logan was driving with his mondo headphones on so his music wouldn’t bug me but mostly so he couldn’t hear Thebes.

Okay, said Thebes, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or George Bush?

Frankenstein, I said.

Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or Freddie Krueger?

Frankenstein, I said.

Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Frankenstein or Peter Pumpkineater?

Peter Pumpkineater. No, wait, I said. Franken—

No, you already said Peter Pumpkineater, said Thebes. Who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Peter Pumpkineater or Snoop Dogg?

Snoop Dogg.

Okay, who would you rather have as a boyfriend? Snoop Dogg or Paul Martin?

We did that for a few minutes until I eventually ended up with the Lion King’s runty brother as my boyfriend.

The whole time I was thinking about Min. Well, I was also thinking about Marc and I was thinking about Cherkis, and I was thinking about what a world-class champion of fucked-up I was. One week ago I’d been a carefree bon vivant in the City of Lights ballin’ in the mad cheddar, as Thebes would say, and now I was passing out in gas stations and drinking wine out of the bottle with an imaginary animal for a boyfriend and a fifteen-year-old at the wheel. I didn’t know if we should turn around and go back home, head straight to the hospital, or crank it up a notch and haul ass to Twentynine Palms. Maybe drive all night. But in which direction?

Thebes and I fell asleep all tangled up while Logan careened like a rangy demon through the mountains with his Biggie blasting and the wind howling and semi drivers blaring their horns at him to get the hell away from them.