The Last Tomorrow

THIRTY-TWO

1

Sandy watches the deputy at the counter scrawl his signature across a form in order to take custody of him. Then the two of them, he and the deputy, walk side by side down a white corridor, through a metal door, and into the crisp morning air. Though the rain has stopped, it stopped last night while Sandy slept, small pools of glistening water still dot the ground, marking its low points, leveling the earth. The puddles reflect blue sky and wispy white clouds and bursts of glistening sunlight like jewels.

The deputy, who will be driving him to his meeting with the district attorney, has a reddish-blond mustache, graying sideburns, and light-blue smiling eyes. He folds a stick of Wrigley’s chewing gum onto his tongue.

‘Trying to quit smoking. Wife hates the smell. Car’s over there.’

He nods toward the vehicle. It’s splattered with mud, which is drying in the morning light, forming a dull crust on the fenders.

Sandy and the deputy walk toward the car.

Today is the day he finds out just what lies he’s to tell when he testifies before the grand jury. He doesn’t even know what a grand jury is. Probably something like a grandmother: a jury of really old people. Maybe they’re wiser than a normal jury. It doesn’t matter; he doesn’t want to do it. Just thinking about talking in front of a group of adults makes his stomach ache. He isn’t sure he can lie the way he’s supposed to lie. In the past when he’s lied it was to get out of immediate trouble. It was thoughtless lying. Like a tapped knee kicking out, a reflex lie shot out of his mouth before he could think to be honest. This will be a story given to him by someone else, a story he’s supposed to speak as if it were truth remembered. He’s afraid he’ll forget what he’s supposed to say, or say it wrong.

He can’t do that. This is a lie to get him out of trouble too, more trouble than he’s ever been in before, and he doesn’t even have to concoct a story, only remember one. He can do that. He’ll be nervous and sick to his stomach the whole time, but he can do it. They probably won’t even think there’s anything strange about him being nervous. Anybody would be. Even someone telling the truth.

He can do it. He can do it because he has to.

He reaches for the back-door handle.

‘You can sit in front with me if you want.’

‘Okay.’

He slides into the front passenger’s seat and pulls the door closed behind him.

The deputy slips in behind the wheel, his weight rocking the car.

‘I got a boy about your age,’ he says. ‘Good kid. Great shortstop. You any good at baseball?’

‘No, sir.’

‘Bet you would be with a little practice.’

Sandy doesn’t know what to say to that, so he says nothing. He simply looks at the deputy for a moment, wondering what it might have been like to have a father like him, a father with smiling eyes and easy conversation, then, realizing he’s been staring too long, he looks away embarrassed. He looks out through the water-spotted windshield to the dirt driveway curving out to the street. He’s glad to be leaving this place. He knows it’s only temporary, but he’s glad all the same.

The deputy starts the car. The engine rumbles to life. The deputy puts the car into gear, and they roll down the driveway.

Sandy looks back over his shoulder and watches the buildings shrink. He wishes they would get so small they’d disappear.

Then he wouldn’t have to come back.

2

Fred sits in his Mack truck. The truck is parked on the side of the road, half on the shoulder and half on the gray asphalt. He sits with a porcelain mug of coffee resting on his fat stomach. The collar of his T-shirt has mostly torn away from the rest of the shirt, sitting apart like a cotton necklace. He sips his coffee and fishes through his ashtray for a butt worth smoking. He should have bought a packet of cigarettes this morning. Usually when he fills up his tank with gas he paces the area and finds several good lengths of cigarette on the asphalt — he especially likes the ones with lipstick on the end; it feels sexy to smoke them, like he’s kissing the women whose lips last touched them — but after yesterday’s rain there’s nothing but smears of paper and loose tobacco.

Goddamn rain ruins everything.

He finds a butt with at least half a dozen hits left on it and sticks it between his lips. He wipes the gray film of cigarette ash off his fingers and onto his Levis. He strikes a match and lights his cigarette and takes a good deep drag. The cigarette is old and inhaling its smoke tastes like licking an ashtray. He doesn’t care. He takes another drag and follows that with a swig of coffee.

The sheriff’s car rolled by him, heading toward the juvenile-detention facility, about fifteen, twenty minutes ago. It should be heading back soon, and this time with the boy in it.

He starts the truck. It rumbles to life, the big engine turning over slowly.

The driveway’s about a mile further up the road, which should be enough distance for him to get this hunk of rust up to speed. With the weight it’s got behind it, it’ll do just what’s needed. And it’ll look like an accident too. So long as it goes the way he wants it to, and so long as there ain’t no witnesses around to contradict him.

He takes another drag from his cigarette and follows that with another swig of coffee. He wishes a man could live on cigarettes and coffee. If he could live on just that he’d never eat nothing else ever again. Except maybe the occasional donut. A man without a sweet tooth is a man who might as well hang himself in his coat closet, because he don’t know what life is for.

The Sheriff’s Department ain’t gonna be happy about one of their own getting killed in an accident, but so long as it is an accident there won’t be much they can do. It’ll just be one of those tragedies that no one could have predicted. They’ll put a flag on his coffin and shoot some rifles at the clouds and call it a day.

He watches the sheriff’s car pull out of the driveway, just a toy at this distance, and turn toward him. He puts his truck into gear, eases off the clutch. The truck jerks and rolls out into the street, rumbling like the great metal beast it is. As he picks up speed, he slurps down the rest of his coffee and tosses the mug aside. It bounces off the seat and clunks to the floorboard, clattering against the litter lying there — another mug, a Mason jar lined with black mold, a few nuts and washers, loose paperwork, a red brick. He takes a final drag from his cigarette, sucking the smoke deep into his lungs, and tosses it out the window. He waves the smoke from his eyes, wipes his greasy forehead with the back of a wrist, grips the wheel in both hands.

It’s time to earn his money.

The deputy’s car is only three quarters of a mile away and the distance is closing.

He shifts into second, then third. He checks his rearview mirror. No one behind him, the road is clear. This is good, better than good. It’s necessary.

As the deputy’s car approaches Fred yanks his steering wheel left, into the oncoming lane. The car’s horn honks. Fred can barely hear it over the rumble of his truck’s engine, like a goat’s dumb bleat.

He shifts into fourth gear.

Now the two vehicles are less than a quarter mile apart. Fred’s speedometer claims the truck is going just under fifty. Add in the speed of the deputy’s vehicle and that should be plenty.

Another bleat from the deputy’s car.

Then it swerves into the lane his truck should be occupying. This is just what Fred was hoping for. Deputy was trying to pass another car, see, swerved into his lane, and he couldn’t help but run straight into him. He was coming right at me, officer, what the hell could I do? Run myself off the road? Get myself kilt?

Just as the vehicles are about ready to fly past each other, Fred jerks his steering wheel to the right. Hard.

3

Sandy sits in the passenger’s seat and looks down at his right hand as the deputy pulls the car from the driveway and into the street. His middle finger is still swollen and purple. The swelling makes it difficult to bend. He pushes the bruised finger against the armrest. It hurts, but he likes the hurt. It reminds him of what he did to that boy.

‘What the hell is this guy doing?’

Sandy looks up at the deputy. The deputy is squinting at the windshield, confusion on his face. Sandy looks out the windshield and sees a large barn-red truck approaching them. It’s in their lane, and seems to him that it’s leaning toward them as it rushes forward.

The deputy honks his horn.

The truck continues toward them, straight and steady, as if it were on tracks, and rather than slowing down appears to be gaining speed.

Sandy watches it with his mouth open. He doesn’t feel afraid. He feels instead a strange exhilaration. He unconsciously grinds his bruised finger against the armrest. They’re going to crash. He’s sure of it. He’s sure, too, that the man in the truck means for it to happen. He must.

The deputy honks the horn again, then, when the truck continues undeterred, changes lanes, yanking the wheel to the left.

‘Fine, you stupid son of a bitch,’ he says, ‘we’ll trade lanes.’

Sandy watches the truck. It continues on its path. He was wrong. They aren’t going to crash. The two vehicles are going to pass without incident. It’s almost too late for anything else to happen. But something else does happen. The truck makes a hard turn toward them, leading with its rusty grille, and Sandy can see the face of the driver behind dirty glass, a fat face with a scraggly beard and yellow teeth revealed in a grimace or grin and black porcine eyes.

For a moment the world freezes.

Somewhere a feather floats gently to the earth.

Then an explosion of noise, like being inside a thunderclap. Sandy’s body is thrown forward, then to the side. The deputy makes a frightened animal noise. Something smashes against Sandy’s face. His shoulder twists with pain. The world spins, then flips upside down, all the trees now rooted in the green sky.

Sandy falls to the roof of the car.

The car wobbles. There’s a crinkling sound and the weight of it shrinks the distance between the roof and the seats. Windows explode from the pressure.

He looks toward the deputy.

The deputy is standing on his shoulders, his neck bent at a strange angle, his feet caught under the crushed steering wheel. He groans and flecks of teeth crumble from his mouth and run down his cheek toward his eyes on a tide of mucus and blood.

Sandy lies on the roof of the car, dazed. He’s too much in shock to know how badly he’s hurt, or whether he’s hurt at all.

So he simply lies there.

4

Fred leans down to the floorboard on the passenger’s side of his truck and grabs a red brick. He doesn’t know how it got there, but he’s glad he has it now. He has to make sure the folks in the deputy’s car are dead, and it seems to him the damage he does with a brick will look an awful lot like something that might have happened in a car accident, so with it gripped in his meaty fist he steps from the truck and walks toward the deputy’s car, which is upside down on the side of the road.

The wheels still spin. A dripping sound comes from somewhere. A groan.

‘Is everybody all right in there?’

Another groan.

Fred walks around the car. He leans down and looks in through the shattered side window. A sheriff’s deputy hangs upside-down, legs pinned in under the dashboard, drool and blood running from his mouth and into his eyes, into his hair. Pieces of windshield jut from his face. His mouth looks like a saw blade, teeth jagged.

‘You all right there, fella? You look an awful mess.’ The deputy manages, despite the angle of his neck, to turn toward Fred. He groans pleadingly, desperation clearly audible despite the lack of any actual words.

‘Don’t you worry,’ Fred says. ‘I’ll make it stop.’ He brings the brick down hard into the deputy’s face. There’s a strange two-stage wet sound, like something heavy breaking through a thin sheet of ice, then splashing into the liquid below. The deputy tries to scream, chokes on his own blood, and sprays a mouthful of it. He puts his arm out to block Fred, or to push him away, or to punch him, Fred can’t tell which, but the arm is broken, seems to have developed an extra elbow, and its movement is strange and somehow inhuman.

‘Don’t do that,’ Fred says. ‘It only makes it sad.’

He brings the brick down again, and again. And again.

Finally, the deputy stops moving.

5

Sandy knows he’s next, knows it without a doubt, and knowing it he knows too there’s but one thing for him to do: run. The problem is this. He feels lightheaded and sick and isn’t sure he could walk, forget running. But he thinks he’s going to have to try, because what’s the alternative? Lie here and wait to have his brains bashed in? Let’s just call the whole thing off. No, he won’t do that. He’s gonna have to run. He’s gonna have to try. And he’s gonna have to move now, right now, because the man outside the car is getting to his feet, is walking around the vehicle toward him, his feet grinding against shattered glass, and he has a bloody brick gripped in his fist, a brick he’s already used to kill the deputy.

Then Sandy sees the deputy’s revolver.

It lies on the roof of the car surrounded by blood and shattered glass and broken bits of plastic. It’s black. It has a wooden grip. He isn’t sure he knows how to shoot it, he’s never fired a real gun before, but it seems to him it offers a better chance than running. It seems to him it offers a much better chance.

He wraps his hand around the grip.

‘What d’you got in mind for that thing?’

Sandy turns toward his window.

The killer sits on his haunches, looking at him, the brick he killed the deputy with gripped in his fat hand. A long string of blood hangs from it, thick as snot.

‘Were you gonna shoot me with that thing?’

Sandy doesn’t respond. He swallows. His throat is dry.

‘How old are you?’

Sandy knows he needs to respond. Every second he can keep this man talking is a second he remains alive. But the words don’t want to leave his mouth. He feels trapped in an unresponsive body.

Finally, though, he makes himself speak: ‘Thirteen.’

‘Thirteen years old. What did you do that someone wants you dead?’

‘I,’ he swallows again, licks his chapped lips, ‘I don’t know.’

‘That’s a shame.’

The killer moves in toward him, and he swings the gun around and aims it at the man’s face. He thumbs back the hammer, having to push down with both thumbs to make it click the way he’s seen in movies. It’s more difficult than you’d think. The cylinder rotates a notch. The metal trigger is cool beneath his finger.

‘You got some fight in you, kid. I respect that. But I got no time to fuck around.’

He reaches for the gun.

Sandy pulls the trigger.

The gun kicks hard, almost causing him to punch himself in the face with it. Flame shoots from the cylinder as well as the barrel, burning Sandy’s left hand, burning his index finger. He’d expected it to be like the.22 rounds, but this was different, deafeningly loud and intense. He blinks, shocked.

The smile falls from the killer’s face. A moment later the rest of him falls too, tilts to the left and drops, hitting the moist earth like a burlap sack filled with potatoes.

Sandy crawls out of the car and gets to his feet. He looks down at the killer. The killer turns his head to look back at him, one eye opened, the other nothing but a black hole. He reaches for Sandy’s leg, grabs his khaki pants, says please. Sandy pulls his leg from the killer’s grip and kicks the hand away.

He licks his lips, aims for a second shot.

6

Fred isn’t sure why he can’t open his left eye, but knows he can’t. The world over there has vanished. But with his good eye he can see a small boy standing over him. The gun in his right hand looks enormous, like a cannon. The boy looks down at him. There should be panic in his eyes, after everything that’s happened there should be panic in his eyes, but there isn’t. There isn’t even pity there. There’s nothing in his eyes at all. It’s like someone turned off the switch. He reaches for the boy’s pants and says please. He wants to make the boy understand what’s happening to him. The boy pulls his leg away, kicks Fred’s hand. He points the gun at Fred’s face. Fred cannot believe this is how it happens. He simply cannot believe this is how it happens.

7

Once it’s finished Sandy tucks the gun into his pants. He turns and looks at the detention facility in the distance. He doesn’t ever want to go back there. He won’t go back there. The deputy’s dead. This man who was trying to kill him, for reasons he doesn’t even understand, is also dead. Nothing is keeping him here. There’s no reason to stay, but there are reasons not to. If he stays he’s in danger. Someone knew he was here and tried to kill him. They might try to kill him again. But if he’s going to get out of here he needs to get out of here now. Another car is bound to come along soon.

He glances once more at the wreck on the side of the road, at the killer lying beside it, then turns and starts walking. He walks faster and faster until the walk becomes a run. Away from the detention facility. Away from all of this. He knows the city is miles from here. He knows he’ll have to hitch a ride to get there. But he knows too that first he needs to get some distance between himself and this wreckage. He needs to get some distance and he needs to get out of these clothes.

It feels good to run.

It feels good to draw great breaths of air.

It feels good to get away from the detention facility.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to do once he gets back to the city. He wants to go home. He wants to tell his mother he loves her and sleep beside her. But those are baby thoughts, and he can’t afford to be a baby anymore. He knows he can’t go home, no matter how much he wants to.

He’s on his own now.