In the Path of Falling Objects Read online

“It’s not an Indian, anyway,” I said. “It’s Don Quixote.”

  “Oh.”

  Ray wiped his hands down his chest again and tossed the empty oilcan away, resting his hands down on the top of Lilly’s door.

  “Going all the way to California. Nice vacation. I guess you’re brothers and sister,” Ray said.

  “And it’s our uncle driving,” Simon said. “And if he catches you flirting with our sister while he’s gone, he’ll probably stab you. Ray.”

  Ray frowned. “My name’s Mike. These aren’t my clothes. And you’re a little young for cigarettes, aren’t you, boy?”

  Mitch appeared, walking across the gravel lot, a brown grocery sack held in his arms. Simon dragged from his cigarette and stared at the attendant. Ray watched Mitch as he stepped beneath the shade of the station’s awning.

  “Nine dollars,” Ray said.

  Lilly was sick. She needed to get out of the car, so Mitch pulled off into a rest stop outside of Santa Rosa, saying, “I need to take care of some stuff now, anyway. We could all take a break.”

  There were no other cars at the rest stop, a flattened patch of crumbling asphalt that fronted a flat-roofed men’s and women’s room, split down the middle; and two picnic tables and galvanized steel trash cans beneath some thin locust trees. As soon as Mitch parked the car, Lilly opened her door and ran out into the dirt and began vomiting, one hand bracing herself on her knee and the other holding her hair back behind her neck.

  “What’s wrong with her?” Simon asked.

  “She’s pregnant,” Mitch said.

  Simon and I got out of the car. Simon scratched his head and admired his moccasins. I looked at Mitch to see if there was some sign in his expression about whether we could do anything for Lilly, but he just lifted the trunk of the car and pulled out a black cloth suitcase, opening it on the ground and gathering up a new set of clothes. I looked back at Lilly. Mitch left the suitcase lying there and then took some things from the grocery sack and went toward the restrooms.

  Lilly stayed there in the dirt field, bent over, coughing and spitting.

  I brought my canteen to her.

  “Here,” I said. “Wash your mouth out.”

  She took the canteen from my hand.

  “Are you all right?”

  Lilly nodded her head and spit a mouthful of water onto the ground. She was pale and sweating.

  “I’ve been getting like this for a week or so now. I’ll be okay.”

  “You really are pregnant?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Dang.” I took the canteen back from her. “How old are you, anyway?”

  “Sixteen.”

  “Dang.”

  Simon was standing by the open suitcase, smoking, watching us. He flicked away ashes with his middle finger when I looked over at him.

  “How long have you been with Mitch?”

  “I’m not with him,” she said. “Not like you think. I’ve just been riding with him for . . .” and she stopped. I think she was trying to figure out how long it really had been.

  “Since about a week,” she said.

  “You both from Texas?”

  “Yeah.”

  I wiped the back of my hand across my lips. “What’s going on here, Lilly?” My heart was racing so fast, and I thought it was only from what she did to me. But I knew a car like that one carried stories with it.

  “You don’t want to know, Jonah.”

  “Okay,” I said. “I should change my clothes, too. But I think maybe Simon and me better look for another ride. Or start walking again.”

  “Maybe you should.”

  And I walked away from her. I was feeling disgusted, not just from the vinegar smell of her vomit in my nose, but because I thought that she’d tell me the truth about what she was doing in that car. Maybe I was hoping for too much. Maybe I had the wrong feeling about her, anyway. So I told myself it was Simon I had to think about, and as much as neither one of us could give up on picking at each other, we were all we had in the world, besides a ten-dollar bill and a sack full of dirty clothes. So I looked up at Simon standing there, watching me, watching the girl, smoking his cigarette and flicking the ashes.

  I stood on the other side of the car from Lilly and Simon and changed my clothes. I didn’t really want to be in the small restroom with Mitch, and I wasn’t embarrassed to undress outside anyway. But when I pulled my pants off, I saw Lilly was watching me. I looked away, like I didn’t notice her. I put on the jeans I had worn when it began raining two days before, tighter and stiffer now, and found some clean socks in the pack, Simon’s. Since I didn’t have a clean shirt to wear, I took one of Simon’s tee shirts and pulled it on, even though it hardly reached to the top of my jeans.

  “I took a shirt of yours. And some socks,” I said to Simon.

  “I don’t care.”

  “Do you want to change your clothes?” I called out across the car, across the width of the crumbling lot.

  “Not yet,” Simon said.

  So I sat down beside the rear wheel, where the others could not see me, my legs folded, and stuffed those dirty clothes back into our pack. I felt my hand down to the bottom, finding the pistol there, wondering if I should try putting it in my pants; and decided not to. But I did pull it out into the light and made certain it was loaded before burying it back beneath the wads of clothes and the letters from my brother. I took the letters out and flipped through them, felt them in my fingers. Then I took my map out, rested it on my lap, and drew a diagram of the rest stop and a likeness of Lilly and the bearded and long-haired Mitch, the string of beads hanging down his chest, his quilted vest unbuttoned.

  I put the map back into the pack and closed it up. I put the pack into the trunk and brushed the dirt from the seat of my pants and sat down with Simon and Lilly at one of the rest area’s splintered tables.

  Mitch came out of the bathroom smiling broadly. He had shaved off his beard and cut his hair; and he was wearing a plaid short-sleeved shirt and powder blue bell-bottom corduroys. He looked like a tourist.

  “How do you like me now?” he said.

  “Crazy,” Lilly, who had recovered and was sitting at a picnic bench having a cigarette, answered.

  “It makes you look like a kid,” Simon said.

  “How old are you anyway, Mitch?” I asked. I thought he had to be in his twenties.

  Mitch flashed serious for an instant, and said, “What? Are you going to put that on your map, too?”

  “That map’s stupid. Jonah said he was making it in case we get killed,” Simon added.

  Mitch smiled again.

  “Hey. I’m just kidding, Jonah,” Mitch said. “It doesn’t matter, does it?”

  “Not really.”

  Mitch walked over to the car and loaded his suitcase back into the trunk, then he opened the driver’s door and dropped down to his knees so he could reach under the seat.

  “You feeling better, Lil?” he called out.

  “Yeah.”

  “Then maybe Simon can come help me put these on,” and as he stood, I could see Mitch was holding two red-and-yellow New Mexico license plates.

  I stared at my brother, who just sat there looking smug, smoking his cigarette. Now I knew what he’d been doing before we sat down at that diner.

  “Did you steal those plates?”

  “Yep.”

  I slammed my palm down onto the table. It made Lilly jump. Simon dropped his cigarette.

  I was so mad I could feel myself getting dizzy. Everything had piled up so high I just couldn’t stand it anymore: our father, Mother, Matthew, and me and Simon being out in the desert, abandoned and lost, swallowed up in the backseat of that black car like we really were swallowed up in the belly of some monster.

  We may have had as much of an excuse to as anyone ever did, but Simon and I never stole anything in our lives. And that was all I could stand.

  I stood up and walked around the table, and as Simon was attempting to swing his legs out over
the bench, I grabbed him. He started squealing and writhing like a pig that was about to get butchered, and I pulled him by the sleeve of his tee shirt and threw him down into the dirt.

  “Hey!” Mitch said, jogging over from the car.

  “Stop it!” Lilly yelled. But I couldn’t hear anything else beyond the pulse in my ears and my gasping breaths, and the sounds of my fists smacking into my brother’s chest and face.

  “You stupid punk!” I cursed. I sat on top of Simon, pinning his arms down with my knees into the gravel and dust beneath a desiccated locust tree, my hand twisted around in Simon’s hair, holding his head steady while my other hand alternately slapped and punched him; Simon, whining with each strike, eyes shut tight, blood spraying out from his nose and mouth.

  “You’re hurting him! Stop it!” Lilly screamed. “Mitch! Make him stop it!”

  Mitch just stood there, where the shade of the tree fell across his eyes.

  “He’ll stop soon enough,” Mitch said. “I seen this coming ever since we caught these two.”

  I gave Simon’s hair a final twist, then launched myself off of him, making a grunting growl as I did, storming away from the others, out past the tree and into the desert, punching my arms in the air and barking curses at no one, barking curses at myself. I tore my shirt off and wiped at the blood from my hands and arms, then balled it up and covered my face as I collapsed to my knees, facing away from all of them, sobbing so hard that I couldn’t believe I would ever stop crying.

  driver

  Joneser,

  Hi. What’s happening out in the world? That’s what GIs over here call home. The world.

  I can’t sleep. It took me about 10 minutes to write that first sentence because the South Vietnamese are firing their 105s right over my head and I’m starting to get a little worried. The whole place shakes like it’s the end of the world.

  Last night, two VC were killed at our northern perimeter. You know what the RVNs did? They took what was left of the bodies, because they both got it by claymore mines, and laid them in the road outside the firebase so people can see what happens to VC. One of them was a woman. I don’t even want to say what they did to her body.

  But the only Army here is a South Vietnamese battery and us, so there’s no one to boss us around and we can sleep whenever we want, just not now. But we have a big ice chest filled with beer, and we listen to music a lot.

  You know what? My platoon leader was out here to deliver mail, and I got your letter, but some RVN went in his jeep and stole his camera. We reported it to the RVN major and he caught the guy. You know what they did to him? They made him low-crawl in the mud with a mortar round in his arms and while he was doing this, other RVNs were beating him all over with clubs. He was really bloody. Then they threw him naked in a real small cage made from barbed wire. That’s what I call a good case of military discipline.

  There’s a picture in here of me and Scotty in his room. His room is about 9 feet by 5 feet. My room is a little bigger, but they’re both like coffins. But they’re in bunkers, of course.

  I’m watching some rats in here right now, and getting bitten by mosquitoes. Scotty is scared of rats, but he used to have a pet monkey that would chase them away, but I think someone stole the monkey and probably ate it.

  On nights like this, sometimes I just watch the rats. Some of them are big enough that they’d kill a small cat or dog. When it’s quiet, not like now, you can hear them hissing and screeching all night.

  I don’t know what I hate worse, the sound of the rats or those 105s.

  Tomorrow I might get to go to our home battery, they have showers there. I haven’t had a shower in 2 weeks. And I usually have to sleep with my clothes and boots on. I’m dirtier than hell. My sheets have mold on them.

  I’ve been here four months and my nerves are shot. Every time I hear a noise I jump. I’m shaking so bad right now. But the worst thing, I saw a five-year-old boy get killed the other day and then I thought of you and Simon and I thanked God that you aren’t in a place like this. I hope you guys aren’t fighting all the time, Jonah, you have to be the man.

  Scotty just came in right now. He said tell my little brother hi. He can’t sleep either, I guess, but I bet there’s more rats in my room than his. We’re going to have a beer (don’t tell Mom and Simon, ha ha) and maybe try to go to sleep. Anyway, I’m getting under the mosquito net cause these things are killing me.

  I’ll write to you soon.

  Love,

  Matthew

  I don’t know how long I sat there.

  I felt so tired, like I could just lie down and sleep.

  And wait for the buzzards to eat me.

  I could hear the motor on the Lincoln starting up.

  I took the shirt down from my face, my eyes blind and blurry in the dry light of the desert. My hands were sore and streaked brown with my little brother’s blood. I heard someone approaching from behind. I still didn’t fully believe what I had done. And I kept hearing myself, on the dirt road from our house, telling Simon how I promised to take care of him.

  “Come on. Get in the car, Jonah.”

  It was Mitch.

  Flick.

  I didn’t move, didn’t look back at him.

  “No.”

  “You sure beat the tar out of that boy.”

  “I told him I would.”

  Mitch moved closer. I could feel his footsteps vibrating through the ground.

  “Get up now. Let’s go.” Mitch sounded calm, almost soothing.

  “I don’t want to go with you.”

  Flick.

  “Then we’ll leave without you,” Mitch said, his voice closer now. “And, Jonah? Your little brother will be with us. He’s already in the car. And you know what I’m going to do? I bet you know.” Mitch paused and cleared his throat, then leaned closer and whispered, “Maybe a mile down the road, maybe a hundred miles down the road. Maybe. I just know I’m going to kill him if you don’t get up right now.”

  I dropped the bloody shirt onto the dirt in front of my knees.

  I knew then that all the things I thought about Mitch from the moment I saw him were right; and probably not bad enough. And I knew I’d let Simon down, let myself down, too, and I’d have to do something about it if I could. If I was strong enough, or smart enough.

  I put my palms down on the ground and pushed myself up to my feet.

  My knees felt like they would buckle.

  I looked over at the car.

  “There you go, buddy. That’s a good boy,” Mitch said, smiling, toothy and yellow, as I turned around to face him.

  “Can I get a shirt out of my pack, please?” My voice was flat and stoic.

  “You can wear that one you left there in the dirt or you can go without,” Mitch said.

  So I picked up the rumpled and bloodied tee shirt and shook it out. Then, without saying anything else, I pulled it on over my head and began walking back toward the Lincoln. I saw the glinting reflection of Lilly’s sunglasses there as she watched me and Mitch, could tell that Simon was sitting in the backseat just on the other side of the metal man, and I felt sick when Mitch put an arm around my shoulders, so fatherly, saying, “Do you know how to drive, boy? I think it’s time you take the wheel for a while.”

  “He’s driving,” Mitch said. He opened the door on Lilly’s side and got into the backseat with Simon.

  I stood behind the open driver’s door, not looking back at Simon. I knew he didn’t want me to look at him, and I was afraid of what I might see.

  “I’m sorry, Simon. I’m really sorry. Are you okay?” I said, just talking, and not looking back.

  Simon didn’t say anything.

  “I think you broke his nose,” Lilly said, and then shifted in the seat to look back at Simon. “Did it stop bleeding?”

  While I sat out in the dirt, she had taken Simon to the drinking fountain to wash the blood from his face. There was blood everywhere, in Simon’s hair, down his back and chest, drying in bla
ck grainy beads, his bottom lip cut between his teeth and my hands, and his left eye was black. She had carefully taken Simon’s shirt from him and soaked it in the warm, tin-smelling fountain water and twisted it and bathed Simon with it, wiping it across his skin and wringing it out over and over until the blood was gone.

  I turned and looked at my brother.

  Simon pressed the wet shirt, now gone completely red, up against his face and let out a muffled “No.” Simon turned away so nobody would have to look at him, holding that smooth and shining meteorite tightly in his right hand, flipping it over, tumbling it in his grasp.

  “You want a shirt, Simon?” Mitch asked calmly.

  “No.”

  I sighed and sat down. I placed my hands on the steering wheel and just sat there, trying to figure everything out, feeling punished, feeling trapped. I had driven plenty of times in my life, but there was so much in my mind at that moment that I became afraid I’d forgotten anything I might ever have known.

  Five miles down the highway, Mitch scratched his fingers through his cropped dark hair and stretched his arms out into the wind over his head and said, “Donny boy, I feel like getting high. What do you say?”

  “He says, ‘Groovy,’ ” Lilly beamed.

  Mitch patted Don Quixote on the shoulder and said, “He never says no to me.”

  I was scared. I sat stiff at the wheel, staring down the endless road carved straight from hill to hill, lined with jagged rocks and grasses, following pole after pole stretched with sagging black wire, and I cringed as I heard Mitch digging through his grocery sack and pulling out a six-pack of beer, then popping a ring on the first one, sending a foaming spray of warm yellow beer out like a sneeze against the leather back of the front seats.

  I looked at Simon in the rearview mirror.

  Simon’s nose had stopped bleeding, the bridge swollen smooth from his brow downward, his mouth hanging open to breathe. He sat, eyes pooled and fixed forward.

  Mitch twirled the metal ring around on his index finger.

  “Do you know what these are good for?” Mitch asked, holding the shining pop top in front of Simon.

  “No,” Simon said.