BAD TRIP SOUTH Page 2

  There was one other couple who went on the tour with us, an old man and woman who walked real slow. I tried to listen to the guide, a pretty girl with a turned-up nose who looked like a high school cheerleader in her tight uniform. She told us about the caves and the story how outlaws hid out in it a long time ago, and before that, how the Indians held powwows in the caves, burning fires, eating antelope and buffalo. I tried to listen, but I kept looking back behind us, thinking Crow would be there so I missed a lot of what the girl guide said.

  It was cold and got colder in the caves as we walked through them. There were little lights along the pathway and more lights shining on some of the walls and the ceiling. The air was thick with damp and smelled like a grave deep, deep, deep down in the earth. Those stalag...things hung from the ceiling, like swords about to drop, and they stuck up from the floor, like tall muddy anthills. I would have thought it was neat except I couldn't stop worrying.

  I tugged on Mama's hand and whispered, "Did you see that man when we came in?" She shushed me because the girl guide was talking about Old West outlaws. She didn't even hear what I said. Mama’s a schoolteacher and she doesn’t like me to interrupt when people are talking. Especially when they’re teaching you stuff.

  Toward the end of the tour, I got near Daddy and took his hand. He looked down at me and smiled a little. I said, "Daddy, there was a man watching us when we got here."

  He said, "Is that right?" But he wasn't really paying attention. He kept watching the girl guide as she walked ahead of us, swinging her flashlight around the cave walls. He thought she was pretty. He watched her bottom and hardly ever blinked.

  Mama didn't care--though I think she noticed it too--but I wished Daddy wouldn't look at girls that way with Mama right beside him. He used to think Mama was the prettiest girl there was. He was jealous of her and some of his fits came from thinking she would like someone else better than him. But now he liked how the girl guide looked so much he hardly knew Mama was alive. He wasn't listening to how important it was Crow was watching us and talking about us when we walked inside.

  Realizing Daddy wasn’t going to hear what I said either, I dropped his hand and hung back, following both my parents while I chewed the inside of my lip. All I could do was hope Crow wasn't there when we came out of the caves. Maybe he'd change his mind and find someone else to bother. Maybe he'd already found someone and they'd left. I could have, well…listened in to his mind to find out if he’d left, but I really didn’t want to do that. For some reason I knew I wouldn’t like what I’d find inside his head. Just looking at him and catching little stray thoughts from him was bad enough. I sure didn’t want to go looking into his thoughts if I didn’t have to.

  I've seen bad people before. That’s something you have to know about me. I might be ten, but I’m pretty old for a little kid. Probably because all these years I’ve heard grown ups talk in their heads and I know stuff other kids just don’t know. That's how I knew something was wrong with Crow and Heddy. I knew they were bad people. Heddy, that was her name, Crow's girlfriend. She was just as bad as Crow, that was obvious to me the minute I walked past her and saw her funny mouth, and her eyes that were shiny and trying to be normal, but weren’t normal at all because they let too much of her out when she looked at you.

  I think sometimes Daddy turned bad from being around so many bad people. It's like getting sick. You catch stuff from people, colds and the flu and measles. If you're only around bad people, maybe you catch what they have that makes them that way. Daddy had to arrest drunks and thieves and a couple of times he even arrested killers. Sonny and Jimmy Cochran, two brothers who shaved their heads and wore sleeveless tee shirts. “Stone killers” Daddy called them. They broke into old Mrs. Lampisi's house one night real late, thinking she’d stay sleeping. When she got up and surprised them, they beat her to death with their fists and kicked her a lot. It was the big army boots they wore that probably killed her. I don’t like to even think about it. Daddy didn't know I knew about them, but it was in the newspapers, pictures with their bald heads shining like wet grapes and their eyes--real cold and hard looking, like people who don’t care about living anymore. Eyes like Heddy had.

  Daddy had once been a policeman in Charlotte for two years before I was born, and he used to talk about that at the kitchen table with Mama, how awful it was on the street, how lowdown, he said, people could be. "And they're no damn better in a little town,” he said, like he was biting down on a bitter lemon.

  I don't guess all policemen get infected like Daddy did, but that's what happened. Like something in his head turned sour and he had to take it out on someone. Mama was handy, she was the goat. Isn't that what they call it? The goat that gets all the blame?

  If Daddy had been watching when we went into the caves he would have known how bad Crow and Heddy were, but this time he just wasn't all there. He was thinking about Mama leaving him and taking me away. He was fuming, like a volcano, heating up to the point he'd blow. He couldn't see anything or anybody, but the way the house would be empty back in our town when we got home from the vacation.

  Then he could only see the girl guide, in her brown pants uniform, pretty and young like my Barbie dolls. All blonde and perfect, dolly-like. If she had been my Barbie, I’d have put a shiny black ballgown on her and red high heels on her little feet.

  That's how Crow surprised my daddy, taking advantage of a man who isn’t thinking straight.

  We came from the tour, our eyes watering in the sunlight after being down in the dark caves, and before we were halfway across the parking lot, Crow came up behind my Daddy and said, "Don't give me any trouble if you want your kid to live."

  He had one hand on my shoulder, pushing me along. His hand felt tough, hard, and mean, like if it had teeth, it'd bite me. I saw Mama's mouth drop open. She said, "Jay..?" Suddenly Heddy was beside her, taking her arm, talking to her so softly I couldn't hear what she was saying.

  Daddy looked over at me and I saw in his eyes he remembered what I'd said during the tour. About the man watching us. And he was sorry, then, and angry, because now he was helpless to stop what was happening.

  He tried anyway. Daddy was turning into a bad man, but he still loved us. He still knew what was right and wrong.

  "Take your hand off my daughter. What do you think you’re doing?"

  Crow stepped over close to Daddy, pulling me along with him, his fingers digging like claws into my shoulder. He opened his leather bag enough so Daddy could see his hand on the gun in there.

  "Get in the front seat of the car,” Crow said. "Just do what I say."

  That's how it started.

  #

  FRANK Hawkins let the little girl go to the bathroom. While she was out of the interrogation room, he thought about the story she’d told him. He thought about Jay and how he might have let the family get kidnapped.

  Although Frank knew more about Jay Anderson than just about anyone, he thought maybe Jay’s daughter knew him from the heart out. Jay had been coming to Frank for six months prior to the vacation that ended in abduction and death. Problem at home, problem with his wife. Once the sessions got into it, Frank discovered it wasn’t a wife problem, it was purely a Jay Anderson problem. It was like other cases Frank had seen and dealt with before in his years as a psychologist on the force. Jay--just as the girl said--turned bad. He took the violence from the street home with him. It altered his relationship with his wife to the point there was no love left, only recrimination, sadness, loneliness, and, ultimately, danger.

  Jay had said in an early session, “I don’t know why the sheriff’s sent me to you. I got to drive all the way down here to Charlotte for this? It’s crazy. It’s wasting your time and mine. There’s nothing wrong with me.”

  “You don’t think you’re out of control?” Frank had asked.

  “Hell no!” With that outburst, Jay bit his lip and looked down where he rubbed together the knuckles of his hands in nervousness. “I don’t know,” he ame
nded. “Maybe I am.”

  It grew apparent the more Frank saw of Jay that the man was in trouble, double-digit, inflationary trouble. Not only was he using his badge of authority to manhandle some of his arrested suspects, but also he took all his frustration out on his family when he went home.

  Frank did not altogether dislike his patient. Yes, he was a wife beater and, yes, he probably should resign from police work, but he really was struggling to come to terms with what he had become. After denials and a few rants, Jay hung his head in shame, admitting he was abusive. He was angry. He might explode and really do great harm if Frank didn’t help him. “I don’t want to do that,” he’d said. “I couldn’t live with myself if I did something...permanent.”

  It was the first step to redemption. And it was as far as they’d gotten after six months before Jay announced he was going on a two-week vacation with his family.

  Frank advised against it. Stopping in the middle of therapy wasn’t a good idea. Too many parts of Jay’s personality were unresolved. Couldn’t he put off the vacation for another time?

  Jay was adamant. He was going. He and his wife were about to break up and the vacation might cool things off. He needed the time away from work. He was having trouble concentrating, trouble sleeping. If he didn’t take this time, not only would he lose his marriage, but he also might make some serious mistakes at work and then where would he be? They’d pick up where they left off the therapy when he got back, he said.

  Frank okayed it with Jay’s superior despite his better judgment. What could he do, handcuff the man in his office, force therapy on him?

  Yet whenever Frank thought about Jay during the two-week lapse between sessions, he wished he’d held against the idea. The thought of Jay on the road with his wife and child, his life dribbling by in unstructured hours, put Frank into an agitated, anxious state. How was it going? Was the wife all right? Was Jay, not ever a patient man, losing it out there in some motel or roadside inn?

  That was why when Jay didn’t return for his scheduled visit after his vacation, Frank started investigating why. Jay was a potential bomb walking around loose. And where was he? Where was his family?

  Frank started looking into it. He knew immediately something was terribly wrong. He just had no idea where to start looking. It wasn’t until several days after the family had already been in the clutches of the violent pair known as Crow and Heddy that Frank got a break.

  Emily returned from the bathroom, opening the door to the interrogation office slowly, peeking shyly around the door at him. She came forward slowly and took the chair opposite the desk.

  She was such a great kid. She wasn’t pretty or anything, but there was an intelligence in her eyes that made you want to hunker down and have a little conversation with her. She wore her hair short and straight, with brown bangs that came below her eyebrows and from which she glanced up through when she had her head down talking about things that might even make an adult embarrassed to discuss. Her voice was soft and steady, rarely breaking, and she didn’t cry. He knew when this little girl was grown, she was going to be someone exceptional and she might even do great things in the world. Though she claimed she could read minds, he tried not to scoff or let on the whole notion was too bizarre for words. She believed it and that’s what counted.

  Besides, though he didn’t believe in such matters, he was open to proof, if there was verification. If she continued the story of the abduction and could show she really knew what people thought, well…well, he didn’t know what he’d think about it then.

  There were a great many mysteries in the world and humans were the most mysterious creatures ever to live. In his capacity as a police psychologist, he had come across a great many more unbelievable claims than telepathy. One officer in therapy had sworn on his mother’s life that he saw ghosts. All the time. Especially down in one section of Charlotte near the graveyard when he drove past in his patrol car. They swarmed the street and climbed over his car, he said. They shook their heads, moaning, and pointing and he did not know what in the world they wanted with him. It was to the point he couldn’t drive that route anymore. If he had to make a call, he made a wide circuit, avoiding the streets surrounding the cemetery, even if it meant taking longer to get to his destination. No amount of rational therapy he was given could convince him otherwise. There were ghosts; he saw them; that was the end of it.

  Frank looked at Emily and smiled to put her at ease again. She was the only one with all the pieces to the Anderson puzzle. He wondered if she could read his mind. If so she’d know his thoughts about how lucky she was to have come through the joyride alive.

  #

  CROW waited until Heddy had the keys and was behind the wheel. He waited until the man was in the front tan-leather bucketseat beside her, with the mother and kid in the back seat. Then he got in the back next to the kid. He pulled out the gun then and let them see it. "I got nothing to lose,” he said. "Anyone interfere with Heddy's driving and the kid says good-bye, world, adios, muchacho."

  "Tell us what's going on,” the man said.

  "What's your name?" Crow leaned up toward the front seat and looked at him hard while Heddy got the car started. She pulled away from the parking lot onto the road leading away from the Long Horn Caverns.

  "Jay Anderson."

  "What kind of name is that, Jay? That's a fag name, it’s a woman’s name. Jay, Jayne, Joyce. You’re not a Jason, are you? I knew a Jason once, hated the fuck."

  “Not a Jason. Just Jay.”

  Crow sat back, turned to the woman. "And what's your name and the kid's name?"

  "I'm Carrie. This is Emily."

  He liked how her voice wavered. She looked scared enough to piss her pants.

  "One big happy family,” Heddy said from the driver's seat. "God, this is a beautiful car."

  "I'm called Crow and this here's Heddy. You just do what we say and it's all going to be all right."

  "If you want the car, why don't you...?"

  Crow leaned forward again to the man and lashed him on the cheek with the gun barrel. The man screeched and blood started running down from the cut on the cheekbone. The woman screamed and the little girl jumped like a live wire had been plugged into her ears.

  Heddy said, "Take it easy, Crow. I'm driving here."

  Jay got the pocket compartment open and that's when Crow saw the gun. He was halfway over the seat then, reaching out. Heddy started hitting the brakes, pulling to the side of the road, the car swerving in loose gravel before it came to a shuddering stop. Crow stuck his own gun into the man's neck, grinding it in. "Gimme that!"

  Jay carefully withdrew the service revolver and handed it over.

  "Bad move, man. I coulda blown your brains out. That what you want, me to blow out your brains right in front of your kid and ole lady?"

  Jay put his hand to his face where it was swelling now and turning blue. His hand came away red and sticky. “Can I get some napkins from the console here?”

  "I'm talking to you! I'm asking you a question!"

  "No,” Jay said between clenched teeth. "I do not want you to blow my brains out."

  "That's smart thinking. You happen to have any other guns stashed in here?"

  "No."

  Crow turned the gun over in his palm, scrutinizing it. "Looks like a cop's gun. Regulation issue, Smith and Wesson. You a cop?"

  "No."

  Crow turned to the woman, Carrie. "He's a cop, ain't he? He's got the look. He’s got the haircut. He even smells like a stinking cop. I look around, I’m gonna find a badge, right?"

  The woman was crying into her hands. She started to shake her head when the kid piped up, "My Daddy'll put you in jail. You can't hit my Daddy like that."

  Crow grinned. He slipped the revolver in his satchel. "Only the kid knows how to tell the truth. I'm gonna remember that."

  "Oh shit,” Heddy said, looking out the side window.

  "No big deal,” Crow said. "He don't scare me. You think you scare
me, cop?"

  "The fucking luck,” Heddy said. "We have to pick up a cop’s family."

  "Get the car back on the road, the excitement's over,” Crow said. "And don't worry about Jay. He's gonna play nice, aren't you, Jaybird, old boy? Cause I have your gun. And I have your kid back here. And you're not making no more dumb moves, right?"

  "Right."

  Heddy let up on the brake and eased back onto the road. "The fucking luck,” she repeated. "We must be under a bad moon."

  #

  I’VE seen bad moons. They're always the full ones. The big fat yellow ones that drive people crazy. Daddy says when there's a full moon the loonies come out. He never seemed to notice he went loony too when the moon turned full. He'd come home with mad on his face and his eyes all narrow, talking about how many bills he had to pay, and how he wasn't ever going to be more than a patrol officer in our dumpy town, he’d never make detective. How he was sick of the scum, the gangs starting up in town, the whining business owners who wanted him to patrol their properties like he had nothing better to do, like he was a security officer instead of a cop. How he should have learned some other job, he hated this job; this job was for common idiots.

  Mama would stay clear of him and try to sit quietly at the kitchen table, grading papers from school, but he wanted her to say something. Agree with him, that's what he wanted.

  He'd stand right behind her, talking loud. He'd send me to my room, like he couldn't stand looking at me. I think he did that because he knew I knew he was being bad again. Sometimes he was sorry later and I'd hear him begging Mama to forgive him, but he never really meant it. She knew that. So did I. Still, he never stopped doing it.

  He'd put ice in a towel and put it on Mama's bruises so they wouldn't swell and he'd say, almost crying, "I don't know what gets in me, Carrie. I’m a lousy son of a bitch, I know I am. When I think about what I do to you, I want to stuff my gun in my mouth."