A BURDEN                                                     FROM BALTIMORE TO MARIETTA 

BY TOM VAN GEMERT

                                                                                                                                                        I

THAT FRIDAY we were feeling so low and the weather, that rotten, chilling mist that seemed to have rolled in from some dark world, worked its way into our lungs and hunkered down within, making us feel even lower. In the morning a kid recognized his guitar in our pawn shop basement and at that moment I knew we were in for trouble no matter what kind of patch work Trent could muster. I watched my brother, that ox of a man with shoulders that had fused into mammoth chicken wings through years of pumping dumbbells, act so calm and kindly to the boy when on the inside I knew he was shaking. He sent the smiling boy off with the guitar, an amp, cables, pedals, the works but it was no good. We were going down hard and hitting every sharp crag of cliff wall on our way.

So we decided it was best to give things a chance to blow over by taking a trip to our little sister’s place in Marietta, Ohio. She had just delivered a baby boy a month or so back and we were talking about going to see it some time soon anyway. I turned my column in to the Baltimore Chronicle (it was titled Used Cameras, What to Focus On), and in an hour we were packed and leaving the city in Trent’s blue Oldsmobile. I had forgotten what a smooth, roomy, comfortable ride that car had and after we had opened a case of ice beer, the sharp edge that had been burning in my gut became a little smoother and distant. I stared out at the trees blurring past and let the classic rock tunes blare over me, thinking about my column and what I would have written if I had known it might have been my last one. I thought long and hard but couldn’t come up with a single idea. The notion of how one never truly appreciates something until it’s gone entered my head and I drank to it.

It must have been only two hours later when the hitchhiker appeared because it was still only mid-afternoon. We had escaped the mist but the air was still damp and the sky gloomy and gray. I woke out of a doze when Trent shut off the radio and began slowing down.

“Let’s be good Samaritans,” he was saying but I knew he was thinking other things because the hitchhiker was a woman and quite the looker of a woman also.

“Look how she wears those jeans,” Trent said. “This can’t be real, it just can’t be.”

I watched her approach in the side mirror. She had on sunglasses and all her hair tucked up under a white shawl. Her smile seemed forced as she swung into the back seat and introduced herself. Gwen was her name and she said she wanted to go to her mother’s apartment in Elkins, West Virginia. She and her now ex-girlfriend Paula had been on their way back from visiting friends in Pittsburgh when they had gotten into another argument in which she made Paula pull over so she could get out.

“I had two suitcases in the trunk and I was so mad that I didn’t even bother taking them out,” she said. “I just wanted to get the hell away from her.” After exchanging a wide eyed look with Trent in regards to the fact that we had a beautiful lesbian in our back seat, I asked her what the argument was about. She said it was complicated but that the last argument which set everything off was when they got pulled over for speeding. Gwen swung her boot up over the front seat and held it there in the air between Trent and I. It was brand new and made of emu leather. She and Paula had bought the same pair together in a shop in Pittsburgh.

“She hung her boot out of the window and asked the cop to guess how many pig skulls she had kicked in with it. That cost us an extra two-hundred dollars,” Gwen said. “I hate it when she acts like that. I’m so glad she’s gone.”

“That’s nice leather,” Trent said as he stroked the boot with his stubby fingers. “What did you say it was, emu?”

“Here put this on the mirror,” she said and handed him a dead mole. “Don’t worry, it’s stuffed. It’s a good luck charm. I grabbed it as I was getting out of the car. I hope she wrecks now.” Her laugh was like cool water and it made me want to jump back there and tear her clothes off. Not that I would ever do something like that. The thought did cross my mind for a brief moment though and I’m sure it crossed Trent’s a lot longer. Half grimacing, he hung the dead mole up on the mirror and wiped his hand on his pants.

“So long dead soldier,” I said and slipped another empty can out the window. Rolling it up I listened for that laugh again but all was silent. “Keep Maryland beautiful,” I said casually and waited. Trent slapped me on the arm and jabbed his thumb at the back seat. I peeked back to find her silently sobbing with her face in her hands. Her nails were painted a light gray. She had taken off the shawl and her brown hair cut at the neck, shook in little spurts along with her shoulders. Trent turned on the radio and put his finger to his lips to silence me. I was going to ask her if she wanted a beer.

She stopped crying after a while and fell asleep sprawled out on the wide back seat. Trent and I started talking for the first time about our situation back home. He said it was all his fault and that we started buying hot merchandise again. I told him that it was equally my fault because I hadn’t stopped him.

“The money was good, damn it,” I said. “But I swear if we get out of this clean, we’re going purely legit again and staying that way.” Trent shook his head, making the muscles in his thick neck bulge.

“That little snot’s parents are guaranteed to rat,” he said, slipping a can out the window. “We’re screwed.” I didn’t answer right away for I was watching in the side mirror a police car pull out and start flashing.

“You’ve got that right,” I said. Trent cursed and told me to get the Listerine out of the glove compartment. He ducked down and swigged from it, his eyes like that of some wild, desperate animal being hunted. I looked at the mole dangling from the mirror, at the sharp teeth and whiskers. Some luck it had given us.

The cop asked Trent to step out of the vehicle and I felt the weight of the car shift as he lumbered out. In the back seat Gwen was still sleeping, her maroon lips slightly parted. Listening to her faint, steady breathing in the silent car, I shielded my eyes from the scene on the roadside in front of me and stared out across the vast harvested corn field to my right. Miles and miles away, a mushroom cloud of black smoke billowed up from beyond a line of trees at the far end of the plain. It reminded me of my hooligan days long ago when I had thrown a paint bucket half full of gasoline onto a bonfire. It was my own personal little atom bomb and I remember thinking when I had retreated to my neighborhood far away, that I would never be caught. I glanced back again at Gwen, making sure to keep my eyes averted from what Trent was being made to do, an image I would surely not want to remember. She lay on her back with knees up and hands on stomach, her breasts rising and falling with a hypnotizing motion.

There was a yell outside and I turned my head just in time to watch Trent drive the lace of his shoe into the doubled over cop’s face. I remember tiny balls of blood hanging suspended in the air like quick silver, refusing to break up and scatter until they hit the ground alongside the limp uniformed body. Trent bustled into his seat, wheezing, sweat gleaming on his forehead, his pony tail slick and wet looking. I froze up and couldn’t get my voice box to work as he stepped on the gas and we lurched forward, kicking up roadside gravel. Gwen’s groggy voice came from the back seat, asking what was going on. Getting no response, she tapped me on the shoulder, “What happened?” I couldn’t answer, couldn’t even turn my head to face her.

I I

WE STOPPED an hour later at some dive called Ovid Dappenshire’s Bar and Grill. There were coconut heads hanging on the walls and thick cigarette smoke wafted slowly beneath the dim lamps in the ceiling. We were in West Virginia now just outside of some small town and truckers and locals were clustered inside, breaking into boisterous laughter every now and then. We sat at a small table in the corner, away from it all.

“For brothers, you sure don’t say much to each other,” Gwen said, picking at the food in front of her. Trent and I continued to eat looking down at our plates. She sighed and said she wished she was at Gretchen’s Place back home in New Jersey where they have the best fish sandwiches.

“Paula and I used to go there every Thursday night,” she said, picking up the sandwich between her fingertips with the gray nails and staring into the smoky haze. Her eyes grew damp and setting it down, she stood up and walked over to the pay phone hanging on the wall next to the ladies room. I glanced over at Trent and observed the same calm look he had used with the boy, holding all kinds of pressure within that giant frame, aging hours every minute. He must of felt my gaze for his eyes snapped up at mine without moving his head, still chewing with mouth open.

“Here’s the plan,” he said and after a quick glimpse at Gwen leaning against the wall with her back turned to us and phone to her ear, “We drop her off at her mother’s which is only an hour or so from here, find the nearest bus station, leave the car, and take the next ride to Marietta.” I shook my head and took a deep breath, wishing I could just crawl under the table and sit there with my eyes closed, shutting out the world. He had put me into this against my will and a part of me wanted to lash out at him right there. I also thought about just getting up and walking away from it all, hitching my way back to Baltimore. I had too many choices and when that sort of thing happens I usually just go numb and not take any action at all. And that’s what I did - just nodded and continued to eat, my mind going blank and stupid.

Gwen came back wiping at her eyes and sniffling, not saying a word. For a moment there was a fraction of me that wanted to reach out and comfort her, hold her in my arms and bury my face in her hair. But that feeling soon passed and I realized that my ham hoagie had gotten cold so I let what remained of it fall from my hands and hit the white ceramic plate with a faint thud. Everything around me seemed so lifeless and limp. The coconut head on the wall next to me was of a pirate with a gap toothed mouth that didn’t smile. It stared back at me with its good eye as if to say it knew of buried treasure but wasn’t going to tell a soul.

“Scrambled eggs and sliced hot dogs,” the local was saying while he was setting up the jumper cables. Our car wouldn’t start and after offering to help us, he started telling us about how he had gotten in a fight with the new guy he was renting a room in his house to. He rolled up his shirt sleeves to reveal numerous tattoos one of which was a clown with its eye’s shut, locked in a frozen cackle.

“That’s all this Turk eats every night,” he continued. “And you know that saying ‘You are what you eat’ don’t you? Well this guy smells like that lard he eats every night, breathes it right out the pores in his skin. I can tell when he’s been in the bathroom. Just plain reeks that damn Turk, comes home every night in a rage slamming doors and cursing ‘til I finally clocked the sucker. Clocked him good. See this?” he pointed at the gash on his knuckles. “I don’t feel it and if I did I’d embrace the pain. Pain can be good sometimes. Real good.” Trent and I nodded every now and then at what he said and thanked him when the car started.

Gwen walked out of the pharmacy next door with a small brown bag and handed us each a lollypop through the window as we sat waiting in the running car. She said that we looked like we needed cheering up and climbed into the back seat, unwrapping one for herself. I sucked on the hard candy to please her, not caring how ridiculous I looked. Trent did the same after I nudged him and when I peeked over at him with that bulge in his cheek and that white stick pointing out, I had trouble believing that the man had just injured, possibly killed a police officer. It was clear in his eyes though, as he stared at the road, motionless, as if his insides were doing all they could from keeping his outsides from moving.

She said that Paula had hung up on her. A long silence ensued while I thought hard about how to respond. Finally I said that everything would be better once she was at her mother’s place with an awkward sounding voice that sounded so phony in my ears that I hated myself for saying it. She didn’t answer and I was afraid to look back to find her crying because seeing that again would have made me break down myself. I cracked open another can of beer and took comfort in the pure taste of it. Trent shook his head without breaking that concentrated gaze when I held a can in front of him, the lollypop still sticking out of his mouth.

I I I

IT MUST HAVE BEEN a sudden intake of air that roused me this time. I looked up rubbing my eyes to find Trent breathing heavily and staring into the rear view mirror. Through the side mirror I could see a police car parked in some grass, facing the road.

“It’s just a speed trap,” I said. “Calm down.” But he kept breathing heavily and it started to make me nervous too even though after checking again, I could see that the tiny white car in the distance remained motionless. His lollypop was now in the cup holder and it had hardly been sucked on at all. He kept darting his eyes up with a quick little snap of the head to look in the mirror long after the car was out of sight. I told him to drink a beer and calm down, fighting to make my voice sound relaxed. He wasn’t listening and started to slow down and pull off onto the shoulder of the road. We were on a two lane highway with long grassy embankments on either side and woods at the top. He stopped the car, wiping the sweat off his face as he quickly stepped out and started to run up the embankment. After a quick glance at Gwen sprawled out in peaceful sleep, I got out and chased after him.

He had charged through thick woods as if it were nothing. The woods went down a gradual slope and I spotted him below standing at the edge of a decent sized creek with his shirt off. He wiped his face and chest every now and then with the shirt as I picked my way through the brambles, taking my time when I knew he had stopped. He was still breathing heavy as I approached and asked him what he thought he was doing.

He didn’t answer right away and we stood there watching the flowing creek, listening to the water trickle and the faint passing of cars on the highway.

“Remember when we used to take gramp’s canoe out on the manatee river when we went to Florida in the summer, those summers before he died?” he said. I answered that I did but had trouble picturing it with him standing there with his shirt off, staring deep into the water like some crazed beast in a trance.

“We’d paddle towards the docks and walk over them as the canoe passed under and then hop back down in,” he said. I looked away from him and down at the water, trying hard to conjure up the image, seeing if I could escape too. Trent chuckled and I found my mouth trying to smile.

“No matter how many times we pulled that stunt, we never missed it,” he said. “And you know something...I’d..,” the pause broke my concentration and I looked up at him again, the happy image vanishing.

“I’d give anything to go back and do that one more time, ride that canoe again,” he said and I watched him, seeing how his eyes were relaxed for the first time since that morning when the boy had pointed at the guitar. Maybe it was from the buzz I had or perhaps just the damn lump that had welled up into my throat but for some reason I walked over to my brother and hugged him for the first and only time and he hugged me back. And no matter how sweaty he was or how much he smelled or how much his embrace was crushing my ribs, I held him there for a long time and came close to convincing myself that somehow everything was going to turn out alright.

I V

WHEN WE PULLED OFF onto the exit to Elkins, Trent told me to wake up Gwen for directions. She was curled up on her side with hands tucked between knees and her face, although a little pale, had an enchanted bliss to it that made it hard for me to nudge her. Then the most horrible, sickening feeling hit me when I spotted the empty bottle of sleeping pills laying on the floor. I scrambled into the back and felt for a pulse in her neck, muttering “no, no, no” over and over.

“What?,” Trent said looking in the mirror. “What is it?”

“Pull over,” I said, feeling all over that smooth, white, delicate neck, searching for something, anything.

I finally vomited in the toilet at a rest area. Men were in the restroom and the floor I knelt on was wet and filthy but I didn’t come close to being conscious of any of these things. There was a droning sound in my head that wouldn’t go away and I got up and washed my face at the sink. I must have pressed that button down twenty times to fill my cupped hands with the meager little squirts the faucet rationed out. The warmth and sound of the hand dryer was soothing and I felt like standing in front of it for hours, meditating.

Outside Trent was pacing under the overhang with his arms folded. It was raining hard and the parking lot was full of puddles and flowing rivulets along the edges. He looked up at me, panic still all over his face. He asked what I thought we should do and I said we had to call 911.

“Do you know how bad this looks?” he said. “Do you know how screwed we are?” I walked up close to him and muttered that I wasn’t going back in that car until she was gone. Trent started pacing again, his soggy little pony tail plastered to the back of his neck.

“I can’t think cold and wet like this. I’m going where it’s warm.” And with that, he dashed over to the running car and got in. The thought crossed my mind that he might pull out and leave me there and I half wished he would. I’d just go back into the restroom and stand in front of the hand dryer, pushing the big metal button and reading the directions. I could have done that for a long time if he had just left me there and drove off with the burden he had created. But he didn’t, and I looked over at the pay phone hanging on the brick wall and imagined what I’d say: A woman who we picked up on the side of the road overdosed in the back seat while we were driving her home. Come get the body please. It was a conversation I couldn’t fathom making. I thought again about leaving him to deal with it all by himself. He had let the boy into the basement without asking where he was from, he had picked up Gwen, he had attacked, possibly killed a policeman, and now he was expecting me to go down with him?

A short, old man picked up the phone and held it slightly shaking to his ear. He had on a neatly trimmed suit and hat that were perfectly dry. He must have been waiting the whole time under the awning for the rain to weaken. He came out of nowhere and I was just noticing him now. Nearby his wife stood with her back barely touching the wall, staring out at the rain through silver spectacles. Her hair couldn’t have possibly been more white than it was. The old man looked at his watch and was saying into the phone “We should be there soon, just waiting for the rain to lighten up a bit.”

I thought about going over to the couple and offering to get their car for them but for some reason I knew that I didn’t belong even for a minute in those people’s lives. It was something inconceivable to me just as the phone call had been. My mind felt like it was groping through a black fog with hands flailing through the air but all the while knowing there was nothing solid in any direction. I looked over at the car with its blue hulking frame and exhaust puffing out behind it like a steady cloud. Then the unexplainable happened: I stepped out into the pouring rain, walked over to the car, and got in.

V

IT WAS DARK by the time we had to stop for gas and it had stopped raining. On a side lot, Trent managed somehow to cover her body with the tarp and put her in the trunk when nobody was around. She looked very pale and stiff by that point and we were afraid someone might notice. It was horrible I know, to be putting a dead body in a trunk, but I was glad in a sense knowing that there was metal between her and me. The sight of her back there would have made me get sick again.

Trent, I believed, had finally begun to come to terms with things and had calmed down to a level where he was somewhat at ease. He even chuckled when he explained to the clerk why we were pumping gas into a running car and for an instant he was truly back again. But when the clerk walked away, his smile faded and that familiar, troubled edge found its way back into his eyes.

We were drinking again on our way to Marietta and now we worked against the silence which we had brooded in comfortably earlier. We talking about sports, movies, old times, anything to avoid that silence which would make us remember the trouble we were in. With the absence of Gwen in the back seat, I could go for minutes without reminding myself.

“April is making us look bad, getting married, having a kid,” Trent said.

“She had it easy,” I replied. “All she had to do was look at what we were doing and do the opposite. If I had any sense I would have looked at you and done the opposite. But there’s only a couple years between you and me and I have five years on April. There’s my excuse.” Trent laughed but changed the subject. We were getting too close to talking about mistakes.

An hour later we were in an Arby’s eating dinner and had run out of things to talk about. We had taken to reading the menus and listening to other customer’s conversations. There was a couple that looked to be around our age in their thirties sitting across from us, talking about the book store they had walked into earlier that had books scattered all over the floor. The woman said she guessed it was the aftermath of some employee that went into a rage about getting fired. The man, who made a point to put food in his mouth just before answering, agreed and said he wished they had walked in a few minutes earlier so he could have seen it. He stopped talking when he had swallowed, put more food in his mouth, and continued: “Everyone should go out with a bang once in their life. One summer a while back when I was around twenty or so I was working in a convenient store called Toot-n-Scoot...” The woman interrupted with laughter at the name, covering her mouth with her hand. Something in that laugh and gesture reminded me of Gwen and suddenly without warning that droning ring in my ears and sickening burn in my gut hit me hard. I couldn’t keep from conjuring up that pale, ice cold face under the tarp.

Now the man was laughing, “That bastard manager used me so I used him and that day when he was about to fire me I could sense it. He asked me to come to his office and when I opened the door, I threw my shirt into his fat gut and told him I quit before he had the chance. Damn I went out good I tell ya, one of the greatest feelings I ever had.”

When the couple got up to leave I winced a little. I would have sat there and listened to that man talk for days, no matter how much food was stuffed into his mouth.

During the last hour to Marietta, the silence was so unbearable that Trent finally risked turning on the radio. Between each song and during the commercials I’d tense up a little, expecting the dreaded news to dive out and catch us by surprise but it never did.

“I don’t think I can see myself talking to April and Ted like this,” he said, breaking me out of a doze. We were no longer on the highway and I recognized the road. I didn’t answer right away because I realized I had trouble seeing it too.

“We’re almost there,” I finally managed. “Don’t worry. They’re expecting us. Everything will be okay once we walk in the door.” My words sounded phony and I cringed as they trailed off. It would have been better if I had said nothing at all.

We reached the house and Trent stopped in the street just before the driveway. We sat there with the engine running looking at the two-story house with nearly every window blazing yellow.

“That house looks nicer every time I see it,” Trent said.

“Let’s go in,” I said. My voice didn’t sound like my own anymore and I stepped out of the car and closed the door. The engine kept running. Trent rolled down the window and I looked in at him, his eyes were a little damp with a distorted shimmer in them set off from the house lights.

“Tell April and Ted I wished I could have seen them,” he said and I marveled in how strong his voice was. It was the same business tone he used in the shop with just a hint of softness.

“And brother...,” he said but never continued. He raised his hand and I shook it, feeling an unwavering grip squeeze my fingers together. He smiled and I smiled back. Then he was driving away down the road and I watched him turn the corner and go out of view. I turned to the house with its lights casting a welcoming glow over the lawn. I started walking forward and then quickened my step. All I could think about at that moment was holding my nephew for the first time, feeling that brand new life in my arms and nothing more.

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