Rusty

Rusty

  Mike Ramon

  © 2014 M. Ramon

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  They checked the bars first, the cathedrals of the lost and desperate, the places that poured jukebox music out into the night after the sun went down, only it was too early for that, for the music and the fake cowboys, the bikers and men just off work from the mill. It was before noon when they set out to find him, leaving Joanne to watch over the baby, Rusty behind the wheel and Bobby in the passenger seat. Rusty was too young to drive, but he was tall for a fourteen-year-old, and anyway he had learned to drive when he was twelve, when Pop had taught him on account of Pop needing someone to drive him home when he was too drunk to do it himself. So far Rusty had never been stopped while driving, a testament to the way he looked older than his age.

  When Mama left she had gone alone, leaving the boys and their sisters alone with Pop. She left an envelope on the dresser in Rusty and Bobby’s room with a note that said she was leaving some money for them to take care of themselves with. Rusty counted the money in the envelope; it was twenty-three dollars. With no more money from Mama (she had worked at the Shop 4 Less in Kingston), all they had to live on was Pop’s disability checks and whatever Rusty managed to hustle up through his various petty criminal endeavors, like stealing packs of cigarettes from gas stations and selling them to kids at the school he no longer bothered to attend. He didn’t make much money this way. Bobby thought he wasn’t a very good criminal.

  Rusty made Pop hand over the money every time he cashed a check, for safekeeping. With Mama gone someone had to pay the bills, and they all knew that Pop would spend the money in a quick minute if he were left in control of it. Things had worked this way for a while, but that morning, when Rusty had gone into the tool shed to take the rent money out of the tin box he had hidden under some dirty rags behind the ancient, broken lawn mower, he found the tin empty. His ran inside the house, rushing past where Bobby sat eating a bowl of cereal at the dining room table, and headed for Pop’s bedroom. He checked the room; Pop was gone. Both the money and Pop were missing, and he knew what that meant.

  Rusty informed Bobby and Joanne (Trina was too young to understand any of it, thank God), and the boys had set out to find their father. That’s when they checked the bars. They didn’t find Pop at Lucky Lou’s or the Quicksilver Tavern, and they didn’t find him at Decker’s or the Grille Street Pub. They didn’t find him at the place near Rt. 60 that people called the Swamp, though no one could remember its true name. Everyone said they hadn’t seen Jim Bender in weeks. The early drunks taking refuge from the quickly-warming day in the dim interiors of these places either smiled at the boys or gave them quick mean looks before turning away from them. The guy behind the bar at the Swamp said they were too young to be there, and told them to get their skinny little asses the hell out of there.

  So they had checked the bars without finding Pop.

  It was after one o’clock and they were both hungry, Rusty especially so since he hadn’t eaten any breakfast. They stopped at the Food N’ Gas and got a couple microwavable burritos and a 32 oz. cherry Big Freeze, which they shared. Bobby asked if wasn’t too much money, and Rusty said not to worry about it. Rusty laughed.

  “What’s so funny?” Bobby asked.

  “I bought this food with money I made selling cigarettes that I stole from this very place.”

  Bobby agreed that it was funny.

  They ate while sitting on the curb in front of the Food N’ Gas, sauce dripping out of Bobby’s burrito and onto his shirt, a new stain to join the others that had collected there. He wiped most of the sauce away with a thin napkin, and when they were both finished they tossed their trash into the can near the entrance. They got back into the car, and as they drove away the clerk behind the counter in the Food N’ Gas watched them go.

  After that they drove around for a while, directionless. Bobby wished that they could find some sign, some trail made visible through sheer force of will, that would lead them to Pop. He hoped that when they found him he still had the money on him.

  Rusty turned on the radio, and a country station came crackling through, a guy singing a song about losing either his dog or his girl (it was unclear which), and Rusty turned the knob, trying to find something good. A thick blanket of hot air had settled over the town, and Bobby wiped sweat from his brow as Rusty settled on a station that played classic rock. Mick Jagger was telling someone to get off of his cloud as Bobby lowered his sun visor to shield his eyes from the hot white ball hanging in the sky.

  “We have to find him,” Bobby said.

  “I know,” Rusty said back after a moment of silence.

  They didn’t talk after that, just kept driving as the sun started to dip toward the horizon. They stopped at Hank Garretty’s place. Hank was an old friend of Pop’s. Hank’s wife answered when they knocked, carrying a squalling baby on her hip. She looked at them with wet, red-rimmed eyes, and when they asked if Pop was there she said that he wasn’t. Rusty asked to talk to Hank, but she said that Hank wasn’t home.

  “Try back later,” she said, and closed the door before either boy could say another word.

  Rusty used the last of his pocket money to put some gas in the car. He decided to stop home and see if Pop had come back. They parked in front of the house, and Rusty cut the engine before running inside. Bobby stayed in the car, watching the way the shadows moved in the trees. Rusty came back after a minute, shaking his head as he got back into the car.

  “He hasn’t come home,” he said.

  So they started out again. Rusty turned the radio off, and they drove in a silence that wasn’t really silent, the quiet broken by the sounds of the busted-down car they were driving in. They tried a couple of the bars again. The bars were starting to fill up with a rowdier crowd, and no one had any time to jaw with a couple of kids looking for their daddy, and they were quickly ejected from the two places they tried.

  The two of them sat in the car in the parking lot of Lucky Lou’s, the engine turned off, the light from a neon sign flashing on and off, casting the brothers in electric green light in between moments of darkness. Bobby watched his brother; he could see it there in Rusty’s face, the way he was ready to give up, to accept a defeat that he had known all his life, and which he would continue to know. It was the same defeat that their father had known, and their mother, a feeling that you would always come out on the losing end, that luck was for other people, something that would never lower itself to touch someone like you. A certainty that all was lost, and that it had always been so. Seeing that defeat in his brother’s face hurt Bobby more than he could find the words to say.

  “Let’s go back by Hank’s,” he said instead.

  Rusty thought about it for a minute.

  “Yeah, we might as well,” he said finally, starting the engine.

  It took them fifteen minutes to reach Hank’s house. Warm night air came in through the windows as they drove on, blowing their hair around their heads. Bobby thought Rusty was driving a little too fast, but decided not to say anything.

  When they got to Hank’s the house was dark except for a porch light that threw sickly yellow light in a semi-circle near the front door.

  “You think anyone’s home?” Bobby asked.

  “I’m sure as hell gonna find out.”

  Rusty got out of the car and walked up to the door;
Bobby followed him. Rusty rapped on the door. Ten seconds later he rapped again. There was no response.

  “Guess no one’s home,” Bobby said.

  “Did you hear that?” Rusty asked.

  “What?”

  “I heard voices. I think they were coming from the back of the house.”

  Rusty started around the house, and Bobby followed reluctantly.

  “Rusty, where are you going? I didn’t hear nothing.”

  Rusty didn’t say anything, he just kept on. When they came around the back of the house they found Hank and his wife sitting on a couple lawn chairs in the backyard in the glow of an electric lantern. There was a third lawn chair, but it was empty. Empty beer cans littered the yard.

  “Hey there,” Rusty spoke.

  Hank looked over at them.

  “Hey boys, what’chu doin’ out here?”

  “We’re looking for Pop,” Rusty said. “Have you seen him at all today?”

  Hank and his wife looked at each other for a moment before they both busted out laughing.

  “No,” Hank said. ‘No, I ain’t seen him at all.”

  Something moved in the shadows beyond the empty lawn chair. Rusty squinted his eyes, trying to see into those shadows. There was a dark form lying on the ground. The form moved, and a loud snoring sound erupted out of the darkness.

  “Damn it,” Rusty said.

  He went over and grabbed the sleeping form, bringing it up to a sitting position. It was Pop; he smelled like sweat and alcohol. Rusty slapped Pop across the face, waking him up right quick.

  “Whozit?” Pop managed to get out.

  “Where’s the money?” Rusty asked.

  “Huh?”

  “Where’s the money you stole from the tin? That was our rent money.”

  “I dunno. I don’t have no money.”

  “I know you took it,” Rusty insisted. “Please tell me you didn’t spend it all.”

  “Dunno…dunno nothin’ about no money.”

  Rusty reached into Pop’s pockets and found some cash. He counted it; it didn’t take long.

  “Pop, there’s only twenty bucks here,” he said. “Where’s the rest of it?”

  Pop didn’t answer because he had fallen asleep while sitting up. Rusty shook him awake. Pop tried to brush Rusty away, but Rusty batted his father’s hand away.

  “I need the rest of the money,” Rusty said. “Is this really all that’s left?”

  “Go away.”

  Rusty stood up, stood over his father. He drew back one foot and drove it into Pop’s midsection. Pop let out a gush of breath, then doubled over in pain. Bobby started crying.

  “I hate you,” Rusty said to Pop.

  He walked away, then turned back and yelled it:

  “I hate you!”

  He turned his back on Pop and walked away from him.

  “It ain’t right for a boy to treat his daddy that way,” Hank said as Rusty passed him, but Rusty either didn’t hear or didn’t care.

  “Come on,” Rusty said to Bobby. “I’m taking you home.”

  Bobby stopped crying on the drive home, wiping the tears away with the hem of his t-shirt.

  “What are we gonna do?” Bobby asked.

  “There’s nothing we can do. We’re fucked.”

  When they pulled up in front of the house Rusty didn’t cut the engine.

  “Go on inside,” he told Bobby.

  “Aren’t you coming in?”

  Rusty didn’t answer.

  “Rusty?”

  “No, I’m not coming in. I’ve got to get the hell out of here tonight, Bobby. I’ve got to get out now, or I never will.”

  Bobby didn’t want to cry again, but he started to anyway.

  “But you can’t leave, Rusty.”

  Rusty wouldn’t look at him.

  “I’m taking the money I found on Pop; I need it for gas. It isn’t enough to pay the rent anyway.”

  “Rusty, please come inside.”

  “Go!” Rusty bellowed.

  Bobby jumped out of the car, slamming the door shut behind him. He ran up to the house, and he heard the car pulling out behind him, heard the engine rev as Rusty ran from everything that he had lost. Bobby went straight to the room he shared with Rusty and threw himself onto his bed. Joanne came into the room and asked what was wrong, if they had found Pop, where was Rusty. Bobby didn’t answer any of her questions, and eventually she stopped asking them, and left him alone.

  In the morning Rusty was still gone. Pop was sitting at the breakfast table with Joanne when Bobby came out of his room, and the baby was sitting up in Joanne’s lap. Joanne’s hair looked dull and brittle. Trina had dried food all around her mouth. When Bobby sat at the table Pop looked at him once, quickly, and Bobby could see the shame in his eyes. They ate breakfast together, then Pop went back to bed and Joanne sat down to watch TV.

  Bobby walked around the neighborhood, stepping over cracks in the sidewalk, filled with a stupid superstition taught to him in a rhyme when he was five years old. He played around with the Jenker’s dog. It was another hot day, but he didn’t mind being outside so much. Whenever he got thirsty he would drink from any given neighbor’s hose; no one seemed to mind.

  The day got late, then became night, and the moon rose up high, fat and arrogant in the black velvet sky. When Bobby went home Joanne was still watching TV, and the baby was playing with some blocks.

  “Where’s Pop?” Bobby asked.

  “Asleep.”

  Bobby made himself a grilled cheese sandwich and sat alone at the table as he ate it. He took a long, cool shower, and got into bed. The window was open, and the curtains blew around lazily in the breeze as the night buzzed with insects. Bobby wondered if they were going to get thrown out because they couldn’t pay the rent. They could stay with Aunt Carla and Uncle Dean if they had to, he thought. Or at least they probably could. Things didn’t end so nicely the last time they had to stay with them for a while. He pushed these thoughts away, not wanting to face them.

  He tossed and turned for some time, sleep eluding him. Sometime in the night he heard a car drive up to the house, before the engine went silent. He heard first the front door open and close, and then his bedroom door. He heard quiet movement, and in the darkness he could just make out Rusty’s dark form move to the other bed and climb into it.

  Soon Bobby was asleep. Outside, in the dark of the night, the insects continued to buzz and a dog howled far away.