Toby slipped his shoes on and left the county house one morning while everyone was in a meeting. It was only a couple days before he went with Mr. Hibma, but he needed a field trip, a break. He sneaked out the back door, hoping not to be seen out any of the windows. The staff at the county house had made a point of making Toby feel like a guest rather than a prisoner, of impressing upon him that this wasn’t a jail and he wasn’t in trouble. He walked out past the last of the identical buildings, past a stagnant pond, through a field of sandspurs that had once been used for soccer, and into woods he’d never been in before. There was no telling where these woods stopped. Maybe they spread all the way to the other coast, to the space center. Somewhere in these woods, far away, a larky picnic was transpiring. Somewhere in them, a dog was being put down. Somewhere, people met to worship their gods. Toby would get in trouble for this, for escaping. He’d be put under watch, some casual form of lockdown, but it was worth it to get out in the fresh air on his own. He’d been breathing county air for more days than he cared to count.
Toby poked around until he picked up a trail that unfurled along the edge of a pasture. He would walk this trail to the end and then turn around and walk back. That was all. He would happen upon no hindrance or encouragement. There were things he was free of — not just the county house, but things he was permanently free of — and he felt the freedom in a tangible way, in his guts. He was free of the bunker. He never again had to approach it through dwindling or gathering shadows, never had to smell it, never had to wonder what it meant that he had found it and no one else. It was everyone’s now. The bunker wasn’t Toby’s to lose. It belonged to the news shows. It was powerless.
He tugged a baggie of nuts out of his pocket. These woods were quieter than his old woods. Spindly steers looked at him dryly. Toby tightened his sneakers. He guessed that what he was feeling was hope. He had a different plight now. He had no plight at all. He wasn’t a bad luck case. He’d made a hell of a mess, but it looked more and more like the clean-up would be someone else’s business. He’d performed well at the meeting or hearing or whatever they called it. There’d been a social worker and a cop and a psychiatrist and a couple other people, and none of them liked each other. They all had different agendas, and this kept Toby from ever feeling pinned down. And Toby hadn’t even felt like he’d been lying. He’d felt like he was doing right by himself. He worried a little about what the cops might get out of Kaley, but Toby knew he could always muddy the waters. He could muddy the waters to the point where nobody wanted to dive in.
The pastures gave out and the air changed. Toby smelled cars on the breeze, and in another five minutes he broke from the woods onto a vast construction site, apparently shut down, that was bordered on the far end by an expressway. Toby had heard about this road. It went to Tampa. It was Citrus County’s last chance to become part of the rest of Florida. Toby was in the middle of nowhere. The only other human beings around were the truckers, rushing past one at a time in their semis, each truck dragging with it the same windblown wail.
Toby could not stop thinking about Shelby. They would never have another way to think of each other but this way. Toby’s guilt was towering in another plane. He didn’t feel it. It was so big, it was elsewhere. Toby hoped, because that was all he could do, that he was capable of thinking of all that had happened with Shelby as a sad, unlucky, disheartening jumble that had been thrown at him and that he’d handled the best he could. That’s what life would be for Toby, figuring out the best ways to think about the things he’d done.
Toby wasn’t ready to turn back. He went into the almost-finished building. It was going to be a do-it-yourself warehouse store. The shelves were all up, not yet stocked. There were signs to help shoppers find large appliances, paint, lumber. Toby wandered and found himself in the garden section. The plants had been delivered and left to fend for themselves, plants from unimaginable states and provinces and hemispheres. Some were bursting their pots and growing down to the floor, some were dying. Leaves covered everything. Toby found a hose and followed it to its spigot, reeling himself toward the wall. He turned the valve and heard the sound of water finding its way and felt the hose stiffen in his hand. Every plant in every row, the rotting and the unruly, was due a share.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
John Brandon was raised on the Gulf Coast of Florida. During the writing of this book he worked at a Frito-Lay warehouse and a Sysco warehouse. During another part of the writing of this book he was unemployed. During the revising he was the John & Renee Grisham Fellow in Creative Writing at University of Mississippi. His favorite recreational activity is watching college football. This is his second book; the first was Arkansas, also a novel.
The author thanks Paul Winner, Anna Keesey, Tim Hickey, and Heather Brandon. Their help was invaluable.