“Thank God your mom’s crazy and your dad vanished,” Cody said near Bakersfield, “or we’d be in chemistry.”
Hunter forced a laugh even as he cringed to hear his mother described that way. She was devout, not crazy. Since her car wreck she’d been paying sixty dollars an hour — from Hunter’s race winnings — to a Christian Science practitioner who prayed with her for the pain to end. Lately those injuries had segued into something more deep-seated. After she tithed the entire purse from Hunter’s win in Tahoe, Cody had convinced him to cut her off. “Do it before you get sponsored,” he’d said after Bike Magazine labeled Hunter “the likeliest Jordan of our incipient sport.” In the inaugural run of the Leadville 100, Hunter had placed in the top ten overall, including adults. His nickname since then was Death Wish. Kids broke bones on those steep, rocky trails where winners topped forty mph. Worried parents sidelined many a natural talent, but to Emily Flynn, asking her son to slow down was like telling God she didn’t believe in him. Velocity was a beguiling illusion meant to test their faith, which explained why Emily at the time of impact hadn’t been wearing a seatbelt.
East of Mojave the valley gave way to brown desert lined with ranch trails that Hunter gazed at longingly from the wheel. Lately he’d been staring at singletrack and doubletrack the way other kids looked at porn; something welled up in him until he needed to touch it, feel it under him. “Look,” he said to Cody, who glanced up from examining the road atlas.
“We’ll be like fifty miles from the Grand Canyon,” Cody said.
“Let’s drive up and see it.”
“No, let’s ride to the bottom of it.”
“It’s a national park. They’d arrest us.”
“Which is fucking dumb.”
“The trails are kind of narrow,” said Hunter, picturing hikers leaping to their deaths as he and Cody raged down a precarious path.
“It’s probably a fifty-dollar fine.”
“It’s more if you kill someone.”
“Or if you get a yeast infection from rubbing your pussy on the seat.”
“What?” said Hunter.
“Medical bills and all.”
“I’m just saying it’s narrow trails.”
“Then let’s hit Moab and ride Slickrock.”
“Okay,” Hunter said, liking that plan better. He was still adjusting to his coming freedom. After the emancipation, he would drop out of high school and buy an RV that he and Cody would drive to race after race, detouring whenever they felt like it to Slickrock’s petrified dunes or any trail in America. He’d been telling Cody it sounded awesome, and it did, except when he imagined his mother living alone.
There was the practitioner, of course. Recently Joseph had offered to hold Emily’s hand as she walked away from Error back into Mind. God helped people ready to render themselves fools in the eyes of others, Joseph had said, and Emily need only look to her sister — Hunter’s aunt Amy, who’d died of the flu — to see what became of fear. Hunter couldn’t tell whether the man was a grifter. Maybe Joseph was in love with Emily, as she seemed to be with him. Hunter imagined his concern was only a conjurer’s trick, as Emily would say about the sky shimmering above Barstow.
In the Rodman Mountains a butte with steep zigzagging paths mesmerized Hunter into drifting onto the rumble strips. When Cody snapped alert, Hunter pointed to the blunt hillock. The sun was sinking behind low mountains, causing the shadow line to retreat up the butte.
“We can beat it,” he said, pulling off.
Without even closing the van doors they rode three minutes flat to the base of the rise. Hoisting their bikes over their shoulders, they scrambled up a scree field. The light was withdrawing. In a skidding rush they raced the sun until the gradient eased and they could mount their bikes again, slicing their way up to the summit in time for another sunset.
“Fucking A,” said Hunter on that high dais, wishing he could pause time.
“What a beautiful painting God has made for us today,” Cody said, mocking Hunter’s mother again.
“It is beautiful,” Hunter might have replied, but that wasn’t part of the deal of Cody’s friendship. Nor could he agree aloud that the sight hardly seemed real.
“Race you to the bottom,” he said instead.
“First let’s admire God’s handiwork for a few minutes.”
He laid his bike down. As soon as he turned to face the radiant show of orange light, Cody leapt on his own bike and went screaming down the butte’s north face.
Hunter gave chase. It felt incredible to charge downhill. He rode headlong onto a jutting boulder that launched him out over Cody, through the air. He landed diagonal to the grade, skidding hard right. From behind him he heard Cody cursing, but just for show. A good race was what Cody had wanted, and Hunter, who liked to please people, was giving it to him. He bunny-hopped gully after gully. Feeling serene, he kept a lead all the way back to the van, where his worry resumed over his father.
Hunter retained no memories of Arthur Flynn beyond his mother’s few stories, which all took place during his infancy. According to Emily, Arthur had suggested putting Hunter up for adoption because of the shape of his head. “I’ve got a conehead for a kid,” he’d told every nurse at the hospital, irked in a manner that seemed jokey until he phoned Catholic Charities and arranged for a Sister Bernice to come by. A far-fetched tale, but could Emily have cooked up such a particular account of drenching the nun with a pitcher of sweet tea? Or Arthur’s last words to her, “Keep your napkin in your lap,” or the strange gifts he’d sent from the Arizona address: lingerie two sizes too small, a family-sized box of Crystal Light?
Driving east, Hunter rehearsed not mentioning those things to his father. Unless Arthur Flynn looked thrilled to see him, Hunter would ignore his face, demeanor, everything except his signature on a form.
In Flagstaff, after checking into a Motel 6, the boys drove to 310 Beaver Street to find an empty house with an auction notice posted in front. Hardly had Hunter registered relief before Cody said, “This blows,” so loudly that a neighbor heard.
“If it’s Buck you want,” said that woman from her porch, “find him at Charlie’s Bar on the main drag.”
They thanked her, drove away. “Should we try it?” Cody asked.
“I doubt Buck’s Arthur,” Hunter said.
“Hunter, on that piece-of-shit bike of yours, you’re a badass, but off of it you’re a festering pussy.”
“Okay, Cody.”
“Did you hear about the girl in New Mexico?”
He shook his head. He knew Cody was about to describe yet another victim of Christian Science.
“Her parents let her bleed to death. State took them to trial, but the court ruled in favor of religious freedom.”
Over the past few months, since the pedal incident, Cody had been telling Hunter about similar kids in practically every state.
“That’s a tragedy,” Hunter said.
“Could happen to you.”
“I’m not a hemophiliac.”
“It’s a cult like the Branch Davidians.”
“You’re right,” he said, in order to stop talking about it. He had a disquieting thought. His bike, a Cannondale Killer V 900, was hardly a piece of shit. Still, it paled beside the Litespeed Cody had stolen after giving a fake ID to test-ride it. Although Cody’s anesthesiologist father could afford any bike Cody believed he deserved, Cody had told his parents off and they weren’t speaking anymore. Now he sought for Hunter to ditch his own mother, too, so that Hunter’s winnings could fund their racing life.