We should think about dumping that stuff. Mike won’t have any of it, would never admit that Greg was right about anything.
Mike says, “We ain’t stopping. We’ll dump the stuff when we get up there.”
Greg closes his eyes, holds a hand to his mouth almost like he’s going to puke. “Dump it at the lake house? That’s fucking retarded!”
I say, “Easy, Greg.”
“Even if we get there, which we won’t, and find the place empty, which we fucking won’t, we’re gonna do what? Set up a happy house and then dump the shit in the lake? At the same lake we’re staying at? Nice. They’d never find that shit, right?” Greg’s voice goes higher and louder, getting shrill, his face turning red.
I turn around because I want to actually see Mike punch him instead of watching it in the rearview mirror. And then Greg’s voice cuts out, mid-rant. He looks at us, mouth open, eyes wide, and his face crumbles, slides away, like something broke, and I turn back around fast, because, that look on his face, I can’t watch that, can’t, and whatever happens next will be better seen from the safety of my rearview mirror.
So now I’m looking in that glass and I’ve lost Greg. Can’t find him. Then he’s there again, and he flickers. In and out of the mirror. He’s not moving. He flickers like a goddamn light bulb.
I turn back around. Greg’s throat is gone. It’s all just red pulp. Blood leaks out of Greg’s eyes, nose, and ears, and his mouth is open and keeps opening, a silent scream, and how does his mouth keep going like that? And his eyes opening too, the whites gone all red, then worse than a scream, this horrible whisper from his ruined throat, a hiss, a leaking of air, and he winks out. No more flickering light. Blood mists the rear passenger window and Greg’s seat, but he’s not sitting in the back seat. He’s not there. He’s gone.
Mike screams Greg’s name and kicks and punches the back of my seat, the door, the ceiling. I turn back around and I’m doing ninety, didn’t realize it, and am about to plow into the back of a tractor-trailer. I brake and swerve onto the shoulder, rumble strip, then grass and dirt, and manage to stop the SUV. Mike is still screaming. I look at the dash, the speedometer reading zero, the road, but don’t really see anything other than Greg’s face, before . . . before he what?
I yell to Mike: “Before he what? Before he what?”
“I don’t know, Danny. Just go. Just keep driving.”
“What?”
“Keep fucking driving. Just keep driving, keep driving . . .” Mike repeats himself and keeps on repeating himself.
I want to dive out of the car and run away and keep running. But I don’t. I listen to Mike. I drive. Pull off the shoulder and onto the highway. I keep driving, and try not to look into the rearview.
——
Overcast. The clouds are low and getting lower. North on I-91 and Mike sits in the middle of the back seat, filling my rearview. He watches himself. Making sure he’s still there, maybe. I’m watching him too, him holding Henry’s sawed-off shotgun. Every few minutes his hands get to shaking. The gunmetal vibrates in his hands.
I’ve tried slowing down, pulling off the road or into seemingly empty rest areas, but Mike won’t have it. He threatens to shoot me in the head if I stop. Says that I have to keep driving. Keep going. I keep going, more because I’m scared, and don’t know what else to do. I know Mike won’t shoot me, would never shoot me. Still.
“Hey, Mike.”
“Still here.”
“Need to think about this. Back at the pawnshop. Did that old guy shoot Henry?”
“It happened so fast. He jumped up with that gun pointed at us and . . . I can’t remember, Danny.”
“Did he shoot Greg, too?”
Mike shakes his head, and it turns into a shrug of the shoulders, and that turns into his hands shaking all over again.
I don’t ask Mike if he thinks what happened to Greg happened to Henry. I don’t ask Mike about the three gunshots I heard. I don’t ask Mike if he thinks what happened to Greg will happen to him. I know Mike’s answer to the questions. And I know mine.
We cross the border, into Vermont. Things feel kind of funny in the car. The air all wrong. Too light. Or too heavy.
Mike says, “Remember that one summer your grandma let me come up to the lake house?”
“What? Yeah, of course I remember. Grandma never called to run it by your mom and you didn’t tell your mom you were going and by the time we got back the cops had put up posters on half the telephone poles in Wormtown.”
Mike breathes through his nose. Almost sounds like a laugh. He says, “That was the first time I’d ever been in Vermont. This is my second.” I watch Mike talking in the rearview mirror. Maybe if I focus hard enough on watching him, he won’t disappear.
“You need to get out more often.”
“Henry or Greg ever go up?”
“Fuck, no. Greg would’ve burnt the place down just trying to make toast. Just you, man. And Grandma didn’t know about Henry.”
“She knew. She told me we shouldn’t be spending time with a stranger in the neighborhood that much older than us. She told me it wasn’t right.”
“When did she tell you that?”
“At the lake house. It was the only time she talked to me the whole week up there.” Mike laughs for real this time. “I loved it up there, Danny. I really did. But man, it was really weird too. Your grandmother would cook us meals and make our beds, but I remember her not talking much at all and spending most of the week by herself, smoking her Lucky Strikes on the dock, going for walks by herself, leaving us alone.”
I say, “She did the same shit back home.” Grandma fed us but would kick me and Joe out of the apartment until it got dark out, and Joe would usually go off on his own, not let me come with him. If it was raining or something and we couldn’t go out, she’d stay in her room with a book or her little black-and-white TV. Away from us.
“I’m not feeling right, Danny.” Mike rubs a forearm across his forehead. Doesn’t let go of the gun. His voice sounds smaller, farther away, coming from another room.
“We’re almost there, Mike.” I say it without thinking. I don’t know what to do.
“I know your grandma ignored us all at your home. But it was different up there, all by ourselves, away from the city and everything. Up there, I really noticed it. I got up earlier than you and your brother a couple of mornings and spied on her. She’d just stare into the mountains or into nowhere, really. It was like we weren’t even there, Danny. I’m getting fucking worried; maybe we were never there. Oh shit, Danny, I don’t feel right.”
“I’m pulling over, Mike. You relax. Keep talking to me.” We’re only ten miles from the exit, not that it matters. I slowly pull over onto the shoulder and I want to believe that if we just get out of the car, then we’ll be okay; he’ll be okay. But there were three shots.
Mike’s eyes are closed and he’s concentrating hard on something. Brow folding in on itself, upper lip shaking like an earthquake. He says, “Don’t know how she could ignore you and Joe fighting the way you did. You fought over everything. Made me feel really, I don’t know, uncomfortable. That probably sounds messed up coming from me. But, I don’t know, man, it just didn’t feel right. Wanted to kick both your heads in by the end of the vacation.”
“Wish you were here, send us a postcard, right? Mike, listen, the car is stopped. We’re going to get out. Just walk around. Get some fresh air, all right?” I say, then I lie to him: “It’ll help.”