Don’t say you gotta believe, I said.
Nope, okay, he said, I wasn’t. I was gonna say you gotta bleed.
We were quiet, watching Logan make basket after basket and trying to hear what music he had playing in the van, but it wasn’t loud enough.
So, Hattie, he said.
So, Adam, I said.
Would you be at all interested in necking for a short, short period of time, he said. I mean, look, he pointed at Logan, the kid’s all right, right? Although he does have a cast.
I said no, I didn’t want to neck, I had to assemble the troops, reunite the troika, but I’d like to kiss him at least once.
Have you ever kissed an American? he asked.
Hmmmm, I said, let me think about that for a minute. He waited. No, I said, not really, no. Have you ever kissed a Canadian?
Well, yeah, he had, you know how it goes. He smiled and shrugged.
Yeah, no, I said. I kissed him.
Goodbye, Adam.
Goodbye, Hattie.
Love direction, he said.
I said, Always, dude, ’til the end of time, and got out of the truck and walked towards the light.
Logan was wearing shiny, black basketball shorts way down low on his hips, with blood red boxers bubbling up on top, like he’d cut a major artery in his ass. He’d taken his T-shirt and hoodie off and his back was shiny with sweat. He was skinny and pale. Scars, faded hickeys and plaster cast. Where had he got that scar from anyway? He was darting around under the net, blocking and being blocked by imaginary players and going in for layup after layup.
Hey, gangster, I said, your pants are falling off.
He whirled around and then back again, to the net, and caught his rebound and stood there breathing heavily and looking at me.
What are you doing here? he asked me.
Give me that, I said. He threw me his ball and I took a few shots and missed.
Okay, I said, quick game of Horse, let’s hurry, Thebes is alone in the room.
I thought you’d be really mad, said Logan. It had started to rain and Marvin Gaye was singing “What’s Going On” softly in the van.
I am really mad, I said, but I don’t know what to do about it.
He beat me at Horse and then as we walked to the van we took turns throwing the ball, hard, at each other. I aimed for his head but he caught it every time and beaned it back at mine.
Jerk, I said.
Control freak, he said.
What? I said. You have got to be kidding me.
Not really, he said, you’re—
I’m gonna break your other arm, I said.
We got into the van and it wouldn’t start and I hit the steering wheel with the heel of my hand the way my father used to do when his car, along with all the other aspects of his life, broke down.
Oh, for fuck’s sake, I said, now you’ve killed the battery. I tried again.
Well, don’t flood it, man, said Logan.
I thought about the other options I’d had that evening, the roads less travelled. I could have been necking with a sweet, American hippie in the back of a truck under a full yellow moon. At the very least I could have been asleep with Thebes, the human giraffe, all tangled up around me. Or, maybe, I could have been in Paris singing like Piaf and swinging from street lamps with a bottle of Bordeaux in one hand and Marc at an open window with a flower box, beckoning me to join him upstairs for some gallant lovemaking and some shrugging off of life’s tiresome little tragedies.
How did you find me? asked Logan.
By looking, I said.
I’m just asking, he said, you don’t have to—
Just…you know what? I said. I shook my head. Let’s not talk. Let’s pray.
I don’t pray, he said.
Do now, I said. Pray that this fucking piece of shit will start so we can get the hell out of here.
We were quiet for a minute. Our eyes were closed. Okay, I said. Here we go. I tried to start the van and nothing happened.
We gave up on prayer and got out of the van and played another game of Horse and then tried the van again. This time it started, and we took off for the motel.
Somehow I’d lost my room key, maybe I’d left it in Adam’s truck, and Logan hadn’t bothered to take one when he left, so I had to go to the front desk and ask for another one. The woman asked me if I had a little girl with me.
Well, yeah, I said, she’s in the room.
She’s been making some long-distance phone calls all the way up to Canada, said the woman. I had to help her with the code.
Thanks, I said. I’m really sorry—
I thought about calling the police, said the woman.
What? I said. Why?
She was all alone, said the woman. How was I supposed to know you hadn’t left her there?
Yeah, well, yeah, but…I know, but she was okay, right? I had to go find this guy — I pointed at Logan — and I did check on her at one point…I know. I know. Normally…I left her a note, I added.
The woman turned around and started fiddling with the fax machine. The sun was coming up.
All right, I said. Can I just…okay, thank you, really, thank you for not calling the cops. I appreciate it.
Checkout’s at eleven, she said.
Thebes was sitting on the edge of the bed. She’d changed out of her dirty white suit and back to her old royal blue terry cloth outfit. She was looking at the TV but it wasn’t on. Her hands were folded in her lap and she didn’t say anything when we came in.
Thebie, I said. I sat down beside her and put my arms around her. I’m so sorry. Are you okay? You got my note, right? Are you hungry?
Logan came over and put his hand up for five but she didn’t lift hers. Thebes? he said. She began to cry. Logan sat down on the bed and said he felt so bad, this was all his fault, he would let her sit in the front of the van and do poetry with her if she wanted him to. Or crafts, or whatever. She could have permanent control of the remote.
I took her hands in mine and saw thin red scratch marks on the inside of her wrists. Thebie, I whispered. I kissed her hands. Thebie, I said again.
Logan hadn’t noticed. He got up and said he was going to have a shower and went into the bathroom. Then he came back out.
Thebes! Dude! he said. You found my knife! Thanks! He went back into the bathroom.
Thebes, I said. What did you do? She didn’t say anything. Please, Thebie, talk to me, I said. Tell me what happened, okay? I won’t tell anyone, I promise. Not even Logan. I won’t tell a soul.
She told me she had woken up and we were gone and she was afraid and worried. She had noticed that the van was gone too. She hadn’t seen the note until later. She didn’t know what to do at first. Then she decided to call the hospital to see if she could talk to Min. She phoned the front desk to ask for help, and eventually, after six or seven tries, managed to get through to the hospital. The nurse told her it was the middle of the night and Thebes said she was sorry to be calling so late but Min was her mom and she really needed to talk to her. Somehow, for some reason, the nurse had said all right, she’d see if she could wake Min up. Then a few minutes later Min was on the phone. She said hello. Thebes was so excited she was jumping from bed to bed. Min! she said. It’s me! At that point in the story Thebes started crying again. Logan came out of the washroom.
What’s up? he said. What’s wrong?
I told him I needed to talk to Thebes, alone, and asked him to go back into the washroom. He said no problem and left.
What did she say? I asked Thebes. She was crying too hard to answer. I bet she was so happy to hear your voice, I said. I held her some more and let her cry. What did she say? I asked her again. Finally, Thebes had stopped crying long enough to speak.
She kept calling me Hattie, she said. She thought I was you.
She did? I said.
And every time I’d say no, no, Min, this is Thebes, it’s Thebie. Theodora. Remember? But she didn’t know who I was and she just kept calling me Hattie and asking me if I had the tickets for some show she wanted to see and I didn’t know what to say. I kept saying this is Thebes, this is Thebes. And then she’d say like, oh, Hattie, what are we going to wear or stuff like that and then finally I just said no, I didn’t have the tickets but I’d get them and I’d call her back. And that was it.