Black Helicopters (10 page)

That’s a fact. It’s inarguable. It’s also true that we, right now, don’t have a lot of wood. There’s plenty of wood stacked by the root cellar where the cabin used to be, but it might as well be on the moon. We can’t go there. We can’t go back home.

“What about your momma’s people? Would they take you?” Captain Nichols looks at Bo all the time, like Bo is the one to talk to, like Bo is the one with the com.

“We are our momma’s people,” I say.

“Well, then, your options are pretty limited. You got no decent place to sleep. You got no decent vehicle — you can’t drive that bus around, and you can’t haul anything bigger than a six-pack on that bike you’re hauling on the back of the bus. On the one hand, the best thing you got going for you is that you don’t exist — officially. Long as that’s true, nobody’s looking for you and nobody’s going to see you. On the other hand, the world don’t know you exist, so they don’t care if you freeze or starve.” The Captain falls silent then. He just drinks his coffee and stares across the table at an empty chair.

“What happened to your daddy’s truck?” Captain Nichols breaks the silence and gets up to fill his coffee cup again.

“We saw it there after the fire, but we didn’t touch it. We had the bike. I guess it’s still there. It didn’t burn,” Bo says.

“If you could get that truck. That would be an asset. I might even be able to find some work for you to do if you get that truck.”

“What kind of work?” I ask.

“Well, hauling things, to start. People always need things moved around. Your daddy used to move things for people. That was one thing your daddy did. I can maybe set up some jobs like that for you. If that works out. If you’re dependable, then we can figure out what other skills you got that people might need.” Captain Nichols nods at Bo’s bandaged hand. “What happened there? You blow yourself up a little bit? Your daddy, he never made mistakes like that.”

“Bo never makes mistakes, either. The jack broke while he was working on the bus. So that’s no mistake. Metal fatigue. That kind of shit just happens.”

“Yeah, shit does just happen. That’s a fact. Your daddy had some rarefied skills, though. Rarefied skills. And people trusted him.”

“Da taught me,” says Bo.

“Skills you can learn,” says Captain Nichols. “But trust you got to earn.”

We wait. Bo puts his bandaged hand on his lap. I know he’s a little ashamed of it. I never thought about what people might think when they see his missing fingers. Now we are both thinking about that, about how it might look.

Captain Nichols scoots his chair away from the table and stands up, taller than me, taller than Bo, taller than Da ever was. He takes the hat off and rubs his hair back, then he settles the hat back. That’s when he says, “I figure we got to go see if we can get your daddy’s truck. I figure it might still be sittin’ there. I drive you up there, you drive it back here.

“If that pans out, you can stay here a couple of months to get yourselfs organized. But this ain’t no charity outfit. I’ll take a commission on the jobs and you gotta give me some rent and — and if you mess with my property, I’ll know. You’re under surveillance, and I’ll see if you pull any shit. That happens, I’ll sic every kind of government type on you so fast you won’t know if you are in hell or the nuthouse. You hear me?” He sticks his hand out at Bo. Bo stands up like a person, and they shake on it. It’s a deal. Everything considered; it’s a real fair deal.

I look out the windshield and imagine the world the way Corbin said it was, all under water. The sun is going down and the shadows wash like waves across the valley from one hillside to another. The light gets greyer, and I can imagine that the water is flooding up to the sky.

In the distance something small as a mosquito is rising over a hillside. It flashes bright in the moment of pure light the sun is leaving behind as it drops behind the western horizon. Maybe that speck is a helicopter shark that will slide through time and the sky to become a raven, or a meadowlark.

“No! No! Turn around! Turn around now!” I scream, and I hit Eric.

“What the hell?” Eric yells and flinches toward the door.

The dog jumps at my arm, but his teeth don’t find me. It is stuck — wiggling and fighting — over Eric’s shoulder. Eric fights the dog, fights the wheel, and the car snaps from one lane to the other and back.

“Turn around!” I yell, and I point at the sky where I can see what’s coming now. “Black helicopter!”

Eric pushes the dog off him and into the backseat. He cranes down to see the thing coming at us.

“No! No! Don’t look. Never look! Turn around!”

“I can’t turn here. I can’t go the wrong way on the freeway.”

“Just go across the middle, just go!” I grab the steering wheel and push it the way I need to go. But Eric pushes back and the car turns, skates across the lanes, and scrapes the metal guardrail beside a steep bank. Eric brakes and the car stops on the shoulder.

In front of us, the black helicopter is moving toward the east, not toward us, please not toward us.

“Don’t look! Don’t look!” I say it again and again. “Never look at a black helicopter.”

“It’s not black,” says Corbin. “I saw it. It’s green and white. It’s a rescue helicopter from the hospital.”

I rise up and my fist flies over the seat and connects with the side of Corbin’s head. Before the dog can take another fly at me, I grab its ear and pin it to the seat. Corbin is screaming and crying. “Shut your mouth or I will kill this dog,” I say. I pull the paring knife out of my pocket and push the point at the dog’s eye.

“Listen to her, Corbin. Shut up. Shut up now,” says Eric.

In the back seat, both the kid and the dog are whimpering.

Bo is on a three-day job.

I sit in the bus.

I’m all alone.

I hold Da’s wool shirt against my face, but I can hardly smell his life there anymore. He is fading away. The last traces of him are dissolving into the air. If I had the laptop with me, I would watch the messages he left for us. I could see his eyes and hear his voice. But Bo needs the laptop when he’s working. I have to get by on what I remember, so I work on that.

“Those People will be afraid,” says Da. He picks up the clock’s spring and turns it over in his hand. He holds it out to me, I reach out, and he drops it on my palm. “We will be showing them exactly how to be afraid. We will wind them right up. Then, once we get Those People all wound up, we will sound the alarm. People will wake up.”

I remember.

“This is the queen,” says Da. “She can move all of these ways.” He slides the piece along the board, back and forth, side-to-side, and corner-to-corner. “She is the most powerful piece on the board.”

I remember.

When I was alone so much — after Da said my job was to sign the messages in blood, after I couldn’t go out into the world anymore — when I was alone so much, I learned to play chess against myself.

At first, I used books. I would play the game the way it had been played by the masters against each other. Doing that, I learned many things. Then, I learned to play truly against myself. When I moved white, I played for white. When I moved black, I played for black. The trick, then, was not getting stuck, not falling into stalemate. The trick was winning. That was hard to learn to do.

I am always, always, always determined to protect my king.

I have to keep the game going. That is when I see. The game
is
not finished. Da’s game is not finished.

The King is dead, but he isn’t in check.

As long as I’m playing, the King isn’t in check. The windup is still good. The energy is there, waiting to be let out. I just have to find a way to send the last message. When that happens, Da will have won the game.

I don’t usually speak to Captain Nichols. There’s no reason for me to be mixed up in conversations about who and what and why as far as jobs are concerned. That’s between him and Bo.

But today I knock on his door and ask, “Can I use your computer?” I want to see again about my Da. I want to find out other things that will help me finish his work.

“You remember how it works?” he asks.

I nod yes and he walks back to that room with me. It’s dark except for the light that breaks from the screen when he taps the keyboard.

Captain Nichols leaves the room.

I go to the paper to read about the fire at Willow Gulch.

There is nothing new about Da.

I type in “black helicopters.”

There is so much to read, and some of it isn’t like what Da said. I decide to not believe things that say there are no black helicopters or that the black helicopters are from outer space. I think Those People do not want the truth to be told, and one way to cover up the truth is to tell lies.

But Da taught me enough to know truth from lies, so I can learn more truth. I follow the links from one truthful thing to another.

I cringe when I watch the videos. I can hear the helicopters — pock-a-pock-pock-POCK-A-POCK! — through the computer speakers. It’s all I can do to look at them on the computer screen. I have to remember it is like TV. The sharks on TV couldn’t bite me when I was little and these black helicopters can’t see me, can’t hurt me. I have to be brave enough to see this, to know this.

I read so many messages like that one. So many people know what is happening, but the messages aren’t getting through.

I can hear Da’s voice: “We will sound the alarm. People will wake up.”

Captain Nichols is back. He is standing behind the chair, reading over my shoulder.

I can smell his smell and feel him, there, close but not touching.

“You got a one-track mind, kid.” And then his big hand slides down my shoulder and onto my chest. He pinches me there, he grabs me with all of his fingers, and it hurts. When I try to stand, the chair with wheels falls over, and I fall with it. Captain Nichols grabs my hair and the back of my neck. He drags me up and bends me over the desk beside the computer.

There is a picture of a black helicopter on the screen.

His other hand pushes my pants down.

“We need to talk about the rent,” says Captain Nichols. “You owe me some rent.” He pushes his thumb, wide and thick as a hammer handle into me. It hurts. I stay very still. Captain Nichols leans over me and says, “I make one call. That’s all it takes. I make one call, and the other kid is dead. I say he’s dirty, and they will shoot him down. Nobody will ever find him. Nobody will know. Except you. You’ll know. You’ll know you did it.” His thumb is out of my body. “So this is the deal. This ain’t no charity outfit. You pay the rent; there’s no trouble. You say one word, you try anything, and both of you will be dead. But he’ll be dead first. And you’ll know it.”

I pay the rent.

After I pay the rent, I have to watch the movies. That is part of paying the rent. I have to see her, the girl with white hair and the wide-apart eyes, the girl with that body, pay the rent.

She holds the gun by her cheek. She kisses the gun. She puts the gun in her mouth. She puts the gun inside her down there. She pulls the trigger, but there is no bullet. She pulls the trigger, but there is no bullet. She puts the gun in deeper, deeper and faster.