Lithium, Chptr. 13 – Xperience Fiction – by Liam Sweeny.
The road swallowed tread and spit it out, gravel spitting out in all directions. The pings of stone against the undercarriage made Mel feel like it was raining up hail and they were encased in tin roofing. Mel and Andy were quiet when they left the farm, not a word spoken. Mel could still feel the fine tremor of tension from the punch he’d needed to throw but was denied. His ears were also pricked for the sound of sirens, in case Burle did call the police.
Andy had his cards in his hands, rearranging them in an endless cycle of nervous dissipation. He explained once that the cards were a game, and he was building decks for that game, should he be challenged to one. But Mel understood that the cards were Andy’s power; his control, much in the same way Mel’s last painting was. And to think, saving them wasn’t the first thing on his mind when they got evicted.
Andy glanced over. “You okay, dad?”
“Yeah, fine,” Mel said. “Why do you ask?”
Andy leaned over to touch Mel’s cheekbone, and Mel flinched just an inch.
“That,” Andy said.
Mel chuckled. “It’s probably going to be a black eye.”
‘It’s already a black eye. And puffy.”
“Isn’t the first one I’ve ever gotten. Or given, for that matter.”
Andy laughed. “You, punching somebody,” he said. “I can’t believe you went after Burle.”
“He thought he could say anything and get away with it.”
Andy turned his gaze back to the road ahead. “He kinda’ did.”
Mel sighed. “Yeah, he kinda’ did.”
They kept on down the highway. It was only twenty minutes to Jamestown from the farm, but it was a long, barren twenty minutes of pasture and lines of spruce and spring foliage.
“I think I’m going to have to wean myself off of my meds,” he said. “There’s no way I can afford to keep taking the full dose right now, and rationing a small dose is like not taking them anyway. You have to be taking enough to be therapeutic, and we’re not going to have therapeutic money.”
“Are you going to go crazy, end up in the hospital? You told me you did before.”
“No, I’m not,” Mel said. “I went in the hospital the first time not knowing anything about bipolar. I know everything there is to know about it now. I’m not going to drink or do drugs. I’ll get plenty of sleep. It’ll be tough, but it’s only until I can get us back in business. Maybe a month without them.”
“What do I do if you start acting weird?”
Mel hadn’t thought about the fact that if he went off, his son would end up a de facto caretaker. Eleven-year-olds should only be taking care of themselves, and not even that.
“If you see me acting weird, tell me,” Mel said. “And if I start doing something that’s unsafe, I want you to call 911, no matter where we are. But tell them I have bipolar, so they don’t think I’m on drugs.
“And if I ever ask you to do something unsafe, you don’t do it. You call 911.”
Andy nodded after each thing that Mel told him. His cards were in his hands, and he was shuffling them without looking at them. God damn Mel for putting so much on him at that age. Mel thought that if he had any family he trusted, or any good close friends, and if Debra wasn’t on the hunt for him, Mel would find someone to take care of Andy until he could get on his feet.
They started to see signs of civilized life as they neared Jamestown. They were quiet again. Mel wanted to break the quiet, but he couldn’t think of anything that wouldn’t further press into Andy’s shoulders. Andy spoke up.
“Are we going to the tent city? The one Allie was talking about?”
“I was thinking of it,” Mel said. “What do you think?”
“I have a choice?”
“Yeah,” Mel said. “But we have to go somewhere. And unless you want to end up with your mother and Sam, we have to go forward, not backward.”
Andy sat still for a moment.
“Can I get my own tent?” He asked.
“I don’t see why not,” Mel said. “As long as we can find one.”
“I’m scared, a little bit,” Andy said. “What if the kids there don’t like me like it was here?”
‘You made friends with the kids here, didn’t you?” Andy nodded. “So you’ll be able to do it there. You’re a good kid. Nobody can take that from you.
“And we’ll get through this,” he added. “The tunnel will be lit, and we’ll come out of this better.”
They drove down Center Street, stopping for every yellow light, lest they draw attention. To be fair, stopping at yellows drew attention also. Mel had decided to go to the Ark Church Mission, with the thought that they might have a food pantry, and they could load up.
The receptionist at the mission was elderly, with white, curly hair in a hairdo Mel couldn’t name, but he’d seen in every picture of an extended Southern family. Her wrinkled skin was soft around the creases, giving her an adorable look. She directed them to a long room inside the side building of the church, loaded with canned goods, dry goods, fresh fruits and vegetables, even some meats. The man in the pantry gave him three bags, one more than the customary two, due to Andy. He and Andy battled over what to load, Andy going for what tasted good, Mel going for what would pack a bag best.
Mel did make one concession; there was ground beef, a pound of it. The man told him there was a park in the center of town with grills. Mel figured he could afford a small bag of charcoal briquettes. Maybe not buns, cheese, mustard, ketchup, or paper plates, but at least they could get briquettes.
Three bags filled, they came back out to the lobby and nearly knocked over one of the residents, a man with a crutch that looked amazingly like Max.
***
Mel shut the door once he had the groceries in. Andy and Max joked around with each other, slap boxing, with Andy having the advantage.
“What the fuck happened?” Mel asked.
“Fractured my leg,” Max said. “Concussion, lacerations, stitches.”
“So Burle and Casey drove you to the hospital?”
“Oh, hell no,” he said. “They drove me to the park and dropped me off, gave me a hundred bucks for some new clothes.”
“Charitable of them.”
“Yeah, right. So I actually walked to here and just passed out.” He pointed his crutch at the door. “Margaret called the ambulance and checked up on me in the hospital.”
“Jesus,” Mel said. “You could go after Burle for something, reckless endangerment, something…”
“And what good would it do?” Max said. “Everybody knows that fucking guy around here. And not everybody even likes him. A lot of people think he’s a piece of shit, but he’s not on the street. And if Barry’s Burgers wants fresh ground chuck at a good price, they don’t question what goes on at the farm.”
“But you’re okay,” Max said.
“Eh.” Max tapped his leg with his crutch. “Can’t work right now. You never think you’re gonna miss shit work, right?”
“I know. Feeling that a little bit right now.” Mel told him about payday, and the fight.
“Ulysses always breaks up fights. It’s cause he got a warrant on him. It’s too bad he was standing there. Burle could use another good socking. Thanks for standing up for me, though.”
“No problem.”
“And my tent’s really in a tent graveyard?”
“I saw it with my own eyes.”
“I saw it too,” Andy said.
“Unbelievable.”
Mel invited Max to the park to have a burger. To Mel’s surprise, Max had an all-purpose seasoning that he managed to snag from the food pantry. The grills were caked with the carcasses of burgers past. Mel used his ice scraper to get rid of most of it. The fire from the charcoal did the rest.
All in all, the burgers weren’t so bad. They ate and gossiped, gossiped and joked, joked and sat back by the small pond lined with sapling pines and dreamed about a world wide open to them.
“You guys want a third to Nashville?” Max asked. “I’m good company, and I’ve been saving up those shitty paychecks. I can help with food and gas getting down there.”
“What do you think, Andy?” Mel asked.
“Fuck yeah.”
“Watch it.”
“Okay. Hell yeah.”
“Better. Sort of,” Mel said. “We’re going to want to take off tonight. Is that okay with you?”
“There is nothing keeping me here,” Max said. “If we can, I’d like to go back to the mission and thank Margaret.”
“Yeah, we’ll drop you off,” Mel said. “Besides, there’s something I want to do before we go too.”
Mel dropped Max off at the mission, then took off down the road, not really a distance, but a few blocks. He pulled up in front of Horizons.
“Get it out of the trunk. Face it to you. When I open the door back up, come on in.”
Mel opened the door and walked into the gallery. His painting was no longer in the window, but he noticed the corner of it behind the counter. The owner was talking to a well-dressed couple staring at a mock impressionist work by a local artist. He walked around, hoping she would hurry up. Andy was out front with his smoking gun.
Eventually she joined him.
“Hi again.”
“Hi,” Mel said. “I see you took the Roy Miller down.”
“Yes. I’m going to bring it home,” she said. “I’m far too guilty of doing that. You should see my house.”
“I’ll bet,” Mel said. “About that painting. There’s something you should know.”
Mel told her about the painting being his, though he let her keep thinking his father painted it. He explained that Burle sold it to her and kept the money, telling him it was there on commission. Her face sank.
“That’s hard to believe,” she said.
“I have proof.” He walked over to the door and signaled Andy to bring in his smoking gun.
“Turn it around, Andy.” He did to reveal “The Son.” The owner’s mouth dropped.
“Oh my God, you’re telling the truth,” she said.
“Yeah,” Mel said. “Look, I know you paid for it, but you should know what kind of guy he is.”
The owner pressed her hands against her cheeks. She walked over to Andy. To the painting.
“It’s the most amazing thing I’ve ever seen,” she said. “Best Roy Miller, for sure. Are you selling it? I don’t know if I could ever give you what it’s worth.”
“I’m not selling it,” Mel said. “It’s the only thing I’m keeping.”
Mel was ready to leave when the owner stopped him.
“Look, I know you got the raw deal with the last painting,” she said. “But I’ll make you my own deal. If you let me grab my camera and take a picture of you holding that, I’ll give you fifty dollars.”
Mel thought about it for only a second or two, agreeing. She ran, literally ran, in the back and picked up her camera.
Mel walked out of Horizon’s feeling slightly vindicated, fifty dollars richer, and not one painting lighter. They drove over to the mission and picked Max up, fitting his crutch in the back row and he in the center row. He had a large duffel back full of everything that kept Max running, items unknown to Mel except on the occasion that Max would pull something out.
Mel was close to empty, but they waited until they were on fumes to find a gas station to fill up. Mel wanted a full-from-empty tank mostly for symbolic reasons; a clean break from the soul drag of the farm.
Mel had one-hundred and thirty-six dollars in dollar and coin, and he’d be lighter by the end of the trip. He adjusted the rearview and the side views, turned on the radio and tuned to the first channel he could find, country, fitting for a trip to Nashville, and hit the gas.
***
They’d been on the road for three hours, and by the map Mel pulled up on his phone, they had anywhere from six to eight hour left before they hit Nashville. They drove through populations, signs for Cleveland and Akron. He knew the next major city they’d hit would be Columbus, then Cincinnati after that. But most of the trek had been forest and farmland. And somewhere in that forest and farmland, a point was raised.
“So where exactly is the tent city?” Max asked.
“It’s outside of Nashville,” Mel said.
“Yeah, but where outside exactly? Nashville is huge. Do you have an address? Or does it even have an address?”
Mel couldn’t answer because he couldn’t stop mule-kicking his brain for driving all that way on such a vague location.
“Shit.”
Max laughed. “Oh, this will be an adventure,” he said. “Seriously, Nashville is big. Not New York City big, but big. A least a million people.”
“Albany area has almost a million.”
“Yeah, but how many live in Albany, like a fraction of that? I’ve been to Albany and Nashville. No comparison.”
“Okay,” Max said. “So what do we do?”
Max tapped Mel’s phone. “Trust me to make a call?”
“If it helps, go for it.”
Max picked up the phone, tapped, and swiped till he was punching in digits. He held it up to his ear as Mel turned the radio, largely static, down.
“Coop? Fucker, it’s Max Attacks. Buenos Dias, my man. Listen, I’m on a borrowed phone. I need to ask you something real quick. We’re on our way to Nashville, looking to set up. I got this solid gold painter, man, you wouldn’t believe, but he heard about a tent city for artists.”
“No, he’s a painter-painter, like canvases. I mean, he can paint a house too, but… listen, anyways, you heard of a tent city outside of Nashville, artsy thing?”
“Uh huh,” Max said. “Uh huh, oh, okay. So it’s like that. Will they still let you in, though? We’re a long way, ya know? Any port?”
“Yeah? Okay, sweet. So how do we get there?”
Max shoved open the glovebox and pulled out the envelope Mel’s registration sticker came in. He fished around and pulled out a pen and started writing.
“Alright man, we’ll be there,” he said. “Peace, bro.”
He tapped to end the call, folded up the case flaps and set it back down. Then he picked up the envelope and held it up to the light.
“Okay, it’s a good news/bad news kind of thing,” he said. “Good news, there is a tent city outside of Nashville and my buddy knows where it is. He lives in Nashville, you know, stays there. Bad news is it isn’t an artist place. He said it accepts all types, so you might find artists, but it just accepts all types. So it’ll accept us.”
“So that’s the address?” Mel asked.
“Nope, that’s where my buddy will be for the next day. He’ll be there when we show up – it’s a shelter. He said he’ll take us if we give him a ride too. He’s tired of the shelter.”
“Did he tell you about the place?”
“Nah, not really. He just said he knew where it was. He’s the kind of guy you don’t get a lot out of. So you take what little you get like gold and don’t complain.”
When they passed through Columbus, Mel realized the magnitude of what they were doing. He could tell that Columbus was bigger than Albany, and he knew it was small compared to cities like New York and L.A, but there was a grandiosity to it. They were traveling through a known city, and they would travel through other ones before the trip was through.
Andy slept, which was about the best thing he could do, since being awake meant staring out the windshield at uncertainty. Even Mel’s stomach was going north on a south road. Max was reading a magazine that had been in the car for two years.
“My dad used to collect these model airplanes.” Max pointed to a picture of one in the centerfold. “He spent so much time on these fucking things, just, beyond a hobby, you know?”
“My dad had weird shit like that, too.” Mel didn’t know if he wanted to tell Max about his dad collecting his paintings for resale.
“My dad was a prick,” Max said. “I mean a nasty, twisted prick. I never tell people about him ‘cause I’m afraid just saying his name will summon him.”
“So he’s dead?”
“Yup. Shot in the chest by a pimp when he got caught beating up a hooker.” Max turned over with a smile on his face. “I paid the pimp’s bail.”
“You did, really?? Mel said. “Damn.”
“I didn’t really. I was twelve. But he did get off, cause dad beat the shit out of her. He got a charge for being a pimp, but he beat the murder rap.”
“Damn, I thought my dad was bad. He took my paintings and sold them with his name on them.”
“Don’t sell yourself short on bad dads,” Max said. “That’s bad in its own way.”
“I guess. But the hooker thing is wild.” Max nodded.
They drove through a landscape of extremes, through extremely rural turf where tractors were displayed out front of the farms like classic muscle cars, to cityscapes that bustled but all contained the same chain stores and the same traffic lights and the same congestion he knew back home.
They got into Nashville just before eleven o’clock. They had only taken two rest stops and were road tired and hungry. Max pulled out the envelope and started directing them to the shelter. With only one detour due to getting lost, they made it there before midnight. Max went in and came out a half hour later with a tall, thin man with grey straggles of hair and just a little bit of stubble. His jacket was shabby, but his sneakers sparkled, so Mel didn’t know how to parse that.
“This is Coop,” Max said, and he made introductions. Coop hopped in the back and directed them to I-40 West. Mel was worried about getting there that late, but the situation was beyond him. They were on the road another half-hour, entering a city called Bellevue, when Coop told them to hang a left on a highway called 70 S. No sooner had they done this that he told them to keep an eye out for a dirt road headed by a big rainbow flag, which wasn’t hard to spot.
They pulled in.
