Five minutes later, Marcy was seated on the couch, with Sarah on one side and Grace on the other. They were looking at Sarah’s mini-tablet. Terry’s desktop or one of the laptops would have been better, but the police had taken those. The tablet was good enough, as it turned out. Soon all three of them were laughing and screaming with joy and giving each other high fives.
This isn’t just light at the end of the tunnel, Marcy thought, it’s a whole damn rainbow.
10
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
At first Merl Cassidy thought he was hearing it in a dream, one of the bad ones where his stepfather was getting ready to tune up on him. The bald bastard had a way of rapping on the kitchen table, first with his knuckles, then with his whole fist, as he asked the preparatory questions that led up to that evening’s beating: Where were you? Why do you bother wearing that watch if you’re always going to be late for supper? Why don’t you ever help your mother? Why do you bother bringing those books home if you’re never going to do any fucking homework? His mother might try to protest, but she was ignored. If she tried to intervene, she was pushed away. Then the fist that had been hitting the table with ever increasing force would start hitting him.
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
Merl opened his eyes to get away from the dream, and had just a moment to savor the irony: he was fifteen hundred miles away from that bullying asshole, fifteen hundred at least . . . and still as close as any night’s sleep. Not that he’d gotten a full night; he rarely had since running away from home.
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
It was a cop, tapping with his nightstick. Patient. Now making a cranking gesture with his free hand: roll it down.
For a moment Merl had no idea where he was, but when he looked through the windshield at the big-box store looming across what seemed like a mile of mostly empty parking lot, it snapped into place. El Paso. This was El Paso. The Buick he was driving was almost out of gas, and he was almost out of money. He had pulled into the Walmart Supercenter lot to catch a few hours’ sleep. Maybe in the morning he would have an idea of what to do next. Only now there probably was no next.
Thuck-thuck-thuck.
He rolled down the window. “Good morning, Officer. I was driving late, and I pulled in to get a little sleep. I thought it would be all right to coop a little here. If I was wrong, I’m sorry.”
“Uh-huh, that’s actually admirable,” said the cop, and when he smiled, Merl had a moment of hope. It was a friendly smile. “Lots of people do it. Only most of them don’t look fourteen years old.”
“I’m eighteen, just small for my age.” But he felt an immense weariness that had nothing to do with the short sleep he’d had over the last weeks.
“Uh-huh, and people are always mistaking me for Tom Hanks. Some even ask for my autograph. Let’s see your license and registration.”
One more effort, as weak as the final twitch of a dying man’s foot. “They were in my coat. Someone stole it while I was in the restroom. At McDonald’s, this was.”
“Uh-huh, uh-huh, okay. And where are you from?”
“Phoenix,” Merl said without conviction.
“Uh-huh, so how come that’s an Oklahoma plate on this beauty?”
Merl was silent, out of answers.
“Step out of the car, son, and even though you look about as dangerous as a little yellow dog shitting in a rainstorm, keep your hands where I can see them.”
Merl got out of the car without too much regret. It had been a good run. More, really; when you thought of it, it had been a miraculous run. He should have been collared a dozen times since leaving home in late April, but he hadn’t been. Now that he had been, so what? Where had he been going, anyway? Nowhere. Anywhere. Away from the bald bastard.
“What’s your name, kiddo?”
“Merl Cassidy. Merl, short for Merlin.”
A few early shoppers looked at them, then went on their way into the round-the-clock wonders of Walmart.
“Just like the wizard, uh-huh, okay. You got any ID, Merl?”
He reached into his back pocket and brought out a cheap wallet with frayed buckskin stitching, a birthday present given to him by his mother when he was eight. Back then it had just been the two of them, and the world had made some sense. Inside the billfold was a five and two ones. From the compartment where he kept a few pictures of his mom, he brought out a laminated card with his photo on it.
“Poughkeepsie Youth Ministry,” the cop mused. “You from New York?”
“Yes, sir.” The sir was a thing his stepfather had beaten into him early.