Read Online After the People Lights Have Gone Off by Stephen Graham Jones - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Stephen Graham Jones
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when he hears the sniffling.
It’s the boy. From the rest stop. Who was sitting in the shelf in the side of the unpopped-up camper.
Now he’s sitting beside a rusted pipe slanting up from the ground, some leftover of a drilling operation, or mining, Jonathan doesn’t have a clue. Rocking back and forth, hugging his knees, his face grimy with tears.
“Hey,” Jonathan says, kneeling from a spot a bit farther than’s easy, just because, if anybody’s watching—he’s not stupid—then of course all gay guys are pedophiles too. It goes without saying.
Especially out in the woods, alone like this. After dark.
“Hey, hey,” Jonathan says, touching the boy’s face with the back of his hand.
The boy looks up, his lips fluttering, and then Jonathan sees: he’s not using the pipe for support, or because it’s the one man-made thing in the area to hold onto. The index finger of his right hand, the one you always use to probe holes where there might be treasure, especially when you’re eight, it’s in a ragged hole in the side of the pipe. Stuck. For hours. Bleeding.
“Oh, oh,” Jonathan says, repositioning himself so he can hold the boy without pulling against that finger.
Even that makes the boy shudder, though.
How hard has he already been pulling his hand away? What does that finger look like, in there?
Jonathan, nodding to the boy the whole time—it’s all right, all right—stands, looks down the pipe but it’s dark, too dark. So he closes his eyes and feels: trash. Years of bottles and beer cans, kids out here, or the original roughneckers, who knows.
Something sharp in there, anyway. Something jagged, angled into the flesh of the boy’s finger. Keeping him there.
“I’m sorry, sorry,” Jonathan says, then looks to the lights of the rest stop, for help.
It makes the boy whimper, reach up, take the side of the Jonathan’s hand.
Jonathan squats back down, his own eyes wetter than he’d want—he’d be a terrible father, could never be strong like he’d need to be—and tells the boy he’ll be right back, that he’s just going to go get somebody, that his daddy’s probably still there, right? Won’t Daddy know what to do?
The boy nods, scared, crying, and Jonathan turns his back, is going to make this as fast as possible, is going to run screaming onto the mown grass of the rest stop, his 911 voice, but then he can’t leave the boy there like that. So he does it all over, the assurance, the goodbye, the promises, even mumbling through some made-up recollection about how when he was a kid he got lost at a rest stop too, and his parents were so worried, and something something, it ended happy, and this time he leaves Lucas’s wallet with the boy, to prove he’s coming back. In the dark, the boy won’t know it’s not Jonathan’s.
The boy hugs the wallet to his throat, looks away, to some sound, and in that moment Jonathan’s gone, tearing through vines and whatever, crashing out from the edge of the woods, stumbling into the bright-bright light, seeing only, at first, the vague outline of the boy’s family’s pop-up camper, a shadow really, still hitched to the shape of the supercab—what?—and he breathes in to cry the alarm but in that moment the light at the top of its pole over the parking lot flares, bathing the whole rest stop, heating it up in a flash. Taking it back to that heat, back to the daytime, the afternoon.
Jonathan looks around, his jaw cartoon-character slack. Cars everywhere again. Families. Commotion.
What?
And—and and and there on the picnic table, his head in his hands, so obviously—okay, dramatically—distraught, cutting this perfect figure of regret, is Jonathan himself. Jonathan, rewound to this moment all over again, commotion all around him, panic he never even cued into, as lost in his own theatric grief as he was. As hiding in it as he’d been. As reveling in it as he’d been.
It’s about the boy, though.
The missing boy, the boy who just
It’s the boy. From the rest stop. Who was sitting in the shelf in the side of the unpopped-up camper.
Now he’s sitting beside a rusted pipe slanting up from the ground, some leftover of a drilling operation, or mining, Jonathan doesn’t have a clue. Rocking back and forth, hugging his knees, his face grimy with tears.
“Hey,” Jonathan says, kneeling from a spot a bit farther than’s easy, just because, if anybody’s watching—he’s not stupid—then of course all gay guys are pedophiles too. It goes without saying.
Especially out in the woods, alone like this. After dark.
“Hey, hey,” Jonathan says, touching the boy’s face with the back of his hand.
The boy looks up, his lips fluttering, and then Jonathan sees: he’s not using the pipe for support, or because it’s the one man-made thing in the area to hold onto. The index finger of his right hand, the one you always use to probe holes where there might be treasure, especially when you’re eight, it’s in a ragged hole in the side of the pipe. Stuck. For hours. Bleeding.
“Oh, oh,” Jonathan says, repositioning himself so he can hold the boy without pulling against that finger.
Even that makes the boy shudder, though.
How hard has he already been pulling his hand away? What does that finger look like, in there?
Jonathan, nodding to the boy the whole time—it’s all right, all right—stands, looks down the pipe but it’s dark, too dark. So he closes his eyes and feels: trash. Years of bottles and beer cans, kids out here, or the original roughneckers, who knows.
Something sharp in there, anyway. Something jagged, angled into the flesh of the boy’s finger. Keeping him there.
“I’m sorry, sorry,” Jonathan says, then looks to the lights of the rest stop, for help.
It makes the boy whimper, reach up, take the side of the Jonathan’s hand.
Jonathan squats back down, his own eyes wetter than he’d want—he’d be a terrible father, could never be strong like he’d need to be—and tells the boy he’ll be right back, that he’s just going to go get somebody, that his daddy’s probably still there, right? Won’t Daddy know what to do?
The boy nods, scared, crying, and Jonathan turns his back, is going to make this as fast as possible, is going to run screaming onto the mown grass of the rest stop, his 911 voice, but then he can’t leave the boy there like that. So he does it all over, the assurance, the goodbye, the promises, even mumbling through some made-up recollection about how when he was a kid he got lost at a rest stop too, and his parents were so worried, and something something, it ended happy, and this time he leaves Lucas’s wallet with the boy, to prove he’s coming back. In the dark, the boy won’t know it’s not Jonathan’s.
The boy hugs the wallet to his throat, looks away, to some sound, and in that moment Jonathan’s gone, tearing through vines and whatever, crashing out from the edge of the woods, stumbling into the bright-bright light, seeing only, at first, the vague outline of the boy’s family’s pop-up camper, a shadow really, still hitched to the shape of the supercab—what?—and he breathes in to cry the alarm but in that moment the light at the top of its pole over the parking lot flares, bathing the whole rest stop, heating it up in a flash. Taking it back to that heat, back to the daytime, the afternoon.
Jonathan looks around, his jaw cartoon-character slack. Cars everywhere again. Families. Commotion.
What?
And—and and and there on the picnic table, his head in his hands, so obviously—okay, dramatically—distraught, cutting this perfect figure of regret, is Jonathan himself. Jonathan, rewound to this moment all over again, commotion all around him, panic he never even cued into, as lost in his own theatric grief as he was. As hiding in it as he’d been. As reveling in it as he’d been.
It’s about the boy, though.
The missing boy, the boy who just
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