Up in California by Jamie Grefe
When the son came out of the bathroom, Johnson was on his fifth glass of whiskey. He justified it, kept his cool in front of the son by opting to use a tumbler instead of his normal routine of drinking from the bottle. The son watched him fall before, had taken off his shoes, covered him up on the sofa when Johnson was too crumpled or slurred to crawl. Johnson feared the son for his propensity to care, something Johnson had left scattered across barroom floors, on cocktail napkins, torn up or thrown away by part-time waitresses with names like “Lucy” or “Sugar.”
“We have to go, son.”
“Finish your drink, Dad.”
“I mean it—visitors are coming. Too many.”
“It’s about the thing in the case, isn’t it?”
“We’re not going to talk about that, son.” Johnson tipped the whiskey down his throat, hissed, eyed the remaining drops.
“They won’t hurt you, Dad. They can’t. I won’t let them.”
Johnson had seen that look in his son’s eyes before, compassion and wisdom like the time the son pushed keys into the ignition, and Johnson read the road through slumped shoulders and dizzy undulations of swirling yellow lines on deserted roads. The son wouldn’t even let Johnson steer, just asked question after question. They found the son’s mother’s house all lit up, her standing there in her bathrobe, scowling, too disgusted to carry Johnson into the house. The son brought a bucket.
“I flushed it down the toilet, Dad.”
Spilled whiskey was a sin to Johnson, but the glass dropped, slipped, hit the carpet, just like that. The son sat on the bed, stared straight ahead at the blank television set.
Johnson’s mouth opened, nothing came out. He smelled tires peeling into the motel parking lot, heard doors open and shut, steps clacking to the main building where the girl Johnson had talked to, “Cherry” or “Cindy” or something was probably still working, still painting her nails red.
“You didn’t mean it . . .” he paused, letting the words drip down his tongue. “What you flushed down the toilet was from that ship in the desert, son. It’s the reason we’re on our way to meet those men up in California. It’s from outer space.” He closed his eyes, “up there, son.”
Johnson’s arm moved to the window, but the son only saw the heavy grey curtain fall. And his father, when the hail of bullets shattered the window and chopped into him, in that sudden obliterating moment, managed to squeeze out the words, “It’s okay, son.” And those words, with the son scrambling under the desk, covering his head with little arms, those words struck the son in a way far more real than the bullet sailing through the air from the gun of the gentleman in the black suit standing in the frame of the broken window.
Jamie Grefe lives and works in Beijing, China. Visit him here: http://shreddedmaps.tumblr.com