Austin and Emily Read online

  Austin McAdoo became quite nervous. In his mind, so many years ago, Austin imagined the day he would play with the other kids. The miraculous catch at the centerfield wall to steal a home run. The overpowering fastball he would use to strike out Brandon Crawford. Mostly, he envisioned the towering home run he’d crack into Mrs. Renfroe’s bushes to win the game amid clapping and cheers.

  “Your turn, Austin,” Emily said, and held out the yellow bat.

  He hesitated. Austin looked at Emily, and she looked back at him.

  Austin took the bat. He stepped into the box at home plate and dug his shoes into the dirt the way Brandon Crawford used to do. He looked out over the green grass of the field.

  Kenneth Mint decided to start with his famous curve ball. He gripped the ball, holes to the outside, and stared at his target. Austin’s knees were weak. He held the bat in his huge hands, lifting the barrel off his shoulder.

  Emily sensed a rise in testosterone. She didn’t understand it completely, but her instincts told her the silly game somehow meant more than it should.

  “Are you ready, big boy?” Kenneth taunted.

  Austin tightened. His eyes thinned to slits, and he ignored the smell of cat pee about his person.

  Kenneth wound up, kicked his leg, and came over the top with a perfect curve ball, tumbling toward the plate at a high rate of speed. With only a split-second to react, Austin McAdoo unleashed a mighty swing with the yellow plastic bat. Every ounce of strength, every pound of flesh, came together in one exhilarating moment.

  There was the sound of the plastic bat nicking the plastic ball, and the ball veered off the bat to the backstop. A foul ball. Not a majestic home run. Not an embarrassing strike. A foul ball. A victory of sorts for Austin McAdoo, but there were no cheers or clapping, only the sight of a one-armed mechanic standing behind the backstop where the ball came to rest.

  Billy Winslow said, “Your car’s fixed.”

  Austin was relieved. He would embrace the small victory and move along.

  Emily yelled, “Grand Canyon here we come.”

  Kenneth Mint found a comfortable spot amongst the debris in the backseat. He smiled widely and said, “You know, sometimes when mechanics fix one part of a car, other parts begin to magically work again. Let’s all pray for the air-conditioning and the radio to be restored.” Kenneth bowed his head, chin to chest.

  “Lord, please hear our prayer. We have traveled long and far in the heat and silence. Lift your almighty hand and touch us with your grace and love. Fix our A/C so we might feel the coolness on our hot faces. Fix the radio so we can hear the joy of music in our ears. Amen.”

  Kenneth lifted his head to see Emily and Austin staring back at him.

  “Try it,” he said.

  They continued to stare. Emily said, “You really shouldn’t bother God with little stuff. You should save it until you need somethin’ big. He’s busy.”

  “Not today,” Kenneth responded. “Today, he’s got time to help us out. God helps those who help themselves. It says so in the Bible. Now try it.”

  Emily turned the knob. A cool blast of arctic air blew through her hair. She was stunned and swung around to see Kenneth Mint with his curious smile.

  “Try the radio.”

  Emily turned the radio knob. Static filled the car. She pressed a button and they heard Mick Jagger’s throaty voice sing words undetermined.

  “Roll up the windows,” Kenneth demanded, “and wake me when we arrive at our destination. For it is not the path one takes, nor the place one arrives, that matters most. Instead, it is the comfort in which we travel and our relationship with God during the journey that matters most. Mark my words, the devil don’t like roast beef.”

  With that, Kenneth snuggled between the hair coat and Ulysses, his left ear purposefully left unobstructed.

  Emily looked at Austin and mouthed the words, “Roast beef.”

  Austin thought she said, “horse teeth,” and shook his bowling-ball head in misunderstanding.

  “What?” he whispered.

  “Roast beef?” she whispered back.

  Kenneth said, “I heard that. The devil don’t like roast beef.”

  Emily turned up the radio a notch and waited until she could hear Kenneth’s breathing deepen. She dared to swivel her head slowly around to look in the backseat. On Kenneth’s cheek was a small red ant. Emily watched the ant casually move around the cheek, stop at the edge of the lip, and then work its way up near the steep incline of the bridge of the nose.

  Forgetting her plan to allow Kenneth Mint to drift away to sleep, Emily whispered through the music, “There’s a little ant on you.”

  Without opening his eyes, Kenneth said, “I’m aware.”

  Emily watched the tiny creature ascend the slope of the nose, ease down the incline on the other side, and nonchalantly stroll near the orbit of the eye socket.

  Eyes still closed, Kenneth said, “He lives on me. Everything has to live somewhere, and this ant lives on me. Don’t worry, he finds plenty to eat.”

  Emily thought about the ant, foraging for bits of dry dead skin on the landscape of Kenneth Mint like a tiny cow. She watched a moment longer and then turned to face forward, content to resort to the original plan of allowing the strange man in the backseat to fall asleep.

  Austin planned to take Interstate 40 west from Bluewater into Arizona approximately two hundred and eighty miles to Highway 64. From there it would be a straight shot north to the Grand Canyon. He calculated they would arrive shortly before nightfall. Those calculations were based upon an average speed of seventy-one miles per hour with a single forty-five minute rest stop, clear weather, no construction delays, and Austin’s ability to tolerate the intolerable smell of his clothing inside the sealed vehicle.

  “I’m so proud of you,” Emily said. “Hitting that ball like you did. I tried, but I couldn’t hit it.”

  Unconsciously, Austin’s chest stuck out just a little. Yes, it was no towering home run, but on his first official swing ever he fouled off little Kenny Mint’s famous curve ball. And more importantly, someone else grasped the importance.

  “Thank you,” he said proudly.

  They were quiet a moment. Emily’s soft hand slid once again to Austin’s leg and rested against his thigh. Austin swallowed and then calmly moved his right hand from the leather steering wheel, covering Emily’s hand completely. It was comfortable and exhilarating at the same time.

  Emily said softly, “When I first saw you that night in the club, I knew you were the one. Some people don’t believe in that, fate and all, but I know it’s for real.”

  Austin couldn’t decide what to say. He wanted to tell Emily he loved her. He wanted to tell her nothing meant anything until the night she got in his car. But he couldn’t speak the words. Something inside Austin McAdoo, the holy instinct of self-protection, wouldn’t let him climb boldly out onto the limb of life. He’d done it before, as a child, and suffered the ridicule of a fat pilgrim. He’d heard the smirks too many times, seen the smiles of the pretty girls behind his back. So Emily said it for him.

  “I love you,” she said, looking down at her knees.

  Austin felt a flush rise slowly from the middle of his massive chest. It was the same flush he felt in the fireworks stand moments before he’d fainted and crushed the table.

  Austin hyperventilated, “Take the wheel. Take the wheel, I say.”

  So she did.

  Austin listened to Rod Stewart’s rendition of “Have I Told You Lately That I Love You” on the radio. For a brief period he had no idea where he was and felt physically like a man resting on a cloud. He was weak, and in his weakness remembered Emily’s words.

  In the hours that followed, Kenneth slept soundly. Emily drifted off to sleep herself, and Austin thought. He felt, for the first time in his life, a quiet serenity, and inside the cocoon of this serenity, Austin began to imagine the possibilities.

  He felt as if he had been concealed within his body, and no
w, at least temporarily, as if he was no longer concealed. No longer that fat kid, or the smartass giant, or the cowardly lion. Now he was the ‘one.’ He was somebody’s fate. And that somebody, Emily Dooley, embraced the fate like she was the luckiest of God’s children. Almost as lucky as Austin himself.

  They traveled Highway 64. Everyone was awake, and each felt the excitement of anticipation. The sign said GRAND CANYON NATIONAL PARK — 40 miles, and then 20 miles, and then they were there.

  Austin parked the car, and the three walked together to a scenic overlook. The sun was setting in the west, a red-orange painted backdrop.

  They stood at the edge and looked down. Pictures in books or postcards from relatives had not done the canyon justice. Words in brochures were insufficient. The Grand Canyon was vast and glorious. The three travelers stood side by side, speechless, their senses filled to the brink.

  Austin McAdoo was overcome. He felt an upsurge of emotion standing next to Emily. There was no plan. There was no practicing the words. The enormity of the place and situation, standing on the precipice, dictated events.

  Austin McAdoo fell to his knee, held Emily’s tiny hand in his palm, and said, “Will you marry me, Emily Dooley?”

  Thereafter came a moment. He hadn’t foreseen saying anything at all, much less proposing marriage.

  Kenneth was dumbstruck at the raw courage, and a bit jealous of the possibilities.

  Emily had lived the moment a thousand times, different places, different dresses, usually with a sunset, and often overlooking the Grand Canyon. She looked down at her future husband and felt the tears rise and gently release from her unwavering eyes. She smiled the way a woman can smile at such times, and Austin waited on bended knee.

  “Yes, Austin, I will marry you,” she said, as the last slice of the sun melted on the horizon.

  Austin McAdoo fainted on cue. His great weight fell against the unsteady railing. For a brief instant, Kenneth felt sure he was about to see Austin’s body break through the barrier and tumble helplessly into the great canyon below.

  But the barrier held, and Austin merely crumbled to the cement, rolling with the assistance of Emily and Kenneth into a prone position, and then awakening quickly with the sensation of a dream.

  But it was no dream. Austin had proposed marriage. Emily ran to get a wet paper towel from the bathroom. Kenneth leaned over the big man.

  “Hey, have you lost your freakin’ mind? Tell her you were delirious. Tell her you forgot your vitamin. It doesn’t count if you weren’t lucid.”

  Austin said, “I don’t take vitamins.”

  “Well, maybe you should.”

  Emily arrived out of breath. She dabbed the wet towel on Austin’s wooden forehead.

  “We need to find a place to spend the night,” she said. “Get you in a cool room.”

  They found a cottage just down the road. Kenneth sat on the porch sipping water from a glass and feeling left out. He wasn’t sure he’d completely understood what he’d seen. He felt the ant move across his scalp. Kenneth resisted the urge to scratch.

  Austin and Emily washed up and changed clothes. They joined Kenneth on the porch.

  “Well, when’s the big day?” Kenneth asked.

  “We were going to talk to you about that,” Emily said. “We were hopin’, you being a preacher and all, that you might marry us in Los Angeles. I always wanted to get married down there on Hollywood Boulevard.”

  Kenneth looked out across the landscape. He took a sip of his water and put the glass down on the table. The time had come. The soft underbelly had presented itself.

  “Well, I’ll do that for you, under one condition.”

  “What’s that?” Austin said skeptically.

  “No man should get married, at least not the first time, without a proper bachelor party. I’ll marry you. Yes I will. But first we’ve got to stay tomorrow night in Las Vegas, the real Las Vegas, so I can take Mr. McAdoo out on the town one last time.”

  Both Austin and Emily were uncomfortable with the idea, but neither mustered an objection.

  “It’s tradition,” Kenneth said.

  Austin went inside to look at the new map. He needed to see the route in his mind.

  Kenneth and Emily were left alone on the porch.

  Kenneth said, “I hate to ask you, but I’m a little low on money these days. Austin deserves a bachelor party, a nice one, just like you deserve a nice wedding dress. I know a place in Los Angeles, owned by a guy named Angelo, where we can get you a pretty white dress like you’ve always imagined.”

  Emily thought about the dress. She could see it. She could see herself in the full-length mirror with her hands folded in front. She jotted down the name “Angelo” on a piece of paper.

  “Now a good bachelor party usually runs around two thousand dollars, but I can cut a few corners and do it up right for maybe a thousand. Maybe,” Kenneth added.

  Emily had counted her money after she paid the mechanic in Bluewater. It didn’t seem fair to spend it all on herself. She could sleep in the car in Las Vegas if she had to. Austin deserved a bachelor party.

  “O.K.,” she said. “As long as he doesn’t touch any girls. He can look, but he just can’t touch.”

  Kenneth smiled. “You drive a hard bargain, young lady, but that’s a deal.”

  In his mind, Kenneth could see the money. Crisp new one hundred dollar bills. Ten of them. A nice neat stack. Emily could see the dress, white, flowing, beautiful against her skin. The dress she saw in a magazine so many years ago. And Austin, big Austin, laying across the bed on his stomach studying the map of the western United States, could see clearly the route he would take to Las Vegas, Nevada, the city of sin.

  CHAPTER 8

  The sun rose the next morning on the other side of the canyon wall. Kenneth watched it come up, inch by inch, as he stared directly into the orange ball. For no particular reason, he thought about the pitch he threw Austin. He questioned the choice to start off with a curve. It would have been better to blow a fastball past the rookie and set up the yellowhammer curve. But what did it matter, he thought? Who really gives a shit about a foul-tipped wiffle ball in Bluewater, New Mexico?

  They stuck around for breakfast. Las Vegas was about three hundred miles away, and Emily was in no hurry to get there. She barely slept all night, replaying the marriage proposal over and over again. Envisioning her bridal gown and creating the nervousness she would feel during the ceremony as they neared the point of ‘I do’ forever. ‘I do’ now and always. ‘I do,’ I promise, no matter what, or why, or how many times, so help me God, I’m the gingerbread man.

  They sat in the diner, Austin and Emily on one side of the booth together, Kenneth on the other sipping his black coffee. Austin ordered a large stack of buckwheat pancakes from the middle-aged Hispanic waitress. Her skin was the color of syrup.

  Kenneth watched the woman closely, and when she walked away he said, “God chose to make the spectrum of a rainbow the same in every rainbow. Red, then orange, then yellow, green, blue, indigo, and violet. But he chose to make the colors of his children a completely different spectrum.

  “At one end we have the whitest person in the world. Paper white. Nearly translucent. At the other end of the room we have the blackest person in the world, as dark as midnight without a moon.

  “In the middle, starting at the white end, we have increasing shades of pale, pale to khaki, khaki to light brown, light brown to coffee, and so on. In between we have various shades of Asian yellow, subtle Indian red, and odd turquoise.”

  Kenneth stopped, took another sip of his coffee, and continued, “Why is it white dogs don’t look down upon black dogs? Why is it dogs don’t run in packs consisting only of their own shade? Is it natural to set ourselves apart based on these subtle differences in skin color? It’s not like some of us are orange and others are violet. If that were the case, I could certainly see how the orange people might hate the violet people, and vice-versa. The juxtaposition is too extrem
e to ignore.

  “But in the history of mankind, a constant factor throughout civilization has been the inclination to judge, sort out, simplify, and attempt to categorize people by the degree of pigmentation in their skin. Why not eye color instead of skin color? Or foot size? That would be good. People with little feet move to the front of the line. How about the shape of their ears? Round ears, you’re a king. Elongated, crawl on your hands and knees for a scrap of bread.”

  Austin listened to the ramblings of Kenneth Mint and wondered if he felt the same way other people felt all those years listening to himself ramble. Certainly not. Before Emily, Austin McAdoo would have engaged in a spirited debate with the man across the table. Instead, he half listened and longed for his buckwheat pancakes to arrive hot off the griddle.

  “I disagree,” Austin stated, as the lady set his pancakes in front of him.

  Emily said, “Dogs are color-blind.”

  “Maybe that explains it,” Kenneth retorted.

  Austin felt relief when the little red car started. Like a big bird, Kenneth began to make a nest in the backseat.

  Emily asked, “Why do you sleep all day?”

  “Because I stay awake all night.”

  “You don’t sleep at night?”

  “No, I never have. I stay awake like a bat. I don’t even try to sleep anymore when it’s dark. There’s no point. I used to think something was wrong with me, but now I know it’s the other way around.”

  Kenneth waited for Emily to ask for an explanation, but instead, she pulled the laminated postcard of the Grand Canyon from her purse and held it in her lap. So Kenneth explained anyway.

  “You see, predatory animals primarily hunt at night. You two would be the first to be eaten. I would survive. I’ve been selected to occupy the tip-top of the food chain.”

  Austin started to respond to Kenneth’s inflammatory remark, but Emily said, “I don’t think you’d taste very good. You don’t eat right.”

  Kenneth completed his nest. Before he closed his eyes and headed for slumber, Kenneth said, “You ever see a tree die of old age?”