Gps, p.25
Gps, page 25
“Hey Paulo,” he said calmly.
“Sweet Jesus, bro! What in the hell is going on?” Paulo lunged forward, climbed into the SUV and snatched a GPS off the windshield and began frantically pushing its buttons. “Jesus, Jesus, Jesus! What did you do, Delaney?”
“Oh, right,” Jeff said, looking around for the first time and realizing he was in the stadium parking lot. He rubbed his eyes and breathed deeply. “Dinner, right? Yeah, it’s in the back, I think.”
Jeff wasn’t intentionally smart-assing a completely bewildered Paulo, he just didn’t possess enough energy at the moment to do anything more than talk softly and move slowly. He could barely hold his arms up, and his knees buckled beneath him constantly. In his mind and behind his eyes were the aftershocks and splintery fireworks that were the remnants of what seemed an endless barrage of manic thoughts and actions. He didn’t remember anything he had done specifically, but his collaborative vision of the previous night was filled with tirades of shooting, screaming, sweating and even laughing. He remembered the animal sounds, the grunts and growls that came from him and from the shadows everywhere around him.
Paulo looked at Jeff in confusion, almost torment, and then threw the GPS onto the driver’s seat and yanked the keys out of the ignition. He hurried to the back of the truck and pulled open the rear hatch. When he did, he emitted more of the same sorts of gasps he’d been uttering since he first walked into the parking lot with his gun raised to see how and why a black Freemen Brigade Rover was parked there.
“Jesus God almighty, Delaney. Jesus Christ in heaven, what did you do?”
Jeff’s T-shirt, he noticed as he looked down at himself, was crusted in dried, browning blood. Paulo stood in silence for a moment as he stared into the back of the truck, seemingly not knowing what words to use to describe what he was seeing. Jeff simply felt numb. He didn’t have the guilt or the depression that often followed such massive trips as the one he’d apparently been on for the last day or so. He didn’t know what time it was, and didn’t dare ask, but felt pretty sure he hadn’t skipped an entire day this time like he did the first time he’d GPSed his way into this place.
“Jesus, Delaney. What is all this, I mean, what happened out there last night?”
“I’m not completely sure, man. I guess I went hunting.”
“What’s in the blanket?”
Paulo didn’t wait for an answer. Instead he began pulling at the knots at the ends of the giant, bulging blanket, which was saturated in blood from one end to the other and which was filling the entire rear of the truck. Holding one hand over his mouth and cringing, Paulo pulled at the blanket with his other hand until the contents finally slid out and onto the parking lot pavement in a massive, squishing, disgusting heap. Paulo leapt out of their path as they tumbled out.
Two other men now approached the SUV, looking every bit as frightened as Paulo. Jeff stood in silence, now wondering himself what else had been wrapped in the blanket, and began to inch slowly around the truck for a clear view. It was more than the deer which he dully remembered killing. Joining the deer were two coyotes and the body of a man, all jumbled together in a knot of limbs, torsos and heads.
“See Paulo? Every time he shows up things go crazy,” one of the two onlookers said, squinting at the pile of bodies. “He’s nuts, man.” He turned to Jeff. “You’re nuts, man.”
Jeff shrugged his shoulders. “I did what I had to. Everything happens for a reason.”
- 39 -
Instead of making the long drive south and east with Paulo and the others that day, Jeff was told maybe he should go back home for a few days. It seemed the unlikeliest thing that could happen at this point, but he wasn’t inclined to argue. Yet, he wasn’t nearly as excited as he expected to be about returning home now. In fact, he questioned Fonseca up and down about how long they’d be gone, where they would go next after Victoria and when he was expected back.
“I don’t expect anything, Delaney,” he told Jeff in the same room under the stadium with the map and the flag. “Like I keep telling you, this is all up to you. No one’s gonna go across to make sure you do or don’t do anything. I want you here, need you here, but I need you here as sober and as level-headed as a guy like you can be.”
The last time Jeff sat in this room, he longed for a drink, and had ignored better than half of what Paulo had explained to him about the war. Now he wished he could ask Paulo to tell him everything again because now he wanted to know. Too late, he figured.
“So you want me to leave, then? Did I do something wrong?” Jeff’s questions made him sound pathetic, like he was being jilted out of something. He was confused, not knowing what he should be asking for or hoping for. The home he’d spent so much time pining for the last couple of days offered nothing but misery. And while they might not have matched the type of trouble that was out here, there were plenty of problems waiting for him at home.
For one, he would undoubtedly get fired, or maybe already had been fired. His personal life had long since been drowned in whiskey, and that whiskey had long since become his only reason for waking up every morning. Everyone he cared about was long gone. Sandy Morino was likely disparaging Jeff now, ruing the day he’d hired him.
“You don’t gotta leave,” Fonseca said. “I’m just saying I think it would be best. I don’t need you jumping from one addiction to another. Let it happen slowly. As crazy as things get out there in the desert, I know you can’t beat crazy with crazy. Even in your most intense moments, like when you and Simmons came up on that Rover, you’ve got to keep a level head. You need to understand that you don’t just have to take orders in this army. You have to want to. The reason all these guys are out here risking their hides is because they want to. I’ve been telling you that all along, and I’ll keep telling you that until you can see it for yourself.”
The idea of getting out of there was naturally a comforting one in many ways to Jeff. He didn’t want to know what had happened with the collection of carcasses he’d brought back to camp, didn’t want to think about who he’d killed, how many he’d killed in all, and how in the hell he was able to make it back to the stadium in a Range Rover he should have probably been killed trying to steal. He feared how much more heat he might have brought on the revolucion army by doing it, and had no idea if he’d been followed back by the FB.
For some reason, Paulo didn’t seem to be wondering about any of those things because he never once asked Jeff anything more about any of it. He’d just summed it all up by suggesting Jeff go home and cool out for a little while. This place was a real life video game, apparently, one you could just switch off if things got too tough. But you only got one life in this game.
Maybe it was time for Jeff to stop questioning it all, something he faintly remembered telling himself on his hallucinatory hunting trip the day before. Maybe it was time to start listening to someone other than himself for the first time in his life, to stop talking and start doing. Don’t promise, just do, as Sandy always said to him.
“You need to know how to leave again, anyway,” Fonseca went on. “You need to know how to use your GPS to go back and forth so you really can decide what to do next, and when to do it. As for all your questions, we’ll be outside Victoria for the next couple of weeks, probably, trying to stage the hit on Destinoso. If you’re gonna be with us for that, you want to get your ass back over here as soon as you can, and if I didn’t want you back, you wouldn’t know anything about any of that shit. Not everyone who’s ever come over here and stayed has been in on the shit that you’re in on.
“Anyway, I’ll give you the coordinates to get back. Hell, I’ll even program them into your GPS so you won’t forget them. And then it’s all up to you.” Paulo walked over to the map, eyeing the sea of black pins swarming to the south. “Looks like tough odds, huh? Well, you should have seen it two months ago, Delaney. A year ago. You might think we’re the crazy ones, and maybe we are, but we’re starting to create our own bodies out there, and with help from the right people, we can start to pull some of these black pins back out and never put them back.
“If you decide you don’t wanna be with us, then say bye-bye to the GPS. Throw it out the window, put it in a dumpster or bury the goddamn thing. Doesn’t matter. It’s not gonna show up on your doorstep or anything.”
As if to make his point even firmer, Paulo did grab one of the black pins out of the map. He turned and flicked it into the air and onto the table in front of Jeff, who picked it up and turned it over and over in his hands. It seemed like every time he sat in this chair, he was being asked to make some sort of commitment.
“So how do I get back home then?” he asked, realizing again that everything that came out of his mouth here was a question, but also knowing that there were plenty of answers he would need one way or the other. “And, I mean, what happens? Does time stand still over there when I’m over here, or does it just keep moving?”
“Of course it keeps moving,” Paulo said. “You can’t stop the ticking clock no matter where you are. Like I keep telling you, this isn’t Mars.”
“So then, I guess I’ve missed all kinds of shit on the other side, haven’t I?” Jeff asked, already knowing the answer to that one. He thought of his unpaid rent, unattended baseball games and God knew what else.
“I don’t know, Delaney, you tell me,” Paulo said. “Have you missed it?”
- 40 -
“Why do you do it, Simmons?”
Jeff couldn’t help himself. He was picking up the vibe that Simmons and most of the other guys here wanted nothing to do with him or his questions. But if there was any chance he was coming back here after today, he wanted to get a little perspective beyond what he was hearing from Paulo. So the questions continued.
The sun blazed down on the stadium grass as the entire crew of transients who’d spent the last two days training now pulled tent stakes out of the ground, cleaned weapons, moved equipment and loaded trucks in the stadium parking lot. As always, they would leave town as quickly and quietly as possible after dark. Jeff stood next to Simmons in the outfield, helping him fold up the tents now lying flat in the grass.
“Do what?” Simmons grunted without turning to face Jeff.
“All this. I mean, you’ve got a wife at home for God’s sake, don’t you? I mean, you wear a wedding band. So why, and how, do you keep coming over here? What’s your job back home? When do you sleep? Do you have kids, friends, family over there, or —”
“All that shit you just asked me, all that shit? You don’t need to know about any of it,” Simmons hissed. But then, for the first time since Jeff had met him, Josh unclenched his teeth and sagged his shoulders just a touch. He sighed and stared very deliberately off at the mountains in the distance before he spoke.
“Look man. I’m sorry. I know you’re new here and I know how confusing this all is, believe me. And I know I haven’t exactly rolled out the red carpet for you. But the thing is, learning the answers to all the questions out here can be pretty tough, and a lot of the answers are ones you end up wishing you didn’t know once you know them. It’s an ignorance is bliss kind of place, you know? That’s just part of the deal.
“We’re all here doing this thing together, but we’re all coming here from totally different directions, different places, different backgrounds, and knowing too much about each other is not always the best thing. So we have kind of a standing rule out here, a code, that nobody talks about home, about what we do or what we did at home, what we miss or don’t miss, why we’re here. You just sort of accept the way things are, accept that for one reason or another, we’re all here. If you don’t accept that, it won’t matter because you won’t be coming back.”
Simmons stopped folding for a minute and looked directly at Jeff.
“So yeah, I do have a wife and kids at home, and all you really need to know is, well, I guess I’m doing this for them, or at least I think I am. This whole thing that’s going on here, it’s sort of a glance at where our world, the one at home, is headed. When I saw this place the first time, I just couldn’t walk away from it without trying to help make things right, even if it meant putting absolutely everything on the line to do it. That’s what I’m doing. And I’m not planning on dying here either. And that’s it.”
Now Jeff was glad he’d asked so many questions, and that apparently he’d finally asked the right questions to the right person. These were the first real answers he’d gotten here. Josh was human after all, and had just explained hundreds of things with just a few words. Jeff had started to think everyone over here was just another someone like him, someone with nothing left to lose in life and no other reason to go on living. He had thought these guys were all at the ends of their ropes like him, and probably lots of them were. But not all, and that gave Jeff renewed hope about the revolucion.
Josh went on folding and stacking tents, throwing all the metal stakes into a pile which Jeff was supposed to be stuffing into a huge nylon bag. He had stopped what he was doing, but then caught himself and continued.
“You never know what’s going to come flying at you from one minute to the next out here. You only know that any minute, every minute, you might get caught in an ambush or you might get run over by some nut like you whose GPS went berserk and sent them over here,” Simmons said. “You know the first night I was out here I almost got run over by some lunatic who crossed over right into our campsite? The shit happens. Bastard drove right overtop of our fire, hit a tree, jumped out and started shooting in every direction. Killed Rico, one of our best guys. So when I saw you that first day, and these last two days, I saw someone who I wasn’t sure would be able to handle this shit without going crazy. Forgive me.”
Jeff had already said his farewell to Paulo, who instead of showing Jeff the way back home had enlisted Simmons to do so while Fonseca looked into some impending arrivals. Josh had agreed to the errand, saying he was just “popping in and popping out today,” wouldn’t be around all weekend and would be in Victoria for just a couple of hours Monday morning. Simmons had wandered out onto the field from the clubhouse entrance, and had quickly strode into center field and scolded two men for their careless tent folding. He shooed them off, took over the task himself and made Jeff join him. When two different men arrived, men Simmons seemed to know and like, he turned to Jeff and said, “Let’s get the hell out of here.”
As complex and inexplicable as the travel between the two places seemed to be, it was quite simple to carry out, apparently, once you had figured out a few simple things. Josh didn’t go into any exhausting detail when it came to programming Jeff’s GPS to take him to the Victoria wastelands, but he spent a solid two minutes typing in the address.
“When the time comes to leave for Ol’ Vic, just select this as your destination, and drive,” he said as he entered what looked to be a massive jumble of code, not really an address, into the GPS. As seemed to be his habit, Simmons had first pulled out his elaborately customized map before he started thumbing away at the GPS. “And as far as getting out of here right now, I assume your home address is listed as home on this thing, right?”
“Yep. I think so,” Jeff answered.
“Well, select home and go home is the way to get out of here,” Simmons said. “But here’s the catch. You need to program two home addresses in here, the one that actually takes you to your house when you’re driving around in the regular world, and then another one, a second one, that takes you out of here and someplace close to home, but one that won’t send you crashing into a bunch of buildings or people or your house itself. So you have to decide someplace close by where no one’s going to notice a car suddenly showing up out of nowhere that’s already moving, and where you’ve got some adjustment space to apply the brakes and steer. I’m lucky. I’ve got an abandoned construction site right behind my neighborhood that I always use, so after I cross back over I can just come steering right into my driveway like a normal dad and husband.
“So anyway, for now, until you understand how the coordinates all work, think of some back road, but something with a name the GPS will recognize. Do you know anything like that?”
Jeff was in no position for deep thinking at the moment. But lucky for him, he had one such place in mind already. “Yep, I do, actually,” he said, thinking of Stadium Drive, the U-shaped road that encircled Zephyr Field over in Metairie. He figured the place would be quiet this morning even if the Zephyrs were home this weekend, something he should have known off the top of his head but did not. If the Zephs were on the road, it would be totally deserted. Considering where he’d been and what he’d seen the last few days, driving to Esplanade Avenue from Metairie seemed pretty easy. Too easy, but he wasn’t complaining.
“Well, whatever it is, put it in here and save it as Home 2, or whatever, and hang onto the steering wheel when you go,” Josh said. “Don’t keep your foot on the gas too hard and don’t slam on the brakes when you go through, and everything should be cool. The only other thing I’ll say is that if you decide to come to Victoria, make sure it’s after tomorrow and before the end of next week. Otherwise, it might be you versus the desert, or you versus the Freemen. Or both.
“Oh, and one last thing. Thanks for the other day,” Simmons said, balling his hand into a fist, kissing it and flashing Jeff a peace sign. The gesture was one Jeff would have to work on if he was going to look as cool as Simmons did when he did it.
With that, Simmons snapped Jeff’s GPS onto the windshield of the Celica, hopped out and walked across the stadium lot to a silver Lexus that glowed like a solar panel in the sun. Jeff spied what he thought to be a Texas plate on the back, and suddenly wondered how many of the transients took the license plates off their cars before coming over here, a way of perhaps trying to mask who they were or where they were coming from. He also wondered how many of them regularly traveled back and forth, and whether anyone jumped back and forth as often as Simmons seemed to. Had anyone noticed his Louisiana tags? Did they even care?
