Later (after Annie died). After Brady rolled his Galaxie and Duane burned down the I.W.A. building, I left and took the boots with me.
The fourteen-eye oxbloods were left over from a time that was growing indistinct and far away—a time when Jimmy James could strut into just about any place downtown and everyone turned to watch. The boots were from the time when all us Cota kids knew everything. We held our futures in our laps. They were lean pieces of raw meat hanging tenaciously on to bones and cartilage. We took bites cautiously. We chewed warily. We babied rotten molars and poked out elbows to protect our little portion. We savored the taste of blood in our mouths—the flavor of our destinies.
The fourteen-eye oxbloods were scuffed and muddy and covered in elk blood. I couldn’t stand to think of leaving them in the closet and having them found—unpolished. They would be too big of a prize for the Cota kids. Colin let every one of those rats inside the front door. They filled the empty rooms with loud music and cigarette smoke. They stole everything they could while Colin closed his eyes, tilted his head back, and got high. He didn’t care much about who was around or what they did. He paid attention to his alcohol, his needles, and global politics. He sighed and let everything go. His black hair grew long and curled at the ends. His black Irish blue eyes were vague and red-rimmed. His body detached. He was nineteen. It was finally too much for him.
I was afraid the Cota kids might take the oxblood boots and use them in a black magic spell. I was afraid they might take them and wear them and spoil everything. They would mock their old leader. They would burn the boots in an angry ceremony—all their respect turning to disappointment and loss. I didn’t want the Cota kids to own a piece of anything from that time: the time that was growing hazy in my mind—the time when Jimmy James could walk with such a proud posture of freedom.
I wanted to have the fourteen-eye oxbloods near me—to be able to touch them. I needed the comfort of the leather that had molded to the contours of his ankles. I yearned for the knowledge of how he walked: straightforward and solid—as if he were ready to die for what he believed in.
I tossed the boots in the back of my pickup. I slid my suitcase in over top. The boots scraped along the metal of the bed and nestled into a corner. I bit my lip to keep the tears from coming. The taste of blood reminded me I was alive.
In the house, I stared at the ceiling of the bathroom after I brushed my teeth. The Sheetrock was crumbling in spots. There was a pull-down ladder above me. It allowed access to the crawl space where Colin and I once hid with a fifth of gin. There was a broken window at the end of the crawl space. Colin had kicked the glass out joyously. He’d been drunk and having a fit. “We’ll find our own way,” he’d told me proudly. He’d kicked his boot through the glass to prove he would swallow his future whole—the blood and raw muscle would settle into his hot belly.
I remembered that day. We had clung to a sick euphoria from the cheap liquor.
Crouching in the hot crawl space, Colin had turned to me and grinned. And before I could stop him, he’d jumped through the broken glass and out the window. I’d screamed his name drunkenly and crawled on my belly toward the light of the window. The piney gin odor had curdled in my nostrils. I had peered over the windowsill and expected to see him sprawled out and broken-legged at the bottom. But he’d been laughing and stomping his feet on the broken glass. And yelling for me to follow. I’d glared at him and stayed put.
For a few months, the crawl space was a good hangout. On black nights we stared out at the stars together—shoulder to shoulder out the broken window. Before Mother left, we slept outside to get away from the house on Cota Street—the stress and despair that made our throats close up. We put bottles of beer into our coat pockets and walked to the park. We slapped at mosquitoes. Back then we still wondered what would happen to us. Back then I still wondered what Colin had meant by “our own way.”
But now, after everything, I didn’t think about what was to come. I threw my toothbrush into my canvas backpack. I woke my bewildered father. I told him I’d be back. He looked at me as if I were speaking to him across a great distance of wilderness filled with a thick, swirling, gray fog. I didn’t say I loved him. Neither of us put words to our thoughts—they were too fluttery and numerous.
I walked numbly on the dirt path through the front yard. More car parts would soon nestle inside the moldy picket fence that had fallen inward. Colin would set them there. The grass would grow through them.
I knew that as my father watched me drive away he wouldn’t be able to stop thinking about Mother leaving the same way: hurriedly, distractedly, and with assurance.
That day I left the house on Cota Street. I left Colin’s broken window, our battered acoustic guitar, and a shelf of priceless records. I packed nothing but a few clothes and notebooks. I filled my truck suddenly and with little thought toward the future. I left with strong shoulders, healthy skin, freckles, and tan lines. I was youth and versatility. I was wisdom and tenacity. I was smiling and sobbing. I was leaving. I didn’t really feel alive.
I drove through Eastern Washington with a weight resting on my chest—a cloth bag filled with fishing lead. I drove through Idaho with a tense knot between my shoulder blades. My muscles were granite. I tried rubbing at the anxiety with my fingertips. It wouldn’t go away.
In Montana, the sun went down. I was alone, and it was dark, and those big long hills rolled on and on into forever. There was a prairie fire—the tall grass was burning. Black smoke hovered in the night sky. The hills loomed on both sides of the interstate. Glowing orange patches like hell seeped up through the earth to capture me. The full moon kept watch. The gloomy smoke and the glow from the fire made a dense screen between its light and my truck. The smoke was tinged with shadows—burnt and black around the edges. I did not hide from the moon. I drove faster. It was big and like a ghost. It called to me. I took my eyes away from the snaking asphalt to stare.
The smoke drifted in through the cracks in my truck. It was hot—acrid hotness like leaning over glowing coals with your whole body. I took my shirt off because I couldn’t stand it anymore. It was lonely on the interstate. Nobody could see me.
I turned around to make sure the boots were still with me. I saw my backpack with a blanket strapped to it. My box of sketchbooks. Jimmy James’s camping mat, and my jacket. The smoke and the shadows softened them. My things made dark, lumpy hills like mima mounds at night. I didn’t see the boots in my swift glance, and my heart jumped recklessly. I stuck my hand through the open window behind my head and felt around. My fingertips found the warm leather. I sighed with relief.
My radio became quiet somewhere east of the Rocky Mountains. It had trouble picking up a signal. I viewed the miles of highway that I hadn’t driven yet. My fancies hummed and swam along Interstate 90. I tried not to become hypnotized by the white line at the edge of the interstate.
I thought about Jimmy James. If everything hadn’t happened, he would have been with me. I thought about how firmly he touched my skin. I remembered when he squeezed my arm for the last time. Even though it had been weeks, I still sensed it—each fingertip had left a message on my body. I wondered what he was doing—if the place he was sleeping was comfortable, if the food was making him sick. I hoped he could feel fresh air on his face. I hoped that he knew just what he was going to do and say and where we were going to go when it was all over. If I concentrated hard enough, I could feel his strong, beautiful soul far away and living in some distant space apart from the dim solitude of Montana at midnight.
But he was imprisoned in a cold, dark place with cement walls, and we both heard the sad sounds of our own hopeless thoughts. I inhaled sharply and crazily. I gripped the steering wheel madly.
I tried not to think about Timothy sleeping soundly with a round belly. His little coughs from the cold he was getting over. I tried not to think about his soft skin or his little limbs—the way he curled against my body when he slept. His toys were all packed up. Nadine’s strong arms had held him firmly. He’d left screaming for his father. He’d looked at me in terror over Nadine’s shoulder—wanting me to make it all better. Nadine was telling him that everything would be okay.
As I looked through my windshield my headlights illuminated the dry, smoky night air. I thought about how wrong Nadine was. I wished for unrealistic possibilities. I wanted everything back: dreams filled with loyalty, luck, and promises. My life was now complicated. Each thought of what came next was filled with the torment of long stretches of empty time and the fear of my hometown.
My body needed Jimmy James. His touch seared all the way through to my bones. Each touch after would pale in comparison. For the rest of my life.
I knew he was there with me in my strange, lonely, wakeful dreams that night. I carried him into the early, big-sky morning along with his boots. He was with me whether I liked it or not. It was beyond my control. I couldn’t change my connection to him any more than I could change who my father was or the street where I grew up. I coughed and didn’t know what was next.
I was getting farther and farther away. I would soon forget everything. I would be back when all the smoke cleared—when there was nothing but the ashes of what was—the words we held in and the sharp white of Annie’s bones in the sawdust-dirt. Jimmy James would be free then, and so would I.
He’d said to lay low for a while. He’d written me a note on a yellow piece of paper. So I was lying as low as I could. I would lay so low even my intentions would be lost. I would forget why I was alone. I would forget what his hands felt like. Jimmy James and all the confusion that came along with him would soon become a dream—a fantasy with a shaved head, black Levi’s, tattoos, and a vague recollection of muffled thumping noises—rib-cracking methodical violence. The insistent pull of his fingertips would have to stay in the background. I would temporarily lose the memory of how his boots sounded on concrete. The scream that I kept hearing would grow soft and then quiet. The fear would be in the background. I would keep driving shirtless through the fire in Montana—hauling my haphazardly packed bags. And a pair of fourteen-eye oxbloods.