Toothpaste

                                                                     

Toothpaste

He liked to kick things on the way home, broken stuff, loose stones, even pebbles,  any kickable garbage that might be in his way.  If he came across a glass jar or bottle, Max took his time aiming it at something that would make it burst.  That day there was nothing good.  Streets were clean.

With a casual approach, he swung himself up but not over the side gate.  He had been practicing jumping the gate. It's where the fence was the lowest.  His jumps were still too short, but he was gaining height every time.  He was sure of it.  One hand on the gate post for support, he would make it over soon.  He didn't open the gate, he climbed it.

There was a car in their driveway, idling.  He looked inside.  There was no one. The car was shiny, black, expensive looking, maybe even flashy.

Max went in expecting to find someone sitting in the living room.  No one was there.  He looked in the kitchen then went upstairs. He expected at least to find his mother.  Unless his mother was in the attic, in the basement, or in the garage, it looked like she wasn't home.

Hearing the front door's distinct slam of glass and wood, he went down, but no one had come in.  Max heard the car pulling away.  He looked out in time to see his mother in the passenger seat of the black car.  A bald man in a black suit was driving.

-


"She had something in her lap? Like what?"

Trish was writing it all down. Max was stretched out, big, bare feet dangling off her bed.

"She had something in front of her. Like a big bag, maybe," he said with a shrug.

"Like an overnight bag," Trish suggested.

Trish was naked. Even eight years ago that bundle on his mother's lap had been a blur.  With Trish scratching her nipple, he couldn't concentrate.


Max had slept with Trish twice without her seeming to notice that he was actually there.  When he told her about his missing mother, he had her full attention.  They were gathering facts and she was writing them down because she insisted that he find his long lost mother.  Since she was doing it naked, he went along with it.  A yellow, legal pad was covering some of her.


Even while they were having sex, he could tell she was thinking about the disappearance.  Since they had done it twice in a row and she hadn't kicked him out yet, he didn't want to talk her out of anything. He really didn't want her to put her clothes back on, but he had to point out the obvious.

"Don't you think that she just ran off with some guy."

"Oh, sure, sure," Trish agreed. "But that doesn't matter.  You have to go looking for her.  OK.  Known associates?"

"Associates?"

Trish was so full of crap. But she kept looking at him so he had to answer. "Me. My Dad.  People where she worked, I guess. Her sister is somewhere."

"Oh, good, sister.  Sister is good.  She is somewhere?  And why don't you know where she is?  Your aunt?"

"My dad made her mad.  Yelled at her. Called her names.  Accused her of hiding Mom or information about Mom."

"You agree? Never mind.  Doesn't matter.  You find her and you grill her.  That's the plan." She slammed the pen down on the legal pad, decision made.


When he was younger his favorite fantasy had been the kidnapping of his mother, her frantic struggle, brave resistance to being taken from her son, her little boy. Until he realized what that really meant.  That it was really the worse option. That he was better off being abandoned.  But only when he felt generous.  Which wasn't always.

Now Max raised his main objection to looking for his mother.

"I don't need to find out she's dead."

"Maybe she isn't."

"Either way, I don't think there is anything good I can find out."

"It's not about good.  That's not what you are after.  It's about looking not about finding," Trish philosophized.

"Well, by looking, I am going to set off my dad again.  He calmed down about it.

You wouldn't know, but he was crazy before."

"This is not about him either."  Max was sick of her telling him what it was about.  At nineteen, she was only two measly years older than him. What did she know?  And if his eyes hadn't fallen on her naked boobs just then, he would have told her.



"Sylvia Culver. We have a Sylvia Culver.  Is your aunt a real estate lady?" Trish was at the computer doing a search. Max was still on the bed, wondering if he could get another go out of her.

"Don't know."

"I'm trying this phone number. It's a message. You listen.  A voice you recognize?"

Trish climbed on the bed, kneeled and leaned over to push the phone to his ear. She was wearing jersey shorts and a tank top, no bra. He listened for a second. "This is Sylvia Culver, please leave a message..."

"Maybe. Kind of."

Trish hung up but then she was thrusting the phone at him.

"Call again.  Tell her you want to buy a house.  She'll call you back for sure."

Max held the phone thinking about that.

"I think I sound more like a guy who's selling."

"Actually, screw calling." She grabbed the phone from him. "Let's go. It's just Pennington. I'll drive you. I'll have you there two and a half, three hours," she estimated as she dived into her closet.

"And alive, right?"

She didn't answer. She changed clothes and told him to put his shirt on.

-


They were in Pennington by three.  In his aunt's driveway.  Her house was not what Max expected from someone selling real estate. It was a little white box, the yard not in the best shape, a chain link fence on the sides.  Seeing that theirs was the only car in the driveway, he thought they would have to wait for her to get home from work. But the front door opened as they approached it. Max wondered what she had been on the lookout for as a skinny, blond woman stepped out wearing an oversized T- shirt over cutoffs. Same hair as his mother's. He remembered the pale blond, dry looking stuff from when he was a kid. Her eyes were not as blue as his mother's.  But it's possible that he misremembered them. Max introduced himself.

Called himself Lauren's son, introduced Trish. His aunt barely glanced at either of them.  She looked at the car.

"Can you give me a ride somewhere?" She now looked expectantly at Max. When Max looked over at Trish, his aunt shifted that look to Trish.  "My car is in the shop," she added and by the way she said it, it was clear that it wasn't.

Trish shrugged. They drove with Sylvia giving directions at each turn.  Her elbow rested on the back of Trish's seat. Trish glared at Max, a signal that he should be questioning his aunt.  He did.

"I wanted to know where my mom is.  If you know." He left it at that as she gave some more directions.

"I know.  Sure, I know. I can give you her phone and the address. They're at the house.  She isn't hiding from you or anything. And I don't think your dad is going to chase her down now."  Sylvia looked him up and down as she said this.  It was like just that second he had introduced himself to her.

Sylvia told them to stop at a corner in a neighborhood much like her own, or maybe one step down.  She watched a beige house with a Prelude parked in front.

"That's my car.  And I'm getting it back from a guy who took it," Sylvia said as she held up a car key.  "You're back up.  If anything goes haywire, you pick me up. "OK?" Sylvia made eye contact to make sure they got it.  Trish looked at the car.

"Why couldn't the police do this?" Trish asked.

"It's my ex. He has pictures.  There are parts of me I don't want all over the internet."

"Isn't he going to retaliate, put you on the internet if you take the car?" Max asked her.  He did not want to be trolling for porn and end up with an eyeful of his aunt's underfed carcass in god knows what position.

"Not for this.  For the police he would," Sylvia told him. She got out of the car, closed the door quietly.  She walked over to the car as if she was just passing by. Then she darted over to the driver's side.  She was in pretty quick.  The car started up and drove away.  Since Max's aunt went in the opposite direction, Trish didn't follow her. She drove them back the way they came.


Sylvia was already there.  The garage door was open, she was piling things on the sides, mostly boxes, but there was some old furniture, lamps, and a rolled up rug.


"Help me move this," she said to them.  She was pushing a filing cabinet. "I need to put the car in."

"I got the car back, not the other key," she said when Trish asked why. "He can steal it back."

After the car was in, she took them inside.  It was not too bad.  Modern furniture, only a little messy.  She pulled tupperware from the freezer to feed them.  Some of it was old takeout but there was homemade chili too.  It wasn't bad.  She also gave Max his mother's address and phone.  His mother was in Carlton Ridge.

Sylvia was on the phone talking real estate as he and Trish shoved tupperware and plates into the dishwasher.



"You calling or going?" Trish asked.  Max knew what she thought.  He kind of had to agree.  What the Hell was the point of calling?  "You driving?"

"Sure.  Is she going to let us stay?" Tris nodded in the direction of his aunt.

"She owes us."



The sofa bed creaked so they shifted to the floor for sex.

"I hope that address is current," Trish said before they were even done.



Sylvia got them up in the morning and told them to put the sofa back together.

Trish looked over into the kitchen like she expected breakfast.  Nothing was happening in there. His aunt didn't even have coffee going.

Dressed for work, Sylvia looked completely different.  Like she was made just to wear those real estate lady suits.  That's why without them she looked like a wire hanger.  Seeing her put together, you'd never think she was the same mess who a day before was stealing back her own car from some dirtbag who had gross pictures of her.

"You need to be gone now," was the way she announced the end of her hospitality.

They moved too slowly having just woken in a strange place and she started handing them their things.  Her bracelet jangled and she moved differently because of the clothes and the heals.  But also because she was all business now.  Except in Max's vision, for a split second, she's hurrying the kids to school.

"Anyway.  It was nice seeing you.  Really nice." She patted Max on the arm and her parting words sounded sincere, but her face said that she just wanted them gone.

-


The Carlton Ridge neighborhood was a step up from where they had stayed at his aunt's.  Once again they were parked a few yards away from a house. Though the house was big, it was not attractive. It sprawled under a lot of shade.  The yard was not kept up. The house was painted in shades of brown. But it wasn't cheap, not in that neighborhood.

"Isn't it too early?" Max asked as Trish turned off the car and started to get out.

"You're more likely to catch her home now.  Or do you want to wait for her to come out?"

He got out of the car. Just as he did some guy in baggy shorts came out to get the paper from the driveway.  He didn't see them and started to go back in. They were at the door just as he was about to close it. The guy he hoped to God was too young to be a boyfriend stared at them.

"We're looking for Lauren," Max said.  He didn't know his mother's last name. "I'm her son." After barely a pause, the guy pointed his thumb out the back doors. He let them in, then walked away.  The inside was very dark, but it didn't matter.

What Max was looking for was outside. There was a pool.  She was looking down into it.  It wasn't too clean. He looked at her for a minute and wished that Trish wasn't standing right behind him so he could stare in peace.

"Is it her?" Trish whispered.

He nodded.

"I'm in the car if you need me, I guess," she whispered again and left.  Max was pretty surprised that she did that.



She was still staring at the water.  She was dressed the way Sylvia had been when they first saw her, big shirt and shorts.  Her hair was exactly like his aunt's even the cut.  But she wasn't as tall or as lean.

"Is something in there?" he asked.

She turned at the sound of his voice. She looked at him for a while like she was trying to place him. Her eyes were startlingly blue. He couldn't look back at her for very long so he stared at the hedges.

"You... hmmm."

She was taking too long to come up with his name or the word son. He got tired of it.

"I'm your son, Max." In case she had other sons.

"There is a snake down there.  I think it's dead." The way she said it, he wondered if she had misunderstood him and thought he was the exterminator.

"You still probably shouldn't go swimming in case it's not."

"It's on the bottom, I don't think it can be alive." She looked back at it.  "I'll get Lane's son to get it out."

She started to walk off.

"I just came by to clear up that you weren't kidnapped or whatever."

She stopped at the doors.

"No. Not kidnapped." She was making it clear that there was something though.  Some extenuating circumstance.  Some story she might want to tell him.  He desperately wanted to run away before he could hear it.  He could have even done it if there wasn't Trish waiting in the car.

"You can sit there while I deal with the snake." She pointed to the checkered couch inside.  The house seemed even darker after the glint of the pool. He was startled to see that there was a boy sitting on the couch, eating cereal and watching TV.

His heart almost stopped thinking that he might be a younger brother.

She was already gone but as soon as she got back he would clear that up.

-

The folding chairs creaked as they sat. He had been handed a coffee.  She had one too.  Poolside, with the midmorning sun coming in the wrong way and making everything too bright, he was assured that he had no siblings.

"On my side of it," she said, like Dad might have been making babies all over the place since she left.

The concrete was green and black along the fence. Sitting by the pool made him feel like he was on vacation. The snake was still down there, though.  The guy who was supposed to fish it out said he would do it later.

"If he says later he never does it. He doesn't like to say no, I guess. So later means no. Lane will do it."

"Is Lane the same guy?"

"The same as what?"

"The bald guy in the car.  The one who you drove away with. Black suit, black car?"

"Ohh," she laughed. "Lane has hair now. It's almost like a disguise.  All kinds of people don't recognize him." She had on a crooked half smile a little like the wincing face his grandmother made when the leg was just starting to bother her.

"He looked more dangerous without it. I think the hair is a mistake. It's expensive and all. Not the kind that people laugh at.  But menace is so important.  If you want to stay safe." Only with the last sentence did she seem to be speaking to him.

 

"I found out something I wasn't supposed to know.  I was in danger.  He could protect me if I went with him.  I didn't want to die or be beat up or whatever they do."

He didn't say anything to this.  It was the right explanation.  It had the right words in it.  She shifted in her chair.

"Affairs, they'll cost you.  I guess." She was looking off somewhere not sure about the cost.  Some vague number was floating around.  She was waiting on a firm estimate.

He considered asking more question, pressing her for details about what she got involved in.  But those weren't the things he wanted to know.

There had been times, years ago mostly, when he wondered if he had arrived home a few minutes earlier, if she would have taken him. If he had come straight home, not looked for things to kick.  He had even pictured it.  Same car backing out of the driveway the same way.  Then driving away but with him in the back but also in the house watching himself being driven away.

The truth was, in all her conversations with Lane, he had hardly been mentioned. And if she hadn't had that accident with her outfit and that bottle of mouthwash, the one that also stained the rug, she would have already been gone.


-


Trish wouldn't start the car until he told her what they talked about. Even then she just sat there thinking deep thoughts.  Then she passed judgement.

"So she told you what you wanted to hear."

He just looked over at her hoping she would take him home at some point and that if he didn't say anything it might be sooner. Trish did start the car, but she also kept talking.

"I don't think there was danger, but even if there was danger, it just gave her an excuse, a push she..."

"You weren't there," Max cut her off.

"No.  I was giving you room, but now you're giving me these bullshit answers that I wish I stayed to hear for myself."

"I am sorry you weren't sufficiently entertained."

"Everyone has to make up their own mind." She put the car in gear. It sounded final, but she wasn't done.

"The danger could be real and still be just an excuse. There are all sorts of ways of getting out of things. She got in..."

"You want to stop?"

"The car?"

"No, talking."

"I'll stop when I'm done."

"Then drop me off here," Max said when they hadn't gone two blocks.

She actually pulled over. He didn't get out at first because he thought she was bluffing.

"You can listen or you can get out. I didn't drive you all the way over here..."

He climbed into the back seat to put his stuff together. After he got out, she looked up at him like she was still deciding or thought he was.  He turned away to look around. She drove off. Walking, he searched for a bus stop. He saw that kid who had been eating cereal on the checkered couch. The kid went by on the other side of the street, glanced at him a few times. He was Lane's nephew, she said. Some stray kid just staying with them.


-


As he asked for a ride to the bus station, he tried to summon up a sense of being owed.

"Lane's son takes the car without asking," she explained after looking into the garage. " But he's in and out all day so he could be back any time."

They were in that dark living room.  She stood there looking toward the pool.

"Does Lane's son have a name?" Max asked.

"His name is Max too. I thought it might be confusing for you. Do you want to get that snake out of the pool?"

"No, thank you."

She gave him more of the same coffee.  It smelled like an ashtray. Now that they were sitting inside, he noticed that the place wasn't very clean. There seemed to be grime on everything. The upholstery had a dirty, waxlike sheen.  He didn't see a dog but he thought he could smell one. Just as he was about to ask if there was a dog, they heard the front door.

It wasn't the other Max who came in. As far as this Max was concerned the toupe did not diminish the menace one bit.  He wasn't sure if it was the man or his memories.

The man with a toupee held him in a hard, appraising glare of a man who routinely has to decide if he should kill someone.

"This is your visitor." He addressed himself to Lauren but he was only looking at Max. "You are going to be telling me exactly how you found us."

-

Lauren had asked him if he wanted coffee.  He didn't but she went into the kitchen anyway.

"There is supposed to be a girl here.  Where is she?" Lane asked.  The kitchen looked out into the living room over a sort of bar.  At first Max thought he was talking to his mother.

"Went home. Ditched me." Happens to me a lot, Max wanted to say. Because this guy looked ready to beat his face in, he didn't.

"So who told you where to find us?" Lane asked. He sat on the coffee table practically on top of Max. Max looked over toward the kitchen.  He couldn't be sure if this guy knew about his aunt.  He couldn't see his mother.  He almost called out to her. He would have said "mom".

"Ask her," Max said instead.  His mother was the one least likely to get into trouble and the one who most deserved to. He threw it to her.

"Hey, 'her'! You want to spill it?"

"Sylvia.  She is the only one he knows who knows where we live. She wouldn't tell anyone else."

"Just this kid and some girl and that unhinged ex of yours maybe."

They were just shouting back and forth. Lane barely turned his head.

"If you mean my Dad, he is fine now, he's cool with it," Max spoke up even if it didn't seem wise.

"Is that right? He is cool now? He is done with the death threats and all that shit?" Lane had turned back to him.

"I guess. I mean, he never meant them. He was just... He's fine now. He isn't looking for you," he said this to his mother who had stepped out from the kitchen and was leaning on a wall. She didn't react to this or anything much.  She seemed to be absent, like she left the room and forgot her body behind.

With Lane sitting so close, Max was breathing ninety percent cologne.  Lane wore a short sleeved black shirt stitched with white thread. He had on a silver watch with a black face.  His arms were covered in fine, light brown hairs. One of his fingernails was black. He was glaring at his mother whom Max refused to look at because of her bored face.  Or maybe she was high.  He didn't need to see either one of those things with this guy practically in his lap.

He could almost hear Trish, 'You didn't like finding out that your mother wasn't some femme fatale, just some bimbo who got conned because she wanted to ditch you and your dad'.  As a child, Max did not remember noticing any lack of class in his mother.  But quite possibly he had not been qualified to judge her on that account at the age of nine. He stared past Lane well aware that he couldn't leave until he was allowed to.


-


"Some guy in a black car took her."

After that half-assed explanation, the search of the house.  Her things gone and a stain on the bedroom rug. He went to the desk where they did the bills and where the bank stuff was.  After he looked through all that, he went back to the stain.

He got down and sniffed it.


He forgot to feed Max.  He didn't care if he went to school.


Alex Rhodes had not opened the door for his mother.  Max let her in after she yelled.

"Leaving me to stand out there so I have to shout," she said as she came into the living room. She did not mention her leg.  She addressed Max, "You go away somewhere.  Take a bath.  No." She took money out of her purse. "Here, go buy some bread, eggs, milk.  Go! Buy orange juice!"  She stared down her son while she waited for Max to get himself out of the house.

"You are a fool." It was often that her advice started with those words. "If you waste another minute thinking about that woman...  Worry about that boy.  You keep rampaging like a wild animal..."

"Mother." Alex was sitting slumped, watching a TV turned low. Not watching, looking through the TV.

"Even getting remarried would be better than this.  Though you obviously don't know what you're doing in that department."

She looked around.  Things were a predictable mess. She didn't mention it. Since her accident her face had become a constant grimace.  She really didn't have to say much to make her point. She had shrunk and become crooked leaning on that cane.  If she had not been a complete failure at physical therapy she could have had the use of her leg almost back to normal.  The grimace became more pronounced the longer she stood.  He told her to sit already.

"No.  I'm not staying."  She had warned him right off the bat that she would not be coming over and taking over for his wayward wife. Not with her leg and not anyway.

He had to sort himself out, that's all.

Max would sometimes stand at the edge of the living room and stare into it, sometimes at the TV or at nothing, sometimes at him.

"What are you staring at?  Your mother is gone.  What the hell do you want from me?"

"Dinner."

The answer was concise.  Alex made dinner.  Then he made more dinners.  He made all the dinners. With that and all the other things, he was one parent not half of one or less. He pushed himself and he got things done. He pulled up the carpet in the bedroom.  The stain had been mouthwash. He erased her.



"Where the hell are you?!" an angry bark.

"On the road." In fact traffic could be heard in the background.

Before he could ask him what road, Max said what he called to say.

"I am just going to find out a few things then I'll be back."

By asking around Alex had found out how Max had found himself on the road if not where. He saw the car pull in the neighbor's driveway a day later. The college girl dragged herself out.

"Where the hell is my son!?" is how he greeted her.  Then a lecture on their age difference. "He is seventeen.  Seventeen." He said this quiet a few times as if numbers or maybe repetition were a proven argument winner for him. Trish just blinked.

"717 Baxter St, Carlton Ridge." She didn't even get her stuff out of the car, she just went in to crash.

-

His mother had started a shopping list before she left them. For years Max had kept the paper that had only one thing written on it, 'toothpaste'.  Pretending it was a clue she left, he used to try and decipher it. He lost track of the list.  He wondered if his dad might have thrown it out.


After a loud knock, Lane answered the door.

"Is Max here?"

Max saw his dad.  He was squinting into the living room.

"What do you want with him?" A gruff, suspicious question of someone expecting trouble.

"I am his father," Alex enunciated.

"That Max?" Lane pointed at Max getting up from the couch. "You take him and you get the hell out of my house."

"Max!" his father barked because Max didn't sprint to the door.

"You take care of yourself."

His father winced at his mother's voice.  Max was sure he couldn't see her.


the end