The Runaways

Chapter 7 (NEW)

Caleb

10 Days Earlier

You came home that night smiling like you’d met God on the Greyhound back from D.C, Liam.

       “There’s no need to say your prayers tonight, boys,” you said, “We don’t need them anymore.”I should’ve dropped to my knees right then and told the Big Guy you didn’t mean that.

But I didn’t move.

I figured that if you found our family a miracle, it only meant good things. You said we’d earned the good things—that we deserved better than all the bad we’d been through. But promises make for pretty lies, Liam, and you bought into a stranger’s.

I don’t blame you for it, though. Money sounds like Mozart to people like us, and ten grand apiece, sounded like a good thing. We could’ve cleared out some of Ma’s hospital bills or put food on the table for a couple months.

We had possibility for once, and I liked the sound of that. 

Marcus didn’t.

You know how he likes to ask questions. He asked you a lot that night, a lot more than usual. I guess he knew something was wrong, but I couldn’t tell the difference. To tell you the truth, half the time I didn’t know where he was going with those questions, but you did ‘cause you got nervous.

You get like dad, you know, loud and defensive—violent too, but only sometimes. That night was one of those times.

        “It’s a job,” you said.

        “No cops, nothing risky, just a set up.”

But you were tripping on your “p’s”, Liam, and I knew you were in for it then. The more you stumbled the less Marcus liked what you said.

None of that mattered to you though ‘cause you liked the idea of your new buddy from D.C. better than the idea of being wrong or the situation being dangerous. You weren’t thinking. You should’ve been.

You came over to me and said, “Cal, I need you to do our family a favor,” and I listened, like always, even though I was uneasy. You told me to follow you, and I did.

We drove out a ways to use a payphone. Nothing but cornfields and power lines ‘til we got to that run down Shell with the skeleton pile of tires out back. “Landlines are money scams,” you said. I took your word for it.

You couldn’t keep your hands still—trying to punch in the numbers from that crumpled piece of paper he gave you. I figured most rich people had fancy business cards.

Maybe they had different cards for different types of business. Ours weren’t the fancy kind. Ours were the kind nobody talks about. But I didn’t ask questions.

        “Good to speak with you again, sir,” you said.

You sounded different. Like you were talking to your girlfriend. I guess you talk to money different—sickly sweet and quietly desperate.

I heard his voice through the speaker. He sounded like dad used to after tearing through a bottle of Jack, gravelly and thick.  Turns out rich throats aren’t golden. You looked uneasy, like you thought he was drunk too. But you didn’t say anything, just listened.

The guy told you he wanted to talk to me. You shoved over the phone.  I guess I felt important for a second ‘cause I smiled when I got to talk to somebody powerful. You didn’t like the look on my face, so I lost it, quick.

         “Caleb,” he said.

I didn’t know how he knew my name. I guess you’d told him about me. Wish you hadn’t.

        “I need you to do my family a favor.”

I don’t mind favors too much. You used to ask me to do them around the house all the time. But this one was bad—real bad. The kind you never ask of anybody, or never even think of.

Crazy thing was, this guy clearly had thought about what he was gonna do for a while. Long enough to know he wanted people like us to do it for him—people who were simple, sad, and always desperate.

He brought up a girl all of a sudden. Didn’t say who she was, just what she looked like. A five-four, brown-eyed, brunette with a face like an angel’s. His voice got weird when he talked about her—like he loved her the wrong way, but I didn’t ask questions.

Took him a while, but he finally got around to telling me what he wanted me to do. God, there were a lot of details. I’m not really good with details, but I got the gist of it.

There weren’t any good things about what he said. That’s when I knew you’d lied about not having to say our prayers anymore.

        “There won’t be any charges, no police, no news attention, nothing. All you have to do is go through with the set up and once the job is finished—,” he’d pay us, wire forty-grand into some kind of account, and he’d be gone.

Maybe it’s ‘cause you’re older than me that you understood something like this. But I didn’t. Before I handed you back the phone, I asked the guy why he wanted to do what he did, and your face got dark all of a sudden. I guess I wasn’t supposed to ask that question.

But he answered me, and said, “You mind your business son and I’ll mind mine,” and I nodded like he could see me, like I understood, even though I didn’t.

You snatched the phone back after that, and gave me that look that you do when you want me to leave—that look you get when I’m in trouble. So I stood by the car and waited for you to stop smiling into that ugly payphone.

You came back and I asked, “Is that what a miracle sounds like to you?”

And you hit me.

You hit me so hard I didn’t stop bleeding the whole ride home. Marcus and Cillian took one look at me when we got back to the house and asked you a lot of questions. You said I knocked my nose into the car door and gave me that look you do when you want me to keep quiet.

And I did, like always.

We all went to bed uneasy that night. You told Marcus and Cillian a different version of what that man told me. Made it sound less dirty. Made it sound less desperate.

I wanted to tell them everything just like it happened—that we didn’t talk about any miracles with that man on the phone, that I didn’t want to do what he’d asked me to, and that I was scared.

But I laid in my bunk right under yours, and I kept quiet ‘cause I knew you’d beat me if I didn’t.

I prayed for the four of us that night, even though you told me not to.

And I hoped God was listening.

Like always.