Did you just say stalker? To a fan who walked here from Binghamton to meet you? Freudian slip much?
“You understand?” I asked, to drown out the rightness of Inner Bitch’s comment.
“I don’t have a problem with dogs. I like dogs.”
A swing and a miss!
“What do you have a problem with, Gary?”
“Bad stuff.” Storm clouds darkened his eyes.
“Bad stuff,” I repeated, and I sent Mason a yellow alert sort of look. He was standing under a river birch six feet away. He could make it to me in two long strides. But the kid could probably stab me faster.
We should've searched him, Inner Bitch said.
Now you think of it. “What kind of bad stuff?”
Honest to God, I didn’t feel any threat coming from him. Hatred and anger wafted off him, but it wasn't directed at me. I usually felt that sort of thing like prickles on my skin, only not on my skin, exactly.
Gary looked away, tipping his chin down just the way my brother Tommy used to do. There was something about him. I wanted to bring him inside and clean him up and fix his life.
Like you tried to do with Tommy.
Yeah, IB. Just like that.
“What kinds of bad things, Gary?”
And he flipped just like that, jumped out of the chair and glared at me, and then Mason was in between us, hands on the kid’s shoulders, saying, “Okay, now. Everything’s cool here, right? We’re okay here, aren’t we, Gary?”
I stayed behind Mason’s body like the Cowardly Lion, thinking yep, he could get to me fast enough, after all. Gary’s eyes had turned fiery, and he thrust out an arm, pointing at me. “You’re wrong, Rachel de Luca! I don’t think bad thoughts, but they come anyway. They come anyway and I can’t make them stop!”
Mason’s voice was much harsher when he said, “All right, Gary, it’s time for you to go now. You crossed a line coming here, and it better not happen again. You understand me? It’s not okay, coming here like this.”
And just like that, the fire was doused. Puppy dog eyes blinked at me through the lingering smoke. “It’s not okay I came here?”
“It would be better if you asked first. That’s all,” I said.
Are you out of your fucking mind?
Mason’s eyes asked me the very same question.
“I’d rather be blind than to feel the way you do right now,” I told Gary. “I’m really sorry you’re going through this.” I meant it.
He relaxed, like a full-body sigh. “Do you know what it is, Rachel? What’s making the bad thoughts come?”
“I know people who would. People who fix this kind of thing for a living.”
He got my meaning. First time today. “I don’t like doctors.”
“That’s okay, don’t get all knotted up over it. Look, Gary, if your car’s out of gas, you go to a gas station. It doesn’t matter if you like gas stations or not, you go. You go because it’s where the gas is.”
“I don’t even have a car.”
Note to self. No metaphors with Gary.
“Come on. I’m gonna have Mason give you a ride to someplace you can stay tonight. Okay?”
He lowered his head, like he’d lost the battle. “Okay.”
“His car’s over there. The black one.”
“That’s a cool car,” Gary said, and he walked across the dirt road, and the lawn to the driveway, and Mason’s car, which we all called The Beast.
When he was out of earshot, I said, “Mason–”
“No.”
“You don’t get to tell me no.”
“This time I do.”
“He reminds me of my brother.”
“He reminds me of my brother.”
His brother had killed my brother, if you’re keeping track.
“Mason, come on.” I put my hands on his chest and looked up at him. “He’s sick, not dangerous.”
“Those two things are not mutually exclusive.”
“Put him in the motel in town. Leave him some cash. I’ll get him in with a shrink tomorrow. He needs help. This is how I want to handle it, Mason.”
He looked at me hard and there were so many arguments he could’ve made. Like what about the boys, and my sister, and her kids, and so on. But he didn’t. He blew air through clenched teeth, and said, “Fine. I’ll put him in the motel. One night, Rache. We get him hooked up with social services and mental health, and leave his ass back in the city. You can put him up at the Hilton if you want, but there. Not here. Okay?”
“Okay. And thank you.”
He looked like he wanted to say more, but he didn’t. He went and got in the car, started it up. It had this deep, loud rumble to it that testified to my man’s manliness as he drove the homeless, helpless, slightly scary Gary to a motel a couple of miles from our front door.
Yeah, Mason was probably right. I might’ve made a bad call just then. I hoped not.
“Gary Conklin, right? You have a middle name?” Mason asked.
“Robert.”
“Gary Robert Conklin. Nice. And you’re what, twenty-four, twenty-five?”
“I turned twenty-three my last birthday.”
“And when was that?”
“July.”
Close enough for a background check. “Where were you staying before the shelter, Gary?”
He broke eye contact, stared out the window.
Mason gave him several seconds, but when he didn’t answer, had to move on. It was a short drive to the motel. Too short, if you asked him. “You told Rachel you don’t like doctors. So you’ve seen doctors before, then?”
“Everybody’s seen doctors before.”
“Who was the last doctor you saw, Gary? Do you remember his name?”
“Her name,” Gary said.
Mason thought Rachel would have kicked him for exhibiting subconscious remnants of sexism. He was woke, he swore he was.
“Dr. Guthrie. But she was wrong."
“Do you take medicine, Gary?”
"I shouldn't have gone to your house," he said.
They pulled into the motel lot, and Mason headed into the office to get the kid a room. When he came back out, Gary was standing next to the car, arms full of leftovers in Tupperware.
Mason held up the key. “Got you a room for the night,” he said, walking while he talked. It was only across the parking lot. He unlocked the door to room twelve and opened it wide, stepping inside with Gary right behind him.
The fan unloaded his leftovers onto a small table, and Mason said, “There’s a little fridge over there to put the food in for the night, and here’s your key.”
“Why do I have to stay?”
“Because Rachel wants to help you make your life better.”
“She thinks I’m crazy, doesn’t she? I’m not, you know. I just have bad thoughts.”
“They make a pill for that.”
Gary frowned hard, like he was working a jigsaw puzzle in his scrambled-up head. The poor guy. Mason sighed, and tried to be kinder. “Nobody thinks you’re crazy. Sometimes you get sick, you take medicine, you get better. There’s nothing crazy about that, kid. That’s life, is what that is. That’s all. It happens to everybody from time to time.”