“Not yet.”
“No?” Wayne took a sip from his gigantic chocolate milk shake, rested the cup on his stomach. “Well, I hope you hurry. You know, for your own sake. I mean, aren’t you worried?”
“Nope,” my dad said. “Not at all. There’s nothing to worry about, right, boys?”
We nodded. Our dad was going to catch him. That was that.
“Oh, good,” Wayne said. “That’s real good.” He shook his shake, loudly slurped what was left. “But, um, don’t you think you should be worried? At least a little? I mean, if I was you, if I was the one—”
“Wayne, it’s not a big deal. Escapes happen. Criminals get out.”
“Yeah,” Wayne said, “but not ones from around here.” He looked around, as if the Stranger might be watching him. “Not ones everybody remembers.”
“OK,” my dad said. “We’re trying to eat here.”
Wayne laughed. Eat? Eat what? He didn’t see nothing to eat. “You know, I’ve been around this city a long time,” he said, leaning on our booth, addressing my brother and me. “I remember when your dad first showed up, just a young pup. A young pup in love. Puppy love,” Wayne said, and wheezed at his own joke. “What I’m trying to say is that I know this city. I know how it works. And I’m telling you if you get this man before anything bad happens, you’ll be chief in no time.”
Yes. Chief. Our dad would be chief. The good guys would prevail.
“On the other hand, if you don’t catch him, well, I guess you can always join the Army.” I thought this was a joke too, and that Wayne would wheeze some more, but he didn’t.
“All right, Wayne. That’s fine.”
“I’m just saying, it’s one thing to say, it’s another to do.”
“I hear you. And we’ll get him.”
“‘We’? Ain’t no ‘we.’ That’s what I’m trying to tell you. You gotta do this. You do. Nobody cares about Tony or that Alan fellow. All eyes are on you.”
“Wayne.”
“Lives are on the line. Yours and your boys’.”
“All right.”
“You think they’re safe, but I don’t know. I don’t know that anybody’s safe. Hell, what about Aggie?”
My dad pounded the table.
“Wayne!”
The entire restaurant went quiet. Everyone stared at my dad, whose face turned red, like he’d held his breath too long underwater.
“Listen,” he said, “my family is none of your business. We’ll catch him, OK? Now please leave me and my boys alone.”
Wayne put his hands up. “Hey, got it. Sorry, sorry. Didn’t mean to disturb.”
He waddled out the door and got in his big truck. The rest of the restaurant stopped staring.
“You should have told that guy to shut up,” my brother said.
My dad put his head down, like he was looking through the table to see if his shoes were tied, to make sure everything was all right down there.
“We don’t talk like that.”
“Why not, he deserved it.”
The cashier came to our table.
“I’ve been calling your number,” she said, putting our trays down. “I’ve been calling your number and you never came.”
My dad didn’t look at her. I wondered if this would be one of those nights where he didn’t talk to us, where he just popped in a movie and told us to be quiet.
“Make it to go,” he said.
* * *
On the way home we stopped by the video store. Our dad stayed in the car while my brother and I ran in. The witch lady was working and she gave us a big bad-toothed smile. We waved at her, but she stared above our heads like there was someone lurking behind us. We quickly moved into the horror section, where a short man with a buzzed head and a patchy beard stood in the way of the movies we wanted. The man thumbed a movie with a bikini-clad space alien on the cover. My brother said excuse me.
“You’re excused,” the man said. He looked us over, head to toe. “This a place for boys?” We tried to ignore him, his sweat-stained undershirt, his sour smell. My brother grabbed two movies without reading their summaries and pulled me from the aisle to the front counter. The witch lady looked at the movies, then out the store window, where the cruiser idled in the dark. She asked how our dad was doing, and what our plans were for the night. We said we were going to watch these movies with our dad, and would she mind hurrying? She pushed our change back. That sounds like a good time, she said. Enjoy it while it lasts. OK, we said, and we left.
* * *
Our dad didn’t go out that night. We watched the first movie and I made it all the way through, head on his chest. The movie featured a pack of dogs that turned into unstoppable killers after drinking from a creek outside a small town’s chemical plant. My dad said something about the environment, but the message was lost on me. After it ended, my dad stayed in his spot on the floor. He didn’t get up and say it was time for bed, then change out of his tank top while we slow-marched to the basement. Instead, he said, “Who’s up for another one?”
My brother was already walking to the basement door, and the question hit him in the back of the head. “Really?”
“Don’t look so shocked, boys. Grab the pork rinds.”
My brother ran into the kitchen, slid on his socks across the linoleum floor. He tossed the bag to my dad and we started the second film, Lieutenant Lazarus, about an Army man who died in the line of duty, only to be brought back to life by his wife, an amateur Wiccan, to fight and love again. I knew I wouldn’t last past half an hour. I might see Lazarus die and be revived, but not the climax. I would miss the lessons learned.
An explosion woke me. I was somehow on the couch with my brother, lying head-to-toe, feet in each other’s face. My brother snored. I did not remember moving or being moved. My dad was on the floor, sitting upright, the only one still watching the movie. It must have been near the end. Flames ate a bad guy’s fort, coloring the screen orange from corner to corner. The screen was like the fireplace at our old house. It felt like Christmas and I did not want to move. When the credits came, my dad didn’t get up or fast-forward to the end to make sure there were no bonus scenes hinting at a possible sequel. The name of every person who worked on the movie rolled by, one after the other, and there were no hidden scenes, no meanings tucked away.
The screen went black and my dad didn’t move. My eyes adjusted and I could tell the difference between this black, where the film was still playing but had nothing to show, and the set’s real black, when the TV was powered down or unplugged.
I slid off the couch and crawled to my dad.
“Are you spying on people again?” he said. I leaned against his shoulder and wondered how much he remembered from the other night. If I said the name Chris, would it mean anything?
My dad stared at the blank set. “Who’s this guy your mother’s seeing?” he said. He put his hand to the fake-black screen, and I could hear the pop of the TV’s static. I knew he was talking about Rick, but I didn’t want to say his name. “When I patrol late at night, I always swing by your guys’ apartment. Sometimes I just sit there in the parking lot, watching, making sure everything’s OK.”
He didn’t have to say the rest. I pictured my dad in the parking lot the night before, the night of the party. I saw Rick stumble out of our building in the dark, my mother close behind. I saw her walk him to his car, give him a kiss good night, as wet as the one she gave me. I saw my dad see all of this.
“Don’t tell her,” my dad said, “but sometimes I can’t take the way your mother looks at me.” He put his head on mine and I could taste his stale breath, battered with cheap beer. He must have started drinking as soon as my brother and I fell asleep.
“I don’t like being in trouble either,” I said.