Bad Life

He stared blankly for a moment, then glanced out the window. Only after that did James speak up belatedly.
"If you want to get to Europe or Africa, you have to go through Mexico first. If you try to leave through a U.S. airport they'll catch you at customs right away. Getting into Mexico makes stowing away easier…"
"Caught at customs?"
James widened his eyes. Before he could answer, the server brought our food. We kept silent until the server set a plate of cheeseburgers and fried chicken on the table and walked away. Only after the server had gone did James speak slowly.
"Didn't you know? Acacia is a cop."
A cop? That crazy bastard? I was stunned. James pulled the cheeseburger plate toward him and said,
"Well, not exactly a regular cop. I don't know for sure, but he's definitely with something like the CIA. Some kind of spy."
His voice sounded unsure, like he wasn't certain enough to insist. I stammered in shock.
"But… no… how do you know that?"
"Caster said something like that."
When Simon's name came up, James's appetite vanished. He squeezed ketchup onto his plate with a careless hand.
"He used that to threaten me. Wherever I ran, as long as I'm American I wouldn't be able to escape them…"
James grew grim. Still, some questions in my head found answers. That was why they'd known so much about me. I had just learned that George was American — I'd thought he was British until now — but if he worked for a government agency it made sense he could see my situation as clearly as if reading a palm.
My personal records must still have been intact at the Bluebell school. What's more, the principal, who had access to everything, was in league with the boys on the top floor. If the principal handed over the data, all George had to do was run an identity check to get everything about me.
I could also understand how they found out about Julia. The guardian whose name appeared on records when she was underage was one of Julia's associates. With a little deduction they'd soon figure out I was Julia's son. I don't know how they discovered the incest between father and mother… but if they'd been digging for five years, they could have found out.
In many ways James's judgment had been right. Going out via Mexico was far smarter than exiting directly from the U.S. Given the situation we would have to figure out how to avoid customs even when entering Mexico.
Lost in thought, I stared at the lukewarm coffee. Then James tapped my arm with his finger. I looked up. He had a bit of cheeseburger sauce at the corner of his mouth.
"Actually, there are things I want to know too," James said, his face oddly serious with sauce smeared there.
"What was your relationship with Caster and Acacia and that other man?"
"……."
It seemed Simon hadn't told him about us. He probably didn't need to. I pulled James's cola toward me and took a sip. If we were going to be together for a while, keeping secrets would be pointless.
"We went to the same school. Dorm roommates," I said, and James nodded while chewing his cheeseburger. I stared into his eyes.
"They were trying to raise me like a dog."
"……."
"I didn't want that. So I set their room on fire. I tried to kill them all, but I only managed to kill one."

"……."
After a short silence James put his burger down. His appetite was gone and he shoved the plate away. I smiled and handed him the cola.
To lift his mood, I changed the subject and we checked our plan. James had spent the last two weeks that he couldn't see me because of Jerome coming up with schemes to rescue me. He'd accounted for as many traps and dirty tricks as he could imagine. If George really was with the FBI — or, worse, the CIA — tracking us would be easier than eating porridge. So our best course was to leave as few traces as possible.
By the end of dinner a clear plan had formed. First we would reach Denver tomorrow. Then we'd change cars, secure as much cash as possible, and leave town immediately. We would spend the night in a motel in Denver at most. After one last rest, we would drive hard and cross the border quickly, even if it meant catching naps in the car on shifts before we reached Mexico.
Things weren't completely hopeless. James had good road sense from doing cross-country trips in his early twenties, and I had military experience. We could read a map and find our way even if we were dropped in the middle of nowhere.
Terrified though I was, I found a fierce relief in having escaped their grip. I finished my beer in peace. James worried about drug side effects, but I felt differently. Thanks to Jerome's obsessive nursing during rehab, I had recovered more than I deserved.
After the meal we slowly drove to the motel, drinking and smoking. James, in a fit of temper, hurled a beer bottle out the window and shouted,
"Try finding us then! You damn sons of bitches!"
At the motel James gave a false name and paid cash for the room. While he sorted the gear from the car and hauled it into the room, I finally stripped off the absurdly oversized clothes.
I went straight into the bathroom and turned on cold water. It wasn't hot because of the air-conditioned car; it was just that I felt unbearably filthy. I stood under the cold until my skin prickled and I shivered, then started to wash slowly.
When the water and soap touched the tattoo between my thighs it burned and stung. Of course soap wouldn't remove that tattoo. The word, as large as my palm, looked even redder against the suds.
If I could truly run away, there would be chances to remove the tattoo later. After shaving and pouring cold water over myself again I left the bathroom. James sat on the edge of the bed flipping channels. He glanced up at me and quickly looked away — I was still naked. I tossed him a dry towel and said casually,
"Get washed."
He nodded without meeting my eyes and went into the tiny shabby bathroom without taking his clothes off. I had an idea why he wouldn't undress in front of me. I stared at the closed bathroom door. Only when the water ran long did I look away.
I lay down naked on the bed. The room felt lukewarm despite the air conditioning. I didn't wear clothes more out of the pain in my thighs than heat. Every time fabric touched the tattooed area it hurt. The skin around the tattoo was red and scabbed. I touched the wound lightly with my fingertips. It read KIN.
Thanks to the great escape, George's words from last night hardly registered. I remembered George's contempt when he spat that filthy blood flowed in me, and the tattooist's half-mocking, half-disgusted expression as he carved the letters. Those faces faded quickly. What came to mind was Julia's face.
The last time I saw her was the night before I left for Bluebell, when I was twenty. She didn't even see me off the next morning. She skipped it, saying she had a schedule at dawn. The night before I left, she barely glanced at my face before saying goodbye.
I couldn't even recall what we had said. I didn't try to remember. I had been foolishly excited at the thought of being finally freed. I ran to the airport in a daze, entertained the stupid fantasy that I would come back someday and take sweet revenge. There were no memories of the last moments with Julia.
After the fire at Bluebell we'd lost all contact. I didn't know what Julia thought about it. Was she sad to have lost her child? But had I ever been her child in any meaningful way? She had given birth to me, yes, but I'd never felt a mother's love from her. She must have been the same. Even if she bore me with her body, she probably never felt affection for me. Then the fire might have been a relief for her. I disappeared without a trace and father had long been in his grave. The secret remained secret.
Now she was free. She would be living a happy life with the man she truly considered her husband and the children she thought were her real kids. While I, her other child marked as incest's bastard, was being tortured by strange men, Julia would be watching basketball games and eating ice cream with her husband and children.
Goddamn her, I thought as I lay on the bed smoking. If she had really tried to find me, she wouldn't have failed. A missing person's report and a quick check of entry and exit records would have been enough. I enlisted almost immediately after returning to the U.S., so finding me would have been absurdly easy. She chose not to look.
I flicked ash into the ashtray on the bed. My wounded shoulder ached. Regardless of how much I wanted revenge on Julia, I had no intention of hunting her down now. What existed between us had already ended. Maybe Julia and father were siblings and that's why she tortured me and didn't look for me even after I went missing, but what of it? Even if George called me a bastard of incest and filthy blood, it wouldn't change our relationship.
I heard the bathroom door open. James came out fully dressed. He frowned at me lying naked on the bed. His gaze lingered between my legs for a moment. I knew he had seen the tattoo but he said nothing. He only teased me briefly while towel-drying his hair.
"Put something on. If you sleep with the A/C on you'll catch a cold."
"It's not my fault you brought rags and called them clothes. If you're cold I'll turn the A/C off, so mind your own business."
I put the ashtray away and joked back, and James shook his head. After checking the door latch, window locks, and the bathroom window a few times, he lay down beside me. # Nоvеlight # Our bare arms touched. Even after washing in cold water, our skin was hot. We lay there without talking. The silence was awkward and heavy. In the dark I kept my eyes open while James suddenly said,
"Let's buy some medicine tomorrow."
He muttered awkwardly.
"Your thigh… if it gets infected it'll be a pain."
"Do what you want."
I heard him swallow dryly. He barely breathed the name,
"Raymond."
"When?"
"……."
James fell silent for a long time as if he was asleep. Finally he managed to say one thing.
"I'm sorry."
I turned to look at him. The curtains were drawn so the room was pitch dark. I couldn't make out his expression. He felt my gaze and, pretending not to notice, looked away and continued.
"Because of someone like me…"
He stopped, his voice caught, and couldn't go on.
I reached out and gripped James's shoulder, pulling him close. He stiffened then hugged me as if holding his breath. His hands trembled as he clung to my waist. I wrapped my arms around him and closed my eyes. James let out a small breath in my arms. He sobbed for a long time and fell asleep. I lay awake in the darkness until he slept and finally dozed off.
Four hours later, before dawn while it was still black, I slipped out of the motel. James felt much better and took the wheel first. I pulled a blanket over myself in the passenger seat, reclined, and tried to sleep. When I woke a thin handkerchief lay across my face, probably placed there because of the sun.
I removed the handkerchief and sat up. The dashboard clock was nearing ten. The broad plains had changed; rocky outcrops rose here and there. The road still held only the two of us. While I drank water, James reached into the backseat and handed me a plastic bag.
"I stopped at a CVS earlier."
Inside were a black T-shirt, training shorts, underwear, and an ointment. I unbuckled, stripped, and tossed the comically oversized shirt and pants into the backseat. I changed and rolled up my pants to apply ointment to my thigh. The wound burned. James watched me put on the ointment and said,
"Once the wounds heal you can get that tattoo removed. It might leave a scar though."
"Probably…"
I covered the glistening mark with gauze and pulled my pants back down.
"I'll drive now."
When we switched, James massaged his neck silently, tired. I thought he'd sleep, but he turned on the radio and opened a map. Pop music blared. It would have been better if he'd rested. I glanced at his profile.
He'd lost a lot of weight since I first met him. His life had been flipped in an instant, of course his face would look bad. The drama he was filming, the career he'd built, his reputation, family, friends, colleagues — all had vanished like mirages. Still, I understood why he wanted to go with me. Kal had once explained it: if he didn't help me now he'd carry the memory forever.
It was blunt and righteous. I felt it was right. Unlike Kal, James had done something unforgivable to me, yet he felt it. It would have been easier to rationalize and walk away halfway, or to give in to the top-floor boys' coaxing and be comfortably complicit. If I believed I was a filthy bastard who deserved punishment and the top-floor boys were only doing their duty, that would be an easy ending. But James didn't choose that.
I smiled and grabbed the map from his knee. He frowned when I tossed it to the backseat.
"You know the way to Denver anyway. What's the point of the map?"
"It doesn't hurt to be sure."
James grumbled.
"And plan the route properly, compute the time thoroughly…"
"You're tired. You should rest."