Chapter 41 Mountains
Mountains
I nod. “Yeah, pretty much.”
“Stop the car.”
“Huh?”
“Stop the car, bro!”
I tap on the brake pedal and pull over to the side of the road, on a block populated by rundown apartment buildings.
Manny is scary. “So what’s the plan?! We’re just gonna drive around like assholes and hope we get lucky?!”
“I don’t know what else to do.” I shrug.
“You don’t have any other information?” asks Manny. “Just what this homeless chick said? Something about Christmas?”
“Yes.”
Manny shakes his head. “If you’re right and Oscar is in a lot of trouble, we don’t have time to drive up and down streets like we’re joyriding.”
“Hey,” I say, “I’m open to whatever you want to do. I just can’t think of any other options. We can try calling my brother again, but I don’t think he’s going to pick up.”
Manny releases a big sigh. “Fine. Drive.”
I head towards the mountains. Several minutes later, we’re in a neighborhood near the base of the mountains, around where I live. The further up we go, the houses get bigger, more opulent.
“Daaaaamn,” says Carlos from the backseat. “These houses are nice.”
“They ain’t nice,” says Blanca. “They’re tacky.”
“You think they’re tacky ’cause you don’t got no money, girl.”
“Even if I was rich, I wouldn’t live up here,” Blanca says. “Nothing but old white folks who look at you funny.”
Carlos chuckles. “Girl, you live in an all-Mexican neighborhood, and people still look at you funny.”
Manny laughs. “True that.”
I can hear Blanca hit Carlos. “Shut up, Carlos!”
I drive all around, making left turns and right turns at random or whenever Manny tells me to. It’s like we’re just following our hunches. We all carefully observe every house we pass, looking for the SUV that took Oscar or the one Nash was driving or anything that may communicate “Christmas.”
“Pull over,” says Manny.
I do so. “‘Sup?”
“We’ve been out here a half hour.” Manny closes his eyes. “I just want to stop and think for a minute.”
Carlos leans forward. “Manny is like that. Sometimes he just wants to think. And then an answer comes to him. It’s like magic.”
It looks like Manny is meditating.
I say to Carlos, quietly, “Can I borrow your phone?”
Carlos unlocks his phone with his password and hands it to me.
I still have the small sheet of paper with Patricia’s contact information on it, including her phone number. I dial. I step out of the car and close the door behind me.
“Hello?” says Patricia.
I say, quietly, “Patricia, it’s me. Hunter.”
“Oh, Hunter, are you all right? Where are you?”
“I’m okay. How is Jo doing?”
“Jo is a trooper. A little banged and bruised, but she’s going to be fine.”
“What about the baby?”
“The baby is also going to be fine.”
“Oh, thank God.”
“They’re going to keep Jo here overnight, but she should be able to go home in the morning. I’m staying here all night. So are Darin and Henry.”
I can see the cold air coming into and out of my mouth. “I’m sorry about everything that’s happened. I never should’ve gotten you and Jo and your friends involved.”
“Hunter, are you going to tell me what’s really going on here?”
“Someday. But right now I have to go. Oscar is in a lot of trouble. I just wanted to check to make sure you and Jo were all right.”
“We are. We’d be even better if we knew what’s happening. We can help you.”
“No,” I say. “I’m handling this.”
“Okay,” says Patricia, “but I have to talk to you about something.”
“What?”
“When I was cleaning you and Oscar up, I could tell those cuts and scrapes and wounds were on account of you getting hit by an SUV, like you said. But there were other markings, scarring, that I saw around your neck and on your forearm.”
“I have to go, Patricia.”
“No,” Patricia says, calmly. “Listen to me, Hunter. I know what those marks are. I know what those scars are.”
Silence.
Then, she says, “I used to have them too, when I was younger. I used to make them too.”
I don’t know how to respond. So I don’t.
Patricia continues. “Although I got kicked out of my own house by my parents when I came out to them, in many ways it was the best thing that ever happened to me. Once I was out of the house, once I was in the real world, I was able to see how old and outdated my parents’ beliefs were.
I mean, inside that house, it was like I was living inside a bubble.
But out in the real world, I could breathe.
I could be myself. I found my allies, my people, my tribe.
And you can have that too, Hunter. You just have to be a little patient.
And then you’ll see. Your life has so much value. ”
“Hunter,” I hear Blanca say.
I turn around and see Blanca standing there, her arms crossed, trying to defend herself from the cold. I hold up my finger to let her know to wait a moment.
“I’m going to find you a therapist,” Patricia says.
“I’ll pay for it. Your parents don’t have to know.
I think it’ll really help you. Put things in perspective.
When you’re inside your own head for so much, sometimes you can’t see the light.
But with the help of a therapist, you will.
But you also have me and Jo and Darin and Henry.
You have so many people supporting you, Hunter. You just have to look.”
Blanca squeezes herself even tighter. “Manny took a walk. And he just texted me. We gotta go meet with him now.”
I nod.
“Patricia,” I say into the phone. “I really need to go.”
“Promise me. You’ll go see a therapist. Promise.”
“I promise,” I say. And I mean it. “Thank you, Patricia.”
“Good.”
I say, “There’s one more thing I need you to do for me.”
“Anything.”
“I’ll text you.”
I hang up. As I follow Blanca back to my car, I text Patricia.
Blanca and I approach Carlos, who’s leaning against the hood of my car. I hand him his phone back.
Carlos says, “Manny’s down that street over there. He said for us to come right now.”
“Okay,” I say, “hang on a second.”
I reach into my car and open the glove compartment. I pull out a pair of eyeglasses and put them on. I rejoin Blanca and Carlos.
“I didn’t know you wore glasses,” says Blanca.
“They help me see better at night,” I say.
The three of us walk briskly. We turn a corner onto a dead-end street that we haven’t explored yet tonight.
At the end of the street is a large house.
I can’t really make out any of the details of the house because it is completely covered in Christmas lights and decorations.
It looks like almost every inch of the house is covered in flashing, colorful lights.
In the middle of the front lawn is a tall Christmas tree, also brightly lit and donning a variety of ornaments.
At the base of the tree is an elaborate, life-sized nativity scene.
And on the roof of the house are plastic reindeer figures pulling a sled with a plastic Santa.
It’s all so over-the-top. And in the middle of October.
But this is it. I know this is it. This is where Oscar is.