Chapter 1 - The Little House

This story was written for the March ‘24 Theme of the Month event. To read the other entries, check out the thread: https://fantasyfeeder.com/forum/posts?topicId=6852 3&rowStart=0

There was nothing left of the money except a couple bucks to leave under the pillow for housekeeping, not really even a tip, just an apology. She had thought about just keeping it. It’s not like two bucks and change was going to buy breakfast or even a pack of cigarettes. She had enough gas to get where she was going. So she spent it under the pillow, maybe on a little good luck.

The last leg of her trip was wet, a steady cleansing rain that made the miles of strip malls and gas stations almost feel exotic; a wet alien machine supporting a central…something. Maybe it was a big brain like in A Wrinkle In Time. Or a hive of plastic honeybees.

The sun broke through in the afternoon, the endless blocks of gray one-story sprawl becoming more rural; silos and tobacco barns backed by gray clouds and spotlit with ghostly April sunshine. It wasn’t all farms, there were residential side streets, as well, and Marnie turned down one of these just as the low fuel light blinked on her dash. She tossed a butt out the window and pulled into a dirt driveway.

Past some junker cars on blocks was a little brick and clapboard ranch. There wasn’t much of a porch, really just a covered front step, but Marnie slowed the car when she saw the man standing on it. Tall and lean, wearing a gray wife beater over dirty jeans with suspenders hanging loose at his waist. Smoke wreathed his graying greaser pompadour and lined face. Marnie’s first thought was Lyle Lovett’s low rent cousin, but there was a mean shine in his eyes that stole the humor and buried it.

Marnie parked, and immediately put her hand on the door lock, holding it there. The man crushed his cigarette under his boot and walked down the steps towards the car. His gait was slow and dangerous, and before Marnie had even unbuckled her seatbelt, he was leaning in the open window like a cop with a hot book of tickets.

She could see his eyes scanning the car: day old coffee cups, empty packs of Parliaments, Rand McNally riding shotgun. With a grunt, he stepped back and walked around the car; looking at the tires, maybe. He didn’t smile, didn’t say a word. She could smell smoke and sweat and something else—grease or motor oil.

“Hitch sent me here,” Marnie hollered out the window as he was squatting to look at a headlight. “I’m looking for Mark.”

Mark stood up stiffly, but his voice was more musical than she expected. The twang wasn’t a surprise, but the harmony that went with it was. “You can get your stuff and meet me out back behind the house. I’ll get your trailer ready. Bring the key.”

—

The trailer was a dark brown fifth-wheel camper cribbed up on heavy oak blocks. Marnie adjusted the big duffel bag over her shoulder and clanked up the metal steps to the door, noticing the rusty hasp screwed into the outside of the doorframe.

The door was open and she stepped in. It was a little damp and dated, but clean enough. Her mysterious host was putting a five gallon water bottle into a dispenser, turning to size her up as the air bubbled to the top of the jug.

“There’s water. The toilet works,” he pointed to a brown accordion door next to her. “You probably want to drink this, though. Is that all your stuff?”

Marnie unshouldered the duffel and let it drop to the floor. “I mean, yeah. Just clothes. I have some stuff in the car but this is all I packed.”

“Well the car’s gone tonight so anything you want you better get. Got the key for me?”

She pulled a key ring out of the back pocket of her jeans and held it tightly. “Yeah, but what are you talking about?”

Mark slid into the small booth in the kitchen. “Sit down.” He was a tall guy, but it was all torso, and he cast a wicked shadow over the table; arms and elbows and bony shoulders. Marnie stood.

“Listen, kid, whether you like it or not, there are people looking for you. Some of ‘em can run your plate and find out who’s car that is—“

“So take the plates off.” Marnie crossed her arms, a glint of key poking through her fist.

“—And some of ‘em don’t need to run your plates to find out if you’re here. If they see a car they think is yours they don’t need to knock polite at the door to fuck things up. Those are the ones you should be scared of.” Mark’s eyes were watery and tired. Marnie couldn’t pin down how old he was. “And if they find you, they find me. I don’t give a shit about you, kid, other than Hitch telling me to take care of you until this blows over. So I ain’t sticking my neck out like that.”

Mark stood up graceful and fast, and was chest to chest with Marnie in a heartbeat. She had to crane her neck up to look him in the eye. He held out his left hand, and since she had been told and convinced by hard people who do hard things that Mark was going to keep her safe, she surrendered the key.

“Glad we see eye to eye. Unpack, or do whatever you need to do, then clean out the car. Anything you leave in there, don’t expect to get it back. There are milk crates outside you can use. Then meet me in the Big House and I’ll make some food.” He pushed past her in the cramped camper (the Little House?), the bare skin of their arms touching for a moment.

—

It was dark in the Big House, dark and crowded, with boxes, tools, and car parts lining the hallways. Marnie could smell food, though, and followed her nose to the kitchen.

Mark stood at the stove, stirring a big pot of what smelled like tomato sauce. He had a cigarette in his mouth, blowing clouds of smoke out the open window above the sink.

“Hey, can I bum one of those? I’m out.” Marnie said, standing in the doorway.

Mark turned to her, then reached into the pocket of a denim jacket hanging from a chair. He pulled out a soft pack of Old Golds and tapped out a smoke, handing it to Marnie. Then he pulled a small black revolver out of one of the other pockets and tucked it in the waist of his jeans. His eyes never left Marnie’s face, but hers were locked on the gun until it disappeared behind his back.

“Did you need a light?”

“Nah, I got one,” Marnie said, fishing a Bic out of her jeans. Her voice didn’t shake but inside she was frozen.

“You get everything out of the car?” Marnie nodded slowly, taking a drag. “Good. You hungry?” She nodded again. “Good. Sit down.”

Marnie sat and Mark served her a big plate of ziti with red sauce, meatballs, and italian sausage.

“Whoa, that’s like, a lot of food.” Marnie poked at a meatball with her fork.

Mark sat across from her with his own plate, putting out his butt in a soda bottle in the center of the table. “So here’s my thought, okay? You listen to me, and you tell me what you think. Okay?”

Marnie took a last drag and put her butt out. “Okay.”

“So. It’s my job to keep you safe. And it’s your job to stay safe so neither of us gets in any trouble. So that means nobody recognizes your car, or it gets us in trouble. And it also means nobody recognizes you, and you get us in trouble. So unless you want to be locked up in the camper until this blows over…”

Marnie remembered the hasp on the outside of the camper door. She took a bite of a meatball and chewed slowly. “Okay, so if I don’t want to be locked in there, what do I do?”

Mark pulled a copy of Entertainment Weekly off a pile of other newspapers and magazines. It was dogeared in the middle, and he opened it up to what looked like an interview with Renee Zellweger. “Read this part,” he said, pointing to a paragraph.

Marnie squinted her eyes, looking back up at Mark. “So she gained weight for that Bridget Jones movie. And? I don’t get it.”

“She’s talking about how she did it,” Mark said with a sigh. “She ate ice cream every day. Stopped exercising—“

“I mean, I didn’t see the movie, but that is how someone gets fat. What’s your point?”

“The point is she’s hardly recognizable. Before and after.”

“Come on, that’s not true at all,” Marnie said with a mouthful of pasta. “She just has a chubbier face and bigger boobs. She looks the same.”

Mark looked frustrated, and ran a hand through his hair. “You recognize her because you’re looking for what you want to see. But someone who didn’t know her, didn’t know she was famous, could pass right by her and…shit, why am I even bothering. Listen, if someone’s looking for you and all they have is a picture of you, maybe it’s from a yearbook, I don’t know. I don’t know what kinds of pictures of you they have. But it’s not like your ma or pops looking for you. It’s probably someone with limited information, and if the person they pass on the street looks very different from that yearbook picture…it might not fool everyone, but it might buy you time. All you’re doing right now is buying time. Being smart.”

“Why don’t I just dye my hair, then?”

“You can do that, too.” He sat back and picked at his food, watching Marnie eat while she read the article from the beginning.