Californium Read online

  A PLUME BOOK

  CALIFORNIUM

  © Doug Brewer

  R. DEAN JOHNSON grew up in Anaheim, California, and now lives in Kentucky with his wife, the writer Julie Hensley, and their two children. An Associate Professor at Eastern Kentucky University, he is Director of the Bluegrass Writers Studio Low-Residency MFA in Creative Writing program. His essays and stories have appeared in Ascent, Hawai`i Pacific Review, New Orleans Review, Santa Clara Review, Slice, The Southern Review, and elsewhere. This is his first novel.

  ALSO BY R. DEAN JOHNSON

  Delicate Men: Stories

  PLUME

  An imprint of Penguin Random House LLC

  375 Hudson Street

  New York, New York 10014

  Copyright © 2016 by Robert Dean Johnson

  Penguin supports copyright. Copyright fuels creativity, encourages diverse voices, promotes free speech, and creates a vibrant culture. Thank you for buying an authorized edition of this book and for complying with copyright laws by not reproducing, scanning, or distributing any part of it in any form without permission. You are supporting writers and allowing Penguin to continue to publish books for every reader.

  REGISTERED TRADEMARK—MARCA REGISTRADA

  LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGING-IN-PUBLICATION DATA

  Names: Johnson, R. Dean, 1968– author.

  Title: Californium / Robert Dean Johnson.

  Description: New York : Plume, 2016.

  Identifiers: LCCN 2015042415 (print) | LCCN 2016000773 (ebook) | ISBN 9780143128779 (paperback) | ISBN 9780143128786 (eBook)

  Subjects: LCSH: Teenage boys—Fiction. | Family secrets—Fiction. | California—History—20th century—Fiction. | Domestic fiction. | BISAC: FICTION / Coming of Age. | FICTION / Family Life. | FICTION / Literary. | GSAFD: Bildungsromans.

  Classification: LCC PS3610.O3725 C35 2016 (print) | LCC PS3610.O3725 (ebook) | DDC 813/.6—dc23

  LC record available at http://lccn.loc.gov/2015042415

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, businesses, companies, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  Portions of some chapters of this book previously appeared, in different form, in the following publications: “Matter” as “Catching Atoms” in Ruminate, “Native Customs” in Paradigm Vol.1, and “Two-Car Studio” in Tribute to Orpheus.

  Version_1

  For Julie, Boyd, and Maeve.

  For more things than I could ever say, and more than I could ever hope.

  SET LIST

  About the Author

  Also by R. Dean Johnson

  Title Page

  Copyright

  Dedication

  [OPENING ACT]

  MATTER

  NATIVE CUSTOMS

  NEW/OLD CLOTHES

  HEY, NEIGHBOR!

  EMPEROR OF IDIOTS

  WAR DRUMS

  TWO-CAR STUDIO

  THE ANTI-MICKEY

  ANARCHY IN ARKANSAS

  MR. EXPLOSIVE PARTICLE

  SOLITARY MAN

  MILITARY-COMMERCIAL COMPLEX

  FLATBED TRUCK

  LYLE THE FASCIST

  HAPPY MONDAY

  TERRORIZE YOUR NEIGHBOR

  JUDAS WITH POM-POMS

  TED AIRLINES

  SUNRISE AT SUNSET

  AIR FORCE THREE

  DECK/STAGE

  SOLVE FOR WHY

  102175—ORANGE COUNTY JAIL

  [ENCORE]

  Acknowledgments

  [Opening Act]

  In the dark, my popcorn ceiling looked like one of those old black-and-white pictures of the moon—all shadowy and imperfect and so real it seemed fake. It didn’t make sense to suddenly be awake in the quiet of the house, and I knew my clock must be in single digits, later than late but still too early to be early. Then the voices came back. They’d hiss like waves at the beach and fade into the dark before I could make out what they were saying. That’s what woke me up. That’s how it all started.

  For a second, I wondered if I was dreaming. But if it was all a dream, the voices would have faces or bodies; something would be chasing me through quicksand or across a field of wet grass and I’d have no shoes on, just soda bread strapped to my feet and a backpack full of bricks. Nobody dreams boring stuff. That’s why the sheets were up to my chin while I stared at the dark side of the moon, waiting for I don’t know what. The voices to come back, I guess.

  Then it hit me: If it was half past infinity, why would there be any light at all on my ceiling? So I followed the glow across the room, down the wall, and to my door, which was mostly closed except for a crack just big enough to let in the light that was sneaking down the hallway.

  I was ready when the voices came back, staring at my door, the hiss louder this time. “Go,” a voice said. “You have to go.”

  Then, a different voice, softer, like air leaking out of a pipe: “Where can I go, Packy? Tell me.”

  “Home,” the first voice said. My dad’s voice.

  “You know the trouble that’ll bring.”

  “So you bring the trouble to me?” my dad said, louder, almost like he was in the room with me and not just on the other side of my door. “You can’t be here in the morning. You know that.”

  “It’s the last time, Packy. I promise.”

  “No, Ryan. The last time was the last time.”

  “Please,” Uncle Ryan said. “I’ll sleep in the garage. The kids won’t see me.”

  Dad sighed the way he does when we’re running late for church and I still don’t have my shoes on and he’s about to explode but knows he shouldn’t. “Jesus, Ryan. Why do you do this to me?” It made me feel sorry for Uncle Ryan, the way his voice sounded like mine begging for just five more minutes of catch and my dad saying no.

  I went to the door thinking maybe I’d tell Uncle Ryan he could sleep in my room. He could get up early and make one of his big breakfasts, like he always did when we’d wake up and somehow he was just there, in the kitchen, scones in the oven, coffee and tea and juice on the table, and him saying, “Happy Wednesday, Reece. How do you want your eggs?”

  When I opened the door no one was there. At least, not where I expected. My dad and Uncle Ryan were farther down the hallway by the bathroom.

  “Reece?” my dad whispered. “Go back to bed.”

  Uncle Ryan looked the other way, like something really interesting was happening just over there, by my parents’ bedroom door.

  “What time is it?” I said.

  Dad stepped over to me—put a hand on my shoulder. “Doesn’t matter. We’re all done.”

  “Can I get some water?”

  He thought for a second. “Okay. Fast.”

  The living room and dining room were dark, but light and the smell of coffee were seeping from the kitchen. My mom was there, leaning against the counter, arms crossed with a green cup in one hand. She had on her morning robe, all pilled and older than me and my brother and sister combined.

  “Why are you up?” she said, and I told her about the water.

  She filled a big, plastic New York Jets cup for me, said I could take it back to my room, and sent me out of the kitchen. Uncle Ryan’s beat-up army jacket was slung across the back of a dining room chair. His keys were in the front pocket like always, so I fished them out and dropped them into my cup. A little water spilled over and I took a sip before stepping back into the dark hallway.

  My dad and U
ncle Ryan were by my door now, like maybe they were ready to come out of the hallway. “Good night,” Dad whispered.

  “Good night,” I said to Uncle Ryan. He patted me on top of the head without looking at me, then nudged me into the bedroom.

  .

  I was up before my alarm, out of bed and through the house. I walked to the kitchen, and my mom was there in the same spot, wearing the robe, holding the same green cup. Like she hadn’t moved.

  “Get dressed,” she said.

  Uncle Ryan’s jacket wasn’t in the dining room and suddenly nothing about the night before seemed real. Maybe the voices were a dream. Maybe Uncle Ryan hadn’t been in the hallway.

  It wasn’t until I was dressed and looking for my shoes that I saw the Jets cup on my nightstand. And there at the bottom, like a sunken ship, were Uncle Ryan’s keys.

  I slipped on my shoes and grabbed my backpack fast so I could go out to the garage, or wherever, and wake up Uncle Ryan before school. Maybe get him to teach me a new limerick my mom wouldn’t want me to repeat.

  The thing is, he wasn’t in the garage. He wasn’t in the basement, or on the spare sofa, or anywhere.

  I ran to the living room window to see if his car was at the curb. It was.

  “What are you doing?” my mom said. She was standing across the room by the chair where Uncle Ryan’s jacket was supposed to be.

  “Where’s Uncle Ryan?” I said.

  “He’s gone.”

  I looked back out the window, made sure the car out front was a dark blue Oldsmobile, that it had the new license plates with the shape of New Jersey where the dash used to be, and that it had the dent by the front tire. “But his car—”

  “He’s gone,” Mom said, louder this time. And that’s when I noticed what was missing: Dad’s truck.

  I turned and my mom was still standing there. Her nose freckles weren’t hidden beneath powder. Her hair, which should’ve been braided or swirled up neat like she was balancing a red Danish on her head, was down and splashing around her face and shoulders like hot lava. She wasn’t rushing around, yelling at Brendan to wake up, telling me to go get Colleen, stepping around my dad while he made breakfast and she packed lunches and asking if he wanted leftovers or a sandwich and he’d better decide right now because she still had to get dressed and if he didn’t want to drop the kids off at school on his way to work, everyone needed to get it in gear right now.

  “Where’s Dad?” I said. “Did he take Uncle Ryan home?”

  She shook her head and walked into the kitchen. She sat down at the table, wrapped both hands around her teacup, and stared at the tablecloth.

  I sat down across from her. “Mom?” I said, and you’d think it was the first time she’d seen me all morning the way she looked up at me. “Where’s Dad?”

  She slid one hand across the table. Without thinking, my hand slid out to meet hers halfway, suddenly wrapped inside and squeezed snug. “He’s looking for Uncle Ryan.”

  Matter

  The night before school starts, I write my first letter to Uncle Ryan, which is weird because I’ve never written a letter to anyone before. Not really, unless you count the postcards they made us send from outdoor education camp in fifth grade. And there was that note I got from Linda Donofrio in seventh grade, asking if I wanted to be her dance partner for the square dancing unit in PE, which I didn’t because I was going to ask Regina Campbell as soon as I had the nerve, but I wrote back, I guess, because she was nice and I didn’t want to make her feel bad. But here I am, spilling my guts out to Uncle Ryan, telling him how it feels to leave everyone behind in Jersey and move to a place I’ve never heard of and live around a bunch of people I don’t know. I don’t say how moving in the middle of summer was extra awful because it meant leaving my baseball team right before the playoffs, or how we got to California too late for me to join a new team.

  Instead, I tell him how much I miss him and how on the way up the hill from the freeway there’s a sign that says WELCOME TO YORBA LINDA, LAND OF GRACIOUS LIVING. “Better be,” my dad said the first time we drove by it. And maybe it will be. Our new house could swallow the old one back in Paterson. Colleen’s room is so big she can keep her dollhouse right in the middle of the floor without tripping on it. Brendan’s even got a weight bench in his room, which he thinks he needs now that he’s in junior high and allowed to play football. My room’s pretty much the same as it was back home; there’s just a lot more carpet between my bed and the door.

  I tell Uncle Ryan about all the overtime and extra Saturday shifts my dad’s working too, because he says Rockwell has more money than they know what to do with. They pay machinists time and a half the microsecond you get past forty hours, double time on weekends. “It’s good for all of us,” my dad keeps saying, and I haven’t said anything except how summer’s gone and we didn’t make it to a single ball game. I tell Uncle Ryan that’s never happened before, which he probably knows, but that it’s like the only places my dad goes anymore are work and church. And what’s fun about either of those? I write, then think about it for a long time before adding the Ha! Ha!

  .

  The first day of school and the sky is one giant gray cloud. Only this is California so you know it’s not going to rain. It’ll burn off to some kind of blue and the guy on the eleven o’clock news will lie and say it was another perfect day. But either way, Mom’s not letting me out the door without something for the rain that won’t come. My Paterson All-Stars jacket from last year doesn’t fit anymore and I don’t have my back-to-school clothes yet, so she gives me my dad’s old work jacket—a navy-blue, sharp-collared, cut-tight-at-the-bottom-so-it-doesn’t-get-sucked-into-machinery machinist’s jacket. There’s a patch over the heart with my dad’s nickname on it, Packy.

  Mom says she’s excited about all the new friends we’re going to make at school. And that’s probably true for Brendan and Colleen because little kids don’t care what you’re wearing or how you do your hair. Not like high school, where everything matters. Especially when you’re new. That’s why the All-Stars jacket would have been helpful, because then people would know how good I am at baseball and they’d like me right away.

  When I get to the corner of our cul-de-sac, Keith’s across the street, waiting on his front lawn for me. The first thing out of his mouth is “Packy? Who the hell is Packy?”

  Keith’s the one friend I’ve got, so if it were anybody else I’d think they were razzing me. My clothes are already out-of-style hand-me-downs from my cousins; the jacket just makes things worse. It’s too big, all saggy in the shoulders and so long in the sleeves I’m cuffing them as we walk. But me and Keith decided neither of us were going to the back-to-school sales with our parents. We’re waiting until after the first week of school so we can know what the cool people are wearing. Then we’ll buy our clothes and make the right kind of impression on everybody. And without Keith, I wouldn’t know who the cool people are.

  .

  The day we unpacked the moving van, Keith just appeared in the garage, his hair spiked and stiff so it looked like he could cut something with it. “Where’d you come from?” he said.

  “Paterson.”

  “Pad-a-son? Where’s that?”

  “You razzin’ me?” I said.

  He laughed, a nice one like I’d told a joke, and said he didn’t think so but now he had to know where people who said “razzin’” were from.

  I folded my arms. “New Jersey.”

  “That’s cool,” he said and stuck out his hand.

  I shook it. “Where’d you come from before this?”

  Keith pointed back out of the cul-de-sac and across the street. “Right there. The house that looks like yours.”

  That’s the thing about California. If you pay attention, you start to see how there’s a pattern to things. My house is the fourth one in, right where the street bends and starts curving bac
k around to come out of the cul-de-sac. But every fifth house is the same house. Sometimes it’s painted totally different or the front door and garage are flipped to the opposite side, but it’s the same house.

  “You going to be a freshman this year?” Keith said, and I nodded. He was too. “Do you know who your neighbor is?”

  “I don’t know who anybody is.”

  Then Keith told me there were only two names to know at Esperanza High School. One was Astrid Thompson, the only sophomore ever to make varsity cheer, and now a junior. That, he said, is my new neighbor. The other name was some guy Keith had never heard of until last year, Marc van Doren. “But the guy’s a senior, the lead singer of Filibuster, and he was a state finalist in the sixteen hundred last year. They did a little story in the paper and called it ‘The Misfit Mile,’” Keith said, though he didn’t know why they called it that. “I don’t even know what he looks like. There wasn’t a picture. I just know I’ve been hearing about that guy everywhere for almost a year now. Whatever formula he’s got going really works.”

  .

  Me and Keith both have first-period General Science. He sits in the desk behind me and leans forward during roll to say who’s worth taking notes on. The classroom is crowded and you can tell it’s a mix of underclassmen and upperclassmen. We’re supposed to be looking at the guys, but it’s hard not to notice girls wearing acid-green and neon-yellow tank tops. And plenty of them are perfect makeup, big bangs, and designer jeans that have you following the white stitches up their legs like little roads leading somewhere you really want to go. The guys are mostly Levi’s jeans and T-shirts—Star Wars, Superman, and dirt bikes. A couple guys have short-sleeve shirts with their collars turned up. And some guys, like Keith, have those corduroy shorts with the OP on them that I thought meant Op, like Op-Ed from the newspaper, but then Keith said, “Are you stupid? OP means Ocean Pacific.” Then he said he was sorry for calling me stupid since I’d been living near a whole different ocean and there was probably Ocean Atlantic stuff, but I don’t think I’ve ever seen a little OA on a pair of shorts anywhere.