5

       The Need to Know

       Today

      My name is Freedom and I hate this woman’s looks. Yeah, it’s an antipsychotic, just give it here so I can go. Walkers Pharmacy, the Botox bitch, I call her. Too much collagen in the lips. Maybe she’s not giving me a dirty look after all. That might just be her face.

      Seeing a psychiatrist is not my idea. Whippersnappers make me do it. Every week for the past eighteen years. That’s 936 hours. What good has it done? I grab my prescription and leave.

      * * *

      My name is Freedom and I’ll be happy the day I never have to hear ZZ Top again. As always, I leave myself about half an hour to hang out in the back before my shift starts. I sit in the office where we keep the safes, computers, security cameras, accounting and inventory records, cluttered manuals, and magazines. It’s where I take advantage of the Internet, being that I don’t actually own a computer and the service on my cell phone sucks like an eager Vietnamese prostitute.

      Carrie stands behind me, but she isn’t the nosy type at all, just eyeballs the office.

      “What are you doing?” I ask. I already know the answer and say it with her: I’m moving things with my mind. She’s always rearranging something. Carrie’s my boss, but a good boss. A husky lesbian, she’s one of my only friends here in Oregon. She’s rough around the edges but has a huge heart and never makes a pass at me, aside from the occasional “If you were a lesbian, my God!” She’s the gay pride-ish type, too, with tats of rainbows and naked pinup girls all over her thick arms.

      I return to the computer screen and open three windows after I log in to Facebook. On one page is Mason Paul, attorney-at-law. On the second is Rebekah Paul. The third is a young girl named Louisa Horn, but I suspect it’s a fake profile: one friend, and the only activity is random posts on Rebekah’s wall. My money is on Mason, since he and his sister aren’t Facebook friends. On Facebook maps, Louisa’s locations match Mason’s. And by the looks of things, Mason has little, if any, connection anymore with his adoptive family, with the church.

      I look up Galatians 5:19–21 in another tab. Above it, from yesterday, is a post from Louisa Horn that reads: “My sister in Christ, where have you been? I miss you.” It’s been a couple days since she’s posted anything or there’s been any activity from her account. It’s unlike her. “She hasn’t posted anything in a while,” I say to Carrie. I’m not supposed to talk to anyone of my past life, my life before I was Freedom Oliver. But I do. She knows who I am, who I was, who I’m looking at. I trust her. Nothing I disclose to her goes anywhere else. She even knows the things I can’t disclose to the whippersnappers.

      “You know how those young’uns are.” Carrie arranges magazines that don’t need to be arranged in the first place.

      “No, something’s wrong.” I don’t look away from the computer.

      “You don’t know that, Freedom.” She focuses on me.

      “I can feel it.” It’s true, something just isn’t right. “I hate that name, Rebekah.” I tap my nail on the screen. “Her fucking Amish Walton parents.”

      “They’re not Amish.”

      “No, but they might as well be.” We both smile a little as she leaves for her shift.

      I browse through her photos. There’s a certain purity about Rebekah, and I don’t think this just because she’s my biological daughter. And while I’ll throw a heap of sarcasm at how she was brought up, I’m happy with her upbringing. She was raised by a good family, raised in the church. I sift through her photos: long, curly hair of ginger with spots of rust across the bridge of her nose. She has a million-dollar smile that stretches between those cute dimples, the only radiance from very conservative attire: long denim skirts over old white Keds, frilly long-sleeved button-downs.

      As for Mason, it’s clear he’d found his own way, beyond the graces of God. Girls, bars, smoking, a form of rebellion that wouldn’t do too much harm, typical youth crap. With a full head of brown hair, Mason is incredibly handsome, as seen in the photos tagged to his page through Violet. Trips to Gatlinburg’s Smoky Mountains, tequila sunrises, washboard abs. Christ Almighty, he’s the spitting image of his father, that piece of shit.

      Mason and Rebekah were raised by an esteemed reverend in Goshen, Kentucky, Virgil Paul and his ever-so-obedient wife, Carol. I’ve seen him preach via the Internet: a very charismatic man with a smile that makes it look like he’s in excruciating pain. He always sweats and huffs his way through his sermons in his deep southern drawl. He’s average-sized, with black hair and a square head. Tan compared to the pale children and wife he stands with after the service, to bid farewell to the born-agains and thankfuls and the newly restored. But goddamn it, it beats the hell out of the life they’d have had with me, had I tried to get them back. Then again, I don’t think I’d be in this state if I hadn’t had them in the first place.

      Rebekah usually posts every evening, 7:00 p.m. on the dot. Always scripture. Always links to her family’s church’s website. And lucky me, I’m one of the most faithful online followers of the Third-Day Adventists’ webcast. My username is FreedomInJesus, and every Sunday, without fail, I follow the sermons. On several occasions, and I attribute this to being one of the oldest online members, I’ve gotten to speak through Skype with Virgil and Carol Paul, a real fucking honor to meet you nutjobs; I’m your biggest fan. I spill my heart over forgiveness and obedience and mercy and this, that, and the other. Spreading the gospel in Or-ree-gan, praise Jesus. Anything for a possible glimpse of Mason and Rebekah.

      A few weeks ago I wrote letters to both of them. In fact, I have a massive pile of letters to them I keep at the house, but I never before had the heart to send them. I’ll send them one day, when the time is right, I suppose. They just seemed so happy, so blissfully unaware, I didn’t want to be the tornado to rip through their precious existence. The first time I wrote to them, I brought the letters to work and kept forgetting to take them home. When I did, I must have accidentally mixed them up with my bills. Of course.

      As soon as the mailman collected them, I realized my mistake. I even chased after him, nearly mowing him down with my car to get those letters back. I ripped the mailbag from him and spilled it all over the street out of mere frustration. I knew my apartment complex was early enough in his route that there’d be a good chance I’d find them. When the mailman yelled and tried to stop me, I barked at him. Literally, I barked and growled like a dog with rabies. When he started to call the cops, I dared him. “Go ahead, call the fucking cops, see if I care!” But when the witnesses started looking out their windows, I left with a fleeting “Fuck you, man” and went on my way.

      Working at the Whammy Bar, large brawls between bikers tweeking on meth aren’t all that uncommon. In those instances, I stand on the bar and pull firecrackers from my boots and throw them at the biggest guys I see.

      I found the mailman again nine blocks later.

      I could make him out in long socks and shorts up Lindsey Street with his bag of mail. I snuck into the back of his truck through the front and rummaged in an infinite amount of letters, but nothing was organized, none of it made sense. I looked up every few minutes to check if the nerd was coming back. And he was. But I hadn’t found the letters. And there was no way he wouldn’t see me, as the only way out was climbing over the driver’s seat, which was on the passenger side. Time to do it. Just run faster than