The Drone

“There goes another one.” 

I only half open my eyes to see Monty’s tan finger pointing at the near-cloudless sky.  

“It’s just a plane, Monty,” I wipe sweat from under my baseball cap and adjust myself on the couch, unsticking my legs one at a time from the vinyl. Hotter than Satan’s armpit today, and yesterday, and every day before that for all of July and most of June, too. We’re in a heatwave on top of a drought on top of—well, no need to go into everything. It’s about all anyone ever talks about anymore.

“Not just a plane, Lo. Look at those chemtrails.”

Monty leans toward me, his face in deep shadow under the eaves of the porch.

“Government wants you to think it’s just a plane. Who the hell d’you know’s traveling these days?” 

“Aaron and his wife just got back from Wisconsin,” I answer quick enough. 

Monty snorts. 

“Well, Aaron’s a dumbass.” 

“A dumbass with a fortune and two homes,” I retort.

I can say just about anything to my brother Monty, always could, since we were kids. Debatable, though if he actually hears it. 

“Government—just like Vietnam, just like Minneapolis, just like San Francisco—they’ve got chemicals and those planes are spewing that shit all over the country, and we won’t know it till every last one of us is a god damn sheep.” 

Monty is like a mosquito in the bedroom when you’re trying to sleep: starts out quiet and small, but the irritation he causes just builds and builds until the inside of your head feels like it might explode. 

The kids can’t stand him, but they don’t have to. Diana is closest at 5 miles away and we never see her these days since the cases started rising again. I could care less, but she seems to think my diabetes is somewhat of a concern. 

Tom can’t handle him either. In fact, he’d rather be anywhere but the back porch, which is really one of the most pleasant places these days what with the air conditioning still broken and the parts on backorder for weeks now. Plants up north are runnin’ behind, is all the receptionist could tell me.

With all that and Monty not looking like he’ll be getting a job and moving out anytime soon, it’s up to me to talk sense into him—or, at the very least, make some sense out of the shit he says. 

“Now, Monty,” I say, crossing my arms and squinting at him across the porch, he leans back in his chair, attention on the sky, but I know he’s listening. The side of his face has a way about it when he’s listening. “Why on earth would the government want to do that?” 

“Make us sick and docile, bring about their new world order,” he says, not skipping a beat. 

It makes me sad for a second. When I was 9 and Monty was 13 he built me a birdbox because I said I liked seeing the goldfinches in the sunflower fields down by the river. He said he thought I might like to see them closer to the house. And now he says things like this. 

“And they’re doing that with commuter planes,” I say, trying to push his buttons. 

“No, listen, these are different planes, low-flying ones,” he says, looking at me condescendingly like I’m 6 years old again and he’s explaining something I don’t understand. “Hear they have helicopters and drones, too.” 

“Sure they do,” I say, done with this particular topic. I lay back on the couch and just before I close my eyes add: “And that’s probably why you can’t get a job, isn’t it?” 

I expect him to give me a sharp retort or to say something completely unrelated about government conspiracies, but there’s just a hot, humid silence for several long seconds. This kind of silence makes me uneasy. When I open my eyes, Monty is staring at me. He has the same blue eyes as me and our dad, the only thing I was ever glad I inherited from him. 

“You think I’m a loser, don’t you,” he says. There’s something young about his voice and sad about his eyes. He looks 16, not 50. 

“You know what you need to do, Monty,” I sigh, sitting up and looking straight at him. Wonder if he sees dad in my eyes, too. “You’re smart, you had all those years in supply chains. Do you want to be living with your sister forever?” 

He nods his head but not to anything I’m saying. 

“Yeah, I get it. You want me out. I got the message from Tom, too,” he says, pushing himself up slowly. “I’ll get out of here.” 

“Oh come on, Monty. Don’t be like that. Sometimes you just get a little crazy and I don’t know what to do with you.” 

“Crazy, yeah, ok,” he says, not stopping his trek to the porch door. “I’ll see you, sis.” 

He grabs his rifle from its resting place by the porch door and just leaves. Actually leaves. I watch him go because we’re not the type of family to go running off after each other. I sit for a long time after he disappears into the woods behind our house. It’s hard to tell how long in a heat like this. 

I finally go back inside and find Tom answering emails on his phone. He gets emails even on Saturdays, but I don’t usually mind it. Tom’s job is why we can have this house, this land, this life, really. 

“Hey, you,” I say, walking by him into the kitchen. I need a gallon of water. 

“Monty gone?” he answers, not looking up. 

“He left, yeah,” I say, bristling that that’s the first thing he says. “Hey, did you say something to him?” 

“I’ve said things to him,” Tom says, setting his phone down to wipe his sweaty palms on his jeans, then picking the device right back up again. 

“But did you say something to him recently about, maybe, getting a job?” 

He looks up because my tone has changed, and in his next words, his tone changes. 

“Of course I did. I just heard you say something, too. Jesus, Loretta, when is he going to move out?” 

“Well, you might’ve got your wish,” I say.

I don’t want to fight. I want to run into the woods away from all my problems like Monty did. 

“What’s that supposed to mean?” 

“I don’t know. He left. He took his gun. That’s all I’ve got for you.”

I shrug and let my palms fall with a slap on my thighs. 

“Your family,” he says, shaking his head and going back to his phone. 

Just for a second, I really get Monty. 

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For the next week, the heatwave continues. The tomatoes I plant seem to wither and yellow no matter how much I water them. We buy fans at Walmart to combat the 85-degree house. Tom grumbles at the thought of the next electricity bill, but it’s better than dying of heatstroke. Three days after Monty leaves, I begin to worry about him. Five days after, I’m ready to call the police. Tom just shrugs when I ask his advice. 

We’re sitting on the porch, enjoying the slight cool that comes around at 7 or 8 in the evening when a loud yell makes Tom drop his phone and me jump out of the recliner. 

“Hey, got one!” 

It’s Monty himself, swaggering across the back lawn, as well as anyone can swagger when they’re dragging a large hunk of metal in one hand and carrying a rifle over their shoulder. 

“What in the actual hell, Monty!” I yell over the porch railing. 

“Hey, Lo. Thomas,” he adds, nodding cordially at my husband. “Got one of those drones I told you about, Lo. Real-life government drone.” 

He yanks the hunk of metal in the air. It looks like a drone, as far as I know, but government or not, I have no idea. Tom looks at me and mouths: Your family. I just shake my head and turn back to Monty. 

“We were worried about you, Monty,” I say, still standing at the porch railing, looking down. 

“Hey, no reason to worry about me,” he says, dropping the drone on the ground in front of him.

I make a mental note to haul it into the garage later because there’s a very real chance some hobbyist is fairly upset right now. 

“Where’d you go?” I ask, but he doesn’t answer my question.

“Hey, Thomas,” he yells at my husband’s back. Tom has almost made it inside. “I talked to a friend knows someone with a local supplier of that A/C part you need. Get you fixed up on Monday.” 

Tom nods, looking as taken aback as I’ve ever seen. 

“Hey thanks, Monty.” 

“He’ll give me a ride when he leaves on Monday, too, Lo. Got my old job back and some friends to stay with. No car yet though,” he rubs the back of his neck, squints up at me.

“That sounds ok,” I say. 

We all go back inside and share a meal for the first time in weeks.

---------------------------------------------------------------

We get the air conditioner fixed on Monday. It’s almost too cold at first, a shock to my system. Monty leaves, and coincidentally, it rains the very next day. Pulsing sheets of huge water droplets from morning to evening. Afterwards, the air is cooler and fresher. It’s as if the rain was just a gigantic washing machine cycle that rinsed and spun all the particles and dust out of the atmosphere. Whatever the cause, it’s nice to feel—at least for a few days—like we can breathe again.