Damnation Spring

by Ash Davidson

He lifted his chin toward the door.

  “The Thursday after?” she guessed.

  “One after.” He looked over the top of his glasses at her. “Nose is bleeding.”

  Outside, mist spritzed her face. She tilted her head back, waited, checked her nostrils in the rearview, then drove over to the savings and loan. She’d tried asking Rich again this morning, but he’d sidestepped her, told her not to worry. She felt like a fool. All these years sliding paychecks and deposit slips into the slot at the bank, she’d never once stood in line to ask for the account balance. She managed the bills—truck insurance, house insurance, electric, the hospital bill from last spring divided into twenty-four monthly installments. By the time they finished paying it off, the baby girl she thought about every time she ran her thumb under the envelope’s flap would be a toddler. She wrote checks, licked stamps, but when the bank statement arrived in the mail every month, she set it aside for Rich to open, cheaters sliding down to the end of his nose—it was his money, after all. For helping out with births she was paid in homemade jams and hand-knit sweaters. Loaves of banana bread weren’t depositable in any bank.

  Colleen waited in line, the teller a young woman in red lipstick and a tight blouse.

  “I’d like to check the balance on a loan, please,” Colleen said. She felt frumpy in her turtleneck.

  “Driver’s license?” the teller asked, checking her nails while Colleen fumbled in her purse for her pocketbook. The teller looked from the license to Colleen’s face, then disappeared into a row of filing cabinets, reappearing a few minutes later, empty-handed. “It’s in his name,” she said.

  “We have joint accounts,” Colleen explained. “Checking and savings.”

  “Yes,” the teller said, “but the loan is in his name.”

  “How much do we—does he—owe?” Colleen asked.

  “You should speak with your husband,” the teller said, tilting her head, as though taking stock of all Colleen’s wifely failings.

  Colleen felt her face go hot. The teller signaled the next person in line. Colleen hurried out. By the time she got to the truck she was close to tears, everything so far beyond her control, so completely alone without Chub. To calm down, she drove out to the agate beach. The wind was up, a struggle to open the truck door against it. She walked down to where the pebbles lay in beds, sudsy ocean throwing itself against the rocks, spraying foam. She squatted, picked through the stones until she had a handful.

  What’s the matter, sweet pea?

  She closed the agates in her fist, squeezing them until it hurt. She wished, stupidly, for her father. She walked down the beach, hopping bedrock to the water’s edge. The water licked her toes. The ocean doesn’t care, she reminded herself. The ocean could give a darn about your problems.

  November 24 COLLEEN

  Gail Porter dropped the folded tablecloths onto the bench and narrowed her eyes at Marsha’s orange lipstick.

  “Centerpieces are in the trunk,” she said, blowing air out her nose disapprovingly, as though Marsha were responsible for the community center’s stale scent of fish grease and mildew cut with lemon floor cleaner.

  “We’ll get them,” Marsha volunteered, ignoring the pinch of Gail Porter’s regard. “Who stings worse, her or her bees?” Marsha asked when they got outside, drizzle freckling their arms. She popped Gail Porter’s trunk. “Bee must have flown up her ass this morning.”

  Colleen glanced back at the building, as though Gail Porter might be listening. “Is Arlette coming?” she asked. There were rumors in town—treatments down south, maybe some kind of drunk ward. Merle had been coming alone to the fish fries for months, but Thanksgiving was a different story.

  “I hope so,” Marsha said, arms loaded with plastic horns of plenty. “That’ll really put a bee up Gail’s ass.” She slammed the trunk.

  Inside, Gail Porter pointed out spots on the floor to Miles Jorgensen, who slopped his mop around as though it were remotely controlled by her index finger. She pinched a fake autumn leaf of centerpiece foliage, rubbed her fingers together.

  “These are wet.”

  “Are they?” Marsha asked. “That’s rain for you.”

  Colleen heard other wives laughing in the kitchen, baking hams in the industrial oven, plopping canned yams into aluminum trays. The sounds and smells of the season ending.

  Gail Porter surveyed the room: drab brick, low water-stained ceiling. “Well,” she sighed.

  Colleen helped Marsha push cafeteria tables into rows. Gail Porter set up the raffle table.

  “I’d like to win that.” Marsha nodded at the goody basket—tinned meats, cheese logs, a fruitcake. “You been over to see Helen?” she asked.

  Colleen nodded, slipped a tablecloth from the pile.

  “Poor thing.” Marsha tugged her end, cloth ballooning between them, settling over the tabletop. “I lost one once.” Marsha reached for another cloth. “Before I knew enough to ask for a C-section. After that, I told them: gut me like a tuna.” Marsha smoothed a wrinkle. “They said it was from drinking. I drank a few, but the other two turned out. Neither of them’s got webbed feet. Got brains in their heads. May not use them, but they got them.”

  “Boy or girl?” Colleen asked.

  “Boy. Mike knocking me around, that’s probably what done it. He’d get so loaded he couldn’t find our turnoff.” Marsha chuckled. “He’d be out on the road, honking. I’d go find him and he’d lay into me like I’d up and moved the trailer on him. One time I just left him out there. In the morning, he was half spilled out of his truck. So much blood had gone to his head, turned his face purple. I thought he was dead. Scared the hell out of me when he woke up.”

  “You don’t think Carl…”

  Marsha flapped another tablecloth. “Who knows? They drink and they get mean. Or they get hurt. Even a nice dog’ll bite when it’s hurt.” Marsha glanced over at Gail Porter, setting up the kids’ corner—pin the feather on the turkey, coloring sheets of Pilgrim buckles to cut out and tape to shoes—and lowered her voice. “You know those hippies are trying to blame it on the sprays?”

  “Those sprays killed my bees,” Gail Porter called.

  “You teachers got ears in the backs of your heads.”

  “They sprayed our road and killed all three hives.”

  “Well.” Marsha picked up a centerpiece and fussed with the leaves. “I don’t know about bees.”

  They set up the buffet, draped streamers from the bar. By the end, even Gail Porter looked satisfied. In the bathroom, Marsha checked her mascara. Colleen’s own eyelashes were pale, almost invisible. Marsha reapplied her lipstick.

  “Why do I bother? No men in this town.” She offered Colleen the tube.

  It was so bright Colleen laughed, reached for a paper towel.

  “Leave it. Only get one life, right? That’s what John used to say.”

  Colleen felt a snag. Strange how her father’s name, spoken aloud, brought his voice back.

  You only get one life, sweet pea. Live it happy.

  The room filled. Colleen was glad to have a job, standing behind the buffet, tonging rolls onto held-out plates: scabbed knuckles, nail beds bruised black, curled saw-fingers, the stumps of pinkies. Enid’s kids pushed through the line and claimed a table. Chub appeared, then Rich. A shy smile, the way he always looked when he spotted her across a room.

  “Free grub.” Eugene held out his plate. “Brings all the termites out of the woodwork.”

  Enid shushed him. “Stop yelling.”

  “I’m not yelling.”

  “You’re talking too loud.”

  Merle came strutting in like a prize cock, Arlette in a red-flowered dress. Colleen nearly dropped a roll in the air beside Pete’s plate. Arlette’s usual plumpness had melted off. She looked sick.

  “Look who the cat drug in,” Pete said, roll landing in a puddle of gravy.

  “Cauliflower?” Marsha asked.

  “That sounds like a vegetable,” Pete said, teeth brown from chew. He
ran a knuckle up the side of his nose, as though to straighten it.

  “Deep-fried, it’s real tasty,” Marsha said.

  “No thanks.”

  Marsha dropped a few pieces onto his plate anyway. “That’ll fatten you up.”

  He scowled, but Colleen could see he liked the attention.

  “What about Pete?” she suggested, once he was out of earshot.

  “Pete? He eats with that crap up his lip. Bet he even chews while he screws.” Marsha laughed.

  “What are you girls doing back there?” Merle asked. “Get yourselves something to eat.”

  Arlette’s bracelets clanked. Her purple hair was teased into a beehive. She gave a strained smile.

  “That’s still alive,” Marsha said, nodding at Merle’s cut of roast.

  “That’s the idea.” Merle winked, purple stain under his fingernails, like he’d been the one to rinse the dye from Arlette’s scalp, scooping handfuls of water over the soft hairs at the base of her neck. Merle led Arlette to the banquet table. The noise dropped off, people digging in. Merle tapped the microphone, eyed his food getting cold. “This is some spread,” Merle said into the mic. The talk died. “We’ve got a hell of a lot to be thankful for, starting with these ladies.”

  Arlette grimaced, as though the volume hurt her ears.

  “We’ve had a tough run.” Merle hitched up his slacks. “Had to cut a lot of good men loose. Going got rough. Lot of guys could have jumped ship. Gone to work somewhere else.”

  Colleen glanced at Rich, a head taller than everyone else, even sitting.

  “But what’s always set Sanderson apart? Our people.” Merle panned the room. “Our people stick with us, through thick and thin. We’ve had our share of thin.” Men grumbled. “Now these tree huggers are trying to set friend against friend, family against family. They don’t understand Sanderson is a family. We stick together. There isn’t a man here doesn’t remember some hungry times. Somebody was even hungry enough to poach a few burls off Damnation Grove recently. Big ones.” Merle sucked his cheek. “But not anybody in this room. Anybody in this room knows robbing a burl off that grove is stealing food off your own table. Off all our tables.” Merle nodded. “We’ll find out who it was. We’ll make them pay. Don’t you worry. Come spring, we’ll make up for this season and then some.” He raised a plastic cup. “Sanderson doesn’t give up. And neither do you. Now, leave me a slice of that pineapple upside-down cake, will you? She never makes it for me at home.”

  Arlette smiled on cue. People tossed balled-up napkins onto tables, waiting for the raffle to be drawn. Colleen carried her plate over to Rich, sitting with Enid and the Porters.

  “Where’s Chub?” Colleen asked, surprised how hungry she was, after smelling food all day.

  Rich tossed his head toward the craft table, where Chub and Agnes waited to have the headdresses they’d colored taped into crowns, a table of Yurok families nearby. Sanderson used to pay them half what they paid a white man. They made the same wage as everybody else now but still sat at their own tables.

  Rich forked up a bite of pumpkin, winced. Why was he being so stubborn about that tooth? Arlette’s smoker’s laugh rang out, Eugene chatting her up while Merle shoveled in pie.

  “Charm the warts off a toad,” Don Porter said.

  “Not that toad,” Gail Porter answered.

  Enid rolled her eyes. “That security job has gone to his head.”

  Merle had upped Eugene’s hours patrolling the grove; it wasn’t a lot, but it was enough to keep him off a crabber, enough for him and Enid to squeak by on through the winter. Rich said any poacher he met ran more risk of going deaf from the wasted cartridges than getting hit.

  Enid sat back. “I’m stuffed.”

  The room thinned. Merle came over to shake Rich’s hand on his way out.

  “Come up and see me at the house on Monday. I got something I want to run by you,” Merle told Rich. He snapped a suspender over his gut. “Hell of a meal, ladies.”

  Once he was gone, Gail Porter sighed, surveying the trash-strewn tables. “Always the same workhorses.”

  Rich and Don hauled bags to the dumpster, got the tables wiped and folded. Gail sent Miles Jorgensen home with leftovers, though he still looked disgruntled.

  Rich drove, headlights spraying the front of the house. He carried Chub to bed, built a fire, sat on the couch leafing through a lumber catalog. She sat down beside him, close enough that their shoulders touched.

  “I went to the bank,” she said. Rich didn’t lift his eyes, scanning redwood prices with the single-mindedness of a gambler checking the odds on a horse. “They wouldn’t tell me anything. They said the loan is in your name.”

  Rich rested the catalog on his knees. “I figured, if something happened, you wouldn’t be responsible.”

  “We’re married.” She worried a hangnail, willing herself not to say more. Sometimes, if she waited Rich out, he would fill the silence.

  “I paid two fifty,” Rich admitted. “I know it sounds like a lot—”

  “Two hundred and fifty thousand?”

  He nodded.

  “Rich, that’s a quarter of a million dollars! Can we afford that?”

  Rich sucked his sore tooth. “We’ll be okay, through the winter. I’ll use my grove checks to rent the equipment. Once Sanderson clears the lower grove out of the way, we can take the timber off the 24-7 and pay the whole thing off.”

  “What if the grove takes longer?” She’d seen pictures of the road blockade in the paper, Don gripping a man by the collar, fist cocked.

  “It’ll be tight,” Rich admitted.

  “At least we have the savings.” She tried to console herself.

  “I used it, all but twenty-five hundred bucks.”

  Colleen’s heart sank. She’d forgotten to ask the teller for the balance of their joint accounts. That $25,000 was supposed to be an extra bedroom for the baby, another bath, maybe even a playroom with a long bank of windows where she could grow tomatoes.

  Rich hunched forward, tossed the catalog onto the coffee table. “I’ve waited my whole life for a chance like this, Colleen.”

  “A chance like what?” She felt warmth evaporating from the spot where his shoulder had been.

  “A chance to make it on my own.”

  “You should have asked me. I’m your wife.”

  “You’re my wife,” he said, locking eyes with her in a way that set her heart racing, as if he could see Daniel, the radar station, all of it.

  “Mama?” Chub asked from the hall, hair mashed where he’d slept on it. Sap popped in the stove. “I’m thirsty.”

  Rich got up. After a moment, she followed. In the kitchen, he filled a glass with water, held it up, then dumped it out, yanked open the icebox, poured them each a glass of milk. They sat in the yellow light of the kitchen. Chub rubbed white beads from Rich’s mustache. Rich wiggled it, making Chub laugh.

  Colleen took another sip. The milk was sweet, satisfying, but she was thirsty after she’d finished the glass.

  November 28 RICH

  Rich turned the truck off and looked up through the windshield at Merle’s house, perched at the top of Requa Hill. The yellow siding had faded, brown in spots. A wire brush would get rid of the stains, but it’d take what was left of the color along with it. The engine ticked under the hood, cooling.

  Rich tugged at the snapped cuffs of his shirt to loosen their hold on his wrists and elbowed out of the truck. Years since he was last up here—the party Merle had thrown after they built it, Arlette showing it off: bacon-wrapped wieners, two girls serving booze on trays.

  The deck was all uppers, tight-grained red heartwood that had held up, but the house had taken a beating—salt air was hell on siding. The latticework closing off the space under the deck was shaggy with vines, rotted out around the posts sunk into concrete footers. Where there were vines, there were rats. He tried to remember if there was a cat. Arlette was the type, one of those prissy kinds Enid had tried raisi
ng—all hair, no eyes. He sniffed, idea of a cat tickling his nostrils.

  A chained-up old husky gimped out from under the deck, rasping, barkless. Rich held out a hand, shoulder still sore, rubbed him behind the ears. Lumps the size of Brussels sprouts clung to the dog’s ribs. Rich wiped his hand on his denims, took a deep breath, loped up the steps. He raised a thumb to the doorbell, changed his mind, knocked. The dog let loose a hoarse volley. Rich turned to take in the view, waves lapping at the sandbar where the Klamath dumped out into the ocean below.

  “Rich.” Merle held the door open.

  Rich raked his feet across the mat, dog still hacking. “That dog smoke too many cigarettes?”

  “Cords are cut. Did it when they did his balls.”

  “What the hell good’s a dog that don’t bark?”

  “Can’t bark, can’t fuck. You see the lumps on him? Like he swallowed a bucket of golf balls.”

  The hall carpet was a dull blue and the house smelled artificial, bowls of potpourri masking mold. A golf tournament played on TV, curtains closed, though it was nearly noon.

  “Coffee?” Merle asked.

  “I had, thanks.”

  The couch, covered in clear plastic, squelched under Rich’s weight. He stole a quick look around: Arlette’s fancy china eggs collecting dust. Merle dropped back into his recliner with a groan, white polyester shirt stretching over the swollen ball of his belly, red suspenders straining to hold up his khakis. He reached for his mug, nosed up against a bowl filled with tiny pinecones, like some kind of snack, their perfume stink making Rich’s eyes water.

  “Thanks for coming, Rich.” Merle fixed him, but Rich knew the drill. Let Merle steer. “How’s the family?”

  “Fine.”

  Merle’s eyes wandered to the TV. Someone—must have been Arlette—coughed from the back of the house. Merle turned his head, listening. Rich wanted to snuff his nose on his sleeve, cross the room and yank open the curtains, let daylight dilute the scent. His eyes itched; he looked around for a litter box. The TV went to commercial. Merle sighed, reached for the remote, and zapped the set off.