by Chuck Logan
The tension was supposed to start seeping through a pressure ridge along his brow and slowly bleed away.
Jesse’s face didn’t sink, it didn’t ascend. It said, “People 122 / CHUCK LOGAN
can’t help when they meet.” Over and over, until the kettle whistled.
She was still whispering through the caffeine star clusters as he groomed the strong Colombian with boiling water.
Christ. He scrubbed his knuckles in his sweaty hair and broke into absurd laughter. This was the year he was going to quit smoking.
Loosen up. Trade in the boxing gym for cross-country skis. He had even looked in a pet shop. Birds and cats. Linda Margoles had suggested one or the other. Chided that both were not a real good idea.
He’d even considered getting some new furniture to splash a little color around.
The studio was a woodcut of where a man should live, dreamed up by a boy raised in pretelevision America that Harry kept quiet with antiques, bookshelves, old nautical maps on the wall, a globe, and the smell of tobacco.
A ship captain’s room, Linda Margoles had remarked on making her final exit. The narrow single bed was a bunk that could accom-modate sex by the night.
Not wide enough for love.
Harry paced and touched his belongings. A gritty blowup from Bill Mauldin’s World War II classic Up Front hung near the drawing table. Joe and Willie. Two cartoon uncles who had taught him to draw as he copied them on the long nights of his youth as a military cadet in Georgia. He’d ridden the holiday trains between Georgia and Michigan and his cartoon characters had come to life for him in the faces of GIs in transit to and from Korea.
He smiled ironically at his reflection in a black window. “I got my teeth fixed, Ma.” He laughed, adding, “I got a good job. I’m not punching a clock at Chrysler anymore…”
Almost pulled it off. For a few years he’d drawn dark laughter for the editorial page. But times changed. He changed. He’d found himself getting comfortable. He detoured around the mean streets that he’d once walked. The computers came. He traded in his steel pen for a plastic Macintosh mouse.
A safe life. Too safe. Like the artwork he created that was HUNTER’S MOON / 123
two steps removed from his fingertips behind a wafer of plastic and a video monitor.
A stamped, addressed envelope lay on the drawing table. His child support payment to the Wayne County Friend of the Court in Detroit. Forgot to mail it in his haste after Bud called.
The kid was in high school now. Harry hadn’t seen him since he was in diapers. But this year, with ten years sober in the bank, he thought maybe…
Touching all the bases didn’t help. Minnesota Harry’s comfy life was trickling away. The sharp edges that he had learned to fold discreetly inside had flashed out. In the grove, on the ridge—that was him. Not this. Not books and pieces of paper. Not predictable habits.
Detroit Harry grinned at him from the picture hanging over the drawing table and he saw how he would sandbag Murphy and kill the story.
He had his pride and a certain reputation and Murphy could dig up pieces of his past that didn’t square with his image. It was fine to be a reformed drunk in Minnesota. But not some other things.
He called the newsroom and asked for Murphy.
“Frank Murphy.” The voice was tense, self-absorbed.
“Murphy, you sonofabitch—”
“Griffin! Where are you?”
“What the hell’re you doing with this story?”
“My job. We have to be thorough on this one, Harry. You work here. We have to bend over backward to dot all the i’s; we could be accused of favoritism. Besides, it’s a hell of a story.”
“Your ass. Look, I’ll talk to you, off the record, but I want you to leave Randall and his wife out of it.”
“His wife? Dorothy Houston. She teaches journalism at the U.
She used to work here—”
“She was there that day, they were together. That scar on her face—”
124 / CHUCK LOGAN
“No shit, this is great stuff.”
“I’ll talk about what happened this morning. But not the rest. You know where I live?”
“I’ll get it from the city desk. We’d like to bring a photographer.”
“You bring nothing.”
“Be right there,” said Murphy.
Tactical on Murphy. Scrappy competitive guy. Short. Napoleon complex. Hungry for front-page ink. He measured his column inches every week and let his peers know whose was bigger.
Harry broke the cellophane on a fresh toothbrush and scrubbed his teeth as he paced. But would Murphy play fast and loose when his blood was up for the hunt?
Harry moved one of his easy chairs against his drawing table, directly under the picture of him and Randall all strapped up in warrior garb.
Then he dug an old scrapbook out of the closet and found four prints of the framed picture. He put the scrapbook on the lamp table next to the chair, the loose pictures strewn, peeking from under magazines.
Harry was hoping that the fastest Franky Murphy had ever had to think on his feet was playing golf.
The intercom sounded. Harry buzzed him in. A few minutes later the knock came. Harry grabbed the front section of the paper in his fist, opened the door, and brandished it in Franky Murphy’s face.
“What the fuck are you doing to me, Franky? Making me look like some kind of nut?”
Franky shrugged. “It’s news.”
Harry looked into the hall. He’d come alone. He glared at Franky.
“What happened up north is news. This other stuff is bullshit.”
Franky walked in, unbuttoned his overcoat, and regarded Harry with a look of pitying condescension; that someone who worked for a newspaper would commit the cardinal sin of being written about in its pages.
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“I had a copper run you through NCIC. Didn’t know you had a police record in Detroit,” said Murphy for openers.
“So what.”
“A year in the Detroit House of Correction. Two separate counts of ag assault. Some beef with a guy in a bar.” Franky paused. “And, uh, apparently you roughed up your wife. Didn’t know you were married.”
Harry responded with a nervous tick, popping the tooth-brush in his mouth. Franky went on. “There’s a more serious prior charge, an armed assault conviction in Detroit in July sixty-seven. But you got a suspended sentence on that one.”
“I wipe my ass with my right hand. You wanna write about that, too?”
“Harry.” Franky spread his hands and pursed his lips. “What I’d like to do is a big feature follow. Three separate lives joined by a violent incident. The rich dropout, the veteran, and the punk rocker kid. But you’d have to agree to being interviewed to make that fly.
I mean, it’d look better if you’d comment on it, put it in perspective.”
Franky paused. “You, uh, willing to go on the record about any of this?”
“Where’d you get the thing about me and Randall?”
“It’s in the public record. You got a medal. I can get a copy of the citation from military records in St. Louis but that’ll take a couple of days. You wouldn’t have one handy?”
“Bullshit St. Louis. Who, Franky?”
“Sorry, Harry. That’s a source.”
“A source, huh? What do I think? I think you got creative with your sources. I think you were shooting the breeze with Bud Maston—who’s a bit of a mess right now—and he said something about hunting. That I hadn’t been around guns since the army. Then this happens…and you sail that quote in there out of context…I thought you guys had ethics.”
“But it’s accurate, isn’t it?” said Murphy. “That quote.”
“Jesus, this really sucks. The kid isn’t even all the way cold yet.”
“Why do you think the kid did it?”
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“Fuck if I know. Kids used to get drunk and drive cars fast, now I guess they
shoot people when they’re pissed off.”
“What’s it like to kill someone?”
Harry pulled the toothbrush from his mouth and Murphy’s eager eyes blinked nervously.
“Ah God, Harry. That’s blood—”
“Fuck you, Murphy.”
Franky grimaced and his eyes flitted around Harry, probing. Finally they settled on the picture hanging over Harry’s head. He leaned forward.
“That’s you and Randall…”
Harry stood up. “Screw it. I don’t care what you write.” Harry made a face at the bloody toothbrush. “I’m going to the bathroom.
When I come out, I don’t want to see you.”
Harry walked down the hall to the bathroom. He left the door ajar. He heard Murphy scurry by. Heard the apartment door close.
One of the smaller pictures was missing.
Now give it about half an hour. Time for Murphy to get back, run the picture through photo. Call Arnie Cummings at home just about the time the picture editor takes the picture to the news desk.
If it didn’t work, Harry could only hope that a bigger story would come along. Something juicier for the nearsighted papier-mâché shark to chew on. Like a big local plane crash. An earthquake. Some nut to take a shot at the president. He needed something bad to happen to somebody else.
Harry paced and brushed his teeth and spit a wad of bloody saliva into the kitchen sink. Then he called Arnie.
“Harry?” Arnie’s voice was concerned and awkward, distancing.
“I saw you on the tube. You all right?”
“Hell no, I’m not all right.” Harry laid it on him. How Murphy had sticky fingers and lifted a picture behind his back. Then he let Arnie be Arnie. Arnie was predictably furious. A picture was involved; Murphy was messing in his turf. If there was an ethics dispute about swiping a picture, people would see the picture and associate it with the photo staff.
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He’d seen the early edition and sounded genuinely pissed that they’d dig into Harry’s background to jazz up a story.
Harry agreed. Said he’d prefer to let it slide if the personal stuff stayed out. He wondered aloud why they didn’t just stick to the basic story. Another thing. It might be awkward, coming back to work after everything that had happened. What if he took two weeks’
vacation until it blew over?
Arnie said he’d get back to him. He was smoking to stop that picture getting in the paper.
“Damn shame what happened, but they cleared you,” said Arnie.
“Fucking Yankee yuppies don’t know shit about guns, or hunting…or these kinds of matters.”
“You’re absolutely right,” said Harry.
He hung up and paced in a caged circle, picking up velocity. Old feeling. Embattled. Not a bad one.
The intercom rang. Shit! Linda. Food. He buzzed her in.
20
Mistake, all the lawyers in town, Bud call ing her. And he knew it was a mistake letting her come over the minute she tossed off her Marmot and he saw her in a snug beige skirt and sweater and when he saw the melting bridal veil of snowflakes scattered in her short chestnut hair and in her long eyelashes.
She grimaced at his gouged face. She did a lot of pro bono for a women’s shelter. He must look like a doorpost marked by a woman.
Beware, violent man inside.
“I look like hell, huh?” She looked great. And sensible and safe.
She had a narrow face and oval brown eyes and a slightly crooked nose that, with her long, clean neck, gave her a touch of Europe—Modigliani would have spotted her a mile away and painted her and called the portrait Loneliness.
She held up a bag. Harry smelled Chinese.
“You should eat,” she said. No kiss. First things first. If 128 / CHUCK LOGAN
you didn’t watch her close, she’d take you right over. And if he was smart, right now, he’d let her.
With quick efficient moves, she was past him and put the bag on the kitchenette counter and her alert eyes spied the toothbrush where he’d stuck it behind the toaster. She held it up and noted the bristles with concern. “God, this again?” She dropped it in the sink.
They split an order of Princess Chicken at his small kitchen table and tried to make conversation.
“You want to talk about it?” she asked finally.
“No.” He chewed and swallowed. “You talk to Bud?”
“Uh-huh. He said prepare the papers but he wants to hold off on serving them. He thinks he should go to the funeral first.”
“Idiot, the only place he’s going is a treatment center. He’s going to sit the rest of this one out.”
“The rest?” Her voice sped up.
“What else did you talk about?”
“Standard stuff. Told him to change his life insurance. He said his new wife specifically had asked not be named on the policy. Names the foundation as beneficiary. But the will…that’s a different story.
The foundation again, but if that bullet would have been six inches over, the surviving spouse could pop it open.”
“Is he aware of that?”
“Actually…” She folded her brisk demeanor and filed it away. “We spent most of the time talking about you.”
Mistake. He just knew it. She had that basic look back in her eyes: I slept with you, now you take the Boy Scout oath. Damnit. His own eyes darted. “Bud’s been drinking a lot lately. You can’t take him literally.”
“He sounded sincere about his worry for you. That you’re enjoying all this.”
Harry cleared the plates and returned with cups of coffee. Linda sat back, crossed her lean legs, and cupped her chin in her palm. A purple vein curved on the olive skin of her wrist. He remembered that the exact vein also curled over her ankle. Ankle and wrist were the same size.
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“Are you? Enjoying this?” she asked.
Harry stood up abruptly and began to pace. “God no. That’s nuts.” He snapped his lighter and lit a cigarette in a fast reflex. Linda wrinkled her nose in disapproval.
“He’s worried you might start drinking again.” She probed. She looked softer without the precision-attired bitch makeup she wore to the law office. But she’d taken the time to put on a subtle touch of green eye shadow. “Bud thinks you have two gears, neutral and full tilt. He says you can’t handle the excitement sober.”
Harry continued to pace and had to laugh. Sonofabitch, funny wasn’t it, how trauma was a jack-in-the-box. She was trying to express concern, but the lid flies open and you get all these tangled longings and resentments. Like Jesse, you reach for the love of your fucked-up life and death pops up wearing a clown face.
He stabbed a finger at the bed across the room. “Don’t give me that about excitement. You’re the one whose pulse never gets much over ninety.”
Another thing about Linda. She had the stamina to run horizontal marathons in bed. You had to qualify because she didn’t come until after she hit the wall.
Her eyes tracked him as he paced. In a very deliberate voice, she said, “Dorothy thinks you’re going to have a rough night. I’ll stay if you’d like.”
“Mercy fuck?”
She braced at his language. “Company,” she said.
He plucked up the newspaper. “You see this? Nutty vet picks up gun first time in years and finds an excuse to shoot somebody.”
Her voice was reasonable, at first. “They’re just trying to sell newspapers. You’re not crazy, Harry.” Then it took on a weary edge.
“Jesus, God, if there’s one word that’ll never die from overuse with men, it’s bullshit! Look, the only connection you have to Vietnam is repeating a pattern of ignorance. What’s the cliché? We weren’t in Vietnam ten years, we were there one year, ten times. That’s like you
130 / CHUCK LOGAN
and being sober. You’ve been sober one year and repeated it ten times…”
She raised her chin. “That adds up to one woman a year. By t
he time you got to me you had the routine pretty refined.”
Her sangfroid took a hike. He liked the street fighter in her, except when her eyes hexed him with the glint of broken beer bottles. “Uh-uh, we been over this before,” he protested.
“It’s sad. You can get it up to kill somebody. No problem. But committing to a relationship…” For emphasis, she arched her index finger and let it fall flaccid.
“I don’t need this right now, Linda.”
“No, you’ve been through a lot. That’s always your excuse, isn’t it?”
He used to like the way she looked you straight in the eye. But now he turned his back on her and retreated to his bookcases where he rummaged in his box of tapes, found one, and slapped it into his tape player and pushed some buttons.
Motown, shivery as an old Detroit street kata, filled the apartment.
He tried to evoke the feel of the factories, the freeways, the bitter wind off the river. But it was gone, that jump where the muscle hits the steel.
Linda smiled sadly and put on her coat. He crossed to her, holding out his hands in an invitation to dance. She raised her voice to carry over the music. “Get a life, Harry. They use that music on TV now.
To sell fruit.”
As he watched her walk out he compared her to Jesse Deucette.
Linda was the opposite of danger; she was forever, a keeper, the good serious girl who went with the decent job and his straight new smile. He’d almost got it right with her.
Harry danced alone with the same old problem. Life presented choices. There was this princess and this dragon. Before he met Linda he’d always chosen to kill the princess and fuck the dragon.
But…
She lived in a house on Lake Como. In the summer she trained for marathons on the park trails, in the winter she HUNTER’S MOON / 131
skied cross country. Kept the stuff in her cupboards lined up. A woman who made lists.
He’d read the list in her mind when she looked at him a certain way and decided it was full of children’s names.
The old panic had set in. The first cold fumble that untied the blood knot of sexual performance. He ran from the scourge of im-potence and masked his retreat in pyschobabble about sobriety.