Taft

by Ann Patchett

  "THAT WAS SOMETHING," Wallace said. "What a surprise, them just showing up like that. It's not your birthday or anything?"

  I shook my head. "Just a visit. I appreciate you coming down on such short notice. It's a big help."

  "No problem."

  "Good crowd," I said, and went under the bar to turn the music down. People were screaming at each other trying to make themselves heard.

  "It's a different crowd," Wallace said.

  "I was thinking that yesterday. It must be tourists. I don't seem to recognize anybody."

  Carl came up to the bar looking a little out of it. "I heard your son was here," he said.

  "That's right."

  "Well, I'm sorry I missed him. I'd like to meet the little guy. I like kids."

  "I'm sure he'll be around."

  Wallace put down the box of beer he'd been unloading into the refrigerator. "I'm going to take a break," he said. He wasn't asking for permission. As soon as he said it he was gone.

  "What's with him?" Carl said.

  "Probably hasn't gotten out all night. You stand behind a bar long enough, you go a little stir crazy."

  Carl nodded and kept an eye on the door. "I appreciate you helping me with the punching last night."

  "Well, you did fill in waiting tables. It seemed like the least I could do."

  "It's a good thing to know." Carl looked over his shoulder and saw that there was somebody sitting at his table by the kitchen. "That's a friend of mine," he said. "I better go say hello to him."

  "Sure," I said.

  "But I mean it, I want to meet your kid. I bet you're a good dad."

  "Doing my best."

  Carl smiled and headed off for his spot.

  I was feeling better about things already. It was like some part of myself had been gone and I'd gotten used to it being gone. But now that it was back I could see what I'd been missing. It had only been a couple of hours, but I was already thinking about all the things we were going to start doing now that he was home. I was thinking home for good. I couldn't help myself.

  Fay wandered up to the bar looking like she'd come in lost and was planning to ask for directions. "Did you have a good time?"

  "I'm glad that Franklin's home."

  "Is he going to be here long?" She looked like she was straining to hold herself together, using everything she had to keep from crying.

  "It's not for sure yet," I said. I wanted to do something, pat her hand or something, but I was worried that it might just make things worse. "Right now it's just for a visit."

  "And that woman, his mother, she thinks she might stay too?"

  "She might."

  Fay nodded. Maybe she was going to say something else, but Wallace came back and she just sort of drifted off again. I thought maybe there'd be a chance to talk to her after closing, when things quieted down some.

  Wallace was tapping two fingers on the edge of the bar sink. He looked like he was trying to figure out how it was the earth kept going around the sun. "What's up with you?" I said.

  Wallace was a scary sight, big as he was. If you didn't know him, he could worry you. But I knew him.

  "Come outside with me, chief," he said.

  We went out the front door together. It was a nice night, finally, after all that rain. It wasn't even cold anymore.

  "I don't like to be in the position of telling somebody else's business," he said. "I've been putting it off, thinking you'd notice yourself. But I see you getting fonder and fonder of this kid." He wasn't looking at me. He was keeping his eyes up, straight ahead of him. His voice was low like it always was and I had to lean in to him. There were people milling around all over the place. I could hear the band playing in the park and they didn't sound bad.

  "Are we talking about Fay?"

  He shook his head. "She's a good girl," he said. "I feel for her. But her brother is a scummy drug dealer."

  A group of girls came up on the sidewalk and couldn't seem to decide if they wanted to pass us on the left or the right. Wallace and I stepped back, but they all started laughing and crossed the street.

  "Carl?"

  Of course it was possible. As soon as it was out of his mouth the pictures started going through my head. The new people at the bar, the way he sat at his little table and received them like the goddamned godfather while we all brought him Cokes and asked how it was going. The only part that didn't make sense was my not seeing it. It was true.

  "The girl, she's the reason I hated to say anything. You know that it just winds up being hard on her. She's so good to that asshole."

  "Jesus."

  "The thing is, we're getting a reputation. I heard it when I was out last night and if I've heard it then it's only a matter of time before the cops hear it. It would be a real waste of time seeing everything go down over such a piece of white trash."

  I felt a prickly rage crawling over my skin. "I don't know what I was thinking about."

  "You're involved," Wallace said. "Takes ten times longer to see something once you're involved."

  I was thinking about Franklin, about this place and Miami, about the whole rotten, dangerous world.

  "Don't get into it with him," Wallace said. "You'll wind up killing him and that won't do anybody any good. You just want to get him out. I can get him out for you if you want."

  I shook my head. "That would be my job," I said. I gave myself a minute. I breathed in the good air and looked down the street to Handy Park where I used to play. This was where I lived. Wallace and I went back inside.

  There was somebody else at Carl's table, a white woman who had one of those faces you'd never remember. Could have been twenty and could have been thirty-five. She had her hands folded between her knees.

  "You've never seen my office, Carl."

  He looked up at me, maybe he was irritated or maybe I was just reading into it. "I'll come up in just a little while," he said.

  "Time's up," I said. "You don't have a single second to spare." I leaned in between them. "If you get your butt out of this chair right now and your lady friend here makes a run for the door, then maybe I won't be so inclined to kill the both of you."

  The woman was gone, tilting her chair over backwards and not stopping to pick it up. Just like I thought, the minute she wasn't in front of me anymore I couldn't remember a thing about her.

  "You're being awfully rude," Carl said.

  "Get up," I said. "Bring your jacket."

  Carl got up and picked up his jacket. He looked over towards the door, but what he saw was Wallace so he got in front of me and headed for the kitchen.

  "Hello, Carl," Rose said. "You two going upstairs?"

  "We won't be a minute," I said. Carl kept quiet.

  I took him into my office and closed the door. I didn't bother to lock it. The room was small and there were twenty different ways to stop him if he decided to make a run for it. "Empty out your pockets," I said.

  "I'm not going to empty out anything."

  "Carl, you've got to gauge the situation here. You've got to know that I'm an inch away from breaking your neck, and if I decide to do that there's not going to be a single goddamned thing you can do to stop me. You empty out your pockets and you're buying yourself some time. And I may still want to kill you anyway."

  Carl looked sullen. He looked like a boy who'd just been told to turn down his stereo and pick up his room. He reached into the pockets of his jeans. There was roll of Certs, three keys, less than half a buck in loose change.

  "Jacket pockets."

  "Would you like to watch me take my clothes off?"

  "Empty out your fucking pockets."

  Two balled up Kleenex, a movie stub, a folded up piece of paper. I was tired of waiting. I took the jacket and patted around until I found the pocket in the lining. There was a bottle of Quaaludes, three dime bags and a heavy paper wallet with pictures of butterflies on it. "This is pretty," I said.

  "It's not your property."

  "It sure the hell i
s." Carl had six hundred and fifty dollars in cash and eleven bits of glossy magazine paper, neatly cut and folded. Eleven little envelopes. "You're not very smart, carrying this much stuff on you. This is dealing. This isn't personal possession." I moved my hand over in a straight line and made it into a neat pile, the Certs and cocaine and change, all of it.

  Carl put both of his hands out on my desk, those same little pink and white hands. "Look," he said quietly. "Things have gotten really bad. I needed to make a lot of money. It was for Fay, too, so we could get out of here. That's what she wants."

  "Don't talk to me about your sister."

  "You got to give it back to me. That stuff's not paid for. Don't you understand? I don't own that, I just borrow it. The people who own it, you don't want to mess with them."

  "I will never be messing with them."

  "I wouldn't have done this," he said, his voice getting higher. "My father died. Nothing's gone right since then. I didn't know what I was doing."

  I turned and looked at him. His nose was running. His thin shoulders were bending forward. "Tell me what your father says now, Carl."

  He stood up. "Fuck you," he said. The thin hand rolled itself into a fist, but he was way too slow. He hit right into my hand, which was up in front of my throat by the time he got there. I held his hand inside my hand.

  "You're changing too much," I said. "You've got to pick a tune and stick with it. You've got to decide right from the first if you're going to play tough or pathetic and then you can't ever change. You go back and forth this way, you just look sloppy."

  "What are you going to do?" I couldn't stand to look at him. He was a little rabbit in a trap.

  "I'm going to do you a huge favor," I said. "I'm not going to turn your sorry ass in."

  "But what are you going to do with all of that?"

  "I'm keeping it," I said. "I'm keeping the goddamned Certs."

  "You can't do that."

  "Let's not go around about this. The drugs are gone. The money I'll decide about later."

  Carl started to say something, but I squeezed his hand a little and made him stop. Whatever it was, I didn't want to hear it. "You're just going to make it worse," I said. "Believe me when I tell you it can get worse."

  Fay comes in right on time. The digital clock clicks over to twelve and there's the door, open, shut, then quiet steps disappearing into the carpet. Taft can hear the difference between Fay coming in and Carl. Carl fumbles with his keys. He has to pull on the handle to get the lock to work. He whistles a little outside, hums inside. It's soft, but Taft hears it and in his mind he checks him off. With Fay it's all quiet. There's only the sound any door would make when opened. He wonders how long she's been on the front porch, saying good night to somebody or other. For a minute he wonders what she does, what she lets them do, but as soon as a picture comes into his head he stops it. She promised she would be in the house at twelve o'clock and so she is. The rest he doesn't need to know.

  Taft rolls over on his side, folds his pillow in half and pushes his hand into the fold. There is light from the full moon coming in through the window and he can see his wife sleeping on her back. Every time she exhales her lips part and then close, like she's blowing something off her face. Taft watches her with real interest for a while, then he looks out the window and waits for Carl to get home so he can sleep.

  Taft can't sleep until both of his children are home. It's the real reason why he won't let them stay out late on school nights. It makes it too hard for him to get up and go to work in the morning. On Friday and Saturday nights they can stay out until midnight. Taft is off guarding the lumber. His wife sets the alarm for twelve and gets herself up to look for them. She's a sound sleeper. The reason tonight is different is because yesterday was Lyle Sealy's wedding anniversary. Lyle guards the lumber on Thursday nights. He asked if Taft would switch with him so that he could take his wife to dinner in Oak Ridge. Taft agreed, even though it meant he'd work in the carpet factory all day Thursday, guard Thursday night, and make carpet again all day Friday. Taft is sympathetic to things like anniversaries. Lyle is a young man. He's right to take his wife to dinner. The truth is, Taft probably would have said yes if Lyle had told him he wanted to stay home to watch Diamonds Are Forever on late-night TV. Taft isn't very good at saying no.

  This morning at breakfast, after ninety minutes of sleep between jobs, Taft tells Carl and Fay he'd like them not to go out tonight. "I need the sleep," he says. "It wouldn't kill us to all stay home together for once."

  "Dad," Fay says, putting down her spoon beside her cereal bowl. "I can't cancel a date on Friday morning. It's rude."

  "It's just one date," Taft says.

  "He asked me two weeks ago." Fay starts to roll a piece of her hair between her fingers, the way she does when she gets agitated over something. "I can't break it off just because you're too tired to wait up."

  "Fay," her mother says. "Just do what your father tells you."

  But Fay doesn't even register the comment as part of the conversation. "Maybe you should just go to sleep for a change," she says.

  "You'll never understand about things like this until you have children of your own," Taft says. He looks over at his son. "Carl? What about you, do you have plans?"

  Until this minute Carl has been eating toast, what looks like half a loaf of toasted bread. He makes it in the oven because it takes too long to get the amount of toast he needs out of the two slice toaster. "What?"

  "Are you going out tonight?"

  "Sure I am," Carl says. He looks surprised. His shirt is covered in crumbs. "You told me I could take the car. The stock cars are in town this weekend."

  Taft has forgotten this. Carl's only had his license a few months. This is the first time Taft had agreed to let him take the car out at night. It had been heavily discussed and planned. "All right," he says. "Maybe tonight's the night I'll learn to sleep with the two of you gone."

  "That's just great," Fay says. "I say I have a date and you tell me to cancel. Carl says he's going to the stock car races and all of the sudden it's okay to be out."

  "You got your way," Fay's mother tells her, keeping her eyes on her coffee cup. "Be happy about it."

  Taft isn't worried, just tired. After the kids go out that night he falls asleep watching television, but as soon as he gets into bed his eyes spring open. All day he dreamed about sleep. On the line the carpet seemed to be coming at him in a flood. It moved like water. He had to keep stopping and blinking to get things settled down again. He's no kid anymore. He can't stay up like this. There was a time when Taft could stay up all night, sometimes two nights in a row, but that was before marriage and children. Now he wants to sleep, but he can't because he has to wait for the sound of Carl's key in the lock. Fay, now Carl. One, two. He listens for the door.

  At quarter past twelve Taft thinks, Forget it, he'll be fine, but the more time that passes the less chance he has of getting to sleep. Twelve-thirty, one o'clock. Taft's wife stretches and rolls over. He pulls the blanket back over her shoulder and gets up. He finds his slippers beneath the bed in the dark. He walks down the hall in his pajamas to Fay's room and opens the door. Her single bed is pushed into the corner and he has to go in to really see her. Asleep, she is always a baby. Her knees pulled up, her face flushed pink. Taft can remember her in a crib, can see her at two and seven and twelve. Always, she slept on her stomach, her fists knotted beneath her chin. On the walls there are posters of boys Taft doesn't recognize. The boys are wearing jeans and leather jackets and no shirts. The autographs over their chests are signed in such elaborate hands that Taft can't make out their names. It used to be that only boys would hang up pictures of girls.

  After he leaves Fay's room he goes to check Carl's. Maybe he fell asleep for a minute. Maybe he didn't hear him come in. The floor is covered with clothes, weight disks, open magazines, empty cassette tape boxes. Carl's bed is unmade, but he hasn't been sleeping in it. The room is so torn up it looks like a crime scene, a
kidnapping, and Taft hardly notices it. One-fifteen. Taft goes outside.

  There's no harm in walking around in your pajamas late at night in your neighborhood in Coalfield. No one is up. It's pleasant outside, not too warm. Taft thinks in the summer maybe everyone should stay up at night and sleep during the day so as to enjoy the more comfortable temperatures. Every house on the street is dark. People here are careful not to leave the lights burning. Taft walks to the end of the driveway. He looks down the street. He steps into the street to get a better look. He comes back, opens up his mailbox for no reason and checks inside. Every day when the mail comes Taft is hopeful for a minute that it might be good news.

  More time passes. Taft is so awake he can hardly blink his eyes. He decides that at two-thirty he's going to call the police. His mind is playing tricks on him, like it was that afternoon in the factory. He starts to think of Carl dead. He is thinking of his funeral, of his crying wife and daughter. He is thinking of drunk drivers reeling over the highways in pickup trucks, games of chicken, fake stock car races, late-night swims at the quarry ending up in drowning. He sees dark blue suits and newspaper notices, the wrestling team taking up two pews in the church, their crew cut heads bowed in prayer. Taft thinks how he will tell this story for the rest of his life. He'll say, I told him he couldn't go out that night and then I changed my mind. He is sitting in the kitchen, trying to remember what Carl was wearing when he left so he can describe him to the police. Then he hears a car in the driveway. A door slams shut and the car drives away. Taft meets Carl at the door.