Chinese Handcuffs

by Chris Crutcher

  But when I got back over there, excusing myself to the upstairs bathroom within seconds of walking through the door, I got into Jen’s room and peeled back that curtain, and there that little jewel sat, big old smile on its lens saying, “Have a nice day,” having added a full-length feature of the escapades of one psychopathic sexual pervert to its list of dubious visual chronicles.

  I’m sorry, Pres. I have to use the sarcasm because if I don’t, I can’t write this without throwing up. Until that day the hardest thing I ever went through was watching you kill yourself. But sitting there in my dark room after I got back home, more goddamn alone than I’ve ever been in my life, and so scared I couldn’t keep my insides out of my throat, watching that vicious asshole utterly violate this person I cared so much about, well, it bumped you down to second place. I wanted to run. I wanted to run so fast and far that I’d drop, but I couldn’t get to the end of the icy walk on these damned crutches, so I buried my face in my pillow and screamed and screamed until my throat bled. I don’t know how I got through the night, Pres. I don’t. I thought finally things had gotten so downright ugly that you were right: that there was only one way out of all this. But I hung in there. I did. At one point I started to go to sleep, but that tape was rewound in my head, just waiting for me to dare close my eyes. Finally I turned on all the lights and sat up in the bed and stared at the wall and hummed Gene Autry and Roy Rogers tunes off those old 45 rpm records Mom and Dad gave us when you turned six, and I waited for the sun to come up. I didn’t think it ever would; I really thought the world had turned into one long, unbearable night, but finally I could see the silhouette of the garage roof out my window, and pretty soon the yard was bathed in the same soft orange of the morning of your last day, and I knew I had made it.

  I thought I could wait for Dad to leave and hook his VCR up to mine to make the copies I needed, but the tape in those fancy little spy gizmos isn’t the same as they use, and I had to get Wayne to make them for me. Man, I owe that guy. I just came right out and begged him not to watch while he made them, and he let me stay right there in the room to see that he didn’t. I don’t know if he took one look at me and knew how close to the edge I was or if he was just so glad to get his camera back in one piece that he’d have done anything I asked, but I owe him big. He just made the copies, gave them to me—wouldn’t even take money—and sent me on my way. All he said was “I hope this is all worth it, Ironman. You look like hell.”

  I took his concern under advisement and went back to work out my delivery system—should something unexpected happen to me—and to shower, shave, and freshen my handsome self up a bit so I could go downtown and make some arrangements for a safe-deposit box before I went to have a little chat with a scumball lawyer. Didn’t wear a tie, but I dragged out the leather sports jacket. I’d have worn slacks, dealing in the business world and all, but none of mine fit over the cast, so I cut the seam in the leg of a new pair of Levi’s and wore those. You’d have been proud, bro. On the inside I was definitely crazed, but on the outside I looked cool and calm. (In one of the conversations I’d had with Dr. Newcomb—a conversation I remembered very well—he’d said, “There’s a cliche in this business, Dillon. You can’t lie to children or psychopaths. It’s not completely true, though. Fact is, you can lie to children. But if you ever have reason to take this guy on—and I suggest you don’t—have your bases covered. Never try to bluff him. He’s a dangerous man.”) So I took the elevator in the Brooks Building up to the top floor and walked into the Martin, Lofler & Williams law firm like I knew what the hell I was doing. It was about ten minutes to noon, and I caught old T.B. headed out all by himself for a two-martini lunch gathering of Perverts Unanimous.

  He looked a little startled to see me, and I walked right up to him and asked if I could have a few minutes of his time, and he was cordial like he always is but said he was real busy right now and could I come back later. I said, “Nope.”

  He looked at the tape case in my hand and back in my eyes, and I was scared as hell; but I held the tape up and said, “I have something you should see.”

  So we went in, and I asked if he had something we could take a look at the tape on, and he called to his secretary, and she whipped right in and set it up.

  I almost stopped right there, Pres. I almost stopped because I couldn’t imagine watching it again, and I was really afraid what would happen if he saw my reaction—like he’d think he had me—but then I remembered how Jen told me that when he came into her room at night, she just went away. I figured if it was good enough for her, it was good enough for me. So old T.B. Martin, that pillar of our community, that president-elect of FUTURE THREE FORKS, slid the tape right into his thousand-dollar machine, cranked up his twenty-seven-inch stereo Sony TV set, and he and I watched us some serious video.

  I took his pulse from the veins in his forehead and said, “This is your copy. I have several more.”

  He watched awhile and took a deep breath, straightened his tie. Then he smiled and said, “What do you want?”

  I said, “I want you gone.”

  He said, “I’m afraid that’s not possible.”

  I nodded toward the video. “This shit’s gonna be pretty hard to explain.”

  He put a finger up to his lip and watched some more, nodding, measured me, then glanced over to his desk.

  “You could do that,” I said, fantasizing a gun in the top middle drawer, “but anything happens to me and one copy goes to each of the TV channels, one to the newspaper, one to the cops, and one to the prosecutor’s office. I took the time to write a clear narrative. You have to know I wouldn’t be here if I weren’t covered. And you must know I know what you’re like, or I’d be at the police station. There’s no bluff. I’m not stupid.”

  He nodded again. “And if I go along?”

  “I leave the tapes where they are.”

  He said, “What do I have to do to get them?”

  I said, “Die.”

  “How do I know you won’t make them public?”

  “I wouldn’t do that to Jen. She knows nothing about this. She’s suffered enough; I won’t add to that unless I have to. I hate you a lot, but I love her more. But if anything happens, like to a family pet, you asshole, or to her sister or her or her mom, and I mean anything, these things will be prime time.”

  He stared straight ahead, seemingly scanning the possibilities, and my stomach rolled. What if I’d left some hole open? What if I’d missed just one little piece? “Accidents count,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Accidents,” I said. “They count. If someone in Jen’s family has an accident, or if I do, or if her little sister’s pet gerbil does, that counts. Tapes hit the mail trail.”

  “That’s not something I can control.”

  “Then you better hope you’re lucky.”

  Then I saw just a little crack, a tic at the corner of his mouth. He said, “You know, you little faggot, I could beat this in court. You may not know who you’re dealing with.”

  I shrugged. “Be my guest. I’ve got good people behind me if I need them. Not public defenders with caseloads backed up into the alley. Good people. Smart ones. Some maybe as smart as you.”

  He thought another minute and took a deep breath, again unflappable. “How long?” he asked. “How long will you give me to get things squared away.”

  “Five, maybe ten minutes,” I said. “When we walk out of here, you go home and get your shit, leave a note that says you have to go out of town for a week, and you’re gone. Communication with these people is over. Jen said once that you told her you could be set up three thousand miles away in three months. That sounds like a distance I could tolerate.”

  The son of a bitch wouldn’t let me see him sweat, Pres. He’s hard core. Really hard core. He just nodded and said, “You got me.”

  I followed him to his house, and he packed a suitcase and took some boxes of things, and at the car I told him, “It’s automatic. Anything happens to
anyone remotely involved in this, and the VCR express opens its gates.”

  He said, “I said you got me. Okay?”

  I said, “We’ll see.”

  I thought that would do it, Pres. I thought I had covered all my bases and now he’d just disappear and no one would know what happened to him and life could go on like it was designed to do. But it was too easy. I went to bed that night thinking what a genius I’d turned out to be, and by the time I’d lain in the dark for about thirty minutes I was in complete and utter panic. He was just too smart and too mean to go out without a whimper. I didn’t know for sure what I’d missed; but I knew it had to be something major, and I had probably assured my part as an accessory in a family bloodbath. So I went down and woke up Dad and told him.

  He listened, and after he passed through pure astonishment, he said, “I tell you, son, I don’t know enough about that kind of man to give you any help at all. Sounds like you covered all the bases to me, but who knows?” He decided the man who did know would be Dr. Newcomb, so we gave him a call at his home, and next thing I knew Dad was driving us out there.

  The good doctor said it was entirely possible that he was gone, but that I’d been crazy to try to take a guy like T.B. Martin on alone. He said, “If there’s a hole, he’ll find it. I think you need to warn his family.”

  Well, hell, by then it was nearly midnight, but Dad drove me back home to get your van—I didn’t want Jen to know anyone else knew—and I went over there and banged on the door until a light came on upstairs, and pretty soon Jen answered.

  I thought she would rip my head off. She screamed at me and hammered on my chest and actually knocked me down into the snow. No one has ever said as vicious things as that to me—ever. She told me that I’d betrayed her and I was like everyone else in her life and that she could see why you’d want to kill yourself because of me and that she hoped every day of my life from now on would feel just exactly like it did the minute you pulled the trigger. And she said that she hated my guts and that I would rot in hell.

  I couldn’t understand it, Pres, I just couldn’t. But then it got crystal clear. Jen knelt beside my head in the snow—I’d been afraid to get up—and she grabbed my face in her hands and she said, “Do you know the one thing in the world worse than having that bastard on me all the time? Inside me?” and all I could do was shake my head no, and she said, “It’s having someone watch it. It’s having someone see it. And know it. Do you understand that?” Do you understand that?” and she shoved my head back into the snow and stomped into the house. I lay there in the snow, stunned, and I did understand. Not in the way Jen knew it, but in the best way I could without having gone through it, I think.

  When she went back inside, I pulled myself up and dug around in the snow for my crutches, made it to my car, and drove off; but I came back and parked on the other side of the street, where I could see both the front and back of her house, so I could be sure she wouldn’t head out for a bridge or a water tower or some damn thing. God, I felt awful.

  It was a week before she would even acknowledge my existence. She wouldn’t let me touch her all during the state tournament, even to wrap her leg. I finally had to tell Coach about it, and she took care of Jen’s training needs. On the night of the state final over in Seattle—we won it, by the way, in the anticlimactic event of the decade—she touched me on the arm. Didn’t say anything, mind you, but she touched my arm.

  Who knows what her mind went through in that time, but on the bus ride back, she came over and asked the girl sitting next to me to move, and she sat down and said, “Do you have the copies of those tapes?”

  I said I did.

  She said, “Can I have them?”

  I told her of course she could have them.

  “I’m taking them to the police.” Pres, I’ll tell you, sometimes I think this whole part of my life was orchestrated by some amateur spirit rehearsing to be a minor god in charge of keeping people off-balance. I said, “What?”

  Jen said, “If T.B.’s out there somewhere, then it won’t be long before some girl is in the same boat as I’ve been in. I don’t know who she is, but I can’t let that happen to anyone if I have a chance to stop it. I talked to that Dr. Newcomb guy long distance on the phone this morning before we left, and he said he could help me with the legal part. He said he could probably see to it that I never have to watch the tape.”

  I looked into her eyes. “What if you do?”

  She grimaced. “Then I do.”

  We rode along in silence for a while. Then she said, “I’m still mad at you, Dillon. But at least I know why you did it.”

  I still don’t know how all this will turn out. Jen went to the police and the prosecutor with Dr. Newcomb, and he’s going to do some therapy with her. They promised to run the investigation without any publicity, and unless T.B. turns up, Jen won’t have to worry.

  Jen and Stacy have become good friends; they spend an incredible amount of time together. Jen is totally transfixed by Ryan, and sometimes I think the little mucous factory has two mothers. Two eighteen-year-olds. Does that make one thirty-six? I’m pretty sure Jen told Stacy all about her stepdad; they’re really tight now, and I don’t think you can become that close without sharing the tough stuff. Part of me is jealous, I mean—you should see them together—but another part is relieved. It’s kind of nice not being the one who knows all and can’t tell.

  I’ve backed way off anything romantic. I ain’t the smartest guy in the world; but I’m smart enough to know what Dr. Newcomb said about Jen has to be true, and it’s going to be a long time before she’s ready to be with anyone, and even if she did get better, I have this deep feeling—so deep it’s almost like knowledge—that she wouldn’t even be able to be with me, me having seen that tape and all.

  But whatever Jen is or isn’t, she’s one hell of a round-baller. I swear, the harder things got for her in the world, the tougher she was on the court. I want to tell you she tore them up at state. If this all ever settles down, I think she’ll be real proud.

  It looks like Jen’s mom will give her baby up for adoption. The day after she found out what I’d done, Jen went right to her and said that she was going to tell everything if her mom didn’t give it up, that she didn’t have idea number one how to protect it and Jen was living proof of that, and that she was by God going to see it didn’t go one step farther. It’s amazing to me that the only way to get anything done in that family is through blackmail. I guess Mrs. Martin cried and begged for another chance, but Jen laid down her ultimatum and walked out of the room.

  You’d like my new tooth, the one I got to replace the hole Jen left in my face. I found this bizarre dentist with a sense of humor that matches mine pretty closely, and for a few extra bucks—actually a lot of extra bucks—he puts metallic and ceramic inlays into his bridgework. Now I have a gold star right in the middle of my front tooth, and every time he sees me smile, Caldwell nearly craps his drawers with indignation. I guess he doesn’t remember Gus Johnson of the old Baltimore Bullets in the NBA. I’m saving my money for a ceramic inlay of the Tasmanian Devil.

  Well, bro, I guess that about wraps it. No more homework for you. I’ve got better things to do with my life than spend it with a pen in my hand, writing to a man who never reads his mail. My struggle with you is finished. I’m going to let you go, push my finger in and release us from these crazy Chinese handcuffs.

  I wish you’d stayed, though.

  God, how I wish you’d stayed.

  Your brother,

  Dillon

  EPILOGUE

  Dillon stood in Coach Sherman’s office, folding the girls’ uniforms for the final time, his stint as trainer for the State Champion Chief Joseph Braves officially at an end.

  “Do I get a girls’ letter jacket?” he asked.

  “Do you want one?”

  “Sure. The managers and trainers of all the boys’ sports get them.”

  “It’s okay with me,” Coach said. “You can fil
l out one of those order forms on the desk.”

  Dillon smiled. “I think it will be a spiritual challenge for Caldwell to see me in a girls’ letter jacket with a gold star in my smile every day from now till the end of school.” He seemed to consider something a minute, then: “Coach, can I ask you a question?”

  “Sure.”

  “What’s it feel like knowing you’re always going to be alone?”

  Coach smiled. “I guess it’s like being free. Being alone isn’t bad at all when it’s a choice.”

  “But what’s it like?”

  She put down the shorts she was folding and sat against the desk. “It’s like being tall, or blond, or quick. It’s just what I am. It’s what is.”

  Dillon squinted and grimaced a little, obviously hoping for something more revealing.

  “Dillon, the so-called American Dream isn’t for everyone. It’s particularly not for a lot of women. See, we get to be dreamed about, but we don’t often get to do the dreaming. We become part of the collection of artifacts that make up that dream for men. At its worst, it turns into what happened in Jen’s family. Some women can pull it off, some even pull it off well, but it’s a standard to measure against, rather than one to aspire to.” She smiled. “Because I live by myself doesn’t mean I’m alone. It just means I have the choice. And I like that.”

  Dillon nodded.

  Coach said, “Are you worried about being alone?”

  He smiled. “A little, I guess.”

  “Just remember it’s a choice. Like everything else, it’s a choice.”