by Larry Watson
“He sleeps under my bed,” says Roy. “Snoring and wheezing and farting under there like a goddamn steam engine.”
Dean slides off the couch to bring his face close to the dog’s. When he scratches Rusty’s head, the dog’s eyes all but close and his tail weakly slaps against the floor. “Hey, boy,” Dean says. “Do you miss the ranch? All that room to roam?”
Roy finishes his beer and says, “Dad said when the time comes, he’ll bury Rusty back there with the other critters. He’s already made arrangements with the new owners.”
“At the foot of that hill behind the barn? Jesus, how many do you think we buried back there?”
“I don’t know and I don’t feel like counting. But it’s a fucking boneyard back there.” Then Roy stabs out his cigarette. “All right. The Bauers. We need to have some kind of plan.”
But no plan is forthcoming. The dog wheezes. The snowmelt drips. The football announcer drones on. The electric wall clock hums. But the Linderman twins sit silently in the company of a dog that has known them both since they were boys playing make-believe.
AT THE END of her workday, Edie walks out of the bank into a November evening so mild she gives a little gasp. She’d walked to work that morning in fog thick enough to eliminate all distances, but by noon the fog had lifted and now the day’s vanishing light lingers just long enough to give Gladstone’s business district a smoky amber glow and the sky a darkening rose and deepening blue.
A car that Edie doesn’t recognize, a humpbacked rusting gray-black Plymouth right out of the 1940s, pulls to the curb alongside her.
The car’s horn bleats, and then Roy climbs out, grinning and shouting, “Edie! Edie!”
He limps around the front of the car, making his way toward her. “The cast! It’s off!”
His joy invades her, and she steps into his open arms.
He takes a few steps back from her and says, “Come on. Let’s go get a drink. I’m buying. And don’t try to say no, Edie. This is a celebration.”
“Dean—”
“We’ll call him when he gets home from work and he can join us.”
Her hand on the door handle, Edie hesitates. Once again she’s about to do what husbands forbid their wives to do. Dean has never issued her that kind of warning—he can’t, not about his own brother. Yet she knows he’s jealous of Roy. If he’d just say so, she could tell him he has no reason to be.
Oh, the hell with it. She’s tired of trying to figure out what goes on in Dean’s head. She opens the door and climbs in.
Roy revs the engine and puts the car into gear, but it lurches and stalls.
“Sorry,” Roy says. “Sorry, sorry. I’m not used to . . . Hell, I’m not used to much of anything. And that includes being out of the house.”
He restarts the car, and this time he’s able to pull away from the curb smoothly.
“Whose car?” Edie asks.
Roy pats the dashboard. “This good-looking set of wheels belongs to our uncle LeRoy Linderman.”
Edie sniffs the air. “It smells like . . . hay?”
“And that would be Uncle LeRoy.”
It doesn’t take them long to exit Gladstone’s business district.
“Where are we going?” Edie asks.
“I thought I’d drive out to Vincent’s. Then if we decide we want to have something to eat, we’ll be right there.”
“What about Dean?”
“I told you. We’ll call him. He can join us.”
“If we stay downtown,” says Edie, “he could just walk over.”
“You think if he has to drive a few miles, he won’t bother?”
“He might not.”
“That boy. Jesus.”
“He’s pissed that I didn’t tell him we had dinner in Bentrock.”
“And why didn’t you?”
“It just didn’t seem important.” There’s no point in telling Roy about Dean’s jealousy, something Dean would almost certainly deny. And she knows that it would only embolden Roy.
Vincent’s Supper Club is on a mesa on the outskirts of town. As Roy pulls into the parking lot he says, “I’m surprised this car doesn’t hold any memories for you. This was the first car Dean and I drove. I mean, we learned to drive on Dad’s truck, but the folks didn’t have a car for most of the ranch years. Dean never pulled up to your curb in this fine automobile?”
“Never anything but the truck. And hardly ever that. I drove more than he did.”
“Huh! I wonder why that was. Uncle LeRoy would let us borrow it just about anytime we wanted. All we had to do was bring it back with more gas in the tank than we left with.” Roy opens the driver’s door, and when the dome light comes on it illuminates his smile. “Matter of fact,” he says, “I lost my cherry in this car.”
“You remember the car. Do you remember the girl?”
“Edie. Please. Give me some credit. Rebecca O’Connell.”
“The Becky O’Connell who went to St. Joe’s? You’re kidding!”
“One and the same.”
“She lived just down the street from me. Until her folks got too good for the neighborhood. And sent her to Catholic schools. Becky? Are you sure?”
Roy walks around to the passenger side and holds the front door open for Edie. He says, “I’d never make a mistake about that.”
To prevent her skirt from riding up too high, Edie swings her legs carefully out of the car and steps onto the running board first and then down to the asphalt. “Becky O’Connell?” she says again. “Really? She didn’t have that kind of reputation.”
He extends his arm and Edie slips her arm through his, and together they enter Vincent’s Supper Club.
They go into the dimly lit space, empty of customers at this hour, and opt to perch on stools at the bar. The bartender is smoking and reading the Gladstone Gazette. Once they’re seated he crushes out his cigarette, closes the newspaper, and puts two felt coasters in front of Roy and Edie. She orders a Seven and Seven, and Roy asks for a bourbon and water.
Edie takes off her coat and lays it across the stool next to her. “I’m sorry,” she says, lowering her voice, “but I have to ask. You and Becky . . . how did . . . why did she say yes?”
Roy claps both hands over his heart. “Now I am insulted!”
Edie playfully slaps his arm. “You know what I mean.”
“I made a deal with her.”
“And? What was your end?”
Roy lights a cigarette, and with his first exhalation he blows a smoke ring that holds together remarkably well before dissipating in its drift over their heads. “Simple,” he says. “I told her I’d never forget her.”
“And that did it . . .”
“Nobody wants to be forgotten.”
The bartender sets their drinks down. Edie says softly, “I’m not so sure.”
Roy raises his glass. “Here’s to walking on two legs!”
Edie touches her glass to his and they both drink.
“So,” says Roy, “has Dean shared his plan with you?”
Edie’s eyes widen.
“I take it that he has not. He thinks he and I ought to go up to Bentrock.”
“Bentrock? What the hell for?”
Roy shrugs and directs a stream of smoke out the side of his mouth and away from Edie. “He’s none too specific on that account. Something about trying to get the Bauers to return the money for the truck. But mostly to show them the Lindermans can’t be buffaloed.”
“And what did you say?”
“He’s my brother, what am I supposed to say? And if I don’t go with him, he’s all set to go on his own.”
“You have to talk him out of this. You have to.”
“He’s thinking maybe we can recruit some others to make the trip with us.”
“Oh Jesus. Like who? Who’s going to sign on to something like this?”
“You’d be surprised.” Roy finishes his bourbon and water with one long swallow. “He’s talked to Jerry Krueger, and Jerry thinks it
sounds like a damn good idea.”
“Men. I swear to God . . .”
“I told him we’ll have to wait until I get my legs under me. Maybe with a little time he’ll come around.”
Edie looks at her watch. “He should be home by now. You said you’d call him.”
“Maybe you should,” Roy suggests.
“You said you’d do it. Now go.”
“Okay, okay.” Roy hobbles off to use the pay telephone located just inside the front door of Vincent’s.
Right after Roy leaves, the bartender walks over and puts a fresh drink down in front of Edie. “Seven and Seven, right?”
The bartender wears a white shirt with the sleeves rolled to his elbows, exposing forearms thatched with black hair, and he leans those arms on the bar to move closer to Edie when he speaks. “When did the cast come off?”
“Today.”
“He might lose the limp,” the bartender says, glancing in the direction Roy walked off in.
“You know Roy?”
“Just by reputation. You hear stories.”
“And what do you hear about Roy Linderman?” Edie asks.
The bartender just smiles and points to her glass. “How is that?” he asks. “Too strong? Too weak? Say the word and I’ll pour it out and start over.”
“It’s fine,” she says, though she has not yet drunk from the glass.
“You work at First National,” he says. “I seen you there.”
“Have you heard stories about me too?”
“I can see for myself,” he says. The bartender stands up and raps on the bar. “You walked in here with the wrong brother,” he says and walks back to his earlier post.
Roy reenters the bar. For a few seconds Edie watches his stiff-legged progress, and then she turns away.
“He’s not coming.”
“Did he say why?”
“He said he’s tired.”
Edie picks up her fresh drink. Before bringing it to her lips, she says, as if she’s speaking to the ice cubes, “Anything else?”
“Not much.”
“What did he say?”
“He wants us to enjoy ourselves. And then he hung up on me.”
She sweeps her coat off the stool. “Let’s go. The son of a bitch. He doesn’t want to come here, we’ll go there.”
WHEN EDIE OPENS the door of the apartment, Dean is on the floor by the stereo, flipping through the stack of record albums leaning against the wall.
“What the hell, Dean,” she says, turning on a lamp just inside the door. “What the hell.”
At her approach he stands up.
“Are you trying to get rid of me?” she says. “Is that it? Do you want your brother to take me off your hands?”
Roy enters the apartment, and Dean stares at his brother for a long moment and then says, “I thought it wasn’t supposed to come off for another week.”
“I got out early for good behavior.”
Edie takes off her coat and slings it on the couch. She points an accusing finger at her husband. “We’re not finished talking.”
Roy asks, “You have something to drink?”
Dean nods toward the kitchen. “There’s a bottle of Ten High under the sink.” He says to Edie, “I didn’t feel like going out, okay? It’s been a long day. Besides, I have a TV dinner in the oven.”
From the kitchen Roy holds up the bottle and calls out, “Who’s ready?”
Edie stares steadily at Dean. “It was supposed to be a celebration. Your brother wanted to take us out.”
Roy opens the freezer. “No ice?”
“Us?” says Dean. “But he found you. He came looking for you and he found you.”
Now Roy is searching the refrigerator’s interior. “There’s a Coke in here,” he says. “How about it, Edie—a whiskey and Coke?”
“Pour it,” she says.
From the stereo’s speakers come the sounds of the singer’s sorrowful whine, his ringing guitar, and his rhymes that seem to accumulate for no sake other than their own: “And your face like glass . . .”
Edie can’t help but wonder if Dean would rather sit alone in their darkened apartment and feel what this music makes him feel than to be with her . . . or his brother. She could ask, but she’s not sure she’s ready for the answer.
Roy comes out from the kitchen and hands a tall glass to Edie. “How about you, brother?” he asks.
Dean shakes his head no.
Roy looks from Edie to Dean and then back to Edie. “Should I clear out? I can find a drink somewhere else.”
“No. Stay,” Edie says.
“Hey,” Roy says to Dean, “Edie said she’s never been in Uncle LeRoy’s Plymouth. How the hell is that possible?”
“You’re driving LeRoy’s car?” Dean asks. “How come?”
“He’s having stomach problems again, so he’s staying with Mom and Dad while he gets checked out. It’s just an excuse to stay in town a couple days.”
Edie sips from her drink and shudders. “Is there any Coke in here?”
Roy reaches for the glass. “Here. I’ll pour some out and put in more Coke.”
“I’ll get used to it.”
“You’ve been in that car before,” Dean says to Edie. “We were out together with Dick Dryden and Patsy Steele. Junior year.”
“Huh-uh,” Edie says.
“We went to a movie. And if you give me a minute, maybe I’ll remember the name.”
“Are you sure?” she asks.
“You think I’m confusing you with your twin?”
“Is that supposed to be funny, Dean?”
“Nobody’s laughing, so I guess not. My TV dinner is getting cold,” he says and walks into the kitchen. He reappears to announce, “Last Train from Gun Hill. Kirk Douglas and Anthony Quinn.”
“How about you?” she asks Roy. “Do you want something to eat?”
Roy holds his glass aloft. “I’m fine. But I have to sit down. This leg isn’t used to doing all I’m asking of it.”
Edie moves her coat from the couch. “Here,” she says. “Do you need to put your leg up?”
“That’d help.” Roy sits down gingerly and extends his leg.
She looks around the living room and then goes into the kitchen.
Dean is seated at the table, hunched over his tin tray of Salisbury steak, mashed potatoes, and peas and corn. Edie picks up one of the kitchen chairs. “Your brother,” she says, “needs to put his leg up.”
“Help yourself,” Dean says without looking up from his meal.
Before she’s out of the kitchen, Edie stops and comes back to the table. “Would it have killed you,” she says softly, “to get in the car and drive to Vincent’s? I mean, for God’s sake. He wanted to celebrate. He asked you to come.”
“I was tired. And he had you there,” says Dean. “Which is what he wanted. Why didn’t you stay there? Whose idea was it to come here?”
“Does it matter?”
“Yeah. It does.”
“It was his.”
“And there you have it,” Dean says and turns back to his food. Without looking up, he says, “Roy needs his chair, doesn’t he?”
Edie picks up the chair with one hand. She needs to keep the other hand free to give her husband the finger. If Dean registers the insult, he gives no sign. From the couch Roy Linderman is able to observe this brief marital exchange, but when Edie enters the living room with the chair, he opens the TV Guide.
After situating the chair for Roy’s leg, Edie turns off the stereo and turns on the television. The Girl from U.N.C.L.E. is playing, and when Stefanie Powers appears, Roy points to the screen and says to Edie, “See—now that’s what I was trying to tell you. That’s how you ought to wear your hair.”
Edie sits across from him on the couch, with her legs folded under her and her drink in her hand. “I’m working on it,” she says, “at this very moment.”
From the television come the sounds of explosions, gunshots, screeching tires, cries for h
elp, exhortations to violence, and whispers of seduction. Dean rises from the kitchen table, his chair scraping across the linoleum. His silverware clatters in the sink. His foil tray gives off a metallic creak as he bends it into the garbage can. Roy’s lighter opens and closes with a clink, and his exhalations of smoke sound like sighs of futility.
Dean stands in the doorway. The television gives each of them something to look at so they don’t have to look at each other.
Edie says to her husband, “I’ve never been in that fucking car before.”
Dean does not smoke and never has, but he seems to be paying very close attention to everything that is being shown and said about the virtues of Viceroy cigarettes. Twenty thousand tiny filter traps.
“Do you hear me?” Edie says. “Never.”
“Before today you mean,” says Roy.
“We know what she meant,” Dean says. He turns away from the television to his wife. “Yes,” he says, “you have.”
“I think I’d remember.”
“Yeah,” says Dean. “I think you would too. But you don’t.”
“You remember my life better than I do?” Edie asks. How tiresome and familiar this is. Dean always has to be the more conscientious one, the one with the memory that can be relied upon.
Dean shrugs. “Maybe I’ve paid closer attention to it than you have.”
“Maybe,” Edie says, “it was somebody else in the car with you.”
“No,” Dean says calmly. “No, it wasn’t.”
“I was telling Edie,” Roy says, “I got my first piece of ass in that car.”
“And did you give her a blow-by-blow description?”
“Jesus Christ,” Roy says. “What the hell’s with you tonight?”
Edie reaches over and pats Roy on his leg. “Don’t worry. This isn’t about you.” She finishes her drink with one long swallow and hands the empty glass to Roy. “Fix me another, will you? And easy on the Coke.”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?” Dean asks her. “When you drink too much, you have a tendency to give away secrets. Like at the park? So if there’s something you don’t want to say, maybe you should call it quits.”
Roy has taken her glass, swung his leg off the chair, and he stands, stalled, between the living room and the kitchen.
“Keeping track of men’s secrets,” Edie says, letting her head fall back against the sofa cushion, “is just too fucking much work.”