by Hannah Tinti
“Are you okay?” she asked.
“You shot me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said. “I’m so sorry.”
Hawley lifted his pant leg. The bullet had gone through the back of his calf, a slice of flesh carved off in a straight line.
“I’m all right,” he said. “But I think you killed the tire.”
Lily lowered the gun. She wiped her face with the sleeve of her coat. When she was through, she looked relieved and washed out. The rain tore down from the sky between them and Hawley began to feel the flush of pain, a burn like his leg was being held against a fire. He bent over and pressed the wound to stop the bleeding, while Lily hurried to the back of the truck and opened the cap and got the first-aid kit. She fell to her knees in the mud, rolled up his pants, wiped Hawley’s leg with alcohol and started wrapping it with gauze.
“This looks bad.”
“It was an accident.”
“I dropped the umbrella.”
“We’ll get it later.”
Lily tied off the bandage and stood. Then she turned away from him and leaned against the car. For a moment Hawley was reminded of the diner. He’d said the right thing then but right now he didn’t have any words. And when she lifted her face he knew something else was wrong.
“What happened to Charlie?”
Hawley spun around, checking the edges of the forest. There was no sign of the boy. The only thing he’d left behind was his tooth, a gleaming bit of white in the mud. Hawley crouched down on his good leg. Then he saw a flicker of something, and he glanced underneath the car, and found Charlie the boy where Charley the dog should have been, curled up in a ball with his purple sneakers, just beyond the rear axle.
“Come on out of there,” said Hawley.
“Get away from me!” screamed the boy.
“My wife just wanted us to stop fighting,” said Hawley. “She didn’t mean to hurt anybody. And she’s sorry now. Aren’t you sorry, honey?”
“Yes,” said Lily, her voice tight.
“Are you hit?” Hawley asked.
“What?” the boy said.
“Did you catch a bullet.”
“I don’t think so.”
Lily kneeled down and stuck her head under the transom. “Is your name really Charlie?”
“Yeah,” said the boy.
“Listen, Charlie,” said Lily. “I promise nothing is going to happen. He’s not going to hurt you, and I’m not going to shoot you, and no one’s going to call the police. Okay?”
Charlie thought this over for a few moments, then slunk out on his stomach, just as Hawley had imagined the dog doing. But once he was in front of them he did not look grateful. He didn’t even look that scared—only thin and hungry and tired. His jeans were sopping wet, his leather coat covered in gunk. There was blood leaking from his nose and mouth, the skin around his eye was cut and his lower lip had started to swell. He kept his palm against his jaw, as if he were holding it together with his fingers.
“Let me see.” Lily examined his face. When she touched his chin, he cried out, and she made a shushing sound, as if she were soothing away a bad dream. “We need to take you to a hospital.” She pulled a tissue from her pocket and handed it to the boy. “Do you know how to change a tire, Charlie?”
The boy pressed the tissue to his nose and shook his head.
“Well, you’re going to learn now.” Lily walked around to the back of the truck and started to unlock the spare.
Hawley stepped up next to the tailgate. Lily’s body was trembling, but when he touched her she pushed him away.
“What are you doing?”
“You just beat up a kid, Hawley.” She pulled out the tire iron.
“He was stealing our car.”
“He knows what we look like. He’s got our license plate number.”
“He doesn’t know what he’s doing. When I was his age I was robbing gas stations and sleeping in a different car every night.”
Hawley took the tire iron out of her hands. The wind picked up and a gust of rain blasted them both. Lily covered her eyes. When she lowered her fingers her face was pale and dripping. She shook her head at Hawley and rolled herself a cigarette. She flicked the wheel on her lighter but the paper was too damp to catch. Lily tossed the cigarette into the mud.
“I need a minute,” she said. And then she stepped away from him and into the woods.
Hawley watched her go. Then he pulled the spare out and carried it to the boy.
Charlie backed away.
“I promised her I wouldn’t hit you again,” he said. “But I’d like to. So you better do what I say.”
“It hurts to talk,” Charlie mumbled.
“Then don’t.” Hawley threw the tire iron on the ground next to the spare. “Go get some rocks. Big ones. Stick the rocks behind the wheels. It’ll keep the car from rolling off the jack.”
The boy limped to the edge of the forest. He clutched his side. “It hurts to breathe.”
“Then don’t do that, either.”
Charlie pried two big stones from the mud and kicked them beneath the back tires. Hawley took off the hubcap, then used the tire iron on the first four lugs and slipped them into his pocket. He put the jack under the frame rail and started cranking the lift.
“I thought you were supposed to lift the car first,” Charlie said.
“Pulling the nuts off in the air can throw the car off. But you should leave one screw on so the wheel doesn’t pop out. It goes faster that way.”
“You a mechanic or something?”
“Something.” Hawley pushed his weight against the wrench until the truck dangled in the air. He screwed off the last lug and wiggled the dead tire loose. He could hear the bullet rolling around inside as he set the wheel under the car, behind the jack.
The boy looked at the tire, then back at Hawley.
“In case the car falls off. This’ll keep the car high enough so you can get the jack under the frame again.”
“Right.”
This kid had no business stealing a car, Hawley thought. A Ford should be easy. Hawley still remembered the model and make of his first—a Buick Skylark sedan—he was only fifteen when he hot-wired it, and he’d driven that clunky boat with the sticky gearshift all the way to Tennessee.
“Where’d you get that leash?” he asked. It still bothered him about the dog.
“Oh,” said the boy. “My dad ran Charley over in the driveway last year.”
“That sob story ever work?”
“Mostly,” said Charlie. “On girls.”
The storm was slowing, the rain turning into mist. Hawley tried to wipe the grease off his fingers. “Give me the spare.” The boy rolled the tire over. Hawley centered the wheel on the hub, fished the lugs out of his pocket and tightened them with his fingers.
“Sorry about the car,” said Charlie. “I just wanted to get out of here.”
Hawley leaned back on his heels. He picked up the flat and pressed a finger against the bullet hole. The rubber was soft where it was torn but hard everywhere else. One of his nails had ripped from working the screws. He stuck it in his mouth and tasted grease and blood and dirt.
“Well,” said Hawley. “I guess I know about that.”
Through the trees there was a flash of yellow, then Lily stepped out of the forest carrying the umbrella. Her face was resigned, the same way it got before she snapped on her rubber gloves and pulled out the bleach.
“Is she mad at you or something?” the boy asked.
“Just don’t tell her about the dog,” said Hawley.
Lily crossed the lot, the umbrella floating bright over her head like an idea. By the time she reached the truck the rain had stopped. She held her hand out, testing the air, then she pushed the button on the handle and the arms of the umbrella retracted, folding back.
“Finished?”
“Almost,” said Hawley.
“I need to talk to Charlie.”
The boy seemed more scared of Lily than of Hawley. He
got off the ground reluctantly, wincing a bit. Together they walked a few paces away from the truck, until Hawley couldn’t hear them. Lily spoke and the kid nodded. Then she slipped something into his hand.
Hawley lowered the jack and the truck settled onto the spare with a sigh. With the tire iron he tightened the lug nuts. By the time he was finished, Lily and Charlie were done talking. They loaded the equipment in the back and everyone got into the truck. It took Hawley a couple of minutes to reattach the wires the kid had pulled. “These are for the radio, not the starter,” he said.
The boy sat in the backseat, beside a pile of broken glass. He still clutched his jaw, and with the other hand he cradled his ribs. He peered over the seat at the wires. “Which ones should I use?”
“The red is the battery,” said Hawley, “and this yellow one is the starter. Then you need the ignition wire.”
“You shouldn’t teach him that,” said Lily.
“He’s going to do it anyway. He might as well do it right.”
“Can we stop at McDonald’s?” Charlie asked. “I’m starving.”
Hawley turned the key and the engine caught. The clock on the dashboard had reset, blinking like a bomb about to go off. 12:00, 12:00, 12:00.
“Anyone know what time it is?”
“Three-thirty,” said the kid.
“Your mother,” said Hawley.
Lily took the Colt out of her pocket. She opened the cylinder and removed the bullets. She put the ammunition in the glove compartment and closed it and put the Colt back under the seat.
“No McDonald’s,” she said.
—
WHEN THEY PULLED into the train station Mabel Ridge was waiting, sitting on a bench next to a giant suitcase on wheels that was adorned with a name tag and a bright purple ribbon. Her hair was loose and wild. There were a number of sewing needles, of different sizes and lengths, woven into the collar of her sweater, like stripes on a soldier’s uniform.
“My little girl,” said Mabel.
“Mom,” said Lily. They put their arms around each other.
“This is Samuel Hawley,” said Lily. “This is my husband.”
Mabel Ridge took his hand. She had long fingers and a heavy grip. As he hefted her bag into the back of the truck, she pulled down the glasses that were propped on her forehead, and her eyes went straight to Hawley’s injured leg. He turned it behind him and the woman lifted her chin, fast. She had green eyes, just like her daughter. Beneath her gaze Hawley felt pulled open, straight to his bones.
“And who is this?” Mabel peered through the window.
Lily opened the door. She brushed some of the broken glass off the seat. “This is Charlie. We’re bringing him to the hospital.”
Lily’s mother considered the boy and his swollen face. “What happened to Charlie?”
“He lost his dog,” said Hawley.
The boy sighed and slid closer to the broken window. Mabel Ridge got in back next to him. Hawley took off his coat and tied it low around his waist, covering the blood on his pants.
“Why weren’t you here when I arrived?” Mabel asked as they pulled out of the parking lot.
“You said you were coming in at ten,” said Lily.
“I was always going to arrive at three o’clock,” said Mabel. “You probably didn’t write it down.”
“I did write it down.”
They rode in silence for a few minutes, then got onto the highway. The wind whipped through the car as they increased speed. The wheels hit a puddle on the far shoulder and a wave splashed the side of the car.
“Why don’t you shut the window?” Mabel Ridge said.
“It’s broken,” Lily said.
Their voices were similar. A musicality beneath the words that Hawley had always considered unique about Lily. As the women argued he watched and listened to them both. His wife seemed changed by her mother’s presence. Diminished, somehow. It made him wonder what kind of memories she was fighting off. And it made him feel protective, even though he knew Mabel Ridge had saved Lily from spinning down the drain.
He took the next exit. The wind in the car died as they slowed and stopped at a light. They were maybe twenty minutes out from the hospital. He kept glancing over at the clock on the dashboard, wishing the time to pass, but the numbers flashed 12:00, 12:00, like a record skipping, extending the moment, until Hawley felt as if the four of them had been trapped in the car forever.
“So.” Mabel Ridge took off her glasses and wiped them on her scarf. “I haven’t heard that much about you, Samuel Hawley.”
“I’ve heard about you,” said Hawley.
“I’m sure.” Mabel set an elbow on each of their headrests. “How did you two meet, again?”
“At a coffee shop,” said Lily.
“Really.”
“I told you before.”
“I must have forgotten,” said Mabel Ridge. “Like you forgot to invite me to your wedding.”
Hawley had met some tough broads over the years, but they were honed that way from rough living. Mabel was something else. Her hardness was built into her very foundation, and she rammed that hardness into others, like an oil tanker barreling through a fleet of rowboats. It made Hawley wonder about Lily’s father. From what he knew Gus was a real bum, but he must have had some balls to make love to a woman like Mabel Ridge.
“Mom,” said Lily.
“I deserved to be there. I deserve to know about your life. Don’t you think I deserve that?”
“What would you like to know?” Hawley asked, trying to be friendly.
Mabel Ridge leaned in. “Lily never told me where you’re from.”
“I grew up near Galveston Bay.” When she blinked at him he added, “Texas.”
“And what is it you do for work?”
“He’s a mechanic,” said Charlie.
Hawley gave the boy a look in the rearview. “I’m in between jobs.”
“That’s too bad.” Mabel wrapped her fingers around the headrest of the driver’s seat, close to Hawley’s face. “Well,” she said. “You must be good at something.”
“He’s good at beating people up,” Charlie said, then wiped his bloody nose with the sleeve of his leather coat.
This kept Mabel Ridge quiet for a while. Hawley watched her stew and slowly add up the details. Meanwhile, in the passenger seat, Lily seemed to be shrinking, sliding down bit by bit as her mother hovered between them. Before long she’d end up in the wheel well. Hawley knew they were in trouble but he wasn’t sure what to do next. They’d barely made it fifteen minutes, and Mabel Ridge was supposed to be staying for a week.
By the time they reached the hospital, the silence in the car had taken on its own weight and substance. Hawley pulled next to the emergency entrance and parked. All he wanted was to get out of the car. “I better take him in,” he said.
Lily touched his good leg and gave a squeeze that said not to take long.
“Goodbye, Charlie. Remember what I said.”
Charlie nodded, then wrinkled his brow like he was already trying to remember Lily’s words, his fingers pressed against his swollen jaw. He struggled with the handle and slid out, dragging along some pieces of the broken window that rang like tiny bells as they hit the asphalt.
“It was nice to meet you,” said Mabel Ridge, but her smile wasn’t nice at all.
The hospital was a low brick building with wheelchair ramps coming out both sides. As they passed through the sliding doors, Hawley saw half a dozen people waiting on metal chairs and a TV on in the corner with the sound off, playing the news. The room smelled of moldy carpets even though the floor was covered in tile. Clustered together on one side was a middle-aged lady with her arm in a sling; an old man clutching a crying toddler; and a Chinese woman patting the back of her son, who was getting sick in a bucket on his lap. Sitting away from everyone was a homeless guy, his stuff piled in garbage bags around him, holding a plastic burger container on his lap. Behind a glass booth, a nurse shuffled papers.
“What do I say?” said Charlie.
“Just tell them you got in a fight at school,” said Hawley.
The boy went up to the counter and talked to the nurse. Hawley considered ducking out but then remembered that Mabel Ridge was in the car, probably pumping his wife for information, and decided he should wait until the kid was admitted. He dropped into one of the empty seats near the homeless guy and held his breath against the man’s stale, dank smell. Inside the burger container was an ear, resting on a paper napkin.
“What happened?” Hawley asked.
“Oh,” said the homeless man, “it’s not my ear. It belongs to a friend of mine. I’m just holding it for him.”
“Is he in the hospital?”
“Not yet,” said the man.
The ear was only half an ear—the lobe and a bit of the outer cartilage. The knife must have been sharp. It was a clean cut. There was hardly any blood.
The nurse gave Charlie an ice pack and a clipboard and a pen. He carried the stuff all back over to Hawley and touched the ice pack gingerly against his lower jaw.
“I need you to sign this.”
“What is it?” Hawley asked.
“A parental permission form.”
“No way.”
“You have to,” said the boy, “or they’ll call my dad.”
“That’s probably a good idea.”
“Trust me,” said Charlie. “It isn’t.”
Hawley glanced up and caught the eye of the homeless man. He thought about the missing ear resting inside the plastic container, and the other guy out there wandering around without it, and this man waiting here for his friend, just on the chance he’d show.
“What did my wife say to you?”
“She gave me a hundred bucks,” said Charlie. “And she told me to keep my mouth shut.”
“What else?” Hawley asked. He knew there was something.
The boy shuffled the papers. He clipped them back onto the clipboard. “She said to stop stealing cars, and doing other bad stuff. Otherwise I’d end up like you.”
There it was.
Hawley signed the paper.
After a while the nurse called Charlie’s name and he followed her behind the glass partition. Hawley stepped into the bathroom and got some paper towels and washed out his leg again. It looked more like a knife wound than a bullet wound, the skin sliced off clean, but the blood had completely soaked through the bandage and run down over his boots and changed the color of his laces. He needed stitches. And antibiotics. When he got home he’d sew it up, or use Super Glue to bind the skin together (a trick that Jove had taught him). For now he took off his belt and wrapped some paper towels around the cut and then tied it off tight with the belt and rolled his pants back down.