by Aaron Saylor
Samantha bounced the ball to him and he caught it again with ease, but this time didn’t throw it back. Instead he squeezed the ball hard, until it disappeared into his grip.
“Elmer wanted you to come get the money?” asked Walt.
“Yep,” said Boone. “He sounded pretty tore up about it. I figured you’d prob’ly want me to go get it before he changed his mind.”
“So where is it?”
Boone recognized an opening. “I ain’t got it,” he said, shaking his head. A chance for a half–truth that might get him out of this. “By the time I got up there, he’d already thought better of it.”
“He thought better of it?”
“I guess.”
“What the fuck is that supposed to mean, Boone?”
“I don’t know, Walt. He just wanted to fuck with me, I guess.”
“What’s he gonna gain by that?”
“Hell if I know.”
At last, Walt stood up. He motioned for Samantha to come to him, then gave her the ball and stared at Boone. A deep suspicion crept into the moment. Walt’s gaze burned, and again Boone felt like he wanted to punch himself in the face. Samantha stood there between them, holding her pink rubber sphere, oblivious to everything else.
But the lie was out. The lie breathed. Now Boone was forced to keep it breathing.
“Damned Elmer,” Walt said, shaking his head slowly. “It just don’t make any sense. Don’t make any sense him calling you, and don’t make any sense you going up there. Elmer thinks he’s hot shit, like he’s gonna make a run and push us out. He ain’t gonna suddenly take a turn for charity.”
“He told me he wanted to do just that,” Boone shrugged. “The sheriff whipped his ass, and he wanted you all off his back. Hell, I thought you’d be happy about this, Walt.”
“And you thought that made some kind of sense?”
“It seemed as good as anything.”
“You’re serious.”
“I figured it was worth checkin’ out is all.”
Walt snorted hot wind out of his nostrils, irritated with Boone’s answer that time. “You know, Boone,” he said softly, “You might be my son–in–law, but sometimes you can be one hellacious dumb human being.”
Boone dragged his fingers through the thick hair on the side of his head. He felt his mouth drying out, and swallowed the little bit of saliva he had left. He needed something to say, some perfect words that would end this conversation before it spiraled too far out of his grasp. Even if Walt couldn’t be completely convinced now, if Boone could only get through this moment, then maybe he could fill in the gaps later.
“Did you really want me to not go up there if he said he had it?” he said, finally.
Walt looked at him, and didn’t immediately answer. This was good. Walt Slone usually thought three steps ahead in the conversation, so if he didn’t have an immediate answer it meant that Boone had the advantage, or at least more of an advantage than usual.
Boone pulled his cell phone from his jacket and handed it to Walt. “If you don’t believe me, go ahead and call him.”
Walt stared at the phone. He stared at Boone. He stared back at the phone. Then he pronounced, “Naw, nevermind. If you’re lying, I’ll find out, anyhow.”
The cell phone went back into Boone’s jacket pocket before Walt had a chance to change his mind. As further defense, he reached for Samantha’s hand, which she gave him with a warm grin.
“You want to go take some flowers to your Mamaw?” he asked.
“Yeah!” the child cheered.
“You don’t want to stay here and help decorate for the festival?” Walt said, entirely to Samantha, not at all to Boone. He smiled at the girl. “That’s what you wanted to do today, right?”
“I want to go with my Daddy,” she answered, simple and straight, and handed her grandfather the pink ball with which they had been playing just a few moments earlier.
SAMANTHA
Not long after that, the father and the daughter convened at the gravesite of Ellen Slone. In the spring afternoon, the sunlight rained upon them, a perfect radiance warming the backs of their necks. Their faces reflected in the black marble, clear as if they were standing in front of still water. Their eyes locked on the headstone that marked the final repose of Samantha’s grandmother, or Mamaw as the child preferred calling her, even though she never knew the lady, even though Ellen had died so many years before Samantha was born.
This was one of the rare occasions when they came together, hand in hand, and a mutual silence suggested both of them recognized the profound rarity of the experience. Separately, they visited the grave often. Together, not so often.
Each held a bouquet of fresh Mountain orchids loose in one hand, their pearly white petals still damp with sprayed water from the florist’s shop. The granddaughter knew her Mamaw loved the Mountain orchids. Papaw told her so.
Samantha rocked back and forth on the side of her foot, unsure what to do next. She did not often get moments like this with her Daddy, quiet moments, moments without push or pull. She did not often get moments of any kind with her Daddy. It seemed to her that even when they were together, other people were with them. With those people almost always came screaming, crying, or fighting.
But there was none of that here.
Here they let the silence linger, and enjoyed it.
She squeezed his palm and felt her tiny hand swallowed up inside his. That felt like safety.
“Do you remember her?” said Samantha.
“Sure I do,” said her Daddy.
“Papaw says she was nice.”
“She was. She was nice.”
“And pretty, too.”
“She was beautiful,” Boone nodded. “You look a lot like her.”
“Really?”
“Every day that passes, I see more of her in you.”
Samantha turned away from the headstone and looked up at him. “I wish she was still alive when I was born,” she said. “I wish she was alive right now.”
The child’s words were slow, straight ahead. In the moment, she didn’t quite grasp her own thoughts about this woman she knew only from pictures on the mantle and stories from her Papaw and her Mommy and her Daddy. Still, some lonely something echoed inside her. She understood that lonely something. She felt it often. She wished her Mamaw was alive.
Samantha looked back towards the black marble slab. Her daddy let go of her hand and stepped forward. Briefly she reached for him, but pulled back when she realized he would not be more than a few feet away.
He took yesterday’s orchids out of the vase on the left side of the headstone, and replaced them with the fresh bouquet in his hand. Samantha did the same on the right side. When she was done, she backpedaled away from the grave, and offered the old flowers to her father. He accepted them, and then shuffled his fingers through her fine blonde hair.
This moment would not last forever. The best times never did. In only her five short years on Earth, she’d learned all too well that the best moments could never last. The best moments came and went like fog rolling inland from the sea, providing brief cover for the oh so dark waters before being brushed away by the aurora’s hand.
Sooner or later Mommy and Papaw would be home. Samantha knew that when they returned, she would once more feel the push and the pull at the edges of her soul. She knew: her quiet moment must eventually end.
But not now.
Now she and Daddy could have their time. Now they could be together. Now they had nothing to worry about – no argument to defuse, no drama to withstand, no reason to sit and cover her ears to keep out the grown ups’ loud words. If only for this sliver of time, they were free, at the edge of the woods that loomed behind the big house on the hill.
She didn’t know how much time they would have. How could she know? She didn’t know. All she knew was they were there, the two of them, only the two of them, and all seemed right for once.
“Ready to go inside?” he asked.
<
br /> “In a minute,” she answered. “Let’s stay out here a little longer.”
He said nothing, only nodded. He put his hands on her shoulder and pulled her closer to him. They did stay a little longer, as long as they could, as long the world around them would allow. Then they decided not to go inside, after all.
BUSINESS
The longer the day went, the more Sewardvillians showed up at the city park to help with the Orchid Festival decorations. Folks took pride in their festival, after all; everything had to be perfect. As perfect as they could get it, anyway. More banners were hung, blue and yellow streamers tacked from tree to tree.
Even as the buzz increased around them, the Slones – Walt, Karen, John – took a break from their work in the brick octagon. They strolled out towards the back of the structure, where they could be alone save for the occasional wanderer.
“So what do you think about this whole deal with Boone and Elmer Canifax?” Walt said. His dry sarcasm made it plain that Walt wasn’t buying the story.
“I don’t think anything about it,” John replied, shrugging it off completely. “Elmer’s a dipshit. A fuckhead dipshit, you know? What did you expect, he was all of a sudden gonna get right when there ain’t never been no evidence of that before now? Hell, Boone’s half a dipshit himself these days. You get those two together and there ain’t no tellin’ what’s gonna happen.”
“Yeah, but it don’t make sense,” said Walt.
“It ain’t supposed to make sense,” said the sheriff. “Why would it make sense? They’re fuckheads.”
Walt shook his head. He took a deep breath, extended one arm and propped himself against the red brick wall. “You’re half right,” he said. “Elmer’s a fuckhead, no doubt about it. But Boone, he ain’t a fuckhead, not like this kind of a fuckhead anyway.”
“I suppose that’s why you got him on the quarter machines,” John interjected.
“He does more than the quarter machines, from time to time.”
“From time to time?” asked Karen.
“From time to time,” said her father. He popped straight up, away from the wall.
Karen went quiet. So did the sheriff. Each of them pondered where the discussion might be going, while Walt walked around and batted the situation back and forth inside his head. Silence dug in and became uncomfortable, and held sway until John said, “Maybe Boone’s not a total waste. But the fact remains, this don’t make any sense. Why would he take off to Elmer’s like that? On his own?”
Walt looked at Karen now. “I don’t know. Why would he take off?”
“I told you already, I have no idea,” she replied, sounding annoyed. “One minute, he’s downstairs with Samantha, then of a sudden, the phone rings and he tears up and out of there like he just won the lottery or something.”
“And he didn’t even mention he was going to Elmer’s,” said John.
“No,” said Karen. “Not a word.”
Walt sighed. This discussion hurt his head; this discussion hurt everybody’s head. It was a conversation destined for nowhere, no matter how much each of them sensed something out of whack with Boone’s scenario. A riddle with no answer, at least no answer they could see yet.
The questions were unspoken, but they were the same for Karen as they were Sheriff Slone as they were for Walt. Why leave in such a hurry? Why go to Elmer’s alone, even if there really was money to be picked up? Why not call the sheriff, especially if there was money to be picked up?
Glances bounced among the three people. Karen to Slone. Slone to Walt. Walt to Karen.
“You want me to head back up to Elmer’s?” the sheriff asked, looking at Walt.
“Not right now,” Walt answered immediately, as though he had already considered that option and dismissed it before the question could even be asked out loud. Then he paused, considered, and added, “Don’t say anything else to Boone, either.”
John took a deep breath and looked out into the park grounds.
“I know,” Walt went on, sensing the sheriff’s displeasure. “We ought to go see ‘em both first. Find out what the hell’s really going on. Maybe there’s something else in play here.”
Karen said, “And if there’s something else going on, we can lay back and watch them, and see if it comes to light,” she said.
Walt nodded, pleased with his daughter. “Exactly.”
Karen nodded, pleased with herself. “Exactly.”
“I don’t know about that,” John said. “What if we lay back, waitin’ on them to do something, and wind up givin’ them enough time to figure out a way around us?”
“They won’t get around us.”
“You sound awful sure.”
“I’m sure. They won’t get around us.”
John nodded slowly. He puffed his cheeks out in exasperation, but otherwise did not hide the notion that he disagreed with his sister.
In his line of work, Sheriff Slone knew that people could get around you. Elmer could do it, Boone could do it, anybody could do it if you let your guard down and gave them a crack to ease through.
There had been plenty of people that he thought couldn’t get around him, only to find out they could get around him quite well, indeed. All it took was one slip on the ground, one bead of sweat in the eye, one side thinking the other was too small or too slow to be much of a threat, and then a man was liable to find out just who could get around whom. John Slone didn’t think Jimmy Sumner could get around him that night up at the Bears Den and how did that turn out? Five seconds and a quick trigger finger later, and Jimmy Sumner made his way around the sheriff just fine, after all. Shit happened. It just happened. No matter who was on one end holding the gun and who was on the other end staring down both barrels, sometimes… sometimes shit happened.
Sometimes shit happened that flipped those barrels right around. John knew that the view from the end of a gun barrel was a hell of a lot different than the view behind it. He also knew that he’d do anything he could to make sure that he never found himself in that position again.
“Lay back, huh?” John said after a couple of minutes. “That’s about the damnedest plan I ever heard. If we think Boone’s into something with Elmer and they’re working against us, we ought to go smack both of ‘em down right now. We let that shit rot and we’ll never get the smell out of our hair again, you know?”
“Simmer down, John,” Walt answered. “We got time.”
“We ain’t got time,” said John.
“We got time,” said Walt again. “You’re givin’ those boys too much credit. Even if they got something in the works, we got time. You get right down to it, Elmer’s a dumbass, thinks he’s too smart for his own shorts. He ain’t worth foolin’ over.”
”Tell her Elmer ain’t worth foolin’ over,” said John, motioning towards Karen. “She runs the books. How’d the books look before Elmer got in the market?”
“The books are fine,” Karen said.
“The books ain’t fine. The numbers are down. How many times have you said that. Now, Boone… whatever about Boone. Think what you want about Boone. Boone runs the quarter machines.”
“He does more, from time to time,” said Walt.
“No offense, but fuck Boone,” the sheriff continued. “Boone’s past his prime. Elmer’s a different story. The numbers are down, he’s why. We all know it.”
Walt took another deep breath. Lately, anytime the subject turned to Boone, he felt a sorrow inside himself, a profound disappointment, a thorough loss of hope. When Karen was involved in the conversation it just made the disappointment that much worse, and that much harder to get around. He was her husband, after all. And as her husband, and a member of the Slone family, Boone had once been capable of such greatness. Now, he ran the quarter machines.
“I know you ain’t worried about Boone,” said Walt. “And that’s my point. Was a time I would have said Boone was the one to keep your eye on, but now I ain’t so sure.”
“But now he ain’t worth w
atchin’,” John said.
“Maybe. I’m just sayin’,” said Walt.
“You’re just sayin’.”
“Uh–huh.”
Walt felt his son fishing for more substance, but he wouldn’t bite. He once held some hope for Boone, felt thrilled when Boone got together with Karen and felt like it was a good addition to the family. But that was a long time ago. Now, the quarter machines. Karen and the sheriff knew, and Walt knew. The quarter machines.
“I’m just sayin’,” Walt finally finished. “We got time, that’s all I’m sayin’.”
FAMILY
The afternoon slid into darkness. Walt and Karen left the city park and headed back to the Slone house. John followed right behind them, parking his cruiser in the driveway like he always did.
They came in the front door and found Boone sitting on the couch. Samantha tottered on his lap, father and daughter both involved in a live–action Disney channel sitcom that neither one could name, featuring handsome young boys and girls that smiled and tossed their shiny hair around with great frequency.
Boone didn’t look up when the Slone triumvirate came in. Instead, he kissed Samantha on the cheek and kept watching the T.V. He practically dared Karen to come across the room and try to break up his father–daughter moment.
Karen knew what he was doing, too. She stood in the kitchen, and sweetly called her little girl’s name. But Samantha never turned around.
Karen threw a frustrated glance at the sheriff. The sheriff knew what she wanted.
“Boone?” said John. “Ain’t it about time for you to go to work?”
Boone pretended not to hear him.
“I said, Boone, ain’t it about time for work?” said John. “You know. The quarter machines.”
Now, Boone looked up at his brother–in–law.
Before Boone could say anything, Walt walked into the living room. He stopped in between the couch and the television, and held out his arms for Samantha. This time, she broke away from her father and slipped into the old man’s grasp, where he brought her closer for a warm hug like only the best grandfathers could offer. As they embraced, Walt looked up at Boone and whispered that, indeed, the quarter machines needed tending.