Despite his explosive temper, at the end of the day, his work was first rate, and his pace was such that it would take two men to replace him. Knowing this, the foreman gave him some leeway when it came to his tardiness; and knowing that, Joe made little effort to change his ways.
Even so, he’d planned to leave by the end of the summer. He wasn’t sure when. He didn’t always know in advance when the time would come. Often times, the situation just presented itself. More than once, his departure was so hasty that he never even bothered to pick up his final paycheck. Such was Joe Tibbits’ existence; one day he was there, the next day he was gone.
It was meeting James Perkins that caused him to stay in Gardiner longer than he'd expected. He’d been reading the newspaper every day for years, always paying close attention to the local stories, especially those stories about the more violent crimes: the assaults, the rapes, the murders. There weren’t many in inland Maine, so when they occurred, they got plenty of attention.
He never cared much about events that took place outside of Maine, so he wasn’t sure why the story about the dumb son-of-a-bitch in Rhode Island who fell off his boat in May had caught his attention in the beginning. Perhaps it had just been another slow news day in central Maine, but he found himself searching for stories about him for days, even weeks, afterward.
From the moment James Perkins arrived there was something familiar about him, but for some reason Joe couldn’t place his face. He tried to engage James in conversation, but he found him to be evasive, even a bit nervous. Given that James Perkins rarely spoke, it took a while before Joe picked up on his accent. He thought at first he was from New York or maybe Long Island, realizing only when Perkins let it slip that he was familiar with Newport, that it was a Rhode Island accent. Once he made that discovery, he suddenly remembered where he’d seen James Perkins’ face before.
He immediately retrieved the stack of newspapers that were piling up on the floorboard of his pickup truck. As he suspected, Edward Moody’s smiling face in the photograph was the same face— albeit sporting a new beard— that was now working just a few feet from him every day. He reread the stories about Edward Moody’s disappearance, committing to memory every detail about his life. He desperately wanted to speak to Perkins, but tried to be patient, waiting for more than two months for the right time.
Showing him the newspaper over lunch that day in August was intended as an icebreaker, a little something to get his attention. He had no idea it would scare him off. But a few weeks later, James Perkins disappeared, leaving no trace behind, much as he’d done a few months earlier when he went out on his boat that last time in Narragansett Bay and never returned.
One day he was there, and the next he was gone.
When Joe Tibbits arrived at work the following Monday morning, James was conspicuously absent. He waited a few hours to ask the foreman about his whereabouts, but the foreman knew nothing.
“Last time I saw him was when I handed him his paycheck on Friday,” he said. “Haven’t heard from him since.”
Joe decided not to inquire any further. It was best not to appear too inquisitive. But his curiosity over James Perkins’ latest disappearing act quickly became his obsession. He started by scouring the Help Wanted ads in the back issues of The Morning Sentinel, which were now spread out across his kitchen table. He circled a few of the ads that looked promising, and he called the phone numbers asking if the positions had been filled. More often than not, they had been. In each case, he politely thanked them for their time and then asked one final question.
“You don’t happen to have a James Perkins working for you, do you?” The question generally met with silence. “He worked with me up until a few days ago, and he left some of his tools behind,” he lied. “I’d like to find him so I can return them.”
Without exception, the answer was the same. “Sorry,” they would say. “No Perkins here.”
Of course, Joe Tibbits had no idea if James Perkins was still using the same name. If he was smart, and he had to assume James was, he might have already adopted a new identity. He could be anywhere, posing as anyone. After a week of phone calls that yielded nothing, Joe Tibbits sat in his tiny apartment, swilling his third beer and staring at one of the clippings he’d saved from an old newspaper. It was the photograph of the Edward Moody. He stared hard at the picture, the friendly face smiling back at him as if to taunt him.
What had captured Joe’s attention was not so much that Edward Moody had disappeared without a trace, but that he’d accomplished it so effectively that no one was even looking for him. He needed to understand how he’d done it, but now he’d first have to find the man.
Joe's departure from Gardiner was unusual only in that it was less abrupt than some of his previous exits. This time he was setting out in search of something (or someone) rather than running from something.
He had no idea in which direction James Perkins might have gone or how far. Joe Tibbits first reasoned that James would likely head south in order to lengthen the season, searching for someplace to settle in for the long winter months. If he was still living his life as James Perkins and had not, in fact, begun a new life under a different name, Joe assumed he was probably still in Maine. After having put so much effort into establishing himself there, it would seem a waste to throw it away. But where?
He stopped in Augusta, inquiring of the local crews, even showing them the photograph from the newspaper clipping, but no one had ever seen or heard of James Perkins.
When he arrived in Auburn, it was already mid-October. The trees were bare, and the cool air reminded him that winter would soon descend upon the state. When he wandered onto one construction site, one of five he’d visited that day, it was Mike Cochrane who approached him first. As with everyone else he’d shown the newspaper photograph of Edward Moody’s smiling face, Cochrane claimed not to recognize him.
“Why are you looking for him anyway?” Cochrane asked.
“Just an old friend,” Joe replied. “Used to work together.”
Cochrane was watching Tibbits walking away toward his truck when he called out to him. “You lookin’ for work?”
Joe stopped and turned around and looked at the foreman without speaking. He was hoping to get as far as Portland before settling in for the winter. He worried that if he stayed in Auburn, he’d be stuck there until spring. He desperately wanted to find James Perkins and settling in Auburn for six months just gave him too much of a head start. The trail could be cold by spring; it was cold now.
“I’m a man down at the moment,” Cochrane said. “If you’re any good, I could use another pair of hands. We need to get this house buttoned up before it snows.”
It wasn’t cold enough for snow yet, but in Maine, that can change almost in an instant. It meant that the crew would be working quickly, a pace Joe Tibbits preferred anyway. He could pick up a little pay while he searched the surrounding area for Perkins and, if he hadn’t found him in a couple weeks, still get to Portland to begin his search there and hunker down for the winter.
It didn’t take long for Joe Tibbits to determine that he disliked Cochrane. The foreman was a little man with a chip on his shoulder who, in Tibbits estimation, demanded respect rather than earning it. He was a bully, constantly berating his crew, and throwing tantrums when some small detail wasn’t to his demanding expectations.
Having an explosive temper of his own, Joe Tibbits should have seen a little of himself in the foreman, but there was one significant difference between them; Joe’s outbursts were rarely directed at one of the crew. He might toss the occasional uncooperative tool or fling an unworthy piece of lumber, but he rarely laid into another man. Cochrane, on the other hand, seemed to get his rocks off doing just that, and for that reason alone, he decided he disliked the foreman.
As it turned out, Joe Tibbits left the job in Auburn just a few days after his most recent altercation with Cochrane over his tardiness. On Friday morning, jus
t three days after the foreman had derided him about getting to the site by seven o’clock, Joe Tibbits wandered in two hours late. He strolled casually onto the site with his cup of coffee and his newspaper as he did every morning, the brim of his cap pulled down low over his eyes. He appeared oblivious to the time.
Cochrane was on him almost immediately, screaming at him so loudly that his round face was bright red. Joe stood quietly, unaffected, waiting for the little man to finish. When he did, Cochrane stared incredulously at the silent man before him.
“Well?” Cochrane shouted. “What do you got to say for yourself, asshole?”
Joe Tibbits still appeared unfazed by the foreman’s outburst. Cochrane thought for a moment he saw the hint of a smile tugging at the corner of Joe Tibbits’ mouth. Tibbits looked calmly around him at the six other men who had stopped what they were doing to watch the altercation. No one moved closer, but they all wanted to see who threw the first punch. Joe Tibbits took a sip of his coffee and smirked down at the foreman.
“Fuck you, you little fucking midget.” He turned his back on the foreman and walked toward his truck.
Cochrane briefly considered lunging at Joe’s back but he thought better of it. “Get the fuck off my site!” Cochrane screamed after him. “You’re fired!”
“Fine by me," Tibbits grumbled without turning around. Had he done so, Cochrane would have seen the broad, satisfied smile on Joe Tibbits’ face.
That was easy, Joe thought.
It was one of those sudden and unforeseen departures that, by then, were no longer a surprise to him. This time there was one difference. He'd allowed himself to be fired from the job in Auburn because he’d finally had enough of Cochrane; however, his decision to suddenly leave town the following morning was, as had been the case so many times before, because of a woman.
Joe Tibbits never cared if the women he took up with were married; he often preferred it if they were. There was a certain satisfaction in knowing he was giving a woman something that some other pathetic excuse for a man couldn’t, or wouldn’t. He knew they would always be discrete, since they never wanted their infidelity to be exposed, and that he never had to worry about being faithful to any of them; he could hardly be judged for cheating on a cheater.
Most important of all was that, as far as he could tell, they never came looking for him after he’d gone.
Jill Ouellette wasn’t married when Joe met her that Friday night at Slick Willie’s, a country and western bar in Lewiston. He knew that even before he asked her to dance. But she was recently engaged, which made her just as likely to be discrete.
She was a pretty girl, even without makeup, but that night, a girls’ night out with four of her friends, she was wearing plenty. She was short but slim, her snug white blouse showing evidence of small but perky breasts, but it was her slender legs, bare from the hem of her short denim skirt to the tops of her cowboy boots, that were the focus of Joe Tibbits’ attention. He wouldn’t consider the evening a success unless it ended with those legs wrapped around him, boots and all.
He sent a round of tequila shots to their table, and he was pleased when the little brunette approached him at the bar to thank him on her way to the ladies’ room.
He smiled and extended his hand. “I’m Joe.”
The girl offered her hand in return. “Jill.” She held his hand a little longer than she'd meant to, and she laughed nervously as she finally drew it back. “Anyway, thanks again. That was nice.”
“I’ll send another round over to your friends if you’ll dance with me.”
Jill smiled sheepishly. “I’m engaged.”
“So?”
“So, I shouldn’t,” she said.
Joe laughed. “I only asked you to dance.”
“I know,” she said. “I’m sorry.”
“That’s okay,” Joe said. “Can’t blame a guy for trying.”
When she came out of the bathroom, she returned to her friends at their table, and a short time later, the waitress arrived with four more shots of tequila.
“Which one of you is Jill?” the waitress asked.
“I am,” Jill said.
The waitress proceeded to place a shot of tequila in front of each of her friends at the table. In front of Jill, instead of a shot glass, she placed a napkin with a message written in large neat letters:
Another shot? ONE dance.
Jill looked back in Joe’s direction at the bar. He was smiling and holding up a shot glass, presumably hers if she would dance with him. She showed her friends the note and they laughed.
“That’s actually pretty good,” one of them said.
“Hell, I’ll dance with him for a shot,” said another.
“Just go ahead,” said a third. “We came here to have fun. It’s just a dance.”
As she approached Joe at the bar, Joe extended the shot glass to her and smiled.
“I shouldn’t,” she said again without reaching for the glass.
Joe chuckled. “That’s twice you’ve said that.”
“What?”
“Shouldn’t,” Joe said.
“So?”
“So, some things are more fun when you shouldn’t,” Joe said with a wicked grin.
“Oh, really?” Jill replied skeptically, but the hint of a smile proved to him that she was curious.
“Only one way to find out,” Joe said.
Jill chuckled and shook her head, glancing quickly to her friends who were watching her from their table. “Boy, you just aren’t gonna take no for an answer, are you?”
“Sure I would,” Joe said. “But you haven’t said no. You just said you shouldn’t.”
Jill folded her arms across her small chest, trying to appear defiant. “Okay then,” she said. “No.”
“Okay then,” Joe said, mimicking her. “Cheers.” He raised the glass between them as if proposing a toast and quickly downed the shot.
“Hey!” she cried. “That was mine!”
“You said no,” Joe reminded her.
“I was just teasing!”
Joe laughed. “So was I.” He turned toward the bar and when he turned back to her, he held out another shot. “This one’s yours.”
Joe helped her up onto the empty stool next to him and watched her as she tossed back the tequila shot with ease. Then she turned as if to jump down from the stool.
“Okay,” she said. “One dance.”
Joe Tibbits touched her arm to stop her. “Not this song,” he said. “I don’t like this song, and it’s half over anyway.” He offered that same easy smile that had served him so well in places like this over the years, and he waited as she settled back on her stool.
He ordered two beers, and they spent the remainder of the band’s set talking, mostly about her. He showed a genuine interest in her, and as the alcohol kicked in, she became very free with her information. At the end of the hour, when the band returned to the stage, Joe was still a mystery to her. Jill’s life, on the other hand, was an open book.
As it turned out, she found him charming. Most of the men she met worked harder to impress her. Even her fiancé was rarely interested in talking about her interests. It was like pulling teeth to get him to talk about the wedding plans. Now this stranger turns up and wants to know everything about her. It was as intoxicating as the tequila.
As the band began to play an up tempo song, they both looked at each other and smiled.
“This is the song,” Joe announced. He turned to the bartender. “Two more shots.”
When the bartender poured the shots, Joe passed one to Jill, who was already unsteady from the two tequila shots and the beers she'd had before that.
“Cheers,” Joe said, tapping his glass to hers and watching as she downed it.
In her condition, Jill hardly noticed that the one dance she’d promised had become a second, and then a third. When the band suddenly slowed the tempo with an old George Jones song, they stopped d
ancing and looked at each other for a moment. Jill glanced back to the table where her friends had been sitting, stumbling slightly as she did. Only two of them were at the table; the others were on the dance floor.
She turned back to Joe and wobbled again. Joe placed his hands on her hips and she reached up and put her hands behind his neck. He was a full head taller than she was and she liked the feeling of her cheek resting against his chest.
“You’re tall,” she said as they slowly turned in circles to the music. Or perhaps they were standing still and the room was spinning— it was hard to tell.
“Is your boyfriend tall?” Joe asked, already knowing the answer.
Jill laughed. “Fuck, no,” she said. She turned and pressed her face into his shirt, taking in the scent of his cologne. Then she tipped her head back and looked up at him, her glassy eyes barely visible behind half-closed lids. “I think I might be a little drunk.”
“We can sit if you want,” Joe said.
Jill nodded, but rather than escorting her back to her table to join her friends, he guided her to an empty stool at the corner of the bar nearest the dance floor and helped her up onto it so she was sitting facing him with her back to the bar. He stepped close to her so he was standing between her knees, and she extended her hand toward him. She intended to place it against his chest to hold him at a distance, but she swayed slightly (or thought she had) and her hand landed instead on his shoulder in an effort to regain her balance. Joe leaned in and kissed her quickly, then drew back. Her eyes were closed and she opened them slowly, trying to focus on his face.
Joe smiled. “You shouldn’t,” he said, mocking her.
“Fuck you,” she replied, swiping at his chest with her free hand.
As he kissed her again, the tequila on her breath mingling with the taste of her cherry lip gloss, he felt her knees rise up against his hips. He reached down and placed his hand on her thigh, slowly guiding his fingers under her skirt. He expected her to stop him, but instead he felt her legs wrap around his waist, her boots pressing against the small of his back.
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