Preston Falls : a novel

by Gates, David, 1947-

  of a bitch is locked, and that really does get his heart pounding, but it turns out all he has to do is turn the little thing.

  Willis closes the door behind him. Whoa, out here they are fucking loud. The nasty texture of distorted guitar makes him grind his teeth, and he craves to get his own fingers clawing at the strings, bending them to torture out the shrieks. But it would be insane to let himself be tempted onto the stage. Even though they've got his guitar up there; that can't be helped now. Wait—actually this is perfect. See, if they do spot him picking his way to the exit, which they won't, they'll think he's just going out to his truck.

  Hey, which he is.

  Driving back to Preston Falls, he dims his lights for every oncoming car. When lights appear in his rearview mirror, he neither slows down nor speeds up; they want to pass, let them. On a straight stretch of empty road in a broad valley, with harvested cornfields on both sides and the full moon just pouring its fucking heart out, he ignores the urge to cut his lights and drive a larky mile by moonlight alone.

  By the time he turns onto Ragged Hill Road he's crashing again, but that can sure as shit be fixed. Past Calvin Castleman's, casually. Get all your ducks in a row first, then deal with him. When he's safely around the corner he slows down, and now he does cut his lights, just on the off chance Calvin might be somewhere—in the woods, for Christ's sake?— where he could see somebody pulling in. Okay, and now if a bunch of cop cars will just please not be sitting there. By moonlight he bumps up into his dooryard and noses into the shadow of the woodshed. He climbs out and takes a breath of that clean air. A sky-sized silence, its surface etched by katydids.

  He's afraid to turn on lights in the house, so he feels his way upstairs and into his study. Enough moon through the eyebrow window so he can see to boot up the computer. Someone might spot the glow of the monitor from the road—but enough, enough, enough. Jesus, drive yourself crazy. While waiting out the rigmarole of copyright screens and skittering digits, he gets out his film can. Just a tad, to maintain.

  He clicks into Word and starts typing:

  BiUofSale

  Sold to: Calvin Castleman Sold by: Douglas Willis

  I 7 3

  One Martin D-18 + hsc, ser. #

  One Gibson J-200 -I- hsc, ser. #

  One Rickenbacker 6-string electric + hsc, ser. #

  One Fender Telecaster + hsc, ser. #

  One Fender Twin Reverb, ser. #

  For a consideration of $5,000

  (signed)

  A consideration of! That's the way to talk. Except five thousand's too low to be plausible; the Martin alone is worth that. Make it $7,500, ask Calvin for five and let him talk you down to whatever, though not less than four. Well, thirty-five. Leaving this up on the screen, he takes a pen and a piece of paper downstairs to get the serial numbers; the ones on the Twin and the Tele Calvin can fill in when he gets his hands on them. He should probably play a last song on each guitar, but what would be sufficiently ironic? He lights a match to read each number, then puts the cases by the kitchen door. He goes back upstairs and types the numbers in, prints the son of a bitch—double spaced, so it won't look lonesome on the page—and signs the bottom by the monitor's dim light.

  He starts taking his pictures down, thinking he might want them with him wherever he's going. In addition to the imperishable memories. At least the picture of his house—his real house. Meaning his father's house. That is, his mother's house. Whoever the fuck's house. But no. This doesn't want to be another crawl-back-into-your-childhood thing; that was the whole mistake of Preston Falls. This wants to be going in the other direction, like a space probe, though that's a bum analogy: the idea isn't to find stuff out. And certainly not to send back signals. So you might say, Well, Doug, just what is the idea? But something or other being the idea isn't the idea.

  He loads the Rick, the D-18 and the J-200 onto the truck. Anything else here? There's the truck itself, but he'll need that. The boombox? Hey, there's a quick five bucks. The computer's only a 486, worth zip anymore; he was going to donate it to Preston Falls High School this year and take a deduction. Couple cords of wood in the woodshed. The slates off the roof? Shit, if Calvin's still in the market.

  He pulls into Castleman Enterprises and goes rocking over the ruts. Calvin's truck is still heaped high, and lights are on in the trailer. Willis

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  sees a window curtain move. He gets out of the truck, and Calvin comes out the door in a thermal undershirt, pulling on a plaid flannel shirt over it.

  "What happened?" he says.

  "Nothing," says Willis. "It's fine. I got it."

  "Fuck you doin' here? This ain't the plan. What did I tell you, I told you stay there, I told you don't come back early, leave when everybody's leaving. Jesus fuckin' Christ. Reed tell you to come back here?"

  "I needed to ask you something," says Willis.

  "Where's the money?"

  "I've got the money, don't worry about it. But I want to make you an offer."

  "Yah, I don't want to fuckin' hear it. I don't want to hear no more of your bullshit. Reed's bullshit—"

  "Calvin, would you fucking listen?" says Willis. "I'll be glad to give you the money. But —^would you just hear me out? I want to sign all my guitars and shit over to you, okay? Including the guitar and amp I left back there with Reed. I mean, those are worth probably close to five thousand just the two of them. Now, the other three I brought with me, okay? Now—" He takes the bill of sale from his hip pocket. "Now, I made this out to say seventy-five hundred because I didn't want it to look too low, but I really only want the five. And actually, seventy-five is incredibly conservative. Shit, the Martin I paid thirty-five for like ten years ago, the Gibson I paid like twenty-five—"

  Calvin makes no move to take the piece of paper. "Where's the fuckin' money}''

  "Calvin, you could make back—"

  "Hey. I asked you something."

  Willis holds up a hand. "Okay, fine. Look." He opens the door of his truck and takes the envelope from behind the seat. "Let me just give you this so you got it. You can count it—"

  Calvin grabs the envelope.

  "I was going to say,'' says WiUis. "After you count it—okay?—and you see it's all there?—maybe we can do some business."

  Calvin opens it and feels inside. "Yah, well, let's not fuckin' stand out here."

  In the shop, Willis takes the car seat while Calvin sits at his workbench and counts the money twice.

  "Okay?" Willis says.

  I 7 5

  Calvin looks at him. "Now, what the fuck is your problem?"

  "Okay, basically, I need cash. I'm absolutely broke, I've got bills to pay, bunch of shit coming due—"

  "Why's that make you special?"

  "Look, all I'm saying is, I can sell you stuff for a very low price, for cash, that you'll more than get your money back on. Guaranteed."

  "Guaranteed, shit. How'm I supposed to sell them fuckin' things?"

  "Why can't you? Here, you got a bill of sale with serial numbers on it. Totally kosher." He puts the paper on the workbench. "Put 'em in Want Ad Digest. Worst comes to worst, you could take 'em down to Albany. Lark Street Music. They deal vintage instruments. Or up to Burlington. I forget what the place is called, but—"

  "That easy, why'n't you take the shit and sell it?"

  "I need the money now."

  "That ain't my problem." Calvin picks up the piece of paper.

  "Listen," says Willis. "I could also throw in my computer."

  "What's one of them worth?" He's moving his index finger down item by item.

  "Well, it's a 486. I paid twenty-five for it two years ago." Three years ago.

  "Yah, I don't give a flyin' fuck what you paid'' Calvin puts the paper down. "I said what's it worthT'

  "I'm sure you could get five."

  "You might's well keep it," Calvin says. "I don't know nothin' about them piece of shits. Don't want to." He gets up and puts the envelope in the
top drawer of his file cabinet.

  "Okay, listen," says Willis. "A couple years ago I remember we talked about you taking the slates off my roof in exchange for putting on a new metal one, right?"

  "I ain't in the roofing business no more."

  "Five thousand doUars," says Willis. "All the slates off the roof, plus the guitars."

  Calvin rests a buttock on the metal stool again and shakes his head. "Nah. Time I buy that galvalum roofing, screws, all that shit, pay some kid help me put it on there—"

  "No no no. Forget the new roof. If you just put some plastic up there, that ought to hold until I can get some kind of roof on myself."

  Calvin looks at him. "Be snowing in two months."

  "Yeah, well," says Willis. "Like you say. Not your problem."

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  Calvin picks up a gun telescope from the workbench and sights through it at something. Maybe that Far Side cartoon. He sets it back down. "So you and Reed gonna make you some serious money, that the idea?"

  "God no," says Willis. "Truly. I just really got caught short and I need some cash to get me through."

  "Look, I don't give a shit. Just leave me the fuck out of it. You can tell Reed that too." He looks over his shoulder at the file cabinet. "I give you a thousand."

  "No; no way," says Willis.

  "Suit yourself."

  "Calvin, those guitars—any one of them is worth like twice that."

  "So go sell 'em. / don't give a flyin' fuck."

  "Plus a complete slate roof? A couple of years ago you were going to put on a whole—"

  "Thousand dollars cash."

  "No way," says Willis. Then he says, "I got to get at least three."

  "Yah, not from me you ain't."

  "So what would you give?" says Willis.

  "I told you already. Thousand dollars cash."

  "No way," says Willis.

  "Then get the fuck out of my house. I don't want your shit—sell me this, sell me that. Just because you're fuckin' done with it. And all of a sudden you fuckin' need money. So you come around trying to trade your fuckin' toys. Hey, I'll trade you. Thousand dollars cash."

  "Christ," says Willis.

  "The fuck you care?" Calvin says. "That stuff don't mean shit to you."

  "Fifteen, and that's it. Fifteen and I'll throw in the computer."

  Calvin says, "You don't listen."

  Time to rock and roll.

  Willis stops by the house to have a last look-see. And maybe take five absolutely essential books. Ten, tops. He sits at the kitchen table, gets his film can out and snorts a little off the point of Jean's potato peeler in order to maintain—shit already looks like it's half gone—then goes upstairs and looks under the bed for his .22, not that this is necessarily the best idea, since he's technically on drugs. Though it's weird to think of this as being on drugs. Well, he can't find the fucking .22 anyway, so that settles that. Until he remembers he never took the son of a bitch out of the truck.

  He turns out the light, comes back downstairs, sees the stacks of books in the hall and decides to bag the desert-island shit. He turns out the hall light, goes into the kitchen and considers starting coffee. But he can stop somewhere for coffee. He's got a thousand dollars: ten big old hundred-dollar bills with wise old Ben Franklin looking like he's about to deliver a fucking maxim. Okay, you could look at it that Willis got boned, big time. But in fact Calvin got boned, too, because Calvin Castleman is a fucking worldling like Ben Franklin, and the guitars and the roofing slates and the thousands of dollars he stands to make are just that much more shit to lug around spiritually.

  He noses the truck out into the road, looks left, looks right, then glances back at the house a last time and sees one of the eyebrow windows—second from left, his fucking study —dully glowing as if some happy, stupefied family were in there, passing the popcorn. The fucking computer. Just because he feels like it, he tromps on the parking brake, gets out of the truck, tilts the seat-back forward and takes his .22 out. Yep, clip's in it. He jerks the bolt, chambering a round and cocking the son of a bitch, and it suddenly feels lighter and very very touchy, as if it's alive. What it is, he's scared shitless of guns. He tries to get the crosshairs

  PRESTON FALLS

  on the eyebrow window, but the thing's waggling all around, so he ends up resting the gun on the hood of the truck. He finds the window in the scope, gets the crosshairs sort of circling around the middle of it. Everything jumps as he fires, but he hears the glass smash and shimmer, then looks and sees he got the job done. That tv glow is still glowing— what did he expect, to shoot out the window and the monitor?—but he's made his little statement. Now let's get gone.

  He pretends it's not safe to go his usual way, that the police have set up a roadblock, that kind of shit, so he goes left out the driveway and follows Ragged Hill Road all the way to the Wakefield town line, where it becomes Oldacre Road, checking his rearview mirror for a tail. He takes a left onto Neville Road and drives out past the beaver swamp, where the moon's reflected in the glassy water and the drowned branchless trees stick up. Past a dairy farm with the house lights off and a chained collie standing on top of his doghouse. Goodbye, goodbye. Down the hill and over a trapezoidal iron bridge that rattles when you cross, and left again at the fork onto something called Aylmer Road that he's never been on but seems to lead in the direction of 22A. It climbs gradually uphill, with big old slabby-barked maple trees along both sides. Sudden yellow glow around the curve, then a pair of headlights. He pretends it's the cops: dims his lights, gets way over to his side of the road, then keeps watching the rearview mirror until the red taillights wink out. Whew: close one. Farmhouse on the left, one upstairs light on, then a double-wide on the right, a white-painted truck tire half buried beside the driveway. Goodbye. Then nothing but trees, the road starts downhill again and, after half a mile, there's a stop sign and two-lane blacktop going left or right. Bingo.

  And forty-five minutes later he's southbound on the Northway. He's keeping the speedometer at an even sixty-five and sitting up as straight as General Douglas MacArthur, his hands at ten o'clock and two o'clock. Sir yes sir. With drugs enough to keep him crisp and snappy. No tape deck or radio anymore, but he can sing, can't he? He can sing "Valderi, valdera" or "I'll Fly Away" or any fucking thing he wants. The Wicked Witch's soldiers' scary song that goes Oh-wee-oh. He's four hours from New York City.

  He stops once to piss and get cash, coffee and gasoline at a service area, once to do some coke at a dark rest stop, once to pull over and wait until no cars are in sight and shoot at a deer sign (misses the deer but hits the sign at least), once again to do more coke in between two

  I 7 9

  tractor-trailers in the parking lot at another service area, and once at the high point of the Tappan Zee Bridge, at about four in the morning. To throw that fucking gun into the Hudson River. Before he does something crazy. (Little joke.)

  There's no traffic coming either way, and this forest of rivet-studded girders and braces screens him from the tollbooths. He cuts the engine, gets out and takes the .22 from behind the seat, then steps up off the roadway onto a catwalk with a little fence in front of it, high above the water. New York City's glowing downriver, H-bomb pink emanating from just around that bend. A car goes by in the other direction; it seems to slow briefly, then pick up speed. Better do this and get the fuck out of here. He grips the rifle by the barrel end, like a baseball bat, swings and lets the son of a bitch fly out into the dark.

  Willis stands and listens but can't hear it hit. Can it still be falling?

  THREE

  Toward the middle of October, Jean leaves a message on the machine in Preston Falls. Just Hi how are you, how's the house coming, everything's fine down here, kids are fine. The lightest, brightest message possible. A first move. Though it's probably stupid: is this supposed to make him think their last conversation hadn't been as dire as it really was? Or to make her think so?

  A week later she leaves a s
econd message— Hi, just thought I might catch you in, give a call when you get a chance —and then, a few days after that, a third message, saying she's a little concerned and would appreciate it if he'd please call. This is Saturday. Monday he's due back at work.

  Sunday starts out warm and clear. She takes Rathbone for his morning walk, with just an old shirt of Willis's over the t-shirt she wore to bed. Then she brings her coffee outside and sits on the tailgate of Carol's little red pickup, a Subaru Brat with roll bars and 4WD, and just breathes: the air still smells almost like summer. Rathbone lies with his belly in the cool, dewy grass.

  Around eleven o'clock—which is really noon, since they set the clocks back last night—she and Carol take the kids to the pancake place. Jean brings a deck of cards, and in the booth they get in a hand of gin rummy before the food arrives. Roger, though he's embarrassed to be with three females, thinks gin rummy is terribly sophisticated. When he fans out his cards he makes sure their overlap is precisely uniform. Mel draws a card, takes a quick in-breath, tucks the card into her hand and discards a king of clubs; Roger bites his lip and grabs it too eagerly and Carol groans. This is almost like a family. Carol wins, as usual—she thinks it's condescending not to play your best against kids—but Mel almost takes her.

  Half a honeydew for Mel, The Lumberjack ("A Buckle-Bustin' Breakfast from the North Woods") for Roger, a cheese omelette for

  PRESTON FALLS

  Carol and just toast and coffee for Jean, since Roger can never finish The Lumberjack and she hates waste. So what does everybody want to do? Mel wants to go home and call her friend Erin. Roger wants to go home and watch videos. Carol suggests a hike at the reservoir; she's got to start back west sometime this week, and it's such an incredible day. Groaning from Mel and Roger, though less than you'd think. Even they feel the pull of a day like this.