by Brad Smith
Carl had fucked Julie, off and on, for almost two years. And during that period she had fucked him right back. If it was up to him he would still be fucking Julie, but she had put an end to it last winter. She’d told him that he was missing something and when he asked what it was she said that she wasn’t sure but if she figured it out she would tell him because he – more than she – would benefit from the information.
Their relationship hadn’t changed that much. They still flirted, they still talked about things that they probably didn’t talk about with other people. They just didn’t go to bed together anymore. Which was taking a key ingredient out of the mix, as far as Carl was concerned. That could change, if one of them could figure out what it was he was lacking. But he wasn’t counting on that happening any time soon.
‘Pick up your motor yet?’ Billy asked now. He asked the question every Thursday. He and Carl had been working together five days a week since Billy hired on three months ago, while Carl taught him how to rough wire the alarms and video equipment, then how to hook up the systems. Yet Billy only asked about the Harley engine one day a week. Thursdays at Shooter McGraw’s. It was as if he’d decided early on that this was the way to wear Carl down. He was a confident kid. In a general sense he really didn’t know his ass from his elbow, but he had the confidence of someone who was willing to learn. Carl liked him.
‘No.’
‘Why don’t you just sell me the goddamn bike?’
‘It’s not for sale.’ Carl was watching the screen, where the news was starting.
‘It’s gonna sit in your back yard until it rusts into the ground. You’re too old to have a Harley anyway.’
‘Yeah? What’s the cut-off age on a thing like that?’
‘How old are you?’ Billy asked.
‘Fifty-two.’
‘Then it’s fifty. Time to sell. Thing’s just gonna sit in your back yard.’
‘I’m going to put it together this summer,’ Carl said. On the screen the lead story was about a shooting in west Rose City. Two people dead. The cops were not releasing any information other than to say that the deceased were ‘persons of interest’ to the police. Cop talk.
‘It’s fucking July already,’ Billy said. ‘You’re not gonna put it together.’
Julie had served the newcomers and now she was standing a few feet away, watching the newscast.
‘There are lots of Harleys for sale,’ Carl said. ‘Why do you have to have mine?’
‘Cuz it’s a ’72 hardtail,’ Billy said. ‘And that’s what I want.’
‘You never heard of a ’72 hardtail ’til I told you what it was,’ Carl said. Footage of the Rose City courthouse flashed on the screen. Carl pushed some coins toward Billy. ‘Put us up, will you? Before everybody gets here.’
Billy scooped the money into his hand and stood. ‘You’re gonna sell me that bike,’ he said, before heading toward the coin-operated eight ball tables in the back.
Julie picked up the remote again and increased the volume on the set. The place was not busy yet and as such not as loud as it would be in an hour or so, when hearing the TV would be almost impossible. On the screen, a young reporter was standing in front of the courthouse, microphone in hand. The reporter was female, and she looked like a model or an actress playing a reporter in a movie. But they all looked like that nowadays. She was responding to a prompt from the anchor.
‘… as Miles Browning showed in his opening remarks why he’s considered one of the country’s pre-eminent defense lawyers. Browning had his way with the prosecution’s case, suggesting that the accusers were planning a big money civil suit against former Mayor Sanderson should he be convicted. Prosecutor Thomas Grant will need a strong showing if he’s hoping for that to happen.’
Julie turned to Carl. ‘Had his way with them? Did she actually say that?’
But Carl was still looking at the screen. The anchor had just asked the reporter to describe Sanderson’s demeanor during the testimony. Behind the reporter Prosecutor Grant could be seen, speaking with other media, and behind him four women were walking out of the courtroom. Last in the line was Kate.
‘… very composed and, like yesterday, completely unfazed by the rather sensational nature of the testimony. Of course, over his years in office The Mayor earned a reputation for stoicism and grace under fire. Back to you, Phil.’
Carl watched Kate as she moved out of the frame. She held her head high and it seemed that she glanced with disdain toward the camera for just a second. Her dark hair was long and she was lovely, not just in the way she looked but in the way she carried herself, the confidence in her walk. Watching her, Carl felt a pang in his chest he didn’t recognize.
‘That’s her, isn’t it?’ Julie said then. ‘That’s Kate.’
Carl nodded. The newscast moved on to another story and Julie switched back to the golf. She lowered the volume and turned to him.
‘How long has it been since you’ve seen her?’
‘Twelve years.’
‘You look like you’ve seen a ghost. She’s not a ghost, Carl.’
Carl took a drink of beer. ‘I went to see her when I got out of jail. For about five minutes.’
‘Why just five minutes?’
‘Way she wanted it,’ Carl said. He put the glass on the bar. ‘I bought her a puppy. I thought … shit, I don’t know what I thought. She didn’t want the puppy. Not if it was from me. She was a smart kid.’
‘The puppy probably wasn’t a real good idea,’ Julie said.
‘I guess not.’ Carl looked up at the TV, where a commercial was now showing. ‘Did it seem to you that the reporter was kind of biased toward The Mayor?’
‘It seemed to me that the reporter is a fucking idiot,’ Julie said.
Carl nodded. He told himself that the reporter’s mental inadequacies really didn’t mean anything. What went on outside the courtroom had no bearing on what happened inside. He drank from his glass, aware that Julie was watching him closely.
And then she said, ‘Your past is the one thing in this life you can’t change.’
Carl turned to her and then Billy came back. ‘We’re up next. We gonna order some wings?’
‘You go ahead,’ Carl told him.
‘Gimme a large extra-hot, beautiful,’ Billy said to Julie. ‘And another round. You know, I’m thinking I might just take you home with me tonight, Julie. What do you think?’
‘I think … why would I pour you a second beer when the first one obviously scrambled your brains?’ She moved off to get the beer.
‘I think I’m getting to her,’ Billy said.
‘Oh yeah,’ Carl told him. ‘You’re doing great.’
Julie brought the draft and Billy paid. She looked at Carl for a long moment.
‘Sarge is the puppy,’ she said. ‘Isn’t he?’
‘Yeah,’ Carl said. ‘Sarge is the puppy.’
After a while someone organized the pool tournament. There were twelve players, five bucks a man, double knock-out. Carl and Billy teamed up. They were beaten in the finals by Big Ed Houston, who wired the boards for the new systems, and a girl named Sherri, who’d started at NuTech the previous week. Big Ed couldn’t, in Billy’s words, ‘sink a rock in the ocean’ but the new girl could shoot. She had pierced eyebrows and tattoos on her arms and her own three-piece cue. Billy took an immediate shine to her, rolling up the sleeves on his t-shirt to show off his own ink work. Sherri played him like a bass fiddle while she shot lights out and took all the money. Enamored, Billy played like a man who couldn’t sink a rock in the ocean.
Not that Carl was much better. His mind wasn’t on the game and twice he sank a high ball when he was supposed to be shooting lows. It didn’t help that every time he looked over toward the bar it seemed that Julie was watching him. Watching him for what? He smiled at her once and when she finally smiled back – it took longer than it should have – her expression was maternal, sad even. Carl didn’t need anyone to be feeling sad over him, not tonight.
Not ever. After losing at pool, he waited until she went into the kitchen for something and then he left. He wasn’t in the mood to talk.
It was still daylight when he got home. He’d drunk four draft at the bar and, although he was far from drunk, he could feel the effects as he passed through the quiet streets. It seemed to have cooled off, if only slightly, and he drove with the windows down, the oldies station playing loudly. ‘Fortunate Son’ by Creedence was blaring as he pulled in the drive. He saw Sarge on the porch, stretched out in his usual spot in the shade. Carl got out of the truck and went up the steps.
‘Hey buddy,’ he said, as he looked in the mailbox and pulled out a couple of letters and some flyers. ‘Come on, I’ll cut you up some steak.’
He opened the screen door and stood there, opening the hydro bill as he waited for the dog to come inside. He glanced at the amount before opening the flyer from Home Hardware. ‘Sarge, come on.’
And he came to the slow realization that Sarge wasn’t getting up.
He buried the dog in the back yard and afterward he sat on the deck and drank beer and at one point he put his hands to his face and was surprised to find that he had been crying. The wind came up and it seemed as if a storm was approaching, but then the moon appeared, sneaking from behind the clouds like a timid actor venturing out from the wings for the first time. Soon the stars were shining like diamonds above the treetops.
Around eleven o’clock he called down to Shooter McGraw’s and asked for Billy Curtis. He told Billy he would sell him the hardtail for a thousand dollars and that he should give the money to Mary-Ann in payroll. She could send it to him with his last check.
He packed his bags before he went to bed. He set his alarm for six but he was awake and up before then. He loaded the truck and made a cup of coffee from instant.
The sun was just showing as he hit the highway and headed for home.
SIX
Saturday morning Frances was down at the warehouse before the sun cleared the barn roof to the east. She and Perry loaded the truck themselves. Mike was supposed to help but he never showed and he never called either. It was the second time in a month it had happened. And both times a market day.
Everything was early this year so they had lots to load – berries, potatoes, corn, peas, beans. This week Frances even had the first tomatoes of the season, heirlooms she’d started in the greenhouse in March and planted outside on the first day of May, covering them with burlap on the nights when frost threatened. Along with the jams and jellies and maple syrup it took them the better part of an hour to load the GMC stake truck. Frances had wanted to be at the market for six and that wasn’t going to happen now.
‘It would have, if he’d showed up,’ Perry said, meaning Mike.
‘Well, that’s twice,’ Frances said. ‘I wonder if little Mikey is hip to the three strike rule.’
They were on the road by then, Frances at the wheel and Perry in the passenger seat, drinking tea from a plastic thermos he’d owned since he’d shown up looking for work six years earlier and probably for twenty years before that. Frances had a cup of coffee in the plastic holder on the dash.
It was still early enough that the traffic heading into the city was light and it took them less than thirty minutes to get to the market. The first thing Frances saw when she went down the ramp to the market stalls was the yellow seven-ton van with Parnelli Farms on the side. The truck was parked carelessly on an angle, with the front end extended into the space reserved for Frances’s stall.
‘Lookit this,’ she said, and she stopped and got out.
Two kids, teenagers probably, both in dirty shorts and tank tops, were unloading the Parnelli Farms truck, carrying boxes of vegetables to the tables, while another guy was filling six quart baskets and setting up the displays. This man was stocky, of medium height, maybe in his forties. He wore a denim smock with the name Arnie stitched on the breast pocket, and a cheap straw hat that a farmer might wear, or at least a man pretending to be a farmer.
‘Excuse me,’ she said, approaching. ‘You’re blocking my spot.’
The man Arnie was arranging tomatoes in quart baskets now, the tomatoes large and very red, perfectly shaped. ‘Just unloading here. Be five minutes.’
‘Then I’m five minutes later getting set up,’ Frances said. ‘You’re in my way, Arnie. It is Arnie, right? Or did you borrow that shirt the way you borrowed my spot?’
‘We’ll just be a few minutes,’ Arnie said impatiently. ‘Go get a cup of coffee or something.’
One of the grungy kids walked over with a crate of cantaloupes. Frances looked at the boxes on the pavement. The crates were unmarked but she knew the stuff was from the south – Florida or California for the most part. The kid gave her a smile that was somehow flirtatious and mocking at the same time and then went back for more. Frances turned to Arnie.
‘Maybe if your guys parked in your own spot to begin with, I wouldn’t have to stand around watching you polish your plastic tomatoes while they unload.’
‘What did you say about my tomatoes?’ As if that was the problem.
‘Move the fucking truck,’ she told him, and she went back to the GMC.
They didn’t move it, at least not until they finished unloading. Frances sat fuming behind the wheel. Perry had more tea and said that he had half a notion to report Parnelli Farms to the market board.
‘The board doesn’t give a shit or they wouldn’t let these guys in here,’ Frances told him. ‘There was an agreement.’
By the time that Frances was finally set up, Arnie had already made a half dozen sales. He ran the stall by himself; the two vegetable toters had disappeared as soon as the unloading was done. Frances saw them later, sleeping in the back of the big truck. She relaxed somewhat once she started doing business, but she was still pissed off, and it wasn’t entirely to do with the parking situation.
‘So where is Parnelli Farms anyway?’ she asked Arnie. There was a lull in business and she had walked over to his stall.
‘Toronto.’ He was stacking ears of California corn and replied without looking at her.
‘Really? What do you have – a couple hundred acres down at Yonge and Bloor?’
He glanced over and smiled as if to say, fuck you, lady. They both knew there was no such thing as Parnelli Farms, unless a warehouse somewhere could qualify as such. Just as Frances knew that her organic produce wasn’t quite as pretty to look at as that offered by Arnie the urban farmer. But that was the reality of the situation. She didn’t mind competing with area farmers – real farmers who grew their own product, whether it was organic or not. They were local farmers supporting the local farmers’ market.
At noon she left Perry in charge and went over to Wenger’s Deli for a sandwich. Perry had packed his standard lunch, white bread and a couple of tins of sardines and an orange soda. The sardines would linger on his breath for the rest of the day. Frances had prepared a lunch too but in the rush to get loaded that morning, she’d left it on the kitchen counter back home. She was going to blame that on Mike too, if he managed to get his lazy ass to work Monday morning. She bought a smoked turkey on whole wheat and sat on a folding chair at the back of the stall, eating and talking to Stan Wenger when he wasn’t serving customers.
‘I thought city was going to put a limit on these guys,’ Stan said when she told him about her run-in with Arnie from Parnelli Farms.
‘They did,’ Frances replied. ‘But nobody enforces it. I figure somebody’s getting paid off. Problem is, the market’s not full. So these guys show up with their five tons of hothouse vegetables and they get a stall. I don’t know how, but they get it.’
‘There’s somebody you could ask,’ he said.
She turned in the chair to follow his eyes. Bud Stephens was standing across the market square, talking with a tall man in a white western shirt. Bud, wearing a beige suit, was gesturing dramatically with both hands, holding forth on something.
‘Bud the slug,’ Frances said. ‘Wha
t’s he doing here? This isn’t his ward.’
‘Produce shopping?’
‘I doubt it. Look who he’s talking to.’
‘Who is that guy?’
‘That’s Hank Hofferman.’
‘That’s Hofferman?’ Stan said. ‘OK, that makes sense now. See that butcher’s stall just past them? They’re brand new, calling themselves H and H Pork and Sausage. Gotta be his pork.’
‘If you want to call it that,’ Frances said.
‘How would he know Bud?’
‘City mouse, country mouse.’ Frances shrugged. ‘There was a rumor that Bud helped Hank out with permits on the new rendering plant out on the highway. It’s not Bud’s ward either but I heard he had his nose in there. Bud’s got his nose in everything, since The Mayor’s untimely resignation.’
‘Aren’t they related?’
‘Bud’s the favorite nephew,’ Frances said. ‘How do you think he got elected? Which means he is not close with the new mayor. On the outside looking in these days.’ She looked across the market again. ‘This might not be Bud’s turf, but I’d still like to know what he thinks about these assholes ruining our market.’
Hank Hofferman saw her approaching. He was a galoot, a hulking cowboy who had never ridden a horse. Gas-guzzling Hummers were more his line. He wore his jeans high, cinched in place with a belt featuring a big silver buckle. She watched him smile and say something to Bud, who was laughing as he turned toward her. Bud’s blond hair was artfully messed up, spiked here and there and held in place with product of some kind, a look that might have worked for a twenty-five-year-old but seemed a tad desperate for a man twice that age. He was sporting a goatee Frances had not seen before. Not only that, but he wore a lot of jewelry – rings, bracelets, chains around his neck. In general, he was pretty much a poster boy for everything Frances did not care for in a man. Approaching, she was feeling a little contrary, and being laughed at didn’t help.