by Brad Smith
It was raining when Carl left the city and traffic was slow. By the time he got back to Talbotville it was noon. He grabbed a sandwich at the sub shop and ate it in the pickup as he drove out to River Valley Farm. He had finished the exterior of the warehouse addition and moved inside now, where the weather wouldn’t bother him.
He parked in the warehouse lot and walked in the drizzling rain to the addition. The farm was a muddy mess, water running in rivulets through the muck toward the ditch to the river. Most of the fields were bare now, although some squash and cabbages remained. Frances had mentioned that she wanted everything picked by week’s end. The rain had put a stop to any harvesting today and there was nobody in sight.
Inside, he began to run wire for the overhead florescent lights, working off a twelve-foot stepladder. He could hear activity in the front part of the warehouse, where the online orders were being processed. Telephones ringing and printers operating. Lost in the work, he didn’t hear Frances enter.
‘Little late this morning,’ she said.
‘It’s afternoon,’ he told her.
‘Even later then.’
She was standing at the foot of the ladder, wearing jeans and a sweater with a vest over-top. Her hair was tied back and she had a slightly pissed-off look about her. And the comment itself was out of the blue. Carl worked his own hours and she had never questioned him on it.
‘Mondays,’ he said. ‘Moving kind of slow.’
Frances made a point of looking at her watch. ‘I was thinking you were moving pretty fast. You’ve been to the city already, had a little talk with Bud Stephens, drove back here and now you’re stringing wire and acting dumb.’
Carl stripped the ends of the cable. ‘Can’t anybody keep a secret anymore?’
‘Apparently not,’ Frances said. ‘He called me two minutes after you left. You want to tell me about it?’
‘Didn’t he?’
‘I’d like to hear your version, Galahad.’
‘I told him I knew it was him behind that shit at the market.’
‘Thought you were going to keep out of it.’
‘I said I would stay out of the landfill situation. I didn’t say I was going to let Bud Stephens push you around.’
‘Bud Stephens is not going to push me around,’ Frances said. ‘You do realize that this whole notion of you protecting me is rather sexist, don’t you? I hired you to build this addition. That’s it.’
Carl connected the wires before turning to look at her. ‘OK, how about this? If these guys try to run you out of the market it could affect your business, and if your business suffers, I could be out of a job. So really, I did it for selfish reasons.’
‘That the best you got?’
‘I thought it was pretty clever,’ Carl said. ‘You know, for spur of the moment.’
‘I’ll let you know when you’re being clever,’ she told him. ‘And this morning didn’t qualify. I’m not the schoolmarm and you’re not John Wayne.’
‘I don’t want to be John Wayne. Can’t do the walk.’
She wasn’t smiling.
‘All right,’ Carl said. ‘So what did Bud say?’
‘Same thing he said to you, I’m guessing. He lied about the whole thing, said he had nothing to do with it. Said it’s not his style. Why do guys like that always think they have style?’
‘That was it?’ Carl asked.
She shrugged. ‘Pretty much.’
He caught her hesitation. ‘What else?’
She took a moment. ‘Nothing you want to hear.’
‘Let me decide.’
She sighed. ‘He brought up Red Walton and then he suggested that you were a disreputable character. Told me I shouldn’t be associating with you.’
‘He’s probably right.’
‘Oh, he probably is,’ Frances said. ‘But I’ll be goddamned if I’ll let Bud Stephens make that call. I’ll let you get back to work, Carl.’
‘Yes, ma’am.’
‘And don’t ever call me ma’am again,’ she said, and left.
NINETEEN
The seniors’ golf league finished in early October and The Mayor’s schedule changed accordingly. His new routine included euchre twice a week at the Masonic Lodge and a walk in Fisher Park most afternoons. Fisher Park was across the ravine from The Mayor’s house. It bordered a blue-collar neighborhood, loosely referred to as ‘the west end’, that stretched all the way to the lake. The ravine was a buffer zone that separated the older estate homes on the ridge from the graffiti-marked walk-ups and clapboard bungalows below. The park had a checkered past, a home to drug dealers and keg parties and gang fights. That element had largely moved on but some of the older residents still referred to the park as ‘the combat zone’.
As a crow would fly it was only a quarter mile from The Mayor’s back yard to the center of the park, but that quarter mile was the ravine itself, consisting of brush and rock and scrub, as well as the meandering, shallow stream that was Fisher Creek. The Mayor took the long way around, driving to the park every day in the Lincoln Town Car, usually arriving around two o’clock.
Kate knew this because most days she was at Fisher Park, waiting for him. She’d discovered a spot near the old stone pavilion where she could sit with her coffee and her newspaper and watch the two parking lots below, one on Millburn Street, the other off Nash Road. The pavilion was on a rise behind some dying white pines, and she could be relatively inconspicuous there.
Once she determined his schedule – and he was if nothing else a creature of habit – she made certain to arrive in advance. With her knee still on the mend, it took a while to climb the hill to the pavilion. She would sit on one of the picnic tables scattered on a gravel patio along the south wall of the building and elevate her leg while she waited for him.
She had been taking Percocet now as well as the prescription painkillers and it felt good to sit in the sun. She’d scored the Percs from a woman with pink hair who played slow pitch in the same league as Kate, after the woman had told her about her own problems post knee surgery. Kate suspected the woman was strictly dealing and the knee story was a cover but that was OK with her. She needed the extra meds.
Some days The Mayor wouldn’t show and she would pass the afternoon there anyway, watching the goings-on of the park. The drugs took the edge off her anxiety and convinced her that there was purpose in her actions. Everyone required a sense of purpose.
The park had seen better days. The concrete of the basketball courts was cracked and potholed and the ball diamonds were weed-infested, the screens rusting. There were still pickup games in progress some days but in general the place was a hangout for kids smoking pot or playing music while they danced or rode their skateboards on the courts. Seniors from the area walked their dogs on the grass, and once in a while an optimistic angler would make his way down into the ravine, pole in hand, heading for Fisher Creek.
She had been puzzled when The Mayor had first begun his visits there. There was a much nicer park within walking distance of his house, a well-kept expanse of red oaks and hard maples and stone fountains, along with a band shell where a jazz quartet played on Friday evenings in the summer. Decades earlier the property was bequeathed to the city by a woman on the condition that the park be named after her late son, a bankrupt lawyer as well as a drunkard and a wife-beater, character traits that were not mentioned on the plaque bearing his name.
It didn’t take long for Kate to realize the attraction of Fisher Park for The Mayor. Most days there was a handful of teenage girls who after school played pickup basketball on the court near the wading pool. They were girls from the neighborhood, wearing sweats or jeans or cargos, bandanas and ball caps turned backwards, tough chicks but probably not nearly as tough as their poses. They trash-talked and strutted on the court, multi-pierced and tattooed and profane.
It was obvious that The Mayor’s routine put him at that particular court at a specific time. He parked in the small gravel lot off Millburn Street at shor
tly after two, got out and retrieved a tartan carry bag from his trunk. He would stroll the full length of the park, stopping often to chat with someone or to sit on a bench in the sun. The tartan bag contained, among other items, breadcrumbs and peanuts which he would sometimes feed to the birds and the squirrels.
He rarely climbed the steep hill to the pavilion where Kate sat and watched from the pines, her face hidden by a hoodie or baseball cap and shades. When he did, she would see him well in advance and move away, down the other side of the slope and into the ravine.
His meander up and down the park would usually take the better part of an hour but he would always arrive at the benches by the basketball court by three o’clock. There he would sit and take a thermos from the bag and pour himself a cup of something. Coffee or tea, Kate guessed, but she couldn’t be sure. It could’ve been Scotch or gin.
He would take a book or magazine from the bag and sit there reading while he sipped from the cup. By arriving no later than three he was always there when the girls showed a half hour or so later. So he was not an old man showing up to ogle young girls. He was there first.
It hadn’t been long before he’d started up conversations with a few of them. Kate had no idea what the subject matter might be. But soon he was laughing with them, and offering snacks and power bars from the bag. There was one girl in particular whom he talked to more than the others, primarily because she was a lousy player and preferred to sit out. It seemed she was there as part of the group of friends. She was tall and slim, with straight blond hair that reached halfway down her back. She was reticent in her body language; there was a shyness about her that resonated even from a hundred yards away. From time to time she would sit beside The Mayor on the bench, and once he showed her something in the book he was reading.
One day The Mayor arrived carrying a large shopping bag and when the girls gathered for their game, he presented them with a new ball. The girls made a huge fuss over him, hugging him and urging him on to the court to shoot a few baskets. He laughed and waved them away.
He left early that day, having made his impression, Kate thought. Her car was parked on Nash Road, on the far side of the park. When she saw that he was leaving, she made her way quickly to it and followed him as he pulled out of the lot on Millburn Street. He did not head home, though, but turned right and drove toward the lake. She kept him in sight until he reached Lakeshore Drive and turned off on a side street. She stopped by the entrance to the street and watched as he parked and got out and went into a building. She drove down the street. The building had a sign out front and she stopped to read it.
When she got home, David was standing in front of the garage, fixing a broken handle on a rake. There were leaves piled here and there in the yard. Kate parked and started for the house.
‘Hey,’ he said.
‘Hi.’
She sensed that he wanted to talk but she went inside. She expected him to follow but he didn’t. She drank a vodka and tonic and smoked a cigarette, limping on one crutch from the kitchen to the living room. He was still in the yard, bagging leaves and placing the bags by the curb for pickup. She got her notebook from her room and wrote down the day’s events.
When he finally came in, Kate was on her second vodka. Writing about her day calmed her, gave her a sense of accomplishment, even though in her heart she knew that the notion was false. Still, there had been a new development today and she wanted to get it on paper, even though she couldn’t decide its significance. She was finally beginning to feel tired. She wasn’t sleeping very much at night, although the painkillers helped. Her eyes were closing when she heard the door and she looked up to see him standing there.
‘Are you OK?’ he asked.
‘Sure.’
‘You don’t look OK.’
‘Gee, thanks.’
‘Where you been?’
Kate took a drink. ‘Fisher Park. That’s where I’ve been.’
‘What did you accomplish at Fisher Park?’
‘Nothing.’
‘Maybe there’s nothing to accomplish there,’ he said.
She rubbed her eyes with her fingertips. ‘He bought a puppy today.’
‘What?’
Kate reached for the drink. ‘When he left the park, he drove over to a kennel by the lake and bought a puppy. A Golden Retriever.’ She glanced up. ‘Why would he buy a puppy?’
‘Who the fuck cares?’
‘I have a theory on why he bought a puppy,’ she said.
David put his hands in the air, like a man being held at gunpoint. ‘I don’t want to hear it.’
‘That’s OK. You don’t need to.’
‘I don’t know what’s going to happen to you,’ he told her.
‘It already happened,’ she said.
The blond girl’s name was Lindsay. A few days after picking the pup up at the kennel, The Mayor began to take the dog to Fisher Park with him. The tartan bag now contained, among the usual items, dog biscuits and bottled water as well as a miniature drinking bowl. The Mayor’s routine remained the same. But now, when he arrived at the basketball court, he was no longer by himself.
Teenage girls love puppies and the tough chicks from the west end, with their tats and their nose rings and their trash talk, were no exception to that truth. From the first day The Mayor had shown up with the dog, the animal had been greeted with squeals of delight and smothered with affection. Soon the girls were bringing presents – dog treats, rawhide bones, slices of cheese. One removed her own bandana and put it around the puppy’s neck.
The Mayor couldn’t have integrated the group any better if he had passed out hundred dollar bills. Later that same week Kate saw him give the blond girl a book from the carry bag. Kate had come closer that day, limping cautiously along the ravine’s edge, wearing shades and a toque. She was near enough to see the look on the blond girl’s face when The Mayor gave her the hardcover. After a moment The Mayor took the book from her and found a particular passage to show her. The blond girl read it with the little puppy sitting on her lap. Kate dropped down into the ravine and leaned her head against the mossy bark of a maple tree. She felt as if she was going to throw up. The blond girl was Kate, seventeen years earlier. Kate was out of earshot but it didn’t matter. She could hear the old man’s line of bullshit, the flattering remarks, the grandfatherly advice. And the blond girl soaking it in, as Kate had, unknowing, naive. Like Kate, looking for approval. Liking the attention. It was human nature for a kid that age, especially a kid who had grown up with large emotional gaps in her life. And the old man knew it. He more than knew it: he had made it his life’s work.
Later that day she learned the girl’s name. When The Mayor clipped the leash on the pup and left, Kate didn’t follow. She moved to the rise and watched the Lincoln pull out of the parking lot and head for the concrete bridge that spanned the ravine. He was going home.
The basketball game was still in progress. Kate got her crutches beneath her and moved toward the court.
The book was To Kill a Mockingbird. The blond girl was reading the first chapter when Kate hobbled over to plop down on a bench a few feet away. She felt her knee, as if evaluating something there, before glancing over.
‘Hey,’ she said.
‘Hi,’ the blond girl replied.
The girls on the court were watching Kate as they played. ‘Great book,’ she said.
‘I’m just starting it,’ the girl said.
‘It was a movie too, you know.’
‘Yeah.’
‘So what’s your name?’
The blond girl looked at Kate a second time before replying. ‘Lindsay.’
Kate rubbed her knee again. ‘Oh man, it’s been tough rehabbing this thing.’ She indicated the players. ‘Blew it out playing this dumb game. You play?’
‘Nah, I’m kind of a spaz.’
‘You live around here?’ Kate asked.
‘Over on Ross.’
‘With your folks?’
‘J
ust my mom.’
Good Christ, Kate thought. It never changes. It was like watching the same movie over and over again. But why would it change? What had ever occurred that would require him to alter his methods? Or better yet – to cease and desist?
‘That guy that was here – he give you the book?’
Lindsay put the book down in her lap. ‘Yeah.’
She was looking at Kate closely now. Kate was suddenly aware of her clothes, her dirty jeans and hoodie.
‘So what’s his name?’
‘We just call him Uncle Joe.’
Uncle fucking Joe, Kate thought. She glanced at the girls running up and down the cracked concrete. They were the tough ones, at least in this little circle. He hadn’t chosen one of them. He’d picked this girl. She was the one Uncle Joe had decided was worthy of special treatment.
‘You know what the book’s about?’ Kate asked. ‘It’s about an ignorant white asshole who assaults his own daughter.’
Lindsay wouldn’t look at her now.
‘What do you know about Uncle Joe?’ Kate asked.
Glancing over at the other girls, Lindsay asked loudly, ‘Who are you anyway?’
‘I know about Uncle Joe,’ Kate said. ‘He’s not safe to be around.’
‘Yo, Lindsay!’ one of the girls shouted. ‘What’s going on?’
‘Who are you?’ Lindsay almost shouted it this time.
A couple of the girls came off the court. Kate got to her feet, picking up her crutches. She was suddenly pissed off, angry that they would suspect her of something.
‘Uncle Joe isn’t what you think,’ she told them. ‘He isn’t your uncle. He isn’t your fucking grandfather. Wake up.’
‘What she on about, Lins?’
‘I don’t know,’ Lindsay said. ‘I think she’s high.’
‘Get the fuck outa here.’ The girls were laughing now. ‘Get your Tiny Tim ass out of here with them crutches.’
Kate had no choice but to back off. She looked one last time at Lindsay before she moved away. As she made her way to the parking lot she could hear the girls, still mocking. When she got to her car, she turned back toward the court. The game was on again. Lindsay was on the bench, reading her new book.