In the City of Shy Hunters

by Tom Spanbauer

  The Sergeant of the Pocatello police, Robert Thompson on his badge, told me and Charlie we were going to be charged with accessory to murder in the first degree.

  It wasn’t no murder, Charlie said, It was suicide.

  What about the murdered baby? Sergeant Robert Thompson said.

  But it’s not the truth.

  We didn’t have to go to jail. They just sent Charlie home to Viv’s double-wide and me home with Mother and Father.

  IT RAINED AT Bobbie’s funeral. They let her get buried in the church because Monsignor Verhooven was there driving his ’58 Mercury when Bobbie made the Act of Contrition. Plus Father was a member of the Elks Club and so was Monsignor Verhooven, plus Father gave the Monsignor some money, a hundred dollars, I think.

  Father refused to allow Charlie 2Moons to come to the funeral, so Viv didn’t come to the funeral either or any of her friends from Viv’s Double-Wide Beauty Salon.

  Lou Racing and his wife came, and two girls from Pocatello High School I didn’t know, and then there was Father and Mother and Monsignor Verhooven and the two altar boys and me.

  Bobbie wore the black dress.

  Father didn’t want Bobbie to wear the black dress, said it made his little girl look too old.

  Mother said, Why’d you buy it for her then?

  I didn’t buy it for her! Father said, It was just a dress that got mixed up with my costume stuff at some dang rodeo.

  Lying bastard! Mother said.

  Crazy bitch! Father said.

  AT MOUNT MORIAH cemetery, not far from the Chinese part where Bobbie had thrown her bloody panties and Kotex into the bushes, not far from where the three of us lay that day in the leaves, they put Bobbie in a hole.

  Father drove his swimming-pool-blue Dodge pickup the fifteen miles back home, the seat I’d wiped down with soap and water so our good clothes wouldn’t get soiled; Mother in the middle, me shotgun by the window.

  Father driving, in his blue tweed suit and white shirt and blue tie with leaves on it and black shoes and Old Spice, Mother between us in her violet dress, sequined orchid all the way down the front, her nylons seams a mess of swoops, her high heels with the holes in the toes, Evening in Paris, her Orange Exotica lipstick, her knees pointed my way away from the gearshift, me in clean Levi’s and white shirt and clip-on bow tie, and the green corduroy jacket Viv sent over with Charlie to give me when Father wasn’t there.

  Father, Mother, and I, driving home, driving and driving and driving.

  I went straight up to my room. All I wanted was to see Charlie, but I knelt right down and prayed my rosary to God that Charlie wouldn’t come over with Father in the house, but I knew Charlie would, so after the rosary, all I could do was lie down on the bed, straight, my arms close by my sides, and wait for what was going to happen.

  When it got dark, I crawled out my bedroom window and slid down the cottonwood. The moon was so bright, the night had shadows.

  In the hayloft, the Marilyn Monroe light was on. The Marilyn Monroe light on the map of the Known Universe made the planets glow, especially Jupiter and Saturn and Pluto. KSEI on the old Zenith, playing Your Dancing Hits.

  If we could freeze moments in time.

  That night, the Idaho wind was high in the cottonwoods and the sky was a perfect deep navy blue behind the yellow leaves, yellow leaves sigh and scratch. Big gusts of wind through the hayloft, rattling shingles.

  I stood at the window, rolling cigarettes for Charlie and for me. The moon was full, the blue mountains far off an even darker blue than the sky. Along the foothills, tumbleweeds rolled and rolled up to the fences. Together Again was on the big brown Zenith in the comer, Bobbie’s map of the Known Universe hanging above the white-trash couch. The old black-and-white quilt, wedding-ring pattern, draped over the couch, ends tucked into the cushions, just so.

  Perfect, just perfect.

  That night—wind through the shingles, pigeon flutter, barn spirits—Charlie walked up the stairs.

  Sexually haunted.

  Want to dance, stranger? Charlie said.

  On KSEI, I’ve got you under my skin/I’ve got you deep in the heart of me. Charlie’s Michelangelo bare feet, my new shoes stiff, Shinola. Cheek to cheek—this is how it started, remember Charlie?—where it ended—sliding a two-step on the barn floor through straw and cottonwood leaves.

  Heaven, I’m in heaven.

  Raven-black wavy hair, big shoulders, beautiful according to Crazy Horse.

  Little brother, Charlie said.

  I hadn’t cried yet but was waiting to, waiting to let loose on a big wail. But then Charlie 2Moons was crying—and hearing him cry made me stop right off.

  Charlie 2Moons up against me, crying crying, his body shaking, holding on so tight to me, so tight, tears rolling down his cheeks, onto his chin, onto my neck, down inside my shirt, down my back.

  Charlie climbed under the old black-and-white wedding-ring quilt with me, lay down next to me, him a vision smelling of sagebrush, Grandfather’s medicine pipe, nothing but blue skies, Old Spice, sperm.

  Charlie’s visitation was his hand in my crotch. Charlie said he was just warming his hand, warming my crotch, his sure hand unbuttoning me, his sure hand around my medicine pipe, revealing the wound, our secret wound that he know about: the beginning of, the middle, how it ends.

  Hard, ancient, roadkill erotic.

  When all else has failed, in a hell of a fix, up Shit Creek, things gone haywire, when your sister is dead and there’s no hope and you can still hear the rope swaying in the barn, the sexually haunted barn, my breath into Charlie’s ear was the only place left.

  THE FLUORESCENT TUBES on the ceiling of the barn, the unrelenting light from above, flashed down on Father, casting hard shadows close around him on the floor, Father standing in the hayloft, his black bullwhip wrapped around his arm.

  Mother walked in behind him, barefoot, wearing her yellow terry-cloth bathrobe. She was smoking a Herbert Tareyton. Her hair was sticking up. Mother lost, not on the premises.

  Please remember me.

  Don’t ever betray me.

  Don’t ever leave me.

  That look. At me.

  I sat up quick on the white-trash couch, pulled the old black-and-white wedding-ring quilt over Charlie.

  Between Charlie and them, me.

  Charlie, I was in between. Can you understand that?

  Will, mother said.

  Mother handed the Herbert Tareyton to Father, slid her bare feet across the pigeon shit and straw on the dusty barn floor toward the couch, hands out, palms up.

  Only silence, in all the world, the whole Known Universe, only silence.

  Halfway to me and Charlie, she stopped and knelt down, her bare white knees on the dusty barn floor, put her hands over her face, big sobs, snot running out her nose, her chest up and down, her yellow terry-cloth bathrobe falling open, just her bare chest, Charlie, open.

  Lost soul, lost the way, lost the world, lost for words. No lost and found.

  Then Mother wiped her eyes with the back of her wrists, snuffed up, swallowed and knelt up straight, put her arms out again, palms up toward me.

  Will! Mother said.

  My son! Mother said. You must tell me the truth!

  Father’s long hard shadow unwinding the black bullwhip.

  Bobbie had no boyfriends, Mother said. She hardly left her room. The high school girls at the funeral said Bobbie didn’t have a boyfriend, Mother said. They said she was a good girl. She didn’t go with boys in the backseats of their cars.

  Mother’s eye makeup from the funeral was a mess of black-and-blue smears, dark holes on either side of her nose.

  Will, Mother said, My son, promise me you’ll tell me the truth!

  I know you love Charlie, Mother said, And we’ll protect him, but, please, I beg you, do not protect him by lying to me.

  I must know the truth, Mother said.

  Father’s shadow growing growing, a storm cloud, a thunderhead between Charlie and
me and the light.

  Charlie was the only boy around Bobbie, Mother said. It couldn’t be anyone else. Charlie is the only one. Charlie had to be the father of Bobbie’s child.

  That’s when Charlie grabbed my shoulder.

  Remember, Charlie?

  Father spread-legged John Wayne, the black shadow of him pouring out onto the floor. Father’s eyes straight into my eyes, unwinding the black bullwhip, laughing, his chest up, down, then up again.

  Will! Mother said. My only son, my child, please!

  The horrific whisper.

  I beg you please, please! Mother said. Tell me the truth!

  Your husband has been fucking your daughter for five years now, I said, And you know it. You buried Bobbie in the black dress, bitch. You’ve always known and you’ve never had the strength to stand up to Father, not really, not even when it came to saving your daughter’s life. You betrayed Bobbie as you have betrayed me as you have betrayed yourself. So don’t give me any of this Oh-my-only-son-tell-me-the-truth shit, I said. And, oh yeah, here’s something else too. The truth you want to hear so badly.

  Yes, Charlie fucked her. And I fucked her too, I said.

  But it’s not the truth.

  Charlie’s the father, I said.

  Charlie jumped. You jumped up, Charlie.

  The first lash of Father’s bullwhip caught you around the waist, stopped you in your tracks. The second crack of the whip was vertical, a flip of his wrist down and then up and the leather snapped against your face and the cut went deep from under your eye through your upper lip.

  You didn’t flinch, Charlie. Not a tear, not a sound.

  You never looked me in the eyes again.

  Father’s shadow and your blood on the straw and pigeon shit on the dusty barn floor.

  This is what you said, Charlie. The words that hurt.

  You Parkers, all of you, you said, Are haunted.

  And just like that you were gone, into the night, down the back stairs, Charlie 2Moons out of my life, forever.

  Forgive me, Charlie.

  The moment that, after, you’re different.

  You, Charlie 2Moons.

  Gone.

  CHAPTER

  TWENTY-SIX

  The message on my red answering machine was street noise and somebody breathing. True Shot? Rose? Fiona?

  All at once a deep sexy voice.

  William of Heaven! What a sweet name, honey! Can I borrow it? Just called to tell you I got a hard-on I’m saving just for you! Remember me? Crystal? We met one night in the meat-packing district. I’ll bet you thought little Crystal forgot all about you, but she didn’t.

  Listen, honey, I never did find your friend 2Moons. I didn’t find the Ruby guy either. But I did find a very large, very drunk ’skin named True Shot.

  When he’s awake, he insists his name is Peter Morales. But I tell you something. I never forget a face, especially his. And yours.

  Anyway, he won’t stop talking about you, and he’s driving us fucking mad. Come pick him up, will you? Meet me on the corner of Eighth Avenue and Forty-third, this afternoon around four.

  Love ya.

  Mean it.

  OUTSIDE, POURING RAIN, whirling whirling big wind like to knock you over. I turned my ball cap back around so the bill could keep the rain off my face, turned the collar of the pea coat up, hunched my shoulders, head down, tried to bury my ears, but it was no use. Stuck my hands in my big pea coat pockets. My red Converse tennis shoes were wet in no time.

  A Checker taxi pulled out from the corner of 42nd and Broadway, the back tires spinning, making a sound I thought at first was the wind, then some kind of Asian music, then the sound was somebody screaming, then I looked and it was the tires.

  I walked to Eighth Avenue, my head down, just looking at my wet shoes. On Eighth Avenue, the gust of wind made me stop.

  On 43rd Street, people were three deep on the avenue waving and screaming at the headlights coming at them, thousands of headlights coming at them, taxis splashing on by.

  I stood under the next green awning I could find, at the deli on 43rd and Eighth, just for a moment. Took my ball cap off, beat my ball cap against my leg, put my ball cap back on. An Asian guy carrying a crate of oranges inside screamed at me, his language high-pitched and sour and spinning tires, and used the crate of oranges as a battering ram to push me back out into the street. Right then this truck goes by and throws a wave of New York City gutter water all over me, like some huge dragon piss, soaked.

  On the neon-bright marquee were the red words CHICKS WITH DICKS. PRIVATE BOOTHS. XXX.

  Four-ten.

  Four-twenty.

  Even my nuts were soaked.

  Then a young man in a black stocking cap and a shiny pink parka walked up to me, stood too close.

  Spare some change? he asked.

  He was wearing black tights. On his feet, fuzzy gray slippers.

  I was New York drop-dead fuck-you.

  Love ya, he said. Mean it.

  I turned quick, looked hard into his eyes, and inside in there was Crystal.

  Crystal’s lips were a boy’s lips, no red life all their own. A bruise under his eye. When he smiled, his front two teeth were missing.

  William of Heaven, Crystal said, You’d never make it on the street. It’s all right to forget the dick, he said, But don’t forget the face.

  What happened to your face? I said.

  Follow me, Crystal said.

  Halfway down the block, on the right, I followed Crystal up the stoop. He shoved a plastic card between the doorjambs, and the door swung open hard. Narrow hallway, painted lemon yellow, unrelenting light. Seventeen steps to the second floor.

  No lightbulbs on the second floor.

  A smell of propane and something else.

  Crystal pushed open a door without a lock.

  The cold dark room was stripped down to the two-by-fours. No chairs, no table, no beds. The only light was a blowtorch burning blue in one of the double kitchen sinks. The other sink was full of needles, plastic things, a Roy Rogers bag of french fries. People everywhere on the floor, twenty or thirty of them. People up close to each other wrapped in blankets, coats, plastic bags, newspaper.

  Somebody coughing hard the way Ruby used to.

  Two candles. Hands, palms open, reaching for the flame.

  He’s over here, Crystal said.

  The purple bumps on Crystal’s wrist were big black raspberries in the blue blowtorch light.

  True Shot was lying on the floor. He looked like a tree root or a half-frozen length of mud. Stringy long black hair and no shoes and dirty white socks. An empty bottle of Night Train lying next to his extra-lovely Wrangler jeans with the boot flare. No boots. His red corduroy shirt stained with something dark. Wine? Blood?

  I was kneeling over him before I even knew it.

  True Shot? I said.

  I put my hand under his neck, lifted his head, put his head in my lap. Pulled the hair from his face. His skin was gray to green and he smelled something awful and I thought for sure he was dead, and then he coughed and threw up all over his shirt and down my leg.

  We got to get you to a hospital, I said.

  True Shot jabbed me with his elbow, jumped his huge dead bulk up, his bunched-up dirty white socks on the wood floor, fell over again, got back up on his knees, walked on his knees, fell flat.

  No hospital! True Shot said. No hospital!

  People yelling, running in the dark room through the arched doorway into the blowtorch blue of the kitchen. Big grotesque shadows on the walls.

  Someone knocked a candle over. I quick picked the candle up.

  True Shot was standing with his arms out like a man who couldn’t see. I stepped one step toward True Shot and I felt a hand on my shoulder.

  Easy, Crystal said. Take it easy, Papi.

  The archway of blowtorch blue was a halo around Crystal’s head.

  Crystal stepped up close. His lips at my ear.

  You got any mone
y?

  A little, I said.

  True Shot was a buckled-knee vertical crawl. His head hit the floor hard.

  How much? Crystal said.

  Thirty dollars, I said. Maybe forty.

  Give me twenty, Crystal said. You got two tens?

  My hands were like Catholic statues in the light. The inside of my wallet, shadows of bills.

  Crystal reached in my wallet, took two bills. He held one in each hand and held the bills like Dumbo ears next to his head.

  Ten, Crystal said, And ten.

  Let me look at those, I said.

  Crystal dropped his hands, crumpled the bills into his fists.

  Do you want your friend, Crystal said, Or not?

  Crystal paid two big guys, a black guy and a brown guy, ten bucks each to carry True Shot down to the street.

  Ten bucks in the house. Ten bucks on the street.

  The black guy grabbed True Shot’s arms. The brown guy grabbed True Shot’s legs.

  Into the arch of blowtorch blue light, through the dark door, down the narrow dark hallway, down the seventeen steps, into the unrelenting lemon yellow, out the front door, down seven steps of the stoop.

  The black man and the brown man leaned True Shot against a lamp-post, and when they let go, True Shot’s hair stuck to the lamppost, but True Shot started to slide.

  Hold on a little longer! Crystal yelled.

  The two men quick put their arms behind True Shot.

  Just help us get him into a fucking cab! William of Heaven, Crystal said, Hail us a cab!

  Crystal pulled a joint out of his pocket, lit it with a silver lighter, inhaled big.

  Can I have some of that? I said.

  Crystal kept sucking, and as he sucked he shook his head.

  Then, in the gray exhale: This shit will kill you, he said. Now get us a cab, Crystal said.

  I’ll hold True Shot, I said. You hail the cab.

  In your dreams, Crystal said. Get your white ass out there and get us a cab!

  A CAB FINALLY stopped, I opened the door, and when the cabdriver saw the extra-lovely dead-drunk True Shot, he threw the car in gear and started off.

  But Crystal was standing in front of the cab screaming, his arms in the air: Evita.