Coal Run

by Tawni O'Dell

  She looks over at a space on the kitchen wall, then back to Dr. Ed with hope in her eyes, as if the fact that there was a wall there confirmed her story.

  “Did he hit his head on anything when he fell back?”

  “The floor.”

  “I want to take him to the hospital,” Dr. Ed says, wiping blood from his own face.

  “No, I don’t want to do that.”

  “He might have a head injury.”

  “I don’t want any trouble. I don’t want Jess to know.”

  “You don’t want Jess to know what? That his son smashed into a wall and needs to go to the hospital? What’s going on here, Bobbie? Did Jess do this?”

  She stands up and backs away from him, crossing her arms tightly over her chest.

  “No,” she says to the floor.

  “Where is he?”

  “He went for a walk.”

  “We can ask Danny what happened, and the girls.”

  She looks up and meets his eyes. The first spark of anger is in hers.

  “They’ll tell you the same thing I told you.”

  “Damn it, Bobbie!” Dr. Ed shouts at her. “What the hell is going on with you? You’re not stupid. Don’t you love your kids?”

  “Yes, I love my kids!” she shouts back at him. “Of course, I love my kids. Don’t you ask me that. I love Jess, too.”

  “That’s the stupidest thing I ever heard.”

  “It’s not stupid to love my husband. I don’t want him to be mad.”

  “Mad?” Dr. Ed’s face begins to turn red. Even the skin on his scalp beneath his white crew cut turns rosy. The tips of his ears are almost scarlet. “Mad? You want to see mad? I’m going to show you mad!

  “Ivan?” he says. “Does she want to see me get mad?”

  “I don’t think so.”

  Bobbie makes eye contact with me for the first time since I’ve arrived. Unlike Bethany Blystone, she looks remarkably the same to me as I remember her in high school. She even still has the same short boy’s haircut. I’m not usually crazy about short hair on women, but she can pull it off because her face is so pretty. It’s an angel’s face with a snub nose and round cheeks, big wide hazel eyes, and full lips that were always fixed in a bored, alluring pout or a sly, lazy smile. The hair is pretty, too, a dark coppery brown that used to shine in the sunlight streaming through a study-hall window like a freshly minted penny.

  Our senior year of high school, one of the guys on the team threw a costume party at Halloween. Bobbie went as Pat Benatar, in a skintight cat suit with stiletto-heeled black leather boots and a chain-link belt hung with silver lightning bolts Jess made for her in metal shop. That costume is what led to our romp in the backseat of her grandmother’s car.

  I couldn’t get her out of my mind. I knew she was dating Jess, but I didn’t care. I didn’t want her as a girlfriend. I just wanted to get my hands on her body.

  I knew she had an after-school job every day but Thursday. That was the day she drove her grandmother to the beauty shop in Centresburg in her grandmother’s car and did her homework while she waited for her. I’d seen her sitting in the front window of the shop with a textbook in her lap on my way home from practice.

  I stopped one day and asked her if she wanted to go for a ride while she waited. She’s the one who suggested we take her grandmother’s car instead of my pickup. Afterward I realized it was because she was intending to do me just as much as I was intending to do her, and she knew the big backseat of the Buick would give us more room.

  She wasn’t like any other girl I had screwed up to that point. She didn’t have a single hang-up about sex. She laughed and screamed and talked dirty. She wanted to be completely naked. No messing around with shirts and bras tangled around her neck and panties hanging off an ankle. She didn’t care if I loved her or if I even wanted to date her. She made no demands except she wanted to be on top. Her legs clamping my hips were like a sprung trap.

  That was the beginning and end of it. I never had an opportunity to see her alone again. Every time I saw her in school, she was with a friend or Jess. I stopped seeing her and her grandma’s car at the beauty shop.

  I wasn’t going to call her. She was Jess’s girl. Having sex with her was okay as long as he didn’t know and she didn’t care, but actively pursuing her would have been an overt declaration of war, and I wasn’t willing to take it that far. Bobbie was a great place to visit, but I didn’t want to live there.

  I had never paid much attention to her and Jess as a couple before, but after we did it, I started watching them talk to each other at her locker. There was something about the way she looked at him that bothered me. I couldn’t put my finger on it at first. It was a dopey look, a sort of embarrassed look, one completely out of character for the girl who had unzipped my pants before I could even get my hand under her shirt. She’d get flushed and smile guiltily at him like he was handing her a present she didn’t think she deserved but wasn’t about to turn down.

  One day I stopped her in the hall. She smiled at me, but there was none of the sensual shame in it that she gave Jess.

  “So what’s really going on with you and Raynor?” I asked casually.

  “Nothing you’d understand,” she said.

  “What are you doing here?” she asks me now, her voice turning icy. “I know you’re a deputy now. Jolene told me you moved back.”

  She turns around to Dr. Ed, her anger deepening along with her paranoia.

  “He can’t just barge in here without saying who he is,” she says furiously to Dr. Ed. “This is my home. You tricked me. You brought a cop with you.”

  “I’m off duty,” I tell her.

  “Get out!” she yells at me.

  “Enough, Bobbie. That’s it,” Dr. Ed tells her from the sink where he’s washing up. “I’m taking Danny to my office. I can treat him there. He can stay overnight. You can stay, too. If he seems well enough to come home, you can take him tomorrow. Otherwise he goes to the hospital. You’re not going to jeopardize his health in order to protect Jess’s cowardly ass.”

  “He’s not a coward. He’s not.”

  She starts to cry.

  “Don’t defend him. By defending him you’re every bit as bad as he is.”

  “He didn’t do anything.”

  “Where are the rest of the kids?” he asks her while he towels off his hands.

  “I sent the girls to their room. Gary’s at a friend’s house.”

  “Get the girls and the keys to the truck. I don’t want to leave him a vehicle if he’s drunk.”

  He bends down and gathers up Danny in his arms. Bobbie puts his blanket over him and fusses with it, trying to tuck the blue-satin-trimmed edges beneath Dr. Ed’s arms before she leaves to get her daughters. The boy jerks away from her again.

  “You’re not going to report this?” I ask as soon as she’s gone.

  “First of all, I’m not exactly sure what I’d be reporting, and second of all, Crystal used to call the cops on Reese before he finally caved in her skull,” he says as we pass back through the family room.

  “You don’t have to put it that way.”

  “It’s the truth. Calling the cops is not always the best way to handle something. You know that. Did you arrest Rick Blystone this morning?”

  “No.”

  Danny shifts in Dr. Ed’s arms. He’s wide awake now and staring calmly at Dr. Ed’s face. He looks a lot like Jess, except he has his mom’s reddish brown hair.

  We stop at the front door, and he looks down at the boy.

  “Hey, Danny.”

  “Hi, Dr. Ed.”

  “What happened to your nose?”

  “I hit the wall,” he says automatically.

  “Someone tell you to say that?”

  “No.”

  “You want to go to my office and get some stickers?”

  “Where’s Dad?”

  “He’s not here right now. Do you want to see him?”

  He tries to sit up in Dr.
Ed’s arms and look around.

  “Where’s Mom?” he asks, starting to panic.

  “She’s coming.”

  I open the front door, take a step outside, and freeze.

  Jess has stumbled into the front yard, lurching and listing to one side like something rabid. He’s dragging his rifle behind him and carrying the plastic rings from a six-pack, with one can of beer left dangling from them. A chew of tobacco swells his lower lip like a bee sting. He comes to a stop and stands, swaying, staring out at the road and my truck. I don’t see Jolene in it.

  Bobbie comes up behind Dr. Ed with a little girl in either hand. They all practically run into me. We stand perfectly still and silent in the doorway.

  “Get back where he won’t see you,” I tell them.

  I start down the steps.

  “Hey, Jess. How’s it going?” I call out.

  He leans forward, squinting at me from beneath the bill of a J&P ball cap patched in several places with silver duct tape.

  “Well, well, well. If it ain’t the great Ivan Z,” he says, finally, slowly straightening up and swinging his gun over his shoulder. “I heard you were back gimping around.”

  I smile at him and hold out my hand, walking around him so he turns his back to the house.

  “I remember when the whole county used to get a hard-on when somebody said your name,” he says, smiling back at me.

  “The county used to get a hard-on for you, too,” I remind him. “It just wasn’t quite as big as mine.”

  He slowly lowers his last beer to the ground, takes my hand, and pumps it. He has the crushing grip I remember all miners having from my youth. The size or age or overall physical condition of the man didn’t matter. They all had the same brute hand strength and forearms like rock.

  “Now look at you. You’re a public servant. You work for me. And you’re not even a real cop. Just a deputy. And you wouldn’t even be that with your bum leg if it wasn’t for Jack. You’re lucky he loves Penn State football so much. He’d probably pay you money just to stand in a corner.”

  “That’s what I do most of the time.”

  Jolene is right. He doesn’t look like Reese when Reese isn’t standing next to him. They have the same features, but the intent behind the faces is so different they hardly resemble each other.

  Reese was a confronter. A reactor, not a thinker. A destructive force. He couldn’t walk down a hall without kicking a locker. He couldn’t stand next to someone without shoving. He couldn’t complete a sentence without a threat in it. He couldn’t walk away from a tackle; he had to be pried off the other player like bark peeled from a tree. The way he stood, the way he smelled, the way he opened a book, the way he brought a fork to his mouth were all menacing.

  Jess was an avoider. He was subdued and controlled and talked in a rumbling, unhurried half whisper that should have made people ask him to speak up but always made them fall silent, lean forward, and listen closer instead, like he was letting them in on a secret. Everything he did seemed to have an unspoken apology behind it, but not the kind with guilt attached, the kind a well-meaning neighbor might offer if he heard that your truck was going to need a transmission overhaul.

  Despite Jess’s smart-ass words and the alcohol clouding his eyes, I can still see the guy I knew in high school. I can’t find the guy responsible for the bloody little kid in Dr. Ed’s arms.

  “So what the hell are you doing here?”

  “How have you been?” I ask him, instead of answering such a loaded question.

  “Okay, how about you?”

  “Not too bad. How’s your family?”

  “Good. Bobbie’s great. Did you see her? She’s in the house with the kids.”

  “Yeah, I saw her,” I say slowly.

  I feel like we’re talking about entirely different situations.

  “How’s your brother?” I ask him. “I hear he’ll finally be getting out, if he can keep from killing anyone for the next forty-eight hours.”

  Jess freezes for a moment, not just physically; I can tell that his thought processes have come to a grinding halt as well.

  “Yeah,” he says slowly, his smile vanishing. “He’s getting out on Tuesday.”

  “Tuesday?”

  “Yeah, Tuesday.”

  “Is he coming here?”

  “What’s it to you?”

  “I’m just curious.”

  He considers my question. I watch the inner workings of his mind show on the outer workings of his face. He’s trying to decide if there’s a reason not to be honest with me. His slowness comes from the booze. Jess isn’t stupid.

  “Yeah,” he finally answers me. “He’s coming here. You got a problem with that?”

  “I couldn’t be happier,” I say in all seriousness.

  He lets his gun slide down his arm and starts absentmindedly tapping the butt of it against his mud-caked boot.

  “You got the safety on that?” I ask him.

  He spits a brown stream close to my boot.

  “Safety?” he repeats the word like it might be in Spanish. “Safety?” he says again, smiling crookedly, and pointing the gun at my crotch.

  Behind him I see Dr. Ed edging out the door carrying Danny.

  “Please put the gun down, Jess.”

  “What if I won’t? You gonna arrest me?”

  “No. It’s your gun. Your land.”

  He aims it at my head.

  “Come on, Jess. I won’t arrest you, but if you keep this up, I might have to shoot you.”

  “Shoot me?” he hoots over the scope. “Shoot me? You don’t even have a gun on you.”

  “I have one in my truck. Don’t make me walk over there and get it. I’ve had a hard day. I just want to get back to Brownie’s and watch some TV. There’s a Chuck Norris movie on tonight.”

  “Which one?”

  “I think it’s the one where the Russians invade Florida.”

  He makes a loud suck on his tobacco.

  “Your dad was a Russian, right? I mean something like a Russian. A Ukie. Right?”

  “Yeah.” I bristle. “And your dad was a man, right? Or something like a man. A chimp. Right?”

  He takes a quick step forward and jabs the gun barrel into my stomach.

  Fear spreads through my chest like a spray of ice water. His finger on the trigger twitches. If he pulls it, he will blow a hole through my gut.

  He yanks the gun back and jabs it again, harder this time. I stare down at the sleek black barrel. A Browning Autoloader .22. He leans toward me over the gun connecting us now like a shared limb.

  “You got a problem with my dad?” he says in a low voice.

  I glance back at the house and see Bobbie with a little girl in each hand standing in the doorway behind Dr. Ed.

  “Jess!” Jolene cries out.

  He jerks with surprise and turns toward her voice, swinging the gun away from me. She’s getting out of my truck, waving and smiling.

  Dr. Ed takes advantage of the distraction and starts across the yard, carrying Danny, with the intent of a tank. Bobbie and the girls follow him with their heads down.

  “Bobbie,” Jess calls out to her, sheer worry in his voice. “What’s going on?”

  He’s too drunk to process the amount of action occurring in different directions. He looks from his wife to Dr. Ed to me to Jolene, who’s taking mincing steps across the torn-up yard.

  “Hi, Jess,” Jolene calls to him. “How are you?”

  Doors slam, the engine revs, tires spin on gravel. He’s confused, but not enough. He glances at Dr. Ed’s car and back to Jolene again, who keeps walking toward him, still smiling and waving.

  “What’s going on? Bobbie!” he shouts again. “Where are you going? Where are you taking the kids?”

  He turns to me, terror clouding his face.

  “What’s wrong with Danny? Why’s the doctor here? Where are they going?”

  “Bobbie!” he cries out a final time, sounding like a wounded animal. “Don’t
leave. Don’t take the kids.”

  He raises his rifle and aims it at the tires on Dr. Ed’s car.

  “Jess!” Jolene screams.

  He looks her way. She bends down, grabs the hem of her dress, pulls it up over her head, and tosses it into the yard.

  He watches her, stunned stupid, and slowly lowers the gun.

  I pick up one of the broken boards from the garage door and hit him across the back of the head. He falls to his knees, then flat on his face.

  Dr. Ed pulls out.

  Jolene looks down at her bra and panties. I know she’s checking to see if they match.

  5

  SAFE HAVEN’S PARKING LOT IS ALMOST EMPTY WHEN I PULL IN around nine. Visiting hours are over, but my mom’s car is still here, and two others.

  I park far away from everyone else, roll down my window, and take a deep breath. The home’s about two miles downwind from Franklin Tires. Years after its closing, the subtle reek of chemicals and burned rubber still lingers, as if the air has been permanently saturated like a rag and the sky might burst into flames if someone lit a cigarette nearby.

  I dig into my pocket for my Certs, then remember giving my last roll to the Blystone girl.

  I get my toothbrush and toothpaste out of the gym bag I keep in the back of my truck, give my teeth a vigorous scrub, spit onto the blacktop, and breathe into my hand to check my breath.

  I spent the evening at Brownie’s after I dropped off Jolene. I was right about the Chuck Norris movie. It was an old one where the Russians invade Florida. Landed right on the beach and nobody noticed. The movie didn’t really explain how this was able to happen, but it seemed to imply they were successful because it was dark.

  The front doors of the home are still unlocked, but I don’t see anyone in the reception area.

  I pause for a moment before I go in. To this day, hospitals or any building related to health care gives me a queasy feeling. I can’t walk into one without remembering all my surgeries, all my months of rehab, and all the pain.

  Since the time I started playing JV football in junior high, it’s hard for me to recall a single day where I didn’t experience some kind of pain, whether it be as minor as sore muscles or a bloody nose after a hard day’s practice or the bruised ribs, mild concussion, and two broken fingers that were the most serious injuries during my career.