by Joe Clifford
Back when I’d try to fix my brother, a doctor mentioned these homes as possible landing points, should Chris manage to stay sober long enough to warrant transitional housing. He never made it past twenty-seven days.
I wouldn’t have known the boarding house existed at all, had my brother not roped me into dropping off his girlfriend late one night. Took forever. The farther the road stretched, the longer I knew it would take to get back, and the more enraged I’d become. The girl, Kitty, tried being friendly, attempting to strike up a conversation, undeterred by my lack of response. Which only made me seethe more. What could she and I possibly have to talk about?
Who’d choose to live in a boarding house anyway, especially one so far off the beaten path? Public transportation didn’t run in these parts. These people never had their own car. It was like self-imposed exile. Hell, even the idea of a boarding house struck me as odd, like a leftover relic from a World War II love story, a sailor down on his luck in an old film noir. Who couldn’t get their shit together enough to at least rent a goddamn motel room on the Turnpike?
I steered down the wooded drive, and the boarding house, a once-grand, two-story American Colonial, rose into view. I’d dropped Kitty off in the middle of the night that first time, and I hadn’t gotten much of a look. With its sprawling acreage and tree-lined entrance, the home might’ve passed for a plantation in the 1700s, if shutters weren’t dangling by their hinges, and weeds and vines hadn’t choked everything. Tall, white columns framed a long rocking porch, where, despite late-afternoon, frigid winds, five old ladies sat shawled in rocking chairs. Wrapped in cheap-looking coats, hidden beneath Goodwill hats, each smoked a cigarette with frail, palsied hands.
When I exited my truck and slammed shut the door, the women collectively jumped, before clustering together and staring, wide-eyed.
As I drew closer, I realized I’d been mistaken. These weren’t old women—they were girls, barely out of their teens.
The porch door flung open, and a big-boned, sturdy, middle-aged woman bundled in flannel and dungarees, bulled down the unpainted steps. “You can’t be here!” she barked, marching toward me, meaty paws rolling over a dishtowel.
“I’m looking for someone,” I said.
“Well, this ain’t the place to be looking!” She grabbed my elbow and began dragging me off the grounds.
“Hey!” I said, trying to shake free. “What are you doing?”
She didn’t answer, didn’t stop, just plowed ahead like a determined, gruff tugboat. When I planted my boots and refused to take another step, she clamped onto my forearms and drove her shoulder into my flank, like she planned to check me into the boards. I’d had enough.
I shoved her away. “Get your fucking hands off me!”
The girls on the porch gasped, trembling like Amish virgins who’d never seen a man before.
“Go inside, girls,” the woman said, calmly but firmly, as though practicing a rehearsed fire drill.
The girls remained frozen, gawking with spooked eyes, skittish as underfed alley cats. I wondered if this was a home for mentally handicapped people or something.
“Go inside,” the woman repeated, only this time more firmly, and, one by one, the timid things shuffled through the door like pious church mice.
I felt bad, although I didn’t know why. I hadn’t done anything wrong. This woman had practically assaulted me. Still, I felt the need to explain myself.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” I said. “If you could tell me—”
“You made a big mistake coming here. You have ten seconds to get in your truck and drive off before I call the cops!”
“Call the cops? For what? Asking if somebody is home? What the hell is your problem, lady? I’m just trying to find my brother’s ex-girlfriend. He’s missing. I thought he might be staying at the boarding house with her. Or that she might’ve at least seen him.”
Lips pursed, hands at the ready like she was prepared to take a swing at me, the woman cocked her head, curiously. The anger slowly drained from her red, pudgy face. “Boarding house?” she said, dropping her shoulders. “What do you think this is, 1940? This is a battered women’s shelter.”
“Oh, shit.” Showing up in a giant, rumbling truck, storming up the walkway, barking that I wasn’t leaving. The exact scene these women needed sheltering from. “I’m sorry. I didn’t know.”
“Now you do. So, please, leave.”
I showed my hands. “Listen, my brother really is missing.”
“I’m sorry to hear that,” she said, “but you still need to leave.”
“He has a drug problem.”
“That’s terrible. A lot of these girls are fleeing that world. But I need you to leave, now.”
“They just found a friend of his dead at the TC truck stop. He’d been murdered. I don’t know where else to look. Please. Help me.”
The wind whipped around us as the last glimmer of light disappeared behind the tall trees.
“Can we sit in my truck for a few seconds and talk?” I immediately backtracked. “I’m really not looking to cause any problems. I’m a nice guy, I swear. Maybe you know my brother? Chris Porter? I dropped off his girlfriend here once. A long time ago. Like, maybe two years. It’s why I thought this was a boarding house. That’s what they told me. And I believed them.”
“Son, I’m sure you’re a nice guy. It was a misunderstanding, okay? No hard feelings. But you have to leave. I can’t tell you who’s here. Don’t you know that’s the whole point of a house like this? Nobody should know it exists. Why else would we be in the middle of nowhere? I don’t know who would’ve asked you to bring them here, since that girl should’ve known that.”
“Her name was Kitty.”
The name must’ve registered, because her expression instantly changed, though for better or worse, I couldn’t say.
I pulled out my wallet. I carried business cards for hauling that Tom had had printed. They showed a cartoon man in a hard hat, standing beside a dump truck, giving an enthusiastic thumbs up. I hated the damn things, but passed one along anyway. She reluctantly plucked it from my fingers, squinting down at the goofy logo.
“I know you can’t tell me if she’s here.” I started backing up to my truck. “But maybe you can have her call me? I swear, I’m telling the truth. I’m not some domestic-abusing jerk or anything like that. I’m just a guy looking for his brother. I’m worried about him. If you see Kitty, give her my card, okay? Use it to check out who I am first. Call the Ashton PD. They’ll verify everything I’ve told you.”
As I threw my truck in reverse, I saw her tuck away the card and stalk back into the house. She didn’t wave goodbye.
Driving back, darkness strangling the countryside, no moon, not a single star in the winter sky to guide my way home, I lit a cigarette and watched my breath cloud in the glowing dashboard lights.
I felt terrible for how I’d acted at the women’s shelter, like some knuckle-dragging troglodyte. I started rehashing all my other stupid missteps and cringe-worthy lapses in my life, which is how things happened: one mistake begetting another, building a lifetime’s worth of regret—a snowball effect.
I realized now why I’d snapped at Charlie over lunch. He was right. I hadn’t been doing my best to find Chris. I knew I resented my brother, but I didn’t appreciate just how much I’d grown to hate him. I hadn’t bothered trying to track down Kitty or any of his other friends because a part of me wanted him to stay gone.
When I got back into town, without really thinking about it, I headed for Lamentation Bridge. I stood in front of my truck. Engine rumbling, high beams backlighting me, midnight winds howling. I skimmed rocks off the ice and felt the big clock winding down.
By the time I pulled into Hank Miller’s lot, I’d smoked half a pack of cigarettes and pinched a nerve in my neck throwing too many stones. Too scatterbrained to see the police cruiser waiting for me until I was practically on top of it, I had to hammer on the brakes to keep from re
ar-ending Turley.
As soon he stepped out and I saw his face, I knew it was about Chris.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
“Tried calling you,” said Turley, tugging on the furred earflaps of his brown police hat. “Someone spotted your brother.” He jammed his hands into his coat pockets.
“He’s okay?” I asked, although it was less a question for Turley, and more for my own ears to hear. “Where is he?”
“On the run,” said Turley. “Got caught breaking into Gerry Lombardi’s house.”
“Gerry Lombardi?” Why the hell would he break into his old wrestling coach’s house?
“Lombardi’s wife, Camille, called it in. Gerry’s with the team down in Manchester for the tournament. Regionals.”
Of all the houses to break into. “She’s sure it was Chris?”
“Yup. Startled the hell out of her too. Knows your brother well from his days wrestling with Adam. She’d been having dinner with a friend in town, came home, saw the light on in Gerry’s office, walked in and caught your brother, red-handed, rifling through Gerry’s desk. She said he looked like a wild animal. Filthy, smelled bad, like he’d been sleeping in the woods.”
As if anybody could last a night in this cold. “Why would Chris be rummaging through Mr. Lombardi’s desk?”
“Gerry’s pretty old,” said Turley. “Got that bad back. Chris must’ve thought he had some painkillers lying around.” Turley pointed into the night. “Got a car prowling Elton Drive and Axel Rod Road right now. Can’t imagine he’d get far. I’ve been camped by your door in case he showed up.”
“He’s not coming here with you guys looking for him.”
“Probably not,” said Turley. “But I figured I could at least let you know he’s alive. Thought you’d like to hear that.”
I was surprised at how much I actually did.
Turley zipped his padded coat to the neck and gave another quick shiver. He glanced up at the overcast sky. “Supposed to get another foot tonight.”
“I heard. Thanks. I mean, for letting me know.”
Turley touched the brim of his furred cap, then retreated inside his car. He unrolled the window. “Don’t worry,” he said, “we’ll find your brother. And we’ll bring him in safe.” Turley hit the lights, which had to be for my benefit since there was no one else around.
Reds and blues swirling, he spun his tires, spitting up gravel, tail-lights receding into the distance.
I called Charlie as soon as I got upstairs, but his cell went straight to voice mail. I began to leave a message, then stopped. Fuck it, I’ll head down to the Dubliner. You could find the guy at the bar practically every night.
I put out some food for my fat, nameless cat, plucked a T-shirt that didn’t smell too bad off the floor, and was about to walk out the door when Charlie called back.
“Hey, Charlie,” I said, slipping on my coat. “You’ll never believe this. Mrs. Lombardi saw him.”
“Jay?” a voice responded. Only it wasn’t Charlie. It was a woman.
“Who is this?”
“Katherine,” the woman said. “Friends used to call me ‘Kitty’.”
I patted down my pockets for my cigarettes, fumbling to pull one out and get it lighted. I didn’t know why the call was making me so nervous.
“Jolene said you stopped by this afternoon?”
“Jolene?” I waved out the match head. “Oh, the woman from the shelter, right?” My cat rubbed its fat, furry belly against my pant leg.
“You told her your brother was missing? Is that who they saw?”
“When?”
“Just now. You said, ‘Charlie, someone saw him.’ Did you mean Chris?”
“Sorry. Yes. I did.” She was speaking to me like we were familiar, friends even; that’s what was throwing me off. “You remember me?” I asked. Aside from that one night giving Kitty a ride to the shelter, I hadn’t spent a lot of time in her company, and probably hadn’t uttered six words to her, total. Even on that drive, I didn’t recall having been particularly nice.
Kitty laughed uneasily. “I knew more of you. Chris talked about you. A lot.”
“He did? What did he say?” I figured if Chris had been saying anything about me, he’d be talking shit. By the time he was hanging out with Kitty, I’d stopped giving him cash, and we fought most the time. I knew I wasn’t high on his favorite people’s list.
“He thought of you more as a son than he did a little brother, let’s put it that way. Very protective. Chris saw it as his job to take care of you.”
Only in my brother’s topsy-turvy world could he see himself as my caretaker.
I heard rustling on the other line and a hand cupping the receiver, whispers to wait a minute.
“I don’t mean to be rude,” Kitty said, “but my shift is starting.” Then, as if I’d automatically assume that meant taking the stage at a strip club somewhere—which I had—she threw in, “I’m a hostess. At a restaurant. In California. I don’t live at the shelter anymore. I’m clean now. Thirty-nine months. I live with my sister.”
“That’s good,” I said.
“Thanks to your brother. He’s the one who put me on the bus.”
“My brother?” Chris hadn’t kept a checking account in fifteen years. How the hell was he helping anyone else?
“He’s got a big heart, your brother. I was in a bad situation when I met him. This guy…” I could tell she was searching for the right words, like she wanted to share more, but all she said was, “Well, I’m glad you found him.”
“Actually, we didn’t find him. Chris is in trouble. The cops are looking for him.”
“Oh. I’m sorry to hear that.”
“It’s a big misunderstanding. But, it’s better if I find him first. I know it’s been a while.”
“Almost four years.”
“No, really? That long?”
“I know my clean date. It’s kind of a big deal. Plus, it’s my daughter’s birthday.” More rustling. The clatter of stacked dishes, orders barked. “I really do have to run. You have my number. Call me tomorrow. We can talk some more.”
“I need to find him now, Kitty. Katherine. He’s got to be sleeping somewhere. He’d freeze to death up here. Any idea where he could be crashing? Anyone who might be taking him in? Whatever you can tell me would be helpful. I’m flying blind.”
She paused. “Maybe one of his johns?”
“Johns?”
“Y’know, the guys he goes with?”
“My brother’s gay?”
“I don’t think so.” She laughed uneasily. “But when you live that way, you do what you got to do to survive, y’know? When I knew him, there were a number of men who would, um, pay for his services, and in exchange they’d feed him, give him a bed to sleep in, a place to shower.”
“Did he have regulars? Do you know any of their names?”
“Sorry. Listen, this is my cell. If you want to talk some more, call me tomorrow. I’ll try to think of anything else. Chris helped me out of a bad situation; I’d like to repay the favor. But, honestly, I don’t know much more than that. I haven’t spoken with him in a long, long time.” She sighed. “Good luck. I hope you find him.”
“Hold on. Wait. Do you know where he’d meet these guys?”
“The truck stop.”
The line went dead.
As soon as I set the phone down, it rang right back. Jenny. Calling to see how I was holding up. I said more than I should have, and felt bad about unloading on her afterwards. She asked if there was anything she could do. I told her I didn’t want to get her in any more trouble with Brody. Besides, what could she really do?
I found Charlie drinking at the Dubliner. Half a fist submerged in a bowl of nuts, the other one wrapped around a nearly empty pint, eyes glued on the final moments of the Bruins game. He was the only one sitting at the bar. No surprise, with another monster snowstorm already unleashing its fury. A good couple inches had fallen just since I left my apartment. And it was only going to get
worse.
I shook off the barmaid, Rita, when she started to head in my direction. Charlie turned, saw me, then motioned to her with two fingers anyway.
I tried to say “never mind,” but he frantically waved his hand until the final seconds ticked off and the horn blew.
“Fuck,” he muttered.
The Bruins had lost another one.
He quickly got over it. “What’s up?”
“Someone saw Chris.”
“No shit? Who?”
“Camille Lombardi. At her house.”
“Mrs. Lombardi?” Charlie’s face screwed up. “What the hell’s he doing at his old wrestling coach’s house?”
“Broke into Gerry’s office. Camille walked in on Chris rifling through desk drawers. Turley thinks he was looking for prescription pills.”
“Hmm,” said Charlie. I couldn’t tell if that meant he was buying the explanation or what. “That’s good, right? I mean, at least he’s alive and in town.”
I gazed around the abandoned bar as Rita wordlessly set two pints before us.
“You want to take a ride with me?” I asked.
“Where to?”
“I’ll fill you in on the way.”
“What about our beers?”
“You might as well get going, Charlie,” Rita chimed in. “I’m about to lock up this place. They’ll be grounding the plows soon.”
“You could’ve told me that before you let me buy the beers,” Charlie said.
“Don’t worry,” Rita said. “It’s on the house.”
She went to snatch back the beers, but Charlie playfully slapped her wrist. He shot me his cat-with-a-canary grin, and downed most of his pint in one long gulp. “Let’s go,” he said, suds slipping down his chin.
“You’re brother’s a fag?” Charlie asked.
I turned the truck north onto the Turnpike, past Duncan Pond, which was famous up here for having a crane sticking out of the water. Been there since forever. This time of year, the pond was a slab of ice, but you could still see the tip of the boom and its sheave, hoist line dangling, parts rusted, thrusting out of the water like a redneck Excalibur. Nobody knew how that crane had come to rest in the middle of Duncan Pond. Rumor was, back in the early days of Lombardi Construction, a worker had gotten pissed off and sank the machine in protest. Whether that was true or just small town legend, who knew, but it was nice to chalk one up for the little guy.