by Gale Massey
Most of the storefronts on Main—the hardware store, the Army recruitment center, the pawnshop, the insurance broker, the bank—were still closed, but Mr. Lu’s dry-cleaning and the diner were open.
The bells on the diner’s front door jangled when he stepped inside. Phoebe looked up from pouring Mack’s coffee and, seeing her face, Toby felt a pang of regret as he realized he’d forgotten to buy a birthday card. A sergeant from the recruiting center came in right behind him and it was him that Phoebe attended to first by motioning to an open table by the window and handing him a menu.
Customers always came first. He knew that. Besides, his favorite stool at the end of the counter by the kitchen door was vacant. Even before he sat down, she turned over a cup and filled it for him, said, “Morning,” then went to take the sergeant’s order.
Her eyes and nose were red and puffy, and he wondered if she’d been sad to wake up alone, her first birthday after eight behind bars, and was glad he’d planned it this way. Women were healed in mysterious ways by presents of jewelry from the men in their lives. Despite having never done it himself, he’d seen this fact proven a thousand times on television. He’d never had the chance to create that kind of smile on a woman’s face before today. But she was here now, and he was here, and he’d planned the whole thing himself.
He set the black box on the counter, leaned forward on his elbows, and kept it hidden under his hand. At the right moment he’d reveal the box and watch the surprise spread across her face. While she took a to-go order over the phone, he tore open three packages of sugar and filled his coffee with cream. She stuck the order through the cook’s window and the cook, a guy named Tommy, snagged it, and then Toby’s mom came back to him.
“I got here late and I can’t talk much this morning,” she said, leaning over the counter, her words rushed and low. She set a pamphlet next to his coffee. “This is for you. The recruitment officer comes in here every day. He said you can apply before your eighteenth birthday if you have a parent sign.”
She wasn’t her usual self, but that’s what he’d come here to fix. He pushed the box toward her—she hadn’t noticed it—and said, “Happy birthday, Mom.”
She stared flatly at the box and Toby realized she didn’t understand. She’d gone without for too many years.
“It’s for your birthday. Open it.”
He flinched when she seemed to recoil, to step away from the box and straighten her back. “What is that?” She wiped her hands on her apron and glanced sideways down the counter.
He slid the box toward her. She didn’t take it, so he opened it for her. “Happy birthday,” he said again, more as an explanation than anything.
She frowned.
“How did you afford that?” Phoebe was still talking in that low rush, but people were noticing now. Mack peered down the counter. The necklace was too simple. He should’ve known she’d want something nicer, bigger, better. A tiny silver cross on a thin chain. How could he be so stupid? Mack turned back to his newspaper.
“Let me put it on you,” Toby said, but Phoebe snagged the box and shoved it in her apron pocket.
“I’ll put it on later. Let me get you something to eat.”
His face reflected hers now and his mood went tumbling toward that empty feeling he couldn’t name but hated anyway. He saw a string hanging around her neck. A string, when she could have worn this necklace. “I’m not really hungry,” he said, knowing that empty feeling would be with him the rest of the day.
Tommy slammed the cook’s bell and called, “Order up.” Phoebe went to the pass-through and grabbed the steaming plates.
Toby’s eyes felt hot as he sat there at the counter, trying to recover. The pamphlet showed a picture of a soldier driving a tank across the desert. He knew what happened to those guys. They came home as heroes, smiling in their uniforms and prosthetics like they were still whole men, but what did the uniform matter when they’d been blown up by cowards who dressed like women and hid behind children? And how could she want him to leave, especially after she’d just come back?
She returned to refill his coffee cup, but it was still full. “Don’t you need to get to school?”
“You don’t like it.”
“I like it, honey.” She reached over and touched the back of his hand. “I just don’t want to get it dirty while I work. I’ll put it on later, okay? After I get home.”
She unfolded the pamphlet and spread it on the counter. “John, over by the window, gave me this. He said for you to come talk to him at the recruitment center.”
Inside there were more pictures of soldiers, men and women, a guy walking through a crowd of dancing kids.
“Have you thought about what you’ll do after graduation?” she asked.
“I’m working with Loyal.”
“Loyal? That’s not a career. You should join the Army and learn a real trade.”
“And get blown up.”
“Shhh, Toby.” She glanced toward the window. “You could have a life, get out of Blind River for a few years, come back, and build your own family.”
“I don’t want a family.” How could she say this to him? She wanted him to leave? All those years spent waiting for her to come home. All those years wondering what she could possibly have done that they’d taken her from him, her child, and locked her away. He’d cried so hard that first year, believing that she’d be home soon, not understanding, not accepting, just waiting and waiting for her to come back before finally getting it, getting that she wasn’t ever coming home. And when he grew tired of crying he’d started hitting things, then people. Hitting Jamie, hitting kids at school, hitting anything he wanted whether it meant a broken knuckle or not. Hitting was better than crying. He knew that much. But he wouldn’t hit his mother even though right now it seemed like she deserved it. Instead, he picked up the brochure, ripped it in half, and walked out the door.
He walked down Main cussing and rubbing the corners of his eyes, his nose that had started to drip. Snow crunched beneath his boots. He cut across the soccer field with its frozen brown grass, bent and dead from the winter. She’d been gone most of his life and he’d been fine without her. Bitch. Most mothers took care of their kids; most mothers didn’t steal shit and go to prison. He pushed open the school door and instantly wondered why he’d come. But he knew why. Inside these walls were people and what he needed right now was someone to hit. He stopped and turned to leave, but the second-period bell sounded and the halls filled with kids, so he put his head down and pulled his collar up around his chin and tried to cruise past the front office. Ms. Hollins and Coach Palmer stepped out of their weekly staff meeting just as he, fists clenched in his pockets, rounded the corner.
“Hold up there, Elders,” Palmer said, and put his hand on Toby’s shoulder. “School started an hour ago.”
Toby flinched and pushed the man’s hand away. “Keep your hands off, faggot.”
“Whoa. In my office now, Toby,” Ms. Hollins said, pointing in Toby’s face. “You need to cool down.”
“No!” Toby yelled. He didn’t want to be here. Not for one minute. He hated this place, hated these people. He turned to back toward the doors, but Coach grabbed his arm. Toby wheeled on him, came around swinging his fist at no one, at anyone, at everyone, at nothing and everything, at the first thing stupid enough to stand still and let him connect.
CHAPTER
15
WHEN SHE FINALLY opened her eyes, Jamie could tell it was way past noon. Slatted light cut through the plastic blinds, casting broken shadows on the wall. She sat up, groggy from the boozy sleep, and opened the blinds. Out back, sunlight glinted off the snow all the way to the ridge. Above that, the sky was a blinding bluish-white.
Her fingernails were cracked and split and caked with dirt and she remembered everything that had happened the night before. That man, his big head and lifeless eyes. The big bloody hole in his stomach.
God. She’d helped dispose of a dead man. That made her a fel
on. Except she was just an accomplice and she’d sort of been forced into it. But she wasn’t a minor anymore.
Even with her eyes open she saw the image of his slack face, the distorted angle of his neck. She’d stared too long before Loyal scrambled down the embankment and thrown the tarp over him. She hated horror films and zombie faces. That shit was fucked. The only people who could laugh at it were people who’d never seen a corpse. She started counting backward from ten before that image had a chance to set in and went to the bathroom to look for peroxide and ointment.
A man that age. He probably had kids, a wife. She chewed a thumbnail off and spit it out. How many rocks had she dug up and carried to cover him? Maybe a thousand.
This is how it starts. A life of crime. Except that it had started months ago. Making cash runs for Loyal. Small-time stuff, things that a public defender could get dismissed as a first offense. She weighed her age against her uncle’s and the judge’s and figured a court would take that into consideration. But that was stupid. Keating was a judge. Nothing weighed against that.
The trailer was quiet and she knew Toby and Loyal were gone. She turned the TV on and ran the faucet in the kitchen hoping for hot water. The keys to the old truck and a ledger were on the table along with a note saying that Loyal had hosed off the flatbed. Good. She studied the list: addresses and four-digit codes that would give her access to the machines in eight locations on the west side of town, ten up north, and thirteen on the east side. Almost the whole operation, but she had days to get to it all. She could do this. If it moved her closer to getting out of here, she could get it done. She thought through a few calculations, figured that between the extra work and the tournament she’d break even by summer. Steam billowed over the sink; Loyal had finally fixed the hot-water heater.
On the television, the weather man pointed at a map and predicted another cold front of freezing temperatures and snow.
She stepped into the hot shower, let the water beat down on her. She scrubbed her nails, peeled off a couple of broken ones, scrubbed them again, thought about that man, tried to remember what the Bible said about the sins of the fathers being visited on the children. She couldn’t recall it exactly, but the notion was like this mess with Loyal and Keating. Their rivalries and alliances went back decades, without any logic that she could decipher. Small-town bullshit. She’d been born into it and knew exactly how her life would play out if she stayed. Two or three kids, a divorce or two. A dead-end job that would keep her half-starved if she didn’t eat junk food and get fat, get diabetes and lose her feet, or die of a heart attack. She saw it all around her, doughnuts and caffeine for the early-morning despair, booze after work just to take the edge off a twelve-hour grind. She thought about her mother standing behind the curtain in the window at Keating’s house. The woman had never had a chance in this town. No Elders did, not really.
If there was a window to escape, it was closing fast. Right here at the underside of twenty, there was an opening, maybe a month, and it might be the only time she’d be able to leave, find her way to some city where there were real jobs, where winters weren’t so fucking cold, where no one would ask her to help move a dead body in the middle of the night. Somewhere she’d have half a shot, before she got in too deep and this town pulled her under. Like it was doing right now.
The shower turned lukewarm and she turned it off and wrapped herself in a towel.
Outside, a car’s wheels crunched over the gravel in the driveway, its engine idling. Someone was probably looking for her uncle and she hoped whoever it was would see the Dodge wasn’t here and move on, but the engine went quiet and seconds later someone was banging on the front door. She grabbed her robe and peeked around the corner through the small window on the door and came face-to-face with Keating, peering through the glass.
“Loyal home?” he yelled through the door. His gray hair was smooth and slicked back. “Saw his truck.” Keating thumbed over his shoulder at the Ford sitting on the street.
“He doesn’t drive that anymore. Bought a new one.” Jamie thought for a minute that was all the information the man would need to leave, but the knob turned and the door opened and she cussed Toby because he could never be trusted to lock a door. Keating pushed through and she stepped sideways, knocking into the table by the couch.
“We need to talk,” he said.
“Like I said, he’s not here.” She knotted the sash around her waist and tugged the towel tighter around her neck.
“He should’ve left me a package. Do you have it?” He cut his eyes around the room, at the broom leaning against the kitchen table, the dishes stacked in the sink, the muddied floor, and openly cringed. Then he asked, “Where’d you take him?”
“Take who?” She ignored the question about the package, knowing he’d let it drop rather than bring up Loyal’s business.
He stared at her flatly. “Don’t play stupid with me. That man. Where’d you take him?”
She shook her head. “I don’t know. Loyal made me ride on the floorboard.” Besides, she was supposed to play dumb about last night.
Keating picked up a piece of mail off the kitchen table, read the address, and tossed it back. “So you really don’t know?”
She thought he said this with some relief, so she added, “I only helped pull him off the truck. I don’t even know who it was.” It came out so calmly that it sounded absurd. Her feet—she hadn’t had time to towel them off—were freezing.
“Do you understand how important it is to keep quiet?”
“Seems obvious.”
“Don’t get smart.” Keating pulled a kitchen chair away from the table and wiped the seat with the palm of his hand. Up close and in the bland light he seemed older than her uncle. His hair was whiter and there was something stiff and wary about the way he moved his body, as though he thought the trailer might collapse on him.
She didn’t sit, hoping he wouldn’t either. But he did.
“That woman,” he said, leaning forward on his elbows. “Your mother, I mean, was invited into my home. My home. A judge’s home.”
Jamie tried to follow, but last night’s whiskey was making it hard to keep up.
He snapped his fingers. “Are you listening, young lady?”
She moved her eyes to meet his, felt her shoulders hunch up around her neck. It was starting to sink in. They would be linked forever by this, she and this man.
“I knew her history. I knew she was an ex-con. But I looked beyond that and extended hospitality. What happened was an accident, but if word gets out, the authorities won’t be kind. Her parole will be revoked and that’s just the beginning. I’m willing to go along with this for her sake, for the sake of her children. But if anything comes to light…” He lifted his palms. “A woman like that? Well, a lot of assumptions will be made. It could be bad for everyone involved. For her family, her kids.”
She slapped at the water dripping down the backs of her legs because it made her think of spiders and, right now, she needed to concentrate.
“There’s no weapon. I assure you that’s been taken care of. It was the least I could do.”
Weapon? She hadn’t thought of a weapon. But what did she think? That someone could rip a hole in a man with their bare hands?
“Could be seen as a crime of passion, I suppose, but who knows, really, why some people turn out the way they do.” He looked her up and down. She hated that. He was big enough to take her if he wanted. She backed closer to the hall and pulled the towel tighter around her neck. He’d been with Phoebe in a way that made Jamie ill to think about, but she doubted that screwing a lover’s daughter would matter to a man like him.
“I don’t know what happened before I got there,” she said, to remind him what he’d come here for. “I just did what my uncle told me to.”
He stopped staring at her legs and bobbed his head almost imperceptibly. “But she had the gall to steal something from me. I want what’s mine. Get it back. And tell her to keep quiet. If she’s
quiet long enough, this thing will blow over.”
“What did she take?”
He sighed impatiently. “Do I have to explain everything? No. No, I don’t. This is all her fault. She’ll know exactly what I’m talking about. Get it from her and bring it to me.”
“But, I don’t—I mean, I never see her.”
He slammed his fist on the table and Jamie jumped. “Go, damn it. Go see her!”
He took out a silver money clip from his pocket and peeled off some twenties. “This is for you. Girls like you always need a little extra money.”
She just stared at the money he set on the table. What good would a hundred bucks do her if she had to deal with this lunatic?
He stood up. “There’s more if you keep your mouth shut. And believe me, darling, you want to keep your mouth shut. You don’t want anyone knowing you were an accomplice to—to anything.”
He started to say more but just shook his head and waved his hand in her face. He walked out the front door and Jamie locked it behind him. Water dripped from her hair as the wheels crunched on the driveway and the noise of the Cadillac’s engine faded down the street.
Accomplice.
There it was, hanging over her head.
Darling.
Like he had the right to call her that.
CHAPTER
16
ONE WORD SWIRLED through Jamie’s brain. Accomplice. As she drove to the first stop on the route, the word kept repeating itself, like a living, breathing thing spinning inside her head. Accomplice. She turned up the country station, wishing for the first time in her life that she smoked. Surely smoking helped stop obsessive brain chatter.
Crowley’s Pub was Loyal’s most lucrative spot. She parked the truck out front, let the pub door close behind her, and waited for her eyes to adjust to the dark.
The air inside was dank. The floor and baseboards were caked with grime as thick as chewing gum. Garbage cans overflowed with plastic plates and cups. The place smelled of humanity, stale smoke, vats of cold grease, old beer, and beneath that, cheap perfume, aftershave, and backed-up toilets. The dance floor was mirrored and jammed tight with human-size speakers and a low-hanging disco ball. Crowley’s Pub was just as much a part of the bedrock of Blind River as the Methodist church, but far more profitable and always more crowded.