The Evening Hour

by A. Carter Sickels

  “I got them,” he said. “You want them?”

  “What?”

  Cole went in his room and opened the Christmas tin and came back with a stack of postcards and dropped them on the table. They landed with a soft slap. At first she looked confused, then she picked them up one at a time, studying the pictures, the dates. “You saved them. That’s nice. Real nice.” She smiled at him. “That makes me feel better.”

  “You can have them back. They’re yours.”

  “No, they’re yours.”

  He sighed. “Listen, I’ve got things to do. You should go.”

  As he stood at the window, she came up behind him and put her hands on his stiff shoulders and he felt like every point of her on him was something hot, sharp. She pressed her lips to the back of his neck, a naked spot of skin, and he squeezed his eyes, did not move until he heard her close the door behind her, and even then he waited, standing there with his arms wrapped around himself. The room felt different now, as if a gust of wind had come through, leaving everything ruffled and confused. The light of the afternoon had abated to something dim, tremulous. He touched the back of his neck, as if he could still feel the heat emanating from the place that she had kissed. He would never tell her, he swore he’d never tell her or anyone his grandfather’s last words.

  The phone rang. He stared at it stupidly, then picked up on the third ring. “I’ll be there,” he said. On his way out, he glanced at the nursing books, then slammed the door behind him.

  Reese pulled a blanket around his shoulders like a shawl. “Good Lord, were you in a fight?”

  “I got clocked by a patient.”

  “Hazards of the job,” Reese said with a grin.

  “Hell, I’ve been punched, bit, slapped. I get cussed at all the time.”

  “You mean they ain’t all sweet like Ruthie?”

  “You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen.”

  “Like what? Tell me the craziest.”

  Cole paused. “I’ve walked in on old grandpas jerking off. The women too. There used to be this lady who tried to get with all the guys. She’d flirt and rub herself on them, and half the time, they didn’t know what the hell she was doing.”

  “Maybe I ought to see if one of those old guys would come over here and give Ruthie some loving.” Reese laughed, shook his head with wonder. “Hey, you should have come over last night. It was a kick-ass party. Your ex was here.”

  The first time Cole and Charlotte had hooked up, they’d been at one of Reese’s parties. Kissing on the sofa, drunk and happy. Cole did not ask Reese how she looked now, if she was using.

  “What about Terry Rose? You see much of him?”

  “Huh? Yeah. I see him from time to time,” Reese said.

  Whenever Cole ran into Terry, he was revved up, talking nonstop, usually about drugs or ways to make a quick buck. Cole wasn’t sure if Terry was selling Reese crank, or if they were mixed up in something together. It was better not to know.

  “Hold on,” Reese said suddenly. “I got something for you.”

  He walked through the door that led to Ruthie’s side, and a few minutes later returned with a revolver, aiming it at the ceiling.

  “Jesus,” Cole said.

  Reese, laughing, dropped the gun in Cole’s lap. “It’s for you, man. I’ll sell it to you.”

  “I don’t want it.”

  “Son, you’re in a line of business where you need protection.”

  Cole lifted the revolver. It was small and fit easily in his hand. He had never wanted it to be like this, never wanted his operation to get too big, too dangerous. “You got any pills for me or not?” he asked. “That’s what I came over here for.”

  “That damn Medicaid,” Reese said. “They screwed up again.”

  He was lying, but Cole didn’t know if Reese was selling the pills himself or using, or both. He felt annoyed that he’d wasted his time.

  “Well, do you need anything? I got some Percs with me.”

  Reese shook his head. “Nah, me and Ruthie, we’re set. But you take that gun, I don’t want it lying around.” He named a price and Cole said again that he did not want it, but Reese insisted, and Cole finally gave in.

  “All right,” he said. Stupid waste of money. He handed Reese the cash, which would not stay in his hands for very long. Then he snapped open the cylinder and dumped the bullets into the ashtray, and Reese just shook his head. Cole put the gun in his jacket pocket. “I better be going.”

  “Stay a while.” Reese folded up the bills, stuck them in his pocket. “How’s home life? How is it with your mama being back?”

  “Like having a stranger in town.”

  “The two of us, we’re similar.”

  “How’s that,” Cole said, thinking, No we ain’t.

  “Both of us are orphans. But at least you got a mama.” He paused. “You ever wonder about your daddy? He might could live right around here.”

  “I always got the idea that she didn’t even know who he was. I never thought about him the way I did her.” When Cole was a kid, he rarely asked about his father: there was nothing to hook on to, nothing to imagine. But his mother was somebody, flesh and blood.

  “I don’t know what I would have done without Ruthie,” Reese said, sighing. “She saved me from a life of torment.”

  Cole wondered how he could actually be taking care of her anymore, he seemed like such a junkie. He was hard to talk to, drifting in and out of conversation, jumping from one story to the next, or forgetting halfway through what he was talking about. But he was also a source of information; although Reese rarely left the house, he always knew what was going on in Dove Creek.

  During a lull, Cole asked him if he knew Lacy Cooper.

  “As in Lacy who married basketball star Denny Cooper?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just wondering.”

  “Yeah, I know her. We were in the same grade. She was a Willis before she married Denny.” Reese smiled dreamily. “God, what a beautiful boy he was.”

  “You know Denny ran off.”

  “That’s old news, son.” Reese raised his eyebrows. “Wait a minute. Are you screwing Lacy?”

  “No. I was just wondering about her.”

  “Well, she’s got a kid, you know that, right? And she’s straitlaced, always has been. She ain’t gonna want to mess with anyone like you.”

  “I was just wondering,” Cole said again.

  Chapter 10

  “Take a seat, birthday boy,” Esther said. “I’ll go get your mom. She’s in the back.”

  There were a couple of families at the booths, but otherwise the Pizza Shack was empty. Cole sat at the bar and reached for the tin ashtray and looked up at the TV mounted on the wall. Rubble and smoke, U.S. soldiers, people running. Yesterday at the nursing home, when some politician came on the TV, a woman yelled, “That dirty Nixon, he don’t care about our boys.”

  Esther told him that Ruby would be out in a second. “How does it feel to be a year older?” He said it did not feel much different. He asked how she was, and worry lines broke up her forehead. “You hear about Justin?”

  “Yeah, Grandma told me.”

  “I’m worried to death. He needed that job.”

  “Why’d he get fired? Union talk?” Justin was always complaining that there was no union at Heritage. Every so often at the home the aides grumbled about unionizing, but Cole did not get involved; it didn’t seem worth the trouble.

  She shook her head. “He’ll tell you all about it. You won’t believe it.”

  Ruby sauntered across the room wearing the customary Pizza Shack button-down shirt, which she still managed to make look whorish, pairing it with a little denim skirt. She asked if he wanted any pizza, but he said he wasn’t hungry. “Here, at least have a beer.” She brought two out from behind the counter and sat next to him on a stool. She was decked out in silver: chain-link bracelets, a necklace with a heart pendant, and a row of hoo
ps in one ear.

  “What do you think of this? Embarrassing, huh? This uniform? And I go home every day smelling like pizza.”

  “It’s a job,” Cole said.

  He hadn’t wanted to stop by, but earlier he’d been at his grandmother’s and this was what she wanted from him. He hadn’t been spending much time over there, and was surprised by the changes, signs of his mother all over the house: flimsy blouses tossed over chairs; high heels in the hallway; and in the bathroom, bottles of perfume, jars of cream and moisturizes, strands of hair clogging the sink. “Grandma, you got to make her clean up around here,” Cole had said. “Don’t let her get away with this.” His grandmother had laughed. “I get after her, but I don’t mind, as long as she’s home where she belongs.” She had baked a chocolate cake for his birthday, and they watched a travel show about Mexico. His grandmother commented, “Ruby told me I should go somewhere. You know what she says, There’s more to the world than Dove Creek.”

  “She would know.”

  “Well, I wouldn’t ever leave home,” she said quickly. “I mean, I’d like to visit someplace, but I’d never leave for good.”

  On his way out the door, she’d stopped him. “Cole, go see her,” she said, her fingers digging into his arm. “Do this for me. Spend some time with her.”

  “Why?” He looked up and saw tears in her eyes. He still couldn’t get used to her new hair—short, curly, and fluffed. She looked like a little gray poodle.

  “Because she might not stay much longer,” she had said. “And because it’s the day that she gave birth to you.”

  Now his mother asked, “Did Mama tell you to come by?”

  He started to lie, then nodded.

  Ruby laughed, didn’t seem bothered. “What are you going to do tonight to celebrate? Wait. I know. The Eagle. Don’t worry, I know it’s your territory.” She adjusted her skirt. “I’m trying to stay out of trouble. Good thing I’m in hicksville, not as many temptations.”

  “I guess,” Cole said.

  “Except that I’ve lived in dinky-ass towns before, and being in the middle of nowhere doesn’t stop trouble.” Cole still didn’t know what she’d been hooked on; whenever she referred to that time in her life, she said, “What all I was on,” or, “That trouble I was in.”

  She went behind the counter and handed him a paper sack. “Happy birthday. Sorry it’s not wrapped.”

  He opened it and took out two nursing books.

  “I got them from a bookstore in Charleston. I don’t know if I got the right ones or not.”

  “They’re good,” he said, barely glancing at the titles. How long did she really plan to stay? His grandfather used to say her name in a tone that was both rage-filled and warbling with sadness. Now he understood why.

  At the Eagle, Lacy Cooper drew him a beer and he told her it was his birthday. “Well, shit, happy birthday,” she said. “And you’re still such a baby compared to me.”

  “I feel kindly old.”

  “You do talk like an old man. Must be the company you keep.”

  Around him everyone seemed happy. Laughter, conversation. He felt apart. Same way he used to feel at his granddaddy’s church, surrounded by God’s love and yet not in it.

  Then the twins came up and clapped him on the back. Justin was with them, already shit-faced. “You hear I lost my job?”

  “What happened?”

  He rubbed his eyes like he was just waking up. “We was up there at Scrabble Hill and I was bulldozing, knocking down trees, then I saw a tombstone. So I stopped, got out to look, and sure enough, there was a little old cemetery. I told my supervisor. He says, You want a job or don’t you? I say, We ain’t allowed to tear up cemeteries, and he says, Nobody even knows that’s up here. I can’t mess with the dead like that, I told him, and he says, You get your ass back on that dozer, or get your walking papers. That was about the end of it.”

  “That’s fucked up,” Cole said.

  “I don’t know what I’m going to do.”

  “You’ll find something else.”

  “I got a wife and kid. I ain’t like you.”

  Cole didn’t even blink. “Well, they’re always looking for aides at the home. I’ll put in a good word for you.”

  “Fuck that,” Justin said.

  Cole just shrugged. He didn’t care what his cousins thought anymore. Then Dell said, “Them Heritage boys sure do like their Ritalin, cuz. You should have stepped up.”

  “They still need any?”

  “Nope. It got taken care of.”

  Cole tried not to dwell on how much extra he could have made. He didn’t know why he’d been so worried about selling to family in the first place—was he trying to protect them or himself? A few drinks later, Cole left his cousins and went looking around to see if he could drum up business. By the pool tables, he ran into Terry Rose.

  “Hey man.”

  Terry looked surprised. “Yo, bro, what’s up? I haven’t seen you in forever.” He was twitchy, his eyes dilated. “Want to play doubles, like the old days?”

  “All right.”

  Cole did not tell Terry it was his birthday. When he’d turned sixteen, they had gone up to Rockcamp Point with sleeping bags, a tent. They sat by the fire and got drunk and stoned. He remembered how cold it was, the ground nearly frozen under them, but there was nowhere else that he wanted to be. Now he looked at Terry and pushed all of that out of his head. There was no sense in thinking about the past. He grabbed the cue, started chalking it.

  Then a familiar voice said Terry’s name, and Cole looked up. Charlotte handed Terry a beer. She saw Cole.

  “Hey,” she said.

  “Haven’t seen you in a while.” His stomach lurched, and he looked from her to Terry and back to Charlotte again. “You two here together?”

  She stared at him like she didn’t understand the question, but Terry said, “We just ran into each other. We see each other sometimes, you know, ex-coworkers. Ain’t that right?”

  “Yup,” Charlotte said. Then she smiled and hugged Cole, moving in a nervous-acting, speedy way. He felt how small she was.

  “You okay?” he whispered.

  “Yeah, I’m good.” She giggled. “I’m great.”

  They drew apart.

  “You find a job?” he asked.

  “Not yet.”

  He watched her and Terry closely; the two of them barely looked at each other. “Goddamn,” he muttered.

  “Hey, bro, we’re up,” Terry said.

  They played against two guys from Bucks County. Cole had forgotten how good Terry was; he ran the table with ease, taking long pulls on his cigarette, chattering away.

  They won the first game, lost the next. “We’re getting too old,” Terry said, grinning. “Let me get the next round.”

  After he walked off, Cole looked at Charlotte. “You sure you’re all right?”

  “Why do you care,” she snapped.

  He just looked at her. Then he said, “I don’t.”

  “Good.”

  Terry came back with three beers. “Your cousins are up there. Damn, they haven’t changed at all. I hated the twins when we were kids.”

  “They’re all right,” Cole said.

  “Remember that time they were after you, trying to hog-tie you, and I jumped out at them with my brother’s muzzleloader? Scared the shit out of them.” Terry laughed. “You remember that? I saved your ass, bro.”

  “I remember.”

  Cole saw a married couple who liked to party, and he told Terry and Charlotte he’d be back in a minute. The exchange was fast, out in the parking lot near the Dumpster. When he went back in he saw a few people he knew and it took a while to get back to the pool tables. By the time he did, both Charlotte and Terry were gone. He saw no sign of them. He wandered around, telling himself to go home. But something held him there; he wanted to know.

  He found them in a corner, pressed against each other, kissing like teenagers.

  “Hey.”

&nbs
p; They both spun around, but it was Terry he was looking at.

  He could feel the stutter rise up, and waited until the mangled words straightened themselves out: “How long has this been going on?”

  “You two broke up a long time ago.”

  “What about Kathy?”

  Terry’s eyes narrowed. “What about her?”

  “All right,” Cole said. “Whatever.”

  “Come on, don’t act this way,” said Charlotte.

  He went out the door and the cold air rushed through him. How long had they been fucking? He got in his truck and was about to turn the key when Jody Hampton pulled in next to him, her beater car shooting black smoke.

  “I been looking all over for you,” she said.

  “You know I’m always here on Saturday nights.”

  She got in and he asked how much she needed and when she told him, he said, “I hope that’s not all for you.”

  She was snorting about six 80s a day, maybe more, and went to three or four different dealers. She looked like a skeleton. Her face was too thin, her mouth pinched. She smelled musty and sour.

  She handed him a crumpled bill.

  “What’s this? Ten bucks?”

  “I’ll get you the rest tomorrow.”

  “Where you gonna get it from?”

  “I’m seeing my sister, she’ll give it to me.”

  He tried to return the money, but she wouldn’t take it. He dropped it with disgust on the dashboard, and she grabbed his hand. “You know me, Cole, you know I’m good for it.” She put her hand on his thigh. It felt warm, and surprisingly heavy. “Please.” She moved her hand to his crotch and he pushed her away and she began to cry. “Christ,” he said. He doled out half of what she’d asked for, and she thanked him and with her fingernail she crushed and snorted and then she tilted her head back and closed her eyes.

  “Give me the rest,” she said. “Please.”

  She moved closer to him. He felt like he was outside himself, watching as he opened the bottle and shook out the tablets into her shaky hand and then unbuckled his belt. She unzipped him. He could not look at her. He stared out the window, across the dark parking lot, as she lowered her head. Her mouth was cold. He closed his eyes and held on to the steering wheel as if he were flying down the roads. But he couldn’t get hard. He opened his eyes and saw her there and what had been numb inside of him started to ache.