The Evening Hour

by A. Carter Sickels

“What’s that?”

  “You heard me.”

  “You never heard of Sodom and Gomorrah?”

  “If you’d seen what I did when I was digging the dead people out of that mess,” Cole stopped. Then he said, “God don’t care about fucking or jerking off or none of it. I just don’t believe it. There’s bad things, and God don’t care if you’re fucking your own kind or not.”

  For a moment, Reese was quiet, then he laughed. “Ain’t you a changed man.”

  “I don’t know. That’s just what I think.”

  “All right, buddy.”

  “All right.”

  They walked to the door. “I’m glad you stopped by. I’m gonna be gone by daylight.”

  “How you getting there?”

  “Ruthie’s Cadillac. Gonna haul a little trailer that Cutter loaned me.”

  “You won’t make it to the county line in that thing.”

  “Hell I won’t. It’s only got twenty-five thousand miles on it.” He grinned. “But if I get stuck somewhere, I’ll call you.”

  “You do that.”

  He clapped Cole on the back and told him to take care of himself. There were no teary good-byes, none of that. Cole backed out of the driveway, knew he’d never see Reese Campbell again. He drove through town, past the Wigwam, the nursing home. Everyone was always talking about starting over. He tried to picture Reese walking into Luke Cutter’s church, broken, strung out, and mourning the woman he’d loved maybe more than his own mother. Luke had promised him eternal life, forgiveness. Wasn’t that what they all wanted? He had no trouble seeing it. He understood. It was the kind of thing that had made his granddaddy’s eyes shine, snatching souls up from the flames.

  Chapter 20

  In the morning Cole, groggy and half awake, brewed coffee and lit a cigarette and opened the newspaper and read that the police had arrested Reese Campbell on his way out of Dove Creek. They were charging him with possession of narcotics and a firearm. Cole folded up the paper. He stared at the cracked coffee mug, the stack of paper napkins. Then he went outside and stood on the porch and felt the warmth of the day rising. Shit, he whispered. A car went by, followed by a speeding coal truck, dust flying.

  He went back in, threw the newspaper away. Then he called Lacy. Sara Jean picked up. “She’s still sleeping. Want me to wake her up?”

  He glanced at the clock. It was only seven. “No, just tell her to call me.”

  “Did you hear about Blue?” she asked, excited. “She escaped.”

  “That’s what I heard.”

  After he hung up, he fished the paper out of the trash and read the article again. His mother walked in, yawning. He’d never seen her up before his grandmother.

  “Couldn’t sleep.” She took one of his cigarettes. “Getting to be like you.”

  The newspaper was spread out flat on the table, Cole holding it down with his palms as if guarding it from a breeze. The article was short, a single paragraph. He stared at it again. His mother asked him what was so interesting, and he told her in a few words. She poured herself a cup of coffee, then came and stood behind him and leaned over his shoulder.

  “The guy we stayed with that night?”

  “Yeah.”

  As she read the article, her hair tickled the back of his neck. Then she pulled out a chair, sat next to him. She had been all over this country. She had seen and left behind more than he could ever grasp.

  “You think you’re gonna stay here for a while?” he asked. “You think you could?”

  “Hell, Esther’s practically made me a slave at the Pizza Shack.” She smiled, but it disappeared. “What about you? You going somewhere?”

  “I might.”

  He met her eyes. They showed no surprise, no worry. The morning light shone through the kitchen windows and over her face and her eyes looked more green than brown and he wondered if his looked the same.

  “You running from something?”

  “It’s not running. It’s something I’ve been thinking about.” He hesitated. “Could you say something to Grandma for me? Just to prepare her.… I don’t know what to tell her.”

  “You gonna tell me anything about what’s going on?”

  “Not yet,” he said. “I can’t. I don’t know myself.”

  For a while, they said nothing else. They finished off the pot of coffee, and Cole got up to brew more. Then his mother asked if he was hungry. He wasn’t, but he said yes because she’d never cooked for him before. She moved clumsily around the kitchen. She made toast, eggs, and bacon, and though the meal was slightly burned, he ate every bite.

  Hours later, he stood in the afternoon sun, smoking a cigarette, waiting on Lacy. She and Sara Jean were living with Lacy’s sister and her husband in a double-wide in Green Hills, one of the government trailer parks. There was nothing to look at except other thin-walled trailers, pushed up close together. No hills, nothing green. None of the trailers had any decorations or flower beds or anything like that because people did not think of them as home. A couple of mongrel dogs chained up outside the trailer next to Lacy’s began to bark. From someplace unseen, another dog joined in.

  Cole had shown up a half hour ago, driving around the maze to the homes of his customers. He sold the pills for almost double what he usually did; they were pissed, but there was nothing they could do. The places he’d stepped into were cramped and dark, and the noise of TVs traveled from one trailer to the next. He was glad Lacy had not invited him in. He did not want to see any more.

  The door slammed and she walked out, wearing tight jeans and a thin black shirt, a red purse slung over her shoulder. “I need to get out of here.”

  “We could go catch a movie in Zion or something,” he said, but she shook her head. “What do you want to do?” he asked.

  “I could eat something.”

  So they went to an all-you-can eat Chinese buffet in Zion. They loaded up their plates and took a booth in the smoking section. It was before five, and the only other customers were a handful of senior citizens.

  “You heard about Blue?”

  “I saw her before she left,” he admitted. “I saw her with him. Denny’s dad.”

  “Gundy.” Lacy shook her head. “I just thought he was some crazy recluse.”

  “Ain’t he?”

  “Yeah, I guess so.”

  “Is Blue gonna live with him?”

  “As far as I know. But I don’t know even where that is. Somewhere up on a mountain. Gundy’s been fighting the coal company. Blue said that it was him that shot up the mining offices, busted their power source. Personally, I don’t think it’s a technique that will get you very far.”

  “I remember someone shooting up a Christmas tree.”

  “Well, anyway. You can’t talk to him. Or Blue either. They’ve got their minds set.”

  “What do you think they’ll do?”

  “Hold them off as long as they can, until they get caught. Honestly, I don’t think Blue will live much longer.”

  “No, probably not.”

  “And Gundy’ll go down shooting.”

  Lacy talked about Dove Creek Defense, their plans to meet with congressmen and senators, about the lawsuit. The flood had changed her. She was sharp-tongued and her hands shook slightly, maybe from fear or nervousness. And yet she was also filled with some kind of light, it shone off of her, the way religion had shone off of his granddaddy. She knew more than Cole could ever hope to know about politics and the environment.

  She smiled. “I’ll shut up for a minute. What about you?”

  There was nothing to say. He did not tell her about losing his job, did not tell her about Reese. Instead he pushed aside his plate. He looked at her, how pretty she was. Remembered their early mornings together.

  “So Michael left town?”

  “You know he did.” She set down her fork. “What else do you want to know?”

  He ran his finger around the edges of the ashtray. “You and Michael … were?”

  “Yo
u know we were.”

  “You thought he was gonna stay here and marry you or something?”

  “I never thought that. He swept me off my feet for a little while. That doesn’t happen much around here.”

  “No,” he said. “I guess it don’t.”

  They did not stay much longer. Neither of them wanted seconds. Cole paid for the meal, Lacy thanked him. “It’s nothing,” he said.

  He started the truck. She was looking out the window, thinking about something. He was about to ask her what she wanted to do when she turned to him, put her hand on his knee.

  “I don’t want to go home yet.”

  “Where do you want to go?”

  “Let’s go there.” She pointed across the road.

  “There?”

  “Why not?”

  “Why not,” he agreed, and pulled into the parking lot of the dilapidated motel. Lacy waited in the truck while he went in and registered and paid the bill; then he drove around to the back and they walked up the concrete steps to room 11.

  “This is pretty bad,” he said.

  Stained burgundy carpet, fake-wood paneled walls, a rabbit-eared TV. The drapes were pulled shut and the room was like a cave, smelled like cigarette smoke and take-out. A picture of the Last Supper hung over the bed. Cole parted the drapes slightly, and a thin line of light shone through.

  “It’s worse than I was expecting, but I don’t care.” Lacy put her arms around his neck, and his blood quickened.

  “I get the feeling I’m not gonna see you around anymore,” she said.

  “I’m here now.”

  They undressed quickly, both laughing as Cole fell, his jeans caught around his ankles. Lacy pulled them off him, and he yanked off her socks, the last thing to go. When he grabbed on to her, he felt as if everything else in the room had disappeared into these points of light, her fingers and thighs and back, the curve of her stomach and breasts, the angles of her bones.

  After, lying face-to-face, he looked at her and wanted to be able to love her. To sweep her off her feet. But he didn’t know what to say. Lacy asked for a cigarette, breaking the silence. He reached for the lighter.

  “I’ll go crazy if I stay in that trailer park another day. Sara Jean will too. I need to figure something out.”

  “You’ll get out of there. You’re a fighter.”

  “I never thought things would get this bad,” she said.

  He told her things would not always be this hard. She leaned up on her elbow and looked at him. “When I heard about you digging out those people, what you did …”

  “It wasn’t just me. We all did. Anyone would have.”

  “Something changed in you,” she said. “That meeting, where you talked.”

  “Oh, Lord.”

  “You were great.”

  “Hell I was.”

  “You sure know your scripture, don’t you?”

  “That’s one thing I’m certain of.”

  She drew loops over his chest, like she was spelling something, but it was no word that he knew. “Tell me what made you want to be a nurse.”

  “I’m just an aide.”

  “You know what I mean.”

  He thought for a second. “It wasn’t like I set out to do it, it just happened. I needed a job. Once I got used to it, I guess I kind of liked being around them. Felt like I was doing something.” He waited for her to bring up the drugs, but she didn’t say anything.

  “You shouldn’t give it up.”

  “Well,” he said.

  Then she rolled over on her back, looking up at the dirty, water-stained ceiling. “You really believe in heaven and hell?”

  “I used to,” he said. “Sometimes I wonder if we ain’t already living in both.” He paused, put out his cigarette. “You want me to take you back home?”

  “I want to stay. Can you stay?”

  “Yeah,” he said. “Yeah, I can stay.”

  She called her sister to tell her that she wasn’t coming home tonight, and Cole looked up at the picture of the Last Supper. He used to stare at this picture during his granddaddy’s sermons. He wondered if he would have denied Jesus, like Peter, or if he would have turned him in, like old Judas, who’d betrayed him with a kiss. He didn’t think so. He believed he would have stuck by him.

  She hung up. “It’s all settled.”

  The night was good. They had more sex, they talked. They tried to watch TV but there was too much static. She fell asleep in his arms. He could hear her breathing. After a while, his arm, nestled under her head, began to ache and he slipped it out from under her. He switched on the lamp by the bed and picked up the Gideon Bible from the nightstand and started to read the book of Job, and when he came to the third chapter, twenty-fifth verse, For the thing which I greatly feared is come upon me, and that which I was afraid of is come unto me, he stopped and put the book down and turned off the lamp. He felt awake, in a good way. The room was dark, except for the occasional glare of headlights. There was someone coughing in another room. The hum of traffic outside. You better believe it, his granddaddy had said, we are nearing the end. He moved closer to Lacy and she reached for him.

  The afternoon was warm; he drove with the windows down, smelled wild honeysuckle growing along the road. He fiddled with the radio and came upon a religious station and listened to an old-timey preacher, “And Je-sus-ah!—is gonna let you burn, unless you repent-uh, unless you’re saved,” singing the words the way his granddaddy used to. He’d been out selling pills and he pulled into the Stop-and-Go in Jefferson. He usually did not deal around here, but he knew a few pillheads, friends of Reese’s, who were willing to pay more than his regulars. He filled his tank, went in the store and paid for the gas and a package of powdered doughnuts and cigarettes. He ate a doughnut quickly. He felt wired and anxious.

  He’d been expecting to hear from him, like Charlotte had warned, but still it had surprised him this morning when his cell had started vibrating on the stand next to the bed. He was still at the motel with Lacy, who was next to him, asleep. He’d checked the number, and though he did not recognize it, he knew exactly who it was. He’d gone across the street to McDonald’s and bought egg sandwiches, pancakes, orange juice, and coffee, and called him back.

  “Hey.”

  “Hey man.”

  He’d not heard Terry’s voice for months, but it sounded as familiar to him as his own. He wanted to meet early tonight, around eight. Cole said the Eagle or Wigwam, but Terry wanted to go where there was no one else around. “How about the swimming hole?”

  “You been up there?” Cole said. “It’s a mess.”

  “Well, we ain’t going swimming. We’re just talking.”

  “I don’t even know if we can get to it.”

  “It’s probably our last chance to see it,” Terry said.

  Cole said okay, but now he felt nervous. His stomach flip-flopping. Everything was turned upside-down. Reese was saved and sitting in a jail cell. Charlotte had disappeared. And where was Terry Rose? He was hunkered down. Was he naming names? Cutting deals? Turning his back on everything?

  And here was Cole, still driving around these mountains. He finished three of the doughnuts, tossed the rest. He thought of Lacy last night and this morning, her hands and her mouth and her hair and her hips. Something good to think about. Not all of this worry. A kid on a four-wheeler pulled out in front of him, a “Jesus Saves” bumper sticker slapped on the back.

  Up ahead on the left, a car was parked off the road, in a little turn-around spot. A woman sat on the hood. She had clothes and all kinds of junk spread around her and on the ground. He slowed down and when he saw who it was, told himself to keep going. He went about a hundred feet. Then he made a U-turn and pulled in behind her.

  “Hey Jody.”

  He felt sick as he got closer and saw her damaged face. Two or three of her front teeth were missing, and her left eye was swollen and purple, as fat as a night crawler.

  “What happened?”

&nb
sp; “Oh, just a little scrap,” she said.

  He asked her how she was doing, but did not need to be told. She’d been beaten and she was too thin and her eyes were chalky. She wore a flimsy dress, grubby sandals.

  “You want to buy something?”

  He looked around. Ratty sweaters, a beat-up radio, a deck of cards, dented pots and pans. All of her belongings.

  “No, I don’t need anything,” he said.

  She asked for a cigarette and he took one for himself, then handed her one of the packs he’d just bought. “Keep it,” he said. Cars and pickups sped past them, sending up waves of dust; nobody stopped, nobody even slowed down.

  “I been wondering what happened to you,” he said. “Everyone’s spread out all over the place now.”

  “Yeah, my trailer got fucked up, but I wasn’t home when it happened.” She shrugged. “I moved in with my sister in Zion. For a while, I went to that center there.”

  “The rehab?”

  “Yeah. I was clean for a month.” She sucked on the cigarette. “But a couple of weeks ago, everything fell apart. I was living with this guy. He’s the one that did this to my face. Knocked my teeth out.”

  “Jesus. I hope you’re not going back to him.”

  “Hell no,” she said, her voice flat, unconvincing. “Hey, you got anything on you? I’ll give you all of this, just for an eighty. All of this right here, it’s yours.”

  He looked at her beaten face. “I’m getting out,” he said. “I’m done.”

  “No you ain’t.” She laughed, showing her battered mouth, the gap where her teeth should have been.

  “I am,” he said. “I’m not in it anymore. I don’t have anything.”

  She put her hand on his crotch and he pushed her away.

  “Don’t.”

  “You don’t like it?”

  “Jody, you should check yourself back in. I’ll drive you over there. Right now. I’ll do it.”

  She stared at him and he thought maybe she would say yes, maybe she would thank him, but suddenly she grabbed a frying pan and swung it wildly, nearly smashing his face. “Fuck you,” she screamed. “Fuck you.”

  He jumped out of the way and she flung the pan and it landed at his feet. “Get out of here, get the fuck out.”