Crude Sunlight 1

by Phil Tucker

  The waitress made a second pass. This one had an air of warning to it, her meaningful glance intimating that he'd better order something soon. A quick scan of the menu resulted in his choosing coffee and a club sandwich and he flagged the waitress down and placed his order. She took it silently and stalked off.

  He still had to clear out Henry's apartment. There was not enough time left today to oversee it himself, so he'd have to ask that creep Materday to let in some guys from the moving company tomorrow morning. Thomas frowned. How long would he hold Henry's stuff in storage? What was the moratorium on hope for his brother's return? Coffee and sandwich were set before him, and he sat up, momentarily setting such questions aside.

  * * *

  "Hi, Julia?" Thomas was standing outside Henry's building, coat zipped up against the evening cold. The sky was growing dark and soon he would have to hit the road. But before he left, there was one thing he had to take care of.

  "Yeah?" Her voice was surprised, wary.

  "I'm about to head out. Go back down to the city. I'm over at Henry's place, and was cleaning up his belongings. Anyways, I found some stuff I think you should have."

  "What kind of stuff?" Still wary, but curious now.

  "Well," said Thomas, suddenly awkward, "Just, well, personal stuff that I'm sure Henry would want you to have."

  There was a long silence, and Thomas looked out over the dismal parking lot at the windows of a small high rise that were catching the rays of the setting sun.

  "All right. I'll be there in ten minutes."

  "Great. I'll be waiting outside." Thomas hung up, feeling at once relieved and troubled. Shaking his head, he dialed his mother's number, too tired to care about the international rates. The phone rang, and then, as usual, her voicemail picked up.

  "Hi, Mom," he said, rubbing the base of his palm against his eye, "Just calling to let you know that I'm in Buffalo at Henry's place. Nothing much has turned up, though I've met an ex-girlfriend of his and some other friends. I don't know if anything will come of it, but I'm doing my best to make sense of things." He paused and looked up at the dark sky. The answering machine continued recording. He imagined his mother listening to his words in the near future, listening to this moment of silence. "Things aren't going well between Michelle and me. I don't know what to do. I don't know how things are going to turn out. Give me a call when you get the chance, okay?"

  He paused once more and then hung up. A sense of futility and weariness descend upon him. He turned and entered the building and made his way back up to Henry's apartment. He'd spent the past hour or so sorting through Henry's possessions, and had decided to take his computer, videos and other personal affects back with him to New York. The rest would be boxed by Alliance Moving Company tomorrow morning.

  Standing in the living room, he gazed at the photographs of Julia and wondered if he should have simply mailed them. Or thrown them away. Or perhaps, he thought, flicking through them, kept them. With a sigh, he slid them all into a manila office folder and sealed it. No, best to simply give them back.

  *

  She pulled up in a dirty gray Volvo that looked like it was being held together by little more than wire and luck. The front grill was missing, as was the passenger side mirror. A large dent was battered into the car's hood and a long crack spidered its way down the windshield. She got out and slammed the door hard behind her. It creaked back open, so she slammed it again. This time it held. She rounded the car to step up to where Thomas stood.

  "So. You got the photographs?" She stood before him, hands slipped into her the back pockets of her jeans, chin raised.

  "Yes. Actually." Thomas extended the envelope, and she took it. "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to look at them, but--"

  "Don't worry," she said, opening the envelope to flick through the photographs, walking her fingers through them as she looked at the top of each one. "I was curious to see if you'd give them to me."

  "Oh," said Thomas, his face flushing. "Of course. So you knew that Henry had them--well, of course." He felt a fool.

  "Yeah." She closed the envelope and let it hang by her side. In the dusk, her face was all shadows and raised, pale surfaces. She examined him with sardonic amusement. "I knew you'd seen them when you mentioned them back at Eric's."

  "Oh," said Thomas again, "Well, yes. I was planning on giving them back. That had always been my intention."

  She grinned lazily up at him. "How very adult of you." Turning, she stepped off the curb and walked back around to her car. "Have a safe drive home," she said, and got back in.

  Thomas watched her start her car, bemused and annoyed, and raised a hand in parting when she drove off. A wind sprang up and blew across the parking lot, sending leaves sweeping and curling about him and making him shiver. Hunching his shoulders and lowering his chin, he took a deep breath and looked to his car. Time to go back to New York.

  Chapter 6

  It was raining. A dismal drizzle seeped down from the sky. The tops of the skyscrapers evanesced into gray haze and the streets and avenues were covered with iridescent smears where the headlights and traffic lights reflected off the black top. Thomas sat under the copious awning of the Boathouse, set next to the Central Park Lake, whose surface shimmered under the falling rain. The Boathouse had been an old favorite of theirs; he had reserved a table here in the hopes that old memories might ameliorate the current problems. Looking out over the rain-sheeted lake, he sighed. No such luck.

  A week had passed since he had returned to New York. Upon arriving he had gone straight to the office and worked late into Sunday night. Jormusch had been absent, but tension had hung in the air like the scent of some dangerous animal's passing. Buck had brought him up to speed on recent developments on their client's file. Things had taken a turn for the worse, and it was past four in the morning when he had finally dragged himself home, inured by exhaustion to the gelid silence of the apartment to collapse in their bed and sleep for a few hours.

  The rest of the week had passed in a blur. It had been too easy to spend every waking hour toiling at the office, a sacrifice he made willingly in lieu of spending idle hours contemplating his imploding marriage. Buck had dragged him to his favorite sports bar and forced him to recount his experiences in Buffalo. His guffaws over Eric's madness had proved reassuring; later that night, however, looking out over the city, alone in his apartment and in the dark, all of his misgivings had come stealing back and robbed him of his certainty.

  And Michelle. The aching void in his life. Though his routine remained mostly unchanged, her continued absence had changed the tenor and tone of his days, each passing night making it harder for him to pretend that she was only taking an extended vacation.

  She had awaited his attempt at reconciliation. When it hadn't come, her fury had flared. A cutting message on the answering machine on Tuesday. A cold, restrained conversation on Wednesday. An encounter set for Thursday afternoon, on neutral ground, a time for them to meet as emissaries from their personal armies of grievances. Michelle. His wife. Thomas repeated those words over and over in his mind, but the surreal air they had acquired did not abate.

  Leaning back in his chair, a bottle of beer between his listless fingers, he watched the rain fall, listened to the scrape and clack of chairs and tables being drawn in under the awning by the waiters, tracked the occasional passage of a determined jogger as they circled the curvature of the lake.

  Michelle rounded the gentle rising curve of the path and strode into view. Thomas straightened in his seat. She was wearing a black raincoat, belted tight about her waist, a burgundy umbrella protecting her from the rain. Tension entered his shoulders, the dull base beat of blood in his temples. She had her hair pulled back into a ponytail, her square chin raised, a flush of color spread unevenly across her pale cheeks. Again as always that sense of double vision, attraction and repulsion, mild panic at the sight of her. She reached the awning and lowered her umbrella, collapsing it expertly and holding it down and to the
side like a sword as she sighted him and approached.

  She wasn't beautiful, but he had always been attracted to her, to the strength of personality and fierce intelligence that had set her apart from the first moment he had met her. Over the past few years laugh lines had appeared like perfect parentheses around the corners of her generous mouth, had begun to give her eyes an expressive cast that she hadn't had when he had met her, years and years before. Hers was a face capable of such warmth, such depth of feeling and emotion. But it was as if a pane of glass stood between them, preventing him from reaching out and connecting with her. Holding him back. He'd never seen her look at him so coldly.

  "Thomas." She stopped before his table, and propped the umbrella against one of the chairs. "Nice day to pick an outdoor restaurant."

  He rose to his feet and wondered if he should circle the table, kiss her cheek. He decided not to. "Michelle. Glad you came."

  "You are?" She arched a brow at him, then shrugged out of her coat. "Really. That's a surprise." This was going to be harder than he had anticipated. She sat down, crossed one leg over the other, and gazed enquiringly at him. "So. How have you been?"

  He ground a knuckle into his eye. Her anger from Tuesday hadn't abated, it seemed, but rather had been driven below the surface, where it simmered now, lighting up her dark eyes.

  "All right, I guess. Working hard."

  "Well, I can't say I'm shocked." She straightened and smiled brittlely toward the waiter who was hovering to one side, unsure as to whether he should intrude. "A glass of orange juice, please. Thanks." The man nodded and walked away quickly. "So. Where were we?" She took a deep breath, and her smile became acidic. "Ah yes. Your work. Do tell me about China. How's the market?"

  "Michelle," said Thomas, "Please."

  "No, seriously. What have you been working on?" Something overly bright and cheerful had entered her tone. "What has kept you so busy since I left? I mean, it must have been pretty fucking important to keep you from calling me. Worrying about me. Really. I'm all ears."

  "I went to Buffalo," he said. "I went to pack away Henry's belongings and try and find out what happened to him." A curveball, of sorts. Neutral ground.

  "Oh?" She paused, and the hardness in her face softened. Mild guilt prickled him over having used Henry to disarm her. "How did that go?"

  "Strange." He shook his head. "I ran into some of his friends, and learned a bit about what he had been up to before he disappeared. I think he was in bad shape. He joined some sort of urban exploration group, and was breaking into abandoned buildings."

  "Breaking into abandoned buildings? Really? What for?"

  "Just exploring, I think. The thrill of being where they weren't supposed to be."

  Michelle shook her head slowly. "And you think that's connected to his disappearance?"

  "Looks like it. Apparently he disappeared while searching the basement of some state hospital. I told the police, but the officers they sent to look around down there didn't find anything."

  Michelle frowned and slowly shook her head, "How strange." She reached out to place her hand on his. "I'm sorry, Thomas. This has to be so hard. But trust me. In a week or two he'll give you a call from Mexico or right here in the city, and be all surprised at how upset you've become. He's only, what, twenty? He's having an adventure. That's what college kids do. Especially Henry. You know how independent he is."

  He glanced down at her hand. "Yeah, I guess so. Maybe. Though this video... there's something more going on. Either way, I feel like an idiot for having taken so long to get up there." Thomas turned his hand over so as to interlace their fingers, but she drew hers back, as if growing suddenly aware of a line inadvertently crossed. The waiter arrived and set down a slender flute of orange juice, nodded, and stepped away. Glad for the distraction, Michelle lifted the glass and leaned back, taking a sip as she watched Thomas from over its rim.

  It was coming. He watched her face, trying to think of a way to forestall her, divert the oncoming words. His mind was a blank. He had nothing to say.

  "Well, I didn't come here to talk about Henry or his misadventures. We can't avoid this any longer. Thomas, this isn't working." She spoke carefully. "I can't do this anymore." He averted his eyes, unable to meet her gaze. And as if this inability strengthened her resolve, her voice grew calmer, more certain. "Look, after what... happened, I just can't stay in New York any longer, but you don't take my wanting to leave seriously. It's like you're just waiting for me to calm down or get over it. I don't expect you to understand what I've been going through, but I had hoped you would show more concern. More love." She reached up to smooth back her cheeks, and then smiled bitterly at him. "But we've got money, we've paid off our debts, we can leave. Before I get any worse. Before things get any worse between us."

  This wasn't the attack he had expected. He had been prepared for recriminations, to soothe her anger and ignore her jibes. This openness, this vulnerability, was different. It reached back to a kind of communication they hadn't shared in months.

  Michelle leaned forward. "I mean, look at us. It's like I finally opened my eyes this past week and saw how bad things have become. Now that you're working nights I never see you anymore. Thomas, quit your job, let's sell the apartment, move to Boston, or anywhere--get a place with a garden, something, but let's get out of here before we lose our marriage altogether."

  His heart was hammering in his chest. "Just like that? Do you know how large my performance bonus is shaping up to be this year?" He sounded like a tool even in his own ears, but he couldn't stop. "Do you honestly expect me to walk away from that after how much I've worked to earn it?"

  "Yes, Thomas, just like that. I don't care about your bonuses, your promotions, I mean, come on. I just can't stand being here anymore. I haven't taken the subway in months, I'm cabbing it everywhere, I don't even want to go out at night. You know how hard this is for me. Why are you acting like this?"

  "I'm not acting, I really am surprised. I mean, I know I can't understand how hard this is for you, but you have no appreciation for how I've killed myself to get where I am." His voice sounded flat, unconvincing. He was talking faster than he could think. As if he were reading from a script he was barely familiar with. "I mean, do you think it was easy to get this close to this promotion you hate so much?" He reached desperately for anger, found it. "And what will we do in Boston? Go help people? Get a garden? Volunteer at shelters, and, what, save the world? Those weren't plans, Michelle. Those are naïve daydreams, escapist fantasies. I mean, get real. Am I the only one who's interested in keeping our lives grounded here?"

  The shock and anger on her face was clear, and it registered in him like a splash of cold water, quelling his sudden anger, turning it into resentment. It wasn't fair, wasn't fair that she could act so innocent and hurt and force him to be the responsible one. "Look, Michelle, think." He stared down at the table top, gathering his words. "You can volunteer from here. If you want to quit your job at the firm and do pro bono work, then I can support you while you do it. You should get a therapist, work through these issues, not run away from them. They're not going to disappear if we move to Boston. Face them, here where we have a home, where I can support us if you decide to take some time off. I'm not saying you can't change your situation. I'm just saying that it doesn't make sense for me to throw everything I've been working on these past few years down the drain."

  "I don't. Fucking. See you. Anymore," she said. Each word was carefully articulated and stabbed at him. "During the week I see you perhaps for half an hour in the morning before I go to work. I'm asleep by the time you get in. You work weekends. You're exhausted. And when we're together? You can't even seem to look me in the eyes." She was trembling with pent up emotion, "You call this a marriage?"

  He looked past her. A flash of her face, beaten and bruised, the doctor talking to him, the world spinning. He forced it away. Spoke woodenly, "We will be all right if we just calm down. We just need to get through this tough phas
e. I'll work less when I'm promoted."

  She stared at him, shook her head, eyes burning with frustration. "I keep saying this but you don't listen. I don't want this life, Thomas. I can't pretend like you that nothing happened. I can't go back to the way things were. So here are your options. Quit your job, leave this all behind and come with me to save our marriage, or stay here by yourself and hope you find more happiness in your cubicle then you did with me."

  Thomas felt his stomach knot up as if a pair of constrictors were trying to crush each other to death. "What would I do, Michelle?" His voice soft now, matching hers in intensity. "Say I quit my job. Then what? What do I do while you do your pro bono work? But what about me?"

  She stared at him.

  Thomas shifted his weight in his chair and looked down at his hands. He studied them, the whorls around his knuckles, the black hairs. Arguments arose within him like great waves, compelling and nuanced and outraged and defensive, but with a sigh he let them crash, explode soundlessly within his mind, unvoiced.

  "Okay, Michelle. I'll think about it. I really will." He looked up, caught her expression. She was watching him carefully, as if searching for a lie. "I wish I could give you an answer right now. But... I'll think about it."

  Michelle stood up. "I'll try not to gauge how much you love me by how long you take. Call me when you've figured out your priorities."

  Thomas stood up, pushing the chair away with the back of his knees, the metal grinding against the stone floor. "I'll call you soon," he said. Michelle shrugged back into her coat, and picked up her umbrella. "I just need to figure some things out. I'm sorry."

  "I love you, Thomas," she said, as if stating a fact, as if one could say such a thing dispassionately. They stared at each other, and then she looked away, turned, and left.

  Chapter 7