Gone ’Til November

by Wallace Stroby

  Althea came back with the pint of Guinness. Billy pushed a wet twenty toward her. She took it, moved away.

  “Hard to believe you’re still on your feet,” Sara said. “You get any sleep today?”

  “A little.”

  Althea brought the change. The Guinness was colder than Sara liked, but dark and strong. For a while, she’d taken to black and tans, mixing it with a lighter beer. She drank little these days, though, and when she did she found she preferred the Guinness straight. It always surprised the men she met, the few she drank with.

  “They give you a hard time this morning?” she said.

  “Boone from the state attorney’s, he’s okay. Used to be a deputy down here, you know that?”

  “No.”

  “Yeah, bottom of the ladder, just like you and me. Made his way up to undersheriff under Hammond. When Winston ran for state attorney, Hammond put a block of votes his way. Flip side was if he won, Winston had to take Boone. Before your time, I guess.”

  “He rewarding him or getting rid of him?”

  “Maybe a little of both. Boone’s a good man, he’s just a little . . .” He took a sip of beer. “Ambitious. He and Elwood did the interview together. Videotape, the whole thing.”

  “Who’s writing it?”

  “Boone, I think.”

  “What’d he say?”

  “That it looked like a clean shoot. What else could they say? It was. Part that bothers them is I was the only person there to say one way or another. At least the only one still breathing. They talk to you yet?”

  “No,” she said. “Elwood called me. I’m meeting them tomorrow. I won’t have much to add, though, except what I saw when I got there.”

  “I’m sorry about that.”

  “About what?”

  “That you had to be there, take the call. I didn’t even know you were on.”

  “When you called it in, I was closest to your ten-twenty. I just wish I’d gotten there sooner. It might have gone a different way.”

  He looked at the clock over the bar. Almost ten. “Kind of late for you to be out, isn’t it? Who’s watching Danny?”

  “JoBeth. I was worried about you. Figured I’d drive past just in case. Saw your truck.”

  She turned on her stool, looked around the bar. Two Mexicans—or Guatemalans more likely—playing pool in the alcove in the back. A couple of booths on the far wall were occupied. She saw Angie, the dispatcher, at one, with two men Sara didn’t know, a pitcher of beer on the table between them. Angie was laughing, waving a cigarette. She caught Sara’s eye, saw who she was with, and turned away again. Great, Sara thought. Maybe coming here was a mistake after all.

  There were a handful of serious drinkers at the bar on either side of them, a couple of whom Sara recognized. She’d met most of the hardcore alcoholics in St. Charles County, either booking them for DWI or helping pull them out of their overturned pickups.

  Billy signaled to Althea, pointed at his shot glass.

  “How many of those you have?” Sara said.

  “This is my third. Was my third, I mean.”

  “Better take it easy. You’ll pay for it in the morning.”

  “I’m paying for it now.”

  Althea came down, poured from the bottle, took his money.

  Billy raised his glass to Sara. From the jukebox came Warren Zevon’s “Lawyers, Guns and Money.”

  “Now this, I know you played,” she said.

  “More than once.” He sipped the schnapps. “ ‘Dad, get me out of this.’ ”

  “Is Lee-Anne around? Maybe you ought to call her.”

  “She’s down with friends in West Palm. She’s coming back in a couple days.”

  “She know what happened?”

  “She knows.”

  “And she’s not coming back sooner?”

  “Soon enough,” he said and drank.

  She sipped Guinness. In the mirror behind the bar she could see Angie in the booth, talking to the men but looking toward her every few minutes. Sara suddenly wanted to be somewhere else.

  “So what happened?” Billy said. He’d turned to her.

  “With what?”

  “With us.”

  “Ah, Bill.”

  “It’s one of the things I regret most, you know. Out of everything. Not being able to make it work.”

  “Let’s not start this up again.”

  “I could have been better for you, I know. Sometimes I wish I could go back, figure out exactly when it was things started to go wrong.”

  “I don’t know,” she said. “Maybe about the time you started sleeping with Dolly Parton back there, what do you think?”

  He looked over at Angie’s booth.

  “That was a mistake,” he said.

  “That supposed to make me feel better?”

  “I’m sorry.”

  “Just leave it, Billy.”

  He emptied the shot glass, looked at her. She’d worn jeans and a long-sleeved Harley-Davidson T-shirt despite the heat, not wanting to send him the wrong signal if she found him. But he was appraising her openly now, more than he would have sober. For a moment, it made her feel good. She knew he would ruin it, though, and seconds later, he did.

  “Are you seeing anybody?”

  “Come on, Billy.”

  “It’s a simple question, isn’t it?”

  “Somebody,” she lied. “Off and on.”

  “Off and on? What’s that mean?”

  She drank Guinness, put the glass down.

  “All you’ve been through,” she said, “you really think this is the right time for that conversation?”

  He rooted through the bills on the bar, pushed a five forward, folded the rest. “You’re right. I think I need to get out of here.”

  When he got off the stool, he lost his balance for a moment, put one hand against the bar. “Leg’s asleep.”

  She looked at him, feeling that familiar sensation. Years since she’d known it firsthand, but here it was again, stronger than ever. Disappointment, almost resignation. You always let me down, Billy Boy. Always. And you don’t even know it.

  “Hold up,” she said. “You get DWI’ed out there, how’s that look for the review?”

  “I’m okay.”

  “You’re not. Even if you were, why take the chance?”

  He looked at her, his eyes watery, the skin around them taut and red.

  “You know I’m right,” she said.

  He raised his hands to shoulder height. Surrender.

  “I’ll drive you home,” she said. “You can get your truck tomorrow.”

  She slid off the stool. Althea nodded to them.

  “I’ve got to take a leak first,” he said and went off to the men’s room near the pool table, his walk unsteady. The two players looked at him for a moment, then went back to their game.

  She waited by the front door. When he came back there was a wet spot on the front of his jeans. Like a little kid. When they first met, his childishness had appealed to her in some ways. Then it had begun to feel like just another burden.

  She opened the door for him. Over her shoulder, she saw Angie in the booth, watching them as they went out.

  It had rained briefly, and puddles in the dirt lot reflected the neon from the window signs. She’d parked under a southern pine near the edge of the lot. She got the keypad out, beeped the doors open.

  “You need anything from your truck?” His black Ford F-150 pickup was parked nose first against the fence a few spots away.

  He shook his head, followed her to the Blazer. She opened the driver’s side door, waited until he got up in the passenger side without falling before she climbed up herself.

  She started the engine. It coughed, hesitated.

  “Needs a tune-up,” he said.

  “Doesn’t like the wet weather.”

  “Points and plugs.”

  “Next paycheck, maybe.”

  She turned out of the parking lot, splashing through puddles.r />
  “They oughta pave this,” he said. “Make it not look so Florida white trash. Proud as I am of my own Florida white trashness.”

  She smiled at that, turned east on the county road, woods on both sides of them. He powered down his window, and she turned the air-conditioning off, slid her own window down a little.

  They drove in silence for the first five minutes, headlights cutting a path through the night.

  “You ever hear from Roy?” he said.

  “You’re the second person today to ask me that.”

  “So I guess the answer’s no?”

  “He’s not coming back. Even if he was, I can’t live my life worrying about it, wondering about it. Three years is a long time. If he was going to, he would have.”

  “Never could understand that.”

  “What part of it?”

  “Leaving a woman like you.”

  “You mean a woman with a son?”

  “That, too.”

  “I wonder about that myself,” she said.

  “Birthdays? Anything?”

  She shook her head.

  “You could find him if you want to. These days it isn’t hard.”

  “Who says I want to? And what’s with all the ancient history tonight?”

  “Sorry,” he said and sat back.

  He was quiet for a while, and then he said, “You know what I can’t get out of my mind?”

  “What?”

  “That car seat.”

  “Don’t let it bother you so much,” she said. “A lot of times for a drug run, gun run, they’ll put a car seat in the back. Makes them look less suspicious if they get stopped.”

  He picked up a plastic brontosaurus from the floor, looked at it, turned it over in his hands, put it back down.

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I think that one was for real.”

  She saw the lights of his house up ahead, the red lens that marked the mailbox.

  “With what you’re making now,” she said, “you could have moved closer to town a long time ago.”

  “Why would I do that? I like it out here. Reminds me of what I come from.”

  She made a right into the long dirt driveway, slowed to ease over the ruts and bumps. The house loomed up on the right. It was bordered by woods on two sides, on the other a long-dead cornfield. There was a carport in the sideyard, empty now, a dirt front yard, concrete steps leading up to the front door.

  She pulled up, cut the headlights, left the engine running. It was the first time she’d been out here in two years. Light shone through the kitchen curtains. She remembered standing at that window, doing dishes he’d let pile up for days. She’d look out at the desiccated cornstalks, the woods beyond, grateful she didn’t live here.

  “Want to come in?” he said. “It’s been a while.”

  “I don’t think so.”

  He made no move to get out. She could hear crickets, the muffled hoot of an owl off in the trees.

  “It’s late,” she said. “You should go inside.”

  “I know.” He cocked his head slightly, a look that used to make her warm to him no matter what, and he knew it. He leaned close, and she didn’t move away. Their lips met. He kissed her hard, and she let him at first, tasting the schnapps, let his tongue slide in, and then it all felt wrong, bad wrong, and she put a hand on his chest, pushed him away. He sagged back against the passenger side door.

  “Sorry,” he said.

  “You don’t need to apologize. But you need to go.”

  He opened the door. The courtesy light went on, and she could see the disappointment in his face and something else, despair even, or close to it.

  He got out, turned to her.

  “It’s good to see you,” he said. “I miss you sometimes.”

  “I miss you, too. Sometimes.”

  He smiled a little, and it made her feel better to see it. He shut the door, crossed around the front of the Blazer, tapped the hood twice as he started toward the house.

  She watched him go up the steps, open the screen door, fit his key in the lock. He turned to wave to her, and she waved back. He shut the door behind him. Another light went on inside.

  She sat that way for a few minutes, engine running, watching the house. Wondering if he would come back out, and what she would do if he did.

  After a while, she backed up, swung around, turned the headlights on, and drove home.

  FOUR

  The office had hard plastic chairs, joined together in groups of four. Morgan had been sitting for almost a half hour, sharing the room with a heavy woman, her crying baby, and an old white man with toothpick-thin arms and legs. There was a TV mounted high on the opposite wall, a soap opera playing without sound.

  The receptionist had shut the window above her desk. Morgan could see her on the phone behind the pebbled glass. On his lap was a two-month-old Newsweek. He flipped through the pages, reading an item here and there, looking at the ads.

  The door beside the desk buzzed, opened, and a short black woman in a white coat came out.

  “Mr. Morgan?”

  He took off his reading glasses, folded them and put them in a shirt pocket, and got up, his knees aching. He dropped the magazine on his seat. She held the door open, and he followed her down a hall to a treatment room.

  “You can hang your coat there,” she said, and he took the leather off, hung it on a peg on the back of the door. She weighed him on a scale, took his blood pressure, pulse, and temperature, noted them on a clipboard chart. She told him the doctor would be with him shortly, closed the door, and left him alone.

  He sat on the treatment table, paper crinkling under him, looked around. There was a cutaway chart on one wall showing the progression of heart disease, cholesterol buildup in the arteries. Another had the seven warning signs of Type 1 diabetes.

  After a few minutes, the door opened and a tall, skinny white man came in. Midthirties, short blond hair, glasses.

  “I’m Dr. Kinzler.” He put out his hand. Morgan shook it. “Dr. Rosman at the clinic sent over your file this morning.”

  He picked up Morgan’s chart from the counter, looked at it, flipped pages.

  “You saw Dr. Rosman last week?” he said without looking up.

  “Tuesday.” It was the first he’d spoken.

  “You know you’re down five pounds from then?”

  Morgan shook his head. He was worried it would be more.

  “Vitals are fine, temperature normal.” He set the chart down. “Any pain?”

  Morgan touched the right side of his stomach. “Here, sometimes.”

  Kinzler felt there, probed gently.

  “Liver size seems normal,” he said, “but we’ll run some more blood work.”

  He slid the chestpiece of his stethoscope up beneath Morgan’s sweater, the metal cold, asked him to breathe deep. He did the same in back, between his shoulder blades.

  “How long with the pain?” he said.

  “Three, four weeks. Bad the last week or two.”

  “You taking anything for it?”

  “Vicodin when I need it. Try not to take it unless I have to.”

  “Good.”

  He made notes on the chart and then stepped back and leaned against the counter, clipboard held in crossed arms.

  “So you know about the other test results, the second biopsy?” he said. “Dr. Rosman discussed them with you?”

  “A little.”

  “Goblet cell carcinoid is fairly rare. It only strikes one in about a hundred thousand people. And it can be fairly unpredictable. We don’t know a lot about it yet, but there are some relatively standard ways of treating it. You’re . . .” He looked at the clipboard. “Fifty-seven?”

  “Fifty-eight. Next month.”

  “You’re in good shape for your age. Fit. That’ll help. But a lot of this—and what we decide to do—will depend on how early we caught it. That’s why we’ll do a full set of blood work today. Then we can discuss how to proceed. Have you had a
n MRI or CAT scan?”

  Morgan shook his head.

  “You have insurance?”

  “No.”

  “Medicare, Medicaid, anything?”

  “No.”

  “That’s an issue. There’s a range of treatments that might be required, once we figure out which way to go.”

  “I can get the money. I’ll do what I need to do.”

  “What line of work are you in, Mr. Morgan?”

  He shifted on the table. “Handyman, construction, whatever I can get.”

  “Construction, huh? Union?”

  “No.”

  “Pension?”

  Morgan shook his head.

  “There’s various things you can apply for,” Kinzler said. “Social aid, some elder programs you might be able to get in on. All of it’s worth looking into. You’re likely eligible for Medicaid as well.”

  “I’ll pay what I have to pay.”

  “You seem confident.”

  Morgan shrugged.

  “Either way,” Kinzler said, “we can’t waste much time. We have to be proactive with these types of cancers. They removed the appendix when?”

  “August.”

  “So it probably took at least a couple weeks for the initial biopsy results to come back. Did you have any symptoms before that?”

  “No. I had the pain, I went to the clinic. They sent me to the hospital.”

  “That’s one of the ways goblet cell presents,” Kinzler said. “Or at least one of the ways we catch it. Routine appendectomies, and if they find a tumor in the removed organ, bingo. There you are.”

  “What are you saying?”

  “I’m saying early is better. And we might be fairly early here, which is good news. Depending on how far it’s gotten, where it’s spread, surgery may be an option as well. We go in, take out as many of the tumors as we find. Afterward, we put you on a maintenance diet of chemo, maybe radiation, if it looks like it’ll be effective. Then we test you regularly, see if they come back.”

  The woman came back in, carrying a kit she opened on the counter.

  Kinzler put out his hand. “Doris will draw some blood. We’ll get back to you when we know more.”

  “That’s it?”

  “For now.” He kept his hand out until Morgan shook it. “At least a few days before we know anything. Then we’ll set you up for a scan. You’re not going anywhere, right?”