Dark Channel

by Ray Garton

  “Thanks.”

  “No, I meant Katie,” he said, turning to the shelf of aspirin and cold medicine behind him, just in case his anxiousness showed in his face. “How’s my little Katie?”

  “Oh, she’s fine, Pop, visiting friends.”

  “Friends?” He looked over his shoulder at her, his hand frozen inches from a bottle of generic aspirin. “What friends?”

  “Just some friends, is all.”

  She’s with some of them, he thought with a little anger. Some of them damned crystal rubbing neo-hippies. “Here?” he asked. “Over in Weed.”

  “I thought you said she was home.”

  “Well, Jake’s home. Katie’s with friends.”

  “In Weed.”

  She nodded, then cocked her head and spread her arms. “What? She’s with a friend, some little girl she knows. Okay?”

  Coogan dropped his arm and faced her. “Some little girl? You don’t even know who she’s with?”

  Paula sighed and pressed three fingertips to her temple for a moment, then laid her hand flat over the crystal on her chest and closed her eyes a moment.

  “Look, I’ve got a little headache, Pop, so could you—”

  “’Course, honey, here.” He tore the plastic from one of the aspirin bottles and handed it to her. “I’m … sorry, hon, I know you wouldn’t let Katie run off with just anybody. I’m just … well—” He chuckled, trying to tell himself to lighten up. “—it’s almost like I don’t have a granddaughter anymore, y’know? Never see her. Lord, it’s been, well … weeks. I … think about her.”

  “She’s fine, Pop.” Paula shook three pills into her palm, slapped them into her mouth and crunched them between her teeth.

  “Good lord, honey,” Coogan growled, heading for the dairy case, “drink some milk with that. You wanna tear up your stomach?”

  “I’m fine, really. I had a late breakfast.” She capped the bottle and stuffed it into her purse, then hitched the purse strap over her shoulder again.

  Coming back to the counter, Coogan said, “Must be some headache.”

  She shook her head and dismissed it with a little wave of her hand. “Hey, Pop? I was wondering. You know that box of Mom’s jewelry? The old stuff she left me? Where’d you pack that?”

  No, he thought with a sinking feeling in his center, no, not the jewelry. I won’t allow it.

  “Well … you said you probably wouldn’t wear it, so … I put it all away.”

  “Yeah, I know. I was just wondering where.”

  As he searched her face a moment, looking for the shame—there had to be at least a sliver of shame in her eyes, just a speck, perhaps, because he knew what she wanted to do with her dead mama’s jewelry, he knew—his mouth curled up a bit at the ends, but it wasn’t quite a smile; it was more of a twitch. “Change your mind?” he asked. “About the jewelry?”

  “Change my—what do you mean?”

  He shrugged. “Well, you didn’t want to wear it before. You got a date, maybe? Want to impress some fella? That’s some pretty fancy jewelry your mama had.”

  Paula rolled her eyes and smirked. “No, Pop, I don’t have a date.”

  When Coogan spoke again, what little hope had been in his voice was gone. “Then … what do you want it for?”

  “I’d just—I’d—I’d like to go through it, is all. Okay, Pop? Where is it? The shed?”

  “The shed! You know I’d never put it in the—” He pressed his lips together abruptly, stood straight and ran his fingers through the tuft of hair atop his head. He lost his will to tread softly with his daughter; he knew there was no way to avoid a fight this time and the best he could do was keep his voice down. “Okay, Paula, what is it? What’s going on?”

  She hooked her thumb under the purse strap and slapped her other hand to her thigh. “Here we go. Just a simple question, and right away we’ve got to—”

  “It’s not a simple question,” he hissed. “I wanna know why all of a sudden you’re interested in your mama’s jewelry.”

  “Look, she left it to me, okay?”

  “No. Uh-uh. No, Paula, she left it to the daughter she had when she died.”

  “And what … is that supposed to mean.”

  “It means you’d better give me a damned good reason to see that jewelry or you won’t, because I don’t know you anymore, Paula. A few years ago—no problem! I’d be happy to know you wanted to see your mama’s jewelry, but now … now I just don’t know.”

  She pressed herself against the counter and dug her fingernails into its edge. “If you don’t know me, it’s only because you don’t want to. You don’t understand what I’m doing with my life—it’s not what you had in mind, is it?—so instead of trying to understand, you just, you just brush it all off and say you don’t know me anymore. Well, you know what, Papa, you know what? I don’t give a damn!” She slammed a fist on the counter top and jutted her face forward until they were an inch or so apart, Coogan and his daughter, and he had to fight the urge to shrink back in horror from what he saw in her eyes, the flash—like sheet lightning—of white-hot rage that came from nowhere and spread from her eyes to cover her whole face like a disease; it made him want to strike her for the first time in his life, made him want to swing his arm back as far as he could, double his fist and just let her have it, because nothing she could have said or done would have hurt him as much as that horrible look. He even clenched his stiff fingers into a fist at his side and dug the knuckles into his thigh, but he didn’t do it because—

  —she really wasn’t his daughter. He’d spoken figuratively a moment ago, but he realized, as he stared into that furnace of a face, that she wasn’t his daughter, he really didn’t know her anymore. It made him sick with sadness for a moment, the thought that she’d finally slipped away from him. He’d always expected it, he supposed, because that was what happened, wasn’t it? Sons and daughters grew from dependent children into mature individuals who had their own thoughts and made their own decisions. But it didn’t leave her face, that rage, it didn’t fade away or even diminish a little, and his sadness turned to fear. She hadn’t grown into anything; the mask had just fallen off. And his fear was not for her, but for his grandchildren.

  All of this rushed through his head in one great overwhelming wave and he leaned on the counter, his shoulders suddenly weak, as if his hands were bricks attached to his wrists.

  There were whispers in the back of the store and Coogan remembered the couple who had walked in just ahead of Paula.

  “Listen,” he whispered, “I got customers, so you just calm yourself down, little lady. You wanna talk about this some more, we’ll do it back there.” He jerked his head toward the curtained doorway that led to his living room.

  “I don’t want to talk to you. About anything.” She hurried around the corner and slapped at the curtain.

  “Where you going?”

  She turned to him. “To get what belongs to me.”

  “So you can sell it?” he growled.

  Paula said nothing; her breasts rose and fell with angry breaths.

  “Like you sold your car? And your stereo? And the boat your husband left behind? All for them?”

  “That’s none of your business.”

  “Like hell it’s none of—”

  She was gone, leaving behind only the fluttering drape.

  Coogan cleared his throat and called, “Be right with you, folks,” then followed her. “You’re not gonna find it ’cause it’s not here. It’s in a safety-deposit box and that’s where it stays.”

  She turned again. “You can’t do this.”

  “Well, you’ll have to be more convincing than that, ’cause I’m doin’ it.”

  “She left that jewelry to me.”

  “Not to sell.”

  “How do you know I’m going to—”

 
“Because that’s all you been doing, girl! They own you! If they told you to paint your face and go sell yourself on a street corner, I bet you’d—”

  “God … damn you.”

  “What is it this time, Paula? You give ’em a thousand dollars and they get you a free ride on a flying saucer? Or maybe they’re gonna let you talk to—who? what?—Elvis, maybe?”

  “Dammit, listen to you. Listen to what you’re doing. I never … not once did I ever make fun of your beliefs. When you and Mama used to go to church every week? I never said anything, I wouldn’t think of it, because I knew it was important to you. But this … what I believe … it’s different. It’s not Sunday school and church picnics and tithes and offerings, so you make fun of it, you act like—”

  “But it is, sweetheart, don’t you see that? It’s the same damned thing. Your mama and I, we went to church, but just ’cause it was something to do on Sundays. We saw people, we got outta the house. But we never gave ’em a penny, because I knew Reverend Chalmers and I never trusted him as far as I could fart, and because we always figured if god wanted our money, he’d come get it. But even if we had, it wouldn’t have been this much and not for these reasons.”

  “What reasons?”

  “I don’t know what reasons!” he barked. “That’s the problem. These people you’re hanging around with—”

  “Are people you’ll never understand. Because you’re ignorant. Like everyone out there. In the world. Ignorant. You’re afraid of the truth, because it’s too big for you. You’ll never let go of your old ignorant ways. Right and wrong and good and evil and god and man.” She spat the words from her mouth like rotten meat and that look of rage and hatred crawled back over her face as she spoke. “You’ll never grow or ascend, you’ll never reach any of the higher planes because you’re so—you’re so—” She stopped.

  Coogan heard a small crunching sound and realized Paula was grinding her teeth together.

  “Ignorant,” she hissed, then darted around him and through the curtain.

  Before she could get away, he grabbed her elbow and spun her around and they faced one another behind the register.

  “Look at you,” he whispered, “listen to yourself, spouting that bullshit. What is that, anyway? Is that what they teach you, that stuff? Dear god, I’m afraid for you, Paula, I really am. Hell, I’m beginning to think you’d sell your own children if that woman told you to.”

  Coogan regretted his words almost immediately and wanted to snatch them back, undo them, before they could do their damage. He was going to reach out, take her hand, pull her into his arms and embrace her, kiss her on the head like he used to when she was small and beg her forgiveness. He was going to do all of those things until—

  —he saw her face.

  He couldn’t pin it down at first, the thing in her face that made him feel so cold. For a moment, he thought she was going to cry, but there was no sadness in her eyes, no hurt. There was … surprise. Yes, that was it, she was surprised. And maybe a little afraid. Coogan realized he’d seen that look before, back when—

  —Paula was a little girl and he’d walked into her bedroom one evening to find her feeding some of her dinner to a stray cat she’d sneaked into the house that day. She wasn’t supposed to have pets in the house and she knew it, because her mother was allergic; she’d been caught and she looked like she’d been caught: lips parted, eyes wide, cheeks pale with guilt. She’d looked at him that way many other times throughout her childhood and—

  —she was looking at him that way again.

  The look was there for only a single beat, then it was gone.

  But it remained a visual echo in Coogan’s eyes and he swayed where he stood, reached out and clutched the register for support, his hand crushing several of the keys. The cash drawer clattered open with a ring and startled Paula. She took a step back, then another, and he knew she was going to turn and leave, walk out of the store without saying anything more.

  “Oh god,” he said in a cracked, trembling voice. “Where are they?”

  Paula took another backward step.

  “Where’s Katie and Jake?”

  She turned and hurried for the door.

  “What have you done to those children?” he shouted, but—

  —she was gone, and the bell over the door was clanging cheerfully, and Coogan’s heart protested with an icy shudder, making his chest feel swollen. He braced himself for what he feared was coming, for what his heart had threatened to do now and then in the recent past—he could almost hear its labored voice wheezing, Okay, Coogie, this is it, I swear to god, I’m throwin’ in the towel, buyin’ the farm, cashin’ in my chips, I am outta here!—and he slapped his hand over his big chest and his fingers clawed at his brown and tan plaid shirt until the buttons were straining against their threads. Between two beats of his frantic heart, he broke into a cold sweat. But it all passed quickly.

  “Oh boy … oh boy,” he breathed, leaning against the cash register, weak with both relief and an overwhelming heaviness that rested on his back like some wretched, snot-nosed little fat boy stubbornly hanging on for a piggy-back ride. “Are you going to be okay, friend?”

  Coogan had forgotten about his customers again and was startled by the man’s voice.

  They stood at the counter, this couple, the man looking concerned, the woman looking … well, she looked kind of lost, like maybe she was torn between bursting into tearful sobs and screaming at the height of her voice.

  Coogan pulled a handkerchief from the back pocket of his old brown corduroys and swept it over his moist forehead, then around his neck, taking a deep steadying breath.

  “Yeah,” he lied, taking a couple more big breaths. The sweating wouldn’t stop and his shirt was beginning to cling to his damp skin. “Yeah, just … just a little … a little upset, is all. My daughter.” He nodded toward the door. “Just a little … you know, a … family problem.” His hands were trembling and he silently damned them as he dropped them behind the counter and smiled at his customers. “Now. What can I do for you folks?”

  The woman stepped forward and her pretty face bunched into a frown. She reached up and touched the tips of her fingers to her shoulder-length red hair, a nervous gesture, empty and unconscious.

  “You said something about a little girl?” she said quietly. “To your daughter, I mean. You were talking about—”

  “Honey,” the man interrupted, “it’s none of our business.”

  “But maybe she—”

  “Honey.” He turned to Coogan again. “You sure you’re going to be all right? Maybe you should … sit down, or something.”

  “Well … y’know, that might not be such a bad idea.” He backed up and sat on the stool behind the register, his breath still a little short. Tiny speckles flickered in the periphery of his vision like silver gnats. His mouth was sticky with the foul aftertaste of bad coffee and he stood to get something to drink.

  “Whoah, wait a second,” the man said, stepping around the counter. “I think you should just stay there awhile. You need something? I’ll get it for you.”

  “Well … I could use a bottle of apple juice. They’re back there, by the soft drinks.”

  “You got it.” The man whispered something into the woman’s ear as he passed her on his way to the back of the store.

  She moved toward him and spoke hesitantly: “Is there, um, anything else I can get you? Do you have some pills? Uh, for your, um …” She touched her fingertips to her chest and raised her eyebrows high.

  “Oh, no, honey. Thank you, but no. Doc McCurdy wanted to put me on some, but … I figure when it goes, it goes. No use juicin’ it up with pills. Nobody lives forever.” He almost laughed at the ease with which he spoke those words, knowing that, five minutes ago, when his chest was filled with that deadly fluttering, he would have been happy to beg for a pill—or a shot or an o
peration—anything that would hold death off awhile longer.

  The man returned with a round bottle of apple juice, uncapped it, and handed it to Coogan.

  “Thank you much.” Coogan tipped the bottle back and emptied it with a few big gulps.

  “Lorne Cusack,” the man said, offering his hand.

  Coogan shook it, taking a moment to savor the taste of the apple juice and size up his visitors with a smile.

  Lorne Cusack was somewhere in his thirties, probably new to them, with blown-dry hair the color of lightly browned meringue and a hairline that had already begun its backward journey over the top of his head. He wore wire-rim glasses and sported an even, well-tended tan, like the woman with him, and their clothes—with subdued colors on thin, summery materials—were the clothes of city folk at play, the kind of clothes purchased specifically for vacations and weekend getaways. Coogan suspected they’d driven up in a BMW, or maybe a Porsche.

  “This is my wife, Bonnie,” Cusack went on. “We’re from Santa Barbara. We just got in, in fact.”

  “Well, that’s quite a drive,” Coogan said. “What brings you to our little town?”

  “A break from the rat race, mostly.”

  “I hear the rats are winning.”

  “By a wide margin,” Cusack laughed. “Actually, we’ve always wanted to see Mount Shasta, so we thought we’d come up, do a little hiking, and celebrate the Fourth here.”

  “You picked the right place for it. We put on one hell of a do here in Grover.”

  “So I’ve heard. Uh … are you feeling any better?”

  “Yeah, sure am. Thank you.” He stood. “I’m Bill Coogan, by the way. Didn’t mean to be rude. You folks looking for anything in particular?”

  “We stopped to get some gas, maybe some soft drinks.”

  “Soft drinks’re right back there. What kind of gas you want?”

  Cusack asked for premium and Coogan cleared the pump as the man and his wife went to the soft drink case in the back and got a six-pack of Diet Pepsi.

  “So, what’s there to see here in Grover?” Cusack asked, setting the six-pack on the counter.