Pack

by Mike Bockoven

  “If Dave had just said ‘I’m breaking the rules right now for obvious reasons’ no one would have thrown up a fuss. They would have still had to talk to Dilly but they could have done it on their own terms, I guess. That’s damn sure better than what happened. What do you put on these melons, Carl, they are fantastic?”

  “It’s about the soil,” Carl said. “It’s not what you put on them.”

  “Yeah I guess,” Ron said, having talked himself out. “The cider is good. How much did you make?”

  “More than I should’ve,” Carl said. “You can take a jug home if you want.”

  “I’d appreciate that, man,” Ron said. Having talked himself out and checked on his friend, Kenny was alone in his garden ten minutes later, a gallon growler of cider gone from his fridge. It wasn’t half an hour later that Kenny Kirk showed up, leading with “That was a complete whirlwind of a train wreck of a shit show out there,” before he had made it inside the door.

  “Where you at?”

  “Three, maybe.”

  “Well, I’m about with you but I’m worried we might not get another chance anytime soon. I know Willie used to run lead and I know Dave took it from him but goddammit, man, get over it. This isn’t … God, it’s not King Lear … what’s the one where they all conspire to murder the king?”

  “Macbeth, maybe? Shakespeare liked that storyline.”

  “Yeah, that might be it. Wasn’t there one where the king had a bunch of kids and they were conspiring against him and he was really old? What you got to drink around here?”

  “Got some cider in the fridge.”

  “Damn, Carl, you’re a good dude. That’s why I tell people that Carl Eakes is a good dude. You never let a man go thirsty.”

  “Where’s JoAnn?”

  “Dropped her off at the house. We’ve talked this to death. I need some fresh ears.”

  The same-sized growler disappeared from Carl’s fridge, but this time it went straight down Kenny Kirk’s throat. The two wandered in the garden, Kenny stopping every so often to wildly gesticulate. He spoke twice as much as Ron had and said just about the same amount.

  “What do you think we should do?” Carl finally asked, when the dire nature of the situation had been suitably articulated.

  “You asked me that when we were talking about Byron.”

  “I’m not good at hard decisions.”

  “Well, then you’re lucky to have a friend like me to figure it all out. The way I figure, Willie and Dave are done. Done-sky. Caput. They’re never running together again.”

  “I don’t know …”

  “Well I do know, goddammit, and you’ve gotta make up your mind on which pack you’re going to run with. And what you’re prepared to do to run with them.”

  “It’s not going to come to that.”

  “Do you see Dave forgiving Willie? Do you see him going ‘no biggie, you made me confess to murder and your mother’s adultery to our kid after one of the seminal moments of his life? How about some pie?’ You see that happening?”

  “No,” Carl said. “But … I don’t know.”

  “Well, I do.”

  “Family does some crazy things,” Carl said, measuring his words to not get immediately shot down by Kenny. “And that’s without the weird part of turning into wolves and chasing deer through the woods.”

  “All I’m saying is get comfortable with two packs or one pack trying to kill the other pack or … shit I don’t know. That was some great cider.”

  “Take some home.”

  “Thank you, I will. JoAnn needs to chill out on a few things and this might help.”

  “JoAnn is great. Don’t talk like that.”

  “Yeah, you’re right,” Kenny said, stumbling toward the fridge. “I’ll tell her you said so. Catch you later.”

  •••

  The sun was setting when there was a final knock on the door. Carl half expected Kenny Kirk to be back peddling another theory or begging for more cider, but got a deep, sinking feeling in his gut when he opened the door to find Dilly. The kid looked worn and defeated.

  “Hi, Carl.”

  “Dilly.”

  “Can I come in?”

  “Yeah. Come sit in the back.”

  The sickly sweet smell was always worse in the evening for some reason and Carl noticed it was worse than just an hour ago when he and Kenny had been strolling. Dilly plopped in one of Carl’s white, plastic chairs that wobbled under the size of a tall, gangly teen.

  “Sorry I didn’t call first.”

  “No problem,” Carl said, easing into his own chair. “No one ever does.”

  “I … uh … it’s been a rough couple of days.”

  “I figure.”

  “I’ve got a lot of new information I’m trying to figure out.”

  “Yes, you have.”

  A wind cut through the garden carrying away the scent of Carl’s plants and bringing in grasses and dirt, trees and something that smelled dimly of fire. It reminded Carl, as new scents always did, that he was not a normal guy. He was a guy with responsibilities, a guy who had to be in control of himself and had to be part of a group that controlled each other. If they didn’t do that, they risked hurting more than each other and if one of them went rogue, then it would be Byron all over again.

  “So, where you at, Dilly?”

  “Huh?”

  His dad should have explained this by now, Carl thought, then felt weird about being critical of the guy running lead.

  “All of us, we are always checking in about how bad we want to … go for a run.”

  “Oh,” Dilly said.

  “We usually use a one to ten scale so if I meet up with Kenny or Ron the first thing I always ask them is “where you at?” They give me a number and that helps us figure out how bad one of our brothers needs to run.”

  “How do you know how bad you need it?”

  “Your dad should probably tell you that.”

  “My dad’s not here,” Dilly said with a sneer. His tone was, by far, the meanest Carl had ever heard from the boy.

  “That doesn’t mean it’s my place.”

  “I’m asking you,” Dilly said. “I’m asking you how you know because … because it was the greatest thing that had ever happened to me. I felt like I could face down a hurricane. I felt … I don’t know how to put it …”

  “You felt your ancestors in your blood. Felt like you were part of something that was ancient and powerful and badass.”

  “Yeah,” Dilly said, not acknowledging Carl’s uncharacteristic eloquence. “Nailed it.”

  “I don’t know how it’s going to work for you,” Carl said. “It’s different for everybody. For Willie, it comes on fast. You talk to him in the morning and he’s a two, then he gets in a fight with Lacy and he’s suddenly at a seven or an eight and you gotta change your plans. All I can tell you is figure out your rhythms and the way your brain works with this new thing and you’ll be fine.”

  Dilly shifted in his seat.

  “OK, this is a … this is a hard question, but, does it always feel this good? Is it always such a rush?”

  “It’s great every single time,” Carl said. “You know Ron. He don’t look it with his beard and his gut but he’s a stone-cold genius. With computers, there ain’t nothing he can’t get them to do and he’s working in a grain elevator. Kenny Kirk, with a mouth like that? He could be running something. I don’t know what, but something.”

  Dilly laughed the laugh of a kid still trying to figure out what his laugh sounded like.

  “Hell, Dilly, your dad, and I know you don’t want to hear this right now, but your dad was a beast on the football field. He could have gone to college and played football and gone on to better things and your mom? Your mom studied chemistry for a semester, did you know that? She wanted to go be a pediatrician and she could have done it, too. JoAnn wanted to write for a newspaper. Karen could have been in the ballet, I swear. I could have left this town and found someone to be wi
th. Why do you think all these people who could have gone on to better things in bigger places, why are they here? What’s keeping them in podunk Cherry, Nebraska?”

  Carl had intended to let his speech hang for a second and let the glory of it wash over the new recruit, but Dilly ruined it and started to cry. It started when he tilted his head at a strange angle, then sniffled a little too hard. By the time Carl turned his head, Dilly was full-on trying to stop crying. He wiped tears with the heel of his hand, and Carl gave him a long time to speak.

  “Sorry,” Dilly said. “It’s too much.”

  “What’s too much?”

  “You’re telling me this is it. This is my life? My mom and my dad and my grandpa and their friends and, oh yeah, by the way we might kill people you know from time to time and your mom’s a whore and your dad is a fucking pussy and this’s it? This and the woods, this is what I get?”

  “Dilly, you gotta talk to your dad about this.”

  “FUCK HIM!” Dilly yelled, the veins standing out strong along his neck.

  Carl stood up and walked inside, reemerging soon thereafter with two glasses of cider. He placed the glasses on the wrought iron table, flaking paint but sturdy, and spoke to his young guest in a serious, clipped tone he saved for special occasions.

  “A couple things, Dilly,” he said. “And if you tell your dad I told you any of this or that I gave you this cider I’m going to deny it and he’s going to believe me. One, calling women ‘whores’ is a nasty habit and one you should break toot suite. It’s ugly and sexist and nothing a man of substance does. Second, next time you see Willie, ask him how big a pussy your dad is. You don’t get to run lead unless you earn it. Third, you don’t know the whole story about Byron so I would strongly suggest you reserve judgment, as hard as that is, until you know all the facts. And most importantly this isn’t all there is. You think we’re trapped here? You think I couldn’t move to Omaha or Kansas City or Nova Scotia or Germany or some place? I can leave any time I want. I choose to stay here because I’m part of something and being part of something, that ain’t nothing.”

  Carl threw back his cider. Dilly watched him do it and then followed suit, shutting his eyes hard after it hit the back of his throat. He let out a couple of short coughs.

  “What’s the matter kid? Never drank before?”

  “No,” Dilly said. “As a matter of fact this was the first time.”

  “Well, now I’ve done it,” Carl said, grabbing the glasses. Dilly followed him into the house and made for the door.

  “I won’t tell Dad I came here,” he said.

  “I’d appreciate it,” Carl said. “I wish I had more advice for you, but it’s different for all of us. What works for me, that ain’t going to work for you.”

  Dilly nodded and made his way to the road. There was no car in the driveway, which put him a good mile from home on foot. He had plenty to think about, Carl figured.

  In a rare act brought on by a rare time, Carl poured himself a second, much taller glass of cider and sat himself on his couch opposite the biggest window in the house. He had had enough of the smell outside for one day.

  He played through everything again in his head—Ron’s panic, Kenny Kirk’s fatalism, Dilly’s discovery, his own ability to give halfway decent advice. All in all, he concluded, things were bad, but things looked like they could get better. The train wasn’t all the way off the tracks.

  “But if Willie shows up tonight, he’s not getting any cider,” Carl said to the long, deep shadows that had taken residence in his living room.

  •••

  The night after the “scratch” that led to the blowup, Dilly had gone straight to his room and shut the door. With a kid not talking to her and a husband who was out somewhere for an indefinite amount of time, Josie found herself alone in the house. It wasn’t an uncommon occurrence but the empty house that was sometimes her friend was certainly not in this instance. The silence was screaming and work or family was not there to distract her.

  There were dishes to do. There was always laundry. She had three books in varying states of completion. At one point, she thought it would be fun to go punch something until her knuckles bled, that way there would at least be some sort of physical component to the soul-shaking pain she was going through, but there would be questions and blood to clean up. There was only one thing left to do.

  Without a word to Dilly, she laced up her shoes, fired up her music player and was off, the fall air cutting into her lungs. Josie was a nurse by trade, a mother, a wife and a keeper of some very big secrets (fewer of late). These things would come and go. But the one thing she had been since she was thirteen years old was a runner.

  There was a treadmill in their house and on certain days when the weather would freeze her to the bone or melt her into a puddle, it made sense to trek into the basement and spend some time on the bulky machine. But if it was at all possible, Josie wrestled with asphalt and gravel, traffic and road signs. She hadn’t grown up in Cherry but Lincoln, an entirely different world by comparison. The first time she ran in Cherry, two very kind people stopped their cars and asked if she needed a ride someplace.

  By now she was a fixture on the roads, usually in the early morning hours, but it was not uncommon to see her out after dinner. What was uncommon was the volume of the music in her ears, the pace she was pushing, and the distance she ran. The night and day flashed in her head and scenarios, conversations, what she would say to Dave when they finally talked, how they would deal with Dilly, how she might murder Willie and get away with it, all of it and much more flashed in her brain, blotting out everything but the road and blur of her feet underneath her until her run was over. Then she did it again. She ran ten miles and by the time she came back to the house, Dilly was watching TV, her iPod was drained of its battery and she felt better. Not good, but certainly not the wreck she had been a few hours earlier.

  “Dilly,” she yelled down the hall. “I’m getting in the shower and then we should talk. Don’t go anywhere, please.”

  There was no response, so she made it to her room and stripped off her gear. Her left sock was bloody from the run with one toe and the heel of the foot shredded and sacrificed to the endorphin gods. The shower was long but not too long and when she got out, Dilly was there, like the good boy he was.

  “Where’s Dad?” he asked.

  “I don’t know. He walked off and I was hoping he’d be back by now.”

  “When’s he going to be home?”

  “You know as much as I do, Dilly.”

  In her mind’s eye as she ran, Josie had pictured this going differently. If Dave had been there, they could have put their own feelings aside for an hour or so for the sake of the boy, they could have made sure he understood what was happening, why it had happened and what happens from here, but Dave was out sulking God knows where and Josie made the decision right then and there that this talk could not wait.

  “Do you understand what happened a few days ago?”

  Dilly stared at her, not really grasping what she was getting at.

  “Do you understand why we told you all that stuff? Do you understand we didn’t have a choice because of how this thing of ours works?”

  “I understand you slept with another man and Dad killed him.”

  “Then you don’t get it at all,” Josie said, wincing a bit. “You didn’t even get the facts right, sweetie.”

  “I think I got the gist,” Dilly said, turning back to the TV. She was losing him.

  “There’s a ton we have to sort through here, but right now there’s one really, really important thing I need you to understand about our group. What Willie did …”

  “Grandpa.”

  “What Willie did was use a bond that we all share to pick at your dad and me. He knew, better than anyone, that in order for all this to work we have to be one hundred percent honest with each other. We have to be rock solid. There cannot be secrets and there cannot be grudges because if either of th
ose things happen when you boys are out in the woods there’s going to be so much blood, Dilly. So much blood.”

  He had turned back around and was at least listening.

  “This thing of ours, it goes back hundreds of years that we can figure out and some of the other packs, I guess you could call them, they would write down what worked for them and what didn’t work for them, what their problems were and how they solved it. Stay here, just a sec.”

  Josie got up, the lactic acid in her legs already settled and inducing a decent amount of pain as she got to her feet. A couple of minutes later she was back from her scrapbooking area with a leather-bound book she kept in a drawer.

  “This is a history of our group. It goes back all the way to 1870 when this guy, Homer Rhodes, started keeping a journal about his group.”

  “They ever kill anyone?” Dilly asked sharply.

  “Yeah,” Josie said. “Three of them. Turns out there was a big fight about the Railroad they couldn’t get over so they sort of … had a wolf fight. It was a bad idea. They destroyed three buildings and were seen by half the town.”

  “Whoa,” Dilly said.

  “Homer Rhodes wrote in his diary that he had to use all his power to keep everyone quiet. Then it became a thing people accepted and then it sort of became part of the town. And here we are.”

  “Great history lesson, Mom. What’s that have to do with anything?”

  “Because Homer Rhodes wrote down the rules, you smart ass,” Josie said. Her tone was playful but they both knew she was serious about not being pushed. “The rules of the scratch, he called them. And rule number one, and this has always been rule number one, is there are no secrets in the pack. No matter how much pain, no matter how many hurt feelings, the survival in society depends on everyone knowing what’s going on. There are no secrets between any of us, and like it or not, kiddo, you’re one of us now.”