Layman's Report

by Eugene Marten

  Layman’s Report

  Layman’s Report

  Eugene Marten

  1334 Woodbourne Street

  Westland, MI 48186

  www.dzancbooks.org

  The characters and events in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental and not intended by the author.

  LAYMAN’S REPORT

  Copyright © 2013, text by Eugene Marten

  All rights reserved, except for brief quotations in critical articles or reviews. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner without prior written permission from the publisher: Dzanc Books, 1334 Woodbourne Street, Westland, MI 48186.

  Published 2013 by Dzanc Books

  ISBN: 978-1-938604-28-7

  First edition: November 2013

  This project is supported in part by awards from the National Endowment for the Arts and Printed in the United States of America

  Printed in the United States of America

  10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

  To Kelly, Robin, and Klaus

  Though it has taken me some time

  I have come to know

  That I am a part of everybody

  And everybody is a part of me

  And that no matter where I go

  Or how I go

  Everyone goes with me

  Final statement of Richard Tucker, Jr.,

  electrocuted May 29, 1987 for the kidnapping,

  rape, and murder of Edna Sandefur, retired nurse

  From the Report:

  These are the Objects of Interest: the first, free-standing crematory, now removed; Bath & Disinfection Bldg. #2, whose function can be confirmed by a glance through the windows; and Bath & Disinfection #1. The rebuilt crematory and its adjacent structure (an undressing room, according to museum literature), though discussed at length in the previous section, will be considered, briefly, again.

  Two men, half brothers. Shared a father but not a mother. The younger one had ideas: gas station, corner store, corner boys, liquor stores. Why stick to just one thing? Ski masks or Halloween, something small and snub-nosed. “It’s two kinda people in the world,” he would say. Steelworkers stumbling out of Domino’s every other Friday. Wait in the cut with ten inches of pipe. He wasn’t afraid to go to Mansfield—three years and they put you on papers. Or just give the teller a note, watch what it does to her smile.

  The older one listened. All he wanted was drinking money. He was two years older and named for his father, who was half his size. The younger brother was also small in stature. He couldn’t read but he had ideas. His name was invented just for him.

  He spent time in the mirror. “Excuse me but I wasn’t talking to you,” he told his bloodshot reflection.

  His other self looked nonplussed. It held something black and shiny. “They’s two kinda people,” it said, and the gun jumped at the glass. The mirror cracked. The little brother took this for a good sign.

  * * *

  They waited out in the cold till the a-rab was alone with a tabloid. He sat smoking, drinking out of a styrofoam cup. Reading with one eye. They crossed the street. There was a plan of sorts and the older one was to stay outside in the capacity of lookout.

  “But next time,” he said.

  “We’ll see how you do,” his half brother said, like some cautious employer observing a probationary period. There was a wreath on the door, a lone concession to the season. It jingled coming and going. The a-rab looked up from behind the counter, one eye colorless and always half closed as if it had seen more than it could bear. A radio played.

  “Cold as what out there,” the little brother said sincerely.

  “I’m close five minute,” the a-rab said.

  The little brother came up the aisle, its dirty warped floor. Off-brands, smell of freezer burn. The deli case empty, trays covered with white cloth. When he got to the counter he laid the gun on its side like merchandise. He was going to say, “This a robbery, let’s not make it murder” (as he had to the mirror) but the a-rab tossed the contents of the cup in his face and reached behind the counter. The coffee was by now lukewarm but the little brother screamed anyway, fired blindly three times. When he opened his eyes the a-rab was sitting back down on his stool next to the register, his hand on his chest like he was taking an oath. A wooden club rolled on the floor.

  The radio was silent. There was no trace of the other bullet.

  The wreath on the door rang and the big brother came in. He looked cautiously down the aisle and said, “The hell you done did?” as if gunfire had no place here.

  The little brother was breathing like he’d run a mile. His voice shook and he looked ready to hand over the gun. It had jumped in his hand, seemed to fire by itself. “Sumbitch tried to be strong on me. I told him we wasn’t playin.”

  The older one got behind the counter. “Drawer ain’t even open. You drippin.”

  “He made a move,” the younger one said irritably and sleeved coffee off his face. He could taste it.

  The a-rab sat with his hand still at his chest. Something dark, not coffee, pulsed out between his fingers. The cigarette was still in his lips.

  “The drawer,” the big brother said.

  “I need emergency,” the a-rab said.

  “This your goddamn emergency,” the little brother said and shoved it in the a-rab’s face. “You don’t need but one hand.”

  The a-rab showed no interest in the gun. He started to raise his arm, then froze with a sound half stuck in his throat, good eye shut tight. He dropped his arm and said, “No Sale.”

  “The fuck?” the little brother said, outraged.

  “You simple…” His half brother hit the key. The drawer slid open and the little brother, who couldn’t read but could tell one bill from the other, said, “Bout time you pull your weight.”

  They emptied it into a small brown bag from behind the counter, then got two bigger bags and couldn’t help helping themselves: beer, wine, Kools, bags of skins, batteries for no reason, a shrinkwrapped Penthouse, Dolly Madison. The big brother sipped a Miller’s. A car door slammed somewhere close and they ducked behind the magazine display.

  “We good?” the little brother said.

  “You tell me.”

  “You ain’t lock the door?”

  “Wasn’t no keys in it.”

  The little brother stepped out into the aisle then but he could already hear the little bells. She stood near the door and the empty gumball machine in a bulky parka, he in the middle of the aisle with the gun behind his groceries. Twenty-four, twenty-five, and seven or eight months in her belly.

  “Hello?” she said.

  “We closed,” he said.

  She tried to look over his shoulder and called the a-rab by his name, which means One Who Distinguishes Truth From Falsehood.

  “This a robbery,” the little brother began, but she turned to leave before he could finish and he shot her through the back as if to complete his sentence.

  “We got to go now,” the big brother said.

  “We gone,” the little brother said.

  They looked behind the counter. The a-rab sat as before, his good eye shut, and now he was softly mumbling.

  “He prayin?”

  “Wouldn’t you?”

  “They Muslim, right?”

  “Puerto Rican Jew for what I care.”

  “We got to go.”

  “All right then,” the little brother said, and raised his arm. The cigarette went out.

  She was still breathing when they pried the keys from her hand. Brand-new Camaro—St. Francis standing on the dashboard, Tupperware in the trunk. In the morning they found out she wasn’t breathing anymore but her baby had survived and been delivered. The little brother fel
t his holiday spirit returning.

  The pawnbroker had a safe in the back of his shop. He had Smith and Wesson, Springfield, a daughter just turned fourteen. Then he had nothing. At the state liquor store the little brother indulged tastes that were not his own—Remy Martin, Cour-voisier. A bottle of twelve-year-old scotch. Then he indulged other tastes, though later neither could always remember who had done exactly whom, or if they’d even done the pharmacist at all. Sometimes killing was an afterthought, like turning out the lights when you leave.

  They pushed their luck and it held. They were outlaws now, wanted men, though not as wanted as the little brother would have preferred and in the car he shuffled through stations, desperate for top stories of which they were the subject, like a performer attending reviews.

  “We some cold motherfuckers,” he said.

  “It’s on,” the big brother said, driving. The little brother still had all the ideas but couldn’t operate a car, and though the older privately doubted the younger’s leadership, their roles had been cast and he preferred not to make too many decisions. He stayed behind the wheel, let the other do the steering.

  South, into the country—there’d be small towns, jewelry stores, small-town security. After twenty miles of it they pulled into a rest stop and traded the Dodge for a Buick. Left the owner sitting in a stall with his pants down, the water beneath him reddening, ghastly surprise for some future motorist or maintenance worker. When they pulled out the radio was playing “Jingle Bell Rock” and it had just begun to snow, a light dusting on branches and embankments. “Turn that shit up,” the younger brother said and watched the tree trunks swing by, slender and brown or white as bone. Within ten minutes it was a blizzard so fierce you could hear it pelting the windshield and nothing was visible beyond the headlights. The back of the car kept swinging out from behind them and they had trouble with the defrost; the little brother had to use his hand. The big brother said “Here?” at each exit they passed, and the little brother kept saying “No,” for reasons known only to him if he had any. By now the road was so covered with ice and snow its boundaries were indiscernible and they’d drifted onto a ramp before they realized it. The town whose half-covered sign welcomed them was known mainly for its high school football teams, but would soon add another distinction to its name. They had chosen each other.

  It seemed deserted. A town square strung with lights of every color, thirty-foot tree swaying in the middle, the gazebo transformed into the birthplace of the King of Kings. They were creeping around it through the barrage of snow when the younger brother bid the older one stop. He got out of the car and trudged through knee-high drifts and the scouring wind to the manger, where the cradle had tipped and the infant lay on the floor, and under the noses of its parents, the magi, the shepherds and attendant livestock, he righted the rough wooden box, restored the messiah to his place and headed back to the passenger side of the Buick, a savior of saviors.

  Down the main drag and back onto Route 3. Past a strip mall, high school, soccer field, getting back into the country. The homes still houses, but the yards becoming spreads, acreage.

  “Maybe next time we’ll trade off for a horse,” the big brother said.

  “There.” The little brother pointed and they pulled off into a construction site. Wooden frames and tar paper; townhouses, condos maybe. They parked behind it so they were hidden from the road, lights off, engine running, as close as they would ever get to taking up residence there. They drank wine and malt liquor and the older brother smoked his first cigar, and they swallowed things taken from the pharmacy, shapes and colors that made them invisible but unforgotten, filled with motion and incapable of boredom, and then they drank more and played the radio and talked. The little brother recounted the last few days with great sentiment as if recalling the distant past, their humble origins, savoring what he decided were the highlights, even suggesting the names history might remember them by. It had stopped being about just money. The big brother wanted to play cards. He opened the twelve-year-old scotch and declared, “I don’t like this shit too tough but it ain’t gettin any older,” and when they tried the brandy the little brother gargled it like mouthwash and spat it out the window. It had seemed the preference of every woman he’d ever come at in every club and hole he’d haunted, and his older brother observed he couldn’t even pronounce it let alone afford it, and laughed, and the little brother took exception to this and they argued over it, then reconciled, then lapsed into thoughtful silence, which the younger one broke by singing along to songs he barely knew, improvising his own lyrics. The big brother grew so annoyed he turned off the radio, but the other seemed not to notice and continued singing along as with the wind.

  A state trooper drove by, neither seeing nor seen.

  It was still light when the storm let up. Unbearable brightness. There was a field next to the site and across that a house that had just become visible. Buried shapes of a car and van in the driveway. A picture window like an outsize postcard through which you could see a tree and an elderly woman holding a mug. A teenaged boy came out in the fresh calm and cleared the driveway with a snowblower. A man poked his head out the side door, shouted at the boy, went back inside. Stiff with resentment the boy shoveled off the car and scraped the windows, and later another woman and a girl about the boy’s age drove off in the newly cleared sedan. In the big window the elderly woman and the man fussed with the tree, and the half brothers watched without comment. Considerable time passed before the woman and the girl came back with shopping bags, groceries, laughing, perhaps smuggling gifts. Despite the distance and the shapeless bundling of winter attire, the little brother looked at the girl as if he already knew the color of her hair, as if she were the accumulation of every gift ever denied him, and after which none other need be given. He rubbed himself without knowing it.

  “You thinkin what I’m thinkin?” he asked the big brother.

  “Ain’t nobody thinkin that but you,” the big brother said. He was reading The Star. “My stomach thinkin I’m hungry.”

  “You always hungry.”

  “This ride run without gas?”

  “Well guess who comin to dinner then,” the little brother said and the big brother, face in the tabloid, mumbled about an invitation.

  “Right here,” the little brother said and felt around on the seat next to him, then kept feeling around saying, “The hell is it?” and the big brother just shook his head and showed him where it was and stepped out of the car to relieve himself.

  They drank some more and smoked, swallowed something that offset what they’d swallowed earlier and fell asleep, and as they slept the snow turned the color of the evening and lights came on all over town. The tank ran empty and they woke in the night shivering and wreathed in their own breath, the house radiant with figurations of tiny white lights. It was time. Without speaking they took what they would need and got out and emptied themselves again, opened the trunk and left it open as they trudged across the field toward the house, into the postcard, each step crashing through a layer of ice like a skin of glass.

  In the morning they woke in the same bed in a motel room, naked, the shotgun between them like a child in the parental fold. The younger one first. He did not remember how they’d gotten there. His mouth felt like a pothole and his brain seemed to swell against the inside of his skull, but what woke him was the sound of knocking.

  The older one stirred. The little brother rolled out of bed, took the Cobra off the nightstand and made for the door at an angle, dragging up his pants with one hand. He heard the knock again and realized it was next door. Voices. The window above the heater, day flaring at the edge of the curtain. His back against the wall next to it, he moved the curtain with his finger and in that inch of light saw everything.

  “Get dressed,” he whispered at the bed and grabbed his shirt up off the floor, keeping low like he was already in the line of fire.

  The big brother stayed in bed, sitting up now with the Springfi
eld. “Who it is?” he asked, and as if to reverse the order of things there was a loud knock. His shoulders jumped then and the shotgun went off and the little brother thought he would jump back out of his pants.

  A ray of light crossed the room.

  “Picklehead fool!” he hissed in their father’s voice.

  The big brother sat in a cloud of blue smoke. “I ain’t but touch it,” and he shrugged like he’d just spilled something.

  “Get dressed,” the little brother said again in the acrid aftermath, ears ringing, and his head seemed to have been cleared of all other thought by the blast. He put his shirt on. The big brother got out of bed with the shotgun and headed naked and at his leisure for the door, the brilliant hole in it like a jagged cold sun.

  “Where is you going?” the little brother said, and the big brother said, “Tell you where I ain’t goin,” something decided in his voice. He put his face to the opening. After the shotgun the sound that followed was almost a cough, but the back of his head flowered red and the light from the door shone through it like a revelation undeniable.

  They were only half brothers and the one left behind was already into the bathroom shoving up the sash of the window that was small but not as small as he was, tumbling through it free of thought because he was already caught, already dead. Bright white doom scoured his brain. Shirt, gun, pants. He bounced up on the frozen paving and the first two steps tore the skin off the bottoms of his feet. Where were they? Across the back parking lot, behind a maintenance shed where they should have been but weren’t, into a field, weaving like they’d taught him in Basic. A line of trees ahead. Running and waiting for a shout, a shot, or just a thump in his back and the beginning of that last fall into perfect blankness. Then he heard it and realized he only had because they’d missed and he was in the woods.

  Bare trunks like the ones they’d seen from the freeway; strange to be among them, the ground partially clear so he could see what was doing the damage he couldn’t feel. He jumped a frozen stream, fell, ran. There was a clearing and railroad tracks and he considered jumping a train—bend down and listen to the iron like a goddamn Indian, but instead he stumbled over them and went back into the woods. Saw one bird sitting on a branch as if frozen to it. It called. He answered: “Fuck you.” Another field then, snow-covered, his breathing so labored he couldn’t hear the thud of his feet. Frigid air burning his throat and lungs, morning light pink like blood in water. In the evergreens now. They opened and he saw a roof and slowed. A fence, a backyard. His toes seemed to have fused into a dull edge and could not negotiate the links, so he threw himself at it and tumbled over as if thrown, somehow holding on to the gun. He lay on his back on the other side listening for dogs, maybe a helicopter, and when he heard neither was both relieved and dimly affronted. A scraping somewhere instead—a shovel. He grabbed the links and hauled himself back up, the fence making a sort of music. There was a garage, a modest wreath fastened to the back of the house like good tidings even for trespassers. He made for the sound while he still could.