The Blood Red Indian Summer

by David Handler

  “Sure thing, Pop,” Mitch responded, feeling his chest tighten as he hung up. Grapefruit-sized tumor. There was now zero doubt in his mind that he’d be hearing those words tomorrow. The only question was which one of them had it.

  He calmed himself, or tried, and went looking for June Bond. Tried two different showrooms but couldn’t locate anyone. Not only were there no customers but every salesman’s cubicle was empty, too. Mitch was beginning to think he’d wandered into an old episode of The Twilight Zone when he finally spotted a young janitor vacuuming the office rugs in the third showroom he tried. As Mitch approached him he realized that the young janitor was June.

  The heir to Bond’s Auto Mall was quick to notice him. It was awful hard to miss another warm body in that barren wasteland. June shut off the vacuum and loped across the showroom toward Mitch, looking super-preppy in his polo shirt, khakis and Top-Siders. “Hey, good to see you, bro,” he exclaimed. “I’m afraid I have to do a little bit of everything around here these days. People just aren’t buying cars. Plus this isn’t your father’s GM, Mitch. We’re staring at a future without Saturn, Olds, Pontiac and Hummer. We’ve shrunk our full-time sales and office staff, laid off mechanics. We used to have a custodial crew come in every night to tidy up. Now guess who we have?”

  “That would be you?”

  “Ka-ching.” June was acting very upbeat about it. And yet, Mitch noticed, he had dark worry circles under his eyes. “What can I do for you? Don’t tell me you’re finally giving up on your Studey.”

  “Not a chance,” Mitch said as June’s father, Justy, came strutting into the showroom from the service department. He went into a glassed-in office, sat behind the desk and got busy on the telephone, watching the two of them intently through the glass. “I ran into Callie this morning. She seemed kind of upset.”

  June eyed him curiously. “She sent you here?”

  “Callie has no idea I’m here.”

  “Then why are you?”

  “Because she told me you want to take off on the Calliope right away. And want her to quit the academy and come with you. And that it’s all real sudden and urgent and she doesn’t know why.”

  June ran a hand through his mop of hair, swallowing. “It’s not something I can talk to her about.”

  “Why not?”

  “Because she won’t understand. Listen, I can talk to you, right? You won’t go running back to Callie with every word I say, will you?”

  “Whatever you tell me stays between us. Scout’s honor.”

  June glanced over in the direction of his father’s office. “We’d better make this look like a work thing.” He fished around in the pocket of his khakis for a set of keys. “Come on, let’s take a Silverado out for a test drive.” He led Mitch out the door and across an acre of pavement toward a row of huge, shiny new Chevy pickups. “If you actually are interested in a new truck we’re practically giving them away right now. Factory incentives up the wazoo.”

  “I’m pretty attached to my Studey.”

  “Sure, I understand. Can’t say I blame you.”

  “Not exactly Mister Hard Sell, are you?”

  “I’m not Mister Sell, period. I hate trying to convince people to buy something that they truly don’t need. At least half of our new car and truck sales are to customers who already own perfectly serviceable vehicles. But thanks to Madison Avenue they get it into their heads that they need, need, need to trade up. It’s totally insane.”

  “You’d better not let your dad hear you talk like that. You’re spouting pure blasphemy.”

  “Believe me, I’ve done much worse.” June came to a halt before a shiny blue behemoth. “He’s watching us through the showroom window right now. Pretend you’re interested in my spiel, okay? This here’s your new Silverado 2500 HD. It’s got a choice of a Duramax 6.6 liter turbo-diesel or your standard 360 horsepower Vortec 6.0 liter V-8. It has a six-speed automatic transmission, four-wheel anti-lock brakes, air bags…”

  “Nice color,” Mitch offered encouragingly. It was all he could think of.

  “That’s the Imperial Blue metallic finish. The interior’s light titanium with dark titanium accents.” June swung the driver’s door open for him. “Hop in.”

  Mitch climbed in behind the wheel. The cab’s interior was as cushy and carpeted as somebody’s living room. And the wood-trimmed dashboard was so loaded with high-tech controls that it made his bare bones Studey look like a museum piece.

  “You’ve got cup holders here, here, here and here,” June said, climbing in next to him. “This right here controls your air conditioning.…”

  “Wow, it has air conditioning?”

  “And this is your heat.…”

  “Wow, it has heat?”

  “This particular model has an MP3-compatible CD player, XM radio, a USB port, Bluetooth and the OnStar Safe and Sound plan.”

  “June, this truck is better equipped than my house.”

  “If you opt for the crew cab you can just roll out your sleeping bag in the backseat and you’re home.” June’s face fell. “God, I truly suck at this, don’t I?”

  “You’re doing fine. But it helps if you believe in the product you’re selling.”

  “I couldn’t agree more.” He handed Mitch the keys. “Let’s ride.”

  Mitch started the engine and steered them out of the Auto Mall in quiet, air-conditioned comfort. The truck drove like a luxury sedan. He couldn’t imagine taking it to the town dump with a load of brush.

  “My dad will do anything to make a sale,” June informed him. “He has no scruples, no conscience and no patience with me. He thinks I’m soft.”

  “And what do you think?”

  “That I like to fix up old sailboats. I think I can make a living at it if I move someplace where people sail all year round.”

  “Someplace that also happens to be far from your dad?”

  “Well, yeah. That, too.”

  Mitch took the on-ramp to Route 9 and punched the accelerator. The truck was so powerful that he was cruising the highway at eighty before he realized it. A far cry from his Studey, which started to shake, rattle and roll if he tried to push it past fifty-five. He eased off the gas and said, “What happened, June?”

  “Something truly horrible,” June confessed miserably. “Callie … stays over with me a lot, okay? That’s one thing my dad’s cool about. He doesn’t mind her spending the night. Sometimes, she stays until morning. Sometimes, she goes home after I fall asleep and paints for hours. A few nights ago we had the place to ourselves for the evening. Dad and Bonita were at the club with some friends getting drunk. I picked up a pizza. We smoked a joint, watched some totally lame movie and—”

  “Wait, which totally lame movie?”

  “Uh, Pineapple Express with Seth Rogen and James Franco.”

  “You’re telling me you were stoned and yet you still didn’t find it funny?”

  “Not really. Why does that even matter?”

  “It doesn’t. You’re just in my wheelhouse is all. Go on.…”

  “We started, you know, getting busy on the sofa. Then went up to my room and made love. I dozed off after that. I don’t know how many hours later it was when Callie woke me up to make love again. She was totally on fire. And pretty soon I was, too. It had never, ever been like that with us before. We’d always been real gentle and loving. This was just wild. And it was all over so fast that, well, it didn’t hit me until it was too late.”

  “What didn’t, June?”

  “That she felt all wrong, smelled all wrong. I turned on the bedside light and it was Bonita who was naked in bed with me, her big blue eyes gleaming…” He shot a guilty look at Mitch. “Has anything like that ever happened to you?”

  “You mean waking up inside of the wrong woman? No, I’ve been Jewish my whole life. Not to mention a very light sleeper. You’re telling me you honestly couldn’t tell the difference between the two of them?”

  June let out a distraught sigh. “Mayb
e I did know. Maybe I was just beyond the point of caring. It’s not something I want to think about too much. But I can’t sugarcoat it, Mitch. I had freaky sex with my stepmother. I-I jumped out of bed, totally wigged out. Bonita was, like, ‘Chill out, hon, we’re cool.’ She was real drunk. And unbelievably horny. Told me my dad hasn’t been able to get it up for months. Not since they took away his Hummer franchise.”

  “So there is a connection.”

  “Bonita thanked me, Mitch. She said she can’t step out on him because people would find out. It’s awful hard to hide an affair in Dorset.”

  “It’s impossible,” said Mitch, whose own relationship with Des had become hot news all over town before either of them knew what hit them.

  “Next morning I couldn’t look my dad in the eye. Or Bonita. And for damned sure not Callie, who is such a genuine, sensitive person. She’ll never understand. I figure our relationship’s toast if she finds out. I moved out of my room and onto the Calliope that day so I wouldn’t be right down the hall from Bonita. Callie had a late class that night. Didn’t come over. I locked the Calliope down good and tight and went to bed early. I thought I’d be safe out there. I was wrong. At three o’clock in the morning Bonita’s out on deck pounding on the hatch cover and calling out my name. I let her in so she wouldn’t wake up my dad. Right away she was all over me again. I stopped her. I said that what happened last night was never, ever going to happen again. Bonita is … gorgeous. And she can be real persuasive. I totally wanted her again even though I knew it was wrong. I wanted her so bad that I went nuts and shoved her the hell off me. She cracked her head on the corner of a bookcase. Then she started screaming at me so loud she woke up my dad. Lights came on all over the house. She ran back inside and intercepted him. Made up some lame story about hitting her head in the kitchen. Told him she’d been awake because she was afraid there’d be a drive-by shooting next door. Just a bunch of paranoid, racist crap. But he totally bought it because he’s wired that way.” June broke off, swallowing. “This can’t go on, Mitch. Any day now the crazy bitch will lose it and tell him what really happened. I humiliated her. You don’t do that to Bonita. And she’ll mess up my thing with Callie for sure. I totally love that girl. I want to spend the rest of my life with her. But we’ve got to get out of this place right away or it’ll destroy us. Destroy Bonita, too.”

  “Destroy her how?”

  “My dad will beat the crap out of her. He used to beat up my mom. That’s why she left him.”

  “I thought Bonita split them apart.”

  “Everyone does. But my mom told me their marriage was over long before Bonita came along—because of his temper. He has no control over himself, Mitch. Like father, like son.”

  Mitch kept his eyes on the road. “You’re not your father, June.”

  “Yeah, I am,” he said bitterly. “Deep down inside I’m no good. I want to do what’s right. Go far, far away with Callie. I just don’t know if it’ll ever be the same between us after this. People who love each other don’t keep secrets. But what am I supposed to tell her—that my stepmother sort of raped me and that I sort of went along with it because she’s a real bunny in the sack?”

  “Yeah, I don’t think I’d phrase it quite that way.”

  “Mitch, you’ve been married. You know women better than I do. Will you give me an honest answer if I ask you something?”

  “I’ll certainly try.”

  “What would you do right now if you were me?”

  * * *

  “So what would you do?”

  “Me? I’d grab Callie and sail the hell out of that nuthouse as fast as the wind would take me.”

  “But that’s running away, doughboy.”

  “You bet your sweet tuchos it is.”

  The sky over Long Island Sound was bathed in a pinkish glow as they walked Big Sister’s narrow beach together at sunset. The air was still insanely warm for late October. According to the Weather Channel’s ace storm tracker, Jim Cantore, a storm front would bring thunderstorms tomorrow night along with much colder temperatures. For now, it felt like August as they strolled along barefoot in shorts and T-shirts, sipping Bass Ales and holding hands. Mitch relished these precious moments with his lady love. And he never took them—or her—for granted.

  There was a decommissioned lighthouse out on Big Sister, the second tallest in New England. Forty or so acres of woods. And four houses besides Mitch’s antique post-and-beam caretaker’s cottage—all of them belonging to the Peck family. It was the Pecks who’d founded Dorset back in the 1600s. A rickety wooden causeway connected the private island to the mainland at the Peck’s Point Nature Preserve.

  “So is that what you told June to do?” Des asked him.

  “No, I’d never tell some young guy to quit the family business and take off. Who am I to tell him that? Although it’s pretty clear that he does need to get out from under his father’s—”

  “Wife?”

  “I was going to say thumb. But if you want to talk dirty…”

  “I don’t.”

  “Are you sure about that?”

  “Positive. Move it along, mister.”

  “He asked me if I thought he should tell Callie. I said that when the time was right to tell her, he’d know. And he would tell her. He’d want to because they’d be a serious, committed couple by then and he’d want her to know everything. I’m not sure whether that was sound, mature advice or just something I picked up from watching Gidget Goes Hawaiian. But it was the best I could do. Hell, I’m driving along with the guy in this shiny new truck and he drops this on me. Do you think I need a new truck?”

  “She’ll never understand. She’ll forgive him—maybe. But never understand.”

  Mitch glanced over at her as she strode along next to him, her smooth skin glowing in the pink sunset. “What would you have told him?”

  “I have no idea. And you don’t need a new truck. You already have the world’s greatest truck.”

  “It doesn’t have air conditioning.”

  “Open a window.”

  “It doesn’t have heat.”

  “Wear a jacket.”

  “It won’t go faster than fifty-five.”

  “Good. You shouldn’t.”

  “Yeah, that’s kind of what I thought.”

  Des sipped her beer and said, “I thought I sensed something between June and Bonita this morning. The way she looked at him. And the way he didn’t look at her. I can’t believe she actually played the race card just to cover her skanky ass. She’s a thoroughly reprehensible person. And Justy’s no dreamboat either.”

  “He used to beat up on June’s mom, according to June. It’s only a matter of time before he starts in on Bonita—if he hasn’t already.”

  “Really nice bunch of people. It’s a heartwarming story.”

  “Welcome to Dorset, where life is beautiful all of the time.”

  “Do you believe June’s version of the story?”

  “Which part?”

  “The part where he woke up inside of another woman and didn’t know it. Because you’d know if you were making love to someone and it wasn’t me, wouldn’t you? I’d sure know if it wasn’t you.”

  “Well, that’s not a fair comparison. You’ve grown accustomed to incredibly high standards in terms of technique, attention to detail, girth … Okay, ow, that hurt.”

  “I’m serious, Mitch. Do you believe him?”

  “No, I don’t. I believe he’s spinning the truth about what happened so that he can live with himself. ‘This is the West, sir. When the legend becomes fact, print the legend.’” On her blank stare, he explained, “That’s from The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance, a very good picture John Ford made toward the end of his career. Lee Marvin slays in it.”

  “Do you realize that sometimes I have no idea what you’re talking about?”

  “But sometimes you do. How cool is that?”

  “Justy and Bob Paffin persuaded me to pay a ‘courtesy’ call on our
newest, blackest resident this morning.”

  “Oh, yeah? What’s Da Beast really like?”

  “There’s no short answer to that. He’s bright, self-aware and intuitive. He has a sense of humor. But he can go rage monster almost instantly—and then thirty seconds later be totally calm again.”

  “Are we talking steroids here?”

  “Real? I have no idea. I just know it’s hard to tell who Tyrone Grantham is from one minute to the next. Maybe that’s how Tyrone likes it. He dictates the flow by keeping the people around him off balance. He has an extended family staying there. Some very decent people. His younger brother, Rondell, has an MBA from Wharton. His wife, Jamella, is nobody’s fool. And her kid sister, Kinitra, has a set of pipes on her like you wouldn’t believe. The girl’s a major singing talent. But I ran a check on his cousin Clarence, who fancies himself a recording engineer, and it turns out he got kicked out of Clemson for stealing stereos from dorm rooms. Not only lost his basketball scholarship but got sentenced to a hundred hours of community service plus a year of probation. And the girls’ father, Calvin, has spent half of his adult life in lock-up down in Houston. You name it, Calvin’s done it—car theft, armed assault, pimping, dealing. It was the girls’ mother who raised them. She worked as a cashier at a Walmart. Got shot to death in the parking lot two years ago. The shooter was never apprehended. And the girls have been on their own ever since. When Jamella took up with the famous Tyrone Grantham, Calvin suddenly resurfaced. Tyrone’s letting him stay there with them, but he’s a punk, as the boys’ mother, Chantal, so eloquently put it. And she would know. Back home in South Central L.A. she was picked up a gazillion times for prostitution and drug possession.”

  The sky was turning from pink to violet. The darkness came fast this late in the year.

  “Stewart Plotka was out front trying to drum up publicity for his lawsuit,” Des went on as they started back toward Mitch’s cottage. “Just for the hell of it I phoned the Nassau County P.D. detective who investigated that Dave & Buster’s fracas. He told me they declined to pursue criminal charges against Tyrone because the waitresses and customers all backed up what Tyrone and Jamella said—which was that Plotka approached their table and started shouting and screaming at Tyrone. When Tyrone stood up, Plotka went into a tizzy and tripped over a chair. Plotka claims he broke his eyeglasses when he fell and suffered severe eye and hand injuries. But no one saw that happen. No ambulance was called to the scene. And Plotka’s ‘doctor’ lost his license to practice medicine in the state of New York five years ago. What he has is a license to practice chiropractic medicine in Nevada. Where I could get a license to practice. The Nassau P.D. detective thinks the man’s just looking for a payday. That lawyer of his, Andrea Halperin, is famous for squeezing go-away money out of celebrities.”