by David Black
More black clouds rolled in from the Catskills.
“My brother—Caroline and Nicole’s father—and their mother died before I did,” Dixie said. “Caroline and Nicole are what I have. I’m not afraid of death, not for me. But for them. And before they have children.”
“I thought Caroline couldn’t have kids,” Jack said.
“She told you that?” Dixie said. “She’s convinced herself. The doctors took a lot. She wants to believe they took everything.”
Dixie looked through the kitchen window at Caroline chopping a green pepper.
Dixie waited for Jack to say something. Jack had nothing to say. The rain rattled on the water as if the river were sheet metal.
CHAPTER FORTY
1
Thunder and lightning came almost simultaneously over the river, which smelled like soured milk. Drenched, Jack and Dixie retreated to the kitchen, which was a pool of light in the surrounding darkness.
“You’re bleeding,” Caroline said.
Jack’s pants leg was stained with washed-out blood. He’d barked his leg on the kitchen doorjamb.
Upstairs, Caroline, who had changed into dry clothes, washed Jack’s wound and wrapped it with gauze. Jack sat on the edge of the tub. She crouched at his feet. Jack looked lovingly at her pale scalp, which showed through her damp hair.
Someone knocked on the bathroom door.
Jack, naked, stood—painfully—and wrapped a bath towel around his waist.
Caroline opened the door, revealing Nicole, who held out an armful of dry old clothes.
“I raided the dress-up trunk,” Nicole said. “Blue-and-white striped slacks, a white silk shirt … very retro. If you want socks, I can rustle up a pair of white gym socks or a pair of argyles. I don’t think we have any shoes that will fit you.”
Caroline took the slacks and shirt.
“We don’t keep underwear in the dress-up trunk,” Nicole said. “Dixie’s got some cotton boxers, but I figured you’d rather go without.”
“Clever girl,” Jack said.
“Dinner in ten,” Nicole said.
They sat around the near end of the dining room table, the breakfront and Caroline’s great-great-uncle looming over them. They each had a bright-red, steaming-hot pound-and-a-half lobster. Caroline drank Heineken from a bottle. Nicole drank homemade lemonade. Jack bourbon neat. Dixie sipped a tall reddish drink on cracked ice.
“J&B,” Dixie said, “vermouth, cherry juice.… My own concoction.”
“It’s Dixie’s hobby,” Caroline said, “inventing cocktails.”
Caroline wore a white robe with a pattern of tiny blue flowers. She had rolled up the voluminous sleeves so they wouldn’t drag in the lobster or melted butter.
As she ate, her eyes were wide. Her hair, which she had brushed forward, framed her face. Her left nostril quivered. Her cheeks were flushed.
“Don’t stare, Jack,” Nicole said. “No matter how smitten you are, it’s not polite. Look, Caroline, he’s blushing.”
2
After dinner, the four of them sat, Jack drinking bourbon; Caroline, beer, her third; Nicole, chamomile tea; and Dixie, coffee. Listening to Brahms’ “In Stiller Nachte.” And reading: Jack, the Albany Times Union; Caroline, the New York Times; Nicole, New York; and Dixie, a Thorne Smith novel.
“Night Life of the Gods,” Dixie said, holding up the old, faded, buff-covered book. “A novel about a scientist who invents a ray that turns people into statues and a sexy lady leprechaun who can turn statues into people. She brings the Olympian gods to life, and they have a delightful time, but realize—the scientist and the leprechaun—they there is no place for them in this disenchanted, solemn world. At the end, when they turn the gods back into statues, they embrace and turn themselves into statues, too. Every year, I reread it, Jack. If you want, you can borrow it. Thorne Smith was the Cole Porter of American novelists.”
“No thanks, Dixie,” Jack said.
“You can stay the night,” Dixie said.
“You can’t go home,” Caroline emphatically told Jack.
“The guest room’s at the top of the stairs,” Nicole said. “Caroline can get you a towel and washcloth and anything else you need.” She smirked at Jack and said, “If you get bored with Ms. Appropriate, Jack, my biological clock just went off daylight saving time.”
“Tomorrow, the fair starts,” Dixie said.
“And you drive in the demolition derby,” Caroline said, unhappily.
3
Caroline led Jack up the stairs and steered him into her bedroom.
The rain had almost stopped.
Caroline’s room had four large windows, two on each exterior wall. The curtains were dark blue and held back with blue sashes. The wallpaper was a lighter blue with pink-and-white blossoms. The wood trim—around the windows, the molding, the baseboards—was semigloss, eggshell.
A large framed reprint of a post-World War I French train ad dominated one wall. Smaller, framed photographs of Dixie and Nicole were scattered on the other walls. Pressed behind an antique oval glass was a large fern.
Instead of a closet—it was an old house—there was a large wardrobe with chipped veneer and, on one door, a clouded mirror. Between the two windows facing the river was a white-painted dressing table with another mirror. A quilted chair. A carved three-shelf cherry-wood bookcase filled with new novels and college editions of the classics. On the top shelf of the bookcase was an iPod in a docking station and two stacks of unsorted photographs. Between the other two windows was a small easy chair upholstered in a blue flowered pattern that matched the wallpaper. The polished, honey-colored wide-board floor was covered with small, old Oriental rugs, one with a repeating pre-Nazi, Sanskrit swastika pattern.
A double bed with a canopy the same material as the curtains stood in the middle of the room, the mattress so high you needed a two-step wooden stair to climb in. The quilt was light blue. The sheets and pillow cases were white. On one side of the bed was a side table with a parchment shaded lamp, an amber-colored plastic pill bottle, Zoloft, a tiny wooden sheep, and a hardback copy of a Stuart Woods mystery.
She closed the half-open drawer, which held safety pins, elastic bands, a purple scrunchy, coins, Band-Aids, a dozen loose blue Bicycle playing cards, and a small pink vibrator.
Caroline did not turn on the overhead light, but, starting with the bedside light, made a circuit of the room, turning on lamps with low-wattage bulbs, which gave the room a cozy glow.
Jack and Caroline took turns using the bathroom in the hall, Caroline first. When Jack returned to the bedroom, Caroline was already in bed, naked from the waist up, the sheet pulled up right below her breasts. Her nipples were pale.
Jack stripped and slid between the sheets, which smelled fresh and felt ironed. Caroline’s skin smelled of soap. Her hair held a not-unpleasant trace of melted butter.
Caroline lay on her back, staring at the ceiling. Jack lay on his left side, staring at Caroline.
Caroline was silent.
“While you were in the bathroom,” Jack said, “I took a quick walk around the house.”
Caroline did not answer.
“As far as I can tell,” Jack said, “no one’s out there who shouldn’t be.”
Caroline stared at the ceiling.
“Sometime during the night,” Jack said, “I’ll check again.”
Rain spattered against the windows.
“Caroline?” Jack asked.
She turned her head toward Jack and said, “I was praying. I pray every night. For Dixie, my mother, my father, Nicole, Robert—”
“Robert?” Jack asked.
“—you,” Caroline said.
“Keating?” Jack asked.
Caroline nodded.
“The guy trying to kill me?” Jack asked.
Caroline nodded.
“That’s promiscuous,” Jack said.
“Every night,” Caroline said, “the list gets longer.”
“Where do you
draw the line?” Jack asked.
“I don’t,” Caroline said.
“I never would have taken you for a believer,” Jack said.
“Don’t you believe in God?” Caroline asked.
“I’m not saying no,” Jack said.
“But?” Caroline asked.
“But the world is filled with horror,” Jack said.
Caroline pushed down the sheet.
“Are you ready for some happy-face sex?” she asked. A little too brightly.
She hooked her finger under the crotch of her panties and pulled the cloth aside for him.
CHAPTER FORTY-ONE
1
Much later, in the dark, Caroline told Jack, “My mother would have liked you. She would have given you a hard time, she gave everyone a hard time, but she would have liked you.
“She was old pioneer stock,” Caroline said. “She used to tell us—Nicole and me—the secret of life is to be the gunfighter who’s not afraid to die. Maybe she said killer. The killer who’s not afraid to die.”
2
Even later, Caroline asked Jack, “What about your mother and father?”
“My mother ran off when Bix and I were little,” Jack said.
“And your father?” Caroline asked.
“Worked at the auto seat–cover factory,” Jack said. “On Front Street. That old building across from the train station. He stood at the assembly line doing six separate actions. Over and over. Eight hours a day. Every day. Five days a week. His whole life.”
“Now, it’s some kind of experimental theater,” Caroline said, “the old seat-cover factory.”
Outside the wind howled.
“What happened to your dad?”
“Old age.”
“How old was he?” Caroline asked.
“When he died?” Jack said. “Sixty-two. Old age comes sooner to the poor.”
3
Caroline couldn’t sleep. She slipped out of bed without waking Jack, who was softly snoring and slightly drooling from the corner of his mouth.
At the end of the dark hall, Caroline looked through the window and saw Bix in the shadow of the large tree across the street.
No. Bix was taller, broader.
In the shadows, this guy smoothed back his hair and fixed a cowboy hat on his head.
Caroline ran back into her bedroom, considered waking Jack, and then decided she’d rather prove she was as tough as he was. The killer who’s not afraid to die.
She pulled on jeans and a top and, barefoot, scuffed on sneakers.
From a desk drawer, she took the gun Jack had given her. Solid in her hand. She loaded it as Jack had taught her, made sure the safety was on, and slipped it into her waistband.
She hurried down the stairs and through the kitchen into the mud room, where she grabbed a heavy black Mag-Lite.
Quietly, she opened the kitchen door, the screen door, and edged into the backyard.
The rain was steady. Cold. The wind was loud in the trees.
She crept from one backyard to another. At the end of the block, she slipped across the street and through more backyards until she was next to a garage opposite Dixie’s house.
Ahead of her, the man in the cowboy hat stood so close to the tree trunk, he was almost invisible. Rain dripped off his hat brim.
Caroline pulled the gun from her waistband, clicked off the safety, held the gun in two hands—as Jack had demonstrated—crouched, raised the gun, aimed, and was about to squeeze the trigger.
From behind, someone grabbed her in a hug, forcing the gun down.
“You can’t kill him,” the man who held her whispered in her ear.
Bix.
“We just wait?” Caroline angrily whispered. “Until he kills Jack?”
Ahead of them, the Cowboy turned his head towards them—as Jack, bare-chested, barefoot, just in slacks, burst out of Dixie’s front door.
The Cowboy dodged sideways and ran diagonally into the street and then down the middle of the street.
Jack ran after him.
Bix and Caroline ran after Jack.
The rain semiblinded Jack.
Jack smelled wood smoke.
Jack dove, hooking the Cowboy’s right leg. The Cowboy spun, freed himself, and kicked Jack in the face. Jack bulled forward, his shoulder against the Cowboy’s thigh, and slammed the Cowboy against a tree.
The Cowboy pulled his gun and pressed it against the back of Jack’s neck—as Jack pulled his gun and jammed it into the Cowboy’s crotch.
Bix plowed into both of them.
The Cowboy tumbled over Jack’s body, staggered, and ran up someone’s driveway.
Caroline was on his heels. When she got to the end of the driveway, a closed two-door garage, she couldn’t see the Cowboy in the yard.
He stepped out from a bush behind her and, grabbing her around the neck, pressed the gun into her head.
She swung her gun around and fired. She didn’t hear the shot. She heard the ringing silence after the shot.
She missed, but the Cowboy released her, stepped back, and fired.
She heard that gunshot. And felt something ruffle her hair. The side of her head felt moist. Something trickled down her cheek.
Jack was there—she didn’t recall him arriving—touching her head.
“You got creased,” he said.
She was dizzy. Suddenly sleepy.
“You’ll be okay,” Jack said.
“No one wants the cops,” Bix said—and melted into the shadows.
Grabbing Caroline’s arm, Jack ran her through backyards, across a field, and waited for two patrol cars to pass.
“I woke up,” Jack said, “you were gone. Your gun was gone.”
They crossed the road and sneaked through more backyards.
When they reached Dixie’s house, Jack gave Caroline his gun and said, “When you get inside, put alcohol on the wound. Go!”
Jack vanished around the side of the house.
Afraid someone might see her entering the house, might figure out she had something to do with the ruckus out front, Caroline scrambled up the trellis to the back porch roof, across the roof, and through her bedroom window.
Like Peter Pan. Like Dracula.
She had become the alien creeping into her room she had always feared.
* * *
As Caroline stepped though the window she saw a stranger in the mirror. Herself. Unrecognizable. Drying blood striped one cheek. But that wasn’t what made her look different to herself. Stepping close to the mirror, she examined her face.
Maybe the difference she saw was in her eyes.
The secret of life is to be the killer who’s not afraid to die.
She’d been not just ready but eager to shoot the Cowboy. The same way, when she was a teenager, once she’d decided, she had been not just ready but eager to lose her virginity.
She wished Bix hadn’t stopped her.
Grabbing her cell phone, she took a photo of her face and sent it to Jack—with a text, Where R U?
No answer.
She crept out of her bedroom down the hall, into the screened sleeping porch above the front porch.
The trees and bushes, the street, the telephone pole, the people were all flashing red and blue in the rotating patrol-car lights.
Jack, still shirtless and barefoot, came out the front door of the house as if he’d just been awakened and was checking to see what the ruckus was about.
Some uniformed cops were pointing across the street at where the Cowboy had been standing.
A volunteer rescue-squad truck with a red light on its roof and a Chevy with a revolving blue light on its dashboard pulled up.
Jack was talking to a thin man in a suit, a detective, Caroline figured.
The detective shrugged.
Jack turned back to the house and walked over to Dixie—in his maroon bathrobe—and Nicole—in her white terrycloth robe—who had just hurried onto the front porch.
Caroline crept back along
the hall—red and blue lights reflecting off the ceiling—to her bedroom, where she took off her blouse and slipped out of her jeans and sent Jack cell photos of herself.
She took and sent him a picture of her breasts. Sent a second, a picture of her cunt, spreading her lips—the labia majora, the labia minora. Her own private constellations. The Big and Little Dipper.
Her cell phone pinged.
Jack texted back, Wanted to make sure Bix got away.
Her phone pinged again—a response to the photograph of her cunt.
The universe in a grain of sand, Jack texted.
Her phone pinged again. As above so below.
Her phone pinged again. Lie down.
Naked, she did.
Jack opened her bedroom door. He crossed the room and knelt between her legs.
She smelled like rain water. And tasted like the sweet syrup Jack used to suck from wax straws when he was a kid.
From the hallway, Nicole called, “Caroline…?”
Caroline’s breathing was hard, loud, throaty.
“Are you okay?” Nicole asked, close to the door.
Jack felt Caroline’s solar plexus pump in and out with her breathing.
Nicole knocked.
Jack buried his face deeper between Caroline’s thighs. Caroline gasped.
“You don’t sound so good,” Nicole said, opening the door. She stood for a moment trying to understand what she was seeing, then quickly backed out, saying, “My bad,” and softly closed the door behind her.
* * *
After they made love, as they were curled in each other’s arms, Caroline’s head against Jack’s chest, she said, “The universe in a grain of sand.”
Jack’s sweat smelled smoky. Pleasantly acrid.
“He’s my favorite poet,” she said. “Blake.…”
She could hear Jack’s heart beating. She lifted her head slightly and pushed back her hair, so she could hear Jack’s heart louder.
“When I’m old and married,” she said, “I want to be like Blake and his wife, sitting together naked in our garden, surrounded by angels.”
“In the sixties,” Jack said, “early seventies, there was a rock group, The Fugs, I used to hear in the East Village. They sang a song from Blake.…”
Softly, Jack sang, “Sunflower, weary of time…”