Settright Road

by Jon Boilard

  Harlan laughs. Lila is all right in his book. She gets him a can of Budweiser beer and she has a highball with a green olive stuck through with a toothpick. The old man simply stares out the window at the haze and into the pitch of night and drools some more.

  He doesn’t even know me anymore, Harlan says.

  No, he does.

  Not that I’m complaining.

  It just takes time to register.

  If he knew it was me drinking his beer he’d be pissed, Harlan says.

  Lila laughs. She asks him about Annabelle.

  Oh, she’s still around, he says.

  And have you heard from your mother then.

  Nah, he says. She’s probably down to Florida.

  Well, I cleaned up that room in case you need it.

  Much obliged.

  Clean sheets and everything.

  All right.

  The works.

  Thanks.

  Just in case. You still have your key.

  Sure, he says. I have it somewhere.

  Well, don’t be a stranger.

  I know.

  He’s your father, after all.

  Don’t remind me.

  It’s Lila’s turn to laugh.

  Harlan gives her a hug and she takes the empty can from him and disappears into the kitchen so he can have a moment with his father. A gurgle in the old man’s throat. Harlan moves close so they’re face to face and he looks for a trace of the mean old bastard here members but all that’s left is a pathetic and empty human shell. He uses the back of his own sleeve to wipe white bile from his father’s dry prune lips. Harlan is greased and feels one of his episodes coming on and so he naps in the chair for a couple hours. It feels good to be so completely alone.

  He rides to the Ashfield Lake House and orders a Jack and Coke. There isn’t much going on. He drinks three more and then takes his bike back down Route 116 and through the center of town. He sees the woman in front of the Hot L, Nikki from the other night, who hired him to drill the dude at Joey D’s. He pulls over and removes his helmet, and at first she doesn’t recognize him. Then she smiles, drags on her cigarette, plays it cool like.

  What you doing, he says.

  I don’t know.

  Well, he says. Hop the fuck on. He gives her his extra helmet and she hops on, flicking her cigarette into the street. Annabelle is in the back of his mind. Where to, he says.

  Wherever.

  They go down the mountain and cross the river to Mike’s West-view. Harlan puts the bike out back beside a pile of lumber. They go inside and lean against the high bar, order some drinks.

  So the other night, she says.

  Yeah.

  That’s what you do.

  What’s that now.

  The thing you did for me.

  What about it.

  Well, she says. Is that what you do.

  I do it sometimes.

  You give out beatings for a living.

  That wasn’t a beating.

  What do you call it then.

  I don’t call it nothing.

  Nikki laughs and sips her drink and looks at Harlan.

  Anyhow, she says. He’s up to his old tricks again.

  That same guy, you mean. Did he hit you.

  Worse than that, he kicked me out.

  You’re saying that’s worse than getting hit.

  In a college town it is, she says. You try to find an apartment in September.

  But you really thought he’d let you stay after that.

  I don’t know.

  After I said your name so he knew it was you sent me.

  I guess I didn’t know.

  Right.

  Or think it through.

  Harlan looks at her.

  He used to love me, she says after a minute.

  I bet.

  Maybe it was a test.

  So.

  Yeah exactly, she says. So fucking what.

  Nikki finishes her cheap version of a cosmopolitan and they go to Harlan’s parents’ garage and sit in the spare room and smoke a joint. He’s drunk enough he tells her all about Annabelle and describes her as the love of his life, but Nikki doesn’t give a shit about that. They kiss and she uses her hand on him and then she stands up and takes her clothes off. He watches. Then he stands up and gets undressed too and she turns around and grabs the kitchenette sink and puts him deep inside her. They bump against each other like that for a while.

  Then, lying on the mattress to catch their breaths, they hear Harlan’s father upstairs cursing. It sounds like he’s throwing things and flipping furniture over and Harlan laughs. He tells her about his old man, the history there. He calls her Darling Nikki after the song by Prince.

  So he’s just dying up there, she says.

  Dying or already dead.

  Sounds like he’s got some life left in him.

  Maybe hate keeps him going.

  Hate.

  He had enough of that, I seem to recall, Harlan says.

  Darling Nikki puts her head on his chest. So what do we do now.

  Just lay here for a minute and rest and be real fucking quiet.

  He puts his finger to his lips. Shhhhhhh, he says.

  I mean after that, she says.

  After that you’ll do what you do, he says. And I’ll do what I do.

  Darling Nikki likes the way that sounds, prefers being the other woman. Later she tells him she’s crashing at a friend’s house in Whately so that’s where he drops her. He doesn’t mind at all. There is a little dog barking out front and she calls him Bushy. He’s a Jack Terrier. She tells Harlan that Bushy caught a squirrel the other day and whipped it around like they do and broke its neck. Then she doesn’t know if she should kiss him goodbye or hug him or maybe nothing at all, so she just stands there and he rides off without saying anything.

  Annabelle takes Harlan up north to clear his head. She says the fresh air will do him good. They climb Mount Watroba and sleep in a tent. They find a gentle bend in a river where they can swim naked and nobody else is around. Everywhere else there are busloads of people. She isn’t much for roughing it, so it’s good they have access to bathrooms with running water and big metal lock boxes that are bear-proof. The second night they eat pizza in some one-horse town and Harlan drinks three pitchers of beer until they won’t sell him anymore and close the window on him. It’s mostly college students working there and they don’t know what to make of the man with the scars and the cauliflower ears and the beautiful young woman.

  This must be a great job, Harlan says. For somebody in their twenties.

  Walking back to their tent to go to sleep, there are puddles from a storm that had just missed them. Harlan splashes Annabelle to try to make her laugh but she isn’t having any of it. Harlan splashes and splashes until some random guy tells him he got his wife wet. Harlan puts on doll eyes and tells the dude to fuck off. Annabelle sees where it’s going so she wraps him up and practically drags him away.

  He could’ve asked nice but he was doing that for his wife, he says. Showing her how big and brave he is in his L.L. Bean camping outfit right out of the catalogue. Then Harlan lets Annabelle think she saved him even though the truth of the matter is he was just too lazy to whip the guy’s butt at that particular moment.

  She tells him she was embarrassed and she won’t let up on him. Then Harlan sings to her, trying to be funny, and eventually gets impatient and somewhat rough. He’s still feeling playful so he makes wolf or coyote sounds until she shushes him and people in the nearby tents ask him to shut the Christ up.

  Harlan closes his eyes.

  When he opens them Annabelle tells him he ruined everything. It’s morning now. He doesn’t remember, which is a result of the booze and the drugs and all those years of fighting. She tells him she cried all night long and that his snoring was worse than ever. He feels like shit about it, and he sits on a set of wooden steps and smokes and campers are giving him looks, but of course nobody dares say anything.
>
  They walk in a meadow and there’s too much sun for Harlan so he sits on a dead tree in the shade until she wakes him, tells him that he’s killing himself and Harlan thinks maybe she’s right. She wants him to quit scrapping and he wants her to quit stripping but then what would they do. Back on the bike he feels better, like an old-time cowboy in that setting and with her holding on tightly to him, her warm breath on the back of his neck when they stop to look at a pair of deer that are lost. It’s a deep-chested buck and a white-nosed doe and in a rare moment of reflection Harlan says, Look, it’s me and you. Annabelle laughs and that’s the first sign of something good in a long while.

  Kerosene Dream is playing at the Seven O’s. Annabelle is wearing a short skirt for the occasion, and at intermission Bart D’Armand sits with them backstage and they smoke a joint and talk about back in the day, bareknuckling at the scrapyard. Bart was tough back then but lacked killer instinct and that was before he started the band. Then Bart has to finish his set but Harlan and Annabelle stay behind, sitting on a speaker case. They can hear the music, Bart singing about his old Country Squire. Harlan gets on his knees and uses his mouth on her.

  Afterward it takes Annabelle a few minutes to catch her breath.

  Oh my God, she finally says.

  Don’t drag him into this.

  I need a cigarette.

  Harlan lights two and hands one to Annabelle.

  I don’t know how you do that, she says through a smoke ring.

  Harlan laughs.

  I’m serious, she says. That’s something else, boy.

  Harlan laughs again and holds her hand and they walk back out into the bar area and order a couple more drinks. He can still taste her, ripe cantaloupe. Then it’s her third drink and that puts her past her limit lately and she’s fading fast. After Bart does his last song, Harlan takes her home. She isn’t keen on the idea of him staying out without her but she’s too tired to argue, so she makes him promise to keep it in his pants.

  Harlan meets Tim Looney at the Filling Station. They eat cheeseburgers and French fries and drink chocolate frappes.

  Tim clears his throat. So listen, he says. Here’s the thing.

  Tim tells Harlan about the trouble with his asshole brother trying to scam his elderly parents out of their house in Bucktown, and now maybe even trying to poison them to get his filthy mitts on his inheritance. How there’s no talking to the guy and Tim is at his wit’s end.

  Harlan looks at him when he’s done talking.

  I need some help, Tim speaks up. And I heard some shit about what you do.

  Well, I don’t know what you heard.

  That maybe you could talk to him.

  You just said there’s no talking.

  I don’t know what else to do, Tim says. Where else to go.

  Just get it straight what you want to happen besides talking and let me know.

  Tim covers dinner and Harlan shakes his hand and unfurls his plastic poncho. It’s raining, coming at him sideways. Harlan considers waiting it out but he doesn’t know how long that will be.

  He calls Sonny from the payphone in the diner.

  Yeah.

  Sonny.

  Where you at, Sonny says.

  Just ate at the Station.

  Hey, somebody here wants to say hello.

  There’s a woman’s voice. Harlan doesn’t recognize her at first. She’s teasing him, calling him the Boogie Man, Franklin County Badass, Southpaw. He plays along until he figures it out. It’s Sherry. Her twin Mary is in the background, wrestling around with Sonny, it sounds like.

  Well, shit, he says.

  Harlan could use some company, a drink.

  Come over and see us, Sherry says. Why don’t you.

  You read my mind. See you soon.

  The wind tilts the Harley and makes it hard to handle on the slick blacktop so Harlan takes it slow to Sonny’s one-room shithole on Main Street in Turners Falls, right above Waters and Sons Plumbing. Mary is sitting on Sonny’s lap and Sherry is mixing up a cocktail.

  Look what the cat dragged in, Sonny says.

  He has coke in his new handlebar mustache that he calls the Firefighter Special.

  Hey, Harlan says.

  You’re soaked, Sherry says.

  Yeah, it’s coming down good now.

  Sherry hands him a drink and he takes a long tug off of it.

  Ahhhhh.

  Well, let’s get you out of those wet clothes, she says. Before you catch your death.

  She takes his hand and leads him to the small bedroom in back. Sonny laughs and Mary does too. Harlan can hear them chopping up some more blow. Sherry undresses Harlan and then she gets undressed too so they can take a hot shower together. The water on his skin hurts at first. She looks good with her black hair wet. He grabs it like a ponytail behind her head and pulls back and uses his mouth on her neck and tits. Then he picks her up and carries her to Sonny’s bed, which smells like fast food, and eventually they end up sweaty and sticking to each other with whatever didn’t end up inside her.

  Harlan gets a headache and closes his eyes.

  Then he feels the sun come up.

  There’s a knock on the door. It’s Mary.

  Sherry, she says.

  Huh.

  Get up girl we got to go. But take some shit first.

  Um hmm.

  Check he’s got a watch.

  Sherry pulls herself away from Harlan, unsticks herself from him, and gets dressed. He pretends he’s asleep. She pulls the sheet over him and kisses him on the forehead and then she goes through his wallet as well as the pockets of his pants and jacket. Several hours later Sonny wakes up and finds Harlan in his bed. It takes him a few minutes to remember the events of the night before. Harlan opens his eyes and sees Sonny sitting on the edge of the mattress.

  Jesus fucking Christ, Harlan says. Where am I.

  You’re in my bed.

  Oh shit. Them girls are poison, Harlan says. I bet they cleaned us out.

  They always do.

  Harlan laughs. Sonny laughs too. Harlan gets up and looks around for his clothes that are balled up and still wet and now smell of mildew and he gets dressed. It’s noon and Annabelle is going to be pissed because he was supposed to work on the Z28. He was supposed to keep it in his pants last night. He stands in the bathroom and looks at his bad reflection in the mirror and thinks about Annabelle. Feeling guilty, he rubs one off to her image in his mind. Then he does a couple lines with Sonny and drinks cold orange juice right from the container.

  ______

  Annabelle wants to know where he’s been. More than that, who he’s been with.

  I can smell that dirty pussy on you, she says.

  He looks at her.

  Don’t think I can’t, she says.

  She doesn’t like being kept in the dark anymore. She feels that their relationship has progressed beyond that point and if he can’t get a handle on his appetite then their plan is not going to work.

  Harlan listens patiently and rolls a cigarette around on his bottom lip but he doesn’t light it because the landlord has a rule about smoking. All his clothes and shit are stuffed into a garbage bag and sitting by the front door. Annabelle has given him an ultimatum.

  Yeah, but what about you and that Greek piece of shit, Harlan says.

  That’s just a money thing, Annabelle says. That’s just work.

  Harlan spits on the floor when she says it.

  Bullshit, he says.

  Get the fuck out, she says. Then she starts crying. Get your shit together or we’re through, she says. Though the Greek’s offer is sounding better to her every fucking day.

  Harlan lets her cry a few minutes. He puts his hand on her shoulder and she gets chills and she backs away from him and throws her cup. It misses but hot coffee splashes on his leg.

  Fuck, he says.

  Get the fuck out.

  That hurt.

  You don’t know hurt, she says. You son of a bitch.

  H
arlan grabs his gear. On the bright side this is one way of getting out of spending his afternoon under the hood of her car. His bike won’t start and she’s watching from the dining room window and so Harlan rolls down the hill out of her line of vision until the bike will turn over. He sits there in idle for a little while, collecting his thoughts, coming up with a plan. Then a couple hours later Lila isn’t surprised to see him. She’s taking out the trash and he helps her.

  How long you gone to stay for this time, she says.

  I don’t know.

  Come up for a beer when you’re settled.

  All right then.

  Still amped from last night’s coke he goes upstairs for that beer. His old man is in white boxer shorts that are stained and a white T-shirt that has yellow rings under the arms and around the neck. From his bed he’s fighting Lila over something and Harlan helps get him under control.

  After a while the old man settles down.

  Thanks for that, she says. He doesn’t have much left.

  That makes your job easier.

  She gets him a cold beer and they don’t talk and Harlan’s head hurts, and he’s happy to just sit there holding Lila’s hand, with his eyes closed, listening to his father’s labored breathing.

  On Tuesday Annabelle comes by with more of his personals.

  Can we talk.

  About what.

  About us, she says. About our plan to fuck off out of here. You still think we can do it.

  Yeah, he says.

  But you got to stop with the strange pussy, she says. I just don’t know what to do sometimes.

  I know. But what about the fucking Greek.

  Jesus. How much have you had to drink already.

  Not enough.

  Well, she says. So this is just a break then. A short break so you can get your mind right about our future.

  Our future. All right.

  He doesn’t want to take a break. He imagines that fat bastard climbing on top of Annabelle, and in the next instant he imagines snapping his neck like a twig. Then he shuts his eyes and just sits there on the edge of his mattress. She wants something more from him than he is able to give, it seems. That’s what it boils down to from his perspective. Annabelle stares at him and shakes her head from side to side. They can hear his old man upstairs, going into a rant. Lila’s voice is calming at first but soon enough she’s drowned out by a stream of booming obscenities. Annabelle never stops looking at Harlan and he finishes his drink and sucks on an ice cube and avoids her eyes. She eventually gets up and sighs and leaves.