by Tom Larsen
He smiles his goofy smile. “Oh yeah momma, got those month to month blues down to my shoes.”
The first place is as far as they get, a cute little cottage off by itself with a white picket fence and a view to die for. Harry pays three months in advance and an hour later he’s all moved in.
“How about that guy? He didn’t even ask for ID.”
“This is perfect, small but cozy. See?” Lena pokes his arm. “Stick with me. I know what I’m doing.”
“I can handle this,” Harry steps over to the bay windows, “watching the river flow.”
“You feel better now, don’t you, Harry?”
“You’ll stay here with me.”
“I’ll have to go home to pick up some things, but that won’t take long.”
“But not today.”
“No, not today. But we should go to the supermarket.”
“And the liquor store . . . Don’t give me that look, just some wine, to celebrate.”
He hasn’t been food shopping in ages. Lena leads and Harry steers the cart like they used to. A week’s worth of basics and scallops for tonight, a merlot and a chardonnay, then home to moonlight on the river. Harry builds a fire while Lena busies herself in the kitchen. The silence between them could mean anything. She peeks in once to see him on his knees reading the newspapers stacked by the kindling. Like an actress playing herself, every movement scripted, the food, this stalk of celery, just props to work with while the silence stretches.
The fire snaps and crackles, Lena’s cue to make an entrance, which she does, remarking on how lovely it is, a wood fire. How it makes you feel safe and warm, even though safe and warm is not how she’s feeling. Harry tells her about the chimney fire he saw when he was a kid and Lena says what she always says when he tells her that story, that birds sometimes build their nests in chimneys, though she really doubts it’s all that common. So much like a movie scene Lena ducks into the bathroom for a minute. Not because she has to, because it somehow seems to fit.
Later they make love and even that smacks of performance, Harry bucking and moaning, Lena working hard, an intensity that was never there before. When it’s over they collapse against each other and Lena feels nothing. Worse than nothing, like they’ve lost something they can never get back again. If they ever had it to begin with, which seems suddenly uncertain. Their lives together shaded by what they’ve done. Not changing it so much as changing her. Not just now, but going all the way back.
“Come here,” Harry calls from the bed.
Then he’s at the bathroom door and she can see he sees it. The look in her eyes, gives her away and all his hugging and kissing won’t change it. But they hug and kiss anyway and she smiles like that’s what she really needed and they pretend everything’s alright.
***
Tuesday she drives back to the city. Gorgeous day but she doesn’t notice, caught up in lies and more lies and now another one. Telling everybody she’s moving, the way they’ll take it, more confused than surprised, especially Minna. California! The only place Lena can think of that will explain a long absence. The new job lie, who would question it? But once she breaks the news it sounds like what it is, a big fat lie. No one pins her on it, but its there, the gaps in logic, if anyone’s looking. But no one is so she throws in some details, the big money, the chance for a new start, the nurse she used to know with an extra bedroom. Once you’ve told the big lie, the little lies are easy.
“What do you know about California?” Minna keeps asking, as if there’s a test.
“I’m just gonna try it for a few months.”
“I can’t believe you’d do this to me. Abandon me in my old age.”
“Oh come on, Rita lives around the corner.”
“Imagine, packing up and moving halfway around the world at your age. I worry about your judgment.”
“I’m not packing up and it’s not halfway around the world and my judgment is fine. I just need to get away for a while.”
Her story and she’s sticking to it. The kids take it hard and the neighbors fret.
Then there’s Alice.
“I’m gonna get Big Dot and we’re gonna tie you up and lock you in the closet. Uh-huh, see how far you get with that California business with me!”
“It’s not like I’m moving away. I think of it as a vacation with pay.”
Alice flares her nostrils. “Earth to Lena, I’ve been working with you for twenty years and I’ve never heard of a California girlfriend with an empty bedroom.”
“I must have mentioned her. I had a life before General, you know.”
“Honey, I was born on a Sunday, but not last Sunday. You do what you have to do. I’ll be right here if you need me, no questions asked.”
“Thanks Alice, I knew I could count on you.”
The last stop is the hardest. Sister M and her turn for the worst. In the weeks since her visit Muriel has dwindled to nothing. For the last few she’s been bedridden, barely a lump in the blankets and Lena doesn’t see her at first.
“You’ve come to say goodbye,” the voice is a whisper.
“Not goodbye, it’s just for a while.”
“I don’t think I’ll see you again, Lena. Here,” she pulls out a small notebook from under the covers and hands it to Lena. “That day at your house, it made me think. If I ever do come face-to-face with the Almighty, I want to ask him a few things. So I’ve made a list.”
Lena looks at a dozen entries under the heading, Please Explain.
“Eternal damnation, talking in tongues, stigmata, Limbo, Elizabeth Taylor,” she reads aloud. “That’s a good list. But you’re not going anywhere, Sister M.”
“It’s time,” she turns her head but Lena sees the tears. “I should be there to help them.”
“But we need your help here.”
“Tell me Lena, do you really think they’ll be there, the children? Somehow I still see them as children.”
“I wish I knew.”
“The closer it gets the less likely it seems. I know it’s just a test, but I’m afraid I’m failing badly. Be a dear and light me a cigarette?”
Lena checks the hallway, fingers one from the pack and fits it to those papery lips. While the old nun smokes Lena searches for an ashtray, but there’s none to be found so she uses her hand. Another sister comes in and opens the window without comment. Muriel takes little puffs and struggles to inhale, but the poor thing hasn’t the strength. Lena can’t see how she’ll hang on much longer. Feels her heart break for the shadow they’ve cast, a full life’s work called into question. As bad as anything they’ve done and a lead pipe cinch for eternal damnation.
“Sister M, please don’t despair. It’s not fair to Harry. If he knew you were feeling this way it would kill him.”
“Once, I saw Harry pick up the Chambers boy and dust him off after he’d fallen in the playground,” Sister M looks at Lena. “I mean nobody liked that kid.”
“Harry got that from you. See? You’ve made such a difference to so many people.”
Sister M hands the cigarette to Lena. “I’m responsible for what they believe. And, if in the end it’s all a lie, I’m responsible for that too.”
“That’s not true.”
“You’re just gone, like Harry. And you’ll never even know it was for nothing. You won’t know a thing forever and ever.”
Lena can hear her breath go ragged and her hand flutter against her chest. “Sister?”
Someone moves around downstairs. Lena tiptoes over and pushes the door closed. Muriel’s eyes follow Lena as she pulls her chair closer and leans in.
“Listen to me Sister M,” Lena checks the door. “Harry’s alive.”
Muriel’s brow furrows in confusion.
“I can’t really explain it, but we had to make it look like he’s dead. He’d kill me if he knew I’d told you, but really, he’s okay.”
The eyes mist over and the lips move in silent incantat
ion.
“Just remember, when we get to heaven we’ll be looking for you. It may seem like a stretch now, but to me it’s the truest thing in the world.”
“Harry.” Muriel mouths the words. “Alive?”
“I wouldn’t kid you Sister M.”
The light dims, the features settle and the old woman takes Lena’s secret with her.
***
Harry goes for a walk along the river. Half as wide as it is in the city, the banks overgrown then clearing to wide lawns and some of the houses, Christ! They don’t call it Bucks County for nothing, white people with their square footage and swimming pools, their kids and purebred dogs. Here, money is never the problem. It’s been weeks since Harry’s been outside and walking feels terrific. Just cold enough to keep him moving and he ends up by a set of pilings, stone supports for a washed away bridge. The edges chipped and crumbling, moss thick on the mossy side, like something out of ancient Rome and he wishes he had a camera, or even better, a sketchpad. Think about buying one when he’s in town. Something to get him out and about, take his mind off the nasty business.
He stops at a café. Some old guy going on about the flood of 1955, how this very building was under water. An even older guy talks about the inter-urban trolley system that could take you to Montreal, Canada if you had the time and the transfers. Harry checks to see where the post office is and the bank and the liquor store. Can’t get over Lena slapping things together in a matter of hours and how the future doesn’t seem so uncertain. How she’s more cut out for getting away with it than he is.
Back home he soaks in the Jacuzzi, piano tinkling through the bathroom door. Harry and the last of the chardonnay, then the fifth he picked up in town, running the jets at lower back level, life is so good when you have all the comforts. And this place has all the comforts, fireplace loft with the big sleigh bed where he’ll sprawl après shower through the evening news.
“Police in upstate New York today have confirmed reports that Frank Lavin, the man found beaten to death on a Thruway turnoff, may have been lured to his death by someone he knew. A gas station attendant in Cooperstown reported seeing a tall man in a dark jacket chatting with the victim at the station entrance. Investigators are looking into another report that Lavin’s death was payback for testimony he provided in a gem smuggling case. Police released this sketch of the man suspected of clubbing the forty-six year old father of two to death with a tree branch.”
Harry can’t believe his eyes. Not him exactly, but close enough and he hears the bottle clunk to the floor. Feels the walls close in as the newscaster babbles. Hears the phone ring with what can only be bad news.
He lets it ring.
***
Lena hangs up and checks the clock on the mantel. It’s just like Harry not to answer when he’s sitting right there. Unless he went out, which would be like him too. She sits with the sisters for a while longer, not really grieving since Muriel lived a good life. Almost cheerful, with Sister M stories, how she talked that kid down from the ledge or ran the hookers off Front Street, the night she threw out the ball at Veteran’s stadium and on and on. It’s dark by the time she leaves and she hits traffic on 95, a mile-long gaper grind. So she takes the first exit and ends up lost in a warehouse district. And it’s all so ugly she starts to cry, sadness like she’s never known, not just for Sister M, but for what it’s come down to. Cutting herself off was never part of the package. But what did she think; things could just go on like always?
Then out of nowhere, a sign for the freeway and she follows it to a small ramp that curves into a bigger ramp and just like that she’s back on track. Past the jam up point so she has her pick of lanes and she gives thanks to Sister M. The feeling Lena was giving her something to take with her. The thought makes her smile, then laugh and it doesn’t escape her notice, crying then laughing and crying again in a matter of blocks. What a mess she’s in, her emotions all over the place. Misses her mom and the kids on the block, the neighbors needling and feeling safe when she turns the corner. You don’t always know the last time around, but you do sometimes. And this feels like one of those times.
It’s raining when she hits New Hope and just north of town something darts across the road then doubles back for no reason, a thump so clear she can’t not hear it. Thinks about continuing but there’s room to pull over so she pulls over, walks back along the shoulder until she sees it, a squirrel flattened like a little throw rug and Lena loses it. Throws her head back and howls at the rain until someone comes running, young guy in sweatpants and he sees the squirrel and leads her away. Lena folds herself into him, cries and cries then kisses him once, drives the rest of the way with the heater blasting, her hair a mess and the stupid band-aid peeling off. Blinded by the wake from a passing cab, halfway past the darkened cottage. Just like Harry not to be there.
***
He hands her the passport and tries to look as much like Gerry as he can. The flight attendant studies the photo, how he would get the diligent one.
“Your boarding pass?”
Harry shows it to her and she waves him by. Window seat over the wing with a view of the takeoff queue, must be seven jets deep out there. Harry badly needs a drink. He’s done it now, but still at a stage where it’s not a mistake yet. It might turn out to be the only move he could make, once the dominoes start to fall. The way cops work when they’ve caught a whiff. Could be Harry’s one of those one step ahead guys. How would you know until someone’s after you? One thing’s for sure, they can’t get him here. Now that he’s safe he can think about what to tell Lena. Has to get ahold of her as soon as he lands, let her know, what? That he killed Frank Lavin and they may be after him? If the cops get to Lena they’ll put the two together and then they’re both in the shit. Not to mention the fact that he’s left her flat again.
Paris, like he has the slightest idea. Sticking it all on her credit card, along with the grand from the ATM, like that will last forever, a grand in Paris. Another thing’s for sure, how he knew he had to go right away. Once you know, you go. When it’s the only chance, you take it, end of story.
What he can’t bring himself to imagine is the look on her face when she reads the note, confusion, turning to something else. Rage? Despair? He can’t even pretend to know anymore. Now when they talk there’s a carefulness, their words tinged with restraint, or reservation. A price they couldn’t have foreseen and would never have agreed to. Not Lena anyway. Their easy life together, what people envied about them.
Lena, know that I love you and try to forgive me.
That’s it. Anything else could be used against him. He’ll call her first thing when he lands. And tell her.
“Flying on business or pleasure?” the guy across the aisle smiles and Harry realizes he’s been staring.
“No, I uh . . . business.”
“Me too. Nickel’s Ball Bearings,” he offers his hand. “I’m Nickel.”
“Nice to meet you.”
“Might be stuck here a while, looks like.”
“So it seems.”
“Interested in ball bearings?” he waves a handful of pamphlets.
“Only slightly,” Harry holds a hand up.
“You might be surprised. This country moves on ball bearings.”
And so begins a six-hour slice of the ball bearing life, and lubricants, Christ, Harry wishes he had a nickel for every time he says it, machining advances and tolerance levels, a world of moving parts and lubricants, always lubricants. Harry’s attention dissolves in the weird cabin clatter. Snaps back for a second when Nickel stands to take his jacket off, moving just like a guy who takes off his jacket when the talk turns to ball bearings. And much later, when they’re finally airborne and the empties are piling up, Nickel conducts a virtual tour of his “little plant” in Pennsylvania. Right through the front door, past Madge, or “the Sarge” as he calls her and back to the loading dock (three bays, you could eat off the floor of) and into productio
n where “the girls” (Mexican, cute as little buttons) off-load and package. Manages somehow to corral the guy on Harry’s far side, a guy who actually gives a shit and Harry can’t get away from them, even when he pretends to doze off, even when he does doze off, the give and take running through the movie and into the wee hours. Harry’s head throbs and his ears track every little sound.
They land in a predawn mist. Security has a go at his bag and he thinks of the gun, wrapped in plastic and hidden in the rocks across River Road. Couldn’t figure out what else to do with it, but thinking he might need it later. For what, he can’t imagine, but he knows he’ll know when the time comes. Through the wide airport concourse, down an endless corridor and out into the rain. Asks around for the best way into town drawing blank stares and impatient shrugs. He finally corners a kid in a Yankees cap who puts him on the train with the address of a small hotel. And it’s just like in the movies; the train packed, the steel girder-clad station with a windowed roof, everyone speaking French, even the black guys. He grabs a cab at the exit and shoves the address through the window. The driver says something in French.
“Sorry?”
He says something else in French and Harry motions for him to drive. They argue back and forth until Harry slips a ten through the window. The cab circles once and pulls up directly across the street. Inside a man in suspenders tells him, in English, that no rooms are available, but that someone is scheduled to leave in an hour. Harry pays in advance and crosses the road to an outdoor café where he orders by pointing to something that looks like pancakes, but turns out to be a Danish with preserves inside. Raspberry, if he had to guess. Not what he was after but he digs in and it’s easily the most delicious thing he’s ever tasted. When it’s gone he sits and smokes, nursing his coffee, people watching.
Back at the hotel, no phone and no television. Harry recalls a payphone by the café, but he doesn’t have change and wouldn’t know what coins to use. Wait until the rain stops. Get some sleep and work out a story, later, when he’s thinking straight. There’s not even a freaking radio, so Harry sits by the window in the dark. Kills the last of the bottle and tries to think. What story? What?