River Under the Road

by Scott Spencer

  “It’s grand larceny,” he said. “You steal something from somebody poor it’s petty larceny, but if you steal something that really is worth something then you’re looking at five to ten.”

  “Did she call the cops?”

  “Yeah. They questioned me.” He smiled, letting her know it was something he could handle. “I know all the local guys but she brought in her own people. And the stupid Boyetts were out there for weeks, crawling around. They made my dad look for it, too. That was the worst part of it, seeing Hat on his hands and knees looking through the grass. But there was nothing I could say. I buried it and I kept it buried, until last year. I figured by then no one was thinking about it anymore. I dug it up, and I got Buddy to help me find a guy to take it off my hands.”

  “Like you took it off hers,” said Grace.

  “Ha. You and Thaddeus always have something funny to say.”

  “Thaddeus is the funny one in the family.” That’s right: family. She could feel herself moving away from Jennings. It felt like the time she’d gotten on one of the moving walkways at the airport. Thaddeus had veered off at a kiosk to buy a Heath bar and she turned and watched as the conveyor belt moved her farther and farther away from him. The weirdness of it, its intimations of some sad future being previewed, must have struck Thaddeus, too. He waved good-bye to her as he—or was it she?—got smaller and smaller.

  Go back to Mur. Good luck in your new business. I should have guessed it: you’re a thief.

  Yet if he were to touch her, it might stabilize her. And hadn’t she, too, taken things that were not hers? Those pearl earrings she’d found at the Palmer House and given to her mother as a birthday present? Maureen’s thank-you had been icy; she knew the earrings were stolen. She wore them once and put them away, in the blue-and-yellow Salerno butter cookie tin where they became part of the glittering jumble of junk jewelry.

  “So here’s what happened,” Jennings was saying.

  “Why even tell me?”

  “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

  “If you say so.”

  “Me and Buddy took the train into the city. Right into Pennsylvania Station. He was more nervous than me, I’ll tell you that.”

  “I hate the smell of that cigarette. I’ll tell you that.”

  He looked at the cigarette in his hand, as if surprised to find it there, and then took a long drag. “First thing he wants to do is go to this bar right in the station. Then he waves a taxicab over and we get in. The driver has this turban on. It’s snowing and this guy’s from a place where it never snows so he’s gripping the steering wheel and sweating and I’m thinking, Well, this is what I get because I’m pretty damn sure this guy’s going to wipe out.”

  “But he didn’t,” Grace said, hoping to communicate via tone that every word Jennings was saying was the wrong word, and what he ought to be saying was, We need to find a way for us to see each other.

  “He takes us to Forty-Seventh Street and Avenue of the Americas where this guy Buddy knows from the old days is working. Allan Levitas, Big Al. He used to be Buddy’s bass player, but now he works for his uncle in the Jewish diamond district.”

  “It’s just a diamond district, Jennings. Diamonds can’t be Jewish.”

  “You know what I mean. He’s in this huge place, with like fifty different businesses going on, everyone’s got their little turf, you know? They even have a secret restaurant, in the back, you go up the stairs and there’s like forty guys in black hats eating sandwiches. We show Allan the ring. He’s not dressed like the other guys, he just looks normal. But he’s carrying one of those jeweler eye things on a chain around his neck and he says it’s worth thirty thousand. Me, I’m about to flip out. I never held thirty thousand dollars in my life and I’m never going to hold that much money ever again. It probably doesn’t seem like much money to you.”

  “Of course it does,” she said, with some emphasis.

  “I didn’t even know what to do with it. I wanted Buddy to keep it for me, but I was too embarrassed to ask. You know?”

  They were silent. The distant sound of sirens. Someone had fallen, or crashed, or there was a fire.

  “So there you have it,” Grace at last said.

  “You told me you used to steal things. When you worked in the hotel.”

  “I was a kid.”

  “You were poor.”

  “I’m curious about something, though,” Grace said. “Your telling me this. Now. Tonight. I’m wondering why.”

  “I’m not sure. I just wanted to. I trust you.”

  “You know what I think? I think my dogs are in the shed with the shovels and rakes. They like to go there. You want to check it out with me?”

  “No,” he said. “They’re not there. All kinds of critters were getting in and we closed it up good.”

  “Critters is such an annoying word, Jennings.” Her eyes had finally adjusted to the darkness and she saw the look of puzzlement on Jennings’s face. Or was that a frown of mild disgust? No, he wouldn’t do that, not his style. Then dismay, it must have been a frown of mild dismay. “All right, since you’re in full-disclosure mode, why not tell me something else? What was the purpose of it, this whole thing between us? You were never going to leave Mur.”

  “And you weren’t going to leave Thaddeus.”

  “You never asked me to.”

  “And you never asked me.”

  “All right. I’m asking you.”

  “Grace.” He smoothed her name out as he said it, like the gentle downward sweep of a hand closing the eyes of the deceased.

  “That’s your answer?” As well as she knew that if you drank a half bottle of Ketel One you were going to feel like shit in the morning, she knew that the more she pressed Jennings to make some massive declaration of love, the worse she was going to feel.

  But could she actually feel any worse? Maybe it was already too late for self-protection. Why put up an umbrella when you were already soaked to the bone? She had already demeaned herself in front of him, all but begged him to kiss her—how much worse could she feel? Why not just drop to the ground and throw a full-out tantrum? Why not threaten to tell the police about the source of the financing for his new venture? That he would not love her was, for the moment, more than a disappointment, it exceeded ordinary heartbreak: it was an affront. She could make his life so much better than it was, and that was not even taking into account certain material advantages she might be able to offer. Why would he be so needlessly protective of his relationship with that lunatic from Bakersfield? It was not as if the sex was anything special. Mur was on a short leash, sexually speaking, and as she aged the leash lost links, became even less flexible. Her breasts were sensitive and she would cry out if his touch was heavier than a butterfly landing. Doggy style was for dogs. Because once she had gotten an ear infection, which she was certain came from bacteria introduced by his tongue, her ears were out of bounds.

  Grace wondered if what was wrecking everything between her and Jennings was that she had somehow failed to communicate to him how fond of him she was. He may have been under the impression that her attachment was mainly physical and did not know that loving him and being with him kept her sane. Put simply, he was an essential piece of the Rube Goldberg contraption that kept her alive, as essential to her heartbeat as a pacemaker, and if he didn’t know that, he was an idiot. And it seemed suddenly quite possible that that was exactly what he was. An idiot and a dunce, someone who slips a ring off a drunk woman, buries it for years, and then swaps it out for a bag full of cash. Grace was not wed to the law—life as Liam’s adoring sister was a crash course in moral relativism—but there was something pathetic and abject about the kind of theft Jennings had committed. It was grubby.

  “Nothing good can come of it,” she said.

  “Of what?” Jennings asked. The neglected cigarette had gone cold, but he still held on to it.

  “Any of it. The ring, your business. Us.”

  “I’m sorry, Grace. Y
ou’re beautiful. You know that, don’t you?”

  “I am aware of how I register in the commodity market,” she said. “Let me ask you something. And be honest. Has this whole thing been like your revenge?”

  “I don’t need revenge.”

  “Your father. Sending him up in that tree. Everything.”

  “I protect you, Grace. If you want to know. You may own this place but Orkney is under my protection. Things are happening up and down the river, and it’s only going to get worse. There are a lot of really angry people here. And I make damn sure nothing happens to your house, anything of yours.”

  “Oh please.”

  “You’ll see. Just wait. You’ll see.”

  “We haven’t even talked about Emma,” Grace said.

  TODD AND CANDY SAT AT their kitchen table, sharing a beer. Todd glanced at the clock above the stove. It was almost ten. He had to be at Willis Correctional at five thirty, and the prison was a good forty-minute drive. He could shower before going to bed, or he could get up a half hour early and do it before leaving for work. Either way, it meant maybe five hours of sleep. The last time he’d gone to work that underslept he ended up losing his temper and slamming a prisoner against the wall. Unluckily, the prisoner had an uncle who was a lawyer and the family kicked up a fuss that almost led to Todd being suspended without pay. If he ever got caught being too physical with an inmate again, who knew what action the warden might take?

  “Don’t Bogart that bottle,” he said to Candy. It was sexy, it was almost indecent, the way she drank her beer. Her cheeks filled and then deflated as the cold beer coursed down her throat. Her deep throat! It never failed to arouse him, Little Miss Purity walking the halls of Leyden High, now a woman, his.

  “You have to start being nice to people, Todd,” she said, passing the bottle to him.

  “I was kidding! Take the whole beer, there’s more in the fridge.”

  “I mean to other people. You want them to respect you, but you don’t want them to fear you. You know the difference, right? Respect means they come closer, fear means they run and hide. You need friends.”

  “Got plenty.”

  “Better friends. Friends who can help you.”

  “I don’t have to big up to anyone.”

  “Well, actually you do. You can’t just have your old buddies running around smashing things. You need money, you need organization. You want to be in the Republicans, then you have to join them. That doesn’t mean you walk in and all of a sudden you’re the boss. You want to be sheriff, don’t you?”

  “I’m going to be sheriff.”

  “You want to be sheriff. So far no one’s even nominated you. You have to go slow.”

  “What’s that mean?” He pushed his chair back; the legs squeaked loudly. He looked up at the ceiling, hoping to God he didn’t wake the kid. “I’m getting another beer. A whole one.”

  “I’ll take one, too,” Candy said.

  “Thatta girl.”

  Candy rolled her eyes as he handed her the open beer. Their marriage was full of little transactions like this one, and the second beer meant I want you.

  “It means if someone doesn’t go along with one of your little theories you can’t bite his head off.”

  “I don’t have any little theories.”

  “Contrails? You think that’s a conspiracy up in the sky, right?”

  “It’s chemtrails, baby, and it’s not just my theory. The majority of people think that. Like eighty percent.”

  “Conetrails, coattails, whatever. It’s all bull-you-know-what. And I have to tell you, Todd, you’re the only one I ever hear talking about it. You want to talk about what’s up there? Try talking about God.”

  “I do.”

  “Not about how the Russians killed Kennedy.”

  “Jack. Not Bobby.”

  “Or how the Vatican got us off the gold standard.”

  “Come on, Candy. That’s been proved.”

  “Or this Bilateral Commission—”

  “Trilateral.”

  She raised her eyebrows and laughed, and he laughed with her. He wasn’t sure what they were laughing about, but he never could resist her laughter. When she laughed it meant she loved him.

  “You can’t sell yourself short, Todd. God has a plan for every one of our lives. And God has a plan for you.”

  “And I guess you’ve got a plan for me, too, Candy.”

  “I sure do,” she said. “And I heard what some of the guys were saying tonight. I know what they’re up to.”

  “Not me, I’m right here.”

  “I know. You’re different. I always knew you were special. When you talk, people listen. That’s why I want you to go easy on some of the conspiracy stuff.”

  “The thing is,” Todd said, getting up, walking to the sink, and looking out the window. He’d heard that something was going down tonight but he’d walked away because it was better in the long run not to know. He thought he might have heard something, car wheels, footsteps, but the night silently pleaded its own innocence. “Do you think people would really vote for me?” he asked.

  “What counts is we stand up and be counted,” Candy said. “But they will, I know they will.”

  “Sheriff Todd Reynolds.”

  “Look who we’ve got doing that job now. Tomczak is an old man, drunk on his behind half the time.”

  “We just got to straighten things out around here.”

  “Not just here.”

  “Straighten it the hell out, all of it. And these people with their hundred-dollar fucking chickens?”

  She winced. “Come on, Todd. Don’t. You’ve got a beautiful voice, so say beautiful things. Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go. You know what I mean, baby? You understand?”

  He nodded briefly. She wasn’t certain he had heard her. He was pacing now. He went to the sink, ran the tap, and threw some water onto his face. When he turned to face her again, it looked as if he’d been weeping.

  “You know what I can’t stand? The way everything has to be so friggin’ special. Special schools, special food, they don’t even drink the same water as us. You see them? They get their water in these little bottles. If they love the river so much, why don’t they drink it? Are you part of America? Okay, then drink American water out of the tap like everyone else. But they don’t respect anything. They sure as shit don’t respect us. We’re here to do their dirty work, end of story. They get drunk and wrap their car around a tree—who answers the call? Their tennis buddies? Their stockbrokers? No, it’s us. Us pulling them out, us mopping up the blood, us racing them to the hospital, risking our own damn lives to get them there before they bleed out. Storm comes, trees fall, lights go out. They’re squealing like a bunch of stuck pigs but you don’t see any of them out in the weather, you don’t see any of them up on the cherry picker, getting the chainsaws going, patching it all back together again. It’s us. Who’s plowing the roads so they can drive their little German cars? Who’s emptying their bedpans? And when it’s wet-ass time? They hear something, or see something, or if some jigaboo wanders up out of the Bronx . . .”

  “You can’t say jigaboo, Todd. I don’t want to hear that kind of thing. I really don’t. This isn’t about black and white, it’s about right and wrong. We can’t be what they think we are. We’re not rude and dumb. What we’re doing—it’s bigger than us. You know that, don’t you? We have to make sure we don’t get in our own way. Remember, baby: we were put here for a reason.”

  “You think?”

  “I know.”

  “We were,” Todd said. “We were put here for a reason.”

  “I’ve always known that,” said Candy.

  “Someone’s got to straighten this out,” Todd said.

  “I’m looking at him,” Candy said.

  “Amen to that, Candy,” said Candy’s mother. Her voice startled them for a moment.

  “Did we wake you?” Candy asked
.

  Dressed in baggy gray sweatpants and a T-shirt, Candy’s mother had made it down the stairs, holding Brandon in her arms, his downy legs dangling, his hair sticking to the sweat of his brow.

  “Brandon’s awake,” Candy’s mother said.

  Brandon, who had been cast into darkness so he might see the real world, spoke to them in the tongue of angels. “Shaa po kuh,” he said. “Oh mo dee yo. Koo koo yah bah. Sen dow mo dee ya.” The blameless big-hearted boy reached longingly toward his father’s scent, his fingers moving like little underwater creatures, his dark brown sightless eyes like those of a deer head mounted on a wall, glassy reminders of all that was lost. He heard the familiar thudding sound of his parents’ devotion, their knees touching the kitchen floor, and he, too, began to sink, as his grandmother joined them in kneeling. “Koo koo yah bah koo ko yah,” he said. “Koo koo yah ban ya brata shot koa ban ya ran ya shot kay baya shot ya baya shot kah baya shot kah.”

  THE DOGS WERE COLLAPSED IN front of the fireplace in the library, looking at Thaddeus with glittering eyes. “I’m not building you a fire, if that’s what all these loving glances are about,” he said to them as he stood at the window looking for Grace.

  The night had gone from nippy to just plain cold and she was somewhere out there traipsing around in search of those elusive Weimaraners, who were now dozing nose to nose. He considered using the golf cart, an electrified four-seater, a recent acquisition, and a sore point between them. Grace said it was a needless and senseless extravagance, and a shortcut to “fat assitude.”

  Thaddeus stood for a moment at the bottom of the stairs, his hand resting on the newel post, thinking about Grace and her growing obsession over Emma’s weight. He was going to call up to Vicky to tell her that he was leaving for a little while, but he changed his mind and left without saying anything. He thought about how wonderful it would be to be a ghost, and to make occasional visits to the world, to see it for all of its folly and not feel sad or thrilled, to not feel anything at all, just to experience the whole thing like a story you could read for a while, put down, and pick back up whenever you were in the mood.