Ballistics

by D. W. Wilson

  Come on, Archer, I heard him say. Get your lazy ass up. You don’t work that hard.

  My truck was in the driveway, so Cecil wouldn’t likely give up. Determined falls a few degrees short of describing the level of that man’s persistence. Linnea wasn’t home either, else she’d have answered the door. My hand found the light switch and with a click the room turned amber. Beside me, Nora groaned and rolled onto her side and I saw the shape of her breasts, the ends of her red hair teasing her nipples. Then she registered Cecil’s knocking and hollering, only a few thin pieces of wood between us and his voice, and she bolted upright with blanket tucked to chin. Oh my fuck, she whispered.

  My watch showed six-twenty-three in the evening. Nora was supposedly in Cranbrook—an hour and a half south—and the plan, before we dozed off, had been for me to drive her to her car to make the whole thing authentic. That’s how we rolled it, some days. She parked in a place Cecil had no reason to go, or she left vague notes about shopping that’d allow her to stay missing in action all afternoon. Even though she lived across the street, we saw each other once a week if I was lucky. In fact, it probably averaged out to more like once every two.

  Nora lowered the blanket level with her armpits, brushed hair from her face. I sat on the edge of the bed and felt the fatigue in my arms and legs, the pleasant ache in my groin. Nora laid her palm flat against my back and I made myself focus on that touch even after her fingers had left. Cecil had no reason to suspect anything. He couldn’t have. I opened the bedroom door wide enough to fit my face through.

  Give me a goddamned second, old man, I yelled, and Cecil chuckled, loud so I could hear him.

  Nora had lain flat, turned onto her side so she could see me standing naked at the door.

  Just distract him, she said, hushed. I’ll walk to my car.

  He probably wants a drink, or to work on the basement, I said.

  Or both.

  Well, he’s your fiancé, I said, and immediately winced.

  Twenty-six-ounce flu—that was what I’d tell Cecil. He’d drag me to the City Saloon for some hair of the dog, or he’d tell me to cowboy up and haul me to the basement where we’d mount drywall as he told stories of his workmates, since he actually had workmates for the first time in a long career. Either way, Nora would make a getaway.

  Then the front door whined open, and I heard Linnea’s murmuring voice as she and Jack let Cecil through. His heavy boots stomped over the foyer and into the den. Nora looked up at me and I imagined all the horrible ways this could end, what, if anything, I could say to Cecil. He’d want to fight, but I wouldn’t have the heart to give him even that. There was just my bedroom door between us now. I don’t know why I hadn’t told Nora to take cover.

  Dad, Linnea called, as she and Jack came through the door behind him. Mr. West is here. I’m supposed to call you lazy.

  UPSTAIRS, JACK AND LINNEA’S footsteps thumped around the living room and kitchen, and whenever the sound approached my bedroom door I had to swallow to loosen the tightness in my throat. Nora was trapped, and though I didn’t necessarily expect it to happen, at any moment Linnea could waltz into my bedroom. It’s not like the place was out of bounds.

  Nearby, in the basement with me, Cecil balanced on the third step of a wooden ladder he’d commandeered from the fire station. He held an electric drill above his head, cord wrapped in a spiral down his arm, while he bored holes through floor joists for electrical feeds. Wood shavings rained in his hair and made the place smell like burned cedar. I don’t know where Cecil got the drill from or where he’d learned the basics of electrical wiring, but some mysteries must remain so. Periodically, he let the drill’s motor wind itself spent, and then he’d grin at me from high up. I’d set myself on a wire spool that looked like a giant bobbin. There, I faked hangover.

  That door’s a fire hazard, Cecil said, referring to the one in the basement that led out into my backyard. It needed a key to be unlocked, even from the inside, so you could trap yourself. There was also a couch there, probably older than me, that Cecil had said I could have, and that spewed bits of yellow foam if you even looked at it. He said it, too, was a fire hazard, because regulations had changed since its upholstering. Since he’d started working as a fireman, Cecil saw deathtraps in playgrounds, in grocery stores.

  Planning to change it, I said, to placate him.

  You get trapped down here, that’d be bad news.

  At least you’ll know where to look for me.

  An optimist if there ever was, he said, and bored another hole. The drill wailed and Cecil swore and I laboured to my feet, making a show of it. I heard no more walking upstairs, wondered briefly where Jack and Linnea had gone. His place, likely, or one of the romantic haunts he took girls to kiss them. Or, at least, where he took Linnea to kiss her. Either way, it meant I could get Nora out the door. The mere thought of her being caught at my house, of the simple, silent way Cecil would take it—I don’t know what could have scared me more. Cecil climbed down the ladder, scraped it along the concrete floor, and climbed right back up.

  You gonna die? he said, squinting at me.

  Feel like it.

  Go make coffee. You’re depressing me just looking at you.

  You’re the boss, I said, and offered a shaky salute.

  In the kitchen, I started the coffee maker and then went to the bedroom. There was no light under the door, so if Nora was still hiding—if she hadn’t left, and I didn’t know for sure that she hadn’t—then she was hiding in darkness, and good on her. Cecil fired up the drill again and I used the noise to mask the sound of the door’s click. The room black and quiet, and then the bedside lamp turned on.

  Can I get out of here now? Nora said. She sounded angry, but fair enough. She had her clothes on, ready to make a getaway.

  I gave a nod and she crept across the room to me, and I took care not to move so Cecil wouldn’t hear more than one set of feet. Bizarrely, part of me didn’t want to see her go; I liked having her there. Not until she stood right in front of me did I slide sideways to let her pass. There was a moment when she hovered, then turned enough to kiss me, and I bent my head toward her, and that was when my daughter’s door flung open and Linnea caught us dead in the act.

  Nora sprung backward and mouthed a fuck and Linnea’s gaze bounced from me to Nora, and her forehead bunched as if she was about to yell out. All I could do, goddamn it, was put a finger to my lips and wince a shh at her. She blocked the view into her room, and I feared more than anything that Jack was in the bedroom beside her. Cecil’s drilling had stopped. The coffee maker lisped its excess steam into the air. Nora made fists. I searched for an exit, for an answer, but right then I had no recourse but to hope Linnea wouldn’t run straight to Jack. Cecil was still downstairs for me to deal with, for me to distract and put at ease. I couldn’t even try to talk it out or explain it to my daughter.

  Nora’s gotta leave, I said, as if it counted as an explanation. Linnea turned her hands outward, as if to say no shit. I need to bring Cecil his coffee.

  What the fuck, Dad.

  Watch your mouth, I said.

  Watch your mouth, she hissed, and I shut up so fast my teeth clicked. Cecil’s workboots scuffed along the concrete, but I couldn’t tell if he was walking toward or away from the stairs. If I were a praying man, that would have been a chance for the heavens to ignore me.

  We can talk about this, I said. But not now.

  Linnea crossed her arms, but not as if she were about to exploit her sudden advantage. Blood runs deeper than that. She nodded to me, once—a grave jerk of her head that signalled for Nora to make her escape. I’ve heard it said that secrets both knit people together and drive them apart. Linnea turned to her room with a flip of her hand, and, at seeing that, a great pressure welled at the divot where my breastbone meets neck, a sudden anger—who was she to judge me, me who’d given up so much to get her there, to do good by her? It wasn’t my fault Cecil couldn’t make his fiancée happy, that he couldn�
�t move forward from the things he’d lost. You can get so caught up with the past and with things you ought to have done. You can get so caught up with the things you don’t have that you forget that you still have other things. We all carry regrets—that’s human nature. What matters is how those regrets shape us.

  I poured Cecil’s coffee and took the mug to the basement and he met me on the landing, coming up—precious seconds to spare. The front door opened and closed—Nora leaving—but Cecil didn’t react to it.

  I thought the coffee maker might’ve got the better of you, he said.

  Damn near, I said, and squeezed the bridge of my nose. He grinned and clapped me on the back and spilled coffee on the concrete floor.

  He moved toward the stepladder where electrical wire dangled from the ceiling, passed it, to the far room with the door we couldn’t open without the key and the ratbagged couch. He slurped his coffee—black, of course, because that’s how real men drink it—and then waved the mug at the floor, at the room as a whole.

  What you need down here is a fridge, where you can have some beers and admire the work you’ve done, he said.

  A beer fridge.

  Great minds and all that, he said. Then he seemed to notice the back door. You really need to change that lock. Or leave the door propped open.

  Might as well just put all my shit on the lawn, I said.

  What about your girl? What if she gets trapped down here.

  Christ, old man. I’ll change the damn thing.

  Leave it propped open in the meantime.

  You just want easy access to my manly basement.

  That’s right, he said, and gave me the most ridiculous grin, his whole face lighting up, like he really liked the idea. Upstairs, Linnea’s footsteps creaked from her bedroom to the kitchen to the door, and I imagined her at the window with her arms over her chest, glaring across at the Wests’ house, at Nora disappearing down the road. If Jack returned for her—where would he have gone?—she would tell him what she knew. Of course she would: that’s not the kind of secret you keep without good reason. That’s the kind of secret that drives a daughter from her father.

  You look like you’re somewhere else, Cecil said. He blew across his coffee.

  The land of feeling-like-shit, I told him.

  You look like you’re thinking about stuff. Thinking hard.

  Nah, I’m okay.

  You ever think about the burned kid? he said.

  He shows up in my dreams.

  That’s normal.

  Like grieving, I said.

  Cecil put his shoulder into a stud, one of the walls we’d built. It bowed against him and he scowled at it, a heartbeat away from lacing into whoever did the framework. Instead, he adjusted his ballcap and cleared his throat and tongued his teeth for coffee grinds.

  It’s easy to regret things.

  I don’t regret a whole lot.

  How can you know that? he said, and bent down to set the mug on the floor. Takes a couple decades of misery to know for sure.

  That pretty much covers everything we do, I said.

  I shoulda married Nora years ago.

  Probably, I said. Yeah.

  Do you think it’s too late?

  To get married?

  To not lose her, he said.

  He looked soft-eyed to me, but I was still groggy, still trying to think about what I’d tell my daughter to make everything seem okay.

  Not sure I’m an authority in the matter, old man.

  Well you’re teaching her to draw or whatever, he said, which caught me off guard, since I didn’t know Nora had told him, or why she wouldn’t have given me a heads-up. Aren’t you?

  The aren’t you got my hackles up. Cecil shoved his hands in his pockets so the flaps of his jean jacket fanned out, and he turned to lean on the studs with his shoulder blades, his chin dipped forward, hat angled down. With one foot, he bounced himself against the wood, so he seemed to nod endlessly. He was probably stronger than me despite the difference in our ages, and you never know what’ll happen to a guy when he faces the coveter of his wife. Rage, adrenaline, spite—these are the fuels that let men benchpress trucks.

  I gave her some of my stuff to use, I said, and tried to sound annoyed. Told her what end to point at the paper.

  He grunted. A laugh? I saw her fingers, charcoal. That’s why I asked.

  That stuff gets everywhere, I said, and imagined, as I did, Nora’s pale skin with dark carbon smudges shading her ribs, the underside of her breasts, the plateau of her stomach, that soft line of her jaw and chin and ears. Yes, it got everywhere. Sometimes I go to piss, I said, and think my dick’s about to fall off.

  Cecil snorted, thank God.

  I don’t need to hear about how often you touch yourself, he said. Then we both went quiet. That’s about as close to baring his heart as Cecil would ever get. I fell onto the derelict couch he’d so generously donated, and as I landed on the cushion yellow tufts of foam lifted into the air, as annoying and incessant as flies. Cecil springboarded off the wall and went straight to the stepladder and the wire dangling from the joists, since that’s all he knew how to do, the only way he could deal with his emotions: a primal drive to work his body to redemption. There are worse ways to go about it. Take that from somebody who knows.

  CECIL LEFT THROUGH the basement door, careful to make a show of being trapped while I searched my pockets for the key, then of fumbling the key in the lock in his hurry, until I eventually shoved him into the wall. He grinned earlobe to earlobe.

  Just get this damned door fixed, he said. Or I’ll knock it down with an axe.

  I’ll leave the key in. Makeshift doorknob.

  In a fire that key’ll superheat. You’ll sear your fingerprints off.

  Go home, old man, I said. He finally did so, and I pushed the door closed behind him and watched him swagger into the twilight, flipping a pair of linesman’s pliers in his palm. Floorboards creaked overhead and I heard Linnea tinking around the kitchen, spoons against porcelain, drawers gearing open and closed, footfalls like soft, deliberate knocks on wood. Her movements sounded so patient, so calculated. Nothing, in a fight, is more intimidating than a person whose rage you can’t detect. I could imagine the look she’d give me as I emerged from the basement—her once thick (now plucked, teenager) eyebrows rising like a clothesline, arms tight over her chest, chin jutting up so she could stare across the flare of her nostrils. Such incredulity. Such disappointment.

  By the time I at last walked up those stairs and entered the kitchen, Linnea had made herself a plate of toast and filled a ceramic mug with coffee and plunked down at the table. As I topped the final stair I saw her with one cheek as full as a squirrel’s and the mug held before her nose by the rim. Her hair was loose and frazzled like bedhead. That would have been the first time I ever looked at her as an adult, and I think I even realized it at the time—that some distance between us had closed and at the same time opened up, that there’d been a shift in power, a shift in the physics of our world.

  She tipped the mug to her lips. Then, with a flip of her head, she flung her mess of hair over one shoulder, put the weight of her chin on her fist—portrait of an unimpressed woman.

  I suppose you want me to keep this one quiet, she said, before I could so much as summon the wherewithal to drag a chair out from under the table.

  Sorry you had to see that.

  Me too, Dad.

  What’re you gonna do? I said.

  What can I do?

  She set the mug down. The kitchen didn’t smell like coffee or toast. I figured she’d taken some liberties with my liquor cabinet. I figured I had Jack to thank for that sudden change, among others. Signs of things to come?

  Well, you know how Jack is, she said.

  Insecure.

  Her voice went whispery: I’m not sure what he’d do—I don’t know.

  He’s just a boy, I said, and she gave me a stare that said if I believed that, I had some quick learning to do. When, I
wondered, had I stopped paying attention? Maybe complacency breeds itself. Maybe things change precisely because you don’t pay attention to them.

  Are you going to just keep doing this?

  Kinda over the hump by now, I said. She tapped a fingernail against the ceramic. I hated myself a whole lot right then.

  How long do you think this’ll stay secret?

  I don’t know.

  And what then?

  I don’t know, Linnea.

  She leaned back in her chair, her shoulders bobbing, her one arm outstretched so she could twirl her mug round and round—at a bar, you can tell a single woman from a married woman by the way she handles her glass. She studied it, then me, then it again—only her eyes moving, an appraisal. Who is this man my dad has become? There, at that table: the last of my authority being stripped away. It felt like giving an apology. It felt like growing old.

  This will ruin everything, for everyone, she said.

  It doesn’t have to.

  Yeah, Cecil’s not the type to hold a grudge.

  Don’t get sarcastic with me, I said.

  I’m not sure you’re in a position to be issuing demands, Dad.

  I rubbed my wrist under my nose. My clothes smelled like Nora, maybe.

  Isn’t Cecil, like, your only friend?

  Yes.

  What the fuck were you thinking?

  Watch your mouth, I wanted to say. Instead: I thought it’d be a one-time thing.