Nick's Trip

by George Pelecanos

  “Fair enough.” I shook his hand.

  “You take care, now.”

  Just then Hank Williams, Jr., roared out of the juke and Ken began to yell, from across the bar, “Bocephus! Boceeeephus!” He was pointing at me and smiling and with one hand keeping the cap on his head as he bucked like a rodeo clown on the red vinyl stool. I weaved recklessly across the smoky bar, past Flattop and his send-off crew (his uncle or father appeared to be holding the young man upright now at the bar), and made it over to Billy. Ken was off his stool and at my side by the time I reached Billy and the bearman.

  “Let’s get out of here,” I said.

  Billy tried to focus one eye. A block of his blond hair had fallen over the other. “Had enough?”

  “Yeah.”

  “One more stop, though.”

  “Where?”

  “Place called Rock Point.”

  Ken let out a small whoop and I thought I saw the bearman break a tobacco-stained smile. I handed Billy some bills and he put those together with some of his own and left them all in a leafy heap on the bar. Wanda flicked her chin at him and then at me by way of thanks. Hank Williams, Jr., was still pumping out the bar-band jam as the four of us proceeded to fall out the front door. When I turned around for one final glance at the joint, Russel and Hendricks were standing in the entranceway to the kitchen. They were talking to each other, but they were looking dead straight at me.

  THE FOUR OF US crashed like a wave into Billy’s Maxima and headed north on 254. I handed a tape I had lifted from the Spot over the seat to the bearman and had him slip it into the deck. Steve Earle’s “I’m the Other Kind” immediately boomed out of the rear-mounted speakers like some Wagnerian, biker-bar anthem. The bearman turned up the volume and clumsily moved his head to the beat. I watched it bob from behind like a hairy, floating melon. Ken sang the romantic wind-road-and-bike chorus (in between screaming praise about Earle’s band, the Dukes—he called them the “Dee-yukes”) and passed beers all around.

  At 257 Billy turned sharply right, spit gravel, then recovered his course onto a crudely paved road that soon narrowed to one lane. We passed a shack of a general store—an old man in a down coat sat in a lighted telephone booth and waved as we drove by—and some screened bungalows set far back on properties bulkheading the Wicomico. The road ahead, veined now with deep fissures and cracks, seemed to narrow even further. And then, without warning of any kind, the road simply ended.

  We parked the car in front of a steel guardrail serving as a barrier. To the right, on a raised plot of dirt and naked turf, stood a post office the size of a tollbooth. Billy and the bearman got out of the Maxima, and Maybelle scrambled over my legs to follow. Ken was next out, and then me. I felt the temperature drop sharply as my face met the winter wind that was coming out of the southeast and off the river.

  Billy cut the engine and the lights; the music still played. I trailed the group—Maybelle had trotted off into a wooded area to the right—and climbed over the barrier, on which was posted a NO TRESPASSING notice peppered with buckshot. What was left of the concrete road continued, buckled and in pieces, on a downward slope to the river. The swells of the Wicomico shimmered from the light of the moon and moved diagonally toward the shore in rough cadence with the wind. South beyond the point the Potomac merged with the Wicomico in cold, deep current. I zipped my jacket to the collar.

  Ken and the bearman stopped at the waterline; one of Ken’s fists dug into his jean pocket, the other gripping the neck of the Bud. The bearman appeared to be rolling a joint—he was carefully twisting it now, his muttonchop hands working the papers very closely to his small eyes—and Billy, with the cheesecloth bladder that had plagued him since childhood, was pissing like a filly near a grove of sycamores on the edge of the gravelly beach. I drew the pint from my jacket and knocked back an inch of bourbon.

  Down on the beach I joined Billy and passed him the bottle. He had his taste and then we both followed it with beer. The wind was lifting Billy’s hair off his scalp and blowing it about his face. Music came from the road and through the trees—Steve Earle had yielded now to Neil Young on the tape. The feedback and grunge of twin Les Pauls and Young’s wailing vocals pierced the rush of the wind.

  “The road ends at Rock Point,” Billy said out of nowhere, stating the obvious and pointing his beer bottle toward the river with uncharacteristic dramatic punctuation. “I used to come here all the time, that first summer when me and April got together. She didn’t understand the attraction—to her it was the place where she and her friends came to smoke pot and drink and screw when they were growing up—but there was something to it for me. Something about the road running right into the fucking sea.”

  “What about now?”

  “It went to seed,” he said, adding, with a bitter edge, “like everything else in this life.” Billy drank his beer and wiped the backwash on his jacket sleeve. “Rubbers and beer cans, and gooks fishing for spot. That’s all this place is now.”

  I nodded in the direction of our new friends. “You know those guys?” The bearman had lit the joint and was stooping low as he shotgunned Ken, the Cubs hat now set far back on the little man’s head. Ken had cupped his hands around the bearman’s face to get it all, and the cloud of smoke emanating from their union was great and wide. Ken’s head appeared to be on fire.

  “I’ve seen ’em around the island before. Barflies.” Billy looked at them and chuckled. “That’s just what April’d be doing right now, if she hadn’t met me. Gettin’ high and hangin’ out.”

  “There’s more to this place than that. After all, she keeps coming back.”

  “Most people don’t have enough sense to stay away from home, even after they outgrow it.” Billy finished his beer. “Come on, man, let’s get out of here.”

  “What about those guys?”

  “They’ll want to stay down here,” he said. “Come on.”

  Billy and I walked back up the buckled fun house road and climbed over the barrier. Neil Young was shouting “Come On Baby Let’s Go Downtown,” backed by the primal electric rage of Crazy Horse; the wind kicked at our backs. I looked back to see if the bearman and Ken were following, but Billy was right—they had drifted. The bearman was doing a slow shuffle on the beach, and Ken had leaped out into the river to a slab of concrete that the tide had not yet covered. He was dancing some sort of whacked jig, and he appeared to be singing toward the sky.

  We climbed into the Maxima, Maybelle appearing suddenly from the trees and taking her place in the backseat. Billy lowered the music and cranked up the heat, rolling the windows up as he did it. I looked back through the rear window. The music no longer reached his ears, but Ken continued to dance out on the concrete slab in the river. The bearman stood with his hands buried in his pockets, a stoned stare focused up at the full December moon.

  THE GRAVEL ROAD TO April Goodrich’s property was at an unmarked turnoff two miles back up 257. We followed it straight into a wooded area, and then it turned to hard dirt as it continued out into several acres of plowed field. The road ran through a field bordered by woods on three sides and on the fourth by a wide, still creek. In the center of the field stood a hickory tree, under which a small trailer was mounted on concrete. It had a poured concrete patio in front and a corrugated Plexiglas eave hanging over it. The road from there went back through the field and down to a dock that ran out and into the creek. We passed the trailer and drove down to where the road ended at an open boathouse that stood near the first planks of the dock.

  Billy cut the engine and the lights. I could hear Maybelle’s tail excitedly thumping the backseat, but beyond that there was just the deep silence that exists at night and only in the country.

  “What now?”

  Billy said, “Let’s get out and feel the water. Finish the whiskey.”

  We exited the Maxima. Maybelle bounded out before us and ran out onto the dock. I waited for Billy to lead the way and then stepped out onto the vertical planks that
bridged the severely eroded bank to the dock. Beneath my feet the wood was white with the excrement of gulls. The wind had abated here, though the air was damp and bitter.

  The dock ended in the head of a T. I sat on a piling and buried my hands in my jacket pockets. Maybelle lay on her stomach to my right. Billy climbed down an aluminum stepladder that had been halved and lashed with thick rope to the pilings on the eastern corner. He was out of sight now, but I heard his hand splashing in the freezing water.

  “Ice cold,” his voice said. “Not frozen yet, though.”

  “I’m not comin’ in for your ass if you fall in.”

  Billy climbed back up the ladder and said, “Sure, you would. If there’s one thing I know, that’s it.” Billy rubbed his hand dry on his jeans and had a seat next to me. He leaned back on one elbow and pointed at my jacket. “Let’s have a drink and a couple of those smokes.”

  “Sure.”

  I brought the pint and the Camels out from my jacket and rustled the pack in his direction. Billy drew one from the deck and put it to his lips. I fired his up, put one in my mouth, and lit it off the same match. The tobacco hit my lungs and I kept it there. I watched the silver exhale drift slowly in the motionless air like a ghost and spread out over the creek.

  Billy took the Beam off the dock, uncapped it, and had a drink. He sighed comfortably and stretched like a waking animal. “Good night,” he said.

  Across the creek one prefab rambler stood in a clearing in the woods. Mounted atop a pole in front of the rambler was a spotlight that illuminated the property. A horse stood beneath the spotlight inside a small grassy area framed by a split-rail fence. The horse’s breath, backlit and haloed, poured from its nostrils and widened into two even streams.

  Some time passed. Billy pitched his cigarette out over the dock and into the creek. I followed the orange trail and listened to the quick, dull finality of the fire hitting water. Then I had a last drag of my cigarette and threw what was left of it in the direction of his.

  “Your head’s rolling,” Billy said. “Let’s go on up to the trailer.”

  I looked around at the dock. “Where’s the dog?”

  “You’ve been noddin’. I was waiting for that smoke to burn down into your fingers—would have let it too. But you woke up.” Billy stood and reached for my hand. “Maybelle ran off. She’ll be all right.”

  I stood with Billy’s help. “We ought to find her. She’ll freeze.”

  “Not cold enough. Come on, let’s turn in.”

  We walked off the dock and onto the dirt road that cut through the field. Some clouds had drifted across the sky; the darkness seemed denser now. At the trailer Billy jiggled a key in the lock and opened the door. I followed him into the narrow space and closed the door behind me. Billy found a candle in a drawer and forced it into the neck of an empty bottle of Rolling Rock. He struck a match and lit the candle.

  The trailer appeared smaller lighted. An old double-barreled shotgun rested in the hooks of a rack mounted above a narrow kitchenette. I thought I heard something move beneath one of two bunks that end-capped the trailer’s interior, and raised an eyebrow in Billy’s direction.

  Billy smiled and shook his head. “If there’s snakes in here, they’re sleeping. Field mice, if anything.”

  “Oh.”

  “Here.” Billy tossed me a rolled sleeping bag and pointed to the bunk where I had heard the noise. I ignored his direction and spread the bag out on the other bunk. Then I stripped naked and zipped myself in. I balled up shivering, waiting for the ache of cold to subside. The objects on the kitchenette and then the kitchenette itself began to move and float. I fell into an open-mouthed sleep.

  I awoke some time later. A dull throb had entered my temple, and my mouth was glutinous and dry. There was a bit of natural light in the cabin now; dawn had begun encroaching on the night. I looked over at Billy.

  He was up on one elbow, half out of his sleeping bag, smoking one of my cigarettes and staring into my eyes. His eyes reflected the flame of the candle that still burned in the green bottle. The lower right portion of his face was in shadow. We kept each other’s gaze for a while—then I drifted back to sleep. When I opened my eyes, Billy was still staring. Now there was a cool smile across his smooth face. He dragged off the cigarette and thumb-flicked some ash onto a piece of foil set on the Formica counter that held the candle.

  I said, “Something’s not right, Billy. Let’s talk about it.”

  “You’re coming down off a drunk, that’s all. You gonna be sick?”

  “I don’t mean that.”

  “What, then?”

  “This whole thing.” I sat up in my bunk and wiped the back of my hand across my mouth. “Who’s Tommy?”

  “Tommy?”

  “The guy April talked about on the answering machine.”

  “Tommy Crane.” Billy sighed. “Fuckin’ pig farmer. Lives up Two-fifty-seven a few miles. April used to do him and maybe she still does. She said on the tape she was coming down here to kiss him good-bye. That’s what we’re doing down here, remember?”

  “An old boyfriend, right? Like Joey DiGeordano. And that guy at the Pony Point, Russel—another old boyfriend. Maybe Hendricks too. All these old boyfriends—and you don’t seem too shook about it, Billy. That’s what the fuck is bothering me, man. It’s been gnawin’ at my ass since you hired me.”

  Billy squinted against his own smoke. “What’s your point?”

  “Do you love her?”

  He looked down at the table as he butted the cigarette in the foil. His face had fallen into shadow, but when he looked back up again it was lit by the fork of the flame. “No, Nick, I don’t love her. I’m not sure if I’ve ever been in love, to tell you the truth. But I’m sure I never was in love with her.”

  I struggled against a curtain of alcohol that now pushed down upon my consciousness. “I don’t mind being a sucker, Billy—it’s happened to me before—but I don’t want to be your sucker, understand? We’ve got too much behind us, man, too many years.”

  “Sure,” he said. “Let’s clear it.”

  “You put April onto the DiGeordano heist, didn’t you?” Billy nodded with hesitation. “Joey called it the first time I sat with him. He said you were pimping your own wife. I didn’t want to believe him. Now I do.”

  Billy nodded again and lowered his eyes. “I’m sorry, man.”

  “You two were going to split the two hundred grand down the middle, then April was supposed to disappear. But April got wise. She booked with the full take and left you out in the cold. Now you want to find her and take back your share. That’s what you really hired me for—right, Billy?”

  “That’s right, Greek,” he said. “That bitch took what was mine, understand? And now I want it back.” The shadow of the candle’s flame danced across Billy’s smile.

  My eyes closed, watching him. The trailer darkened, and then it was black. I dreamed of high school, Billy, me, our teachers, our friends. Dead now, all of us.

  FOURTEEN

  THERE WAS A tightness in my chest, and in my sinuses the suffocating stench of stale smoke. I unzipped my bag and sat up naked on the edge of the bunk. My feet dangled, and I let my toes touch the cold linoleum of the trailer floor. I pushed the hair away from my eyes and rubbed my face for a long while. Then I dressed slowly, turned the knob of the trailer door, and stepped down onto the concrete patio, out into the light.

  It was a clear and cold sunny day. Billy stood down by the bank, scrubbing Maybelle with a thick-bristled brush that he dipped in the brackish water of the creek. I zipped my jacket to the neck and walked across a field ridged with hard brown mud and a ground cover of freshly sprouted winter wheat. By the time I reached Billy, he was drying Maybelle with a yellowed towel. Maybelle shook off, snorted, and ran up the bank to greet me, her tail moving excitedly. I rubbed the top of her head as she pushed the side of her snout against my leg.

  Billy’s car was parked by the boat shed. A deep scrape was etched in th
e white paint and ran from the rear quarter panel to the mirror on the passenger side. I looked at it and then at Billy.

  “I don’t want to talk about it,” he said. “I’m feeling bad enough, so let’s not talk about it, okay?” I nodded. “How you doing?”

  “A little rough,” I said.

  Billy put his fists in his pockets and tried to widen his eyes. “Want some breakfast?”

  “Sure.”

  THE PONY POINT WAS open for business. We parked in front and left Maybelle behind. By now she had used her paws to form a bed from the yellowed towel.

  A small bell sounded as we opened the front door and stepped inside. Wanda was behind the bar. She flicked her chin in our direction and threw us a tight smirk as she looked us over. I kept my eyes on my shoes and followed Billy to a booth.

  A square-headed guy wearing a camouflage hat sat alone drinking coffee in the booth behind Billy’s back. At the bar sat Flattop and his two older companions, beers in front of them all. They were still alive but barely conscious—one of Flattop’s eyes had rolled up into his head while the other stared straight ahead. The uncle leaned his weight into Flattop, in an effort to keep them both upright. The other man was sleeping, his posture still erect, his hand wrapped around the body of the Bud.

  I looked over at the hunter and then at Billy. “What’s in season?”

  “Rabbit,” Billy said.

  Wanda stood before us, her shapely septuagenarian hip slightly cocked. She tapped the pencil on the order pad and dished Billy with her smirk. “Bloody Marys?”

  Billy said, “I’ll have one in a mug.”

  I said, “Just coffee for me. And breakfast. Eggs over easy, with toast and scrapple.”

  Billy nodded. “I’ll have the same.”

  Wanda wrote it down and then spun on her heels. She walked back behind the bar and tore the check off the pad, sliding it through the reach-through. I saw an eggshell apron fill the space and a brown hand grab the order. Flattop’s uncle snapped his fingers with an on-the-one beat and sang, “I’m gonna stick… like glue.”