by Warren Read
Ernie had never really been much of a risk taker, but there were times when the situation called for it, and the high he felt by having trouble so close on his heels was something worth taking hold of. He had planned this night—on this night—with purpose. Come into town, collect what he needed from boxes stored years ago, and get out. It was a night when the streets and sidewalks should be empty, strangers expected. And maybe, if the situation was just right, he’d catch a glimpse of his own family before he lit out for the hills.
He straightened up, still stiff and sore from the long trip out of Everett. He’d ridden the whole way with his back against the cab in the bed of a pickup with no side rails, a bed cluttered with shovels and two kinds of rakes, a few stray pieces of cordwood and a long bar chainsaw that slid from the tailgate to his shins with every change in speed and topography. Cars trailed behind the whole way with headlamps boring into him, sometimes turning one direction or another, but always quickly replaced, the glares passing over his face like searchlights. He pulled the coat collar up to his nose and brought his knees to his chin in a weak effort to hide from them, and to soften the constant exhaust that tumbled up through the patchy corrosion.
He had taken his time to get here, two months and five days to be exact. He could have made the whole journey in a matter of days, but there was never a full day that he was really sure this was where he ought to end up. He was here now, some thirty yards down from the River Road junction with nothing but the clothes on his back and a drawstring nylon bag stuffed with a few t-shirts and three pairs of socks. The winter air was as full of energy as it always was, scoured by billions of fir and hemlock needles and that rolling gray-blue river fed from great glaciers that he had never seen up close, but had admired daily from his house below. Up the road, the Rexall drugstore loitered under a blue vapor light, its bleached shingle siding and hokey wooden bicycle racks dressed to look like weathered hitching posts, all of it standing as a tired welcome to the town. The AM/PM had a new front awning, and the price of fountain sodas was up fifty cents. The gas pumps had rainbows painted on them. For the most part, though, things were just as they had always been. The cloud of blackberry brambles along the back, the rusted tin roof over the pump. All of it left a strange buzz in his head, but why, he asked himself, should it be any different? It wasn’t as if he had taken the town with him when he left. Why shouldn’t these people just go on post-Ernie as if he’d never even existed?
He stood up, and the coyote lifted her head for a brief moment then went back to tearing up the garbage, her bottlebrush tail swiping lazily at the air. Ernie wondered if her pups might be nearby or hidden some distance away, too far for her to hear their cries should something come upon them while she scavenged.
He circled around the corner of the store then stepped up to a slow jog to cross the highway, to the gravel road that broke alongside the motel. Cutting east, his route took him past the enclave of ranch and split-level homes to the welfare apartments that crowded the north side of the Red Apple market. In the near-empty grocery lot, the post lamps laid a kaleidoscope of blue spots over the snow-patched parking lot.
Ernie’s feet were soaked and almost numb by the time he reached the retail strip of Main Street, and he truly was right in the middle of everything then—the shimmering garland and the giant plastic ornaments, and window murals with powder-spray snowflakes, and shops empty and dark, everyone having gone home hours ago. Strings of blinking lights gave off an eerie calm, as if he had sneaked into the bar way past closing time where the low neon signs showed only the closest surfaces. It was as if he were nothing more than a ghost returning to a town that had folded up and forgotten him long ago.
Ernie began to see himself walking into any store on the block, and wouldn’t it be something if they greeted him as a brand new face, just some guy who had never even set foot in the place before? They’d smile at him and wish him a happy holiday, and tell him please come again, sir. He had covered a great distance already in that town, tonight and certainly years before. The people in Ash Falls, he imagined, had lived through a period in which Ernie Luntz’s name was branded into every waking conversation. Now, it seemed as if he might as well be invisible.
Though it was surely him, the face looking back at him from the shop windows was a stranger. A kid practically, clothes hanging loose from his body, lips thin as noodles and so much skin. It was not the face Ernie was used to, the one that had stared back at him from his cell mirror for the last five years, grizzled and robust, full from inactivity, and so much overcooked potatoes and ham and slop greens. This one was sallow and cadaverous, the product of freeway rest stop coffee and sidewalk panhandling and grocery store discards, and he realized how a few years and a close shave could make a person anonymous. He reached the end of the block, crossed the street, and backtracked all the way up the opposite side.
The only space on this end that appeared to have any life in it was the Mexican restaurant, the Montaña de Plata. It had always been a dive, good for cheap margaritas, greasy nachos, and secondhand smoke. Red and green neon lit the cracked sidewalk, and just as Ernie came upon it, the door opened and a couple stepped out in front of him. The woman turned quickly and nearly walked into him. He put his hands up, and she yelped, jumped back, and took hold of her boyfriend’s arm. The two of them stared at Ernie, the woman swaying on unsteady legs, the man red-faced, his lower lip curled to his mustache.
Ernie said, “Didn’t mean to spook you.”
The man’s face dropped, and he broke into a grin. “No problem, man. You just come of out nowhere is all.” He looked Ernie up and down. “Hell of a night to be out in summer clothes.”
“I’m on a short leash,” he said. “Heading home.”
The woman kept her brow strained. She stared at Ernie as if he had reached out and torn her shirt from her, or was about to. There was something going on there, something behind those eyes. A journey through years of casual encounters, maybe. Photographs in the newspaper, or on the post office wall.
“Where’s that at?” she asked.
“Pardon?”
“Home. You said you were heading home. Where’s that at?”
The music coming from the restaurant was a Christmas tune, but a mariachi kind of thing, all waving brass and guitar strumming. Her stony glare, along with the smoky scent of broiled steak and onions, pulled at his stomach and set to work it into a knot.
“I said what?” Ernie took a couple steps back. He looked to the guy, who rolled his eyes.
“Sorry, man,” he said. He looked to his girlfriend. “You’re drunk, babe.”
“I ain’t drunk.” She looked at Ernie again. “I seen you somewhere,” she said. She squinted and wagged a finger in front of him. “You know that girl Phyllis? Phyllis What’s-her-name from over at the feed store?” She stepped to one side and put her hand on the doorway.
“No.”
“You know her. Phyllis. She gots red hair, and she’s real top heavy.” She lifted her hands to her boobs and pushed them a couple times. “You go with her?”
Ernie looked around him. The sidewalks were mostly empty; a couple people stood farther down the sidewalk, then cut across the street. “Naw,” he said. “I don’t know her.”
The guy took his girlfriend’s arm. “Come on, you,” he said, giving Ernie a quick, apologetic glance. He made a wide berth around him, led her down the sidewalk as she wobbled on stalactite heels. She pulled her arm away and turned to give Ernie one more look. There was a rush of adrenaline, a kick as he stood there unmoving, almost challenging her to make the connection once and for all. The boyfriend slid her arm around his waist and pulled her back in line, disappearing into the shadows of the darkened storefronts near the end.
The last of the blinking doorways behind him, Ernie stepped up his pace until he came to Shale, the street where the Henrys lived, that kid who had busted Bobbie’s leg, and Patrick’s friend, the girl, who Patrick had said married the guy. He looked up the st
reet, to the little cedar-shingled house a few lots up, the fourth one from the corner. There was a single porch light on and a few dull patches of light peeking from behind the hedges. The place looked sleepy with its drapes half open, slim amber slivers seeping out the warmth. Every house on the block, whether lit up ablaze or wrapped tightly in gray looked warmer than where he stood, on the corner of someone’s lawn with the snow piled over his ankles.
Before he even reached Maple Street, he could see Bobbie through the kitchen window, above the driveway, over the hood of a pickup truck that he did not recognize. She was at the sink, looking down, rocking back and forth behind the white lace drapes that she always complained about. Yet there they still were, barely shielding her from the street, from anyone who might happen to walk past. As he drew closer, he saw that she was wearing a red blouse and her hair was pulled back with something real nice, a band that shone golden against that beautiful orange hair of hers. He remembered the pomp and circumstance that Christmas Eve always meant for Bobbie. He’d always found it childish and stupid, the sweaters and ribbons and Leave it to Beaver bullshit she seemed to be shooting for. But now, though the blur of the window and so many months alone with nothing but her and Patrick in his head, he’d have given anything to be in there, sitting at the dining table watching the last of the candles melt into the jars. She looked up as he approached and leaned in closer to the window. He sank behind the shed and peered past the holly bush.
Reaching up, she pulled at the neck of her blouse, moving it back and forth, fanning her chest. She brought her fingers to her cheekbones and ran them under her eyes, smoothing at the skin in tiny sweeps. She smiled, and he smiled. More than anything, he hoped that she knew the incredible beauty still living in the face looking back at her.
What would he say if he could talk to her, if he could see her face to face? If she walked out that back door and came up to him and demanded it of him, somewhere in the back of his mind was the speech he had rehearsed, all the things he would put out there and ask, and do, if the possibility presented itself to him and there was no way out of it. The apologies would be there first, all of them, but then there would be that aching wonder of why she had really stopped coming to see him, why she had stopped bringing Patrick. The truth, not the excuses of school and work, and of Patrick acting out and how the last thing he needed was something to add to his stress. Her letters were a cobble of contradictions, the phone calls always cut short with irritated sighs and sudden interruptions. Nothing ever seemed to be the real truth. He’d known there was the chance that Hank Kelleher was back in the picture, and he had tumbled that idea in his head until it had more or less settled itself there. But now there was a distinct twist in his gut seeing that truck parked in the driveway, its windshield and hood dusted with snow, a rectangle of bare concrete underneath. Bobbie moved away from the window, and Ernie slid along the siding, to the shed door.
Their first weekend in the house he had caught a couple of high school boys watching him unload his camping gear into the shed. They sat on their bikes hunched over the handlebars, sometimes talking to one another but never looking away from Ernie or from the shed. He’d told Bobbie to keep an eye on things and left to go to the hardware store, bringing back a heavy-duty steel padlock and clasp and locked that son of a bitch up tight. There was a part of him that hoped Bobbie would have stopped locking it, but seeing it secured as always reminded him that she was too smart to leave it open. If it wasn’t the same lock, it was one just like it.
He ran his finger along the undersides of the shingles then tried the concrete pavers at the base of the kitchen steps, firmly sunk in place, not having been budged in years. The garbage cans were empty underneath, and there were no conspicuous rocks lining the shed, or any coffee cans. But the terra cotta pot spilling over with dried grass, and clover was something that had not been there before. He tipped it and saw the gleam of metal just beneath it.
The padlock opened easily. He hooked it over the latch before sliding the door and slipping inside. The overturned wheelbarrow and push mower took up the center, draped with an old canvas tarp like a slouching ghost. There were days that having to lug those things around made him curse ever having taken on the responsibility of the white picket fence that he and Bobbie had wanted so badly. That he had wanted, really. But then there were times when the sun massaged his back as he knelt in the dirt, sinking dahlia bulbs and garlic starts into the loamy soil, that he felt a euphoric rush, as if he finally had everything anyone could possibly want in life.
A clear path circled around the garden tools, with shelving and recycled kitchen cabinetry lining the walls from floor to ceiling. The workbench he’d built of sawhorses and an old pine door, where he and Patrick had carved out that slick gold-painted Pinewood derby car, sat cluttered with canisters and milk crates and loose tools over every inch of surface space.
He slid the door closed and gave himself a minute for his eyes to adjust to the darkness. The outside porch light offered the dimmest of light, spilling through the tiny window that sat over the washer and dryer. It was an old four-pane that Ernie had put in himself, when the thought of a shed with nothing but walls made him lose his breath and break out in a sweat. It wasn’t much of one, a little bigger than a shoebox, but it let in some light and, in the summer months, a nice stream of air.
He grabbed a milk crate from the workbench and pushed his way to the back shelf, where the box of camping gear was exactly where he had always kept it. He stepped up and brought the box down carefully and carried it to the dryer where he could see it better. Everything was in there, the propane burner, the utility knives, Patrick’s little pocket fisherman, the one Ernie had bought him for his twelfth birthday and he’d hardly used. Somewhere among the shelves in one of the bins would be his old army duffle bag, a tightly rolled sleeping bag and maybe the pup tent. He found a flashlight among the gear and snapped it on, the sleepiest of orange glowing from its tiny bulb.
The window was a cloud of dust and cobwebs, its panes crusted with peeling paint and mildew and overall neglect. There was a sudden movement in the light, and Ernie crouched beside the washing machine. A dull hum of conversation seeped in through the wall. Someone laughed. He moved the crate to the wall and raised himself so he could see out, hanging back from the glass in order to stay securely in the shadows. At the top of the steps Bobbie shared space in the open doorway with someone Ernie didn’t recognize, and the unfamiliarity was a momentary respite. It was an old man, a codger half stooped, wrestling to climb into an uncooperative jacket. Bobbie held the collar for him and pulled the sleeve over his arm. She laughed again. The old man shook his head. In the background, lingering under the overhead lamp the slender silhouette of a third person stood.
Patrick. So much taller than Ernie had last seen him, his shoulders were broad and squared at the edges, hands planted resolutely against his hips, sturdy. A young man already. Goddamn.
Bobbie leaned in and hugged the old man, and Patrick in the kitchen lifted a hand to wave and called out a goodbye. And then the door was closed, and the old man hobbled down the steps, gripping the rail, each step as if he were descending a mountain. He traversed the distance from the bottom step to his pickup, his hand sliding over the snow-dusted hood, and he took hold of the side mirror as he reached for the door, opening it and climbing inside to take his seat behind the wheel. He left the door open, and the light above his bald head carved into his face a landscape of shadows, and he was a hundred years old if he was a day. He muscled his arm, and the engine fired up, revving with an angry roar and sending white clouds of exhaust billowing down the driveway to the street below.
The old man leaned back in his seat and began to dig into his jacket, as if he had lost something in the interior pockets. His lower jaw drew a grimace as he searched, and at last he withdrew his hand and held it up, almost touching it to the lamp. The object gleamed under the light like a gold coin, and it was only when the man popped open the cover that Erni
e realized it was a pocket watch. He turned it over, one side to the other, rubbing his thumb over the glass. He worked at the crown, winding it some, and then he finally snapped it shut and tucked it back into his jacket. Giving the horn a single tap, he shut the door and the dome light faded as he backed slowly out of the driveway, creaking around the curb and puttering off down the street.
Erine climbed down from the dryer and pulled the last of the boxes from the shelf. He fished out the duffle, musty and coarse, and the flash of every bivouac and jungle march came back to him, the taste of compact chicken and potatoes from a can and the anticipation of tracers lighting up the night. It never failed to intrigue him how the mere touch of that canvas could bring forth such vivid recall, more so than any other trigger. The names of platoon mates, Carter, Diaz, and Bingham, and the lost looks in their eyes as they all waited for mail call and movement orders. He unfurled the duffle and stuffed it with the sleeping bag and the tent and fishing and hunting gear and the propane burner and a clump of dishrags he’d taken from over the washing machine, and all the miscellaneous shit that had littered the bottom of the camping box. Taking hold of the straps he threw the whole thing over his back and cinched it tightly to his chest.
There was a sudden rattle and creak at the door, and the great light that spilled into the space from the porch was a white tsunami, brilliant and devastating. He bolted backward, rushing along the side of the cabinetry, his hands finding everything that had ever been hung from, stacked and leaned against the walls as he stumbled to the far wall at the back of the garage. Just like that, he was caught.
Patrick stood in the rectangle of the doorway like a paper cutout, a plastic garbage bag at his side, his other hand resting precariously on the doorknob. On one side of his head his hair stood up, a cluster of quills, frozen and so perfect. He looked over his shoulder and stepped inside, swinging the bag outside next to the garbage bin.