Marty said something, Jack was incapable of listening, “tough time…” “easy time…” Something about Blade Runner…Maybe they were questions, but they remained unanswered. Jack might have raised the bottle to his lips, but if he had, he was not aware of it. He was aware only of being away from his house, away from the telephone that might be off the hook, the answering machine that may have become, through some malfunction, some accident Jack had been too numb to notice—through a will of its own—inoperative. Away from all the checks and double-checks that held the next disaster at bay. His insides were tumbling over themselves, his flesh felt like it was about to crawl right off the bone and take the damp hairs with it. And Marty was talking about what? Jack pushed his chair away from the table.
“My son killed himself, Marty. My son is dead.” And he rushed outside, where the air on Main Street was hot and motionless.
Marty went after him. “It’s only going to get worse,” he called out.
Jack walked faster.
“It’s only going to get worse,” Marty repeated after he caught up with him.
“What makes you so damn prescient?”
“I know that look.”
“We’ll have to discuss it someday.” Jack picked up the pace.
Marty stayed with him. “I’m no great detective, Jack, probably not even a good one, but I’m looking at you and seeing depression and damn near starvation.”
“Don’t worry about me. I’m doing all right.”
“You haven’t slept in days. My guess is you’ve got insomnia. And the way you ran out of there, I figure you’re having panic attacks. You’re as pale as—when was the last time you left the house?”
Jack felt as though a cold stone had been dropped in his stomach. He felt tightness gripping his chest. His fingertips had gone numb. Not because of anything Marty had said, but because something terrible had happened to his father, he could sense it, and Marty was stopping him from taking care of it.
“I’m hardly panicked or starving. And I’m not running anywhere.” Jack’s body strained to reach the corner.
“I can help you,” Marty told him.
“I don’t need your help.”
“Yes, I can see that.”
The empty street flashed past him, the dark storefronts, the quiet restaurants. “Everyone’s gone for the summer,” Jack said flatly. “Everyone but the old-timers, this lunatic cop and me.”
“Nothing bad’s going to happen if you don’t go home,” Marty said, not unkindly.
“You don’t know what you’re talking about.” Jack wanted to believe that. Just as he wanted to believe that the man lying naked on his bedroom floor hadn’t been him. But he could only think of What next? He could only think of getting home before the next disaster.
“I do know what I’m talking about,” Marty said.
The heat and humidity felt oppressive and suffocating, the air was thick and hot like dog’s breath, heavy with the scraps of the season: ashes from cookouts, bits of paper and gunpowder from fireworks, grease and smoke, blades of mowed lawns, and insects, all clinging to Jack’s skin, choking his lungs. But he would not slow down. “I’ll mourn my son as I see fit.”
“I’m not telling you not to. And I’m not telling you to swallow your pain, either. I just want to talk to you.”
“I don’t want to talk to you.” Jack followed his shadow as it lengthened under the streetlights. “Go help the other boy’s family. They need it more than I do.”
“I’m not too sure of that.”
“And please don’t feel sorry for me.”
“I don’t feel sorry for you. I admire your strength.”
“Don’t patronize me, either.”
“Who’s patronizing you? But I don’t think the rules state that you have to make things worse for yourself.”
“Oh, there are rules.”
“I meant to tell you sooner.”
Jack turned the corner. “This is none of your concern, so back off.” He stopped at his car and opened the door.
“Talk with me for a few minutes.”
Jack clenched his teeth. “I’m going to slug you if you don’t get out of my way.”
Marty didn’t flinch. “You know, I used to be married to a woman I really loved, then my marriage fell apart and I proceeded to fall apart, too.” He looked only at Jack’s eyes. “I had the same symptoms as you.”
“I don’t have any symptoms.”
“It’s like a floating sense of foreboding.”
Jack gave no answer.
“It got so I was afraid that if I didn’t keep busy I’d die.” Marty spoke slowly, his voice barely raised above a whisper. “I convinced myself that staying busy and my well-being were interconnected.”
“I don’t need to talk.”
“After a month, I realized my life was out of control, that I was a slave to my obsessions. So I took a day off, drove out to Douglas Park, got in a rowboat and rowed to the middle of the lake. I made myself stay out there, doing nothing all day. By sunset there I was, still alive and none the worse for wear. I did the same thing the next day, and the day after. It took some time, but I proved to myself that my fears were groundless.”
“Do you expect me to believe that?”
“Unless you think I’m a sadistic son of a bitch.”
“Get out of my way.”
“I just want to talk for a little while. Not about Danny. Or you. Just talk. We can talk about Blade Runner.”
“Some other time, okay?”
Marty ignored him. “In your book, you wrote that it raises the same questions about mortality and God that Frankenstein does.”
“What the hell do you want from me?”
“And Danny was eight when he saw the movie?”
“Twelve, okay. And if you want to chew on something, chew on this: he said what made him sad was the replicants were programmed to die when they turned four. That was the same age Danny was when his mother left him. Now get out of my way.”
“You wrote if we ever came face-to-face with God, the one question we would ask, the question humanity has always asked is: ‘If you love me, why do you let me die?’ Which is what the replicant asks his maker. You said that’s what Christ was asking God on the cross.”
“And hardly a question I’m prepared to ask right now. So fuck off.” Jack couldn’t hear what Marty said. He was thinking about Danny, who wasn’t his creation, after all, and who had secrets and who killed himself. While his hands started to tremble.
“…said he could see the movie?” Marty was saying. “Were you aware of that?”
When Jack didn’t answer, Marty asked, “Did Danny ever talk about it?”
“I’m not suffering from any of the symptoms you described.” Jack stumbled over the words.
“You’re afraid to be here. That seems like a symptom of something.”
“I’m not afraid. I just don’t want to talk. I’m going home.”
“Come on, Jack. You’re having a tough time. What’s so wrong with letting me help you?”
“I don’t need your help.” Jack jangled his car keys nervously. “I’m not the man standing on the ledge.”
Marty looked at him and said solemnly, “You’re supposed to be sad, as sad as you want, you’re supposed to grieve and mourn and feel whatever the hell you want. But you can’t be victim to your fears.” He stepped back and sat on the curb, a Chaplinesque gesture without the comedy and the cuteness; nothing bittersweet about it, nothing baggy-pants. It was simply an act of courage. All Jack had to do now was step over him, get in the car and leave him looking like a fool. Marty must have known that, but it didn’t seem to frighten him.
In the heat of summer, Jack was standing in the shadows, sweating and shaking, feeling like a scared and helpless little shit.
“All this because you saw Blade Runner and once heard Danny play the piano?”
Marty said, “You looking for an airtight reason? I don’t know why. Maybe I’m a lunatic co
p.” He motioned for Jack to sit down. “Maybe it’s just something I want to do. Or maybe I just like you and I’m short on people I like.” He didn’t look up, he only looked straight ahead, as though he expected Jack to stay there, as though he understood the meaning and strength of his own gesture; and Jack realized it was anything but calculated. For only a moment, he wanted to tell Marty about the grief and the fears. He wanted to admit that he was afraid to leave his house, that he was afraid to sleep and afraid to stay awake. He wanted to tell him about the days and nights of neglect, of sitting naked in the attic and passing out in the bedroom. His face felt damp and hot. He was finding it hard to breathe. He sat down on the hot curbstone, but he said nothing.
Marty made a fist with his right hand, stuck it in the palm of his left and pressed both hands against his chin. He kept looking straight ahead. “Did you always want to be a professor?” he asked.
Jack didn’t answer.
“Was your ex-wife a professor, too?”
“Are you trying to draw me out?”
“Was she?”
“An artist,” Jack said.
“You wrote that great art has the ability to transcend its genre. Did your wife transcend the genre?”
Jack said, “Yes, Anne transcended the genre.” And the place inside him, the soft spot where the girl named Anne was still twenty years old with dots of yellow paint in her hair and a smile that made him stare in dumb amazement, and where Danny was still a little boy and there were no signs of trouble, the soft spot throbbed like a newborn heart.
“That’s something I’ve always wished I could do. Be an artist. Take an abstract idea and make it something beautiful and tangible. Did you ever want to make movies?” Marty smiled. “I’m curious. Really.”
“When I was in high school I wanted to be a director, a great auteur. That’s why I went to Gilbert College. Because of their film department.”
“And?”
“Look, Marty—I admit that I’ve been having a tough time—”
“Did you ever make movies?”
“I lacked a little something called talent.”
“Someone once said talent is a cheap trick.”
Jack’s body started shaking again, and his breathing was loud and fast. He didn’t care that Marty was watching him—observing him, and not accidentally; Jack was beginning to realize that there were few things that Marty did accidentally, or innocently. He leaned back on his elbows, waited while his body calmed down, and he caught his breath. “You like doing this,” he said. “You like being a detective.”
“There are other things I like more.” Marty kicked a cigarette butt away from his shoe. “I’m not even sure I ever wanted to be a cop. But I needed a job after high school, and since I don’t come from the kind of family that encouraged us to go to college, when a guy I know said he was taking the police exam, I figured I’d take it, too. I graded high and decided to join the department.” He turned to Jack and grinned. “Being a cop in Gilbert is kind of like being a fisherman, it’s never exactly been a hotbed of crime—even Indiana’s very own John Dillinger never committed a crime here, never even tried to rob the banks. One of the few towns in the state he left alone. Anyway, I did a little crime scene work, mostly burglaries. I started seeing some domestic violence cases and I got into Victim Support. After a while I got it through my thick skull that people responded to my help. The department pays for half of your college tuition if you get a job-related degree, so I started taking sociology and criminology courses at ISU. I like kids, so I figured I’d do some work in the Juvenile Division where I could help them and their families.”
“Which includes consoling bereaved fathers.”
“What can I say?” Marty answered, in the same sympathetic tone he’d used earlier, but Jack had no impulse to punch him this time. He wanted only to go home. He felt the familiar rush of anxiety, the foreboding, unbearable and insistent. He drummed his fingertips against his knees. He tapped his foot against the pavement. He had to get away right now, even if it was too late, even if the answering machine was already blinking bad news; and he felt ashamed of himself, ashamed of his fears; and he felt something else as well, something more than shame. He felt small inside, weak and clammy because he needed to be here with Marty, he needed to be carried through the night.
“I’m in the middle of the lake,” Jack said, “aren’t I?”
“There are worse places to be.”
“And you’re trying to get me to stay out here.”
“I’m not so sure about that. Maybe you’re trying to get yourself to stay out here.”
“I’m not so sure about that, either.”
“Fair enough,” Marty said, and a moment later, “I guess we’re just two guys who don’t really know what the hell we’re doing out here,” and managed again not to sound patronizing.
Half a mile away, a freight train tore a piece of silence out of the night. In a minute, the warning bells at the Third Street crossing would clang frantically and the red lights would flash like a nervous tic while the wail of the train whistle expanded and the diesel engine shined its ever-lovin’ light, pulling and rolling, eating up the steel-slick tracks, in and out of town without stopping.
“You know why Dillinger never robbed the banks in Gilbert?” Marty asked. “Because the town’s surrounded by railroad crossings, and there was always the chance that all his escape routes would be blocked at the same time by passing trains and he’d’ve been trapped here.”
XIII
The red light on the answering machine had not been flashing a warning, and the cold stone lodged inside Jack’s stomach had loosened its grip. Something was happening, it was not unpleasant and it was not filled with dread, if Jack didn’t think too much about it, if he didn’t say to himself, “Well, nothing happened tonight. Not this time. Not yet.”
Outside the house, orange sunlight rippled just above the horizon. It wasn’t so bad sitting in the backyard watching the dawn, taking off his shirt, lying back in one of the chairs, feeling the slight, excuse-me breeze rustling the trees. Maybe he’d bring a book out here and try to read, or go ahead and accept Marty’s lunch invitation.
Lunch, while the rest of my world falls apart.
He watched the morning sun rise over the rim of the field. He felt all the familiar feelings of loneliness and sorrow, and something not as familiar: a sudden spasm of disloyalty to Danny for going out last night, for wanting to go out today.
What did Marty say about that? Jack couldn’t remember.
He remembered, instead, that he and Danny would have been to New York and gone by now. They’d have seen their doubleheader—the rich red clay of the infield when you walk out of the dark runway and into the sunlight, which is not unlike stepping into a dream. The deep green grass and how perfectly it’s cut, how perfectly it grows. He thought of the way Danny had gripped his hand the first time they went to a ballgame together, back in 1985. Danny, wearing his little blue baseball cap, red sneakers that seemed too big for his small body, looking up, asking, “Why didn’t Mummy come with us?”
“Mummy’s very busy today,” Jack explained.
He thought about Danny lasting through five innings. He thought of all the baseball games he would never see with his son—somewhere in the basement, in a box against a wall or on a shelf, was the box score of Danny’s first game.
Jack whispered, “Danny and I would’ve been on the Cape the day before yesterday.”
He thought about the expanse of summer—wicked nights, he called them.
I went out last night, and no one died.
Jack wanted to remember what else Marty had said. He thought it might help him tolerate what he was feeling now and what he was doing, what he had done and what this summer had turned into. He wanted to remember what Marty had said because thinking about it was the only thing that wasn’t filled with regret, the only thing that didn’t hurt to think about, not the way remembering the day he took Danny to his first ballgame
hurt, the way it hurt to think about Anne.
A June bug flung itself at the screen door, making a heavy crunching sound. A hawk rode the thermal draft bold and preeminent above the field. Jack closed his eyes. When he opened them, the sun was high above the trees and the air was the coolest it was going to be all day.
“What I’m saying is, you’re supposed to grieve, you’re supposed to mourn and feel all the things, anything, you want, but there’s a healthy way to go about it. That’s all.” That’s what Marty told him last night.
Jack got up slowly, slung his shirt over his shoulder and went into the house to shave and shower, to select the clothes he would wear; to prepare himself for the impending afternoon.
They were going to drive out to the country, to a little barbecue shack, Walter’s, on the outskirts of town. Marty said it reminded him of the old chicken shacks in western Tennessee, where his grandmother used to live. He said it always cheered him up to go out there, took his mind off his troubles. Maybe it would have the same effect on Jack, if only for the few hours they were gone. “Anyway,” Marty said, “it’s a nice drive through the country.” He said this last night, while they were sitting in Jack’s car waiting for the sunrise. Marty had his eyes closed and his seat pushed back and it seemed, for a moment, that he was talking in his sleep, his voice was that soft and far away. He said, “It’s a pretty remote place. I found it when I was going through that rough time of mine.” Then he opened his eyes and sat up. “But I should tell you in advance, we’ll probably be the only white people there. Will that bother you?”
Jack told him, “Don’t be ridiculous.” Which made Marty smile.
“I didn’t think it would. Anyway, I think you’ll like it.” Marty said this as though Jack had already agreed to go, as though Jack wasn’t shaking inside, certain that what remained of his world had fallen apart during the night. “But I better tell you, Walter doesn’t know I’m a cop. If he did, he’d’ve never let me stick around. He got the idea that I haul cement over in Vigo County, and I haven’t tried to change his mind. I don’t have to tell you cops are not on the A-list of most African-Americans around here. In any case, a lot of his customers would be very unhappy if they knew.” Marty said he didn’t even bring any of the guys he worked with. “The first time I walked in, I think Walter thought I was either some crazy redneck looking for trouble or someone from the board of health looking for a bribe, but all I was looking for was some good barbecue.” A moment later, he said, “It seems like a lot all at once and I know you don’t really want to do it.” He turned his face toward the day’s first light. “But you have to start sometime.”
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