Quiver

by Peter Leonard

  “Me and my sister spent our time in the Aryan Youth Corps.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Learned how to burn crosses and demand excellence and reject all forms of pettiness and decadence-things like rap music, effeminate hair styles, sloppy clothes and vulgar verbiage. You wouldn’t last too long with that mouth you got.”

  Teddy said, “Think I’d join a stupid fucking organization like that?”

  “If I had to guess,” Celeste said, “I’d say no.”

  “That why you got all them weird tats on your body?”

  She was going to tell him the tats were her idea of personal artistic expression, but would he get that?

  The light changed and they took off. Teddy finished his beer and asked for another one. She reached in the cooler at her feet and took a longneck Rolling Rock out of the ice, twisted off the cap and handed it to Teddy. He held the Z28 steady, passing through Ferndale.

  He said, “Who’s this Richard Butler character?”

  He was a character, too. Like a demented uncle who always had a smile on his face. Celeste said, “He was the founder of the Aryan Nations. People called him Pastor Butler ’cause he was also head of a church called the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. I remember one time he pinched my cheeks and said with my beautiful blue eyes and white skin, I was a quintessential example of Aryan womanhood.”

  “Quina… what?”

  Teddy’s face had a look of pure stupidity on it.

  “Quintessential. Like, the best.”

  “Oh.”

  “In his sermons, he’d talk about how white people everywhere had to develop a sense of racial identity, racial worth. No one has more to be proud of than we do, he’d say. We’re the descendants of Magellan and Lindbergh, the kin of Plato, Napoleon and Sophocles, the folk of Dante, Wagner, Galileo and Newton.”

  “Who’re you talking about?”

  “Famous people,” Celeste said, “you know, like philosophers and scientists and explorers from past history. Didn’t you go to school?”

  “Yeah, I went to school.”

  “Didn’t you learn nothing?”

  “I guess I’ve heard of some of them.”

  “My biggest problem with the Aryans,” Celeste said, “nobody had a sense of humor. They were all so serious and uptight. Although my dad used to say, ‘Know what the world’s shortest book is?’ And he’d go, ‘ Nigger Yachting Captains I Have Known ’ and start laughing. He thought that was pretty damn funny.”

  Teddy looked confused.

  “I wanted to tell him I had a book even shorter than that called A Hundred Years of Aryan Humor. It only had one page.”

  “How could a book only have one page?” Teddy said.

  Did he get anything?

  She also told him Aryans believed in the existence of a supra-human being called the cosmic being. “I’d go to my dad, ‘What’s all this cosmic being stuff have to do with us?’ And he’d go, ‘The Aryan race has been given a special mission by the cosmic being, who has endowed us with a character that’s like the divine Being itself.’”

  “You just lost me,” Teddy said.

  That wasn’t tough, Celeste was thinking. “Let me put it another way. Aryans are warriors and warriors have a special destiny. By living like a warrior, we’re undertaking the will of nature and the will of the cosmic being. Got any questions?”

  “Yeah,” Teddy said pointing to the cooler. “Got another cold one in there?”

  ELEVEN

  Delayna said, “I went to my doctor, who’s a GP, for a physical. The nurse said do you want a gynecology exam, too, while you’re here? I thought, why not? Get the full checkup.”

  Kate was leaning back with her head on the edge of a sink at the Bardha Salon, Delayna washing her hair. Kate was barely listening, thinking about Luke, worried about him. She had a strange feeling that something was going to happen. Just like she’d had the morning Owen and Luke walked out of the lodge to go hunting. She was anxious, agitated, couldn’t relax.

  Delayna said, “The doctor gave me the physical, then he brought this floor lamp over so he could shine it down there and check out my goody-goody.”

  Luke wouldn’t eat dinner last night or breakfast this morning. He walked out the door without saying a word. He got in his car and Kate watched him pull out of the driveway. Even though he was failing every course, she was glad he was still in school-out of his room-in the company of his friends for part of the day.

  Delayna said, “He put the lamp between my legs and turned it on and the bulb was burned out. God was he embarrassed. I’m lying there naked while he takes the old bulb out and puts a new one in. After the exam, I heard him tell the nurse he hadn’t used the lamp in six months.” Delayna laughed. “Can you believe it?”

  Kate didn’t say anything. She had to get out of there.

  Delayna said, “Are you okay?” She’d styled Kate’s hair for years, knew her well and could sense something was wrong.

  Kate sat up and said, “I’ve got to go.”

  “I haven’t cut your hair yet,” Delayna said.

  Kate said, “I’m not feeling well,” stood up and pulled off the burgundy smock and put it on the chair.

  Delayna was concerned, didn’t know what to do. She said, “Did I say something?”

  Kate was conscious of people looking at her, customers and hairdressers, as she crossed the floor of the salon, hair dripping wet, and went through the waiting room out to her car.

  On the way home she doubted herself. She couldn’t explain what she was feeling, just like she couldn’t the last time. Her blouse was soaked now from her wet hair. She looked at herself in the rearview mirror. Was she cracking up, losing her mind?

  She parked in the driveway and opened the kitchen door and saw the message light on the phone flashing. There were two calls. She pushed play. The first one was from Helen Parks at Luke’s school, saying he didn’t show up for class and they would appreciate a phone call or Luke would receive a detention. The second message was from a Detective Simoff with the Bloomfield Hills Police, saying that Luke had been arrested and he needed to speak to Mr. or Mrs. McCall ASAP.

  She drove to the station and bailed Luke out and brought him home. He was a mess-still drunk from the vodka he’d had hours before. She took him upstairs and put him in bed and let him sleep it off. It was two o’clock in the afternoon. At five she woke him up and told him to take a shower and come down.

  They sat in the small paneled den, Kate on the leather couch and Luke, a few feet away in a leather chair, staring at the antique Heriz rug, telling her he’d had half a dozen vodka and lemonades, run a stop sign on his way to Tower Records and hit a seventy-eight-year-old woman broadside. He said he tried to get away, but his car wouldn’t start, the hood of his Volkswagen Jetta buckled, steam hissing out of the radiator.

  “You hit a woman and hurt her and you were just going to leave?” Kate shook her head. This was hard to understand.

  Luke didn’t say anything, he just stared at the rug.

  “Look at me,” Kate said raising her voice.

  He lifted his head, met her gaze. No expression.

  “Say something.”

  He glanced down at the floor again.

  Detective Simoff told her a police officer had arrived a couple of minutes after the accident. So did an EMS unit. The woman, Mrs. Decker, was taken to Royal Oak Beaumont Hospital. Luke, after he was breathalyzed and handcuffed, was taken to the police station, everybody wanting to know what a sixteen-year-old kid was doing on the road in broad daylight with a blood alcohol level that was almost twice the legal limit.

  Kate did, too. She said, “What’d you do, wake up and decide to get smashed?”

  “No.”

  “Well, you’re on a hell of a roll. Do me a favor, will you? Tell me what you’re going to do next, so I can be ready.”

  “I’m not going to do anything,” Luke said.

  He had his hand over his face like he was trying to
hide.

  She said, “You better not. You’re in enough trouble as it is.” She told him he had been charged with an MIP, minor in possession of alcohol. He’d be given a court date and would be on probation for a year. He’d have to do community service and attend alcohol awareness classes.

  She told him his driver’s license was restricted and he would have to submit to random alcohol testing. She told him he would have to report to a probation officer once a month and that he might have to spend time in the Oakland County Jail.

  He looked stunned.

  She got up and went over and put her arms around him.

  “I’m sorry,” Luke said.

  He had tears in his eyes.

  “I’ll help you,” Kate said. “We’ll get through this. Just promise me you won’t do anything else.”

  “I won’t,” Luke said in a voice that was barely audible.

  He dried his eyes on his shirtsleeve.

  She hoped not.

  DeJuan was in the woods behind the house when he saw the Land Rover fly in, screech to a stop. Somebody in a hurry. Rich lady got out, ran in the side door. Not two minutes later she ran back out. Fired up the Rover, blew down the driveway.

  He parked Scarface at Covington School, went across an athletic field, hopped a fence, walked through yards from there to McCall’s, no one give him a second look. DeJuan in his dark blue DTE Energy uniform, carrying his meter reader.

  His first instinct was to go stealth-under the radar. But when he went to check out the ’hood, saw a DTE truck and a sister, woman of color, walking through yards, reading meters, and a bulb went on in his head.

  Now he was in the backyard of their French provincial manor home designed by some dude name Wallace Frost in 1926. Googled it. House had a slate roof. Leaded glass windows. Had a pool out back-still covered in late May. Tennis court. Gardens. It was some spread. Kind of crib DeJuan hoped to have someday.

  He was on the side of the house in plain view when Mrs. McCall drove in again, got out with the kid. Something going on. Could feel the tension between them. DeJuan wondering what the little man done to upset his moms. Thinking of a statistic he read. Something like: every ten seconds in America, some kid was fucking with his parents.

  Rich lady glanced over at him on her way in the house. He waved, said, “How you all doing today?”

  Kate went to see Luke’s psychiatrist. She paced back and forth in front of Dr. Fabick’s maroon leather couch, stopping over without an appointment, telling the receptionist she had to see him.

  Fabick was wearing jeans, running shoes, and a white shirt and tie, sitting behind his desk, solemn eyes fixed on Kate, thumbs and fingertips pressed together, giving her his concerned psychiatrist look.

  “Mrs. McCall, what Luke tells me in these sessions is confidential. It’s how we build trust-”

  Kate cut in. “He’s in trouble. He needs help.”

  “Mrs. McCall, if you’d let me finish,” Fabick said. “I also told Luke if he tries to harm himself that confidentiality would be compromised. Please sit down.”

  Kate sat in one of the chairs in front of his desk. “Tell me why he’s drinking.”

  “Luke is trying to escape, withdraw. What he experienced was traumatic. His destructive behavior is a way of lashing out. He’s angry. He’s carrying this tremendous guilt, and doing what he did today is his way of punishing himself. He’s reliving what happened over and over.”

  “How is he going to get better?”

  “Therapy. I wouldn’t discount the likelihood of long-term psychological effects. It could take years for Luke to resolve his feelings.”

  “Tell me something positive,” Kate said. “Will you?”

  “In our last session,” Fabick said, “I was encouraged. I thought Luke was making progress. But it’s not unusual in this kind of a situation for the patient to take a step forward and then take two steps back. That’s exactly what I think has happened.”

  “What does that mean?” Kate wanted to grab his tie and pull him over the desk.

  “He’s regressing, getting worse.”

  “No kidding,” Kate said. “How’d you figure that out?”

  She got up and walked out of his office, wondering what the hell to do now.

  TWELVE

  Kate studied her face in the makeup mirror. She followed the curve of her mouth, putting on lipstick, a dark red shade, pressed her lips together to make it even. She opened her mouth and checked her teeth, rubbing off a fleck of color with a Kleenex. Now she dusted her cheekbones with blush and stroked on a little under her eyes.

  Jack had called that morning and invited her out to dinner. She told him she couldn’t but then, in a moment of weakness, invited him over. She felt bad the way she treated him at lunch, giving him a hard time after sixteen years. Maybe he had cleaned up his act. When he told her about his real estate job, he was enthusiastic and sounded like he knew what he was talking about.

  Now, five hours later, she regretted it and wanted to call it off. She tried the number Jack had given her, heard Jodie’s voice on the answering machine and hung up. She was just going to have to get through it.

  Kate thought about the night they met: at Jacoby’s, after a Tigers game. They were standing next to each other at the crowded bar, Kate trying to get the bartender’s attention. They started talking and hit it off-both on dates. Kate out with a guy named Bert Hulgrave who went to Notre Dame and wore a golf shirt with the collar turned up in back, which bothered her, and he ate hotdogs with nothing on them-no mustard-which bothered her more.

  Jack asked for her phone number. She gave it to him while she waited for a pint of Harp for her and a Miller Lite for Bert and was excited when Jack called that night at two in the morning, saying he couldn’t wait to talk to her.

  Kate told him guys usually held off for a few days-what was the rule, seventy-two hours? — so they didn’t seem too interested or desperate.

  He said he didn’t care about bullshit like that and they talked till four thirty and met seven hours later at the hydroplane races on Belle Isle. He kissed her as soon as he saw her and said, “I’ve wanted to do that since I turned and looked at you in the bar last night.”

  Kate said, “Do you hold anything back?”

  He said, “I try not to.”

  They watched Tom D’Eath pilot Miss Budweiser through the course on the Detroit River, had a beer and went back to Kate’s and made out, both of them anxious to hold and touch each other, like they were meant to be together.

  Kate was nineteen when she met Jack, going to be a sophomore at Michigan. They dated the rest of the summer and when she went back to Ann Arbor, sharing an apartment with Stephie, her freshman roommate, Jack would spend four or five nights a week there. They were inseparable for two and a half years until Kate knew she had to get away from him and joined the Peace Corps.

  Now he was back and she was concerned. She liked it but didn’t like it.

  Maureen came in the kitchen with her coat on. “God, it smells good in here. Don’t worry, I’m not going to stay, I just want to meet him.”

  Kate looked up from the skillet of potatoes. “You’re going to scare him away.”

  “I won’t say anything to embarrass you,” Maureen said. “I promise.”

  “You can’t help yourself.”

  Maureen took off her coat and hung it on the back of a chair on the other side of the counter. Kate poured her a glass of white wine.

  “What’re you having?”

  “Rack of lamb.” She’d seared the rack in shallot butter and deglazed the pan with veal stock. Now she was making potatoes Anna, the skillet sizzling on the gas burner. “He’s just coming over for dinner and I feel guilty about it.”

  “What’re you going to do, wear a black dress for the rest of your life? We’re not living in a Sicilian village. There’s no time limit I’m aware of. You wait till you’re ready. I think it’s great.”

  “It’s not a date,” Kate said. “Nothing’s
going on.”

  “Whatever you say,” Maureen said grinning.

  Jack arrived and Luke came down from his bedroom and Kate introduced everyone. They ate in the breakfast room. Kate sat across the table from Luke and Maureen, half in the bag, sat across from Jack, firing questions at him while he ate his lamb and potatoes and sipped his cabernet.

  Maureen said, “Ever been married?”

  “No,” Jack said. He picked up a lamb chop and took a bite.

  Maureen said, “Ever been close?”

  Jack said, “No.” And shook his head.

  Maureen said, “You have a girlfriend?”

  “Not at the moment,” Jack said.

  Maureen said, “You’re not gay, are you?”

  Jack looked at Kate.

  Kate said, “Maureen, stop interrogating the poor guy.”

  Maureen pointed at Jack with her fork. “What’re you doing back in Michigan?”

  “Visiting my sister,” Jack said.

  Maureen said, “What do you do?”

  “Sell real estate,” Jack said.

  “Maureen does, too,” Kate said. “Tell her about your deal.”

  “It’s a manufactured home development in Tucson, Arizona,” Jack said.

  “I know a lot of people in the Tucson area,” Maureen said. “Maybe I can send some investors your way. What’s it called?”

  “Eldorado Estates,” Jack said. “I’ll give you a copy of the prospectus.”

  “And you live in Tucson, I hear,” Maureen said. “What part?”

  “Rancho Mirage,” Jack said.

  “Where’s that?” Kate said.

  “Foothills of the Catalinas,” Maureen said. “Very trendy.” She sipped her wine. “I go to Canyon Ranch every year,” she said, sounding like a snob. “I saw Michael Douglas one time and Richard Gere. I like it for about three days. They don’t serve drinks-you can’t get one-and there’s no nightlife.”

  “That’s the idea,” Kate said. “You go there to get healthy.”