Edge

by Michael Cadnum

  I had the picture in my mind, Wheaties and muffin crumbs, a nearly empty carton of nonfat milk. I saw Perry in my mind, taller than me, tanned from exposure to the northern sun. Perry said very little, mostly uh-huh as I told him what I knew, doctors, IVs, cops. We were more comfortable snapping E-mail back and forth, voice communication clumsy and complicated, having to express everything out loud.

  “This is awful,” said Perry at last, and I felt bad about making him so solemn. Perry doesn’t say How awful or That sounds bad. With Perry you get This is true or This is bad news.

  I was happy to change the subject, just to hear Perry express some of his old interest in things. I said it sounded great, all of his plans, and we agreed that when this all got resolved maybe I could fly up for a visit, maybe look at the fish ladder, watch salmon swim upriver over a set of locks from salt water to fresh, all that Northwestern activity that sounded like life on another planet.

  I was so happy to hear his voice, I went into my room and sent him an E-mail right away, letting him know how good it was to hear from him “voice-to-ear.” But what I really wanted to tell him was to forget about kayaking and bear-tagging and take up an interest in sea otters or mule deer, some animal we have in California.

  The water that runs out of a hose is sometimes hot as soup, even the brass nozzle gets hot. You can hardly touch it.

  I let this first water run out of the hose for a while before I let it trickle onto the tendrils of my beans. Some of my beans were adult, nearly, having muscled all the way up the stake and then, with nowhere to go, spiraling down again. Only a few whiteflies danced around the pods as I splashed water over the plants.

  What I saw next did not make sense.

  The tomato plant, Mom’s prize, was shivering. It wiggled, shuddering inward toward its stake. The leaves were nodding. Green tongues sprouted from the green rope of the stem.

  I took my time, marching to the faucet, turning off the water, approaching the tomato plant cautiously. At times like this I find myself keeping up a running dialogue, like a cop chattering into his radio, except it’s all in my head.

  Okay, what is it, I queried myself. Some kind of disaster.

  The plant was alive with fat green worms, each larva the size of my thumb, but longer, and when I stepped on one by accident it was green pulp inside, half-digested leaf. The sound of the feeding host of green caterpillars, Hyles lineata, was like rain heard far away. The fruit was untouched, green blushing orange, days from being fully ripe.

  The dozens of swollen green larva of the white-lined sphinx moth were finishing the last foliage as I watched.

  Not such a disaster. Nature at work. I wrapped my fingers around the tomatoes, and the fruit was warm, holding in the sunlight. I tugged at the fruit but the stem would not release, the vine wanting to stay the way it was. At last I pinched the tomatoes from the stems and hustled the armload into the kitchen.

  The phone rang. I knew it was my mom. Mental telepathy was real, after all. A message had reached her: Big Green Worms Threaten East Bay. But I feel a tug of anxiety when the phone trills. Two inner messages hit me at once: answer it; let it ring.

  Mom has an especially heart-stopping ring on her phone, an electronic police whistle. After four rings the answering machine kicks in. Two more rings to go. I could wait.

  I picked up the phone without wanting to, my hand with a life of its own. I must have said hello because a voice was talking. He was glad he caught me at home. He was just heading out the door but he wanted to keep me posted.

  What is it, I must have asked, because Detective Unruh’s voice turned reassuring, sorry he had worried me. “It’s not bad news,” he said. But the way he said it made me want to sit down.

  I heard the detective continue, his words massaging into me, a man proud of his voice without maybe being aware of it, aware that it was one of his strengths.

  I interrupted. “You caught him.”

  Fit Pit was a gym you could see into from the street. I had tried not to pay attention to it before, a frenzied showroom stuck among storefronts on Solano Avenue, bodies running in place, pedaling, pumping iron. But as I stood in the doorway I could feel the activity pulling me in, people in a deliberate frenzy, tight smiles of effort on their faces. Others had no expression, sweaty stoics, rowing nowhere. I had expected thumping, urgent music, but there was only the iron chime of weights and the whir and beep of the machines.

  A voice was calling to me, an inquisitive tone, nice but bossy, a woman’s voice. I ignored it.

  Bea was in a distant corner, slugging a great red punching bag with a pair of red Everlast boxing gloves. The bag was a little caved in from having been punched a lot in the past. Bea was punishing the big sack, her punches resounding among the whirring, clicking exercise machines. Bea didn’t mess around with footwork, hooking her left fist hard into the red leather where it was worn black.

  “I’m sorry,” I said.

  Whap. Her right hand caved in what was left of the bag’s defense. And someone stepped around me to hold the bag steady, a woman with broad shoulders and eyebrows drawn on high above where her eyebrows would naturally be. She hugged the bag from behind, crouching into it.

  “It’s okay,” said Bea. “He’s my guest.”

  “He has to sign the waiver,” said the woman.

  I had insisted, telling Detective Unruh that I wanted to drive across the bridge, that I wanted to see the face, look into the eyes, but the detective used his voice on me, his calming, Amazing-Grace voice, saying there was no need, everything was taken care of, he was just keeping me informed. I still insisted, and he said he was telling me to stay right where I was. Like an army officer in a movie: This is an order.

  Bea gave the bag a rapid combination of punches, blows of such impact that the sound shook the insides of my body. She turned to me, panting, and wrestled her hand out of the glove. Sweat gave her face a strange gleam. “Sixteen-ounce glove,” she said. “Try it on.”

  “The waiver form is over by the desk,” the woman said. She was deeply tanned and her dark hair was gathered into a tousled bunch at the top of her head, one of those ageless people so well conditioned the tendons in her neck stood out.

  “I won’t be using any of the equipment,” I said. I know all about waivers, promises that you won’t sue if you drop dead. The interior of the glove was warm from Bea’s fist.

  “Let him go ahead,” said the woman with the tough neck. She wore a black leotard top and shiny, tight stockings, shimmering and metallic looking. “Go ahead,” she said, smiling. “I’ll go get the waiver form, bring it over. A lot of people think they’re in good shape until they give the big bag a workout.”

  “I don’t feel like it right now,” I said.

  “It won’t hurt,” said the woman in the leotard, smiling so I could see her gums. She had smooth arms, hairless. Depilatories, I thought. She was engaged in life’s endless war against hair.

  Bea took my arm, sensing something about my mood. “Maybe just a rowing machine today, Sherry.”

  “This is your friend,” said Sherry incredulously. “This guy who won’t take a poke at the bag is Bea’s friend.” She gave me an I-don’t-believe-it wave and sauntered off, giving me the full treatment, bending over to pick up a towel.

  “What happened?” Bea was saying.

  “You were gone by the time I came to give you a ride,” I said. Ruth had even been friendly in a matter-of-fact way. “You missed her by about three ticks,” Ruth had said. Bea must have done some explaining for me, told her about my dad.

  “What happened?” asked Bea.

  It should have been easier to say.

  The gym was noisy, bodies grunting, the weight machines clanking.

  Bea put her face up to mine. “They arrested the guy who did it,” she said. Not asking, confirming.

  I poked the big red leather bag, expecting it to move.

  It didn’t.

  TWENTY-ONE

  “The arraignment is Mond
ay morning,” said Detective Unruh.

  It was Saturday afternoon, the day after my call from the detective. He was walking across the parking lot with a crumpled paper cup in his hand and looked back wistfully at the hospital entrance, unable to find a trash can.

  I knew arraignment, pretty sure I understood what it meant.

  A radio sputtered at his hip, under his dark blue jacket, cop-chatter turned down so low it was nearly inaudible. He unlocked a car I had not seen before, an avocado green Chevy. He slipped the mashed cup into a plastic bag labeled PITCH IN hanging from the dash. A notepad thrust itself from the dash on a metal platform, white, lined paper. A pair of empty brackets, one above the other, slightly ruined the appearance of a car where everything was useful and in its place. In the back seat was a Thomas Brothers map of the City and County of San Francisco, folded and tucked into a corner where, as he drove, the detective would never be able to reach it.

  “The accused has a chance to post bond, hear the charge against him,” said the detective, answering the question I had not asked. “He gets a court-appointed attorney if he needs one. Often somebody from the public defenders’ office. Usually if the accused can post bail he can go free pending trial.”

  I glanced at the two empty brackets again and thought: where they keep the shotgun. “You mean they let him go free on bail?”

  “No, a serious charge like this is an exception,” said the detective. “He’ll stay where he is.”

  Two cars were nose together in the parking lot, two men in shirts and ties hooking a jumper cable from battery to battery. Detective Unruh and I found ourselves drawn to the sight, like two people falling silent to watch an ad on TV.

  “I want to go to the arraignment,” I said, aware how dry and semi-embarrassed my voice sounded.

  “No question about it, you have a right,” he said, making a little speech out of his response. “The public is allowed to attend. But there’s something I have to let you know.”

  Sparks snapped from under the hood, one of the men, the gray-haired one, shaking his head and swearing to himself. The younger man needed the help, and I could see his gratitude and irritation, how it troubled him that he had left his headlights on all day.

  Detective Unruh turned away from the two men, as though he couldn’t stand to watch such amateur mechanics. “I think you might consider trying to be a little more detached about the legal process.”

  “The process will work, won’t it?” I gave the word process a little twist: it’s your word, not mine.

  “There’ll be a preliminary hearing, too,” said the detective. “Usually it’s just a few days after the arraignment, but in our case, we’ll postpone it until your dad is well enough. At a preliminary the court hears the witnesses—in our case the only witness. The judge reviews the case the district attorney has against the accused, and decides if there’s reason to hold a trial. In the meantime, our man is over in the new jail beside the Bay Bridge approach on Highway 101.”

  The younger man was in the car, turning the ignition, and the older one stood with his weight on one leg, hands on his hips while the ignition chattered, nothing happening. The two men were nearly the same age, I realized; the gray-haired man just looked older because he was heavier.

  “In this case there might be some extra time involved,” the detective was saying, turning back to watch just as the engine caught, revving, a loud sound from such a small car, a Neon or Tercel. The gray-haired man applauded, sarcastically or sincerely, it was hard to tell. “There might be a further delay, a week, ten days. We want your father to attend the preliminary.”

  The two men were out of the car, smiling, disconnecting the pink cables. The thought of my father attending a court hearing confused me.

  “We’ll hold the preliminary hearing at the hospital,” Detective Unruh said. “The fact is, we’re going to need your dad’s testimony. We’ve shown him pictures, mug shots, and he signals with his blink that he thinks this is the guy who shot him, but he isn’t sure.”

  I let myself imagine it as a sequence of events, a mental video, hitting pause at the key events. My dad driving, stopping at a red light. Handing over his wallet, knowing money was only money. How loud had it been, the little pop, the gunshot.

  “What’s his name?” I asked.

  The detective leaned back to give me a better look.

  “The guy you have in jail,” I said.

  “He’s in custody.”

  “His name,” I insisted.

  Little things about Hoover High bothered me, and when Perry left for the Great Northwest just before our junior year, I felt the pleasure I used to take in matters like locker combinations and accumulated tardies in the PE teacher’s roll book begin to vanish. The problems I had with other students began to wear me down. Kids would fight in line at the cafeteria, throwing food at each other, the same kids, the swollen ears and fat lips still not healed from the last free-for-all.

  Sometimes I got into fights, too, and I hated it even when I shoved back, face to face with someone way dumber than Earl. When I had the trouble with Mrs. Hean it was the final slap. I was excited about world history, eager to read up on trench warfare and the development of modern weapons. A machine gunner during the Battle of Verdun had a life expectancy of thirty seconds. You would find yourself on active duty in the war at last, squeeze off a few rounds, make sure the ammo belt was feeding properly, and then some Mauser from the trench three hundred yards away would lay a crease down the middle of your helmet. I elected to write my term paper on the history of the machine gun, from the Gattling on down to the Uzi, but focusing on World War One. I got the paper back with You didn’t write this in jagged red letters in the margin, the grade a large, empty zero.

  “I don’t know what book you copied it from,” said Mrs. Hean when I confronted her after class. “But it isn’t your work.”

  I could have had Mom call for a parent conference. I should have had my counselor, Mr. Mendez, point out that my test scores showed me in the upper ninetieth percentile when it came to language skills, despite my so-so grades. I could have stood there in front of Mrs. Hean, a woman with a large, tan-wrinkled face and white hair, and tried to persuade her that she was confusing me with the students who downloaded their reports from some Web site at Yale or the Pentagon, but who would get away with it because they tended to come to class on time.

  Instead, I felt insulted into silence, full of the sense that I was trapped in a school where loud and dangerous slugging matches were punished with half-day suspensions and good work was misidentified as the efforts of a cheat.

  I stood there with the detective, watching the two cars drive off, one with a newly charged battery. I wondered what my life would be like if I could go back in time.

  TWENTY-TWO

  The evening before the arraignment my mom sliced the tomatoes. She put the slices on the white china plate that had belonged to her grandmother.

  Fine cracks covered this yellowish old plate, the sort of china so fine it’s translucent if you hold it up to the light. This was the first time my mother had eaten anything at home in several days, and it was good to have her there, the house shrinking to human size. It was a time like so many others, before my father was hurt. The rest of the neighborhood evaporated, and life was simple: plates, tablecloth, the two of us.

  Mom sliced the tomatoes and then sat gazing into them, not digging in with a fork. She poked at the yellow tomato seeds with a tine, looking like someone who had heard about tomatoes but never actually seen one. I had not told her about the larva attack. I had pulled the tomato plants out of the tubs and thrust them into the compost heap under a tarp in a far corner of the garden.

  I had kept a tomato for myself but chose to eat it like an apple, biting and sucking. It was delicious. A trickle of juice and seeds squirted out of the corners of my mouth, and ordinarily my mother would have said, “Napkin, Zachary,” or “Eat it in the kitchen,” not crabby but in charge.

  Now s
he looked at me dabbing a seed off my chin and smiled, like she was happy at the sight in a weary way. It made me uneasy, this blessed-are-the-slobs attitude, and I wanted to goad her into complaining. I took a horse bite out of the tomato and sucked loudly. And she gave me a smile, a little tired, but real.

  “I read him some Sherlock Holmes today,” she said. She was wearing her aunt’s cross, the cross that had survived the London blitz, and it looked delicate and old-fashioned glittering in the hollow of her neck.

  I used a paper towel on my face. “Did he like that?”

  “We used to read to each other, when we were first married.”

  Stories about the early days of their marriage tended to trouble me in an undefined way, how happy they had been in the student housing, former army barracks, badly heated. The two of them were new to each other, unencumbered by a child. But it didn’t bother me now. She was just trying out a familiar subject, trying to maintain the quiet mood.

  “I was going to cook some of my green beans tonight, but I don’t have quite enough,” I said. I had made dinner, Shake ’n Bake chicken and Minute Rice. I wasn’t proud of the cooking, but it was edible. The thighs and drumsticks turned out pretty good, all crispy.

  “Sofia reads him the newspaper,” Mom said. “The Chronicle. Sits there with it up in front of her face. She reads him the sports page. She reads the baseball standings. She does it badly, ‘Mets one, Padres nothing,’ on and on, not using any verbs.” I could hear Mom’s old impatience with Sofia lingering, coloring the higher-road detachment Mom was trying to keep.

  “Maybe Dad likes listening to her—she could read the want ads and he wouldn’t mind.”

  I had begun avoiding these visits to my father. Even when I wasn’t working for Chief, I had reasons to stay home, weeds to pull, the front lawn to mow and then the back lawn, scattering nitrogen nutriment like handfuls of pink sand. You had to water thoroughly, so the chemical wouldn’t scald the green grass.