On the Loose

by Andrew Coburn

  Barry served brandy in snifters. His paintings were on the walls. Intriguing to Gloria was a ren dition of the Dead End Kids as disjointed cherubs. More intriguing was one of Mickey Rooney and Judy Garland as Adam and Eve, Adam's detached penis turning into the snake, making him the seducer, not Eve.

  "Interesting supposition," Gloria said. "I believe it's true."

  "Where did you two meet?" Trish asked.

  "Here," Stirling said.

  Barry took them into a bedroom to see what he called his masterpiece. It was an abstract of the sun imploding, time grinding into pieces, into a confusion of fiery shards and shivers, the past scrambled with the present, all of it stunning to the eye.

  "Eerie in a festive way," Gloria said. "I like it."

  "Critics aren't so kind," he said. "Shall I tell them what one said to my face?"

  "Up to you," Stirling murmured.

  "He said I paint dogshit and pretend it has thoroughbred meaning. A wonderful line, I must admit."

  "And cruelly unfair," Stirling added.

  Gloria liked them both, especially Barry. Trish preferred Stirling, whose reserve and dignified manner she found endearing rather than intimidating. Barry frequently invited them over for lunch prepared by Stirling, who made his own salad dressing, poppy seeds an ingredient. Desserts were custards, bits of orange on top.

  One afternoon the four of them sailed on a small cruise boat to one of the islets, where Barry and Gloria snorkled in the reef. Stirling and Trish stayed on deck and chatted about their childhoods. His, Stirling said, had been idyllic and more so as he grew older. Hers, Trish said, had had its ups and downs, nothing really traumatic, though adolescence, full of female upheaval and change, not to mention boys hitting on her, had been a bitch.

  "Adolescence I could have done without," Stirling said.

  Her smile responded to his. "Know something? I wish you were straight."

  "No, you don't," he said softly.

  Gloria's head popped out of the ocean, and soon she was climbing the ladder to the deck. Removing her mask, she said, "We saw a school of barracudas. Fantastic!"

  "I was scared to death," Barry said. "She wasn't."

  On the short ride back to the pier Barry and Stirling stood alone together in their swim trunks at the rail. Gloria whispered, "Christ, they've got better bodies than we do."

  A few days later Stirling, who spoke fluent Spanish, took Trish grocery shopping in Cubantown while Brian sketched Gloria in the nude. She lay on a draped ottoman as if asleep, a hand behind her head. Brian did several rapid sketches from different angles and seemed pleased with the results, which he showed to her when she was back in her clothes.

  "Some women have melons," he said, "you have pears.-

  "I was always jealous of Trish. She has melons."

  "You and Trish are beautiful women."

  "You and Stirling are beautiful men. You two seem very happy."

  Barry turned away and placed the sketches in a drawer. "We put on a good front. Stirling is HIV positive."

  Gloria felt a stab, as if it came from the back. "Oh, shit. I'm sorry, Barry."

  "He won't talk about it, so don't you either."

  "I promise," she said and stepped close to him.

  "Hug me," he said. "I'm the one who's going to be left."

  "I want to get out of here," Trish said when Gloria told her.

  "Soon as we can." Then she began to cry, the tears angry. She had been putting away groceries. Peppers spilled from a bag. "I don't want to see them again. I don't want to look at Stirling. He's going to die."

  "Not yet. Who knows when?"

  "Don't you understand? I can't deal with it. I came here for the sun, not the dark."

  "Trish, you're being unreasonable."

  "Can't help it."

  "We're not supposed to know, so don't say anything."

  "Then why did you tell me?"

  Two days later Gloria made excuses when Barry and Stirling invited them out for an evening at Sloppy Joe's, and another time when Barry sug gested dinner at Fiorini's. The excuses hurt her. In the week that they were to leave she spoke privately to Barry and blamed the early departure on money.

  "We all have those problems," he said as she read his face.

  "But you're not buying it."

  "Yes, I am. It's whatever you say."

  "It's not the money," she said starkly, "it's Trish. I think she's in love with Stirling."

  "Women usually are. I suppose you passed on what I told you."

  "Yes, and she can't handle it. No surprise. One husband left her, and the other died on her."

  "Then we won't say anything to Stirling. We'll let it be the money." He smiled and extended his arms. "Do I get another hug?"

  "Only if I get one back."

  When she returned to the house Trish was watching a sitcom, a bombardment of inanities. Her hair was pulled back and held with a rubber band. She was in pajamas, her toenails newly painted. "Don't say anything," she said. "I know. I'm a coward."

  At the end of the week a taxi took them to the little airport. They arrived early and had a bit of a wait, no coffee available. Trish chewed gum. "I didn't say good-bye."

  "I did," Gloria said.

  Finally they boarded the airplane, squeezed into small seats, and listened to the propellers start to whirr. When the plane left the ground for the flight to Miami, Trish said, "Let's never come back."

  From Connecticut Trish entered a lengthy telephone conversation with Ben Sawhill. "I feel I'm going somewhere," she said, "but it's on the Titanic."

  "Financially speaking, you could be absolutely right," Ben said. He was preparing a budget for her, guidelines he said she must follow if she wanted to remain comfortably solvent.

  "Why did Harry have to leave everything to the kid?"

  "It was his call."

  "I'm not complaining, honest, merely feeling sorry for myself. At least I came away with something from my first marriage."

  "You came away with a lot. Don't blow it."

  She carried the phone away from the patio and into the sun. Much rain had fallen recently, with trees propelling into leaf, greening overnight. "Gloria's in the same boat," she said. "Can you do anything for her?"

  "Gloria's your business. Nothing to do with me."

  "Am I family, Ben?"

  "Yes, you're family."

  "Your responsibility?"

  "Don't depend on it," he said. "By the way, someone in the town was asking after you. He seemed concerned about you."

  She laughed, her eye on the lowest branch of a maple where a cardinal burned through the leaves. "Not that silly minister, I hope."

  "It was Jim Morgan. The police chief."

  She watched the cardinal fly away, a live ember. "He was kind. I'm afraid I wasn't."

  "He probably expected that. You're from the Heights. I told him you were wintering in paradise."

  "It could've been, but the scales were tipped. He's handsome, isn't he?"

  "The chief? Depends on what you call handsome. He's a widower."

  "We have something in common. Tell him I'm fine." Following a breeze, she drifted ghostlike from sun to shade. Another spring, the green reinventing itself, which put a turn in her mood. "Ben, stay on the line."

  "I can't. I have a client waiting."

  "Ben, I'm coming home."

  It was Bobby Sawhill's sixteenth birthday. Dibble and Sharon wished him a happy one, and Dibble gave him a slice of cake from the kitchen. Sharon gave him a kiss on the ear. Certain emotions were too much for him, and he looked away. When Dibble left them alone, Bobby said, "I didn't know it was treat time."

  "Dibs arranged it with Mr. Grissom."

  Bobby gestured toward the writing table. "I can sit there now. I don't have to ask."

  "Terrific. You've got the world by the balls." She shed her clothes and helped him out of his. On the cot she spoke in his ear, the one she had kissed. "No more titty, all right? Mr. Grissom says it's time to be grown-
up."

  Bobby felt embarrassment and a twinge of resentment. "It's my birthday. Why can't I do what I want? Why can't we do what we always do and not tell him?"

  "Because he's the boss and you're sixteen. You don't need baby ways. You're not afraid of me, are you?"

  "I love you," he said.

  She stroked his hair and ran a finger around the shell of his ear. "All the boys do, you most of all, Bobby. But I'm not your mommy." Her hand wandered down and made his part stand at its fullest. "Your mommy wouldn't do that, would she?"

  "I was too little."

  "But you're big now, almost as big as Dibs."

  "No, I'm not. I'll never be as big as Dibs."

  "That's all in your mind." She still had her briefs

  on. They were vaporish. "Take them off for me." Helping him, she lifted one knee and then the other. "Would you like to lick my envelope?"

  He knew what she meant and thought about it. "No."

  "Dibs does." When he didn't answer, she said, "No rush."

  She fitted him with a condom, what the big boys wear, which pleased him. With coaxing she got him on her and with maneuvering into her. She swung her legs around him and locked her ankles. He began to tremble. "Go ahead, Bobby, you know what to do." He seemed stricken. His eyes were squeezed shut, his body taut, toes dug in. "Kiss Mommy," she whispered and broke the spell. Mo ments later he was gasping, and she was patting his butt. "Good boy," she said.

  Lately, Bobby had been having a recurrent dream in which he teetered on what seemed the edge of himself, only threads keeping him from whirling off into a vastness that was inside him instead of out, a vastness where he would be alone forever, no Sherwood, no Dibble, no Sharon. He told Dibble about it and asked what it meant.

  "Means you're fucked up. What else is new?"

  "Are you fucked up, Dibs?"

  Dibble snorted. "Would I be here if I wasn't?"

  "You have dreams like mine?"

  "I don't tell people my dreams. You shouldn't either."

  They were in the laundry room. Dibble was running T-shirts, jeans, sweats, socks, and underwear through the washer, which was built for much bigger loads. He didn't want his clothes running through the same water with others, not even Bobby's, even though he and Bobby sometimes shared spit.

  He said, "You got money? Get me a soda?"

  Bobby always had money, a small monthly allowance from his uncle, half of which he spent on Dibble, sometimes more. The soft drink machine was near the door, Pepsi the only selection. He returned with one, glum-faced.

  "I miss Duck."

  "Sure you do, it's natural." Dibble took a swig of the Pepsi and shared it. "You think there're no toi lets up in heaven? Sure there are, and Duck's in charge."

  "You don't believe in heaven."

  "I'm trying to make you feel good."

  "If he's not in heaven, where is he?"

  "Nowhere. That's what dead is."

  "Yes," Bobby said. "I forgot."

  An hour later, back in their room, Bobby sorted and matched Dibble's socks, and Dibble arranged them in his wall locker, everything in it neatly placed. A calendar hung on the inside of one of the doors, no days crossed off, no entries. In a dry voice, Dibble said, "Another five months I'm out of here. What d'you think of that?"

  "No," Bobby said with alarm. "It's too soon."

  "They're going to send me to a halfway house, get me ready for the real world. Neighborhood I come from, Sawhill, people expect to get killed. It happens, they got no complaints. Only the families do."

  "I don't want you to go, Dibs."

  "I gotta be a productive member of society. I'll work at a fucking McDonald's or a Star Market. Or maybe I'll work toilets like Duck did."

  "Not you, Dibs. Never."

  "No, not me. I'll get lucky and hit Megabucks."

  Bobby said nothing. Finished with the socks, he began folding sweats, smoothing them with his fingertips, breathing in the redolence of detergent, a kind of pink smell.

  "When I'm gone," Dibble said, "you stay away from drugs. They'll be trying to get to you."

  "There's none here."

  "Sure there are. Dorm C. Guys there deal. I protect you from them. I'm gone, you protect yourself."

  "What if I can't?"

  "You worry too much."

  "You love me, Dibs?"

  "I love me first, then maybe you."

  "I love you first, I don't know about me."

  A pillow propping his back, Dibble spent the next hour with his face pressed into a book while Bobby lay with his eyes shut, their cots no more than six feet apart, though for Bobby it was like an ocean. When he felt tears start, he stopped them. Then Dibble put out the light.

  "G'night."

  Without asking, Bobby left his bed for Dibble's and was not repulsed. Dibble tossed an arm around him. Strange night sounds came through the open window. For some reason birds were still awake.

  "Ever wonder why guys here don't try to escape?" Dibble said. "They got no reason to. This is home."

  CHAPTER NINE

  It was a bad year for Chief Morgan. Investigating a charge of spousal abuse in the Heights, he tried to comfort the bruised wife and abruptly found her sobbing in his arms, which led to a relationship that put him in trouble with her husband, who was high profile, the ballplayer Crack Alexander.

  Worse was a tangled affair with another woman from the Heights, Arlene Bowman, who wore crisp white shirts tucked into designer jeans that individually cost more than the sole dress suit in Morgan's closet. With her he was a pawn in a spiteful game she was playing more with herself than with her husband, diversion a high priority in her life, as if it were beneficial to her health.

  His behavior caused talk in the town and was a favorite topic among regulars at the Blue Bonnet, their imaginations rampant behind his back. Randolph Jackson, chairman of the selectmen, told him to watch his step, too many rumors flying about. Meg O'Brien, shutting his office door behind her, took him to task.

  "What is it, Jim? Middle-age crisis?"

  That was in the winter. He hated winters. They wiped away gardens. The summer was worse. One of his officers, Matt MacGregor, died by his own hand, mismanagement of his gun, an unauthorized Magnum. Some in town believed it was suicide and accused the chief, though not to his face, of a cover-up. Malcolm Crandall, the town clerk, whispered that he was incompetent.

  Kind words came from an unexpected quarter. Ben Sawhill stopped by the station one day, and they had coffee together in Morgan's office, the door closed. Ben said, "If there's anything I can do."

  "I'm OK," Morgan said. "I tend to ride these things out."

  "I wouldn't want to see another face behind that desk."

  "Nor would I. How's your sister-in-law?"

  "She's back and doing better. We all know what killed Harry. It was my nephew."

  Morgan turned several pages on his calendar pad to bring it up to date. "Could have been the booze."

  "Doctor at the Lahey said it was his heart, no surprise. It broke when Bobby's mother died. The booze held it together." The expression on Ben's face deepened. "What I really came to say is I hope there's no hard feelings. We had our differences over Bobby. We were all pretty emotional at the time."

  "How's he doing at Sherwood?"

  "Not bad, I guess. The administrator, fella named Grissom, says he gets into no trouble but refuses to take counseling. They can't force it on him."

  "You sound worried."

  Ben leaned forward and placed his coffee mug on the desk. "You were probably right about Mrs. Bullard. I think Bobby killed her too. The horrifying thing is we may never know why."

  "I wonder if he knows."

  "Maybe not. That's even worse."

  Morgan reached into a bottom drawer of his desk and pulled up an unopened bottle, the cap sealed. "I don't drink myself, but this is twelveyear-old scotch. I stopped an Andover guy for speeding, and he tried to bribe me with it. I wrote him up and confiscated the bottle."

>   "Pour a little in my coffee," Ben said.

  Morgan unscrewed the cap, breaking the seal. The taste of hard liquor had never appealed to him, but he poured some for himself too. "Cheers."

  Ben, smiling, said, "I'm surprised that ballplayer didn't come after you with a bat."

  "Don't think I didn't worry about it," Morgan said.

  Crossing the green from opposite directions, they met by chance. A warm wind blew her hair back and gave her face more meaning. She was wearing a thick off-white sweater and dark trousers. Morgan said, "I didn't think you'd remember me."

  "Your face," Trish Becker said, "is burnt into my mind. The face that told me Harry was dead."

  "As I remember, you wouldn't let me tell you."

  "You were trying so hard to be sensitive to the situation, and I slammed the door on you. Shall we, fora moment?"

  A bench was nearby. They sat on it. A short distance away teenagers clustered around another bench. The girls, wearing Spandex, no breath for their bodies, chattered over and around their chewing gum. The boys wore ball caps askew.

  "Remember when you were that age, Chief? My father defined adolescence as normal insanity. Do you have children?"

  "No."

  "I have a son and daughter, both busy being angry and misunderstood. My son should've finished college a year ago, but he took time off at his father's expense. Their father feels guilt so he gives them everything. They visited me in July but didn't stay long. They got bored."

  "Not much for them to do here," Morgan said. "Young people from the Heights and those of the town don't mingle. They simply don't know each other."

  Trish viewed him with her head tossed to one side, a hand on her hair. "Now that Harry's gone you're the only townie I know. I mean, besides Ben, but I don't consider him one. Do you?"

  "I guess I do. Habit. Did you take back your own name, or are you Mrs. Sawhill?"

  "I've always been Trish Becker, the name I was born with, damn proud of it." She watched random leaves rattle past her feet. A gray squirrel scampered across the walkway. "I have a friend living with me. She sold her house in Connecticut and moved in. A great way for us to economize. We're counting our pennies. Who lives with you, Chief?"