Portland Noir

by Kevin Sampsell

  “You just think you can fix this,” he said. “Baby, it’s been fifty years. She’s so dead she’s not even a person anymore, just bones buried somewhere. And he’s probably dead or senile or moved on. Why can’t you just let it go?”

  “Because!” I answered. “Because … I don’t know why. Except that I can’t. They lived in this house, in our house, and they did all the things we do, and Julia’s dead and Henry knows the truth. And I want to know the truth too.”

  Josh ducked back into the bathroom. I heard him spitting out toothpaste, running the faucet. I turned off my bedside lamp and snuggled under the covers, closing my eyes. I was facing the wall. Maybe he would take the hint.

  When he returned to the bedroom, he turned off the light and got into bed next to me. He reached over to hug me, and I felt the slight dampness on his face. He had strong arms. That was something I’d always liked about him, and I could feel his strength now when he put his arms around me. After the brief embrace, he reached over me, to my nightstand. He picked up the picture of Julia, brought it over to his side of the bed, and put it into a drawer in his nightstand. I heard him close the drawer. Then he turned back to me, buried his face in my hair, and took the night’s deep breath. I pressed my back into him, to feel him next to me. The way we curved together, like two cats asleep together.

  “Let’s just sleep, okay?” he whispered. “We’ll wake up tomorrow and forget all this.”

  Obviously I couldn’t tell Josh anything more, I decided. I left Julia’s picture in his nightstand. I didn’t even try to sneak it out when Josh wasn’t home, just in case he’d somehow know. That was all right, though; I’d looked at the picture enough to have it practically memorized. And now I knew they were Henry and Julia Lewis, I didn’t need the photo anyway. There were other ways to find Henry. Julia I didn’t need to find; I already knew where she was. The newspaper obit had been brief and to the point. Donations, please, to the ASPCA; service at St. George’s; buried in a cemetery not far from here. I kept meaning to go to her grave, but somehow I never found the time.

  Henry, though, Henry was harder. He hadn’t owned a house in Portland, that I could tell, for at least a decade. He didn’t have a hunting or fishing or pilot’s license. He didn’t have any court records. He hadn’t gotten sued or tried to sue anyone. Not even a parking ticket! The librarians and court clerks were tired of me; I’d visited the Oregonian twice more; and I’d called the St. Johns Sentinel, as well as some of the other neighborhood papers. I was starting to think he was dead.

  I was running almost every night now. I looked at each house I passed, wondering if he lived in any of them. I puffed schoolyard chants under my breath, with his name: Henry and Julia, sitting in a tree … Mr. Henry had a steamboat … Sometimes I chanted aloud, softly. The people I passed by looked at me oddly, but the chants helped me stay focused, helped me keep my pace up. At night I thought I saw her form standing at our kitchen counter, or ducking into the bathroom. Stupid, of course. The house had been renovated since she’d lived in it; the rooms probably weren’t even arranged in the same way as they were back then. My kitchen wasn’t her kitchen; it was and wasn’t the same house.

  Sometimes, when I got very tired, I just used their names as a cadence, over and over. Henry and Julia, Henry and Julia, Henry and Julia. They had shared something, some burden. I wanted to be the one to lift it from them, to take it for them.

  “I found a Henry Lewis,” Josh said one night at the dinner table. It was dark out, far darker than where we’d lived downtown, where the streetlights fuzzed out the stars. We were eating spaghetti with meatballs, one of the few recipes I could make well. Josh held a forkful of pasta up to his mouth, examined it for a second, and ate it.

  “What?” I said. I almost spilled my wine on my T-shirt. “You found Henry? My Henry?”

  Josh shook his head. He was wearing a T-Shirt emblazoned with The Shins, one of Portland’s favorite indie-rock bands. Personally, I hated them, but that’s not the kind of thing you could really say in Portland, where indie musicians who manage to chart are the closest thing to gods. I’d never told Josh how I felt about them.

  Josh shrugged, chewing. After he swallowed, he spoke again. “I don’t know if it’s your Henry Lewis, but it’s a Henry Lewis. He’s about the right age, and he lives in St. Johns, so maybe it’s your guy.”

  My eyes welled with tears. “How did you find him? I didn’t even know you were looking.” I felt overwhelmed to think we’d been searching for the same thing after all. It made me immensely grateful.

  A shrug. “I didn’t so much find him as he fell into my lap,”

  Josh replied. “When I was at Roosevelt High this week.”

  I nodded. We’d both approved of his volunteer activities; it was like giving back—and coincidentally, I told myself, if it helped raised the high school’s test scores, it would also raise our property values.

  “Well, one of the volunteer clubs there helped out Meals on Wheels for a few weeks. Some kind of senior project or something. And one of the guys getting delivered to is this Henry Lewis guy. Kid says he’s short, a little fat, definitely old. Never tips or makes cookies for the kids or anything. It’s just him, alone. So I got the kid to give me the address. They’re not supposed to, but I made up some bullshit story about reconciling the group’s gas expenditures and their status as a school group. Easy.”

  Josh took a folded piece of paper out of his pocket and slid it across the table to me. Henry Lewis, 9911 N. Central, in some kid’s messy blue-inked scrawl. It had been two months since we’d found the photograph and the note.

  I got up from my chair and circled around the table to hug Josh. “Thank you,” I whispered into his ear. A strand of his hair got into my mouth, laying the taste of shampoo onto my tongue.

  Henry Lewis lived alone, in a white bungalow less than a mile away. From the outside the houses looked similar; a lot of houses in St. Johns had been built off the same or only slightly modified plans. It had been the kind of neighborhood where people just wanted to own a house of their own, whether or not five others on their block were identical.

  I felt like I was ten again, knocking on his door. I’d sold Girl Scout cookies back then, back when we still went door-to-door, our moms in the cars behind us. I knocked once and got no answer, so I knocked again, harder this time. “Mr. Lewis?” I called out. I was wearing gray slacks and a light sweater, pale pink, with short sleeves. Nice, nonthreatening, neutral.

  Shuffling noises inside. The door opened with a creak, and he stood in the doorway. So this was Henry Lewis. He looked his age; his skin was lined and saggy, the wrinkles especially deep around his mouth. Most of his hair was gone, except for fringes of gray around the bottom of his head. He wore jeans and a faded red T-shirt and bright white sneakers, the kind that people who think walking in the mall is exercise wear.

  I waited for him to say something. Nothing came.

  “Mr. Lewis,” I started. “My name is Allison Priest, and my husband and I just moved into 9535 North Leonard.”

  Nothing.

  “Your old house?” I hated myself for making that a question, but it skipped out before I could stop it. “It was yours, right?”

  He nodded.

  “Well, I’m hoping I can ask you a few questions about Julia.” I pulled the photo out of my purse. “We found this in the walls. It’s Julia, isn’t it?”

  No nod this time, he just motioned me in. The living room was in shade. Not dark, exactly, but with a certain yellow light, a bit dim. Henry Lewis sat down in a brown easy chair; the velour on the arms was faded. The way he sat, his gut protruded forward. I saw a cane in the corner, though he hadn’t carried it to the door. I stood for a moment, trying to adjust to the light. I sat down on a blue sofa, across from him. The cushions were firmer than I’d expected.

  “I’m here about Julia,” I said.

  “Julia’s dead,” he replied. He made a noise, half clicking and half sucking, with his cheek.
/>   “I know,” I said. “And I know you were involved.”

  He snorted. “Involved all right.”

  “What does that mean? What happened?”

  He glared at me. “You a reporter? Cop? Lawyer?”

  I had been leaning toward him, but now sat back in surprise. “No, of course not. I fix bikes.”

  He shook his head, a slight sneer on his lips. “Women shouldn’t do that sort of thing. Can’t fix anything worth a damn.”

  I felt the old defensiveness rise in my throat. Steady, he’s old. Steady. “How were you involved in her death?”

  Was he falling asleep? His eyes were closed, and his head seemed to nod forward.

  I raised my voice: “How did she die? What happened?”

  His head was still down, and now he seemed to be wheezing. Unreal. I wanted to poke him with something, but the room was bare. “Hey, you!” I spoke as loudly as I could, to try to wake him. “What do you mean, involved? What does involved mean?” I was shouting by the end of the sentence, I knew. I could feel my muscles tighten up all over.

  His head snapped up. “I killed her, you fool. You stupid woman, I killed her.”

  When I tried to speak, my throat was so dry the words got stuck. I tried again. “You did kill her? You did it?”

  He nodded. “Yep.”

  “But—the note? And the photo, under the wallpaper?” I heard the wail in my own voice. “I found them. The truth, you said. You both knew the truth.”

  Henry Lewis chuckled, a wheezy sound, reedy and almost boyish. “That was just my little joke,” he said. “Julia and I were the only ones who knew. Everyone else thought they knew—but they never knew why, or how. And they never knew what I knew: she deserved it. She knew it too, knew I was gonna do it and knew she deserved it.”

  He shifted, settled back into his chair.

  “I’d been seeing this little yellow-haired gal on the side.

  Sally or Sara or something. Anyway, she’d been good to me, real good. Better’n Julia ever was. Me and Julia were high school sweethearts, got married, I went to work. Dumb kids. We didn’t know nothing. After we got married, well, Julia just about froze up. In bed she was nothing, just laid there, and she kept a terrible house. She hated it here, y’see. She hated the rain in the winter, hated the dampness. I told her we’d leave, but after we got married I started working for the railroad, and the money was too good to give up. I told her we were staying put. She didn’t like that, and she just froze up on me then. When she wasn’t froze, she was crying. When she wasn’t crying, she was screaming. Man has a right to his house, to some peace and quiet. And Sally moved in a few doors down, and she was three years younger than Julia, still in high school. Pretty, sweet. Sally liked a man with some spending money. Julia found out. I told her I had a right to a girl who wanted me. She said she’d divorce me, take all my money, get me fired. All this crap.”

  He paused. I couldn’t say anything. There was no sound from outside, either.

  A cough, and he began again. “One day I came home from work and killed her. Hit her on the head with a frying pan.” That wheezy dry chuckle. “She went down in a heap. I remember the blood came from her head here”—he pointed to a spot above his left ear—“like it was a drinking fountain. I wiped off my fingerprints and dropped the frying pan and ran outta there to pick up Sally for a movie. When I came home, I called the police and said I’d just found her like that, and that I hadn’t been home at all that day cause I’d been out with my girlfriend. Sally backed me up—pretty girl, but dumb as dumb—and they could never prove a thing.”

  “So the truth was that …?”

  “The truth was that I killed her. She knew I was gonna do it, right up until I did it. And then she was dead and by God she really knew it. She wouldn’t ever cross me no more.” The chuckle again, and now its thinness sounded like wires rubbing against each other, scraping and raw. “Some people thought it was me, sure enough, but couldn’t no one ever prove it. And no one ever knew how much that bitch needed killing.”

  I could feel the tears begin in me, the pressure building in my eyes and my sinuses. I swallowed, and my spit seemed to grate along my throat.

  “What’s so funny about that?” I asked. “How is that a joke?”

  He just wheezed and shook his head some more. I felt the hair on my arms stand up, but I forced my face into impassivity.

  “None of my other girlfriends or wives ever tried any of that shit with me again,” he said at last. “Expect they heard about Julia and knew they’d have to shape up. Buried two wives, had girlfriends the whole time. They knew how to keep quiet.”

  “You kept cheating?” I asked. I took pride in my voice’s evenness.

  “Hell, I’m a man, ain’t I? All men cheat.”

  “Mine doesn’t,” I said.

  Henry Lewis laughed out loud, a choking sound that brought up something from deep in his lungs. “He cheats,” Henry Lewis said. “You ain’t caught him, but he cheats.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  The wheezing chuckle now, with a shake of the head. “Little girl, you ain’t know shit about men. You and Julia, thinking you can tell a man what to do, how to act. No one can! That’s what makes us men.”

  “Why are you telling me this? If they never caught you, why are you telling me this now?”

  “Maybe just cause I feel like.” He gave me a hard look.

  “You come in here with your little purse and your expensive haircut and the way you pretend you belong here. You ain’t here. None of you are here. It’s like a play for you folks. And maybe I just feel like reminding you it ain’t. Now get out. I’ve got better things to do than teach you how the world is.”

  I stood up, smoothing my pants with my left hand. I gave him a hard, long look; he returned part of it, then turned away. Not scared. Bored. He had killed her, and he didn’t even try to deny it. I suppose no one could touch him now, more than fifty years later. Who would believe me, anyway? He started reading a TV Guide as I stood there. He was old now, a lifetime older. I was fit, twenty-seven, healthy.

  I watched him for a moment.

  “You’re Julia now,” I hissed. He looked up, turning a page. I walked over to him, ripped the magazine from his hands, and tore it in half. The paper was all twisted in my hands.

  He didn’t move, not even his face. That same bored look. He wheezed when he breathed, and his knuckles seemed too big for his hands. The whites of his eyes looked dull, like overcooked eggs. I was panting, my breath like sandpaper in my throat. He gave me another second of that vacancy, then closed his eyes and folded his hands on his chest, as if he were going to sleep. I dropped the mangled magazine, turned, and walked stiffly out of the house, banging the screen door behind me. I could still hear him wheeze.

  Josh was sitting at the dining room table at home, going over swatches of paint. I saw shades of eggplant spread out before him. Very tasteful, all of them. They were for the living room; we were hoping to paint next week. He looked up at me. He was wearing his oldest jeans, the ones all torn up at the hem that my mother thinks make him look like a tightwad. A piece of a leaf perched on top of his brown hair.

  “How’d it go?” he asked me, his hands flat on the table now.

  “He did it,” I answered. I took the seat opposite Josh. “He admits it, doesn’t even care anymore. We bought a fucking murderer’s house. One who lives all of fourteen blocks away.” I could feel the heat in my eyes, the quiver trying to move my chin.

  Josh shrugged. “We bought the house, we bought the house,” he said. “Anyway, Lewis is an old coot now. He can’t do anything to us. And if he tried, I’d fix him.” Josh grinned at me. His teeth were so white, so very white, that I thought I could see my reflection in their gleam. Like a dog’s teeth, constantly wet and shining. He stood up, walked over to me, and gave me a quick one-armed hug.

  Then Josh swept out of the dining room; I heard him rooting around the fridge, pulling something out. A pop, a fizz. A c
an of beer, then. The drink gurgled going down his throat. I heard the backdoor open, then close. Maybe he was sitting on the back porch. Maybe he was just standing in the kitchen.

  Henry Lewis was within a few hundred meters of us, somewhere, maybe a kilometer or so at most. He too could be on his porch this night, drinking a beer and thinking of nothing.

  The backdoor banged open, then slammed shut. I couldn’t hear Josh anymore. I didn’t know where he was. The dining room was almost all dark now. My hands began to shake. I couldn’t stop them.

  WATER UNDER THE BRIDGE

  BY ARIEL GORE

  Clinton

  The kids lined the wall outside the Clinton Street Theater in the sepia-lit mist, waiting to see The Rocky Horror Picture Show. The girls with their big purple hair and skimpy dresses; the boys in tight black bodices or boxy leather jackets. Cold November night. They clutched their rolled-up newspapers and cups of rice, hid water guns in their pockets. I squinted at them through the drizzle—a time warp to the ’90s, to the ’80s, to the ’70s. Bygone eras. I ducked into the dim red of Dots Café, slipped into a soft gold booth. The waitress had a tattoo of a hamburger on her shoulder. She nodded at me. “The usual?”

  I winked up at her. Absolute martini. And spicy fries with tofu sauce.

  As she walked away from me, I tried to recall when it was that I’d gone from being a housewife who’d occasionally sneak out for a midnight drink to a regular with a “usual.” I glanced around the joint. Marie Claire, the sexy Midwesterner who ran the Italian restaurant on the corner, sipped a Rumba with one of her young dishwashers. Wilhelm, the frumpy commercial landlord from down on Powell Boulevard, sat alone, adjusted his Coke-bottle glasses as he studied the menu. Nameless hipsters huddled at their smoky tables, too cool with their bleached fashion mullets and pegged pants. I once read in Nylon magazine that you can’t get away with retro fashion if you’re old enough to have worn it the first time. Puts me out of the running for skinny jeans and dangling earrings, I guess. I looked down at my boot-cut cords, fingered the oversized holes in my lobes. For all appearances, a washed-up ’90s girl. I’d recently signed up for NiftyWebFlicks, so I averted my eyes when the bearded guy from Clinton Street Video walked in. He sauntered up to the bar to drown his sorrows. A bygone business, video rental.