Empty Pockets

by Dale Herd

“Ah, you’re all fucked up is what you are,” the longhair said. He was standing up again.

  All four of the white-faced people laughed and turned away, looking for a table of their own. The long-haired guy sat down again.

  That was not an unusual response. They nearly always caused some kind of response, and you never knew what direction it would take.

  The last time I saw them was several months later. It was the Hasty Tasty again. They came in and went into the back. I took my coffee to a table by theirs. The Botticelli-faced girl was telling the other white-faced girl a simple thing about eye contact. She was looking back and forth at me, her green eyes constantly checking when I looked back into them.

  “One of the first things private detectives learn when they are assigned to tail someone,” she said, “is to never establish eye contact, eye contact unsettles the soul, you make eye contact with a man on the street and he thinks you desire him, or,” she said, “if you’re a male, and make eye contact with an older woman she’ll feel flattered, think rape, and hurry away clutching her purse tightly against herself. Can you see me as an older woman clutching my purse to me?”

  She was looking at me as she said this, and she stood up and pantomimed scurrying out the door.

  It was a few seconds before I, along with everyone else, realized what had happened.

  She was gone.

  Then the other three got up, and went out after her, all of them looking very happy.

  Harrah’s Club

  “Heart attack at forty, a massive one. Then a second one. Hell, it was the first one that damn near got me. Now it’s atrial fibrillation. I get that. You know what that is? Your heart skips. It beats without rhythm. I’m living on pills. Heart pills. Blood pills. Nerve pills. I did it to myself, too. No one else. I decided the only thing in life was money and went right for it. And I got it, too. First as a service manager for Toyota, and then with my own agency. Worked twice as many hours as I should have. Drank. Smoked. Did coke. Yeah, that’s right, did coke and dropped like a rock right on the showroom floor. Right on the floor. The second one I spent ninety hospital days on. They had to operate twice. I threw off some clots and they had to go in and get the clots and a fucking staph infection set in in the incision. Isn’t that the way? Yeah, well, it gets pretty damn rough sometimes. ’Cause I just get out and over that and then my wife took it. Went into a coma. Comatose thirty days, then she went, tumor under the brain. That’s why they couldn’t find it, they said. They couldn’t see it. Under the brain. So what can you do? Nothing. Not a goddamn thing. You just get over one thing and something else goes. Sometimes it gets me. We had a lot of plans. There was nothing wrong with her. We both agreed I had to slow down and do something else. It was headed that way. We’d finally worked a lot of things out. Nothing wrong with her. Nothing at all. So what can you do? The kids pretty much have lives of their own. They seem to forget about poor old Dad. I set the oldest one up in business, too. They’re good kids, though. Can’t blame them. I wasn’t any different myself at their age. Who does care about old Dad? Ah, what the hell. I don’t know. I really don’t. I don’t know one good reason why I’m still here. It’s already over. Some goddamn primitive instinct to survive, I guess. Hell, that’s all the past, isn’t it. You can’t think about that crap. You do, you might as well go upstairs and get it over with.”

  How It’s Done

  “Yes, sure, he doesn’t challenge, he just sits and listens. He’s just easy to be around. And when I talk, if what I say doesn’t make sense, well, it just collapses away on its own. And he doesn’t not understand. Because if it’s a true thought, he laughs. I really love his laugh. Did I tell you how we got started? He took me to Olympia and to the hotel downtown and then upstairs after we ate. It was the nicest room they had there, and he sat me in this big velvet overstuffed chair and listened to me the rest of the afternoon, never once trying anything sexual. It was snowing outside, you know, and I talked and talked and then we watched some TV and got in bed together and went to sleep. Isn’t that nice?”

  Immaculate Conception

  “I‘ve blown it, I know I have, I’ve shown you, I’ve told you, I feel love when I see you’re stronger, you make me love you when I see you’re stronger, you do and I hate it, I want to wreck it, I can’t stand it, I do, I want you to want me, that’s how I know I’ve lost.”

  EMPTY POCKETS AND OTHER STORIES

  Dear Anthony

  Dear Anthony,

  Anthony, I am tired of this bullshit between you and Angela Ramirez. Thursday when I came to school people was telling me you are still talking to her and in the bathroom it says I Love Anthony Washington in big black letters and when you are walking out it says ANGELA RAMIREZ—XO—ANTHONY WASHINGTON.

  Anthony, I really don’t know what to do about you. Then your ass gets all mad when I’m with Aaron or talking on the phone to him. I hope you have a lot of fun with Angela because she doesn’t do the things I do. And you know what I mean. I hope she makes you very happy, even though I don’t because I keep on making you mad all the time.

  Anthony, if you do like her let me know now, I don’t want to find out from someone else, I want to see your face when you say it.

  So has she asked you to go to Grad Night with her? If you aren’t still talking to her, or going with her like you say, why is everyone talking you are, or are they trying to matchmake?

  Anthony, how do you think I feel when they are telling me this shit? You think I am just going to let it slip on past? Is that who you gave my bunny rabbit to? Because I don’t have it. Or is it at the store like you said?

  Anthony, the reason why you didn’t get this letter a long time ago was because I wasn’t finished writing it. If I was, you would have got it a hell of a long time ago. The reason why I crossed out your and Angela’s name in the bathroom was because I like you too damned much. That’s why I crossed it out.

  And I guess I should stop coming over to your house when your folks are gone, stop calling you, and stop having you know what I mean with you.

  And nothing is going on between me and Aaron Robinson, no matter what you say! That’s all I have to say! And I am going to stop liking you! You don’t think I can, but you are in for a great big surprise! Well, I am about to end writing this. I will probably talk to you later.

  Love Always,

  Me

  The Prowler

  Michael folded the rug over and pushed it up against the door. He had the bed already made, the pillows shaped like a body under the quilt. He came back and got up on the bed and carefully opened his window. It didn’t make any noise. He held still and listened. He didn’t hear anything.

  He stepped up on the bed, then slid his body out the opening. Turning back around, he eased the window down, and listened.

  Crickets droned from somewhere in the backyard. He could smell his mother’s jasmine. His Ford sat mute next to his mom’s vw and his dad’s Chevy.

  He walked to the bicycle leaning against the carport post and pushed it down the driveway and walked it, going left up the nighttime street.

  The houses along both sides of the street were all dark with only the Keplar’s bedroom lights on.

  Viola Keplar was his mom’s best friend and very weird.

  One afternoon she had come out of her house in a bathrobe just as Michael was coming home from school. As he got out of his car she called him over and asked him what she should do about her husband. Michael had said, “Excuse me?” She said, “I was told you had the highest IQ in the high school so I thought maybe you could help me figure out what to do.”

  Her bathrobe had been partially open and he saw a rounded curve of her breast that was definitely bigger than Beverly’s, and he didn’t know what she wanted, so he said, “I don’t know how I could help you,” and thinking about it now he thought about Gunderson whose thirty-year-old neighbor was sleeping with him every noon hour, or so Gunner said, which was at least partially true, true that she was sleeping with Gunner,
but was that what Vi Keplar had in mind? And the real truth was that he and Beverly had not really had sex, had sexual intercourse, and Vi Keplar scared him.

  Michael wondered what Vi Keplar was doing behind that lighted window. Don Keplar’s car was home. He was probably in the bedroom with her. Of course he was.

  Then Michael was past their house, and he got on the bike and began riding down Winnebago toward Modoc and on Modoc turned left toward town. Beverly was babysitting the Monahan kids on Cherokee Street and by going down Modoc at this time of night there was far less chance of anyone seeing him.

  So far there had been no cars. He looked at his watch again. Ten minutes past one. The night air was cool. The bike moved silently. Headlights appeared down the street and Michael quickly turned up a driveway and got off by the parked car and waited until the car passed by. A dog started barking two houses over.

  Michael got back on the bike and rode it out onto the street and headed toward Cherokee. Beverly’s dad, Glenn, was known to drive by and check on her when she was babysitting, sometimes sitting inside his big Buick down the street, watching. The sound of the barking faded away. Then Michael was turning left along Cherokee and he didn’t see any cars parked where they shouldn’t be. The Monahans had a nice cat that Michael liked. The cat was very friendly to Michael and would always appear when Michael showed up. It was a gray-and-black-striped cat with yellow eyes and would arch its back when Michael rubbed the fur on top of its head right above its eyes. He wondered if it would show up tonight.

  Michael coasted up the driveway, dismounted, and walked the bike into the shadows at the back of the house and placed the bike there.

  He heard the cat purring at his feet and he reached down and picked her up. She lifted easily, and he cradled her with his left arm crossed along his stomach and rubbed her head and neck with his right hand walking her along the back of the house to the sliding glass doors that opened onto the brick patio and the backyard.

  The cat was purring heavily when Beverly came to the door and opened it.

  “I didn’t think you were coming,” she said.

  “I had to make sure that my folks were asleep.”

  “Well, it’s really late,” she said, “and I don’t know what time they’re coming home. They could be here any minute.”

  “I love this cat,” Michael said. He put the cat down.

  Beverly took his hand and led him through the kitchen into the living room.

  “What do you want to do? Should we watch TV?”

  “I don’t know,” Michael said. “What were you doing before I arrived?”

  “Sleeping,” Beverly said. “I tried staying awake, but I fell asleep. I don’t know what woke me up.”

  “Maybe it was the cat,” Michael said. “When did you let her out?”

  “Just before I went to sleep, I guess.”

  “C’mere,” Michael said, and he put his arms around her and she stepped into them and put her head on his chest, and then turned her face up for a kiss. It was a good, long kiss with his tongue going into her mouth and her lips firm and wet against his, and he felt her tongue going into his mouth and he started getting really excited and he felt himself getting hard and they sat down on the couch and the cat jumped up on the arm of the couch and Michael felt it brush itself against the back of his neck and then it was gone and his hands were up inside Beverly’s shirt and he was cupping her breasts and getting even more excited, girls were so wonderful and so strange, how they were built, and how they felt and tasted and smelled, so different, and yet so familiar, and she helped him undo her brassiere, and lifted her shirt and pulled her bra off and offered her left breast to him while she guided his mouth to it with her fingers pulling his head lightly down to it and then it was in his mouth and he thought he was going to come and he pulled back.

  “What’s wrong?” she said.

  “Nothing,” Michael said. “Let me just take a minute.”

  “No!” she laughed, and she pulled him to her again and Michael said, “No, wait for a minute,” and he reached over and turned the floor lamp off so the only light in the room was coming from the light left on in the kitchen, and this time when he put his mouth on her breast he unsnapped his jeans and let his cock come out and she put her hand on it and touched it and slowly pulled on it and he lifted her skirt up and pulled her underwear down and she laid back on the couch and let him pull the underwear off along both legs over her shoes and she kept holding on to him and pulled on him and then he was lying on top of her and slowly rubbing himself back and forth on her and they were kissing and he felt something stopping him and she winced and he pushed again and said, “Am I in?” And Beverly said, “No, I don’t think so.”

  “No?”

  “Maybe,” Beverly said. “I don’t know. I don’t think so, but I’m not sure.”

  “I’ll go slow,” Michael said.

  “I don’t know. Maybe we shouldn’t,” she said.

  Michael had not yet ever been inside a girl, and this would be the first time for Beverly, too, and he lay still against her for a moment in the dark, feeling her heart beating and her breathing, and then he heard the cat meow and meow again and then car headlights swept into the driveway outside and Beverly said, “Oh, my God!” and was pushing him off, and Michael said, “Jesus!” and she was sitting up and then scrambling on the floor for her underwear and he grabbed his jeans, pulling them up, and she said, “Hurry, Michael, hurry! Go out the back. They’ll come in the front door and it’s locked.”

  Michael was already moving, and going into the kitchen he saw the car lights go out and heard the car door open and slam shut and he waited by the back door until he heard the other car door open and shut with the footsteps going away on the concrete toward the front of the house.

  As he slid the door open the cat came outside with him and he silently tried to put her back inside but she wouldn’t go. He slid the door closed and waited. The cat was rubbing herself back and forth on his leg and he heard them go inside the house and saw the light from the living room go on and he waited another moment, his heart still beating really fast, and whispered, “I’ve got to go,” to the cat.

  He got the bike and wheeled it down the side of the house along the Monahan’s Chrysler and got on and started pedaling back up the street.

  The cat, running on the side of the street along the other houses, darting in and out among the shrubbery, followed him for several blocks and then she was gone.

  Michael was pedaling now as fast as he could get the bike to go. Everything was dark out and he felt safe. His only worry now was getting home unseen, then getting inside without waking anyone. But what if his mom had already come in to check on him and had discovered the pillows under the covers? Or his dad had?

  Well, he would know in a few minutes. He really hoped they hadn’t.

  He was sweating under his arms and sweat broke out on his forehead now, and he pushed hard, the bike flying, and by Paul Hayes’s house the automatic lawn sprinklers went on, shooting spray out across the grass and into the street. Michael rode through the showers, the little drops hitting his face and neck and arms, and then he came off Modoc and turned down Winnebago, all the lights of the houses still out except for the Keplar’s bedroom window, and then it went out just as Michael approached, and he coasted on the bike, not wanting them to hear him.

  Then, for some reason, not knowing why he was doing it, he let the bike slow, and dropped it on the grass right by the curb and walked up to the bedroom window.

  There was a curtain across it, and stepping up to the sill he pressed his ear to the glass and tried to listen. Someone was saying something, but it was too hard to hear, and then there was nothing, and then, just as Michael started to step back, he heard Don Keplar say, “Say I am fucking. Say it. Say I am fucking.” And then Vi Keplar said, “I am fucking.”

  “Say it again,” Don Keplar said.

  “I am fucking,” Vi Keplar said. Her voice had gasps of air in it.
>
  Michael was stunned.

  He pulled away from the glass. He couldn’t believe it. He pressed his ear against the glass again. This time there was nothing. He couldn’t hear anything. He stayed there a moment longer. Then he turned and banged into a garbage can.

  Michael took off out onto the lawn, grabbed up his bike and ran across the street with it. Moving into the carport he saw his dad’s Chevy was gone. Oh, Jesus, he thought, he’s gone out to look for me.

  A car went by on the street, headlights flaring. It was a black four-door Oldsmobile, not anyone’s car he knew. The street went quiet, the sound of the car vanishing. Michael laid the bike up against the post, then walked around back to his window. He waited and listened. The crickets were working. The smell of jasmine was strong. He slid the window up. The rug was still pushed up against the door. No one had looked in, thank God.

  He boosted himself up and slid in on his stomach and got down on the bed and waited until his breathing calmed down. Where had his dad gone? He undressed and tossed his clothes on the floor and got into bed and lay there for quite a while, thinking about his dad and how there was no way he would know that he, Michael, had gone out, and about Beverly and what she must have said, if she had got caught or not, and then about Vi Keplar and Don Keplar and how somehow that made it all sound dirty, really dirty, and how with Beverly it didn’t feel like that at all, and if he and Beverly had really done it yet, had really achieved the sensation of having arrived on the planet, as Gunner had put it, and he was really glad he really didn’t know Vi Keplar and how she was, not at all, and that Beverly was going to be babysitting at the Monahan’s for at least two more nights this week since both of the Monahans were working out at the county fair, and that he would have to sneak out of the house much earlier than he had tonight. He could do that. He knew he would do that.