The Hanging Tree

by Bryan Gruley

  Dozens of photographs, plaques, pennants, and certificates crowded the plaster wall behind Wally’s wooden desk. Most of the pictures hung in cheap black frames at haphazard angles: Wally posing on a rink with his hockey pals; Wally on the tee with his hockey pals; Wally hoisting a frosted mug of beer in a bowling alley with his hockey pals. A row of plaques pronounced him Melvindale Chamber of Commerce Businessperson of the Year from 1992 to 1996. At the center of it all were professionally framed photos of his wife, Sheryl, and their kids, Joe and Roy.

  “What happened to the jersey?” I said.

  I was sitting in a cushioned folding chair across from his desk, nursing a Labatt Blue and still feeling the hurt Wally had put on my ribs when he had hugged me in the reception area. The last time I’d been in his office, drinking Scotch after a late-night hockey game a few years before I’d left Detroit, the centerpiece of the wall had been a framed display of his old gold-on-black jersey with the name PIPEFITTERS running diagonally down from the shoulder. Wally had been the star defenseman on the team that had beaten us in the 1981 state final, a six-foot-six, 225-pound bruiser with agile feet and pretty fair hands for a big man.

  “Ah, you know, time to grow up,” he said. He was sitting on the front edge of his desk, which I could barely see for his bulk. He grinned and winked. “Got it hanging behind my bar at home. The wife never goes down there.”

  I smiled. “Looks like you’re doing OK, Wall.”

  “Can’t complain. Wife’s good, boys good, life’s good.” He thrust his right hand forward again. It swallowed mine. “Always good to see you, buddy. What brings you to town? You bring your gear? I got a nine forty skate now every Tuesday at the Yack. I can tell one of the ’tenders to stay home tonight.”

  “Nah, gotta get back. Got a game. And I’m not playing goal anymore.”

  “I thought I heard that. What the hell?”

  “Like you said, gotta grow up some time.”

  I’d gotten to know Wally playing late-night hockey against him during my years at the Times. He sponsored a thirty-and-over team in Melvindale called Wally’s Wonders. On the ice we’d scrap and bitch and try to beat the hell out of one another. Then we’d have a beer in the parking lot before closing Nasty Melvin’s. We got to be friends over bad Buffalo wings and worse nine-ball.

  Wally had only teased me once or twice about the state title game. I’d only teased him about a thousand times about his ballooning up to three hundred pounds. I noticed he’d grown another chin since I’d last seen him.

  “Hell,” he said, “maybe I’ll bring the boys up there for a couple of games some weekend.” He’d been talking about coming up for years. Thinking of my liver, I hadn’t encouraged it. “Hell, the hockey, I don’t even care. Seeing all the boys, having a few pops, that’s the thing, right, man?”

  “Absolutely.”

  “How’s old Soup?”

  “Still skating.”

  “Still dangling? That fucker could play, boy. He went by me once like I was a turnstile. I think he grabbed a token.” It was an old hockey line, but Wally laughed like he’d just thought of it. He lifted the Blue to his mouth and drank half the bottle in one long pull.

  “Yeah. He bought the bar on Main Street.”

  “You’ve got to be kidding. Now there’s trouble. You know, I’ve done some work for his ex. She’s got a nice little business in Lincoln Park.”

  “Didn’t know she’d moved there,” I said. “Small world. Speaking of which, I’ve been working on this little feature story and came across a guy I think might’ve played for you or played in your league a while back.”

  Wally was leaning over his fridge again. “Ready?” he said.

  “I’m good.”

  “Pussy.”

  “No news there, pal.”

  “Which guy?”

  “I don’t remember his name, but his nickname was something like, I don’t know, Knobs or Knobby or Knobbo?”

  “Oh, fuck. That guy.” Wally twisted the cap off the fresh Blue and snapped it at the plastic wastebasket behind me, missing. “Fucking Knobbo, man.”

  “Jarek Vend.”

  “I’ve seen him in the paper. He’s mixed up in all sorts of shit now. Ever been to one of his strip joints?”

  “No. Didn’t know the guy.”

  “I dropped like seven hundred in one of them once. That was some high-end foo foo, boy. Thank God I’m married. It’s cheaper.”

  “He played goalie for the Wonders?”

  “Yeah.” Wally shut his eyes, thinking. “Ninety-one. You in the league then?”

  “No. I was still playing in St. Clair Shores.”

  “East side homos. Anyway, we made the finals and lost to Paxton Van Lines, best of three. We win five to one the first night, Blummer gets a hat trick. Next game we shit the bed, blow a two-goal lead, lose four to three in OT. Paxton comes out in the rubber with this ringer, played at ND, guy named Schneider—his brother played for the gold medal team in eighty—and just fucking swamps us, four-zip.”

  He had a memory like that. I was sure he could have told me the starting lineups on each team and where each guy played his kid hockey.

  “And Knobbo was in the net? Why do they call him Knobbo?”

  Wally cracked a big smile. “If you don’t know, I ain’t telling you.”

  “Fuck you then.”

  “Hey, maybe the knob on his goalie stick, eh? Anyway, he could play, too. And he was like, I don’t know, forty. Played for the Junior Wings way back when Gordie Howe’s kids were still playing.” Wally stood and waved his arms around like a goalie stopping shots, beer slopping out of his bottle and onto his carpet. “Total flopper. But, man, what a weirdo. Always with the blow in the dressing room.”

  “Cocaine?”

  “Yeah. One line before the first period, two before the second, three before the third. A little superstitious, are we? Some nights he’d be the life of the damn party; other nights, not a word. You definitely didn’t want to fuck with him, though. I know all you goalies are crazy, but this guy took the cake.”

  “Really.”

  “Oh, man.” His face burst into a smile. “You heard about Antonoff.”

  “No.”

  Wally told me. Antonoff played for a team called the Gray Hawks sponsored by a mortgage company in Southgate. Everybody mistook him for a Russian because of his name and because he talked funny, but he was just some East Coast guy in for a year to consult with Chrysler on some manufacturing stuff. It took him only a few games to establish himself as a major asshole on the ice, always chopping guys, kicking legs out, running goalies. Always after the whistle.

  One night, late in a game, the Wonders were blowing out the Gray Hawks when Vend—Knobbo—made a save and smothered the puck with his stick-hand glove. Antonoff came flying in after the refs had blown the play dead, sprayed Knobbo’s head with ice, then slapped the side of Knobbo’s mask with his stick blade. Knobbo jumped up, said something to Antonoff in a language other than English. Antonoff told him, Go back to your worthless fucking country.

  As Antonoff skated away, laughing, Knobbo pulled his mask back on his head and said something else and looked up into the stands where he had two buddies with three young women dolled up in furs and silk scarves, smoking, drinking something that probably wasn’t 7Up from giant 7Up cups. Knobbo gave them a furious nod and waggled his big flat goalie stick in the direction of Antonoff. Both guys nodded back. The chicks giggled.

  “Late that night, man,” Wally said, “they fucked him up.”

  “Antonoff?”

  “Yeah. He was always the last guy out of Nasty’s. Those jag-offs were waiting.”

  “Knobbo?”

  “No. The guys from the stands, talking in Polish or Ukrainian or whatever the hell it was. They beat the shit out of him, messed up his face so bad he had to have reconstructive surgery. Left him in a Dumpster back of Nasty’s. Supposedly Knobbo showed up at the very end and got up on the Dumpster and pissed all over him.”
>
  “Wow. I think I’ll take that other beer now.”

  Wally went around to the fridge again, plucked out two Blues. “What’s your article about?”

  “I don’t really know yet,” I said. “Knobbo apparently has some business interests up our way.”

  “Better be careful what you write, eh?”

  “Yeah. He only played that one year?”

  “He got hurt, man. Old Meat cut him.”

  “Meat?” I said.

  Wally’s door swung open and a woman ducked her head in. “Hey, boss,” she said. Wally swiveled his big body around.

  “What’s up, Claudia?”

  “Got to get Annie up to Fraser.”

  “Fraser? That shithole? What’s the matter with you? Rinks around here aren’t good enough for your little girl?”

  “The sacrifices we make for hockey.” She grinned and pointed at Wally’s Labatt bottle. “Getting an early start, are we?”

  Wally spread his arms wide in supplication and nodded toward me. “I have a guest. Meet Gus, an old hockey bud down from up north.”

  “Hey there, Gus.”

  “Nice to meet you, Claudia,” I said, but all I could think was, Meat? Jason Esper knew Jarek Vend? Could it be that there was no coincidence in Jason returning to Starvation not long after Gracie had?

  “Don’t forget to punch that clock on your way out,” Wally said.

  She chuckled. “Right on, boss.”

  The door closed. Wally said, “Mark my words—her kid’s going to be the first babe to stick in the NHL. Great kid.”

  “You talking about the same Meat I know?”

  “Meat? Oh, yeah, Jason … Jason … Esper—yeah—he played with me on the ’Fitters. He was just a beanpole back then.”

  “Yeah. He’s living in Starvation. What’s he got to do with Knobbo?”

  “You don’t know?”

  The Wonders were playing Big Bill’s from Inkster, Wally said. During a scrum at the net, a Bill’s center named McSween slashed Knobbo across the forearm. Knobbo went down just as Jason came zooming in with his stick up around his elbows, aimed at McSween’s forehead. McSween ducked. Jason went flying. As he catapulted over the pile, one of his skate blades sliced through the right side of Knobbo’s neck.

  “I swear, man, I almost lost my lunch,” Wally said. “The blood shot up this high”—he held a palm flat at his shoulder—“and Knobbo was rolling around and screaming like he was going to die.”

  “But he didn’t.”

  “Nope. Meat, man, Meat saved his life. He cut him and then he saved his life. He got down and jammed his hands down on Knobbo’s neck until the ambulance came. It was lucky we were close to the hospital.” Maybe I imagined it, but I thought Wally went a little pale. “I can still see Meat in the dressing room, blood all over him, shaking like a leaf.”

  “And that was it for Knobbo?”

  “Yep. For Meat, too. Next time I saw him—the last time I saw him—was at one of Knobbo’s clubs, working the door.”

  “No shit, bouncing? When?”

  “Last fall?” Wally looked sheepish. “I mean, I don’t go to those places usually, but Poke had a bachelor party. Meat didn’t look all that glad to see us. We didn’t stay long.”

  “Good old Meat.”

  “Yep.” Wally sneaked a look at the clock on his desk. I stood up, set my second bottle on Wally’s desk.

  “I better get going.”

  Wally pointed at my half-full bottle. “Alcohol abuse, man.”

  “What can I say? I’m a wimp.”

  Wally deserved his good life. I wondered what he would have said or done if I had told him about my life, how I was just trying to hang on to my job and my girlfriend. He stretched out a hand. “Good to see you, bud.”

  Jason Esper had cut Jarek Vend. Then he had saved his life. Then he was working for him. Then he came up north and married Darlene. But something was missing. His life went to shit and drink and video golf.

  He left Starvation, went back downstate. Back to Vend. They were brothers bound by spilled blood. Now Jason was back in Starvation again, supposedly cleaned up. I was betting he and Knobbo were bound by something other than just blood. Probably not something pretty.

  Philo had left me a message. I scribbled the Prospect Street address for Trixie the Tramp—a.k.a. Patricia Armbruster—on the side of a foam coffee cup. Not bad, Philo, I thought. Not bad.

  Then I dialed Darlene. I just wanted to hear her voice. My phone died in the middle of the first ring.

  “There’s no need for you to see anything here,” she told me.

  “But isn’t this—”

  “What happens here is none of your business.” She gave me a prim smile. “My car’s out back.”

  Trixie Armbruster did not look like a tramp, or at least the sort of tramp her nickname brought to mind. Taller than me, she carried her boxy frame in a baggy cotton dress. The dress was printed with tiny flowers that had all faded to the same shade of pale lavender. On our way out to the muddy lot behind her building, she wrapped herself in a worn brown bomber jacket. The zipper didn’t work so she clipped the jacket together beneath her bosom with a safety pin. Her gone-white hair stuck out over the jacket collar in a stiff, wavy perm. She walked with purpose, two steps ahead of me, limping with each step, favoring her left leg.

  All I knew of Trixie’s past was what I had heard on Philo’s short phone message: She was once a prostitute and heroin addict. She had broken free somehow and started the center for abused women, mostly abused prostitutes. She called it Trixie’s Place for Tired Women and Girls. The name helped get her some publicity, a few grants, some pity donations from a rich liberal or two, a little extra police protection from the city. When I heard it on Philo’s message, all I could think was, Gracie, what did you get yourself into?

  Trixie had sounded oddly expectant when I’d called her from a pay phone outside a party store to ask if I could drop by. I suppose that someone who did what she did was always ready for anything. I had explained how Gracie had been found dead in the shoe tree, how she was extended family, how I had come at the behest of my mother, Gracie’s favorite aunt, to see if I could gain a clearer understanding of how she had lived her life, why it had ended.

  “I don’t know,” she had said. “I don’t see what good it would do.”

  “Maybe Gracie told you—”

  “Yes, I’m aware that you’re a newspaper reporter. If her aunt sent you, I suppose I can show you a couple of things.”

  The center was in a dreary brick building that looked like it might once have been a corner store or a bar, tucked into a neighborhood not far from the Ford factory across the river. The only thing identifying the center was a semicircular plaque hanging on the front door and carved with the words “Trixie’s Place.” Beneath the plaque hung a plain wooden cross painted along its borders in gold.

  I had pushed the doorbell and immediately a buzzer had sounded and a woman’s voice had come over an intercom: “Step inside, please. I’ll be out in five.” I’d waited in a space barely bigger than a closet, gazing down at a floor of muddy tile. There wasn’t a sound until I’d heard footsteps descending stairs inside and then the jingle of keys. The inner door had opened and I had presumptuously begun to step inside when Trixie blocked my way, closed that door behind her, and pointed me to her car.

  “Thank you for meeting me,” I said.

  Trixie was steering her Honda Civic through another neighborhood of snug bungalows. I tried to watch the street signs to see if we had wound up back at Vend’s house. Trixie was taking rights and lefts and rights again, seemingly doubling back. I thought we’d gone down the same block twice but couldn’t be sure because the houses looked alike. I thought maybe she was trying to make it so confusing that I couldn’t find my way back.

  “Please understand,” she said without taking her eyes off the road. “I am not happy that you are here. I am not happy that this day has arrived. I never am. But in all honesty, I
can’t say that I’m surprised.”

  “Tired Women and Girls?” I said.

  “Tired of being abused?”

  “So why not just abused?”

  “Too many others with names like that.”

  “I’m sorry for your loss,” I said.

  She continued to drive without speaking. A gentle smile made its way onto her face. Then it was gone. She turned to me.

  “I don’t mean to be glum,” she said. “It’s hard.” She reached across and touched my forearm. “I’m sorry for your loss, too. Although, again, in all honesty, I can’t say that I think you appreciate it.”

  “Thanks, I think.”

  She withdrew her hand. “It’s all right. Grace was not easy to know. For anyone. It didn’t matter how much you loved her, or how hard you tried.”

  “Then you obviously knew her well.”

  Trixie tilted her head to one side, smoothing the crinkled skin along her jaw. A slender necklace of gold lay on her pale white neck. I decided she had been a beautiful woman once. “Sometimes, yes,” she said, “I thought I did. But that’s just vanity, isn’t it? Most of us don’t even know our own selves.”

  She turned a corner and eased off the gas as the Civic approached a cul de sac. She parked at the curb in front of a house that looked like so many there, only a shade of paint or a set of shutters different than Vend’s. The aluminum siding was a dingier white and there was no rock garden or statute of the Blessed Mother. An orange-and-brown paper turkey dangled in the front window. It reminded me that Gracie had declined Mom’s invitation to Thanksgiving dinner because she had been going for a visit downstate.

  A piece of white paper was tacked to the front door.

  “This is where Gracie lived?” I said.

  Trixie looked past me at the house. “I know she could have used the money,” she said. “Now I’m glad she didn’t sell it, so you can see.”