Brambleman

by Jonathan Grant

  It rained heavily for an hour. When the place filled up, Charlie shared his table with a young man named Ron, who had pierced eyebrows and tattoos on his forearms. “I just got fired from my day job, which I’m better off without,” Ron said. “The world sucks. But why does it have to suck so loud?”

  “Really,” Charlie said. “Why doesn’t it have any manners?”

  “Life should get people a room when it fucks them,” Ron declared.

  Charlie laughed. “Unfortunately, that’s exactly not how it works.”

  The clouds started to break; the rain stopped. Charlie stood and stretched. He looked out the window. “Rainbow,” he announced. The customers cheered and drifted over to see it. A MARTA bus rumbled by. The bell on the door tinkled. Charlie bid adieu to Ron and packed up to leave. Jean thumped her chest with her fist to salute him and wish him well.

  * * *

  During the next two days, Charlie showered at the Y, took care of the kids, and slept in the van. Fortunately, he landed a couple of handyman jobs and earned two hundred bucks. On the third day, he was eating lunch in a Decatur diner, idly watching a crow on a parking meter. It was, in turn, looking at him. His cellphone trilled.

  “Where are you?” Angela demanded. “We need you back here with Kathleen. She’s been off her meds for weeks. She accused me of going up on the roof and trying to tear off the shingles.”

  “She kicked me out and called the cops. I left messages. Don’t you check them?”

  Not one to dwell on her mistakes—that was Kathleen’s job—Angela ignored Charlie’s question and pressed on. “She doesn’t remember kicking you out. Why’d she do that?”

  “I’m an Irish gypsy. Apparently, you are, too.”

  “A what?”

  “A fly-by-night roofing contractor. She saw a story about them on the news and now she’s convinced they’re out to steal her money.”

  “She needs someone to take care of her full-time. And I can’t do it. We’ll pay you.”

  “I’m supposed to be getting paid to—”

  “Three hundred a week, plus room and board.”

  “Is that even minimum wage? For a left-winger, you sure are anti-labor.”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t say that.”

  “I’ll pretend you didn’t offer me three hundred and give you another chance. My job is to edit the book. That’s what the deal was. Is, I mean.”

  “We need to talk about that. When can you be here?”

  “I think we’d better talk about it now, while we’re at a safe distance.”

  “All right. I finally got power of attorney. This deal you’ve got? We’ve stopped it.”

  “Wait a minute—”

  “Who do you think you’re kidding? Dad was getting senile when he wrote the book.”

  “Not true.” Charlie was sure that the good professor had simply been obtuse, not demented. “It’s not that bad. I just sent chapters to an editor who’s interested in it.” He shook his head. “I can’t believe I’m defending a man against his own daughter.”

  “I know it isn’t publishable. I’ve got expertise, you know. There’s so much wrong with it structurally. Plus, it doesn’t adequately address feminist issues. Women are treated as victims.”

  “They were victims!” Charlie said. “Murder, rape. Lack of servants. Hello?”

  “Merely as victims. It’s a male-dominated narrative.”

  “Well, that fits in with the racio-sexio-fascio-ism of that period, doesn’t it?” He didn’t know what that meant, but at least it sounded academic.

  “I can’t let Mom waste her money. I’ve voided the contract due to diminished capacity.”

  “Look, just because you’re not thinking clearly—”

  “Her diminished capacity, Charlie. Don’t be a smartass.”

  He looked out the window. The crow seemed to be enjoying itself. A lone thunderhead hovered ominously to the west—over Bayard Terrace, no doubt. Angela had better choose her words carefully, because she was prime smite bait. “Keep talking,” he said.

  “If you believe in the book so much, you can finish it on your own.”

  “She owes me … at least two thousand dollars for the work I’ve already done.” As he spoke, he realized that he was severely lowballing the amount he was due and cursed himself for not keeping better track of the time he’d spent on the book.

  “No, she doesn’t. Tell you what, you can have all the royalties. Every penny. But academic presses don’t pay much. You might get a thousand dollars if you’re lucky.”

  All the money? Not too shabby, especially since he was sure he could do better than a measly grand. And in the meantime, this live-in caretaker deal would keep him alive, at least. It sounded like a briar patch to him. OK, throw me in. “Well, then, that’s a beating I’ll have to take. So are you going to redo the contract with those terms?”

  “Yes.”

  “Five hundred a week.”

  “Four-fifty.”

  “OK,” he sighed. “You gotta pay me the two grand I earned under the old contract, though.”

  “I don’t know about that.”

  “Let me know when you do. Have a nice day.”

  “Wait. All right. But everything from now on is on your own. And you take care of Mom.”

  “I get coauthor’s credit.”

  “Sure. Fine. Whatever.”

  “All right. I’ll do it,” he said with what he hoped sounded like reluctance. “But I have to take care of my kids from two until six.”

  Angela paused before saying, “All right. We’ll see how this works.”

  After Charlie hung up, he added up hours in his head, realized he should have asked for four thousand dollars, and then smacked his forehead with his phone. He watched the crow fly off. When Charlie cocked his head this way and that, he could see he’d not only survived the ordeal, but stood to prosper, if his reclamation job on the book was as good as he thought it was. He may have sprained his ankles, but he’d landed on his feet. His universe was held together with baling twine and duct tape, but it was still in one piece. And most importantly, treasure far greater than gold had just been handed to him.

  That night, Charlie returned to Bayard Terrace and stood on the porch, refusing to enter until Angela handed him a check. Kathleen was delighted to see him and claimed her daughter was holding her hostage.

  “I left a list of things for you to do on the kitchen table,” Angela said, wrapping a muffler around her neck. “I’ll be back by tomorrow with the new contracts.”

  “Smite bait,” Charlie muttered after the door closed behind her. He looked at the list: Wash dishes, clean out refrigerator, get groceries, pick up prescriptions. Sweep and mop kitchen floor.

  “She irritates me,” Kathleen told Charlie as she watched Angela’s departure from behind the curtains. “She does it on purpose.”

  * * *

  The next day, there were two contracts for Charlie to sign: one stating that Angela didn’t have to pay Social Security taxes, the other declaring that Kathleen didn’t have to pay him any more money to edit the book, which was now his baby. He would shoulder all risk and reward from then on. He signed them both, not really caring what the foolish papers said, since he knew that the real deal boiled and bubbled in the dungeon below.

  Chapter Ten

  Charlie celebrated the first day of spring by digging in the dirt at Thornbriar with his children. After school, he took them to Pike’s Nursery, where they picked out yellow snapdragons, orange marigolds, and purple petunias for planting. He also bought fertilizer and grass seed in hopes of bringing the dead lawn to life. A while later at Thornbriar, the kids worked diligently in the flowerbed—until Ben used his trowel as a dirt catapult and ended up with Beck’s teeth marks imbedded in his arm. Charlie ordered them inside. After he sowed the grass seed and covered it with straw, he did the same.

  Dirty and sweaty, Charlie stood in the kitchen, wishing he’d brought a change of clothes. Surely he still had som
e jeans and a shirt somewhere. He found what he was looking for in a black trash bag in the corner of the master bedroom closet. He checked the dresser for socks and underwear. Nothing for him, but—Hello—he found a Victoria’s Secret nightie. His eyes narrowed suspiciously. So this is what she’s buying with the money I’m giving her. Although he knew he shouldn’t rummage around in his wife’s drawers, he lingered. Whoa. Purple thong panties. Definitely new. Jealousy mingled with arousal as he slipped them back in the drawer.

  He figured he had enough time to take a shower before Susan got home. Not quite. She walked into the bedroom as he was toweling off. “This isn’t your place anymore,” she said, her expression grim. “Don’t take liberties.”

  Without saying a word, he dressed, hugged the kids, and left.

  Charlie’s heart was cracking anew, now that he suspected Susan of cheating on him. Perhaps it had been going on for a while, and that’s why she’d kicked him out. And now she aimed to do better, as her mother would say.

  * * *

  For several days afterward, Charlie and Susan said little to each other. A week later, while he was fixing meatloaf, she announced her plans to travel to Charlotte for a weekend banking conference: “I’ll be gone from Thursday until Sunday, and I really have to do this to have a chance at a promotion and a raise.” She sighed. “So can you take care of the kids—here, not at your rathole—while I’m gone?”

  This from the woman who hadn’t even thanked him for planting flowers. He stared at her, chopping onions rhythmically, trying to think of a way to deliver an insult while maintaining moral superiority.

  “If you can’t,” she added, “I can leave them with Mom.”

  Damn, she was good! “I’ll do it,” he said, with tears in his eyes.

  When Thursday came, Charlie stayed overnight at Thornbriar, crashing on the family room sofa, since the master bedroom door was locked. He broke in anyway, just to see what she was hiding. Thirty seconds’ worth of snooping confirmed his darkest fears. Her sexy lingerie was traveling with her. “You skank!” he cursed, slamming the bedroom door shut.

  Charlie was morose for the rest of the long weekend. He didn’t want to be in the house, so he took the kids out and stayed on the move, going to Bayard Terrace and then to the cemetery with Kathleen to visit Thurwood’s grave. Of all the places he went during that melancholy time, he liked the graveyard best. Not a good sign.

  * * *

  One day in mid-April, Charlie finished editing a chapter shortly before noon and decided to do yard work at Thornbriar before picking up the kids. When he stepped inside the house, he could tell something was amiss. Sirius was outside, and the kitchen light was on. He hadn’t expected to find Susan home, but he heard the shower running. He checked the garage and saw her car. Was she ill? Susan never took sick days unless she went to a doctor or hospital.

  What was the etiquette for walking in on an estranged spouse?

  As Sirius pleaded for entrance at the patio door, Charlie moved toward the bedroom, having decided to tell Susan his intentions. He stood in the bedroom door and prepared to give her a shout, but he was struck speechless by the sight of an unmade bed and clothes strewn everywhere, not all of them Susan’s. A pair of men’s dress shoes lay on the floor. They seemed tiny compared to Charlie’s size thirteens.

  Part of him recoiled in horror. Not the part that controlled his feet, however. He tiptoed to the open bathroom door and peered in. He saw two figures through the shower stall’s translucent glass. Susan was on her knees, though his view was blocked by a hairy-backed man who groaned and hit the glass with his fists as she did something she hadn’t done for Charlie since she’d been his girlfriend, back when she was still trying to impress him. He recoiled from the sight, and feeling like a morally outraged burglar, slunk to the garage. He waited a few minutes for his pulse to slow and the throbbing in his head to subside. He knew the man had to be Bryan Speeler, Susan’s boss. He’d seen Speeler a few times at social functions; Susan often touted his many virtues. But Speeler was married. Wait a minute. So was she!

  Flustered, Charlie started to leave, then stopped. He had a job to do. He wasn’t going to let her abominable actions rule his life. His hands shook as he opened the garage door. He rolled out the lawn mower and pulled out trash cans to hold straw and grass clippings. And then he had a bright idea. He placed the cans in the driveway beside the van to block Susan’s exit, then closed the garage.

  He started mowing, humming in accompaniment to the machine’s roar. He’d cut half the yard when Susan appeared in the front door, dressed for work and scowling. He killed the engine and gave her a big smile.

  “What are you doing here so early?” she asked, trying unsuccessfully to sound friendly.

  He pointed to the yard, and shouted, “Had to get the straw off.”

  She shook her head. “Call next time. We could have lunch,” she said, sounding completely insincere—just like Uncle Stanley.

  When he thought about what she’d had for lunch, he struggled to keep from gagging. “Next time, maybe.”

  “Well, thanks for working on the yard. I have to get back to the bank.” She glanced at the driveway. “Can you move the trash cans?”

  Susan went back inside; he kept mowing. A few minutes later, the garage door rolled up. Charlie killed the mower, then sauntered over and stood beside the cans. With the van in the driveway beside him, Susan’s exit was now blocked. As she backed out her Honda Accord, Charlie looked for Bryan in the passenger seat, but no one was riding shotgun. Charlie made a show of picking up the barrels, but instead of moving them out of the way, he dropped them on their sides. Susan hit them with a double thump. The sound of crumpling plastic stopped her.

  Time for a vehicle inspection.

  “Hey!” Charlie shouted. Leaving one of the cans stuck under her rear bumper, he walked around to the passenger side, peering in like a cop looking for a bag of dope. He was perplexed, but only for a moment. Ah.

  “What?” she snapped. “Move the cans.”

  He went behind the car. Instead of picking up the barrels, he reached into his pants pocket, pulled out the key fob that Susan had neglected to confiscate, and popped the trunk. “Whoops,” he said loudly as he looked in on the curled-up banker, complete with suit and tie. “It appears that we have a hostage situation.”

  Bryan shielded his face with his hands, as if expecting a beating.

  Charlie grinned. “Dude. We were married three years before she made me get in the trunk. Come on. Get out. Make her let you ride in the front seat. You couldn’t have been that bad in bed.” He offered Bryan his hand. Bryan refused it. Charlie glanced around and shrugged. “Then again, maybe you were.”

  Bryan tumbled clumsily out of the trunk. “It’s not what you think.”

  “Sure it is,” Charlie said. “Anything else would be worse.”

  Susan gripped the steering wheel, staring straight ahead.

  “That’s all right, honey!” Charlie shouted as he pulled the trash can out from underneath the bumper. “I understand. Always carry a spare!”

  He resumed his work, pulling off the mower bag to empty it. Bryan adjusted his coat and tie, then dusted off his pants and climbed into the front passenger seat. Susan, crimson-faced, backed out and squealed off, laying tire tracks on the street.

  Charlie finished his yard work and, a couple of hours later, picked up the kids from school. He was grateful to be with the two people who could help him fend off the psychosis that was spreading out its tendrils within and around his soul. He avoided the defiled house and bounced around the neighborhood, stopping anyplace that could provide a diversion: Dairy Queen, the library, Duck Lake Park. At dusk, he took Beck and Ben back to Thornbriar, a place he now found intolerable. He couldn’t stop pacing, and when he was on the verge of pulling out his hair, Susan called him on the home phone. “Are you there?” she asked.

  Clearly, her nerves were jangled, too. “Of course not.”

  “Just like you t
o be contrary,” she said. “It’s been a rough day. Could you go so I can come home?”

  “Just leave the kids alone?”

  “I’m right outside.” He walked with the cordless phone to the living room window. Sure enough, she was sitting in her car on the street, her turn signal blinking.

  “Don’t we need to talk?”

  “No. There’s nothing to talk about.”

  “I was in the house, Susan. I know the trunk thing wasn’t mob-related.”

  Click. He turned to the kids, who were coloring pictures at the kitchen table. “’Bye, kids. I gotta go.”

  “Mommy’s not here,” Beck said.

  “She’s right outside. You won’t even have time to misbehave before she gets here.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” Ben said, mimicking one of his father’s favorite expressions.

  He hugged them, then dashed out the door, giving Susan a jaunty wave before driving away.

  * * *

  Morning came. Charlie couldn’t keep his mind off the vulgar spectacle of his wife’s infidelity, plagued as he was by the vision of Bryan’s hairy back against the translucent glass wall. It was a sunny day, and hammering in the distance sounded like music to him; he didn’t want to sit brooding at the desk in Talton’s study. When his cellphone trilled, he hoped someone wanted Charlie the Handyman to tear up something and rebuild it, so that he could convince himself that such a thing was possible.

  “Charles.” It was Susan, sounding stiff.

  He heard the whine of a drill in the background. “Where are you?”

  “At home. I took a personal day.” She spoke in staccato. “I’m changing the locks. I should have done this long ago.”

  Anger shot through him like a geyser. “I pay part of the mortgage—”