by Gerry Boyle
“I didn’t invite them.”
“But you do, Jack,” Roxanne said. “I don’t know how, but somehow you do. And I can’t live like that, but I love you so much I can’t live without you.”
She put her hands over her face and sobbed. “I just don’t know what to do.”
I put my hand on her shoulder.
“I love you. So we’ll just do what we’re doing,” I said. “Some people work on different coasts and do it. We can do this, right? We’ll get some dinner in the Old Port and come back and just sit and look at the lights, okay?”
Roxanne shook her head. Dropped her hands and looked at me.
“No, Jack, this is more than that. I need to think. I think I need to be alone.”
I took my hand off her shoulder.
“And maybe you do, too,” Roxanne said. “Maybe you’d be better off by yourself for a couple of days. It might be good for you.”
“Okay,” I said. “I’ll call you.”
“I don’t get a phone until Monday.”
“I’ll call you Monday.”
“Okay,” she said.
So that was the plan, I guessed. Roxanne would stay and I would go. She would stay at 22 Harbor Way, with Skipper next door and the lights of the big city shining in her window. I’d go home to Prosperity, have a couple of beers, and climb into bed with a good book.
And a loaded gun.
12
Fifty yards in on the dump road, I pulled over and shut off the lights. The Toyota idled quietly as I got out and pulled the seat forward. I slid the Remington out and dug on the floor in the dark for the cartridge box. When I found it, I opened it on the seat and slid five cartridges out. Four for the magazine, one for the chamber. And I was ready.
When in Rome . . .
I put the headlights back on until I reached my road. I turned right, got my bearings, and turned the lights off again, easing my way along in second gear. Two hundred yards from the house, I slowed and put it in first. On the downhill grade, I slipped the truck into neutral and let it roll silently. I turned off the motor. When the truck rolled to a stop, I got out and eased the door closed but didn’t latch it. I took the rifle with me.
It was very dark and very quiet but not silent. The cooling motor ticked behind me, and ahead, in the brush along the road, things flitted and rustled. A bat skimmed the road and rose over my head.
I walked slowly, the rifle at my side, pointed at the ground. Every ten steps, I stopped and listened. There were just the woods noises. I kept walking.
If Jeff had come, he wouldn’t park the truck in the road this time. He’d probably pull it into the woods, out of sight. Or maybe somebody would drop him off, and he’d wait in the woods for me to pull in. I wondered if I should have left the truck out on the dump road and walked the whole way in. I wondered if he had seen my lights. I walked on. Then waited. Then walked.
The house was dark, as we’d left it. There were no cars or trucks out front. I stopped short of the yard and waited, then backtracked thirty feet and stepped off the road into the woods.
In the woods, it was damp and thick with vines and poison ivy. My boot caught and I tripped and grabbed a branch. The rifle caught too, and I eased it out of the branches almost noiselessly. Then I crouched and peered out of the brush at the house. Nothing moved except the mosquitoes in my face. I counted to fifty in spite of them and then stood slowly and walked ten more feet.
More mosquitoes, homing in on my body heat like missiles. Still I didn’t slap. And when I brushed, I did it slowly. I rose slowly, too, and moved to my right again, between the poplars. I held the rifle high as I squeezed my torso between two trunks.
A muzzle pressed against the back of my neck.
“Don’t even breathe,” a voice said.
An arm reached from behind me and took the rifle out of my hand. I saw a hand, an arm. Even in the dim light, I made out a tattoo.
Semper Fi.
“Clair?” I said.
“Jack? Damn, I thought this rifle felt familiar.”
The muzzle ended its cold kiss. I turned slowly and felt a bead of sweat trickle down my spine like a pinball. Clair was wearing a Red Sox hat, a dark sweater, and a rifle. He lowered the rifle to his side.
“What are you doing out here?” I said.
“Trying to figure out why somebody would park a truck down the road, then go creeping around the woods with a gun.”
“You saw me?”
“From the front of my barn. I was looking at the stars. Nice dark night for it. Then I saw lights, then no lights, then just a dome light, on for a second.”
“So you thought—”
“I thought your friend was back.”
“So you came down to see,” I said. “But how did you get behind me?”
Clair smiled.
“Your tax dollars at work,” he said.
“I thought I was being pretty quiet.”
“Like a foraging grizzly.”
“Thanks,” I said. “See anybody else in your travels?”
“Nope,” Clair said. “But we can circle back, sort of check the perimeter.”
“And then check under the beds.”
“You can do that while I’m getting a beer from your refrigerator.”
“You sure you trust me?” I said.
“Sure,” Clair said. “Your beer’s always nice and cold.”
We made a wide arc, thirty yards back in the woods, ten yards apart. Clair slipped silently through the trees like a wraith. I crunched along as though I were walking on broken glass.
“I think I owe grizzlies an apology,” Clair said softly when we emerged in the clearing on the other side of the house.
“I can’t help it if I grew up in the city.”
We went to the house and stopped and listened. I opened the front door and flicked the lights on. The living room was empty. And the kitchen. And the loft. When I came down the stairs, Clair was coming in from the shed.
“I’ve got to get my truck,” I said.
“I’ll grab a couple beers.”
“You don’t want to come?”
“Can’t hold your hand all the time,” Clair said.
I pulled the truck up to the house, backed it into the dooryard, and locked it and came in. Clair had poured two Ballantine Ales into tall glasses. He said he’d only drink out of a can if he was out in the field. As in battle, not farmer’s.
The Remington went by the door, still loaded. Clair’s Mauser went by the door, too.
“You know, this stuff kind of grows on you,” he said, reading the Ballantine can.
“I’ve noticed,” I said.
“Don’t go off the deep end now that Roxanne’s not here to keep you in line.”
I tried to think of something funny to say, but couldn’t.
“I won’t,” I said.
I got up and went to the cupboard and took out a box of stoned-wheat crackers and some peppered cheese. The knives were in the block, and I took the biggest one out. While I was up, I got two more beers from the refrigerator. I brought the beer to the table, then went back for the crackers and cheese. On the way by, I punched the answering machine. It hissed, then beeped.
“Jack, this is Donna. I . . . I just felt like talking to you. Please call me. I’m at my house. Bye . . . Oh yeah, the number is 879-0909. Thanks. I mean, thanks for everything.”
The voice was soft and either slurred or sexy, or both. Clair looked at me as I sat down.
“This why Roxanne left?”
“No. I wish it were that simple. No, this just made the morning a little rough.”
“Aggressive little lady, isn’t she?”
“Oh, I don’t know. She’s just got kind of a crummy life. I talked to her in a nice way, I guess, and she’s not used to that.”
“Or if she is, she never knows when the weather’s gonna change and the guy’s gonna start slugging her again,” Clair said. “What a shame. She’s got a kid, right?”
�
��Little girl. She’s probably seen enough to last a lifetime.”
“Problem is, kids grow up with this stuff and they end up repeating it.”
“Yeah,” I said. “Pretty little kid, too.”
“How ’bout the mother?”
“Attractive, I guess.”
“She interested in you?” Clair asked.
“Roxanne thinks so. I didn’t, but now I’m beginning to wonder.”
I emptied my glass and opened the second can. Clair took a swallow and sliced a piece of cheese and put it on a cracker. He had big hands that made the cracker and cheese look a little absurd, as if he were drinking from a bone-china teacup, pinkie extended thusly. He ate the cracker and cheese in one bite.
“Don’t screw it up, Jack,” he said when he finished chewing.
“What? Roxanne, or the rest of this mess?”
“Either. Both. What made you want to tromp around the woods with a loaded gun?”
“Same thing that made you want to tromp around the woods with a loaded gun.”
“But I tromp better than you do,” Clair said.
“But it’s my fight.”
“Which you may not be able to win alone.”
“I’m beginning to wonder about that, too. The DA in Kennebec let Jeff out today.”
“What was he in for?”
“Coming after Donna. Running into me instead.”
“Head-on?” Clair asked.
“Oh, yeah.”
“Who was left standing?”
I allowed myself a brief smile.
“I was,” I said.
“And now he’ll come back after you with a vengeance,” Clair said.
“Hence the tromping.”
Clair took off his Red Sox hat and ran his hand through his hair. The hand was tanned against the silver.
“Thing about these kinds of fights, any kind of fight, is things have a way of escalating,” Clair said. “Going in, you’ve got to be willing to do whatever it takes to win. There’s no halfway.”
“You learned that one the hard way.”
“Yup. They let us tromp around the jungle, but they didn’t let us do much more. All those boys, all those sons and fathers. All dead, and now we’re selling them Pepsi. Never should have happened. Never should have started.”
“Maybe this never should have happened either,” I said.
“Too late now.”
“Assuming I’m not going to run.”
“I can’t see you running.”
“Nope,” I said. “Not yet.”
Clair was quiet for a minute, then got up from the table, leaving his second beer unopened.
“Just as well Roxanne’s gone,” he said.
“Maybe,” I said, and Clair took his rifle and went out the door.
I drank my beer and Clair’s too, and then forced myself from the chair. The cans went in the paper bag by the sink. I took that bag and three more full ones from the shed and put them inside the doors, two in front, two in back. Then I took the rifle, still loaded, and climbed the loft stairs. The rifle went on the floor beside the bed. I took off my boots and jeans and slid under the sheet. It was so dark that I could barely see the ceiling over my head, but I could hear the sound of a nighthawk, screeching as it dropped through the sky in a desperate attempt to keep its young and itself alive.
The stuff of life.
In the morning, the rifle and the beer cans were still there. I pulled on my pants and moved the front bags and went outside and the truck was still there too. No bullet holes. No threatening notes. No bombs underneath.
That I could see.
I went back inside and started for the phone to call Roxanne, but then remembered she wouldn’t have a phone until Monday. I thought of writing her a letter, but it was Saturday, and a letter wouldn’t get there until Monday. I thought of driving back down to see her, and was still thinking of it, when I hit the answering-machine button again.
“Jack, this is Donna. I . . . I just felt like talking to you. Please call me. I’m at my house. Bye . . . Oh yeah, the number is 879-0909. Thanks. I mean, thanks for everything.”
I picked up the receiver, then put it back down. Stood there for a moment.
I wanted to know more about Tate. I wanted to know if she’d heard from Jeff. I wanted to know if he was in town, what he was saying.
But if I called, it would be for none of those reasons. It would be because part of me wanted to talk to Donna, to hear that soft, musical voice.
I shook myself and walked away. On the way to the bathroom, I pulled off my T-shirt. In the bathroom, I slid my jeans and boxers off and flipped on the shower. I stood under the water as if to wash something off myself. And it wasn’t grime.
It was a day for action. Any action. I did all the dishes and swept all the floors. I bundled the pile of newspapers and stuck them out in the shed. I put the bags of cans out there, too, and then I was hungry for breakfast. The cupboard was pretty bare and so was the refrigerator. I decided to drive to Kennebec to go shopping.
The coupons went in my pocket. The rifle, unloaded, went in the rack.
I drove out onto the dump road, swerving to avoid two crows and a dead porcupine that were along the edge of the road. The porcupine had been hit by a car or truck during the night. The crows were pecking away in their shiny black suits.
It started to drizzle when I was driving through downtown Albion. I slowed for the traffic at the general store, then sped up on the other side of town. In fifteen minutes, the woods and fields and farms dwindled, and then there were subdivisions and then neighborhoods and then the tenements of Kennebec, elbow to elbow, overlooking the rock-lined trough of the river.
Civilization.
I drove across the bridge, past the empty mills and the crumbling concrete pylons that stood along the riverbank, holding up nothing. The river rolled along relentlessly, unmoved by the town’s decline. I didn’t give it much thought, either. I had other things on my mind.
After the bridge I turned off and headed north along the river, to a fork that led to a tedious stretch of used car lots, pizza shops, and auto-parts stores, none of which had been in business long, nor would they be in business much longer. That strip was to the left. The shopping center with the supermarket was at the end of the strip. I took a right.
The road made a long circle, past a railroad yard and overgrown empty lots. I took one right, then another onto School Street, where there was no school, and onto Peavey, where there likely was no Peavey.
Just a Donna.
The kids weren’t playing Wiffle ball, but the yellow bat lay in a puddle in the gutter. The guy had taken the wheels off the motorcycle and left it up on concrete blocks, where it looked dismembered. The green tarp was still draped over the front end of the Camaro like a shroud. And Donna’s Chevette was parked in the driveway.
I pulled over to the curb and stopped.
It was a little after nine on a Saturday morning, yet the street was deserted, a silent testimony to television. I got out of the truck and walked to the front door of the building. There were three unpainted steps and a rough two-by-four railing. I stepped to the door, which was new and cheap, and turned the knob, half hoping it would be locked.
It opened and I went inside.
The door opened to a hallway, which was dark and smelled of cat urine. There was a pink plastic cat-litter tray on the floor to the left, but the cat had missed. There was a paper package of cat food, too, but it was in shreds.
I went up the stairs slowly, as if Jeff might be around the corner. He wasn’t, though there was a hole in the drywall, waist high and a foot across. Maybe he’d taken his anger out on the building instead of Donna. Just that once.
The window on the second-floor landing had curtains and a broken pane. A plaque propped on the windowsill told people to MAKE A GOOD DAY. There was a doll carriage in the corner. It was missing a wheel, and a dad to fix it.
I waited for a moment but then was afraid that Donna woul
d come out or in and find me standing in her hallway like a pervert. I knocked and heard nothing. I was feeling relieved when the door opened.
“Oh, hi,” Donna said, smiling. “You didn’t have to come right over.”
“I was up this way anyway. And you’d called but I hadn’t called back, so . . .”
“Come in. You’ll have to excuse the mess, but Adrianna has been over to Marcia’s and I decided to, like, go through her stuff and sort it out. I want to move out of here, and I’m not moving with all this stuff.”
Actually, there wasn’t much of a mess, nor was there much stuff. There were stacks of children’s clothing on a metal kitchen table in the front room, which wasn’t the kitchen. There were a few stacks on the floor. Donna went to pick them up. She was wearing cutoff denim shorts. Very short. When she bent over, I looked the other way.
“You want coffee?” Donna said, putting the clothes down and turning back to me. She seemed excited, even buoyant.
“Sure,” I said.
“It’s instant. Jeff smashed the coffeemaker. No loss for him, you know? He only drinks beer and vodka. So, whoosh. Everything on the counter onto the floor. I was making cookies with Adrianna and I had a jar of molasses. Smash. Broken glass and molasses all over the floor. What a mess, you know? I was cleaning for two days.”
She was in the kitchen, which was at the rear of the apartment, two rooms from the door. I hesitated, then followed her in. She was kneeling on the counter, reaching down a new jar of coffee. Her feet were bare and the soles of her feet were pale gray.
“When did this happen?”
She jumped down and went to the sink and filled a saucepan with water.
“The molasses?” she said, moving to the stove. “Oh, that must’ve been a couple of months ago. He was drunk and pretty strung out on coke and he came home after, like, three days straight of partying, and he just started in on me. You this, you that. He didn’t hit me or anything that time, but Adrianna was all upset because she’d made this special cookie for a little friend of hers. Jason. And the cookie was on the counter and it got smashed. She was really bummed out. She called Marcia, like she does, and she was, like, ‘Jeffrey smashed my cookie for Jason and I can’t make another one.’ ”