The Phone Company

by David Jacob Knight

  “Yeah,” Rat said.

  “Huh.”

  They chatted awhile about normal things, non-threatening things, like how was Pam treating him, or how was Candy liking first grade? Bill made sure to keep Rat’s cup filled to the balloons the whole time.

  “So did you get a new phone?” Bill finally asked.

  “One of them Tethers? Nah.”

  “Why not? Everyone’s getting one.”

  “Ah, I don’t know.”

  “Afraid they’re watching you, Rat? Afraid someone’s going to catch you doing something you shouldn’t?”

  “They are watching, man, they’re watching all the time. Everything these days has an eye and an ear, I’ll tell you what. Oh, and GPS.”

  “So?” Bill said. “If you’ve got nothing to hide, who gives a crap?”

  Rat nodded and took a drink. “’Cept they collect all sorts of stuff that ain’t none of theirs. All those apps? You’re just giving away all your privacy. And all these microwaves in the air around us?”

  Bill pictured flying microwave ovens and stifled a laugh.

  “What does that all do to our bodies? Someone’s constantly streaming porn or rated R, those waves got to have a different effect on you than, say, one of Candy’s little cartoons. The ones and zeroes are all different.”

  “What,” Bill said, “you think it gives us more violent tumors or something? You going to join Marv’s crusade? You sound exactly like him.”

  “No,” Rat said, and Bill couldn’t wait to see what the lie detector had to say about that. “I don’t care about none of that. But at least Marv’s thinking about these kinds of things. At least he’s not just jumping off the bandwagon.”

  “On,” Bill said.

  “Whatever.” Rat took another drink. “How about you? You on the wagon?”

  Bill knew he meant bandwagon. He didn’t want to give a “yes” or “no” answer all the same. He’d have to review his own lies, he’d already caught on to that. Bill had never been that great at lying to himself in the first place. “Everyone in the sheriff’s office got phones.”

  “Oh.”

  “Look, Rat, I’m just concerned. There are enough people in town who don’t really care for PCo. Aren’t you afraid someone could do something?”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know. Shootings, stabbings. Bombings. You don’t think if someone hated them enough, they’d be willing to do something drastic like that?”

  “We’re talking about Marv,” Rat said.

  “No,” Bill lied, “not necessarily. Anyone who was at that graveyard. Why? He say something about that?”

  “Who, Marv? I haven’t seen him in years.”

  “Really? Huh.” Bill looked for the bottom of his cup. “’Cause he said you’d loaned him a truck not that long back.”

  It was another lie, but a good one. Or a bad one. It was getting harder to tell. Bill had hit the flask before deciding that, if he was going to drink, he might as well get some answers out of it. Now he feared he was pushing his questions too far.

  “I didn’t loan him no truck,” Rat said.

  “Really? ’Cause it looked an awful lot like the red one parked here, week back. The work truck?”

  Rat shook his head and played with his own cup on the tabletop. “I didn’t loan him no work truck either.”

  “Huh,” Bill said. “Guess he was lying then.”

  “Heh, you know Marv. Crazier than a bat’s ass.”

  “Yep.” Bill swirled his bourbon and Coke, then shot the rest back. “Well, Rat, this was nice. I think I’ll head out. Tell Pam and Candy I said hi.”

  “Yeah? All right.”

  Bill put on his cowboy hat and headed down the steps. “Oh, one thing,” he said before getting into his cruiser. Maybe it was the booze giving him the balls, but he’d decided to push it. “According to Marv, he got all that fertilizer direct from you. If you haven’t talked to him in years then, uh, why’d he say a thing like that?”

  Rat swallowed hard his last bit of bourbon. “Like I said. A bat’s ass.”

  Bill let his sigh out slowly. He had forgotten how adept Rat was at talking with the police. He wouldn’t give a direct answer no matter what. He wasn’t smart. It was just his kind.

  Bill tipped his hat. “See you Monday, Rat.”

  He left MC Estates, but pulled into the first turnout and reviewed the polygraph.

  “What the hell?” Bill said, scrubbing the playhead back. According to the app, Bill had lied more than Rat.

  In fact, Rat had only lied about two things: he had stolen Janice’s clothes that day at the quarry, and he actually did own a Tether. Everything else? All true. He really hadn’t seen the Martian in years. According to the app.

  The polygraph did suggest a few follow-up questions, though.

 

 

  “Damn it,” Bill said, wondering if he should go back. His Tether rang, “Another Brick in the Wall”—his ringtone for Steve. His finger went to the earwig.

  “Where the hell are you?”

  “Work,” Bill said. “What’s up?”

  “I need your help.”

  Bill sat up in his seat. “You all right?”

  “Over in Cascade.”

  It was the next county over. “Steve, you’re not really telling me anything here. You need help?”

  “I do.”

  Bill waited.

  “Getting drunk.”

  It took Bill a second, but he finally laughed. “What the hell are you getting drunk over in Cascade for?”

  “I’m at the Speakeasy,” Steve said.

  Bill’s smile dropped, but he kept good humor in his voice. “That place? Let’s just go to Sherry’s. We could walk home.”

  “Ah, I just wanted to get out of town for a bit, if that’s all right.”

  Bill sighed. Too many people at the Speakeasy knew his name. His fake name. He didn’t want to be seen there with Steve. Rather, he didn’t want Steve seeing him there. It’s why he went there by himself. Out of the county, out of his jurisdiction where people weren’t watching quite as closely. It truly was Bill’s speakeasy, his underground bar. He lived this whole secret life.

  “Look, buddy, maybe another night.”

  “Oh.”

  “Yeah, that’s too far for me tonight.”

  “Okay,” Steve said. “Sherry’s, then. Do the Speakeasy another time.”

  “I’m thinking I might just go home,” Bill said.

  “Aw, come on. I really need to get out of the house.” Quieter, Steve added, “JJ got in a fight.”

  “What?”

  “Yeah, with one of his friends.”

  “Why?”

  “Now you know why I want to get that drink. Or three.”

  This time Bill sighed so Steve could hear. “All right. Can I just park at your house? Split a cab there?”

  “You driving home after?”

  “Yeah, it’ll be fine. I’ll just have a couple. I’ll be the designated, uh, fare.”

  “You sure?” Steve asked.

  “I’ll bring my breathalyzer,” Bill said. “Test myself, make sure I’m under the legal limit. Right under it.”

  Steve laughed. “I’ll meet you at the house then.”

  Bill had already started driving by the time he hung up. Going around a curve too fast, he veered over the solid yellow lines and an oncoming car honked. Bill swerved back into his own lane and shook his head.

  It’ll metabolize, he thought, driving slower and focusing on the road. He blew his own breath into his hand and smelled nothing. Nevertheless, Bill dug the bag of cough drops out of the glove compartment; the menthol always had been great at covering up whatever bullshit was on his breath.

  CHAPTER 12

  “Okay, bye,” Steve said for the second time. “I may never come back again.” Finally, his kids acknowledged him from the couch, but neither of them looked
up from their phones.

  “Have a good time,” Sarah said, texting on her old clamshell.

  Steve walked out to the cab as Bill was climbing out of his jeep. Bill had changed into plainclothes. For him, that meant blue jeans and a blue work shirt, with, underneath, a nice clean white tee. And just a dab of the cologne Steve knew Janice used to secretly hate.

  Inside the taxicab, Bill got a call. “Aaron, what’s up? Yeah, sorry about that. Forgot to check back.”

  Steve smiled out his window, listening to one side of an already one-sided conversation. Aaron talked a lot, according to Bill. Steve remembered that about her. Talkative student.

  “Yeah, going with Steve. We both kind of needed a night off. Uh-huh. Okay. Night, Aaron. Yup. Uh-huh. Night.”

  Bill hung up. “Should’ve invited her along.”

  “Oh, not this again,” Steve said, turning once more to the window. So that was why Bill had insisted on Sherry’s. He was always trying to hook Steve up with local girls. Problem was, Steve knew them all.

  “What’s so wrong with Aaron? Aside from she’s always talking.”

  “Um, how about she used to be one of my eighth graders?”

  “Oh, yeah,” Bill said. But then, “So what?”

  Steve gave him a look.

  “You’re only, what, ten years apart?”

  “Try twelve.” Steve looked back to his reflection in the glass. Maybe thirteen.

  “She’s twenty-five,” Bill said.

  “And I have high blood pressure.”

  “Hah!”

  “Besides, I don’t understand people that young.”

  “Okay, old man. I keep telling you to come play me at tennis. Work some of that off.”

  “Seriously, though. Look at what they grew up with compared to us. It’s only twelve years, but . . .” Steve shook his head. “Look at my son. Look at Sarah. They’ll grow up never knowing what it’s like not having all these connections. Not even real relationships—digital relationships. Aaron, too. I don’t get that. I mean, what happened to solitude? What happened to two tin cans on a string?”

  “Sheesh,” Bill said, rubbing his brow where his hat usually sat. “You could’ve at least waited till we were drunk.”

  Steve laughed and was glad when Bill laughed too. It wasn’t particularly funny, what he’d said. But Steve’s goal tonight was to be quick to laugh. Laughing helped.

  Along the walkway into Sherry’s, they had removed dangerous planters and had paved over the holes. Too many barflies had bashed their knees, or heads, on the walls of aggregate concrete. Though the holes were sealed, the smokers still avoided the planters; memories of busted knees. One of them, a memory of busted teeth.

  Steve fought the urge to fan the smoke and took shallow breaths instead. He smiled and nodded politely as people in the crowd cheered and called out his and Bill’s names.

  Even though it had been years since smoking in bars had been legal in Montana, the inside of Sherry’s still reeked of smoke. Steve hated it. He’d always thought of it as a ghost of smoke, soaked into the carpet, the pool table felt; soaked into the cracks of the stools, maybe even into the hair on the stuffed animal heads. Some of that smoke, he figured, had come from Janice.

  “Man, the Speakeasy doesn’t smell like this at all,” Steve said as he and Bill took two seats at the bar.

  “Here we go again,” Bill said.

  “I’m just saying, it’s way newer. I don’t think it was ever smoked in. And the pinball games don’t steal your quarters.” Steve hooked a thumb toward the Star Trek machine, the “Out of Order” sign taped to the glass.

  “Just wait,” Bill said. “After a beer or two, or six, you’ll be losing your own quarters.”

  True enough, after a few pints Steve had forgotten all about most of what burdened him. He and Bill played darts. After a few more pints, they were pulling the darts, not out of the board, but out of a stuffed head.

  “Moose eye!” Bill shouted once, and they fell over each other laughing, with Steve wondering if it really was a moose and not an elk.

  Somehow, after slopping around several drinks, Bill convinced Steve to go outside where Bill could smoke. Needed company, he said.

  But then Bill ended up chatting with Deb Disney instead while Steve tried to avoid noxious clouds; oddly enough, he didn’t mind standing on the paved-over planters that everyone else avoided.

  “Hey, I kept meaning to get these back to you,” Bill said, handing a pack of Montclairs to Deb.

  She switched her cigarette to her other hand and, nails sparkling with gold glitter in the lamplight, took the pack from Bill.

  “Where’d you get these?” she asked. Before he could say anything, she said, “My daughter stole these, didn’t she?”

  “Wait,” Steve said, “Anastasia smokes?”

  Bill and Deb looked at him, as if neither of them knew what to say. Deb’s earring glittered between wisps of blonde, and Bill turned back to her.

  “Hey, Deb, I thought the school would’ve said something but . . . I should’ve told you. Caught your daughter cutting class. She stole these off you, I guess.” Bill held up the one Montclair he’d taken and blew out some smoke.

  “That little bitch,” Deb said. She caught Steve’s look and shrugged. “Sorry. It’s just I caught her this last weekend. She’d stolen a whole other pack out of my purse.”

  “When was this?” Steve asked Bill. “When did you catch her skipping?”

  “Who?” Bill said. “Anastasia?”

  For the first time, Steve realized they both were really fucking drunk. He laughed, and was surprised when Bill did not.

  “Must have been start of last week I caught them skipping?” Bill said.

  Steve matched up dates in his head. “By any chance was Sarah cutting, too?”

  “Sarah? Cutting class?”

  Deb blew out a misty breath. She had locked her slate eyes upon Steve. “I didn’t see Sarah smoking, but Anastasia definitely was. A whole other pack. Straight from my purse.”

  Steve’s frown deepened. He could barely breathe out here, the smoke hung so thickly.

  “You all right there?” Bill asked.

  “No. I think I . . . need another drink.”

  * * *

  “You all right?” Bill said again, following Steve back to the bar. Steve wasn’t talking to him, and Bill was desperately trying to learn what his friend had pieced together.

  “It’s not any better in here,” Steve said.

  “What’s that?”

  “The smoke.”

  “Oh, that?” Bill pawed for the bar but kind of missed it. “Look, don’t worry about that. It’s like I told Janice at the school, she—”

  “Janice?” Steve said, looking up from his undrunk beer. “What do you mean, school?”

  Bill took a concerned look at his friend, at his double friend, sitting in a spinning room on a non-spinning barstool. “Wait a minute, what?”

  Steve shook his head and looked into his beer. “I think I drank too much.”

  Bill admitted, but only to himself, that he, too, had drank too much. Or was it drunk?

  “Drank or drunk?”

  “What?” Steve asked.

  Bill stumbled into his seat beside Steve, glad his friend hadn’t caught on.

  “You can’t smoke in here,” the bartender said, prompting Bill to look down at his own hand.

  “Crap.”

  “Here.” The bartender held out an empty bottle, a lager.

  Bill tried to guide the Montclair down the bottleneck, but mashed the coal and burned himself.

  “Ow.”

  “Just . . . here.” The bartender took the near-butt and dropped it in.

  Bill heard the coal hiss in the bit of beer and backwash he had probably left at the bottom. “Thanks,” he said and turned to Steve, who hadn’t looked up from his mug. “Look, man, sorry I didn’t tell you before.”

  “About what?”

  Bill lifted his cigarette to
smoke, only to remember what had just happened with the bartender.

  “About what?” Steve said again.

  Bill shook his head. He had already forgotten and was yelling for the bartender. “Get ’nother drink???”

  Half a beer later, Bill noticed an officer blocking the exit of the bar. He wore Dragnet-style glasses and used his Tether to scan patrons. Bill didn’t recognize him at all.

  CHAPTER 13

  “Last call!” someone screamed from the bar. Not the bartender, but Debby Disney. Her sweater had come off, revealing a tank top and glittering bands of gold around her neck and wrists.

  “She’s played that song, like, a thousand times,” someone said when “I Melt with You” started again. Steve watched as Deb went sashaying away from the jukebox, totally stuck in the eighties.

  “Couple of drinks, this place turns into a high school,” Steve said into his mug. He still hadn’t drunk it.

  What was it, his seventh?

  Fifth.

  “It’s definitely getting old,” Bill said. He didn’t look so hot, sweating and glancing around all the time, eyes on the door.

  “Steve, uh, go with me for another smoke?”

  “No, man, no. I’m not moving till I’ve got to.” Waving him away lazily, Steve added, “Go in the bathroom if you’re going to be sick.”

  Bill shook his head, staring at something across the room. “I hate those things.”

  Steve looked, too, and saw the officer at the door. “What, his glasses? Didn’t you say the entire office got a pair? Where’s yours?”

  “Never used ’em.”

  “Oh, yeah. The background check, right?”

  Bill nodded. “There was stuff in Goff’s I don’t see how anyone could’ve known. Like when he stole someone’s lunch from the break room.”

  “That’s not that big a deal,” Steve said.

  “It’s invasive. One guy, I won’t say who, those things knew he and his friend had beaten a chicken to death with a baseball bat when they were fourteen.”

  “Damn,” Steve said. “But what’ve you got to hide? Any kids I don’t know about?”