I listened to them. A couple were phone sales. But three of them were from Brett. Two supported the first. The first I played over three times so I could hear her voice.
“Hap. This is Brett. You know what, life sucks if you let it. I’ve been letting it. No more feeling sorry for myself. My daughter is going to turn tricks if I want her to or not. I’m thinking about getting a new puppy and a wax job. One or the other. Or maybe I’ll get a puppy and give that little scooter a wax job. Give me a call. Better yet, come by and see me. Bring your dick.”
Pure Brett. I was at a stage in my life where I really hoped it was more me she wanted to see than the dick. Though, like all males, I could tolerate that part if I had to. No arm twisting necessary.
While my coffee brewed I looked for something to eat, but there was only spoiled milk and moldy bread. I put the bag of bread and the plastic milk carton in the trash.
I showered, dressed, poured up a cup of coffee, went down to my car and out of there.
I went by a little cafe and bought some biscuits and bacon, drank their coffee. I drove to the hospital then, went up to where Sarah Bond still had a room.
I didn’t know if I was allowed or not, but I opened the door and slipped in. She was asleep. She didn’t have as many tubes and wires in her this time, but she looked only marginally better. Her face was pale as Lazarus before Jesus raised him. She was still patched and taped up. Only a little of her face showed. I reached over, patted her hand, and went out.
As I walked down the hall to the elevator, I thought about what Leonard had told me once. About how things didn’t happen for a reason, they just happened. And he was right. But Sarah being attacked, me trying to help her, had set a series of events in motion.
I wondered if things would have been different for Beatrice had I not come along. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut that fishing line, put her and Billy at odds with one another. I could have let her do what she wanted to do, as distasteful as it might be to me. She might have gotten her money if I had. Might have paid her bills and spared her life.
I wondered if Brett was on duty. We had met in this hospital. It was a very romantic memory. She had stuck a needle in my ass.
I went down to the desk and asked. She wasn’t on duty, still worked the night shift. Of course, I knew that. I was just hoping against hope. I drove over to her place.
The yard was ripe with sunburned brown grass, and a lawn chair had been gathered up and near turned over by the foliage. It was as if the lawn had grassy hands and it was using them to tip the chair.
I went up and knocked on the door. Gently at first.
No answer.
Less gently.
I heard someone moving behind the door.
I hoped it wouldn’t be some man.
That would certainly be a disappointment.
Brett opened the door. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and slippers made like bears. Her red hair was wadded around her face. She smiled slightly, said, “Well, if it isn’t Hap Collins. Come on in.”
“I’ve missed you,” I said.
“You sure you haven’t just missed what’s between my legs.”
Brett was like that, vulgar, to the point. Being Gilmer High School Sweet Tater Queen some many years ago hadn’t gone to her head.
“I missed that too,” I said. “I was thinking maybe that’s all you missed about me.”
“Well, I missed what was between your legs, Hap, but there’s plenty of that around.”
“Oh, good. Now I feel better.”
“I finally think I’ve got my head on straight. Killing people can kind of dig itself in deep, like a tick. I think I pulled off the body but the head’s still in me.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“You don’t have some other floozy you’re porkin’ do you?”
“No. But God how I’ve tried.”
“There hasn’t been anyone else, Hap. Not for me.”
“Well, there has been someone else, but… that’s over.”
“Wasn’t the same as with you and me, was it?”
“Nothing is. Also, she’s dead.”
“That’ll kill a relationship, all right. Sorry I said that. Are you still sad about it?”
“Darlin’, I’m always sad about something.”
“Sit down, sweetie, tell me all about it. I haven’t had breakfast. Want some? Breakfast, I mean.”
“Just ate. But I’ll drink coffee with you.”
Brett clanged some stuff around, came back with a piece of toast for herself, poured us coffee. We sat down at the table. She put one hand on my leg.
“I really have missed you,” she said.
“Same.”
“I know about how you saved that girl. You saved my girl too, Hap. You saved me. You’re always trying to save somebody. Everybody but yourself. You ever think about that?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t want you to think I didn’t appreciate what you did for me and my daughter.”
“I admit, I wondered. I shouldn’t. That isn’t the way you’re supposed to be. You do something with the best of intentions, it’s supposed to be with the best of intentions and nothing else. But I did wonder. Leonard chastised me for it.”
“Leonard’s a mutant.”
“That must be it.”
“The rest of us wonder about those kinds of things. Hap, it isn’t that I’m ungrateful. Or that I don’t love you. I adore you. It’s just that I’ve been a little lost. Tillie went right back to takin’ strokes for money.”
“Yeah. You told me.”
“Can you believe that?”
“Leonard said she would.”
“Again, Mr. Know-It-All.”
“I get to thinking he’s so smart, what in hell is he doin’ hangin’ around with me?”
Brett laughed. I loved that laugh. It was rich and smoky.
“Tillie may not have changed like I hoped,” she said, “but I like to think she’s safer. As safe as anyone can be in that business.”
“I hope so, Brett.”
“You know I went to the Gilmer Yamboree this year. I told you I rode a float there once. When I was a teenager.”
“Yep. You were Sweet Tater Queen. I’ve seen the photographs. The float is a giant sweet potato. As I recall, you told me you thought it looked like a giant turd.”
“That’s right. And you know what, they didn’t even have a goddamn sweet tater over there this year. Not even as a float.”
“Modernization, what you gonna do? Everybody’s eatin’ McDonald’s french fries. There’s people don’t even know you don’t make french fries out of sweet taters.”
“Actually, you can,” Brett said, “but they don’t taste right. But, shit, you’d think they could find a sweet potato somewhere… Hap, this woman. The one who’s dead. Did you love her?”
“No. I didn’t love her.”
“Do you want to tell me about her?”
“Maybe not just now.”
“You want to leave this shitty coffee and go sweat up the sheets?”
“Boy, do I.”
I guess it was about a week later. Me and Brett had taken to living with one another, and it was working out fine. She had gotten neither puppy nor wax job nor waxed puppy. She did let me shave her pubic hair, however, and I liked that.
We had her daughter, the whore, visit from Tyler. She had dinner with us. Tillie decided she was going to spend the rest of her time taking the basic courses at Tyler Community College, turning tricks less and less. Perhaps a career as a brain surgeon was in her future.
Or maybe she just wanted to learn how to count up her trick money better at the end of the day; run her own whorehouse.
Brett’s son, Jimmy, had finally gotten rid of his Christian Scientist girlfriend. Or rather fate had gotten rid of her for him. She died. Should have had that kidney checked when it first acted up. But she believed in the power of prayer. Her God, however, had other plans. So Jimmy was free. And doi
ng better. Had gone on a bender to Mexico, Brett said. Came home with a box of Chiclets, a sombrero, and a dose of the clap. Nothing penicillin couldn’t clean up. He was no longer teaching Aikido; having gotten beaten up in Mexico he decided he needed more lessons.
Anyway, Brett and I were together again. She had only one new rule for me, having doled it out after I had told a friend she was nursing. I was told to say she was a nurse and never say she was nursing. Brett thought it sounded like she was wet-nursing a baby.
“Could I just say you’re nursing me?” I asked.
“No, you cannot.”
Me and Leonard were back to work at the chicken plant. We were happy as people can be protecting chickens. I learned to never make friends with incoming chickens. Under the circumstances, even a chicken knew it was insincere. You could see it in their eyes, way they held their heads.
One afternoon before Brett and I went to work, we went over to my apartment to start cleaning it out. I had decided at the end of the month to let it go. I had pretty much moved in with Brett anyway. We were talking about marriage and a different house that we might rent, or even buy. Some place big enough to hold all our things and anything else that might come to us. I was seriously thinking about trying to start a real career. As always I was stalled on knowing exactly what. I thought about President of the United States for a couple hours, but I didn’t really want to move out of East Texas. Astronaut was an idea, but considering I disliked flying any more than I had to, I had to rule that out. Plantation owner was another thought. But I didn’t have any land or money and Leonard wasn’t the butler type, so I had to dismiss that. I thought about what was most likely. I kept coming up with chicken plant guard.
It was depressing.
I was thinking more and more about Charlie and Hanson, their offer to work for them.
At my place me and Brett cleaned out the refrigerator, tossing stuff in the trash, packing up the good stuff to take over to her place. There was a lot more trash than good stuff.
While we were at it, Charlie came by.
The door to my place was open. I had quit running the air conditioner, trying to save money. It was a time of the year when it was starting to cool down a little. Nothing to get excited about. No igloos were about to go up. We were merely having a mild streak.
Charlie came in and took off his hat. He smiled. I knew it wasn’t for me. It was for Brett. She was wearing white shorts and her pale lightly freckled legs were a wonderful thing to see. Her bright red hair was cut so that it fell around her face like a feathered helmet. She had on a loose top and no bra. She was one of the few older women I knew who could get away with that, though it was her claim her days as a swinging tit were almost over.
“Hey, Charlie,” she said.
“Hey, Brett. Good God, woman. What do you see in this man?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Charlie and I shook hands. Charlie said, “I’ve come by a few times, but haven’t caught you.”
“I’m mostly at Brett’s,” I said.
“I’m glad to see you two back together. How’s Leonard?”
“He’s good. We only see each other at work these days. He’s got John and I’ve got Brett.”
“Good for both of you. Me, not so good. I got Hanson. We’re putting together our agency, you know?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Got clients yet?”
“Not really. We’re not quite ready. I’ve been enjoying my retirement till the money runs out. I been lookin’ for you because I wanted to thank you for payin’ the money back from the Mexico thing.”
“You’re welcome. I owed it. You saved my bacon. You’re lucky I had some money and could pay it back in one chunk.”
“I’d have liked to let it go, but…”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I can make some coffee, Charlie,” Brett said. “We were thinking about having some.”
“That would be nice.”
Charlie sat on the couch, put his porkpie hat on the armrest. “You’re moving out?”
“I am.”
“Well, that kind of log-jams the other reason I came by.”
“And that is?” I asked.
“I wanted to see I could stay here one night soon. So I could have my trailer painted. And boy, does it need it. I bought it off a couple had a bunch of kids. They must have wiped shit on the walls, way that place stank. I got some cheap new furniture in storage. Been sleeping on a pallet. It’s killing my back. I was gonna do the painting myself, but I’m a shitty painter. Fact is, I’m bringing in painters to repaint what I fucked up. I started trying to do it, but a brain-damaged chimpanzee could have done a better job. Thing is, the smell. Not just from the kids, but the new paint. Man, I can’t take it. I thought about staying with Hanson, but his wife doesn’t like me. I thought I’d ask you. That doesn’t work out, I can ask John and Leonard. I thought it just being you it would be easier, but I see it isn’t just you anymore. And you’re moving out.”
“Well, Hanson’s wife just doesn’t know your charm,” Brett said.
“Yeah, charming, that’s my goddamned middle name.”
“I hear you, honey,” Brett said. “When they were passing out ass, I thought they said class, and I asked for a lot of it. And I got it.”
“It looks all right to me,” Charlie said.
“I’m not complaining,” Brett said. “It sure beats being bony when you fall on it.”
I said, “I’ve got another week or two on this place, Charlie. You can stay here. I’m stayin’ at Brett’s, so you’d have it to yourself. I can leave the coffee, any of this food you want. Though the rotten stuff might not be too appetizing.”
“No. That’s all right. Well, just the coffee.”
“Not a problem.”
I gave him my spare key.
“I can start tonight?”
“Sure,” I said. “I’ve spent my last night here.”
22
As I grow older, my belief in a higher power has not only disintegrated, it’s become negative. As my lawyer friend Veil once said, “If there’s a God, let him explain babies with AIDS.”
I think about the silliness of it. This whole God thing. Two teams praying before a football game. Not to get injured is all right, but they’re also praying to win. As if the Wildcats are more in God’s favor to win a fuckin’ football game than the Beavers.
How does God judge that? Best-looking cheerleaders? Quarterback with the best hairdo? Linebacker with the biggest dick? What’s the criteria on that?
In other words, what the hell was God’s plan for doing what he did to me and mine?
So, here’s what happened. I’m trucking along happy-like. Living with Brett. Playing house. Eating good. Going to work at the chicken plant. Not exactly the life of a high roller, but like the GED, the Good Enough Diploma that’s almost a high school diploma, I had a Good Enough Life, which was almost like a real one.
One morning after I got off work, I drove over to my place to tell Charlie if he needed a few days more, he had them. Until the end of the month actually. On that date, the landlord, a real shithead of a guy, was going to level the apartment and put the property up for sale.
I drove over there. Charlie’s car was in the yard. I parked next to it, started up the stairs. When I reached the top I saw the door was splintered at the frame. The door itself hung slightly open.
I felt a cold chill get hold of the short hairs on my neck and shake them. I felt a tightening in my stomach, a shrinking of my testicles.
I still had on my guard outfit, including gun, so I pulled the revolver, a. 38, and went on up, thinking, Good God, don’t let that motherfucker I fought at the chicken plant be up here. Anything but that.
I don’t know exactly why that came to mind, but that was my first thought. He had escaped, was looking for me, had gnawed a hole through the jail bars with his goddamn teeth, and now he was waiting to leap on my head, bite my skull, and suck out my brain.<
br />
I eased up to the door frame, listened. Off in the distance I heard a kid yell and a dog bark. I gingerly pushed the door completely open.
Inside the apartment the only sound was a drip from the sink.
I slipped inside. It was a little dark. The blinds were drawn, but it wasn’t a place a person could hide, unless he was a leprechaun or the Invisible Man. I pointed the revolver around just for the hell of it. I called Charlie’s name.
He didn’t answer.
I was reminded of something else.
The hotel room in Mexico. The bed with Beatrice on it.
All of a sudden the apartment seemed like a place I’d never been and didn’t want to be. The ceiling was too low, the walls too close. I thought the floor might tilt up and drop me off the edge of the world.
I called Charlie’s name again, this time real loud. Just for good luck I cocked back the hammer on the. 38.
As I moved inside my feet bogged in something wet on the carpet. I lifted them. They were sticky. The carpet was like the carpet of an old theater gummy with spilled soft drinks and smashed candies.
The carpet only partially covered the living room. The rest was wooden floor, and parts of it were coated in something congealed. It had seeped out from behind the couch. My nostrils quivered with the stench of it; sort of road kill meets dried copper baking slowly in a smutty oven.
I put one knee on the couch and leaned over and looked down.
There was a burst of blackness that struck me in the face, sent me stumbling back, swatting.
Flies.
I took a breath, put a knee on the couch, and looked over again. Now I knew why Charlie hadn’t answered. You can’t yell loud enough for someone in that state to hear.
Charlie lay behind the couch. He wore only jockey shorts. His throat had been cut. But before that he had been worked on. He was missing some teeth. His nose and cheeks had been cut on, as if whittled. He wore an expression that seemed to say, “Oh, shit.” His hands were tied behind his back with strips of one of my sheets or maybe a pillowcase.
The flies were settling on him again.
I couldn’t help myself. I let out a little bark of pain and fear and bounced off the couch.
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