Cindy pulled into the parking lot a few minutes before four, she said, and she recognized Phil McClaine through the chain-link fence the moment she saw him. He was pushing Dani and a few other kids on the merry-go-round. Pushing nice and easy, Cindy told me later, not super fast or dangerous, but that didn’t keep her from flying into a panic and running onto the playground past the high-school girl who was standing there texting somebody. Cindy grabbed up Dani, and once she had her safe and sound, she turned on McClaine and said, “What are you doing here?”
Cindy said he kept right on smiling and pushing the merry-go-round and said, “She sure is a pretty girl, Cindy. Takes after her mother.”
The man is evil, Spence. My blood runs cold just writing this now. Imagine what Cindy was feeling at the time. I know you never had kids but I also know you wanted them. I remember you talking about it on several occasions.
Anyway, Cindy told him, “You stay away from my children! If I ever see you here again—”
He turned away from the merry-go-round then, which made Cindy jump back a little. And he said, “I imagine you have to run over to Baker Street to pick up Emma now, right? So I’ll tell you ladies goodbye. I hope you had fun, Dani. I did. And don’t forget; tell your daddy I need to have a little talk with him, okay?”
Then he walked away grinning, Cindy said. Sauntered over to the parking lot and up to his truck. Got in and drove away.
You can bet that Cindy gave the high-school girl an earful. She even went inside to the office and demanded they enforce some kind of security system so that nobody gets into that playground but parents and kids. But she didn’t want to waste a lot of time in there, she wanted to get over to the daycare and make sure Emma was okay.
It was maybe thirty minutes later I pulled into the driveway on my bike, and within fifteen seconds there was Cindy in the garage with me, standing up close and practically screaming at me in a hoarse whisper about what had happened. I didn’t even have time to get off the bike.
And I lost it. How did that asshole know where to find my babies? He must have been watching us, following us, figuring out when to pull that kind of shit. I swear, Spence, the whole time we were together over in Iraq, I never felt such red-hot hatred or anger for anybody. But there in my garage, even though there was still plenty of daylight streaming in, everything went tight and black on me except for Cindy’s face, and it was so strained with fear that I barely recognized her.
I popped the bike into neutral and shoved it backward out of the garage so fast I nearly laid it down twice, but then got turned and thumbed down the starter and was out on the street again. Cindy was back there in the garage holding her belly and screaming at me to come back, but I couldn’t stop myself. I was pure hatred and nothing else. Nothing but blind, stupid hatred with murder in my eyes.
The only place I knew to look for him was the meth house. If I got there and the place was empty, I was going to tear it apart board by board looking for his address. At one point it occurred to me that Pops might know where McClaine lived—I mean hell, he was probably in the phone book, or I could track him down online—but I didn’t want to stop or turn around and take the time for anything more sensible. I wanted to kill that motherfucker.
Lucky for him, or maybe for me, I didn’t know the back road well enough to be flying along at sixty miles an hour. I missed a turn, bounced up over a drainage ditch and went flying into the bushes. I don’t remember if it was the ground or a tree or what that put me out, I only remember coming to with the sun in my eyes, a bee buzzing over me, and a whole lot of pain in my left shoulder and arm, ribs, and the side of my head.
It was the phone ringing and vibrating in my pocket that brought me back to my senses. Cindy, of course. All I told her was that I’d taken a spill and didn’t think the bike was going to start, and maybe she should load the ramp onto the truck and come and get me. She had the good sense to call Pops while she was gathering up the girls. He was a full ten minutes closer to me than she was, and by the time Cindy and the girls arrived, I was already sitting in his car, hurting like hell with every breath, and still too shaky to wipe the blood off my face and arms.
Cindy started crying when she saw me, and though I wanted more than anything to go home, she told Pops in no uncertain terms that she was taking me straight to the hospital. He got the truck backed up over the drainage ditch, then he and Cindy muscled the bike up the ramp while the girls watched from inside the truck, and I watched all of them through the side mirror of Pops’ Lumina.
Talk about feeling stupid. I still planned to go after McClaine first chance I got, but in my current condition I stood about as much chance against him as a hamster.
Once the bike was loaded up, Pops came to the car to tell me he and Cindy were swapping vehicles and that she would drive me to the hospital, but I begged him to take me himself. So he made up a story about the brakes on his Lumina going bad, and in the end he and I led the way in the Lumina, with Cindy, the girls, and my banged-up bike bringing up the rear.
On the way to the hospital, me all balled up in pain leaning against the passenger side, Pops didn’t waste any time getting down to brass tacks. “What the hell is going on here, son? She said you went flying off like a madman.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“More or less.”
“I couldn’t sit by and do nothing, could I?”
“So instead you fly off half-cocked and nearly break your neck.”
Pops always did have a way of going straight to the heart of things. I felt like a little kid again with him scolding me like that.
He said, “You need to tell me what’s going on between you and those McClaine boys. And you need to tell me right now.”
So I did. I told him the whole story. Even what I’d left out in the version I told Cindy.
He never said a word for the next few miles. In fact, he didn’t so much as look at me again until we pulled up at the emergency entrance. Then he shut off the engine, got out and fast-walked into the hospital. A minute later, while I was still trying to climb out of the car, he comes out pushing a wheelchair, walking so fast the nurse has a hard time keeping up with him.
I got to admit I was kind of relieved to be wheeled off to X-ray before Cindy and the girls showed up.
About an hour later I’m in a hospital bed with my ribs taped and about a quart of iodine or some other orange stuff swabbed all over my cheek and arm. I must’ve looked like some kind of Apache daubed up with war paint. Then they let Cindy and the girls in to see me, while Pops went off looking for coffee that didn’t come out of a vending machine.
There wasn’t much Cindy could say about how stupid I was, not with the girls there wanting to crawl up beside me and kiss all my boo-boos. The look in her eyes said more than enough, though. She knew I had failed them, and so did I. But she didn’t know how big a failure I really was.
They stayed maybe an hour or so with me. But the girls hadn’t had any supper yet, so even though Cindy wanted to stay, she kissed me goodnight and said they’d be back in the morning.
I told her, “They might turn me loose tomorrow, babe. Why don’t you wait until I talk to the doc or whoever. I’ll give you a call when I know something.”
I almost broke down with the three of them hugging and kissing me and saying how much they loved me. God, Spence, I felt like such an idiot. You would have chewed me out good if you’d been there. Probably would’ve ripped me a new asshole, as we used to say.
Anyway, the girls weren’t gone more than a minute before Pops came back in. And he got right down to it.
“What now?” he said.
“I need to take the money back to them.”
He rubbed his cheek again, the way he sometimes does when he’s thinking. Then he said, “A few years back there was this young fella named Decarlo, Decario, something like that. Played football out at Ohio State. Supposed to be pretty good at it too. So he’s home one summer, and apparently he got to fooling around wit
h that girl. The one you scooped up out of the mud. Next thing the kid knows, he’s arrested for raping her. Now I’m not saying he did it or didn’t. There’s only two people know that for sure. What I do know is that right before the case goes to trial, the charges get dropped. A week later the boy’s family’s house goes up for sale. From what I hear, they took quite a beating on it.”
“You think it was a scam? She suckered the kid in?”
“I’m saying I don’t think giving back the money is going to solve your problems. If I’m thinking like a McClaine, I’m thinking you’re only giving back what was mine to begin with. I’m thinking I’m going to want something more. Something of yours.”
They had me hooked up to one of those heart monitors, Spence, so it wasn’t long before a nurse came in to see why my heart was racing like I’d sprinted ten miles uphill with a full pack.
“You having a hard time breathing?” she asked.
“This tape might be a little tight.”
“It’s supposed to be tight. I’ll get you something for the pain.”
As soon as she was out the door, I looked at Pops and said, “So what are my options here?”
He said, “I’m trying to think of one.”
Then the nurse was back with a plastic bag of something, which she rigged up to drip into the tube already taped to my arm. “You’ll start feeling better in a minute or so,” she said. “You might want to tell your grandfather goodnight while you’re still awake.”
She hung around so long after that, watching the monitor and taking my pulse, that before I knew it I was having a hard time keeping my eyes open. I’d feel myself going off into the dark, sort of slowly melting down into it, then I’d yank myself back up again and force my eyes open. But then the dark would take hold of me again and suck me back down.
The last thing I remember is feeling Pops’ stubbly chin scrape against my nose as he kissed me on the forehead. I tried to lift my arms up and hug him, but I was in the quicksand then, brother, and sort of hoping I’d never have to come back out.
The doctor didn’t get around to having a look at me until after eleven the next morning. Cindy had already called three times for an update. Good thing it was a Saturday; she didn’t have to go to work or take the girls anywhere.
After the doc released me I sent Cindy a text, cause I wasn’t ready yet to get into a conversation with her. I knew that was waiting for me at home once the girls were busy playing or watching TV. I got dressed and went downstairs and signed some papers, then I went outside and sat on a bench overlooking the parking lot. All I could think about was how much that night in the hospital was going to cost me. Three, four thousand minimum, that was my guess. Shit, they charge you fifty dollars every time they step inside the room.
So Cindy pulls up in the truck, and the girls aren’t with her, so I know I’m in for it. No way she’d leave the girls with anybody on a weekend unless she has serious business to attend to. I climb in and shut the door and sit there watching the telephone poles go by.
We’re nearly halfway home before she swings us off the road and into a Food Lion parking lot. She eases into the first empty slot and shuts off the engine. She sniffs a couple of times, and it finally dawns on me she’s crying. It hurts to look at her sitting there hunched up over the steering wheel.
“I didn’t do anything with that girl,” I tell her.
“You did something,” she says.
And there it was again, another chance to come clean and tell her about the money. Looking back, I can see these moments clear as day. But when you’re actually inside one of them, and there’s this heavy fog over everything you do and say and think, it’s not so easy to make an intelligent decision. I’d already disappointed her once. How would she react to finding out her husband was a thief? I felt hollow and broken and more alone than I’d ever felt in my life. The rest of the truth could only make matters worse.
So I told her, “I swear to God I didn’t.”
“That man threatened one of our babies!”
“I’ve been thinking about that. And I think all he wanted was to scare you. You and me both.”
“Well he did a pretty damn good job of it, didn’t he?”
“He’s not going to touch them, I know he won’t. How stupid would that be if he did? The playground monitor saw him, the vice principal knows he was there. You put it all on record.”
“So maybe he’s too stupid to think about that. Then what?”
“He’s not stupid, Cindy. He’s calculating. Pops told me about how the three of them shook down a college kid by charging him with rape.”
“Oh my God, Russell.”
“It won’t happen with us, I promise you. There’s no evidence. Not a shred. Things are different these days, what with DNA and forensics and all that stuff. Plus, if they try the same scam again, their history will come back to haunt them. We’ll take them to court.”
“With what? How are we supposed to pay a lawyer? I don’t even know how we’re going to pay your hospital bill!”
“I took care of that already.” I don’t know why I said it, Spence. Because I love her, I guess. And because I’d already caused her enough worry.
“What do you mean you took care of it? How?”
“Your insurance covered about a third of it. The rest was covered by some program for low-income families. With me being out of work and all.”
At first she seemed pleased by this news. Then she broke down and started crying for real. “Damn it, Russell. What’s next for us—food stamps? I will not live like that again!”
“You won’t have to, babe. I promise. If I don’t get that job at Lowe’s, I’ll find something else. I’ll flip burgers if I have to. You and the girls are my life. You know that.”
Finally she pinched the tears from her eyes and rubbed her cheeks dry. “I forgot to ask you how the interview went yesterday.”
“Good,” I told her. “Real good. He said I’d hear from him sometime next week.”
The thing is, I’d already heard from the guy who interviewed me. He took a long look at my résumé and said, “You know, Russell, I like to hire our vets whenever I can. Male and female. The thing about you is, with this college degree, you’re always going to be looking for something better. And you should have something better. So if I do what I want and hire you now, a month or so down the road, I’m going to have to fill the same position again.”
Which leaves me where, Spence? Getting screwed by the elephant, that’s where.
That first day back from the hospital, Cindy wanted me to spend the entire day on the couch, nursing my wounds like some kind of invalid. But I couldn’t sit still, no matter how much my body was hurting, not even with a couple of sweet little girls crawling into my lap every ten minutes. The more love they poured over me, the more I ached to set things right. But every possible correction I could think of felt less like a correction and more like trying to cancel out a negative with another negative.
That’s supposed to work in math, but I never could understand the logic behind it. Mostly all I had to know at the crushing plant was simple arithmetic. A hundred and twenty tons of this material and four hundred tons of that. Add them together and that’s how much inventory we had in the yard. Subtract it from the number of tons on the purchase order, and we either had enough inventory or needed to order more. But there was no way sixty negative tons times a hundred negative tons was ever going to produce six thousand tons of anything. It doesn’t work that way in real life. It can’t. All you’re going to end up with is a lot more of a bad thing.
All I knew for certain was that sitting around watching cartoons with my girls made me feel like a horde of ants was crawling through my veins. So when Cindy wasn’t looking, I slipped out into the garage.
My bike, which was still in the bed of the pickup, was banged up pretty good. The crankcase was dripping oil onto the truck bed, the handlebars were twisted out of alignment, and the front fender was bent up against t
he tire. The whole left side was caked with dirt and covered with scratches.
I put up the garage door and was pulling out the ramp when I felt Cindy standing there watching me. “And what do you think you’re doing?” she said.
“Trying not to go crazy from sitting still all the time.”
“Well you’re not ever going to ride that thing again.”
“You going to drive me to Lowe’s every day? Pick me up every night?”
It was the closest thing we’d ever had to a fight, Spence. I hated myself for the way I sounded.
Finally she said, “Well you can’t unload it by yourself.”
“I’ve done it dozens of times before.”
“Not with bruised ribs you haven’t. Where do you want me, top or bottom?”
How do you deal with a woman like that, brother? How do you do anything but love a woman like that? I honestly had tears in my eyes just looking at her.
“Stand down there and steady it for me.” I said. “The tricky part is when I have to jump down without letting go of it.”
I felt like my ribs were being pulled out of my side, but we finally eased the bike down and got it parked in the driveway. It hurt like hell holding in all my moans and groans the whole time.
“Thanks, babe,” I told her.
She came up to me then and threw her arms around me and pressed herself up against me. “You’re a damn fool,” she said. “I hope you realize that.”
“Time and time again,” I told her.
It took some doing, but an hour or so later I had the crankcase sealed up tight again, the handlebars straightened, and the fender pulled away from the tire. Cindy and the girls came out into the garage when I fired up the engine so I could listen to the idle.
Cindy had to raise her voice to be heard over the growling pipes. “You’re not planning to ride that today, I hope.”
“You know what they say about falling off a horse.”
“And you’re a horse’s ass,” she said.
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