The Ascent of PJ Marshall

by Brian J. Anderson

  “Wow. That was great, Mrs. Harrison. Thank you.”

  Rising slowly from her chair, Mrs. Harrison dismissed PJ with a wave of her hand.

  “Oh, fiddle,” she said as she began to clear the table. “I don’t know about great. It’s too bad Jimmy couldn’t join us. Do you know where he is?”

  PJ rose and took the dishes from Mrs. Harrison’s unsteady hands.

  “He’s at the police station,” he said, setting the dishes next to the sink and plugging the drain. “Remember? They came to his house looking for my father.”

  “Of course I remember. They broke his door. I don’t know why they had to do that.”

  As the sink filled with soapy water, PJ turned to help Mrs. Harrison clear the table.

  “Well, they just—”

  He stopped short, watching in morbid fascination as Mrs. Harrison assembled Ray’s unused place setting and put it back in the cabinet and closed the door. Steadying herself with a hand on the counter, she turned to him with a timid smile, her eyes welling with tears.

  “I don’t know why…I can’t remember, PJ. He’s gone.”

  PJ nodded and slowly turned back to the sink.

  “I know. It’s all right, Mrs. Harrison.”

  With a sigh, Mrs. Harrison touched PJ’s arm as she shuffled past.

  “Do you remember what I said? It’s Joan. Mrs. Harrison was my mother, God rest.”

  PJ chuckled as he turned off the water and set to work on the dishes.

  “Yeah, I remember.”

  Mrs. Harrison left the room and PJ paused in his work, watching and listening after her, his soaking hands growing unbearably hot as her soft, conversational muttering faded down the back hall. The unknowns surrounding his father’s fate hung heavily in the warm air as his gaze lingered, the house beginning to spin in a dark, lemon-scented blur. PJ’s knees buckled against the cabinet and he caught himself against the rim of the sink, sloshing hot, soapy water down the front of his clothes and onto the floor.

  “God damn it,” he whispered, pulling himself back up. “Where the fuck are you?”

  He hung his head, inhaling the aroma of dish water as he caught his breath, his eyes closed against the threat of another spell.

  “Don’t you fucking do this to me. I need you.”

  A breeze washed through the screen door behind him, its gentle whisper through the pines outside slowly bringing him back.

  With the dishes done, PJ turned off the light and went out to the front porch and sat in the rocker by the door. The day’s wet weather had passed on, scrubbing the oranges and pinks of the sunset to a fine luster, and giving Venus—already low in its arc over the Sound—an added brilliance. PJ rocked the chair back against the wall and set his feet on the railing as a meteor traced a line up the sky and disappeared over the roof.

  Light poured through the screen door, followed by the clatter of silverware and latching of cupboard doors in the kitchen. PJ cocked his head.

  “Is everything all right, Joan? It’s PJ. I’m out on the porch.”

  “Oh, PJ,” Mrs. Harrison said, her voice turning toward the door. “Is Jimmy out there with you?”

  “No, he’s not back yet.”

  “Oh, all right. I’ve got pie. Would you like some, PJ?”

  PJ turned back to watch the sunset, shaking his head.

  What the hell am I doing here?

  “No, I’m pretty full Mrs.—Joan. Thanks.”

  He checked the glowing dial of his watch and turned an impatient stare on the darkness enveloping the far reaches of the gravel road, sliding his feet off the railing and onto the floor. Taking the phone from his pocket, he double-checked his incoming call log.

  “Nice sunset tonight,” he said, putting it back. “Care to sit with—?”

  Squinting, PJ raised his hand against the sudden, intense glow of the porch light overhead. The screen door creaked open as Mrs. Harrison stepped onto the porch.

  “PJ, what are you doing sitting out here in the dark? You can’t see a thing.”

  With slow, shuffling steps, she crossed in front of him to a second chair.

  “Thanks,” PJ said, getting to his feet. “Would you like the rocker?”

  Mrs. Harrison waved this off as she turned to sit, scraping her feet over layers of grit built up on the floorboards.

  “You just sit. One chair’s as good as another.”

  Easing back into his chair, PJ watched as Mrs. Harrison grunted with the effort of lowering herself into her seat, her swollen, arthritic fingers wrapped loosely around the armrests, her arms trembling under her weight. He looked away, squinting through the pollution of porch light after the fading sunset.

  “Are you getting along all right here by yourself, Joan?”

  Mrs. Harrison sputtered.

  “Of course, PJ. Just ask Ray or Jimmy what a tough old bird I am. Don’t believe a word, though. Hardheaded, they’d probably say. I don’t know about that. But enough about me. How are you? How are you making out in school? Star pupil, I’ll bet. Like your father, I’m sure. I—”

  “Actually,” PJ said, unintentionally interrupting. “I just finished college. I was about to start a new job when dad went missing.”

  “How is your father, PJ?”

  “He’s…missing, Mrs. Harrison.”

  “Oh, that’s right. Well, he’ll turn up, I’m sure. Probably fishing with Jimmy. Gosh, I remember Butch from way back. He and your mother came to see Jimmy years ago. How is your mother, by the way? Lovely woman, if I remember right.”

  “She’s dead. Six years now.”

  “Oh PJ, I’m so sorry. I had no idea. Your father must be devastated.”

  PJ ran his hand over the still tingling blast burns on his face and neck, giving Mrs. Harrison a furtive glance.

  “Do you remember what happened when Jim and I came home this morning, Joan?”

  Mrs. Harrison shifted in her seat, patting PJ on the leg.

  “Oh, I don’t know, sweetie. My memory’s not what it used to be. I do remember Billy White coming to see Jimmy—he’s Jack and Phyllis White’s youngest, a police officer now—he broke Jimmy’s door. I don’t know why he had to do that, Jimmy’s never bothered anyone. Why would he do such a thing, PJ?”

  “I can’t say anyone’s devastated, Mrs. Harrison. About my mother.”

  Mrs. Harrison sat forward and turned to PJ with a stunned expression, taking his hand.

  “PJ, you don’t mean that. She raised you into such a wonderful young man.”

  “No. She didn’t,” PJ scoffed. “She stopped raising kids after my sister died. Sara. She was four. She got leukemia and needed a bone marrow transplant, so they used my cells to try and save her. But… things didn’t really work out. Our cells started fighting and four months later, Sara was dead. Rejected by my devil’s blood, or Satan’s blood, or some crazy shit. Mom’s words, not mine. I guess she’d have preferred it if the cancer would’ve taken her instead.”

  Mrs. Harrison leaned over, squeezing PJ’s hand.

  “PJ, I’m so sorry.”

  “She lost it after that. Couldn’t get past it. Blamed everyone and everything. By the time I was in high school, she’d been through two institutions and who knows how many fucking pills. Dad did the best he could, but we were all pretty screwed up.”

  “PJ, your mother was—”

  “She was crazy as a shithouse rat. There were times when she seemed well enough, but…you couldn’t trust it. We learned that the hard way when dad let her drive them to one of their sessions. Ran the car into a bridge column. Killed herself and almost got dad. But…it’s okay. He recovered and…we’re probably better off.”

  PJ’s hand slipped from Mrs. Harrison’s grip as she slowly turned away and eased back in her chair.

  “Oh my,” she said. “I don’t know about that.”

  Heaving a sigh, PJ slowly rocked the chair as he squinted at the horizon—now a brightly specked canvas of deep violet.

  There, you said it. Fucki
ng coward.

  A spear of light fluttered in the treetops across the road, growing wider and brighter as a vehicle approached, the erratic revving of its engine drowning the songs of late summer crickets and circling nighthawks. With a deafening whine, Jim’s truck exploded from the woods, weaving and spraying gravel as it swerved and pulled askew into his driveway. The truck lurched and died, its high beams spread over the garden and side yards, a weather forecast blaring on the radio. Jim threw open the door and tumbled out, laughing and cursing as he got to his feet and took the key from the ignition, killing the drone of the radio. The buzz of a lone nighthawk in the darkness overhead.

  “Well, looks like Jim’s home,” PJ said, rising from his chair to help Mrs. Harrison to her feet. She crept to the porch railing, shaking her head.

  “He certainly is.”

  Laughing as he stumbled across the yards, Jim called up to them in a grating, drunken howl.

  “I’m home!”

  Toppling over Mrs. Harrison’s bird bath in his hysterics, he knocked the bowl to the ground, soaking his pants with rank, green water. Mrs. Harrison shrieked as PJ ran down the steps and helped him to his feet, his arm around Jim’s waist. They shuffled and tripped up the stairs and PJ sat him in the rocker, Mrs. Harrison babbling with worry.

  “Jimmy, are you okay?” she asked, her fingers shaking as she touched his forehead “Oh my goodness, you’re going to have such a bump. I’ll get some ice.”

  As Mrs. Harrison disappeared into the house, PJ set his hands on the rocker’s armrests, lowering his gaze to Jim’s drooping, bloodshot eyes, ignoring the stink of vomit rising from his beard.

  “What did they say?”

  Jim reclined in the chair, regarding PJ with an unsettling smile.

  “Nice to see you again, PJ. What did who—oh, the cops. What did the cops say, right? Well they didn’t say much.”

  His smile unwavering, Jim began to rock and shift restlessly in the chair, babbling incoherently. PJ jammed his foot under one of the rockers and tightened his grip on the armrests.

  “Come on, spit it out Jim.”

  From Jim, a look of stunned disbelief.

  “Sheesh, quite a mouth on ya, boy. Better watch who ya shoot it off to. You’ll find yerself cashin’ checks yer mouth—no, wait. Mouthin’ checks yer ass can’t—”

  PJ pushed hard off the chair, slamming its back against the house as he turned away with a throat-rending scream. At the porch railing, he turned back, shaking his head.

  “You’re useless. Why the hell did I think—?”

  “Hey!”

  Jim sprang to his feet, swaying under a cloud of insects drawn to the porch light over his head. The rocker fell to its side with a hollow thud.

  “I spent three goddamn hours gettin’ raked over the coals. Answerin’ questions about you and yer old man. But mostly about you, so don’t you fuckin’ get pissed at me. You’re the one dragged this shit out here for me to clean up, you ungrateful punk. You wanna know what they said? I’ll tell ya what they fuckin’ said. They said I need to tell ‘em where you are or I’ll be in the same shithole of trouble as you. Took everything in me not to. And they didn’t tell me shit about Butch. Wouldn’t tell me shit about nothin’. I don’t know how you royally fucked this up like you did, but you did a hell of a job, bucko.”

  PJ approached him with an expression of coiled rage, but Jim stood pat under the glowing swarm, unconcerned.

  “You’ve got a lot of nerve,” PJ said, his hands curling into fists at his side. Stopping short, his feet scraped to a halt and he looked away, shaking his head. As his anger cooled, PJ unclenched his fists. “What about your PR guy? The douchebag. What’d he say?”

  From Jim, a hoarse, nasally laugh.

  “He won’t talk to me either,” he said, stabbing an accusing finger at PJ. “Because of this shitstorm you stirred up.”

  Again seething with rage, PJ pursed his lips tightly over his teeth in a show of monumental restraint.

  “You piece of shit. Trying to put this on me. All your tough talk, your plans to screw Bighorn and Old Man Hansen. It’s all just passive aggressive bullshit. You let everyone else do your dirty work and then when the shit hits the fan—you run away and hide in your fucking bottle.”

  Jim’s hostile expression slowly crumpled and he raised his hands to his head, pulling his hair and softly muttering in self-flagellation. PJ held him in an icy stare, shaking his head.

  “Just like your old man.”

  Jim’s legs buckled and he fell to his knees, his body trembling.

  “Useless drunk. You make me sick,” PJ said, taking the phone from his pocket. “Give me his number. I’ll push his goddamn button for you.”

  Before Jim could respond, Mrs. Harrison pushed the door open behind him with her hip, a pair of plates heaped with apple pie and ice cream in her hands.

  “I thought you boys might like—”

  The door bumped Jim’s elbow, catching him off guard. He threw his arm back with a defensive yell, shoving Mrs. Harrison back in a stumble across the kitchen floor, the plates and silver rattling before her on the linoleum. She tripped on a chair leg, screaming and raising her hands in a feeble attempt to break her fall against the table, instead glancing off its edge and falling to the floor in a smear of ice cream. Calling out to Jim for help, she rolled to her side, flailing her arms, unable to get up.

  Staring helplessly inside, Jim rocked on his heels, muttering drunken apologies, his hands laid palm up on his thighs. PJ brushed past him and went to Mrs. Harrison’s side, lifting her to the chair despite her spirited protest.

  “Jimmy! I want Jimmy! Let me go! Where is he?”

  “He’s just outside, Mrs. Harrison,” PJ said, taking her by the shoulders and turning her to face him. “Are you all right?”

  “Jimmy, come back!” she yelled, reaching past PJ toward the door, her hands shaking.

  PJ turned in time to catch Jim tumbling down the porch steps and out of sight, his incoherent blubbering fading across Mrs. Harrison’s front lawn.

  You son of a bitch.

  “I’ll be right back, Joan,” PJ said, backing quickly to the door. “Stay right there, okay?”

  From the top of the steps, PJ watched as Jim ran across the road in a mad, lumbering crouch and crashed into the woods, calling back to them in a low wail as he turned on his flashlight.

  “I’m sorry! I’m sorry…”

  Jim’s light flickered and searched among the towering pines and tangled underbrush until it was swallowed along with the rustle and pathetic cries of Jim’s retreat by the forest.

  “Yeah, run away,” PJ muttered. “That’s great.”

  He went back into the house. Mrs. Harrison was gone, a cursory check of the kitchen and living room proving fruitless. From the back hall, the slam of a door. PJ sighed.

  “Perfect.”

  Outside the bedroom, he put his ear to the door, picking up the shuffle of Mrs. Harrison’s slippers on the carpet and the low hum of her voice.

  “Mrs. Harrison? It’s PJ. Are you okay?” The scuttle of feet retreating across the floor, and then silence. “Mrs. Harrison?”

  “I-I’m fine, PJ. Good night.”

  “Good night.”

  He turned and walked back to the kitchen, followed by the faint echo of Mrs. Harrison’s voice down the empty hall.

  “Say hello to your father for me.”

  PJ cleaned up the mess and turned off the lights and went outside, locking the door behind him. In the dark of Mrs. Harrison’s front porch he took out his phone and called Anna, watching the pulsing flash of a jet as it threaded a gap in the Big Dipper’s handle, waiting. She answered, easing the tightness in his chest and throat.

  “Hey, how’s it going?” she asked.

  PJ dialed back a sarcastic laugh as he descended the stairs.

  “I’ve got nothing,” he said, striking off across Mrs. Harrison’s front yard. “Except Porter on my ass all the way from Wisconsin.”

&n
bsp; “Crap. What about Jim’s PR guy?”

  “No. Jim’s in the sauce and crumbling like a…what, I don’t know, but—”

  “House of cards?”

  “Yeah. Left his balls up on the mountain somewhere and now he’s too scared to use his leverage.”

  “Did he tell you the guy’s name?”

  PJ closed the driver’s door of Jim’s truck, extinguishing the dome light.

  “No. And I was too stupid to ask.”

  “Because I looked into some of Hansen’s legal and financial issues. The same name kept popping up. Carl Mason. Must be their go to guy for dealing with bad PR.”

  PJ froze mid-step on the stairs to Jim’s porch.

  “Anything we can use? A button we can push?”

  “I couldn’t find anything. Unless…I don’t know, unless Jim was thinking…”

  She trailed off as PJ crossed to the front door and jiggled the handle. Locked. He reached through the broken pane and unlocked the deadbolt and sat on the top porch step, staring into the darkness across the road.

  “Thinking what?”

  Anna hesitated.

  “About going after his family.”

  ***

  Stars—brilliant in the moonless night—blanketed the sky. Deep, profound silence slipped from the hilltop with the rise of approaching footsteps in the woods across the road. PJ sat up in the hammock, stirring from a fitful half-sleep as light beams danced in the trees, the rustle and snap of forest debris growing louder. Stray beams struck the front of the house with increasing regularity, accompanied by the murmur of hushed chatter. As a pair of boots crunched onto the gravel road, the light went dark.

  “I understand, but I need to talk to him, could you please wake him up? Yes I know, I’m really sorry, but—okay, thank you very much.”

  Oblivious, Jim came up the front walk and swept past the hammock, the sterile glow of his phone bouncing in the dark like an enormous firefly as he climbed the porch steps. PJ swung his feet aside and slid to the ground, his head cocked as he crept to the hedge, listening. Stopping short of the front door, Jim sat on the bench, blowing an exhausted hiss into the phone.

  “Hey, what the fuck’s going on?” Jim asked in a hoarse whisper. PJ froze, straining after the other party’s garbled response. “With Butch. You said you weren’t going to touch him.”