by Martin Clark
“I have nothing else, Judge. I believe the point is made. I would ask the court to strike Mr. Wheeling’s last snide remark—it wasn’t responsive and is unsupported by the evidence.”
“I’ll disregard the last comment, Mr. Wolf. It wasn’t necessary.” Rollins looked at Evers. “You may step down, Judge Wheeling. Thank you.” The judge was quiet, almost whispered.
“Oh, one more thing, Mr. Wheeling.” Wolf spoke just as Evers had stood up. “Do you now use, or have you in the recent past used, illegal drugs?”
“No.”
“You’re certain?” Wolf raised his eyebrows.
“I’m certain.” Evers had no idea how he was going to avoid the drug test.
H. T. Moran arrived a few minutes after Evers finished his testimony, and White called him as Evers’ last witness. H. T. was experienced in the courtroom, knew where to look and how to sit. He wore his uniform. He wore his white boots. He tapped the handcuff tiepin on the front of the witness stand. He supported Evers’ testimony, corroborated the details. Evers felt certain that he was doing well. The judge looked at Jo Miller when H. T. testified about finding her in a motel bed; he stopped writing on his yellow pad and folded his arms across his chest.
“Were there any other people in the room, Officer,” White asked, “besides you, Judge Wheeling, Mrs. Wheeling and Falstaf?”
“No.” H. T.’s answer was quick and firm.
“And Mrs. Wheeling was in bed with Mr. Falstaf.”
“Yes.”
“Having sex.”
“Yes,” H. T. said again.
“What did you do?”
“Well, Judge Wheeling up and told Falstaf to get on outside.”
“And then?”
“Well, he left. Went outside.”
“What was Judge Wheeling’s reaction?”
“He was right smart mad.”
“How did the confrontation end?” White asked.
“What, now?”
“How did all this end, who did what?” asked White.
“Well, me and Judge Wheeling, we, you know, left and drove back to Norton.” H. T. turned and looked at Evers for some clue, a hint. Evers suddenly felt sick and sweaty again. H. T.’s lips were closed, his eyes wide and round. Everything in the courtroom seemed dark and baleful. There was no way he could communicate to H. T. what he needed to say, no way to let him know about the earlier testimony. Evers nodded his head, very slightly, just down and up.
What the fuck does that mean, H. T. Moran must have thought. H. T. decided that it meant to continue the lie. Evers was staring at H. T. White looked at Evers, and Evers leaned toward his lawyer. “Help him, damn it. Lead him.”
“And then, Officer Moran, you and Judge Wheeling went to Climax, North Carolina?”
Wolf hit the table with his open hand. “Leading. Mr. White’s question is improper. I object.”
“Sustained. Rephrase that, Mr. White. I don’t appreciate your prodding the witness.” Rollins seemed upset. H. T. still appeared uncertain. He looked at Evers. He wanted to help.
“Where did you go after the problem in the motel room?”
“To Norton.”
“And before that?”
Evers nodded again. Wolf pointed at him and stood up. “Judge, Mr. Wheeling is coaching this witness. He’s nodding.”
“I’m nodding because I agree with what he said about my wife,” Evers said.
“Where did you go before that, Officer?”
“Nowhere.” H. T. was looking straight ahead.
“You didn’t go to Climax, North Carolina?”
“No.”
“Did you leave Mrs. Wheeling in Climax, tied naked to a sign?” White’s voice was plaintive, pleading.
“Why, no sir. No. Did she claim that?”
Wolf leaned back in his chair. Jo Miller smiled.
“Fuck,” said Evers, almost out loud. “Great.”
After the bloodletting, Evers and Pascal drove to a McDonald’s to eat. Pascal drank some hard liquor on the way and smoked part of a joint. “How could that policeman be so fucking stupid, Evers? How? Your lawyer practically told him what to say.” They were sitting in the parking lot in Evers’ car.
“He tried, Pascal. He’s just a dolt, that’s all.”
“Whatever.”
“What a pleasant day, huh? I lose my case, end up paying my wife two thousand dollars a month to fuck a man in the house that I paid for, and I’ll lose my pissant, tedious job as soon as the drug screen comes back. Hot damn, Pascal, my life is fuckin’ great.”
“You’ll get things straightened out, Evers. This was just a temporary deal, right? A hearing?”
“Yes.”
“We’ll be better prepared next time. Certainly we can prove the stuff at the motel. People had to see them together there—and after that, too. Or make Falstaf testify or something. And I didn’t sleep with your wife by the way. I just said it to help you.”
“You didn’t? Really? Don’t spend the thirty pieces of silver all at one time. I almost forgot to add that brotherly variable to the my-life-is-great formula.” Evers finished the sentence with a disgusted grunt.
“I wish you would quit pounding on me—I’m about all you’ve got right now.”
Evers sighed and turned away from his brother, peered out into the parking lot. Two children carrying backpacks and squirt guns were headed into the restaurant, running and hopping ahead of their parents, shooting each other in the face with jets of water.
“I fucking hated how smug and satisfied Jo Miller was. What a bitch.” Evers shook his head, kept watching the kids. “You’re right—she’s the problem, not you.” He looked back at Pascal. “How about your phone records, the call you made to her?”
“Not a problem. I called from Rudy’s.” Pascal’s eyes were already turning glazed and heavy. “At least the policeman got part of the story right. God was he stupid.” He laughed.
The brothers went inside, and Evers began looking around as soon as he stepped through the door, did a complete clockwise turn in the Mickey D’s. Everything was yellow and bright, surreal. He wouldn’t have been surprised to see Salvador Dalí walk in and paint a pterodactyl or two. Evers’ face was scorched, burning, his head imploding; he was talking nonsense to himself again, running through blender settings. “Blend, chop, mix, whip, liquefy, dice, grate, puree. Great,” he said. Pascal ignored him, but the old people and adolescents and midget-league baseball team, all of them were gawking at him or—even worse—not looking, eating in myopia, their gazes fixed, like men at urinals, no right, no left, just straight ahead. He walked through a sticky Coke spill and went to the counter. He left tracks on the floor.
“Cheeseburgers.”
“Sir?”
“Cheeseburgers,” Evers repeated. “I want a hundred cheeseburgers.”
“One hundred?”
“Correct.” Evers put his hands on the counter.
“Now?”
“Right.”
“Really?” The boy waiting on Evers looked uncertain.
“Yes. No shit. Now. Really. Is that a problem for you?”
“To go or to eat here?”
“To go.”
Pascal tapped Evers on the shoulder. “I’m going to get something in the other line and then go outside.”
“A hundred to go, right?”
“Yes.” Evers’ voice got louder.
“It’ll take about twenty or thirty minutes.”
“That’s okay. I’ll wait.”
“So that’ll be, let’s see now, okay, ninety-five dollars and tax.” Evers handed the cashier five twenties and a ten and told him to keep the change.
He waited twenty minutes while Pascal sat at the end of a slide in McPlayland, and the cooks made a hundred cheeseburgers. The cheeseburgers were stacked in an empty cardboard box. “Would you like ice tea or fries with your order?” the boy asked when he set the food in front of Evers. “I was supposed to ask that when I took your order.” Evers thank
ed him, turned down the tea and fries and carried the box outside to Pascal.
“Evers, what the fuck are you doing with all those hamburgers?”
“You were watching me while I was up there?”
“No. I was playing with Mayor McCheese.” Pascal grinned. “I’m buzzed.”
“Oh?”
“Shit, Evers, how much money do you need, anyway? And, at least you’ve got a fairly easy job.”
“Thanks, Pascal. And I’ll probably lose that when my dope test comes back.”
“You know what I mean.”
“Yeah.”
“Things will work out. They will.”
“Well, at any rate, they’re cheeseburgers. I just wanted them.”
“What?”
“They’re cheeseburgers, not hamburgers.” Evers sat down on a swing; he looked huge in the small seat.
“Whatever.”
“Isn’t it remarkable how you’re taught things—if you’re a boy, I mean—by your father? The portions of your father that you assimilate. Remember Purvis showing us how to buy shoes? I remember watching him bend a pair of black wing tips into a V and tug on the uppers and check the stitching on the sole. He showed me what to look for. I’d like to be a father and teach that stuff, that ritual of shoe-checking, have it pass through me. The same thing our father did. I’d like for that to happen.”
“Are you okay?”
“Yeah. Thanks for trying to help me. I know you hate to lie.”
“Let’s go on over to my trailer and see if the doctor to the cars and Henry want to get the shrine out and drink beer.”
“That’s some weird shit, isn’t it? I mean, I wonder what it is and all, what’s going on.”
“I wonder about Ruth Esther, too. Do you think that we’ll, you know, get to see her, see her much in the future?”
Evers opened a cheeseburger. “It would probably be easy enough, Pascal. You know where the car lot is.”
The next night, Evers was in bed reading, and he had to get up around eleven-thirty to answer the phone.
“When are you going to send me my insurance cards?” Jo Miller asked. “The judge said you were supposed to get them to me immediately.”
“What?” Evers croaked. “What cards?”
“Health insurance cards and car insurance information.”
“I’ll put them in the mail tomorrow. That should be quick enough.”
“It’s a shame things went so poorly for you, Evers.”
“I didn’t lie as well as you did.” He wondered if his wife was recording their conversation.
“Mr. Wolf says I’ll get more when we have the real trial.”
“We’ll see, you bitch.” Evers wanted to scream.
“One more thing, Evers.”
“What?”
“You have a small dick and fuck like a fag. And, oh, I almost forgot, your checking balance is going to be a little short; I hope you have overdraft protection. I withdrew about fifteen grand. For a two-week cruise, Mr. Falstaf and I.”
“How could you possibly have withdrawn that kind of money? I talked to them after you fucked me over with the horse.”
“You gave me a check several months ago, remember? For the utilities. I just held on to it. You signed it in blank. I have two others, although I guess you’ll stop payment on them now. Ellen suggested that I keep the checks and pay the bill in cash. It was a good idea, like having an insurance policy.”
“You have absolutely no shame, do you? This will come back to haunt you in court.”
“I guess we’ll see. You were so successful yesterday. And I understand your drug test will be back any day now. That should be a big help.”
Evers didn’t say anything.
“Evers, listen, maybe I was wrong for some of the things that went on while we were married. But think about how it happened. You left me here by myself and sometimes didn’t call for three or four days at a time. Then you tied me to a sign. I deserve to enjoy my life now; that’s about all there is to it.”
“I truly never realized how unhappy and hard you are, Jo Miller, how bitter, how you hate everything.”
“I don’t hate everything, Evers. I just don’t like you. And, right now, I’m not real high on men in general. I’ve decided that most of you are thin human coverings stretched over flaws and gaps and pettiness, and that you’re completely vainglorious in everything you do from work to pleasure. You’re—”
“I don’t need to listen to this, Jo Miller. I’ll stop by a NOW yard sale if I want to get kicked in the face.” Evers slammed the phone down. He was so angry that he couldn’t finish reading his book, and he had trouble going to sleep. He drank some bourbon mixed with a soft drink, washed and dried a basket full of towels at the Coin-O-Matic and finally fell asleep at about two in the morning—heard a woman’s happy, lilting laugh from the Laundromat right before he drifted off, people washing clothes after midnight, the doors propped open to let out the heat from the dryers.
SEVEN
SOON AFTER ARRIVING IN NORTON, EVERS HAD PURCHASED an aquarium and filled the tank with plastic plants, white gravel, a section of smooth, brown driftwood and, finally, fish, which he brought home in small plastic bags half filled with water and sealed with clear, tight knots: swordtails, angelfish, tiger barbs, catfish and black mollies. Evers put the aquarium in his bedroom, across from his bed. The aquarium had a fluorescent light built into its hood, and the light caused the water to appear practically lavender when the room around it was dark. Evers became transfixed by the silver, black and orange fish moving in the colored water. Almost every night, he turned his reading lamp off, laid his head at the foot of the mattress, and watched the fish … suspended here and there in the glass and purple-hued container, colors and flashes, fins and tails, neon streaks darting and pausing and then dipping into a corner. Evers watched the fishes’ gills opening and closing. “They breathe water,” he’d said more than once.
Evers soon bought more tanks, more plastic plants, more silver, black and orange fish. He had an aquarium built into his living-room wall by an old carpenter who wore a nail apron and drank vodka while he worked. Evers would sit there in his living room, in the dark, listening to Benny Goodman records, smoking a cigar and watching the bright fish in the lavender water. Their fins were never still, their gills always moved….
One Saturday morning, not long after the alimony hearing, Evers woke up and looked around his bedroom; the only sound in his five rooms was the bubbling, rolling sound of air being pumped into the lavender aquarium water. The sunlight was coming in the windows—bent and angled through one, without interruption through the other—and made patterns and shapes all over the room: a translucent square on the front of the dresser, a diamond on the floor, a series of S’s along the windowsill. A bright, clear, still, mollifying room.
Evers set out to enjoy this day, to enjoy it absolutely. “Singular hedonism,” he said while still in his bed. He shaved with a new razor and warmed the lather by holding the can of shaving cream under hot water. He took a bath instead of a shower and shampooed his hair twice.
He put on a white shirt with heavy starch and a new suit, then went out to a restaurant. He ordered eggs Benedict, his favorite breakfast, and made a special effort to chew slowly and pay attention to the consistency of his food—the bread, the meat, the smooth eggs. He smelled the meal while he ate it, and when he was finished eating, he wiped his hands and face on a linen napkin.
Evers stood on the curb outside of the restaurant with the hood on his car raised, and he watched the engine run for five or so minutes before driving away. There were all sorts of belts, pulleys and wires, all interrelated.
He went to the public library and read two short stories by Peter Taylor.
He walked around the park.
He went to the Winston-Salem mall and bought a pair of expensive leather shoes and ten yards of silk fabric.
While he was in Winston-Salem, he went to his health club and swam laps and no
ticed the water on his limbs and his heart’s pace after he had finished his time in the pool. He sat in the sauna and breathed the hot, moist vapor into his nose and throat, and occasionally sucked some of the wet air into his mouth. He combed his hair straight back and left it damp. The comb’s teeth touched the top of his head, scraped his scalp.
He ate dinner at Wendy’s, and asked a teenage clerk to prepare fresh fries even though he could see from the counter that some were already cooked. The fries were hot and glistened. Evers stuck their square ends into small, white cups of ketchup, tasted the salt and sweet and deep-fry oil.
Evers smoked a cigar.
At home in his den, he drank brandy in small sips that caught fire in his esophagus and burned down across his chest. He watched Casablanca on cassette, listened carefully to the dialogue and never stopped following the actors’ eyes.
He wrote a short note to his father’s brother.
He read a Washington Post.
He went to sleep.
He didn’t call anyone, and kept the phone off the hook so no one could call him.
The next Monday morning, Evers went to work in Winston-Salem. He left early and stopped at the White Spot Grill and Coffee Shop for breakfast, ate two eggs and toast and smelled like grease and smoke when he left. He was finished with his case by ten-thirty—the lawyers involved had asked for a continuance after a witness showed up drunk—and decided to call Pauletta Lightwren Qwai. She was in her office writing a brief and sounded surprised to hear from Evers, but after they talked for a few minutes, and after he suggested it, Pauletta agreed to have dinner with him in Charleston. “It’s a long drive just to eat a meal,” she mentioned after they’d decided that Pauletta would cook something at home. “Are you sure you want to do this? Don’t you think it might be easier on a weekend?”
“I just had a case wrap up early and don’t have to be back until two tomorrow. I’ll be on the road soon. You should be flattered … think of the sacrifice. It’s sort of loopy and romantic, isn’t it, driving all that way just to see you?”
Evers left Winston-Salem and drove to his apartment. He took a bath and read The Sun Also Rises while he was in the tub. The book was new, just purchased, and it smelled like fresh paper and made a crackling sound when Evers turned back the cover. When he opened the drain, the water leaving the tub caused a tiny funnel to twist and spin around the stopper. Evers stepped out of the water before it had all disappeared.