by Diane Munier
“Separate a man from his deeds. This is how you love,” he’d said.
He didn’t buy it. How did you separate a man from his deeds? What kind of a skewed free pass was that?
Separate a man from his deeds—skin him alive and nail his suit of flesh to the barn wall, then. Some things you couldn’t cut apart without killing the whole. A man was his deeds. That was the fooking problem.
Audie pulled into Redver’s yard. They got out, and Audie had the trunk up.
“Hey copper, you alive?” Audie said, close to Clark while they searched for a way to move him.
Redver had his trailer door open. He was in his chair looking out. Jerry pushed past Redver—no shirt, hair standing like he’d been sleeping already.
“What do you want?” Orangutan said, coming down the four steps and walking to the trunk they’d just popped.
“Hot damn,” Jerry said, looking in. “You bring this dead guy here? Wait—is that—”
“He ain’t dead,” Jules said. “Least, he wasn’t.” He looked at Redver. “Cabhan got Clark. Copper… Clark.”
He didn’t have to explain. Redver had been at the fight, seen the big mouth leading the charge.
“Happy birthday, huh?” Audie said, nudging Jerry like he’d understand.
“That’s bad trouble,” Redver said, one hand splayed against the door, the other on the wheel of his chair.
“There ain’t no other kind,” Audie said, the philosopher now.
Jerry made a stretcher from a blanket and two crutches Redver had used before living full-time in the chair. He laid this on the ground, and they moved Clark there. He moaned a little…a lot, but he was weak. They got him in and put him on the living room sofa. Clark never opened his eyes, but his mouth, he didn’t close that. And that was bloomed up like a punched mouth bloomed, his lips red and split. He still wore his uniform, tore up with blood stains from the wounds underneath. His feet were bare.
Clark’s nose was bent over. That was gonna hurt—if he lived, and they yanked it in place, but no sense putting him through it if he was already dying.
And his arm, swollen, probably broke. Jules didn’t want to touch him anyway. This was shit. If he lived…it was all shit then. But hurt like this, there would be bleeding on the inside.
“You want the hospital?” Jules asked Clark.
“No,” Audie said, and Jules ignored him, but Clark didn’t answer.
“Hell with him,” Jules said. He was going to try and save this asshole? What for? He’d put his daughter in Cabhan’s crosshairs. He needed to die…just let go and stop breathing.
The move to the couch, and the pain, must have snapped him out of his coma. He was trying to focus on Jules.
“Get Sue,” Redver said to Jerry.
Jerry went out.
Audie asked who Sue was, and Redver said she was a nurse. She was all right.
Redver rolled forward and nudged Jules, and he left off staring at Clark. He had a million thoughts in his head. Redver was offering Jules a smoke, holding the pack toward him.
“Got my own,” Jules said. He stepped away from Clark some, but the room was small and with Redver’s chair and Audie, big as a chair, there was nowhere to go. He struck a match and sucked the fag. “Cabhan said you and him…go back.”
Redver nodded. “Not at the same time.” He eyed Jules, and the corner of his mouth lifted.
“We got us a patient,” Jules said. They’d expected a corpse.
Audie nodded. “Another test.”
“Oh,” Jules said. “Right.” He was pissed as hell. Gorilla wasn’t telling him a thing.
But the solution was rolling out in his mind.
“It ain’t complicated,” Audie said. “Redver knows… right, man? It ain’t complicated.” Audie said this last bit to Redver.
“It could be,” Jules said. Because whatever way this went, he wasn’t setting himself to trust the snake or the jackel. He said as much.
Redver laughed a little. “Wise words,” he said.
Jules felt his former fog lifting on that. He may have gotten soft, but he was snapping out of it. He’d bowed the knee and kissed ass for the last time. Whatever they did, it would clear the decks; that much he knew.
Sue came. She carried a bag, like a doctor. She took the shade off of the pole lamp by Redver’s chair and brought it near the sofa, and she got to work on Clark.
Jules went outside. Audie followed.
“Jules…talk to me.”
“What do you want me to say? He lives—what? We all go to Leavenworth? What if he pins this on us? He wants me dead.”
“No way he’s coming through this,” Audie said.
He looked away from Audie. “No? She can patch him up, we what—let him convalesce?”
“You ain’t hearing me, Chimp. He’s not coming through. It’s his time, man; past his time. Him and Cabhan.”
“So much for family loyalty,” Jules said. It was “Uncle Cabhan,” after all.
“Hey,” Audie said, gesturing toward the trailer, toward Clark.
Yeah. Screw family loyalty when family wasn’t loyal to you. But was Audie loyal to him? That’s what Jules couldn’t reconcile right now. There were secrets. Jerry. This big-ass plan that had him fired. Jules didn’t know shit about Audie right now.
“Can I trust you?” Jules said.
Audie stared at him. Jules knew his looks, his faces. “What you want me to say, Jules? After all these years…you do or you don’t.”
It was a good answer, maybe even the right answer, but it didn’t fix a thing, cause inside…Jules realized he had Francis’s problem when it came to Audie. He loved him.
Always would. But trust him? Not anymore.
Chapter 47
A half hour later, Jules had just exited the trailer again. Clark hung on. There was some problem with his breathing, more than the broken nose, and a slow and troubled heart rate, so Clark wasn’t mincing words. He didn’t have the wind, and he couldn’t stay awake, and he moaned and groaned, and it sounded like, “Isabelle.” He was out of his mind.
Outside, Jules took a breath, lit a smoke, walked over Redver’s dying lawn, if it could be called that—tamped-down dust, quiet, with patches of choked white grass. He tried to focus on something besides the man in the trailer. The weather was changing, fall’s crawling fingers cooling it down, and he thought how he’d never known Isbe in fall weather. He’d never walked through leaves with her or gone to the country to look at the color, to find a farmer selling sweet potatoes at the side of the road, his wife in a chunky jacket, helping him make the change, and Jules would say to keep it, and he’d thank them and he’d feel good to know Isbe would be with him to grow old…but he’d think of all the time between now and then…all the times they’d watch leaves come and go and the life in between.
But maybe this year…they could buy a pumpkin, a big one…if she wanted. He wanted to do that, carve one…like the ones he’d smashed when he was a punk…and he could still be a punk, but when he was one for real back then, wanting to break what he could…so angry…so ornery…he couldn’t follow the rules. God Almighty, he had so much to make up for.
Could he follow them now—rules? What kind of man was he? What kind of man?
He didn’t want this kind of thinking.
That moog inside, lying on the couch, he’d had a good kid like Isbe—and what had it meant? That loser had nothing now—when he could have had so much—and calling for her now? Jules was angry about it…the people…other people threw away. Didn’t they know how time ran out?
He saw it in the war…people…throwing people…in ditches and holes, leaving them to lie on the earth, to stare without seeing…a stupor of sleep. What if something were to happen to her…some judgment on him…for choosing to be…this man…who’d pulled her into his turmoil…into his…shit.
What kind of man was he…for Isbe?
He wanted that big money. He thought it was owed to him, not so much from the war, but f
rom the way his old man did him—he was taking his, taking what he wanted, willing to get it one way or another.
And then he fell in love. He hadn’t known…he was looking. But there she was. And same time, same day he found her…Uncle Cabhan found him…drifting.
He’d been floating along; he hadn’t chosen the straight and narrow, not anytime. But there she was, that missing rib, that missing chunk of his heart, that lover of his soul. And he got married. And he was trying now…wasn’t he?
He got that job like she wanted. He was nearly, nearly a regular Joe.
So why didn’t that square things?
Because his old man was right…inside, Jules knew he might be rotten…hopeless even. From his mother…to right now…he’d always brought the dark thing. And now, to Isbe.
What kind of man let down Isbe Blaise? Clark. But was he any better?
He groaned and looked at the stars. The thought of settling, just being that nine-to-five moog—damn, he didn’t know. He had her; what more could he ask for? But he wanted “it” too. A little…a little danger…the wild west…open the gate and let it charge, cause boxing him up would take an undertaker with a club. He wouldn’t go easy. He never could fit where it was tight. Not since…not still. He had big love and big ambition. She’d signed on…but did she really know?
Jules heard Redver’s front door open and close. It was Sue. “He wants to see his daughter,” Sue called to Jules, like he didn’t already know.
Jules threw his smoke on the ground, moving his foot to grind it out. He missed, staggered, and tried again. He wasn’t mixing Isbe in this. He’d hold a pillow over that fucker’s face first. That bastard didn’t even know what he was saying.
“He wants…” Sue was saying as he approached.
“She ain’t coming around this,” Jules said.
“He’s dying,” Sue said. “We can’t move him to the hospital. He won’t make it.”
Jerry came from inside the house. “I called her.”
“Fucker, you did not,” Jules said.
“She’s coming,” Jerry said.
“You do this without asking me? That’s my wife!” Jules yelled.
“You don’t get to decide,” Jerry said, spitting and folding his arms over his hairless chest. Jules wanted to pound him down.
He stormed across the grass and up the steps and got in Jerry’s face. “You don’t ever tell me what I decide comes to my wife.” He knew spit was flying, but it didn’t matter. None of it mattered. He could feel the blood move behind his eyes, then the satisfying crunch of Jerry’s nose under his fist. He was aware of restraint, arms clamping around his arms, holding them back like chicken wings, and he couldn’t be held when he felt like this, but it gave Orangutan time to leap over the porch railing and take off running. Jules was going after him, but Audie was on him again, and they struggled, and he turned and punched Audie and that one didn’t take it; he socked Jules’s jaw, and they tumbled down the porch stairs and wrestled at the bottom.
Jules got on his feet and kicked Audie in the middle, and it was on then. But the cold shot of water, right in his face, did stop Jules for a minute. It was Sue standing there blasting an industrial-size hose, something a fire department might use.
“All right!” he shouted.
“You’re guests here and you’ve brought enough trouble,” she said, directing the water from Jules to Audie. Jules was drenched. There was water in his shoes.
“Turn it off!” Audie yelled.
She kept the water going, right into Audie’s open mouth. “You don’t tell me what to do, buster.”
Having made her point, she sprayed them both a couple more times, then stepped to the freestanding spigot and moved the big metal handle to the resting position, shutting the water off. Audie had been spitting, and now he got up from the mud puddle that had formed around his ass while Jules checked his saturated cigarettes and said, “Fuck.”
Sue wasn’t finished. She said to Jules, “Now clean up before your wife sees you. Don’t you think she’ll have enough to handle?”
Jules didn’t worry about dripping water. He went into the trailer, to Clark, and leaned over, cold drops splashing onto that near-corpse. “Hey,” he said, making sure Clark’s sunken eyes were open. “You got no right to ask for her. You ain’t worthy to say her name, fucker. What you ever do for that girl? You didn’t take care of her. You never took care of her!”
He’d gotten loud, and he’d bent close and put his hands on that man, and this time when Audie dragged him back he didn’t fight, not at first; he’d gotten crazy pretty fast, words pouring out, and when he ran out of those, he broke the hold and Audie went along, releasing him easy.
He shot a look at Audie, and he straightened himself. Redver watched but said nothing, and Jules was going out when they called him back.
“He wants you,” Redver said, gesturing toward Clark.
Jules stood there, across the small room, jaw throbbing from Audie’s punch, clothes dripping on the floor, hand on the door. He took the four steps that put him flush over that almost-dead man, Isbe’s dad.
“Cabhan,” Clark had that look like he was almost gone, that death look like the soul was already sitting at the birth canal, ready to push through. He had a bizarre thought that Clark’s soul was working its way through his intestines, ready to burst right out of his asshole. But for the sake of poetry, it was probably going to come out the mouth.
But no. “Is...belle,” Clark said. His wife’s name came through those lips instead.
Jules swallowed. “Go peaceful on that, fucker.”
He’d said that for her.
Clark’s eyes grew round. His lips stilled broken teeth, red tongue.
Jules was looking at him. A great silence descended, like they waited for that ghost to leave the room.
He couldn’t go quick enough.
And Sue got in front of Jules, between him and Clark, her hand on Clark’s neck.
“He’s gone,” she said.
Audie cursed and rubbed his face. One down.
Jules had to get out. He practically ran out of the house and went right and left, hand on the back of his neck.
When he was aware of Audie having followed, he turned and yelled, “Give me your keys—give me your keys!”
“Jules—she’s all right!” Audie shouted. “Jerry said Baboon answered the phone. He’s bringing them here. They’ll be here any minute. She’s all right.”
Jules kept going right, then left, two steps one way, two another, hand squeezing his neck. “She…” He went to Audie to hit him, his steps heavy, one hand on Audie’s shoulder, a hand on the other. Audie easily knocked Jules’s hands off. He was speaking through his teeth, but Jules couldn’t hear; he already knew. He’d already heard. “She’s all right.”
Cabhan. Isbe. Their names closed on a dead man’s thread. Whatever Clark had done…whatever Cabhan had promised…it didn’t matter now. None of it.
Jules knew what he’d do. That was never the question.
Later, Jules heard the approach of the car, his Ford, Baboon at the wheel, Dorie beside, Francis’s blonde head in back, and there she was, opening her door before Baboon had fully stopped. Isbe was out, and she ran to him, and he took a step, his arms wide, and she slammed into him then, his arms around her, up against him, his heart, his life.
“He’s gone, baby. He’s dead,” he said at once, to prepare her, to let her know.
She pulled back to search his face, but he didn’t want to let her go, to give her an inch. Yes, he was wet, he’d been fighting, and who cared. She was all right. She was here.
“Jules,” she whispered, her face wrecked, pain in her eyes, “what happened?”
He couldn’t answer. He just held her, one hand around her waist sealing her against him, the other hand behind her head, fingers threaded through her thick hair. He wouldn’t be careless, not anymore.
“Back in St. Louis…I never said…but…I got an aunt. She was all right. I
’m gonna take you back there for a while…let things settle down.”
She was looking now, those brown eyes he loved fixed on him. “I’m not leaving you.”
“Listen to me.” He glanced up at the girls standing there—Audie was talking to Francis, but Baboon and Dorie were waiting. “You don’t need to go in there. A lady here is a nurse…but Isbe…there was no hope.”
“He suffered.”
“She took good care of him. But no more now. It’s over.”
“Who did this? Did he talk to you?”
“Just…your name.”
“My name? Like…calling me?”
“Just at the end…like a good-bye.” He was fixing here, patching.
She had to let that notion settle some, and he picked her right up and carried her, walking away from the others some.
“You’re…safe,” she said. “It’s…I worried.”
He couldn’t answer. It had been that for him as well. Was she safe? It was the burning question for them both.
After a silent minute, she said, “Jerry said someone dumped him in Audie’s car. Who would do that? We have to go to the police.”
He set her on her feet. “No. There’s no going to the police, Isbe. He was the police, and you don’t want this looked into, believe me. This was a war. It’s what he was a part of. There can’t even be a regular funeral. You have to say your goodbyes right here.”
“No funeral?”
“No. This is…bad people.” Like me, he thought.
She was nodding, but it was a lot to take in. “I…want to pay respects,” she said.
He called to Audie, “Get him ready for her.”
“Sue’s on it,” Audie called. Sue would know to keep Clark covered. They couldn’t show so much as a hand, because Clark’s hands had been tortured.
Isbe was looking at him, and these fat tears were leaking down her cheeks. He used his thumbs to wipe them away, but more came. He was trying to comfort her, say it was all right. She didn’t understand, she said. “I don’t know why this is happening.”
“It’s like I told you before; he was into shit—rough stuff—rough people.”