by Susan Wilson
The little cabin is coming along nicely. Standing in the open doorway, I watch Mingo roll paint over the Sheetrock, pleased with the color I’ve chosen for the room, not quite white, not quite yellow. By taking down the non-load-bearing wall between the living space and the tiny kitchen, the whole effect is one of airiness and space. Pristine. The old sprung couch and dubious wicker chairs are gone, replaced by a faux Arts and Crafts–style set. Once the trim painting is done—a complementary buttercup yellow—I’ll hang Roman shades, replacing the dusty, musty curtains that fairly disintegrated in my hands as I pulled them down. The other half of the cabin is an en suite bedroom. Unlike the two-bedroom cabin, this cottage was never meant for families, but for honeymooners. Unfortunately, I don’t have the resources to make the bathroom into anything more interesting than a clean, bright, and functioning facility—no Jacuzzi, no high-pressure multiple showerheads, just a step up from the showerheads in the other rooms.
I’ve invested in several inexpensive souvenir photographs and put them in cheap frames, and I hold one of the framed photographs against the newly painted wall. I’m disappointed. It seems small, lost, against the creamy expanse. Well, I can’t use these here. And the budget—funny word that one, as if I’ve been thoughtful about the expense—is blown.
I had hoped to be able to offer Adam this cabin for his most recent trip, even though he isn’t staying long and the cabin is meant for long stays, a week or more. It felt like a nice thing to do, give my most loyal guest a treat, but the place isn’t ready for inspection, so no guests till the building inspector grants the certificate of occupancy.
* * *
My friend and I met up during our before-bed outing. His boy and my man stood chatting quietly as Dawg and I made sure that the perimeters were safe. I confess that my attention was not entirely on the task at hand; rather, the voices, quiet but intense, had caught my ear, and I kept closer to the pair than I might normally have done. Just in case I was needed. I shouldn’t have worried. My compatriot, although seemingly distracted by the night scents, moved himself closer to the humans as well, leading me to believe that he, too, caught the whiff of discord.
The voices grew marginally louder, then dropped back quickly, as though the humans understood that they were venturing close to making a ruckus like some dogs do, invariably inciting more ruckus from other dogs who get excited by the noise. I don’t mean to suggest that they were snapping and snarling. It was more like a little fear aggression on the one hand, and dominance on the other.
* * *
Adam sees Mingo standing slouched against the side of the building. In the moonlight, his hood gives him the outline of a monk. His dog bounds over, wriggling in pleasure at seeing Adam, greeting him as an old and dear friend. Lucky and Chance give each other a good going-over before getting down to business.
“Hey, Mr. March.” The kid pushes himself away from the wall, pushes the hood back. “S’up?”
“Hello, Mingo.” He has no answer for the “S’up?”
When Skye told him of her decision to hire Mingo as the new handyman-cum-housekeeper, Adam was mostly able to bite his tongue, forbidding himself to expound at length on why this might not be a good idea. This is no innocent youth suffering under unfortunate circumstances; this is a crackhead who may have even fought his dog to feed his habit. A kid on probation. How was she ever going to trust him in people’s rooms? Adam could see that Skye expected him to say something about it. She had that hooded eye, tensed jaw of a woman ready to do battle, ready to defend her decision—bad or otherwise—and her right to have made it. Which is why he finally responded with the only civil remark he could come up with: “It’s your decision.”
“Yes, it is. He’ll be fine. He just needs a chance.”
And right then he was ashamed. It was as if there were an overlay of his past and present. It wasn’t Skye’s voice he heard; it was Gina’s.
* * *
“Mr. March, I’m guessin’ that you probably ain’t on board with me bein’ here, but I gotta tell you that I’m good. Like I told Ms. Mitchell, I’m clean, and I’m going to stay that way.”
“I’m sure you will.” He can’t keep the flatness out of his voice, his skepticism.
“I owe her. She the first person in however long to treat me like a human being.”
A bullfrog croaks with a tympanic thump. Adam listens for the reply, and there it is, answered in kind from a distance.
“She’s a good person. But, Mingo, it takes your making a decision you can stick to. Change comes from the inside.”
“I changed. I did. I have. You helped, too. You pulled me out of that place and found my dog. Took care of him. I owe you, too.”
“You don’t owe me. And I’ll be honest: I still don’t think Lucky’s best place is with you.”
“It is if that place is here.” Mingo flips the hood back over his head. “And his name is Dawg.”
Suddenly, Adam realizes that the dogs are close by, back from their saunter down the hill, their eyes fixed upon their two men, Chance’s on him, Dawg’s on Mingo. Tails wag.
“I’ll make a deal with you. If things fall apart, you give me the dog. Dawg. You won’t have to worry about him.”
“I ain’t makin’ that kind of deal with you. You make it sound like I’m a fuckup. Maybe I was. But now I’m not. I’ve already told my boys not to look for me. I’m done with that life. I’m stayin’ here as long as Ms. Mitchell wants me to be here. My dog with me.” Mingo faces Adam. He’s a little shorter, lots more wiry. One hand is tucked into the kangaroo pouch of his sweatshirt and the other is in a fist by his side. Adam takes an involuntary step back.
Dawg nuzzles his way into Mingo’s fist, and the hand opens up to grasp the dog’s moist muzzle. The tail begins to whip from side to side. The dog pats his feet against the dry grass, dancing in joy at his person’s touch. The dog loves this boy. It really all comes down to second chances. Giving them, and getting them. Adam needs to remember that.
Gina knew what he had done, knew what he was capable of, and still she gave him the opportunity to prove himself to her. She taught him how to ask for forgiveness.
“Mingo, I’m sorry. You’re right. This is your transcendent opportunity and I’m raining on it.”
“I like that. Transcendent opportunity. Sweet.”
The hand comes out of the pocket, and Mingo teaches Adam how to execute a proper homeboy handshake.
* * *
But then, as humans are known for doing, they stopped talking and touched hands. Immediately the air around them cleared and both smiled, not in fear-aggression fashion, but more like gently wagging tails. All is well. Dawg and I gave each other a quick sniff and simultaneously decided to reconnoiter the farther edge of the property. Our people watched us disappear into the darkness.
CHAPTER 31
Cody and Black Molly sit on the rump-sprung couch in the double-wide trailer. The old-fashioned boxy television is on, but the only channel they can pull in using the dish is a news station. They have a green bottle of beer stuck between the couch cushions and are taking turns sipping from it. This isn’t the first time Molly’s stolen beer from her father; it’s usually a can of Bud Light that she says he’ll never miss out of the case he keeps under the trailer. Cody doesn’t particularly like the taste, something between warm, flat soda and sour water, but she’s always ready to prove she’s got game. She takes little sips of the Heffenreffer while Molly slugs back the lion’s share, which is fine with Cody.
It’s really not important what’s on television, and they start getting silly as the beer, their second stolen from the case beneath the trailer, goes down. It’s hot out and the trailer’s air conditioning, if it ever had any, is off. The beer doesn’t taste good and it’s tepid, but with each sip, their hilarity expands.
Black Molly sits back, snaps her Bic lighter, and blows a stream of smoke into the air. She offers the cigarette to Cody, but she refuses. “I’m quitting.”
This strikes Molly as hysterical. “You’re such a wuss.”
“Better a wuss than sucking oxygen through a straw in your neck.”
In answer, Molly shoots a stream of smoke right into Cody’s face.
“Cut it out. I’ll stink like smoke and my mother will—”
“Aww, baby girl is afraid of her mother.”
“Am not.” Cody grabs the bottle, takes a healthy swig. “Beer and smoke. I’ll get a wicked good lecture. Can’t wait.” Something on the television screen catches her eye. “Hey, turn that up.”
By some quirk of the dish, the local news that they are watching isn’t local to the Berkshires, but to Springfield. It feels like home, briefly, to see the familiar faces of the two anchors, like people she used to know. But it is what they are saying that grabs Cody’s attention.
“… sought in connection to an unsolved drive-by shooting last year, reportedly gang-related…”
It isn’t just the words; it’s the photograph.
“It’s not him.”
“It’s not who?” Black Molly stubs out the cigarette, her attention entirely on Cody. “Who?”
“That guy. It’s the driver. Not the shooter.”
“And you know this how?”
And Cody suddenly realizes the extent of her mistake. “I just … Umm, I don’t.”
“You were there, weren’t you?” Molly pulls the bottle out of Cody’s hand, wraps an arm around Cody’s neck. Shakes her. “Hey, I’m your pal, your bestie. You can tell me anything.”
Cody looks into Black Molly’s eyes. Behind the thick mascara and wide swath of eyeliner, they are a surprising blue. For once, they aren’t hard. Floating in a beer haze, Cody feels herself surrendering. “Yes. I saw my father on the street and I was following him, hoping maybe he’d give me a couple of bucks.”
“So, it’s pretty traumatic, but why didn’t you just go to the police?”
“Because he said he’d kill me and my mother if I did. The guy. The shooter.”
“You talked to him?”
“He chased me.”
“That is way cool, like being in a movie.”
“No. It wasn’t. I was terrified; I almost peed myself.”
Molly reaches over and pats Cody’s cheek. “That’s a pretty big secret.” And suddenly, her eyes are no longer sympathetic, but calculating. “So, your mom really doesn’t know that you saw your dad shot?”
“I told you. I can’t tell her. The guy said he’d kill me and her if I said anything.”
“Yeah, but you moved here; he’s not going to go looking for you.”
Cody shoves her hair behind her ears. “He said he would.”
“He was just trying to scare you.”
“You don’t know. You weren’t there. He meant it.” Cody grabs the beer bottle, takes a swig. It tastes just like the bile in her throat when she thinks of his breath in her face, his hands on her.
Molly leans forward, her thick neck sinking between her rounded shoulders, the dark circlets of eyeliner not quite obscuring the glint of mordant curiosity. “And you don’t want your mom to ever know.”
The beer leaves a sour aftertaste in her mouth and Cody swallows, hoping to move it off her palate. “She can’t. Ever.”
“So, except for me, no one knows that you saw your father gunned down.”
“No. How could they?”
“Not even Mr. Farrow?”
Cody reaches for the bottle, lets her hair slide down across her cheek so that her eyes aren’t visible. No one can know. Especially a counselor. How can she explain this to Molly? If you get other people involved, word will get back to the authorities, and if word gets back to the authorities, the shooter will come looking for her. For Skye. Cody shakes her head. “No one can know. Please don’t say anything to anyone. Promise me?” She sniffs back against the pressure of tears. “It’s life and death, Molly. No lie.”
Black Molly smiles, her crooked teeth framed by black lipstick, giving her a jack-o’-lantern look. “Then find me some dope.”
The nausea boils up and Cody barely makes it to the toilet.
* * *
Skye was willing to let Cody stay home, to not attend the funeral, but Cody didn’t want to be left alone, so she made a fuss about doing the right thing, saying she was old enough to go, yada yada. Skye seemed proud of her, of Cody’s mature handling of this tragedy. Skye had no idea. And Cody was going to keep it that way.
The cavernous Roman Catholic church would have looked half empty anyway, but only a few pews were occupied, and the ushers actually tried to get people to move to the front, to fill in the long benches so that it didn’t look quite so obvious that Randy was unmourned.
The frontmost pew held only Randy’s aunt, who had raised him, and her next-door neighbor, there as emotional support for her. Behind them, his three boys. Her half brothers. “Mom?” Skye looked at Cody, nodded. Cody slipped out of their pew and went to sit with her younger brothers. They looked foreign to her, almost strangers, as they were dressed in button-down shirts and clip-on ties. Their mothers had combed their hair, sent them in with clean hands. Like Skye, their mothers were dispersed amid the thin crowd, none acknowledging the presence of another. The “baby mamas,” Cody knew Skye called them, nominally superior only because, of all the women Randy had fathered children with, she was the only one who had been married to him, even if only at the last moment and only briefly.
For the first time in a week, Cody felt safe. Truly in a sanctuary. As the coffin was wheeled out by the funeral home’s attendants and they all got to their feet, respectful eyes following the coffin, she saw him. And he looked at her with a wolfish smile. The message was clear: Are you keeping your secret? She glanced away, then looked back. Johnny was directly behind her mother and he made just the slightest motion with his square chin toward Skye, then discretely drew a finger along his throat in a gesture that might have been mistaken for a botched sign of the cross, but to Cody, the meaning was clear. She nodded. The Secret would remain between them. It had to.
* * *
Time to go do another room. The people in room 7 are leaving today and Cody hopes that they’ll remember to leave a tip; not everyone does. The first time Mingo went into a room to clean it after a checkout, he brought the money he’d found lying on the nightstand into the office, handing it to Skye. “Looks like they forgot this.” It was so painfully obvious that he thought it was a trick, a trap to catch him backsliding. Skye folded his fingers over the proffered cash. “It’s yours, Mingo. It’s a tip. For good service. You and Cody split the tips.”
Mingo is already in room 7, vigorously vacuuming, and doesn’t hear her approach. Dawg does, though, and he comes along the porch to bump himself against her bare legs. He’s panting, and she takes that as his doggy communication—Hello, how are you? I’m glad to see you—rather than the fact that the day has grown warm. Dawg is a red-brown block of Happy to see you. She kneels, presses her face against the dog’s skull, breathes in his not entirely unpleasant odor of dog skin and fur. He reaches around and gives her a lick on the arm.
“You okay?” Mingo leans out of the doorway. He’s wearing his wifebeater and low-slung jeans. A dust cloth sticks out of his pocket.
“Yeah. Fine.” Cody sucks in a deep breath, keeps her face away from him, wishing that she had on a shirt with sleeves so that she could discretely wipe away the moisture building up in her eyes. It was a bad night last night. It wasn’t just the dreams that haunted her; it was the relentless back-and-forth of her mind, a constant debate as to whether, if the driver was known, that meant that she was safe, or if they in more danger. Despite the hours spent online last night, trying to get as much information as she could, coming up with very little more than the television news had offered, there wasn’t enough to still her fears. There was no mention of a second man. Just that the driver was sought in connection to the shooting. A person of interest. He wasn’t in custody, so surely Johnny wasn’t, either.
Worse,
now Molly has stepped up her game, pressuring Cody about stealing the drugs with not-so-veiled threats to tell Skye the Secret.
“You don’t look fine. I mean, hey, you fine, but you look upset.”
Mingo has succeeded in making her laugh. She shakes her head. “Well, maybe not so fine, but thanks. It’s a long story.” Dawg works himself up under Cody’s elbow, vying for her renewed attention. She gives it to him, then gets to her feet. “I’ll get started on the bathroom.”
As she moves past him, Mingo touches her shoulder. “I don’t mind long stories. I got a long one myself. Give it up, girl.”
She falls back on the usual, a complaint about her mother. “She’s just such a pain.”
“Cody, why are you so up in your mom’s grill?”
“I told you: She’s a pain.”
“You know what I’d give my left arm for?”
“What?”
“A fuckin’ mother. Someone who worried where I was, someone who cared about me.” Mingo’s mouth hardens, and he reminds her of the first time she saw him. “You know where my mother at?”
Cody doesn’t answer.
“Freakin’ jail. Want to know why?”
“Ummm, maybe?”
“Bunch of reasons. Biggest one is that she tried to kill me. Me and my brother. So strung out by drugs and not being able to feed us, she thought killing us was a good idea. We were babies.”
Cody takes an involuntary step back, then stops. “I’m so sorry, Mingo. That’s awful.”
“Yeah. It is. But you know what? She’s where she belongs, and right now, I’m where I belong and ain’t nobody gonna disrespect your mother to me. I owe her.”
Cody nods; unfamiliar with being chastened, she has nothing to say. And then she asks, “What happened to your brother?”
“He’s dead, Cody. She managed to kill him.”
Cody swallows hard, reaches tentatively to touch Mingo’s exposed shoulder, the one with two initials tattooed on it. “Those his?”