by Farris, John
Later, Frosty thought. The onset of her period might not happen until early morning, and she was almost an hour late getting on the highway to Murrell's Inlet.
"Good night, Zach."
Frosty left the convenience store and, returned to the Chevy. The windshield could've used a cleaning, but she let that go too. She got in, started the engine, opened her pack of gum and drove east on Second Street, still concerned about whether she was doing the right thing in placing any kind of trust in Dr. Joe Bryce. Trust. She trusted in Jesus and she trusted her father Walter Lee. All other men were suspect by reason of their maleness. Two of them in her life, both musicians, had proclaimed their love and picked her pocket. A third had fathered her children and run off to Chicago with an editor from Ebony he had met while she was vacationing in Charleston. It only lasted a few weeks, but Delmus was still hanging around up north. Let him stay there. Enough was enough. And that Joe Bryce was just too good-looking to be attracted for very long to a crippled woman. Something about him, in spite of his profession, his selfless good works, didn't feel right. Frosty had perfect pitch when it came to music; somebody humming off-key two aisles over in the supermarket affected her like fingernails on a chalkboard. Her disappointments in love had sharpened her pitch where men were concerned. Dr. Joe Bryce was off-key. Putting his hands on her when she hadn't done a thing to encourage him, like he was claiming her. Never mind how it felt, all the locks on her emotions springing open as if he were some kind of sexual Houdini. He was just too used to getting his way with women.
Frosty had a cramp, lasting a dozen seconds, that almost took her breath away. She chewed gum furiously, concentrating on the road. Light traffic heading south, only a single pair of high headlights behind her, truck of some kind, a sedate driver like herself. Never be cautious, obey the laws, pay the taxes on time, stay out of debt, filter the drinking water and avoid romantic attachments; so many ways you could screw up your life without half-trying. Invite the demons of bad luck to pick at your carcass. She remembered a discussion of the luck factor in a psychology course she'd taken as an undergrad at Furman. "Bad luck," said the lecturer, a puckish little man with a startling red goatee, "is a matter of poor preparation, less than optimum diligence and insufficient clarity of vision. And then you just happen to be standing on a manhole cover when the sewer blows up." Amen, brother. It was a miracle, she thought, that she'd had the nerve to raid Dr. Luke's infirmary and take the ampule, then coolly cover up evidence of her theft. But righteous anger had driven her to it. Abby was in danger, and helpless to protect herself.
Her vagina was getting wet. Her time again. Dismayed, Frosty peered ahead, looking for a gas station. But she was on that long stretch of highway between the Intracoastal Waterway and Chicora State Beach, now closed for the night. There were no towns or commercial establishments for another six miles.
Anxious not to stain her underpants and a nearly new pair of jeans, Frosty slowed, looking for the first northbound exit to the state beach.
Almost missed it. Braked hard and made the turn. The paved road gave out after a couple of hundred feet, where the gates across the shell road that went down to the public parking and beachside facilities were padlocked. She stopped, the headlights of the Chevrolet illuminating the red CLOSED sign on one of the silver-painted gates, and a stand of longleaf pine fifty yards down the road. Then she turned off the headlights so as not to be conspicuous to anyone passing on the highway.
The quickest way to accomplish insertion of the needed tampon was simply to get out and hunker down in relative privacy behind the front bumper of the Chevy. She looked in the mirror and saw the lights of an eighteen-wheeler passing. There was some turmoil in her stomach; she didn't feel like leaving the car in a lonely place with a single sodium vapor light burning on a pole beside the gate. As if her menses would attract creatures unknown from the dark of the woods and the sea beyond.
The Chevy sedan had a bench front seat. Frosty put her feet up, her back against the left-side door, and unbuckled her jeans. She liked them tight and usually she had to lie on the floor of her bedroom to wriggle into them when they were freshly laundered. The denim, on her body for several hours, had a little more play to it now. She tugged the jeans and the panties to midcalf, looked to see if there was any staining, then lay down a little more in the seat with her thighs open and tore the wrapper from the tampon, which she held just above her eyes.
She was looking almost straight up when the window above her head was shattered with a baseball bat, covering her with glass. In screaming she swallowed some of it. More glass glittered in her compactly shaped dome of curly hair as she struggled to sit up. She was seized by an arm like steel in blue cloth that smelled faintly of mothballs, an arm that crossed her throat and pinned her solidly back against the door. There she was held, choking, her convulsing lips and throat lacerated by granules of glass, while his other hand sought the lock and opened the door. It swung open slowly, and she was dragged across the bench seat with it, leaving a thin smear of blood on the seat cover. Her legs were pinned together by the gathered material ofjeans and underpants, but she lashed about wildly in an effort to escape.
Looking up, she saw his wide face and blunt countryman's features, the bead-shaped, pinkish light above the gate glasses. He went slowly down on one knee as he continued to drag her from the car, now holding her powerfully by the throat with his left hand, pushing down until the edge of the seat was across the small of her bowed back and her head was only inches off the pulverized shell of.the road. The underside of the steering wheel dug painfully into her pelvis.
Unable to bear the lack of expression in his eyes, Frosty moved her head by inches in his grip, until she was looking past his knee at the front-end chrome of the pickup truck that had crept, lights off, to within a hundred feet of the Chevy. It seemed familiar to her, but her throat and lungs were bursting, she couldn't think where she might have seen it before. But it didn't matter. She closed her eyes and wished for a moment in which to embrace her children, to kiss her father, one moment please. And knew it would not happen.
Chapter Thirty-Three
Dreaming, Joe found himself in a strange house by the sea, and in possession of a letter from his mother.
dear one
would've typed this but the keys of my typewriter stick together with old cinnamongum which reminds me I have lost another tooth yes I know neglect is not the answer but supposing the sea is calm tomorrow creatureless then all I ask but if you are well the address to which you must write as I may be wanted by thought police (they never tell you until too late) forgetting the assassination angle for now please observe the fictitious me and kindly obliterate postmark for which I thank you in advance although by the time you read this may be as fraudulent as the old black woman who reads palms by the cemetery wall yet has no answers either despite (I'm certain) knowledge of the bird smaller than the kittiwake that swims to the chambers of the heart which with a little thought might then appreciate the greed of Death or if it doesn't mean cancerthan obviously I can still see my handprints for as long as the sea lies low and freezes knowing I am calm and perpetual in spite of the pain being no good lately that you already know about from my last letter (sealed with a kiss) because the implications deny remorse and the supermarket cash registers don't work right since I am always sixty-four cents or seventy-two cents short is no fucking (oops) laughing matter and sometimes the fever like a ghost I wake up to but what about your own clichés which I amwilling to forgive any time any city will meet you just give notice and send a hundred for expenses which you have to admit I am worth it and perpetual tomorrow the sun its treasure of venom the sea (see?) transparent but creatureless at last you will come to find your Holly won't you because my dear the little swimmer birds only nest in abandoned hearts and the truce shall make us free
He woke up naked and in a sweat; something seemed to catch up to him in the long void between dream and reality, flicking vehemently past his face—nothi
ng solid or identifiable, but dark as dread. He heard the sea, ending its long course to the shore in a tumbling wave, and another sound out there, a car door closing.
Mother?
He got out of bed and fell, wobbly, to his knees; he had a cramp in one calf.
Massaging the muscle, he made his way gimpily to the windows of the corner bedroom, which faced east and north. The plantation shutters were open; the moon rounding to full, a matter of days, solitary in the black sky, its luster crowding out the stars—his heart was wild in response.
The rented van was parked on the narrow road that ran behind the beach house. From there it continued on, a dwindling sandy track, to the colonies and enclaves lying to the north along the strand.
It had to be late, but he didn't know the time. He still couldn't think about anything except the imagery of the dream, provoked by the language of the letter his subconscious had written, and the finality of that car door closing. (Drove away and left him; and now, if she lay dying in some undisclosed place, of what use was his forgiveness?)
He was too awake, too shaken, to think of sleeping any more. He pulled on a pair of shorts and a cashmere sweater and went downstairs.
In the intervals of silence between the smash of waves he heard, he thought, the engine of a car or light truck, a receding sound as someone drove north on the rutted track on the marsh side of the dune.
Several bottles of Killian's Red in the fridge. He carried one out to the front porch. Looking north, he saw taillights, brightening as brakes were applied, then fading. Too far away for him to tell what kind of vehicle it was.
He hadn't bothered to lock the Laredo. He had a couple of pulls on his bottle of beer, then walked barefoot down to the road behind the house.
Not easy to tell by moonlight, but the Laredo appeared undisturbed where he'd left it.
Maybe they'd been county cops on beach patrol, or fishermen getting a very early start. Joe yawned, leaned against the Laredo and finished his beer, wondering what to do with himself for the rest of the night.
There were a dozen movies on satellite TV: he couldn't concentrate for long on any of them. A handful of actors would always stick in the mind, but the majority would have been more entertaining if they were stuffed. He went outside again to wait for dawn, uneasy, wondering if he should have approached Frosty Clemons, who had failed to show up as promised. Afraid of him, of a late meeting at the isolated beach house? He'd detected some of that in her hostility. It could require months to sort out a relationship with someone like Frosty. She would keep taking him; whip in hand, over the jumps, the neurotic thickets and emotional stone walls in her life. Every orgasm won from her like a few yards of battlefield. War was merely orgasm, on an apocalyptic scale. Churchill might have said something like that, except, if the biographies had him pegged right, he never gave much thought to sex at all....
Joe didn't want either to flick or fight with Frosty Clemons. It was just that time of night. He couldn't explain the worry he felt, the sense of being observed by enemies he hadn't met. He expected to sleep poorly in wooded, rustic places, or in cities—the best of them were fretful, snarled, distempered, their dark streets like large graves unfilled. But he'd seldom spent a restless hour within sight of any sea.
Regardless of what Frosty's feelings or misgivings might be, there was another way to obtain a sample of the drug Thomason was injecting into Abby; he could withdraw some of it from the implanted reservoir. For that he'd need her cooperation. But if she said anything to Thomason—
Joe had another Killian's, because the first one hadn't touched him in any way, and returned to the track of the moon on water, thinking about Luke the physician. Who, according to his current wife, had skidded through medical school on a banana peel, and who, according to Abby, had enjoyed an undistinguished career littered with malpractice suits as he slowly prepared himself for a second career in politics, based on Abby's considerable financial resources. Nothing seriously against him so far: maybe his personality was designed for the political game. Like most opportunists, he had an acquisitive nature. Blue-ribbon women, a handcrafted ketch, horses, guns, the friendships of powerful men. He was cynical, but with wit and aim. Probably you could have a laugh at his expense, but he'd bill you for it later. And the bill would come wrapped around a rock. His ministry to Abby bordered on possessiveness. He was lying about a course of treatment. What did he know that he didn't want Abby to know? Something about Thomason was so deeply fraudulent it cooled the marrow of Joe's bones. Because he recognized how alike they were: cheats at heart, with the self-righteousness of vengeful children.
Lucky Abby, so unaware, like the snowblind angel that guarded her workroom. If Joe's machinations saved her life, then she might well turn against Lucas Thomason, depending on how badly the good physician had misdiagnosed her case, then turn to Joe for solace, the love she needed. People who live in glass houses might as well leave the door unlocked, Joe thought. Come on in, Abby. See all of me there is to see, in glass rooms with no furnishings.
By ten o'clock in the morning he was well out of that self-lacerating mood. He had run two miles on the beach, swum in the dawn breakers, treated himself to a monster breakfast of eggs and waffles at the IHOP in town, and shopped for tools and materials he needed at the marine-supply store. A couple of the Barony's gardeners had helped him hose dirt off the Wayfarer, and he was running a sander on the aft deck, wearing only protective glasses, a pair of ragged denim shorts and deck shoes, when Charlene Thomason showed up. He turned off the sander.
"I saw you working down here when I got up this morning," she said. "From my bedroom windows."
"How are you today, Charlene?" She was wearing work clothes herself: old sneakers with frayed laces, faded paint-streaked jeans, a whiteshirt with an inscription between her nipples in lettering the size of the smallest print on an eye chart. A ratty old Plantation straw hat kept the sun off her pale face.
"Oh, okay," she said with a shrug. "Luke's schooling polo ponies and Abby went for her swim. I could help you." She smiled hopefully. "I can run a sander and use tools. I'm a real good painter too." She shrugged again. "I don't have anything to do."
"Come on up here."
He gave her a hand as she reached the last step of the aft ladder, pulling her over the grab rail. He smelled gin on her breath. Maybe it was her mouthwash of choice after brushing in the morning.
"What's that on your T-shirt?"
Charlene looked down. "Oh, it says, 'If you can read this you're too fucking close.'" She blinked solemnly at him, a little owlish in the full morning sun on the deck. "It's, you know, it's a joke," she said, as if she couldn't be sure. She looked down at the deck. "You've got a lot done already! Good job. Do you have the stuff to recaulk?"
"Over there by the cockpit. If you can finish this job, I'll get to work mitering some odds and ends of mahogany I picked up this morning."
"We used to go sailing a lot. I loved to sail. I took lessons. I know how to tie good knots. Then I guess Luke just got tired of it. He gets tired, of everything, sooner or later. Maybe that'll happen with polo, before he gets kicked in the head."
"Do you worry about that, Charlene?"
"No." She had a way of looking at him, as if she were delivering her life into his hands. Whatever her sexual history, he thought she was probably a good person who had learned that to be good meant taking a lot of lumps. It was knowledge that had made Charlene bitter, but had not turned her mean, a trait that might have meant salvation at the expense of everyone else who passed through her orbit. Instead she seemed doomed to drown in a bottle, at the end as blank and becalmed as a fetus in alcohol; or to become one of those pallid pathetic nervous wrecks who kept the needle docs in Ferraris. "No, I think he'll come out all right. He always has."
She was, to his surprise, a tireless worker. She put on welder's gloves to spare her nails and attacked the shabby decking, and by two o'clock she had all of it sanded and the aft deck nearly caulked. Her T-shirt wa
s transparent with sweat. She went below to change into a one-piece suit she had brought with her, walked down the ramp to Pandora's Bay and plunged in. One of Lillian's girls had appeared with a hamper of sandwiches, potato salad and cold drinks. When Charlene returned from her brief swim, they sat in an oblong of shade cast to port by the roof of the boat shed and had lunch.
"It's about all that's keeping my mother alive," she said.
"What's that, Charlene?"
"The idea of me being in the governor's mansion. It's like payback time to her, getting even with all the people who ever slighted her in her life. I don't know. I can't think that way. You want to know something, Joe? I've just spent four of the happiest hours of my life, working with you on this boat. When I thought I was just going to get up this morning and get drunk before lunch."
"I'm glad you came by."
"I'm glad you came by. Joe, I can't be the governor's wife. I get—panic attacks when I let myself think about it."
"It might not be that bad," he said cautiously.
"What I want to do is find a little house of my own, one that's not in very good shape, and just tear into it and build it up again, every inch of it, by myself I really would be good at that."
"I know."
"But I'm not—not good at living without a man. The idea gives me a panic attack too."
"Charlene—"
"Charly. Would you just think about it? I can be very, very, very good for the right guy. I know it"
"Let's don't."
"You can't really be serious about Pamela, though. I mean—for the obvious reason? Look at me, and—look at her."
"It isn't sex, Charly."
"What, then?"
"Fate, or something."
"Oh, yeah." She was hugging herself, rubbing a goose-bumped arm up and down. "Like karma. I never did understand that. I had my horoscope done once. I had planets in all but two of the houses. That's supposed to mean I still have a lot to learn." Her mouth turned down. She rested a cheek on the back of one hand. "It's easier just to do a line, or take another drink, and say fuck it."