Barely a Crime

by Robert Ovies

  A man on the TV was talking about a vacuum cleaner that uses hot water, and there was music that had bells in it.

  But it couldn’t have been him, not talking about those things. He liked his stout and he liked his liquor, but he was too well trained to spill things no one had a right to know.

  Chevy pickups, he heard a guy say, had more headroom than any other pickup. The guy was trying to sound like a cowboy.

  Irishmen laughing and drinking, talking in whispers. Where and when and who?

  Synthesizer music on the TV bobbed and weaved over a laugh track that rose and fell, as a new show came on and a man shouted something about men with breasts.

  The picture of what must have happened, and how and when, formed in Michael’s mind so suddenly and so clearly that he held his breath: thirty or more Northern Irishmen packed in a bar with the lights low and the music loud. There were darts being thrown and cue sticks being waved. All of them drinking hard, some of them being loud. But not all of them.

  And not all of them were men.

  He thought it through, and, being satisfied, walked into the family room.

  On TV a fat man in a bathing suit had a little kid in a bathing suit standing on his belly. The man was lying flat on his back in the sand with the kid looking down at him and jerking at his suit as if he were going to take a whiz; too young to know better. The laugh track spiked.

  But the family room was empty.

  He walked down the hall and looked into his son’s bedroom, being careful not to make noise with the door.

  Roddy was asleep, his head tight against his red race car headboard.

  Crossing the hall, again being quiet with the door, he found his wife, Sherri, transferring clean clothes from a yellow laundry basket into the second drawer of her dresser. She glanced at him nonchalantly, then paused and straightened up. “Whoa,” she said softly, looking alarmed. “What’s happened?”

  Michael shut the door behind him.

  “We have to talk.”

  6

  As Kieran mounted the dark wooden stairs of his mother’s small house on Kennelroy Street, he found himself thinking: someday I’ll knock on this door and she won’t answer because she’ll be dead.

  He knocked four times.

  He had thought the same thing the last time he visited to bring her a tin of her favorite mints and hear her talk about how Kieran would live in her house someday with Brenna, about how he would end up rich from inventing something incredible about building finer fences, about her latest choice of movies or quiz shows on television, and about what she thought about the last elections or England or the Middle East or boiled foods.

  Someday, possibly very soon, her health being what it was, he would knock and she wouldn’t answer. And, on that day, he wouldn’t be anybody’s boy any more.

  He pulled on a small strip of green paint that was peeling from the door just above his head. It cracked and came off in his hand. He listened for footsteps and suddenly, there she was, with no sound from inside the house to give her away, pulling back the lace curtain and smiling out at him.

  “I knew it was you,” she said loudly with the door still shut. Then the chain came off and the lock twisted and she opened the door wide. “Four knocks. That’s what you do, did you know that?”

  She laughed and kissed him on the cheek as he bent down to hug her and say, “Hi, good lookin’. How you feeling today?”

  She ignored the question, saying instead, “It’s your signature in sound, I call it. Four knocks. Four knocks is Kieran, all of them even; bam, bam, bam, bam.”

  “Is that what it is?” He couldn’t help grinning.

  “That’s your signature in sound,” she repeated. Her eyes sparkled. “Four knocks. And I do love to hear it.”

  She coughed twice, hard, then regained her smile and ushered him past the dark stuffed furniture of the living room, where the flowers on the wallpaper were dull and the light was poor and the air was stale. She led him into the kitchen he had painted for her—a pale yellow that she said was like sunshine—nearly a year before.

  It was their favorite place to sit and visit.

  Maureen Lynch was only sixty-six years old, but her hard life had rounded both her back and her shoulders, and her once blazing red hair was now thin and gray. She moved slowly, with difficulty. She also had trouble swallowing anything more than liquids. The cough and swallowing problems were, Kieran had told her, conditions that needed a doctor’s attention, but she wouldn’t hear of it.

  Someday, possibly very soon. . .

  Her voice had stayed young, though. And her mind was still alert, a fact she attributed to having gotten into the habit of eating for sustenance, not amusement.

  But even that fine discipline gave way to their biweekly ritual of the candy tin. It was one of the favorite exchanges of their visits together. Kieran would pull a small green tin of Dyno-Mints out of his pocket. It was her favorite sweet, and he would pretend that was a major discovery, one that caught him totally by surprise.

  Then she would fuss and smile and say he shouldn’t have, and she would hold the tin up to the light and read the advertising slogan that ran all the way around the outer edge. Then she would put her little hand up to her mouth and laugh out loud, as though she had never heard it before.

  Today would be no exception.

  Kieran said with eyebrows raised, “Well, what’s this doing in my pocket?” and out came the newly discovered tin, which he set in the middle of the table. “Must be somethin’ for that sweet lady,” he said, “lives on Kennelroy Street.”

  His mother’s eyes twinkled. “Oh, God love you,” she said. “You’re so good to me.” Then, taking the tin in both hands, she held it up to eye level, tilted so that the light from the window fell on it, and she read as clearly as a town crier, “Like no other mint in the world. Only stronger.”

  Then she laughed, and Kieran did, too. The magic never seemed to fade.

  But there was also tea to be made. The second stage of the familiar ritual. And so, taking the little tin box with her, she went to the cupboard.

  “Whoop!” Kieran said loudly, catching her by surprise. He pulled out a second tin box. “What’s this?”

  “Oh, my goodness, the good times double!” His mother laughed and retreated to the table, moving slowly and smiling a puzzled smile. “What’s this one for?”

  “Ah! A third one!”

  “Oh, my!” She laughed again and sat down, reaching to gather up her treasures. “What’s this all about, Kieran?”

  “And, God help us, girl, here’s one more!”

  “Oh, my, Kieran, thank you.” The old woman giggled like a child and stood suddenly to shuffle around the table and give her son a hug. “Are we celebrating something?”

  “Well,” he said, helping her back into her seat and walking across the room to get their cups and saucers from the cupboard, “I’m getting a vacation in Italy with a few guys I work with. A reward for how many fences we’ve done and things like that.”

  “Oh, that’s wonderful! I’m so proud. An award!”

  Kieran poured her tea. “I’ll be gone a week or two, so I thought I’d get you a supply this time.”

  “When do you leave?”

  “Day after tomorrow. I won’t get a chance to come back before I leave, though. I’ve got a few more arrangements to make. There’s some things I have to finish lining up. You know how that is.”

  “Is Brenna going with you?”

  “No. Just two guys from where I work.” Kieran had settled into the chair opposite her, hot tea in hand. He reached to open one of the tins of candy. “One does fences, the other works on houses. Building new rooms, additions, things like that.”

  “A lot of people must be getting fences,” his mother said. “Two of you going all the way to Italy for building fences. My goodness.”

  “A lot of people are getting them, that’s right. You don’t want a fence, do you?” he asked with a smile.

 
; She shook her head. “Just my mints will do.” She grinned. “Like no other mints in the world, only stronger.”

  And so it was underway one more time: nearly ninety minutes well spent among the rituals of mints and tea and news and small talk, and Kieran checking out the house for things damaged or broken or just not working right.

  At one point, he noticed she swallowed her tea with a turn of her head. She did it not just once but three times.

  “Are you having worse pain in your throat?” he asked.

  “No, dear. Why do you ask?”

  “Because it hurts you to swallow. You winced.”

  “No, it doesn’t.”

  “Why did you turn your head when you swallowed? You did it every time.”

  “I don’t know. It doesn’t hurt, though. Watch.” She took a sip and swallowed without turning her head. “See?”

  “Honest to God, girl,” he said softly.

  “It doesn’t hurt me, Son. I’ll be all right.”

  Kieran glanced around the room. “It isn’t just a doctor you need. It’s a better place to live. It’s too damp in here. It leaks so bad it’s got you coughin’ and God knows what else. Wincing when you swallow.”

  She thanked him for caring, then deflected his concern by asking him a series of questions about Brenna. How were they doing? Was she still being good to him? Was she still a beautician’s aide? Had they talked about a date for getting married yet?

  “I want to see that day,” she said, looking serious and glad and worried, all at the same time.

  “I know.”

  “I only want it if it’s right for you, though.”

  “I told you about the trip. But I’m getting a bonus, too. I’ll have it in just a week or two.”

  She glowed through tired eyes. “Oh, Kieran, I’m so bloody proud of you.”

  “Some of it is going into a new place for you to live in,” he said. “I don’t want you to argue about it. We’ll get a doctor that you can see regular, too, one we can trust.”

  “Aw, darlin’, you don’t want to be doin’ that.”

  “It’s not a problem now. It’s really a big bonus. I swear, that’s the truth.”

  She nodded, then lowered her eyes, gazing sadly into her tea cup. “Well,” she whispered. She didn’t say anything more, she didn’t raise her eyes for a long time.

  So Kieran told her about Italy, speaking slowly, laying his hand on hers. Told her safe things. He would see Genoa and Milan on the vacation tour, churches and art museums. He knew the weather and scenery were things she would enjoy a lot, so he wished he could take her, but he couldn’t this time. Maybe someday.

  She agreed that a trip someday would be nice and asked him to take pictures while he was there. He said he would try, although he wasn’t very good at remembering to take pictures.

  They talked about the game shows she watched and why she didn’t like goat’s milk cheese. She asked him why he thought even young children these days had to have tattoos everywhere and holes punched all over their bodies. Then he walked through the house to finish inspecting the leaking windows and notice the bubbled paint on the ceiling of her bedroom and say a quick word about what it was telling him about her roof, but not pushing it.

  And then, when his obligatory inspection was finished, it was time for the last and most important ritual. He promised he would be back to see her soon, and she promised she would be there. Then he bent over to kiss her on the forehead, and he stayed bent over.

  It was time to let her give him her blessing, that favorite blessing of hers right out of the Bible.

  Her right hand rested for a moment on his cheek, as it had so often over the last several years; so much missed affection, so hard to make up. Her left hand moved to the top of his head and dragged softly through his thick hair. Then she rested her right hand on his head too, and closed her eyes, and began to pray in a soft and solemn whisper: “The Lord bless you and keep you.”

  He wondered if her prayer ever seemed to her like a blessing she wanted for herself.

  “May the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you. May the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace.”

  Her prayer settled on him like an absolution, and he wondered if she was not really saying, “I’ve asked the Lord to forgive me for causing you hurt, Kieran, and I’m asking you to forgive me too.”

  Her hands withdrew, and then Kieran did something he had never done before. He placed his right hand on his mother’s gray hair. He held her shoulder with his left hand. He waited in silence for several seconds as she stared at him wide-eyed, then blinked and closed her eyes and lowered her head.

  A tear slipped slowly onto her cheek.

  “The Lord bless you too, Mum,” Kieran murmured. “The Lord make his face shine on you. . . and give you peace.”

  As he walked down the steps of the porch and turned to wave his quick goodbye, Kieran realized that, of all the rituals in their visits, it would be the blessing he would miss the most if he knocked on her door when he got back from Italy—finally with enough money to help her—and she didn’t answer because she was dead.

  Terry Kohl’s phone rang three times before he answered with a simple, “Yeah.”

  He always answered that way, Marie realized, as if he were answering a question instead of a phone.

  She smiled, as she had begun to smile whenever she heard his voice, either on the phone or in person, although their in-person contact was still limited to brief meetings at school.

  But that would change soon, and they both knew it. It was one of the reasons she continued smiling as she slowly lowered herself to lie flat on her back on her bed. She brought her feet up, resting them on the dark green bedspread with her toes just over the edge, and glanced to make sure that her bedroom door was shut.

  On the walls around her, charcoal drawings brought her earth, sea and sky together, in more than three dozen unique ways.

  “What am I interrupting?” she asked.

  “Hey. Nothing.” There was a smile in Terry’s voice, too.

  “What are you doing?”

  “Wait a second,” Terry said. There was a pause, then, “Okay. Actually, you saved me.”

  “Saved you?”

  “I just started watching a really bad movie. What are you doing?”

  “I just thought I’d say hi. Which really bad movie, of the many?”

  “The Last Glass Fence. Ever hear of it? About fifteen years old, no big stars.”

  “No. But that doesn’t mean much.”

  “I guess. Your uncle and aunt wouldn’t like it, but this time they’d be standing in line.”

  “What’s it like?”

  “What’s it like, or what’s it about?”

  “Either way. I just wanted to visit with you for a minute.”

  A pause. “I’m glad.”

  “You get me out of the house,” she said.

  “I’d like to.”

  “You do,” she said, speaking softly. “Inside. You get me out of the house.”

  “Sometimes I wonder about you,” he said. “Are you out of the house now?”

  “Yep. Tell me what the movie’s like.”

  He paused to think. “Okay. Let’s see. Movie review. The Last Glass Fence is a tongue-won’t-work, edge-of-your-seat, wet-your-pants-scary, wanna-be of a movie, shot in that suburb where all the people who really can’t act very good go to live and make bad movies.”

  Marie laughed, but kept her voice low. No sense letting Uncle John and Aunt Leah hear her. She said, “How about economy of script?”

  Terry laughed with her. “Definitely economy of script. Economy of script in a ma-and-pa, wooden-swing-on-the-back-porch kind of fallen-neighborhood whodunit.”

  Marie, reaching for her pillow with a laugh louder than she intended, said, “Fallen-neighborhood whodunit?” And then, pulling the corner of the pillow to cover her mouth, she broke into a nutty-feeling laughter.

  Definitely, Terry Kohl got her ou
t of her house.

  Aunt Leah stood high and straight beside the doctor’s dark-leather easy chair. Her right arm was held tightly across her waist. Her left hand was grasping her right wrist like a bodybuilder on a magazine cover. Her voice was as tight as her posture. “The boy is on the phone again,” she said. “He’s talking to her right now.”

  The doctor was seated near the ceiling-high window of his library, facing the deep blue water of Bruce Lake. The late afternoon sun was winking from a thousand ripples across the surface of the water. Birds were flitting over the natural glitter, looking for food. Three ice cubes melted in a half-empty glass of water on the mahogany table to the doctor’s right. It was his thinking place, his planning place, his praying place, and, at this time, his reading place.

  Without turning to look at her, he raised his eyes from the latest of the more than a dozen books he had read on the art of war. Agincourt, Waterloo, Gettysburg, the Somme, Stalingrad, Midway—he was a devout student of all the great battles.

  He lowered his reading glasses, holding the frame between his thumb and forefinger as carefully as he would a scalpel. He said, “By ‘the boy’, you mean Terry Kohl?”

  Leah’s eyelids closed halfway under the severe weight of her disapproval. It was hard, trying to drag a man as stubborn as her brother through the necessary disciplines. It was hard, and it was wrong that she had to. “He’s the only boy who calls her,” she said. “At least, that we know of.”

  His expression was stern, as if he were finding a reason to be critical of the light dancing on the water of the lake.

  “He’ll be here one of these days,” Leah said, swelling her chest with a deep breath. “He’ll be here very soon. Here. At this house. I know it. You know it, too.”

  “What I know,” he said, “is that the world as we know it will very soon be changed forever.”

  “He has a car, John. He will show up at our door tomorrow, or the next day, or next week. Let me deal with it and I will. But don’t continue to do nothing.”

  “Listen very carefully, Leah,” the doctor said, turning to look at her. “We’ve discussed this more than enough. I will handle any visitors. For your part, settle it in your mind that Marie is trustworthy.”