Handling Sin

by Malone, Michael

  And so he got on with his life. He returned to his schedule. He chose a career, he chose a wife, they bought a house, they brought home children. Hayes took the past to the attic, stored in cartons, neatly labeled. Dust settled silently over them. Until now. And now this week, this awful endless senseless week, it was as if all that past— forgotten words, dead people, lost times—had burst through those boxes in the attic and rushed downstairs, crashed through windows, stormed into the quiet house of Raleigh W. Hayes and were noisily tumbling it to a shambles.

  Memories leaped around Hayes as he crouched on the porch of the little single-story cottage “Peace and Quiet,” and looked in at the old-fashioned furniture he’d brought there after closing his mother’s house, as he looked in at his brother Gates pretending to play a trumpet (accompanied by the stereo Raleigh had himself built from a kit years ago). Hayes sighed and said aloud, “The remembrance of them is grievous unto us. The burden of them is intolerable.”

  “What?” whispered Mingo.

  “Nothing.”

  “What did you say?”

  “Nothing.”

  “Is that Gates? Gollee, he looks kind of like that guy that married Betty Grable. He sure is a good trumpet player.”

  “For Pete’s sake, Mingo, can’t you tell that’s a recording? You know, I really wonder about you.”

  The jazz blues—horns, drums, piano, clarinet, and bass all talking at once—was so loud the windows rattled. As a result, Gates had not noticed the Thermopyleans, but when Raleigh stood and, finding the door locked, shook the handle, the mock-musician reacted dramatically. He fell instantly to the floor, crawled to the wall, and pulled the lamp plug.

  “Gates! Open the door! It’s Raleigh!”

  The porch light came on, and was instantly assaulted by bugs that must have been lying in wait. Then the door opened the width of a chain that Raleigh did not recall having put there. He saw one immensely blue, long-lashed eye, the tip of a sharp nose, and part of a thin black mustache.

  “Shit! It is you. Who’s that with you?” was Gates’s greeting to a brother he hadn’t seen for five years.

  “Open the goddamn door. It’s Mingo Sheffield. What’s going on here?” was Raleigh’s return greeting.

  The door swung open and the two men stared at each other. Gates was handsomely built and beautifully dressed in odd white fabrics of a spaceage Japanese cut; Raleigh was smeared with mud and blood, and was looking fairly frail inside the billowing rags of Sheffield’s Hawaiian shirt.

  “Fuck. They got you!” said Gates. “Jesus! Are they still out there? Get in!”

  “Is that my trumpet?” said Raleigh simultaneously. “What gives you the right to waltz in here and make yourself at home?!”

  “Where’d they go? How many? Did one of them have an ivory cane? Shit!” said Gates, wedging a chair against the door. “Get away from the windows!”

  “It happened at Captain Nemo’s,” said Mingo. “Whole bunch of guys started beating Raleigh up, but I practically pulverized them. Didn’t I, Raleigh? I didn’t know what I was doing. All of a sudden—”

  “Captain Nemo’s?”

  “A restaurant type of a bar.”

  “Where’s that? That’s not around here. Who are you?”

  “Mingo. You remember me. I’m Raleigh’s best friend.”

  “Okay,” said Raleigh. “Who is ‘they’? Who’s AFTER YOU?” Gates had switched off the phonograph, and Raleigh’s shout bounced around the room. He lowered his voice and stroked his face. “Okay. Okay. Let’s everybody calm down. Nobody followed us here. Whatever your problem is, Gates, it’s got nothing to do with the people that beat us up.”

  “We beat them up, Raleigh! Gollee!”

  “Mingo, please! All right, Gates, would you be good enough to explain what you’re doing here in ‘Peace and Quiet’? Gates, would you please…” Raleigh’s brother was sidling along the walls from window to window, living room to kitchen to bedrooms, peering out, nervously fingering the trumpet he still held. “Hey, right, great, sure, fine, hey,” he said as he went. Finally—apparently satisfied that they were alone—he returned to the couch where Sheffield had flopped, and at the arm of which Raleigh was glowering; there were a number of round black holes burned into it.

  “Fantastic.” Gates now smiled. “You guys like a drink?”

  “I’d like an explanation,” his older brother said.

  “I’d like a rum and Coke,” said Mingo cheerfully, “or maybe a screwdriver, or a whiskey sour’s fine too. Can I have this piece of pizza on the coffee table? I don’t mind if it’s cold. This is a nice place, Raleigh. I wish I’d known it was this nice. I’m going to bring Vera here next summer. Listen, Gates, how have you been? Gosh, I haven’t seen you in ages. I was real sorry to hear you had to go to prison like that. I know what it feels like; the police are after me for murder; well, they’re really after Raleigh, but we’re as innocent as you are.”

  “How ’bout a beer?” smiled Gates, behind the couch, spinning his finger round his temple in the old icon of madness, then crooking the finger at Raleigh, who followed him to the kitchen. “Is that porker loose from the nuthouse or what?” he whispered to his brother.

  “Yes,” said Raleigh. “Forget him.”

  “Fine. He’s your pal.” Gates took beers from a refrigerator smelly with sour milk and moldy leftovers of junk food. “So. Who’d you kill, Specs? Daddy?”

  “Don’t call me Specs. And Daddy’s killing himself. He ran off from the hospital, and God knows what he’s up to. I’m trying to find him.”

  “What a pisser,” Gates laughed.

  “Gates, what are you doing in my house? You have no right.”

  “So, what can I say? I’m sorry. It was Lovie’s idea. She checked it out with your wife. How’s Aura doing? How’re the girls? Have a beer.” Hayes pushed the bottle away. “You are unbelievable.”

  Gates smiled, shrugging, strangely reminding Raleigh of Caroline; they had the same eyelashes and the same impenetrable nonchalance. “Is that my trumpet?” Hayes pointed back at the living room.

  Rubbing the beer bottle slowly against his cheek, Gates stared at his older brother. “Man, you’ve gone kind of freaky, you know that? I don’t think I can handle it, Raleigh. You show up here in a tacky Hawaiian shirt, wasted, the middle of the night, twinned up with a fat nut talking about bar fights and murders, and it sounds like you drove here for a fucking trumpet. I definitely can’t handle it. I’m under a lot of pressure, I don’t need this.” He walked back into the living room, where Mingo had astonishingly already fallen asleep, snoring, stretched on the couch, his huge, fat suede oxfords dangling over the end. “Anyhow, it’s not your trumpet, okay. It was Daddy’s.”

  “Well, he wants it. So give it back.”

  “Sure. Take it easy. Hey, I do remember this guy. Mingo. Right. His trunks fell off at Forbes Pool. Used to eat whole loaves of Wonder Bread, squishing the pieces into balls.” Gates made gobbling noises.

  “Gates, listen to me. Lovie said you were hiding out. Are the police looking for you again? You haven’t been selling any more of those forged genealogies, have you?”

  “Oh, that. Are you kidding?”

  “I thought you told me when I sent you that money to Nevada that you’d finished your parole.”

  “Sure, I did. I’ve got no problems with the South Carolina cops, if that’s what’s worrying you. I’m clean as a baby.”

  “You told me you needed that money to get married.”

  “Oh, her. That didn’t exactly pan out. I get the feeling I’m not meant for the picket fence. It’s sad, you know what I mean. But what can you do? You’re stuck with who you are. I’m a flier, Raleigh. Listen, I’m in a new line of business, big stuff.”

  “I bet.”

  “Thanks a lot for the love and support.”

  “What are you up to, Gates? One, you were clearly under the impression that somebody followed us here. Two, you were frankly scared out of your wits. Three, Lovie
distinctly said something to me about gangsters. Now, I admit Lovie has a tendency to dramatize things but—”

  “Good old Lovie. She’s the only one that ever really cared about me. I mean even Daddy got on my case.” Gates slumped with ostentatious self-pity into the armchair that had once been Raleigh’s mother’s. “How’s Lovie doing, anyhow?”

  “Fine.…Well, actually, I’m afraid she has cancer.” Blushing, Hayes took off his glasses and pulled on the bent stem. How was he going to tell Gates that his mother also had cancer, was dying of it? He sat down across from him.

  “Yeah, I knew about that. That’s fucking life, isn’t it? A pisser. I love that lady.” Gates sighed, then bounced to his feet. “Listen, Raleigh, you just passing through, looking for a trumpet, or what?”

  Hayes, suddenly so weary his arms slid from the chair rests into his lap, glanced up at the handsome man now stretching his body into slow-motion karate positions. “Gates. Gates. Daddy asked me to find you. Your mother’s, well, she’s pretty ill. She didn’t know how to get in touch with you. She wrote to me. She wants to see you. I’m taking you to Midway.”

  “Roxanne?” The loose white sleeves continued to float out in slow arcs.

  “What do you mean, ‘Roxanne’? Yes, Roxanne. Your mother. Your mother’s pretty ill. She’s very ill.”

  “Too bad,” said Gates, bending, stretching one leg.

  “She wants to see you.”

  “She should have thought about that when she ran off.”

  Raleigh crossed his arms tightly. “I’m not getting into the past with you, Gates. I’m just telling you I’m taking you to see her. It’s not my responsibility—”

  “Right.” The left leg suddenly shot out in air, swinging over the couch where Mingo slept peacefully oblivious, little bubbles on his fat lips.

  “But I’m going to do it.” Hayes stood. “I’m not going to leave without you.”

  Gates spun around, then tapped his brother on the chin. “Sameo sameo Raleigh. You’re not even kidding, are you?”

  Hayes didn’t move.

  “Listen.” Gates frowned. “I’m sorry about Roxanne. Okay? I mean, you know, we weren’t exactly up there in a league with Oedipus Rex. I haven’t even laid eyes on her since, shit, who knows when.”

  “I thought she came to see you in prison?”

  “Big whup. Once. And she didn’t bring a file in a birthday cake either. But okay. I’m sorry.”

  “I’m glad to hear it. Just ask yourself how you’d feel if she should, well, die, and you hadn’t taken this, this opportunity.”

  “Right. Fine. I don’t mind going, but I’ve got to meet a friend first. I promised I’d pick up some stuff of his tomorrow night and take it to Myrtle Beach. Old pal. You always said, keep your promises, right?” Gates went to the wall mirror and watched himself move his arms in what Hayes assumed were more karate gestures. “So you just go on. I’ll catch you in Midway. Boy, what a boonie town. And Fred! The boonie boozer trucker. Boy oh boy.”

  “Fred died.”

  “Right. Who doesn’t.”

  “Don’t be offended, Gates, but I think I would prefer to stay with you until we get to Midway. So I’ll go with you while you run this ‘errand,’ and then we’ll leave. And first thing tomorrow, you call Roxanne and tell her we’re coming.”

  “Awwh. He doesn’t trust me to go see my own sick mother. That hurts, Raleigh. Awwh.” And the two men stared at each other in the mirror until Gates said, “You want to come with me to run this errand?”

  “No. I don’t want to do a great many of the things I am obliged to do. But I do them. That’s one of the differences between us.”

  Gates turned, strangely smiling. “All right, big brother. It’s a deal. You come with me, I come with you. Now. All settled. How ’bout a beer? Family reunion. Happy St. Patrick’s Day and all that jazz.”

  And so it was that twenty-four hours later, midnight on Friday, Raleigh Hayes, drenched and terrified, found himself rolling and bucking in a black heaving sea, while he held to the wheel of a dirty, dilapidated, thirty-foot motorboat called “Easy Living;” while his brother leaned from its helm hauling in a rubber raft in which was tied a large plastic bag; while the two shadowy men in the fishing boat that had tossed the raft overboard at them screamed at Gates in a foreign language that Gates later confessed he didn’t understand.

  Chapter 18

  How Mingo Fared Alone at Myrtle Beach WHEN MINGO SHEFFIELD ROLLED OFF THE COUCH at nine in the morning, he woke up, cramped, sore, and scared to find himself suddenly on the floor of a strange beach cottage, but relieved to be no longer chased by Billy Knox in the Hell’s Angels’ van—which was what he’d been dreaming. In one bedroom Raleigh lay sleeping with his arms crossed over his face; in the other, Gates lay curled in a ball in the corner of the bed. They were still asleep after Mingo showered, studied his scrapes and bruises, dressed in a fresh pink polo shirt and checked pants, and (finding in the kitchen no food that wasn’t green with fungus) drove the Cadillac back to the center of Kure Beach to a grocery store where he spent some more of one of his shoe fifties to buy food, plus some souvenir saltwater taffy. When he returned to the beach cottage, there was a telegram wedged in the door, addressed to Raleigh Hayes. Mingo’s heart was thudding. Somebody must be dead! Should he wake up Raleigh right now? What a terrible way to get bad news! On a piece of paper! Maybe he should find out what it said and he could help Raleigh prepare himself; make him take a big drink, or lie down, or something like that. Mingo held the envelope against the kitchen light, but he couldn’t see inside. There was nothing to do but try what they did in the movies. And so, having boiled a pan of water, Sheffield steamed open the telegram, and, his fat fingers trembling, read: LOVIE SAID YOU GOING TO KURE. YOU’RE DOING JUST FINE, LITTLE FELLOW. LOVE, DADDY. The telegram had come all the way from Memphis, Tennessee.

  Mingo was so relieved, he had to sit down while he pounded the wrinkled envelope closed. Maybe he wouldn’t mention that he’d opened it.

  The two Hayeses weren’t awakened even by the noise he made accidentally-on-purpose by dropping pans while he cooked himself breakfast; they slept on while he ate three fried eggs and (gradually, without intending to) nibbled away every piece of fried bacon. Had Raleigh not been twitching and Gates snoring whenever Mingo sneaked in to check on them, he would have been certain that his fears had been realized, and they were the ones who were dead.

  After breakfast, Sheffield sat on the porch with an old Time magazine. It was full of last summer’s urgent news that nobody cared about anymore. He rolled it into a telescope, and stared through it across the Atlantic Ocean. If he only had magic eyes, he’d be able to see right onto the beach in England or France or Spain or wherever was straight across from exactly here. Maybe some foreigner was on that beach right this minute staring at him. Maybe the two of them were looking right into each other’s eyes and didn’t even know it. “Well,” said Mingo to that possible European, in the absence of anyone closer. “Here I am. Mingo Sheffield. ‘Peace and Quiet.’ Surf Street. Kure Beach, North Carolina. United States. North America. Planet Earth.” And having made this announcement of his whereabouts in the style he had once used on his schoolbooks, he fell silent.

  So little was happening in “Peace and Quiet” on this Friday morning that had Mingo been an analytical man, he would have had plenty of time to consider the foolishness of his driving around the countryside with his neighbor, Raleigh Hayes, whose behavior (had Sheffield taken a moment to think about it) was thoroughly bizarre, and whose motives (had Sheffield bothered to question them) were entirely obscure. But in fact Mingo was not an analytical man. He was, by nature, a man of faith, and it hadn’t even occurred to him to worry that his neighbor had so lost his way, if not his mind, that for days he’d been leading them absolutely nowhere for no apparent reason. Mingo had always believed that Raleigh knew what he was doing, and if Raleigh didn’t care to share his plans, that, too, was nothing new.

  Mean
while, the truth was, Mingo was enjoying himself immensely. Of course, he missed Vera, but other than that, life on the road was certainly more pleasant than life standing around in Knox-Bury’s Clothing Store getting his feelings hurt for two more weeks, while trying to guess from Billy Knox’s face if he was suspicious about who’d thrown all that paint on the best spring selections. Yes, here he was, on the road, just like he’d always wanted to be, except he’d been too chicken. He wouldn’t want to be on the road alone, that’s for sure; but here he was with Raleigh, going to one new place after another, going to parties like the one at Raleigh’s nice aunt’s house, meeting nice people like Sister Joe and Anne and that poor little Mary Theresa; having adventures, just like he’d always dreamed about, but could never think of any himself, and even if he could have, he was not a very good organizer. That was the wonderful thing about Vera: she was full of new ideas and full of energy and had just a natural management personality. He was lucky to have Vera for a wife, and Raleigh for a friend, and if he had to lose his job and his car and get robbed and beaten up in order to go places, well, that was life, and life, when you got down to it, philosophized Mingo as he scanned the beach with his rolled-up magazine, was more interesting by a long shot than Better Menswear. So, all you had to do was keep your courage up and stick with a good organizer.