God's Pocket

by Pete Dexter

  Mickey sat down and waited. He heard Jack bumping into things in back, opening doors, cleaning himself up. In five minutes he was back, holding a couple of cans of cold beer. “Yo, Mick,” he said, “I was wrong. I don’t know what’s got into me.…” He touched Mickey’s beer with his own, and they drank a long toast.

  After that there wasn’t much to say. “I’m sorry, Mick,” Jack said.

  Mickey said, “I just didn’t want none of this on the street. Jeanie’s all fucked up.”

  “Yo, we’ll take care of it, don’t worry about the money.…”

  Mickey said, “I said you’ll have it in two weeks, a month tops.” Smilin’ Jack leaned toward him and they touched beer cans again.

  “You and me got no arguments, Mick,” he said.

  When the beer was gone, Smilin’ Jack took Mickey to the side door, which opened to Lombard Street. “I hope you don’t mind going out the side,” he said. “I’m locked up in front.”

  Mickey said, “I don’t mind nothin’.” Jack opened the door and the light from inside threw their shadows across a square cement step, eight feet on a side. There was a railing around three sides of the step, and the fourth side, to the right as he went out the door, led to a ramp, wide enough to handle a coffin.

  Jack said, “I got to get the light fixed out here.”

  Mickey said, “I don’t mind,” and stepped out the door. On the way out he had the feeling Jack was getting ready to sucker him again. But he walked past and nothing happened. The air was cooler than it had been when he’d gone in half an hour before, and it was beginning to mist. “It’s gettin’ cold,” he said.

  Jack said, “Yeah, it’s a cold world,” and shut the door. There was no handle on the outside. Mickey heard him on the other side, locking up. He put his hand on the railing and walked down the ramp. The railing was cold and wet, and he let go of it to shake the water off his hand, and that was when he stepped on Leon’s leg and bounced the rest of the way to the sidewalk.

  He knew it was Leon before he looked, he knew it before he hit the sidewalk. He tucked himself in as he fell, and if he hadn’t grabbed the railing and snapped his elbow out of its socket, all he would have had for damages would have been his ear, which felt like it was floating in a pan of hot boiling water.

  He sat up, holding the ear, and made himself breathe slow and even. He could hear his pulse in the ear and feel the elbow swelling. He moved his legs, one at a time, then his neck. Nothing else was hurt. The mist turned into a light rain.

  He stood up and felt for the body. It was lying across the width of the ramp, face up, the arms folded across the chest. He started to slip and caught himself, his hand across Leon’s face. He went from there down the front of his shirt and found his belt. He turned the body over and used the belt to lift him up off the ground. The body was stiff and awkward, the arms stayed close to the chest. There was an alley halfway between Twenty-sixth and Twenty-seventh, and Mickey took him there. He held the body as high as he could, but it was heavy and the head skipped on the sidewalk. He could not get rid of the feeling that there was something left in there.

  He dropped Leon face down a few yards into the alley and flexed the hand he had used to carry him. The elbow on the other side was beginnng to hurt him more now, but he had torn it out before and knew what to expect. The ear was a surprise. That was on fire.

  He turned the body over and then lifted it by the collar until it was almost standing against the wall. He heard cats farther back in the alley. He remembered Leon telling him he and his friends hunted cats when they were growing up. They’d used softball bats. He left Leon in the alley and went for the truck.

  On the way, he stopped at the ramp and found a place where the railing was waist-high from the sidewalk. He pressed his chest into the railing, then reached through it with his good right arm, through and down, and touched his left hand. Without stopping or thinking it over, he lifted the hand slowly until the forearm was touching the rail. He was sweating now, hot and cold at the same time. He gave himself five seconds—not enough time for the pain to gather itself—and then lifted his left shoulder slow and steady against the railing, and at the same time he used his right hand to run his left hand over, until the palm was up. Finally, there was a popping noise in the joint, and the pain changed, took on a heat and steadied, and Mickey lowered his hand, slowly, and stepped away from the rail.

  He put his hand in his pants pocket to protect the elbow and walked around the corner. It was eight o’clock, but in the rain the street was empty. In the rain, it could have been midnight.

  Without stopping or thinking it over, he backed the truck into the mouth of the alley and left the engine running and the turn signals on. Leon had fallen and was lying next to the wall. The turn signals blinked yellow, and Mickey picked him up—clumsy now, working with only one hand—and dragged him toward the truck. Putting the elbow back together had left him weak, and he dragged the body, holding onto the collar, a length of his step at a time.

  The truck lights blinked on and off Leon’s face, orange and black, until it looked like he was crawling. It looked like that, and then it looked like somebody was taking flash pictures of Mickey disposing of the body. He dragged Leon to the truck and left him on the ground while he opened the door. There was a small light inside that ran off the generator. The sides of beef Bird had given him were still laid out in gauze wrapping over the back axle. He climbed in and moved two of them farther back. As he bent over, his elbow moved and settled, but he kept working, without stopping or thinking it over. He knew not to give it a chance to all gather up on him. He listened to the sound of his own breathing and felt his pulse in his ear.

  It took a long time to make a place for Leon. He didn’t know how long, it felt like half the night. Then he climbed out and picked Leon up one-handed, by the front of his shirt, until he was almost standing again, then leaned him back onto the floor of the truck. He got back in and dragged him to the spot he had cleared over the axle, between four sides of Kansas prime beef. He straightened Leon’s hair—he didn’t know why, but it seemed right—and then, after he’d looked at it a minute longer, he moved the hands so they looked a little neater on his chest.

  Then he drove the two blocks to his house, put the truck in the garage, plugged in the generator, and locked the door. Before he walked in the house he tucked in his shirt and brushed off his pants. Then, without stopping or thinking it over, he went in and called for Jeanie.

  He’d thought the place was empty at first, then somebody was moving upstairs. “Jeanie?” he said. And she came to the head of the stairs, and from her face he could see that he looked worse than he thought he did. He was about to tell her that it wasn’t nothing, but she said something first.

  She said, “I’m up here with Richard Shellburn,” like that was the name of something that was supposed to be upstairs. A minute later the reporter was standing behind her, red-eyed and wrinkled, all out of focus. “He wanted to see Leon’s room,” she said. Her voice sounded weak; he thought she’d seen his arm. It was still swelling, and there was more heat in it all the time. But she came down the stairs without looking at it. In fact, without looking at him.

  “Richard Shellburn,” she said. “This is my husband.”

  Mickey didn’t offer to shake hands. Shellburn was older than he looked in his picture. Older and grayer and messier. And afraid. Richard Shellburn wore that like a sandwich board. He was patting himself down now, looking for something.

  He found it in his coat pocket, a reporter’s notebook. He took it out and checked the top pages. Shellburn said, “I think that’s all we need for now …” and put the notebook back. Too fast. Jeanie walked him to the front door, and Mickey saw them looking at each other before he left. “There may be something that comes up,” he said. “We may have to call you again.”

  Jeanie said, “Please do. This is all I’ve got to do.” And she thanked him for coming. Mickey watched them from the bottom of the stairs, o
n the spot he’d been standing when Jeanie told him she was up there with Richard Shellburn.

  She took the reporter’s hand in both of hers and thanked him again. “If there’s anything we can do …” Then Shellburn nodded at Mickey without exactly looking at him, and stepped out the door. Jeanie watched him cross the street and get into a car, and then she turned back into her own house.

  He was going to tell her there was a problem with the arrangements as soon as he got in the house. He didn’t know how he was going to tell her, except he was going to do it without stopping or thinking it over, but then it was too late because Jeanie gave him one of those smiles she used for priests she didn’t know, and walked past him without even noticing his ear.

  She sat down in the middle of the sofa, then dropped her head into one of the cushions and pulled her feet up and closed her eyes. “Jeanie?” he said, but she settled deeper into the couch, farther from him.

  Mickey went upstairs and looked in the bathroom mirror. She should of noticed the ear. It was skinned, top to bottom, and torn about half an inch where it connected to his jaw. The blood from the tear had run in a thin path straight down his neck into his shirt. He found some alcohol in the cabinet, thrown in there a long time ago and hidden by years of accumulated makeup and perfume and shit for glossy hair.

  When Jeanie was through using something, she didn’t throw it away. She just quit using it.

  He soaked a Kleenex in alcohol and cleaned the ear, starting with the edge and working in into all the ridges and nests in there. Then, slowly, he pulled his left hand out of his pocket. He unbuttoned his shirt and let it fall off the damaged arm. The inside of the elbow was dark red and turning blue, about half as big again as it had been the last time he’d seen it. When he leaned to turn on the bath water, the elbow moved, and the pain, now there was time for it, took him over. He closed his eyes and bent over the arm and thought of Leon in the truck, and Jeanie up here in the room with Richard Shellburn.

  And now there was time, he let himself feel it. And then he was throwing up, wet-eyed and shaking, again and again, a long time after his stomach had given up the beer he’d drunk with Jack Moran. When it stopped he stood up, and stepped into the bath. He found some of her bubble bath on the edge of the tub and poured that over the water. The water was hot, and he was tired every way there was to be tired.

  He lay down and the water took the weight out of his elbow, out of his chest. He closed his eyes and held on. It wouldn’t be the same for her after it was all over, he knew that. She would wake up in the mornings different, and maybe she would look at him again, and maybe she wouldn’t. He held on. He wanted to go downstairs where she was sleeping and give her something, or just be in the same room with her. He opened his eyes, and it was all weak. The bathroom looked different, he couldn’t say how. The truck had looked different at first after old Daniel was gone too.

  He wanted to give her something so bad it made him weak, and he saw that took away the thing she’d wanted him for.

  And then there were two quick knocks and the door opened—before he had a chance—and Jeanie walked one step into the bathroom and stopped cold, staring at the bathtub where he was lying up to his chin in bubbles, crying like a baby.

  She never said a word. She just turned around and walked out, and closed the door behind her.

  It wasn’t that she’d traded in her husband for Richard Shellburn. It was more like he’d deserted her. That was a good word for it. Deserted. Ever since what happened to Leon, Mickey wasn’t there anymore. He never got near her. He was out in his truck or he was drinking. She’d told him something had happened to Leon, and he’d gone to deliver meat. It was more like he didn’t know what to do than he didn’t care, but it amounted to the same thing.

  There was a time when his awkward way around her was nice—after all the others it was sweet, a man like a boy—but when she’d finally needed him for something, he’d been afraid to get near it. It wasn’t just finding out what happened to Leon, but that would have done for starters.

  She woke up on the couch, thinking about that. It was dark outside and she didn’t know how long she’d been asleep. Her sisters hadn’t come back, the house was quiet. Mickey was probably across the street at the Hollywood. It didn’t seem to matter, he’d taken himself out of it. She thought of Richard Shellburn again and the strange way he’d held her. It was as new remembering it as when it happened. She wondered if the place in Maryland was real, he’d seemed so sad.…

  She got up, wanting to look at herself in a mirror. She wanted to see what Richard Shellburn had seen. And so she’d walked up the stairs to the bathroom, knocked—why hadn’t he said he was in there?—and then walked in on him, like that. She might as well of found him dressed in nylons and high heels. The bathroom smelled like vomit, and she got out before she threw up too.

  She got out and went down the stairs, and the phone rang. She had a feeling it was Richard Shellburn, and put something for him in her voice. “Hello?”

  “Jeanie?” It wasn’t the columnist, but it was somebody drunk.

  “Yes.”

  “Lemme tell you some advice. Go ask your husband where Leon is.”

  She said, “Who is this?” It sounded like Jack Moran. “Jack?”

  There was a pause at the other end, the sound of a beer opening. “I ain’ sayin’ who this is, but just do yourself one favor. Ask your husband where the body is.” And then he hung up.

  “Ask your husband where the body is.”

  It had that old, comfortable feel of tragedy. Leon was supposed to be at Jack Moran’s, at least that’s who had his suit. Then she remembered the cop. Eisenhower, like the president. He’d looked at her too. He was quieter about it than Richard Shellburn, but he liked her. She thought maybe Eisenhower had taken Leon somewhere to test him. The cops hadn’t wanted to, but he said he’d look into it again. He hadn’t wanted to, but he was the kind who would do what he said.

  Yes, Eisenhower had taken Leon for tests. She didn’t know why Jack Moran would be calling her up at this time of night to tell her something like that, except Jack Moran was an ugly drunk. She wanted to tell Mickey—no, she wanted to tell Richard Shellburn.

  When she had to, Jeanie could be adjustable.

  She heard the toilet flush, and then the sound of his footsteps, going into Leon’s room. The phone rang again. “Did you ask him?” She hung it up, then put the receiver under a pillow. It was quiet upstairs, and she went into the kitchen and made herself a cup of hot chocolate.

  She wondered how it was Richard Shellburn had noticed her, with all the girls there were in Center City. Just their clothes made her feel too far behind to ever catch up, and made her not want to go there anymore.

  Somehow, though, he’d looked past all of them and found his way to her house. And he’d laid down with her on a bed and held her, and told her about another place. She remembered the way he’d been and knew she was the only one he would tell.

  She liked that. She liked it a ways better than walking in the bathroom and finding her husband—who’d never even say it if he had a headache before—crying in the bathtub. The hot chocolate made her sleepy, but she stayed in the kitchen. She didn’t want to go upstairs.

  She hadn’t thought about Shellburn’s looks. She guessed his face was handsome once, but he was beyond that now. He seemed so sad. He was older than Mickey, and his back and arms weren’t hard, but Richard Shellburn was from some other place where that didn’t have nothing to do with it. She’d been with most kinds of men, some of them gone to seed, but there was a difference between that and somebody who never had muscles. She reminded herself then that she hadn’t traded in Mickey for the columnist. He’d deserted.

  She fixed another cup of hot chocolate and sat for an hour in the kitchen, thinking about them, and then Joyce came in the door, carrying a sack of groceries, and Jeanie realized that it had been an hour and she hadn’t thought about Leon once. She thought maybe she was making an adjustment. />
  She slept alone and woke up rested, the first time since Leon died. Joanie had moved back to her own house, Joyce had slept on the couch. The door connecting Leon’s bedroom to the bathroom was open when she got up, and Mickey was gone.

  She took a long bath, paying attention to her waist and her legs and her arms. She had skin like a girl. No family resemblances at all. She imagined how she would look to Richard Shellburn.

  She stayed in the tub until the water turned cool, and then wrapped herself in a beach towel Mickey had bought her in Atlantic City. Then she did her eyes, using lighter shades than yesterday. Without knowing it, she painted herself happier. She began to hum. She brushed out her hair, watching how it fell over the line of her shoulders—a girl’s hair, blowing on the beach at Atlantic City—and then she noticed a ball of Kleenex the size of a fist lying in the wastebasket, covered with dried blood. She had to look twice to see what it was.

  Everything stopped. She dropped the brush in the sink and went into her bedroom, and put on the same underwear and dress she had worn the day before. There was something inside her—as ugly as a ball of dried blood—and it hadn’t gone away. She’d thought it was gone, but it was there, and it frightened her.

  She went downstairs and found Joyce in the kitchen eating waffles. “Mickey left early,” her sister said. “It wasn’t even light. Didn’t say where he was going.…”

  Jeanie sat down beside the telephone and dialed the number Eisenhower had left. The man who answered the phone was the one who’d called Monday and said Leon was dead.

  “This is Mrs. Scarpato,” she said. “Leon Hubbard’s mother, and last night I received a phone call about my son.”

  “Slow down, slow down,” he said. “You said your name was what?”

  “This is Jeanie Scarpato. My son was Leon Hubbard.”

  “Oh,” he said, “Mrs. Hubbard.”

  She looked at her sister and shook her head. “Last night I got a call about my son, that I should ask my husband where the body was.”