The Bargain - One man stands between a destitute town and total destruction.

by Aaron D. Gansky

  Red spray-paint spelled out “Satin Rules.”

  “You’d think if they’re that into Satan, they’d at least figure out how to spell his name.”

  “Bernie can’t live here,” I said. “This house is unlivable.”

  He shook his head. “He’s further down the way, across the wash. No one’s lived here for years.” He took a cigarette from his shirt pocket and slipped it in his mouth. “Every house in Hailey has dark secrets. But this house, its secrets were never secrets. Everyone heard about it.” He lit the cigarette and rumpled his face. “Old Lady Henson lost her mind here. About fifteen years ago, she took a cast iron skillet to her husband. Hit him until his face looked like a catcher’s mitt. Then she went after her mother, who was living with them at the time. Her kids, too.”

  My stomach knotted, both from the smoke and the story.

  “Hard to sell a house with that kind of history, even in Hailey.”

  He took the cigarette from his lips and inspected it. “I really hate these things.”

  “So why’d we stop here?”

  “If Bernie’s kids come home for whatever reason, things could get ugly. We’ll have a better chance of getting out before they come in. If they see my truck, they won’t rest until we’re dead, or worse, they’ll take it out on Bernie.”

  “Point taken. I’ll make it quick.”

  We walked through the desert, first on the soft shoulder, and then into the creosote bushes and golden sand. Mason nodded back to the old Henson house. “Shannon and I used to hang out there.”

  Sand filled my loafers. It was like walking through the beach without the benefit of the surf. “Why?”

  “I don’t know. We were kids. It always freaked me out, and I think Shannon liked that.” He took another drag. “We talked a lot there.” He hesitated when he said ‘talked.’ Probably a euphemism.

  It took nearly twenty minutes to walk the mile and a half to Bernie’s home from the Henson house. Each step magnified the fatigue in my muscles, my neck and back, my dry eyes. I needed sleep, I needed to rest, but Mason urged me on. I told myself I did what I had to, that Nadine would be proud. That thought, more than anything Mason said, kept me going.

  When we got to the house, something larger than Mason’s, but smaller than mine, Bernie didn’t look well at all. A tall man, Bernie couldn’t have weighed more than a hundred pounds. He looked more like a shrink-wrapped skeleton than an actual human. Every knob on every bone pushed against his pallid skin. Each crevice of his skull was clearly visible. His eyes sank deep into their sockets. What little hair he had left clumped together and matted into braid-like processes. His hands shook like an addict’s.

  His smile upset me most. The corners of his mouth turned up on his leathery face. I’d seen that look before at my uncle’s funeral when I was twelve. I wondered then as I wondered now: who thought open casket funerals were a good idea? And here Bernie looked like he’d just rolled out of the funeral home, smiling.

  Mason took Bernie’s trembling hand in both of his. I stood by the door and nodded toward him, my best attempt at a “hello.”

  Darkness draped his home. Heavy curtains covered the few windows. His eyes must be too sensitive for the light. I couldn’t shake the feeling of being in a mausoleum.

  “I’m not as bad off as I look.” Bernie’s rough voice suggested a scarred esophagus. He’d probably been vomiting everything up the last few days. “Still got some work to do here.”

  “Doesn’t look like you’re in much condition to work.”

  Mason slung the aluminum baseball bat over his shoulder and pulled a chair near the front window.

  “Mason says you’ve a few things on your mind.”

  Bernie drew in a deep, rattling breath. “Death has a way of making you look back on certain things.”

  I nodded and took out my notebook. I found it easier to concentrate on it rather than him. “Where do you want to start?”

  Chapter 18

  CONDEMNED TO LOVE

  AAt twenty, Bernard secured his first job as a financial advisor. He rented a one-room apartment in Newland for a year. The following year, he’d buy land in Hailey, and the next year he’d build a small house in the desert where he could find some quiet away from the city.

  He drove home from the Newland office one night in a rumpled brown suit and loosened his thick tie. He adjusted his mirror and saw her for the first time. Her eyes weren’t like the rest of her. They flashed beautiful and clean. He should talk to her, but how would that look?

  She wore a skirt on a night that demanded a good pair of jeans. She’d applied her makeup with a trowel. Her blouse would make a stripper blush.

  Guilt ate at his stomach for being near her, for slowing in his car and even thinking about talking to her. She shivered. When she saw him slow, she straightened and walked seductively toward him, all hip sway and subtle knee bends.

  Bernard felt guilty for feeling guilty. Why shouldn’t he talk to her? Didn’t Jesus hang out with tax collectors, drunks, thieves, the diseased, the downtrodden? Still, he wasn’t Jesus, and she wasn’t either. Probably didn’t even know Him, maybe even hated Him. He rolled down the passenger side window, and she leaned in.

  He kept his eyes on hers, away from the plunging neckline of her blouse.

  “Hey, Cutie.” Her voice sounded like a glass of cool water.

  His face flushed, and he wondered what his mother would say if she saw him talking with a woman like this. Him, her youngest, her baby, the good one, not like his dishonest, conniving brothers.

  She smiled, licked her lips. “Looking for a date?”

  Bernard shook his head, his face hot. “Directions.”

  The woman’s lips fell to a frown. “Do I look like a gas station?”

  “Not at all. But I can’t even find one of those.” He chastised himself. He shouldn’t lie to her, not after he’d gone through the trouble of following his heart and talking to her.

  “You shouldn’t be driving, Tiger. You must be blind.” She pointed across the street where a soft red circle glowed above gas pumps and a convenience mart.

  For the first time since he stopped, Bernard smiled, though only from embarrassment. “Can’t believe I missed that. Guess I’ll just head over then.”

  “Want company?”

  He looked down, embarrassment heating his cheeks. “Yes, but no. Not like you’re thinking.”

  He fidgeted with the stereo, trying to find an FM station, anything to change the subject. He didn’t want to be here, didn’t want to talk with her. He had no intention of doing anything with her, but he couldn’t shake the feeling he should talk to her, maybe tell her about Jesus.

  But how could he talk to her about Jesus when she made a living doing what she did?

  He rubbed his forehead and cleared his throat. “If you want to come along and talk, that would be nice.”

  What if someone saw them together? Someone from the church? They wouldn’t believe his story, that he wanted to tell her about Jesus. They’d assume, and rumors would flap their scaly wings and ride the currents of gossip from Newland to Eve’s Horn.

  Bernard Wellington and the whore.

  The woman laughed and smacked her gum. “I get paid to ‘talk,’ sweetie. Nothing’s free.” She said ‘talk’ as if it meant something else.

  Bernard studied her face, tried to see past the inch-and-a-half of foundation to determine her age. He didn’t see any wrinkles around her eyes or lips. Maybe twenty? A bit older? Did she have kids someplace? “I’ve got money.”

  She smiled. “Knew you did. Your suit don’t lie.” She pulled open the door and slid into the car with all the grace of a one-legged chimp. “You a cop?”

  He shook his head.

  “Say it out loud.”

  “I’m not a co
p.”

  She flashed a coquettish grin. “That’s what I wanted to hear. I get twenty bucks to talk. Per hour. If you want to talk, that’ll cost more.”

  “No talking. Just a conversation.” He shifted into drive and pulled back onto the road.

  “Sure that’s all you want? I’m a pretty expensive conversationalist.” She put her hand on his knee. He pulled it away quickly.

  She laughed. “Nervous? Which is it? Virgin or married?”

  “What?”

  “Virgin. I can tell by the way you blush. Relax, I’ll go easy on you.” She started to pull her shirt over her head, but he grabbed her wrist and gently pushed it back down.

  “I just want to talk.”

  She sighed. “Fine, I get it, Einstein.” She rubbed her hands together to warm them. The lights from the highway poured through the windows periodically, illuminating his new passenger, and, each time it did, he wondered what he was doing. He knew he had to talk to her, but had no idea what to say. He prayed, “Lord, give me the words.”

  None came.

  Instead, she spoke. “Pretty quiet for a guy who wants to chat. What’s your name, Tiger?”

  He sighed, relieved. “Bernard.”

  The woman smiled and checked her makeup in the visor. “Nice car, Bernard.”

  “Thanks, and you can call me Bernie.”

  “You a car thief, Bernie?”

  He turned the radio to an FM station that played Christian music. Maybe they’d say something where he couldn’t. “Financial advisor.”

  “You tell people how to spend their money?”

  “Pretty much.” He turned onto Maricopa Road. He had no idea where to go, but he’d steer clear of hotels and motels by miles if possible.

  “How do you spend your money?”

  He raised an eyebrow. He didn’t spend money, not much. “I’m a saver.”

  “You’re spending money now.”

  “It’s worth it.”

  She laughed. “You don’t even know.” She pulled a cigarette from her black purse.

  “I’d prefer if you didn’t smoke.”

  “So would I.” She lit up.

  Bernard turned on other roads, traveling in circles.

  “My name is Heather.”

  “Real name?”

  “Honest to God.”

  Finally. He had an opening. “What do you think of God?”

  She checked her watch. “Your hour’s up.”

  “Really, what do you think?”

  “You got to pay for another hour.”

  He pulled into a well-lit parking lot and handed her two twenty-dollar bills. Heather’s eyes lit up. “Right now I’m thinking there is a God.”

  “What about other times?”

  “In case you missed it, I’m not exactly in the greatest of spots right now.”

  “You don’t like what you do?”

  “Not exactly what I dreamed of being when I was a girl.”

  “No, I guess not.”

  She finished her cigarette and flicked the butt out the window. “Why do you ask? You the God-type?”

  Bernard nodded.

  “I get it. No wonder you’re so nervous. You think I’m evil, don’t you? This is about saving my soul or something? What if I don’t need saving?”

  Bernard had his confidence back now, and he looked sternly at her. “I don’t think you’re evil at all, but you do need to be saved. We all do.”

  She smiled and got out of the car. Before she closed the door she said, “What makes you think I’m savable?”

  “Everyone’s savable.” He wanted the conversation to continue, wanted her to slide back in the car and talk some more.

  “Tell you what, Bernie. Want to save me? Come find me. Maybe I’ll let you save me tomorrow night. But I don’t save cheap.” She closed the door and walked back to the street.

  * * *

  The next night, after he’d closed up the office, Bernard drove straight to 29 and Fifth where he met Heather the night before. She stood on the corner again, wearing a similarly scandalous outfit. He wondered how she’d spent the night after he’d dropped her off, how many other men she “talked” with.

  Tonight, trepidation did not slow him. He stopped and rolled down the window. When she smiled at him, he felt boyish and embarrassed by his excitement.

  A halo circled her head like a crown, a trick of the amber street light and the cool fog of the evening. Instead of diseases and habitual sins, he thought of her potential salvation and the role he might play in it.

  She leaned in as she had the night before, seduction thick in her voice. “Hey, Bernie. Looking for a conversation?”

  “Indeed.” He opened the door.

  This continued each night after work, except on Wednesdays, when he met her after church. After a few weeks, he stopped paying for their talks. Instead, he’d buy her dinner wherever she wanted. She opened up to him, confided in him in a way no one else ever had.

  She loved giraffes. For a time, she wanted to be a veterinarian, but the first time she saw blood, she passed out. She decided to be a dancer. She showed promise, and hoped to go to college on a scholarship, but never had the grades. Her mom spent what little money she made on smack and coke, injecting and snorting the money Heather’d hoped to use for an education. Eventually, Heather tried them out of curiosity. By seventeen, she’d adopted her mother’s career, and spent money the same way.

  She liked the way men looked at her and how she felt when they paid to spend time with her. She didn’t care if the men loved her, only that they wanted her. Last year, she checked herself into a program to help her stay off drugs. If she could kick smack, she could get off the streets, maybe have a shot at something better.

  She’d been clean for almost six months now, something she took great pride in.

  Bernard smiled and congratulated her. “We should celebrate.”

  “Yes we should,” she said. “But you still have to pay if you want to celebrate in the back seat.”

  Bernard heard a soft brook of a voice. Heather reclined and scraped the ketchup and mustard off her burger with a French fry. What would she look like in the daytime? In his apartment? In the home he’d have built in Hailey in a few years?

  Before logic could stop him, Bernard whispered. “Marry me.”

  Her laughter hurt like stubbing a toe. The sting of embarrassment made him shiver. “Yeah, sure. Because I’m the marrying type.”

  “I’m serious.” He turned in his seat to better face her. “We’re two hours from Vegas.”

  She ate her fry and stared at him, searching his eyes with hers from beneath the inch of eye-shadow. “You can’t be serious.”

  “Why not? Don’t you want out of this life? Don’t you want something better for yourself?”

  Heather shoved her burger in Bernard’s chest, opened the door, and walked out.

  * * *

  Bernard couldn’t find her for two weeks. When she finally returned, she avoided his car like it was a police cruiser, turning and walking away.

  He parked quickly and leapt out of the car. “Hey! Don’t walk away.”

  She called back over her shoulder. “I don’t need a savior, Bernie.”

  “We all need a Savior.”

  “But especially me, right?”

  He caught her elbow and spun her around. “I want to be with you, Heather. I want to wake up and see you next to me. I want it to be okay, you and me. I’m tired of feeling like I’m doing something wrong when I’m not.”

  He couldn’t read her face.

  Her lips were straight and her eyes stern. “You don’t get it, do you?”

  “I might if you told me.”

  “You don’t know what I’ve
done.”

  His face fell. “These two weeks. Did you go back to the drugs?”

  She shook her head.

  “Heather, it doesn’t matter what you did. It only matters what you do. I’m not here to be a Savior. I’m not qualified to be one, because I’m no better than you, I’m no better than anyone. We’re all in the same boat, all sinners in our own way.”

  Her eyes dropped to the ground.

  “I can’t save you. But I can love you.”

  Heather put her head in Bernie’s chest. When she spoke her hot breath heated his skin through his shirt. “You don’t know me.”

  “Then tell me.”

  * * *

  Bernard’s twenty-seven year marriage with Heather tested the boundaries of his faith. He loved her with his whole heart, no matter how many times she shattered it. He’d learned not to count the number of other men she’d taken to bed with her. Somehow, not knowing made it easier. That way, he could not put a face to the different men who fathered his children, couldn’t envision the face of the man who gave his wife HIV.

  She never told him she had the disease, but he knew. Even when she invited him into bed with her—something she’d done rarely in their marriage. But he’d gone to her anyway, unwilling, unable to turn her away. He would take whatever affection she chose to give him.

  But no matter how many men she’d loved, she came back to him each night.

  His mother told him to divorce her, but that’d be the same as putting her back on the street corner. At least, this way, she had a safe place to come home, a gentle man who would love her despite her choices, no matter how much it hurt him.

  His children hurt him, too. Each time he considered Gloria’s long nose, Amy’s cartoonishly red hair, Corwin’s tight, curly hair, Sammy’s blanched complexion, and Ryan’s exceptional height, he knew they’d not come from him. They didn’t behave like him, either, always getting themselves into some kind of trouble.