by Wenke, John;
“Hey! You found one.”
“Finally,” Lucy said. “It’s all wood. Two hundred bucks. Margaret Defoe told me about this little store out in Andover. I got someone to cover my study hall, and I’m skipping lunch. I need to run, though. I’m giving a test seventh period.”
“I’ll get it in the mail,” I said.
“Can you, Tom? I know you’re tired, but I’m in a bind. I won’t be home till after seven. I promised Jane Elkins I’d stay with her mother while she shopped.”
Mrs. Elkins was end-stage breast, bone, and brain cancer.
“I’m not that tired. I’ll get it done. No sweat.”
Everyday I’m up at four and drive a two hundred and twelve copy paper route for The Chronicle. I stuff half the copies into blue tubes and fling the other half on to lawns, porches and doorsteps. This job started out as a kind of self-help manipulation. If I have to get up early, I won’t drink much the night before. I’m not an alcoholic, but I can be a problem drinker. I like the taste of booze, the swish in my mouth, the rush. I could probably dump the paper route and hold myself together, but I find I like the life—the early morning darkness, the quiet. It’s a little like driving a squad car on pre-dawn patrol, though nobody wants to shoot me or call me “white pig,” and I don’t want to shoot, boink, club, or lock up anyone. I get home by seven, wake Lucy up, make breakfast, and push her out the door. She teaches algebra and geometry at South Mansfield High. I do the dishes, straighten up, shower and get to the co-op by nine.
I don’t really need the job. Lucy is the breadwinner. I retired at forty-eight after twenty-five years on the Hartford force. But I like the work. I push a broom, fill bags, make phone calls, stock shelves, rock salt the pavement. On Fridays I deliver orders to shut-ins, and I always stick around to talk. My head never feels like it wants to explode, and it doesn’t even bug me that my hippie-dippy sister-in-law is my boss.
“Do you think it’ll break?” Lucy asked.
“I’ll put the box in another box and pack it round with balled-up newspapers. Your old man can kill some time reading the wrapping.” Their father lives in Naples, Florida, and Lucy and I live in his old house. Like me, Lucy is a retread, a little worn down. Her ex gambled their house away, so the divorce sent her back at age thirty-five to live with her father. There weren’t any kids. After Lucy and I married late last year, the old man turned himself into a snowbird. When he comes north for the summer, he stays half the time with us, the other half with Laura, her husband, and their two teenage boys. The mother’s been dead five years.
“Besides, I still have to mail our package to Charlie. I’ll do them together.” Charlie’s my only kid from a marriage that ended nine years ago. To get away from me, his mother had moved to Pittsburgh. He’s twenty-three now. It’s awful to think about, but he’s a rookie cop. He says he’s providing an important service. But in a few years his head will hurt like jackhammers, and his neck muscles will burn like they’re on fire.
“Dad’ll probably get it late.”
“I’ll pay extra. They’ll get it there. It’s only the twenty-second.”
“Well, I hope so. Love you! I got to run.”
I helped Lucy bundle into her coat and I walked her to the door. She pointed up the street.
“Hah! Look who’s coming! Just what every day needs.”
“Oh, no!” Laura moaned. She was bending her head to see around the menorah. “Z-Man’s limping worse than usual.”
Lucy pecked my lips and pulled her hat over her eyebrows. “He’ll want something. He always does. Before I went shopping, I stopped home to get some pads and I heard them—Marge yelling about the beer being all gone. There was this big crash, and then she really started screaming. Just don’t let him tie up your day.”
“No problem,” I said.
“Maybe he’s not even coming here,” Laura mumbled, squinting up the street.
“I’m gone,” Lucy called.
The door jangled, the wind whooshed, and Lucy jogged to our good car, a new maroon Taurus. I drive my old bomb, a 1999 Dodge Durango. It used to be black; but now it’s like me—getting gray with streaks of white and a few specks of rust. She zoomed up Main Street into the screaming sunlight. Z-Man raised a hand to wave to her, but she was out of sight in seconds. He was bundled to the chin with a long black wool coat. A red muffler wrapped his neck and bulged like the layers of a coiled anaconda. His hair looked like greasy black lines drawn by a three-year-old. It was parted crooked down the middle with running strands plastered on both sides of his balding skull. The cold gusty wind had burned his face red. The furrows flanking his nose seemed leftovers from a slashing. But the lines were not scars. They were simply the way his face was caving in. And he was limping.
He crossed the street and seemed on the verge of falling. With arms swaying and hips swinging, he plopped his right foot before him and dragged his left foot behind. His mouth twisted and his eyes blinked. When he saw us staring from behind sprayed ice crystals and waffle snowflakes, he made his mouth into an oval and let his upper dentures drop like a guillotine.
“He’s gr-oss!” Laura sneered. “Why’s he act like that?”
“He thinks it’s funny. Wait’ll you see him do it with a mouthful of corn chips.”
“I hope he doesn’t come in here.”
“With a limp like that he’s looking for me.”
“You do too much for him. It’s why he won’t grow up.”
“I feel for the guy. He’s not all there.”
In the last days of Vietnam, Z-Man had gotten shot in the head. Now he was doing life on disability.
“You forget I’m a local. I knew him before he went to that war. He never was right. He’s always been a problem.”
The doorbell clanged. Hinges screeched. The wind swished. Z-Man dragged through the door and pounded his naked hands. “Colder than a bitch’s witch!”
Laura was starchy most of the time—it comes with being pure in a grimy world—but when she got mad her lips puckered. “Shut the door! Heating oil’s more than three dollars a gallon.”
Z-Man looked at me. “Hey, Tom, tell me how to get in without opening the frigging door.”
“She just wants you to close the door.”
I reached behind him and pushed it shut.
“Yeah!” she huffed. “And act civilized!”
“I ain’t staying but for a minute. Hey! It’s hot in here.”
He grabbed the end of his frayed muffler, lifted it over his head, and unraveled it. Around his neck was a hard, white orthopedic collar, one he had first worn last Halloween. Lucy and I had been sitting on the porch, waiting for the kids to trick-or-treat. It was still dusk when Marge and Z-Man came tumbling out of their rundown saltbox next door. She was screaming about blood money and being sick of him not flushing the toilet. He called her “Big Gal” and slapped her behind, yelling “Get along, little doggie!” She was waving her arms real spastic, like she was fighting her way through cobwebs. He tripped and sprawled face down into her hips. She got him in a choke hold, her right arm clamping his face, and then she pulled him around the sidewalk like he was a two-legged steer. With her free fist, she punched his face again and again.
“I thought you took that collar back to the hospital. They did you a favor letting you borrow it.”
“Well, Tom, I figured I might just need it again. You never know. I got a little woman whose middle name is whiplash.”
“You should’ve returned it,” Laura snarled. “It’s more deadbeat stuff. And you wonder why I shut down your account.”
“Tell your boss mamma I had a relapse.”
“You need to cut it out,” I said. “This loud stuff turns people off.”
Z-Man lowered his head. “Me sorry. Me a loser.”
Laura huffed and rubbed her hands. “I got things to do in the back. If you leave, lock
up.” She stomped away.
“I’m wondering,” he whispered, “if you can give me a hand.”
Laura was right. I did too much for him, but I always felt like, what the hell, the guy’s a mess, unemployable, and a basic casualty. He locks his keys in the house or drops one down a drain or needs a chair glued together. Or with his arm suddenly in a sling he needs help carrying groceries or maybe the faucet is squirting and the toilet won’t flush. He never asks for money, though once he needed a lift to Cash Advance just as Lucy and I were heading north to see an arty movie in Storrs. We wound up being late. Lucy won’t go into a movie late. For punishment, she made me drive to East Hartford for some dubbed Japanese junk. We argued all the way and got to bed late—all because I had to help Z-Man pre-spend his disability check so he and Marge could punch one another out on pizza and beer.
“I’m pretty beat today.”
“I need to haul a Christmas tree. I got it picked out.”
“I got things to do, but I’ll drive you over tonight, after I get off. Tell them to have it wrapped and ready.”
“I didn’t mean buy it, man. I mean, I picked it out. It’s still in the ground.”
“What?”
“In the state park. Out behind our yards.”
“I’m not going to steal a Christmas tree.”
“It ain’t stealing. The park belongs to the people. Besides, there are thousands of trees out there. This is just a little one. Marge gave me the word. She wants a live tree in the living room, and she wants it there by five. If I don’t make the place look like Christmas, I’m dog meat. She’ll frigging kick me out.”
“It’s your house. She can’t kick you out.”
“She can. She will. I just need a little help. My knee’s gone out again, and my neck is bone-fused or something. It’ll take half an hour. Tops. We can use your wheelbarrow to haul it. I’ll move the branches so we can make it up the path.”
“I was up at four today and you want me to dig up a tree?”
“It’s a runt. I can almost dig it out with my bare hands.”
“I got to get two packages in the mail.”
“It won’t take long. Twenty minutes. Tops.”
I brushed my hands together, went around the counter, and locked the cash register.
“If it turns into a big job, I’m done. Marge’ll just have to kick you out.”
Everywhere I looked the Christmas season jingled. Fake strands of icicles hung from the antiqued facade of Zeising Brothers Book Emporium. The streetlamps swirled with plastic holly. Clusters of artificial poinsettias were stuck on top of light casings. Across Main Street, the Romantic Willimantic banner was rimmed with red, green and yellow lights. Z-Man and I walked down Main Street, our feet crunching rock salt and gravel. We passed the little shed where children lined up nightly to visit Mr. and Mrs. Claus. From Discount Tapes and CDs, Bing Crosby crooned the words to “Silver Bells.”
As Z-Man limped, he gripped my elbow, maybe to keep himself from falling, maybe to keep me from running away. He’d been going on about the sex scandal rocking South Mansfield High. “He had this hidden camera rigged inside a locker to tape the boys in the shower.”
On Tuesday, Lucy and I had watched a news report on the Hartford station showing gym teacher Jake Jermin being led to a police car. The cops confiscated a computer and two boxes of CDs. Four of the boys were now claiming he had abused them. Jake used to be one of the people Lucy liked and now he was in the County Detention Center.
“He drilled this peephole and twisted it so it looked like normal vandalism stuff. You’d think he would’ve seen enough buck naked guys over the years, but noooo, he had to take some pictures home. What do you think’ll happen to the guy?” Z-Man asked.
“Hard time. He’ll do five to ten, maybe more if he put any of it out on the net. The judges don’t like child porn, and they don’t like molesters. You can be sure of one thing. Your prison population won’t be too nice to Jake Jermin. And it’ll serve him right.”
Every now and then, in the year before I quit the force, I’d boink the heads of certain perpetrators. Sex offenders, wife-beaters, killers, pushers. Your basic scumbags. I’d have them cuffed from behind, and as I lowered their heads to slip them into the car, I’d shove them a little too quickly and boink their heads on the door frame. There’d be this thud, like somebody dropped a stuffed leather bag. It made my day. Jake Jermin was just the kind of creep whose head I would’ve boinked.
“You’re too tough,” Z-Man grunted. “We live in Forgive-a-Mistake Land. O.J.’s proof of that. Jake was feeding a hunger. He probably has a mental disability.”
“He has three daughters and a wife, and they’re done for. All because he’s a pervert.”
“Hey, Tom!” In the middle of the street, facing the other way, a squad car had stopped. Fred Parini had his face out the window. “You got a minute.”
“Sure.”
“Let me turn around.”
As I stopped to wait, Z-Man pushed away. “He’s got zip on me, the frigging mental case.” He pushed ahead, his limp rapidly improving.
Having come around, Fred leaned across the passenger seat.
From up the street Z-Man yelled, “Hurry up, man! Only three shopping days left till bankruptcy.”
“What’s his problem?” Fred said.
“He’s upset that you’ve arrested him a few times.”
“I do him a favor when I arrest him. Get him loose from that crazy lady. A few more beers and she’ll kill him right up.” Over the radio came a report of a wreck out on Route 32. “I got to run. What I wanted to know is whether you got any extra flounder. I just heard from Janine that her folks are coming for dinner. We ordered a pound. I could use another pound.”
“I’ll take care of it.”
“By the way, what’s he got you doing now?”
“He has me digging up a Christmas tree.”
“Hah! You oughta mail that bozo to Borneo.”
“Hey, it’s Christmas.”
The cruiser peeled away, lights flashing, and I scuffled along the crunchy pavement. Z-Man had passed the great stone walls of the bank and was dragging his leg across a rutted, graveled parking lot, heading for the foot bridge, an erector-set contraption that rose beam by beam between bare oak and maple limbs and extended sixty feet above the Willimantic River. He was now hauling himself up the first stretch of metal steps. By the time I caught up, he was on the first landing, dragging his foot across the pimpled metal grill. The river eased along at low water. A few rocks humped in the drift like the scratched gray backs of sculpted sea lions.
“That limp doesn’t slow you down.”
“Necessity is the frigging mother of prevention. Fuzz sees me and all of a sudden it’s time to pork Eric Ziemon.”
The metal walkway rattled and the wind whipped our ears. Upstream, two boys were floating in a canoe, poking holes in thin ice sheets that lined the shore.
“Fred said he was coming after you for suspicion.”
“What!” he screamed. “I ain’t done nothin’! Ask Marge, but Marge ain’t around. She’s out to Coventry seeing her sister.”
“Relax. I’m kidding. Fred just wanted some fish.”
We were clumping down the steps on the far side, just above a sheer ninety-foot drop where last summer a young girl had fallen and cracked her skull. The paramedics found her face down in the water. She never woke up. We got on the ramp that runs out to Pleasant Street. Our houses were right across from the foot bridge, the only two on the block. Z-Man was paying a subsidized mortgage on his saltbox. Its white paint flaked like fungus petals. Three roof shingles flapped in the wind. The rain gutter tilted from the eave. Lucy and I lived in the brick rancher next door. Our windows were edged with lights. Two spotlights and a color wheel sat in the middle of our lawn.
“I’m going to put the
cuckoo clock inside. Meet me out back in five minutes.”
I expected Z-Man to be standing where the property line gives way to the state park’s border and its packed trees. But he wasn’t there. I left the wheelbarrow, spade, blue cotton drop cloth, and rope near the path and trudged to his brown back door. A cluttered hall opened into the kitchen.
“Hey, Z-Man! Let’s move it.”
His muffled voice descended.
“I’m upstairs. I got the runs. It’s another reason I can’t do no digging. I bend over, and it’d be like an open faucet.”
His house had a constant mildew smell, the sort of musky swamp rot you get from a wet towel left to stew for weeks in the trunk of a car. The place had a warehouse feel—cluttered and dirty. Every room had half-emptied boxes, the flaps up. Towels and spoons were scattered on the floor. A pile of ratty sweaters was waiting to be tripped over. In the corner of the kitchen, the trash can overflowed with empty milk jugs, crushed pizza boxes, a clump of wet paper towels, and four open cartons of Chinese food—the insides coated with brown and yellow slime. To the left was a slumping pile of beer cans, maybe two hundred of them, each piece worth a nickel deposit. The pile gave off that stale stench of loser taprooms at two in the morning. I hated the smell of the place, but Lucy hated seeing it even more. A few weeks ago, she and I had stopped to get signatures for a school funding referendum and found Z-Man cooking at a boiling pot, using a fork to fling spaghetti on the wall. The strands hit and fell behind a counter. When one finally stuck, he turned off the coil and said dinner was ready. What I had taken for yellowed stucco turned out to be a crusted web-work of dried pasta.
The stairway creaked and footsteps thumped.
“We got to move it,” I called. Scattered on the living room floor were pieces of a smashed lamp. Z-Man limped down the steps, tugging his belt two notches too tight.
“After we get the tree, I’ll make the house squeaky clean. Let Marge come back to a little Christmas spirit.”
On the forest path, Z-Man limped ahead, while I pushed the clattering wheelbarrow. The rippled earth jostled the wheel and sent it skittering through ruts covered by the crunchy swish of brown leaves. The bouncing wheel sent tingles into my elbows. All around me the trunks of trees were like bare poles with dangling arms and twisted fingers. I could easily imagine the trees waking up, stepping out of the earth, and turning into a marching army of crazed skeletal monsters. First, they’d crush and scatter Z-Man. Then they’d rip me from the earth and fling me into space.