Bad Things

by Michael Marshall

  Children, huh. Again. For God’s sake.

  It was actually kind of amazing how her mom kept going on about it—“amazing” in the limited sense of “unbelievably annoying.” It was her sole subject matter, apparently. She never pitched in about her daughter not having a husband, or a boyfriend . . . but a child— that was the only story in town. As if she'd been this perfect Earth Mother figure, a Good Housekeeping bake-and-nurture paragon, and was just dying to see the maternal genius bearing fruit into the next generation. As if the whole of male-kind was a sideshow or distraction, the unending line of women the only thing that ever mattered (because a granddaughter was what her mom wanted, let’s face it, not just any flavor of grandchild)—and her own not-much-lamented husband had not been father to someone who’d loved him.

  As if she honestly didn’t realize there had been occasions when her own daughter had fervently—though unsuccessfully—wished her dead.

  She ordered more coffee. Might as well. Her shift didn’t start until five, so why not while away another fair-trade, kind-to-all-God’s-creatures hot beverage, savoring the rich pageant of a Black Ridge afternoon?

  After a few minutes a car trundled past, its tires making sticky sounds on the wet surface. A little later, a different car went by in the other direction. Hold the front fucking page.

  Five minutes after that a girl whom she’d known back in school waddled diagonally across the street, toward the hair salon. By the look of it this girl had successfully made it to motherhood, at least six or seven times. Either that or she needed to seriously rein back on the snacks.

  The sight of the salon triggered the thought that Kristina should/ could/might as well get her own hair attended to, and so she called and made an appointment for a couple days’ time.

  Then she put the phone back in her bag, and returned to staring out of the window. A few more minutes passed, as though on their way to somewhere they’d already been told wasn’t worth the visit.

  What bugged her most was she didn’t even know why she’d come back, and in truth this was probably part of why conversations with her mother tended to start scrappy and go downhill from there. She knew that her mother regarded her return as a moral victory, and Kristina wanted to be able to explain and defend it in some way other than pure laziness or worse. She didn’t want to believe it had been inevitable.

  That her mom had won, basically.

  But why do you go back to where you and your parents and their parents and grandparents were born, after a decade away? Friends? Nope—all moved away, either geographically or into the snug dens of parenthood. Father? Dead. Dear Mother herself? God, no. There’s plenty room in a Christmas card to be reminded of your alleged responsibilities, and/or be given a hard time about the only important thing in life, spawning a child.

  She’d left town less than a week after her eighteenth birthday. Good-bye, thanks for not much, I'm done here. Worked, paid taxes, and leased apartments in five different states and three foreign countries, including a wacky six months in Thailand as the weird tall chick tending bar: by all means buy her a drink but please understand it isn’t getting you anywhere. Some of it had been interesting, some of it fun, a lot of it day-to-day and hard to remember in detail—even the high times and hair-raising scrapes. She could have kept doing it, though, or things like it. Could have stuck it out in Vermont or Chicago or Barcelona, dug herself a life or just committed properly to the ones she’d tried, rather than leaving a series of men staring bemusedly at brief notes left on kitchen counters.

  Yet here she was, back where she came from, under her own steam and with no one else to blame. And she had been here—she was horrified to realize—almost nine months now. She didn’t want to be here.

  And yet (and the words were beginning to feel like a spike in her brain, banged deeper and deeper by a hammer she held in her own hand) . . . here she was.

  She accepted a refill from the server, a girl who—despite nose ring and turquoise hair—was so bovine it made you want to set fire to her (and not just because she so obviously resented her sole customer for being thin: well, sweetie, news flash—your hips are what happens if you won’t eat anything except nut loaf and cheese). She wondered briefly where the girl had caught her counterculture vibe from. Some two-years-ago crush who’d entranced a teen, flipped her world, and moved on? The uncle who always seemed cooler than mom and dad, while quietly tapping them for money on the side? Or the girl’s own parents, dragging her hither and yon as a baby, borne on mom’s fleshy hip from festival to protest and back. Not that Kristina was so different, she supposed. You think you’re being yourself and then one day you realize you’re in beta testing for turning into Mom 2.0, the worst of it being that the observation is so fucking trite you get no points for having hacked your way to it the long way around.

  And had she finally got down to the point? Was she back in town because part of her knew being elsewhere would never make a difference, that these mountains and trees and the scratchy pattern of these streets were where she came from?

  She didn’t think so. And yet. . .

  Oh, fuck it.

  She stood before she could complete the sentence yet again, left a large tip just to fuck with the hippie’s head, and went out onto the street.

  It was cold outside. Winter was knocking on the windows, and she knew she basically wouldn’t get her shit together now to ship out before Christmas. She’d always liked fall and winter here anyway— the land was made for it, so long as you didn’t mind snow and the somewhat oppressive company of trees—so maybe that could serve as an excuse. Perhaps she was proving you could come home again, and then leave for good. She hoped so.

  People came and went up and down the sidewalk, some nodding at her, most not. She walked slowly up the street, in search of something to do until it was time to go to work. It was as if she’d been awake for ten years and then allowed herself to fall asleep again. Or maybe the other way around, she wasn’t sure. There was nothing for her here. Nothing she wanted, at least.

  And yet here she was.

  CHAPTER 9

  We touched down a little after three o’clock. Driving up into the foothills of the Cascade Mountains took an hour, and then I turned north off 90 and through thirty miles of trees before reaching the outskirts of Black Ridge itself. It would be easy to imagine the town only has outskirts, on first meeting. Even if you know better, and where to find what counts as the main attractions, driving too fast will still have you out the other side before you know it.

  Black Ridge is a place of small wooden houses on lots through which you can see the next street, and stands at an altitude of about three thousand feet. It stretches twenty disorganized blocks in one direction, twelve in the other, before blending back into the forest which climbs into the mountains toward the two major lakes of the area, Cle Elum and Kachess. There are kiltered crossroads holding hardware and liquor stores, a few diners where no one’s bothering to string up fishing nets or kidding themselves as to the quality of what’s on offer, and a couple rental-car places. Presumably to help people leave. The older part of town—an eighty-yard street at the western end, offers a short run of wooden-fronted buildings holding an antique/junk emporium, a coffee shop/secondhand bookstore, a burger place, a pizza place, a couple of bars, and not a great deal else.

  As I’d driven up into the mountains I’d refined my plan. Finding a motel was the first step. I’d passed up a Super 7 and a couple of tired-looking B&Bs before suddenly finding myself confronted by a place I recognized. I’d known it would be there—I had lived in it for nearly a month—but it remained strange to see this particular motel still in business, looking the same as when everything had been very different. I didn’t consider turning into the entrance. On the road out the northwest side of town I found somewhere called Marie’s Resort, an old-fashioned, single-storied motel that had cars parked outside all but three of its twelve rooms. It was clad in rust-red shingles and stood right up to the woods on all si
des except the front. I vaguely recognized it from the old days and thought it would do.

  Marie—assuming it was she—was a short, husky, sour-faced woman who looked like she’d seen most of what life in these parts had to offer and hadn’t enjoyed much of it except the shouting. Her skin was the color of old milk and the pale red hair piled on her head looked like it had last been washed in a previous life. Other than telling me the rate and asking how long I wanted to stay, she kept her own counsel throughout the entire transaction. I told her I’d be there one night, maybe two. From a back room I heard a television relaying an episode of Cops. The woman kept glancing back toward it, perhaps expecting to hear the voice of a friend or relative as they objected unconvincingly to being hauled away to jail. Finally she pulled a key out of a drawer and held it out to me, looking me in the eye for the first time.

  She frowned, the movement sluggish.

  “I know you?”

  “No,” I said. “Just passing through.”

  I moved the car to sit outside room 9 and took my bag inside. It was cold. There was a pair of double beds, an unloved chair, a small side table, and a prehistoric television, all standing on a carpet whose texture suggested it was cleaned—if ever—by rubbing it with a bar of soap. I didn’t even check the bathroom, accessed via a stubby corridor at the back of the room, on the grounds that it would only depress me. Other than a badly framed list of the things occupants weren’t allowed to do, the room offered little diversion and no incentive to remain in it. I scrolled through the call log on my phone and clicked call when I found the number I’d been sent via e-mail the day before. It rang six times, and then went to voice mail.

  “Hey, Ms. Robertson,” I said, with bland cheer. “It’s John, from the Henderson Bookstore? Wanted to let you know that item you ordered has arrived. It’s here waiting for you. You have a good day.”

  I cut the connection, feeling absurd. For engaging in Hardy Boys-level subterfuge to hide the nature of a call to the woman’s cell phone. For being in Black Ridge in the first place. For being, period.

  I left the motel. If you have no idea where you’re supposed to be, movement is always the best policy.

  For the next hour I walked the town. It had evidently rained hard in the morning, and it wouldn’t be too long before the locals could start expecting the first snow. Black Ridge was never a place I’d killed much time. The town wasn’t familiar and did not go out of its way to welcome me. Pickups trundled past down wet streets. People entered and left their houses. Teenage boys slouched along the sidewalks as if three-dimensional space itself was an imposition. The few Realtor signs I saw in yards looked like they had been in residence for some time, and more businesses seemed to be folding than opening. From the outside, Black Ridge looked like it was in the middle of a poorly motivated liquidation sale.

  As soon as you raised your eyes above house level you saw the ranks of trees waiting only a few streets way, and the clouds thickening, coming down off the mountains to remind people who ran things around here. There are places where man has convincingly claimed the planet, making it feel little more than a support mechanism for our kind. Washington State is not one of them, and mountains everywhere have never given much thought to us. After nearly three years on the coast, it was nice to see them again.

  My phone, meanwhile, did not ring.

  I found myself glancing at the few women on the streets, wondering if any was the person I’d come to look for. It was impossible to tell, naturally. Usually strangers look like extras, background texture in your life. As soon as you start to look more closely, everyone looks like they might be someone in particular.

  Eventually I found myself becalmed on Kelly Street, the only thing that might cause a tourist to hang around for longer than it takes to fill up with gas or a burger. I bought a coffee and a sturdily homemade granola bar in a place called the Write Sisters, served by a cheerful girl with remarkably blue hair. I sat outside on a bench with it, sipping the coffee and watching the streets. Nowhere seemed to be doing much business except the Mountain View Tavern, which stood almost opposite. Even the bar’s patrons seemed lackluster, men and women breezing in and out with the stiff-legged gait of the mildly shit-faced, walking down slopes only they could see.

  Black Ridge was, as it had always been, kind of a dump. Carol and I hardly ever came down here—getting our groceries from Roslyn or Sheffer (the closest communities to our house) or Cle Elem (bigger than Black Ridge, but still hardly the excitement capital of the world). Once in a while we’d saddle up and drive over the Snoqualmie pass and thence to Seattle, about three hours away. There were a couple other small towns en route—Snoqualmie Falls, Snohomish, Birch Crossing—which were just about worth the trip if you are open-minded about what constitutes a good time.

  Black Ridge wasn’t one of our places, which is among the reasons why, two and a half years ago, I’d wound up in a motel here for a while. I’d spent almost all of that time holed up in my room, not sober, or else out the back in a chair, overlooking the disused swimming pool—also not sober. It was a condition that I’d specialized in at the time. This lay in the past, however, and so I had little patience with the people I saw drifting in and out of the Mountain View. I didn’t know whether Ellen Robertson was the kind of woman who might find herself in bars on an afternoon, however, and so I vaguely kept an eye anyhow.

  Or so I told myself. The truth was I had no clue what to do, or where to go, and no idea of what she looked like. Until Ellen called me, I was just an idiot sitting on a bench. I stretched the Americano as long as I could, but as the light began to change it started to get cold and finally I stood up.

  As I did so I noticed a young woman walking down the other side of the street, tall with dark hair and bundled into a black coat, the effect overall being somewhat like that of a lanky crow. She walked straight into the tavern without hesitating, revealing a flash of pale cheek and forehead as she reached out for the door.

  Was that Ellen? No, probably not.

  Just after she’d disappeared, I heard a shout from behind and turned to see a large man bearing down on me. I froze for a moment, wondering what was about to happen next.

  “For the love of God!” the guy said. “What the hell are you doing here?”

  “Well, that’s a sort of a greeting, I guess.”

  “Jesus H, John. It’s been . . . You lost weight.”

  “Yeah,” I said as I braced myself to submit to one of Bill Raines’s trademark hugs. Bill sure as hell hadn’t lost any pounds. When I’d first met him he was big but rangy. There’d always been an even larger guy waiting to get out, however, and Bill had done his best to help him. He’d always been this huge, affable guy, who used his surname to make dumb but disarming jokes about the weather in the Pacific Northwest.

  We disengaged. “Well, shit on a brick,” he said. “How the hell have you been?”

  I shrugged.

  “Yeah. Carol with you?”

  “No. I’m really just passing through.”

  We talked for a couple of minutes, establishing that Bill still lived out the north end of town, still worked at the family law firm down in Yakima, and was on his way to visit a client whose case he was affably confident of losing. I said I was living and working down in Oregon, without being more specific. I didn’t proffer a reason for being here in town. I asked about his wife, because you do.

  “She’s great,” he said, glancing at his watch. “Well, you know Jenny. Always got something on the boil. Look, shoot, I’m sorry, John—but I gotta run. Stupid fucking late as it is. You free this evening?”

  “Probably not,” I said.

  “Shoot. That changes, give me a call. Jen’s out of town. We’ll get wasted like old times, man. It’s been too long. It needs to happen.”

  “You got it,” I said.

  “Well, okay then,” he said. He seemed becalmed for a moment, then clapped me on the shoulder. “Shit, I really have to go. Later, yeah, maybe?”

&nb
sp; “Right.”

  I watched him hustle across the street to his car, wave, and drive away. Then I walked back to the motel, climbed in my own vehicle, and got on with doing what had been in the back of my mind all afternoon, had perhaps even been the real reason I’d been willing to fly up here in the first place.

  Maybe I’d never make contact with Ms. Robertson, and probably it didn’t matter anyhow. But there was one thing I could do, and it was about time.

  CHAPTER 10

  When I was a hundred yards short of the gate I started to slow down, and eventually let the car roll to a halt. For the last ten minutes of the drive it had felt as if I was shaking, gently and invisibly at first—but growing in intensity until I had to grip the wheel hard to stay in control. As soon as the noise of the engine died away, I was still. When I was sure the shaking wasn’t going to start again, I opened the door and got out.

  I was now fifteen minutes northeast of Black Ridge. I’d taken the Sheffer road, climbing gradually higher, then turned off onto the country road which doubled back up into the mountains. A few miles from here it all but ran out, narrowing to a perennially muddy track under the aegis of the forestry management service. I walked up to the padlocked gate and stood looking over it, up the driveway.

  Was this enough?

  Over the last two years I had many times imagined being where I now stood, but in those morbid daydreams the gate had always been open and I had been there by prior arrangement. I had been possessed, too, of a keen sense of rightness, of a meaningful deed being undertaken. As is so often the case, life had failed to mirror fantasy.

  I took out my phone. I knew the house number, assuming it had not been changed. Perhaps. . .

  I turned at the sound of a car coming down the road, slowing as it approached. It was a spruce-looking SUV of the light and elegant type owned by people who have no genuine need for a rugged vehicle, but know their lifestyle requires accessorizing.