Grayson's Knife

by Russell H Aborn

  “He was a heck of a dog,” Grayson says. “He’ll be missed.”

  Arthur’s eyes fill with tears and he turns and goes down the stairs. Grayson watches him trudge away with the strap of the ink stained canvas newspaper sack slung over his shoulder and the back, heavy with papers, bumping against his hip.

  Grayson opens the Ledger to see an above-the-fold picture of Trooper Hawthorne in his State Police uniform, smiling gamely. Grayson drops on to the middle cushion of the glider and stares at the paper.

  The Ledger covers the area south of Boston so the shooting death of a Cohasset resident, and a member of a rich family is really big news. Grayson can’t bring himself to read the story, but he looks at the photos. There is yet another picture of the big house with State Police cars in front, and another all the TV news vans along the street. There is also a sidebar about all the media covering the story. The news reporters are covering the news reporters who have traveled in from across the country. This seems something new to Grayson; the media covering a story about the media covering a story. There’d likely be a day when the media covered the media covering the media covering the story. He sticks the paper in between the glider cushions, angry that he’d been mentally attacking a silly target like the news media. He knows things are going to get worse, but, with a little luck, his mother would die and not have to see it. How fucked up is that kind of thinking?

  He hears the phone ring inside, and goes back to the kitchen, arriving in time to see The Old Man walk out of the kitchen into the living room holding the phone to his side as Emma tries to untangle the knots in the extra-long phone cord. He can only get so far, and they hear his end of the conversation.

  “Yes, Doctor. I was hoping to come over to talk to you. Did you have a chance to see her yet? Okay, then. What time this evening? Okay, I’ll be right along. Thank you.”

  The Old Man tells them he is going back to the hospital to talk to the doctor alone, and then he is going to talk to his wife alone. He asks them to wait an hour before going over there and encourages them to hang together.

  Daniel leaves. Grayson goes upstairs and into the girl’s room, where Hugh is sitting on the couch looking at the blank TV screen.

  “Amy came by after you left.”

  Hugh looks up at him but says nothing.

  “She says Stan wants a meeting tomorrow at your place at noon. She says if we don’t hijack the load, there will be severe consequences.”

  “I’m working on something but I’m not ready to disclose it.” Hugh pulls his keys out, and wiggles two off the ring. “Here. Lobby door, apartment door.”

  “What do I need those for?”

  “Don’t worry about it. I have another set in the car.”

  “I’m not worried about it. But why are you giving them to me?”

  “I may, emphasize may, not make it home right at noon tomorrow. You and Donny can get in this way to keep her and Stan entertained.”

  “That’s swell. I’ll see you at the hospital.”

  “Donny didn’t leave yet, did he?” Hugh asks.

  “Why does everyone keep asking me about things I don’t know?”

  Downstairs, Grayson hugs each of sisters and his Aunt Betty and goes out to the street.

  He says good-bye to the kids. They are playing tag between the telephone poles. On the opposite sidewalk, too, are a couple of neighbor kids, little boys, around three years old, who run up and back as if they are playing, too. They are not actually part of the older kid’s game, but don’t seem to know it. So, the little guys run between their invisible poles undistracted by who is It, or any other conditions, rules, other players, not even the game itself. The small boys alternately run and hop, too excited to control their limbs. Grayson’s nieces and nephews laugh and occasionally shout good-natured cheers, urging the little boys on, while they stick to their own game.

  Grayson pulls away, keeping an increasingly paranoid eye on the rear-view mirror for cops, bikers or both. But he sees no one, nothing behind him or waiting at the end of the road.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE

  Grayson drives over to the Carney Hospital, parks in the small lot at the front of the hospital, and smokes while he waits to go inside.

  After thirty minutes straight of high intensity chain smoking, he takes his queasy self inside. He gets his mother’s hospital room number from an elderly woman behind a desk in the lobby. The woman is friendly and cheerful and wearing a festive hospital jacket that is the color of orange sherbet.

  He gets lost mentally in the elevator and might have gone right by his floor if he didn’t see The Old Man sitting in the waiting area alone, smoking and apparently in deep thought.

  “Oh,” he says. “Hi Mike.” He puts the cigarette on the lip of an ashtray, stands and shakes hands.

  Daniel Grayson looks five years older than he did an hour ago.

  “Dad,” Grayson says. “What did Dr. Levine say?”

  Daniel thinks for a moment.

  “One thing he said was that within fifteen years, all cancer will be a thing of the past, like polio or the measles. By 1988 there will be a cancer vaccine. But that doesn’t do us any good right now.”

  He shakes his head, pull his Luckies from his shirt pocket, and lights one, without regard for the one still burning in the ashtray next to him.

  “What did he say about Ma?” Grayson asks.

  “Sit down. Let me think,” Daniel Grayson says. “I just called the girls and Betty at the house.”

  The Old Man takes a deep breath. “Levine says un-medicated she would experience a lot of pain, and that the pain will sap her strength. The cancer has spread from her lymph nodes to her liver, stomach, bones and now it has moved into her brain. It’s traveling quickly. As it spreads in her brain, at some point, it will shut her down. The only way to deal with the pain is by increasing the morphine, which will eventually put her out. We talked to her, and he told her there wasn’t much he could do for her but keep her comfortable. She thanked him for everything, and asked if she could go home.”

  “What did he say,” Grayson says, just above a whisper.

  “If we get twenty-four-hour nurses. Which I can get through the service we have now. It shouldn’t take any time to arrange. I do need some help. She says she won’t go home to die in that hospital bed.”

  “Anything,” Grayson says.

  “Tomorrow you and your brother take down the hospital bed in our room, and take our bed from your room and put it together back in our room.”

  “We’ll do it in the morning,” Grayson says. “Can I see her now?”

  “Go ahead in. We talked about dying. She’s okay with it. Maybe even good. I’ll wait here. They’re all on the way,” Daniel says.

  In the hospital room, the bed has been raised and Ma is sitting up and looks pretty good, all things considered. He kisses her on the forehead.

  “Is Hugh with you?” she says.

  “No. I think he’s on the way.”

  “I haven’t much time, honey. I’ll be with Paul soon from what Dr. Levine says. Is Levine still here? I wanted to talk to him without your father around.”

  “No, I think he’s gone,” Grayson says. “Why? What do you need? Can I get it?”

  “No. I feel too numb or something. I can’t keep my eyes open. A little pain won’t kill me. I can’t even feel my lips move.”

  “I’ll tell the nurse,” Grayson says.

  “No, don’t run off. Stay,” she says. “What’s new with you? Anything good?”

  “Not really,” he says.

  “How’s Catherine? Did you talk to her?”

  He hesitates. “About what?”

  “About the baby,” she says.

  Grayson is shocked. “She told you?”

  “Not in words. But I’ve been around the block a few times, mister.” She holds up her hand and he takes it. “I had six of my own. Plus, with friends and family, I’ve been through about a hundred pregnancies. They’re a miracle but not a
mystery.”

  “How did you know?” he says, with a small, nervous laugh.

  “From the way she talked, but mostly the look in her eye. You be the man I know you can be. Everything will be fine.”

  “I don’t know, Ma. I’m really screwed up. I don’t know.”

  “You do know,” she says to Grayson. “Get Catherine back. On this topic, don’t ever take no for an answer from her. Get married, grow up, and take care of your family.”

  “She says she hoped I’d grow up before we got married.”

  “It doesn’t work that way, unfortunately. Did you see John Whatchacallit?”

  “Minihan. I did. Twice.”

  “And?” she says. “Did you follow his advice?”

  “I will.”

  “Now is the time, not in the future.”

  “Okay.”

  “Let me finish,” she says. “Before I go, I want to know you’re going to be okay.”

  “You can’t go until I’m okay,” he says.

  “Honey, I can’t. Promise me you’ll do it.”

  “I promise.”

  “You have to keep your promises to your dying mother,” she says, smiling.

  “Great,” he says. “Trick me, why don’t you.”

  She is laughing quietly, gently, when The Old Man comes in, and he smiles to see it. Daniel announces that there is a gaggle of kin down the hall who want to see her.

  “Are you up to it?” he asks his wife.

  “Send them in two at a time,” she says.

  Daniel smiles. “Like The Ark?”

  She nods her head. “Before they come in, tell the girls I don’t have the energy anymore to pretend I’m not dying, and I’m not strong enough to console them, at this point. Tell them we should be happy that I’m here, right now.”

  Daniel points at her, and says, “You got it.” He goes off to make it happen, as jaunty as if she’d merely challenged him to get her a cheeseburger.

  “God love him, your father. Putting on a big act for me. He’s such a baby.”

  Grayson kisses her good-bye and she hugs him weakly, but he feels it strongly.

  “Remember,” she says.

  He nods.

  Sitting in the waiting area, are the girls and Aunt Betty, and a couple of the older grandkids along with Donny. They listen as The Old Man, serious now, instructs them in the way it has to be, and then Grayson signals his cousin with a nod and they go to the far side of the room.

  “Where’s Hugh?” Grayson asks.

  Donny shrugs. “He said he had to meet someone. Then he’s coming here.”

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR

  Grayson feels that he needs to withdraw from the rat race for just a little while. He doesn’t want to drink but he needs to, but instead he drives out to the old Squantum Naval Air Station, now defunct, passing the old airplane hangars where once broken Navy planes came in one door, got fixed and went out the other door, back when this acreage was an active military airport defending the Massachusetts coast. The air station had been abandoned sometime in the 1950’s, partly because the runways here aligned with the runways at Logan and with the ever-increasing commercial air traffic it became a safety concern.

  He drives out to the spot where they drank as kids, at the end of one of the old runways. The once perfect cement pad now buckled and split in places by little green shoots, proof of life having its way. At the end of the runway, just short of the water, where the mouth of the river met Dorchester Bay, he stops the car. Hidden by a thick growth of bulrushes on either side, he shuts down the engine and rolls up his window. He looks over at the city, and when the big commercial jets come in over his head on a flight path to Logan, the noise is enough to shake the car. He is out there alone, but still, he uses the scream of the jets to cover the sound of his anguish.

  Finished screaming, Grayson looks in the rear-view mirror and wonders how long it takes puffy, red crybaby eyes to go away. His eyes give him away. He doesn’t want to see anyone just now, so he sits and smokes in his car at the end of the runway. The last time he cried, it had led to a pregnancy and when he thinks of the loss of that, he starts crying again. He gets out of the car and walks down the incline to the shore. He bends to pick up a rock and throws it out into the water, just as far as he can. He throws rocks at the water until his arm aches.

  CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE

  Grayson sits on the couch in Hugh’s place.

  Hugh’s black leather briefcase is open on the coffee table and Grayson looks at it for a minute and realizes it wasn’t there yesterday. He ignores it until, out of boredom more than anything, he looks in it. On top of whatever else is in there is this security booklet with the Colt logo. Paging through, he figures out these are the security instructions and underneath the report is a handgun of some kind. Grayson drops the security booklet on the couch and grabs the gun. He knows little about guns, except that he doesn’t like them. He handles it carefully, always keeping the barrel pointed away. He puts it back in the briefcase. He picks up the booklet again and is starting to look through it when he hears the buzzer sound. He wonders who it is, then he remembered he has Hugh’s keys. He shot up and puts the booklet back in the briefcase, and closes the case but doesn’t lock it. He thinks for a second, then slides it under the couch. He looks at the intercom and realizes it would be quicker to go to the lobby than figure out how to speak to someone and buzz him in.

  In the lobby Donny is staring at the panel of buttons, holding the handle on the door and muttering to himself. He is startled when Grayson knocks on the glass door and pushes it open.

  “Is Hugh here?” Donny asks.

  “No, and his bed hasn’t been slept in. He may have a had an early morning meeting somewhere and grabbed a hotel nearby. But I don’t think so.”

  Donny shakes his head. “He never showed at the hospital.”

  Back in the apartment Donny paces while Grayson smokes.

  The telephone rings and Donny, closest to it, picks it up.

  “Hello.” His eyes focus, lose focus, narrow and then close.

  “My father?” Grayson asks. “Hugh?”

  Donny shakes his head. Still holding the phone to his ear but not speaking, he reaches around to the small of his back, lifts his shirt and takes out a pistol.

  “Who is it?”

  “Stan,” Donny says. “He’s across the hall.”

  “Tell him to come over.”

  “He wants us to go there.”

  “Bullshit,” Grayson says.

  Donny says, “You come here,” and hung up.

  Almost at the same instant, there was a knock at the door: Shave and a Haircut, Two Bits.

  Grayson opens the door, while Donny backs to the wall, and holds the pistol so the end of the barrel will be about two feet away from the head of whoever comes in.

  Stan swaggers in and sees Donny pointing a gun at him.

  “Why so tense, fellas?” he says.

  Stan lamps an innocent grin, but it is overshadowed by the blood in his eye.

  Grayson pushes the door as far closed as he can, but Stan stood in the way of shutting it.

  “Excuse me?” Grayson says.

  “Why?” Stan asks.

  “I mean,” Grayson says, “Get the fuck out of the way.”

  “Oh. That’s what you should have said,” Stan says. He shifts out of the doorway, and Donny moves over to pat him down.

  “Settle down, guys,” he says. “We’re on the same team. We just need to coordinate a few things here.”

  “What do you want?” Grayson says.

  Stan says, “I come to offer you a choice deal. Like Monty Hall. Door number one, hijack the guns, and we part as friends, or, door number two, we turn you in for killing Bird and the cop during the course of a strong-arm robbery, and you’ll be sentenced life at Walpole. I don’t know, maybe you’ll dig spending your days scooting around, like wormy dogs, dragging your ass along the floor, trying to keep the Butt Bandits away.”

  “
Yeah,” Donny says. “Like that’s going to happen.”

  “Are you saying you’ll welcome their romantic overtures?” Stan says. “A brawny, fine looking boy like you?”

  Grayson says, “Why would we steal a truck load of guns for you?”

  “Because if you don’t, it will get messy? Is that a good answer?”

  “Here,” Grayson says. He picks up the security booklet, and tosses it to Stan. “The security booklet. Take the load yourself.”

  “Why would I, when I can get you to do it?” Stan says.

  “We have leverage on you, too,” Donny says.

  “Think about this, handsome,” Stan says. “The Dark Lords have chapters all over this continent, so I can disappear down a rabbit hole, in Mexico, or wherever, and enjoy all the creature comforts imaginable. Right after I drop a dime on you. Or, you can do this for me and we can be pals. Maybe have a picnic every five years to reminisce about the good old days. Laugh about Bird, and so forth.”

  “What are you going to do with the guns?” Donny asks.

  “Me?” Stan asks. “Keep a few, sell the rest to the highest bidder. Amy’s half, I don’t know. Probably the Mideast, maybe Germany.”

  “Amy’s getting half the load?” Grayson says. “Since when?”

  “Oops,” says Stan. “A slip of the tongue. But, yeah, that’s the plan. You know she came up with the plan to take the guns, right?”

  “Why should we believe you,” Grayson says.

  “You absolutely should not, not a thing I say, except this. You will hijack that load or you will regret it. You have 24 hours to give me your answer. The load moves in a few days.”

  Grayson says, “I’ve noticed, in all this back and forth, you’ve never asked us where Hugh is.”

  “Well, he told you he might be late, right?”

  “How do you know that?” Grayson asks.

  Stan shrugs. “How do I know anything? I listen, I ask, I overhear, I think. Maybe he went to the hospital? That’s where your mother is, right?”

  Grayson is thrown by his response. For once, Stan almost seems something like a human being. His answer seems genuine, informed and unaffected, and besides, Grayson wants to believe Hugh is at the hospital.