by Cameron Lowe
Dinah stared at him, her tongue poking the side of her cheek. “Forms are in my office. Check the organizer, should be in the middle slot right on top.”
Malcolm nodded, and headed in to retrieve it. He sat down at her desk to fill it out, taking the time to recheck it and make sure he hadn’t screwed it up. When he was done, he slid it under a paperweight from a vacation to Chicago. Just as he was standing up, Dinah came in, her hands freshly scrubbed.
“Sit,” she told him, and he plopped back down in her chair until she gave him the devil eyes. He leapt out of it and settled into one of the wooden chairs in front of her desk instead. She settled on the edge of hers and leaned forward, her elbows on the table as she worked her hands together in a soft, rolling pattern. “I like you, Malcolm. When you’re here, you’re the best worker I’ve got. You’re sharp, you know how to handle the customers, and you do your job but you’re not an uptight prick about it.”
“’When I’m here,’” Malcolm said. He shook his head. “I just heard this shit from my other boss. Ex-boss. Just fire me and get it done with.”
“I don’t want to fire you. But I can’t give you the manager’s spot either.” She held up a hand when he opened his mouth. “I’m not going to make you any promises. But I’ll guarantee you this. That position’s a revolving door. You show up for work, you keep at this, and you show me I can trust you to be here on time every day, you’ll have the job eventually. But I need to see you’re serious about this. Got it?”
That was a better response than his mind knew he deserved. Malcolm got up and stuck out his hand. “Yes ma’am. In the meantime, any shifts I can pick up?”
* * *
Despite knowing the news was coming, it still hit Gwen hard, especially when Dr. Robertson, usually so stoic and sour, broke down crying, holding one hand over his eyes to mask it. Alzheimer’s. She hobbled up onto her good foot, balanced on her crutches, and crossed around the desk to give him a hug.
When he finally pulled back, he laid out the details as far as the clinic was concerned. Gwen would be employed for another two weeks, though they would refer all their clients elsewhere, effective immediately. The talk of business seemed to help Robertson focus. He dictated a letter of recommendation for her and the part-time help they used on the weekends, and when he made mention she was the best veterinary technician a clinic could hope for, it was her turn to cry.
With that letter in hand, she returned to her own desk to begin calling their most immediate clients, the ones that would have been in later that week. As she talked, she began to type up a form letter to send to the rest of them, including the names and numbers of veterinarians in their particular areas. Every doctor’s name she wrote down for their clients, she added to a notepad, in order to begin the long, slow fall that would become her professional career.
Chapter 22
Nic fell to the ground outside the Montana State Prison and rolled onto his back, laughing and kicking his heels into the dirt like a child. He’d lost all his extra weight, and when he pushed himself back upright, it was without any sort of effort. He charged Malcolm and hugged him, hammering his back with his fists.
“My God, it’s good to see you, butt-ugly car and all,” Nic said.
It was the summer after Gwen’s fall, just a little under two years since Nic had gone to prison. Due to overpopulation, Nic was being released early and, so long as he stuck to the terms of his parole, was a free man. His parents were going to drive to Deer Lodge all the way from Minneapolis to pick him up and help him relocate back to the Flats, but when Malcolm volunteered, they demurred. It may have just been his imagination, but they seemed almost relieved by the offer.
Malcolm drove down to the state prison early in the morning. In a decade and change, Rankin Flats would have its own prison, but back then, Deer Lodge was the only state-run facility in Montana, a shocking fact considering the size and scope of Rankin Flats’ criminal activities alone. To say the prison was intimidating was an understatement. The older parts of the prison could have done well for themselves as a medieval fortress. It was all stone and turrets and walls that shouted, “Hey, don’t be a dumbass and wind up in here.”
The dumbass who wound up in there joined Malcolm in heading for the Grand National in the parking lot. “You love this car and you know it,” Malcolm said.
“I’m surprised no one’s jacked it yet, to be honest. Kinda expected at least some graffiti. A nice redneck hello written across the side. I think I’m just grumpy you didn’t show up in a black and white with cop shocks, cop brakes, and a cop engine.”
Malcolm laughed. “All right, what do you want? Burger or a burger? I saw signs for both back in town.”
They got in, and Nic glared at him. “We are not sticking around this podunk shithole one minute longer. I can wait until Helena. There’s a Chinese buffet there. I want to drown in sweet and sour sauce.”
Traffic anywhere outside of Rankin Flats in Montana was nonexistent, and they made the sixty-mile drive in just under fifty minutes. Nic was in high spirits, but he laid it out flat the first five miles.
“I don’t want to talk about in there. Someday maybe we’ll bullshit about it but for right now I just want to pretend we’re two real people doing real road tripping.”
“Fair enough. But, uh, Nic, about your bed and couch.”
“Yeah?”
“We still have it. I can’t pay you much for them, but-”
“No no no, keep ‘em. I’m the one responsible for you losing the house. Besides, the place they’re putting me up in has the basics.” He squinted at Malcolm. “I can’t believe you hung unto that crap.”
“Haven’t had much of a choice. Things are… tight.”
“Sorry to hear that.”
“It is what it is, right?” Malcolm shrugged. “Gwen’s been good for me. She gave me some hard truths a while back about buckling down and now things are kinda improving.”
“That’s good. You ever hear from Alicia?” Nic had a look about him like a dog sniffing out a treat, his chin low, his nostrils flaring in little fits as he grinned.
“Yeah, off and on. She quit the shelter but she’s still working in Rock Springs so her and Gwen have lunch now and then.” Malcolm kept his focus on the road, playing innocent. “Should have seen her dress at the wedding. I’m not sure you could call it cleavage. More like… the Grand Canyon.”
“You’re killing me, asshole. She got a boyfriend?”
“She does,” Malcolm said truthfully. Alicia dated two guys since Nic had gone to jail. The first one was a mutual friend of Hugh and Gwen’s, but he’d been a bit of a trussed-up intellectual turd, and she’d dumped him in a month. Tito, her second and current, was a new fling, someone they hadn’t met yet but who she gushed about constantly over the last few weeks.
“Hmm.”
“You thinking you might go and tip your cap at her.”
Nic eyed him, his grin more and more wolfish. “Maybe.”
They talked about Malcolm’s marriage to Gwen and about Calvin, who they hadn’t heard from since Gwen picked up the last of her stuff from his place. They talked baseball, and football, new movies, new TV shows. They talked about Malcolm’s jobs – he was still plugging away at Matto Furio’s and had picked up five nights a week at a gas station.
“Jesus, man, you gotta get out of that shit,” Nic said. “I think I read somewhere that in the Flats, that’s the number one most dangerous civilian job.”
“Don’t tell Gwen that. She’s worried enough as it is.”
“You two knocking out some kids yet?”
“We’re probably going to start trying this fall. Maybe early next year.”
Nic snorted. “’Start trying.’ Meaning you’re going to finish inside her with your little pee pee.”
“Shaddup. I’m married now so I think I have to say things like ‘we’re trying’ instead of we’re having sex a lot more. I also own five polos now. Five.”
“Fuck me, you’ve
just thrown yourself into the dark side, haven’t you?”
“Oh, you have no idea. We own matching dinnerware. We eat vegetables. Regularly. On purpose. By the way, your old couch. It’s decorated with…”
“Don’t say couch pillows. Please, God, Malcolm, don’t say couch pillows.”
“…couch pillows.”
Nic rolled down his window, stuck his head out, and shouted his agony at the pine trees along the highway. They didn’t seem moved, so he rolled the window back up and smacked Malcolm in the knee. “Damn, dude, it’s good to see you.”
* * *
There was no talking at Nic’s request while he ate. And ate. And ate. Malcolm thought he was over-indulging with three plates of food, but Nic made him look like a teenager picking at a green salad on date night. He put away six plates heaped with greasy, dripping Chinese food, and still somehow managed to find room for two bowls of ice cream, chocolate and vanilla. He even licked the bowls clean, and when they were done, asked to stop at a Walmart so they could grab some jerky for the road back to Rankin Flats.
After he’d eaten, he slept in the car, an old jacket tucked behind his head. His snores were so loud that Malcolm couldn’t drown them out with the radio. The volume just plain didn’t go that high. That drew a laugh from him. What did not was the soft whimpering from his friend and the sudden jolts of his body as Nic came awake looking for something that wasn’t coming for him.
“I’m sorry,” he said after the last one.
“It’s all right, man. I used to get night terrors as a kid. I get it.”
“No,” Nic said faintly. “You don’t.” He tossed the jacket into the back and stared out the window, his good mood gone for a while. “When we get back, can we swing by the precinct near the old place? You can just drop me off. Carr’s on today. I want to bullshit with him for a bit. Might take a while.”
“You sure that’s a good idea?”
Nic glanced at him, genuinely confused. “What do you mean?”
“One of the guys who helped arrest you? You’re not going to go in there and start a fight or something, right?”
“What? No. Boy, you never put the pieces together, did you?”
“Huh?”
Nic sighed. “I was one of Carr’s informants. I wasn’t a big enough fish that I could give him much, but my old boss, he was starting to get violent. Wanted us to sell coke and heroin and flex our muscles a bit. I wasn’t comfortable with it. All I wanted to do was sell people weed, man. That day when everything went bad, my boss, he hit me across the face with a golf club to teach me a lesson.”
“Jesus, Nic.”
He nodded grimly. “I called up Carr and made him a deal. I’d give him what I could, but he couldn’t act on it right away or else I’d look like the guy who was talking. Because I’d done some… well, some bad crap, they couldn’t give me a no-prison deal, but they promised me the judge wouldn’t throw the book at me.”
“What about your boss?”
“Extradited to North Dakota. They got him for a couple felony assault charges. And best of all, he got pretty stabby in prison, so it’s gonna be a hell of a long time before he gets to mow down five pounds of Chinese.”
“I had no idea, Nic. I’m glad you did what you did.”
“Not proud of any of it… but thanks.”
They made it to the outskirts of the Flats an hour later, and to the precinct where Carr worked in another half hour beyond that. They couldn’t just walk in and visit, so a receptionist behind a window on the first floor paged the officer. He came down on the elevator ten minutes later, twirling a pen between his fingers.
“Hooo-ly shit, they tossed you back,” Carr said to Nic.
“Har har.” Nic jammed a thumb at Malcolm. “Told him about everything. That okay?”
“Would it matter now if it wasn’t?” Carr asked. He reached out and shook Malcolm’s hand. “Malcolm, right?”
“You remembered.”
“Of course I do. Still drooling about that Grand National.”
“It’s out in the lot.”
Carr’s eyes lit up. “No kidding? Come on, I need to stretch my legs.”
They headed out to the car, Nic mostly silent while Malcolm talked about restoring the car with his dad. Malcolm opened the door for Carr and the cop slid in, running his hands over the steering wheel like he was caressing a woman’s curves. A pair of unis just coming off shift ambled over to check it out too, and soon they’d attracted a small crowd.
“Damn shame to let that thing sit in storage,” Carr said when it was finally just the three of them again. “You ever want to get rid of it, I’ll give you ten grand, so long as everything checks out with my mechanic.”
Halfway through a bite of peppery jerky, Nic started coughing and Malcolm had to hammer his back. “It’s a box with wheels,” he exclaimed when he could breathe again.
“That car would probably just about match anything on this lot in terms of power,” Carr said. “I want to give it a ticket just parked here.”
“Well, thanks,” Malcolm said. “If I ever am, I’ll give you a call.”
“If you two are done eye-banging this thing,” Nic said, “I wanted to talk to you a bit. And you’re giving me a ride to my new, shiny low-income housing afterwards.”
“You never heard of the bus?” Carr said, but there was good humor in his voice. He shook Malcolm’s hand again, pressed two fingers to his lips, and reached in and touched the steering wheel. “To be continued,” the cop promised the car.
Chapter 23
“I’m not comfortable with him in our apartment, that’s why,” Gwen said. “Not with Hugh around.”
“Not with Hugh around, or in general?” Malcolm asked with real bite.
“Maybe both.”
“He doesn’t deal anymore,”
“That you know about.”
They were in her car on the way back from his night shift at the gas station. Thanks to a citywide strike, none of the city’s buses were running. A friend was driving him to and from work at Matto Furio’s, but Gwen took on the responsibility when it came to his second shift. Driving him in the evening wasn’t so bad. Having to wake up and come get him at two in the morning when she had to go to work a few hours later herself? Less than ideal, especially since he had a car. In storage. One they didn’t use.
Things were not going great for them at the moment.
“Look, I’m not rolling over on this. People can change, Gwen.”
“People never change,” Gwen snapped. “They want to, sure. But they’re like an elastic band. They stretch, they even come close to breaking out of their old habits, but you let go of the tension for just a second, and they snap back into place.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” Malcolm asked.
She ran a hand over her face. “It’s a metaphor, honey.”
“No, I get that. But why are we comparing… you know what? Never mind. It’s just dinner with friends and family. Not like Nic’s not my best friend or anything.”
Gwen glanced over at him and hissed, “Really? He’s your best friend?”
“I mean, besides you, obviously.”
“I hate this,” she muttered. “I hate feeling like the bad guy constantly around you. I hate that I’m the one who has to say, ‘No, Malcolm, we can’t have fun.’ But one of us has to be responsible.”
“So I’m not responsible?”
She sighed. “You’re… getting better.”
“Thanks,” he said drily. “Look, we’re both tired and grumpy. I think we should talk about this in the morning.”
“You sleep in the morning. When I’m up.”
“I am not responsible for the bus strikes, baby!”
“Did I say you were?”
“It was implied. Or… something. Hey, I’m sorry I need a ride. It won’t last forever and then we can both get back to normal.” Malcolm slid a hand over and patted her thigh. “I appreciate it. I really do.”
“I
appreciate your face,” she muttered.
“That doesn’t even make any sense. You’re just punching the air on that one, baby.”
“I know.” She sighed. “Fine. But I want to talk to him when we invite him. Because if I find out he’s dealing to Hugh, I’m not kidding, I will cut his balls off and feed them to Mrs. Sosa’s cat.”
“And if that’s the case, I’ll hold him down,” Malcolm said. “But he’s not that guy anymore, Gwen.”
“Right.”
She was still furious when they got back to the apartment building, and charged up the stairs ahead of Malcolm, nearly closing their door in his face before he caught it. In bed together, he tried to kiss her neck, usually one of her thermonuclear erogenous zones, of which she had plenty. Gwen pushed away from his lips, though, nearly falling off the edge of the bed.
“I’m still mad.”
“Okay,” Malcolm said, He turned over onto his back and gave Gwen her space.
Minutes dragged on, minutes of silence, minutes of neither of them getting much sleep, until finally she muttered, “Oh hell,” and flopped back over so she could roll on top of him. He faked an obnoxiously loud snore, until Gwen hushed him with a kiss.
* * *
The dinner party stuck out in Gwen’s mind as the great and terrible end to their old selves. Most of life’s transitions happen slowly and over time. But that night, almost everyone decided to jumpstart that process and really get things in motion.
It all started because Gwen and Malcolm had a day off together. Such a thing might have been normal for other couples, but for them, it was like a holiday, and not one of the minor, unimpressive ones, either. This required planning, and a celebration, and probably booze, and definitely lovemaking. This required something spectacular. So they settled on the dumbest idea humanly possible – a party for their friends and family.
Hugh was a lock, and the first person to sign up. Out of college for the summer, he was working backbreaking hours for a wheat and barley farm near Dillon, on the complete opposite side of the state. They’d barely seen him throughout the summer, and he was eager to get a chance to visit his sister – as well as grab as much homecooked food as he could while he was in town for a few days. Gwen promised him a pan of burrito pie, Hugh’s favorite of hers, to take back with him.