Wayward

by Gregory Ashe

  Glenn made a noncommittal noise.

  “Hire him to do what?” Somers said.

  “I’m being blackmailed.”

  “That’s a criminal matter, Father. That’s for the police. I can take your statement, and tomorrow, Dulac and I will—”

  “I understand that it’s a criminal matter. I’m not stupid. And I also know that Chief Cravens is deep in the mayor’s pocket. Why do you think I came to you, tonight, to ask Emery to help? Why do you think I parked two blocks away and cut through the neighbor’s yard? I will not have this go through Wahredua’s gossip central, with details of my personal life passed around like newspaper clippings. I won’t hand the election to Naomi.”

  “What’d you do?”

  “Don’t take that tone with me, John-Henry.”

  “Was it an affair?”

  Holding the glass by his fingertips, Glenn set it on an occasional table and shifted forward in his seat. “If you’re going to be a child about this, I’ll talk to Emery alone.”

  “No,” Hazard said in a low, flat voice.

  “What a perfect match the two of you are. Both of you so certain you know how the world works, both of you long past the age when childishness was acceptable, and both of you still acting like you’re in grade school.”

  “Tell him to get out of our home,” Hazard said, his hand hot as a coal at the small of Somers’s back.

  Glenn’s eyes shifted to Hazard fractionally and then back to Somers. A little sneer curled the corner of his mouth.

  “Look,” Somers said. “Tonight’s not a good night. Let Emery and me talk about this, and I’ll call you tomorrow.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. I’m your father. I’ve given you everything, John-Henry. Your mother and I have . . . subsidized your foolishness your whole life. It’s time you carried a little weight in the family.”

  “You’re not even here for me,” Somers said. “You’re here for Emery.”

  “And he won’t have anything to do with me. You heard him. Not unless you say so. Explain to your . . . fiancé that I’ll pay him for his time.”

  Shaking his head, Somers glanced at Hazard.

  “Tell him to go,” Hazard said in a low voice. “Or I’ll tell him, if you want.”

  “Your mother and I ask very little of you, John-Henry. But fine. Have it your way, as you did when you chose to become a police officer instead of going to law school; as you did when you insisted on marrying that girl instead of listening to everyone around you; as you did when you decided to pursue a relationship with this man. Have your way, as you always do, no matter how much it hurts your mother, no matter how much it humiliates me. It was worth asking, I suppose. The result isn’t terribly surprising, I’ll admit; I should be used to this by now.”

  “Father, wait,” Somers said. “Emery’s got a lot on his plate. I’m not sure this is a good time. We can find a private investigator in Columbia or Jeff City, or I can help you, unofficially, I guess, and—”

  “Why isn’t now a good time? He has a business to run, doesn’t he? He has to put a roof over your head. He has to put food on the table for my granddaughter. He has bills to pay; I could say a thing or two about that, although I don’t suppose that’s a topic any of us would enjoy.” The last words were delivered with extra weight, and Somers felt blood rush into his face. “What’s that, John-Henry? Did you have something to say?”

  For a moment, Somers couldn’t hear over the rush of blood in his ears. Then he shook his head.

  “It was one thing,” Glenn said, “when your selfishness indirectly hurt this family. It’s another thing entirely when this staggering display of ingratitude is going to lead directly to our ruin. I hope you’re happy with that, John-Henry. I’m sure you’ll still sleep perfectly well.”

  Glenn stood and, with clipped steps, moved toward the front door.

  Somers clutched Hazard’s arm. He met his fiancé’s eyes and mouthed, Please.

  “Come back here,” Hazard called after Glenn. “I’ll do the job, whatever it is, but come back here and stop talking to him like that. You’re upsetting him.”

  “I’m fine,” Somers said. Somewhere on their block, a dog was barking. A little one, a yipper.

  “I don’t think so,” Glenn said. “John-Henry believes it’s perfectly acceptable to wring his parents dry and then, when they need something from him, to leave them out in the cold. Isn’t that right, John-Henry?”

  “No,” Somers said; his gaze was focused on the leg of the wingback chair, on the little furniture pad with its adhesive backing, placed under the leg to keep it from scratching the floor. The adhesive had weakened, and the little pad was sticking halfway out and was covered in dust. “Please come back, Father.”

  Hazard’s hand was still at the small of his back, and Somers could feel the tremble in his touch as Hazard rubbed a circle against tight muscle.

  “What’s he on about?” Hazard asked in a low voice. “Christ, John. What do you want me to do?”

  Somers just shook his head. He could hear the yipper down the block. And then a man’s voice breaking the spring stillness: “God damn it, Timothy,” and a yelp from the tiny dog. Anger flooded Somers, so much anger that he could have killed the asshole who had just kicked a dog, so much anger that his hands were shaking and it was all he could do to stay in his seat and not rush out to murder the asshole.

  “Come sit down,” Hazard said to Glenn. “Tell us what’s going on. That’s what you wanted, right? You won again. You came over here, you bullied him, you shat on everything, and now you got what you wanted from John. Like you always do. So let’s hear it. And then you can go.”

  Somers could feel his father’s gaze still fixed on him. “I’d like my son to apologize first. I brought him up to be more respectful than this performance tonight.”

  “I’m sorry,” Somers said.

  “I certainly didn’t raise you to mumble and look at the floor. Let’s hear that again.”

  Face on fire, Somers looked up. He couldn’t quite meet his father’s eyes, so instead, he focused on a spot at the center of his forehead. “I’m sorry.”

  And then he was ten years old again, hiding in his bedroom after a Wahredua Junior League baseball game, and it was all he could do not to start crying.

  “Well, I suppose you had a bad day,” Glenn said, gesturing magnanimously with the Manhattan as he took his seat again. “It happens to all of us.”

  Next to Somers, Hazard was breathing in and out with the controlled rhythm of a man trying not to explode. When he spoke, his voice was tight. “I’ll type up a contract and send it over tomorrow, but you should know that I charge fifty dollars an hour and require a thousand-dollar retainer.

  Glenn flicked his fingers dismissively.

  “Why don’t you start at the beginning?” Hazard said. “You’re being blackmailed. About what? And in exchange for what? By whom?”

  “Do you know this Bright Lights movement? The one backing Naomi Malsho for re-election.” Glenn tapped nails against his glass. “They’re a kind of rebranded version of the Ozark Volunteers. White nationalists with a buff and a wax.” He chuckled at his own joke. “All the same nonsense, of course. And our beloved mayor has been catering to them. One of the many reasons our town has become so fragmented and divided, leading to—”

  “Save it for the stump speech. What do the Bright Lights have to do with you being blackmailed?”

  Glenn colored a little. “Their organizer, leader, whatever you want to call him. His name is Bob Sackeman.”

  “He’s the one blackmailing you?”

  “Yes.”

  “For money?”

  “He wants me to withdraw from the election.”

  Somers scoffed. “Come on.”

  “I’m glad you find this so amusing, John-Henry.” Glenn set down the Manhattan again, his fingertips lingering on the rim, the flesh white from pressure. “I’m glad that after all your sanctimo
nious talk of family, you find my situation entertaining.”

  “For the love of God,” Hazard said. “What does Sackeman have?”

  “Photographs.”

  “Of?”

  “An indiscretion.”

  Hazard’s eyebrows went up. “Politicians have had affairs before. You aren’t the first. And it’s not like your behavior in the past has been commendable; everybody knows you run around with girls half your age.”

  “Damn it, Ree,” Somers said, twisting to stare at him.

  “What? He’s asking for help, and he got himself into this mess. There’s no point pretending otherwise.”

  “The photographs are more sensitive than a simple case of marital infidelity,” Glenn said. “That’s all you need to know. I want you to retrieve them and ensure that Sackeman doesn’t have any other copies.”

  “Easier said than done,” Hazard said, but he was frowning now, his eyes fixed on the middle distance. “That’s the trouble with digital blackmail: incredibly easy to duplicate, store, and back up.”

  “That is why I’m coming to Wahredua’s best private detective.” Glenn eased his hand away from the Manhattan, shaking out his fingers as though they had cramped. “I’m sure John-Henry will understand that this is a family matter. Against my wishes, that includes you now, Emery. And now is a good time to be clear: the only thing I ask of my family is loyalty.”

  Somers waited for Hazard’s scathing response, but all Hazard did was grunt.

  “Anything else I need to know?” Hazard said. “Holding things back at this point is just going to slow me down, and I’ll probably figure them out anyway.”

  Glenn gave a frosty smile and shook his head. “Get those photographs, Emery. The sooner, the better.”

  “Fine,” Hazard said, his hand drifting up to settle between Somers’s shoulder blades. “If that’s all—”

  “Not quite,” Glenn said, and his gaze moved to Somers. The air held a new, charged energy, and Somers forgot about feeling tired, forgot about the shitty day, forgot about everything except a night last October when he had walked into his father’s study and struck a bargain. A deal with the devil, maybe. And now, Somers knew, payment was due.

  “What?” Somers asked, his voice rough and toneless.

  “Until the election is finished, I believe it would be for the best if you moved out of this house. I’ve held a room for you at the Hare and Tortoise; I’d like you to go there tonight.”

  Hazard’s hand had stiffened against Somers’s back, but Somers nodded.

  “Absolutely not,” Hazard said.

  “Let me remind you, Emery, that you once made a promise to me,” Glenn said. “Do you remember?”

  Somers glanced over; Hazard’s face was twisted with rage, but he nodded.

  “And what was that promise?” Glenn asked.

  “Fuck you.”

  “You’re a dog with a bone,” Glenn said. “What did you promise me?”

  “I promised that I’d think very carefully before I married your son. And I did. Now—”

  “No, I don’t think you did. Consider the next two weeks fulfilment of that promise. You spend two weeks apart, and then you can pick up where you left off. Two weeks to think about what you’re doing.”

  “I never promised to break up with John.”

  “I’m not asking you to. All I’m asking is that John-Henry spend the next two weeks at the Hare and Tortoise.”

  “Tell him to fuck off,” Hazard said to Somers. “Tell him to fuck off right now, John, and I’ll tell him to fuck off too.”

  “John-Henry, I don’t have to bring up certain conversations, do I?”

  “Tell him to fuck off right now.”

  Somers shook his head. “No, I—no.”

  “Well?” Glenn said.

  A whooshing noise filled Somers’s ears; he couldn’t tell if it was the wind or if it was just in his head. After a moment, he nodded again.

  “I’ll see myself out,” Glenn said, rising and draining the Manhattan. He set the glass back on the occasional table. “Goodnight.”

  “Goodnight,” Somers said, his attention wandering again to the tiny, fuzz-covered furniture pad.

  When the door clicked shut, the sound ran through the silence like a gunshot. Hazard didn’t move. He didn’t say anything. The smell of onions clung to him; the heat of his body painted Somers’s side. The big man drew his hand back and got to his feet. It was only his first step that betrayed how much he was hurting: a wobbling, uncertain shuffle, like the world had turned into one great Slip N Slide. And then he put up the walls again, and he walked normally out of the room.

  “Ree,” Somers said, but he couldn’t quite get himself off the sofa, not yet. He’d heard about sleep paralysis, when the mind gained consciousness but hadn’t yet released its hold on the body’s muscles. And he’d dreamed things like this: dreams where he couldn’t speak or shout or move. But to experience it in real life was something else entirely.

  From the kitchen came the scrape of metal against metal, and then water running. The disposal whirred to life a moment later.

  Somers got to his feet. He picked up the empty glass and made his way to the kitchen, and he stood in the opening and leaned there, his thumb sliding along the stem of the cocktail glass. It had shallow ribs, and his nail ticked them off one by one.

  At the sink, Hazard was scraping the congealed mass of onions out of the frying pan while the disposal glugged and whirred. When he finished, he ran hot water over the pan, washing out the last of the oil, and dried it with a paper towel. Then he returned it to the range, turned a burner to medium, and crossed to the pantry.

  “I didn’t know he was going to ask me to do this,” Somers said. “It’s not like I knew and I was just waiting for it.”

  Hazard rummaged through the pantry and emerged with a bottle of canola oil.

  “I wouldn’t have done that to you,” Somers said.

  Back at the stove, Hazard poured a small amount of oil into the heating pan.

  “And you made a promise too,” Somers said. “I didn’t know about that. Why didn’t you tell me that?”

  Hazard got a fresh paper towel and spread the oil around, coating the metal. Then one big hand closed around the paper towel, crumpling it. His knuckles were white as he stared at the range.

  “Will you talk to me? Please?”

  “Are you moving out?”

  “It’s not that simple, Ree.”

  “It seems pretty simple.” Hazard didn’t look up. Didn’t raise his voice. No fucks or damns or shits or hells. With the wadded paper towel, he adjusted the pan over the burner, and the cast iron scraped softly. “It’s a yes or no question.”

  “I don’t want to do this, ok?”

  Hazard flipped the burner off. He tossed the oily paper towel in the trash. And then he leaned against the counter, arms across his chest. Dark hair spilled over his forehead, a fringe hanging in front of his eyes.

  “Look, my dad is desperate to win this election,” Somers said, taking his first step into the kitchen. “He’ll—”

  “Stay over there, please.”

  Somers froze. And now, because it felt better than feeling so genuinely shitty about himself, something dark and black started to hiss and smoke inside him. “That’s ridiculous. This is our house. I can walk anywhere I want.”

  But he stayed where he was.

  “You still haven’t answered my question: are you moving out?”

  “This is a really conservative part of the world. Do I really need to spell it out? If my dad wants to win, he has to have some of that conservative base on his side. Naomi’s got the Ozark Volunteers locked down; if he can tell those bigoted assholes that his queer-as-fuck son finally found Jesus and is cleaning up his life, that’s a way to score major points.”

  “And, of course, he doesn’t have to worry about the liberal vote,” Hazard said in that cool, analytical tone he took
when his mind was going a mile a minute. “They’d vote for Hitler if he ran against Naomi.” Hazard’s gaze moved back to Somers, and Somers remembered their first days partnered together, the intensity of that look, how deeply unsettling it could be. “And when are you going to tell everyone that you called off our wedding? Tomorrow? Should I be emotionally ready by tomorrow?”

  “Ree, oh my God. Don’t—I wouldn’t do that. I would never do that.” Somers took a step forward.

  “I said stay over there, please.”

  “I love you more than I’ve ever loved anyone. Ever. I don’t care who knows it. I’m not ashamed of it. And I don’t want to lose you. But my dad, I mean, things are really complicated. He’s not asking me to do this because he’s an asshole. Or at least, not just because. And it’s really important to him.”

  “You don’t care that he’s going to parade you around and you’re going to have to smile and shake hands with those homophobic pieces of shit and tell them you just made a big mistake, you woke up and accidentally had a cock in your mouth, and now you’ve figured it all out and you’re going to straighten up.”

  “I’m not going to say any of that.”

  “You just said—”

  “I said my dad’s going to say stuff like that.”

  “Yeah, well, what’s the difference? They’re going to think that’s how you feel.”

  And then Somers saw that Hazard was crying. Just a little, the tear tracks hooking from the corners of his eyes to follow the bridge of his nose.

  “Ree, oh my God, please.” Somers hurried across the kitchen now. “I don’t want you to feel like—”

  Hazard pushed past him, headed in the opposite direction, and Somers stumbled into the stove. Metal clanged, and Somers reached out by instinct, trying to catch something to steady himself. His hand landed on the still-hot burner, and he hissed, shaking out his fingers. Then, cradling his hand, he sprinted to the sink and turned on the cold water.

  From the opening that connected to the living room, Hazard watched it all play out.

  “What the fuck is wrong with you?” Somers shouted over his shoulder. “Jesus fuck, Ree, I’ve got second-degree burns here because you decided tonight was a good night for some fucking domestic abuse.” Each word went into Hazard like a blade; Somers watched and couldn’t stop himself. “Why the fuck do you care what anybody in this town thinks about you? That’s been your line your whole fucking life, hasn’t it? You don’t care what anybody thinks about you. You’ve been on fucking repeat since you were fourteen fucking years old. Why the fuck does it matter if people talk a different kind of shit about us for two weeks, Ree, two fucking weeks, until I can move back in and things go back to normal?”