by G. M. Ford
Marino swiveled his stool to the left, taking a sudden interest in the rows of potato chips hanging from a white metal rack. Corso kept talking. “I’ve been asking around town. I hear he was reliable and considerate and self-supporting. Always had a job. People say he was a nice guy, a hard worker who showed up every day.”
Marino did a slow swivel. “What kinda job?” he asked with a sneer. “Some menial…backroom…cleanup kinda delivery thing?” He dismissed the idea with a wave of his big hand. “Nathan had no more ambition than a stray dog. Had no pride. No drive.”
“Not everybody needs to be a doctor or a lawyer.”
Herm Marino slid over onto the stool next to Corso. His face was so close Corso could make out the veins in his nose. “I ain’t no snob, and don’t you make me out to be one neither. All my life I worked with my hands.” He held them up for emphasis. They looked more like roots than hands. “Thirty years for the Thurston Company…mine number six, so don’t be talkin’ to me about no doctors and lawyers.” He smelled of cigarettes, stale beer and Aqua Velva. His blue eyes were filigreed with red. The color had begun to rise in his cheeks. “All I wanted was they had some kind of plan for what they were gonna do with their lives. Just pick something and get on with it.” He cut the air with the edge of his hand. “Take care of yourself and your family. I never asked nothing more than that.”
“And Nathan didn’t do any of that?”
“Nathan didn’t do a goddamn thing.” He spit the indictment out like a pit, then ran a hand through his bristly hair. “I’m always amazed at you press guys. What it is you find so interesting about my no-account son is beyond my imagination. Only interesting thing the kid ever did was die.”
His own words seemed to take Marino’s breath away. Corso clamped his jaw closed. He felt Marino’s words settle onto his shoulders. For a moment he felt the disappointment of every parent whose dreams for their child had been splintered by circumstance. When Corso looked up, Herm Marino had him fixed with a withering stare. Their eyes met and stayed that way.
Half a minute passed before Marino broke the connection. He slid back over onto his original stool, picked up the pack of Lucky Strikes and began to tap it on the bar, as if to pack the contents more tightly. Corso noticed the lamp behind the bar. The fringed shade vibrated a little as the brass hula dancer swiveled her hips in mechanical rapture.
Marino stared straight down. “That sounded pretty harsh, now didn’t it?” It was somewhere in between a statement and a question.
“Sounded disappointed,” Corso offered.
“Parents got a right to be disappointed sometimes,” Marino said without looking up. “They go the route. They do it all for twenty years. They feed ’em and clothe ’em and take ’em to the doctor when they need it. They got a right to a few expectations.”
“What if kids weren’t put in this world to live up to anybody’s expectations but their own?”
“You sound like my wife,” Marino said.
“It happens the other way too.”
“What happens?”
“Some kids grow up and become something their people could never have predicted. Something good…something famous…but something the home folks know so little about, something so far from their personal experiences that this person they once loved might as well be from another planet now.”
Another silence. “That what happened to you?” Marino asked.
“Something like that, yeah.”
“Your folks…”
Corso interrupted the question. “My folks have absolutely no idea what to make of me. The idea that I went to college, that I make my livelihood writing, that I live on a boat in some place called Seattle…” Corso shook his head, as if in disbelief. “I mean, they love me and all, but I might as well be Polynesian as far as they’re concerned.” Marino was about to speak. Corso silenced him with a raised palm. “Only thing they know for sure about me is that I’m not one of them anymore. Some of them aren’t sure I ever was.”
“I loved Nathan,” the other man said out of the blue. It was the kind of statement that inspired silence. Corso gave it its due.
“I love all my children,” Herm Marino said.
“How could you not?”
“But loving him’s not the same thing as being able to tell people”—he banged a big hand on the bar—“no…my kid would never do anything like that. He just wasn’t the type. No way he’d do something like that. No sir.” He looked over at Corso. “I never had any idea where that kid was coming from. He wasn’t like any kid I ever met. Didn’t even like to be picked up as a child.” He hesitated, making sure Corso was listening. “Can you imagine that? He run off if you tried to pick him up. Never seemed to listen to anything you tried to tell him. Just stared off into space making those little noises of his. When people started asking me whether he could be part of a bank robbery, I didn’t know what to say.”
“What do you think now?”
“I’ll tell you the same thing I told those FBI guys. If you’re asking me whether or not I think my son was part of a scheme to rob a bank, I got to tell you it’s possible.” He spread his big hands in resignation. “Not because he could come up with a scheme like that on his own, but because he was just gullible enough to get talked into a half-assed idea like that. Just gullible enough to believe the bomb wasn’t real and just gullible enough to believe that whoever was in it with him wouldn’t really hurt him.” He waved his big hands again. “Every single time that kid ever got into trouble, got himself suspended from school, got brought home by the cops for stealing beer from the Elks Lodge…every single time it was because somebody else talked him into doing something stupid.” He pointed a crooked finger at Corso. “I think maybe that’s why he gave up on people. I think maybe he lost faith in his ability to tell whether people were being truthful or not, so he decided to just not take any chances.”
“How isolated is that?” Corso sighed.
“Desert island isolated.”
Corso was still ruminating on their assessment of Nathan’s life when a movement at his shoulder brought his head around. James Marino wore a tan goose down jacket, so full of feathers it made him look like the Michelin Man. His head was covered by a red wool hat whose earflaps were folded down and tied beneath his chin. “Come on, Pops,” he said. “I got Harvey and one of the trucks outside. We’ll give you a ride home.”
He looked over at Corso as if daring him to object. “What did I tell you?” he demanded.
“Not a hell of a lot, as I recall,” Corso said.
“Leave my family alone,” he said.
“Just doing my job.”
By that time Herm was already on his feet. Corso thanked him for his time as he shuffled by and watched from his stool as James pulled his father’s hat and jacket down from the coatrack, helped him with both, then took him by the elbow and propelled him slowly out the front door. “Yeah baby,” someone shouted from over by the shuffleboard table. Corso turned back to his beer.
12
C orso sat in the seat revving the engine. He kept his arms folded across his chest and his hands inside his jacket, hoping the warmth of his armpits would bring some feeling back to his fingers. By the time he’d gotten the ice cleared from the windshield and the back window, his hands were numb and very nearly unable to operate the door handle. The defroster roared like a freight train. The wipers thumped back and forth at warp speed, clearing little crescents in the ice and snow as he rocked back and forth in the heated seat trying to keep the blood from freezing in his veins.
He stayed that way for the better part of ten minutes before the shuddering subsided and his hands felt capable of aiming the rental car back to his hotel. The rest of the cars in Charlie’s parking lot looked like a string of pearls, opalescent in the purple-hued lights, names and brands now nothing more than interconnected mounds of snow and ice. Corso wondered what their barflies were going to do when they came out at closing time. Or maybe they didn’t, he tho
ught. Maybe that was the trick. Eliminate all this freezing-your-ass-off stuff. Maybe they just stayed inside swilling suds, shooting pool and playing shuffleboard until the spring thaw rolled around.
He used the switch to move the transmission from two-wheel high to four-wheel high. He dropped the shift lever into gear and started around in a wide circle. The cold rush of evening had formed a layer of ice on top of the snow; the tires crunched as they plowed furrows in the surface of the parking lot. He followed a double set of tire tracks out onto the highway and turned north toward town.
The highway was deserted. The overhead lights more like dim distant stars than terrestrial navigation aids. The snowplows had removed the bulk of the storm, leaving the sanded road surface slick and shiny with ice. Corso could feel the car scratching for traction as he accelerated. First time the transmission changed gears, the SUV started to go into a full slide. Corso slowed, snapped on the emergency flashers and crept along at twenty-five, keeping an eye on the rearview mirror, making sure nobody was going to total him from behind while he was looking the other way. The car started to go sideways again, caught a patch of sand and righted itself. Corso cursed himself for staying too long at the fair and leaned farther out over the dashboard.
Dim lights coming from the other direction turned out to be a snowplow, its blade angled off to the right, pushing a wave of dirty snow up onto the shoulder. The pulsing yellow light seemed more like a warning than it had earlier in the day.
What on a dry night would have taken ten minutes to drive, took him thirty-five. Half hour in, he started to wonder if he’d turned in the right direction. Wondered whether or not the storm had gotten him turned around. Whether he was driving farther out into the wilds rather than toward town. The thought tightened his neck into a burl and made his mouth go dry. He checked the gas gauge. Almost full. He gave a sigh of relief just as the dull glow of lights appeared in the distance.
He tried to roll his neck, but it was locked tight. He massaged it with one hand as he crawled toward the distant lights. To his left, down at the far end of town, he thought he could make out the red sign on top of his hotel. He squinted and tried to be sure, but the falling snow made the red glow little more than an intermittent smear of color in the sky.
And then the roar started. About five blocks before where he planned to turn. Sounded like an airplane was landing on top of the car. All of a sudden everything was bright white. And then the first impact, the blow from behind breaking the back window, sending the SUV wiggling all over the road. Corso held on to the wheel for all he was worth. He flicked his eyes at the rearview mirror and was temporarily blinded by what must have been enough lights for a football stadium.
The roar of the engine got louder. Corso could hear strips of safety glass falling into the back of the SUV. Cold air swirled around his head. He heard the fan belt squeal and braced himself. Bam…another blow from behind. That’s when the carnival ride started. Not one of those newfangled super coasters at Six Flags. More like the kind of thing they used to drag to county fairs and such way back when he was a boy. The Whip was the ride he most remembered. Half a dozen brightly painted cars darting this way and that on narrow iron rails, whirling in a tight cloverleaf pattern the mechanics and geometry of which were designed to induce screams and occasionally separated vertebrae.
The rental car was spinning out of control, the frozen world flashing by Corso’s eyes like a bad music video. He feathered the brakes, but his efforts had no effect. Before he could try again, the terror hit the SUV from the side, crushing the driver’s door in onto Corso’s hip, wrenching a scream from his lips, sending the car pinwheeling sideways down the ice-covered road.
Corso recognized where he was. Another revolution and the car was going to be pointing right down Main Street…toward the lights…toward home…Corso dropped the transmission into low…pulled his neck down into his shoulders like a turtle and waited…waited for the SUV to complete another circle as the lights got brighter and the roaring got louder, before he put his foot to the floor, sending all four tires spinning back and forth as the car crabbed forward at an angle, heading for the intersection, slithering back and forth as one wheel or another found a purchase and propelled him on.
He missed the intersection by six feet. The driver’s side wheels bounced up over the curb, skidding the car sideways across the meridian, frozen bushes scraped along the sides of the vehicle, before the SUV suddenly bounced to a shaking, steaming halt when the other two wheels refused to leave the highway.
Corso clawed at the seat belt, found the button and pushed. That’s when he realized that some part of the crushed door had pierced his hip; he bellowed in pain and threw himself to the right, tearing himself free of the jagged metal. He felt something warm running down the outside of his leg as he dove across the console toward the passenger seat and the seeming safety of the far door.
He got about halfway there when the next impact threw him face forward onto the passenger floor. Upside down, feet banging off the headliner, he felt the rental car leave the ground, teeter on two wheels, and flop over onto its side with a bang and the tinkle of broken glass. And then the car was moving again. Being pushed backward along the icy street.
Scraping along on its side, bits of dirty ice and snow coming in through the broken window, the car was beginning to fill as Corso struggled to right himself, forcing his torso up and over the seat until he could get one hand on the steering wheel and begin to pull himself upright. The screech of tearing metal assaulted his ears. He had one foot on the doorpost and another on the armrest. His face was jammed hard against the driver’s side window. He forced his eyes to the right, away from the lights, peering out through the shattered back window in the direction they were moving.
A metal railing, then nothing but water. He could smell the frothy saltiness of the lake. The word “no” rose in his throat as the car sheared through the railing, hung for a moment on nothing more than pretense, then, with a piteous sheet metal groan, began to somersault downward toward the dark water below.
13
T he SUV landed wheels down in the water, rocking back and forth, nose to tail and back again; the impact drove Corso’s solar plexus into the console, forcing the air from his lungs, causing a glittering galaxy to appear before his eyes as he gasped for air. After two, three, four unsuccessful attempts to inhale, the knot in his chest abated enough to allow him a single great gulp of air. And then another. And a third. Until his vision cleared. Until the sound of rushing water invaded his consciousness, causing him to look around.
The car undulated gently on the waves, allowing a stream of water to pour in the back window whenever it rocked in that direction. For a moment, Corso watched dumbfounded as the rhythmic stream of water got thicker and thicker. As the rear of the vehicle began to sink, Corso came alive, scrambling across the passenger seat to the broken-out window on the far side of the car. The edges of the frame were festooned with bits of broken glass. He forced himself to ignore the pain as he pulled the top half of himself out into the freezing night air. He sat for a moment collecting himself, then got a foot on the window frame and slithered belly down up onto the roof of the SUV.
Almost immediately he began to shudder. The roof was a solid sheet of ice. His teeth began to click like castanets. The car had floated about ten feet out into the lake. The street was about the same distance above. On the right of the breakwater, a flight of snow-covered stairs led to the sidewalk above.
The rear of the car gave a wet belch and began to sink beneath the water. The flopping of the windshield wipers reminded him the engine was still running. For whatever reason, he took solace in the powerful vibration emanating from the engine compartment, as if the engine’s idle and the beating of his heart had inexplicably become a single entity.
The headlights pointed nearly straight up, scouring the blackness of the heavens for help as Corso eased himself across the hood. Moving with great care, he first hooked his toes onto th
e front bumper, then, as the car tilted completely onto its rear end, managed to pull both knees up onto the grille, where he sat sidesaddle shaking uncontrollably.
The engine ticked quietly in the darkness. The partially submerged car seemed to have found some semblance of stability, rolling contentedly in the slushy waves like some giant fishing bobber. Half-in, half-out of the water, moving neither closer nor farther from shore. Corso thought he heard the muted whoop whoop of a siren somewhere in the distance, but before his senses could confirm or deny, a sharp hiss emanated from beneath him. The sound of cold water reaching hot metal.
Corso held his breath and tried to control his shaking as if his actions alone could keep the car afloat. It took everything he had to unknot five of his fingers from the grille in the moments before the hissing got worse, more constant, more insistent this time. Even Corso’s addled senses knew the score. Despite the momentary sense of stability, the car was sinking and so was he.
He looked toward shore. His muscles contracted; the flesh tightened on his bones at the sight of the ten or so feet of black water between the bottom step of the stairs and himself. A groan escaped his lips as the hissing became even more intense. The water reached the back end of the motor, sending it shuddering and spitting, enveloping Corso in a pungent cloud of coolant steam. The car began to shake. The engine gave a final death rattle, lurched once and stopped altogether.
A look back over his shoulder confirmed his worst fears. The water was working its way over the windshield. He was maybe three feet above the surface and sinking ever faster. The siren was closer now. He was sure even before the pulsing red lights began to dance all over the snowflakes.
He reached out as if to touch terra firma one last time, then the water was at his hip, scouring a line of frozen agony along the outside of his leg. Numbing the whole side of his body, spurring Corso upward. Standing on the grille now as his shoes filled with icy water, his cramping muscles were unable to straighten his spine. He stood stooped and ancient as he bent his knees and pushed off the car for all he was worth.