Last Night in Twisted River

by John Irving

  The cook came out of the bathroom and continued down the hall to Daniel's room. Dominic Baciagalupo kissed his sleeping son good night, leaving an unnoticed spot of blood on the boy's forehead. When the cook came out into the hall, there was Chief Wahoo grinning upside down at him--as if to remind him that he better watch his words carefully with Injun Jane.

  "Who hit you?" she asked him, as he was getting undressed in the bedroom.

  "Ketchum was wild and unruly--you know how he can be when he's passed out and talking at the same time."

  "If Ketchum had hit you, Cookie, you wouldn't be standing here."

  "It was just an accident," the cook insisted, relying on a favorite word. "Ketchum didn't mean to hurt me--he just caught me with his cast, by accident."

  "If he'd hit you with his cast, you would be dead," Jane told him. She was sitting up in bed, with her hair all around her; it hung down below her waist, and she had folded her arms over her breasts, which were hidden by both her hair and her arms.

  Whenever she took her hair down, and later went home that way, she could get in real trouble with Constable Carl--if he hadn't already passed out. It was a night when Jane should stay late and leave early in the morning, if she went home at all, Dominic was thinking.

  "I saw Carl tonight," the cook told her.

  "It wasn't Carl who hit you, either," Jane said, as he got into bed beside her. "And it doesn't look as if he shot you," she added.

  "I can't tell if he knows about us, Jane."

  "I can't tell, either," she told him.

  "Did Ketchum kill Lucky Pinette?" the cook asked.

  "Nobody knows, Cookie. We haven't known doodley-squat about that for ages! Why did Six-Pack hit you?" Jane asked him.

  "Because I wouldn't fool around with her--that's why."

  "If you had screwed Six-Pack, I would have hit you so hard you wouldn't ever have found your lower lip," Jane told him.

  He smiled, which the lip didn't like. When he winced at the pain, Jane said, "Poor baby--no kissing for you tonight."

  The cook lay down next to her. "There are other things besides kissing," he said to her.

  She pushed him to his back and lay on top of him, the sheer weight of her pressing him into the bed and taking his breath away. If the cook had closed his eyes, he would have seen himself in Six-Pack's suffocating headlock again, so he kept his eyes wide open. When Injun Jane straddled his hips and firmly seated herself in his lap, Dominic felt a sudden intake of air fill his lungs. With an urgency possibly prompted by Six-Pack having assaulted him, Jane mounted the cook; she wasted no time in slipping him inside her.

  "I'll show you other things," the Indian dishwasher said, rocking herself back and forth; her breasts fell on his chest, her mouth brushed his face, carefully not touching his lower lip, while her long hair cascaded forward, forming a tent around the two of them.

  The cook could breathe, but he couldn't move. Jane's weight was too great for him to budge her. Besides, Dominic Baciagalupo wouldn't have wanted to change a single element of the way she was rocking back and forth on top of him--or her gathering momentum. (Not even if Injun Jane had been as light as Dominic's late wife, Rosie, and the cook himself were as big as Ketchum.) It was a little like riding a train, Dominic imagined--except all he could do was hold tightly to the train that was, in reality, riding him.

  IT DIDN'T MATTER NOW that Danny was certain he'd heard water running in the bathroom, or that the kiss on his forehead--either his father's kiss or a second goodnight kiss from Jane--had been real. It didn't matter, either, that the boy had incorporated the kiss into a dream he was having about Six-Pack Pam, who'd been ardently kissing him--not necessarily on his forehead. Nor did it matter that the twelve-year-old knew the odd creak his dad's limp made on the stairs, because he'd heard the limp a while ago and there was a different, unfamiliar creaking now. (On stairs, his father always put his good foot forward; the lame foot followed, more lightly, after it.)

  What mattered now was the new and never-ending creaking, and where the anxious, wide-awake boy thought the creaking came from. It wasn't only the wind that was shaking the whole upstairs of the cookhouse; Danny had heard and felt the wind in every season. The frightened boy quietly got out of bed, and--holding his breath--tiptoed to his partially open bedroom door and into the upstairs hall.

  There was Chief Wahoo with his lunatic, upside-down grin. But what had happened to Jane? young Dan wondered. If her hat had ended up in the hall, where was her head? Had the intruder (for surely there was a predator on the loose) decapitated Jane--either with one swipe of its claws or (in the case of a human predator) with a bush hook?

  As he made his cautious way down the hall, Danny half expected to see Jane's severed head in the bathtub; as he passed the open bathroom door, without spotting her head, the twelve-year-old could only imagine that the intruder was a bear, not a man, and that the bear had eaten Jane and was now attacking his dad. For there was no denying where the violent creaks and moans were coming from--his father's bedroom--and that was definitely moaning (or worse, whimpering) that the boy could hear as he came closer. When he passed the Cleveland Indians cap, the recognition that Chief Wahoo had landed upside down only heightened the twelve-year-old's fears.

  What Danny Baciagalupo would see (more accurately, what he thought he saw), upon entering his dad's bedroom, was everything the twelve-year-old had feared, and worse--that is, both bigger and hairier than what the boy had ever imagined a bear could be. Only his father's knees and feet were visible beneath the bear; more frightening still, his dad's lower legs weren't moving. Maybe the boy had arrived too late to save him! Only the bear was moving--the rounded, humpbacked beast (its head not discernible) was rocking the entire bed, its glossy-black hair both longer and more luxuriant than Danny had ever imagined a black bear's hair would be.

  The bear was consuming his father, or so it appeared to the twelve-year-old. With no weapon at hand, one might have expected the boy to throw himself on the animal attacking his dad in such a savage or frenzied manner--if only to be hurled into a bedroom wall, or raked to death by the beast's claws. But family histories--chiefly, perhaps, the stories we are told as children--invade our most basic instincts and inform our deepest memories, especially in an emergency. Young Dan reached for the eight-inch cast-iron skillet as if it were his weapon of choice, not his father's. That skillet was a legend, and Danny knew exactly where it was.

  Holding the handle in both hands, the boy stepped up to the bed and took aim at where he thought the bear's head ought to be. He'd already started his two-handed swing--as Ketchum had once shown him, with an ax, being sure to get his hips behind the swinging motion--when he noticed the bare soles of two clearly human feet. The feet were in a prayerful position, just beside his dad's bare knees, and Danny thought that the feet looked a lot like Jane's. The Indian dishwasher was on her feet all day, and--for such a heavy woman--it was only natural that her feet often hurt her. She liked nothing better, she'd told young Dan, than a foot rub, which Danny had more than once given her.

  "Jane?" Danny asked--in a small, doubting voice--but nothing slowed the forward momentum of the cast-iron skillet.

  Jane must have heard the boy utter her name, because she raised her head and turned to face him. That was why the skillet caught her full-force on her right temple. The ringing sound, a dull but deep gong, was followed by a stinging sensation young Dan first felt in his hands; a reverberant tingle passed through both wrists and up his forearms. For the rest of his life, or as long as his memory endured, it would be small consolation to Danny Baciagalupo that he didn't see the expression on Jane's pretty face when the skillet struck her. (Her hair was so long that it simply covered everything.)

  Jane's massive body shuddered. She was too massive, and her hair was too sleekly beautiful, for her ever to have been a black bear--not in this life or the next, where she most assuredly was going. Jane rolled off the cook and crashed to the floor.

  There was no mista
king her for a bear now. Her hair had fanned out--flung wide as wings, to both sides of her inert, colossal torso. Her big, beautiful breasts had slumped into the hollows of her armpits; her motionless arms reached over her head, as if (even in death) Jane sought to hold aloft a heavy, descending universe. But as astonishing as her nakedness must have been to an innocent twelve-year-old, Danny Baciagalupo would best remember the faraway gaze in Jane's wide-open eyes. Something more than the final, split-second recognition of her fate lingered in Injun Jane's dead eyes. What had she suddenly seen in the immeasurable distance? Danny would wonder. Whatever Jane had glimpsed of the unforeseeable future had clearly terrified her--not just her fate but all their fates, maybe.

  "Jane," Danny said again; this time it wasn't a question, though the boy's heart was racing and he must have had many questions on his mind. Nor did Danny more than glance at his dad. Was it his father's nakedness that made the boy so quickly look away? (Perhaps it was what Ketchum had called the little-fella aspect of the cook; the latter aspect was greatly enhanced by how near Dominic now was to the dead dishwasher.) "Jane!" Danny cried, as if the boy needed a third utterance of the Indian's name to finally register what he had done to her.

  The cook quickly covered her private parts with a pillow. He knelt in the vast expanse of her far-flung hair, putting his ear to her quiet heart. Young Dan held the skillet in both hands, as if the reverberation still stung his palms; possibly, the ongoing tingle in his forearms would last forever. Though he was only twelve, Danny Baciagalupo surely knew that the rest of his life had just begun. "I thought she was a bear," the boy told his dad.

  Dominic could not have looked more shocked if, at that moment, the dead dishwasher had turned herself into a bear; yet the cook could see for himself that it was his beloved Daniel who needed some consoling. Trembling, the boy stood clutching the murder weapon as if he believed a real bear would be the next thing to assail them.

  "It's understandable that you thought Jane was a bear," his father said, hugging him. The cook took the skillet from his shaking son, hugging him again. "It's not your fault, Daniel. It was an accident. It's nobody's fault."

  "How can it be nobody's fault?" the twelve-year-old asked.

  "It's my fault, then," his dad told him. "It will never be your fault, Daniel. It's all mine. And it was an accident."

  Of course the cook was thinking about Constable Carl; in the constable's world, there was no such thing as a no-fault accident. In the cowboy's mind, if you could call it that, good intentions didn't count. You can't save yourself, but you can save your son, Dominic Baciagalupo was thinking. (And for how many years might the cook manage to save them both?)

  For so long, Danny had wanted to see Jane undo her braid and let down her hair--not to mention how he had dreamed of seeing her enormous breasts. Now he couldn't look at her. "I loved Jane!" the boy blurted out.

  "Of course you did, Daniel--I know you did."

  "Were you do-si-doing her?" the twelve-year-old asked.

  "Yes," his father answered. "I loved Jane, too. Just not like I loved your mom," he added. Why was it necessary for him to say that? the cook asked himself guiltily. Dominic had truly loved Jane; he must have been yielding to the fact that there was no time to grieve for her.

  "What happened to your lip?" the boy asked his dad.

  "Six-Pack smacked me with her elbow," the cook answered.

  "Were you do-si-doing Six-Pack, too?" his son asked him.

  "No, Daniel. Jane was my girlfriend--just Jane."

  "What about Constable Carl?" young Dan asked.

  "We have a lot to do, Daniel," was all his dad would tell him. And they didn't have a lot of time, the cook knew. Before long, it would be light outside; they had to get started.

  IN THE CONFUSION and sheer clumsiness that followed, and in their frantic haste, the cook and his son would find a multitude of reasons to relive the night of their departure from Twisted River--though they would remember the details of their forced exit differently. For young Dan, the monumental task of dressing the dead woman--not to mention bringing her body down the cookhouse stairs, and toting her to her truck--had been herculean. Nor did the boy at first understand why it was so important to his father that Jane be correctly dressed--that is, exactly as she would have dressed herself. Nothing missing, nothing awry. The straps to her stupendous bra could not be twisted; the waistband of her mammoth boxer shorts could not be rolled under; her socks could not be worn inside out.

  But she's dead! What does it matter? Danny was thinking. The boy wasn't considering the scrutiny that Injun Jane's body might soon come under--what the examining physician would conclude was the cause of death, for example. (A blow to the head, obviously, but what was the instrument--and where was it?) The approximate time of death would need to be factored in, too. Clearly it mattered to the cook that, at the time of her death, Jane would appear to have been fully clothed.

  As for Dominic, he would forever be grateful to Ketchum--for it was Ketchum who'd acquired a dolly for the cookhouse, on one of his drunken binges in Maine. The dolly was useful in unloading the dry goods from the trucks, or the cases of olive oil and maple syrup--even egg cartons, and anything heavy.

  The cook and his son had strapped Jane onto the dolly; thus they were able to bring her down the cookhouse stairs in a semi-upright position, and wheel her standing (almost straight) to her truck. However, the dolly had been no help getting Injun Jane into the cab, which the cook would later recall as the "herculean" part of the task--or one herculean part, among several.

  As for the instrument of death, Dominic Baciagalupo would pack the eight-inch cast-iron skillet among his most cherished kitchen items--namely, his favorite cookbooks, because the cook knew he had no time, and scant room, to pack his kitchenware. The other pots and pans would stay behind; the rest of the cookbooks, and all the novels, Dominic would leave for Ketchum.

  Danny scarcely had time to gather some photos of his mom, but not the books he'd kept her pictures pressed flat in. As for clothing, the cook packed only the bare necessities of his own and young Dan's clothes--and Dominic would pack more clothes for himself than he did for his son, because Daniel would soon outgrow what he was wearing.

  The cook's car was a 1952 Pontiac station wagon--the so-called semiwoodie Chieftain Deluxe. They'd made the last real "woodie" in 1949; the semiwoodie had fake wooden panels outside, offset against the maroon exterior, and real wood inside. The interior had maroon leather upholstery, too. Because of Dominic's lame left foot, the Pontiac Chieftain Deluxe came with automatic transmission--in all likelihood making it the only vehicle with automatic transmission in the settlement of Twisted River--which made it possible for Danny to drive the car, too. The twelve-year-old's legs weren't long enough to depress a clutch pedal all the way to the floor, but Danny had driven the semiwoodie station wagon on the haul roads. Constable Carl didn't cruise the haul roads. There were many boys Danny's age, and even younger, driving cars and trucks on the back roads around Phillips Brook and Twisted River--unlicensed preteens with pretty good driving skills. (The boys who were a little taller than Danny could depress the clutch pedals all the way to the floor.)

  Considering the contingencies of their escape from Twisted River, it was a good thing that Danny could drive the Chieftain, because the cook would not have wanted to be seen walking through town, back to the cookhouse, after he drove Jane (in her truck) to Constable Carl's. By that early hour of the morning, in the predawn light, Dominic Baciagalupo's limp would have made him recognizable to anyone who might have been up and about--and for the cook and his son to have been seen walking together at that ungodly hour would have been most unusual and suspicious.

  Of course, Dominic's maroon semiwoodie was the only car of its kind in town. The '52 Pontiac Chieftain might not pass unnoticed, although it would pass more quickly through the settlement than the cook with his limp, and the station wagon would never be parked within sight of where Dominic would leave Jane's truck--at
Constable Carl's.

  "Are you crazy?" Danny would ask his father, as they were preparing to leave the cookhouse--for the last time. "Why are we bringing the body to the constable?"

  "So the drunken cowboy will wake up in the morning and think he did it," the cook told his son.

  "What if Constable Carl is awake when we get there?" the boy asked.

  "That's why we have a back-up plan, Daniel," his dad said.

  A misty, almost imperceptible rain was falling. The long maroon hood of the Chieftain Deluxe glistened. The cook wet his thumb on the hood; he reached inside the open driver's-side window and rubbed the spot of dried blood off his son's forehead. Remembering his goodnight kiss, Dominic Baciagalupo knew whose blood it was; he hoped it hadn't been the last kiss he would give Daniel, and that no more blood (not anyone's blood) would touch his boy tonight.

  "I just follow you, right?" young Dan asked his dad.

  "That's right," the cook said, the back-up plan foremost in his mind as he climbed into the cab of Jane's truck, where Jane was slumped against the passenger-side door. Jane wasn't bleeding, but Dominic was glad that he couldn't see the bruise on her right temple. Jane's hair had fallen forward, covering her face; the contusion (it was swollen to the size of a baseball) was pressed against the passenger-side window.

  They drove, a caravan of two, to the flat-roofed, two-story hostelry where Six-Pack was renting what passed for a second-floor apartment. In the rearview mirror of Jane's truck, the cook had only a partial view of his son's small face behind the wheel of the '52 Pontiac. The Chieftain's exterior visor resembled that of a baseball cap pulled low over the windshield-eyes of the eight-cylinder station wagon with its shark-toothed grille and aggressive hood ornament.

  "Shit!" Dominic said aloud. He had suddenly thought of Jane's Cleveland Indians cap. Where was it? Had they left Chief Wahoo upside down in the upstairs hall of the cookhouse? But they were already at Six-Pack's place; not a soul had been on the streets, and the dance-hall door had not once opened. They couldn't go back to the cookhouse now.