After the Fog Clears

by Lee Thompson

  He watched the dark clouds building outside. They darkened the room so much that his mother flipped on one of the table lamps. She sat for a moment with her hands in her lap, then got up, went somewhere deeper in the house. Now it was his turn to wait. He tried to arrange his thoughts—what he wanted to tell her and what he didn’t—by their importance. Problem was they all seemed important: How he’d lost his son by mere chance, how he wondered what the hell Geneva was doing if she wasn’t watching him at the time, how he thought it was partly her fault because she was a stay-at-home mom for fuck’s sake. He also had to tell her how he felt about being laid off: hopeless, useless, lacking in ways that little do-gooder Luther wasn’t. And Luther didn’t even have to try, just performed like it was second nature. And Raul tried, harder than his dad ever gave him credit for, and shouldn’t that count for something? And then there was his affair, which Geneva had somehow learned about—Raul was suspecting now that Regina had told her, and what kind of friend was she to Geneva when she fucks her husband and then the day Geneva’s son dies in a freak accident, she spills the beans about the affair? As if Geneva didn’t have enough to deal with already. And there was that too—the other side of the coin—when he wasn’t angry with her, he wanted to help Geneva, and he didn’t know how, didn’t even have a clue. Nothing in life had prepared him for that. Seeing so many misty faces at the funeral home, and then later at the cemetery, had taught him only two things: Everybody dies. And people handle the burial, the loss, differently. He had no clue what they did when they went home.

  And then she was back, his mother, with two mugs of hot cocoa, her expression serene, yet her eyes showing concern. Maybe she was impatient. Maybe she needed him to say what he had to say and leave because she had her own things going on. Maybe he was being selfish. But he had a right to be, didn’t he? He thought so. He sipped the cocoa and thanked her.

  She cradled her mug and said, “How is Geneva? I tried to call her a while ago and she didn’t answer.”

  He was going to say She’s okay… But what would that solve?

  He said, “She’s going to leave me.”

  “Why?”

  You could lie, he thought. Part of it, her leaving, could be because of our son’s passing.

  He shook his head to clear it. He didn’t want to lie, or hide anything anymore, just be this new self he was finding, meeting along with other people, let the world make of him what it would. That world would have to include his mother.

  He said, “I cheated on her. I’ve been cheating on her for three years. With Regina.”

  “You almost look proud of it,” she said.

  “I’m proud of telling it so simply. For confessing, maybe.”

  “So, you’re not going to try and win her back?”

  “For what? I’d sleep with Regina again if I had the chance.”

  “So, you’re not sorry about it?”

  “I’m sorry Geneva got hurt. And that it hurt her friendship with Regina.”

  “A lot of good that does,” his mother said. “Did you already tell your father?”

  “No, and I’m not going to. It’s none of his business.”

  “But you told me.”

  “I had to tell someone.”

  “You should have told a priest.”

  “What is that supposed to mean?”

  “And now Regina has broken it off with you?”

  “It looks that way.”

  “How are you feeling about it?”

  “Surprisingly good. I don’t think I’m made for marriage, not even with someone as wonderful as Regina.”

  “You mean Geneva, don’t you?”

  “Yes,” he said, embarrassed by his error.

  “How are you handling that other thing?”

  “Other thing?”

  “The Dominic thing.”

  “You mean how a cop ran him over and took him from us forever? I’m not handling it yet. I know I’ll have to eventually, but I’m afraid of how much it’s going to hurt.”

  “You’re so different than you were before.”

  “Maybe I’m evolving,” he said, jokingly, even laughing a little, but he could tell she found no humor in what he’d said. He told her how he’d beat up the cop, how it had made him feel, how much it had surprised him that he’d liked it, enjoyed it, how powerful it’d made him feel.

  She said, “You sound more feral by the second. It scares me, Raul. You’re not my little boy anymore.”

  “I haven’t been your little boy in twenty, twenty-five years. I think it’s time I made choices for myself. Maybe it’s time I put myself first, my feelings, and it might surprise you and Dad that I have those, but I do, despite how often he tried to train me to be some kind of robot. And I realize now why he did that, why everybody has always done that.”

  “And to what end is that?”

  “It makes it easier. For him. For them. If everyone else can be lazy and selfish, then why should it be wrong for me to enjoy a little of that freedom? When I was young, I wanted to be like him. I strived for it. But the older I’ve gotten, the more aware, the more I see him for what he is and I can’t say I like him much.” He finished his cocoa. She was quiet, watching him with a nervous set to her face, her eyes. He said, “Did you know he laid me off work?”

  “He told me.”

  “And you don’t care?”

  “He had to do it, Raul. It doesn’t mean he liked it any more than you do.”

  “He’s so full of himself.” He looked around the living room. It was as large as his entire house. “Do you guys really need a place like this?”

  “We like it here. We worked hard for it.”

  Raul nodded. “You could have put the effort into my life. Into raising me better.”

  “Are you saying that we’re bad parents? That we somehow failed you?”

  “In what ways have you helped?”

  “You’re under a great deal of stress—”

  “—Really?”

  “—And you’re feeling a tremendous strain. I’m aware of that, and if you feel you have to let out some of that poison, that hurt you feel, on me, on your father, we can handle that. Ordinarily, I’d tell you to leave, or, I don’t know, have you sit down with your father, but I think you’re beyond that right now. You’re trying to be strong, to face this tragedy, with your son, in your family, but you’re going about it all wrong. And I am worried about you. I’m afraid there’s only one way I can help you and, to be honest, it breaks my heart.”

  “What are you talking about? All I hear is gibberish.”

  “I know,” she said. She excused herself. A minute later he heard her muffled voice in the hall, on the phone, presumably, with his father. A week ago he could have never told her any of this, and not in a million years would he have considered sharing his feelings with his father, but he was ready now. Come home, Dad. I’ll lay it all out for you. All the loneliness I felt as a child, all the times I was singled out because my dad worked with dead people, all the nightmares I had of myself in some dark, damp, cold, closed space. I’m not to blame for those things. You taught me nothing useful about being a man, nothing useful about relationships, nothing useful about myself or anything I might be good at, things that might have made me happy. Come home, try to make me feel like a freak, as if I’ve disappointed you. I’ll do to you what I did to that cop. Maybe you’re the one I really want to hurt anyway…

  Then she was back in the living room, and he saw her in a different light. He didn’t really know her. He hadn’t known her in years, everything he had to go on to describe her were memories from his childhood. She said, “Sit tight,” and then, “Would you like more cocoa while we wait?”

  “For Dad?”

  “He’s busy.”

  “For who then?”

  It was getting dark outside, dusk. The air in the house felt hot and dry though. He scratched his neck. She said, “Dr. Friedman.”

  “You call him?” He laughed. “You want him to tel
l you I’m having a breakdown? Some kind of separation from reality? It’s not like that. Everything before today was the illusion, the lie, the fabrication. I see things so clearly now. He’s not going to help me, Mom. I don’t want help. I don’t need it!”

  “What do you want?”

  “I’m searching for that,” he said.

  “Sydney will be able to help you discover the answer.”

  “I’m not talking to him.”

  “You don’t have a choice in the matter. A policeman is coming with him.”

  Raul stood. “You want them to lock me up?”

  “For your own safety, until this fog you’re in clears, it might be for the best. You need help, Raul.”

  “I just told you—”

  “I’m helping you,” she said.

  “No, you’re hurting me. I’m not crazy. And I’m not staying here. They’ll see what they want to see. Whatever you’ve prepared them to see!”

  “You can’t leave,” she said.

  He went to walk past her and she grabbed his arm just above the elbow. Her grip was incredibly strong. He said, “Let go of me.”

  “No. Sit down.”

  He pried her pinky back until she cried out, and, in a moment of blind heat, he bent it back until it snapped at the joint and she screamed and clutched the wounded hand to her stomach. Her eyes were a mixture of pain and fury, a look he’d seen in movies but rarely in real life. He said, “You did that to yourself.”

  “Don’t leave,” she said, “Please, Raul.”

  “I’ll miss you,” he said.

  “Raul?”

  But he was already turned, unhearing, hurrying away. Out the door, into the cool night, lightened only by the glistening rain wetting the driveway and his Jeep. He hadn’t meant to hurt her but she didn’t know when to let go.

  He listened for the sound of a siren, but of course, the policeman coming with Sydney wouldn’t come down the road like that. The good doctor would have to question him first, make a diagnosis. Only there wasn’t going to be any questioning. He was leaving. He wasn’t coming back. He thought missing his son’s funeral, as much as that might hurt Geneva, would help him keep that reality at bay until he was ready to wrestle it.

  He was in his Jeep with the engine running, the windshield wipers whisking rain from the glass, the heater humming, two miles away when he got the picture text from Geneva. All the anger and frustration he’d felt when his mother had tried to restrain him, and when he’d seen the cop in his house hugging his wife, and when he’d watched Regina bat her lashes at Isaac, came flooding back into him. He stared at the photo for a long time, brooding, trying to make sense of it.

  24

  Hazzard sat a block away, watching the house. When the Impala pulled in the driveway from the other direction and the driver got out, the kid did not fit the picture of the adversary he’d created in his head. He’d imagined a scary apparition, a ghost-like face, liquid movement. But this kid looked like any other clean-cut kid, although he seemed to crackle as he walked, wild with energy. Hazzard was certain the kid was on uppers by the way he bounced on the balls of his feet, across the driveway to the handicap ramp and up into the house.

  He pulled the pistol, laid it on his thigh. The steel was cool, not cold. He sipped his coffee, trying to stay awake. He couldn’t remember when he’d last slept. His eyes burned, his head felt packed with wet, warm cotton. Maybe it was a head cold, he told himself. While the Luther guy was in his grandma’s house, Hazzard had to figure out his course of action. He didn’t want to hurt the old lady or the weird cripple, but he needed to put some pressure on Luther, see if he was a bender or a breaker. It was hard to think though. That wet, warm cotton feeling was packed with the feel of Geneva in his arms. It was numbing, the almond scent of her, the strength he’d seen, and could remember so clearly, in her eyes. All woman. Full of pain. Needing love. Her husband had embarrassed Hazzard in front of her and she’d saved him from the maniacal little man. There was a bit of shame in that too, but it didn’t compare with the embarrassment the husband was going to feel after tonight. The undeserving little shit.

  He caught a flicker of movement in his side mirror and at first he couldn’t believe what he was seeing: that kid, the ghost of the Impala, kneeling next to the rear tire. He stabbed it. The air hissed out. He met Hazzard’s gaze in their reflections for only a second and then he was gone, a blur into a yard, around a house.

  Hazzard got out of his car. The tire was okay. Just a strange hallucination. He looked back at the house. Luther was pushing Herman down the wheelchair ramp and out to the Impala. Hazzard noticed his shoelace had come untied as he walked around his Buick, checking the other tires. The vision he’d seen seemed too real to have been anything else. But the tires were all okay, bald, in need of replacement, but aired. He bent to one knee, thinking about Geneva—how he wanted her in such a healthy yet reckless way—and he tied his shoe, stood, dusted his hands off, heaved his weight to full height and sighed. This piece-of-shit kid was causing him problems—first with the Anderson boy (which had led to his meeting the captivating mother), and then with being there on the lake, his smart-aleck brother teasing him, an officer of the law, and Nathan knew it was a big game to them. They were figuring out their play, he was certain, they thought they owned him. Wrong. Whatever type of blackmail scheme they wanted to hatch would die with them soon enough, then he’d be gone with the woman fate had gently pushed into his life, her husband keeping the other two company in some dank, lonely nowhere.

  Then the Impala was rolling, backing out onto the street a block away and Nathan jumped back into his car and followed them.

  25

  Luther had said what he’d needed to. He doubted his grandmother had heard him, or if she did, she didn’t care, because she thought what she’d done was right. His brother, on the other hand, could barely contain his excitement about meeting their father. Luther rolled him out to the car, got him inside without Herman throwing a fit like he normally would. Luther squeezed his shoulder, Herman beaming. Then Luther had noticed the guy standing by the Buick down the street. He was a fat man, big, tall, red-faced. He walked around the Buick, inspecting the tires, then he stooped, tied his shoes, stood, dusted his palms together in three, short, sharp strikes and sighed heavily. Luther went cold inside. He whispered, “Shit.”

  Herman said, “Come on. Let’s go!”

  “Just a minute,” Luther said. “Sit tight. I’ll be right back.” He went back in the house. He grabbed a butcher knife from the kitchen, wished he had a gun but he didn’t like them—the noise, the finality. The knife was better than nothing. His grandmother didn’t acknowledge him as he passed her, wrapping the knife in a newspaper he snatched from the table. She was going to have to get over herself because Luther figured his dad deserved a chance—a man, ridden with guilt, with only time to think on his mistakes, had the possibility to change a lot over twenty years.

  He joined Herman in the Impala, glanced past him as he backed onto the street, saw the fat dude that had killed his girlfriend, or sister, or whatever she was to him, waddle around the hood of the Buick, climb in, start following them.

  Herman was saying something but Luther couldn’t hear him. He took random streets on the off chance this was some other guy in a Buick, but the car kept following, a hundred feet or so between them. A big enough cushion that Luther figured he could lose him if the right opportunity presented itself.

  Then it did. A few minutes later, after they passed the Flying J truck stop, headed east on M-81 toward the lake. There was a roundabout where traffic could stay on M-81, or merge onto I-75. He slowed, hoped he could time it perfectly despite the other traffic. The Impala was a big car, much bigger than the Buick. He hit the roundabout at a snail’s pace, watched the Buick close the distance. He followed the loop around, and then he gunned the motor as the killer hit the entry of the roundabout.

  The Buick grew in the windshield, the side of the car, the broken fender, hang
ing there, the man behind the wheel gone white. Luther drove the Impala into the driver’s door, and steel crinkled, and glass broke, and the massive grill of the Impala dug deep into the Buick. Luther kept his foot down. The tires spun, the Buick slid nose-first over the embankment, the driver’s window shattered, the car clanking. Herman released a cry. Luther had forgotten all about him for a second. Luther felt bad for terrifying him, but there was good to come of this.

  The Buick went nose-first into the weeds, down the hill twenty feet off from the on-ramp. The bank was slick. It started to rain. He sat there, watching for a minute, as the killer fought to regain control of his car. Horns blared around the Impala. Luther shivered. He pulled the car into reverse, straightened it out, as the last of daylight bled from the sky.

  Herman said, “That was crazy.”

  It sounded, as he got going, like there was something dragging underneath the car, which made him think about Raul, and that poor kid of his somebody had run over.

  A mile down the road, he eased over to the side and parked on the shoulder. A semi went by, its backwind shaking the car violently. Luther thought he might vomit. His nerves were rattled. Herman looked pale, but his eyes were still bright. He thought he should tell his brother why he did what he did to the guy in the Buick, but Herman was comfortable in his ignorance, and Luther was comfortable leaving him there.

  He got out. His brother said, “Did you bust your car?”

  “I’m checking it out.”

  The bumper was hanging off one side and had been scraping on the road. He fetched some fishing line, cut five feet of it, tied the bumper back up where it belonged. He wiped his hands on his pants, got back in the car, feeling better for a minute. But he wondered if anyone had called the police. He’d just used his vehicle as a weapon. He doubted he hurt the killer much, probably only scared him, or worse, pissed him off. When he got back in the car, he saw the butcher knife and paper on the floorboard, wrapped the knife again, set it between him and his brother, got back on the road, figured dusk would help him elude any police looking for him.