The Lives of Edie Pritchard

by Larry Watson

  Roy holds Edie’s empty glass as if it is the talisman that will allow him to pass, but Dean doesn’t step aside. Roy tries to slide past his brother, but now Dean stiffens and squares his shoulders. In the next instant Roy is no longer attempting to go around Dean but to push through him. And Dean pushes back. Edie’s empty glass falls from Roy’s hand to the carpet and then rolls onto the kitchen’s linoleum floor.

  Both brothers try to brace themselves against the other, but Dean’s not wearing shoes and his socks slide on the linoleum, and Roy’s injured leg can’t help him hold Dean back. Yet those handicaps only serve to keep them evenly matched, a surprise to Dean considering that only today has Roy gotten off his crutches.

  “Stop it,” Edie says. “Stop!”

  But the brothers have locked arms now, and they’re straining hard to shove their way past each other.

  Then Dean glances over Roy’s shoulder and notices that Edie has left the room. Immediately he gives up, yet he still holds on to Roy in an attempt to keep them both from crashing to the floor. But Roy’s bad leg gives way completely, and he collapses. This in turn causes Dean to topple against the doorframe, banging the side of his head in the process.

  Roy looks at the space on the couch where Edie sat. “She might not need a drink anymore,” he says. “But I do. Give me a hand here.”

  Dean reaches down to his brother and helps him stand.

  “Your ear’s bleeding,” Roy says.

  Dean wipes his ear with his hand. He looks closely at the smear of blood and then says, “That was fucking stupid.”

  “Tell me about it,” Roy says and limps his way toward the whiskey bottle.

  EVEN THOUGH EDIE has locked the bathroom door, she still leans her weight against it as though she fears someone might try to push his way in.

  After a few minutes she steps away from the door. She undresses and turns on the shower. Under spray as hot as she can bear, she stands, trying to understand. They were fighting to impress her; she knows this. And she wasn’t impressed; she was disgusted. Yet that didn’t matter at all. She didn’t matter either, not really, not her disapproval or her anger. The fight was over her, yet they didn’t even need her there. Edie turns off the water and climbs out of the tub. She towels herself dry and puts on the flannel pajamas that hang from the hook on the door. She exits the bathroom, and when she does, fog swirls in her wake, just as it did that morning when she walked to work.

  EDIE WAKES UP when Dean enters the bedroom and undresses, but she keeps her eyes closed.

  “Roy’s out on the sofa,” Dean says. “He’s too drunk to drive, so I told him to bunk down here.”

  The pale green glowing hands of the alarm clock indicate that it’s almost one o’clock. “What,” Edie asks, “have the two of you been doing?”

  “Nothing much. Watching Johnny Carson. Talking.”

  “About what, if you don’t mind my asking?”

  “The past mostly. And Roy worked his way through what was left of the whiskey.”

  “You think he has a problem?”

  Dean snorts softly. “We’ve all got problems.”

  “I meant the drinking.”

  “I know what you meant.”

  “Did he take his plate out?”

  “What?”

  “His partial plate. His new teeth. Did he take them out? I heard about a man who was drunk, and he choked on his false teeth.”

  “Christ, who thinks of such a thing? No. He didn’t take his teeth out. At least as far as I know.”

  “Please, Dean. I don’t want to fight anymore.”

  They lie quietly then, Dean on his back and Edie curled next to him.

  Finally, after a long silence during which neither of them moves any closer to sleep, Dean says, “Do you want to know how I remember us being in Uncle LeRoy’s car? We’d been to the movie—”

  “Last Train from Gun Hill,” Edie says. “Is that what you said?”

  “Not that it’s important but yeah. And when we came out of the theater, Dick Dryden asked if he and Patsy could catch a ride with us. Dick usually had his own car, but I think he’d had his license revoked or something. Or maybe his old man had just taken the keys away. If they couldn’t ride with us, Patsy’d have to go home with her brother. Sure, we said, it was okay with us. I mean, what could we say? Remember how Patsy lived out in the country? Dick told me about a road to turn off on before we came to Patsy’s folks’ place. A perfect spot to park, he said. And there we were. You and me in the front seat and Dick and Patsy in the back. Dick had a pint of lime vodka, and we took turns pulling on that. But then we settled into doing what we were there to do. You and I hadn’t progressed beyond the making out stage yet and besides, there was Dick and Patsy in the back seat. If there was a way around that, I didn’t know what it was. But Dick had it figured out. We hadn’t been there very long when you whispered, ‘We have to go.’ You said Patsy was in trouble back there. I don’t know what the hell you heard or saw, but I didn’t ask questions. I started up the car and when Dick said, ‘What the hell?’ I told him, ‘Edie’s got to get home.’ God damn was Dick pissed off at me. After we dropped the two of you off, he called me every kind of chickenshit bastard in the book. Now, Dick Dryden and I were never what you’d really call friends, but whatever we were we sure as hell weren’t after that night. So . . . Uncle LeRoy’s car. Front seat and back seat. Dick and Patsy. You and me. If you don’t remember, you don’t remember. But don’t say it didn’t happen.”

  “And we never talked about it after?”

  “I guess I was embarrassed to bring it up,” Dean says. “I used to think girls had a set of secret distress signals they used in situations like that.”

  “That was sweet of you. Rescuing Patsy.”

  “Patsy? The hell. That was you.”

  Edie reaches over and rests her hand on his sternum, almost as if she were feeling for his heartbeat. They have fallen silent now, and she trails her hand down his torso and then slips it inside the elastic of his briefs. She wraps her hand around his cock and almost instantly it stirs under her touch.

  Dean says, “Roy’s right out in the other room.”

  “So? You don’t want him to know we fuck?”

  “He might still be awake.”

  Edie keeps her hand right where it is.

  Then Dean rolls onto his side and not toward his yearning wife but in the other direction. Her hand slips from its hold and soon, in the space between them, the sheets lose the heat they momentarily held.

  THREE O’CLOCK. EDIE no longer pretends to sleep. And there’s no sense listening for the bakery trucks lining up in the alley or for the clink of milk bottles or the thud of the Gladstone Gazette against the door. It’s too early for any of that.

  She climbs out of bed and walks out of the room.

  In the living room she confronts the sight of her sleeping brother-in-law on the couch. He has twisted free of the blanket that covered him, and he’s sprawled out in nothing but his underwear. There’s enough light from the street for Edie to make out Roy’s injured leg, and she sees its thinness and its pallor—that whittled stick couldn’t possibly belong on Roy Linderman’s thickly muscled body. She steps closer. The leg looks as if it’s molting, shedding its flaking, dried skin, yet with no sign of new growth underneath.

  Edie rearranges the blanket and covers Roy’s leg. The rhythm of his breathing does not alter. On the end table next to the sofa is the glass from which he drank his whiskey. His new teeth smile out of the glass.

  Roy Linderman would never turn away from her in bed. Edie’s sure of that. But she’s also sure he’d never lift a finger to rescue Patsy Steele.

  ON THIS QUIET Tuesday morning, Dean checks the used skates that Cheyenne Sporting Goods sells and, after satisfying himself that all have sufficiently sharp edges, he strolls over to the Guns and Ammo section.

  Gus Vogel is smoking one of the cigars that, along with gun oil and the leather of gloves, shoes, and various balls, give
s the store its distinctive odor. He leans on a display case, rows of handguns arrayed under the glass.

  As Dean approaches, Gus taps the newspaper spread open in front of him and says, “Give me your expert opinion, Mr. Linderman. Who do you like this Friday?”

  “I’m embarrassed to say I don’t even know who’s playing,” Dean says.

  “Glendive. They got a kid who’s fuckin’ near seven foot.”

  “No shit? Is he any good?”

  “He can’t hardly walk and chew gum at the same time, but hell, seven foot. That makes up for a lot. He can just park his ass under the basket.”

  “Huh. And the game’s here?”

  “Yessir.”

  “Maybe I’ll try to take it in.”

  “Show up early,” says Gus. “Hell of a lot of folks want to see a seven-foot high school kid.”

  Dean bends down and rests his hands on his knees. “Say I wanted a handgun,” he says. “What would you recommend?”

  “First I’d ask you what you want to shoot. Bottles and cans? Gophers? Maybe that Colt Woodsman .22. Somebody coming at you with a pitchfork? Maybe that .38. Just like what’s hanging on the hips of our local constabulary. Grizzlies? That’s your .44 Magnum.”

  Dean laughs nervously. “I don’t know that I want to fire the thing at all. But the other night Edie said she heard someone jiggling the door.”

  “And where were you? Out on the town?”

  Dean laughs again. “Probably sleeping.”

  “So home protection, huh? Truth is, we don’t hardly have burglars or prowlers in our town. Leastways not half so many as womenfolk seem to think are lurking around here.”

  “Edie’s not the kind to hear or see things that aren’t there.”

  Gus Vogel shrugs. “Most folks who come in looking for something to protect hearth and home, I tell ’em, ‘Go over there and buy yourself a Louisville Slugger. That’ll give you all the protection you need—and you don’t have to worry about shooting the milkman. Or a husband creeping home after hours.’”

  “I think Edie’d feel better if she had some protection.”

  “All right,” Gus Vogel says. “I said my piece.” He places his cigar in an ashtray and slides open the display case. He brings out a blue-steel revolver with a wood grip. “This here is a Smith and Wesson .32 and inaccurate as hell as any snub nose will be. Add to that, it’s got a fairly long trigger pull. Gives a shooter a chance to change his mind. Or her mind, as the case may be. And the ladies are likely to think, Oh, I can handle this. It’ll fit nice in my purse.”

  “Or on the nightstand,” says Dean.

  “Or on the nightstand,” Gus agrees. “What have you. It doesn’t have a hell of a lot of recoil. So if you take the little lady out shooting for the day, she won’t come home feeling like she slammed her hand in the car door.”

  “A .32 though . . . not much stopping power.”

  Gus Vogel laughs. “Stopping power! What the fuck do you care about stopping power? You want the sight of the gun to scare the living shit out of any intruder. And if that don’t do the job, the bang should send him running.”

  Dean does not take the gun from Gus Vogel’s hand, though Gus extends the butt toward him. “You have something like this in a .38?” Dean asks.

  “Maybe you want to jump all the way to a .45. Then you got that scary big barrel working for you.”

  Dean presses a finger against the glass. “Is that a .38?”

  “That it is.” Gus Vogel pulls out the revolver and, again, holds its handle out to Dean. “Colt Detective Special,” he says. “Just like on TV.”

  Dean takes the gun in hand but does nothing more than heft its weight.

  “It’s used,” says Gus. “But what the hell do you care?”

  “How much?”

  Gus Vogel reaches over and lifts the small tag hanging from the trigger guard by a short length of string. “I’d give you ten bucks off that,” Gus says. “Call it the family discount.”

  “And a box of bullets.”

  “You sure you need a whole fucking box? I’d be willing to throw in six.”

  “Practice,” Dean says.

  “You can practice all you like, you still won’t be able to hit a fucking thing. But what the hell. You’re the customer and like the boss says—”

  Dean and Gus say in unison: “The customer don’t know shit!”

  DEAN TAKES ONE of the heavy wool socks that customers put on when they try on a pair of skates, and he puts the gun and the box of cartridges inside the sock. Then he wraps an old rag around the gun, the ammunition, and the sock, and he wedges that package under the front seat of the Volkswagen.

  FOR ANOTHER OF their planning sessions, Jerry Krueger and the Linderman twins have settled into a booth at the Elk’s Tooth, one of four bars at the intersection of Third Street and Mead Avenue. The Elk’s Tooth is the oldest and quietest of the four. Many of the town’s young men, and its young women too, had their first legal drink in the Elk’s Tooth, where the lights are always dim.

  “Maybe,” Jerry Krueger suggests, “we should make a scouting trip first just to get the lay of the land.”

  Dean says, “One trip to Bentrock is plenty for me.”

  “I get that,” Jerry says, “but we should find out where we want to take those fuckers on.”

  Roy picks up the pitcher of beer and refills his glass and Jerry Krueger’s. “And how will that be up to us?”

  “Hell, we come right out and tell ’em. Meet us at . . . I don’t know . . . a parking lot somewheres.”

  “And here’s what they’ll do,” Dean says. “They’ll round up their whole clan and as many friends as they can, and when we show up at that parking lot we’ll be surrounded and outnumbered.”

  “Jesus Christ!” Roy says, flinging a book of matches across the table. “This is getting old, you know that? Every fucking time someone comes up with a plan of action, you find a way to shoot a hole in it. Do you want to do this or not?”

  “I want to do it right.”

  Roy laughs. “Right? There’s no fucking right. It’s a half-assed scheme that’ll probably end up with us getting a shit-kicking or worse. But we’re doing it anyway, so let’s see if we can come up with some kind of plan.”

  “Even a half-assed one?” asks Dean.

  “Yeah,” Roy says. “Even a half-assed one.”

  “You really think we’ll get our asses handed to us?”

  “You tell me how it can be otherwise. Take your time,” Roy says. “I’ll wait.”

  “We just need to recruit a few more guys.”

  “And what kind of luck you been having with that?”

  “At least I’m willing to ask around,” says Jerry.

  Dean has a glass of whiskey in front of him, and he pokes at the ice cubes with his index finger. “We drive up there,” he says, “get an address for a Bauer out of the phone book, and knock on his door.”

  “Knock on the goddamn door.” Roy pats his brother on the head. “Elegant in its simplicity. I like it.”

  Jerry says, “A Bauer answers the door. Then what?”

  Dean shrugs as if the matter is of no consequence to him. “We sue him. We present him with a bill for the fucking truck. We carve our initials on his front door. We shoot him. We hit him in the head with a baseball bat. I don’t give a shit.”

  Roy shrinks back from his brother and then says, “We shoot him?”

  Dean shrugs again and sucks whiskey from his finger.

  “We shoot him,” Roy says, nodding thoughtfully. “Interesting.”

  Jerry turns to Roy. “Do you understand him?”

  “On some days,” Roy replies.

  Jerry shakes his head. “I could use a bump,” he says. “Who else? I’m buying.”

  Dean holds up his glass and rattles the ice. “I’m ready.”

  “But none of that Southern Comfort or Yukon Jack shit,” Roy says. “Nothing sweet.”

  As soon as Jerry Krueger is out of earshot, Roy addre
sses his brother. “We shoot him? Where the hell did that come from?”

  “I work in a sporting goods store,” Dean says. “I’m around guns all day.”

  “And baseball bats.”

  “And baseball bats. That’s right.”

  Tonight the wind is rolling right down Main Street, bringing with it all the grit of winter—sand, grains of snow, scraps of paper—and flinging it against the window with a sound like radio static.

  Roy lights a cigarette. “You know, this going to Bentrock business was your idea in the first place, little brother, and now you seem to be losing your enthusiasm for the enterprise.”

  “I’m just fucking sick of talking about it.”

  “You’ll scare Jerry off with that gun talk.”

  “And that would be a great loss? I’d rather this be just you and me anyway. Or maybe you don’t care about doing what’s right. If you don’t, I’ll go without you.”

  Roy merely smiles and shakes his head.

  Jerry returns to the booth, somehow balancing three brimming shot glasses in a little nest he’s made of his cupped hands and fingers. “Hey,” he says, “have a looksee over at the bar. Couple of honeys up there.”

  Both Dean and Roy stand to get a better look at the bar and the young women sitting there. One of them wears a snug pink mohair sweater and white stretch pants. The other is in a tight red jersey dress. That they’re heavily made up is apparent even from across the room. The crimson bloom of their lips. The deep shadows of their eyes in a room full of shadows. And both of them blondes with teased and ratted bouffant hair. Dean sits back down, but Jerry and Roy continue to stare at the women.

  Then Roy practically shouts, “Shit, that’s Edie! Hey, Edie!”

  Dean jumps back to his feet. Yes—the woman in the red dress is his wife. And sitting on the stool next to her is Russell Hildebrand’s wife, Bunny.

  “Hey, Edie!” Roy says again. “Bunny—over here!”

  The women do not look over. They lean their heads close and whisper to each other. The bartender on duty tonight is Loretta Sooner, the owner’s wife, and she stands apart from the women, drying glasses and placing them carefully on a shelf behind the bar.