by D. K. Wall
Nathan opened the closet, picked up his work boots, and walked out the door.
The afternoon sun blazed, the wet ground steaming from the morning rains. Boots in hand, he stumbled down the driveway, past his wife’s car, and toward his own truck. He leaned against the hot frame and stared at that black Charger as angry questions bounced through his head.
How many times? How many times have they been together? How often has that black Charger been parked in front of my house?
They weren’t sneaking off to some cheap motel. They were meeting in his house, in front of the neighborhood, which meant the neighbors had seen it. All of them would have seen it. They saw everything. Nothing happened without the whole neighborhood knowing.
Do all the neighbors know about the affair? Do they whisper behind my back?
He wiped his hand across his eyes, clearing tears, and looked around. Maury and Betty had retreated to their porch, where they stood watching. The looks in their eyes said it all. They knew. He and Maury had changed the oil in their cars together only a month before. Maury had talked about Jacob and baseball, not about Donna and affairs, but he must have known.
A curtain fluttered in the house beside Maury’s. Shelly was peering out her window, tracking the secrets of the neighborhood, just as she always did. He had helped Shelly fix a broken screen door just the last weekend. Yet she saw everything through those curtains, so she knew. Of course she knew.
Chad and his girlfriend-of-the-month were standing on his front porch, smoking cigarettes, sipping beers, and watching Nathan.
How often have they heard Hank and Donna’s lovemaking through the open window?
Even Josh—that pot-smoking, hooky-playing Josh next door. Bet he knew what was going on, too, despite his weed-addled brain. He skipped school enough and hung out. Of course he knew what happened during the day. Donna wouldn’t mention how often he was at home during the day if he didn’t mention how often Donna had company—a deal to keep each other’s secrets.
So the whole neighborhood knew. How could they not?
Only Nathan was clueless.
He froze as a horrible thought entered his mind. Does Jacob know? Has Jacob ever come home and found Hank still there? Maybe they tossed a baseball back and forth while Nathan was working. Maybe Hank helped him with his homework at the kitchen table or made him an after-school snack.
He glanced back over at Chad sitting on his porch, who raised a beer. Nathan didn’t know if that was a wave of hello or an offer to drink a few beers and commiserate over ex-wives, but he nodded in return as though they were having an everyday moment. He needed a beer, but he couldn’t stay in this neighborhood, not knowing Hank was inside his house with his wife. He leaned against the hot metal of his truck and fished his cell phone out of his pocket. Through blurred eyes, he scanned his contacts and tapped one.
The phone rang twice before a cheerful voice boomed, “Hey, Nathan.”
“Danny. You free?”
“Are you kidding? What else would I be doing?” He paused. “Aren’t you at work?”
“Can you meet me at Sammy’s Pub?”
“After work?”
“Now.”
“Now? What’s wrong? Did Ronnie lay you off?”
“Worse. Much worse. I’ll tell you there, not over the phone. I need a friend. A real friend. Can you get there?”
Danny’s jovial tone disappeared. He didn’t need to know why. “I’ll be there in twenty minutes.”
Nathan hung up the phone and stuffed it into his pocket. He shuffled his feet and spun slowly around, surveying his neighbors as they watched him back. None of them came over or offered condolences or even an explanation. They just watched.
He reached for the door handle, paused, and looked back at the house. He was leaving with just the clothes on his back. He didn’t have fresh clothes for the next day. And the work shirt and jacket he’d worn that morning were inside too. If he didn’t go get them, he would show up tomorrow at the plant out of uniform for the first time since high school.
But the next day was Saturday. Ronnie wouldn’t care because no one else would be there. And, after work, he could arrange to get his stuff because this wasn’t his home anymore—just a house. Danny would let him sleep on the couch that night. He had done it before. And Danny would let him stay as long as he needed until he could find an apartment or a trailer to rent.
Not that he could afford rent and a mortgage, so Donna would have to find work if she wanted to keep the house.
Regardless, the marriage was over. He couldn’t live there. He couldn’t go back to Donna even if she wanted him back. He couldn’t even go back for his clothes right then—not with all the neighbors watching, not with all of them knowing.
He would find a time to come get what he needed. Later. The next day maybe or the next week.
Right then, he needed to get drunk.
11
In what had once been a bustling center during Millerton’s heyday, half the buildings of the three-block-long downtown area sat vacant. The second- and third-floor apartments and rooms for let, from an age when people lived above the stores, sat vacant except for a handful of attorneys’ offices and a bookkeeping service.
The ground-floor retailers, already victimized by the declining economy as the town’s manufacturing base shifted overseas, couldn’t survive the opening of a Walmart out by the interstate. A consignment store had opened in one of the spaces, selling rows of hand-me-down clothes, banged-up furniture, and discarded toys for sale at prices even the big discounter couldn’t match. A hardware store struggled to stay afloat, selling single nuts and bolts so you didn’t have to buy a whole box when you needed just a few.
The city hall, with the attached police station and volunteer fire department, anchored one end of downtown. Three blocks away, on the other end, Sammy’s Pub, the most prosperous and longest-running business in the center of town, occupied a squat single-story building beside an expansive asphalt parking lot.
The original Sammy, a lumberjack who’d realized he could make a better and easier living running a bar than harvesting trees, opened the business long before even the city hall. The generic moniker became a proper name when a carved wooden sign was tacked above the door. His grandson, Sammy III, was running the business now though generational doubt loomed about the future. Sammy IV talked of moving to a bigger city when he graduated from high school.
In addition to liquor and cold beers, always domestic and never microbrews, Sammy had a small kitchen serving burgers, sandwiches, wings, and various snacks. The lunch rush for the day, such as it was, had dwindled to four men sitting around one of the front tables overlooking Main Street—lawyers in no hurry to head back to their offices, if they even made it back at all on a Friday afternoon. Iced-tea glasses were drained, and sandwich plates sat empty except for crumbs and a few straggler French fries soaking in pools of ketchup.
Behind the cluster of tables at the entrance, a large wooden bar jutted out into the center of the room. Two men perched on barstools at opposite ends of the bar, sipping their beers and arguing sports. Two TVs hung on the wall above the liquor bottles. With limited choices early in the day, one showed a poker tournament, and the other featured two anchors discussing sports news. Ricky Ward’s mugshots from the day before were being featured.
The back wall held a rack of pool cues while two pool tables occupied most of the floor space. Dartboards hung on the wall beside the doors to the bathrooms. The walls were pockmarked with holes from errant shots, highlighting the treachery of bathroom trips on some nights. Photos of Sammy, his father, and his grandfather with various patrons or on fishing or hunting trips occupied most of the back wall, which hid the kitchen.
Later in the evening, the pool tables would be busy, but no one played that early on a weekday. For the moment, Nathan sat alone at the last table along the side wall. In the shadows, he gripped a mug and stared at a half pitcher of beer in front of him.
He
looked up as the heavy wooden front door opened, allowing the dark bar to be invaded by sunlight. Danny rolled his wheelchair through the door and greeted Sammy—the third—who leaned against the cooler behind the bar with his tattooed arms crossed. With the slightest tilt of his head, the bartender pointed out Nathan without moving his arms.
Danny squinted through the shadows at the back of the bar until recognition crossed his face. The wooden floor creaked as he rolled his wheelchair down the aisle. He grabbed a chair, moved it out of his way, and rolled his chair up to the table. He poured himself a beer into the waiting glass and stared at his friend.
They sat in the dim light, sipping their beers, occasionally eyeing each other but neither speaking. Danny was patient—he could wait as long as Nathan needed. They had played the opposite roles countless times as Danny struggled with guilt from the accident and the frustration of his own physical infirmities.
With a toss of his glass, Nathan finished his beer, slammed the mug down on the table, and poured another. Sammy glanced back at them but remained leaning against the bar.
Danny took another swig and broke the silence. “I need a clue here. What’s wrong?”
Nathan opened his mouth to answer, but no words came out—too hard to say something out loud and make the nightmare a reality. Maybe if he didn’t say it, it wouldn’t have been true.
“Jacob? Did he hurt himself? Get into a fight at school? Get a B in something you and I failed? Get cut from a sports team?”
A good and rational first guess. Nathan worried more about his son than anything in the world. He wanted him to be successful, to have better chances, but those were easy things to discuss. He held his hands in front of himself, twirling the wedding band on his finger as he shook his head. Strike one.
“Work? Is the factory closing? Did you get laid off? Is something wrong with Ronnie?”
The ring continued to circle around his finger, but he couldn’t bring himself to look up at his friend. He dismally shook his head. Strike two.
“That only leaves Donna.”
He pulled the ring off his finger and balanced it on the table. A flick of his finger sent it noisily spinning across the table.
Danny sighed and took a big swallow of beer. “So, what happened?”
Nathan cleared his throat. He hadn’t spoken since ordering the pitcher and didn’t trust his voice. He leaned forward, not wanting the words to travel across the quiet bar, and croaked, “I caught her in bed with a man.”
Shock spread across Danny’s face as he uttered a simple “Oh.” He gulped the remaining beer in his glass and poured a refill. He was hesitant, choosing his words carefully. “Caught her? Or suspect something?”
Nathan wrapped his hand around the ring and balled his fist. The words flooded out of his mouth. “Walked in on them doing the horizontal bop in the house. In my own bed. Naked as the day they were born. Saw everything, so no, there is no doubt.”
Danny cursed as he held his mug in midair, ripples rolling on the surface of the beer as his hand shook. “Do you know him?”
Weirdly, Nathan dreaded this more than Donna’s infidelity. Danny would be put in the middle, between friends, the second he revealed who. He would have to choose sides and might just elect to take the other. Breathing deeply to calm his nerves, Nathan muttered, “Hank Saunders.”
Danny sat back in his chair, his eyes wide and the color draining from his face as he cursed again. He sat in shock before picking the mug up and draining the liquid down his throat. He settled the glass back on the table and let loose a small burp as he wiped his mouth with his shirtsleeve. “Did you beat his ass?”
“Broke his nose.”
A nod of satisfaction. “Good. He deserved it.”
Relief spread through Nathan’s body as he realized his friend was going to pick his side—a bitter victory, but he needed the support.
Danny studied the empty glass in front of him. “Is it a one-time thing?”
“Sounded like they’ve been doing it for months.”
Danny picked up the pitcher and drained it into the two glasses. “We’re going to need another pitcher.” He twisted in his chair and signaled for Sammy. “And I’m ordering nachos. We need some food.”
“So I won’t get too wasted?”
“Don’t worry, my friend, I plan to get drunk with you. We’ll get a ride back to my place. I’m just gonna need food too.”
“Good idea.” Nathan leaned back in his chair. “Believe it or not, I gotta work tomorrow.”
“Ronnie’s giving you overtime?”
“No. That’s the kicker. That’s why I went home early, because they’re too cheap to pay overtime. Otherwise, I still wouldn’t have had a clue about the affair.” Nathan slumped deep in the chair and muttered, “In my own bed. They didn’t even have the decency to get a cheap motel room. Now I know why she was always putting on clean sheets.”
“Something to be thankful for.”
Danny ordered a full plate of Nachos Deluxe—Sammy’s most popular menu item, with cheese, chili, beans, sour cream, guacamole, and other toppings poured over a large stack of tortilla chips. A coronary delight. And a fresh pitcher of beer to wash it down. Sammy looked at them quizzically but shrugged his shoulders. Business was business, and whatever was driving them to drink so early on a Friday was not his concern.
They sat in silence, no words needed. Sipped cold beer. Breathed. Waited. Nothing more to be done. That’s what friends did. Sat with each other.
The nachos were delivered, along with clean plates, fresh cold glasses, and more beer. They ate. They drank. And Nathan finally told Danny every detail of his day.
Only scattered remnants of the devoured nachos remained on the plate when the front door opened again and light flooded the dark bar. Two uniformed police officers entered, their radios squawking in the relative quietness. All eyes in the bar followed them as they scanned the room, locked eyes with Nathan and Danny, and walked straight to the back table, purpose in their steps.
The older of the two approached the table while the second stood a few feet back, watching them.
“Nathan Thomas?” the older officer asked.
Nathan gulped. He hadn’t spoken to a police officer since a traffic ticket six years before. “Yes.”
“You probably don’t remember, but I’m Brett Carrington. Played JV at Millerton High when you guys beat Roosevelt.” Not waiting for acknowledgment, he continued, “The Fearsome Foursome. What a great game. I will never forget that last play. The hit you laid on Ricky Ward was awesome.”
Startled, Nathan blinked before replying, “We won’t forget it either.”
The officer looked at Danny’s wheelchair and nodded. “No, I guess you won’t. Danny Morgan, right?”
Danny locked eyes with the officer and nodded. “You were a running back?”
“Yes, exactly. You do remember. Not that many people do because I followed in Matt Saunders’s footsteps. I kept thinking he was going to college to play some real ball, but he went and got Colette pregnant. How dumb.”
Nathan looked down at the beer mug in his hands and twisted the glass. “Lot of that going around back then.”
Danny interjected, “Look, Brett, Officer Carrington, thanks for stopping by, but Nathan and I have some things we were discussing.”
Brett turned to his partner. “Why don’t you head up front and get a Coke or some water or something? And ask Sammy to get me a water.”
Frustration crossed the younger officer’s face. “But I should back you up.”
“You will… from up there.”
With an exasperated sigh, the other officer turned, walked to the front of the bar, and leaned against the front door.
Brett turned back to the table. “Sorry, this isn’t a social call. Mind if I sit?”
Nathan and Danny exchanged glances before Nathan waved a hand at a vacant chair.
Brett settled in, his equipment belt clanking. “My partner is young. He thinks it’s
all about car chases and arrests. I was the same way when I started.” He took a sip of water from the glass Sammy set in front of him. “You guys probably don’t know, but I went to work for the Atlanta PD after graduating from community college. A good learning experience, but all they cared about was stats. How many tickets you wrote. How many arrests you made. When I got a chance to come back to Millerton, I took it. We still make arrests—and we should—but it’s more about solving problems.”
Nathan shook his head. His boozed brain couldn’t figure out what the cop wanted. “So?”
“I need to ask you some questions about what happened at your house today.”
Nathan’s eyes dropped. “Figured that’s why you’re here. Donna called the cops?”
“No, sir. Your wife was pretty upset we showed up and wanted us to go away, but once we got there, we had to find out what happened.”
“Maybe I shouldn’t talk to you.”
“Totally your right not to. It’s all right here in the Miranda warning.” Brett pulled a card out of his pocket, read it word for word, and laid it on the table.
Nathan picked up the card and studied it through bleary eyes. “So what happens if I refuse?”
“I arrest you and take you to the station. You sit in a jail cell while you arrange an attorney and bail.”
“Arrest me?”
“If you don’t talk to me, the only stories I have are from your neighbors, your wife, and Hank Saunders.” Brett leaned forward. “Your choice. We can do this all official and go outside or down to the station. Or we can just talk here.”
“And I talk, you don’t arrest me?”
“Can’t promise that because it depends on what you say.”
Nathan laid the card down and slid it across the table. “Then let’s talk.”
“In front of your friend?”
Nathan looked at Danny. “I have nothing to hide. He’s my best friend. He knows everything about me.”
“Fair enough.” Brett studied his face. “Looks like you’re pretty drunk. You okay to talk?”
