We Begin at the End

by Chris Whitaker

  “It’ll be fixed up in time for July 4th. So I was wondering if you wanted to head up to Clearwater Cove. I could make us a picnic. Twinkies, right. You like Twinkies. Pineapple chicken. I even got a fondue pot.” He carried his dumbbell, curling, the veins in his right arm popping.

  “I don’t want to date you, Brandon. You’ve been asking me out since high school and it’s getting tired.”

  “You know one of these days I’ll just give up on you, Star.”

  “Can I have that in writing?”

  She took Walk’s arm, strolled on.

  “He still thinks we’re in high school,” Star said.

  “And he’s still sore about losing you to Vincent.”

  When they reached the end of Ivy Ranch Road he looked back, and saw Brandon Rock still standing there, staring after them.

  They walked, a weekly ritual that had gone on near a decade. Walk stopped by on a Monday morning and made sure Star got out of the house and talked. It wasn’t much, but sometimes he thought that routine was good for her. If she wouldn’t talk to a shrink, she could talk to him.

  “So, how is he?”

  “He’s alright.”

  She squinted. “What the fuck does that mean, Walk? Alright. Give me something.”

  “I heard. About what happened the other night.”

  “My hero, right. I had it under control. I don’t need Vincent fucking King showing up to fight my battles.”

  “He used to fight all of our battles. Remember when the Johnson boy thought I stole his bike.”

  Star laughed. “Like you’d steal anything.”

  “He was big.”

  “Not big enough to take Vincent. I liked that about him. He was tough, but only we saw beneath it. Sissy used to love him. We’d be on the couch and she’d come and jam in between us. He spent time with her, you know. Took her drawings home and kept them.”

  “I remember.”

  “You remember everything, Walk.”

  “Why’d you let him round? Darke. He’s not right.”

  “It’s nothing, not what you think. I got pissed with him. I started it. It’s forgotten. I’m pulling a shift at the club tonight.”

  At the corner of Sunset he stalled a little, and she glanced past him at the King house. He let her lead, and she led them away and down toward the beach. Cars passed, then an SUV. He saw it was Ed Tallow, raised a hand but Ed’s eyes didn’t stray from Star as he passed.

  Walk loosened his tie as Star kicked off her sandals and stepped onto the hot sand. He followed, his shoes filling as she raced toward the water, heels kicking up as they burned. She stopped ankle deep and laughed as he plodded his way to her.

  They strolled the line.

  “I know I’m failing, Walk.”

  “You’re not—”

  “I know I’m fucking up the one thing I’m supposed to be good at.”

  “Duchess loves you. She’s a handful, but I see the way she looks out for you. And Robin—”

  “Robin’s easy. He’s all … he’s the best of me. He’s a prince.”

  They sat in the sand.

  “Thirty years, Walk. And then bam, just back into the town you left behind. I thought about him, too much I thought about him over the years. And I know you liked that, you wanted to talk about him like we’re all the same people.”

  He felt the heat then, the sweat across his back. “You do this, get drunk or high and nearly die, and then we walk and talk and nothing much changes.”

  “You were cursed with pathological honesty, Walk. You carry weight you don’t even see. It’s not me who Duchess looks up to, it’s you.”

  “No, it’s not—”

  “You remind her of everything good. You are the man in her life, the person that doesn’t lie or cheat or fuck people over. She doesn’t say it, but she needs you. And you can’t ever let her down, because that’d be like turning out the light.”

  “You’ll be alright. You can be that person for her.”

  She tilled the sand, scooped it and let it run through her fingers. “What do I do? How do I stop being me?”

  “See him.”

  “Forgive him?”

  “That’s not what I’m saying.”

  “Every time I slipped or fell, it was him I was thinking about. I’m not strong enough to deal with it. What it all means, what having him back in my life means. And it’s not just my life.”

  “He’s better than Dickie Darke.”

  “Fuck, Walk. You’re like a kid. Better and worse. Bad and good. None of us are any one thing. We’re just a collection of the best and worst things we’ve done. Vincent King is a murderer. He killed my sister.” Her voice wavered. “I should’ve moved. I should’ve moved like Martha did, left the Cape behind.”

  “I’ve watched out for you, and the children.”

  She gripped his hand. “And I love you for it. You’re the best friend I ever had. There’s a grand plan, Walk. There’s cosmic forces, cause and effect.”

  “You really believe that?”

  “The universe finds a way to balance the good and the bad.” She stood and dusted the sand from her. “When he asks, you tell him I was done with him a long time ago. And don’t mention him again, Walk. And as for Duchess and Robin, they’re all that matters. And I’ll do all I can to prove that to them.”

  He watched her leave, and then turned back to the ocean. They were words he had heard many times before, and words he prayed that this time she meant.

  * * *

  Midnight and a low rumble, headlights swept across the room, the closet without doors, the dresser with the broken drawer.

  No posters of her own, artwork, hints at her thirteen years. A carpet worn thin, nylon threading to bare boards, and a small bed beside her brother’s where she slept tormented hours.

  She checked Robin, sound, out of his sheets, air so warm his hair was slick. She closed the door tight, then went to the street door and opened it on the chain.

  Star lay on dead grass.

  Duchess went cautiously.

  Up the street, the coruscation of brake lights as the Escalade made the turn away.

  Duchess rolled her mother over, skirt hitched, indecent.

  “Star.”

  A mark by her eye, her lip fuller, the skin just about damming the blood.

  “Star, wake up.”

  Across the street she saw drapes move, the silhouette of the butcher, always watching. And then beside, the hard glow of Brandon Rock’s security light as it cast over the covered Mustang.

  “Come on.” She slapped her mother’s cheek.

  Ten long minutes to get her up, another ten and into the house. Star puked in the hallway, a kind of hard retching like she was bringing up her charcoal soul.

  Duchess got her to the bed and lay her on her stomach, like she knew, pulled free her heels, cracked her window to cigarette smoke, sweet alcohol and perfume. Sometimes her mother woke her late when she stumbled in from a shift tending bar at Darke’s place. But this was the first time she had been beaten.

  She went to the kitchen and filled a bucket. She cleaned the vomit so her brother would not see, then washed up and pulled on her jeans and sneakers.

  In their bedroom she found her brother sitting up, a vacant look as she lay him back to sleep. She pushed the button, locked their door, lifted the window and climbed out.

  Cape Haven slept, Duchess rode streets with care, away from Main and Sunset, where Walk sometimes sat and watched out. She thought of her mother and Walk, and the draw of alcohol and drugs that lessened the world.

  A mile out, along Cabrillo, a half hour and her thighs burned.

  The club came to view, The Eight, Duchess knew it because all the kids knew it. There was light pressure to close it every few years, when the primaries opened and the mayor elect chased wholesome votes.

  Monday night, late enough for the lot to sit empty, the place lost in dark, dead neon and empties in the gravel.

  Across Cabrillo Duchess
saw the bluff, rocks of no shape, a cluster of trees waved her way, culling the breeze. The water at night, so far and dark it might well have been the edge of her world. Not a boat or a passing car, just her, and she dropped her bike and crossed the lot, tried the big wood doors but knew they’d be locked up. The windows were blackened, peeling at one edge. A sign promised HAPPY HOUR FROM TWO TILL SEVEN, Duchess wondered what kind of man visited when sun lit the sin.

  Above, piped neon, a profile of ass and legs but dulled now. At the side she found a rock and hurled it at a pane, saw it crack and tried again. Breathless when it broke, for just a moment deafening, then nothing at all. A beat till the alarm called out, so loud she finally did hurry. In her bag was a book of matches and she stepped through the jagged shape, not crying out when her arm caught and sliced. She moved with aim, found herself in a dimly lit backroom, mirrors of light, stools and makeup and the kind of costumes she did not know. A smell, sweat but sanitized.

  There were lockers, too many, each carried a photo. She looked at faces and pouts and swept-back hair. Beside them were names that promised innocence and purity. She moved along and ran a hand through feathers and corsets.

  In the bar glasses lined in front of a mirrored wall. She took a bottle of Courvoisier and emptied it over a leather booth. She took the matches from her bag, lit the book and dropped it, watching the flames crawl blue and hypnotic.

  She stood and stared for so long she did not notice when the heat reddened her cheeks, when her chest grew tight and she began to cough. She stumbled back as the fire crawled and gathered. She clutched her arm, blood on her fingers as flames ran up and out, along to the lights and tables.

  Almost out and she remembered.

  She ran back through thick smoke, hooked her T-shirt over her nose as she opened door after door till she found the office. Mahogany desk topped with green leather, another, smaller bar, crystal glass and a box of cigars. She found a bank of screens beside and opened the cabinet beneath, popped the security tape from the machine and shoved it into her bag.

  She moved fast, head down as the flames ran for her.

  In the night air she panted and grabbed her bicycle. On her T-shirt were stars and a half moon with a face that smiled out. Behind her she heard it, crackling and carnage. And then, finally, the call of the alarm being answered.

  She rode hard, Cabrillo sweeping down and then climbing. She passed a car, kept her head bent then followed the trees away from the road and into Cape Haven. She cut down Sunset then onto Fortuna, where she drew up by a pile of junk, an old side table, boxes and trash bags spilling and ready to be hauled into the truck. She dropped her bike, ran across and stuffed the tape into a garbage bag.

  She’d covered her tracks. She was smart enough.

  Her street and her yard, she moved as quiet as she could, left her bike propped and climbed back through the window. The house still slept. In the bathroom she stripped from her clothes, paid no mind to the cut, crept naked to the washer and got to work.

  When she was done she got into the tub, ran water from the shower head and soaped and cleaned. And then, in the mirror, she pulled a half inch piece of glass from her arm and watched blood pour as it went. She looked at the red, at the history there, her outlaw ancestry steeling her.

  They were not a family that had a medicine cabinet, or a first-aid box, but Duchess found a pack of children’s Band-Aids she’d picked up a year back, selected the biggest, stuck it down hard and watched it color.

  She lay at the foot of her brother’s bed, curled like a cat, waiting for sleep that did not find her.

  First light, the hot night behind, she wondered what would come.

  It would be bad.

  She cursed herself fully.

  9

  WALK FOUND HIM AT THE edge of the cliff.

  The rear fence pulled down, Vincent stood with his toes free of the rock, the slightest wind would carry him a hundred feet down. He wore jeans and an old T-shirt, his eyes cloaked with tiredness. Walk knew how he felt. He’d been woken a little after one, the call about Darke’s club. He’d pulled on his uniform and driven the mile, the sky lit red. Fourth of July all over again. He’d followed the heat, noise and lights, left the cruiser across two lanes, a little traffic building but most having the sense to double back.

  Darke stood apart from the onlookers as smoke rose and grayed the sky. No emotion.

  “You want to take a step back from the edge, Vin? You’re kind of making me nervous here.”

  Together they walked back up to the shade of the house.

  “Were you praying or something, standing there like that? I worried you were going to jump.”

  “Is there a difference between a prayer and a wish?”

  Walk took his hat off. “You wish for what you want, and pray for what you need.”

  “Pretty sure mine are one and the same.”

  They sat together on the steps of the rear deck. New panels leaned beside them, not yet stained. It would take a lifetime to restore the place.

  “You know that guy, Dickie Darke?”

  “I don’t really know anyone, Walk.”

  Walk waited, did not press.

  “The Radley girl, and Star. He was giving them shit so I stepped in. No one else seems to.”

  Walk took it. “Star says they’re friends. She won’t press charges.”

  “Friends.”

  Walk heard it again, that softest note of jealousy. Vincent still cared.

  “His place, it burned last night.”

  Vincent did not speak.

  “He owns a club on Cabrillo, money in the jar. Darke mentioned your name, so I had to—”

  “It’s alright, Walk, don’t even worry about it.”

  Walk ran his hand along the leaning rail. “So, you were home last night.”

  “I imagine a man like that has a fair few people pissed at him.”

  “I’ve got a fairly good idea who I need to talk to.”

  Vincent looked over.

  “We had a call, driver, saw a kid on a bicycle.”

  “Can you just, I mean, could you just leave it? I know what I’m saying, I don’t have a right to get involved, but she’s a kid. Star’s kid.”

  “She is. Anyway, whoever did it had the good sense to take the security tape, so long as they keep quiet …”

  “Right.”

  And that was it, Vincent said nothing else and Walk left him to it. He logged the conversation, he was doing his job, he would always do his job.

  He left Vincent, then found the girl and the boy on Sayer, the long route, away from Main. They walked, Robin out in front, crossing yards, every now and then checking back that he wasn’t alone. And Duchess, that careful way she carried herself, like she was listening out, expecting trouble at all times. She turned as he drew up and regarded him with that same equanimity he saw in Vincent.

  Walk killed the engine, got out and stood, the sun creeping above a clad house. That morning his hands did not shake, the dopamine, the new dose. Respite would not last long.

  “Morning, Duchess.”

  She had those tired eyes too. She carried her bag and her brother’s. She wore jeans and old sneakers and a T-shirt that had a small hole beneath one arm. Her hair was tousled, blond like her mother, the bow there, like always. She was pretty enough that the boys would have lined up, if they didn’t know, if everyone didn’t know.

  “Do you know about Darke’s place?”

  He looked for a tell, she had none at all. He was glad of that. He willed her to play it right, to give the answers he needed.

  “It burned last night. Someone saw a kid on a bicycle, around that time, you know?”

  “I don’t.”

  “It wasn’t you?”

  “I was home all night. You can check with my mother.”

  He rested his hands on his bulging stomach. “I buried a lot over the years. Each time I questioned myself. The times you got caught stealing—”

  “Food,” she
said, sad. “It was just food.”

  “This is different. A lot of money, if someone was in there they could’ve died. Some things I can’t protect you from.”

  They stood together as a car passed, a neighbor, old and looking on, a quick glance at them and then away. Star’s girl, not a hint of surprise.

  “I know about Darke and what he’s like.”

  She palmed her eyes, too tired, her muscles all tight. “You don’t know shit, Walk.” She said it quiet but he took it hard. “Why don’t you go stroll up Main and help the vacationers with their dogs.”

  He looked for something to say, instead he dropped his eyes to the grass and thumbed his badge, redundancy fit him like a second skin.

  She turned and walked on, not looking back. He knew if it wasn’t for Robin keeping her straight, his hands would be all full.

  At the school gate she saw the car, the Escalade, black with windows that shaded out the world. It sat idle, the unknowing passed by. Yellow buses lined like flowers.

  She knew it would come; Star always talked about balance, cause and effect. She waved off her brother and watched him into the red doors.

  In the air was still fire, floating embers that charred her arms and clung to her nose. She wondered who’d seen her at that hour, that night hour when the socially concerned should’ve been home and sleeping off the perfect day. Bad luck, that was all. A part of her was glad, because fuck Dickie Darke.

  She crossed the street and walked up to the window outside her school, where she was safe, with teachers and people who promised to notice strangers.

  The window dropped. Darke’s eyes, swollen, bloated like he’d been dredged from the water, except instead of the ocean it was money and greed that filled him.

  She stood still, her knees shaking beneath her jeans but she fixed him with a hard look.

  “Get in.” Not angry, not loud.

  “Fuck you.”

  A group of kids from her class passed and did not see her, all excitement, last week of school. Sometimes she wondered what it would be like, a little more ordinary, a little more nothing.