Nick

by Michael Farris Smith

  44

  Kade spilled back into Frenchtown with the gusto of a man starved for flesh and drink though he had lacked neither and paid for both in the weeks since he had walked to the station and boarded the train with the outlaw’s agreement with Judah that he would never return. When he arrived back he fell out of the open door of the dining car and onto the platform, slapping away hands that tried to help him up and roaring in drunken threats to break the skull of any man who laid a dirty hand on him. He had crawled along the platform, telling himself jokes that he laughed at in thunderous, coughing laughs, pausing to sit and watch the passengers walk wide of him. Reaching out and slapping at their legs and laughing again at their frightened expressions as they sidestepped the crazy bearded man. A cop appeared with his billy club at the ready and told him to get his ass moving and though he told the cop you don’t scare me one damn bit he wasn’t drunk enough to argue with the hurt from the club. So he got to his feet and brushed off his pants and shirt and staggered out of the station and into Frenchtown. Eager to find others like himself.

  He made his way to Rampart and into a house on the corner that had its doors flung open and the rumble of a ruckus pouring out into the street. Inside a crowd huddled around a roped-off ring and two shirtless and sweaty men with wrapped fists punched and elbowed and kicked at one another while the crowd screamed and spat and smoked and shoved. One man bled from his mouth and the other from his swollen eye. A bell rang from somewhere and both men knelt and money swapped hands and more bets were made and more drinks were poured. Both fighters were handed whiskey shots and the shots went down and then the bell rang again and they were on their feet and measuring one another when a gun fired from an upstairs room. The fighters paused and the crowd paused and after a moment of silence a voice from upstairs yelled my finger slipped and then the melee carried on.

  Kade fell in with the raucous crowd and its energy swept him away. Soon he had a haggard, curlyhaired woman around the waist and she was tugging at his beard and they were passing the bottle back and forth. The fighter with the busted eye knocked out the fighter with the busted mouth and from the back of the room a banjo and fiddle started up while the crowd settled the bets and lit cigars and cigarettes and bought another round. Kade found a chair and sat down with the woman on his lap and she was stout and thick in the shoulders like he was and the rickety chair wouldn’t hold. It buckled and he landed hard and she landed hard on top of him and the crowd roared in laughter.

  The fall knocked the breath out of him and she mistook his open, gasping mouth as lust and she pressed her mouth across his and he gagged and rolled her off right before he suffocated. She slapped at him and they wrestled around in the fragments of splintered chair until she used his beard as leverage and he hollered I give up. She helped him up and around them men and women danced to the banjo and fiddle. The crowd swayed and the room was gray with smoke and alive with lust. Voices howled and women pulled at men and men pulled at women and above it all somebody sang a loud lullaby in a throbbing bass tone that sounded more like pain than the sweet soothing of coming sleep. Soon two more men stripped off their shirts and kicked back shots and the bell rang. The music stopped and the crowd sized up the fighters and picked winner and loser and the first punch was thrown just as Kade stuck his last dollar down the woman’s shirt and they moved toward the staircase and ascended.

  Half an hour later Kade appeared on the staircase. He took off his shirt and tossed it out across the crowd and proclaimed to the whole house there wasn’t anybody inside these damn walls that could whip his ass. The bottle then went to his mouth and liquor spilled down his beard and round, hard belly. He missed the next step down and tumbled and crashed into the railing at the foot of the stairs and the laughter soon gave way to all bets being placed on whoever made it into the ring with him.

  Before he could get to his feet the haggard woman appeared at the top of the stairs and let everybody know that not only would she take the fight but I’ll knock him out in two rounds. Kade held the railing and pulled himself up and she marched down the stairs with a hardworn swagger.

  “I ain’t fighting no damn woman,” he yelled.

  “Too late big mouth,” the woman cackled. Money swapped hands and drinks were poured.

  She stepped past him and slapped the back of his head hard and it was as if a sideshow had broken out in the middle of a sideshow. She wore bloomers and a bra that barely contained her breasts and her arms and calves were thick and trunklike. Other women gathered around her and toasted her coming victory and Kade staggered to the bar and looked at her with the eyes of the befuddled.

  “Hey,” he called to her. “I ain’t hitting no woman I just copulated with.”

  She and the others laughed harder, pointed at him. Even in his drunkenness he realized that he had become part of a ruse.

  “I’m gonna get your money twice tonight,” she said. “That is if you got anything left to bet on yourself.”

  “I told you I ain’t fighting no woman.”

  A skinny old man with frantic white hair slid next to Kade and said we all heard it. You proclaimed nobody in these walls could whoop you. Said it right up there. The old man pointed and Kade slapped his arm down and told him to shut up.

  “If I was you I’d get mad or something,” the old man said. “Cause she’s gonna make you sausage meat. Seen her do it many times.”

  “Buy me a drink or give me a smoke,” Kade said.

  The old man handed Kade his flask.

  “Door’s yonder if you wanna sneak on out,” the man said.

  Kade turned up the flask and then passed it back.

  “Too late,” he said. Then he used the old man for leverage and he climbed up on the bar and pointed at the woman and yelled I done paid for you once and after I knock you out I’m gonna have a free ride. Somebody threw a shot glass at him and it bounced off his chest and he lost his balance and crashed down on the old man. Arms grabbed him and pulled him up and the bell sounded.

  Kade shoved through the crowd and stepped over the lowhanging rope. The banjo played a quick rhythm and he swung his arms and slapped at his belly and let out a boisterous belch. The woman took a last shot of whiskey and the crowd parted. She stepped into the fighting square and cracked her knuckles. She hadn’t stopped smiling and Kade told her he was gonna wipe that dumbass look off her face.

  “You ain’t man enough,” she said. “I know that already.”

  The bell rang again and the banjo stopped as Kade and the woman squared each other up. Moving deliberately around the ring. She put her hands in her curly hair and pulled. Kade’s room was spinning and he licked his teeth as if to take a count.

  She lunged at him and he swung wildly and missed, losing his balance but keeping his feet and when he turned around her square fist smacked his nose and then the side of his head. A hard combo that came and went before he could lift his hands. She danced a little and the crowd jeered and threw cigarette butts at Kade. He felt his nose and wiped his eyes.

  She lunged again and he swung and missed again and another combo bounced off his head. They jeered. She laughed. He felt his nose and wiped his eyes. The old man handed him a flask and he drank. Slapped at his belly and spit across the ring at her feet.

  This time when she lunged he didn’t swing but snatched her by the coarse hair and spun her around and around and the crowd went into hysterics as the two turned around in a drunken circle. He let go and before she could yell that ain’t fair he punched her in the mouth. She stepped back stunned and now bleeding.

  “Smile now,” he said.

  Her eyes grew fierce and she charged at Kade, her head into his stomach and they fell back into the crowd. She clawed at him and he clawed at her and the gamblers and drunks pulled them apart and shoved them back into the makeshift ring. Just then the bell sounded and Kade and the woman backed away from one another. Money changed hands. More bets were made. The woman wiped her mouth. Kade drank from the old man’s flask.
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  “That was a pretty good idea,” the old man said.

  “Go to hell,” Kade answered. His head throbbed. The room shifted. He knew he couldn’t stand it much longer.

  The bell rang.

  She stepped into the middle of the floor and announced this is it. Round two and won’t be no more. She then flew at him and sent an elbow into his jaw. He gave one back. They staggered and punched, giving and taking. Locked in a standoff. The crowd shouted and the smoke swirled and the two bulky bodies slapped against each other and Kade sensed her doubt and some of the shouts came his way now. He hit her hard against the side of the head and she was dazed and shaky and he went for the knockout but his big right hand skimmed off her forehead. The great punch spun him off balance but he caught himself and turned, knowing now was the chance to finish her. And that’s when her bare and rocklike heel shot into his crotch and that was the beginning of the end.

  45

  Judah lay on the floor of the backroom. When he woke from his high Nick was sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. He held his coat over his arm and a packed bag sat on the floor beside him.

  Judah came awake slowly. Taking time to differentiate between dream and reality. Legs first, stretching out with a moan. Then his arms, stretching out with a moan. He began to cough, a little cough that grew in force and Nick hurried from the chair and helped Judah sit up just as the blood rose in his throat and filled his mouth. Nick grabbed a stained towel from the floor and gave it to him and Judah covered his mouth as his eyes filled and tears trickled out and ran into the towel pressed against his face. The two men sat together on the floor until Judah had let it all out. Nick helped him into a chair and then he slid the other chair over and sat next to Judah.

  Judah tossed the towel onto the floor. He looked at Nick with shaky eyes and then he looked over at the bag.

  “I want to take you to a doctor,” Nick said.

  “For what?”

  “For help.”

  “No doctor can fix me. We both know that.”

  “Maybe not fix. I said help.”

  “They can’t do that either. You know what happened to me. It’s a miracle I’m even here. If you believe in miracles. Which I don’t.”

  “You never know what can be done for you, Judah.”

  “What I need won’t come from a doctor.”

  “I’ll run up and get you something to drink.”

  “Don’t,” Judah said. “Just sit here.”

  Nick crossed his legs. He was cleanshaven and his hair neatly combed and he propped his hat on his knee.

  “So,” Judah said. “This is it.”

  “For now.”

  “What’s that mean?”

  “It means I’ll be back.”

  “No. You won’t. Once you get home that’s it.”

  “I’m not going home.”

  He had already sent a telegram to his father. I will see you in the New Year. He regretted it the moment it was sent and he knew the commotion and heartache it would cause his family for him to delay his arrival even further but it was done.

  “Why not?” Judah said. “I bet it’s a good place.”

  “It is.”

  “Then go if you have to go somewhere.”

  “I don’t want to have to answer the questions.”

  Judah shifted in the chair. Coughed.

  “There are only questions,” he said. “Don’t matter where you are.”

  “I might go back to France,” Nick answered.

  “Nah. You’re not going back there.”

  It was the idea he woke up with. Go back and stay in that city until you find her. And he had sent the telegram home with that intention and packed his bag with that intention though he knew it was a plan he wasn’t going to carry out.

  “I think you’ve got a secret,” Judah said. “Since the first time I looked at you I thought you had something tucked away in there. First time and every time since.”

  “I don’t have any secrets.”

  “Maybe not secrets. Whatever is inside us has all sorts of names. It was probably in there before you had to fight. That just darkened it.”

  I try not to think about the war, he thought. Knowing it was a lie. Knowing he would never forget such things. They would always be there to think about and they would affect the way he thought about everything else and everyone he met in every decision he made forever.

  “Where is he?” Nick asked.

  “Where is who?”

  “The man you paid to set the brothel on fire.”

  “You think there is such a man?”

  “You must know where he is. You better know.”

  “Why is that?”

  “I don’t want to leave you like this. Let me find him. He can hurt you, Judah.”

  “I can’t be hurt no worse than I already am,” Judah said. A fit of coughing seized him and he fell forward and out of the chair. Nick reached to catch him but Judah crumpled to the floor, his mouth over his hands and the blood spewing between his fingers as he fought to let it out. Nick pushed the towel to Judah’s face and held it there and held his other hand on Judah’s back as he heaved.

  When Judah was done, he turned on his side and lay there. Long pauses came between breaths and his forehead was damp with sweat.

  “You have to help me, Nick,” Judah said.

  “I’m trying. Tell me who he is.”

  Judah reached for Nick and pulled himself into a sitting position. He then bowed his head. Lifted his frail arms and touched his own frail hands to his face, his knuckles rubbing slowly back and forth across the scars. His eyes shifted as if seeing something that only he could see and he seemed to almost withdraw within his own skin and bones.

  Something opened inside of Nick as he sat next to this man. Something vast and infinite that was without a name but as familiar to him as his own reflection and in that moment he believed that he would never find his place. That as time moved he found fewer answers and more questions and all that was behind him was not really behind him but twisting and turning and keeping him from becoming whatever it was he wanted to become. And he didn’t know what that was. Something vast and infinite opened inside of him and he drifted in that unbounded expanse like a mote of dust carried for thousands of miles and for thousands of years on the ceaseless wind that wraps the earth again and again. His face fell expressionless and his eyes became like the eyes of Judah, unfocused and open only because they had to be.

  “Help me,” Judah whispered.

  “I told you I would,” Nick whispered back.

  “Not like that.”

  “Then how?”

  Judah turned his head ever so slowly and through the brick wall of the room he saw another world. He raised his hand and pointed a crooked finger and with a waning voice he said help me cross from this world. I don’t want to do it myself.

  Nick had seen it done. One soldier to another. Mercy when there was only mercy to be had. When the only answer was to end the insufferable pain. He had seen it done and he had felt the humanity in it.

  “Judah,” he said.

  “There is nothing left for me here,” Judah said. “And all I do is bleed. And hurt. You have something in you I can’t name but I recognize. I don’t know why you are here. But you are here. And you can help me where no one else can. I don’t want to be in this world anymore.”

  A stream of pink saliva trailed from Judah’s mouth and reached to the floor and then he cried out from the burning in his lungs. Nick reached into his bag and pulled out a clean shirt and he knelt beside Judah. Judah tossed the filthy towel away and held the clean shirt against his face.

  “She was so damn beautiful,” he said.

  “I can get her for you. You need to talk to her.”

  Judah removed the shirt from his face and said it won’t matter because she carries it. I carry it. We all do. All that we’ve done from the moment we began. All that keeps us from being what we once were and there’s so much of that.
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br />   Nick tried to see how this was different. There was mercy when there was nothing else and he had it to give to the man begging for it. Judah was broken and dying and empty and he could do what Judah asked or he could go and get on a train and leave him to die a deliberate and aching and distressed death. He tried to figure how this was different from what he had witnessed one man do for another in the dirt of war and he could not. Judah’s sunken cheeks and sunken eyes and sunken heart were grave ready, he thought. His body is finished. His spirit is finished. And it is his choice and if not me it will be someone else. Someone who doesn’t see what he sees. What I’ve seen. What I know.

  Judah opened the desk drawer. He fumbled around and felt the pistol and he removed it. Showed it to Nick and held it still as if it were something to read.

  “Do you know who this belongs to?” Judah asked. “You picked it off the floor the day the man came with the wagon. I know what I did to him and I wish he was here. He’d do it for me.”

  Judah coughed and pressed the heels of his wrists against his lungs. He looked up with broken eyes and said your face has changed. Not that it ever said anything before.

  “I need to go home,” Nick said.

  “I’m home. And look at me.”

  I’m not going home, Nick thought. And I won’t ever say that again.

  Judah set the pistol on the desktop.

  “It would be beyond poetic for me to use this,” he said. “I only want to numb myself into a stupor and then you can do whatever you think is best.”

  “I don’t know.”

  “You do.”

  “My Episcopal nature doesn’t allow me to see it as clearly as you see it.”