The Summer Man

by S. D. Perry

  Unintelligible at first, loud and angry, coming from the main concourse, close by. The church choir had finished singing at some point—Bob had barely registered the relieved applause—and now the ambient noise of the assembled crowd fell away, making the shouts much clearer.

  “…not gonna take no more a’ this shit!” A man shouting. “You can lock him the fuck up and keep him!”

  A lower voice, conciliatory in tone, pitched to carry. A woman’s voice. “Sir, I’ll ask you to step back—”

  “The fuck I will! Look at ’im! Kid’s seventeen years old! He’s—don’t you look at me like that, I’ll slap that look off your face, boy—”

  “Sir, I said—sir!”

  That was Annie Thomas. Bob hurried out from behind the restroom block, followed closely by the two teenagers. He was already putting together the conversation with the voices, realizing what was happening as the ugly scene unfolded in front of them, less than twenty feet away.

  Nathan Glover, dressed in ratty jeans and a blue work shirt, was shouting at Annie Thomas and another officer, one not in uniform—Ian Henderson, Vincent’s right-hand guy. The two cops were standing close in front of a younger man, physically shielding him from the angry adult. The young man’s shirtfront was covered in vomit, and from the way he was standing—barely, to Bob’s trained eye—he was gloriously, toxically drunk.

  Brian Glover, if I’m not mistaken.

  “That’s him,” Devon breathed, confirming it.

  Nate had apparently also had more than his fair share and seemed ready to take on the two cops to get to his son, though he wasn’t a big man—average build, bit of a gut. Ian Henderson had three inches and fifty pounds on him, easy. The gathered picnickers openly gawked at the drama, a few small children still clamoring for attention in the otherwise silent circle of watchers.

  The elder Glover had his chest out, was pushing toward Henderson in a showy effort to intimidate, still yelling at his son. “You can stay in there, if I got anything to say about it! You should get use’ to the inside of a cell! Then wait’ll you get home, boy! You just wait!”

  “Fuck you,” Brian slurred out loudly, and then Annie was pulling the staggering boy away as his father rushed Henderson, his expression just short of murderous. The deputy quickly and neatly stepped to one side, grabbed Nate’s arm, and brought it up behind him, which Nate didn’t realize until he was falling. Both men went down, Henderson on top. Margot Trent appeared out of the crowd, in uniform, and jumped in to help. With both officers on his back, Nate Glover spluttered uselessly into the dirt, flailing for about two seconds before he gave it up.

  “OK OK OK OK,” he yelled, going limp, and Henderson bent down and started talking clearly, firmly into his ear as Trent pulled her cuffs from her belt.

  Bob scanned the watching faces for reaction and saw frowns and open mouths, conversations slowly starting up. He looked back just in time to see Brian follow his father’s example, pitching heavily to the ground. Annie immediately crouched at his side, then stood a few seconds later with a carefully blank expression that said it all—Brian had passed out drunk and was down for the count. Bob didn’t see Mrs. Glover anywhere in the crowd, which suggested that further dramatics were unlikely, but there had been enough. A real episode of Cops, right in front of the best of the summer trade, who had already started to break up, their low voices tight with excitement and dismay. Dan Turner would crap himself.

  Bob glanced at his two young storytellers, saw the twin looks of amazement, of surprise and confusion—and on Amanda’s face, a dawning flush of embarrassment or shame. She looked back at Bob, then dropped her gaze, her shoulders sagging.

  “I saw it,” she said, turning to Devon again. “Swear to God, Devon.”

  Her friend nodded, no doubt in his eyes. “I know. I know you did.”

  The crowd was breaking apart, flowing into itself as its attention followed the departing cops, Nate and his son both unceremoniously dragged away. People were going back to their food and drink. Devon looked at Bob.

  “It could still happen,” he said.

  Bob arched one brow. “You see that kid?”

  “He was just drunk,” Devon said, and though he tried to sound dismissive, he couldn’t quite pull it off.

  “Son, that boy was a hundred and ten percent shit-faced,” Bob said. “If he can do anything but puke or sleep for the next ten hours, I’ll be dipped. You know that, right?”

  “OK, yeah—but what if it’s supposed to happen next week, on the Fourth?” Devon persisted. “Or at the carnival in August?”

  Bob looked back and forth between the two of them. The young man was still the epitome of earnest, but the girl wouldn’t look at him for more than a second at a time, her cheeks burning. Maybe because she’d been caught out. Still, Bob was gentle, deciding that the benefit of the doubt wouldn’t cost him anything. Maybe she was just embarrassed because she looked a fool.

  “What if it’s next summer?” Bob said. “Or the one after? Or never? What if it was a bad dream after all?”

  “It wasn’t, though, it was just like before,” Amanda insisted suddenly, her voice almost pleading. As though she wanted him to explain it to her.

  “Maybe so,” Bob said. He kept his expression serious but friendly. He liked kids, mostly, had found in himself a sense of humor for the stumblings of the young, the attitude, the styles. Not all of them, of course—God knew there were some real shitheads in the mix—but as with every generation, the vast majority of the little buggers meant well, wanted simply to grow up and have good things in their lives, love and money and family. Perhaps these two had extra issues to deal with, he certainly couldn’t say, but he saw no reason to be elderly about it.

  “When my older brother first went away to college, he had this roommate, name of Travis Thompson,” Bob said, finally deciding to give voice to the story that had been in his mind for most of the day. He hadn’t told it in a long time, and he hadn’t expected to tell it at all, certainly not to a couple of teenagers, but it was spilling out before he could think twice. All that beer, probably.

  “Thompson killed himself over Christmas break,” he continued. “Not on purpose, mind you. He drank and drove, though, and he took his girlfriend and his own mother with him, driving them home from a New Year’s Eve party. All three of ’em burnt up in a big crash. The thing was, I was with my brother when it happened—Rich and I were having a few beers out in my dad’s garage to celebrate the New Year—and he…”

  Bob hesitated, not sure how to explain…he’d only meant to tell them the anecdote to be kind, to let them know that just because they were wrong, that didn’t mean he thought they were crazy—but as he tried to do justice to the tale, he felt a shiver of that, that uncanniness he’d felt when it had happened, all those many years ago.

  “Rich was telling me some story or other from school, and he went quiet. He set his beer down, and looked at his watch,” Bob said. “And he’d been a little tight, you know, but he suddenly looked stone cold, and a little green, too, and he said, just as clear as could be, ‘That dumb shit roomie of mine just crashed his car into a light pole off Route Two Nineteen.’”

  Bob let the image go and returned his attention to his audience of two. “Knew about the mother and girlfriend, too, and had the time exactly right, though the accident happened in Colorado. A different time zone, for us. And he knew the name of the road, which he shouldn’t have. He never could explain it to his own satisfaction…but he once told me it was like he just knew it, like he’d read about it somewhere. Like it was fact.”

  Amanda was nodding, her cheeks still red but her eyes bright with renewed interest. “Yeah, like that. I saw it first, though, but then it was just like—like knowledge.”

  Bob continued, his voice mild. “He never saw anything like that again. Stuff like that happens, I think. Not often, probably, but I think it does. And maybe it happened to you.”

  He fixed Amanda with what he hoped was a kind, paternal
look. “But just because it happens sometimes, doesn’t mean it happens every time,” he said.

  Devon started to protest, but Amanda, her clear gaze meeting Bob’s own squarely enough, stilled him with a wave.

  “No, he’s right,” she said, talking to Devon but still looking at Bob. Her eyes were a lovely shade, dark and greenish, and he was struck by the intelligence there, reflected in the complexities of her emotion, at least what he could read. Embarrassment and resignation, self-doubt, relief. Although there were a lot of smart people in the world, Bob had generally found that stupid abounded, deliberate as often as not; as his own father had liked to say, some people, if they had a spare brain, it’d be lonely. It was refreshing to see someone with something going on under the hood.

  “You said—” Devon started.

  “I know,” Amanda cut him off.

  “But if it was just like—”

  “I know,” she said. “But he’s right about Brian. It’s not going to be tonight, anyway. And if I was wrong about that…”

  The unspoken rest of the thought was enough for Devon, and for Bob.

  “Listen, I’m sure everything’s going to be fine,” Bob said, finding a smile. “If you had a real, ah, an extrasensory experience before—and it sounds like maybe you did—it makes sense that you’d start looking for omens every which way. Sounds like you had a hell of a nightmare, and maybe the way you felt about it, like it was a premonition, maybe that was part of the dream.”

  Amanda was nodding. She looked relieved most of all—which renewed Bob’s feeling that she’d been telling the truth. She wanted a sane, logical answer to what had happened to her; she wanted the world to make sense.

  Don’t we all?

  They thanked him very politely for his time, and he reassured them that it had been a pleasure; even told them that if anything else came up, to give him a call, though he doubted very much that he’d ever hear from either of them again. He watched them walk away together, pleased with himself for being of some use, still half thinking of his brother’s strange insight into the death of his college roommate. If it had been anyone but Rich, Bob might have thought it some kind of distasteful joke, but his brother didn’t have that kind of humor in him. Rich had died of a heart attack at the ungodly young age of fifty-nine, coming up on seven years past, but from childhood till his dying day, Richard Sayers had dismissed anything he couldn’t explain as utter hogwash, from God to women’s intuition. That night, though, he’d known something he shouldn’t have known, that he absolutely couldn’t have.

  Weirder than fiction. Bob decided he’d done enough community work for the day, that it was time to go home and get to the serious drinking, maybe delve into his prized movie collection for an old man’s wild Saturday evening; something by Hitchcock, perhaps, to continue the day’s theme. He’d lost track of John Hanover somewhere along the way—last he’d seen, John had been chatting up Annie Thomas, though of course she was off arresting people now—but perhaps he’d give the good doctor a call later, invite him over to share a few whiskeys and a viewing of Rope…or maybe not. Like many an old bachelor—or so he assumed—Bob had grown quite fond of his own company. And much as he liked John, he also liked the idea of getting a little sloppy in front of an old movie tonight, dozing on the couch, and wearing something entirely unsociable. Drawers and socks, maybe.

  He faced into the crowd, saw a half dozen people he’d rather not have to walk past—well-meaning friends and neighbors who would undoubtedly want to get his take on the to-do with Nate Glover and the local PD—and decided he’d wind around to his truck by way of the service road.

  Annual Picnic a Success, he decided. Front page, probably. Bob shoved his hands in his pockets and sauntered west, writing breakers in his thoughts.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  John woke up with Annie Thomas’s soft hip pressed against the small of his back. He had one of those vague, halfdreaming seconds in which he didn’t know anything beyond an awareness that he wasn’t alone—and then he was awake enough to remember.

  Oh, he thought. He opened his eyes, saw the familiar corner of his bedroom—saw, in fact, the open box next to the closet door, the one with the quilt. Lauren’s grandmother’s quilt. He’d been meaning to mail it to Lauren; he’d come across it just a few weeks back, apparently forgotten in a storage bag of blankets labeled “winter” in his wife’s neat hand. When he’d unfolded it, remembering Lauren wearing it wrapped across her shoulders on more than one icy winter evening, he’d teared up a little. And in spite of that still-tender spot in the general vicinity of his guts, last night, he and Annie had…

  He blinked, worked not to jump to any diagnostic conclusions, part of him marveling at how quickly things had happened. Except for a few forays led by adolescent hormone rushes—which he’d mostly managed to get through by his midtwenties—he wasn’t one for casual sex. It wasn’t for lack of trying, back then, but he’d been an awkward youth, and by the time he’d grown into his social skills, he’d learned pretty fast that just because you could, that didn’t mean you should. Sex created complications.

  Behind him, Annie stirred, her supple warmth pressing closer, and John almost smiled. Hello, complication.

  “Hey,” she murmured, cleared her throat. Her voice was as soft as her skin.

  “Hey,” he said. He rolled toward her, backing away slightly at the same time so he could see her. Not sure what he would see, what to expect. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d acted so impulsively, without at least having some idea of where things stood. Where he stood.

  Her bangs were mussed, her lips slightly chapped, but in the soft light of morning, naked in his bed, she looked beautiful. He smiled at her. She was an attractive woman, and last night had been…

  “Wow, huh?” she said, smiling back at him, and he relaxed into a grin.

  “I was thinking the same thing,” he said.

  Her crooked smile was endearing. “This is going to sound dumb, but I don’t usually—I mean, this is kind of a surprise.”

  “You’re not that kind of girl,” he said, meaning it as a joke, but her own smile faded.

  “No, I’m really not,” she said. She seemed almost puzzled, her expression matching his own feelings about what had happened between them. Glad but tentative. Uncertain.

  John nodded. “I believe you,” he said, sincerely. “This isn’t—I’m kind of in the same boat you are.”

  Her smile was back. “But don’t rock the boat, right?”

  “If this boat’s a rockin’,” he replied, and if there had been any tension between them, even for a second, it was gone.

  “So, since we both never do this kind of thing, what’s next?” she said. “Do we have coffee, or should I just gather up my panties and sneak home? Walk of shame, and all that.”

  “Coffee, definitely,” he said. “In fact, I’ll go make it. You stay here, I’ll bring it in.”

  “Automatic drip?” she asked.

  “French press.”

  “Oooh. A gentleman of taste.”

  He grinned, sat up, and looked around, spotted his boxers crumpled on the floor. “Obviously,” he said, scooping up the drawers and pulling them on. He actually sucked in his stomach a little, amused at himself for it but not letting out his breath entirely, either. He wasn’t in bad shape, but no one would ever accuse him of sporting a six-pack, either. “I mean, look at you.”

  “Why, Doctor, I do believe you’re flirtin’ with me,” Annie said, mock-Southern. She fluttered her eyelashes.

  John laughed, pleased with how the morning was going so far. Pleased with the whole affair, as it were. They’d struck up an interesting conversation at the picnic, about criminal psychology, of all things, but had been forced to cut it short; she’d been on duty, after all. When she’d asked if she might drop by later, to talk more—she got off at nine, she’d said—it had seemed perfectly natural to accept, and to offer dinner. The bottle of wine she’d brought along had gone quite well with the
pasta he’d managed not to overcook. After dinner they’d had more wine, talked for a while about all kinds of things—her third year of law school at UW in Seattle, her work as a deputy, the sheriff’s control issues. He’d mostly listened, enjoying her optimism, her wit, the sound of her laugh…and at some point, he’d actually talked about Lauren a little. Or, rather, how he’d felt about the end of their marriage, about how he’d finally realized that while he had been willing to keep trying, Lauren just didn’t want to be married anymore; she hadn’t wanted to do the work, or at least not with him. Annie had been understanding, had really seemed to empathize; he’d felt comfortable talking with her, relaxed. And when she’d leaned in and kissed him, he’d responded wholeheartedly. Going to bed with her had seemed inevitable by then, although he hadn’t made any conscious decision about it…and the passion with which they’d tackled that particular chore had been almost embarrassingly enthusiastic. Both times.

  Another warm smile exchange, and he went to make coffee, while she disappeared into the bathroom. He looked out the kitchen window as he waited for the water to boil, saw that it was going to be another sunny day. Across the street, two men were picking through the wreckage from the old school. He’d seen a lot more activity around the site since early spring; perhaps they would finally get around to clearing the lot, although John figured he’d lose at least part of his view as soon as the new development went up, whatever it was slated to be. Both men looked like construction workers, dressed in flannel and jeans—although after a bit more scrutiny, John could have sworn that one of them was Rick Truman.

  He watched the two men gesture at the various piles of debris, struggling again to avoid picking apart what had happened.

  He got a pair of matching mugs out of the cabinet by the fridge—mugs that he and Lauren had received as part of a set a couple of Christmases past, from her cousin or aunt, he couldn’t remember…and was pleased to note that the thought didn’t hold any sting, or at least not much of one. He started to analyze that—postcoital euphoria or actual personal growth, as evidenced by the spontaneous encounter and his subsequent calm?—and told himself to shut up.