by Chris Mattix
Greta’s body felt heavier than he remembered, as though her pockets were filled with rocks, dragging her down towards the open and waiting arms of her newly dug grave. She was heavy with regrets, her own and Jerry’s. When a life ends suddenly, all you are left with are images of what could have been. Could things between Jerry and Greta have taken a turn for the better? Now it didn’t matter. All that mattered was getting her to that final resting spot, below the rolling hills she’d loved. Jerry’s knees wanted to buckle, but little by little he made his way back down the trail. He carried her the same way he’d done on their wedding night: over the threshold and into a new chapter in their lives. Greta had thought it stupid, but Jerry insisted wanting to live out a moment he’d seen on TV and films.
He laid her body in the crude grave and sat on the edge, his feet dangling into the open space as if it were a pool on a summer day. Then he got in. Lay next to his dead wife in that pile of dense dirt and stubborn rocks. Lay there and stroked her cheek. Held her hand. Whispered a few goodbyes into her ear. Before climbing out, Jerry leaned in and kissed Greta tenderly on her forehead, his lips leaving a mark from the tears and dust that had congregated under his nose.
10:00am
Sitting in his usual booth waiting for his usual breakfast (two eggs, hash browns, toast), Jerry surveyed his surroundings. He’d been coming to The Phoenix for fifteen years. The place had changed little in that time. Regulars piled into tattered booths and rickety wooden chairs. Tabletops scarred by cigarette burns and rings left by coffee mugs. Push through the old glass doors and the familiar smells of sizzling bacon, crispy potatoes, watered-down coffee, and stale smoke hit you like a wave from another time, days when people were unfettered by fad diets and Surgeon General’s warnings.
"Here you go, hon"
"Thanks, Marg."
Two eggs, hash browns, toast. This breakfast had marked the start of almost every day Jerry could remember. It was simple, like Jerry’s life. Nothing too fancy, but satisfying. It didn’t seem right to eat such an ordinary breakfast in the wake of such an unordinary morning. Jerry stared down at the steaming plate. He reached for the squeeze bottle of ketchup to his left, applied it liberally to his hash browns, and took a bite. Tasted dirt. Tried again with the eggs. Dirt. He grabbed the saltshaker, then the pepper, dumping copious amounts onto his breakfast. Trying to taste anything but the memory of his morning. He was concentrating so hard on tasting something, anything, that he didn’t hear the door swing open, ringing a tiny bell as it drifted from one position to the other, or see Sheriff Roy Blackburn enter the dingy café.
Roy and Jerry grew up together. They threw dirt clods and jumped in grimy creeks as boys. Went to Helena High School together. Fought over Mary Timmons their junior year, an event which ended in fists, then apologies and beers when they’d discovered Mary had been fucking Joel Peterson the whole time. Roy was Jerry’s closest friend. The man who knew Jerry better than anyone. The man who was now sliding his aged and bulging ass into Jerry’s booth.
"Mornin’, stranger," said Roy, grabbing a menu even though he always ordered the same thing.
"Mornin’, Roy."
"Ain’t heard from you in a few days. Thought we were goin shootin’ this morning, but when I came ‘round I didn’t see your truck in the drive."
"Ah, hell. Sorry about that, Roy Boy. Truck was givin’ me trouble last night so I got an early start and went to Tom’s to use some tools."
Tom Newman owned an auto body shop on Prospect Avenue. He let Jerry use the space to work on his truck from time to time.
"She’s givin you trouble again? Thought you just gutted and overhauled her last month?"
"I did, but wouldn’t you know, I fucked up the alternator install and she kept losin’ power. Had to duct tape her together just to get to Tom’s this morning," Jerry lied.
Jerry was good with engines. Good enough that Tom Newman had offered him a job as a mechanic on several occasions. Jerry knew Roy wouldn’t buy his line of shit about a botched alternator install, but Roy said nothing. Just kept looking over the menu.
"Why do you do that?"
"Whatchoo talkin’ about?" Roy’s face looked back puzzled.
"Look over that menu as though you’re plannin' on ordering something new? In the fifteen years we been comin’ here never once have you ordered something other than pancakes with a double side order of bacon."
"Well maybe today I don’t feel like pancakes and bacon. Maybe today I feel like…" Roy looked down at the menu, confused by the overwhelming number of choices. He pointed to the first item he recognized, "…a Denver omelet."
"You’re fulla shit."
Marg drifted back to their table and loomed over Roy.
"What’ll it be Sheriff?"
"You know what, Margie, today I think I’m gonna have a Denver omelet." Roy beamed at Jerry, taunting him with his big stupid grin.
"You sure ‘bout that?" Marg looked as confused as Roy had when he’d looked at the menu.
"Yes ma’am."
Marg turned and marched toward the kitchen, her face still frozen in disbelief.
"Do you even know what’s in a Denver omelet?"
"Eggs, ham, other shit"
"And mushrooms."
"You lie."
"Check the goddamn menu, genius." Jerry knew Roy hated mushrooms. Just saying the word resulted in an immediate change in Roy’s typically easy-going demeanor. Roy quickly opened the menu and read.
"HEY MARG!" Roy bellowed. "Scratch the omelet. Gimme the usual!" Roy turned to Jerry who couldn’t help bet shoot him a satisfied grin. "Fuck you, Jerry."
Saturday, September 15, 2012: 11:45 p.m.
Jerry looked down at his watch. Looked up and out the kitchen window. Out into the black. Into the unknown, where any number of heinous acts could be done to—or by—Greta. Life used to be so simple. Before Dr. Phil and all those other TV quacks started spewing their pop psycho bullshit into the heads of housewives. Back when Greta was content with her life. Not telling Jerry, "You don’t care about my needs!" and "I hate the way you touch me." How did things get this bad? How could she just upend everything?
For the past few months Greta had been a different person. She started drinking, smoking, and going out more often. Out with the young nurses she worked with at St. David’s Hospital. She was out with them tonight. Doing God knows what. Jerry cringed at the thought of Greta in a seedy bar. Taking shots and prancing around while strange men undressed her with their eyes, reduced her to a piece of meat. Jerry paced. The brick in his gut threatened to heave its way from Jerry to the floor. This was the third night in a row he’d stayed up waiting for Greta. He had endured about as much torture as a man’s heart could take. Now he’d had enough.
He grabbed the keys from the little ceramic bowl on a table near the front door. As he passed, he remembered the day he brought that bowl home. Greta was constantly losing her keys. She would spend hours scouring the house looking for the damn things. One day he came home to the end result of an atomic bomb going off. The house was in shambles. Broken dishes, laundry, up-ended furniture, and spilled drawers lay in heaps in every corner. The next day Jerry brought home a little blue ceramic bowl. Told Greta it was so she wouldn’t lose her keys.
Jerry was lost in a haze of memories as he barreled down the narrow road from his cabin in Rimini Canyon toward the glowing basin that was Helena. He drove down Euclid Avenue, turned right onto Benton, left on Lawrence, and up toward his final destination, Rodney Street. Jester’s Bar lay on the corner of Rodney and Fifth and had a reputation for being the roughest bar in the city. In reality, Jester’s was more of tragedy than anything else. A sad bar filled with career alcoholics from open ‘til close, seven days a week. In recent years Jester’s had become a bar for the braver college crowd. On a weekend night the place was bursting at the seams with coked out academics and wannabe gangsters. And Greta.
Jerry rounded the corner on Rodney and Fifth and found a spot behind a run-d
own apartment building that allowed him to see the comings and goings at Jester’s through the side view. He threw the truck into park and just sat, listening to the idling engine purr. He watched as scantily clad girls clambered into the bar, hugging their bare shoulders as they scampered into the warm, putrid light of the bar. He checked the clock on the dash. Fifteen minutes lost to the cold chill of the night. Thirty. Jerry shifted to his right and turned the little knob on the glove box. He reached past his old .38 Special police revolver and grabbed a pack of Lucky Strikes.
The drag and pop of the match filled the truck with light and sound. Jerry pulled smoke into his lungs and exhaled a weary breath. He’d given up smoking years ago, but his recent trouble with Greta had sent him running back to the nerve-calming embrace of nicotine. He cranked the window down a few inches and watched tendrils of smoke drift up and out. Then he saw her. Through the blue haze of unfiltered smoke Jerry saw her. She was standing on the corner chatting—alone with a couple of sleazeballs Jerry didn’t know. He watched as one of the men helped Greta light a cigarette, cupping one hand around hers to block the wind, the other around the base of her ass.
He acted before finishing his thought and was now gunning his truck toward the group. Jerry saw their faces don confused masks, deer caught in headlights. He slammed the brakes a few feet in front of the slack-jawed bunch and threw it in park. He was slamming the door behind him right about the same time Greta shouted, "What the FUCK are you…" Jerry didn’t give her time to finish. He grabbed her elbow and shoved her toward the passenger door. One of the sleazeballs must have switched his brain back on, because Jerry now felt the sharp pang of his kidney making friends with a fist. He dropped Greta’s arm and spun around wildly. Connected with a street sign. Felt another surge of pain, this time in his right temple. Blurry-eyed and dazed, Jerry knelt down and felt the rough scrape of cold asphalt on his forehead.
"What the fuck’s your problem, old man?" Sleazeball Number One was standing over Jerry, chest puffed up and posturing for the group to see. Begging them to bask in his alpha dog musk.
"He asked you a fucking question, asshole," Sleazeball Number Two chimed in, punctuating his words with a quick kick to Jerry’s ribs. Jerry felt something poking into his back. Had he been stabbed? Was this euphoria his body’s attempt to deal with the pain of a knife wound? He reached behind and felt the small of his back. Felt the cool steel of his .38 He must have grabbed it on his way out of the truck, but he couldn’t remember any of the last few minutes.
He pulled the revolver loose from the back of his Carhartt’s and pushed it up into Sleazeball Two’s crotch. The apish man looked down, panicked.
"Whoa whoa whoa! Chill, man, chill!"
"Yeah, man, be cool. Remember who started this," sleazeball one said as he slowly backed away from Jerry.
"Don’t fucking move. You think you can put your filthy hands on my fucking wife!" Jerry snarled.
"Look man, I really don’t know what this is about. We was just protectin’ the lady."
"Funny, that’s exactly what I was doing." Jerry stood. He still had the revolver jammed into sleazeball two’s crotch.
"Please, man, please!"
Jerry pulled the gun from between the man’s thighs and saw a look of relief wash across his face. That irked him. Fuck this dirtbag, he thought. Jerry flipped the .38 in his hand and let the butt meet the sleazeball’s nose. Blood mixed with tears as the man dropped to the pavement clutching his shattered face. Jerry backed away, grabbing Greta’s arm again. Shoving her toward the truck, hopefully uninterrupted this time. He was still aiming the gun at Sleazeball One as he turned the key and peeled away from the bar. In his rearview he could see blood drip in viscous lines as Sleazeball Two lifted his hand away from his face. Protecting what was left of it from the loose gravel Jerry kicked up as he went.
Neither of them spoke as the truck slowly climbed toward the cabin. Toward home. Jerry couldn’t find the right words, didn’t know how to confront this strange woman sitting next to him. She wasn’t Greta, not anymore. Someone or something had lit an evil fire in her. A fire that burned her from the inside out. She fumbled to light a cigarette, caught Jerry’s attention. Their eyes met and Jerry thought he could see softness. A little speck of the old Greta, buried underneath all the mid-life rediscovery destroying their marriage.
"Where’re we headed?" Greta said softly.
"Home."
"Please…just…just let me go." A tear rolled down her cheek as she spoke.
Jerry was at a loss. Here he was, grasping and fighting to keep the one thing he loved most in this life, and she was asking him to let go. As if none of it mattered. As if the years spent together were so easily forgettable, disposable.
"Don’t I have a say in this? Huh? Don’t I get a say in the fate of my own fucking marriage?" Jerry could feel his blood beginning to rumble under his skin. Knew that if he didn’t calm down that blood would boil over into an uncontrollable rage. He took a deep breath, pulled a Lucky from his shirt pocket and let the gentle buzz of nicotine work its magic on his fraying nerves. As he smoked Jerry could see the cabin in the distance. Almost home, he thought.
Almost home.
Sunday, September 16, 2012: 11:00 a.m.
Jerry and Roy stood in the parking lot of The Phoenix. Roy had his bulging body leaned up against his police cruiser, which groaned and sagged from the weight.
"You hear about that shit gone down at Jester’s last night?" Roy casually asked.
"Nope, but I know you’re gonna tell me all about it, so spill." Jerry wondered if he was trying too hard to buddy up to Roy—wondered if his oldest friend could sense the panic and pain hidden behind his friendly banter.
"Some crazy fucker raised all sorts of hell outside the bar. Even pistol-whipped some poor fella. Says he was just trying to help a lady. Didn’t help that they’re dumber than shit, but they said he hauled ass outta there in an old pickup."
"That so?"
"And nobody’s seen the lady since she took off with the bastard."
"What’s your read on it?"
"Well, seems like a pretty clear case of jealousy," said Roy, cigarette dangling from his lip.
"Jealousy can drive a man to act all sorts of crazy." Jerry couldn’t tell how much Roy knew. Had someone recognized him? Did one of those sleazeballs manage to get his plate number? He wiped the sweat from his brow, blew out a sigh.
"Anybody say who the lady was?" Jerry’s nerves were on fire.
"The guys she was with said they’d just met her. Didn’t get her name."
"Pity. Hard to find someone when you don’t know who it is you’re lookin’ for." He felt his nerves begin to settle. They didn’t know it was Greta, which took Jerry off the immediate list of suspects.
"I reckon she’ll turn up." Roy didn’t seem too worried, but then again Roy never let on about that sort of thing. "You still wanna go shootin’? I got targets in the trunk. Grab some beers and head up to Blue Cloud, could make for a pleasant afternoon?"
Blue Cloud. Jerry never wanted to go back. Didn’t think he could face his sins. But he had to play this the right way.
"Okay. Sure."
Sunday, September 16, 2012: 1:00 a.m.
Jerry let his old truck coast into its spot along the side of the cabin. He and Greta sat in silence. He killed the ignition and popped the door. Walked around to the passenger door to retrieve his wife. As he opened the door, Greta stared at him with eyes full of tears.
"Please. This isn’t right."
"C’mon. Let’s get you inside. Get you to bed." Jerry took her hand and pulled. Tried to get her out of the truck. She didn’t budge.
"Greta, stop it."
"Why are you doing this? I don’t even know you!" She pleaded. Dropped her face into her open palms.
"Don’t know me? Don’t know me!" The blood was rumbling again. He could feel it pulsing and surging through his veins. A violent rolling boil about to spill over.
"Me! The guy wh
o worked two jobs so you could go to nursing school? The guy who bent over backwards so that you could satisfy your dreams? The guys who’s spent nights staring out the fucking window while you run around town like some floozy? You sit there and tell me I’m a stranger? Playing the fucking victim like it’s me who’s dragging this marriage through the dirt!"
He snapped. Grabbed her around the waist and yanked her from the cab to the ground. Greta wailed. Coughing from the dust kicked up by her hard landing. Jerry knelt down to pick her up and was met with a hard slap to his left cheek. The blood boiled over. Greta scrambled to her feet and started running for the driver’s side of the truck. Jerry caught her by the leg and sent her sprawling into the dirt. Her tears turned to muddy streaks running down her face. She kicked back, hard. Jerry felt the wind leave his chest. Saw Greta pull herself up, using the truck bed for leverage.
She was fumbling with the driver’s door handle when Jerry regained his breath. He breathed deep and shot up. Popped the passenger door and scrambled through the cab. He opened the driver’s door with force. It bashed into Greta’s forehead and sent her reeling backwards. Her head made a sickening sound as it met the ground. She didn’t get up. Didn’t move a muscle.
Jerry made his way out of the truck to where Greta lay still. He could see a viscous halo forming around her head. Jerry fell to his knees. Turned Greta’s head enough to see the garden hoe embedded in the base of her brain. Rising up like an antenna.
He sat crossed-legged in the dirt. Held Greta’s limp hand in his. Smoked. This wasn’t the way things were supposed to be. All he’d wanted was a chance to change. A chance to be better. She never gave him a chance! He knew he couldn’t leave her in this state. He uncrossed his legs, forced himself up, and made his way to the back of the truck. Pulled out an old blue tarp, and went to work.
