by Jack Ketchum
He wished he could have that effect on somebody. Especially her.
He had to admit it to himself. For him it was still Jennifer.
The car door opened and there was Ray with his strange listing gait coming toward them through the headlights. Ray’d told him once that a couple of mafioso types had shot him in both legs years ago when he was still just a kid, like twelve years old or something. He’d been running away from a drug deal gone bad and even shot the way he was he’d still managed to get the hell out of Dodge.
That was the reason he walked funny to this day.
Tim didn’t know whether to believe him or not. On the one hand Ray had dealt dope for a long time, both on the street and out of his parents’ motel and if you were dealing you could easily run into some pretty rough characters now and then—though the twelve-years-old bit was hard to swallow. There was also the fact that, like Tim, who had a genuine heart murmur, Ray hadn’t been drafted. He hadn’t passed the physical. On the other hand Ray could definitely exaggerate. He loved turning stuff into drama, loved to scare the shit out of you when he could and loved his bad-ass image.
Tim had considered asking him once if he could see the scars but that would be like saying he didn’t believe him.
“You guys been here long?” He was smiling.
“Few minutes.” Jennifer shrugged.
“Long enough, Ray.”
“Sorry about that, Timmy.”
He put his hand on Tim’s shoulder and leaned over to give Jennifer a kiss.
“I got hung up over at the motel. Ice machine’s out again and the people in 409 are throwing themselves a little party if you know what I mean, couple of babes, so I had to send Willie over to the Seven-Eleven for a bag and you can’t leave that fucking desk alone for a minute, y’know? C’mon. I got somebody here I want you to meet”
They walked toward the car and Ray lit a cigarette and so did Tim. They leaned in through the driver’s side window and Tim took a breath, inhaled the smoke too fast and right away started coughing like he’d just come down with TB, which made him feel like a total jerk because there in the passenger seat was the most beautiful girl he’d ever laid eyes on unless you counted the movies.
This amazing girl. Smiling at them. Big wide grin.
“Tim, Jennifer, I want you both to meet Katherine. Katherine just moved here from San Francisco. How ’bout that? Her car’s got a flat back on Mulwray Road. She was hitching into town and I stopped and thought well hell, we’re going into town, why don’t we just give you a lift.”
“Tim thought maybe Don’s Drive-in,” said Jennifer.
The drive-in was on one side of the lake, town was on the other.
“Nah. We been to the drive-in! The drive-in’s for kids!” He clapped Tim on the shoulder. “We’re goin’ into town! Hit the bars. Part-eee!”
Tim wondered if the girl was old enough to drink. She didn’t look it. He guessed it didn’t matter. Both he and Jennifer were a year short of twenty-one too but in a lot of places Ray had clout or to be exact his dope had clout so it didn’t matter. He glanced at Jennifer.
“Whatever,” she said.
The light in her eyes was gone again.
He looked at the girl, this amazing girl. And then he looked back at Jennifer.
No surprise.
Chapter Three
Saturday, August 2
Anderson
It was strange and maybe even ridiculous the directions sex could turn a man, he thought. Ever since this thing with Sally started he found himself gardening again, something he hadn’t wanted to do with Evelyn while she was alive but did only at her urging because Evelyn was a Brit and the Brits did dearly love their gardens. But now here he was, digging in the dirt just for the hell of it. An ex-cop, six-foot-three and two-hundred pounds, sweating in the sun over a patch of violets by the back porch stoop.
When the cat came by as she usually did around this time, Ed filled the empty water dish with fresh cold water from the outdoor tap and went inside for the Friskies dry he’d bought her the other day and kept for her in the cupboard. The cat was already drinking when he returned. He set the bowl of cat food on the stoop and watched the cat chow down. Friskies was noisy food, all hard little pellets. He enjoyed the crackling sounds and supposed the cat did too. He thought that they probably reminded her of tiny bones breaking, of who she was down deep.
The cat never left a crumb in her bowl and when she was finished she went back to the water, eyes narrowing, concentrating, quick pink tongue darting out maybe three or four times a second. Very efficient animals, cats were. Very well put together. The pebbled tongue that was good for both cleaning and trapping water was only one example. Anderson could respect a cat. He wondered why he didn’t just take this one in and get it over with. She’d been coming around for about a week now and he had to admit he didn’t mind the company.
Evelyn hadn’t wanted animals, said they just kept on dying on her; she kept on outliving them and she hated that. But Evelyn wasn’t with him anymore. Evelyn had done six years’ time with bone cancer and finally gave in to the inevitable. Gracelessly, as you almost had to with that disease. She died lost in a morphine haze, her rear end covered with bedsores despite the best efforts of Ed and the hospice people. Less than half her fighting weight at the end, hairless and gray as a slug. He’d never loved anyone more and knew he never would again. He loved her much the same way she’d loved her flowers, he thought. As a quiet, pacific force of nature.
And maybe that was why he was out planting again this summer, maybe it was that and not Sally or both. People were complex creatures, walking, talking rag quilts, youthful dreams and hopes and fears and middle-aged indiscretions, aging aches and pains and losses, the whole damn kit and kaboodle, mended here and tattered there. People were pushed and pulled in all sorts of directions and did whatever it was they had to do for balance.
So here he was this summer, down on his knees with the trowel, patting at the loose earth surrounding the tender shoots just so, the way Evelyn had taught him, wiping his hands on his dirty white T-shirt. The cat nosed around awhile and then lost interest, heading out over the lawn to the woods. He watched her black tail disappear waving flaglike into the brush.
He ought to take the cat in. Before she got hurt out there. It was a rough precarious life. The weather could take you. A coon or a dog.
He resisted, though. Maybe he’d simply had it with taking on the responsibility for another life for a while after Evelyn. Any life. Had it with responsibility in general.
This thing with Sally now, that sure wasn’t too responsible. He knew that.
Charlie would get on his case about it every now and then and there was no way Ed could get mad or even annoyed at him. Hell, Charlie was right. He was practically old enough to be her grandfather, a year short of fifty to her eighteen. Two years less and you were talking jailbait. But when she was with him he didn’t think about that much. Sure, she reminded him in a thousand different ways just how young she was. But most of those ways he relished. He could teach her things. Tell her about the old days. She was a smart young woman and she always listened and she always had a damn good question or two besides.
And she didn’t remind him how old he was. That was part of it too. Quite the opposite.
He’d look into the mirror mornings and he’d see the slight paunch that persisted despite his daily workout, the extra meat on the strong, wide shoulders, the graying hair. He wasn’t blind. But he never did feel his age the way some men did. He’d always had good health. In hospitals he’d never been more than a visitor. Despite the fact that he sometimes drank too much and always smoked too much for his own damn good. Either it was genes or so far he’d been just plain lucky.
The smell of her hair, the touch of her skin and he could feel the years peel away. He was halfway back to a kid again.
Middle-age crisis was what Schilling called it. It didn’t feel like much of a crisis to him. After all those years
of helplessness and sadness and rage dealing with Evie’s cancer it felt like a godsend. And he’d resolved not to think too hard on it, not to worry the thing to death. Not even to worry about Sally’s mother and father too much, though her father was a man with some clout in Sparta and with a notable public temper. He’d resolved to be happy. Just that. And to hell with the rest.
Speaking of happy.
It was four o’clock. It was time to clean up and head on over to Teddy Panik’s place. He was pretty much done here anyway.
He patted the dirt around the last of the violets and sprinkled it with water, picked up their plastic containers and walked across the driveway to the garbage cans and threw them away. After the good clean smell of fresh-turned earth the cans smelled especially foul. Tomorrow morning was pickup. He had to remember to set them out by the curb tonight.
After Sally came by.
There were weeds in the wheelbarrow—he’d dug them up and turned the earth for the violets—so he wheeled that back to the pine trees ridging his property and dumped the weeds behind them. He put the wheelbarrow, trowel, spading fork and sprinkling can back in the garage and slid the door down and locked it. Locking it, he thought about what he’d said to Charlie yesterday about the way the town had changed. He thought it was a goddamn shame. When the Palmers lived next door Al Palmer used to come by regularly to borrow his spade and pitchfork. Never asked, just put them back clean when he was through. It was understood they were his to borrow whenever he wanted.
Now he hardly knew his next-door neighbors. Their names were Patowski, a good-looking couple in their early thirties and they had two young boys, seven or eight and no dogs or cats that he’d ever seen and that was about all he knew about them. They came and went like ghosts, vanishing into the car or appearing out of it with barely a nod or a wave.
He showered and shaved and dressed and by then it was four-thirty. He left his car where it was in the driveway and walked the three blocks over to Teddy’s. On the way he saw the cat again, crossing warily over Linden Avenue.
He wondered if Sally liked cats or even animals in general. He suspected she would but they’d never talked about the cat, the cat was still his sentimental little secret so he couldn’t be sure. He’d have to ask her. Be a shame if she didn’t.
He thought it was a good idea. He really ought to take her in.
Chapter Four
Sunday, August 3
Katherine
He wasn’t tall the way she liked god knows and maybe not as smart as he thought he was and probably a little crazy. But he was cute and funny in a way and a pretty good kisser. And she was probably half crazy herself. Or there were times she absolutely had been. So who was she to talk?
She sat cross-legged on the bed smoking one of his outrageous joints, bigger than a filter-tip cigarette and listening to the Stones’ “Jumpin’ Jack Flash” on the radio for about the billionth time and considered the guy. Was she going to stick around with him for awhile or look farther? For sure he was eccentric. He didn’t even like the Beatles, for god’s sake. Made a whole big deal about it.
Who didn’t like the Beatles? Even her father did.
And that weird walk of his—what was that all about?
His hair was long but it was more like the way Elvis was wearing it these days minus the great big exaggerated sideburns than like anybody truly hip and she suspected that like Elvis, he dyed it. The mole on his cheek was definitely enhanced by eyebrow pencil. And she’d be willing to bet he was using eyeshadow on the lids.
The guy was definitely a little wacko.
She might just give it a shot, though. See where it led. It wasn’t the most interesting town in the world, god knows, not after San Francisco, and at least he was different, more like the guys she knew back home than anybody else she’d come across here in Sparta. A character. With the black leather pants and jacket he looked a little bit like a biker. Not the bikers she knew in Frisco or Berkeley. They were the real thing. This guy drove a Chevy. But he drove it fast and hard and his dope was fine and he got her into the bars at night and bought the drinks.
She figured Ray got a guarded maybe.
Over the blare of music she heard a knock at the door.
Shit, her father.
“Wait a minute, hold on.”
She didn’t have to worry about the smoke. Her father had a sinus condition so bad that if the house caught fire he’d see the smoke before he smelled it. She just had to ditch the roach. She stubbed it out in the ashtray and put it in her jewelry box along with half a dozen others and put the box back in her top dresser drawer. The drawer had all her bras and panties in it, and she liked the idea of her underwear smelling like dope. Her boyfriend Deke back home liked it too.
She unlocked and opened the door but it wasn’t her dad, just Etta, the maid, who could smell the potsmoke perfectly well but could be counted on not to say anything. She’d caught Etta firing up in the basement a month ago while the maid was doing the laundry. So they had themselves a little agreement here.
“Hey, Etta. What’s up?”
“Your daddy says he wants to see you.”
“Trouble?”
“Don’t think so. Why? You been in some?”
She gave Etta one of her who me? smiles.
“Where is he? Study?”
“Workshop.”
“Ugh.”
It was the only place in the house that was dirty. Even if it technically wasn’t in the house but beside it in a converted garage. He would never let Etta clean it, just swept it up himself from time to time. Which to Katherine’s way of thinking wasn’t nearly as often as he should have.
She hated dirt and she hated dirty people.
Like that drunken Jennifer Fitch and Tim Bess. She’d bet her weekly allowance money that neither of them had showered yesterday. They smelled like dope and sour beer. At least Jennifer hadn’t hung around for long. Ray drove her home after they left the first bar. By then Katherine was amazed she could even walk. But Tim had stayed for the duration. Mostly just looking at her like she were some sort of exotic animal—though she guessed she was more or less used to that with guys—and playing straight man for Ray. He wasn’t even that good a straight man. If she was going to go out with Ray on anything like a regular basis he was going to have to rethink his thing with those two.
Katherine personally showered twice a day. Once in the morning and once before bed at night. Before a date she showered again.
Ray said he did too.
“Okay. Just let me get some shoes on.”
She slipped into her new leather sandals and walked down the stairs and the length of the hall through the living room. Etta walked along behind her. The living room was cavernous and practically empty. An overstuffed chair, a sofa, a table her dad had built years ago in California and an end table with an ashtray by the chair. No paintings on the walls, no photos or mementos over the fireplace. Her parents’ homes had been that way for as long as she could remember. Her dad was president of the First National Bank of Sparta now and he still lived like a monk. She was used to it but anybody else usually thought it strange. She guessed it was.
But they didn’t know the reason. She did.
She opened the screen door to the porch—also unfurnished except for three aluminum beach chairs and a plastic table with a see-through top and one lonely spider plant dangling by a chain from the ceiling—and went down the stairs across the cobbled walk to the shop. The day was warm and smelled of fresh-mown grass.
Her father was at the workbench with his back to her. He had a plank of pinewood in the tail vise and was working its edge with an electric sander, a sound that always reminded her of a huge drunken bee. Dust bloomed off the wood. It covered his hands and forearms and sprinkled his dark curly hair.
“That you, hon?”
Whatever had happened to her father’s sinuses in Korea had not effected his hearing. His hearing was amazing.
“Hi, dad.”
He turned and grinned at her and turned off the sander and released the paper clamps on both sides of it, tossed the used sandpaper on the concrete floor in front of him and inserted a fresh piece cut to size. Then he put the sander on the workbench and brushed down his hands and forearms and the front of his T-shirt. He still was covered with the stuff.
“I won’t ask you for a hug.”
“You better not.”
“Got a minute?”
“Sure. I guess.”
“Let’s go out to the porch. I could use a glass of lemonade.”
She followed him back.
“Etta?”
“Uh-huh?”
She was in the kitchen. Katherine could hear her turn off the water in the sink.
“Could you bring us out some lemonade?”
“Sure can. Be right out”
They sat and her father sighed. He brushed off his slacks. The muscles jumped in his forearms. He was a big man and his body was tight and toned as a teenager’s despite the desk job. It was the workshop that kept him fit. He was always building things and giving them away. Half the people they knew back in San Francisco had a table or chair of his and some had two or three. He was a perfectionist so he kept almost none of what he finished. One table, one end table and the desk in his study and a chair. That was it.
“Next weekend,” he said, ‘I’m flying back to see your mom. Want to come?”
“No.”
“You sure?”
“Why would I want to do that?”
“She’s your mom, Kath. It’d only be the weekend but I thought we could look up a few friends too. As long as we’re out there. You could go see Deke.”
“You don’t like Deke.”
“I don’t have to like him anymore. He’s there, we’re here. I guess you could say absence makes the heart grow fonder.”
“Very funny, dad.”
Etta arrived with two tall glasses of lemonade. She put coasters in front of them and served them off the tray. Etta made lemonade from scratch, grating the rind down fine and mixing it with sugar and a half cup of water, stirring it into a paste and letting it sit overnight in the refrigerator before combining it with more water and the juice the following morning. It was tart and sweet and aromatic. Over ice on a hot summer day there was nothing better.
