Nerve Damage

by Peter Abrahams

  “Spelling?”

  Roy spelled Hobbes.

  Long pause. “No mention of that in my notes,” Gold said.

  “But I’m telling you now that—”

  “And the UN reference came from a reliable source.”

  “Reliable source?” said Roy. “Who would that be?”

  “Can’t reveal that,” said Gold. “I’ll recheck and get back to you.”

  “But there’s nothing to recheck,” Roy said. “She was my wife. Who’d know better than I?”

  Gold ignored that. “What really concerns me,” he said, “is this supposed accident of yours.”

  “Accident?”

  “How you came upon the text of this piece. I’d appreciate some elaboration.”

  Roy had been interviewed by reporters a few times, had liked every one. But hanging up now—banging down the phone, actually—without another word, he decided he didn’t like Richard Gold at all. He felt a tickle coming in his throat and moved toward the sink.

  Six

  “Lookin’ good, Roy,” said Freddy Boudreau, Ethan Valley police sergeant and first-line center for the Thongs.

  Tuesday night in the locker room at the rink. Roy, lacing up his skates on the bench, fumbled with the knot. “Oh?”

  “Lost a few pounds,” said Freddy. “Been workin’ out?”

  Before Roy could answer, Turk spoke up from the other side of the room. “Not everybody lives on cheeseburgers, Freddy.” A remark that could have sounded light, but did not. There was anger in Turk’s tone, and Freddy caught it. He shot Turk a puzzled glance.

  Roy didn’t want any of this. “I gave up fries,” he said. “That’s the secret.”

  Freddy turned to him. A little pause, and then he laughed. “Can’t do that myself,” he said. “Where’d I get my carbs?”

  The horn sounded.

  “Let’s play hockey,” Roy said, reaching for his stick and standing up. Freddy ground his cigarette butt under his skate blade and led them out of the locker room and onto the ice, smoke coming out of his nostrils.

  The Zamboni was just gliding off, leaving the surface slick and smooth. Roy had long ago stopped noticing little rink details like that, but he was noticing now, the kind of fresh take that sometimes follows a rainstorm, or waking up in a new place. Little details like a Mars wrapper, frozen under the ice; a twist of Christmas tinsel hanging from a strap on Turk’s mask; black puck streaks all over the white boards, like an abstract painting of speed and violence. Roy loved hockey, loved its rituals, too, like the way at the end of the warm-up every player circled back to the goal and tapped the goalie’s pads with his stick blade. Roy always tried to be the last one doing that, a superstition inside a superstition, and now he made an extra turn up ice before skating in alone. He raised his stick, gave Turk’s right pad a whack as he glided by.

  “Don’t let anybody get by you,” Turk said through his mask. “Got a hangover like you wouldn’t believe.”

  Just a little whack, not hard, but Roy felt a twinge in his left forearm. A twinge, nothing at all, easy to ignore, and getting nicked up was part of the game. But this twinge didn’t end up being easy to ignore; in fact, got worse as the game went along. It took away his shooting, his passing, even slowed down his skating. Lots of guys got by him. The Thongs lost by six or seven goals, pretty much all of them his fault. Had he ever played worse?

  Roy stayed on the ice after it was over, skating around by himself. Turk, clomping out last from the locker room, the huge goalie bag tugging him sideways, called over the boards, “You okay?”

  Roy nodded.

  “Coming to Waldo’s?”

  “Later.”

  But Roy went home instead. He had a good look at his arm: seemed fine, not even a bruise. He iced it, poured himself a drink, stared at the TV. After a while, he noticed that his answering machine was flashing.

  Roy checked it. “Richard Gold speaking. We’ve got conflicting stories here, Mr. Valois. I’ll need some documentation connecting your deceased wife to the institute you mentioned.” He left his home number.

  Documentation? Like what? Roy thought he remembered seeing Delia’s photo-ID card, and maybe some pay stubs as well, but all that was long gone, along with her clothes, favorite coffee mug, other things he’d held on to for a year or two, finally realizing they kept reminding him of death, not her.

  Roy called Gold, went into his voice mail. “What kind of documentation are you talking about? Delia worked for the Hobbes Institute, not the UN. That’s a fact. Not telling you how to do your job, but why not just call them? Her boss at the time was Tom Parish. Maybe he’s still there.”

  Roy took some Advil and went to bed. So tired, and wanting only to put his mind to sleep, to be without it for a few hours, but the ache in his arm kept him awake all night. In the morning he drove to the clinic at the base of the mountain. From the waiting room, he could see the tiny shapes of the first skiers of the day zigzagging down, trailing clouds of overnight powder. Tiny, distant shapes, but one was zigzagging in a way he thought he knew.

  He filled in forms, checking no to all those questions about past or current illnesses, as he’d always done in doctors’ offices. They X-rayed his forearm, front, back, sideways. Not long after, the doctor appeared and told Roy he’d broken his ulna.

  “Common nightstick fracture,” the doctor said, holding up the film. “See?”

  Roy said he saw.

  “Snowboarding?” said the doctor.

  “Hockey,” Roy said.

  “Rough game. Slashing? High-sticking?”

  “It wasn’t intentional,” Roy said.

  “Just above the glove,” the doctor said. “See it all the time.” He led Roy to the casting room. “Any special color?”

  Red, Roy thought: Delia’s favorite color. Where did that come from? He said: “No.”

  The doctor chose blue, wound Roy’s arm in a plaster cast that ended an inch below the elbow. “Clean break,” he said. “That’s the good news.”

  “And the bad news?” said Roy.

  The doctor blinked. “No bad news,” he said, “other than the fracture itself, which should heal nicely in six weeks. Come see me then.” The doctor saw some look on Roy’s face. “Don’t worry,” he said. “You’ll be back on the ice by spring.” He held out a vial. “These are for pain.”

  “No thanks,” said Roy.

  He stopped by the yard on his way home.

  “Hey,” said Murph. “What’s with the cast?”

  “Hockey,” Roy said. “Out six weeks.”

  “You puckheads,” said Murph. “Never know when to quit.”

  “Is that bad?” Roy said.

  “Huh?” said Murph.

  Roy glanced around the office. “Skippy here? He said something came in from a nuclear plant.”

  “That’s just my theory, the nuclear angle,” said Murph, pushing himself up from the desk. “But you can see for yourself.”

  “Skippy’s off today?”

  Murph snorted. “Fuckin’ moron. He’s off all right.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “They got the little wiseass down at the station,” Murph said. “Picked him up last night on a DUI.”

  “Is he okay?”

  “Hell, no. He’s driving his ma nuts. And then she drives me nuts.” They left the office, walked down the outside stairs, crossed the yard, frozen mud cracking under their boots. “She’s leaving him in the tank for a couple days,” Murph said, “maybe teach him a lesson.”

  “Is that a good idea?” Roy said.

  “You got a better one? The kid’s a loser.”

  Roy followed Murph past a mound of rusty barbecue kettles, a wrecked Escalade lying on its side, head-high rows of brass cloth. Murph pointed. “Whaddya think?”

  “No idea,” said Roy, gazing down at the thing: a highly polished silvery cone, about twenty feet long, topped by a much thinner cone, even shinier, that very gradually narrowed to a point. Roy read the word Candu, s
tenciled in red at the bottom. “How much for just that top part?” he said.

  Murph shrugged. “I don’t even know what the fuck it’s made of,” he said, running a horseshoe magnet over the metal.

  “A hundred bucks,” Roy said.

  “For a hundred bucks I’ll throw in Betty Lou,” Murph said; Betty Lou was his wife.

  Roy crouched down, touched the tip of the upper cone: very sharp, icy cold.

  He went home, the narrow cone in the bed of his pickup, his casted arm resting in his lap, still aching. Three messages on his machine, the first from Turk:

  “Didn’t see you at Waldo’s last night. Give me a call.”

  The second from Jen: “Hi, Roy. I dropped into the clinic today, just saying my good-byes. And I heard about your arm. You okay?”

  The third from Richard Gold: “Trying to confirm that name you cited, Delia’s—your former wife’s boss. Tom Parish? One r or two?”

  Roy listened to Jen’s message once more, maybe twice, but he didn’t return her call or any of the others. Instead he dragged the shiny cone to the center of the floor, not far from Delia, and just looked at it for a while. Sometimes he got ideas that way.

  Not now. The blurry image of a delicate, attenuated silence that had been in his mind refused to grow clearer. He pulled up a stool, got out his sketch pad and a soft pencil. Nothing happened at first. Roy was used to that, had learned patience in his work. No hurry: that was what he always told himself.

  The pencil began to move in that way it sometimes did, Roy following more than leading. The first few lines might have had something to do with the cone, attenuation, silence, but then they turned into a fluted pilaster, and another, four in all, with a double door between them and a pediment above. Roy was just finishing a set of broad, shallow stairs, when he realized what he had: the facade of the Hobbes Institute on Constitution Avenue.

  No more sketching happened after that. Silence withdrew completely.

  He went to the phone, called Richard Gold, again ended up in voice mail. Roy was one of those people not bothered by little frustrations, but now he heard his voice rising. “Tom Parish with one r. How hard can this be?”

  After that, he lay on the couch. Snow began to fall; he could see it through the skylights, the flakes appearing dark from that angle, dark and plummeting fast, as though propelled by tiny motors. He got his arm in a comfortable position, almost painless. His eyes closed.

  “This is fun!” Delia said.

  “Didn’t I tell you?” said Tom Parish. “Any more of that champagne, Roy?”

  Plenty, in the cooler on the deck of Bellissima, Tom’s thirty-two-foot powerboat, maybe thirty-five—Roy, an inlander, didn’t know much about boats. He grabbed a couple of cold bottles and went forward. Tom stood at the control console, the breeze ruffling his blond hair; Delia sat on the gunwale, an empty flute glass dangling in her hand. The boat wallowed in the swell, engines idling. Night, Chesapeake Bay, Fourth of July, fireworks erupting every few seconds from many points on the coastline. Roy popped a cork, poured champagne.

  “Salut,” said Tom.

  They drank. Delia gazed at the spectacle, all that blooming light reflected in her eyes. “It’s like—what’s it like, Roy?”

  Fireworks went off, pow pow pow, red white blue green, the whole blazing show bobbing on every wave in the water. Roy shook his head; too hard to describe.

  “I’ll tell you what it’s like,” said Tom, gazing into his glass for a moment, then draining it: “War at play.”

  Delia glanced over at Tom and laughed. Roy didn’t quite get it, but Tom was a brilliant guy.

  The phone was ringing. It sent an electric pulse across the room, a pulse aimed directly at the break in Roy’s arm. He got off the couch—the little action making him breathless for some reason—and answered it.

  “Roy? Freddy Boudreau here, down at the station. I wake you or something?”

  “Just watching TV,” Roy said.

  “Anyways,” said Freddy, “this kid here in the tank, says he works for you, and we don’t want to hold him or nothin’ but no one’s come to get him.”

  “Skippy?”

  “You got it.”

  Roy drove to the police station. Freddy stood at the counter in his blue uniform, Skippy on a chair behind him, staring at his knees.

  “What’s with the arm?” Freddy said.

  “Nicked it last night.”

  “In the game?”

  “Yeah.”

  “When did that happen?”

  Roy shrugged. “Didn’t notice at the time.”

  “You stud,” said Freddy. He jabbed his thumb back at Skippy. “True this numbnuts works for you?”

  “Skippy helps out sometimes,” Roy said.

  “He blew point-one-eight last night. Plus no insurance, and he had both taillights out, which was how come we pulled him over in the first place. Meaning he’s got a court date next month.”

  Skippy stared at his knees.

  “How much to bail him out?”

  “Nothin’,” said Freddy. “Just have to turn him over to a responsible adult.”

  “I’ll see who’s around,” Roy said.

  Freddy laughed. Roy walked Skippy out of the station.

  “Drop you off at your mom’s?” he said as they got in the pickup.

  Skippy shook his head.

  “Murph’s?”

  “He hates me.”

  “No, he doesn’t.”

  “Right,” said Skippy. He let out his breath, a long, resigned exhale, like a groan but softer. “Maybe just take me to Junior’s.”

  “Who’s Junior?”

  “This friend of mine. Lives near the bridge.”

  “What’s his last name?”

  “Cordero.”

  “Tell you what,” Roy said. “Stay in my spare room tonight. In the morning, you’ll have to work things out with your mom.” Roy knew some of the Corderos.

  Skippy nodded, a very slight movement. He smelled pretty bad.

  The phone woke Roy in the morning.

  “This is Dr. Honey.” So many doctors recently, Roy had trouble placing him at first. “Dr. Chu, the colleague at Hopkins I mentioned, has agreed to see you. No absolute guarantee he’ll include you in his study, but I urge you to get to Baltimore as soon as possible.”

  “I, uh…” Roy, for some reason suddenly wanting to tell Dr. Honey all about his broken arm, barely stopped himself.

  “Any questions?”

  “No,” said Roy. “Just—thanks.”

  “I’ll transfer you to my assistant,” said Dr. Honey. “She’ll fill you in on the details.”

  Dr. Honey’s assistant filled Roy in. He took notes. Then he went down the hall, looked in the guest room. Skippy was sleeping on the bare mattress, still fully dressed, boots and all; the sheets Roy had given him lay folded on the bedside table.

  “Time to get up,” Roy said.

  No reaction.

  “Your mom’s probably—”

  The phone rang again. Roy went into the big room. The early-morning sun, bright and silvery, made sparkles on Delia, nudging the Fourth of July dream into Roy’s conscious mind. He picked up the phone.

  “Mr. Valois? Richard Gold. I’ll need information on Tom Parish.”

  “One r,” said Roy. “Don’t you check your messages?”

  “I got that,” Gold said. “But I was hoping for a little more.”

  “For Christ sake,” Roy said. “Is this the way your paper handles everything? Delia worked for the Hobbes Institute. Tom Parish was her boss. He recruited her, in fact.”

  “From where?”

  “The State Department,” Roy said. “But she hadn’t been there more than a few months and I don’t see how—”

  “Did she have any military training?” Gold said.

  “Military training?” Roy said. “Of course not. She was an economist—with a PhD from Georgetown and a job at the Hobbes Institute. Period.”

  “It’s not tha
t simple,” Gold said. “The problem is—” Roy heard commotion in the background. “Hang on a second,” Gold said.

  Roy hung on. He heard soft muffled sounds, then a little crash, as though a glass had fallen. After that, nothing. “Mr. Gold?” Fifteen or twenty seconds went by. Then came a click, followed by the dial tone. “What the hell?” he said.

  Roy called back. Voice mail. “Forget the whole thing,” he said. “Write whatever you want.” What difference did it make?

  Seven

  Roy and Skippy met Skippy’s mom in the parking lot at Dunkin’ Donuts. Skippy’s mom sat in the passenger seat of a van with painted-over lettering on the side. The man behind the wheel was eating a pink glazed doughnut, the only color on a dark day.

  “Who’s that?” Roy said.

  “The boyfriend,” said Skippy. “The new one.”

  The new boyfriend had a bushy white mustache. Roy parked beside the van. Everybody looked at everybody but no one made a move. The new boyfriend also had strong jaw muscles. They bulged as he chewed on the doughnut. Roy got out of the pickup, walked over to Skippy’s mom’s door.

  Her window slid down, about halfway. Roy could see nothing of Skippy in her face. “Hi,” he said. “I’m Roy.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Skippy’s mom.

  “I’ll be away on business for a few days,” Roy said. “It’ll be a big help if Skippy could stay at my place, take care of things.”

  Skippy’s mom glanced at the boyfriend. Some sort of silent communication passed between them. Skippy’s mom turned back to Roy. “You payin’ him?” she said.

  “Yes.”

  She thought about that. The boyfriend’s jaw muscles bulged. “How much?” Skippy’s mom said.

  “That’s up to Skippy to tell you,” Roy said.

  “Huh?” said the boyfriend.

  Skippy’s mom looked past Roy at Skippy, sitting in the pickup. He had earphones on, was gazing straight ahead, eyes blank.

  “Yeah, okay,” said Skippy’s mom. She gave Roy a hard stare. “But when he screws up don’t come cryin’ to me.”