by Dan Chaon
“Oh,” Jonah said, wincing a little to hear Vivian use such vulgarity. He paused cautiously. “You don’t like them?”
“I hate them,” Vivian said decisively. “But I guess that a customer is a customer.”
“Yes,” Jonah said, but he was a bit taken aback, shocked to see the warmth she had directed toward the two women fall away so quickly when she turned her back. Perhaps he had misjudged her, he thought.
He liked Vivian a great deal. In the beginning, there was a kindliness about her that he had found completely disarming. He had been so nervous—everything about what he was doing seemed fraught with risk and recklessness, but she had greeted him as if he were a dear nephew, as if she had been waiting for his arrival. Sitting in the basement across from her as she looked at his application, he had been surprised by how welcome he felt. She read over the application as if he were a child who had shown her a wonderful report card. “I’m just speechless,” she exclaimed, and smiled up at him, looking at his face, at his eyes, and seeming not to notice his scars. She reminded him of the kind of old lady children encountered in books about fantastical adventures: eccentric and wise and gentle. He liked her gilt-edged teeth and the glasses that hung over her large bosom on a beaded chain, the turquoise-and-silver ring on her pinkie. It was easy to feel that she honestly liked him, that she saw something wonderful about him that no one had ever noticed, and when she asked him why he’d wanted to leave Chicago, why he’d want to settle down in “a little hick town” like St. Bonaventure, he’d wanted to open up to her.
“I guess,” he said, “I wanted to start a new life.” She nodded as if she understood completely, and Jonah felt as if he owed something further to her sympathetic, expectant silence.
“I was in a car accident,” Jonah said, almost without hesitation. And then: “It’s not something I generally talk about. My wife—” he said, in a soft, steady voice. “She was pregnant, and she died.”
“Oh, my lord,” said Vivian, and she reached across her desk and put her palm firmly over the back of his hand. “I’m so sorry,” she said.
He didn’t know why he’d done this, and he’d wished immediately that he could take it back. “I don’t like to talk about it,” he said. “I shouldn’t have said anything—if it could just stay . . . between us, I’d appreciate it.”
“Oh, of course,” she said. “Just between us,” and her eyes rested on him warm and damp and sad, as she patted his hand.
Now some of this fell away: that warm, storybook grandmother quality he’d projected onto her. Now he began to worry that he’d been foolish, and he wished that he hadn’t said anything, truthful or not. Vivian seemed to sense his nervousness.
“I’m sorry,” she said, and he was aware of that knowing, bright-eyed warmth being turned on, like a switch being flipped. “I don’t mean to be mean,” she said, confiding gently. Then she whispered: “It’s just that there are some people in this town that rub me the wrong way.”
“I understand,” Jonah said. He thought for a moment, watching as one of the women tucked her hair behind her ears with a quick, nervous stab of her long fingernails. “Are they friends . . . of Troy’s?”
“Oh God, no,” Vivian said. She looked over her shoulder, back to where Troy was still conversing with Rona and Barb. “I’m sure they’d like to be, but I think even Troy has better sense than to have anything to do with that pair. They’re just regulars, and he entertains them,” she said. “And he’s a good bartender in that way—a good bullshitter.”
“Oh,” Jonah said.
“I don’t mean that as a put-down either,” Vivian said, and gave him a soft smile. “Troy’s had his problems, but, you know, he’s worked for me for a long time. He doesn’t have a lot of common sense, I sometimes think, but he’s got a good heart, unlike about ninety-nine percent of them out there. I tell you, I’ve really felt for him lately. It’s a shame, that’s what I think. Here you have a rare man who really loves his child, is just about dying to be involved in his child’s life, and of course! Of course, he’s denied visitation rights. Then there’s some deadbeat dad like that case over in Cheyenne—he leaves his wife and children and runs off for five years, and then the courts are falling all over themselves to make arrangements to protect his rights as a father. It makes me sick, the way this country is run.”
“Yes,” Jonah said. He tightened his fingers. She was different from what he’d thought. He knew it now, but he also saw that she was a great potential source of information. He knew also that he shouldn’t trust her. But if he could just ask the right questions without seeming too eager, too suspiciously curious about Troy, she would be useful.
“So, “ he said casually. “I didn’t know Troy was married.”
“Oh, he’s not anymore,” Vivian said. She looked over her shoulder again, as if checking to make sure Troy wasn’t listening. “Poor guy,” she said. “He’s separated from the mother—she’s out in Las Vegas. Drugs, you know. But they were married once, which is getting to be pretty unusual around this town, I have to say. About half of these girls nowadays have babies with two or three different fathers, and every one of the children a bastard. Of course, they don’t use that word anymore, in that sense, like they used to. And I don’t think they should—stigmatize the child, I mean. But in my day, girls like that got sent out of town. To homes,” she said pointedly.
“Yes,” Jonah said, and he thought of the Mrs. Glass House, his mother, pregnant with Troy, sitting in a room. She had never spoken of it directly, except to clench her teeth at the memory. They took him away, and gave him to a nice mommy and daddy.
“So,” Jonah said. “Where’s the child now? What happened to him?”
But Vivian looked at him as if she had drifted in her mind to another conversation entirely. “Who’s that?” she said.
“Troy’s son. Where is he now?”
“Oh,” Vivian said, and shrugged a little, as if she didn’t like to gossip. “Loomis? He’s with the grandmother now. Why do you ask?”
“No reason,” Jonah said casually. He had to be careful, he reminded himself. “I’m just, I don’t know, I like kids.” He looked down, cutting up limes for the bar, and he hoped that his silence would remind Vivian of his imaginary pregnant wife, who had died in the same car accident that had left him scarred.
It did, he thought. She, too, was silent for a time. “Well,” she said, and they both gazed out uncertainly toward where Troy was tending the bar. They watched as he paused and reached down briefly, running his fingers lightly down his calf, touching his anklet.
17
October 8, 1996
On Tuesdays, Troy rode through the streets of St. Bonaventure in a truck. Beautifying things. Sometimes he would be taken to a county-owned facility—the bathroom of a rest stop on the interstate, for example—to scrub the foul, puerile, desperate graffiti off the surface of a stall with a wire brush; or he would walk along the edge of the highway, in a Day-Glo vest, carrying a litter pick and a plastic trash bag. Last week he had spent the day standing on a ladder underneath a railroad bridge, sandblasting a spray-painted declaration: “Jim loves Athena,” letter by letter.
This was his “community service” day, his day off from the Stumble Inn. Lisa Fix had arranged for him to have the worst possible job—her revenge for his refusing the Department of Mental Retardation thing she’d offered in the beginning. At seven in the morning he arrived to give a blood and urine sample, and then he stood silently in his vest and coveralls with other men of his ilk—drunk drivers and disorderlies, wife beaters and child abusers, writers of bad checks—all of them waiting to be carried off to their penance. He was grateful, at least, that there was little talk among them. It was like a doctor’s waiting room. They stood there in the parking lot in a group, their heads bowed, and a supervisor would pull up. In groups of twos or fours they would be borne away.
His partner that day was a man he knew slightly: J. J. Fowler. They did not exactly acknowledge each othe
r, though there had been a quick, significant exchange of glances as they stood together in the chill morning air, waiting, and there was another when they were selected, together, for the dead truck. For the next eight hours, they would drive around and scoop up the remains of roadkill animals: cats, dogs, squirrels, possums, skunks, raccoons, the occasional deer. It was perhaps the dirtiest job of the lot, but Troy and J.J. said nothing as they got into the truck, where a probation worker sat blandly behind the wheel.
Once upon a time, J.J. had been a regular Friday night customer at the Stumble Inn, and a monthly consumer of Troy’s marijuana—and, occasionally, ’shrooms. They used to have pleasant, casual conversations, but as they trundled forward in the truck, Troy said nothing, and J.J. stared ahead through the windshield. Troy didn’t know what J.J.’s crime had been—it might be anything, he thought—but they were not the same people they once were. Here was a tabby cat, a tire tread clearly visible down its middle. They got out of the truck, and J.J. used a push broom to slide the stiffened corpse into the large-mouthed shovel that Troy held. J.J. gazed at him elusively but said nothing as Troy dumped the cat into the back of the truck. It was about eight-thirty in the morning.
He had been thinking a lot about Carla lately.
The last time they had heard from her was a day in late April, when she called to talk to Loomis for a minute. It had been almost painful to watch the way the child’s face lit up, the bright eyes and wide grin, the shy, soft way he’d said “Hi, Mommy,” flushed with pleasure. Troy stood there, leaning against the door frame, listening as Loomis spoke bashfully into the receiver, still not adept at phone conversation. “Yeah,” Loomis said, listening intently. “Uh-huh . . . uh-huh . . . okay,” and Troy wondered what she was telling him, to make him glow like that.
But when Loomis had finally relinquished the phone back to Troy, her voice was dull and, he thought, a bit slurred. “I’m not going to be able to call again for a while,” she said.
“Well,” Troy said, “it’s not like you’ve been calling regularly. He misses you, you know.”
“Fuck you, Troy,” she said. “Don’t you think I know that? Don’t try to make me feel like an asshole.”
“I’m not,” he said, and he frowned hard, listening to the sound of people talking loudly in the background—a bar, perhaps, or a party. “Carla,” he said. “Listen, I’ll send you one of those credit card things—you know, like you get from the phone company? You can charge the frigging calls to my number, I don’t care.”
She was silent. Over the phone lines, he could hear people near her laughing. Very drunk.
“I’ll send you some money,” he said. “Do you need money?”
She didn’t say anything.
“Give me an address,” he said, and after a long pause, she murmured a P.O. box number, a Las Vegas zip code.
“I’ve got to go,” she said, flatly. And then, for a second, her voice softened. “Thank you,” she said.
That was six months ago. The check he had sent—three hundred dollars—had been cashed, but the phone card had never been used. In June, he’d sent another check to the P.O. box, this time for only a hundred. Even in the midst of his arrest and parole, he’d kept a close watch on his bank account, waiting for the canceled check with her signature on the back. It never came.
Recently, the thought had begun to come to him that she might be dead. Despite every screwed-up thing she was, he still believed that she loved Loomis, and he found it hard to fathom her silence. She would have called, he thought. She would have called. And then it occurred to him, a cold, misty breath of premonition: She was dead. She was dead, a voice in his mind murmured, and no one had bothered to contact him or her mother. Was that possible? He tried to tell himself that it wasn’t, but the thought dogged him, and he found that it returned, unwelcome, at various times during the day. He had even thought to ask Lisa Fix if there were some government agency that might be contacted, some data storehouse that had a record of such things.
But he was afraid to pursue it. He leaned his head against the passenger window of the truck, trying to block the image of her dead face from his mind. Murdered maybe, strangled or bludgeoned. Or, more likely, a drug overdose.
He couldn’t help but picture it. Her skin would be gray, of course, unnaturally pale, but still it would be her. Her arms and legs flung out, casually, luxuriously, the way she used to lay when she was in bed beside him. Troy used to love to watch her sleep—the lovely abandon of it. Whereas Troy tended to curl up into a corner, knees pulled up, arms tucked around his chest, Carla liked to sprawl. Her sleeping pose was like a cheerleader, frozen in mid-leap, like someone falling backward into water. She would smile in her sleep, her mouth slightly open. That was what he loved the most, that blissful look she had, the way, when he lightly touched her face, her tongue moved across her lips.
God, he thought, she’d been beautiful.
He was thinking of this as they drove past the street where Judy Keene, and Loomis, lived. He lifted his head and watched regretfully as the green crossroads sign drifted past. They didn’t pause, but he felt the street hanging behind him. He imagined for a moment that they would drive past, and Loomis would be standing in the yard, playing. Then he remembered that Loomis was in school. In kindergarten.
He had been working on a letter, since Judy would not allow him phone calls, and he considered this again as they passed her street, driving on. Dear Mrs. Keene, he had written.
Dear Mrs. Keene,
I realize there are many good reasons why you have been reluctant to allow Loomis to have contact with me, and I respect that you want to protect him from harm. I know I have done some bad and illegal things in my life. But as Loomis’s father, I am writing this note to beg you to find it in your heart to allow me to speak to him, even if this is under your strict supervision. I love Loomis very much, and although I know I have made mistakes I only want what is best for him. Could you find it in your heart to allow me a brief visitation? Or even to talk to him on the phone? There was once a time when Carla didn’t want you to have contact with him, and I could have kept you from ever seeing him, but I didn’t. If you were to do me the same courtesy, I would be very grateful.
Yours truly,
Troy Timmens
P.S.: I am very worried about Carla, and if you have heard anything about her whereabouts, it would mean a lot to me if you could let me know. If you don’t want to contact me directly, you can leave a message with my parole officer, Lisa Fix at 255-9988. Please, Mrs. Keene, I am Loomis’s father and I love him. Have mercy on me.
He hadn’t sent this letter, though he’d gone over it several times, uncertainly. Did it seem contrite enough? Did it seem unthreatening? Did it seem maudlin, like something a drunk would write? If it were presented in a court of law, as evidence of harassment, how would a jury judge it? He wasn’t sure, and so he held on to it, propping the envelope between the salt and pepper shakers on the kitchen table, unsealed and unstamped. Considering.
It couldn’t be possible, he thought, that they had the power to separate him permanently from his own child. It couldn’t be possible that Judy would have more claim to the boy than Troy, the child’s own father, would have. But no one seemed willing to address this—not Lisa Fix, who was noncommittal; not his lawyer, Schriffer, who assured him that everything would work out but who hadn’t returned his calls in almost a month; certainly not Judy Keene herself. He suspected that she was the one who had called the police in the first place, even while they were staking out Jonathan Sandstrom. He remembered again the night Loomis had come into the kitchen while he and Lonnie Von Vleet were sitting there, how Loomis had complained of the smell of smoke. He could picture Judy Keene smelling it on his clothes, and Loomis innocently answering her questions, telling her about his dad’s water pipe, about the people who came to the house late at night.
Sitting there in the truck, he blushed fiercely. What an idiot he’d been. What an idiot!
——<
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At four in the afternoon, when he was released at last from community service, he found himself wondering again if there was enough time to drive past Judy Keene’s house.
After he’d called the monitoring service and given them his number, he had ten minutes to get back home. There might be enough time, if barely, to take the long way around.
He had almost done this a couple of times before, but he always lost his nerve. It was extremely dangerous. He would have to drive a little faster than the speed limit, putting him at risk if any cops were waiting, hidden in alleys or behind bushes, in the little speed traps that everyone knew dotted the town, and fed it. He would have to chance the possibility that Judy herself would see him, and report him.
He knew that he would go to jail if he was caught violating the conditions of his parole. The supposed “good deal” that Schriffer had gotten for him would be moot, and the judge would be free to sentence him to prison. Two, even five years. It was a stupid risk to take.
But it was hard to think clearly. He had spent the day brooding about Carla and Loomis and all the ordinary freedoms that he’d once taken for granted. His head was fuzzy with so many thoughts, so many thoughts that led to dead ends and cul-de-sacs.
He pulled out of the County Department of Roads and onto Highway 31, which, at the city limits, became Euclid. He continued east, past the long-bankrupt Bonaventure Motor Lodge, with its old sign that promised LOWEST RATES COLOR TV, past the little side street where the old, abandoned Zike’s Roller Rink and the Stumble Inn were facing each other, each moldering in its own way. He made it through the two traffic lights without having to wait, and then came at last to a red light on Old Oak Boulevard, where, if he were going home, he would turn south.
It had been four minutes. He hesitated for a second when the light changed, thinking no, you shouldn’t do this. And then he accelerated, headed forward, his heart beating fast. He stared at the digital clock on his dashboard, watching the numbers as they pulsed. What did he have in mind? There was the idea that he’d be able to see Loomis, if only briefly, that Loomis would be standing in the yard in front of Judy’s house, swinging a stick distractedly, talking to himself as he liked to do, perhaps wandering along the sidewalk, caught up in some pretend game. And at the moment that Troy drove by, he would look up.
