Unloaded

by Eric Beetner

  “Hello?”

  “Ma’am, we received report of a break-in on the premises. If you’ll come outside we’d like to have a look around.”

  I squeeze the hammer in my hand. Hope I don’t have to use it.

  “They were mistaken,” she says. “The church sent a man to work on my fence, and my front door sticks in this weather.”

  “Can we speak to this man?”

  I duck my head under the rafters, and slip behind the old boiler.

  “Well, he said he needed some tools,” she says. “He won’t be back for a while. You’re welcome to wait if you’d like. I’m making tunafish.”

  “We’re gonna look around if you don’t mind.”

  “No, you’re not,” she says. “I haven’t tidied up and I don’t want anyone going through my house. Everything is all right, except for my neighbors and their overactive imaginations.”

  “Ma’am—”

  “I may be old, but I still have my marbles,” she says. “Thank you for coming so quickly. You can wait for him on the porch if you like.”

  Teacher voice works on police, too. They don’t wait.

  When I come up the stairs, she’s on the porch glaring at the house next door. Where I saw the curtains move.

  “You’re not the first fellow I’ve known who needed to keep a low profile,” she says, pleased with herself. She folds her little hands like a frightened dove in her lap.

  The curtains move in the window next door, as I go back to work.

  I tack down the rug for her, and fix the cracked door jamb with some scrap wood from my truck. I dig up a big section of fence, and break a good sweat bending it so it’ll fit in the truck bed. I collect the concrete too, fill in the post holes and pack them down. Even string up some orange tape where the piece was. I take Remy for a walk, clean up her mess, and feed her dog chow in a hubcap, and wet it down with the hose. She wags her uncut tail so hard it whips my leg. She whines when I put her back in the truck, even with the windows down.

  When I’m mopping my face and packing away my tools, a black German car pulls into the driveway next door. Bald man gets out, wearing a suit, carrying a white hard hat. He narrows his eyes and walks to the edge of his property, looking from my truck to the fence and back.

  “She finally getting that thing replaced? I offered to do it, but you can’t tell her anything.”

  I keep loading my truck.

  “You know what they say,” he says. “Good fences make good neighbors.”

  I shrug to him.

  He frowns as I head inside.

  Mrs. Kolb has a plate piled high with little tunafish sandwiches on white bread, all cut into triangles. Horn music wails from her record player.

  She sits on a wicker chair. Pours yellow tea into fancy cups. She offers me a seat, but if I took it, it would end up a bunch of toothpicks.

  “My new neighbors started a homeowner’s association,” she says. “They’re all against me. My house is a little dilapidated, but I’ve lived here since I was born. And I’m not going anywhere until I drop dead.” She breathes in the steam from her tea.

  I smell mine, too. Toasty.

  “It’s green tea,” she says.

  I take a sip. It tastes like old paper. I tell her.

  She laughs. “Yes, it does.”

  Her tunafish is good. It’s got pickles in it, and celery, and spices. Makes up for the weird tea. When I’m half through the plate, a skinny little woman opens the front door without knocking.

  “Mrs. Kolb?” She’s got her hair tied back and her elbows look sharp enough to draw blood. She runs to the table on pointy little shoes. “Mrs. Kolb! I came as soon as I heard. The police?”

  “Yes, someone mistook my handyman for a burglar,” Mrs. Kolb says. “Denny. This is Carmela.”

  “Denny,” Carmela says. She offers me her hand and I hold it gentle. Her skin feels soft as a rich man’s wallet. Her shirt’s cut real low. I don’t look at it.

  “That must’ve been the Entwhistles, they’re such pains in the patoot,” Carmela says.

  “You mean ass,” Mrs. Kolb says. “Pains right in the ass.”

  “Oh, Mrs. Kolb.” Carmela covers her mouth like she’s embarrassed but she ain’t. I can tell people. I watch them all the time, and they treat me like I’m a rock or a tree. Or at least as dumb as one.

  “Denny saved my life,” Mrs. Kolb says. “I tripped over my rug like a fool, and nearly broke my neck on the stairs.”

  “I told you not to go up there, you can always call me.”

  “But my best books are up there. I won’t ring you every time I want to read a passage from James Baldwin or Willa Cather.”

  “I’m going to fix that rug right now,” Carmela says.

  “Denny did already.”

  Carmela squeezes my arm and her nails poke my biceps. Leave little crescents. “Look at you, I bet you can lift the whole house! Well, let me check. You can’t be too careful. My mother lived to be ninety-nine, and I took care of her every day.”

  Carmela stretches her face into a smile and bends to put an arm around Mrs. Kolb’s shoulder. “She’s such a sweetheart, isn’t she, Denny?”

  Talking to people makes me more tired than any kind of work. I nod, when I remember this is one of the questions they expect you to answer. She shifts her hips as she walks up the stairs. Pauses halfway to see if I’m looking.

  I’m happy to get back to my junkyard that night. Mr. Matos pays good for the section of fence. I buy big bags of dog food to fill up the bins. Then I meet Ike for dinner at the park. This time Sandy gives us fried fish and remembers to give me lots of little containers of hot sauce.

  “How’s that old lady?” Ike says, smearing a slab of catfish with tartar sauce.

  I tell him she’s nice and makes good sandwiches.

  “Come on, Big Man. I know you don’t like talking, but tell me about her.”

  I tell him about the music playing, how her hands are soft and kind, like a grandma’s.

  “What kind of music?”

  Shrug.

  “Well, ask her what it is next time. For me.”

  I tell him I’ll try to remember.

  As I sit with the dogs and watch them play and tussle in the moonlight, I’m just happy Mrs. Kolb’s not mean like old Miss Stacey. The Good Ones had her babysit me, when they went out some nights. That was when the mean came out.

  Quit being so rambunctious. Fetch me the remote, Retard.

  If I didn’t, she knew just where to pinch and twist. Her yellow fingernails sharp as claws.

  I knew not to hit back. She was big and old and mean, but she was still a girl.

  When the Good Ones came to pick me up, Miss Stacey grabbed me by the ear. Said if I snitched, she’d tell the police I hit her, and they’d take me away.

  I should’ve told on her. They took me away anyway.

  The next morning I show up early, and try to give Mrs. Kolb twenty dollars from the salvage yard.

  “Oh no you don’t,” she says. “That’s yours. You earned it.”

  She takes slices of white bread and cuts a hole in the middle with a glass, then fries it in a pan with butter and cracks an egg right in the middle. “Egg in a nest,” she calls it, and sprinkles salt and pepper on them from shakers shaped like little Chinese cats. She keeps the yolks runny and when we dunk our little circles of bread in it, the yellow spills out thick as paint.

  When it’s late enough for me to make noise, I start digging up the rest of the tangled fence. It’s good hard work. I get another section in the truck, one of the small ones that don’t need bending. The metal’s shaped into leaves and acorns, and it’s a shame it went to rust.

  “I hope you don’t mind tunafish again,” she says. She’s got the music loud, horns again. Her eyes look grayed over. “The church only takes me grocery shopping once a week. I buy cans because who knows when they’ll abandon me. They want to take my house and stic
k me in a loony bin.”

  I listen to the record, and eat the sandwiches. Ask her who’s playing.

  “Oh, you like it? When I was younger, I went to jazz clubs. Newark was known for jazz, you know. My love for the music scandalized my family, I have quite a collection.” She stretches out her arm to point at her shelves, like she’s wearing a fancy dress instead of an old housecoat. “I could renovate the house if I could bear to part with them, but as you can see, I never toss away a book or a record, even the ones I didn’t much care for.”

  She asks what music I like, and I don’t really know. I like what she’s playing, even though it’s got no words. I like what Sandy plays, and that’s almost all words. And I like the old songs Ike sings to himself in the park.

  “I’ll play you my favorite.” She shuffles to the record player. Lifts the needle and removes the black disc real careful, then replaces it with another one.

  A smiling bald man is on the cover, holding a gold trumpet. Big glasses, big beard. “Moody Joe Shaw,” she says, and her eyes light up. “He was the best to come out of Newark. Still is. I went to all his gigs. He was hot stuff.”

  Horns flutter like birds out of the speakers. It’s real pretty, and she closes her eyes and smiles, holding the record cover close, dancing with it slow.

  “This is his best, in my opinion. ‘They Call Me the Jive Bomber.’ I’ve got every record he ever played on.” She’s got a whole wall of records. The shelves are bowed under their weight. “Joe got around,” she says. “Played solo, as sideman, and also a studio musician.”

  We listen to them until she falls asleep in her chair, and I go back to work.

  A city truck pulls up an hour or so later. Older fella with a belly on him gets out, puts a hardhat on, starts talking about permits. I say I don’t have one, and he tells me I have to stop working. But I’m almost done with that section, so I just keep at it. The curtains next door open a crack.

  I look right at them as I bend a section in two and toss it in my truck.

  I tell Ike about the inspectors, and he says he’ll pass it along to the deacon.

  “So, what the lady say about music?”

  Shrug. I tell him about Moody Joe Shaw, and all her records.

  “He was the best, Big Man. The king of hot jazz, decades before his time. Had a photographic memory. I knew it,” Ike says, smiling at the ducks circling in the lake. “I knew it. She have any children?”

  Shrug again.

  “Well, ask her.”

  Saturday I show up later. I like her eggs, but people like to sleep in, and I don’t want more complaints. I drive by the intersection up the block to see if that city truck’s there. It’s clear, so I pull into her driveway.

  I don’t hear her music, and it sets me on edge. The windows are closed, but it was chilly last night. I rap on the door. Then I smell it.

  The stink of gas.

  I bust her door open again and get a face full of it. I leave the door open wide. Five steps in, I feel like I fought twelve rounds. Can’t breathe.

  I yank the windows open and call her name. I don’t know where she sleeps. I check every room. The house shakes as I hit the stairs three at a time. A picture rattles off the wall. The smell’s worse up here.

  Upstairs I find her in bed with her mouth open. I shake the bed hard but she don’t wake. The window’s open a crack. I slam it open and the pane cracks like lightning.

  My heart hammers at my ears. I try to think how they make someone breathe on TV. I carry her downstairs into fresh air. Cradling her like a baby, my hand trembles. Then I slap her. Light as I can.

  She wakes with a snort. Stares at me, confused.

  “Joe? You came back.”

  She reaches up to stroke my face. Her fingers are cold like raindrops, tracing my cheek, then up, circling in my dent, like Mama used to do.

  “Don’t leave me,” she says.

  I hold her a while, like that. Until she gets some good air in.

  “Denny,” she says. “How’d you get here?” Her eyes are wet with tears. I hold her until she stops shaking.

  Inside, I turn off the stove. Mrs. Kolb looks around like someone switched the world around on her. I’m glad when Carmela knocks on the door.

  “I must’ve left the oven on, but I don’t remember using it,” Mrs. Kolb says. She’s drinking tea with honey for her throat.

  “Maybe you brushed it.”

  “For supper, I ate matzo crackers with butter and jelly, I had no reason to even be near the stove.”

  “I’m sorry to say it, Myra, but maybe you ought to consider what the deacon talked about,” Carmela says.

  “I want to die in my own home,” Mrs. Kolb says. Her eyes go hard.

  “Oh don’t talk like that.” Carmela waves a hand. “You’re spry!”

  “I’ve watched too many friends go, hooked up to some machine. That’s not living.”

  “Have you…have you heard the voices again?” Carmela puts a hand on her shoulder. Her nails flash red.

  Mrs. Kolb looks at the spots on her knuckles. The papery skin. “I know they’re not real.”

  “But you hear them?”

  “As long as I don’t listen to them, I’m not a loony bird!” Mrs. Kolb’s teacup rattles in the saucer.

  I get two sections of fence in the truck this time, tying them down with straps. The deacon pulls up in his old Buick, comes out with a sack of groceries. He smiles as I sweat, buckling the straps tight. His suit’s loose on him, and he favors his right leg.

  “Heard the neighbors caused trouble.” He glares at the house where the bald man lives. “Some people just have no charity. Mrs. Kolb’s a good woman. When she passes, this land goes to the church. Long as we put a school on it. That doesn’t sit too well with her neighbors. I’ll go down and talk to the inspectors tomorrow morning.”

  The scrap money burns in my pocket. I take some of it, not all of it, and hand it to the deacon.

  The deacon takes a twenty, and closes my hand. “You’re a good man, Denny. I’ll put this in the poor box for you.” He walks toward the house.

  I ask him if Mrs. Kolb has any family.

  “Just us, Denny. Keep an eye on her, won’t you?”

  I tell him I will.

  The longest section of fence is caught up with tree roots, and the scrap yard’s closed by the time I’m done. Mrs. Kolb asks me to stay for dinner. The sun’s gone down and I know I missed Ike, so I stay.

  The deacon brought ham steak and she fries it up with a can of white potatoes and green beans. She makes me watch her turn off the gas, then check the pilot lights.

  We eat at the empty dining room table and it makes her happy. She puts her favorite record on again. “Do you want to dance?”

  I tell her I don’t know how, and she says that don’t matter. She puts my hands on her waist. It’s not really dancing, we’re just stepping in a circle, but she smiles like a young girl. I pick her up by the waist and spin her around, and she laughs, and I wonder if Sandy will get jealous of me slow dancing with an old white woman. When the song’s over I set her down in her chair.

  “Denny, I want to ask you a favor,” she says. “I feel silly asking this, but…would you stay after dinner a while? It’s those voices. I swear, if you tell me you don’t hear them, I’ll check myself into the loony bin.”

  I take the dog leash out of my pocket.

  “Yes, go walk that sweet little dog of yours. You can bring her inside, you know.”

  I tell her I don’t want Remy to get rambunctious.

  “Oh, I’m sure she’ll behave.”

  I bring some ham to Remy, and give her a good long walk around the neighborhood by the park, away from the houses, so I don’t cause trouble. The leaves are falling, and Remy plows through the piles, chasing them.

  Miss Stacey’s in my head again. I couldn’t lay a hand on her. Couldn’t snitch. But I had to get away. My legs ache behind my knee, where her na
ils used to pinch me. Pain usually don’t bother me. I just go somewhere else, talk to Mama. But Miss Stacey’s meanness made Mama’s face fade away.

  You’re so stupid your mama killed herself to be done with you.

  I knew I was gonna do something bad, like I’d done before.

  Miss Stacey had a dog mean as she was. A fat barrel of white curly fur, all yellow around its black teddy bear eyes. Caesar would snap when anyone but her got close. Miss Stacey would throw a stinky wet tennis ball for him to chase. Dog didn’t even play fetch. Anyone but Miss Stacey tried to take that ball, he’d bite down hard on the tender meat between finger and thumb.

  But like I said, pain don’t hurt me. Not like other people say it does. You get enough pain, and it’s like the heat or the rain. Something you can’t do nothing about, so you just work through it.

  He got fed the dinner the Good Folks left for me.

  That kind of hurt’s hard to work through.

  A police car rolls through the park, sweeping its spotlight. It turns my way like one white eye. Remy perks up her tail.

  I bolt for the trees.

  The engine roars. Remy matches my stride like it’s a game. Cutting across the roads, around the bridges. Blue lights flash through the trees. I know this park, but the lake in the middle makes it tough to cross. And there’s never just one police.

  I go places cars can’t go. Get them going in circles until they stop and shine their lights through the trees. Parole officer once told me I had low cunning. Ike says that’s the best kind.

  We make it up a dirt trail to the bridge over Bloomfield Avenue. Other side of the street, there’s people lined up at a hotdog truck. Woman’s got a shark gray pitbull on a leash.

  Her dog perks and smiles across the street.

  So does Remy. She bolts for him, through traffic.

  Then I’m running. Tires squeal as stomp their brakes, horns blare as they dodge me. I hunker low to grab Remy’s leash. Blue lights blind me and something hard crunches against my arm. Cop car’s in front of me, mirror dangling.