“You fix this car up like this?” Leonard said. “Or is it some kind of punishment you got to bear?”
“This sonofabitch can outrun the Concorde,” Jim Bob said.
“But does it stay on the ground?” Leonard asked.
“Sometimes,” Jim Bob said.
“Jim Bob,” Leonard said. “Thy middle name is class.”
“Veil ride down with you guys?” I asked.
“Nope,” Charlie said. “I called him, and he just sort of showed up at the jailhouse in Mexico. How long you known that guy?”
“Long enough,” I said. “I don’t see him that often, but trust me, he’s aces with me.”
“Seems it’s the same with him,” Charlie said. “I called him like you said, said you were in trouble, and he didn’t even wait to find out what kind of trouble. He said, Yes, and where is he?”
“He’s kind of an asshole, actually,” Leonard said. “But he’s an asshole worth having on your side.”
“You’re an asshole,” Charlie said.
“I know,” Leonard said.
“You too,” Charlie said to me.
“I know.”
“Don’t even say it, Charlie,” Jim Bob said.
21
WE ARRIVED in LaBorde just after dark, dropped Leonard off at John’s house. When John opened the door he let out a yell. They embraced. With his arm around John’s shoulders, Leonard turned and waved at us. John waved too. As they went inside a shape low to the ground came out of the dark, waddled into the light.
Bob the armadillo. The critter followed them inside while Leonard held the door open.
“Now that’s weird,” Jim Bob said.
“His name is Bob,” I said. “He likes vanilla cookies, slow walks in the rain, and he doesn’t carry leprosy like many armadillos.”
Through the open door I could see warm yellow light and there was the sound of classical music playing.
Leonard closed the door.
I rolled up the window and we rode on.
My place was dark as a hit man’s plans. Even in the dead of summer, it looked cold. When I got out of the car—the Red Bitch, Jim Bob called it—I could smell the stench of charred wood from the apartment below. Upstairs, where I lived, seemed like the place where a body ought to be laid out on a cooling board. My pickup was parked in the yard. No one had stolen it. No insurance money for me. No new transportation. Just this piece of shit.
“You guys don’t stay up too late watching movies and spitting water,” I said.
“Piss off,” Charlie said, rolled up his window, and away they went.
He may have quit smoking, but late at night, or when he was tired, he grew kind of irritable.
I didn’t have my key. I realized it when I was halfway up the stairs. No problem. I trooped downstairs, found the spare I keep in a metal box under a brick, went up, unlocked my door, and went inside.
The place smelled stale as an old maid’s closet.
I turned on the light.
No dog jumped up to greet me.
Brett didn’t come out of the back room in a negligee.
A small spider scrabbled across the floor, perhaps in greeting.
I stepped on it.
A few roaches were scuttling about in the kitchen. Making a sandwich perhaps.
I sat down at my kitchen table.
I got up and locked the door.
I sat down at the table again.
A roach darted out of the corner, stopped about three feet away. Perhaps he thought this was his home now and I was an intruder. He finally got tired of trying to stare me down, rushed away.
I noticed there were rat turds next to the refrigerator. I wondered if rats would use a sandbox like a cat. I wondered if I could train them. It was nice to know these were just average-sized rats. Not like the ones in the Mexican jail that could be saddled.
At least I hoped they were average size. Maybe the Mexican rats had flown in with us, ridden in Jim Bob’s trunk and had hustled into my house when I arrived.
Maybe I needed a lot of rest.
I got a diet cola out of the fridge. I didn’t have an ice maker either.
I sat down at the table again.
I drank half the soda.
No roaches came back out to see me.
I didn’t really want to think about rats anymore.
I was never going to have an ice maker.
It was tough having all these important things to think about.
I went to bed.
I was so tired, disappointed, and low on self-esteem, I couldn’t even manage enough energy to abuse myself.
Next morning I lay in bed for a while and thought about that poor girl in the hospital, wounded by some nut for no reason. I thought about Beatrice, and I felt weak and lonely, like a pine straw being buffeted by the ocean. Lately I was having a lot of those thoughts, feeling my mortality. Realizing more strongly than ever before that I had lived more life than I had left, and I wasn’t liking that revelation at all.
I often told myself I didn’t mind aging, but now I found myself constantly wishing I was young and that I could do it all over again, and differently.
Wished my hip didn’t hurt so bad, that all those places where my ribs were broken had not been broken. When I was young my fight injuries, received while defending myself, or just because I shot my mouth off when I shouldn’t, were a badge of honor. Now the badges hurt. The pins that held them to me were buried in my hide too deep and time was causing them to go deeper. The badges were feeling heavy as anvils; they were tugging at the pins; they weren’t worth wearing.
I got up slowly, twisting gingerly to make cracking noises come from my back, hip, knees, and ankles. I felt like something made of Tinkertoys, but screwed down way too tight and somehow rotten at the center, fearing that if I turned just a little too far in one direction the whole of me might come undone.
While I was brewing coffee, I noticed the light blinking on my answering machine. I looked at it, saw it registered five messages.
I listened to them. A couple were phone sales. But three of them were from Brett. Two supported the first. The first I played over three times so I could hear her voice.
“Hap. This is Brett. You know what, life sucks if you let it. I’ve been letting it. No more feeling sorry for myself. My daughter is going to turn tricks if I want her to or not. I’m thinking about getting a new puppy and a wax job. One or the other. Or maybe I’ll get a puppy and give that little scooter a wax job. Give me a call. Better yet, come by and see me. Bring your dick.”
Pure Brett. I was at a stage in my life where I really hoped it was more me she wanted to see than the dick. Though, like all males, I could tolerate that part if I had to. No arm twisting necessary.
While my coffee brewed I looked for something to eat, but there was only spoiled milk and moldy bread. I put the bag of bread and the plastic milk carton in the trash.
I showered, dressed, poured up a cup of coffee, went down to my car and out of there.
I went by a little café and bought some biscuits and bacon, drank their coffee. I drove to the hospital then, went up to where Sarah Bond still had a room.
I didn’t know if I was allowed or not, but I opened the door and slipped in. She was asleep. She didn’t have as many tubes and wires in her this time, but she looked only marginally better. Her face was pale as Lazarus before Jesus raised him. She was still patched and taped up. Only a little of her face showed. I reached over, patted her hand, and went out.
As I walked down the hall to the elevator, I thought about what Leonard had told me once. About how things didn’t happen for a reason, they just happened. And he was right. But Sarah being attacked, me trying to help her, had set a series of events in motion.
I wondered if things would have been different for Beatrice had I not come along. Maybe I shouldn’t have cut that fishing line, put her and Billy at odds with one another. I could have let her do what she wanted to do, as distasteful as it migh
t be to me. She might have gotten her money if I had. Might have paid her bills and spared her life.
I wondered if Brett was on duty. We had met in this hospital. It was a very romantic memory. She had stuck a needle in my ass.
I went down to the desk and asked. She wasn’t on duty, still worked the night shift. Of course, I knew that. I was just hoping against hope. I drove over to her place.
The yard was ripe with sunburned brown grass, and a lawn chair had been gathered up and near turned over by the foliage. It was as if the lawn had grassy hands and it was using them to tip the chair.
I went up and knocked on the door. Gently at first.
No answer.
Less gently.
I heard someone moving behind the door.
I hoped it wouldn’t be some man.
That would certainly be a disappointment.
Brett opened the door. She was wearing an oversized T-shirt and slippers made like bears. Her red hair was wadded around her face. She smiled slightly, said, “Well, if it isn’t Hap Collins. Come on in.”
“I’ve missed you,” I said.
“You sure you haven’t just missed what’s between my legs.”
Brett was like that, vulgar, to the point. Being Gilmer High School Sweet Tater Queen some many years ago hadn’t gone to her head.
“I missed that too,” I said. “I was thinking maybe that’s all you missed about me.”
“Well, I missed what was between your legs, Hap, but there’s plenty of that around.”
“Oh, good. Now I feel better.”
“I finally think I’ve got my head on straight. Killing people can kind of dig itself in deep, like a tick. I think I pulled off the body but the head’s still in me.”
“That’s one way of putting it.”
“You don’t have some other floozy you’re porkin’ do you?”
“No. But God how I’ve tried.”
“There hasn’t been anyone else, Hap. Not for me.”
“Well, there has been someone else, but … that’s over.”
“Wasn’t the same as with you and me, was it?”
“Nothing is. Also, she’s dead.”
“That’ll kill a relationship, all right. Sorry I said that. Are you still sad about it?”
“Darlin’, I’m always sad about something.”
“Sit down, sweetie, tell me all about it. I haven’t had breakfast. Want some? Breakfast, I mean.”
“Just ate. But I’ll drink coffee with you.”
Brett clanged some stuff around, came back with a piece of toast for herself, poured us coffee. We sat down at the table. She put one hand on my leg.
“I really have missed you,” she said.
“Same.”
“I know about how you saved that girl. You saved my girl too, Hap. You saved me. You’re always trying to save somebody. Everybody but yourself. You ever think about that?”
“Sometimes.”
“I don’t want you to think I didn’t appreciate what you did for me and my daughter.”
“I admit, I wondered. I shouldn’t. That isn’t the way you’re supposed to be. You do something with the best of intentions, it’s supposed to be with the best of intentions and nothing else. But I did wonder. Leonard chastised me for it.”
“Leonard’s a mutant.”
“That must be it.”
“The rest of us wonder about those kinds of things. Hap, it isn’t that I’m ungrateful. Or that I don’t love you. I adore you. It’s just that I’ve been a little lost. Tillie went right back to takin’ strokes for money.”
“Yeah. You told me.”
“Can you believe that?”
“Leonard said she would.”
“Again, Mr. Know-It-All.”
“I get to thinking he’s so smart, what in hell is he doin’ hangin’ around with me?”
Brett laughed. I loved that laugh. It was rich and smoky.
“Tillie may not have changed like I hoped,” she said, “but I like to think she’s safer. As safe as anyone can be in that business.”
“I hope so, Brett.”
“You know I went to the Gilmer Yamboree this year. I told you I rode a float there once. When I was a teenager.”
“Yep. You were Sweet Tater Queen. I’ve seen the photographs. The float is a giant sweet potato. As I recall, you told me you thought it looked like a giant turd.”
“That’s right. And you know what, they didn’t even have a goddamn sweet tater over there this year. Not even as a float.”
“Modernization, what you gonna do? Everybody’s eatin’ McDonald’s french fries. There’s people don’t even know you don’t make french fries out of sweet taters.”
“Actually, you can,” Brett said, “but they don’t taste right. But, shit, you’d think they could find a sweet potato somewhere … Hap, this woman. The one who’s dead. Did you love her?”
“No. I didn’t love her.”
“Do you want to tell me about her?”
“Maybe not just now.”
“You want to leave this shitty coffee and go sweat up the sheets?”
“Boy, do I.”
I guess it was about a week later. Me and Brett had taken to living with one another, and it was working out fine. She had gotten neither puppy nor wax job nor waxed puppy. She did let me shave her pubic hair, however, and I liked that.
We had her daughter, the whore, visit from Tyler. She had dinner with us. Tillie decided she was going to spend the rest of her time taking the basic courses at Tyler Community College, turning tricks less and less. Perhaps a career as a brain surgeon was in her future.
Or maybe she just wanted to learn how to count up her trick money better at the end of the day; run her own whorehouse.
Brett’s son, Jimmy, had finally gotten rid of his Christian Scientist girlfriend. Or rather fate had gotten rid of her for him. She died. Should have had that kidney checked when it first acted up. But she believed in the power of prayer. Her God, however, had other plans. So Jimmy was free. And doing better. Had gone on a bender to Mexico, Brett said. Came home with a box of Chiclets, a sombrero, and a dose of the clap. Nothing penicillin couldn’t clean up. He was no longer teaching Aikido; having gotten beaten up in Mexico he decided he needed more lessons.
Anyway, Brett and I were together again. She had only one new rule for me, having doled it out after I had told a friend she was nursing. I was told to say she was a nurse and never say she was nursing. Brett thought it sounded like she was wet-nursing a baby.
“Could I just say you’re nursing me?” I asked.
“No, you cannot.”
Me and Leonard were back to work at the chicken plant. We were happy as people can be protecting chickens. I learned to never make friends with incoming chickens. Under the circumstances, even a chicken knew it was insincere. You could see it in their eyes, way they held their heads.
One afternoon before Brett and I went to work, we went over to my apartment to start cleaning it out. I had decided at the end of the month to let it go. I had pretty much moved in with Brett anyway. We were talking about marriage and a different house that we might rent, or even buy. Some place big enough to hold all our things and anything else that might come to us. I was seriously thinking about trying to start a real career. As always I was stalled on knowing exactly what. I thought about President of the United States for a couple hours, but I didn’t really want to move out of East Texas. Astronaut was an idea, but considering I disliked flying any more than I had to, I had to rule that out. Plantation owner was another thought. But I didn’t have any land or money and Leonard wasn’t the butler type, so I had to dismiss that. I thought about what was most likely. I kept coming up with chicken plant guard.
It was depressing.
I was thinking more and more about Charlie and Hanson, their offer to work for them.
At my place me and Brett cleaned out the refrigerator, tossing stuff in the trash, packing up the good stuff to take over to her place. There
was a lot more trash than good stuff.
While we were at it, Charlie came by.
The door to my place was open. I had quit running the air conditioner, trying to save money. It was a time of the year when it was starting to cool down a little. Nothing to get excited about. No igloos were about to go up. We were merely having a mild streak.
Charlie came in and took off his hat. He smiled. I knew it wasn’t for me. It was for Brett. She was wearing white shorts and her pale lightly freckled legs were a wonderful thing to see. Her bright red hair was cut so that it fell around her face like a feathered helmet. She had on a loose top and no bra. She was one of the few older women I knew who could get away with that, though it was her claim her days as a swinging tit were almost over.
“Hey, Charlie,” she said.
“Hey, Brett. Good God, woman. What do you see in this man?”
“I don’t know,” she said.
Charlie and I shook hands. Charlie said, “I’ve come by a few times, but haven’t caught you.”
“I’m mostly at Brett’s,” I said.
“I’m glad to see you two back together. How’s Leonard?”
“He’s good. We only see each other at work these days. He’s got John and I’ve got Brett.”
“Good for both of you. Me, not so good. I got Hanson. We’re putting together our agency, you know?”
“That’s right,” I said. “Got clients yet?”
“Not really. We’re not quite ready. I’ve been enjoying my retirement till the money runs out. I been lookin’ for you because I wanted to thank you for payin’ the money back from the Mexico thing.”
“You’re welcome. I owed it. You saved my bacon. You’re lucky I had some money and could pay it back in one chunk.”
“I’d have liked to let it go, but …”
“Don’t be ridiculous.”
“I can make some coffee, Charlie,” Brett said. “We were thinking about having some.”
“That would be nice.”
Charlie sat on the couch, put his porkpie hat on the armrest. “You’re moving out?”
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