American Boy

by Larry Watson

  “How do you want to do this?” I asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  “You want me to come in with you, or should I wait in the car again?”

  Any enthusiasm he might have had for this undertaking had melted away. “How do I know he’s here?”

  “There’s his goddamn car. It’s the only one in the lot. If he’s not in cabin eight, he’s in number nine. Just go knock on the door. If he doesn’t answer, knock on the other one.”

  But Johnny still didn’t get out. He reached over and hit the horn ring. A scream couldn’t have done a better job of violating the quiet winter air. He pressed it again before I could knock his hand away.

  “What the hell are you doing?”

  “I’m giving them a chance to stop whatever they’re doing.”

  “That’s real thoughtful of you. But that was loud enough to stop folks on the other side of town from what they’re doing.”

  Johnny took a deep breath and opened the door.

  “You want me to come with you?” I asked again.

  He turned back to me with a look colder than anything the north wind had blown my way. “You might as well. That’s what you’re here for, isn’t it? To see her?” He wasn’t stupid. I climbed out of the car and trailed after my friend like a dog who had no will but its master’s.

  Before we could knock on the door of cabin eight, its curtains fluttered, a light went on inside, and the door opened. There was Dr. Dunbar. I’d just seen a look on his son’s face that I’d never seen before, and now the father wore an equally unfamiliar expression. There was anger, certainly, but also befuddlement—as if, for the first time in his life, Rex Dunbar didn’t know what he should say or do next.

  “Johnny? Johnny? What the hell are you doing here?” The doctor was no longer wearing the suit and tie he’d worn that morning to church. He answered the door in stocking feet, trousers, and an undershirt. Immediately his glance traveled past both his son and me, as if he were trying to see through the car’s frosted windows and determine whether his wife had also made this journey.

  “Mom said we should find you....”

  “I talked to your mother not an hour ago. She didn’t say anything about you....” He pulled his hand back through his hair, but his curls failed to settle back in place. “You drove through that storm?”

  Johnny said, “It wasn’t that bad,” then stopped himself. “Mom was scared. She was worried that you might have gone off the road or something.”

  The doctor’s wide shoulders blocked the doorway, but I tried to look inside the room. She was in there, I knew she was.

  “Your mother knew this was an emergency. She knew I had to—. Oh, hell. I’ll have to go through all this again with her anyway.” Then he glanced back over his shoulder as if he noticed where I was staring. “Come on inside while I figure out what the hell we’re going to do.”

  The cabin’s only light came from a floor lamp with a yellowed lamp shade, so every corner remained in shadow. The logs that had been whitewashed on the cabin’s exterior were left unpainted on the interior, and those heavy rolls of dark varnished wood—complete with knotholes and splinters—made it feel almost as if we’d stepped into a dim forest grove.

  Most of the floor was covered with ratty, threadbare carpet, but an incongruous rectangle of linoleum protruded from under the bed. The bed was a double, covered with a blue and white striped pincord spread. The pillows barely made a bump at the head of the bed, and an army green wool blanket was folded at the foot. After careful but very quick study, I concluded that the bed’s covering had not been pulled back, but it was also possible that the spread had been hastily smoothed.

  There was no closet, but a tubular steel rack had been screwed to one of the logs, and there hung the doctor’s suit coat, shirt, and tie. His overcoat was flung over a sagging, stained armchair, and under the coat’s tweed two other fabrics peeked out—the red and black plaid of Louisa’s mackinaw and the floral print of her dress.

  I found this pile of clothing suggestive. First, off came Louisa’s coat and then her dress. Only after she was down to her slip, bra, and panties, did the doctor remove his overcoat. After all, while Louisa’s clothes could be carelessly tossed aside, the doctor’s garments—purchased, of course, in Minneapolis or Chicago—had to be carefully hung. I couldn’t see shoes or boots anywhere, but they could have been hurriedly kicked under the bed once it was discovered that the doctor’s son was outside. The bathroom door was closed, and inside was Louisa Lindahl. Of that I had no doubt.

  Across from the bed was a tall chest of drawers, and resting on top was a pint of Jim Beam. I couldn’t see how much was in the bottle, but the warm smell of whiskey hung in the air. It was Sunday, and no bars or liquor stores were open; the doctor must have brought the bottle with him. I didn’t see any glasses, so that meant he and Louisa drank right from the bottle. Or perhaps Louisa had a glass in the bathroom.

  “We went to the hospital,” Johnny told his father. “They told me that Mr. McDonough passed away.”

  The doctor walked over to the bedside table, which was not really a table at all, but rather a ladder-back chair with a spindle missing. On its surface were the doctor’s pocket watch, his package of Chesterfields, his lighter, and an ashtray that already held a few cigarette butts. Dr. Dunbar shook out a cigarette and lit it.

  “Dale died about halfway here. Wouldn’t have made a damn bit of difference if we’d gotten him here in minutes instead of hours. That was a massive cerebral hemorrhage. Massive.”

  “Does anyone else know? Mrs. McDonough?”

  “Your mother knows. I told her to call Anna.”

  “So you didn’t even have to bring him here... .”

  “I didn’t know that, son.”

  “But you knew how bad it was... .”

  Dr. Dunbar sat on the edge of the bed, reached under, and brought out his shoes. “That’s something you’ll learn as a physician.” While he stepped into his shoes, he held his cigarette between his lips, angling it upward to keep the smoke out of his eyes. “You try. Even when you know it’s futile, you try.”

  “I can’t be a doctor.”

  Johnny’s statement jerked my head in his direction, but the doctor seemed unsurprised. He took his cigarette from his mouth. “You can’t be. That’s an interesting way of putting it,” the doctor said. “When did you come to this decision?”

  “I guess I’ve always known.”

  “But you chose this occasion to tell me.” He shook his head, a gesture composed of equal parts amusement and disgust. Then he clapped his hands on his knees. “So. It’s a day of revelations.”

  “Or confessions,” replied Johnny. Considering how reluctant he was to knock on the door in the first place, once inside he’d found an impressive supply of courage.

  “Or confessions. Fine. You seem to have all the answers today.” He stamped his feet hard and then he stood. “We can talk about this some other time.”

  “I’ve said all I have to say.” The blotches on Johnny’s cheeks darkened to a red that looked like clumsily smeared rouge.

  “Ah, the man who knows his own mind and says what he says and then no more.” Dr. Dunbar smiled derisively at his son. “Have it your way. You’re mistaken if you think I have something riding on this.” Then the doctor turned to me. “If you have any career plans, Matt, you can keep them to yourself. I’m at the point where I don’t much give a good goddamn.” He stubbed out his cigarette. “If I ever did.”

  He marched toward the door. “Let’s go see if they have a room for you. And one for Louisa. They didn’t have anything earlier. And we’ll call your mother again and tell her you’re here.”

  “I promised Matt a meal,” said Johnny.

  Dr. Dunbar looked at me as if he’d barely registered my presence before this moment. “Nothing’s open,” he said, and continued out the door.

  The door had just closed behind Johnny and his father when Louisa stepped out of the bathroom. S
he must have expected the room to be empty, but she didn’t startle when she saw me. She made no effort to cover herself—she was wearing nothing but a slip—or to explain why she was in the doctor’s room. But her expression suggested that she assumed I knew everything.

  “Hello, Matt. Are you here to rescue me?”

  “Mrs. Dunbar was worried.”

  “Oh, I’m sure she was. I’m sure.”

  “But I guess you’re safe and sound.”

  She smiled. The tendons in her neck showed, and her lower teeth gleamed. “Safe and sound.”

  What will you do that Mrs. Dunbar won’t? That question had often pushed itself to the front of my mind even while I was supposed to be concentrating on keeping the car on the icy road, and it was more insistent now that I was in Louisa’s presence. But since I couldn’t ask that, I settled for another question.

  “So, what’s it like to haul a dead man through a blizzard?”

  She walked around the bed and picked up Dr. Dunbar’s pack of cigarettes. She shook one out and lit it, and nothing in her actions suggested that the cigarettes were not hers or her brand, or that my question had unnerved her in the least. “You know what was strange?” She exhaled toward the ceiling. “I was in the backseat with him when he was, you know, breathing his last breath, or however you want to say it—”

  “—How does Dr. Dunbar say it?”

  She paused for a moment. “Died, I think. Yeah, died. That’s all.”

  Exactly right. I remembered a little talk Dr. Dunbar once had with Johnny and me, after he’d tried—and failed—to save Carl Oslund, a hunter who’d sliced through his femoral artery when he was field dressing a deer. The doctor had just returned to the house after speaking to Carl’s parents. “Don’t hide behind medical language,” the doctor told us. “People have a hard enough time understanding when they’re nervous or under pressure. Just give it to them straight. Bled to death. Died. Not exsanguinated. Not expired.”

  “Anyway,” Louisa continued, “when Mr. McDonough was choking—which isn’t exactly what happened because he didn’t really have enough breath to choke—it made me think of Lester. When he died, I mean. When they first told me Lester killed himself in his cell, I thought, good. Good riddance to the sonofabitch. Serves him right. But then when I saw Mr. McDonough dying—and really not wanting to—I thought, poor Lester. Doing that all alone.... And if there was anything Lester wasn’t good at, it was being alone. So I held Mr. McDonough close and watched him go. And then right at the end, when his eyes started kind of staring off, I realized that no matter what, when you’re dying, you’re alone.” She shrugged. “There it is. To answer your question, it was a fucking picnic. But why ask me? You and Johnny came through it. You know. Just add a dying man and there you have it.”

  “Dr. Dunbar and Johnny went to see if they could find a room for you.”

  “And you,” said Louisa. “Yeah, I heard. They won’t have any trouble getting a room. No trouble at all.”

  “Johnny’s pretty upset. He thinks his dad isn’t going to be his dad anymore.”

  “He’ll get over it.” She sat down on the edge of the bed. Her shoes were under the bed too, and one was revealed when Louisa disturbed the bedspread. She bent over to push the shoe back, and when she did I could see down the front of her slip. Her breasts weighed down and strained against the slip’s thin fabric. She started to sit back up, but when she realized where my gaze was focused, she stopped. Her body was slightly angled, so only one breast was fully exposed, allowing me to see once again that mauve nipple I’d first seen on Thanksgiving Day. In the cabin’s dim light the aureole looked almost purple, more like a bruise than the small, stippled circle of flesh it was. Still, her power over me could only increase so long as she remained in that position.

  “You can help Johnny,” Louisa said. “You’ve made out fine without a father.”

  “It doesn’t have to happen.”

  She arched her eyebrows. “Matthew. Don’t you think it already has?”

  “You could leave.”

  Louisa’s laughter was icier than the wind that had blown all day. “Leave? Where the hell am I supposed to go? And why would I want to?”

  Louisa leaned back on the bed, propping herself up on her elbows. When she did, her slip rode up above her knees. She had two slips—I’d seen the other one earlier in her dresser drawer—and this was the better one, worn to church on Sunday and then to a motel with a man whose marriage she hoped to destroy.

  I had seen Louisa Lindahl’s breasts, her scar, her torn underwear. I’d heard her secrets, and I knew her lies. But when I’d read her list for self-improvement, I felt as if her soul had been revealed to me. Once my eyes had traveled down that paper with its third-grade handwriting and its determined plan to advance her station in life through imitation and force of will, I felt as if I’d made Louisa Lindahl mine. No one could understand her the way I did.

  “Come on,” I said, reaching a hand out to her.

  She took my hand, perhaps assuming that she was going along with a joke. “Where are we going?”

  “Didn’t you say you wanted to go to Denver?”

  “Someday—”

  “—So let’s go.”

  She allowed herself to be pulled to her feet, but then she must have seen something in my eyes, something that told her how serious I was, and she tried to tug herself free of my grasp.

  By then it was too late. I had a hold of her—it was my last chance, the doctor would be back any minute now, and I wasn’t letting go—

  “Come on,” I said. “Let’s go. I’ve still got the keys to the car. We’ll be a hundred miles from here before they even figure out what to do.”

  I pulled and she pulled back. “Cut it out, Matthew. This isn’t funny.”

  “I’m serious. You want to go to Denver. We can do it together.”

  This was as close as I could come to a declaration of love, but Louisa wasn’t having it. “Goddamn it, Matthew! You’re hurting me!”

  I released her wrist, but before she could break away from me I grabbed her around the waist and pulled her tight to my side. Louisa was not a small woman, but she couldn’t do anything to check our progress toward the cabin door.

  She tried reasoning with me. “Matthew—stop. Please! We can’t do this!”

  Instead of resisting, she tried collapsing through my arms. She almost succeeded in this, but I pulled her back to her feet.

  The door opened, and Johnny and the cold air came in together. I was so far gone that I almost asked my friend to help by grabbing Louisa’s dress and coat. But I stopped myself, remembering that during his absence my friend had become my enemy.

  “Jesus Christ, Matt—what the hell are you doing?”

  There was no satisfactory way to answer his question. The doctor understood that and didn’t bother saying a word. He rushed in right behind Johnny, and used his forward momentum to put even more force into a punch that would have been plenty powerful if he’d swung flatfooted. His fist caught me just above the temple, and I was on my way down before I fully comprehended that I’d been hit. I crumbled to the floor as Dr. Dunbar shouted, “You sonofabitch! You stupid meddling sonofabitch!”

  I tried to gather myself and get to my feet, but then another blow to the head knocked me back down. Had the doctor kicked me? Had Johnny? I heard the doctor say, “Out! I want him the hell out of here!”

  My lips and nose went numb, and darkness crowded the edges of my vision. I was losing consciousness and I knew it. The doctor used to counsel putting your head between your knees if you believed you were going to pass out, but what was I supposed to do when I was already on the floor?

  I rolled away from the most recent blow, but before I could do anything more to move out of danger, someone grabbed my feet and began dragging me toward the open door. I tried to kick free, but four hands were now gripping my ankles. Somehow I’d brought father and son together, uniting them in a single effort. Johnny had ahold of one leg a
nd his father had the other.

  My coat was open, my sweater and shirt rode up, and my stomach’s bare flesh burned as they towed me across the threadbare carpet. It was the doctor’s plain intention to throw me out in the snow, and there was nothing I could do about it.

  My chin banged on the doorsill as they dragged me across it. I tried again to grab ahold of something, but I succeeded only in snapping a fingernail and abrading both palms on the frame’s rough wood.

  They kept pulling until I was closer to the cars than the cabin, and then they let go—simultaneously, as if a signal had passed between father and son. Any thought I had of getting up was abruptly quelled when Dr. Dunbar pinned me in the snow by putting his foot on the back of my neck.

  In the next I felt the pressure of a foot on my back, too. Because the pressure wasn’t substantial enough to be the doctor’s, the other foot had to be Johnny’s. The son imitating the father, he pressed my pelvis down as if to grind into the snow the part of me that had been responsible for sundering our friendship.

  Father and son kept me down long enough for me to be reminded again as to who possessed power and weight in the world. And then they stepped off me—again, simultaneously.

  Dr. Dunbar left me with parting words: “Now you stay out here. Stay out until that fucking hot blood of yours cools off, and you’re fit for human company!”

  19.

  I DIDN’T BOTHER TRYING TO GET UP until I heard the door close, and I could be sure they were back inside the cabin. My clothes were wet, my face was throbbing, and I started to shiver.

  But I had no intention of staying there. Nor would I howl or claw at the door. I fumbled around with my stiff, freezing fingers until I found the keys to the Valiant in my pocket. I climbed into the car, started it up, and put it into reverse. I backed into a snowdrift, but then I put the car in drive and slammed the accelerator to the floor. The tires churned and spun in the snow, but finally found their traction and I sped away from the Wagon Wheel. If I’d known the way to Denver—or to Minneapolis or Winnipeg—I might have driven in that direction. As it was, I headed back toward Willow Falls.