Any Deadly Thing

by Roy Kesey

  DONNY’S OUT OF A JOB again. It wasn’t even his fault this time. He’d passed the roach back to the night-shift kid but the kid fumbled the handoff, and they couldn’t find it in all those stacks of newspapers, and who the fuck saves newspapers for no reason? They locked the unit up and the kid took off, Donny went to sign in, and by the time he came back, boom, the whole row on fire. Now it looks like some kind of nuclear bomb thing, and Donny knows how that feels, that melted-and-slumping feeling. The melting is okay sometimes, but then there’s the slump and you’re fucked.

  There’s no proof against him, he’s sure of that, but nobody wants to hear it so he grabs the charred brim of his Giants cap out of what’s left of his locker. There’d been a picture here too, taped to the inside of the door—Susana fifteen years ago, thick gray sweater, big bouncy hair. Nothing left but bubbles burned into the paint, so he slogs through the water and sludge, threads through the fire engines to the gate, heads for home.

  Past Tastebuds, past Niveen’s, past Java Stop, and the fog is so thick that he can barely read the neon. Past the Humboldt Credit Union where Mitch works, and any other day Donny would stop in to shoot the shit. Past Figueiredo’s Video Movies—there’s a name that needs a haircut—and he hangs a right on Murray.

  Now the kids from McKinleyville High are blowing past him in their Mustangs and Camaros and mini-monster trucks. It’s three miles and change to Fieldbrook but he’s been doing this walk for months, knows better than to stick out his thumb. The kids flip him the bird just because they can, because they’re free, because they’re motorized and he’s not.

  The fog thins as he follows the road east. There’s spruce and hemlock dense to both sides, and a couple of logging cuts on the ridge above. It looks like good country for tweakers, and he imagines them up there watching him, but more likely they’d all be busy, washing checks or cooking a new batch, slamming or running or crashing, whoever’s turn it was.

  He hears a car coming, looks back, sees a middle-aged woman in a convertible. He waves what’s left of his cap at her just in case. She guns away. He watches her go, and wings the brim into a stand of alders just off the shoulder. It catches on a branch, teeters but doesn’t fall.

  Redwoods, sparse and then thicker. As he passes the turnoff for David Road, the sun shows up, a flat white disc in the clouds. By Libby Lane it’s actually sun-colored, and he’s sweating hard as he hits the corner of Carson. Home at last, and he pours himself what’s left of an open beer. Throws the empty at the garbage pail. Misses, and these cans, they drive him fucking crazy.

  He goes to the living room, sits down on the sofa, drinks the beer and stops breathing so hard. He can hear his mom banging things around in the laundry room, his dad banging things around in the garage. The old man’s also whistling. He whistles a lot, just something he does. Donny’s mom uses magnets instead of detergent in the washing machine. She says it’s something about ions and polarization. He doesn’t know what to think about that, but they get the clothes plenty clean.

  His mom’s always telling his dad to stop whistling and Donny can’t imagine why: the old man can do any bird, any song, but make it prettier. Should be on CDs, the radio, something. Yesterday he told Donny that aside from humans, the only animal that can get leprosy is the armadillo. Donny doesn’t know what to think about that either.

  His mom comes in, sets down the laundry basket.

  –Least you could do is help, she says, as if he’d already said he didn’t have time.

  –Don’t have time, he says.

  –The hell you don’t.

  He has a thing about her underwear, but he takes a look at the basket, sees nothing but towels and sheets, so okay. He pulls out a towel, folds it.

  –You learn how to fold in a barn?

  She takes it from him, folds it straighter. He finds a washcloth, knows he can get this one right, but first he smells it, and just like always, so clean it doesn’t smell like anything.

  –Goddamn whistling, says his mom.

  He’d defend his old man, all those trills and runs and warbles, but he’s tried before and there’s no point. He folds and folds, thinks about Susana, then about how stupid it is to be thinking about Susana, stupid and gone and never was but it’s not like there’s anyone else. He sets down a dish towel, and it’s perfect. His mom refolds it anyway.

  He stands up, walks to the front window. Across the street is the back of their neighbor’s corral. Donny likes horses, likes the thought of horses. If he had a horse, that night last year with the gin and the crank and his GMC and that ditch wouldn’t have been such a big deal.

  –You lose your job again?

  –Armadillos, he says.

  –What?

  –Leprosy, he says.

  –Jesus, Donny, again?

  –I’m just saying. We ought to get a horse. Allen would maybe let us board it for free. We could—

  –No horses.

  –I’m just saying.

  Perfectly good Oldsmobile sitting in the driveway, but it’s been off limits since that other thing with the vodka and the ludes and the tree. Eighteen-minute walk to Mitch’s house—he’s timed it a bunch, and always eighteen no matter how slow he goes. Spooky. Horses, though. There was a stretch of time, early high school, he and Mitch would take a pair of Mitch’s dad’s horses out into the hills, ride for hours. Then the whole deal with the cheerleader and the divorce, the horses got sold, nothing for years and years until the one time Allen let him have a go, and that was something, faster and faster around the corral until Donny tried to get it to jump the fence. The horse stopped and Donny didn’t and four broken teeth, but still, faster and faster, and he’ll get right back on if Allen ever gives him a chance.

  Slow through the night. Jerkunica Street, Benson Road, and Mitch has done all right for himself. Family, job, house, couple of cars, volunteer this, volunteer that. Donny steps up on the porch, knocks his special Donny-knock, two-two-two. He hears Susana call to Mitch that someone’s at the door but it’s probably only Donny.

  The light comes on and the door opens. Mitch has grease on his hands or something like it. Donny asks what the hell.

  –Boot polish.

  –Got to polish those fire boots.

  –Fire boots are rubber, bud. And they stay at the station. Speaking of fires, though.

  –Yeah. How come you didn’t come?

  –I was already at the other one.

  –Bad?

  –Little grass fire up behind the totem pole, got into some trees but we kept it small. The fog helped. Saved the pole, anyway.

  –Too bad—thing creeps me out. How’d it start?

  –Kid from the trailer park had a bunch of firecrackers left over. You’d think the ground would be too wet, but …

  –Yeah. Firecrackers. So. Beer?

  Mitch looks at Donny, pauses longer than usual, nods slow. He leads out around the side of the house, and just as well, as talking to Susana messes with Donny’s brain. Not that she has any use for him, or ever did. By sophomore year she was basically already Mitch’s without him lifting a finger or ever once looking her way.

  They step up onto the back deck, skirt the Jacuzzi, and the night’s warm and black and quiet. Donny sits down in a lawn chair. Mitch slaps in through the screen door, comes back with beers, passes one over.

  They sit and watch the sky. A coyote starts up somewhere to the east. There are mosquitoes, but also bats knocking them down, and that seems fair to Donny. He unbuttons the top of his pants, sits back.

  –So I’m guessing so much for your storage career, says Mitch.

  –Yup. But something’ll turn up.

  –Turn up faster if you go looking.

  –What got up your ass all of a sudden?

  Donny smiles as he says this. There’s no reply so he smiles harder, then remembers it’s too dark to see.

  –We’re old, says Mitch.

  –What?

  –Us. Old. You know?

  –I do not.<
br />
  –Time to stop fucking around, bud.

  Donny doesn’t answer. Mitch was the only one left who’d never said it. To show how pissed off he is, Donny goes to get up before his beer is even finished. Susana calls down that she’s going to bed, and Mitch calls up that he’ll be there in a minute. Donny sags back into the chair. The coyote’s still at it.

  –I mean, the fucking storage, says Mitch. Of all places. Those were people’s memories, man.

  –Fuck memories. Best thing you can you do is let them burn. I had stuff in my locker too, all of it fried crispy-clean, but you don’t hear me whining about it.

  –Donny.

  –It wasn’t my fault.

  They sit there a while. Donny squeezes the metal armrests, harder and harder until it hurts, a bit harder still.

  –I better go, says Mitch. We’ve got a thing tomorrow at Greta’s school.

  The hell kind of name is Greta, Donny thinks. He stands up, says good-bye and walks out into the dark. The coyote’s gone quiet. He whistles for a second, lets it go. Harder than it looks, whistling.

  Late Saturday morning: the banging in the garage stops, and a minute later out comes Donny’s dad. He’s holding a birdhouse. It’s perfect, painted and everything.

  –Think the chickadees will like it?

  Donny looks closer. Yellow walls with green trim, smooth round hole in the door, and is that copper fucking sheeting on the roof? He can’t compete with this. It’s been a hard five days of nothing and the insurance people keep calling and the sun keeps getting hotter so he tells his dad the house is okay except the roof is all wrong for chickadees and there should be a little post for them to stand on. Then he grabs his sunglasses and goes.

  He walks all the way around Allen’s property. The horses look at him but don’t come over to the fence, not even when he calls and holds out a handful of grass. If Mitch hadn’t been such an asshole, Donny just might have gone to whatever that thing was at Greta’s school. Show some support. Not that he actually would have gone, but he’d have thought about it.

  Walks around again.

  He hadn’t meant that thing about memories, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t true. He comes up with a list of ones he’d torch on purpose, and a list of ones he’d save. He remembers a whole lot of melting, way too much slumping, and maybe that’s what he needs to burn, which doesn’t even make any sense.

  Around again.

  And okay, but hadn’t there been a deal? Mitch, of all people? Friends since kindergarten, hanging out nonstop except when Mitch was at college. Plus that one time a branch took Mitch hard out of his saddle, broken ankle, emptied Donny’s flask on the way home, Donny leading both horses by the bridles, slow as he could down the hills, careful like never in history.

  Which gives Donny an idea. He heads back up the road to Allen’s driveway, stops in to chew the fat with the old geezer, ask if he’s got room for another horse. Except no one answers the door. Donny walks around the side, sees the camper is gone, remembers: vacation, something about grandkids down in Marin. Which feels like a window sliding closed. A moment of panic as he tries to remember if Allen asked him to take care of the horses. Not something Allen would likely do, he decides, and for a moment that puts him at ease, but then not so much.

  Around again.

  And now it’s time. Everybody in Fieldbrook knows him too well but there’s got to be places in McKinleyville where his face is still good—beer money at least, and nothing too skanky. Three miles and change, the sun dissolving in the fog as he closes in. A slow walk down Central checking for signs in windows, an hour in the library with the classifieds, and no pay dirt anywhere.

  The Civic Center bulletin board is loaded, though, and he works through the columns. Full Moon Drumming Club needs more drummers—can’t imagine there’s money in that. Jonsteen Trees wants a part-timer, probably just moving manure. And Timber Ridge Assisted Living has a full-time thing, but that’s going to be mainly bedpans.

  Then he sees one about stocking groceries at Ray’s. He makes the call, hurries down. From the look of things they haven’t heard about him and the fire. Half an hour later they tell him welcome to the family, be there Monday morning, and bring your best smile.

  He makes up a thing about a car in the shop, gets a week’s advance, waves his thanks. He heads back into the center of town, walks in circles for a bit, ducks behind the Safeway for a quick whiz, and here’s the totem pole, pride of McKinleyville. The thunderbird at the top showed up in his dreams when he was a kid, and later in the melting times, sometimes just fucking with him and sometimes chasing him down bad dark roads. He walks past it, out through the charred grass, unzips with his back to the pole.

  Zips up, turns around, steps closer. World’s Largest, says the sign, but he already knew that. A hundred and sixty feet tall. Carved from a single redwood that was almost five hundred years old. Fifty-seven thousand pounds not even counting the base.

  Closer. Yup, creepy. The faces, mostly. One on top of another, bright colors and angry eyes, rip your heart out if they had a chance and probably you’d deserve it. He glances up at the thunderbird, backs away, turns for the street.

  Time to focus. He makes three quick stops, trades part of the advance for a twelve-pack, part for a box of cranberry muffins, and another good chunk at a gift shop for a tiny little weathervane that actually spins. Then he walks. The bag with the beers keeps getting heavier, but he didn’t buy them to drink alone, so he only has two the whole way home. You have to do what’s right: this is his new conviction, and he wonders how long it’ll last.

  His dad’s in the garage sanding a short piece of dowel, and Donny stops him, says he was wrong, says the house doesn’t need a post, says the chickadees will love the paint job and the roof’s almost perfect except for one thing. He brings out the weathervane, holds it up and flicks it. His dad watches it spin, and it looks like the old man’s about to cry so Donny hands it over, punches him lightly on the shoulder and heads inside.

  His mom’s in the kitchen and he gives her the muffins. She opens the box, nods, looks at him.

  –Smells great. You, though.

  –Yeah, well, maybe the shower needs new magnets, you ever think about that?

  She kisses him on the cheek, and he does a thing where he jumps without leaving the ground. She laughs, turns away, and the phone rings. She answers and he figures it’s the insurance people again; he waves to her that he’s not there, was never there, is probably gone forever.

  She shakes her head, holds the phone to her chest and mouths, Ray’s? He takes it, and nods as the guy talks. They’ve heard about the thing at the storage. They’re not sure they can really commit until everything’s straightened out. Also they’ll be needing the advance back, preferably today.

  Fucking thunderbird, thinks Donny. Fucking Ray’s fucking thunderbird fucking ions following him around like leprosy. He slams the phone down, stares at his mom. She asks and he tells the truth: Nothing, he says. Just nothing.

  The beer, though. He wishes he had a better idea but doesn’t, so the eighteen minutes, and by then he’s down to a nine-pack. Up onto the porch, and the Donny-knock.

  There’s some quiet talk from inside the house, and maybe a little hissing. Mitch opens the door, looks at the bag, shakes his head.

  –Can’t do it, he says. Got all kinds of stuff today.

  –Like what?

  –Jesus, Donny. Stuff. The rain gutters for one thing.

  –It’s the middle of fucking August, Mitch. Not going to rain for two more months.

  –That’s not the point. I promised Susana. And that’s not the point either.

  Time for a new tack.

  –Mitch, I packed these all the way from the 76 station, and you and I are goddamn going to celebrate. We—

  –Celebrate what?

  –New job.

  –The hell.

  –No joke. Ray’s. Assistant manager.

  Now Susana walks up behind Mitch, puts her arm
s around him.

  –Hey Donny, she says.

  –Hey.

  His voice hiccups in the middle of the word, makes it two syllables, and he looks down at his shoes.

  –We’re a little busy around here today, she says.

  –Okay. Well—

  As Donny turns to go, Mitch’s pager goes off, four quick blips and the tone for Fieldbrook—Donny’s heard it before, and it lights him up each time. There’s a crackle, and what sounds like a woman laughing. Susana frowns and walks away. A short quiet, more laughing, and now the dispatcher pulls her shit together.

  –Fieldbrook Fire, Fieldbrook Fire. Public assist. Horse in a stump, I repeat, horse in a stump. Address, 6400 Humboldt Heights Lane.

  There’s more laughing, and the dispatcher signs off.

  –What the hell was that? says Donny.

  –It doesn’t matter. I have to go.

  –We sure do.

  –Donny, come on. This is serious.

  –Dispatcher didn’t think so. Horse in a stump. What does that even mean?

  –How the fuck should I know?

  –Oh. I thought it was code for something.

  They look at each other.

  –Maybe she meant on a stump, says Donnie. On a stump is something I could get behind.

  –Whatever it is, man, I have to go.

  –And I’m going with you.

  But Mitch doesn’t hear him, is already back inside the house and shouting to Susana that he’ll be back as soon as it’s done. The screen door opens and he comes back out, fast down the driveway in a pair of half-polished work boots. Donny follows close out to Mitch’s pickup.

  Which doesn’t start. Mitch curses, gets out and lifts the hood, stares at the engine.

  –Can’t be out of gas, he says. I just filled it up.

  –Sounded like there’s no spark.

  –Plugs?

  Donny checks them, shakes his head. He runs through the options, finds the distributor cap popped up. He cinches it down, leans back, closes the hood.

  –Mitch, man, you were right. Time to stop fucking around, so I got the job, straight and narrow, the works. That ought to earn me at least a look at this magical whatever it is. After that I’ll leave you alone and you can clean all the gutters you want.