Joss, me, the other locals, we’re aware there’s no future in Tilford, but moving to another small town isn’t the answer. Wherever that town is, it’ll have that one guy who manages the plant, and he’s the guy with the best rims on his truck … and there’ll be a funeral director who knows everyone by name … and a family business run by an actual family … and a two-page newspaper that gives everyone their fifteen minutes of fame. And every small town is infected by the gossip plague. Not to mention so-and-so’s wedding will become the bank’s permanent marquee message unless the high school football team wins a game, or someone joins the military. Tilford Lake, Gilman Woods, Perty Ridge, and the like, they’re all the same. Forgotten places found only when someone is lost. And being lost is how we like it, the answer to why we stay. We’re not city-bred, we’re bologna on white bread. The trick to survival is avoiding the liverwurst.
“Da fuck you doing blocking the doorway?” Ryan calls to us.
Foul-smelling liverwurst like Ryan Sherwood.
“This ain’t your bar. Go back to your own town.”
I look up at Nate. “I take it he wasn’t here last time you guys came in.”
“Definitely not.”
“All set, babe.” Joss bangs two mugs together to get my attention.
“Hi, Brad.” I’m the only one who greets him.
“We’re not finished.” Brad follows Joss, cradling mugs and a pitcher. “We’re not finished talking about this.”
“Let me help you with that.” Jim takes the pitcher and two mugs from him, cocking his head slightly to the side for Nate to follow.
“In a sec,” Nate says.
“Suit yourself. I’ll hold the table.”
“This sucks. You want me to leave so you can hang out with your asshole friends?” Brad asks.
Nate clenches his jaw. “We’re all friends here.”
“You still owe me. This isn’t what we agreed on. I get two dates now.” Brad’s bloodshot eyes flare. I smell alcohol on his breath. “Two dates.”
“That’s not the best way to win a woman over,” Nate says.
Brad sways like he’s wicked fuzzy. “Know-it-all. You’re a f-f-fucker.”
“Take it easy, tough guy.” Nate grips his shoulder.
“Get back here before I drink it all!” Jim raises a mug.
“Shut your face,” Ryan warns. He pushes out from his table and motions for one of his friends to come over. They eye Jim before turning to us. Their approach unlocks a torrent of blood to riot through the darkness of my veins. My heart joins the rampage, unlike my legs, which are fixed in place. This is not going to end well.
Nate moves in front of me, but Ryan sidesteps us and goes straight for Brad, shoving him out the front door with a cold face, the face of a man who wants to take a hard swing at somebody.
“Really, Ryan?” Joss chases them outside. “The guys are here with us. You won’t lose your chicks to them.”
The noise in the bar diminishes to church-like silence. A crowd forms by the front windows. Nate and I look at one another and follow them out the door.
“Is this on you?” Ryan punches Brad’s shoulder, enough of a jolt for his mug to slip from his hand and sink into the snow. “You bring them here, Brenner? We don’t even like you coming ’round, now you’re bringing in two more men. What gives?”
“I … I didn’t come here with—”
“I-I nothing,” Ryan taunts.
“Isn’t this the guy who asked Frank’s daughter out?” Ryan’s friend says.
“Kayla? No way.” He grabs Brad by the throat. “You like teenage girls, ya sick fuck? That’s my little cousin.”
“Shit,” I whisper. Brad’s on his tiptoes, face ten shades of red, slapping Ryan’s hands for a quick release. Jim rushes through the door, cracking his knuckles and rolling his shoulders, ready for a fight.
“Don’t.” Nate places his arm across Jim’s chest.
The gun sticking out the back of Ryan’s jeans has control over us. No one’s setting foot between Ryan and Brad.
“What are you, like thirty? Asking out a high school kid? You that hard up, Brenner?” Ryan shakes him. “Have you ever even gotten laid? Get yourself a fleshlight or something, ya fat fuck.”
“Ease off,” Nate says.
The neon sign above the door targets a flash of red onto Ryan’s gun, a marker to stay back. Brad’s arms drop to his sides. There’s a loss of hope in his eyes.
I believe we’re all figuring out a way to pull Ryan away, but Brad is the one who cuts the suffering short—a dark spot growing across his crotch and down his right leg—as if his day could get any worse.
“You pissing?” Ryan steps back. “What da fuck, man?”
The embarrassment I feel for Brad worsens with the nervous laughter that leaks through the front windows. People are used to Ryan’s sudden fights, used to seeing him get his fair share of punches, but not used to the other guy having such an extreme reaction. It’s a situation so awkward it can’t be undone or unseen. And Joss’s tactless cackle doesn’t help. I throw a hard look for her to stop, but it’s too late, Brad heard. He collapses in the snow, and an air of melancholy takes possession of him. With his hands over his wet pants, he curls into a fetal position and admits defeat.
“Let’s drink,” Ryan says to his friend. He snarls at Nate and Jim on his way inside, and as expected, gets a round of applause when he opens the door. As long as it happened to Brad and not any of them, they’re not bothered by it.
Joss takes Jim’s hand and they head for the door.
“Where the hell are you going?” I ask, tilting my head toward the lump on the ground. “Don’t you see this?”
“Salem, he pissed himself.”
“And?”
“And what do you want me to do?”
“We can’t just leave him in a snow drift to die.”
She rolls her eyes. “He’s not gonna die.”
“He needs a ride home,” I snap at her. The cold night air pushes through my coat and across the back of my neck.
Nate crouches next to him and taps his shoulder. “Get up. Let’s go for a walk.”
“Go to hell.” Brad rolls toward the street, same as when he’d fall off his sled as a kid and wheel down our sledding hill, same clumsy movements, the same frustration of failure. He sticks his face in a snowbank and a stirring wind blows a dusting of snow over his legs, leaving only his torso exposed, reminiscent of my toppled over hippo in the backyard.
“Jesus, Brad. I’ll get my car,” I say. He throws a toddler tantrum by kicking at the snow. “Stop it. We’re trying to help you.”
“Babe, this is so lame. You promised you’d hang out tonight,” Joss complains.
“I didn’t promise anything.”
“We only see each other if I come to the lodge, now you’re gonna try to save Brad Brenner after he’s been such a dick to us?”
“Open your eyes.” I smack her forehead with my palm. She almost chokes on the surprise. “Joss, I don’t care who it is, I’m not leaving any person collapsed in the snow.”
She points at Brad. “He’s used to this. Just wait, he’ll get up eventually.”
“Is that a joke?”
“Look, he won’t even show his face. Let him be. He’ll get lonely and crawl back inside on his own.”
“I’ll pretend you didn’t just say that.”
“Nate, let’s go.” Jim holds the door open.
“You go. Take Joss inside before there’s a second fight out here.”
“Salem, what the fuck?” Joss calls to me. “Where you going?”
“To get my Cherokee!” I round the corner and hustle down the street to my SUV, the seat still warm from the drive over. My cell rings as I turn the ignition … Joss.
“Can you wait one minute till I get back?” I ask.
“I’m mad at you,” she says.
“Is that so? Well, I’m disappointed in you
.”
“Salem.”
“No, it’s one thing for us to be disgusted with Brad, but another to leave him like this. What if he passes out and freezes to death?”
“He’s playing you. He’s not that drunk.”
“Maybe so, but I’m not taking that chance. He could get hypothermia.”
“For fuck’s sake, you need to let the past go and get out more.”
“Excuse me? You need to get your shit together.”
“Meaning what? Settle down and pop out a couple of kids?”
“Meaning there’s a huge difference between being blunt about the way someone’s acting and being downright mean to them.”
She hangs up.
I hang up.
I park in front of the bar and spread Ollie’s blanket on the back seat. Nate helps Brad up and guides him to the blanket before joining me up front. “Drive,” he says, “away from the bar.”
“I’ll take him home.”
“Not yet.” Nate looks at the wilted mass in the back, shakes his head, and points to drive.
I pull away from the bar and head to the main square, three blocks away. Storefronts sit abandoned, sidewalks are empty, and the streets are dark. My crooked right headlight illuminates the buildings on Nate’s side, the way cops point beams down dark alleys at night. Talking is avoided. Nate picks at the cracked armrest. I keep my eyes on the snowy roads. Brad stares out the window.
I drive twice around the square. Three times. And four. Hard snow crunches under my tires. Flyers stapled to trees flap in a straight-line-formation, a battle to flee in the wind. I see more and more of these flyers hanging throughout town, the ones that advertise the new main attraction for Tilford: AA meetings.
I ease up to a stop sign. A lone flyer manages to break free from a tree. I watch it twirl away, nearly clapping for its freedom, excitement that’s short-lived when a plow rolls the sheet of paper into darkness. Torn. Smothered. Dead.
“Someone say something,” Brad finally speaks. “Tell me what a loser I am.”
Nate rubs his forehead. “You shouldn’t let guys like that have so much control. You gotta fight back.”
“Right. That coming from the guy who’s a cross between a professional football player and a model.”
“Hey, you didn’t think twice about standing up to Jim and me this week.”
“I had my gun on me then.”
A gust of wind rocks the Cherokee. Nate grips his knees, his knuckles white. “Grow some balls, Brenner.”
Brad leans toward the front. “I think I’m gonna puke.”
“No.” I dig behind my seat and pull out Ollie’s travel water bowl, drop it in his lap. “Do it in there, not on my floor.”
He rubs the nape of his neck and falls back. “Not for real, Salem. I meant my life sucks.”
“Oh, cry me a river. Whose life doesn’t suck?”
“Fuck you.”
“Fuck me?” I pull over and park alongside a buried curb. “Stop acting this way. You’re self-sabotaging your life.”
“Fu—”
“Don’t tell me to fuck this or that. Fuck off. Fuck you. Fuck whatever!” I scream. “I’m sick of hearing it. You’ve been reckless all week, you’ve been eating nonstop, and you’ve been on Nate and Jim’s case for no reason whatsoever. Now you’re starting to act helpless.”
“I’ve always been—”
“Let me finish!” I scold. “When was the last time you were positive about anything? It’s destructive, Brad. You’ve given up. You’re gonna wind up a lonely old man with no friends. You think I want that to happen to you? To any of us? I don’t.” I inhale a lungful of air and dive back in. “You know, I don’t think Connor asked you to look out for me when he was planning on going to college. I think he wanted you to come to the lodge so I could look after you.”
“Fu—”
“I said, don’t say that. Don’t be so quick to swear at me and reject what I say.”
“What the hell do you want? You go ahead and tell me what’s good. I’m listening,” he yells back. “What do I have to look forward to? You think maybe a horde of single women will come through town this summer? Maybe they’ll like short, dumpy cops. Can’t wait.”
“Don’t be so melodramatic,” Nate says.
I squeeze the wheel until my fingers ache. “You think sex is the key to being happy? That’s messed up.”
He snorts. “What do you base it on? Wait, I forgot, you’re not happy either.”
“You’re wrong.” My voice bites. “The lodge makes me happy. And I have Ollie. I’m thankful for a lot of things.” I touch Nate’s leg. “A lot.”
“Don’t try to make a fairytale out of your rotten life.”
“You prick.” I snap my head around. “Don’t make me come back there.”
Nate puts his hand up, his face set in lines that make him look twenty years older. Hot air from the vents flutters his hair and causes Brad’s urine to come to room temperature, a stench I clear by cracking the window.
“I think I’ll take you back to the bar,” I say in a lower voice. “I don’t need this. I’ve had a hard enough week as it is.”
Brad puts his hands over his face and the seat swallows him in. Joss was right; a lot of this is an act. He must enjoy making a scene, likes the attention, wants the company. An argument, a fight, staring at my chest, arresting Jim … conflict is preferred to boredom. Joss noticed it because she’s the same way.
I pull behind the bar and park in front of his pickup, a sense of relief to be rid of him. Then dread: Joss is mad at me. And trepidation: I don’t want to go inside. And unease: Brad’s not getting out.
I adjust my mirror to look at him. Maybe peeing his pants wasn’t an accident, maybe that one thing wasn’t a sick show to get attention, and maybe, just maybe, the tear rolling down his cheek is real.
“It’s good to be a cop, Brenner. Something to be proud of,” Nate says unexpectedly.
“What would you know of it?” Brad asks.
Nate takes out his flask, offers him a drink. It’s passed to me and back to Brad multiple times, eventually ending in Nate’s hands. He stares at it for a minute, his finger tracing his dad’s name. “My dad was a cop, one of the best in Vinland Falls.” Brad shifts in the seat, sitting taller. “You probably already know cops aren’t much appreciated.”
“Not much,” Brad whispers.
“Doesn’t matter. It’s not why you become one.” Nate takes a sip and screws the cap back on the flask. He wipes his lips on his forearm. “You became a cop because of Connor.” Brad raises his head. “That’s right, I know. I get it. If you were the cop who got the call that day Connor went in the water, you would’ve gotten to him. You would’ve gotten the police boat out of dock quicker than the other officers. And you would’ve warmed his body the way he taught you years earlier. I know because he talked to me about survival skills when we were kids, years before it happened. I’m sure you knew what to do, he told you at some point. He knew everything, and he passed what he knew along to anyone who’d listen. That was Connor.
“Yeah,” Brad chokes up.
“And because of that, you would’ve been better than the other cops who were there. You could’ve saved him.”
Brad swallows hard. I bite my nail to stop my lips from trembling.
“And that’s all good, Brenner. Next time you say your life sucks, why don’t you fucking remember that. Remember that’s who you are. A cop. The one thing you should be proud of no matter what. That’s what’s good about your life. And if you don’t think so, turn in your badge and find a different job. Let someone else who’ll value it more than you take over, someone who’ll take it seriously.” Nate turns and points at Brad’s face. “Someone who won’t let my dad and other officers’ deaths be in vain. Cause, you know, some cops don’t come home because they get shot.” He speaks shallowly from his lungs. “And you’re sitting here bitching about nothing. What a joke
. Be happy with what you’ve got, asshole.” He breathes faster. “You put your life on the line to protect others, and you do it for your friend. Go ahead and tell me what’s better than that. Tell me why you think your life is so goddamn awful. You tell me. I’m listening.”
The back door to the bar opens and Ryan comes flying out with his hands all over a woman, likely taking her somewhere to fuck. Nate doesn’t flinch. Even when the tires on Ryan’s car spin as he drives off, Nate’s focused solely on his dad, this conversation, and Brad.
“Wait here.” Brad gets out and rushes to his truck. He opens the passenger-side door, slips off his boots, drops his pants, and shoves his stocky legs into a clean pair of jeans. Of course, only a guy like Brad keeps spare clothes in his vehicle.
After his boots are back on, he reappears next to Nate’s door. Nate rolls down the window.
“I wanna buy you a drink,” Brad offers.
“Yeah?”
He nods, sticks his hands in his pockets.
“Find anything at Grady’s?” Nate asks.
“Nothing. Not yet.”
“Not ever. Still think I’m the victim of an abduction?”
“Nope.”
“Give me a sec.” Nate rolls up the window. He has a crooked smile as he takes another drink. “You’re not coming in, are you?” he asks.
“No, I just can’t deal tonight. But you should go.”
“You want me to come back to the lodge with you?”
I look past him at Brad standing outside the back door under the fake palm tree. The string of lights turns on. He looks up, his face lit, one side of his lips curling into a half-smile.
“You remind him of Connor.” My voice is weak.
Nate lifts his eyes to mine. I rake my fingers through his hair until his breathing slows.
“You’re a good person, Nate. He’s not used to that.”
He leans forward. I taste his breath in my mouth before our lips meet, and let out a soft moan before he whispers that he’ll miss me.
The Release of Secrets_Littlest Sparrow Gone Page 21
