Any Other Place

by Michael Croley

  Clutching the phone, he walked through the house and turned on lights. He went to every single room, flipping every switch, and when he looked out the windows, it was so bright he couldn’t see the night in front of him. Then he went outside to the road, each window glowing in front of him. Had it been just a week before and he had come home to this sight, his mother could have been in any one of those rooms. Had it been just months before he would have still been in Boston, in the arms of the woman he thought was going to make him happy for the rest of his life.

  He sat down in the middle of the road and pulled his knees into his chest. The sky above him was cloudless, and it was an endless field of stars. He took in one big deep breath and exhaled. Finally, he thought, the tears would come. But as he continued to watch the windows, hoping for the passing of a shadow, some sign of movement, his eyes only welled.

  IN THE MORNING there was no sign his father had come home. Cole had fallen asleep on the couch with all the lights still on. He called the funeral home, and they said his father was there. Cole dressed and drove to meet him. When he arrived, his father was where he had left him, sitting in the same chair, in the same pose, and Cole wondered if he had moved at all from the spot or gone outside, at least, into the air and paced. The next two days it was the same thing. He refused to leave the funeral home, and every time Cole came by to check on him, his father always seemed surprised by his presence. Mr. Kirby told Cole he’d seen similar grieving before, but nothing quite like this.

  “He sits all day,” he said. “He doesn’t speak. He must have loved your mother very much.” Cole knew he said this in a tone meant to let him know his father’s grief was, in some way, honorable.

  Cole handled most of the details of the visitation and the funeral, his father agreeing to everything he put in front of him and signing all the forms. On Friday night Cole greeted the people who came to the funeral home, standing up for each person to shake his hand or give him a hug after they had viewed his mother and accepting their soft-spoken words. His father, clean-shaven and showered, stayed seated. What Mr. Kirby didn’t know was that while his father mourned, Cole had been shuffling through old pictures of himself and her and of their family. He too had spent restless nights, but his were spent in a house that hadn’t been home in a long time and that now took on an even more distant feeling with his mother’s death.

  His father had hidden, and by the last night of the visitation, Cole was unable to even look at the old man. He cut a small figure. His handshakes were limp, his eyes lost to some other place. And of all the things Cole had ever felt guilty about in his life, none of them compared to the contempt he held for his father in the dim funeral home. Though Cole had not seen him shed one tear, he looked at his father’s grieving as a weakness. He was the one who should have handled the details. Instead, he had forced Cole to be as stoic and reserved as he was, and as they drove out to the cemetery inside the funeral home’s Cadillac, Cole knew this was what he resented most.

  The familiar shapes of the mountains that set the boundaries of Fordyce rose up before the windshield in the distance, and the land’s pattern seemed to wrap around him like some warm quilt. Side by side they sat in the car, each man looking out his own window, and side by side they stood at the graveside service while a small crowd of friends and family gathered.

  The preacher read the Psalm and gave a meditation on death, mentioning a few personal aspects and stories about Cole’s mother. Cole didn’t listen. Around him he watched the people nodding, praying with the preacher, clutching purses and tissues in their hands. There had been moments in the last few evenings when all Cole wanted to do was shake his father, to pull him out of the chair and drag him outside and ask him what went on inside of him. I’ve known you all my life, but I don’t know who you are or what you want. He had come back to Fordyce with so much shame, and for the first time in his life his father wasn’t the strongest person in the room.

  Then the preacher quieted, and Cole felt the finality of his mother’s death being laid upon his shoulders. His father was stone-faced, and Cole noticed in his expression, in a way he knew shouldn’t have surprised him, how wrong he’d been. For three nights he had lain in bed once again, waiting to hear the old man come in the door, the jangle of his keys being laid on the counter, his footsteps on the stairs toward his room. He had stayed in bed with his hands behind his head, staring at the dark, listening so hard, so intently, his head hurt, but not once did he rise from his spot and run to his father. Just as he had when he was a boy, he waited on him to make everything better. His father in just three days’ time had withered away under the soft lights of the Kirby Funeral Home while Cole had been unable to say the simplest words to him. They had both failed each other. And in the clear day, with the sun growing brighter by the minute, as if he could see it pulsing in the blue-dream of sky, Cole began to feel his mother everywhere in his thoughts. She bound the two men, pleading from the other side, it seemed, for them to move toward each other.

  Then his father’s hand was at his elbow, the grip pinching into his skin, and Cole led them both to the casket. Sweat beaded at his temples. His father leaned into him, and as he bent over with his free hand to scoop up a small patch of dirt, the grip on Cole’s elbow tightened. The old man held out the dirt, his hand shook over the casket, and his whole body was buckling, pulling down on Cole’s arm, but Cole stood firm, widened his stance by a half step. He watched his father open his palm and, like smoke, the tiny granules spread into the air, and the two men stood at the gravesite while everyone in attendance drifted away, leaving them alone.

  THE BEGINNINGS OF A STORM

  AFTER WORK, JAMES rushes home to scrub off the specks of asphalt and grime of exhaust from a ten-hour workday. His jeans lie in a wad on the motel room floor, and in the front pocket is eight hundred dollars, all in twenties—an entire week’s pay. Most of that will be gone by Monday when he’ll arrive back at the airport to get behind the wheel of a bulldozer or front loader, hungover and cotton-mouthed. But now, in the cool stream of water, the money represents nothing but possibility and access, two complete days of not hearing the loud whine of diesel engines or jet planes rising from the earth. He takes a long drink from one of the beers he’s brought into the shower. He has denied himself this specific pleasure all week, trying to practice some measure of restraint and discipline until Friday afternoons, when often he gives in to his impulses. On the drive home today he stopped at the corner store on Lamar and bought a sixer and two tallboys and set them on the passenger seat, waiting until exactly 5:00 p.m. before he cracked the first one. Until then the cans seemed to stare, to bubble with life just a foot from his reach. When the digital clock on the truck’s stereo tumbled to the magic numbers, he was in a winding line of cars by the university. He grabbed the first can from the bag and popped its top all in one motion, just as a couple of blonde, long-legged sorority girls crossed in front of his truck. He raised the can to them and called out “Cheers!” as they walked right on past, turning their heads just enough so that their hair became filled with sunlight.

  He turns the water off and finishes his beer, crushes the can, and steps onto the cold tiles. He checks his hair in the mirror and wraps himself in a towel. He’s been living in this motor lodge for six months, ever since he and Lisa split their marriage up. The walls are thin, marked by stains that appear to be from an electrical fire, but the carpet in his room is less dank than in the first three rooms the owner showed him. He pays the man $125 a week in rent. The TV and air conditioner work and that’s all he’s really paying for. He bought his own sheets and bedspread at Walmart, and those are the only luxury items he’s afforded himself. Everything else he has is a ragtag collection of his old life. If Lisa saw him now she’d see what he can’t: that he’s given up.

  A young black woman on the television says the temperature was over 100 today, the heat index 115. The room is hotter than normal. He walks to the air conditioner and feels nothing but warm air b
lowing out of the vent. He reaches down into the cooler and pulls out a fresh can of beer and places it against the back of his neck. Bright light streams through the cream-colored curtains. Through their sheerness he sees his pickup truck and remembers when it was shiny and new. Lisa had come home with it. A gift to get him started, she said. He was doing landscaping then and had assembled a crew of six. He had dreams of growing the business, telling Lisa his back wouldn’t last forever. She’d gone to her father and gotten the money for the truck. That started a big fight between them.

  “I’ll never live it down,” he told her.

  “He wants to help. He believes in you.”

  “You believe in me. He loves you. Never wants to disappoint you. Your problem is you’re spoiled. You don’t want to work.”

  “You need a good truck to haul your equipment. Besides, we’re going to pay him back. I promised.” She was calm and refused to take his bait.

  “We?”

  “That’s right,” she said. “Us.”

  He relented then, and that night they drove the pickup downtown to Gus’s Fried Chicken, and afterward they walked over to Beale Street and drank beer in plastic cups and watched the tourists around them go in and out of the neon-lit bars while they milled about, listening to the covers coming out of B. B. King’s club. He bought her a carnation, and afterward, on their walk back to the truck, she stopped underneath the refurbished Orpheum Theater, the marquee and awning a sky of bright white bulbs, and he snapped her picture with his cell phone camera. He still has it, transfers it from one phone to the next even though it’s been six years since he took it and the truck is now dented along the fenders and back bumper, with rust settling into the crevices of those scars.

  He shakes his head as if he can expel the memory and brings the can to his lips and takes a deep drink until everything in it is gone. And then, in a move he saw his father’s friend do once when he was a boy, he licks the rim to get every last drop of alcohol.

  He grabs his watch from the dresser. Jenna’s not due to arrive for another few hours. He dives his hand back into the cooler and this time comes out with a fifth of Very Old Barton. It is the bourbon his father used to drink, and he doesn’t even bother with the paper cups on the bathroom sink. The bourbon is cool and sweet. He sits on the edge of the bed, intent on working himself into another state of being, but then his phone buzzes. “Jimmy!” Keith calls to him. “You going to see that hot little piece of ass tonight?”

  James rolls his eyes and sighs. He’s been working with Keith for two months on the construction job out by the Memphis Airport. A new office complex. Keith’s the closest thing James has to a friend these days. Sometimes he thinks Keith tries to pretend Jenna isn’t what she is, that her encounters with him are exclusive, dates.

  “Don’t be that way, Jimmy,” he says. “I hear you getting all huffy. I’m just asking. I bet she’s a toe-curler, ain’t she?”

  “What do you want, Keith?”

  “You’re a real gentleman, aren’t you? Won’t give up nothing.”

  “What do you want me to say?”

  “I want you to tell me you’re going to fuck her six ways to Sunday. I want you to say you’ll fuck her so hard she’ll scream my name.”

  James has to smile at that one. He says, “Never heard that one before. Your name, huh?”

  “If you can manage it.”

  James gives a soft laugh.

  Emboldened, Keith continues. “One time I got this hot little thing to blow me in the pew at church. Man, what I wouldn’t give to be seventeen again.”

  “Congratulations,” James says, an edge returning to his voice.

  “I’m just making conversation.”

  “Is that what you call it?”

  “What are you so damn prickly about?”

  “Nothing,” James says. “It’s hot in this damn room.” He takes a quick drink from the bottle.

  “It’s hot in this whole damn city. I should move to Canada. This shit is Africa-hot.”

  “You’d freeze your ass off in winter.”

  “I like cold. I like bundling up and facing the elements.”

  “It’s more than elements up there.”

  “What’s that mean?” Keith says.

  James shrugs to the empty room, tells Keith he doesn’t really know. He has done this more and more of late. Saying things that really have no meaning, just because they sound good to his ear. He doesn’t feel like talking to Keith. He just wants to get through this night and then the next. He wants, somehow, to both face and forget the life he now owns.

  “After you’re done with that little piece, why don’t you call me later?” Keith says. “I got an idea for us.”

  “I might,” he says, and before Keith can acknowledge his reply James hangs up.

  He considers supper and stands and feels the beginnings of a buzz—a warming in his ears. It’s not unpleasant, but he needs to get out of the room into some AC. He is searching for his keys when a knock comes at the door. It’s Jenna.

  “You’re early,” he says.

  “It’s a slow night. I saw your truck.”

  The sky has changed color, and gray swirls of clouds give off the hint of a breeze. He studies them.

  “You going to let me in?” She tries to push past him, but he doesn’t step aside. “What gives?”

  “Nothing,” he says, still focused on the sky. “Come on.” He retreats and she locks the door behind her.

  “You need to open a window in this place.”

  “There’s beer and brown liquor in the cooler,” he tells her.

  “I didn’t come here to drink,” she says. She is already pulling her shirt off and stepping out of her jean shorts. She walks over to the bed and slides under the covers, waiting on him.

  Despite not being ready for her, he feels his erection against his jeans. He unsnaps the buttons on his Levi’s and rolls on a condom. In minutes her small legs are wrapped tightly around his back. Right before she comes she will ball her hands up into little fists. He loves this moment. He keeps his eyes open when he’s with her working for it. He sweats through every pore in his body, every aching limb and muscle in him throbbing as he rocks atop her. He slips his arm underneath the small of her back to pull her light frame off the bed so that he is cradling her in one arm. He looks into her face, a little pockmarked and weatherworn but soft in the eyes and mouth, and he sees who she was and might have been if not for this or that, and he grinds through his own feelings until those fingers of hers clench the air between them and then he bears down harder, rocking the two of them faster, grabbing the top of the mattress to brace himself. Jenna lets out a full-throated cry at climax, but James won’t allow himself so much as a sigh. He seems to have gone somewhere else in his mind with these final few movements, reminding himself of where he is and who he’s with, eliminating almost all pleasure from the act. He gently lays her back down on the bed, her body covered in his sweat and he smelling of her sex, and pulls the sheet over her curled legs and goes to the bathroom. He never takes up the space beside her, preferring to get in the shower while she rests and let cold water sting him, as if desensitizing himself from what’s just occurred. She has told him before it’s different with him, but he doesn’t want to hear it, though he feels it might be true, with the way she carries on.

  As he steps into the shower he feels her hands on his shoulders. He turns with a fright. “Get out,” he says. “Get the hell out.” She holds her hands up but doesn’t seem afraid. She doesn’t speak and turns from him and he lets her go. He showers quickly, and when he comes back out, wrapped in a fresh towel, she is still there, watching television like it never happened at all. He figures that’s how it is when you pay for it. They don’t fight you or want anything from you. There’s no complication of emotion.

  “I’m sorry about earlier,” he says. “I didn’t mean to shout.”

  “You don’t have to worry about me,” she says. “I just wanted to rinse off. Didn’t thi
nk you’d mind.”

  She gets up and goes past him, and he knows the reason he minded has something to do with a boundary of intimacy he didn’t want to cross. He puts his clothes back on and waits for Jenna to come out, and when she does, he flips off three twenties from his roll of money and puts it on the dresser and tells her he’s leaving.

  “Where are you going?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Want me to come with you?”

  The question is an odd one, as if she’s pressing him. He feels himself tilting his head to examine her. “I’ll be all right,” he says.

  “You call me anytime,” she says, wringing her wet hair.

  “Close the door when you leave,” he tells her. He can’t get out of the room fast enough, and when he’s inside his truck, he pauses to collect his breath. The sky is darker, the clouds thicker and the night moving in. He drives to a filling station, and in its convenience store he fixes himself up with two hot dogs and buys another sixer. He heads east on Poplar, passing Overton Park where a yellow flag on the golf course is ruffled by the wind of moving cars.

  He rides with the radio low and a beer between his legs, careful not to take any sips whenever the truck is lit up by oncoming cars. He’s headed to his old house, another bad habit he can’t seem to break. It began months ago when he drove by on a Friday because he simply missed Lisa, their old life she no longer wanted. He thought he might walk up to the front door, coax her into a dinner, but when he pulled up there was an unfamiliar car in the driveway. A Saab. He didn’t believe she could have found somebody that quickly, so he parked down the street and watched the house. Watched it so long he fell asleep behind the wheel and woke at dawn to see the Saab covered in dew. An hour later a man walked out. Someone a little bit younger than him with big shoulders and a tan face. A square-jawed, bushy-eyebrowed fucker is how he’s described him to Keith. He considered following him, but he stopped himself. What he did do, though, was come back the next night and every night after, and when that piece of preppy Swedish shit was in the driveway, he parked right behind it while Lisa had her date inside the house where he once took his morning coffee. Behind the wheel of the truck—their truck, he thought—he failed at trying not to imagine what she must be doing with this new man in her life.