The Last Refuge sahm-1

by Chris Knopf

  She got hung up in the chaotic line in front of the pastry counter. I saw an opening form along the window and took it, so by the time she reached the door I was already there, without having to climb over tables or trample baby carriages.

  I caught her by the elbow. She swiveled her head around and stared at me.

  “You don’t know this because I’ve been coming into the bank every month to do my stuff in person, because that’s a habit of mine. And somehow you got stuck with me. So it gave you the idea that I’m a normal sociable person, which I’m not. You’re actually about the only person I’ve said anything to for almost four years. You and Regina.”

  “And here I am boring you about my mother.”

  “I’m sure she’d have been pleased to know she had a daughter who thought about her,” I said, scrambling for something to say. “I bet the two of you had a lot in common.”

  Some people were trying to squeeze past us to get out the door. Amanda held her ground.

  “My mother was a very brave woman,” she said, “not like me.”

  As the morning aged, the light out on Main Street had hardened up. But Amanda’s skin still looked like it’d been airbrushed on and her auburn hair sparkled with tiny little fireworks. It caught me by surprise and distracted me from coming up with something else to say, so she slipped away and walked back to the bank without looking back. A familiar sight. A beautiful woman in full retreat.

  I was overconfident when I set the alarm for 5:30 a.m. Sleep clogged my veins and packed gauze in my eyes. The cigarettes had left their usual rat’s ass taste in my mouth. My stomach was skittery, unsure how to play the day.

  When I left my wife, she predicted I’d last five years on my own. One to go.

  That was around the same time the psychiatrist threw me out of his office. He said there was nothing he could do for me. Actually, he said he didn’t want to do anything for me, which I guess in retrospect was a breach of ethics. Not that I cared. I hated the self-important little prig. All he wanted was to get me off vodka and on to antidepressants. This was supposed to prepare me for psychoanalysis, so I could dig out deep-rooted causes.

  The therapy was part of a deal I had to make with the Stamford district attorney. She hoped it would cover her decision not to prosecute me for a series of things, including gutting my wife’s house. Me and a pair of hard cases from the gym had packed all our furniture and household goods in a big semi, tore out the woodwork, ripped up the floors and stripped the walls. We filled up a few dumpsters, then trucked the semi down to one of those mountainous landfills in the Jersey Meadowlands where we buried all my wife’s treasured belongings under a hundred tons of Manhattan garbage.

  We left the studs and rough plumbing and all the equipment in the basement. Plus a note on the plywood substrate floor, in what used to be the kitchen, telling her I’d cover full replacement costs.

  I’d already given up my share of the house and three-quarters of my money. I still had a little left to live on, after I paid off whatever my wife’s insurance wouldn’t cover. I’m not proud of it, I just did it. I still don’t know exactly why, but it can’t be for any good reason.

  I did, however, like that DA. My wife and her lawyers had a hard time getting her to muster the appropriate prosecutorial outrage. It helped that she’d been putting in twelve-hour days and weekends during the two weeks my wife had been out on the slopes. We talked about overwork and lost time and sacrifice. Her husband had spent most of their married life finding himself. She’d supported him while he earned a pair of master’s degrees and a Ph.D. He’d complain she was too stressed out. That she’d forgotten how to have fun. I just smirked at her and she looked down at her tired hands and said, “Right.”

  So I copped the shrink deal and spent three months sparring with this little jerk who couldn’t look at a urinal without analyzing the psychosexual impulses underlying the urge to take a piss.

  I never understood any of it. It bothered me that people considered lightheartedness and optimism the norm. I wondered how anyone could be more than half awake and not be at least a little bummed by the desperate hopelessness of human existence.

  Mornings like this were especially hard. I was so tired and sick to my stomach. It didn’t help that I’d risen to this a million times before. The pain was cinched up tight around my heart.

  After making up a pot of coffee, I put on a T-shirt and shorts and went out for a run. I usually saved this kind of thing for the gym, but I was afraid the big black dog was going to chomp down hard if I didn’t get my cardiovascular fired up.

  A study someone did in the eighties concluded the better grip you had on reality, the more likely you were to be depressed, and vice versa. Science has confirmed that ignorance is, indeed, bliss.

  My jogging route took me along sandy unpaved roads threaded through the tall oaks and scrub pines tucked up to the bay shore. Every fifty to a hundred feet was a driveway to a house built on the coast. Other houses were stuck in the woods or perched on pressure-treated pilings above swampy bogs that were grandfathered out of the Wetlands Act.

  Twenty minutes into the run I started to feel better. Too distracted by the effort of running to bother with anxiety. By that time I was passing the gate to WB Manufacturing, the abandoned plant built on the peninsula immediately to the east of Oak Point. There was a new cyclone fence and gate securing the entrance, but otherwise it looked like it had forever— all concrete, red brick and rust.

  When my father was building his house most of our neighbors worked at the plant. Even then, jobs at WB were considered tenuous at best. Manufacturing never really took hold out here, which helped save the East End for all the potato farmers and tennis courts. My father put in a little time there himself, but I think they fired him. If it was like any of his other jobs he’d gotten into a scrape with somebody, or spouted off about something too loudly, or too often. That was why he could only really work for himself. Today you’d say he was a little light on the interpersonal skills.

  That’s probably what killed him. They never caught the guys who did it, assuming they even tried. Probably a pair of punks stopping off for a quick drink. He’d probably provoked them. The wrong look, the wrong word, a gesture, a snort—that’s all you needed to do. Took about five minutes. They left him in the can, already dead as you can get before the door slammed shut on their way out.

  I felt better when I got back from the run. Good enough to take a shower, shave, get dressed and take off in the Grand Prix. Good enough to give it another day.

  It took me most of the morning driving around Hampton Bays to find Jimmy Maddox. I started with the construction site Sullivan told me about. They didn’t know him, but they sent me over to an earth-moving outfit. They’d heard of him, but didn’t want to be helpful. I was polite and moved on.

  At the third place there was a sandy scar cut into a tall grove of gnarly red pine. A big florid-faced guy in a gray T-shirt two sizes too small for his gut was rolling out of the cab of a huge Cat steam shovel. The machine looked like a giant yellow critter that hadn’t had breakfast yet. Diesel and pneumatic fluids blended with the smell of wet sand that stood in defeated heaps around the freshly cut excavation.

  He squinted to hear over the engine noise.

  “No, I don’t know where Maddox is, but I could probably find out,” he yelled to me as we walked away from the Cat toward a battered little office trailer. He seemed glad to be away from his big machine. There was no one else on the site. Maybe he was lonely. “What’s it for?”

  “Just some family business I gotta take care of,” I told him, not knowing what else to say.

  “You related?”

  “No, it’s more a thing I have to do for the Town. His aunt died. I’m helping settle her estate.” I dropped my voice when he closed the trailer door behind us. “He just needs to sign some papers and stuff.”

  The Formica table was covered in blueprints and brown burn marks from forgotten cigarettes. The walls were pape
red with Labor Department propaganda and calendars with topless women wearing tool belts and wielding impact drills. There were two coffee pots in an automatic maker and coffee stains everywhere. He filled a pair of Styrofoam cups.

  “No shit. She leave him anything?”

  “Probably a little. Not too much. Didn’t have that much.”

  “Hey, you never know. Sometimes old ladies got bunches of money squirreled away.”

  “That’s true. You never know,” I said. “You think you could find him for me?”

  “Yeah, that’s right. Just a second.”

  He pulled out a muddy Verizon yellow pages and thumbed through it with his muddy hands. He called from a black wall-mounted phone.

  “Yeah, Davy, this is Frank. You got Jimmy Maddox working on your job? Nah, I don’t need him. This guy,” he looked over at me and I shook my head to caution him. He turned his head back down before going on, “This guy wanted to talk to him about some other job. Doesn’t need him right away. Nah, I don’t know why he wants to talk to Jimmy, he just does. Must of got a recommendation. I don’t know, just checking for him. Nah, don’t tell Jimmy anything, let this guy talk to him. Yeah, let him work it out. How’s it going over there? Yeah, what the fuck. Don’t I know it. Yeah, Davy. Okay.” They volleyed banalities for a few more minutes before hanging up.

  He turned to me from the phone.

  “So what’s the big secret.”

  “No big deal. Like you told him, I just want to work it out with Jimmy. You handled that well.”

  “He owe you money?”

  I drank some of his ubiquitous coffee. It was pretty good, even from a Styrofoam cup. I watched him write something down on the back of a receipt swiped from the in-box on somebody’s desk.

  “Nothing like that. You can check it out with the Town. Ask a cop named Joe Sullivan. Tell him you talked to Sam Acquillo.”

  He gave me the address of the job.

  “That name’ll be on the sign at the job. Maddox’s working the backhoe on the utility trench. Good backhoe guy. Good enough to pick your teeth with it. Too bad.”

  I tucked the folded receipt into my shirt pocket.

  “What do you mean ‘too bad’?”

  He shrugged.

  “He’s a nasty asshole. Nobody can stand working with him. He’s just one of those guys. Asshole kid. You know what I mean?”

  “I guess, sure.”

  “You’ll see. Real sweetheart.”

  I walked him back to his steam shovel.

  “Someday,” the big guy told me as he climbed up over the polished steel treads, “somebody’s going to beat the snot out of that little fucker, you know what I mean?”

  The day was coming in cloudy, but still clear, with a breeze that swept the Cat’s exhaust up into the pines and out toward the ocean. The diesel roared behind me as I lugged the Grand Prix back to Montauk Highway.

  “Shit, fuck, Christ, you son of a bitch piece of shit. Fucking piece of shit. Fucking goddammit cock sucking piece of crap SHIT.”

  Jimmy Maddox was about twenty-eight years old, but his face looked a lot younger. Soft and round, barely showing a few smudges of orange fuzz on his upper lip and jowls. Freckles and curly red hair bursting out from under a bright green hat with an orange rim. He looked like the demented trade-school son of Ronald McDonald. A little of his Aunt Regina haunted his face and poked through his bitter eyes.

  I stood just outside the swing of the big shovel and spray of invective. The kid had an interesting style. The trench he was digging was almost sculpted. The action of the shovel was smooth and controlled. It didn’t fit with all that yelling and swearing. Dotty Hodges and the big excavator had it right. A young dickhead. But with a little texture.

  “Fucking shit bag piece of fucking shit.”

  He knew I was standing there watching him. I thought he’d finish the last section of trench in about half an hour. I decided I’d leave before that. Stand in one place too long and your dignity drains out of your feet.

  Maybe curiosity got the best of him. Idling the backhoe, he curled the shovel between the little front wheels and climbed down from the seat. He walked past without looking at me, but close enough to hear me call out his name.

  “Yeah?” he yelled back. “And you are?”

  He had a good start on a blue-collar beer belly. It strained the fabric of his muddy white T-shirt. His jeans were bunched down around a pair of expensive Dunhill boots. His lip was actually curled a little.

  “Sam Acquillo. I’ve got some bad news.”

  He spit at the ground.

  “Fuck. What is it?”

  “Your Aunt Regina died.”

  He looked at me as if I hadn’t said anything yet. I waited. He spit again.

  “Died?”

  “Yeah. Been about a week. She’s still in the morgue. It’s time somebody decided how to settle her out.”

  “That’d be you?”

  “With your help, if you’re interested.”

  “You the ex-ec-u-tor?”

  I’m not good with that kind of approach. But I was trying.

  “I might be. That depends on you.”

  He crouched down on his haunches and picked up a piece of dirt. It crumbled in his hand, and he tossed the pieces away like a sod farmer on the last legs of foreclosure.

  “Just up and died?”

  “That’s what it looks like.”

  He stood up again, wiping his hands on his hips. I’d moved in a little closer so I could get a better look at his face when he talked. He noticed the intrusion and stiffened a little.

  “What’s your deal in this?”

  “Next-door neighbor.”

  He looked over my shoulder.

  “You got that old Pontiac. I seen it in the driveway.”

  I nodded. “The cops couldn’t find any next of kin. I told them I’d help out. Talk to you.”

  He crossed his arms over his belly and leaned back a little.

  “Cops? Somebody kill her?”

  “What do you think?”

  “You a cop?”

  “Should I be?”

  “Is this twenty fucking questions?”

  I smiled. The backhoe was still idling next to the trench. A hundred feet away a gang of foundation guys were leaning on their shovels and rakes, watching the mixer back up. The smell of fresh concrete competed with the mud smell and a touch of raw lumber coming from a large stack of two-by-eights. Maddox was slowly rocking back and forth on his heals, acting out his manifold indecisions.

  “I’m just trying to help out,” I told him. “Something bothering you?”

  He uncrossed his arms and shoved his hands in his pockets. I saw him as I first saw him. As a kid.

  “Aunt Reggie’s the only relative I got left. How’d she die?”

  “Just did. I found her floating in the bathtub. Frankly, I think they should nail down the exact cause of death. I think you ought to authorize an autopsy. They got her on ice, but time’s going by.”

  “I gotta do that?”

  “You don’t have to do the autopsy. Just authorize it. And take a little responsibility for all this. Funeral, estate, all that.”

  He wasn’t listening.

  “My mom always said she had a bunch of money hid away somewheres.”

  “You think so, too?”

  His face shifted around under the pale, fleshy surface. I wondered how much of his family he’d already buried in his young life. That kind of thing can put uneven wear on a kid. Ruin his balance.

  “Nah, she didn’t have shit.”

  “You checked?”

  His soft face filled up with blood.

  “You think I’m stupid?”

  “Not yet.”

  “You think I don’t know what you’re gettin’ at?”

  “I’m not getting at anything. But you’re gettin’ edgy.”

  “You’re gonna shut the fuck up.”

  “Not likely.”

  The old punch drunks who used to h
ang around my neighborhood gym called it a Western Union. That was when a guy did everything but send you a telegram that he was about to take a shot at your nose.

  I just waited for him.

  “You’re a fucking asshole,” he told me.

  I let him talk and take my measurements. I kept my hands loose at my sides and my feet in a partial stance.

  Then I took a piece of a second to think about the delicacy Jimmy Maddox showed digging a utility trench with a two-ton backhoe. It made me rethink my estimate of his speed, and adjust accordingly. In an even tinier fraction of a second his cowboy swing was launched toward my jaw.

  I caught his fist like a baseball with my left hand and held it. He froze in surprise, straining against my grip. It was hard to hold him—he was stronger than he looked. I popped him once in the mouth and sat him down on his butt. I squatted down as he dropped, keeping my grip on his right fist and feeling the resistance drain out of his arm.

  “I used to be a boxer, son. No more of that stuff, okay?”

  He nodded with his free hand over his mouth. He wasn’t ready to say anything, so I did.

  “I’m not accusing you of anything. It’s just your personality. So what say we start over. More friendly.”

  He nodded and I let go of his right hand. He looked at it like an annoying pet that’d been missing for a few days. Blood ran out of the corner of his mouth and spotted his T-shirt. I handed him the paper towel I’d stuffed in my pocket that morning in a moment of prescience. He held it to his face as we walked over to the Grand Prix. The sun was behind some clouds, and the light was diffuse and less forgiving. The blood on his shirt was bright red. His face was back to pale.

  “Do any work around chemical plants, Jimmy?”

  He looked at me with a frown.

  “There aren’t any chemical plants around here.”

  “Up island? New Jersey?”

  “Never been there. What difference does it make?”

  “No difference.”

  He was too jangled to argue anymore. I let him sit in the passenger seat of the Grand Prix with his legs out the door while I leafed through the papers for a clean sheet to write on.