Bad Man

by Dathan Auerbach

  “What? You mean like haunted? Like ghosts and shit?”

  “No. Bad like a person. Mean.”

  “You seeing spooky ghosts shopping for haunted bargains?”

  “No. I was just askin, man. Dumb question.”

  Flicking his cigarette into the street, Marty shoved his hands into his pockets. “I don’t think it’s a dumb question. Not really.

  “Aaron asked me once—this was a long time ago, I guess—if God gets bored just watchin everything. Ya know, just sittin up there forever. So I say that I ain’t got no fuckin clue, because what kind of question is that? But then later, after thinkin for a bit, I say that however old the Earth is, God’s older, right? Older than the galaxy, the whole goddamn universe. Older than everything. The big swingin dick of all that is, sittin around for kajillions of years. Time’s gotta move fast for someone like that, right? Like if you take a dayfly and a person, ya know? So He watches everything all the time, keeping everything running smooth. And it’s never boring because it’s all zipping by so fast. I think it’s a pretty good answer. Good enough.

  “And then Aaron, that little shithead”—Marty grunted as he pulled on some branches, considered them, then let them go—“Aaron says, ‘What about when He blinks?’ Like a great joke, Aaron. I don’t know if he even realized how much that messed with me.

  “I mean, how long would that last for dumb fucks like us down here? Minutes? Whole goddamn lifetimes? Everything everywhere is cruising along and then wham. God’s not looking anymore.

  “Let’s take this cut-through.”

  The smell of dirt was powerful. The opening to the woods didn’t look like a proper trail. Dew tattled on spiderwebs hiding high in the trees. As they plunged deeper into the infinite trees, unease coiled in Ben’s stomach. Even though the sky was bright, the surrounding branches seemed to tease at Ben’s dream. In each clearing he half expected to see a bundle of white twitching in the brush. It would shamble toward him, the sheet falling away. I’m here, it would say, and it would sound like his brother. But it wouldn’t be his brother.

  The feeling lingered like a stench, and when Ben looked at his companion, he wondered if his nerves had anything at all to do with the dream. As they walked through the leaves and dirt, Ben glanced at the ground behind them, looking for the jagged shoeprint he’d seen once before but could no longer remember.

  “You sure this way is gonna be quicker?” Ben asked.

  “I reckon it will. The road is back over that way. To get to where we’re goin, we’d have to walk up and then cut across. This whole part of the woods is easy to figure. It’s a big square. Markers on some of the trees, since this patch belonged to the paper mill.”

  “The one that shut down a while back?”

  “Yeah. My daddy said that these was special kinds of trees. Supposed to grow real fast. He used to work there, at the mill.”

  “That place stank so bad.” Ben ran his hands gently against the thin needles of the saplings to his right. Standing at knee height, they reached ambitiously toward the giants above them. As he leaned, he wobbled and nearly fell.

  “So did he.” Marty laughed. “Come home stinkin like sulfur.”

  “You ever see him still?”

  “No. And I lost his fuckin lighter too.”

  “That Zippo? Dude, I have it,” Ben said excitedly. “Yeah, I got it. It flew outta your pocket when the baler tried to kill you.”

  Marty smiled like a little boy and smacked Ben on the shoulder. “Un-fuckin-believable.”

  “I’ll give it t—” Something caught Ben’s shoe. He lurched forward gracelessly, planting his left foot against the ground with such violence that the pain blurred his vision.

  “You alright?” Marty asked as he tried to steady Ben. Ben nodded and righted himself. “I ain’t giving you no piggyback ride.”

  Ben turned angrily, as if he might punish the earth itself, but what had snagged him hadn’t come from the earth. Not directly. Ben ran his fingers across the rough surface of the rebar. Swearing under his breath, he gripped it like a golf club and strained as he tried to rob it from the dirt.

  “Hey, King Arthur,” Marty called from up ahead, “get a load of this shit!”

  41

  About twenty feet from where they stood, wedged so tightly into the trees that it looked as if it had grown with them, sat what could only technically be called a car. Brown paint and red rust seemed to pull it even deeper into the foliage; the woods bent and stretched around it in slow, imperceptible acceptance. The entire front end of the car had curled and warped to accommodate the tree to which it was now forever wed. The driver’s door was fully ajar. The hood was crumpled, pushed up toward the windshield like a sheet of tissue paper.

  “You think it still works?” Marty asked, sliding into the driver’s seat.

  “Are you serious?”

  “Looks like it’s been here for a while…Man, what do you think happened?”

  “I think it hit that tree.”

  “How much you reckon it’d cost to tow?” Marty asked, tugging on the glove compartment latch.

  “To the junkyard?”

  “What? No. To get it fixed up.” Marty’s face was red from straining. “Motherfucker,” he panted, then slid out of the vehicle. “See if you can open that.”

  “What?”

  “For the registration. So we can see if it belongs to somebody.”

  “It won’t open,” Ben replied, gesturing to the car.

  “Right. So get in there and, you know, flex on it. C’mon, man. Be my streetwise Hercules.”

  “You sure know a lot of lyrics to that song. I don’t remember the part where she wants the fat dude who works at the grocery store.”

  Marty looked at Ben with bewilderment. “Dude, what? You’re like the buffest goddamn guy I’ve ever met.”

  “Fuck you.”

  “Fuck you, buddy. I’m not gonna stand around talkin about how your lats could use some definition or whatever. Just…” Marty motioned to the car.

  “No.”

  “Dude, you—”

  “I’m not gonna fit, and I’m not gonna help you make a joke here.”

  Marty lit a cigarette. “If you don’t fit, I’ll eat this.”

  Ben huffed as he looked at the car. Finally, he put his hand on the roof and squeezed himself into the cramped area between the steering wheel and the seat, keeping his left foot on the ground as he did.

  “Ta-da,” Marty said.

  Ben strained to lean over and pull the handle of the glove compartment.

  “Anything?”

  “It’s jammed,” Ben said, pulling on the plastic handle. “It won’t—” The handle snapped off in Ben’s fingers. He handed it to Marty.

  “My glove compartment!” Marty cried. “Is there anything in the console?”

  Ben lifted the lid and shuffled through the contents, but he didn’t see anything that looked like paperwork for the car.

  “Sorry, man. I guess you’ll have to keep looking,” Ben said, as he struggled to maneuver his body out of the car. He put his hand on the top corner of the door and was about to shut it when he realized how silly that would be.

  “Nothing?”

  “Just some pieces of paper—grocery lists, directions to somewhere.”

  “Alright, well, dibs,” Marty said, leaving the car behind.

  “You can have it.”

  “I know I can…I got dibs.”

  “How much farther is it, you think?”

  “Beats me. This’ll spit us out on the right road, I know that much. But as for where the house is at, I have no idea.”

  The trees began to thin. Ben’s leg spiked with pain with nearly every step. Soon they were met with a long strip of unpaved road. They took a guess and walked toward the sun. The addresses on the spar
sely set houses indicated that they were headed in the right direction, and when those houses eventually ran out, the two friends were left with only the orange-scarred earth to guide them. But that was enough, because as he and Marty looked down from a small hill, Ben knew they had found Beverly’s home. He seemed to know this innately—in the same heart that pounded as they drew closer to it.

  The tall grass of the vast yard mingled with the dirt of the road and dissolved into the surrounding trees. The home itself was small and unadorned, save for a low porch whose posts were as rectangular as the house itself. The backyard was as overgrown as the front; several large pine trees peppered the landscape.

  As they walked into the backyard, long grass whipped at their pant legs; some stalks were forked and peppered black seeds onto their clothing. Hard and resilient like crab or torpedo grass, it crunched like potato chips under their feet. A tattered rope lay limp in the yard, coiled in parts like a dead snake as it made its way into a knot around one of the tree trunks. A small, dilapidated shed nestled up against the tree line, its siding eroded away like an ancient ruin, exposing the skeletal wooden frame behind it. The scene looked funny to Ben, like the forest had frozen, caught in the beginnings of a slow theft.

  “You think she’ll pay us to mow her lawn?” Marty said.

  “Maybe you should let me do the talking,” Ben muttered.

  Narrow and long, the front porch sat engulfed by weeds and filth. A wind chime hung motionless from the awning. Marty glanced at the slip of paper that Ben had handed him earlier, then pointed to the numbers on the mailbox fixed to the exterior.

  They ascended the steps, which moaned at their weight. Each window had a layer of grime so thick that attempting to peer inside was like trying to see through a mud puddle. The mailbox was full of catalogs and envelopes that had spilled out onto the deck, some partially caught between the warping boards, all of them old and faded. Ben knocked lightly on a plastic sheet tacked to the door, his knuckles striking on the bold-typed CONDEMNED printed at the top, which made his heart sink a little. They waited for an answer, but none seemed imminent.

  “Ms. Beverly?” Ben called, knocking a little louder. “I don’t think she’s here.”

  “That notice don’t mean squat. Piece of paper can’t stop a person from stayin in a place. What’s the date on it?” Marty pressed his hands against the screen over the window and attempted to peer inside.

  “About three years ago.”

  “I can’t see shit,” Marty hissed. “This window’s made of dirt.”

  “Ms. Beverly?” Ben pounded. “It’s Ben and Marty from the store. You in there?”

  “Gimme your cutter.” Marty said, extending this hand toward Ben.

  “What for?”

  “I think I see her. Gimme yer cutter.”

  “So you can cut the screen? No way.”

  “You said wasn’t no one in there anyhow. Okay, I’ll buy her a new one, then. How much is a screen? Like a buck?”

  “I think it’s probably more than a buck. Besides, I came out here to say I was sorry. I don’t wanna have to apologize for the screen too.”

  “Just gimme it, would ya?”

  Ben sighed and reached for his waist but felt only his empty holster. “Crap, I don’t got it. I must’ve dropped it.”

  “Wait!” Marty hissed. “That’s gotta be her. Goddamn this window.” Marty dug his fingers into the frame, attempting to pry the screen off. Ben grabbed his arm.

  “I don’t think she’s in there. I don’t think anyone lives here, man.”

  “Then no one will care if I—” The window frame cracked loudly as the screen came loose; it settled on the porch with a clatter. As the wind made toddler music on the chimes, Marty used the side of his hand to polish the window. He peered in.

  “Anything?” Ben asked.

  “Just a bunch of junk. And a chair that I could have sworn looked like an old lady.” Marty chuckled.

  Leaning against the splintering wood of the house, Ben massaged the tissues of his leg and sighed audibly. “What now?”

  “Well,” Marty said as his fingertips brushed against the slowly opening door, “now I reckon that we see what’s inside.”

  42

  “It was open?” Ben murmured as he followed Marty across the threshold, holding his elbow like a leash.

  “You see how much trouble I had with that screen?” Marty gently jerked his arm out of Ben’s grasp. “I ain’t no lock picker.”

  “We shouldn’t be in here. This is breaking and entering.”

  “I didn’t break the door.”

  “Entering then. Trespassing!” Ben whispered loudly.

  The sun struggled through the dirt-tinted windows. What light did survive ricocheted against ancient dust that seemed frantic to entertain the two very unexpected guests. With the light still at their backs, two doorways down a narrow hall and a back exit were plainly visible.

  “Hello?” Ben shouted tentatively.

  “I thought it’d be warmer in here,” Marty muttered, stepping deeper into what appeared to be the living room.

  A weathered armoire decorated the otherwise barren wall opposite the entrance, its doors slightly ajar. To their right were several wooden chairs and a stubby coffee table, above which hung a framed family photograph with no glass. Ben’s feet shuffled against the grit on the wooden floor and then around the pine chairs. He gazed intently at the enormous bald man in the center of the photo.

  “Jesus,” Marty said.

  Ben turned and saw him standing in front of the armoire, its doors now fully open. He shook a stained and unattractive cloth doll in Ben’s direction.

  “Give me the power, I beg of you!”

  Ben looked at him blankly.

  “Chucky?” Marty said. “Killer doll and all that?”

  “We shouldn’t be looking through her stuff,” Ben said, leaving the photograph.

  Marty seemed to consider this for a moment before placing an unopened varnished box back on the upper shelf. He closed the doors and dusted his hands against each other. “Ain’t nothin here anyway. But look at the fuckin walls, man.”

  It was hard to see in the poor light, but the walls were a sloppy mosaic of paints: huge patches of muted red on green, flanked by black and blue. There was no pattern. It looked as if someone had set out to paint the room, then started switching colors between each stroke.

  The next room was even darker. With the blinds shut, Ben had to squint his eyes to make out the bed against the wall; it played footsie with a smaller cot where the walls joined. Dry wood creaked underfoot. The air tickled at Ben’s nose, which he rubbed with his handkerchief.

  Marty shuffled into the hall and through the doorway of the opposite room. “This one’s about the same,” he called.

  Ben delicately prodded a small wooden train car with his foot, scraping it dully against the floor before tipping it over. The wardrobe on the wall to his left was empty, just like the rest of the house. It all felt so hollow and as stale as the air that filled it up.

  “I think we ought to go,” Ben said. “I don’t think we should be in here.”

  But it was more than that. Ben didn’t want to be there. He very much wanted to leave. In spite of the kaleidoscope of paint on the walls, everything there felt gray. Forgotten. Forsaken.

  “How long you think it’s been since someone lived here?”

  “Couldn’t tell ya.” Marty cleared his throat. “My granddaddy lived in a house like this. Little bigger, I guess. Hard to remember, it’s been so long since I been there. Hardest part about the house was keeping it clean. A lot of these kindsa houses weren’t sealed. The wood, I mean.” He stomped his foot on the floor. “So it warps and dirt and bugs get in. There was a great big crack in my granddaddy’s floor. I remember when I’d have to sweep, I’d just push everything back through
there. This the only address you saw in that folder?”

  “Yeah.” Ben leaned against the wall and shut his eyes. This was the second time in a day that he’d intruded on Beverly’s life.

  Ben tugged at the cord of the window blinds, hoping to let in some light. Dust and dirt scattered across his arm, but no light came. He yanked just a bit harder. There was a snap and the blinds tumbled down onto the piled sheets of the lumpy bed.

  “Blinds cost way more than a buck, ya know?”

  Ben ignored his friend and walked back into the hallway, which fed into the kitchen. There, drawers sat half open, full of utensils and rags, illuminated by the pale light of a window without dust-choked blinds. Furnished so fully, the room felt somehow heavier in Ben’s mind. Metal clanged behind him as Marty curiously kicked at a wood-burning stove. Ben watched as he tapped on the tall cylinder that connected the stove with the ceiling like an iron tentacle.

  “Why would she just leave all her stuff?”

  “I know, right? So much great shit here. She coulda taken just half this dust and built herself a whole new home.” Marty ran his hand along the dirty counter, then brushed his palms together.

  Ben flicked at the handle of an old lantern that sat on the windowsill and sighed. He looked out at the scraggly lawn. In spite of everything inside his own heart, Ben had managed to convince himself that Beverly was fine, that she didn’t really need the job like she said she did: she just wanted it very badly. A woman who had worked as long as she had must have something to catch her when she fell. But nothing in this place could catch her. It was all too brittle.

  “I hate this place,” Marty muttered.

  They walked back into the living room, and Ben groaned as he sat in one of the chairs. Marty sat crisscross on the floor, then leaned forward and slapped his hand on a book, dragging it off the coffee table. He thumbed through the pages.

  “There any chance they made that book at your daddy’s mill?” Ben said, smiling through a wince as he rubbed his leg.