by John Hart
I heard her inhale, as if she was thinking about it, but I knew better. Alex never gave willingly, not to me.
“At work,” she finally said, making me wonder when was the last time my voice had been welcome in that home.
“Thanks,” I said, but she had already hung up.
Confronting Jean was the last thing I wanted to do, especially at her work, where the stink of decline must have ground deepest into her skin. Yet it was the smell of pepperoni and mushroom that struck me first as I stepped into the old Pizza Hut on West Innes Street. It was a stale smell, one that churned up memories of junior high dates and fumbled kisses. We used to laugh at people like my sister, and the memory of that pulled my shoulders even lower as I walked to the counter.
I knew the manager by sight only, and was again informed that Jean was not available. “On a delivery,” he told me. “Welcome to wait.”
I took a seat in a red vinyl booth and ordered a beer to keep me company. It was cold and tasteless, which on this day was exactly what I needed. I sipped it as I watched the door. Eventually, my eyes wandered, exploring the people who clustered around their tables. There was an attractive black couple being served by a skinny white girl with studs in her tongue and a silver crucifix jammed through her eyebrow. They smiled at her as if they had something in common. Nearest to the buffet, two women challenged chair legs that looked spindly yet weren’t, and I watched them urge their children to eat yet more, since it was all-you-can-eat Thursday.
Three young men sat at the table next to mine, probably from the local college and in for an early-afternoon beer buzz. They were loud and coarse, but having fun. I felt the rhythms of their chatter and tried to remember what that age had been like. I envied their illusions.
The door opened to a spill of weak sunlight and I turned to see my sister move into the restaurant. My melancholy ripened as I watched. She carried her decline as I carried a briefcase, businesslike, and the red pizza box seemed at home under her arm. But her pale skin and haunted eyes would never fit my memories of her—no more so than the grubby running shoes or tattered jeans. I studied her face in profile as she stopped by the counter. It used to be soft but had grown angular, with a new tightness at the eyes and mouth. And her expression was hard to pin down. I couldn’t read her anymore.
She was a year over thirty, still attractive, at least physically. But she’d not been right for some time, not the same. There was something off about her. It was clear to me, who knew her best, but others picked up on it. It was as if she’d ceased trying.
She stopped at the counter, put down the hot box, and stared at the dirty pizza ovens as if waiting for someone to cross her field of vision. She did not move once. Not even a twitch. I could feel the misery coming off of her in waves.
A sudden silence at the table of young men pulled my eyes away, and I saw them staring at my sister, who stood, oblivious, there in the gloom of the front counter.
“Hey,” one of them said to her. Then again, a little louder: “Hey.”
His friends watched him with open grins. He leaned half out of his seat, toward my sister. “How about I take some of that ass home in a box?”
One of his friends whistled lowly. They were all staring at her now.
I almost rose—it was a reflex—but when she turned to the table of young drunks and stared them down, I froze. Something twisted behind her face. She could have been anybody.
Or nobody.
She raised both hands and flipped them off, holding it for a few good long seconds.
Then the manager materialized from the back of the kitchen. He hitched at his belt, put the belly that covered it against the counter, and said something to Jean that I could not hear. She nodded as he spoke, and her back rounded as she seemed to sink under his words. He gestured minutely at the table, said a few more words, and then pointed in my direction. She turned and her eyes focused on me. At first, I thought she didn’t recognize me; her mouth seemed to tighten with distaste, but then she came over, passing the table of drunks and giving them the finger one more time, her hand tucked against her chest, where the manager could not see it.
The boys laughed and went back to their drinking. She slipped into the booth opposite me.
“What are you doing here?” she asked without preamble or smile. Her eyes were empty above skin smudged purple.
I studied her more closely, trying to find the reason that she seemed so disjointed to me. She had the same clear skin, so pale that it was almost translucent; large, tilted eyes; a delicate chin; and dark hair that spilled across her forehead and down to her shoulders in an unkempt wave. Up close, she was steady. Study her one piece at a time and she looked fine; nevertheless, it was wrong.
Something in the eyes, maybe.
“What did he say to you?” I asked, nodding toward the manager. She didn’t bother to follow the gesture. Her gaze remained fixed on me; there was no warmth in it.
“Does it matter?” she asked.
“I guess not.”
She lifted her eyebrows, turned her palms up. “So?”
I didn’t know how to get to the place I needed to go. I spread my fingers on the slick red-checked material that covered the table.
“You never come here,” she said. “Not even to eat.”
I had barely seen my sister in the past year, so I didn’t blame her. Wrong as it was, avoiding her had become something of a religion for me. Most times, I could never admit that, but those bruised eyes pained me. There was too much of our mother in them, and they’d not worked for her, either.
Indecision twisted my lips.
“They found Ezra’s body,” she stated. It wasn’t a question, and for an instant I felt pressure behind my eyes. “I’m guessing that’s why you’re here.” There was no forgiveness in her face, just a sudden intensity, and in the place of surprise or remorse, it unsettled me.
“Yes,” I said.
“Where?”
I told her.
“How?”
‘They’re calling it murder.” I studied her face. Not a flicker. “But nobody knows much more than that.”
“Did Douglas tell you?” she asked.
“He did.”
She leaned closer. “Do they know who did it?” she asked.
“No,” I responded. Unexpectedly, her hands settled around my own and I felt the warm sweat on her palms, which surprised me. It was as if I’d come to believe that no blood flowed in her—that’s how cold she’d appeared to me. She squeezed my hands as her eyes moved over my face and picked me apart. Then she pushed back against the cracked and yielding vinyl.
“So,” she said. “How are you taking all this?”
“I saw the body,” I replied, appalled by my own words. In spite of what I’d said to Douglas, I’d not planned to tell her this.
“And . . .”
“He was dead,” I said, ushering in a silence that lasted over a minute.
“The king is dead,” she finally said, her eyes immobile on mine. “I hope he’s rotting in hell.”
“That’s pretty harsh,” I told her.
“Yes,” she replied flatly, and I waited for something more.
“You don’t seem surprised,” I finally said.
Jean shrugged. “I knew he was dead,” she said, and I stared at her.
“Why?” I asked, feeling something hard and sharp coalesce in my stomach.
“Ezra would never detach himself from his money or his prestige for so long. Nothing else would keep him away.”
“But he was murdered,” I said.
She looked away, down at the decomposing carpet. “Our father made a lot of enemies.”
I sipped my beer to buy a few seconds. I tried to make sense of her attitude.
“Are you okay?” I finally asked.
She laughed, a lost sound that had no connection to her eyes. “No,” she said. “I’m not. But it’s got nothing to do with his death. He died for me on the same night as Mom, if not before. If yo
u don’t get that, then we’ve got nothing to say to each other.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“You do,” she said, an edge in her voice that I’d never heard before. “As far as I’m concerned, he died that night, the second Mom went down those stairs. If you don’t see it that way, it’s your problem, not mine.”
I’d expected tears and found anger, but it was directed at me as much as at Ezra, and that troubled me. How far down separate paths had we traveled in so short a time?
“Look, Jean. Mom fell down those stairs and died. I feel that pain as much as you do.”
She barked another laugh, but this one was ugly. “‘Fell,’” she echoed. “That’s rich, Work. Just fucking rich.” She swiped a hand across her face and sniffed loudly. “Mom . . .” she began, then faltered. Sudden honeysuckle tears appeared at the corners of her eyes, and it occurred to me that until now I had seen no emotion in her, not since we’d buried our mother. She pulled herself together, raised unapologetic eyes.
“He’s dead, Work, and you’re still his monkey boy.” Her voice strengthened. “His truth is dead, too.” She blew her nose, crumpled the napkin, and dropped it on the table. I stared at it. “The sooner you come to terms with the only truth that matters, the better off you’ll be.”
“I’m sorry, Jean, if I’ve upset you.”
She turned her gaze away and directed it out the window, where two starlings squabbled in the parking lot. The momentary tears had gone; without the sudden color in her face, you would never have known she’d been upset.
I smelled garlic and suddenly two pizza boxes appeared on the table. I looked up to see the manager, who ignored me and spoke to Jean.
“It’s your favorite,” he said. “Sorry.” Then he turned and walked back to the kitchen, taking most of the garlic smell with him.
“I’ve got to go,” Jean said flatly. “Delivery.” She pulled herself out of the booth, jiggling the table and sloshing my beer. Her eyes didn’t meet mine, and I knew that my silence would send her away without another word. But before I could think of something to say, she had scooped up the boxes and turned away.
I fumbled for my wallet, threw a couple of singles on the table, and caught her at the door. When she ignored me, I followed her into the sun and to her time-ravaged car. I still didn’t know what I wanted to say, however. How dare you judge me? . . . Where have you found such strength? . . . You’re all I have and I love you. Something like that.
“What did he mean?” I asked, my hand upon her arm, her body wedged into the open car door.
“Who?” she responded.
“Your manager. When he said ‘It’s your favorite,’ what did he mean?”
“Nothing,” she said, her face looking as if she’d swallowed something bitter. “It’s just work.”
For whatever reason, I didn’t want her to go, but my imagination failed me.
“Well,” I finally managed. “Can we do dinner sometime? Alex, too, of course.”
“Sure,” she said in the same voice I’d heard so many times. “I’ll talk to Alex and call you.”
And that, I knew, was that. Alex would make damn sure the dinner never happened.
“Give her my best,” I said as she rocked into the tiny car and started the tired engine. I thumped the roof as she pulled off, thinking that the sight of her face in the window of that shitty car with the Pizza Hut sign strapped on top was the most pitiful thing I would ever see.
I almost got in my car then, and I wish now that I had. Instead, I went to the manager and asked what he’d meant and where Jean had gone. His answer revealed the cruel pull-the-wings-off-flies kind of torment I’d not seen since high school, and it was part of my sister’s daily life. I was in my car and out of the lot before the restaurant door had closed behind me.
I used to look at homeless people and try to imagine what they had once looked like. It’s not easy. Beneath the grime and degradation is a face once adored by someone. It’s a truth that tricks the eye; our glances slide away. But something happened to ruin that life, to strip it bare; and it wasn’t something big like war or famine or plague. It was something small, something that but for the grace of God could take us, too. It was an ugly truth, one my sister knew too well. She wasn’t homeless, but fate and the callousness of others had conspired to take from her a life I knew her to love very much. It was a good life—many would say great—and were I to close my eyes, I could see it even now. She had been trusting then, aglow with the promise of years that stretched out like silver rails.
But fate can be a wayward bitch.
So can people.
My hands steered the car along a route I knew by heart, and I looked around as I drove. I passed the massive house we’d known since childhood, empty but for my father’s dusty belongings and the tracks I’d left on those rare occasions when I stopped by to check on things. Two blocks more and my own house swam into view. It crowned a small hill and looked down its nose at passing traffic and the park that lay beyond. It was a beautiful old home, with good bones, as my wife often said; but still it needed paint, and the roof was green with moss.
Beyond my house was the country club, with its Donald Ross golf course, clay tennis courts, clubhouse, and swimming pool lined with idle tanned bodies. My wife was up there somewhere, pretending we were rich, happy, or both.
On the other side of the golf course, if you knew how, you could find a beautiful development full of Salisbury’s finest new homes. It was chock-full of doctors and lawyers and other assorted rich people, including Dr. Bert Werster and his wife, Glena, the queen bitch herself. Glena and Jean used to run together, back when Jean, too, was married to a surgeon and had tanned tennis-player legs and a diamond charm bracelet. There had been a group of them, in fact, six or seven women who alternated bridge and tennis with margaritas and long husbandless weekends to Figure Eight Island.
Jean’s nameless manager had told me the women still played bridge every Thursday, and they liked to order pizza.
This was my sister’s life.
I pulled to the curb a block down from Dr. Werster’s house, a tower of stone and ivy. I watched as Jean heaved herself up steps that to anyone else might have seemed welcoming, and imagined that pizza had never weighed quite so much.
I wanted to carry her burden. I wanted to take Glena Werster out with a long rifle shot.
Instead, I backed slowly away, worried that sight of me would only compound the load on her troubled and fragile shoulders.
I drove home, past the club, and did not see the bright clothes that flashed in the sun. At the top of my driveway, I killed the engine and sat under tall walls whose peeling paint mocked me. I checked to see that I was unobserved, rolled up my windows, and wept for my sister.
CHAPTER 3
It took twenty minutes to pull myself together; then I went in for a beer. Mail littered the kitchen counter, and the answering machine blinked five new messages at me. I couldn’t have cared less. I went straight for the fridge and wrapped my fingers around two bottle necks. They clanked, and I sipped from the first as I dropped my coat on the kitchen chair and moved through the empty, childless house to the front door, which opened to the world below. I sat on the top step, closed my eyes to the warm sun, and pulled hard on the bottle.
I’d bought the house several years ago, when Ezra’s presence imbued the law practice with a patina of respectability, and desperate souls paid dearly to touch the hem of his robe. He’d been the best lawyer in the county, which had made my job easy. We’d shared an office and a name. That meant I could cherry-pick my cases, and six weeks after a local grocery truck backed over an eight-year-old kid in the parking lot, I plunked down a $100,000 down payment.
I took another sip and sudden panic struck me as I realized that I couldn’t remember the name of that poor kid. For a long minute, I agonized over just how soulless this made me, and then, like a breath, his name flooded my mind.
Leon William McRa
e. I pictured his mother’s face on the day of the funeral, the way tears had channeled down dark grief-cut furrows to drip on the white lace collar of her best dress. I remembered her strangled words, her shame over her little boy’s pine casket and his plot in the poor man’s cemetery that lay in the shadow of the water tower; how she worried that he’d never feel the afternoon sun there.
I wondered now what she’d done with the money his death had brought, and hoped she’d made better use of it than I. Truth be told, I disliked the house; it was too big, too visible. I rattled in it like a quarter in a tin can. But I always liked to sit there at the end of the day. It was warm in the sun. I could see the park, and the oak trees made music of the wind. I would try not to think about choices or the past. It was a place for emptiness, for absolution, and rarely was it mine alone. Usually, Barbara fucked it up.
I finished my second beer and decided on a third. I dusted myself off and went inside. As I passed through the kitchen, I saw that the answering machine now had seven messages on it, and I wondered vaguely if one might be from my wife. Back outside, I reclaimed my seat in time to see one of my favorite park-walking regulars round the corner.
There was a certain magnificence to his ugliness. He wore a fur-lined hunting cap regardless of the weather and liked the earflaps down. Threadbare khaki pants flapped around legs walked scrawny, and his arms were as skinny as those of a starved child. Heavy glasses pulled at his nose, and his mouth, always whiskered, turned up as if in pain. He kept no schedule whatsoever, and walked compulsively: midnight in the pouring rain, stalking the tracks on the east side of town, or steaming in the morning sun as he marched through the historic district.
No one knew much about him, although he’d been around for years. I’d picked up his name once at a party—Maxwell Creason. There’d been talk about him that night. He was a regular fixture in town, and everyone saw him out walking, but, apparently, no one had ever spoken to him. No one knew how he supported himself and everyone assumed that he was homeless, one of the regulars at the town’s few shelters, maybe a patient at the local VA hospital; but the speculation was never very profound. Mostly, there was laughter—about how he looked, why he walked so obsessively. None of the comments were pleasant.
