The Lake, the River & the Other Lake

by Steve Amick

  Jesus god . . . Francy looked kind of Spanish, Emil a little Chinese . . .

  He told himself that nobody thinks they look like their family. Everyone thinks they don’t fit in, they’re the oddball, that these people around me are strangers, not my responsibility, not my own, I have no connection or relation to these people.

  Still . . .

  59

  BY NOW, HE WAS DREAMING OF MOUTHS, ripe and yawning; dreaming of oral sex, his nights a feverish slide show of the images he’d wasted most of his days viewing.

  But if it was simply some corporeal rutting he required, some hedonistic reduction of the human experience to a swapping of parts and spittle, wouldn’t he just take a little trip down to one of the cities, check in to a hotel, call one of those escort services? Granted it would be a degradation, a shameful hell, but that wasn’t what kept him from doing it (for wasn’t the degree to which these thoughts were now in his mind, wasn’t that sin enough, hell enough, to count himself among those needing salvation?). No, he wasn’t pursuing any of that because deep down, a true physical coupling wasn’t at the heart of his impulse.

  More and more, Gene lay in bed into the small hours, unable to sleep. And it was on one of these nights that he thought he discovered the crux of it.

  He’d turned on the small black-and-white in his bedroom. They’d never kept a TV in there while Mary was alive, but he’d rescued this one from the basement rec room after she passed—a poor substitute for a fabulous wife, but at least it made noise on empty nights like this one.

  There was an old Bela Lugosi movie on, as corny as vaudeville—the vampire bug-eyed and drooling over his swooning, boneless victim, her head flopped back as if her neck had been wrung, her tender skin exposed in a long, titillating expanse of white like the neck of a swan, the whole thing so lascivious, as if it were her privates he was about to bite.

  And it hit him—this is what he was: a vampire.

  Not really. Not a guy in a cape with a bad accent harping on about “thee cheeeeeeldren of thee niiiiiight . . .” He didn’t imagine he was a bat, though undoubtedly, he was batty and getting more so every day. But this was close to what he was feeling, with the images on the Internet, with the images in his head at night. With his thoughts of the girl.

  He just wanted to connect with youth, get inside it, feel, for even a short, shuddering moment, as though he might regain it somehow—all that hope and excitement and wonder.

  Lord help me, he thought. I am such a creep.

  And some nights, nights like this, he thought he might bust an artery from crying, from sobbing at the thought of what he had become.

  60

  KURT LASCO BROUGHT HIS OWN MOWER. John Schank, the one who’d hired him to go over and mow the parsonage, told him there was an old Toro in the parsonage garage, the one Reecher the Preacher used whenever he got around to it—which wasn’t often enough, according to Schank. Kurt listened to the instructions, but he knew he was going to just take his own mower. He always did and it was just easier.

  He unloaded in the driveway, did the short front piece, then came around the hedge to do the main part, the parsonage lawn that ran from the back patio of the house over to the line of arbs along the church and straight out to the river. That river edge was pretty abrupt, as he remembered, a sheer high bank, and he could see why the old guy might be a little leery about doing it.

  As he came around the side, moving toward the patio to edge the flagstones, he saw there was someone in the chaise lounge that faced away, out to the river, and he thought, with slight annoyance, that he’d have to jam the thing into idle and go over and say hi to the Reverend, be diplomatic about why he was mowing the lawn and not leaving it up to him. But then he saw the feet, the painted toenails, and knew it was a girl and then she raised up, slipping her headphones away and twisting to see what the disturbance was and he saw the hair clip and the hair and the face. And the outfit, the skin. And everything stopped.

  She was squinting at him, saying Dad, and the sound seemed to be receding, the roar growing dull as her words got louder, less inquisitive, more urgent: “Dad? Dad. Dad!” And then he heard the sudden short gunning sound, the sound the mower makes when you tip it up to clear a root or pivot, the blades roaring in the air, and heard the splash and turned to look down the long pale trail of mowed grass leading straight out to the Oh-John-Ninny.

  She held her book up in front of her chest and pulled her legs up close, defensive, as if he’d caught her lying out nude. She wasn’t, of course, and he’d seen her in such skimpy outfits before. But that was back at his house, not out in public. Not at the church parsonage. Worse, the Oh-John was right there, with those pilot-boys going by all day, ogling his daughter. Never mind the fact that the whole town would see.

  He needed to explain all this to her. He took a seat, practically collapsing into the other lounge chair, weary now from the sun and the strain of everything that had just happened in the last thirty seconds. He tried to lay out all the things that were just not right about the way she was behaving, but she didn’t seem to get it. He wasn’t going to yell at her—things were too shaky between them right now to do much other than try to gently persuade—but what she was doing here just didn’t seem right. If it wasn’t exactly wrong, it just didn’t seem appropriate.

  He got up a few times while they talked and peered in the back window, hoping to catch a glimpse of Reecher and apologize for his intrusive daughter, but she insisted he was out at the hospital for the afternoon, visiting, and Kurt decided this was probably true because John Schank had been real specific about what time he should come over and mow. Finally, he sat down and tried to hear her version of things, but he did wish the Reverend was around to double-check the facts as she was spinning them.

  She claimed—spitting it out almost reluctantly, like she couldn’t think of anything better—that she was “working” for the man. At first she wouldn’t get specific, but he kept pushing. “I tutor him on the computer,” she said, “and I help him with the housekeeping. And we hang out. We’re friends.”

  “You’re friends,” he repeated, hoping it sounded as idiotic to her as it sounded to him. “He’s the minister. He’s friends with everyone. You’re taking advantage. It’s not appropriate.”

  She rolled her eyes at this. “Oh right. Being friends with someone is very inappropriate. I forgot your commandment: hate thy neighbor.”

  Kurt chose to ignore this. He was beginning to have new respect for his ex-wife; having to deal with this sort of thinking nine months out of the year must be damned exhausting. “Tutoring him is fine, housekeeping is fine—maybe—but you can’t embarrass the man, lying out here in your bathing suit.”

  She snorted, and she sounded awfully like his ex. Lisa used to make the same noises, especially near the end. “This is so not a bathing suit! It’s shorts and a top.”

  He knew better than to debate the particulars of fashion—not his field, by a long shot. Instead he pointed out that they had a perfectly good yard back at the house. He tried to keep his voice low, like it was a thought that had just arrived: couldn’t she lie out at home?

  Kimmy looked away, down at the high grass, and shrugged. “I’d feel . . . uncomfortable lying out in our yard. Talk about embarrassed . . .”

  He decided she was probably thinking of the neighbor boy, Starkey’s kid. He’d read something about this: teenage girls were sensitive about that kind of thing, worried that their peers would judge them or stare. She probably thought that Mark Starkey would peep from his bedroom and beat off. And she was probably right. Of course, he could probably peep at her here anyway, going by on the river all day, but with that he could only stare, being at work and all.

  There was disappointment in her voice, and he wondered if perhaps she’d prefer to spend more time at his house but maybe she felt he’d let her down in not providing a better home and not defending it better from the stupid neighbors. It was almost like she was irritated with him.

/>   He lingered a little while longer, sitting on the edge of the lounge chair beside her, halfheartedly still trying to get her to budge, to gather up her stuff and come home, maybe even quit the tutoring and the housecleaning, but he knew even as he said the words that he held little sway over her. He thought of the life she had most of the year, down in Ferndale, over which he had no say, no input, and this apparent secret life she was leading in his town that was also far beyond his reach, and the weight of it was great, this feeling of irrelevance. It took him a while to gather up the energy to get up, to give up, to go into the garage and wrestle the parsonage’s mower and finish up.

  When he rose, he felt like a defeated man. And it must have shown because she said, with sympathy in her voice, “Dad? Hey, I’m sorry about the mower.”

  WHEN HE GOT BACK HOME, stepping around back to the rear of the truck out of habit, before remembering the bed was empty and the mower was gone, he thought he could still smell the gas from the mower. He actually did smell gas, he decided, as he came around the side of the house: it was wafting over from Starkey’s deck. They were cooking on the grill. He stood and stared. Starkey looked up from the grill and stared back. It struck Kurt that the trees he’d removed would have blocked this staring contest. He went inside and closed the patio door so he wouldn’t have to smell the cookout.

  He had a lot on his mind—like what the hell his daughter was doing hiding out at the church, and whether he could claim the mower on his insurance—so it wasn’t until a few hours later, when he thought he heard sirens, that he realized there was some sort of commotion over at Starkey’s.

  Back out on the deck, it was twilight now. Two sheriff’s cars were pulled in at rakish angles next door, lights still flashing, and then there was a louder rumble and the trees swayed and there were lights overhead. His first thought was that the rumors were true: there was something in the sky. But it was a helicopter, the county medevac unit, landing in the clearing between their two houses—a landing, he couldn’t help but notice, that would have been much trickier if he hadn’t cut down that stand of poplars, thank you very much. He watched as they hustled someone out on a stretcher and then dark figures hopped aboard—he thought it was Starkey—and the helicopter lifted up and away and one of the patrol cars pulled out and bounced away down the road, probably going to meet them at the hospital.

  The one who’d left was Hatchert, the interim sheriff, because when he walked out to the property line, he found Janey Struska still there, putting down her radio mike and getting into her car. Not wanting to cross the property line, he called out to her and asked what was going on.

  “Oh, hey, Kurt,” she said. “It’s the wife. Went into anaphylactic shock. Ingested some nuts by mistake, they think. Looks like it was from Don Sloff’s brauts. No one seems real clear why she bought the kind with nuts.”

  “Wow,” Kurt said.

  “Yeah. Gotta read the labels, folks.”

  “I guess,” he said. “Boy! So is she . . .”

  “Yeah, she should be okay. They had her stabilized in the kitchen, on the floor, but they’ll need to monitor her for a day, probably, to be safe. The paramedics saw right off what was going on and did everything by the book.” Janey was chuckling now. “Can’t get over the fact they were Don’s links! Man, if he was still on the job and took the call . . . You think he would’ve hid the evidence? Just chucked the brauts in the lake?”

  He tried to smile along with her, but it bothered him, the way she was shrugging the whole thing off. He liked Janey a lot—would probably vote for her if she ran against this temporary guy, Hatchert—and he guessed it was because of her easygoing attitude. She wasn’t a hard-on like Hatchert seemed to be. She was more like a female Don Sloff, opting to settle problems with a funny story or a cup of coffee when possible. But still, he thought she was being a little inappropriate here. After all, the woman had almost died.

  And he had had something to do with it. Actually, he had had a lot to do with it. Maybe everything to do with it, with his grocery-swapping high jinks at the Spartan.

  He’d really screwed up. Jesus, he thought. How old am I supposed to be now? Thirty-six? Jesus Christ.

  And if his daughter wasn’t hiding from him already, she certainly would be now. If I were Kimmy, he thought, I might spend all my time as far from me as possible, too.

  61

  DESPITE ALL THAT FUSS about getting him back to the orchard, it was clear things were running fine without him. Or close enough to fine. It was funny, but he’d always thought, if anybody would take over down the line, it would be his son. With Brenda’s guidance, of course, whispering Kissinger-like in the background. But Brenda was not doing so bad with the actual bossing. He and Santi mustered their perfunctory supervisory commands, but the hands-on of it was pretty much covered now by Brenda and Miki, aided by a new surge in conscientious behavior on the part of the crews—no late-night hoopla down in the migrant shacks, Santi reported, stunned by this himself. He pointed to his head: “Not so loco down there no more.” Von wasn’t sure if the workers were cowed into docility by the accident or if they believed, in some superstitious or penitent way, that if they toed the line and dug in and did the best they could, they would be rewarded by Marita’s recovery. Workers Von had never said boo to would approach him with some meager offering—sneezeweeds, horn poppy, devil’s paintbrush, even trillium, though endangered and protected by law, wrapped in wet paper towels; peach blossoms floating in a baby food jar; praying hands carved from a peach pit; little crosses made of woven grass—“to take to Marita,” they said. Von would thank them and get their names from Santi after they left, writing them down so he could remember later.

  Whatever the reason, the season was proceeding with very little meddling necessary on his part. Which was fine, because, though he needed to stay busy, he had a few projects he’d rather be doing. They were still forming in his head, vague schemes and impulses, half-witted gestures, and he thought he knew what drove those people to come to him with their wilted flowers and trinkets to take to the hospital, because all his own plans right now had something to do with that girl waking up and coming home. The things he planned were dumb, he knew, and probably pointless now, but he still had to try them. All he knew is he wanted to see Marita round and happy again.

  VON DROVE THE TRUCK INTO TOWN and talked to Don Vanderhoof at the feed store about trying to rush-order some mature pepper plants. “Not green peppers,” he said. “I’m talking about the hot kind.”

  “Cayenne peppers.”

  Von wasn’t sure. “I mean the kind you hang up to dry.”

  “Them Mexican shits, maybe—jalapeños?” Don seemed puzzled. “Maybe anchos?”

  “Yeah . . . or at least some sort of red peppers, anyway.”

  Don started flipping through his distributor book, leaning over his counter and sighing like this task was a backbreaker. “How mature are we talking about?”

  Von shrugged. “Mature. Fairly ready to go. Like, I don’t know, as far along as they’d be if I’d planted them when I was supposed to plant them.”

  “You’re not really supposed to plant them,” Don said. “Not around here. I could get some. Probably. But I don’t think they’re going to take, Von. Not unless you put them in a greenhouse or something.”

  Von told him he wasn’t going to worry about that right now, he just wanted to know could he get them? Don said, probably, but it might take a while.

  “Forget it,” Von said. “I’ll call around, find someone who can do this for me.” Clearly, Don was operating under the illusion that this was a normal transaction in which the expense and practicality were being weighed. Hell, he’d drive down to Lansing or Chicago if need be. Someone would be able to accommodate him, even if it was an impractical request.

  “Now hold on, Von,” Don said. “Let me call some distributors, see what kind of rush they’d be willing to put on a crazy thing like that.”

  Von told him he wasn’t expecting it to be
cheap, but he did need them in the next couple days.

  “Let me see what I can do,” Don said. He didn’t look too hopeful.

  Nodding, Von turned to leave, then stepped back for a further word. “Look, call me if you can’t get them or when they arrive, but don’t bother waiting to clear the price with me. Whatever it costs, that’s fine. I don’t want to hold it up quibbling over the cost. Okay?”

  “Sure thing,” Don said. He looked now like he finally saw how important this was. Von left the feed store, grabbed the little can of tractor paint out of the back of his truck and crossed the street to McCreery Hardware, heading straight back to the paint section. Dinging the hotel bell on the little counter produced Roy Kunk, McCreery’s load of a brother-in-law, who sidled up from behind, breathing on him. Von slapped the can of tractor paint down on the counter.

  “Roy,” he said, “can you match this in a housepaint?”

  “Oil or outdoor latex?”

  “Better make it latex,” he decided, thinking he might not have that much time. She could come out of her coma anytime now. “Five . . . no, six gallons, let’s say.”

  Wheezing through his nose a little like he was exerting himself, Roy shuffled over to the rack of color samples and squinted at the chart. “Must be one mutha of a tractor.”

  “Did I say match it in a housepaint, Roy? Wouldn’t that indicate to you that it was for something other than a damn tractor? Perhaps a structure of some kind?” He’d had little patience for Roy Kunk ever since he had to grab Roy by the throat when Roy latched on to Carol’s ass at a costume barn dance they’d hosted out at the orchard a few Oktoberfests back. Granted, her ass looked especially spectacular in that old-timey dress she wore that day, and Carol could never be accused of not being able to fend for herself—and it turned out the cherry cider they were serving, which Roy, who was on the wagon, was guzzling like a man in a desert, had turned hard and was probably about eighty proof, by most estimates. So Roy was hammered as an anvil and had no understanding why. Still, excuses aside, Von didn’t really like the guy.