The Cradle

by Patrick Somerville

  He got pulled over five minutes later.

  “You broke quite a few of that man’s personal bone belongings,” the cop said to him through the window, and then he took him in.

  That was the only time he’d ever been behind bars, unless you counted the foster homes, and he didn’t, because there weren’t bars. All throughout the fight, he’d felt nothing. The whole night in the can, he’d felt nothing. In the morning, after bail, walking away from the building and driving home, he’d felt nothing. In his bathroom he looked a little closer at his head and found that the cut was small, although the lump was large. He took a shower, washed his hair gingerly, then watched the second quarter of the Packers game and scrubbed his toilet during halftime.

  He crossed the Mississippi around noon, in La Crosse, and smiled to himself, thinking of Glen’s comment about the tornado that had come through.

  An unexpected relevance now. The Mississippi was its dark, wide, massive self, barge-laden, and he didn’t pay it much attention as he crossed the bridge. He’d seen it before. It was a river, only big.

  Minnesota looked and felt much the same as Wisconsin. He drove for an hour with the radio off, then stopped at an old roadside place and had a hamburger and french fries. He asked the old cook about the town of Walton, and the cook told him that he knew it well. It was only another forty-five minutes or so more, straight west.

  Matt thought of asking the cook about this Darren Roberts, too, but he decided not to. It wouldn’t be hard to find the house, and Matt didn’t like the idea of spreading his own story all across the countryside. Instead he ate the rest of his meal in silence, paid in cash and left it at his table, and was driving again in twenty minutes. He tried to tune the radio to something he liked but could find few stations, and he looked out across the flatland of southern Minnesota and thought about his house at that very moment and tried to imagine it; he wondered whether Marissa had called in sick again or if she’d gone to work. Maybe it was empty. He thought then about his own work. Right now Ken had his shift. Right now he was supposedly in Tennessee, weeping over somebody’s grave.

  The rest of the way, he thought about nothing.

  It turned out it was a tiny forgotten town, not just a small town, and it was much dirtier than Sturgeon Bay. You could see the whole thing from the right angle. Walton, Minnesota. On the way in, Matt drove past a dead factory of some sort. It had thousands of rectangular windows, every one of them either broken or coated in dust and grime. Beside the structure an enormous mechanical creature had died, arms and legs raised up to the sky. Everything was rusted out. There were heaps of scrap metal on either side of the old factory and a vast, empty parking lot. Behind it, to the north, the land was flat and spread out forever. Matt was glad he didn’t live here.

  He passed a grocery store and a gas station, then found himself in the middle of town, riding along Main Street. There were some dusty bars here and there, a few restaurants, and a few shops. An old man was sitting in a chair on the sidewalk, staring at the road. So far he was the only human being Matt had seen since entering the city limits. He thought about pulling over and asking the old man where to find the road he was looking for, but decided not to. If you drove long enough in a town like this, you’d always sail right by what you were looking for. So he did it. He cruised to the very end of the Walton town line, turned the truck around in someone’s driveway, turned down a street that took him south, drove all the way he could in that direction, turned the truck back around, and went past Main Street again, this time north. It was only a few blocks up that he encountered Ferris Street. He turned right, and about seven seconds later he was parked at the address Mary Landower had given him.

  The house was small like Hannah’s but more decrepit. Just like the difference between the towns themselves. One quaint, one not at all. The siding was old and dirty; it looked like it was once a cool yellow, but now it was just dirt brown. There was a rickety set of wooden stairs leading up to the front door and no car parked in the driveway. Friday afternoon probably meant that this Darren was at work, if he worked. Matt looked at the clock: 2:30.

  He climbed the rickety stairs and knocked, but there was no answer.

  He went back to the truck, pulled his hat down, crossed his arms, cracked his window, and closed his eyes. He thought to himself: either be here or not, just make it one or the other.

  The big man pressed charges, but different charges. At first they said it was going to be a felony because so many bones had been broken, but when the man found this out, he went to the courthouse himself, plastered up in his big white cast and using a cane, then to the police station, and told everyone he could find that he did not want any felony charges coming against Matt. “If we’re talking about a fight between two human beings with nothing at all but the two human beings involved, that’s what’s called a misdemeanor. I don’t care if he did a levitating jujitsu maneuver on me. It’s a misdemeanor.” Matt heard about this conversation from a friend at the police station a few days after he made bail. He never saw the man again and never heard a word from him. All he ended up getting was community service from a misdemeanor assault.

  That was at a different time, a few years before Marissa, back when television was still satisfying and back when the love he had for Marissa had been only a latent want not linked to Marissa at all—more of a hole that made him furtive and forced him out to such bars and into such situations. He lived in a tiny apartment above a Laundromat in downtown St. Helens. He worked all the time. It wasn’t very far from the time he’d tried to find his parents, actually, and the time he’d run headlong into that answering machine.

  “You don’t look like the UPS man, son.”

  The voice was woven in and out of a dream, but even in the dream Matt knew it was real and that he was dreaming. He opened his eyes.

  “I said, you don’t look like the UPS man.”

  Standing outside his window was a scrawny fortysomething man with a goatee. He was wearing a T-shirt and a pair of jeans, and he had his sunglasses on the brim of his hat. Matt straightened up. Looking down, he saw that the man was holding a case of beer in his right hand. He looked neither friendly nor particularly hostile. Just interested in Matt’s answer. Interested in Matt.

  “I’m not,” Matt said.

  “You waitin’ for me?”

  “Are you Darren Roberts?”

  “Who wants to know?”

  “I do,” Matt said. “I am waiting for you.”

  “Okay,” he said. He looked past Matt, at the Gazetteer—this one the whole United States—open on the seat. “Great. What do you want and what’s your damn name?”

  Matt rubbed his hand over his face, then nodded at the door. Darren took a few steps back and Matt got out. He held out his hand to shake, and Darren looked down at it for a moment, then took it with his free hand. “My name’s Matt Bishop,” Matt said. “This is gonna be a long story.”

  “Tell me the short version.”

  Matt looked up at Darren’s house, then back at Darren. “Okay,” he said. “I’m looking for something you might have. I’m married to the daughter of a woman named Caroline Francis.”

  The man smiled quickly at the mention of Caroline’s name, then leaned backward, away from Matt, and made a little O with his lips and whistled out of them. “Whoa, cowboy. This is gonna be a long story, ain’t it?”

  “It can be,” Matt said.

  The man waited.

  “You got a cradle in there? A cradle that used to be Caroline’s?”

  “I know what cradle you’re talkin’ about.”

  A quick jet of relief washed through Matt.

  “That’s what I’m looking for. No questions asked.” The questions Matt was telling him that he didn’t have to ask were the questions Matt had been asking himself since he started driving west.

  Did Caroline already know Darren before she left the family?

  Did she leave for him?

  That didn’t seem to fit int
o the notion Matt had of her as a free spirit, running away from people and duties and responsibilities. But then again maybe the easiest way of fleeing your own life is to daisy-chain your way out through a series of smaller and smaller commitments. That way at least you have some excuses. For yourself or others. The reverse-stepladder method of fucking people.

  This thinking had led Matt up to one other question as well: if indeed Caroline had known this man, and if indeed she had left the family for him, was he the same man who’d broken into the house that night, ten days later?

  Matt was curious and wanted to know. That’s why he said, “No questions asked.”

  “What’d you say your name was?” Darren said.

  “Matt Bishop.”

  “And what’s your lady’s name?”

  “Marissa.”

  “Marissa,” Darren Roberts repeated, looking past Matt. “I’d forgotten that name. But that was it.”

  “You were married to Caroline, then?” Matt said.

  “Yes,” said the man. “I was. Caroline. One crazy bitch. Now that woman was an actual cowboy.”

  “And the cradle?”

  “How far you come?”

  “From Wisconsin.”

  “All right,” he said. “Come inside.” He held up the beer and didn’t smile one bit. “Lucky for us, I just picked up another case of Dom Pérignon.”

  7

  Inside, the living room was a small box, but tidier than Matt had expected, considering. There was a white couch and a clean coffee table. The rug looked like it had been vacuumed recently. On another table there was a blue lamp with at least a 100-watt bulb burning inside, and overhead, the ceiling lights were equally bright. Things smelled of deodorizer, and beneath the smell Matt thought he could detect old cigarette smoke, too. It felt like a doctor’s office from 1979.

  Darren motioned to the couch and disappeared around a corner with his beer. Matt heard the sounds of doors opening and closing, and after a moment there was a bark and a mangy mutt came tearing around the corner, wagging its tail and skipping around Matt. It licked his hands and tried to jump on him in excitement, and Matt stroked the steely hair on its head. It had a little beard, wet with saliva and crud. When it turned to go back to Darren, Matt saw that it wasn’t neutered, and he looked for a moment at the stretched skin around its huge balls.

  “He’s nice, don’t worry,” said Darren, coming back around the corner.

  “I bet.”

  He had two cold beers in one hand, against his chest; in the other he held a small black case. He went to the La-Z-Boy next to the couch. He opened a drawer in the coffee table and pulled out two coasters. Then he cracked both beers and slid one over to Matt, on the coaster. The dog, still wagging its tail, began frantically moving between the two men, unsure who was going to give him more attention.

  “What’s his name?”

  “Darren.”

  “Your dog’s got the same name as you?”

  “Long story,” said Darren. “And there is no short version.”

  Matt picked up the beer and took a sip.

  “So now I’m wondering,” said Darren, leaning back into the seat with his own beer, looking up at the ceiling, “how in the hell you found me. If you don’t mind me asking.”

  “I had a conversation with Mary Landower,” said Matt. “Caroline’s sister.”

  Darren nodded now, then let his eyes rest on Matt. He was still wearing his baseball cap, and his sunglasses were still resting on the brim. “I figured it must have been her. You sure as shit didn’t talk to Caroline.”

  “No.”

  “Mary tell you where she is?” Darren asked.

  “She said Indonesia.”

  “That makes sense,” said Darren. His hand went to his goatee and he scratched it. “That makes sense.”

  “This cradle—”

  “Hold on,” said Darren.

  He reached down for the black case and picked it up, into his lap. He cracked it open. Matt saw him messing around inside it, but he couldn’t see what was in it. Then Darren brought out a gun and rested it in his lap.

  He put the case down beside his chair.

  Matt watched him tensely for a few moments as Darren positioned the gun in his lap, then picked up his beer.

  When he looked at Matt, he was casual and seemed surprised by Matt’s look. He said, “I just thought you might be here to kill me.” Darren moved his lips around like he was eating something sour, then said, “Are you?”

  Matt said, “Not at all.”

  “For the break-in,” he said, “and all that. Or any other revenge scenarios your wife may have been dreaming up for years. I understand human fantasy. Well.”

  “I’m here to find that cradle,” Matt said.

  “Okay, fine,” said Darren. “And you know what? You did. The thing’s in the basement.” He waved the gun over his shoulder, then set it back in his lap. “You win the big prize.”

  Darren the Dog stared at Matt along with Darren the Human.

  Matt leaned back and tried to relax. “That’s all I want,” he said.

  “But why would you want it so badly? I’m curious.”

  “My wife,” he said. “She wants it. We’re having a baby. She remembers it.”

  “So she sent you out to hell knows where to find it.”

  “That’s right.”

  “And that’s all?”

  “That’s all.”

  “Nothing more.”

  “Nothing more.”

  Darren laughed then. It was high-pitched and weaselly. “Pregnant women,” he said. “Am I right?”

  Matt said nothing.

  “Do me a favor and say one more time that you’re only here to get that thing.”

  “I just want the cradle,” Matt said. “I don’t care about anything else.”

  “You see, I can perceive lies of all kinds,” said Darren. “One of my gifts is to know whenever someone’s lying to me. I see right through anyone. I’m amazing, in a way.”

  “You can see then that I’m not lying.”

  Darren sighed. His hand went down to his dog’s head and he scratched it. Then the hand went over to the case, and he put the gun back inside, clicked it closed, and set it down beside the dog.

  “Look,” he said. “We had a little break-in here a while back. My apologies. It looks like a small town but it’s complex as shit. And in all honesty, when any history having to do with Caroline comes knocking on your door, it’s not exactly a dumb idea to arm yourself, if you know what I mean. But I believe you. You are a rather sincere-looking individual, you know that? I doubt I would have even needed my amazing powers of perception.”

  It had happened so fast that he didn’t have much time to react beyond some rudimentary scared-shitlessness.

  “Can we see it?” Matt said. “I’ll take it and get out of your hair, then leave you alone.”

  Darren raised his beer up and drained the entire second half into his gullet. He set the empty can down on the coaster and said, “Of course there is the small matter of price.”

  Matt kept watching him.

  “But let’s go have a looky, shall we?”

  Darren led him through the kitchen and then down a thin flight of stairs. He pulled a string at the bottom and a lightbulb came on; Matt saw shadows and a small concrete room, musty, with piles of boxes and furniture against all the walls. Darren moved aside part of a table and went farther in, then pulled another lightbulb on. Darren the Dog trotted down the stairs, wagging his tail. “Now let me see here,” said Darren, hands on hips. “Aha.”

  He stepped into a corner and started pulling on a mound.

  Matt took a step forward, but there wasn’t enough room. He could only watch as Darren threw aside a pile of old clothes, moved a box, and cleared a path. Then he dragged the mound out into the center of the small room.

  He peeled off an old mattress cover from the top of the mound and threw it aside, and there was the cradle.

  The st
ain was dark but so old now it had no gloss. There was an old tape player inside, and Darren leaned down and took it out, then stepped back to let Matt see the whole thing. It was solid and sturdy-looking, low to the ground on two sleigh feet. Matt knelt before it. He put his hand on the top of the cradle and rocked it once. About thirty thin tube slats made up the two sides, and on the headboard there was an elaborate engraving, stained darker, almost black. It was a floral design, with leaves and thin vines wrapping like the arms of an octopus. There was no mattress in the bottom—only a wicker weave. Matt ran his hand along one smooth sideboard and then stood up.

  “Okay,” he said.

  “Indeed, there it is,” said Darren. “And I will sell it to you for the low, low price of one thousand dollars cash.”

  Matt looked at him with sleepy eyes. He looked down at the cradle, then back at Darren. “It’s not worth a tenth of that.”

  “Worth?” said Darren. “What is worth?”

  Matt looked back down at the cradle. “Five hundred,” he said.

  “Ah,” said Darren. “A bargaining man. Okay. Yes. I change my price to nine hundred seventy.”

  “Six hundred.”

  “Let’s say we meet in the middle,” said Darren, “at seven fifty.”

  Matt squatted down beside the cradle once more. He imagined his son inside it. He reached a hand out and started rocking it, and now the dog came up and sat beside him, its tail wagging across the dirty concrete floor. The pleasure. That was what the cost was. That was the definition of worth. Matter was somewhere in there, too. Worth and matter. Darren had meant something more cynical about the marketplace. What he didn’t understand was that five hundred dollars was nothing when it came to the invisible mass of life. Seven hundred dollars was nothing. Eight hundred was nothing. These were memories of being a living thing. Being able to drive home with it, give it to Marissa, and then for everything to suddenly be over, and for him to be able to sleep, was much better than anything this small man could imagine. Then time would start going forward again.