“They take away the plane,” Bernardo said.
“Oh, yeah.”
Something moved at the edge of his vision, and he turned to find a figure in the illuminated window—Anita, looking out into the yard to see who was there. His heart dropped a notch in his chest. “I suppose I should go in now.”
“Yes.”
He turned. “Thanks for coming.”
“I go again sometime.”
“Do you think you’ll stay in Montana? Or are you going back to Italy?”
Bernardo shook his head. “I cannot go back to Italy.”
Paul pulled the keys from the ignition and dropped them into his jacket pocket. “You really can stay here for a while, if you want. Things are going to be a little strange, but…”
“No, no.” He was waving his hand in the air. “I leave. Maybe I come back to visit.”
“Oh, yeah. Definitely.” Beside him, Bernardo had stiffened, as if steeling himself for the difficulties ahead, but now his eyes softened.
“Paul,” he said. “You go in. You take me to town tomorrow.”
“It’s her car.”
“We, ah, no problem. Tomorrow…”
He nodded, as much to himself as to Bernardo, and opened the door. Bernardo opened his, and they stepped out together and stood in the fading light.
“Go.”
Paul went. Anita was already gone from the front window as he climbed the stairs. A board creaked underfoot—something he should fix—and he pushed open the door.
She was sitting at the kitchen table, waiting, her hands folded before her as if in penance. “I was so worried,” she said.
“We went to Glacier.”
“Jesus, Paul.” She shook her head. Her eyes gleamed. “I didn’t know what you’d done. I thought…”
“What?”
She didn’t answer. Her hands untangled and she held them up, showing him they were empty.
Paul slumped against the door. It felt better to have the wood at his back, supporting him, and he pressed harder, until he felt the grain of the boards impressing itself on his skin. He said, barely loud enough for her to hear, “But you’re leaving.”
“Yes,” she said.
“To be with him.”
She wiped her eyes with her palms, like a child. “No, no. To be on my own. For now.”
“Oh,” he said. “On your own.”
“Paul—” she said, and stopped herself.
“What.”
“Never mind.”
For a moment, he felt himself beginning to lose strength, his bones betraying him and going soft. But he pressed himself harder against the door, letting it bear him until the feeling passed. “I’ll need the car for a few days,” he said. “Then you can take it.”
“You can have the house,” she said into the table. “I won’t fight you for it.”
“Gee, thanks.”
“I guess you want me out.”
“I guess I do.”
She nodded. “I’m sorry, Paul. I do love you. I just can’t always be the one taking care. Maybe that’s my great fault, I don’t know.”
Anger rose from the depths of him and burned on his lips, that she would absolve herself and claim blame in the same breath. But he let it drain away. “I’m not cut out for fatherhood,” he said. “Maybe the family line ought to die with me.”
“Oh, Paul,” she said, so quietly that he barely heard.
“Can you leave tonight?”
“I’ll call for a ride,” she said after a minute.
“Not him, please.”
“No. Kathy, from work. She said I could stay with her.”
“You’ll stay in Marshall?” he said.
She nodded.
He went out to the porch to let her call. He could hear her from there through the half-open window, speaking in short sentences, answering questions yes or no and offering little information. The phone clattered back onto the cradle, and there was silence: he pictured her standing, her hand still warming the receiver. Then her quick steps to the back of the house to pack.
* * *
He got up and walked across the yard, to where the still-fresh caterpillar tracks of a backhoe marked the entrance to the new road. The sun was down now, and the moon cast his long shadow over the gnarled remains of dug-up stumps and ragged tire ruts. In the dim distance hunkered the backhoe’s yellow bulk, its bucket arm curled like a sleeping insect’s; behind it lay a truck crane, with its boom folded over its back. He followed their tracks down toward the creek, trying to remember the pattern of trees as they had stood, but he found that for all their familiarity he could not remember what they looked like: in his mind it was only a forest now, one patch no more or less worthy of his attention than any other. He closed his eyes, thinking of Anita’s face. He wondered how long it would take for it too to recede in his memory, until it was only a face like any other. He wondered if it would shock him someday to bump into her in town, if for that accidental second he would recall everything about her, then forget again when she was out of sight.
The creek was swollen and muddy. This was where the workmen had stopped, too tired perhaps to begin building the makeshift bridge they’d need in order to cross. Several stumps remained, clinging to the ground that once fed them, the trees they supported lying shorn nearby. Paul sat on one, listening to the creek’s rushing, trying to coax its flow to enter him, to either make this place as much a part of him as his wife had been—and still was—or wash from him what little claim he had left. But it did nothing. It was only water, and passed him by, fast and cold.
In time, he thought he heard a car engine, the slamming of doors, and soon after someone approached him from behind. He didn’t bother to open his eyes.
“Hello.” It was Bernardo, keeping his distance.
“Hi.”
“It is a beautiful night,” he said.
Paul tasted the air. It was sharp, thick, like a tonic. He said, “She’s gone?”
“She says to tell you she come back in one week. She get a new place.”
“All right.”
The footsteps came toward him and stopped to his left. Paul turned and opened his eyes. Bernardo had his hands in his pockets, his arms pressed against his sides. “It is cold,” he said. “Maybe we go back, eh?”
“I suppose,” Paul said, but he didn’t feel like moving. He rubbed his face and the blood rushed to the surface, pricking him like a pine bough.
He felt a hand on his shoulder. “We go.”
“Okay,” he said, and he found himself happy to rise under Bernardo’s firm hand, to let himself be guided back by a benevolent stranger to his home.
* * *
In the morning Paul woke to find Bernardo cooking them breakfast. Omelets. He was wearing a T-shirt Paul had gotten at a rock-and-roll show in Tuscaloosa and a pair of sweatpants. The churning of the washing machine was audible from the next room.
“Sorry. One more wash,” Bernardo said.
“It’s no problem.”
“I find these in the dryer.” He gestured toward the T-shirt and sweats. Paul didn’t remember washing them, and it occurred to him that Anita must have, over the weekend, while she sat here in the house contemplating leaving him.
“You can keep those.”
Bernardo looked down at himself, frowning. “I give them back.”
Paul sat at the table, wondering what she would take with her. These chairs? They had shiny red cushions stretched across metal frames. She’d bought them at a junk shop in Omaha when they moved out here. The bed? That was hers. The curtains, the kitchen supplies. It was of passing interest to him that one of them laid silent claim to every object in the house, that, unlike a lot of couples he’d known or read about, neither ever forgot what was whose. The couch was his, the records and stereo. None were much good if he couldn’t cook or sleep. He wondered what—or where—Bernardo would eat tonight.
“Will you go to your son now? Anthony?” he said.
He didn’t turn, b
ut put down, for a moment, his spatula. “Antonio. Yes.”
Paul pushed his hair from his face and looked around for a rubber band to tie it back. He saw none. Across the room, the phone book lay grimy and dogeared on a small table (hers) under the phone (also hers). He went to it and opened the yellow pages. No listings for barbers. He eventually found them under “Hair.” He picked up the phone and saw Bernardo staring at him, spatula in hand, from across the kitchen. “What?” he said.
Bernardo shook himself as if from sleep. “Nothing. You call.”
He called the first few in the book until he found one sufficiently cheap: six dollars. He hadn’t gone to a barber since he was a kid. He called and made an appointment—one hour from now—with a gruff-sounding middle-aged man. By the time he hung up, Bernardo had put the omelets on the table. They ate them in silence. Bernardo took his plate to the sink and washed it, then took Paul’s too. Paul let him. Then Bernardo sat down.
“So I go after an hour?”
“Sooner now. Half an hour.”
“The house. We don’t finish.”
Paul shrugged. “I can do it myself.”
Bernardo nodded. “Okay, good.” He looked up and met Paul’s eyes. If the line of sight between them, Paul thought, was a rope, it would be frayed and sagging. It would be hanging by a thread.
Bernardo went out to the shed to collect his belongings. He brought in a blanket and a pillow, candles, the pencils and paper Paul had given him, his drawings rolled up in a tube. He dumped these things, save for the drawings, on the table.
“You can keep all that.”
Bernardo shook his head. “I don’t need.” He stared for a second at the pile, then looked up. “Are you ready?”
“Sure.” Paul stood, his joints going off like firecrackers.
They drove to town, the sun weak and ineffective around them. Daytime struggled to assert itself across the valley. Paul’s eyelids felt swollen and sticky, and he rubbed his eyes as they turned onto Cedar Avenue.
“I’m glad you showed up,” he said to Bernardo. He knew it wasn’t enough, but it was all he could think to tell him. “I hope your luck changes.”
“I think so,” Bernardo said. “Soon.”
“I’ll see you again?” He turned to Bernardo, then back to the road.
“When I…” Bernardo said, at a loss.
“When you’re more established.”
“Yes.”
They came to Cherry Street, where downtown began. At the traffic light, Paul said, “You just want to be dropped off downtown?”
“This is good, yes.”
“Are you sure there’s nowhere in particular?”
“No, no. I find him okay, I think.” He hung his head, turning the rolled-up drawings in his hands. “You don’t tell people,” he said. “About the plane.”
“What plane?”
“The plane. That come—” And he noticed Paul’s smile. “Okay, good.”
“You know,” Paul said, after a moment, “I don’t know if I believe you. I hope that’s not insulting to you or anything, but I saw it happen. I don’t think a person could survive that.”
Bernardo didn’t reply.
“However you came here, it doesn’t matter to me. You don’t have to tell me the truth. I think one way or the other you’ll make it here, and what came before that doesn’t matter.”
“It’s good to me you say that.”
“Well,” Paul said, embarrassed. “Whatever.”
Bernardo reached for the door handle. Street sounds rushed in. “Thank you,” he said. “You help me very much.” He looked down at the drawings in his hand, then placed them between the seats, a gift at the last minute.
Paul took his hand. “You helped me too.” And then he let go, and averted his eyes until he heard the door close. He looked up and saw Bernardo crossing the street in a break in the traffic, and before long he had turned the corner and was gone.
* * *
Spruce Barbers seemed, in fact, to be only one barber, who operated in the daylight basement of a dilapidated house, in a residential neighborhood that abutted the railroad tracks. There were no other businesses for blocks around, and the dank little shop appeared to be some sort of zoning accident; either that or it had escaped the city’s notice. The barber was short and bald and fussed over the gray head of a thin old man with a trembling jaw. There was one other barber’s chair, but it was in the dark, apparently unused, half of the shop, and it leaned crazily, like a rickety carnival ride that had suddenly stopped.
Paul read the newspaper. In the back of the local section, there was an article about the crash; an AirAmerica spokesperson said the airline would begin to haul out the wreckage later in the week. The road that was being cut into the forest would be allowed to grow back over when the operation was finished. Paul’s heart lightened at this news, as if the wreckage itself were the cause of his melancholy, the very weight that strained against his ribs in the night. He couldn’t wait until it was gone.
The old man wobbled out, climbing the stairs with some effort. Paul thought he ought to go and help, but he didn’t. He and the barber watched him until he had disappeared from view, then both sighed. Their eyes met.
“Been coming here for twenty-five years,” the barber said. “Used to be mayor.”
“Really?”
“Real mayor died in his sleep. Mr. Visser there was top man in the town council. He filled in.” He shook his head. “Best couple weeks of his life. Used to talk about it all the time.”
When Paul sat down, the barber walked slow circles around him, as if his head were a block of marble he was preparing to carve. “Shampoo?” he said soberly.
“Uh, no.”
“Okay. How d’you want it cut?”
“Short.”
The barber glared at Paul in the mirror. “You gotta give me a little more than that.”
“Maybe leave a little on the sideburns. And the forehead.”
His eyes narrowed. “Whatever you say.”
He cut in silence for a while, spinning the chair with one hand, chopping with a skill that seemed indiscriminate. Heavy sections of hair fell away, and Paul heard them whisper against the barber’s smock. For a long time, Paul was pointed toward the door, and when the barber turned him to face the mirror, he saw that his hair, while short, was messy and uneven. One ear was hidden and the other wasn’t. The hair across his forehead was severely slanted, so that it covered one eyebrow completely and left the other bare. Then he noticed that the barber’s head was gleaming with sweat and he was biting his lower lip.
“This’d be a lot easier if you gave me a particular cut to do. I’m no champ with this freestyle stuff.”
“I don’t know any hairstyles,” Paul said. “I haven’t gotten a haircut in eight years.”
“I’m switching to clippers,” the barber told him, after a moment’s thought.
He plugged the clipper into the wall. It was a curved green thing with nasty-looking teeth on one end. When he switched it on, its buzz filled the room like an avalanche of metal filings. It set Paul’s teeth on edge. The barber plunged it into what was left of Paul’s hair and dragged it across his scalp. The feeling wasn’t too bad. It filled Paul with a sort of nostalgia, as he recalled the buzz cuts of his boyhood. Meanwhile hair came away in graceful clumps and piled up on his chest and shoulders. The barber was sweating even more profusely now. “Okay, now,” he whispered, apparently to himself. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”
It wasn’t long before all of Paul’s hair was gone, save for a smooth glaze of fuzz. The barber stood behind him, and they both stared at it in the mirror. For the first time in his adult life, Paul could see his own scalp: he had a prominent ridge that ran from just beyond the hairline to the back of his head. The clippers continued to buzz.
“Why don’t you turn that thing off?” he said, and the noise stopped.
“Well, there you go.”
Paul stared into the mirror. “You cut
it all off.”
“Looks good.”
“I could have done that myself.”
The barber didn’t respond. He wiped the hair from Paul’s neck with a soft brush, then whisked off the plastic apron with a flourish. “There you go!” he said again, cheerily. “That’s six bucks.”
“You’re charging me?”
“Whaddya think?” The bather’s hands were planted on his hips, his legs slightly spread, like a sumo wrestler’s.
“But you screwed it up!”
“Six bucks!” the barber repeated.
Paul wanted only to leave now. “Forget it.”
“Look, pal,” the barber said, “you told me short and you got it. Cough up.”
He ran his hand over his hair. Soft. He crossed his arms, uncrossed them, pulled out his wallet and paid.
In the car, he held his hands to his head and worked his jaw, feeling the muscles moving over his ear. They felt like new muscles, freshly grown. He pictured himself as one of his distant ancestors, crouching in the dust, gnawing on the leg of a fallen zebra.
* * *
There was no reason to go home. It was eleven-thirty, and he was driving aimlessly around downtown. He should call Ponty. Then he remembered first seeing Alyssa in Ponty’s office, the phone pinched between her ear and shoulder; he thought of those thin shoulders and neck, seeing them through the rear window of her boyfriend’s truck. How could Ponty sleep at night, knowing his daughter went to school every day, bobbed in a fast current of kids, with their drugs and weapons in their lockers? How could he sleep when she saw boys every minute of the day, leering at her from desks and in hallways, popping off the buttons of her dress in their dreams, reaching for her across a couch with the shades drawn?
He found himself pulling onto Weir, signaling into the lane that would bring him to the high school in time for lunch. Kids had already filled the streets around the school when he arrived, pushing one another, laughing in groups, passing things around. They leaned against trees and sat on cars. They crouched in hedges, smoking cigarettes. Paul drove by slowly, feeling like a fool but unable to tear himself away until he saw her, made sure she was all right.
He found a parking space adjacent to a practice field, where he had a clear view of the school, and slouched down to watch. No Alyssa. He could recognize her walk from a distance, even without the telltale purple hair: it looked like a shuffle but propelled her around with surprising speed, as if she were on skates; her head always down, navigating by some sort of teenage sonar. Even with the boyfriend she did this, a reflex he found profoundly moving. There was beauty in defense.
Light of Falling Stars Page 26
