Loose Ends

by Neal Bowers

  *

  With all the windows down and the warm air rushing in, Davis swung onto the bypass and watched the speedometer needle rise. The smell of mums still clung to him, and nothing on the radio could drown out Aunt Goldie’s repetition: “Burial’s been changed to tomorrow at two.”

  At ease. For the first time, Davis realized what an odd slip it was. Military. How often had his mother been at ease with Haupt? Yes, she might well have said she was at ease or easy. Easy does it. Easy all the way. Let me down easy. Easy street and easy chair. As easy as falling off a building. Easy as pie. Praise the Lord and ease me over to the other side.

  His mother had died late Wednesday night, so the rigor might still be in her joints and muscles. But it would slowly let go, ease up, let her relax into death. Such a stern attention she held, mustered into death’s camp. Poor recruit. How much he wanted her to be at ease.

  CHAPTER 17

  __________

  SLOWING FROM BYPASS speed, Davis turned in the direction of the cemetery. Funny how every street in Clarksville that doesn’t dead-end leads to the dead-end gates of Greenwood. But then, if you were going to Leon’s Tap Room, the streets would have the same inevitability. Rome is where the roads lead only if you’re going to Rome. Piece it together any way you like, the end justifies the route. No matter how roundabout or wrong, make enough turns and you’ll be there.

  But Greenwood or someplace like it wasn’t a matter of choice. Lie down anywhere you like, and still you’ll end up in the ground somewhere. Still. Winningham knew this principle better than anyone. Davis’s mother knew it too, having inscribed her name in granite eight years ago. This was the end of every road.

  The backhoe was parked and silent. “Too early for the reinterment,” Davis thought, reading names and dates in the covering grass. But when he stood at the edge of the open pit, he saw that half of it had been filled, his mother’s half, red earth bulging like a wound that wouldn’t heal. Checking his smashed watch, Davis wondered how long he had meandered to get here. Had the time warped somehow, causing him to miss her burial? The sun flared between clouds. The name on the mounded side of the grave was his mother’s, the death date still uncut in the veined stone.

  “They’ve put my father on the wrong side. Stupid assholes!” He turned around several times, clenching his fists and pulling his arms in hard against his chest. “Jesus Christ Almighty! They didn’t even look at the marker.”

  Uphill, someone wandering among the graves stopped to look at Davis, probably thinking she was looking at grief, the wail of loss, the cry of rage against the unanswering end. Dervish of an ancient ache, he spun beneath the cloud-broken sky.

  Thinking only of the coroner and his coveralled drones, Davis aimed himself in the direction of his car and broke into a sprint, tripping on a footstone hidden in the grass. For an instant, he was splayed above the ground like a bad diver and could see the whole of Greenwood, its swells and placid surfaces, the deep green bay at the edge of forever. But when he hit, the vision left in a single exhalation, breath knocked loose in a primitive grunt.

  Rising first to his knees, then rocking back with his legs folded under him, Davis took inventory. His ribs ached from the impact; the thumb on his left hand throbbed. No serious damage. But the knees of his pants and his coat sleeves were smeared, grass stains showing as a slickness on the black cloth, clay earth dark in the weave like clotted blood.

  The woman watching him had come halfway down the hill and stopped. He waved an embarrassed all-clear, a blackboard erasure motion, as he stumbled to his feet. When he got to the car and sat down, he wasn’t so sure about himself. His left arm held a low hum in the elbow and wrist, and his heart was going too fast. Thinking it could be insulin shock, he fumbled with his monitor, pricking three fingers before getting any blood. 142. Not an insulin reaction. Had to be the jolt, the shock of the fall. The anger. “Goddamned coroner!”

  *

  By the time Davis reached the coroner’s office, he had a hammering headache, which intensified when he pushed against the door and found it locked. NO REGULAR WEEKEND HOURS. “Well, how about a few irregular ones? A fucking irregular five minutes.” He chewed the words and shook the door so hard a guard appeared down the hallway. “Coroner,” Davis shouted into the glass.

  The guard wagged his head and said, “Come back Monday,” before vanishing around his corner. Deadened by the hallway and the plate-glass door, his voice was barely audible. He could have said, “Kiss my ass.” The more Davis considered, the more certain he was the guard had insulted him. Using both hands, he shook the door until his arms gave out.

  Uphill, in the parking lot, two cops stood looking at him. They held him in view as he walked up the street and entered the police station. As he started through the room toward Ann Louise’s cubicle, a voice said, “Hold on there, buddy. Where you think you’re going?”

  “I think I’m going to see Detective Wilson. That all right with you?” He was breathless with irritation, barely able to keep from screaming.

  “She know you’re coming?”

  “Why don’t you announce me?”

  Too far. Davis had pushed him too far. The officer was moving, gesturing toward a bench backed against the outside wall. “Sit down right there, sir.” His voice had taken on a spooky formality. “Identification, please, sir.”

  Davis leaned forward, fumbling for his wallet. Looking at the Iowa driver’s license and then at Davis, the officer said, “You been in an accident?”

  “Look, I just came to see Ann Louise Wilson. If you’ll tell her I’m here, you can get back to something really important, like your doughnuts.” Why couldn’t he stop his mouth? This confrontation wasn’t one he wanted. Self-important people. He hated them all. No reason to single this one out on this day of all days.

  “Just sit where you are, sir.” The officer kept the license and walked back to his seat at the window counter. Clacking at his computer, he looked from the keyboard to Davis, holding him in place. When he finally said, “I’ll see if Detective Wilson is here,” Davis figured he hadn’t turned up on any of the most-wanted lists.

  Ann Louise appeared at the doorway and motioned Davis to follow her. When they reached her desk, she handed him his license and said, “What’d you do to piss Walter off? He’s ready to put you in one of our guest rooms.” Then, noticing his smeared clothing, “What happened to you?”

  “Why didn’t you wait for me when you buried my father?”

  “You were pretty upset this morning. I figured all that mattered was getting your father back in his grave as quickly as possible.”

  “You put my father on the wrong side of the grave, where my mother was supposed to go.” Davis could tell that Ann Louise was visualizing the grave site. As she slowly understood, the set expression on her face smoothed into disbelief.

  “Weren’t you there?” Davis tipped his head to one side.

  “If I had been, do you think I would have screwed up like that?”

  “So it was the coroner.”

  “Probably one of his assistants. Ted’s in Nashville for the weekend at a forensics seminar.”

  “How am I supposed to know my father’s in the grave at all?”

  “Where else would he be?”

  “All I know is, I didn’t get to see my father put back in his coffin, and now something’s buried where my mother ought to be. Maybe Ted and his colleagues are using him for a specimen centerpiece down at the Opryland Hotel.”

  “Okay, I understand. You’re mad as hell. I would be too.”

  “This is no joke, Detective. If my father is in that hole, he’s on the wrong side. How am I ever gonna know he’s there at all, except on somebody’s say-so?”

  “If you’re suggesting we dig him up again, we’ll need another exhumation order. Won’t be able to until Monday. How long do you want to wait to bury your mother?”

  Davis hadn’t forgotten about his mother, stalled at Berkley’s, pushed to a back room in the ol
d house. She should have been in the ground today. Waiting another three or four days would be obscene, a desecration. “Burial’s scheduled for two o’clock tomorrow.”

  “Okay. Follow through with that and then we’ll need an order to exhume your mother when we switch the coffins around. Believe me, Davis, this stuff gets complicated in a hurry.”

  “Then we’ll have to put her on the wrong side too. Names on the stone won’t match with the bodies.”

  Ann Louise pushed away from her desk and rolled her chair closer to Davis. “I’m truly sorry. And I know this is a hard enough time for you. But God will know who’s who.”

  “Bury ’em and let God sort ’em out. Where’ve I heard that before?”

  Drawing back, Ann Louise let her hands drop into her lap. “It’s your call. I’ll do whatever you want done.”

  For the first time since falling at Greenwood, Davis felt his pulse slow. “Man, I’ve got such a headache.”

  Ann Louise rattled a bottle of something from one of her desk drawers and handed it to Davis with her half-finished cup of coffee.

  He shook out two tablets and took a sip, then finished the lukewarm coffee in a single gulp, eyeing the sugar residue at the bottom.

  “Oh, my God! There was sugar in it!” She tipped toward him, one hand clasping the other, a look of terror on her face.

  “It’s okay. Everything evens out in the end.” He was thinking of the big end, with a capital “E,” but let Ann Louise assume he was talking about blood sugar levels.

  “Could you eat?”

  The question was so elliptical and out of context that Davis didn’t get it.

  When he didn’t answer, Ann Louise added, “Would you like to go somewhere for a bite, if it doesn’t complicate your diabetes, I mean?”

  Davis knew he should eat. If he got the food and the insulin just right, maybe the pain in his head would untwist; maybe the hopelessness lowering over him like a coffin lid would lift.

  *

  Ann Louise took him to the Pic-a-Rib. “Best barbecue in town. You do like barbecue, don’t you?” They had just parked, and Ann Louise kept her hand on the keys in the ignition, ready to leave if Davis objected.

  Davis said, “Sure,” but was calculating the molasses and brown sugar in the sauce, how much insulin he would need. He never estimated this kind of meal well, always under or over, always high or low two hours after eating. Ann Louise seemed so pleased with her choice of restaurants that he hid his concern. “Haven’t had good barbecue in years.”

  After they were seated and had placed their orders, Davis went to the bathroom to take his injection. Familiar territory, this sloppy public space, smelling of urine and disinfectant. Over the years, he had perfected the process—washing his hands and bumping the stall door open, then closed, with his hip. Inside, he took the syringe and the insulin from his pocket and drew up what he guessed he would need. One quick jab and it was done. Not exactly antiseptic conditions, but not bad, considering.

  The food was slow in coming, and Davis became more distracted as he thought of the insulin spreading through his bloodstream with no sugar to uptake. When the meal finally arrived, he ate too quickly. Ann Louise was half through when he pushed his empty plate aside.

  “Does that mean you liked it?” she asked, touching the corners of her mouth with her napkin.

  “It was great.” In truth, Davis hadn’t tasted much. All that mattered was overtaking the insulin with food. “Sorry I ate so fast. Habit of living alone,” he lied.

  “I think I eat less since Buford and I divorced. Meals just aren’t a big thing when there’s nobody else there.”

  The name caused Davis to lift his hand to his throat. Buford could be watching them now. “Did you two come here often?”

  “We didn’t eat out much. Buford’s idea of a good meal was a bucket of chicken and a quart of Pepsi.”

  “So, food drove you apart?”

  “Honest answer? He always thought I was playing around on him.”

  “And were you?”

  Ann Louise lifted a spoon and stirred slowly in her little bowl of baked beans. “Yeah, me and Robert Redford.”

  Her answer was evasive, which could mean yes or that she wanted Davis to think it could be yes. Odd to be flirting, considering how far they had already gone together. Almost gone.

  “You ever cheat on Linda?”

  “Well, that’s a whole ’nother story, as they say hereabouts. Linda and I worked out for about seventy-two hours. After that, it was every spouse for him- or herself.”

  “What was the problem?”

  The word “problem” made Davis wince. But then why wouldn’t she wonder, after his nonperformance last night? “Mostly, we were too young. Didn’t know what we were getting into. She wanted kids and I didn’t.” There it was again, suggestion of sexual dysfunction. “It wasn’t the diabetes. I didn’t become diabetic until after we divorced.”

  “Didn’t you love each other?”

  “Didn’t you and Buford?”

  Acknowledging their stalemate, Ann Louise folded her paper napkin into a small square and said, “All done.”

  “Do you really like living where you grew up, right here in Clarksville?” Davis asked the question as they wandered through the parking lot, trying to spot Ann Louise’s car.

  “Actually, I grew up in New Providence, but it got swallowed up by Clarksville years ago. This town is my home. What else can I tell you?”

  “Feels like another world to me. When I’m in Des Moines and I think about this place, it doesn’t seem real. Feels like someone else grew up here and told me about it. Remember Tiny Faust, wore men’s clothes and walked down the middle of the street, always had that little dog with her? Cars just looped around, because that was Tiny. Nothing you could do about her. See how much that sounds like a story, like something made up? It’s hard to come back to an unreal place.”

  “So what does it feel like when you’re here?”

  They were sitting in the car in the Pic-a-Rib parking lot. Ann Louise had started the engine but hadn’t put the shift into drive. “Feels exactly like this, idling because there’s nowhere to go.” The analogy wasn’t quite right, but Davis let it stand.

  “I don’t get it. Clarksville’s a decent enough town, and I’ve seen the worst parts of it, believe me.”

  “Guess you’ll live here until they shovel you under in Greenwood.”

  “I prefer Riverview.” As she named the other cemetery, she laughed and eased the car onto the street. “Guess we should get you home.”

  This was the moment of impasse, the kind Davis remembered from high school when he mapped out the evening like a battle campaign, shaping everything to end in a kiss. Was she hinting at an invitation? What if he suggested her place instead? How could things have changed so little after all the years? He needed a foolproof way to extend the evening.

  “Tell you what. You give me a tour of your hometown, and I’ll give you one of mine. How’s that?”

  Ann Louise thought for a moment, then made a quick U-turn. “First stop’s the old neighborhood.”

  “New Providence, you mean.”

  “Don’t try to outguess the driver, just sit back and enjoy the sights.”

  She toured him past a succession of comfortable houses, all with big yards and old trees, places where she was five or eight or seventeen. Some of the schools were ones she and Davis had in common, where they had known of, if not known, each other. There once stood the malt stand that served the best root-beer floats on earth, the drive-in theater where she sneaked in to see A Summer Place. A carpet store covered the place where she had learned to swim. She took Davis down the street where her father had taught her how to drive and to a field where she remembered flying kites.

  Not a bad memory in the trip. No illness or death. Not a word of Buford or any other boy or man. Her Clarksville was pristine because it no longer existed. Maybe Davis’s was ruined for the same reason. Time to find out. Ann Louise agr
eed to let him get behind the wheel.

  CHAPTER 18

  __________

  DARKNESS SMOOTHED AND tucked itself in place as Davis steered down streets pinched tight with pickups and cars jacked up in the rear like sprinters in their starting blocks. A wrong turn took him through a trailer park as bleak as an inner-city neighborhood, aluminum walls sprayed with gang signs and obscenities, broken windows holding the moon’s reflection in jagged teeth. No outlet. But even when he turned around and started back through, Ann Louise was calm.

  “Need directions?” she needled.

  “Hey, it’s been a while, okay?”

  Traffic on the Fort Campbell Highway was heavy. Saturday night. Date night. Time to get drunk, get a little crazy. Davis had to force a place for himself in the solid line of cars and then turned off almost immediately into the parking lot of the Vacation Motor Lodge.

  “This place was here when we were kids. Remember? I used to wish I knew someone who would let me swim in the pool. Didn’t know my father might be spending some quality time with Charles Winningham in one of the rooms.”

  “For Christ’s sake, Davis!”

  “Hey, it’s just one version, not the one I was working with all these years, but it works for you, doesn’t it? Might also be the place where my mother was screwing”—he almost said Haupt—“God knows who. That’s a version.”

  Ann Louise let out a sulky sigh. “Come on, Davis. Life isn’t versions or options.”

  Shutting off the engine and leaning back into the yellow glow of the VACANCY sign, Davis said, “Go ahead and run with that idea.”

  “Things happen or they don’t happen. The facts are the facts.” Ann Louise locked her arms across her chest and looked straight ahead.

  “Do you know for a fact that my father knew Charles Winningham?”

  “Let’s just say the evidence points strongly in that direction.”