An Unsettled Grave

by Bernard Schaffer

Ollie closed the door with a soft click and moved diagonally across the parking lot, trying to get a look through the front windows. It was no use. The windows were tinted, meant to better display the neon beer signs hanging from them. He stopped next to the entrance and pressed his ear to the glass window. Voices were muttering inside. As he pressed close, he could see the outline of the design on their jackets. The Disgraced’s Grim Reaper stared back at him with red eyes.

  “What do you mean in case anything happens?” the owner said. “I already have insurance.”

  “Not like this,” Wombat replied. “See, what we provide is protection against the unforeseen. What you might call preventative insurance.”

  “I don’t know what you are talking about. Get the hell out of my store.”

  “Now see,” Wombat replied, stepping forward. As he moved, the bald, dark-skinned one moved with him, both of them closing around the owner. “That’s the wrong attitude to have, especially when you got your family working here. Your boy, how old is he?”

  “You stay the hell away from my son!”

  Ollie pushed the door open, letting the bells clang hard against its glass.

  “We’re closed,” Wombat said, without turning his head.

  Ollie laid his hands on his gun belt. “Well, that’s funny. It looks open to me.”

  The bikers turned to face him, spreading out, as Wombat smiled at the sound of Ollie’s voice. He stroked the length of his braided beard as he leaned back against a tall stack of beer cases. “If I didn’t know better, I’d say you’re either following us around or you’re thinking about becoming a member, Ollie,” he said.

  Ollie felt rooted in place at the entrance. His heart hammered in his chest and he knew that if he spoke he’d hear an unmistakable shaking in his voice. Even worse, they’d hear it too.

  “Of course, I don’t have no problems with signing you up as a prospect,” Wombat said. As he spoke, the bikers were widening their circle, coming around Ollie from either side. “I wouldn’t even make you do all the crazy shit most of the other guys would, out of respect for the badge and all. But, you’d have to watch out for Orange.” At the mention of his name, the bald one sneered at Ollie with black eyes that glittered like onyx. “He just hates pigs,” Wombat said.

  “Look,” Ollie said, falling back on his small-town, aw shucks, I’m everybody’s friend routine. He smiled wide, hoping they didn’t see him lay his right hand across the top of his gun, ready to snatch it out of the holster. “Why don’t we step outside and talk this over. I’m sure it’s just some kind of misunderstanding.”

  “Is there a misunderstanding?” Wombat said, looking sideways at the owner. “No, I’m pretty sure everyone is crystal clear.”

  The owner stared at Ollie, pleading with him to do something.

  “All right, enough,” Ollie said. “I’ve been real polite to you guys so far, but I’m not letting you come around here and harass people.”

  “I think you misunderstand the situation, friend,” Wombat said. “What’s happened is, so far, we’ve been real polite with you.”

  There were five of them, Ollie thought. All of them with bulges under their vests that could be anything from knives to guns to tire irons. How was this happening? He pictured himself drawing his revolver and firing, knocking down the biker closest to him. With only six bullets, that didn’t leave any room for error. They’d be firing back, he thought. Or rushing forward. How the hell did I spend two years in Vietnam and come home without a scratch just to get in a goddamn gunfight in my own hometown?

  They kept moving forward and Ollie reached down to unsnap his holster, feeling the inevitability of it all. An unseen tide pulling him out into the deep waters. He wrapped his hand around the revolver’s handle and they reached inside their vests in unison, when the bells on the glass door behind him clanged again, making everyone freeze in place.

  Ben Rein shuffled into the store, hands thrust down inside his army jacket, his head low. He walked past Ollie without speaking and passed in front of the bikers without bothering to acknowledge them. He moved toward Wombat, who grinned at him in confusion, and kept going, making his way toward the back of the store.

  “Who is this guy?” Wombat said, turning to peer down the aisle. “You know him? Hello? Sir? We’re kind of in the middle of something here.”

  Ben came back up the same aisle, carrying a case of beer. He went past Wombat, turning close enough in front of him to brush the biker with his army jacket, and planted the case on the register counter. When no one moved, he turned and looked at the owner. The owner’s mouth trembled, but nothing came out.

  “Oh, right,” Ben said, scratching the side of his face. “Listen, I’m real sorry about what happened the other day. Can I buy this beer now? I have money.”

  “Hey, idiot,” Wombat called out from behind him. His right hand snaked inside his vest, reaching for the weapon dangling under his armpit.

  “Tell him, Ollie,” Ben said, glancing at his brother. Ben’s hands were starting to shake. “Tell him I’m sorry and we came here to get beer, like you said.”

  “Shut up, Ben,” Ollie said through clenched teeth, his grip tight around the revolver’s wooden grip.

  “You two seem real familiar with one another,” Wombat said. He looked Ben Rein up and down, taking in the man’s coat and tattered appearance. “How about you, friend? You go overseas too? Were you a secretary like ol’ Ollie here?”

  “Leave him out of this,” Ollie snarled.

  Ben looked back at the man standing behind him, seeing his long, braided beard. Reading the man’s patches and symbols, through his squinting eyes.

  “No, you weren’t no secretary,” Wombat whispered. “Boys, look at this beautiful son of a bitch. Look at his eyes. Man, don’t you know what you’re seeing, standing right in front of you? Your own kind.” Wombat threw his arms out. “You belong with us, Ben. We can help you. We understand you. You think some fucking secretary who sucked every dick he could find to keep from going into the field knows what you went through and who you really are?” Wombat’s eyes were glazed over, a shabby mystic preaching to his flock. “I knew we were brought here for a reason, didn’t I say I felt called to this place?” he asked, looking at his men. “We came to find you, Ben.”

  “Take it,” the owner urged. “Go! All of you, just take it and go.” He waved them all forward, shepherding them toward the door like a frenzied sheepdog.

  Ben lifted the beer from the counter, heading toward the entrance. Wombat followed close behind, not wanting to let go of his new find. The others fell in line behind their president, and Ollie stepped backward without looking, feeling the cold glass against his back, and pressed the door open to let them all walk past.

  Ben carried the case of beer to the police car and set it down on the hood. Sweat covered his face and he wiped it with the sleeve of his jacket. He looked pale and withered by the overhead sun. Inside the store, the owner threw the lock on the door and disappeared from the windows.

  “You see that?” Wombat called out, arms resting on the handlebars of his motorcycle. “That’s how people respond to warriors, Ben. With fear. Warriors are what we are, and that’s what you are. Come with us. We don’t answer to anyone but each other. We’re a unit. The same as it was over there, except this time, we aren’t taking orders from any suits, safe at home in their beds. We are free, in a way you can’t imagine.” He extended his hand toward Ben. “What do you say?”

  Ollie watched in disbelief as Ben left the beer on the hood of the police car and headed toward the bikers. “What are you doing?” Ollie hissed.

  “Let us take you home,” Wombat urged. “We’re your brothers.”

  Ben stopped just short of Wombat’s outstretched hand, his eyes fixed on the patches decorating the biker’s vest. The US Army patch, the C, and the 20th. “You were all Charlie Company,” Ben said.

  “That’s right,” Wombat said, his mouth curving into a wolfish grin. “Not too many are pro
ud to say that anymore, but those pussies in Washington can’t take that away from us.”

  “Were any of you on Task Force Barker during the Tet Offensive?”

  “Every single goddamn one of us!” Wombat whooped, clapping his hands together. “Oh shit, were you there too?”

  It was Ben’s turn to smile, his eyes bright and clear. He scanned each of their faces, studying them one by one. He stopped at the bald one, squinting, then kept going. Ben turned back to Wombat and said, “And you were all somewhere else too. I’ve seen your photographs before.”

  Wombat’s laugh died in his throat and he cleared it away. “That right? And where’s that?”

  “Five hundred civilians at My Lai, including women and children. All those babies. Oh yeah, I’ve seen your pictures,” Ben said. “All of you.”

  “How about you stop talking about things you don’t want to know about, Ben,” Wombat said.

  “I know about Phillip White,” Ben replied. “He did the most depraved of the raping. He died in a hotel room fire in Saigon a few weeks later. I know about Ernesto Palmer. He was seen tossing babies up in the air and catching them on his bayonet. He committed suicide the day he was supposed to go back to the States. I know a few more, if you want to hear about them. They’re all dead too.”

  Wombat leaned back against his bike’s handlebars, away from Ben. He glanced at the bald-headed one. “What was the name of your squad leader? The Mexican. It was Ernie, wasn’t it?”

  “Ernesto,” Orange said, staring at Ben.

  “He shot himself in the shower, from what I recall,” Wombat said. “Left a note for his wife and everything.”

  “It was a nice letter,” Ben said. “From the heart.”

  Wombat’s right eye twitched, and he squeezed it shut for a moment to control it, rubbing it like he had something in it. “So you know us?” he said. “We were all there. You know any of our names, Ben?”

  “No,” Ben said. “If I knew your names, we wouldn’t be here having this conversation.”

  None of them spoke as Ben turned to go back to the police car. He hoisted the case of beer off the hood and got into the passenger side, dropping into the seat. Ollie stood for a minute, unsure of what to do, then followed his brother into the police car and started the engine.

  Ollie watched the bikers mount their motorcycles and rev their engines. He backed up his police car, giving them a wide berth as they peeled out of the parking lot, laying down smoke and the stink of scorched rubber.

  “Holy shit,” Ollie said, wiping his face with the flat of his hand. It was soaked in sweat.

  Ben tore the cardboard open on the case of beer and tugged one of the cans out. He cracked it open, pressed it to his mouth, and drained it until the aluminum crumpled in his hand. He tossed it on the car’s floor, pulled out another, cracked it open, and drained it too. He pulled out a third, cracked it open, and as he pressed it to his lips, Ollie said, “Hey!”

  Ben looked at him, beer foam covering his lips.

  “Give me that,” Ollie said, taking the beer out of Ben’s hand and chugging hard.

  CHAPTER 13

  A Liston Borough police car was waiting in the parking lot when Ollie returned to the station. The driver tipped his wide-brimmed cowboy hat and took a long drag from his cigarette as Ollie pulled up alongside him. Walt Auburn blew the smoke out, sending it into Ollie’s window and said, “Good to see you.”

  “Walt,” Ollie said. “What brings you into town?”

  “Just passing through. Figured I’d check in on you. See how the other half lives and all.” Walt Auburn was a skinny, wiry man, with a long neck and an Adam’s apple the size of a Ping-Pong ball. It looked like a tumor trying to get away from the rest of him. His starched shirt collar was buttoned tight and pinned with a polyester clip-on tie, making him look like a plant that had only one long stem with a bulbous growth at the end of it, which, in this case, was wearing a gray Stetson. His eyes were hidden behind mirrored sunglasses, and when he looked at Ollie, all Ollie could see was his own reflection.

  “How’s your boy?” Ollie said. “Stevie, right?”

  “Doing well. Getting big. How about you, making any time with the ladies around here?”

  “No,” Ollie said. “Never can seem to get off work long enough to go anywhere.”

  “You just don’t know how to play it, that’s all,” Walt said. He took another drag and blew out a long trail of smoke. “Time passes, don’t it?”

  “That it does.”

  Ollie watched him stub out his cigarette in the car’s ashtray and flick the stub between their cars into the driveway. “I heard you ran into some friends of mine,” Walt said, looking out into the driveway.

  “Who’s that?”

  “The motorcycle boys. Wombat, or whatever the fuck he calls himself, and his crew. You giving them a hard time?”

  Walt was looking at him directly now, and Ollie could see a reflection of himself in each eye, giving him a firsthand view of the stupid look on his own face. “They’re friends of yours?”

  “Well, it’s not like they come over for dinner or anything, but they’re good folk. Decorated military veterans. Those boys all saw some serious shit over in ’Nam. Now, sure, they aren’t exactly the Sunday school type, and they like to kick things up now and again, but I’ve been dealing with them a long time, and they never gave me one lick of trouble. In fact,” Walt said, “they’re actually good for the community.”

  “Is that right?” Ollie asked. “How’s that work, exactly?”

  “You go ahead and scoff, but it’s true,” Walt said. “Having them around tends to keep out the riffraff. Especially if people know you and them are sympatico.” Walt touched his fingers together when he said the word, giving Ollie a visual aid. He drew another cigarette from the pack and stuck it in his mouth and lit it. “Let me talk real plain to you, Ollie. You work alone. You’ve got a better chance of seeing a colored president than seeing this place let you hire another police officer. Am I right?”

  “I’ve never asked them to hire anyone, so I’m not sure,” Ollie said.

  “Point is, friends like these are good friends to have. I’m not saying they’ll be raping and pillaging and you’ll be standing here watching the town burn down around you. I’m just saying, be polite to them, and they’ll be real, real good to you. They know how to return a favor, believe me. Do you believe me?”

  Ollie watched Walt extend his hand through the window, offering it to him.

  “I believe you,” Ollie said, taking it and squeezing. Walt’s hand stunk like tobacco.

  “Good,” Walt said, shifting his car into drive. “You know, someday soon, these bozos are gonna wake up and realize it’s stupid to have two different police departments and fire companies and public works departments, and so on, in such a small area. They’re gonna combine things, and when they do, it’s important we stick together. I’ll make sure you’re taken care of, Ollie. Get you a lieutenant’s spot. No, a captain’s. What do you say?”

  “Sounds great,” Ollie said.

  Walt tipped his hat before he drove away, leaving Ollie in his own parking lot, facing the wrong direction.

  * * *

  On any other day, time passed slowly in school, but that day it passed quickly. Whenever J.D. looked at the clock, it kept leaping forward like a horse unbridled. It went faster as the day drew to a close. Miss Sanderson, who always droned in a flat monotone, seemed to fly through explanations about fractions and long division, and by the way, J.D., as soon as you leave this building, Fred Eubanks is going to stomp on your little balls until they pop like grapes. You’re going to cry in front of everyone. You’re going to die.

  “J.D.?” Miss Sanderson said.

  His head snapped away from the window overlooking the playground. When she saw she had his attention, the teacher turned back to the blackboard and continued talking. J.D. looked at the clock. Only a few minutes were left. Just a few rows above his, Adam was already slidin
g his pencil into his pencil case and zippering his schoolbag. Adam squinted at the clock from behind his thick glasses, seeing the time, and drew out his inhaler to take a long, rattling dose.

  The bell rang, with Miss Sanderson still giving their homework assignments. J.D. didn’t bother writing them down. He didn’t figure he’d live long enough to hand them in. He hoisted his schoolbag and waited for Adam at the door. Neither of them spoke as they joined the other students heading for the exit.

  J.D. looked at the floor as he walked. He didn’t want to hold his face up and risk anyone seeing how terrified he was. He felt like he was floating through the air, disconnected from himself. He didn’t look back up until Adam whacked him on the arm and pointed at the end of the hall, saying, “Look.”

  J.D. peered through the crowd of kids, a sea of knit hats with fuzzy balls at the top, and saw Hope. She was standing outside the hallway door, waving at them through the window. She was smiling, a smile as wide and big as the sky, and the curls of her red hair came down against her pale skin. J.D. had read books where women were described as having alabaster skin, and he didn’t know exactly what it meant. He thought an alabaster sounded more like a fish, or some sort of railing inside a mansion. Writers loved to use the same old descriptions when it came to girls. Golden hair. Chestnut hair. Ruby red lips. Hourglass figures. Alabaster skin.

  He looked at Hope and decided that must have been what they were going for. Whatever it meant. However they meant it. For him, it would always be her face, framed by that red, red hair.

  She waited for them on the landing, holding the door open to let the others pass through it faster. It was like pulling the plug on the bathtub drain. J.D. realized he was being carried forward faster than he wanted, closing in on the entrance, and about to be spat out into the courtyard. Hope was waving him on, though, and there was no way to turn around.

  “Come on,” she said. “It’s fine.” She pointed at the far end of the parking lot where the school buses were idling, and the empty corner where none of their tormentors stood. No Fred Eubanks. No Little Ritchie. No crowd of their friends. She leapt down the steps, landing on her feet, and spread her arms wide. “See? We stood up to them and they ran off.”