"You don’t look so good," she said.
Pax gripped the edge of the door. "What do you want, Vonda?"
"Don’t be that way," she said. "I changed your diaper more than once. You used to run around my house naked."
Uncle Lem’s house, Pax thought.
Vonda said, "Say what you came for, Travis." The boy stared at Paxton with half-lidded eyes. She backhanded him across the bicep. "Travis!"
"I’m sorry," he said. "For scaring you." Clete snorted a laugh.
Jesus, Pax thought. He really did want to shoot both these kids. "I know what you’re here for," Pax said.
"Do you, now?" Vonda said.
He’d thrown away the needle and syringe, but now he wished he’d left them on the porch. A smoking gun. "That’s over," Pax said. "All of that. You won’t be touching him again."
Clete said, "Looks like you’ve been touching him yourself. How you liking the vintage, cuz?"
Vonda raised a hand to silence the boy. She said to Paxton, "So you’re staying, then? Years without a word, then you just move back in?"
"Pretty much." He’d missed work, hadn’t even called his manager. If he wasn’t fired by now he would be soon. He was playing it day be day.
Vonda said, "You don’t know what you’re getting into, Paxton. Your father has needs—special needs. Are you prepared to take care of him, every day, for the rest of his life?"
"I’ll get help. I’ll call his doctor."
Clete and Travis laughed, and even Vonda smiled. Clete said, "Listen, cuz, if you haven’t called yet, you ain’t never going to."
"I’ll call the cops, though," Pax said. "Just stick around."
"I’m here to help you," Vonda said. "And help Harlan. He used to be a self-righteous son of a bitch, and lord knows he can get mean. But he needs help. He’s hallucinating sometimes, isn’t he? Calling you names? And then there’s the weekly sweats—"
"Weekly? Try every night," Paxton said. "Eight-fifteen, like clockwork."
Travis and Clete exchanged a look. After a moment Vonda said, "So you know what we’re talking about. It’s even more important we help you out, Paxton. If you don’t get the vintage out of them they go a little crazy. It’s not pretty, but you have to do it."
The phone began to ring. Pax said, "Get the hell out of here." He started to close the door.
Vonda put out a hand to stop him. "I’ll give you another week, Paxton. You’ll see you’re in over your head, and then you’ll call me. And you know what? I’ll come back, with no hurt feelings. Because that’s what family’s for."
He closed the door, locked it. Then he hurried to the living room and picked it up on the sixth or seventh ring. He knew who it would be. The labored breathing on the other end of the line confirmed it.
"They’re coming for you," a voice said. A voice drowning in phlegm. "You and the vintage."
That word again. "They came and went, Uncle Lem," Pax said. Or rather, they were leaving now. He watched Vonda and the boys climb into the Ford.
"Already? No. I have to go, I have to—"
"Wait! They just pulled out this second. You’ve got time. Are you all right? Are they hurting you?"
"Past hurting," he said. "Your father, though—" He coughed wetly. "It’s the age. They’ll be after him."
"You have to tell me how to handle them, Uncle Lem. How to handle him. You have to tell me what to do."
"Do? You do your job." He coughed again. "Do what your father did for his father."
A loud clatter as Lem clumsily hung up the phone. From the back bedroom, his father shouted a question.
"Nobody, Harlan," Pax called back. "Go back to sleep."
The vintage rolled in and receded like a tide, the flow growing stronger each night. The longer Pax stayed, the longer they talked and sat together and ate together, the more Harlan produced. It usually came on in the evenings. His father would look down at himself, and say, "Ah," as if he’d spilled something on his clothes. Then Pax would run to get the extraction kit.
He’d gotten the supplies in Lambert, ten miles away, where nobody was likely to recognize him and nobody had. In a drug store he’d picked up antiseptic wipes, a box of vinyl gloves, skin lotion. Syringes and needles, though, weren’t on any of the shelves, and when he finally asked for them the clerk looked at him like he was a junkie. Did he have a prescription? He went to a couple hardware stores and kitchen stores, inspecting caulk guns, bicycle pumps, turkey basters, frosting sprayers, looking for anything he could rig. Then in the JC Penny’s housewares department he found a nickel-plated monster called a marinate infuser. Eight inches long, with loop handles, a plunger, and a 30-cc needle. The tool Dr. Frankenstein would reach for to inject a couple quarts of spinal fluid. Pax used it in reverse, drawing the fluid out of his father, pressing it into tiny rubber-capped containers he’d found on the Tupperware aisle, each one holding a few ounces. After attending to his father he’d stack them in the freezer. Then, later in the evening, he’d remove one. One or two.
Hours later he’d wake up, not sure if he was in bed, on the couch, inside or outside. His first sensation was of his own mass, the vast bulk of his body stretched out across the dark like an unsteerable barge. And at the same time, he felt the brittle angles of wrists and ankles, the knobs of his knees like two river stones, the blades of his hip bones, the shallow pit of stomach. He stared at the walls of his bedroom, and up at the trees that lined the yard. He breathed and heard himself breathing.
The split, when it came, left him not just alone, not just half of what he’d been, but some smaller fraction. A shard. Near dawn he’d fall into a more fitful sleep, and by ten or eleven a.m. the cycle would begin again. He fed his father, moved laundry through the washer and dryer, cleaning the rooms. Each day he picked out something to do outside—mowing the lawn, clearing brush, washing the cars—just to get him into the fresh air.
"You don’t have to prove anything," his father said. It was Thursday or Friday morning, and Pax was making his third attempt at scrubbing the kitchen floor. There seemed to be nothing he could do about the smell of the vintage. It was permanent now, baked into the walls and floorboards.
Pax had started the projects with a vague notion that he was preparing the house so that his father could get by alone, though Pax no longer had a clear idea of when he was leaving.
"You need to eat," his father said to him. He was standing up in the doorway, holding himself erect.
"I’m fine," Pax said.
"You’re not fine. I know what’s happening, Paxton. All this. It’s not the first time."
Paxton stood up. "Really. When were you going to tell me?"
"Not ’til you needed to. Maybe never."
"Shit, Harlan! What about when it happens to me? You’d be dead and I wouldn’t know what the hell was going on."
"Mostly it skips. There’s only one or two every generation—"
"Every generation? How long has this been going on?"
Harlan pulled out one of the metal chairs and sat down. After a while he said, "Your grandfather begged me to end it. End the line. I couldn’t do it. And later, your mom ... " He shook his head. "I was weak. I knew what she was doing—what she wasn’t doing." He looked up. "I shouldn’t tell you this, but your mom—"
"Don’t worry, I know I was a mistake." He walked to the back door and yanked it open. The room was hot, and it wasn’t even noon. He had to get a couple more air conditioners into this house or he’d never make it through the summer. "Vonda’s coming back, Harlan. I need to know what she’s doing with this stuff. Is she selling it?"
His father frowned. "To who?"
"I don’t know—anybody. You have to understand, this ... " He couldn’t say vintage; that was Vonda’s word. "This stuff is stronger than anything I’ve ever heard of."
"It’s no good outside the family, Paxton. There’s no one to sell it to."
"What?"
"Sons and grandsons, yes. Daughters too, I suppose. But it does nothin
g for outsiders."
"Maybe she’s selling it to cousins, then."
"She wouldn’t do that," Harlan said. He didn’t sound sure. "It doesn’t matter if she is. Let her do what she wants. Go back to Phoenix or Chicago or wherever it is you’re living now. I have my own plan."
Pax didn’t believe him for a minute. "I’m not leaving you to her."
Harlan tilted his head. "Why not?"
He didn’t have an answer for that yet.
There were only two checkout lanes open at Bigler’s, but he picked hers. "That should make quite a few meals," Jo said. The cart was piled high.
"I’m stocking up," Pax said.
"Good. You look like you could use it." It was true, he’d dropped weight, and he hadn’t started with much to spare. She said, "How is your father doing?"
"Good. I mean, okay."
She nodded, and Pax couldn’t bring himself to say what he came to say. She worked quickly, scanning and bagging the items with practiced speed.
"You’re staring at me," she said.
He felt heat in his cheeks. "I’m sorry," he said. "It’s just—" He glanced behind him. There was no one else in line. "Were we in love, Jo? Or was it all just teenage hormones? Just chemicals?"
She tucked the last item, a box of cereal, into the bag. "I loved you," she said.
"But we were just kids."
"Old enough."
Old enough to make a baby. Old enough to lose one.
Her parents hadn’t wanted him at the hospital—hadn’t wanted him anywhere near their daughter ever again. His father washed his hands of him. Within two weeks of that night Pax was gone to Arizona to live with his mom’s sister.
Jo finished ringing him up, and didn’t object when he signed Harlan’s name to one of his father’s checks. She said, "I held a service, you know." Her voice was light, matter-of-fact. "They didn’t want a public one, so I held my own. Out by the church. I only carried it for six weeks, but to me it was already our baby. I could feel it."
Maybe that was the difference. Jo had chemicals running through her system telling her the child existed, that there was someone there to love. He had nothing to hold on to but a concept. An abstract idea.
He touched her arm. "Jo, if we could start over—"
"Start over?" She drew back. Her smile was some mix of disbelief and pity. "Paxton, I’m married. I’m happy now. I have two beautiful children."
"That’s ... good. I’m glad you got over me."
"Of course I did. It’s been twelve years. What did you think I would do?"
He pushed his groceries out to the parking lot. As he finished loading, Jo came out of the store holding a plate covered by a clear plastic lid.
"For your dad," she said. "He always liked coconut cream pie."
"Uh, okay," he said, and took it from her.
"Tell him I’m sorry for his loss." He stared at her blankly and she said, "His uncle. Lem?"
"What are you talking about?"
"I thought that’s why you were buying all that food. We got the news this morning when Travis came in. What’s the matter?"
"When did he die?"
"Last night, I think. Travis said it was going to be a quick funeral."
"I have to get home." He set the pie on the passenger seat, then climbed in. He looked up at her through the open side window. "Jo, I’m sorry. For everything. I was a coward."
She didn’t contradict him.
He’d braced himself for the sight of Vonda’s Ford, but the driveway was empty except for his father’s Crown Vic. Pax left the groceries in the car and went inside. His father sat on the couch, a folded towel on his lap, watching the television.
"Uncle Lem is dead," Paxton said.
Harlan nodded. "I figured. The phone’s been ringing off the hook."
"You didn’t pick up?"
"They’ll say their condolences, but I know what they really want. Where’s the food? I’m starving."
Pax ferried the groceries into the house, checking half a dozen times for cars coming down the lane. He quickly made his father a sandwich and a tall glass of sweet tea, then stood where he could keep watch out the picture window.
"You’re making me nervous," his father said.
"We have to leave, Harlan. I’m taking you back to Chicago."
His father looked at him. "In what?"
Good point. His Tempo was too small by half, and the Crown Vic probably didn’t even run. "I’ll borrow a truck."
"I’m not going anywhere," Harlan said. "This is my damn house. You’re the one who needs to leave."
"You really want me out of here?"
"Of course I do. I never wanted you here in the first place."
"Liar." His body had been telling a different story since Paxton had arrived.
"You’re throwing me off balance, son. Before you came, they couldn’t get anything out of me but dribs and drabs once a week."
"You told me it was two or three times a week."
"They see me like this, they find out how much I’m producing, they’ll get ideas. And now that Lem’s gone—"
"I’m not going to let them take you," Pax said. He’d never told Harlan that Vonda and the boys had come to the house, or that he’d let slip how often the vintage was flowing. "I’ll call the police. I don’t care who finds out, I’m not going to let them kidnap you."
"No! No police," his father said. "When Vonda comes, let me handle it. Do you hear me?"
"Handle it how?"
"Never mind how." He handed him the empty glass. "Just fill this up."
For hours Paxton paced the little room, and then made random paths through the front yard. The phone rang a dozen times an hour. He’d decided to adopt Harlan’s policy, and let it ring.
Near 8:00 the sun began to drop behind the trees. Pax didn’t want to turn on the living room lights because the glare would make it impossible to see the driveway. His father refused to turn off the TV, though. Pax began to think that Vonda wouldn’t show up tonight. And what if she didn’t, what then? Stand watch every day?
Pax was at the window again when his father said, "Ah." Pax turned. Harlan’s eyes had drooped. His face had begun to glisten.
Shit. The last thing he needed was the vintage coming in with Vonda here. And then he realized that that was exactly what she was counting on. Roll in on the high tide like a pirate and take what she wanted with Harlan too disoriented to fight her.
"Hold on, Dad. Stay awake."
"‘New wine in old bottles,’" he said.
"Matthew, uh, nine?"
His father grunted. "Good boy. Nine-seventeen: ‘The bottles break, and the wine runneth out.’"
Behind him, a pair of headlights swung down through the trees.
"I’ll do it," his father said. "I’ll break it wide open. Stop it all." His hand fumbled for the towel that lay over his lap.
Paxton pulled it out of his grasp and opened the towel. Inside was a black revolver. A .38? .32? "Jesus Christ, Dad, where the hell did you get a pistol?"
Outside, the lights of the big SUV were aimed at the front window.
Pax took the gun, then went into the kitchen. He opened the freezer and pulled out the white kitchen bag he’d put there. He looked at the five remaining capsules and thought about popping one open. But no, he couldn’t afford to be in two places at once.
He walked out the front door, the pistol in his right hand, the bag in his left.
Vonda and the boys were waiting for him, the headlights making them into silhouettes. Vonda wore some kind of dark, sack-like dress.
"I really thought you were lying about the gun," she said.
Clete reached behind him to his waistband. "Look, we’ve got ’em, too." Both boys drew out silver automatics. Rap video weapons.
Pax felt his knees go loose. He’d never pointed a gun at another person, or had one pointed at him.
"Here," he said. He tossed the bag toward them. The frozen plastic containers clattered inside as it hit
the ground. "There are twenty capsules, a few ounces each," he said, struggling to keep his voice level. "That’s from one week."
Travis palmed his gun and picked up the bag. He tugged open the mouth and tilted it to catch the glare of the headlights. "Shee-it," he said.
"Harlan only does that when I’m around," Pax said. "Even if you took him, you couldn’t get him to produce like that. I’m betting that’s a lot more than Lem ever put out."
"And I’m betting there’s more of that in your freezer," Vonda said.
"A little bit," he admitted.
"Or I could just take the cow."
"Or, Harlan shoots himself," Pax said.
"The preacher? I don’t think so."
"Vonda, where do you think I got the gun? I pulled it out of his fucking hand." Pax stepped forward. "That’s Harlan Martin in there, Vonda, not some ninety-year-old man too terrified to cross you. You should know the difference between Lem and my father. He’ll find a way."
She eyed the bag. "Every week you’ll do this?" Vonda said. "Week in, week out."
"I told him I wouldn’t leave him."
"You’re fooling yourself," she said. She was silent for half a minute, then finally she shook her head. "All right," she said, and nodded at the boys. Travis took the bag back to the SUV. "You too, Clete." He followed his brother back to the vehicle.
Vonda nodded toward the house. "You want Harlan to think you’re doing this because you love him, Paxton? That you’re just being a good son? Fine. But you and I both know that this is because you’ve gotten a taste of the vintage." She laughed. "That’s not love, Paxton. That’s addiction."
"Explain the difference."
Harlan was waiting for him, still holding onto consciousness. Pax went to the kitchen and came back with the cloth towel that had held the gun. He sat next to him and gently patted the sweat from his face.
"You’re still here," his father said.
"Still here, Dad."
"I couldn’t do it," Harlan said. "I could have stopped all of this. But I couldn’t—"
"Shh." Pax said. He pushed his father’s hair from his eyes. "Go to sleep now. We’ll talk in the morning."
Unpossible Page 16
