House of Sand and Fog

by Andre Dubus III

  And after getting off the phone with Alvarez, Lester knew he had to at least fake that sort of courage, put on a father’s capable face and with conviction walk upstairs to his daughter’s room and say the right words, though it wouldn’t be the whole truth, not just now anyway, not today.

  His wife and daughter were upstairs in Bethany’s room. She was on her bed on her back looking up at the ceiling, her face even more pale now. She was holding her stuffed Peter Rabbit to her stomach with both hands and Carol was sitting on the bed beside her smoothing her hair away from her face. He stepped inside the room, but when the floorboards creaked beneath the rug only Carol glanced up at him, her eyes narrowed, her lips a flat line. In the quiet, his daughter turned her face to him, her eyes as open and unblinking as when she was an infant staring up at him from her crib, completely dependent, yet completely trusting of his every move. And she trusted him now, he could see it in her face, though she was being so still and quiet it was as if she thought if she didn’t say a word or move too suddenly everything would be all right again, everything would go back to the way it was. And Lester stood still too, conscious only of his heart beating, of the air entering and leaving his lungs, and his daughter’s gaze kept him right there, though he wasn’t quite sure just where that was anymore.

  Carol’s voice was calm: “Say something, Lester.”

  Then his voice came out of him, but it wasn’t his really, more an approximation of his sound, of where he’d come from, and where he was, and where he wanted desperately to be next, though it wasn’t down at the department where his voice told his wife and daughter he had to go for a meeting; it was at the fish camp with Kathy Nicolo, with that deep-eyed, sweet-tasting, tough and funny woman who was now lodged so deeply inside him it had become almost physically painful to continue enduring with Carol what he didn’t share with her anymore, to sleep in the same bed with her, to eat at the same table, sit on the same couch and toilet. “I’ve been called in to work, Bethany hon. I can’t talk now, but everything’s okay, sweetie. You’ll see. Everything’s fine.”

  Bethany looked from him to her mother as if she were searching for some verification of what her father had just said. Carol smiled at her, bravely, Lester thought, then she shot him an icy glance and left the room. Lester kissed his daughter on her forehead, and he could smell the clean skin of her scalp. She looked like she wanted to say something, to maybe ask him something, but he had no words for her right now, not yet. “I’ve got to go to work now. Don’t worry about anything, honey pie, everything’s fine.” And he said it in such a sure and solid voice he felt close to believing it himself.

  Downstairs, Carol sat at the kitchen table, her arms resting in front of her. She was looking straight at the cabinets, and he wanted to say something comforting to her too, something that might fortify her for what lay ahead, but when he walked into the room she didn’t look at him, just said, “Go, Les. Please. Just go.”

  LESTER KNEW HE should have gotten into his Toyota and driven the twelve dutiful miles south to Redwood City and his appointment with Lieutenant Alvarez, but instead he drove west on 92 along the dry bed of the Pilarcitos River past fogged-in fields of artichoke plant and occasional patches of manzanita he could barely see, for things were exceedingly clear to him, the kind of pristine clarity you can only get in the center of something big and reckless and on a path of its own. His heart beat at a high humming echo through his head and veins, and he kept seeing Kathy Nicolo, her lean no-nonsense body, the way she’d cock her head slightly whenever she looked at him, like she wanted to believe what he said but didn’t, not completely, her eyes always giving her away anyway, those small brown eyes that almost glittered with this dark hopeful light. He had never seen eyes like that in a grown person before. They made her otherwise hard features soft—the dips in her cheeks, the lines around her mouth that seemed ingrained more from a grimace than a laugh. And he wanted to be inside her, to let go in the darkest center of her.

  At Half Moon Bay he had to use his headlights in the fog and he cut south on the coast highway for the Purisima River and he couldn’t get there fast enough. He was driving well over the speed limit, though he could only see three or four car lengths ahead, and twice he came fast on another car’s tailights and he had to swerve, but still he only slowed once he got to the fish camp’s dirt turnoff road, expecting to see Kathy’s red Bonneville parked beneath the pine branches, but it wasn’t, and so he hurried down the trail and into the cabin. Her suitcase was still up in the loft, propped open against the windows, and he climbed back down the ladder breathing hard, cursing himself for being so needy, for having so little faith.

  For the first half hour sitting on the porch, he let himself imagine where she might be and what she might be doing. Maybe she’d gone to the storage shed in San Bruno to get more of her belongings, or she could be at a grocery store buying some fresh ice for the cooler, some charcoal for the hibachi in her trunk. That’s where he’d left his gun belt too, and he shook his head at his increasing lack of judgment. She was breaking the law with that in her car, and he planned to take it from her trunk as soon as she pulled up.

  In the last light, he sat there waiting, watching the fog grow thicker in the trees along the trail, and he tried not to but he kept seeing Bethany’s face, the way she stared up at him from the bed, like she couldn’t and wouldn’t move until she heard from him what was happening and when and most of all, why? And he understood her stillness because he felt it too. All around him, all the daily and definite parameters of his life—Carol, the department, and even Bethany and Nate—they seemed suspended just out of his field of vision, his range of hearing, even his truest feeling. He thought of Carol’s having missed her appointment in Frisco today, picking their son up at his aunt’s in Hillsborough. He imagined how she would buckle their four-year-old into his seat while he asked if Daddy was home. Lester made himself picture this, but he allowed no more feeling to go with it than necessary. He knew Carol would say something comforting, like Daddy’s at work, you’ll see him tomorrow. And he felt sure what he’d told Bethany would hold her over till then too, that everything would be all right. She’d see. Later, he would add that divorced kids do fine. Half of all your friends go visit their moms and dads and their new boyfriends and girlfriends and everybody gets along. They even have fun. Maybe that’s what he would try telling her tomorrow, Nate too, but in a different way, a less complicated way. But he was getting way ahead of himself. And Kathy, too. If only she’d drive up and walk into the fogged-in darkness of the clearing.

  After the first hour of waiting, Lester began to worry that she might have been in a traffic accident, or was in a store when some kid walked in with a brand-new fifty-dollar handgun he was aching to use, or else she had gone to a movie theater that began to smoke and burn. But these were deputy sheriff demons and he knew it, the Whore Twenty-four, when you never really punch out, twenty-four hours a day you look at your world like you’re out on perpetual patrol, the gold still pinned to your shirt; everybody even slightly out of line you give a double take, every loudmouth in a restaurant, every jackrabbit at a traffic light, every corner full of kids bopping at nothing to do—they all get your attention. You never say anything to them because you’re off-duty and they’re not usually breaking any rules anyway, but you’re always poised for the outlaw: on a run of errands with your son in his car seat beside you, in your day dreams and night dreams too. And in Lester’s dream he was always alone, stuck in his patrol car in a vacant lot in broad daylight, every perp he’d ever arrested standing around his car waiting for him to come out: the child abusers and wife beaters; the rapists and Stop-and-Robbers and drunk drivers; the B&E artists and teenage hookers; the car thieves and arsonists; and the only murderer he ever took in for a booking, a cleancut soft-spoken man in a white starched shirt and black tie who had flagged him down on the main drag of East Palo Alto on a hot, bright Saturday afternoon, his fingers and forearms covered with the dried blood of his w
ife, mother, and sister-in-law. He had quietly asked Lester to take him into custody, but in Lester’s dream even he was out in the crowd, staring at him in his patrol car, waiting for him. Lester’s doors would be locked, but the car engine would never turn over and when he picked up the radio he got nothing but silence. He’d reach for the pump shotgun in its rack beneath the dash, but it would always be stuck there, welded there, it seemed. He’d unholster his side arm, take the safety off, pull back on the barrel to slide one into the firing chamber, but then children would appear in the crowd, the kids of all the perpetrators, even the abused kids. They’d stand beside their mothers and fathers, their faces blanched and soft-looking, expressionless, and he’d put his gun down on the seat and just wait for help to come. But it never did. Some nights the crowd would push in close to the car, pressing their faces to the glass, the children too, and Lester would try and point his gun only at the adults, but the adult faces would become children’s and the children would turn into their own hard-time parents, and Lester would just start shooting. The glass would pop and explode all around him. The faces would part and tear like thin cardboard, flapping open to the daylight behind them. He’d keep squeezing the trigger, feeling the kick in his hand, smelling the burnt powder in the air. Then the gun would jam and everyone—even those he’d shot—would look at him with great disappointment, not at what he’d done, but at what he couldn’t finish, like it was a true shame this was the only fight he had in him.

  Once in Daly City, Lester was working the six-to-six overnight and the bars had been closed a half hour when he got a call on a disturbance a block from the scene, an all-night self-serve gas station. He was in the lot of a coffee shop walking back to his car and he dropped his full cup into a trash barrel and got into his cruiser, accelerating with only his flashers on, no sirens. Two men were in the shadows just outside the light of the pumps. One of the men was small and lay curled up on the ground covering his ears and face with his arms while the other swore in Spanish and kept kicking him in the head, neck, and back. He pushed the man over with his boot, then began kicking him in the chest and stomach. The big one looked up only briefly at the blue flash of Lester’s patrol car, but he didn’t stop and Lester felt sure he was going to bolt any second, but even when Lester got out of the car and identified himself as a deputy sheriff, the big Latino kept kicking and Lester felt fear move through him like a cold wind. He called in for an immediate backup and for a second he thought about waiting for another cruiser to show, but the man on the ground had dropped his hands, his head jerking and rolling with each kick, his mouth and jaw flapping open.

  “Step away! Now!” Lester unsnapped his holster, but the Latino didn’t even look up, just kept kicking, and Lester repeated his command, this time in Spanish, and now the man stopped. He was breathing hard and in the light from the pumps Lester could see the shine of sweat on his cheeks and chin. His shoulders were wide and rounded beneath a black T-shirt, and there was the ornate crawl of prison tattoos on his thick arms. The Latino smiled, kicked the unconscious man once in the head, and Lester drew his pistol, flipped off its safety, but held it at his side and ordered the man in Spanish to lie facedown on the ground. But the Latino smiled again, cocking his head back slightly like he was on to Lester’s charade, and he began to walk toward him. Lester raised his pistol and aimed it at the man’s chest. “Get on your knees! Now!” Lester’s own knees felt like spun glass, and his voice had a waver in it that he knew was betraying him. The Latino stopped and Lester felt his finger slide over the sheen of oil on the trigger, his heart pulsing in his nails. The backup car pulled into the lot behind him, its blue flashers spinning across the Latino’s face like a strobe. But he didn’t look or seem alarmed. He smiled hard at Lester, nodding his head at him and his pointed gun like it was a small problem he would take care of in due time.

  The officer behind Lester ordered the man down and Lester jumped, his finger cramping away from the trigger as the big Latino became a shadow sprinting back over his victim and into the darkness around the corner of an auto parts store. Lester gave chase, but the long sidewalk was empty, its streetlamps broken except for one thirty yards ahead, casting a dim glow on the concrete beneath it, nothing but blackness on the other side. The quiet street was to his left, closed stores and supply outlets on his right, and he knew the man was probably in one of their doorways. He imagined him crouched down low, ready to pounce; Lester stopped and didn’t walk any farther. He glanced once more at the lit section of sidewalk ahead of him, then the darkness beyond, and he backed away and returned to the young Daly City police officer who was calling in an ambulance for the unconscious man. Lester said he’d lost the perp, and the young cop, who was chewing gum, looked at Lester a long moment, then shook his head. “Shit.”

  For the rest of his patrol, Lester tried to tell himself he hadn’t let a dangerous man go because he was too scared to find him. He tried to take comfort in one of the major directives of the Field Training Manual: Don’t get in over your head. Don’t be afraid to wait for backup. But the truth was, Lester often felt he was in over his head, that one day someone would see just how unfit and weak he really was and then it would be all over, the true Lester would be revealed. And in Daly City, he knew if his backup had responded a half minute later, if that big Latino had kept coming, Lester would have shot him, and probably not in the shoulder or knee either, but where his gun was aimed, at the bully’s heart. Because Lester had not only feared the big man with the dark mustache like his own, he had despised him, despised him because he feared him and because he was every Chicano Lester ever had to face in Chula Vista, his father gone to Texas, his mother working, his little brother staying inside to take refuge in hours and hours of television. He was Pablo Muñoz, Lester’s girlfriend’s brother, who was over six feet and lifted weights and had the flattened nose and cheeks of a Mexican Indian, his eyes dark slits in an almost handsome face, pockmarked from acne. He had dropped out of the high school and worked as a forklift operator at the lumberyard across from Lester’s house. Lester had first seen his sister at school in late spring with four or five Chicanas in hip-hugger jeans and halter tops, their flat brown stomachs exposed. They all smoked cigarettes and chewed gum except for Charita, who was short and lean as a gymnast, her long black hair falling to her waist where Lester could see two small dimples in the brown skin above her buttocks. By the end of the day he’d introduced himself and by the weekend had shared two Tall Boy Schlitzes with her in the high weeds outside the lumberyard fence and they had kissed and touched and she tasted salty and sweet, like a spice he couldn’t name. She called him Lezter and one Saturday afternoon she sat on his porch steps with him on Natoma Street, the sun high, all the adobe row houses on both sides almost too bright to look at. She held his hand in her lap and he could feel the warmth of her skin through the denim. He wanted to take her upstairs to his room but his mother was home so it would have to be the lot next to the lumberyard, the weeds they could lie down in and be seen only by birds, and he had stood to pull her in that direction when her face changed, her mouth open in a sudden oval, her eyes on something across the street. It was Pablo dropping down on the other side of the chain-link fence, his forklift’s engine running on the other side as he moved swiftly through the litter, snatching off his work gloves, his eyes on Charita as he crossed the street without looking. He wore a faded sleeveless T-shirt, his brown skin sunburned, the muscles of his shoulders rounded and defined. He pushed Lester down with one hand, grabbing Charita’s hair with the other, jerking her onto the sidewalk. Charita screamed, her face covered by her hair as she held on to her brother’s arm. And Lester jumped back up and didn’t remember moving down the steps. He was on the sidewalk, close enough to Pablo to do what he hoped he was going to, to punch him or grab his arm or kick him in the knees—anything—but Pablo reached over with his muscled arm, put his free hand on Lester’s face, and pushed him, Lester backpedaling eight or ten feet and falling on his side. Charita wasn
’t screaming anymore, but crying, saying something to Pablo. Lester stood but could no longer step forward; it was like trying to move quickly through waist-deep water, Pablo Muñoz and his thick arms and shoulders, his flat face sweaty and smeared with grime as he held his tiny whimpering sister by the hair and pointed a finger at Les. “I catch her with you again I will cut your white face off and toast it, gavacho.” He tightened his grip on Charita’s hair and she let out another scream and Lester’s stomach, arms, and legs were a storm of electric nerves; he wanted to run forward but Pablo’s black eyes were on him, so Lester stayed where he was, everything backing up on him, his body suddenly concrete in damp ground.

  Pablo pulled Charita off the sidewalk. She tripped on the curb, one of her sandals knocking loose, her brother letting go of her hair to grab her arm, and once they were halfway down Natoma, going around the corner for the main entrance to the lumberyard fence, Charita’s small dark face looked once back at Lester for a long hot-faced moment, as if she wasn’t quite sure what she’d see there when she looked.

  Once again Lester had felt nauseated with shame. He went back inside the house, lay on his bed, and for hours imagined an entirely different scene, him taking Pablo’s hand, crushing it in his own, then punching Muñoz so hard in the face he’d be unconscious for days and wake up in mortal fear of Lester Burdon. Or he imagined himself sidestepping Pablo’s arm only to grab it, jerk it behind his back, and break it. And these pictures in his head were not new. He had them for every boy he ever had to fight at Chula Vista High. Maybe because he was tall and quiet and thin he called more attention to himself than the other anglos at school. But always it was the same—“Burdone maricón! Burdone maricón!”—and Lester would try to avoid the fight as long as possible. First he would deny to himself that that was where this name-calling was really going; he would try to smile off whatever insult was coming his way, and only when he felt the push of hands on his chest would he push back, hoping that would be enough, which it never was, and he would hold up fists he had no faith in only to be knocked to the ground, where he would stay curled up waiting for a teacher or someone to break it up or for the bully to lose interest and disappear. But they rarely did. Even when you arrested them, they showed up in your sleep, determined to unmask you, and show you to be the coward you really were.