The Straw Men

by Marshall, Michael

  With that she disappeared. I stood a few minutes in the room, just turning around, seeing it from different angles. It was maybe twelve feet square, and seemed both very small and bigger than Africa. The space you grew up in is not like normal space. You know it so intimately, have sat and stood and lain down in its every corner. It's where you think many things for the first time, and as a result it stretches like the time before Christmas, as you live there and wait to grow up. It holds you.

  'This is my room,' I said, quietly and to myself. Seeing it on the video had been strange. But this was not. The place I'd come from hadn't changed. Not everything in my life had been erased. I shut the door again on the way out, as if to keep something in.

  Downstairs the woman was perched against the table in the kitchen. 'Thank you,' I said. 'You've been very kind.'

  She shushed this away, and I looked around the kitchen for a moment. The appliances had been updated, but the cabinets were still the same: strong and made of good wood, they'd presumably found no reason to replace them. My father's handiwork lived on.

  It was then that I remembered the evening from long ago, eating lasagne with him. A cloth hung on an oven handle, a game of pool that didn't work out. I opened my mouth and then shut it again.

  Stepping out of the house was one of the strangest things, the act of leaving that particular inside to return to the outside where I lived now. I was almost surprised to see the big white car on the other side of the street, Bobby still sitting inside, and I noticed how much cars look like huge bugs these days.

  I waved to the woman and walked down the path, not quickly, just as you normally would. By the time I was opening the car door the house was shut again behind me, shut and left behind.

  •••

  Bobby was sitting reading the rental agreement for the car.

  'Jesus, these things are boring,' he said. 'I mean, really. They should hire some writer. Get him to spice it up a little.'

  'You're a bad man,' I said. 'But thank you.'

  He shoved the sheaf of papers back in the glove compartment. 'So I guess we've done with Hunter's Rock.'

  'No, I don't think so.'

  'What's on your mind?'

  'How about they already knew, when we were born, that they were going to do what they did. Maybe, I don't know—maybe they thought they could only support one child or something.'

  Bobby looked dubious. 'I know,' I admitted. 'But either way, say they knew they were going to get rid of one of us. But they also knew that one day they were going to die, and that I might do what I'm doing now. I might come home, look around. And I might find out from the hospital that I'd been one of two.'

  'So they have you born somewhere else, and in that case all you find out is there's a minor mystery about which particular hospital you arrived in, not that you had a twin they abandoned.'

  'That's what I'm thinking.'

  'But how come the Agency didn't find a problem when you joined?'

  'I was very useful to them at the time. My guess is they skimped on the background checks for expedience, and by then I'm one of the team and who cares?'

  Bobby considered it. 'Best we've got. But this is still weird. Your parents went to all that trouble to hide this, why then leave documentary evidence of what they did?'

  'Maybe something happened recently that meant they changed their minds about letting me know.'

  I realized that the woman might be watching out of the window, so I started the car up and pulled away.

  'I'm thinking that maybe we've been looking in the wrong directions. There are three chunks on that video. First one shows a place I could go find. The Halls. Last one tells me something I didn't know. Middle section shows two places. First the house, where I've just been, thanks to you. Nothing there. The other was a bar. I don't recognize it. It's nowhere I've ever been.'

  'So?' We were at a junction.

  'Bear with me,' I said, and took a left. A turn that would eventually lead us, assuming it was still there, to a bar I used to go to.

  Chapter 20

  It was never a place you'd go on purpose, unless chance had made it your habitual haunt. I was expecting it to have gone one of two ways: spruced up with an eating room addition and lots of perky waitresses in red-and-white, or bulldozed and under cheap housing where people shouted a lot after dark. In fact, progress seemed to have simply ignored Lazy Ed's altogether: unlike genteel decay, which had settled into it like damp.

  The interior was empty and silent. The wood of the bar and the stools looked about as scuffed up as they always had. The pool table was still in place, along with most of the dust, some of it maybe even mine. There were a few additions here and there, high-water marks of progress. The neon MILLER sign had been replaced with one for Bud Lite, and the calendar on the wall showed young ladies closer to their natural state than it had in my day. Natural, at least, in their state of undress, if not in the shape or constitution of their breasts. Somewhere, probably hidden very well, would be a plaque warning pregnant women against drinking—though had such a person been coming here for her kicks the warning would likely be lost on her on account of her being blind or deranged. Women have higher standards. That's why they're a civilizing influence on young men. You have to find somewhere nice to get them drunk.

  Bobby leaned back against the pool table, gazing around. 'Same as it ever was?'

  'Like I never went away.'

  I went up to the bar, feeling nervous. I used to just call out Ed's name. That was twenty years ago, and doing it now would be like going back to school and expecting the teachers to recognize you. The last thing anyone needs is to learn that in the grand scheme of things they were always just 'some kid'.

  A man emerged from out the back, wiping his hands on a cloth that could only be making them dirtier. He raised his chin in a greeting that was cordial but of limited enthusiasm. He was about my age, maybe a little older, fat, and already going bald. I love it when I see contemporaries losing their hair. It perks me right up.

  'Hi,' I said. 'Was looking for Ed.'

  'Found him,' he replied.

  'The one I had in mind would be about thirty years older.'

  'You mean Lazy. He ain't here.'

  'You can't be an Ed junior.' Ed didn't have any kids. He wasn't even married.

  'Shit no,' the man said, as if disquieted by the idea. 'Just a coincidence. I'm the new owner. Have been since Ed retired.'

  I tried to hide my disappointment. 'Retired.' I didn't want to seem too pushy.

  'Couple years. Still,' the guy said. 'Saved me having to make a new sign.'

  'Whole place looks the same, actually,' I ventured.

  The man shook his head wearily. 'Don't I know it. When Lazy sold up he made a condition. Said he was selling a business, not his second home. Had to be left this way until he died.'

  'And you went for it?'

  'I got it very cheap. And Lazy is pretty old.'

  'How's he going to know whether you kept the agreement?'

  'Still comes in. Most every day. You wait around, chances are you'll see him.' He must have seen me smile, and added: 'One thing though. He may not be quite the way you remember him.'

  I started a tab, and went over to where Bobby was sitting. We drank beer and played pool for a while. Bobby won.

  •••

  We kept the beers coming, and after I'd lost interest in losing any more games Bobby spent an hour practising shots. My dad would have approved of his dedication. We had the bar to ourselves for a long while, and then a few people started to drift in. By the end of the afternoon Bobby and I still constituted about a third of the clientele. I'd lightly quizzed Ed on what time Lazy usually came by, but apparently it was completely unpredictable. I thought about asking for his address, but something told me the guy wouldn't give it up and that the question would make him suspicious. Early evening there was a rush. A whole four people came in at once. None of them was Ed.

  Then at seven, something happened.<
br />
  Bobby and I were playing pool again by then. He wasn't beating me so easily by this point. Somebody had put classic Springsteen on the jukebox and it felt weirdly as if I could have been playing twenty years ago, in the days of hair gel and pushed-up sleeves. I was getting drunk enough to be verging on nostalgic for the 1980s, which is never a good sign.

  Out of the corner of my eye I saw the door to the bar open. Still leaning over the table, I watched to see who'd come in. I got just a glimpse. A face, pretty old. Looking right at me. And then whoever it was turned tail and went.

  I shouted to Bobby, but he'd already seen. He ran straight across the floor and had crashed out the door before I'd even dropped my cue.

  Outside it was dark and a car was on the move and fast. A battered old Ford, spraying gravel as it fishtailed out of the lot. Bobby was swearing fit for competition standard and I quickly saw why: some asshole had blocked us in with a big red truck. He turned, saw me. 'Why'd he run?'

  'No idea. You see which way he went?'

  'No.' He turned and kicked the nearest truck.

  'Get the car started.'

  I ran back inside and straight up to the bar. 'Whose is the truck?'

  A guy dressed in denim raised his hand.

  'Get it the fuck out of the way or we're going to shove it clean off the lot.'

  He stared at me a moment, and then got up and went outside.

  I turned to Ed. 'That was him, right? Guy who ran?'

  'Guess he didn't want to talk to you after all.'

  'Well that's a shame,' I said. 'Because it's going to happen regardless. I need to talk with him about old times. I'm feeling so nostalgic I could just shit. So where does he live?'

  'I ain't telling you that.'

  'Don't fuck with me, Ed.'

  The man started to reach under the counter. I pulled my gun out and pointed it at him. 'Don't do that either. It isn't worth it.'

  Young Ed put his hands back in view. I was aware of the bar's other patrons watching, and hoped none of them was in the mood for trouble. Folks can get very protective of the people who serve their beer. It's an important bond.

  'You the kind of guy who can shoot people?'

  I looked at him. 'What do you think?'

  There was a long beat, and then Ed sighed. 'Should have known you were trouble.'

  'I'm not. I just want to talk.'

  'Out on Long Acre,' he said. 'Old trailer by the creek on the other side of the little woods.'

  I threw down money for the beers and ran out, nearly knocking down the guy coming back from moving his truck.

  Bobby had the car pointed and ready to go. Now that I knew where we were going, it sounded kind of familiar. Long Acre is a seemingly endless road that arcs out from the back of town into the hills. There aren't many houses out that way, and the creek the man had referred to was well out beyond them, the other side of a thick stand of trees.

  It took us about ten minutes, it was very dark, and Bobby was driving very fast. I couldn't see any sign of taillights up ahead.

  'Maybe he wasn't heading home,' Bobby said.

  'He will sooner or later. Slow down. It's not that far now. Plus you're scaring me.'

  Soon after that we saw the mirror surface of the creek, silver under the blue-black sky. Bobby braked like somebody hitting a wall and turned off down a barely marked track. At the end you could see the shape of an old trailer sitting in splendid isolation. There was no sign of a car.

  'Shit,' I said. 'Okay. Pull around where we can't be seen from the road.'

  After about half an hour I started to lose patience. If Lazy had gone some other way to make sure he wasn't being followed, then he still would have been home by now. Bobby agreed, but put a different interpretation on what I'd said.

  'No,' I said. 'I knew this guy a long time ago. I'm not rooting through his home.'

  'Wasn't suggesting you did it. Come on, Ward. Minute this guy sees you, he takes to his heels. You called right. The bar in the video was to remind you of someone, and this old guy knows something.'

  'He could have mistaken me for somebody else.'

  'You're probably a little thicker than you were back then, but it's not like you put on a hundred pounds or changed race. He knew it was you. And for someone who's supposed to be old, he put some distance between you pretty fast.'

  I hesitated, but not for long. I'd spent a lot of time with Lazy Ed. I'd only been one of many, for sure, and doubtless there had been several generations of underage drinkers since. But I'd been hoping for a more friendly reception.

  We got out of the car together and I walked with him to the door of the trailer. Bobby tricked the lock and slipped inside, and a moment later a dim light seeped out through the windows.

  I sat on the step and kept watch, wondering if my parents had suspected that one day it would come to something like this. Their son, half-drunk and breaking into the trailer of an old man. I don't like the man I have become, but then I didn't much care for the guy I was before. I wasn't entirely out of line, and it made sense, of a kind: the memory of playing pool with my father long ago, the way Ed had reacted on seeing him back then, was what had made me go to the bar. But it seemed to me, as I watched down the track and listened to Bobby moving about inside, that I heard my father's voice again.

  'I wonder what you've become.'

  •••

  Ten minutes later Bobby came back out, holding something.

  'What's that?' I stood up, feeling my legs ache. 'Show you inside. You must be cold as fuck.' Back in the car I flicked on the interior light.

  'Well,' Bobby said. 'Lazy Ed is getting through his twilight years with the aid of alcoholic beverages, and has gotten to the stage where he's hiding the empties even from himself. Either that or he's aptly nicknamed, and just can't be fucked to take them outside. It's a zoo in there. I couldn't look through everything. I did, however, come upon this.'

  He held out a photograph. I took it and angled it so the light fell on it. 'Found it in a box stowed beside what I assumed must be his bed. The rest was random junk, but this caught my eye.'

  The picture showed a group of five teenagers, four boys and a girl, and had been taken in poor light by someone who'd forgotten to say 'cheese.' Only one guy, standing right in the centre, seemed to be aware that he was being immortalized. The others were glimpsed in half-profile, faces mainly in shadow. You couldn't tell where it had been taken, but the clothes and the standard of the print said late 1950s, early 1960s.

  'That's him,' I said. 'The guy in the middle.' I felt uncomfortable holding something that was so much of someone else's past and nothing to do with me.

  'By 'him', you mean this guy Lazy Ed.'

  'Yes. But this was taken fifty years ago. He didn't look that preppy when I knew him. By a long shot.'

  'Okay.' Bobby pointed at the woman, who was on the left-hand edge of the photo. 'So who's that?'

  I looked closer at the figure he was indicating. All I could make out was half a brow, some hair, most of a mouth. A thin face, young, quite pretty. I shrugged. 'You tell me. No one I know.'

  'Really?'

  'What are you saying, Bobby?'

  'I could be wrong and I don't want to steer you.'

  I looked again. Peered carefully at the other faces for a while, to refresh my eyes. Then I glanced at the woman again. She still didn't trigger anything.

  'It's not my mother, if that's what you're thinking.'

  'I'm not. Keep looking.'

  I did and finally something caught, and I let it come on. It took a few seconds, and then dropped like a brick. 'Holy shit,' I said.

  'You see it?'

  I kept looking, expecting to become less sure. I didn't. Once I'd seen it, it couldn't be denied. Though a lot of her face was obscured, it was there in the eyes and the slope of the top half of her nose.

  'That's Mary,' I said. 'Mary Richards. My parents' neighbour. In Dyersburg.' I opened my mouth to say something more—I'm not sure what—but th
en shut it again with a snap, sideswiped by a sudden flash of another image.

  Bobby didn't notice. 'So what's Ed doing in Montana back then? Or what was she doing here?'

  'You real set on waiting for this guy tonight?'

  'You got another plan?'

  'I might have something else to show you,' I said. 'And it's cold and I don't think we're going to see Ed out here this evening. We should head back into town.' My hands were trembling, and my throat felt dry.

  'Suits me.'

  I got out of the car, went to the front of the trailer and broke back in. I scribbled a note on the back of the photo, apologizing for breaking in, and then propped it up in the middle of a card table. I added my cell number at the bottom, and then I left—taking a moment to reach back through the door and prop a magazine up against its inner surface.

  Bobby drove back into town with the headlights off, but we saw no sign of anyone, and when we passed the bar the old Ford was not sitting in the lot. Neither, I realized only later, was the big red truck.

  Chapter 21

  We checked into the Holiday Inn and I showered and took five as I waited for Bobby. The room was clean and fresh and reassuring. I had a big pot of coffee on hand, delivered by someone in a nice white uniform and an off-the-rack smile, which is usually the best type. I don't have the Cheers gene. I'm quite happy with people not knowing my name.

  I wished I still had the photograph. I wanted to look at it again, was already halfway to convincing myself it had been a trick of the light. That, and the fact that Mary's dead face was imprinted strongly in my memory. Her body would be lying in a cold drawer in the morgue by now, but nobody would understand what had happened to her. I thought they should know, and running from Dyersburg still rankled with me. I was thinking that a phone call to the Dyersburg PD might point them in the right direction. They'd ask for my name and details, but I could make something up. I'm good at that kind of thing.

  I had got as far as reaching for the phone when Bobby knocked on my door. I let the phone be and hauled myself out of the chair.