The Stories of Richard Bausch

by Richard Bausch

  Delbert turned, and started. He held both hands up, though the older man had not produced the gun yet. “Whoa, you scared me, man.” Then he seemed to realize who it was. “Mr. Kaufman?”

  “Get in behind the wheel, son.” Kaufman brought the gun out of his pocket, and felt strangely like someone playing at cops and robbers. “Right now,” he said.

  “What is this?”

  “Do it.”

  Delbert dropped the scraper, then bent down and picked it up. He held it as if to throw it. Kaufman took a step back, and sighted along the barrel of the pistol. “I’ll put one between your eyes, boy.”

  “Come on, man,” Delbert said. “Cut this out. This isn’t funny.”

  “Just open that passenger door, and walk around and get in behind the wheel.”

  Delbert dropped the scraper and did as he had been told. Kaufman eased in next to him, holding the pistol on him, arranging himself.

  “Take it out toward Charlottesville.”

  “This isn’t right.” Delbert raced the engine, then backed out and accelerated. He was concentrating on the road ahead, and his eyes were wide. “It isn’t right, man.”

  The whiteness of the lawns and the surrounding hills blazed at them, glittering with what looked like grains of salt. Kaufman saw the snow-covered houses, the many windows with their fleeting glimpses of color and order. “There’s a little farm road about four miles up on this side,” he said, fighting the quaver in his voice. “Take it when you get there.”

  Delbert put both hands on the wheel, and stared straight ahead. “Listen,” he said after a sudden intake of breath. “You’re not—you don’t really—this isn’t—”

  “There’s no use talking about it, son.”

  “Wait a minute—you gotta hold on—”

  “Farm road up here on the right,” Kaufman said.

  They were quiet, and there was a quality to the silence now. Kaufman felt vaguely sick to his stomach, watching the side of the other man’s face. The air was heavy with the smell of the oil he had used to clean the gun. At the farm road, Delbert made the turn, slowing down for the unevenness of the gravel surface under the snow.

  “Where are we going? You—you can’t mean this. Look—I’m sorry. I’m being better, really. Ask Fay. Let’s go back and ask her.”

  “It’s just a little further.” Kaufman heard an element of something almost soothing in his own voice, the tone of a man trying to calm a child. He said, “I’ve seen Fay. I’ve seen what you did to her.”

  “Oh, Christ,” Delbert said, starting to cry. “Look, I didn’t mean it, man. And I was so sorry. I said it would never, ever happen again this time. I told her. I made an oath. You’re not gonna hurt me—”

  “Stop here,” Kaufman told him.

  He slowed. The tears were streaming down his cheeks. “Shit,” he said. “You’ve got me really scared, okay? If that’s what you set out to do.”

  “Open the door.”

  He did, and got out, and walked a few unsteady paces up the road. Kaufman got out, too. “That’s good,” he said.

  Delbert turned. He was crying, murmuring something to himself. Then, to Kaufman he said, “You just wanted to scare me, right? She can move back with you. You can have her.”

  “Be quiet, now,” Kaufman said. “Be still.”

  “Yes, sir.”

  His hands were shaking. He held the pistol up, aimed.

  Delbert sank, slowly, to his knees. “Please, Frank. Come on.”

  “I can’t have it,” Kaufman said, walking around him. “I’m sorry, son. You did this to yourself.” The younger man was saying something, but Kaufman didn’t hear him now. He had entered some zone of stillness, remembering the powerlessness of knowing what Delbert had done to her, what she had suffered at his hands—and recalling, too, absurdly, with a kind of rush at his heart, the huge frustration and anger of the days when she was choosing this irritating boy against the wishes of her parents—and in the next instant, as if to pause any longer might somehow dilute his will, he aimed the pistol, his whole body trembling, and squeezed the trigger. Even so, it seemed to fire before he wanted it to. The sound of it was surprisingly big, and at first he wasn’t certain that he had actually fired. The explosion came, as though all on its own, and Delbert seemed to throw himself onto the surface of the road, his hands working at his neck, as if he were trying to undo something too tight there. Everything had erupted in the sound of the gun going off, and now it was here. Delbert lay writhing in the road, seeming to try to run on his side, clutching at his neck. It was here. They had gone past everything now. It was done now.

  “Delbert?” Kaufman’s own voice seemed to come from somewhere far away.

  His son-in-law looked at him, and tried to speak. He held his hands over the moving dark place in his neck, and then Kaufman saw that blood was pouring through his fingers. Delbert coughed and spattered it everywhere. His eyes were wide, and he looked at the older man, coughing. He got out the words, “I’m shot. Jesus.”

  Kaufman said, “Oh, God,” and then, out of a kind of aghast and terrified reflex, aimed the pistol at the side of the boy’s head, hearing the deep throat-sound, looking at the intricate flesh of his ear, blood-spattered.

  “It hurts,” Delbert got out, spitting blood. He coughed and tried to scream. What came from him did not sound human.

  Kaufman closed his eyes and tried to fire again, wanting only for the sound to stop. It was all he wanted in the world now. He had a vague sense of the need to end the other’s pain.

  “Awgh, God,” Delbert said, coughing. “Aghh. Help. Christ.”

  The pistol went off, seemed to jump in Kaufman’s hand once more. And for a little while the younger man simply lay there, staring, with a look of supreme disappointment and sorrow on his face, his left leg jerking oddly. The leg went on jerking, and Kaufman stood in the appalling bright sun, waiting for it to stop. Then he walked a few paces away and came back, hearing Delbert give forth another hard cough—almost a barking sound—and still another, lower, somehow farther down in the throat. It went on. There was more thrashing, the high thin sound of an effort to breathe.

  “Goddamn it—I told you, boy. Goddamn it.”

  The waiting was awful, and he thought he should fire again. The second bullet had gone in somewhere along the side of Delbert’s head, and had done something to his eyesight, because the eyes did nothing when Kaufman dropped the gun and knelt down to speak to him.

  “Delbert? Jesus Christ, son.”

  The breathing was still going on, the shrill, beast-whistling, desperate sound of it. In the next instant, Kaufman lunged to his feet and ran wildly in the direction of the highway, falling, scrabbling to his feet, crying for help. He reached the highway and found nothing—empty fields of snow and ice. Turning, he came to the realization that the only sound now was his own ragged breathing. Delbert lay on his side, very still in the road, and a little blast of the wind lifted the hair at the crown of his head. Kaufman started toward him, then paused. He was sick. He knelt down, sick, and his hands went into the melting snow and ice. He heard someone say, “Oh, God,” and came quickly to his feet. But there wasn’t anyone; it had been his own voice. “Oh, God, oh God. God, God, God.”

  The car had both doors open. Spines of dry grass were sticking up out of the crust of snow in the fields on either side. He noticed these things. Minute details; the curve of stones in the road surface, the colors of frozen earth and grass, flesh of the backs of his hands, blood-flecked. There was a prodigious quiet all around—a huge, unnatural silence. He coughed into it, breathed, and then tried to breathe out. He couldn’t look at where the body lay, and then he couldn’t keep from looking.

  He could not find in himself anything but this woozy, sinking, breath-stealing sickness and fascination. A sense of the terrible quiet. He walked to the car, closed the doors, and then sat down in the road, holding his arms around himself. The other man lay there, so still, not a man now, and he had never been anything
but a spoiled, headlong, brutal, talkative boy.

  There was a voice speaking, and again it took another moment for him to realize it was his own. The knowledge came to him with a wave of revulsion. He had been mouthing the Lord’s Prayer.

  He got into the car and drove it to his house. His wife stood in the window, wringing her hands, waiting. She opened the door for him. “Oh, Frank.”

  “Better call the police,” he said. He couldn’t believe the words. Something leapt in his stomach. He saw it all over again—his son-in-law pitching and lurching and bleeding in the road. He had actually done this thing.

  “Oh, honey.” She reached for him.

  “Don’t,” he said. He went past her, into the kitchen, where he sat down and put his hands to his head.

  “Frank?” she said from the entrance. “Fay called. She was frantic. She saw you drive away together.”

  He looked at her. It came to him that he could not stand the thought of having her touch him; nor did he want the sound of her voice, or to have her near him at all.

  “I’m afraid, Frank. I’m so terrified. Tell me. You didn’t actually—” She stopped. “You just scared him, right? Frank?”

  “Leave me alone,” he said. “Please.”

  She walked over and put her hands on his shoulders. It took everything he had to keep from striking her.

  “Get away from me,” he said. “Call the police. It’s done. Understand? He won’t be hurting her or anybody anymore. Do you understand me? It’s over with.”

  “Oh, please-” she said. “Oh, God.”

  “I said call the police. Just take care of that much. You can do that, can’t you?”

  She left him there. He put his head down on his folded arms, trying not to be sick, and he could hear her moving around in the next room. She used the telephone, but he couldn’t tell what she said. Then there was just the quiet of waiting for the rest of this, whatever it would be, to play itself out. He kept still. It came to him, like something surfacing out of memory, that he would never see anything anymore, closing his eyes, but what lay in that farm road in the sun, not five miles away.

  He sat up and looked at the opposite wall. He heard Caroline crying in the other room. Without wanting to, he thought of all the countless, unremarkable, harmless disagreements of their long life together, how they had always managed gradually to find their way back to being civil, and then friendly; and then in love again. How it always was: the anger subsiding at last, the day’s practical matters requiring attention, which led to talk, and the talk invariably leading them home to each other. He remembered it all, and he wished with his whole heart that his daughter might one day know something of it: that life which was over for him now, unbridgeable distances gone, and couldn’t ever come back anymore. He understood quite well that it had been obliterated in the awful minutes it took Delbert Chase to die. And even so, some part of his mind kept insisting on its own motion, and Kaufman felt again how it had been, in that life so far away—how it was to go through his days in the confidence, the perfectly reasonable and thoughtless expectation, of happiness.

  THE VOICES FROM THE OTHER ROOM

  Happy?

  Mmm.

  That was lovely.

  …

  Wasn’t that lovely?

  Sweet.

  So sweet.

  …

  I’ve been so miserable….

  Are you warm?

  I’m toasty. Love me?

  What do you think?

  It was good for you?

  You were nice.

  Nice?

  Just nice?

  Nice is wonderful, Larry. It’s more than good, for instance. You’re always so insecure about it. Why is that?

  I’m not insecure. I just like to know I gave you pleasure.

  You did.

  That’s all I wanted to know.

  …

  I mean it’s a simple thing.

  Okay.

  Ellen?

  What.

  Nothing.

  No, tell me.

  Well—if it was wonderful, why didn’t you say wonderful?

  Is this a test?

  Okay, you’re right. I’m sorry. I wish we could get together more often. I’ve been so miserable. You have no idea.

  I think I have an idea.

  I don’t mean you haven’t suffered too.

  Good thing.

  Yeah, but I can’t help it—I feel so guilty about Janice and the boys. I’m afraid they’ll see the unhappiness in my face over the dinner table. I wish I could find a way to tell her and get the whole thing settled.

  …

  I just wish I could see you more than once a week.

  Larry, don’t.

  I know you’re busy.

  Oh, God.

  I guess I made it sound like this is a lunch date or something, I’m sorry. I’m such a wreck.

  Oh, Larry, why do you have to pick at everything like that?

  I said I was sorry.

  Well, let’s just be quiet awhile, okay? Please?

  I’m sorry….

  …

  You comfy?

  I think I just said I was.

  Okay.

  Look, really, why don’t we just drift a little now. I’m sleepy. I don’t feel like talking.

  It seems you never feel like talking anymore.

  What would be the point?

  That’s kind of harsh, don’t you think?

  We just keep going over the same ground, don’t we? We always come back to the same things. You talk about how miserable you are, and then you worry about Janice and the boys, and I talk about how my life, which I can hardly bear, is so busy.

  Are you trying to tell me something?

  God, I don’t think so.

  Well, really, Ellen.

  I’m not blaming anybody. I want to sleep a little, okay?

  Okay.

  …

  But I know I won’t sleep.

  You sound determined.

  I just know myself.

  …

  Ellen?

  What?

  Nothing.

  What?

  It’s silly.

  I expect nothing less. Tell me.

  You wanted to sleep.

  Just say it, Larry.

  …

  Will you just say it?

  It’s—well—it’s just that okay is okay, and wonderful is wonderful, and nice is nice. They all mean different things.

  …

  I told you it was silly.

  What sort of reassurance are you looking for here? I thought it was nice. I thought it was wonderful. I’m here, exactly as I have been every Friday for the last two months. Nothing has changed. All right?

  …

  You’re such a worrier.

  I’m sorry.

  …

  But was it nice or wonderful?

  Lord. Pick one. You were that.

  You’re pretty glib about it, don’t you think?

  Really?

  Okay, never mind.

  Look, what is this?

  I was just asking. Nice is not wonderful.

  Is this a grammar lesson?

  I’m just saying a true thing, that’s all.

  God! You were wonderful. Great. Terrific. Magnificent. And glorious. The fucking earth moved.

  …

  Okay?

  …

  Don’t tell me I hurt your feelings now.

  …

  Come on. Is his iddy-biddy feelings hurt?

  Don’t do that. It tickles.

  This?

  Cut it out, Ellen.

  I’m tickling you. It’s supposed to tickle.

  Well don’t. I’m not in the mood.

  All right.

  And don’t be mad.

  I’m not mad.

  Sorry.

  …

  Whole thing’s silly….

  Whatever you say, Mr. Man.

  There’s no need to take an attit
ude

  …

  Ellen?

  Darling, I think it’s a little late to be worrying about whether or not we’ve been okay in bed, isn’t it?

  Oh, so now I was just okay.

  My God!

  It’s never too late to worry about a thing like that.

  Oh, for Christ’s sake. I didn’t mean it that way. Light me a cigarette.

  What way did you mean it?

  Light me a cigarette, would you?

  …

  Boy, this is some afterglow we’ve got here.

  I can’t help it.

  …

  Ellen?

  What?

  Do you ever think of him when we’re—together like this?

  Stop it, Larry.

  I told you I can’t help it.

  You’re being ridiculous.

  …

  I can’t believe you’d bring him up that way.

  You do think about him, then.

  This isn’t a movie, Larry.

  No, I know.

  …

  Why’d you say this isn’t a movie—what’s that supposed to mean?

  I don’t know. Forget it.

  You think I’m being overly dramatic.

  …

  That’s natural enough, isn’t it? Under the circumstances?

  You know, I really don’t want to talk about it.

  Well, I’ll tell you something. I can’t get him out of my head.

  You? You think about him?

  Of course I do.

  While we’re—when we’re—

  All the time. Sure.

  God.

  …

  Light me a cigarette, would you?

  You mean you don’t think of him? He never enters your mind?

  He never enters my mind. I have trouble remembering him while he’s speaking to me.