He should also tell his wife goodbye. If he told his wife goodbye his continuing to live without her wouldn’t feel like a betrayal. He should tell her I loved you more than I ever loved anything or anyone and I don’t know how to live without you in my life, and I’m afraid of sitting at our dinner table and looking across it to an empty chair, but you’re gone and I have to say goodbye. I have to say goodbye because even though I’m afraid of facing my life without you I’m more afraid that you will haunt me forever. So let me go, let me go, let me go.
He pushes out of the car and walks across the street and stands on the sidewalk in front of his house and looks at it. His haunted house. The most terrible thing about it is that the ghost within it is kind.
Don’t soothe me while I say goodbye. It only makes it harder. Don’t tell me it’s okay when it isn’t okay and can’t be.
He walks up the path to the front door, his front door, over whose threshold he carried Naomi on the day they moved in. They’d been married two years already, but this was their first home, their only home. Before they bought it they lived in a furnished apartment on De Longpre. He looks at the brass handle. He looks at the keyhole. They had no furniture their first two days, so they made love on the floor and slept in sleeping bags. Then Sears amp; Roebuck delivered their furniture, and they slept together in bed, the same bed which even now sits inside holding Naomi’s scent within its fabric.
He closes his eyes.
Go in and tell her goodbye. It’s what you have to do, so do it.
I will. Right now. I’m going to reach forward right now and unlock the door, then I’ll push into the living room and-
He turns away from the door and walks back to his car.
THIRTY-NINE
1
Leland Jones stumbles from the bar, the evening air cool and crisp. He was in darkness, inhaling stale air for hours, so stepping outside feels a bit like stepping from a dream with the dream still clinging to him. As a boy he felt this way when he left a movie theater following a double feature. He’d been so caught up in the film experience that it still seemed more real than reality, even as he walked through reality. The films were more vibrant and alive than the small Texas town he lived in.
But now he’s caught in a different kind of dream.
When he first arrived at the bar he simply sat hunched over his beer, drinking slowly, thinking the situation through and wondering what he might do about it. But the more he drank the angrier he got. He began telling the bar-keep what was on his mind.
The district attorney is a miserable son of a bitch, ruined my life. Thinks he can just kick me like a bad dog and he won’t get bit. He’s got a surprise coming. Leland Jones has teeth. I’m gonna make that no-good son of a bitch pay for what he done to me. He ruined my life and I’m gonna make him pay for it. You see if I don’t.
He feels disoriented and unsteady. And he feels angry.
He squints at the darkening sky. Night is coming. The moon visible as well as the egg-yolk sun, which is spilling across the horizon. Thin haloed clouds scud by overhead. The brighter stars have begun revealing themselves, making the sky look like a nonsensical connect-the-dots picture.
That cocksucker.
He walks to his truck and slides in behind the wheel. He starts the engine. It rumbles to life.
He’s gonna make that son of a bitch pay, and unlike this morning, ain’t nothin gonna stop him. He won’t be able to live with himself if he lets the district attorney get away with what he’s done. He won’t feel like a man.
He puts the truck into gear and pulls out into the street.
2
To get home Seymour Markley should pull out of the parking structure and turn left on Main, heading north. He turns right instead. He knows better than to do this. He knows what it will lead to. He should stop immediately. He should turn his car around. If he doesn’t turn his car around he’ll end up doing something he regrets. He’s certain of it. Nearly certain of it. Nearly certain, yes, but it doesn’t have to be that way. He might merely stop in somewhere for a drink or two. He could absorb a little atmosphere and, having done that, head home to his wife, whom he loves very much. But he won’t go straight home. Today has been stressful, today has been nothing but the world collapsing down around him while he tries desperately to hold it up, and he needs to forget it. He needs to go somewhere where nothing is required of him. It doesn’t mean anything untoward will happen. It doesn’t mean anything at all. Besides, he already called home and told Margaret he was working late. If he goes straight home she’ll think he was lying when he called. So he has to follow through. He’ll have a few drinks and leave. If he wanted a whore he could go to any number of places in Hollywood. Or he could rent a hotel room, make a phone call, and have one delivered. That isn’t what he’s after. What he’s after is a few drinks in a relaxed environment, and that’s all. He works hard. He deserves that much. No one would say different.
He cannot believe he’s doing this. After how close he came to losing his career and his wife he cannot believe he’s doing this.
Maybe he isn’t. Maybe he’s merely driving somewhere to get a few drinks. Maybe he just wants to sit in a room where no one will make any demands on him. Every time the phone rings it’s a problem or a question. Every time there’s a knock on his office door it’s the same. He goes home and his wife wants to know if she can buy some new curtains she saw in a catalogue and she talked to Ophelia down the street, how about they invite the Loorys over for dinner and cocktails on Friday, they’re such delightful people. A man deserves reprieve.
No one would say different.
He parks on Washington Boulevard in front of a crumbling stucco building with
The Pink Flamingo
hand-lettered across the facade above the door and a painting of the same just to the right of it. He steps from his vehicle, feeling excited about the evening’s possibilities while simultaneously denying they exist. He’ll simply drink his drinks and watch the crowd and enjoy the music. He can do that.
He pushes into the Pink Flamingo and stands for a moment by the door.
The place is dimly lit. A few lighted signs hang on the walls advertising Schlitz and Ballantine and Budweiser. A jukebox in the corner plays Billie Holiday’s rendition of ‘Mon Homme’, her silken voice explaining how she dreams of a cottage by a stream with her man. Two couples are dancing to the song, but it’s early yet, and except for them and five ladies lining the bar like birds on a telephone wire the place is empty.
He walks to the counter and orders vodka with a twist. He sips it and glances toward the five ladies at the bar. He smiles at them and they smile back, one even waving like a beauty queen on a float, then he turns away and carries his drink to a table in the corner, only a few feet from the jukebox. He likes the music loud, he likes it to overwhelm him. It makes thinking impossible, which is just what he requires of these evenings: the cessation of all thought.
This is the third time he’s been here, and he knows there’s a room in the back where the ladies will take you if you respond correctly to their signals. If you don’t, they’ll simply ask you to buy them drinks and flirt and touch your thigh suggestively. But really, the choice is yours.
He sits down and sips his vodka. The couples on the floor continue to dance. They smile as they dance, looking natural, looking like they’re having a swell time; you’d never know from looking at them that their arrangement is a financial one.
Buy me another drink, sugar?
That isn’t anything he’s going to do tonight.
He’s here for a few cocktails and nothing more.
The Billie Holiday song ends and the jukebox changes records. The needle drops once more and after a moment of crackling there’s a blast of horns. The horns give way to Lorenzo Fuller singing ‘Too Darn Hot’.
One of the five ladies at the bar, a blonde woman with her lips painted burgundy, a blonde woman in a black dress that hides none of her curves, peels herself from the stool on which
she’s been perched and sways her way toward Seymour.
‘I remember you.’
‘Do you?’
‘Mm-hm.’
She sits in a chair across from him, her leg brushing against his leg.
‘Do you mind if I sit down?’
‘It’s a free country.’
‘That’s what I hear,’ she says, ‘but it seems these days everything has a price tag on it. How’d you like to buy me a drink?’
‘I don’t know,’ Seymour says, feeling a familiar fluttering in his stomach and an anticipatory heat between his legs. He licks his lips. ‘I wasn’t really planning on meeting anyone tonight.’
‘That’s why one should never plan.’
Seymour lets his hands drop to his lap and pulls his wedding band off his finger. He hates himself. He hates himself for this. He knew this would happen. He knew he shouldn’t come here exactly because this would happen.
‘Okay,’ he says, ‘sure.’
‘Oh goody,’ she says, ‘I’m very thirsty.’
She waves to the bartender. He nods at her.
Seymour slips his wedding band into his waistcoat’s watch pocket.
3
Leland pulls to the curb about half a block from the Pink Flamingo and watches the district attorney step from his car and head into the place. He can’t believe this son of a bitch. He gets blackmailed for his whoremongering and only a week later, a week and a day later, drives to a joint whose B-girls go horizontal for ten dollars and a please. The dumb motherfucker deserves to get blackmailed — a big-shot lawyer and not enough brains in his head to keep a parrot operating at full speed.
He deserved what he got and he deserves what he’s gonna get too.
And if he thinks Leland Jones will slink off with his tail between his legs, he’s got another think coming.
Leland grips the steering wheel with both fists, grips it tight, and twists as if wringing out a washcloth. He clenches his teeth. He watches the door. The leather of the wheel feels grainy in his grip.
That son of a bitch. That motherfucker.
4
Seymour Markley, still fully dressed but with his belt undone and his fly open, lies on his back while the blonde woman whose name he’s already forgotten, with her dress hitched up around her waist, lowers herself onto him. He grips the cot on which he lies with one hand while with the other he reaches up and strokes one of her breasts. He hates himself. He hates himself for what he’s doing. Why did he let it come to this? Why did he let this whore lead him back here and push him down, reach into his pocket and pull money from his wallet, unzip his fly and stroke him? Why did he let her roll a condom onto his penis? Why did he let her lower herself onto him, wrap herself around him? Why did he allow her to make him betray his wife? He knew it would come to this. He never should have allowed it to come to this. He never should have come here. He knew better. Oh, God.
The orgasm arrives all at once, with almost no build-up.
He thrusts twice and it’s finished.
The blonde woman leans down and kisses his temple, her breasts pushing against his chest. Then she pulls herself off of him, walks to a sink against the far wall, grabs a washcloth from the counter, and wets it. She wipes between her legs, the inside of her thighs, her sex. She tosses the wet washcloth into a laundry pile in the corner. Seymour tries not to wonder how many sexual partners such a pile might account for. The blonde woman lets the dress fall.
‘I’m gonna head out,’ she says, ‘get cleaned up if you want to.’
Then she’s gone.
Seymour sits up on the cot. He looks down at his now flaccid penis wrapped in a glistening condom that seems, with his erection gone, far too large for what it’s wrapped around. The tip of the condom hangs down warm against his leg, filled with ejaculate. He knows he must remove it but doesn’t want to touch it. What if she’s diseased? He might get whatever she has on his fingers, and then, if he rubs his eyes, contract it. Can one get syphilis through the eye? He isn’t certain.
He shouldn’t have done this. He shouldn’t have let this happen.
He peels the condom off with two fingers and throws it into a trash can, then walks to the sink, cleans himself off with a wash cloth, and scrubs his hands vigorously, scraping beneath the nails.
He feels sick.
How is he going to sit across from his wife and eat meat loaf when he’s done what he’s done?
He zips up his pants and fastens his belt. He wonders if his underwear might smell like sex. He’ll have to throw them away. He doesn’t want Margaret to find them in the laundry if they do. What if she smells it on them?
He turns around and sees a poster hanging above the cot on which he lay with the blonde woman.
BEWARE OF CHANCE ACQUAINTANCES
it says in capital letters at the top, below which is a picture of a man with a mustache hitting on a young woman. And below that:
‘Pick up’ acquaintances often take girls autoriding to cafes, and to theaters with the intention of leading them into sexual relations. Disease or childbirth may follow.
Avoid the man who tries to take liberties with you. He is selfishly thoughtless and inconsiderate of you.
Believe no one who says it is necessary to indulge sex desire.
Know the men you associate with!
Seymour looks at the poster for a long time. Whoever tacked it on that particular wall above that particular cot meant it as some sort of joke, but he doesn’t find it the least bit amusing. It makes him feel ill.
He walks out of the back room and into the main bar, and then through the main bar to the front door. He doesn’t look around. He keeps his head down. He’s too embarrassed by what he’s done to look anyone in the eye, even unintentionally. They would immediately know every shameful thing he’s guilty of.
He cannot believe he let this happen. He cannot believe he did this.
He pushes through the door and out onto the sidewalk.
The sky overhead is dark but for the moon hanging like a paper lantern. The air is cool, but the breeze carries on it the scent of exhaust fumes.
‘You son of a bitch.’
His head snaps to the right, toward the sound of the voice. He blinks, trying to see clearly in the darkness. A hulking figure in a cowboy hat comes at him.
‘You motherfucker,’ the hulking figure says in a voice Seymour almost recognizes. Almost but not quite.
He takes a step back, puts up both hands.
Then the figure in the cowboy hat is upon him and the face beneath the hat is clearly visible. Leland Jones. His eyes are black with rage and glossy with drink. His fists are clenched.
Seymour takes a second step back, fear overwhelming him.
And then the violence begins.
5
Leland yanks the wheel to the right, but the goddamn pickup’s going too fast to make the turn. Instead of swinging into the driveway, it jumps up the curb and comes to a skidding stop in the middle of their front yard. Leland lets it stay there. He kills the engine and steps from the vehicle. His hands are covered in blood, some of it his own from split knuckles, most of it the district attorney’s. His face and shirt are speckled with more of it.
He walks to the front door and into the house. He stands by the doorway, sweaty and bloody and feeling frantic.
‘Viv,’ he says.
If she’s left for work he doesn’t know what he’ll do, but she shouldn’t have left quite yet. It’s too early. He tries to remember whether he saw her car parked out on the street, but isn’t sure. He didn’t look.
He calls her name again.
She walks out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around her torso and another on her head. ‘What is it?’
‘Do you love me, darlin?’
‘What’s wrong?’
‘Do you love me?’
‘Of course. What is it?’
‘Would you love me even if I done something terrible?’
‘Is that blood?’
&n
bsp; ‘I done something terrible. I need to leave town.’
‘What did you do?’
Leland licks his lips. His entire body shakes with adrenalin. He tries to calm himself, tries to think. He closes his eyes. He opens them. He can’t bring himself to tell her what he did.
‘You said you always wanted to see where I come from.’
Vivian, silent for a very long time, searches his face for answers.
Finally she nods.
‘Okay,’ she says.
FORTY
1
Candice reaches into her dress and lifts her breasts, pushing them together to create more cleavage. They’re sticky with sweat and feel heavy in her hands. She leans forward slightly and looks at herself in the mirror, tries to smile but can’t make it look real, can’t bring light into her eyes. She hopes the makeup can at least hide their puffy redness, the fact that she’s been crying.
She’ll do the best she can tonight.
Maybe once the evening begins in earnest she’ll forget about her real life. Maybe the music, flirtation, dancing, and drinks, watered-down though they are, will help her briefly forget everything. She doesn’t think so, doesn’t think anything could make her forget that her husband is dead, doesn’t think anything could make her forget that her thirteen-year-old son is a murderer, or that he’s missing, doesn’t think even the junk Carl shoots into his veins could make her forget those things, but maybe she’s wrong. Maybe there will be a moment, just one, in which she’s able to feel like herself again. Maybe something will make her laugh. Or distract her enough that, for a time, she’s completely free of thought and worry.
She picks up a compact and clicks it open, loads the applicator with powder, and is bringing it toward her face when a knock at the front door stops her. She sets the compact back down on the counter.
She hopes she doesn’t find Carl on the other side. It’d be one thing if she didn’t care for him. She could slam the door in his face and that would be that. That’s the way it should be. But it was difficult to shut him out the way she did. It was difficult, and she doesn’t know if she has the strength to do it again. A big part of her wants him around to lean on. But she knows, too, that he isn’t really present most of the time. He’s only a husk, and there’s no point leaning on a husk. There’s nothing solid within to support you. It could blow away in the wind. Certainly it would crumble beneath your weight. You might as well try leaning on a column of smoke.
The Last Tomorrow Page 27
