DeWitt rose from his crouch. When B.J. stepped back, DeWitt realized how threatening he must look. He turned to the sign. A yellow drip was bisecting the stick figure’s leg.
“I never muh-meant to hurt anybody.”
The drip continued down; it sliced through the black border to hang, a yellow teat, on the bottom edge.
“You were part of the rebellion, weren’t you, B.J.”
“Yes, suh-suh-sir. You gonna arrest me?”
DeWitt leaned his back against the squad car and stared at the long blue shadows on the library lawn. “No.”
He propped his hands on his wide belt, again surprised to feel the presence of his gun. Two aimless months and DeWitt had begun to wonder what it would feel like to put the muzzle of his new Glock 9mm into his mouth, and if he could pull the trigger. It wasn’t that he wanted to. It wasn’t even that he believed he’d do it. But time and again the thought rumbled in his mind like approaching thunder.
“Muh-mama afraid I get in trouble. She say she expect more out of me than throwing gasoline bombs at the chief of police.”
DeWitt nodded.
“It just that everybuh-buh-body just got into the mood of it, you know? And we was all real sure them Torku was killing us and putting germs in the well and all. Felt real ashamed when I learned the truth. Kept thinking as how them Torku never done us no harm.” His face crumpled like brown tissue paper. He hugged the basketball tighter. “They never duh-done us no harm.”
After an awkward moment DeWitt put the paint can on the floorboard, got into the squad car, and drove off, leaving B.J. On the sidewalk with his basketball: the statue of a sad god with the world in his arms.
DeWitt stopped behind a Department of Public Safety car parked at the curb. Across the vacant lot where the rec center had once stood, grass was already wearing its autumn tassels. In the center of the field stood Bo, facing the woods expectantly, hands clasped, head slightly cocked, as if waiting for a bus.
If the bus should come rumbling and swaying across the grass, Seresen driving, Loretta and Billy and their two kids in front, and Pastor Jimmy in back, DeWitt wondered if Bo would get in.
The officer had returned for the funeral. He looked strange in his DPS uniform, his sunglasses in his pocket, his guileless eyes sad. When DeWitt had gone up to shake his hand, Bo whispered, “My fault. My fault.”
But it was Seresen’s fault. And it was Jimmy’s. Pastor Jimmy and his terrible fear of freedom.
Of all the bodies, his had been the most peaceful. DeWitt found him dressed in his Sunday best, the bottle of tranquilizers beside him, Doc’s name printed on the label.
A mutter in DeWitt’s mind, a gun-oil taste on his tongue. He lit a Marlboro and rolled down the window. Nothing moved but the heavy-headed, wind-tossed grass. A few blocks away he could hear the piercing shrieks of children’s laughter. To the east a big dog gave a thick-chested bark.
Bo turned, started back to his car, but halted when he caught sight of DeWitt.
“Surprised to see you,” DeWitt said, getting out. He dropped the butt of his cigarette to the asphalt and ground it out with his boot. They watched each over the hood.
“Came in to meet the Realtor. Wanted to see Hubert. A shame that the bank failed, anyway. He was the only friend I ever had.” Bo’s melancholy gaze wandered. “So. How are the reserve officers working out?”
“Fine. Don’t need more than a couple of reserves. Not much happening anymore.”
“Hubert told me it was your recommendation that got me the job with DPS. I suppose I should thank you for that.” When DeWitt didn’t respond, Bo went on. “He hasn’t forgiven me for what I did to you. To Janet. Maybe it was senseless to come.”
I forgive you, DeWitt wanted to tell him, but couldn’t. Bo’s little-boy eyes returned to DeWitt’s face. I wish I could forgive myself, they said.
“DeWitt? That bank robbery. Strange how it happened, the night after the Line went down. No fingerprints, no suspects. I read your report. I talked to Hubert, and . . .”
“Don’t ask.”
A pause, and then, like a promise, “No. I won’t.”
Bo walked away, tall, straight, and solitary. DeWitt got back in his car and drove home in the dwindling light.
The house was cluttered, the kids watching TV. DeWitt—a new habit—picked up some of the jumble and set it aright. He walked to the kitchen. It was empty. A pan of squash sat atop an extinguished burner. He got a spoon from the cabinet drawer and took a taste.
The powdery smell of Janet reached him before her arms did. As she hugged his waist, he stiffened. Her hands dropped. He turned in time to see the hurt in her face.
“Scared me.” Simple answers had been better for Hattie, who liked her truth straight. But for Janet the lies went down easier, like oil.
She moved away. “Your daddy’s here, out back with the barbecue. Your mama’s sorting through the kids’ school clothes.”
He took a beer from the refrigerator and opened it, his back to her. His back was always to her now. Asleep, they kept their distance. Awake, they watched their tongues.
Outside, evening advanced. Lights began to come on in the neighboring houses. Beer in hand, DeWitt trudged across the yard toward the flickering orange glow of the fieldstone pit.
“Daddy?”
His father turned, and again DeWitt was surprised how much the man had aged. The plumb line of his back was bent now, the stick-wielding hands gnarled.
“How you doing, son?”
“Fine.”
In the dying light, his daddy’s eyes searched his. Then his daddy picked up the long fork and turned his attentions to the brisket. “Since you lost that weight back toward the end of summer, you seem different. Are things all right between you and Janet?”
DeWitt rubbed the tight muscles in the back of his neck. “She’s tired of being tied down with the house. She wants to do things she’s interested in. She doesn’t keep the place as neat, but that’s all right with me. It’s okay, really.” And he meant it.
The meat sizzled. His daddy prodded the brisket, nudged it this way and that. “You two seemed closer before. I wondered what went wrong.”
“Just . . . some things happened.”
“Bad things?”
“Pretty bad.”
“Oh. “
DeWitt gazed down into the red embers. Smoke rose: the fumey odor of charcoal, the sweet tang of barbecue sauce.
“Your ma and I had our ups and downs, too, Wittie. But we worked it out.” His daddy’s voice was stiff. Eyes locked on the coals, he fussed with the meat.
Certainly the other DeWitt and his daddy had joked together. In that other universe, they had laughed. Where was that happy policeman now? Where did he go? DeWitt had searched the cemetery a second time, and had finally found the tombstone marked WILLIAM HARPER. But he hadn’t read the station records; hadn’t the heart to disturb the grave of the DeWitt he’d replaced.
“Daddy? What would you think of a cop who had done something illegal?”
His daddy didn’t look up, but the fork paused. “What kind of illegal we talking about?”
“Murder.” The confession was out before he knew it, dropped like a lead weight from his tongue. He followed the law when he had done it, but in some other world he had murdered Billy. In this world, he had murdered Bo, and with each cold and angry look, he was killing a little more of Janet.
The gray head jerked up. “Cut it out, Wittie. Billy’s hanging wasn’t your fault.”
In DeWitt’s grip the beer can trembled, spouting foam. Curtis—maybe Hattie—had talked. His daddy’s eyes were kind, but they were disenchanted, too, like a Jesus who has lost His faith.
DeWitt swayed, looked down. The grass needed mowing, he noticed.
Just a second, he’d say as his daddy handcuffed him. Just a second and
let me mow my yard. Let me paint my trim. Please let me fix the lock on the screen door like I’ve been meaning to. So much needed finishing,
“I know it happened in your jail. I know you should have took his belt away, but you didn’t. We all make mistakes.”
The leaf can’t escape the pattern of the tree. DeWitt would be the cause of Billy’s death, always.
“Come on, son. His wife and kids killed in that house fire. Her folks taking the bodies up north so he couldn’t even visit their graves. Then him arrested with a collection of women’s underclothes. Billy didn’t want to go through a trial for burglary. Sometimes a man knows when he’s ready.”
DeWitt sucked night air into his lungs. In his mind the thunder stilled. He lifted his head, his eyes misting. Patterns coalesced in the sky’s spangled chaos: Orion, the Big Dipper. He saw the ruddy dot of Mars, where canals once existed because an astronomer believed.
Truth was so easy, really. It was order’s lie that was hard. Flights of birds and stars and lives had patterns, if you stood back and looked at them right.
“Brisket’s done,” his daddy said. “You ready to go in?”
In the light of the kitchen doorway Janet waited, as she always had. As she always would. Because in the world DeWitt just this instant created, he placed her and renewed her there.
“I’m ready.”
Ready. A satisfying word. It made the world feel as if life were a bag of groceries that had just been put away, and everything was in place.
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