“I can’t believe you told Cheryl. How could you do that?” She could just picture the two of them with nothing between them, nothing to share but titters about her. And Gordon.
“So I told Cheryl, so what? She could care, so what’s the big deal?”
“It’s a very big deal. To me.” Eyes stinging, she stared, knife in one hand, wet onion in the other. It took all her effort to put them down.
“Aw, come on, Doe. Don’t be mad. I’m thinking of you, that’s all. And of me too, I’ll admit it. I mean, I know how you feel, it’s like Cheryl said, ‘Tick, tick, tick,’ the whole biological-clock thing, so don’t be making any foolish, fast moves here, thinking all of a sudden you’ve gotta go find a job, a guy, move, and get a kid all before next week, before the sun sets, or your ovaries do whatever it is ovaries do. Because that’s what’s happening here. You’re, like, whoa”—he flapped his arms—“all over the place.”
He followed her into the living room, her silence inspiring him to new heights of benevolence. “So slow down, because we’ve got a very good, very solid, very important thing here, Doe. Just you and me, right? The two of us, still together after all these years. That’s pretty special,” he said with his most indulgent smile. “Don’t you think?”
She opened the door and set his smelly shoes and his tie down in the hallway. “You’re ridiculous, that’s what I think,” she said, her burst of laughter flooding her with relief. His whiskery face quivered in peevish confusion, but she couldn’t stop. “I’m sorry, but you are. You’re so ridiculous!”
CHAPTER 21
A thunderbolt split the night with a savage crack. The room glared white. Gordon jumped out of bed, then stood dazed by the jagged edges flashing black-white-black-white, the hot, pulsing negative of nightmarish images slowly taking shape—rumpled bed, closet door, the cowering form in the mirror, his own. It was 3:43 in the morning. Needles of rain pelted the windows. Home. He was home. He sank onto the bed, head in hands. Dennis was right, he shouldn’t have come back. Don’t, don’t do this, he told himself, but the dark miseries were already nudging one another for the lead. There were too many distractions. Ever since he’d come home he’d been losing focus.
He went to the window and looked out. The rain was letting up, the thunder stalled in sluggish rumbles like a dead engine someone kept trying to start. He leaned closer. The bags were still on Mrs. Jukas’s porch. He grabbed the phone, put it down. He couldn’t call her this late. Had she walked right by without noticing them? The milk and juice were probably spoiled by now, the butter melted. Everything else would be all right, but the rain would ruin the sugar and baking soda.
He hurried through the side yards and picked up the wet bags. Somehow this would be his fault. She’d expect him to replace what had gone bad. This couldn’t have come at a worse time, no money, job, or friend in the world. He thought of Bernie Samuels in the next cell for the last two years. For Bernie, as often a prisoner as he was a free man, life on the outside was far too complicated. Bills, needy children, hounding women, cars that broke down. Going back in had been almost a relief. Just as criminals are locked up to protect society, so are the imprisoned safe from society’s expectations, the nuances of which are like an unfathomable language for some men. Maybe he was one of them, he thought as he toweled dry the last can. Maybe freedom was the worst punishment.
Nine in the morning, three calls, still no answer. Wincing, he tried again, more fainthearted with every ring, dreading her crabby tirade about the constant calls when she was trying to sleep. Relieved, he hung up, then left to get the paper at the drugstore. He’d had to buy it ever since the clerk caught him copying the want ads. He noticed Mrs. Jukas’s newspaper wedged between her doors. She always brought it in as soon as it came. He climbed the steps, rang the bell, then gave a few sharp raps on the door before starting off again for the store. He was on his way home when Jada Fossum came around the corner.
“Good morning,” he said quietly.
“Morning,” she muttered, and hurried on by, hugging herself in the eighty-five-degree heat. Highs in the nineties had been forecast for the next few days. The newscasts were warning people to drink plenty of fluids and stay out of the sun. Especially the elderly.
“Gonna be a hot one,” the mailman said as he came down the walk from the old Lang house on the corner.
“Yes,” Gordon said with a sudden jolt, remembering the old story of Mr. Petracolli, helpless on his cellar floor for days until a mailman found him.
The mailman slid an envelope into Mrs. Jukas’s door slot. He took a roll of magazines from his bag and stuffed them into her mailbox. “Here you go,” he said, coming up Gordon’s walk with the latest batch of overdue notices.
Gordon thanked him, then asked if Mrs. Jukas had mail in her box. Old mail, he tried to explain. “In her mailbox,” he added with an awkward gesture toward it.
“Just a couple catalogs,” the mailman said skeptically. “First class she has me put through the slot. Why?”
“I just wondered. I thought maybe she didn’t bring it in or something.” He shrugged uneasily with the young man’s puzzled scrutiny. “Her paper, it’s still out there.”
“She’s there, though, right? I mean, she’s not away or anything.” He took a notepad from his shirt pocket. “Must be, she’s not on my hold list.” He flipped it closed. If Gordon was worried, he could call in to his supervisor. They’d get a cop out to check on her.
“Oh no!” Gordon said quickly, knowing how upset she’d be. She was probably just resting, he reassured the mailman. And himself.
Gordon realized he had circled almost every ad in the column when he came to the Harrington Brewery ad. “Warehouse/stock. Excellent benefits. 555-2233.” Dennis had wanted him to do this in the first place. If he had, he might not be in this mess. He couldn’t very well ask his brother for help now, but doing it on his own might close the breach between them.
The man who answered said he was sorry, the position had already been filled.
“Mr. Harrington? Is that you?” Gordon asked, his throat constricted by such unnatural brashness.
“Uh, no, this is Bill Powers. Did you want Mr. Harrington? I’ll put you through.”
“No, that’s—” Gordon was saying when another voice came on the line.
“Mr. Harrington’s office. May I ask who’s calling?” said a woman’s clipped English accent. When he didn’t answer she repeated herself.
“Gordon Loomis,” he finally said, then heard a click.
“Gordon,” Mr. Harrington answered almost immediately. “What can I do for you?”
“I’d like a job, sir,” he said, eyes closed, cringing. “If you have one. Available, that is.”
“Certainly, Gordon, but off the top of my head I’m just not sure what’s available right now.” Had he tried Personnel? Yes, he just had. Mr. Harrington took his number. He’d look into it and get back to him as soon as he could.
The phone rang moments later. “Gordon. Tom Harrington here. I think we have something for you.” There had been a new hire, but Personnel said it hadn’t been finalized. Harrington asked when he could come in. Now, Gordon said. Right now.
He walked so fast to the bus stop that he was almost running. If they hired him and let him start today, he’d have almost a full week’s pay. With health insurance he could get a doctor to look at his aching hand. The slightest pressure caused a foul-smelling yellow fluid to seep out. He’d be able to pay some bills, maybe start putting a little aside every week, a cushion against emergencies. The house had seemed perfect at first, but now he was noticing the hairline cracks in the plaster ceilings and the rattling pipes. The paint on the back of the house was peeling, and the garage roof was starting to rot. With a steady salary he could buy what he needed to do the work himself. As the bus creaked along, he gazed out at the hot streets with growing pleasure. If he did get the job, he’d be Mr. Harrington’s best worker. He wondered if he should tell the interviewer he didn’t drink. It might be a
plus. They’d never have to worry about that being a problem on the job, but on the other hand, maybe some knowledge of the product was required.
The bus passed Delores’s building and he peered up at her windows. He wondered if Delores liked her new job. She was probably very good at it given her own flashy sense of style. He had thought of her often in the last few days. With every problem he’d find himself wondering what Delores would say or do. By now she would have given him the inside story on the brewery, who was who and what to look out for. Thinking of her fortified him enough to push open the gleaming dark green doors of the brewery.
“Mr. Loomis!” The receptionist’s wide smile greeted him as if her day were complete now that he had arrived. He accompanied her down two flights, then through a series of unmarked steel doors. The familiar bang! bang! bang! bang! closing hard behind set him oddly at ease. They continued through a long, winding gray corridor. He’d never find his way back alone but it didn’t matter. She was tall and thin, with dark curly hair, a large hooked nose, and a watery trill of a voice. He wondered if she was single, then thought of Delores and felt guilty. “This is such a good place to work,” she was saying. “Everyone’s always so nice. And at Thanksgiving we all get turkeys. And then Christmas there’s a big party downstairs with lobsters and shrimp and every kind of hors d’oeuvre. I think you’re going to like it here a lot.” She paused at the double steel doors at the end of the corridor.
“Oh, I don’t know. I’m just here for the interview.”
“No problem. You’re in.” She opened the door into the bright, cavernous warehouse, where hundreds of green-and-gold cases of Harrington beer rattled along conveyor belts onto pallets, which forklifts moved onto wide ramps into the trailers of waiting trucks. The workers all wore green jumpsuits and weight belts.
“Mr. Loomis!” the barrel-chested supervisor grabbed his hand and shouted through the windowless clamor and stark lights. Gordon grinned. For the first time in weeks a sense of calm, of relief, settled over him.
Jada’s feet stuck to the floor as she tiptoed into the hot, airless bedroom. The old lady’s statues were still on the dresser. She reached out for one and her mother groaned, struggling to sit up. For the last twenty-four hours she had been drifting in and out of awareness. The old lady’s money had bought twenty rocks, and her mother had smoked them all. There was fifteen dollars left. Jada wanted to buy food, but every time she felt under the mattress for the money, her mother would wake up.
Her mother clung to the side of the bed, eyes widening as she swayed back and forth. “Too far down, ’s too deep.” Her voice slurred with fearful wonder before she sagged back against the wall.
Jada slipped the statues into her pocket. She’d sell one to Bruce over on Alston Street, then go buy groceries. He usually took whatever her mother brought in. He wasn’t fussy because he didn’t pay much. Jada had already decided to keep the statue of the girl and the dog. Leonardo used to look up at her like that. Yesterday she’d gone by a yard where a black puppy was tied to the clothesline. He squirmed and squealed trying to get to her until a young guy came out of the house and took him inside.
Out on the street, Inez’s sons were filling their pickup trucks with the last of her furniture. When they went back upstairs, Jada ran outside. Her eyes locked on the square brown house across the street. Her mother had been on the old lady the minute she came through the door, so maybe she didn’t know it was them. Maybe she’d only gotten a few bruises and now she was all right. Probably just too sore to come outside. She could still hear the thud thud thud of the old lady’s head hitting the steps. Maybe she’d just passed out for a while. Or maybe she was dead.
“Jada! Hey, Jada!” Thurman called from behind.
“Asshole,” she muttered, and walked faster. She was sick of him and everyone else in her shitty life. Last night she had called Uncle Bob to tell him about the baby and see if maybe he could talk his sister into rehab. Aunt Sue answered and said he wasn’t there. It felt like there was a wall around her, holding her in, stopping her no matter where she went or what she tried to do. She used to be able to take it. Getting in people’s faces used to be a rush, but not anymore. Everything sucked. The world felt heavy and slow, like a bad dream she couldn’t wake up from.
She’d forgotten what a freak Bruce was. She waited while he finished his call. She stood a head taller than Bruce, whose shiny white skin was like the wet underbelly of a fish. His bright-blue Hawaiian shirt was so much longer than his bicycle shorts that for a moment she’d thought the shirt was all he had on. He paced around the apartment, shouting into his cell phone to someone who had borrowed his car three weeks ago and still hadn’t returned it. She realized he was talking to an answering machine when he said, “Fuck!” every time the tape ended and he had to hit redial. If it wasn’t back by the end of the day, he was going to call the cops. “You got five hours, that’s all. Five fucking hours!” he screamed.
“It’s so beautiful here,” she said when he finally hung up. Everything was purple—curtains, furniture, the carpet. Even the walls. The television set was as big as a movie screen. When she’d come before, her mother had made her stay in the hallway. So far she had counted six long-haired white cats. Another had just crawled out from under the ruffled sofa skirt to slither its purring body between her legs. She picked up a purple glass clown from one of the tables. “Are these real diamonds?” she asked of the glittering eyes and buttons.
“Put it down! Put it down! Put it down!” Bruce cried, wide-eyed and pointing until she did. “You got something?” He held out his hand. She gave him the statue, and he peered at the base. “Hummel. Five bucks.”
“Five bucks! The last guy said . . . twenty-five.” Damn, for hesitating. Now the creep was laughing.
“You better go back fast before he changes his mind,” he said, handing it back.
“It’s too far. My ride, she’s gone now. C’mon, twenty.” She held it out, but he shook his head. “It’s a nice statue, it’s worth it.”
“Not to me it ain’t.”
“What, then?”
“Like I said, five.”
Her hand closed over the bulge in her pocket. Maybe for two he’d give her fifteen. “All right, fifteen,” she pressed, wanting to keep the one she liked.
“No. Get outta here.” He waved her off with both hands. “I don’t like doing business with kids, especially freaked-out crackheads.”
“I’m not a crackhead!”
“Yeah, right. I seen you here before with your friend there, that what’s-her-name Marbella rag.” He opened the door.
“Marvella. Yeah, well, she’s my mother.”
“Same difference.” He shoved her into the hall and slammed the door.
“Fuck you, you fucking fag!”
Jada sat at the last empty table. She told the Cambodian guy behind the counter that she’d order as soon as her friend came. She kept looking out at the street for that figment of her hunger. She wasn’t sure exactly what she was going to do, but if she didn’t eat something soon, she was going to be sick. Dizzied by the smell and sight of so much food—pizzas, subs, spaghetti and meatballs—she held on to the table to keep from toppling off the chair. Two men came in. She swallowed hard against her churning stomach. The older one had a limp. The younger man’s belly squashed over the counter as he placed his order.
“Hey!” the Cambodian called as Jada stared at the stained paper menu. “Hey, you! Girl! They need the table.”
“Okay. I’ll wait over here, then.” She stood by the counter, leaning against the wall to steady her wobbly legs.
“Steak and cheese,” the older man said.
“Make that two,” his companion said, then they sat at the table.
A few minutes later their subs appeared in the pickup window behind the counter. Jada couldn’t take her eyes off them. The Cambodian was writing down a phone order. The two men were talking. She edged closer along the counter. “You sick of waiting for your friend
?” the Cambodian asked as he hung up the phone. She nodded.
“So, you gonna order?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know.” She peered up at the wall menu. “I’m still not sure. But the subs, they’re ready.” She pointed behind him, and he turned.
“Seventeen,” he called, placing them on the counter.
One in each fiercely tight hand, Jada was halfway out the door, running, before he managed to shout, Stop! Stop, as if she would, or could, as if anything mattered beyond the promise of this warm cheesy grease between her fingers.
Thurman was on her front step when she came down the street eating the second sub. Dyed orange hair stuck up from his head like waxed carrot tips. She wolfed down the rest before he could ask for some. She sat beside him and felt sick to her stomach, but not weak the way she had before. He said Polie was looking for her. He needed them to do a drop in Dearborn, a really big one. Polie and Feaster wouldn’t look right, but Thurman and Jada would look just like any other kids hanging in the park.
“Yeah, right.” The last thing on earth she looked like was some rich Muffy from Dearborn.
He slung his arm over her shoulder. “We’ll act like we’re on a date or something.”
“No fucking way.” She pushed him off.
“You have to. Your mother already said.”
“Let her go, then. Want one?” She gave him one of her mother’s cigarettes. Instead of eating, she’d been smoking like a fiend these last few days. She took a long drag, then tossed the burning match onto the dry grass. She watched the circle it burned. JumJum used to do that, even in the house. Her job used to be stamping out his matches. She’d get a buck for every one.
“Twenty each, that’s what Polie said.”
Two days had passed without a word from Mrs. Jukas. If they had kept her in the hospital, wouldn’t she have had someone call him by now? Maybe she was too sick to care about groceries on her porch. He couldn’t remember which doctor she was going to see or if she’d even told him. Dennis had her niece’s number in Michigan, but he wasn’t ready to talk to Dennis yet. At least not until he actually started working next Monday. Again last night the house had been dark, even during all the commotion. Earlier in the evening he had seen Jada and Thurman drive off in Feaster’s Navigator. When they returned, it was late. Marvella Fossum ran out and kept trying to climb inside with Polie and Feaster, making so much noise that the police came. One of them was the Jamaican cop Gordon had met his first week home. With the lights spinning on the curtains, he tried to talk himself into going out and telling them he was worried about Mrs. Jukas. But just as suddenly as it had started, Jada led her mother back inside and the police were leaving.
A Hole in the Universe Page 32
