So these were his groceries, then. No, they were hers. Why would he make up something like that? Maybe to create a reason for being in her house. But he hadn’t, he hadn’t gone inside. People had seen him over there. Only because he kept checking to see if she was home yet, but that was all. The detective’s apology was abrupt and insincere. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe Gordon, he said. Tough questions were part of the job. Of course. Yes, he understood. But of course did not. He understood nothing.
In the days that followed, Gordon had little appetite. He could feel his flesh tightening around him. His breath came slower. And as he grew more watchful, quieter, there were moments when his sense of hearing was so acute that the tremble of leaves and branches creaking in the wind was almost painful. A pipe clanged and he jumped. He opened the newspaper and cringed with the rustle. The phone rang and his heart raced. It was Dennis. The detective on the case was Warren Kaminski, a high school classmate of Lisa’s. Dennis had just given him Mrs. Jukas’s niece’s telephone number. She was still comatose. It looked like a house break, the detective said, whether real or staged they weren’t sure. The poor old woman probably came home in the middle of it. There were a number of suspects, one in particular, a drug dealer who might have been trying to scare her. Dennis thought it was Feaster. He said he was relieved. Why? Gordon wanted to ask. Did you think it was me? Their conversation was stiff, with no mention of Lisa and none of his new job.
Gordon’s first week of work had ended. He enjoyed the brewery’s constant racket. In here he was a cog, one more regulated, purposeful, moving part of an orderly world. All he needed was a strong back and an accurate tally of cases skimming off the conveyor belts into the trucks. The wound on his hand was almost healed but still so tender that he wore a heavy-duty glove on the job.
On Friday Delores picked him up after work. She was going to bring him to the bank to open accounts with his first paycheck. As soon as he got into the car, he looked in the envelope. They must have made a mistake, he said, showing her the slip. He watched nervously as she counted under her breath.
“No, that’s right. Fifteen dollars an hour. You worked five days. Forty hours times fifteen is six hundred gross.” She handed it back.
“A week?” He was stunned.
After they left the bank, he kept touching his pocket to make sure the checkbook and savings book were still there. Delores hadn’t stopped talking from the minute he got into her car. These last two weeks of silence had given her so much more to tell him in half the time. He felt himself sinking into her voice the way one surrendered to sleep. As they neared Clover Street, he was disappointed. He wished she’d keep driving.
“That poor thing,” she said. They sat in front of his house with the motor running. “Imagine, laying there for two days like that. Remember I said that, how awful something like that would be?”
“Yes, I remember. You did.” As long as she kept talking, he didn’t have to get out. Her range of topics was like an operatic riff skittering from the tragic to the outrageous, mesmerizing in its confluence. Lifetimes were being fleshed out, each leading into the next tale, on and on in her seamless universe where all things and everyone were not just related, but vitally connected in some ultimately fathomless yet still logical way.
Now she was telling him how much she enjoyed the dress shop. The other day Jean asked her if she might be interested in buying the business. “So I called up my sister, Linda, she’s the one, her husband sells bonds, and he goes, ‘Oh, no, that would be the worst kind of investment right now with the stock market and everything so uncertain. ’ I should have known better, he’s such a naysayer, but you know what? After I hung up I thought of Mrs. Jukas, that poor old woman. I keep thinking of her laying there like that, helpless, with no control over anything anymore, just waiting and waiting for someone to come along and help her. My God, it must have been so horrible. Can you imagine, every minute, every sound, what it must have been like? And I thought, No! I can’t let that happen. I can’t be like that. I can’t!” she said, smiling.
“No,” he said weakly. She patted his arm and he forced himself out of the car. In the late-day shade, the old woman’s dark little house seemed to have grown taller, wider. It loomed over the street.
Jada and Thurman sat on the wall in front of the old Collerton Savings and Loan. Empty for years, the cavernous granite building had recently found new life as a furniture store that specialized in massive velour sofas and chairs with a range of custom components, cup holders, footrests, heated seats, vibrators, headphones, and built-in speakers. She and Thurman had been making their voices vibrate as they tried out the massage feature until the salesman told them they had to leave: Thurman’s swearing was offending the customers.
Jada kept looking around. She was trying to think of some way to dump him. His cousin Antawan had been his last resort until the cops came around last night trying to find some connection between him and the old lady that got her head bashed in.
“Fucking Polie,” he said again, then spat onto the cracked pavement. He was convinced Polie was paying him back for the Dearborn thing. “Like it’s all my fault or something.”
“Yeah, well, next time give us flashlights or something.” The problem had been her eyes as much as the street lamps. If they got any worse, she’d be blind.
“Fucking asshole, know what else he told them?” He passed her his cigarette.
“No, what?” She took a long, dizzying drag. Her stomach was shaky. Now every time her mother threw up, she felt nauseated.
“About trashing the big guy’s place. So now they’re going, ‘Oh, okay. That makes sense. The kid, he musta broke in there, too, so then the old lady comes home and he cracks her head open.’ ”
“Polie, he doesn’t know anything about that.” She threw the cigarette onto the sidewalk. How could he possibly know that? If he did, then he must know she’d been there, too. Then Gordon would really hate her. Her face was burning. What was she thinking? It was so much worse than that, even. “What about me? He didn’t say I was there, did he? I mean, the old lady, he’s not saying that, is he? That you and me—”
“No! Just me, the fat fucker. You’re like the last person he’s gonna mess with—’least not until he can get Marvella to get rid of that thing of his.”
“What thing?”
“The baby! She’s pregnant, right? He’s like, ‘I can’t believe that rag’s doing this to me.’ ”
“It’s Polie’s? He’s the father?”
“Yeah! Where’ve you been?”
She felt numb. There wasn’t any sweet little baby to look forward to, just an ugly little Polie. They had walked on a few blocks when she decided that Thurman was lying. Polie wasn’t really the father, which was probably why he couldn’t get her mother to get rid of it. Besides, her mother hated Polie. He was just trying to be the man, bragging on like that to Thurman, who until now had looked up to Polie.
Thurman hurried out of the liquor store with two cans of Ice jammed into the pockets of his sagging pants. The old guy in there was so worked up trying to show some retard how to fill out his lottery slips that he’d been able to clip the cans. They ran downtown to the common and sat on a concrete bench engulfed by lilac bushes. Thurman popped open his can and guzzled half of it. “I was just thinking, that asshole, that fat bastard, I’m just gonna go tell Feaster. I mean, he told me once, he said, ‘Anybody ever give you shit you go straight to me.’ ”
“Polie’s not the father,” she said.
“Oh yeah? Well, who is, then?”
“It’s a secret. I can’t tell you.”
“C’mon!”
“I can’t. It’s private. My mother, she’d like, kill me.”
“Why?” He laughed. “What the hell does she care?”
“Fuck you!” She jumped up and sprinted along the dusty path while he hoisted up his pants, trying to keep pace with her long-legged gait.
“I was just kidding! C’mon! Don’t be mad,”
he panted. Easily winded, he kept stopping. “C’mon, tell me!”
“Why? What do you care?” What did anyone? Even she did not. What was the point? She couldn’t even think about that pig Polie being the father of the sweet baby she dreamed about nightly now.
With a lunge Thurman caught her around the waist and brought her down. The more she kicked and punched, the harder he laughed. “Let go-a me, you bastard. You no-good son of a bitch,” she screamed, jackknifing her knee into his groin. He curled up, groaning. She was halfway down the path when a cruiser pulled onto the wide dirt path on her right. She turned, trying not to run as she hurried back. “Thurman!” He couldn’t have gotten very far. She walked around the clump of dusty lilacs and called again.
“Be right out,” he said above the spray hitting the dry inner twigs.
Cops, she started to say when the cruiser pulled alongside. The cop at the wheel asked her name. “Izzy Rodriguez,” she said. An Anglo cop would remember Fossum sooner than a Latino name. They were looking for a tall kid with spiked orange hair, in jail pants. She see anybody like that? No, how come? What’d he do? Armed robbery. He just held up Crowder’s Liquor Store.
“So how much did you get?” she asked as they cut through back alleys.
“Some scratch tickets, that’s all.” He pulled the strip from his pocket. “I mean, the guy was being such an asshole, I couldn’t help it.”
“You got a gun?”
“No! Musta been the Ice in my pockets, the cans.”
Legs outstretched, she leaned back on his cousin Antawan’s steps while Thurman got his head shaved inside. He came out wearing a black shirt and baggy mesh basketball shorts. She’d never seen his legs before. They were hairy and thick as a man’s.
“Smooth as a baby’s ass.” He kept rubbing the back of his head.
She laughed and rubbed it, too. “Smoother even.”
They stopped behind the drugstore and took turns scratching off the little metallic squares on the tickets with a quarter. Her heart pounded with each one. She liked this new-looking Thurman, dark eyed and menacing.
“This is it!” he promised, quarter poised over the last one, the million-dollar card. First thing he’d do was buy a red Corvette, then drive someplace where it was hot all the time. “That’s a fucking rip!” Eleven cards and no winner, not even a free card.
When they came to the Nash Street Market, Thurman asked again who the father was if it wasn’t Polie. She began to tell him about this rich guy from Miami. “He flies his own plane, and when he comes up he’s got a condo over in that new place that used to be the old shirt mill. His name’s Lenny. Roth,” she continued, spotting the Roth bread truck by the Market door. “He’s like really handsome and he always wears purple shirts, white silk boxers—”
“White silk boxers!” Thurman howled. “How do you know?”
“Jesus . . .” She sighed and rolled her eyes. “I thought you wanted to hear. The diamond on his pinky finger cost fifty thousand dollars, and right after the baby’s born he’s taking us on a trip, all four of us.”
“Where to?”
“Disney World.” Her first ride would be Space Mountain. That was her favorite part of Inez’s video.
“Hey! Fucking assholes!” Thurman banged on the Market window. The grimy plate glass rattled, and he hit it again. The cashiers looked back in shock as he pounded the glass with both fists. Jada gave them the finger, and the bitch with the tubes shouted toward the office. The door flew open and Neil Dubbin burst out screaming and swearing at Thurman. They ran through the parking lot, almost blinded by the glitter of smashed bottles, then escaped into the woods behind the store. Neither one spoke as they pushed past spindly branches and wild grapevines that snared the treetops together like an enormous cobweb. Ahead in the clearing was a kind of shelter made from rusting grocery carts that had been covered with flattened cardboard boxes. From inside came a painful whimper. As they crept closer, it grew to a frail bark.
“Leonardo!” She sprang into the clearing. A dog’s apricot-colored head rose weakly in the shadows, his hind legs splayed. Each attempt to drag himself forward came with a sharp cry. “Cootie’s dog, he can’t move!” she gasped, tearing the cardboard roof onto the ground. “Where is he? Where’s Cootie?”
“Dead. They found him last week. Downtown, out back of some bar.”
“C’mere. C’mere, doggie,” she whispered, but every time she came near, the dog bared his pitted yellow fangs and snarled.
“Jesus Christ, it stinks in here.” Thurman held his nose. “C’mon, let’s go. I gotta get outta here before I puke.”
Looking around, she saw nothing but rusted cans and the charred ends of sticks. “He’s starving. He doesn’t have any food. There’s not even any water.”
“Yeah? And what’re we supposed to do?” Thurman held his nose and backed away.
“Give me a coupla bucks. You said you had money. I’ll pay you back, I swear I will. I just wanna go get him some dog food or something.”
“Fuck, no! He’s almost dead. Look at him.” Flies swarmed over the dog’s haunches.
“Please, I just wanna get him some dog food, please!”
“Why? So he can stink and shit for a few more hours?”
“No, I know this lady. She’ll come and get him. She’ll bring him to the animal hospital. They’ll know what to do.”
“Why bother. I know what to do.” Beer bottles and cans clinked as he kicked through the trash-strewn brush. “Same thing,” he grunted, picking up a broken cinder block. “Put him out of his misery.”
“No!” she screamed, both arms out, afraid if she moved, he’d do it.
“Yes!” He laughed, and the sun glinted on his sweating scalp as he raised the block chest high. The crazed, snarling creature tried to creep back, out from his long shadow, but couldn’t.
“Please don’t. Please don’t, Thurman. Please,” she gasped, barely able to speak.
He tossed the block aside. “All right, but now you gotta give me something.”
“What?”
He dragged the largest piece of cardboard deeper into the woods. She followed, stopping when he came to a damp, needled patch of ground under three tall, spindly pines. She held on to the cardboard while Thurman knelt and clawed away rocks and sticks. He patted the ground a few times to be sure, then smoothed the pine needles back into place. She handed him the cardboard. He removed his big black sneakers, then lay down with his hands behind his head, looking up at her with an almost embarrassed expression.
“Well?”
“Well, what?”
“You just gonna stand there?”
“I don’t know. Maybe.”
“C’mon! What’re you waiting for?” He held out his arms. “You’re scared, aren’t you.”
“No.”
“You ever do it before?”
“Well, yeah.” She rolled her eyes.
“So, c’mon. C’mon, bitch,” he said softly. “You’ll like it. You’ll like the way I do it.” He sat up, grabbed her hand, yanked her down beside him. “But first you gotta take this off,” he grunted, tugging at her shorts.
“No!” she said, crossing her legs. “Not unless we buy him some dog food.”
“Not now!”
She kept thinking of Polie and her mother. Polie and the baby. Polie all the time pawing at her. She tried to get up, but Thurman rolled on top of her, forearm hard on her throat. “We had a deal, so now I’m going to fuck you. You know I am, right?”
She glared up at him. He stared back, then burst into laughter and tore at her clothes in a frenzy of giddy, almost weeping passion. When it was over they got up quickly. Neither one spoke. He urinated behind the tree while she dressed. She felt cold. Mosquitoes buzzed at her ears. She wondered if she’d been raped, then decided it couldn’t have been that. She had agreed to it at first; then even when she didn’t want to, she’d been too afraid to fight very hard. All she could think of was the old woman’s twisted face recoiling each t
ime her mother kicked her, so she had clung to him with such desperate anguish that in the end he had to push her away.
“What about the dog food?”
“I don’t have any fucking money,” he called, trudging on ahead. He was tying his T-shirt around his bare head.
“You had five bucks!”
“Yeah, before. But then I had to give it to Antawan. Sorry.” He looked back with a smirk. “Besides, you oughta pay me for the favor. It’ll be a hell of a long time before you get something good as that again.”
The rock she picked up was as big as her fist. She threw it hard, then winced when it whacked into the small of his back. He turned, fists clenched and glaring. Scared, she knew better than to run. She kept on walking, safer now on the sharp edge of his cold smile. She could handle this Thurman, the one who didn’t want anything more than to hate. When she came to the Dumpster behind the Market, she hoisted herself up and pulled out a crushed loaf of bread.
“What’re you, some kinda pig?”
“It’s for Cootie’s dog,” she called back.
He watched her jump down. “What happened to your dog?”
“Leonardo?”
“Yeah, the shitter. That’s what Polie called him, anyways.”
“I think he got lost, or maybe somebody took him. I don’t know. Every day I go out looking for him.”
“Yeah, well, don’t bother.” He laughed.
“Why? You know where he is?” She grinned stupidly, futilely, heart racing with that battered hope that beats its wings faster and faster as it tailspins down from the sky.
A Hole in the Universe Page 34
