Going South
Page 28
“That does narrow it down.”
“I think we should take notes,” she flips him the cassette.
Lena makes sandwiches while Harry figures out how to use the French VCR. But the tape looks like 1968 with the washed out color and sappy narration and by the time they hit Amsterdam, Lena’s snoring softly and Harry’s on their third bottle of wine. When it’s over he goes through the stations but the only thing in English is another stupid tennis match so he switches to the news. Some silver-haired anchor forced to banter with the staff, painful to watch in any language. They break for a string of techno commercials then back to the anchor, tight-lipped and grim, the last face Harry sees before the cameras roll and his world spins out of orbit. The podium, the pink dress, the angel Lilly blinking into the flashbulbs, Harry jumps from the bed and rushes over, cranks up the volume but it’s still in French.
“What wrong?” Lena stirs.
He doesn’t answer, stands swaying from side-to-side, eyes glued to a close-up still. Lilly on a strip of beach over two sets of dates, the last one today.
“Oh Harry, no.”
***
He takes to walking late at night after everything’s closed, favors the river in the mist. Head down and hands in his pockets, unmindful of the danger, if there is any. Lena pretends not to hear him go.
He takes a different route every night, but always returns by Rue du Temple, stopping to catch the light in the old rectory dormer. Soft shadows slanted in the rafters. Something Harry needs but he can’t imagine how to get.
They’re doing laundry when he tells her.
“I don’t want to do this anymore.”
“Europa?”
“Fuck it, let’s go home and watch real television.”
“Home where?”
“Bucks County, you know. See how it goes.”
She looks at her clothes tumbling. “What is it, Harry. You okay?”
“Stop asking me that will you?” he snaps. “Jesus, how’s that supposed to help?”
“It’s not,” she snaps back. “But I have to know.”
He sags and she thinks again: he won’t make it, not Harry, not this time. She’s watched him pace away an afternoon and last night heard him sobbing in the shower. Now he wants to go back and it scares her to think what that will lead to.
“I’m tired, Lena. Let’s go home.”
“It’s not a good idea.”
“As if we’d know a good idea,” Harry feeds coins into the dryer. “Anyway, we have to go back for the money.”
Lena’s cue to show him the check, but she lets the moment pass right by.
“The money?” Harry leans in.
“I heard you.”
“And put the house on the market, still things to do, Lena.”
“Okay. But after that?”
Harry looks away. “We wait and see.”
On the last night she takes him back to the Friterie, but the waitress is different, upstairs isn’t open and the moustache never shows his face. They pass the cathedral on the way back. Harry doesn’t give it a glance.
***
They’re home a week when a freeze sets in, so cold Harry’s teeth ache, always cold though the heat’s cranked up and the fire’s a-blaze. Harry smokes weed and loses himself in movies, days on end without leaving the house. Lena takes walks and tracks her soaps, curled up with Chester through the afternoon. Harry lives in his bathrobe, showers when it suits him, shaves if he thinks of it. Lena cuts down the calls and sees no one, takes to her bed, sleeps the weeks away. They watch the same news on different televisions. No break in the manhunt, the dead still dead.
He finds Frank’s gun in the loose chunk of wall, wrapped in plastic and looking like new. Hides it in the basement, high behind the paint cans, where he can reach it when he’s sober, but can’t when he isn’t. Just feels better knowing it’s there.
Lena keeps the check in her vanity, pays with plastic or their dwindled savings. Waits for Harry to say something about the money but it never comes up.
***
“I said ‘flag me?’ I’ll stick that flag up your ass, fucking yokel,” the match chases the end of his cigarette.
“That’s pitiful, Harry.”
“Hah!” he waves the lit end. “See that? Never too drunk to smoke.”
They are driving home from the Carversville Inn and a near fracas over comments Harry made. Invited to leave by the owner and butt of said comments, skipping out on the tab, which had to be considerable. Harry spent most of the day there after their flare-up this morning. At least before he kept it in-house, but now he’s always out there somewhere. Has this thing about the old inns and rustic ambience. This makes three where he’s no longer welcome.
“So when you blow it, don’t look for me Harry.”
“I won’t look for you.”
Lena pulls over and cuts the engine.
“Listen to me,” her voice goes flat. “I’m through with this. You can shoot me if you want or bash my brains in, but I won’t live this way!”
Harry scoffs.
“That’s right, Cooperstown. I know what you did. I don’t know why but it wouldn’t change a thing.”
“He saw me. I had no choice.”
“You have a choice now.”
He wants to explain about Frank, but it’s too hard.
“How do you fix yourself, Lena?” he swallows a sob.
“You can do it.”
“It kills me that I can’t. When I was a kid this guy in the neighborhood used to stand on his stoop ranting and raving. So drunk you couldn’t make out what he was saying. But there was rage in it so we left him alone. Then he died.” Harry gives her a look. “It got so you missed it.”
***
Back home, and now he’s into the weed. She can hear him upstairs, hacking and pacing. Killed that guy, clubbed him to death, wish to Christ she’d never told him. When she goes up to check he’s just sitting there staring at the painting above his desk. The pastel she found in one of the galleries, a lush lawn sloping to a manor house. Harry does this now, disconnects. She doesn’t know why and she doesn’t care, sick of the sound of both their voices. And its winter and Lena’s sick of dealing with Harry in the cold, thinks of springtime when she can get out of the house and away from him.
***
He drives up to Bowman’s Tower, Washington’s old lookout point. It’s been years but it looks the same, the narrow road up and the tower itself. The shape of it branded in his brain, sort of Gumby looking with the corner turret. He parks in the lot, crosses to the arched wooden door and pulls the handle. It opens like a dream and it’s nothing like it was, the walls plastered over, the spiral staircase replaced by an elevator. He pushes the one button and the doors open. It takes longer than it should but he reaches the top, steps out and crosses to the railing. The view is all but unrecognizable. Quarries still at it across the river, but whole hillsides are gone. The river and the banks still green and the high sky, but the farms have gone to developments. A thousand patchwork bundled in houses, garish horrors chockablock.
“No wonder the Yanks won the war.”
Harry spins and the woman flinches.
“I startled you,” she clutches her collar. “Forgive me, please.”
“I didn’t hear the elevator.”
“Oh, I’ve been up here quite a while. It’s all rather breathtaking,” the accent, British or Australian?
“I used to think this was the most beautiful thing you could ever see,” he tells her. “I can remember my mom saying I was looking too hard. But I wanted to take it with me.”
“And did you?”
“I did.”
“And now it’s changed.”
“Oh yeah, but I still have it,” he points to his head.
“A man with foresight, how endearing!” the woman smiles. “I wish you could share it with me.”
“I’m probably way off.”
“Every time.”
“My boys were forever spitting off of things. I could never see the point.”
Harry shrugs. “It’s sort of compulsory.”
He turns back to the railing. The woman takes a seat on the turret bench.
“When were you here last?” she asks.
“A long time ago now, thirty years.”
“Why now?”
“I thought it would help me.”
“Can I tell you something?” the woman smiles sadly. “Before you came up here I was toying with the idea of tossing myself over.”
Harry winces. “Bad idea.”
“I suppose quite a few have had a go?”
“Not that I remember,” though it seems likely.
“That said, I should tell you’ve I’ve reconsidered.”
“I’m glad to hear it.”
“I wouldn’t want to sully the image you carry.”
Harry sits beside her. “It would make a mess.”
“Yes.”
“Are you here by yourself?”
She looks out at the hillsides. “No, Harold’s waiting in the car. He has bad knees.”
“Can he see you from here?”
“Harold hasn’t seen me in years.”
They sit for a moment then Harry asks.
“Does he know?”
“He thinks I just wanted to see the view.”
“The thing is to outlive him.”
She doesn’t seem to hear and Harry crouches beside her.
“Bury him and move on.”
“Yes,” she looks up, suddenly alert. “And maybe speed him along a bit.”
Harry stands and offers her his arm. “Shall we go down?”
“I think so, yes.”
***
Chester rolls on his back, paws pawing as Lena rubs. What he gets from it she can only wonder. She’s tried it on herself to no effect. They are down by the footbridge. Chester wanted to cross, but Lena thought back to a 4th of July, strolling the bridge with Harry. She noticed something moving in the space between the girders. The light caught on a spider’s web, massive and perfect, and when she looked around they were everywhere. And it scared the living shit out of her, so she told Chester no.
And he understood, even though his name is Luke. Lena wonders how long he can lay like that, balanced on his back with his legs splayed and she decides to find out, rubbing and rubbing his belly until her arm gets tired, switching arms and rubbing some more. Chester uses his head as a fulcrum and shows no sign of getting enough.
“If you were my dog I’d never make you wear silly outfits,” one of Hardiman’s failings, photos of Luke in chaps and tutus. He makes her call him Hardiman, like some crotchety old boss, just another Rankin to Harry who won’t ride a horse and spends his days elsewhere.
In a while they’ll go into town, but right now she just wants to rub Chester’s belly and forget about Harry, where he is, who he’s pestering. The endlessness of Harry worries seeping into everything, a month now and no long-term plans, they’re still not settled, their lives on hold until he works it out or blows it completely.
“If you were my dog I’d feed you pizza once a week,” something Chester/Luke can’t get enough of, dancing the pizza dance, tail sweeping dust bunnies into the corners.
Lena sees a couple out on the bridge, the woman poses by the rail as the man works the camera. She watches, horrified, as the woman leans into the space where the spiders live, but then she tells herself its winter and the spiders are dead, or hibernating, whatever spiders do. When she can’t rub anymore Lena stands up, brushes the leaves from her lap and starts off into town. Chester waits until she’s far enough away then whirls to his feet and blasts off after her.
“Hello, Luke old boy,” Max shouts from the porch of Max’s Hardware, but Chester walks right on by and Lena has to smile. She stops to check the mail and on the way out spots Harry’s car coming across the bridge. Lena shoots him a wave but he doesn’t see her, hits the speed bump, head to the ceiling. A few minutes later she sees it again parked in the church lot.
“Come on Chester,” she walks over and checks, keys in it, menu on the front seat, The Fatted Hog, wherever that is. Inside the church the organist botches Bach’s Toccata and a voice shouts directions to the choir. Harry’s nowhere in sight so Lena ducks back out, does her shopping, chats with the woman in the deli then starts for home. Harry’s car is still in the lot so she ties Chester to a meter and goes inside. It’s a small church, bright and cheerful, and Lena settles into a pew. The organ starts again, the voices come from above, soft at first, but rising to separate, men going in one direction, women another. Her eye catches Harry in line at the confessional. Harry?
***
“Come on, boy,” she yanks the leash and they take the stairs to the towpath. Lena walks and wonders what it means. She was raised Catholic but never took it seriously, has her doubts about all religion. Sister M taught them right from wrong, but the rest was hokum and superstition. She’ll admit to being Catholic, but thinks of herself as recovering.
There’s so much going on in her head she doesn’t see the rescue squad out on the river, the lights flashing on River Road or Chester crashing through the tick infested brush, only Harry in confession line, the bald spot and spare tire, more of Harry than usual lately. Then all thoughts circle off leaving one thing throbbing in the center of her brain, Harry confessed.
***
Oh God, this is bad. This is definitely bad. She hasn’t been up here in weeks and he’s got the walls taped with pictures, moonlit landscapes, soft light through frosted windows, sleepy village sunsets, that kind of thing. She tries to make sense of it all, but what the fuck?
Lena runs her eyes over them. Most of them cut from magazines, but a few old Polaroids she’s seen before, the house on Morris Street, a place they rented down the shore, one of the two of them, arm-in-arm in a bathroom mirror. No common thread, but each inviting in some way, a sense of serenity. Hello? Psych Nurse?
Harry’s walled himself up in melancholy to counter the pain. And either it will save him or serve as the next step on the long way down. Or a third and better bet, that she’s not even close, that trying to think what a loony thinks is, well, loony.
She wants to tear the pictures down, but she can’t face the mess or the confrontation. She stares up through the shit splattered skylight and thinks the most amazing things. How love makes no difference. How it starts and ends with Harry and she’s just here to pick up the pieces. Meanwhile who’s connecting the dots and when will they come and why is she just waiting for it. Like the people you read about who get caught because they did something stupid and no one could be that stupid. That’s what they’ll say about her. But they won’t understand and Lena doesn’t either, not anymore. Or maybe she knows too much now, how you can feel love get smaller. How you can be scared out of it.
What she’ll do is nothing, for a little longer. But she keeps the check in her pocket and a car in town with her passport locked in the glove compartment. Hardly a plan, but it’s the best she can do.
Then she runs into Sue-Anne and her husband, out from the city for a weekend in a B&B. Lena keeps it brief, but the damage is done and she knows it’s crazy to think they can stay here. Sue-Anne of the motor mouth, gushing country condos and how they want one. Lena shudders to think they might have seen Harry, though they try not to be seen together. But what if he’d been with her and the thought makes her toes curl.
She calls the post office in Philly, tells them to forward the mail here. Parcels out what’s left of their old savings. They’ll be good for three months, maybe four, long enough she tells herself. Harry gets the flu and she nurses him back to health. Harry gets drunk and she wrestles him to bed. The days pass slowly.
***
What Harry doesn’t know, as he babbles on about the rescue squ
ad and the man in the river, is that someone is listening two tables over. And he’s been going on about it for so long he feels like he knows the guy, feels his desperation, too many bills and too many kids. Sees the guy setting it up in advance, years maybe, long enough to establish the birthday ritual with the boat, the booze and the nitwit buddies. Saw where his life was headed and found a way out.
“My guess is Mexico,” he says, though he knows he shouldn’t. Mexico is a subject he’d do well to avoid for now and forever. But it gives the guy a sort of panache, that he could think of such a thing and have the balls to pull it off. Makes for a good yarn, even if Harry doesn’t know what he’s talking about.
He stays until the sun goes down then settles up and bids the men goodbye. It’s cold outside so he let’s the car run for a while, stands in the lot and smokes so as not to stink it up, hears the scrum of voices as the door opens then footsteps over the ice.
“Ronny wouldn’t do that. What you said.”
Harry turns to the woman. “Ronny?”
“That’s his name. Ronny Petric. He’s my brother.”
Harry draws a blank but then it hits him, the guy he’s been slandering, the man in the river.
“Please, I meant no harm.”
“He was twenty-six years old.”
Harry wants to run or crawl under a rock or just vanish into a cloud of smoke, but he doesn’t move and she looks at him with the kind of contempt only women can muster.
“I’m just an old drunk with a big mouth. Don’t pay any attention to me,” he tells her.
She takes a step closer and he can feel the heat. “He had two little girls he’ll never see again. Ronny didn’t have no fucking insurance.”
“If you’ll go back in with me I’ll take it all back, every word.”
“You think I care about them?” she jerks her head.
“Diane?” someone calls from the door.
“I’ll be right there,” she doesn’t turn to look, but waits until she hears it shut.