by Tom Larsen
“This is a small place and people talk,” her eyes sear his face. “My mom heard about what you’ve been saying. Now she thinks Ronny might still be alive. It’s all she thinks about and prays for.”
“Please.”
“And you know what? When they finally fish him out of there, she’s never gonna live through it.”
Harry can’t look at her, has to turn away.
“But I know you can live with it. People like you?” she searches for something more to say then simply turns and walks away.
***
He tapes the latest to the wall, a picture of a house. He doesn’t remember what the ad was for but its springtime and the trees are in blossom and there’s a cat in the window. That’s what caught his eye, the cat sitting in the sun. The house reminds him of his grandparents’ place in Rockville Centre, big trees and the sun always shining. The house is the color of butter but the shutters and front door are deep green. There’s a milk box open on the steps with a note stuck in one of the bottles and a newspaper folded on the stone walk. Any minute now the door will open and someone will step out, but not just yet.
***
It snows during the night. Lena lies in bed listening to the plows up on the highway. Hardiman told her that several state bigwigs have homes up north and that River Road is high priority. It’s not yet light. The sky has that dead look, the darkness stale and ugly. Lena slips from the bed and into the bathroom, puts on Harry’s robe and slippers then crosses to the landing window to watch. Big flakes falling in slow motion, two or three inches at least, the tree limbs heavy, the lamppost piled in a perfect pyramid.
Harry left the heat on again and warm air engulfs her as she comes down the stairs. The shadowy look of the place is familiar to her now, the furniture dark and sleeping. She circles the room, pausing at each window, smells the coffee and hears the clink of the crystals she hung above the radiator. 5.30 according to the kitchen clock. Some days she’s been up an hour by now.
She stands at the door and watches the road crew. Thinks of the men as solid types, strong and capable, the bigwigs would see to that. Searches for a word to describe what she’s feeling as red lights flash on bare trees. No word comes but it’s not a good feeling this time of day, otherworldly.
Lena’s time, the part of the day when Harry’s not a problem. Won’t be up for hours, here but not here. Nothing can happen to him except a heart attack or stroke or any one of the standard things that come when they will. Things she never has time to think about, which is when they get you.
She sits at the table and finishes the story she’s been reading, a guy gets caught in a blizzard on a mountain road. He’s a bootlegger with a load of booze and his truck overturns. Lena keeps looking up at the snow out the window, then reading about the snow in the mountains and it seems more than just coincidence. Snowing like hell now and already the locals are making their way back. Some with chains, and she thinks of the sounds that are only winter, the tick of sleet against glass, the scrape of a snow shovel, the different kinds of snow and how it crunches or sloshes or creaks when you walk on it. She makes herself think these things so she won’t start crying over the bootlegger and the trouble he’s in. The thing you love about men in stories, alone and freezing, everything he has invested in that truck, so it’s fix it or die. But it just gets worse, nothing he does works and he knows it’s hopeless. But he isn’t the sort to give up and with one, last, superhuman effort . . .
Taken by the thought of crying over someone who isn’t real instead of crying over Harry. How he hardly makes a sound as he comes and goes, except at night when she hears things crashing. Terrified he might hurt himself or burn the house down. Fears for her life sometimes and is relieved to wake and find Harry on the couch, the heat cranking and all the lights on.
The other reason she gets up so early, those predawn raids. The time SWAT teams always come for you. It’s why Lena was sold on this place to begin with. The long private drive to give you time to make your escape. The clothes she keeps on a hook by the back door, the check stashed in a tin above the doorframe. Just a straight shot past the barn to the towpath. If they came right now she’d be long gone.
The bootlegger prevails and the story ends, and though Lena can’t know what follows she senses that it won’t be good. Still, she’s inspired by his spirit, his determination to save himself. In the end he wedged a log against a boulder and pried the truck over it with no gloves, or even a warm coat. Lena thinks she could use a man like that.
She counts the empties in the sink. There will be no Harry this morning.
***
Hardiman’s out back tossing hay to the horses. Lena calls out to him, pulls carrots from her pocket while the horses yank their big heads up and down, Buck and Tramples, another Hardiman joke.
“They look as happy as children,” she tells him.
“They lead an obscenely easy life. And like all animals,” Hardiman leans in and whispers, “they don’t know they’re gonna die.”
“I think Tramples might,” Lena whispers back.
“He can’t be sure. So please,” Hardiman holds a finger to his lips.
“I came for Ches– I mean Luke.”
Hardiman chuckles. “He should be back in a minute. He’s just gone to fertilize Watson’s tulip bed.”
She takes the towpath up river. Chester’s in the plaid jacket that makes him run funny so Lena takes it off when they’re far enough away. The fringe of bank ice has widened overnight. If the river freezes over it will be the first time in thirty years, according to Hardiman who knows such things. The snow is ankle deep and the going is easy so she passes the footbridge and keeps going north, to the cleared stretch for the unbroken view. They rarely go that far, but Lena’s in bootlegger mode and Chester can’t believe his luck.
***
Harry wakes and senses Lena gone. He smokes last night’s roach looking out at the snow then falls back into the pillows when his head starts to fizz. He flashes back on the woman at the bar and his limbs lock, sees the drowned man’s mother, white-haired and saintly, Cagney’s mother in White Heat, top of the world ma. Limbs heavy the rest hollow and empty. His foot tangles in blankets getting up and he tumbles to the floor, cursing and shivering. Dresses in the same clothes he’s worn all week, tries to drink the coffee, but dumps the pot and starts another hunched at the counter as the coffee maker gurgles.
***
Out beyond the ice, shelf-thick chunks crunch on the river current. Lena shouts out to Chester but he doesn’t listen.
“Chester, no! Chest– Duke! Here boy!”
***
There’s plenty to eat but Harry can’t manage any food, sips bourbon and pages through a coffee table book he picked up at the flea market, color shots of Yellowstone and the Grand Tetons. A tad too flashy, but for one, an alpine chalet lit up for Christmas, a splash of warm and welcome under threatening skies. He can go back and forth, from the warmth to the weather, what he looks for in his pictures so he cuts it out and tapes it to the wall. But the effect is lost somehow, all it expresses is the storm and Harry takes it down and tosses it in the trash can with the other rejects. Then he sees that none of them work anymore and it takes a while but he tears them all down.
***
The wind picks up as they reach the clearing. The bank drops quickly here, no room for Chester to roam so he takes to the ice. Still cautious, but making adjustments and soon he’s running and then he’s a blur. Lena yells after him, but he can’t resist going for the open, sloped riverbank. More energy than intellect, as Hardiman says.
“Chester! Here Chester . . .”
The thing he mustn’t do and he’s doing it. Heading to the edge, but tentative, looking back, seeing how far he can go as she yells herself hoarse. Chester draws up close and Lena steps out onto the ice.
“Chester, come here!”
Sliding her feet, whacking her thigh then cheering him on when he bounds her w
ay. Halfway back when something distracts him, a clump of branches frozen in the ice.
“Chester no! Ches-ter! Here Luke c’mon boy!”
But he won’t come. Sniffs at the clump, wheezing and whining and she keeps calling out to him, but it’s no good. She can see the ice is thin around the branches. Chester’s paw punches through it and he skirts away but goes right back to it.
“Nooo!”
He doesn’t crash so much as sink in slow motion, all four paws at once.
***
Harry slips near the barn and hits the ice like a bag of sticks. But he’s okay, except his elbow and the heel of his hand where he landed. He crawls to the drainpipe and pulls himself up, laughing like there’s one thing funny. Leaning in so as not to fly backward then face-first into the bushes.
Once inside he cranks up the heat and checks the car mirror, an inch long chin gash he can press together. Looks pretty deep but it’s hardly bleeding for some reason. When he tries to take his coat off a shoulder socket pops and drops him to his knees. Jesus . . . Jesus! Like broken glass in there.
“Fuuuck!”
Wind howls out the window and he kneels perfectly still, tries to blank out the pain. He knows depression can be seasonal and winter fits the bill, even in Bucks County. Especially here with no one to see you fall, frozen stiff and drifted over.
And it wasn’t important, what he came out here for, just wanted to make a call from the phone in the garage. Talk in private, out here with the cars and the exercise equipment, away from Lena, except she’s not even home and rarely questions him about anything anymore. He just feels more comfortable talking out here. So, who was it he wanted to call and why did he bring the gun?
“Brennan’s bar.”
Harry listens to Ned’s nose whistle.
“Brennan’s bar. Anybody there? Hello? . . . God damn.”
Click.
Not the number he was after, but he pushed the buttons before he could stop himself. The line goes dead and he’s more alone than ever. Then he dials all the numbers he knows by heart, the beer distributor on Washington Ave, Bill the Bookie, Baldini, his long dead mother. All of them ring except his mother’s and at first he hangs up, but then he listens. Baldini squawking, Duffy sounding spooked about something. He can’t think of any others so he grabs a phone book. And right there in the ‘L’s: Lavin, Frank, remembers the time they rode in together when the buses were on strike.
***
Lena’s almost reached him when she hears the ice crack. Chester churns and paws at the hole, but the edge crumbles and the hole just gets bigger. The way he’s honking now, eyes flashing panic, locked on hers as he turns in a circle.
“Luke!” she leans and pounds both knees. “You can do it! Come on Luke.”
She takes a step, then another. The ice groans but holds. She tries to make herself light and it really feels that way. She’s closer now, ten yards maybe.
“Come on Luke! Come on boy!” She holds out a branch, as if he could grab it, then sends it skittering past the hole. Chester lunges and a front leg hooks the ice, then both legs and he scrapes and claws.
“Come on! Come on boy!”
Chester claws and scrabbles but he’s not gonna make it, half in, half out, and fading fast.
“Okay boy, just hold on Chester,” Lena drops to her hands and knees. Snow swirls in her face and she can see through the ice to the rocks beneath.
“It’s okay boy. Hold on, I’m coming. Just don’t–” then the bottom drops out.
***
It will make things worse. He knows that. It will double the damage and seal his fate. He knows that too. But the truest sense of self is to know how far you’ll go and Harry needs to know.
He soaks his elbow in a bucket of snow, nips at a fifth from the case Lena hides out here. And she’s complicit in this, off with Hardiman’s horses while Harry unravels. If she were here he’d still be upstairs sleeping off the night.
Harry knows that depression feeds on itself and the dark thoughts are self-fulfilling. He knows you can cycle out of it, but not forever. It always gets worse until no one can stand you. Harry knows about the downward spiral and self-absorption. He couldn’t expect Lena to live with it forever. His elbow throbs in the snow but the pain eases a bit. Outside it’s Siberia, the frozen Yukon with the drifts drifting and the wind rattling the windows.
She could be fucking the old goat, Hardiman with the dog, the horses and all the answers. The guy’s a wreck, but what does Harry know? He’s a wreck too, but still has his moments. And so what if she is? He should be grateful there’s someone to look out for her.
Harry knows about depression. By the time Gerry got to the hospice he was begging Harry to kill him. Not from pain, though there was plenty, because he couldn’t stand for it to end that way, propped in a strange bed oozing life. But Harry couldn’t, even when he should have, even through the screams and curses. The way Gerry looked and the last words from his brother’s mouth. “Fuck you, Harry.”
He punches in the number but gets the message, a woman’s voice over rap music. No Lavin’s home but he has the right number. And now he knows how far he’ll go.
***
Lena’s first thought is that the water should be colder. That it’s not so bad. Then her clothes pull her down and now it’s cold and she corkscrews in panic. Tries to tread water but her feet are too heavy. Chester chugs over and pummels her under. Lena bobs up and he rakes her face. The current sweeps her beneath the ice but she catches the edge then he’s on her again, thrashing madly for a minute then going under. Lena grabs a handful of fur, pulls him up, but it’s all she can do. Her hands are full, and now she’s freezing. She yells for help but her voice is shredded and no one’s around anyway. She tastes blood but can’t let go with either hand. And it’s almost funny. And she laughs and Chester starts to struggle, catches his foot on her pocket, scrabbles up her chest and out of the hole. Dumb luck and leverage, turns to look but Lena’s not there.
***
“Hello?”
“Hi, is this,” he checks the obit. “Jennifer?”
“She’s not home yet.”
“Is this Marie?
“Yes.”
“How are you Marie?”
“Fine.”
“Did, uh . . . how was school today?”
“Who’s this?”
Harry hangs up. Enough, for Christ’s sake.
***
Chester burrows into the bank and watches the hole. Hears Lena thrashing, but she won’t come out. It hurts him to move but he pushes up then gives a shake that staggers him sideways. He creeps to the edge of the ice but goes no farther, has no more heart for it.
***
Something hooks onto Lena’s foot and spins her around. Her last breath takes her under and her head hits the ceiling of ice. Drifting now, feet dragging, carried under a clump of branches. She grabs and pushes off the rocky bottom. The ice cracks and her head breaks the surface. She coughs up river water, choking and gagging, draining her strength. Ten yards from shore, may as well be a thousand. She pounds the ice with her fist then her elbow, breaks through a few feet but can’t let go of the branches. Her only way out is to swim under and break through again. Lena cries out but knows it’s useless. Swim or die, that’s the fact of the matter. She’s never been this scared or this cold before. She gathers her strength, lets go of the branches and goes under. She feels the bottom rise toward shore giving her leverage and she pushes on. The ice cracks but holds firm. Pushes upward again and it gives a little. Lungs on empty, one last push and she crashes through. She crawls the last few feet, pulls herself up and into the reeds. Soaking wet, freezing, alive in the cruelest sense. By the time she coughs her lungs clear her clothes are frozen. She didn’t even know that could happen. Cold like fire, hateful and cruel, save yourself only to suffer and die. And then, in a blinding flash of circumstance, she thinks of the bootlegger, the odds against him, not ev
en a good bootlegger but you just couldn’t kill him.
Her clothes crackle when she tries to stand, wet spots freeze but her legs move. She works the muscles, though it hurts like hell and the cold is unbearable, rolls to her knees and claws her way up the ledge. The wind hits her at the top of the riverbank and she screams into it. She should be dead. Should be bobbing under the ice until springtime. Bloated, what you always hear about the drowned.
Ringing pain in her fingers and toes, snot frozen, hair stiff with ice. She struggles to stand, searing in pain as blood rushes to her feet. The things she thinks, how she’ll die standing up and they’ll find her rooted to the spot, oh Jesus. Lena closes her eyes, strains to connect to her one remaining function and feels it work, her bladder relaxes and the flow of warmth takes her breath away. One blessed moment and Lena takes a step. And it’s like walking on nails and the warmth turns to blistering cold. But she’s moving, stiff legged as her pants refreeze and she thinks what this must look like. The bank curves around and she sees the bridge, feels the thud of her shoes but can’t feel her feet. If she falls she’ll never get up so she doesn’t fall. If she stops she’ll die so she doesn’t stop. Never stop. The bootlegger never stopped. Fucking bootlegging son of a bitch!
The first time she falls it feels like glass breaking. She has to make herself breathe, then stand and walk. Every step takes everything out of her. No notion of how far she’s gone or how long it’s been but she keeps to the towpath, to the footbridge and past it. No one sees her. Lena falls again and that’s it, she’s finished. Except here comes Chester and he nudges and pokes and finally lies down beside her. Lena hears him blubber, feels his nose burrow into her coat.
