by Tom Larsen
“No, Chester,” she whispers. “Go home.”
But he tucks himself in and his breath warms a circle in her shirt. Lena hugs as much of him as she can and they tremble together. Chester squirms to get closer. Keeps struggling with those claws digging and Lena has to push him off, her clothes crack and the ends of her hair rattle. Chester crawls back on his belly and sinks his teeth into her arm. Lena lets out a ragged wail of rage that twists her to her knees. Chester barks and whimpers. Lena staggers behind him.
***
The light hurts her eyes and she hammers blindly at the wall switch. Feeling along the counter to the sink and the faucet, runs her hands in the water. A few minutes until she can work her fingers, lets the sink fill with warmth then she’s elbows-deep. The water turns brown but she plunges her head in. At first she feels nothing then a painful warming and she pulls away. It takes her forever to get undressed with all the clasps and buckles, zippers that won’t unzip. The shoes! Ten minutes with the laces and the joints in her fingers sharp with needle-like pain. Chester watches her like they’re still not out of the woods, then checks his bowl, then curls up and heaves a sigh.
Everything burns, skin, muscles, joints. She watches the tub fill, doesn’t turn around to the mirror, doesn’t look at herself. And Lena knows she’ll never tell a soul, gets a change of clothes from the bedroom. She turns on the music. The water cools and Lena drains and refills it, washes her hair, ugh, drains it again, stands under the shower until the water turns cold.
And there’s no one to tell and it’s like it never happened. But her knees are ground meat, hands, legs, scraped and bloody, something happened alright.
Just like Harry not be home.
***
Lena finds him the next morning. She picks up the gun and feels for a pulse, but Harry’s cold and dead. She lifts the phone from his lap and the scrap of paper with the phone number, names she knows. She sits with him for a while: doesn’t cry and doesn’t say a word. Chester pushes through the door and Lena lets him out again. He scratches and barks so she lets him in and he settles by the door so she lets him stay.
Harry’s eyes are open and she leans into his line of sight. How can he not see? It’s a small hole above the ear and she smells the liquor. Sits with him but she doesn’t cry. Then she cries but swears to herself it’ll just be this once, for as long as it takes. It takes all afternoon.
***
She drags the painting tarps from the basement and spreads them out on top of each other. Wrestles Harry out of the chair, lays him out on the edge then rolls him up and under his car. For the next hour she scrubs the place down, splatter, bits of gore, walls, the car, the workbench, the stupid Exercycle. Takes short, shallow breaths and keeps at it until it’s finished.
Harry spends the night under his car.
In the morning Lena picks up another tarp and a length of rope. She pulls Harry out and ties him at the waist, knees and ankles, tucking and pulling until he’s wrapped tight.
***
She hears them snuffling at her approach, Tramples knocking against the stall. They’re happy to see her and she let’s them eat while she cinches the blankets and the saddlebags. The snow throws off enough light to see and the horses fidget as she reins them up and leads them outside. Not even worried. Hardiman won’t be back until tomorrow.
On the way back she sees a car pull down the lane, but it’s just someone turning around. She leads the horses up their driveway, swings the barn door open, walks them inside then swings it shut. The saddlebags are old but sturdy. She throws them over Buck’s back and slips two ten pound weights in each pocket. Eighty pounds, plus the ten she can carry.
Then the hard part, getting Harry up and onto Tramples, not just physically hard, but the rough handling, the bulk, and what she feels through the tarp, his shoulder and knee. Chester gets in the way but she manages somehow and it looks just like in the westerns, head down over the saddle. The horses sense adventure and Lena leads them down the lane. Chester heads the pack around the turn to the towpath. Tramples strains but she pulls him back and soon they’re too far down to be seen.
She smells the river, tastes it, but forces her thoughts away. Buck nudges her from behind, his breath hot on her neck. It’s better to think about the horses and it’s almost too easy. Not that there’s been that many in her life, but she remembers them all. And the picture she saw once of a barn cat sleeping on the horses back and then cats, all the cats she’s known.
The footbridge is unlit, just a black stripe on the river. The towpath cuts in and she tugs the reins, the horses balk but follow her down.
“Good boys, come on, that’s it,” she lulls them along.
When they reach the center of the bridge she drops the reins and looks north, the dark side away from the city. Working quickly she lowers Harry down and takes the weights from the saddlebags. Her fingers are clumsy with cold but she doesn’t stop. A hundred pounds heavier Harry’s too much to pull so she rolls him to the gap. She doesn’t cry, doesn’t say goodbye, sits back and shoves Harry off with her feet. The weight pulls her to the rail but she can’t hold on. Harry hits the water headfirst. The rope curls like a snake on the surface then disappears.
EPILOGUE
So you can plan all you want but you can’t know the future. And when the future falls apart you either fall apart with it or you make different plans. In the spring I flew to Puerto Vallarta. Carlos and I lived like lovers for a time, traveled a bit, took it easy. I’d never known the leisure life and Mexico seemed made for it. Carlos pressed me to marry, but I resisted. He had other women, but that wasn’t it. I was Harry’s wife and he was all the husband I could handle.
Two years ago Carlos was diagnosed with liver cancer. They gave him nine months but he was gone in two. Before he died he told me about the medical report and the bartender from the Black Sombrero. How he’d doctored this and tampered with that, my dark sin spoken aloud and it floored me, I’ll admit. Not just that he knew, but what he did to keep the secret. As a lover Carlos had his faults, but as accomplice he was world class.
With Harry’s insurance and Carlos’ bequest I have all the money I’ll ever need. I’ve kept the house in Pennsport, but I live downtown in a co-op with a river view. I see old friends now and again, but the drama in my life lives only in memories.
I miss Chester and visit him when I can. Last summer we went to the bridge on Harry’s birthday. I stood at the rail and searched the river but there was no sign of him. When I tried to picture Harry all I could see was the bottom of his shoes as he hit the water. I know he’s there but I didn’t feel sorry, I didn’t cry and I haven’t been back since.
I keep his picture in my locket, and part of it’s me and part of it’s the years, but Harry seems younger every time I look at it. Not so often, late at night when I’m tipsy and I need to see a long ago Harry full of himself.
Tom Larsen and his wife lived in the Pennsport section of South Philadelphia – home to Mummers, Flyers and that screw you slant that made this city great – for a decade in the 90s then moved away, then back again. Where the heart is, yo. For a writer auditioning characters, the 19148 zip code is a casting gold mine.
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