Absolute Rage

by Robert K. Tanenbaum

  “Good dog!” said Marlene. “Good daughter! He’s coming along, I see.”

  “Pretty well. He’s a willing worker. I hope you made drinks, I’m dying of thirst out here.” Lucy gestured to the far side of the field. “I’ll go get Dan.”

  “Dan’s here?”

  “Yeah. You hired him and he showed up.”

  “I didn’t expect him after last night. Besides, I hired him to train the goddamn computer, not the dogs. Wasn’t he hungover?”

  “He was. But he’s noble. And responsible. He stumbled in at seven this morning while I was getting Gringo out, so I gave him Malo and showed him, so to speak, the ropes.”

  Marlene shrugged. “Well, tell him he can have a drink, too.” She turned back to the barn. Lucy took a zigzag dog-training route across the field and watched Dan work his dog for a while. Malo was a stiff-necked bruiser, heavier than his brother, and Dan was doing a good deal of dragging. He was sweat-soaked; his face was an unhealthy yellowish gray.

  “He’s a toughie,” observed Lucy.

  Dan jerked his lead hard enough to pull the head off an Airedale. Malo gave him a hurt look and then ambled along in the new direction as if he had just decided that it was more interesting.

  “That’s it,” she said. “The first principle of Kohler training: where the dog’s head goes, the rest of him must follow.”

  “I’m used to it,” Dan said. “He reminds me of my father.”

  They began walking side by side across the field. After an interval she asked, “Does that happen often? Last night, I mean.”

  Dan snorted. “Invariably. Emmett and I started jumping him when he was sixteen and I was fourteen. Before that, he’d break things or knock Mom over.” Dan paused and color came into his face. “I don’t . . . it’s not like he was mean or anything—just out of control. He never hit her or anything. Mom’s always making excuses for him—he’s under stress, he works hard, we have to be understanding.”

  “And are you? Understanding.”

  “Yeah, to an extent. It’s traditional. A man gets drunk and starts fights. That’s what men do. And all is forgiven afterwards. The cutoff line is does he beat the wife and kids and does he drink on the job, and I have to say Red Heeney’s on the good side of that. And really, he’s a great man. Words my mother taught me.”

  “So why does he act that way if he’s so great?”

  “Because he’s angry at all the misery and injustice in the world that he can’t get his hands on to beat up. So he beats up on anyone handy when he’s got his load on. Maybe it’s even true. My mom believes it, that’s for sure.”

  “But?”

  He smiled at her. “I guess there was a but in there. Smart of you to pick it up.”

  “Language is my game,” she said coolly.

  “Right, I’ll have to watch myself. Anyway, the but is, I’m tired of it. I’m tired of all that like last night. And what causes it. Because it’s . . . I don’t know . . . finished, all that old working-class stuff. He wants it to be like that again and it can’t, not like the twenties and thirties, with the union songs and the struggle. All his guys, this pathetic little union he’s got there, all they want is a satellite dish and a Camaro and enough booze or weed to get shit-faced. When you come right down to it, it’s a company union. Always has been up there in Robbens County. They killed all the real union guys back in ’23, and since then the company’s had this cozy relationship, first with the underground miners and now with the pit mine equipment operators. The UMW couldn’t get in there and neither can the clean unions like the Operating Engineers. He wants class-consciousness, but the only thing they care about is if you’re from here or from away, which is the whole planet that isn’t Robbens County. And your family, they care about that. Are you a Jonson or a Cade boy? Or a Weames. I got to hand it to him, it’s amazing he’s gone as far as he has. He actually has a shot at making Weames have to steal the election.”

  “Isn’t that, like, illegal?”

  “Oh, right, legal! This is Robbens County we’re talking about, not the United States. And, yeah, I should support him and all, because he’s right, and sacrifice myself like he did, and like he made my mom do, and Emmett. But—okay, here’s the big but—I want to just have . . . I don’t know, like a normal life. A family you can bring somebody home to without them getting a quiz on their place in the class structure and a lecture about what went on in the mines in 1919 and how unjust and cruel.” He laughed. “Right, poor me . . . it’s so boring it makes me puke.”

  “I know what you mean,” she said.

  “Not really,” he said, a little bitterness creeping into his voice for the first time. “I mean, you have this nice normal family. . . . What’s so funny?”

  “Oh, nothing,” she said when she had brought herself under control. “My normal family life.” To his confused look she said, “Oh, forget it. Come on, I could drink a quart,” and she trotted away with her dog.

  * * *

  That afternoon, Karp was standing in the shade of the barn, watching Ireland and Russell work another dog, a Doberman, on the spring lead. They were using a sleeve, a thickly padded device that Russell wore on his right arm. He was annoying the animal with a switch, and when the dog leaped at him, he allowed it to grab the sleeve and tear it off him. Russell then retreated out of sight and allowed the dog to chew up the sleeve for a while. The agitator had, of necessity, a sure sense of exactly how far the dog could lunge against the spring. Karp, watching, felt sorry for the dog, with whom he identified. He had been trained in very much the same way and was currently in a situation not unlike that of the plunging, snarling Doberman. After a number of such sessions, Ireland took the dog back to its cage and Russell walked over to Karp, sat down with his back against the barn, and lit a cigarette.

  “So that’s how it’s done,” Karp said. “Do you ever get bitten?”

  “Me? Hell, no. Guys have been tore up pretty bad, if they don’t know what they’re doing. I seen a dog rip a guy’s face off, once. Grabbed him on the cheek and whang! The whole thing, the whole half of his face, just come off like a fuckin’ glove.” He gestured with his cigarette. “You got company.”

  The dogs broke out their chorus as a battered, dark blue Jimmy with West Virginia plates rolled into the yard. Its left fender was pink with Bondo and its chrome was dented. A working stiff’s car, Karp thought, and wondered if it was that way by design. Emmett Heeney was driving and looked uncomfortable, almost grim. The passengers were Rose Heeney and her daughter. They got out and Rose walked over to Karp.

  “I realize you probably never wanted to see me again,” she said, “but I had to come over and apologize.”

  Karp shrugged and put on a smile. “No problem. It happens.”

  “He doesn’t know what he’s saying,” she added. “He’s under a lot of stress.”

  “It’s fine, Rose,” Karp said, now becoming a little embarrassed himself. “You want to see Marlene? I think she was in the barn.” Rose turned to go. “And I was just going to take the boys to the beach. If Lizzie wants to come . . . ?”

  Rose smiled a grateful assent. She entered the barn, with Lizzie running ahead, and stumbled on something. She paused to let her eyes adjust to the dimness. She was thinking, I am so good at this, and reflected on what a shame it was that pride could not really be taken in what was her one real skill: pretending not to be mortified, the kind of charm she had learned at her mommy’s knee early, learning to lie about Mom and Dad not being available and charming the men who came about the bills one has when one is trying to keep up appearances without quite enough liquidity. She had thought that marrying a dragline operator from West Virginia, a man dedicated to the fight for justice, would have excused her permanently from mortification, but it had not proved to be the case. She had nearly stopped feeling sorry for herself—it was by now a routine, the famous Wickham shit-eating grin, a little la-di-da toss of the head, crude to be angry with such a one, right? And by extension with the one
who had done the damage, broken the window or the jaw—although she still felt for the children, not Emmett so much, but for Dan; Lizzie was starting to be old enough to understand, too.

  The dogs were barking and she had to call out. Marlene appeared out of the gloom, wiping her hands on a towel. She shouted at the dogs to shut up, which they did. Rose went into her cringe. Marlene ignored it and said, “Want a beer? I’m having one.”

  They went into the kitchen. Rose declined the beer, accepted an iced tea. Marlene said, “Well, that wasn’t the worst party I ever went to. No one got shot and we didn’t even have to call the cops. Or an ambulance. I expect you’ve been in situations where there were both.”

  Rose felt herself blush. She nodded. “Yes. He’s famous in McCullensburg for it. I’m sorry. I thought, well, away from home . . . a civilized little gathering.” She looked up at Marlene and found a colder face than she had expected.

  “You’re not angry at me, are you?”

  “I don’t know yet. Let me ask you straight: Do you know me?”

  “Know you . . . ?”

  “Yeah. Do you know who I am? What I used to do? I mean, is this hanging around me you’ve been doing, cultivating me and so on, connected with what went on last night? You’re not looking for a little help, are you? In your domestic situation, I mean.”

  As soon as Marlene said this, she saw from the confused and shocked expression on Rose Heeney’s face that she had been off base and felt a flash of shame.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Rose exclaimed. “You think I need a . . . whatever you are, a private detective?”

  “Not as such . . . calm down, Rose. Sit down and finish your tea. Okay, I was out of line and I apologize. It’s just that I used to have a business—actually according to my husband, it was more of a crusade—in which I . . . um . . . discouraged guys from beating up on their wives.”

  “Discouraged? You mean like counseling?”

  “In a manner of speaking. It was an extremely firm kind of counseling. Tough love on steroids.” A blank look. “Not to put too fine a point on it, along with several accomplices, I beat them up. On several occasions I had to shoot them, or trained the women in question to shoot them, and they did.”

  “You mean . . . dead?”

  “On several occasions. The point of which is that I have a rep that’s still alive in the City, and of course I forgot you don’t come from the City. But anyhow, from time to time, a woman drifts into my life and inveigles me into an acquaintance in the hopes that I will fix her domestic situation.”

  “And you thought . . . I mean, that I wanted you to fix Red?”

  “Yeah. So sue me, I’m a little paranoid.”

  Rose was staring at her, wide-eyed. Then she made a couple of preparatory snorting noises and burst into laughter. After a startled moment, Marlene joined in.

  “They don’t,” Rose got out amid the guffaws, “they don’t have that kind of service in McCullensburg, but if you ever wanted to open a branch office . . . oh, my!”

  “Yes, well, easy for you to laugh,” said Marlene after they had descended to chuckles. “It’s no fun turning off the desperate. But you can see where . . .”

  “Oh, sure, I understand. But the fact is, even though he acts like a big redneck bully, he loves me and the kids and there’s never been anything remotely violent between us, with the exception of subduing him when he gets out of hand, like you saw. Do I wish he didn’t do it? Yes, of course, but we have a good marriage and there are worse things, which I probably don’t have to tell you. As a matter of fact, by McCullensburg standards, he’s a sensitive New Age man.”

  “What’s so funny?” said Dan Heeney, coming in from the next room. Marlene had started him on the farm accounts, which were in a fearful mess, and he had fallen into the concentration stupor of the computer jockey, tweaking files and exploring the old Macintosh, until the noise of the two women brought him back to earth.

  “Oh, Dan, you’re here,” said his mother, arranging her face from hysterical back into the familiar lineaments of Mom. “Can you spare a minute? We need to discuss something.”

  “The answer is no,” he replied, his face sullen.

  Rose said sharply, “Dan!” and then got up and said to Marlene, “Oh, God, I’m sorry, you’ve had enough of the Heeney family business. We’ll talk outside.” She went through the screen door, and after a moment’s hesitation, Dan said something nasty under his breath and followed her out.

  Marlene sat there, quite happy not to be involved. A little guilty, but she could live with it. She stood, intending a little discreet eavesdropping, but sat again and took a swallow of beer. She rubbed the cold can against her forehead and listened to the refrigerator clunk.

  From the doorway of the barn, Lucy could see Dan and his mother on the other side of their car, just the tops of their bodies over the hood of the Jimmy. She couldn’t hear what they were saying, but she could read the body language. Rose was arguing with him, her body stiff and bent a little toward him; he was turned slightly away with his face averted. Suddenly he broke away with a shake of his head and started back toward the house. His mother went after him and clutched at his sleeve, but he pulled away. Then Emmett leaped from the cab, caught up with Dan, grabbed him, and spun him around. Lucy heard their voices raised. Both their faces had gone red. Emmett shoved Dan toward the truck, Dan shoved him back, and when his brother snatched at the front of his shirt, Dan popped him one in the mouth, a short left. Emmett stepped back and felt his mouth. He looked at the blood on his hand and went at Dan.

  Lucy knew a thing or two about boxing, and she could see that neither of them was a skilled boxer, just fairly decent bar fighters. Half a dozen blows traded, and a little wrestling, and then they were down on the ground, each trying to choke and pummel the other into submission. Emmett, bigger and heavier, soon got astride his brother and rained blows on his face. Their mother was screaming, now, “Stop it, oh, stop it,” Lucy could hear that much. Rose bent over and tried to separate them, pulling at their clothes, their hair. A random elbow or knee clipped her in the jaw and she sat down hard. She put her face in her hands and wailed, a high, hopeless sound, like a small child. The twins and Lizzie, who had been playing with the puppies in the barn, came running out to stand next to Lucy. The boys watched in fascination. Lizzie bit her lip and was very still.

  Lucy started toward the fight, not really thinking about what she would do when she arrived, but here she was forestalled by the arrival of her father and the agitator Russell. Russell yanked Emmett off Dan. Lucy could see blood all over Dan’s face, and before she quite knew it, she was running toward him. She saw Emmett throw a clumsy punch at Russell, who ducked it and countered with a short, solid blow to the solar plexus. To Lucy’s vast surprise, she saw her father slip behind Emmett and put him in a competent-looking half nelson. The young man bucked and yelled, but Karp was able to jam his face up against the truck and held him there, talking calmly, until, by a nod of his head, Emmett indicated he was through fighting.

  Daniel had vanished. As soon as his brother was off him, he had taken off running. Lucy called out to him, but he ignored her and ducked between the house and the greenhouse, heading toward the big field, the dunes, and the beach. Lucy looked in the direction he had gone for a moment and then went to see if she could help Mrs. Heeney. Marlene was already on the job, however.

  “What the hell, Rose! What was going on here?” Marlene helped Rose to her feet and examined her face. “Christ, you’re going to have a fat mouse there. What happened?”

  “Marlene, I don’t want to talk about it,” said Rose, pulling away and brushing the dirt from her blouse. “I’m fine. Just let me go home.”

  Emmett said, “I’m sorry, Mom.” He actually hung his head. Lucy noted that he had turned from a somewhat frightening man to a sheepish, overgrown boy.

  “Oh, just get in the truck, Emmett!” Rose snapped. “Lizzie! Come on, we’re going.”

&nbs
p; They departed without another word. Karp and Marlene exchanged a look and a shrug. “Well! Who wants to go to the beach?” he said cheerily, got a yell of assent from his sons, and took them into the house.

  “What happened?” Lucy asked her mother.

  “Damned if I know. She wanted Dan to do something he didn’t want to do but his Dad wanted him to, and Emmett apparently tried to muscle him.”

  “He wants to stay here and not go home to West Virginia. I’m going to go after him.”

  Lucy ran into the house and emerged a minute later with a bulging plastic freezer bag. She whistled up Gog, who emerged from the barn drinking and drooling but, as ever, game for a walk.

  She followed the dog past the field and across the road and into the dunes and found Dan sitting near the place they had gone the first day.

  “Are they gone?” he asked.

  “Yes.” She knelt in front of him and took a damp washcloth out of the bag.

  “How did you find me?”

  “I have an expensive tracking dog. Hold still, I’ll get the blood and dirt off you.”

  She did so, gently and carefully. He closed his eyes and let her do it. He thought of his mother doing the same service, innumerable times, and considered in his analytic way just why this was different. He closed his eyes and let her work; he could smell the soap on her skin as she leaned close.

  “There.” She affixed a Band-Aid to a cut on his eyebrow. “You still look like you lost a fight, but you won’t scare the children.”

  “Thank you. Are we playing doctor now?”

  She ignored this. “What was he trying to do, your brother? Take you back by force?”

  “Something like that. Emmett isn’t really stupid, he just acts like it sometimes. Dad is God Almighty and I’m his play-pretty, and—”