Ash Wednesday

by Chet Williamson

  He put out a hand and touched Jim's face tenderly. "We're two of a kind, Jim. You just don't realize it yet."

  Jim stood, oblivious to Brad's touch. "No. I don't . . . have anger in me."

  "Of course you do." He tapped Jim's cheek lightly, barely enough to sting. "It's just that you don't know. You just haven't been pushed to the edge yet. But you will be." He struck Jim's face again, harder, so that Jim's head jerked aside, but snapped back immediately, as if he were a soldier at attention. "I bet you've never even been in a fight, have you? Never had anybody hit you for real, huh?" Brad made a loose fist, and backhanded Jim so that he staggered slightly. "Do you think that I could make you angry?" he said, and threw a left uppercut into Jim's middle that left Jim breathless.

  Brad straightened up. "Come on," he said. "Come away from the light."

  Jim followed him, pausing only long enough to let his aching stomach eject the several hours worth of drinks he had poured into it.

  They were in the shadows now, and Brad went about his work slowly, methodically, with the careful placement of a sculptor seeking the correct balance between flesh and stone. The blows were not meant to disfigure, maim, or draw blood, although they did all three. Their purpose was pain, and in that they were most highly effective, although Jim Callendar seldom cried out. His grunts and squeals were bound with the iron of his own fulfillment, so that they seemed to be the calls of long pent-up and suddenly released passions.

  Soon Brad Meyers was moaning as well, grunting with each blow like a butcher killing sheep. At last he stopped, panting, sweating despite the cold and the falling snow, watching Jim Callendar as he lay on the wet whiteness, no longer able to rise to be struck once again. "We'll hear no more of this night, will we?" he said, and then knelt and repeated his words.

  "No." Jim's reply was a red, bubbling whisper, and Brad turned away, walked to his car. Jim lay there for a long time, until the cold started to feel warm.

  CHAPTER 18

  Alice Meadows frowned. She didn't like fights, and the harsh voices filtering from the bar through the decorative fishnet promised a real brawl. But soon they faded, and were replaced by clinking glasses and tableware, music, other more peaceful voices. She finished her sherry leisurely, paid her bill, and left the Anchor.

  The sound reached her just as she was about to open her car door, a thin, unmanly sound of quiet intensity. At first she thought it might be a dog or cat hit by a car, but there was a human depth to it, so she moved toward it and found Jim Callendar, lying against a slatted wooden fence that hid garbage cans.

  "Oh, my God!" she cried, watching him from a few feet away. "I . . . I'll get help."

  "No," he croaked, raising a snowy head. "No.”

  “But an ambulance—"

  "No," he said again. "No one . . . You, you help me?"

  She swallowed stiffly and knelt beside him. Small cuts scored his face, but the cold had made the blood run slowly, so that he looked painted, aboriginal. His lip was puffy and split in several places. His eyes were swollen, the left one nearly closed. The nose, though bleeding, was unbroken. He held his stomach oddly, as though trying to make the pain captive so that it would not leave him. "What shall I do?" she asked.

  "You have a car?" She nodded. "Take me to your car."

  She got an arm under him and heaved. Had he been completely helpless, she could not have begun to move him, but he used her as a lever, rising to his feet of his own volition, gagging as he swayed erect. They staggered together to her car, where he fell into the passenger seat, his teeth suddenly chattering like ratchets. She got behind the wheel, started the engine, turned the heat to maximum. "Look, I'm going to take you to a hospital."

  "No! Please . . . I don't . . . I don't want questions. I'll be all right. If you'll just take me home."

  "You could be very badly hurt."

  "I'm not. Please, please take me home."

  He told her where he lived and she took him there, helped him out of the car, unlocked the door, and guided him onto the living room couch. Then she stood, uncertain of what to do next. "Do you . . . have any antiseptic? Bandages?"

  He nodded. "The bathroom. Through there."

  She scanned the cabinets, noticing the touches of femininity in towels and accessories. She noticed too that large sections of the bathroom cabinets were empty, as if denuded of what they had formerly held. There were no women's products at all. At last she found Sea Breeze, cotton balls, some gauze and adhesive tape; which she clutched under her arm while she soaked a washcloth in warm water.

  Rejoining him, she wiped the caked blood from his face and moistened the cotton with Sea Breeze, which she daubed on the open cuts. She was surprised when he did not flinch as the alcohol seared the raw tissues, but thought that perhaps some other pain of which she was not aware was greater. Then she put gauze on the still-oozing cuts, and secured them lightly with tape. "I hope that's all right," she said. "I've never done this before."

  "It's fine," he said from a corner of his mouth. "I must look like a mummy." The corner turned up, just a little, in a vain try at a smile. "Thank you."

  "Sure. I just hope you'll see a doctor." She looked at his hands, still locked over his middle. "How's your stomach?”

  “Not so hot. Could use some coffee."

  "Warm milk would probably be better," she said. "You have milk?"

  "In the fridge. But look, you've done enough already.”

  “Don't be silly. I won't be a minute."

  The kitchen bore the same male-female dichotomy as the bathroom had, and she wondered where the woman could be. She heated a cup of milk and made herself some instant coffee, then put the drinks on a tray and took them into the living room.

  "Here we are," she said. "This should help." He thanked her and took the cup, sipping from it as though the act hurt him. She drank the coffee, watching. Finally she asked it. "Where's your wife?"

  His mouth wrinkled, and he didn't answer immediately. "That's why I was drinking tonight."

  "She . . . left?"

  He nodded, grimacing. "Yes. Today."

  "I'm sorry."

  He tried to shrug. "It wasn't like she didn't warn me." After a moment he added, "I shouldn't have let her go.”

  “Sometimes you have to let people go."

  "You sound like you know."

  She shook her head. "Just an observation."

  "No. You know." He sipped more milk. "Do you want to know why she left me?"

  "No. I'd rather know how you got like that."

  "Basically the same reasons," he said with a grin. "Who I am and what I've done."

  "That's a broad reason," she said, smiling back. "Who we are and what we do are all the reasons any of us have for what happens to us."

  "Do you want me to pour out my life story, then? It's not wholesome, or even particularly entertaining."

  "The not wholesome part I can believe—but not entertaining? From a man who gets abandoned and beat up on the same day? Now that has the stuff of tragedy in it.”

  “No. Melodrama at best."

  "I like a good melodrama."

  "I really don't think I'm up to it just now."

  She got to her feet nervously, remembering his injuries. "I'm sorry. You must be exhausted."

  "Yeah. I'm tired." He set down the milk and tried to rise, but slumped back into the sofa.

  "Let me help," she said, slipping an arm around him. Together they got to the bedroom, and Jim collapsed across the quilted spread. She started to tug off his wet shoes when he stopped her.

  "Listen," he said sleepily, "unless you're a nurse, I can undress myself, okay?"

  She didn't believe him. He seemed incapable of fluffing up a pillow. "I am a nurse," she lied.

  "Come on . . ."

  "No, really, at Lansford General. I was visiting relatives today in Merridale."

  She wasn't sure if he believed her, but after a moment he said, "All right, all right, I can use the help. . . . Will you bill me?"
r />   "The coffee's payment enough."

  With her help, he stripped to his underwear, and she pulled the covers over him. He looked like a little boy with only his head sticking out from beneath the sheet, and she could not help touching his forehead, pushing his fair hair back gently.

  "Thanks," he murmured, almost asleep. She stepped to the door and turned out the light. "You're not a nurse," his voice said from the darkness. "When you patched me up, you said you'd never done it before."

  "Oh . . . I . . ."

  "Never mind. You may be a liar, but you're a beautiful one." With the next words his voice drifted into silence. "I'm glad you were there." Only soft breathing followed.

  She closed the door and walked back into the living room, sat, finished her coffee. When it was gone, she did not leave.

  She was there when he woke up in the morning.

  CHAPTER 19

  "Hello?"

  "Hi, Kim."

  "Dave!"

  "Surprised to hear from me?"

  "Why haven't you called me?"

  "I did. You're never in."

  "Jesus, I'm always in."

  "That's not what Mr. and Mrs. Davison say when I call.”

  “Those bastards! I'm in all the time."

  "Why didn't you call me?"

  "Dad doesn't want me to. He's crazy about this Merridale thing. He doesn't want anything to do with the town, and he doesn't want me seeing anybody who lives there.”

  “Holy shit."

  "He's closing on a house in Lansford next week.”

  “Kim, I'm not gonna let you go like this. I love you.”

  “And I love you. So what are we gonna do?"

  ~*~

  "Hello, Thornton here."

  "Mr. Thornton, this is Marie Snyder."

  "Yes. Hello."

  "Mr. Thornton, I was thinking that we should have a little chat."

  "A chat.”

  "Yes. You know, I have a bit of a reputation for being gossipy. I don't know if you realize that."

  "No, I didn't."

  "I'm afraid you're just being polite. . . . Are you all right? I can hardly hear you."

  "I'm fine."

  "Oh, that's better. I guess you just weren't speaking up. Anyways, I put two and two together out of something that happened today, and I was just wondering if maybe you'd like to know how I got four?"

  ~*~

  "You think you can really do it, Kim?"

  "Well, if you won't . . .”

  "I can't. He watches the odometer like a hawk. Forty thousand miles on the damn thing and he still figures his mileage."

  "Mom could put thirty miles on it as easy as anything. He'd never know."

  "But without them hearing you?"

  "I'll let it drift out onto the road."

  ~*~

  "That's an interesting theory, Mrs. Snyder."

  "I just thought you might like to hear it, Mr. Thornton.”

  “Yes. Well."

  "I was thinking that since I found it so interesting, other folks might find it interesting too."

  "Uh . . . I don't know if they would. Maybe you could keep it a secret."

  "Some secrets are valuable, Mr. Thornton. How valuable do you think this one is?"

  ~*~

  "Oh, sure, I can sneak out okay."

  "I'll meet you on the corner of Park and Spruce, then. Around twelve-thirty."

  "That's good, good. I love you, Kim."

  "I love you, Dave.”

  ~*~

  "Look, that's just unreasonable. I mean, there may be nothing to this."

  "Maybe not, Mr. Thornton. Only you know for sure. And only you know what it's worth to you."

  "It's too much, dammit!"

  "All right, then—I'll have to hang up. I have some other calls to make. Big calls. Important ones."

  "Wait! Do you know who you're dealing with here?”

  “You don't frighten me, Mr. Thornton."

  “Not me, not me . . . bigger interests."

  "I'm not scared of them either. Besides, I don't think you'd want them to know that you were so stupid as to let a nosy old woman know what was going on, now would you?"

  "I . . . no . . ."

  "Then why don't you come to the newsstand Sunday afternoon. I close at one, so come after that. That gives you until tomorrow to find the money. All right?"

  ~*~

  "I'll see you Saturday night."

  ~*~

  "I'll see you Sunday afternoon."

  CHAPTER 20

  The rage had not left him.

  If only, he thought, Callendar had responded in some other way, gotten angry and tried to fight back, or had tried to get away, crawling and staggering on hands and knees. But he had gotten to his feet, over and over again, like the Lamb of God ready to taste death as many times as was necessary to take away the sins of . . .

  Whose sins? Surely not the world's. His own, then? And Brad's too? But Brad would not let him. If he was not capable of paying for his own sins, then he would bear them alone as well, even if it brought the agony he now felt. Had Callendar done it on purpose? Had he let him hit him repeatedly because he knew that only in that way would Brad find no release in the beating?

  He suspected, but he didn't know. All he knew was that the rage was still there, eating inside him, not with the slow stealth of a cancer, but with the rapid, careless ravening of a weasel gnawing at his entrails, or the constant alimentary torment that drives on the shark to his incessant feeding until only death gives him rest.

  Shivering from the cold, he looked through the windshield at the sky. The snow had stopped, and the stars shone crisply out of the stark blackness. He turned on the ignition and ran the heater once more until the car was warm.

  Three o'clock. Three o'clock on a Saturday morning in the town of the dead. He gripped the steering wheel and pulled out into the street, headed for the Anchor. Threw him out. They threw him out like a dog, and for what? A little noise. Well, he'd give them more noise, and maybe after that, maybe he could rest.

  Getting inside was easy. There were no alarms, no watchdogs, and even the lights around the outside were dim. After all, there were no burglaries in Merridale, were there? He broke a pane of glass with a gloved fist, reached through, and opened the door.

  The lighted Budweiser sign gave the bar its only illumination, but it was enough for Brad, who moved slowly and leisurely, trying to decide what to do first. One by one, he took the bottles from the bar, unscrewed the caps and poured the contents over the bar, on the floor, around the padded seats. Cutty Sark, Drambuie, anisette, lime vodka, Beefeater, each and every one mixed in an ultimate cocktail that flowed into every corner, while hundreds of drips and trickles made the room sound like some rain forest, thick with verdant moisture. It was a quiet, gentle sound, which, combined with the heady odor that suffused the air, made Brad feel magically, dreamily intoxicated.

  He eyed the empty bottles he had left on the bar, but dismissed the thought of breaking them. He was now in too tranquil a mood for that. So he turned to the beer taps, connected them, and one at a time drained them. The bubbling froth added a new, jubilant tone to the sea of alcohol that had turned the bar and its stools into islands, and the mixture began to cascade over the few steps to the restaurant below.

  "Lovely," Brad whispered, smiling, "lovely."

  He stepped to the Seeburg jukebox in the corner, plugged it in, and, his gloves still on, clumsily dug a quarter from his pocket. He pushed it into the slot, and the machine illuminatingly offered him three selections. "Something old," he said, pushing D5, "Amazing Grace.”

  “Something new." Q7, Kim Cannes's "Dying for a Living.”

  “Borrowed and blue." It took a while, but at last he found A4 "Shake," performed by the Blues Brothers.

  The machine engaged, gears ran, there was a soft pop, and the music started, but so low as to be nearly inaudible, Brad heard, barely,

  Amazing grace,

  How sweet the sound . . .r />
  The words were intelligible only because he knew them from long ago, and he frowned, looking at the back of the machine for a volume control.

  . . . that saved a wretch like me.

  I once was lost . . .

  "Shit," he said softly, running his fingers over the back of the jukebox.

  But now am found . . .

  "Dammit!" Only smooth metal, then ridges, rents . . .

  Was blind but now I see . . .

  "SHEE-YIT!" Pounding now on the back, drowning out the whispering rivulets of booze, the tiny, tinny guitar riff somewhere deep inside the yard-wide grille.

  "You fuck fuck, fuck, fucker!" he brayed as he hugged the top of the machine and heaved outward, toppling it onto the floor with a wet, metallic smack. Something hissed and crackled, and the lights went out on the jukebox, in the Budweiser sign on the wall, pressing blackness on the room.

  Brad froze, stunned into inaction. Then a primal fury at being blinded took over, and he swung about, fists smashing into whatever would yield—bottles, stools, tables that rocked and toppled, sending ashtrays, salt shakers, sugar bowls, skittering onto the booze-wet floor. A gurgling scream began to force itself from his throat, and he blundered through the room, the fishnet tangling in his outstretched fingers, falling from the pegs that held it to bind him for a terrifying minute before he struggled from beneath it. Then over and across the bar, bruising his thighs as the beer taps snapped from their stems; legs tangled in stools as he came off the other side, falling and landing on a box, feeling its rough wood, something to kick, to hit, to splinter, and he did, and suddenly, as the wood broke, there was no longer darkness.