He had split a block of dry cedar for kindling and then checked the mousetrap under the bed before he noticed the tingling sensation. At first he thought he might be having a heart attack, that even chopping a block of wood was too much work for a former white-collar employee. But then reason hit him. The heart isn’t located below the belt.
In thirty seconds, Orville had roared the four-wheeler to life. All he could think of on the bumpy ride down the mountainside was that yellow apron Meg used to wear, the strings tied into a sexy bow at her back, the apron with a bluebird sitting on a twig. He thought of how those strings would undo themselves in his hand, surrender themselves, him being a man and all. Orville thought of the yellow apron.
Twilight was moving in, shadow-slow, and a light was now on in Meg’s sewing room as Orville roared the four-wheeler back into the garage. He turned the engine off, taking his time, yet fully aware of the swelling against the crotch of his pants. This was unlike the old days when he used to pull the milk truck into the yard, flip it into park, and bound from the passenger seat, hoping to find Meg standing in the kitchen, that female blush coming to her face and neck when her eyes met his. Now, he was no longer a postal employee, responsible for bundles of letters. He was a retired man, age sixty-five. He had one package to deliver, and it was addressed to Meg Craft.
Again Orville was standing in the doorway, staring at his wife’s back, which was now more familiar to him than her face. It was that blasted computer who saw Meg’s face for hours each day.
“Who lit the fire in your pants?” she asked, not bothering to turn in her chair. “I’ve never seen you drive that four-wheeler so fast.”
“Where’s that yellow apron you used to wear?” Orville asked, his voice calm and steady. He watched as Meg shook her head.
“I knew you were on the verge, Orville,” she said, “what with this retirement thing. But I didn’t think you’d go crazy unless the post office gave you permission.” She clicked a few times with her mouse and Orville saw shiny pots and pans appear on the screen, prices listed below each one.
“It had a bluebird on it, Meggie Lou,” said Orville, “with its claws hooked around a brown twig.”
Meg’s chair swiveled slowly around. Meggie Lou was the sexy name Orville used for his wife. A lot of blue moons had passed since she’d heard him call her that, back in those days when the kids were in school and he’d stop by the house, his milk truck idling outside, all the glass bottles clinking in their crates as they waited for him. Meg looked at Orville’s face first, then down to the generous bulge in his pants.
“What’s wrong with your pecker?” she asked, cautious.
“You shouldn’t use the word pecker,” said Orville. “You said it was crude language, remember? And there you are, using it in front of your penguin.”
“Oh… my… god,” Meg said. She let go of the mouse and put her mouse hand up to her mouth. “You finally did it. You took one of them stupid pills.”
Orville stepped deeper into the room.
“I never took any such pill,” he said and felt a pride he hadn’t known since he and Meg were first married and he had been given permission to feel romantic whenever the urge hit him. Orville reached for her hand and pulled her gently up from the chair. Meg looked like she might pass out, so he put his arm around her. He nuzzled her neck then, remembering how she liked this warm-breath nuzzling in the old days, the kind of foreplay that made her start cooing, little dove-like noises he longed to hear once again before he died. Meg didn’t coo now, however. She shoved him back against the wall, hard enough that the framed picture of Jesus holding a wooly lamb crashed to the floor behind him.
“Now look what you did to Jesus!” Meg cried.
Orville took her face in his hands and tilted it up toward his. He leaned in and kissed her lightly on the lips.
“I love you,” he whispered. The tingling had now grown to a magnitude he had only read about in his brochure. He unbelted and unzipped his green work pants. He stepped out of them, still mindful of the creases, and lay them aside. His boxer shorts were next.
“Let me dial 9-1-1,” Meg pleaded. “You’re having a nervous breakdown.”
“I wouldn’t call this a breakdown,” said Orville.
Penis. Organ. Member. Family jewel. Phallus. Big Pete. Pecker. Maybe Meg had been right. Maybe he needed to give it a better and more dignified name. In the rush of excitement and pleasure that was now pulsing over him in warm waves, the name Dwight came into his mind. That was his grandfather’s name, and it was a good, strong New England name. Dwight.
“Come with me,” said Orville, his voice now low and he hoped seductive in that old way, that way husbands and wives know in the beginning of their marriage. Those were the days when just the feel of her breasts flattening against his chest in a good-bye hug could cause any number of organs to stir. “Come on, sweetheart,” he said. And it seemed that one word was enough to do it. At least, he saw Meg smile, that slow and lazy old smile, the one that meant she was happy to be his wife, his companion, happy to let him take her hand and lead her up the stairs.
When Meg finished undressing, Orville was already naked and in bed.
“You won’t believe what foolish thought just went through my mind,” Meg said. She reached her hand out and put two fingers on his lips, let him kiss them. He’d forgotten what her breasts looked like, outside the truss of that Cross Your Heart bra she always wore. They were whiter than he remembered and now spilling down like soft loaves of bread, and he loved the sight of them, knowing he must look older and whiter to her too. He hoped she wasn’t going to say something to break the spell. In the past, after she had gone through the change, she had told him unsavory things, and he knew she did so to deter any notions of romance he might be harboring. Mostly, she described her symptoms, using words like “dryness” or “moistness,” and once, even “yeast,” as though Meg might be talking of making a cake instead of love.
Orville pulled her forward, felt the warm breasts now touching the skin of his chest, burning him with memory and love.
“What, sweetheart?” Orville asked, his words soft. “What went through your mind?” He knew this wasn’t like the old days. He knew by the intensity surging in him that Dwight was more of a doer than a thinker, cut from the same cloth as George W. Bush, the country’s president for whom Orville had voted twice. Dwight intended to get in there and stay the course until the job was done.
“I was wondering when the kids would get home from school,” Meg said. And as Orville lifted himself gently above her, he wasn’t sure if what he saw in her eyes was not so much passion as the kind of glistening that occurs when one is about to cry.
9
FRIDAY EVENING
Billy tore open the bag of dog food. In a plastic container, he poured three cups of the dried nuggets. He found the half doughnut he couldn’t finish at breakfast and slipped it into his jacket pocket. Then he walked to Tommy Gifford’s house, which sat one mailbox up from his. He knew Tommy wouldn’t be home. He had seen the black pickup with the huge tires crossing the bridge as he ate his supper. At the drive leading up to the faded A-frame, he saw the dog, a black and brown medium-sized breed of what looked to be part collie and part shepherd. It was sprawled, as usual, inside its crooked doghouse, the black nose hanging out in case a scent wafted by.
“Hey, boy,” said Billy. “It’s me.” At the sound of his voice, the dog tore out of its house, dragging the clanking chain behind. The overhead runner, a steel cable stretching from Tommy’s house to a tree twenty feet away, allowed it to get within three feet of Billy before the chain caught. Billy threw the piece of doughnut onto the ground and watched as it disappeared in two quick bites. When he pulled the cover off the plastic container, the dog stood on its hind legs, tail wagging, straining to reach the food. As it ate, Billy knelt beside it, stroking its back. He noticed that the water pan next to the dog
house had turned over and was now empty. He picked it up and knocked away the dead leaves. He filled the pan with water from an outside spigot he had found a few days earlier, at the back of the house.
“Here you go, boy,” Billy said. “You’re thirsty, aren’t you?” He wondered what was going to happen when winter arrived and water would be frozen even at noon. Hearing a human voice, hearing words that were soft and kind, the dog whined and lay down at Billy’s feet. Billy reached into his coat pocket and pulled out the rawhide bone he had bought. “Ever seen one of these?”
The dog jumped and caught the bone in its mouth. It ran to the doghouse, the chain clanking behind. Hearing the chain always reminded Billy of a play he’d once taken part in, back in the eighth grade, A Christmas Carol, in which he’d played the ghost of Marley, the miserly partner who had returned to haunt Scrooge by dragging chains weighted down with cash boxes and keys, deeds and ledgers. Billy was only in his chains a few minutes before he felt something break inside his spirit, something the bones know about freedom and dignity, whether human or animal. That’s why, the first time he saw Tommy Gifford’s dog, a couple weeks after listening to its angry barks and mournful howls, he felt a true pity for it.
A leash lay curled on the front porch, its leather handle faded. Billy picked it up and tested it for strength. When he knew it was workable, he knelt beside the dog, talking to it in soft tones. The animal dropped the rawhide bone and thumped out of its house. It stood on hind legs, tail frantic with wagging, its paws on Billy’s chest.
“You want to walk, don’t you?” Billy said.
He undid the chain from the dog’s collar and snapped the leash loop in its place. He turned toward the road and the dog rushed ahead, pulling and straining against the leash, wanting to break free, something it did now only in dreams, in those places where dogs go when they sleep, fields large enough that their legs peddle and their spirits soar, that place where forgotten dogs can fly.
Billy walked the dog along the river, through the stand of birches with their rattling yellow leaves, a place where no one would think to look for them. For thirty minutes, the river wind had beaten at him, chilly and wet, until he knew he must take the dog home and head off somewhere warm. Back at the A-frame and the crooked doghouse, the dog whined and tried to follow him. Billy went back once, then twice, to kneel and bury his face in the soft fur. He again offered the dog the rawhide bone and watched as it pulled an end into its mouth and began to chew.
“I’ll be back tomorrow,” Billy promised.
It was only when he saw his mailbox looming up ahead that Billy remembered that day’s mail. Already at work cutting Amy Joy Lawler’s wood when Orville made his rounds, he had forgotten to check the box. After work, he’d been busy getting beer, gas, and dog food. Then he had to hurry to Blanche’s to slip the Viagra into Orville’s pie, all before coming home to leftover spaghetti for his supper. So that was the day he gave up? That was when he finally admitted that his dealings with the Portland office were over? He opened the mailbox door, expecting nothing but those pesky flyers, some smelling of perfume, others promising fortunes in contest prizes. And that’s when he saw it. The box was the perfect size and weight and had the same lovely address on its return label. Elizabeth Miller, Portland, ME.
Back in the camper, Billy put the box on the table and turned the electric heater on high. He reached for the Jack Daniels he kept on the counter and took a strong hit from the bottle’s mouth. He wanted to savor the feeling, the notion that he’d soon be back in business, back in social demand, and back in the money. The Portland boys had obviously decided to give him a second chance. He felt a certain pride that the Delgatos still believed in their Man in the North Country, in his ability to sell ice cubes to Eskimos. He wouldn’t let them down this time. This time, he would charge even more for the goods, but the goods were worth it. And in charging more, he’d pay the cousins off sooner than they expected. He cut the binding tape as he had done so many times. Then he sliced a lid across the top of the box, which he opened. He stood for a few seconds, peering down at the contents. All the fire of the booze seemed to fall through his body, taking that joyous rush of adrenaline with it. He reached into the box and lifted from it a finger, the cloth around its severed base a bloody red. Morons. This was supposed to scare him? A fake finger made of rubber, the kind kids use for Halloween pranks? Couldn’t the assholes have found a real digit, even if they had to donate one of their own? He imagined them buying the rubber finger at some novelty shop in Portland, poring over a display of fake fingers and toes, taking an hour to select the right one. That’s when he saw the piece of paper in the bottom of the box. He took it out and unfolded it. Le muerte visitará. Death will visit. Billy crumpled the paper in his fist. Fools. Didn’t they know that the noun death is feminine, not masculine? True, they were born and raised in Maine, full-blooded Americans by the name of George and Ralph Delgato. But they seemed to feel their Puerto Rican heritage, given to them by genuine Puerto Rico–born parents, would elevate them greatly among the functioning nightlife and small-time narcotics trade in the seedy Portland bars that stretched along the waterfront. Therefore, they had become Jorge and Raul, the Delgato cousins.
“La muerte, idiotas,” Billy muttered. He might have had two years of high school Spanish, but weren’t these two dummies born to people who spoke the fucking language? He imagined the two of them, big square thugs that they were, chewing on the erasers of their pencils as they wrote the note. Hey, George… I mean, Jorge, how do you write the word death in Spanish?
Billy flipped the top back onto the box and put it on the floor by the side of his bed. He picked up the phone and dialed that number he knew so well. When the machine clicked on and he heard Jorge grunt that brief, “Yo, leave a message,” Billy did as the machine asked.
“Hey, morons!” Billy shouted into the receiver. “Hey, you big, ugly, hairy, stupid, fucking Spics! Guess what? You’re never gonna see your money!”
***
Murray’s Restaurant & Bar was almost empty. It was two hours before they would order their steaks for the night, with the stuffed and smothered baked potatoes, and the salads loaded with oil and vinegar. But it didn’t matter. They had a lot of planning to do, and they had always believed in several pre-dinner drinks.
“I told you we should have used a real finger,” said Jorge. “This ain’t a TV show, for fuck’s sake. We should have let him know we mean business.”
Raul used his swizzle stick to click at the ice cubes in his drink.
“I thought it would work,” he said. He had been the queasy one all through their growing-up years. He had been the one who passed out when Jorge’s nose started spurting blood that day in the fourth grade when they had the fistfight on the playground. “Besides, where would we find a real finger?”
“Are you kidding?” asked Jorge. “Look around. There are fingers everywhere. See that old man in the corner table? Ten fingers. Look at the bartender. Ten fingers.”
“Okay, so now we’ll send him a real finger,” said Raul. “We can go down to the waterfront tonight. Wait for a sailor to stagger out of a bar.”
“Too late,” said Jorge. The waitress brought them a basket of nachos with a bowl of salsa. Jorge cracked a chip and dipped it.
“Don’t pass out now, Raul,” he said. “This is only salsa.” He grinned as he ate the chip. Nothing Raul had ever done in his life would be forgotten, except the good things.
“But you haven’t killed anyone before,” said Raul. “Not completely.”
“I was never this pissed off before,” said Jorge. “We’re out a lot of money. And besides that, he insulted our heritage. He called us Spics.”
“Oh,” said Raul. “I thought you were mad because he said you were hairy.”
Jorge stopped chewing and looked at his cousin.
“He said we were both hairy,” said Jorge.
“Bu
t I’m not hairy,” said Raul. “When you take off your shirt, Jorge, you’re like a teddy bear.”
“You’re a Delgato,” said Jorge. “Of course you got hair on your chest. Fuck, I bet Grandma Delgato had more than we do.”
“Ever wonder why I never take off my shirt at the swimming pool?” asked Raul. “I even swim with it on?”
Jorge’s grin was slow and he enjoyed the way this knowledge was settling on him.
“You mean your chest is all smooth and shiny?”
“Maybe not shiny.”
“What does it matter? He called us Spics. Big, ugly, hairy, stupid Spics.”
“You might be big and hairy, but you’re not ugly,” said Raul.
“And you’re not.…” Jorge stopped. He had gone far enough.
“Still,” said Raul. “I don’t like the idea of killing someone. You could go to jail for life.”
“We, Raul,” said Jorge. “We could go to jail for life. You’d be an accomplice.”
“It would be better not to completely kill him,” said Raul. It was true that even a bowl of salsa sometimes unnerved him, especially when Jorge was eating it as he double-dipped the chips and some of the salsa stayed on his chin, as did droplets of blood when Jorge cut himself shaving, which was every time he shaved.
“I won’t know until I start,” said Jorge. “But I know one thing. I don’t intend to stop until I hear something crack.” He pulled a map of Maine from the bottomless pocket of the trench coat, unfolded it, and spread it open on the table. He pointed to Mattagash, at the northernmost peak, at the end of a solitary road through green bumps and blue circles that Raul guessed would be mountains and lakes.
The One-Way Bridge Page 12
