He got out of the car and climbed into the front seat. He slipped the key from the slit in the visor and unlocked the glove compartment. There were two checks, each with today’s date. Each had been changed. One was for twenty-four dollars, and one for thirty-two. He put them back into the glove compartment and returned the key to the visor.
He stood by the side of the car, looking ahead. They must still be talking. He would let them work it out. His patience would be as inexhaustible as his hope. If his father’s sins were forgivable because he was weak, then so were Omar’s. He got back into the car and laid his head back on the warm seat and tried to sleep.
Later, when his eyes opened, he would sit perfectly still, struck by the sudden green depth around him. The river’s rush would come at him in waves, in snatches of angry voices that terrified him, and he would close his eyes, listening as hard as he could. But then he would recognize the high leafy commotion of cawing crows as they chased off a soaring red-tailed hawk.
Norm and Omar had not gone far from the car, though it seemed so with all their stopping and starting and pacing back and forth. Nothing Omar said made sense or could satisfy Norm. Omar insisted he had not altered the checks. If this was so, Norm said, then why couldn’t he see them. No, Omar said, because now it was a matter of principle, of trust.
“That’s the way life has to work,” Omar added, as if Norm had questioned this, too. As he spoke he snapped off the tip of a birch branch and tore off the small silvery leaves, one by one, without looking. “A man’s word. It’s his most precious currency. And believe me when I tell you I do not give mine cheaply.”
Norm had just noticed a pale-blue piece of paper sticking out of Omar’s shirt pocket.
“The choice is yours,” he said, throwing down the stripped branch. “You either believe me or you don’t.”
“I don’t,” Norm said, staring at him.
“Then there’s nothing more to say,” Omar said glumly.
“I guess not,” he agreed.
“Your mother’s not going to like this, Norm.”
“There’s a lot she’s not going to like,” he said.
“There you go again,” Omar said with a quick toss of his head, as if shaking himself dry. “Threatening me. Look, Norm, understand something here. Your mother knows everything about me, past, present, and future. She knows everything about this business, and she knows I’d sooner die than cheat someone out of their hard-earned—” Omar’s mouth gaped open as Norm slipped the folded check from his pocket.
“Very good job, Omar.” He couldn’t help laughing. A four-dollar check was now a fourteen-dollar check. “Jesus, you can’t even tell. I’m impressed. I really am. Same ink. Just like the old lady’s handwriting.”
A look of fatigue and sadness washed over Omar. His shoulders slumped with his deep sigh. “You shouldn’t have done that. I wish you hadn’t.”
“So that’s why we always had to sell so far from home,” he said, looking at the check again. Margaret Winstead. How many others now hated the thought of him? How many times had they described him to the police? What did they say? Such a clean-cut boy, I told him he reminded me of my son, my grandson, my nephew. “And we never went back to the same place twice, did we?”
“You don’t understand,” Omar said.
“Yes, I do. Really.” He turned and started to walk away.
“Norm!” Omar called. “You know I did this all for your mother. You know that. It was because of her. My God, why else would I do it?”
“Probably for the same reason you did it before with those Negroes. For the money!” he said, exaggerating each word.
“No! No, that’s what gave me the idea, when I read that in the paper, I swear.”
“Jesus, if that’s the best you can do, I gotta go. I’m not that stupid. You can either give us a ride or we’ll thumb.” He walked on a few more feet.
“All right, Norm, all right.” Omar ran up beside him. “I didn’t want to have to tell you, but your mother’s involved in this. She knows all about it.”
“You liar, you no-good—” He spun around.
“She does! I swear! In fact, she was the one! She begged me to do it! You know how she got the money for the business? She was so desperate she forged your uncle Renie’s name on the loan documents. I couldn’t believe she’d done that, Norm. She came out of the bank and told me, and I was shocked. I said, ‘Marie, you can go to jail for less than that.’ But it was done. It was too late. All we can do now is get that loan paid off as fast as possible before anyone discovers the fraud she has perpetrated. You’ve got to help me, Norm. Please. All I’m trying to do here is help your mother. I love her. I’d do anything for her. Anything…”
The rest of what he said was lost in the squawking of the crows that circled overhead and the rasping surge of the river.
“You no-good son of a bitch,” Norm cried, lunging so suddenly that Omar lost his footing and the two of them grappled and fell, skidding down the steep stony embankment until they were only a few feet from the fast-moving river. “Don’t say another word about her, you hear me? Not another goddamn word, you no-good—”
Norm was on top of him now. Omar grunted and struggled, his eyes bulging with terror as Norm slapped his face so hard and relentlessly that it came as a great relief to see him bleed. He could stop this. He was strong. He did have power. He did! More power and guts than any of the rest of them—his mother, his sister, brother, father. The blood splattered from Omar’s nose with every blow. Never again would he be made a fool of. Never again by anyone. Never again! Never again! Never!
“Norm! Norm! Norm!” came a high-pitched scream. Thinking it was her, his mother, he would not turn around. Good, let her see it. Let her see what she’d failed to do. Let her see what he had to do because he loved them all too damn much. Pebbles skittered down the hillside. It was Benjy trying to get down to him. Poor, scared Benjy. Well, there was nothing to be scared of anymore.
“Norm!” Benjy cried as Omar managed to push Norm far enough away so that he could get to his hands and knees; then, rising to his feet, he scrambled to stand up. Norm lurched forward just as Omar swung. The blow of his forearm hurtled Norm in a backward stagger down to the river’s stony edge.
Omar kept walking toward Norm. Though Omar’s back was to him, Benjy could see the sudden glint in Omar’s right hand, the blade at that instant released.
“Norm! Norm! Norm!” he was screaming as he ran down the hill; falling twice, he continued to skid down on his bottom, advancing himself with digging heels and clawing fingertips. They were in the water now. Norm had lost his footing on the wet rocks and was down on one knee. Omar stood over him, gesturing as if unaware of the knife in his hand. Even as Benjy got closer, they still seemed to be a great distance away. Though he knew exactly who they were, he kept expecting to see the others, Earlie and the watching boy. He crept closer. He looked around for the boy, but there was no one to keep him safe now that he had come this close, close enough to see the streaks of mud on Omar’s wet shirt, the darker wet cuffs of his pants, so close he could hear the hideous wheeze of his labored breathing.
Norm lunged again and this time grabbed Omar’s arm, and the two of them locked arms in the same struggle, the same grunting struggle he had seen before. Omar was grappling with Earlie. Omar was choking Norm. Omar had killed Earlie, just as he would kill Norm. “My brother, my brother, my brother,” he panted. They were knee-deep in the running water. Omar’s face was red with smeared blood. There was blood on Norm’s arm and chin. Omar was behind Norm with one arm around his neck while he held the knife edge at Norm’s throat, backing him deeper into the river.
“No!” Benjy screamed. “Don’t, Omar! Please don’t hurt him! Stop! Wait, just wait!” The minute he stepped into the river the icy water stiffened his ankles. Omar continued to back away. “If you don’t stop, I’ll get the police! I’ll get them right now!” he warned, turning as if to go, but Omar kept backing Norm in, deeper and deeper
. The water was at their thighs. With Omar’s forearm bracing his chin, Norm could not speak. He stared wildly back at Benjy, who had picked up a rock and was wading deeper into the water that was suddenly at his crotch. He thrashed toward them, slowed now by the strong current. When he reached them, the water was over his waist. Omar and Norm were both grunting. He got behind Omar and began to pound the rock into Omar’s back, but he didn’t seem to feel it. Stepping away, he hurled the rock at Omar’s head, but it missed and sank into the water. Omar wrenched himself and Norm around. Omar was sobbing. Norm’s eyes were huge with shock and fear. Seeing Benjy now, he stopped struggling.
“Help me, Benjy,” Omar sobbed. “Help me. I just want your mother to be happy. You know that. That’s all you want, too, right? I did what you wanted. I tried to keep this from happening. You asked me, and I promised I would. Right?”
“Let go of him!” Benjy said, his eye on a short thick branch that was bobbing toward them.
“I can’t!” Omar said. “He’ll ruin everything for us. You know he will.”
“Let go of him!” Benjy panted, stepping into the path of the floating branch.
“I have this wonderful plan,” Omar said. “Your mother would be the happiest woman in the world, but I need your help.”
Benjy took another step. He tripped and water bubbled at his nose and mouth, choking him. He rose, gasping and flailing his arms.
“Be careful!” Omar was shouting. “Don’t move, Benjy. It’s deep here. It’s over your head and you’ll drown. You know you will.”
The branch was coming. He reached out, but it was going to be too far wide of him. Omar must have thought he was trying to save himself with the branch, because just then he pushed it closer, and Benjy caught it with both hands. He kept stumbling and going under as he tried to get closer to them.
“Careful, Benjy,” Omar pleaded. “Get back!”
“Let go of him!” Benjy screamed as he swung the clublike branch right into Omar’s face. He staggered, and Norm pulled free, but now Omar jumped at him. They were fighting in the deeper water. Omar raised the knife and Benjy brought the club back again, this time smashing it into his elbow. The knife flew into the air and in its brief trajectory from hand to water he knew without doubt it was the same knife he had seen protruding from Earlie’s bloated chest. The water churned with thrashing arms as Norm pummeled Omar, who was trying to get away. Benjy waded closer, and he swung the club at Omar’s back. Omar had managed to get into the shallow water. With one last surge he pushed Norm away, then was out of the river and scrambling up the hill with both brothers after him.
“You bastard! You no-good son of a bitch! You better run, you no-good bastard,” they screamed. “You asshole!”
When they got to the top of the embankment they saw him running down the road. They chased after him, but he had made it to the car. He got inside, and they picked up rocks and hurled them one after another, banging off the roof and the hood, and then the powerful engine roared on. As Omar sped past them they were still throwing rocks and cursing.
“Look at that!” Norm yelled. “The no-good bastard’s laughing.”
It wasn’t laughter, Benjy saw, but Omar looking right at him and sobbing.
They trudged down the road dripping wet, their own breathlessness sounding at times like crying. Exhausted, they carried their heavy wet sneakers and their shirts, their raw red eyes stinging in the hot sun.
“The crazy bastard was going to kill us both,” Norm said, hobbling over the sharp stones in the road.
Benjy limped alongside. “Yah,” he said, though he did not yet mean it, because in such acuteness, such aliveness as this, there was no death or possibility of it.
There was not any pain in Howard Menka’s leg as he carried the bucket across the church lawn. The only time he ever limped now was in Jozia’s presence. He set the bucket in the grass at the base of the Virgin Mary. He squeezed his rag in the soapy water and began to scrub the pale marble, gently working the rag into the grimy crevices of her eyes and lips until they gleamed. Her chest was hardest to clean because of the gown’s shirred folds. So accustomed was Howard to this chore that he gave her round breasts and hips little thought at all. In fact there was so much on his mind today that he as easily might have been scrubbing the mailbox as the Holy Mother of God.
Grondine Carson was out of jail. He wanted to sell the pig farm and move to Florida with Jozia, but she had told him last night that she couldn’t go. Her brother needed her. When Carson offered to have Howard come, too, she said that would never work. Howard hated new things too much. Howard had been listening at his bedroom door when Carson came and knocked on it. At first he had pretended to be asleep when Carson called in and asked him to go for a ride in his pickup so they could talk man-to-man. But then he thought of all the bad things that might happen if he stayed in there. The worst would have been Jozia going for a ride with him and changing her mind. He could tell she was nervous when they left, but no matter what Carson said, he never weakened. Nothing, not a room in their trailer or the promise of his own, would change his mind. Actually, he would have lived anywhere to be with Jozia, but she was afraid of the pigman now. The police could search for Omar Duvall until the end of time, but she would never feel safe with a man who not only had been accused of murder but had shot her own brother. Besides, Helen LaChance had promised to double Jozia’s pay if she’d come back, an offer Jozia was considering now that Sam Fermoyle was going away again.
“Good morning, Howard,” called Father O’Riordan as he came softly along the path. The shy young curate was not having an easy time of it with the Monsignor, who wanted him to be more forceful and outgoing. Yesterday Howard had overheard the Monsignor talking on the phone to the Bishop about Father O’Riordan’s whisper. “People are always asking, ‘What did he say?’” the Monsignor complained. “I have to read his lips!”
“That’s a fine job you’re doing, Howard,” the new priest said as Howard drew his rag up and down the marble bodice. Even with his back turned, Howard had no problem hearing him. “Splendid statue. An exquisite work of art, isn’t it?” The priest sighed. “The sculptor has certainly captured the essence of the Blessed Mother’s spirit.”
A pool of dirty water was forming around Mary’s feet, leaving slivers of dirt between her toes. As the priest continued to talk, Howard scrubbed. It was time to rinse, but he was trapped here. “She is a beautiful, beautiful woman, don’t you think?” Father O’Riordan said with a sigh.
As soon as he was gone Howard turned on the hose and began to rinse the statue. Water ran down her cheeks and gown. As he walked round the statue, spraying it from side to side, he realized just how beautiful she was, tall as Jozia, with the same long fingers and slender feet. He tried to imagine what Jozia might be doing right now. When he’d left this morning she was taking all of the Infant’s clothes out to wash them. She was probably ironing them now, and then she would fold and wrap them in tissue paper before putting them back in their bureau.
From the corner of his eye, he saw the Fermoyles’ front door open. Sam Fermoyle came out first. He looked away from the bright sun. At the bottom of the steps he raised his head and tugged at his shirt collar. Next came Renie LaChance. Both men wore suits and ties, but Sam’s suit was baggy and the pants were short on him. They got into Renie’s new car and drove away.
Howard and Jozia were going to see Perda next Saturday. He had already started planning their lunch and collecting presents for everyone in the ward, but he felt bad because Jozia never wanted to talk about the trip. He turned off the hose. There was still grime in the hem of Mary’s gown. As he scrubbed, his fingers lingered on her cold wet toes and his eyes widened with happiness, because he knew once they were on that bus Jozia would get right into the swing of things again.
They had packed the car last night so the morning would be calm. Alice was still up in her room. She was nervous, and Marie was determined that nothing would go wrong on her first day of coll
ege. Marie had baked a loaf of banana bread last night and mended her skirt. She didn’t know what mothers were supposed to wear when they took their child to college. “Whatever you want,” Alice said every time she asked. So in the end she had settled on her brown work skirt and a new navy-blue sweater that didn’t really go with the skirt, but it had been marked way down. Mr. Briscoe had given her the day off, but she was going to make up the time on Sunday. Losing a day’s pay would be a disaster right now.
It would be good to get out of town for a few hours, away from all the stares and whispering that Marie Fermoyle had taken up with a con man and murderer. Chief Stoner had come every night for the past week, asking such asinine questions that last night she wouldn’t let him inside.
“Please!” he had said, adding quickly, “I mean, if you don’t mind. It won’t take much time.”
She did mind. She didn’t want to talk about Omar Duvall anymore. She had told him as much as she could. She hoped they never found him, because she didn’t want him back here. She didn’t want the ordeal of a trial. She never wanted to see the man again as long as she lived.
“I can understand that,” Sonny had said. “Especially when you’ve been so close to someone like that.”
“We had a business arrangement,” she had said, drawing herself up so stiffly that her neck still ached.
“Of course,” he had said, too quickly, his face reddening in a way that confused her.
“Alice!” she called now from the bottom of the stairs. “Come down and eat.” Marie didn’t want her last breakfast here rushed. Everything in these last twenty-four hours had been too tinged with finality—the dry cough from Alice’s bedroom in the middle of the night, the scent of shampoo and baby powder drifting by the door, the ratcheting squeak of the ironing board as she set it up in her bedroom. “Alice!” she called again, then suddenly buried her face in her hands, whispering, “Oh God, help me! Help me! Help me!” What was wrong? She had been looking forward to this day for months, for years, and suddenly she was terrified. “Alice! Can you hear me?” It will be like this, she thought, listening for footsteps or her voice and hearing nothing. Soon enough, there would be days and nights long after they had gone when she would do this—call out for one of them, then listen, knowing full well no one would come. But she would have the satisfaction of their strength and their success. That would make it all worthwhile. Yes, she vowed, that would be enough.
Songs in Ordinary Time Page 83
