A Wasteland of Strangers

by Bill Pronzini

  He wouldn’t come back. If I knew him, he’d go find Mateo and the two of them’d buy some coke or crank and really get whacked. If I knew him … only I didn’t. I thought I did and how he felt about me, but I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. My mistake. My kid. All alone.

  “I don’t care,” I said out loud. “Doesn’t matter. I don’t give a shit about anything anymore.”

  Then I started to bawl. I couldn’t help it. I lay there bawling my head off, with my knees pulled up against my chest, and I couldn’t stop—for the longest time I couldn’t stop. Couldn’t suck in enough air and then I got too much and started to hiccup and then finally I stopped hiccuping and just lay there, tear-wet and cold and empty.

  Empty, man.

  After a while I crawled out from under the leaves and dead stuff and stood up, all shaky and feeling even more weirded out than before. That wind was really icy. Black ice up here, black ice down in the lake. The open part of the Bluffs was off to my left and I went in that direction, toward the road. Once I tripped over something and fell and skinned my knee, but I didn’t care about that either. I wasn’t thinking about anything anymore. I felt so empty and weird. When I came out of the trees I saw the road, empty like I was, leading down, but I didn’t go that way. Instead I walked out toward the cliff edge. I still wasn’t thinking about anything.

  Then I was standing right on the edge, where the ground falls away sharp and straight down. Seventy or eighty feet straight down. The wind shoved at me like hands, so hard I could barely keep my balance. Over on the far shore the town lights and house lights winked and shimmered, reflecting off the black ice. Anthony was over there by now, maybe. And Daddy … Oh, God, how could I tell him? He’d have a hemorrhage. I quit looking at the lights and looked straight down instead. Some rocks down there, in among the cottonwoods and willows … never mind that. Look at how shiny the black ice is, out away from the shore. Lean forward so you can see better. Heights don’t bother me. Deep, black ice doesn’t bother me either. I felt so weird. The dope … Anthony … the baby … my trashed life. But I wasn’t afraid. Shiny, black ice. Lean out just a little farther—

  Noises behind me, quick and close and louder than the wind. And somebody said, “You don’t want to do that.”

  I almost lost my balance turning to look. My foot started to slip. But he was almost on top of me then, a big, black shape that caught my arm and yanked me back and swung me around before he let go. Then he was the one standing at the edge, with his back to it, like a wall that had sprung up there.

  “Pretty close call,” he said. “You ought to be more careful.”

  I couldn’t see his face too clearly. All I could see was that he was big, real big. My arm hurt where he’d grabbed me.

  “Who’re you?” My voice sounded funny, like somebody pulling up a rusty nail. “Where’d you come from?”

  “I’ve been up here awhile. Where’d you come from? The car that drove off a few minutes ago?”

  “Doesn’t matter.” I was still thinking about black ice, but I didn’t feel so spacey anymore. The weed high was starting to wear off. “Why’d you grab me like that?”

  “I didn’t want you to fall.”

  “Why should you care?”

  “Why shouldn’t I? What’s your name?”

  “Trisha.”

  “Trisha what?”

  “Marx, okay? What’s yours?”

  “John Faith.”

  I rubbed my arm. “You’re the guy in the Porsche. At the Chevron station yesterday.”

  “That’s right.”

  “Stranger everybody’s talking about.” I guess I should’ve been afraid then, on account of the things people were saying about him, but I wasn’t. Not even a little.

  He didn’t say anything, so I said, “What’re you doing up on the Bluffs?”

  “Watching the lights.”

  “What lights?”

  “Around the lake.”

  “By yourself? What for?”

  “Safer than spending the evening with an armful of potential trouble.”

  “Huh?”

  “Never mind. You have a fight with your boyfriend?”

  “More than a fight. He’s not my boyfriend anymore. I hate his guts.”

  “That’s the way you feel now. Tomorrow …”

  “Tomorrow I’ll hate him even more.”

  “Why? He do something to you?”

  “He did something, all right. I wish I could do something to him.” Like cut off his lover’s nuts.

  “What’d he do, Trisha?”

  “He got me pregnant.”

  I don’t know why I told him. A guy I didn’t know, a stranger everybody was saying was some kind of criminal. I don’t think I could’ve told Selena straight out like that, and she’s my best friend. But I wasn’t sorry I told him. It was like spitting out something that was choking you.

  “And he doesn’t want to marry you, right? That’s why he’s gone and you’re still here.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Your parents know yet?”

  “No. My mother wouldn’t care if she did—she’s been gone three years and she didn’t even send me a card on my last birthday. Daddy cares, but he’ll have a hemorrhage when he finds out.”

  “Maybe he’ll surprise you.”

  “Doesn’t matter anyway,” I said. “I don’t care. About the kid or his asshole father or what happens to me. I just don’t give a shit anymore.”

  “Sure you do. You care, Trisha.”

  “Oh, right, you know more about me than I do. What makes you so smart?”

  “Hurt inside, don’t you? Worst pain you’ve ever felt?”

  “No. Yeah. So what if I do?”

  “Then you care. People who don’t care don’t hurt. Think about it. The more you hurt, the more you care.”

  “I don’t want to think about it. All I want is to stop hurting.”

  “That’s what everybody wants. Bottom line. Everybody hurts, everybody wants to stop hurting. Trick is to find a way to do it without hurting anyone else. Or yourself.”

  “Isn’t any way.”

  “Not for some. But you’re young. You’ll be all right if you don’t let yourself stop caring.”

  I was shivering again, hard. That wind was really cold. And the high was all gone, and most of the weirdness, and some of the emptiness. I could still see the lake down below, the deep, black ice; then I shook my head and the shiny image went away. I hugged myself.

  “How about if I give you a ride home?” John Faith said. “My car’s off the road a ways and the heater works good.”

  Don’t ever accept rides from strangers. How many times had that been drummed into my head? But I didn’t hesitate. He didn’t scare me; I wasn’t scared of him at all.

  I said, “All right,” and went with him into the dark.

  Zenna Wilson

  THE LORD WORKS in mysterious ways, His wonders to perform. For the second time that day He put me in a position to bear witness to the evil in our midst and do something about it.

  I had just finished checking the chain and dead-bolt locks on the front door, and was standing by the window, testing its catch, when I heard a car outside. It was noisy, noisy-familiar, and when I parted the drapes I saw the disreputable car of that stranger, John Faith, rattle by and swing to the curb a short distance up the street. The passenger door flew open almost immediately and a young girl jumped out and ran off. It gave me quite a shock. The more so when I recognized Trisha Marx as soon as she passed under the streetlamp over there.

  Her house was where she ran to, three north of ours. I expected the bogey to leap out and chase after her, but he didn’t. Took him by surprise, no doubt, and he knew he couldn’t catch her. In any event, he sat inside with the headlights still on and the engine puffing out exhaust fumes until Trisha disappeared around back. Then he U-turned and drove off the way they’d come.

  Another outrage, pure and simple. Had he put his huge, dirty hands on that poor child? W
ell, he must’ve tried; otherwise why would she jump out and run home the way she had? She’s only seventeen. And poorly taught and plain foolish, I say, to let a man like that get her into his car in the first place.

  I hurried into the kitchen. Stephanie was upstairs in her room, working on her papier-mâché animals, and Howard was already in bed even though it was only a little past nine; tired out from his trip and in a snippy mood because of it. A good thing he wasn’t down here, or he’d have tried to stop me from calling Trisha’s father, which is what I did that very minute. My Howard is a good man, a good provider, but he’s too easygoing, too trusting, and he expects me to bury my head in the sand the way he does. But I was born with a mind of my own. Someone has to keep vigil and speak out when the need arises, and I don’t see why it shouldn’t be me.

  Brian Marx was home for a change, not off throwing good money after bad at the Brush Creek Indian Casino like he does most Friday and Saturday nights. He has a gambling problem—gambling is a sin, no matter what the Indians would have us believe; our pastor has spoken out against it on more than one occasion—and that’s one of the reasons Trisha is as wild as she is. That mother of hers is another, running off the way she did three years ago. And with a Jew, at that! Anyhow, I told Brian just what I’d seen, without mincing words, and of course he flew into a rage. He said he’d talk to Trisha and find out what happened. He said some other things, too, but I turned a deaf ear to them; Brian Marx has a foul mouth when he’s upset or has had too much to drink. I asked him to let me know as soon as he knew the whole story, but he hung up without saying he would or wouldn’t and without so much as a thank-you. Not that I blame him for being rude, under the circumstances.

  If the bogey did try to attack Trisha, I wonder if Brian will go after him with a gun? He has two or three rifles and a pistol, and he’s hotheaded. (A wonder he didn’t go after Grace and her Jew when they ran off together.) Vengeance is mine, saith the Lord, but in a case like this, with the police not willing or able to do their job, well, Brian would have every right to do what ought to be done. Yes, and he’d be forgiven at the Judgment, unless I miss my guess.

  Well, whatever happens, it’s out of my hands now. I’ve done my duty and the Lord’s work not once but twice today. If I don’t hear from Brian by morning, I’ll call him at home again or at Westside Lumber where he works. I’m entitled, if anyone is, to a full account of that poor girl’s ordeal.

  Lori Banner

  IT WAS ABOUT ten-fifteen when John Faith walked into the North-lake. We weren’t busy; eight or nine customers is all. But everybody stopped talking when they saw him, just like last night, only this time the stares were more hostile, and in one booth there was some angry muttering. I was the only one there who didn’t wish he was somewhere else, like in jail or lost in the Sahara Desert—and for no good reason.

  He walked back to the counter and sat on the last stool nearest the entrance. That was Darlene’s station, but when I asked her if I could take him she gave me one of her looks and said, “Better you than me. I’d rather stay away from trouble.” She was still miffed; she’d started ragging on me as soon as she saw the new cut and swelling on my lip, and I stood it as long as I could and then told her to shut her face and mind her own business. I didn’t need any more lectures. Not tonight, I didn’t.

  I put on a big smile as I approached John, even though the stretch hurt my lip. Most of it was for him, but partly it was for the customers with the narrow eyes and narrower minds. I wanted them to know there was one person in Pomo who didn’t believe all the crap she read in the newspaper.

  “Hi there,” I said. “Cold night, huh?”

  “Not so warm in here, either.”

  “You shouldn’t let ’em get to you.”

  He shrugged. “Coffee. Black.”

  “Nothing to eat?”

  “I’m not hungry.”

  I poured a cup and set it in front of him. He took a couple of sips, and when I kept on standing there he said, “World’d be a hell of a lot better place if people quit hurting people and left each other alone.”

  “Is that a hint for me to go away?”

  “No. I didn’t mean it that way.”

  “Editorial’s bothering you, huh?”

  “Editorial?”

  “I wouldn’t take it too personally. Doug Kent’s a drunk and a jerk and he likes to stir things up.”

  “… What’re we talking about here?”

  “The editorial in this week’s Advocate. Didn’t you see it?”

  “No. Something about me?”

  “Well, he didn’t mention you by name. I think there’s a copy around somewhere if you want to read it.”

  “Pomo, the friendly town that just keeps on giving. No, I don’t want to read it. I can imagine what it says.”

  “So if it wasn’t the editorial, what’d you mean about—” I got it then, from the way he was looking at me, and without meaning to I lifted a finger to touch my sore lip. “Oh, this.”

  “Pretty swollen.”

  “Not so bad. It just needs some more ice on it.”

  “That kind of thing happen very often?”

  “Why do you want to know?”

  “Just asking.”

  “Well, it’s none of your business, John. And anyway, maybe I walked into a door.”

  “Sure. And maybe you ought to see somebody about it.”

  “A doctor? For a fat lip?”

  “I didn’t mean a doctor.”

  “I know what you meant,” I said. “I guess you think I’m pretty dumb, huh? Just another dumb coffee-shop waitress.”

  “I don’t think you’re dumb, Lori.”

  “Well, you’re right, I’m not. I didn’t have to take this kind of job, you know. I could’ve been a nurse. That’s what I wanted to be—a registered nurse. I almost was, too, and I’d’ve been a good one. I had nearly all the training.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing happened. I quit the program.”

  “Why?”

  I met Earle, that’s why. He didn’t want me to be a nurse; he didn’t like the hours, he said, or the smell of hospitals and medicine, or women in starched, white uniforms. I loved him so much in those days, before the hitting started. I’d have done anything for him in those days, anything he wanted.

  “I just quit, that’s all.” A guy in one of my booths called my name; I pretended I didn’t hear. I asked John, “You want a warm-up on your coffee?”

  “No, thanks.”

  I went halfway down the counter and then turned around and came back. “You know something, John?”

  “What’s that?”

  “You were right, what you said before. People ought to stop hurting each other and everybody leave everybody else alone.”

  “It’ll never happen,” he said.

  “Some of us can make it happen.”

  “And some of us can’t. Not in this lifetime.”

  I really saw him then, for the first time. How sad he was inside. Big overgrown hunk like him, and inside he was as sad and unhappy as a lost little boy.

  Brian Marx

  I SHOULDN’T’VE GONE after him the way I did, I guess. But Jesus, Trisha is just a kid. And she had her bedroom door locked and wouldn’t open it, wouldn’t tell me how she came to be in that bastard’s car or where Anthony Munoz was or why he hadn’t been the one to bring her home—none of it. Too upset; I could hear her bawling in there. I’m no good with girls, I never know how to handle them when they get emotional. Damn Grace for running out on me the way she did. To hell and gone in Kansas City now, married to that union jerk she met down at Kahbel Shores, living the good life, and me stuck here with all the responsibility.

  All I knew was what Zenna Wilson told me on the phone, and that had me half nuts, imagining the worst. So finally I ran out and jumped in the pickup and started driving. Lucky for me I didn’t think to take my pistol along. Shape I was in, I might’ve started waving it around when I found Faith and shot
him or somebody else by accident, the way it can happen when a man’s armed and mad as hell and not thinking straight. Then what’d’ve happened to Trisha?

  It didn’t take me long to run him down. I barreled up Main and out along the highway, no reason for going that way except I’d heard he was staying up at Lakeside Resort, and as I was passing the Northlake Cafe I spotted his car in the lot. Parked there big as life—you couldn’t mistake a low-slung job like that, in such a beat-up condition. I slammed on the brakes, skidded into the lot, and bulled inside the cafe.

  I saw him right off. Sitting alone at the counter, hunched over a cup of coffee. Lori Banner was hovering around near him, saying something as I rushed up, but she quit talking and backed off a step when she saw my face. I’d heard Faith was a big mother, and he was. Hard-looking. But I didn’t care right then.

  I caught his shoulder and pulled him around on the stool and got down in his face, so close I could’ve spit on the scar like a dead white worm across his chin. And I said, loud, “What’s the idea messing with my daughter?”

  It got real quiet in there after that. That sudden quiet like when you mute the volume on the TV. Faith didn’t flinch or jerk away. He just scowled up at me. Man, he had eyes like the guy used to play for the Bears, Mike Singletary. Linebacker eyes.

  We stayed like that, eye-wrestling, for maybe five seconds. Then he said, “Who the hell’re you?”

  “Brian Marx. I asked you a question, mister.”

  “Marx. Right. Trisha’s father.”

  “Yeah. What were you doing with her tonight?”

  “Bringing her home. She needed a ride, and I gave her one.”

  “Ride from where?”

  “Across the lake. High ground over there.”

  “The Bluffs? You and her … that’s a friggin’ lover’s lane! She’s a kid, for Chrissake!”