The Trials of Solomon Parker

by Eric Scott Fischl

  The hand that shakes his is damp, soft.

  Boy’s fat as shit, Sol thinks, shaking Billy’s hand. The hell happened to him? The Billy he knew, the one he remembers, was lean. Hard, strong. Even as a kid, this time around, all elbows and ribs, there’d been a kind of wiry power to him. But this Billy, he just looks unhealthy. Flabby gut, tits like a woman’s pushing out against that shabby shirt. Bags under his eyes, sag at the jaw. Hair looks a little thin, even, creeping up from his temples. How long had it been since Billy had even washed that hair, gotten it cut? If Sol had passed him on the street, he would have thrown him some change.

  OK, sure, maybe he himself has a bit more around the middle than he used to, but at least he doesn’t look like a fucking derelict. Some busted-up Injun down off the rez. Don’t matter where he came from, though: Billy just looks like shit.

  And why is here here, now? The doings with Frank Little last night have riled Sol, damned if they haven’t, so why today, of all days, has Billy fucking Morgan turned up on his doorstep?

  Billy tries to restrain the urge to wipe his hand on his pant-leg, and watches Sol lumber into the big chair on the other side of the desk. Again, he’s struck by the disparity in height, as if Sol is sitting on a booster seat, looming down over his own, low chair. It’s a cheap trick but, he has to admit, it’s effective. Sol, the boss, perched up on his throne like Jehovah. He sits himself up straighter, tries to even things out some.

  Why is he even here? What did he think he was going to get out of this? Some kind of satisfaction? He was fuming, at the service for Elizabeth, so angry he could spit, even though he’d suspected, already known, maybe, that Sol wouldn’t show. But to see that poor woman laid to ground with no one other than Dr Rideout and himself in attendance, listening to the minister’s distracted, rushed, uncaring speech – he’d called her Eleanor – it had set Billy’s blood to boil. Dropped into one of his black rages, that came more and more often of late. Twenty-five fucking miles away, and the mighty Sol Parker couldn’t be bothered to spare a couple three hours for his wife. His wife. Mother of his child.

  Don’t worry about it, Bill, Dr Rideout had said. He’d given up on making allowances for his brother, long ago. Made his peace, forgotten him, at least enough so that he didn’t seem to get too bothered by it all. Billy couldn’t forget, though. As much as, now, he’s estranged from Sol, they’re tied together, somehow. Best to not think on just how, but their lives were joined in some way, by shared experience, maybe. Don’t think on it but still, still, Sol not bothering to attend Elizabeth’s funeral put Billy in a fury. So here he was. Finally badgered himself a meeting with glorious Solomon Parker, king of goddamn Butte. He can feel the anger coming again.

  “Missed you at the service,” he says.

  Missed you at the service, hey? What kind of bullshit is that, you pompous fuck? Sol can tell Billy is pissed off. Sees it in his face, he’s not even trying to hide it. Just who does he think he’s talking to? Sol’s surprised at how angry it makes him, just seeing Billy sat there like that, wearing that pissy expression and after all this time. It shouldn’t be like this. He’d expected some joy, maybe some regret, something at least with some sweet to the sour but all he feels, now, is anger. Who the fuck is this man, calling him out? Missed you at the service. As if Billy fucking Morgan has any goddamn right. Putting on airs, the rest of it. Who the fuck is Billy Morgan, anyway? Some goddamn Indian from the reservation, that’s all. Given a white man’s job. Another fat drunk, another suck on the state. Oh, boo hoo, the poor tribes, fucked by the whites. Doesn’t fucking matter, though, does it? It happened and maybe that’s just the way of things. The strong fucking the weak. Things might change in a life but that never will, chief. Way of the fucking world, isn’t it?

  Also doesn’t matter, the rest of it, what maybe once passed before, between them. What was it Sean said? The past is dead. Just a vague memory now. If that, even. He’s Sol Parker. Sol Fucking Parker. Half of fucking Butte is his, and this shitheel sat down in front of him is putting on airs. Missed you at the service. As if the fat fucker has any call on Sol’s time. It’s an effort, born of long practice – his business, after all, relies on corralling one’s own baser urges, at times – but Sol peels a smile across his face, the regretful, rueful one he uses when the occasion demands it.

  “Yeah, bit busy, I was. Sad thing, though. Tragedy.”

  The anger is on him now, clinging to his back, whispering. Tragedy. Billy wants to jump up, over the desk, and pound that false fucking smile into the old man’s skull. The smile that says oh I’m so sorry while tacking on but I don’t give a shit. Does Sol think it looks real? Does anyone? How on God’s green Earth has Sol gotten to where he is now, if this is the kind of false, transparent bullshit he sells? But maybe that’s the point, Billy realizes. Maybe, once you get to a certain station, you don’t have to try any more. Maybe it’s better to let other people just see how little of a shit you actually have to give them. Fuck you, says that smile, and what are you going to do about it?

  “Sad,” Billy says, “but maybe for the best.” Hating every word of it, trying to calm himself. “She’s in a better place now.” Really? What the hell is he even saying? But, seeing Sol, after all this time, it’s put him off. Seeing Sol is real, no matter how angry it’s making him, no matter all the roil of feelings in his belly.

  “Maybe it’s for the best,” Sol agrees, looking down at Billy. Damn right it’s for the best, and should have happened years ago. No reason she had to linger on as long as she did, crack-minded and broken as she was. The girl he’d loved had died, long time ago; what was left wasn’t Elizabeth. Didn’t take a doctor to figure that out.

  Billy’s scratching at the side of his nose now. His skin hangs loose on him, like Mickey’s really, only darker. Boy looks terrible. Again, Sol thinks, why is he here? Does he want money? A job? Fine, to either of those things, they’re in his power to give. Or is he just here to ride that high horse, to berate Sol for some perceived slight. Missed you at the service. You know what though, Bill? I missed you, all these long fucking years. I missed you. There it fucking is. Apparently, though, there you were, not twenty-five, thirty miles away, and did you come see me, even once? No. No. OK, fine, we had a bad spell there, but I would have apologized, had you come see me. Apologized, and meant it. I was in the wrong, but not in my right head, at the time. Circumstances. But no, after all we went through, not even a fucking telegram, but here you are now, not to say hello, not to reconnect, but to walk that goddamn high road on me. Missed you at the service. Not even a how you been, not a been awhile. You piece of shit.

  This is a mistake. Billy knows, now, that he never should have come here. There was no plan, no reason, just that he felt that he had to see Sol, finally, to tell him about Elizabeth, there at the end. She seemed OK, mostly, and then she was gone. Trite story of a life, that, in nine simple words. She seemed OK, mostly, and then she was gone. Why had he assumed that Sol would even care? A man who for almost twenty years hadn’t even bothered with a visit? Stupid, is what it was, putting feelings on Sol that weren’t there. Maybe the Sol he’d known, once, but not this one.

  Billy stands up to go.

  “Saw your uncle, other day,” Sol says. “Whatshisname, Scarface?”

  Billy sits again.

  “Marked Face. You saw him?”

  “Yeah, Bill, what I said. Saw him down on Utah. I don’t know, begging change or something. Just standing there.”

  “Just standing there?”

  “Jesus, Billy, did I stutter? Yeah, just standing there. Looking pretty much like he did before, last time we saw him. Older, maybe. Looked like shit, really. A bum.”

  “Last time?”

  “Good lord, Bill, there an echo in here? You going simple on me, maybe? Yeah, last time.” Sol reaches into his desk drawer, pulls out a bottle and a couple of glasses, fills them with whiskey, and pushes one across. “Here, where are my fucking manners, though, hey? Let’s have a drink. Sl
áinte.”

  Billy takes the glass, necks it without thinking. “Cheers, Sol.” Just like that. Old drinking buddies again. Suddenly, all of it in the open again, staring back.

  “Funny, seeing him like that. Been a long time. You ever talk to him?”

  “No.” His uncle’s been gone for years, vanished, and now here’s Sol, just seen him the other day.

  “Hard to believe, really.”

  “What?”

  “You know, all of it.” Sol waves a hand around, taking in the office. “All of it. This. What happened. The rest of it. Sometimes it don’t seem real, even. Keep expecting to wake up back in our place down in the Patch. You remember that spot?”

  “Shithole.” Billy’s not sure he does remember, not really, so how can Sol? Stories, twisted together.

  “Yeah, that’s for a certain. Times change though, hey?”

  Billy looks around again at this stupid lair Sol’s made for himself. His opulent little hideaway. He doesn’t want to ask the question that’s in his mouth, give it any credence. Any weight. To think these thoughts that maybe he shouldn’t, knowing what he does, but he can’t stop himself.

  “You change it, though,” he says, “if you had the chance? If you could wake up, like you said, back before? Start again?”

  Change it?

  Ah, Billy, you can’t ever go back, Sol thinks. Not like it was. Don’t you know that? It’s there, and then it’s gone, and what you find if you get lucky enough to see it again isn’t what you left. It will never be the same. You might step through the same sorry shit, but you’re not the same person any more, are you? You think that the man you are now can be the man you were then? It’s gone and you can’t go back, Bill, so don’t talk to me about changes.

  There’s a long pause.

  “Why are you here, Billy?” Sol says. “You want something from me, that it? Well, that’s fine. Maybe things didn’t really turn out for you, this time, to look at you, anyway. So what is it you want, then? Just ask, and then you best be getting on, OK?”

  “Fuck you, Sol.”

  It’s out before he can reel it back in. The words squatting there in the back of his throat, maybe, just waiting to jump out. The anger still whispering at his back. Fuck you for all of it, Sol, for this hopeless life, on the edge of crazy, for your fucking part in making it. For dragging me along into your bad choices and mistakes and the rest of this sorry fucking mess. For ruining the good we had, once. I’m so tired of it all. I don’t want this. So fuck you. There it is. Fuck you. Regardless of how he feels, the past between them, Billy knows it’s a bad idea to have said it aloud. Because it’s not just Sol, any more, sat across from him, behind that battleship of a desk, is it? That’s Sol Parker, Sol Parker. A man to be feared, who is starting to rise now, face purpling with anger.

  “That you said, Bill?”

  No backing off from it now, though.

  “Fuck. You. Sol. Follow? Fuck you. There’s your echo. Hear that? Fuck you.”

  Sol almost looks amused, now, even with those hard eyes and a face turning the color of brick. “Sure about that, are you, Billy?” Quietly. Knuckles white, tendons on the backs of his hands raised like ropes.

  “Fuck you, Sol.”

  “All right then, Bill.”

  Quieter yet, even.

  On a window ledge, outside the building, a dusty raven sits watching.

  5.

  Boeuf Bourguignon tonight. Over-salted, over-rich – again – the meat on the tough side. Philippe nowhere to be seen, maybe sleeping his dope off, maybe at something else that Sol would rather not think about, certainly not over dinner. Mark Connor across from him once more, plowing methodically through his food like a horse at the trough.

  “Just a small one, though, right?” Connor murmurs through a full mouth. “These things have a way of spinning out of control.”

  You don’t fucking say, Mark. Sol doesn’t like the sound of any of this. He’s in a mood, too, has been for a couple of weeks now. First that unpleasantness with Frank Little and then the thing with Billy. It wasn’t right, and the taste of it lingers in his mouth like this lousy food. He pushes his plate away, disgusted, the meal half-eaten; what appetite he’d stoically gathered earlier is long gone now. Always back to fire, aren’t we. Round and round we go, la la la la la. “Spinning out of control?” he says. “Jesus, Mark, that’s a goddamn understatement. You ever been down there?”

  “Course I’ve been down there, Sol. Well, been a while, but yeah, I’ve been down there. I understand the difficulties.”

  “Difficulties.”

  “Yeah, difficulties, Sol. There a problem?”

  “There are a lot of problems, here, Mark. Loads, hey? You should be able to see that.”

  “Maybe I got the wrong man, then.”

  Ah, fuck. It won’t do to alienate Connor; a lot of money flows from the Company through him, straight into Sol’s pockets. And besides, he wants to know that, if this thing is done, it’s done right. Spinning out of control is a fucking understatement. “Nah, I’ve got a good man for this. Steady. Powder boy, owes me some.”

  “Who?”

  “You really want to know that?” Eyebrow cocked.

  “No, no, I guess I don’t.” Connor scrapes away the rest of his food, washing it down with a swallow of wine. He leans back. “Listen, Sol, we’ve got things in place for this. That’s kind of the point here. One of them.”

  “You’ll excuse me if I’m not brimming with confidence about that. A lot can go wrong.”

  “You’re an engineer now, are you?”

  “No, I’m not a fucking engineer, Mark. What I am is not an idiot. You get a fire going way down there, who knows what’s going to happen? Even best case, it’s fucking risky.”

  “It’s a safety system, Sol. State of the fucking art, all that. Jesus, you think the Company is going to risk their own mine if the engineers aren’t sure with this? Been tested, the lot of it. New technology.”

  The restaurant is entirely empty. Connor’s booked the whole place out. Still, they’re at the farthest table, talking in hissed whispers.

  “Whose idea was this? Yours?” Connor leans back with a wry expression that asks if Sol thinks he’d ever actually answer that. “Fine, OK, fine. At least not on 25. How about 3? 5 even. 25-level is too goddamn deep.”

  “That the whole point, Sol. Show everyone the system works, calm down the Union. Get them back to work. Besides, there’s that other part of things.”

  “Move them, then. Easy enough to do. No one will think twice.”

  Connor shakes his head. “25-level. Those crews stay where they are.”

  That’s the second act of this farce, pinning the fire on supposed Bolsheviks, a couple of the union organizers that have been doing the most harm lately, with their slowdowns and speech-making and the rest of it. Ten thousand men had turned up for Frank Little’s funeral and the mood since has gone from bad to worse. They’re on war production and the Company says they can’t be having these slowdowns or, God forbid, the strike that they can all feel coming. So some ACM genius, Connor or someone higher, has decided that a fire a half-mile underground, started by anarchist saboteurs, is the order of the day. Show off that shiny new fire safety system while they’re at it, show the Union that the Company is concerned about their wellbeing. And get those men back to work, full speed, sharpish. Make those numbers.

  Sol shakes his head again. “Jesus, Mark.”

  “I’ll ask you again, Sol: we have a problem here?”

  All it will take is one word and he’s out of this. Out. It will hit him in the pocketbook for a while and Sol has his eyes on some expansion that will require capital, investors, those Company men who have come to respect and rely on him, little that they know of the actual details of just what he does, most of them. Maybe Sol is finally in a position to peel back away from some of these dark things he’s doing, like that shameful thing with Frank. Because that’s what that was: shameful. He admits it now, is willing
to. Regardless of whether it matters or not. Regardless of the things Frank said.

  Divest some of his seedier holdings and responsibilities, then. Move further into property and the like, that’s what Sol wants. He has money, plenty of it, but just not enough to do what he wants on his own. Not to mention the more important part of it: those men, his fancy friends, who will cut through the red tape, get his permitting sorted, contracts, labor, distribution, the lot of it. Won’t never happen without those boys. If he cuts Connor loose, like he wants to, now, might be he’ll never get back into this position, leastways not for quite some time, and he’s not getting any younger.

  Fuck.

  “Course there’s no problem, Mark. None at all.”

  In the deep hours of night, later, Sol’s sat up in his bed, the four-poster with the canopy, whole damn thing the size of a tennis court, almost, drinking a whiskey to calm the roiling in his gut. Whether from Philippe’s shitty rich beef or nerves, it’s tough to say. He really needs to get rid of this bed, though, find something more cozy, he tells himself for the hundredth time. Something smaller. After so many years sleeping on a narrow cot, this lumpy mattressed monstrosity of a thing has just never been comfortable. Plus it’s so big that one uneasy part of his mind is always expecting to wake up and find someone squatting there in the dark with him. He shudders at the thought, pushing it back down wherever it came from. He gives another glance down to the far end of the bed, miles away.

  Near as he can tell, though, tonight it’s just him and Kitt, his latest paramour. That’s how she refers to herself: a paramour. Which, near as Sol can tell, is simply a five-dollar French word for working girl, because that’s what she is, even if she costs a damn sight more than five dollars. Never mind that nothing as crass as cash ever changes hands; Kitt is recompensed with jewels and furs and all the other trappings of a kept woman. A paramour. Jesus. At least she’s beautiful and, thankfully, easy company. She keeps her mercenary nature well hidden. Sol doesn’t begrudge her that nature, of course. Most everyone has to have a trade in this world. Hers just happens to be charm and beauty and lips that are big and soft as pillows, not to mention her unbridled enthusiasm, feigned or not, for some of the more nuanced acts of carnal sin.