City of Rose

by Rob Hart

  His eyes go wide.

  He fires again, but even the fake bullets are gone, so the gun clicks.

  “And this week has been full of nothing but pain in the ass bullshit,” I tell him. “But finally something worked in my favor, because the bullets fit. I was really worried about that. This wouldn’t have been a very good plan if I was really going to let you shoot me.”

  I’m nearly on top of him now, and he reaches back to hit me with the gun. He swings it at me and I throw up my arm to block his, push him back against the car. He backs up a little, to put some distance between me and him, but he’s on the balls of his feet, ready to lunge. I try to keep my voice calm and even.

  “We don’t need to do this,” I tell him. “We can solve all of this right now.”

  He seems to think about it.

  Then he throws the gun at me.

  I put my arms up to protect my face and it smashes into my forearm, which hurts like fuck, and as I’m leaning forward to cradle it he comes at me. I throw a quick jab to stun him. He reels back and hits the hood of the car. Falls backward onto it, struggling to stay upright.

  Now I’m annoyed.

  When he gets to his feet I throw my fist into his stomach, hard. It’s a preventative measure. I just need him to stop struggling. He doubles over and falls to the ground.

  I pick up the gun, stuff it into my pocket, and head back over to Wilson, who’s trying to get up. He launches himself at my legs. We tumble to the ground and he scrambles to get on top of me, but I’m stronger so I flip him around.

  Instead of punching him in the face, I grab him by the collar and pull him close. “Where do the Becks live?”

  He spits blood into my face so I jab him in the chin.

  “Tell me where and this is over,” I say.

  He sputters. I hold onto his collar and slowly reach my fist back to hit him again.

  “Tillamook.”

  “Good.”

  I jab one more time, because he deserves it.

  That’s not too much, right?

  His head drops back against the pavement and I climb up, dust myself off. Wonder what to do next. Maybe it’s finally time to call the cops. He’ll have to explain the gun. I’m going to get in a shitload of trouble but it should keep the attention off Crystal, and she can get Rose and this whole thing will be over.

  Fuck what happens to me. I don’t care what happens to me.

  I’m glad that I kept a promise.

  To Crystal, and to myself.

  There’s a shuffling sound behind me. Wilson has gotten to his feet and he’s charging at me. Arms flailing, face twisted and red.

  “Motherfucker,” I tell him.

  The world slows down and I run through my options. Sidestep and throw my foot out to trip him. Move completely out of the way. But I am still angry at all the grief he’s caused, so I throw an uppercut.

  It’s a perfect land, so hard that a jolt runs from my fist through the rest of my arm, and his head snaps back and his feet come off the ground.

  He arcs through the air and his head cracks against the bumper of the car with a deep, wet snap.

  His body goes limp.

  I wait for a second. Look at him lying there out in the sun. The whole world quiet and laid bare.

  He’s not moving.

  After a few moments, he keeps on not moving.

  I drop to a knee next to him. His head twisted away from his shoulders at an inhuman angle. I reach for his neck to check for a pulse, but his eyes are wide globes of glass in his head.

  It’s the way my grandmother looked in her hospital bed moments after she died. The way the muscles in the face go lax and droop back. Everything drained out of it. Dead in movies never looks like dead in real life.

  Dead in real life doesn’t look like anything else. It’s impossible to mistake.

  Something in the middle of me drops out and crashes to the ground, shattering. So much broken there’s no hope of putting it back together.

  There’s a shovel in the trunk. I find it when I shove Wilson’s rag-doll body inside it. He must have had a clear idea about his endgame. I can see my hands loading his body into the trunk, his head rolling around on his neck, nearly untethered, but I can’t feel the weight of him.

  The sun is gone now, disappeared again behind clouds that stormed in from the horizon, bringing with them a light drizzle and the pleasant smell of petrichor. By the time I get behind the wheel of Wilson’s car, it’s pouring.

  I drive. I don’t know where I’m driving to, but I drive, making turns, on autopilot. Heading in the direction of Mount Hood, because it’s the only thing I can think to do.

  The city disappears, replaced by huge swaths of trees, the snow-peaked cap of Mount Hood poking its head out, disappearing, reemerging. I don’t know why this is the guidepost I need. Maybe because it’s there. Maybe because I know it’s remote.

  Maybe it’s just a thing to focus on.

  With the rain picking up I can’t see much, but suddenly there’s a turn-off for a hiking trail, and I pull into the small gravel lot, big enough to fit six or so cars around a small footpath that disappears into the trees. There’s one other car, pulling out, the rain having ruined the few stray moments of sunshine, and with it the hopes of those who thought it might last.

  I park as close as I can get to the trail, leave my cowboy hat on the seat, climb out of the car, and wait a few minutes to make sure no one is there. Within moments of standing in the rain, I’m soaked clean through, my hair plastered down into my eyes.

  It’s water. Things could be worse.

  I try to light a cigarette but it very quickly becomes a waterlogged mess so I pitch it to the ground.

  No one’s pulled in. No one’s coming down from the trail. I pop open the trunk and Wilson is still there, his neck kinked, his eyes still glass. I watch the raindrops smack and bloom on his shirt, turning the gray fabric black, and haul him onto my shoulder.

  He’s not heavy. I was going to come back for the shovel but I think I can manage it, so I pick that up, too.

  I walk the trail for a couple of minutes, the rain lessened by the canopy of trees over us, and cut to the side when I find an area that I think might be level ground. Be careful where I step so I don’t fall. This weight on my back, pushing me down into the wet earth.

  The thick smell of feces cuts the air. I don’t know if I stepped in something or if it was him. I hear dead bodies will often evacuate their bowels.

  It helps to make some of this sound clinical.

  After I’ve walked so long that my shoulders are burning and I can’t see the trail anymore, I drop Wilson behind me but I don’t turn around to look at him.

  At the base of a massive tree, where the ground is soft but not saturated, I start digging. I lose myself in the work, in the feel of the wooden shovel handle and the way it rasps against my hand, throbbing where the beer bottle cut into it. In the rain patting down on the back of my head and cooling me.

  These are the things I know: Wilson was a bad person. He split up a family. He was willing to kill me. Maybe kill Crystal, if it came to that. He tried to destroy Tommi’s livelihood. And now those people are safe, will be safe, because he’s gone.

  Who knows what other sins he’s committed? Probably more.

  These are the things I repeat to myself. But they sound like knocking on an empty wall. There’s nothing behind them.

  Hey, Chell.

  Hey, Dad.

  Here I am. This is me.

  What do you think?

  Dad, did you ever expect I would take your sterling example of heroism and twist it around until I turned myself into an agent of fucking doom?

  Chell, all those times you warned me to calm down, be smart—how upset are you now that I’ve proven myself unable to take your advice?

  I know you’re both dead and gone but I’m afraid to turn around, for fear I’ll find you both standing there in the rain, arms folded. Shoulder to shoulder, hair and clothes soa
ked. Looking down on me as I dig this hole. Disappointed beyond repair.

  Is it weird that you’re the ones I feel compelled to apologize to right now?

  And Chell, remember that time we were walking through Washington Square Park, and some asshole sitting on the lip of the fountain catcalled you? He said something about your tits. I turned without thinking, totally on instinct, ready to smash the guy’s face into pieces, because that’s the way my body was primed to respond.

  And this was the kind of guy who was clearly looking to throw down. He wanted to fight someone that day. He and his three friends were gearing up, and chances are I would have walked away from it, but it would have been bloody.

  You grabbed my arm, stopped me cold. Got in front of me, said, Ashley. Control your anger before it controls you. C’mon now. Deep breath. Inhale, exhale. It’s not worth it.

  And I listened.

  Those four idiots called after me, throwing out words like “bitch” and “pussy” but that didn’t bother me. They were nothing. Who gives a fuck what they think. What really made me feel small was that look of disappointment on your face.

  You knew where it would get me.

  And Dad, I don’t even know where to start with you. Some son I turned out to be. You’re this generation’s definition of a hero. Here I am, digging a hole to hide a dead body.

  You have to know I didn’t want for this to happen. Both of you. You have to know that.

  My regret is a mountain I can’t see the top of anymore.

  I don’t know how long it takes. The rain is still falling so hard I’m pretty sure we’re in no danger of being found. I get down to where the hole comes up to the middle of my thigh and I figure that’ll have to be deep enough. I climb out, my jeans and boots covered in mud, and I go to Wilson.

  Look into those glass orbs, unblinking in the rain.

  How can a person be sorry and not sorry at the same time?

  I push the body into the hole and look at him lying there, water pooling in the crook created by where his arm presses against the muddy brown wall. His head almost twisted all the way around now. I take his gun out of my back pocket and toss it in there with him, then begin to fill it in.

  And when the hole is filled, a soft mound of earth under that tree, I sit down, the shovel in my lap. Let the rain wash me clean, or at least make the attempt.

  After a little while I get to my feet and walk back to the car, the rain finally letting up, and I get inside and sit there. Wonder if I should drive. Who knows. North, maybe? Remote as can be, where I can disappear. Go be a fisherman or a logger up in Alaska. Live in a cabin. Wait for the day someone comes crashing through my door with a warrant and a pair of handcuffs.

  No. The job isn’t done yet.

  Wilson’s BlackBerry is sitting in the center console. I pick it up and click through until I find a number for Fletcher.

  A gruff voice answers. “What now?”

  “I’m sorry to let you know that Wilson has tendered his resignation. You and I need to have a talk about your daughter.”

  There’s a metallic pause on the other end.

  Finally, Fletcher asks, “Where?”

  After stopping by my apartment to grab a change of clothes and shove my meager belongings into a backpack, after leaving Wilson’s car in a shitty neighborhood with the door open, the inside soaked in bleach, after calling a cab and riding it back to West Burnside, I sit along the window in the coffee room at Powell’s, looking out at the street, at the normal, unblemished people walking by.

  Set behind glass, like something pure that I can no longer be counted among.

  Someone heaves into the chair next to mine. It’s Fletcher. He’s older and a little softer than his Wikipedia picture indicated. A little more gray around the temples. He hauls a briefcase onto the counter and slides it my way. Just like that.

  This is the man behind all this bullshit.

  He looks like such a sad little man.

  He fidgets in the silence, not sure of where I plan to take this.

  “How much were you able to get?” I ask.

  “Fifty thousand. Best I could do on short notice. I hope it’s enough to keep this all quiet.”

  I take the briefcase and move it away from him, to my left. Move my cup of coffee so it doesn’t get knocked over.

  “Where’s Wilson?” he asks.

  “Gone.”

  “Where?”

  “Doesn’t matter. How much did you know about what he was doing?”

  Fletcher sighs. “Wilson kept light on the details. He called it plausible deniability.”

  “I’ll start at the top. Your granddaughter is with a bunch of strangers out in Tillamook. Stolen from her mom. Your daughter is fucking bereft. The father of that little girl got shot, and even though he’s a fucking idiot he probably didn’t deserve the shit Wilson put him through. And the club where Crystal worked got severely damaged. Someone died, too. Got burnt up in a house fire that Wilson set.” I take a sip of coffee. “And a bunch of cartel members went to jail, but that’s actually probably a good thing. So, fuck your deniability.”

  Fletcher stares out the window, still refusing to look at me. The two of us watching the world walk by like we’re talking about the weather.

  “All this,” I tell him, “to serve your ambition. Was it worth it?”

  “I didn’t mean for any of this to happen.”

  “Yes you did. You hired a man with no morals and told him to get the job done by any means necessary, didn’t you?”

  “I told him not to hurt the girls.”

  “When you trust someone with no morals you can’t be too surprised when they go off script.” I finish the last of my coffee. “Anyway. Figured you would want to know where things stood. Thanks for the cash.”

  I get up to leave and he grabs my arm. Finally he looks at me. And there they are. The thing that didn’t come across enough to catchy my attention on that library computer screen. Those blue-green tempered glass eyes. Probably the one thing Crystal ever got from this man that’s worthwhile.

  I want to hurt him.

  That’s where my mind goes now.

  Because it can.

  He asks, “So this is enough, right? You’re not going to say anything to anyone? All this just… goes away?” His voice is desperate, childlike.

  I pull my arm back. “Seems we’ve had a miscommunication. This isn’t hush money. This is reparations for your daughter and for the club. I’ve already called Molly Rivers and told her the entire story. She’s going to confirm what she can and print whatever she can verify. So you’re pretty much fucked.”

  Fletcher slumps into the chair.

  “I’m ruined,” he says, under his breath.

  “Yes, you are.” I take the briefcase, toss my empty coffee cup into a garbage bin, and leave him there.

  The Becks were in the phone book. Wonder of wonders.

  Before we hit the road I ask Crystal to stop at a Plaid Pantry, where I buy a small travel sewing kit. As Crystal drives I repair the gash that Thaddeus’s shotgun left in Rose’s pink teddy bear.

  I don’t know much about sewing, and I stab myself every time the car makes a sharp turn or hits a pothole. The cut is halfway across the bear’s stomach, on the border of white and pink fur, so I do the white portion in white thread, and the pink portion in red because there’s no pink thread.

  When I’m done I hold it up to inspect it. Give it a tug and it stays together. It won’t win any prizes, but it’s better than giving a kid a torn up bear.

  Finally, something I can point to and say that I fixed.

  Working on the bear gave me a good excuse to not say anything, mostly because I don’t even know what to say. When I’m finished I twist around and put the bear on the car seat.

  I turn to the window, crack it, take in the green, grand expanse of the Tillamook State Forest. This is what I’m going to miss. I love the way it smells out here. Home smells like piss and garbage. Car exhaust and str
eet meat.

  Here it smells like green.

  And petrichor.

  And citrus.

  The forest falls away and we’re in a small seaside town. Quaint is the first and last word you’d use to describe it. Nothing over four stories, houses not too close. Big stretches of sky. A nice place to put your feet up.

  Crystal glances at the map on her phone and guides us through empty streets until we’re in front of a big, red house with a pointy roof and a curved archway. Big hills off in the distance. The kind of house a kid should live in. Crystal turns to me, the gravity of the moment pressing down on both of us, and I tell her, “Go ahead. I’ll wait here.”

  She hovers for a moment. Maybe she wants me with her, but this is something she needs to do. I’d feel like an intruder, standing there when she saw her little girl again. I wasn’t even sure if I should come, but I wanted to see it through to the end. Make sure Wilson wasn’t lying. Because if he was lying, there’s not much else we can do.

  Crystal crosses the lawn to the front door of the house and I sit down on the street, my back up against the car, and pull out my cigarettes. One left. This would be a good opportunity to quit again. Enjoy this last cigarette, go back to my monastic life. No more poisons. I light up, inhale deep, try to enjoy it. It tastes like ashes.

  Crystal knocks on the door and shuffles, waiting, and a young woman in a black dress, with heavy tattoos and long black hair, answers the door. They trade tense words and someone from inside the house screams, “Mommy!”

  The women disappear into the house and I stare up into the sky. It’s blue out here, and there’s so much of it. Big and empty, and I feel myself slipping away into it, like there’s nothing to keep me tethered.

  After the shock of what happened to Wilson wore off, I expected to feel something. Like when you take a painkiller and it slowly stops working and the pain creeps back up on you. That there’d be a tangible thing buried under the numbness.