Ash Falls

by Warren Read

  They walked the distance from the grocery to Maple Street with barely a word between them but right about halfway, just as they crossed Main, Patrick slipped his arm around Marcelle’s elbow. She pushed her hand into her coat pocket and locked him in place. He was warm against her side, and the swell in her throat did nothing to drag down the lightness she felt then, just being with him.

  “Someone called the house the other night,” he said.

  “Really?”

  “Yeah.” He laughed softly. “It was weird.”

  “You think it could have been him?”

  “I don’t know. Maybe. They didn’t hang up right away. I could hear breathing.”

  Marcelle didn’t say anything. She’d gotten calls like that before.

  “Anyway,” he said, “that was it. I don’t know what it means. But I hate that I’m back to thinking about him all the time and I don’t even know what the story is anymore. It’s like my mind is caught in a trap or something. Sometimes I wish he would hurry up and just get caught. Then at least we’d know where he is.”

  It surprised her, if only a little, to hear him say this. She’d imagined Patrick would want his father to succeed, to keep free of handcuffs and the law. He used to talk about how much his father hated the idea of small spaces, and how great it would be if he broke out, just climbed over the wall and escaped into the world. Now he was wishing for the opposite and Marcelle wondered what Mr. Luntz would do if he found out that his own son had turned against him. That he was hoping the police would find him, descend upon him and stuff him back into his cage.

  The house was dark when Marcelle slipped in through the back door into the kitchen. The buttery smell of toast lingered in the air. She opened the breadbox and took a slice of bread from the loaf, walking from the kitchen into the hallway. A spray of light washed over the carpet at the end of the corridor, voices hummed, the blue flickering and dancing from slit at the bottom of the door. She imagined the two of them, on opposite sides of the huge bed, watching their program on the little black and white on the bureau against the wall, Mr. Henry chewing toast from the saucer that sat perched on his stomach. They would have already said all they were going to say about what happened that day, probably throwing in a few things about Marcelle, how they were going to have to take care of both of them now, their son and his wife and, who knows, probably even a little baby on top of everything else.

  In the basement, things were just as they had been that morning, when Marcelle had imagined resting in her bed, empty in the very space that still weighed her down like cement. The blankets were tucked neatly under the long, green pillow, the striped afghan carefully draped over the foot as she had left them. Eugene’s clothes still overflowed the hamper, waiting to be washed, smothering the few things that Marcelle had tossed in days earlier. She overturned the basket, dumping everything to the floor, kicking greasy jeans and t-shirts and boxer shorts over the floor, the smell of Eugene’s pits and feet and crotch rolling up into the air, filling her mouth and her mind with his musk. It was one last time to feel the sensation that his smell could bring her, the rolling surge of electricity in her legs and stomach, and over her breasts, that anticipation of his body heavy on hers, breath hot against her neck, those moments when she felt like she could lie naked for hours, clothes bunched in a heap at her feet, his callused hands scratching over her skin and making her feel like she was worth every second of his time. Beautiful.

  A plastic garbage bag, filled enough to still be carried over her shoulder, Marcelle moving so fast but stepping lightly, drawers opened and closed, change scooped into pockets in an almost singularly silent motion. She crept through the room as if she were trespassing or, better yet, escaping from prison, staying low enough to be invisible beneath the sound of the ten o’clock drama that played itself out upstairs. She had plenty of money—almost three thousand dollars—that could last her a long time if she made it stretch. Cars and trucks left the mountain at all hours of the night, too. She wouldn’t have to stand for more than twenty minutes in front of The Red Apple or The Flume before someone would stop, open his door, and offer her a ride into the city. She had seen it happen plenty of times. She had twenty seven hundred dollars and some change, and even if she had to spend one night in a motel, there would be plenty left over.

  A line of waffle tread trailed far behind as she shuffled over the snow-covered sidewalk, down Shale Street toward Main. But the flakes were big as dandelion seeds now, falling heavily enough to whitewash the bald patches as quickly as she made them. No one in that house would know she had gone, and if Lyla Henry happened to put on her blue bathrobe and step into her white slippers to walk to the living room, pull the drapes back to stare out at the gently falling snow, she would notice nothing out of the ordinary, no shoeprints spotting the driveway out to the sidewalk, down the block into town. There would be nothing to see but naked branches flocked in powder and a growing blanket of white, confirming for her that winter had indeed arrived in Ash Falls. She would realize then that before she called downstairs to wake Marcelle the next morning, she’d be smart to get her brother Hank on the phone. Because, as Eugene had told her the week before, the woodshed along the side of the house was down to its last rows of alder, and the next five months were going to be especially dark and cold.

  Patrick and Tin

  Patrick Luntz walked the grid between the mink sheds, splashing the gravy of snowmelt, sawdust, and last year’s maple leaves onto the cuffs of his jeans. His toes were numb through his boots from socks too thin, but he was almost done, there being a few hundred less minks to deal with and all. The snow had softened the rooflines and the puffs of huckleberry stands, while the cedar boughs against the hillside reached almost to the ground, sagging under the weight of it all. Along the river edge a field of giant cotton balls lay scattered where rocks had lain only a week earlier.

  Christmas was less than a week away. High above the hemlocks, a thin mist screened out all but the craggy peaks of Silver Mountain. The stinging cold that dug into each open button and collar, the persistent, heady smell of chimney smoke—all of it was constant, and it folded the entire mountain into itself. And Patrick’s limbs grew heavier each day, as if his blood was slowly coagulating, thickening like the winter sap.

  All morning he had watched Tin slosh bowlegged from his travel trailer to the pelt building, into the mink sheds and back out again, over and over. Occasionally he stopped to talk to the Indian guys out front of the Quonset or held up fat Charlie from his rounds with the power feeder, the old man positioned at the front wheels, shoulders hunched over his chicken neck, steadfast just like a traffic cop. Tin carried on with them, throwing steam and hand signals, giving wide sweeps of his arms. And when he finally turned away, one of the Indians smiled and shook his head and the other rolled his eyes and gave a broad masturbatory gesture, then shot a look to the other guy that said, Christ old man, just go the fuck away.

  It was the end of the day for everyone but Patrick. The younger of the two Indians, the one with the smooth, darker skin and the clipped, cowlick bangs was the last to leave, stripping his coveralls over his yoke shoulders and tossing them in a ball into the passenger side of his pickup. Patrick gave him a wave and he saluted in return, two fingers against his stiff cowlick, then he gunned a rooster tail out of the spongy lot. Patrick returned the hand rake and trowel to the equipment shed where they belonged, then he turned off the lights and secured the door tight. He made his way to Tin’s blue and white Shasta, its beveled windows fogged in a sweep that mirrored the snowdrift that had built against the painted siding. He knocked twice before nudging the door open a crack.

  “I’m done.”

  No answer.

  “I said I’m done.”

  “In or out,” Tin groused. “This heat ain’t free.”

  The aluminum steps creaked under his weight as he climbed up, closing the door behind him. Inside it was warm, heavy with the dry, sweet smell of a propane flame, and pipe to
bacco and rubber boots, and of damp wool drying next to a heater. Tin was seated with his back to the door, at the little dinette booth, a slew of papers in white and pink and blue triplicate spread out in front of him. A chunky calculator held one stack in place, and at the edge of the table sat a mug, half full of milky coffee.

  “Sit down,” he said, thumbing the opposite side of the table. “And don’t mess up my stuff.”

  Except for a few bundles of newspapers, tied up and pushed against the far wall, the trailer was surprisingly tidy. A percolator sat alone on the stovetop, its glass knob still dotted with condensation, while the adjacent counter space was clustered with a few ceramic mugs, a small jar of powdered creamer, and an opened box of sugar cubes. A pair of matching orange flashlights clung to the door of the tiny refrigerator, each of them pinning a flyer of some kind to the metal. Beside the sink, a bottle of liquid soap slept against the tangs of a dish rack, a terrycloth hand towel draped over like a tiny, blue waterfall. It could have been anyone’s vacation trailer, really, sparsely furnished with barely anything to make it appear lived in or even used all that much. There were no discarded clothes hanging wet over the backs of the chairs and dripping onto the floor like he’d imagined there would be, or crusted dishes collecting flies or wastebaskets overflowing with paper towels and beer cans, no cardboard box towers and machine and engine parts, stacks of pelting or fishing magazines, all splayed out over countertops and tables like a corner booth at a community swap meet. Tin was a tidy fellow who obviously liked to know where he stood in the world.

  Patrick moved a single, thick phone book along the bench seat before settling in.

  “Done already?” Tin asked.

  “Yeah.”

  “You got all of ‘em?” He didn’t even look up from his papers. The question was as predictable as the rain.

  Patrick’s teeth ached from the grinding, and the temperature rose along his collar. He sighed, shifting in his seat. “I don’t miss cages anymore.”

  Tin laid his hands on the table and craned his head to look out the window. “What time is it? I guess you got places to be.”

  “I don’t know,” he said. “I’m just going home.” Patrick looked around for a clock. The walls were a collage of dittoed papers with columns of names and numbers, a single calendar with the scrawl of red and black handwriting filling the squares, and a long row of hooks, gold and silver keys dangling from each.

  “I don’t know what time it is,” he said finally.

  “You don’t got a watch?”

  Patrick showed him his wrists, both sides.

  “What kid your age don’t wear a watch?”

  “You don’t wear one.”

  “I ain’t a kid,” Tin said. He leaned over and reached across to the cabinet beside the sink, opening the top drawer. He rattled through it, eyes staring at the ceiling, his lower lip pulled over his gums. Finally, he pulled back his hand, a silver banded wristwatch looped over his fingers.

  “Here. See if it still keeps time.”

  Patrick looked down at the face, tiny Roman numerals, black with a bone white background. The pin-like secondhand clicked along.

  “Looks like it. Says it’s three thirty-five.”

  “Good. Keep it.”

  “You don’t want it?”

  “I wouldn’t be giving it to you if I did. Thing’s so small I can’t see a damn thing on it.”

  Patrick stretched the band and slid it over his wrist, turning it so the face looked up at him. It was a good enough watch but definitely not the kind that any kid he knew would be caught wearing. It was a nerd watch, old and boxy, something you might see on someone with horn-rimmed glasses, greasy hair, and acne. But it felt good on his wrist. He breathed on the glass and brushed it over his sleeve.

  “Thanks. You should still get a clock in here.”

  “You’re just chock full of ideas for me.”

  Patrick thumbed one of the papers in front of him, and Tin took it from him. “So what’d you ask Santa for this year?” he slid the paper under the stack in front of him. Patrick looked up at his face. Tin gave a half-cocked grin.

  “A new stereo.”

  “What’s wrong with the one you got?”

  “Nothing really. It’s just old.”

  “Just old.” Tin said, then gathered the papers into a single stack and tucked them into a hard manila folder. “You look like you should be asking for a shaving kit.” He nodded his chin at Patrick. “With that winter fur you’re trying to grow over your lip.”

  Patrick felt around his mouth. He hardly ever bothered with shaving, the growth always faint and downy against his hand, nothing like the rich coarseness that would cover the face of a real man. He recalled the scratch of his father’s cheek against his own as he’d kissed him goodnight. He slid down into his seat.

  “I guess,” he said.

  “Makes you look shifty.”

  “My dad had a beard.” It snapped from him with such a jagged defensiveness it startled even himself. “Has,” he said, forcing a softer tone. “Probably he still has it.”

  “Oh yeah.” Tin held his gaze firmly on Patrick, the lids red and moist, turned down slightly at the edges. He picked up his coffee and put it to his lips. “I guess I remember something about that.”

  Patrick turned the watch until it circled his wrist. “He’s out, you know. Out of jail.”

  “Yeah.”

  “Yep. Busted out.”

  “I guess I heard about that, too.”

  Patrick nodded. This was not privileged information, he realized. They’d known all along—maybe even at the same time—each of them passing by one another each day, dropping small talk about everyone and everything else in Ash Falls, yet never uttering a single word about this. And here they were now, the two of them, sitting across from one another like men laying it all out there so casually as if it was a five year-old story, about someone else’s dad or brother, or an old neighbor. The fact that Tin seemed to hold it as normally as the weather, lifted the weight of it all somehow.

  “I don’t even know where he is,” Patrick said. “He could be anywhere.”

  “I suppose so,” the old man said. He looked at Patrick, but his eyes moved over his face, at his mouth, his hair, at the pimples that Patrick knew mapped the skin over his eyebrows. “What do you think about all that?” Tin said.

  What do you think? The question pushed at his chest with a force that was sudden and firm, and Patrick fell back against the booth. In all this time, he hadn’t given himself the notion to consider—really consider—what he thought about it all. There were times when the news excited him, the vision of his father free of his own cage, wandering the countryside like a nomad, making his way, perhaps, back to Ash Falls, crouched in an open boxcar or thumbing for a ride along some lost highway. Even better, somewhere no one would ever find him. Other times, like now, sitting there in the warmth of Tin’s trailer with the old man’s yellowed eyes holding him so securely, Patrick could only see his father as just another loose mink, slinking along the perimeter of the fence somewhere out there in the snow, searching for an opening or a deep rut where he could slip through and run free. Free, out into the openness of the roadway and a distant light, or directly into the path of an oncoming truck. He didn’t know which would be the better fate, and that indecision tore him to shreds.

  “Sometimes I think he ought to go back,” Patrick heard himself say. “If he’s being smart, that’s what he’ll do.”

  “You don’t want him to escape?”

  “I don’t know. I used to imagine he could actually make it, like get up into Canada or all the way to Mexico or someplace far away. Except lately I’ve been feeling really weird about it. Like, this is all some story, and the only way it can end is by him being dead.

  Tin swatted the air with his hand. “Try not to worry yourself about it too much, Skunk. Winter has a way of bringing things back inside.”

  “You think so?”

  “I know s
o.”

  He got up then from his seat and brought his cup over to the sink. He turned on the faucet and let the water slurp into the mug, then poured it out, setting it back onto the counter. “My old man,” he said, “he hit the road when I was about your age. Left us with nothing but a big, weedy piece of land that couldn’t even grow a decent head of lettuce. Ate the breakfast my ma cooked for him, kissed my sister on the head, and walked off to town in his suit and hat like it was any other day. Never heard from him again.”

  “Nothing? No letter or anything?”

  “Nope.”

  “Maybe he died.”

  “Could be. I thought about that now and then. My sister told me he was gonna come back, like some beat dog with his tail between his legs. And my ma, she’d have taken him back ‘cause that’s the kind of woman she was.” He came back to the table and sat down, across from Patrick. “We made up a little story about him too, my sister and me. That he’d gone off to Mexico, got shot up by some bandits. Some bullshit like that. I guess it helped some. To have an end to the story. But life moves on, even when you think there ain’t no way it can.”

  “And you never wondered about him. You just forgot about him.”

  “Course I wondered. But time went on. I just figured that he wasn’t the kind of man who ought to have anyone wondering about him. I decided that every minute I spent thinking about him was just handing a little bit of myself over. And he sure as shit didn’t have that coming to him.”

  Time went on. It didn’t take a lot of thinking to add up the years between then and now, and Patrick wondered if he would be as old as Tin by the time he finally stopped wondering.

  Tin kept his gaze on his hands. The low winter sun broke through the window just then, coming through the alder stands and laying thick stripes across the table, washing the old man’s arms in gold. He turned them over, holding his palms out, steady, as if a forgotten piece of summer were hovering just above them and if he moved in the slightest, it would all vanish.