On the Loose

by Andrew Coburn

  "It's getting chilly," Harry said with a shiver.

  Ben, gazing at the sun, didn't feel the chill. He saw the sun as gold, the money that keeps the earth alive. "Zip up your jacket."

  Harry noted the shadows in the woods and saw danger. Milkweed let loose parachutes. Sumac blazed. He liked autumn but dreaded what would follow. Too much isolating darkness and cold. He hated the holiday season. Too much sadness.

  "When we were kids, Ben, I was the boss. Now you are. I take my cues from you."

  "I don't see it that way."

  "You always had more drive, certainly more brains."

  Ben sighed. "Let's not get on that subject, OK?"

  I'm quoting the old man's opinion. He said he didn't know how to deal with me."

  "You going to drop it or not, Harry?"

  "I'm scared, that's what I'm getting to. What will I do with Bobby when he comes out?"

  "That's a good while yet. We'll figure it out then."

  They began retracing their route back to the house. The sun was in and out, hunching behind this cloud and then that one. Another storm of birds appeared.

  "Starlings," Ben said.

  Harry zipped up his jacket. "I wouldn't know. You knew birds, I knew shit."

  On Bobby Sawhill's last working day in the toilets, Duck said, "I'm gonna miss you. I never had a pal before."

  "Me neither." Bobby ran two scrub brushes together under running water to clean them. "We'll still see each other."

  "But not as much. Maybe you could ask to stay."

  "It's already been decided. They're putting me in the library."

  "I'll always be in the toilets," Duck said and made suds with a big yellow bar of soap. Then he smiled. "Smells good in here, don't it, Bobby? I keep it nice."

  They were still at the sinks when they heard the scuffs of someone's heavy sneakers. In the mirrors they saw the rangy snakelike figure of a bad character named Ernest, who was bare-chested in sweatpants, olive-skinned, tattooed on one arm. The tattoo was a skull and bones. He had a shaved head and hooded eyes.

  "You're not supposed to use these toilets," Duck said into a mirror, his tone of authority tentative. "You're supposed to use the ones for Dorm C."

  Ernest grinned. Dorm C was for youths no longer boys, short-timers headed for a halfway house or state prison. "I go where I want, Duck, always have. I shit, you come wipe me, OK?" His grin widened. "Or Sawhill can do it, if he's got your touch."

  Duck changed color. "You're not supposed to talk to us that way."

  "That's right." Ernest ambled up behind them and threw his torso close to Bobby's. "You're Dibble's boys. His little whiteys."

  Bobby spoke to his own reflection. "I'm not so little."

  "But you can't stand up to me, can you? I could slit your throat with my fingernail."

  Bobby held his breath, and so did Duck. Laughing, Ernest sauntered off not toward the stalls but to the urinals, which hung from the wall like giant peeled eggs. Poised at one, legs spread, he pissed mostly on the floor. Leaving, he said, "Clean it up, Duck."

  After several seconds passed and they were sure he was gone, Duck said, "He's getting meaner. Time's running short."

  "He's getting out?"

  "He's graduating. Going to the real place. He won't be so tough there."

  "Who'd he kill?" Bobby asked.

  "His whole family. He was high." Duck carried mop and pail to the urinals and began swabbing. "How many did you kill, Bobby?"

  Images working into the forefront of his mind, Bobby held up a finger and then added another, which stirred memories. The memories, like pages in a coloring book, required crayons.

  "I've never killed anybody," Duck said. "Don't know if I could."

  "It's not hard," Bobby said.

  Mr. Grissom summoned Bobby to his office and viewed him with an unsparing eye. "How's Dibble treating you, Sawhill?"

  Bobby smiled immediately. "He lets me call him Dibs now."

  "That says something. In fact, it says a lot. Anybody giving you trouble?"

  "No, sir."

  "Know when to be brave, know when to back down. I like heroes, but I like smart cowards better, boys who know how to look after themselves. You like your job in the library?"

  "I miss the toilets," Bobby said.

  Mr. Grissom let that pass. His active face speeded up. "So far all reports on you have been good, except for one thing. Why are you resisting counseling? I don't understand that. Aren't there things you want to talk about, get off your chest? Don't you want to be a happy person?"

  "I am happy."

  Mr. Grissom went silent for a few moments, the movement in his face subsiding. "Something else I don't understand. Why don't you want to see your family?"

  "You said I didn't have to."

  "Doesn't mean I think it's right. Your uncle calls every week to see how you're doing. Your father got on the line once, and I talked with him. Don't they mean anything to you?"

  Bobby groped through a murk of feelings, careful not to vanish into an emotional sinkhole. "I don't know," he said.

  "I see you got a letter the other day. Who was that from?"

  "My cousins. They're twins."

  "They mean anything to you?"

  "They're just kids," Bobby said and prayed Mr. Grissom would not delve deeper into his family. He didn't want his mother's name mentioned. He didn't want her memory disturbed.

  .You can write to them, you know. Nothing stopping you."

  "Yes, sir."

  "OK, Sawhill, I guess that's about it for now. You keep your nose clean, a few months from now you'll have treats."

  Bobby brightened. "Treats, sir?"

  "Dibble will tell you about it when it's time. You keep quiet about it for now."

  "Yes, sir."

  "I like you, Sawhill. Already you're one of my better boys."

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Seated near a log fire, Ben Sawhill was engrossed in a newspaper, his eye fastened to the financial page. Seated nearby, Belle Sawhill used a magazine as a lapboard on which she was trying to write a letter to her sister in Seattle. The letter was an attempt to clear her mind, but each word was forced. Finally she put pen and paper aside and let the magazine slip between her knees.

  "I'm worried, Ben. I'm worried about the girls. I don't want them writing to Bobby anymore."

  "What's the harm?" Ben folded his paper in half. "We can't simply cut him out of our lives, pretend he doesn't exist."

  "That's exactly what I want to do. He's not your son. He's only your nephew."

  Ben stared quietly at the fire, tongues of flame leaping up as if to tell a story. "I'll do whatever you want," he said. "I worry too."

  The words subdued her, made her rethink her position without changing it. "Worst is the guilt I feel. After his mother died, when we had him with us, I should have done more for him. Spent more time with him."

  "How could you? You had two newborns on your hands."

  "I had help. I could've made time, but I had eyes only for my babies. They're so precious to me." She cocked an ear. The twins were in their room, doing their homework. "When they're alone together they become one. They're two heartbeats, a single soul. When they stare at each other, I wonder what they see."

  "We've been blessed, Belle. Harry hasn't. He's had nothing but heartache."

  "I know. Poor Harry. How's his drinking?"

  "On and off. Thank God he has Trish, but I don't know how long she'll put up with him."

  "Quite a while, Ben, have no fear."

  He gave her exceptional attention. "Why do you say that?"

  She rose and stood by the fire, her hands pressed into the baggy pockets of a coat sweater. Firelight streaked her black hair. "She's in love with you, you know that."

  "That's not my fault. I've done nothing to encourage her."

  "Is she hard to resist?"

  "Not in the least."

  His words warmed her more than the fire did, though she shuddered, as if she had survive
d a dangerous moment. "I'm sorry, Ben. I'm being silly, but lately everything's a threat."

  "How the hell could I love anyone but you? Impossible."

  She withdrew a letter from the right pocket of the sweater, the handwriting on the small envelope immature. "They've given me another one to mail, but I'm not going to do it. Do you mind?"

  "I think you're wrong, but I don't mind."

  She tossed the letter into the fireplace and watched it burn. The flames looked happy.

  Harry Sawhill was drunk. In the dark a chair swung in front of him and banged his knee. Reeling, he felt the edge of a table stab him. Trish, reading in bed, heard a thump. Barefoot, she rushed down the stairs, switched on the kitchen light, and found him sitting on the floor, nursing his wounds, and crying. His eyes swerved up.

  "I'm no good, Trish No damn good."

  Without saying anything, she tended to agree. Leaning over him, she gripped him under the arms. "Get up," she said.

  He couldn't, or he didn't want to. His weight was too much for her. She let go and staggered back, her body big and busy in thin pajamas.

  "Not my fault," he said. "I still don't know my way around your house."

  "Wouldn't have happened in your house, huh?" Her voice was spiteful. Then it softened. "You hurt?"

  He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. "I hate your house."

  She hated it too. It was the fruits of a failed mar riage, part of a payoff from a man she'd always known she'd lose. She had loved him too much. Harry was another matter. Dropping to one knee, she swept an arm around him. "Where do you hurt?"

  "Everywhere."

  She hugged him lightly, as if giving limited love to a child not hers. His nose was running, needed another wipe. Damned if she was going to do it. "Get up, Harry. Don't make mama mad."

  He shuffled about, drew up a foot, needed help, more than she could give without more effort from him. "You're everything to me," he said. "You're the cream in my coffee."

  "And you're the fly in my ointment. Come on, Harry, give it another try."

  He used brute strength she didn't know he had. On his feet he tottered and grabbed the table edge and then her arm for support. She threw her belly against his to steady him. For an instant they looked like dancers.

  "You're not going to be sick, are you?"

  "No, I swear," he said.

  She helped him up the stairs, which involved only a few stumbles. In the bedroom she undressed him and got him under the covers, where he began to shiver. She didn't intend to join him, but he wanted her with him.

  "Hold me," he said.

  She climbed into bed and did what he wanted, the least she could do, part of the marriage bargain, wifely duties, motherly concerns. They all hit upon her. His breath was in her face.

  "Are you going to leave me?"

  "No, I'll never leave you," she said and felt him drifting into a stupor. When he began to snore, she said, "And you're right, Harry. You're no good at all."

  They played poker in the fire barn, nickel and dime, a quarter limit, a table set up near the pumper. Malcolm Crandall, the town clerk, fluttered the cards and made them crackle and pop. He was a serious player and a fast dealer. He shot cards around the table, two down, one up. "Sevencard stud," he said unnecessarily. It was what he always played. He disliked anything fancy or out of the ordinary. "Your bet, Doc."

  "What?"

  "You got high card. Bet!"

  Old Doctor Skinner was semiretired and had failing vision. He bet a nickel. Everyone stayed in except Chub Tuttle, a volunteer fireman whose real job was roofing and carpentry. Chub played timid, as if he were using grocery money.

  Malcolm dealt again, a card to each, face up, and scowled at his, which indicated nothing. He perpetually scowled. He was heavyset and surly, with latching brows and a permanent pucker. Years ago when he was in the army a sucker punch permanently disfigured his nose. "You're high, Chief."

  Chief Morgan bet a dime, and Sergeant Avery, an erratic player, raised it a quarter.

  "Why the hell did you do that?" Malcolm demanded. "You haven't got anything."

  "You don't know what I got."

  "You don't play right, Eugene. You throw everything off."

  The chief said, "You in or out, Malcolm?"

  Malcolm fed the pot and glared. His jealousy of Morgan went back to high school when each had competed for the same girls, Claudia MacLeod among them. Spinning out more cards, he said, "What do you think of Harry Sawhill marrying the bimbo from the Heights?"

  Still high man, Morgan bet another dime. Sergeant Avery raised a quarter. Morgan said, "I don't think anything of it."

  Doctor Skinner, dropping out, said, "What bimbo?"

  "It's Malcolm's way of speaking," Morgan said. "Play cards."

  On the last card Sergeant Avery, who had misread his hand, had nothing. Malcolm, who had caught a third deuce, dropped his sudden smile when Morgan, realizing he had a flush, laid it out.

  "I had to win sometime."

  It was the doctor's deal. Chub Tuttle, whom he had brought into the world, shuffled for him because his fingers were arthritic. "Same game," he said to placate Malcolm. The deal was slow, the bets fast, though none of the up cards showed promise.

  Malcolm said, "How come his kid got -a break? You have anything to do with that, Chief?"

  Morgan knew he was being baited and didn't respond. "Make sure you know what you're doing this time, Eugene."

  Sergeant Avery was raising again but with a keener eye on the cards. Bucking foolish odds, he filled an inside straight and beat Malcolm's two pairs.

  Malcolm said, "I was wearing your badge, I'd have done things different."

  It was Morgan's deal, five-card stud, quarter bets only. Morgan's up card was an ace. Chub Tuttle immediately dropped out. Malcolm snorted.

  "Christ, don't you ever stay in?"

  He beat Morgan's ace with a pair of eights. Morgan said, "What would you have done different?"

  .No sense talking about it." He raked in quarters. "Too late."

  Morgan persisted. "I'm curious."

  .You wouldn't understand."

  Sergeant Avery had the deal, draw poker, guts to open. Chub Tuttle opened with a dime, threw away no cards, and won a small pot with -a full house.

  "The reason you wouldn't understand," Malcolm said, "is you're not a real cop. You don't even carry a gun."

  Two attendants stood at each end of the dining hall, where breakfast was served in two thirtyminute shifts. Breakfast was toast, cornflakes, an overripe banana, and as much tomato juice as anyone wanted. Bobby Sawhill carried his tray to Dibble's table and, looking frantically around, said, "Where's Duck? Duck's not here."

  Dibble was in charge of a table of twelve. Duck's chair was vacant. Dibble said, "He's sick."

  "Is he going to be all right?"

  "I'm not a doctor."

  "Where is he?"

  "In the infirmary."

  Bobby picked at his breakfast, eating only some of the cornflakes. The boy sitting on his left, a Hispanic with the eyes of an owlet, said, "Can I have your toast?"

  In the afternoon Bobby received permission to visit the infirmary. Duck's last name was printed on a tag tied to the end of a metal cot. The name was fat and Polish, senseless to the ignorant eye. It didn't look like a name to Bobby, simply a jumble of letters. Bobby's voice quavered.

  "I didn't know."

  Duck smiled. He had been sick for three days without telling anyone. Food had come up on him. Rocking with pain, his body had convulsed, then crumbled. An attendant had carried him in his arms to the dispensary and later wheeled him into the infirmary.

  "What's the matter with you?"

  "I got an ulcer. Sometimes it bleeds."

  "Bad?"

  "No big deal," Duck said, surprised that Bobby seemed worried. He had always been sickly. His childhood was rickets and ringworm.

  "You don't look too good."

  "I'll be back soon. Who's doing the toilets?"r />
  "Doesn't matter, Duck. It'll always be your job."

  "'Cept when I get out for good. Then they'll have to get someone else. Whatcha looking sad for, Bobby?"

  He didn't want to leave, he wanted to hold Duck's hand, but a female nurse who needed to do something with pills and a needle said, "Sorry, doll, you can't stay."

  At suppertime he ate nothing but a sliver of cranberry sauce. Leaning over his plate, he said, "He's not going to die, is he, Dibs?"

  "Why would he want to do that?" Dibble said, buttering a thin slice of white bread. "He's got it made here."

  "You're not just saying that, are you?"

  "Would I do that? Who loves you, Sawhill?"

  "You do, Dibs."

  The Hispanic boy touched Bobby's elbow. "Can I have your hamburg?"

  Harry Sawhill sat in a private section of the visiting room and waited for Bobby. He ran a nervous hand over his head. In the past few months the hair on top had thinned into uncertainty. His face was haggard. Ten minutes later he was staring into the blue of his son's eyes.

  "I'm supposed to be in class," Bobby said, hands tucked into the pouch pocket of a sweatshirt.

  "Mr. Grissom says it's all right." Harry was on his feet, his voice tense and uneasy. "You look good, Bobby. Leaner and more muscular."

  "I work out. Why are you here?"

  "To see you. Why else?" Harry tried to force a smile and failed. He spoke rapidly. "I got married, Bobby. To Mrs. Becker."

  There was no response, no reaction. Bobby looked at his watch. "I'm missing algebra."

  Harry had a few thoughts about going mad and then eased away from them. Tightening his shoulders, he said, "Do you know how much I loved your mother?"

  "I don't remember her."

  "Yes, you do. Then she died, I died too for a while. Part of me is still dead. Do you know what I'm telling you?"

  Bobby shoved his hands deeper into the pouch. "She lied to me. She said she wouldn't die."

  "She couldn't help it."