by Tim Sandlin
“What happened then?” Colette asked.
I drank the rest of the VO. “A judge told me to see a psychiatrist once a week until I got well.”
“Are you well now?”
“I never was sick.”
Colette looked off at the pool. “Do you still see a psychiatrist?”
“Yep. Why did you spit in the square the other day?”
“When did I spit in the square?”
“The day you telephoned me. You were standing in front of the war memorial and you spit.”
Colette leaned her head back and closed her eyes. I think being with me made her feel at ease. “I was sealing a wish.”
“People don’t seal wishes with spit.”
“I do, it’s another one of Dirk’s habits.”
“What did you wish for?”
Colette’s eyes flickered open, then shut. “Nothing. Stupid stuff.”
“Come on and tell me. I’m interested in this sort of thing.”
Colette exhaled—almost a sigh. “The names on the memorial are sad. I wished for world peace.”
I was amazed. “Jesus, that’s major.”
“It was more wishful thinking than a real wish.”
“I generally wish for money or sex or something for me, but world peace? Isn’t that a bit much?”
“I didn’t expect it to come true.”
I thought about the kind of person who makes wishes for world peace. What if Colette did stuff like that regularly? The implications were complex and disturbing. A mosquito landed on Colette’s thumb and I let go of her hand long enough to brush it away. Colette reached over and took my hand back. I almost cheered.
“Are you going to leave Danny?” I asked.
She looked down at our hands. “No.”
We sat in silence. I closed one eye and tried to focus on a woman on the diving board, but she was too far away. Colette pulled her hand from mine and held her Marnier in both palms, staring into it like a tea-leaf reader.
“Why not?” I asked.
She shrugged. “I married him. He loves me and I make him happy. I never made anyone happy before.”
I closed both eyes. Yellow sunspots sprang up all over the insides of my eyelids. “What about you?”
“What about me?”
“Have you ever made yourself happy?”
Colette didn’t answer. I heard her lean forward. “Oh, shit,” she said.
I opened my eyes, but the sunspots didn’t go away. They spun slowly, counterclockwise.
“Oh, shit,” Colette said again.
“What’s the matter?”
She pointed at the sidewalk below us. “It’s John.”
“John?”
“My father-in-law John. What’s he doing here?”
I leaned forward and looked over the rail. It made me dizzy. “Why does he walk like his ass is sunburned?”
“John Hart always leads with his crotch.” Colette grabbed my right arm below the elbow. “I think we should do something about this.”
“Huh?”
“We can’t let him catch us here.”
“Oh.”
She stood up, pulling on my arm. “Come on, Kelly. We’ve got to get out quick.”
“I’d rather not move. I’m comfortable.”
“I’m not, let’s go.” She walked into a chair and banged her thigh. “Shit.” Colette held her leg and turned back to me. “Kelly, you’ve got to come with me.”
We helped each other through the doors leading into the Stockade Room. As we passed the bar, I said, “I’ve never been in Wisconsin in my life.” I don’t know if the cocktail waitress heard me or not.
***
John was almost to the top of the stairs. He seemed to be with a couple of other men because all three wore double-breasted suits.
“What do we do?” Colette asked.
I looked around. “We could hide in the bathrooms.”
“Not on your life.”
I nodded. “Try that door.”
Colette dragged me through the door. I leaned against the wall while she peeked out. “They’re coming this way.”
“Figures.”
We ran and stumbled down a long hall to a dead end at two doors marked MEETING ROOM A and MEETING ROOM B.
“You know damn well whichever door we pick will be the one he’s going to,” Colette said.
“Want to split up?”
She shoved open door B. “No way. We live or die together on this one.”
“You knocked me down twenty minutes ago and said it was all over.”
“It is all over as soon as we get out of this.”
“We should have stayed in the bar.”
Meeting Room B contained one long table surrounded by eight chairs. At one end of the table was a wooden lectern.
“Where’s the fire escape?” Colette asked.
“Where’s the window?”
She put her ear to the door. “They’re coming.”
I sat in one of the chairs. “We’re fucked.”
“You’re never fucked till they stick it in.” Colette grabbed my arm, pulling me out of the chair.
“What does that mean?”
She dragged me toward the end of the table. “The lectern is hollow. We’ll hide in it.”
“The lectern is four feet tall.”
“We’ll bend over.”
“My ribs don’t bend.”
“Kelly.”
Colette curled into a ball at my feet. I picked up the lectern and lowered it over my shoulders, stooping down until my knees rested on her back. I whispered, “I can’t do this for more than thirty seconds.”
“Shuddup,” Colette hissed.
The door opened. A high, scrawny voice said, “They aren’t here yet.”
John Hart’s voice boomed, “They will be. He needs us more than we need him.” He talked as if every word was being written down somewhere.
Chairs scraped back and forth, somebody cleared his throat, a pencil tapped a four-beat rhythm on the table. Inside the lectern, I wasn’t anywhere close to comfortable. My ribs were killing me. Colette seemed to be breathing all the oxygen because I sure wasn’t getting any, plus I had this ugly sensation I would soon throw up on her.
The door opened again—more footsteps and a lot more chair-scrapings. John Hart said, “Mr. O’Henry, Mr. Spinelli, meet my associates, George Patterson and Donald Shultz.”
“Pleased to meet you,” the scrawny voice said.
Chairs were pulled out and in again. I caught clicking sounds like briefcases being opened. I tightened my grip on Colette’s shoulders, knowing I would pass out soon and wanting to warn her.
“Did you have a good flight from New Jersey?” John asked.
A voice with a sickening Northeastern accent answered. “Do you mind if we get down to business? I’m booked to L.A. tonight and I’d like to get this over with quickly.”
But they didn’t get it over with quickly. At first I tried following the conversation. It seemed that John and the bank wanted to pass off some land and the Easterners wanted to build condominiums—lots of condominiums. From the talk, it sounded as if they wanted to build an entire city. I heard terms like shopping complex, zoning ordinances, and sewage-treatment plant. The Easterners had a deep fear of “environmental assholes” slowing down the project, and John kept assuring them that environmentalists were “no more bother than the mosquitoes.”
Twice I heard him say he had the county commissioners “by the balls,” and they would “zone the cemetery for a roller disco if I told them to.”
As the discussion turned to interest rates, stock options, commissions, and kickbacks, my ears started ringing, inhalation became pretty much impossible, and both calves turned to charley horses. My lowe
r back hurt quite a bit. I felt horribly sober. Sweat dripped onto Colette. I put my palm on her back to see if she was still breathing, but I couldn’t tell. I tried to imagine how the janitor would feel three days later when he smelled something funny and lifted the lectern to find two dead bodies.
We should never have left the deck. Colette and I could still be out there in the sunshine, getting soused and discussing my insanity. It’s always a mistake to move quickly. I knew that. It was one of my mottoes. When faced with a problem, if possible, do nothing.
I might have been unconscious, I don’t know, but someone rapped on the lectern next to my ear, scaring the hell out of me.
“Knock on wood,” John Hart said. The others all laughed. Briefcases clicked, chairs scraped, a voice said, “I’ll buy you a drink,” and another voice said, “I could use one.” Shoes scuffed across the floor. I heard the door open.
The footsteps drifted into the hall, then I heard John Hart’s voice. “I’ll catch up in a moment, George. I forgot some papers.” The door closed and a single set of footsteps walked toward us.
The lectern slid off my shoulders. Colette and I fell sideways, to the right. We lay on the hardwood floor, gasping for breath, bathed in sweat. She was cadaver-green and stuck in the frightened-armadillo position. I lay on my back with my knees and feet in the air, choking.
John Hart demanded, “Get up, Colette.”
Colette shuddered and made a moaning sound.
“Get up.”
She rolled over with her knees tucked under her chin and most of her weight balanced on her forehead. The moan deteriorated into a whimper. John reached down, grabbed the back of Colette’s shirt, and yanked her to her feet. She almost fell.
“Wait in the hall,” John said, shoving Colette toward the door. She looked back at me with pitiful fawn eyes. She seemed about to say something. Her mouth opened, but nothing came out.
I lay on the floor spread-eagled like a crucified Jesus and stared up at a fluorescent light fixture in the ceiling. I expected John to stomp my face and ribs—hell, everybody else had that week—and I desperately needed to clear my head before he smashed it.
John Hart’s pinched-up, dirt-brown face hovered above me. “You’re scum,” he said. “You’re worse than scum.”
I didn’t protest or defend myself. He was probably right.
“If you aren’t out of this valley—out of this state—in twenty-four hours, scum, you’re going to wish you had never been born. I’m a powerful man, scum. I can make your life miserable.”
He stared down at me for a while. “Twenty-four hours, got it?”
I nodded and braced myself for the kick I knew would follow. Instead, John spit on my face, my forehead to be specific. A long, wet glob of spit landed right over my left eyebrow. I was so glad not to be getting stomped again, I almost thanked him.
***
Later I stretched my aching body onto my couch and listened to various drips and drains argue the situation. The water heater was worried about Colette, but the kitchen hot-water faucet raved on, totally pissed at John.
“Put sugar in his gas tank. Throw a brick through his window. Spread the rumor he has pinworms,” and on and on.
In television commercials, everything talks—roaches, stomachs, carrots, dogs, germs, even baking-soda boxes—so I suppose it is only natural that we grow up expecting dead objects to speak with cute, high voices, but sometimes auditory psychosis is nothing but a bother.
Maybe mass murderers only want a little peace and quiet.
6
The next day, while I sorted silverware, Joe came out of his office and stood at the head of my dish machine. “I need to talk to you, Kelly,” he said.
I was listening to a Leadbelly song playing in the rinse cycle and didn’t hear.
“Kelly,” Joe said. “Come into the office.”
“Can’t it wait? I’m doing forks. The girls are short on forks to set up tonight.”
“No, it can’t wait.”
As I turned off the Hobart, the overflow drain sighed and sang the last chorus of “Goodnight Irene.” “I’ll see you in my dreams.” The gurgle was kind of mournful, as if the machine knew it was saying good-bye for the last time. I felt closer to that Hobart than any other dish machine I’ve ever worked with.
Joe sat in his chair with the tips of his fingers touching. I leaned against the edge of his desk. Joe’s face flushed red, kind of a deep rhubarb color. I had known him long enough to know what it meant.
“Why?” I asked.
Joe wouldn’t look at me. “I’m sorry,” he said.
“I’m the best dishwasher in Teton County.”
“You’re the best in Wyoming, maybe even the whole Rocky Mountains.”
“Then why fire me?”
Joe rubbed his fingers in small circles. “John Hart.”
“Oh.”
“It’s not just all the money I owe him, though I owe a lot. The health inspector owes John money also. And everyone on the county planning commission, my milk and meat suppliers, people at the phone and electric companies.”
“I understand.”
“He could shut me down in an hour, Kelly. In fact, he will if you’re not gone by four.”
“I understand.”
“I’m really sorry, Kelly.”
I moved farther onto the desk so I was sitting more than leaning. Joe’s eyes slid across me and focused on the wall to my left. His fingers moved back and forth, interlocking, then pulling apart.
“When can I get paid?” I asked.
He pointed to an envelope on the desk. “There’s your check.”
I picked up the envelope and looked at the front. It had Kelly Palamino written on it in blue ink.
“Guess that’s it,” I said.
Joe looked at me, then away, then back. He still seemed uncomfortable, red. “There’s one other thing I wanted to tell you. It’s not really any of my business, but I suppose it’s yours, so I ought to tell you.”
“What’s none of your business?”
He hesitated. “I’m pretty good friends of Julie and Rick, you know.”
“How are they? I never see them anymore.”
“They’re fine, but when I first hired you, before you even came to work, Julie dropped by and tried to talk me into firing you.”
“What?”
“She said she wouldn’t come around the restaurant if you were here.”
“I know we aren’t friends now, but this is surprising. I always thought Julie wished me well.”
“She and Rick are spreading around that you’re insane and dangerous.”
I looked at Joe. “Do you think I am?”
He wouldn’t look back at me. “I don’t think you’re dangerous.”
“Thanks.”
“Most people believe her. They can’t see any reason why Julie would lie.”
I turned over the envelope and looked at the back. It was sealed. “Why would she lie?”
Joe moved his hands to his sides, pushing on the edge of the chair. “I like Julie and Rick a lot, but they are kind of strange. They’re buying some land. Rick’s talking about opening a sporting-goods store. They’re going middle-class respectable, and it embarrasses the hell out of them when you get drunk and tell people about panhandling in New Orleans or that hocus wedding in Texas.”
“It wasn’t hocus.”
“Yeah? Julie says it was all a put-up job for your mother. Anyway, you’re Julie’s dark, secret, ugly past and she can’t stand having you around reminding her and everyone else she was ever like that.”
“The wedding wasn’t hocus. Why does Julie say we’re not married?”
“She doesn’t want to think about you. She wants you out of town.”
I stood up to leave. “There’s not much she can do about it.
I’m in town.”
Joe finally made a little eye contact. “Julie’s been talking to your mother.”
I sat back down on the edge of the desk. “My mother?”
“Julie says between them they can get you institutionalized.”
“What’s that?”
“Committed. Out of the way.”
“Why would my mother want me in an institution?”
Joe shrugged. “How should I know? She’s your mother. Julie probably has her believing you’re a potential child raper.”
“I’m not.”
“I know that. Convince your mother.”
“How?”
“If Julie teams up with John Hart, you could be in a mess of trouble. I’d hate to have those two for enemies.”
I thought a moment, but nothing made sense. My mother and Julie had never agreed on anything. Why work together now? And why lock me up? “What should I do?” I asked.
“You could leave town for a while.”
I stood up again. “I can’t do that. I’d shrivel and die if I left Jackson Hole.”
“Think about it, Kelly. You’re a fantastic dishwasher. I’d hate to see you locked away in a nuthouse the rest of your life.”
“Thanks.”
Joe shook my hand. The waitresses lined up and kissed and hugged me. The cook wished me well. I walked away from my beautiful Hobart without looking back.
***
Even though it was only Tuesday and my appointment was for Wednesday, I drove straight from work to see Lizbeth. I was upset about things, and I figured I might be able to milk the firing for some legal drugs.
Luckily, someone had committed suicide or something because Lizbeth had an open half hour. I told her about Julie’s plan.
“I’m Julie’s dark, secret, ugly past, and she can’t stand having me in town reminding her and everyone else she was ever like that,” I said.
“Like what?” Lizbeth wore brown that day, I remember. Brown blouse, brown skirt, brown shoes, dark hose. The shoes were open at the toe.
“You know the stuff. When I drink, I tell anyone who will listen the same things I tell you.”
“Like what?” she repeated.
“The cross-country hitchhiking, selling plasma at the blood bank between the Salvation Army and the liquor store, drug deals, summers spent living on the street and pissing in alleyways.”
