Hines pulled a small black pistol out of his coat pocket. “Here’s how come I don’t need a bat,” he said.
From the ground, Trent said, “I’m fine, Tommy, please.”
The others stood very still.
The tall redhead backed away a little. He held his hands out. “Hines. Goddamn. Okay, man. Okay. I just swiped at you with my hat. A baseball cap. No wood, right? Just a cloth cap.”
“Tommy,” said Trent.
And in the same instant the punks started to run. Hines crouched a little and fired, twice. One of them fell and was still. The tall redhead went down but got up almost immediately and started running again. Hines fired once more, and the redhead tumbled, rolled, cried out, writhing in the street, across from the church grounds there.
“I told you,” Hines shouted. “I told you not to mess with us.”
“Jesus Christ,” Trent gasped, rising.
Down the street, Greer had come out of the bar and was heading toward them. “What the hell,” he said, approaching. “Jesus Christ.”
They stood there. The street looked deserted. The wind moved the redheaded one’s hair. Greer went to him and then to the other. He came back wringing his hands and shivering. “Goddamn.”
Trent sobbed. “Tommy, Jesus. Jesus—oh, Jesus, Tommy.”
Hines was looking at his own hand holding the pistol. “I didn’t fire one shot over there,” he said. “Had a big forty-five automatic the whole time. Not one shot. I worked in an office.”
“What do we do?” Trent asked.
“We gotta call the police,” Greer said. “Jesus Christ, almighty.”
“Fuck.” Trent drew his arm across his face. “Oh, fuck me. Fuck!”
Hines let his hand fall to his side. “I wasn’t even really mad at them.”
The other two stared at him. It had been something like a contest. Target practice. See if he could hit them on the run. No feeling in it. “They didn’t even respect us enough to rob us,” he heard himself say.
“Stop it,” Trent said. “What the hell did you bring that goddamn thing with you for?”
“Isn’t that the strangest thing,” Hines told him. “I didn’t know I had it until we walked into the bar.”
Cars were pulling over now. Someone got out and began talking on a cell phone. A crowd had begun to gather, and there were sirens. A few moments later, Hines handed a uniformed policeman the pistol. A cop he recognized from night court handcuffed him. Trent stood nearby, crying. Greer was answering questions about the night.
Hines said, “I’m sorry, Greer. I don’t know, man.”
Somebody put one hand on the back of his head, pushing down as they made him get into the backseat of a cop car. He sat there, his hands in the cuffs making it impossible to lean back, and looked out at Stevie Trent and Greer, and at the people standing around. Beyond them was the ruin of the hospital where Elvis had died. It could be somewhere in Iraq. Someone had covered the bodies. The lights were pulsing all around and the sun was up, burning through the haze. The door closed on him.
“I wasn’t even particularly mad at them,” he said. Hines reflected again that he hadn’t known he had the pistol with him, and again about the fact that he had never shot at anything in the shattered country where he had served, where he had been good, and had tried, as much as possible under the circumstances, to be helpful and kind.
UNKNOWN
In the middle of the night, his cell phone vibrates on the nightstand. Reaching fast to pick it up, he knocks over the stack of books there. His wife, Olivia, stirs slightly. He presses the phone tight against his abdomen, removing himself from the bed, and puts the books back one at a time. The phone has stopped. He puts his robe on, makes his way to the middle bathroom, and closes the door. The vibration starts again. Past 3:00 a.m. The little window in the phone says UNKNOWN. But he knows who it is. A month ago she bought a cheap drugstore temporary one with a set number of minutes on it. Not traceable so she can call him sometimes.
Just as he had decided that he should end things.
The vibrating stops. He waits. Long minutes pass. His nerves quieten slightly. When a sound comes from beyond the door, his heart jumps. Here he is, a man afraid of any stir in his own sleeping house. He sighs, glances at the door, listens; no one is up. Silence. The phone vibrates once more in his hand. “Christ.” He touches the talk button.
“You’re up.” Her voice, full of fake cheer.
“It’s three o’clock in the morning,” he murmurs. “For God’s sake.”
Nothing.
“What in the world are you thinking, calling me at this hour?”
“You’re going away from me. I can feel it.”
“Oh, Jesus. Now you’re calling me with this?”
“But you are. Right?”
“Are you out of your mind?”
“Yes,” she sobs.
“Oh, God, don’t—don’t do this.”
“If you weren’t already gone you’d reassure me.”
“You’re not thinking rationally.”
“Why’d you cancel this afternoon? That’s the second straight time.”
“This is—this is nuts.”
“Well, why’d you do it?”
“Why do you think. Be reasonable.”
“Can you tell me what you did tonight?”
“I went to bed like everyone else in the civilized world,” he says, low. “Look. You can’t do this. Olivia’s right there asleep. It could’ve waked her.”
“I had to see you tonight.”
“Oh, God.”
“We had to talk about it.”
“I really couldn’t make it today. I swear. There was something at the kids’ school and Olivia had a dental appointment.”
“But you’re backing away. I’m not stupid.”
“Please don’t do this.”
“It’ll be the same next week. It’ll be something else.”
“Stop it, Tess.”
“Then tell me it’s not true.”
“It isn’t. It isn’t true.”
“You’re such a terrible liar. I don’t know how you’ve managed it.”
“I’m upset. It’s the middle of the night. Christ. Please.”
“Just tell me the truth. You owe me that much.”
He sighs.
“That’s what I thought. That’s what I’ve been afraid of.”
“I just can’t risk it anymore. Can you understand that? We both said it was a fling, for fun—God, you can’t say you don’t remember that. Remember? Fancy-free? Remember that?”
“Things change.”
He listens to her sobbing.
“So it’s over then,” she sputters. “We’re oh, over. A train wreck.”
“I’ll find a way to get some time tomorrow. We’ll talk then.”
“I knew it.”
“Tess.”
“I knew it. Oh my God.”
“Please don’t do this. We never said it was any—”
But she’s hung up. He sits on the closed toilet seat. It’s as if he’s keeping guard. Perhaps ten minutes go by in the one sound of his breathing. He worries that his voice might’ve carried farther than he thought. He covers his mouth, then stands and opens the toilet and looks down into the water. He’ll call her tomorrow and tell her not ever to do this again. And he’ll turn the phone off; he should’ve turned it off in the first place.
Just as he’s opening it to do so, it vibrates again. UNKNOWN. He pushes the talk button and says, “It’s the middle of the fucking night.”
“I’m scared,” she says, with an eerie lightness of tone.
“I’m turning the phone off.”
“Everybody’s turning things on and off. You’ll turn your phone off, I’ll turn the gas on.”
“What?”
“I have to go to sleep.”
“You—what the hell are you talking about? Stop that.”
“It’s done now.”
“Are you drunk?”
&
nbsp; “It’s amazing how easy it is in these old places. You can do it with one hand. Smother the pilot, the flame drops away. Turn the gas on, no flame. Blink, blink.”
He stands there in the bathroom light that now seems harsh; too bright. It hurts his eyes. The objects on the little shelf, the towel racks with their folded towels and the designs, one with a bright-eyed smiling teddy bear and the other with dotted frolicking cartoon fish. He puts his back to the door, one hand to his forehead.
“I don’t care anymore. I mean it. I’ll just sleep now.”
“Tess, stop it.”
“Goodbye.”
“Listen to me.”
“Goodbye, my love.”
The connection is broken. He touches in the number to her house phone. No answer. He tries it again. Then he quickly opens the RECENT window on his own phone and erases the three calls. All along he’s sensed some madness in her. He puts the phone in his robe pocket and stands there, out of breath. He turns the knob on the bathroom door and pulls it toward him a sliver, looking into the dim hallway. Nothing stirring. The girls are asleep. He checks on them, Tricia and Cheryl. The quiet in the rooms is awful. Awful. He can’t stop shaking. It’s cold. In the bedroom, Olivia’s snoring faintly. She always sleeps so well. They have teased about her clear conscience. He’s moving around the dark room like a burglar, unable to stop gasping. His stomach is roiling.
Goodbye, my love.
The vibrating again. UNKNOWN. He’s almost dressed. He makes his way back into the bathroom and shuts the door.
“Jesus,” he says.
“I read that you just go to sleep. But I want to smoke a cigarette. I have the gas all over me. D’you think I can go outside and have one cigarette?”
A little knock sounds. He stuffs the phone in his jeans pocket and opens the door a crack. It’s Tricia, the older one. Eight. “I have to go to the bathroom.”
“I’m finished,” he says. “Go right back to bed when you’re through.” The phone’s pulsing in his pocket. He closes the door on the little girl and goes into the kitchen.
“Now one of the kids is up,” he says. “Please, Tess. Don’t.”
“It’s not you.” She sounds sleepy. “It’s me. Not your fault.”
“Are you outside?”
“Yes. I didn’t explode.”
He hears her exhalation. “You’ve got to stop this. Stop this right now.”
“Are you coming over? Don’t come over. That would be silly.”
“I told you—one of the kids is up now.”
“You’re lucky. You’re not fancy-free.”
He waits. There isn’t anything at all to say.
“It’s for the best,” she says. “Don’t you think so? I don’t want anything anymore. I’m so tired.”
“This is what you want between us now?” he says, deciding that she must be faced down. “This? Threats?”
“No, really,” she says. “I won’t bother you again.”
He hears Tricia come out of the bathroom, the flushing toilet. He gets the phone into his pocket just as she steps to the entrance of the kitchen. “Can I have a glass of milk?”
“It’s the middle of the night, sweetie. Go on to bed.”
She obeys him. He watches her close the door, carefully, so the latch makes no sound. She’s always careful that way, his child with her OCD. And that’s what the meeting was about at school today. The possibility that the girl has it, with her concern for the slightest details, her concentration on the minutiae all around her, the repetitions and the counting.
When he puts the phone to his ear, Tess is still there.
“Wanted to say goodbye,” she murmurs. “But I already did. It’s silly. I know it’s no use.”
He wants to be direct and calm. “You’re just saying these things to get at me. And I want you to stop it. You hear? Because it’ll drive me away for sure. We’ll talk tomorrow.”
“That won’t change anything,” she says.
“Nothing has to change.”
The line is dead.
“Tess?”
Silence.
He stands there, fingers tight around the little phone, staring at the clock. The house creaks—this small, tight, closed house. He steps to the door and through into the hall. Everyone asleep. In the master bedroom he begins, very slowly and carefully, to finish dressing.
He’ll leave a note. Say he was restless and wanted to drive around. What’s open twenty-four hours? What can he say he wanted or required at this hour of the morning? The Walgreens where Tess works as a pharmacist stays open all night. It’s the one he and Olivia use, too.
Olivia turns in the bed and sighs, and folds one arm across her face. A familiar posture in sleep for her, as if something’s blazing at her, too bright to look at directly.
He buttons his shirt, barely breathing, trying to think of some safe means of extricating himself. Nothing for it. He’ll have to make it up as he goes along. What can he need at the all-night drugstore? Something he desires? A craving? But as he steps outside the house, thinking Tricia might hear him, he stops himself. The neighborhood streetlamps make ponds of spilled light down the street, not one window showing light in the other houses. They’re all darker shapes in the dark. Everyone asleep. There’s a chill in the air. He goes to the end of the front walk and tries her number, turning to face the house.
No answer. He tries it again. And then once more.
Finally he gets into the car and starts it, and sits there behind the wheel, trying to make up what he’ll say.
A moment later he turns the car off and says, aloud, “This is ridiculous.”
He gets out, moves back up the walk, and sits on the porch. He makes one last attempt with the number.
She answers. Her voice is drugged sounding, slurring. “H’lo?”
“Just quit this,” he says. “Cut it the fuck out. You know you don’t mean it. I can’t get out of the house now. I’ll find some way to see you tomorrow.”
“You rented me a house.” She gives forth a brittle despairing laugh, and then sobs. “God, I’m tired.”
“Are you drunk?”
“Sleepy,” she says. “I bet I’ll oversleep.” The laugh comes again.
“There’s no reason we can’t have lunch tomorrow. I promise.”
“Like showin’ me the house?”
He says nothing.
“R’member?”
“Yes.”
“Who’d’ve thought. In a showin’. That was risky.”
“Oh, God,” he says.
“A fling in’n open house.”
“Don’t.”
“It was so good, huh.”
He breathes.
“Huh.”
Something stirs behind him from inside. He closes the phone and puts it quickly in his pocket, just as the door opens on him.
It’s Olivia, in her nightgown. “What’re you doing?”
“Couldn’t sleep,” he gets out. “Didn’t want to wake you.” He sees the outline of her body in the thin cloth.
“Is something wrong? I thought I heard voices.”
“Just me. I can’t sleep.”
“Not sitting in a chair on the porch.”
“Thought I might take a walk or something. You remember—back when I was in the army and had insomnia, you’ve heard me tell this—I used to get up and dress to go out, coat and all, and tell myself I was gonna take a walk. I’d do that and then lay down, telling myself it was just for a minute before going out, and that would do it sometimes. For some reason I’d drop off. I know you’ve heard me talk about it, honey. And sometimes I would go for a walk—or even—even a drive, and I’d come back and lay down, and that would be that.”
“Why do you—why are you telling me this now?”
“I don’t know. You wanted to know why I was out here.”
“I remember the getting dressed for a walk,” she says. “You’d go for drives?”
“I always told it that way, honey. Yeah. I went f
or drives.”
“There’s no need to raise your voice.”
He hurries to say, “I’m sorry. Didn’t know I was.”
“So you were going to come back in and lie down like that?”
“Yeah. After a while. I was just enjoying the night air a little.”
“But why can’t you sleep?”
“Who knows. Maybe too much coffee. I had two cups before I left work.”
“Coffee always does that to you.”
“I’m nuts to drink it at all.” He smiles at her and feels the phone vibrate in his pocket. She’s headed back into the house, and the sound the door makes obscures the low buzz. But she pauses, holding the door slightly open, and looks at him.
“Is that your phone?”
It’s stopped. “Don’t think so. I didn’t feel any vibration.”
“Why do you have your phone with you?”
“Oh, come on, baby. I always have it with me. I sell real estate.”
“Not at twenty after three in the morning.”
“Hey, if anybody wants to look at anything or buy anything, any time of the day or night, I’m ready. I might even start calling people—the way business has been.”
She gazes at him. “Are you all right?”
“Fine,” he says. “Just a little insomnia.”
“Can I fix you a cup of warm milk?”
“I’ll be all right.”
“You and your phone.”
“There’s nothing unusual about that,” he tells her. Then tries a smile. “Just habit, I guess. I never think about it. Just take it with me.”
She holds one hand out, palm down, to get him to lower his voice. “You’ll wake the whole neighborhood.”
“I swear I don’t hear myself.”
“You are worried about something.”
“Go on back to bed, sweetie.”
“Sure I can’t make you something?”
“No, really. I’ll be right in.”
He sits quite still. It seems that the night sky is already beginning to change to the faintest light at the end of the street. Somewhere a dog barks and is answered by another. Nothing else stirs. There’s only the constant racket of the night bugs. He’s sick to his stomach. At length, he goes out to the end of the sidewalk again, and turns to look at the house, his house, like all the other houses, the place of a man with a family.
Living in the Weather of the World Page 9
