“No, I guess it wasn’t.”
“It was a wolf, right?”
Jeremy was silent.
“A wolf?”
He had to moisten his mouth. “Yeah.”
“So why didn’t you shoot it?”
“. . . It happened really fast,” he said. “I was out in the woods. I was too late.”
Renaldo’s brother-in-law gave no reaction, holding his gaze for a few more moments and then nodding slightly. He took a deep breath, turned to look behind him at the others gathered for the funeral, some of whom were staring in their direction. Then he turned back to Jeremy and said, “Thank you for coming. But maybe now, you know, you should go. It’s hard for some people to see you.”
“Yeah. Okay. Of course.” Jeremy backed up a step, and said, “I’m really sorry.”
“Okay.”
And then he left, grateful to get away, but nearly overwhelmed by shame. He’d removed the rifle from his truck the day after the attack, stowing it in the attic. Its presence was an indictment. Despite what he’d told Renaldo’s brother-in-law, he didn’t know why he hadn’t taken the gun, climbed back out of the truck, and blown the wolf to hell. Because that’s all it had been. A wolf. A stupid animal. How many animals had he killed with that very rifle?
Dennis’s funeral had been different. There, he was treated like family, if a somewhat distant and misunderstood relation. Rebecca, obese and unemployed, looked doomed as she stood graveside with her three children, completely unanchored from the only person in the world who had cared about her fate, or the fates of those stunned boys at her side. He wanted to apologize to her but he didn’t know precisely how, so instead he hugged her after the services and shook the boys’ hands and said, “If there’s anything I can do.”
She wrapped him in a hug.
“Oh, Jeremy,” she said.
The boy is skinny and naked. Smiling at him, his teeth shining like cut crystal. Jeremy’s pants are unfastened and loose around his hips. He’s afraid that if he runs they’ll fall and trip him up. The kid can’t even be out of high school yet: Jeremy knows he can break him in half if he can just get his hands on him in time. But it’s already too late; terror pins him there, and he can only watch. The kid’s body begins to shake, and what he thought was a smile is only a rictus of pain—his mouth splits along his cheeks and something loud breaks inside him, cracking like a tree branch. The boy’s bowels spray blood and his body convulses like he’s in the grip of a seizure.
“Jeremy!”
He opened his eyes. He was in their bedroom, with Tara standing over him. The light was on. The bed felt warm and damp.
“Get out of bed. You had a nightmare.”
“Why is the bed all wet?”
She pulled him by his shoulder. She had a strange expression: distracted, pinched. “Come on,” she said. “You had an accident.”
“What?” He sat up, smelling urine. “What?”
“Get out of bed, please. I have to change the sheets.”
He did as she asked. His legs were sticky, his boxers soaked.
Tara began yanking the sheets off the bed as quickly as she could. She tugged the mattress pad off too, and cursed quietly when she saw that the stain had already bled down to the mattress itself.
“Let me help,” he said.
“You should get in the shower. I’ll take care of this.”
“. . . I’m sorry.”
She turned on him. For a moment he saw the anger and the impatience there, and he was conscious of how long she had been putting up with his stoic routine, of the extent to which she had fastened down her own frustration for the sake of his wounded ego. It threatened to finally spill over, but she pulled it back, she sucked it in for him one more time. Her expression softened. She touched his cheek. “It’s okay, baby.” She pushed the hair from his forehead, turning the gesture into a caress. “Go ahead and get in the shower, okay?”
“Okay.” He headed for the bathroom.
He stripped and got under the hot water. Six months of being without work had caused him to get even heavier, a fact he was acutely conscious of as he lowered himself to the floor and wrapped his arms around his knees. He did not want Tara to see him. He wanted to barricade the door, to wrap barbed wire around the whole room. But fifteen minutes later she joined him there, putting her arms around him and pulling him close, resting her head against his.
Two months after the funeral, Dennis’s wife had called and asked him to come over. He arrived at her house—a single-story, three-bedroom bungalow—later that afternoon and was dismayed to see boxes in the living room and the kitchen. The kids, ranging in age from five to thirteen, moved ineffectively among them, piling things in with no regard to maximizing their space or gauging how heavy they might become. Rebecca was a dervish of industry, sliding through the mazes of boxes and furniture with a surprising grace, barking orders at her kids and even at her herself. When she saw him through the screen door, standing on her front porch, she stopped, and in doing so seemed to lose all of her will to move. The boys stopped too, and followed her gaze out to him.
“Becca, what’s going on?”
“What’s it look like? I’m packin boxes.” She turned her back to him and moved through an arch into the kitchen. “Come on in, then,” she called.
Sitting across from her at the table, glasses of orange soda between them, he was further struck by the disorganized quality of the move. The number of boxes seemed sadly inadequate to the task, and it seemed like things were being packed piecemeal: some dishes were wrapped in newspaper and stowed, while others were still stacked in cupboards or piled, dirty, in the sink; drawers hung open, partially disemboweled.
Before Jeremy could open his mouth, Rebecca said, “They’s foreclosing on us. We got to be out by the weekend.”
For a moment he was speechless. “. . . I . . . Jesus, Becca.”
She sat there and watched him. He could think of nothing to say, so he just said, “I had no idea.”
“Well, Dennis ain’t been paid for a long time before he was killed, and he sure as shit hadn’t been paid since then, so I guess anybody ought to of seen this comin.”
He felt like he’d been punched in the gut. He didn’t know if she’d meant it as an accusation, but it felt like one. It didn’t help that it was true. He looked at the orange soda in the glass, a weird dash of cheerful color in all this gloom. He couldn’t take his eyes off it. “What are you gonna do?”
“Well,” she said, staring at her fingers as they twined around each other, “I don’t really know, Jeremy. My mama lives out by Hickory, but that’s a ways away, and she don’t have enough room in her house for all of us. Dennis ain’t spoke with his family in years. These boys don’t even know their grandparents on his side.”
He nodded. In the other room, the boys were quiet, no doubt listening in.
“I need some money, Jeremy. I mean I need it real bad. We got to be out of here in four days and we don’t have no where to go.” She looked up at the clock on the wall, a big round one with Roman numerals, a bright basket of fruit painted in the center. “I’m gonna lose all my things,” she said. She wiped at the corner of an eye with the inside of her wrist.
Jeremy felt the twist in his gut, like his insides were being spooled on a wheel. He had to close his eyes and ride it out.
He’d sat at this table many times while Rebecca cooked for Dennis and for him; he’d been sitting here sharing a six-pack with Dennis when the call came from the hospital that their youngest had come early. “Oh, Becca,” he said.
“I just need a little so we can stay someplace for a few weeks. You know, just until we can figure something out.”
“Becca, I don’t have it. I just don’t have it. I’m so sorry.”
“Jeremy, we got no where to go!�
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“I don’t have anything. I got collection agencies so far up my ass . . . Tara and I put the house up, Becca. The bank’s threatening us, too. We can’t stay where we are. We’re borrowing just to keep our heads above water.”
“I can fucking sue you! ” she screamed, slapping her hand on the table so hard that the glasses toppled over and spilled orange soda all over the floor. “You owe us! You never paid Dennis, and you owe us! I called a lawyer and he said I can sue your ass for every fucking cent you got! ”
The silence afterward was profound, broken only by the pattering of the soda trickling onto the linoleum floor.
The outburst broke a dam inside her; her face crumpled, and tears spilled over. She put a hand over her face and her body jerked silently. Jeremy looked toward the living room and saw one of the boys, his blonde hair buzzed down to his scalp, staring into the kitchen in shock.
“It’s okay, Tyler,” he said. “It’s okay, buddy.”
The boy appeared not to hear him. He watched his mother until she pulled her hand from her face and seemed to suck it all back into herself; without looking to the doorway, she fluttered a hand in the boy’s direction. “It’s fine, Tyler,” she said. “Go help your brothers.” The boy retreated.
Jeremy reached across the table and clasped her hands in his own. “Becca,” he said, “you and the boys are like family to me. If I could give you some money, I would. I swear to God I would. And you’re right, I do owe it to you. Dennis didn’t get paid towards the end. Nobody did. So if you feel like you gotta sue me, then do it. Do what you have to do. I don’t blame you. I really don’t.”
She looked at him, tears beading in her eyes, and said nothing.
“Shit, if suing me might keep you in your house a little while longer—if it’ll keep the bank away, or something—then you should do it. I want you to do it.”
Rebecca shook her head. “It won’t. It’s too late for that now.” She rested her head on her arm, her hands still clasped in Jeremy’s. “I ain’t gonna sue you, Jer. It ain’t your fault.”
She pulled her hands free and got up. She grabbed a roll of paper towels and tore off a great handful, setting to work on the spill. “Look at this damn mess,” she said.
He watched her for a moment. “I have liens on those houses we built,” he said. “They can’t sell them until they pay us first. The minute they do, you’ll get your money.”
“They won’t ever finish those houses, Jer. Ain’t nobody gonna want to buy them. Not after what happened.”
He stayed quiet, because he knew she was right. He had privately given up on seeing that money long ago.
“A man from the bank come by last week and put that notice on the door. He had a sheriff with him. Can you believe that? A sheriff come to my house. Parked right in my driveway, for everybody to see.” She paused in her work. “He was so rude,” she said, her voice quiet and dismayed. “The both of them were. He told me I had to get out of my own house. My boys were standing right by me, and they just bust out crying. He didn’t give a damn. Treated me like I was dirt. Might as well of called me white trash to my face.”
“I’m so sorry, Becca.”
“And he was such a little man,” she said, still astonished at the memory of it. “I kept thinking how if Dennis was here that man would of never talked to me like that. He wouldn’t of dared! ”
Jeremy stared at his hands. Large hands, built for hard work. Useless now. Rebecca sat on the floor, fighting back tears. She gave up on the orange soda, seeming to sense the futility of it.
It was a week before Christmas, and Tara was talking to him from inside the shower. The door was open and he could see her pale shape behind the curtain, but he couldn’t make out what she was saying. He sat on the bed in his underwear, his clothes for the evening laid out beside him. It was the same suit he’d worn to the funerals, and he dreaded putting it on again.
Outside the short wintertime afternoon was giving way to evening. The Christmas lights strung along the eaves and wound into the bushes still had to be turned on. The neighbors across the street had already lit theirs; the colored lights looked like glowing candy, turning their home into a gingerbread house from a fairy tale. The full moon was resplendent
Jeremy supposed that a Christmas party full of elementary school professionals might be the worst place in the world. He would drift among them helplessly, like a grizzly bear in a roomful of children, expected not to eat anyone.
He heard the squeak of the shower faucet and suddenly his wife’s voice carried to him. “—time it takes to get there,” she said.
“What?”
She slid the curtain open and pulled a towel from the shelf. “Have you been listening to me?”
“I couldn’t hear you over the water.”
She went to work on her hair. “I’ve just had a very lively conversation with myself, then.”
“Sorry.”
“Are you going to get dressed?” she said.
He loved to watch her like this, when she was naked but not trying to be sexy, when she was just going about the minor business of being a human being. Unself-conscious and miraculous.
“Are you?” he said.
“Very funny. You were in that same position when I started my shower. What’s up?”
“I don’t want to go.”
She turned the towel into a blue turban and wrapped another around her body. She crossed the room and sat beside him, leaving wet footprints in the carpet, her shoulders and her face still glistening with beaded water.
“You’ll catch cold,” he said.
“What are you worried about?”
“I’m obese. I’m a fricking spectacle. I’m not fit to be seen in public.”
“You’re my handsome man.”
“Stop it.”
“Jeremy,” she said, “you can’t turn into a shut-in. You have to get out. It’s been six months, and you’ve totally disengaged from the world. These people are safe, okay? They’re not going to judge you. They’re my friends, and I want them to be your friends, too.”
“They’re going to look at me and think, that’s the guy that left his friends on a mountain to die.”
“You’re alive,” Tara said, sharply, and turned his head so he had to look at her. “You’re alive because you left. I still have a husband because you left. So in the end I don’t give a shit what people think.” She paused, took a steady breath, and let him go. “And not everyone’s thinking bad things about you. Sometimes you have to take people at face value, Jeremy. Sometimes people really are what they say they are.”
He nodded, chastened. He knew she was right. He’d been hiding in this house for months. It had to stop.
She touched his cheek and smiled at him. “Okay?”
“Yeah. Okay.”
She got up and headed back to the bathroom, and he fell back on the bed. “Okay,” he said.
“Besides,” she called back happily, “don’t forget about Tim! Someone has to keep the beast at bay!”
A sudden, coursing heat pulsed through him. He had forgotten Tim. “Oh yeah,” he said, sitting up. He watched her dress, her body incandescent with water and light, and felt something like hope move inside him.
The house was bigger than Jeremy had been expecting. It was in an upscale subdivision, where all the houses had at least two stories and a basement. The front porch shed light like a fallen star, and colored Christmas bulbs festooned the neighborhood. “Jesus,” he said, turning into the parking lot already full of cars. “Donny lives here? ”
Donny Winn was the vice-principal of the school: a rotund, pink-faced man who sweated a lot and always seemed on the brink of a nervous breakdown. Jeremy had only met him once or twice, but the man made an impression like a damp cloth.
“His wi
fe’s a physical therapist,” Tara said. “She works with the Carolina Panthers or something. Trust me, she’s the money.”
The house was packed. Jeremy didn’t recognize anybody. A table in the dining room had been pushed against a wall and its wings extended, turning it into a buffet table loaded with an assortment of holiday dishes and confections. Bowls of spiked eggnog anchored each end of the table. Donny leaned against a wall nearby, alone but smiling. His wife worked the crowd like a politician, steering newly-arrived guests toward the table and bludgeoning them with goodwill.
Christmas lights were strung throughout the house, and mistletoe hung in every doorway. Andy Williams crooned from speakers hidden by the throng.
Jeremy wended his way through the mill of people behind Tara, who guided him to the table. Within moments they were armed with booze and ready for action. Jeremy spoke into Tara’s ear. “Where’s Tim?”
She craned her neck and looked around, then shook her head. “I can’t see him. Don’t worry. He’ll find us!”
“You mean he’ll find you,” he said.
She smiled and squeezed his hand.
He measured time in drinks, and then he lost track of it. The lights and the sounds were beginning to blur into a candy-hued miasma that threatened to drown him. He’d become stationary in the middle of the living room, people and conversations revolving around him like the spokes of some demented Ferris wheel. Tara was beside him, nearly doubled over in laughter, one hand gripping his upper arm in a vise as she talked to a gaunt, heavily made-up woman whose eyes seemed to reflect light like sheets of ice.
“He’s evil!” The woman had to shout to be heard. “His parents should have strangled him at birth!”
“Jesus,” Jeremy said, trying to remember what they were talking about.
“Oh my God, Jeremy, you don’t know this kid,” Tara said. “He’s got like—this look. I’m serious! Totally dead.”
North American Lake Monsters Page 4
