by Ed Gorman
Molly screamed, her nails ripping into my wrist.
What he did, David Egan, was overshoot the end of the road and hurtle into the air, smashing into the hard clay wall on the other side of the narrow river where the bridge had once been.
The explosion happened first. I’d seen Egan at the gas station not long ago. He probably had a full tank.
The explosion came in three quick segments, like bursts of railroad dynamite taking out a side of hill. A furious flare glared yellow-red-green-blue against the starry night sky, the spectacle of it hushing everybody for a terrible breath-held moment, the
passenger’s door ripping off and flying into the brightest depths of the explosion, glass and one of the taillights blowing up and out into the darkness.
And then the screams started from below. And people started running down the road toward the red car, whose driver was now outside his car and shouting something.
He started running around in animal-crazy little circles.
Then the car disappeared into the river. Just vanished into the fast, moon-traced water.
And Molly was screaming and sobbing and shouting.
And all I could do was hold her and let her pound her little fists into me. I had no idea what to say to her. Or to myself.
Part
Twelve
In every small town there are one or two women who shame everybody else with their virtue. It is not forced virtue or contrived virtue and it does not necessarily have anything to do with denominational religion, though it is the essence of Christ’s words before churches began twisting it to their own ends.
It’s called decency. It’s being kind, generous, and understanding to those around you, even those you disagree with. It’s not plaster sainthood. This kind of virtue is capable of a tart comment but never a mean one; of a disagreement but never one that questions the other person’s own virtue; and even a moment or two of righteous anger when it sees a wrong. When the Goldmans first moved here, somebody wrote Jew on their garage door. The Kelly sisters went there immediately upon hearing about it, scrubbed the word off, and gave the Goldmans a rhubarb pie they’d made the night before. The Kelly sisters had grown up in the far west, where Catholics had not always been welcome. They had a good sense of what the Goldmans must have felt l.
Emma and Amy Kelly practiced such
virtue every day. They were the slender, white-haired, old maid aunts who had raised David Egan after the death of his mother. They drove a 1939 Chevrolet that probably still hadn’t topped 25eajjj on the odometer and they dressed in the summery cotton dresses that they wore almost everywhere but Sunday mass.
That called for the dark blue velveteen dresses they were known for when they took their place in the choir loft. They had beautiful voices; you could hear the song of the green hills of Gael in them.
About the only time you heard them boast—and I can see their freckled girlish faces smiling as they’d say it—was when they boasted that they have never missed a Sunday mass, not even during the legendary flood of ‘dc, for twenty-seven years running. They liked beer upon occasion, a “naughty” story upon occasion, and soap operas.
Just as you could not convince a professional wrestling fan that his favorite sport was rigged, neither could you convince the Kelly sisters that soap operas were not lifelike. Their father was very much old country-true old country—spending his years as a key-and-lock man and a gunsmith. He’d often joined his daughters at church in singing hymns.
He had a great Irish tenor voice.
By the time the Kelly sisters reached the old mine road tonight, more than one hundred people had gathered to watch divers bring up the body of David Egan and a winch begin to haul up what remained of his black Jimmy Dean Merc.
Cliffie’s men let the Kelly sisters through the road block that had been set up at the top of the hill. Their sedan wasn’t far from where I stood with Molly, who was in the process of working through her shock. I keep a pint of Old Grandad in my glove compartment for just such occasions. She’d had three hefty belts of it.
The Kelly sisters were dressed in dark zipper jackets, corduroy trousers, and golf hats that at any other time would have looked cute and jaunty. But this was not a night for cute and jaunty.
I walked over to them. They’d been on my long-ago paper route. In the summer there was always a glass of Pepsi waiting for me when I stopped by to make my weekly collection. In the winter it was hot chocolate. And always, always there was the Kelly sisters’ interest in your life.
Conventional wisdom said that the Kelly sisters took such interest in the lives of the young people around them because they’d never had kids of their own. And I suspect that was true. But it made their interest no less valuable. You said things to the Kellys you might not say to your parents—no dark secrets, you understand, but daydreams most older folks would dismiss as foolish. Things like that.
Emma’s arthritic hand took mine and she said, “We hadn’t seen him since just after lunch. Was he drunk, Sam?”
They didn’t want lies. They’d lived hard working-class lives and while they needed the same number of delusions and hopeless hopes we all needed to survive, at a moment like this they wanted the truth.
“He was pretty bad off, Emma,” I said.
Amy was the one who reacted. She crossed herself. She was praying for his soul.
“Did anybody else get hurt?” Emma
said.
“No. The other kid stopped in time.”
“Thank God,” Emma said. “At least it was just himself.”
The hardness of her tone surprised me. Amy put a trembling hand to her eyes to wipe away tears. But Emma’s eyes were dry, the blue of them cold.
She said, “Did they recover the body?”
“Yes. The ambulance took it away.”
Amy winced and brought her shoe up—an oxford —and squeezed it. “Ruined my new white Keds this afternoon on the side of the house. I’ve got them hanging on the wash line. Hope it’ll get the oil out.” Then, “But who cares about my shoes at a time like this?”
She was getting disoriented, which is how some people deal with bad news.
Molly came up. She started toward Emma but Emma pulled back abruptly, as if a plague victim had tried to touch her. “This isn’t a good time for your whining, Molly. And tell Rita the same thing. I don’t want to hear from either one of you for a long time. Maybe never.”
She was trying to deal with it her way, I realized now. Amy was somewhat dithering. Emma wanted to be strong and in this instance being strong meant measuring your words and not giving in to the moment.
“Sam, will you come over in the morning after mass?” Emma said.
“Of course.”
“You don’t want to go over there and look?”
Amy said to her sister.
“For what? So we’ll have some more bad memories?”
I’d never heard Emma speak to Amy this way. It wasn’t a barroom brawl but
for two loving sisters it was certainly a cold question.
Amy looked at me, embarrassed. They weren’t public women. They left that to the Irish menfolk, the brawlers and bellyachers and bullies with all the storms they dragged around with them.
“Let’s go,” Emma said to Amy.
“But we’ve only been here a few minutes.”
“I don’t want to be here anymore,”
Emma said. She touched her sister’s arm. “I shouldn’t have spoken that way to you. I’m sorry.”
“It’s all right, Emma,” Amy said. “We each have different ways of dealing with things is all.”
“See you in the morning, Sam,” Emma said.
“Good night, Sam,” Amy said.
“Good night,” I said.
I heard it before I saw it. And when I heard it I wasn’t sure what it was. Just some kind of whimper, some kind of curse.
Somebody shouted.
Something heavy and fast-moving slammed into me.
Rita had just jumped on Molly’s back. She had a handful of that lovely coppery hair and she was jerking Molly’s head back and forth.
I returned the favor, grabbing a handful of Rita’s hair and yanking on it hard enough to make her cry out. “Let her go, Rita.”
She wouldn’t let go. I wound more of her hair around my hand and jerked all the harder. This time she screamed. And let go.
When she was free of Molly, I shoved her away.
“You happy you came out here and ruined his night for him, Molly?” Rita screamed at her. “You and this asshole lawyer of yours? Maybe if you two hadn’t given him all your grief he wouldn’t have smashed his car up. Maybe he was so mad at you two he couldn’t think straight.”
We all need somebody to blame. Maybe in the future there’ll be something called a blame robot, a little metal guy that follows you around and takes the blame for anything you do wrong or anything fate decides to dump on you.
For Rita, Molly was handy. Her accusation made no sense. But it didn’t need to make any sense.
Molly slipped her arm through mine.
“Will you take me home?”
“Oh,” Rita said. “Isn’t that so sweet?
Maybe she’ll sleep with you if you’re real nice to her, McCain.”
Brainard came over. Slid his arm around Rita’s shoulder. The hurt I’d put on him had apparently faded. He said, “C’mon, Rita. These two ain’t worth botherin’ with.”
His gentleness surprised me. Guy his size, his temperament, being capable of such a quiet, soothing tone. Was it because Egan was dead or because Brainard had more feelings for Rita than he usually let on?
Molly led me away.
Halfway to her place, she said, “I’ve really got a headache.”
“If it’s any comfort, the way I grabbed her, I’m sure Rita’s got one, too.”
“I never liked her. She was always sneaking around with David behind my back. But I’ve never hated her the way she hates me.” Then, “I haven’t really cried yet.”
“You could’ve fooled me.”
“Oh, that was nothing. I was inhibited by all the people around.”
“When you get home then—”
“When I get home I’ll have to go through the Inquisition. And then they’ll gloat.”
“I assume you’re talking about your parents?”
“Could you turn the heat on?”
“Sure.”
“Thanks. And yes, I’m talking about my parents. They’ll try to hide it. Their gloating.
They’ll say how sorry they are about him dying.
But they’ll be relieved. He won’t be around to bother them anymore. Meaning he won’t be around to bother me. Anymore. My father hated him.
Really. Deep, deep hatred. I was a virgin until I met David. He’s the only boy I’ve ever slept with. I made the mistake of telling my mom that. Supposedly in confidence.
But she told my father, of course. I really think he’s jealous. He just got crazy. He got drunk for several nights in a row and then he’d come upstairs and start screaming at me. He even called me a whore a couple of times. My mom really got scared.”
“Did he ever confront David?”
“Once. One night he got really drunk and went looking for him. My mom says he
keeps a loaded forty-five—his old army pistol—in the nightstand drawer. She went to look for it but it wasn’t there. She was afraid Dad would kill him or something. The whole night was crazy. She couldn’t call Cliffie because he’d tell everybody that Dad went off with a gun looking for David. Fortunately, she didn’t have to tell Cliffie anything. Cliffie saw Dad weaving down the street and pulled him over.
Made him park the car and then brought him home.
Dad didn’t say anything about David or the gun apparently. If Dad weren’t so
important, Cliffie would’ve run him in.
Anyway, he didn’t get to David.”
My headlights pierced the leafy darkness of her narrow street. The eyes of raccoons gleamed silver in the shrubs and undergrowth. The family dog began yapping before I was even halfway up the drive.
When I pulled up, she leaned over and kissed me on the cheek. “I wish you were younger or I were older.” She was all coppery hair and heartbroken smile. Egan had been a fool.
“Or you were shorter or I were taller.”
“We’re a pair.” Then, “You know what I’m doing, don’t you?”
“Stalling for time before you have to go inside.”
“You’re very perceptive.”
“What scares you the most, facing your parents or being alone in your room?”
“Being alone. Because I’m going to fall apart.”
“Maybe that’s what you need,” I said.
“Falling apart. Then when you wake up you’ll be stronger.”
“Rita could’ve stopped him tonight. This is her fault, you know.”
“Kiddo,” I said, not up for another flaying of her romantic rival, “it’s time for you to go inside.”
I drove around for an hour. This time Saturday night there would still be kids out cruising.
The hard drunks would be done for the night, passed out or punched out or puked out. Only the melancholy ones would be left. They’d had dates and the dates had to be home at midnight and now they were cruising alone, melancholy for the girls they’d just dropped off, because they loved them so damned much; or melancholy because they were so damned afraid they would lose them, secretly reviewing all their inadequacies and just
hoping the girls never found out about them for themselves.
They would hit the highway and turn up the rock and roll and let the moon shine on them with its ancient solitary soothing truths.
The local Tv stations always signed off at midnight, even on weekends. Nothing’s lonelier than the keen of a test pattern.
I climbed into bed shortly after one, read six pages, and fell thankfully into a deep and dreamless sleep. I went through all the usual tussles with the cats, Tasha deciding at some point during the night to examine my face the way a dermatologist would, her purring almost as loud as her snoring; little Crystal head-butting my arm so I’d give her a sleepy scratch; and Tess biting my foot when I made the mistake of trying to move it so I could get comfortable. I’d slept with my boyhood dog for years so I knew all about how to sleep with, around, and through the experience of pets in the same bed.
It was darktime when the phone woke me. No particular time or place or world. Just darktime.
My weary hand reaching out for the telephone on the nightstand. My weary ear feeling the cold receiver against it. My weary mind trying to make sense of the words. He or she was stingy with words. A regular haiku master. I say he or she because it was either a female talking through a handkerchief or a male talking through a handkerchief and sliding his voice up an octave, not quite falsetto.
“It wasn’t an accident.”
No emotion. No elaboration.
“You hear me? It wasn’t an accident.”
Thirteen
Next morning, I went out there even though there was no reason to do it. I went up to the edge of the crevice where the bridge had ripped away and I just stood there. It was a cool, sunny, autumn Sunday and even this far away from the center of town you could hear the bells of the Catholic church. The red limestone wall on the opposite side of the river was like a bulletin board of bits and pieces of Egan’s Merc, bits and pieces that were strewn everywhere. A chrome headlight rim, bent and busted, caught the sunlight. A foot-long length of tire was somehow adhered to the wall. What appeared to be a section of bumper stuck straight out. The front of the car
had left an outline in the limestone. Parts of the display were oily from impact. There were violent rents and deep gouges but they didn’t leave any discernible pattern.
I had no idea what I was looking for.
Maybe I wasn’t looking for anything. Maybe that phone call had made me suspicious enough to come out here,
even though the chances were it was a prank.
There are people who enjoy making miserable events even more miserable for those involved. I don’t understand people who admire communism, I don’t understand people who hurt children, I don’t understand people who rob and cheat old people, I don’t understand White Sox fans.
And I especially don’t understand people who find human grief something to exploit for laughs or profit. Someday I’m going to build my own private death row and I’m going to put all these people in it. Except for the White Sox fans.
Following that team is punishment enough. No incarceration required.
I drove back down to the starting line. The blue air was alive with pheasants. You could watch them take fragile flight, their elegant colors vivid above the cornfields and the meadows. In another week it would be legal for hunters to put their rifles and shotguns on them and blow the shit out of them. From all the gunfire in the surrounding hills it sounded as if at least a few of the brave and intrepid hunters were already blasting away. Those damned pheasants are mean.
The area around the starting line was a mess of crushed beer cans, crumpled cigarette packages, pop cans, smashed bottles, empty potato chip packages. But when you looked away from the debris, looked up at the smoky autumn hills, everything was clean and coherent, and the death of a young man last night seemed not obscene but impossible.
I wasn’t looking for it when I found it. I walked right past it, recognizing it for what it was, of course, but not connecting it to Egan or last night.
I was just walking back to my car when I happened to see the trail of it glistening there, a gleaming snake that had already claimed its victim —a gleaming trail of oil.
I walked over to the snake and measured its lengths in steps. The snake extended well beyond my desire to count off its length. I wasn’t sure what it meant. There might be a
harmless explanation. Or a harmful one.
Extremely harmful.
It was getting hotter. I went over and put the top down on my ragtop. I headed back to town.
People clog the churches on Sunday morning, so I always feel self-conscious when I’m tooling past a church and the congregation is gathered on the steps to congratulate the minister on another dynamic sermon—the congregation always gives you the look it reserves for burglars and heathens.
