I Bring Sorrow_And Other Stories of Transgression

by Patricia Abbott

  “The doctor said so. Freddie’s already asking for toys and Annie’s bossing her Oma. She wants to see Martha.” He smiled and looked around.

  “Martha’s dead, Claas. I put her in the ground yesterday.”

  He nodded mutely, looking out the window. There was time to tell him more later. Suddenly, she thought of something else. “Then you came all the way back here alone for me?” There must be something else that brought him, but she couldn’t think of it. “You drove back here knowing you’d have to turn around and go back for the children.”

  He nodded. “I can’t even remember Martha’s face, Hanna.” His voice broke. “I didn’t think of Martha. I just thought of you—just you.”

  “It will be all right, Claas.” Hanna said, patting his hand. “You only have to look to Annie to see Martha. We’ll go back soon and bring them home. When I recover.”

  He nodded wearily, but then smiled. “You said home, Hanna. You said home.”

  She had said home. The place she’d been about to burn down seemed like home. Or would—when the children returned—when they were together here once again.

  Is That You?

  She saw kids like him every day. Her café sat only a block from the juvie court, and kids and their parents funneled through for a beverage or chips. But this one—hunched in the doorway at seven a.m.—looked a bit older. More worn down than the usual teenager, skeletal and dirty, like he hadn’t had food or even a basin to wash in for days. Smelled too. Not outrageous, but damn ripe. He’d probably spent the night in one of the stairwells that snaked through the development. With recent cutbacks, Tucson cops had better things to do than chase down vagrants.

  Oh, what the hell. “Want in?” she asked. The boy nodded. “Got money to buy something? I’m not a soup kitchen.” He reached into his jeans and a grimy hand came up with a bill or two. She opened the door and waved him in. “Be with you in a sec.”

  At her divorce settlement five years back, Abby got the café, the cat, Cleo, and her bike. Ned got the house, the car, and the puppy—she’d forgotten its name. Ned never liked working here—or most any place—and the cat made him sneeze. Cleo died three months later, mourning her exile from Ned. A month or two later, a car backed over the bike. And what looked like a thriving little business in a new development in 2006 became one of the few spaces rented after the crash. Whoever thought this would be a good spot for a travel agency, a shoe boutique or a fancy pottery shop was dead wrong. Businesses that stuck fed off the nearby courts. A barbershop, the city tourist office, a taco stand, a nail salon and a bail bondsman were her only neighbors in a retail space built for thirty shops. The guy shining shoes just had an overhang to shade him so you couldn’t count him.

  Once inside, the boy slumped down at a table and immediately fell asleep, head propped on his arm. She could see a hole the size of a redskin potato in the sole of his shoe. Frowning, she began preparations for the day ahead.

  Sitting across from the Tucson Visitors Center, the café got an unpredictable mix of customers. Affluent tourists mixed uneasily with people meeting a court date. Worse still were the homeless people needing a place to pee. There was no bathroom in the café, but a public restroom was twenty feet away and gave her a less than scenic view and smell. If the courts were closed, she might as well be too.

  She began making coffee, though nothing a barista would brew. Price was the top priority for her clientele. Most days she threw half the pot away. Few people needed to warm up in southern Arizona.

  During his time here, Ned had insisted every item in the café be marked with its price, and although at first it seemed cheap and dumb—like him—she stuck with it even after his departure. If someone came in wanting a pack of gum, a miniature cactus, or a detailed map of the city and if she was busy, more often than not, they’d leave the money on the counter. Anything to do with heat, cacti, and the sun was bound to sell. And it never hurt to have aspirin, cold remedies, souvenirs, word jumbles, golf balls, comics, condoms, and small toys. On a slow day, she’d been known to do a jumble or two. She also had a copier, which came in handy for folks on their way to court. Some days, the copier got more of a workout than she did. She’d considered adding an ATM but it seemed like asking for trouble.

  She went in the back room now, relying on the bell to ring if a real customer came in. The kid was snoring, and she wondered if she’d have to call the cops at some point to get rid of him. He was sure to scare off legitimate clientele but seemed harmless. She’d gotten pretty good at sniffing out trouble. Ned had left his gun behind for protection, a relic from his days in Texas. After trying several locations, she kept it in a pouch in the broken microwave.

  Coffee, hot water, and a few prepared sandwiches were the first order of business. Often people came in with only a few minutes to spare before their trial resumed so it made sense to have something they could grab and go. She opened the box from Dunkin’ Donuts and put them on a clean plate. The bagels were from a local chain. She fried up some bacon because not a day went by when someone didn’t want a BLT, and then put a half-dozen eggs on to boil for her other standby: egg salad. After a few half-hearted tries, she gave up the idea of a taqueria and stuck with typical café grub. Local favorites were a luxury she didn’t have time for.

  He was stirring when she came out at 7:20. She walked over to his table. “What can I get you?”

  “Wha…” he said, only half awake. He looked around, seeming surprised to find himself here. But after a few seconds, his eyes focused and found the menu on the whiteboard. She knew he was looking for the cheapest item he could order and hang on to his seat. There were only three tables and she never filled all of them. But he didn’t know that.

  “How ’bout—ah—some coffee and a Slim Jim.” Their eyes simultaneously lit on the jar on the counter, the price marked on the glass in turquoise.

  “Not really sitting-down food, kid. If things get busy…”

  He nodded.

  “Might as well throw in an egg or two. ’Bout to go bad.” She cursed herself. If she’d ever had a kid of her own, he would’ve run all over her.

  “Hey, thanks.” To her surprise, he pulled out a cell phone—one of the old flips social service agencies gave the homeless—and dialed a number.

  She broke three eggs in the pan, ears open. He was calling what seemed to be a former employer, asking if there were any landscaping jobs. Painting to be done? Flyers to be distributed?

  “I can get out there by bus,” he kept assuring them. “Wouldn’t take a half hour.”

  Sounded like he had a cold, and her suspicions were confirmed when she turned in time to see him run a sleeve across his nose. Jiminy, did her good luck never end? She’d have sniffles by the weekend. And she’d hoped to drive up to Ironwood on Sunday.

  If Abby had her way—and she knew it sounded crazy because Ned had told her that enough times—she’d ditch this place and become a pot-bellied pig rescuer. She’d gone up to the sanctuary a few times when Ned was still around and sharing the café duties. Ironwood, an hour north of Tucson, had as many as six hundred pigs at a time. People thought they were cute, bought them, and then ditched them when they grew to be pig-sized. Teacup-sized, they called them in brochures and shops. Ha! The work was hard, just lifting the bags of feed was crippling for a one-hundred-ten-pound woman. And there was no pay in it; most of the workers had regular jobs. You did it out of love—or for some other fucked-up reason. Being out at the sanctuary full time, well, that was a pipedream. A café up there would do less business than Adam and Eve’s apple stand in Eden.

  A couple came in, saw the boy, and looked at each other.

  “Get you something?” Abby asked quickly. She turned the burner off and faced them.

  “We’re waiting for the tourist office to open,” the man said. “Printed the wrong opening time in the guidebook.” He pulled off his cap and wiped his forehead with a
handkerchief. “Surprising how many mistakes these books make. Wrong addresses, wrong opening times, prices…”

  “I guess they can’t visit every tourist spot each year,” his wife said, trying to console him. “Stuff changes.”

  Abby continued to stand there, expectant.

  “Guess we’ll have a cup of coffee and…” The man looked at his wife.

  “Iced tea?” His wife wore one of those visors—the kind that didn’t mess up your hair. Sunglasses took up half her face. She looked at the plate of donuts. “And maybe we’ll split a bear claw.”

  “We just sell the bottled stuff.” Abby nodded toward the cooler. Five years alone and she still said we, but it never hurt to let people think someone else was around.

  “I’ll have a cup of Earl Grey, then.” They sat down at the table nearest the door and pulled out their guidebook.

  “First time in Tucson?” Abby asked the couple as she set the eggs on the boy’s table.

  He was talking to someone else now, saying his mother had kicked him out when a new boyfriend came along, and his father was long gone.

  “Think a father would want to see his son once a decade,” he told the person. “And I paid all my traffic fines, so I wouldn’t be tempted to hit him up for any dough. Just wanted to…”

  “Been here once before,” the man said, playing with the brim on his Red Sox cap. “Back in the nineties.”

  “We’re here on business this time,” his wife said. “Sort of looking for opportunities in the southwest. We’re sick of the winters. Right, Hugh?”

  “Right.” Hugh sounded less sure.

  “And neither of us likes Florida. The rain, the insects, and everyone’s older than Methuselah.”

  Abby carried the bear claw and drinks over to their table. “You mean like investing in property?” she asked. She’d just heard on the news last night that one in three houses in Tucson sold for under one hundred thousand now. Investors could scoop them up and wait for things to pick up. Three years since the crash and things still sucked.

  “Something like that,” the man said. Simultaneously, they each took a sip of their drink and grimaced. Abby kept the water super hot, thinking it could cool off but not warm up. She usually managed to warn customers in time, but her mind was on that kid.

  The woman cut the bear claw in half, but Hugh waved his portion away.

  “Sure must be hot in July,” the woman said, taking a bite.

  “You bet,” Abby said, responding to a comment she heard several times a day.

  “If I could get a few bucks a day, I’d do almost any work,” the kid was saying into the cell. “Even turn tricks, come down to it. Done it before.” His voice rose in pitch with his misery, and Abby could feel the couple bristling behind her. “Yeah, but mostly I like to work with live things—maybe work at a plant nursery or in a park,” he continued. “If I could just get somethin’. Even five to ten bucks a day would do me. I don’t mind living rough.”

  He slammed the phone down and slurped up some coffee. The Slim Jim lay unwrapped on the table, but the eggs were gone. Abby watched as his eyes lit on the cash register, then on the couple across from him.

  “Nice little spot you have here,” Hugh broke in. “Do a lot worse than owning a café by the courthouse and not two blocks from the library and art museum. Probably get a lot of tourists with the bureau right over there.”

  “That was the idea.”

  “Didn’t turn out that way, huh?”

  “Things been pickin’ up lately,” she lied. “Worst of it’s over, they say.”

  The boy was on the phone again, explaining in a low voice why whoever it was couldn’t return a call. “Phone’s only good for making calls.”

  The three adults were transfixed by the negotiations.

  “Okay, then. Well, just in case. The place is behind the courts in an adobe mall. Kinda blue-green.” He looked up at the window. “It’s called the Stop-in Café.” Snorting, the kid tossed the phone down and put his head back on his arms. But one eye opened, fixing itself on the cash register again.

  In the years she’d been here, Abby had always feared a robbery—especially after Ned took off. Or some sort of incident she was ill equipped to handle. Someone bursting through the door and demanding something from her—something she couldn’t possibly provide. Something Ned hadn’t put a price tag on. It was inevitable, wasn’t it? But maybe not today. It was possible a relative was coming to pick the kid up. Maybe a parole officer, a priest. Someone harmless.

  And she had the gun. When Ned first gave it to her, he insisted on taking her to a target range in Apache Junction where she could practice shooting.

  “Not bad for the first time,” he said, examining the target afterward. “You could really be something if you wanted to.”

  “Like what?” she’d asked. It’d be great to really be something.

  “You two ought to try it out,” she said suddenly to the couple.

  “Try what out?” the woman said, finishing her tea. Her hands glistened with spilled sugar in the bright light.

  “Running a café. See if it suits you. I can walk you through the place some day. I’ve had about enough Arizona for this life.” She turned to the boy. “Hey, kid. Gotta name?”

  He stood up, looking confused—like she’d asked him a difficult question.

  “Got a job for you working with live things. Pay’s not great, but they’ll have a place for you to sleep. Food too. You good with animals?”

  “You mean like dogs?”

  She could picture someone coming through the door, someone with a gun or a grudge or a gripe of some sort. The gun in the microwave might not even work by now. Probably needed to oil it more than once every five years. Ned had said something about maintaining it. Faster she got this kid out of here, the better. She’d been wrong when she thought he was harmless. When she didn’t pick up the scent.

  “I think you’re going to like this job I have in mind. There’s a sign just before you get to Ironwood that says, ‘We are looking for a dedicated person who is ready to commit to the care of unwanted and abused pot-bellied pigs. Is that YOU?’”

  He seemed to think she was asking him the question rather than quoting the sign and said, “Yes.” A pause. “Is it a real thing? What you just said—pot-bellied pigs?”

  “Sure, it is. Place is about an hour north of here.” She scrambled in the drawer for the card she kept handy. Sometimes she solicited donations for the place and stuck the card on a jar.

  “There’s a pig out there with your name on it,” she said.

  “I’d need a bus to get out there.” He paused a minute. “And the fare.”

  She was looking for the bus schedule when Hugh butt in. “We can give him a lift. Right, honey.” He put a ten on the table, stashing his guidebook in his knapsack. “Planned to wander north anyway.”

  Abby slammed the drawer shut and handed Hugh the card. “Sure it’s not out of your way? I got a bus schedule around somewhere.”

  The woman—Abby never did catch her name—said, “We’re just trying places out today. Looking for an opportunity. Maybe we’ll want to rescue dogs.”

  “Pigs,” Abby said. “Pot-bellied pigs.”

  Hugh smiled. “We’ve done worse in our time.” He looked at the boy and then at the card. “Ready for Ironwood, son?”

  “Tell them I sent you,” Abby said. “They’ll know who Abby is.”

  The boy looked like an underfed twelve-year old walking out the door between them. The man, sensing this perhaps, took one arm. His wife took the other. Abby watched as they passed a trashcan where Hugh tossed the card she’d given him. They passed the tourist bureau without a sideward glance, closing in on the boy so she could hardly see him now. His disposable phone still lay on the table, she noticed. She was about to run after them when the bell rang and a cust
omer came in.

  Maybe he’d come back for the phone. She put it behind the counter and stuck the Slim Jim back in the glass jar.

  “Won’t You Pardon Me?”

  Ron was pulling guard duty on the perimeter of a firebase in the A Shau Valley when his doorbell in Detroit rang. As the mountains faded and the line of suspicious-looking soldiers on the Ho Chi Minh Trail disappeared, he jerked awake. The bell rang rarely because of its odd placement on the doorframe, and almost the only person who could be leaning on it was his son. But Nat was in Afghanistan, a terrain that would, no doubt, be his son’s dream landscape for the rest of his life. But Nat was not due home for three or four months, and he would’ve texted if his plans changed. A good kid, though at thirty-seven—or was it thirty-eight—kid was probably the wrong word. And, of course, his son had a key.

  Ron’s feet searched for his slippers as he shouted, “Just a minute.” He had no idea if someone at the door could even hear him. Pressing down hard on the arms of the chair, he hoisted himself up. His knees threatened to buckle, but they manned up just in time. He’d grown skinny quickly. After years of toting around an extra thirty-five, it fell off in three or four months. He made his way to the door, stopping to rest along the way. It was only twenty-five feet, for God’s sake. The doctor had said a year, possibly eighteen months. But didn’t they always double the time it took for the cancer to kill you? He’d heard that once.

  Someone had gouged the peephole out—probably him in a drunken rage—so he had to open the door without looking. A tall woman with long gray hair tied up on her head stood there. He peered at her, thinking she looked an awful lot like Sally Pastor, his former mother-in-law. But Sal must be long gone.

  He said her name anyway. “Sally? That you?”

  The woman laughed sharply, almost a barking noise, and then he knew who it was. His ex-wife, Carmen, Sally’s daughter.

  “You’ve gotta be kidding,” he said before he could stop himself.