by Joe Clifford
I headed inside the gift shop, little bell dingling enthusiastic. A dowdy blue-hair waited behind the counter decked out in antiquated New England garb—poofy bowed hat, frilly apron, rosy cheeks—eager as that bell. I tried to embrace my inner 1860s shopkeeper.
“How can I help ye?” She said it like that, too. “Ye.”
I asked about the tour even though I knew they were done for the day.
She seemed crestfallen, pointing at the grandfather clock’s swinging pendulum. “Last group just left.” She nudged forward a bowl of maple-flavored ribbon candy. “Sucker?”
Out the window above her head, the outline of a two-story building lay beyond the orchard.
“Shoot,” I said. “When did they leave?”
“About half hour ago.”
The two-story building was a few hundred yards over a hill and blockier than distillery barns. More like modern apartments, dormitories, off-campus housing. The newer construction felt out of place against the old-timey aesthetic. A winding path cut through the forest. I glanced over my shoulder. A bunch of cars clogged the parking lot. Still had time to investigate.
Miss Marple pointed at a side display, golden syrups glistening in glass bottles stacked inside a waxed cheddar cheese frame. “Souvenir to take home to the family?”
At $19.95 a pop? No thank you. A handle of corn whiskey costs less than that.
I buttoned my winter coat. “Maybe some other time.”
In the parking lot, I slipped past my truck, slinking between cars, and ducked into the woods. Two grooves trampled snow to dirt, the kind of imprints motorized carts make. I followed the tracks. Curling through the forest, I spied a pair of Amish hats over the thatch, going in the opposite direction. Surprised they didn’t make them strap on a phony Abe Lincoln beard, too. Definitely teenagers. Had to be humiliating enough getting sober on a maple syrup farm without playing Little House on the Prairie. Junkies are used to the humiliation. Except these weren’t regular junkies. Not the street kind anyway, not like my brother. These were suburban boys kicked off the rowing team. I noted the lack of pigment, the winter tans. I decided to follow, hoping they were headed to the dorms. Maybe I’d be able to cut them off, talk to them.
But the boys angled down the valley, back into the orchard, and were soon swallowed by the dense forest. There was a lot of white between us. I didn’t want to risk calling or running after them. I kept to my side of the woods, tracing the footpath until I came upon a shack, a storage shed. Peering through dirty windows, I recognized the tools of the trade, rakes and drills, trowels, shovels, hammers, buckets, ties to tap. A tractor sat inside. I peeked around the edge of the building. The dorms weren’t far now, maybe half a football field away. Dusk was creeping in. There was no easy way to get there. I’d have to cross the clearing, in plain view.
I was deciding whether to play it safe or go for it, when I turned back and took a hard hook to the body. Fast, compact, the kind of punch boxers are trained to throw. Dropped me like that, sucked the wind out of me. On a knee, unable to breathe, I gazed up from the ground, surprised. We don’t get a lot of black people up here. Not saying Ashton and its surrounding counties are racist. But we sure don’t make it easy to look different up here.
“I got separated from the tour,” I tried explaining after I caught my breath.
“The fuck you did.”
I knew not every black teenager was a gangbanger; but stamped with tattoos and sporting grills, these boys weren’t like Phillip Crowder either.
“Anyone tell you punching paying customers is lousy customer service?”
“Yeah. Because thirty-year-old white boys come up here all the time to inquire about maple syrup production. I ain’t never seen nobody older than eight or younger than eighty on the tour. Let’s go.”
The other one, the less talky of the two, hoisted me to my feet. I couldn’t even stand straight, a stitch in my side leaving me bent over with a wicked case of scoliosis.
“Where we going?”
No one answered as they dragged me away from the shed, beyond the dorms, deeper into the dark woods. More snow shook loose in sheaves, dumping on my head. I wondered how far they were willing to take this historical reenactment and if I’d end up shamed in a stockade. Something told me playtime was over.
They guided me through a gully of granite until we arrived at a trailer. Long and skinny, like the mobile unit to an off-site chain gang. They pushed me up the wood stairs and shoved me inside.
The plantation manager was waiting. Better dressed but with the same hard look around the eyes, older and, y’know, white. He was a graduate of the program, too. Wearing long sleeves, he sported plenty of ink, up the backs of his hands, on knuckles and between fingers. I checked the clock over his head. What was my crime? After-hour loitering? Didn’t matter. This was private property, and no one itched to do me a solid. Behind us, no more lugged buckets, no more cutesy charade of early American history. Just night falling hard with me caught in the wrong place, at the wrong time, one more time. I hadn’t seen any fences, no locks on the gates. These boys were here because they believed in the cause. Nothing is more terrifying than the true believer.
“Why don’t you head back?” the man in charge said. “Get ready for the meeting. I’ll take it from here.”
The two thugs made sure to each bump my shoulder on their way out.
“How can I help you?” he said after they’d left, but he didn’t mean it.
“Mind if I ask you a few questions about Rewrite Interventions?” No reason to beat around the sugarbush. I was here now, and this might be my only chance.
“Let’s stop wasting each other’s time, okay?” The man pointed past my shoulder, out the front door, into the gnarled wilderness now blanketed country black. “This is your one free pass. I’m going to walk you to your truck. You’re going to get inside your truck and drive home. You’re going to forget about this place. Understood?”
“What if I want to visit a friend of mine enrolled in the rehab?”
“You don’t. Jay.” He made sure to stop before saying my name, the one I was sure I hadn’t given him.
When I didn’t stir, he nodded through the wall, toward the bunks. “I got more boys like the ones you just met. Only not as friendly. Unless you want to find out what we do to trespassers, I suggest you get your white ass moving.”
“What’s your problem, man? I’m just asking about your partnership with Rewrite. Not like I’m requesting a list of names and addresses.”
“This program is a last chance for these boys. I’m committed—and so are other graduates of this program—to making sure nothing interferes with their recovery. Rewrite Interventions saved my life. It’s going to get a chance to save theirs, too. Now that’s all you are getting out of me. Move.”
When I didn’t move fast enough, he plucked the radio off his belt, bringing it to his mouth, static hissing back.
A voice crackled. “What’s up?”
“Tell Sean, Malcolm, and Ryan to get down here. We have a situation.”
I waved him off. “Never mind. I’m leaving.”
If Phillip Crowder was here, which was a long shot anyway, I wasn’t getting near him, not like this. I didn’t know how they handled a “situation.” But I wasn’t sticking around to find out.
The escorted walk back to my truck was a long and humiliating one. I’d had my ass handed to me a lot over these past few years. Bowman, those dirty cops, assorted riffraff. I could stomach those beat-downs. They involved million-dollar projects, the high-stakes game of prisons-for-profit; they’d come at the hands of professionals, ex-bikers, rogue officers, mean mutherfuckers a lot tougher than me. You get whooped by men like that, you walk away with your head up high. Right now, I was hobbling past Slokey’s Special, with my tail between my legs, bowels hammered so far back into my intestinal tract I felt like I had to take a shit. Knocked around by a pair of teenagers on a fucking maple syrup farm might’ve been a new personal best in t
erms of all-time low.
I was back on Billington Road less than a minute when Fisher rang me up.
“Please tell me you got some good news.”
Fisher didn’t answer. I figured the call dropped.
“Fisher?”
“Charlie’s in the hospital. He collapsed at the Dubliner.”
All I could think about was the injury sustained from the warehouse attack. He’d taken a blow to the knee. A good crack but not enough to warrant a hospital visit. I was fucked up far worse. Charlie had blown up like Brando, fat and bloated, but that added weight meant he should be able to take a crowbar to the knees. How fragile was the guy these days?
“Acute pancreatitis,” Fisher said.
“Pancreatitis?”
This had nothing to do with the attack or my little world. There was no mystery to solve. This was me ignoring what had been right in front of my eyes the entire time. My best friend was killing himself.
“If he doesn’t quit drinking, Porter, he’s gonna die. That’s what the doctor said. It’s fucking serious, man.”
“Pittsfield?” That was the closest ER.
“Just got off the phone with the hospital. I’m about to drive down to see him.”
I told Fisher to hang tight. I’d swing by Charlie’s and pick him up and we could go together.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
CHARLIE FINN WAS the closest thing to family I had left. Even when Chris was alive, Charlie and I were closer than he and I ever were. Blood complicates, a lifetime of bad choices implicates, and the guilt I felt over my brother’s death twisted the blade deeper. Wasn’t a day went by I didn’t think about my brother and what I could’ve done differently to save him. But my relationship was with a ghost—Chris had been lost for a long, long time. My obsession with fixing him, my failure to do so, helped drive the wedge between me and my wife and son. Even after my brother’s suicide, I lived in the past, rehashing, fretting about rewriting an irreversible script. I ached for a second try. The opportunity for salvation had been right in front of me. And I hadn’t done a damn thing about it.
I knew Charlie drank too much. I saw the wear on his body. His memory had suffered—I’d have to repeat myself five times for him to get the point. He had grown increasingly sullen. Charlie used to be a fun guy. We could joke, talk pop culture, movies. Now he fucking moped. The only time I saw my friend was that first drink. After that, he slipped away, sliding somewhere between cheerless and inaccessible. And Charlie never stopped after just one. I’d stopped going to the Dubliner a while ago. I almost never met him out anymore. Too depressing. When I picked him up on Thanksgiving for that auction, I hadn’t seen him for at least a month, maybe longer. And the only reason I picked him up that night was out of obligation, holiday blues, a sadness in his voice. Earlier today? I’d needed backup, and there was no one else to ask.
I’d endured a lot of lows in my life. I’d lost my wife, my family, and had been subjected to the one fate I swore I’d avoid at all costs: I was a part-time, long-distance dad. Another man was raising my child. I’d come to accept Dr. Shapiro-Weiss’ assessment of PTSD. Fine, I had some mental issues. Didn’t like acknowledging it, but whatever. Also meant I was a survivor. I possessed an ability to keep going when times got rough. When I got knocked down, I’d always get back up. Charlie and I both loved Rocky, the original. The sequels suck. Except the last one when Rocky is, like, really old. We’d watched that movie together dozens of times since high school. I remembered debating the everlasting appeal over beers one night. Last call at the Dubliner, gesticulating, pontificating, throwing around other really big words you only use when you’re shit-faced. Charlie tried saying Rocky was a superhero.
“Bullshit,” I said. “That’s the crappy later ones. The original? Proves all you need is heart. You can get the crap knocked out of you, and if you stay on your feet long enough, make it till the final bell, no matter how battered, bloodied, bruised, you still win. That’s not superhero. That’s heroic.”
“What’s the difference?” Charlie asked.
“Superhero is fantasy, the shit kids believe in. It’s not real. Heroic is everyman. You. Me. No talent or skill required. Just a willingness to go toe-to-toe with the best, take the hits, not let the bastards keep you down. You fall, you get up, you keep fighting.”
But that was a lie. It was a talent; it was a skill. I had it. Charlie did not. Might’ve been the one true talent I possessed. Call it stubbornness, pride, a propensity to cut off my nose to spite my face, which I’d do if it meant paying back some of the hurt. I could bang my head against a wall longer than you. It kept me going. I’d will myself to continue on if only to prove my detractors wrong. That fire burned inside me. It did not burn inside Charlie. He didn’t have what I did. Maybe I was being arrogant, vain, overselling internal fortitude and puffing out my chest because I wasn’t the one lying in a hospital bed right now following major organ failure, sipping apple juice through a straw. Maybe assigning fate this way made the regret I felt more palatable. I couldn’t say. But if I had to mortgage the farm on one of us standing at the final bell, I wasn’t picking Charlie.
Charlie was propped up on pillows. He already looked better. A few hours off the sauce, having some electrolytes and nutrients pumped in his body, his skin had returned to a healthier shade of pale.
“How you feeling, buddy?”
“Only hurts when I laugh.”
Fisher slinked around me, waving sheepishly.
I averted my eyes, shuffled my feet, tried to find a clock even though I had the time.
“Guys, I’m not dead. I’ll be fine. As long as I . . .”
“Quit drinking,” I said.
“Yeah. That.” Charlie glanced around the hospital room, searching for that lost time, too.
Fisher and I stayed till visiting hours were up. Watching our friend lying there was tough for both of us. Charlie tried making the same lame jokes. Fisher and I pretended to laugh. Nothing was funny.
On the way out, we caught the doctor. He reiterated what we already knew. “Your friend had an acute pancreatic attack. He needs to stop drinking. Completely. Even the occasional beer will kill him.”
Before leaving the hospital, I stopped off on Tom’s floor to see how he was holding up. Didn’t go in. No point. Nothing had changed. I stared through the glass, at the machines, the wires and plugs, the green screens, listening to the low hum of technology simulating life.
I brought Fisher back to Charlie’s, a long ride punctuated by extended periods of silence and inescapable sorrow. Then I stopped by the market and returned to my sad, dumpy one-room apartment, feeling as low as I had in a while. With my brother’s death, Jenny divorcing me, taking our son with her, I wasn’t ready for another loss. Felt like another chunk of my heart was being lopped off, cauterized, blackened, nerves numbed, deadened. Echoes of mortality, finality, the sound of windows closing forever. In other words, it brought up a lot of shit. For one, I needed to be a better friend to Charlie and make more of an effort than I had. And I would. Stopping drinking was going to be hard for the guy, but what choice did he have if he wanted to stay alive? Maybe I could quit with him, the way some people shave their heads when a friend gets cancer, a show of solidarity.
I cracked a beer and was in the middle of boiling pasta for dinner. Slather butter, sprinkle garlic powder, Parmesan cheese, you have a fucking feast. Someone gently rapped on my door. Might as well leave it unlocked for as often as people dropped by uninvited. Maybe Vin Biscoglio had returned. In which case, I planned to strap him to a chair and waterboard the fucker until he explained what was happening, because this sure as shit wasn’t about any missing kid. I jerked open the door, brandishing a wooden spoon.
“How’d you know where I lived?”
“You left your card?” Alison Rodgers said. “Remember?”
“No, I don’t.” I crossed my eyes. “I was pretty doped up. So whacked on painkillers I don’t remember anything.” I stopped talking, flutte
ring lashes. “Wait. Who are you again?”
“Can I come in?”
I let the door fall open. “I should warn you accommodations aren’t quite as nice as your posh digs. Guess being a junkman doesn’t pay as well as kidnapping.”
Alison looked embarrassed for me. I felt embarrassed for me. I didn’t know why I still acted like this sometimes.
“Mind if I sit?”
“Sure. I’m about to have dinner. I can dump in more spaghetti if you’d like to join me?”
“I’m good, thanks.”
I returned to stirring the pot.
“You visited one of our farms today.”
“I did. I am trying to find Phillip Crowder. I’ve been clear about that.”
“You are persistent.”
“My ex-wife calls it pigheaded. But I like your take better. You want some coffee?”
“That would be nice. Thank you.”
I thought about taking a poke at how all these ex-addicts love their caffeine. But I didn’t. End of a long day, the fight had drained out of me. “You could’ve called, saved yourself the trip.”
“I wanted to see you in person.”
I dug the coffee out of the cupboard, measured the dose, flipped the switch. “We keep meeting like this, people are going to start talking.” I looked at the clock on the microwave. “Especially at this hour.”
“I stopped by earlier. There’s a meeting I attend not far from here. You weren’t home.”
“Yeah, I was out and about, getting kicked around.”
“Are you okay, Jay? You seem a little—”
“What?”
“Angry? I mean, angrier than usual.”
I turned off the burner, leaving my spaghetti to cook on its own, and joined her at the table.
“Want to tell me about it?” Alison said.
“What’s your deal? Are you just, like, super nice? One of these people who goes around trying to help everyone all the time?”
