No Way Home

by Andrew Coburn

  Papa stood waiting. The rains of the night had taken away some of the heat. The humid air was almost pleasant. When Clement got out of the car, Papa raised an arm and let it fall. “I’ve lost him, Clement. I’ve lost my boy.”

  Clement turned his face away for a moment. “What are you telling me, Papa?”

  “He came back busted up. Someone must’ve done it to him at that whorehouse. He’s dead, Clement.”

  Clement gazed over Papa’s head. Pines beyond the back of the house looked unready for the world, as if a child had sketched them and applied too little crayon. “Where is he?”

  “He’s in his room. I put him there. I cleaned him up best I could. I changed his shirt, and I put clean socks on him. He didn’t have any washed, so I gave him a pair of mine. Same fit.”

  Clement went into the house, and Papa followed. Junior was on the cot, where Papa had lain him out straight, brought the hands together, one over the other, and placed the folded army blanket over the waist and legs. The stockinged feet protruded.

  “He was born broken, and he died worse. Not my fault, Clement. I brought him up best I could, same as I did you. But we had the whole town against us, the old chief and then this one. Ain’t anyone ever been fair to us.”

  Clement stared at his brother. Traces of blood remained on the face, as if the thorns of roses had embraced it. Then Clement could look no more. He went into the kitchen and stood by the sink. Papa came out and stood by the stove. Neither spoke for a while. Then Papa did.

  “I was layin’ him out, I had my final words with him. Told him I was never ‘shamed of him. Told him he was my flesh and blood.”

  “Like you never knew that, huh, Papa?”

  “I wanna bury him here. This is where he belongs.”

  A streamer of sunlight transported dust. Peering through it, Clement saw a stunted and withered old man with a prehensile look. Peering harder, he remembered old stories his grandmother had told about Rayballs who had lived in the woods, shunned commitments, and wiped their snot on their wrists, scrappy and scrawny critters in daily danger of being mistaken by hunters for small game.

  Papa said, “The way you’re lookin’ at me, maybe I oughta dig two graves. One for me.”

  “Maybe we should put him out there, with his mama,” Clement said, pointing toward the window, the direction unmistakable.

  “She ain’t there.”

  “He thought she was.”

  Seconds later Clement was outdoors, and Papa was at his heels. Clement headed toward the woodpile, the top of which was sheeted with plastic. Papa said, “You’re serious, ain’t you? You can’t dig there.”

  “You don’t have to dig.”

  Papa grabbed at him. “I want you to promise me something. I got the name and address of that whorehouse written out. You go there, Clement, you get the one who bashed him. You promise?”

  With an air of fatality Clement said, “First things first.”

  • • •

  Christine Poole sat by a tall window and looked out at the green grounds. The round ornamental pond glittered gold in the sun. Arlene Bowman said, “The scent is delicious.” The voice did not bother her. It was simply there, like the furniture, the flowers. The flowers were on the mantel and two tables. “So many,” Arlene said, “but none, I notice, from Morgan.”

  Christine faintly heard her. Her thoughts were on two men, both gone, one buried, the other cremated. She remembered how her first husband’s death had emptied the familiar of meaning, had left the suits he had once filled hanging alien in the closet. Rooms in which his voice had vibrated gaped with silence. His favorite chair was hollow, his place at the dinner table vacant. The Persian carpet he had bought at a close-out still conveyed an imperishable quality of design but felt different under her feet. As it had been then with his death, so it was now with Calvin’s.

  “The nice thing, of course, is that you don’t have to worry about money,” Arlene said, moving away from the mantel. “That would add insult to injury.”

  She wondered whether in time she would confuse the two of them, whether they would slip into each other’s clothes to play ghostly guessing games, with one tugging at her heart in the guise of the other.

  “Money is the key,” Arlene said. “My father killed himself over it, and Gerald is uncomfortable with men who make more than he does. He says money makes the man. Which is true.”

  Christine’s composure teetered when Arlene moved into her line of vision. The woman looked ravishing, all lovely arms and legs in a little black dress that could have been inked on. At the same time, as Arlene drew closer, Christine felt something in herself dry up.

  “It does something for women too. Keeps us fresh. I don’t intend to grow old. I want always to be new. And you, Christine, no reason for you to grow old. We’ll work some more on your weight. You’ve already lost some, I can see.”

  Arlene, hovering, was giving her all her attention, which became too much to bear, too much for anyone to bear. She rose from her chair, unsteady, unwell. “Would you excuse me for a minute?”

  The carpet muffled her steps. Somewhere people were laughing, joking, exquisitely enjoying themselves, all ignorant of what lay ahead. A bride this moment might be tossing a bouquet. Enjoy it while you can, she thought. She entered the game room, where her elder son, throwing darts, haunted her with his looks. They were every bit like his father’s.

  She said, “Get that woman out of here.”

  • • •

  Fred Fossey’s eyes drank her in. She hadn’t been fooling. She had brought sandwiches and a cold thermos of lemonade, real lemons, not from the mix. “I told you I would,” May Hutchins said and handed him a paper cup. The sandwiches were roast beef, meant for a man. They sat facing each other on the grass near the markers, Flo and Earl’s. Fred’s face glowed. He was taking big bites and enjoying each.

  “This is great, May. Honest to God, it’s really great.”

  “Wasn’t any bother bringing it. I thought it’d be fun.” The red tips of her hair sizzled in the sun. “I saw you coming out of the library yesterday with a bunch of books. You must read a lot.”

  “I’m a student of military history, May. Right now I’m on the big wars, One and Two. ‘Course, the Korean War’s my favorite because I fought in it.”

  “Stands to reason. How’s the lemonade?”

  “Delicious.”

  “And the sandwich?”

  “Even better. This is good beef.” He stopped chewing and looked into her eyes. “When you saw me at the library, why didn’t you holler?”

  “Well, there’s a time and place for everything. You got mustard on the corner of your mouth.” She leaned forward and wiped it off with her pinky.

  “Your hair looks nice,” he said. “It’s different from the last time.”

  “Really? I don’t take much time with it. I know I’m not pretty,” she said, lowering her eyes, and instantly he moved closer, spilling his lemonade. “Don’t worry,” she said, “there’s plenty more.”

  “May, don’t you know you’re beautiful?”

  Her voice went shy. “I guess I need someone to tell me.”

  His arm was around her, with one thing leading to another. His mouth moved from her cheek to her lips. He frenched her and felt her tremble. He was mussing the hair she had fixed so nicely. Her mouth fought free.

  “What are we doing, Fred?”

  “Everything.” His hand was under her dress. Her legs were bare. “Have you ever done it in a cemetery, May?”

  “Never.” Then she was laughing, like a girl. “Not in front of Flo, Fred. We can’t.”

  “Let her watch. Let her know we’re both happy.”

  They were both laughing, joking, enjoying exquisite fun. “Earl’s there too,” she said.

  “He knows what men and women do.” He was having trouble with his trousers. The zipper was caught on the fly of his boxer undershorts, and he had to rip it clear.

  “Oh, Fred, you’re too big.”r />
  “Bigger than your hubby?”

  “Much.”

  Then he was on her, and her hand was trying to make it right when a terrible rumble came upon them and then a roar. They leaped to their feet as a pickup truck bounced by with the face of a little man snarling at them. “It’s that damn Papa Rayball,” Fred hissed.

  May was frantically brushing her dress. “I’m so embarrassed.”

  “We can finish it.”

  “No, we can’t. Ever!”

  • • •

  Chief Morgan climbed warily out of his car. The pickup wasn’t there, which meant Papa wasn’t. Nobody was, he sensed it. All the same, he was glad he had brought along Meg’s toy, which was a lump in his pocket, like a week’s supply of small change. His eyes darting here and there, he tried to sort out what was making him uneasy. The woodpile looked the same and yet not the same. Things seemed altered, just a degree. The chorus of birds should have been reassuring, but a cardinal outdoing itself set his teeth on edge. Moving toward the house, he saw something small that had been burned on the ground, the ashes black. Cloth, he suspected. Going down on a knee, he detected a lingering stench that suggested a bit of plastic and something else, impossible to tell what.

  The door had been left unlatched, and he stepped inside with his eyes absorbing everything in the cramped kitchen. A dripping water tap attacked his ear. Poking around, he saw a damp, blood-stained towel in the trash bucket and wondered what Papa had been killing. Years ago Papa had kept rabbits for eating, then shot them all when he got sick of the meat and they got out of hand.

  He peeked into Junior’s room. An army blanket covered the cot. Junior’s old tattered sneakers had been tossed in a corner, the heels worn lopsided. He backed off, with no intention of searching for the F-l sniper’s rifle. He did not want to waste time looking for what wasn’t there. What had disquieted him outside disquieted him more inside the house. He did not like the air, as if something, maybe the whole house, were going to blow up.

  Back on the road, he drove randomly to give his mind a rest and his muscles time to relax. The road meandered, and the sky hurled down its brightness. Again, like Lydia, he wished the summer were over, no more dragons in his sleep, the little he was getting. Approaching the cemetery, he swerved fast as a car came out and almost hit his. The driver was Fred Fossey.

  “What the hell are you doing?” he shouted, backing up.

  Fred Fossey had slammed on the brakes and was now trying to restart the engine. “I’m sorry,” he said out of a flushed face. “I was paying respects to Earl and Flo till Papa Rayball spoiled it all. He’s in there barreling around in his pickup, like he’s looking for his wife’s grave and can’t find it.” Fossey got the engine started. “You want my advice, Chief, you oughta arrest the old coot.”

  Sounds came from the town clerk’s office. Malcolm Crandall was alone in there, but he had grown into the habit of talking to himself. Quite distinctly, as Meg O’Brien was passing the open door, Crandall said, “Fuck them all.”

  “I hope that doesn’t include me,” Meg said, stopping in her tracks.

  He reddened only for a second. “Our town’s going to hell,” he said. “It used to be nice and quiet, a pretty place to live, even with all those newcomers tearing up the woods, but now everything’s bad. Flo and Earl Lapham dying like they did, and now Matt MacGregor killing himself.”

  “It was an accident,” she fired back.

  “We all know what it was,” Crandall said. He had latching eyebrows, which in moments like this gave him a fierce look. “It’s not hard to put two and two together. That state cop knew what he was doing, the chief didn’t, or else he was covering up.”

  “You don’t know what you’re talking about, Malcolm.”

  “The hell I don’t. The chief was here now, I’d tell him to his face. He’s a god-damn fool.”

  Meg’s sharp cheekbones almost came through the skin. “You want me to tell him that?”

  Malcolm turned his back on her. “It’s between you and me.”

  • • •

  In the heat of the sun Papa Rayball stomped his wife’s grave. His heels crushed the grass and cut the sod. “I know you can hear me!” His voice was terrible, like his face, which had caved in on itself. “He’s yours now! You take care of him!” The sky blazed its bluest. His voice should have raised the dead, but it didn’t. Exhausting himself, he stopped. That was when he saw the chief.

  “Don’t stop on my account,” Morgan said.

  Papa’s face regained form. “How long you been there?”

  Morgan had a hand in his pocket. “Anything wrong with Junior?”

  “That’s my business. And hers.”

  “She can’t hear you. I’m the only one that can. And I’m going to put you away, Papa.” Morgan’s hand slid out of his pocket with Meg O’Brien’s little snub-nose. “MacGregor told me everything.”

  “Seems to me I heard he shot himself. You tellin’ me I’m wrong?”

  “Before he did, he left a confession. I got you, Papa, it’s all in writing.”

  The revolver was raised. Papa ignored it. It didn’t much matter to him, and Morgan mattered only as an object of hate. “You got nothin’,” he said, spittle showing. “You got pecker droppin’s on a piece of paper.”

  Morgan gave a look at the ground. “Maybe I got her word too,” he said, and Papa’s eyes glowed with heat.

  “Her? That tramp?”

  “You killed her, didn’t you?”

  Papa grinned. He grinned the biggest he had in years, maybe ever. “Anybody around? Anybody hear us?” He gloated. “I’d do it again.”

  Morgan held the revolver steady as his eyes slid from side to side and then over his shoulder, which disconcerted Papa.

  “What are you doin’?”

  “Looking around for the rock I’ll tell people you tried to hit me with.”

  “You ain’t gonna do nothin’. You ain’t the kinda man could kill a chicken. And that ain’t a big enough gun, that’s a cap pistol. I had one like it, I was little.”

  “You’re still little, Papa. You’re getting smaller.”

  “Big enough to stand up to you.” Papa’s voice challenged, his eyes baited. He was entering another rage, this one just as helpless but cold as ice, and Morgan watched and learned something, which took away will and purpose.

  “I don’t know what’s happened, Papa, but I don’t think I have to bother about you anymore.” He lowered the revolver. “I think it’s over.”

  “It ain’t ever over,” Papa said. Morgan pocketed the revolver and turned to leave, and Papa barked at him. “You were bluffin’! You were bluffin’ all the time!”

  “That’s right, Papa, but you weren’t. That was the rub.” Morgan turned to leave again and stopped himself. “If I look for Junior, will I find him?”

  “You leave him alone.” Papa looked away. “He’s where he wants to be.”

  Clement Rayball returned to the motor inn to shave and shower, put on a fresh shirt, and to pack. The packing took no more than a couple of minutes. His used underwear and socks he tossed into the wastebasket. He zipped up the bag and left it on the bed. He told the desk clerk he would be leaving that night and settled his account. The clerk said, “Thank you, Mr. Rodriques.” At the bar he ordered a Miller. When the bartender served him, he laid down a hundred-dollar bill and a sealed envelope containing more than that.

  “I’m checking out later,” he said. “That’s for you, the envelope’s for her.”

  “Milly?”

  “Yeah, tell her she’s a nice kid, better than most of her customers.”

  “She’ll appreciate it. She doesn’t have much.”

  “More than my mother had at that age. Make sure she gets it.”

  Clement drank half his beer and left. The sun was white, the sky went on and on, like Florida’s. He did not simply miss Florida. He yearned for it. He drove out of Andover, back to Bensington for the last time.

  • • • />
  The death of Calvin Poole intensified the investigation into the Mercury Savings and Loan. The two red-bearded regulators brought in staff to help them winnow truth from fiction in complex loan agreements with Bellmore Companies and subsidiaries. One of the regulators said to his staff, “We’re walking planks thrown across mud.”

  Gerald Bowman, whose contacts at the bank kept him abreast of the investigation, conferred much of the morning with a team of lawyers, one of whom was a woman who annoyed him. He did not trust her judgment, nor appreciate her gloomy assessment. The others, the men, rendered cheerier forecasts, though by morning’s end he distrusted their judgment too.

  In the sitting room adjoining his private office he made love to his secretary. His love was translucent drops threading hair and beading the curve of her abdomen, for he was precautionary and quick enough to pull out at the agonizing moment. “Thank you,” he said.

  Attending to the golden bun behind her head, Pembrooke said, “It wasn’t good, was it?”

  “My mind’s on other things.”

  It was like a poorly dubbed movie, the words ill fitting the movements of their mouths. She made herself decent, presentable, efficient. “I may be leaving you soon,” she said.

  “Another job?”

  “Yes.”

  “It’s time,” he said.

  An hour later he did something he rarely did. He left early for the day. On I-93 he had an urge to open the Mercedes up, to push it to the limit, but that was something he did only to himself and other human beings living in the closing decade of the twentieth century.

  Entering Bensington, he drove beyond Oakcrest Heights to the country club, where he parked the Mercedes in a privileged space. His personal net worth, on paper, was the highest in the Heights, with the possible exception of that baseball player, whom he despised, a loud-mouthed ignoramus when he showed up here on the green.

  The bar was quiet and cool, only one other patron. He took a table and soon had before him a glass of grapefruit juice chunky with ice. Leaning back, he said, “No need to sit alone,” and a large man rose in the dim and ambled forth in a lightweight athletic jacket open over a spotless white T-shirt.