Hell Bent

by William G. Tapply

  “Just leaving,” said the Hispanic man. Up close, I saw that he was older than I’d thought. There were flecks of silver in his hair and frown lines on his forehead and at the corners of his eyes.

  “Brady,” said Gus, “this is Pete. Pete, Brady.”

  I shook hands with Pete.

  He looked me in the eye and nodded once. Then he lifted his chin at Gus. “Later, man.”

  Gus nodded. “Later.” He watched Pete turn and leave, then looked at me. “Friend of mine.”

  “Everything all right?” I said.

  “All right?” He shook his head. “Nothing’s all right.”

  “I meant with Pete. You guys seemed pretty intense there.”

  “We’re both intense people.”

  I sat at the table. “Anything you want to talk about?”

  Gus sat down, too. “Nope. No problems, man. Life is good.”

  “Sarcasm doesn’t really suit you,” I said.

  He smiled. “A man can try, huh?”

  “Just so you remember,” I said, “I’m a lawyer. I’m required by the ethical standards of my profession to maintain confidentiality.”

  “Sure.” He nodded. “I appreciate it.” He gazed up at the sky for a moment. Then he kind of shrugged and said, “You want something to eat? I’m having a muffin. They make their own muffins here. The date-and-nut’s my favorite. The bran’s good, too. They’re all good. Homemade. I ordered us a carafe of coffee. I remember you like coffee.” Gus’s knee was jiggling like he was keeping time to a very fast piece of music.

  I smiled. “Relax, Gus. You’re all wound up.”

  He shrugged. “You make me nervous.”

  “Me?” I said. “You seemed pretty keyed up before I arrived on the scene.”

  “Okay,” he said. “I make myself nervous. I don’t need any help to feel nervous. It’s not you, it’s not Pedro. I don’t even need a reason to feel nervous. I feel strung out all the time. But, yeah, okay, I didn’t expect you to drive out here like this. You didn’t tell me what you wanted. That makes me nervous. So what’s up, huh?”

  “I had a meeting with Lily Capezza yesterday.”

  “Who?”

  “Your wife’s lawyer.”

  “About me?”

  “About your divorce. She told me something that disturbed me.”

  Gus blinked.

  “You want to guess what it was?” I said.

  “I don’t—” He stopped, and his eyes shifted to someplace behind me.

  A waitress appeared, a trim fortyish woman wearing snug jeans and a long-sleeved white jersey with a little lime-colored apron around her waist. She put a muffin on a plate in front of Gus and a stainless-steel carafe and two mugs and a little pitcher of cream on the table between us. “Would you like a menu, sir?” she said to me.

  I pointed at Gus’s muffin. “One of those date-and-nut muffins, please,” I said. “Can you heat it for me?”

  “They’re already warm,” she said. “Fresh from the oven. That’s how we serve them.”

  She left, and I poured two mugs full of coffee.

  Gus watched her walk away, then looked at me and said, “So what did Claudia’s lawyer say?”

  “I bet you know.”

  He looked down at his muffin and said nothing.

  I reached over and touched his arm. “Dammit, Gus. You’ve got to be straight with me. I came this close to firing you.”

  “I wish I cared more,” he said.

  “You better care,” I said, “because I do, and Alex does, and I’m betting Claudia and your kids do, too.”

  “Can you do that?”

  “What?”

  “Fire me. I didn’t think …”

  “Sure I can. It’s tempting.”

  “That restraining order, huh?”

  “Threatening your wife and kids with a gun? Jesus Christ, Gus. Do you ever want to see your children again? How am I supposed to help you if you keep things like that from me?”

  “I was afraid you wouldn’t take my case.”

  “The only reason not to take your case,” I said, “is if you lie to me.”

  He looked up at me. “I didn’t threaten them.”

  “You didn’t wave a gun around in your living room?”

  “Well, I did, sort of, yeah, but—”

  “And Claudia kicked you out and took out a 209A against you, right?”

  “Yes, she did. But it wasn’t like that.” His eyes stared hard into mine.

  “What was it like, then?”

  He looked down at the table and muttered, “I … I threatened myself.”

  “What?”

  “I wasn’t threatening to hurt them.” He looked up at me. “I’d never do that.”

  “You saying you threatened to shoot yourself?”

  He shrugged.

  I slumped back in my chair. “Oh, Gus. Jesus.”

  “I didn’t mean it,” he said. “I wouldn’t do that. The damn gun wasn’t even loaded. It was just … I was frustrated, you know?”

  “Frustrated,” I said.

  “Nothing was going right. I couldn’t sleep. My medications had my mind all fucked-up. I was having headaches. My nonexistent hand ached all the time. I couldn’t take pictures. The kids didn’t want to hug me. And Claudia … I was sure she was involved with somebody.” He shook his head. “I don’t know why I did that. Just trying to get Claudia’s attention, I guess.”

  “If she reported you, it would’ve been jail time. You know that, right?”

  He shrugged.

  “What about your group?” I said. “Is it helping you?”

  He shrugged. “That’s what I was talking about with Pete. Our group.”

  “He’s in your group?”

  Gus nodded.

  “Problems?”

  He waved his hand. “There’s stuff I don’t want to talk about, okay?”

  “No problem for me,” I said. “I’m just your divorce lawyer.”

  The waitress brought my muffin. When I broke it in half, steam wafted from it. I spread some butter on it and took a bite. It was, as my friend J. W. Jackson liked to say, delish.

  “I’m meeting with Attorney Capezza on Friday,” I said. “At that time I’ll get a sense, at least, of what Claudia wants from this divorce. And I’ll tell her what we want from it. I’m going to go for joint custody of the girls, all right?”

  He nodded.

  “Joint custody is more than we’ll probably be able to get,” I said, “given what you did. I also intend to do what I can to protect your rights to your intellectual property.”

  “You mean like my old photos?”

  “Your old ones,” I said, “and your future ones. Whatever income they generate needs to be accounted for. Your rights need to be protected. It can be tricky.”

  “What makes you think there’ll be future photos?” he said.

  “You’re a photojournalist,” I said. “You said it yourself. It’s in your DNA. You can’t use losing a hand as an excuse forever.”

  Gus smiled quickly. “You can be pretty harsh, you know that?”

  “You can be pretty negative.”

  He shrugged. “Okay, so my intellectual property. That’s good. I never really thought about that.”

  I took another bite of my muffin. “Tell me about your gun.”

  “You don’t have to worry about that.”

  “What do you mean? Of course I’m worried about it.”

  “It’s gone,” he said. “I don’t have it anymore.”

  “Gone?”

  “I got rid of it.”

  “Where?”

  “I threw it in the river,” he said. “It’s gone.”

  “In what river?”

  “The Concord River. Behind where I’m living now. Does it matter?”

  “Was it registered?”

  He shook his head. “I brought it home.”

  “From Iraq?”

  He nodded. “It was in my duffel.”

  Another tr
iumph for airport security, I thought. “What were you doing with a gun?”

  “Standard sidearm over there. M9 Beretta. Everybody carries a gun. Reporters, cooks, chaplains, doctors. The Beretta’s the most common one. They’re all over the place. You can buy a used one for a hundred bucks. Look, Brady. I told you. It wasn’t even loaded. It was just … to get Claudia’s attention. It was stupid, I know. I don’t need to be reminded of that.”

  “What you did,” I said, “is a big problem. You understand that, right?”

  He nodded. “I knew it the minute I did it.”

  “There’s no record of your owning this gun, huh?”

  He shook his head. “I bought it from a soldier over there. There were guns all over the place. Never registered it when I came home.”

  “And no record that you divested yourself of it, either.”

  “No. I just threw it away when I realized what a stupid thing I’d done.”

  I took a sip of coffee, then planted my forearms on the table and bent forward. “So tell me, Gus,” I said. “What other secrets and lies do you need to straighten out with me?”

  Gus looked straight into my eyes. “None. Nothing. Honest to God, Brady. That’s it.”

  I returned his gaze, looking for deceit. The fact that I saw none, I knew, didn’t mean it wasn’t there.

  I shrugged. “How are you making out with those forms I gave you?”

  “Truthfully?” he said.

  “What else?”

  “Truthfully,” he said, “I haven’t looked at them. I dread them. I don’t want to think about them. They depress me.”

  I smiled. I was quite certain that this, at least, was the truth. “Everybody feels that way,” I said. “They’re asking you to quantify your marriage. You’ve got to do them.”

  “I got a lot of other stuff on my mind, Brady.”

  “Like what?”

  Gus looked at me for a minute, then shook his head. “Stuff, that’s all. I’ll do the damn paperwork, I promise.”

  “You have no choice,” I said.

  He nodded. “You know,” he said, “at first I was really depressed about Claudia wanting to divorce me. But I’m not anymore. I actually think it’s the best thing for all of us. I’ve caused her and the kids nothing but problems ever since I got back, and all the pressure I was feeling … well, since I moved out? It’s better. I feel like I’m finally getting better.” He looked up at me. “Can I ask you something?”

  “Sure. Of course.”

  “I mean,” he said, “in confidence. Client to lawyer.”

  I nodded. “Yes.”

  He took a sip of coffee. “I’m thinking of bagging the whole thing.”

  I frowned. “Meaning what?”

  “Getting the hell away from here. Away from Claudia and the kids and everything that reminds me of … of who I am and where I came from. Starting over someplace far away from here. I mean, like, Tahiti or Bali or Dubai or something. You know what I mean?”

  “Are you asking for my opinion?”

  Gus laughed quickly. “Of course not. Nobody would say it’s a good idea. I don’t need to hear that.”

  “Why are you telling me this, then?” I said.

  He shrugged. “You’re my lawyer. You could help me. I mean, if I asked you to, you’d have to help me. Right?”

  “Are you asking?” I said.

  He looked at me for a minute, then grinned. “Nah. Forget it. I’m just messing with you, man.” He looked at his watch. “Hey, I gotta get to work.”

  When I got home from the office that afternoon I found a business-sized envelope with actual handwriting on it amid the bills and credit card promotions on the floor under the mail slot in my front door. I couldn’t remember the last time somebody had sent me a letter in the mail. All of my personal communication had been reduced to e-mails and telephone calls and voice mails, not counting the occasional commercially inspired Hallmark remembrance of a birthday or a Father’s Day.

  This envelope had been addressed with green ink in Evie Banyon’s distinctive curvy penmanship, and it was postmarked from San Francisco, California, and I thought: Uh-oh. A letter. This can’t be good.

  I’d been overinterpreting everything Evie said and did—and everything that she didn’t say or do, as well—since June, when she left. For example, she did send me a birthday card in July, although it came a couple of days late. On it was a reproduction of a watercolor painting of a man trout fishing. She’d signed it “Evie XXOO.” She’d written no note on it, nor was the word “love” anywhere to be found.

  On the other hand, she did remember, and it did show a guy fishing. And there was that “XXOO.”

  I found a bottle of Long Trail ale in the refrigerator and took it and Evie’s letter out to the patio. I slouched in my Adirondack chair, took a long pull from the bottle, stuck my finger under the envelope flap, and tore it open.

  The letter was written on both sides of three sheets of lined white notebook paper in the same green ink she’d used to address the envelope.

  Dear Brady:

  It’s a little before midnight here in foggy Sausalito. I need to talk to you. I figure if I called on the phone, you’d be home and you’d answer. I don’t want a conversation. I just want you to listen to me. I know it’s been a very long time since I called or anything. You’re probably sick of this by now. It’s just easier for everybody if I don’t call you, isn’t it?

  Daddy’s asleep. He has morning naps and afternoon naps and he goes to bed right after supper and sleeps fitfully at night. Me, I don’t sleep much at all these days. I mostly sit around and think, though I can’t say I’ve solved any of the world’s great problems. Or even any of my own little ones. We smoke a lot of dope, Daddy and I. Him for his pain, me to keep him company. And for my pain, too, I guess. And to prevent me from thinking too deeply. The people here in this little community, they’re mostly old flower people, and they make sure that we’ve got a good stash. It’s like living on some foreign island. The big old joke here is about seceding from California and creating an official State of Anarchy. No laws, no rules, no expectations or obligations. Doesn’t that sound good?

  He’s not doing very well these days. It’s hard to get him to eat. He mostly just wants to smoke and sleep. But he’s not having too much pain. It’s hard to say what’s going to happen. I mean, you know, when. It probably won’t be too much longer. We try to take it day by day.

  Yesterday I extended my leave at the hospital. They agreed to an indefinite leave with no pay and no guarantee that my old job would be waiting for me, which is the closest thing to quitting without quitting, and truthfully, I don’t know that I ever want to go back to that job. I have a whole different perspective out here, living on a houseboat with my dying daddy, being half stoned most of the time. I’m thinking I’ll just stay here after he’s gone. Live on this houseboat here in the commonwealth of Anarchy. It feels disconnected from the world. I like that. I can’t honestly imagine going back there. To the world. I’m sorry.

  I hardly remember you, Brady Coyne. I’m sorry to say that, too. But it’s true. You are fuzzy and far away to me. Boston I remember as an alien place full of cars and noise and fumes and desperate overactive people. I do remember that I loved you. Maybe I still do. I don’t know.

  I hope you are doing what I ordered you to do. Are you? Are you having any fun? The one thing I have learned out here with my dying daddy is that life is short and undependable and fickle, and if you don’t seize every day, carpe every God damn diem, baby, you’re wasting it. I worry about you. I’m not the tiniest bit stoned right now. I usually am, at least a little, but not now. Now I’m sitting on the deck of our houseboat with some herbal iced tea late at night, feeling terribly sober. I wanted to talk to you when I was straight this time. I want you to know that I mean what I say. You do know what I’m saying, right?

  I know you don’t believe in this stuff. Maybe I don’t, either. But when I woke up this morning, still lying in bed,
I had this vision. It wasn’t a dream. I was wide-awake, and this image came popping into my brain. It was vivid as hell. It was you and some other woman. I didn’t recognize her, but she was pretty, and the way she was looking at you I could see that she loved you. And you were smiling back at her, and I could see that the two of you were happy together. And here’s the most interesting thing. Seeing the two of you smiling at each other made me happy. It took a big weight off me, seeing you like that. It released me. Made me feel free.

  So maybe you don’t put much stock in visions, especially from some old potheaded girlfriend, but this one was too real to ignore. So that’s why I’m writing to you now. Because this vision has haunted me all day, and I know there’s truth in it. It’s important to me that you listen to what I’m trying to tell you.

  Here it is: I want you to forget about me, if you haven’t already. Our lives are separate now. We’re a continent apart, and that’s not just geographical distance.

  That’s it. That’s what I wanted to say. I want to believe that my vision is true, or is going to come true. I believe in it, and I like it.

  Good-bye, then, Brady Coyne. Be free and be happy, please. Don’t forget to give Henry a hug for me.

  Evie xxoo

  I folded Evie’s letter, stuck it back into its envelope, and laid it on the arm of my chair. I tilted back my head and looked up at the sky. It was darkening, and a few stars had already popped out.

  I waited for anger, or sadness, or regret, or longing—I didn’t know what to expect, but I expected something—to come seeping into my soul.

  Evie said she’d seen a “vision.” She obviously placed significance on this vision. The Evie Banyon I knew wasn’t into visions or signs or portents. She was a rock-solid, hardheaded, cynical rationalist. I supposed the California houseboat culture—and smoking a lot of dope—could change that.

  I looked at the postmark on the envelope. She’d mailed it the previous Friday, meaning she’d written it late Thursday night. That was before Alex had appeared in my office, before we’d had takeout pizza at the house I once shared with Evie, before I’d taken her brother’s case, before I’d invited her back to my house for a cookout.

  For some reason, I accepted the idea that the woman Evie had seen in her vision was Alex. Which meant that on some level I accepted the validity of the vision itself.