Nights Towns: Three Novels, a Box Set

by Douglas Clegg

  "Dale?"

  He hung the phone up.

  The phone rang again, but he quickly lifted the receiver and hung up. Then he turned the ringer off. He walked through the upstairs rooms, turning all the phones off.

  Nelda was already in bed doing her crossword puzzles. Because she didn't like to be disturbed in the evening, she did not keep a phone in her room. When he passed the bedroom, she didn't ask about the phone call. She didn't even look up at him.

  Dale walked slowly downstairs, just like he was going to take one of his usual evening strolls down by the river, or into town for a beer.

  He knew where Lannie would be. She'd be at the Lodge having a drink, sitting by the payphone, expecting him to call back. To come to her. To tell her how much he loved her and how much he loved the baby they were going to have, and how, if they ran away together right now, tonight, it would fix everything, that life would begin for both of them.

  Dale decided against calling her back.

  He noticed an envelope there by the front door. He squatted down and touched it. He almost thought he felt a barely perceptible shock, and then a chill run through him as he touched it. He got an instant erection, and didn't know why the touch of an envelope would arouse him. He picked it up and stood. He knew what would be inside. He was almost glad that it had arrived tonight. Whoever the mysterious voyeur was, the man who wrote the letters to him, now seemed an extension of himself.

  He opened it.

  I know what you did. You naughty, naughty man.

  He didn't even realize that his free hand was down at his crotch, just touching his penis through the rough cloth of his chinos. He felt, for a moment, young again. All those letters over the years, and it was as if this mystery writer knew him, really knew what he was planning for Lannie.

  It was like a letter from God.

  He folded the letter neatly and slipped it back into the envelope. He placed it in the inner pocket of his jacket.

  He decided, as he walked out into the chilly evening, that he was going to wait until Lannie left the Lodge. She would go out into the parking lot to her car. She would be loaded—maybe four martinis if he was lucky. He would be there, in her car, in the backseat, waiting for her.

  He would surprise her this time.

  The letter was like an omen: this was the night, this was the moment to be seized.

  7

  Byron Cheever lay with his head pressed against the milky smooth bosoms of the girl he called Beauty, while her friend sat over at the base of a large stone marker and smoked a cigarette. They had specifically requested the old graveyard. He figured they were kinky, and although he'd only gotten to second base so far, the way Beauty was grinding against him, he figured it wouldn't be long before he'd be slapping his prick against her snatch.

  Beauty moaned, "Oh, God, By, do it, do it, just do it."

  Well, it was all a boy like Byron Cheever needed, so he whipped it out with one hand, and spread her legs farther with the other.

  And as he pressed his fingers up to her crotch, he felt something lumpy.

  For just a second, he thought it might be a purse or something that she kept down in her panties. Maybe a Kleenex, or shit, a Tampax...

  But the thing grew in his fingers, and before the knowledge reached his brain, his body already knew to draw back, and as he did:

  Lightning blinded him.

  Lightning?

  He couldn't see.

  Then, another flash.

  "What the fuck—" he gasped.

  Someone was taking pictures—it was her dog-girlfriend, or shit, not her girlfriend, his girlfriend, it was a guy's dick he'd been holding underneath Beauty's dress.

  And as he stood, his dick out, his pants down, tripping over himself, he saw an entire sorority from Danville Women's College standing there in the graveyard at Watch Hill, with flashlights held beneath their faces, beginning to sing "The Man I Love."

  Beauty stood up, brushed himself off, and pulled the wig off his head. He said to By, "Look, it was repulsive for me, too. I usually like a guy who treats me right." He withdrew the falsies from the bosom of the dress and tossed them to By, who dropped them immediately.

  Beauty's girlfriend kept taking pictures, and the flash kept blinking.

  She shouted, "This is what you get for what you did to Marti."

  "Marti?" He didn't know any Marti. Did he? Maybe there had been that girl at the party one time who had squealed after they'd made it—was she Marti?

  She had wanted it. Her name was Martha Wiley. She had wanted it. She had only squealed because she'd been taught not to want it. But he had worked her over good.

  Suddenly, he became enraged. "You goddamn bitches!" He lunged at the guy who was Beauty, but missed him and landed face first against a stone angel.

  When he awoke, he was alone.

  For a second he forgot what had happened.

  Someone had pinned a note to him, and left him with a flashlight.

  He tore the note off his shirt and scanned it with the flashlight's beam.

  Dear Mr. Cheever,

  Even if the law won't protect us, we'll do what we can. Marti will be happy to see these. And also Dave Hotchkiss, the guy you beat up for being queer last year. How the tables do turn. We have some photographs of you making out and fondling our friend Todd, and we even managed the shot where you have it in your hands. Nice photos. I'm sure your frat brothers will appreciate the, er, head-shots. Maybe even your folks. Maybe even your girlfriend over at Sweet Briar.

  Warmly,

  The Sisters of Vengeance,

  Danville Women's College.

  Byron Cheever dropped the note and the flashlight and sat back against a grave. He looked up at the stars and knew in his heart of hearts that his life was over.

  He had a conscience after all, and it was bothering him, but not for his hump-and-dump incident with Marti Wiley.

  His conscience bothered him because he had felt a thrilling warmth go through him when he had touched the growing lump in Beauty's panties.

  For a young man his age who had always hated queers, had beat them up whenever he saw one, this was a revelation which only led to one place, and it was a desolate thought which sawed into his head. He would have to kill himself.

  8

  Joe's mother's house had not changed significantly since he'd left seventeen years earlier. Although it was neat, she didn't keep it very clean. The dust was thick on the banister of the stairs leading up to the bedrooms. The ragged hall curtains were shut. The books and newspapers, of which there were many, were stacked along the wall. The wood floors were scraped and stained. She had bought nothing new, and not one overstuffed chair or sofa had been reupholstered in over thirty years. Still, there was something comfortable about the place. It looked as if it had been well lived in.

  "So," Anna Gardner said to Jenny, "you must be exhausted."

  "Very."

  "Well, I've had Joe's old room fixed up for the children. You and Joe can have my old bedroom upstairs. I sleep most nights down here in the den—the stairs are a bit too steep for me these days. I'm afraid that I, too, must retire shortly. Now that I'm an old bat, I can't seem to stay awake much past nine."

  Joe hesitated, but then kissed his mother good night on her forehead.

  "Joseph," she began.

  "Mom, we're really tired," he interrupted.

  "I know. But I want you to know I've changed."

  "Oh." He drew back from her. Aaron stood next to him; he ruffled Aaron's hair.

  "Well, I love you, son. I hope you sleep well." She turned and walked towards the den. Perhaps she had a tear in her eye, Joe couldn't tell. Perhaps she was faking it.

  She's faked things before. She's faked love and caring and affection. She ran around with that doctor and caused the biggest scandal of the county. She destroyed Dad and faked innocence.

  He put his arm around Jenny, and hefted Hillary up. "Well, Hilly, it's finally time for beddy-bye."

&
nbsp; When they were alone in the bedroom, Joe said, "I can't believe she lied about being so sick. I can't believe it."

  "Joe," Jenny said, her voice low, "it's obvious."

  "What is?"

  "She wanted to meet us. Your family. Finally. She wanted to see her son again. Look at her. She's a lonely woman who's lost everything but her house."

  "And what a housekeeper she is," Joe added, feeling nasty. He began undressing, tossing his shirt over the bedpost. He dropped his slacks and left them where they fell until he saw the look on Jenny's face. Then he picked them up and folded them and laid them across the trunk at the foot of his mother's bed.

  "The nut doesn't fall far from the tree," Jenny said. "You could use some pointers in the housekeeping department yourself."

  "I'm telling you, Jen, something's fishy. She's not like that."

  "Oh, really? You've spent half your life telling me she's a witch and an ogre and a vampire, and all I see is a woman who lost her son because she was foolish and because he was unforgiving." Jenny went to the suitcase on the dresser and opened it. She lifted up a few items of clothing: a sweater, a couple of blouses. She hung these up in the closet. Then, she unzipped and stepped out of her dress, hanging it neatly, too. She wore a slip to bed, but didn't say anything further until Joe spoke again.

  "Maybe I was wrong," he whispered as he lay down beside her. He could see the river from the bedroom window. It was black and placid, not turbulent, the way he remembered it. The orb of moonlight traveled across its surface. "Maybe she was only awful back then. Maybe things are different now."

  "Well," Jenny curled into his arms, resting her head on his chest, "what we think is happening when we're children is different than what we know is happening as adults." He smelled her hair. It was arousing and comforting at the same time.

  "Maybe," Joe said. "So much was going on back then. It wasn't just that Mom was the town scandal, it was all the other crap, too. The accident, Melissa's death, the way Hopfrog turned on me. All of it. The voices. Maybe I was nuts. Maybe Mom was just coping the best way she knew how. I always blamed her for destroying Dad, but he wasn't just some wounded bird. He was a tough man. I don't think he'd just stand by and let her destroy him. It's so confusing."

  "Family," Jenny said, "is always confusing."

  "Mine more so than others, I guess."

  "But look, she produced you. Somehow in all that mess, she produced a writer and a good husband and a great father."

  "Am I a good husband?"

  Jenny sighed. "After all we've been through, Joe, and I'm still here, Do you think I'd've stayed if I thought you weren't a good husband?"

  Joe said nothing. He kissed his wife on the forehead and held her close. He rested the tip of his chin on her scalp and smelled her essence. He watched the Paramount River, with the moon and stars reflected across it.

  After a while, Jenny said, "Besides, back to the subject of you being nuts, all writers are nuts, didn't you know that?"

  He kissed her again. She leaned forward and up so that their lips met. She opened her mouth for him. He kissed her deeply. They made love as quietly as they could, trying to forget that the kids and his mother were in the same house.

  9

  Dale Chambers checked the parking lot for Lannie's white Lincoln Town Car. It was parked in darkness, at the far edge of the lot. Good. If he had to kill her, he might need to leave her in the car, leave it parked here. He might have to, in his capacity as sheriff, accidentally put his fingerprints on the car. He pictured it in his head: Take Jud along as a witness, pretend that maybe the woman in the car has passed out, open the door, touch the glove compartment, touch her throat, maybe even touch her arm and dress and blouse and sweater. Pretend that she's not dead, and then be shocked as hell when you pretend you only just discovered she doesn't have a pulse. Hot damn, he thought, you are so fucking smart.

  It was good to be sheriff.

  Dale's weight sometimes got in the way of things.

  Even though it had only been four blocks down to the Miner's Lodge, he was huffing and panting, and in spite of the night's chill, he was sweating. He was slightly afraid that the sweating might give him away. Somebody just like him would see the Gump in him, the one who was going to kill Lannie Barnes—whoever wrote those letters—whoever knows I'm a naughty man. He'll know what I'm up to. He stood still in the darkness. His adrenaline was rushing like the river in springtime.

  He waited for over an hour for Lannie to come out of the back door of the Lodge.

  Then he thought, what if I just go in the back way, by the phones? Nobody'll see me. I'll hang back. She might be back there. I might be able to pull her out here, into the dark. I'll pretend we're going to fuck, and then I'll get her in the car and strangle her to death. Nobody will see me.

  He skulked around in the shadows, and finally made it to the back door.

  He tried the door, but it wouldn't open. A sign on the door, which he'd never paid attention to before, read: After Midnight, This Entrance Closed.

  Someone was coming out.

  He heard two men talking on the other side of the door.

  Dale stepped back behind the dumpster. He crouched down. George Fletcher and Gary Welles stepped out beneath the light outside the door.

  "Well, all's I can say is, good luck with it, that's all I can say," George said, sounding his usual drunk-off-his-ass self.

  Gary lit a cigarette. "Your kind of luck, George, I can do without," he said.

  Gary had become a drunk since his daughter Melissa's death, so many years before. He had lost his wife and his house, and now slept in the back of his car most nights. "Son of a bitch, you're supposed to be my friend," Gary muttered. "George, you're supposed to be my friend. Don't nothing mean nothing no more? What's a man supposed to do when everything he loves gets taken away from him?"

  "Sleep it off, boy," George said, walking off in an opposite and slightly loopy direction.

  Gary Welles stood alone. With a cigarette in one hand and his dick in the other, he pissed a bright luminescent yellow snake down the parking lot. When he was done, he didn't bother zipping up. He shivered drunkenly and went to lie down in the shadows.

  Dale Chambers inhaled the four-day old Lodge trash until both men were out of sight.

  He knew he'd have to risk it.

  You're sheriff, you can do it. You can do anything.

  Dale Chambers decided to use the front entrance.

  He couldn't wait for Lannie forever.

  The Miner's Lodge was a venerable institution—it had been built in the twenties, first of wood, and then, when it burned down, of stone. It was the closest that the town had to a country club, although its rules of entry were less than stringent: as long as you could crawl across the threshold, you were welcome.

  This was Dale and Lannie's bar, and although Lannie should've been there, on one of the bar stools, leaning over with a cashmere sweater on (a forty-dollar cream-colored cashmere sweater he'd bought her last year, already with cigarette burns on it), with her big clinky brass jewelry clacking on the bar while she ordered another margarita or martini (she only ordered drinks that began with "mar" because Margaret was her middle name). He knew so much about her, so many stupid facts, the perfume she wore (Anais Anais), her shoe size (eight), the big purple birthmark on the left cheek of her butt—he knew her inside and out.

  Dale looked from face to face at the bar. He checked the women's room, asking one of the other regulars to peek into the two stalls for Lannie. But she was not there.

  "Could be she left," Harold Earle said, winking at him. Harold was fifty and had been the bartender there forever, keeping secret the sleazy affairs and misbegotten intimacies of Colony the whole time. But he did have his code words to special people; Dale knew that he, himself, was the most special person.

  And what that wink had meant was:

  Lannie Barnes is already upstairs in a room with another man, Gump.

  10

  Dale C
hambers managed to break into Lannie's car. He was deft with a coat hanger, and she might not notice the damage to the window, at least not in this lifetime.

  He crouched in the backseat and waited.

  As he waited, the night wore on and his anger lessened, replaced in his mind and heart by another emotion, a feeling which he didn't think he was entirely capable of.

  11

  In the bed upstairs at his mother's house, Joe was dreaming.

  It was the old dream.

  Melissa, Hopfrog, and he, the Volkswagen beetle, the Paramount Bridge, the eight-wheeler.

  Hopfrog, finally starting the car at the last second, but too late... falling, all of them, hitting his head on the roof of the car, hearing Hopfrog's scream as something metal tears into his legs.

  And waking up, beneath the water, in the car, believing he is dead. Hopfrog is no longer in the front seat. Joe doesn't know this, because it is too dark in the water. Later, he will find out that Hopfrog was thrown from the car just as it went over the bridge. Later, Joe will learn a lot about this accident. In the dark water, he feels her hand; they held hands as they went over.

  Melissa, unconscious in the backseat with him. Floating; water coming in through the broken windshield. And then, as he tugs at her hand, something in that dark water, tugging back, but not her, not Melissa, something on the other side of her, tugging, and he thinks it is someone rescuing his beloved, so he lets her go.

  Later, he will learn where they found her, downriver, two days later, her body bloated from excessive water intake and the skin sagging with it.

  Later, he will learn how she had lost so much blood in the water that she was very nearly to her last pint when they found her body, that gallons of river water had burst from the places on her body that had been cut on rocks.

  Wake Up! Joe yells at himself in the dream. Wake up! Get the hell out of there, get the hell out of there!

  But the dream continues, and takes him to that place, that place on Watch Hill, early on a Sunday morning, with Hopfrog in his wheelchair; with a shovel, and a mound of dirt at his feet.