M.I.A.

by Michael Allen Dymmoch

  I raised my eyebrows.

  “When all your life you’ve been the ugly duckling.”

  I touched his arm.

  “Don’t,” he said. “Unless you’re willing to go all the way, as we used to put it.”

  I wrapped my hands around his upper arm and rested my head against his shoulder. “Where have you been all these years?”

  He pulled away and pointed to the cot. I sat on it, back to the wall. He leaned his butt against the drafting table and crossed his arms.

  “After I left, it was two years before I figured I could run into my old man again without beating him to death.”

  Remembering the Monster Who…sculpture, I shuddered. “He used to beat you. That’s where you got the scars.”

  He nodded.

  “Why didn’t you ever ask for help?”

  “That would’ve been admitting he’d won.”

  “That’s why in all those years I never saw you without a shirt?”

  “I used to duct tape bread bags inside my clothes so I wouldn’t bleed through.” His voice was curiously flat.

  I blinked to stop the tears.

  Smoke suddenly materialized in front of me. “No pity!” He stepped back and became John again. “I want you. Not that.”

  It occurred to me that I had never seen him cry. I said so.

  “I was all cried out by the time I was seven.” He said it contemptuously—Smoke again. “I started working out when I was thirteen, when someone put me on to Charles Atlas. When I was fourteen, he came after me with his belt. I grabbed my Louisville slugger and hit a triple against his chest. Broke three ribs. Told him if he ever touched me or my mother again I’d beat him to death. He never came near us after that.”

  There were a thousand things I wanted to ask: Why did you change your name? And when? Where have you lived all these years? With who?

  But it seemed a time for silence, time to reflect on what we’d said already.

  There was a long pause.

  Finally I had to ask: “Why didn’t you keep in touch?”

  “When I came back, you were married. I guess I thought you’d wait for me. I should’ve asked.”

  “I couldn’t.”

  He looked puzzled.

  “I didn’t want our child to be a bastard.”

  His eyes widened. He pushed away from the drafting table and sat beside me on the cot, not touching. “Did Billy know?”

  I nodded.

  Billy had had a month’s leave before he shipped out. He took me out for ice cream the second night he was back. After we’d finished, he took my hand and said, “Marry me.”

  I started to say, “I’m pregnant,” but he cut me off.

  “Smoke’s not coming back,” he said. “Your kid needs a father, and I need someone to write to me while I’m gone. When I get back, if you don’t love me, I’ll give you a divorce.”

  He’d guessed somehow. I wasn’t showing yet; I’d told no one. I didn’t answer right away.

  He got down on one knee and said, “Rhiann, will you marry me?”

  There must’ve been fifteen people in the Dairy Queen. Most of them stared. Of course I said yes.

  Tears spilled over and down my cheeks.

  John said, “He was a good man.”

  I nodded.

  “So you had a month together.”

  “Just two weeks by the time we got the blood tests and license. We went to Chicago, got married at City Hall. We stayed at the Ohio Inn. Then he was gone.”

  I had a sudden recall of John’s retrospective, Billy Loves Rhiann. The figure had Billy’s face, but Smoke’s expression the morning he’d taken leave of me three times.

  I said, “Why did you move next door?”

  “Do I have to spell it out?”

  “Yes. Please.”

  “When I heard about Mickey’s death, I wanted to be sure you were safe. And I hoped…I thought maybe I’d catch your eye.”

  “Why didn’t you identify yourself?” We both knew what I meant by that.

  “I wanted you to know the man I’ve become.”

  He didn’t add, “And love him,” but it was in his eyes. He said, “Where do we go from here?”

  “Maybe we could start over—I’m Rhiann Fahey. I’m still reeling from the death of my husband. But I’ll get over it one day.”

  He wiped his hand on his jeans, then shoved it at me. “I’m John, your new neighbor, and I’d like to know you better. When you’re ready.”

  “Deal,” I said as I shook. I felt the sexual charge arc between us like slow lightning.

  He must have felt it, too, because he let go of my hand as if it were scalding. He said, “Now that that’s settled, let’s go get something to eat.”

  Old habits. Our standard response—whenever things were tense or we were bored or too exhausted to think of what to do next—was to hit McDonald’s or Denny’s and sit around sharing French fries and swapping insults.

  He got up and pulled me to my feet. “There’s a decent mom-and-pop café about a mile from here. I usually walk, but you have to pick up Jimmy soon, so maybe we should drive.”

  I looked at my watch. “My parking meter’s about to expire, so we might as well take my car.”

  “Okay.” He walked over to the sink and took his wallet and keys out of the cabinet above it.

  We were out in the alley, and he was locking the door when his phone rang. He said, “Damn. I’d better get that.”

  “I’ll get the car and come back.”

  I’d parked three blocks away because I wasn’t sure of the studio’s location. When I got back to the car, I had five minutes left on the meter. From habit, I looked for a parking enforcer, noticed a meter maid. She was looking from an expired meter to the sheriff’s police car parked next to it.

  We were inside the town limits. Sheriff’s police didn’t often have business there. I went close enough to see the unit number painted on the trunk: 96. Rory’s car.

  “Call the police.” I told the meter maid. I shoved the paper with the address at her before I took off running.

  John

  The phone call was from my garage manager, who wanted to know if you really had to take the valve covers off a boss ’71 Mustang to change the plugs. It took a couple minutes to convince him it wasn’t a joke—just one of Ford’s “better ideas,” and to tell him the most efficient way to deal with it. We were nearly finished when I heard the door open. Rhiann must be back. I put my hand over the mouthpiece and called out, “Be right there.” Then I said good-bye, and hung up.

  I turned around just as Deputy Sheriff Sinter came in with his gun drawn. “Put your hands up,” he said. He was in uniform, wearing state trooper shades and black leather gloves. The gun was a nine-millimeter semiautomatic. While I complied, he reached behind him to push in the lock button on the door handle.

  He came toward me and his attention seemed divided between keeping an eye on me and checking the place out. “Who else is here?” he demanded.

  “No one.” I wondered what he was doing outside his jurisdiction. Then he came closer, and I could smell the booze. Whatever he had in mind was personal, and I suspected that he’d waited till Rhiann left so she wouldn’t interfere.

  He said, “Get over against the wall.” He pointed to a stretch that was bare of everything but sketches.

  Every cell in my body screamed, “No!” but he wasn’t drunk enough to miss at that range. I turned around and fear snaked up my spine. When I got about three feet from the wall, he slammed the gun against the right side of my face. I stumbled and threw my hands up to break my fall. He put a hand against my back and shoved. “Assume the position.” Then he let me have it in the right kidney with his fist.

  I smashed headfirst into the wall. I turned my head in time to save my nose but left a smear of blood where my cheek and jaw hit. My hands blurred the sketches.

  Pressing the barrel of his gun into the hollow at the base of my skull, Sinter battered the insides of my ankl
es with his foot. “Spread ’em.” I was already close to doing splits. “Don’t move a muscle.”

  I felt the old helplessness roll over me. Guards at Stateville had impressed me with their power using such threats, following through with beatings that left me groggy and swollen. Sinter held the gun in place while he changed hands on the grip, then fumbled at his belt for his handcuffs. Despair almost made me lie down and quit as he snapped them on my right wrist.

  “Bring your hand around behind your back—real slow.”

  I did what I was told.

  “Good. Now the other one.”

  He kept tension on my right wrist and the gun against my skull until my left hand was behind me. The gun stayed in place until he’d fumbled the second cuff on and snugged it tight. Then he stepped back and said, “Turn around.” As I did, he holstered his weapon, then buried his fist in my gut.

  I saw it coming and tensed, but it doubled me over and left me close to puking.

  Sinter said, “You really shouldn’t resist.”

  I said nothing.

  He slid a half pint of Early Times from his back pocket and unscrewed the cap. He took a long pull, then replaced the cap and the flask. It seemed to put him in a better mood.

  “How long you been bonkin’ her?”

  I shook my head, more to clear it than deny the charge. “We’re just neighbors.”

  “Yeah, right. That’s why you got a couple hundred pictures of her on your walls.”

  I didn’t answer.

  “You got beaver shots upstairs in your boudoir?” He pronounced it “bood-war.”

  The studio seemed to shrink and elongate until it was only me and him with a dark tunnel of hatred between us. I felt cold with rage. It must’ve showed because he laughed and hit me again.

  I’ve got to fight back, I thought, or he’ll beat me to death. But I couldn’t seem to get my breath, and my legs didn’t work right. I tried to distract him: “You learn big words like ‘boudoir’ in cop school?” There was no response. “You even know what it means?”

  He aimed a kick at my crotch. I rolled sideways, and it caught my thigh—Painful but survivable.

  He was moving in to finish me when the overhead garage door started to creak upward.

  Rhiann!

  Sinter stopped and reversed, then drew his gun and started toward the door.

  Quietly as I could, I pushed off from the wall and wobbled after him. When the door got halfway up, I could see Rhiann holding the garage door opener I keep in my Jeep. Sinter pointed the gun at her. I aimed for the hollow behind his knee and let him have it with all I had. His leg flew out from under him. He threw his arm out. The gun went off as he hit the floor. No telling where the bullet went.

  Momentum carried me past him, and I caught a glimpse of Rhiann. She looked terrified but unhurt.

  I pivoted and aimed a kick at Sinter’s gun hand. It connected squarely. The gun discharged again. There was a crackle of breaking glass, and the gun flew across the studio. It landed with a metallic clatter before skittering under the workbench.

  I was aiming my third kick—at Sinter’s head—when Rhiann’s voice cut through the fog of pain and rage.

  “SMOKE, NO!”

  Rhiann

  My scream threw John off balance—with his hands cuffed behind him, he couldn’t put his arms out. I dropped the garage door opener and ran, grabbed him just in time to stop his fall. He braced himself against me, swaying like a drunk. He was bruised and bloody but I threw my arms around him and pressed my face against his chest.

  I heard a siren, then the approaching car, and an Alva police cruiser pulled up next to the Jeep. The cop who got out looked to be in his thirties. The way he moved as he came toward us said he’d been around long enough to be savvy and cynical.

  At that point, John’s knees buckled and he would have fallen if I hadn’t been holding him. But he was too heavy; he would have hit hard if the Alva cop hadn’t jumped forward and caught him. He sat John down on the floor and said, “What’s going on?”

  Rory started to uncoil from his fetal position. I let go of John and leaned toward Rory, nearly gagging at the smell of alcohol.

  “Rory,” I said. “If you move a hair, I’ll kick you to death myself.”

  He froze. Then he relaxed and told the cop, “I came here to arrest this guy. And he jumped me.”

  John didn’t say anything, but I couldn’t keep quiet. “That’s not true! He followed me here and beat John. And he tried to shoot me!”

  “He was resisting arrest. I had to use force.”

  “Liar,” I said. I looked at the cop. “He’s drunk!”

  The disgusted look on the cop’s face made me think he agreed. “Where’s your service gun?” he asked Rory.

  “They have it.”

  “No!” I said. “John kicked it out of his hand.” I pointed. “It slid under the bench.”

  The cop walked over and retrieved the gun. He ejected the magazine and pocketed it, then checked the chamber. He walked outside and put the gun on the hood of his car.

  While he called in on his radio, I dug my key ring from my pocket and used Mickey’s handcuff key to let John out of the cuffs. I slid them across the floor, toward the door. John pulled his legs up and rested his forearms on his knees, showing off bruised, skinned wrists.

  When the cop came back, he picked up the handcuffs without comment, then walked over to where Rory was gingerly checking the damage to his hand. “What’d this guy do?” the Alva cop asked him.

  Rory hesitated a bit too long before he said, “Unlawful possession of a firearm.”

  “Yeah?” the cop said. I could see he’d noticed the delay, too. “Where is it?”

  “In my pocket.”

  There must have been a gun—Rory wouldn’t have told a lie so easily caught out—but I knew it wasn’t John’s.

  I said, “That’s Rory’s drop gun.”

  Rory looked at him and said, “She’s fucking him. She’d say anything to get him off.”

  If he’d been close enough, I’d’ve slapped him, and it must’ve showed on my face.

  “How do you know about drop guns?” the cop asked me.

  “My husband was a cop. Mickey Fahey.”

  The Alva cop raised his eyebrows. He pointed to John. “Who’s he?”

  “A friend. We went to school together.”

  The cop turned back to Rory. “Where is this gun?”

  “I told you, in my pocket.”

  “Okay. Put your hands over your head and roll over on your face.”

  “I can’t. I got a smashed knee and some broken ribs.”

  “Roll over or I’ll break some more.”

  “You gonna believe a convicted felon and his whore over a fellow cop?” Rory demanded.

  “He hasn’t said anything,” the cop said, “but what I see fits her story better than yours.” He cuffed Rory’s hands behind him with his own handcuffs, and started going through his pockets, laying out the drop gun, a hip flask, and assorted keys and pocket junk in a row next to Rory’s knees.

  “So I’m gonna keep an eye on all of you, let my sergeant sort this out.”

  John

  The sergeant turned out to be someone I knew. He listened to the Alva patrolman’s version of things, and took Rhiann out to his car to get her side. Then he came back in the studio and talked to me.

  While he was interviewing Rory—now handcuffed in the back of the Alva squad car—Rhiann came inside to put ice on my face.

  The sergeant came back in. “I’m taking Deputy Sinter to the lockup. You folks’ll have to come to the station and sign a complaint if you want me to hold him.”

  Rhiann said, “If we do, will you take away his guns?”

  “Yes, ma’am. And if he’s convicted, he won’t get ’em back.”

  Rhiann

  We never did get lunch. John drove us to the cop shop in my car, and we spent a good hour waiting in the lobby while they did the paperwork.

  Some
one must’ve called Sheriff Linden, because he came into the station like a summer storm. He glared at John and me. He didn’t take his hat off as he stalked up to the counter and asked to see the chief. After a few minutes, he was led into the back.

  The sergeant came out and brought us coffee in mugs that said PROPERTY OF THE COUNTY JAIL.

  When the sheriff came back to the lobby, he looked like he was ready to kill. But he walked over to me and removed his hat.

  “I owe you an apology, Mrs. Fahey. I was wrong about Rory.” He looked at John. “’Bout you, too, Devlin.” He put his hat on. “Rory won’t bother you again.”

  By the time the sheriff was halfway to the door, John was shaking.

  “What’s the matter, John?” I asked.

  “Nothing.” His shaking turned into hearty laughter. “It’s just like old times.”

  “What?”

  “Even if we didn’t start it, here we are again, in the principal’s office.”

  When the sergeant came out with our paperwork, we were still laughing like a couple of silly teens.

  Jimmy

  I about freaked when Ma came to take me home from the hospital. Her clothes were covered with blood.

  “I’m sorry we’re late, sweetheart.”

  Sweetheart? She hadn’t called me that since I was ten.

  And we? I looked toward the door and spotted John. His clothes were clean, but his face looked like someone slammed it against the side of a bridge.

  And there was something else about him—he couldn’t take his eyes off my mother. I mean—even more than usual.

  I looked back at Ma. “Are you okay?”

  She smiled. “Fine.” She noticed I was staring at her dress. “I didn’t have time to change.”

  “What happened? You’re scaring me.”

  “We had an encounter with Deputy Sinter,” John said.

  “Holy shit! What’s he look like?”

  Mom giggled. “He’s in jail.”