by John Smolens
Arnie peeled two ones off his wad of bills and handed them through the open window without looking at Pearly.
“You don’t,” Pearly said. “I know you don’t. And you saw me that night, too. I came here looking for Sean.”
“I can’t help what people think. Officially, I don’t have an opinion.”
“Officially? Right.” Pearly nodded toward Arnie’s apartment. “He up there?”
“Yeah,” Arnie said, sounding weary and fed up. “I’m afraid he is.”
Pearly started the truck. “Well, you have a good one.”
SEAN’S MOTHER CALLED the apartment around ten o’clock. She had that voice that sounded as if she’d run up and down the basement stairs repeatedly. “Sean—” Gasp. “You—” Gasp. “Get—” Gasp. “Home—” Gasp. “Now.”
Arnie was just coming up the stairs after closing the station for the night. He went straight to the refrigerator and got a can of beer.
Sean said to his mother, “I’ll be right there,” and hung up.
Arnie opened his beer. “Listen—”
“I need to get home,” Sean said, opening the door.
“We gotta talk.”
“About what?”
“About—about this living arrangement here.” Arnie leaned against the kitchen counter. “Look, this place is too small, Sean. When you moved in I thought it was just going to be this temporary thing, you know? Until you squared things with your folks, or you got a place of your own.”
“Okay, we’ll talk about it—later.”
“I’ve been thinking about it a lot,” Arnie said. “There’s really nothing to talk about. I want this place—my place—to myself. So—”
“Fine. Fine.” Sean went outside, slamming the door behind him, and ran down the stairs to his truck. He made it to his parents’ house in about five minutes, half the time it usually took. When he pulled into the driveway, he found his mother’s car angled up onto the lawn and the front right tire was in her bed of roses. There were no lights on in the house.
He walked around the car and found his mother lying on her side on the lawn. He knelt beside her but she didn’t move. Lowering his face to hers, he could feel the breath coming from her mouth, foul with the smell of menthol cigarettes and bourbon. It was too dark to see if she’d been hurt in any way. She seemed to have just passed out.
Sean walked up to the front door, which was slightly ajar; he pushed it open, went inside, and stood in the entryway to the living room. The light switch was on the wall to his right but he didn’t turn it on. There was a smell that he couldn’t identify. He walked across the living room—it was nearly pitch dark, but he knew exactly where the furniture was—to the kitchen. One of the stove coils was on, glowing red beneath a pot. Smoke stung his eyes. Something, some food—not meat, but some vegetable, he guessed—was burning in the pot, probably because the water had all boiled away. He went to the stove and shut off the heat.
He stood still and watched the coil lose its intense glow. The house was silent, but then he heard something, a faint knock coming from the basement. He walked carefully to the basement door, though he knew that if his father was downstairs, he would have already heard Sean overhead. That was the thing about living in the basement all those years—he always knew exactly where his parents were upstairs. Sean realized that maybe Arnie was right. He’d spent too much time living on that couch. He missed his old room, something he’d never thought possible.
He put his hand on the light switch but didn’t turn it on. He waited, listening for another sound. Finally, he said, “Dad?” Then he flicked the switch, the bare bulb at the bottom of the stairs came on, and he could see the clothes dryer. As he went down the stairs, he said again, “Dad?” The other light, above the workbench, had not gone on, so the lone bulb above the bottom of the stairs cast long shadows down the length of the basement. To his right was the unfinished wall that closed off his bedroom. He went to the door.
“Dad, you there?” There was no sound from inside the room. Sean put his hand on the doorknob and turned it slowly, enough to know that it was locked from inside. He looked back toward the workbench again, to make sure his father wasn’t somewhere in the shadows. Then he said, “Look, I know you’re in there. Open the door.”
There was a sound, a faint twang and groan, which Sean recognized as the box spring under his mattress.
“I’m coming in,” he said. “You don’t open this door, I’ll kick it in like you did.” He pounded his fist on the hollow door, but there was no response. He put his head very close to the wooden jamb and waited. “All right.” Stepping back, he raised his right leg, kicked out hard, his foot hitting the door just below the knob. There was the sound of splintering wood as the jamb gave way on the other side of the door, and he heard movement in the room—footsteps. He shoved the door open with both hands and stepped into the dark, warm room.
He could barely see his father, standing by the sliding glass door. He’d drawn the drape back with one arm and his other hand was on the door latch.
“Listen, Mom called and—”
The door slid back on its aluminum track and his father went outside. The drapes billowed as cool night air filled the room. Sean went to the door and stepped out into the backyard. To his right, he heard running footsteps in the grass, but he couldn’t see his father.
Suddenly he laughed. “Okay,” he said loudly. “That’s cool. You live out there awhile. Sleep on somebody’s couch. See how you like it. This is my room!”
He went back inside and pulled the sliding door shut. When he switched on the desk lamp he saw his father’s stuff. Clothes on the floor, draped over the chair. Empty beer cans everywhere, a plate of old food on the nightstand. The air smelled of sweat, unwashed clothes and sheets. On the floor by the bed were stacks of magazines, American Police Beat, APB, Police Times.
23
EVERYTHING WAS DIFFERENT NOW.
Hannah realized this one night after dinner. They had eaten out on the patio, which was now finished—Martin had helped lay the final courses of brick. He remained outside while she did the dishes. When she finished, she looked out the window above the sink and stopped wiping down the counter. For minutes she didn’t move as she watched Martin, who sat perfectly still, gazing straight into the sun, which was setting down through the trees, as though he was trying to memorize it. The light was golden, and although it was only the second week of August, there was already a touch of fall in the air. He seldom blinked, and his face seemed burnished in the sunlight.
In high school Hannah had a history teacher, Mr. Byykkonen, who once talked about “the head in a vat,” a phrase that made the class laugh. Mr. B., as he was called by the students, explained that there was one strain of philosophy that posited—he loved to use such words—that the world is nothing but the figment of your imagination. The desks they sat at, the cafeteria food they had eaten for lunch, boyfriends, girlfriends, pets, and parents—none of it was real. None of this, including this class period, or the quiz coming up in algebra, really existed. Mr. B was like that. Whereas most of the other teachers could drive you into a gray state of boredom with repetition and routine, Mr. B had the ability sometimes to yank your head around so that you could get outside yourself, could see things from a different perspective. Last year, when Hannah was recovering from the complications of the abortion, she sometimes reminded herself that this all might not be real, that it might just be in her head. She didn’t believe it—the pain, the blood were all too real—but still it helped. It was as though for a moment she was allowed to drift up out of herself and look in all directions, so she could see everything around her with perfect clarity.
Sometimes when Martin stared at her now, it was as though he were imagining her. It was definitely not a blank stare. There was something about the intensity of his eyes as he watched her face. As though he was seeing her for the first time. Which could be disconcerting. Which could be a little frightening. Which she found very lonel
y. She knew now that she couldn’t really talk to him the way she had before; to do so seemed false, trivial. It was harder now because she had to find new ways to speak to him. Words seldom worked the way she wanted them to, and even gestures and expressions often failed to gain a response. He would just continue to watch her.
The hardest part of each day was going to bed. Obediently, he’d change into the sweatpants and T-shirts that he used as pajamas. He’d always get into bed and lie on his back, staring at the ceiling. There were nights when she tried to sit up in bed and read, but it was too disconcerting just to have him lie there. A couple of times she read to him, but after a while he was either asleep or she could tell he wasn’t listening.
Eventually she would have to turn the light out. Often he was already asleep. Several nights she would curl up against him, but he wouldn’t move, wouldn’t respond. But then two nights ago he began talking after she’d turned out the light. He remembered things—more things more often now. He’d told her about baseball games he’d gone to years ago in Chicago, about summers when he’d visited his aunt here in Whitefish Harbor. Little moments, little pinholes of memory shot through the darkness. But this night he remembered something they had done back in May, meeting at the movie theater over in Marquette. The theater was nearly empty; the movie was dull, but they didn’t care. As he told her all this, he was lying on his back in bed; she lay against him, her left leg across his thighs, her hand creeping up under his T-shirt. She stroked his chest and stomach gently. She asked him if he remembered anything else about that night, anything they had done there in the theater. He didn’t answer. This was common. If he couldn’t recall something, he would just become silent. She had learned not to keep probing; it only made him anxious.
But as he lay there trying to remember anything else about their trip to the movies, Hannah unbuttoned her shirt—the old dress shirt of his she often wore to bed. Gently, she raised his T-shirt, then laid her bare breasts against his skin. He didn’t move. She moved her breasts just slightly, her nipples swelling. She kissed his chest and teased his nipples. He lay there.
“Does that feel good?” she asked.
“It tickles.”
“You want to touch me?”
He didn’t answer.
She slid up, bringing her breasts to his face. “God, I think they’re going to burst,” she whispered as she brushed her nipples across his lips. His mouth responded, sucking and licking, though his hands remained at his side. He seemed to like it.
Then she drew herself on top of him so that her pelvis pressed against his. She knew that she shouldn’t expect too much, and as she moved slowly against him, there was no hardness. But she couldn’t stop, and she finally said, “I think I’m going to keep doing this.”
“Okay.”
She ground herself against him harder, and as she developed a rhythm, he slowly became firm. “Is that all right?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“You want me to do anything else? Just tell me, it’s all right.”
After a moment, he said, “No.”
She continued to move herself against him, and finally she couldn’t help moving quicker. When they came they both cried out. Martin sounded startled, as though he’d been caught by surprise. As they fell asleep the clothing between them became warm and sticky.
Since then Hannah had looked for some sign from him, some recognition, some recollection. If he would just touch her, or say something that suggested he wanted her again. But he didn’t. It was as though it hadn’t happened, and she didn’t know if it was because he didn’t understand what had happened between them, or he simply didn’t remember.
More and more she found herself getting lost in fantasies. While she’d been painting the kitchen she would imagine them fucking, standing with her hands braced against the counter, or kneeling on all fours on the drop cloth, or doing it so hard on the living-room carpet that she got new rug burns up her spine. But these thoughts only made her feel sad and even guilty.
Now, watching Martin stare at the sunset through the trees, she tried not to think about anything. He was seeing only the sun, the fading colors.
She tried to only see him as he sat there.
She tried to memorize him.
Errands.
He liked riding into the village in Pearly’s truck. They went every day and saw the same people in Deitz Hardware, out back in the lumberyard, at the IGA. People were friendly and always smiled and said things like, “Hi, Martin! How are we doing today?”
When they were through with their errands, they sometimes went into the Portage. Sally served both Pearly’s beer and his root beer in heavy glass mugs that were kept in the freezer. One day, while walking back to the truck, they passed the town hall across the street. He stopped to watch the man in the parking lot, washing a police car. He crossed the street and the man looked at him, but he didn’t smile or ask how he was doing. There was a white pickup truck in the lot, too. He went over and looked in the windows.
The man said, “What’re you looking for?”
“Nothing.”
“Well, then, whyn’t you just move away from there?”
He looked at Pearly, who said nothing.
So he moved away from the truck.
“Any word on your father, Sean?” Pearly asked.
“Like you care?”
“I’ll tell you,” Pearly said. “Your dad and I have a long history, you could say a ‘professional relationship,’ and there have been times when we certainly didn’t see eye to eye. But I think he got a bum deal from the town council.”
The man he called Sean turned off the hose and there was the sound of water dripping and running off the police car. “Well, it’s too bad they didn’t consult you, isn’t it? Maybe you ought to run for town council?”
Pearly laughed, but Sean didn’t seem to understand that he’d made a joke.
“Well,” Pearly said, “the fact is a lot of people around here are worried about him.” Sean looked at Pearly as though he hadn’t heard him. “And your mother—”
“Leave my mother out of this,” Sean said.
“Okay. Well, Martin, what do you say?” Pearly started to walk away.
“Gasoline,” he said.
Pearly stopped and came back. “What?” he asked. He was looking at the water and suds on the pavement again, as though there was a problem, even some danger. “What about gasoline, Martin?”
“He smelled like gasoline. When we were driving,” he said, looking across the lot toward the white pickup truck. He turned to the man named Sean. “It was nighttime and you smelled like gasoline.”
For a moment no one said or did anything. Then Pearly said, “You see, Sean, it’s coming back.”
He started across the parking lot then and Pearly followed. The water glistened in the sun as it ran down to the gutter beyond the sidewalk curb. It was interesting how water always ran downhill.
AFTER HIS FATHER DISAPPEARED, Sean had moved back into his basement bedroom. His mother was, more than ever, a complete nervous wreck. She smoked constantly as she watched one TV show after another. Only once did he dare mention the amount of bourbon she was drinking—this at lunchtime, after she placed a chicken salad sandwich before him on the kitchen table. He used to love her chicken salad, but she was getting sloppy and now he’d find tendons and small bones in it. He lifted the bread and examined the sandwich carefully. “You should make lunch before you start drinking.”
“Don’t you start,” she said. Her glass, her pack of menthol cigarettes, and her lighter were arrayed before her on the kitchen table as though they were a line of defense.
Reluctantly, he picked up half of the sandwich. “Fine.”
“You don’t know what it’s been like here.”
“I don’t even know what happened here,” he said with his mouth full. “All I know is something burned on the stove.”
“It was an artichoke. Your father hates them, but I don’t care.”
<
br /> Sean grinned. “Carciofi.”
“Don’t you use any of your . . . your Italian in this house.”
“So you burned dinner, then what happened?”
“You don’t need to know that.”
“But something did happen—I found you lying out in the yard. I thought you were dead.”
“Might as well have been.”
“But you were only passed out.”
“Enough.” She took a drag, her cheeks going hollow.
“All right. How long had he been sleeping down there in my room?”
“Awhile.” She leaned over the table, across her little wall. “All I’ll say is this: That man will never set foot in this house again.”
“Jesus.”
“Never.”
So he had only his imagination. What could his father have done to his mother at this point, after all these years? Sean assumed it was sexual, but right there his imagination began to short-circuit. The thought of his mother and father in bed—or anywhere—doing those things, Sean just couldn’t stay with it. It was unknowable, unthinkable. What he did know was that he couldn’t leave the house again. He had to remain there, living in the basement, as a form of protection for his mother, as necessary and reliable as her bourbon, her menthol cigarettes, and her mindless television programs.
And there were the rumors. His father had been seen, he had been spotted. His mother’s friends would call and when she hung up she’d say, “We have another sighting.” His father had been seen dancing at a powwow over at the Bay Mills Reservation. He was living in a motel on Route 41 outside Marquette. He’d been seen in bars in Sands, Harvey, and Grand Marais. In several instances he was reported to be in the company of an Indian woman. One of his mother’s friends suggested he’d “gone native.”
After Sean concluded his one hundred hours of public service, he had time to kill. He spent much of the day just driving around. He never stopped at Superior Gas & Lube anymore, but went all the way to Munising or Harvey to fill his tank. At some point after dark he always drove by Martin’s house. Sometimes more than once. Martin had recognized his truck. He remembered the gasoline. Eventually he’d recall the rest. Once Martin put it all together, Sean was convinced they’d nail him good.
