Plain Heathen Mischief

by Martin Clark

  “That would be how I make money.”

  “You couldn’t take four?”

  “I could give it to you, but I ain’t going to. Five seventy-five’s the best I can do.”

  “Shit. You sure?” His skateboard was tucked under his arm.

  “I’m sure.”

  “I’ll think about it. I got a friend can find me a better price.”

  “Let me know,” Doc replied.

  “Later.” The boys turned and left the shop, the door sounding again when they tripped the sensors, and Joel heard the boards’ hard wheels hit the sidewalk and clatter away.

  “Those skateboards are the worst,” Doc said. “Oughta be outlawed.”

  “I’ve never given them much mind,” Joel said.

  “So you got this from your mom, right?”

  “Correct.”

  “Well, this is some okay merchandise. Some nice stones, better than average. I reckon you knew that already, huh?”

  “Not really. I just took them from my bank box.”

  “Platinum settings, some of the diamonds would go E or F, most all around IF clarity.”

  “I’m not familiar with gems or how you evaluate them.”

  “Have you taken them anywhere else, to any jewelry stores?”

  Joel felt the first bit of con start to worm its way into Doc’s delivery. “No. I didn’t realize you could do that.”

  “The tennis bracelet’s not so hot, and I’d have to steam everything, do some cleaning. What kind of money you looking for?”

  “What can you give me?”

  “Tough to say. I’d have trouble moving this. My clients are into sparkle more than quality. Antiques don’t do well for me. Like I said, the stuff’s nice, but it ain’t what you’d call flawless. Know what I’m saying?”

  “Sure. So what’s your highest offer?”

  Doc drummed his fingers on the counter, tried to keep from leaping out of his skin. “I could give you maybe five grand for everything.”

  “Wow. That’s more than I expected.”

  “Yeah. Well, I ain’t here to screw nobody. I want to make a fair profit and give people what I can. That’s the reputation I’ve got. Ask anyone about Doc Adams.”

  “I really hate to let it all go, it being my mother’s. What’s the stuff worth? I mean, I understand you have to make money, but what would you say is the actual value of the whole bag?”

  “I couldn’t tell you that. Depends. Depends on who wants it and where you go to sell it and a million other things.” Doc had acquired a slight tic; twice his right eye and the end of his mouth yawed toward each other while he was talking.

  “Huh.” Joel was enjoying the give-and-take, deriving a corrupt pleasure in having the catbird’s seat and watching Doc feint and squirm and tell half-truths. Joel was finally in control, the hustle and grift altogether on his terms, and it was a satisfying feeling—even though it shouldn’t have been—bracing and addictive, as if he could see around every bend and had hours to consider his answers, and Doc was small and impotent, about knee-high.

  “I can’t help you there, not really.”

  “So, what would be the least valuable piece?” Joel asked.

  “The diamond earrings—” Doc interrupted himself. “No, come to think of it, the least expensive is this dinner ring here.” He picked up a diamond and emerald ring. “It looks like a lot, but it’s old, the setting’s bad, and these are all commercial-grade stones. You can find something like this over at the mall for two or three hundred bucks.”

  “I see. I’m not sure about letting it go. Lot of sentimental value, been in the family a long, long while.”

  “So what are you needin’ to get?” Doc asked. His eye and mouth did their small spasm.

  “What were you going to say about the earrings, the small ones there? They’re diamonds, aren’t they?”

  “Average stuff—mall quality. Dime a dozen.” Doc accelerated his effort, pushed harder. “Tell you what. My sister’s got nice things to say about you, and I’m figuring you caught a bad break. I know how damn holier-than-thou some church folks can be, and maybe this’ll earn me some credit with the man upstairs, right? I shouldn’t do it, but I’ll go fifty-five hundred for the whole bag.”

  “Wow. That’s awfully kind. Huh.” Joel pretended to consider the offer. “I’m beginning to feel bad about this all of a sudden. What would you offer for just the earrings?”

  “Not much. Maybe forty bucks.”

  “How long will I have to redeem them?”

  “Thirty days. What would you take for the rest of the stuff? You tell me.”

  “You’ve been more than generous. It’s not that. I appreciate your kindness and candor, but I’m getting a serious case of cold feet.”

  “How about I give you a thousand for the ring and the earrings?”

  “I’m going to stick with the earrings. I may have to come back, but for now I’ll take the forty.” Joel reached for the rest of the jewelry, cupped his hand around the rings and brooches and necklaces, and dragged them across the countertop, his curved fingers and stiff wrist like a miniature vaudeville hook appearing to end the show.

  “Okay, hang on a minute. How about ten thousand for everything. Whadda you say?”

  “I appreciate it, but I’ve made up my mind.”

  “Name your price then. You tell me.”

  “Maybe some other time. I’m going to pledge the earrings today and try to get by with that. I’m grateful to you, though. Thanks.”

  “Give me your number in Montana before you leave, and I’ll keep in touch. Here’s my info.” Doc took a business card from a plastic holder next to the register, handed it to Joel. “Let me see that again,” Doc said, and Joel returned the card to him. “I’m goin’ to give you my cell and my home number. You decide to do anything, how ’bout you contact me first?”

  “You have my word.”

  Joel had several empty hours before he departed Roanoke, and after leaving Doc he roamed around downtown, spent part of his pawn money on a handcrafted candle for Sophie and a paperback copy of Paul Tillich’s Systematic Theology. After purchasing the text, he chatted with a thoughtful bookseller named Robert about Tillich and Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Reinhold Niebuhr and Karl Barth. Joel ate free cookies and drank specialty coffee and had an amiable disagreement over precisely what Barth brought to the fray, finally conceding to the shop owner that Barth was occasionally disjointed and a tad too technical in his writings. They discussed theology and philosophy, proofs and syllogisms and the myriad contrivances writers and thinkers use to hog-tie gods, tiptoed to the banks of the Jordan but never got wet, sipped mocha hazelnut, nibbled bakery sweets and kept everything at arm’s length, politely debated religion like mathematicians analyzing pi or historians wrangling over the Teapot Dome Scandal. They shook hands when they ended their conversation, and Robert accompanied Joel to the door, wished him well and invited him to visit again.

  Joel delayed the most difficult decision as long as he could, waiting until he had only an hour left before he needed to arrive at the airport. He decided to drive to Roanoke First Baptist without making up his mind about much else, didn’t know if he would stop or leave the car or go inside. The drive was short and didn’t allow enough time for the air to blow cold from the Neon’s vents, even though the fan was set on high and the control lever was pushed completely into the blue. Joel made a right turn and looked in his mirror, saw no one behind him. He slowed and watched the church inch by through his window, noticed two new buses and a fleet of matching vans in the parking lot. After another lap around the block, he pulled onto a side street, attended to the meter with two dimes and walked toward Roanoke First Baptist.

  At first he felt a profound sadness, a swell of nostalgia and self-pity that weighed him down and caused him to gaze at the yard and building with his hands on his hips, sick to death over paradise lost. After a few minutes, though, he began to feel better, took some comfort from what he was seeing. The church w
as a feat of architecture, and the steeple was high and impeccably painted, not a flake or peel to be found, and the yard was perfectly cut, the walks swept. Inside, on the red carpet, so many things miraculous had happened—baptisms, marriages, confessions, transformations and forgiveness—and no matter how much these holy wonders had been dimmed or eroded or defiled by inattention and temptation after the fact, no one could deny that the mighty presence of the Lord God had dwelled under this roof and swallowed up people whole, made them pristine for an instant. The divine gift may have been gnawed to gristle by gossip, backbiting, avarice, coveting and false idols, but for a blessed while the church—his church—had been a repository of goodness, a bulwark against convenient choices and humanism’s hollow enticements.

  Joel turned without drawing any closer, wiped tears away and rubbed his purple polyester sleeve across his nose. He reached the Neon without taking another look at Roanoke First Baptist, drove north with the tears distorting his vision, relieved to know there was a rock in the world but heartbroken he’d been cleaved from it.

  While he was waiting to board the plane to Montana, he began reading Tillich, recalled some of the passages from seminary, one particularly:

  . . . the theological truth of yesterday is defended as an unchangeable message against the theological truth of today and tomorrow. Fundamentalism fails to make contact with the present situation, not because it speaks from beyond every situation, but because it speaks from a situation of the past. It elevates something finite and transitory to infinite and eternal validity.

  Joel read several pages and tossed the book in the trash, regretted paying ten bucks for it so as to have his unfortunate choices justified in print by a Harvard professor who thumbed his nose at orthodoxy and seemed to suggest that right and wrong changed with the day of the week. Staring vacantly at the trash can, waiting for his plane to board, he wondered if he’d ever again be certain of anything.

  eleven

  Even though his trip to Virginia had lasted only two days, the time zones and the air travel left Joel torpid and out of sorts when he woke up at his sister’s on Tuesday, caused him to sleep through Tut’s sunrise antics and a series of snooze-bar postponements. It took coffee with extra sugar and a burst of cold water as he was finishing his shower to return him to normal. He dusted the living room, washed clothes, browsed parts of the Sunday paper and made himself an early lunch, spread peanut butter on a dry heel slice of white bread and shooed the fruit flies from around a mushy yellow apple before slicing it into quarters. He put the half sandwich and apple pieces on a plate, then sniffed the contents of a milk jug, ignored the expiration date and filled Baker’s plastic Ringling Brothers souvenir cup to the brim.

  He watched the last segment of an ESPN fishing show, left his sister a cheerful note and drove the Taurus to Jack Howard’s office, where he sat twenty-five minutes in the tedious reception area, reading pamphlets on sexually transmitted diseases, child abuse and drug-treatment programs. No one else was there except Mrs. Heller, the secretary, and Howard was busy with a crossword puzzle when Joel finally was allowed through the door.

  “How’s things going, my criminal friend?” Howard asked. The puzzle was a newspaper feature, and Howard had folded the paper to a fraction of its size. He erased a wrong entry and blew the rubber waste onto the floor.

  “Just fine. I’m reporting for my monthly contact. I’ve got all my fees and so forth.”

  “Good. Hand ’em over.”

  Joel gave him a money order for his court obligations and thirty dollars in cash.

  “I’m glad we’re getting along so well. You still workin’?”

  “Same two jobs,” Joel said.

  “Screwin’ any teenagers?” He didn’t bother to look up from the puzzle.

  “No.”

  “See that you don’t.”

  Joel did his best not to despise Howard. Condemn the sin, not the sinner, he reminded himself as he hunkered down in the uncomfortable chair. “I was thinking,” he began, drastically lowering his voice, “about what I might have to do to be discharged from probation. I’ve heard that if I’m employed and the state’s paid in full, I might be able to have my supervision terminated.”

  “Hell, you ain’t been here but a few months. You got, what, three years with me?”

  “True. But it was my understanding if I do well and pay all my fines and costs . . . and fees . . . I might get an early release.”

  “Hey. Whadda you know. Here’s one you can help me with. Five across. ‘Slang for inmate.’ Three letters. You want to have a go at it?”

  “Con,” Joel said.

  “Very good, Mr. King.” Howard wrote in the letters.

  “So is there any truth to that? I’ve heard through the grapevine that it’s sort of policy. One of the jailers in Roanoke mentioned it, but he said it was probably the case everywhere.”

  “I have the discretion to release probationers if I think the court supervision has served its purpose. But you’re with me for three years. Thirty-six lovely months.”

  “I understand. I figure by working two jobs, staying out of trouble and saving my money, I might be able to pay everything off in the next six or seven months. Everything,” Joel added for emphasis, though it was apparent Howard was already calculating his dishonest profit.

  “What’d you have in mind?” He leaned back in his seat, kept his yellow wooden pencil in his hand. The chair’s metal swivel squeaked when he reclined.

  “Whatever’s necessary. I’m sure you have some type of guidelines.”

  “You’re going to owe all your Virginia payments, then fees for thirty-six months, and on top of that an additional premium for the paperwork and filings I’d have to prepare for early release.” Howard rocked back farther and put his feet on the desk.

  “I’ve paid some already, so we’re talking about, say, another thousand for you plus administrative costs added to that. Am I pretty close?”

  “I’d guess about two thousand would cover it,” Howard said.

  “Of course, if I left Missoula for a better job in Roanoke, you wouldn’t receive any local fees after I’m gone, correct? I mean, if I go home come January, your thirty-six months becomes very much abbreviated.”

  “I have to approve the transfer.” Howard was smug, didn’t seem concerned by Joel’s bluff.

  “True. But why wouldn’t you? When I have a written offer from a captain of industry, when I’ve paid my court costs faithfully, when I’ve produced letters from the community welcoming me to Roanoke, why wouldn’t you? As I understand it, if you won’t, I’ll bet your chief will, especially when my new boss and my attorney start raising Cain.”

  “You think you can threaten me?”

  “Oh no. Certainly not. I was just thinking that if I were in your shoes, a thousand bucks and no fuss would probably be a fair arrangement.”

  Howard jerked down his feet, rolled his chair close to his desk and stretched as far as he could toward Joel. “You think you can chisel me? Come in my office and yank my chain? You’re a two-bit, piece-of-shit criminal. You’ll pay what I tell you and be damn happy to do it.”

  Joel leaned forward as well, met Howard midway across his desk. He spoke in a hushed, restrained voice. “The worst you can do is return me to Virginia, and I pull six months. You get zero, no thirty dollars, no thousand dollars, no two thousand dollars. And whether anyone believes me or not, I promise I’ll report you to everyone I meet from Missoula to Roanoke. It’s your choice, Mr. Howard. A thousand and we leave as friends, or nothing and we go to battle.”

  Howard raised from his seat, balancing himself with his arms. His nose almost grazed Joel’s, and his warped, misshapen face blocked everything else in the room. “You think you’re the first piece-of-shit jailbird ever to try to shake me down? I will send your ass back to the slammer. You go ahead and challenge me. You’re nothing but a lowlife.”

  “So, Mr. Howard, are you. You just happen to have a tie and a state office,” Joel
said. They remained face-to-face.

  Howard removed his right hand from the desk and slowly brought it to Joel’s throat. “I’ll cut off your head and drink your blood, you understand?” he said, clinching Joel’s neck with his thumb and first two fingers. “You don’t know half the shit I got in store for you. You think you can push me around? Say shit to me as you please? I don’t see you leavin’ my supervision for less than three thousand.” He squeezed the soft pockets of flesh where Joel’s neck met the curve of his jawbone.

  Joel retreated and separated himself from Howard’s grip. The sides of his neck stung, and it was difficult to swallow, felt as if something was massing in his windpipe. “Have it your way, Mr. Howard. I’ll be gone soon, and you’ll not see another red cent from me after that.” He rotated his head, made two slow loops to work out the soreness. “You do what you have to do.”

  “You just bought yourself a boatload of trouble, my criminal friend.” Howard was still humped over his desk, reminded Joel of a big chimp propped on its knuckles.

  “I doubt it,” Joel said with genuine confidence and then left the room. Howard stormed to the door of his office and screamed and cursed as Joel was walking through the lobby, but Joel didn’t pay any attention to him, didn’t break stride or parry the tongue-lashing.

  By the time Joel arrived at High Pines, the marks on his throat had turned color, starting to darken into two bruises. He’d taken satisfaction in confronting Howard and felt certain the probation officer would calm down and relent in due time. He would wait a week or so and then call the greedy swine, say he was sorry, grease that approach for a while so the half man– half mole could regain his pride and brag to his friends how he’d taken another thug to school. In the end, though, Joel was optimistic he’d be done with probation when the new year started, and the cost would be a thousand crooked dollars, not the two thousand Howard had first demanded.

  As usual, his mother was dressed for the hootenanny, her attire somewhere between Joan Baez and Dale Evans. When Joel opened the door to her room, she was sitting on her bed studying a piece of mail. Her lips mouthed every word, and her head followed the sentences across the page in the pattern of an old-fashioned typewriter carriage.