The Garden of Last Days

by Andre Dubus III

  “Shit, you hurt?”

  AJ looked up just as Cap Jr. jumped down, his gut covered by a clean Caporelli’s T-shirt tucked into new jeans, his black hair still wet from his morning shower. AJ could smell his aftershave.

  “Fuck, AJ.”

  “Bucket came down on me, man. The coupler popped.”

  “Shit, can you move? What’d it hit?”

  “I don’t know. I think just my hand.” AJ glanced up at Junior. His eyes were fixed on AJ’s lower arm wedged between the bucket and the earth. Sweat broke out on his forehead and AJ felt as if everything he’d just said was the absolute truth.

  “Can you get it out?”

  “I tried. I guess I blacked out.”

  “Shit.” Junior. picked up the shovel, held it a second, dropped it. “We shouldn’t mess with this ourselves.” He pulled his silver cell phone from its belt clip, and as he called 911, the sky clear and blue above him, AJ closed his eyes, wanted cold water but knew it was coming, knew everything he needed would be coming to him now.

  Junior was telling the dispatcher where they were, naming the road and describing the excavator and two trucks they would see there. AJ looked forward to the cool clean sheets of a hospital bed, a long afternoon’s rest, the call to Deena, the love and concern in her voice, and would he tell her about the money due them? Would he tell her then or would he wait?

  And wasn’t it strange to see a patrol car pull up just feet from the ditch, Junior not even off the phone yet? There must be an open line to the dispatcher or something. AJ hadn’t expected the law, but having them here could only help, couldn’t it? He could tell them about the coupler failing and it’d be on record.

  The passenger door opened and a cop rose up out it. He was young and wore the same green uniform as those who’d cuffed AJ in front of his son. He looked down into the ditch at AJ, at his buried hand, the bucket and its dull teeth still crusted with yesterday’s dirt, then at Cap Jr., who held his open cell phone in front of him like he still had calls to make.

  “His hand’s pinned. I just got here.”

  The cop nodded once and two more walked up, one on each side of him, both older, one in a blue uniform.

  “You call an ambulance?” It was an older one in green. The morning sun glinted off his glasses, and he was tall and slim and seemed to have figured out the scene faster than the other two.

  “Yes, sir, I did.”

  The tall one nodded at AJ. “How long you been down there, son?”

  “Long enough to wish I wasn’t.”

  “You Alan Carey?”

  AJ nodded. Whatever moisture was left in his mouth went dry and his heart beat hard behind his eyes. How in the hell he know that?

  The cop looked down at Junior. “And what’s your name?”

  “Mike Caporelli. I own the excavator.” Cap Jr.’s voice was unsteady, the same tone whenever he just got news of a bad bet or when an inspector showed up wanting to see paperwork.

  “This young man work for you?”

  “Yessir. Listen, that was a new part. I don’t know how it popped like that.”

  “We’re not here for that. Come on out of there, we need to talk to Alan.” The old cop offered his hand and Junior took it and kicked the toe of his boot into the clay and climbed out. Junior looked down at AJ, the cell phone still in his hand, his face wide and pale against the blue sky.

  “Go have a seat in your vehicle till I call you, all right?”

  AJ watched him go, his heart throwing itself against his sternum. He had a hard time looking up at the three men looking down at him and they could be here for only one thing and that just didn’t make any sense.

  The older one squatted, rested his elbows on his knees. His holster was black and worn. “You in pain?”

  “Yes, I am. How’d you know my name, sir?”

  “I believe I’ll ask the questions if that’s all right with you.”

  AJ stared at him. There was the sound of Cap Jr.’s truck door pulling shut.

  “I know you’re hurting down there, Alan, but help’s on the way and listen, I need you to help me right now, okay?”

  “You?”

  “That’s right. You were at the Puma Club over on 301 last evening, weren’t you?”

  AJ tried to swallow, couldn’t.

  “You know where I’m going with this, don’t you?” His voice was calm and relaxed. AJ’s heart had slowed but he felt like throwing up and maybe he should tell the truth; maybe if he didn’t, he’d look like he’d done something bad when he hadn’t. But they were already treating him like he did, and maybe he did, but damnit not like they think.

  “No, sir, I don’t.”

  “Alan, we’ve been to your home. We’ve spoken with your wife.” The cop looked down at his clasped hands. “We know you violated your RO going over there but my concern’s finding that little girl, Alan, and before you say anything, I want you to imagine it was your boy we’re talking about here. Think about that. How bad it would be not knowing where he was or what had happened to him or if you’d ever see him again. Nobody should go through that, Alan. Nobody deserves that.”

  “You sure?” The words came out of him as unplanned as a belch and there was no taking them back and anyway it felt good to say them. There was a tingling in AJ’s face. He saw again the girl crying by herself behind the screen door of the hot, bright kitchen of the club.

  The old cop pushed his glasses up his nose. He turned in the direction of the one in blue. “Would you and my partner go take Mike’s information, please? I’d like a minute with Alan here.”

  “It’s AJ.”

  The other two walked off together, disappearing beyond the excavator.

  “Your wife calls you that, doesn’t she?”

  “Used to.”

  “You’ve had some troubles lately, haven’t you?”

  AJ looked away. At his hand buried in the dirt.

  “Your wife tells me you were pretty upset earlier.”

  Heat flashed through AJ’s torso: Did she mention his hand? Did she mention his goddamn hand?

  “You miss your family, don’t you?”

  A thickness gathered in AJ’s throat. He didn’t know this man and didn’t like the uniform he wore, but he felt seen and listened to for the first time in a long while. So far back he didn’t know when.

  “You work hard too, don’t you?”

  AJ nodded.

  “And it’s no easy job, I can see that.”

  That’s right. That’s goddamned right.

  “Your wife tells me you’re a good daddy. That you and she have had your problems but you’ve always been there for your boy.”

  AJ’s eyes burned and he wasn’t ashamed of what fell from them now, first one, then the other, because this was a man who knew. A man who was doing his job, yes, but goddamnit, he knew.

  “You saying, AJ, maybe the girl’s mama shouldn’t have that child?”

  AJ wiped his eyes. He could see Spring peddling her ass on the floor, walking so proud from table to table, her long hair thick and shiny. “They don’t let me see my son and she brings her baby to the fuckin’ Puma Club?”

  “Go on.”

  “She was all by herself. Man, she was terrified, crying her eyes out looking for her mama. I told her to go back inside, but she said it was scary and I didn’t know what kind of sick shit was going on so I just got her the hell out of there, that’s all.”

  “You were looking out for her.”

  “That’s right.”

  There was the sound of tires rolling onto the dirt shoulder. This man looking down at him understood things, but the more AJ talked the more he felt himself slip into a bad place he didn’t deserve and he heard car doors open and close and he hoped it was the ambulance because he was ready to go. The old cop swung around and held up his hand as if there was danger down here he had to protect them from. Whoever was walking over stopped in the dirt.

  He turned back around, pushed his glasses up his nose. The m
orning sun was full in is face now and AJ could see he wasn’t so old, maybe sixty, sixty-one. The age his own father would be.

  “Is that the ambulance? ’Cause I’m hurting here.”

  “And you’ll be getting help real quick. Just tell me where I can go get the child and I’ll be on my way.”

  AJ shook his head, looked down at his boot up against the ditch wall. Above his toes was the sharp and rusted corner of something embedded in the soil—scrap iron? The broken tip of a de Soto sword? There was the girl’s face as he lay her down in the backseat of the Honda, her curly hair around it like a nest.

  “AJ?”

  “I didn’t know where to bring her. I thought about bringing her to you all, but I didn’t want you to get the wrong idea. You know, it could look bad.”

  “Where is she, son?”

  “I tried to put her someplace safe. I’m not proud of leaving her there.”

  “Just give me the location, AJ. I’ll take care of the rest.” The old cop’s face had no expression; his lips held a thin straight line but in his eyes was the dark light of fear that something had happened, and AJ knew then he may never be able to convince him or anybody else otherwise even after they found her all in one piece in the Honda he told him about now, in the closed garage down the alley off Fruitville Road he told him about now.

  Then the old cop was gone, and the EMTs were down in the hole, two big men wearing white latex gloves, one of them picking up the shovel to dig, the other taking AJ’s pulse and talking to him like they were old friends, and if it weren’t for the young deputy watching from above, his fleshy arms crossed over his badge, his eyes set on AJ in what felt like a hatred barely contained, this was the morning scene AJ had hoped for, this was the one he’d counted on all night long to bring about a change. A change for the better.

  LONNIE WAS SITTING asleep on her couch, the back of his head against the wall, his mouth half-open. He was the first man to enter this place since she’d moved in and it was like being dropped into a life that would never be hers again and how would she ever continue if this was true?

  Her mouth tasted like metal. Her heart felt weak in her chest. She’d changed out of her club clothes into the same shorts and T-shirt she’d worn to the beach yesterday, which made her feel less like Spring and more like April, which pulled her even deeper into the black jagged air she found herself in, her kitchen and living room filled with sunlight.

  It was almost eight. They’d sat over an hour in his truck and she began to fear her phone may not be working that far from the house. On the way in, there was her empty cup lying in the spilled coffee on the bricks. And now, making coffee, taking that one small comfort, had felt like a betrayal, but she poured herself some in a mug the color of avocados, one she rarely used, and she held the mug with two hands and sipped the coffee carefully. The thing now was to be very careful and very quiet, not to speak too loud or move too fast or do anything but bear the waiting that had become a stillness that may as well be wired with explosives. She’d called the police department three times and each time the same man, young and no kids himself she was sure, told her to just sit tight and wait.

  Sit tight.

  Lonnie’s mouth was open wider now, though he slept without a sound, and she walked on her toes into the living room and sat on the edge of the chair. It was a maroon plaid with a matching skirt, the couch too, what Jean had furnished the apartment with and only now, or maybe before too, when April had first walked in with Franny and their suitcases and two cardboard trunks from Staples, did April see it for what it was, somebody else’s home entirely, hers only when Franny was in it. And now she was not.

  It was not possible to sit any tighter than this. But she must. She must be very still, and drink her coffee and stay awake and sit very very tight.

  At the Empire the waiting was bad. Waiting to go on that first time. No longer a waitress with her breasts swinging beneath the tray she tried to cover them with, but Spring, onstage. McGuiness watched her from under a neon Absolut sign on the back wall, his eyes a line of shadow, his bald head blue in the light and looking like cold bone, and her song began and she pranced with too much hip, one drunk hooting for her, the rest quiet, testing her, and it was before she even began unbuttoning her blouse she felt April slide back and down inside herself, slamming the door, locking it, pulling shutters behind her eyes that would only glitter now and not shine.

  That cold stare he’d give you when you were dancing, appraising you, looking for weak spots. Mandy had come out of his office holding her face, crying. After closing, Lu sat at the bar with club soda because her ass was too fat and he’d told the bartenders nothing for her with even one fucking calorie in it. Dee and Rhina worked off their house debt to him on their knees in his office or in front of a camera in one of his condos. Some of the men they fucked were floor hosts, one was McGuiness, the camera never on the men’s faces anyway, and he played these movies on his widescreen at the annual Christmas party, Dee and Rhina laughing together on the couch like schoolgirls watching their taped talent show. April had gone with Stephanie, who said they had to be there.

  Summer and Spring walking in together, the two warmer, more hopeful seasons though it was winter outside, plowed snow piled icy and dirty at the edge of the parking lot of the condos. McGuiness owned five of them.

  Nobody was allowed to smoke but the place seemed smoky. Something with a lot of bass was playing. It was crowded with all the girls from the club, some with a boyfriend standing here and there in a Christmas sweater holding a light beer, gawking at all the fake tits and made-up faces and flashing teeth and teased hair. The one with Jenna kept looking from Rhina to the widescreen where she was riding a man, his hands gripping her hips. Most of the floor hosts stood at the bar to the kitchen looking big and slow though Alex had his wife with him, a short, heavy girl in a black party dress that made her look beached and ostracized, and there was McGuiness in the kitchen, his bald head glistening under the overhead light, his shoulder and chest muscles showing roundly under his blue satin shirt. He held a drink and stood talking to a stubby man in a leather jacket.

  Stephanie handed April a shot of Jägermeister. A small voice inside her said, No, don’t drink. Stay a few minutes and go. Then she was tossing it down with Stephanie, who was charming the floor hosts like only she could, then raising her empty glass for another.

  Beside the widescreen a gas fire burned in a stone fireplace and three of the girls were one at a time kneeling over the hearth and snorting lines off a mirror. Above them on-screen, a man, maybe McGuiness, was coming onto Dee’s fake tits, and somebody had turned up the music louder, bass and drums and a man singing in German or Polish or Russian, and April wanted to leave. She’d go up to McGuiness and be polite, then she’d give Stephanie’s arm a tug and they’d go.

  People kept pulling open the slider to the deck to walk out and smoke, the cold air coming in before the glass slid closed and then the room was too warm again, smelling of sweat and wool and a dozen perfumes and colognes. There was a hot tub out there, curls of steam rising off the glowing water.

  McGuiness was staring at her. Her heart started beating faster though it wasn’t a look she’d even seen from him before. He wasn’t appraising, he was admiring, his features softened somehow, his eyes not so dead-looking. He raised his chin and almost smiled and she knew she was being beckoned and went. So many of the girls, even Stephanie, had dressed to show off leg and ass and cleavage but she’d worn a sleeveless emerald dress with a high neckline that accented only her waist and hips and went almost to her knees. The man with McGuiness gave her a twice-over and April smiled at him, then McGuiness.

  “Merry Christmas, April.” His face still, his bald head shining. “Where’s your drink?”

  “Gone.”

  “I’ll get you something. Spring, this is one of my distributors, Angelo.”

  “You just called her April.”

  “For you it’s Spring.” McGuiness didn’t smile.
He moved past him to the sink, stepping between two of the girls and grabbing a glass. Angelo the distributor had a bad eye. Glassy blue with brown flecks when the other was just brown. His face was shaved too close, a rash on his throat, and she could see where he’d dyed his mustache, the roots gray under his nose.

  Both his eyes, good and bad, passed over her face and torso, her bare arms. “You work for McGuiness?”

  “No, I work for myself.”

  “Good answer. You should do film, though. You’d make a fuckin’ mint.”

  “Watch the mouth.” McGuiness handed April a crystal glass of eggnog, nutmeg sprinkled across the top. “This one’s not like them. Go have a smoke or something, all right?”

  The man left without a word. April imagined him out on the deck smoking a cigarette, staring into the empty hot tub with that bad eye. Above music and talk and laughter, she heard Stephanie’s laugh and turned to look for her but only saw the broad backs of the floor hosts, two of the girls dancing badly on the stone hearth in front of the low-burning flames. Above them and the mantel, a massive Christmas wreath hung on the wall, gold and silver bells dangling from it.

  “You decorate this place yourself?”

  “I don’t do anything myself. Taste your drink.”

  She did. Cool sweet eggnog with whiskey or brandy. She hadn’t had one in a long time.

  “You’re not afraid I’ll get fat?”

  “I told you to lose some weight and you lost it. I don’t have to worry about you, do I?”

  “No.”

  “Then why bust my balls?”

  “I’m not.” She smiled, felt weak for smiling.

  He smiled back. A real smile. The lines in his face got shallower and his eyes flickered with a light that wasn’t all business. Another man came up to him, this one thin with sloped shoulders and a goatee. April excused herself and went and stood by Stephanie. Alex was telling a joke, a long one, and April drank deeply off the sweet drink and she avoided looking up at the widescreen. The music was too hard and too loud but at least she didn’t have to hear the sounds of fucking. Stephanie and the others began laughing. She nudged April and handed her a shot. “I have one.” And April raised her glass and toasted Christmas with the rest of them.