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Again she rehearses her speech. Two points only: no longer his rep-payee, move out today. Tess's truck pulls in behind Del. She and Queenie slide out. Del motions them to get in front, but they push into the back instead.
"Let Rozmer ride shotgun," Tess says. Tess's dreadlocks are twisted under a black bandanna and all the hardware is gone from her face. She looks exhausted.
"I am not looking forward to this," Del says.
Tess laughs. "It's good Rozmer's going with us." Tess hugs Queenie. "And of course Queenie, who always keeps things in perspective." Queenie pants on Del's shoulder, licks her.
"I'm going to keep it brief," Del says.
"All depends if he's high or hungry."
"He's got a good fire going. Lots of smoke coming from the chimney."
"Then he's high. Going to be black irony and 'don't give a fuck.' If he didn't have a fix, the fire would be out and he'd be shivering up in his bed."
"Oh, dear. Well, I hope it's going to work out for you to go on living at the house, at least until I return from Owl Lake, that Luke can stay with you this month. All depends on Mark's attitude, his moving out, and if you think you can stand up to keeping him from moving back in. But then once I get back from the residency, I think I'm going to have to rent the house out."
"I'm not afraid of Mark, but here's the thing: Mark's into it deep with Wayne Smith, my mom's lovely companion, Smithy and his higher-ups, Mark's drums, everything…" Tess stops. "Well, look, don't worry about us. I can find a place for me and Queenie to stay. Maybe even Luke too, if Mark turns out to be … more than pain-in-the-ass nasty."
Rozmer's truck turns off the highway, heads straight for them.
She drives them slowly toward the house. Rozmer knocks on the door. Rozmer's like a big wall standing there. Thank the gods for Rozmer. The three of them step back and wait. Rozmer knocks again. There's the scrape of furniture across the floor, the sound of steps. The clank of the bolt. Mark opens the door, an empty coffeepot in his hand. Unshaven. Bright eyes peer out at them from his hooded sweatshirt. Thin, thin like those famine victims, the worst she's ever seen him. He gives them a tilted smile.
"Well, well … lookee … who's here." He turns away and goes to the sink.
They step inside. Rozmer signals "go" with his eyebrows. "We need to talk," Del says.
Mark doesn't respond. He squint-eyes the slow trickle from the faucet into the carafe as though an exact measure is critical. "Talk?" he says.
"Yes."
Mark sets the carafe down on the edge of the microwave, pats the pockets of his sweatshirt, checks the fluid in his lighter. "We'll … hold our little … talk … outside…" His words lurch, bump into each other. "…once I make some … coffee." All the while that same small smile. "…so I can sm … oke."
This in deference to Rozmer. Any kind of deference at all offers some hope. The three of them watch his slow trek around the kitchen: the pouring of the water, the placing of the filter, the tapping of the bottom of the can to get the last grains out. They sit down. Only the gurgle of liquid streaming into the carafe, the clink of the spoon against the mug as he loads in sugar. With the cup held away from his body as though it is pulling him along, he starts for the door. They rise. He stumbles against the counter, a splash of coffee hits the floor.
Del's hand goes out as if to keep herself from falling. "Mark, you're high right now."
He looks at her for the first time. "What are they"—he sweeps his arm toward Rozmer and Tess—"doing here?" And then he is out the door.
On the back of the counter: a wrist brace, its fraying Velcro straps undone. Tess picks the brace up. "My mother's," she says. "Doing an 'angel of mercy' before we got here."
Rozmer motions for her to go first. By the time they get seated, she and Tess across from him, Rozmer off to the side—maybe this means she's on her own—Mark is stripping out shreds of tobacco from the pile of butts in front of him. He rolls a cigarette, lights it, blows the smoke off in another direction.
"Now," he says, and laughs.
"Mark…"
"I want … my money. I'm … leaving … the area." He keeps his eyes on a distant point like he's waiting for a train.
"Today," Rozmer says. "Your mother wants you to leave the house today."
"You her translator?"
Silence. Her cue for sure. She opens her mouth, trusts something will come out. "You and I had an agreement. I'd like you to move out today."
Mark turns his body, looks toward Rozmer for the first time. "This woman … thirty-seven years ago … note the rapport." Then he swings his legs from under the table and sits with his back to all three of them. All she can see is the ragged edge of his hood, the slump of his shoulders. "Is she," he says, his voice low and reasoned, as he flourishes with his arm to take it all in: the brook, the thorn apples, the hill where Aaron and Lee's ashes are buried, "I ask you, is she … responsible … for any of this?"
She is not going to cry. She is going to tell him the rest of what she has to say. "Leave today," she says again. "We can make arrangements to bring you your drums, all your…"
Mark laughs, a boom of sound. "My drums?" he says. All of it a source of much amusement. "I am not … going to treatment. I was delusional … when I signed that contract."
"Nobody's going to force you into treatment," Rozmer says. He rises and walks to where he can face Mark, but he keeps some distance, puts his hands in his pockets. "You have all sorts of options."
"Options?"
"Between 'nowhere to go' and long-term treatment. Go to a meeting, go to a shelter … The main thing is to focus on what you need to do today."
"Anybody comes here and tries to force me into treatment…"
"Today," Rozmer says again. "What are you going to do today?"
"I'm leaving. I need my October money." All his words are steady now.
Del breathes in and says it: "I'm no longer your rep-payee. The money is between you and Social Security."
"That money gets deposited tomorrow. No way you could have stopped that. That money is between you and me." Silence. "Look, there's something I have to take care of."
What she needs to say is No. Instead she says nothing.
Mark scoops up the butts and stuffs them in his pocket. "Fine," he says, "fine. I can go on being the … family martyr." He rises, does not look at her. "My mother wants me out of the house, why, I'll get out of the house. If Tess is going to stay here, be good if I can get some transport from her. Maybe the Morlettis will take me in." He starts to move away, but stops after a few steps. "If," he says and then turns and looks at her head on, "if I had the October money, I'd have a chance."
She looks toward Rozmer, but he gives her no clues. "I don't know," she finally says.
"You don't know?" His voice is full of contempt. Again he turns.
A red leaf spirals past, lands by her hand. What chance does he have? "I'll think about it," she says, so low maybe he didn't hear her.
He disappears around the side of the house, Queenie at his heels.
Just beyond the Stanton limits, Del turns right at Bellow's Corners, one of those enclaves of rusted trailers with added-on plywood rooms and teetering porches, three-sided sheds of scrap lumber, yards full of old cars and derelict machinery. Stacks of tires and random piles of exotic objects. Once a social worker had explained to the faculty at her school that this was not junk. These were heaps of spare parts and salvage to be bartered, traded, or modified to get something going. But worthy goods or not, this much chaos would finish her off for sure.
Two miles to Dry Brook. She sets the trip odometer to zero. Pay the two hundred dollars—two hundred dollars—for transporting her totaled car, take the goddamned plates to Motor V and then tomorrow morning early she's out of here. Weird the car, the accident, never even mentioned. The October money. Maybe she should turn that over to him. Give him a more positive option than the Morlettis'.
No, she is not, she is not going to let him pull her ba
ck into this. She's going to pack up and go to Owl Lake. Maybe take only Aaron's box. Leave the rest of them behind. Tess is going to stay in the house and take care of Luke, and if Mark hasn't moved out by the time she gets back, well, she's going to go to Hoop and begin eviction proceedings, put an ad in the Sun: "House for Rent," but for the next month she's going to draw and go for walks and read and not think about Mark.
The leaves are heading for peak, as they say, and the hills are bursting orange and red and yellow, and if she had a semi-normal life, she could just drive merrily on and enjoy the brilliance. Is she responsible for some of this? Well, yes, yes, yes. All of them stumbling through Lee's dark silence all those years, the food so heavy during a lot of those dinners it was hard to lift the fork, her throat so locked she couldn't swallow. Aaron's death. Yes, she should have grabbed hold of him, said, My god, Aaron, you look terrible, what is the matter? Instead of looking away, always looking away. All of her energy diverted toward rescuing Mark. But, Jesus, Mark, this is now, now, it's time to get up in the morning, do the dishes after meals, and watch where you're going. Watch where you're going.
Dry Brook Road. She brakes and turns right. No question she's found it, for far off in the distance, scattered across the hill, piles and piles of wrecked vehicles, giving off beams of chrome-light in the sun. The office is in a trailer similar to the ones she's just passed. She imagines the owner will have a belly that rolls down over his belt and very few teeth. She knocks and is told to come on in. A man is sitting at a computer. He is lean, wearing clean navy coveralls similar to Richard's, and when he smiles, none of his teeth are missing.
"I spoke to you earlier on the phone. Del Merrick. You picked up my wrecked car, a 1995 Escort, on Route 8 near the Hesse Station."
"An Escort," he says. "That's what it was."
"Yes." She opens her pocketbook. The man pushes a bill he's already prepared across the desk. She counts out the money. He marks the bill paid and gives her the yellow copy.
"I'd like the plates to take into Motor V and I'd like to get my registration out of the glove compartment."
The man looks her over in a friendly way. "Your registration?" he says. "Your plates? Well, just follow me and I'll let you take a look. It's not far."
He takes her out the back door and down a wide aisle, stack after stack of hubcaps, a stake with a printed number marking off each row. "I've got almost the entire inventory on the computer," he says. "That way, you come in, needing a wheel for a 1995 Ford truck, I can rustle it up in a jiffy. Plus of course I can send a buyer to the right spot who wants to remove a clutch or pull out some bucket seats. Just down this way," he says.
They stop in an open area by the road. "There she is," he tells her.
The black, twisted structure before her looks more like the carcass of a huge volcanic-blasted insect. Nothing is left but the shell. It rests on black wheels, a few melted globs of rubber. All of the glass is gone. There are no seats. The glove compartment is a dark hole.
"Oh," she says. "I didn't know."
The man steps aside, lets her pass. "The driver was one lucky guy," he says.
"Yes," she says. "Yes, lucky. Lucky."
27 : Gone
THE LOFT'S DARK. He must have been asleep for hours. He gropes along the edge of the bed for his sweatshirt and turns the pocket inside-out to dump the few remaining butts, all the loose shreds of tobacco, on the stool. Two cigarette papers left and stomach cramps coming on.
Mark stuffs Carla's wrist brace in his sweatshirt pocket. Chances are good he'll get his October money tomorrow: six hundred and seventy plus. She's going to see it's the right thing to do. If Tess is around, get her to give him a ride to the Morlettis'. Get Carla to give him a few doses to tide him through. Promise Smithy enough of the money to tamp the situation down. Go Greyhound. Going to be sick on the bus. Sick on the Styx, title for his next song.
There's a rustle of life from below. He leans over the rail. Thump, thump. Luke has returned. Must be Tess is still going to caretake while his mom's away. Mark goes down. Only light: the green glow of time passing 7:00, 7:01 and the red flash of the answering machine.
Luke rolls onto his back, presents his belly. Mark obliges, feels Luke's heat against his aching thigh. "Hey, buddy, maybe I'll get myself a white cane, take you along as my seeing-eye."
There's the soft fuzz of the radio coming from Tess's room. Back early from milking. Knockety-knock. The radio fades.
"What?"
"Be good if I could talk to you."
"Talk," she says.
"Face to face."
Queenie sniffs at the crack on the other side, a small whine of apology. Luke slumps against the frame and looks at him: you humans, always fucking it up.
"Be good for both of us. Sooner I get things settled, sooner I'll be gone." Unlocking of door. He steps back. Give her plenty of room. The door opens.
Tess: pissed. "What?"
"I'm planning on leaving tomorrow when I get my money, but tonight I need to talk to Smithy in person, assure him he's going to get some of that money in payment of my debt, that I'll make good on the rest once I get it together."
She starts to shut the door. "I am not giving you a ride to my mother's. I am not going to be part of this shit."
"I don't suppose you'd let me borrow your truck? Half an hour?" Her eyes widen. "Just kidding," he says. Re-morse. "Tess, my drums are gone. Everything's gone. I need to get out of here. Get myself straight. But the way to do that is to settle things with Smithy the best I can. Best for my mother, best for all of us. I don't want any of those maniacs, your brother, coming down here causing trouble, threatening to break in, burn the place down." She's listening. "Best chance is for me to go up there and do what I can to take the pressure off. You can park up the road. They don't even need to know you're there. Half an hour."
"No," she says. She closes the door and locks it again. From the other side, loud and clear, "And if you do anything threatening, I'll call the troopers."
He turns away, lifts his jacket from the hook. He and Luke step into the night. He'd like to slam the door so hard the glass breaks, but he does not. He pulls it closed and then they both begin to run. Three miles to Carla's.
Moon's rising. He jumps the rocks to cross the brook, scrambles up the bank. Weeds waist-high in the field and wet. He climbs the fence, steps onto Cobb's Road. Uphill all the way now. Night sky clouding, but enough light to keep to the center. Stones sharp under his sneakers. Luke takes the lead. Now and again, the glint of eyes checking back to gauge his progress. His progress? Spiking down so sharp it's off the chart. The pump of adrenaline is bringing the dope-sickness on. No works of his own. Going to have to risk one of Carla's needles. And clean it in Clorox: everybody's got hep C in that house. At last the abandoned sawmill looms up on the left. Halfway there. At the top of the hill he stops, loosens the cramps in his legs. When he gets too far behind, Luke waits.
One vehicle pulled up in the yard. He whistles low for Luke and slows down, works on his breathing. Smithy's old car. There's a light in the kitchen, the rest of the house, dark. He edges around the side to look in the back windows. Probably Rudy not here. At least there's that. Rudy, Smithy, Carla all at one time, more than his dope-sick self can negotiate.
He goes up the back steps, semi-crouches behind a cord of firewood. Only Carla at the kitchen table, Carla, looking off the chart as well, sunk down and grim around the mouth. Pack of cigarettes by her hand, so all is not lost. No sign of Smithy. Clock over Carla's head says eight. Score something if he can, talk to Smithy if he must, and then back down to call his mother to see about getting the money tomorrow.
He flicks his lighter, holds it so Carla will see it's him when he taps the glass. She starts, then comes and unlocks the door. No smile of welcome. "This isn't a good time," she whispers.
"Smithy around?"
"He's sleeping. And you do not want to wake him. You are number one on his shit list." She does not budge from the door, kee
ps her knee out so Luke can't bolt by. "I told him about the accident. How everything you'd planned to sell burned up."
"And?"
"That kept him from going down to the stone house with reinforcements to drag you out tonight."
He hands her the wrist brace. "Well, tell him I plan to give him four hundred tomorrow when my money comes."
"Promises aren't going to do much. If Smithy doesn't see the money tomorrow, they're going to come after you." Carla steps back, begins to close the door. "No shit, Mark, they are."
The door locks. Luke has already gone down the steps. Not even a couple of Camels for the road.
Tess's light is out. Both the doors locked. His keys? Maybe still soldered to the ignition. No spare hidden in the shed. Out of Rudy-fear, even the dog-entry's barred shut. He leans into the side door: his whole body shaking, waves of nausea bringing on the sweat. Got to keep it together until he brings his mother around. And have to make that call now before the ring becomes an alarm in the night. He gives a firm, but friendly, knock. He waits. He waits. He goes around to the back and taps on Tess's window: a nonthreatening tap. "Tess, I don't have a key." He wipes his nose on his sleeve, the steady stream of mucus, and returns to the side. He moves back, aims, runs, turns his body, hits the door with all his rage. The frame cracks, gives. He runs again, all his weight behind his screaming shoulder. The door crashes back. Pain, hot pain. A moment of blackout. He heads for the flashing light and dials the number. He breathes, breathes, lets his body down into the chair.
"Hello." Fear.