A Peculiar Grace (17 page)

Walter ignored her, turning it over in his hands. He said, “A nasty little piece. Thirty-two caliber, cheap.” He slid out the clip. “Good for sticking up a convenience store except the clerk is likely to have a better weapon. But it’s your gun.” And replaced it on the drain-board. Hewitt saw him pocket the clip, the deft motion of a man used to such things.

Walter turned to Hewitt and said, “I’ve got to get going. Walk out with me?”

“Sure.” He turned to Jessica. “Settle down, Jess. It’s okay, whatever it is. I’ll be right back.”

She picked up the fat joint. “Hewitt. I gotta talk to you. Okay if I finish this?”

“No. Can you just sit tight a moment? Have a beer or something.”

“Can I take a bath? I’m wound like an eight-day clock.”

“You’re too young to know what an eight-day clock is. Go ahead, have a bath.”

The crescent moon of a week ago was gone but the night sky was awash. Hewitt and Walter stood in the dooryard next to the 1958 Thunderbird, black with red leather seats—his only noticeable display but even this was disguised by knowledge; the car had been his grandfather’s and then his grandmother’s and he’d simply kept it. No local cast a second eye. Even the sheriff deputies and state troopers knew the history of the car. Walter was golden.

“What the fuck is she all about?”

Hewitt was gazing up at the night. He said, “She showed up about ten days ago. Out of the blue. She’s one fucked-up girl, although sometimes she’s normal as you or me.”

“Not saying much.”

“All I’m trying to do is help her along.”

“Along to where?”

Hewitt looked at his friend and said, “I couldn’t say. I got a kind hand a couple times myself.”

“Don’t blame me for that.”

Hewitt grinned in the dark. It was quiet.

Then Walter said, “You’re going to go see her.” Even in the faint light his eyes were bright. He said, “You can take the Bird.” And reached down and ran a hand over the rear taillight.

“Walter you know I can’t drive.”

“Of course you can.”

“Not legally.”

Walter sighed. He said, “You know, sometimes you’re a real pain in the ass. I mean what, twenty-some years ago your license was suspended, right?”

“I don’t know what my legal status is but let’s just say I haven’t gotten any letters from the state inviting me to retake the exams, and most likely be on some sort of probation with the whole deal.”

“Well, it’s your business. Although you risk becoming a colorful character.”

“An ornery cuss.”

“That would be it. But you’re going to roll in out there, and when you go, you’re going in style.”

“Jesus, Walter.”

“I trust you. If you get out there and things go to hell and you smash up the Bird I’ll be pissed. But it’s the right thing to do. Maybe not for Emily but certainly for you.”

Quiet again for a time. Then Hewitt said, “I’m already pretty fucking nervous.”

Walter reached out and took Hewitt’s shoulder in a firm grip, the touch of love between men. He said, “Of course.”

Hewitt said, “Then there’s this other deal. The girl inside.”

“Fucking her?”

“Not even close.”

“The necessary friend.”

“I hope. I’m trying.”

Walter said, “Well don’t let her stop you. Ten days is not twenty years.”

“Christ there is a world of assumption in what you just said.”

“That’s why I’m here, buddy. Listen, I’m serious about the Bird. If you call in two hours or two days or two weeks the deal stands. And if you need someone to watch over your little orphan of the mind I can do that too.”

“Walter.”

“Don’t even go there Hewitt. Remember who you’re talking to. The one with a single ex-wife and child, my dear heart Kimberly. She’ll be thirty in August. I’ve been kind of hoping the last ten years or so, you know? But she’s going to do what she’s going to do. I can’t imagine she thinks much of me. But I have to hope. Hope she has some curiosity. So if you need I’ll poke my head in time to time and see if I can’t at least be a friend to your little roomie. She seems to like to smoke—maybe we can make peace over that. There’s nothing stopping you. All right?”

Hewitt was quiet. After a bit he said, “You’re an ace Walter. I’ll let you know, okay?”

Walter paused too. Looked up at the night-smeared sky. Then he looked back to Hewitt and said, “So are you. So are you buddy. Just don’t think too hard. Go with the gut.”

“The gut,” Hewitt said, “is all I have left.” And turned to the house.

“Wait,” Walter called. When Hewitt turned back Walter was holding out the clip from the .32. He said, “Whatever happens, I don’t want her to think I stole this from her. The rest is up to you. But I’m clean.”

Hewitt held the clip in his hand. It was heavier than he’d expected. He slid it into his pocket and said, “Yup. You certainly are.”

Back in the house the gun was gone and he took the clip and placed it on a high shelf over the sink. The remains of the monster joint were also gone and ash was scattered over the front page of the Bluffport newspaper. So she’d read it, perhaps put together some of what his night held.

He went into the living room. From the upstairs came the fine mixed smell of steam and soap and the lavender bath soap she’d bought. All floating down the stairs. Jessica, whoever she was, invited his trust. Wanted his trust.

He sat on the couch and gazed into the darkened living room. His brain for long painful moments so full it stopped altogether, some
chemical shutdown against overload or the swamping emotion and fear. He was close to weeping but would not.

With the smell of a woman bathing over him as a lovely thoughtless caul.

S
HE CAME DOWN
barefoot in clean black jeans and a black T-shirt and her hair wet and black-shining. “Could I drink one of your beers?”

“Sure. Hold on. I could drink one myself.”

He went to the kitchen and popped the tops off two bottles and carried them back. They sat in silence for a time, both taking small sips like ladies drinking tea.

After a bit he said, “Let’s get this out of the way. What was that all about this afternoon? I don’t mean just the gun but disappearing for three days and then roaring in and hiding the car and all that shit.”

She said, “I was over in Hanover and realized I needed to tell you something and started back here and halfway back chickened out.

“What happens is everything becomes twisted and weird. I get in the car and drive and the only thing I believe in is my bottle of water until it’s half gone and then I wonder what’s in the rest of it and I’m too scared to throw the fucking thing out the window. Or I’m on an interstate and the road is empty for miles and I don’t know why even if it’s snowing and raining all at the same time but the only thing I know is that way back in my rearview mirror is a trucker drifting along after me, thinking he’s far enough back so I don’t notice him. And then I’ll drive really fast until I get to an exit and get off and go in and there’ll be thirty or forty rigs out in the parking lot idling against the snow and cold and I walk in and every one in the place turns to look at me and each and every one smiles at me but there is no joy in their smiles, the welcome is the same as the truck that was behind me that maybe does or doesn’t stop but I just go to the bathroom and pee and get a cup of coffee even while the waitress
is telling me the highway’s been closed down but the cash register is barking hard at me to Go go go.

“When I took off the other day it was because all the sudden I was crowded. Way crowded. You remember when we sat and the flowers were dancing? I knew then I had to go. A good man was what I thought. Who doesn’t need this shit in his life. So I got out.”

Hewitt took this in. Then he said, “Why’d you come back?”

“Because I had something to tell you.”

Gently he said, “And what’s that?”

She lifted her beer and looked at him with one eye over the top. Then she blinked and lowered the bottle and said, “Do you trust me, Hewitt?”

“Pretty much, I guess.”

“Maybe this afternoon was the right time. But tonight is not.” She said, “That girl Emily? That’s her husband, right? The guy in the paper?”

He rolled that one around a moment and had to agree. Whatever it was, whatever trouble or secret or danger less or more, he’d had enough for the day. He said, “That’s correct.”

She said, “You’ve got enough on your mind just now. Without my little drama.”

Some period of quiet. Then he said, “Hey Jessica? Promise me?”

She waited.

“No more crap with the gun. Period.”

“It’s as good as gone.”

“Okay, then.”

They sat quietly. Hewitt finished his beer and set the bottle on the floor.

Then she said, “So what’re you going to do?”

He said, “I don’t know. Go see her, I guess. Walter says go soon.”

She nodded. “Two days,” she said. “No more. You have to get used to the idea. Then just fly. Don’t think it to death.” She flinched. “Not quite what I meant.”

“I know what you meant.”

She nodded. “I mean, just fly with it, Hewitt.”

“You think so?”

She shrugged. “You really won’t know shit until you get there.”

He took a break and went upstairs and peed. The bathroom still moist and redolent of lavender soap and damp towels and her dirty clothes on the floor. He found the formidable end of Walter’s joint and lit it and carried it downstairs.

Jessica was hunched over the long rows of vinyl recordings, her head tilted down trying to read titles. “So did you bogart that joint or bring it down with you?”

He walked over and handed it to her. Her T-shirt billowed out and he saw a nipple dark as love. He said, “You find something you want to hear, put it on. I’m going to get us some water. The truth, I’d be happy with silence.”

“There’s no silence. It’s either music or me. What do you want?” She reached up for the remains of the joint.

“I want Eric Clapton sitting in that chair over there playing acoustic blues and not saying a word. Why don’t we sit quiet and light candles and mellow out. It’s been a terrible hard day.”

And did not wait but went for mason jars of water. And heard it before he believed it but came back into the room with three candles and a girl back up on the corner of the couch and Charlie Haden soft and low somewhere deep within the speakers. And smoke furling and curling and inviting it all out around the room. He sat on the other end of the couch and they finished the joint and Hewitt said, “After I came down the hill this afternoon I talked to your father.”

Her voice extraordinarily simple she said, “You what?”

Solid but easy he repeated, “I talked to your father.”

She looked down and picked at the fabric of her jeans. Hewitt waited. She finally looked back, her face gone now blank as Greek tragedy and said, “So what did Daddy have to say? Did you learn anything helpful? Do you know me better now?”

Hewitt studied her. The girl at the end of the couch. He walked all the way out the plank and jumped. “He said to let me know if there’s anything he can do.”

Now she looked at him. “That’s what he said?”

“That’s what he said.”

She chewed her lip.

He was quiet. There was nothing to say.

She came down the couch like a wounded creature and wrapped herself around him and cried. This not some woeful weep but a deep racking from far within her. Hewitt held her, stroked her back. One side of her face was pressed into his shoulder, the other up against his cheek and he stroked her back and held her as she wept. He wasn’t sitting in for anyone, least of all her father. He was just there and sometimes just there is as good as it gets.

Four

In the morning he left a message for the man in Pomfret—there had been a death in the family, but the gates would be completed and installed no later than mid-July.

Jessica hiked up the hill and cleared away the branches from the VW and they drove to Hanover where he left his one summer sport coat with the two-day dry cleaners, along with a pair of slacks and two dress shirts to be pressed. He bought new socks. With the feeling he was overpreparing. He suspected he’d wear only his usual Levi or Carhartt jeans and T-shirts. But there was the faint sense, not fantasy so much as image, of Emily consenting to be taken to dinner. He also took Jessica to the Co-op and bought a sack of groceries, things she picked out.

Driving back Jessica broke his contemplation, his building apprehension. “Can I tell you a story? You’ve got several days to scare the shit out of yourself. Let me tell you about this man I met.”

He glanced at her. She was watching him and did not take her eyes away. She’d done this before and it was impressive but disconcerting. As much to get her eyes back on the road as for any illumination she might offer, he said, “Is this somebody I might know?”

But she was peering ahead again and didn’t pause for him. She said, “It was last winter. I try to stay pretty far south in winter but somehow I’d landed in Norfolk, Virginia. I was down along the waterfront, away from the harbor but where the river there, the James, comes down. I found a little patch of woods behind some kind of factory, a
strip of woods where nobody had bothered to put up a fence. And the building hid the woods from the main road. So you could camp out and risk a fire. I’d been there about a week and was trying to figure out how to trade food stamps I’d gotten hold of for some cash. The stores are hip to you. You can’t get any real money back, not to speak of. Some coins. The rest of your change is always food stamps. Which is good if you’re hungry but useless to buy gas. Which was what I wanted. To get the fuck south from there. I mean it was cold. Rain and wind off the ocean and ice over everything. And sailors everywhere. Tell you the truth it was the only time ever I thought about selling my ass. A couple tricks would have taken me all the way to Florida.

“So one night I’d found a safe place to park and was slipping around that building and getting close to the woods. I had my sleeping bag under my arm and all the sudden I saw a campfire down there. The woods were puny and I was halfway across the parking lot and I knew whoever was there was watching out too and so it seemed best to just march right in. So I did. And there was a man, an old man with about twenty layers of clothes on and a rabbit or a squirrel or maybe even a cat roasting over the fire. With thick gray waves of hair down on to his shoulders and a beard the same color stained and stuck together but even in that pale light he had the most lovely yellow cat’s eyes I ever saw on a person. And he called out for me to come on next to the fire.