The Evening Hour (12 page)

“Yeah, I'll be sure to let your wife know too,” she snapped, but Cole saw how she looked at him. Terry had always had luck with girls. They fell for him, he broke their hearts.

Terry said in a low voice, “Cole, buddy, you should get a piece of that. Older chicks, all they want to do is fuck.”

“Yeah, well.”

“You seen Charlotte lately?”

“No, not really.”

“I felt bad that she lost her job,” Terry said. “I liked working with her. She's a nice girl. Wild, right?”

“I guess.”

They talked about people they'd gone to school with, who was still living in Dove Creek, who'd gone off, who was dead—car accidents, suicides. Just like when they were kids, Terry did most of the talking. He complained about his job, and told Cole that he missed working with his hands. “Remember how good I was at fixing cars? I could have done something like that.” Cole recalled him always working on something, rebuilding carburetors or repairing transmissions, but never making much progress. Terry told him that Kathy was the one who'd wanted to move to Kentucky, that she'd been happy when he got the job at the plant and was bringing home a nice paycheck. “The first couple of years after Kathy and me got married, it was real good. But now? Shit. You know that Kathy got saved? Got religious on me. That's about the last thing I need.”

Cole remembered the one time he brought Terry Rose to his grandfather's church. Terry sang and praised God and got down on his knees. But later when he and Cole were up at the creek, he told Cole that speaking in tongues was fake, and he laughed about the way the women shook and fell to the ground, mocking them, breathing heavily and crying, “Oh, Jesus, oh,” grabbing himself and writhing around. At first it was funny, and true in a way that Cole didn't want to dwell on, but Terry took it too far. Cole told him to knock it off. “Oh Jesus, fuck me, oh, oh, oh,” Terry'd said, and Cole had surprised them both when he raised his fist and cracked Terry in the jaw. For a second, Terry had looked stunned, and then he was on top of Cole, and by the time they finally rolled off of each other, Terry had a busted-up mouth and Cole's left eye was swollen shut.

Now Cole felt like the bar was beginning to spin, and he told Terry that he was going out for fresh air. Terry laughed. “Take your time, bro.”

Outside, he held his head in his hands and wished everything would stop moving. He took a few deep breaths, the mountain air slowly sobering him. A couple of party boys came over, wanting Special K, which he didn't sell. But he offered them Valium, and they tossed the pills back like peanuts.

When he went back in, the bar was even more crowded, loud and full of drunks. Terry was happy to see him. “Bro, I was beginning to wonder if you took off.”

He was smoking cigarette after cigarette and Cole figured he was on speed, but wasn't sure, since Terry always seemed wound up. His wedding band gleamed under the bar light, and he told Cole he was trying to save enough money to take his family on a vacation. “I want that boy to see something,” he said. “You know, the ocean or something.”

“You never saw it? You never drove down to Texas or anywhere?” Cole asked, knowing he hadn't. “The Gulf of Mexico?”

Terry would not meet his eyes. “No, I never made it.”

Then he quickly changed the subject and told Cole about people he'd met when he was in Kentucky, working at the RC factory. “They got some crazies in Kentucky,” he said, laughing. “Those old boys, they are
crazy
.” He told him about a guy who used to cook up crystal meth in his trailer. “You ever do it?”

“Nah.”

“It's pretty wild.”

“That's what I've heard.”

“Your buddy knows something about crank,” Terry said.

“Who?”

“That faggot in Stillwell.” He pointed his beer at Cole. “I got him hooked up with some boys down in Bucks County. We're working together, you know?”

Cole did not know. He looked up and saw their reflections in the cracked mirror behind the bar, his own squirrelly face and blond hair, and Terry, curly-headed and dark-complexioned, his eyes puffed up: they were not boys nor friends but some other ghostlike versions of who they'd once been. He did not like the way Terry was talking, like he was trying to trick Cole into something.

“You ever want to go in with me, bro, I can hook you up. Run a little pill and meth operation. We could get us a trailer somewhere, cook that shit up.”

Cole shook his head. “Nah.”

“Why not?”

“Just not into it.”

For a second he felt Terry's eyes on him and they were full of hatred, but the moment passed, then Terry was laughing. “Lord, I'm wasted.” He waved Lacy over. “Girl, you sure you can't sneak out to my truck.”

“Man, lay off,” Cole said, but Terry didn't listen. “Honey, I got something you're gonna love.”

“Go home to your wife,” she said, and this shut him up. He pushed the beer aside. After a few seconds of silence, he clapped Cole on the back.

“I gotta hit the road.”

“You can't drive,” Cole said, wondering if he should take him home, but he didn't feel sober enough to get behind the wheel either.

“Hell, I'm all right.”

They regarded each other warily like dogs. Something in the air had shifted. Terry smiled, but his eyes did not.

“Catch you later,” he said.

“All right.”

Cole watched him head out the door. He still had that same tough little swagger. Tough, but not mean. He'd never thought of Terry as mean.

Lacy brought him a glass of 7UP and he thanked her and took a drink and the fizz tickled his nose. The crowd had thinned out. Lacy washed glasses, wiped the counters. Cole thought about asking her to come home with him, but then she began to complain about how she tired she was. She said she was taking tomorrow off to spend with her kid.

“Hey, sorry about Terry,” he said. “He don't mean nothing by it.”

“You been friends a long time?”

“I knew him when I was a kid. We ain't tight anymore.”

“Well, don't worry, honey. I get that kind of shit all night long. There's nothing special about Terry Rose.”

“No, I reckon not.” But he remembered Terry holding him by the wrist. He drew the blade of the knife across Cole's skin and they smashed their bleeding palms together. Nothing could hurt them.

Chapter 9

The old people were dying like flies. The units were cleaned, “terminal cleaning” it was called, the beds stripped and washed down with disinfectant. Cole bagged and labeled their personal items, checking the inventory records and making sure that whatever he'd taken did not show up on the list. The units were restocked, the trash cans lined.

“Isn't it weird how we get used to all of this?” Ellen asked.

Cole nodded. “I need some new friends,” he said. “Younger ones.”

But he wasn't sure that was what he wanted. He spent most of his time here, working doubles and skipping out on family events. His mother had been back for over a month and he'd seen very little of her, despite all the sudden Sunday dinners and get-togethers at the aunts' houses. These were always awkward, although at least now he was no longer the only outsider in the family; the tension around him had shifted over to her like a swarm of bees. Ruby wearing too much makeup and bursting out of her shirts, the easy center of attention. Everyone was uncomfortable. The aunts didn't know what to make of her—she wasn't the kid sister they remembered. She was loud and edgy and disdainful of their quiet lives. They disapproved, but wouldn't say it, at least not directly. The hardest to watch was the way his grandmother looked at her with so much love and hope, like she believed Ruby had come back to save the family.

Cole fed a woman some kind of brownish slop, which she spit up, and he said he didn't blame her a bit. Then one of the new aides asked him to help her move a patient who was twice her size. Cole hooked up the transfer belt and together they lifted the man into the wheelchair. “Assholes,” he yelled, “you assholes.” He slapped at the aide and she dug her nails into his fat pale arm.

“Don't be so rough,” Cole said.

“I ain't being rough.” She glared at him. “He's trying to hit me.”

“You would too if you were stuck in this hellhole.”

He checked on Wanda Woods, who soon would be joining her beloved son Jamey on the other side. Her breaths were harsh and strained, like somebody was holding a hand over her mouth. Cole pretended to be her son. Stroked her ossified hand.

She whispered, “You're a good boy.”

“Some people say I'm pretty bad.”

“They can't fool me.”

From Wanda's room, a few months ago, he'd stolen a hundred bucks and a trinket ring that wasn't worth much but he liked how shiny it was. She never noticed. Just like Warren Fletcher, half dead himself, had never noticed that his money-sock was missing. Cole only took what they didn't need. He touched Wanda's stiff face, the skin cold and rubbery. Ellen said he was her ray of sunshine.

He stepped outside for a much needed cigarette break and wasn't out there for more than two minutes before Ellen called him back in. “It's Red.”

“Christ,” he muttered.

A year ago Red Adkins had told entertaining stories about playing the fiddle in honkytonks. All the fights, all the women. He was funny and sharp, and once proved to Cole how athletic he was by standing on his head for five minutes. But now he was addled and confused. This morning he'd refused to eat because he did not have the cash to pay for it. When Cole tried to explain that the food was free (though Red was right, everything was tallied up, even a box of Kleenex), Red yelled, “I don't take welfare,” and hurled the tray across the room, food spraying everywhere. Cole was sick of cleaning up after people.

Now Red was in the center of the lounge, cussing, screaming at the baffled residents.

“What's wrong, buddy?” Cole asked. “Just settle down.”

When he put his hand on Red's shoulder, the old man cocked back and swung, cracking him in the jaw. Ellen shrieked as Cole stumbled against the TV. He slowly stood, shaking his head until he could see clearly. Red was laughing, “Don't mess with me,” but then the director and two other aides rushed over, and Cole walked away, rubbing his jaw, didn't want to see the old man taken down.

“You okay?” Ellen asked.

It was only his jaw but he felt bruised all over, inside and out. She brought him an icepack and he held it to his face until it felt numb. Linda told him to take off early. “You've had a hell of a day.”

He spent the rest of the afternoon doing what he did best, filling up his pockets and glove compartment with cash. He scored big with Diane Chapman, a divorcée who looked as straight as a pin but was one of his hardest users. She invited him in like she always did, leading him past her kid who was watching TV, into the kitchen, which was spotless and bright. She handed him the cash and he gave her the Oxy and she smiled like she was on a TV commercial and said, “Thank you.” As he pulled out of the driveway, he saw her at the kitchen counter, bent over and snorting.

Next, he headed into Big Bear. When he turned the bend, he slowed down. “What the hell?” Interspersed among the American flags and junked cars and broods of chickens were signs written in black marker and attached to tomato stakes: “Stop Mountaintop Removal” and “Corporate Greed Is Killing Our Children.” A group of six marched up the road, carrying the same sorts of signs and chanting, “Save our mountains.” He shifted into neutral, waiting for them to pass, and then he saw Lacy's kid.

“Hey,” he said. “Hey, Sara Jean.”

She stopped and did not return his smile. Then she set down her sign and trotted over. “Y'all want a ride or something?” he asked.

“A ride?” She made a face. “We're having a protest.”

Then he noticed what else was different on this Saturday afternoon: nobody outside. Blue October sky, the trees on fire with scarlet and gold, and nobody was out burning trash or tinkering with cars. Doors closed, blinds down. It was a stupid place for a protest—almost everybody in this holler worked for Heritage.

The old woman that he'd seen that day in the diner came over and peered at him through big owl-like eyeglasses. “You know what they're doing ain't right,” she said.

Sara Jean handed him a flyer and told him to come to the next meeting. Then they returned to the group, no longer chanting, but walking quietly like a funeral procession. He looked at the paper. “Are you tired of the dust, the trucks, the blasting, the bad water?” There was a date and time and meeting place. Cole crumpled it, tossed it on the floor.

On his day off, Cole stayed home, reading medical books. He'd told Lacy Cooper about wanting to be a nurse, mostly to impress her, and she'd been so enthusiastic that he felt hopeful about it again. Ellen had lent him these books a while ago. He kept them stacked up next to the sofa, along with glossy nursing school brochures, most of which he'd never opened until today. The names of pills and the Latin names for diseases filled his brain as easily as scripture, but getting a degree was something else.

He was reading a chapter on cancer treatments, but couldn't concentrate. The blasting was getting more frequent, a few times a day now, sometimes even at night, and every shot shook the trailer, set his teeth on edge. Forty thousand pounds of ammonium nitrate and fuel oil. He'd seen in the paper that Heritage was requesting to expand the site behind them and take down another mountaintop. He'd been receiving more letters, offers to buy the land. They'd cut back on their original offer, and eventually they would stop making them. They didn't need to buy him out, they had what they wanted. He skimmed the letters, tossed them.

After a while, he set aside the textbook and picked up the pill guide. As he was running through a list of all of his sources' prescriptions, someone knocked. He froze—the cops, a desperate pillhead? Then realized that he had not heard a car. He put the book down and looked out the window.

“Shit.”

His mother stood there, hands in her pockets, waiting. Since that day at his grandmother's, he had managed to avoid any one-on-one time with her. He swung open the door.

“What happened to you? You get in a fight?”

“I got sucker-punched by an eighty-six-year-old.”

“You kidding? Well, it makes you look tough anyway.”

She looked more rested than usual. Color in her cheeks, no circles under her eyes. Hip-hugging jeans. A black-hooded sweatshirt that did not belong to her.

“That's mine,” he said.

“I found it over at the house. You don't care, do you?”

“I guess not.” It was the first time he'd seen her in a shirt that wasn't showing off her figure.

“Nice place,” she said, looking around. “What's all this? You studying for something?” She picked up a brochure. “Nursing school?”

“It's nothing.” He took two beers out of the refrigerator and sat at the kitchen table. It was the first time she'd been in his place, and he could sense her soaking everything in.

“You don't care for much decorations, do you?” she said. “You're like Daddy. Sparse house leads to a healthy soul. Is that what you think?”

“I just don't have much use for them,” he said coldly.

She sipped her beer. “Well, I've got news.”

“What?”

“Esther got me a job at the Pizza Shack.” She rolled her eyes. “The Pizza Shack. I guess I've worked in worse places.”

“You got Grandma thinking you're going to stay?”

“Well, she'd like for me to get out from under her feet, and I'm getting sick of her harping on me. Don't leave your wet towel on the floor, why do you sleep so much, go to church, blah, blah. I'm starting to feel a little stir-crazy. It'll be good to get out.”

“How much longer will you be here?”

“I don't know. A few months, maybe. I don't know. A while.”

“You're going to stay at the house with Grandma?”

“Jesus, I just said that didn't I? There or wherever we end up.”

“What's that mean?” Cole glared at her. “Don't you talk her into selling.”

“I'm not talking her into anything. I told you before I could care less what happens to the land. That's not why I'm here.”

“Well, I don't know why you are here.”

The quiet between them felt raw and dangerous. Then she said, “It seems like nobody around here wants to know about me. My sisters don't want to hear it. And Mama, well, I think she wants to pretend I've been living in a church for the past twenty years.” She smiled, trying too hard. “I could tell you some things.”

Cole both wanted and did not want to know. He used to make up stories about her, that she was an actress, a model, a world traveler. But from what she told him, her life was nothing but a sad accumulation of failed relationships and dead-end jobs. Married and divorced twice. Waitress, bartender, cleaning lady, factory worker. She said that she'd lived the high life when she was married to her second husband, who ran various businesses and made his living by gambling. Cole wondered if he'd paid for her plastic surgery. But he did not really want to know.

“I've been all over. Cities, beach towns, and pure shit-holes. The longest I stayed in one place was in Dallas, and the last place I lived was a little crappy town in Pennsylvania. I was a cashier at a liquor store. Jesus, what a mess. Too much drinking and what-all. Every time I got a step ahead, I fell back about twenty.”

So Cole had been right. “You came back here 'cause things were getting too hard out there?”

She shrugged. “If that makes it easier for you to understand, baby.”

He asked why she never came back until now. “You came back once, that was it.”

She looked away. “I don't know. I had a different life. I just couldn't start being a mother. It's weird, you know. You're a man. But you're my baby.”

“You never even called me.”

“I wrote.”

“Till I was fifteen.”

“I got married to Don around then. It just seemed better that way.” She'd made mistakes, but she was here now, she said, she was trying. “I
did
write to you. Did you get the postcards, or did Daddy burn them up?”

“I got them,” he said. “You want them?”

“What?”

Cole went in his room and opened the Christmas tin and came back with a stack of postcards and dropped them on the table. They landed with a soft slap. At first she looked confused, then she picked them up one at a time, studying the pictures, the dates. “You saved them. That's nice. Real nice.” She smiled at him. “That makes me feel better.”

“You can have them back. They're yours.”

“No, they're yours.”

He sighed. “Listen, I've got things to do. You should go.”

As he stood at the window, she came up behind him and put her hands on his stiff shoulders and he felt like every point of her on him was something hot, sharp. She pressed her lips to the back of his neck, a naked spot of skin, and he squeezed his eyes, did not move until he heard her close the door behind her, and even then he waited, standing there with his arms wrapped around himself. The room felt different now, as if a gust of wind had come through, leaving everything ruffled and confused. The light of the afternoon had abated to something dim, tremulous. He touched the back of his neck, as if he could still feel the heat emanating from the place that she had kissed. He would never tell her, he swore he'd never tell her or anyone his grandfather's last words.

The phone rang. He stared at it stupidly, then picked up on the third ring. “I'll be there,” he said. On his way out, he glanced at the nursing books, then slammed the door behind him.

Reese pulled a blanket around his shoulders like a shawl. “Good Lord, were you in a fight?”

“I got clocked by a patient.”

“Hazards of the job,” Reese said with a grin.

“Hell, I've been punched, bit, slapped. I get cussed at all the time.”

“You mean they ain't all sweet like Ruthie?”

“You wouldn't believe what I've seen.”

“Like what? Tell me the craziest.”