The Last Death of Jack Harbin (2 page)

Loretta Singletary's place is right down the street from mine. It's a fine old two-story house, with wood siding painted a handsome gray with white trim. Loretta's a gardener, and this time of year the plants threaten to smother the house. There are hydrangeas with blossoms as big as your head, bushes of purple flowers, and a climbing rose up to the roof. Bees are thick in the air.

I almost don't see Loretta because she's dwarfed by a stand of sunflowers. She's wearing a big hat and sunglasses and carrying a pair of clippers. The midmorning sun is so bright she has to shade her eyes with her hand to see me. She breaks into a smile and picks her way through the garden to the gate.

“Samuel, I'm glad to see you. It gives me an excuse to get out of this sun. Come on inside and let's have some tea.”

She bounds up the steps as if her sixtyish years mean nothing. I feel a nip of envy because I've aggravated my knee with the morning's business, and I'm a little slower following her up the steps.

I'm not one for air-conditioning most of the time, but it feels good right now. My eyes have to adjust to the dim light inside, and I grope my way through her living room back to the kitchen. “What brings you over here?”

I tell her about Bob Harbin. She puts a hand to her neck. “That's a terrible thing! I guess without Bob, Jack will have to go to a veteran's home.”

“I don't know what he's going to do. But I was hoping you could get some of the ladies to help him until his situation gets worked out.”

She blinks a couple of times and looks toward her telephone, frowning. “There aren't many women who will put up with Jack, so I'll have to get some men. Including you.” She jabs a finger at me.

“What about some church ladies who like to do good?”

She smiles. It's a shared joke. Some of the Baptist ladies in town seem hell-bent to get to heaven by good works. “The way that boy carries on, I don't think the Baptist ladies are going to be inclined. I wonder if Marybeth can help?”

“I'll call her, but I doubt if she'll be able to do much.”

I'm one of the few people in town who keeps up with Marybeth Harbin, Jack's mother. I feel sorry for her. A year after Jack got home in such bad shape, Marybeth had a nervous collapse and had to spend some time in the hospital. After she got out, she went to live in Bryan–College Station, near enough to visit occasionally. Plenty of folks think badly of her for not being there to help Bob, but they can't blame her any more than she blames herself.

Back home I make a call to the office where Marybeth works and ask to speak to her supervisor. I'd like to tell her what happened to Bob myself, but I don't think it ought to be done on the phone, and she should be told right away. She works as a secretary for some research outfit associated with Texas A&M. The man I talk to sounds a little muddle-headed, but he says he'll break the news to her. I tell him to have her call me if she needs anything.

To settle myself down, I spend some time looking at my Wolf Kahn pastel. If anybody had told me when I was a boy that I would end up with a fine art collection, I would have thought they were crazy. But my wife, Jeanne, grew up with a mother who loved art, and when we were married Jeanne started buying a few pieces, and she dragged me into it. I ended up enjoying it almost as much as she did. Since she died, the pictures we bought together have meant even more to me. I've even bought a couple of new pieces that I think she would have liked.

After a while I make the telephone call I've been putting off, to make an appointment with a surgeon at Texas Orthopedic Hospital in Houston. Rodell hit the nail on the head this morning when he asked when I was going to have my knee fixed. I've been hobbling around ever since one of my heifers accidentally knocked me down and stepped on it. On my last visit, my doc said, “You're going to have to let somebody go in there and put it to rights. Within a few months, you'll be good as new.” Months. I don't like the sound of that.

And then there's the question of who's going to take me to the hospital in Houston and bring me back. Loretta will insist, and I'd as soon ride in a car with Jack Harbin at the wheel as Loretta.

The cheerful receptionist makes me an appointment for a couple of weeks off. She apologizes for not being able to fit me in sooner, but later is better than sooner as far as I'm concerned.

Zelda rounds the corner from wherever she's been napping and fixes me with a resentful eye as she meows her way to her dish. “That's two of us feeling sorry for ourselves,” I tell her.

Loretta has scheduled me to stay with Jack on Wednesday. I drop by her house on my way, to pick up a bag of her cinnamon rolls.

There are two beefy motorcycles parked in Jack's driveway alongside a giant SUV. At the curb sits an iridescent red pickup with flames painted on the side and plastered with bumper stickers. My favorite says,
Back off! I flunked anger management class
.

The Harbin house is nothing much to look at—a one-story rectangle on concrete piers with vinyl siding, a metal roof, and aluminum windows. A wheelchair ramp leads up to the front door.

I hear voices from around back, and in the backyard I find Jack surrounded by his buddies. Walter Dunn and the other man who showed up at Jack's on Monday are there along with another couple of men, all sprawled in plastic lawn chairs on the concrete patio.

Dunn jumps up to shake hands. “Mornin' Mr. Craddock. You in line to spend some time with Jack today?” There's a sweet smell of marijuana in the air. Seems early for that sort of thing.

“Looking forward to it.” I squeeze Jack's shoulder. “Hope that's okay with you.”

“I can take it if you can.” Jack cranes his head in my direction, his nose working. “Do I smell Loretta's cinnamon rolls?”

“You sure do. She sent over a couple dozen.” I open the bag and thrust a roll into Jack's hand. He takes a big bite. I hand the bag to Dunn, who takes one and passes it on.

“Somebody get Mr. Craddock a cup of coffee,” Jack says.

Dunn says, “You asking, or ordering?”

Jack snickers. “Just get the damn coffee.”

Smirking, Dunn heads for the back door.

“Take a seat, Mr. Craddock,” Jack says. I pull up a metal lawn chair with frayed plastic webbing that has faded to a pale gray.

“You boys veterans?” I ask.

They nod. One of them flicks a cigarette butt into the backyard.

“My band of brothers,” Jack says, sarcastically.

“Right on.” The speaker is a squat man with a shaved head and covered with tattoos. His eyes are so red you can't tell what color they are.

“That's Vic,” Jack says. “The rest of you guys introduce yourselves like civilized people.

Johnny B., the one who showed up with Dunn, has a big, knotted scar running along his jaw line. Mike is a slightly built, handsome man with a dark thatch of hair and a shy smile.

“We call Mike ‘Pretty Boy,'” Jack says. The way Jack is settled back in his chair tells me he's able to relax with these men.

Dunn comes out with my coffee. “I had to brew a new batch.”

Suddenly another man steps out the back door onto the patio. It takes me a second to recognize him. It's Jack's younger brother.

“Well Curtis, I'll be damned.”

“Hello, Chief Craddock.” He comes over and says for me not to get up, but I do anyway. The hand he offers me to shake is soft and well-manicured. He tells me he drove in late last night. Ramrod straight, he's clean-shaven, his hair cut short and trim, and dressed in slacks and a golf shirt.

I never much cared for Curtis. He was a furtive kid. As soon as he was old enough, he grew a scruffy beard and started going around dressed in old army fatigues. He spent most of his time in the woods, hunting everything from squirrels to snakes. Marybeth used to worry about him because he'd go out camping for several days at a time. Frankly, I was surprised that it was Jack, not Curtis, who signed up for the army. Loretta told me that Curtis hooked up with some kind of survivalist group that lives out in the woods up in East Texas. You wouldn't know it from his soft hands.

The vets go quiet and their stares are cold. “How long are you in town for?” I ask. I wonder if Curtis plans to stay a while and take care of his brother.

“I have to get back to work as soon as the funeral is over. Trying to get His Majesty squared away here in the next couple of days.” He nods toward Jack.

Although the words seem nothing more than a mild jibe between siblings, Jack's face twists with anger. “Fuck you, Curtis.”

Curtis's face gets red. He forces a laugh, but no one joins in.

“You boys have the funeral arrangements taken care of?” I ask.

“We would if Curtis wasn't such a cheapskate,” Jack's voice is belligerent.

Curtis shoots a hard look at Jack. “I'm being realistic about money, Jack. The funeral you've got set up is going to cost a lot. You think you're sitting pretty, but when you have to pay somebody to do everything Daddy did for you, you're going to get a hard dose of the real world.” He speaks slowly, as if Jack is not only wounded, but brain-damaged as well.

“What do you know about the real world?”

I break in to ease things. “Curtis, I haven't seen you in a dog's age. You don't get down here too much.”

“No, my job and my family keep me pretty busy.”

“How many kids you got?”

“Four. Two boys, two girls.”

“That would keep you busy all right. What do you do for a living?”

“I manage an outfit that sells at gun shows.”

Jack snorts. “Didn't have the guts to go off to war himself, so he's arming for his own private little war.”

Jack's friends look at each other and rise as one. “We need to get out of here,” Dunn says to me. “Our buddy Eric's at the shop by himself and he's going to be some pissed off if we don't show up pretty soon.”

Each man shakes Jack's hand in a kind of solemn ritual. Vic, the one with the heavy tattoos says, “Jack, let's go on over to Coushatta in a couple of weeks. It'll do you good to get out.” That's a gambling place just over the Louisiana border.

“I'm going to have to get back to you on that. Got some decisions to make.”

The prospect of his friends leaving has Jack clutching the arms of his chair, his hollow-cheeked face vulnerable.

Walter Dunn pauses with his hand on Jack's shoulder before he leaves. “Jackie, I'll come over here every night as long as you need me.”

“You don't have to do that,” Curtis says. “I'll be in town a couple more days. There's nowhere for you to stay. We just have the two bedrooms.”

Dunn gives him a hard look. “I'll bring a tent and set up in the back yard so I won't be in your way.”

After they leave, I fumble for a neutral subject to ease the bad atmosphere between the two brothers. “Your wife and kids coming down for the funeral? I wouldn't mind seeing them.”

Curtis frowns. “There's no call for Sarah to come. She needs to stay home and take care of my kids.”

Jack's jaw is tight. “What do you mean no call for her to come? Daddy was her father-in-law.”

“One of the girls is sick. Sarah needs to be there with her.”

Jack gropes around in his shirt pocket and yanks out a cigarette. “Christ, Curtis! You are such a jerk!”

Curtis gets up so fast that his lawn chair topples backwards. He grabs it and sets it upright with a clatter. “My family is my concern,” he snarls. He starts toward the back door, then pauses and nods to me. “Good to see you, Mr. Craddock.”

Jack and I sit quietly for a few minutes, Jack smoking, me sipping my cold coffee. Eventually I say, “You want to talk to me about the funeral arrangements? Maybe I can help you out.”

Jack takes a deep drag on the cigarette. “Nothing to talk about. I told Earnest Landau I want the best for Daddy. It's my money. Curtis can't do a damn thing about it. And if he doesn't want to help pay for it, that's his problem.”

I nod, but then realize he can't see me. “I know what you mean. It's important to send your loved ones off right.”

His face constricts. “I can't believe he's dead. Seems like there's something the paramedics could have done for him.”

I tell him about performing CPR. “I tried my best.”

“You told me everything was going to be okay. I should have learned by now that when somebody says that, no good is going to come of it. That's what the medic said when he got to me after I'd stepped on the mine that did this to me. He said I'd died and he brought me back, and then he said, ‘Everything's going to be okay.' Like hell! Sometimes I wish I had died.”

I sigh. “I don't blame you for being mad at me for saying everything was going to be okay, but the fact is with your daddy lying there like that and you on the ground tipped out of your chair, all I could do was stall for time. If I did the wrong thing, I did it with good intentions.”

His mouth trembles as if he's struggling not to break down. “I know that. I'm just trapped, that's all.” He fumbles around on the table next to his wheelchair, finds the ashtray and grinds out his cigarette. “I wish to God I'd been nicer to Daddy.” His voice cracks.

“It's no good thinking that way. Everybody has regrets when someone they care about dies.”

I hear someone calling out, and Elva Penning, one of Jack's neighbors, comes around back carrying a tuna casserole. When Jeanne died I found out that tuna casserole was the dish of choice to comfort the bereaved. I haven't had much of a taste for it ever since.

To give them a few minutes to visit, I walk back to Bob's workshop. The house is built on a sizeable piece of land shaded with pecan and post-oak trees, and the workshop is in a shed tucked against the back fence.

The sliding door to the shed is open, and I glance inside. When Bob decided to take care of Jack, he quit his job with a construction company in Bobtail and started doing small appliance repairs. Everybody brought their things to him to repair, and there are lots of things lined up on shelves with tags on them. An ancient radio in a handsome wood cabinet has been pulled apart on the workbench. It would probably be cheaper to buy a new one, but you'd never find one with that art deco style. I slide the door shut to keep out the weather and the varmints, but I crack it open a few inches. People might want to slip in and get their goods without bothering Jack and Curtis.

When Elva is gone, I say to Jack, “What would you think about going over to the café to get some lunch?”

“That would be really good. You think you can push me in my wheelchair?”

“I don't see why not.”

In the kitchen, Curtis is on the phone. He shoots us a furtive look as we roll past. It occurs to me that Jack and I ought to have a chat with Earnest Landau, the funeral director, while we're in town, in case Curtis is trying to pull something.