Big Bend Page 5

  “Didn’t either.”

  “Dewey, you stole forty-five dollars on Tuesday and fourteen on Thursday.”

  “The fuck I did.” Dewey stabbed the shovel into the compost and straightened, looked square at Richard. His eyes were as cold and deep and dark as the quarry ponds in Avon to which Richard and Gail had made the strenuous hike last summer with the intention of swimming. They had not swum. The place was beautiful and what one once thought of as secluded, the water green and clear and very deep, but there were too many beer cans and lots of trash and diapers and those grotesque, mud-splattered off-road trucks parked halfway up the sides of boulders for show and too many people who looked like Dewey Burke, people like Dewey everywhere, a circus of tattoos and hidden weaponry.

  Something firmer: “Dewey, listen, you’re caught. Now if you’d just take a minute to think about it … I mean, you’re caught. We caught you. You stole our money. Dewey, listen to me. You stole from us.”

  The look on Dewey’s face went cloudy, then black. He stepped toward Richard and swung his arm—that’s what Richard saw, the arm. The tattooed fist seemed to arrive separately, and too early, arrived right at Richard’s nose and sent him into a vague and fuzzy time warp in which everything Dewey did seemed extremely slow and purposeful, almost inevitable, certainly unstoppable. Richard didn’t fall, didn’t take a fighter’s stance, just put a hand to his face in amazement. “Jesus, Dewey.” And that fist came back, hitting Richard’s hand, knocking his own soft palm into his own hard cheekbone. “That’s enough.”

  “Don’t tell me,” Dewey spouted, and he swung again, this time hitting Richard’s eye so precisely that the fist (tattooed B-A-D-D across the knuckles) blocked the light for a moment. A strong punch to his stomach (L-U-C-K) finally knocked Richard down.

  Dewey stopped. “You say sorry,” he said. “Say it.” He loomed over Richard, threatening with his marked fists as Richard sat up.

  “Jesus, Dewey.”

  Dewey whirled—some kind of homespun martial-arts move—whirled and kicked Richard in the side. Richard’s ribs made a deep internal crunch, and hurt sharply, so he lay down. Dewey kicked him again, this time on the butt, then once more, sharply on the thigh. “Sacka shit,” Dewey said. He stood over Richard a moment, waiting for the slightest twitch, a single word, the tiniest reason to resume the beating, then seemed to decide that Richard was through and walked off with the same slow swaggering slouch as always.

  The sheriff’s deputy who turned up late in the afternoon sat in his car for five minutes talking on the radio, only opened his door when Richard came out of the house. By now both of Richard’s eyes were black, and of course his nose hurt. He didn’t think his ribs were broken, but he’d begun to consider a call to Dr. LeMonteau (pronounced locally as Lemon Toe) to ask about his leg, which ached deeply, ached to the bone. Gail wasn’t going to believe this.

  “Looking good,” the deputy said, swinging his legs out of the car but remaining seated. He pulled a thick notepad from his shirt pocket, produced a pen.

  “Thank you,” Richard said.

  “Dewey Burke’s one tough rabbit, sir. I’d think twice about fighting him again.”

  “I wasn’t fighting him. He attacked me. Right back there. Punched me over and over, kicked me in the leg, knocked me down, all because I confronted him about some money he’d stolen.” Into Richard’s voice crept the clipped quality of the deputy’s. He tried to cut it out: “He stole money from us in two days of work: forty-five dollars the first time—we hoped maybe it had just been misplaced—fourteen the second time, which is when I decided to talk to him about it.”

  The deputy put on a practiced skeptical frown. He hadn’t written a word on his pad. “You have proof he stole it?”

  “Well, of course. He was the only one here. Both Tuesday and Thursday.”

  “Your kids didn’t take it?”

  “The kids are in college, sir, both of them.”

  “You keep your doors locked?” The deputy had a cast to his eye, seemed to be looking over Richard’s shoulder.

  “Well, not generally, not when we’re around, of course. Probably seldom. Mostly just when we’re away.”

  “So anyone could have come right in and took the money, correct?”

  “But who on earth would do that?”

  “Drug addicts.”

  Richard wearily smiled, gave a good-natured shake of his head: “You’re getting a little outlandish, sir.”

  “Friends of your kids, maybe.”

  Richard struggled to stay calm. Here in rural Maine his children had found themselves viewed negatively as artsy types, and the deputy would certainly know that fact, know exactly how long Ricky’s hair was, and see in his mind the many colors of Cindy’s tie-dyed shirts, see the kids’ sweet bunch of friends gathered playing Frisbee in the little park near the County Court Building. “My children’s friends are among the most honest in town, Mr. Springer.”

  “Just borrowing a few bucks, maybe. Don’t get weepy—I’m just looking for the facts here, and the facts is you don’t have any evidence that Dewey Burke stole anything whatsoever at all.”

  Richard had learned to stay quiet a minute when insulted or angry, and so he did, stood quietly, looking away from the deputy, who looked away from him, still holding his unpoised pen and his empty pad, still making no sign that he’d get out of the car to investigate.

  Finally Richard said, “Let’s get to the point. I was attacked. A dangerous felon is loose.”

  “Would you like to press charges?”

  “Do I need to press charges?”

  “Well, in the case of fights, generally, we won’t make an arrest unless there’s been property damage.”

  “This wasn’t a fight, Mr. Springer, as I’ve repeatedly told you.”

  “You mean you didn’t get a single punch in?”

  “I told you, sir, it was not a fight.”

  “Well. If you want to make a federal case out of it…” The deputy swung his legs back into the car, shut his door, sat staring out the windshield, seeming to try to decide whether to say what he was about to say. Then quietly, confidentially: “You’ll want to know that if old Dew gets arrested for anything, anything at all, he’s going back to jail for a wicked long time.”

  Gail Milk got home late because of the monthly school board meeting, home to a darkened house. She found Richard on the kitchen floor holding his leg. Soon, in the emergency room at LaDoux County Hospital, they learned that he had suffered a hematoma, an intermuscular blood clot, which, as the doctor said, could certainly be painful, but which wasn’t particularly dangerous, unless the clot were to loosen and travel through the chambers of Richard’s heart and to his brain, where it would certainly kill him. Dr. LeMonteau said this was unlikely. Richard had two cracked ribs as well, not much to do for that, just rest and heal.

  Thursday morning, about the time Dewey would normally have appeared, a youngish woman came instead. Her hair looked partly washed. She appeared weary but intelligent, too, very bright in the eyes, something Richard was ashamed not to expect from inside a mobile home surrounded by old snow machines and car parts and doghouses. He tried hard not to notice her breasts, which were large and upstanding under her T-shirt, her nipples walleyed under the worn cloth. Her legs and hips were as unnaturally narrow as an undernourished child’s. Dewey’s girlfriend. Holding a rhubarb pie.

  Richard accepted the pie as solemnly as it was offered, stood in the doorway holding it, facing the unpretty woman.

  She spoke earnestly: “Mr. Milk, Dew says sorry for fucking you up. He’s really sorry. But he just didn’t steal from you and that’s what got him off. He just didn’t steal nothing. Never has. That’s not his thing. And he’s been in trouble plenty so when he’s finally straightened out it just flipped him out. Know what I mean? God, you look awful.”

  “It’s not so bad.”

  “So can he come back to work?”

  Tuesday Dewey was back. He went immediately to the
compost pile and resumed what he’d been doing a week past when Richard had confronted him: shoveling humus into the Milks’ red yard cart. Richard watched from the kitchen window, remembering the woman and feeling himself to be a soft touch, sentimental even: he wanted to help Dewey, this thug in the garden. What was that all about? The man worked no faster or slower than he had before. He never looked up at the house, just shoveled the compost, wheeled the cart to the garden, spread the rich new earth. By midmorning he was done, had turned to the roto-tilling.

  Normally, Dewey stopped for lunch—came up to the house, politely washed up at the kitchen sink, took the sandwich Richard offered, and ate it alone outside. Today he skipped lunch altogether. He got the lawn mower out and paced the big lawn with it, stopping frequently to empty the bag of clippings into a new pile in the compost bin.

  Richard tried to get to his studying. He meant to pass the architecture boards this fall. He’d failed twice out of grad school, then got the job with Molina and quit trying. The studying would comprise a full-time occupation till October. Richard sat at his drawing board and opened two books. He stared at the wall, stared at the pages of the books, put his face in his hands, pushed back in his chair, thought of inviting Dewey in for lunch, a little of what Gail liked to call rapprochement. He had to get a look at Dewey—make sure Dewey seemed all right. The man mowed the lawn in record time, stood sweating by the tool shed, making a cigarette with shreds of tobacco from his tattered pouch. Six dollars an hour wasn’t much for all Dewey did. No wonder the poor guy was so full of fury.

  Gail thought Richard was a fool, had said so during a heated exchange in the breakfast nook, “A fool and more of a masochist than I thought!”—but Richard wasn’t going to back down this time. He felt something growing in him, felt he’d risen past revenge, transcended fear, had turned his other cheek, had experienced true compassion for the first time in all his days, something that arose in some way having to do with being fired, for sure, but something to do with Dewey’s fists as well, something to do with the sharp points of Dewey’s shoes.

  “You are a dolt,” Gail had said in anger (later she would apologize, with kisses). “A dunderhead. And you are deluding yourself. Get your architect’s license—please!—pass that loser’s exam, and then get a job, and you won’t need to pay people to punish you for your failures!”

  “You and your cheap psychology,” Richard had replied. “Who’s punishing whom around here?” But he would forgive Gail, too. He was capable of that.

  Alone at home on Saturday (Gail at a high-school track meet—her endless cheery obligations, the children far away at their respective wild college towns), Richard puttered a while, feeling cheerful, nearly healed. He whistled and felt positively euphoric, his turn at compassion having knocked depression from his shoulder.

  He studied distractedly, drew buildings in the allotted ninety minutes while his oven timer ticked, drew based on what he knew the Regents of the Architecture Board would want to see. Richard worked despite himself till lunch, then stood in the yard looking at all Dewey had done. And suddenly, he had to see the man, take compassion past forgiveness to the next step: friendship. Richard felt the warm light of understanding surround him—he was not above Dewey; they had only had different luck in life. At length, he collected Dewey’s lank girlfriend’s untouched pie from the refrigerator, slid it from its pan (just a foil thing, not even the right size for a pie—probably saved from some frozen meal, Richard thought, then scolded himself), slid it into the compost bucket. He washed the tin: one needed an excuse for visiting along the Avon Road.

  Pie tin in hand, Richard walked quickly down the road, suddenly aware of his new boating shoes, his bright socks, his purple shorts. Soon he was back in his house, searching his closet for clothes to wear to Dewey’s. And in a black T-shirt from his son’s drawer, blue jeans, workboots (both jeans and boots mortifyingly unscathed by work) Richard knocked on Dewey’s trailer door. The knock was superfluous: four dark dogs straining at their chains bellowed Richard’s presence, all bright teeth and rage.

  Dewey had friends over. One of them, a large fellow in a clean shirt, came and blocked the door. “Yeah?” he said.

  “I’m a neighbor,” Richard said. “Just out walking around, thought I’d stop by, bring back this pie tin.”

  The man in the door looked him over.

  Richard said, “Dewey here?”

  “Dewey ain’t.”

  The dogs barked hoarsely now, strangling themselves on their chained collars. Something was going on in the small living room behind the big fellow.

  Dewey came up silently behind Richard, having somehow sneaked out of the trailer and come around the back side, startled him with a rough tap on the shoulder. Richard spun.

  Dewey looked disgusted, said, “Oh, it’s you.”

  “Yup. Me.”

  “You all better?”

  “I’m okay, I guess.” He gave a smile in anticipation of an apology, but an apology didn’t come, and the men simply stood, a dooryard tableau, still as stumps. “I brought back your pie plate.”

  “Go in. Jim, s’okay.”

  The big man—Jim—stepped back. At the kitchen table a younger fellow hulked, staring. He had something hidden in his lap. Seeing Richard, seeing Dewey behind him, the kid breathed, relaxed, put two stout handguns on the table. Jim gave a flat laugh: huh huh huh. Richard noticed that the place was very clean, very tidy (cheaply furnished, to be sure), decent, nice.

  “Have a sit,” Dewey said.

  Richard wanted to say no thanks, wanted to run out the door, but didn’t want to appear to be shaken by the presence of the firearms, which were, after all, perfectly legal, so far as he knew. He said, “Going hunting?” This lame gambit turned out to be a hilarious joke, the laughter from Dewey and his pals long and hard and followed by a kind of formally granted but clearly temporary acceptance.

  Dewey broke out a six-pack of Piels beer, and soon Richard was drinking his second can. By noon he was sharing yarns about college drinking exploits (these didn’t seem as funny or racy as they did in other company), listening to yarns in turn. All three men were on parole, if you could believe what they said (Richard didn’t, not really), and all three for violent crimes just short of murder. But they were funny, Richard thought, good at stories. How bad could they actually be? They were men operating without the benefit of education, without breaks, without hope. Barely aware how drunk he was becoming, Richard saw himself saving them. Compassion! They had a certain nobility, he began to think; they were almost saints.

  Even drunk he could hear what Gail would say about that idea: These men are dangerous. Gail had always been blind that way, always blind, a snob. Richard rose, holding his beer can foaming in front of him. “I lost my job,” he announced, a kind of toast.

  Dewey nodded in real fellow feeling, sympathy Richard hadn’t gotten yet from anyone.

  So Richard went on, told the whole story: Molina’s perfidy! The heartless phone call! The lousy severance package! The kids’ college bills!

  When Richard was done, the boys were with him 100 percent, pounded his back in sympathy, riffed a long time hilariously on the theme of destroying Lester Molina, rocked the table with their laughter, pictures of Molina filling the air of the trailer kitchen: Molina with his head in a toilet, his balls in a vise, his house on fire, his car in a pond.

  At one o’clock the woman who’d delivered the pie came out of the back room carrying a little boy, four or maybe five or even six years old, too old, in any case, to need to be carried. But she never put him down. Impassive, she made plain whitebread sandwiches and held her boy and exerted a huge presence in the room in silence. The men only drank their beer while she worked, the conversation embarrassed to a halt in front of her.

  So Richard said, “What’s the boy’s name?” He had drunk four beers.

  No reply.

  Richard tried again: “The kid, what’s his name?”

  “That’s Don’t He,” big
Jim said.

  “What?”

  “That’s Don’t He.”

  “Dewey and Don’t He,” the young man with the guns said, and he and Jim laughed.

  “Don’t he look like Dewey?” Jim said.

  “Do he or don’t he?” the young man—Baker—said.

  Dewey said, “Leem alone,” but his voice was mild; this wordplay was some kind of old joke.

  “Don’t He,” Jim said one more time.

  The woman put the sandwiches on the table. The child stayed in the crook of her arm. His mother didn’t glower exactly, but the look on her face was no longer impassive. Something murderous was alive in her. She said, “He’s Jeremy Charles, like his grandfather.”

  Richard said, “Hi, Jeremy,” and the kid buried his face in his mother’s neck.

  She went back into the bedroom, closed the door.

  The men ate. When his sandwich was gone, Richard began to think of graceful exit lines. Jim got up and went outside. Richard heard him piss, heard him open the door of his truck, cheered with the others when he saw the bottle of Old Granddad, though it didn’t actually make him glad.

  Later, Richard would puke on the side of the Avon Road, then again at the end of his driveway holding his sore ribs, then twice in his bathtub, where Gail would find him; but for now the afternoon stretched ahead, and the stories were good, and he enjoyed the company of what through his newfound compassion he’d revisualized suddenly as good men—rough men, surely, maybe not the smartest guys on the face of the earth, but men he chastised himself for misjudging.

  Dewey stopped coming to work. And because Dewey had no phone, it seemed to Richard after a couple of weeks that another visit to the trailer down the road was in order. He needed Dewey’s help around the yard, he told himself. And he told Gail the same, when she said they were better off rid of Dewey forever: “You’d think he was your only friend,” she said. “You’d think you didn’t notice that he stole from us and beat your face and then made you sick with alcohol when you tried to reach out to him.”