one leg cracked, descending like a ramp into darkness. Such was the unworldly ambience of that place, I wouldn’t have been unduly surprised if a line of tiny men with backpacks had come hiking up the tilted floorboard.
“Mr. Turner?”
Yes?
“Sammy Cash, the actor? And whoever it was made the movies? Some think they’re the same person.”
Chapter Twenty-six
One of the last clients I had was a man who had mutilated his eight-month-old son. He’d been two years in the state hospital, where things predictably enough had not gone well for him, and came to me on six years’ probation, with weekly counseling sessions mandated by the court. I got calls from his PO every Friday afternoon.
Affable, relaxed and clear-eyed, he was never able to explain why he’d done it. Once or twice as we spoke, without warning he’d fall into a kind of chant: “Thursday, thumb. First finger, Friday. Second, Saturday. Third, Tuesday. Fourth, Friday.” He seemed to me then like someone trying to express abstract concepts in a language he barely understood. He seemed, in fact, like another person entirely-not at all the quiet young man in chinos and T- shirt who weekly sat across from me chatting.
That’s facile, of course. Though hardly more facile than much else I found myself saying again and again to clients back then in the guise of observation, advice, counsel, supposed compassion. Conversational psychiatry has a shamefully limited vocabulary, pitifully few conjugations.
“I just want to get in touch with my wife, my son,” Brian would say. “I just want to tell them…”
“What do you want to tell them?” I’d finally ask.
“That…”
“What?”
“… I don’t know.”
My apartment was across from a charter school. Through the window Brian’s eyes tracked young women in plaid skirts, high white socks and Perma-Prest white shirts, young men in blazers, gray trousers, striped ties. Eventually I’d pour coffee, mine black, his with two sugars. We’d sit quietly then, comfortable in one another’s company, two citizens of the world sidestepping it for a moment though both of us had important work to get back to, at rest and at leisure on time’s front porch.
We’d been meeting for maybe three months, Brian having never missed a session, when one afternoon I got a call from him. Calls like that don’t bode well. Generally they mean someone is cracking up, someone’s found him- or herself in deep shit, someone needs a stronger crutch or more often a wrecker service. Brian just wanted to know if I’d be interested in taking in a movie, maybe grab some dinner after.
I couldn’t think why not-aside from the covenant against therapists consorting with patients, that is.
I’ve no idea what movie we saw. I’ve since put in time at the library looking through files of that day’s newspapers. None of those listed rings a bell.
Afterwards we passed on to an Italian restaurant. This part I do remember. Sort of family place where older kids waited table, all the younger kids and Mom were back in the kitchen, and Dad might come sidling up to your table any moment with an accordion or his vocal rendition of “Santa Lucia.” Tonight, though, the villa was quiet. Baskets of bread, antipasto, soup, pasta, entrees, dessert and coffee arrived. Both of us turning aside repeated offers of wine.
I can’t recall what we talked about any more than I remember the movie, but talk we did, before, during and after, more or less nonstop. Well past midnight outside a jazz bar on Beale I put Brian in a cab.
That was Tuesday. When Brian didn’t show up for his Thursday session, I tried calling. When his PO checked in on Friday, I told him about the no-show. We sent a patrol around.
The PO called back a couple of hours later. I was home by then, changed into jeans and T-shirt, bottle of merlot recorked and in the fridge, fair portion of it in the deep-bellied glass before me. Hummingbirds jockeyed for position at the feeder out on my balcony.
Apparently Brian had gone directly home that night and hung himself. Was this what he’d intended all along? Responding officers said a Billie Holiday CD played over and over. He’d made a pot of coffee and drunk half of it as he undressed and got things together. Under his cup was a page torn from a stenographer’s pad.
Wonderful evening, it said. Thank you.
Mild weather tomorrow, the radio promised. A beautiful day. High in the sixties, fair to partly cloudy. But when I woke, wind whistled at my windows and rain blew against them, forming new maps of the world as it dripped down.
Chapter Twenty-seven
“I’m not sure that’s possible.”
“Of course it is. I just need a bench warrant.”
“To intercept the mayor’s mail.”
“Only to log it. I wouldn’t be reading it.”
“Judge Heslep’s the one you’d have to see, then.”
“Fair enough.’’
“Forget that. Man has a picture of Nixon and Hoover shaking hands in his office, no way he’s going to issue the warrant. You consider just asking?”
“Asking?”
The sheriff shook his head, picked up the phone and dialed.
“Henry Lee? You playing hooky today or what? Taxpayers don’t pay you to sit ’round watching Matlock… Good point, we don’t pay you, do we? And let me be the first to say you’re worth every last damn penny… Good, good… Got a question for you. Any problem with our looking over your mail for, oh, say the last couple months?… Well, sure, but whatever you still have at hand. Anything like me, most of it’s still in a pile somewhere… Good man… See you then.
“Clear your dance card. Five o’clock at the mayor’s,” Bates said, hanging up, “for cocktails.” When had I last heard someone use the word cocktails? “He’ll have copies of mail, payment records-whatever he’s able to pull together. Said you should feel free to bring a friend.”
“I assume you’re coming with.”
“I kind of got the impression he had Val Bjorn in mind.”
“Not Sarah Hazelwood?”
“Hey. It’s a small town. Sneeze, and someone down the road reaches for Kleenex.”
“How’s June?” I asked. She hadn’t shown up for work.
“She’s all right. Told me you know what’s going on.”
“Good that the two of you talked about it.”
“She’s out looking for the son of a bitch, Turner. You have any idea how hard it is for me to stay out of this?”
“I do, believe me.”
“Our kids, what we want for them… She’s a smart girl. She’ll work it out. By the way, Henry told me I should tell you you’re a pain in the ass. He also says we’re glad to have you here.”
Framed in the parentheses of cupped hands, a face appeared at the window. One of the hands turned to a wave. That or its mate opened the door, and a short, stocky man clambered in. He wore dark, badly wrinkled slacks, white shirt with open collar, gray windbreaker. Somehow when he removed the canvas golf cap, you expected him to look inside to see if his hair might have gone along. Wasn’t on his head anymore.
“They’re at it again,’’ he told the sheriff.
“What they we talking about this time, Jay?”
