numbers, started cleaning their guns without checking to see if they were loaded.
The tiny details, the proliferation of minor annoyances, those were the ones that clogged your arteries and got you in the end. He still didn't know if her brood helped put things into perspective or just knocked them farther out of whack. He'd always fully expected to sit down one day and make a concerted effort to figure it out.
'Put Joan on,' he said.
'She had to go talk to Stevie's principal, about the fighting. I told you.'
'It's almost midnight.'
'It was parent-teacher night, and then the P.T.A. had to have a special assembly about the situation, and then they have coffee and donuts. To them teachers, this is a big night out.'
Crease said, 'This the same thing or did he get in trouble again?'
'Again. He's shoving kids around. He knocked a girl down in the playground.'
'A girl? Why?'
'He says he didn't like the way she was looking at him. She was six, he's eight. The school considers that sort of thing to be a serious matter. It doesn't take much for them to be scared about a lawsuit. A little girl gets her tooth broken or a bloody nose and you'll have a fleet of lawyers on your back. The school has a zero tolerance policy about violence. He might have to transfer.' Mimi had shifted gears, she was sharp again, in asskicking mode.
'All kids get into fights.'
'He's big for his age and knocking the crap out of six-year-old girls doesn't endear him to the faculty, you know? This is the age of Columbine. What do you think, Crease? You think maybe he's got some problems that need to be worked out?'
'Everyone does.'
'Don't get flippant. Not when it comes to your own son.'
'You're right, I shouldn't be. I'm sorry. I wanted to speak with him.'
'Then you shouldn't have called at twelve o'clock at night. He's asleep, or pretending to be. He might be at his bedroom door, listening in. He does that, if you didn't know. When the phone rings. He's trying to get an edge, taking it all in. Joan will be home in half an hour. Call back then.'
'I'll try.'
'You settling up what needs to be settled wherever you are?'
'Little by little.'
'Work it out faster and come home.'
He hung up and a half hour later decided it would be a waste of time trying to talk to Joan or Stevie over the phone. Mimi had been right. He shouldn't have called so late, thinking he could just chat with his boy. He was in denial. Funny to realize it like this. In Hangtree he was maudlin as hell listening to Oldies with tears in his eyes, too scared to talk to his own kid and help him down the right road. He couldn't do it over the phone. Stevie would snarl and grunt and Joan would hum and sigh.
She truly did love him. Like Sarah Burke had said, The truth of love is that you accept what's wrong and ugly and stupid and tainted in your lover. Joan could do that, and it drove Crease berserk.
He really wanted to talk to longshoreman Lenny. He thought maybe Lenny had jumped in the East River just to throw everybody off his scent. He might be out there somewhere with a new name. He wanted to ask Lenny how his life had shaped up, if he'd done anything interesting with it. If he'd become a Hollywood stuntman, a missionary in Pago Pago, or an underwater demolitions expert. Or if he just had another wife somewhere with another brood of children. If he'd gotten it right the second time around. He could see Lenny in front of the tube with his eyes swirling, kids running in front of him, a dog barking, the new wife complaining about the broken dishwasher, wondering how the hell he'd been sucked into it again.
He thought of Morena and wondered if she'd still want him after he'd killed Tucco-if he could kill Tucco. And want him as a husband and a father to the baby, or if they were better off on the sneak, the way things had been for the past two years.
He drifted for a minute thinking about it. Seeing her so beautiful in the morning light that she cooled his burn, as she moved in front of the window with the view of the water, the breeze taking her hair, the skein of sweat dappling her naked skin, her brown skin shadowed by cloud cover. The way she looked when they were in a cab together, headed crosstown to catch a Truffaut revival. Her hair knotted back, her hand in his, discussing European cinema. The two of them chattering like college kids who'd just walked out of class. It gave him hope that there was a life beyond the life.
Yeah, everybody had problems they needed to work out. Jesus.
In the morning he checked out and saw a fifteen dollar charge for some X-rated flick. He vaguely remembered seeing skin on the tube. The bill said he'd ordered it at four a.m. He'd been on autopilot, feverish.
The 'Stang was full of bodies. He felt them in the back seat staring at the back of his head. Thanking him, wishing him further pain, wanting him to hit a bridge. The ghosts piled up, and they still wanted a lot from you.
He hit triple digits getting back to Hangtree, hoping the state patrol would fire up after him, but no cruiser did.
He pulled up in front of Reb's place about noon. He had no idea why he was still staying with her. He should've gotten another motel room, gotten away from her, but there was something so familiar about the house and his connection to it that it grounded him despite all the distractions.
The sad shape of the place, which had bothered him at first, was beginning to become appealing. The collapsed, swaying rain gutters beat out a slow rhythm in time with his pulse. The smell of oncoming rain was strong on the day. He could almost see himself creeping up to Reb's window again, slipping in and out of darkness. The tug of sorrow was still there, and he appreciated its depth.
He was using Reb and a lingering shame had settled in his chest although he'd never made any promises. Even a bent cop didn't have to be bent all the time, in all things.
He walked in and heard her cursing in the kitchen. The stink of ammonia burned his nostrils. She was mopping a floor that hadn't been cleaned in Christ knew how long. She'd kicked over the bucket. A black and yellow puddle of suds rippled against the tile and sluiced up to the baseboards. Dead insects and rat droppings floated along. She was playing house for him again, and doing about as good a job as she'd done with the steaks. He knew it was his own fault.
She said, 'If you're going to ask why I'm doing this, let me tell you.'
'I wasn't going to ask.'
'It's not for you. I'm going to sell this place. I'm going to leave. Maybe you could help out around here a little. Get a hammer and saw and some two by fours out of the shed and fix that hole in the porch, reinforce the stairs.'
'Sure.'
'There's a chainsaw in the garage you could use on that dead maple. Fix that screen door.'
Another broken screen door. Why were screen doors coming down all around him?
'Okay,' he said.
'And don't get it in your head that I'm looking for a husband. I'm not. I already know your views on marriage anyway, right? If I did want a husband, it wouldn't be you, right?'
'Right.'
She was mad he hadn't come back here last night. He could see it in her face. She'd put him up, fed him, and treated him well as an investment. His staying away all night was evidence that she wasn't going to earn out.
He went out to the garage and got Reb's father's toolbox. He wasn't a carpenter, Mimi had been right about that, but maybe he could get the screen door on. He spent an hour straightening the frame, replacing stripped screws, tightening the spring, and hanging the door back up in place. It had a slight tilt and still didn't completely close, but he figured he'd done a pretty good job of it.
There were three chainsaws under the workbench, but none had gas in them. He couldn't find a gas can anywhere. He drove into town, hit a station, bought a five-gallon jug, had it filled, and got to work filling all three chainsaws. It wasn't until he had them out side by side that he realized they were different sizes. Crease drew out the longest one, fired it up, and got to work on cutting up the maple. He didn't know what the hell he was doing. It took him twenty-five minutes to figure out how to cut v-wedges to keep the saw from getting stuck in the wood. There was sawdust everywhere.
One of the neighbors was burning leaves. The smell grew stronger as the wind burst against his damp neck.
