Absolute Zero

She smiled and arched her back. “Coffee break. It’s in my union contract,” she joked. He nodded, removed his gloves, and reached for a cigar as she poured coffee into two cups.

“You mind?” he asked, holding up the cigar.

She responded spontaneously from the brief happy life she’d known before her dad left when she was seven. “Actually, I kind of like cigar smoke. It reminds me of my dad and the old Met Stadium. When I was a little kid we’d go see the Twins. It smelled like beer, peanuts, and cigar smoke.”

Broker smiled, approving of the remark.

They sat side by side in the unfilled half of the woodshed. She had taken pains to make sure the other half was stacked with industrial precision. Jolene took two sips of her coffee and made her move.

She touched his left hand, the ring finger. “Kind of shouts,” she said.

He held the hand up, fingers out, inspected it, then let it fall into a fist. “Yeah,” he said. “I thought of putting a Band-Aid over it.”

Jolene raised her eyebrows eloquently, mocking, Does it hurt that much?

He waved off her concern, “I married a younger woman,” he said.

“A lot of that’s going around.”

“There’s risks.”

“Yeah. Younger men,” she said.

He nodded. “In my case, about twelve of them.”

That stopped her and it was his turn to grin. “She’s in the army, the only woman in a squad of guys.”

“Oh.” Jolene didn’t see that coming.

And their eyes tangled up in that specific way when two people know they are both thinking the exact same thing about losing a person. About being lonely.

He held up his hand. “You know all about me. I don’t know anything about you,” he said.

And she said, “All I know about you is that you used to wear a ring on that finger and it’s not there anymore.”

He poured out the dregs of his coffee, stood up, pulled on his, gloves, and nodded toward the woodpile. “Let’s finish this,” he said.

“And then?” she asked.

He looked into her eyes and they shared another quiet moment that began to throb in her temples like the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. And she thought, this guy is trouble and you have enough trouble, but she didn’t turn the music off.

And after a Hallelujah Chorus worth of eye-fucking, he said, “And then we’ll see if you need any more help around here.”

Chapter Twenty-six

Hank toured hells he had known-Detroit got him ready for the hill, in the hammer shop at Huron Forge and Machine. Twelve drop hammers blowing out your eardrums in an acre of fiery steel forgings. The men and machines all hot, loud, dangerous, dirty, and sharp.

Mainly he thought Sartre was right in No Exit; hell was just other people, especially if they were Jolene, Allen, and Earl Garf.

Right now hell was Wisconsin, which was all he could see out his studio windows, and the Wisconsin river bluffs looked like a mass grave of dead technicolor porcupines.

And then, along came Garfinkle. The made-up man who hated his name and his past and was trying to reinvent himself as Brad Pitt from The Fight Club or Keneau Reeves from The Matrix.

He walked up to the bed and greeted Hank with the nickname he thought was so funny: “So how’s the Big Lebowski today?”

All Earl’s wit came from the movies, and Hank figured that’s what Earl and his whole slacker generation had instead of experiences. But he had not seen The Big Lebowski, so he was at a loss. It was the least of his problems.

“Know what?” Earl said. “Your old lady has another suitor. First Doctor Allen and now the canoe guy from up north. .”

The canoe guy.

Broker’s back.

“. . he’s out there in back of the garage knocking the wood in little pieces. I think he’s practicing up to knock a piece off of Jolene. Just like Allen is. But, for my money, I think the sleeper candidate has the inside track. When I took her to Milt’s office yesterday, Milt kissed her hand. It was very suave.”

What’s Broker doing back here? This could be a case where Earl was right.

“At any rate, we’ll know who rings the bell.” Earl walked over to the bedroom doorway and Hank could barely see him fumble around at shoulder level on a bookshelf next to the doorjam. He moved some books aside and pointed. “State-of-the-art miniaturization, batteries, and transmitter. This baby is what the CIA uses. I cut a little hole in the wall and trained this camera on her bed. The camera transmits to long-playing tapes on a VCR in the basement. Forget voyeur TV; this is the real thing. I was thinking lighting would be a problem if it happens at night. But you know what? Jolene always sleeps with a night-light. So I upped the wattage in the night-light bulb. When she does the dirty, we’ll have broadcast-quality audio and pretty good video. Unless, of course, she does it in the cot at the end of the bed. I didn’t think of that.”

Earl scratched his head briefly, then grinned, proud of himself as he tented the books back over the concealed camera. “You know what would have been good? I should have got your buddy Stovall on tape. He was a riot, a regular worm. Except he loved the hook.

“It was his fault, you know. I gave him every out. All he had to do was come up with some bread to pay the hospital bills. You know what he said? He said, not as long as I was hanging around. Can you believe that shit? I rented that hospital bed you’re laying on. Me.”

Earl pointed an accusing finger. “I mean, she didn’t have shit. She couldn’t pay the fucking mortgage, man. Jolene told me about his hangups so I left his dumb ass pinned to a tree so he could think about it. I figured if he did it, he could undo it and Jolene could get access.”

Earl paused. “It was kind of a mellow day when I lured him out there. You know the place. Where you cut wood. In fact I used a trunk from a tree you cut down. And I left him with the hammer and two quarts of Johnny Walker Red.”

Earl grinned. “I thought that was a nice touch.” He shrugged. “Any rate, I never figured it’d snow and get below freezing. I thought of going back out there but I didn’t have the right shoes, and I figured the van would get stuck. Besides, snow is good. It covers evidence. They already closed the investigation. They aren’t even calling it suicide, man. He just fell in over his head getting his weird kicks. You sure know some real degenerates.”

Suddenly Earl frowned and stared at Hank and Hank realized that he’d stopped roaming his eyes and was glaring at Earl. He let his eyes droop and roll. Then, like a tiny yellow cloud, the smell of urine seeped up from his diapered crotch. Just a few drops.

“Lookit you, you pig; you’re pissing yourself, aren’t you,” Earl accused, wrinkling his nose. “This is where I draw the line, like I told Jolene, I’ll turn your ass, feed you, and wipe your drool, but I definitely don’t do diapers.”

What a horrible experience it was to watch an idea slowly form on Garf’s face.

“On the other hand, maybe I do,” said Earl as he crossed to the windows and looked off to the left. Reassured, he came back to the bed and pulled Hank’s gown aside and opened the Velcro stays on his diaper.

“That was hardly a sprinkle, so tell you what I’m going to do.” Earl swung his eyes in a mischievous look over his shoulder and unzipped his fly. “This is for the time you fucked with me, Lebowski.”

Hank watched Earl take his Average White Boy dick out of his pants and aim a stream of pee onto Hank’s crotch.