When night came he was on a large road, a state highway, it was near the end of the evening rush hour and there were no lights except for the cars, taillights and headlights, he could see all the people. Warm and happy. Picking their noses and singing to the radio. Don’t see you. Cheap sweater you’re wearing, wind cuts right through. He was numb with cold. If even one of them would switch with you… Inside and out, seems like a simple difference.
This wind, he thought. Should have hung on to the coat and hat. Maybe I’m not really that cold, just hungry and tired. But you ate last night, that’s enough calories. One day is nothing. Figure out your bearings. I am having trouble thinking. That is my problem. Should have stopped to eat but didn’t feel safe. This highway—ought to have boxes with food and blankets for people, like emergency call boxes. Flag one of these people down.
Here by choice—you could have stopped him. When his hand was in your pocket you could have gotten him with the knife but instead you grabbed his coat. You’d still have the money and all your things, no loss to anyone. Fatal mistake, choose the hand over the knife. Nine dollars and no coat. Other guy’s sleeping at the Hyatt. More money than he’s seen in his life.
Here is the truth: you are going to freeze to death. You’ve always been precocious, ahead of schedule on this as well, makes perfect sense. Universe wants equality. Let no man be warmer than the air. Let no man hoard his heat. Stole it from someone to begin with—no change in energy since the Big Bang. Temporary borrower. The heat of my expiring body will raise the temperature of the earth one- trillionth of one degree. Detectable with the finest instruments. Mildest way to go. They say drowning but that’s impossible—choking on water—ask your mother. How long? You’ll know when you start to feel warm. From warmth and back to it.
He passed a strip mall but it was abandoned and empty. It would be out of the wind at least. No, keep moving. Lights up ahead. You’re just hungry. Get some food and you’ll see I’m right. Forty percent of calories transformed to waste heat. Fine, you talked me into it. I’ll get some food and we’ll see if you’re right. Cold enough to snow but the air’s too dry, small blessings. Won’t matter. Plenty of lights up there, a mile, maybe. One foot forward. Judge your speed. Soon you’ll have to make some decisions.
2. Grace
Billy had only been gone three days but everyone in town knew. At work they were polite but she heard them talking, Lynn Booth and Kyla Evans being the worst, though Grace’s friend Jenna Herrin was no better, all three were from Buell and they’d all seen Billy play football. How hard he’d hit the other kids during the games
In the Giant Eagle on the way back from work she’d run into Nessie Campbell, even fat old Nessie had pretended to be interested in frozen fish until Grace took her basket to the checkout, Nessie Campbell who’d chase you down in the street and sell you Amway products every chance she got.
It was not any better at home. The day had been overcast and the house was cold. It would be fine, she would get under the covers. It was April 15 it should not be so cold. Taxes due, she thought. She hadn’t finished them, started last week but then everything had happened. Still, how had she forgotten? She went to the table and opened the folder and began to look over the forms, but there was no chance. She couldn’t think straight. Taxes were the least of her worries.
Billy would be fine, he was a big man. He was a big man but that was not how she thought of him, she could see him compared to others that way but still, it was not how she saw him. Then for some reason she was thinking about her father, she hadn’t spoken to him in eighteen years, he still called every Christmas and Easter. He’d left her mother twenty years ago. Her mother did not have a flexible personality, hadn’t been able to bear what was happening to the Valley, her daughter and son- in- law living in the basement apartment, no one was making any money, the town seemed to change overnight, cars were getting broken into, empty houses with their lawns grown up into brush.
It had changed her, she was constantly riding everyone, it had gone on until 1987 and then her father announced to everyone at dinner that he was leaving, that he needed a break from things. At first Grace hadn’t blamed him and then she had, and then had forgiven him, and then she blamed him again. But in a way it had been a brave act. His children were all grown up, he’d left her mother plenty of money. She couldn’t imagine anyone being happy with her mother. Her father had moved to East Texas and she had not returned his calls. He still called at Christmas and Easter but she wouldn’t pick up. She felt all of that like a weight around her neck now. Most of her good memories involved her father, and all he had done was rescue himself. But he’d thrown a wrench into Grace’s life, because the burden of looking after her mother’s sanity had shifted onto her. That was the real reason she hadn’t returned his phone calls, probably. Selfishness, she thought. Now that you need people, too, you can see that.
There was Bud. She reminded herself of that, don’t get your hopes up yet, but it seemed to be going somewhere. She would not be alone, she had someone to love her, someone she could love. The high she had felt last night and this morning, waking up to him and making love again, had faded, there was only this worry about Billy.
She had a brother she could call, Roy he was a good man in his way, done a stint in Albion—and then she hadn’t wanted him coming around, he was a likable guy same as Virgil and she was worried about Billy, her whole life she’d been surrounded by them, men who were good in their way. They’d caught Roy coming in from the woods with a bale of marijuana plants, harvest-time, claimed he’d been doing someone a favor. For a while his phones had been tapped. Now he was living outside Houston, he claimed he was on the straight and narrow, driving for a freight company, had moved in with an older woman who helped him keep his head clear. Virgil had never liked her brother and her brother had never liked Virgil, they were the same person is why. Each thought the other wasn’t good enough for her. But they were the same, one thing on the surface but underneath entirely different. All his money gone on booze and girls and then—light bulb, Virgil remembers he has a wife who has a place he can live, a wife who would take care of him. At least she’d finally stood up to him. That, she could feel good about.
She didn’t want to be inside the house. She put on her coat and went and stood in the backyard, looking out over the rolling hills, the big barn in the distance, it was very green, cool and dry, it was not like summer, stifling and humid, it was still fresh. If Buddy Harris had a son, he would not be in jail right now. That is the one it should have been. Looked out for Billy more than Virgil ever did. Owed you nothing but still he helped you. She wondered if that was why she’d always taken him for granted. Virgil always had the eye for tail and women had the eye for him and it kept you scared, the fear of losing him owned you. For fifteen years. It was amazing how an idea could hold you like that, for that long.
And now Billy is locked up and Virgil, well, who knew where he was. But Buddy Harris’s son would not be in prison. One way or the other. They said Harris had killed people but she had always doubted it, she had been positive, really, that it wasn’t true. Dopers, they said. It was just a rumor that Harris had let fly around for his own purposes, it made his job easier, but looking at him you knew it wasn’t true, couldn’t be. But what if it was? She wondered why she was thinking about these things. She wondered if it could be true that Harris had killed someone.
She felt shaken and went back inside, sat in front of the TV She flipped through all the channels, nothing worth watching, she would have to get more channels, she would have to remind herself to do that. It didn’t help —she couldn’t stop thinking about it. At first it seemed possible and then she was sure of it. Something in Bud Harris could kill a person if he thought it was best. He’d been in Vietnam.
You have to get out of this house, she thought. Harris had said he wouldn’t come over tonight, that they should take it slow. She would have to be optimistic. It was just getting started, like Harris said. There was no way of knowing what would happen. And part of her
