Fall from Grace (5 page)

Annabelle yawned and stretched her hands high above her head, arching her back. Then she padded across the room and sat down at the table with them. “She probably doesn't even know about your animals,” she said to Herman.

He stared at her, momentarily speechless. Then he said, “What the hell are you talking about? The whole damn town knows about my animals.” He turned to Alberg. “They're the talk of the whole town, my animals are. Why, the paper's gonna send somebody out here to do an article on my mini-zoo.” Suddenly, almost casually, he cuffed Annabelle on the side of the head. “Shut up, you don't know anything.”

“Hey,” said Alberg, grabbing Herman's arm.

Annabelle had grown very pale. “It's all right, Mr. Alberg. I make him mad sometimes.” She pushed back her chair. “I'm going to water my garden.” She left the room, and Alberg heard the screen door creak as she pushed it open.

He let go of Herman Ferguson's arm.

“She makes me mad,” said Ferguson sullenly. “She knows it, but she goes ahead and does it anyway.”

Alberg stood up.

“Can we get back to business, here?” Ferguson looked up at him plaintively.

“We don't have a hell of a lot of business to get back to,” said Alberg, and Ferguson got up, too, sputtering protests. Alberg looked down on him for a moment, liking it that he was taller and bigger than the other man. “That's not a threat you got,” he said, heading for the door.

“The hell it isn't,” said Ferguson indignantly, trailing after him.

Alberg pushed open the screen door. “Have those animals been inspected?”

“Certainly they've damn been inspected!” said Ferguson. “The damn wildlife guy's been here two, three times.”

Alberg went down the steps, looking around for Ferguson's wife, but he couldn't see her. “I'll check it out,” he said.

Ferguson came through the doorway, the screen thwacking shut behind him. “Well what the hell are you gonna check out,” he said bitterly, “if I ain't been threatened?”

Alberg stopped and turned around. “Vandalism. Theft. Intimidation. That sound okay to you?”

Ferguson frowned, uncertain, and rubbed vigorously at his thick black hair.

“I'll be in touch,” said Alberg. He rounded the corner. “Let me know,” he called out, “if it happens again.” He was pretty sure that it would.

W
ARREN KETTLEMAN SAW his life as a horizon, and his worries as clouds upon it, and his aim, the thing toward which he struggled, that which he would have called nirvana, was to be able to gaze at that horizon and see it clean, clear and pale, uncluttered by so much as a wisp of cloud. If he had ever accomplished this he might well have felt that it was a consummate achievement; he might well have promptly, quietly, and with intense satisfaction shut down all systems and, utterly fulfilled, died.

Which would have been a big shock to Wanda, because Warren was a husky, healthy guy who, having just turned twenty-nine, had a lot of years ahead of him.

He awoke this Monday morning fifteen minutes before his alarm was set to go off, which is to say, at five-fifteen.

Warren turned onto his back. The fan purred from the top of the dresser, and daylight edged the window blind. Warren and Wanda were covered only by a sheet. Warren, staring at the window blind, thought about his wife's thin brown body. The blind moved slightly, fingered by a breeze. It was going to be another very hot day.

Warren started to go through his worries; nervously, skillfully, ritualistically—like a cardsharp shuffling a deck. This was something he did every morning and again at night, just before he went to sleep. He believed in naming his enemies, and looking them straight in the eye.

There was always money to worry about, of course. Warren knew he'd never have enough money. He and Wanda both earned a decent salary. Compared with lots of people, they lived a comfortable life. But Warren wanted them to have a lot of money. He craved RSP's, and CSB's, and GIC's—anything that smacked of savings. Wanda got impatient with him about this. She was frugal, too, most of the time, but every so often she wanted to do something extravagant. This caused Warren to break out in a cold sweat. What if one day he couldn't dissuade her, and she used up all her recklessness in one fell swoop, and spent all the money they had on a Mercedes? Or, worse—on something that couldn't be sold? He didn't know what. He just had visions of all their money disappearing.

He turned onto his side and looked at Wanda's shoulder. He touched it with his tongue and tasted salt. He glanced at the clock, then moved closer to Wanda, and pressed his erection against her buttocks. Wanda gave a little moan but it turned out to be a moan of protest. She pulled away from him and in her sleep flung off the sheet. Warren propped himself up on an elbow and looked down at her, small and brown and shiny, except for the parts covered by her swimsuit when she sunbathed, which was every chance she got. These parts weren't big enough, as far as Warren was concerned. He lay down again.

Money. Annabelle. Annabelle was a worry, too, but that worry was something that was never going to change and never going to go away, either. It was something he'd learned to live with, he told himself. Although every once in a while he felt a great surge of bitterness toward his sister. He envied her, even though her life was such a total mess, and it was his envy that made him bitter.

Money. Annabelle. And now, Bobby Ransome. Bobby loomed large among Warren's worries, these days. But then he'd always loomed large in Warren's life—and Warren had always been surprised about this, because theirs was a sideways relationship that had never felt important until later.

He sat up and swung his legs over the side of the bed. He sat there looking down at the rag rug and bewilderment flooded him.

He switched off the alarm, stood up, quietly got clothes from the closet and his dresser drawer, and went to the bathroom to shower.

When he got home from work he took cheese and a can of beer from the fridge and crackers from the cupboard and sat at the kitchen table, sipping, munching, listening to a soft-rock music station on the radio. Then he put his dishes in the sink and started in on his current project. These days he was applying aluminum siding, white, to the garage. He'd never done this kind of work before so he was proceeding slowly and methodically, learning as he went. When he'd finished the garage, he planned to start in on the house.

After a while he was pretty hot, so he went inside and got himself a can of pop, and drank half of it in the kitchen, staring out the window above the sink. He took the rest back out to the garage, and resumed work on the siding. And as he worked, his mind wandered again to Bobby Ransome.

When Warren was twelve and Annabelle was fifteen they'd lived next door to Bobby. Warren's granddad had an old '59 Chevy he wanted to get rid of and Warren, who'd loved cars even then, bought the car from his granddad for a hundred bucks, which he earned doing a paper route and collecting bottles and beer cans.

Warren's folks owned an acre out near Halfmoon Bay, and there was a shed on the property that Warren's dad let him use as a garage. So Warren bought the Chevy—which was a gut-ugly Biscayne with huge fins, but Warren loved it because it was his first car. And the clutch was slipping, so he bought used parts from Joe Fourquin the auto wrecker guy and set to work to fix it. Which meant he had to first remove the drive shaft and take out the transmission. And Bobby Ransome started wandering over from next door to see what was going on.

Bobby didn't know a whole lot about cars. Except he knew how to drive, of course. Which Warren did, too, even though he was only twelve. So Bobby watched him working on the Chevy, and he asked him stuff, and at first this made Warren nervous but then he decided he liked it. This big kid squatting on his heels, arms resting on his thighs, hands linked, seriously watching, asking Warren serious questions. It felt good.

But when Warren got the Chevy put back together again, it wouldn't work. He was some embarrassed. Had to take the damn thing apart all over again. Drive shaft. Transmission. The whole works.

And then finally he figured it out. He'd put the clutch fork in backwards.

Warren, smiling at the wall of his garage, recalled a summer evening. He'd been working on the Chevy all day. And this time, he got it right.

Warren remembered that he gave a great whoop and banged his palm down on the steering wheel, and honked the horn excitedly, which brought Annabelle running outside and Bobby running over from next door. Both of them jumped into the front seat with him and Warren proudly drove the Chevy out of the shed and across the yard behind the house, and they were all three laughing fit to bust a gut and Warren figured he'd never been so happy, before or since.

“Yoo-hoo,” Wanda called from the back porch. “I'm home.”

He put away his tools and went indoors.

“I'll set the table if you like,” he said as he washed his hands.

“It's far too early, Warren, honestly,” said Wanda, pouring diet ginger ale into a tall glass. “I need to put my feet up.” She added ice to her drink, then took it into the living room, and Warren followed.

He sat on the sofa and listened to Wanda chatter away about the bank, its employees and customers, and he attempted some aimless conversation of his own but his heart wasn't in it.

Finally, “I've been thinking,” he said.

“Uh-oh,” said Wanda cheerfully. “A dangerous sign.”

“Wanda, I really would like us to have a baby.”

She rolled her eyes and groaned. “We've been through this, Warren. I told you. When I'm thirty.”

“But that's three more years.”

“It's not three more years. It's two years and three months.”

“Still—,” said Warren.

“I want two more years to enjoy life, thank you very much, before I tie myself down with kids. I told you when we got married, Warren,” she reproved him, “that I wasn't keen on having kids right away. I don't think it's very fair of you to keep bringing it up all the time.” She picked up her glass and drank some ginger ale.

“Wanda, the thing is—”

“Oh for goodness' sake,” said Wanda. She was curled up in a big easy chair. She banged the arm of the chair with a small fist. “No more, Warren. Please.”

“But I read something,” said Warren earnestly, leaning forward on the sofa. “Just listen. Okay?”

She heaved a great sigh, which Warren took as permission to continue.

“See, I read that the best time to have your first baby is when you're eighteen, something like that.”

“Well I messed up that opportunity good and proper, didn't I,” she said.

“Yeah, but anytime from eighteen to about—” He stopped, floundering. “Oh, thirty or so,” he went on, “early thirties, somewhere in there, that's good. And then once the body's done it once, why it knows how, in a manner of speaking.” Wanda, he noticed, was looking at him incredulously. “And then you could wait a couple of years before having another one, and you could go on having them right through your thirties, and every time gets easier.”

Wanda now had a grim expression on her face.

Warren went on: “But if you wait until your body starts to—to—to, stiffen, see, stiffen up, before you have your first one, why then you're gonna have trouble, and then probably you wouldn't want to have another one, so you'd end up with only one kid.”

Wanda gazed at him stonily.

“And that's what worries me,” said Warren.

Wanda didn't say anything.

“Having only one kid isn't good,” said Warren lamely. “A kid should have company, growing up.”

“I've got the perfect solution,” said Wanda.

“What?” said Warren cautiously.

“No kids at all. Ever.” She stood up.

“But you'd've had them with Bobby, wouldn't you?” Warren said quickly, bitterly.

Wanda became very still; she looked like a statue, standing there, facing the hallway.

Warren heard the words repeat themselves over and over again in the stillness, like they were echoing in the air between him and Wanda. Maybe he shouldn't have said them. But no; they had to be said, he figured.

Wanda turned to face him.

“And don't try to deny it,” Warren said. “Because we both know better.”

Wanda snapped her mouth closed. She swept past him and he heard her march down the hall into the bedroom, and the door slammed.

Warren imagined rows and rows of his unborn children, retreating from him, reproachful and sorrowing.

A
NNABELLE HADN'T BEEN expecting him. Not exactly.

When he came she was very glad there was nobody else at home.

He knocked on the wooden frame of the screen door, because the inside door was open; the day was already hot, although it was still young. Annabelle moved through the kitchen into the hall and saw him, blurry through the screen, sunlight behind him, and she smiled in spite of herself. But she put a frown on, while she unlatched the door. She pushed it open just a bit, and pretended surprise and exasperation. “For heaven's sake,” she said. “Bobby Ransome. Whatever are you doing at my door?”