Short Money (21 page)

It was nice. Crow shifted in his chair. A minor twist of pain from his groin came and went, making him realize that he had forgotten about his injuries for almost an hour. He decided to try to enjoy himself, go with the current.

“It’s nice,” he said quietly. He looked back through the kitchen door. Melinda was opening an ice cream carton. Crow raised his voice. “It’s nice,” he said.

Melinda nodded, digging into the carton with an aluminum scoop.

“You were so cute,” Melinda said, laughing, eyes bright with memory. “We had a lot of fun, didn’t we? We had some really good times.” Her face, flushed from wine and recollection, glowed in the firelight.

She had thrown a pine log on the fire. The spitting, crackling resin made a miniature fireworks display in the fireplace. He had told her—how many times—not to use pine. It was bad for the fireplace. It coated the chimney with resin. She had never listened to him before, and on this night, his eyes full of Melinda, he said nothing, choosing instead to bask in her capacity for joy. Melinda was capable of great bouts of happiness. In such moments, Crow would plunge unguarded into the effervescent soup of her emotion.

Crow opened his eyes. Something hanging over him in the half light. He blinked, brought it into focus, remembered. Copper tubes; a four-foot-wide pyramid-shaped framework suspended from the ceiling with a coil of tubing at its apex. He sat up and pushed the feather comforter forward, drew his feet back and swung them out over the side of the bed. His body hurt. Whatever powers the pyramid held, it had not repaired his aching body. Oh well. It seemed unimportant now, a minor aberration, charming in its own way. If she wanted to believe in such things, why should he argue? He would tell her how much better he felt.

He was in their old bedroom; he was in Melinda’s bedroom. The door was open a few inches, and he could hear one of Melinda’s spacey New Age tapes playing on the stereo downstairs. He opened and closed his mouth, frowning at the taste. His lips were swollen, unaccustomed to long, hungry kisses. He closed his eyes and listened to the music, imagined Melinda on the sofa in her bathrobe, her feet tucked under her body, reading a book. It would be one of her books about channeling or the tarot, something to go with the music. He felt tired and sore, but relaxed. Maybe sleeping under a pyramid had some therapeutic effect after all.

He stood up carefully, letting his tissues stretch, replaying the evening in his mind. The memories arrived with a warm, rosy tint. Melinda making dinner, his favorite, more relaxed than he had seen her in months, smiling, talking, listening, laughing. Sitting in front of the fire after dinner, surrounded by candles, and she had drunk a third glass of wine—but that was okay. The bottle, still half full, sat quietly on the dining room table while they made love first in the living room in front of the fire, then again, slowly, on her soft bed. How had it happened? He wasn’t sure. They were talking, and then a moment had come and this time he had touched her, felt her soft hair on his palm for the first time in … it seemed like years. He remembered laughing with her, saying whatever came into his mind. Remembering the good times. Something good had happened. He looked down at his body, at his muscular and compact torso. He felt taller, as if his shoulders had come out of a perpetual hunch. In the bathroom mirror, his face looked younger—the bruise on his jaw seemed a minor, youthful blemish. He frowned at the stubble on his jaw, ran a sinkful of hot water, and shaved using Melinda’s razor, careful because the blade was meant for legs, not faces, and had not been sharp for a long time; he did not cut himself once. He brushed his teeth with Melinda’s toothbrush, then rinsed it several times and tapped it dry on the edge of the sink. Looking at himself in the mirror, he smiled. I’m not such a bad guy, he thought.

Sitting on the edge of the bed again, he thought of things to say to her. He remembered she had asked him to look at her body, her lips quivering. He had told her she was perfect, and so she had appeared. She’d said her thighs were getting fat. He’d told her no, your thighs are beautiful. He stood up, imagining himself walking down the carpeted stairs, moving quietly to the sofa, where he would interrupt her reading with a soft kiss. He thought of the things he would say to her: that he loved her, that he missed her, that he wanted her. That he wanted to remain her husband. That he wanted to start over, try harder, make it right. He took a deep breath, smelling the last wisps of their lovemaking. Melinda’s terry-cloth robe hung on a hook by the door. Crow put it on. The sleeves were short, but it felt good.

He noticed, first, that the wine bottle on the dining room table was empty. Then he saw Melinda in the kitchen, sitting at the table, leaning forward, her eyes on him, her chin raised—elated, defiant, and determined—staring at him with brittle, merciless clarity. He saw the big mirror that belonged on the wall by the staircase, now on its back covering most of the kitchen table; four long white powder lines, perfectly parallel, were spread across it like the clawmarks of a frost giant. Melinda was naked, her hard nipples resting on the edge of the table, tiny blue veins showing through the translucent flesh of her breasts. She was holding a gold-plated single-edge razor blade in one hand, a matching gold-plated tube in the other: his gift to her two Christmases ago.

Crow found his clothing scattered before the fireplace. He found his coat draped over the back of the upholstered side chair by the front door. He let himself out into the bitter night air and, after three tries, started the Rabbit. He observed himself driving south through town, then pulling out onto the highway, driving perfectly, flawlessly, precisely, holding his hands at the ten and two positions on the steering wheel, breathing in, breathing out.

For his part, the lion is no seeker of quarrels. His object throughout is to save his skin. If, being unarmed, you meet six or seven lions unexpectantly, all you need to do—according to my information—is to speak to them sternly and they will slink away, while you throw a few stones at them to hurry them up. All the highest authorities recommend this.

—
HUNTING BIG GAME IN THE WILDS OF AFRICA—THRILLING ADVENTURES OF THE FAMOUS ROOSEVELT EXPEDITION

T
HE ROOM WAS SMALLER
than most third world jail cells, and far colder. Windowless; unfinished plywood walls; translucent corrugated-plastic roof. A tiny kerosene heater cranked out the Btu’s, but with the outside air temperature hovering around twelve degrees Fahrenheit, it was never quite warm enough. The floor was a solid sheet of ice, about twelve inches thick.

“Son, you got to pretend you is one,” croaked Sam O’Gara, his voice shredded after two days of kerosene fumes, cold feet, and Pall Malls. His diminutive, wiry, gaunt frame was sealed into a pair of lumpy, greasy coveralls stuffed with an assortment of undergarments. He wore a mottled corduroy cap with turned-up earflaps. Several days’ growth of white-and-gray whiskers gave his wrinkled features a silvery sheen; his button eyes penetrated a veil of blue smoke from his cigarette.

“I don’t have to pretend, Sam.” Crow had met Sam O’Gara, his natural father, for the first time at the age of eighteen. Since then, they’d had friendly if sporadic contact. Crow liked Sam. But they just didn’t have a lot in common. He looked down into his fishing hole through the clear winter water. He could see the rocky bottom of the lake nine feet below. He moved his short jigging rod up and down, looking to see that his minnow was still on the line. Not that he gave a damn if he caught anything. He already had more frozen walleye and crappie than he could fit in his freezer.

For the past forty-eight hours, his world had been restricted to a rented cabin on the southwestern shore of Lake Mille Lacs and this six-by-eight-foot ice-fishing house, a half mile offshore. The first day had been interesting for about three hours. He had never spent much time with Sam, not in such close quarters. The old guy had started to repeat himself. Crow figured that was due to the half pint of Jack Daniel’s the old man had sucked down. By midafternoon, the conversation had become solid reruns. Even his questions were the same.

“Getting any nibbles, son?”

“Nope.”

“Got to stick with it. Fuckers’ll be bitin’ soon.”

“Hope so.”

“You betcha.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I lost another goddamn minnow … you getting any nibbles?”

The same short conversational loops, over and over. Sam kept forgetting about the status of Crow’s marriage. Kept going back to it.

“So how’s that little gal you was with, that Melinda?”

“She’s fine, Sam. We’re separated.”

“I figured. Too damn bad.”

“I know.”

“They ain’t worth chasin’ twice.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Your mama couldn’t stand havin’ me around, y’know. Persnickety as all get-out.”

“Uh-huh.”

“I say hell with’m all.”

They must have had that exchange half a dozen times. Crow couldn’t decide whether Sam was drunk, senile, or trying to make a point. Another favorite exchange went something like this:

“Y’know, son, I got no regrets.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Not that a guy wants it all carved on his rock, understand”

“I bet.”

“Never let ’em push me around.”

“Uh-huh.”

“Always swung back.”

“Right, Sam.”

“Goddamn bastards. I got no regrets.”

The ice-fishing trip had been Sam’s idea. After his evening with Melinda, Crow had returned to his apartment and spent a long, fitful night, never really sleeping, all his energy going to stanch the flow of images flooding his mind. When the phone rang at seven-fifteen in the morning, he had answered it. Sam’s shredded voice had been a welcome distraction.

“Son!”

“Hi, Sam.”

“How come you don’t never call me?”

Crow had sat up in his bed, moving slowly, feeling twangs, stabs, and thuds throughout his body. “Uh,” he said.

“Hell, I ain’t seen you in so long I can’t remember what you look like, son! I’m thinking about making a rim up to Milly today, do some fishing. You want to come?”

Every year, Sam invited him to go ice fishing. And every year, Crow declined. Ice fishing? A sport that served only to get the feebleminded off the streets for three months a year. Much to his own astonishment, Crow had agreed to go. Why not? What else was he going to do?

Now here he was, sitting out on the ice holding a line and staring down through a hole in the ice, listening to a wrinkled, chain-smoking, whiskey-drinking gnome tell him that he had to pretend to be a damn fish.

Sometime during the morning of their second day on the ice, Sam stopped talking. At first, Crow was relieved. They had a run of action and landed three small walleye each, then endured a long silence punctuated only by the sounds of Sam fighting his Pall Malls and unscrewing the cap to his Jack Daniel’s. Crow leaned close over the hole and stared into the dark, fluid world. His minnow, impaled on the hook, hung motionless near the bottom of the lake. The silence grew in length and breadth. Crow raised his head. Sam was quietly smoking, staring down at his hole. A layer of thin blue haze, about two feet thick, cut across his chest. Crow felt a numbness in his ears and wondered whether he was losing his hearing. He cleared his throat, producing a faraway, muffled sound. Suddenly he needed to hear his own voice. He began to speak. He started by telling Sam about the doctor. He spoke slowly, enjoying the way his voice echoed off the corrugated-plastic roof. Sam listened, nodding and grunting at appropriate moments. Crow told him about Ricky Murphy, about feeding the pigs with George Murphy. Told him about Melinda, and about the beating he had taken from Ricky Murphy. Sam sat sipping his whiskey and smoking his Pall Malls, making no comment. After what seemed like a long time, Crow ran out of things to say. He felt as if he’d been pissing for hours and had no fluids left in his body. He looked down through his hole. His minnow twitched. How do they stay alive for so long? he wondered. He tried to imagine himself hanging from a giant hook. How long would he survive? Five minutes? Ten? The giant hook was vivid in his mind, so he put a few other people on it, just to see how they’d look. Bellweather, Ricky Murphy, and Orlan Johnson all expired within seconds, but George Murphy just looked pissed off.

His thoughts drifted, and before he could catch himself he’d slipped back a decade and a half. At the age of nineteen he had devoted himself—briefly—to the study of Zen Buddhism. It took him an entire three weeks to grow impatient with the leisurely pace of Eastern philosophies and opt instead for the more dramatic results available through the magic of the purple microdot. One hit of LSD, and Zen Buddhism came to seem irrelevant. Some of the stories, however, had stayed with him. He recalled one in particular, about a young Japanese student who, seeking enlightenment, sought out a teacher deep in the wilderness. He found the teacher sweeping leaves in the forest, apparently oblivious to the young man’s presence. The young man tried speaking to the teacher but was completely ignored. Eventually, the student went to another part of the forest and began sweeping leaves himself. Years later, he was enlightened. He ran back through the forest to the teacher and said, “Thank you!”

Crow lifted his gaze from the hole in the ice and regarded his father, who appeared to be transfixed by the sight of his fishing line entering the icy water.

No way, he decided.

Something tugged at his line. Crow gave it a yank. No resistance. He reeled in the line. No minnow.

“Got a nibble there, son?”

“Did have.” Crow scooped another minnow from the galvanized bucket and affixed it to his hook.

Sam pulled in his own line and examined his despondent minnow. He lowered it back into the icy water and watched it sink. “That George Murphy fellow, ain’t he the one got you arrested?”

So Sam had been listening after all.

Crow said, “It was Johnson who busted me, but Murphy was behind it. The whole thing was just a way to get back at me for messing with Ricky. I always knew that it was George pulling the strings, but I never met him till a few days ago.” A few days? It seemed like weeks. “When I think back on it, it was just as well. If George and Orlan hadn’t nailed me, I’d’ve done it to myself.”