The Last Death of Jack Harbin (6 page)

Taylor is as excited as a teenager when she stops by my house to pick me up Friday night. She bounces out of the car wearing a blue jean skirt and a green and gold T-shirt, Jarrett Creek school colors. She has scared up her old cheerleader pom-poms, and waves them around with a jaunty dance. “I'm counting on you to not let me get too wild. I'm a wife and mother now, and it won't do for me to get into trouble.”

As soon as we get settled in the stands, people Taylor went to high school with swarm around us. Everyone is chattering, catching up on old times. I don't see Woody and Laurel and I wonder why, since they usually come to the games. I wonder who is going to bring Jack Harbin. Bob always had him here early and they sat right behind the team bench. Bob would keep up a running commentary, and when he ran out of steam, there was always somebody there to pick up where he left off.

It's Walter Dunn who wheels Jack down in front. The team hasn't come out yet. Gabe LoPresto is there, too, and he and Dunn carry Jack up the steps to his seat, and set the wheelchair aside.

You'd get cited for a fire hazard in some stadiums if the wheelchair blocked the aisle, but Panther stadium is made out of local stone. It was built as a WPA project, and is unburnable.

I leave Taylor to her gaggle of friends and go down to spend some time with Jack and his posse. There's no drinking in the stadium, but they're passing around a flask, and I doubt anybody would object.

Walter Dunn scoots over so I can sit down next to Jack. I ask Jack how he's feeling today.

“Okay, I guess. Besides having a hangover, that is. At least Curtis has gone back home. Makes things a little more relaxed.”

“With Curtis gone, have you moved into the house?” I ask Dunn.

He grimaces. “Struck a little bump in the road on that one.”

Jack laughs. “His old lady read him the riot act. Said he had to get his ass back home at night.”

“Me and the boys offered to take turns spending the night,” Dunn says. “But Miz Gant says she'd just as soon make a little extra money and she's not charging much.”

“How's that working out, Jack?”

“I like her,” he says. “She doesn't take any shit off me. And she knows how to laugh.”

Before I can ask what kind of arrangements he has during the day, the crowd starts to holler as the team trots out of the clubhouse.

“There they come,” Dunn says.

“Hanging their heads from last week's loss,” somebody behind us comments.

“Hell, it wasn't their fault,” LoPresto says, turning around. “They've got nothing to be ashamed of.”

I notice Walter Dunn is quiet, and staring at the team, frowning. He leans forward and gets LoPresto's attention and points over at Boone Eldridge. “Is that the coach?”

“That's the SOB that lost the game,” LoPresto says.

“Jack,” Dunn says, “that coach looks like a regular person. The way everybody talked about him after he lost the game last week, I figured he'd have two heads, horns, and scales.”

Everybody laughs. “Might have done a better job if he had two heads,” Jack says.

When the game starts, LoPresto takes on the job of announcing the game for Jack's sake, and I have to admit he'd make a good sports announcer. His chatter is lively and accurate. He's seconded by Alvin Carter, a huge black man whose son plays JV quarterback. The boy is rumored to be a shoo-in for varsity next year, even though he'll only be a sophomore.

During halftime, LoPresto and some others sneak off to do some serious drinking to help them through the second half, but I stay with Jack and Walter Dunn. Dunn reaches into the side pouch of Jack's wheelchair and the two of them avail themselves of a flask they've brought.

“Dunn, it looked to me like you recognized the coach when you saw him earlier,” I say.

“I may have. Did he drive a Harley?”

“Still does as far as I know. People aren't too happy about it. They complain it isn't a good role model for the boys on the team to see the coach roaring around on it.”

“Well I'd argue with them on that,” Dunn says. “A motorcycle's a good means of transportation if it's handled right.”

“I don't have any dog in that fight,” I say. “I'm just telling you what people said.”

“Doesn't make any difference anyway,” Dunn says. “If it's the same guy, he sold the Harley. He and a college kid from College Station came into the shop a couple of weeks back. Coach was selling the Harley to the kid and the kid wanted us to check it out.”

“First I've heard of that,” I say.

LoPresto has come in on the tail end of the conversation. “You know how coach is. He buys a car and then sells it before it's been off the lot six months. Then he had to have that motorcycle. Can't seem to make up his mind.”

LoPresto is happy to get into an argument with Dunn about the relative merits of motorcycles and automobiles, with Jack chiming in as if he knew anything about it.

I look back up in the stands to see how Taylor's getting on. She's the center of a group having a fine time. As I swing back around, I notice a couple of fellows in the stands that I don't recognize. Not that I always know everyone at the games. But these two are dressed a little different, in crisp khaki slacks and leather jackets. It's too warm to wear something that heavy. In their thirties, they both have dark hair, and they both have a sort of sneering look as if they aren't impressed by what they see.

When Gabe LoPresto comes back, I point out the two strangers to him. LoPresto is in the insurance and real estate business and he knows everybody. “You ever seen those fellows?”

He shakes his head. “Never laid eyes on them.”

“You suppose they could be scouting the team?”

“It's a little early in the season for that.” He reaches down a row and taps Dilly Bolton's dad on the shoulder and says something. Bolton doesn't hide the ambition he has for his son's chances at a college scholarship.

Bolton cranes his neck to look at the guys. His eyes are alight. He turns back to LoPresto. “I don't know. Maybe they're scouts, but I didn't call them.” He wouldn't admit it if he did—that's illegal.

“Here they come.” The crowd starts to holler as the team, which is beating poor Burton High School 36-3, rolls back out onto the field.

I glance back once more in time to see the strangers zero in on the team, nudging each other and seeming to take a particular interest.

By the fourth quarter, we're so far ahead that people are straggling out of the stadium. I rejoin Taylor. She makes room for me and puts her arm around my waist.

“You going to talk to Jack?” I ask.

She grimaces. “No. I talked to him last night.”

“I'm surprised he was in any shape to have a conversation.”

“He wasn't. But he called me after I got home, and I went over there.” She turns a forced smile to me.

“He have any idea about how to deal with Curtis?”

“We didn't get around to that.” She stands up. “Let's get out of here. I'm tired. Guess I'm too old for this.”

I promised Laurel that I'd have a talk with Woody, so I go over Saturday morning. Woody and Laurel live in Laurel's old home place, a sprawling octopus of a house that's been added on to every which way. I make my way through a yard littered with all kinds of kid's conveyances, most of them missing a wheel or two.

My knock on the door generates shrieks inside the house that make me steel myself in case I get tackled. But it's Laurel who answers the door. She's laughing. “Come on in. These boys are about to get sent off to the insane asylum at Rusk; or maybe I'll get sent there for strangling them barehanded.”

One of the ruffians in question, a boy of about five, charges up to the door and looks me up and down and bellows, “Howdy Mister!” Then he screams and dashes away.

“I can see your problem,” I say.

“If you're looking for Woody, he's out back. I'll throw some hamburgers into these boys, which may give you two time to talk.”

“It's a little early for lunch, isn't it?”

“Not when you're up at six. On a school day I have to drag them out of bed, but this is Saturday. They get up at the crack of dawn so they don't miss a minute of it.”

She leads me through a minefield of toys to the back door. In some part of the house there's a TV turned on loud, probably Laurel's mother, who lives with them, trying to drown out the racket. I can't even imagine how Laurel's mother would react to having Jack live here.

Out back, Woody is standing in front of his work shed, in the final stages of painting a chest of drawers. He's put a coat of shiny black on the frame and painted the drawers a shade of jade green. I never imagined that Woody would end up making a living refinishing furniture; but turns out he has a knack for it, and he gets orders from as far away as Houston. He's a happy man with a paintbrush in his hand. A couple of scruffy dogs lie in the shade at the side of the shed. They lift their heads to examine me, decide I'm all right, and go back to their nap.

“Chief Craddock, this is a nice surprise. Let me finish this little corner and then I'll be right with you.”

He hums along with a country and western song blaring from his portable radio as he finishes up. Then he steps back to admire the work. “What do you think?”

“Looks good to me.”

He turns down the radio and disappears into the shed for a few minutes to clean his brushes. He comes back out drying his hands just as Laurel pokes her head out and tells us she's got some coffee ready.

We take our coffee to a rickety wooden table and a couple of chairs out under a pecan tree. It's hot, but the trees give us some shade.

I meant to buttonhole Woody at Bob Harbin's funeral, but with the commotion, I didn't have the opportunity. And now that I'm here, I can't think how to approach him without seeming presumptuous.

“Sounds like Coach Eldridge redeemed himself last night,” he says, rescuing me for the moment. “Laurel and I had to go to Bobtail and couldn't make the game.”

He takes a sip of his coffee, grimaces, and tosses the rest of it onto the grass. “The day Laurel learns how to make coffee is going to be a red letter day.”

I grin. I know what he means, having already tried mine and found it tastes like she waved some coffee grounds over a pot of hot water.

We kick around the ups and downs of the game, and go back over the loss to Bobtail with no new information being imparted on either side.

When we wind down, Woody sits back with a speculative expression. “I'm glad we've had a chance to visit, but it's a little unusual for you to drop by. I expect you're here to talk about Jack Harbin.”

I nod. “Laurel came to see me about your idea.”

Woody must be over forty, but I can still see the boy in him. Like Laurel, he has thickened up a little at the belly, and he's got a few lines around the eyes. His daddy is practically bald, and Woody's hairline is sneaking backwards. “I know she doesn't like the idea. So she put you up to talking to me?”

“Women have got more sense than men,” I say. “It's always been that way. And I have to admit I think she's right on this one. Taking care of Jack would be a big job. A lot of the care will fall to Laurel. You've got your mother-in-law and the two boys to think of.”

Woody isn't one to speak on impulse. He takes out a tin of chewing tobacco and tucks a little inside his lower lip, his eyes unfocused. I'd as soon see a man eat mud as chew tobacco.

“She'll come around,” he says, finally.

“I think it would help if she knew what was behind it. Obviously Jack has a big problem with you, for whatever reason. Why do you want to stir things up?”

He tightens down the lid of the tobacco tin and slips it into his pocket. “I just think it's time we bury the hatchet.” He leans over and spits a stream of tobacco juice on the ground. “Jack blames me for what happened to him, because it was me that wanted to sign up for the army, and he went along with it. And by the time we found out they wouldn't take me, it was too late for him to back out. I don't mind shouldering some of the blame, but some of it was plain old bad luck.”

“Taylor said she was as much to blame as you are. What did she mean by that?”

He ponders the question. “I guess Taylor was taken with the idea of us being in uniform. But it's not her fault that Jack got hurt.”

“What makes you think Jack is willing to bury the hatchet now?”

“How else is he going to get taken care of? Pay somebody to be around night and day?”

“All I'm saying is, I wouldn't count on getting him to say yes. Have you talked to Taylor about this?”

Woody picks at a spot of paint on his wrist. “She thinks I'm crazy.” The lazy grin he's famous for creeps across his face. “Women just don't get how it is between men. Jack and I were as close as brothers, and we can be again.”

“Why now? Why not before?”

“Before, he didn't need me.”