A Hard and Heavy Thing (36 page)

Nick felt his house was no longer his own. Charity and love—not to mention no small bit of guilt and a sense of great indebtedness—had forced him to share his home with his old friend. The friend who had saved his life. This guitar-playing, poetry-writing, heavy-drinking, smug, and broody war hero who years earlier had a real thing for his wife. The crazy friend who by coming back into his life automatically made it more complicated, more difficult, more dangerous, and more unpredictable. And this, Nick thought, is how Levi always shows up: He consumes attention; he monopolizes frames of vision; he steals oxygen from fires; he's all anyone can ever see.

When Nick woke in mid-morning, he found Eris drinking coffee and surfing the web at the kitchen table. He poured himself a cup and opened the freezer to get some ice so he didn't have to wait for his coffee to cool before drinking it. He saw a frosted bottle of Absolut in the freezer.

He held it up. “This yours?”

She looked surprised, and then hurt. “Of course not.”

“Need anything washed?” he asked her.

“You're going to do laundry?” she asked.

“I do laundry sometimes.”

She closed the laptop and stood up. She had already showered and dressed. She hugged him and buried her head in his chest. Her hair smelled like Herbal Essences and he loved it. “You're such a liar. But really, it's not that big a deal.”

“I know,” he said. “But I don't want it to become one.”

The only laundry Nick could find in need of washing were the clothes they had worn the day before, which barely filled a basket to halfway. He grabbed the bottle from the freezer, put it in the nearly empty basket, and he took it downstairs, feeling a bit silly. He made sure to stomp loudly as he walked, so he didn't inadvertently surprise Levi in a moment that required privacy.

Levi sat on the bed, leaning against the wall, a book in his lap. He glanced up at Nick as he came down the stairs. Nick lifted the basket as if explaining why he would enter his own basement. Levi looked back down at his book while Nick scurried into the laundry room.

When he returned to the stairs, Nick saw that on the wall of the landing at the bottom of the stairs, Levi had hung the medals his parents framed and presented to him. He paused to look at it more closely, surprised he hadn't seen it on his way down. He turned to look at Levi and realized that his friend had been watching him.

Levi said, “What?”

The way Levi stared at him, the immediacy with which Levi hung the medal on the wall, and the placement right at the landing where anyone coming down would be eye-to-eye with it, the complete and absolute heavy-handedness of it seemed like a threat to Nick. It seemed like Levi was a dog marking his territory or asserting his dominance, but more than that, it seemed like Levi didn't want anyone to miss that fact. The medals hanging on the wall was a statement that proclaimed: Say something; I dare you.

“Nothing,” Nick said. He took a few steps into the room. “Sorry if I bothered you.”

Levi raised his eyebrows, obviously expecting something more. “Don't mind me,” he said. “It's your house.” His eyes dropped down to the vodka bottle in Nick's hand. Say something; I dare you.

“Just doing laundry.” Nick knew it was a stupid and obvious thing to say, but he felt like he was back in high school trying to make a new friend. “Sorry I haven't been around to hang out much,” he said. “Been working a lot.”

“No worries, dude.”

“Whatchya been up to?”

“Not much. Trying to get acclimated I guess.”

Nick looked around the room. Levi had a pile of books stacked next to the bed. His footlockers sat closed at its end. Two restaurant to-go boxes sat opened on the folding card table adjacent to the bed, both of them encrusted with the remains of some type of beans and rice.

“Listen,” Nick said holding up the bottle. “I know I told you to make yourself at home, and I meant it, but I can't let you keep alcohol in the house.”

“You own a bar,” Levi said, as if that fact alone made Nick's statement ridiculous, which Nick had to admit, in a way, it did.

“No, you're right. Yeah. I just—I didn't tell you before because it's kind of a sore subject, but Eris kind of has—well, she's had some problems and she's on the wagon now. She doesn't ever come to the bar. It wouldn't be a good idea for us to keep booze in the house.”

Levi closed his book and set it down next to him before pushing off the bed and standing. “I'm sorry. You never said anything about it.” He walked over and grabbed the bottle.

“No. Not your fault. How could you know?”

“I couldn't,” Levi said. He stared at Nick, as if he were examining him. He stared so long, Nick looked away in discomfiture like a submissive dog.

He turned to head back upstairs.

Levi called after him. “Do you want me to leave?”

Nick saw the medal again. He took a deep breath, closed his eyes for a moment, opened them, and turned back to Levi. “Been looking for work by any chance?”

“If this is a problem, I can get a different place, or I can pay rent. Like, that's not a problem. I've saved up a lot.”

“No, not at all,” Nick said as a matter of reflex, though some additional cash flow would help them out a lot. “No problem. I was just wondering.” Worried that he had caused offense, he blurted out, “It's just that Eris has been bugging me to hire a manager. Problem is, I haven't been able to find anyone I trust. I was thinking now that you're back—” Nick let his voice trail off.

Levi put his hands in his pockets and looked down at the floor and then back up at Nick. He pursed his lips and scrunched his eyes. “I don't know,” he said. “I don't know anything about that kind of business.”

“Well,” Nick said, selling it harder than he had intended. “You know how to lead people and I trust you. That's like 99 percent of it right there. I can teach you the simple day-to-day stuff. I mean, like, a monkey could run the place if I could trust him.”

“No offense, but I don't really—”

“No it's cool.”

“And I've kind of already got a job doing this online writing slash editing thing on a freelance basis.”

“Yeah, no problem. Sure. No. Sorry I brought it up.” Nick turned to go back upstairs. “Don't be a stranger, okay? Don't just be the ghost in the basement, okay?”

Levi's head snapped back in surprise. “Okay, yeah. Sure.”

Over the course of the next week, Levi came into the bar to eat a burger and make small talk on several different occasions. The following week, he came in one time and left after having two drinks in silence. The week after that, he didn't come in at all. Entire weeks disappeared.

Eris brought it up to Uncle Thomas as they ate brunch after church one Sunday in late March.

“Why don't you say something?” Uncle Thomas said, looking at Nick accusingly.

“You guys don't talk,” Eris said. “Friends are supposed to talk to each other. No one talks. If you guys would just talk about how you feel.”

Nick looked over to Uncle Thomas. “If it bothers her so much, why doesn't she say something? Why doesn't she talk to him?”

“I never even see him,” she said. “He's always gone by the time I get home.”

“He's not hurting anyone,” Nick said.

The same nights kept playing themselves out. Nick's new dreams continued. He drove in a Humvee. He craved a cheeseburger. An explosion widened his eyes. The weight of another man's arm lay heavy on his chest. He continued to awaken with the realization that the concussions were only the slamming of doors. “When are you going to do something about that?” Eris would ask. His acquiescence melted with the snow as his nightmares, the loud late-night arrivals, and the complaints from Eris continued.

He began doing more laundry. Each time he limped down the stairs he planned on telling Levi off. Giving him the business. Telling him he needed to get it together. Get a job. Get a life. Get some friends. Stop drinking so much. Stop being the weird freak in the basement. Snap out of it. Each time he walked down, he saw the frame as a reminder that he owed Levi more than a little patience. Sometimes he wanted to tear the medal off the wall. Sometimes he craved violence again. He just wanted to do
something.

Levi grew larger and larger, and Nick kept getting smaller and smaller.

She had only wanted to invite him to their Sunday breakfast, to get him out into the world. She sensed he needed that. The lamp by his bed was on. A hardcover copy of
One Hundred Years of Solitude
lay on the floor with the cover up, pages bent, and spine splayed as if it had fallen from the bed. Levi lay on his stomach, one arm under his pillow, one arm hanging over the edge of the bed. His laptop sat open on one of the footlockers. One of his shoulder blades stuck up in a jagged peak on his bare back. His mouth was slightly open. He looked peaceful, like a skinny, sleeping child.

She tapped on the doorjamb with her knuckles. In the sudden way that a viper grabs a mouse, he rolled up and extended his arms in front of him. The violence of action, the quickness of the movement surprised Eris, and it took her a moment to realize what had happened.

She stood still—more stunned than scared—until she realized that what he held was a gun. The muscles in his arms were like ropes. The lines of his face were hard and angular, almost to the point of being gaunt. His torso was not large, but his chest was tawny and defined. His abs were hard. His cheeks were hollow and his eyes were as cold and unflinching as granite, or as the steel of what he held in his hands. She did not recognize the boy she had known for such a large part of her life years ago. For the first time, she saw him for what he now was: a hard man, a soldier, a killer.

He looked, in a way, as if he didn't know who she was. He looked as if he didn't know who he was. In that moment, she turned and ran.

She shook Nick awake with one hand as she bawled and wiped away tears with the other. “Get up,” she cried. “Get up and get him out of here.”

Nick jumped up, flinging the covers off the bed. “What? Why? Calm down.”

She shoved him hard. “Calm down?” Sobbing, she punched the front of his shoulder with a closed fist. She hurt her knuckle when she caught the edge of his clavicle, so she punched him again. “He pulled a gun on me. Don't tell me to calm down.”

“Wait. What?” Nick squirmed into a pair of jeans and stepped into his unlaced boots. “Who pulled a gun on you?”

“Levi.” She crossed the room and grabbed a tissue from the dresser and wiped her eyes and blew her running nose. “He pulled a gun on me and you brought him here.”

“Slow down. Are you sure? Tell me what happened.” He pulled a T-shirt over his head.

She spoke rapidly with her exhale. “I went down to ask him to breakfast with us. I thought it would be nice.” She gulped because she had run out of air. “And when I tapped on his door, he was holding a gun on me, and he had a crazy look in his eye.”

“And then what? Did he actually point it at you? Did he put it down when he saw you?”

“No. Not at first.” She gulped. “Maybe. I don't know. What difference does it make? He has a gun down there, Nick. A gun.”

Nick, who had woken in a panic of rage, seemed to have deliberately slowed his movements. He stepped to her and enveloped her in his arms. She cried against his chest. As he held her, he took slow, deep breaths in sharp contrast to her own.

“Calm down,” he said. “He didn't shoot you. I'm sure he didn't mean it. You probably just startled him.”

She pushed him away. “Don't tell me to calm down.” Her voice rose in pitch and intensity. “I have a gun pulled on me in my own house and you tell me to calm down? I've had enough of your tiptoeing around.” She stepped up to him and put her index finger in his chest. “It's time you pulled yourself together and went down there and told your friend to pull himself together.” She tapped his chest for emphasis with each reflexive pronoun.

“Don't,” he said. “Don't.” He grabbed her hand and pressed it back down to her side. He did it firmly and with force, but there was no doubt he was in control of himself. He did it without anger. He walked past her and walked toward the basement.

She followed and stayed at the top of the stairs, watching until he was down and into the next room. She stopped halfway down. She listened.

“I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry,” she heard Levi say. “I'm packing up and then I'm gone, okay? I'm sorry.”

She walked down the rest of the way and peeked into the room from around the doorjamb.

The pistol lay on the side of the bed, on top of the plush comforter. Nick walked in and picked it up off the bed. He turned it in his hands and barely looked at it. He released the magazine from the well and pulled back on the top of the pistol. A round flew up and he caught it deftly. Eris was surprised at how comfortable he looked with the weapon. He returned the round to the magazine and tossed it on the bed. He then tossed the pistol on the bed like it was nothing worth worrying about. Like it was nothing more than an inert piece of steel.

Like riding a bicycle,
she thought to herself. She marveled at this part of Nick that she had never thought about, had never allowed herself to think about too deeply.

Nick sat on the edge of the bed and folded his hands. “What if you had shot her?” He said it in a voice near a whisper.

“She's overreacting. I didn't shoot her. I didn't even point it at her.” Levi paced around the room grabbing books and clothes, stuffing food trays into a garbage bag. “Our story has enough guns without another one going off,” he muttered.

“What?” Nick said.

Levi stopped his frantic movement and stood still. “Look. If you're expecting some big dramatic breakdown from me, some violent episode to show how psycho I am, it's not going to happen. I'm in control, okay.” He moved to the footlockers and tried closing one. He fought to keep the lid down as the rumpled clothes pressed against it. “A gun can serve a purpose without ever going off.”