Brambleman (7 page)

He pointed to the address on the check.
“There, in a basement apartment, while I’m working on the book.
Live cheap or die. That’s my new motto.”

“There’s something majorly screwy about
this.” Susan bit her lip. “I’m sorry you feel you have to leave.
Must be nice to think you can.”

Not the apology he was looking for. Too much
cheek, not enough knee. “I’ll still take care of the kids,” he
said. “Pick them up, bring them here, fix dinner, leave. How ’bout
it?”

She gave him a harsh glare, worthy of her
grandfather. “And live in another woman’s house?”

He made a face. How could she think such a
thing? “She’s like eighty years old.”

“And you’re being paid over two grand for one
night’s work.” She gave him a wicked sneer.

He left the insinuation hanging.
Yeah, I’m
that good, but what would you know
?

“If you leave, you’re not coming back,” she
added.

“Let’s tell the kids that, then.”

She looked down. “OK. Maybe you’re right. But
I don’t see how you’ll make this work.”

“What I’m doing shouldn’t come as a shock,
you know.”

“I know.” She got up and withdrew to the
living room.

“Let’s call it a trial separation,” he called
out after her. “I’ll come back for the van.”

A while later, Charlie broke the news to the
kids, telling them he’d see them every day after school. During his
tortured explanation of the new arrangement, Beck turned to Ben and
said, “Daddy’s got a job now. When daddies have jobs, they have to
go. Melissa’s dad is gone all the time.”

That was a better explanation than Charlie
could give, so he left it at that. He just wanted a quiet exit—or a
last-minute, heartfelt plea from Susan to stay. Contrition was not
forthcoming, however, so he kept packing. A couple of duffel bags,
three boxes, his bike, and his computer and printer—the basics to
begin a new life. As he was leaving, he saw Susan staring into the
bedroom mirror, pushing up her hair in a new style. Considering her
prospects, no doubt. Perhaps now her prince
would
come. He
decided not to disturb her.

Charlie returned to Bayard Terrace and began
hauling in his gear. Kathleen stood in the doorway, her face a mask
of incredulity, her voice rising in pitch as she spoke. “You’re
staying
here
?”

“Yes,” he said, brushing past her with his
printer. “That’s the arrangement, right?”

She spoke to the back of his head. “You don’t
have anywhere else to live?”

He turned to face her, his expression
troubled. “Not
now
I don’t. I thought we had a deal.” He
paused to consider his options. “I suppose I could make a Xerox of
the manuscript—”

“Oh, no. That’s the only one. It’s not
leaving this house.”

“Not even to make a copy?”

“
Especially
not to make a copy.”

Her position, though daft, served Charlie’s
purposes, so he pressed on, taking the printer into the study. She
followed, complaining, “I don’t like how this is going. I gave you
money and you haven’t done anything except drive my car around,
without me in it.”

“Well, you’d better make up your mind.”

She followed him back outside. Charlie took
his yellow mountain bike off the car carrier and leaned against it.
“Look, Mrs. Talton, I’m going to get some coffee. When I come back,
you can tell me what you’ve decided. I’ll return your money if you
want. But if you give me a chance, I’ll do a good job.”

“Can you get it published?” she asked.

“Sure,” Charlie said blithely, ignoring his
own concerns about the project. “No problem.”

When he hopped on his bike he realized he’d
left his helmet at Thornbriar. No matter. It seemed like he’d
already suffered a major head injury, anyway. The cold air turned
his cheeks red as he rolled down Bayard Terrace to its dead end and
pedaled to Bay Street Coffeehouse, located in a small set of shops
across an alley from the neighborhood post office. He leaned his
bike against a brick wall. When he opened the door, a bell tinkled.
It was a welcoming place, furnished with old couches and mismatched
chairs. Local artists’ paintings hung on the walls, and the place
was crowded with leisurely Saturday-morning sippers.

At the counter, he ordered a large house
blend from a strangely attractive, short-haired, tattooed and
pierced woman of indeterminate age. Nearly as big as he was, she
wore a black T-shirt with the words AMAZON WOMAN across her ample
chest. He gave her two dollars and said, “Keep the change.”

“I’d love to,” the barista said with an
engaging smile, “But it’s two-fifty.”

“Oh.” Even more red-faced, Charlie pulled out
another bill. He sat on an old wooden chair at a square table by
the door and drank his coffee black, brooding over his unraveling
plan. He’d been saved from a terrible fate for some reason, but now
his opportunity for a new life was slipping away. If he failed …
what was the saying?
An apple never falls far from its bridge.
Something like that, anyway
.

When he finished his coffee, Charlie pedaled
up the hill and hauled his bike onto the porch. Kathleen opened the
door with a smile bright as sunshine. “Good, you’re back!
Everything’s set.”

Catching a whiff of Trouble, Charlie eyed her
suspiciously.

“He brought the contract,” she said. “Just
left. Come in and look it over.”

Charlie entered, fighting an impulse to gag
at the lingering stench. He looked over the contract, which was
office-store boilerplate, its blanks filled in with black ink. He
would be paid twenty dollars an hour “to do whatever is necessary
to complete Thurwood Talton’s unfinished historical work.” He would
live in the basement rent-free while performing his duties and
receive “half and only half” of the proceeds from publication. Fair
enough, even generous, if there turned out to be any royalties. He
raised an eyebrow. “You don’t have a problem with this?”

“Of course not. I’ve already signed it.”

“OK.” He pulled out his Waterman fountain pen
and did likewise. “Deal.”

“Deal,” she said, shaking his hand. “Make
yourself at home.”

With the crisis averted, Charlie set up the
computer in Talton’s study, then turned to the basement. In the dim
light that fought its way through the back door’s filthy window
panes, the place looked only slightly less foreboding than it had
at night. He breathed its fetid air, scuffed its crumbling concrete
floor with the toe of his hiking boot, and listened to joists creak
as Kathleen moved around the kitchen above him. He ducked to avoid
overhead pipes. Maybe with a shaved head, he could safely navigate
this place.

Over the next few hours, Charlie cleaned up
his new living quarters. He threw out a ton of refuse: old bed
frames with sharp, rusty edges, sheet metal, fencing, corroded
buckets. The decomposing, moldy mattress came out in pieces, along
with disintegrating books and an ancient Erector set that once
aspired to be a robot. When he nailed up a dark green towel on the
door as a curtain, he realized he’d created the perfect hiding
place.

He had a bathroom of sorts—a tiny shower
stall, a sink with a rusty old faucet, and a toilet that took
forever to refill, surrounded by plywood walls. The shower was too
gross to bother cleaning—it ran only cold water, anyway. He decided
he’d use the Decatur YMCA’s facilities to clean up, since he was a
member and needed to get back in shape anyway—although he had to
admit that cold showers might help him clean up his act. (In fact,
he’d been chastened by the porn debacle with Susan and vowed he
would be Onan the Barbarian no more.)

That afternoon, he took a shower at the Y,
got a crew cut at Fantastic Sams, and bought clothes to create a
new image: Dickies work shirts and pants, like the ones he’d worn
for his summer job at the warehouse during college. At Optical
Shoppe, he bought some offbeat glasses with gray metal frames to
complete his trade unionist look, a statement of rebellion against
the racist Republican politics of the family he’d married into and
the suburbs he’d so recently forsaken.

He also bought a space heater, dehumidifier,
carbon monoxide detector, air purifier, and a new laptop computer,
so he could get out of the house upon occasion. When he plugged his
new gadgets into the basement’s lone outlet, he blew a fuse.
Nevertheless, he embraced his cold, dank home. In this place of
penance he would practice the asceticism his task required. He
would be grim, stern, resolute, unrelenting. He would survive and
prosper in his dungeon.

* * *

Sunday morning, it took Charlie more than an
hour of huffing and puffing to bike over to Thornbriar to retrieve
his van. Susan had taken the kids to church and left him a note
saying, “I will pray for you.”

“Pray for me to
what
?” Charlie said
irritably, wadding up the note. Didn’t she understand that he
wasn’t coming back?

He drove back to Bayard Terrace and spent the
rest of the day reading Talton’s manuscript. That evening, he
accepted Kathleen’s offer of dinner, free food being a welcome
benefit of his new job. As she worked in the kitchen, he sat in the
green chair before the blazing fire. The paper’s Metro section was
open atop the hassock. A small headline on a news brief caught his
eye:

Forsyth County Man Shot to Death

A Cumming man died after being shot in the
chest with his own gun outside the Pancake Hut on Hanover Drive
late Friday night, according to DeKalb County Police. Robert Logan,
27, of 1287 Dahlonega Highway, was pronounced dead at the
scene.

Police seek a suspect, described as a tall,
heavyset white man wearing goggles. Witnesses reported the man
started a confrontation with Logan, grabbing the victim’s hat and
throwing it on a stove burner. Police are asking potential
witnesses …

That wasn’t what happened
! Panic rose
like a rocket from Charlie’s gut to his brain. He told himself that
the guy had been drunk, stumbled on the wet pavement, and shot
himself. So why was everyone blaming him? It was as if Trouble
didn’t exist. There was another reason to worry. If Susan read the
story, she’d pick up on the goggles. So would his in-laws, since
he’d worn them during the Christmas get-together. The Cutchinses
might turn him in, especially if there was a reward. On the other
hand, the varmints didn’t read—at least not
the lyin’ Atlanta
newspaper
. So maybe it would blow over.

“No cops,” he muttered. Trouble’s edict now
seemed like excellent advice since Charlie’s name was on a domestic
incident report, and he was now a suspect in a fatal shooting.

* * *

Charlie awoke Monday to hear women shouting.
He laid on his cot and listened to the kitchen floor creak overhead
as the combatants shifted positions. Angela Talton was back from
Florida, where she’d spent Christmas “with a young redhead that has
a tattoo right above her butt,” according to Kathleen, who
considered her daughter’s holiday trip a betrayal. Apparently,
Angela had issues, too. Charlie couldn’t make out what they were
talking about, but he figured that he was the subject of their
dispute.

He fumbled for his watch. It was 7:13 a.m. He
didn’t want to join a debate that could put him on the street.
Besides, he didn’t have time to fight; he needed to take care of
the kids. He felt an urge to slip out the back door.

But first, he pondered last night’s dream,
about a black farmer facing a lynch mob in broad daylight. Charlie
could recall the scene in photographic detail: The victim, in
overalls and a black felt hat, was riding a mule on a dirt road. A
half-dozen white men blocked his path. They’d come to tell him to
get out of Forsyth County. No, that wasn’t right: They wanted to
kill him because he
refused
to leave. The farmer didn’t flee
or beg for his life. He would die like a man. Good for him.

Charlie went into his nasty lavatory. The
faucet yielded a sputtering blast of arctic water. He wet a cloth
and threw it on his face to shock himself awake, then ran the rag
over his buzz cut. Maybe he’d shower at Thornbriar. After all, he
was entitled to that after renovating the master bath, even if he
had moved out. He stared balefully at the corroded shower stall,
then laughed at the prospect of being kicked out of this place,
which was just a step above sleeping under a bridge.

Wait a minute. It was
definitely
better than sleeping under a bridge (and infinitely preferable to
jumping off one). Furthermore, it was all he had.

His stomach rose to his throat when he
realized Angela might have power of attorney, which would render
moot Trouble’s Office Depot contract. Perhaps she also could have
her mother committed to a nursing home, a prospect Kathleen dreaded
and one Charlie wasn’t fond of, either. It was too late—and would
be too humiliating—to tell Susan to hold off paying those bills. He
needed this gig, which meant he had to go upstairs and solve this
problem. He would be supplicant, diplomat, holy man,
professional—whatever it took.

He slipped on jeans, sweater, and boat mocs,
then stomped loudly up the rickety wooden steps and tried to open
the door at the top, but it was fastened by a hasp on the other
side. He rattled the door as he peered through the crack with his
left eye.

“See,” said Angela. “He could break it down
any time he wanted.”

“Until you locked it, he could come and go as
he pleased,” Kathleen countered. “He’s going to help me around the
house, too, aren’t you, Charles?”

“Yes,” he said, lips to the crack. “May I
come in? Up? Out?”

“By way of leaving,” Angela said. “And only
because I’m curious about the kind of person who would live down
there.”