Grist Mill Road (29 page)

 

MATTHEW

It was a Friday, two days before the Fourth of July, my morning devoid of anything out of the ordinary. I met Tricky at the same spot as always and we spent several run-of-the-mill hours in the Swangums. When Tricky had to leave—earlier than usual for a dental appointment—I hung around on my own for a while, only it turned out shooting soda cans all alone was about as interesting as schoolwork.

Friday was one of my mom's days off from the diner. She and little Billy would probably be at the library sticking crap together with glue, hanging out at Joppenbergh pool or some other kind of summer activity, and I liked the idea of having the house to myself for a few hours, so I left the BB gun under the tarp and trekked back to Split Rock.

Heading back home on my bike, obviously I had no idea that while the start to my day had been perfectly uneventful, my daddy, meanwhile, had pulled off a Friday morning of truly epic proportions, displaying once more—but for the last time ever—his uncanny knack for fucking everything up.

*   *   *

SOME EIGHT WEEKS EARLIER, MY
daddy had been sitting in O'Sullivan's Dive Inn, enjoying a few quiet beverages, when
he'd noticed that the customer parked on the barstool beside him was showing some form. When my daddy was in a good mood he liked to order George Thorogoods—named for that song of his
One Bourbon, One Scotch, One Beer
—and once the bartender slid the three drinks over to him, my daddy would line up the glasses and offer to take on challengers to beat him in a race.

Well, that night early in May, my daddy's drinking neighbor turned out to be none other than Bobby Jensen, brother to Hannah Jensen, and the son of Walt Jensen, proprietor of Jensen Royal Cement, the last place in town still producing what had once been the lifeblood of Roseborn. So Bobby and my daddy proceeded to have some fun, downing their drinks while George Thorogood hollered away on the jukebox. They shot the breeze and breezed the shots, and then at some point they got to talking about the cement business, Bobby mentioning in passing that one of Jensen's employees, who happened to be his brother Pauly's regular pot dealer, had got hitched to a girl from Buffalo and moved up there to work in a steel mill.

To be fair to my daddy, even liquored up, he had enough smarts about him to recognize a potential lucky break when he saw one, and on the spot, he offered to supply as much pot to Pauly Jensen as he wanted if the brothers could swing the cement plant position his way.

I'd be surprised if my daddy had
drug dealer
on his r
é
sum
é
at that point, but whatever else he was, he was a hard bastard. I can imagine him making the short trip north in his car the very next day, rocking up to the seediest neighborhood in Kingston, and saying to the first local he came across,
Take me to your dealer
.

Anyway, just a few days later, my daddy would simultaneously embark upon two new careers, cement worker and dope pusher, managing to keep both jobs for as long as two whole months, Walt Jensen turning a blind eye to the pot dealing, as he always had by most accounts, and if my daddy had only stopped there, my humdrum Friday morning would have remained nothing more than the start of another unremarkable day.

However, at some point back in June, five or six weeks into the
job, my daddy had got to thinking about the profits to be made from marijuana—low-cost, slow burn—versus the profits that might be made from cocaine—luxury product, gone in a sniff—and probably if Pauly liked one he'd be a good target audience for the other. Moreover, wasn't cocaine a stimulant that was popular with drinkers, a kind of symbiosis made in heaven? Every time he took on Bobby Jensen over another round of George Thorogoods, my daddy made him look slower than pond water, so maybe Bobby could do with a little help from the white lady. Sure, why support just one brother's lifestyle choice when he might support both?

No doubt it seemed like a capital idea, and one day in June, my daddy headed up for a business meeting with his new colleagues in Kingston. The time had come for a little diversification.

So now my daddy was working at an industrial plant producing large bags of gray powder while also pushing small bags of white powder, not only to two of his employers but also, by all accounts, to a number of coworkers.

Unfortunately this was one enterprise too far for Walt Jensen. Maybe he'd been hearing rumors and keeping an eye on my daddy, or maybe he just stumbled by accident upon the transaction. Either way, on the morning of Friday, July 2, Walt Jensen came across my daddy taking a sly cigarette break out back while, in his company, Walt's sons Bobby and Pauly were handing over the greenbacks for enough white powder to make their July Fourth weekend go off with one hell of a bang. At which point, the last remaining cement baron of Roseborn fired my daddy's ass on the spot.

I heard all of this from my mom many years later, who told it to me while sipping away at her third Beam of the afternoon, but my daddy's next few hours on earth are a part of the story gathered by the police and recounted in print by the
Roseborn Gazette
. Apparently, the first thing my daddy did after losing his job was drive over to O'Sullivan's Dive Inn, at which point normal service ensued. However, after starting a bar fight, he was kicked out sometime around two in the afternoon. Reportedly, not long after this he purchased a fifth of Four Roses at the liquor store over
on the other side of town, where he was seen drinking straight from the bottle as he gunned out of the parking lot.

However, the police could find no one to tell them what happened after my daddy's first three jobless hours—or at any point up until the next morning, when his body was discovered by two hikers—but I could have told the police everything, such as where he went next, for example. After hitting the gas and necking his whiskey, he drove home.

*   *   *

AFTER THREE MONTHS OF HIS
doubly gainful employment, I'd become almost accustomed to my daddy being at work until five at the very earliest, so when I arrived back from the Swangums, sometime around four, I didn't even check to see if his car was behind the pallet pile—which, of course, it was.

The house was quiet when I walked in, and although I suppose there might have been signs that my daddy had returned, I wasn't looking out for them. From the living room you could see my parents' bedroom, but you couldn't see their bed. I guess he was lying there passed out when I arrived.

Maybe I made myself a PB&J or ate some pickles from the jar or watched TV, I don't really remember, my day was still in its everyday phase. At some point I heard a knock on the door and went to answer it. When I opened the door, Hannah Jensen was standing there.

Damn, she looked cute—and actually I'd been thinking about Hannah ever since my mom had mentioned her visit the day before. I certainly wasn't going to give up having fantasies about you, Pete, or stop hoping those fantasies might come true, but in the short term this now seemed unlikely. Although I'm not going to say that Hannah had become my plan B—because in some sense, you were both my plan A.

Hey, Hannah, I heard you came looking for me yesterday, I said, before turning and jumping on the sofa. You wanna hang out? I said.

When Hannah stepped inside, I detected a look of disgust on
her face, but that didn't faze me. Sure, we lived in a crappy home full of crappy veneer and even crappier furniture—why wouldn't she be disgusted? Plus, I knew Hannah lived over in the rich part of town, everyone in Roseborn knew about the Jensen property, that place was supposed to be some kind of palace. So anyway, I didn't mind the disgust, even though it seemed pretty rude walking into someone's home with a look on your face like you wanted to gag.

Come on in, I said, sit down.

The only place left to sit was the armchair, which was bandaged up with duct tape to prevent the stuffing spilling out. Hannah walked over looking all prim, like she was afraid of catching cooties, and sat down in a way that left as little of her body in contact with the chair fabric as possible.

I found this cute as well.

Then it occurred to me that maybe she wasn't disgusted by the furniture. I gave her a second look, perched at the edge of the seat with her arms folded like she needed to keep herself warm. Wait, perhaps she was just nervous.

Hey, what's up, Hannah? I said.

You know it's not right, she said.

What's not right?

It's illegal.

Hannah saying
illegal
kind of turned me on—it meant she had come to my house for more than a kiss. Now wasn't that something to think about. I got off the couch and went over to her.

Hannah scooted back in the chair.

Still thinking she was just nervous, I knelt down and put my hands on the arms of the chair, leaning forward to kiss her, thinking that's what she wanted, the precursor to something excitingly illegal. So what happened next came as a complete shock.

Hannah screamed.

It's OK, it's OK, I said, trying to sound reassuring.

Her face was all twisted up, as if she couldn't decide whether to kiss me or spit in my eye. I didn't understand—at least, not for another few moments.

That's when she yelled it right in my face.

You're disgusting, Matthew.
Disgusting
! I saw what you did with that man!

What? I said, feeling something drain out me. What man? I said.

Now that Hannah had released this secret of hers, all of her words came flying out fast. I saw what you did, she screamed. You went to his house and I saw him undress you, I only came here yesterday because I thought you liked me and I thought I liked you, but I don't like you, Matthew, you're disgusting.

Wait, Hannah, I said, what are you talking about? It wasn't like that.

Liar, she said, her eyes flashing with fury. I saw you, she shouted, I saw you with my own eyes.

Really? I said, becoming angry myself now, leaning forward so that soon both of us were up in each other's faces. What did you see? What exactly did you see, Hannah?
What?

How often since then have I tried to make sense of her answer, tried to imagine looking in from the outside, from Hannah's sliver of window? You pulling the T-shirt over my head and reaching for the bruises on the far side of my body, you falling back in your armchair, me burying my face in your lap and my head starting to move. How long did Hannah stay there before she ran from the window, her head full of fiction, and how many times did she think it through, the picture building and building overnight, her mind sketching in lines that her eyes hadn't seen, fueling the lie that would change our lives forever?

She screamed it loud.

I saw you take him in your mouth. I saw you give that disgusting old pervert a blow job!

That was the precise moment my daddy came out of the bedroom.

*   *   *

WHAT THE FUCK YOU SAY?

She twisted around as he teetered out, Hannah's body turning instantly stiff.

I said what the fuck you say, girl? My daddy was advancing on Hannah with a demeanor I knew only too well. I stood up to block his way, but a split second later I was staggering backward, struggling for breath, the recipient of an expertly placed punch to the middle of my torso.

My daddy took Hannah by the hair and damn near lifted her out of the armchair.

What the fuck you say about my boy? You say it again. Again.

Hannah's body was shaking, her lips trembling and her mouth sputtering. She couldn't say a word.

My shoulders were up against the wall and it was taking me a while to recover, but when finally I was able to breathe again, I sniffed hard, wiped my lips with the back of my hand, and ran at my daddy, a low growl coming from my throat.

He let go of Hannah, made a quick turn, and caught me by the neck with both hands, choked me a while and then kneed me in the groin before tossing me easily to the ground. I lay on the carpet moaning in agony and gasping for air.

Now Hannah was quivering as if she were being jabbed at with a cattle prod, tears streaming from her eyes, her knees clenched together. My daddy leaned in at her until the tip of his nose was almost touching her face and said, Little girl, did I actually just hear you accuse my firstborn of bein a homo? Is that what you said fore I came in the room? Did I hear
blow job
? Say it again, girl. Again.

Hannah closed her eyes and shook her head, a high and terrified sound coming out of her throat, and then suddenly my daddy leaped away from her, bounding over to me instead. Before I knew it, he was sitting on my thighs, pinning me down by the shoulders. Who is he? he yelled.

Fuck you, I said.

My daddy punched me in the ribs. Who the fuck is he?

Fuck you, I said.

This time he punched me on the other side, working my liver.

We repeated the procedure a few more times before my daddy got up and started pacing around the room, rubbing his face and
running his hands through his hair. Hannah was curling herself tighter and tighter in the armchair, and then my daddy strode over to her and in a loud whisper said, Don't you dare move one goddam fuckin muscle, girl. I'll kill you both, that's God's word.

I started to claw my way across the floor toward Hannah, but I wasn't able to move all that fast. I could hear the sound of several drawers rattling and slamming, and soon a victorious cry,
There you are, bitch,
before my daddy came back in the room pushing a silver magazine into the heel of a black pistol I never even knew he owned.

I just assumed he was going to shoot me, and right then I was hurting and gasping so hard, it didn't seem like the worst idea in the world, but I caught my breath pretty fast when he went and stood beside the armchair, lifted the pistol, racked the slide, and pointed the gun straight at Hannah's head.