How Evan Broke His Head and Other Secrets (20 page)

“What union?”

“She was a lawyer for the Pickers and she beat the Growers down so hard they had to hire her just to stop her.”

“I didn’t know—”

“They used to slash her tires in the parking lot when we went out to dinner. One time they sent a guy to beat her up.”

“What? What did she do?”

“Mace.”

“Well—”

“I saw it. She sprayed him right in the face.”

“That’s—”

“If someone’s gonna try to bully me down, I’m gonna fight him. I’m gonna fight.”

“That’s okay, ” Evan says warily.“You just have to be careful.”

“Mom said there are some things you can’t let go. You can’t let them back you down. She never backed down.”

And now she’s dead, Evan thinks. Maybe the car accident was a fix. Maybe she was taken out by the Growers. No. Not even the best hit man in the world could orchestrate that. But maybe Tracy had become so used to trouble that she could find it wherever she went. Maybe that’s why it was her car that ended up face-to-face with that truck.

“I didn’t know your mother like you did, ” Evan says, “but if she was fighting for a cause, that’s one thing. You were playing hockey. It’s not worth fighting over a bad call in street hockey, Dean. Not when the referee is the other kid’s father.”

Dean sucks in his cheek and looks away.

“Yeah, ” he says.“That’s what my mom would have said.”

Inside, Evan gives himself a high five. Scored a goal on that one.

“Would she have said anything else? I don’t want to miss anything.”

“She would have told me the sport was too rough and that I was smaller than everyone else so I shouldn’t be playing it at all. Maybe I should try out for the swim team. Then I’d be competing against myself.”

“Really?”

“Probably.”

“Is it okay if I skip that part?”

“Yeah.”

They round the corner onto their street. Perfect timing.

E
VAN WAITS UNTIL Dean is long asleep before he sneaks down the hallway and into Tracy’s office. He closes the door quietly and takes a moment to orient himself. The fold-out bed is against one wall, opposite a desk with a computer on it. Next to the desk is a large file cabinet, on which sits a printer/fax/copier/waffle iron. The sliding doors of the closet reveal winter clothes hanging in dry cleaner bags, winter boots on the floor, and file boxes on the shelf above.

Evan doesn’t know what he’s looking for. Clues, maybe. Evidence of a life lived. Something that will lead him somewhere, tell him something, show him a side of Tracy that he can use to solidify his burgeoning relationship with Dean.

He opens the file cabinet; her files are orderly. Her life is neatly chronicled in individual, alphabetized, color-coded folders. One by one, he removes them and examines their contents. He checks each piece of paper for clues, each invoice that is marked PAID with a little red stamp and a check number and date written in ballpoint pen, each mortgage statement, each brokerage report. He learns everything about her. Her mortgage originated two years ago: a five-year ARM. She has an investment portfolio with thirty-thousand dollars in it, half in mutual funds, a quarter in the money market, a quarter in stocks. (Why so much in the money market?) She has an IRA with eighteen-thousand dollars in it, a custodial account for Dean with five-thousand, probably planning ahead for college. There are bank statements, medical insurance bills, charitable giving—she gave a thousand dollars to a home for battered women, bought a hundred-dollar ticket to a Cancer Society fundraising dinner, donated $225 worth of old clothes and furniture to a church thrift shop.

He gives up on the file cabinet and turns to the closet. He takes down the banker’s boxes on the top shelf. They are filled with papers, files, literature, photos from trips to the Columbia River Gorge, tape recordings of lectures from college. (But not from Reed. From Central Washington University. Interesting . . .)

The desk drawers are crammed with paper-clips, pencils, envelopes, stationery, deposit slips, certified mail receipts from tax returns sent to Los Angeles half a decade ago, dried-up Sharpies, an old cell phone, emery boards with nail tracks on them, an old
New
York
magazine that proudly proclaims “Where To Eat Now” on its cover, catalogs from a million different catalog stores, a transcript from high school, clear laser labels of different sizes, more boxes of staples, Post-its, a bottle of Scotch (from which Evan thinks hard about having a pull), a disposable camera with three exposures left . . .

. . . an old Rolodex.

He takes the Rolodex and flips through it. The cards are dog-eared and yellowed. He finds himself. He’s in there. She has his address listed as his parents’ house, but his parents’ phone number is crossed out and his apartment phone is written below it. Next to the number is a date: the month and year Evan moved into his grandfather’s apartment. He still finds it hard to believe that he owned the place for eight years before he finally wrestled free of his parents’ insistence that he live at home.

Who else? Other names, none of which he knows. SMITH, FRANK AND ELLEN. A Yakima address. A second card with their Walla Walla address. Interesting. SMITH, BRAD. COOS BAY, OREGON.

Coos Bay. So that’s where Brad is. Evan picks up the phone and calls Coos Bay Information. The woman gives him the same number that’s on the Rolodex. And then, before Evan knows it, the computer connects the number. And before Evan can stop it, the phone is ringing. He quickly glances at the clock. Two A. M. Welcome to the Thunderdome.

“This better be good, ” Brad answers. “I’ll count to three: one, two—”

“Evan Wallace.”

Long pause.

“Evan. What took you so long?”

“Screwing up my courage.”

“Ah, yeah, ” Brad groans. He’s sitting up in bed and rubbing his eyes, Evan can hear it.

“Coos Bay, ” Evan says.

“Coos Bay.”

“What are you doing in Coos Bay, Brad?”

“Why are you calling me at two A. M., Evan?”

“I asked first.”

The line goes dead. Evan was just joking around and he hangs up? Short enough fuse? He dials again.

“What do you want, Evan?”

“Sorry, I was just—”

“What do you
want
, Evan?”

“I want to know what happened, ” Evan says. He’s got the oracle on the phone, now he has to get the prophecy.

“You’re a smart kid, Evan, ” Brad says. “You know what happened. You tell me.”

“Tracy got pregnant. She had the baby. Your father moved you guys away. That’s all I know. That’s what happened.”

Silence. As if Brad is waiting for more.“Okay, Evan, ” Brad finally chuckles, “if that’s the way you see it. Okay.”

“What, then?”

“Nothing, man. It is what it is. So why are you calling me, then?”

“I need to know about Tracy. I don’t know anything about her. What did she do? Who was she?”

“She was Tracy. That’s all. The thing about Tracy was that she was always Tracy. Nobody could ever make her be anyone else.”

“I don’t—”

“She was a lawyer, Evan. Is that what you want to know? She was a lawyer. After high school, she moved with my parents to Yakima. I left when they all moved. That was my chance; I took off. She moved with them. How could she not? She had a baby. After a couple of years of dealing with the kid, she went to college. CWU, in Ellensburg, not far from Yakima.”

“She wanted to go to Reed, ” Evan says.

“We
all
wanted to go to Reed, Evan. How many of us went?”

“So?”

“So after college she started working with single mothers in Yakima. She got really involved; she was a social worker for a year or two, until she got fed up with everything and got into law school at Washington State. She wanted to change the world. Our mother raised Dean while she was away. She came back, changed the world, did good things, everyone lived happily ever after. Right?”

“You skipped something, ” Evan says.

“What did I skip, Evan? Tell me.”

Evan thinks hard. There’s something wrong with the time line. She left high school. Took care of Dean for a couple of years. Went to college. Worked for a couple of years. Went to law school . . . That’s about eleven years. Dean is only fourteen years old. Dean hasn’t seen Frank for five years. At some point—

“Where’s the flaw, Evan? Tell me.”

“Dean hasn’t seen his grandparents for five years.”

“That’s good, Evan.”

“There’s not enough time for her to have finished law school while your parents were looking after Dean. She never could have finished.”

“You’re smart, Evan. That’s right. There was a small problem, wasn’t there?”

“What was it?”

“You tell me, ” Brad says.

“Frank, ” Evan says.

“What about Frank?”

“Abuse?” Evan asks.

“Okay, I’ll say ‘warm’ when you’re getting close and ‘cold’ when you’re going the wrong direction: your hand is on fire right now.”

“Frank was beating Dean.”

“Ouch. Put out the fire, Evan. You’re too close.”

“He was just a kid, ” Evan says.

“Yeah, you’re right. Think about that for a minute, Evan. He was just a kid.
Your
kid. And you weren’t protecting him.”

“I didn’t know.”

“Sure. The Germans said the same thing. They didn’t know.”

“Go on, ” Evan says.“Tell me.”

“So Tracy came home one vacation and saw what had happened.”

“What happened?”

“You don’t know? You know.”

“Frank hit Dean.”

“‘Hit’ is a good euphemism.”

“Punched?” Evan ventures.

Brad doesn’t answer for a moment.

“You ever watch boxing, Evan?”

“Yeah, sometimes.”

“Yeah, well, you know how it’s illegal for one guy to hold the back of the other guy’s head while punching him?”

“Yeah.”

“Do you know why?”

Of course Evan knows why. Because if a fist hits a head and the head recoils, the energy of the blow is diminished. But if someone is holding the head, there’s nowhere for the energy of the blow to go but
into
the head.

“I know why, ” he says.

“Okay, then. Next question.”

“Is that what happened?”

“Next question.”

“Brad, is that what happened?”

“Don’t make me hang up on you, Evan. I won’t answer again.
Next question
.”

Evan takes a deep breath. He wants more information. He can’t piss Brad off yet.

“Did she finish law school?” he asks.

“She did.”

“That must have been hard.”

“It was.”

“That’s when Frank and Ellen moved to Walla Walla?”

“Good, ” Brad says.“You’re doing great.”

“Then what?”

“You tell me.”

“I need help, ” Evan says.

“She started out working for the union, the apple pickers union. She did a great job. Too great.”

“What do you mean?”

“The growers sent someone to have a little talk with her. She defended herself fine, but she realized that it wasn’t worth it. She didn’t want to worry that one day her house might get burned down because some disgruntled grower was pissed that she got an extra five-minute bathroom break for the pickers, you know?”

“Which house?” Evan asks.“The house I’m in now?”

“You’re in Yakima? Good for you. No, not that house. She was renting a dump somewhere else. The house you’re in was her reward.”

“You lost me.”

“It wasn’t worth it, ” Brad says “
I
told her it wasn’t worth it. So she took their offer.”

“The growers.”

“They weren’t stupid. They knew how smart she was, so they offered her a bunch of money to join their side. They created some new post for her, ‘worker advocate’ or something. It was all a sham, of course, but it was an irresistible sham. She jumped ship. Everything that she stood for. She chucked it all for money. Money does strange things to people, Evan. But I cut her slack on that. She had Dean to worry about, after all. And Dean didn’t have a father.”

“That was two years ago, ” Evan says.

“Very good, Evan.”

“When she bought her house. She bought her house two years ago, didn’t she?”

“Excellent.”

“Suddenly she had a lot of money. Investment account, IRA, college account for Dean.”

“You’ve been doing research, Evan. I’m impressed. Can I go back to sleep?”

“No, ” Evan says.

“There’s something about you, Evan, ” Brad says. “I don’t know. I can see what she saw in you, to a certain extent. I mean, you seem like you don’t know what’s going on, but deep down you know exactly what’s going on, don’t you? That’s the double-edged sword, Evan. I like you for it, but I also hate you for it, you know?” Evan. I like you for it, but I also hate you for it,

“She was really smart, ” Evan says.“Go on.”

“Yeah, she was smart, but she was also stupid. He used to beat the crap out of me, but the second I had a chance, I was out of there. He used to hit Tracy, too, but she never left. Why not?”

“He never hit her.”

“Yes he did, Evan.”

“No—”

“Body shots. Nothing that couldn’t be covered with a T-shirt.”

“No—”

“Dude, what’s your deal?” Brad suddenly shifts, the tone of his voice changes.

“My
deal?
”

“Your deal. What is it? I mean, you gave her money to have the abortion, she told me all about that.”

“Well, yeah.”

“And then you stopped calling. You never called her. She was up all night, every night, crying, trying to hide being pregnant, and you never called her. What were you thinking?”

“She wanted the abortion.”

“She
said
she wanted the abortion. Theoretically she wanted the abortion. But did she
really
want the abortion?”

“Well, how am I supposed to know something like that?”

“I don’t know, Evan. By
calling
her and asking?”

“But I—”

“Hey, Evan, did I tell you I heard your song on the radio? They were playing it all the time for a while. Remember that?”

“Yeah.”

“Tracy heard it, too. She called me and was practically crying into the phone she was so proud of you, you fuck.”

“What?”

“Why didn’t you ever call her, you fuck?”

“She—”

“Fuck you. She didn’t do anything. You came to see her in the hospital, which was totally inappropriate, by the way. I saw you there. I saw you pressing your nose up to the nursery window. I saw you running down the hallway, trying to escape. What were you thinking?”

“I—”

“Shut up, Evan. You know? Why didn’t you ever look for her? You knew she had the kid.”

“I tried.”

“Bullshit, you tried. Did you hire a P.I. to look into it? Did you canvass the state with flyers with her picture on it? Did you put her face on the back of a milk carton? Did you contact the real estate company? Call the phone company? Try sending her a letter with ‘please forward’ written on it? Did you make
one single effort
to find her?”

“No.”

“Then tell me, Evan,
how
did you try?”

“I—I asked around.”

Brad laughs bitterly. “Passive-aggressive theater, ” he says. “You asked around.”

“I was just a kid.”

“Yeah. So was she. But she was a kid with a baby.”

Brad pauses for a response, but he doesn’t get one.

“You know how Frank found out?” he asks.“You’ll like this. I mean, you understand that Frank
had
to find out. If Frank hadn’t found out, she would have had the abortion and that would have been that. But since she didn’t want to have the abortion, she had to let Frank find out, because she knew he would stop it, and she would have the baby, which is what she wanted—but, of course, you didn’t
know
that because she never
told
you that. So, you’ll like this, Frank got drunk one night—”

“I thought Mormons didn’t drink.”

“Welcome to Planet Earth, Evan. He got drunk one night and he was mad as hell, and she said something at dinner, I don’t even remember what, but it was obvious that she was jerking his chain. I mean, looking back on it, she had it totally set up. She mouthed off to him and he told her he was going to beat her, and she broke down, she said she was pregnant and she didn’t want him to kill the baby. Oh, man, he blew. He asked her who the father was because he was going to kill him. She started crying; she wouldn’t tell because she had to protect you. So I made a stupid crack: I told him it was me. I was just trying to deflect the energy, you know? But he beat the shit out of me that night, Evan. I took it for you. He knew I wasn’t the father, but he knew that she would never tell, and he was mad, so he beat the shit out of me. I still have scars from that, Evan.”