Soil (23 page)

“You mean you get dumber?”

The man in the nearby booth cackled, antagonizing in his volume. What was he carrying under that bulky coat in this mild season?

“In some ways you do, Jacob,” Jay said, trying to keep their conversation in line. “You can get to be so smart that you find you've come back around to being dumb again. It's funny how things work. But you don't need to worry about all that stuff, okay? You just need to have fun. There is plenty of time for trouble and worry later in life.”

“I don't want trouble and worry,” Jacob replied.

“No one does. It just sort of comes with it, you know. The better you learn how to handle it, the happier you'll be.”

Jay groaned inwardly at himself. He sounded like one of those TV dads whose every remark was trying to impart some wisdom and advice.

The waitress came with the check, and Jay handed her the gift card. She didn't seem concerned about the man cursing profusely to himself. Maybe he was a harmless regular. Should Jay mention something, or would it just unnerve Jacob? Anyway, the boy didn't seem to notice. He just babbled on in excited detail about school and his teachers and friends.

Soon Jay had become distracted again, this time by a balding, red-haired cop who walked in and leaned over the counter, chatting up one of the other waitresses. He wore a county uniform, a tan shirt and dark green pants that ballooned out across his wide duff. Had Shoals put a tail on him? The cop didn't seem particularly observant, just oblivious, crowding a poor guy on the corner stool trying to eat grits.

The waitress returned with the card and told Jay it was declined.

“Declined? I just bought it today.”

“You activated it?”

“Activated?”

The waitress flipped the card around, studied it tight, and pointed to the fine print. “Call this here number and tell them you ready to pay some folks.”

“I don't even have a phone!” He almost shouted it. The deputy noticed, turned and took stock of Jay.

“Hold up and I'll fetch mine,” said the waitress. She tottered off again. The deputy took an open seat at the counter and twirled around on his stool to openly observe the diners. The man in the booth laughed to himself, the sound of a wet hacking belch.

The waitress returned and handed Jay her cell phone. He spent the next several minutes trying to figure out the phone and the automated dial-in activation. He should have known these credit swaps and checkout lane bargains were never as simple as advertised. If somebody was going to get screwed here, it shouldn't be the waitress. She reminded Jay of his mom. God forbid this was her ten years down the road, killing herself to make the rent while her husband rested peacefully in the ground, his problems solved by checking out early. What's the use in living to a ripe old age if you spend your days serving waffles to slack-jawed deadbeats?

After navigating the credit card's call center, Jay handed the waitress back her phone and the newly endowed card. She took it away to confirm. He noticed the deputy paying attention, but he didn't let on that he'd noticed. He smiled a lot and kept asking Jacob if he'd enjoyed his meal and tried to ignore the man and his mouth, which was open and stating loudly and definitively, “Shit, I'm fixing to eat me some goddamn eggs, motherfucker!” The man cocked his head to the side and only then did Jay notice the hands-free phone stuck in his ear. So he was simply a boor and not insane. That should have made Jay feel better, but it didn't.

Jay crunched ice from his water glass and mashed the empty plastic butter cups flat with his thumb as he waited for the waitress. He made daring eye
contact with the police officer for several fraught seconds, until the walkie-­talkie on his belt squawked and the cop turned his attention away.

The waitress returned the card, which had processed successfully, and Jay left her the balance as a tip, smiled and waved to her as they stood to leave, and clutched Jacob close as they walked out of the Tour Chef and into the parking lot.

They climbed into the Bronco, and Jay sat for a moment to catch his breath.

“What's wrong?” Jacob asked.

“What do you mean, bud?”

“You seemed really mad in there.”

“Was I mad?” Jay replied. His discomfort was so obvious that it made children anxious. He wondered what hope there was for him, really, when he couldn't even fake his way through a simple negotiation like dining in public with his son. “I'm sorry, Jake. Your dad's no good in town.”

The diners went on inside as before. He could see them through the window. There was no change but the tension was gone.

“In the end, that's probably why your mom wanted to move out. She couldn't understand why I was mad all the time.”

“Who made you mad?”

Jay thought about it for a moment. How to simplify such a broad aspersion? “The people who gave me that credit card. Never get a credit card, okay? Cash only.”

Jacob nodded and said, “Okay.”

“You see, there are people out there who make life more complicated than it needs to be.” Jay turned to look at his son. “If everyone just minded their own business and were more considerate to one another, there would be much less trouble in the world.”

The boy acknowledged his father and pretended to understand.

Jay cranked the Bronco and backed out of the lot, and they rode toward home in silence with the windows down, the Bronco moving at a good clip along the stolen roads, trying to make up for lost time.

32

Sandy's staff meeting let out after lunch on Friday, giving her a rare and unexpected free afternoon. She stopped by the hospital, where the situation was unchanged. Her father was stable and resting. The doctor was encouraged by this, insisting that his body needed to fight the infection and would require every ounce of reserves. They were monitoring the situation closely and would call her if anything changed.

She considered sitting by his side, maybe reading a book. She also felt a strong compulsion to ride out and check on Jacob, but she didn't want to interrupt whatever metamorphosis might be taking place between father and son. Jacob was most likely having a wonderful time. What she really wanted, after so long, was a moment to herself.

In line for a soda and candy bar at the hospital gift shop, Sandy was drawn to a magazine cover showcasing a famous actress's new pixie haircut. She was struck all at once by the urge to enact some drastic fashion shift of her own. Wouldn't it be so wonderful, in all of her running to and fro, to just swipe a wet comb through her hair and be done? She purchased the magazine, and on her way home, she made a swing by the beauty salon with the slim hope of a walk-in appointment. The wide-eyed receptionist seemed thrilled to see her. Her usual stylist had just started a dye job, but there was a vacancy with one of the other associates and she could take a chair immediately. For once, things seemed to be going Sandy's way.

She sat down and flipped through the magazine, tapped her foot to the jaunty country pop playing at a tasteful volume through the salon's stereo. A
petite young stylist bounced over and introduced herself as Tink.
Can Tink handle a pixie?
Sandy wondered. Why care? Tink was welcome to shave her down to the scalp as long as she could sit quietly without having to talk or listen for an hour. Sandy showed her the magazine, and the hairdresser seemed eager to attempt Hollywood coiffure.

Sandy closed her eyes and surrendered to Tink, who bundled her up in a nylon cape and reclined her seat. There was a luxurious session at the shampoo sink. It was so peaceful there, the requiem of water eclipsing all other sounds as Tink's young fingers pulsed against her scalp, the fruity essence of mangosteen overtaking the soggy cardboard smell of wet hair. She could have slept right there for the rest of the afternoon.

As the whisk of scissors went by her ear and she felt the soft tug and release of strands being snipped from her head, each lock a leaden weight fallen away, Sandy let her mind unspool without a care for the world around her. There in the salon chair she fell deep within herself, to the white dream space beyond the bluster of her daily tempests, and there the true cast of herself was revealed in a lovely prismatic scatter. Life was not so bad in here. Her husband was simply lost, not deranged or dangerous, and her father's spirit was waiting loyally nearby, still intact and earthbound. Even her downstairs dalliance last week, though the particulars were unsavory, had revealed a new side of herself, nothing ugly or promiscuous but bold and adventuresome, open to the possibility of life beyond Jay. The words of her father's Buddhist text came hurtling back to her—
Be mindful even of the ground beneath your feet, where all the waste of nature is remade as nutrient in the earth. So does our pain and suffering compose the soil where tomorrow's peace will grow.

The hardship of recent months, and whatever else was due, had created a weight that she would learn to carry, that would make her stronger. She must pivot, she must exact changes as she was doing now. She must look at the world through new eyes and seek opportunity where before she had never dared. For instance—what if she went platinum blond as well? She would be forced to see herself differently, as would everyone else. And as she pictured
herself with a tight and bright new life-refining burst of hair, she was jerked to the surface by a reluctant impression . . .
Danny Shoals
.

Her eyes shot open and she expected to see him right there, leering down at her. But he wasn't. It was only someone talking about him.

Tink swung her chair around for a fresh angle and Sandy met the glare of her usual stylist, Rochelle Spiller, working another head across the salon. Rochelle, so funny and pleasant all these years, was sneering at her. She snapped her gum and practically hissed as she applied paint and tinfoil to her customer's hair. Everyone nearby was held rapt by Rochelle's story, which Sandy strained to hear.

“I was completely naked!” Rochelle described. “And then I looked in the mirror and noticed a little red light outside. I thought it was a car or something, and then I looked closer and thought,
Oh my God, that's somebody outside taping me!
”

The women gasped and shook their heads. Rochelle shot her a look that said,
Are you getting this, bitch?

“So I put my robe on and got a flashlight and a baseball bat and I walked around back.
Oh my God, y'all,
I thought,
what if this person tries to rape me?
But I go out back and shine the light and it's
him
! It's Danny Shoals from the sheriff's department! And he's sitting there with . . .” The conversation faded to a whisper, followed by a sharp intake of ladies gasping, hands to mouths, more shaking heads.

“Is that not
disgusting
?” cried Rochelle. “Protect and serve, my ass!”

Sandy shouted out involuntarily across the salon, “Danny Shoals videotaped you naked?”

Rochelle turned and cocked her head. “He's got a video of my coochie!” she shouted back. “He threatened to post it on the internet if I told anybody!”

The room stiffened from the hairdresser's scorn—or maybe they were all imagining the violation of their respective coochies being filmed and broadcast globally. “At this point, I'm like, Go right ahead. I'm not ashamed of this thing. You can't turn my own body against me and hold me hostage that way!”

The ladies agreed and cheered her on.

“Shoot, maybe I'll get famous! It's about time!” She could have run for mayor, so charged was the crowd by her righteous indignation and refusal to be victimized.

Sandy was livid, dumbfounded. She couldn't believe she'd let this person in her house, much less into her basement. Had he set up a camera in the basement while he was murdering the armadillo? Did he have video of her as well? Would he post it online? What if Jacob found it, or her father, or the girls from church?

She cried out again, “What was he doing outside
your
window?”

She'd meant to put the stress on “doing,” but it came out all wrong, and the shop went silent. Rochelle put down her brush and walked halfway over, hands in plastic gloves on hips. “I don't know. I guess someone isn't giving it to him right so he has to come sneaking around other women's houses while their husbands are away.”

Sandy shook her head. Was it public knowledge, then, that she'd repaid him for his protection? Just a nominal compensation, a gratuity really. But a transaction intimate enough to require a whole new set of obligations.

“I'm so sorry that happened, Rochelle,” said Sandy. “He sounds like a horrible person.”

“Uh-huh,” replied Rochelle with cool disbelief.

In the midst of the standoff, a customer on the far side of the salon, a middle-­aged beauty, ripped off her cape and made long dignified strides across the room, leaving a trail of curlers shaken from her hair, paying no one a bit of mind as she barged out to a clatter of door chimes.

Rochelle bent over in laughter. The other stylists cringed and laughed through bared teeth.

“What is it?” Sandy asked.

“That's his mother,” replied Tink, spinning the chair back around toward the mirror.

That poor woman
, Sandy thought, and then she caught a glimpse of herself, her red puffy face and spiky hair. She looked like a tired British pop singer, some cherub on the wane. A bratty child with glue in his hair.

Who was this person? Who had she become?

She tried not to burst into tears, as if holding back a dam with bare hands. If she had any strength, any resilience at all, she would hold her head high and walk out of there with that atrocious hairdo and her humiliating ties to a peeping pervert. If his own mother could do it . . .

“What do you think?” Tink said with a wince.

Sandy held up the magazine. “Not what I pictured,” she replied. “I'm sure you did your best. Can I pay you now?”

The charges were obscene. She could have achieved the same thing herself with a pair of child's safety scissors. But she handed over her credit card proudly while the girls whispered and giggled on the other side of the salon. She signed the receipt and left a large tip.

On her way out, Rochelle called, “Um, excuse me, Mrs. Mize!”

Mrs. Mize?
Sandy thought. She turned back.

“Rochelle?”

“Mrs. Mize,” the stylist said with high-pitched faux cheer, “if you see your friend Danny Shoals, please let him know that my husband is going to kick his ass when he finds him.”

“I'm sure I won't see him,” Sandy replied. “I barely know him. I don't know what you've heard, but he's certainly no friend of mine.”

She stamped out into the harsh white light of an afternoon in ruins and climbed into the Maxima, keeping herself poised all the way to the shitbox on Waller, where she locked the door, closed the blinds, and shut herself away for the weekend.