The Dart League King (23 page)

Then, starting tomorrow, it would be time to go to work on getting the big things straight. Russell Harmon knew it wasn’t going to be easy, he wasn’t going to start in on this thing being stupid and naïve, which had generally been sort of a problem
in the past. The picture Kelly had painted of the tidy little house and the three of them there together was nice, he was starting to like it more and more, but he knew that wasn’t how things would be right at first, it would take a lot of time and effort and patience. There were some things he was going to have to accept. For starters, his job. A family man, the father of a toddler, couldn’t just up and quit his job because he hated it, Russell knew. And even though logging was dangerous, especially for Russell, it paid pretty good, and if he ever quit he would have to find some other serious work to do, not some lame-ass thing. Maybe he could go into construction, where compared to logging the industry was booming. He knew how to pour concrete and lay a foundation and frame a house—he’d done that with Uncle Roy when he built his new place. So that was a start. At any rate, there were also some things he’d have to do differently. No more coke, keep the drinking to a minimum . . . and no more dart league. What would be the point of it, anyway? He had nothing left to prove. Yeah, right, Brice Habersham had had a little problem with his glasses. But it wasn’t like Russell hadn’t had a few distractions of his own. He’d won fair and square. So what he would do, maybe, was one day when they owned a nice house he would set up a trophy case in the basement. He would put his six trophies in there, three team championships and three individual championships. They wouldn’t be great big impressive trophies like Brice Habersham’s, but one day years from now when he and Hayley were in the basement maybe watching TV, he could point to them and say,
You didn’t know your old man once beat a professional
.
You didn’t know your old man was once the Dart League King
.

He could set it all aside like that, he knew he could. Making his way across the bridge Russell Harmon realized that he had been ready for this a long time. What had kept him from growing up and acting like an adult? It was just that no one had ever told him when the serious part was supposed to begin.

He was nearing the middle of the bridge when a strange thing happened. Right in front of him, occurring in just a split second, every light in the town came on, like someone had plugged in a Christmas tree. There was the back of the movie theater and the men’s clothing store and the mountain bike shop and the place that sold Western trinkets, their colorful signs visible now, and the lights shining down on the water. There were the birch trees behind the 321 and there was the parking lot . . . and there was Kelly Ashton, getting into Tristan Mackey’s truck. She had seen him too, at the very same moment, and her hand dropped to her side right as Russell stopped walking, and they stood there looking at each other. Even from this far away, and even though she was leaving with Tristan Mackey, he couldn’t not see how pretty she was.

But that didn’t help any. Once again, it turned out he’d been stupid and naïve. Everything he’d been thinking was just a waste of time. There would be no little house and happy family like the one she had told him about. She had obviously decided on a different plan. But that was how it went, wasn’t it? Guys like Russell Harmon, he supposed, weren’t meant to get the Kelly Ashtons of the world. They were reserved for the Tristan Mackeys, the smart guys with the college degrees, the ones who would wind up pushing papers in air-conditioned offices and lounging back in swivel chairs while they talked on the phone, the ones who would build the huge lakefront houses out of the
trees cut down by all the Russell Harmons, if not here then some other place. He felt like a fool for having thought any different. He supposed now the whole thing in his truck had just been a way to introduce the idea of paying child support, the sex a consolation prize.

But why was she just standing there and looking at him that way? What did she want him to do? Offer her his blessing, wave to her and smile, give her a thumbs-up to say everything was OK? Did she want him to run frantically across the bridge, shouting out her name, to stop her from getting in Tristan Mackey’s truck? Well, he wouldn’t do it. She could make her own decisions. He had some pride, after all. And he had proven tonight that he was just as good as Tristan Mackey or anybody else. Russell Harmon was—still, once and for all—the Dart League King.

And so he started walking again, and out of the corner of his eye he saw Kelly climb into the truck, and his pace slowed. Maybe there was still a chance. Maybe if he started running, right now. For a second it was like he could picture himself there with her in the truck, could see her legs and her hands folded in her lap and the way her brown hair curled down over one eye—he knew her well enough to know exactly how she looked, but he didn’t know what she was thinking. They’d known each other since second grade, in Mrs. Henry’s class. She’d made fun of him in class once, because he couldn’t read very well, and that day at recess he went off by himself and sat on the merry-go-round, and he saw her watching him, and she never made fun of him again. In Mrs. Muldrow’s fifth-grade class he sat right behind her, and he looked at her long hair every day that spring, the way it came down over her soft
shoulders in the sleeveless dress, the sun shining through the open windows, and on the last day of school he wrote her a note that he had pondered over for hours the night before—
I like you as big as the sky
, the note said. She held it under her desk and laughed very softly when she read it, and Russell could feel the blood come hot to his face, and his fingers trembled when she handed him her response.
Are you sure?
it said.
The sky is pretty big
.

It seemed strange to Russell that they’d known each other for so many years and in so many different ways and had still never figured out what they meant to one another. He thought maybe they’d done that tonight. And what he would ask her right now, if he could, was whether she was leaving with Tristan Mackey because she thought she was supposed to, or because it was what she wanted. But there was probably no time. Tristan’s lights came on, and Russell lowered his head and waited for the sound of the engine, but what he heard instead was a car approaching him from behind.

He turned to look and there was Vince Thompson pulling up in his shitmobile, the passenger window rolled down, Vince holding something out to Russell with his hand, which would be the coke, probably. Jesus H. Christ, the guy never gave up. He was slowing down, and his muffler was loud, and Russell had to look up once more to see that Tristan’s truck still hadn’t pulled away, and he took a step in the direction of the parking lot behind the 321, as if his feet had decided to lead him there. But then he saw what Vince Thompson held out toward him, and everything else disappeared, everything went soundless, it was the Vince Thompson of his dreams, seen behind the barrel of a gun. The world had collapsed in narrowing circles and
Russell Harmon didn’t think or feel or know a single thing, his eyes on that black gun barrel moving at a snail’s pace, as if it were some dark creature floating through the air on its own, floating toward him, and in the absence of any thought or feeling Russell Harmon did the one thing he knew how to do instinctively—he grinned. It was a grin that said everything Russell Harmon knew to say—that he hadn’t intended any harm, not to Vince Thompson or anyone else, not ever in his whole life, that he had always liked Vince Thompson just fine, just like he essentially liked everyone else once he got to know them, that he had enjoyed all those times sitting in Vince Thompson’s apartment listening to him rant and rave well enough, just like he enjoyed most things he did well enough, that Vince Thompson was his friend just like everyone was his friend, that he was innocent, that he couldn’t be blamed for what he could not help, that, most of all, he didn’t deserve to die for his myriad failings, particularly now that he had turned over a new leaf and would do better from here on out, if only Vince Thompson gave him one more chance.

It was the same grin he had relied on his whole life, and, focused so intently on the barrel of the gun that he did not even know he was grinning, it took a few moments for Russell to see that the grin had worked its usual effect. Slowly the gun was pulled away, lowered by an arm, and then there was just Vince Thompson sitting in his car, grinning back. “You goofy son of a bitch,” Vince Thompson said, shaking his head. “Russell fucking Harmon.” He kept shaking his head from side to side, apparently in sheer wonderment, and then he laughed. “
Adios
,” he said. And then Vince Thompson was gone, headed across the bridge and fighting his car into second gear, honking the
horn once, twice, and Russell could feel his knees wobbling beneath him. And he turned to lean on the bridge rail for support, and for a while he couldn’t think of anything at all.

It was reflex, almost, that made him turn to look at the parking lot, and it was only when he saw the empty space where Tristan’s truck had been that he knew why he was looking. But it didn’t matter. No matter what she did tonight, he could always see Kelly Ashton tomorrow. The threat of death had a way of putting things in perspective. Russell leaned his back against the rail, his knees still shaking a little, and he ran his hand across his damp forehead, and he shivered a little in the cold air. Crazy old Vince Thompson. Smiling at him. Maybe it was just a joke, then. Maybe he had never meant to shoot Russell at all. A decent guy, really, just a bit insane and a bit too hung up on the whole father issue. Russell’s father had actually stepped in to help him at the bar, a gesture of sorts, and he guessed that was enough. The trick was not to expect too much from people. Kelly Ashton, for example.

Oh well, they were gone now, all of them, Vince Thompson and Kelly Ashton and Tristan Mackey. The night was over. Everyone leaving, everyone gone. Good night and sweet dreams.
Adios
.

One thing was still certain. Russell Harmon dug his wallet out of his pocket and he took out the picture and, yep, that was his little girl. Now that Kelly had told him, even if she regretted it, there was no way she could keep him from being Hayley’s father. In fact he’d still go there tomorrow afternoon. It might be awkward between him and Kelly, but she would have to show him in, and he would walk down a hallway to Hayley’s room, and there she would be, playing on the floor with a lot of girl toys surrounding her, whatever those were. And her
mother would tell her to get up and be introduced to this new visitor, and there she would be, this tiny living image of Russell Harmon and Kelly Ashton, toddling across the room. And Russell wouldn’t blurt out anything stupid or inappropriate, he wouldn’t want to confuse her or frighten her, so he would start off their relationship this way, very simply: “Hi, Hayley,” he would say, “I’m Russell,” and he would hold her small hand.

It had been, Russell Harmon decided, a good night all in all. And just as he had also decided to go back to the bar and tell Matt everything there was to tell—right now, before any of his good mood faded—there came Matt, trusty old Matt, walking toward him on the bridge. And seeing Matt there on the bridge made him feel like doing something he hadn’t done in a long, long time, since he and Matt were kids. And so before Matt could reach him, Russell Harmon kicked off his sandals and pulled off his shirt and, with a little more difficulty than he had ever had in the past, climbed the metal bridge rail, and with his feet on the bottom rung and his hands holding on to the top, he leaned out over the water. When he was a kid, after that time with Uncle Roy in the boat, he had always been afraid the Garnet Lake Monster was under there, and that when he hit the water the monster would rise from the depths to swallow him, Russell Harmon, and maybe it still would, someday, but right now Russell didn’t care. He had let go of the rail and he was falling toward the lights on the cold water with the wind in his ears, and he felt like the new Russell again, like he was leaving a lot of things behind him there on that bridge, and he didn’t regret it, not any. He only wished it could be like this forever, the thrilling upthrust in his gut, the feel of the world rushing past him.

Brice Habersham
was sorry that the last game in his match with Russell Harmon should be Around the World, and that it should be so easy. Russell deserved better—he had played 301 like a pro. But now Brice Habersham stood at the line near the end of a late evening, holding two darts in his hand. He had already decided to throw the next dart at the single 20, to leave himself just one for the bull’s-eye. It was unlikely that he would miss, as he felt quite comfortable and honed in now, and it was even more unlikely that Russell Harmon would be able to run the board if he did miss. But giving himself just one dart would allow Russell to go on hoping a little bit longer, and Brice Habersham found that appropriate.

He had also decided, somewhere along the line, that there would be no phone call, that he would simply finish this game and go home. He’d had too much time to think this evening, too much opportunity to consider his actions and ruminate on the past, too much time to wonder about how he might have done things differently, about where he might have made his own mistakes. It had led him to feel a kind of tenderness toward these people, and the idea of making that phone call and having Russell Harmon and his friend Matt and, later, Vince Thompson arrested was more than a bit distasteful. He didn’t have the heart—not tonight. Brice Habersham would give Russell Harmon this night, win or lose, because Russell
Harmon had earned it. Let him be young tonight, let him enjoy his friends.

He had not decided what he would do tomorrow. He did not know whether he would make a different phone call, to the agency, and announce his retirement, tell them he was no longer suited for the job. He did not know whether, if he made that call, he might one day soon take the risk of saying a few words to Russell Harmon, offer him a little advice and perhaps a subtle and highly illegal warning that would help him to straighten out his path. He did not know whether he would do something out of the ordinary like, for instance, actually purchase the gas station/convenience store. He did know that he liked this town, and that he sympathized with these people and their small-town concerns, and that he would like to go on living here himself, but he did not know if that would be possible for Helen and him. He did not know if, after he arrived tonight at his dark house, he would slip off his shoes quietly, climb the stairs, walk on tiptoe to the bathroom and brush his teeth and take off his clothes, then slip into bed and try something that normally would have been unthinkable, try to make love to his wife after all these years, in the hope that it was what they both needed.