The Laments (40 page)

Eddie was in no mood for arguments. The Guyanese ladies lived fifteen miles away in Trenton and he had to let them off early because of the weather.

“Attitude is what you got,
hmm
? And toilets!” barked Eddie.

Calvin spun around, buttoned his jacket, and kicked the door open, trudging off in search of Building A.

NOW THAT NIGHT HAD FALLEN
, the golf course was cast in pink by the few lampposts on its rolling slopes. In some areas the snow had blown away to reveal a hilltop of solid ice; the speed, on a sled, would be breathtaking.

Howard parked the car at the edge of the road and clambered up the slopes with the twins, joking about who was entitled to take the first run.

“We go first, because we’re the kids,” argued Julius.

“No—age before innocence.” Howard laughed.

“C’mon, Dad, we haven’t been sledding once this year.”

Howard paused at the top of the course, catching his breath, feeling the sting of the cold air in his lungs.

“Well, I’ve never been sledding before,” he reminded them. Marcus then insisted that Howard take his sled for the first ride. So Julius and Howard went down the slope, side by side.

Riding on his belly, with his knees bent, Howard was terrified. Ice beneath the runners vibrated in his chest as the sled picked up speed. Air rushed past, cold and bracing. The smell of pine and wet wool stung his nostrils. Ahead, Julius gave a yell as he hit a bump that sent him flying. When Howard struck the bump, he gasped, arms flailing in panic. Julius glanced back anxiously, but Howard waved, then lost his breath again as the sled landed and tore up an embankment before lurching down a quarter-mile run with frightening velocity. His cheeks were burning, his heart pounding, and then, suddenly, it was over. Howard lay in a drift, on his back, taking stock of his vital functions.

Julius peered over at his father.

“All right, Dad?”

“Fabulous,” whispered Howard.

“C’mon, then. Let’s do it again!”

But as Howard rose, he winced. “Wait a moment!”

Julius turned to see his father limping forward.

“I’ve hurt my leg. It’s probably that old injury from Ajax. I have to warm up at home, but you two can stay.”

“C’mon, Dad,” insisted Julius. “You’ll feel better in a minute.”

Howard, though gratified by this invitation, ventured only a few steps before grimacing. He urged Julius to join his brother.

“Can you pick us up in two hours?” asked Julius.

Howard nodded. Julius waved, and jogged up the slope dragging the two sleds.

Howard reconsidered going back to the house when he thought of being alone with Rose. So he doubled back through town, past the houses on Oak Street—snow-blanketed and solemn—over the trestle bridge toward Route 99. He turned right, noticing that most of the businesses along the highway had closed early. Raymond Biddle was tying up his Christmas trees for the night. A mile ahead, an enormous yellow snowplow blinked its headlights, urging Howard off the treacherous road.

WILL AND MINNA WERE SEATED
way in the back of the concert hall, but it didn’t matter. Two overweight, gray-haired former pop stars warmed up the crowd with a slide show of their brief rise to fame in the sixties, when they were young, slim, and innocent. Then they sang a few perfect renditions of their old hits mixed with a lot of self-deprecating jokes.

All the while, Minna leaned against Will in the darkness, letting her lips caress his ear as she whispered to him. As the lights darkened for the main attraction, she slipped her hand between his legs and could practically feel his pulse.

“This is nice,” he murmured in a clumsy effort to tell her what she already knew.

ROY HAD FINISHED HIS WORK
and was wheeling the floor polisher back to the third-floor elevator when he saw Calvin nursing a cigarette outside the ladies’ bathroom.

“Hey, Roy,” said Calvin, “will you help me out with this bathroom? I’m running late.”

“Sorry, man,” said Roy, hurrying past. “I don’t wanna smell like no toilet. I’m picking up a girl after work!”

As Roy disappeared into the elevator, Calvin stared after him, a muscle throbbing in his cheek. It took him another half hour to finish up. When he finally sauntered down to the lobby, Eddie was waiting for him, holding out a pay envelope.

Calvin scanned the empty foyer. “Where’s everybody else?”

“Sent ’em home early. If you’d kicked ass, you’d have been out of here by now, too.
Four
smoking breaks.
Hm
m
?
Jesus!”

Calvin’s jaw went slack. “Is that what Roy said? That nigger’s a liar!”

“Roy is not your problem, Calvin.
You
are your problem. Here’s your check. Merry Christmas.”

Calvin stuffed the check in his pocket, his eyes fixed on Eddie; then he zipped up his parka and spat out his farewell: “Fuck you, Eddie, fuck your mother, and fuck this job!”

MARCUS FELT AS IF HE AND JULIUS
were back in the young and invincible years before his accident. They took breathless risks on the icy course and landed unscathed. But the snow kept coming and the wind on their cheeks felt like a jagged razor. After the first hour, Julius lost the feeling in his toes, and Marcus’s prosthesis was so caked with ice that the pincers wouldn’t open or close. They debated what to do.

“Julius, let’s walk home.”

“It’s five miles back.”

“Well, it’s better than sitting here for another hour,” Marcus replied.

“If we jog it, we can surprise Dad before he comes looking for us. Straight along Pye Hollow.”

ALL HOWARD WANTED
was a cup of coffee that he could hold to warm himself up until it was time to pick up the twins. The Roundabout Inn had an oval bar serving one patron. There was a rim of dust on the ceiling fan, a tangle of flashing Christmas lights draped along the sconces, and a jukebox with a big crack in the glass where some patron had vented his unhappiness at Bobby Darin or Tony Bennett.

Howard took a seat at the bar. The other customer, a gray-haired guy with a gut and aviator glasses, raised his bourbon to Howard, who avoided his glance.

“Drink, sir?” the bartender asked Howard.

“No, just a coffee,” said Howard. He looked for his wallet in his jacket pocket and found instead the prototype heart he had stuffed in there a week before. He had meant to throw it out. Now its smooth white plastic shell reflected the Christmas lights around the bar. Howard set a five-dollar bill down before the bartender.

Waiting for his coffee, Howard turned the invention over in his hands. He twisted it open at the steel seam so that the chambers were revealed.

“What the hell is that?” said the man in the glasses. He had taken a seat beside Howard and was peering at the device. “If you don’t mind my asking.”

“Nothing,” Howard replied, looking the fellow over once more.

“Unless I’m mistaken,” said his neighbor, “that looks like a mechanical heart.”

Howard couldn’t conceal his surprise.

The man offered his hand. “Bill Ferris.”

Howard introduced himself. “Are you a doctor, then?”

“God, no.” Ferris laughed. “Venture capital. We get funding for drug companies and medical research. . . . We funded a heart, too, but it didn’t look as beautiful as this.”

SNOW BEGAN FALLING AGAIN
as Roy hiked along Pye Hollow. He still had another mile to walk to Dawn Snedecker’s house and his pants were as stiff as cardboard from the knees down. He cursed the weather, because the minute he entered Dawn’s cozy home the ice would melt and his pants would drip into a puddle on her floor. He imagined the reaction of her mother and father—they’d probably put him out on the step to wait, like a stray dog. But then he thought of Dawn, that golden hair and the peachy blush of her skin, and he kept walking while he imagined her wearing his corsage, posing with him for the photograph, and dancing with him under a mirror ball, cheek to cheek.

IN A DISTANT CORNER
of the Dutch Oil parking lot, Calvin was preparing a laboratory-grade cocktail in his car when Eddie Calhoun’s black Coronet rolled alongside.

“What the hell are you doing?” shouted Eddie.

Calvin guessed Eddie couldn’t see the tin liter of alcohol he’d stolen from Building A. So he mouthed a coarse reply and rolled the jaundiced Mustang forward, snow crunching below his tires, out past the guard’s booth at the entrance to the complex.

Only when Calvin’s taillights turned onto Pye Hollow Road did Eddie heave a sigh of relief; the last thing he needed was some violent final gesture from this kid.

Less than a quarter mile down Pye Hollow, Calvin slowed to a crawl and took a good slug of his orange cocktail. Ahead, the snow fell in straight lines, as if determined to bury the landscape. A broad grin suddenly spread across Calvin’s face; he felt as if his cocktail had flipped a switch marked “Happy” in the back of his head.

THE TWINS HAD BEEN JOGGING
for twenty minutes, and the numbness in their legs had given way to shin splints. “How long is a fucking mile, anyway?” complained Julius, kicking his sled ahead of him. They slowed to a limping walk, and Marcus, who had developed a hoarse rattle in his chest, fought to speak.

“I think we’re two miles away.”

“You know,” huffed Julius as he peered through the blizzard, “this is dangerous! A car might not even see us until it’s too late!”

Marcus nodded. “I can hardly tell where the road is.” He glanced at the four-foot embankment on their right.

“Maybe we’re better off running up there!”

“No way,” panted Julius. “Bushes, trees . . . it’s faster on the road.”

Marcus, however, clambered up onto the embankment, dragging his sled behind him. His raspy chest was hurting. He wanted to be home, in bed. The snow was stinging his eyes. He closed them as he scrambled along the embankment, trusting the ridge to guide him.

Julius limped along the shoulder of the road, kicking his sled every few yards. With all his heart he wished for the headlights of a car to appear. Then they could be home and warmed up in time for Cleo. He picked up his pace, driven by the image of Cleo’s dancing breasts.

CALVIN’S BUZZ HAD TAKEN A TURN.
His cheeks began to burn and a fissure in his skull had opened with what sounded to him like a rip of brain tissue. He felt a flash of lightheadedness, and hoped it was the crest of his high, but he was wrong. It was only the vacant millisecond before the plunge. Now a new sensation rose between his temples, a black mare with blazing red eyes screaming out between the separated hemispheres of his brain, her white-hot hooves pounding one-two, one-two, like Thor’s hammer on an oil barrel. His eyeballs began to take up the drumbeat. Then, with a hellish whinny, the mare lurched into a thunderous gallop. Tears rolled down Calvin’s cheeks, and his foot pressed harder on the accelerator. Why had he quit? And why had he drunk that shit? What the hell had he been thinking?

It was all Roy’s fault. Goddamn Roy.

He turned on the radio to stop the pounding. It was a live concert, broadcast from the Capitol Theatre in Passaic. A devilish voice spoke to Calvin from the back of his skull.

I’M MOVING TO MONTANA SOON
.

The crowd knew this silly song and joined in at the chorus. But all Will heard was Minna’s whisper at his ear.

“Let’s go,” she said.

The thumping bass notes of the next song followed them outside the theater and evaporated in the blizzard. Will and Minna looked for a place to be alone. No cars were to be seen, just rounded lumps sleeping beneath a vast white counterpane. In a bus shelter at the edge of the lot, he spread his army coat over the bench and they huddled together. Overhead, Will noticed a momentary patch of sky appear, like an awful black hole; then more clouds swept in, the snow continued, and the city resumed its deep slumber.

“Hold me, Will,” said Minna. “Tighter.”

As an errant snowflake lingered on Minna’s cheek, he drew her closer. Without thinking, Will leaned forward and licked the snowflake away. When another landed on her lips, Will leaned toward it and she opened her mouth.

A boom echoed in the distance—the crash of a Dumpster lid, perhaps; then a siren wailed, reminding them of the little time they had before the crowd emerged.

Will grabbed at the unsullied drift around his ankles and threw a fistful of snow into the air. Crystals rained on Minna’s face and hair; the flakes that alighted on her skin melted quickly, forming a silvery pool at the dip of her sternum. He licked at the pool and heard her gasp softly. Then her fingers reached for his belt and unfastened his pants.

He slid his shorts down as Minna, in one graceful movement, raised her skirt and eased herself gently onto his lap. Will thought she was scared, but then she pressed forward and he felt a surge of heat as her body closed around him. They swayed, ever so slowly, and then Minna groaned, and they began to ride together. The storm spun around them, and they cried out. The next moment Minna felt a spasm of pleasure, and her body turned liquid. Will heard a roar in his ears, but it was her sigh as he came, and they fell against each other in a state of spent ecstasy.

Stunned survivors of their own desire, Will and Minna clung together. Will found himself marveling that he could be so happy in such a barren place. With Minna’s soft breath on his neck, and her arms clasped around him, he vowed to remember this moment, to keep it somewhere close, where it could be summoned the next time he felt lonely or heartbroken.

THE MORE BILL FERRIS TALKED
, the more Howard liked him.

“Where have you been, Howard?” asked Bill. “This is a remarkable little contraption you put together. You should see the thing we sell; it’s about as attractive as a goddamn distributor cap. Where the heck have you been?” he repeated.

“Well,” replied Howard, “I worked for Chapman Fay.”

“Chapman Fay? The fella who wanted to colonize Mars?”

Howard paused, fearing ridicule, perhaps. “That’s him, yes.”

Bill thrust out his hand. “Shake my hand again, Howard. Fay was a genius. A goddamn genius! And I bet Howard Lament has a touch of genius, too, eh?”