The Last Good Day (54 page)

He pulled open the refrigerator and stood there, enduring the rotten-egg smell. A milk bottle stamped August 31 quivered under the lightbulb, and something moved inside a cloudy Tupperware container. He grabbed two Buds off the side shelf and shut the door.

“You know why they tell you all those lies?” his father was saying. “To make you think you’ll get your just reward in the next life. It’s a steaming hot pile of donkey diarrhea. That’s all it is.”

“I’m gonna look for a clean glass.”

He set the bottles down on the counter and peeked into his father’s bedroom next to the kitchen, a boxy little compartment noticeably hotter than the rest of the trailer.

“I used to say the prison chaplain helped me put down more riots than my baton,” his father gassed on. “Made all those shitbirds think their suffering amounted to something. I tried to tell your mother the same thing, but she never listened. Every Sunday she had you boys dressed like little Kennedys and sitting in the front row of Saint Stephen’s, like God himself was looking down.”

Mike edged into the bedroom, seeing clothes on the floor, a picture of Mom and Johnny on the night table, and the framed citation from the Owenoke warden on the wall, thanking Dad for his thirty-one years of service at the prison.

“She was a handful, your mother,” Dad kept going. “I never met the likes of her before. Always bowing and scraping to the people she worked for up the hill, but Lord she was a tyrant at home. Sometimes I’m sorry I didn’t do more to protect you boys from her temper, but you know I was so tired …”

“It’s all right, Pops. What’s done is done.”

Mike dropped to his knees to look under the bed, seeing massive dust balls, a squeezed-out Fleet enema bottle, and old bound-up volumes of
Highlights
magazine that Dad tried to peddle off to the grandchildren.

“She always said I’d go to hell for blasphemy. But now look!” Dad snorted. “Five years in the grave she is, and I’m still here.”

Mike moved aside a back copy of
Juggs
and reached for the orange-and-white box of ammo he’d noticed under the bed the last time he’d stopped by here.

“I used to tell her that she was kidding herself. The only justice you’ll ever get is in this life. And then you better grab it with both hands before somebody else pays for it …”

Mike lifted the shells carefully, trying not to rattle them in his shaky hands and draw his father’s attention. He set them down on top of the dresser and pulled open the underwear drawer, knowing that old habits die hard. His father’s Smith & Wesson combat masterpiece was wrapped up in a pair of Jockey-style BVDs. The Colt .45 automatic was in the sock drawer.

“Hey, who played Alfalfa?” Dad shouted from the next room.

“What?”

“They’re asking who played Alfalfa on
The Little Rascals.
” Dad raised his voice. “What the hell are you doing in my bedroom anyway?”

“Looking for my socks. I thought they might’ve got mixed in with yours.”

“Shit. You couldn’t fit your foot inside one of mine. I never understood how my son wore size thirteen when I’ve got these skinny little feet. I tell you, I gave the milkman a good look sometimes.”

Mike came back into the living room and slipped the guns and bullets into the black gym bag while the old man was looking at the set.

“Where’s that beer?” Dad craned his wizened neck and looked over the back of his chair.

“Keep your shirt on. They’re not gonna dry up.”

With two small steps he was over at the kitchen counter, opening the Budweisers.

“Just come here a minute, will you? Forget about the glasses. I wanna tell you something.”

“What?”

He came and stood beside his father’s chair, smoke wafting from the necks of both bottles. The chill stung his bad thumb and went right up his arm into the center of his chest.

“Look … I know I wasn’t always at my best around you guys …” The old man’s hands pawed the air, trying to conjure a vocabulary he didn’t have. “
Shit.
”

His eyes looked out from a sunken face. It was like staring into a barren valley. All the old fury was spent, but nothing had grown in its place. Thirty-one years working in a prison. Forty with a woman who thought she married beneath her station. Three and a half knowing that his favorite son had died before him.

“Look,” the old man said, deciding to make it easy on himself, “all I want to tell you is, don’t let the bastards get you down.”

“That’s it?” Mike stared at him. “Those are the great words of wisdom?”

“Just remember, we built this town.” Dad took the beer, not daring to meet his eye again. “We can take it apart if we have to.”

“Yeah, okay. Whatever you say, Pops.”

Mike took a long pull and watched the contestant on the screen, a milk-fed dentist from Des Moines with his eyes fixed on some ever-receding point.

“Jackie Cooper, Robert Blake, George McFarland, or Carl Switzer?” asked the host.

“Carl Switzer,” said Mike. “He’s the one who played Alfalfa.”

“How do you know that?” his father asked.

“Got himself shot to death in a fight over a fifty-dollar dog. Thing like that sticks in your mind.”

“Why?”

“Because most of the others just killed themselves. It’s a curse on the whole line.”

His father touched his arm. “You’re not thinking of doing anything stupid yourself, are you?”

Mike felt himself pass through three different temperature zones, thinking how to answer. “Come on, Pops. Gimme a break.”

He glanced over at the bag on the couch, wondering if his father had left any rounds in the magazine of the .45.

“I’m just saying it doesn’t matter what you do in the next life. There’s only this one that counts.”

Mike drank half his beer in one gulp, feeling it sluice down into his innards and loosen the stuck gears, the pain ebbing away for just a moment.

“In the end, all you have is your good name.”

“Amen to that.” He clicked his half-empty bottle against his father’s in a toast and drank up.

59

AS HE TURNED
on the shower the next morning, Jeffrey thought that he caught an astringent whiff of gasoline on his hands.

It couldn’t be, of course. He’d scrubbed with a Brillo pad and Neutrogena soap for about twenty minutes in the shower last night. His arms and legs had pink scaly patches from all the vigorous swabbing he’d been doing lately. Already he was having second thoughts about that number on the Schulman’s garage last night. In the clear light of day, it seemed a stupid risk. But for Chrissakes, Lynn was asking for it. How do you like that bitch? First she tells the police about seeing the bloodstain on the wall and helps them get a warrant to search his house. Then he catches her talking to Dylan about the problems Mommy and Daddy were having. Okay, he was willing to send her the Instant Message and leave it at that. But then she had to give them those old pictures with the wood protector. She’s lucky he just decided to throw that Corona bottle with a flaming oil rag at her garage. Plenty of other places he could’ve put it instead.

He looked down at the hot water pelting between his toes and puddling around the drain.
Just nerves,
he told himself. Everything washes away if you scrub long and hard enough. Bloodstains. Bad debts. A bad marriage. Even a bad name. His whole life had been about learning to go with the flow. Dealing with the moment as it comes up. Being who you need to be. Avoiding dead ends. Maximizing potential. Your dad gets shifted to a new army base every three years? You get a new set of friends. Just don’t get that close to any of them. Get thrown out of school for cheating? Go to another one and find a girl to write your papers for you. Your software business in California tanks in the eighties, and your first wife turns from a beach babe into a demanding sow? Dump her on her flabby ass, change your name from Lane to Lanier, and start over on the Net in the nineties. With the way money was flying around a few years ago, it wasn’t that hard to raise the first five million with a good idea and a cool line of patter. If one venture capital firm didn’t like your history, there was always another one that might forgive a stumble or two. Hey, this was America. People started over all the time.

Still, that Detective Ortiz had him looking over his shoulder, scrubbing a little harder. He’d thought things were going to be different with Sandi. The house, the kids, the whole nine yards. It was for keeps this time. Play the Man long enough, you become the Man. Only he hadn’t realized how hard it was going to be. The merchandise sitting in the warehouse, refusing to move. The cursor blinking, signaling the world’s indifference to Denny McLain’s glove and Joe Pepitone’s bat. The investors getting pissed off. His father-in-law calling at nine at night, wanting to know when he was going to start to see some decent returns. And worst of all, Sandi grinding away at him every day, with her free-floating anxieties, her constant nagging, her needling dissatisfactions.
You aren’t spending enough time with the kids. I can’t stand this house. I’m tired.
Nothing was ever good enough for her. Especially compared to her friends’ lives. Somebody else always had a bigger house, a more successful husband, a better figure. Their kids were going to get into better schools. They were going to Antigua for Christmas break, not just Fort Lauderdale.
We’re not putting enough away for the future.
God, it was almost as if she was trying to make his head explode with all this striving to keep up. He’d awake some mornings and stare at the ceiling for a few minutes before the alarm went off, wondering how he was going to make it through the day. And gradually he’d found himself wishing that he could just chuck the whole deal and start over one more time.

So in a way, she’d forced him to do what he did. It was a matter of pure survival. She was going to cut him off. Divorce him. Take the kids and destroy the business. She hadn’t given him any choice. Not that he’d meant to go that far that night. He’d just been trying to catch her stepping out and give himself a little more leverage in negotiating a fair settlement. So he took that diamond stud earring out of her jewelry box and sent her that e-mail with the cop’s address on it, saying,
I have a few things of yours that you might want back. You miss that earring?

The sad irony was that he needn’t have gone to all the trouble of driving down from New London. She’d already left the diary out, meaning for him to read it and see what she really thought of him. But of course he didn’t know that at the time. So he’d been righteous and furious when he busted her in the Motel 6 parking lot that night.

You bitch.
He started in as soon as he got her in the Tempo he’d rented.
I can’t believe you did this to me. You ruined my life.

I ruined your life? I ruined YOUR life? Are you crazy?

Just shut up.
He rolled up the windows and looked back across the lot at the red vacancy sign burning over the dimmed entrance light.
Keep your voice down.

I won’t shut up. You call me stupid in front of my friends. You belittle me in front of the kids. You insist on moving into a house we can’t afford.

You’re the one who wanted that house. I hate that house.

You’ve got a lot of nerve.

I’ve got a lot of nerve?

You run up ten thousand dollars a month on our Visa, buying fucking Armani suits …

What do you want me to do? Go around in rags?

Spending money on whores when I’m begging my father for money to send the kids to summer camp …

Shut the fuck up …

Receipts from Club Royale Entertainment in your pants pocket. You think I can’t figure out what that is?

Yeah, like you’re any better?
He pointed to her red Audi sitting across the lot.

At least I don’t have to pay somebody to fuck me.

Is this what you want?
He’d raised his fist, warning her.

Yeah, go ahead and hit me, Jeffrey.

That what you really want?

Show me what a man you are.

I will!

You make me sick. Go find someone else, you fucking leech. I can’t stand the sight of you anymore.

That was when he hit her. Just a quick little jab aimed at her chin. But no, she had to jerk her head back so he hit her in the throat instead. He knew right away something was wrong.

Jeffrey, I can’t breathe.

What do you mean?

She’d started gasping and frantically pointing to her windpipe.

Nothing’s getting through,
she pantomimed, eyes bulging.
I can’t
—

In a panic, he turned the key and tore out of the lot. Where was that hospital sign he’d seen a couple of miles up the road?

She can’t breathe.
She couldn’t physically speak anymore. She just pointed at her throat again and kicked the dashboard, her face swelling up and turning bright red.

He put on his high beams. The turn was right here before, wasn’t it? His mind was already tripping and stumbling over things he’d say to the nurse in the ER.
We had a fight …
No!
She fell …
What?

She started hitting him on the shoulder, as if they were playing charades.
Okay. I get it. You can’t breathe. You’re dying. You’re choking like a fish on land.

The death rattle was starting: a sound he’d never heard any human make. Like an artic blizzard in the throat. Her body arched and stiffened against him, all the muscles and tendons straining to hang on.
We’re not going to make it.
Fear swarmed over him. He’d pulled off the Saw Mill into a disused trucker’s weigh station and put her on the ground, trying to give her mouth-to-mouth, but the trachea was too badly damaged.

She scratched at his face and pulled on his clothes, the drowner trying to take the lifeguard with her. He remembered seeing one of his father’s friends, a retired air force medic, perform an emergency tracheostomy on a beach in Cypress when somebody’d had an allergic reaction to a jellyfish sting. The guy used a knife. Just a regular knife. Jeffrey remembered he still had that little penknife hanging off his keychain that somehow airport security missed at LaGuardia. He opened the blade and tried to steady his hand to make the incision. But she kept writhing and thrashing on the gravel. So instead of making a neat little cut as he’d seen the medic do, he’d opened a tremendous gash, sending blood spurting everywhere, spraying up in his eyes and gurgling down into her lungs. He tried again and felt the blade get stuck in the cartilage, practically lacerating her larynx. She grabbed for his shoulders, begging. He realized he’d never really pitted his strength against hers before, that she’d always been holding back a little, wanting him to think he could win. But now she strained and jerked and gasped until there was absolutely nothing left. Then she’d faded in the passing headlights, staring up doll-eyed in horror.