The Losers (16 page)

“It was, and you can. I get the impression that it rains there about ninety percent of the rime.”

Raphael got up and poured two cups of coffee. Flood came over to him and took one. “I don’t imagine you’ve got anything to drink?” he asked.

“Water.”

“I’m thirsty, Raphael, not dirty. I’ll go pick something up in a bit.” He went back to the couch. “So much for the expedition of J. D. Flood, Junior. How are
you
doing? And what the hell are you doing in Spokane, of all places?”

“I’m adjusting. I suppose that answers both questions, really. I had to get away from Portland, so I took the first bus to anyplace. I wound up here. It’s as good as anyplace for what I have to do at the present time.”

“This is just temporary then?” Flood was looking intently at Raphael.

“Everything’s temporary, Damon. Nothing’s permanent.”

“Have you been reading Kierkegaard again?”

Raphael grinned at him. “Sorry about that. Quillian told me that I had a choice between being a cripple or a man who happened to only have one leg. I decided not to be a cripple. I’m in physical therapy right now, but it takes a while to get it all put together. Spokane’s a good place to do that. There aren’t many distractions.”

“You can say that again. From what I’ve seen this is the
least
distracting place in the whole damned world.”

“What’s got you so down, Damon?” Raphael asked bluntly, trying to get past that seeming reserve.

“I don’t know, Raphael.” Flood leaned back and looked at the ceiling. “I’m at sixes and sevens, I guess. I haven’t really decided what to do with myself. I think I need a diversion of some kind.”

“Have you thought of work?”

“Don’t be insulting.”

“How long are you planning to be in town?”

“Who knows? Who knows?” Flood spread his hands. “I’ve got a motel room downtown—if I can ever find it again. I’m paid up for a week. I don’t have to make any decisions until then.” He got up quickly. “Goddammit, I need a drink. I’m going to go find a boozeria. You’ll be here?”

“Until the end of the month at least. My rent’s paid up, too.”

“Don’t be snide. I’ll be back in a little bit.” He crossed the small room and went out.

It was strange—even unreal. Even with the sound of Flood’s footsteps going down the stairs, it seemed almost as if he had not really been there. Something had happened to Flood since they had last talked. Something had somehow shaken that enormous self-confidence of his. Even his presense here had seemed in some way tentative, as if he were not really sure that he would be welcome. And why had he come at all? His motives were unclear.

Raphael crutched out onto the roof and to the railing at the front of the house. Flood’s little red car was pulling away from the curb, its engine snarling, and across the street Patch stood watching with a strange expression on his somber face.

ii

By the end of the week Raphael had become accustomed to Flood’s presence again, and Flood’s moody abstraction seemed to be letting up a bit. There was no pattern to his visits. He simply appeared without warning, stayed for a time and talked, and then left. From his conversation Raphael gathered that he was out exploring the city and the surrounding countryside.

On Friday, the day when Flood’s rent ran out at his downtown motel, he did not show up, and Raphael began to think that he had checked out and left town without even saying good-bye. He knew it was foolish, but he was hurt by it, and was suddenly plunged into a loneliness so deep that it seemed almost palpable. He called Flood’s motel.

“I’m sorry,” the woman at the motel said, “but Mr. Flood checked out just before ten this morning.”

“I see,” Raphael said. “Thank you.” He hung up slowly.

“Well,” he told himself, “that’s that, then.” The loneliness fell on him like a great weight, and the small room seemed suddenly very silent, very empty.

To be doing something, to fill up that silence, he made out a meticulous grocery list and went shopping.

When he returned, it was just growing dusk. He parked in front of the house and started to get out of his car. Across the street Patch walked by on silent feet, crossed over, and went on up past the houses of Sadie the Sitter and Spider Granny, her mother. On an impulse Raphael took out his crutches, closed the car door, and followed the melancholy Indian.

At the corner he had to wait while a couple of cars passed. He looked at the cars with impatience, and when he looked back up the street, Patch was gone. Raphael knew that he had not looked away for more than a second or so, and yet the silent man he had intended to follow had vanished.

He crutched on up past Sadie’s house and then past Spider Granny’s. Maybe Patch had gone down an alley. But there was no alley, and the yards in that part of the street where he had last seen Patch were all fenced.

Troubled, Raphael went slowly back down the street toward his apartment in the gathering darkness.

Flood had just pulled up behind Raphael’s car and was getting out. “Training for the Olympics?” he asked sardonically as Raphael came up.

“Damon,” Raphael said with a sudden sense of enormous relief, “where have you been all day? I tried to call you, but they said you’d checked out.”

“I’ve been moving,” Flood explained. “I found a place so grossly misnamed that I
had
to live there for a while.”

“What place is that?”

“Peaceful Valley,” Flood said, drawing the words out. “Isn’t that a marvelous name?”

“Sounds moderately bucolic. Where is it?”

“Down at the bottom of the river gorge. Actually, it’s almost in the middle of town, but it might as well be a thousand miles away. There’s only one street that goes down there. The banks of the gorge are too steep to build on, so they’ve just let them go to scrub brush and brambles. There’s a flat area along the sides of the river, and that’s Peaceful Valley. The whole place is a rabbit warren of broken-down housing, tarpaper shacks, and dirt streets that don’t go anyplace. The only sounds are the river and the traffic on the Maple Street Bridge about fifty feet overhead. It’s absolutely isolated—sort of like a leper colony. Out at the end of the street there’s an area called People’s Park. I guess all the hippies and junk freaks camped there during the World’s Fair. It’s still a sort of loitering place for undesirables.”

“Are you sure you want to live in a place like that?” Raphael asked doubtfully. “There are new apartment houses all over town.”

“It’s perfect. Peaceful Valley’s a waste disposal for human beings—a sort of unsanitary landfill.”

“All right.” Raphael was a little irritated. “It’s picturesque, but what are
you
doing down there? I know you can afford better.”

“I’ve never lived in a place like that,” Flood explained. “I’ve never seen the lower depths before. I suppose I’m curious.”

“That kind of superior attitude can get a jack handle wrapped around your head. These people are touchy, and they’ve got short fuses. Give me a hand with the groceries in the car, and I’ll fix us some supper.”

“Do you cook?” Flood asked, almost surprised.

“I’ve found that it improves the flavor. You can have yours raw if you’d like.”

“Smart-ass.”

They went upstairs, and Flood nosed around while Raphael stood in the kitchen preparing their supper.

“What’s this thing?” he demanded.

“Scanner,” Raphael replied. “If you want to know what Spokane is
really
like, turn it on.”

“I’ve heard about them. Never saw one before, though.” He snapped it on. “Is that all it does? Twinkle at you?”

“District Four,” the dispatcher said.

“Four.”

“We have a forty-two at the intersection of Boone and Maple.”

“Okay. Do you have an ambulance on the way?”

“What’s a forty-two?” Flood demanded.

“Auto accident,” Raphael told him, “with injuries.”

“Terrific.” Flood’s tone was sarcastic. “They talk in numbers—’I’ve got a seventeen and a ninety-three on my hundred and two. I think they’re going to twelve all over the eighty-seven.’ I don’t get much out of all that.”

“It’s not quite that complicated. There’s a sheet right there on top of the bookcase. It’s got the numbers on it.”

Flood grunted, picked up the sheet, and sat on the couch with it.

“Attention all units,” another dispatcher said. “We have an armed robbery at the Fas-Gas station at Wellesley and Division. Suspect described as a white male, approximately five-foot-seven. One hundred and forty pounds, wearing blue jeans and an olive-green jacket—possibly an army field jacket. Suspect wore a red ski mask and displayed a small-caliber handgun. Last seen running south on Division.”

“Well now.” Flood’s eyes brightened. “That’s a bit more interesting.”

“Sticking up gas stations is a cottage industry in Spokane,” Raphael explained.

While they ate they listened to the pursuit of the suspect in the ski mask. When he was finally cornered in an alley, the anticlimactic “suspect is in custody” call went out, and the city renamed to normal.

“That’s all you get?” Flood objected. “Don’t they report or something? How did they catch him?”

“Either they ran him down and tackled him or flushed him out of somebody’s garage.”

Flood shook his head. “You never get any of the details,” he protested.

“It’s not a radio program, Damon. Once he’s in custody, that’s the end of it. They take him back for identification and then haul him downtown.”

“Will it be in the paper tomorrow?”

“I doubt it. If it is, it’ll be four or five lines on page thirty-five or something. Nobody got hurt; it was probably only about fifty or sixty dollars; and they caught him within a half hour. He’s not important enough to make headlines.”

“Shit,” Flood swore, flinging himself down on the couch. “That’s frustrating as hell.”

“Truth and justice have prevailed,” Raphael said, piling their dishes into the sink. “The world is safe for gas stations again. Isn’t it enough for you to know that all the little gas stations can come home from school without being afraid anymore?”

“You know, you’re growing up to be a real smartmouth.”

Raphael went back to his armchair. “So you’ve decided to stay in Spokane for a while.”

“Obviously. The town intrigues me.”

“Good God, why? The place is a vacuum.”

“Why are
you
staying here then?”

“I told you. I need some time to get it all together again. This is a good place for it.”

“All right.” Flood’s eyes were suddenly intent. “I can accept that. But what about afterward—after you get it together? You’re not going to stay here, are you? Are you going back to school?”

“I don’t know.”

“You’ll feel better about it later. Sure, it’s going to take a while to get squared away, but you ought to make some plans—set some

goals. If you don’t, you’re just going to drift. The longer you stay here, the harder it’s going to be to pull yourself away.”

“Damon.” Raphael laughed. “You sound like you just dug out your freshman psychology text and did some brushing up.”

“Well, dammit, it’s true,” Flood said hotly, getting to his feet. “If you stay here, you’re going to get so comfortable that nobody’s going to be able to blast you loose.”

“We’ll see.”

“Promise you’ll think about it.” “Sure, Damon.”

“I’m serious.” For some reason it seemed terribly important to him.

“All right. I’ll think about it.”

They looked at each other for a moment, and then let it drop.

Flood leaned down and looked out the window. “What the hell?” he said, startled. “What in God’s name is he doing?” He pointed.

Raphael glanced out the window. “Oh, that’s just Crazy Charlie. He’s shaving his head again.” “What does he do that for?”

“Hard to say. I think God tells him to—or maybe one of his cats.”

“Is he really crazy?”

“What do you think? He hears voices, he shaves his head like that once a week or so, and he’s got a whole set of rituals he lives by. Doesn’t that sound sort of schizophrenic?”

“Is that his real name—Charlie?”

“I don’t know what his real name is. That’s just what I call him.” “What’s he doing now?”

Raphael glanced out the window again. “That’s where he keeps his towel. He always wipes his head down with the same towel after he shaves. He has to lean way over like that because he’s not allowed to step on that spot in front of the cupboard—either there’s a big hole that goes straight down to hell or there’s a dragon sleeping there, I haven’t quite figured out which yet.”

“Why don’t they haul him off to the place with the rubber rooms?”

“He’s harmless. I don’t see any reason to discriminate against somebody just because he’s crazy. He’s just one of the losers, that’s all.”

“The losers?” Flood turned and looked at him. “You’re not very observant, Damon. This whole street is filled with losers.”

“The whole town’s a loser, baby.” Flood went back to the couch and sprawled on it. “Wall-to-wall zilch.”

“Not exactly. It’s a little provincial—sort of a cultural backwater—but there are people here who make it all right. The real hard-core loser is something altogether different. Sometimes I think it’s a disease.”

Flood continued to look at him thoughtfully. “Let’s define our terms,” he suggested.

“There’s the real Reed approach.”

“Maybe that’s a disease, too,” Flood agreed ruefully. “Okay, exactly what do you mean when you say ‘loser’?”

“I don’t think I can really define it yet.” Raphael frowned. “It’s a kind of syndrome. After you watch them for a while, it’s almost as if they had big signs on their foreheads—’loser.’ You can spot them a mile off.”

“Give me some examples.”

“Sure, Winnie the Wino, Sadie the Sitter, Chicken Coop Annie, Freddie the Fruit, Heck’s Angels—”

“Hold it,” Flood said, raising both his hands. “Crazy Charlie I understand. Who are all these others?”

“Winnie the Wino lives on the floor beneath Crazy Charlie. She puts away a couple gallons of cheap wine a day. She’s bombed out all the time. Sadie the Sitter lives on the other street there. She baby-sits. She plops her big, fat can in a swing on her porch and watches the neighborhood while she stuffs her face—with both hands. She’s consumed by greed and envy. Chicken Coop Annie is