To Sleep Gently (3 page)

"Right again."

"I know."

His sudden, curt interruptions appeared to throw not only Sandra, but Burt and Hillary as well. They appeared not so much offended, but rather surprised at his abrupt smugness. Picking up his burger, he took a large bite in order to keep his mouth occupied for a while.

Then from Hillary, before he had swallowed: "Did you study literature in school?"

"No," he said, still chewing, "I just read a lot."

"You apparently know your stuff."

He shrugged, "Here and there," and swallowed.

"You're an interesting man," Sandra said, leaning closer.

"The other option is boring," he answered, finding himself now confused by his original conception of this girl. He wondered if the innocence in her eyes should be, for all practical purposes, exchanged for carefree. He also understood, however, that these were often the same thing. "I make a point," he continued, "of trying to better myself when I can."

"He knows your books," Burt said. "He can fix cars, analyze art. From the way you've been sitting there, Jack, I bet you can tell me who's on the movie poster behind you and to your left, can't you?"

"Fred Astaire."

Burt chuckled. "Anything you can't do?"

"I can't ride a unicycle with my hands, but I'll be starting on that when I get back to Ohio."

Burt laughed and the awe that seemed to be developing, thankfully, dissolved. Dempster didn't like all the attention being on him. He generally preferred to blur, be non-descript, unmemorable. The more one stood out, the more one would be remembered. It heightened the level of risk, no matter how low that risk might be. Despite all of this, he couldn't help showing off at times. Especially when it was in front of someone like Sandra.

"Tell me, Jack," Sandra said, shifting in her seat, "this might sound a bit pretentious."

"Everyone's allowed a little of that."

"If you can, sum yourself up in just a sentence or two. What kind of a person are you?"

"Is this some pseudo-intellectual exercise you learned in college?" It came off snide. He knew that. He became aware, too, that Burt and Hillary were once again taken aback.

Sandra, on the other hand, didn't flinch.

"Humor me," she said.

Dempster took another bite of his burger. He chewed meticulously, swallowed, then said, " 'An embittered atheist; the sort of atheist who does not so much disbelieve in God as personally dislike him.' "

Sandra narrowed her eyes with an odd, confused scrutiny. "Camus?" she guessed.

"Orwell," he told her.

3

Outside the sun cascaded a thick, blinding light over everything. It dripped off the buildings and parked cars, formed large bright pools around shadows, and twinkled off windshields like glitter. The gas station two hundred yards down the road rippled through heat waves, as though drunk and about to collapse.

The four of them came to a stop at the blue Subaru.

"Well," Burt said, "guess we're gonna fill up the tank and get back on the road." He extended his hand once more. "Nice to meet you, Jack. Thanks again for your help."

"Not a problem. Thanks for lunch."

"My pleasure."

He watched Burt and Hillary climb into the car. Sandra, who had been sticking closer to him ever since he'd quoted Orwell, remained standing beside him. When the engine revved and she didn't move, Burt rolled down his window.

"Aren't you coming?" he asked. "We got all your stuff. It would be strange not having you with it."

"I'll walk over to the gas station," she said. "I'd like to talk a bit more with Mister Driscoll. That is, if he doesn't mind."

"Well," Burt said, "don't dilly-dally. Still got a lot of miles ahead of us."

"I'll walk her over," Dempster said, "and we can talk on the way."

"All right."

The car puttered out of the parking lot, hit the road, and before he knew it, Dempster found himself walking.

"That comment you made," Sandra said after a time, "about pseudo-intellectual exercises? Is that how you felt about everything in college? That everyone and everything is a fake?"

"I can't really say for sure. I never went to college. My life didn't allow me the luxury."

"I'm sorry."

"There's no reason to be sorry."

After a short pause, "What happened, if you don't mind my asking?"

Dempster shrugged. "Life goes different ways for different people. Some people's lives are formed by a cookie cutter and some are immediately tossed from the kitchen." He laughed to himself. "That's a lame way of putting it."

"But it's true," she said.

"Yes, it is. My life went more the way of the latter part of the analogy. I'd like to just leave it at that."

"Is that why you said what you did? Because you never got to go?"

"Partly, and partly because I've known a lot of people over the years, and often, those that went to college never seem to have left college. They play these tricks on themselves, attempt to relate to people they have no concept of being, disguise their ignorance and sheltered lives through fifty-cent words and regurgitated information. And they walk around sputtering it, quoting Dostoevsky or Nietzsche, nipping from Robert Sherwood or Wolfgang Von Goethe as though it was theirs. I mean no offense when I say this, but most college students don't have an original idea in their head."

"I saw thousands of ideas bounced around. Many of them were brilliant."

"Most likely they weren't original. A couple, maybe, but not many. I'm sorry, I don't mean to go off on some tangent and I don't mean to throw disrespect in your face. Maybe you're a genius, I dunno."

"I certainly don't see myself as a genius."

"Thing is, you could be. I dunno. You could be the greatest genius the world has ever known." He lightly tapped her shoulder. "Just promise me that if you're not, or you don't find out how to be, you won't be too disappointed."

"Why would I be disappointed?" She laughed. It was a cute little laugh. "I'm not interested in being a genius. I'm interested in love and romance, life and death. Watching the sun rise in the morning and set at night. Making love under the stars with someone I truly love. I couldn't care less if I ever do anything brilliant. Like I said, so long as my soul is still intact when I die, I'll let the world take me wherever it wants to."

It was then that Dempster felt her hand slip into his. It almost made him jump, but didn't. Rather than looking at her just then, he looked up ahead and found that they were closing in on the gas station.

"You're a remarkable woman, Sandra."

"Merci beaucoup, vous le bel homme."

"I got thank you very much," Dempster said. "The rest just sounded foreign to me, maybe like French or something."

"I said thank you very much, you handsome man." Her grip tightened on his. "You're not too bad yourself." A contemplative sigh accompanied a thoughtful pause. Then she said, "Maybe it's abrupt. Maybe I'm insane and I'm sorry if I am, but this kind of feels like ships passing in the night."

Dempster chose not to acknowledge this last statement. A moment later their hands parted.

"So what are you going to do when you get to Taos?"

"I have no idea. Spend some time with my parents, I suppose. Set up camp for a little while; see what I think of the place. I've never been there before. If I don't care for it, I'll move on and explore. All I know for sure is I was ready to get out of Tulsa. This seems like a logical step."

"Though you don't care where the world takes you."

"Sometimes you need to have at least a
bit
of a plan."

"That's true."

"What about you? What are you going to do in mystical Santa Fe?"

He allowed himself to shrug again. "Guess I'll do what I always do. My job. And if time permits it, maybe I'll search around a bit, I dunno, look for something to believe in."

She reached out and took his hand again briefly, squeezing it hard. With a cute little laugh accompaniment she said, "May we both find what we're looking for."

"And what are you looking for?" he asked her.

"I don't have any fucking idea," she said.

As he crossed the border and entered Texas, Dempster found himself still thinking about Sandra Colvin. The look he had first seen in her eyes, and how it had evolved into something far beyond what he had imagined. A sweet woman, maybe just a kid, yet she stirred inside him something that he had forgotten existed. Something that made his chest flutter and his knees weak. Though he would have liked to blame this on the fact that he hadn't seen the light of day in five years, somehow, somewhere embedded deep inside his heart or mind or soul or somewhere, he understood there was more to it.

He had loved when she'd taken his hand. Their conversation over lunch, and while walking over to the gas station. He felt as though he'd known her for ages, though he knew nothing about her. And he wanted to know her. A burning, almost obsessive desire to know her, and to know her more still, in every way he could think of.

And now she was gone. The likelihood of their paths ever crossing again was slim, almost infinitesimal. Maybe she was right, even though it still sounded insane to him now. Maybe they were ships passing in the night, each just missing out on that thing he had so flippantly mentioned. That thing to believe in, worth living for, worth dying for.

"Fuck it," he said to himself, and thought about how there was no sense in worrying about the one that got away.

Chapter Three

When he pulled into the driveway of 1045 Coyote's End Trail around ten o'clock that night, Dempster was more than ready to be out of the car. After a while the driving had become just like being in a mobile prison cell, in which he couldn't get out as the world passed him by, and he had no choice but to keep a sharp focus on it.

The night was dark and peaceful, with a million stars sparkling through it like jewels. The air was warm and pleasant and dryer than he was used to.

Even though it was dark, he could tell the house was big. Also that it was isolated. Rented through a friend of Freddy's—he had no idea who—it had been promised to have scenic beauty, wilderness, and seclusion. Even at this time of night and after such a long drive, there was no doubt that it had these amenities.

The lights were on inside. Dempster studied the place a while, watched a quick shadow pass by a curtained window. As he made his way to the door, his ears honed away from the night song of crickets and in on rock 'n' roll. He didn't like this as a welcome. It was already destroying the peace he'd finally felt when he climbed out of the car.

At the front door he hesitated, debated whether he should knock or just walk in.

To hell with it. He turned the knob, and stepped inside.

The music became louder. The place was hot and stuffy and smelled like stale beer and cigarette smoke. There were clothes strewn about and the television was on with the volume down and no one watching it. Around the television, as well as around the stereo beside it, was a series of empty beer bottles, ranging from Heineken and New Castle to Coors and Budweiser, and from what he guessed to be the kitchen, he heard voices and laughter.

Goddammit all to hell.

Just then someone entered the room, beer to his lips and head tilted back. As he walked over to the stereo and pressed a button on it, he didn't even notice Dempster. The song playing came to an abrupt end, and a second later another song began. The guy cranked the volume up even more, then turned around and caught sight of Dempster standing in the room.

Startled, he dropped his beer, which shattered on the tile floor.

"Turn it off," Dempster told him.

The drunken idiot just stood there, dumbfounded. He almost seemed to be shrinking.

Dempster crossed the room and switched off the stereo. While he was at it he shut off the TV too.

"Hey," came a voice from the kitchen. "What are you doing to our tunes?"

"Answer him," Dempster said.

"Um..." The kid's eyes flickered nervously from Dempster to the kitchen and back again. He stood like an uprooted dead tree. Skinny as a nail but not nearly as mean looking, more like someone that would fall over if you blinked too hard in his direction. Dempster didn't like him. "I think you guys better come in here." He looked at Dempster for approval.

Dempster didn't give him any.

Two men entered the room. Each had a beer in his hand. A cigarette dangled from the mouth of the one on the left. The one on the right, given the presence he embodied, appeared to be the one in charge. He was stocky and standing strong, but weakness and surprise showed clearly through his feigned cool.

Dempster didn't like these guys either.

"Something we can help you with, sir?" This from the stocky one. His tone was also feigned self-confidence.

"Which one of you is Wolfe?"

"That would be me," the stocky one said. "You the guy?"

Dempster looked around the disaster of the room again, then took in the sight of the three idiots, the first standing above his shattered beer with his tail between his legs, the second merely confused and smoking, the third trying to keep charge.

"I should have expected something like this."

"Something like what?" Wolfe asked.

Dempster threw him a look. "This the way your parents raised you?"

"What'd you mean?"

"What is this?" the guy with the cigarette asked. "This some kind of chaperone party?"

"Look, pal," Wolfe said, "we don't take kindly to people barging in unannounced and acting like an asshole and making trouble."

Dempster spun on the man and slapped him so hard it echoed.

The other two guys, rather than advancing on Dempster, each took a step back.

Dempster narrowed his eyes at them. "That's nice, real nice," he said. "Glad to know what kind of backup I got. First sign of trouble and you retreat. I feel really confident about this whole thing now." A frustrated sigh escaped him as he looked at each of them in turn.

Then, "Yeah, I'm the guy. I'm the guy that just pulled in all the way from fucking Ohio. The one you were all told about, I'm sure. Now, I'm gonna ask you three mooks just one thing, and I want you to be real damn honest with me. Do you behave like this all the time, or is this just a one night stand?"