When Pigs Fly (2 page)

“It’s July, sir. The survivors get used to it.”

The package was cube-shaped and brown, maybe four or five pounds. The shipping label bore his father’s handwriting. Mack felt a sense of dread. Don’t send it, Mack had said on the phone, but he knew his parents would do as they pleased. He brought the package indoors and cut the box open with a jackknife. Then he pulled out a ceramic urn painted with delicate roses on an ivory background.

So it was true. Mack’s parents had done as they had threatened. They had sent their eldest son his own private albatross, a disgraced ex-cop named George Ashe whose current domicile rested in Mack’s hands.

“Damn you, George,” Mack said. The ashes were silent, but Mack still felt that he had stung his old friend’s feelings. It was bad enough that George had died unloved, but cursing his remains piled on the hurt. At the end of George Ashe’s life, Mack’s parents were the only two people in the world willing to comfort him, and they had taken custody of his ashes.

An envelope stuck out of the packing material like a white sail on a sea of blue popcorn. Mack slid his finger under the envelope flap and slid out the handwritten note inside. It read:

Dear Son,

Are friends so common that you can throw one away if you find a flaw? On his deathbed, George told us of his misdeeds—surely not all of them, but enough for us to learn of his need for your forgiveness.

Do the right thing.

Mother and Dad

Mack sighed. He had emphatically
not
agreed to spread four pounds of ashes over the Arizona landscape. What part of “no” was so hard to understand?

Mack and George had met in a drainage ditch when they were ten-year-olds kneeling in the New England mud in search of tadpoles and lost treasure. They ate spaghetti and meatballs at each other’s homes, traded baseball cards, and over time traded up to an interest in girls and cars. They often double-dated and talked of one day cruising the whole country in a Thunderbird with the top down. The Grand Canyon, that was George’s dream.

But dreams have a way of falling into a ditch with the tadpoles, of being forgotten as life races by. Both men married wonderful women and became Lowell police officers. Some day, they promised themselves, the two couples would take that trip together.

And then George Ashe’s life crashed to earth.

The chief’s wife, for God’s sake! How could you do that to your poor Millie?

I don’t know myself anymore, Mack. I’ll eat my gun someday.

The chief took away George Ashe’s badge and service revolver and tore a gaping hole in George’s self-respect. Mildred Ashe took away their children and their home. Former colleagues took away their friendship. No one took away George’s fifth of Four Roses. He spent his nights sleeping in stairwells and under bridges.

Mary took Mack to task.
You don’t abandon a friend.

He cheated on Millie. He betrayed the Chief. He dishonored the force.

He stepped between you and a hollow-point slug! Without him, I would have lost you.

George had lost five pints of blood that should have been Mack’s. George got the medal, Mack got the bust.

Three weeks after finding a homeless shelter for George, Mack found him slumped in the stairwell of a parking garage. They sat together on the concrete steps.

Fifty years I’ve been nowhere, Mack. You take a map of New England. You connect Kittery, Winnipesaukee, Worcester, Providence, and Truro. That’s my world. Every place I’ve ever been is in that circle. I’d give my life to see Arizona just once.

Damn. Now George was back in Mack’s life. Mack pulled a Tecate from the refrigerator, popped the cap off the bottle and walked back to sit on the living-room couch. He took a long, cold swallow of the amber Mexican beer and wished he could wash away his melancholy. He planted his elbows on his knees and stared at the tile floor.

Got a cold one for me? A Bud for a bud? I’m dry as dust here.

Mack laughed aloud. He could swear he just heard George’s voice.

Mack was retired now, on an Arizona vacation that had extended from one month to eighteen and had morphed into semi-permanent residence in a modest adobe home among the chollas and the ocotillos. He placed the urn on top of a bookshelf in the living room. There were four shelves with a eclectic blend of tomes by the likes of Tony Hillerman, Kathy Mackel, Leslie Meier and David Daniel. On the wall hung a road sign from Route 66, a painting of a Hopi Kachina, a photo he’d taken of the desert in bloom and framed photos of kith and kin galore from back East. There was a television, usually off, and a computer, usually on.

Mack placed the urn on the floor next to the computer, wishing his black cloud would lift. George, he thought, I’ll show you some of the sights and then drop you off at the Grand Canyon. You’re gonna love it there.

You’re the boss, Mack. I’ll just sit back and enjoy the adventure.

The blast-furnace air eased up in the evening. Mack pulled his Dodge into the parking lot outside The Snake in the Grass, the cheapest bar on his side of town. Most of the customers looked half his age, studs wearing jeans and cowboy boots, with packs of Marlboros tucked into rolled-up sleeves, testosterone and smoke, good-looking women wearing halter tops and tight shorts and high-gloss lipstick.

Not my kind of place, Mack thought, which is why I’m here. He found a small table in a corner near the rest rooms and ordered a Jack Daniel’s, straight up. He told the waitress he’d like to run a tab, please.

The drink arrived, and Mack held it up to the light.
Mister Daniel,
he thought,
we haven’t met. My name is Mack Durgin, and I’m told you’re an excellent listener.

Indeed, Jack Daniel had nothing whatever to say, proving to Mack that he had found one damn fine conversationalist. The side window reflected the green neon snake that coiled, rattled, and struck over and over to the bass line of some godforsaken excuse for music. The building next door glowed from distant lightning and then faded again to black. Now and then, patrons walked past him to use the rest rooms, close enough for him to smell the colognes, the tobacco, the skin scents.

“Hey, good-lookin’. Is there room at this table?” The stranger was gorgeous in her own cheap way, with a spectacular body mostly inside a pink vinyl miniskirt and a blouse designed to make men sweat. She looked great even through the bottom of Mack’s glass.

“For you there is. What’s your name and what’ll you drink?”

“Juanita. Juanita Lopez. I’ll have a Tequila Sunrise if you don’t mind. What’s yours?”

“Mack Durgin. And my friend here is Jack Daniel.” Mack turned and caught the attention of the waitress across the room.

Juanita waved at the glass. “Oh, hi, Mister Daniel. We meet again.” She primped her curls and wiggled into place in her chair. “You look very serious,” she said after they ordered a pair of Tequila Sunrises. He looked at her, saw four breasts, knew he was drunk.

“I saw an old friend today.”

“Um, that’s nice.”

“He was dead.”

“Oh my God! What happened?”

“No, I’d bore you. And I don’t want to bore a beautiful woman.”

Juanita’s breasts rose as she absorbed the compliment. “Did you report it to the police?”

“It’s not like that. He died some time ago. My parents had his ashes, and they just sent them to me.”

“Oh-h-h. Why didn’t they go to your friend’s family?”

“You have beautiful eyes.”

“Thank you.” She blinked, and Mack’s heart skipped a beat.

“George’s wife left him and took the kids, and he had no other family that I know of. My parents thought the world of George and figured I did, too.”

“Were they wrong?”

“No. And yes. I knew him since fifth grade. By God, you couldn’t have a better friend in a fight, but he couldn’t keep his hands off a bottle or a breast.”

“Ooooooh. Trouble,” she said, pronouncing it truh
-bull
. She held her glass by her fingertips and French-kissed the rim.

“Once I thought I’d stand by him no matter what, but by the time he drank himself to death I wasn’t so sure anymore.”

“He’s dead and you’re still mad at him.”

“Not mad. Conflicted, I guess.”

“What did he do?”

“I told you. His eyes wandered and his hands followed.”

“Okay, but what did he do wrong?”

“Wrecked marriages.”

“Yours?”

“Nope. Nothing could’ve done that.”

“That’s really sweet. Where’s your wife now?”

“Back in New England.”

She reached across the table and took his hand. “Poor baby. We could go back to your place. Or if you’re in a hurry we can just go to your car.”

“No, my place is good. It’s only three or four miles.” He paid his tab, and they walked out to the parking lot, where music and laughter mixed with sounds of mufflers and souped-up engines. The sun had gone down, and the worst of the heat had dissipated. “Drive me home and we’ll come back here in the morning for my car,” he said, and they climbed into her red Camaro. She slipped the key into the ignition and back out again—and in and out, her mouth parted, as subtly as a boom box at a wake.

“Lead on, McDurgin,” she said as the engine came to life. Lightning stroked the distant blackness and loosened rumbles of warning thunder. Mack rolled the window down and inhaled the tang of wet creosote bushes and Juanita’s orange-blossom cologne. A woman with four breasts, or had he just seen double? Was he two, three, or four sheets to the wind—and how did one calculate such things, anyway? Juanita—Wah
nee
ta—launched into a discourse on cuticle science and aromatherapy, about which Mack presumed she bore incredible knowledge and sagacity.

Soon they pulled into his carport and went inside the house. “Oh, my God,” she said. “Your pad looks great!”

That wasn’t true, which Mack knew even in his current condition. “I just pick up now and then.”

“Like I picked you up,” she chirped.

Mack tried to fight off his melancholy. Did he really want to go through with this? No, by God, there had to be a thousand reasons why not: He didn’t know this woman, he was too drunk, she was probably married, this was the awful road George Ashe had traveled (wasn’t it?), Mary’s framed photo stood on the nightstand by the bed, he’d promised her there would never be another, and—and—there were probably nine hundred and some-odd other reasons he couldn’t think of right now. On the other hand, here stood a reincarnation of Mae West who seemed to think him nice. “I’m widowed,” he said.

Juanita’s eyes widened. “Oh, my God,” she whispered. “That’s so sad.” She bracketed his face with her soft palms and kissed his lips. The feeling in Mack was electric, as though the Energizer Bunny were leading a big brass band through his shorts.

He awoke the next morning, hours later than usual, peering out through the fog in his brain. The house felt empty—no Juanita, no wallet, no cell phone, no watch, just the lingering scent of a woman gone. Hot sun burned its way into the empty carport. An iguana stood on the stucco wall behind the house and flicked its tongue in Mack’s direction. Today would reach a hundred and eight degrees, and the sun was already well into its relentless climb. Mack picked up the receiver on the wall telephone and stuck his tongue back at the lizard. It skittered away. He was relieved to see his car keys on the kitchen table, and he vaguely remembered having left his car in the parking lot at The Snake in the Grass. After a brief chat with the police department, he called to cancel his MasterCard and found out that he had already purchased a four-thousand dollar plasma TV in Tucson that very morning. They made TVs that expensive? He didn’t know, but now he was pissed.

He washed down a handful of Tylenol for a shattering headache, then stepped out the front door and looked down the empty dirt road. The front yard was all gravel and barrel cactus, and the road to town a graveyard waiting for his bleached bones.

In the shimmering air, a mirage appeared—not the kind you see on the Interstate’s endless stretches of asphalt, but the vague form of a woman. She took gradual shape as he stood still, afraid to step toward her lest she evaporate. Mack sensed her beauty, if such a thing were possible without catching a single detail. Maybe last night’s bender had tangled his thoughts, or maybe it was today’s scorching heat.

The woman was Mary, his wife of thirty years, who had died two years ago on the eve of their long-planned trip to Arizona. Mack had been inconsolable for days, sad for weeks, lonely for months. Then a year and a half ago, he came to Arizona for a vacation by himself and never went home, renting a house in the hamlet of Pincushion. Now she furrowed her brow the way she’d always done when Mack’s foolishness frosted her.

“About that woman,” Mack said.

“
You’re Dumpster diving for dates, dear. Don’t.”

He started to speak, but she held up her hand. “
Ciao, love.
” She faded into the desert.

Down the hill, a police cruiser stirred a cloud of dust as it wound past the saguaro and the old wire fence. Mack closed his eyes and said a prayer of thanks. The blue and white Crown Vic sported a gumball on the roof and “Pincushion Police” on the door. A young, wiry cop stepped out and asked the usual questions. “Sounds pretty embarrassing,” he finally said with a smile. “We’ll see about your car.”